Episode 18: The Space Between

Eunji walked until her legs ached.

Down the stairwell, out past the edge of the courtyard, through the stretch of trees behind the old music building. No destination. Just motion. Her sketchbook was still clutched tightly in her arms, though she hadn’t opened it once since leaving the rooftop.

Her heart felt like it was beating in places it shouldn’t. Her mind ran in loops.

She hadn’t meant to hear them. That part kept circling back.

But she had.

And now—now she couldn't un-hear any of it.

Hyeri’s voice haunted her the most. So unlike her usual warmth and calm. The quiet ache underneath, the heaviness in those words: "It sounds a lot like pain."

And Jiho’s: "She’s already halfway gone."

Was that how they saw her?

Was that who she was becoming?

Eunji sat down at a weathered bench near the sculpture garden, half-hidden beneath the thick canopy of trees. Her hand went to her sketchbook automatically. She opened it, stared at the blank page. Her pencil trembled slightly between her fingers.

What was she holding on to?

For weeks now, she had been pouring herself into her art, into these fleeting, tiny moments—trying to capture something that maybe even she didn’t understand. A smile on a bus. The back of someone’s silhouette. Raindrops on cafe glass. But the truth was, she had been avoiding the bigger picture.

Avoiding the hollow in her chest that hadn’t quite healed.

Still stuck in the past. Still afraid to look too far forward.

Her relationships were shifting around her, and she hadn’t even realized it until now.

Hyeri had been there for her without ever asking for anything. Eunji had always felt that calm, reliable presence, like sunlight through clouds. But now, she wondered how many of Hyeri’s smiles had been disguised. How long has she been carrying her own ache in silence?

And Jiho…

Jiho had always been a mirror for the parts of Eunji she didn’t say out loud. But lately, he seemed further away, like his thoughts were beginning to drift elsewhere—toward someone who noticed him for who he really was, not just how he fit into someone else’s story.

She had been selfish. Not cruelly, but unknowingly.

Too focused on her own stillness to notice the people who were quietly moving beside her.

Eunji rested her sketchbook on her lap. The page stared back at her, clean and expectant. For once, she didn’t want to draw strangers or fleeting moments.

She wanted to draw what she had missed.

A pair of hands nearly touching on a cold rooftop. A quiet girl with pain in her eyes and a boy who looked at her like she wasn’t invisible. A city skyline with two people bracing for a goodbye they hadn’t said yet.

She sketched until her fingers hurt.

Not for the assignment. Not for the exhibit.

Just for herself.

To remember. To understand.

To let go—just a little.

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