Jiseok, who was gazing out through the window within a large convenience store just outside of Suwon station abruptly stood up from his seat. He put down his still unfinished coffee cup and ran outside.

“Hong Geunseok.”

Geunseok got off the bus with very slow steps and slowly turned around towards him. At that moment, Jiseok frowned. He felt that something changed about Geunseok. That strange feeling made Jiseok approach Geunseok faster. His head was filled with the thought to check up on him as soon as possible.

“Hey, why are you so stiff?”

Just like what happened the day before, Jiseok was about to tap Geunseok’s shoulders. The normal reaction would be that Geunseok would swear back at him, but the reaction he showed was outside of Jiseok’s imagination. Geunseok raised both of his hands to cover his face. His eyes were filled with fear.

Jiseok’s hand stopped midair. Geunseok looked at the tip of Jiseok’s hand with shaking eyes before putting down his arms. Those stiff actions made Jiseok speechless. He instinctively realized that just asking what was wrong would be too rude of him.

“...It’s hot, but I guess you need something warm. Wait a minute.”

Jiseok returned to the convenience store and bought a warm bottle of chocolate coffee^[1]. When he carefully handed it over to Geunseok, he grabbed the plastic bottle. Even Jiseok felt stifled by Geunseok’s nervous actions. Just what...