Jae-hyun's POV
It was supposed to be just another night of scrolling.
Kang Jae hyun lay sprawled on his bed, one leg dangling off the edge, the soft blue glow of his laptop screen washing over his face. Rain tapped lightly against the windowpane like a calm heartbeat. He could hear his roommate snoring in the bunk above. The dormitory smelled faintly of ramen and laundry detergent.
He wasn't really looking for anything specific—just something to distract him from his writer's block. Midterms were over, and his short story assignment for Creative Writing still sat half-blank in his notebook. He had scribbled, rewritten, deleted, and even considered submitting something ironic just to get it over with. Nothing felt honest enough.
He leaned his head back against the wall, letting his eyes wander through a maze of open tabs—half of them filled with dusty poetry forums, the other half with digital books that all seemed to shout for attention. But nothing spoke to him.
Until it did.
Paper Planes and Moonlight.
The title wasn't loud. In fact, it looked almost... shy. The cover art was simple—just a silhouette of a boy looking at the moon, a paper plane floating in the corner like a half-formed thought. It felt intentional. Delicate.
He clicked on it.
The first line hooked him like a gentle thread pulled from his chest:
"I stopped believing in soulmates the day he said my silence was too loud."
He stared at it.
Then read it again.
And just like that, the world around him blurred.
Yoo-rin, the protagonist, was familiar in a way that unnerved him. She didn't demand attention. She didn't even ask to be understood. She just was—existing in the quiet in-between spaces, always trying not to take up too much room. Jae-hyun had never read a character who didn't speak much, yet somehow made his heart ache.
And then there was Seon-woo.
He wasn't flashy. No mysterious trauma that defined him. No arrogance wrapped in charm. He was quiet. Thoughtful. The kind of boy who would wait ten minutes after someone left a conversation just to say the words he didn't get to say. He wasn't trying to save her.
He just wanted to stand beside her.
Jae-hyun shifted, pulling the blanket over his lap and curling up a little tighter as he kept reading. There was something about the pacing of the prose—slow but steady, like it had no interest in impressing you, only holding you.
Lines like:
"Some people are thunderstorms in disguise. Others are the rain that teaches you to dance."
And:
"She didn't need flowers. She needed someone who knew when to stay."
And then the one that gutted him:
"Some hearts don't need rescuing. They just need to be held right."
He stopped.
The quote swam in front of his eyes.
He opened his Notes app and typed it out slowly, word by word, like he was afraid of breaking its meaning.
It wasn't just good. It was true.
Jae-hyun let out a breath and leaned his head against the cold metal of the bedframe. The way the author wrote—whoever MoonWriter was—was different. It didn't feel like she was crafting a story for views or comments or fan drama. It felt like she was writing from something real.
Something she'd survived.
He clicked on the author's profile.
MoonWriter. No bio. No social links. No face. Just words.
It felt sacred in a way.
He looked through the comments.
"Seon-woo feels like the boy I wish I met before my heart broke.""Yoo-rin reminded me I don't have to apologize for being quiet.""This story didn't fix me. But it found me. And that's enough."
Jae-hyun smiled to himself. He wasn't alone in feeling like this story was reaching into the hollow parts of his chest and gently filling them with something soft. Hope, maybe. Or understanding.
His fingers hovered over the comment box.
He thought about writing something. Just a thank-you. Or a line about how he saw himself in Seon-woo. But something made him stop.
He wasn't ready to share this feeling with the world. Not yet.
Instead, he opened his personal journal—the one he never showed anyone. And he started to write:
Today I read a story that didn't try to save me. It just sat beside me until I felt less alone. I think that's what love should be like.
He paused, then added:
If I ever meet someone who writes like this... I hope I recognize her.
Jae-hyun didn't sleep until 3 a.m. that night.
He finished every posted chapter. Some he reread twice. He copied his favorite passages into the margins of his Creative Writing notebook, underlining them like sacred verses. They were better than anything he'd ever written—and he didn't even feel jealous.
He felt... inspired.
By someone he didn't know.
By a writer who made silence feel like a language.
By words that didn't try to impress, only express.
He closed his laptop, tucked his blanket up to his chin, and stared at the ceiling in the dark.
MoonWriter.
Whoever you are.
Thank you.
Thank you for not trying to save me.
Thank you for simply holding space.