Chapter 19 :Where Eyes Rest
The school prepared for midterms.
The walls were covered in revision charts and stress posters.
Even the loud students grew quiet.
But in the back row,
two students said nothing
as always.
Only now, silence no longer meant distance.
It meant awareness.
Mu Yichen noticed how Han Seri always chewed her pen cap when she thought.
How she shifted her weight slightly to the left when nervous.
How she wrote her lowercase as with a loop, but her uppercase As like a blade.
And Seri noticed him, too.
How he tilted his head slightly while solving equations.
How his hands were steady, but his eyes flickered when he remembered something.
How he always seemed to finish first, but never turned his page until everyone else did.
They still never spoke.
But their silence was now rich, not empty.
Like a field after snowfall.
Nothing visible.
But the world beneath is aching to bloom.
One morning, the class was told to form study pairs.
Murmurs rose.
Friends pulled desks together.
Groups gathered by the windows.
Yichen stayed still.
So did Seri.
The teacher looked around.
"You two—Mu Yichen, Han Seri. Work together. Use the back table."
A few students exchanged glances.
"The ghosts speak?"
"Maybe they'll just pass notes like spirits."
Yichen moved first. Pulled his chair over.
Seri followed, quietly, setting her notebook between them.
Neither smiled.
Neither rolled their eyes.
They simply opened their textbooks
and began.
They didn't speak for the first ten minutes.
Just wrote.
Turned pages.
Took notes.
But then—he gently slid her notebook toward him.
There was a mistake in the formula she copied.
Instead of pointing it out, he rewrote the correct version beside it.
Clean. Clear.
He slid it back.
She paused.
Looked at his handwriting.
Then… carefully added a small circle beside his correction.
Her quiet way of saying thank you.
He noticed.
And tapped his pen once in response.
And that—was their first conversation.
Later that day, during break, Seri passed by the windowsill near the staircase.
It had started to snow. Light flakes drifting through gray skies.
She paused, watching them fall.
Behind her, footsteps slowed.
Then stopped.
Mu Yichen stood just far enough away not to intrude.
But he looked at the same snow.
And for a few seconds,
they just stood there.
Not together.
But not apart.
Two people.
One snowfall.
No words.
That evening, neither of them could sleep.
Seri stared at the ceiling, hearing the soft tap of snow against her window.
Mu Yichen lay on his bed, sketchpad open beside him, untouched.
And they both thought the same thing:
"I didn't want today to end."