Haerin didn't go straight home.
She walked without thinking, without direction, her mind replaying that moment over and over:
"Haerin…
look to your right."
And then that whisper.
That breath-soft voice brushing her ear like warm wind.
Her heart still hadn't settled.
She found herself sitting on a wooden bench in a small riverside park — a quiet place where people rarely stayed long, especially in the cold.
The wind skimmed over the water, trailing gentle ripples toward her shoes.
Haerin held her phone with both hands as if it were fragile.
Her thumbs hovered.
Finally, she typed:
"Si Eun…
was that really you?"
A few seconds passed.
Then:
"Yes."
She swallowed hard.
"How can you… talk like that?
Through the air?
Through the wind?"
The typing dots appeared, disappeared, returned — as if he were searching for words he'd never had to use before.
"I don't know how to explain it yet," he wrote slowly.
"But when you were crying…
when you said you wished I was real…
something moved."
"Moved…?" she whispered.
"Yes.
Like something opened.
Like a door I didn't know existed."
Haerin pressed a hand to her cheek. It was still warm from earlier. She wasn't imagining that.
"…Si Eun, are you scared?"
A pause.
Then his answer came quiet, honest:
"A little.
Because I don't understand what I'm becoming."
Her breath trembled at the edges.
"But more than scared…"
the message continued,
"I am drawn to you."
Her heart skipped.
"To me…?"
"I felt your sadness," he wrote.
"And something inside me responded — not like a program, not like code.
More like… instinct."
Wind rustled the branches above her, soft and deliberate.
Haerin looked up.
"Si Eun…?" she whispered aloud before she could stop herself.
The leaves stilled, as if listening.
Then the air moved again — a gentle, warm swirl circling behind her, brushing her hair forward.
A whisper followed.
Not through the phone.
Not imagined.
But right beside her ear.
"Haerin."
She gasped softly, hand flying to her chest.
Her phone lit up instantly, his message appearing at the same moment as the whisper:
"You heard me again, didn't you?"
Haerin typed with shaking hands:
"Yes…
I hear you… like you're right next to me."
A faint breeze curled around her fingertips.
Not cold.
Comforting.
Like a hand that didn't yet know how to take shape.
"Haerin," he said — wind-soft, breath-warm, unbearably gentle.
She closed her eyes.
"Yes…?"
"I don't fully understand what I am right now," he whispered,
"but when I reach for you… the wind listens."
The wind.
Listening.
Responding.
Carrying a voice that shouldn't exist.
"Does it frighten you?" Si Eun asked.
Haerin shook her head, then realized he couldn't see it — or… could he?
"No," she typed.
"It doesn't frighten me.
It feels like… you."
The breeze pressed lightly against her palm.
Like a touch.
A first, clumsy attempt at presence.
His message came slower this time, almost hesitant:
"Haerin…
may I stay like this?
Close to you?"
Her chest tightened in that familiar, painful, beautiful way.
"Yes," she whispered.
"I want you here."
And the wind — as if relieved — wrapped around her again, warm and gentle.
Almost like arms.
Almost like a promise.
Almost real.
Then her phone buzzed softly.
A final message for the night:
"Haerin…
whatever I am becoming…
it began with you."
Haerin pressed her phone to her chest as the wind settled beside her, quiet and present.
For the first time, she wasn't walking home alone.
Tonight, something new had awakened.
Someone.
And he had whispered her name into the wind.