He gets better at pretending.
He learns how to smile even while suffocating.
There is something tragic about how easy it becomes for Ha Jun. Once upon a time his smile was real. It rose naturally. It belonged to him. Now it is something carefully arranged. Something practiced. Something placed on his face like a performer preparing for a stage he never auditioned for.
Every morning he wakes with a pressure in his chest that feels like a stone resting on tired bones. Yet the moment he steps outside his room, the moment someone calls his name, the mask settles over him and no one can tell that his heart is trembling.
In the world's eyes he is still the bright one. The easy one. The boy who laughs first and comforts others even when he has nothing left within himself. People see the surface and they believe it. They believe it so deeply that sometimes Ha Jun wonders if the lie has begun to believe itself.
Maybe this is his destiny. To be the one who glows while drowning.
To be the boy who looks like spring yet carries winter inside his ribs.
He rarely eats now. He barely sleeps. Yet he walks through his days as if nothing is wrong. Even the people closest to him have begun to accept this version of him as real. Except one.
Ji Hye.
She watches him too closely. She notices too much. She is twenty and yet her gaze carries the quiet understanding of someone who has stood in the rain for too long and learned to read the sky.
One evening she finds him sitting outside near the old bench by the dormitory courtyard. The air is cool. The sun is melting into the horizon. Ha Jun thinks he is alone with his thoughts. He has his hands clasped tightly between his knees and his breathing is shallow.
Ji Hye approaches with gentle steps. She does not speak at first. She simply stands beside him, waiting for him to acknowledge her.
He does not.
She sits.
And even then he does not look her way. He stares forward with an empty expression that does not belong to him.
Finally she says softly, "You are doing it again."
Ha Jun blinks. Slowly. "Doing what?"
"Disappearing behind your smile."
He almost laughs. Almost. "I am fine."
"You are not."
The certainty in her voice makes his throat tighten. He forces himself to look away because her eyes feel too sharp and too kind at the same time. Kindness has always been more frightening to him than cruelty. Cruelty he can dodge. Kindness forces him to reveal the parts of himself he has hidden too long.
"You do not need to worry about me," he mutters.
"But I do worry," she answers. "And I think you know why."
Her words hang heavy in the fading light. They wrap around him like a truth he does not know how to refuse.
Ha Jun closes his eyes for a moment. His mask slips in the darkness behind his eyelids. For a brief second he sees himself clearly. He sees the exhausted boy he is. The scared boy. The boy who has been pretending for so many years that the mask has begun to cling to his skin like something fused with him.
He opens his eyes again and the mask returns, soft but controlled.
"People expect me to be okay," he says quietly. "I have always been the strong one. The one who survived. The one who smiles. If I stop now… I do not know what will happen. I do not know who I will become."
Ji Hye turns her body toward him. She does not touch him. She simply looks at him, really looks, and her voice becomes almost a whisper.
"You will become yourself."
The words hit him like a gentle blow. They should not hurt but they do. They dig into old wounds that he has kept stitched with forced laughter and empty reassurances.
He feels something inside his chest loosen, and it frightens him.
He stands abruptly. The mask tightens again around his features. "I should go," he says. "It is late."
Ji Hye stands too. "Ha Jun," she calls softly.
He pauses.
"You do not need to carry everything alone. You are allowed to fall apart."
The wind moves between them. A quiet thing with a voice that sounds like the past calling.
He swallows hard. "If I fall apart," he murmurs, "I am afraid there will be nothing left to put together again."
Ji Hye steps closer until she is only a breath away. Her voice is steady but tender.
"If that happens, then I will help you. Your sisters will help you. Anyone who loves you will help you. You do not have to pretend with us."
Pretend.
The word echoes inside him.
He looks at her. Truly looks. Her eyes hold warmth, but not pity. Concern, but not judgment. Something in him shakes.
But the mask holds.
It always holds.
Finally he says, "I am trying."
"I know," she replies.
And that is what undoes him. Not the words. The tone. The simple acceptance. It pulls a thin thread inside him that has been stretched for too many years. For a moment he thinks he might break down right there in front of her. But his mask, faithful and cruel, keeps him upright.
He gives her a fragile smile. It is the kind of smile that trembles in its corners.
"I will see you tomorrow."
Then he turns and walks away slowly, leaving her in the soft evening light.
Ji Hye watches his back until he disappears around the corner. She presses her fingers to her lips, as if holding back a truth she is not ready to say out loud.
She whispers to the empty space he left behind.
"You are breaking. And I am watching it happen."
That night Ha Jun lies awake in the darkness. His eyes are open but his mind is drifting somewhere far away. It feels like he is floating in a quiet sea with no stars and no shore.
He whispers to the emptiness around him.
"I am tired."
The room does not answer.
He turns to the wall and pulls the blanket over himself. His chest feels tight again, but he keeps his breathing slow, slow enough that even he almost believes the lie.
He whispers again.
"I am tired… of pretending."
But morning will come. And with morning, the mask will return. It will rest on his face like it belongs there.
Because the truth is simple and tragic.
He gets better at pretending.
He learns how to smile even while suffocating.
And somewhere along the way, the mask became his skin.