I noticed her because she didn't rush.
Everyone else moved like the bell had pushed them forward—chairs scraping, voices rising, the hallway already loud before the door was fully open. She stood up slower than the rest, slipped her notebook into her bag with care, like she wasn't trying to catch up to anything.
I'd seen her before. You don't really miss someone like that. She sits near the window in the other class, always by the aisle, always with her sleeves pulled down even when it's warm.
People talk around her, not to her. Not because she's unkind—because she feels finished, somehow. Like a sentence that already knows how it ends.
I didn't know her name then. Only that she walked home when the rain started instead of waiting it out.
That day, it rained hard. Sudden, loud. The kind that makes people groan and laugh at the same time. I didn't have an umbrella. Neither did she.
We ended up under the same overhang by the vending machines. Close enough to share the sound of the rain, not close enough to call it company. She was looking straight ahead, watching the water gather and spill over the curb.
I said something ordinary. About how it always rains right after exams.
She nodded once. Not polite. Just acknowledging the sound had reached her.
I could've stopped there. Most people would've.
But there was something steady about her stillness. Not fragile. Not inviting. Just… present. Like the ground after rain—changed, but not undone.
"I'm Ji-won," I said. Not because it mattered. Because silence was starting to settle into something heavier.
She looked at me then. Just briefly. Her eyes were calm, but not distant. More like she was choosing how much to see.
"Seon-young," she said.
Her voice didn't ask for anything. It didn't give anything away either.
It landed, and stayed.
The rain didn't stop. People passed us, shoes splashing, laughter breaking and fading.
At some point, she stepped forward into it without hesitation, like she'd already decided the rain wasn't something to avoid.
"Do you mind," I said, not quickly, not carefully, "if I walk with you? Just until the corner."
It wasn't an offer dressed up as kindness. It was a question with room to refuse.
She paused.
Long enough that I didn't wonder if I'd crossed a line—only whether she was measuring it.
Then she nodded. Once.
We didn't talk much after that. Just walked. Rain soaking through our shoes, the street smelling clean and sharp. I noticed the way she adjusted her bag when it slipped, the way she glanced at traffic before crossing even though there was none.
At the corner, she stopped.
"This is me," she said.
I didn't ask where she was going after. I didn't say next time. I just nodded back.
"See you around," I said.
She looked at me again—longer this time. Not softer. Just more aware.
"Yeah," she replied.
She walked away, rain blurring her outline until she was just another figure moving forward.
But the space she left didn't close right away.
And I realized then—it wasn't that she needed warmth.
It was that her stillness made people shift, whether they meant to or not.