The school felt quieter without him.
Eun Seo noticed it in the little things. The way their desk looked too neat now. The absence of that faint hum he used to make when he concentrated. Even the violet seemed lonelier, its petals paler, leaning toward the empty chair beside her.
Days passed. Then weeks.
The other students forgot about him. Transfer students were normal. Temporary. But Eun Seo couldn't shake the habit of glancing at that seat whenever she entered the classroom. It was ridiculous. She wasn't even close to him. They'd barely talked outside of class. Still, when the wind passed through the open windows, it almost sounded like his laugh. It was on a Tuesday afternoon that she found the first one.
A small folded piece of paper tucked inside her locker, faintly crinkled at the edges. No name. No clue. Just a single pressed petal taped to it, a soft lavender.
She hesitated before opening it.
"Do you know what lilacs mean?
First love. Or the memory of it.
- From a friend of Spring."
Her heart gave a strange, uneven flutter.
She looked around, but the hallway was empty. The bell rang, echoing through the corridors. She slipped the note into her pocket and tried to act like nothing had happened. But during math class, she found herself tracing the handwriting with her fingertip beneath the desk. The letters looked familiar, slanted slightly to the right, like someone rushing to finish before the ink dried.
She knew that handwriting. But that wasn't possible.
After school, Eun Seo walked to the rooftop again. She didn't know why. Maybe because that's where the violet now lived. The air smelled faintly of grass and dust. The sky was washed with pink and gold. She stood there for a long time, just watching the wind move through the clouds.
"What are you doing here?"
She jumped. It was Ji Won, her classmate, leaning against the door with a juice box.
"Nothing," Eun Seo muttered.
"Nothing looks a lot like daydreaming."
She ignored him. He'd always been loud, the kind of boy who filled silences without asking permission.
Ji Won joined her by the ledge. "Still taking care of that flower?"
She glanced at the violet. "It's not mine."
He looked at her curiously. "Then why do you visit it every day?"
She didn't answer. Ji Won smirked but said nothing more.
That night, Eun Seo sat by her window, the note open beside her lamp. The words glowed faintly under the light, soft and almost alive. A part of her wanted to believe it was Ha Jun. That maybe he had left these for her somehow, like a breadcrumb trail across the days they missed. But people didn't just leave notes like this. Not after disappearing.
Still, she couldn't stop checking her locker. A week later, she found another one. This time, it came with a tiny paper crane folded from floral-patterned paper.
"Daisies… new beginnings. If you're reading this, thank you for watering the violet. It means you still remember."
Eun Seo's hands trembled slightly. The handwriting was still his. That same rushed, imperfect rhythm. Maybe she was going crazy. Or maybe this was his way of saying goodbye, one letter at a time.
The rumors started soon after.
Someone said they saw a boy visiting the school garden at night. Someone else swore they heard humming near the back gate, even though it was locked. Eun Seo didn't believe in ghosts, but she started sleeping with her window slightly open, just in case the wind carried a sound she recognized. Sometimes she thought she heard it, faint, like the memory of laughter.
A month later, the school held its spring festival.
Students ran through the halls decorating with ribbons and paper lanterns. Eun Seo had been assigned to help in the art room, painting the banner for the event.
While she was cleaning up the brushes, she noticed something new taped to the window frame, another letter, folded neatly.
Her heart skipped.
"I still draw flowers. And sometimes, I imagine you still sit beside me. I wonder if you still hate violets."
Eun Seo pressed the note against her chest, her fingers trembling. Someone was playing a cruel joke, right? That had to be it. But the ache in her throat said otherwise.
She turned toward the window. The late afternoon sunlight filtered in, soft and golden. For a moment, she almost thought she saw him, just a flicker of someone standing by the school gate, looking up toward her.
She blinked. Gone.
At home that night, she lay on her bed staring at the ceiling. She thought about the violet. About how it kept blooming even when she forgot to water it. About Ha Jun's words, "They just bloom."
Maybe this was what he meant. Maybe people could leave, and things could still grow.
She turned over, reaching for her journal. She hadn't written in it for years, but tonight felt like it needed something. She began to write, slowly, like speaking to someone far away.
"Dear Friend of Spring, If flowers could talk, they'd probably tell you I've been terrible at keeping promises. But the violet's still alive. So maybe that counts for something."
She folded the paper and slipped it into her school bag. She didn't know where to leave it, or if anyone would ever read it.
But somehow, it felt right, like whispering into the wind and knowing it would carry your words somewhere that mattered.
The next morning, when she opened her locker, she froze. The same envelope was there, the one she'd written is now with something new inside it.
A single pressed violet. And beneath it, one short line in familiar handwriting:
"It counts."
Eun Seo stared at it for a long time, her breath caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob. For the first time in weeks, she smiled, not because she understood, but because she didn't need to.