That Girl From Random Chatting

They started whispering by Wednesday.

Rumors always flowed fastest when no one took responsibility for them. Like dirty water leaking through cracked walls, they were never loud, but always there. This time, it was the third-year corridor.

"I heard he hospitalized someone in his last school."

"Didn't they say his dad's in prison? Makes sense."

"He doesn't smile. Dead eyes, like an animal."

"Didn't even flinch when Seongah snapped at him. That guy's definitely done time."

Seo-joon heard it all. In passing. Between steps. Through the cracks in lockers and the corners of crowded stairwells.

He ignored it.

Let them bark.

But the change was tangible. Classmates who'd warmed to his silence grew cautious again. Teachers eyed him with suspicion when he handed in papers. One of the upperclassmen, Jae-hyuk from Class 3-1, broad-shouldered with too much gel in his hair, shouldered past him on purpose outside the vending machines.

No apology.

Seo-joon didn't move.

Didn't glare.

Didn't react.

Just noted it.

He always noted things.

But by Thursday morning, something, or rather someone, new entered the equation.

"HEY! Are you Han Seo-joon?!"

He turned his head slightly. The hallway to Class 2-3 buzzed with its usual chaos, but the voice pierced through it like a nail in glass.

A girl, short, black-haired, eyes way too wide and sparkly for 8:15 a.m. ran up to him and stopped just short of personal space.

She grinned like a fox.

"You're him, right?" she asked breathlessly. "The transfer student who might've killed a guy?"

He stared at her.

Deadpan.

No response.

She tilted her head. "You don't look like a killer. But I guess that's what makes it scarier, huh?"

"…Who are you?" he asked, eventually.

"Ahn Seo Lee!" she chirped. "Class 2-5. You don't talk much, huh? That's okay! I talk enough for both of us."

And true to her word, she launched into a rapidfire stream of thoughts as they walked:

"I heard from Minji who heard from Daehyun who overheard Jae-hyuk say you snapped someone's arm. Is that true? Wait, no, don't tell me. It's more fun to wonder. Do you like mint chocolate? I hate it. People say that's controversial but I say it's just toothpaste with an identity crisis."

He turned down the stairs to avoid her.

She followed anyway.

He ducked into a side hallway.

Still there.

"Are you stalking me?" he asked flatly.

Seo Lee puffed her cheeks. "It's not stalking if I walk loud. Besides, I think you're interesting. No one ever makes Seongah shut up like you did."

At that, Seo-joon's steps paused.

Seo Lee noticed. Her eyes sparkled more.

"…You really didn't deny the murder thing," she said.

He exhaled. "That's because I'm too tired to play games."

"But you do play games. That thing you said to Joo Yu-rim on the roof? 'Silence is the only language people don't lie in', I felt that. So dramatic. So brooding."

He narrowed his eyes slightly. "You were eavesdropping?"

She raised both hands. "Just passing by! The rooftop stairs have good acoustics."

"You talk too much."

"And you listen too well."

They locked eyes for a beat.

She smiled. "So, what now? You gonna ignore me?"

"I've considered it."

"But you won't."

"…Why not?"

"Because you hate people who fake it. And I'm not faking anything."

That actually made him pause.

Seo Lee wasn't bluffing. She was strange, certainly, but not insincere. Her curiosity was reckless, but not cruel. And she wasn't afraid of him. Not in the way others were. Not even in the way Yu-rim or Rira were.

She was… open.

Like someone who'd already burned her bridges and just liked the warmth of fire.

"You shouldn't hang around me," he said eventually.

"Why not?"

"People talk."

"So let them."

"Your reputation will-"

"Was already garbage," she interrupted brightly. "I threw a calculator at a teacher once. Got suspended. Called a bunch of girls in 2-4 'parasites with lip gloss.' My rep's been in the gutter since first year. Might as well decorate it."

He blinked.

Then, just barely, he smirked.

Seo Lee beamed.

They walked the rest of the way in silence.

Well… mostly.

...

The whispers were different now.

"She's following him around?"

"That girl's insane…"

"Maybe they're dating?"

"No way. She's just as weird as him. Birds of a feather."

Seo-joon returned to his desk. Yuri glanced at him briefly, then looked away. Not out of fear, but something… unreadable. Curiosity, maybe. Confusion.

Or recognition.

He sat.

Pulled out his notebook.

Seo Lee appeared two seconds later, dragging her desk closer.

"Lunch?"

"No."

"Snack?"

"No."

"Riddle?"

He paused.

"…Fine."

She grinned. "If I have it, I don't share it. If I share it, I don't have it. What is it?"

He didn't look up. "A secret."

Her mouth fell open. "You didn't even THINK about it!"

"I don't guess. I deduce."

She laughed.

And for just a moment, the classroom didn't feel quite so cold.

...

The world had always been too loud for Seo Lee.

Not in the auditory sense, though yes, her brother's gaming, her mother's shouting, the endless drilling from the construction site across the street, but in the emotional sense. Everything she felt, she felt in capital letters.

ANGER.

EXCITEMENT.

FEAR.

Even LONELINESS had its own scream.

No one ever taught her how to turn the volume down.

So she smiled louder. Laughed brighter. Spoke faster. Made herself impossible to ignore.

If she didn't, she thought, maybe she'd vanish.

Elementary school was chaos.

She once stood on a table during lunch and announced she'd marry her classmate Dong-min because he looked like a lizard and she "loved reptiles." He cried. The teacher called her parents.

They didn't show up.

The school counselor said things like "attention-seeking" and "disruptive tendencies."

She learned quickly: chaos got reactions. Reactions were better than silence.

By middle school, it was habit.

The calculator incident wasn't her proudest moment. She hadn't actually meant to hit the teacher. (She was aiming at the window. Probably.) But the moment that cold plastic thunked against the blackboard, followed by dead silence, she felt something strange.

Control.

Even just for a second.

The suspension was three days.

When she came back, her name was whispered in every hallway.

That was fine.

That was better.

Home wasn't much quieter.

Her dad had left long ago. Her older brother, too busy streaming and failing college exams, barely noticed her.

Her mother worked late.

When she did come home, she brought the kind of exhaustion that smelled like burnt coffee and resentment. Every word out of Seo Lee's mouth was "too much." Too fast. Too weird.

So Seo Lee learned to say what she wanted before anyone could tell her not to.

She made jokes before anyone could mock her.

She confessed before anyone could reject her.

She burned every bridge before anyone else could set it on fire.

She wasn't stupid.

She knew what they said behind her back.

Crazy.

Annoying.

"She's doing it for attention."

(Well… yes.)

But no one asked why she needed it so badly.

She first saw Han Seo-joon during lunch on a Tuesday.

He wasn't doing anything.

Just sitting, reading a book, while people made a big deal of Yuri's ruined sketchpad and how someone had "accidentally" spilled soup on it. Seo-joon didn't get up. Didn't intervene. Didn't speak.

But he also didn't laugh.

He looked at the scene like he was watching ants destroy a flower.

With calm. With… distance.

That intrigued her.

Not pity. Not outrage. Just quiet disapproval.

Like he expected better of them, and wasn't surprised they failed.

That expression stuck with her.

Like a pebble in her shoe.

That night, she searched his name in every school gossip thread she could find.

Han Seo-joon. Transfer student. Might have been in juvie. Fought someone twice his size. No one knew for sure.

And yet, no one could prove it either.

Seo Lee loved mysteries.

Especially ones that didn't talk back.

So she decided to follow him.

Just for fun, at first.

But when he didn't insult her, didn't flirt, didn't ask anything, she found herself returning.

Again and again.

He was the first person she couldn't "crack" in a day.

That thrilled her.

And frightened her.

Because maybe, just maybe, if she was quiet around him…

…she wouldn't disappear.

...

It started with a broken shoelace.

Han Seo-joon bent down to tie it near the lockers, the hallway already half-cleared after lunch. He was used to the way people walked wide around him now, too many rumors about what he might do, what he had done.

He didn't mind.

It was peaceful in the space between hostility and awe.

Until a voice shattered it.

"Yo, transfer."

Seo-joon straightened slowly.

Three boys blocked the hallway, upperclassmen, second-years by the look of them. One was lanky, with dyed red hair and taped-up fingers like he'd just come from a boxing club. Another chewed gum so loudly it echoed. The third one, clearly the leader, leaned with practiced ease against the lockers.

Circle 1103.

Seo-joon recognized them from back when he used to pay attention. A gang of sorts. Not the dangerous kind, just bored, cocky, clout-hungry.

But dangerous enough to want a name.

"You're the one that hit Dae-hyun last month, right?" the leader asked. "That was you?"

Seo-joon said nothing.

Another voice piped in. "We were wondering if you're as good as they say."

Still, nothing.

The red-haired one scoffed. "What, mute now? Come on. Show us."

The leader tossed a crushed can toward him. It rolled to a stop by Seo-joon's feet.

"Hit me."

Seo-joon didn't move.

His fingers twitched once. A memory of fists. Bruises. Screaming.

Then faded.

He looked up at them.

Across the second-floor hallway, Seongah watched it unfold like a hawk.

She didn't blink.

Didn't even breathe.

She'd orchestrated this, after all.

Well, nudged it along. Whispered to the right ear. Let slip a few things in a classroom chat group about Seo-joon's "reputation." She wanted to see something. A crack. A reaction.

But not violence.

That wasn't what interested her.

It was restraint.

And he was showing it.

She admired people who didn't beg for attention. Who could command silence with presence alone.

It made her want to destroy him.

Or maybe understand him.

She wasn't sure yet.

Back in the hallway, the red-haired one took a step closer.

Then another.

Seo-joon let him.

He counted each footfall, wrist twitching just once.

"Move," Seo-joon said quietly.

A beat.

"You got a problem?" the leader smirked.

Seo-joon didn't answer. He just looked at him.

And something in the older boy's face changed.

A hesitation. Like instinct whispering, 'this one's real.'

"...Tch. Whatever. You're not worth it."

They left with fake laughter and tossed insults, loud enough for bystanders to hear.

But they didn't try to touch him again.

...

Later that afternoon, a notice appeared on the student board:

{Social Initiative – Circle Reformation Proposals

Led by Class President Yoon Seongah, a new student group is being proposed to monitor interclass disputes and social responsibility violations. Anonymous nominations welcome.

Note: Anyone seen baiting or provoking fights will face school discipline.}

Seo-joon stared at the flier as he passed by it after school.

The paper fluttered slightly from the AC vent above.

He said nothing.

But his eyes narrowed.

...

[Next Day, 2-2 Classroom]

"I heard the fight didn't happen."

"He just stared them down?"

"Circle 1103 didn't do anything?"

"No way. He's definitely ex-juvie."

Yuri Lee was sketching quietly, listening.

She didn't say it aloud, but her pencil drew Seo-joon's expression from memory.

That distance. That stillness.

She could still feel how it felt to sit beside him.

Unnoticed.

And still seen.

...

Meanwhile, in the back of the class, Rira glanced toward Seongah's desk.

Their eyes met.

Seongah's mouth curled into a small, knowing smile.

Rira frowned.

She didn't like this game.

And she especially didn't like that someone like Seo-joon was now in the middle of it.

She knew Seongah's traps always looked clean. But they were never without blood.

...

Seo-joon sat alone again, finishing the bread roll he'd bought from the vending machine.

Footsteps approached.

Rira sat beside him, silent.

For once, she wasn't chewing gum or cracking jokes.

"…They're testing you," she said.

He didn't respond.

"You already know that, huh?"

The wind rustled his hair.

"…Let them," he muttered.

Her fingers clenched her skirt.

"Just don't get bored and leave."

Seo-joon looked at her for the first time in weeks.

"…Why would I?"

Rira didn't have an answer.

But the silence between them felt like a pact.

...

The bell had just rung, but no one moved.

Yoon Seongah stood at the front of the class.

There was no formal announcement, no teacher, no excuse. Just the sharp tap of her heel against the tile as she faced them all.

"I'm running a small experiment," she said. "Voluntary, of course."

That was a lie.

Everything Seongah did looked voluntary, until you realized saying no came at a cost.

She held up a deck of blank index cards. "Everyone gets one. Write down one truth, and one lie. No names. Drop it in the box."

Eyes shifted.

Murmurs.

Someone asked, "What's the point?"

She smiled. "To see who can guess right. Simple. Fun. And revealing."

The last word lingered.

Seongah's gaze flicked toward Seo-joon in the back row.

He didn't react.

But she noticed the slight narrowing of his eyes.

Hook. Line. Tug.

...

[Ten Minutes Later]

Cards shuffled.

One drawn at random.

Seongah read it aloud. "I once broke someone's arm. I once kissed my cousin."

The room erupted in laughter and groans.

She smirked. "Okay. Who's brave enough to guess?"

Seo-joon stared out the window.

Someone whispered, "Bet that one's his…"

But he didn't blink.

He didn't play.

That annoyed her.

...

[After Class]

"Walk with me," Seongah said, appearing at his desk.

He didn't look up. "No."

She tilted her head. "Why not?"

"I don't follow orders."

"It wasn't one. It was an invitation."

"I don't accept those either."

Most people would have walked away.

She didn't.

...

[Five Minutes Later – Stairwell Landing]

"I'm persistent," Seongah said. She leaned against the wall, arms folded, watching him descend the stairs slowly.

"You're invasive."

"People confuse the two. But you're not people, are you?"

Seo-joon stopped mid-step.

"…You like poking things just to see if they bleed," he said.

She raised an eyebrow. "And you like pretending you don't."

Silence.

They stood like statues in a forgotten hallway, words hanging in the dust.

Then, he kept walking.

"Good talk," she called after him.

He didn't turn back.

But his hand gripped the railing tighter than before.

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Thanks for reading. You can also give me ideas for the future or pinpoint plot holes that I may have forgotten, if you want.