It has been two weeks, since last time he saw her. Well, he’s been busy with his life anyway, being an intern at his new office and treated as the maknae by his senior. However thankfully, he could adapt very well in his new environment and everyone treated him as such precious new maknae rather than that kind of maknae they could ask to run some errand. Kim Jibeom was indeed just too precious to be treated that way.

He was currently working on a new MMORPG project that was supposed to start to do for next week agenda. But for some reason, Jibeom had the time to start creating the base for this new game his company was working on. Even his seniors admire his dedication, and some even told him not to be too hard on himself.

Fact is, he was indeed trying to be hard on himself just to hide what he was actually feeling inside.

And as his seniors went home one by one, he finally decided to gather his stuff and called it a day. It was dark already, as he walked through the street and stopped at a convenience store. He looked around for a while and chose some ramyun and onigiri for tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s breakfast. As he walked along the aisle of drink and beverages, he stopped by in front of the alcoholic beverages section. The boss said I can come late for tomorrow, so he decided to take two cans of beers and a big bottle of mineral waters.

So obviously, he spent the night to drink right after having a late dinner. All the while, he ran through his music playlist on his phone and played and old song he used to sing a lot at noraebang but had never thought that his current feeling could be so related to the song. Surprisingly, the Busan boy who was known to be a tough boy shed a tear.

After letting you go far away

Like saying goodbye to the autumn birds

I let you go

When I come back and sit with my dream

Tears come

Kim Jibeom started doing an internship as a junior scenario design in a small game designer company in Seoul as the requirement for his senior year in college. Apparently, being a game designer is a job he dreamt of since he was a kid for his love toward games. Some people called him as the nerd as he seemed too obsessed over his hobby of gaming and his study. But actually, he’s just that normal next-door boy with such mundane daily life. However, his mundane life started to be filled with colors once he moved from Busan to Seoul to start his college life… and meet his first love.

The Busan boy Kim Jibeom was really a nerd who knew nothing about girl, as he only has a hyung at home and he studied at all-boy school for his secondary and high school. He only surrounded by boys and befriended with them for years before coming to Seoul for college and realized that the world is more than just his Busan boy peers. And that’s how he found a girl that had caught his heart.

She was a cheerful and bubbly girl from same Art and Design Department as him. She was majoring in Fine Art while Jibeom in Multimedia Design. They both were that infamous “The dumb-twins of Art and Design department” in their college as they’re just like birds of a feather flock together. They’re like two peas in a pod and often seen hang out together and even took some same class together. Both had same interests especially in gaming. And actually, they have known each other even before met at college as frieng from same department—but as a game partner through some online games by their game ID names. Never in his life, Jibeom found such a girl who could be this similar to himself. And that was probably how he started to be interested in her—and it was more than just a friend from his perspective.

Jibeom knew it too well that she only considered him as her best gaming partner, as her best friend she never had before, or sometimes a twin brother just like what everyone saw them as. There’s not even single person realize that this Busan namja named Kim Jibeon having such big crush toward the bubbly girl Kim Jiwoo. Thus, since she had similar surname with him, people really believed that they were long lost twins and she seemed so happy to hear that. So that was why Jibeom decided to just keep his feelings in the deepest corner of his heart.

He walked around his small apartment while humming to the song he kept on loop with a can of beer in his hand, then stopped at the windowsill to look at the night sky. He was on the 4th floor thus he could see the sky clearly from his window. He took a sip of the beer. It’s spring already and the sky really was so clear that night that he could see the stars up there. Still humming to the song, the lyrics really reminded him of his story with her and he couldn’t be more melancholic than this.

After letting you go forever

When I look at the shooting stars

The tears fall down

The unfinished days, the painful love

Will I be able to erase it?

One day, after keeping his feelings for almost three years, he was convinced that it was okay to evolve from friend’s relationship into lovers. Kim Jibeom even tried to consult about his love life to his same age circle, especially to his closest friend, Bong Jaehyun from Business and Management Department. They encouraged him to fight for his love if his heart really was sure for it. Yet, Jaehyun told him that he felt as if Jiwoo was trying to get close to a TA from his department since he often saw her roaming around their department building. As a good friend, he warned him that he might got a heart break if he took a wrong step in his love life. But Jibeom didn’t believe him.

He knew that Jiwoo often went to the Business and Management building for an exhibition project with a TA named Lee Daeyeol. Jiwoo always told Jibeom about everything and even introduced him to that TA. He was a kind person and good at games as well. Thus, the threes often went gaming together at a PC rooms around their campus. And as a man, Jibeom didn’t see that there’s a love line between Jiwoo and Daeyeol-hyung—that’s how he called the 6 years older man with as they got close.

To Jibeom, Kim Jiwoo is such the apple of his eyes. He admitted that it wasn’t that type of love at first sight. The first time they introduced themselves to each other, Jibeom thought that he could related to the girl who shared similar surname and wittiness like him. He also thought that she could really be his long-lost twin sister. And as time passed by, he started thinking how cute she was especially when she smiled so brightly with her gummy smiles. He eventually smiled by just looking at her or if there’s someone said her name. He started thinking about her even when he closed his eyes and realized that he wanted them to be more than just friends.

They were so close that he could talk almost about everything with her and so did the other way around. Whenever Jibeom need a friend to talk to, Jiwoo was always there for him. And he would always be there for her too. Yet, when she thanked him that how fortunate she was to have a friend like him, he could only smile thinly. But that wasn’t how I feel about you.

It was on one chill autumn night, when they visited a ddeokbokki bar after spent their time playing The Battleground for hours in their usual PC rooms after Jiwoo said that she needed some refreshment because she was so depressed about something. Jibeom was ready to listen to her story, but he asked him for some round of games first. He couldn’t say “no” to her but afterward, it’s a good time to ask again what her story was abou