Time stops for no one and without realising, a new academic year was commencing. Now that she was a final year student, Nari decided to focus entirely on her art related majors, meaning Johnny no longer had those random psychology lectures with Nari’s company to look forward to.

Even for Nari, after two years of having someone from her close group of friends sitting next to her — even if it was only once a week — she had grown accustomed to having that company. She had to admit that she felt a bit lonely now and maybe there was even some jealousy towards Jaehyun and Taeyong being in the same major bubbling in the pit of her stomach. It was a bizarre feeling, one that Nari had never quite experienced before. After all, growing up she was never lacking in company, not with Seulgi around.

Somewhere along the way however, Nari found herself more and more absorbed in the world of sculpting, more and more engulfed by her imagination, more and more detached from the people around her. Sometimes Nari feared whether she had been taking everyone for granted, whether she deserved such care and affection, whether one day she would lose it all.

There was however one lone thought that slithered its way through the cracks of Nari’s consciousness, one that she did not wish to entertain, one that she would much rather forget. It was the belief that even if the world abandoned her, at least she still had sculpting. Regardless of how romantic such ideology might appear from an artist’s perspective, it was an isolating one.

There was also something else that Nari had noticed; when such thoughts started consuming her, a looming shadow would envelop her, almost acting as a barricade that shielded her. When she lifted her head, she would without a doubt lock gazes with a pair of radiant and optimistic eyes — albeit uneven — that never shied away. Indeed, the word shy did not exist in Johnny Se