Chapter 20: A Voice Beneath Snow
The snow did not stop.
By Monday, the schoolyard was powdered white.
Footsteps left shallow prints.
Breath came in clouds.
And still, Class 2-B kept studying.
Inside the classroom, the heater buzzed weakly.
The windows fogged with quiet, stubborn frost.
Mu Yichen arrived before anyone else.
As always.
Han Seri came in shortly after.
As always.
Their desks were still side by side—
the teacher hadn't told them to move after the study session.
They didn't ask.
Today's lesson was literature.
The teacher asked them to write a response to a short poem:
"A single leaf fell into silence, and the world heard it."
Most students sighed.
A few asked what it meant.
Mu Yichen began writing almost immediately.
Precise strokes. Straight lines.
But for once—he paused halfway.
He looked up, eyes distant.
Han Seri noticed.
She didn't say anything.
But she tilted her notebook just enough
so that her answer, written in delicate loops,
could be seen if he chose to glance.
He did.
Just once.
"Sometimes it's not the leaf that makes the sound.
Sometimes the silence was always waiting to listen."
He didn't smile.
But his pencil tapped twice against his desk.
And she understood.
During lunch, they sat at the back again.
Not facing each other.
Not even directly acknowledging the other's presence.
But they didn't sit far.
They ate slowly.
Shared silence.
And then…
A loud crash broke the stillness.
From the hallway—a freshman had slipped, tray flying.
Rice and soup everywhere.
Laughter followed.
Han Seri stood to help instinctively.
Mu Yichen reached for tissues at the same time.
They both froze—
hands brushing as they met the door.
She hesitated.
He withdrew his hand first.
"You go," he said.
It was the first full sentence he had spoken to her.
Soft. Even.
She looked at him.
"Are you sure?"
He nodded.
She left.
But as she knelt beside the fallen student,
handing him tissues and helping pick up his tray,
Yichen stayed by the doorway, just out of view,
watching.
Not protecting.
Just… making sure.
After school, snow was falling again.
The sky was a dim, violet-gray.
Yichen stood by the gates, waiting for the bus.
He usually walked.
But today, something held him back.
From behind, footsteps approached.
He knew them.
She stood beside him.
Close, but not close enough to seem obvious.
"Do you ever miss the silence?" she asked suddenly.
He turned.
"…When did it go?"
She met his eyes.
"When I said your name, I think."
A long pause.
Then:
"Seri," he said, as if testing it for the first time.
Like a word he'd thought a thousand times but never dared to speak aloud.
She turned slightly toward him.
Her breath clouded in the cold.
"Yes?"
"I don't miss it."
A pause.
"But I remember it."
She looked up at the sky, then back at him.
And for the first time…
she smiled.
Only slightly.
But it was enough.
That night, he drew nothing.
Instead, he wrote a single sentence in the corner of a blank page:
"Even snow makes sound… if someone is finally listening."