The new seating chart was posted before first period.
A crowd immediately formed around the classroom door.
Daewon arrived just in time to see Seojun pushing through everyone.
"Move!"
"You can read from there!"
"I can't!"
"You can!"
"That's because you're taller!"
Daewon sighed.
He waited until the crowd thinned.
Then he looked.
His name was near the middle of the room.
Aera's was near the windows.
They were separated by four rows.
Daewon stared at the chart.
Aera arrived beside him.
"Where are you?"
He pointed.
"Here."
She followed his finger.
Then found her own name.
"Here."
They looked at each other.
Neither spoke.
Seojun appeared behind them.
"Congratulations."
"For what?" Daewon asked.
"You two finally get separated."
Daewon frowned.
"Why are you happy?"
"Because now I can sit here."
Seojun pointed toward Daewon's old seat.
Daewon stared at him.
"You planned this."
"No."
"You absolutely planned this."
Seojun laughed.
Aera smiled.
"Just let him have it."
Daewon looked at her.
"You're taking his side?"
"I'm taking no one's side."
"That's worse."
The bell rang.
Everyone returned to their seats.
For the first time in months, Daewon and Aera weren't sitting close enough to quietly exchange notes during class.
It felt strangely unfamiliar.
The first lesson was mathematics.
Daewon tried to concentrate.
He really did.
But every few minutes, he found himself looking toward the window.
Aera was writing.
She occasionally looked outside.
Once, she caught him staring.
She raised an eyebrow.
Daewon immediately looked back at his notebook.
A few seconds later, a folded piece of paper landed beside his pencil.
He looked toward her.
She was pretending to read.
Daewon opened it.
Stop looking at me.
He smiled.
He wrote beneath it.
You looked first.
He folded it.
He waited.
Aera glanced over.
He slid the paper toward the aisle.
She retrieved it.
A moment later, it returned.
I was checking if you were paying attention.
Daewon wrote:
I was.
He paused.
Then added:
To you.
He folded it.
Aera read it.
Her face changed slightly.
She looked down at her desk.
Daewon smiled to himself.
Then the teacher suddenly spoke.
"Kang Daewon."
He looked up.
"Yes?"
"Since you're so focused, perhaps you can solve this."
The class laughed.
Daewon stood.
He looked at the equation.
Then at the teacher.
Then at Aera.
She was trying not to smile.
He solved it.
Correctly.
Mr. Kim nodded.
"Sit down."
Daewon sat.
Aera quietly mouthed:
Show-off.
He smiled.
By lunchtime, the distance felt less strange.
They met near the stairwell as they usually did.
Aera carried her lunch.
Daewon carried his sketchbook.
They sat on the same windowsill where they had eaten together before.
"You survived," Aera said.
"Barely."
"It was one morning."
"An extremely long morning."
She smiled.
"You looked over a lot."
"So did you."
"I was checking."
"Checking what?"
"If you were paying attention."
Daewon laughed.
"You used my excuse."
"I improved it."
They ate.
After a few minutes, Aera asked, "Do you miss sitting there?"
Daewon looked toward their old desks.
"Yeah."
She nodded.
"Me too."
There was no embarrassment in saying it.
They had become comfortable enough that simple honesty didn't need to be disguised.
Then Aera said, "But I think it's okay."
Daewon looked at her.
"Why?"
"Because now I notice you differently."
"What does that mean?"
She thought.
"When you're sitting beside me, I know you're there."
She looked across the hallway toward the classroom.
"Now I have to look for you."
Daewon smiled.
"That's dangerous."
"Why?"
"You might find me."
She laughed.
The afternoon passed more easily.
Daewon began noticing things he hadn't noticed when he sat beside Aera.
The boy in front of him tapped his pencil whenever he was nervous.
The girl near the back always checked the clock before the teacher finished speaking.
Seojun drew tiny cartoons in the margins of his notebook.
Minjae had started talking to two other students during breaks.
The classroom had its own rhythm.
Daewon had been part of it all along.
He simply hadn't been looking far enough.
During art class, students were asked to draw something from their current perspective.
Daewon looked around.
He could have drawn the window.
The teacher.
The desks.
Instead, he drew the room itself.
A collection of people.
Different directions.
Different expressions.
Different little habits.
And somewhere near the far side of the page was Aera.
She was barely visible.
Just enough to recognize her.
When the teacher passed his desk, he stopped.
"This is different."
Daewon looked up.
"Good different?"
Mr. Kim studied the page.
"You're drawing the space between people."
Daewon looked at the drawing.
He hadn't realized it.
But he had.
The empty aisle.
The distance between desks.
The people looking in different directions.
All of it.
Mr. Kim smiled.
"Keep going."
After school, Aera waited near the school gate.
Daewon joined her.
"How was art class?"
"Different."
"How?"
He showed her the drawing.
She looked carefully.
"There's a lot of empty space."
"Yeah."
She pointed at it.
"Is this me?"
"Yes."
"You're terrible."
"What?"
"You made me tiny."
Daewon laughed.
"You were far away."
"So?"
"So I drew what I saw."
She looked at the drawing again.
Then smiled.
"I like it."
"You just insulted it."
"I can do both."
They started walking.
The sky was cloudy, but there was no rain.
The neighborhood was busy with people leaving work.
Aera walked beside him.
Not touching.
Not holding his hand.
Just walking.
After a while, she said, "Do you think we'll always walk home together?"
Daewon looked at her.
"I don't know."
She seemed surprised.
"That's not what I expected you to say."
"Why?"
"Because you usually say yes."
He thought for a moment.
"Maybe sometimes we won't."
She looked ahead.
"That's true."
"Maybe you'll have somewhere else to go."
"Maybe."
"Maybe I'll have somewhere else to go."
"Maybe."
They continued walking.
Then Daewon added, "But if we both want to go home together, we will."
Aera smiled.
"That's better."
"Was that an exam?"
"Maybe."
He laughed.
They reached the corner where they usually separated.
Aera stopped.
"See you tomorrow."
"See you."
She walked away.
Daewon watched her for a few seconds.
Then continued home.
Halfway down the street, he stopped.
He realized something.
For months, he had thought being close meant sharing the same desk, the same umbrella, the same path, the same moments.
Now they were learning something else.
Sometimes someone could be four rows away and still be the person you looked for first.
Sometimes you could walk home alone and still know someone was walking toward their own home at the same time.
The distance didn't erase the connection.
It simply made him aware of it.
Daewon opened his sketchbook.
On the page from art class, he looked at the small figure near the window.
Then he added one more thing.
A thin line connecting two desks.
He stared at it.
Then smiled.
It wasn't realistic.
It wasn't necessary.
It wasn't something anyone else would notice.
But he left it there anyway.
Some things didn't have to be visible to everyone.
They only had to mean something to the person who drew them.