A few days ago, I moved into a new house.
It was a famous apartment—big, modern, and always full of people.
And that's where I saw her.
The girl who might be a blessing… or a curse for me.
Even now, I still don't know.
My name is Chi-Ho Park.
And I have a crush on a girl named Somi Park, who lives in the same apartment as me.
Until now, I had never talked to any girl in my class.
Even if someone tried to talk to me, I would just ignore them.
My entire focus was on my studies.
To be honest… I didn't even like girls.
But ever since I moved into this apartment…
and saw Somi Park for the first time…
Something inside me started to change.
Whenever she came in front of me,
my heartbeat would suddenly speed up.
My face would turn red.
And my brain? It would completely stop working.
Like seriously… once I tried to say "Hi"…
but what came out was,
"H-Hi…Bye."
…I said bye before even talking.
I wanted to disappear right there.
If I'm being honest…
She is my first love.
Sometimes, I wonder…
Will we ever be able to talk to each other?
We both live on the 7th floor.
Sometimes she stands on her balcony…
and I stand on mine.
We look at the sky…
pretending we are not looking at each other.
One time, I accidentally made eye contact with her…
and immediately went inside like a ninja escaping a mission.
I even hit the door on my way in.
Very cool. Very smooth.
I really want to talk to her.
But I've never talked to a girl my age before…
so I get really nervous.
Even imagining a conversation with her gives me stress.
In my mind, it goes like:
"Hi…"
"Hi…"
"…Okay bye."
And that's it.
Just like that… one year passed.
And still, we never had a proper conversation.
But one good thing did happen.
Our families became close.
Now, she started visiting my house sometimes…
but even then, we still didn't talk much.
Whenever she came over, I would either:
pretend to be busy studying
or actually study like my life depended on it.
One time, I held my book upside down for 10 minutes. (That's Embarassing)
She definitely noticed.
One day, she came to my house again.
She was talking to my mom about something.
I couldn't hear what they were saying.
After a while, my mom came to me with Somi.
She said,
"Somi has some doubts in Maths. Can you help her if you're free?"
The moment I heard that, I quickly replied,
"Y-Yeah! Of course!"
(Too fast. That was suspicious.)
I helped her with some trigonometry problems.
At first, I was super nervous.
My hands were shaking a little.
I accidentally wrote sin²θ as "sin²tea" once.
She looked at it… then at me…
…and smiled.
I don't know why, but that made me even more nervous.
But somehow, I explained everything properly.
When she was about to leave,
she looked at me and said softly,
"Thank you."
For a moment, my brain stopped again.
I had practiced this moment in my head many times…
"Welcome."
"No problem."
"Anytime."
But in reality, I just stood there and nodded like an NPC.
That… was the first time we ever talked.
After that day…
Whenever we saw each other outside,
we would at least say…
"Hi."
"Hello."
Sometimes, our "Hi" would overlap…
and then we both would go silent again.
Very awkward.
Very us.
And maybe…
that was the beginning of something new.
But I didn't know… that this small 'hello' would soon turn my peaceful life upside down.