Chapter Two — The Song You Didn’t Know Was for Me

Sol didn’t expect to see him again so soon.

Three days after the rainy bus ride, she was sitting in a small café near her college, sketching absentmindedly while sipping iced coffee. The place was filled with soft music and quiet conversations — the kind of peaceful space she loved. That was when a familiar voice drifted in through the speakers.

It wasn’t just any song.

It was his voice.

Sol froze, pencil hovering in the air. The melody was gentle, slightly sad, filled with emotion that made her chest ache. The voice sounded like someone confessing something they were too afraid to say out loud. She slowly looked up at the small TV mounted on the café wall.

There he was.

Ryu Sun-jae, sitting in a studio, a guitar resting against his shoulder as he sang.

Her heart skipped.

“That’s him…” she whispered.

The barista noticed her staring. “You know him?”

“Not really,” Sol replied, eyes still glued to the screen. “But I met him.”

The song ended, and applause filled the café. Sol didn’t realize she had been holding her breath until she finally let it out.

Later that evening, she found herself searching his name online. Articles, fan pages, videos — suddenly, the quiet boy from the bus wasn’t just a stranger. He was an artist, someone who poured his feelings into music and gave them to the world.

And somehow… that made her miss him.

Two weeks passed.

Life went on — classes, sketches, unfinished dreams. Yet somehow, Sun-jae kept finding small ways back into her thoughts. His song would play at random. His smile would appear on her screen. It felt like a thread tying them together, even when they were apart.

Then one day, fate decided to be bold.

Sol was walking out of a bookstore when she nearly bumped into someone.

“Sorry—” she began.

“Sol?”

She looked up.

Sun-jae was standing there, holding a stack of sheet music. His eyes widened in surprise, then softened into a smile.

“You remember me,” he said.

“How could I forget?” she replied before she could stop herself.

They both laughed, a little shy.

They ended up sitting on a nearby bench, talking like no time had passed at all. He told her about recording new music. She showed him her sketches. One of them — hidden between pages — was still the drawing of him from the bus.

“You kept it,” he said quietly.

“I liked it,” she admitted.

He studied the drawing, then looked at her. “You know… the song you heard in the café… I wrote it after that day.”

Sol’s heart raced. “After we met?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t usually get inspired that quickly. But something about you… it stayed with me.”

The world felt suddenly smaller and brighter at the same time.

“I didn’t know,” she whispered.

“You weren’t supposed to,” he smiled. “But maybe… I hoped you’d hear it anyway.”

A soft silence fell between them — not awkward, but full. Like something was quietly blooming in the space between their words.

As the sun dipped low, painting the sky in soft orange and pink, Sol realized something that made her chest warm.

Sometimes, love doesn’t arrive loudly.

Sometimes, it starts as a song you didn’t even know was written for you.