Seo-ah's POV
Healing didn't happen like the stories said it would.
There was no dramatic moment when everything fell into place. No perfect sunrise that swept away the pain. For Seo-ah Moon, healing arrived in quieter forms—like staring at a blank screen at 1:13 a.m. with the hum of her desk lamp buzzing low, and an ache in her chest that only stories could reach.
It was two weeks after the breakup. Two weeks after the slap, whispers followed her through the hallways like applause echoing through empty stadiums. Two weeks of well-meaning messages and shallow gossip and Ji-won defending her in places she never even walked through.
And yet, inside, there was still a strange kind of silence. A hollow space she didn't know how to fill.
Until she opened a new document.
Until she typed three words:
Seon-woo looked up.
And suddenly, something inside her shifted.
It wasn't supposed to be a story.
Not really.
She wasn't trying to prove anything. She wasn't writing to be read. She was writing to breathe.
But slowly, that one line became a paragraph. Then a page. Then a scene. A rooftop, a cold winter wind, a boy with thoughtful eyes and a habit of folding paper planes when he was anxious. Seon-woo.
He wasn't like Han-jin.
Where Han-jin had charm, Seon-woo had sincerity. Where Han-jin had heat, Seon-woo had warmth. He didn't yell. He didn't demand it. He listened—really listened—in a way only fictional boys ever did. He carried the kind of softness Seo-ah had longed for in silence, the kind of patience she never knew she deserved.
She wrote until the sky outside began to shift from black to indigo.
That night, she created a new account on Wattpad.
No photos. No real name. Just a username she typed without thinking too much:
MoonWriter.
Something about it felt... right. Like folding a piece of herself into something secret, private, beautiful. Not for anyone else. Just for her.
She uploaded the first chapter of her new story: Paper Planes and Moonlight.
She didn't expect anyone to read it.
She didn't care.
"You've been quiet lately," Ji-won said a few days later, sliding into the seat across from her at their favorite café. "More than usual. Are you okay?"
Seo-ah nodded. "I'm writing."
"Sketching?"
"No. Writing. A story."
Ji-won raised her brows. "Like fiction?"
Seo-ah shrugged, playing with the edge of her cup. "More like... a letter I never sent."
Ji-won smiled gently. "You finally wrote one of your sketchboys into life?"
Seo-ah looked out the window, where the world moved slowly under a grey sky. "Something like that."
Writing became a ritual.
She'd come home from the library, take a long shower, change into her softest hoodie, and open her laptop like it was a door to somewhere safer.
Every chapter poured out of her like a confession—words she couldn't say to anyone, wounds she couldn't explain. She gave them to Seon-woo, and through him, to the readers she didn't know existed yet.
He wasn't perfect. But he was kind. He noticed things—like when someone fidgeted with their sleeves or flinched at loud voices. He asked questions and waited for the real answers. And when the girl in the story—Seo-ah never gave her a name—began to fall apart, Seon-woo simply stayed.
That's all she had ever wanted.
Someone who stayed.
She checked her story stats only once a week.
The numbers climbed slowly. Then more steadily. A few hundred reads. Then over a thousand. Comments trickled in—messages from strangers saying her words felt like home.
She didn't reply to most.
She didn't need to.
This wasn't about being liked. It wasn't about trending.
It was therapy.
It was survival.
It was the only thing that made her feel real.
One night, Seo-ah sat in her room, laptop glowing, fingers paused on the keyboard.
She'd just written a scene where Seon-woo found the girl sitting alone on a swing set in the middle of winter. She'd written his dialogue carefully—soft, simple.
"You don't have to tell me everything," Seon-woo says. "But don't hide from me either. I see you."
Seo-ah stared at the line.
And then she broke.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just a quiet, steady stream of tears as her hand pressed against her mouth and her body curled slightly inward like a closing flower.
She wasn't crying because of Han-jin anymore.
She was crying because Seon-woo saw her.
Even if he wasn't real.
Especially because he wasn't.
A few days later, Ji-won found her rereading her own story on her phone.
"Wait—this is your story?" Ji-won blinked. "Paper Planes and Moonlight is blowing up on Wattpad. Everyone in the forum's talking about Seon-woo."
Seo-ah stiffened. "You read it?"
"Of course I read it. I just didn't know it was you!" Ji-won looked at her, eyes wide. "That's your writing voice. You're MoonWriter?"
Seo-ah hesitated. Then nodded slowly.
Ji-won smiled, softer this time. "It's beautiful, you know. Not just Seon-woo. But... the girl. Her pain. It's real."
Seo-ah didn't speak.
But Ji-won leaned closer, voice quiet.
"You wrote your way out of him, didn't you?"
Seo-ah swallowed. "I'm trying."
That night, Seo-ah opened her inbox.
Among the usual fan messages and Wattpad updates, one stood out:
[username: HyunVerse]
"I don't know who you are, but thank you for writing this. Seon-woo feels like the kind of person I didn't know I needed to meet. He's quiet, but every word hits hard. Just like you. Please keep writing."
She smiled. Just a little.
Then opened a blank document for Chapter 12.
Because writing wasn't just healing.
It was hope.
And sometimes, fiction was the only way to tell the truth.