One afternoon, during their cultural studies class, the teacher announced a project:
"Design a presentation exploring the cultural harmony between your country and Korea. You may use art, architecture, music, or language."
Y/n's heart lifted. This was her chance.
"I'd like to do a visual journal," she said, her voice quiet but confident. "Sketches of spaces where cultures overlap. Indian and Korean elements in urban life."
The teacher nodded approvingly. "Excellent idea. You'll need a partner."
Before she could look around, a soft voice came from behind.
"I'll join her," Taehyung said.
No one objected. No one even questioned it.
It was as though the pairing had been written in the folds of the cranes and the edges of their sketchbooks all along.
They met in the library that weekend, taking the far table near the poetry section. Y/n laid out her notebooks, a few colored pens, a water bottle with turmeric lemon water, and a pouch of sticky notes labeled in both Devanagari and Hangul.
Taehyung brought a sketchpad, a mechanical pencil, and a bag of dried persimmons. "They're good with concentration," he said, offering her one.
They didn't speak much at first. Just flipped through architecture books — Korean palaces, Rajasthani forts, traditional homes. She pointed out how jaalis (the intricate stone window screens) from Jaipur resembled the latticework in hanok doors. He showed her how the courtyard-centered structure was common in both cultures — a design that made space for sky.
Y/n's heart warmed.
This wasn't just a project.
This was the beginning of her dream taking root — across two cultures, two ways of breathing, two languages of space.
"Why architecture?" Taehyung asked suddenly.
She looked up. The question wasn't abrupt. Just softly curious.
Y/n thought for a moment, then said,
"Because I think space changes people. The way a room opens. The way a shadow falls. The silence of a tall ceiling. It's all... emotional. I want to create places where people feel something. Where they remember who they are."
He didn't respond right away.
Just looked at her.
And then: "That's the most beautiful answer I've ever heard."
After hours of notes and diagrams, they finally packed up.
Taehyung walked her to the campus gate, hands tucked into his coat pockets. The air was getting colder now — late winter brushing against early spring.
Before they parted, he said, "Do you believe places can change people?"
She tilted her head. "I think... people carry their places inside them. But yes. A place can make you softer. Or stronger. Or... seen."
He nodded once, then reached into his sketchbook.
Another crane. But this one was different — made of translucent paper, with delicate ink lines inside.
He held it out without a word.
She took it.
And as she opened it back in her room that night, she saw what he had drawn inside:
A sketch of the courtyard they had shared that afternoon — her leaning over books, him sketching beside her, and between them... a space. Open. Bright. Shared.
She traced it with her fingertip and whispered into the quiet:
"Maybe this is what the beginning of something real feels like."
Monday came wrapped in the soft chill of late February. The trees were still bare, their branches like sketches against the pearl grey sky, but something in the air was shifting — not quite spring, not quite winter, but somewhere quietly in-between. Like Y/n herself.
The walk to school felt easier now. Her steps had purpose, her path had rhythm. She greeted the lady at the corner flower shop with a smile, paused near the old wall with ivy, and even noticed a mural being painted on the side of a nearby café — bright lotus flowers blooming against a backdrop of hanok rooftops.
That mural made her pause.
"It's like someone painted India onto Korea," she thought, smiling.
She took out her phone and snapped a photo.
Her first reference for a dream she hadn't told anyone yet —
a future exhibition: "Architecture of the In-Between."
A collection blending Jaipur and Seoul — heritage and modernity, sandstone and cherry blossoms, arches and hanoks.
At school, the routine was quietly comforting now.
A nod from Hana in the hallway.
A wave from her homeroom teacher.
And, without fail, a glance from Taehyung.
They hadn't spoken since the library session.
But they didn't need to.
Their eyes said enough.
He sat at the last bench, sketchbook open again. This time, he wasn't drawing her.
He was drawing a doorway — wooden, weathered, with a carving of a peacock on one side and a dragon on the other.
Y/n's heart caught in her throat.
The Rajasthani-Korean doorway they had designed together over the weekend.
He was still drawing it.
Still dreaming it.
During break, Hana dragged her to the canteen.
"You're glowing," Hana said, narrowing her eyes. "Is it Korean skincare or... someone?"
Y/n laughed, nearly choking on her water. "It's the light in the hallway."
"It's the light in Taehyung's eyes whenever you pass by," Hana smirked.
Y/n shook her head, cheeks warm. "It's not like that."
Hana leaned closer. "But you like him, don't you?"
The question hung in the air.
Y/n looked down at her tray, where grains of rice and bits of seaweed sat untouched.
"I... don't know," she whispered. "He makes me feel like... I belong here. But not because he says it. Because he just sees it."
Hana grinned. "That sounds a lot like liking."
Y/n smiled softly. "Maybe. Or maybe it's just... feeling safe for the first time in a long while."
That afternoon, their culture project got officially approved.
Their proposal — a visual sketchbook blending Korean and Indian architectural philosophies — was the first in the school's history to come from a cross-cultural pair. The vice principal even called them to her office.
"I love this idea," she said, flipping through their draft. "I'd like to showcase it at the International Student Exhibition next month. Can you both finish it by then?"
Taehyung nodded silently.
Y/n felt a quiet pride bloom in her chest.
Not just because of the recognition.
But because she was finally doing what she loved — and someone was watching her do it with wonder, not dismissal.
They spent the rest of the week working on the project together.
Each day after school, they met in the old art room — where no one really came except a few students staying late. The room smelled of paper and paint, and the windows always let in the evening light just right.
Y/n worked in pencil and charcoal. Taehyung added touches of watercolor.
Sometimes they argued over perspective.
Sometimes they sat in silence for minutes, lost in details.
But always, they built together.
One evening, as she was tracing the outline of an ancient Korean temple, her hand slipped and the line went crooked.
She sighed. "Ugh. Now I have to redo the page."
"No, don't," Taehyung said quietly.
She looked up, frowning.
"It's real," he said, eyes still on the sketch. "Even temples aren't perfect. Why should drawings be?"
Y/n stared at him for a long time.
That night, she didn't erase the line.
She shaded around it — turned the flaw into a shadow, a curve, a story.
And for the first time, she felt something inside her loosen.
A week passed. Then another.
Their project began to take shape — twenty pages of combined sketches, stories, poems, and diagrams. They titled it:
"Where the Sky Touches Both Homes."
The teachers praised it. Students whispered about it.
Some said they made a good team.
Others wondered if it was more.
Y/n tried not to think too much.
She only knew that each evening, when she walked home from school, her fingers itched to sketch, her ears remembered his voice, and her heart felt full — not dramatic, not restless, just... deeply full.
Then came a moment she hadn't expected.
A Saturday morning field trip — a school-sponsored visit to Changdeokgung Palace, open only to select students working on cultural projects. She and Taehyung were, of course, on the list.
They met at the school gate, both dressed in warm coats and scarves. Taehyung wore a dark grey scarf wrapped twice around his neck, and she carried a thermos of chai she had made at the dorm.
He accepted the cup without asking. Just smiled and said, "Smells like cardamom."
She looked up. "Smells like home."
The palace was sprawling — red wooden pillars, green rooftops with dragon heads, courtyards filled with gravel and silence. Y/n walked with quiet reverence, sketchbook in hand.
As the others explored, she stood before an old wooden pavilion overlooking a lotus pond — now frozen.
Taehyung came to stand beside her.
"You've gone quiet," he said.
She nodded. "I'm just... thinking."
"About?"
She looked at him.
"How beautiful it is... that we're allowed to leave pieces of ourselves in places that will outlive us."
Taehyung didn't speak.
Just reached out and gently tapped the edge of her sketchbook.
"Then draw something that deserves to last."
And she did.
She sketched the pavilion. Then, at the very edge of the drawing, she added two paper cranes — one perched, one mid-flight.
He saw it.
Smiled softly.
Said nothing.
But that night, when she got back to her dorm, she found a new message on her phone.
No words.
Just a photo.
A paper crane sitting at the palace railing.
The note beneath it read:
"Some places remember more than people do."
The palace trip shifted something — not loudly, not obviously — but like a weight being gently moved within Y/n's chest.
The next few days, her thoughts lingered more often on the stillness of the frozen pond, the pavilion's quiet breath, and how his eyes softened when she spoke about lasting things.
She didn't know what to call it yet.
But it wasn't just friendship.
It was something unspoken. Something... architectural in nature. Built on layers.
Midweek arrived with clouds and surprise — a soft snowfall covered Seoul overnight, turning the city into a monochrome sketch. Windows fogged, steps slowed, and laughter followed footprints in the school courtyard.
Y/n stood at her window early that morning, watching the snow fall over the ivy wall. Her sketchbook lay open beside her, and she added to her project:
"Snow is silence falling in fragments.
Seoul wears it with grace."
At school, the corridors buzzed with extra energy. Everyone seemed lighter — as if snow gave them permission to be children again.
Y/n entered Class 2-B, cheeks pink from the wind, scarf knotted carefully at her neck. She was just about to take her seat when—
Thump.
Something landed gently on her desk.
A folded note.
Just like the paper cranes — but not folded this time.
She opened it.
"Meet me on the rooftop. 12:10. Don't worry, it's not a kidnapping."
– T."
Her heart skipped once. Then twice. Then steadied itself like a drum.
When the lunch bell rang, she slipped away quietly, climbing the narrow staircase past the art room, through the fire door, and onto the rooftop.
The wind was cold. The sky, endless.
And there he was.
Taehyung stood near the railing, hands in his pockets, scarf fluttering slightly in the wind. Snowflakes clung to his hair. For a moment, he looked like he belonged to the sky.
She stepped toward him, her boots crunching softly against the snow-dusted floor.
"You called for me," she said, softly teasing.
He turned. Smiled.
"I wanted to show you something."
He pointed toward the far end of the rooftop.
There, lined neatly in a row, were five paper cranes, each made of different textures of paper — map print, old music sheets, newsprint, calligraphy pages... and at the center, a bright marigold-colored one.
"They're all from our moments," he said. "Each one folded after something you said. Something that stayed with me."
Y/n felt her throat tighten. She looked at the marigold one.
"That one?" she asked.
He nodded.
"That's the day you said 'even shadows are part of design.'"
"That line hasn't left me since."
She didn't know what to say.
So she walked to the row of cranes.
Bent slightly.
And gently picked up the marigold one.
Inside was a small note.
"I see you."
That's all it said.
But to Y/n —
A girl from Jaipur.
A student still finding her voice in Seoul.
A dreamer with her heart drawn in blueprints —
That sentence felt louder than a love confession.
She turned slowly.
Taehyung hadn't moved.
Her voice was quiet, but steady.
"I see you too."
They didn't talk much after that.
Not about feelings.
Not about what was blooming between the lines.
But their silences grew warmer.
Their glances lingered longer.
Their hands brushed more often.
And each moment spent sketching together felt less like homework and more like habit — like something that had always existed, just waiting for them to find it.
One evening, while working in the art room, Taehyung brought out a fresh sheet.
"I want us to draw one thing together," he said.
She looked up from her line work.
"What?"
"A doorway."
She raised a brow. "Again?"
He smiled. "Yes. But this time, not from our countries. From our minds. Our future."
Her heart skipped again.
And then they began — two pencils, one page.
She drew arches shaped like the peacock feathers she remembered from Jaipur.
He added frames shaped like cranes.
She carved symbols of the sun.
He shaded in moonlight.
It wasn't just a doorway.
It was a beginning.
That night, she opened her diary and wrote:
"I've always wanted to design homes. But now...
I wonder if I'm already building one —
with memories, glances, and moments stitched in silence."
She closed the diary. Taped a photo of the rooftop cranes next to it.
And for the first time in weeks, she slept without homesickness pressing at her ribs.
But it had already begun.
With a glance.
From the last bench.
To the first.
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