Until then, no one had said a word.
They were all waiting for Kim Joon to speak.
He sat on the floor, one knee raised, absentmindedly tracing invisible lines across the floor with the tip of his toe.
Minutes passed.
Nothing.
Finally, Jinhun couldn't take the silence anymore.
"Should we... go to our rooms?"
Kim Joon didn't respond.
Jinhun glanced toward Yomin, silently asking what they were supposed to do now.
Yomin only shrugged and leaned his head back against the sofa.
He had a feeling this wasn't ending anytime soon.
A few more minutes passed.
Then, finally—
"What you did to her today..."
Kim Joon's voice was calm, but there was something sharp underneath it.
"Wasn't it the exact same thing you were angry at her for doing to you?"
Jeon J lowered his head.
His fingers tightened around each other.
"I..."
He stopped.
"I just wanted her to stay away from me."
His voice was quiet.
"Before... I thought I meant something to her."
A bitter smile briefly touched his lips.
"But today..."
He looked down.
"I saw this confidence in her. Like... I wasn't even there."
His jaw tightened.
"It made me angry."
A pause.
"And before I even realized what I was doing, I was talking about her."
He swallowed.
"I knew she was standing near the door."
No one moved.
Kim Joon watched him for a moment.
"Maybe Zoya isn't the girl you think she is."
Jeon J looked up slightly.
"Maybe everything you've been thinking about her..."
Kim Joon paused.
"...is just a misunderstanding."
A faint, almost humorless smile appeared on Jeon J's face.
"I thought that too."
He took a slow breath.
"That's why I went to the Central Mosque."
Kim Joon's eyes narrowed.
"I wanted to clear my doubts."
Jeon J rubbed his thumb against his palm.
"I was sitting in the office, waiting for Mr. Donghyun. I wanted to ask him what those words meant."
Kim Joon stared at him.
"How do you even know Mr. Donghyun knows what those words mean?"
Jeon J said nothing.
Kim Joon took a step closer.
"Or did you go there because you wanted to see Zoya?"
Jeon J's eyes lifted.
"And if someone asked why you were there, you could just say you came to ask Mr. Donghyun something."
His voice became firmer.
"And answer me one thing."
A beat.
"After you met Mr. Donghyun..."
Kim Joon looked directly into his eyes.
"Did you actually ask him the question you supposedly went there for?"
Jeon J opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Kim Joon's jaw tightened.
That was enough of an answer.
For years, Jeon J had been the one who kept his head when everyone else lost theirs.
He thought before speaking.
He rarely let emotions make decisions for him.
But lately...
That wasn't the Jeon J they knew.
And Kim Joon was starting to lose patience.
Yet Jeon J didn't defend himself.
Instead, his gaze drifted away.
"When I was waiting..."
His voice was quieter now.
"I heard some girls talking in the room next to the office."
Everyone's attention returned to him.
"The window faced the office, so their voices carried."
He swallowed.
"And then..."
A pause.
"I heard her."
The room went still.
"Zoya?"
Jeon J nodded.
"She started reciting the same words."
His eyes lowered.
"She hadn't even finished when Jea called me."
He could still hear the phone ringing in his memory.
"My phone rang."
He took a breath.
"And the moment it did, she went quiet."
Yomin frowned.
"Because she heard your phone ring?"
Jeon J nodded.
"If I could hear her..."
He looked up.
"She could hear my phone too."
He paused.
"So I got up and left."
"But you said she didn't finish the words."
Yomin leaned forward.
"Maybe what you hear in your dreams isn't the same thing Zoya was reciting."
Jeon J gave a small nod.
"I tried telling myself that."
He looked away again.
"But..."
His voice faded.
"Before I ever met her..."
A beat.
"Before any of this happened..."
His fingers slowly curled.
"When I rushed to Busan after hearing about Bamson..."
He stopped.
The memory came back with frightening clarity.
"There was a girl sitting in the seat ahead of me on the plane."
Everyone waited.
"She was crying."
The room became quieter.
"Then she started reciting those same words."
Jeon J looked down at his hands.
"I tried to see her face."
A pause.
"But I couldn't."
He swallowed.
"Later, I found out that—"
"Wait."
Kim Joon suddenly interrupted.
Jeon J looked up.
"You investigated all of this yourself?"
Jeon J hesitated.
"No."
"Then who did?"
A beat.
"...Jea."
Kim Joon's eyes widened.
"Jea knows too?"
He pushed himself to his feet.
"Seriously?"
He started toward the door.
"How many people are going to know about this before you actually—"
"My misunderstanding ended that night."
Kim Joon stopped.
His hand was already on the door.
Slowly, he turned around.
Jeon J was still sitting on the floor.
"I heard everything..."
His voice trembled.
"...from her own mouth."
Kim Joon said nothing.
"She was terrified that night."
Jeon J's eyes became wet.
"She was crying so much."
His voice broke slightly.
"And that's when I realized..."
He took a breath.
"I had been wrong."
Kim Joon slowly walked back into the room.
Jeon J looked toward the floor.
"I thought she would blame me."
A bitter laugh escaped him.
"After everything I'd done..."
He wiped beneath one eye.
"I thought she'd hate me."
He took another breath.
"But then I opened the kitchen camera feed."
His voice softened.
"She was standing there..."
A pause.
"Holding a glass of juice."
No one interrupted.
"She looked directly at the ceiling camera."
Jeon J's eyes remained fixed on the floor.
"I still don't know how..."
His voice dropped.
"...but it felt like she knew I was watching."
The room was completely silent.
"Then she started talking."
His fingers tightened.
"First, she talked about Ji-won."
His jaw clenched.
"The wounds."
"The slaps."
"The cuts on her arm."
"The way her scarf had been pulled in front of everyone."
His breathing slowed.
"And the whole time..."
He stopped.
"...she wasn't angry."
Yomin's eyes lifted.
Jeon J shook his head.
"No."
His voice cracked.
"That's what I couldn't understand."
He looked away.
"Anyone else would have cursed me."
A pause.
"Anyone else would have blamed me."
He swallowed.
"But she didn't."
His eyes closed.
"She said she would keep praying for me."
Silence.
"Even after everything."
No one moved.
Then Jeon J opened his eyes again.
"And then..."
His voice softened.
"She started talking about me."
A faint smile appeared.
"At first, I thought it was another confession."
A quiet laugh escaped him.
"I hear confessions everywhere."
Teahun's expression changed slightly, but he didn't say anything.
"But this one..."
Jeon J shook his head.
"This wasn't a confession."
He looked down.
"It felt like..."
He struggled for the words.
"...someone quietly handing you their heart while already knowing they could never have yours."
No one spoke.
"She said she didn't know me."
His eyes filled again.
"She didn't know how famous I was."
A tiny smile appeared.
"She didn't even know who Jeon J was."
He gave a tired little laugh.
"And then she said she wasn't my fan."
Yomin frowned.
Jeon J nodded.
"At first, I thought she was lying."
He looked toward the others.
"But then she started telling me about the first time she saw me."
The room remained still.
"She said I was holding a little girl's hand on stage."
A weak laugh escaped him.
"For a few seconds, she thought the girl was my daughter."
Teahun's lips twitched.
Even Kim Joon couldn't stop a brief smile.
But it disappeared just as quickly.
Jeon J's expression changed again.
"Then she told me something I'll never forget."
His voice softened.
"Her father was sitting right in front of her."
A pause.
"She was scrolling through her phone."
"My video appeared."
He stared somewhere far beyond the room.
"She looked at the screen..."
Then—
"...she looked at her father."
Silence.
"He was talking to her."
Jeon J swallowed.
"So she put the phone away."
His fingers slowly tightened.
"And listened to him."
No one spoke.
"Three days later..."
His voice became barely audible.
"...her father passed away."
The room seemed to lose all sound.
Jeon J lowered his head.
"She said she doesn't remember what was on the screen."
His eyes became wet.
"She only remembers turning away from it..."
He took a shaky breath.
"...and listening to her father."
Nobody moved.
Because suddenly, the story wasn't about Jeon J anymore.
It was about a daughter sitting beside her father, unaware that she was living through one of their last ordinary moments together.
Jeon J released a slow breath.
"That's when I realized something."
He looked up.
"I wasn't the reason that memory stayed with her."
A pause.
"I was just there."
His voice softened.
"A tiny detail..."
"...in one of the last ordinary moments she had with her father."
The words settled heavily over the room.
"When people confess to us..."
A faint smile appeared.
"...their stories usually begin with us."
His eyes lowered.
"But hers didn't."
He shook his head.
"Her story began with her father."
Silence.
"And somehow..."
His voice almost disappeared.
"...I became part of the story that came after."
He rubbed his face.
"She told me she was supposed to go to China."
His gaze drifted away again.
"She had plans."
"A direction."
"A future she thought she understood."
A faint, almost disbelieving laugh escaped him.
"But somehow..."
"...she ended up on a flight to Busan."
Nobody spoke.
"The way she talked about it..."
Jeon J's voice became quieter.
"...she didn't sound like someone who believed she'd found me."
He paused.
"She said Allah knows what she hides in her heart."
His throat tightened.
"And honestly..."
He stopped.
For several seconds, he couldn't continue.
Then he forced the words out.
"That was the moment I stopped feeling like the main character in her story."
The room went completely silent.
Because they understood.
People had spent years building pieces of their lives around Jeon J.
They traveled for him.
Spent money on him.
Changed plans because of him.
Dreamed because of him.
But Zoya...
She hadn't been standing in front of him because she'd spent years chasing a star.
She was simply trying to understand the path Allah had written for her.
And somehow...
Jeon J had become part of that path.
He looked down.
"Then she started talking about love."
His voice faltered.
"'Love, for me, was never about having someone.'"
Kim Joon's expression changed.
"'It was about praying for someone without them knowing.'"
No one spoke.
Jeon J took a shaky breath.
"Then she started listing all the reasons we could never be together."
A painful smile touched his lips.
"One by one."
He made a small gesture with his fingers.
"Like she was building walls between us."
His voice grew quieter.
"She said I was a global star."
A pause.
"And she was just an ordinary girl."
"She said the whole world knew who Jeon.J was..."
His eyes lowered.
"...but nobody knew who she was."
He swallowed.
"Then she talked about our age."
Teahun frowned slightly.
Jeon.J nodded.
"She said she was born in '95."
A beat.
"And I was born in '97."
His eyes drifted away.
"Then she talked about language."
"Different countries."
"Different cultures."
"Different lives."
He paused.
"And religion."
The room became completely still.
"She said some differences aren't measured in distance."
His eyes filled again.
"They exist inside people's worlds."
He rubbed his face.
"And the whole time..."
A painful little laugh escaped him.
"...it felt like she wasn't trying to convince me."
He looked down.
"She was trying to convince herself."
Silence.
Heavy.
Uncomfortable.
Real.
"Then she said..."
Jeon J's voice broke.
"'Maybe our paths were never meant to meet.'"
He closed his eyes.
"'So how could they ever separate?'"
Kim Joon slowly sat down.
Something in his expression had changed.
He finally understood.
Those weren't the words of someone waiting to be chosen.
They were the words of someone trying to let go.
Jeon J swallowed.
"Then she smiled."
A tear escaped the corner of his eye.
"That kind of smile..."
He shook his head.
"...the one people wear when they've already accepted losing."
His voice trembled.
"Then she said she'd keep praying for me."
A pause.
"She said she always had."
His lips parted.
"And she always would."
Nobody spoke.
Jeon J stared at the floor.
Then—
"There was something else."
Everyone looked at him.
His voice dropped.
"She said..."
A long pause.
"'I know all of you have figured it out by now.'"
His breathing slowed.
"'Yes... I'm the girl from the plane.'"
The room froze.
Jeon J's fingers tightened.
"Then she mentioned the bracelet with MJ's letter."
His eyes became distant.
"Everything suddenly made sense."
"The plane."
"The mosque."
"The dreams."
"The letter."
"The prayers."
His voice shook.
"All those pieces..."
He looked down.
"They finally connected."
A long silence.
"And then..."
His voice broke completely.
"...she looked straight into the camera."
No one moved.
"She said..."
Jeon J swallowed hard.
"'Take care of yourself.'"
The words seemed to hang in the room.
His eyes closed.
"'Goodbye.'"
Silence.
Complete silence.
Jeon J lowered his head.
For several seconds, he couldn't say anything.
Then a tear slipped down his cheek.
"And for some reason..."
He wiped it away, almost impatiently.
"...that goodbye hurt more than every confession I've ever heard."
No one knew what to say.
Because this wasn't the kind of story they had expected to hear tonight.
Jeon J had heard thousands of words from people who loved him.
People who wanted to be noticed by him.
People who wanted a place beside him.
But Zoya had done something completely different.
She had loved him quietly.
Prayed for him without asking him to know.
And when she believed their paths could never meet...
She had let him go.
Without asking for anything.
Without demanding anything.
Without even asking him to remember her.
Jeon J sat there, staring at the floor.
And for the first time...
Kim Joon didn't see a global star sitting in front of him.
He saw his friend.
A boy who had finally realized that somewhere between a dream, a prayer, a plane ride, and a goodbye...
He had fallen for the one person who had never once asked him to fall.
To be continued...
Regards,
ZK💌