If there was one thing Mirae Sol hated more than cold coffee, it was unfinished endings.

  Unfortunately, her life seemed to be full of both.

  It all started on a Monday morning. The kind of morning where the sunlight streams lazily through half-open blinds, and you swear the world itself is conspiring to be just a little too loud. Mirae sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor, surrounded by scattered notebooks, half-empty cups of tea, and a phone that buzzed insistently every few minutes. She hated mornings, and Monday mornings were the worst. But today was different. Today, the universe had decided to remind her exactly why.

  Her phone vibrated violently against the wooden floor, sliding dangerously close to the edge of her desk. She grabbed it just in time, frowning at the notification that glared back at her like it had been personally assigned to ruin her life.

  “Your video is trending. Again.”

  Her eyes widened. Not in joy, not in excitement, not even in disbelief. Just a quiet, sinking kind of horror.

  She had forgotten.

  Forgotten entirely that the video existed.

  The one video. The one that had been meant as a joke. A harmless, private joke between friends. She had filmed it late at night, after hours of rehearsing a skit with her best friend, Jisoo Han. They had laughed so hard that Mirae had cried, barely able to speak between gasps for air. They had uploaded it with the privacy setting on, trusting that no one outside their small circle would see it.

  Trust.

  It was a word that seemed meaningless now.

  Because someone—someone with too much time, too much curiosity, and a dangerous sense of humor—had shared it. And now, it was everywhere. Trending. Viral. Immortalized.

  Mirae rubbed her temples, trying to massage away the headache that had begun to pulse at the base of her skull.

  She hated attention.

  She hated people looking at her and thinking they knew her.

  And most of all, she hated that this video had turned her sixteen-year-old life upside down overnight.

  The first time she met Jisoo Han, she had thought he was insufferable. Sixteen years old, permanently sleepy, ranked dead last in pretty much everything that mattered, and somehow convinced that life had dealt him the perfect hand. Mirae had been overly ambitious, precise, and annoyingly punctual. Their personalities clashed almost instantly, sparks flying in a way that made every group project an endurance test.

  And yet, in that small, awkward, teenage way, they had become friends.

  Best friends.

  The kind of friendship built on late-night phone calls, shared snacks during boring school assemblies, and secret plans that no one else would understand.

  So when the video was posted, it wasn’t just Mirae’s reputation on the line—it was theirs.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  And she was losing control fast.

  The notification on her phone changed again. A small, bold number blinked at her. 1,000,000 views.

  Her jaw dropped. One million views.

  She sank to the edge of her bed, phone trembling in her hand.

  “Jisoo,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

  From the other side of her room, a sleepy groan answered her. “What is it now?”

  “THE VIDEO!” she shrieked, flinging the phone toward him.

  Jisoo sat up, hair sticking in random directions, and grabbed the phone with one hand, squinting at the screen. “Whoa… oh no…”

  Mirae groaned, facepalming. “I told you! I told you this would happen if we ever… I don’t even know… touched the internet!”

  Jisoo smirked. “You said it would only go to our friends.”

  “Yes, that’s the whole problem! ‘Our friends’ doesn’t mean a million strangers watching me trip over a chair and scream like a banshee!”

  Jisoo laughed softly, and despite herself, Mirae cracked a smile. It was impossible not to laugh with him, even in the middle of a personal disaster. “You have to admit,” he said, “it was kind of funny.”

  “Kind of funny? Kind of funny?!” Mirae threw her pillow at him. “People are calling me—what?—‘The Girl Who Screamed at a Chair.’ This is humiliating!”

  Jisoo ducked just in time, catching the pillow. “Okay, okay, maybe that part was a little embarrassing. But the editing! That little slow-motion part where you flail your arms? Pure comedy gold.”

  Mirae groaned again. “Gold?! It’s humiliation in HD!”

  Her gaze fell on the comments section. Trolls, admirers, confused strangers, and a few who seemed dangerously enthusiastic about knowing everything about her appeared in a relentless stream. Every few seconds, a new comment popped up: “OMG I can’t stop watching ??”, “She’s actually adorable???”, “Who is she? I need to know!”

  Mirae curled her hands into fists. “Adorable?! Who calls humiliation adorable?!”

  Jisoo shrugged. “The world, apparently.”

  She felt her stomach twist. The adrenaline of embarrassment, fear, and panic mixed into a sharp, uncomfortable knot. She wanted to run. To disappear. To hide under her blankets and never open her phone again.

  But she didn’t.

  Because running had never solved anything.

  Mirae stood and paced the small room, biting her lip. The sun streamed weakly through her blinds, highlighting the chaos of scattered papers, books, and art supplies. This room had always been her sanctuary. Her safe corner of the world. And now it felt like a stage. A stage she never wanted to perform on.

  Jisoo got up too, trying to calm her. “Look, Mirae,” he said softly, “we can handle this. We just… need a plan.”

  “A plan?” she asked, incredulous. “You think a plan exists for when a video you made as a joke gets a million views overnight?”

  “Yes,” he said firmly. “And it starts with not panicking. Step one: breathe. Step two: don’t read the comments anymore. Step three: survive high school without passing out in front of everyone.”

  She stared at him. “You make it sound so easy.”

  “Because it is easy,” he replied with mock confidence. “Sort of.”

  She rolled her eyes but allowed herself to sit back on the bed. She could feel the pounding of her heart slowing, ever so slightly. Somehow, despite everything, his calmness grounded her.

  The rest of the morning was a blur of frantic text messages, phone calls she barely had the courage to answer, and carefully staged attempts to look normal on social media. By noon, Mirae had realized that hiding was impossible. The video was everywhere. Memes, reposts, reactions. Her face stared at her from screens large and small across the city.

  And then, as if fate had decided to compound the chaos, her teacher, Mr. Han, called her name during lunch.

  “Mirae Sol,” he said, voice loud enough for half the cafeteria to hear, “care to explain why this video is trending today?”

  She froze, the color draining from her face.

  Jisoo, sitting beside her, stifled a laugh that almost gave them both away.

  Mirae’s hand shook as she raised it. “Uh… it’s… it’s art?”

  “Art?”

  “Yes! Artistic expression! A—uh—visual commentary on… chairs and… personal space!”

  The class blinked. Then burst into laughter. Not mean-spirited, but uncontrollable.

  Mirae buried her face in her hands, hoping the ground would swallow her.

  Jisoo leaned over and whispered, “Not bad. Very convincing.”

  “Shut up,” she hissed, although a small smile broke through.

  By the end of the day, Mirae understood one undeniable truth: the world would never see her the same way again. The video refused to die. It had taken on a life of its own. People who had never met her had opinions, ideas, and theories about who she was. They thought they knew her. They didn’t.

  And yet, in the middle of panic and embarrassment, Mirae felt something else.

  A spark.

  Because if one video could change everything about how the world saw her, maybe… just maybe, she could also change how she saw herself.

  It wasn’t comfort. Not yet.

  But it was something.

  And sometimes, in the chaos of life, that was enough.