#kyungjun

Not the phone call. Not the police station. Not the funeral with no body, no ashes, no proof, just a framed school photo on a wooden stand and a line of white chrysanthemums wilting beneath fluorescent lights.

It was the morning before all of it, the stupid, normal, careless morning I kept returning to like a loose tooth I couldn’t stop worrying with my tongue. The kind of morning no one respects because nothing in it announces itself as the last. The sky had been pale and thin, the kind of washed-out blue that made the apartment buildings look flat and tired. My uniform collar had been crooked. I remembered that because Kyung-jun had noticed it before I did, had clicked his tongue like I was personally embarrassing him, and reached over to fix it with fingers that were too rough for something so small.

“You go out looking like this?” he’d said, like he was disgusted, like his ears weren’t turning red because we were standing close enough for me to smell the mint gum on his breath.

I’d swatted his hand away even though he was already done. “You always act like you’re my stylist.”

“Someone has to. You dress like you lost a fight with your closet.”

“You dress like you bully mirrors.” He had laughed then, sudden and loud, head tipping back a little, sharp teeth flashing under the weak morning light. Kyung-jun always laughed like he expected the world to flinch from it. Like joy, for him, was another kind of threat.

Then he had walked backward down the sidewalk, hands shoved into his pockets, his schoolbag hanging off one shoulder, too big and too broad and too careless for the narrow street. He had smirked at me when I told him to hurry up before he was late.

“You worried about me?”

“No. I’m worried your teachers might finally realize you’re a lost cause.”

“Liar,” he’d said, pointing at me like he’d caught me doing something embarrassing. “You’re obsessed with me.”

I’d rolled my eyes. He’d grinned wider. And then he’d turned around. That was it. That was the last clean thing. The last version of him I had before the world split open.

By lunchtime, he wasn’t answering my texts. By the end of school, his phone went straight to voicemail. I told myself he was being annoying. I told myself he was probably sleeping through class, probably fighting with someone, probably doing that thing where he saw messages and decided responding too fast made him look pathetic, as if I didn’t already know exactly how pathetic he could be when no one else was watching. I sent him a voice message calling him an asshole. I sent three question marks. I called once, twice, five times, then stared at the screen until the letters of his name blurred into a dark little wound.

The call from his grandmother came at 7:42 p.m.

I remembered the time because I spent months staring at it in my call history until the phone replaced it with a date, and then I stared at that too, as if time itself had done something wrong by moving.

When I answered, her voice was not a voice at first. It was breath. A broken, shallow sound, like she’d been running though I knew her knees hurt too much for running, like she was holding the phone with both hands and still couldn’t keep it steady.

“Halmeoni?” I said, already standing. She said my name once. Just once. And everything inside me went quiet.

There are certain kinds of fear the body understands before the mind does. My hand tightened around the phone until the edges dug into my palm. I could hear the television playing in the living room behind me, some variety show with canned laughter bursting too brightly through the walls. Outside, someone’s scooter whined past the building. Somewhere, a dog barked and barked, sharp and ordinary, furious at nothing.

“What happened?” I asked.

She tried to answer. I heard her inhale. I heard the wet, trembling catch of her mouth opening and closing around words that would not come out right.

“Kyung-jun,” she said. My heart kicked once, hard enough to hurt.

“What about him?”

“He’s gone.”

For one stupid second, I thought she meant he had left the house. I thought she meant he had stormed out after an argument, that he had been rude, that he had slammed a door, that he had done what he always did when something pressed too close to the soft places he kept hidden. I almost felt relief. I almost said, I’ll call him. I almost said, He’ll come back.

Then she said, “His whole class.”

My fingers slipped on the phone. “What?”

“They’re gone. All of them,” she whispered, and then the whisper broke, and suddenly she sounded very old. Older than she had that morning. Older than she had ever sounded pouring me tea, scolding Kyung-jun for eating too fast, pretending not to notice when he sat too close to me at the table and stole fish from my bowl. “The school called. The police are there. No one knows—no one knows where they are.”

I do not remember getting my shoes on.

I remember the floor tilting. I remember my bedroom doorframe under my hand. I remember saying his name, not to her, not really, but into the apartment, into the air, into whatever part of the world had swallowed him. I remember my mother asking what was wrong from the kitchen and the way I could not look at her because looking at another living person would make it real. I remember my throat closing so tightly that my first sob came out silent, my whole chest convulsing around nothing.

Then sound returned all at once.

“No,” I said, and it was ugly. Small. Childish. “No, no, no, no, no.”

His grandmother was crying. I had heard her cry once before, softly, when Kyung-jun got into a fight so bad he came home with his cheek split and blood dried black beneath his nose. She’d cried in the kitchen where he couldn’t see, wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist before turning around and yelling at him for being an idiot. That cry had been tired. Worried. Human.

This was different.

This was an animal sound trapped in an old woman’s body.

“I’m coming,” I said.

I don’t know how I got there so fast. I must have run the whole way because my lungs burned by the time I reached the building, and my legs felt strange under me, too light and too weak, like they belonged to someone who had already fallen. His grandmother opened the door before I knocked. Her hair was loose from its usual careful bun. One side of her cardigan had been buttoned wrong. She looked at me, and whatever strength she had been using to stay upright simply left her.

I caught her before she hit the floor.

For a moment we stood there in the doorway holding each other like two people caught in the same wave, her hands clutching the back of my hoodie, my face pressed into the powdery smell of her shoulder. She was crying into my hair. I was crying into her cardigan. Neither of us said his name, because his name had become a door we could not open without falling through.

Inside, the apartment looked exactly the same.

That was cruel too.

His shoes were still by the entrance, kicked sideways because he never put anything away properly unless his grandmother threatened to hit him with a slipper. His jacket hung on the back of the chair. A half-empty bottle of banana milk sat on the table, the straw still punched through the silver top. His grandmother had made stew. I could smell it on the stove, warm and rich and untouched, the scent filling the little apartment like an insult.

“What did they say?” I asked, wiping my face with my sleeve because my hands were shaking too badly to do it properly.

She told me what she knew. It was almost nothing.

The class had left school. The school said there had been a planned activity, but no one could confirm the location. The bus driver had been found unconscious at a rest stop with no memory after a certain point. Phones were dead. The GPS data stopped at the same time for everyone. No ransom. No accident reports. No bodies. No wreckage. Just an entire class folded out of the world like someone had taken scissors to the day and cut them cleanly from it.

His grandmother kept repeating, “He would have called me.”

And I kept saying, “I know.”

Because he would have.

He was careless with teachers and cruel with classmates and loud enough to make strangers turn around in restaurants, but he called his grandmother if he was going to be late. Not always politely. Sometimes it was just, “I’m not dead, stop nagging,” before hanging up. But he called.

He would have called me too.

Even if it was only to be annoying. Even if it was only to send a voice message saying, “Yah, why are you blowing up my phone like a psycho?” Even if he pretended not to like it. Even if he made me want to throw my phone at a wall.

He would have answered.

After a while, I went to his room.

His door creaked the same way it always did. His grandmother kept telling him to fix it, and he kept saying he would, and then he never did because Kyung-jun lived as if every tiny responsibility was a personal attack. The room smelled like him. Laundry detergent and cheap cologne and something warm beneath it, sweat and skin and the ghost of him pressed into the sheets. His desk was messy. Textbooks open and abandoned. A pen without its cap. A receipt from a convenience store crumpled beside his keyboard. His bed was unmade, blanket twisted from the morning, pillow dented where his head had been.

I stood there staring at it until the room blurred.

Then I crawled onto his bed and broke.

Not prettily. Not the kind of crying that belongs in dramas, with tears shining silently under soft lighting. I cried like my body was trying to reject the truth before it could settle inside me. My mouth opened around sounds I could not control. My fingers twisted in his blanket until the fabric burned my knuckles. I pressed my face into his pillow and breathed him in so hard it hurt, as if there might be enough left of him in the cotton to keep him real. As if he was hiding in the smell of his own bed. As if grief was a thing I could outsmart by refusing to lift my head.

At some point his grandmother came in. She did not tell me to stop. She sat on the edge of the mattress and touched my hair with trembling fingers.

“He loves you,” she whispered. I squeezed my eyes shut.

“He’s coming back,” I said into the pillow. The words were muffled. Wet. Desperate enough to humiliate me if anyone else had heard them. His grandmother’s hand stilled.

Then she said, very quietly, “Yes.” But she did not sound like she believed it.

Six months later, the police asked the families to hold funerals.

They did not use the word ask at first. They dressed it up in gentle voices and official phrases, grief counseling language and practical advice, all those careful, padded words adults use when they have run out of answers and want their failure to sound kind. They said the investigation would remain open. They said search efforts would continue if new evidence appeared. They said absence of bodies did not erase hope, but the human mind needed ritual, closure, a place to mourn.

Closure.

I hated that word so much I felt it in my teeth.

The funeral hall smelled like flowers and polished wood and too many people breathing in one room. Every missing student had a framed photograph. Every photo had a black ribbon in the corner. Kyung-jun’s picture was one from school, his tie slightly loose, his expression caught somewhere between bored and irritated. He looked like he might step out of the frame just to complain about how ugly the photo was.

I stood in front of it for a long time.

People moved around me in dark clothes. Mothers collapsed against fathers. Fathers stared at the floor with red eyes and clenched jaws. Someone wailed from the far end of the hall, a raw sound that rose and fell until it became part of the air. The classmates’ younger siblings stood confused and frightened at the edges, dressed in black too big for them, holding white flowers they didn’t know what to do with.

Kyung-jun’s grandmother held my hand so tightly my fingers went numb.

I did not cry at first.

I couldn’t.

I stared at his face until the edges of the photograph sharpened unnaturally, until I could see the tiny strand of hair falling near his eyebrow, the slight curl of his mouth like he was about to say something mean. I kept thinking, he would hate this. He would hate the flowers. He would hate the crying. He would hate people looking at him like he was something sad and finished. He would lean down to me and mutter, “Why does everyone look so ugly when they cry?” and I would hit his arm and he would grin because he got the reaction he wanted.

Someone guided me closer with the incense.

I looked at the portrait.

My knees gave out.

It happened so suddenly that I didn’t feel myself falling until hands caught me under the arms. The sound that came out of me did not feel like mine. It was too loud. Too torn open. It scraped through my throat and filled the funeral hall, and I hated myself for it because Kyung-jun would have teased me, would have called me dramatic, would have said, “Yah, you trying to make my funeral about you?”

And then I cried harder because for one second I heard his voice so clearly I turned my head, looking for him. There was no one there.

After that, time became something I survived rather than lived in.

I graduated.

People said that like it meant something. Like walking across a stage and receiving a paper could close the year behind me. Like the world had not kept moving with a hole in it. I packed my things for university in the city and found one of his hoodies at the back of my closet, black, oversized, the sleeves stretched because he always yanked them over his hands when he was bored. I sat on the floor holding it for almost an hour. It barely smelled like him anymore.

That was the day I understood why people begged ghosts to haunt them.

For a while, I went to his grandmother’s every weekend. Then every other weekend. Then when classes got heavy, once a month. She never blamed me. She said I had to live. She said Kyung-jun would be angry if I didn’t.

“He’d say something awful,” she told me once, pouring tea with hands that had grown thinner. I smiled because she was right.

He would have called me stupid for crying. Then he would have sat beside me and nudged my knee with his until I leaned into him. He never knew what to do with softness when anyone could see it. He acted like tenderness was something embarrassing that happened to other people. But in private, when his room was dim and the city lights cut pale lines across the walls, he would hook a finger through mine and pretend it was nothing. He would rest his chin on top of my head and complain that I was heavy even though he was the one pulling me closer.

A year passed.

Then more.

His case became one of those strange tragedies people talked about in low voices when documentaries needed content. The missing class. The impossible disappearance. The cold case with no bodies and no ransom and no answers. Sometimes people at university brought it up without knowing I had loved one of the boys in the photos. I learned to sit very still when they did. I learned how to hold a pen without breaking it. I learned how to say, “Yeah, I heard about that,” in a voice calm enough to pass as indifference.

But at night, I still checked.

News articles. Police updates. Forums filled with theories so cruel and stupid I wanted to reach through the screen and shake strangers by the throat. I checked unidentified patient lists once. I checked hospitals after disasters. I checked because hope had become ugly inside me, not bright, not pretty, but stubborn and half-starved, dragging itself across every empty day with bloody hands.

I did not believe he was alive in the way happy people believe things. I believed because the alternative was a room I could not enter.

The day I saw him again, it was raining.

Not hard. Just enough to turn the sidewalks dark and make the city smell like wet pavement and exhaust, the kind of cold spring rain that clung to hair and lashes. I had left class early because the lecture hall felt too tight, too full of other people’s bodies and pencil scratches and bright laptop screens. My head hurt. My coat was thin. I stopped outside a convenience store to buy an umbrella I didn’t need, mostly because I wanted something to hold.

The bell above the door chimed when I stepped out. Across the street, an old woman stood beneath the awning of a pharmacy.

For a moment, I noticed only her. Small frame. Gray cardigan. Plastic bag hooked over one wrist. Hair pulled back in a careful bun. My body recognized her before my mind did.

Kyung-jun’s grandmother.

Everything inside me went quiet in that same terrible way it had when she called.

She looked older. Smaller. The rain made the sidewalk shimmer between us, headlights dragging long ribbons of white and red across the wet road. People passed in both directions, umbrellas bobbing like dark flowers. A bus groaned at the curb. Someone laughed behind me, bright and careless.

Then someone stepped out of the pharmacy behind her.

Tall.

Too tall.

Black hair damp at the edges. Shoulders broad under a dark jacket. One hand holding the door, the other wrapped around the strap of a bag like he was still learning how to use his own fingers. His face was thinner than it used to be. Sharper. The lines of it cut deeper, cheekbones more pronounced, jaw tight in a way that looked less like arrogance now and more like something wired beneath the skin. There was a pale mark near his temple. Another at his throat, half-hidden by his collar. His mouth was the same.

That was what destroyed me.

Not the height. Not the shoulders. Not even the eyes.

His mouth.

The same mouth that had smirked at me under the weak morning sun. The same mouth that had called me a liar, a brat, a psycho, pretty when he thought I was asleep and couldn’t hear him. The same mouth I had kissed in stairwells and behind school buildings and once in his grandmother’s kitchen when he was supposed to be taking out the trash.

It opened slightly.

He saw me.

The city stopped making sense.

For a second, neither of us moved.

His grandmother turned, following his stare, and the plastic bag slipped from her hand. Oranges rolled across the wet pavement, bright and absurd, one bumping against the curb and stopping there like the world had chosen that tiny detail to prove it was still real.

Kyung-jun stared at me as if I was the ghost.

His eyes were darker than I remembered. Not in color. In depth. Like something had been carved behind them and left open. The boy I loved used to look at the world like he could beat it into giving him what he wanted. This boy looked at me like he had crawled through hell and found my face at the exit, and now he was afraid that if he blinked, the devil would laugh and take me back.

I stepped off the curb without looking. A car horn screamed. Someone grabbed my sleeve and cursed, but I tore free, because the only thing my body knew was his name. It broke out of me before I reached him, loud enough that people turned.

“Kyung-jun!”

His whole face collapsed.

His jaw trembled once, hard, like he hated it. His eyes went wet so fast it looked painful. He took one step toward me, then another, and then I was running, shoes splashing through shallow puddles, rain needling my face, breath tearing out of my lungs in broken pieces.

He caught me so hard it hurt.

His arms came around me like a lock. One beneath my shoulders, one around my waist, lifting me off the ground with a rough sound punched from his chest. I hit him and held on. My hands clawed at the back of his jacket, bunching the fabric in my fists, searching for proof under layers of cloth and rain and impossible time. He was solid. Warm. Shaking. His hair brushed my cheek. His breath struck the side of my neck, ragged and uneven, and then his face was buried there, pressed so hard against me it felt like he was trying to disappear into my skin.

“You’re here,” I sobbed. His fingers dug into my back. “You’re here, you’re here, you’re here—”

“Shut up,” he said, but the words broke in the middle.

I cried harder.

His body jerked around a breath that was almost a laugh and almost a sob, ugly and strangled and nothing like the boy who used to laugh like a weapon. He set me down but didn’t let me go. His hands came up to my face, rough palms cupping my cheeks, thumbs dragging beneath my eyes as if tears offended him personally. He looked at me with a kind of panic I had never seen on him before, not even in old fights, not even when blood ran from his nose and he grinned through it because losing scared him less than being seen as weak.

Now he looked terrified.

His eyes moved over my face too quickly. Forehead, mouth, jaw, hair, eyes again. Like he was counting pieces. Like he had to make sure time had not taken anything from him. His thumb caught on my lower lip. He swallowed.

“Yah,” he whispered. “Why are you crying so ugly?”

A laugh tore out of me, half-sob, half-hurt.

I hit his chest with both hands.

It should have been harder. I meant for it to be harder. But the second my palms struck him, I felt bone beneath jacket, the unfamiliar sharpness of him, and my hands curled instead. His chest rose under my fingers. He was real. He was breathing. He was looking at me with rain caught in his lashes and tears sliding down his face like he was furious at them for existing.

“You died,” I said, voice splitting. “You died. They had a funeral. I had to stand there and look at your picture. I had to—”

His mouth twisted.

“I didn’t die.”

“You were gone.”

“I know.”

“You were gone.”

“I know.”

His voice snapped on the second one, not at me, not really, but because something inside him could not stand the words either. His hands slid from my face to the back of my head, fingers tangling in my rain-damp hair with no gentleness left. Not hurting. Holding. Possessive in a way that would have made me shove him before, would have made me tell him I wasn’t something he owned.

But his hands were shaking. He pressed his forehead to mine. His breath came hot against my mouth. “I tried,” he said.

The rain kept falling.

“What?”

His eyes shut. For one second, his face changed completely. The street vanished from him. The pharmacy. His grandmother. Me. He was somewhere else. Somewhere bright and cruel and endless.

“I tried to come back,” he said, so quietly I almost missed it under the hiss of tires on wet asphalt. “Every time.”

Every time.

The words dropped between us like something with teeth.

I wanted to ask. I wanted to know. I wanted to peel the truth out of him with my bare hands and also never hear a single word of it. Because whatever had happened to him lived in his face now. It lived in the way he flinched when a car horn blared again. It lived in the way his hands tightened on me when someone brushed past too close. It lived in the hollow under his cheekbones, in the swollen exhaustion around his eyes, in the strange, feral stillness of his shoulders.

Kyung-jun had always been restless. Always moving, tapping, leaning, shoving, laughing, picking fights with the air if no one else volunteered.

Now he was too still.

Like if he moved wrong, something would start over.

His grandmother was crying behind him. Quietly at first, then not quietly at all. I looked over his shoulder and saw her with one hand over her mouth, eyes fixed on us, the abandoned oranges bright around her feet. She looked like someone watching the dead return and not trusting God enough to thank him yet.

Kyung-jun noticed me looking and turned his head slightly.

“Halmeoni,” he muttered, voice rough. “Stop crying. People are staring.” She made a choked sound that might have been a laugh if grief had not ruined it.

“You awful boy,” she sobbed. “You awful, awful boy.”

His mouth trembled.

Then his face hardened like he hated that too, hated being seen, hated that his grandmother’s love could touch him where everyone could watch. He pulled me against his side without asking, one arm clamping around my shoulders, his palm spread wide over my upper arm like he had no intention of letting the city test him. He bent, picked up the bag with his free hand, then snapped at a man who had stopped too obviously nearby.

“What are you looking at?” The man looked away immediately. I almost cried again because that was him. That was my Kyung-jun, cracked down the middle and still somehow capable of being an asshole to strangers.

His grandmother wiped her face with a trembling hand. “We should go home.”

Kyung-jun did not answer right away.

His arm tightened around me.

I felt it before he said anything. The conflict running through him, sharp and silent. Grandmother. Me. Home. Hospital appointments, police questions, recovery, missing years, a life that had apparently returned without asking him if he knew how to live in it. His jaw worked once. His eyes flicked down to me.

I knew that look.

Not exactly. Not anymore. But enough.

He was asking without asking, because asking made him vulnerable and Kyung-jun would rather swallow glass than sound like he needed anything.

“You can come with me,” I said. His grandmother looked at me. Then at him.

Kyung-jun’s face closed too fast. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You never do.” His eyes flashed, and for one second, beneath the trauma, beneath the rain, beneath the impossible years between us, the old irritation sparked alive.

“Still annoying,” he said.

My throat tightened around something almost like a smile.

“Still ugly when you lie.”

His gaze dropped to my mouth.

The air changed.

It was not soft. Nothing about him was soft right then except the way his hand moved from my shoulder to the back of my neck, fingers sliding under my hair, warm against rain-chilled skin. His eyes held there, on my mouth, like he had dreamed of it so often the real thing had become dangerous. Like touching me had already ruined him and kissing me might finish it.

“Kyung-jun, go with Y/N, call me when you want to come home” his grandmother said gently.

He blinked, jaw flexing but nodding. Then he looked back at me.

“You still live in the city?”

I nodded.

“Alone?”

I nodded again.

His expression sharpened immediately. “Of course you do. Stupid.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“You’ve been missing for two years and you’re already insulting my life choices?”

“You made bad ones while I was gone. Not my fault.”

I stared at him through tears. His mouth twitched. Not a smile. Not quite. More like the ghost of one pressing against a bruise. Then his face crumpled again, so quickly that I barely saw it before he pulled me in and kissed me.

The first touch was not careful. It was desperate enough to frighten both of us.

His mouth found mine with a sound that disappeared into my breath, and for a second there was no street, no rain, no grandmother pretending not to cry while watching us like her heart was being torn apart and stitched back together in the same moment. There was only him. His hand at the back of my neck. His other arm locked around my waist. His mouth hot and trembling against mine, tasting like rain and salt and something ruined. He kissed like someone proving a point to the dead. Like he had argued with the universe for two years and finally gotten his hands on the evidence.

I cried into it.

I couldn’t help it. Tears slipped between our mouths, wetting his upper lip, and he made a low, broken sound that would have embarrassed him if he had been whole enough to care. He pulled back just enough to breathe, forehead still pressed to mine.

“Don’t,” he rasped. I shook my head, unable to stop. “Don’t cry like that,” he said, but his own voice shook so badly the command fell apart. His thumb dragged over my cheek again, rougher now, almost angry. “You think I can handle that right now?”

A laugh scraped out of me. “Sorry my crying is inconvenient for you.”

“Yeah. It is.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

His eyes closed. For the first time, he smiled. Small. Real. Devastating.

“I missed you too.”

My apartment looked different with him inside it.

That was the first thing I noticed when I unlocked the door hours later, after his grandmother made us come back so she could feed him first, after she pressed food on me too with shaking hands and watched Kyung-jun eat like every bite was proof, after police called twice and he ignored the second call until his grandmother slapped his arm and told him not to be rude to detectives. After he packed nothing because he had nothing from before except the clothes he’d come back in and a phone the police had given him that he kept staring at like it belonged to someone else.

He stepped into my place and made it smaller.

He had always done that. Taken up too much space. Filled rooms with shoulders and noise and bad attitude. But now there was a strange caution to him, a pause at the entrance as his eyes moved over everything: the narrow hallway, the shoe rack, the kitchen light I had left on, the stack of textbooks on the table, the blanket folded over the couch. His gaze snagged on ordinary objects like he expected them to change while he wasn’t looking.

I closed the door behind us. The click made him flinch. Only slightly but I saw it.

His head turned fast, eyes cutting to the lock, shoulders rising before he forced them down. The movement was so controlled it hurt worse than if he had jumped. Kyung-jun, who used to slam doors just to make people look at him. Kyung-jun, who used to grin when someone startled. Kyung-jun, who used to fill silence before silence could make him think.

I pretended not to notice.

“You can shower,” I said quietly. “I have towels. Clothes might be—”

“I’m not showering.”

I looked at him. His mouth set. I understood too slowly, then all at once.

He did not want a closed bathroom door between us. He did not want water loud enough to hide sounds. He did not want to be alone in a room with steam on the mirror and no way to see what was coming.

“Okay,” I said.

His eyes narrowed. “Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you feel bad for me.” I held his stare for a second.

Then I kicked off my shoes and walked past him. “Fine. Stay dirty.”

His brows twitched.

There. A spark.

“Yah.”

“What?”

“You got mean.”

I put my keys on the counter. “You were gone for two years. I had to develop a personality.”

“You already had one. It was bad.”

I turned around.

He was still by the door, hands hanging at his sides, looking too large and too lost for the little entranceway. The overhead light carved shadows beneath his cheekbones. His hair had dried messily, falling over his forehead in dark pieces. Without rain between us, without the shock of the street, the changes in him were harder to ignore. He was thinner than before, stripped down to sharper edges. His wrists looked too bony where his sleeves rode up. There were marks near the inside of one elbow. Medical. Old bruising faded yellow-green under the skin. His lips were dry from biting.

My throat tightened. He saw me looking. Of course he did.

“What?” he snapped.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.” The word landed between us differently than it had that last morning.

You’re worried about me?

No.

Liar.

I looked away first because if I didn’t, I would cry again, and he had already told me he couldn’t handle it. I went to the kitchen and filled a glass of water. My hands felt strange around the cup, clumsy and too careful. Behind me, I heard him move at last. Slow footsteps. Then nothing. When I turned back, he was standing in the middle of the room, staring at the wall near my desk.

At the photo. I had forgotten it was there.

It was small, tucked into the corner of the mirror, half-hidden behind a postcard and an old university schedule. A picture from before. One of the only ones I had printed. Kyung-jun in his school uniform, scowling at the camera because I’d taken it without warning, one hand reaching toward the lens like he was about to snatch my phone. Behind the fake annoyance, there was a smile beginning in his eyes.

He stared at it for so long the glass nearly slipped from my hand.

“That’s ugly,” he said. His voice was flat. I walked over and held the water out. He didn’t take it.

“Take the water.”

“I said it’s ugly.”

“I heard you.”

“Why’d you keep it?” The question was too sharp. Too defensive. He still wasn’t looking at me. I lowered the glass slightly.

Because it was the only thing I had that looked alive, I thought. Because after the funeral, every official photo made you look dead. Because sometimes I woke up and couldn’t remember your voice right away, but I could look at that picture and remember the exact insult you threw at me after I took it. Because forgetting one tiny thing about you felt like killing you myself.

I said none of that.

“You owed me money,” I said instead. His head turned. I shrugged. “I needed evidence.” For half a second, he only stared. Then the sound that came out of him was almost a laugh.

It broke before it could become one. His mouth twisted, his eyes shining too bright again, and he turned away like I had done something unfair by making him feel a normal thing. His hand came up, rubbing roughly over his face.

“Fuck,” he muttered. I stepped closer. He tensed.

I stopped.

The space between us suddenly felt alive. Full of everything we had not been able to say across two years and whatever nightmare had held him. Full of every unanswered call, every birthday he missed, every night I fell asleep with his hoodie twisted in my hands. Full of every time he must have woken inside that game and realized it had started again. Full of the fact that I had mourned him in black while he was somewhere dying in ways I could not imagine.

“What happened?” I asked.

He went very still.

The apartment changed with the question.

The refrigerator hummed. Rain ticked against the window. Somewhere upstairs, a chair scraped across the floor. Ordinary sounds, thin and harmless, gathering around us as if they too were waiting.

Kyung-jun’s hand dropped from his face.

For a while, he said nothing.

Then he walked past me to the couch and sat down heavily, elbows on his knees, head bowed. The posture did not suit him. Kyung-jun sprawled. Kyung-jun took space. Kyung-jun leaned back like the world had been built for his comfort. Seeing him folded forward like that made something cold slide beneath my ribs.

I sat beside him, close enough that our knees touched. He looked at the contact. Then at me. His knee pressed harder into mine.

“We didn’t go to some class trip” he said.

“I know.” His eyes flicked up. “The police said the trip records were fake,” I said. “Or planted. Or something. They never explained it clearly.”

He scoffed. The sound was automatic, bitter. “Of course they didn’t.”

“What happened?” His hands clasped between his knees. His fingers tightened until the knuckles went pale.

“You won’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

His mouth curved, but there was no humor in it. “Always so confident.”

“Kyung-jun.” The way I said his name made him look at me, like the sound of his name in my mouth pulled something in him loose.

His gaze dropped again, this time to my hands. They were folded in my lap, gripping each other too tightly. After a second, he reached over and pried them apart with rough fingers. Not gentle, exactly. Kyung-jun had never been good at gentle in a way that looked clean from the outside. He hooked his hand around mine and held on. Hard.

“There was a game,” he said. The room seemed to tilt. “Some fucking game we used to play in high school. Not like—” He stopped, jaw flexing, and let out a humorless little breath. “Not some phone game. Not a joke. We woke up in a youth center. It looked real. Felt real. People died.”

His thumb dug into the back of my hand.

“They died, there was a winning team, and then it started again.”

I did not move. I barely breathed. He kept staring at our hands as if my fingers were the only reason the room was still here.

“At first we thought… I don’t know what the fuck we thought. We didn't remember we had played it over and over until they pulled us out. Bodies started dropping and everyone started acting like animals, and every time we got close to figuring something out, it reset.” His voice thickened. He swallowed hard. “You die in there, you feel it.”

My stomach turned.

“You died?” His silence answered before he did. He laughed once. It was horrible.

“Many times.”

The air left me. He looked at me then, eyes sharp with something almost angry, like my fear hurt him and he wanted to punish the room for making me show it.

“Don’t look like that.”

“How am I supposed to look?”

“Not like that.”

“Kyung-jun—”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” he snapped. The words cracked through the apartment. I flinched. He saw. His face changed. The anger vanished so quickly it frightened me, leaving something raw and young underneath. He let go of my hand as if he had burned me.

“Shit,” he muttered. “I didn’t—”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” His jaw clenched. He stared at the floor. “Don’t say that when it’s not.”

I swallowed.

That sounded like him too. Mean little mouth. Brutal honesty when softness would have been easier. But beneath it, something had shifted. Before, he snapped because he wanted control. Now he snapped because control was all he had left, and even that kept slipping.

I reached for him slowly this time, giving him space to pull away. He watched my hand like it was dangerous. When my fingers touched his wrist, his eyes shut. Just once. Briefly. But the breath that left him shook.

“I thought you were dead,” I whispered. His hand turned under mine, fast, catching my fingers before I could move away.

“I thought you forgot me.” The words were so quiet I almost didn’t understand them. Something inside me tore open all over again.

He looked furious at himself the second they were out, eyes flashing, mouth hardening like he wanted to shove the sentence back down his own throat. But it was too late. It sat between us. Small and naked and bleeding.

“You thought what?”

He stood abruptly.

I startled, looking up as he paced two steps away, then back, then stopped because there wasn’t enough room in my apartment for whatever was moving through him. His hands went to his hair, pushing it back from his face.

“It was two years,” he said. “I don’t know. In there, time was fucked. Sometimes it felt like days. Sometimes forever. Every time it started again, I remembered less at first. Faces got blurry. Voices got—” He cut himself off. His throat worked. “I kept trying to remember yours.”

My eyes burned.

He turned on me suddenly, pointing like he was accusing me of something.

“Your laugh was annoying as hell. That helped.”

A broken sound slipped out of me.

“And your face,” he continued, voice roughening around every word, “because you always looked at me like you wanted to hit me.”

“I usually did.”

“Yeah. I know.” His mouth twitched, then trembled. “I kept thinking, if I forgot that, I’d really die.”

I stood. He watched me, breathing harder now, shoulders rising and falling beneath his jacket. I crossed the little space between us. For once, he did not make a joke. For once, he did not move first.

I reached up and touched his face.

His skin was warm. Real. Slightly rough beneath my palm. A tiny muscle jumped in his jaw. His eyes stayed on mine with a desperation so intense it felt less like looking and more like being held down by it. The old Kyung-jun would have smirked. He would have said something filthy or stupid or mean to cut the tension before it could cut him.

This one only stood there and let me touch him like he needed it more than pride.

“I didn’t forget you,” I said. His lips parted. “I tried,” I whispered, and that hurt him; I saw it land. “Not because I wanted to. Because everyone kept telling me I had to live. They said I had to move on. They said I was young, that you’d want me to be happy.”

His eyes darkened.

“I would not say that.”

I let out a watery laugh. “No. You’d say something awful.”

“I’d say if you got some ugly boyfriend while I was gone, I’d haunt you.”

“There were no boyfriends.” His whole face changed. The relief was so fast, so violent, that he looked away from me as if I had caught him doing something obscene.

I should have teased him.

Before, I would have. I would have laughed and said, What, were you worried? I would have poked at him until he snapped, because that was how we loved each other then, with teeth and stupid little wounds neither of us meant to make deep.

But now I only watched the tendons in his neck shift as he swallowed.

“No one,” I said. His gaze came back slowly. “I couldn’t,” I admitted. “Not when I still—”

The word love hovered at the back of my throat, too bright, too enormous for the small room. Kyung-jun stepped into me before I could finish.

His arms went around me with a force that stole my breath. He bent over me, face pressing into my hair, one hand splayed between my shoulder blades, the other locked low at my waist. He held me like the world had already taken me once and he was not stupid enough to trust it again. His body was shaking. I felt it everywhere we touched. A tremor running beneath muscle and bone, down his arms, through his hands, into me.

“I’m not leaving,” he said. It came out harsh. Almost like a threat. My cheek pressed against his chest. His heart beat too fast under my ear.

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.” His hand tightened. “You don’t. You go to class, I’m going with you. You go buy water, I’m going. You go to the bathroom—”

I pulled back enough to look up at him. “Absolutely not.”

His eyes were wet again, but his mouth curled. “Why? Shy now?”

“You’re insane.”

“Yeah,” he said, and the smile vanished. “Probably.”

The honesty hit harder than any joke.

His gaze moved over my face, slower now, not counting pieces this time but memorizing them. There was hunger in it, yes, but not simple hunger. Not the easy, cocky kind he used to wear when he wanted me to blush. This was deeper. Worse. A need scraped raw by terror. He looked at my mouth like he had imagined it in the dark. Like he had survived on memory until memory wasn’t enough, and now that I was here, breathing in front of him, his body didn’t know how to be anything but starving.

“Kyung-jun,” I whispered.

“What.”

“You need sleep.”

He gave me a look. “Wow. Romantic.”

“You look like you’re about to collapse.”

“I’m fine.” I stared at him. He stared back. Then his jaw tightened. “I said I’m fine.”

The room filled with all the things that sentence could not hide. The dark crescents beneath his eyes. The way he stood too close to me and still looked afraid the distance might grow. The way he kept glancing at the door even though he had checked the lock twice. The way his fingers flexed whenever there was a sound in the hallway.

“You don’t have to be,” I said.

His expression went cold so fast it was almost impressive.

“Don’t start.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m saying you can sleep here.”

“Obviously.”

“On the couch.”

His face offended itself.

“The couch?”

“Yes.”

He looked at the couch, then back at me as if I had personally betrayed him. “After two years, you’re putting me on the couch?”

A laugh burst out of me before I could stop it. His eyes caught on it. The anger in his face fell fast. For a second, he just stared, and the room softened around the edges.

“What?” I asked, wiping under my eye. His mouth pressed into a line.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.” He looked away, but not fast enough. Color had risen faintly along his cheekbones. I touched his sleeve. “What?”

“Your laugh,” he muttered. My chest hurt. He still wouldn’t look at me. “Still annoying,” he added, weaker, voice shaking slightly.

I stepped closer and wrapped my arms around his middle. He let me. More than let me. His body folded around mine almost instantly, chin dropping to the top of my head, hands finding my back again. He exhaled like he had been holding his breath since the street, since the game, since the first time he woke up and realized dying had not freed him.

“We can share the bed,” I said into his shirt. “But only sleeping.”

“Who said I was thinking anything else?” I tilted my head back to look at him. His brows lifted, almost like before. Almost. “What?” he said. “You think I’m some kind of pervert?”

“I think you’re you.”

“Exactly. So, yes.” I shoved his chest. He caught my wrist and pulled it back around him.

“No,” he said. The word was quiet. My breath caught. He looked down at where my hand rested against him, fingers curled in his shirt. “Don’t move away yet.”

There was no joke after it. No smirk. No insult to cover the soft underbelly of the request. So I didn’t move.

I stood there in the middle of my apartment, wrapped around the boy I had buried without a body, feeling his heart slam beneath my palm as if it was trying to make up for every beat I had missed. Outside, the rain kept threading silver down the window. The city moved on unaware, cars passing, people laughing under umbrellas, neon signs bleeding color into puddles. Somewhere in that same city, police reports were being written. Families were being called. A whole class was being returned to a world that had already mourned them and moved their desks and packed away their uniforms.

But inside my apartment, time narrowed to the shape of his hands.

After a while, he let me lead him to the bedroom. He hesitated in the doorway. I felt it through his hand before I saw it. The slight resistance. The way his fingers locked around mine.

“It’s just my room,” I said.

His eyes swept over the bed, the window, the closet, the lamp, every shadowed corner. “I know.”

“You can leave the door open.”

His mouth tightened. “I’m not scared.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“I’m not.”

“I know.”

He glared at me, but it was ruined by exhaustion. “Stop agreeing with me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m some injured dog you found in an alley.” My eyes moved over him before I could stop them. The bruises. The scars. The hollowed exhaustion. The boy still standing because falling would mean trusting the floor. His gaze sharpened.

“Don’t,” he warned.

I looked back at his face. “Okay.”

He waited, suspicious. I squeezed his hand once and turned down the blanket. He watched like the bed might bite. Then, very suddenly, he said, “I want to marry you.”

My hands froze on the blanket. The silence afterward was enormous. I turned around slowly.

Kyung-jun stood in the doorway with his shoulders tense and his chin lifted, defensive already, like he had thrown a punch and was waiting for one back. His face was serious in a way that made my stomach drop. No teasing curve to his mouth. No theatrical arrogance. Just those dark, damaged eyes fixed on me with too much certainty for the soft yellow light of my bedroom.

“What?” I whispered.

“I said I want to marry you.” My heart lurched so hard it was almost pain.

“You just came back from being kidnapped and tortured.”

“Yeah. I noticed.”

“Kyung-jun.”

“What?” His voice rose, sharp with embarrassment now, with fear disguised badly as irritation. “You want me to wait? For what? So some counselor can tell me my feelings are a trauma response? So people can say I’m unstable? I already know I’m fucked up. Congratulations. Still want to marry you.”

I stared at him.

He rubbed a hand over his mouth, angry at himself, at me, at the room, at whatever had made the words come out before he could dress them in cruelty.

“I’m not saying tomorrow,” he muttered.

“That’s surprisingly reasonable.”

His eyes flashed. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

I looked down at the floor, my vision blurring, my heart thumping so loud I'm surprised he hasn't complained about it yet. “I’m just...trying not to cry.” That shut him up. His face shifted again, the anger breaking at the edges.

I stepped toward him carefully. He did not step back. When I reached him, I touched the front of his jacket, smoothing nothing, fixing nothing, just laying my hands there because I could. Because once, for two years, I had only been able to touch cotton that no longer smelled like him.

“You can want that,” I said. His throat moved. “Cause I want it too. But you also need to heal.” His expression hardened. I held his jacket tighter before he could pull away. “And I’m not saying that because I don’t want you. I’m saying it because I do. I want you alive. Actually alive. Not just back.”

The words hit him somewhere deep. His eyes lowered. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then, in a voice so low I felt it more than heard it, he said, “I don’t know how.” I closed my eyes. There it was.

The thing under everything. Under the jokes. Under the snapping. Under the possessive hands and the marriage demand and the way he kept looking at me like I was the last piece of shore after a shipwreck.

I stepped into him and wrapped my arms around his neck. He bent immediately, face dropping to my shoulder.

“We’ll figure it out,” I whispered.

His laugh was bitter against my skin. “That sounds stupid.”

“Yeah.”

“Like something people say when they don’t know shit.”

“Probably.” His arms tightened around me.

“Say it again.” My eyes burned.

“We’ll figure it out.”

His breath shook. Again, I thought he might say. Again, like a boy asking for one more story before sleep. But he only held me, silent and trembling, until the worst of it passed through him.

When we finally lay down, he didn’t take off his jacket at first. He lay on top of the blanket, stiff as a corpse, eyes open and fixed on the ceiling. I lay beside him in the dim light, listening to the rain soften against the glass. The space between us was only a few inches, but it felt cruel.

“You can come closer,” I said.

“I know.”

He didn’t move.

I turned on my side. His profile was sharp in the dark, lashes lowered but not closed, mouth tense. He looked like he was bracing for something. A vote. A scream. A body hitting the floor. The start of another loop.

I reached out and touched his hand. His fingers closed around mine so fast it hurt.

“Sorry,” he muttered immediately, loosening his grip by force.

“It’s okay.”

He turned his head toward me. “Stop saying that.”

“Then stop apologizing.”

“I didn’t apologize.”

“You literally just did.”

“No, I didn’t.” I smiled despite everything. His gaze dropped to it. The room stilled again.

Slowly, as if sudden movement might shatter whatever fragile thing had survived between us, he turned onto his side. His hand came up, hovering near my face. Waiting. That, more than anything, made my chest ache. Kyung-jun had never hovered. He took, grabbed, pulled, crowded. He tested the world with his hands and dared it to complain.

Now he waited. I leaned into his palm. His breath caught.

There was something unbearable about being touched by him after so long. Not because it was new, but because it was familiar in a way my body had almost convinced itself it invented. The rough pad of his thumb beneath my cheekbone. The warmth of his palm. The faint tremor he could not quite hide. His eyes kept moving over me, over and over, like he was afraid sleep would steal the details.

“I used to think about this,” he said.

My throat tightened. “About my bed?”

“Don’t ruin it.” I almost laughed. He brushed his thumb across my cheek. “About your face. Your voice. Stupid things.” His mouth twisted. “You yelling at me. You pretending you weren’t jealous. You getting mad when I bought you coffee because I said your taste was childish.”

“You said only babies drink sweet coffee.”

“You did drink sweet coffee.”

“I still do.”

He stared at me.

Then, very softly, “Good.”

The word broke me more than it should have.

Because it meant I had stayed real in some tiny way. Because it meant the world had not taken every version of us. Because sweet coffee, crooked collars, ugly crying, stupid insults — they had survived too, buried under horror, waiting for him to come back and be cruel about them.

His hand slid to the back of my neck.

“Come here,” he said. It was not really an order. I moved closer anyway.

He pulled me into him, under the blanket this time, his body curling around mine with desperate heat. He was bigger than I remembered. Or maybe I had made him smaller in grief so I could survive the size of missing him. His chest pressed against my back, knees behind mine, arm locked across my waist. His breath stirred the hair near my ear. The whole bed seemed to hold its breath with us.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

Then, barely audible, he said, “I thought I’d never do this again.” My fingers covered his hand on my stomach. He turned his palm upward and tangled our fingers together.

“I’m here,” I whispered. His forehead pressed to the back of my neck.

“Yeah,” he said. A minute passed. Then another. His breathing did not slow. I knew he was afraid to sleep.

Maybe he knew I knew, because his hand tightened once, warning me not to say it. So I didn’t. I lay there in the dark with his body wrapped around mine and let silence do what words would ruin. The city lights shone through the curtains in thin silver lines. Rainwater tracked down the window like veins. His heart beat against my back, too fast, too alive, and every time it stumbled into a harder rhythm, I squeezed his hand until it steadied.

Sometime, when my eyes began to shut slowly, his mouth brushed the nape of my neck. Not a kiss, not quite. A touch. A check. A prayer he would deny making.

“You better not disappear,” he murmured, voice thick with exhaustion. My eyes filled again. I turned carefully in his arms.

He resisted for half a second, then let me face him. His eyes were half-lidded, dark and ruined and still so painfully him that I could barely stand it. I touched his cheek. He leaned into it before he could stop himself.

“You disappeared first,” I whispered.

His mouth twitched faintly.

“Yeah,” he said. “My bad.” A laugh broke out of me, quiet and wet. His eyes softened. Then he kissed me again. This one was slower.

Not less desperate. Never that. The desperation was still there, threaded through his fingers in my hair, in the way his body shifted closer, in the way he breathed against my mouth like every inhale had to pass through me first. But there was something else under it now. Recognition. Grief. The ache of two people touching across the grave everyone else had already built.

He kissed me like he was tired of dying. Like he was angry he had lost time. Like he loved me so much it had nowhere clean to go, so it came out in trembling hands and bitten-back sounds and his forehead pressed to mine afterward, his eyes shut tight.

By four in the morning, the room has stopped pretending to be night and has not yet become morning.

It is that strange, thin hour where the dark turns gray at the edges, where everything feels suspended and unclaimed, where the city outside my window has gone quiet enough that I can hear the building breathing around us. Pipes knock faintly behind the walls. Rainwater gathers at the window ledge and drops in uneven little taps against the metal frame. Somewhere far below, a car passes through the wet street with a soft hiss, tires dragging through puddles, then fades until there is nothing left but the low electric hum of the refrigerator and Kyung-jun’s breathing beside me.

Not sleeping. He has been lying beside me for hours with his eyes open. I know because I have been awake for all of it.

At first, I pretend not to notice. I lie still beneath the blanket with my hand trapped in his, my fingers numb from how tightly he keeps remembering I am there. Every few minutes, his grip changes. Not loosening exactly. Testing. His thumb presses into my knuckles, then slides over them as if counting. His palm warms mine, then tightens again like something inside him startles awake without warning. Once, when the pipes groan too loudly in the wall, his whole body goes rigid beside me, the muscles in his arm locking so suddenly that my wrist aches. He does not move after. Does not speak. Does not explain. He just stares at the ceiling as if something has written instructions there in the dark.

I watch him through half-lowered lashes.

His face looks worse in the almost-morning. The shadows are gentler, but somehow less forgiving. In the yellow lamp glow, he looked wounded. In this hour, he looks haunted. Like whatever brought him back forgot to return all of him. His hair is messy against my pillow, black strands falling over his forehead, and his eyes keep fixed upward, dry and too dark, the skin beneath them bruised with exhaustion. His mouth is slightly parted. Not soft. Not relaxed. Ready. As if breath itself is something he might need to fight for.

Every now and then, he blinks too fast. Like he is trying not to see something. Or trying not to sleep because sleep is where it waits. I understand it slowly. Not as a thought at first, but as a coldness spreading beneath my ribs. The game had nights.

The dying would not have waited politely for daylight. The fear would not have given them neat hours to survive in. There must have been dark rooms and locked doors and hallways too silent to trust, clocks crawling toward whatever time meant death, classmates whispering and accusing and waiting for the announcement that would ruin someone. There must have been the terrible moment before sleep, when exhaustion became a trap. When closing your eyes meant surrendering the one piece of control you still had. When waking might mean relief, or blood, or another beginning.

And now he is here, in my bed, in my apartment, in a world that insists it is real because the blanket is soft and the rain is wet and my hand is in his.

But if he sleeps—If he wakes up somewhere else—I turn my face into the pillow to hide the way my mouth trembles. Kyung-jun notices anyway. His head shifts on the pillow. His eyes move to me. Immediate.

“What?” he asks. His voice is rough from disuse and too much staying awake. It scrapes through the dark quietly, but the sharp edge of him is still there, stripped down and hoarse.

I shake my head once.

His fingers tighten around mine.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Act like I’m stupid.”

I look at him then.

He is already looking at me so hard it feels like being held under light. The old Kyung-jun would have smirked after saying it. Would have made some cutting little comment, something ugly enough to make me roll my eyes and forget the tenderness underneath. This Kyung-jun only watches me with a kind of brittle intensity, as if my face is a language he has been studying in the dark for two years and he still cannot trust his own translation.

I swallow.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m thinking.”

“Dangerous.”

It should be funny. It almost is.

The word comes out faintly, more habit than joke. There is no real bite behind it. He looks too tired to sharpen himself all the way. Too raw to hide under the familiar shape of cruelty. His thumb moves once over my fingers, dragging across the same place again and again until my skin tingles.

I let the silence settle. Then I begin to sit up. It happens fast. Too fast. Before I have even pulled my hand from his, Kyung-jun is upright.

The blanket twists around his waist, his hand clamping around my wrist, not enough to hurt but hard enough to stop me cold. His eyes are wide in the dim room.

Scared. It flashes across him nakedly before he can kill it.

“Where are you going?”

The words are quiet, but there is something terrible under them. A crack. A drop. A boy standing on the edge of losing the room, the bed, the girl beside him, the proof that this has not been another cruel loop designed to let him breathe before choking him again.

I freeze. My heart squeezes so hard my own fear forgets what it was doing.

“I’m not leaving.” His grip does not loosen. I say it again, softer. “I’m not leaving, Kyung-jun.”

His eyes flick over my face, then to the door, then back. His breathing has changed. He is trying to make it quiet, trying to force it down before I can hear how uneven it is, but I can hear it. I can feel it through his hand on my wrist. Each breath comes like it has to push past something lodged in his chest.

“Then where?”

“I want to take a bath.”

He stares.

I wet my lips. “I thought it might help. My nerves feel…” I stop, because the lie is not fully a lie, and that makes it harder to say. My nerves are ruined. My body feels wrung out, hollowed by shock and crying and the impossible weight of having him beside me again. But that is not why I am getting up. “The warm water might help.”

His gaze stays on mine. The room holds still. He knows.

Maybe not exactly. Maybe not the whole small, careful plan forming in my head — the salts under the sink, the big tub I used to love because it made my apartment feel softer than it was, the heat loosening his muscles, the steam making the room warm enough that sleep might creep up on him without feeling like a trap. But he knows there is something gentle in it, and gentleness is the thing that scares him most right now.

His throat moves.

“I’ll come with you.” He says it like he expects me to argue. I don’t. I nod.

Something in his face loosens so slightly I would have missed it if I had not spent two years keeping every piece of him alive in my memory. His fingers slide from my wrist to my hand. He does not apologize this time. Does not pretend he was not afraid. He just holds on and gets out of bed when I do, moving too carefully for someone his size, like the floor might shift if he trusts it too much.

My bedroom feels colder once we leave the blanket behind.

The apartment is dark except for the lamp near the couch and the faint blue wash of city light through the windows. We walk barefoot through the hallway. His hand stays locked around mine. Not romantic in the simple way it used to be when we would walk home after school and he would pretend he was holding my hand only because I was “slow” and “needed supervision.” This is different. His palm is damp. His fingers are cold. Every step he takes beside me feels measured against the possibility of waking somewhere else.

At the bathroom door, he stops. Just for a second. I glance back.

He is looking into the little room with a wariness that makes my chest ache. My bathroom is not frightening. It has never been frightening. It is small but pretty, tiled in soft cream, with a narrow window above the tub and a shelf crowded with bottles I always mean to organize. There is a separate bathtub tucked against the far wall, wide and deep, curved like something made for quiet. I bought eucalyptus salts once because the packaging looked calming and expensive, even though I knew I would probably only use them twice. A little wooden stool sits beside the tub with folded towels stacked on top. A candle I have never lit sits near the sink, dusty around the rim.

It is ordinary. Sweet, even. Kyung-jun looks at it like ordinary things cannot be trusted. I squeeze his hand. He looks down at me. Just those eyes, dark and sleepless, asking something he would rather die than put into words.

“You can keep the door open,” I say. He swallows. Then he shakes his head once.

“No.” The word is barely there. Not because he wants privacy. Because closing the door means choosing to believe nothing waits outside it. Because maybe he is tired of being afraid of doors. I nod and step inside first. He follows.

The bathroom light is too bright when I turn it on, and he flinches before he can stop himself. His jaw tightens immediately, anger rising instinctively to cover the crack, but it dies before reaching his mouth. He lowers his eyes and exhales through his nose, slow and hard.

I don’t say anything. I turn on the bath instead.

The pipes groan, then water spills into the tub, loud at first, rushing and silver under the light. Steam begins to lift almost immediately, softening the mirror, blurring the sharp edges of us. I kneel beside the tub and test the temperature with my fingers, letting the heat bite gently at my skin. Too hot. I adjust the tap. The sound fills the room until there is no need to talk, and maybe that is mercy. Maybe that is why I chose this. Water can cover silence without demanding it be explained.

Kyung-jun stands behind me.

I can feel him there.

Not touching now, but close enough that his shadow falls over my shoulder. When I reach under the sink for the salts, he shifts as if the movement startles him, then stills again. I pour a handful into the water. The crystals disappear in small white swirls, dissolving into the heat, and the faint smell of lavender and something herbal rises with the steam.

I expect him to say something. Lavender? Seriously? Are we old ladies now? Or, What is this rich-person bath nonsense? Or, You always buy useless stuff. He says nothing. That is worse. I turn. He is staring at me.

The bathroom light catches the hollows under his eyes. The steam beads faintly at his hairline. He looks too tall for the room, shoulders nearly filling the space between sink and wall, hands hanging at his sides like he does not know what to do with them if they are not holding onto me. His face has gone unreadable, but not in the old way. Not bored. Not cruel.

Bare. There is no audience here. No classmates to impress. No hallway to dominate. No game to survive by being louder than fear. Just him. Just me. Just the water filling the tub between us like something waiting to be crossed. I stand slowly.

The tile is cool beneath my feet. My oversized sleep shirt clings faintly where my palms are damp from the bathwater. For a moment, neither of us moves. The water keeps running. Steam curls upward. The mirror clouds at the edges until our reflections begin to fade, two blurred figures in a small warm room at the hour when nightmares usually have teeth.

I take one step toward him. His eyes lower to my mouth. Then back to my eyes. I lift my hand and touch his cheek. He closes his eyes.

The reaction is so immediate, so helpless, that I feel it down to my bones. He leans into my palm before pride can stop him. Enough for my thumb to feel the slight tremor in his jaw. Enough for the air to leave him like he has been standing in armor too heavy to breathe inside.

I kiss him.

Softly at first.

Because he feels like something cracked that might cut both of us if I move too quickly. His lips are still beneath mine for half a second, frozen in surprise or restraint or the exhaustion of wanting too much. Then he melts.

There is no other word for it.

His shoulders drop. His hands come to my waist, not grabbing, not claiming, just landing there like he has finally found somewhere to put all the shaking. His mouth opens against mine with a sound so quiet it disappears into the rush of bathwater. He kisses me back slowly, deeply, like speed would make it less real. Like if he rushes, the moment might tear. Like he has imagined this in so many versions of hell that now the real thing has to be handled with both hands.

My fingers slide into his hair.

He shudders.

The sound he makes then is almost nothing. A breath caught too low in his chest. It goes through me anyway, warm and painful, and my eyes sting behind closed lids because this is the boy I mourned and the boy who came back and the stranger made out of everything that happened while I was not there to hold him.

When I pull back, his eyes stay closed. His forehead rests against mine.

“Don’t stop,” he whispers. It is not seductive. It is ruined. I kiss him again because I cannot answer without breaking.

This time his hands tighten, but still not with the old carelessness. He holds me like someone trying to remember gentleness from another life. His thumbs press into my sides through my shirt. His breath shakes into my mouth. I feel him keeping himself still, feel the strain of it in every line of his body. Want and grief and terror have tangled so tightly inside him that none of them know their own names anymore.

I draw back just enough to touch the hem of his shirt. He opens his eyes. For a second, I see the question there. Not refusal. Not embarrassment. Permission. I give him time to pull away. He doesn’t. So I lift the shirt slowly.

The fabric rises over his stomach, his ribs, his chest. I keep my eyes on his face because this feels too tender to watch like discovery, too sacred to turn into anything else. His arms lift when I need them to. His breath catches when the shirt passes over his head. His hair falls messily back into his eyes after, and for one fleeting, devastating second, he looks like the boy from before, annoyed and beautiful and too proud to admit he likes being touched.

Then I see the marks.

Not all of them. Not clearly. The bathroom is warm and bright and full of steam, but my mind refuses to take him apart like evidence. Still, there are things I cannot miss. Faint bruising near one shoulder. A thin healing line along his side. Small round medical marks near the inside of his elbow. The sharpness of his collarbones where they never used to be so sharp. The places where his body has been maintained, restrained, neglected, returned.

My hands still. His gaze drops to them. Then to my face. A muscle jumps in his jaw.

“It’s ugly,” he says. Quiet. Flat. Like he has already decided what I am allowed to think. I step closer and press my mouth to the center of his chest. His entire body locks. Under my lips, his heart slams once, hard.

I stay there for a moment, my hands resting carefully against his sides, feeling the heat of him, the breath he is holding, the life beneath skin that was supposed to be gone. When I lift my face, his eyes are shining again, but his mouth is twisted with something angry and helpless.

“Don’t do that,” he says.

“What?”

He looks away.

“Make it worse.”

I touch his jaw and bring him back to me.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“How?”

His throat works.

“You make me want to live,” he says, and looks furious the second the words leave him. The bathroom seems to go silent beneath the water. I stare at him. He stares back like he wants to fight me for hearing it.

Then his face crumples at the edges, not enough for anyone else maybe, but enough for me. Enough that the boy who once called love embarrassing stands half-undressed in my bathroom at four in the morning and cannot hide the fact that survival has left him more frightened than death did.

I reach for his hands. He lets me.

“You are alive,” I say.

His fingers curl around mine.

“For now.”

The words are barely audible. Cold slides through me.

I want to argue. I want to say no, no, don’t say that, don’t put it in the room. But I understand too well what he means. Not that he wants to die. That he does not trust life to hold. That every time something good appears, he expects the lights to change, the announcement to play, the game to start again.

So I do not correct him. I lift his hand and press his knuckles to my mouth. His eyes shut.

“You’re here now,” I whisper. He breathes out unsteadily. “For now,” I add, because maybe that is the only truth his body can accept. His eyes open. Something in them softens, breaks, stays. I let go only long enough to take off my shirt.

His gaze follows the movement, but it does not feel like being looked at in the way I remember from before, when he would stare too long just to make me blush and then grin like he had won something. This is not that. This is quieter. Reverent in a way he would hate if I named it. His eyes move over me and stop, not hungry or careless, but stunned by proximity. By trust. By skin and breath and the fact that I am standing in front of him, not a memory he had to fight to keep, not a face blurring at the edges of some nightmare loop.

Just me. Real enough to be cold in the steam. I reach behind myself to unclasp my bra. His hand moves before he thinks, then stops halfway. Waiting again. That almost undoes me.

I finish it myself, letting the straps slide down my arms. The air touches me, warm and damp. I do not cover myself. Because he looks as if any sign of shame would kill something fragile in him. Because this is not about being seen beautifully. It is about being seen safely. It is about telling him with my body what words keep failing to prove.

I am here. I trust you. You can be here too.

His eyes lift to mine. There is no smirk. No comment. No old, sharp joke to ruin the softness before it can touch him. He only whispers my name. And it sounds like something he said in the dark to keep from disappearing.

I turn off the water. The sudden quiet is enormous.

Steam drifts around us, softening the room until the edges blur. We undress the rest of the way without speaking, speech feels too rough for what is happening. Clothing falls in small, ordinary sounds. Fabric against tile. A soft scrape. The whisper of a drawer opening when I take out two towels and set them within reach. We do not look away like strangers. We do not stare like lovers about to become reckless. We simply make space for each other’s vulnerability and try not to crush it with our hands.

When I step into the tub, the heat takes me by surprise.

It closes around my ankles, my calves, then my thighs as I sink down carefully. My body, wound tight for hours, resists it at first. Then the warmth reaches my hips, my stomach, my ribs, and something inside me loosens so suddenly that my eyes fill again. I turn my face away before Kyung-jun can see.

Too late. He sees everything now. He steps in after me.

For someone so tall, he moves slowly, lowering himself into the water behind me with a careful breath. The tub is big enough, but still, he fills it. His knees bracket mine. His body settles against the curved porcelain, and for a moment he holds himself away from me, as if the last inch matters. As if even now he thinks restraint is proof of goodness. Or control. Or survival.

The water shifts around us. Warmth rises. My back is almost touching his chest. Almost. Neither of us breathes properly. Then his hands come to my waist. He pulls me back.

My body slides through the water until I am flush against him, back to his chest, his legs around me, his arms folding over my stomach like gates closing. Heat surrounds me from every side: the bathwater, the steam, his skin, the trembling breath he releases against my shoulder. His chin lowers to the curve where my neck meets my shoulder. For a second, he just holds me there. Not kissing. Not talking. Holding.

His body shakes once. Then again. I cover his forearm with both hands. The water rocks gently against the sides of the tub.

“You’re warm,” he murmurs.

The words are so small I almost miss them.

I close my eyes.

“So are you.”

His arms tighten.

“No,” he says, voice rough. “I mean… you’re warm.”

Like that is proof too.

Like in the game everything had become cold eventually. Floors. Skin. Fear. Dead hands. Reset mornings with fake sunlight and no real warmth. Like the mind can be trapped somewhere so long it forgets the simple fact of another living body.

He presses his nose into my hair and inhales.

Not in that teasing way he used to do when he would complain about my shampoo and then bury his face in my neck anyway. This is different. He breathes me in like a person starved of air. Like scent is memory made physical. Like the lavender in the bath and the soap on my skin and the faint trace of rain still clinging to my hair are all anchors he can tie himself to before the world starts drifting again.

“I forgot your shampoo once,” he says.

My fingers still against his arm. His mouth is near my ear, but his eyes are not on me. I can feel it. He is staring at the water, or through it, or at something that is not in the room.

“In there,” he continues. “I remembered your face. Your voice. The way you used to look at me like you were deciding if prison was worth it. I would look at the pictures I had of you in my phone, rewatch the videos over and over until I thought I'd be sick of your voice or laugh, but I never did,”

A breath that is almost a laugh leaves me. His mouth brushes my temple, not quite a kiss.

“But the shampoo—” He stops. His throat moves against my shoulder. “I couldn’t remember it. It was such a stupid thing. I knew it was sweet. I knew I used to say it gave me a headache. I knew I liked it. But I couldn’t remember exactly.”

My chest hurts so sharply I press his arm harder against me.

“I thought that meant you were going,” he says.

The water feels suddenly too hot.

“Like pieces of you were getting taken. First that. Then maybe the way you looked at me. Or the way you felt against me. Then one day I’d wake up and know I was waiting for someone, but not who.” His voice thins. He swallows and presses his mouth to the side of my head, hard, as if stopping himself from saying more might physically hurt less. “I got scared.”

Kyung-jun saying scared is worse than crying. It is the bravest thing I have ever heard him do. I turn in his arms.

The movement makes water spill against the sides of the tub, a soft slap against porcelain. His hands loosen just enough to let me shift, then tighten again the moment I am facing him. I settle between his legs, knees tucked around him, water lapping at my ribs. His face is close now. Too close for hiding. Steam clings to his lashes. His hair curls slightly damp at the ends. His eyes are red-rimmed, furious with himself and still unable to stop.

I touch his cheek.

“You remembered enough.”

His jaw tightens.

“You don’t get it.”

“Then tell me.”

He looks away. I wait.

The old Kyung-jun hated waiting. He would fill silence by force, slash it open with mockery, make someone else uncomfortable before discomfort could settle on him. This Kyung-jun sits in the water with me at four in the morning and lets silence gather because there are no jokes strong enough to carry what he has brought back.

When he speaks, his voice is lower.

“At night, it was worse.”

My thumb stills against his cheek. He looks past me, toward the tiled wall.

“The game had rules. Times. Votes. Executions. People screaming at each other like screaming made them less likely to die.” His mouth twists. “Everyone got ugly. Me too. Maybe I was already ugly, so it wasn’t a big change.”

“Don’t.”

His eyes flick to mine. I do not look away. His expression shifts — irritation, old and familiar, rising for half a heartbeat — then it fades because he is too tired to pretend he does not understand why I stopped him.

He exhales.

“At night, you’d sit in a locked room with someone, not knowing if they'd kill you while you were passed out. We didn't even sleep, we just dropped the second the clock turned 12. Sometimes, before it was midnight and everyone had hid I would hear crying through the wall. Or someone praying which was stupid cause God had clearly not been there to save us...” His gaze drops to the water. “Sometimes you woke up and someone right next to you was dead.”

My throat closes. The water ripples between us.

He drags his wet hand up my back, not sensual, not searching. Grounding. His palm settles between my shoulder blades. His fingers spread there.

“One time,” he says, and the words come slower now, like each one has to be pulled through something thick, “I knew I was going to die. It was already happening, and all I could think was that I hadn’t said it to you.”

The room blurs. His eyes return to mine.

“I love you.”

The words land without performance. No smirk. No defensive bite. No embarrassment twisted into cruelty. Just truth, raw and plain and almost violent in its openness.

“I love you,” he says again, as if the first one might not count if he does not carve it deeper. “I loved you before. I loved you when I was acting like a piece of shit. I loved you when I picked fights over stupid things because I liked when you looked at me. I loved you when I said you were annoying. I loved you when you cried at that movie and I pretended I wasn’t watching you instead of the screen. I loved you when I didn’t say it because I thought saying it made me look weak.”

His mouth tightens.

“I was so fucking stupid.”

I shake my head, tears slipping silently now, warm down my face despite the steam. He wipes one away with his thumb. His hand is wet, so it does nothing except smear more warmth across my skin.

“I regret that,” he says. “More than dying. I swear to God. Every time I thought it was over, that was the thing. Not the pain. Not them. Not even being scared. It was you, standing somewhere outside all of it, not knowing. Maybe thinking I didn’t love you enough. Maybe thinking I was gone with all those stupid words still stuck in my fucking mouth.”

A sound breaks in my chest. He leans forward and kisses my cheek where the tear fell. Then the other. Then my forehead.

Each kiss is slow. Careful. Heavy with something that makes my hands tremble against his shoulders. He is not trying to lead us anywhere. Not trying to turn the moment into heat because heat would be easier than grief. He is kissing me like apology can be physical. Like love, if repeated enough against skin, might erase the silence he left behind.

“You don’t have to regret it,” I whisper. He stills. “You’re here now.” His eyes close. My fingers curl at the back of his neck. “You’re here,” I say again, because he needs it more than he needs air. “And I know. I knew then too.”

His eyes open. I swallow around the ache in my throat.

“I knew you loved me.” His face changes. It twists, almost in pain. I hurry before he can look away. “Not because you said it. You didn’t. Obviously.”

A broken little breath leaves him.

“But you’d walk on the outside of the sidewalk and pretend it was because I was too dumb to avoid cars. You brought me medicine when I had a fever and left it at my door. You remembered what convenience store drink I liked but made fun of it every time you bought it. You fixed my collar. You called me annoying when I cried but stayed until I stopped.”

His eyes are full now. He looks furious at them.

“So yeah,” I whisper. “I knew.”

For a moment, his face is so open I almost cannot look at him. Then he pulls me into him.

Water surges around us, spilling over the edge in a small wave that neither of us cares about. His arms lock around me, one hand cradling the back of my head, the other spread over my spine, pressing me against him until there is no space left for grief to sit between us. My face fits into the crook of his neck. His skin is hot from the bath, damp beneath my cheek. His heartbeat hammers against my chest.

“I’m going to say it all the time now,” he mutters into my hair.

I close my eyes.

“Okay.”

“You’ll get sick of it.”

“I won’t.”

“You will. You’re like that.”

“I’m really not.”

“You are.” His voice shakes. “And I don’t care. I’ll say it anyway.”

His mouth finds my shoulder. A kiss. Then another, higher, against the curve of my neck.

He kisses like someone counting places he thought he would never touch again. Shoulder. Neck. Jaw. Temple. The corner of my eye. My forehead. He kisses the tears before they can cool. He kisses my hairline and breathes there, raggedly, like he has found shelter beneath my skin.

“I love you,” he says against my temple. My hands slide up his back. “I love you,” he says again, lower. The words tremble through him. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

I begin crying harder, silently at first, then not silently. My shoulders shake. He holds me tighter immediately, one hand cupping the back of my head, fingers threading through wet hair. He does not tell me to stop this time. Does not say I look ugly. Does not panic at the sight of it. He just presses his mouth to my forehead and takes every sound like punishment he has decided he deserves.

I pull back enough to look at him.

“You don’t have to earn staying,” I say. His brows draw together. “You don’t have to say enough perfect things to make up for being gone.”

“I wasn’t gone by choice.”

“I know.”

His eyes flash.

“No,” he says. “You don’t.”

The words hit harder because they are not cruel. Only true. His hand slides from my hair to my cheek, holding me still, not forcefully but with a desperate focus that makes my breath catch.

“I tried to get out,” he says. “I tried so many times. I wasn’t just sitting there thinking about you like some sad drama lead.”

A tiny laugh breaks through my tears. His mouth curves for half a second, then disappears.

“I fought. I lied. I threatened people. I did stupid things. I did smart things too, sometimes.” His expression darkens. “I hurt people. Sometimes because I had to. Sometimes because I was scared and angry and didn’t know what else to do. And then it would reset, and they would look at me like nothing happened, and I’d forget what I’d done, or what they’d done, and everyone just kept… starting again.”

His breathing roughens. My hands tighten on his shoulders.

“Do you know how crazy that makes you?” he whispers. “Looking at someone eating breakfast after you watched them die? Hearing someone laugh after they begged? Wondering if this time they’ll kill you first, or if you’ll do it to them because you remember something they haven’t remembered yet?”

My stomach turns. He looks down.

“I wasn’t good in there.”

The confession falls between us quietly. The bathwater laps against my back.

I think of the boy he was before. Cruel, yes. Sharp-tongued. Violent. A bully when he wanted power and attention. Someone who laughed at fear because fear in other people made him feel larger. I think of what a place like that would do to him. A game built out of suspicion and death. A world where being mean might feel like armor. Where guilt would reset but memory would not always be merciful enough to vanish completely.

I touch his face again. He flinches at the tenderness, barely.

“You’re here with me now,” I say.

His eyes close like the words hurt.

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” I whisper. “It’s not.”

His lashes lift.

“I don’t know what happened in there yet. I don’t know what you did. I don’t know what was done to you.” My voice shakes, but I keep going because he deserves truth more than comfort dressed as lies. “But I know you came back carrying it. And I know you’re telling me instead of pretending nothing happened. That has to mean something.”

He stares at me for a long time. Then his face crumples.

He fights it. His mouth presses tight. His chin trembles once. His eyes shine and his brows pull together like anger can still hold the pieces in place if he just hates himself hard enough.

“I don’t want to be like before,” he says. My heart gives one hard, painful beat. His hand drops to the water, fingers flexing beneath the surface. “I don’t mean—” He stops, frustrated, searching for words he has never had practice using. “I’m still me. I’m not going to come back all nice and polite and bowing to every bastard who looks at me wrong.”

Despite everything, my mouth trembles toward a smile. His eyes catch it. A faint spark answers, then dims.

“But with you,” he says. “I don’t want to waste time being a coward.”

“You were never a coward.”

He gives me a look.

Even traumatized, exhausted, naked in a lavender bath at four in the morning, Go Kyung-jun can still make disbelief look insulting.

“I was,” he says. “With you, I was. I acted like wanting you didn’t scare the hell out of me. I acted like if I made you mad first, you couldn’t see how bad I had it. I picked fights because if we were fighting, at least you were looking at me.”

“You were terrible at romance.”

“I know.”

“You once threw a snack at my head because I said another boy was cute.”

His eyes narrow faintly. “He was ugly.”

“He was a kid.”

“He breathed through his mouth.”

I almost laugh again.

This time, he watches it happen with something like wonder and grief mixed together, like my almost-laughter is a thing he wants to put somewhere safe.

Then the softness returns to his face, solemn and stripped bare.

“I don’t want to do that anymore,” he says. “Not the stupid parts.”

“You’ll still fight with me.”

“Obviously.”

“Obviously,” I echo, and the corner of his mouth moves.

“But not like before.” His thumb traces the wet curve of my shoulder, absent and careful. “Not leaving things unsaid because saying them feels embarrassing. Not acting like I don’t care when I do. Not making you guess if I love you.”

My throat tightens. He leans forward, pressing his forehead to mine.

“I love you,” he whispers again.

I close my eyes.

The words are beginning to change the room. It doesn't erase the two years of death and impossible loops and police files and empty funerals. But it changes something. Making the bathroom warmer than the water. Making the dark outside the window less endless. Each time he says it, the silence that lived between then and now loses one small inch of power.

“I love you too,” I whisper. His breath catches. As if he did not know. As if the whole night has not been built from it.

His hand comes up to my neck, palm warm and wet, fingers curving carefully beneath my jaw. He kisses me slowly. So slowly the kiss becomes less a kiss than a place to rest. His mouth moves against mine with a tenderness that feels learned in pain. There is no hunger pushing it forward, no urgency except the urgency of staying. I can taste salt on him. Tears, maybe mine, maybe his, maybe both of ours until it no longer matters.

When he pulls back, he does not go far. His nose brushes mine.

“You really kept that ugly picture?” I let out a tiny, watery laugh. The old shape of him flickers there, fragile and familiar.

“Yes.”

“Should’ve picked a better one.”

“You wouldn’t let me take better ones.”

“Because you take pictures like someone’s grandmother.”

“Your grandmother liked that picture.” His mouth softens at the mention of her. For a moment, he looks down at the water.

“She cried a lot?”

The question is almost too quiet. I nod. His jaw tightens.

“I was all she had,” he says.

I touch his arm.

“She still has you.”

His eyes close.

“Yeah.”

But it does not sound like relief yet. It sounds like a debt. Like another person he came back to wounded by his absence. Like living has given him everyone’s grief to hold in his hands.

“She never gave up,” I tell him.

He opens his eyes.

“Neither did you,” he says. I look away before I can stop myself. His hand catches my chin, gently but firmly, turning me back. “Don’t.” I blink. “Don’t act like it was nothing.”

The words settle heavily. I try to swallow, but the ache will not move.

“You had the worse part,” I whisper.

His eyes harden.

“No.”

“Kyung-jun—”

“No.” This time there is anger in it, but not at me. At the unfairness. At the years. At the idea that pain must be ranked before it is allowed to matter. “You buried me.”

I stop breathing.

His face changes as he says it, like the words have shown him a picture he cannot bear.

“You stood there,” he says slowly. “At some funeral with my picture. People saying I was dead. You had to—” His voice breaks, and he looks away, but his hand stays on me. “Don’t tell me that was nothing.”

The bathroom blurs.

I remember the white flowers. The black ribbon. His school photo. His grandmother’s hand crushing mine. The way my knees vanished beneath me. The ugly sound I made in front of everyone. The shame of crying for someone who should have been there to mock me for it.

“I hated you a little,” I admit. His eyes snap back to mine. I wipe my cheek with the heel of my hand, but it is useless. Everything is wet in here. My face, my hands, the air itself. “Not really,” I say quickly. “Not in a way that made sense. I just… you were gone. And I didn’t know where to put it. Everyone kept looking at me like I was sad, and I was, but I was angry too. Because you left me with all this love and nowhere to put it. I couldn’t call you. I couldn’t yell at you. I couldn’t tell you I missed you. I couldn’t even be mad at you properly because everyone thought you were dead, and you’re not supposed to be mad at dead people.”

Kyung-jun stares at me. The water cools around us by degrees, but neither of us moves.

“I was mad that you weren’t there to be awful about your own funeral,” I whisper.

His mouth trembles.

“I would’ve been awful.”

“I know.”

“I would’ve said the flowers were tacky.”

“They were.”

“And that everyone looked like shit.”

“They did.”

His eyes shine.

“And I would’ve told you to stop crying.”

I nod, tears slipping again. “Yeah.”

He leans forward and kisses them.

“I wouldn’t now,” he whispers against my cheek. My breath catches. He kisses the other cheek. “I wouldn’t.” His mouth rests at my temple. “I’d let you cry,” he says, voice raw. “I’d probably be useless, probably say something stupid. But I’d stay.”

I close my eyes and fold into him.

He holds me like he is trying to prove it retroactively. Like he can somehow go back to that funeral and stand beside me, alive and warm and scowling, and undo the black ribbon on his own picture. Like if he keeps his arms tight enough now, he can reach every version of me who slept in his hoodie and woke with his name already hurting in her mouth.

The bathwater is no longer as hot.

Steam fades slowly from the mirror, revealing us in blurred fragments. His shoulder. My hair. His arm around my back. The curve of the tub. Two faces too close together to see clearly.

Kyung-jun notices the change before I do.

“You’re getting cold.”

“I’m okay.”

He gives me a look that is pure, exhausted disdain.

“You’re shaking.”

“So are you.”

His mouth tightens. Neither of us moves.

Then, after a moment, he says, “Can we stay a little longer?”

I nod immediately. His relief is quiet but visible. A small loosening around his eyes. A deeper breath against my hair.

We shift again so I am back against his chest, his arms around me beneath the cooling water. I turn the hot tap on with my foot, just enough to warm the bath again, and he huffs softly behind me.

“What?” I ask.

“You’re weirdly skilled at that.”

“I’ve had years of practice surviving without you.” The words slip out before I can soften them. His arms tighten. I feel his mouth press against the back of my head.

“Don’t,” he murmurs.

“I’m sorry.”

“No.” His voice is low. “Say things like that. I need to hear it.”

I stare at the water. It shimmers under the bathroom light, broken by our breathing.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I whisper.

“You think not hearing it makes it better?” I say nothing. His chin settles on my shoulder. “I need to know what I missed,” he says. “Even if it makes me feel like shit. I need to know you were here. That you kept going. That you hated me a little.” His breath trembles. “That you loved me anyway.”

My fingers trace the back of his hand under the water.

“I loved you the whole time.” His chest rises sharply against my back. “I hated that too sometimes,” I admit. “It felt pathetic. Like everyone else knew how to move forward and I was still standing in your room waiting for you to come home.”

His lips touch my shoulder.

“Not pathetic.”

“You would’ve called it pathetic before.”

His silence lasts long enough to answer.

Then he says, “Yeah.”

I close my eyes.

“I was an idiot.”

“You were seventeen.”

“I was an idiot at seventeen.”

“Still are a little.”

His mouth brushes my skin, and this time I feel the faintest smile there.

“Careful.”

The word has no threat in it. Only memory. Only the softest ghost of who he was before the world took him apart. The quiet stretches.

For the first time all night, his breathing begins to slow. Not sleep. Not yet. But the rhythm changes. His chest against my back rises and falls less violently. His hand stills over my stomach, fingers splayed, thumb resting near my ribs. The heat, the salts, the water, the dark hour turning slowly toward dawn — all of it begins to gather around him. Not forcing rest. Inviting it.

His head lowers until his forehead rests against my shoulder.

“I don’t want to wake up there,” he says.

The sentence is so soft I almost think I imagined it. My eyes open.

The bathroom is dimmer now, or maybe my eyes have adjusted. The light above us hums faintly. Outside the little window, the sky has begun to turn the color of watered ink.

“You won’t,” I say.

His hand tightens.

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” I whisper. “I don’t.” He goes still. I turn my head enough that my cheek brushes his hair. “But if you wake up scared, I’ll be here.” His breath shakes against my shoulder. “And if you wake up and you don’t know where you are, I’ll tell you.”

His fingers curl against my skin.

“And if you wake up and think it was a dream, I’ll be really annoying until you believe me.”

A faint, broken sound leaves him. Almost a laugh. Almost a sob.

“Promise?”

I turn in his arms again.

The water moves around us, warmer now, softer. I cup his face in both hands. His eyes are heavy but terrified beneath it, exhaustion dragging at him while fear claws him awake. He looks at me like a boy at the edge of a dark room, refusing to step in unless someone promises to hold the door open.

“I promise,” I say.

His eyes search mine.

“Say my name,” he whispers.

“Kyung-jun.”

His face tightens.

Again, his eyes say.

“Kyung-jun.”

His hands come up over mine, pressing them harder to his cheeks.

“Again.”

“Kyung-jun.” His eyes close. The breath that leaves him is not relief exactly. But it is close.

I lean forward and kiss his forehead. Then the bridge of his nose. Then his mouth, gently enough that he does not have to kiss back if he is too tired.

He kisses back anyway. Because he is Kyung-jun. Because even broken, he reaches. Because need has always been the most honest thing about him, even when he used to dress it up as arrogance. When I pull away, his eyes stay closed.

“I love you,” he murmurs.

“I love you too.”

His mouth moves faintly. “Good.”

I almost smile.

“Bossy even half-dead.”

His eyes open a sliver.

“Not half-dead.”

“No?”

“No.” His hand slides to the back of my neck, heavy and warm. “I came back.”

My throat tightens.

“Yes,” I whisper. “You did.”

He looks at me for a long moment, and something in his gaze settles. Enough that when I shift back against him, he lets his head fall to my shoulder again. His arms close around me beneath the water. The world narrows to heat and breath and the slow pale line of dawn growing behind frosted glass.

He does not sleep yet. But he rests. And for Kyung-jun, for this hour, for this first night after the dead gave him back, that is enough. His lips move against my shoulder one last time.

“If I start acting like an asshole again,” he murmurs, voice thick and fading, “hit me.”

I turn my face toward his hair.

“I already do.”

A faint breath touches my skin. This one is almost a laugh.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Harder next time.”

Then he goes quiet.

Held against me in cooling bathwater, his heartbeat steadying slowly at my back, his fingers still tangled with mine beneath the surface like even rest has to be learned through touch. I stay awake with him as the night thins. I keep my hand over his. I keep breathing where he can feel it. And when the first gray light of morning slips into the bathroom, soft and uncertain and real, Kyung-jun is still there.

• Also to get these noises, sighs, and moans out of you

• Kyungjun builds tension and arousal during foreplay, using gentle teasing and more intense stimulation to drive you wild

• Above all, Kyungjun respects his partner's boundaries during foreplay, checking in if they're comfortable

Moving forward

• He is the dominant one, you can't tell me otherwise, he takes charge of guiding the direction all this situation is going into

• He enjoys being in control of the pace, intensity, positions, and activities if you know what I mean. He is also not afraid to issue some commands guiding you

• I see him using his physical dominance to show his control, such as pinning you against the wall, holding you in place, grabbing you and tossing you around, and pinning your hands behind your back or above your head

• He enjoys teasing you and showing his control over your pleasure, using techniques like edging or orgasm denial

• Likes using handcuffs, ropes, bondage, or other props to further assert his dominance

Pleasuring you

• Kyungjun focuses on pleasuring you in every way possible

• He uses his hands, lips, and tongue paying close attention to your reactions

• He is skilled at finding your most sensitive spots and knows how to tease you

• Like I said his touch is firm, yet gentle (cause hurting you is the last thing he would do)

• He is not afraid of trying new things

• Loves to use his long fingers on you but listen, during oral... He is completely focused on your satisfaction and pleasure, he can't even think about himself

Pleasuring him

• Kyungjun likes to receive pleasure and likes it even more when you are the one to initiate it

• I don't think he cares much about how you are willing to pleasure him but his favourite is to receive a nice blowjob

• He can't get over the view of your eyes looking so politely at him, with your mouth full and your knees hurting on the ground, it looks so pretty

• Your tongue just drives him wild with desire for more

Aftercare

• After an intense round Kyungjun pulls you close, wrapping his arms around you tight, he holds you firmly but gently, providing a sense of security

• Peppers you with compliments (even tho he is not a very vocal person he has his moments during and after intimate situations), he reassures you showing the emotional connection you two share

• He might stroke your head or rub your back softly before heading to shower together

✮⋆˙ julliet

"that's so stupid. the only factor you should need is evidence. it doesn't matter if the accused is a long time friend, your partner, or even your child. sure, your judgment on their character is still relevant, but if their fingerprints were found at the crime scene there's just no way you can objectively ignore their culpability. at that point, you should either believe your partner is guilty or at best remain undecided."

"in that case, would you say that following the evidence is morally required?"

"absolutely."

"you don't think there might be other ethical factors to consider?"

"for example?"

"even though the evidence is strong, there's still a chance they might not be guilty. imagine how it would feel like to be innocent and have no one believe you, not even your own partner! by not supporting them you run the risk of seriously hurting them on a crucial time of need. and consider what this lack of trust would do to your relationship. could you really go on after seriously suspecting–and believing–they're a murderer?"

"are you saying you'd rather ignore the crimes of your partner, even when the truth is staring you in the face, just for the sake of love?"

outside of the ethical dilemma resonating through yoon yn's headphones, the girl shifted around on her seat. her limbs felt numb from remaining unmoving for so long and, even though the only companion by her side was her bag, the compact space paid no mercy on her back. 

after finding a comfortable position she set her eyes on the view outside the window. sunlight hued over the fields of grass and the occasional farm, making the rural landscape imitate a painting in motion shaped by the most gentle brush strokes. the scene felt so engrossingly peaceful, she could almost feel the gale caressing her features despite the glass separating her from the world. 

yn couldn't help but thank the scene–and the long lasting battery of her headphones–for giving her something to focus on, seeing as the ride to the resort her class was directed towards had resulted to be such an otherwise tiresome one. 

"YES!"

an obnoxious voice popped yn's bubble in spite of the maximum volume she'd set for her podcast. distracted by the sound she turned to glance at the very back of the bus, where the students grouped up at the last row of leathered seats frowned in unison at heo yool–who mocked them with the cheekiest grin one could imagine. judging by their sullen looks, yn figured the citizens had lost yet another round of mafia, a game they'd been playing for who knows how long.

she recalled when her classmates had urged her to join the game the moment she stepped into the bus, which she declined, prioritizing her tranquility over the headache she knew they'd give her, yet promising she'd join in the next time. 

after figuring out the source of that ruckus yn set her focus back on her podcast, purposely missing the eyes of the guy she'd been avoiding to the best of her abilities for days now.

just a few rows behind her, kyung jun's eyes never left yn as she disappeared between the sea of heads flooding the bus, and his scheme of intentionally leaving the space by his side unoccupied for her came to mind, especially remembering how his grand plan backfired when that fucking basketball-star-wannabe gave up his seat for her.

that annoying prick just couldn't get the memmo, couldn't he? to him, hyun ho had always been a nuisance; a pest that treaded on yn's heels at every chance he got–even when she used to hang onto the feared delinquent's arm.

"they're so loud," kyung jun muttered. he'd been trying to settle down the bittersweet echoes of his mind since the start of that damned school trip, in vain, since the blaring voices behind him made the flare that was his temper even harder to quell than any of those memories.

luckily, he needn't lift a single finger to make the commotion stop, and he was able to get some peace of mind thanks to his lackeys acting as spokesmen for his aggravation. 

on the other side of the large vehicle, kim so mi sneakily took pictures of the class president. 

"hey look, isn't he gorgeous?" the vice president called, showing what was sure to be one of her new favorite pictures to her friends seated behind: park ji soo, cha yoo joon and park woo ram. "doesn't this belong in a magazine? how can he look so gorgeous?" so mi repeated with a dreamy sigh, looking at her screen.

"i will tell jun hee tomorrow that you took a photo of him," woo ram threatened with a playful smile.

"oh yeah? what if i tell yn about all the videos you have?" so mi replied, pointing at the camera that always hanged around the guy's neck. 

"please do, maybe i'll finally seduce her."

"oh my god," exclaimed yoo joon, "you are so delusional."

"why?" he lifted one of his hands in response to the very serious offense.

"dude, you barely talk to her."

"woo ram, you have the same chances of getting with yn as me and yoo joon of breaking up." ji soo stated.

the guy in mention glanced at his girlfriend, seemingly unaware of the joke. "that's zero, right?" question to which ji soo only rolled her eyes.

"i don't care what you say," woo ram brushed off. "i know she's the love of my life."

"ko kyung jun!" called out so mi.

like a tiny animal trying to save itself from a threatening predator, woo ram jumped to the empty seat by his side, hiding from the vandal's peripheral as much as possible while the rest of his companions laughed.

"fuck, kim so mi!" he cried out, "you trying to get me killed?"

"relax, he's not even looking," revealed the vice president with a cheeky smile.

as if they'd rehearsed it, the four students turned around to catch ko kyung jun's eyes still set on yoon yn, and by the looks of it, he didn't have any plans to cease his staring.

"not seeing them together is kinda weird," yoo joon pointed out.

"does anyone know why they broke up?" so mi asked to her peers, who all looked at each other expecting an answer none of them had.

"whatever," dismissed ji soo, "yn is better off without him anyway."

"yeah, she's been around us a lot more since then." agreed so mi.

"i bet kyung jun barely let her talk to us."

"right? he looks like the controlling type."

"i would never treat her like that." acknowledged woo ram, making his way back into the conversation only to get beaten back down by the three others.

the time inside the bus seemed to work differently than the rest of the world. minutes and hours mixed up in a disorienting spectacle that at least seemed to follow the sun setting over the horizon. 

when they finally arrived to the resort, the only source of light were the numerous lamps adorning the streets and the inviting shine of the building before them.

with the bus door finally opened, the students of class 2-3 thronged the exit with overwhelming excitement. the trip had been longer that the teacher had promised and everyone was ready to get comfortable on their temporary rooms. of course, that included yn, who unfortunately had to wait for the rest of her classmates to take their suitcases out of the loaded trunk since her luggage ended up dropping to the back during the ride.

after everyone collected their belongings, the girl was able to retrieve her case at last. it was somewhat heavy but the tiny wheels at the bottom made it easier for her to slide the valise out of the bus' compartment. taking out the retractable handle, yn rolled her suitcase for at most six steps before someone else got ahold of it.

"what are you doing?" she questioned, but the guy simply walked away while pulling her luggage along and up the stairs.

"kyung jun." 

at the sound of his name, he stopped. walking towards him, yn stood right between the entrance and the suitcase-stealer. 

"what do you think? i'm helping you."

"i can do it myself." yn chided, staring him down harshly.

kyung jun had received many looks like that one throughout his life. from parents, teachers, students... they were all identical, ranging from disappointment to resentment and back. he was used to it. it was his day to day, how could he not be? yet he never imagined the same eyes that used to watch him with so much endearment would scrutinize him so cruelly. 

"you used to love when i carried your stuff." he reminded her, scanning yn's face for a spec of something–anything–he hoped could save him from the pain her gaze struck him with.

the girl let out an exasperated sigh. why couldn't he leave her be? why was it that, no matter how much she wanted to distance herself, he always found a way to squeeze back into her life? 

yn grabbed the handle of her suitcase and pulled. she wanted to leave, to get away from his side and free herself of his piercing eyes. unfortunately his strength surpassed hers, and she was forced to stay as he kept his grip.

"can you let go?" 

"yn," he asked but the girl just focused on the luggage he kept hostage. "can we talk?"

"about what?" she sneered, speaking with as much disdain her troubled feelings allowed.

"you know what." 

once again, she sighed. his antics were so infuriating; always pushing down the barrier she tried to put between the two. 

"not now."

"then when?" he instantly snapped back, then took a deep breath to stop his grating tone. "you always say that but then you ignore me for days."

"look, i don't have time for this." for the second time, she attempted to retrieve her case. "i promised i'd help with the preparations for the class picture, so–"

"oh, c'mon," and still, he pulled back. "since when do you care about this school-spirit-bullshit?"

he was right, yn never involved herself with whatever activities the school came up with. time and time again, they'd skipped so many classes as to not get involved with all those school projects they both deemed as meaningless, deciding to spend their mornings strolling around parks and nearby shopping districts instead. but that wasn't an option anymore, and yn needed some way to blurr the images that kept torturing her with the agonizing nostalgia of a broken relationship.

"promise me we'll talk. tonight." 

"sure," for the third time, she attempted to take back her luggage. but his answer was the same.

"no, yn. promise me."

with every fiber of her being, yn summoned the last shreds of her patience and met his gaze. his eyes held her captive, beseeching her in silence to unravel the troubles he was willing to share with no one but her, and the hypnotic pull of his gaze weakened her willpower to resist.

"i promise." she reluctantly gave in.

as kyung jun finally released the carry-on, yn didn't even bat an eye before snatching it up and walking away. however, as she made her way into the resort center, she couldn't help but feel frustrated with herself for falling for his tricks. all the effort she had put into avoiding him seemed to have gone down the drain so quickly, leaving her feeling defeated.

not wanting kyung jun to catch up to her, yn rushed inside the building. 

warm lights illuminated the vast entrance, composed by a lounge area with leathered sofas that accentuated the beige walls with brighter colors and a water dispenser conveniently placed next to the cushioned seats. at the center, a beautiful statue engulfed by faint blue lighting towered over everything below. the perfectly crafted marble giant was impossible to miss, looking like a still guardian watching over the resort's grounds. yet that didn't stop yn from overlooking the sign with the qr code needed for the resort's wifi and facility app.

following the arrows pointing out the way towards the elevator, yn got in and pressed the button labeled dormitories. the heavy doors slid and shut before the steel cage trembled, signaling its vertical movement. suddenly, the girl felt the air tighten inside her chest, twisting her lungs in a way that seemed to strangle them. oxygen got caught up in her throat as images of cables snapping and an imminent fall to her death plagued her mind. in, out, in, out. yn's breath increased as rapidly as tidal waves when the lights malfunctioned and in between flickers, she saw a dark figure out of the corner of her eye. 

the moment she snapped her head back to take a look, a faint bell announced the door sliding open. taking in the air as steadily as she could, yn grabbed her suitcase and escaped the cage of death. frightened and disoriented, she questioned if what just concurred has been a quick fever dream or reality. and if it wasn't, why did her mind torture her like that? as far as she knew, never in her life had she experienced something that'd cause this crippling fear of high spaces. so why...?

she shook her head and brushed off the uncanny feeling, dismissing it as a consequence from the tiresome trip and forcing herself to focus on finding the room she shared with ahn na hee and kim so mi, who'd invited her with overwhelming coercion. compared to the elevator ride, figuring out her way to her dormitory was a piece of cake. the girl left her stuff in an empty corner and took the stairs down towards the gymnasium. there, instead of getting scolded by the teacher like she expected, what greeted her was a plethora of different activities performed by her classmates. 

in the middle of the room, a group of students flawlessly danced to the rhythm of the songs reverberating from a large speaker, followed by lee joo young and choi mi na silently fighting for the spotlight, and being interrupted by ko kyung jun, who apparently had nothing better to do than to mess with their practice by turning off the music while his two loyal followers, shin seung bin and kim jin ha, played a very dedicated match of ping-pong.

on opposite corners of the gym, jin da bum, choi joo won, lee yoon seo and oh jung won were consecutively separated in two pairs, all conversing with their respective best friends. up on the second floor, cha yoo joon and park ji soo, who never seemed to stay away from each other, watched from above. on the stage, band members im eun chan, nam yeon woo and baek eun ha dabbled with their instruments to make sure everything was perfectly in tune. lastly, jang hyun ho and kim dong hyun busied themselves by organizing all the sport equipment laying around.

"yoon yn!" called kim jun hee from a large set of tables surrounded by the other members of the student council which, of course, included kim so mi and her friend ahn na hee.

with no sight of their teacher around yn walked stress-free to said table, although not before catching park woo ram pointing his camera right at her, which made the guy hastily turning to film someone else. 

"you're here," the class president stated. "we thought you got lost or something."

"sorry, i got caught up with something." yn replied. she didn't really care about these preparations, but she did promise to help, and yn wasn't the type to use that word lightly.

"yeah! i was going to text you but we've been so busy preparing everything." so mi ranted, sprinkling salt into the wound.

"i can see that," yn commented, deciding to ignore so mi's backhanded scolding.

"what happened, though? did you really get lost?" na hee asked. 

"no, i got stopped by kyung jun."

"oh, right. he was a bit late too now that I think about it."

"is that jackass bothering you again?" hyun ho, who'd come closer to the table just as yn approached, joined in and put a hand on her shoulder.

"no," yes. "everything's fine."

truth be told, yn would rather drop dead than having to deal with kyung jun. however, she knew that telling her classmates about it wouldn't lead to a positive outcome. after all, the only person who had the courage to confront the delinquent was hyun ho, and, given their history, yn was certain his involvement would only make matters worse.

in another area of the bustling gym, the noticeable trio of vandals were causing a ruckus in the corner. as they tossed a basketball back and forth, jin ha hurled the ball at kyung jun, who was too busy gawking at yn's arrival to notice. the ball smacked him right in the chest–a painful reminder of how his focus seemed to always follow after her. 

"shit, my bad!" jin ha exclaimed.

their leader squatted to grab the ball at his feet and got back up only for his gaze to fix back towards the girl who constantly distracted him and, of-fucking-course, hyun ho standing right next to her, as always. the sight made his blood boil and his knuckles turn white as he clenched the basketball in his hands, while his rapid heartbeats deafened any coherent thought telling him to settle down.

seeing this, jin ha and seung bin looked at each other before the latter sighed and came closer to his friend. throwing one arm around his shoulders, he spoke:

"why don't we go outside, man? get your head out the gutter."

"yeah," kyung jun agreed, seeing seung bin was clearly trying his best to support him. perhaps he was right, some air would probably do him good right now. "let's go." was the last thing he said before disappearing through the gymnasium's exit, just in time to miss the teacher entering from the other side.

after informing the class presidents about a problem regarding the other bus full of students set to accompany them on this field trip, he left, clearly in a panic because of the unexpected turn of events.

in the meantime, most of class 2-3 remained in the gymnasium. no more than a few minutes went by before the dancing group, who now were fixing their hair and makeup while sitting on the floor, called yn over. ever since they found out about her break up, the girls had been offered her to go out again and again, an opportunity they took to invite her to join their club with not-so-subtle comments. 

"oh yn, you should hang out with us more!" were the kind of utterances she always received from the class' cheerleaders.

mi na had insisted on brushing yn's hair. taking the empty stop in front of her classmate, she felt the bristles effortlessly flowing through the roots of her hair to its ends. the conversation was an amicable one. the girls often taking their time to butter up yn and saying how cool it'd be to have her in their club–until the self proclaimed hairdresser decided to dive into something she'd been curious about.

"hey yn."

"yeah?" she answered, eyes closed while enjoying the soothing sensation of the hairbrush.

"why did you and kyung jun brake up?"

mi na found herself at a loss for words when she faced the disapproving and critical stares of the entire group. why would you ask that? their glares yelled in silence, making her feel like she just made a terrible mistake.

"that's between him and i, mi na." yn abruptly ended the change of topic.

why did they break up? that's a question she'd been asked countless times ever since her classmates took note of their separation. a query yn remembered avoiding like a plague, long before this trip. only this time, a strange, guttural discomfort buried into every corner of her brain as she noticed a spec of something missing, unable to put together if the same evasion came as a reflex or because she couldn't answer it herself.

"right," mi na's shame, reinforced by the brutal glares of the other girls, took over her face as her cheeks flushed. "sorry."

luckily for her, just as her face morphed into a cherry tomato, a painful ringing roared through the speakers before the absence of light engulfed the high schoolers in deep darkness.

"c'mon! what is this?" one said.

"what's going on?" asked another.

"hey, turn the lights on!" resonated a voice from above.

a loud clang similar to a metal pipe hitting a hard surface echoed over the four walls, followed by the piercing shrieks of several people. helping themselves with the flashlights provided by their phones, the students revealed a white figure in the middle of the room.

"quit joking around." before any more screeches could be heard, hyun ho launched a basketball to the sheeted ghost, making it fall to the ground just as pathetically as your average cartoon villain.

with the precision of a well-rehearsed act, the room was suddenly lit up, revealing the mischievous culprit behind the childish prank. and lo and behold, it was none other than heo yool.

the collection of complaints from everybody present synced in a perfect expression of annoyance and the occasional insult. 

"guys, listen carefully." the class clown™ gathered his classmates' attention as he stood from the ground. "i've heard that, a long time ago, a high school girl killed herself here," he explained, playing the role of a surprisingly talented storyteller. "so there's a few things you should never do: don't look at the mirror and turn around at midnight. and if someone grabs your ankle when you're sleeping, don't look down. if you break these rules," he turned to the group of dancers. "a ghost will pop up!" dashing towards them with the form of a rogish halloween scare actor, he was met with the frightened squeals of the girls.

yn, whose interest in the paranormal had never been deep enough to scare her, grabbed mi na's hairbrush and hurled it towards heo yool. an action that encouraged the rest of the class to throw everything they had at hand, along with some despicable remarks and the teasing laugh of the insufferable rascal.

defeated by heo yool's stunts, the students decided they've had enough as one by one they exited the gym. 

"are you coming, yn?" so mi asked.

the girl nodded before answering, "i'll be there in a minute. i want to get some water first."

at the entrance, so mi and yn parted ways. she approached the water dispenser and took one of the cardboard cups provided by the machine. ever since the lights of the gymnasium had turned off, the girl noticed an unusual taste in her mouth that reminded her of her frightening fever dream at the elevator. she felt it at the back of her neck: something eerily creeping behind her at every given moment. was it possible that heo yool's story actually got under her skin? trying to brush off the uncanny sensation, yn took a sip from the refreshment in her hand.

"yn!" 

the call startled her, making the water get caught up in her throat. she coughed and patted her own chest as the liquid scraped its way down her larynx, like a tiny bug trying to escape a spider's web. once able to compose herself, yn glanced towards the voice.

"im so sorry!" joo won panicked in a stutter, "i didn't mean to do that, are you ok?"

"im fine." she wiped the water from her lips with her long sleeve. 

joo won and his companion standing behind, da bum, stared at her in silence.

"do you want anything or...?" 

a simultaneous no and a yes echoed trough the entrance, followed by a confused frown from the girl and whatever silent conversation the two guys were displaying with their eyes. 

"do you think maybe you could," joo won took his sweet time to mutter his next words, as if scared. "talk with kyung jun?"

"excuse me?"

what the fuck...? did kyung jun put them up to this?

"we just, well," the spokesman of the duo halted. "we gave some money to his friends a few days ago and we just don't want to bother them."

oh.

"so you bother me?" 

"no, no!" da bum spoke promptly and grabbed his friend's arm, pulling him along as he took a few steps to leave. "it's ok, yn. we won't bother you."

joo won released himself from da bum's grasp and walked towards yn. "please," he pleaded, holding one of her hands tightly with both of his. "he'll listen to you."

right as her heart started beating with enough sympathy to care for their situation, the front door opened. seung bin, jin ha and kyung jun walked into the building, the latter playing around with a basketball.

the three delinquents would've kept their saunter if it weren't for yn's presence, which made the group's top dog stop in his tracks. his companions did the same and all stared at the situation unfolding right in front of them. kyung jun's eyes stayed on the hands holding yn and after noticing his threatening glare, joo won leaped away from her.

"what's going on?" asked the fearful leader.

"you owe them money?" yn countered, her eyes flickering between the trio.

"what?" the blonde one laughed, brushing off the accusation. 

"they do!" joo won blamed, but instantly went back to his helpless self when met with the bullies' threatening scowls. "please, i just need it for my tuition."

the firm glare of the girl pierced through the tough act of the tamer vandal, making him drop his facade as he approached the feeble boy, closed fist in the air.

"fuck, man! we're on retreat, why are you asking us for money now?"

"yeah," seung bin joined in, defending his friend. "what are you, a loan shark? we told you we'd give you interests. give us some time, dipshit!"

kyung jun, who'd only taken the role of observer until that moment, put down the basketball he held and intervened to slap both of his lackeys' heads. "did you do sports betting again? huh?"

like scolded puppies, seung bin and jin ha faced the floor as they stepped aside.

"da bum," he called, and the guy lifted his head to stare at the bully. "did you lend them money too?"

"huh?" as kyung jun stalked closer, da bum's heart raced faster with every step. his eyes frantically scanned the room, desperately seeking any distraction from the intimidating figure slowly closing in on him. "yes. but i can wait for my money. there's no rush." with a lump in his throat, da bum braced himself for whatever was coming next.

"how much?" kyung jun's open hand grabbed the side of da bum's face, forcing the terrified boy to look right at him. "ill pay you back."

"you will?" da bum stuttered.

"of course," his grin turned into something sinister, which allowed only da bum to see because of their proximity. "in return play basketball with me, yeah?"

he faintly smacked his victim's face twice before coming up to yn. "everything's alright here, yn. see? no need for this." kyung jun reached out to hold her hand but she pulled away before any contact could be made. 

was she really so revolted by him she wouldn't even let him touch her? accepting his defeat, kyung jun hid his hands inside his jacket's pockets. 

"right," yn looked at da bum and joo won, who were currently being pushed around by the other two, before turning back to kyung jun. "in that case, i'll get going." 

"you're not coming with me?" just as yn started to walk away, his words pulled her back in.

"i'd rather not."

"are you sure?"

with a swift nod, kyung jun signaled seung bin and jin ha to go ahead and, bringing along the poor students they were about to torment, they disappeared down the hallway.

they were left alone, just like kyung jun liked it. only them, with nothing and no one around to interrupt their precious time together.

not a single second did he stop looking into her fiery eyes, which only seemed to hold a hostility that antagonized his own devoted regard.

"it's almost midnight."

both held each other's gaze, which kyung jun took as an invitation to step towards the girl. he stopped right in front of her and, unfortunately, yn's heart betrayed her mind as she internally screamed for it to cease its raising beats. 

kyung jun's hands raised to yn's face, completely forgetting her previous rejection. for a second, he thought of apologizing, since she'd made it clear time and time again how much she now despised his presence. but how could he apologize for something he was barely conscious of? he couldn't help himself, not when she was merely inches away, not with her. maybe if he insisted–if he didn't give up–she'd finally understand why staying apart was never the world's plan. 

"you promised me. remember?"

his hands were close. so close he could feel his fingertips grace her cheeks, a touch so minuscule, yet enough to make his skin crawl with anticipation. 

he was too close. 

yn stepped back just as she felt the fleeting spark. she would be dammed if she ever allowed him to touch her again, in more ways than one. or at least that's what she told herself as she fell right into another one of his tricks. kyung jun knew her well; too well for her liking. and with such measly words she found herself helplessly cornered by her own self-discipline and morals.

fucking bastard.

up in the vast dormitory area of the resort center, different groups of people were each caught up in their own conversations, without a single care in the world or the impending sinister feeling hanging over their heads like an invisible wrecking ball about to crash and destroy every single thing they ever cared for.

in her room, lee yoon seo was finally able to lose herself in her novel when her phone pinged. slightly annoyed by the distraction she took a closer look to her home screen, which displayed an app in process of downloading.

"i told you i didn't need this." she showed the screen to her roommate.

"it wasn't me." jung won answered, just as astounded.

our perspective changes and now we observe a group of various students, all gathered in one room. the class couple, the cheerleaders and members of the student council all sharing snacks and stories between them in perfect harmony until a knock interrupted. 

"come in!" allowed the vice president.

"hey guys," the door opened, reavealing hyun ho accompanied by his best friend, dong hyun, who stayed on the hallway behind him. "has anyone seen yn?"

"how come you don't know? you're always following her." mocked woo ram before taking a handful of chips from one of the various bags scattered around the room.

"you're one to talk." ji soo muttered, which provoked woo ram to throw a scrambled napkin her way.

"i'm serious." hyun ho replied, "i've tried texting her but this wifi doesn't even work."

"she told me she was going to get some water, isn't she downstairs?" just as so mi finished her sentence, one by one every phone in the room chimed.

notifications spread throughout the resort like a 14th century pandemic, resonating around every room as if imitating the never ending bells that announced the beginning of the end.

back in the gymnasium, joo won stood shaking below the basketball hoop with his friend by his side, eyes shut tight as neither dared watch the nearing hit from the ball.

"joo won, stay right there." kyung jun sneered as he prepared himself to throw. he looked up, targeting the net as he bent his knees, faked a jump, and sent the ball right into the boy's stomach.

joo won kneeled in pain, groaning and grasping his abdomen with both hands in his best attempt to soothe the aching sensation puncturing his body.

yn watched the situation unfold as she sat on the rubber gym flooring, otherwise cold if it weren't for seung bin's zip-up laid out below her. it had been kyung jun who'd instructed the blondie to give up his hoodie, since yn declined on taking his own. not a single word was heard from the girl ever since stepping into the gym as the trio took turns tormenting their two victims, until now.

"i didn't come here for this, kyung jun."

almost ten minutes had passed and she was still waiting for kyung jun to approach her and start the conversation he so adamantly pushed onto her.

"c'mon yn, let me give it one more shot."

he must've lost his fucking mind, thinking he had her wrapped around his finger to waste her time in such a way. fed up, yn got up and snatched the basketball out of his hands before throwing it away. it rolled towards jin ha, who immediately picked it up to quite the sound of the bouncing that only seemed to raise the tension of the ex-lovers' quarrel.

yn opened her mouth to give kyung jun an ultimatum, a last opportunity out of her remaining patience, when a sudden ding emitted out of her skirt's pocket. she would've payed no mind to it if it weren't for the other five identical sounds that propagated right after.

each person in the room took out their phones and faced their screens, which displayed a virtual envelope eagerly waiting to be opened. 

TAP TO VIEW YOU ROLE, read the text below.

"wasn't this the resort's app?" asked jin ha, to nobody in particular.

resort's app? 

she never knew about any app.

"mafia?" seung bin laughed from his spot at the floor and showed his screen. "what's this about?"

"what the fuck is this?" kyung jun mumbled with a frown, clearly confused.

yn brought one hand to the back of her neck as the abnormal sensation from minutes ago reappeared. goosebumps started breaking out throughout her skin and every cell on her body seemed to tremble uncontrollably while she stared at the little black mirror on her hand. which, as she would soon find out, reflected the last version of herself with any shred of purity.

🏷️ @flaneurpastel - @jwijii - @watamotee33