Chapter Text
Jiwoo discovered two things.
First: Kartein had been right.
Second: Kartein was insufferable when he was right.
He confirmed the first while pressing two fingers against his ribs that morning. The deep purples and blues had softened overnight into pale yellow shadows, barely visible in the bathroom mirror. He prodded the worst of it experimentally. Almost nothing. The stiffness had mostly gone too, worked out through another round of the healing exercises Kartein had prescribed with the energy of someone handing down sacred scripture.
He heard Kartein's footsteps stop behind him.
"You see?" Kartein said, "It's almost as if the world's greatest healer knows what he's talking about."
Jiwoo turned back to the mirror and picked up his toothbrush. "I never said you didn't."
"You implied it."
"I literally didn't."
"You thought it."
"You're just making assumptions now."
"You totally did."
"Can you stop—!"
…
The classroom was only half-full. A few students had pushed desks together near the windows. Someone's phone was playing a tinny song nobody was listening to. Conversations crossed and dissolved in the usual shapeless noise of the minutes before homeroom.
Jiwoo dropped into his seat and put his head down on his arms.
The past few days had been the most eventful of his life, and now he was sitting in a stiff chair under fluorescent lighting while someone behind him complained about a vending machine. He kept seeing Mr. Inhyuk's hand, the small, tight coil of wind sitting in his open palm like it weighed nothing. Like it cost nothing.
Something in his chest turned over slowly. For seventeen years, he’d been told to hide, to channel, to control his presence until he was invisible. But now that the curtain had been yanked back, the urge to actually use what his father had beaten into him was clawing at the back of his throat.
He looked at Wooin's empty chair. The one two seats to his left that nobody else ever sat in because Wooin had a way of making the space around him feel occupied even when he wasn't in it. Jiwoo had known, roughly, that he wouldn't be here. He hadn't expected the specific, settled weight of seeing it confirmed.
"Shit…that took forever."
Jiwoo closed his eyes.
Of course.
He didn't need to look. He'd catalogued the voice the same way he catalogued everything that had ever annoyed him, which was a long and well-maintained list. He couldn't have told you the boy's name the world was depending on it, which, from the look on the boy's face as he approached, apparently said something.
The desk rattled as two palms came down hard on its surface.
Jiwoo looked up. Three of them. The original idiot, the tobacco one, and the third who had the good sense to look like he'd rather be somewhere else.
"We've been looking for you," the first boy said. "You had a lot of mouth the other day when your freak friend was standing next to you."
"Wooin isn't a freak," Jiwoo said. The usual easy warmth had gone out of his voice entirely.
"The hell he isn't," the second one said. He leaned in close enough that Jiwoo could smell the stale tobacco soaked into his collar, the particular cheap-brand smell of convenience store cigarettes. "Quiet little bastard behaves like a dog. Probably realized he was about to get his head kicked in and ran back to whatever gutter he crawled out of. Too bad he's not here to take the punches for you, huh?"
Jiwoo was not a violent person. He knew this about himself the same way he knew the number of steps between his house and the first streetlight, part of an internal reckoning, a tabulation of risks and consequences and what was required to survive. Which was why, even now, with the boy’s fist swinging toward his face in a perfect, slow-motion arc, he still hesitated for a half-beat, considering if he could simply duck, apologize, and let the moment pass.
But then the world narrowed to a tunnel: the flex of a bicep through cotton sleeve; the strange, rattling breath of the boy as he overcommitted; the slight, anticipatory lean forward of the others in the room, scenting entertainment, violence, or both. Jiwoo’s body didn’t need permission. His hand lashed out, an unthinking snap, and caught the attacker’s wrist midair with a sound not unlike a raw carrot breaking.
For one instant, he was four years old again, bracing against the swing of a belt. The sensation left him at once hot and numb, electric with panic and shame. But the boy in front of him was not that person (Who was that person again? Why couldn’t he remember their face?), and Jiwoo was no longer a defenseless child.
With his palm wrapped tight around the other’s wrist, he turned his hips, pivoted his foot, and twisted. The boy’s momentum was his own undoing: his entire body careened forward, shoulder first, and Jiwoo guided the arm down, torquing just enough to make the pain bright.
The boy went pale, eyes bulging, and dropped to the floor with a yelp that ricocheted off the windows and died somewhere between the rows of desks.
Jiwoo didn’t let go. Instead, he lowered himself to the boy’s level, squatted with his knees together like an apology. “You should sit this one out,” he said. There was a hollow space where his anger should have been.
He felt the stares—dozens of them—prickling along his shoulders and up the back of his neck. The other two bullies were frozen, unsure if the performance was over or if they were next. Jiwoo made the decision for them: he stood up, wiped his palm on his pants, and fixed his gaze on the leader, who was already flexing his fists like a man preparing for a much easier day.
“You’re dead,” the leader hissed, voice thick with disbelief and something else. Betrayal, maybe. “You hear me? You’re fucking dead.”
The second boy, taller, broader, but slower, moved next with a deliberate, almost calculated windup. He’d traded subtlety for force, probably the only currency he trusted. In his fist, the twisted locker key glittered menacingly.
Jiwoo tracked the blur of metal, and this time, rather than intercept it, he let the swing come close, ducked under, and drove his elbow into the boy’s exposed stomach. A satisfying thud, a sharp exhale, and the boy folded over. Jiwoo pivoted, swept with his foot, and sent him sprawling to the ground beside the first.
A secret, traitorous part of him relished the neatness of it—the way the bodies dropped like dominos. Was this the same satisfaction Kayden experienced whenever he crushed an opponent? If so, then he finally understood why his father used to be so battle hungry. It felt good to let the pressure out, even just a fraction of it.
The third boy, who had watched the proceedings with wide-eyed panic, actually managed to take a step back before Jiwoo even glanced in his direction. Jiwoo did not advance. Instead, he let the tension settle, let the entire room feel the absurdity of the tableau: three would-be tormentors on the ground, one svelte kid standing with his hands at his sides, fighting the urge to tremble.
Jiwoo’s heart hammered, not from adrenaline, but from the radioactive fallout of everyone’s attention. He could feel it, thick in the air, the way he could feel a coming thunderstorm.
He closed his eyes for a moment, just long enough to replay the last twenty seconds in his head, and then opened them, hoping that the world would return to normal. Of course it didn’t.
He scanned the classroom. He saw, with an odd sense of detachment, the mixture of awe and revulsion on his classmates’ faces: Jinah with her hand over her mouth, Minjun with his phone half-raised, uncertain if he should record or call the police, the Choi twins staring in perfect, synchronized horror.
He was supposed to be invisible, but here he was, a neon sign blinking in the fog.
He felt someone watching. Not just watching, but observing.
For a split-second, Jiwoo expected laughter. He expected someone—maybe Sunghoon, maybe one of the Choi twins—to break the unnatural silence with a joke or even a “holy shit, did you see that?” But the silence held. The entire room teetered, breathless, all eyes ricocheting between the boys on the ground, the standing anomaly that was Jiwoo, and the doorway where the teacher’s silhouette now filled the frame.
If he squinted, Jiwoo could almost see Kayden standing behind the teacher, arms folded, that look of exasperated amusement he wore every time Jiwoo made things “unnecessarily complicated.” Maybe if he concentrated harder, Kayden’s shadow would detach itself from the wall and materialize beside him, ready to drag Jiwoo out of this mess with a single withering glare. But Kayden wasn’t here, and Jiwoo was alone in the crosshairs.
It was the teacher who moved first. The stack of attendance sheets in his arms looked dangerously close to scattering everywhere, but he managed an awkward pirouette, taking in the collapsed boys and the stunned class in two rapid blinks. His disheveled tie and the coffee stain on his cuff made him look perpetually harried, but right now, his face was blank, emotionless as a screen waiting for input.
His gaze landed on Jiwoo. He didn’t look angry, not exactly. “Can someone,” he said, voice a half-octave higher than normal, “explain what just happened?”
No one volunteered. The words hung in the air, each second more cumbersome than the last. Finally, Jiwoo found his voice, the syllables scraping awkwardly up his throat. “Sorry.”
His teacher's brow furrowed. “Sorry for…?”
Jiwoo looked down at his hands, still shaking. His knuckles were red, and he realized belatedly one of his fingernails had torn. Great. Add that to the list. “For fighting,” he said. “They started it, and I—” He stopped short, unsure what the next words should be. He could tell the truth, but then he’d have to admit how much it had almost felt good.
The boys on the ground groaned. The one with the twisted key rolled slowly onto his back, clutching his stomach, muttering curses that sounded like they were meant for someone else entirely. The leader refused to make eye contact. The third simply sat there, face gone slack, staring at Jiwoo as if he’d sprouted horns.
He sighed, a long-suffering inhale that seemed to pull the oxygen out of the room. “Jiwoo,” he said, tone gentling, “did you… fight them?”
“Yes,” Jiwoo said, softer this time. The heat had crept up his neck and settled in his cheeks, a slow burn that made his eyes water. All he could think about was the janitor who’d have to buff out the scuff marks on the floor, or maybe the secretary who’d file the inevitable incident report.
The teacher let the silence stretch another second. “For real? With your ankle sprain?” He shook his head slightly, as if trying to clear away static. “I thought you were supposed to be at home resting.”
Jiwoo gave a weak shrug. “I didn’t want to miss more classes.”
His gaze softened a fraction. He cleared his throat, then turned to the rest of the class. “Can someone help Jiwoo to the nurse’s office, please?”
No one moved. Even the usual volunteers sat frozen, as if proximity to Jiwoo might trigger some kind of contagion. The absence of response might have stung more if Jiwoo hadn’t been expecting it.
He straightened his shoulders. “I can go by myself.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, checking him over for any signs of a concussion or worse. “You look rather pale.”
Jiwoo hesitated, then nodded. “Actually, can I just… leave early today? My ankle’s really hurting.”
His teacher blinked, surprised by the request. “I can sign the dismissal sheet for you, but do you have a parent or guardian who can pick you up?”
“I can call my dad,” Jiwoo lied. “He’ll come.”
“All right,” he with a tired smile. “I’ll let the front office know you’re on your way.” He scribbled something on a slip of paper, then handed it to Jiwoo with what passed for discretion.
Jiwoo took the note and gathered his things without looking at anyone. The whispering started before he’d even reached the door.
He could feel the air moving behind him, the way people shifted away as if he were radioactive. As he left the classroom, someone hissed “freak” under her breath, not quite quietly enough, and someone else—maybe Jinah—suppressed a nervous giggle. Jiwoo kept his head down and closed the door behind him.
The hallway was empty. Sunlight poured in through the filthy window at the end, painting oblong shapes on the tiled floor. Jiwoo walked with careful steps, the events of the last ten minutes replaying in a glitchy, endless loop. The adrenaline had already left his system, which meant pain was starting to settle in: his ankle ached, his ribs throbbed, and the raw spot where his nail had torn stung with every pulse.
He didn’t go to the nurse. He didn’t want to face the questions, or the slow, pitying way the nurse would offer him ice packs and ginger ale. Instead, Jiwoo ducked into the first unlocked supply closet he found and sat on a crate of cleaning rags, letting the darkness press in around him.
He listened to his own gasping breath as he gulped for air, waited for the tremors in his hands to stop. He imagined what Kayden would say if he were here. Probably something like, “Next time, aim higher. You’re letting them recover too quickly.” Or maybe, “Being noticed isn’t always a bad thing, you know.”
Jiwoo put his head in his hands and let the thought drift away, focusing on trying to see straight and ignoring the tightness in his throat. He waited until he didn't feel like he'd burst into tears upon seeing another person and the block bell rang before he slipped out and made his way to the front office.
The secretary barely looked up as he signed out. “Your dad picking you up?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She handed him a pink slip—his proof of absence—and returned to her crossword puzzle. Jiwoo stepped outside and let the door swing shut behind him.
The courtyard was deserted. He crossed it in long, purposeful strides, fighting the urge to look over his shoulder. He’d never skipped school before, not for a real reason, and the sensation was both freeing and terrifying. He walked until the building was out of sight, then kept walking, unsure if he was heading home or simply away.
The sun was sharp and bright, the kind of light that made shadows look two-dimensional. Jiwoo followed the sidewalk until the residential blocks gave way to the main street, and then to the park where the old men played baduk under the gazebo. None of them looked up from their game.
He wondered, as he always did, how many of the people he passed had secrets like his. How many walked around with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking, or hearts that never quite slowed down. Maybe all of them.
He found himself at the edge of the river, where the water ran shallow and cold over banks dotted with trash and the occasional branch. He crouched by the water’s edge, watched a plastic bottle spiral in the current, and exhaled.
He leaned back on his elbows and let the sun warm his face. The street noise faded into the distance, replaced by the aimless chatter of birds and the low, steady rush of the river.
His phone buzzed. He ignored it.
The quiet lasted nearly ten minutes before a familiar presence rippled the air behind him. Jiwoo didn’t turn around. He knew the feeling by heart now.
He waited, and after a moment, a shadow fell over his shoulder.
He looked up to find Kayden standing there, hands tucked deep in his jacket pockets, wearing a look of calculated nonchalance.
Kayden glanced from Jiwoo to the water, then back again. “Did you win?” he asked.
Jiwoo thought about it. “Mhm.”
Kayden snorted. “Good. Next time, try to end it faster. And don’t get sentimental about it.”
Jiwoo smiled before he could stop himself.
Kayden settled down beside him, close enough their shoulders nearly touched. “You’re getting stronger,” he said, almost grudgingly. “But you need to learn when to use your strength. And when to walk away.”
Jiwoo nodded. “I know.”
Kayden didn’t respond right away. Instead, he dropped his gaze to the thin ribbon of river in front of them, shoulders hunched against the light breeze, as if weighed down by some invisible obligation. For a long moment, the only sounds were the quiet, rhythmic pulse of water over stone and the distant whine of a moped engine somewhere upriver. The silence stretched, not awkward but charged—a current flowing beneath the surface.
Then, with a casualness that belied the intent behind it, Kayden’s hand reached out and found Jiwoo’s head. His touch was gentle, almost clinical at first, palm cupping the back of Jiwoo’s skull as if checking for structural damage. But his fingers lingered, combing through the messy tangle of hair, and began to work slow, methodical circles into Jiwoo’s scalp.
Jiwoo didn’t realize how desperately he’d been waiting for this until it happened. The feeling was immediate: his whole body seemed to uncoil, shoulders dropping as if someone had unbuckled a harness he hadn’t even realized he was wearing. The tension he’d been hoarding in his neck and jaw evaporated, replaced by a warm, thrumming sensation that radiated down his spine.
He slumped automatically against Kayden’s side, head tipping into the pressure of those steady, grounding fingers. For a brief, mortifying second he wondered if he looked childish—if the old men in the gazebo could see him, or if an errant classmate might walk by and catch the scene—but the thought floated away, irrelevant. The world had narrowed to the exact circle of Kayden’s arm and the steady, unjudging presence at his side.
Kayden’s chin dipped a fraction, just enough for his voice to reach Jiwoo’s ear. “Don’t let them get in your head,” he said, the words flat and certain, as if this was a simple equation with only one logical solution.
Jiwoo huffed out a shaky laugh. “I think they already did.”
“Well, kick them out,” Kayden said, fingers briefly tightening as if punctuating the point. “You’re not as fragile as you think.”
Jiwoo almost protested. He wanted to say that fragility had nothing to do with it, that he’d simply spent too long pretending not to exist, and now the universe was punishing him, but the fight had gone out of him. He let his eyes fall closed, trusting that Kayden would keep watch over the world for a while.
A bird cawed overhead, and the breeze shifted, carrying the metallic tang of the river and the faint, distant sweetness of roasting chestnuts from the street vendors on the opposite side of the bank. Jiwoo listened to the new sounds, the soft scrape of Kayden’s jacket, his own heartbeat, the subtle rustle as Kayden’s thumb traced lazy patterns across the shell of his ear lulling him to sleep.
He would’ve stayed like this forever if he could, folded neatly into the parentheses of Kayden’s touch under the warm sun, but time never stopped for long. The sun crawled further across the sky, slicing the river into gold and shadow, and eventually Jiwoo became aware of the world around them again as he woke from his nap. He straightened slightly, not enough to break contact, but enough to signal that the moment could end on his terms.
Kayden’s hand fell away, but not before giving Jiwoo’s shoulder a quick, reassuring squeeze. He waited, saying nothing, letting Jiwoo decide whether or not he wanted to speak.
“M’Sorry.” He mumbled, voice thick with grogginess
“Don’t be. You need all the rest you can get.”
Jiwoo glanced up, not at Kayden but at the sky, looking at the shifting clouds. “Do you ever wish you could just…” He trailed off, unable to articulate the thought: be someone else, have a different past, exist somewhere no one knew your name or your secrets.
Kayden grunted in a way that might have meant yes or no or both. “Wishing is for people who plan on changing nothing,” he said. “You want something different, you just keep moving forward no matter what.”
Jiwoo nodded, absorbing the words. At that moment, he let the quiet linger a little longer, then drew in a deep breath, filling his lungs with the cold, clean air. “Okay,”
Kayden gave a brief, approving nod, then got to his feet in one fluid motion. He offered Jiwoo a hand up, which Jiwoo took without hesitation.
They started down the path together, footsteps in sync, neither in a hurry to return to the uproar waiting elsewhere. They walked in companionable silence, the kind that felt less like an absence of words and more like a mutual agreement not to ruin things with unnecessary noise.
Jiwoo flexed his fingers, feeling the returning strength in his grip, and snuck a sideways glance at his father. Kayden caught the look and rolled his eyes, but the corners of his mouth pulled up, just a little.
“Don’t make it a habit,” he said, but there was no heat in it.
Jiwoo grinned, the expression coming easier than he expected. “No promises.”
Kayden shook his head, but didn’t argue. They walked until the river bent out of sight and then turned toward home, the afternoon sun cutting their shadows tall and even on the pavement.
“Can we get some tteokbokki?”
Kayden didn’t look at him. “With what money?”
“Kartein’s.”
A pause. “...You got his card?”
“Yeah.”
Kayden changed direction towards the market without breaking stride.