The late afternoon sun hung low over the campus, casting long, dramatic shadows that seemed to stretch toward the future. The university grounds were alive with the sound of students heading home or toward the library, but for me, the air felt charged with an unfinished tension.
Danoh was packing her bag, her movements more fluid now than they had been this morning, though the bandage on her leg still peeked out from under the hem of her jeans. Ji-yoon had already waved her goodbye, leaving the two of us standing in the cooling breeze outside the Engineering Building.
I looked at her. Really looked at her. Without the fog of alcohol or the immediate terror of a chase, she looked even more like the girl I had remembered from the restaurant—resilient, bright, and soft all at once.
"Danoh," I said.
She paused, looking up at me with those wide, questioning eyes. "Yes, Hanbin-ssi?"
The honorific felt like a wall. A polite, cold, necessary wall that I suddenly wanted to tear down. We had shared blood, tears, and a piggyback ride through the night. 'Ssi' felt like a lie.
"Let's drop the 'Ssi'," I said. My voice was blunt, almost clinical, because I didn't know how to make it sound warm without my heart jumping out of my throat.
She froze, her lips parting slightly. "Oh. Uh... okay. Hanbin."
I felt a jolt go through me at the sound of my name in her voice. It was enough. I didn't wait for a conversation I wasn't prepared for. I simply nodded, turned on my heel, and walked away before she could see the heat rising to my face.
I stopped at a distance, blending into the crowd near a vending machine, and watched. Her apartment was close to the campus gates. I watched her small figure navigate the sidewalk until she reached her building and disappeared inside.
Safe. She was safe for now.
But 'for now' wasn't good enough.
I reached into my bag and pulled out a black face mask and a low-profile cap. I pulled the mask up, shielding my face, and adjusted the brim of the cap. The transformation was internal as much as external. Hanbin, the top student, was gone. The shadow was back.
I went back to the CSE building and waited. I knew Jung Kai's type. He wasn't the type to go home and study. He was the type to celebrate his perceived power.
Sure enough, an hour later, Kai emerged with three of his friends. They were laughing, their voices boisterous and ugly. I followed them at a distance, moving like a ghost through the thinning crowds. They headed toward a popular bar district just off-campus—a place filled with neon lights and the smell of grilled meat.
I waited outside.
One hour. Two hours. Three.
I leaned against a brick wall in a darkened alley across from the bar, my hands in my pockets, my eyes never leaving the door. I didn't feel the cold. I didn't feel the passage of time. I only felt the steady, cold simmering of the rage I had suppressed since I saw the blood on Danoh's sock.
At 10:00 p.m., the door swung open. Kai stumbled out alone, his friends apparently having stayed behind or left through another exit. He was swaying, his face flushed with drink, looking far less intimidating than he did in the lecture hall.
He turned toward a shortcut—a narrow, poorly lit alleyway that led toward the senior dorms.
This was it.
I followed him into the darkness. The only sound was the rhythmic scuff of his shoes and the distant hum of traffic. About halfway through the alley, the alcohol-induced fog in his brain must have cleared enough for him to realize he wasn't alone. He stopped, his shoulders tensing.
He spun around. "Who's there?"
I didn't answer. I stepped into the faint light of a single flickering streetlamp.
Kai squinted, his eyes widening when he saw the masked figure. "Hey! What do you want? You looking for trouble?"
He turned to run, but he was slow and clumsy. I reached down, grabbed a loose brick from a pile of construction debris near the wall, and hurled it with practiced precision. It caught him square in the back of the thigh.
He let out a grunt of pain and collapsed, his hands scraping against the gravel.
Before he could scramble up, I was on him.
It wasn't a fight. A fight implies two people have a chance. This was a reckoning. I rained blows down on him—precise, heavy, and silent. I hit him for the chase. I hit him for the blood on the floor. I hit him for the look of terror in Danoh's eyes.
Kai scrambled backward, his back hitting a dumpster. His lip was split, and one eye was already swelling shut. "Who are you?! What do you want?! I have money! Just take it!"
I grabbed him by the collar of his expensive jacket and slammed him against the metal. I leaned in close, my eyes the only thing visible between the mask and the cap. My voice was a low, guttural rasp—a sound that didn't belong to the Hanbin who studied math formulas.
"Listen to me very carefully," I whispered. "If you ever—ever—so much as look in the direction of a girl like that again... if you even breathe the same air as her..."
I tightened my grip, the metal of the dumpster groaning.
"The grave I've already started digging for you? I'll put you in it. Deep enough that no one will ever hear you scream. No one will find you. You'll just be gone."
I shoved him back with a force that made his head crack against the dumpster. He slumped to the ground, whimpering, his bravado completely shattered.
I didn't look back. I walked out of the alley, stripped off the mask and cap two blocks away, and blended back into the night. My knuckles were bruised and my heart was racing, but for the first time in my life, I felt a sense of absolute peace.
The next morning, the atmosphere in the lecture hall was electric.
I was already in my seat, my expression as blank and unreadable as ever. When the doors opened, the room went silent.
Jung Kai limped in.
He was a mess. His arm was in a sling, his face was a map of purple and yellow bruises, and a large white bandage covered the side of his head. He looked like he'd been through a car wreck. He didn't look at anyone. He kept his head down, sliding into a seat at the very edge of the room, as far away from the center as possible.
The whispers were deafening. "What happened to him?" "Did he get into a fight?" "He looks like he got jumped."
I didn't join the whispering. I just sat there.
Then, I felt a presence beside me. Danoh sat down, her bag thudding lightly on the desk. She looked at Kai, her jaw dropping. She looked at his bandages, his broken spirit, and the way he flinched when someone accidentally dropped a pen.
She looked at him for a long time. Then, slowly, she turned to me.
I met her gaze. I didn't say a word, but I let a tiny, almost imperceptible smirk tug at the corner of my mouth.
Danoh's eyes widened. She looked at my hand—the one resting on the desk, where the knuckles were slightly swollen and red. A realization sparked in her eyes, bright and clear. She didn't look horrified. She didn't look scared.
She smiled.
It was a small, mischievous, beautiful smile. I couldn't help it. I felt the ice around my heart crack just a little more. I smiled back—a real, genuine smile that reached my eyes.
She looked at me, confused for a second by the sudden warmth, and I immediately looked away, focusing on my notebook as if the professor's notes were the most important thing in the universe.
But I could still feel her looking at me. And for the first time, I didn't mind the attention.