Chapter 005
The wind howled like a wounded animal, tearing through the desolate school terrace with the fury of an unsheathed blade. The air was laced with a bone-chilling sharpness, the kind that sliced right through your coat and kissed your spine with ice. Under the pale glow of a flickering terrace light, Kim Ji-eun stood awkwardly, clutching a small gift box wrapped in a crumpled ribbon—the colors dulled by nervous fingers that had fidgeted with it all day.
With a soft and sweet voice that barely masked her trembling, she managed to whisper, "I brought this for you… Would you accept it?"
The boy didn't turn around. His silhouette remained stoic, gazing out into the night sky as if the stars might reveal a more interesting truth. His voice, flat and distant, sliced the tension.
"Why are you giving me this?" he asked coldly. "Do you… like me?"
A pause.
Then two souls stood imprisoned in silence—a silence so suffocating, it screamed louder than any words ever could. It was the kind of silence that echoed inside your skull, vibrating like a funeral bell. Ji-eun took a hesitant step forward, her lips parting with the hope of a confession… but he spoke first.
"If you do… then don't. I don't like you."
The words hit like bullets wrapped in velvet—soft, but deadly. His voice, emotionless and almost inhuman, sounded like it didn't belong to the boy she admired but to a hollow stranger.
He turned and walked away, the wind swallowing his figure into the darkness. Not once did he glance back.
Ji-eun's shoulders quaked as sobs escaped her throat—raw, uncontrollable. Her legs weakened beneath the weight of rejection, and she slowly staggered toward the staircase, the box still clutched in her pale hands like a forgotten promise.
That night, the small shack she called home echoed with the sound of heartbreak. Rain pelted the fragile roof like a symphony of despair. Her room, dimly lit by a half-dead bulb, reflected her mood perfectly—tired, flickering, and on the verge of breaking. She lay curled on her side, tears leaking from her swollen eyes, staining the pillow she had cried into for hours. Her sobbing became part of the night's eerie chorus, accompanied by the relentless tapping of raindrops and distant dog howls.
By morning, she was a ghost of herself. Her eyes, puffed and red, looked like boiled eggs—watery and fragile. Her uniform was crisp, but her aura was anything but. When she reached school, no laughter passed her lips, no gossip, no smiles. She walked through the hallway like an abandoned shadow. Her three closest friends noticed her silence instantly but gave her space, perhaps sensing that the storm within her hadn't passed.
At interval, Ji-eun excused herself and made her way to the washroom. The corridor was unusually quiet, the fluorescent lights above her flickering sporadically as if the building itself sensed something ominous approaching. The air felt heavy, like invisible eyes were watching her.
As she pushed open the door, she paused.
Something felt... off.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, reacting to a presence she couldn't see but could sense—something lurking in the stale, humid air of the school washroom. The tiles echoed her cautious footsteps as she stepped forward. One of the stall doors creaked ever so slightly, though no one appeared to be inside.
She wasn't alone.
Heart thudding, she turned toward the sound of soft breathing behind her.
And there he was.
Standing beside the sinks, like a phantom materializing out of mist.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded, her voice cracking more from fear than anger. "If someone sees you in here—what will they think of you?"
The person didn't respond immediately. They persons face was unreadable, but his eyes… they were different. Dark, distant, detached—as if another soul had hijacked his body. The confident posture he normally held had become stiff, almost forced.
Ji-eun took a step back. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
"I… I just came to talk," that individual finally muttered. "I didn't mean to scare you."
But presence of that person was alone had already terrified her. The gift box from the night before flashed in her mind, now lying somewhere in the garbage bin, rejected and discarded like her feelings.
She hesitated, unsure whether to run or stay. "Then talk," she whispered, her fists clenched tightly.
"I made a mistake," that individual murmured. "Last night. I—"
The sentence was never finished.
From the far stall, a loud clang erupted, like metal crashing onto tile. Both of them froze. Ji-eun's breath hitched. The person turned his head slowly, eyes narrowing.
Without warning, grabbed her wrist. "We need to leave. Now."
"But—" she began.
"No time!" he snapped, yanking her toward the door.
That enigmatic figure seized her trembling hand and led her wordlessly toward the door—only to halt abruptly. Turning with an unsettling calm, their eyes glinting like shadowed glass, they fixed her in place with a sinister grin and murmured in a voice both velvet and venom,with a creepy smile
"Too late."
Later that day, chaos spread like wildfire.
A janitor discovered the body of a student in the same washroom—Kim Ji-eun. Her throat was slashed, her wrists sliced, and her body lay in a pool of blood so thick and vivid it stained the grout between the tiles.
Police were called immediately. Detectives stormed the school, their shoes squeaking on the freshly mopped floor that could no longer hide the horror it had absorbed.
Detective Hwang, a sharp-eyed investigator with a hawk-like gaze, stood before the scene. "There are no bruises. No signs of struggle. Yet it doesn't look like suicide. Too clean. Too clinical."
His assistant, Officer Min, added, "No fingerprints. No blood on the doorknobs. Someone wiped everything. Either we're dealing with a student who's abnormally meticulous… or someone professional."
The weapon was gone. Not a trace of it.
questioned thoroughly, claimed Ji-eun had been alive the last time he saw her—but doubts were already swirling.
"She had no enemies," her teacher, Mr. Choi, stated firmly. "She came from a struggling background but was determined. Worked part-time, helped her mother. She was bright. Honest."
But honesty, as the detectives knew well, often died long before the body.
And somewhere, deep within the twisting maze of school halls, someone knew what had really happened that day.
Someone who had been trusted.
In Joon Young's house
Joon Young's room smelled faintly of old books, shaving cream, and something vaguely lemon-scented—probably his mother's over-enthusiastic mopping spree. A dusty vinyl record played softly in the background, the smooth croon of a love song echoing from his retro stereo. A single ceiling fan turned lazily overhead, doing a better job of squeaking than cooling anything.
He had just stepped out of the bathroom, steam still trailing behind him like ghostly wisps. His hair was wet, clinging to the nape of his neck like silky ink-strokes. A white towel was casually draped over his shoulders, the kind of towel that had survived several laundry days and now looked as though it could barely survive one more.
Water droplets clung to his collarbone and slid down the fine lines of his back, vanishing into the waistband of his trousers. In the dim, amber lighting of his room—a lone bulb struggling through a mismatched lampshade—his features were dramatically sculpted. Even a bored artist would've paused to admire the angles of his face, those high cheekbones that threatened to pierce clouds and eyelashes long enough to generate envy from every girl in his literature class.
Joon Young flopped onto his creaky bed with all the grace of a collapsing bookshelf. The springs squealed in protest as if they were auditioning for a horror movie. He leaned back, arms behind his head, thinking about absolutely nothing—which, ironically, he did quite often and with great dedication.
Knock. Knock.
He groaned. Loudly.
"Ugh. What now?" he muttered under his breath. "If it's Mom again telling me to clean my ears, I swear…"
He marched to the door with the lethargy of a man asked to do chores on his only day off. Without much ceremony, he flung it open and—
—froze.
There she was.
Byeol.
Standing right there with her enormous wolf-like eyes—round, wild, and unreadable. They sparkled with something mysterious. Something urgent. Or maybe just leftovers from a dramatic eyeliner mishap. It was hard to tell.
She looked like she'd just walked out of an epic, black-and-white cinema reel: hair slightly windblown, lips parted as if suspended in mid-thought, and clutching her satchel like it held the key to a secret dimension.
"Hey," she began, her voice low, ready to spill something earth-shattering.
Joon Young blinked once. Twice. Then, in one swift move—aided by pure panic and absolutely zero logic—he yanked her by the wrist and pulled her inside like a spy dragging someone from a sniper's aim.
Byeol stumbled forward with a surprised yelp, nearly dropping her bag and her dignity. "What the—!"
"Shhh!" he hissed