I didn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the flicker of neon reflecting off that cream-colored envelope and the jagged, raw skin on Ji-hoon's knuckles.
By the time I walked onto the university grounds the next morning, and my heart was raising. I bypassed the faculty lounge, not wanting to make small talk with the other professors. I felt like I was carrying a physical weight in my coat pocket—the silver lighter. It felt heavier than it actually was, a cold piece of evidence that I didn't know what to do with.
I taught my morning lectures in a daze. My eyes kept drifting to the back row, to the empty seat where Ji-hoon should have been. He didn't show up for the morning seminar.
Typical, I thought, scribbling notes on the whiteboard. A rebel doesn't follow a syllabus.
But as the afternoon wore on and the clock ticked closer to our scheduled tutoring session, my anxiety spiked. I found myself back in the West Wing library, sitting at the same mahogany table. The scent of old paper usually calmed me, but today it just felt like a trap.
The heavy doors creaked open at exactly 4:05 PM.
Ji-hoon didn't walk in; he slouched in. He looked worse than yesterday. There was a fresh dark bruise blooming along his jawline, and his eyes were bloodshot, as if he'd spent the night staring at the same city lights I had. He didn't look at me. He pulled out his chair, the screech of wood against stone echoing through the silent room, and sat down.
"You're late," I said, my voice steadier than I felt.
"I'm here, aren't I?" he muttered. He reached into his hoodie pocket, his hand searching for something. His brow furrowed. He checked the other pocket. Then his jeans.
A flash of genuine panic. The first real emotion I'd seen on him crossed his face for a split second before he masked it with a scowl. He began patting down his jacket, his movements becoming more frantic.
"Looking for something?" I asked quietly.
He stopped, his hand frozen over his chest. He looked at me then, his gaze sharp and suspicious. "Mind your business," he snapped.
"It's hard to mind my business when my student looks like he's been through a car wreck," I said, leaning forward. I opened my textbook to the page we had left off on. "Page forty-six. Let's go."
Ji-hoon didn't move. He was staring at the table, his jaw tight. "I don't have time for this today, Teacher. I really don't."
"You have two hours," I reminded him. "Dean Moon's orders. Unless you want me to call him right now and tell him you're refusing to cooperate?"
He let out a sharp, bitter laugh. "You really think he cares? He just wants the check to clear. He doesn't care if I'm learning or if I'm dead in a ditch."
The bluntness of his words caught me off guard. "I care," I said, the words out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Ji-hoon looked at me, his eyes narrowing. He searched my face, looking for the lie, for the pity, for the corporate "teacher" mask. "Why? Because I'm your ticket to a visa renewal?"
"Because no one deserves to be a ghost in their own life," I replied.
I reached into my bag and pulled out the silver lighter. I didn't hand it to him. I simply set it in the middle of the table, the engraved tiger facing him.
The silence that followed was deafening. Ji-hoon stared at the lighter like it was a live grenade. The color drained from his face, and for a moment, he looked younger... scared.
"Where did you find that?" he whispered, his voice dangerously low.
"In the alleyway behind that club near the station," I said, watching him closely. "The one where you were meeting those men last night."
Ji-hoon lunged across the table. Before I could pull back, his hand shot out, pinning my wrist to the wood. His grip was like iron, his fingers cold against my skin. The smell of peppermint and rain was overwhelming.
"Were you following me?" he hissed, his face inches from mine.
"I was walking home," I lied, my heart racing. "I saw you. You dropped it."
"You shouldn't have been there," he growled, his eyes dark with a mix of fear and fury. "You have no idea what you've stepped into. People don't just 'see' things in those alleys and walk away, Chojoyce."
"Is that a threat, Ji-hoon?" I asked, refusing to pull my hand away despite the ache in my wrist.
He stared at me, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. For a second, the distance between us vanished. I could see the gold flecks in his dark irises, the tiny scar near his eyebrow, and the sheer desperation he was trying so hard to hide.
Slowly, he released my wrist. He snatched the lighter off the table, shoving it deep into his pocket as if to hide the evidence of his weakness.
"If you ever follow me again," he said, his voice a ghost of a warning, "I won't be the one you have to worry about."
He stood up, grabbing his bag.
"The two hours aren't up," I called out, my voice trembling slightly.
"Class is dismissed, Teacher," he said without looking back.
He vanished through the library doors, leaving me alone in the shadows once again. My wrist throbbed where he had held it, a red mark beginning to form on my skin. I looked down at my hands and realized they were shaking.
He wasn't just a rebel. He was a man with a target on his back, and by picking up that lighter, I had just put one on mine too.