The air was heavy. A fine, relentless drizzle that had started in the morning had streaked the school windows with dirty, tangled rivulets. The constant damp seemed to have seeped into the walls and the people alike; everything and everyone carried the sour stench of slow rot.
Shin Yujin no longer resembled herself. In just one week, she had gone from the relatively quiet girl who trailed after Sujin to a trembling creature with eyes that darted constantly and hands that tugged at her clothes without permission. The starfish-shaped gold earring burned like a glowing ember deep inside her school bag. She waited every moment for it to be discovered. Every sudden sound—a door slamming, a loud laugh—made her jump.
Park Jiho recorded the change with the precision of a pathologist. Yujin was approaching the peak of fragility. And today, he intended to apply that final pressure.
---
Second period: English.
Ms. Park was absent; a substitute had come and was playing a dry, outdated educational video. The lights were off, only the blue glow of the projector filling the classroom. That relative darkness gave courage.
Yujin sat in the middle row. Two rows ahead and slightly to the right, Han Sujin lounged back, busy with her phone under the desk. Her occasional cold, contemptuous glances struck Yujin like slaps.
Jiho, from the window corner, waited for the moment. He knew Yujin's habit: when anxious, she would repeatedly open and close the zipper of her school bag on the floor beside her foot with her left hand. Click… click… click… The quiet, persistent sound in the classroom silence.
The clicks began. Fast and irregular. Yujin stared at a scene in the film, but her eyes were vacant. Her mind was elsewhere: the house where screaming ruled every night, the money she had stolen and that her mother might notice, that damned earring.
Jiho rose slowly. A smooth, silent movement, like a shadow shifting with the light. Under the pretense of going out for water, he started down the narrow aisle between the desks toward the door. His path passed behind Yujin's chair.
Just as he passed behind her, his foot—seemingly by accident—brushed the corner of Yujin's bag. A gentle but calculated contact. The half-open bag tipped sideways, spilling some contents: a few notebooks, a pencil case, and a small cardboard box containing her old smartphone.
"Oh, sorry… looks like someone dropped trash here," Jiho said in his flat, emotionless voice, this time with an undercurrent of mockery that only Yujin could feel. He continued on without pausing, not even bending to help.
Yujin jumped in panic and knelt to gather her things. Her hands shook violently. A few heads turned. Sujin glanced over; in the blue light of the film, her eyes flashed with anger and curiosity.
"God, what a clumsy idiot. Can't even keep hold of your bag?" Sujin said, louder than necessary, drawing laughs from a few others.
Yujin hurriedly shoved the notebooks back in. Suddenly her fingers brushed something soft and metallic caught between the pages of one. The earring. Her heart pounded so hard it felt ready to burst from her chest. In a quick motion she seized it, clenching it tightly in her fist—the starfish's point digging sharply into her palm. With a frantic glance around—had anyone seen?—she slipped it into the blazer pocket beneath her school jacket.
No one seemed to have noticed. Except one person. Park Jiho, now standing by the door pretending to open it, watching the scene in the small, grimy mirror on the wall. A faint tremor appeared at the corner of his mouth. The prey had trapped itself.
---
Break time. Girls' restroom.
Yujin had locked herself in a stall. She held the earring in her sweat-slick palm. What should she do? Throw it away here? But if someone found it and traced it back to her? Turn it in to lost and found? Pure madness. Take it home? What if her mother searched her clothes? Home wasn't safe.
A group of girls entered, their familiar laughter echoing. Sujin's voice.
"…Think I'm blind? She's still staring at me like a stray dog waiting for a bone. I need to teach her such a lesson she won't dare breathe near me again."
Yujin held her breath. Sujin was talking about her.
Another girl said, "Let it go, Sujin. She's already eating herself alive. Didn't you see how she looks? Like a walking corpse."
"That's exactly what makes me sick," Sujin replied, voice thick with hatred, closer now as if standing at the mirror fixing her makeup. "That pathetic, pleading look… like she wants to kneel in front of me and say 'sorry, ma'am,' but doesn't have the guts. I hate those filthy cowards. Just like that monster behind the window who only watches and never speaks."
Yujin closed her eyes. "The monster behind the window." Jiho. He was present even in their conversations.
"I think it's time everyone knows Yujin isn't just a little thief," Sujin continued, her voice lowering with conspiratorial pleasure. "A bit about their filthy, rotten life… her thief father who went to prison, or her alcoholic mother who gets drunk and screams every night… it could be the best joke in school. Imagine everyone laughing at her—she won't even be able to lift her head."
Yujin pressed her hand hard over her mouth to keep from screaming. Hot tears streamed down her face. Did they know? Or were they guessing? It didn't matter. If Sujin decided to spread it, her life would be completely destroyed.
Suddenly another voice entered—quiet, almost a hiss. Yujin couldn't identify it. "Sujin… calm down. You don't need to push this hard. You know how on edge Min-su is right now? If he finds out you're stirring up this drama and ruining everything…"
The conversation dropped lower. Then footsteps fading away. Yujin, still frozen in the stall, stared at her fist clenched around the earring. The metal had warmed. Like poison running through her veins.
She saw only one way out. She had to return the earring. But how? She couldn't give it directly to Sujin. It had to seem as if she had found it.
A flawed, fear-filled plan formed in her mind. Leave it somewhere Sujin would find it—maybe in Sujin's own desk. Yes. She would do that. Today after school, when no one was around.
But there was one problem: Park Jiho. He had seen. Yujin was certain. That empty stare, the calculated bump against her bag… he knew. And if Jiho spoke…
A new, deeper, vaguer fear took root in Yujin's heart. Jiho was no longer a defenseless victim. He had become something else… an observer. A silent threat. And Yujin had no idea what he wanted.
---
Afternoon. Boys' PE period.
The boys' locker room was tense. Min-su and Jung-ho changed with distance between them. Tae-seon, who had been quiet and withdrawn all morning, suddenly slammed his locker in rage.
"I've had enough, damn it!"
All eyes turned to him. Min-su raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong? Someone stare at you again and you lost it?"
Tae-seon glared at him, eyes red from sleeplessness and paranoia. "You… you don't say anything, but you know everything, don't you? You know and you're enjoying watching me rot."
"Know what, idiot?" Min-su said mockingly, though worry shadowed his eyes. He, too, was losing control.
"Those old things… family… the crap I thought was buried," Tae-seon said, his trembling voice full of suppressed fear, as if each word stripped him further.
Jung-ho, passing nearby, said softly but venomously, "Everything comes out one day, Tae. Lies are like cancer—they eat you from the inside until you die."
The vague remark felt to Tae-seon like confirmation of all his fears. He lunged at Jung-ho—not with fists, but with a shout: "What do you know, you pathetic dog?! Just because Min-su doesn't give you the time of day anymore, you're trying to save yourself? Selling everyone out to climb up?"
A physical fight was moments away. Min-su threw himself between them. "Stop it, you lunatics! You're all losing it! This is exactly what that monster wanted—us tearing each other apart!"
"Who wanted it, huh? Tell me who!" Tae-seon screamed, his broken voice full of desperation.
Min-su had no answer. He just looked around, as if searching for the source of the chaos. His gaze fell on the quiet corner of the locker room, where Park Jiho stood alone, slowly pulling on his gym shirt, seemingly oblivious to everything around him.
But when Jiho pulled the shirt over his head, for a moment his eyes met Min-su's. And in that moment, Min-su saw something he would never forget for the rest of his life: in Jiho's eyes there was neither fear of the conflict nor pleasure in it. Only a deep, contemptuous weariness. Contempt directed at all of them. As if he were watching a group of children making a mess.
That look was more humiliating to Min-su than any anger or threat. He felt small, empty, seen. As if every role he had played, every confidence he had projected, had been crushed and rendered worthless by that lightless gaze.
Jiho turned away and quietly left the locker room.
A heavy silence remained. The fight was forgotten. Now a shared question lingered in everyone's mind: Who was really in control?
---
End of day. Empty classroom.
Yujin waited until everyone had gone. Her heart hammered like a hammer in her chest. She clutched the earring in her sweaty fist. She walked to Sujin's desk. With a trembling hand, she pulled the drawer open just enough to drop the earring inside.
Suddenly a sound came from the classroom door. She froze. Turned. No one. But she felt watched. She looked at the window. On the other side of the dirty, dark glass facing the hallway, a tall, thin shadow stood—for just a moment. Then vanished.
Yujin hurriedly dropped the earring and closed the drawer. Then, like a fleeing thief, she ran from the classroom.
In the dim, nearly empty hallway, Park Jiho leaned against the wall. When Yujin rushed past, he didn't even glance at her. But once her hurried footsteps faded down the stairs, Jiho slowly turned his head and looked at the classroom door.
The next stage was ready. Tomorrow, when Sujin found her earring in her own desk, instead of gratitude she would grow more suspicious. Because the only person who should have known where the earring was—in her mind—was Yujin. And this "secret return" would only confirm her guilt. Suspicion and hatred would deepen.
And Yujin? Yujin now feared not only Sujin, but even more the silent gaze watching from behind the dark window. A fear without a clear name or shape. Fear of a shadow that knew, yet remained silent.
Jiho walked toward the exit. The light rain caressed his face. Today he had observed several breaking points: Yujin on the verge of emotional collapse, Tae-seon at the edge of paranoia, and the alliance between Min-su and Jung-ho now turned into something beyond mere humiliated hostility.
He hadn't done much. Just… set the stage. And they, with their fears, grudges, and stupidity, were digging their own graves.
Tomorrow, perhaps he would focus on Sujin. Or perhaps he would let the poison flow a little longer in their veins. He had time. And patience remained his deadliest weapon.
In his dark room that night, during his physical exercises, his flashbacks were no longer only of humiliations. He saw today's scenes too: Yujin's broken face, Tae-seon's helpless rage, and the contempt-filled look that had planted fear in Min-su's eyes.
He stored these images. They were fuel for the next stages. Revenge was not an explosion. It was an infection. And the infection was spreading.