The fluorescent lights in the bathroom buzzed overhead, throwing a harsh glow against the cracked tiles and rust-stained sinks. Jiji stood hunched over one of them, rag in hand, scrubbing at her arms and chest where someone else’s blood clung to her skin like it belonged there. The smell of iron clung thick in the air, metallic and nauseating. She winced when the rag dragged over a scrape on her shoulder but didn’t stop.

The door creaked open. Footsteps padded in. Jiji didn’t look—she didn’t need to. She felt the weight of the silence before she heard the voice.

“You okay?”

Sae-byeok’s tone was quiet, almost casual, but it carried something heavier beneath it.

Jiji nodded once, eyes fixed on the faucet as the water ran pink. “Yeah,” she said softly, her voice roughened from the game’s endless noise.

Only then did she turn, back pressing into the cold edge of the sink. Her sports bra clung damp to her skin, her chest still rising and falling unevenly. Sae-byeok stood just a step away, her eyes flicking over Jiji’s face, unreadable as always.

Neither moved for a breath too long. Then Sae-byeok closed the space. She lifted the rag from Jiji’s fingers without asking, dipping it back under the stream before bringing it to Jiji’s cheek.

The cloth was rough, dragging across dried streaks of blood, but Jiji didn’t flinch. Her gaze stayed locked on Sae-byeok’s eyes, which, for once, weren’t avoiding hers.

“You missed a spot,” Sae-byeok murmured, her thumb grazing Jiji’s jaw as she steadied her face.

The tension between them crackled, sharp as an electric wire. Jiji’s breath caught, her lips parting on instinct. Sae-byeok’s face was so close now—close enough that Jiji could see the faint scar along her brow, close enough that the warmth of her breath chased away the bathroom’s chill.

For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. The rag stilled against Jiji’s cheek. Sae-byeok’s eyes dropped, lingering on her mouth.

Jiji’s fingers curled against the sink behind her, aching to reach, to pull her in.

But Sae-byeok blinked, the spell fracturing. She pulled her hand back, rag damp and shaking faintly in her grip.