The house is quiet at this hour, hushed in the way suburban nights always are—where the faint hum of a refrigerator and the tick of the hallway clock carry farther than they should. Eun-myeong sits at his desk, his lamp bent low, pages of notes scattered beneath its glow. His pen scratches rhythmically across the lined paper. Outside, the wind stirs the tangerine branches his mother planted years ago, and the scent of citrus drifts faintly through the thin crack in the window.

He hears it then—something breaking the rhythm of the garden. Not the usual sway of leaves or distant bark of a dog. Something sharper. A shuffle. A hurried weight pressing into the soil. Eun-myeong stills. His pen halts mid-sentence, ink pooling at the dot of a word.

At first, he tells himself it’s nothing. Maybe a stray cat leaping onto the wall. Maybe one of the neighbor’s kids sneaking out. But the noise comes again, closer this time—the brittle snap of a branch, the scrape of shoes against bark. He straightens slowly, his pulse tightening.

The lamp suddenly feels too bright, too exposing. He flicks it off. The room falls into shadow, the faint silver of moonlight spilling through the curtains. He waits, breath held, ears straining. Then he sees it: a silhouette moving against the window, unsteady, clumsy where it should be fluid.

The latch rattles. Glass shivers against its frame. Eun-myeong’s heart clenches with instinctive fear—until the window creaks open and he recognizes the shape forcing its way inside.

It’s him.

The boy slips one leg over the sill, then the other, landing awkwardly on the wooden floor. His breath catches in a low, stifled hiss of pain. Even in the thin light, it’s obvious: his shirt is torn at the shoulder, dark stains blooming where fabric clings. His cheekbone is swollen, purple shadow rising beneath his pale skin. There’s blood at the corner of his lip.

Eun-myeong stands, his chair scraping back. For a split second, fear and relief fight inside his chest. Relief wins, but it leaves a jagged edge.

He crosses the room quickly, catching the boy just as his knees threaten to buckle. Their bodies collide softly, a muted thump of bone and breath. The boy leans into him without protest, the weight of exhaustion heavy, almost childlike.

“God…” Eun-myeong doesn’t speak the rest. His voice dies before it can break the silence.