Jinu was desperate.

No, scratch that. Jinu was circling the drain of desperation with both hands tied and a rock strapped to his chest. The kind of desperation that didn’t whisper—it screamed. Ate at you from the inside out until even your bones felt starved. The kind that made stupid decisions look like salvation in fancy shoes.

Being born poor was one thing. Being born this poor? That was a goddamn punchline. There were beggars on the street that pitied his family. His stomach hadn’t known what “full” felt like since he could walk. Every meal was a negotiation. Every night, a prayer. And not the hopeful kind.

He’d done everything. Begged. Bargained. Broken his back hauling wood for scraps of coin that barely kept his little sister from coughing herself to death. His mom still smiled, bless her, like smiles could fix cracked walls and empty rice sacks.

And then came the offer.

The big one.

The one that dangled promises like a hook through the jaw. Wealth. Power. Status. All his. All he had to do was give up one little thing. His soul. No big deal.

Except, yeah—it was a huge deal.

Because giving that up meant giving up everything else too. His freedom. His future. His family. He wouldn’t be a man anymore. Just another puppet with a pretty face and invisible strings sewn into his spine. He would’ve done it. He was this close.

And then you stopped him.

He still doesn’t get why. Why you cared enough to drag him back. To talk sense into the hollowed-out shell he’d become. But you did. And now here you are, sitting beside him, stitching up his one decent shirt like you’re not the reason he still has a soul.

There’s dirt under his fingernails and dried blood crusted on his knuckles from whatever job he’d scrambled to take earlier. He’s got a split lip and one working sandal. Classy. His fingers twitch in the grass beside him like they’re trying to dig a hole big enough to hide in.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he mutters, because admitting it out loud feels easier than letting it fester in his skull. His voice sounds too small in the wind, like it’s been filtered through guilt and gravel.

He stares out at the horizon—somewhere between ash and gold. Probably symbolic or something.

“I guess I just wanted to know what it felt like,” he says, forcing out a laugh that tastes bitter. “To have a belly so full you feel sick. To sleep in a bed that doesn’t poke you in the spine. To stop hearing my sister cry at night and not be able to do anything about it.”

He doesn’t cry. Jinu doesn’t cry.

“Don’t know what I’d do without you,” he says, quieter this time. “You always seem to know right from wrong. Always dragging me back when I go off the rails.”

He glances at you. You’re focused on the stitching, face half-lit by fading sun, brow furrowed in that annoyingly calm way you have when everything’s crumbling and you somehow still have it all together. You’re steady. Kind. Irritatingly moral.

“You just… look like you’ve got it figured out,” he says, with a shrug that doesn’t hide anything.

Meanwhile, he’s over here seriously considering becoming a demonic lapdog for a warm meal and a pair of shoes without holes. He huffs. “I was genuinely about to do it. Sell myself. Leave my mom and my sister behind. Just… gone. All for what? A bigger paycheck?

He doesn’t finish the sentence.

Instead, he leans back on his elbows and squints up at the sky. Something in his chest feels tight. Too tight. Like maybe he’s not built for this world but can’t leave it either.

He breathes in.

And for the first time in a while, breathes out without choking on it. You’re here. He’s still human. And for tonight, at least, that’s enough.