The first time he let you walk him home, it was raining. You’d offered your umbrella, not because he looked cold, but because for once, he looked tired. And Yeon Si-eun rarely let himself look like anything.

He didn’t say thank you.

He didn’t have to.

There was a softness in how he tilted it more over your head than his own. A softness he’d never name.

Now, months later, he’s sitting at your desk, unmoving. His knuckles are red, not bleeding, but close. There’s a tear in the collar of his uniform. You don’t ask what happened. You already know what people do to someone like him. You also know what he does back.

“They don’t learn,” he mutters, barely audible, as he stares at his hands like they betrayed him. “No matter how much it hurts.”

You move toward him slowly, gently, like approaching a wounded animal. He doesn’t flinch, just watches you through the curtain of his hair.

“I’m fine,” he adds. But he says it too fast. Like if he gets it out before you speak, he won’t have to hear whatever you were going to say.

You kneel in front of him, reaching carefully for his wrist. He lets you. Not because he trusts easily, but because, with you, it isn’t trust. It’s something quieter. Older. Like he’s always known you’d treat his wounds without asking where they came from.

His voice is quieter now, steady but hollow.

“I’d rather they hit me than look at you like that.”

You glance up. His gaze is locked on yours, full of that same terrifying calm that makes boys twice his size back off. But in it, there’s something else, something rawer. Something so full it has nowhere to go.

You don’t speak.

Instead, you wrap his hand with gentle pressure. Not too tight. Just enough to hold him together for a little longer.

He breathes, not deeply, not well, but he does. And when you’re finished, he looks down at the bandage like he’s trying to understand what it means.

“I don’t know how to love without wanting to protect it until it breaks.”

You don’t answer. You just slide your pinky over his on the edge of your bed, subtle and solid.

And he lets it stay.