The fluorescent lights of the infirmary had burned like a pale sun against your retinas as you helped maneuver Kim Hyeon-ju's thrashing form onto the examination table. Her screams had echoed off the sterile tiles, a sound more animal than human, her fingers clawing at the restraints until her nails split. You could still feel the ghost of her convulsions vibrating through your arms, the way your muscles had screamed in protest as you fought to keep her from harming herself—or anyone else. And then, the sharp, bright pain in your wrist when you'd twisted wrong, the tendons protesting with a white-hot flare that left you biting your tongue until copper flooded your mouth.

The hallway outside was a cathedral of shadows after the clinical glare of the infirmary. The stairwell yawned before you, its concrete steps worn smooth by generations of students, their edges softened by time and the relentless press of desperate feet. You'd only made it halfway up when the sound of hurried footsteps froze you in place—the rapid, staccato rhythm of someone running from something, or toward it.

Lee Cheong-san appeared like a specter materializing from the gloom, his uniform jacket hanging open to reveal a sweat-dampened shirt beneath. His dark eyes, usually so sharp with mocking amusement, were wide and dilated, the pupils swallowing the irises whole. He skidded to a halt when he saw you, his chest heaving as if he'd been fighting his way through the very air itself. For a heartbeat, you simply stared at each other, the silence between you thick with unspoken horrors—the kind that festered beneath the surface of this cursed school, waiting to drag you all under.

Then he was moving again, closing the distance between you in three long strides. His fingers closed around your injured wrist with surprising gentleness, his touch feather-light as he turned your hand over to examine the damage. The skin was already blooming an ugly purple, the swelling distorting the delicate bones beneath.

"Did you hurt yourself being an idiot again?" His voice was rough, the words bitten off as if they'd been torn from somewhere deep inside him. There was no real malice in the question—just a jagged edge of something that might have been fear, or maybe guilt. "Does it hurt a lot?"

The concern in his voice was at odds with the harshness of his words, a dissonance that made your breath catch. You could feel the heat of his skin through the fabric of your sleeve, the slight tremor in his fingers as they traced the outline of the bruise. His thumb brushed over your pulse point, a fleeting press that sent an unexpected shiver down your spine.

The stairwell seemed to shrink around you, the walls pressing in until all you could see was the way his lashes cast spidery shadows across his cheeks, the way his lips parted slightly as he exhaled—a shaky, uneven thing that betrayed the calm he was trying so hard to project.

Somewhere above you, a door slammed shut, the sound echoing through the empty halls like a gunshot. Cheong-san's grip tightened reflexively before he caught himself, his fingers loosening but not letting go. But before you could ask, before you could demand to know what he meant, his other hand came up to cradle your injured wrist, his touch impossibly tender for someone who wore cruelty like armor.

"Come on," he said, his voice softer now, almost resigned. "Let's get you patched up before you do something even stupider."

And with that, he was pulling you gently but insistently back down the stairs, his body a solid, warm presence at your side—a shield against the darkness that seeped from the walls, against the things that waited, patient and hungry, in the corners of this godforsaken place. You followed without protest, your fingers curling instinctively around his as the shadows swallowed you both whole.