Chapter Text
Screams echo through the empty hallways. Feet collide against Sieun’s ribs in a loud thud. His gaze lingers on the students passing by without looking back.
Sieun wasn’t the one screaming, he always remained silent.
Deadly quiet.
It pissed off Yeongbin more than anything. Yes, Yeongbin was the one who screamed.
“Why won’t you say anything, uh?”
Sieun tear his eyes away from the passers-by to look up at his aggressor. Anger bled out of the boy’s eyes, yet his mouth remained shut.
☼☼☼
The strident noise of the alarm clock woke Sieun up. Six in the morning. Another day began. His head ached from lack of sleep, but he got up, ignoring the dizziness as he did so. Slowly, he made his way to the shower, careful not to look at himself in the mirror. After slipping into his uniform, Sieun picked up his backpack left on the floor.
“Are you leaving already?” His father’s voice resonated from the kitchen. Sieun made his way there, just close enough for his father to see him before nodding. “At least eat something before you go,” he sighed.
Sieun shook his head, already turning around to leave, but his father caught up to him, grabbing his arm firmly. Right on a bruise. Sieun winced in pain, but the grip only tightened. No other word was uttered, and the boy found himself sitting at the table. The sight of the food was enough to make him gag; however, he didn’t want to deal with the consequences of not eating anything. Sieun pretended to swallow a few spoons of rice before looking at an imaginary watch on his wrist and tapping it for the other man to understand.
I must go. I’ll be late.
A lie. School didn’t start before eight and it wasn’t even seven yet. Thankfully, though, he let him go this time.
School in the early morning was nothing like it was during the day. At this hour, it was empty, quiet… almost relaxing. Sieun liked to study on his own while there was no one to bother him.
As eight came closer, however, his stomach began to turn, cramps going up his left side, his arm became numb, and his brain felt like mush. That was it, then. Like almost every morning, this feeling came back.
His body wasn’t sick. It was just fear, settling into his bones like rot.
The first students started trickling in. The sound of laughter, slamming lockers, and muffled music filled the hallways. Sieun’s hands trembled around his pencil. He pressed harder into the page, trying to focus on equations that made sense. Numbers, unlike people, had rules.
A shadow passed his desk. Another. Then the third one stopped.
“Morning, sweetheart. How are you today?”
Jeon Yeongbin’s voice dripped with amusement. Taehoon and Jeongchan flanked him like always, laughing.
Sieun didn’t move. Didn't answer.
Yeongbin’s hand slammed onto the desk, loud enough to make two younger students’ glance over, and just as quickly, look away.
“I asked you a question,” he said, still smiling. Sieun wanted to rip that smile off his face, pull at his lips until they stretched into a deformed frown.
Sieun turned the page in his notebook.
Something in Yeongbin snapped.
The next thing he knew, his chair was kicked from under him. He hit the ground hard. Papers scattered across the floor. Taehoon leaned down, sneering. “Still playing mute? What are you, a freak?”
Taehoon raised his fist, ready to hit when the bell rang, and the teacher came in. She ignored the scene unfolding before her, simply urging her students to take their seats. Which everyone did.
☼☼☼
The alarm clock was turned off before it could even go off. Sieun had laid awake all night long. Six in the morning. Another day began. So did the familiar routine. Shower, washing up, getting dressed… Sieun tiptoed around the house, hoping his father wouldn’t hear him. When he walked through the door without getting yelled at once, he sighed in relief.
May this mean something good for today.
The morning air stung his cheeks as he walked. The sky was still painted in the grey hues of dawn, and the streets were mostly empty, except for a few elderly shopkeepers opening shutters and sweeping snow from their doorsteps.
He wished he hadn’t forgotten his scarf. It had snowed most of the night, the road now covered in white. It didn’t matter to Sieun who simply kept walking.
Sieun made it to school before anyone else. Again.
He went straight to his usual spot in the back of the library, where the heat barely reached, and no one looked twice at him. With his notebook open in front of him, he tried to study, but his eyes kept drifting to the window. The snow was falling again, quiet and steady, dusting the world in white.
He couldn’t concentrate.
He kept glancing at the clock.
7:00.
7:43.
8:00.
The first bell rang, and Sieun’s stomach clenched instinctively.
He waited.
Nothing happened.
No one blocked the door when he entered the classroom.
No one called his name.
No one knocked his books from his hands or tripped him on his way to his seat.
Yeongbin didn’t even look at him.
Neither did Taehoon or Jeongchan.
Sieun sat frozen for a long second, then cautiously lowered himself into his chair. His hands twitched slightly under the desk. He felt exposed, like someone had turned a spotlight on him in an empty room.
The day dragged on like that.
Nobody bothered him.
Not during class, not in the hallways, not even during lunch. He sat alone as usual, but this time it wasn’t isolation, it was absence.
And it felt worse.
He couldn’t focus on anything the teachers said. His head buzzed with a low, persistent hum of dread. His eyes flicked toward the back of the classroom every few minutes, expecting Yeongbin’s smirk. Waiting for the whisper. The kick. The shove.
But it never came.
By fifth period, Sieun’s hands were clammy, and his throat was dry. He barely touched his water bottle.
Why?
Why now?
What were they waiting for?
It wasn’t kindness. It wasn’t over. He could feel it in the way Yeongbin occasionally glanced his way and whispered something to Taehoon, lips twitching in amusement. That wasn’t ignorance. It was something worse.
A pause.
A buildup.
The silence felt like a held breath, and Sieun was drowning in it.
By the time the final bell rang, his shoulders were tense with invisible weight. The sound of shuffling chairs and laughing voices echoed all around him, and still, no one came close.
When he stepped outside, the snow was thicker than that morning. The sky was dark already, clouds hiding the setting sun. He was about to start walking home when it finally happened. The outburst. The crack in this calm day.
“There you are, Freak.”
Sieun turned around instinctively as an arm wrapped around his shoulder.
“You weren’t gonna leave us behind, right, sweetheart?” Yeongbin's breath was warm against the side of his face, sickeningly casual. His grip tightened, fingers digging into bruises already blooming under Sieun’s uniform.
Sieun didn’t flinch. Didn’t speak. He just stared ahead, past the cracked pavement, past the ugly smile curling on Yeongbin’s lips.
That only made it worse.
Jeongchan chuckled. “Still doing the silent act?”
Taehoon didn’t bother talking. He grabbed Sieun by the collar and shoved him forward. The snow swallowed the sound of his stumble, feet scraping against ice as they dragged him toward the alley by the side of the school. The snow there was clean. Untouched.
Perfect.
It was a game to them. Nothing but a stupid game.
Yeongbin pushed him hard in the chest. Sieun hit the wall, hard. The back of his head thudded against the bricks. Not enough to knock him out, just enough to disorient him.
“That look in your eyes pisses me off,” Yeongbin muttered, voice suddenly low, almost calm. “Like you’re above all of this. Like we don’t matter.”
A fist collided with his stomach before he could brace. Sieun doubled over, air forced out of his lungs in a silent gasp. Another hit. His side this time. Then his knee gave out as Taehoon kicked the back of his leg.
He fell into the snow.
Someone laughed.
The crunch of footsteps circled him. He didn’t know whose boot it was, but it slammed into his ribs. Then again. And again.
Each hit blurred into the next. Cold and heat mingled in his body. He tried to curl up, tried to make himself small, invisible… But hands grabbed him, forced him back up.
Jeongchan leaned down, voice bright and mocking. “You should say something. Maybe beg. That might be fun.”
Sieun met his eyes. Didn’t speak. Jeongchan's smile slipped for a second. Just one. Another punch landed, this one across his face. His lip split.
Blood trickled on the snow.
Then the world tilted.
They were laughing again. Or maybe he imagined it. Maybe the ringing in his ears was just the echo of it. Yet, despite the pain, Sieun got up again. He stared into Yeongbin’s eyes whose smile faded.
“What are you looking at, you bastard? You want more?”
And suddenly, unexpectedly, he ran. Sieun ran.
“Yah, don’t let him get away!” One of them screamed.
Sieun ran faster, trying to forget the unbearable pain and the cold taking over his whole being.
He kept running, looking back from time to time to make sure no one was behind. He had lost them after a while, losing himself in the process. Sieun didn’t recognise his surroundings. A thick blanket of snow covered three after tree as Sieun ventured in a forest he didn’t know the existence of until today.
His backpack hung off one shoulder, shoes half-tied, blood on his lip. The pain didn’t register anymore. He didn’t know where he was going, only that he needed to breathe.
The forest stood like a wall at the edge of the village, its snow-laced branches twisting in the cold sky. No path, just instinct. He ducked under the lowest branch, boots crunching over ice and dead leaves, deeper and deeper, until the buildings vanished and only trees remained.
Then, under the tallest tree, as if it were meant to be, he collapsed.
The cold bit his skin, wind pushing snowflakes into his collar. A raw ache spread through his side. It was hard to tell if it was from the fight or the running. Maybe both. He didn’t care.
His cheek rested against the frozen ground. The sky above looked impossibly white.
He wondered how long he could stay like this before disappearing completely. If he never got up, let himself freeze to death, would anyone ever find his body?
Ah, would anyone even notice he was missing?
Sieun closed his eyes, let himself breathe and rest, accepting the pain overtaking him.
A soft sound broke the silence. Not wind.
Footsteps?
Sieun didn’t open his eyes, as if unaware of his surroundings. There was a presence next to him, yet he didn’t move. Suddenly, a warm, wet tongue scraped against the wound on his cheek. This time, Sieun opened his eyes, startled.
But what stood in front of him was no monster. Not a human, not a beast. Simply a fox. It stared at him curiously, its head just above his. Sieun almost smiled as he finally lifted himself into a sitting position.
They stared at each other for a while, curious… Content. But when Sieun held out his hand, the fox took a step back.
I get it, he wanted to say. I would be scared too.
So, he didn’t insist, his hand instead brushing against his wet clothes, the cold finally becoming unbearable. He stood up, not without difficulty, and waved at the fox before limping away.
His father was on his way out when Sieun reached home. He stared at his son, wet, cold, and bloodied, and… sighed. He didn’t ask questions, didn’t worry, only finished putting his coat on before leaving.
Was Sieun thankful or disappointed by the lack of interest? He wasn’t sure. Maybe both, maybe neither.
The warm water of the shower felt like a burn against his freezing skin. It felt good. When he stepped out of the shower, the mirror was fogged up. His reflection blurred, ghostlike.
He wiped it half-clear with his hand. The face staring back at him was pale, lip split, eye bruised, but there was something else. Not sadness, not anger. Just stillness. Like the water had washed away everything but bone.
He dried off slowly, ignoring the sting of the towel on his cuts, then changed into his thickest clothes and slipped under the covers. The pain was a dull ache now, manageable, like background noise. But it wasn’t the pain that kept him awake. It was the quiet.
The house was dead silent.
His father wouldn’t be back until late, if at all.
For a moment, Sieun wished the fox had followed him home.
☼☼☼
The next morning, he didn’t go to school.
He left before the sun had risen, slipping out into the snow-covered world with numb fingers and a bruised jaw. He took the same path through the village, past the back of the market, across the small footbridge, and into the forest.
This time, he brought something with him.
A rice ball, wrapped in plastic.
He didn't know why. The fox probably wouldn’t eat it. But it felt right. The forest was quieter than before. The snow had stopped sometime in the night, and now the trees stood silent and heavy, weighed down by white.
He walked slowly, each limp step leaving a deep impression in the snow. His breath came in small clouds. By the time he reached the clearing where he had collapsed the day before, the sky had begun to lighten.
And there it was.
The fox.
Curled near the same tree, its fur vibrant against the dull winter around it. Its ears twitched at his approach, but it didn’t run. Sieun carefully crouched a few feet away and placed the rice ball on the snow between them.
The fox blinked slowly.
Sieun didn’t expect thanks. He didn’t even expect it to move. But after a moment, the fox stood, padded forward, and sniffed the food cautiously. It didn’t eat, not yet, but it didn’t walk away either.
That was enough.
Sieun sat beside the tree again, back against the bark, arms wrapped tightly around his knees. He closed his eyes, let cold penetrate his senses, become a part of him.
For the first time in what felt like years, he didn’t feel like prey.
Not a victim.
Just… a boy. And a fox.