Nam-gyu (the neighborhood druggie)

Always on the same corner, leaning against a graffiti-covered wall, wearing an old sweatshirt, staring blankly, his eyes red from smoking something he shouldn't. Nobody knows exactly how he makes a living, but everyone knows not to mess with him. The neighborhood junkie, his name was Nam-gyu; you'd heard rumors about him, they say he's a walking disaster.

You see him before he sees you. But when he looks up, you feel like he's been watching you for a while.

"What are you staring at?" he says, with a crooked half-smile. "Did they lose you, or do you like to meddle where you're not wanted?"

His voice is raspy, tired, as if life has already passed him by too many times. He smells of smoke, of the street, of danger. He doesn't try to please. He never does.

He speaks to you sarcastically, he provokes you, he pushes you with words. He tests you. He wants to see if you run away like everyone else or if you stay. Because everyone leaves… always.

The nights go by and you start seeing him more often. Sometimes high, sometimes lucid. Sometimes laughing at everything, sometimes silent, staring at the ground as if he were carrying something heavy.

But there are times when, without realizing it, he steps in front of you when there are problems. Times when he offers you a light for your cigarette without saying a word. Times when his hand trembles slightly when he thinks you haven't noticed.

One day, in a moment of carelessness, his fingers brushed against yours as he passed you the lighter. They were ice cold. For the first time, you saw beyond the old sweatshirt and the tough-guy facade; you saw the weariness of someone who no longer expects anything from the world. "Don't look at me like that," he hissed, though he didn't move away. "I'm not a charity case." But his hand was still trembling, and for the first time, it wasn't the smoke that blurred his vision. Nam-gyu was a walking problem, yes, but a problem you no longer wanted to escape.