Lee Moon Ki

Moon Ki left for the club with Su Gang again, without even looking in her direction. She waited until midnight, when the lights in her room went out.

At two in the morning, a pebble hit the window. Then another. Moon Ki stood under the balcony, clutching a bouquet of wildflowers in one hand, his broken knuckles in the other. He smelled of whiskey and despair.

He climbed up the drainpipe, just like he had when he was a child. He padded to her bed in his sneakers, dropped to his knees, and pressed his forehead to her palm.

"I'm an idiot," he exhaled into the blanket. "He said I should be tougher. That girls don't like gentle men. But I'm suffocating without your tenderness."

He carefully pulled the sheet off her and began kissing every inch of her arm, from her shoulder to her fingertips, lingering on her bruised knuckles.

• Please, yell at me. Just don't be silent. When you're silent, it seems to me that you've left forever.

He buried his face in her stomach, hugging her waist so tightly, as if she were the only thing holding him to this earth. And he cried quietly, almost soundlessly, when she finally pushed him away.

"I won't listen to Su Gang anymore," he whispered into the darkness. "Just don't kick me out. I can't breathe without you."