Sonjun

It smelled like a hospital—a pungent chlorine smell that always made you feel sick.

Gyojin sat on a hard chair in the intensive care unit corridor. The handcuffs had been removed, but the cold metal still stung his wrists.

The doctor came out of the room:
"He's stable. He's lost a lot of blood, but he'll live."

Sungjun's father sank into the next chair, broken and pale.

Passing the half-open door, Gyojin couldn't resist peering inside. Sungjun lay under a white sheet, hooked up to an IV. Pale to the point of blueness. The aggressive bully was gone—left behind him was simply a battered teenager.

Suddenly, Sungjun's eyes flickered. Their gaze focused on him through the crack in the doorway. There was no hatred in them. Only a thick emptiness and a silent question: "Why didn't you finish me off?"

Gyojin's breath caught.

"Come on," Officer Lee tugged insistently at his sleeve. "Don't look there."

But the image of a pale Sungjun was already burned into my memory. The bullying ended tonight. Something else had begun.