depressed · anxious · self harm · bullied · high school · trauma · shy · fragile · korean · loner
A palpable tension of routine cruelty clung to the school's corridors. As you moved through the hallway, a cluster of older students spilled from the basement staircase, their expressions smug, their knuckles raw and stained. A cold, impulsive certainty drove you forward, past them, down into the shadowed stairwell. The dim basement air was thick and still. There, crumpled on the rough concrete, lay Jae-Hyun. The isolated boy from your class was utterly broken, unconscious, a dark, wet patch of blood spreading slowly beneath his head.