Free Web NovelChapter 511: I am a shadow
I stared at him, my breath hitching in my throat. The room felt like it was shrinking, the walls closing in until there was nothing left but the sound of my own frantic heart and the weight of his hand on my knee.
"What do you mean... a long time?" I asked, my voice cracking.
Ki-hoon didn’t look away. He didn’t flinch at my swollen eyes or the messy way I was wiping my nose with the sleeve of the expensive blazer. He looked at me with a steady, quiet focus that made my skin tingle.
"My father’s house," he said, the words falling like stones into a still pond. "Three years ago. You were in the garden, helping your father with the hedges because he’d pulled a muscle in his back. You didn’t have those glasses then. You were laughing at something he said, and you looked... bright. Like you were the only thing in that gray estate that actually had a pulse."
I felt the blood drain from my face. I remembered that day. It was a Saturday, roasting hot, and I’d been terrified of being seen by the "young masters." I had kept my head down, trying to be as small and useful as possible so my father wouldn’t get in trouble.
"I saw you through the library window," Ki-hoon continued, his thumb tracing a slow, rhythmic circle over the fabric of my trousers. "I watched you for an hour. And then I watched for you every time your father came to work. When I heard you were coming to this school, I thought... I thought I could finally talk to you. But then you showed up like this. Hiding. Acting like you were a shadow."
"I am a shadow," I whispered, fresh tears stinging my eyes. "I have to be. People like you and people like me... we don’t mix, Ki-hoon. My father works for yours. If I stand out, if I cause trouble, he loses everything. Do you have any idea what kind of pressure that is?"
"I know," he said, and for the first time, I heard a trace of bitterness in his voice. "I know exactly what my father is capable of. That’s why I stayed away at first. I didn’t want to drag you into my mess. But then Seo-Jun noticed you. And Jin-Yeok. And I realized that if I didn’t move, they would break you before I ever got the chance to protect you."
I let out a wet, bitter laugh. "Protect me? Is that what last night was? Protection? You all treated me like a toy. I know I had begged in the heat of my desperation, but you were just too much. I was the one losing my mind, not you guys. And yet you..." my hands trembled. "You pinned me down and took whatever you wanted."
Ki-hoon’s hand tightened on my knee, not enough to hurt, but enough to make me look at him. His eyes were dark, filled with a raw, aching kind of regret that made my chest tight.
"I didn’t want it to be like that," he said, his voice dropping to a jagged whisper. "The heat... the scent... it made everything go wrong. But when I was with you, Jo-Pil... I wasn’t just taking. I was trying to show you that I’ve been here. That I’m the only one who actually sees the person behind the hair and the glasses."
He reached up, his fingers brushing a stray, damp lock of hair away from my eyes.
"I don’t care about the rumors," he said. "And I don’t care about what Seo-Jun says. I’m not playing a game, Jo-Pil. I never was."
I looked at him—really looked at him—and for a second, the anger and the fear faded into the background. I saw the boy who had watched me from a library window, and the man who had held me through a night of fever and pain.
"So what happens now?" I asked, my voice small. "You can’t just be here. They’ll find out. The whole school thinks I’m a shared plaything."
Ki-hoon leaned forward, pressing his forehead against my knee for a brief, heavy second before looking back up at me.
"Let them think what they want," he said. "But from now on, if anyone touches you, they have to go through me first. Including them."
For a second, the room was quiet. I looked at Ki-hoon through my tears, and for the first time, I felt like I could breathe. His hand was warm on my knee, and his eyes were steady. I opened my mouth to say something, but—
BAM.
The door slammed against the wall with a loud crack. The cheap wood shook on its hinges. freeweɓnovel.cøm
"And what are you gonna do if I insist I want a piece of him?"
Seo-Jun’s voice cut through the air. He stood in the doorway, blocking the light. He had a mean, mocking smile on his face. Behind him, Jin-Yeok and Min-Cheol were watching us like it was a show.
I scrambled back until my back hit the cold wall. The warmth from Ki-hoon’s hand was gone as he stood up, his body getting stiff and angry.
"The doors here are thin," Jin-Yeok said. He stepped inside and closed the door with a quiet click. The room felt tiny now. "We heard everything, Ki-hoon. The library window? The gardener’s son? I didn’t know Jo-Pil had been in our lives this whole time. Right under our noses. And you... That you were such a sap."
"Stop it," I whispered. My face was burning. They had heard everything. My secret past, my father’s job, Ki-hoon’s feelings—but it was all a joke to them.
Seo-Jun ignored me. He walked right up to Ki-hoon, standing chest-to-chest with him.
"You’ve been watching the servant’s kid for three years, and you didn’t even tell me? I’m hurt, brother." He dropped his hand on his chest. "Well, that’s all in the past." He grinned. "The only problem now, Ki-hoon..."
Seo-Jun looked over Ki-hoon’s shoulder and locked his eyes on mine. He looked hungry, like a wolf watching a rabbit.
"I don’t care who saw him first. I like how he feels. And I’m not giving up my new favorite toy just because you have a crush."
