"And that..." Ms. Jang's voice trailed like smoke, thin and slow, winding into the corners of the room as if reluctant to leave.
She lowered the little book in her hands, its aged leather cover groaning with a soft, timeworn creak.
The surface— blacker than soot, worn smooth at the edges— was marked with scratches that looked almost deliberate, like something had tried to claw its way free.
A rusted latch clung uselessly to the side, sealed shut by time and silence.
No child had ever seen it open.
None ever asked.
With fingers far too careful— too reverent— she closed it.
Thump.
The sound wasn't loud, but it settled into the floorboards like the soft hush of a coffin lid resting in place, never to open again.
"— was the story of how Shingen, the demon, was defeated by the forces of justice."
Her words did not fall; they stayed suspended in the sunlit air like dust motes, hanging there, waiting to settle.
The afternoon light slanted through the windows, golden and slow, catching on floating specks like tiny spirits drifting just above the children's heads.
The curtains, yellowed with time, swayed gently in a breeze that did not come from outside.
It smelled faintly of old wood, crayons, and something else— something warm, almost sweet, like sugar left too long in the sun.
The room held its breath.
The children did not move.
Even the air seemed unsure whether to stir.
It wasn't awe. It wasn't a wonder.
It was something quieter and stranger.
A silence that pulsed beneath their skin, soft and cold and too still to be natural.
A silence that remembered things for them.
A pause stretched through the classroom, taut like an old ribbon pulled at both ends.
Invisible, but there.
Stitched into the seams of the floor, woven into the fibers of the sunlight that painted lazy streaks across their desks.
It touched their cheeks and the tips of their shoes, brushing over crumpled paper and forgotten drawings that no longer made sense.
Some children clutched their crayons like they were holding knives.
Others let theirs slip from their hands, slow and twitching, forgotten.
Their tiny fingers flinched as if startled by their stillness— something deep inside them roused, as though they were remembering a different story.
One that never ended.
Ms. Jang smiled, like someone who had finished telling the only version of a truth that could be spoken without bleeding.
The sunlight touched her shoulders, but it did not warm her.
Her smile stayed frozen, quiet, and distant, as though it belonged to a different person sewn into her face.
Something in the room shifted, imperceptible but certain, as if it had been watching and finally blinked.
"That was scary… Is Shingen really gone, teacher?"
A small voice cut through the stillness, trembling like a glass about to crack.
A girl near the front tugged at her sleeve with slow, uncertain fingers, shrinking into herself as though cotton and thread could protect her.
"I liked it when the angel came back after being torn to pieces. That was awesome."
The boy beside her grinned, far too wide, far too sharp.
His voice was bright— unnaturally so— and it rang out with a gleam that didn't match the weight of the room.
His eyes were hungry.
Not with fear, but with memory.
His smile stretched as though trying to wear the shape of happiness, but it wore him instead.
His fingers fidgeted beneath the desk, curling and uncurling, rehearsing something he could no longer name.
Something soft.
Something that once broke in his hands.
Around them, the classroom didn't return to life so much as it flickered— jittery, wrong-footed, like an old film reel skipping frames.
The warmth of the sun seemed thinner now, like it was leaking away.
Voices rose, but unevenly— too sharp, too fast.
Some children laughed, high and hollow, like wind brushing across a cracked windowpane.
Others did not speak at all.
They stared at the grain of the wooden desks, unmoving, as if they could feel something pressing against the undersides.
Something is waiting and listening.
No one looked under their chairs, but their gazes hovered there. Just barely.
One boy inhaled a breath so thin it barely qualified as sound, the kind you make when you're afraid something might notice you breathing.
And still, the boy with the too-wide grin sat smiling, blinking less often now.
His chest rose and fell unevenly, his shoulders taut.
His hands twitched, fingers drumming out a rhythm only he remembered.
Ms. Jang's smile didn't fade. But it changed.
The corners quivered, like old porcelain under strain, and her eyes never quite met the children's.
They drifted across the room slowly, softly, like something searching from behind the glass of her skull.
"Now, now. Don't be afraid, children. He's long gone, okay?"
Her voice was syrupy smooth, the kind adults used to hush babies in the dark.
Polished so carefully it had no shape, no edge— like it had been worn down from overuse, or borrowed from something that only knew how humans sounded from watching too long through a crack in the ceiling.
Then she turned her head.
"Taejun?"
She said it lightly, like the name itself might pull him back.
But he didn't move. He hadn't moved in some time.
His head remained bowed. His back curled forward.
His hands gripped the desk as though he were clinging to the edge of something very far away.
His knuckles were bone-white.
The sunlight did not touch him— it broke around him like he was the edge of something colder, something beyond the reach of the day.
The air changed again.
It pressed in from the walls, from the seams of the ceiling tiles, from the quiet cracks in the floorboards where light couldn't reach.
It felt like sinking, like the classroom was slowly filling with something heavy, breath by breath.
The lights above seemed to dim, or maybe it was just that the room no longer reflected them the way it should.
Ms. Jang's gaze passed over the back row, slow and unfocused. Yet, she didn't stop.
The question withered, drifting into the air like it had never been asked.
Then, a clap. Cruel in its cheerfulness.
"Alright, class! Time to clean up! Put away your crayons and get ready for our next activity!"
The spell shattered. The room jolted.
Movement surged too fast— chairs scraping, boxes snapping shut, paper flapping like startled wings.
The illusion of normalcy returned, but it came too loud, too quickly, like laughter that tries to cover up a scream.
But what had crept in with the silence had not left. It lingered.
Beneath the desks, behind the cubbies, tucked into the folds of their collars and the backs of their necks.
In the corner, Taejun had not moved.
The crayon in his hand had dug too deep.
The paper beneath it had torn long ago.
What he'd drawn was no longer a drawing.
The wax was layered thick, melted into the page like blood into cloth. It had stopped being a line.
It had become an opening.
And from within it, something watched back.
This time, Taejun did not look away.
And before the day turned its final corner— before the sun dipped low and the golden warmth drained from the glass panes like spilled honey— it was already too late to close what had been opened.
Year 2009, Haeoreum Elementary School, 176 Yongho-ro 3-gil, Yongho-dong, Nam-gu, Busan, South Korea, Room 205, Class 1-2.
The classroom swam in gold.
Morning sunlight spilled through the broad windows in thick, honeyed shafts that painted the wooden floor in streaks of amber, warming the aged grain and gliding slowly across each desk as if time itself moved in lazy swirls.
Dust motes floated through the air like tiny stars in a silent galaxy, twisting gently in the light, caught between movement and stillness.
The warmth of it was deep at first— almost lullaby-like— filling the room with a softness that could have been mistaken for comfort.
But it lingered too long. It touched too precisely.
It felt… intentional. Staged, even.
Like a photograph someone kept perfecting until nothing felt alive in it anymore.
The scent of the room was a curious cocktail of years and new beginnings— fresh glue sticks and sharpened pencils mingled with the older perfume of sunbaked wood, chalk dust, and something faintly metallic hiding beneath the surface.
It was the kind of smell that wrapped around your lungs and settled into your memory forever, even if you never knew why.
A classroom preserved. Tended to.
At the front of it all stood Ms. Jang.
Still as porcelain, she held herself with an air of reverence, like a caretaker of something sacred rather than a teacher of small children.
Her figure was as neat and polished as the desks: blazer uncreased, hair in a bun that didn't shift, clipboard cradled in arms folded with an elegance too symmetrical to be casual.
Her smile was stretched just enough to pass as warm, just enough to be remembered, but too perfect, too rehearsed.
The kind of smile that had long since stopped coming from the heart.
Then came the creak.
The door opened not with a rush, but with a sigh— like the building itself exhaled.
Light spilled into the hallway and mingled with the noise of rubber soles against linoleum as children stepped into the room in clusters.
Their little shoes squeaked; their backpacks bumped against each other like soft armor.
Their eyes, wide and blinking, scanned the sea of unfamiliar desks and unclaimed spaces, searching for refuge.
Their voices came in scattered waves— quiet laughter, awkward greetings, a gasp here and there— as if their very presence might break something delicate.
And behind them, in the hallway framed by the door's glass, stood the parents.
Holding onto the edge of childhood with white knuckles.
They didn't enter, they lingered like ghosts— waving, mouthing encouragement, some smiling too much as if to will their worry into a grin.
Others simply stood there, frozen by the glass, hoping their child would turn one last time and wave back. Most didn't.
One by one, the parents faded from view.
Their footsteps drifted down the stairs, their laughter thinning into echoes.
Outside, the courtyard remained bright, bustling with forgotten warmth.
A lone wind chime somewhere outside tinkled faintly in the breeze, just enough to make the moment feel like it had been plucked from a dream.
Inside, the door closed.
A small, soft click.
And with it, the children were sealed in.
"Good morning, everyone!" Ms. Jang's voice rang through the air, smooth as silk, bright as a bell struck gently.
"Welcome to your very first day of school. My name is Ms. Jang, and I'll be your teacher this year."
The words floated over the desks like confetti, but their cheer felt oddly staged— like a lullaby sung by someone who never slept.
She gestured with a small sweep of her clipboard.
"Come in and choose any seat you like. We'll pick our official seats later."
Some children scattered eagerly, latching onto desks with the urgency of explorers claiming new land.
Laughter bubbled up, sharp and bright, echoing off the clean walls in bursts.
Others moved more slowly, as if sensing something off.
Their footsteps were hesitant, eyes darting like birds startled too many times.
Then, he arrived.
Shin Taejun.
He stepped through the doorway like a shadow slipping through light.
There was no fear in his posture.
No curiosity in his gaze.
He walked with the kind of silence that belonged not to children, but to those who had walked through the same scene a hundred times before— each time more certain of the lines in the script.
His uniform was spotless, ironed with a precision that felt too exacting for a seven-year-old.
His shoes were clean enough to catch the glint of the sun as he passed through the light.
He didn't look at the other children.
Didn't acknowledge the whispers, the glances.
He just walked. Straight to the desk in the very back corner.
The one that felt like it had been saved for him.
He sat, folded his hands on the desk, and stared ahead.
Untouched by the buzz around him.
But beneath that quiet surface, something old stirred.
The kind that presses on your ribs from the inside.
A feeling not unlike deja vu, but thicker, like carrying someone else's memory in your chest.
The sunlight reached his desk, too, but it no longer felt warm.
It felt like a spotlight, like an accusation.
Ms. Jang's voice continued, syrup-thick and too smooth.
"I'm so happy to see all of you," she said, each word delicately placed like pieces on a dollhouse table.
"This year, we'll learn how to read, how to write, how to be kind, and share. We'll laugh, and we'll grow… We'll become a family. Together."
A murmur of agreement rippled through the class, but Taejun didn't hear it.
His gaze stayed fixed, unmoving.
Inside, he could feel it— that subtle wrongness, that strange silence beneath the noise.
She lifted her clipboard.
"But first," she said, "let's learn each other's names."
One by one, she called them.
The voices of children rose— timid or proud or trembling with nervous excitement.
"My name is Jisoo! I like tigers!" she squeaked, bouncing in her chair like her joy might tear her in two.
"My name is Minjae! I love ice cream!" came next, louder, shriller, his legs jittering under the desk.
Each introduction was a spark in the air— bright, burning fast, vanishing.
A parade of names, of hopes, of stories waiting to begin.
Taejun waited.
He knew he was there. He'd seen it.
Second from the bottom. The letters curved neatly, written in careful Hangul.
He waited for her lips to form the sound. For the word to anchor him to this place.
But it never came.
Her eyes swept past him. Her voice moved on.
The name was skipped. As though he had never been there at all.
His lungs filled slowly. Then stopped.
A tightness clamped around his ribs. He blinked once, unsure if he'd imagined it.
But no. She hadn't stumbled.
She hadn't paused. She had simply… omitted him.
Around him, the class bloomed with laughter, small applause, and more names.
But he was no longer in it.
Something cracked.
Something subtle.
The sunlight, which had once wrapped the classroom in warmth, now clung to his skin like static, like a breath too close to the back of his neck.
And somewhere deep inside his chest, something old and quiet stirred.
A recognition. Not a memory— but a truth. A whisper only he could hear:
He was not supposed to be here.
The classroom carried on, perfect in every way.
Smiling children.
Painted posters.
Bright light, and warmth.
But Taejun sat at his desk, hands curled around the underside, gripping tightly.
And outside the window, the sun shimmered just a little too brightly.
As if it, too, was watching.