One by one, the parents began to slip away, their departure quiet but thick with unspoken emotion.
Some smiled brightly as they left, waving a little too long, their fingers fluttering in midair like they didn't quite want to let go.
Their voices, soft with lingering affection, floated back into the classroom as parting murmurs— half wishes, half reassurances, the kind of words meant more for themselves than their children.
Others lingered near the threshold, pausing with hands on the doorframe, casting one last glance behind them.
Their eyes searched for something— perhaps a final confirmation that their child would be alright in this new world of tiny desks and freshly sharpened pencils.
There was a hush in the air that hadn't been there before, not silence exactly, but something thinner— like the faint hum of electricity when you're alone in a room, or the hush before the first page of a story is turned.
The last mother stood near the doorway, her posture stiff with the weight of goodbye.
Her purse was clutched tight under one arm, her other hand lingering in the air, half-extended as if unsure whether to wave again or simply turn the handle and leave.
She looked toward her daughter, then toward the teacher, her gaze caught somewhere between hesitation and quiet dread.
Ms. Jang, ever poised, caught her eye and held it with a calm, steady smile that neither rushed her nor invited her to stay.
There was something so composed in the way she stood, so still and deliberate, that it seemed to gently press the woman back into motion.
The mother blinked, offered a faint nod— so small it barely counted— and finally stepped out into the hallway.
The sliding door closed behind her with a soft, final snap, like a book being shut before the story is finished.
The quiet that followed was dense, not peaceful but suspended, like dust floating in a shaft of late-morning light.
Ms. Jang moved slowly across the front of the room, her steps almost silent against the smooth floor.
The hem of her long, navy skirt brushed the tile with a whispering sound, like dry leaves skimming pavement.
Her blouse, a pale pastel yellow, shifted slightly as she reached for a new stick of chalk from the wooden tray.
Her movements were practiced, elegant in their simplicity— like someone performing a routine she had done hundreds of times, each motion infused with memory.
Scrape.
The chalk etched across the green board with a thin, high squeal that made a few of the children wince.
The sound was brittle, like ice cracking underfoot.
She didn't turn as she spoke.
"Let's go over our classroom rules again," she said, her voice smooth, almost melodic.
"Who remembers the first one?"
For a moment, only the low hum of the fluorescent lights answered.
Then a few hands began to drift upward— slow, uncertain, like leaves rising on invisible strings.
"Yes, Seoyoon?" she prompted without turning.
A small girl sitting in the front row sat up straighter, clutching the sides of her desk as though the answer might spill out of her if she didn't hold herself in place.
"Be kind to everyone," she said, her voice clear, with the lilt of a child proud of remembering something important.
"Very good," Ms. Jang replied, nodding as she drew a neat checkmark beneath the chalk line.
The motion was almost motherly, a gesture of approval with just a trace of something too perfect, like a smile held a second too long in a photograph.
"Can anyone tell me another rule?"
A boy near the windows hesitated before raising his hand halfway, his eyes flicking toward his classmates for courage.
"Raise your hand before you talk?" he offered, voice a bit unsure.
"Exactly. Thank you." Ms. Jang smiled again, this time drawing a rounded little smiley face in the corner of the board.
Its eyes were comically large, too round— almost cartoonish in a way that might've been funny if not for how carefully symmetrical they were.
"And what about the most important rule?"
Silence. This time there's no hands.
A hush spread across the room like frost creeping over glass.
Even the children who had been fidgeting just a moment ago seemed to freeze, breath caught mid-chest.
Ms. Jang turned slowly, her chalk-streaked hand still lifted in midair.
Her expression hadn't changed— her smile remained polite, almost gentle— but there was something different about her eyes now.
"Never leave the classroom without permission," she said.
Her tone was light, as if sharing a favorite line from a bedtime story.
"Ever. And if someone does… they don't come back until we decide they're ready. Understand?"
The children nodded, slowly, some barely moving their heads.
No one spoke.
No one asked what she meant.
But something about the weight in her voice made their stomachs twist, like hearing a lullaby in a minor key.
Taejun sat stiffly in his chair, his fingers curling around the edges of his seat.
His skin felt prickly, like the air had shifted in temperature, though nothing had moved.
Something about the way she said it— casual, almost fond— made it worse, like she was talking about missing puzzle pieces instead of people.
And then, without really deciding to, his hand rose.
Ms. Jang's gaze snapped to him like a string pulled tight. "Yes, Taejun?"
He swallowed. "Um… the girl from yesterday. Where did she go? Isn't she coming to school?"
The room held its breath. Even the light seemed to dim.
For a moment, Ms. Jang didn't answer.
She simply stared at him, not in anger, not in confusion.
Just a long, quiet stare that felt like it might stretch on forever.
She blinked once, slowly, as though trying to see him more clearly, or waiting for him to say something else, but he didn't.
Then, almost absentmindedly, she turned her head toward the window.
The trees outside stood completely still.
The sky was a dull, overcast white, the kind that never changed all day.
Nothing stirred, but she looked anyway, as if expecting something to be there.
Something only she could see.
"She's not here today," she said at last, her voice syrupy-sweet, the edges curling like the end of a nursery rhyme.
"Her father said they'd be… taking some time for now. So, she's not coming to school for some time, okay?"
Taejun frowned. "But—"
"Sometimes," Ms. Jang interrupted, still smiling, still gentle, "people go away. And when they do, it's best not to ask too many questions about things we can't see. Don't you think?"
Her lips stretched wider now.
A smile, yes— but wrong in a way he couldn't name.
There were too many teeth, too much stillness in her eyes.
Not cruel. Just… distant. Detached, like someone who had practiced smiling so long she no longer remembered why people did it.
She turned back to the board without waiting for a response and picked up the chalk.
Tap. Scrape. Tap.
The new rule formed beneath the others in her tidy, looping handwriting.
Halfway through the word, the chalk snapped with a sharp, dry crack.
She didn't flinch.
She didn't even pause.
She picked up the broken stub and finished the sentence, slow and careful, as if nothing at all had happened.
Behind her, the classroom remained hushed.
Outside, the trees didn't move.
Taejun's gaze lowered to the board just as the rule appeared in stark white chalk: Ask only what you're ready to hear.
The words made no sense to him— at least not fully— but the moment they settled, something inside his chest clenched like a slow fist curling around a secret.
A quiet pressure, cold and strange, pressed behind his ribs as if something unseen had stirred.
Ms. Jang, with her back turned, still wore that same patient smile— too still, too perfect, as if someone had painted it on and then forgotten to remove the brush.
The classroom remained silent, not the playful, distracted hush of children losing focus, but a fragile kind of stillness, like the moment just before a glass falls and shatters.
The only sounds were the soft rustle of knees shifting under desks, the creak of metal legs against old linoleum, and the almost imperceptible buzz of fluorescent lights overhead.
Taejun didn't raise his hand again.
His question— whatever it had been— lingered in the air like the faint aroma of soup left untouched too long, slowly cooling, curdling into something that no one wanted to taste.
Beyond the tall windows, cherry blossoms fluttered in the breeze, their petals drifting lazily like memories, and beyond even that, the endless blue sky, too bright and too still—something unseen watched.
Ms. Jang crossed the room in slow, measured steps, the click of her low heels tapping softly across the tile like a metronome counting down to something unseen.
Her hand reached for a fresh stick of chalk.
Dust clung to her fingers like pollen as she drew on the board— first a long vertical line, then another crossing it.
She shaded the corners slowly, carefully, as though closing a gate rather than simply finishing a drawing.
"This," she said warmly, almost tenderly, "is the quiet box. Do you remember what it's for?"
The class didn't answer. No one moved.
Even the dust motes in the air seemed to freeze mid-flight, as if held by the same quiet spell.
Ms. Jang turned around, brushing her skirt flat.
Her eyes were soft but sharp, gleaming like something wet under sunlight.
"It's where we go when we forget how to behave. Just for a while. Long enough to remember the rules. Long enough… to listen."
Taejun didn't want to look, but his gaze was already sliding, drawn by something heavy and magnetic to the corner of the room.
There, tucked where the wall met the floor, where light dared not reach, sat a cardboard box.
It hadn't been there earlier, or maybe it had, unnoticed.
Large enough for a child to fit inside without folding their knees, it crouched in the shadows like a mouth slightly ajar.
Thick black lines had been scrawled across it in waxy crayon, prison bars roughly drawn and smeared in places, as though something inside had once tried to claw its way out.
The top flaps were bent inward, curling at the edges like the corners of lips curled back too far.
Then Ms. Jang's voice cut the silence, sweet as syrup.
"Minji… would you like to help me demonstrate?"
A brittle crack shattered the stillness.
Minji's head jerked up from her desk, her lips parting in a stunned breath.
She blinked once, twice, her gaze flickering between Ms. Jang and the box like a child watching two sides of a coin spin in midair.
"I… I don't want to," she whispered.
Her voice was barely there, a ribbon of sound caught on the wind.
Ms. Jang's smile didn't falter. It simply stretched, slow and smooth.
"Oh, come on now. It's not punishment if no one's done anything wrong," she said lightly. "It's just a demonstration."
Minji rose, her chair scraping backwards with a shrill, nails-on-glass screech that made half the class flinch.
Her arms hung limply at her sides as she walked toward the box.
The air around her seemed to thicken, heavy like syrup poured through a sieve.
Each step landed with the weight of dread, her tiny shoes tapping the floor like someone marking off seconds on a countdown.
When she reached it, she paused.
She turned, just once.
Her eyes were wide, searching.
She looked at Taejun— just for a heartbeat— but it was enough. He looked away.
Ms. Jang crouched down beside her and lifted the flaps.
The box creaked open with a dry rustle, like old paper or the stiff turning of a forgotten book.
"Inside," she said softly, not unkindly.
Minji hesitated.
Then she bent her knees and crawled in.
The box seemed to inhale around her.
The flaps closed with a muffled thump that echoed louder than it should have, like the shutting of a door at the bottom of a well.
Ms. Jang pressed her hand flat against the top of the box.
"Just for a moment," she murmured. "Just until the room feels normal again."
The lights above flickered once, then again, slower and dimmer.
The corners of the room darkened.
Not in shadow, but in presence, like the room itself had pulled inward, holding its breath.
Taejun's pulse throbbed in his ears.
He dropped his eyes to the scratched wood of his desk.
Yesterday, there'd been something there— something etched faintly, a name, a warning scrawled in dull pencil.
But now, it was gone.
Erased, not roughly, not like a child's impatient hand. It was too clean, too smooth, like it had never been written at all. Like the desk, the room, and the air had forgotten.
Then, from the box— so faint he almost convinced himself he hadn't heard it— a rustle.
A whisper. A breathing, but it was too low.
He glanced at Ms. Jang.
She was still crouched, her hand on the lid, her eyes closed, as if listening, as if communing.
Seconds passed like syrup dripping from a spoon.
Finally, she stood. "See?" she said brightly, turning toward the class.
"Nothing to be afraid of. Minji, you can come out now."
She opened the box. Minji didn't move.
"Minji?" Ms. Jang's voice cracked just slightly. "Come on out, sweetie."
Nothing. A pause, taut and vibrating. Ms. Jang reached in and widened the opening.
The box was empty.
For a long moment, no one said anything.
No breath, no cough, not even a sniffle.
The room was locked in perfect stillness.
Every child stared, their wide eyes reflecting the dull gray of cardboard and fear.
Taejun's stomach turned.
The shadows on the floor had shifted again, stretching, reaching.
Something in the room had changed.
Not the way it felt when someone walks in or leaves— but the way it feels when something watching decides to move closer.
Ms. Jang's face betrayed nothing as she closed the box, slow and soundless.
Then, without a word, she turned back to the board and picked up a piece of chalk.
"Now," she said cheerfully, "who remembers how to count to twenty?"
A single voice rang out. "Boo!"
Ms. Jang gasped and flinched, stumbling slightly as two small arms latched around her legs.
Laughter spilled from the tiny form hugging her, Minji.
Her cheeks glowed pink with laughter, her eyes squeezed shut in a grin as wide and bright as any child's.
She clung to Ms. Jang like a daughter greeting a mother after school.
Ms. Jang placed a hand over her heart and exhaled shakily.
"Minji! Don't do that, you little rascal," she said, her laugh high and breathless. "You scared the life out of me."
Minji giggled, unconcerned, nodding with mock solemnity.
The class erupted in soft laughter.
Even Taejun, though a chill still rested on his spine, smiled faintly.
But it didn't touch his eyes. Not fully.
Ms. Jang tapped the chalkboard twice, drawing the room back together.
"Alright, my little stars! Who can help me count to twenty?"
Tiny hands shot up like blossoms in spring, reaching for the sun.
What followed was a burst of cheerful chaos— numbers sung out in high, overlapping voices, hands waving, faces shining.
Ms. Jang led them in a silly counting game, deliberately tripping over numbers, gasping in mock outrage whenever a student corrected her.
The class roared with laughter each time.
The joy returned in ripples, warm and nostalgic, like an old lullaby echoing through a sunlit room.
Later, during Korean class, the board was filled with letters and hearts.
Ms. Jang's script flowed like petals falling in the wind, and her voice wove stories through each syllable.
When students drifted, she knelt beside them, her patience folding around them like a blanket.
And when some succumbed to sleep, heads resting gently on folded arms, she didn't scold.
She simply leaned close and whispered them back into the world, smiling softly.
Outside, the sun warmed the windows, birds danced between cherry branches, and somewhere beneath the day's warmth, beneath the comfort and color and song, something very old kept watching.
But for now, the class sang, they counted, they laughed, and the quiet box remained closed.