Stella's frail body lay draped over the alabaster bench like a cracked icon returned to its altar.

  She was home. But at what cost?

  Tears crawled from her eyes as if her soul itself was liquefying, and the very world—once soft with sky—turned grave-cold. Her nightmare had followed her across thresholds, chased her all the way into sanctum, and laid its head beside hers on the pillow of her surrender.

  Her fingers drifted, almost automatically, to the left side of her neck—where that phantom itch pulsed like an old oath. The scar Jin had left there was no longer just skin. It was a sentence. A syllable of pain engraved into her flesh like an apostrophe between lives.

  She had resisted scratching it since the moment she saw him again.

  As if some primitive superstition told her: If you touch it, he becomes real again.

  But as her sobbing deepened, the world grew dimmer.

  First, the trees lost color. Then the birds grew mute. Then, the light forgot how to exist.

  She blinked. Was she going blind?

  No—

  A glacial touch beneath her eyes. Thumb and shadow. Mercy and mockery.

  He was here.

  Wiping her tears like a god trying to remember how to cradle a creation.

  Somebody(soft, glimmering amusement):"You were trying very hard not to scratch it, weren't you?"

  She didn't answer. Her sorrow spoke louder than her throat. Confusion filled the air like fog around a dreamer waking too soon.

  Somebody: "The itch… it returned the moment he did. Strange, isn't it? How scars remember faster than minds. As though his violence didn't just mark you—it made you. Like something in you was born the day he hurt you."

  Silence descended again. Deeper this time. Absolute. Even the wind fled. The sky collapsed into ink.

  All that remained: a single bench. And the cosmic entity, still cradling her cheek like a mourning star.

  Somebody(lower):"The scar remembered him before you did."

  She turned her face. Slowly. Shamefully. Her fingers twitched once more near her collarbone, then halted—suspended between defiance and defeat.

  Stella(whispering):"It was you… wasn't it?"

  Somebody(lightly humming):"Hmm?"

  The sound echoed with fatherly warmth. Comforting. Condescending. As if she were not a girl grieving, but a child misunderstanding the rules of a game too complex for mortals.

  Stella: "This encounter… this reunion. It wasn't chance."

  Her hand fell from the scar. It didn't itch anymore. Not because it healed—But because it remembered.

  Somebody: "I did not arrange that moment. He wandered in all by himself. The fateless do that sometimes."

  She turned her head to the right, then down. Her gaze sought the boy who haunted the lining of her nightmares—and saw him clearer than she ever had.

  There he was.

  Piled in dirt like a discarded relic. His head bowed. His hair draping his face like a veil for the dead.

  No sign of that fire-eyed boy who once clawed her in a hallway made of echoes. Just a husk. A boy who had forgotten how to stand proud. Or maybe never learned.

  Then—like a memory uncoiling—his voice returned to her. Not the words. The tone. The crack in its's she ran away to the bench.

  Stella (shaky):"What… what did they do to him… after I screamed?"

  Somebody (mock-gentle):"Oh, Stella. When will you stop pretending? You remember everything. Don't you? You always did. Your genius won't let you forget."

  Her mind recalibrated. Like an oracle's trance resetting the stars.

  She remembered the fury. The way the teachers' faces twisted into sanctioned vengeance. She remembered justice—not as virtue, but as ritual.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Somebody: "He became the target. Not just of one—but of all."

  Somebody (dispassionate):"Older boys used fists. Smaller ones used words. Even the silent ones joined in—not from hatred, but from momentum. He 'deserved it,' they said. That phrase was the permission they needed."

  Somebody (closing in):"Isn't that right, Stella? He deserved it, didn't he?"

  Somebody (coldly philosophical):"'Deserved it. 'The most civilized excuse for cruelty."

  Somebody (rhythmic, poetic):"He was cornered in halls. Mocked at lunch. Shoved down stairs. Kicked where teachers didn't see. And no one helped—because he wasn't a victim. He was the villain."

  Somebody (a whisper):"Why do you think he clawed you, Stella?"

  Her grip on the bench tightened.

  Stella (reflexive):"Because he's evil."

  Somebody (amused, yet sorrowful):"So easy."

  She glared at the void around him.

  Stella: "Isn't he?"

  Somebody: "Empathy sounds beautiful. But even the kindest hearts get drunk on rhythm.And hatred is music if enough people sing it."

  The air stood still. Not silent. Still.

  Like a planet holding its breath.

  Stella (a whisper that fears its own answer):"Was it you?"

  Somebody: "What now?"

  Stella: "Did you make him sick?"

  A pause. It hung in the air like a sword over truth.

  Somebody (tenderly):"No."

  Stella: "But you brought everyone else here. You wrote their stories."

  Somebody (lower, colder):"All except one."

  Her eyes slid back to the boy in the dirt. His stillness wasn't apathy.

  It was unwritten. As if even time didn't know what to do with him.

  Somebody: "He's the only one without a story."

  Something inside her cracked—not a memory, but a belief. A belief in justice. In cosmic balance.

  Because if Jin had no script…

  Then every cruelty he inflicted was his. But every cruelty inflicted on him?

  Was authored. By everyone else.

  She stared at his ruined posture. And for one hideous second—

  She felt jealousy.

  Stella (soft, brittle):"Why him?"

  Somebody (gentle):"Hm?"

  Stella(sharper, venomous):"Why let him go? Why shackle me to every trial, every scar, every test…While he gets to be a glitch in your system?"

  The scar throbbed again—not from inflammation, but from injustice.

  Stella: "I obeyed. I stayed soft. I dreamed like how you wanted. And still—I'm the one dying."

  Somebody (without smile):"Because you asked for meaning."

  A hush.

  Somebody (with strange mercy):"He never did."

  Her nails dug into her skirt. Her breath faltered.

  The leaves finally stirred. So did her rage.

  Jealousy. It tasted like her name.

  Why should he get freedom? Why should he, the monster, be the anomaly?

  Why should she—the one who chose kindness—be the character...

  ...when he was allowed to be the contradiction?

  Somebody (low, near her ear):"You were born a character. He was born a contradiction."

  Stella (furrowing her brow, voice trembling): "Why are you making him look like the victim?"

  Somebody (calmly amused, tilting his head): "When did I ever call him that, Stella?"

  Somebody (casually, fingers tracing the void like an unwritten page): "I merely find it... compelling—to leave his story blank."

  Somebody (intrigued, eyes glinting with something ancient): "But what fascinates me most is his genius."

  Stella (stiffening, cautious): "What do you mean?"

  Somebody (somber, leaning in as if confessing a secret to the wind): "You were remarkably unlucky, Stella—when your fate had to kiss his. Because if you could truly see, you'd notice Jin was never ordinary. Not even close."

  Somebody (slightly playful, voice curling like smoke): "Why do you think these recent chapters lingered on your 'bullying'?"

  Somebody (faintly mocking, a smirk behind every word): "It's an underwhelming theme, isn't it? Bullying comes and goes. Yes, it wounds. Yes, it scars. But it's survivable. It can be resisted. Avoided. Fought."

  Somebody (quiet now, almost pitying): "But Stella—you were never bullied. At least... not by him."

  Stella (disoriented, blinking rapidly): "What...?"

  Somebody (softly clinical, like a surgeon explaining a cut): "I understand your confusion. But real bullying is born of impulse. It's a compulsion to harm, to dominate, to prey on the weak. It's emotional. Primitive."

  Somebody (firm, final): "That simply wasn't Jin's intent."

  Stella and Somebody stared at him.

  He hadn't moved—still crouched in the same feral posture. Only now, he looked slightly more husked, like something left too long in the sun. Dry lips, shadowed skin, and that unbearable quiet.

  Somebody (calm, amused): "What a na?ve boy. Too obsessed—too tragically obsessed—to satisfy a mother burning in hell."

  He turned toward Stella, his smile the kind seen on doctors before bad news.

  Somebody (conspiratorial): "He had a goal when he tormented you. Were you an experiment? Perhaps. A catalyst for vengeance? Likely. But a toy? No. You were a cow—and he was there to milk grief like nectar."

  Somebody (tilting his head): "Why do you think you never screamed for help? Did he threaten you? Whisper that worse would come if you spoke?"

  Stella (quietly, haunted): "No..."

  Somebody (softly triumphant): "Exactly what I thought. He didn't need threats. He used design. He extracted sorrow from you like an alchemist wringing gold from rot—slow, strategic, almost... loving. Emotional manipulation, laced like sugar on the tongues of bees. You made the honey, Stella. He just watched you sweeten."

  Somebody (pausing): "He didn't hate you. That would've been simpler. He had a goal. And he would reach it, no matter the debris."

  Stella (bitter, eyes narrowing): "Now you've only confirmed it. He's a psycho."

  Somebody (chuckling, voice dipping into something darker): "Jin? A psychopath? No, Stella. That's the most dangerous part."

  Somebody (stepping closer, voice hushed like sacrilege): "He was not a psychopath. Nor a sociopath. He felt, Stella. He felt too much. He had emotions. He had morality. The same rusted fences you do. The same conscience."

  Somebody (almost whispering): "And yet—he did it anyway. Not in a frenzy. Not in madness. He planned it. Built it. Engineered your suffering."

  He giggled—just once. A sound like glass chipping.

  Somebody (grinning): "And the scariest part? He didn't even realize it. Not fully. Not consciously. He wasn't broken, Stella."

  Somebody (smile turning brittle): "He was full. Too full."