Chapter Text
Part 1:
I. Dies Irae
Certain classical scores are often referenced in pieces of media to convey a certain message without ever explicitly portraying it on screen. In the backlog of the audience’s mind, a song accesses an archival memory of emotional resonances that can be reused over and over again to communicate a sense of mood, tone, or theme.
As Sieun opened the door to his new dorm room, his brain did just that. The scene from “The Shining” of a car driving down a cold, dark and lonely road. The marked lines of the street illuminated only by the dim shadow of the moon and the clinical whiteness of the car’s headlights. A song plays: Dies Irae or “Day of Wrath.” A medieval Latin chant that became one of the most famous pieces of liturgical music in countless classical and modern compositions.
Doom. Dread. Death. The apocalypse. The horrors of damnation.
Although no explicit emotion was shown on Sieun’s face. The audience was clear on what he was feeling in the moment he saw what was about to be his fate for the next academic year.
The first thing that caught his eye was the massive poster taped above his new roommate’s bed—an absurdly proportioned female video game character, all cleavage, oversized weaponry, rosy cheeks, and a gaze engineered for maximum male fantasy.
On the adjacent wall: various movie posters ranging from The Karate Kid, Star Wars and Kung Fu Panda to some random noir film Sieun had never heard of, nor anyone else unless they had taken an upper level film classes and were sufficiently pretentious.
On his roommate’s desk was what could only be described as a shrine to gaming excess: two oversized monitors, an aggressively glowing RGB keyboard, and a matching PC tower that looked like it could launch a satellite. One of the monitors was on, proudly showcasing two impossibly proportioned anime women demonstrating the latest advancement in digital jiggle physics—on an endless loop.
Above the setup—where any sane person might’ve kept textbooks or, God forbid, a notebook—was a shelf stuffed with manga and an army of anime figurines, each one more questionably dressed than the last.
There was worse to behold, but Sieun had already packed away the right side of the room deep down. Everything beside him was now mentally, a black void. As the somber, ancient chords of “Days of Wrath” surged in his head, he resolved that he no longer had a roommate.
“Yo.”
A voice came from the vast blackness beside him. Sieun’s neck twitched robotically in the direction of the voice.
A hand extended toward him—unfortunately attached to the half-naked body of his new roommate, who stood there with nothing but a towel slung around his waist. Foggy black square glasses clung to his nose, his mouth stretched into a blinding grin. His jet-black hair was still dripping.
Sieun stared at the outstretched hand. In his own arms was a cardboard box, very obviously occupied.
Sieun looked up at him stonily. “You wear your glasses in the shower?”
The hand dropped, along with the smile. A beat. The smile reappeared.
“Nah. I just got these. I was trying them on in the mirror. Pretty nice, huh? Heard of Gentle Monster?”
Sieun’s face grew imperceptibly stonier. “Those are knock-offs.”
II. Masquerade Suite: Masquerade (Masquerade): I. Waltz
The score starts with a grand, sweeping main theme – elegant but with a tinge of growing melancholy. This melancholy builds as the song progresses, along with the song's tension and sense of grandeur. A murder has just occurred during a rollicking party. A slow motion scene of gangsters duking it out in the rain, set to the ironically vintage classical tune.
The face of a familiar cartoon bear was taped to the punching bag in front of Sieun. Its paper visage had recently endured a first-class beating. A tear had begun to form in its center. But Sieun was unrelenting. Right hook. Left jab. Bang. Bang. Bang. The sound of his fist colliding with the front of the cartoon bear echoed throughout the gym’s first floor. A few people popped their headphones from their ears to see where the noise was coming from.
The bear’s crumpled face swung back and forth from the force of Sieun’s punches. Each punch was in time with the clatter of cymbals and timpani in the background. The song’s rich harmonies swelled the more vicious the strike.
Despite its beating, the bear’s face seemed to grow more smug. Sieun froze for a moment, thinking his eyes had deceived him. The punching bag swung back, and he became the unfortunate victim of Newton’s third law of motion, smacking him on the face.
Sieun sat up from where he had been knocked clean onto the floor. The bear’s wrinkled face smirked down at him. Sieun’s eyes dilated, his lip curling. Just as he was about to sufficiently pummel the cartoon bear’s face, a figure appeared in front of him.
“Yah. You know if me using those emojis bothers you, you can just say something. Do you really think Ryan deserves to be beaten like this?”
Sieun glanced from Juntae to bear, who was now staring at him, feigning a hurt look. Sieun cursed under his breath.
Juntae reached a hand out. Sieun ignored it, rising to his feet and dusting himself off. He caught a look at himself in the opposite mirror. He was sweating profusely, his shirt sticking to his sides and wet droplets pinned his bangs to his forehead. The song in his head had dissipated.
He tore the paper off and crumpled it into a ball. Aiming for the nearby trash can, he tossed it—and missed.
The paper rolled across the floor like it was mocking him.
Sieun’s frustration flared. He swore under his breath, jaw tightening.
“You know on-campus counseling is free, right?” Juntae gave him a concerned look. “You don’t have to take everything out on innocent cartoon characters.”
Sieun ignored him, pivoting and walking in the direction of the locker room. Juntae skipped after him. “Did something happen?”
Sieun’s back straightened. “No.”
“Oh, so, something happened.”
“No.” Sieun repeated, “I was working out.”
“You were about to punch a hole through a hundred pound bag of sand.”
Sieun cast his friend a baleful look.
Unfortunately, he and Juntae had been friends long enough for Juntae to know that Sieun’s brooding glares were more bark than bite.
“Ah, new roommate?” Juntae had a mischievous look on his face. “What? Is he some kind of slob? A porn-addict? 3 AM game abuser?”
“Is all of the above an option?” Sieun paused, thinking he’d been too honest. “It’s fine though. The library is available for all hours for a reason. And punching bags.”
“Can’t sleep in there. What? Is he a screamer?”
Sieun’s fists clenched. He stared darkly up at the ceiling, thinking about the previous night.
It was difficult to fathom how someone could have all levels of obnoxiousness rolled into one.
Sieun stood, completely still, in front of the black void that was his roommate’s side of the room. He stared at the wall, making eye contact with Po, the fat panda and main character of Blockbuster movie Kung Fu Panda.
“I have a test tomorrow.” Sieun gritted out, still refusing to look directly at his roommate, who was lying prone on his bed, stuffing his face with Cheetos and chewing with his mouth wide open.
His roommate didn’t look up from his phone. “Oh, cool. Good luck.”
Sieun’s fists were balled at his side. He slowly inhaled, then exhaled. Breathing exercises he’d learned from the mandatory anger management classes he’d taken in high school.
Sieun thought he had put his days of beating people up in the past. He was known as a juvenile delinquent in high school only because he didn’t want to be bothered while he was studying. That’s what most bullies like to do, interrupt you while you're studying. The sight of achievement filled them with a sense of inexplicable rage. Sieun fought purely because he was concerned about his future. Even if he had to stay behind for detention after stabbing someone in the thigh with a ballpoint pen, he still made it to cram school in the evening.
Then, he felt justified. And now, staring at the back of his roommate who was yelling curse words at his monitor at four in the morning, he once again felt justified in his actions.
He rolled out of bed and in three clean steps, made it over to where his roommate was sitting.
He reached down and pressed the power button on the PC. The screen went black.
His roommate froze, the curse dying in his throat. His brow seemed to furrow for a moment, before his head slowly turned to face Sieun. There was a menacing smile on his face.
“Roomie. That was my rank up game.”
Sieun stared down at him silently. His roommate’s eyes twitched. A sick sense of glee began to pool in Sieun’s chest. Now you know how it feels.
“Do you know what that means? Huh? Rank-up game.”
“Do you know what this means? Huh? G. P. A?”
His roommate scoffed, before rising out of his chair. He had a few solid inches on Sieun, but Sieun was used to this tactic.
“Yah.” His roommate pushed his glasses up his nose with his middle finger, squinting down at him. “There must be something wrong with your brain. I mean really – I could tell you were stuck-up from the day we met, but I didn’t think you’d go this far.”
Sieun stared flatly at his roommate’s chest.
“I told you I have a test tomorrow. Multivariable calculus. Gauss’s Theorem.”
“And I told you good luck. What else do you want?”
Sieun let out a slow, exhausted sigh. He drew his fist back, nose wrinkling. “Some peace and fucking quiet.”
Then he punched him—right in the stomach.
A pause.
His roommate exhaled a short, amused snort. “That was it?”
Sieun looked up, visibly stricken. Poker face failing him in his weakest moment.
His fist had met an unfortunately very solid barrier. Granted, he hadn’t wanted to do that much damage, since getting expelled for physical assault wasn’t exactly ideal. He didn’t imagine that his strike would have zero effect. It was like stumbling into a high level boss room in a video game and being woefully underleveled.
"You know," his roommate said, casually, "I used to roughhouse a bit back in the day... but I didn’t peg you for the type to be into this kind of thing."
What? Sieun barely had time to register the words before his roommate bent down, grabbed him around the waist, and—effortlessly—hauled him over his shoulder.
He froze, again. The floor shifted beneath him, moving without his consent. Then his reflexes kicked in—he raised both fists and brought them down hard between his roommate’s shoulder blades.
A faint grunt. Then, without warning, he was slammed onto the bed like a sack of flour.
Sieun exhaled sharply, stunned, staring up at the maddeningly smug face hovering above him. His roommate was grinning like a lunatic.
With a scowl, Sieun jabbed his leg out, catching him square in the stomach.
This time it hit. His roommate let out a choked laugh, stumbling forward and landing with his hands braced on either side of Sieun, pinning him in place.
"That wasn’t very nice," he said through gritted teeth, still grinning.
The smile sent another jolt of rage through Sieun’s veins.
His hand balled into a fist, winding back and aiming for his roommate’s smug face.
His roommate acted swiftly, landing a knee on Sieun’s chest and blocking the incoming strike with his forearms. He lurched forward, using Sieun’s surprise to his advantage. He flipped the other over, with far too much ease, holding Sieun’s chest to his own and using his arm to grip Sieun firmly in a chokehold.
"Have you ever heard of the game Mercy ?" his roommate asked, breath hot against Sieun’s ear.
Sieun let out a strangled sound. Rage surged through him—laced with a creeping edge of panic. He’d seriously misjudged what he was up against.
"I thought you were a film major," he choked out.
His roommate’s grip around his neck tightened.
"Minor in Phys Ed. Also played baseball, basketball, soccer in high school. Taekwondo. Judo. Oh, and I captained the Esports team."
"Esports isn’t a real sport."
His roommate gasped, mock-offended. "Take that back. Apologize to Faker-nim right now."
Sieun shook his head stiffly.
"Yah. Now you’re really asking for it."
His roommate flexed his arm around Sieun’s throat as Sieun kicked at the mattress, completely failing to break free.
"Say it. Mercy. It’s not hard—M. E. R. C. Y."
Foam was starting to gather at the corners of Sieun’s mouth, dripping onto his roommate’s arm as he writhed.
"Kill me," he sputtered.
His roommate leaned back and let out a laugh—dry and wheezy, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
"Jesus. You’re actually insane."
He finally let Sieun go, and the other fell forward on the bed in front of him, coughing and sputtering. His drool fell onto the bed sheets in front of him, staining the Kakaotalk bear’s face.
He felt pressure on his back side, and then felt his roommate push him forward off the bed. Sieun rolled over, in one smooth motion, and then stood facing the other.
Sieun wiped his mouth with his arm. “You’re a fucking asshole.”
His roommate's brow furrowed. "You know, I’ve heard a lot about you, Sieun-ah. I get it—you were a high school bully. Time to grow up. That crap doesn’t fly in college, and someone’s gotta teach you that."
"Fuck off."
"Me?" His roommate shrugged. "I never beat anyone up in school." He paused, eyes flicking toward the ceiling. "Unless they really had it coming."
Sieun’s vision blurred at the edges. His chest was rising fast, breath ragged. The handful of anger management classes he’d half-attended weren’t doing him any favors now.
His roommate tilted his head, voice quieter now. "Is being cruel the only way you feel in control?"
Sieun’s jaw tensed. His eyes locked onto his roommate’s with a dead, flat stare.
"No," he said quietly. "Just the most efficient."
His roommate looked back at him, a wry smile on his lips. Sieun could hardly believe he was being lectured by someone who had anime tits plastered on his walls.
The memory faded, and the present came rushing back in like cold air through a cracked window.
Sieun looked back at Juntae, jaw clenched. “I’m going to kill him.”
Sieun marched off in the direction of the locker room.
“Woah. Woah. Woah!”
III. Dance of the Knights
Sieun stood up, chair scraping on the ground. He had the pamphlet of his exam in his hand. Bag slung over his shoulder. His professor stood at the front of the room, giving him a wary look.
Exam on table.
“Thank you. Have a good–.”
Door shoved open. On his left, he was gripping a pencil so tightly his knuckles turned white.
Gauss’s theorem. Flux through a surface equals the sum of everything boiling inside. The wind carved at his face as he surged across the quad, each footfall a thudding chord – Prokofiev’s knights – armor and swords clashing.
Divergence. He recalled the word like a curse. How pressure builds beneath a surface. How it pushes out.
He didn’t dodge students on the sidewalk so much as he cleaved through them. Insults died in their throat as they caught sight of the dark look on his face.
Left past the STEM building. Right through the echoing colonnade. One more set of stairs. His breath was ragged in his throat. Phrases clipped short in a proof.
He hadn’t slept in the past twenty-four hours, and it was beginning to wear his nerves clean through.
His shoes slammed against the linoleum floor of the arts building, every step a phrase in the song's brooding, martial rhythm.
Left again. Up the stairs – his breath surging. No music now. Just pulse.
He slammed the lecture hall door open. Thirty faces pelted in his direction. The professor blinked, frozen mid sentence.
He stood in the doorway – sweat-slick, flushed, unrepentant.
The room was dark. On the projector screen, a black-and-white flare of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960s movie Psycho.
“Can I help you?” The professor asked.
Sieun ignored her, glaring daggers at the center of the room. A familiar face was sitting there, arms crossed, head tilted to the side.
A shrill, stabbing string effect was audible only to him.
“I can answer your question professor.” Although his statement was addressed to the professor, his eyes didn’t leave Sieun’s.
“Go ahead.”
“It’s a movie about psychological unraveling. There is nothing truly supernatural about the story, only the plain fact that evil can live in everyday settings. There’s an emphasis on inner horrors, stemming from trauma, repression, delusion – a sense of an identity splitting at the seams. The idea that someone is capable of such sudden violence, madness hiding behind a facade of normalcy. That’s what’s truly scary.”
“Fantastic analysis, Suho-ssi. Is there anything else anyone would like to add to that?”
From across the room, Suho’s eyes gleamed. His lips parted, silently mouthing the word: psycho.
Sieun slammed the door shut.
A few minutes later. Suho appeared, the same mirthful look on his face, unbeknownst to the murderous intent that Sieun had as he waited for the other.
“Wow. I’m surprised you didn’t make more of a scene.”
Sieun frowned at him.
“Beating people up in public, isn’t that your thing?”
Sieun snapped the pencil he was holding in his hands, although he very much wanted to stab it directly into Suho’s shoulder. He turned, walking down the hallway. Suho followed him.
“Nice of you to walk me home. I didn’t think we were this close.”
Sieun paused. He was struggling to find a way to cool his anger, but Suho was only making it worse. He didn’t even know why he had come here, or how he had subconsciously known exactly where Suho’s class would be. He even realized they had never even been properly introduced. Although Suho might have learned his name from the rumors circulating him, hearing the professor say his roommate’s name was the first time he’d heard it. He kept walking.
The door to the arts building closed with a dull thud behind them. Neither spoke. Sieun was still contemplating how to act rationally in this situation. Although Suho had been the asshole to begin with, he somehow managed to spin it on him. And how he had even less justification.
Suho’s words echoed in his mind: Is being cruel the only way you feel control?
Okay, so, throwing punches wasn’t going to work this time.
He turned to face Suho. “I failed my exam.”
Suho’s stare was blank, but not empty—it was calculating. The usual mask of playfulness had slipped, revealing something far more guarded. What had he heard in those rumors—and how much did he believe?
“That’s too bad.” Suho said blandly.
This wasn’t going well. Sieun’s earlier impression of Suho was that he was a massive idiot. He had gooner posters on his walls. Was more concerned with his League of Legends rank than his grades. A terrible diet made up of mostly Diet Coke and Cheeto dust. Nerd glasses that Sieun had thought were just a fashion statement. But somehow, his rhetorical skills made Sieun feel like he had just recently learned how to speak.
To make it worse, he didn’t know how to explain that all that he could think about during the exam was Suho’s stupid face. And that for the final long answer question, instead of computing divergence, he had just drawn a picture of a cartoon bear.
Him – the straight A student – completely blew the exam he had worked so hard to study for because of his evil tyrant roommate.
It was difficult to put into words.
“Do you know Qin Shi Huang?”
Suho blinked. “The Chinese emperor?”
“Yes. The one who enslaved hundreds of thousands of people to build The Great Wall. Destroyed hundreds of important historical and philosophical texts. Buried alive scholars to suppress dissent and intellectual freedom.”
“Um. Sure.”
“Or better yet – Nero, the fifth emperor of Rome. A name synonymous with cruelty and decadence.”
“What’s your point?”
“You.” Sieun stabbed at Suho’s chest with his index finger. “You’re just like them.”
Suho stared, confused. Then he laughed—sharp and sudden, head thrown back like he couldn’t believe what he’d heard.
He laughed for several more moments, while Sieun stood there, glowering at him.
“No wonder you’re always trying to throw punches.” Suho chuckled, “You’re not really great with words, huh?”
“Fuck off.” Sieun spun on his heel, descending the stone steps of the arts building and onto the sidewalk below.
Suho trailed after him, easily falling into step “Qin Shi Huang? Really? You really are a nutjob.”
"I’m surprised you even know who that is," Sieun shot back.
"I’m surprised you didn’t stab me with your pencil."
Sieun stiffened. He had considered it.
"Didn’t think you were the type to put stock in dumb rumors," he said flatly.
"Well, it’s not exactly a rumor if you tried to assault me last night."
Sieun came to a stop, turning with a glare. "You mean when you were yelling at four in the morning? Less than ten feet away? While I was trying to sleep?"
Suho tilted his head, thoughtful. "Didn’t think it’d bother you."
"Bother me?" Sieun’s voice climbed. "You were screaming ‘GANK TOP, GANK TOP’ and ‘SHIBAL THIS JUNGLER’S ASS’ all night. Who wouldn’t be bothered?"
"It was an intense game," Suho said, unbothered. "Besides, I kind of forgot you were even there. You’re like a ghost—just brooding in the corner. My last roommate was deaf, you know. I even learned sign language."
He waved his hands in a poor imitation of a sign.
Sieun stared at him, unimpressed.
"Yeah, sure," he muttered, turning on his heel and walking off.
“I’m serious.” Suho called after him. “Sieun-ah!”
Sieun tilted his head back to glance at him.
"You’ve got serious cat vibes," he said, eyes trailing him. "Cute when you’re annoyed. Makes me want to bother you more."
Sieun blinked slowly. "Try it, and I’ll bite."
Then he turned away, as if the conversation had never happened.
IV. Winter (from The Four Seasons)
A neat layer of ice had formed between them. Delicate—brittle. Like frost forming.
Suho had stopped with the late night screaming sessions. Had made sure there were no stray soda cans invading Sieun’s personal space. Had stopped leaving dried up toothpaste in the sink. And had even seemed to make a conscious effort to tone down his overall… Suho-ness.
Sieun, on the other hand, had tried his best not to look in the other’s direction. Which he had thought was a generous act on his part, considering the other had the impression that he was some kind of murderous psychopath.
This, disastrously, seemed to have had the opposite effect.
Hairline cracks had already begun to form in the ice that had settled between them.
Afternoon. Post-study session in the library. Sieun opens his desk drawer to find that everything had been completely reorganized. Although he was respectful enough to not let his neat freak personality impact the living space that he shared with another individual, he was, inevitably, obsessed with order.
His notebooks were no longer stacked. His pens, which had previously been organized by color, were scattered about, and his personal planner was wide open.
Sieun whipped around, casting daggers at Suho, who was sitting cross-legged on his bed munching on chips.
“Sorry. I needed to borrow a pen.”
Sieun slowly shut the drawer.
“Touch my things again, and I’ll throw your precious mousepad out the window.”
Suho gasped in mock horror.
“You wouldn’t. It's a limited edition. Signed by Faker-nim himself.”
“I doubt it.”
The sharp entrance of a full orchestra–needling, almost mocking.
Evening. Post-study session with Juntae and Humin. They were on their way to get drinks (Humin’s idea) when Suho spotted them across campus. Gym bag thrown over his shoulder.
Camera: Push-in. Suho’s face. That familiar beaming smile. Shouting across the quad. Obnoxious. Suhoism.
“Who’s that?” Juntae asked. “A friend of yours?”
“No,” Sieun said flatly. “Pretend you didn’t see him.”
“Yah,” Humin said, smacking the back of his head lightly. “Don’t be rude.”
He raised his hand and waved enthusiastically at the terrible tyrant emperor of a roommate standing just a few feet away.
“Hi, Sieun’s friend! Wanna join us?”
Sieun exhaled through his nose. “I’m going to kill myself,” he muttered.
Over drinks, Suho becomes even more obnoxious. Even worse, Humin and Juntae seem to be thoroughly entertained by his obnoxiousness.
"You guys know Sieun once stabbed someone with a pen for chewing too loud? Total legend."
Suho winked at him.
"You didn’t actually stab him, right?"
Sieun scowled back. “I did. Felt great. You want to be next?”
Humin cut in, attempting to diffuse the growing tension. “Don’t mind him. He might seem ornery, but he’s actually a softie at heart.”
Juntae turned to look at Sieun, sincerity enhanced by his puppy-like features. He was clearly already drunk. “You’re not serious, are you?”
Sieun smiled tightly. “Of course not.”
But his fingers drummed steadily against the table, and the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth suggested otherwise. Suho sipped his drink nonchalantly, apparently thoroughly enjoying riling him up.
“Of course you did. Nothing says emotional maturity like stabbing someone over chewing.”
He raised his glass slightly in mock salute.
“Cheers to higher education.”
Sieun’s hand twitched near his glass, jaw tightening. His eyes narrowed—not the slow-burn kind, but the kind that usually came just before something got broken.
He was halfway through sitting up when Humin, sensing the shift, quickly reached across the table and grabbed his wrist with practiced ease.
“Okay, okay,” he said, voice light, forcing a laugh. “Let’s not get dramatic. We’re supposed to be relaxing, remember?”
Juntae blinked between them, belatedly catching up. “Yeah, yeah—no stabbing at the table. That’s like… a house rule or something.”
Sieun held Suho’s gaze for a moment longer before pulling his wrist free and settling back into his seat with forced indifference.
“Right,” he muttered. “Wouldn’t want to ruin the vibe.”
But his eyes stayed locked on Suho—sharp, unreadable. The warning is unspoken, but crystal clear.
Violin trills and tempo building – tension mounting, nerves fraying.
Despite the supposed peace and quiet, Sieun found sleep increasingly out of reach. Instead, he started downing coffee and energy drinks like water. The circles under his eyes deepened, and his already short temper somehow became even shorter.
All the while, Suho got to continue playing the good guy. The charming new addition to their posse. While Sieun had zero control over it.
“What do you guys even like about him?” Sieun blurted suddenly, louder than intended.
Juntae looked up from his Organic Chemistry textbook, blinking. “Like who?”
“Suho.”
Juntae tilted his head. “Suho? I thought he was your friend.”
Sieun scoffed, incredulous. “I’d rather be shot. Or mauled by a bear. Or, I don’t know, waterboarded in a medieval dungeon.”
Juntae raised a brow. “Seriously? He seems... nice.”
“He’s insufferable.”
“Is it just the teasing?”
“Antagonizing,” Sieun corrected, eyes narrowing. “It’s not teasing when it’s constant psychological warfare.”
Juntae hesitated, chewing on the inside of his cheek.“He... kind of lights up when you’re around.”
Sieun’s expression didn’t change, but his grip on his pen tightened.
“Like, I don’t think he acts like that with anyone else. He actually told me once he was trying to get you to laugh.” Juntae paused, then added quietly: “He said you looked like you’d forgotten how.”
Sieun didn’t answer. His jaw worked silently, like he was grinding down a reply that wouldn’t come out clean.
Juntae shrugged, half a smile on his face.
“I dunno. He’s a lot, sure. But... I think he really likes you. He just doesn’t know how to not be loud about it.”
Sieun sagged slightly in his seat, eyes fixed on his notes but not seeing the page.
And for a second, he felt something he couldn’t name—hot and sharp, right behind his ribs.
He glared down at his homework – reworking the same numbers to a problem he thought he’d already figured out.
V. Capriccio in B minor, Op. 76, No. 2
Afternoon. Again. Post-study session. Sieun felt like he had been hit by a truck. He had gotten a solid three hours of sleep in the last three days. But he had another important exam coming up. Markov chains. Systems where the future state depends only on the present, not the past.
In the past few weeks he had begun to feel like a stochastic system running on borrowed time.
A machine can be in one of three states: working, under repair, or failed permanently. It starts in the working state.
Each hour, it moves from working to repair with probability 0.1
From repair, it returns to working with probability 0.6, or moves to failed with probability 0.4
Once failed, it stays failed.
What is the expected number of steps until failure?
Most days – he was working just fine. Each time he flinched at a noise coming from the dark void on the other side of the room, clenched his jaw at a stray comment from his roommate amongst his friends. The system logged another micro-transition.
Eventually – he hit repair. Staring at the ceiling for long hours into the morning. Sitting in the library until 2 AM. Chugging 3 energy drinks. Holding it together with black coffee and sheer spite. Telling himself everything was fine.
But statistically? No reasonable human being can stay there. Not even a machine.
The model had been built.
10% he breaks from normal into stress.
40% stress becomes total shutdown.
The math says: 27.5 steps until failure.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Like a Markov chain that always loops back, no matter how far it strayed—it always returns.
Sieun entered their dorm room. Immediately he was greeted by Suho’s smug face. In his hands is a familiar plain spiral notebook. Unlabeled. Old. Unused. Sieun had forgotten he had even brought it with him to the dorm.
He froze in the doorway. The sound of the door clicking shut behind him was the only thing audible.
Suho was flipping through the pages casually. He began to read aloud in a lilting, singsong voice.
“I do not need to destroy things to feel whole. I am more than the fire in my chest.”
He turned the page dramatically, glancing up to see Sieun’s reaction.
“Deep stuff. You ever publish this?”
The room went very still.
Sieun didn’t move. Didn’t blink. His hands were clenched at his waist. His mouth was a hard, silent line.
“Didn’t take you for the journaling type. Or the inner-child healing type, honestly.”
He knew it. The whole time. The invasiveness. The fake smiles and pretension. All of it was an act. He wasn’t crazy for thinking that Suho had been trying to get at him this entire time. He also wasn’t crazy for comparing the other to a self-seeking, remorseless tyrant.
Sieun stepped forward – deliberate, slow.
Step twenty-four.
He blinked once, steeling himself.
“Don’t touch my things.”
He snatched the notebook from Suho’s hand with more force than necessary, shoving it back under his mattress without a word, turning his back to Suho.
Behind him, the air hummed with unspoken tension. The sharpness of ice dipped into that tense, suspended stillness—bow hovering over the string, but not moving.
Suho spoke again, quieter this time.
“I was kidding, you know.”
Sieun didn’t respond. Just picked up a textbook and began to read, or at least pretend to.
But the edge in the room didn’t settle. It hovered—sharp, aching.
“You know, most people keep a playlist or maybe stress-eat. You write philosophical rage poetry. That’s kinda cool.”
The notebook was back under the mattress. Tucked away. Sealed. That should’ve been the end of it.
But Suho kept talking.
Sieun focused on the same paragraph. Rereading each line until the letters blurred together.
“Was this pre-stabbing or post-stabbing?”
His fingers curled over the edge of the textbook.
He didn’t know what part of him thought silence would make it stop. The obnoxiousness was almost unbearable. The past few weeks had genuinely made him feel like he was the one acting irrationally, and not the other way around.
He’d lived stoically for years—stone-faced and steel-backed. Let people say what they wanted, twist what they didn’t understand.
But Suho didn’t twist.
He peeled.
“Come on. I’m just trying to understand you, Sieun-ah. Aren’t we bonding?”
He turned, slow and deliberate, locking eyes with the boy across the room. Suho’s grin didn’t quite reach his eyes anymore—but it was still there, stubborn as ever.
Sieun’s voice didn’t rise.
It didn’t need to.
Step twenty-five.
“What do you want from me?”
Suho’s smile faltered for the first time. He blinked. “What?”
Sieun sat straight up in bed, glaring right into that dark void. Feeling the blackness growing, seeping imperceptibly into his own space.
“You follow me around, you touch my shit, you quote things you were never supposed to see. You treat everything like it’s a joke, like I’m a joke. You make everything worse, and somehow I’m the one who always ends up looking insane.”
Suho’s smirk had dropped. He sat there, caught between confusion and something else—wariness, maybe. Surprise.
Sieun’s voice didn’t rise, but it got sharper, like a blade being drawn an inch at a time.
“You win, okay? You got under my skin. Congratulations. Just tell me what the hell you’re trying to prove.”
Suho stared at him, lips slightly parted, words forming—but not landing.
“Why is everything with you either winning or losing?”
Sieun hadn’t slept properly in weeks. He was tired – too tired to deal with riddles.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Everything, Sieun-ah.” Suho narrowed his eyes, as if he was studying him. “You’re either in control, or you’re under attack. There’s no in-between.”
That low, analytical tone—like Suho was reading from a fucking case study or analyzing a film—hit a nerve so deep it made his skin itch.
Step twenty-six.
“You think you know me?” he spat.
His voice was no longer hoarse. It was sharp. Alive with something that had been simmering for days, maybe even years.
“You think just because you cracked open one old notebook and poked around long enough that suddenly you have me figured out?”
Suho didn’t answer. Just kept watching, eyes steady. That only made it worse.
“You’re a tourist,” Sieun snapped. “You pass through people’s lives, stir shit up, then walk away like you did them a favor.”
At some point, he stood up from the bed. He took a step forward, jabbing a finger into Suho’s chest.
“You’re loud, you’re messy, and so fucking smug—always playing the hero, always trying to make people laugh like it means something. But it’s not kindness, is it? It’s deflection. You don’t need to help anyone, but you do it anyway—just enough to make yourself look good without ever getting your hands dirty.”
Suho flinched—barely, but Sieun saw it.
“So don’t stand there pretending you’re some wise, all-seeing therapist. You’re just another asshole who doesn’t know when to shut up.”
Silence fell between them like a dropped weight.
Sieun’s chest heaved. His pulse was roaring in his ears. He hadn’t meant to say all of that—but once it started, it poured out like flood water through a cracked dam.
And Suho just stood there, soaking in every syllable like he deserved it.
No clever comeback. No obnoxious grin. Just… stillness.
And then he blinked—slowly, like something inside him had clicked into place.
“Remember when I said I never beat anyone up unless they deserved it?”
The words didn’t register at first. They didn’t even sound angry. Just quiet. Controlled.
Then— Crack.
Pain exploded across Sieun’s cheek. The world tilted sideways for a second as his vision flashed white and his body lurched back, catching against the desk. His breath punched out of him.
For a moment, he couldn’t even feel anger.
Just shock.
He blinked hard, touching his face. His fingers came away shaking.
He looked up.
"You might be a perfect student, Sieun-ah—but when it comes to people, you’re really fucking stupid.”
The sting radiated through his cheekbone, sharp at first, then dulling—fading into something deeper. He suddenly felt very, very tired. Like the blackness that had been building up—quietly, steadily, across sleepless nights, three-day caffeine benders, and a thousand swallowed words—had finally overcome him.
His knees buckled before he realized they were shaking.
The floor tilted. The room dipped in and out of focus.
His body didn’t feel like his own anymore—just a thing running past its limits.
All the pressure, all the noise, all the math in his head—27.5 steps—had finally run out.
VI. Silence
Sieun woke to the sound of muffled voices. The faint beeping of a machine. The clatter of shoes on tile. And a distinct, faintly chemical smell.
He was in a bed—not his. Not the dorm. His chest ached, his face throbbed, and there was a dull pressure in the back of his skull like someone had stuffed cotton between his ears and brain.
Through the fog he heard voices.
“..is essentially hitting an emergency override—forcing a shutdown due to extreme stress.”
“So it wasn’t from, like... hitting his head, or…”
“No. Definitely not. When the body’s overstimulated but depleted—too much caffeine, not enough rest, constant stress—it can trigger a sudden drop in blood pressure, or mess with the heart’s natural rhythm. If the brain doesn’t get enough oxygenated blood, it shuts down. That’s what happened. He’s lucky it wasn’t worse. You said he hadn’t slept in how long?”
“I’m not sure. I hadn’t really noticed, but I guess he has been drinking a lot of coffee.”
“Too many kids trying to be invincible. Tell him that next time, sleep’s not optional. And neither is water.”
Sieun heard her leave. His eyes were still shut, after hearing Suho next to him, his heart rate had immediately sped up. He tried to force himself to calm down. His mouth felt incredibly dry.
He heard the other sigh next to him.
“Fucking idiot.”
Sieun’s eyes flew open.
“Yah,” his voice came out hoarse. He swallowed the dryness in his throat, turning his head so he could get a better look at the other. “I’m the idiot?”
Suho looked surprised he’d heard him, but he was quick to replace the expression with a look of amusement. “You heard the nurse, right?” He huffed out a breath that might’ve been a laugh, but it didn’t quite make it. “Well, not in those exact words. But it was heavily implied. Something about the body ‘forcing rest’ when you’re too stupid to take care of yourself voluntarily.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“Oh, so, I’m supposed to do it? The asshole that doesn’t know when to shut up?”
“You read my journal out loud.”
“You tried to punch me in the face.”
Sieun shifted slightly in bed. His body ached like he’d been tossed down a flight of stairs.
“I missed, didn’t I?”
Suho clicked his tongue. “Tragically.”
“I should press charges.”
“I would, like, counter-sue you. For not only physical assault, but emotional damage.”
“Emotional damage?” Sieun scoffed. “All I said was the truth.”
“Wow. Just keep digging the hole.”
Sieun stiffened. He looked away from Suho, staring blankly up at the ceiling.
“Am I really a psycho?”
“Yes. Genuinely.”
Sieun shot him a dark look.
“I’m joking. Partly. You just seem to have some… built-up, deeply unresolved mental issues.”
“I’m in a hospital bed.” He gestured weakly at the IV in his arm. “Can we skip the amateur therapy session?”
“Sorry.”
A beat.
“I mean it, Sieun. I’m sorry. For punching you. And… for being part of the reason you collapsed from, you know… total stress and zero sleep.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Not exactly my proudest moment.”
“Do you think Qin Shi Huang ever apologized to his victims?”
Suho’s brow furrowed. “Is the medication going to your head?”
Sieun swallowed. The heaviness in his chest had already started to lift. The buzzing in his head had quieted, leaving behind only the dull ache in his body—but for the first time in a while, his mind felt clearer. Lighter. Like the pressure had finally eased.
Sieun shifted under the blankets, eyes fixed on some indistinct point across the room.
“You’re still an asshole. But…”
Another pause.
“I guess you didn’t deserve all of it.”
“Wow. Was that an apology?” Suho gasped dramatically. “From the resident tsundere, Yeon Sieun. This is a historic moment.”
Sieun scowled, shifting deeper into the bed. “Please don’t bring your weird anime shit into this.”
Suho smiled at him—soft, easy—and for the first time in weeks, Sieun didn’t feel like there was anything lurking behind it. No teasing, no bait. Just… genuine.
Maybe Suho had been smiling like that all along, and he’d just been too strung out to notice.
He
had
hallucinated a cartoon bear mocking him mid-breakdown, after all.
“Yah, Sieun-ah,” Suho said, voice light but steady. “If you ever get that stressed again... just say something. I promise I’m not the bad guy you think I am.”
Sieun gave a short nod, looking away.
That was as close to a thank you as anyone was getting.
End of Part I.