Late. Junhong is running very late. He’d stayed up late the night before playing online video games with a friend from his homeroom and so, during the lunch break, he’d gone upstairs to take a quick nap. Only his nap hadn’t been so quick after all, and now he is late to his first class after lunch. In fact, he’s fairly certain that the bell rang fifteen minutes ago.

He shrugs into his blazer as he dashes down the corridor on the third floor towards the spiraling staircase that will lead him down towards the entrance hall and the wings of classrooms. His messenger bag bounces rather painfully against his thigh as he runs, but he can’t very well stop and adjust it. His music theory teacher, Ms. Ha, is a crotchety old and will more than likely give him detention. Just what he needs when he’s got extra dance club rehearsals coming up.

He’s dashing down the stairs, skipping every other stair and praying to whatever god might be out there that he doesn’t crash and burn and end up with a broken leg, when he runs directly into someone. They collide hard enough that they both stumble back; Junhong only barely manages to stay on his feet, but the person he’s bumped into hardly budges.

“Ah, sorry,” he mumbles, rubbing his shoulder where they’d run into each other. But then he looks at the other person and stumbles.

He assumes she must be a teacher, but he doesn’t have any of her classes if she is. She’s very tall, barely having to look up to look him in the eye, which is no mean feat considering his disproportionate height. She’s dressed in a fitted suit of the deepest crimson, blood red lined with black lace. Her face is strangely ageless; if someone had asked Junhong to guess how old she was, he couldn’t have. Her features are austere, sharp lines and black eyes and lips painted the same crimson as her skirt and jacket.

Though Junhong usually isn’t in the habit of respecting his teachers – or anyone that he’s supposed to respect, really – he suddenly feels the pressing urge to bow quite low. “Sorry,” he apologizes again.

The woman looks him over with eyes that seem to see right through his very soul. “Choi Junhong, right?”

Junhong’s head snaps up. “Uh, right. Do I know you?”

The woman’s red lips turn up in a smile, and for reason it sends shivers all the way down Junhong’s spine. She ignores his question. “How are you fitting in at Peritia Academy?” she asks instead. “I hope that you’re finding everything to your liking.”

Junhong shifts the weight of his bag awkwardly. “Yeah, sure. I mean, I guess. It’s school.” He doesn’t know exactly what he’s supposed to say. He doesn’t even know who this woman is.

“And your classes?” the woman continues, looking at him with those eyes that are quiet literally the blackest he has ever seen. “Are you doing well in them?”

It takes a lot to freak Junhong out – he hadn’t been the main cause of trouble back in his aunt’s village for nothing – but this woman with her too-red lips and her too-black eyes and her eagerness makes him want to turn and run in the opposite direction. “I think so,” he manages to get out. “But I’m late for music theory now…”

“Ah, well you better run along then,” the woman says, but, before Junhong can do just that, her hand strikes out like a cobra and she’s suddenly got quite a firm grip on Junhong’s chin. She turns his face first this way and that, scrutinizing him like he’s a prime piece of meat or something. “Yes, you’ll do quite nicely,” she says in a satisfied sort of voice, but Junhong seriously doubts that she’s speaking to him.

There’s a loud crash from around the corner, and the woman looks up sharply. The satisfied smile on her face fades. Without warning, she lets go of Junhong’s chin. “Get to class,” she barks in a menacing sort of voice, and Junhong turns to flee while she disappears in the direction of the loud noise.

He’s barely made it around the next corner when he runs into yet another person, but this one seems a lot less frightening. It’s a student, probably a few years older than Junhong. He’s got a gummy, lazy sort of smile and a quirked eyebrow. “You owe me one, kid,” he says in a voice too deep to match his handsome face.

Junhong is still shaken from his encounter with the woman in red and so he blinks stupidly at the boy. “What?” he says.

“I saved your back there by distracting the old hag,” the boy with the too-deep voice says, gesturing in the direction the woman in red had gone. “You must have really done something to attract her attention so quickly. Usually she doesn’t give a about the students here.”

Junhong tries to even out his breathing; he feels like he’s just run a marathon or something. “Who was she?” he demands. “That lady back there?”

The older boy gives him an almost sympathetic look. “Let’s bunk off for the afternoon,” he suggests. “We’ll go into town and I’ll give you the lowdown on Peritia Academy.”

And, because Junhong has already missed at least half of his music theory class by now, he agrees.

He and the boy – he finds out that the guy’s name is Yongguk – end up at a little café a short bus ride from the school gates, where they order Americanos and squeeze into a little booth in the back to chat.

“So who was she?” Junhong repeats once they’re settled in with their drinks. “The crazy lady with the black eyes?”

“That’s Ms. Han,” Yongguk explains, sipping at his steaming coffee. “She’s the headmistress of Peritia.”

“Headmistress?” Junhong repeats. “But why haven’t I seen her before? She hasn’t been at any of the school functions or anything. I’m pretty sure I would have remembered such a strange-looking woman.”

“She doesn’t care about the students or the school,” Yongguk says. “Everyone says she’s crazy, but nobody really knows what she does. The only advice I can give you is to stay the out of her way. People who cross Ms. Han don’t have happy endings.”

“What does she do to them?” Junhong asks, his throat feeling strangely dry.

Yongguk shrugs. “Don’t really know. They sort of disappear.” He gives Junhong an almost amused look over the top of his coffee. “You really managed to attract her attention pretty fast.”

“I don’t know how,” Junhong says with bewilderment. Then he frowns. “But you know, it is weird. I didn’t apply to this school, but I got offered a full scholarship. Even though my grades were really ty and I didn’t have any extracurriculars.”

Though Yongguk had been teasing a second before, he suddenly looks quite serious. “Wait, what?”

Junhong nods thoughtfully. “Yeah. I mean, I thought it was strange at first, but my aunt was really insistent that I come here. She said that it was a really great opportunity.”

“So you’re not paying any tuition?” Yongguk repeats. “You got a full ride with really bad grades?”

Junhong nods. “Yeah, pretty much. Weird, right?”

Yongguk is silent for a long moment. When he speaks, it seems like he might be keeping something from Junhong. “Be careful from here on out, kid,” he says softly. “Make sure you stay out of Ms. Han’s way.”

His words send a shiver of foreboding down Junhong’s spine.