It was dark. The sun had set many hours ago, leaving behind a murky sky with only the faint moonlight illuminating the streets of Seoul. Midnight approached, in fact just a few minutes away. Yaja had come to an end exactly fifty three minutes ago; the students hurriedly headed either to their homes or academies for supplementary study.   Jieun, however, stayed behind. Even after eleven o'clock, she sat still in her seat, her cheek resting on the surface of her desk as she stared at the hands of the clock hanging on the wall move.   Tick.   Tock.   Tick.   Tock.   Time crawled around the clock. Its hands barely moved, its changes so miniscule that Jieun began to wonder if it was malfunctioning. But it wasn't. When she checked her cell phone, the digital clock told her of the same time: 11:54pm. I should go home now, she thought. Mom will be worried again.   With a long sigh, Jieun dragged her body up, getting on her feet. Being the last person to leave the classroom, she made sure that everything was in its place and that the lights were turned off before exiting. The hallways of Seocho High School at night were silent. The atmosphere was heavy and dark; it was no real surprise that such an environment was the source of many "horror stories" at school. A couple of the most famous tales, for example, consisted of the girl that roamed the hallways without having to move her feet as well as the bloody ghost of the security guard that was supposedly murdered violently by a criminal running away from police. Considering their lack of reality, nobody believed these horror stories—these stories did, nevertheless, intimidated and planted fear in students from loitering around the school campus late at night.   Of course, this was excluding Lee Jieun. Ghosts did very little to scare her. Nothing ever did. It wasn't that she was bold and brave. Rather, she had nothing to fear, nothing to be afraid of. Fear was something that only arose if one had something to lose. She just lacked that little something. Nothing about her was really worth protecting or fighting for.   Jieun trudged all the way to the front gate—along the hallways, out the school building and across the empty yard—with her eyes fixed on the toes of her foot during the entire walk. She tried to remember when she bought the pair of shoes she had on; guessing it to be about seven or so months ago, she took a mental note to buy a new pair sometime soon.   Once she arrived at the gates, though, her feet came to a halt. Leaning on the brick wall by the fence was a grim-faced Chanyeol. A quick look at him told Jieun that he'd changed into a new pair of uniform clothing and gloves; his hair was well fixed, with no stray strands that would be aesthetically displeasing in the slightest. The tip of his nose and ears were flushed red, making her wonder how long he'd been waiting outside. Though it was scorching hot in the day, the temperatures of the cursed city of Seoul easily fluctuated into that of much lower ones at nighttime.   Ignore him, she told herself in the back of her head, getting back on track with a faster pace. Ignore him. As she walked past him, however, she saw via peripheral vision that Chanyeol had seen her.   His expression couldn't quite be defined—maybe it was one of relief. Whatever it was, Chanyeol's crumpled face straightened and a smile found its way to his lips. He didn't say anything, however. With the smile hanging on his face, he wordlessly began to walk beside Jieun, exactly five steps behind her.   When her pace fastened, so did his; when it slowed, so did his. When she came to a stop, he, too, stopped and stood still until she started moving again. In the darkest of hours, when Jieun's shadow was nowhere to be seen, Chanyeol replaced it. The two walked slowly and in sync; as one step after another was taken, the sound of their feet tapping against the cement floor echoed throughout the alleyways in harmony.   Jieun liked to take the long way around. There was a direct path from the school to her house, but instead of taking that route, she circled