The Leash

June 22nd. A Friday morning, the weekend just ahead.

The faint drone of cicadas drifted on the air. Summer had barely begun, yet the morning already held a thick, humid heat — and still, for reasons she couldn't name, Iseor felt a chill crawl over her skin.

"Hi, Iseor."

A familiar voice, close behind her. The girl turned slowly.

Hair dyed a light brown, just shy of looking delinquent. Morning light shattered across her face, catching in clear eyes that flashed gold, and in the lively flush of her pale cheeks. The smile waiting there was so thoroughly, perfectly kind it almost hurt to look at.

Lee Hayan.

A squeeze. Hayan stepped in close and slipped her arm through Iseor's without the slightest hesitation.

Cold.

Her skin ran a little cooler than it had three days ago, when Iseor had last touched her hair.

"Good morning."

Hayan whispered it like a sweet nothing. It felt different from before. If the old version of that voice had been a girl playing at being a grown woman —

"Did you eat breakfast? You're so tiny, I worry about you all the time."

— then the Hayan of these past few days was a puppy, plain and simple. A beast offering up its blind, undivided loyalty to its master.

"Yeah. I ate."

Iseor answered evenly. She wasn't tense. She knew, by instinct, that Hayan would not hurt her.

And that was precisely what frightened her.

Hayan herself had not changed. The same walk. The same posture. The same little smile, and even the same venom she reserved for everyone else. The only thing that had been wiped clean was the malice once aimed at this particular girl.

"The weather's so nice. Want to hang out after school?"

Hayan chattered on, tipping her face up toward the blue sky — as if they were childhood friends who had always told each other everything. As if it had always been this way.

"What do you think?"

"Sure. That sounds good."

"Hehehe. I'm so excited."

Iseor nodded along and let her gaze settle on the back of Hayan's head.

A gurgle. The sound ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was vanishingly small — nothing a normal pair of ears could have caught. Only the sharpened hearing of a body that had already begun to change picked it up.

Beneath the snow-white skin of Hayan's nape, a blue vein twisted and pulsed, as if something parasitic were writhing just under the surface.

The moment she saw that grotesque stirring, the memory of lunch three days ago rose unbidden.

The monster's receding back, after it had pressed a carefully packed lunchbox into her hands and walked away into the shade. And Hayan's gang, trailing after it as if they had been put under a spell.

"Oh, right — finals start Monday."

A gentle voice broke the thought. And in the next breath, Iseor realized that gentle suited the Hayan standing beside her now with an accuracy that made her skin crawl.

Goosebumps rose along her arms. Until three days ago, the two of them had been perpetrator and victim. Already that memory was starting to fade, worn thin by the sincere, unfeigned kindness the girl in front of her kept offering. There was not a shred of pretense in Hayan's eyes.

It felt like swallowing poison. She hadn't known she was this starved for a relationship — for any connection at all.

"You're really good at English. Could you help me study? I know it's pretty late to be asking, but I think I could actually do well if you helped me."

Iseor stopped walking.

It was a pure request. Not a grain of pressure, not a hint of a threat — only an earnest, almost pleading ask. She could have refused. Nothing would have come of it.

"...All right."

And still the girl nodded. Not from guilt. Not because she had forgiven anyone. Only because of the words Mother had left her with that night.

"Really? Wow, thank you!"

A low voice and a bright one crossed in the air. Hayan was beaming.

Step. Step. Walking the hallway again with their arms still linked, Iseor tried to take in the strangeness of it all — this everyday peace she was tasting for the first time in her life, and so treasured all the more for that. And the darkness that had already seeped into the cracks of it.

It wasn't as if children couldn't read the currents of power. In some ways, they were sharper than adults. A cramped classroom was a society unto itself: who stood above, who got pushed under, whose side you needed to keep if you wanted to stay safe. Kids learned that with their bodies. Everyone had seen, at least once, what happened to a child who lined up on the wrong side.

A jungle that happened to be called a school. That was the ecosystem here — the one teachers and parents never quite managed to see.

And in that sense, the students of Year Two, Class Four could feel it in their bones: the ecosystem had changed completely.

Hey, what's with them lately?

Dunno. Did they all get chewed out at home or something?

The classroom was quiet. Glances and whispers crossed and recrossed the room without rest.

Lee Hayan's gang. The queen ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of this school, and the seven who attended her. Over the last few days, they had gone tame.

These were the kids who used to talk however they pleased even during class, with a teacher standing right there — never mind break time. An uncontrollable pack that even the third-year seniors and the high-school thugs didn't dare touch. And now, the instant the bell rang, they sat still and stared at the blackboard. They didn't look like they were studying. They didn't look like they were about to start a riot, either.

At break they still gathered around Hayan, but even that huddle was quieter than it used to be.

"Ohhh, so that's how you do it. Thank you so much, Iseor."

"It's nothing."

Only the low murmur of Hayan and Iseor talking carried through the room. And the picture they made was not the one anyone remembered.

Hayan was still dazzlingly bright, just as before — a purity so complete it could have fooled even the people who knew the venom living behind it. That much hadn't changed. But her mannerisms had. When she reached for Iseor's sleeve she would pinch the fabric gently between her fingertips first, and only press close once it seemed all right. It looked, for all the world, like she was reading Iseor's mood. Absurd as that was.

Iseor's own bearing had shifted too, in smaller ways. Her posture was as defensive as ever, but she spoke more. She didn't even go rigid anymore when Hayan slipped an arm through hers.

The seven were the same. They still cut anyone who came too close a warning look, sharp as a blade. They just didn't go any further than that.

Under their desks, students tapped at their phones without pause. Something big was moving, and everyone could feel it.

The center of that change was Hayan's pet cat — Chae Iseor, who until recently had been nothing but the class loser. He had become a girl, and starting the very next day she walked into school, Hayan had changed. You'd have to be an idiot not to see the connection.

Either Iseor had done something. Or there was something about Iseor that had made Hayan turn on a dime.

The first was hard to picture. She was the kid who just took it, no matter what you did to her. That was all she was. And Hayan was the daughter of a businessman whose name anyone would recognize.

The class group chat — the one that had invited everyone except Iseor and Hayan's own pack — filled up fast.

Iseor glanced down at the phone Hayan had passed her — some unnamed classmate's, the screen still open on that quietly spreading gossip, on the group chat that had invited everyone in the room except the two of them and the seven.

She had no intention of doing anything about it.

Not until Hayan tipped her a little smiling glance and opened her mouth.

"Jun. The birds are a little loud today, aren't they?"

"Yeah."

Ma Jun, the tallest of the pack, stood up in one abrupt motion. A thug's face, sweeping the classroom with a look that promised violence. The whispers died on the spot.

His fist had only just started to close when Iseor took Hayan's hand.

"Hm? What's wrong?"

Hayan's eyes shone like a puppy's.

"I'm fine."

One quiet sentence. Hayan signaled Jun without a second's hesitation, and he dropped back into his chair without a word, jamming wireless earbuds into his ears.

The class watched the whole thing, start to finish.

It's real.

What the fuck? What the actual fuck?

A leash had been fastened around the necks of a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pack that had looked impossible to tame. Curious, frightened eyes turned, one after another, toward Iseor.

A soft tap. The fingers that had been racing over the keyboard stopped.

The cursor blinked uselessly at the end of the greeting, over and over, on the unfinished draft of the summer-vacation family newsletter.

"Haa..."

A long breath left her. Song Jieun, Iseor's homeroom teacher, was sinking deeper into a swamp of her own thoughts, so far gone she didn't even notice her glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose.

What filled her head was a single woman. The figure of Chae Jian, walking through the faculty-office door after lunch three days ago.

She was so different.

Jieun remembered the original Jian with perfect, unwanted clarity. She couldn't have forgotten if she tried. At the start of the term, Jian had torn through the school — and Jieun herself had been the reason.

It was after that day that she had half let go of Iseor.

She had already known, even then, that the child was being torn apart by Hayan's gang. But a single careful suggestion — that perhaps looking into a transfer would be better for the girl — had nearly gotten Jieun herself killed.

I can't do anything.

In the end, she had given up. All she managed was to submit proof of a settlement to the police, so that Jian — who was raising the child alone — would not be detained. And even that, she had never been sure was the right choice. After the incident, other teachers kept coming to her with the same quiet testimony: it looked as though Jian was abusing Iseor.

Which was why the Jian who appeared again, without warning, had been such a shock. A beauty of quiet, refined presence, a box of premium drinks held in one hand. The entire faculty office had only been able to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stare. Even the vice principal — a man who ordinarily started panting the moment a pretty woman walked in — had been struck dumb.

She had even bowed, neatly and sincerely, in front of Jieun's own desk. The gesture was elegant. She was, in that moment, exceedingly beautiful. In every possible way, she could not be compared to the raving creature from before.

Thank goodness.

Jieun thought it with her whole heart. For reasons she couldn't guess, the mother had come back to herself. The rabid dog that had been running wild had put a leash on its own neck.

The guilt that had sat in her chest for months began, little by little, to dissolve. Even if the bullying went on, Iseor now had someone to lean on. She could let herself believe the child's life would turn out all right in the end.

Of course, Jieun had no way of knowing the rest.

That if the conversation three days ago had drifted even slightly off course, there would be no Song Jieun sitting in this chair. That a nameless beast, wearing a leash forged of blood, might have been wearing her skin instead.

It was, in the truest sense, the bliss of not knowing.

Evening. Iseor's house.

"We'll go to the department store tomorrow."

The remark dropped into the middle of dinner without warning.

"...Pardon?"

Iseor stared at the speaker, blank. It was a word that, in every sense that mattered, had never belonged to her life.

The monster wearing her mother's skin answered in that same cold voice.

"I looked in the closet. There is nothing in it worth wearing. I will no longer tolerate that shabby appearance of yours. Throw out every piece of clothing you own. I will not force you to wear a female's garments. But at the very least, you will dress yourself properly."

"...Yes."

A rather bloodless reply. The monster seemed to find it sufficient. It gave a short nod and picked up its spoon again, as if nothing at all had been said.

...A department store?

Iseor sat there and let the confusion take her.