It was late afternoon in the backyard of the village school, with the sun sinking toward the horizon. So had gone back to the hanok house Dowa had rented, leaving Derek alone with Domok at the mouth of the alley.
“If you have something to say, say it.” Derek spoke first.
For the past few days, he’d sensed that there was something unsettling about the way this boy his age kept glaring at him.
Domok stood with his arms crossed, staring at Derek for a long while.
“Why are you being so nice to So?”
“What are you talking about? I just felt sorry for her—”
“Felt sorry for her?” Domok’s voice dropped.
“She isn’t someone to pity. She’s someone who has to be protected. More than you could ever imagine.”
Derek could vaguely feel the weight behind those words. From the moment he’d seen So step on air at the market to the black shadows descending from the sky, he already knew these kids weren’t ordinary.
“I know, more or less. But what does that have to do with me being nice to her?”
Domok took a step closer.
“She isn’t someone a human like you can just approach carelessly.”
“Carelessly?” Derek bristled.
“What have I done carelessly? I’m the one who’s been looking after her.”
“What do you know?” Domok’s eyes wavered for an instant.
He seemed unsure whether he was angry or feeling something else entirely.
“She was destined to be exploited or put in danger from the moment she was born. But you’re just a human pickpocket who happened to run into her. What gives you the right?”
Derek was struck speechless. It wasn’t wrong. Even he couldn’t answer what right he had to stay by the side of that strange being.
Just then, So’s voice came from the other end of the alley. “Big brothers! What are you doing? Aren’t you coming to dinner?”
The standoff between the two of them dissolved in an instant. Domok turned away, leaving him with one last low warning.
“If you hurt her... I won’t let it go.”
Watching him walk away, Derek muttered under his breath,
“Who said I’d hurt her? Seriously.”
But in that moment, an unfamiliar feeling also took root in one corner of Derek’s heart—the realization that he had already stepped far too deeply into this perilous connection.