Silver light | sunsun

1. The bond

Nightshade Academy sits on a cliff like it dares the sea to take a bite. The main hall is all black stone and cold light. The floors shine like water, meanwhile windows are tall and thin.

I'm late. Again. I run a palm down my blazer, fix my collar, and pretend the hallway is not watching me.

Jungwon waits by the stair rail with two cups of iced americano and a smile that makes the morning somehow better. He is my bestie.

He pushes a cup into my hand as he says,
„You're five minutes past late".

"I'm five minutes fashionable," I say as taking a sip.

He gives me a look. "Niki has detention duty today."

"Perfect," I am just being sarcastic here. Niki used to be my friend. Then we were not. Then he put on a prefect sash like a wall and did not look back.

We go down the last steps. The detention room is at the end of a narrow, bright hall. Silver lines cover the floor inside, like a maze. They hum when you stare, but like dangerously hum.

Niki stands by the door with a clipboard and a clean jawline. His eyes slide over me and away.

"You're late," he says.

"I'm here tho," I say.

"That's not the same," his mouth is a straight line. There is a fresh bruise under his sleeve and I do not know if I hate that or want to ask who gave it to him.

More people in the room. Jay and Jake sit together in the back, heads bent over a camera that does not like to be seen. They run the Ghost Trackers club, which is just an excuse to break into places and post grainy videos with weird captions. Heeseung sits near the window with his quiet face and careful hands. He looks up when I enter, and then his gaze finds my mouth and my eyes and eventually the floor.

And then finally there's him.

He leans against the wall like it's lucky to hold him steady. Dark sweater. Sleeves pushed to his forearms. A mark on his wrist that looks like an old ring of ink. Shadows behind him.

The king of shadows.

He is not handsome in a simple way. He is handsome in a way that makes you want to trip him and then help him up. His eyes catch mine and he looks bored and maybe curious, like a boy who knows what your pulse does when he stands close.

"Find a seat," Niki says, and I move, slow on purpose.

The silver lines are everywhere. Some are thin, straight, clean. They are old, older than the school, older than the stone. If you listen, you can hear them sing. If u and your destined partner step on it together you are supposed to be a team. It creates a bond.
A unique whole one body which cannot exist without each other.

Unlucky me as a siren i am somehow destined to shadows.

The boy pushes off the wall and cuts across the room without touching a single line. He moves like he drew them himself. He passes me so close I smell his perfume.

"New siren," he says, voice soft, amused. "Careful with the bondwork."

"I'm not new," I say. "I'm just late."

He smiles like I handed him a toy. "Sunghoon."

"Sunoo." I lift my chin.

The corner of his mouth tilts. "Detention here is silent. Except when it isn't."

"Wow," I say. "Poet."

He laughs under his breath. Niki clears his throat and points to two empty desks in the center. Sunghoon takes one. I take the other. The silver lines make a circle under our chairs. I really don't want that but somehow I am just a little curious about it.