Page 198 of Scarbound

So when Chung-Hee began removing his clothes, Noeul remained frighteningly still. His gaze fixed somewhere beyond him. The room seemed to recede. Sound dulled. Even Chung-Hee’s touch began to feel distant, as though it were happening to a body Noeul could see but no longer completely inhabit.

Inside, he was screaming.

Outside, almost nothing moved.

It wasn’t consent.

It wasn’t surrender.

Noeul’s body had found the only response available to it in that moment: stillness.

He stared at the ceiling until even that began to blur.

When Noeul became aware of the room again, he was alone. Hungry. Thirsty. Aching. His head still throbbed where Chung-Hee had struck him. He tried to remember how long he had been there.

Minutes? Hours? A day?

His thoughts wouldn’t hold together long enough to count.

“I can’t focus,” he whispered.

Even speaking exhausted him. His eyes closed.

A touch woke him sometime later. Noeul flinched.

Someone was standing beside the bed. For several seconds, the face wouldn’t resolve into meaning.

He knew it. He should know it.

But the name wouldn’t come.

“Who are you?”

The man stared at him.

Noeul frowned, struggling to concentrate. “I feel like I should know you.”

Then the effort became too much. He turned his face away.

Chung-Hee’s expression hardened. “I see through your act.”

Noeul didn’t respond.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know me.”

Still nothing.

Chung-Hee grabbed the bag containing the food he’d brought and threw it into the trash. “Fine. If you’re going to behave like this, you can stay here until you’re ready to talk to me.”

Across from the bed, a cracked mirror divided his reflection into pieces. Whenever his awareness returned to the room, Noeul found himself staring at it.

An eye. Part of his mouth. The edge of his face.

Never the whole thing at once.

Sometimes he thought of Gong. Sometimes he couldn’t think at all. The reflection refused to become one person.

Eventually, night swallowed the room again.