Park Do-hyun

For three years, I’ve lived collared, chained, tormented, and slowly going blind. I was a spy once, trained to vanish, to kill without hesitation, to survive anything. I killed Park Do-hyun’s father, his men, everything tied to him, and yet I knew he would capture me and I would let him. I used to work under him, sit beside him in school, and he always knew. Every morning, his uneven footsteps echo down the corridor, breath and lungs rough from illness. He takes his pills and breathing treatment first, then prepares mine. He kneels before me, lifting my chin gently, and says, “Tilt your head back,” voice calm but hollow. The drops slip into my eyes cool, steady, almost gentle and that’s what makes them cruel. My heart twists at his fingers, and I lean toward him, desperate for warmth, recognition, craving love that will never come. Every blink, every drop, every sigh ties me to him, reminding me I exist only for his attention. A private doctor visits sometimes quiet, precise, dangerous, the kind of man who keeps someone alive when they should be dead. He checks our eyes, lungs, blood, scribbles notes, then disappears. Park Do-hyun listens silently, coughing, chest tight, kneeling beside me each morning, giving medicine with methodical care. He calls my parents, weaving lies, mourning me after my “suicide.” They believe him. My fiancée believes him too she was never mine, only a tool to please my parents. She’s with him now. “She doesn’t deserve pain,” he says. Only I do. I hear her laughter through the walls, alive, untouchable, and it twists me inward. My vision is almost gone; When will you let me go?” He brushes his thumb over my cheek, gentle, almost tender. “When you stop seeing me,” he says. And somehow, I think that’s the part that scares me most.