Blood is a Promise

Youngjae is slow leaving the class that day, which is how he gets cornered by Eunsung. She leans against his desk and asks him, ‘Jo Youngjae, what are you doing with a knife in your bag?’

He snatches his bag from the floor, holds it against himself. He doesn’t know how she even saw the knife.

‘No reason,’ he says.

‘No reason?’ Eunsung lifts an eyebrow. ‘It seems like the sort of thing that ought to be reported, don’t you think?’

Youngjae glances toward the door. He can picture the teacher coming back for something, and Eunsung declaring in her clear, calm voice: ‘Jo Youngjae’s carrying a knife.’ He can see himself lashing out at her.

‘Youngjae, are you listening to me?’

He flicks his eyes back toward her. ‘You know what it’s for,’ he says. Eunsung narrows her eyes, and Youngjae mimes cutting his own wrists.

‘As if,’ Eunsung says. ‘You don’t have the guts.’ There’s a thread of uneasiness in her voice though. Ever since the doctor, Youngjae thinks, she hasn’t been sure she has the upper hand with him any more.

‘You tell yourself that,’ he says. He shoves his seat out from the desk and stands up.

‘Are you hoping I’ll visit you in hospital, if you don’t get it right? I can finish you off if you like.’

‘I’ll tell the staff not to let you in.’

When Youngjae tries to leave, Eunsung grabs his arm, forcing him to face her.

‘You wouldn’t really.’

‘Like you care.’

‘I don’t,’ she says, more definitely than he’d like. ‘But if any more of us die, then he wins. You know that, don’t you?’

He’s already won. The doctor has already made Youngjae a monster. Surely Eunsung, of all people, should see that?

‘Give me the knife,’ she says.

He stares at her.

‘Why should I?’ It’s not like he actually intends to kill himself – he just finds having the knife comforting. Like a back-up plan. The teachers would say it’s good to have a back-up plan. His mother would say that having one is already admitting defeat.

As if she wasn’t inured to his.

‘Because I’m responsible,’ Eunsung says, ‘and you’re not.’

Youngjae’s eyes go to her wrists – not that he can see the scars when she has her jacket on. She always has her jacket on. He feels a sudden rush of anger, like he’d like to wrest it from her. Make her see.

That’s one of those fantasies it’s best not to dwell on.

Eunsung sighs, and she looks away from him, toward the door. ‘Or I can tell someone else. How would you like Park Mooyul to stage you an intervention?’

‘You wouldn’t.’

Eunsung’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

Reluctantly, Youngjae opens his bag and he brings the knife out. Their hands brush, when he hands it to her – unavoidable, if he wants to pass her the knife by the handle. Eunsung doesn’t react to the contact at all. She tucks the knife away in her own bag.

‘What are you going to do with it?’

‘Keep it to defend myself,’ Eunsung says. There is amusement in her eyes now. ‘From you, Plague Jo.’ Her eyebrows quirk, and Youngjae wants to smack her.

Instead, he just watches her go.

It doesn’t matter that she’s taken the knife. He can always get another one.

---

When he sees her after that – in class, across the hall – he wonders if she has it on her. One time she catches him looking and she moves her hand to her bag, like a warning. Youngjae goes hot all over with that feeling that’s not exactly anger.

It’s probably a coincidence. Yu Eunsung probably isn’t carrying his knife around with her – not with her actual suicide attempt sitting there in all their minds. It’s just a sick wish of his, that she might.

He imagines himself attacking her, so that she might pull it out and plunge the blade into him.

He spends quite a lot of time thinking about that. Eunsung stabbing him, driving the blade up under his ribs, not quite reaching the heart. Slipping her fingers into the wound, like whatever pain a knife can do isn’t enough – not for her, but for Youngjae.

He didn’t used to be like this. He can’t even imagine her fucking him now without imagining her hurting him.

As if she ever would.

---

When he gets another knife, he uses it on the skin of his thigh, hunched over in the bathroom where there are no cameras. The pain is bright, and makes his eyes water, but he thinks of Eunsung and cuts deeper, so the blood wells up and forms a rivulet down his skin. It takes a moment for the sight to register – then he drops the knife and presses his hands over the wound. What’s he going to do if he fucks himself up – turn up at the nurse’s office? That way lies counselling sessions – trying to convince people he’s not crazy and that, no, they shouldn’t send him home, that he can do this. That he can stay here, with all the reminders and the absences that are reminders that that entails.

He could go to Park Mooyul, who might be unbearable but who at least gets it. Mooyul understands why Youngjae can’t go home.

He could go to Eunsung. If he did that, she would probably report it just to spite him.

When Youngjae removes his hands, the bleeding has eased off. The blood smeared on his skin isn’t as terrifying as it was when it had form. It could be anyone’s blood now. It doesn’t have to mean something he’s done to himself.

He’s aware of his breathing, his heart rate. The heart that pumps the blood he’s spilled himself. He picks up the knife and holds it in his hands.

If he thinks of Eunsung now, he’s going to get a hard on.

He tidies himself up; doesn’t think of Eunsung.

But she’s always in the back of his mind.

---

Now he’s started cutting himself, he doesn’t stop.

---

Maybe he could have got away with it. But he has to run to get to class at the end of one lunch break and he feels it then – the sharp pain of a reopened wound. It’s not like there’s time to do anything about it – he just has to hope it doesn’t bleed enough that anyone notices.

Eunsung notices.

Before the teacher arrives, she comes over to his desk. Youngjae hears a wolf whistle, as she leans in and says, ‘You’re messing up your trousers.’ Her eyes flick obviously down.

Youngjae puts his hand on his thigh; he can feel where the fabric is damp. ‘What are you so invested for?’ He doesn’t like her talking to him while people are watching.

‘I’m not,’ she says. She stands back, casting her eye across their classmates, then inclines her head slightly toward him. ‘I took the knife off you for a reason, Jo Youngjae.’ She says it in a low voice; Youngjae doesn’t think anyone hears, bt still makes him feel shamed.

Eunsung goes back to her desk, settles in.

Youngjae can’t concentrate during the lesson. Eunsung, whom he watches, doesn’t appear to have any such problems. If she can feel him watching her, she doesn’t show it – but then, she’s used to being watched, isn’t she? You’ve got to do something much worse to get the attention of a girl like that.

After class, he loiters at the back of the room, pretending to tidy, but she waits for him.

‘You’ll ruin your reputation,’ he says, when it becomes obvious she isn’t leaving, ‘hanging after me like this.’

Eunsung gets a little smile on her lips, the one that makes his heart catch in his chest and confuses him worse than her disdain.

‘I’m not concerned about that,’ she says. It’s not like it means anything, to be alone with someone when there’s cameras on them all the time.

Eunsung pulls up the seat nearest to him. It makes him feel suddenly like he’s about to be interviewed – like she’s a cop and he has to keep his story straight. Like she’s the doctor, and he’s the weak link.

WIthout thinking, he digs his fingers into his thigh. He stops when he feels it jar his latest injury; it’s going to scar something badly if he keeps knocking it about like this. He folds his arms together instead.

‘If you keep up like this,’ Eunsung says, ‘people are going to notice.’

‘It doesn’t matter to you what happens to me.’

‘It matters if the rest of us get dragged into it. Sit down.’

‘Don’t want to,’ he says, and it sounds childish. He can tell from Eunsung’s expression that she thinks so too.

‘Do I have to confiscate all blades off you?’

He doesn’t answer.

‘If you want to hurt yourself, Jo Youngjae, why not let me do it?’

‘What?’ His voice is loud because he’s surprised. Eunsung reaches out again to grab his wrist, her fingers wrapping around it, her thumb between the tendons. She digs her nail in.

Youngjae should yank himself out of her grip, but instead he stares at her like a dumb fish. It’s not that what she’s doing is so painful – he’s suffered worse – but that it’s Eunsung doing it.

Her eyes are locked on his.

People don’t often touch Youngjae willingly. Eunsung certainly shouldn’t. Is that why he doesn’t pull away?

She loosens her grip, and runs the tip of her thumb over the skin of his wrist. The skin is more sensitive where she’s dug in, and it’s that that makes him yank his hand back.

‘You’re crazy.’ He holds his hand against his chest.

‘I’m not the one cutting myself.’

‘You tried to kill yourself!’

Eunsung’s eyes narrow. ‘That was before.’ She looks him up and down, and gets to her feet. ‘Come on.’

‘I’m not going anywhere with you,’ he says, and Eunsung actually rolls her eyes.

‘What is it this time, a knife again? A razor blade?’

He swallows. ‘A knife.’

‘You’re going to give it to me.’

‘What, are you a collector?’

‘If I have to be.’

He follows her out the classroom, when she leaves.

---

She won’t come into the boys’ dorms with him. He thinks about leaving her hanging, but people will notice her waiting – he doesn’t want her sending anyone after him. So he does what he’s meant to, goes back to his room to wrap the knife up in a handkerchief. He should get changed too – he’s got red flakes on his hands from where he’s rubbed the bloody fabric of his trousers – but it seems like a lot of effort.

He wants to cut again. But if he takes the time to do that, Park Mooyul will probably be the one to bump into Eunsung, and he’ll be the one to fetch Youngjae like a good little boy. Youngjae can imagine Mooyul’s horror too easily.

He gets changed. Black trousers, because at least if he bleeds on those it won’t be obvious. His mother does hate him to ruin any of his clothes.

When he goes back out to Eunsung, she lifts an eyebrow at him, but doesn’t say anything. She walks, and he has to trail after her.

‘I should charge you,’ he says, ‘if you’re gonna take my stuff.’

‘Buy some better quality knives, and I’ll consider it.’

‘I’m not buying you a knife set.’

Youngjae sees an actual smile on her lips. It makes him feel sick.

‘Where are we going?’ he asks.

‘Outside.’

Youngjae follows her out into the courtyard. It’s a different landscape in spring than in winter; you can almost forget the things that happened here.

Not like Youngjae can forget those anywhere.

They find somewhere to sit. Or Eunsung finds somewhere to sit, and Youngjae sits as far apart from her as he can. No-one is paying attention to them. Except in the way that everyone is always paying attention to everyone, whilst pretending to mind their own business.

Youngjae passes her the knife. Eunsung pulls it from the handkerchief – it’s only a small paring knife, but it unnerves him, to be giving this up to her. Again.

She fiddles with the handle, like she might a pen. Youngjae tries not to watch. Anticipation only makes things worse.

‘Put your hand down,’ Eunsung says.

‘What?’

‘On the bench.’

He has to shuffle closer, but he lets his hand rest on the bench beside her, palm up.

He can’t believe Eunsung will do this.

She draws the knife sharply along the base of his thumb.

‘Ow,’ Youngjae says. He folds his fingers up protectively, but it’s only a thin cut, the blood forming a few beads along the length of it. After a moment, he says, ‘You could have cut harder.’

‘I’m not trying to send you to hospital.’

Her fingers are white on the handle of the knife. He pretends not to notice.

‘Is it fun, cutting another person?’

‘Only because it’s you.’

He moves closer to her. It makes her a little nervous; she moves her hand, and the knife, onto her lap.

‘Then cut harder,’ he says.

She looks at him with a sort of suspicion. ‘Since when do you like getting hurt?’

He doesn’t need to answer that. They both know since when.

He yanks up the sleeve of his coat. ‘Come on, Yu Eunsung. You know how to do it.’

He thinks she’s considering it. But then he hears a familiar set of footsteps, and he pulls his sleeve back down. Eunsung hides the knife under her skirt.

‘Well, here’s a sight you don’t see every day,’ Mireu says. ‘What’s the occasion?’

‘Jo Youngjae was wondering what to get Park Mooyul for his birthday,’ Eunsung says, straightfaced. Youngjae gives her an astounded look.

‘Oh,’ Mireu says, ‘is it coming up?’ He seems weirdly delighted. He sits in the space next to Youngjae – stupid, for Youngjae to have been so close to Eunsung – and Youngjae stands up.

‘I’ll talk to you later,’ Youngjae says. He can hear Mireu’s laughter as he walks away; the only way Youngjae can stand it is by digging his nails in beside the cut Eunsung made. It helps keep the sound out his head.

When he gets back to his room, he sits at his desk, and he inspects his palm. He’s made the cut bleed a little more, digging in his nails, but it’s still only shallow.

He lifts his hand up to his mouth. The cut tastes less like blood and more like new skin. There’s something not quite satisfactory about it. Because Mireu had to stick his nose in like a cockblock.

He thinks of Eunsung’s face before they were interrupted, the way her mouth became set. He bites down on the base of his thumb, and imagines she had done it – cut him so he bled properly. So that the red ran down his wrists.

And then, because he is alone, he imagines her licking the blood up, her tongue on his skin. It’s fucked up, but he can’t stop himself. Perhaps it’s just the logical conclusion of this thing between them. This enmity. He wants her and he hates her, and he hates that he wants her and hates hating her at the same time.

Of course he wants her to hurt him. He can’t imagine her wanting him any other way.

He goes to take a shower, so that he can jerk off and wash himself clean. And afterwards pretend like those thoughts never happened.

Except that he can feel the edge of skin where she cut him. There’s something reassuring about it, that he can feel it whenever he runs his fingers over it. Like a promise Eunsung has made to him.