The hallway turned colder the instant the bathroom door clicked shut behind him.
Wei kept walking—steps measured, face blank in the practiced way that had become second nature over years. Water still beaded on his fingertips, dripping in slow, cold trails down his wrist. He made no move to dry it. The physical sting felt cleaner, simpler, than the sharper ache blooming somewhere deeper.
He reached the end of the corridor before allowing himself even the smallest hesitation—not a full stop, just a subtle shift of weight, as though his body had betrayed him for half a heartbeat.
The voices from the restroom faded into muffled noise, but one cut through the distance and lodged in his skull. A voice he wished he could erase as cleanly as everyone else seemed to forget him. It replayed without permission: the lazy cruelty, the deliberate tap on Jian's cheek, the final shove that had sent him stumbling.
Wei exhaled slowly, forcing the breath even and quiet.
He hated the faint tightness that crept into his chest anyway. Hated how a casual shove could feel so familiar, like muscle memory from too many similar moments. Hated most of all that the physical push wasn't the part that lingered.
It was the coldness in Jian's eyes—flat, distant, utterly unrecognizing. As though whatever small, fragile thing had once existed between them had never happened at all. As though they had never been anything.
Wei straightened his shoulders, wiped his damp hand once against his uniform pants, and kept walking.
The hallway stretched ahead, empty and echoing. He didn't look back.
Wei pressed his thumb hard against the strap of his schoolbag until the knuckles bleached white. The pressure grounded him, kept the tremor from spreading.
He forced each breath to come even and slow. It doesn't matter, he repeated silently. People forget. People change. People grow cruel without warning.
The words felt thinner every time he thought them, but he clung to them anyway. His throat closed around a sharp ache; he swallowed it down, burying the feeling deeper—into the same quiet place it had lived for years, untouched and unacknowledged.
He pushed off the wall where he'd paused, expression smoothed blank, steps deliberate and too soft, as though noise might crack something fragile inside him.
Behind him, the bathroom door clicked open.
Wei didn't turn. He didn't let his shoulders tense. He refused to wonder whether the footsteps echoing faintly down the corridor were real or just another memory replaying itself. He simply kept walking.
One step. Another.
Each one measured, careful, like he was trying to leave fragments of himself scattered along the hallway tiles—small pieces he no longer wanted to carry. The sting of cold water still lingered on his skin, cleaner than the bruise forming under his ribs.
The hallway stretched long and empty ahead. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, indifferent. Wei's shadow moved ahead of him, thin and silent, stretching farther with every step.
He didn't look back. He never did. Because looking back would mean admitting some part of him still hoped the footsteps might follow—not to hurt, but to mean something else entirely.
And hope, he had learned long ago, was heavier than cruelty.
Wei had almost reached the staircase when laughter floated around the corner—bright, easy, unmistakable.
Jian's.
He didn't mean to freeze. His body simply slowed, an old reflex deeper than pride, older than caution. He pressed closer to the wall, eyes down, intending to glide past like smoke.
Jian rounded the bend with his girlfriend on his arm. She wore a cherry-red scarf and laughed at whatever he'd just said, head tilted toward him. Jian was always good at that—pulling laughter from people without effort.
They didn't notice Wei at first.
Then her voice rang out, clear and careless, loud enough to carry down the empty hallway: "Is it true? That ghost boy everyone talks about—I saw him go into the bathroom earlier. He looks so… weird."
Jian snorted, the sound sharp and amused. "Weird? Babe, he looks like someone forgot to uninstall him."
She erupted into giggles, clutching his sleeve.
Wei's next step hitched—just a fraction, barely a stutter in rhythm. But Jian noticed.
His gaze flicked sideways—quick, cold, surgical—like a knife testing the depth of a cut. Their eyes met for half a second. Jian didn't blink. The girlfriend followed his line of sight, curiosity sparking. "Oh, that's him?" she whispered, voice almost thrilled.
Jian leaned in closer to her, smirk curling slow and deliberate, like he was sharing a private, cruel joke. "Yeah," he said, loud enough for Wei to hear every syllable, eyes never leaving him. "That's the stray I told you about."
The word landed like a slap made of cotton—soft, casual, stinging all the same.
Wei's fingers curled into his palm. Nails bit crescent moons into skin. He didn't flinch. Didn't speak. Didn't run. He simply kept walking—past them, past the laughter that trailed after like smoke, past the staircase and down the next corridor.
Behind him, the girlfriend giggled again. Jian said nothing more. He didn't need to. The cut had already gone deep enough.
Wei didn't stop. He didn't speak. He didn't let his face betray a single crack.
He simply walked past them—steady, silent, gaze fixed on the floor tiles ahead—as though the words hadn't reached him at all. But the silence itself was louder than any protest could have been. It hung between them like frost.
Jian's girlfriend giggled again, light and curious. "Why do you call him that?"
Jian shrugged, shoulders rolling with practiced indifference. His voice came out flat, cruel, almost bored: "Because he follows people with his eyes. Always quiet. Always lurking."
A short pause. "But never brave enough to do anything. Just like a dog waiting for scraps."
The comparison landed heavier than the shove in the bathroom—sharper, more personal. It sliced clean through the thin armor Wei had worn all day.
His pace quickened, just enough to notice. He didn't look back. He refused to give them even the flicker of a flinch. But his ears burned hot. And something in his chest clenched so violently he forgot how to breathe for one long, suffocating second.
Behind him, the girlfriend's voice turned teasing, playful. "You're mean."
Jian answered with a smile Wei couldn't see but could feel anyway—tight, edged. "He deserves it."
The reply came too fast. Too sharp. Too defensive.
It didn't sound like certainty. It sounded like someone trying to convince himself. Like the cruelty was aimed outward to keep something uglier from turning inward.
Wei rounded the corner at the end of the hall. The voices faded into muffled echoes. He pressed a hand briefly to his chest, fingers splayed, as though he could hold the ache in place. Then he kept walking—faster now, quieter still—until the staircase swallowed him whole.
Behind him, Jian's laughter joined his girlfriend's again. But it sounded thinner this time. Less sure. And somewhere deep inside, a small, unnamed thing shifted in Jian too— though neither of them would name it yet.