Это хорошо, любовь моя?(˶>⩊<˶)

Minho watched from across the classroom as Han Jisung laughed at something his lab partner said in third period chemistry, the sound like wind chimes in Minho's ears. He kept his expression neutral, fingers tightening around his pen until his knuckles turned white, because he had seen that boy—what was his name, Alex?—brush his hand against Jisung's shoulder while reaching for the Bunsen burner. The touch lasted less than a second, but Minho catalogued it with the precision of a predator tracking prey, his smile never reaching his eyes as he waved goodbye to Jisung after the bell rang.

That night, Minho worked with methodical care, his hands steady as he disposed of Alex's body in the river on the outskirts of town, weighing the limbs down with stones he'd collected weeks ago for exactly this purpose. By morning, Alex's desk sat empty, and the school buzzed with rumors about the "tragic accident" that had claimed the junior's life, though no body had been found. Minho sat two seats behind Jisung in sixth period English, close enough to smell his shampoo, and felt a warm satisfaction knowing he had protected what was his. The police never came knocking, never suspected the quiet boy with the perfect attendance record and the gentle smile that charmed teachers and students alike.

Within three months, Jisung found himself utterly alone. The track star who'd high-fived him in the hallway broke his neck falling down the stairs. The girl who'd borrowed his notes in history class drowned in her pool. The cafeteria worker who'd patted his head while serving him lunch suffered a fatal allergic reaction that no one could explain. Each death was meticulously staged, each connection to Jisung invisible to everyone except Minho, who kept a leather-bound journal documenting every touch, every glance, every imagined slight against the boy who consumed his every waking thought. Jisung's warm brown eyes grew hollow as he withdrew from the world, convinced he carried some curse that killed everyone he cared about, until only his family remained and he refused to let anyone else close.

On the first day of senior year, Jisung sat alone at a corner table in the cafeteria, picking at his food with the defeated posture of someone who had accepted his isolation as penance for sins he didn't understand. Minho had waited three years for this moment, cultivating his reputation as kind, reliable, unthreatening—everything Jisung needed to lower his defenses. He approached with two milk cartons, sliding into the seat across from Jisung without invitation, and offered one with a shy smile that he'd practiced in the mirror for hours. "You look like you could use a friend," Minho said softly, watching Jisung's eyes widen with cautious hope, that beautiful face breaking into a tentative grin that made Minho's heart stutter with dark, possessive joy.

Jisung accepted the milk with trembling fingers, confessing in a whisper that he hadn't had a friend in so long, that everyone around him seemed to die, that he was probably cursed. Minho reached across the table, letting his hand cover Jisung's in what appeared to be a comforting gesture, feeling the warmth of that skin against his palm like a brand. "I'll never leave you," Minho promised, and he meant it with the ferocity of a vow sworn in blood, his thumb tracing circles on Jisung's knuckles as he mentally catalogued every student in the cafeteria who might look at Jisung too long, who might touch him, who might try to take him away. Jisung smiled, grateful and unsuspecting, while Minho already planned how he would remove the art teacher who'd complimented Jisung's sketch that morning, already mapping the future where Jisung would be his and only his, forever protected from the world by the very monster who sat across from him wearing the face of salvation.

Scenario One: The Locker Room

My hands are still damp when I slide into my desk for sixth period, and I keep them pressed against my jeans so the moisture doesn't stain my notebook. The bathroom sink at the gym had been... messy. But necessary. I saw the way Mike Chen cornered Jisung by the lockers after fifth period, watched through the cracked door as he shoved Jisung against the metal, laughing while he messed up that perfect hair with his greasy fingers. Touching him. Touching what's mine.

I can still feel the weight of the dumbbell in my hands, the satisfying crunch that wasn't loud enough to carry through the locker room music. Mike won't be shoving anyone against anything anymore. I glance two rows over where Jisung sits, his shoulders tense, and I want to scream that I've fixed it, I've protected him, but instead I just smile when he catches my eye and mouths are you okay? because my hands are shaking.

I'm not shaking from fear. I'm shaking from the high of it—the way his safety tastes like copper in my mouth, the way I can finally breathe knowing another contaminant has been scrubbed from his orbit. The bell rings and I spend the entire period not listening to the teacher, but memorizing the curve of Jisung's neck, vowing that no one will ever bruise that skin again. Not while I exist. Not while I have hands that can break bones and a heart that only beats for him.

---

Scenario Two: The Journal

The leather creaks when I open it tonight, same as every night. Page forty-three has today's entry, written in the blue ink Jisung likes to use in his own pens. I like to match him. I like to be close to him even in this small way.

3:47 PM - Jisung bought strawberry milk. He always buys strawberry milk on Tuesdays. I stood three people behind him in line and counted his eyelashes while he paid. 73 on the left eye. I think one might be new, or maybe I miscounted yesterday.

4:15 PM - Sarah Park walked with him to the bus stop. She touched his backpack strap. She laughed at something he said. She has a cat named Mittens and a mother who works late at the hospital. I know because I followed her home once, just to see, just to understand what she wanted from him. She wants what everyone wants. She wants to take him from me.

I run my finger over the dried ink, imagining it's his skin. The journal has 200 pages and I'm on page forty-three, which means I have so much more room to document him, to preserve him, to keep him safe in these lines where no one else can reach. Sometimes I press the pages to my face and inhale, pretending I can smell his shampoo through the paper.

Sarah doesn't know yet that she won't be walking anywhere tomorrow. I haven't decided how, but I know it needs to look natural. Jisung is already fragile, already thinks he's cursed. I won't let him blame himself for this. I'll be there to comfort him when he hears the news. I'll be the shoulder he cries on. I'll be the only one left.

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Scenario Three: The Invitation

"So you'll come?" Jisung asks, and his eyes are so hopeful I feel dizzy. We're sitting in my bedroom—*my bedroom, where I've dreamed of him for three years*—and he's actually here, cross-legged on my carpet, holding the video game controller I handed him like it's a peace offering.

"Of course I'll come," I say, keeping my voice steady even though my pulse is screaming. "Your mom's cooking, right? You said she makes good kimchi?"

"The best," he grins, and I memorize the way his cheeks round, the single dimple on his left side. "I can't believe you actually want to hang out with me. Everyone else is... I mean, you know. Scared. Or dead."

He laughs like it's a joke, but I see the shadow cross his face, the guilt he carries for sins that belong to me alone. I want to tell him he doesn't need to be sorry. I want to tell him that every grave I've dug has been a love letter, that the riverbed is full of my devotion, that his safety is written in blood that will never touch his hands.

Instead I reach out and fix his hair, the way I saw Mike do earlier—*no, Mike is gone, Mike is fish food, Mike learned what happens to hands that touch this*—and my fingers linger against his temple. His skin is warm. Alive. Mine.

"I'll always want to hang out with you," I say, and it sounds like a promise because it is. "You're my best friend, Jisung. My only friend, really."

He leans into my touch, just slightly, and I feel something dangerous and bright ignite in my chest. He trusts me. He doesn't know. He thinks I'm the good one, the safe one, the cure to his loneliness when I'm actually the disease that killed everyone who came before me.

"Minho?" he asks, looking up at me with those eyes that have haunted my dreams since freshman year. "Do you think... do you think maybe we could hang out like this every day?"

I smile, and it feels like a knife sliding home. "Every day, Jisung. I promise. No one will ever come between us."

And as he grins and turns back to the game, I make a mental note to check my supplies—rope, tape, the sedatives I've been saving. Not yet. Not until he tries to leave me. Not until I need to make sure he stays.

But soon, I think. Soon he'll be safe forever, locked away where only I can see him, where no one else's eyes can touch him, where he can be entirely, completely, exclusively mine.