WRONG NUMBER | NIKI

12 - The Kindness of Shadows

I'm never not focused in class. 

It has become something of a running joke among my teachers over the years. If someone forgets where Hana is, they only have to look toward the front row, where she'll already have her notebook open before the lesson begins, three pens arranged neatly beside it, yesterday's homework completed in handwriting so painfully organized that even my mathematics teacher once admitted it made him feel guilty about his own notes. 

I've always liked certainty. Equations balance. Dates remain fixed. Formulas don't wake up one morning and decide to become someone else. Studying has always been the one place where effort guarantees results. It has never betrayed me.

Today, the words on the board blur into meaningless shapes.

"...which means the derivative becomes—"

The teacher's voice reaches me from somewhere impossibly far away, as though I'm listening through layers of water. Water. My pencil stills halfway across the page. I blink hard, and the classroom snaps back into focus for exactly three seconds before my mind abandons it again, slipping somewhere I don't want it to go.

Aera's smile. Grandfather would've preferred it if you'd stayed in the water.

The sentence repeats itself with terrifying precision, spoken in exactly the same gentle voice she'd used beside the pool, each syllable perfectly polished until cruelty became almost elegant. I've spent years learning not to believe everything she says. I've spent years telling myself she enjoys provoking reactions more than telling the truth. Then why does it hurt so much?

Because somewhere, buried beneath nineteen years of carefully collected silences, lives a frightened little part of me that's never completely stopped wondering whether she might be right.

My grandfather has never hit me. He's never shouted. He's never openly told me I wasn't wanted. Sometimes I think indifference is infinitely more efficient than hatred. Hatred requires energy. Ignoring someone costs almost nothing.

I remember birthdays where Aera opened expensive presents while mine waited quietly on the end of the table because someone had forgotten to write my name on the gift tag. I remember school recitals where my grandfather arrived halfway through, applauded enthusiastically after Aera's performance, then excused himself before mine began because an investor had called. I remember standing beside him at New Year's when I was eleven, asking whether he'd like to see the painting I'd made for him. He'd smiled politely. Then answered someone else's question instead.

There are a thousand tiny memories like that. None of them particularly cruel on their own. Together, they've built a language louder than words.

"Miss Hana?" My head jerks upward. The classroom is staring at me. Heat floods immediately into my face. Our literature teacher lowers the book in her hands, blinking once in mild surprise. "Would you mind reading the next paragraph?"

"Oh." My voice sounds strangely unfamiliar. "Yes."

I look down. The page swims before my eyes. I've been so completely absent that I don't even know where we are anymore. The realization almost never happens to me. Usually, I already know which student will be called before the teacher decides. Usually, I'm already halfway through reading ahead. Today, I can't even find the correct paragraph.

A hand reaches across the aisle beside me. Without saying a word, Minji taps discreetly on the correct line with the end of her pencil before withdrawing it again. I whisper a grateful thank you and begin reading.

The words leave my mouth automatically. My voice sounds steady. Confident. No one would ever guess that I couldn't tell you what I'd just read the moment I finished speaking.