CHAPTER THREE : The weight of silence

The office was empty now, but his presence lingered.

Dr. Hyuna Kim sat at her desk, the city outside her window wrapped in dusk, her pen still poised above her notebook though she had stopped writing long ago. She had seen patients all day, heard stories of heartbreak, trauma, and confusion. Normally, when her last appointment left, she closed her files and felt the clean severance of duty. Tonight, however, the room felt stained—quiet, but not empty.

Jimin Park.

She flipped through her notes, her handwriting neat but pressed harder into the page than usual, as though her own unease had seeped into the ink. Believes he sees the world clearly. Rejects labels. Fixated on me?

Her pen had paused at that word: fixated. She had almost crossed it out. It was too early for conclusions, too presumptuous for a first session. But she hadn’t crossed it out. That, in itself, unsettled her.

He had looked at her differently. Most patients arrived guarded, their defenses built high but brittle, crumbling after careful questions. Others clung to her with desperate admiration, mistaking her composure for strength. Jimin had done neither. His gaze had been sharp, calculating, as though she were the one under the microscope.

Hyuna set the notebook down and exhaled slowly. The fluorescent light above her desk buzzed faintly.

She remembered the way his voice had dipped when he said, I believe in you. It had been a simple phrase, but it clung to her skin like something far heavier. Not gratitude. Not respect. No—there had been possession in it, like he had already decided her role in his life.

Her hand drifted unconsciously to her wrist, rubbing the skin there. She forced herself to stop.

She had been practicing for over a decade. She had treated soldiers with night terrors, teenagers with addictions, women scarred by men who believed control was love. She was trained to recognize transference, projection, manipulation. She had studied them, dissected them, taught her interns how to manage them.

But Jimin’s session had felt different.

Not because his words were new, but because of the way he said them—with the certainty of someone who wasn’t searching for help. He wasn’t here to be understood. He was here to… test her.

And she hated to admit that part of her wanted to rise to the challenge.

Closing the notebook, Hyuna gathered her bag and slipped her coat over her shoulders. She shut off the diffuser, silencing the faint hum, and locked the office door behind her. The corridor was empty, footsteps echoing too loudly in the stillness.

In the parking lot, she gripped her keys tighter than usual as she walked to her car. She told herself it was silly, that she was projecting her own fatigue onto a shadow of paranoia. Still, when she sat behind the wheel, she checked her rearview mirror twice before starting the engine.

On the drive home, the city lights blurred in streaks of white and red. She turned the radio on for background noise, but every song felt intrusive, so she switched it off. The silence pressed in, and in it, she heard his words again.

Because I’ve been waiting for you.

Her throat tightened. She clenched the steering wheel.

By the time she reached her apartment, she felt exhausted but restless, as though she had carried him with her the entire way. After a quick dinner, she tried to distract herself with a book, but the words refused to settle. She turned on the television, only to mute it after a few minutes.

Eventually, she gave up and sat at her dining table, notebook in hand. She told herself it was routine—reviewing notes, refining impressions—but her pen betrayed her, drifting to his name again and again. Jimin Park. The letters looked too stark on the page. She underlined them once, then quickly shut the notebook as though she’d caught herself in the act.

It wasn’t fear, she told herself as she carried the notebook to her briefcase. She wasn’t afraid of him.

But deep inside, she knew what it really was.

She had not flinched in front of him.

But she had wanted to.

---

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***