Startled, the boy threw the box he was holding in front of the man’s house and immediately stepped onto the railing.
“Damn it.”
The old villa had a corridor-style layout, and the railing led directly to the outside.
“What, you’re going to jump? This is the fourth floor. You’ll at least break some bones.”
“……”
“You’ve got a long life ahead of you. Do you really want to live with a broken body for the rest of it?”
The boy lowered the foot he had placed on the railing and, with his head bowed, began to tear up.
Looking more closely, he seemed to be around middle school age—a young student.
Was I too harsh?
As Winter stared at the boy’s familiar face, her eyes widened in recognition.
“Wait, don’t you live in the unit below ours?”
It was the face she’d seen just earlier when handing out rice cakes. The boy had timidly accepted the offering through a barely cracked door, mentioning his mom wasn’t home.
When Winter recognized him, the boy quickly changed his demeanor.
“I’m sorry. Please, just this once. Please don’t tell my parents. I’ll pay it all back—I swear.”
As he begged, hands clasped, Winter looked down at him and asked,
“Why did you do it?”
“At first… it really was an accident…”
“An accident?”
“The package was delivered to our house by mistake.”
“And?”
“I opened it, and it had a Plx game console…”
His tearful voice triggered a memory—something the man had said a few days ago.
“Oh, everything else is fine, but can I get that Plx back? I’m dying of boredom.”
Winter had searched up what a Plx was that evening—and nearly fainted.
A million won? For a game console?
With that price tag, the man’s fuss suddenly made perfect sense.
“You wanted it that badly, so you stole again?”
“……”
The boy couldn’t respond. He hung his head low and scratched at the back of his hand with growing intensity.
“Forget the rest. Just bring back that console, and I’ll let it slide. I won’t say a word—if you bring that back, I’ll keep it secret.”
She was already branded a package thief; getting caught again wouldn’t change much.
Winter stepped closer and held out her pinky.
“Promise me. Promise you’ll never touch someone else’s package again.”
“……”
Even then, the boy couldn’t raise his hand to meet hers.
“Hurry up.”
Just as Winter reached out and grabbed his arm, the boy cried out.
“Ah!”
He grimaced in pain, clutching his shoulder.
“Sorry! Did that hurt?”
She hadn’t thought she’d grabbed him that hard.
Or… did I?
“Let me see.”
Winter pulled up his sleeve—and gasped when she saw the deep, dark bruises all over his arm.
Looking closer, she noticed faint yellow bruises on his face, too.
“Who did this to you?”
“……”
“I said—who?”
The boy shook his head silently.
“It’s nothing, really…”
“If you stay silent, no one will ever know. You have to speak up for people to know.”
“Actually…”
Suddenly, loud footsteps and a muttering voice echoed from the stairwell.
“Damn this outdated villa. I need to move out already.”
The voice was unmistakably the man next door, growing closer.
Startled, Winter quickly opened her door and ushered the boy inside.
She sat him down at the table and handed him a glass of water, speaking gently.
“Tell me everything. I’m here to listen.”
At her words, the boy finally broke down and burst into the tears he’d been holding back for so long.
After a while, once he had calmed down, he confessed what he had been enduring. He had been regularly beaten and extorted by upperclassmen at school.
Too afraid of the violence to even spend his allowance, he’d started taking on part-time jobs, giving them every bit of money he earned. But their demands kept growing.
Then one day, a package for the man next door was mistakenly delivered to his house. Though he realized it wasn’t his, he sold the game console second-hand and handed the money over to his tormentors.
The abuse had started when he entered middle school—and it had continued for over a year.
It was too much for someone his age to bear alone.
“117. That’s the school violence reporting number. Call it. And tell your parents, too.”
“I can’t. The guys said if I told my parents, they’d kill me.”
“That’s just a line bullies use to shut you up. They’re just afraid of getting caught.”
“Easy for you to say. This isn’t your life. You think it’s that simple? Do you know how desperate I am right now? Earlier, you said falling from the fourth floor would probably mean broken bones. Do you know what I was hoping?”
“That maybe you would break something—so you wouldn’t have to go to school anymore.”
“……”
The boy looked up at Winter, stunned, unable to say a word.
“I felt the same way. I hated going to school.”
All that waited for her there were people who hated and tormented her.
Why do they hate me? What did I do?
She’d asked herself a hundred times, but never found an answer. Until the day she finally quit, when she asked her bully one last question.
“What about me do you hate so much?”
“It’s fun,” the girl had replied. “Your reactions were the most interesting.”
They didn’t care who you were. It was never about the person—just the thrill and the reaction.
At first, they ignored her like she didn’t exist. But when she failed to react the way they wanted, they started kicking her chair, hiding her belongings, ripping up her gym clothes, and destroying her personal things.
Once, she’d found something she didn’t recognize in her own bag—framed instantly as a thief. That incident turned the whole class against her, not just the bullies.
Milk dumped over her head, tripped in the cafeteria, stuck in stinky clothes all day. What started with a flick to the head turned into slaps across the face. Kicks to the desk became kicks to the stomach.
“It won’t stop. It’ll only get worse.”
“……”
“So tell your parents. They’re the only ones who’ll fight for you, no matter what.”
__________⋆ 𖤓 ⊹₊˚࿔ ❄︎ᝰ.________
After finally calming the boy and sending him home, Winter collapsed to the floor the moment she stepped inside.
She hadn’t expected to expose wounds she’d buried so deep.
I was about that age too…
She remembered the brand-name sneakers her mom had bought her for her first year of middle school.
“Those are cute. Can I borrow them for a day?”
“Sorry. They’re the only pair I have.”
That was the beginning.
“Hey, Rice Cake Girl. Maybe watch where you’re going next time?”
She’d hated that nickname. It felt like everything stemmed from her mom—like the bullying was her mom’s fault.
Her dad had been bedridden after a major car accident. Her mom, a homemaker, started selling rice cakes at the local market.
Sometimes, when she saw her on the street, she’d pretend not to know her.
She had been so immature.
Now, she knew better.
Her mom had to take responsibility for the entire family, doing whatever it took.
Thanks to that, her dad eventually recovered—and so did she.
With a long sigh, Winter pulled herself up and headed to the kitchen.
She’d learned that at times like this, smiling and eating something warm really did help.
Tap tap tap tap.
Clumsily slicing garlic, Winter drizzled olive oil into a pan and tilted her head.
“Is that enough?”
She added two more rounds of oil before tossing in the garlic.
But the heat was too high—it burned black almost instantly.
“Ugh, whatever.”
She scooped the burnt garlic out, tossed in plump shrimp, and sautéed them until they turned red. She added julienned vegetables, then dumped in pre-made sauce and boiled noodles.
“I have no idea if this is cooked.”
Finally, she plated it all and topped it with basil. It looked like something from a fancy restaurant.
She set the table and took a big bite.
The noodles were undercooked. The sauce, clumpy.
Still, maybe it was the hard labor from earlier, but it tasted… good.
She emptied the plate in no time and laughed at the mess in the kitchen.
All that for one pasta dish—food waste, pots, every utensil scattered everywhere.
“When am I going to clean all this…”
She sighed and glanced outside.
The sky was brilliantly blue—and Winter found herself smiling for no reason.
__________⋆ 𖤓 ⊹₊˚࿔ ❄︎ᝰ.________
She might not be a great cook, but if there was one thing she was proud of, it was cleaning.
After an hour of scrubbing the kitchen until it gleamed, Winter grabbed a bag of food waste and stepped outside.
As she neared the disposal area, she instantly recognized the man ahead—just from his back.
So he did cook, after all. He had food waste, at least.
Still… why did he suddenly abandon filming?
He was a wildly popular actor.
She hadn’t wondered before—but suddenly, she found herself curious.
Was she starting to pity him? Just from that one article?
What are you going to do with that information, Winter? Get him reinstated or something?
Muttering to herself, Winter approached the disposal area.
That’s when she saw it.
The man was dumping something into the bin—and Winter’s eyes widened.
The rice cake she had given him just earlier was now being tossed into the food waste bin.
