Chapter 28 — Hana Inside His Apartment

Morning in Seiren City arrived with the persistent, rhythmic chirping of a sparrow perched on the fire escape outside Han Jae-in’s window. The power had flickered back on at 6:00 AM sharp—a silent indicator that Kuroe Hana had decided the "rest period" was over and had re-engaged the fuse box in the hallway.

Jae-in woke up facedown on his desk. He had spent the latter half of the night there after Yuri and Chaerin had finally reached a stalemate of exhaustion and retreated—Yuri to the student council dorms to "sanitize her thoughts," and Chaerin to her own home after a tearful, three-hour goodbye that involved her marking his calendar with a heart.

His neck was stiff, his eyes felt like they were filled with sand, and his head was already beginning to throb with the familiar, low-level hum of distant intentions. He was just reaching for his glasses when a soft, singular thud sounded against his door. It wasn't a knock. It was the sound of a body leaning against the wood.

Then, the click of the lock.

Jae-in didn't even flinch. He just watched as the door opened and Kuroe Hana stepped inside.

Unlike the other two, Hana didn't make an entrance. She leaked into a room like a shadow. She was wearing her oversized black hoodie, the drawstrings pulled tight, and she was holding a small, silver mechanical pencil.

"You dropped this," Hana said. Her voice was a flat, tonal vacuum.

Jae-in looked at the pencil. It was a cheap, plastic thing he had bought at the campus bookstore for three dollars. He hadn't used it in weeks. He certainly hadn't dropped it.

"Hana... I didn't drop that. I haven't even been to the literature building since Tuesday."

'Irrelevant,' Hana’s internal voice rumbled in his head, as sharp and clear as the edge of a blade. 'The object is a pretext. The goal is entry. The perimeter was compromised last night by Subject Yuri and Subject Chaerin. I must perform a sweep. I must check for hidden recording devices, left-behind scent markers, and structural weaknesses. The pencil is the key. The key is in the lock. I am inside.'

Hana didn't wait for him to invite her further. She began to walk through his apartment with the slow, deliberate gait of a bomb disposal technician. She didn't look at Jae-in; she looked at the walls, the ceiling, and the underside of his table.

"Hana, it’s 7:15 in the morning," Jae-in said, rubbing his face.

'He is tired,' Hana’s thoughts noted with a flash of dark, protective heat. 'His cortisol levels are high. The others are draining him. They are parasites of his peace. I must be the filter. I will check the windows first. Windows are the primary entry point for visual stalking.'

The ecchi-comedy of Hana’s "security sweep" began as she reached his bed. She didn't just look at it; she leaned over it, her hoodie riding up slightly, her eyes scanning the sheets that Yuri had folded and Chaerin had wrinkled.

"Contamination," Hana whispered.

'Strawberry scent detected on the pillowcase,' Hana’s mind hissed. 'Subject Chaerin’s biological markers are present. Unacceptable. It creates a false sense of security. I should incinerate the linens. But he needs sleep. I will simply... neutralize the area.'

Hana reached into her pocket and pulled out a small spray bottle of unscented, industrial-grade sanitizer. She began to mist the bed with a look of absolute, religious focus.

"Hana, stop! You're making my bed smell like a laboratory!"

"Safety is sterile," Hana replied, her eyes never leaving the pillow.

'She sat here,' Hana’s thoughts continued, ignoring his protest. 'She touched this. She thought she could claim the territory through proximity. She is a soft threat. Yuri is a hard threat. I am the shadow that remains when both are gone. I will sit here. I will overwrite the space with my own weight.'

To Jae-in’s horror, Hana didn't just spray the bed; she sat on it. She sat perfectly still, her hands on her knees, staring at the door.

'Tactical position: Alpha,' Hana’s mind hummed. 'From here, I can see the entrance, the kitchenette, and the target’s face. If the door opens, I can intercept in 1.2 seconds. I will sit here until he leaves for class. I will be the last thing he sees in this room.'

"Do you want... tea?" Jae-in asked, the deadpan instinct to be a good host overriding his common sense.

"Water. Room temperature," Hana said.

As Jae-in turned to the kitchenette to get a glass of water, he felt the familiar, frantic spike of energy approaching the door. It was like a siren wailing in the distance of his mind, getting louder and more shrill by the second.

'I forgot my scarf! No, I forgot my heart! I forgot to tell him I love him for the 400th time this morning!'

BAM!

The door, which Hana had left unlocked, flew open. Min Chaerin charged in, her face flushed, her eyes wide with the manic energy of a girl who had spent the last four hours rewriting her own memories of the previous night.

"Jae-in-ah! I couldn't sleep! I kept thinking about how you looked in the dark and—"

Chaerin froze.

She looked at Jae-in standing by the sink with a glass of water. Then she looked at the bed.

She looked at Kuroe Hana sitting in the center of the bed, the "sterile" mist still hanging in the air like a ghostly shroud.

The silence that followed was so heavy it felt like the floorboards might snap.

'SHE’S IN HIS BED,' Chaerin’s internal voice reached a volume that actually made Jae-in drop the glass. It shattered in the sink. 'THE SILENT ONE. THE CREEPY ONE. THE ONE WHO ALWAYS WATCHES FROM THE BACK. SHE’S SITTING WHERE I SAT! SHE’S STEALING MY MORNING! SHE’S STEALING OUR "ACCIDENTAL" AFTERMATH!'

"What... is... she... doing... here?" Chaerin asked, her voice trembling, her smile twitching in a way that suggested a complete neurological breakdown was imminent.

Hana didn't look up. She didn't even blink.

"Returning a pencil," Hana said.

'Liar,' Chaerin’s mind screamed. 'YOU DON'T EVEN USE PENCILS! YOU USE THE BLOOD OF YOUR ENEMIES! YOU’RE SITTING ON HIS SHEETS! YOU’RE TOUCHING THE FABRIC THAT TOUCHED HIS SKIN!'

"Jae-in-ah," Chaerin said, turning to him with eyes that were beginning to well up with tears—the high-pressure kind that were used as emotional waterboarding. "Why is she on the bed? You told me I had to leave because of 'schedules'! Is she part of the schedule? Is 'Shadow Girl Time' part of the morning routine now?"

'I’ll kill her,' Chaerin’s thoughts spiraled into a dark, cartoonish violence. 'I’ll wrap her in her own hoodie and throw her into the Seiren River. Then I’ll jump in and save her just so I can tell her to stay away from my boyfriend! No, I’ll just scream. If I scream, he’ll have to comfort me.'

"She just... she's just checking the safety," Jae-in said, his rationalization skills failing him. "Hana is... protective."

"Safety?" Chaerin laughed, a jagged, unhealthy sound. She marched over to the bed and stood over Hana. "I’m his safety! I’m his childhood friend! We have a history! We have memories! What do you have? A stolen pencil?"

Hana finally looked up. Her eyes were like two pieces of flint.

"I have the door code," Hana said.

'And I have the sharpest knife in the room,' her thoughts added with a calm that was far more terrifying than Chaerin’s screaming. 'Subject Chaerin is emotionally unstable. Her presence is a noise-pollution event. She is currently standing in the kill-zone of the doorway. If she moves any closer to him, I will be forced to physically relocate her.'

Hana stood up from the bed. She was shorter than Chaerin, but she felt like a mountain. She stepped into Chaerin’s space, her unblinking gaze forcing the other girl to take a step back.

"The target is tired," Hana said, referring to Jae-in as if he were a delicate piece of cargo. "You are loud. Leave."

"I AM NOT LOUD!" Chaerin shrieked, her thoughts a white-hot mess of jealousy. 'I’M VIBRANT! I’M FULL OF LIFE! YOU’RE JUST A HOLE IN THE AIR! JAE-IN, TELL HER TO GO! TELL HER YOU WANT ME TO STAY AND EAT THE CHOCOLATE BEARS!'

Jae-in stood by the sink, trapped between the "Vibrant Chaos" and the "Silent Guardian." He could hear their thoughts clashing like cymbals in a thunderstorm.

'If she touches him, I’ll bite her,' Chaerin thought. 'If she screams again, I’ll pressure-point her into a three-hour nap,' Hana countered.

"Guys, please," Jae-in said, his voice a weary plea. "I have a lecture in an hour. Can we just... have a normal morning?"

"Normal?" Chaerin cried. "There’s nothing normal about a girl sitting on your bed at 7:00 AM wearing a hoodie that looks like a body bag!"

Suddenly, Jae-in’s phone, sitting on the counter, chirped with the distinctive, high-pitched "Emergency Notification" sound he had assigned to Yuri.

[Yuri: My 'Morning Wellness' drone has detected an unusual amount of decibel activity coming from your unit. I am currently in the elevator. I am bringing breakfast and a formal 'Co-habitation Conflict Resolution' framework. Do not make any permanent decisions until I arrive.]

'The Manager is coming,' Hana’s thoughts noted. 'Tactical situation: Cluster. The room will soon reach maximum capacity for conflicting obsessions. I must secure the target’s person before she enters.'

"Breakfast?" Chaerin yelled, having caught a glimpse of the text. "SHE’S BRINGING BREAKFAST? I BROUGHT CHIPS! CHIPS ARE BREAKFAST!"

Hana didn't say anything. She simply reached out and grabbed Jae-in’s arm. Her grip was like iron—not painful, but completely unyielding.

"We are leaving," Hana said.

"Wait, what? My books—"

"I have them," Hana said, gesturing to the backpack she had already packed for him while he was in the bathroom. 'I included the tactical knife. And the navy planner. I have optimized his load-out for a swift exit.'

"You can't just kidnap him!" Chaerin screamed, grabbing his other arm.

The ecchi-comedy reached its peak as the two girls began a literal tug-of-war with Jae-in’s body in the middle of his small kitchen.

'He’s mine!' Chaerin’s mind wailed. 'He’s our history!' 'He is the mission,' Hana’s mind insisted. 'The mission must be moved to a secure location.'

Jae-in felt like he was being torn in half. He could hear the elevator ding in the hallway. Yuri was here.

'Arrival in three... two... one,' Yuri’s mental voice boomed. 'I hope they haven't touched the toaster. I haven't sanitized the toaster since Tuesday.'

The door opened.

Seo Yuri stood there, holding a thermal bag and a clipboard. She looked at the scene: Jae-in, looking like he was being drawn and quartered by a crying girl in pajamas and a silent girl in a hoodie, in a room that smelled like industrial-grade bleach and spicy chips.

Yuri didn't scream. She didn't even look surprised. She just adjusted her glasses and sighed.

"This," Yuri said, her voice a calm, administrative death knell, "is a level four environmental crisis. Jae-in, please step toward the hallway. Chaerin, Hana, please refer to section 12 of the 'Campus Respect' bylaws I am about to read to you."

'I will crush them both under a mountain of paperwork,' Yuri’s thoughts sang with a dark, triumphant joy. 'I will make their very existence a violation of university policy. Jae-in will be mine, not through force, but through the sheer, inescapable weight of my management.'

Jae-in stood in the center of the three of them, hearing their thoughts overlap into a single, terrifying roar of MINE, MINE, MINE.

He looked at the broken glass in the sink. He looked at the sterile bed. He looked at the breakfast bag.

He realized then that Hana’s "internal invasion" wasn't a one-time event. His apartment was no longer his. It was a contested territory, a tiny island in Seiren City that was being colonized by three different empires of obsession.

"Can we just... go to class?" Jae-in whispered.

'Yes,' Yuri thought. 'According to the schedule.' 'Yes!' Chaerin thought. 'As long as I can hold your hand!' 'Moving out,' Hana finalized.

As they walked out of the apartment in a four-person phalanx, Jae-in didn't even bother to lock the door. There was no point. The people he was trying to keep out were already inside his head.

The chapter ended with the four of them stepping into the elevator. Jae-in was flanked by Yuri and Chaerin, with Hana standing behind him, staring at the back of his neck.

In the silence of the elevator, a single thought from Hana echoed in his mind:

'I still have the pencil.'