“Yes,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.
Yejun took a step back, his expression blank. The space between us suddenly felt like a thousand miles.
“That means you crossed the point threshold,” he said, finally meeting my gaze. “What exactly was your mission with Jihoon?”
I tensed, feeling as if I’d fallen into a frozen lake. “I had to… get close to him,” I said, gaze fixed on my shoes.
“You’vebeenclose to him,” Yejun said. “What pushed you over the threshold? What did you do to him?”
Despite all my training that had molded me into an impeccable liar, improviser, and manipulator, I had no idea what to say next.
The key to getting what you wanted out of a social interaction was knowing what the other person wanted you to say, but that wouldn’t help me here. I know Yejun would hate the truth, but he would hate a lie even more.
“I just let him kiss me,” I said quietly. “That’s all.”
“That’s all?” Yejun echoed, followed by a sharp laugh. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned away from me. “Unbelievable,” he said under his breath.
My face burned, my hands clenching into fists. What right did Yejun have to be mad at me? Jihoon had never been a secret, unlike the girls Yejun went around with. “It was just an assignment,” I said. “Why do you care?”
He looked back at me, and this time his eyes were no longer gold but so dark they were almost black. Even though we weren’t touching, I could feel his magic like a frigid sea breeze from far away.
“I don’t,” he said.
The words fell like cold rain over me. We were no longer in a safe, warm world all by ourselves. I was alone.
He checked his watch and turned to the mouth of the alley. “Time’s almost up,” he said. “We should go back now.”
“Right,” I said quietly, offering him my hand. This time, as his magic flowed through me, I felt nothing at all.
Chapter Sixteen
After school on Tuesday, I was shooting bullets at a paper target, trying with all my might not to imagine Hong Gildong’s face.
Hyebin had brought me to a shooting range in Myeongdong for firearms training. I’d been hesitant at first, not really wanting to start the day with a bullet in my foot, but Hyebin had only rolled her eyes and saideven a toddler couldn’t get hurt at this range. I hadn’t understood what she meant at first. Then when I arrived, I was strapped into a Kevlar vest, safety goggles, and headphones, then pushed in front of a gun suspended on bike chains so that I couldn’t turn it away from the target if I tried.
The recoil forced my wrist back, bullet casings popping out and falling to the floor around me. The air smelled bright with gunpowder, the echoes of the gunshot still stinging in my ears even through the headphones.
I tried to narrow my vision to nothing but the target, to forget about Jihoon and Yejun and everything except the mark in front ofme. Still, Yejun’s words from last night echoed in my mind.I don’t care.I clenched my teeth against the thought and fired.
The staff member pulled my paper target back on a tether and made an impressed sound. My bullets had punched a tight ring of holes right through the center of the target.
“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” he said, replacing the paper with a printout of a masked man holding a cartoon woman hostage.
“Don’t get too excited,” Hyebin said as soon as the staff member walked away. “Dragons have enhanced vision. If you weren’t hitting your target, I’d be concerned.”
“Thanks,” I said flatly.
“Next time, we’ll take you somewhere without childproofing. This is just to get you used to it.”
I didn’t think I would ever get used to handling a gun, or preparing to shoot someone made of actual flesh instead of paper. It had been a full day since I’d spoken to Yejun, and I still hadn’t found a way out of my final exam. For now, I was only going through the motions of preparing for it so I wouldn’t be executed on the spot, but I really hoped I could come up with an actual plan by the day of the rally.
Hyebin nodded toward the next target. “Now shoot that guy in the nose.”
“He’s wearing a ski mask,” I said. “I can’t see his nose.”
“You know where noses are,” Hyebin said. “Or is this too hard for you?”
“Yes, the idea ofpreparing to kill someoneis pretty hard,” I said, tightening my grip on the pistol.
