Chapter 6: Three Drops
The memory of that midnight encounter clung to Jennie like a static charge. For three days, she moved through the house feeling the ghost of his stare on her back, the echo of his knife clicking shut in her ears. He’d become even more of a ghost himself, arriving and departing without sound, leaving only the faint, lingering scent of cigarette smoke in empty rooms.
Now, sitting at a rickety table in the university courtyard, she tried to lose herself in the normalcy of it all. The October sun was weak but bright, glinting off Jisoo’s freshly-manicured nails as she dissected the social fallout of some party Jennie had already forgotten.
“So then he literally poured his drink, like, directly on her phone,” Jisoo was saying, wide-eyed. “It was so dramatic. Totally unhinged.”
Jennie poked at her salad, the expensive greens from the boutique café across campus already wilting in their cardboard container. “Mmm.”
“Are you even listening? You’ve been weird since Rosé stayed over.”
“I’m listening,” Jennie mumbled. She wasn’t. Her attention was pulled, as if by a magnet, to the periphery of her vision.
Leonid stood a few yards away, under the skeletal branches of the old oak tree. He wasn't eating the bland university cafeteria food on his tray. He was smoking, one hand in his pocket, his gaze scanning the flowing crowds of students with a detached, analytical coolness. He’d driven her to campus, as always, and would wait, as always, until her last class was done. His presence was a constant, but today it felt different. It felt like a judgment.
Rosé, sitting across from Jennie, hadn’t touched her sandwich. Her eyes kept flicking from Jennie to Leonid and back again, a nervous energy making her jiggle her knee. She’d been overly sweet all afternoon, complimenting Jennie’s skirt—a tight, butter-yellow suede mini that was already getting smudged from the dirty bench—in a high, rushed voice.
“I just love that color on you, Jennie,” Rosé said again, for what felt like the third time.
“Thanks,” Jennie said flatly. A group of guys from her textiles class walked by, their laughter too loud. One of them, a guy with a sharp, mocking face, made eye contact with her and then deliberately looked her up and down, a slow, smirking appraisal. She looked away quickly, heat rising in her cheeks.
“Ugh, creeps,” Jisoo said, following her glance. “Just ignore them.”
Easier said than done. The fabric of her skirt felt impossibly thin suddenly, the bench too hard. She shifted, and a dry leaf, blown by the breeze, stuck to the suede on her thigh. She brushed at it impatiently. “Great. This skirt is ruined.”
“It’s just a leaf, silly,” Rosé said. She dabbed at her lips with a paper napkin, then let the napkin slip from her fingers. It fluttered to the ground, landing near Leonid’s boot.
“Oh, whoops!” Rosé chirped. She bent over from the waist to retrieve it, her low-cut top gaping. She took her time straightening up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Leonid didn’t look down. He took a long drag from his cigarette, his eyes fixed on the middle distance.
A minute later, it happened again. Another napkin, another theatrical drop, another slow bend. This time, Jennie saw the deliberate arch in Rosé’s back, the calculated presentation. A cold trickle of understanding dripped down her spine. This wasn’t about napkins.
Leonid exhaled a stream of smoke, his expression unchanging.
Rosé’s smile grew strained. She played with her third napkin, folding it into a small, tight square. She was building up to something. Jisoo had noticed now too, and fell silent, watching with curious eyes.
The third napkin “fell.” Rosé leaned over even further, one hand braced on her knee. The neckline of her top plunged. She stayed there for a beat too long, her eyes glancing up at Leonid through her lashes.
He moved.
It was a simple, efficient motion. He lifted his boot and brought it down, not on the napkin, but next to it, the heavy sole scuffing the concrete. Then, he dropped his cigarette onto the table where the girls were sitting, right next to Jennie’s salad container. He didn’t stub it out. He just let it burn, the acrid smell of the smoke mixing with the scent of her food.
Then he looked directly at Rosé, who had frozen in her half-bent position.
“If you drop another one,” he said, his voice quiet but carrying perfectly in the lull of courtyard noise, “I will assume you have a neurological problem and call for medical assistance.” His tone was flat, utterly devoid of mockery or heat. It was a statement of fact. “Sit up.”
Rosé shot upright, her face flaming a deep, mortified crimson. She crumpled into her seat, staring at her lap.
Jennie stared at the burning cigarette beside her food, its smoke curling upward. A strange, hot feeling tightened in her chest. It wasn’t protectiveness. It was something closer to possession. Her friend. Her Leonid. This pathetic pantomime was happening in her sphere, and it made everything feel cheap.
“You’re getting ash on my skirt,” Jennie heard herself whine, the words petty and thin in the tense air.
Leonid’s dark eyes shifted from Rosé to her. The intensity in them didn’t lessen; it simply changed focus. He looked at her, then at the barely-touched salad, then at the smudges on her expensive suede skirt from the dirty bench she’d chosen to sit on.
“You chose to wear suede to a public courtyard,” he stated. “You chose to eat outside. These are the consequences of your choices.” He leaned forward, bracing his hands on their table. The weight of him made it creak. He addressed all three of them, but his eyes were locked on Jennie. “You are not children in a playground. You are adults in a world that watches. You should act like you know that.”
The group of guys from her class chose that moment to pass by again. The sharp-faced one, emboldened by his friends, slowed his walk. “Hey, Jennie. Need a wipe for that?” he called out, nodding at the leaf smudge on her thigh.
Before Jennie could muster a reply, before the hot prickle of tears could fully form, Leonid turned his head.
He didn’t say a word. He just looked at the guy.
It wasn’t a glare. It was something emptier, and far more frightening. It was the complete absence of social pretense, the cold assessment of a threat. His stillness was absolute.
The guy’s smirk vanished. He looked away, mumbled something to his friends, and they quickened their pace, disappearing into the crowd.
Leonid straightened up. He picked up his still-burning cigarette from the table, finally pinching the ember dead between his fingers. He dropped the butt into his empty tray.
“Your class starts in seven minutes, Jennie,” he said, his voice returning to its usual detached timbre. “Don’t be late.”
He walked away, leaving the three girls in a bubble of strained silence. The normal courtyard sounds rushed back in—laughter, chatter, the rustle of leaves—but they felt distant, muffled.
Jisoo let out a low whistle. “Well. That was intense.”
Rosé was crying, quiet, shameful tears she tried to hide by wiping her face with the very napkin she’d dropped.
Jennie looked down at her ruined salad, at the ghost of ash on her skirt. The cold trickle of understanding in her spine spread. This was what he meant. This was the outside world he spoke of in the dark—a world of leers and calculated drops and public humiliations. And he was the wall between her and it. A wall that was tired, scarred, and had just shown her, and everyone around her, a glimpse of the sheer, uncompromising force required to maintain that barrier.
She stood up, her legs unsteady. “I have to go,” she said, her voice small.
She left her friends and her ruined lunch on the table, walking toward her class not with her usual carefree sway, but with a new, conscious stiffness. She could feel eyes on her still, but now they felt different. They felt wary. She realized, with a jolt, that they weren’t looking at her anymore.
They were looking at the space where Leonid had just been.