Before it All - A Love Wins All Fanfic

Chapter 6 - D-Day

Day of the Invasion

Ji Hye tapped her pen on the stack of papers in front of her staring at the chicken scratches of some freshman student. She read the answer over again for what felt like the millionth time not really taking them in.

She sat alone in the large lab room. Class didn't start for another couple hours and apparently none of the young students felt like they needed to get there beforehand despite several of them being behind on their lab work.

And that's why you all keep failing, she thought as she wrote a 60 at the top of the student's paper. Granted, their parents would probably just pay off the university to give their child a passing grade so what was the point in them trying.

She threw the paper to the side. It slid across the black countertop hitting the jumbled pile of assignments she had already graded. Pulling the next paper from the top of her neat stack, she let out a frustrated groan, fingers digging into her hair. One glance and she could already tell it was going to be another failing grade. She let out a heavy exhale of breath, telling herself it was unprofessional to throw all the papers out the window, that is, if the lab had even had any. Maybe she could light them on fire instead. The lab certainly had the right chemicals for the job.

Seriously contemplating the idea, she decided it was time for a break.

She gathered the papers on the desk putting them back into one neat stack. Separating the graded and ungraded with a colorful sticky note, she slipped them into her backpack. It was now more full of papers she needed to grade than her own actual assignments.

Pulling out her phone, she left the large classroom. She pulled up the text thread she had with Ye Joon.

What are you doing?

I need a break.

Usual spot? She sent one message after the other in rapid fire. She then tacked on the messager's cat emoji haircut in a similar fashion to her own, staring at a computer with flames engulfing the whole image in rage, just so he would know how dire the situation was.

She tucked the phone back into her bag, only to immediately take it out again as her phone let out a sharp bing.

Sure. I can be there in 20 minutes.

This time she chose the cat doing a happy little dance and sent it back to him a new spring in her step.

She entered the small convenience store, the door dinging as it slid open. The guy at the register was so glued to the small television they had on behind the cash register he didn't even acknowledge her. Curious, she glanced at the television and saw that it was turned to a news channel. On it in a large banner at the bottom of the screen with the program's headline read "UFO spotted? Fact or fiction." A panel of three people sat behind a large desk talking away.

She rolled her eyes, heading to the back of the store where they kept the cold food. The voices of the panelist following her down the aisle.

"- real question is whether this is another case of the United States crying wolf. How much longer are we going to put up with these ludicrous rumors," a thin reedy voice was saying.

"They aren't rumors," a deeper voice laced with barely controlled anger said. "There is actual proof."

"Show the picture," said the deep voice.

Curious, Ji Hye turned back to the television, seeing an image of a large gray cube, high in the sky peeking through the gaps of a cluster of skyscrapers in some big city.

"Photo editing," said the reedy voice belonging to a bespectacled man so thin he could have been mistaken for a talking skeleton. Next to him sat a large man that looked like he could easily crush the skeletal man from the sheer weight of him. Ji Hye assumed that had been the man arguing for the proof of the photo.