Coach was super pissed when she turned up at the school gym the next morning.
With every furious word that left his mouth, his volume increased. Yeonha flinched, bowing her head while apologizing over and over again.
"—THE ABSOLUTE NERVE OF YOU TO SHOW UP AFTER THREE DAYS OF UNNOTIFIED ABSENCE—"
"I'm sorry, coach."
"—DID YOU FORGET YOU HAVE AN IMPORTANT MATCH THIS SATURDAY OR WERE YOU TOO BUSY STARING AT THE DAMN RING ON YOUR FINGER—"
From the audience that had gathered in the gym, someone meekly spoke up, "Go easy on her, coach. There's no ring. She got dumped by her fiance in front of a couple hundred people."
"—GETTING DUMPED DOESN'T MEAN YOU MISS TRAINING. EIGHT EXTRA LAPS AROUND THE FIELD, HAN YEONHA!"
Yeonha nodded vigorously and got right to it. The rest of the students walked past her, shooting her sympathetic looks. She followed them out of the gym, to the field, while zipping up her blue tracksuit.
The running wasn't the worst part of her morning. It was the rest of the training regime the coach had set for her. Every part of her body screamed at the familiar pain coursing through her. Yeonha nearly cried in the shower, while standing under the hot water. She dragged her tired feet to her class, only to hear the turning of a page.
Sagak.
They didn't try to hide the fact that they were whispering and gossiping about her, the students. Stage Yeonha heard almost every single thing they were saying about her. The cutting remarks hurt, but she didn't let it show on her face.
What was that? 'Attention seeker'? You little—which one of us put on that horrendous shade of eyeshadow during the school trip with the expectations that Oh Namju would fall head over heels for her? 'Gold digger'? Really? I'm a fucking heiress—oh shit, wait. Not anymore. That's Haru. What do you mean I'm shameless enough to show my face here? It's school! I go here—I saw that, you pitiful looking pastry!
She felt someone grab her wrist and whirl her around just as she had reached her classroom. Dohwa's face was beaming at her, looking immensely relieved. Her Stage self's face heated up. The confident front she had put up in the hallway began to crumble.
"You're back!" He exclaimed, "I—I'm so glad—I couldn't reach you on your phone and—and I came by your house but Jiho said you were sick. Yeonha, are you okay?" The girl stared intensely at his grip on her hand. Assuming that she felt uncomfortable, he hurriedly let her go, "Sorry. I'm just...so happy to see you."
"I don't mind." She blurted and he raised his eyebrows in surprise. "I feel fine now," She continued, "It was a small fever. That's...that's all."
"About last weekend..." Dohwa began but she cut him off.
"I'd rather not talk about it, please."
"Of course." He immediately dropped it and took a hold of her hand again, smiling softly, "I'm really happy that you're back."
The Writer had emptied the corridor, giving them privacy for their little 'intimate' moment. Real Yeonha scoffed.
A bright blush painted her face. "Me too." Fuck no. Did you see those gossip hungry sharks in the hall? Why would I be happy to be back?
Sagak.
Dohwa threw his arms around her, engulfing her in a big embrace. "I actually was worried about you!" He cried, patting her back repeatedly, "And I did come by your house but the front yard was blocked and I kept winding up on the street. Last I saw you, you were unconscious on the bed and—mmph!"
"Shh." Yeonha hushed him, covering his mouth with her palm, "It's too early and I'm too tired but thanks for worrying about me." She retracted her hand and continued to lug herself to the classroom door.
"Did you see Namju before he left? Juda was absent from school after lunch yesterday. Did she come see you? Also, do you know there's a new girl in our—"
She held up a hand, "What part of 'shh' do you not under...stand—"
If it weren't for the expression of extreme discomfort on Bom's face, Yeonha would've realized that everyone in the room had stopped whatever they were doing to stare at her. The atmosphere was hostile, giving Dohwa the creeps as he followed her inside.
There was an (un)familiar girl in the seat next to Bom, trying to make conversation with her. Jung was observing the uneasy exchange while Taek was enthusiastically participating to save Bom from bursting into tears.
"Ah." Yeonha said, "The one that's talking to Bom...that's Soohyang, isn't she?"
"How do you know?" Dohwa asked, brows furrowing in curiosity, "What's wrong with the class? Why are they all glaring at you like this?"
Keeping her head down, Yeonha made a beeline to her desk. Taek jumped at the opportunity to introduce Soohyang to her. "I have a feeling you two will get along great!" He shot her a 'please help us' smile.
"It's nice to meet you." Yeonha greeted the girl as the latter twisted in her chair to face her, "My name's Han Yeonha."
Her eyes widened, "Oh, you're Yeonha." Soohyang gestured at the windows that opened into the hallway, "I've been hearing...a lot about you. And it's only my second day here."
Yeonha let out a nervous laugh.
Jung leaned forward, "Don't listen to the rumours. Most kids here just need a reason to gossip. They're fueled by it. Except for a stray act of violence or two, Yeonha isn't actually that bad."
"I don't know whether that's supposed to be a compliment or not." Yeonha inconspicuously patted an unnaturally quiet Bom on the back to comfort her.
"It's alright. You don't have to be worried about me believing what they say." Soohyang beamed at both of them, "Lee Dohwa sang praises of you yesterday and from what I've seen, I'd rather believe him over anyone else."
"You think too highly of me." The said boy chuckled from the desk behind Yeonha. He swatted her away when she looked over her shoulder and whispered a 'new love interest, Lee Dohwa?' "How can you say that? You're the only one for me, Yeonha." He teased, making Soohyang chuckle.
Zoning out from the small talk they had begun, Yeonha wondered how Jinmichae was going to react. She could almost imagine the heartbreaking expression on his face. And Bom. God, she hadn't taken a good look at her friend but she could tell just by her posture that her sister's sudden presence had left her shaken.
Poor thing.
After their first few classes, during one of the breaks in between, Bom all but fled. Yeonha trailed after her, calling her name. She finally caught up to her by the lockers, when the shorter girl ran head on into Kyung, who had just returned from tennis practise.
"Watch where you're—" He froze and slowly backed away upon hearing a sniffle. He raised a questioning eyebrow as Bom puffed up her cheeks and stuck out her bottom lip to keep herself from crying. "I didn't do anything." He immediately said to Yeonha.
"I know you didn't!" She exclaimed, frowning at him, "You don't have to—oh, come now, Bom. There's nothing to feel sad about."
"This was just so unexpected," Bom adjusted her wonky glasses, "I didn't think—the last time I saw her—I'm feeling so overwhelmed—I—" She stuttered before taking a deep breath. Stepping around Kyung, she reached for Yeonha's locker.
"What are you doing?"
"Jung hides his emergency snacks in—"
As the locker swung open, letters and bits of papers in all shapes and sizes came flooding out. A few girls, who were passing them by, covered their mouths and snickered. Yeonha blinked at the letters and bent down to pick one up. Bom, momentarily forgetting her dilemma, did the same.
"Huh. Death threats." Yeonha mumbled as she read the contents, "I won't lie, I thought these would be a little bit more creative. Telling me to choke is so vague."
"Not this one." Bom waved a sheet of paper, "This is a very desperate confession."
Kyung immediately snatched it from her hands. His eyes jumped from line to line, his mouth twisting into a fiercer scowl with each word. Scoffing, he ripped up the parchment into tiny pieces and let them add to the litter on the floor.
"Confession. Death threat, death threat, half death threat, half confession—I don't know about this one. It's confusing. Another confession—this one's very creepy. And, eugh, this is just nasty. It's like Namju brought out the worst in everyone."
It was very unsettling. She knew none of this mattered but Yeonha couldn't exactly brush off all the insults and curses and derogatory terms people had directed at her. She struggled to keep a straight face.
Bom was faster this time, plucking out the papers and skimming through all the messages. "I know who this is." She gestured at the disgusting note. "It's that senior from the baseball team. The audacity of that ape faced pillock—"
"Okay, whoa." Yeonha widened her eyes, "It's not a big deal."
"It is." Kyung and Bom snapped in unison.
"It really isn't." She insisted, "I'm used to all this. I admit this is a notch above the usual but still...'social climber', 'people pleaser', 'attention whore'— I've been called all that ever since we started high school." Bom scowled at her. "Don't look at me like that! It'll die down in a few days. It always does."
Instead of responding, Bom shuffled towards Kyung's locker this time.
"Now what—"
"I hid some of the—gosh, what a nerd. Look at all the books you have—I hid some of the prototypes in here. 'Prototype' is too fancy a word but I don't really want to say 'testers' so..."
"Testers of what?"
The two watched her warily as she rummaged through the locker before slipping something into the pockets of her blazer. She spun around and began stomping up to 2-7 with a furious look on her face. Yeonha offhandedly thought about how this must be a way to channel her frustration about the whole Soohyang thing.
"Please tell me she's not going to test those tiny bombs on people." Kyung stared hard in the direction Bom had fled in.
"Oh yeah." Yeonha nodded thoughtfully, she was making some, wasn't she? Wait. "Oh...no..." She immediately bolted after her friend, ignoring how Kyung mumbled about her being slow.
Yeonha bumped into Saemi just outside the room. Saemi was covered in splotches of glitter from her head to toe, and no matter how hard she tried to dust herself, it wouldn't leave. It was as if the glitter had formed a second layer of skin over her arms and legs and neck.
Appalled by the situation she found herself in, Saemi let out a cathartic shriek. Yeonha, who was gaping at her open-mouthed, winced a little and moved out of the way, letting the girl hide her face and flee towards the girls' bathroom.
Yeonha heard more horrified yells. Just as she was about to enter the class, someone pushed her against the door while running out.
"And that's double for your mother, Park Yijin!" Bom, who was being restrained by a frazzled Juda, waved a threatening fist after the person who had just escaped.
Most of the class had backed themselves in a corner as they observed in fear. Danoh had her mouth wide open, switching her gaze between Saemi's desk in front of her, to Bom, and then to the door. Haru was frozen in his seat. The desks belonging to the bullies were splattered with what Yeonha guessed was glitter, ash/powdered charcoal, and I pray to whoever is listening that that white stuff is just glue.
"Bom, stop!" Juda tried to pull the girl back, only to be shrugged off.
She brandished one of the letters at the remaining ragged-looking, sparkling bullies, "Kim Iljin, do you recognize this? I'm sure you do. You and the rest of your chums slipped a lot of these in Yeonha's locker. But guess what—" Bom blew her nose loudly using that paper and crumpled it into a ball, "You can keep it!" She tossed it at the girls' feet.
They screeched in unison, shuffling away from the paper ball. The onlookers let out disgusted noises, scrunching their noses. Even Yeonha let out an 'gross—what the fuck, Bom!?'
"How does it feel to be on the receiving end now, huh?"
Yeonha gripped the back of Bom's collar and began to drag her outside, throwing apologies at the audience. The shorter girl tried to wriggle out of her grip but failed miserably. She flailed her arms violently, trying to swat Yeonha away.
"I'm not done yet!" Bom slipped out of her blazer only for Juda to block her path.
Gritting her teeth in exasperation, Yeonha did the only thing she could think of and tossed her friend over her shoulder like a sack of rice. She grasped her firmly while making sure that Bom didn't accidentally flash everyone because of her.
As the girl struggled and beat her fists on Yeonha's back, the latter hissed, stalking out of the room, "I can't believe you! I never thought you'd—oh my God, those poor—"
"Don't go feeling sorry for them." Bom scowled, "They're horrible people who've bullied so many people apart from you and Juda."
"Still—"
Yeonha didn't know where she was going, letting her feet carry her and Bom in random directions. Kyung had caught up with them, carrying Bom's discarded blazer under his arm.
"I'm capable of so much more," The ex-witch said, "I'm the most powerful creature in all of creation. I can blow up this damn school in the blink of an eye—"
"—and yet, all you did was make it look like a disco ball exploded in the classroom." Kyung interrupted with heavy sarcasm.
Bom turned her head to glare at him, "Listen here, you homicidal prince with a shitty ponytail—"
"Excuse me?"
Sagak.
Yeonha nearly cried in relief. Thank fuck, she thought as she wandered aimlessly in the empty corridor. She soon found herself in one of the deserted staircases. Nervousness bubbled at the bottom of her stomach.
Keeping her head down, her Stage self paid no attention to the two senior boys climbing up the stairs as she moved out of the way for them. One of them purposely bumped his shoulder against her.
She bowed her head, the 'sorry' stumbling out of her mouth automatically.
One of the boys stopped and turned around, "Oh, Han Yeonha. Fancy running into you here."
Boy, I have never seen you in my life. Stage Yeonha blinked, "Pardon? Have we met?"
The boy's friend nudged him forward and he boldly smirked at her, "I thought you'd have read my letter by now. Can't be helped, I guess."
What's with that creepy face? Even her Stage self felt uncomfortable at the way he was leering at her. "I haven't received any letter," She lied, desperate to leave, "But I'll get back to you once I do." The hell are you afraid of? You can kill him just by flicking your finger in his face—honestly.
Stage Yeonha began to descend the stairs only for the guy to seize her wrist harshly and whirl her around.
"I'm looking forward to your response." The wide smile on his face made her skin crawl. Real Yeonha's temper spiked.
She tried to wrench herself out of his grip, "Please let me go." Instead of doing as she asked, he squeezed her wrist harder. WHY AM I STRUGGLING? THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A PIECE OF CAKE—
Sagak.
"I said," Yeonha hissed, "Let. Me. Go." Grabbing his bicep with her other hand, she flipped him, throwing him down the stairs. He howled in pain as his friend hurried to help him up. "Trash." She narrowed her eyes at them.
"We're your seniors!" The extra yelled, "You can't treat us like this."
She made a face at him, "Yeah, how about you don't go around touching girls and preying on them, sunbae?"
Yeonha retraced her steps back to her classroom, leaving the injured rodent and his sidekick screaming obscenities after her. It was a shame to say that they weren't the only boys to harass her that day.
◆◆◆
The multiple Stages had blipped Yeonha across the school campus, making her run into all sorts of bullies and creeps. She had lost count of the number of people she had to turn down (and it wasn't like they were being sincere. They had turned the whole thing into a joke, making it look like she was dying for attention.) (Yeonha had come really close to murdering a boy who tried to grope her.)
Bom had continued her rampage, actively avoiding Soohyang, leaving the poor girl confused. Jung had put his foot down, as they were all sitting on the garden stairs, and shook her vigorously by her shoulders, interrupting her rant.
"Get your shit together, Bom." He screeched, "It's not the first time a dead relative has been brought back as an extra. So listen to your own advice, get your shit together, and stop having a goddamn meltdown!"
Juda and Yeonha hardly paid any care to the exchange. They were busy peering over Juda's notes as the girl tried to fill in Yeonha about all the classes she had missed. They both grumbled simultaneously once they reached the calculus part. Yeonha had half a mind to reach for her lighter and set the notes on fire.
"God, I fucking hate this."
"I know, right? What's the point of learning all this crap when we won't even use it."
Bom emitted a sudden sob, making all three of them do a double take. She pulled the end of her braids, let out a loud wail, and began to cry. The girls glared at Jung as if to say 'great going, asshole'.
Blubbering and frantically wiping the corners of her eyes, Bom sat down on the stone ground. "Why can't you just let me be crabby for some time? I'm so, so sad that she's not my sister anymore because she was so nice to me and I miss her and—and I couldn't—oh my word, what about Jinmichae? The poor kid—"
"I think it's safe to say that he's much older than all of us." Yeonha commented, absentmindedly tracing the cigarette tucked behind her ear. She broke into a nervous smile when Bom slowly turned her head to stare unimpressed at her.
"Just give me a day." Bom cleared her throat, "I'll be fine by tomorrow. I just need to...assimilate this situation. And give myself a pep talk. After, you know, I cry quite a bit. It's not the first time it's happened to me anyway. I'll definitely be fine by tomorrow." She repeated, trying to convince herself.
(Spoiler : she jinxed it. She wouldn't be fine but Yeonha wouldn't know that.)
Just before going back to class, they ran into Jinmichae. Well, not 'ran into'. Yeonha had seen him by the school lawn, carrying a heavy box of groceries back to the kitchen, and had broken away from her friends, saying that she wanted to help him.
"Let me carry that for you!" She hurried to him and offered.
The man smiled back, shaking his head, "No, no. That's alri—" He was interrupted by a soccer ball flying straight towards him, making him flinch horribly. Yeonha stuck out her hand on instinct, knocking it aside.
Someone from the field yelled for her to kick the ball back.
"Thanks." Jinmichae stared at her wide-eyed. She simply took the crate from him as if it weighed nothing. "How did you do that?"
"What do you mean?" Yeonha blinked.
He pointed a thumb over his shoulder, "The soccer ball."
She shrugged, "An impulse? You're heading to the kitchen, right? Let's go. I need to get back to—" Yeonha shifted the crate to her hip, holding it with one hand, and looked up at the tree they were under. The other hand shot out over JInmichae's head, catching a broken branch mid-fall.
The blond flinched into himself again. "How did you do that?" He demanded.
"I don't have an answer to that," She said, frowning. "It just...happened. You know, like, um, spidey-sense. Hurry up now. I don't want to be late for class."
"Spidey-sense." Jinmichae repeated, "Sure." He knitted his eyebrows together, watching her climb up the stairs to the front doors of the building.
"Or maybe it's the attribute that the Writer gave her back then that's slipping back." He said to himself, "This just keeps getting worse by the day. What's next, more murder attempts—yeah, coming!" Jinmichae trailed after Yeonha, with his fingers crossed behind his back.
What he wouldn't give for one day of peace.
◆◆◆
ugh you know that feeling when you have the entire scene imagined but you can't find the right words to pen it down? and then when you do, it sounds damn awful even though you swear that it seemed 1000x cooler in your mind?
yeah...that's what this fic feels like sometimes.
but there are also times when i proudly pat my back and say 'lmao shakespeare could never' (please that's a joke T^T)
i've been spending my days listening to folklore on repeat while struggling with assignments and online projects.
i also gave into peer pressure (i say peer pressure but it's not exactly that) and published a new jin textfic called 'The IT Crowd'. i should really focus on the ones i'm writing right now rather than start new books ugh. but i just loved the idea so much that i couldn't help it.
hope you guys are safe and healthy! drink your water. take your meds. see you next week💜