CHAPTER IV

Suddenly, the burnt laboratory became the center of attention, like some artistic tourist attraction -- a statement in the power of flames and the fragility of material means. Or, well, just a trashed room that people felt compelled to look at. The door was locked and jammed, but the small window on it let anyone look at the state of it. Even the sill and corners of the windows had that distinctive burnt look, the curtains swallowed by the flames. Somehow, it was fascinating to look at.
 

To Lee Chaeryeong and Hwang Yeji, it was mildly amusing. Though, to Yeji, this wasn’t the first time looking at something burnt to a crisp. It certainly is the first time she experienced not being involved in it, as opposed to last time. Despite it being strangely fascinating, Yeji didn’t find the sight so intriguing to huddle around the door to see it. Tactfully, she retreated and grabbed Chaeryeong with her.
 

Choi Jisu certainly found it ghastly to look at, frowning at the damage and at the comments from her friends. After all, Jisu (THE Julia) never understood the hatred towards Mr. Lee and she could never understand the appraised Coach, who hated the Chemistry teacher. Which was the direct cause of this off-tune prank. This was petty, even to her who was hormonally petty sometimes, but she never surpassed the levels of stupidity that some of the men in the school. Junsu himself was that kind of athlete sometimes, overly petty and vengeful, but when he was around the football team wasn’t so barbaric and they seemed to have gotten worse. She moved on from the room and wondered what was the next off-tune prank.

Shin Ryujin certainly felt like this was an off-tune prank herself, and she didn’t need to be fully sober to know that. She knew of pranks, she knew she could go far sometimes, but she drew the line in complete destruction of property. School property was a gray line she drew herself, because she hated this school to guts, but to this magnitude was… unnecessary.

Let’s not forget dangerous, should they pin this incident on the wrong person. But the less she thought about it, the better.

Despite the cloudy mind and the zombie-like body, Ryujin was aware and functioning, but probably more annoyed than normal. Well, that was until Lunch rolled in.

The sober one of the Shins, Yuna, knew exactly what to do. The antidote for Ryujin’s hangover was nothing but a hearty meal full of proteins and perhaps some grease. Or maybe no proteins but whatever. For this, Yuna gave a big smile and a big wink to the lunch lady who was serving her food. With a knowing look and a small smile, the lady waved Yuna away with a gesture that reassured her that Ryujin would get the big bits of food, the special chocolate milk and an extra apple to quench the misfit’s thirst for a good, bright apple.

It worked, as it always does. Ryujin had devoured her meal, leaving nothing in the tray but the crumbs and the essence of what was once there, accompanied by the two eaten apples. Happily slurping the chocolate milk, while Yuna was still halfway with her meal, Ryujin finally smiled.

“Feeling better already?” Yuna asked with her mouthful.

Ryujin nodded, pulling away from her drink with a satisfied sigh. “Yeah. The headache is still there but, I feel less…”

“Dead?”

“Yeah,” Ryujin giggled. “I think my brain is back to normal.”

“I still feel like mine hasn’t come back to normal.”

“I feel like yours hasn’t come back at all,” Ryujin mumbled playfully, acting dumb as if she never said that.

Yuna’s dignified look was poised and innocent, but the kick to Ryujin’s shin was vile.

“Ow!”

“You caused it,” Yuna shrugged.

Ryujin pouted and looked away, feigning feeling upset until she noticed two people by the cafeteria’s door. She recognized one of them. Lee Chaeryeong, that cheerleader that even the popular girls dislike to some extent. A silly division between Team Lia and Team Chaeryeong, apparently. It was strange considering they were all a cheerleading team divided into two teams, as if that wasn’t stupid, but that was just implicit rather than a thing.

However, what piqued Ryujin’s interest was the girl beside her. Sunflower dress that looked so chic and pure, an equally chic ponytail and sharp eyes that were captivating to look at -- even at a distance. Fine posture, fine manners and very attention grabbing without having to do anything.

And it wasn’t a lie, either. All it took was to look around a little to notice that some people were also intrigued by this new girl. She looked too mature and poised to be a freshman and yet held that trademark nervous stance and glance that didn’t scream ‘I’m in my Senior Year’ to anyone.

Yuna, too distracted with her meal to notice, just commented. “You know, I should’ve made you play Moogoo Monkey before I gave you food, now that I think about it.”

Ryujin ignored the comment, watching the two girls walk towards the small line for lunch before she turned her attention back to her friend. “Who’s the new girl?”

Huh? Yuna looked up with confusion. “Who?”

“The new girl.”

Yuna squinted, shaking her head. “I don’t know?”

And that seemed to surprise Ryujin a bit. “How? You know everything.”

“Not this,” Yuna snorted before going back to her food.

Ryujin looked backwards again, hoping to find the girl, but instead was met with a sea of people eagerly chatting and discussing. Yet, no sign of her. Ryujin’s soft headache stopped her from looking further and forced to drink her chocolate milk and to stay put.

The small line of trays soon disappeared and spread across the cafeteria. With them was the dynamic duo, finding a private seat somewhere in the corner with just the two of them, sitting across from each other.

“So, I think after school I should give you a quick detour,” Chaeryeong said.

Yeji, who was quietly eating with elbows out of the table, nodded and waited to speak. She swallowed first and spoke softly to not disrupt the conversation of the rest of the cafeteria. “I think I would like that.”

“Hmm!” Chaeryeong began, stopping Yeji from speaking further. “I even have a secret spot for you to see, but don’t tell anyone, okay?”

Yeji giggled. “Ah, I don’t tell secrets.”

Chaeryeong looked around before she leaned closer. “Then, I can tell you anything?”

Yeji nodded, grabbing her apple.

“Then, I can tell you what I think about the fire?”

Shrug.

“Good!” Chaeryeong pushed her nearly empty tray away, more enticed by the conversation than her food. “I think I might know who did it.”

Yeji squinted. “Who?”

“There’s this girl Ryujin, you know, the one with the hawaiian shirt?”

“Oh, that girl,” Yeji said suddenly, her eyebrows knitted in sudden disapproval. “I’ve seen her.”

Chaeryeong shook her head. “She’s not so bad, but she does have a tendency to do a prank to open the year, each time.”

“Pranks?” Yeji didn’t like the sound of that. “What kind of pranks.”

“You know, pranks,” Chaeryeong shrugged. “The kind of farty cushion pranks sometimes, but one time she managed to hoist up one of the wrestler’s underwear as a flag once.”

Hwang Yeji, you came to one crazy school. “That’s… creative,” to say the least. Yeji bit into her apple and wondered if she would be subjected to some humiliation herself.

“I think she was also responsible for another prank involving Coach Choi -- he’s our coach still, by the way. What happened was that someone entered the school right after classes, just when no one was in the hallways and grabbed a bag--.”

Chaeryeong’s abrupt stop made Yeji raise her eyebrows.

“A bag of what?”

“A bag of… doodoo.”

The apple from Yeji’s hand dropped, she swallowed forcefully and she pushed her tray away. “Gross.”

“Yes I’m sorry, but she -- or, well, someone, we never really found out -- put it in front of the teacher’s lounge and set it on fire.”

“On… fire?”

“Yes, they pulled the alarm which made Coach Choi walk out of the teacher’s lounge. He saw the fire, he put it out with his feet and then realized his brand new sport shoes were covered in poop!”

Despite the grossness of the statement, Yeji couldn’t help but to feel that -- deep down inside -- it was a little funny, but she kept her face as neutral as possible. “Oh, dear.”

Chaeryeong shuddered at the thought, shaking her head. “Gross, gross.”

“Yes, it is, but at least it wasn’t… dangerous I think,” Yeji reasoned, and she had a point.

“That’s what bothers me,” Chaeryeong said, back on topic. “This one is too far, so I can’t shake the feeling that she may have had something to do with it. But Ryujin was never the type to go too far either.”

“What makes you think she wouldn’t? After all, the bag prank could’ve been hers.”

“Well, for one, she doesn’t hate Mr. Lee at all,” Chaeryeong raised her hands and shrugged. “She doesn’t like many teachers, Mr. Lee is one of those she likes. Secondly, the entire school reached the common consensus that it must’ve been one of the dropouts that did it, because it wasn’t the only prank they’ve done.”

The dropouts, by the way, were the kids that were expelled or dropped out of the school before graduating. One or two of them were actually graduated, but they never reached far even after college, meandering around the streets and getting into all sorts of trouble. It’s been noted that a lot of these people live in the poorer side of town, which makes it dangerous to go to. The younger dropouts like to with the student body of Maroon High, for some reason.

But Yeji didn’t ask about them. “So, you think this is a dropout’s prank again?”

Chaeryeong didn’t respond. Instead, she furrowed her eyebrows and looked somewhere behind Yeji.

When Yeji finally turned around, she saw what she knew was going to become a mess.

Choi Jisu (Yes, in fact, THE Choi Jisu) didn’t feel so good, stabbing the food on her tray while her squad talked about the latest gossip. No appetite suddenly, not even craving that good, nutritious apple. Amongst the list of gossips were the banal and trite reproaches and occurrences, stuff that Jisu has seen and heard before. Someone hooked up with another someone during summer, cheating on someone with someone, someone went overseas for vacation and did something. It was all ‘blah blah’ on Jisu’s ears, because no one was touching upon the actual gossip of the year.

The fire.

Seriously, it shouldn’t be this important for the students, because no one was hurt.

But…

The lingering question was too intriguing to ignore, almost too obvious, that it was the topic of conversation before the assembly. Jisu’s squad commented one or two things about it:

“It must be Ryujin.”

“Nah, I think it was Yuna. I always think that is crazy.”

“What if it was the dropouts?”

And somehow, everyone believed themselves when they spoke. Jisu said it aloud to herself, but didn’t feel her heart was on it. It must’ve been wrong, then. As strange as that sounded. Her intuition didn’t let it rest either, making her wonder, making her question.

Amongst her friends, she spoke out. “I don’t think it was any of them.”

Silence.

Then they moved from the topic, because to disagree with Jisu was a bad idea and Jisu kind of hoped someone would have disagreed. They didn’t, and so the topic moved on for a bit until a small group of the footballers sat next to them in the assembly and told them who did it. It was the captain of the team -- the very guy who had the gall to try and hit on Jisu when he broke up with his girlfriend of three years, Nam Taewoon -- and his two best friends.

And somehow, they were meaning to celebrate this little revenge they took on Mr. Lee, on the behalf of a very sour Coach Choi. So, suddenly, everything started to make a little sense. Jisu wouldn’t even be surprised if the man put the notion in their heads because he is literally a man-child.

They shared last names but luckily only shared that. Completely different personalities but both had strong characters that were never well mixed, especially because Coach Choi always found ‘cheerleaders’ useless and pompous. The coach in charge of the cheerleading team (Coach Kim, bless her entire soul in the best way possible), always ignored the man’s ludicrous rhetoric and focused on teaching and motivating the girls, taking her passion for Cheerleading seriously, as they cheered for both the Football team and the Basketball Team.

So, Mr. Choi was a perpetually angry individual who protected the football team far too much to be normal, and Jisu didn’t like it. This meant the boys could get away with a lot of things, despite being too stupid to pull it off sometimes.

When none of the girls said anything about the issue, Jisu felt her entire heart depleting. It’s been far too long since the girls just ignore the ty things the football team does.

Today wasn’t any different, especially when Taewoon and his little squad entered the cafeteria kicking the doors open and stomping their way towards the very hungover, very tranquil Ryujin.

“What--.”

One of the girls said, and Jisu had to stand up immediately, especially when they grabbed Ryujin by the collar and a good chunk of the cafeteria stood up without knowing what was happening.

Ryujin was too confused to understand what was happening, until her bleary gaze focused well on the usually cool and composed face of Nam Taewoon, now twisted with feigned rage.

“The is up with you, man?!” She shouted, pushing the football team’s captain away, soon noticing that her other misfit friends have gotten away from their tables and have come to the rescue. Yuna herself had butted right in front of Taewoon, soon becoming a protective wall to her dizzy Ryujin, while around her the crowd gathered.

Too much shouting, too many insults thrown about, and accusations flying left and right. The jocks were getting a bit violent out of nowhere, the basketball team -- as chill as they always were -- stepping in between the sizzling fight before it exploded while Ryujin’s fellow misfits (of all kinds) stepped up to the plate with fist clenched, apples half eaten in hand, bowls and trays at the ready.

“Uhh, is that normal?” Yeji asked in awe, a tiny bit frightened.

It’s not that her last school didn’t have this, but it was that the headmaster had spoken so well of this place to her father that this was quite… amusing, to say the least.

“It’s not,” Chaeryeong said, suddenly standing up and walking towards the mess.

“No, don’t!” Yeji warned but was ignored. And so she foolishly stood up as well and tried to catch up with the long strides from Chaeryeong.

She didn’t catch up, and inevitably ended up getting closer to the mess.

Then, somehow, out of nowhere, everyone was turning around to see her and she hadn’t understood why.

Until she saw that apple going full speed ahead to her nose.

Spaghetti flew everywhere, shouting and rough-housing threatened to truly break Ryujin’s eardrums. Someone had thrown an empty tray like a frisbee while others used it as a shield for the incoming projectiles of apples, milk cartons, and god knows what else.

A food fight had broken down in the midst of the confrontation and all Ryujin could truly envision was the absolute beast of a punch she managed to give that cocksure bastard. The next thing she knew, someone had thrown an apple to a girl who received it square on the nose -- a misaimed apple at that, because it was meant to hit Ryujin, but Ryujin had just moved out of the way. Somehow, for some goddamn reason, at the same time, Choi Jisu (with her whooping height of literally zilch next to tall and stout athletes) decided to try and keep the peace of the crew she usually supported and encouraged. Then, somehow, she had received a shove that made the athletes angry and made the misfits even angrier. Then, somehow, somehow, somehow, Chaeryeong got a full bowl of nice spaghetti to her hair which caused her to lose her marbles and grab someone else’s spaghetti to throw it to whoever did that.

Then the true chaos started: it escalated unnecessarily and then one by one people fell for the temptations of throwing food like dominoes. In the midst of the mess Ryujin gave away her strong fist for free to another idiot and knocked him out quite cold, but the rest of the boys were going at it -- hammer and tongs. Yuna herself had to give away a few punches and a headbutt, enjoying the sudden adrenaline spike. But Ryujin had other plans. Her head didn’t feel like fighting, nor head butting, so she slipped out of the crowd to compose herself and to stay away from trouble. Possibly to faint somewhere, or take a long nap.

Until she noticed sunflower dress girl, just getting up the floor, holding her nose in pain. “Oh ,” Ryujin mumbled and dashed over to help, grabbing the girl by her arms. “Are you okay?”

Though the question went unheard by the sudden hollering and the exclamations for the fight that had broken out. Someone yelling “GET HER JADE!” even though no one in this school was named Jade, another person yelling “HEY, THESE WERE BRAND NEW PANTS!” and other shenanigans.

Despite that, after the buzzing in Yeji’s ear stopped, she could hear Ryujin cooing her to get up.

“I hope my nose is not broken,” Yeji said softly, still holding her nose as she stood up with the help of those strong arms that she couldn’t recognize at first. “Oh my god, that hurts--.”

“Here, let me see,” Ryujin said softly, grabbing her hand and gently pulling it away.

And then their eyes met, the world around them stopping.

Light brown pairs connected with the sharp, dark brown ones. A jolt traveled down their spine at the same time, hands touching, the world in frozen chaos, but they -- in that moment, as quick as it was -- were at full peace. Everything was meaningless, words were gibberish and the stars gasped at the purity of their connection.

Then the moment was over and Yeji moved away; the red, lively color of her blood sliding down her nose and onto her lip as she looked at her hands, also stained with the blood.

Absolute, total chaos. Every bit of it.

Only strange bits and pieces fit in the memory of Ryujin. She remembers very vaguely seeing Chaeryeong and Lia arguing, Yuna knocking another guy cold while she exclaimed for them to come at her if they dared, and the rest of the cafeteria sending food to the sky with no regards for it, while the freshman huddled for safety with one another.

Then, abrupt silence. The secretary, the annoying math teacher and coach Choi all standing in the cafeteria doors.

“Ah, ,” mumbled Shin Ryujin.