CHAPTER V

All four girls were seated and sticky at the principal’s office. Shin Yuna sat unusually straight to avoid feeling that… gross sensation that she could not describe neither wanted to, while her friend Ryujin was slumped on the uncomfortable wooden chair -- quietly defying the authority of the pristine man in front of them. Choi Jisu sat upright with her arms crossed and her stone face on while Lee Chaeryeong was next to her fiddling with her fingers and letting her leg bounce away the anxiety. No one was looking at the Principal in the eye, even if he himself ignored them to look at some documents. Behind the girls was none other than Mr. Lee himself, arms crossed and looking mildly sad while Coach Choi stood like superman with arms akimbo and hands on his hips. His age was showing, but his ego persevered. 

In reality, they were waiting.

I did say FOUR girls.

When the wooden door opened, all their heads snapped instantly to the poor girl walking in, our Hwang Yeji whose nose is not broken but very sore and awful looking. She didn’t even bother to look up at the girls at first, dwelling in the uncomfortable (and frankly unwarranted) pain. She only briefly glanced at the Principal, whose impassive face only read indifference, as if he was content she wasn’t sent to the hospital but not quite caring enough for the mishap.

“The nurse says she doesn’t need medical attention, she should be fine,” the secretary said from behind Yeji, out of sight from the teachers’ eyes but not for the students who shuddered looking at that perpetually grim and upsetting eyes just idly by behind the new student. That woman always gave them the creeps for many reasons, and god bless Yeji didn’t know anything.

“Thank you,” the Principal said -- not flourishing his sentence, oddly enough -- and waving her away. When the door closed, he looked back down his papers and pointed to the chair already taken by the hungover Ryujin. “Please have a seat, Ms. Hwang.”

She nodded and walked right to the last, empty chair, sitting down immediately and holding her nose.

“Are you okay?” Chaeryeong was the first to ask, making Yuna lean forward to check on Yeji, too. Jisu followed briefly and Ryujin didn’t even bother to move an inch.

“Yes,” Yeji merely responded with a groan. “Just hurts a ton.”

Jisu scoffed. “Well, I think you should thank Ryujin for that.”

Only then Ryujin moved her head, eyebrows knit together as they have been for over an hour. “Hey, I didn’t--.”

“SHUT UP!” Coach Choi shouted right away, bringing the office back to complete silence.

And of course, making the principal freeze for only a second before the man composed himself. “Thank you, Coach Choi.”

“You’re very welcome, Sir.”

Ryujin went back to brooding, Jisu lifted her chin and kept her arms crossed while Chaeryeong, still fiddling with her fingers, checked up on Yeji until the principal hummed to get all their attention. Finally, he started to speak and internally all the girls wished that this wouldn’t spark a full on monologue.

What is it? You don’t want to hear it? Well, just because I like you I will sum it up for you. A good condensed conclusion. 

Short version: there is none.

Longer version? A despicable performance at the lunch table today! In front of everyone, as well. New students, old students, teachers, lunch ladies and the sports team. How unproper from four fine ladies and Ryujin--.

“H-hey!” Yuna and Ryujin said together.

“Shut up!” The coach howled once again.

The principal continued his garishly decorated speech that oozed too much thesaurus. It was the first day and there were already people sitting in the principal’s office, which is not a good image for the clean and pristine Maroon High. Author’s note on that one? That’s bull, but the man was blind to whatever he wanted to ignore. Like truly, truly blind. A strange gift, for sure, and very convenient for his hawk-like eyes on situations that didn’t seem to bother anyone or anything. Also, stressing so much over this seemed a futile effort to reprimand the wrong people, for no reason anyone could think of. There were already a myriad of problems to attend to at the very moment, one of them being the burnt classroom and the make-shift laboratory that they had to wrangle up for Mr. Lee.

Speaking of which, Mr. Lee, at the mention of his classroom, looked down and gulped the quiet rage forming in his throat, not noting the flash of a cocky smile on the Coach. No one saw it, no one could say anything about it.

However, at the mention of fire, Ryujin tensed up a bit and released the tension quickly but rather suspiciously. No one really noticed, except the Coach who was ready to confirm the looming theory that it had been in fact Ryujin, but couldn’t go off of just a shift or a fidget. He had his eyes on her, and Ryujin knew this.

Even Yuna knew this, who raised her hand to ask the obvious. “Do we know who did it, yet?”

Everyone looked at Yuna, then at the principal.

His response had a brief pause at the beginning before he pursed his lips and shook his head. “No, we don’t know yet.”

“But we’re going to find them,” Coach Choi butted in with his voice far too loud for anyone’s liking. Ryujin was the first to flinch and the headmaster was the last. Hell, it felt like it exarcerbated Yeji’s own pain. He cleared his throat and leveled his volume, but didn’t let the aggressiveness die off his voice. “They will pay for what they did. Won’t they, Ryujin?”

Ryujin closed her eyes to avoid letting the principal see her eyes rolling, she slumped back and merely gave a noise of approval. Chaeryeong was watching nervously while forming her own theories while Jisu looked like she was… more upset than usual. She was always pissed about something, but at the moment she seemed to be fuming far more than Yeji herself, who has sore.

However, the topic was soon waved away with more in-coming information. The information was wrapped around in a tinfoil of decorum, but the message was the same. 

Everyone in that room, including the poor Hwang Yeji, were up for detention. 

“WHAT?!” All the girls stood up, except Ryujin, who couldn’t even bother standing up.

“QUIET!” Coach Choi commanded and they all sat down. 

… Except Jisu whose face was the pure embodiment of ire at the moment. “What do you mean, detention?”

“Precisely that, young lady. Detention--.”

“Bull!”

And everyone was starting to get a little nervous there. Mr. Lee, included. Hwang Yeji was confused but terrified. She didn’t know Jisu all that much yet, but everyone knew that when Jisu wanted to fight she would fight tooth and nail until she either reached a compromise or won, straight up.

But she didn’t have any indication of bending the principal’s will or achieving a compromise today.

“What about the football team? They were there and they started a fight,” Jisu said, leaning against the table. “Why aren’t they getting detention?”

“I spoke to them and they said--.”

“I am being punished for just being in the Cafeteria when this happened, is that it?”

“Shut up and sit down, Ms. Choi!” Coach Choi said. “The football team had no involvement in this whatsoever and we know this.”

Mr. Lee, who had been immobile for the past hour or so, suddenly rose his head to watch both the Principal and the Coach. Just moments ago they were considering if punishing the football team for being involved. They didn’t know about starting a fight, but they knew about them being involved. He was going to rise his hand to speak, but the Principal ignored him.

“Besides, they can’t miss practice, not two weeks away from a game--.”

The… game? Mr. Lee understood everything, they were protecting the football team. Especially because involved within them was the captain. Moreover, their insistence to punish Ryujin who -- at the moment -- had only been breathing seemed…

Dumb.

Things were starting to get out of control, Yeji could sense it by the way her nose trotted up again in pure soreness. She was even ready to break up the fight.

“Woah, woah,” Yuna rose up, hands in the air as well. “They were literally the ones that started it. They grabbed Ryujin and started a scuffle out of nowhere.”

“Y-Yeah,” Chaeryeong piped up nervously. “Taewoon was trying to--.”

“SILENCE!” The principal finally said, standing up from his desk and directly defying Jisu, who refused to sit down as opposed to everyone. “My word is final, Choi Jisu.”

“Your word is bull, old man.”

“You got another week of detention for your disrespectful foul mouth, you want another one?”

Ryujin stood up, slowly but cooly. “If you’re going to throw someone in detention, throw me, not Jisu. She didn’t do anything.”

“Yes, thank you, hoodlum,” Jisu said.

“Oh, you, but you’re welcome,” Ryujin groaned.

“Then another week of detention for you too, Ryujin,” the principal piped in immediately, slamming his palm against the desk. “Now, sit down.”

“Oh man,” Chaeryeong whimpered softly to herself. “We’re ed.”

“You want one, too?” Coach Choi said to Chaeryeong, whose eyes were wide and her body was completely frozen. “You guys can talk all day and we won’t get tired.”

“Just for saying ?” Yeji interjected for the first time, pretty lost in everything.

“Another one for you, too.”

“!” Yuna said enthusiastically, just because, out of the sheer absurdity of the situation.

“Enough!” Mr. Lee shouted, then silence befell the principal’s office.

Interrupted only by the ringing bell.