Red Yarn: Chapter 01

            Taking slow and steady steps towards school, he lazily lifts his owl like eyes up from the ground to the grey clouded sky above. He shivers slightly from the morning air, although he doesn’t really mind it since likes the feeling of the cold breeze grazing against his cheeks. A ray of sunlight then glistens across his delicate face, making his large eyes squint slightly in the process. He sighs in content from the ray’s warmth and smiles. Maybe the sun will finally come out from hiding today.

            He soon reaches the school gates and quietly treads his way into the main hallway. He huffs out an irritated breath once his eyes settle themselves onto the large clumps of students who were aimlessly crowding around in the hallway. He skillfully maneuvers his way through a loud group of gossiping girls and some rowdy boys before reaching his locker. He opens it quickly and removes a slightly worn mathematics book out from its confines. He then hurriedly closes up his locker and finds himself dashing away from the bustling students. He slowly looks back down the hallway and without realizing he pouts in annoyance. He shakes his head and continues onward to his first class. Everyone seems so riled up today he thinks to himself.

            The classroom contained only a couple of students by the time he entered, although their banter was loud enough to be considered a classroom filled with many students. He swiftly made way to his desk, which was a window seat stationed near the back of the class. He settled down in his seat and glazed his sight over to the outside world. He liked this seat since it showcased the school’s newly redecorated flower garden.

            During lunch time he would often go there by himself to eat his lunch. It was always peaceful there since no one ever spent their time there anyway. He cherished the quiet atmosphere it gave. It allowed him to think straight and lifted his worries away. It’s not like many students noticed him anyway so being alone was nothing new to him. It was a comfortable feeling to him really. It was, let’s say, normal for him to be alone. As fog began to cloud the outer edges of the window, he sighed to himself and looked down to the worn out mathematics book that was placed on top of his desk. He stared at it, slowly dozing off into a daydream. A sudden cheery voice calls out to him immediately disrupting his daze.

            “Kyungsoo-ah!”

            He picks his head up and faces his seat neighbor, slightly raising a brow. It was one of the school’s very own “princes” out from the few the school had.  His name is Byun Baekhyun, a favorite among the girls, even the boys for that matter, for his feminine features and caring nature. His signature eye smile makes one fall instantly for his charm, which he used quite often to his advantage. He was the type of person who naturally drew people in just from his beauty alone. He also had a strange for eyeliner, which many found odd, but never questioned since Baekhyun effortlessly made it look hot.

            “Baekhyun-ah?”

            “Are you excited for the school festival next week?” He asked happily as he took his seat next to Kyungsoo.

            “Aniyo.”

            “Y-you’re not?”

            Kyungsoo sighs, “Should I? It’s just another school festival.”

            “Well, aren’t you a part of the school’s musical play? I see you at practice sometimes.”

            Kyungsoo’s eyes widen from this. Byun Baekhyun has actually seen him at practice? He was usually hidden away in the corner of the drama room during practice. He never thought someone would actually take the time to notice his presence.  Kyungsoo quickly shrugs it off and looks to the floor, “Not really. I just take care of the props and stuff.”

            Baekhyun smiles, “So? You’re still a part of the play even though you’re not performing in it.”         

            “I guess…” He mumbles.

            The classroom’s boisterous banter suddenly dwindles to quiet whispers, almost becoming silent altogether. Kyungsoo realizes this and rolls his eyes. He turns his attention back to his window, ignoring all of Baekhyun’s attempts in trying to talk to him again. The only cause for Kyungsoo’s classmates to suddenly quiet down is no other than the presence of one person. Kim Jongin.

            Jongin, known more specifically as Kai, was the school’s ultimate mystery boy. He was naturally talented in dancing as well as having extremely good looks, in which all the boys envied and all the girls drooled upon. He kept to himself mostly and if he had to speak, his words would usually come out in very blunt phrases. He also likes to go with the flow of things as long as it didn’t bother him too much.

            Jongin enters the classroom with an expressionless face. He yawns and casually makes his way to his desk, which is ironically behind Kyungsoo’s. He plops himself into his chair and gives a quick ‘hey’ to Baekhyun before he’s suddenly surrounded by squealing girls from his class. He sighs to himself and quickly dashes his eyes to each of their faces before his eyes land directly behind Kyungsoo’s head. He quickly ignores the girls and continues his staring, a quiet smile forming delicately upon his plump lips. He then shakes his head, his smile now formed into a thin line. Luckily none of the girls saw. They were too busy chattering in their annoying high pitched voices anyway.

            The rest of the day passes by extremely slow for Kyungsoo. When school finally ends he finds himself dragging his feet to the drama room for practice. He sighs heavily to himself. He really doesn’t want to show up for practice, but he knows that he has to at least finish the rest of the props by today. How the heck did I get myself dragged into doing this? He whines to himself in his head. He opens the door and immediately spots Jongin standing in the middle of at least ten other students, most of them girls, of course. Oh and there’s Baekhyun who was awkwardly standing next to some extremely tall curly haired boy. Kyungsoo looks away and dully walks off to the corner of the room. His corner really since that’s where he always goes to fix up the stage props and busy his time away. Sometimes he would watch the others from there or just doze off for the majority of practice.

            Jongin watches Kyungsoo with careful eyes as he walks to the corner of the room. The smaller boy is now sitting cross legged on the bare floor, his back facing towards everyone. Jongin’s attention falls back to his hyung, a boy named Kim Joonmyun, who was obviously the student director of the play since he was wildly waving his arms around trying to get everyone to settle down. There was a clipboard clutched tightly in one of Joonmyun’s hand while the other held onto a microphone. Jongin quickly steals another glance at Kyungsoo before reluctantly giving his full attention back to Joonmyun.

            Kyungsoo sighs for the nth time. It’s been at least thirty minutes into practice now and he’s as bored as hell could be. He then notices something red sticking out from a dusty box and so he reaches his hand over and pulls at it realizing that it was yarn. He scrunches his eyebrows together wondering to himself what the past drama students were planning to use this for. He pulls the box closer to him and peers inside. There’s an assortment of weird trinkets inside, which he assumed were past stage props. What caught his eyes though were the many balls of red yarn that were also inside. For some reason Kyungsoo decided to take a couple. It’s not like anyone was going to really use this, right? Besides the yarn was actually pretty soft, not in any way nappy or scratchy and it might prove to be useful somehow.

            He opened his backpack to place them inside and as he finished zipping up his backpack he heard a loud smack followed by a yelp. Kyungsoo stood up from his crouched position, dropping his backpack, and looked towards the crowd of students on the stage. Two girls seemed to be in a death fight against one another since one of the girls had somehow gotten a hold of the other girl’s hair and was pulling it back. Hard. Then there goes another slap to the face. Kyungsoo was finding this rather amusing in a pathetic kind of way.

            Joonmyun finally manages to break the two girls apart, although his victory got his face severely scratched on both sides. Both of the girls huffed at each other and waved their hairs out of their face. Kyungsoo believes the blonde one is named Tiffany and the brunette was Jessica. Tiffany played the female lead role, the princess, while Jessica played as the maid. They’ve always had a fit with their roles since Jessica believes she should have gotten the lead role instead of Tiffany.

              “Would you two ever stop fighting?” Joonmyun says curtly, “The winter festival is in a week. A WEEK! We have to get everything perfect and that can’t happen if you two keep doing this!”

            “B-but, but…oppa!” Jessica screams while stomping a little, “It’s not fair! Can’t we just skip the kissing scene? Tiffany isn’t allowed to kiss Kai-oppa!” Her arms are now crossed over her chest.

            Joonmyun rolls his eyes then pinches the bridge of his nose. What is wrong with these girls? He jabs his clipboard to Jessica’s forehead. Tiffany snickers at her slightly.

            “I’m the director and you will do as I say. We can’t skip that scene because it’s a crucial part of the play so stop whining. And you!” It was Jessica’s turn to snicker as Joonmyun jabs the clipboard to Tiffany’s forehead now, “Don’t get any ideas.”

            Tiffany rubs her forehead with a pout, “Alright, alright…”

            Joonmyun narrows his eyes slightly at her before jumping off the stage. He then claps his hands together and brings outs his microphone, “Alright, chop, chop, back to Act III Scene ii. C’mon, let’s move people, let’s move… I said MOVE, DAMN IT!”

            Students started to run around each other in panic, trying their best to get back into their positions to avoid a potential knock on the head from his clipboard. Joonmyun is a really nice guy. No, really like seriously he is. Always smiling away like the angel that he is, it’s just when it comes to drama and theatrics he gets kind of cranky. Especially when things aren’t perfect like the way he wants them to be. Oh, for the record, he’s also the student body president by the way. 

            Kyungsoo purses his lips as he watches the students run about on stage. Since it was a musical play, everyone basically sang their parts. Literally. Like every single freakin line of the play. At least the students that were performing had decent voices, well maybe except for poor Donghae. Sadly he has a bit of a cold at the moment.

            Once everyone was settled Baekhyun began to sing his part. He played the knight and best friend of the prince, who was obviously played by no other than Kim Jongin. Kyungsoo sat back down on the floor listening rather intently to Baekhyun’s voice. He never really liked how much that guy talked and rattled on in real life, but he had to admit that Baekhyun actually had a pretty nice singing voice. 

            Jongin was now singing his part. Kyungsoo thought Joonmyun must have been crazy since Jongin’s voice wasn’t really considered a strong enough vocal for the main role, but he was positive Jongin only got the part because of his looks. As Jongin continued singing, Kyungsoo found himself staring at the boy. He’s known Jongin since the beginning of their high school life, but never cared to really look at him or know him. Kyungsoo then looked to the floor as thoughts began to creep into his mind. Jongin had a nice deep voice. His singing didn’t flow all that well, but he liked Jongin's deep husky voice, definitely more than Baekhyun’s.

            It was now nearing the kiss scene. Kyungsoo hadn’t come to the practices when they would rehearse this part so everything was a bit new to him. Since Kyungsoo had finished up the last of his props he decided it wouldn’t hurt to watch a little bit before sneaking out of practice to go home.

            Tiffany came onto the stage and dramatically sang out her parts, which made Kyungsoo laugh quietly to himself. She was just a bit too dramatic. His interest perked up when Jongin started to sing with her in a duet. His hands were now wrapped around her waist. They were dancing formally with one another while they continued to sing. Tiffany was enjoying Jongin’s embrace, maybe a little bit too much, although Kyungsoo could tell Jongin was forcing out a smile as he held her. They ended their last note together and Jongin leaned Tiffany backwards after twirling her around once. The song had wrapped Kyungsoo so deeply into the scene that his eyes had widened in anticipation.

            Tiffany closed her eyes and puckered out her lips quite comically, making everyone laugh quietly in the background. Jongin leaned in forward and Kyungsoo unconsciously did too from where he was sitting, waiting for the moment to happen, but nothing happened only that Jongin’s eyes had lifted up and that his line of sight was directed right to Kyungsoo.

            Kyungsoo had to blink several times before he realized that Jongin was really staring at him. His heart immediately started to ram against his chest and Kyungsoo couldn’t understand why. Suddenly Jongin smirked at him. Kyungsoo’s immediate reaction was to stand up. He was feeling somewhat confused, embarrassed, and angry. Kyungsoo quickly turned around and grabbed his backpack, feeling his cheeks getting hot. Was he blushing? There was no way Kyungsoo was staying in here any longer. He cursed himself for even staying at all.

            Jongin’s eyes saddened slightly when Kyungsoo had turned around to grab his backpack. Did he upset him? Jongin only smirked since he felt too unconscious to do anything else. He didn’t really mean to lock his eyes with Kyungsoo. It just kind of happened. As Kyungsoo walked out of the room, not sparing another glance back, Jongin stood up, completely forgetting that Tiffany was still in his arms at the moment. He unconsciously let go and Tiffany fell to the stage floor, her eyes opening in shock. Everyone gasped and rushed over to her. Joonmyun began yelling into his microphone, waving his clipboard like a crazy madman to get them to back away. Jongin paid no attention since he was too busy staring after Kyungsoo’s figure through the classroom windows.

            “Kyungsoo…” He whispered quietly under his breath.

            Later that day Kyungsoo was lying on his bed. He was twirling a strand of the red yarn that he had found in the drama room today between his fingers. He heaved a sigh before sitting upright. Jongin staring at him in the practice room kept replaying over and over in his mind. Kyungsoo was really starting to question why he was so fixed upon this. It’s not like he ever paid attention to Jongin before so why suddenly now?

            “Aish!” Kyungsoo viciously messed up his hair with both of his hands, “What is wrong with me?”

            He dragged his hands down to his face, feeling something soft in between his fingers. He opens his eyes and groans. How could he forget the yarn was still in his hands? Now it was a tangled mess. Kyungsoo delicately untangles them, the last strand wrapped around his pinky finger. He suddenly thought back to the musical play again.

            The play, in general, is about two lovers who are bound together by the red string of fate. The princess is a mere servant when she first meets the prince and their relationship isn’t the greatest at first, although later in the play the two become inseparable as they both fall in love. Tragically the princess dies, but is reborn again through reincarnation and meets the prince again, only that this time they are together during the modern era. A typical kind of storyline you would encounter through a Korean drama, but it didn’t really bother Kyungsoo since he liked stories that had the red string of fate included in it.

            He stared at the red yarn still wrapped around his little pinky figure and wondered to himself where his other fated half could be before taking it off and slipping away into a deep sleep. 

            The next day Kyungsoo continues with his usual morning routine and walks to school with wide eyes, hoping that the sun will come out through the thick grey clouds above like yesterday, even if for a moment. Once he gets to school he goes straight to his locker, again avoiding the crowd of gossiping girls and rowdy boys. He shakes his head as he takes out his worn mathematics book. He closes his locker and turns around, but his back is quickly slammed back into his locker. Kyungsoo clumsily fumbles his hold on his math book before clutching it tightly across his chest in attempt to protect himself as he stares with wide eyes at his sudden attacker.

            Who would have thought? It’s none other than the student play director, slash, student body president, Kim Joonmyun.

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A/N:

Ugh, parts of this were written while I was half-asleep, please forgive me…

Anyway I hope this first chapter suffices. I always have the hardest time writing the first chapter and I usually write in first person so I hope it didn’t come out bad. I’m trying to practice writing in third person.

Please comment! ^^ (or else I'll come after you with Joonmyun's clipboard...). It helps my motivation. =P

And Thank you for reading and subscribing! =)

<3 dububrit-on