» Chase : Part 1 — ❝ Cyclorama ❞

Cyclorama : A curved wall or drop at the back of a stage, used for creating an illusion of unlimited space or distance in the background of exterior scenes or for obtaining lighting effects..

Thursday

August 29

17:06

Newspaper Clubroom

“Have you told Baekhyun?”

Putting his ear on the door, said guy tried to hear what his colleagues were talking about. Having just finished his classes of the day, he had decided to swing by the clubroom to get some work done. But when he had reached for the doorknob, he had noticed people were talking about him and, being the curious guy he was, had decided to spy on them.

“And face his wrath, no way!”

Was that how people perceived him, a guy who would easily get angry when things didn’t go the way he wanted them to?

“But still, someone should tell him…”

 “What are you doing? You know you can go in, right?”

Baekhyun turned around to meet Jung Byunghee, newspaper club’s adviser and former student of Unmyeong. He basically hung around the newspaper club like a coach would with a sport team.

“They are talking about me,” Baekhyun pointed out.

Byunghee shrugged and opened the door himself. “Great people discuss ideas, average people discuss event and small people discuss people.”

In the club’s room, everyone froze as both guys entered. They sat at their respective desk and got to work immediately.

“Oh, by the way, you should check out the school’s website,” the adviser told the aspiring journalist.

Other member of the club gasped and Baekhyun just raised a brow. Logging into his computer, he typed in the school’s website’s address and waited for the page to load. It took longer than usual and Baekhyun blamed the poor network connection. Really the Wi-Fi was sometimes so infuriating.

They say the first step of the grieving process is denial. As Baekhyun began reading the new surprising page that had replace the school’s homepage, his first reaction was to shut the window off and open a new one. However, as her repeated the process of logging in, he realize maybe that page was there for real. Skeptically reading the description of the page and the first confessions that had been posted earlier today, Baekhyun realized just how bad this page was for his own section. On Spotted, people had the chance to share gossip anonymously, but also react and make assumptions. It was a whole new level of information sharing. For as long as he had been part of the newspaper club, ever since he first came to Unmyeong, Baekhyun had owned a page that informed people on events, social life and gossip. And it was way harder then it looked because the school had approximately 1000 students some of which barely went to school. So finding news everyone would know about was hard. There were very few people in this school all thousand students knew. All didn’t know even the student council…

The second step was anger. And in this optic, maybe Baekhyun’s colleagues were right to be scared of him. For a second he was carefully scanning through the confessions and the next he was banging his closed fist on the wooden desk, causing the pencil cup to dangerously lean over the edge. He grabbed it before it fell over and slammed it back in his place. He was breathing hard and his jaw was clenched. From the corner of his eye, Byunghee calmly noticed Baekhyun’s shaking foot, proving he had energy and was probably about to explode.

“What is this?” Baekhyun shouted as he got up. Byunghee was right about exploding…

“It suddenly appeared on the school’s homepage early this morning. Students have started sharing what they call ‘confessions’ all through the day,” one other journalist explained carefully.

“This is all the school’s direction fault. If they didn’t control the newspapers’ publications such a thing wouldn’t happen because people would be satisfied by our work!”

“Watch it, Baek,” warned Byunghee. “I don’t like how you are implying readers are dissatisfied. As a journalist, you should back up your information and I don’t see any relevant source.”

Baekhyun shot him a dark glare. Now wasn’t the time for an internal conflict. Now, they had to go to the school’s board and get them to shut down that page for good before it did any more damage.

It was his entire fault readers were dissatisfied with his section. He was a bad journalist. If only he could have done better, then people wouldn’t have felt the need to create Spotted. Or if he had though of the page first! He could have come up with it and all would have been great. If only he had taken fewer classes every semester, he would have had more time to work on his articles. How could he pretend he was a good journalist if he didn’t treat his work seriously? If only he had worked harder…

There went bargaining, quickly followed by depression. Sitting down, Baekhyun held his face in his hands. It was all over. His section was over, his career was over and his life was over. He should just quit everything because why bother doing something you are not good at. Why should he pretend like he had talent when in fact he real badly? Without the will to become a journalist, what was left? He could always drop out of school and start working in a big box store in an ugly uniform, servicing clients who were never content. Maybe that was his fate, since he didn’t seem to have one any longer…

And then… Acceptance.

Wait a minute! He wasn’t a bad journalist! And he loved what he did. Maybe his section was over, but he could always do other things. Maybe it was his chance to finally get to write about important issues the school faced. Turning to his superior, Baekhyun asked Byunghee what he thought Spotted meant for the future of his section.

“You’ll keep writing it,” the older guy said. “However, if you find a big scoop, I’ll publish it and switch you to other kind of articles.”

That seemed to be enough. Baekhyun got up from his seat and took his bag as he quickly excited the room, looking for his big scoop. And what would be more interesting than a story about Spotted’s creation? If only he could find its creators…

Thursday

August 29

18:13

Scenography Clubroom

Jaeun placed her paintbrush down for a second, pushed her glasses back at their rightful place with her ring finger – the only finger that wasn’t covered in green paint – and wondered for a moments if her way of doing things was alright. Looking at her cube dubiously, she glanced on the side at the other members of the theater group that were practicing, painting and taking sizes for eventual costumes. Final roles weren’t decided yet, but Jaeun knew for sure some seniors would be chosen to play the lead because that was just the way things were. For reasons of speed and habit, seniors learned their text more easily and always gave better performance. Maybe it had to do with the fact that once their university exam were done they could relax. Or maybe it was because they already knew how exhausting college could be…

It was Jaeun’s second year in the group and she had become quite familiar with the other members. Or at least she knew their names. Perhaps Jaeun wasn’t the most social person in the club… and perhaps she wasn’t the one with the best artistic sense either. Cocking her head on the side, she tried to change her point of view on the cube but it was still a painfully unelaborated forest under a blue sky. This year, the theater group had planned on doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream and tried using a new way of doing the set. They had planned on installing a projection of a background and columns made of piles of cubes that would show four different locations on each face and allow the set to be changed easily by spinning the cubes. The particular part she was working on was one for the background, but others could be more versatile. For example, one cube was designed to be a log, a throne and a fire.

Retracing one line over, Jaeun did her best to make it look pretty and realistic. She always worked hard even if it wasn’t her usual role in the club. She was normally behind the scenes as one of the coordinators. She would give the cues to the guys in charge of the music and lighting and she would help in changing the set. This year, she had taken a class of scenography in hopes of getting better in creating the set.

As she worked on her club assignment, she kept thinking the play this year was sort of ironic. There was this love square part of which was about unrequited love. Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius and Helena… In a very twisted way, her friend Jonghyun was like Demetrius, claiming to be in love with the pretty Hermia, Hyelim. And in this version, she would play Helena, the one who wants to be with Demetrius, even though he keeps shutting her off. Hopefully, Jonghyun would come to understand he couldn’t be with Hyelim and turn to her instead. Just for him, she didn’t mind being second choice as long as he chose her.

Speaking of him, he had acted weirdly the day before. He hadn’t eaten lunch with her, leaving her to eat on her own, and he had even missed a class. This didn’t seem like him at all. Jaeun was beginning to think maybe he was avoiding her. She knew tonight he would be in the Student Council room, but she was stuck in club activities. Her pride made her unable to simply walk out on her job, but if she finished quickly, then it would be okay.

Few minutes later, she excused herself saying she had Student Council duties to take care of, which wasn’t completely a lie. As she was walking toward the room, she practically bumped into someone while turning the corner. Taking a step back, she thought she avoided the collision, but the guy slipped and fell down, grabbing her hand in the process. She found herself on the floor next to the guy in question that was getting up and rubbing his face to ease the pain.

“So sorry!” he apologized as he helped her up.

“It’s fine. I’m okay, you are okay, no worries.”

She spun on her heel and entered the room.

“Ah!” she heard him say before she could close the door behind her. She looked at him with a raised brow.

“You are a member of the Student Council?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she simply stated, not wanting to explain how she wasn’t really a fixed Chair but more of an assistant.

“Then, could I get your impression on the Spotted page?”

“What? Who are you and what are you talking about?” she was starting to get annoyed with the guy but refused to let it show.

“I’m Byun Baekhyun,” the guy introduced himself. “I’m part of the Newspaper Club and I’m doing an article on Spotted.”

“Yeah, thanks, but I’m not interested.”

She shut the door with a smile, trapping him out of the room. And to make sure he wouldn’t enter, she locked the door. Rolling her eyes, she went to her seat, next to Jinah’s desk. He wanted her opinion for an article? How about ‘no way’?

Jaeun was alone and she had neither an evasive friend to grill nor any real homework to do, for now, so she just connected into the computer. School computers like the one she was using always opened on the school’s homepage. As Spotted automatically popped in the window, she wondered if this was what the strange guy was talking about. Spotted. Curiosity taking over her, she began reading the description and scroll down to access some confessions. There was even a link to submit some.

“What is that?” she whispered, eyes widening.

Author's Note :

» The title of this first part of Chase was kinda random, but I liked the idea of the title being a stage prop and furthermore, it give an illusion of 'background' which is kinda what Jaeun (and Baekhyun, to a certain degree) is feeling like for the moment...

» A Midsummer Night's Dream wasn't such a random choice, you'll see. XD Hopefully, the love square won't get so messed up as in the play. And Jaeun is kind of not seeing the bigger picture. XD