HEART OF GOLD ↳ huh yunjin

02

YOON YEONA'S POV

immediately after the incident multiple students came to me, despite ms. park purting nam-ra in charge. some of them were asking me questions like who did it or what's gonna happen.

i was known to be a leader to my classmates, but i was just as scared as the rest of them were. they don't realize not even i know the answers to the questions they're asking, and i doubt nam-ra has any idea either.

"let's just relax and listen to what ms. park told us and finish our work" nam-ra tells the class of panicked students, although her words change nothing.

and in the midst of the panic, nobody seemed to notice me sneaking out of the class.

-

3RD PERSON POV

"yunjin-ah! i just saw hyeon-ju, she looks like a goddamn zombie!" chaewon exclaims, a panicked expression on her face, causing one to appear on yunjin's aswell.

"what do you mean a zombie?!" ryujin, a classmate of the two girls questions, suddenly interested in what chaewon has to say.

"i don't know, all i know is she looked, like, crazy, i really don't know how to describe it well, i mean i only saw her for a second"

"god chaewon, we know you like attention but isn't this too far?" another classmate responds, a boy nobody really liked, yunjin grimaced at the sight of him.

"i'm dead serious, i wouldn't lie about something like this"

"who was she with?" yunjin questions, and ignoring the boy to focus her attention on chaewon.

"ms. park and a couple other students, i really didn't see, they were all running" said chaewon. suddenly yunjin had an idea.

"mr. kwon, may i use the bathroom please?" she questioned, with a bright smile on her face. he nodded before returning back to his book.

as she made her way out the door she went the opposite direction to the nearest bathroom, instead she headed to the infirmary. she was curious, who wouldn't be when she was just told a classmate of hers was just walking around like a zombie from train to busan?

"shouldn't you be in class?" a girl in yunjin's year, yeona, question, scaring the girl infront of her.

"i asked to go to the nurse. what are you, a hall monitor all of a sudden?" yunjin was suprised at her own words, she usually didn't talk to people like that. but there was just something about the shorter girl infront of her that made her want to talk to her more, she really didn't know why she'd reply like that though.

"also, shouldn't you be in class too?" yunjin continued.

"i wanted to see if hyeon-ju was okay, she looked pretty messed up when i saw her"

"oh, she's in your class? what happened?"

"i really don't know, it happened all so quickly. all of a sudden she just like stumbled into class all bloody and said something about how the science teacher tied her up" yunjin's blood ran cold at the last of yeona's words. she didn't know what to think, who could be so sick to tie up a highschool girl?

yunjin no longer wanted to see hyeon-ju. maybe it was the way yeona described what she witnessed, her facial expressions when she mentioned the blood. all yunjin knew was something was telling her to avoid hyeon-ju at all costs.

"was there any chance that, she was acting like a zombie?" yunjin muttered out, her voice so quiet yeona barely heard it. the shorter girl didn't know whether to laugh or to be scared.

-

yeona never believed that bad things, such as a zombie apocalypse, would ever happen, atleast never in her lifetime. she believed bad things like that were something from a dystopian or horror movie.

but when everybody in the lunch room began running for their lives she realized bad things like that are possible, even for her.

she didn't remember what happened exactly. all she heard were the screams of the students she grew up with and making it into a classroom with multiple other students and ms. park. she truly thanked herself for spending 2 years of her life in track or else she probably wouldn't have made it into the classroom.

in the room with her was on-jo, yunjin, and several others.

yunjin took a moment to catch her breath? surely this would all pass through soon enough, right? the blonde had big dreams, become an idol and live a healthy life, she wouldn't want any zombie to ruin this for her.

truth is, everybody in the room had dreams they wanted to pursue. yeona wanted to pursue architecture, and maybe have a couple dancing gigs on the side, on-jo wanted to live a long happy life and have memories to tell her grandchildren, they all wanted something.

yunjin thought to herself, if this little zombie thing doesn't blow over, will she ever experience a warm summer day where she can just relax again? will any of them?

-

YEONA'S POV

"alright what the fuck just happened" i spit out, venom laced in my voice. on-jo grabs onto my arm to calm me down.

"i don't know, none of us do, the best we can do is wait and see" on-jo says, rubbing my shoulders.

"wait and see? if we wait and see we'll die on-jo" i continue. on-jo had never seen me like this, nobody has.

"don't talk to her like that!" cheong-san exclaims, grabbing onto my shoulder roughly.

"it's true cheong-san, now get your hands off of me" i tell him, doing the job for him and pushing him away from me, making him trip and fall to the floor.

"i get that you get angry when you're stressed but don't you think this is a little too far" on-jo exclaims. i don't know what took me so long to realize, maybe it was the way my classmates looked at me, some with disgust, some with fear.

"jesus, calm down guys, especially you yeona" su-hyeok says, finally shutting me up. i don't even respond, knowing he's right.

i would've gone to help cheong-san up and apologize, but with the way he's glaring at me i don't want to make the situation worse.

we all sit around for a while, i don't know if it's been minutes or hours at this point. i'm to scared to check the clock, fearing i might start another argument somehow. some words were spoken, but that's it.

in the midst of the silence, we heard a banging on the classroom door.

published; april 8th 2023

- velmei