Astronomy // Duty After School

Chapter One.

Sobong (Y/n) found that her attention was again caught by the floating purple spheres that had turned up a little over a year ago. She remembered it quite clearly— South Korea had not been the first country to see the floating orbs. If she recalled correctly, it had been one of the countries in the two Americas that first had seen the orbs. Every country, at exactly midnight, would discover that their skies, too, now had the floating orbs. Scientists all over the world spent their night closely watching the sky, but still, no one could answer the question as to how the orbs appeared. Having seen several news articles that day, (Y/n) and her closest three friends went out and got a telescope— one that was not comparable to a scientist's— and watched the sky.
They were beautiful, (Y/n) had to admit. Especially at night as, even in the city of Seoul, they could still be seen with all of the city lights, unlike the stars, which (Y/n) would have to go out into the middle of nowhere to see. But going out into the wilderness was quite difficult without a car and without active parents to drive her around, so she could only see the stars online or during extracurricular trips.
(Y/n) swung the hand that held her indoor shoes back and forth. She wore dangly star earrings with small gem studs forming the stars' shape. She had a simple stud in her second lobe piercing and wore two (gold/silver) hoops in the double helix piercings she had in both ears. Her hair was in a ponytail, held by a scrunchie. The type of bangs her sister-in-law cut for her were capable of being styled as curtain bangs or as front-facing bangs depending on how (Y/n) chose to style them. The scrunchie she wore in her hair matched the below-the-knee socks she wore and the tie, in place of the uniform's bow, correlated with her plaid skirt. She wore two silver star clips on the right side of her head, going along with the star-themed earrings.

"Gosh," (Y/n) mumbled, tearing her eyes off the sky. She took out her compact mirror and used it to remove her hair roller and style her bangs as curtain bangs. She used the same compact mirror to apply lip gloss.

"(Y/n)!" exclaimed Hae Min-kyu, (Y/n)'s childhood friend, taking the girl by the shoulders and shaking her as though it was his goal to surprise her.

"Kyu," (Y/n) greeted nonchalantly. "Last weekend of Midsommar," she said.

"And then right into The Nutcracker," Min-kyu said quite tauntingly. (Y/n) side-eyed him bitterly. While (Y/n) didn't hate the ballet, her studio did The Nutcracker every year. With how long she's been at the same studio, she's played every part (other than the Nutcracker himself) at least once. "Your eyes are sparkly today." Makeup was prohibited at school, but (Y/n) discovered quite quickly that most people could not actually tell when makeup was being worn, so she really tested her limits. Most teachers didn't notice, and the ones that did, didn't say anything because (Y/n) was a good student that didn't cause problems for them.

"(Y/n)!" a voice hollered from above. (Y/n) stopped and looked up, spotting her classmates, Class 3-2, were leaning out of the windows. They all waved at her, but (Y/n) knew their voices well enough to know Kim In-hye had been the one who called out to her. (Y/n) returned the applicator to the tube of her lipgloss and waved up at her classmates. Min-kyu crinkled his nose up at them. There had always been quite a rivalry between him and Class 3-2. (Y/n) turned to get inside but halted at the sight of students hastily moving aside for a pair of boys on a motorcycle. They came to a stop in front of Min-kyu, (Y/n), and Class 3-2.

"What the heck are you doing?" Kwon Il-ha questioned.

"We're evading Wang Tae-man," Jo Yeong-shin answered. Above him, Kim Yu-jeong mouthed wordlessly as she pointed at the motorcycle.

"Again?" Il-ha grinned.

"Hey, Kwan Il-ha!" Choi Yeon-ju called. "Is a student allowed to ride bikes?"

"Of course not," Il-ha said pleasantly.

"He's coming, he's coming!" Wu Hui-rak exclaimed. Il-ha quickly took off and Hui-rak blew (Y/n) an over-the-top kiss.