Astronomy // Duty After School

Chapter Twenty-Five.

(Y/n) redid her ponytail, subtly undoing her guitar pick necklace. She then grabbed an empty paint can and a stick to hit it with. She grew more nervous as she faced the doors and swallowed thickly, avoiding anyone else's eyes. So-chul and Tae-man were the two preparing to open the doors and (Y/n) subtly slipped something into Jang-su's hand as he stood beside her.

"Go ahead," (Y/n) said. So-chul and Tae-man stared for a long moment.

"(Y/n)! Be safe!" Yeon-ju whisper-shouted. (Y/n) took a sharp intake of air and nodded.

"Stay alive," So-chul whispered pleadingly as he and Tae-man opened the latch and pushed open the doors.

"Seriously. We mean it," Tae-man said, placing a hand on (Y/n)'s shoulder and making her jump. She had no plans on further traumatizing the class. A part of her was touched they were so worried for her, the other part was anxious of the fact they were speaking as though they wouldn't see her again.

"I will," (Y/n) said, stepping swiftly through the doors once they were cracked as she didn't want to get cold feet. She turned to face the doors and the others and paused for a moment. She bowed low in thanks and in parting, hopefully not for the last time, and rose back up. She took several more steps back, looked at the roof, and started hitting the stick against the can. Several people flinched. Hesitantly, the doors were closed behind her as the Cell began to persue her. So-yun tightly held the keys in her hand as she heard the clanging come to a stop and the sound of what had to be the can being tossed aside. They waited a few moments before cautiously opening the doors again to let Jang-su out. The worried half of themselves half expected to find (Y/n)'s corpse, and the other hopeful half was relieved it was not the case.

"Be careful," Tae-man whispered as Jang-su jogged through the doors, squinting in the direction he guessed (Y/n) had gone: The opposite way of the path the others would need to take to escape.

"Go, go, go!" Yeong-shin said hastily, not wanting to leave (Y/n) hanging for too long. The others scrambled into the car as So-yun got into the driver's side. Tae-man got into the passenger side as So-yun started the car.

"Okay, let's go!" Tae-man said after Chi-yeol confirmed everyone was in. With heavy hearts, So-yun drove them out of the garage.

"Good," (Y/n) whispered, spotting the van leaving the garage from where she stood atop one of the many structures. She continued moving along, frightened out of her mind now that she lost sight of the Cell. The height most certainly didn't help. She had always been scared of it and it only wavered slightly in gymnastics because she had mats under her and she was always doing some kind of movement that needed concentration, thus making her forget about the height.
With Jang-su, any 'bad ankle' he claimed to have disappeared the moment it came to (Y/n). Whether it be because he was so frantic that he didn't notice the slight pain or because the bad ankle was an excuse to stay away from Track due to his own feeling of inferiority, his bad ankle was forgotten about. He knew better than anyone that one wrong step could mess everything up, both in the sense it cost his team Nationals and in the sense someone's life was on the line. When he reached the office, he climbed right through the broken gate, tore open the doors, and immediately started the search to find which gun was (Y/n)'s.

Inside a warehouse of some kind, (Y/n) balanced along a pipe to one of the machines. She didn't bother looking down as the chances of the Cell being on the ground were low. She quickly ducked behind the machine and out of sight of the Cell upon spotting it crawling along the back wall she had been near not too long ago. She took a quiet breath and extended her leg outward and onto the pipe across from her. She then took one hastily step, leaning against the machine so as to not fall down. She balanced along the pipe all the way until she reached the exit, where she leaped across the opening and landed on a structure.
Once she was out of the frightening factory, (Y/n) didn't bother keeping quiet as she now only had the task of getting to the office so the Cell could be killed. She, perhaps, grew a little too confident with jumping from rooftop to rooftop as she soon reached a shed and was right back at the garage. The shed was far too high to jump off, but she knew the Cell wasn't far behind her. She took a deep breath, her eyes set as she walked backward to the opposite edge of the roof of the shed. With a running start, she rushed forward to the garage. She kicked at the wall and used it to boost herself toward the roof, which she just barely managed to grab.