Astronomy // Duty After School

Chapter Thirty-Nine.

White hot pain flooded (Y/n)'s entire being as she regained consciousness from the brief moment she had been knocked out after the initial blast. She curled in on herself, holding her side as though it would ease her pain as she clenched her eyes shut, frantic to remember where she last was. The realization that she had been minutes away from death hit her like a truck. The feeling of knowing she was still alive made her sick with emotion.

"Pl-Platoon Leader!" (Y/n) whisper-shouted, pushing herself up to a sitting position upon spotting another figure. She winced but powered through it, crawling over the shattered glass from the windows to reach the man and place his head in her lap. "Wake up. You have to wake up." She shook Chun-ho in her state of panic. She listened for breathing, which most definitely was there, before trying to wake Chun-ho again. She could hardly hear anything over the sobs and whimpers she desperately tried to conceal. "Wake up!" she shrieked, worried they had made it out of the building for nothing. "Lee Chun-ho, wake up!" She felt alone and scared
(Y/n) remained oblivious as Chun-ho's eyes opened, merely staring at (Y/n) for a long moment. She was practically glowing due to his blurry vision combined with the sun shining in through the broken windows. He let his eyes focus before reaching up to cup (Y/n)'s cheek and wipe her tears. Her sniffles faltered and she jumped out of her skin from the sudden contact but relief was visible in her teary eyes.

"Calm down. I'm not dead," Chun-ho mumbled.

"'Calm down,' he says!" (Y/n) wailed. Chun-ho couldn't help but crack a grin. His grin was quick to fade when he slowly sat up and the pain from the bus flipping over kicked in. "Careful..." (Y/n) said, wiping her eyes. She then grew firm despite speaking quite gently. "You can't be doing that. If you're stuck, find someone who wants to be there and help— You have to want to live, too, Platoon Leader." She heaved a small sigh and leaned back against the sideways seat, taking a moment to catch her breath, which she hadn't got the chance to properly do. She opened her eyes again and scanned the area. There was no back door and the regular doors were now on the ceiling. "Can you make it through that?" (Y/n) asked, pointing over to the roof hatch, which was on its side. Chun-ho had to shift a bit to see where she was pointing and he winced as his hand came in contact with the glass on the ground. "Careful..." (Y/n) murmured as Chun-ho looked at her, just barely noticing how beat-up she looked compared to her appearance before getting on the bus. While Chun-ho had a deeper gash on his arm and a broken ankle, (Y/n) had smaller cuts and a bruise loitering her face as well as cut-up hands.

"Let's go," Chun-ho said. (Y/n) swallowed and pushed herself up to the seat, holding onto the seat as she offered a hand down to Chun-ho. She wound up needing to let go of the seat to properly help him up. He chose to use the help of the seats to limp over to the roof hatch, which (Y/n) had gone ahead to pull the lever. He grabbed her arm before she exited and shook his head. "I'll go first."

"What? Who's going to help you out?"

"There could still be Cells out there," Chun-ho stated. (Y/n) sent him a blank look but let him go first nonetheless. She was positive that if there were still Cells left, they would have come crawling through the windows already. Chun-ho pointed his (someone else's) gun around cautiously as (Y/n) crouched down to peer through the hatch. He nodded at her and (Y/n) stepped through the hatch with a helping hand from Chun-ho. He turned over her hand and stared down at the cut that clearly was not just from the glass. "What's this?"

"Nothing," (Y/n) dismissed, retracting her hand and instead getting Chun-ho's arm around her shoulder so they could get back to the others. "Is this you caring? You're not falling for me, are you?" Chun-ho avoided the question and sent her a firm look but couldn't get in another word before So-yeon's hysterical screams of their names reached their ears. Her shouts were followed by other students' shouts.