Project Z

1: The Day of The Dead

November 9, 2022; Boseok High School, Yeosu, 2:07 pm...

It was seven minutes into the last hour of the school day, and all of the students were inside of their classrooms beginning their last class of the day. Well, maybe not all the students. What I mean is that one of the students decided to skip class and just sulk the day away. And that my friends, is none other than senior student Kim Seung-hyun. He's known for being a laid back and pretty much chill student, and doesn't really care about his studies (but still gets surprisingly good grades).

You never know what he's going to do; one minute, he'll be in his classroom-Class T5-reading something about global warming. Next minute, he'll be sulking the day away on the balcony by just staring out at the horizon, with the school overlooking the neighborhood of Yeosu. He then drew his attention to the crisp, orange trees, which grew by some of the houses in the neighborhoods near the school. As leaves fell on the ground, he let out a contented sigh.

"It's kind of nice today," he thought to himself as he pushed his glasses up his nose. "Though, I wonder if anyone's going to care whether I'm not in class."

Then, the sound of a frustrated sigh broke through the atmosphere. Seung-hyun rolled his eyes, for he knew that the sigh came from his older cousin, Victoria Lee. Victoria is in the same year as him, and she was of above average height, and had long, wavy black hair, dark eyes, and wore her school uniform underneath a sky blue hoodie. When she found him, she basically stomped over to him, clearly showing frustration.

"There you are!" she cried. "Ms. Gong asked me to look for you. Why are you here... again?! This balcony has basically become your pity corner."

Victoria noticed Seung-hyun's gloomy face as he stared out to the neighborhood, and sighed.

"Come on; don't tell me that you're still thinking about that," she said.

Seung-hyun just exhaled. Victoria tapped him on the shoulder, which then caught his attention.

"Look," she said patiently. "Don't care about whatever the frick halmoni says about your sexuality. You, Junkyu and Doyoung being gay isn't her business. Just remember that you're an amazing person. Any guy would be lucky to date someone like you."

Seung-hyun looked at her with a slight smile. What she said was true, and everyone else knows it but his grandmother. His grandmother is very conformed to tradition-and is also very old fashioned-so she often criticizes the way his parents raise their kids. Two examples are: one, she believes that men loving men is unnatural (like what Victoria talked about earlier), and two, she believes that teaching her granddaughters how to use weapons, shooting, and hand-to-hand combat is not the right way to teach proper ladies. Thankfully, whenever the family has faced criticism from the stingy old woman, they had Victoria and Doyoung, who were ready to cheer them up and give them moral support.

"Thanks, Vic," said Seung-hyun. "Means a lot."

Victoria chuckled as she playfully punched his shoulder.

"Don't sweat it," she said. "What are you guys without me?"

"At this point, probably nothing," Seung-hyun joked.

The two cousins laughed a bit, before Victoria placed her hand on Seung-hyun's shoulder.

"I'll head back to class now," she said. "I'll give you five more minutes to sulk up here, and if you go past that, I'm going to whup your ass."

Seung-hyun laughed softly.

"I know," he said. "And I'll make sure nobody's asses are getting whupped."