threat of joy | wen junhui

FIVE?

FIVE, TRYING YOUR LUCK
VITA EAST HIGH

NEBULAE were what came after planetary novas have died off and out of their sudden luminescence. Since he was a kid, Junhui had been convinced that novas, nebulae, and galaxies happened to share the same notion. They're all stars, aren't they?

And, apparently, according to Mr. Fontaine, they were difficult to trace, find, and measure. Made sense.

Sure, nebulae were glamorous but novas were distinct as they just shined brilliantly, crescendoing in light, he supposed, before flickering off into its natural state; Jun admired the idea that they were rare but resilient.

Mr. Fontaine grew close to a breakthrough with the lesson on the radius of Milky Way since only a few kids were paying attention this time, rather than the typical two (occasionally including Jun).

The bell cut him off, in the middle of his sentence, or to be more specific, saying, "ma-sses," and Jun's hand still remained feverishly running, nearly indecipherable ribbons of hot lead across the spaces on his paper.

"Jun? Still here after the bell?" The fifty something Italian instructor shuffled over to where he sat, the cornered desk with a flickering light up above him. Junhui finally paused, realizing the rest of the room's absence and his bloody notes.

Packing his things up at a leisurely pace, he merely nodded, pursing his raspberry lips into his regularly awkward expression. The slouching, which occurred whenever he'd sit, didn't help.

"I've never seen you so still in my life before," Mr. Fontaine seated himself at his desk, a good seven chairs away from the lone student. The latter perched forward, tapping his fingertips against the frontal edge as the teacher removed his pair of silver rimmed bifocals. "You don't seem in a hurry, especially considering the band will be presented during the pep rally, which is in three minutes."

This idea didn't come through his mind completely, at first, as his face expressed his journey through placid, nearly laughable, uncertainty of the teacher's comment to sudden panicked awareness. His leap from his seat had to have defied physics and velocity yet nonetheless did he vanish.

Junhui sped down each hall with the chestnut fringes that paralleled the tinted light in his eyes flowing back behind him–there went Vita East's greatest track star since the summer of 2015.

Of course, he forgot the one day he was supposed to be ready for.

He hadn't made much of an effort to remember, declining to banner it upon his agenda, calendar, or arms, like he would with most things. It wasn't that big of a deal if he really thought about it, too: just a sample from the band's newest production and the introduction of the top players of each facet of athletics, technology, and marching band–the only demanding part of that only ever was the weight of every pair of eyes that went to the school.

"I'm here, I'm here! I'm totally here!" The mouth to the football locker rooms filled and echoed incessantly with Jun's desperate pleas for his acknowledged presence. It was an inevitable truth that everyone heard and identified that delicately tense, fluid voice with that familiar flatness always following his tone.

"Why aren't you in your band shirt?" The director thundered from across the hall, obviously natural to those of marching band and of sports with just as vivacious coaches.