Crescent // ATEEZ ✔

5 [ghost]

If during university all she wished was to finish her degree, that feeling was immediately extinguished as soon as she had gotten her degree scroll, which now seems more of a flimsy piece of paper than a certificate that would grant her a bearable life. She just recently graduated, separated from her friends who got their job offers even before they graduated, when all she's left with is her drowning in a mountain of student debt.

People wouldn't point her as someone who's exactly a genius or someone with the best soft skills; she can barely pass the preliminary stage to the election of suitable scholarship receivers. She had to rake out her own money to be able to afford university, and when she received her student loan with pages and pages of agreement, it was more of a fight to stay alive day by day rather than an ambitious endeavour of gaining knowledge.

She has lost count of how many job interviews she went on; hopeful by the start but crushed by the end. None gave her the answer she was dying to hear, and today it's no different. In fact, today went down as one of the worst, if not the worst day of her history of job interviews.

The vacancy is for a position as a lab assistant in one of the biggest manufacturer of skincare products in the country, but it's located at one of the factories in a smaller district. She is unfamiliar with the district, named the Light District - though she barely knows what's bright about this area when it's all concrete corporate buildings and factories - and she arrived here in a taxi at 6 in the morning, just so she could take her time in case she gets lost. She wouldn't want to be late for her job interview, the only one who called her out of the 12 positions she applied for.

Not only was she late for the interview, but her formal attire was all messed up.

She did circle the district, hoping to be one of the early ones to arrive at the factory for the interview. However she got lost, then got distracted by a scene near a supermarket; which apparently was caused by two men apprehending a thief who had stolen from an old lady. She got momentarily distracted, but when she realized she was already late for the interview, she tripped and her skirt tore right up until her thighs, exposing all the skin she didn't want to. She took off her high heels, embarrassed and ran away while her mouth was constantly cursing at her fate.

It's safe to say that she didn't make a good first impression, and she can say goodbye to the job.

Han Byul, a name that has appeared in multiple piles of resumes waiting to be picked, yet none of the employers would even look at hers. Whether it's the economy or her own set of skills were to blame, by the end of the day it doesn't change the fact that she's unemployed. She would need to find a part-time job to survive until she can find a proper job, and she would have to think on how she could pay back the debt she accumulated over the 4 years she studied. Maybe she should have listened to her aunt who berated her for being adamant on wanting to further her studies - it would be better for her to be prancing around without a degree rather than being chased by the debtors who want more than her money.

Degree or no degree, her life is going down the drain with no bright future.

Her skirt looks like she's trying to walk the runway for some hipster fashion show but her runway is the dank alleys manifested by rats and other pests, lit up by only the glow from inside the buildings - there are no lampposts that can guide her through. It would be dangerous for her to walk alone when it's almost night at a foreign district, yet she feels that she doesn't have anything to go back to.

It's only her in the crammed student dorm, the rent scraped out of her bank account every month, without having any family member to confide in. Her aunt had gotten rid of her the moment she could, happy that she wouldn't have an extra mouth to feed anymore. Her friends are starting their new jobs at their companies or labs, while she's navigating the same old shitty world with a torn skirt.