Serendipity (Ryeji)

A Setup

The project is due soon, and because of what happened yesterday, her mother pulled some strings, bought them a few extra days. They've been given until Monday now, rather than Friday, and while the brunette would like to say she's thankful for the extra time, she can't say she's fond of how her mother reacted when she explained herself. Sure, she didn't expect her mom to clap proudly whenever she admitted to trashing the art room. However, she didn't expect Mama Hwang to disagree with how she's feeling, either.

Simply put, the principal was infuriated. She scolded her from start to end, giving Yeji hardly any opportunities to speak during their argument. Yeji was nearly grounded as well. Her mother didn't like that her daughter was all of a sudden in trouble and behind on an assignment, telling her it had better not happen again. She demanded that, following the completion of the project, Yeji had to stay away from Ryujin, that the athlete was nothing but trouble.

Yeji argued back, stating it was just a minor issue that probably escalated more than it should've, but her mother quickly cut her off there. The principal confessed to not having liked the young Shin from the very start, based her feelings on the past, something that completely baffled Yeji, and before the younger could say anything to counter it, her mother angrily stormed out of the house declaring she'd be back with dinner since she lost the will to cook anything nice.

Yeji avoided her mom for the rest of that night and skipped dinner whenever her mother came back home, and because she couldn't keep an eye on her personally, Mama Hwang had Yeji purposely miss school the next day. She didn't want her secretly talking to Ryujin behind her back while she was busy working.

Now that it's well past five in the afternoon, Yeji assumes she should be starving by now, yet she doesn't have the energy to move. She tells herself that without food to give her energy, she wouldn't have the motivation to get the food, and that was discouraging. So, in the end, she was simply okay with not eating until tomorrow.

Yeji flips over in bed and closes her eyes, wishing to fall back asleep and forget about everything for a while. Of course, that doesn't go the way she wants it to because a ringing sound suddenly comes from the other corner of the room. She remembers that thanks to a surge of anger last night, she chucked it through the air. She can't even begin to count the number of times she switched back and forth between being angry and sad, but today she was just depressed, pessimistic of everything around her. She doesn't care to get up and lets it ring, but the bothersome predicament is that it wouldn't stop ringing! It reminds her of her alarm clock the day she basically re-met Ryujin, and she hates her mind for tying the young Shin to every detail possible when she's not allowed to speak to her.

The phone rings once, then twice, then a third time until Yeji reckons she's going to have to get up and silence it herself. Due to a lack of spirit, she wanders over lazily, dragging one foot behind the other until she reaches where the device rests on the floor. It makes sense to her now that she sees the caller is Lia, and she picks up solely for that reason. "Hello?"

"Where the hell have you been?!"

"In my bed."

"I'm talking about today! Why weren't you at school?"

"I don't really want to talk about that." Out of nowhere, Yeji hears a car door slam shut outside. She takes a step toward her window, wonders if it's her mom, but Lia's voice temporarily stops her from moving any further.

"Open your door!"

"What?"

"Open it!"