celestial strings | h.js

one.

Jisung gave the school gate a kick for his frustration. It did not release his inner turmoil.

Having woken up late this morning, he spent his entire morning rushing his routine. His uniform was sloppy, his hair was disheveled and his breath probably smelt of the ugly morning air, his toast with Nutella spread across unevenly was only half-eaten before it flew out of his grip as he stumbled across a pit of air. The worst part of it was that he had wasted a full minute watching its poor, fallen figure, his mind mourning the fact that it was the Nutella part that touched the ground instead of the bread.

As if he was going to pick it back up and dust it off for consumption anyway if the Nutella faced skyward.

There were more little tragedies hidden in between the above-mentioned examples, and all of that hard work was reduced to nothing when Jisung found himself standing before a locked gate.

All the effort and sacrifices made to make sure he is not late to school. All the effort and sacrifices (specifically skipping his breakfast because he was rushing to get out of his house) yet he was still not acknowledged by the prefect, who had promptly spun on her heels and marched away at the call of the first school bell, leaving Jisung behind those rusty bars just as the school rules and the discipline teacher told her to do.

It was great. Not only was he unable to head to class, but he also left a bad impression on the pretty senior prefect.

"Fantastic," Jisung muttered under his breath when everything was, in fact, not fantastic.

Touching the fence with his fingers, Jisung gave himself a brief moment of evaluation as he gave the metal a quick squeeze and feigned the movement of pulling himself up to test out the weight. A huff of groan left his lips as his feet dropped back down on the ground. His brows were immediately furrowed at the seemingly impossible task.

It felt too heavy to have to pull himself up, not to mention the gate was about the same height of the giant brick wall attached to either side of it. He could not have been able to jump over the fence due to the sharp edges at the top end, which he thought was unnecessary and dramatic to be added as an additional decoration to the already heavily patterned gate.

Jisung released a hopeless sigh when he realized there was no other way to let himself in unless he calls up a friend, which was even more unreasonable than the previous ideas he has got under his sleeve.

Patting his jeans with his palms, he braced himself emotionally to endure the overuse of strength to pull himself up before he kicked for leverage and grabbed onto the fence. He struggled as he reached one arm up for the gate board for support, huffing immensely.

"Hey! Do you need a hand?"

Jisung turned his head to the voice and, with his lack of concentration on his arms, he released himself down on the ground and stumbled back a few steps before gathering his composure again.

You glanced at his messy uniform with a grimace as you came out from the shadow of the tall tree behind the school wall. You took a peek first, your intentions tentative and cautious as if a high school boy could do you any harm. The rays of the sun slowly began to drown atop your face as you emerged from the shade of the tree, leaving spots of faux freckles on your cheeks and brightening the judgemental soul in your eyes. The wind glided across you two, artificially knocking the breath out of Jisung's lungs.

For a genuine moment, he thought you were pretty as could be.

"No, I am fine! I can climb this easily! This is nothing!" Jisung waved his hand as he spoke between nervous laughs.

He did realize that trying to play cool when he was not only caught red-handed but also when he was in desperate need of help was most possibly one of the worst ideas he has ever thought of, but did his intuition stop him from doing it anyway? No. It did not.