celestial strings | h.js

two.

The road you were walking through was familiar to you.

For one, you take the same path to head to your part-time job every early morning. You could safely say you knew every architecture of this road like the back of your hand—from the small church where the pastor would occasionally hand you a small cupcake when he sees you walking past, to the stray calico cat that paces on the same brick wall every morning. You have yet to make friends with it; communicating with animals is not your inherited ability.

For two, you threw a boy over the school gate just this morning. It was possibly one of the most memorable things you have done the entire month aside from meeting the worst customers at your part-time job and trying so damn hard not to manifest spikes and vines from the ground to give them a life lesson.

It was infuriating. Unbelievable, even. The fact that you have all the power yet somehow you became the minority and gained the need to hide as soon as you stepped into a land where the majority of people lacks magic in their veins. Even though, really, it was more of an issue of human decency and choosing not to pick fights with people much smaller than you.

Glancing over at the school, you could see students piling out of the school gate in crowds separated by small friend groups. Looking over at the sun, you hummed a little with the acknowledgment that it was already the time for schools to let their students out.

Stifling an annoyed groan, you straightened your back and grabbed onto the straps of your bag, preparing yourself as if you were about to walk through a battlefield. It was your fault for leaving work later than usual; technically, you could have clocked out the second time struck, but you had wanted to finish what you were tasked to do when you went into work and should have finished before your shift ended. Regardless, you had hoped to get the chance to walk through an empty street.

Something was unsettling about being the only person within the crowd not wearing a school uniform despite being the same age as everyone else. It was for you own peace of mind, obviously. Everyone else could assume you were just a young-looking adult, and they probably thought that. Paranoia sets out to make you overthink every glance and every whispered word you could detect. Everything ultimately gets transferred to a piece of self-judgment you could never forget.

Unconsciously, you lowered your head and decided to speed walk your way through this herd of teenagers. Half-way through the crowd, you could hear a familiar voice calling out.

Although unsure of whether the voice was reaching out to you, you chose to spare the owner a glance anyway and immediately met eyes with the boy you helped in the morning. Jisung caught your gaze, recognized your face, and raised his arm for a wave. Your legs stopped moving as you waited for him to run towards you, an action that was out of the ordinary for you.

Jisung came to an abrupt stop in front of you, then he bent down to catch his breath. Throughout the entirety of him rushing over to your side, the natural smile never once left his cheeky face. The way he seemed to be glad to see you made you lower your guard slightly.

"Hello!" he greeted you enthusiastically as soon as he stood up straight, his luscious hair bouncing with the movements of his body.

You gave him a weak nod in return. "Hi. How is your hand?"

Jisung widened his eyes, not knowing that you saw the injury when you had left so early in the morning. He moved to touch the white bandage around his palm and twisted his wrist a little as if to soothe out the pressure of its tightness. Then he looked back up at you, his eyes crinkling into an assuring smile. "It is fine. Were you worried?"

You tilted your head at him, eyebrows raising for a moment before you shrugged. You were not. You barely thought about him despite your meet-cute being the most interesting thing that happened this month. However, now that he has presented himself to you, it was basic decency to ask. "I did throw you over the gate. The least I can do is worry a little about what I caused."