celestial strings | h.js

five.

The first thing Jisung did when the teacher dismissed the class was to jump up from his seat and collect everything on his table so he could carelessly shove them back into this bag. He ignored the confused looks and cooing questions of the friends about his sudden rush of movements while he busied himself with pulling all the junk out of his desk drawer.

What he knew was that the teacher had dismissed the class two minutes ago and he could not be too sure if you would choose to wait by the school gate for him. He has to be quick, and he was.

After he flung his schoolbag over his shoulders, he bid his friends a hasty goodbye and ran out of the classroom. Speeding down the stairs, the way his backpack continued to hit against his back went completely unnoticed until he stumbled out of the front doors of his school. He could feel a stinging sensation at the back of his hips. He promptly ignored it.

The front path greeted him with fallen leaves and gusts of wind. Students swarmed around him to leave the school and his eyes skipped past all of them with only one goal in mind: you. His chest heaved with the flow of his gaze, mouth breathing rapidly as his eyes brushed off one after another person as soon as he realized that they were not you.

The dread that you might have left already consumed him with a sense of panic. Jisung gulped hardly at the thought of another round of late-night sensitive thinking about why you had not appeared for days, and whether he had chased you away because he asked one stupid question about those strings on your arm.

"You are being really tense."

He whipped around as his eyes widened. When he saw you standing in front of him, he exhaled in relief and touched his sweaty forehead with his possibly even sweatier palm. A chuckle left his lips when he saw you tilting your head to the side questioningly, and as usual, the first thing he said was a good old 'hello.'

You carefully observed his body, your intense eyes making him straighten his back. After a short moment, you looked up into Jisung eyes and you spoke, "You are still being really tense. Are you okay?"

"Me? Yeah, sure. Why would I not be?" Jisung laughed with a dismissive wave of his hand, the act causing his posture to be even more rigid than ever. He finally toned himself down when he saw your unamused expression, and he cleared his throat just in case his voice would crack as he speaks. "Nothing happened. I just... um..."

He was planning to tell you that he had a physical battle with his textbooks, ran all the way from the sixth floor, leaped through several flights of stairs just to make sure he gets the chance to talk to you again. But it seemed he thought better of it. It was quite dramatic, even Jisung had to stop himself from spilling all his effort out into the wind.

"I just ran a little." He nodded at you, comically waving his hand to dramatize his words so his slow-fading panting would not come to attention. "Nobody likes school so we try to get out of here as quickly as possible, and that results in me running down the stairs sometimes."

You stared at him skeptically but soon nodded with a shrug since you had no idea how to judge whether he was lying to you or not. Besides, should it matter if he was being tense or why he ran? It was nothing of your business.

"I know how that feels. I didn't like school either," you said casually. "At least when I was still attending one."

Jisung was still huffing out breaths to calm himself down but you could faintly hear a mini gasp amongst all of them. His blinking was rapid as he gave you a questioning noise, and you snorted a laugh at him.

"Well, of course I went to school once. How did you think I learn how to read? Albeit not as advanced as what you know, possibly."

You had decided to start walking as you speak. Standing in the middle of the road and forcing everyone else to swerve out of their way to walk past you two was not sitting well with you, especially when everyone seemed to be giving you both the sting eyes. Jisung had automatically followed you, matching his pace with yours as well as keeping his eyes on you to hopefully prompt a further explanation.