celestial strings | h.js

four.

"Han Jisung!"

A lunchbox slammed itself down on the table, the tremor it created causing the bird that had landed itself in front of Jisung to fly away. He glanced up at the intruder and clicked his tongue when he found Hyunjin staring back down at him with an apologetic yet guiltless grin. Following suit behind him were Seungmin and Felix, one with a faintly annoyed expression while the latter held a natural smile.

"You scared the birdie away!" Jisung complained with a pout. "I was feeding it my sandwich."

"Alright, I'm sorry." Hyunjin sat down from across the boy. "Since when did you start playing around with birds anyway?"

"It just flew over and refused to leave so I thought it wanted my sandwich." Jisung shrugged. "I peeled some of my bread for it and it was eating just fine until you decided to slam your lunchbox on the table, you damn brute."

"Hyunjin was just excited today. He didn't get the chance to talk to you during recess because he needed to finish his make-up test, but he has been dying to talk to you the whole day," Seungmin mumbled when he finally approached the lunch table as well. He gently set his homemade bento box down and scooted onto the bench seat next to Jisung. Turning to the boy, Seungmin tilted his head. "Come to think of it, I am quite curious as well."

"Curious about what?" Jisung questioned, taking a bite of his sandwich and munching on it as he took a look at all his friends.

"We saw you arriving at school with someone today," Felix finally joined the conversation, trying to balance the paper plate of food while picking balls of rice with his other hand.

Seungmin groaned when Felix approached the table and he quickly slid the boy a pair of chopsticks for him to use. Meanwhile, Jisung stayed rigid on his spot, unsure what his friends wanted him to tell them about you whilst their eyes focused on him with anticipation.

"What about it?" Jisung asked, taking another bite of his sandwich to occupy himself.

Hyunjin scoffed with a roll of his eyes. He moved away from the table briefly before leaning back in, his forearm placed on the edge to give him a more menacing vibe. Arching a brow at Jisung, he urged his friend to speak up. "Who are they? We didn't know you have friends outside of us three!"

"Not to mistake that as us thinking we don't want you to have friends outside of the three of us, of course," Felix clarified with a shrug. "We're just curious since you two walked to school together and all."

"And they also did this!" Hyunjin jumped up from his seat and reached over to Jisung. His finger tenderly tracing a line over Jisung's forehead before he smacked Jisung over the eyes playfully, a laugh erupting through the table when Jisung swatted his hand away with a frown.

Felix blinked from the side when he noticed something from the brief moment of Hyunjin moving Jisung's bangs away from his face. His eyes were wide and observant when he chimed in, "Hey, Jisung, I think your scar is gone!"

Hyunjin hummed at Felix's words. He hadn't seen it just then because he was too busy trying to get Jisung riled up about you. But now that he took a closer look, he finally noticed the smooth surface on the side of Jisung's forehead where there was once a scar he gained from falling off the gate he tried to climb the other day.

Jisung reached up and pressed his fingers against his forehead. He gasped lightly when he couldn't feel the stinging pain anymore. "Oh yeah," he breathed out a chuckle as he glanced down at the table. It must have been your doing; possible when you healed him yesterday night after you threw him across his room. "My mom got me these medicinal cream from a facial shop. It healed me up quicker than I thought."

As Hyunjin sat back down, he gave the boy a moment of relaxation before he looked at Jisung expectantly again. "So..." He started expectantly, "who are they? Friends? Crush? A lover from outside the school? Soulmates?"

Seungmin snorted with an eye-roll. "Wow, the lineup gets worse."

"How is soulmate the worst?" Felix furrowed his brows in disagreement.

"They're worst in the way that they don't exist." Seungmin shrugged as he replied, his focus on his lunch. "There is no point in pinning over non-existent things."

"How do you know they're not real?" Felix retorted again, holding desperately onto the romantic concept. His grip on his plastic spoon was as strong as his determination to hold onto this concept. "Do you also think people who can use magic are not real just because you've never met one before."

"Where is the correlation?" Seungmin muttered impatiently, nonsensical annoyance flooding briefly into his eyes. "Also, as far as we know, those people are only alleged to exist. We have never heard any news about them, nobody talks about them online, and they live in their own city or region or whatever. They are way too good at excluding themselves from reality to be real people."

Jisung laughed awkwardly from the side, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. His past views on magic-wielders were not as extreme as Seungmin's, but part of what his friend was saying was correct. The perfect ability to conceal a whole population of people this well did make the existence of said population rather dubious. Everything anyone has heard were just heresy and fairytales. The concept of soulmates must be included as it was part of the cosmos, therefore magic.

Jisung patted Seungmin on the shoulder when he saw the boy was about to throw another devastating truth (that Jisung now know was mostly not true at all) at Felix.

Come to think about it, from what he remembered, your family did have a history with strings. Perhaps you might know a thing or two about the red string of fate, and he might be able to discreetly give Felix some solace about it.

"Don't mind him, Seungmin," Jisung said. "There is this college boy Felix is having a giant crush on at the tutoring center."

"Really? What happened to the girl from your class?" Hyunjin asked in bewilderment, turning his attention to Felix then.

Seungmin heaved a defeated sigh. "It's Felix. He probably likes them both right now."

"They're just crushes!" Felix said defensively, a mouthful of rice and spitting everywhere during this heated moment. "Oh, what, I can't have crushes now?

Seungmin grimaced at the rice that had accidentally scraped past his face. He began his daily distasteful scolding while Hyunjin chimed in from time to time just for the sake of getting Felix more flustered than he already was. Jisung laughed along at the side, feeling a little glad that he was able to divert the attention away from him and you.

Glancing down at his lap, he discreetly peeled a piece of bread from his sandwich and handed it to the bird that had quietly nudged its way back to him mid-conversation. As it pecked the crumbs of the bread off his palm, Jisung couldn't help but let out a giggle.

"Did [Name] send you here, birdie? How are you so mellow?" He muttered under his breath before he laughed.

That would not be impossible, but he thought it'd be unlikely.