Ch. 2 The Beginning (2)

Minjoo glares at them, annoyed.

Her stare only irritates the boys further.

One lean boy with dyed ginger hair stepped closer, ahead of the other two boys. "What the hell are you looking at, brat!?" he exclaimed.

His exclamation only angered Minjoo, who runs up to him and grabs his collar as a result. "What'd you just say about m-!?"

Before she could finish, Junghwa pulled her back and held her back, stopping her from moving forward again. He whispers discreetly. "Stop that Minjoo, that guy's not only a star player, but he's also the principal's son, Lee Eunseo..."

She knows as much as anyone that the principal expels anyone who messes with his son. Even last week, he expelled three students just for cutting his son in line..

Junghwa steps closer to him. " What do you want, Eunseo?"

Junghwa's question angers Eunseo further. Eunseo stands over Junghwa, their difference in height is evident. " Who do think you're talking to, short- !"

What?... He stopped, but for what?

Eunseo suddenly stops and looks around as if to look for someone.

What's he doing? Is he looking for someone?! Who?!

Junghwa continues to watch at Eunseo as he looks at Junghwa, Minjoo, and Jinsung individually.

Wait... he's looking for Soonhyeok!

Soonhyeok was for some reason, the only one that Eunseo couldn't mess with, not even his father could expel Soonhyeok.

Knowing that, Eunseo smirks as Soonhyeok is nowhere in sight. " Looks like you guys don't have protection this time."

One of his subordinates whispers something in his ear while laughing. He crosses his arms as he smiles mischievously while thinking about all the times that Soonhyeok stopped him from having some fun. He thought to himself. " Time for some payback..."

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The three boys push Junghwa and his friends into the gymnasium closet in the corner of the gym. Eunseo punches Junghwa into the closet with full force, pushing Junghwa back and onto the ground. Eunseo closed the door and locked it, laughing with his friends.

Minjoo and Jinsung ran to help Junghwa.

" Junghwa! Are you alright?!" Asked Minjoo.

" Can you get up?" Asked Jinsung, worried.

They help him stand up while asking if he was alright. Junghwa rubs his reddened cheek as it felt sore and slightly painful.

Junghwa smiles stiffly and raises his hands in the air. " I'm alright! I feel great! That punch woke me right up! HAHAHA!"

It hurts so muuuch!! FUUU-!

He stops abruptly as the door opens and a white haired girl gets pushed inside, she falls on the floor and looks back at the girls who threw her into the closet. They laugh loudly as they close and lock the door again.

Huh? Did a bunch of girls just throw a girl in here? But why? Aren't all girls really close friends??

Junghwa stupidly thinks about his opinion while the girls stares out the window next to the door, not realizing that there is three people inside with her. Her gaze full of shock from her friends' betrayal.

Junghwa and his friends watched her quietly. They couldn't recognize who she was, but she seemed familiar.

This is such a cliché scene... All she needs is the protagonist to show up and comfort her...

....I never noticed that there was windows installed in the closet, there's a window on each side of the door... That's a weird design, these situations must happen often...

Junghwa avoids the suggestion of being a protagonist by questioning the design of the closet windows.

The girl begins to tear up and sniffle. Junghwa and Jinsung panic, " You should go comfort her." Suggests Jinsung to Junghwa, whispering.

"No way! You should go!" He responds, also whispering.

They continue to argue while Minjoo walks up to the and touches her shoulder, offering her a hankerchief.

The girl takes the hankerchief and wipes her tears before freezing.

" Heyy, don't worry about them... Those girls are just a bunch of bitches! They don't know what they're doing by messing with you!" Said Minjoo to comfort her.

The girl slowly turned to look at Minjoo.

Minjoo's eyes slowly widen as she recognized the girl as Shinhui.

"Huh?"

"Huh?"

Shinhui turns pale with fear while Minjoo points at her, recognizing her.

" YOUUU?!"

"AHHHHH!!"

Minjoo shouts in surprise recognition while Shinhui shouts from fear, surprised by Minjoo's presence in the closet.

!?

What's going on? Why is she yelling?! We should get closer!

Junghwa and Jinsung suddenly walk close to Minjoo, curious to see why she yelled.

Jinsung and Junghwa stood next to Minjoo and recognized Shinhui. "OHHHH!!" They shout from the combined emotions of suprise and understanding.

" AAHHHH!!" Shinhui yells again, surprised by the increasing amount of people in the room.

Squeak! Squeak!

Silence momentarily fills the room before the four of them look down near Shinhui's shoes, where they see a rat smelling her shoes.

"....."

"AAAHHHHH!!!"

The room erupts with panicked screams. Chaos unfolds as Minjoo and Shinhui jump to the right side of the door, onto a large stack of mats that are used for martial arts classes. Jinsung and Junghwa jump onto two seperate stacks on the left side.

Seconds after the jumped on the mats, five more rats ran out of the corners of the shelves with sports equipment.

" Why are there so many rats in here?!" Yelled Jinsung with surprise and concern.

Shinhui and Minjoo scoot back onto the wall, they hold onto each other in fear while trembling.

They may be tough on the outside, but inside they're both still scared of rats...

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After the shock of finding people in the room with her and the rats coming out, Shinhui relaxed and composed herself, but slightly blushed from embarrassment. " I apologize for screaming earlier. I was scared because I thought i was alone in here..."

She slightly bowed apologetically at Jinsung and Minjoo, who has now distanced herself from Shinhui.

" My name is Shinhui, in case you didn't know. Nice to meet you- uhh, Jinsung and...Minjoo! Nice to meet you!" She laughs while playfully clapping.

Shinhui's eyes land on Junghwa, who is in front of her. She smiles and waves at him, which annoyed Minjoo. " Hi, Junghwa!Good to see you again!"

She raised an eyebrow teasingly. " Where's my thanks for helping you solve x ?~"

Junghwa slightly bows his head and politely smiles back. " Thank you, Shinhui... Although you didn't help me solve it, you just helped prevent an embarrassing moment..."

They both chuckle nervously.

" I know! Why don't you help him solve it for real?! Like tutoring him!" Loudly exclaimed Jinsung.

Minjoo and Junghwa glare at him as he tries to set up a study date between Junghwa and Shinhui.

Stop it Jinsung! I don't want to study! You're taking away my free time!

Jinsung ignored them and continued. " If you tutor him, then he will do better in class and you will get to know him better over time! If you want to of course..."

Shinhui looks away to think about it.

Minjoo makes a shushing gesture towards Jinsung, and Junghwa grabbed his collar, he shook him and whispered. " What are you doing, Jinsung?! I don't want to study! I want to play video games and read novels!"

Jinsung smiles while being shaken, he explains. " But you're failing your classes, Hyung~ This way you'll study and pass while making a new friend who could possibly become your girlfr-! AUGH!"

!?

Before Jinsung could finish his sentence, he gets hit by a tennis ball that was thrown by Minjoo, who is now furious.

They quickly compose thenselves as Shinhui clasps her hands together and smiles. " That sounds like a great idea, Jinsung!"

NOOOO!!

Minjoo and Junghwa's faces turn pale while Jinsung's smile widens with joy as his plan succeeds.

"But... I think it's better if we all study together as a study group! And I want to get to know all of you! So we should all work together!" She exclaims loudly.

AHAHAHAHA!!

Jinsung's expression flips, his face pales while Minjoo and Junghwa grin mischievously at him.

It sucks that I'll be studying, but at least Jinsung's weird plan failed! AHAHAHAHA!

" I have an idea!" Minjoo raises her hand. "Why don't we make a study group name? To make things a bit more fun!"

" Sure! What should our name be?" Asks Shinhui.

A study group name? I guess that could make things fun... But what should it be?

Everyone begins to think about a name to call their group, but can't think of anything. Shinhui glances at Junghwa, who's looking up while thinking.

" What should we call it Junghwa?" She asks, causing Minjoo and Jinsung to look at him.

"Hmm..." He ponders on possible names that could fit their study group.

Names... Survivalists? No, that's dumb. ...Wolfpack! No, that's weird...

Junghwa looks at his friends, who are now looking away and passing a tennis ball amongst themselves. Shinhui looks out the window, watching the next game start.

They look distracted, but I think they're waiting for my answer...

"Uhh.. I don't know! Let's think about it later! It's not that important, right?!" He exclaims nervously.

" Alright." Say Minjoo and Jinsung in unison.

" Yeah, I guess we don't really need to think of a name right now..." She says while smiling.

" Hey, Shinhui! Catch! " Jinsung passed her the ball. She caught it, but it slips off her hand. she tries to catch it again, but she fails and it falls on the ground. Silence followed.

Minjoo takes out another ball from the shelf next to her, then gives it to Shinhui. "Thank you..."

She passes the ball to Jinsung, who passes it to Minjoo, who in turn, passes it to Shinhui, they continue to play like this.

Junghwa curiously looks down at the rats, watching their movements closely.

I'm not really scared of the rats, but I also don't want to get a disease from their bite...

He continues to watch the rats running and move, he notices slight differences, some are smaller, some are bigger, one is fatter. He noticed that two more rats came out of hiding, totaling into eight rats, all running around the closet room.

...I think they're scared but don't know where the danger is... Huh.. This scene reminds me of Survival of The Fittest...

His eyes widen as he remembered that the next part of the chapter should be out by now.

Junghwa takes his phone out and opens the novel website. He reloads the page, and the second part of the chapter appears.

Nice!

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He swiped down, but the page ended at the words, ' The End...?'

That's it? " The End" and a question mark?

He slapped his forehead from realization which made the others look over at him, confused.

He waved and smiled nervously. " Sorry. It's nothing."

They continued playing, and he looked at the screen again.

This means that there's going to be an epilogue... I should text him and see when it's coming out.

Junghwa sends a message through the website to the author.

Junghwa: Hello sir, This final chapter was amazing! I'm guessing that based on the question mark, that there's going to be an Epilogue, right?

( Come on.. answer quick. Quick. Quick.)

[ Mr. Han replied]

Mr. Han: Yes. Thank you, young man! The Epilogue is coming out soon! Also, I wanted to thank you for reading my novel, so I will send you some gifts. They will arrive soon.

Gifts? What kind of gifts?

The lights suddenly go out in the gymnasium and the closet. The group look out the window while students murmur.

" Hey, the lights went out!" Said a student.

" Check the power! Reset it or something!" Said a coach to an assistant coach, who ran into the electrical room.

He flips the switch off then on, seeing it didn't work, he tried again, it still didn't work. " I tried it twice, sir! Nothing is working! It must be a large power outage!"

" What's going on? A power outage?" Said a female student, worried.

All the students begin talking amongst themselves as the situation begins to worsen.

A power outage? Those aren't common in our city. This feels...familiar.

Luckily for Junghwa and his friends, they're stuck in a storage closet, so Minjoo finds four flashlights for each of them in a box.

Click.

" Good thing you found these flashlights, Minjoo. It would have been way scarier in here." said Shinhui, thankful.

" Good thing we're in a storage closet. You're welcome."

Okay, this is starting to get really familiar...

" Hey! Look outside! The sky is... the sky is red!" Said a student while pointing out towards the window near the ceiling.

The sky turned into an orangish red color, the once clear sky partly filled with dark clouds.

The students gather near the window, they tremble in fear from the darkened sky.

Junghwa's eyes widen as he sees the events unfolding before him. He suddenly remembers something he read.

" Suddenly, glowing white feathers began to slowly fall all around them. Seemingly out of thin air.." Then, a blinding light shines, filling the room. Gentle fapping sounds are heard, the light dims, and a young boy with golden colored hair appears. His sky blue eyes slowly open as he looks down at the people under him while his glowing white wings spread open. Looking extremely similar to..

Junghwa opens his mouth with awe. " An angel."