Black Silk ✘ Minsung

Chapter 2

  Life is difficult. The afterlife is difficult. Jisung thought he would get at least some peace but that was far from the truth. His head was buried in one of the thousand-page books — oh, how much he wished to just drown in them, to let the pages suffocate him. This is like high school all over again, he thought as he let his own thoughts flood.

  "You are not going to learn anything this way," a voice he immediately recognized said right above his ear. Jisung abruptly moved from his current position, sitting now with his back straight as a ruler. When he looked at the disturber of his peaceful time full of regrets — he would never dare to say that aloud though — he bowed deeply to which he received a peal of guttural laughter.

  "There's no need for you to be this formal with me," he said and Jisung nodded, feeling mesmerized by the latter's golden locks that were slightly shining in the moonlight and his abnormally pale skin that rather looked like angel's. "I am not your mentor. You can consider me your friend if you would like to."

  Jisung gulped. It was Hwang Hyunjin talking to him, it was more than understandable that he did not want to consider him his friend. Ever. The boy in front of him holds so much power on just one of his fingers only, one wrong move and it's over. Glaring into his eyes, Jisung once again felt intimidated, his breath quickening the longer he stared. His eyes were beautiful. They were daunting like a fire ring, he could see his own reflection in them that made it seem like he was slowly entering the opening gates of hell. Fun.

  He slightly furrowed his eyebrows when he saw the son of satan sit right in front of him, deeply cackling at the sight of all the books on the table. Jisung's eyes widened as he carefully took care of the mess in front of him. Throwing out some of the papers, closing numerous books after not forgetting to mark the page he ended at and arranging his papers in numerical order — no matter what he did, he could feel the latter's eyes burning into his head, almost quite literally.

  "When is it?"

  Jisung looked at him, eyebrows raised this time, a questioning look on his face. Then he realized he might have meant his examination. "Uh," he started, quite nervous from the mysterious aura Hyunjin was radiating, "My examination? It's in two weeks."

  Hyunjin nodded.

  What a way to make me even more nervous, Jisung thought as he flipped through the pages of one of his history books. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw Hyunjin picking up one of the books that were set on the table, also flipping through the pages. He seemed quite amused by whatever he saw on those pages, chuckles leaving his mouth here and there. It was very distracting in Jisung's opinion but who was he to tell the son of Satan to go away because he's disturbing him? But he let that thought disappear from his head because although he was scared of the boy in front of him, he was also curious. And this was his chance to actually get some information out of him but he wasn't sure where to start. There were many questions he wanted to ask.

  "Ask away," Hyunjin said nonchalantly and Jisung felt like he got the wind knocked out of him. The latter laughed once again and Jisung just wanted to punch himself in the face and disappear.

  "What will happen if I fail the exam?" he asked the question he was the most curious about. He has heard some rumours, such as that if you fail the examination, you will be turned into a devil in the most painful way possible — if you are lucky. Because apparently, in most scenarios you get trapped in some kind of emptiness. Jisung does not want to believe that but hey! Anything is possible!

  "Well," Hyunjin said, his eyes looking up towards the skylights as if he was deep in thought. "I can assure you, that rarely happens! But when it does, it takes a few months for the commission to get settled on whether they will give you a second chance or if they will turn you into one of us — the devils."