♧Nocturne♧

3. Nomino

It was another normal school day, except that she had a slight stomachache just that morning.

The bell rang. Checking on the following lesson, Solar found that it was literature lesson.

Shxt! Mr Choi hates latecomers!

By the thought of it, she packed her books at the speed of light and dashed herself straight to Mr Choi's classroom. By the time she arrived, she had already been late for 2 minutes. She was 120% sure that Punctual Choi wouldn't be impressed, coupling with her constantly bad results.

She sneaked into the classroom, hiding behind some kind of bookshelves. She hoped that Mr Choi wouldn't see her, but seeing the sudden change of emotion on his face, Solar lost hope.

"Solar ssi? Why are you late again? You thought I wouldn't be able to see you just because you hide behind the shelf?!"

Solar shut her eyes and screamed internally-so now everyone in the class knew. She was prepared for another round of scolding.

"Hey I said you're late, so come and sit down. We were talking about your work just now."

Oh so he showed the class how my essay came out to be a disaster. However embarrassed she felt, she managed to hold it down. Inhaling some fresh air to slow down her heart beat, she coyly stood up and went to her seat.

What confused her was that her neighbor, Seokjin waved at her, apparently wanting a high-five.

"So let's continue? I was talking about the theme of idealism presented at the start of the whole story..."

What? Solar mouthed at Seokjin, expecting a detailed answer, but the smirk Seokjin showed her was too far away from it, so she decided to leave it here.

Everyone rushed out of the classroom once the bell indicating the start of lunch break rang. Solar wasn't the exception too, not until when Mr Choi called upon her name and asked her to stay behind.

"Yes, Mr Choi?"

"I've read through your essay which you submitted to me yesterday, and it was quite a blast."

"Ah... The one regarding the Ode of Psyche?" Solar's eyes widened--she merely wrote what Moonbyul told her in the extra lesson.

"Yes. By John Keats. You did quite well, got an A finally after 2 years of studying literature."

Sarcastic enough, but I'll take it as a compliment maybe? Solar thought.

He continued, "Seems that Moonbyul had been taking great care of you for that 3 hours."

2 and a half hour. Solar wanted to correct him but let go. Moonbyul did help her quite a lot, she guessed.

"Perhaps so..." Solar replied, igniting a smile on Mr Choi's cheeks.

In one sentence, Mr Choi asked her to stay behind just to make sure that the extra class with Moonbyul was effective enough to be continued, and to bombard Solar with some sort of 'you have to work hard continuously so as to succeed' stuff.

But Solar wanted to talk to him about something more.

"Erm... Sir, may I ask who Moonbyul actually is? I don't see her at school quite often so is she studying in another high school?"

Mr Choi scanned her with suspicious eyes, but still answered anyway, "Well, she's like one year younger than you and yes, she isn't a student here in the High School of Geum Jeong. If I'm not wrong, she's studying in an international school in Dong Nae."

Oh... That's the neighbouring city. What a rich kid that can study in an international school. No wonder she has much better English than I do even she's younger than me...

"One more thing to add, she's a genius that's why she is in her forth year right now. Yongsun-ah, why don't you set her as a role model? You have to work harder so as to catch up to her standard!"

Solar squeezed a smile through her cheeks and left. Mr Choi was always sarcastic, and Solar was fine with it now.

Back to her classroom, Solar took out the essay she wrote that Mr Choi had just given her back. She read it again, and found that maybe she really did learn something from Moonbyul. She then took out her notes, ready to revise while she was eating.

Suddenly something dropped out of her bag.

It was a black-covered sketchbook.

She was hesitant-it wasn't hers.

She took it up her hands anyways.

Out of curiosity, she turned to the first page of the book. What she saw scared her heart out-she saw a very realistic painting of a room. On the bed laid a man, bathed in cherry red blood, probably dead.

Once her brain got the message she immediately turned the page. Fortunately, the second page was far less terrible.

There drawn a little girl. From her expression Solar could see that she was scared-hands and legs all curling into irregular shapes and sitting against a brick wall. There was a little sign at the bottom left hand corner of the page.

Nomino: Adstrum

"That's sad..." Solar mumbles.

Who would put such thing in her bag? Solar couldn't recall but she decided to just keep the sketchbook in her bag for now.