The Hanes Enigma

Chapter Two - Jung Hoseok: Perth Repeated

Brynn Clough

"Clough, stop doodling and pay attention please." The teacher glares at me.

I jolt upright in my seat, immediately looking away from my pad of lined paper. I hadn't even realised I was drawing again, it's funny how frequently that happens and always odd shapes I have no idea what mean when I look back at them. Today it appears to be arrows just like I saw from the orange juice this morning. But most have lines connecting the pairs, making it look amusingly similar to a table on its side. I chuckle and draw a mug on one of the tables.

"Remember to actually do your homework for Friday, Clough. I know it's still pretty much the start of term but let's begin as we mean to go on shall we?" The woman in front of me sighs, knowing full well that my attention is somewhere else entirely.

I have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, ADHD. I'm consistently drugged up on the appropriate dose of adrenaline which makes me tired (confusing, I know). It's supposed to make me focus better but it never seems to work whenever science is involved. That's implying it ever works, of course...

A sheer ringing of the alarm marks my freedom and I'm the first out of the door. I sigh happily; only two periods left and I can make my way to the library, my favourite after-school location. Only one fact looms over my otherwise brightly shining afternoon: The physics test. I hate science, that much you've probably gathered already. But physics worst of all. Biology is somewhat logical; systems, food chains, how bodies work. It's mostly connections, or at least at my level. Chemistry is a little harder but mostly makes sense, once you know what happens when you mix certain things you're kind of set, again for my level of it. But physics. I just don't see the point. It should be easy! You type numbers into an equation and write down the answer. But it seems wrong. My teacher talks of energy as though it's not alive, as though it can't be created from nothing. But then why do I feel it when I touch the tourmaline pendant around my neck? Or if it isn't energy that I feel buzzing and surging down my arm and through my nervous system, then what the heck is it?

Locker.

To.

Face.

... ow...

"Away with the fairies again, Clough?" The girl in front of me sneers as I rub my cheek.

Another girl sniggers from behind her. "Hush, Freddie, she'll turn you into a frog if you're not careful!" 

"I think a fly would suit better, actually. At least I could swat you away." I roll my eyes and mutter under my breath.

"You what?." Freddie glares. "What did you say, you little shit?"

"I said, I'm so sorry I got in your way right next to my locker, I'll make sure to abide by your increasingly fantastical expectations of how the world should revolve solely around you and your gaggle of excitable cattle whom you've hand-picked to make yourself look the most appealing. Now, if you wouldn't mind you're standing in front of my locker. Or did that get in your way too?" I grit my teeth and prepare for the worst.

"Wait, she actually spoke? I thought she was mute?" Freddie spits sarcastically, causing a guffaw to bellow out from behind her.

"Sorry, do you not speak English? Maybe sign language would work better." It's petty, I know, but I give her the finger. Maybe this all seems a little harsh, but this girl is a cow! In our second year she made Taehyung think she was head over heels for him until he actually asked her out and then she proceeded to tell the whole school that he'd been held down a year and 'accidentally' left out the part that his family had moved him from city to city for the majority of his childhood. And that was only our second year.