1 - Kim Minsoo

Despite Minsoo’s best efforts, or perhaps because of it, they were about to be late for school.

How did this happen? What will you do, if anything, to try to make it in time?

And if you don't love me now, you will never love me again. I can still hear you saying, you would…

"… never break the Chain. And if you don’t love me now, you will never love me again. I can still hear you saying…"

Minsoo flits this way and that to get through the crowd; never slowing her pace but determined not to start a fight on the first day back by tackling someone near the front gates on her way in.

"Watch out! Coming through!"

Fleetwood Mac blares through her headphones, as it so often did, so the young girl can’t hear how her request are received. Most likely they weren’t even heard, given that everyone was so focused on themselves on the first day of school. Their hair, their clothes, their make up. Minsoo would have liked to pretend she wasn’t within that cohort, but…

"Chaaaaaain, keep us together. Senior coming through!" she says, almost tempted to break into a run. She had spent the summer running, and listening to music. She was fast, but… No, running to the first assembly of the year would be cringe.

Still, she quickens her step, as Fleetwood Mac fades out and before another song kicks in!

Minsoo must've been very much an old soul to still have Fleetwood Mac on her playlist when her peers were likely to have moved on to Blackpink. Maybe the genre tapped her into a more real, much forgotten past. Or perhaps "Damn your love, damn your lies" somehow resonated with her at the threshhold of adulthood and what promised to lie ahead, or not.

She ran everywhere, that was her default, whether running towards, or away from. Today she found herself running to make it on time before she caught herself doing so as she legged it up the long driveway towards the arched gates at the top of the gentle incline.

"Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night…"

The bell would surely ring any second now, and Minsoo still had a ways to go! She picks up the pace a little more, easing into a run as she sees other students earnestly trying to beat the bell, too.

The last refrains of the song carried Minsoo faster than she imagined, as if her step lightened as she bounded unerringly towards Founders Hall. It wouldn't do for her to distractedly follow the wrong students elsewhere.

"Have a seat." Despite the serious formality of the title of Doctor, Veritas was generally regarded as a motherly figure amongst the staff, more youthful in appearance than one might guess her true age to be, though her chopped bob and bangs, slightly streaked in grey, gave her some kindly gravitas to match.

The counselling room was furnished with soft armchairs and a table for the counsellor, carpeted but enclosed with no natural light. A small shelf sat to one side with a tray of glasses and a water flask.

Today though the shelf was partially blocked by a third person in the room."Ms Nixon will join us today as well, as part of the school's efforts to improve our care programme." The woman looked as proper as she did yesterday, again in nearly the same shade of grey suit. In her hand was a tablet and stylus.

"How are you doing at the moment Minsoo? I am concerned about what you may have experienced at yesterday's blackout. Can you tell me a bit about what's going on with you right now? I'm ready to listen if you're willing to share." So that’s what the school was calling it, a blackout.

Her tone was gentle, but nonetheless probing..

Minsoo knew better than to let any of the sarcasm she might exhibit among her friends seep out into her interactions with staff. At least staff that she didn’t know all that well, and that didn’t know Minsoo all that well either. Like Nixon…

"The blackout?" she says, keeping polite and responsive. Her parents might hear about it otherwise, and that wasn’t worth the headache it would be after school.

"Oh! Right, when the lights went out? I think it was only a couple of seconds or something right?" she says, making a face that suggested she didn’t know what the big deal was.

"I didn’t really think about it. Figured it was all the lights being on after being off all summer. Flipped a fuse or something. That’s what dad said anyway." she says with a shrug and an innocent look at the two staff.

The same disconcerting feeling Minsoo had yesterday as her innocent eyes darted to Nixon even as she recounted her version of the affair was amplified, for the guidance counsellor from the Board of Education revealed no expression throughout, save for the occasional scribing on her tablet. This was regardless of what Minsoo said or how she said it, nothing seemed to garner a response.

Veritas was in contrast warmer and much more assuring in her manner. "Stress can sometimes make events feel distorted. I am glad you handled the situation so well Minsoo, Ashford is proud to have a senior with your maturity. Tell me what your father said. And did you talk to anyone else about it?"

But there it was. All savvy teens were alike, able to give an account to an adult to get out of trouble. The question was whether Minsoo had gone too far in trying in her version, and whether Veritas believed her at all. And why did Veritas pursue the topic of her father?

Minsoo had the feeling though that the version of the story she chose to tell was somehow important to herself personally. That it would shape how she dealt with her newly experienced reality in some way.

"Oh. You know." she starts, as if it was obvious. "We were just eating dinner. He does that stuff for work, I think." she says, teenagerly. "He hooks up electricity on the houses the company builds." she says, and looks at Veritas as if she should already know this.

She shrugs again.

"Anyone else? No, not really. Not to be funny, but there are more exciting things to talk about, you know?" she says, her tone neutral. She was a teenage girl after all… just not an average one.

Even as Minsoo downplayed her account, she could tell Veritas wasn't convinced by her explanation. Her best cover was of course the nonchalance of youth, a role she had mastered very well to shrug off all manner of inquisitions. Even as she did so she caught the distant whiff of stale smoke again, and now with her newfound awareness she wondered if it was more than a metaphor for what she was covering up, or what she thought the school was covering up.

"It is good that you had a chance to talk about your day with your father." Minsoo saw Veritas make a quick note when she mentioned her father, and because of that for a brief moment she wondered whether mentioning her family had some other implication she was unaware of.

For the session then came to an end quicker than she expected after she talked about her home conversation. "You may return to class. Our next session will be about your senior year plans which Ms Nixon will helpfully take you through." A sidelong glance at the stiff, expressionless figure of Ms Nixon seated at the periphery of Minsoo's vision did not warm her up to the idea of Nixon's 'helpfulness'.

Minsoo made a polite exit, but couldn’t help but exit the meeting with her chest puffed out. Nobody wants to mess with a Tiger Dad - or worse, a Tiger Mom - and so they had backed off. She’d love to know what the school counselor had written in the notebook.

Probably something like ‘DO NOT CALL HOME’. The thought made her smirk, and she peacocks her way out of the office and back down the corridor.

Do not call home, was the echo in her head as Minsoo exited the room. Even though she didn't think she was the wittiest this time, something told her she had succeeded despite herself, something that now sounded like a proper voice in her head rather than what she thought was her usual interior monologue.

With that last bit of self-discovery still running in her head, Minsoo could swear that the distance from the track to the library building felt shorter than ever. Sure, she was trying to get to it before it closed, but she wasn't running at full sprint or anything, more like a quickened step. Even so, everything felt ... closer, and she made it with some minutes to spare. The library was a three-storey brownstone building, almost everyone referred to it as the Lower Stacks, referring to the first two floors, modernised in the last renovation. The third floor was where the office was, as well as the closed shelves and research study-areas, the Upper Stacks.

Minsoo saw Mdm Esme Silverton, head librarian, behind the check-out counter on the ground floor, presumably logging out of the system. The premises themselves would be locked by the school caretaking team who would be coming along soon. For some reason, even though it was out of fashion to do so in schools of today for students to address their teachers in that way, they called Silverton Ma'am. Perhaps it was her age, or perhaps something else. Her sharp eyes saw Minsoo come in from the main entrance.