Seokjin: 25 June Year 19

In the abandoned classroom, there was a flower pot taking up space on the window. I didn’t know who brought it. Did any of my friends even seem to be the type to bring a plant? I took out my phone. There was no electricity in the dark classroom, so the leaves looked distinctly green in the dim light coming in through the dirty window. I took a photo with my phone, but it didn’t come out well. However, it wasn’t merely the phone. This is something I think a lot about, but the things our eyes see can’t be captured by a photograph in the same way. 

 

As a got closer, I noticed an “H” at the bottom of the pot. I lifted it up. “Hoseok’s Flower Pot” was there at the bottom. I let out a small laugh. Of all my friends, it couldn’t have been anyone but Hoseok. After putting the flower pot down to cover everything but the “H,” I took a look at its surroundings. The windowsill was covered in scribbles and writing that no one had noticed until now. And it wasn’t just the windowsill, these writings went all the way to the ceiling. Pass the class or die. The name of someone’s crush. The date, and names that are impossible to read now. 

 

This classroom wasn’t abandoned from the beginning. Students came to school, took classes, and left in the afternoon. It was empty throughout vacation time and then swarmed with noisy students on the first day of school. Were there students that were tardy, received punishments, and skipped class like us? Were there also merciless and violent teachers and endless exams and homework? And were there people like me too? People who told the principal about their friends like me. 

 

I wondered if my father’s name was written in the center of it all. This was my father’s school too after all. My father was a person that believed it was dignified to uphold tradition and carry on the family line by attending the same high school and college. I scanned the names on the wall and found my father’s. It was on the left side of the wall, in the center of many different names. There was a sentence written under it. Everything started here.

 

@shootinghearts_