1. Event Horizon - An Yujin

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Yujin thought that coming into class with a small rotating sphere for a head would keep everyone away long enough for her to finish her application letter to Yonsei University. But if the past three years have taught her anything, it’s that she should have seen this coming.

Yujin doesn’t even know how it happened. One moment she was yanking out her hair in bed, clawing at her pulsating temples, a moment later and she neither had hair nor temples anymore.

All that was left hovering above her neck was a black hole the size of a marble.

She kept her head down as she walked through the narrow corridor filled with the early-bird students talking about their winter plans. Some of them called out to her in recognition. Some called out to her in greeting. And worst of all, some of them called out to her in need. But all she did was bow politely at each and every mention of her name, rushing to her classroom as fast as she could in her freshly pressed uniform, taking much care to avoid crumpling it.

Once she was seated, she took a deep breath and sighed. Except no air entered her lungs. For a moment, she forgot how to breathe and started to choke on her own dry throat. But once Yujin remembered that she needed to breathe through her nose—regardless if she had one—she felt her chest rising and falling again before finally managing a proper sigh.

“Shi—Aiya … I’ve wasted enough time already.”

Taking out her binder labelled ‘Yonsei’, she flipped rapidly to the glossy page marked with ‘Letters’ and skipped to the sixth leaf after that. Yujin then took out the two sheets of printed paper slotted in and laid them out on her table.

Exhaling, she stared at her own words hoping to finally find the right theme, the right motif, the right sort of academic ‘magic’ that could make it all click in her head at least. But alas, the same keywords she had written in her letter came to haunt her in the minutes leading up to their homeroom period.

3.95 GPA. Grade 1 Scores across the board for her suneung. Math Olympiad champion. Debate team co-captain. Student council vice president.

This should be enough. This should have been enough. But to the ambitious An Yujin, it’s left her raking at her scalp at the thought of what was missing—what was lacking.

That’s if she still had a scalp. All she had now were frequent bouts of tonic-clonic seizures every two minutes and the early signs of a fever.

“What is going on with me …?” She lifts her phone like a mirror and screams into her throat. Her slender and youthful visage was now nothing but slowly evaporating bits of flesh and muscle on the surface of the dark sphere.

Yujin wanted to vomit.

Slapping herself awake, Yujin gasped as her slender fingers clung to her face—or what would have been her face. The soft pads of her digits clung to the surface of the sphere like they were glued on. With a loud wail, she flung herself forward and whipped back at the last second to tear her fingers away—but not without ripping some of her flesh along with it too.

Yujin glanced around her. Nine people in the room. Not one of them turned towards her. The air around her felt thicker, more viscous, taking more effort than necessary to move through it. If she looked at her surroundings the right way, it seemed like her vision was being warped.

Sighing, she lowered her head to the table and picked up her pen. “Better get started on draft seven. I hope this draft’s the final one…”

She only had until the end of her homeroom period this morning to finish and submit it to her teacher. Otherwise, she’d be missing the early application for Yonsei. That meant lower chances for scholarship, for getting into her chosen course, and even for being accepted.

Yujin pressed the tip of her pen against a fresh sheet of paper until it blotted, forcing herself to write.

To whom it may concern.

I am An Yujin. If someone were to describe me in just a phrase, it would be ‘Always seeking the next challenge’. Many people shy away from challenges because it can be intimidating. Debilitating. Often times humiliating. It’s natural for us to fear failure, but I believe otherwise. I’m someone who chases—.

“Yujin!”

It was Nakamura Kazuha from Class 4. Yujin ascertained this from the way her classmates swooned at the sound of her voice. “Got a minute.”

Yujin drew a period as large as the letter ‘o’. “Sure … what is it?”

Kazuha sat on drafts five and six as she tossed her hair back. “Can I copy your homework for Ms. Lee’s class? Research is a bitch. She’s in my second period too.”

“Kazuha … mine’s in fourth. If she sees they’re the same—.”

“Tch, I’ll paraphrase,” she always claimed. And Yujin was always left to come up with excuses for her when pressed. “Come on, we’re buds right? Just a peek?”

Yujin checked her watch. 6:39. “Fine … it’s in my—.”

Kazuha slid off her desk and snatched Yujin’s bag from underneath her, shaking out the contents until she found her folder labelled ‘Research and Methodology’. “Thanks. Owe you big time. See ya’ at lunch for the physics problem set.”

Sighing, Yujin returned to her letter, hoping to finish the sentence. But she had already lost her train of thought, and soon, the idea for her draft slipped through her fingers. The orb shuddered and rippled as she crumpled the sheet and tore a new one from her pad.

To whom it may concern,

Cognoscetis Veritatem et Veritas Liberabit Vos. The truth will set you free. That is what Yonsei has always believed in. To me, that is something I have always aspired to. When you’re born and raised in Daejeon, between the concrete jungle of the city and the hustle and bustle of the crowd, you can easily find yourself in the rat-race of daily life. But what is—?

“Yujin-sunbae! Yujin-sunbae!”

The pen almost cracked between her fingertips. Glancing up, she saw one of her hoobaes barreling through the room, bowing in apology to the gossiping sunbaes she disturbed. “You got your results for the suneung already right? Could I … could I ask for your help in reviewing? Please!”

“H-Hanni, I’m—.”

“A-Ah! I know we haven’t talked in a while since you’re busy, but could I maybe um, maybe just ask you when you’re free to help tutor me? For a bit? Just on the weekends?” Hanni pleaded, and when Yujin looked into her large sparkling eyes, she felt the constant neglect towards her hoobae creeping up her spine. “Please, sunbae?”

Dragging her breath through her teeth, Yujin glanced at her wrist. 6:46.

Nodding, she sifted through the mess Kazuha made and pulled up a tattered book littered with dog-ears and sticky notes. “Have my review book for now. Just do the exercises sep—.”

Hanni swiped it from her and pressed it to her chest, squealing out loud. “Thank you, sunbae! Thank you thank you thank you so much! I’ll get out of your hair now—thank you again!”

And the girl vanished before Yujin could even warn her not to mark the book itself.

Yujin thought the next few minutes of silence and solitude would last longer as she took advantage of it to rewrite her draft, but more of her classmates began filling the empty seats around her as time ticked by. She thought having a black hole for a head would stave them off, but they seemed entirely oblivious to it.

“Yujinnie! Want to join us later for karaoke?”

“Yujin-ah! You put up a good fight against Sangju last week!”

“Jinjin, Jinjin! Have you watched the latest episode of—?”

Yujin just wanted to shrink and disappear. She really needed to be writing and not answering to everyone. And as if heeding her request, the orb hovering above her neck thrummed, and condensed, and shrunk.

It was smaller. It felt denser. It began to hurt like a migraine.

But Yujin continued to write.

“Yo, An Yujin. The hell are you doing here?”

Every last strand of hair stood stiffly across Yujin’s skin. Before she even glanced up, screeching and scratching noises filled the air as the unoccupied tables and chairs near her all rattled, rumbled, and then flung themselves towards her.