Once the majestic animals had been driven into the center of the field, Seungkwan took the time to assess the situation. The garden was different after the explosion-like event but he wouldn’t have known had he not spent much of his time in it previously. It was not damaged. It was moved.

Walking up to the other boy, who was trying to catch his breath with his hands on his knees, the singer said “It looks like the area has always been this way. We can only hope we didn’t land in an alternate universe somehow.”

“Well, I can hardy imagine a worse one than this universe.”

“Why is that, exactly?”

“In this one, I have to spend time with you.”

Seungkwan noticed something laying in the grass and took a few steps to pick it up, but didn’t fail to quip right back still. “I can imagine plenty of worse ones. Like a world where I get eaten by dragons-“

“Doesn’t seem so bad to me.”

“-without the pleasure of watching you getting eaten first.”

“Of course you would be dragon fodder first. You’d annoy the beast so much it would- What do you have there? That’s mine!”

Hansol jumped to his tutor’s side and tore the paper from him. Shoving it in his back pocket, the rapper walked back to the resting unicorns. But Seungkwan had already caught a glimpse of the writing.

“Why does is say ‘Dear Seungkwan’ at the top? And what were all those crossed out lines below?”

“Nothing! It’s uh, it’s just a diss rap I’m working on. About how dumb you are.”

“And all those little hearts at the edge of the page?”

“Those aren’t hearts you blind mole, those are butts. Because of your fat .”

“Uh-huh.”

Sensing motion in the corner of his vision, Seungkwan turned towards the new building. The windows were covered with something strange that wouldn’t permit him to see inside. He left the rapper behind, who was pretending to be highly invested in two equines poking their horns at each other, to avoid eye contact with his tutor – and walked back to the structure. If something too weird was happening he’d have to report it.

An army of pale, floating humanoids emerged from the strange substance oozing from the walls.

Seungkwan had seen many things in his time at the magic school but a hundred deformed, semi-transparent ghosts were a novel enough threat to scare him. Yelling loud and high he ran back to the herd.

The unicorn’s sensing their watcher’s distress, or perhaps seeing the ghosts themselves, broke into a panicked frenzy again, impossible to contain by Hansol who spun around, trying to spot the cause of the stampede. But he was trapped at the center and could hardly see past the nearest pair of trampling hooves.

Without stopping, Seungkwan swung himself not so elegantly onto the first unicorn’s back he got to grab. He realized the one he was riding was his favorite - Twinkle. That had been a of luck. Now to save Hansol. He talked to the animal. “Shh! It’s fine, calm down, Twinkle. You have to work with me here.”

Circling around the wild herd, the singer got his ride to slow down and focus on him. He could risk taking a second to look over to the school and see the ghost army advance. They weren’t actually worriers. But they were ugly. Silently gliding through the air, just above the grass, a hundred manifestations of negative emotion and human misery crept closer to the blessing.

Seungkwan tried to shout through the trampling noises at the student at the center of the wall of white horses. “Hansol!”

“Yeah?” There was fear in the boy’s voice, even as he yelled on top of his lungs.

“Are you still alive in there?”

“I can’t make it out of here. They’re spinning around me like a motorbike gang. Help.”

“Try to hop onto one.”

There was no answer so Seungkwan shouted the same thing again. This time the trapped boy sounded angry as he answered. “You got to be kidding me? I’ll get myself killed. Have you forgotten the part where I’ve never done this before? Any more brilliant ideas?”

Admittedly, it was difficult, but Seungkwan still thought it was his best chance to escape. Had the rapper even noticed what other danger was closing in? He shouted again into the herd.

“Try one of the smaller ones. Moonbeam is really easy to calm down. Or Pancake and Lambchop. Those have no temperament, really. And Muffin is the easiest to-“

Hansol yelled in frustration. Punctuating every word he responded. “I have no idea how to tell them apart.”

“Oh, right,” mumbled Seungkwan to himself. “Try hopping on Rudolf, then. He’s the only one with a red horn.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Seriously, Hansol. There’s a ghost armada floating our way. Do as I say.”

“…Did you say ghosts?”

“Yes.”

“Get me out of here! I don’t want my soul out! Seungkwan!”

The wannabe rescuer had to admit that was an understandable reaction. Even though he wasn’t sure the nightmarish beings were necessarily of the soul variety, he wasn’t willing to stay and find out. Once a ghost had a grip on your mind it was forever invited into your dreams.

Considering his options, there was really only one possibility. “Stand back. If you can’t come to me, I’m coming to you.”

He rode the unicorn a few paces away from the ongoing stampede and took aim. He was confident that his animal would follow his orders, but less sure that his orders were physically possible to execute.

The boy-unicorn-duo launched at the herd, approaching maximum hoof speed before reaching the outermost individuals. Clinging to the gentle creature underneath him, the singer kicked it in the sides.

Twinkle took to the air, hopping wider and higher than any mundane horse could ever go. Looking down, Seungkwan saw his shadow fall across the racing creatures underneath as he flew over them. He crashed onto the ground in the middle, inches away from a scared boy frozen in terror and disbelieve.

Just before Twinkle skittered by, Seungkwan grabbed Hansol by the collar.

Using the force of the impact he threw him onto the nearest unicorn back, where the boy held on for dear life, screaming his throat sore. Seungkwan could only hope the inexperienced rider wouldn’t choke his ride to death from the way he clung to the white maned neck.

With a whistle, the tutor led both ridden animals back into the circling herd, from where he guided them to the outskirts, Twinkle always behind the one Hansol was riding to keep it in line.

As soon as they made it outside, the equines slowed down. Hansol was about to drop off the unicorn’s back, took a quick look towards the approaching ghosts and immediately crawled on the unicorn properly, assuming a posture as close to Seungkwan’s as he could muster.

The tutor rode closer to show the other boy how to hold on. Luckily, unicorns tended to do most of the work with their innate magic as long as they wanted you to ride them. Other than regular horses no saddle or reins were needed to ride comfortably. He saw that Hansol seemed to do everything right as far as he could tell at a glance.

“Well done, Sugarplum.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“It’s the unicorn’s name, you unmelodic bonehead.”

“Oh.”

They maneuvered Twinkle and Sugarplum around to watch the ghosts and stampede collide from a safe distance. Neither had any idea what to expect from the encounter.

Seungkwan sighed. “I just hope they will be okay. I wonder why no one is fighting these manifestations yet. Have the wizards not realized what’s happening?”

“No idea. So… who wins in a fight? Unicorns or ghosts?”

The running herd looked a lot more coordinated from afar. It became clear that the panicked disorder had given way to a strange and supernatural defense mechanism involving every member of the blessing except for those currently being ridded.

The round collection of animals started to glow. Unnoticeably at first, then brightly. When the undead army was mere seconds away, the circle erupted into a magic rainbow that tore its way straight up through the atmosphere.

Waiting for the big clash of magic on magic, the boys watched wide eyed.

The ghosts split up, rushing past the protective circle and remerging behind it. They changed course right towards the riding duo – greatly accelerating.

[I have never ridden anything in my life, so forgive me any mistakes. Anyway, I love both of them for completely different reasons, and it’s so weird to imagine each of them riding a unicorn. This is the first story in the Adore Me universe with no wizard in it. It’s so hard writing characters who have no idea what’s going on. Tune in next time to find out what Hansol’s diss rap really was.]