Yoongi opened the door of their room with a soft kick, and carried with some difficulty the pink haired boy inside.

“Oof!” he panted, dropping the boy in one of the beds. “Why are you so goddamn heavy?”

“I’m sorry…” Jimin heaved.

“Will you stop that? If I hear you say ‘sorry’ again I’m gonna hit you.” The older replied, annoyed. He sat on the bed next to Jimin’s, and started to look around the small room while fanning himself. It was quite simple, really. There were two beds with blue sheets, each one in an opposite side of the room, and there were also two desks, large enough to study in a comfortable way. On the wall opposite to the door, there was a wardrobe big enough to share, a large window with blue curtains as well that gave a view of the schoolyard, and a couple of shelves for their textbooks. Yoongi noticed that behind the door there was a poster stuck to it with the school and dormitory rules. The room was covered with rich tapestries, it had cream-colored walls, and it wasn’t really big, but it had everything they would need there.

Besides, they had their own bathroom: he noticed it when he got up and peeked inside the door that was next to his bed. He then opened the window a bit to let some air in, and he leaned against the wall closing his eyes for a moment, sighing. The only sound he could hear was the gentle breeze that passed through the window, and the ragged breathing of his roommate. He opened his eyes and stared at Jimin.

“Do you need something...?” he asked in a wary voice.

“No, I’m fine, just…” he took a gulp of air, shaking lightly, “give me a minute.” He had his eyes squeezed shut, and he was trying to even his breathing, eyebrows knitted. Like he was in pain.

Yoongi scratched the back of his head, annoyed. He didn’t like to stay put doing nothing, especially in situations like these. He saw Jimin tremble, and he realized that he was getting careless: the temperature of the room had dropped considerably fast. This was why he didn’t like to be doing nothing: he could get upset. And when he got upset, his powers got out of control. It happened to the majority of people, really, but Yoongi hated being out of control. That is why he followed a strict discipline, and that is why he was trying to inflict that discipline onto Jungkook: control was everything, it was the thing that made the difference. He decided to even his own breathing and calm down for a few minutes, and the room returned gradually to its normal temperature.

He looked at Jimin again. His breathing was more regular now, thank Merlin. Minutes passed as Yoongi stood there, awkwardly. Why was he worrying so much about him? He was just his roommate. A roommate with a pretty face. But that wasn’t the point. If he was getting better, Yoongi could leave, right?

The brunette cleared his throat. “Hey, if you don’t need anything, I’m gonna head out, okay?” Jimin nodded to show him that he had heard him. He seemed okay enough. Anyway, Yoongi thought as he looked at his watch, the pink haired boy wouldn’t get out of the room. Curfew was in an hour. It wasn’t worth it to go anywhere at that hour. But Yoongi did need to get out. He had to look for Seokjin and have a serious discussion about the roommates distribution.

So he left the room, slowly closing the door and leaving inside a pensive Jimin that came to a solid conclusion: he couldn’t share a room with Min Yoongi.

“Remind me again why we are doing this?” Jungkook asked.

When they officially convinced him to skip class, they just wandered around in the Academy. At some point they went to pick up their room keys in the janitor’s office. Jimin also picked up Yoongi’s key, saying that sooner or later he was going to see him if he kept being close to Jungkook. That made the younger sulk, earning a few chuckles from his two friends. Then, to cheer him up, Taehyung had the brilliant idea of sneaking into the animal lab of the school.

Despite Taehyung’s puppy eyes, Jimin walked away, yelling a big ‘nope’ and mumbling something about having enough trouble for a day. He told them he would look for his room, or his roommate. Whichever he found first. So, only Taehyung and Jungkook went inside. They had spent the last half an hour petting puppies since Taehyung saw them in that side of the room. The younger boy looked at Taehyung, who seemed engrossed in talking to the puppies. He looked like he was blabbering nonsense, but when he asked earlier, the tanned boy had answered ‘well, how would you talk to a baby?’. It made sense, and it made Jungkook think that apparently Taehyung liked animals and children. He could stare at Taehyung all day being happy with puppies, really, but it really made him uneasy to be in a restricted area.

“Oh, right!” Taehyung exclaimed as he kept petting a brown puppy. “Well, you said you wanted to keep your record clean, and earlier you mentioned that the class you skipped was Treatment of Animals for Magical Purposes, right?” Jungkook nodded. “Well, then I’m going to show you a few things about that subject, to compensate for skipping class!”

“Seriously?” the younger asked, surprised.

“Yeah, but you’re gonna learn them in the fun way!” Taehyung said, showing a boxy grin.

“That’s great!”

“I know, you’re so lucky,” the older responded, smug. He earned a deadpan stare of his friend, making him giggle. “Okay, stop looking at me like that! Let’s start with the basics… Hm, I think the snakes are on the other side of the lab…” he mumbled as he got up and left the puppies in the kennel. Jungkook followed him, letting go of the white puppy he had been hugging for a while. The puppy looked up and barked softly at him, which made Taehyung turn around and stare at both Jungkook and the puppy, gasping.

“What?” Jungkook asked, alarmed.

“Oh my god,” the older whispered, covering his mouth with his hands.

“What!?” He was making Jungkook nervous.

“He thinks you’re his dad,” Taehyung said with glee.

“... What.”

“He called you ‘daddy’!” the tanned boy exclaimed.

“Wait, really?” he asked in awe, smiling. He looked at the tiny dog that was wagging his little tail, and a pang of affection hit his chest. Oh, now he knew why Yoongi behaved like that with that dog he had back in the castle. He started to feel a sudden dread, and looked around the room. “Oh god,” he muttered, “Taehyung, are we going to do bad stuff to the animals?”

“Oh, no, don’t worry,” Taehyung waved his hands in a calming way. “When they made the educational system there were too many mages that had similar powers to mine. Do you think they would have allowed people to treat animals unfairly? Look, come here,” he said as he softly pulled Jungkook’s sleeve. They walked to the other side of the lab, where there were some really big glass cages. “In that subject you basically learn to take stuff you need from animals without hurting them, and one basic thing you need for potions is snake venom,” he explained in a low voice as he pointed with his finger at one of the snakes that were sleeping inside the cage. He smirked when he saw the younger boy audibly gulp, nervous.

“Do I… Do I have to touch them?”

“Well, duh,” Taehyung chuckled.

“But what if they bite me?” Jungkook whined.

“Oh, they definitely will if you don’t tame them first. Snakes are really grumpy, and extracting their venom just pisses them more.”

“Why?”

“Well, would you like to go to the dentist on a daily basis? No, right? It’s not a very nice feeling for them either. Come on, I’ll show you.” Taehyung removed the top of the glass cage, and he gently started to speak. “Uh, hi, excuse me. Sorry for waking you up. Could my friend and I hold two of you, please? It will be just a moment.” One of the snakes raised its head, hissing. “Ah, thank you. We’ll let you sleep in a minute, I promise.” He then proceeded to take one of the snakes and hand it to Jungkook. The younger just stared at it, and then at Taehyung, who was still holding the snake, expectant. “Go on,” the older insisted, almost putting the snake on Jungkook’s face.

Jungkook sighed and carefully took the snake, wary. “Didn’t you say snakes were grumpy?” He didn’t know a lot about snakes, but the one he was holding didn’t look like it.

“Only when they’re fully awake. Don’t worry, if we speak in a low voice they won’t be aware of anything,” Taehyung said as he picked another snake.

“Okay… How the hell I am supposed to tame her?”

“It’s not even a ‘her’, it’s a ‘him’!” the older laughed. “Okay, listen, the poison is in the mouth, so you might want to be careful with that,” he explained.

The snake was rather the same length as Jungkook’s arm, he deduced as he looked at it. But that wasn’t what Jungkook was afraid of in that moment. The snake had freaking glowing red eyes staring at him, and that was really bothering him. On the other hand, Taehyung didn’t really seem to care or be afraid of his snake. It made Jungkook wonder if he had ever hated any kind of animal.

“Okay...”

“And now,” he said as he searched through his pockets and got a small pouch, “you put dream soot in the eyes to hypnotize the snake so it doesn’t feel anything.” The tanned boy took that strange dust and added a pinch of it in each eye, making the snake slowly blink, confused. “It’s basically like anesthesia, really,” he grinned as he searched through his pockets again. This time he took a small, empty flask, and he pressed the snake’s fangs against the border, making the poison drip inside of it. “And that’s it!” he smiled as he put the snake inside the glass cage again. “Now you try, pour the soot in his eyes.”

Taehyung handed him the pouch, and Jungkook took a handful of the dust. “Like this?”

“No.”

He let go half of the dust he had taken. “This?”

“Hell no. You don’t need that much!”

“What difference does it make?” Jungkook asked as he kept letting go of the dust.

“You have to be careful with quantities!”

Jungkook sighed, exasperated. “Look, it’s just dream soot, I don’t think anything will happen if I put more…”

And before Taehyung could say anything, Jungkook poured the whole dust on the snake’s head, resulting for it to get unconscious, pale and cold.

“Oh god… Jungkook!” Taehyung held the small snake, checking on it.

“What…” the younger muttered, alarmed.

“You paralyzed him!” Taehyung answered, upset. He quickly took a small bottle from one of his pockets that contained some orange liquid, and poured it inside the snake’s mouth. In a matter of seconds, the snake’s color came back again. Taehyung sighed with relief. “Okay, the snake should be fine now.”

He then put the snake back in the cage, apologizing profusely to it, while Jungkook mumbled a ‘sorry’, head low. He didn’t think Taehyung heard him, and with that, disappointment was written all over the younger’s face. He felt disappointed in himself, and he felt terrible for upsetting Taehyung. Taehyung, however, noticed his change of mood. He didn’t like seeing Jungkook sad, or being hard on himself: it looked like his friend Yoongi was already too hard on him to begin with. So he was silent for a few seconds, thinking, until he came up with a simple plan to brighten up Jungkook.

“Hey, Jungkookie,” he said, softly. When the younger looked up, eyes sad, he took a flask that contained a blue liquid. “Look at this.” Taehyung sprayed the contents of the flask in the air, and it slowly made a blue light. Jungkook was immediately engrossed with it as the light formed a butterfly. It wasn’t just any ordinary butterfly: it had various changing colors, like green, blue, purple or pink.

The butterfly started to bat its wings, flying around as it left a trail of magic dust behind. Jungkook looked at it, mesmerized, as the little thing flew to his face, making him scrunch up his nose because of the ticklish feeling to it. That made Taehyung chuckle.

“It’s beautiful,” Jungkook mumbled, smiling.

As the butterfly flew away, Taehyung snapped his fingers, resulting for it to turn into golden dust, fading away little by little until it disappeared completely.

“Well, looks like you enjoyed the little show,” Taehyung smirked, looking back at the younger. Jungkook looked at ease now, till the point where he rolled his eyes and lightly hit Taehyung’s arm, making him laugh. “Hey, don’t be down, okay? These things happen to a lot of people. It’s quite normal for a first time.”

Jungkook frowned. “I’m sorry I upset you...”

“Well,” Taehyung sighed, “next time you just have to listen to me, dummy,” he smiled softly as he poked Jungkook’s nose,