Jungkook tapped his temple, bored. Taehyung had greeted him on his way to his class. He invited him to skip again. He sensed that he only wanted to do that just so he could pull him to the studio and persuade him into joining the dance club, but he was in a hurry, so Jungkook didn’t catch what Taehyung was saying. Something in between ‘compulsory’, ‘clubs’, and ‘dance’. Jungkook understood from the given words anyway, and he didn’t want to miss his Mentis class.

Mentis was a kind of class where everyone got to learn how to control their mind while they used their power, and he really needed it. A mage needed a stable mind to get a hold of their power. Everyone might had discovered their hidden, but he hadn’t yet. He was a late bloomer, and he was starting to feel anxious about himself. A prince not being able to fully nourish his own power. How can he be worthy of his position in the family if he couldn’t even do that?

“When your power involves the concentration of your mind such as telekinesis and the bending of elements—” The teacher walked around the class with her hands gesturing, emphasising the important words for her students.

Jungkook was disturbed when suddenly the guy beside him handed him a flyer. He scrunched his nose at the sudden action, but he looked at it while his classmate talked to him. “You would look good as a model for our arts club. The other clubs are at the bottom.” Jungkook nodded. He wasn’t even listening to the lecture anymore and was clouded with the thoughts of choosing a club.

His eyes glanced down to the names of the presidents of the clubs and snorted at the name that surprised him.

President of the Dance club: Jung Hoseok.

He rolled his eyes in uttered amusement. That guy? The president of the club? Okay, so he told him and Taehyung that he danced, but come on. He couldn’t be that good till the point where he was the president.

Despite having royal lessons every minute of his life, Jungkook also had ballet classes back at home. Not taught by Yoongi of course. That grandpa couldn’t even twirl for ten seconds. He was confident of his skills, so confident that he had clutched the flyer and his eyes were filled with determination. But, joining the arts club wouldn’t be bad either. He knew how to draw. He was also confident of his looks: a few girls drooled over him and he knew that. One guy… didn’t.

“Jungkook! Dance club with Hoseokie hyung!”

Jungkook snapped. He couldn’t bear the sudden thought of Taehyung, sweaty, panting, and gorgeously shining, being witnessed by Jung ing Hoseok. He clicked his pen multiple times, trying to control his temper. Why was he thinking about that, anyway? Why did he even care? The urge to learn about controlling his mind had completely faded and the one thing that swam in his mind was to spend time with Taehyung later.

“So, are you interested?” The guy tilted his head. Jungkook just smiled showing his bunny teeth, nodding. “Cool,” was the guy’s only reply. “So, you can sign up after class, on the first floor.”

Jungkook nodded at the information given to him. His classmate went back to writing his notes down as Jungkook looked down to his empty ones. He sighed and ruffled his hair.

He opened his book and started to sketch some weird animals and other stuff. He didn’t even know if those kind of creatures existed, but he drew them anyway. He liked drawing from time to time, inventing his own characters. He hadn’t noticed that he was humming his favorite song by his favorite composer, who named himself GD. His classmate’s eyes were widened in surprise, and Jungkook only noticed that when he turned.

“You know what, maybe you should sign up for the music club instead.”

Music club?

“What? There’s a music club?” Jungkook checked the flyer again and glanced at the list of presidents, confused.

President of the Music club: Kim Namjoon.

He smirked. Well, it was better than having Hoseok to scout him. Or he could just avoid Hoseok the whole practice sessions and have fun with Taehyung. Or he could abduct Taehyung and run away to Neverland. He groaned in frustration, bumping his head on the cold desk.

Taehyung was still worried about what had happened with Jimin and Yoongi the other day. He was too terrified to deal with it, even though he knew that Yoongi probably did something to Jimin that could traumatise him. He still didn’t do anything. He scratched the back of his head and sighed.

He walked down the corridor of the school with a sullen expression. It wasn’t usually like this. It was supposed to be fun, not like some dramatic soap opera. He grumbled, and he held his stomach, hungry. Maybe skipping lunch was a bad idea.

But he had a rule now set by the dance club: diet. Taehyung groaned, rolling his eyes back when he remembered what Hoseok said about joining the dance club. ‘Tae, just because you’re a friend doesn’t mean I will let you off the hook. You are one kilogram pass the average weight!’. He didn’t really want to join, but if it was to spend time with Jimin, then he would do it anyway.

His shoes clicked on the tiled floor, students’ chatter were so unbelievably loud that he hadn’t noticed that something was following him. He kept on walking, followed by tiny paws. Taehyung wondered why the students suddenly looked his way, cooing disgustingly. Most of it were girls. He liked to think and wonder that he was a bit handsome, but not like this. He just continued to walk down the hallway when suddenly a girl tapped his shoulder and he turned to see her.

“Excuse me, is that cat yours?” His forehead creased when he heard her, confused. He didn’t even know what the girl was talking about. Cat? What cat?

“Taehyung,” a sweet voice said. A voice of a teenage girl around her 15s, probably. When he looked back nobody had opened their lips. He ignored the girl, not knowing what she was talking about, so he excused himself and kept walking forward, oblivious. He had no time for that, he was gloomy a while ago and planned to continue like that afterwards.

It couldn’t be his cat Turnip. His most wonderful cat. He had to send her home the other day because pets were not really allowed inside their school and Hoseok told him that he didn’t want any trouble with the council. So much for someone who ‘wouldn’t say anything to anyone’. Maybe Jungkook was right. But still, he knew Hoseok would let him have the cat if he could, he was one of the nicest guys he’s met in that Academy. And probably the only one who Turnip actually liked. He shrugged.

When he had reached the door of his next class, he was halted by a voice calling to him. “Taehyung!” This time it was the voice of a young man, and he was pretty sure that it was Jimin. The latter ran towards Taehyung with glee and started to mumble about missing him.

The hug he gave him was so tight that Taehyung had to lightly push him away. He exaggeratingly huffed out, teasing Jimin about his strength. “We’ve seen each other this morning in Potions class; you missed me? I doubt that.” Taehyung teasingly said.

Jimin pouted. “But we haven’t spent proper time together since yesterday! Those hours were pretty rough without my Taetae~”

That’s right. Alone time with Yoongi.

“By the way, what happened with Min Yoongi?” Taehyung rested his hands on his hip as if he was demanding an explanation— or rather a story to be told. He would gladly have it as a bedtime story, but then he remembered that he wasn’t roommates with Jimin. Pity.

“Nothing really happened, we just went out to the gardens to have a nice talk about something.” Jimin made his excuse convincing as much as possible. The garden didn’t even look anything like the janitor’s closet and he knew that Min Yoongi wasn’t someone that would go to the garden for a relaxing conversation. But still, he had to make something up.

“Again, I doubt that,” Taehyung raised a brow. “He was so mad, how can you have a nice talk with him? That’s ridiculous.”

“Taehyung, you can’t possibly make someone like him display his affection in public. He just looks grumpy.”

Taehyung blinked, “Oh.” Jimin was pretty sure that he had convinced Taehyung by the looks of it. Now the only thing he needed to make sure was that Taehyung didn’t pick the wrong idea. “Jimin, you had gone pale though,” Taehyung squinted his eyes.

How can he not go pale, the pink haired boy thought. Just the thought of it had him trembling for hours and he still hadn’t figured out why the janitor’s closet was so ing cold that time. He erased that from his mind and sheepishly smiled, “I haven’t eaten yet.”

“We have a diet—”

“I know,” Jimin sulked.

Taehyung laughed and lightly punched Jimin’s bicep. “No desserts for a month because of you.” He was upset because he was looking forward to his grandmother’s pies. He only got to taste it once a year, due to how far his grandmother was from their region.

“You love me too much,” Jimin teased.

“Loving too much will hurt too much. Therefore, my tummy will get hurt because I love you.”

Jimin scrunched his nose in disgust, earning a playful smack from Taehyung who was giggling like a high school girl.

A man in neat uniform, with a badge of a student councillor, had approached them with a smile. “Why aren’t you guys in your classes?” Seokjin quirked his eyebrows, giving them his softest tone just so they wouldn’t run away. People seemed to be afraid those days of the president because of his power to give detention. Seokjin found it upsetting; he wasn’t able to make many friends because of that.

“Taehyung was about to go in, we were just talking about something,” Jimin answered.

The older gave a slight nod and grinned at the both of them. “Have you guys started picking out your clubs?”

Taehyung’s lips twitched.

“Yes, Taehyung and I are going for the dance club.” Jimin grabbed Taehyung’s shoulder and pulled him closer to his chest, maybe with a bit too much force.

Seokjin’s mouth was shaped in an ‘o’ when he said, “Hoseok’s club. I’ve seen him perform multiple times before, especially during school festivals. He is quite good in my opinion.” Taehyung and Jimin nodded, showing respect for the president’s opinion. “I'm gonna have trouble convincing Min Yoongi to join a club though.”

Jimin looked up, his attention was caught by the mentioned name. “Why?” He asked, not trying to sound too interested, monotonic as much as possible.

“He is the laziest man alive, for what I’ve been told. And it looks like he doesn’t want to interact with people too much.” Jimin understood and gave a slight nod. He knew it. He didn’t seem like the guy that would join clubs. He wasn’t even interested in anything else besides protecting Jungkook or keeping those secrets of his hidden away. While thinking about that, he suddenly remembered what had happened inside the janitor’s closet, again. He felt quite bothered by the situation.

“What’s up with your face?” Taehyung muttered.

He didn’t notice that his face was burning, hot and pink.

“Nothing,” Jimin shook his head in a no.

Taehyung shrugged and tried to ignore the way Jimin’s hands were fiddling on the hem of his blazer or the way his cheeks were 50 shades darker than his hair color. He grinned at Jimin, who had caught his attention and smiled back. They said goodbye to Seokjin and then waved at each other, walking away in opposite directions in a rushed pace to go to class.

Yoongi tried to keep away his distance from all those kids handing out flyers. He didn’t want to bother declining the offers since he wasn’t interested in anything in particular besides sleeping or training.

There was no one inside the gardens of the schoolyard, so he figured that it would be much more safe to be there than to roam around the corridors where all the students were socialising. He shivered at the thought of interacting with some of the kids he didn’t know.

The gardens were decorated with only white lilies. Bushes were cut clean, neat, and plain. There was a big statue of the king himself in the middle of the garden to which Yoongi snorted, and a variety of different rocks were placed as the stonewalk. There were no benches, so he sat down below a tree as he rested his back on the bark.

He hummed as he tapped his pen on his chin, trying to drown himself in a beat and a rhythm. He hadn’t done that in a while. Apart from all the royal protecting thing, he also liked to have something to do by himself.

He had been admiring the way people from the outside world made music, idolising a few humans and listening to their songs sneakily. Of course he still hadn’t forgotten the war between humans and mages, but he was stubborn. He made music using the piano that was abandoned, undusted, and untouched on the top floor of their tower, back in their castle.

It was Jungkook’s old piano. It was thrown away solely for the reason that Jungkook wanted a new one. In those times, Yoongi could only scoff at the spoiled little brat. But that little boy had grown into a fine man little by little with the help of him, he thought with a nostalgic smile on his face. Soon he had his hand scribbling new thoughts on a piece of paper. He managed to make the start of a tune using only a few notes.

It was quiet, peaceful until he heard someone humming. A man. The man’s voice was sweet enough for Yoongi not to complain; he didn’t feel interrupted nor disturbed. He stayed there for a while, doing nothing but to close his eyes and feel the voice of the unknown man. It was surprising, really. The man wasn’t singing, he was just humming. And yet Yoongi was entranced by the song: it had been a while since he last heard someone this beautifully.

With the exception of Jungkook, of course. He occasionally sang to Yoongi: whenever they were in their beds and Jungkook couldn’t sleep, he sang instead. He had a wonderful voice, and it was quite a shame that the prince refused to sing in public because he felt self-conscious about it. It was really ironic, Yoongi