Chapter Seven

The trio of friends all had Math and Alchemy together next, so they headed to class as a group, still laughing about Jinwoo’s failed race. Once again, it was one of Yoomi’s only academic based courses, so it was in a normal classroom. The desks were paired, just like in her history class, which made her pause. Sumin and Jinwoo both sat together in a desk by the window and she forced herself to follow after them hesitantly, dragging her feet a little as she realized she might have to sit alone.

“Oh, Yoomi,” Sumin frowned, noticing the problem as well. “You can sit in the desk behind us, or one of us can move to sit with you.”

“No, it’s fine.” Yoomi tried not to sigh and instead smiled to reassure them. “I’ll just sit behind you guys. We can still talk and stuff.”

“Are you sure?” Jinwoo asked in concern.

“I’m sure.” Yoomi sat behind them, taking the chair closest to the window. Now, she did actually sigh, staring outside and taking in the quiet scenery. She had only been seated for a minute when a voice she recognized all too well startled her out of her idle daydreaming.

“The window seat’s mine, Latte girl.”

“S-sehun?!” Yoomi whipped her head around, eyes wide and nearly choking on the word in her surprise. Sure enough, there he was standing, towering over her seated form even more than he did usually. He stared down at her with an annoyed glare and jerked his head towards the other seat impatiently. “Sorry!” She scrambled to move over into the other chair at the desk. He walked past her and sat down without saying anything else. Yoomi tried to sneak curious glances at him out of the corner of her eye, and she noticed that he was staring out the window with his head propped up on his hand like she had been previously, a vacant expression on his face. “So, what’s so special about the window seat, your royal highness?” she couldn’t help but ask, calling him out a little on his arrogant behavior when he forced her to move.

“Don’t talk to me.” He didn’t even turn around or look at the girl as he said that— the nerve of some people! Yoomi huffed, glaring at the back of his head. Honestly, she wasn’t even sure why Sehun got under her skin so much, but there was just something about him… Any other person, she would have listened and left them alone, but for some reason, she couldn’t just leave it at that.

“Ah, another royal decree from King Caffé,” she quipped offhandedly.

“Don’t call me that,” Sehun snapped. His head whipped around the fastest she had ever seen in order to glare at her. She blinked, admittedly a little intimidated, but she had never let that stop her before and she certainly wouldn’t now. Besides, despite knowing that she was pissing him off and that she probably shouldn’t, a part of her liked teasing him way too much.

“Of course, Caffé boy,” she agreed before turning back around to face the front of the class, “you’re more of a prince than a king anyway.” A low growl sounded from her side in response and she noticed Sumin and Jinwoo looking over their shoulders at her with worry. Well, Jinwoo was looking at her with worry, but Sumin was winking and Yoomi could only imagine what was going through her head. She smiled at Jinwoo to let him know that she was okay and then glared at Sumin to get any stupid ideas out of head before they both turned back around to face the professor that had just entered the room.

The class passed by quickly without anything really happening. Sehun was shockingly quiet for the rest of the period and math was boring. They didn’t get to talk about any of the alchemy stuff today, since the professor thought the students should master all of the complicated math equations involved first before they would begin to apply them for the actual science part.

It was towards the end of class that Yoomi finally sneaked a quick glance at the silent boy beside her and what she saw caused her to frown. His head was still facing the window, chin resting lightly on his hand, but his eyes were now closed and he looked a little pale to her. In spite of everything, she couldn’t help but feel a little worried about him. This was the second time he had left her alone today, so he really must have been in a bad mood, after all, he looked kind of moody and his lower lip was jutted out in just a slight pout, even in his resting. Or maybe it was more than just a bad mood and he genuinely wasn’t feeling well? Before she could stop herself, she was already asking him if he was okay.

“Hey Caffé boy, are you alright?” The concern in her voice was hard to miss and her tone was a lot softer than when she had been messing with him before. Unfortunately, Sehun either didn’t notice this or didn’t care and after the professor dismissed them a couple of minutes after that, he left without still having answered her or saying anything at all.

Yoomi let out a sigh and then stood up along with her two friends.

Jinwoo and Yoomi said goodbye to Sumin and then began walking towards the field for their next period— flight training. It was finally the part of the day that she was most excited for, but also most nervous about. She couldn’t wait to try flying and still thought it was fascinating to see students using their wings to get from one class to the next. She was actually a little jealous of them and was looking forward to finally learning how to fly for herself. However, just like with Power Training, her lack of experience and general vaeli knowledge would surely show and that worried her. Everyone else most likely knew how to fly, whether they were good at it or not didn’t matter, they were still ahead of Yoomi. What if flying was harder than she thought? What if she couldn’t do it?

“Don’t be nervous, Yoomi-ah,” Jinwoo assured her as they arrived at the field, clearly picking up on her thoughts. “I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

“Thanks, Jinwoo.” She smiled at him, willing herself to take a calming breath and praying that he would be right.

The pair walked towards the large group of students gathered around in the center of the field where the others in their class waited. The trainer stood in the middle of the cluster, and he nodded to all of them with an easy smile as his eyes scanned the crowd. He was tall, lean, relatively young and looked a lot more laidback than some of the other trainers and professors she had seen at the academy. He was also attractive, especially given his youth, but by now, that was no surprise when it came to vaeli, since everyone she met at the academy was gifted in the looks department.

“Okay, I think everyone’s here. You can get started after you stretch. I also hear that there’s a new student among us?” he asked. Jinwoo nudged Yoomi gently and she hesitantly raised her hand, the trainer's eyes darting to her. “Why don’t I work with you one on one and show you how it’s done?”

“Yes, sir,” Yoomi nodded, feeling a little relieved that he offered to help. She left Jinwoo’s side and made her way over to the trainer as confidently as she could at the current moment, her nerves still there even if they had lessened. Once he finished making sure the other students knew what to do, the trainer gestured for her to follow him and they walked a little bit away from everyone else.

“I’m Trainer Moon, the only flight trainer at the academy,” he introduced himself with the same easy smile he addressed the class with before. “While my job is to teach vaeli how to fly, I’ve only ever taught first years who should have already been practicing since age ten, so I can’t promise that you’ll be able to fly in a day’s time,” Trainer Moon warned before continuing with a charismatic smile, “but if you put your heart into it I’m sure there is nothing you can’t do.”

“Now, watch,” he told her. Yoomi followed his gaze and looked back at her classmates. She let out an involuntary gasp, in awe at what she saw. There were a bunch of barriers, obstacles, and other equipment set out on the field that hadn’t been there when Lay first showed it to her. All of the students had their wings out, some trying to make their way through the obstacles and others doing different speed or agility drills.

“By the time I’m through with you, you’ll be able to do stuff like that too,” he promised, patting her shoulder assuringly.

“Really?” Yoomi asked, excited. Her eyes were practically sparkling, still taken with the sight before her and loving the very idea of flying. He nodded in reply to her disbelief with an encouraging smile on his face. Yoomi was glad to hear that from Trainer Moon; she was starting to like him already.

“First, do you know how to call out your wings?” he asked. Yoomi blinked, coming back to reality a little, and then looked down sheepishly. Ever since she had discovered them the morning of her eighteenth birthday, she hadn’t been able to call her wings back again, nor had they shown up on their own.

“Uh, no?”

“Okay then, close your eyes and try to picture them in your mind. A vaeli’s wings appear and disappear voluntarily at will.” He instructed her calmly. Yoomi listened carefully and did what he said, trying to remember the image of her with wings she had seen in the bathroom mirror on the day of her birthday. It was amazing how that already felt like so long ago.

“Good job!” Yoomi opened her eyes at his sudden exclamation of encouragement and reached back to see if her wings were really there. Her fingers brushed against the same cool, odd texture they did that day and she grinned to herself at the feeling. “You’re practically a natural,” he joked, and Yoomi found herself beaming with pride at being praised by the handsome trainer.

“So, now what?” she asked eagerly. Now that her wings were out, she was even more excited to learn. She couldn’t even stand still, bouncing slightly in place on the balls of her feet. He chuckled at her enthusiasm and went on to teach her the next step.

“Flying can be a little difficult at first, so listen carefully. In order to raise yourself off the ground, you have to,” he paused, the ringing of a cell phone cutting him off. He reached into his pocket and gave Yoomi an apologetic smile as he answered the device. “Okay,” he agreed with whatever the other person on the line was saying. He hung up with a sigh and apologized to her verbally this time. “There’s an emergency that I need to tend to- a student hurt one of their wings and the nurse needs my help since that type of thing is my specialty. I’m really sorry Yoomi, but I’ll have to finish teaching you when I get back.”

“No, it’s fine! Don’t worry about it, Trainer Moon,” Yoomi assured, only a little disappointed that this meant she wasn’t going to learn to fly as soon as she had hoped. But there was an emergency and she could wait. “I completely understand.”

“Alright, thanks. I’ll be back,” he said before leaving. A hurt wing sounded serious and painful, so she understood why he had to go. Hopefully, the kid was okay. Left alone now, Yoomi stood there awkwardly and turned to watch the others train again while she waited patiently for him to return. She spotted Jinwoo somewhere in the crowd of students on the other side of the field and waved at him. He made some vague gesture that she assumed was asking if she was okay, and so she signaled an ‘ok’ back at him.

“Would you look at that,” Yoomi heard a voice say from somewhere in the sea of students in the middle of the field. “A flightless little bird. Is she even a vaeli? How can a vaeli not have a power and not know how to fly at this age?”

Yoomi stiffened at the sneering voice and tried to look for the culprit who was bad mouthing her so openly. She spotted him quickly, looking at the face that was talking so rudely about her. He was very tall, maybe somewhere around Sehun’s height, with black hair, and looked like a gangster; probably why he feels he has the right to talk about others that way. He looked like such an , although that could just be because Yoomi wasn’t very happy with him at the moment- he wasn’t making a good first impression on her, that was sure.

“Look at her,” he continued, a taunting smirk on his face. “Struggling to even lift herself off the ground, pathetic huh?” That earned some snickers from some of their other classmates and Yoomi had to bite on her lower lip to suppress her growing anger as she didn’t want any distractions in the midst of the flight lesson she had looked forward to so much. Causing a scene was also the last thing her fragile reputation needed.

“She must’ve been abandoned. I mean, what kind of vaeli is raised by talamhis? Her parents probably didn’t want to keep such a useless, no power little creature around. They probably mistook her for a talamhi as well, since she hardly looks or acts like a vaeli, and thought it was better to leave her with her kind. Heck, even I wouldn’t want her!” the kid sneered again, the look in his dark eyes purposefully malicious.

That’s it, Yoomi glared. A stranger who knew nothing about her talking about her and her ex-race as if it made her worthless was drawing the line, especially when he brought her parents and family into it, both biological and adopted. Sure, she had been insulted by people like Greenhouse boy and Sehun before, but with them she could sense no true hostility in their words and they never directly offended her, whereas with this boy she found herself seething in anger the more he talked.

“Yah!” Yoomi walked right up to him, unable to stand it anymore. “What right do you think you have to talk about me that way?! And right in front of me, for that matter. So what if I was raised by humans? It doesn’t make any difference to the vaeli blood that’s flowing in me! And I’m sure flying wasn’t easy for you when you first learned either!”

“Of course not,” he agreed almost instantly, which surprised her. “I was only ten when I learned. You’re eighteen, and still having trouble? Even as a kid, I still learned faster than you.”

“That’s enough, Jihoon,” a few uneasy murmurs came from the crowd. The snickering students from earlier had vanished, most becoming uncomfortable as things had escalated from minor teasing to harsh, personal insults and a full-blown fight. They felt bad for the girl and didn't want her to be bullied, but they were also too afraid to stand up against Choi Jihoon directly, the big bully of their year level, for someone they're not even friends with.

“Hey,” a third voice joined in the growing argument, sounding a lot calmer than either its originators. Yoomi glanced over and saw Jinwoo struggling to push his way through the growing crowd that was watching their fight, a little surprised at his interference. “Yoomi’s new to all of this,” he defended her once he made it to the duo. “Try to be a little more understanding, okay? You don’t know her or her past, so stop saying things like that.”

“And who’s going to stop me?” the other boy challenged. “Her? She has no power. What can she possibly do to me? You?” he scoffed, lip curling. “You’re just a B-rank. What can you do against me, someone that’s in A-class?”

Yoomi grit her teeth at his taunting, even more angry now that he was insulting her friend as well. She had always been an easygoing person who liked getting along with everyone -even people like Sehun who managed to annoy her sometimes, she still didn’t really dislike and considered friends-, but this guy was just too insufferable. Just as she was about to yell at him again, Yoomi heard another voice from the crowd, this one sounding bored and uninterested.

“Cut the crap, Choi Jihoon. No one wants to hear your stupid bragging. Stop causing trouble.” Yoomi sought out the familiar voice and her eyes widened. Was that Sehun?!

“Tch,” Jihoon hissed. His hands clenched into fists at his side and his eyes narrowed further at Sehun’s comment. He looked like he wanted to snap back at him really badly, but then he suddenly relaxed with a deep sigh. He smiled at Yoomi, but it was far from nice. “You’re right, Sehun. I’m so sorry, new girl. How about I help you out?”

“What?” she asked, confused at his a