Luhan snickered at Minseok’s text and typed in a reply before turning back to the article he was reading. The report was part of an on-going investigation of some electrical surge that happened in Izid, a town up north. Since the town barely had a population of seven hundred and their main electricity supplier was tied to the bigger city of Juzhou nearby, mechanics were currently checking the generators, and electrical engineers were checking on the circuits. A shower of snow was also reported but the town’s location near the mountains made the possibility of the weather occurrence as an oddity dismissible.

He just happened to see the small title under all the other headlines of celebrity marriages, but now the idea had him considering collecting different reports of similar occurrences for his students to study up on. Practical experience was, after all, just as important as theory. Recalling that Minseok had told him a few before, he wrote down the ones he remembered before asking Minseok for others.

The RDASM Manager (because Luhan worked with that abbreviation much better) had said that he needed to help a coworker with something. Luhan asked if it was his rude cat-looking coworker again and was waiting to shoot off into a rant about workplace harassment after his response no matter what his response was. Luhan didn’t like that guy—what was his name? Dust? Oh, Chen—and he rarely disliked anybody.

His internal rant was put on hold though, because his phone started to ring. It wasn’t a number that he knew, but Minseok did tell him to expect a call from some big tech people who wanted to collaborate with the university. He swiped to receive it.

“Hello, this is Professor Lu.”

“Professor Lu of SM university? Hello, I’m Jeong Jaehyun. I represent NC Tech, and we heard that you might be able to help us with our venture. Kim Minseok from Alternatives in Disposal Solutions gave us your contact.”

Luhan cooled his voice, sat up straighter, but on the inside the most unprofessional explosion of giddiness and nervousness flailed in him. Minseok wasn’t kidding when he said that he put Luhan on a pedestal.

“Yes, he’s my good friend. He told me that you guys were looking to connect to the education industry, correct?”

From there, Jeong Jaehyun discussed their ideas for a partnership with the university, while Luhan inputted his thoughts, noted what to research from the school side, and anticipated some basic statistics and supply estimation that the university might have wanted upfront.

A knocking sounded on his door during their conversation, so he got up and opened the door, his phone still at his ear. Oh Sehun stood in the hallway, thumbing through the binder that Luhan always saw when the student entered his classroom. He bid him in and closed the door.

“Great! Then I’ll just forward the numbers to you once I get them. Is the email address on your school faculty page a good email?”

“Yes, it is. And I’ll get my coworkers on the topic and try to get their support. They’ll all pretty much say yes, so I wouldn’t worry about that. I’ll bring this up in the next department meeting. It’s in about two weeks—biweekly things—so if you could get the info to me by then, we can strengthen our argument, but it’s by no means necessary. I still have a lot to do on my end. I… I’m just excited.”

He gave a shy laugh and darted his gaze around in habit. His eyes landed on his student, who was watching him with something other than his usual always-slightly-bored expression. It almost looked like a glimmer of interest. Luhan swung his gaze to his bookcase.

“I’m excited as well. To be honest, Minseok pretty much came up with the idea for all this, so I owe him one. More than one, actually.”

“Yeah, Minseok’s a good guy. You know, I accidentally drove into one of the lots of his workplace, and he directed me out of there? That was how we met.”

Jeong Jaehyun laughed, a woofing and wheezing laugh.

“You must have the worst luck.”

“Well, I’d like to think that I always get out with my skin intact somehow. Maybe that’s where all my luck went to. Then I’ll talk to you later. A student just entered my office, and I should honor the office hour window.”

“Ah, yes, of course. Thank you once again.”

With a last bye, Luhan hung up and turned to Oh Sehun. He actually knew what Sehun needed as he had been coming to his office hours for the exact same reason for a few weeks now. Not only did the school system mess up his transfer, but then the third-party homework submission system also messed up his information with the information he had with his previous school. Although Luhan knew that Avalik Engineering was a popular site to use for engineering programs nationwide, he would have thought they had better information storage and organization than to have mixed up Sehun’s old school info and SM’s info AND mess up his online textbook purchase. They gave him a renewal of the book he used at his old school, and Luhan just sighed at their incompetence.

“Life of a transfer student,” Oh Sehun had said with a shrug.

Now though, Sehun stared at him with that small glimmer in his eyes instead of the boredom, and Luhan couldn’t help but notice how that attention trained on him.

“Homework four point three, right, Sehun?”

“Yes.”

Luhan sifted his files for the answer key and started checking over his homework. Since Avalik insisted on reconfirming Sehun’s information and his (in Luhan’s opinion) absolutely legitimate purchase of the new textbook, Luhan offered to give him print-outs of the homework and have him come into his office hours to have his homework checked until then. He would have personalized feedback but also half a day less to work on his homework and commute times, and the student agreed.

“Watch out for your coefficient and decimal rounding. Number seven has a bigger friction factor than you might think. Read the question very carefully.”

He marked a few more things, calculated the grade, and wrote it at the top, making a note for himself to input the grade into the school system later.

“I met a Minseok a few days ago.”

Luhan closed the binder and slid it back to him. In addition to the homework checks, he also listened to the student tell him random snippets of his life. At first, he wondered why he would tell him and just made polite responses, but he had grown to look forward whenever Sehun said his event for the homework check-in.

“Really? At the coffee shop you work at, Peaberry?”

“Yeah. I made the order and set it on the counter. Then he asked me to turn around because there was something on the back of my shirt. I thought it was something small, but he yanked so hard that he was basically choking me.”

“Are you sure that he was actually picking something off your shirt?”

“Yeah. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy to lie. I didn’t see what it was, but he said he got it so.” He shrugged. “I told him thanks and expected him to take his coffee orders, but he kept slapping his hand to the counter and wouldn’t take the second cup of coffee for his friend. It turns out he had an early onset of arthritis. I felt really bad, because I said something that implied that he was just taking my attention for no reason at all.”

Sehun played with his fingers, and Luhan could practically see the Rubik’s cube that he rotated into place.

“He was nice about it, but still. I gave him and his friend some pastries as a sorry, and he accepted my apology. They were holding hands on the way out, so I’m assuming that’s an arthritis massaging help method. Or maybe they were more than friends.”

Luhan nodded. He figured that he would know arthritis massaging help methods when he got arthritis though.

“They sound like good friends.”

“I think so too. You said Minseok, so I just thought of that.”

“Ah, right. Thanks for waiting while I was on the phone.”

Sehun tilted his head and looked down at the table, his silver-dyed fringe falling into his eyes.

“What were you excited about?”

“What?”

“On the phone, you said that you were excited about something.”

Luhan thought for a moment, wondering how much trouble he would get if he told his student. But then again, it wasn’t as if the potential partnership had to be kept a staff secret.

“Nothing’s confirmed yet, but I’m trying to kickstart a university partnership with NC Tech. My friend, Minseok, met these guys looking to expand their brand, and he told them to try through the education industry and gave them my contact.”

Luhan leaned back in his chair and thrummed his fingers on the desk.

“I’m honestly not the right person to get this through since I’m new to the university, but I want to try. It’ll be good for the students too.”

“I think that’s great. I don’t know much about that kind of administrative stuff, but I think you could do it. You’re good at organizing and troubleshooting, like with my Avalik problem and changing the order of the units that we learn for the students.”

Luhan chuckled, crossing his arms.

“You knew about that? Are you buttering up your professor?”

“My cousin studied the same thing, and I did their homework so I could tell. And no, I just think that it’s true.”

He looked up, and Luhan looked away, willing the flush of heat to his cheeks down. He hadn’t been expecting such a blunt compliment. After speaking with Sehun for a while though, he could see the student as someone who, though quiet, didn’t beat around the bush and never held back his words.

“Well, thank you for that. Might have been from doing your cousin’s homework—which, by the way, I have negative feelings towards—but you grasp the concepts quicker than the rest of the class.”

Sehun blinked at him, his face completely blanking, even as pink started to dust his cheeks. Luhan had seen this a couple times too, and he thought the little habit quite endearing.

In the professor-student-relationship-totally-no-other-meaning kind of way.

He admittedly might have become a little fond of the silver-haired because of the amount of time he spent with him.

No teacher’s favorites though. He had his professor integrity.

Bowing, Sehun took his binder, the next set of homework, and waved bye to Luhan. He waved back and started his strategic plan to garner support for the partnership.

~~~~~

All Minseok wanted to do was go home, shower, and plant face-first into his daybed. The morning had been fine—driving to work with a grouchy Chen wasn’t that bad. Minseok was actually getting used to meeting his grumpy face in the hallway and then having his narrowed eyes on him while he went about his morning routine. They would drive to his workplace, and Chen would disappear somewhere, probably to hang around D.O. Then they, he, and Yixing would meet up for lunch, potentially discuss plans, and then work until it was time for Minseok to drive him and Chen back to his house.

Except today, someone had forgotten to check the gas pressure of one of their anaerobic compost domes, Dome 1D, and if D.O hadn’t felt tremors in the ground, they could’ve had an explosion with the power to wipe out the entire side of the highway. While D.O went to strangle whoever neglected their job (and Minseok could tell that was his intent from the way he sped off in his silent rage), he went to check the tanks again. The anaerobic compost dome had two manometers that worked independently from each other, so if one were out of whack, the other could alert the employee of something amiss.

When Minseok checked it though, neither meter showed a correct reading. One showed a kPa at max, while the other showed none at all. The gas harvest from last night had been reported successful, so the dome should have shown a reading of around—

Minseok jumped, almost hitting the gauge, when a presence zipped into place behind him. He turned around and saw Chen standing behind him, sparks falling off his clothes. The demon’s eyes widened a little before a smirk laced his face. Glad that the whirring of the machinery meant that Chen couldn’t say anything without screaming over the noise, Minseok rolled his eyes, finished writing down the measurements, and headed to check on the other domes.

Chen followed him, peering over his shoulder and tapping on the gauges. The thought somehow prodded Minseok’s mind to buy more cat toys, and he shook the idea away. He didn’t have a cat anymore.

A clang sounded behind him, and he turned around to see Chen holding one of the many markers they used around each dome to signify which lot it belonged to. The ten-foot flag he now twirled in his hand was normally stuck twenty-five feet from ground level as one of the middle level markers of the area. Facepalming himself, Minseok marched up to him and crossed his arms at the demon, but Chen just beamed a cheeky look at him and waved the flag over Minseok’s head. Reconsidering whether to buy some more cat toys, he sighed and finished his rounds.

“Go find D.O or Yixing,” Chen said once they walked back to the facility entrance. “I’m going to put this in my house.”

“That’s stolen property. And you have a house?”

“Duh. You saw my unit leader’s mansion. Why can’t I have a house?”

“I wasn’t saying that you couldn’t have one—”

“Good. I’ll be back.”

He flicked his wrist, and a line of electricity zipped through the air as a portal crackled into existence. Instead of the red and black of the portal swirling like lake ripples, they crackled, buzzing out like voltage. Chen stepped through, and the portal zipped closed. Sighing, Minseok went to find D.O and see if he had found someone to strangle yet.

It turned out that he hadn’t strangled anyone yet when Minseok found him in the security room. The earth demon had dismissed the surveillance employees and was scanning through videos of dead-in-the-night yesterday. Knocking on the door, he walked up to D.O and watched.

For the first few minutes, he didn’t see anything particularly out of order even when D.O was fast forwarding the camera shots of the gauge area for each lot. He actually had no idea what the earth demon was searching for, but a flash of darkness caught Minseok’s eye.

“D.O, can you rewind a bit?”

The earth demon did, and Minseok watched the same flash of darkness. For an instant, the north gauge of 1D looked as if the dark had swallowed it.

“Do you see that?”

“Yes. That’s what I was looking for.”

He stopped the video and turned out the door, then stopped at the doorway. Turning back around, D.O looked down at Minseok’s wrist before taking it in the most delicate of holds, as if he were made of glass.

“You should see it too.”

Minseok held in his bounces of joy and just followed his lead. They walked back out into the late summer sun to Dome 1D, and before the whirring turned loud, D.O turned to him.

“There’s a hell creature here. Find it. Try to sense it.”

Rubbing his neck at the sudden test, Minseok was a bit surprised that D.O would let him take out the problem. The disposal manager made quick and efficient work and flayed anyone who couldn’t keep up with a glare. Minseok didn’t want to disappoint him, so he first looked around. Nothing was out of the ordinary—just the green grass, summer sun, and the inaccurate pressure gauges. D.O had said to sense it. Sense it like how he had felt Chen’s electricity?

He stopped looking and focused on what he felt from the world around him. Heat seeping through his clothes, the whirr of the machines and hum of the dome, and behind him hummed D.O’s aura. It felt hushed, almost dormant, but Minseok also felt how that core held power underneath its apparent slumber. Taking a breath, he tried again. Something like the demon’s aura but different…

A flicker danced from around the dome. Minseok jogged closer, only for it to disappear around the dome again. But D.O walked up to him, and Minseok’s being stopped as the earth demon’s lips folded into a heart-shaped smile.

D.O swung his hand up, and a pillar of earth erupted out of the ground, higher than the three-hundred foot dome. A speck of darkness flew into the air, and as Minseok squinted against the sun, he thought he saw horns shining in the light. D.O stomped, and another length of earth, this one shaped like a vice, snatched the speck up and sank back through the ground. When Minseok blinked his vision back to normal, the ground had closed, and even the grass had covered the seams of the eruption again. Taking Minseok’s wrist again, D.O led them back out of the dome area. He spotted Chen, his arms crossed, his smirk curling his mouth.

“Took you guys quite a while.”

“I let Minseok find it. It was an imp.”

“Those little punks are a waste of time and demonic energy. All they do is break things and annoy people.”

“Was an imp the reason we almost had an explosion on our hands?”

“Yes.”

Minseok rubbed his temples at the thought.

“You should get used to it. They like messing with weak creatures.”

“What did you do with the imp, D.O?”

“I sent it back to hell.”

“Okay, so when you write the report for this, just put equipment failure. It’s technically not lying, and thanks for, you know, preventing all of us from dying.”

Chen piped in something about only him and the other humans dying, but Minseok ignored him in favor of seeing D.O’s mouth quip up in a tiny smile. The disposal manager nodded and waved bye before heading to the on-ground office. Minseok started the way back to his own office when he walked a few steps and realized that Chen was following him.

“Aren’t you going to go hang around D.O?”

“What, did you miss me?”

Minseok didn’t dignify that with a response and just kept up the halls, Chen bounding in step with him.

“Back there at the dome, you sensed me, didn’t you?”

“I felt something buzzing behind me.”

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