Nana shut the door tightly behind her and she started walking down the hallway.

You followed her, your boots still making slight squeaking noises against the floor.

A large group of girls passed, and you caught the eye of the one in the front which you guess was the leader of the whole group.

She gave you an icy look with her dark blue eyes and tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulders. Her tattoo was a light, translucent pink outlined with a few lines of silvery strands. It was in the shape of flowing, curving lines, almost like whips. She continued walking and the group followed her.

As they passed, you stepped back to back to avoid catching mouthfuls of artificially coloured hair in your mouth.

You saw Nana roll her eyes once they all passed.

“That’s the school’s female alpha,” Nana explained. “accompanied by her group of es. She’s the alpha, so she goes around like that all the time with her boyfriend or her es. Just because she’s special and gifted with the special wolf powers does not mean that she has to go around like that, right?” Nana rolled her eyes again and clenched her fists. “I mean, she’s the best, but she doesn’t have to go around like that all the time!”

Nana’s cheeks had turned crimson as she talked.

You just blinked.

She slowly unclenched her fists, but her cheeks stayed red. “Sorry.” She forced a smile. “Let me introduce you to some nicer people of our school.”

She continued to walk down the hallway and you followed her, falling into step with her. She stopped in front of a door and she knocked on it.

A girl with straight, jet black hair opened the door. “Nana?”

“Hyun Jae!” Nana smiled and placed her hand on your shoulder.

It took all of you to resist pulling away from her touch.

“This is _________.” She introduced you to the girl, Hyun Jae. “She just got here today and I thought it’d be nice to help her around with the people here.”

Hyun Jae’s tattoo was covered by her long hair.
“Annyeong, ___________.” She smiled sweetly at you. “Welcome to Dal’s. It can be overwhelming at first, but it will get much better, so don’t stress.”

You nodded.

“Isn’t her tattoo amazing?” Nana added, still smiling.

Hyun Jae nodded. “It’s so much better than mine.” She brushed her hair away from her face. Underneath lay a such a translucent blue tattoo in the shape of a slight butterfly that it almost seemed that she didn’t have a tattoo.

You shook your head. “I like yours.” You said quietly.

“Really?” She sighed disbelievingly. “It’s so bad.”

“Let’s just not talk about tattoos, araso?” Nana broke into the conversation, looking over sympathetically at Hyun Jae.

You nodded along with Hyun Jae.

Hyun Jae let her hair slide back into place. “So ________.” She stared at you. “Have you met our female alpha yet?”

Nana answered for you. “She’s met them unofficially. We passed them in the hall on our way here.” She shook her head. “Those es.” She muttered under her breath.

“Her name is Sun Hee. She’s our school’s female alpha...” She paused. “You DO know what an alpha is, right?”

“Um... not really.”

“An alpha,” Nana explained, “is a very special werewolf. They possess special powers that no other werewolf has and they are the strongest and most powerful out of everyone. No one is quite sure of the full abilities of alphas, but all we know is that they have very special abilities that no one has figured out yet.”

“And there can only be one alpha of each gender in a school.” Hyun Jae added. “If there are two, then the weaker one will be banished and forced to join another pack.”

You nodded as if you cared, but in truth, you really didn’t. Actually, what you really wanted right now was to have some time alone.

Nana looked over at you and seemed to understand. “I think we should go back to our room.” She turned to Hyun Jae. “See you around!”

Hyun Jae gave a little wave and went back into her room as Nana lead you back to your own room with her.

She opened the door with her eye and walked in. “I’ll let you get used to our room first and take a shower, all that stuff.” She smiled. “I’ll see you in training third and fourth period tomorrow.”

You nodded. “Oh.. kay.” You went into the bedroom and dug through the folded pile of “casual” attire the school had given you.

You felt relieved when you saw a pair of loosely fitting black sweatpants marked with the school emblem. You chose a comfortable looking tank top and went to take a shower after the long day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

You woke up the next morning to Nana’s obnoxiously blaring alarm.

She sat up in the bed next to you, yawning. “Good morning, ___________.”

You blinked and sat up. You cracked your neck a few times to the right and once to the left and got up on your feet, heading to the bathroom.

Nana didn’t seem to care about your cold attitude. In fact, she seemed like she was expecting it.

You went into the bathroom and looked at yourself in the mirror. Your eyes travelled to your left cheek, where your tattoo was imprinted.

“It’s a really pretty tattoo...”

You often forgot you even had a tattoo and your hand went up to your left cheek, your fingers brushing against the red lily slightly. You leaned in closer to the mirror to inspect your tattoo closely.

The blood red lily appeared to be shadowed by some black colour, and you clearly remembered that your tattoo wasn’t always like that. The black didn’t get there until... you weren’t quite sure when, but it had been there for quite a long time.

“___________?”

You jumped back away from the mirror, almost knocking over a bottle of shampoo.

It was Nana. “Are you okay in there? You should start getting ready soon for classes.”
You grasped the silver handle of the door and pulled it open, bringing you and Nana face to face.

Almost.

She was half a head taller than you. She was also bright and alert, fully dressed in her crisp uniform with her slightly crumpled tie.

“I’m good. I’ll just get changed...”

She nodded. “Want me to go with you to class?”

“Aniyo, I’ll be fine. This guy in third year is going to help me with that.”

“Dongho?”

“Yeah.”

She pursed her lips. “Okay..” Her expression darkened. “I’ll see you third and fourth period then. Bring your sweatpants and the school tee shirt.”

“Thanks.”

She turned away, her black flats barely making a sound as she went out of the room and shut the door behind her.

You shook our head as you stepped back into the room and slipped on the crisp uniform. You felt tight and uncomfortable as you tied the tie loosely around your neck and pulled the socks up to your knees.

You yanked the hair tie off your pale wrist and pulled your hair back into a sleek, black pony tail. Stuffing your sweatpants and what you assumed was the school tee shirt into your backpack, you headed out the door.

When you shut the door, you saw Dongho flash his charming smile and wink at you.

A group of girls shuffled past with flushed cheeks, giggling as they stole glances at Dongo.

“Have they never seen a boy before?” You rolled your eyes.

Dongho shrugged, still smiling. “They don’t often have a guy in girl’s dorms, you know.”

“I knew that.” You snapped, glaring at Dongho.

His smile didn’t waver. “Almost every girl in Dal’s would be happy to be in your place with me right now.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~