After that night, Hyunjoong and Youngsaeng were always clinging together again, holding hands wherever they went, always smiling and sparkling.

"Today, we won't be discussing any topics," Mr. Ryu began. "Everybody get into pairs. We will be going to the Night class gym to start training for the Demon Marathon."

Everybody cheered while Youngsaeng had no idea what the teacher was talking about. He looked over at Hyunjoong in confusion. The latter held onto Youngsaeng's hand and grinned. "Let's be partners."

Youngsaeng furrowed his eyebrows. "What's this for?"

"For the Demon Marathon, we're going to fight each other and train," the latter exclaimed, clapping his hands excitedly.

The younger boy's eyes widened and he quickly wriggled his hand out of the boy's grip. "L-Let's not be partners for this."

"Eh? Why?"

But Youngsaeng had already gotten up. "Onew! Wanna be my partner?"

"You just got rejected, didn't you?" Kyujong's voice came from behind him. "What happened this time?"

Hyunjoong frowned. "I don't know... I just told him that we were training for the Demon Marathon and he ran off saying that we shouldn't be partners for this."

"Do you want to stay partners with me again this time, then?"

The older boy shrugged and stood up. "Sure." He turned back to see his lover smiling and chatting happily with Onew.

All ten of the students arrived at the giant gym with strong stone columns at each corner and a hard, stone floor.

"Why is everything stone here?" Youngsaeng asked curiously.

"We're vampires and we train here," Onew replied. "Everything has to be pretty sturdy to support our strength."

"Everybody, choose an empty space in the gym and begin to train," Mr. Ryu commanded as he went off to the side and sat on a bench to observe.

Onew and Youngsaeng chose a spot near the side. Hyunjoong made sure he stayed near Youngsaeng so that he could keep an eye on the boy.

"Hyunjoong," Kyujong started. "You shouldn't watch him too closely. Give him some space. He needs it."

The older boy turned back to his best friend and smirked. "Let's start."

Youngsaeng stood at his spot as Onew began to attack, magic arrows shooting from his hands. Youngsaeng shrieked in surprise and couldn't move, instead, he moved his lower arms into a cross in front of his chest upon instinct, tightly shutting his eyes. He felt wind but nothing hit him. He opened his eyes and saw the arrows all around him and even in between his legs but none of them had hit him.

Onew's eyes widened. "None of them hit you? But you didn't even move!"

Youngsaeng looked around him as the arrows evaporated into smoke, like the demons. What just happened... How did the arrows not hit me...?

Hyunjoong, who was watching, was also shocked. What just happened...? Onew was actually trying to hit him... How did all of them miss...? Suddenly, he noticed a faint mark on both of Youngsaeng's backhands. He squinted to see more clearly when he was suddenly cut off by Kyujong's sword, which had shot right in front of his noise, missing only by a millimeter.

"Ya! Pay attention!" Kyujong exclaimed in annoyance. "You would've actually gotten hurt if I hadn't only wanted your attention!"

Hyunjoong smiled awkwardly. "Mian, mian. I'll pay attention now." Even though he said that, he still couldn't get Youngsaeng out of his mind.

Onew attacked again, this time with a different technique. Youngsaeng saw blue fire on the palms of his hand and remembered that time when Hyunjoong had shown him that technique in class. So he's also someone who can use it... How am I supposed to defend against it though...? This is definitely a close-combat technique... That means all I really have to do is dodge.

The opponent surged forward, his hands on fire, as he tried to hit Youngsaeng. The latter could barely keep up with the attacks but managed to dodge them by barely a second. Onew's not using his real potentional, he's only using about 50% to do this much. I should try attacking, too.

With that, Youngsaeng gathered only a little bit of spirit magic into his eye and released it, not as much as he had done with the demons. Onew froze and suddenly collapsed, screaming and clutching his hand, as if in pain. Everyone in the gym stopped and stared, a few running over to see what was going on. Mr. Ryu also ended up going to where Youngsaeng was.

"What'd you do to him?" the teacher asked the boy who was kneeling down and trying to comfort Onew.

"I evoked a little bit of fear in him," Youngsaeng answered quietly as the boy calmed down slowly. "That's about it. With the demons, they become blinded if I use about 60% of that power. For Onew, I only used 20% and it already caused this much damage..."

"Did you know this would happen?"

Youngsaeng shook his head. "No, I was just trying it out."

Mr. Ryu looked around him and clapped his hands. "Okay everyone! Don't mind this! Go back to your training!"

They all obeyed and headed back to their spots, muttering about what had just happened. Mr. Ryu said to Onew. "You can go rest for a bit. Youngsaeng will wait for you, arasseo?"

Onew nodded and stood up, heading out the gym. Youngsaeng plopped onto a bench and pouted, kicking his legs forward and back out of boredom as he looked down at his legs. There wasn't much to do except wait.