Thank you so much for subscribing! I hope you'll like the first chapter! ^ㅂ^ Also, I noticed the last paragraph of the prologue has a different layout and I don't know how to fix it ><' 

--

Upon opening the door, Baekhyun gets the scare of his life.

“You’re the new guy who’s rooming with me,” a tall guy right in front of him says and Baekhyun wonders how he doesn’t even sound surprised at seeing someone right there at the same time. Then he remembers his name up on the door, so he already knew what was going on anyway. “I’m Jongin – but outside of this room, you better not call me that. Name’s Kai,” he demands and Baekhyun backs away a little from his imposing figure and his intimidating way of speaking to him. He’s used to it, though, so he doesn’t say anything of it. Besides having been called names all his life, he’s also the new guy and maybe, Jongin has some sort of right to be arrogant towards him.

“I’m Baekhyun,” he says nevertheless with a kind smile, “it’s nice to meet you.” At this point, Baekhyun isn’t sure whether or not he means that, especially because Jongin doesn’t respond to his words, other than a raised eyebrow. Baekhyun frowns when the tall guy enters their room, to come out before he even had the chance to walk away.

“Gotta go, so yeah,” Jongin says, voice void of emotion and Baekhyun doesn’t respond. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t know what to say. Though he feels bitter about having a roommate that’s apparently going to give him a hard time, he follows after him secretly. His reasoning is that wherever Jongin is going to go now, Baekhyun might have to go there in the future as well. To be really honest, though, he just doesn’t want to feel lost and alone in a school he doesn’t know. He follows the tall guy for a few minutes, but without any proper notice beforehand, Jongin disappears into thin air. Or, to be more accurate, thin black smoke. Baekhyun looks around, confused, but nobody shares his confusion and quickly, it dawns on him that this must be everyday stuff for everyone here.

Thankfully, though, Baekhyun is noticed by someone else, someone who isn’t willing to leave him here all alone without a guide. Baekhyun doesn’t particularly mean to think about it, but teleportation, wow. In comparison to his own power, that is something. He can just imagine all the things one could do with a power like that – but before the blush can creep up his cheeks at inappropriate thoughts, he’s talked to by that kind boy who sees him standing still instead of rushing around like the others.

“Don’t think I’ve seen you around before?” The guy has a rather unique voice, but definitely not unpleasant to the ears, Baekhyun notices and realizes he thinks too much. The boy is around his height, has a broad grin on his face with lips that naturally seem to curl upwards. Baekhyun thinks he’s charming, to be honest, with his strong jawline and kind eyes.

“I just got here today,” Baekhyun replies before he introduces himself. The two start walking, pretty much in the same direction of the rest of the student body and Baekhyun can only think he’s glad that he’s not left on his own anymore.

“I’m Jongdae, but they call me Chen – I don’t really know why – you can call me that, or not,” the boy rambles and laughs shortly at himself and it makes Baekhyun grin. Not just because of the random rambling, but also because his laugh sounds pretty funny. “Some of the students have combat practice, but there’s one match that everyone wants to see,” he explains, gesturing around himself. “Wanna come? I was just on my way there.” Baekhyun doesn’t fully realize he bites his lip in excitement, because combat practice? That means matches, showing others how much you’ve learned – but Baekhyun also realizes that his own power doesn’t have too much to do with combat.

“Sure!” he says excitedly anyway, and feels a little embarrassed, so he adds, “sounds like fun,” in a little bit more of a composed tone of voice. Jongdae isn’t impressed either way and shows him a toothy smile when he leads him further through the hallways, still following the chattering student body.

Baekhyun is silently in awe when they enter the hall that looks most like a small stadium. In the middle, a little more down below, is a battleground and it’s completely surrounded by rows and rows of seats. A considerable amount of students has gathered and everyone chats excitedly when they take their seats and look at the boys who stand below.

“See the short guy there? His name is Kyungsoo.” Baekhyun nods, recognizes him as the guy who smiled at him earlier, before the raven-haired boy puts his helmet on only his eyes remain visible. “And the tall one, that’s Chanyeol.” He doesn’t wear a suit, Baekhyun notices with a slight frown. “They say he’s dangerous,” Jongdae continues, “that’s why we wear the suit when we have to battle against him. I heard he once burned his friend, but they say he still brags about how good he is all the time…” Baekhyun frowns at the explanation – it’s all rumors, yet Jongdae sounds like he really dislikes this Chanyeol. Judging from his story, he hasn’t seen anything with his own eyes, yet he made up his mind so quickly. “He’s weird either way,” Jongdae mutters and Baekhyun isn’t sure whether or not he heard correctly, so he doesn’t want to dwell on it.

“Isn’t all magic dangerous in some way, though?” he asks instead, a little weary not to make Jongdae go on the defensive – but instead, the guy laughs Baekhyun’s worries away. Maybe he doesn’t get angry all that fast anyway, Baekhyun hasn’t even known him for five minutes.

“There’s magic and there’s magic, you know,” he answers with a grin that Baekhyun isn’t sure how to interpret, but Jongdae soon focuses on the two in the middle. “I think they’re starting, let’s go sit a bit further down. I want you to see it well.” Jongdae’s voice sounds playful, but Baekhyun still follows suit like the lost puppy he is without a guide. He realizes he thinks too much again and hopes that while growing in his magic skills, he can also grow over that habit.

Baekhyun pays attention to only Kyungsoo and he’s not sure why – maybe it’s because he wants to make sure he’s safe, after what Jongdae told him about Chanyeol before the match. Or maybe it’s because of Kyungsoo’s lack of offensive moves and Baekhyun is on edge because of it. The small boy dodges the flames swiftly, but he lacks confidence and eventually, one of Chanyeol’s attacks hits his arm badly. Baekhyun gasps, but he learned that the suit protects them, so he exhales in relief, though the match isn’t over. Flames keep charging and Baekhyun understands that Chanyeol is skilled, however much Jongdae tried to deny that earlier. The time between the attacks becomes shorter each time and Kyungsoo has only managed to create one spear of earth to fire at Chanyeol this entire time. When the tallest of the two stands still for a short while, gathering what Baekhyun believes is concentration, a ridiculously large flame is sent straight towards Kyungsoo. The entire audience is in dreadful silence, but Baekhyun screams in horror – and the stadium blacks.

Holy , Baekhyun thinks. This hasn’t ever happened before. He hears Jongdae ask what the hell is going on all of a sudden, so he tries to will the lights back on, but he can’t. He blames it on his troubled mind because Kyungsoo sure as hell looked like he was going to die from that flame – but the suit protected him.

Somewhere in the back, someone yells that there’s a technical issue and seconds later, the lights flicker back on. Baekhyun would have sighed in relieve, but he feels eyes burn on him and he’s not sure where to look. Nervously, he scans the stadium, trying not to stand out too much as he does so, and then he meets the tall guy’s eyes. Chanyeol.

Baekhyun is sure he has never seen such intensity in anyone’s eyes before and he’s stunned, quite literally. He doesn’t know why he’s looked at like that and he doesn’t know what it means – but he does know that Chanyeol has lost his focus on the match. An earthquake is created that has both Chanyeol and Baekhyun stumble to the floor for support and with that, Kyungsoo won the match. A little unfair, Baekhyun thinks, because Chanyeol had multiple hits during the battle.

“Well, that was something,” Baekhyun says with his voice wavering a little, a nervous laugh escaping his lips to cover it up, but that only makes it more obvious.

“You were actually scared!” Jongdae teases when they walk through one of the side entrances, giving Baekhyun a friendly smack on the shoulder. “I don’t really get the technical issue though – right at the moment you were pissing your pants.” Jongdae gives him a pretty nasty grin, but Baekhyun doesn’t want to give himself away so easily. Therefore, he covers it up without answering the unasked question.

“I really thought he was going to die or something–”

“I was wearing the suit, and it didn’t hit me in the end,” Kyungsoo interrupts in an airy voice, giving Baekhyun another jump-scare as he hadn’t even seen him join them. When Baekhyun snaps his head towards him, he sees the carefree smile on his lips. “Good to see you’re not by yourself anymore, it’s pretty easy to get lost with so many things going on. I’m Kyungsoo, but I’m sure Chen-Chen has told you already, what’s your name?” His voice sounds a little deeper now, as if the rush from the match has already left his body.

“I’m Baekhyun,” he introduces again, “it’s nice meeting you both.”

They fill up some time with small-talk, seeing as both other boys don’t have any classes to rush to anymore either. Kyungsoo, as Baekhyun expected earlier, wasn’t very confident during the battle, even though he had won. It’s not the first time he won a battle, though, and Baekhyun believes he’s better than he thinks he is.

“I can somewhat control light,” Baekhyun says, a little uneasy when he’s asked what his power is, because Jongdae just explained about his own lightning-abilities.

“Ah, I knew it was you just now!” Jongdae exclaims, that high-pitched laugh following again and Baekhyun doesn’t have the heart to feel insignificant. Instead, he rubs his neck with an awkward smile. “Pretty cool though,” the boy compliments and Kyungsoo easily agrees, telling him how shocked he was that all of a sudden, Chanyeol’s attack missed him and that the tall guy seemed so out of it, that he could sweep him off his feet. Baekhyun keeps to himself that it was their moment of mutual staring that caused Chanyeol to be distracted.

They go their separate ways for after-school free time and Baekhyun wonders if he has just now made friends. It’s nice, he thinks, to have people to talk to like that. Back home, that’s not what he was used to at all and he welcomes the change. He goes back to his dorm room, and looks at that note stuck to the door with a frown. He better not call Jongin just that outside of their room, he was told. Outside of this room, Jongin is Kai and Baekhyun wonders why that is.

He finds his roommate at the desk on his side of the room and wonders why he isn’t socializing at this moment of the day. To Baekhyun, he seems the kind of person to have a whole flock of followers, but maybe, others find him arrogant as well? He doesn’t want to judge so quickly, but Jongin has made it a bit hard on himself with their unfortunate first meeting.

What surprises him even more, though, is that Jongin slaps the notebook he’d been writing in closed as soon as he notices Baekhyun. He looks accusingly at the smaller guy, though Baekhyun raises his hands as a sign of peace – though he was really just on his way to ask Jongin what he was doing, with the most friendly intentions. Before that happens, Jongin cuts him off rather intimidatingly.

“Okay just to make things clear. You won’t read any of my stuff, ever. Even if I leave them open on the desk for your prying eyes to see, got it?”  Baekhyun raises an eyebrow at the defensive tone his roommate uses on him.

“What makes you think I even want to? Why are you being snappy all the time anyway? What did I do?” He didn’t really want to say it, definitely not using such an angry tone of voice, but he wants to get this off his chest now, rather than have this build up over the course of time. Besides, he doesn’t believe Jongin – or Kai – should be this unkind to him after all. Jongin, however, frowns and he looks bothered, hurt, and Baekhyun wants to take his words back.

“You know what? What you see here, stays here. Please.”