Hunters. Somewhere in this godforsaken town were hunters. Of course. Neris just couldn’t catch a break.

She lingered outside the school building, debating whether or not to go inside. With the current revelation of hunters hanging over her head, she was apprehensive about what her school walls could hold.

One of her former English teachers had tried to kill her and her friends before. An interim teacher had been the matriarch of a hunter family and had tried to kill one of her best friends. She’d had classmates try to kill her before.

In short, Beacon Hills was nothing close to normal for Neris and her friends.

Apparently, Bonghwa Eondeog wasn’t either.

She heaved a heavy breath and squared her shoulders, mentally preparing herself for the unwelcoming reactions she would get when she walked into the building.

|||

“Class, we have a new student, all the way from California,” the homeroom teacher cheerfully announced as she turned to Jin-hee. “Please introduce yourself.”

“Annyeong,” she spoke quietly. “I’m Neris.”

The class looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to say more. She was right, though – she was getting many strange looks. She could only imagine what they were thinking; though, she assumed they were wondering if her exaggerated features were real. When Neris didn’t continue speaking, her teacher gave a small smile and prompted her to say more.

“Is there something about yourself you’d like to tell the class?” The teacher wondered.

The girls will probably all hate me by the time the week is over and the boys will probably want to sleep with me because I’m a novelty. Neris thought to herself. I’m not human and yes, that’s why the boys want to sleep with me. I don’t want to make friends with any of you because I have my own friends. Stay away from me especially if you aren’t human. I don’t need you screwing up my plan to return home.

“No,” Neris shook her head.

The teacher gave another small smile, this one laced with hesitation. “That’s alright. You can take the empty seat beside Lee Taemi.”

Neris looked up to see a very pretty girl raising her hand, smiling broadly at her new desk partner. Neris couldn’t help the small smile pricking at the corner of her lips – the girl’s cheeriness was contagious even from across the room. As she neared her new seat, she noticed the two desks in front were empty.

Odd. Weren’t these classes usually full?

“And it looks like, yet again, Mr. Kim and Mr. Bang are absent,” the teacher sighed, marking the absences down in his book.

“They’re absent every now and then,” Taemi whispered to her new desk partner. “If they didn’t get good grades, it’d be a problem, but Bang Yongguk is ranked first and Kim Himchan is second in the senior class.”

“Ms. Lee, quiet down,” the teacher droned, sounding bored before the class had even stared.

“Sorry,” Taemi told him, flashing a cheeky smile at her desk partner.

|||

School wasn’t as terrible as Neris had thought it would be. She had actually made a friend…ly acquaintance. Taemi seemed like a nice person; she wasn’t pretentious, she didn’t treat Neris like a sideshow exhibit, and she was pretty witty. But Neris didn’t know the girl well enough to actually call her a friend.

After all, the only thing she really knew about Lee Taemi was that she was ranked third in the senior year. That, and Neris was about 80% sure Taemi was human.

However, her good mood – however mild it was – was ruined when she pulled her car into her driveway. Standing on her front porch were six males, two of whom were in her house last night.

“Nope,” Neris shook her head as she exited her car. “No way. Get out; get off my porch and don’t come near me.”

“I just wanted to thank you –” the boy she had saved began, stepping forward.

“I don’t want your thanks,” Neris shook her head. “I want you to leave me alone.”

“What’s your problem?” The broad-shouldered one demanded.

“You’re my problem,” she told him. “I don’t care what you are, or why there are hunters after you. I’ve had my fair share of near death experiences and I want no part in your business because I know it’ll lead to more. I just need six months of normalcy and I get to go home, so I am begging you to leave me alone.”

“If you wanted us to leave you alone, then why did you help Junhong last night?” He interrogated her.

“Well, I didn’t actually know he was a shapeshifter,” she protested. “If I had, I – ”

“Would have left him to die.”

“No,” she admitted stubbornly. “Though, I will admit that it’s kind of amazing you can turn into an actual wolf. I mean, that’s really rare.”

“No it’s not,” another male spoke up – one with smallish eyes and thick lips. “We can all do it.”

“What? That’s not possible. That’s – no,” she cut herself off, squeezing her eyes shut in attempt to stifle her curiosity. “Don’t get involved, stop asking questions. Just…get off my porch and leave me alone.”

She brushed past the group of males and made her way into her house, leaving them stunned and confused in her wake.

|||

Neris couldn’t focus on her homework; she was too wrapped up in the words that were spoken to her earlier. It was rare for a werewolf to turn into an actual wolf; that’s what she’s known for years. She’d known the origin story of werewolves almost as long as she’d known the history of her own kind.

And yet, there were six boys who had turned something she had taken as a fact written in stone and flipped it on its head. That is, if they were telling the truth. There was no reason for them to lie, Neris knew that full well, yet there was a large part of her reluctant to accept that truth.

A knock on her door pulled her away from her half-hearted attempts at being a good student. Numerous possibilities of what was awaiting her behind her front door were running through her mind, and the worst of all would be a hunter.

However, she opened the door to find not a human, but another wolf – this one uninjured. Its fur was white, save for a mask of grey fur covering the top of its head and ears and travelling across its back, and a small patch of light tawny fur at the base of its grey white tail.

“No,” Neris shook her head. “Go away.”

The wolf ignored her, bounding into her home as it skirted around her legs. With an exasperated groan, Neris slammed the door and trailed after it. As if it was having fun playing a game of its own invention, the wolf was waving its tail, its tongue hanging lopsided out of its mouth.

“I’m not afraid to tackle you, you know.” Neris informed him, unamused.

The wolf paid her no mind, however, and attempted to jump on to her couch. True to her word, Neris tackled the creature and brought the both of them to the floor. One second, there was fluff and fur rubbing on her arms, the next there was flesh. He was human. And .

“Oh my god, you’re ,” Neris squeaked, tensing up immediately as the young man stared down at her, utterly amused.

Neris would freely admit that this boy was beautiful. He thinly built and had almond shaped eyes that crinkled at the edges from his smile. His face reminded Neris of a cross between a cat and a dragon.

“Daehyun told you it’s wasn’t rare for us to turn into wolves,” he grinned. “I just wanted to prove it.”

“Yeah, point proven,” Neris wheezed. “But do you have to be to do it?”

”You’re kind of fixating on this whole ‘’ thing,” his head cocked to the side.

“Gee, I wonder why.” She rolled her eyes, “Now will you please get off me and put on some clothes.”

The cat-dragon rolled off of her, grabbing a pillow from the couch and using it to cover himself. As Neris glared at him, he flashed an embarrassed smile.

“I, uh, don’t actually have any clothes.” He confessed.

She gave a small, exasperated laugh. Of course he didn’t.

“Wait here,” she told him. “And don’t….sit…on anything.”

Stomping upstairs to her bedroom, Neris grabbed random pieces of clothing that had once belonged to her two best friends. When Neris had found out she was leaving Beacon Hills, she had convinced Scott and Stiles to give her something of theirs to take with her to South Korea. They had laughed at her weirdness, but it had apparently proven handy.

The items in hand, she went back to the living room and them into the boy’s face. “Here.”

He put the pajama pants on with no problem, but he sniffed the shirt warily. “This smells like another wolf.”

“That’s because it belonged to one.” Neris told him. “If you don’t want to wear it, that’s fine.”

“I’d rather not,” he informed her, setting the shirt gingerly to the side. “I wouldn’t want to steal another wolf’s mate.”

Neris gagged, “Oh god, no. I am not Scott’s mate. That’s disgusting; he’s like my brother.”

Looking slightly uplifted, he pulled the shirt on and looked to Neris with a wide, expectant grin. “So, where do we begin?”

Neris was regretting opening the door in the first place. Going back to Beacon Hills was becoming impossible.