The first few weeks of summer go by quicker than ever. You spend most of your time with your pack – listening to new songs, driving through the city, running around the woods, annoying Taemin when he’s working at the gym and teaching old ladies salsa – and some really good quality time with your mom. So you’re living the dream, basically.

Until the acceptance letters begin to come in, that is.

The first ones to get into a university are Suho and Chanyeol. They get their letters on the same day, open them when the whole pack gathers around them, and when they find out they both get in, all hell breaks loose.

Someone snatches you up and thank God Kai’s apartment has a high ceiling because you swear you almost hit your head on it.

Suho is gonna major in history. Chanyeol chooses anthropology.

You laugh with them, of course, happy that they got where they wanted.  Just a day later Kyungsoo tells you all that he got into the local university as well.

"You're gonna learn literature?" Baekhyun snorts when he manages to snatch the letter from him. Kyungsoo tries to take it back from him but Baek raises his arm up into the air and squints at the paper. "With philosophy course as a—, man, you do realize you're never going to find any job after these courses, right?"

Kris is the one to snatch the letter from Baek thanks to his height and give it back to Kyungsoo. Then he promptly glares at Baekhyun for being a and Baek tenses a little, realizing what he's just said.

"I'm not saying it's impossible, though!" he defends, looking sheepishly at Kyungsoo. "I mean—"

"Save it," Kyungsoo tells him. "I got where I wanted and I'm glad. You can it."

" what?" Amber asks, entering the loft. "And why is Baekhyun gonna do that?"

Baekhyun facepalms. The rest of you laugh in unison.

On Saturday you're hanging around Heejin's cafe when Luhan comes in, jumping happily on his heels, and sits next to you by the counter. Heejin has her back turned to you when he comes, and when she turns, she jumps a little at his presence.

"You guys really like to materialize out of thin air," she mutters, a can of whipped cream in her hand. You giggle - you can really relate to that - and Luhan grins like it's Christmas.

"You know what?" he says happily.

"What?" Heejin ask, shaking the can and eyeing the cake she just put onto the plate in front of her.

"Veterinary medicine. I got in."

You bend away on your chair, looking at him with widened eyes.

"I didn't even know you applied!" you almost shout, your caramel latte long forgotten.

"I didn't want to tell you before I was one hundred percent sure I got in," Luhan shrugs, then grins even wider. "But I did. I'm gonna get some real education and then I can freely work at the local clinic. Mr Choi already agreeded to have me as his apprentice—"

"That's amazing," Heejin says, smiling widely. "Want to celebrate it with a cake?"

"Is it on the house?"

She giggles. "Hah. No. I'm a broke adult without a job and this cafe is my only future prosperity option, so no, you're paying. If you order a coffee, though—"

Luhan dives in to squeeze her cheeks, but Heejin squeals and manages to hide under the counter.

You smile, but you can feel bitterness and jealousy settle heavy into your heart. You watch as Heejin and Luhan bicker for a few moments and then you continue to sip on your coffee.

On Sunday, a very young shapeshifter decides to drop by and you spend the entire evening trying to catch it. You finally do - by jumping off a building, grabbing it mid-air just as it starts to transform into a bird, and ending up in a waste container. Chen - dear God - manages to snap a photo of you. Chanyeol can't stop laughing. Sehun gets a text message and his attention drifts away from you, which is a bit weird.

“Where’s Matt Murdock? Why isn’t he here to hang out with you in that container? Matt! Claire!” Chanyeol screams.

“Shut up, oh my God,” you growl. The bird in your hands – the shapeshifter - starts thrashing around and pecking your hands, and you shout, trying to get the out of the trash. Chanyeol just laughs more. Chen takes  a video and adds it to his snapchat history.

(Later on he’s gonna wonder why all of his non-magic friends find him and his little gang weird.)

“Guys,” Sehun shouts suddenly, jumping in place and making Chris Pratt’s pose from Jurrasic World, basically. You have to try that one day with Kai in his wolf form. “I got in. Biology major.”

You guffaw. The shapeshifter almost gets out of your grip and tries to transform into a rat, so you place a quick suppressing spell on it.

The shapeshifter is barely seven years old and Siwon comes to take care of the kid. You go to Kai's loft, take a shower, and then you sit by the table in the living room.

“Here,” Kai says, throwing you an icepack. Your hand-eye coordination is a little rusty so it ends up on the floor with a loud flop. You look down at it from your chair, then up at Kai. Kai looks down at the icepack, then at you, then sighs.

He picks up the icepack and puts it onto your bare thigh, making you hiss.

“You’re stupid,” he points out.

“You’re hot,” you counter.

He grins a little, then goes back to the thing he was doing before you crashed at his loft, putting some new books away on the shelves. You watch his back as he does that, and you watch his jaw as he chews on bubble gun.

“I’m stupid,” you say at some point, straightening up in your seat. Kai looks back at you, frowns, turns towards the shelves again.

“I just said that,” he mutters.

You let your head hit the surface of the table and you wail in pain and distress.

“Yeah, but I’m talking about book stupid, not...life stupid.”

“Oh, that.”

You let out another grumble. “You’re supposed to be supportive, you know. Right now you should be saying stuff like ‘no, Dal, you’re the smartest person I’ve met’, and ‘it’s not your fault you didn’t ever have time to study because you had to fight monsters’, and ‘you can always take the tests again and you’ll do just fine’. That’s the stuff you should be telling me.”

“Why do I have to tell you that if you already know it all?” Kai mutters, his tone confused, like it’s honestly the biggest puzzle he’s ever had to solve in his life. You watch him as he puts the last book away and squint when he turns to face you.

 “Because I have depression,” you point out. Kai approaches you, making his frowny face.

“You don’t have depression,” he says, his voice stern, as he looks down at you. “Need a hug?”

“Not from you I don’t,” you spit, making a face and crossing your arms on your chest. You try not to hiss at the pain in your spine. You turn away from him, leaning over the chair, almost hugging it, and letting out a worn-out sob. “Uggh. Everyone is going places. Everybody has plans, you know? They all know what they want to do in the future, and here I am, chasing seven-year-old shapeshifters and hanging out in trash cans in my free time.”

“Some of us are staying in town,” Kai says. “And I don’t know what I want to do either.”

“Yeah, but you have crazy--wealthy parents and it’s not like you even need education,” you grumble. “You can just go work with Taemin at the gym if you want to.”

“I want to get education,” Kai tells you. Then, after a beat, “Take a gap year. Figure out what you want to do. Study. Take the exams again so you have better scores and more universities to choose from.”

He sounds sickeningly rational and it’s making you angry, even if you know he’s got a point.

You heave a long-suffering sigh. “The point is, running and chasing monsters is practically the only thing I’m good at—“ he raises a brow at that, “—I mean beside being awesome, obviously. And being able to use magic. But it’s not like I can have, like, a magic shop or something- although that’s an option too.”

Kai clears his throat and grabs a chair to sit down in front of you, attention pinned to you fully.

“I just don’t get why I’m the only person that hasn’t passed all the tests,” you say for the hundredth time today, pouting. “It’s not like I studied less, and I’m a quick learner. I should be fast with picking up stuff.”

“You’re fast with picking up magic stuff,” Kai says, his voice gentle. “With learning how to fight and use magic, and learning languages. But there are different kinds of knowledge, talents and smartness. Your smartness just isn’t the typical, school smartness.”

“Well you can’t get far in life without school smartness,” you say stubbornly. “I feel really freaking stupid. Like a total moron. Sehun is younger than us and he managed to get into a freaking biology course, how is that even possible? Chanyeol I get, he was always freakishly smart, and anthropology is definitely his thing, but Sehun?”

Kai chuckles. “He’d kill you if he heard you.”

“And Suho—I get that too. He loves history; at least he didn’t have to get super results in mathematics and physics and stuff.”

Kai shrugs. You realize that you’ve both leaned over the table and tilted towards each other, talking in hushed tones while your knees bumped from time to time, sitting sideways on your chairs.

“It just seems like everyone is getting places and I’m stuck because I don’t have anything else besides magic,” you sigh, tears gathering in your eyes.

“Dal,” Kai says, taking your hand and interlacing your fingers together. “You’re smart. The only reason your test didn’t went well is that you were stressed and had much more on your plate than the rest of us. While we were learning the basics of economy and biology, you were learning how to kill a witch or how to find a person using herbs and stuff. But it’s not like it’s the end of the world; you have all the time in your life to get back on your feet.”

“You’re talking like Eun now,” you sigh, looking him in the eye. Kai’s own eyes seem to scan your face, catching any glimpse of emotion on it, moving a bit feverishly. “I kinda wanted to go to college with you, you know.”

He gets that stupidly soft look on his face. You want to kiss it off.

“I’m not your usual college guy,” he replies. “My place is here. For now.”

“You can always become a housemaid,” you shrug after a beat.

“Screw gender roles,” Kai adds, lips quirking in a beginning of a smile. You giggle and he leans in to place a kiss on your nose.

“Ew,” you mock him.

*

“Brought you something,” you say after entering the police department and finding your way to the main desk where Heechul sits. He eyes you and your old magical book with disdain, clearly tired as hell, and you frown down at him. “It’s a bestiary—are you a secretary now?”

“Bugger off,” he says and puts his head down onto the desk. You tense a bit, staring at him and wondering if he’s lost consciousness when Changmin strolls in, files under his armpits and in his mouth, and throws it all onto the desk, flailing around.

“Here, here, and here,” he says, plucking a piece of paper out of the mess he just created on the desk and slamming it down onto Heechul’s head. The man shouts in pain and shoots up angrily, grabbing the paper.

“What—“

“Places they were last seen.”

“What are you guys doing?”

You squeal and jump at the voice, turning to see Baekhyun and Amber standing behind you. You eye them both, shocked.

“I didn’t feel you coming?!” you scream. Heechul and Changmin stop what they were doing to squint at you all. Amber raises her arms and does something weird with her fingers.

“I can mess with your neck tattoo,” she informs you. You make a face – how dare you, it seems to read – and turn back towards the cops. They both are still staring at you.

“Uh.”

Heechul shakes his head. “I don’t keep up. I just can’t.”

Just as he finishes the sentence, Maeng shows up on your side, with deep circles under his eyes.

“Did you check the addresses yet?” he asks. Then he turns towards you and your stupid friends and nods at you. “Kids.”

“Law officer,” Amber nods. Baekhyun rolls his eyes. Maeng smiles, amused.

“Can I do something for you?” he asks, kinder than usually. You blame it on the visible tiredness.

“I just brought you that book you asked about,” you say, pointing at the bestiary. You realize it’s been buried with papers so you go to dig it out. “But I see you’re too busy to read it right now.”

“We’re in the middle of a very delicate case,” Maeng informs you. “But thanks. Glad you remembered.”

“God,” Baekhyun says. “Why are you so nice?”

Maeng glares at him. It reminds you of Kai so much you actually find yourself feeling protective of the cop. The same cop that accused you of murder a while ago.

Good ol’ times!

“He’s always nice,” you defend. Heechul bursts out laughing. The angry stare he gets from Maeng can easily rival Kyungsoo’s.

*
 

The city swarms with police cruisers and cops randomly walking around different buildings the next day. You barely leave your house and there’s already a white and blue car driving by, and when you drop by Heejin’s café, you see three cops eating cupcakes and drinking coffee in the corner. You recognize them from the station and you bow to them. Heejin eyes you, frowning.

“Morning,” she says. “You know them?”

“They work with Kris,” you explain, leaning over the counter. “Caramel latte?”

Heejin smiles, nods and goes to prepare your coffee. Her father, a chubby man with the most warm eyes you’ve ever seen, comes from the back of the café carrying a tray of freshly baked goods and you smile brightly at him.

“Morning, Mr. Chae!” you greet.

“Morning—“

And then a gunshot pierces the air outside.

You whip your head around while Heejin squeals and freezes. A second later, someone runs like crazy past the café and you see a glock glistening in his palm, no doubt. The cops in the café run out without a word, hands on their holsters, looking around the street at first. You take in the people outside, glad that the café has big, glass door, and your legs are ready to run.

Nu-uh.

You slowly turn towards Heejin. She’s pale and her dad has abandoned his muffins to embrace her protectively.

“That didn’t sound good,” he mutters.

You hear another round of gunshots- five this time- further away but still very audible, and four cruisers pass the café, alarms blaring.

This is police business. Sit.

“Dal?” Heejin says. “Maybe you should come behind the counter?”

You look at her, realizing you’re shaking a little, but not out of fear, as she seems to think, but out of adrenaline and energy. Your legs are tense and ready to just run, and your mind tries to come up with all the possible scenarios as to what—

“I gotta go,” you say, clapping the counter once and running out of the building, both Heejin and her father shouting after you. You turn sharp right, following the path the guy with the glock took earlier as another cruiser passes you by. Most of the people on the streets have stopped walking, some are still scared, apparently, and it only takes a few seconds to mutter an advanced calming spell. You don’t manage to see if it took because you’re already turning into an alley, following the stray cruiser.

You hear gunshots again. Quite far away, but still echoing. Not glock’s this time. You recognize the obligatory police handgun.

Realizing that moving on the streets is futile as there’re people around and you can’t see anything, you find a ladder on one of the older buildings and climb up onto the roof. You look around, searching and listening, until you more or less pin-point the place where all the cruisers go.

You take off, pretty much moving through half of the city on the rooftops, tripping thrice, hitting your head – once! – and finally making it to the right street.

You can see everything from the rooftop. Everything. The glock guy, right below you, is holding someone and putting a gun to their head. The person he holds is wheezing and probably close to a panic attack at this point. The gangster is screaming something, thrashing around, turning on his heel all the time. You realize that there’re cops surrounding him from every possible direction, fifteen or more of them, in a tiny alley, but they can’t do anything as long as the guy is holding that poor kid hostage.

“Oh God,” you mutter, your heart beating so hard in your chest it feels like it’s gonna fly out. “Oh God. This is the worst ing idea ever.”

You raise your hand a little, pointing your finger at the gangster’s gun, and you whisper ‘finis’. A few tattoos on your arms light up.

Just as the cops around the gangsters put their guns down and the gangster begins to slowly withdraw from the scene – still holding the teenager that now begins to wail – you look at the sky, swallow hard, and think that you’re gonna die.

“God. Okay. Just don’t end up on the ing pavement, you klutz.”

You glance down, place your foot on the edge of the building – it’s just two stories high, God bless – and you take a very deep breath.

Then you two steps back, one very quick step forward, and you jump.

After that one time when that stupid demon threw you off the roof, jumping from them became a real nightmare. The feelings from that time come back at you every time like a splash of freezing water and you feel yourself panicking, not able to fully focus on what you’re doing.

(You feel like Tris Prior every freaking time you do that.)

You start falling. It’s a weird feeling, as if your insides are flying out of your body. At first it’s quick, then it’s slow, then it’s fast again, and the impact is never pleasant.

Especially when you have to land on a person’s shoulders.

The impact goes through your whole body and it’s so painful you yelp. You think, at the back of your mind, I hit the mark! and then you’re falling again, this time tilting back.

It’s a stir of movements. The gangster’s finger pushes at the trigger out of shock, but the bullet never goes off, because his gun is charmed. You weigh enough to make the man tilt back, unable to catch balance, and you know that you’re gonna end up on your and probably back as well, so you brace for the impact and right when it comes, you swing your leg so that your knee lands on the man’s throat.

The air erupts around you. The cops jump in to grab you and the gangster, someone takes the kid away, someone heaves you up by your arms, violently crossing your arms behind your back and them promptly pushing you at the nearest wall. You’re so adrenaline-high you pick up every voice and every movement, blood pumping like crazy in your veins.

You hear Kris’s voice telling the deputy holding you to let you go (he sounds angry) and then, when he does, you’re met with a lot of shocked faces.

*

“You can’t just do that.”

You roll your eyes. You should be paid every time someone says that to you.

“He could’ve shot him. It’s a simple reaction, pulling a trigger.”

“I cast a spell. The gun couldn’t go off. I learned it the hard way.”

Maeng looks apologetic for a moment.

“It was dangerous,” he reminds you.

You shrug. “Like everything in my life.”

“A lot of people saw you. Half of them thinks you’re crazy.”

A cringe. “What about the other half?”

Maeng sighs. They probably think you’re awesome, then. You grin.

“Bail!” someone shouts.

Your mom comes into the room where the holding cells are. You smile up at her.

“Mom, I caught a criminal today! He even had a skull tattoo and all!”

Your mom scolds you with her eyes alone, pointing an accusing finger at you. She opens to tell you something but visibly cringes and gives up, growls, and hides her face in her hands.

“I can relate,” Maeng mutters.

“A roof!” your mom screams. Maeng actually jumps, surprised. “Are you an idiot?”

You hear some voices in the corridor. A cop opens the door and comes in with keys to your favorite holding cell, looking annoyed as hell, and then you see why.

“Dal! Take a prison selfie!” Chanyeol shouts.

“She should engrave her name in there,” Kyungsoo says. “She could easily start making a hole like in Shawshank.”

“Dude, I haven’t watched that movie yet, no spoilers!”

“Dal, we got a cake!”

Maeng looks so pained when he hears their voices that you actually want to hug him. He actually makes a sad puppy face, staring at nothing in particular, probably reevaluating his life choices, when the annoyed cop opens the cell for you to let you out. You stand up from the little bed and smile at him as you pass him.

There is indeed cake when you enter the main building of the department. It says ‘congratz on being awesome’ and has pink frosting.

You do realize that what you did was thoroughly stupid and that the whole department – minus Maeng, Kris, Heechul and Changmin – thinks that you’re crazy and inconsiderate. But screw that; you saved a life, you caught a criminal that turned out to be one of the most important members of the town’s mafia, and you didn’t break your neck. All is well that ends well.

Kris places his long arm on your shoulder and leans in.

“Good job,” he whispers. You smile. Sulli presents you with the cake, so you can look at it closer. Everyone suddenly starts talking – the whole pack, because of course they’re all here, GOD, and the department fills with friendly chatter and laugh.

“Dal,” Maeng says. As on cue, everyone goes silent. Except for Luhan, who’s still laughing like a hyena, until Eun whacks him on the arm. “A word.”

It’s not like you’d have any privacy, even if he takes you to the farther parts of the buildings – werewolf hearing and all – but you comply, following him over to his office. He stops in front of the door, though, and looks you in the eye. You think that this is the closest he’s been to you since he’d handcuffed you that one time and you feel like this is gonna be serious.

“Have you ever thought about joining the police?”

Thanks for reading Hot Chocolate Fudge Cakes. You're the best.
(I'm still on a trip. I'm writing this in advance. I do sincerely hope you're still enjoying my fic.)