“Did you really reject Seo Haeun’s offer to the dance?”

Jongin almost spit the water out, and though he didn't, he ended up in a coughing fit. “How do you know of this?”

“Oh I don’t know, maybe because the whole school kinda knows? She asked you for help, oh God. Seo Haeun. ‘Oh, Jongin, I have no date and you must help me! Go with me!’”

Jongin’s face turned a surprising shade of pink. “I don’t do dances,” he muttered with all the dignity that he had left, “and what’s so special about Seo Haeun?”

“Oh, maybe she’s the school’s queen bee and everyone wants to go to the dance with her?”

“What part of I don’t do dances do you not understand?”

“But--”

“If you’re going to talk about Seo Haeun one more time, I’ll force you to go to the dance with her.”

Chapter 18

School was relatively quiet after the incident with the guy whom attacked me in the alley (according to Kai, he was recovering in the hospital with no recollection of what happened to him, which was probably for the best), and it remained like that for a while. Everyday fell into the same routines; school, training, sleep. The cycle repeated itself, and for a long while, it was no different from when I had been in school before. Just plain, mundane (kind of) cycles, with the almost-certainty of every step of the day (until I forgot my timetable, that was).

Jinyoung didn’t really question me when I got home late, and I wasn’t sure if he actually bought my excuses of homework and a lot of projects (“Oh? And you’re always doing them with Jongin?” “He’s my only friend--” “I think it’s time you got a boyfriend, right?”) or if he just let it slide because he didn’t have time to deal with his little sister.

I wasn’t quite sure if I were improving in combat training, though gradually, control over my aura got better. I was able to cast smaller spells, command my aura as I wished, and managed to turn off the sensitive hearing at times. It was triggered by sudden things, I had begun to learn -- almost like the body’s mechanism when there was danger.

Combat training and using my aura got better by a significant amount. My grades, on the other hand, remained the same.

“For all the studying you say you’re doing,” Jinyoung said one day, “it doesn’t seem to pay you off.”

Kai, who had been invited into the apartment with me, let out a cough. Luhan had probably cast some kind of spell on his homework (I was convinced something like that existed. He lived with twelve people who could use magic; at least one of them was able to solve the problem of homework, right?), because his grades remained as one of the higher ones in class. I didn’t even see Kai trying. And if he really were that smart and was able to keep up with all the tasks of an Athanatoi and schoolwork… well, then… I’d have to say I was jealous.

“The work is hard,” I tried, and Jinyoung gave me a skeptical once-over.

“I was at the top of the class when I was in twelfth grade,” he muttered, “you’re actually not ugly now that I look at you and you’re not as skinny and malnourished, but mom was super smart, so shouldn’t you have inherited some of that. What happened to you? You should at least passing math.”

Mom. Jinyoung barely even said that word, so it was a shock that he did so now. He hadn’t really liked mom as much as he’d liked my dad, but he’d died when I was two so that was all there was to it. I didn’t really know both parents that much either, but I did know that Jinyoung didn’t like talking about either. That was the first thought, and then I realized that he had somewhat complimented me. In a very subtle way.

“There’s a lot of work,” Kai cut in hurriedly, “and after all those incidents that happened at school the past couple of months, Mira’s probably a little jittery.”

Yes. Jittery. Jittery wasn’t exactly strong enough a word to describe what it felt to walk down the streets knowing that something could jump out and attack me any moment. But sure. He could use jittery to describe me if he wanted. 

“She’s always been jittery,” Jinyoung grumbled, waving a hand at the two of us. Kai stood in the dead center of the room, hands clasped in front of him, looking very stiff. He’d probably been into the flat plenty of times, but each time he looked the same. “Anyways. You can go get some food. I don’t think Mira’s going to appreciate it if I cook for you even if it’s out of the goodwill of my heart--”

“You cooking equals you trying to kill someone.”

“--so you can eat whatever you want in the kitchen.”

Kai still didn’t move, so I took it to myself to drag him into the kitchen.

Luhan had been on border control that day, so he’d been missing when I went to find him in the training room. Baekhyun volunteered to help, but apart from his ability to control light, the only spells he could cast was blowing things up with his aura (or at least, they were the only spells he seemed to actually want to cast. He resembled a child finding delight in destroying another’s sandcastle when he blew things up). I figured with us two combined, we’d end up damaging the damage-proof room. Kai and Kyungsoo seemed to have similar ideas as I did, because a couple minutes later, Baekhyun had been dragged out to do the dishes.

“I’m not hungry,” he told me when we were out of earshot. “But I didn’t really want to refuse your brother when he dragged me in. You know, you…”

“Yeah. I don’t want to refuse anything he asks either. I feel horrid, unless he volunteers to cook.”

“... that’s understandable.”

We sat in the kitchen in silence after that.

***
 

Going grocery shopping was normally boring and a horrible experience. Going grocery shopping because there wasn’t enough eggs and bread -- just two things -- and having to run in the sleet for ten minutes was plain rotten.

It wasn’t yet spring, but Seoul’s weather had strange patterns. One day the sun was glimmering cheerfully off the snow, and another, it was pounding sharp, icy drops onto my face. Then again, the sunlight had blinded me and I had almost slipped on a patch of ice and fallen onto the road, so I wasn’t sure what I prefered.

I got to the grocery store shivering, soaked and miserable, ready to snatch the bread and eggs and make another bolt for it. Then I was short a couple of cents, which ended up with me going home with only the bread and not the eggs. When I finally got to the door, ready to stand under a hot shower for hours, someone stopped me.