A week had passed since the incident off-campus and I felt like I was going legitimately insane. I hadn’t told anyone about my encounters with the wolves or the run-in with a vampire, and I knew that if I did decide to tell someone, even Sangmi, it’d sound ridiculously stupid and childish. Knowing Sangmi, she’d probably tell me I needed more sleep and that I was hallucinating from being overworked at school.

Yeah, right.

I wasn’t about to let anyone tell me what I’d seen wasn’t real.

I’d spent countless hours online and in the library trying to sift through fiction and cult articles about the supernatural, and come up virtually empty-handed. The most accurate thing I’d found was a journal entry in an educational database from a guy back in the 19th century recounting a time he’d accidentally walked into werewolf territory. He spoke with so much grandeur and frill that it almost obscured the actual tale he was telling: the man had entered the woods on a gut feeling and was almost immediately attracted to a female wolf he saw with such an overwhelming sense of peace and clarity. He went on to explain that the wolf could vacillate between a wolf and human form, and that the attraction he felt was due to the pair being mates. 

I considered this to be the closest thing I had experienced. While I couldn’t remember the encounter perfectly due to the nasty concussion I got, bits and pieces still filtered in and the main message was still there: two giant wolves appeared in the woods and one of them let me pet it. Not to mention the distinct calm I felt in its presence. 

The fact that I found only one, super obscure documentation of an encounter like this could have meant a few things. One, the occurrence was extremely rare and it just so happened that me and this guy shared similar experiences. Two, werewolves were real and in such multitudes and secrecy that they went out of their way to destroy all real documentation of themselves. Three, I really was having a mental breakdown and this guy from the 1800’s was, too. 

I sighed and looked up from my notebook where I had been doodling the shape of a wolf’s head for the past hour or so. The professor was still droning on about early settlements in North America and how once upon a time humans had crossed the land bridge, blah, blah, blah. I didn’t know why I still went to this class when I could just read the book and absorb the vastly bland knowledge without having to sit in a room with a hundred sweaty, bored kids. 

“Hey, what’s that?” a voice whispered from my left. My eyes trailed to the owner of the voice and I saw Do Kyungsoo sitting two seats away from me--an empty spot between us. 

I realized he was waiting for an answer and quickly followed his gaze down to my notebook. I blushed and looked back up.

“Oh it’s just a doodle,” I whispered back, attempting to casually cover up the drawing.

Kyungsoo raised a brow. “It’s really good for ‘just a doodle.’ Do you mind if I see it?” he asked, beckoning toward the book.

I scrunched up my face and glanced between Kyungsoo and my notebook. I couldn’t tell what this kid was thinking. We didn’t know each other all that well, and even when he’d woken up hungover next to me at the party, he was nothing but curt.

“Um. Sure,” I muttered, reluctantly sliding over my notebook. I watched as he took the paper in his hands and rubbed a thumb over the drawing. He was awfully contemplative about my silly drawing, and that’s when I began to think my drawing wasn’t so silly after all.

“It’s very detailed,” Kyungsoo breathed, and I bit my lip.

“Yeah? Look like anyone you know?” I asked, feeling a bit bold. Kyungsoo immediately looked up, face drawn and guarded. His stare was deafening. I decided to retreat for now. “I’m just kidding, man.”

Kyungsoo’s face relaxed a bit, and finally he relented my notebook. I all but snatched it back and looked it over again. I had sketched in some rough markings and shading, but hadn’t r