“Here,” I say, holding out the IHOP takeout bag.

Jin warily takes the bag. “What’s this?” he asks.

“Mozzarella sticks. To repay you for the cheesecake.”

The cautious expression on Jin’s face transforms into excitement I have never seen him display before. “What? Seriously? You didn’t have to!”

I crack a small smile. “It’s all good. Thanks, dude.”

He plops down on the bench next to me and cracks open the styrofoam takeout box. The greasy, delicious smell of mozzarella sticks wafts into my nose and my stomach involuntarily growls. Jin chuckles.

“Tell you what,” he says. “You split the cheesecake with me, so I’ll split the sticks with you.”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it. I’m not even really a salty food person.”

“Please. Your stomach would beg to differ.”

I stare at the bag, biting my lip. Jin removes a mozzarella stick from the container and takes a dramatic bite.

“Mmmm,” he groans, overexaggeratedly his lips. “So good. So, so, so go-,”

“Alright, alright!” I grab a stick from the container and chomp down on it. “Oh, I love it. The cheesy, oily, unhealthy goodness of mozzarella sticks.”

“It’s a carb overload,” Jin says in a surprisingly accurate imitation of Sophia, and I burst out laughing.

“Oh, Jin, whyyy didn’t you go to Laila’s kickback?” I say in a lofty voice. “It was so totally freaking fun. We sipped Patron infused with durian extract.”

“Sorry, I had a croquet party to attend with the Earl of Westminster. He’s so totally freaking delightful, and he makes the best hors d’oeuvres. Have you tried his caviar biscotti?”

“You have an unfair upper hand!” I protest. “You’ve been in Windsong your whole life. How am I supposed to be as fluent in Pretentious as you?”

“Just give it a few months,” Jin snorts. “You know what they say. Full immersion is the best way to learn a new language.”

“Oh, god.” I grab another mozzerella stick from the bag. “Also, I apologize for these measly peasant IHOP mozzarella sticks. I was unable to find the gourmet variety.”

“Please. IHOP is the best. Have you tried the Funny Fa-,”

I abruptly hold my hands up. “No. Do not say the Funny Face pancake.”

“Wha- why? It’s so good!”

“You and Tom would get along so well,” I groan.

“Hey, any friend of Funny Face pancakes is a friend of mine.”

We chew the mozzarella sticks in comfortable silence for a few moments. I am completely taken aback- Jin isn’t just somewhat decent, he’s actually pretty cool. I watch him out of the corner of my eye.

“Do you mind if I ask you a sort of personal question?” I say.

“Go for it.”

“Why are you friends with Taehyung and them?” When he stiffens, I quickly say, “I mean, I was just wondering, because you seem to be really different from them. I’m not... insulting your friends or anything.”

“Well,” he says, wrapping his jacket tighter around himself. “We’ve all known each other since we were in diapers. Our families know each other, our classes have been together, we’ve trained together... for lacrosse,” he hastily adds.

Lacrosse. Yeah, right.  

“Have they always been such s?” I question wryly.

Jin twists his lips. “Everyone in this town is an .”

“Fair point.” I reach over to get the last mozzerella stick- right as Jin’s hand lands on it.

“You have it,” I say.

He shakes his head. “No, you.”

“I bought these for you. Eat it.”

“You’re a growing girl. You need more food for sustenance.”

I guffaw. “Wha- you sound like my mom! Seriously, take it!”

“I don’t want it! You have it!” He takes the mozzarella stick and shoves it in my face. When I move away, he follows me around the bench. Soon, he is practically chasing me around the courtyard.

“This... is... so... stupid,” I pant, looking back at Jin from over my shoulder as I run away. “Just... eat it!”

He is practically doubling over with laughter. “I don’t want it, you-,”

Suddenly, his eyes widen. I pause and turn back around to see what he is looking at.

The entire popular group of Windsong is staring at me and Jin. Their expressions range from shock to anger to disgust. I see Jimin nervously peering at Jin.

And at the forefront of the group is a stone-faced Taehyung Kim.

My stomach drops.

He looks cold, indifferent.

But his eyes are burning.

My hand involuntarily goes up to my neck- yes, you’re wearing your amulet, calm down, Jooyeon, what can he possibly do?

“What are you doing, Jin?” he asks in an impossibly soft voice.

Jin steps forward so that he is right besides me. His cheerful smile has vanished, replaced by that emotionless gaze he is always wearing.

“We were just fooling around,” Jin replies calmly.

Taehyung’s glare slides over to me. I stubbornly refuse to look away.

“But why are you playing with trash?” he asks, not breaking eye contact with me. My fists clench by my side.

Jin opens his mouth, about to say something, before a voice pipes up. “I told them to.”

Everyone turns. Sofia is staring at me and Jin, a bored expression on her face.

“They’re my mentees,” she says, examining her cuticles. “I told them to bond. I don’t want some tool from the administration getting on my case about being a bad mentor.”

My jaw almost drops in shock; Jin and I exchange subtle, surprised glances. Why is Sofia saving our asses?

“Oh, , that reminds me.” Namjoon slaps his forehead. “I was supposed to get lunch with my mentee today. .”

“I literally reminded you, idiot,” Jin says, rolling his eyes. “Karishma’s going to be pissed. She was expecting you to tell her how you got into Yale.”

“How am I supposed to help her?! I’m going on a lacrosse scholarship!”

“Better than my mentee,” Laila grumbles. “All she wants is for me to get her into one of our parties. No way in hell.”

The bell rings, and the group gradually dissipates. Jin and I are forgotten as everyone heads to class.

“I’ll see you,” Jin whispers in my ear.

“Yeah,” I nod, and head the other direction. My nerves are all over the place. I swear, I’m never going to make fun of Sofia again. I don’t even want to think about what Taehyung would’ve done if we stayed-

Suddenly, I feel myself yanked into a side hallway and slammed against the wall.

“Don’t think I haven’t forgotten,” Taehyung utters malevolently. His fingers are digging into my wrists. “Be happy Sofia stepped in. Otherwise I would’ve destroyed you.”

“Ooh, would you have called me a loser?” I hiss. “Or maybe laughed at me with your friends? How creative!”

His grip tightens- I refuse to let myself show any pain. His lips curl into a sadistic smile when he sees my stubborn expression.

“I left a little surprise for you back home,” he murmurs, closing the gap between us. “I hope you enjoy it.”

I smirk. “Aww. So you do like me, Tae! I knew there had to be a reason why you always get so physical with me. Right?”

He opens his mouth, about to reply, when we hear something slam to the floor. The two of us jerk our heads around. 

I freeze.

Dev is marching towards us, a livid look on his face. His fists are clenched by his side.

"Whoa, okay," I say, quickly sliding out of Taehyung's clutches and grabbing onto Dev. "Let's go to class."

"Don't ing touch her again," Dev snarls. Taehyung merely leans back against the wall, watching us with arched eyebrows and an unreadable expression. 

"Why did you hold me back?" Dev whispers furiously when we're sitting in class. "I was about to beat his face in." 

"Yeah, and get suspended?" I snort quietly. "No way." 

“Alright, kids,” Mr. Robertson says tiredly, rubbing his temples. “It’s come to the staff’s attention that the junior class may have a little plagiarism problem.”

Dev and I exchange looks. How are the teachers just finding out about the huge assignment ring Peter Chen operates? It's $50 for a major test, $30 for quizzes and essays, $20 for homework assignments. He can’t keep that kind of large-scale operation running if he spends 5 hours working on everything. Of course there has to be some copy-and-pasting involved.

“We’ve decided to assign all of you a report to complete in groups of three- hey, you guys wouldn’t have to do this if you didn’t cheat on your assignments!” Mr. Robertson says as the class erupts into groans. “You can choose your groups and the topic of your report. However, you must use at least 20 sources, half of which should be from academic databases. Every report will be personally checked for plagiarism.”

“What are we going to write our report about?” I whisper to Dev as he mutters to me, “Who the is going to be our third member?”

Mr. Robertson claps his hands. “Alright. Break into groups.”

“Do we just sit here and wait until someone approaches us?” I ponder. “Or do we go on the offensive?”

“I vote offensive,” Dev says, his lips. “That way we can snap up some cute chick-,”

“Shut up. What cute chick in here would want to be in a group with us-,”

“Hey.”

Dev and I turn. Jin is standing behind our desks, his hands in his pockets.

“Do you guys need a third member?” he asks.

The entire class freezes. Everyone watches in shock as Jin Kim- the Jin Kim- asks the nerdy losers to be in their group. His friends gape at him in indignation. Dev and I blink at him.

“Yeah,” I say, right as Dev says, “ no.”

I give him my what the ? stare.

He retaliates with his no way in hell look.

I throw him my what is wrong with you glare.

He’s a sorcerer, you ing dip, I can practically hear Dev screaming at me.

He’s fine. And we need a third member.

Not him!

Stop being a baby!

“Ignore him,” I tell Jin, who has- along with the rest of our peers- been watching me and Dev’s silent argument in bemusement. “We’d love to have you, Jin.”

“Nice.” He takes a seat next to me. “Hey, man,” he says, nodding to Dev. Dev simply curls his lip.

“So,” I say, trying to ignore the twenty-five pairs of eyes boring into our skulls. “What should our topic be?”

Jin shrugs. “I’m fine with anything. What do you think?” he says, trying to catch Dev’s eye. Dev, however, is determinedly looking away from him. Instead, he is scowling at me.

“I think we should do our paper on supernatural forces,” he says in a biting tone. “Weird things that happen without explanation. Strange forces at work. You know. Magic.”

I burst out into loud, fake peals of laughter as Jin stiffens beside me. “Oh, Dev!” I say, swatting his arm. “That’s so funny! You’re doing that Lord of the Rings marathon, right? Ha ha ha!”

What are you doing?! my eyes silently screech at him.

“Interesting choice of topic,” Jin says slowly. “Are you thinking of examining, er, magic from a historical perspective? Or a societal standpoint?”

Dev turns to look at Jin. “I don’t know, buddy,” he snarkily responds. “Your choice.”

I clear my throat. “Alright, um, homeroom’s about to end, so why don’t we meet up sometime soon?” I say in an artificially high-pitched voice. “I’m not sure when this is due, but-,”

“Next Friday,” Jin interjects.

I bob my head. “Okay, okay, sweet. This is going to be a great project. Just a great project. Okay? Good. Okay! Yeah! Go team, okay? Okay-,”

The final bell cuts me off right in the middle of my hysterical, panicked ramblings. I quickly shoot up out of my chair.

“Alright, guys, I have to get to lacrosse practice, but I’ll see you guys later.” Jin flashes us a half-smile. “Peace.”

“Oh... my ing... god,” I breathe when he is gone. “Dev, what the .”

“What the you,” he growls as we pick up our stuff and head to the parking lot. “I can’t believe you said yes to him. Why would you want to be around a sorceror?”

“Dude, we’re co-mentees, and he’s actually a really cool guy-,”

“Oh, is Taehyung a really cool guy, too?” he retorts. I throw up my hands in frustration.

“Look, I know you think he’s bad because he’s friends with Taehyung and he’s a sorcerer. But he doesn’t like how they treat me, either, and you’d actually really like him-,”

“You sound like you’re saying, Oh, I know that’s a bloodthirsty hyena, and I know it preys on human flesh, but it’s fine, really!”

“I’m telling you not to stereotype all sorcerers! And this is coming from me. You know I hate them!” I clench my fists. “Take Jimin, for example. We don’t know him, but Lucy seems to think he’s fine-,”

“Don’t even get me started on Lucy and Jimin,” Dev fumes. “I don’t know how many times I have to remind you all. All- sorcerers- are- evil!”

I pause, standing my ground in the middle of the parking lot. “What is with you? We all hate sorcerers, but you- you have this crazy strong hatred for them.” I cross my arms. “There’s something you’re not telling me about.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “What?”

“I’m talking about your freshman year. Don’t think I didn’t notice- I can tell all three of you are hiding something that has to do with you.”

His eyes widen for a split second, but just as abruptly return to narrowed slits.  

“I don’t owe you any explanation,” he snarls. “You can take your ing-,”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Tom shouts, launching himself in between us. “What’s going on?!”

“Why are you two arguing?” Lucy asks tersely. Her eyes dart back and forth between us. “I’ve never seen either of you this angry. Especially at each other.”

Dev and I glower at each other, and then look away.

“Nothing,” I snap. “Let’s just get to my house.”

 A/N: im going to seeoul on monday i'm literally so ing excited yall don't even know lmfao, like i cannot even begin to DECSCRIBE