I am stirred awake by the sound of a door slamming shut and a gut-wrenching, ever-so-awfully-familiar prickling sensation. Why is the air so cold? I curl deeper into the ball of warmth I am snuggled up against, sighing softly.

The temperature goes frigid. I frown sleepily.

“Joo,” a soft voice says, poking my side. I nudge them away.

The poking intensifies. “Joo, get up.”

Yawning, I blink my eyes open. My face reddens as I realize that I am curled up into Jin’s chest, with Dev sleeping right next to me. Instead of looking at me, however, Jin is staring at something across the room in alarm. I drowsily turn my head.

My stomach plummets.

Taehyung is standing at the foot of the bed, staring at us. His anger is usually cold, quiet, contained in his eyes, but right now he looks absolutely furious. His entire demeanor is openly radiating pure rage. The events of last night flood back into my mind and terror grips my heart; I lay petrified in bed, unable to move, staring at him in fear.

“What are you doing here?” Jin says, sitting up. “How did you-,”

“She didn’t come home last night, so yet again, I had to look for her,” Taehyung says in an icy cold voice, speaking to Jin but staring at me. “Dev’s father was gracious enough to let me in and show me upstairs.”

Dev is still fast asleep, and I am praying he stays asleep- I don’t even know how he’d react if he saw Taehyung right now

“Don’t misunderstand,” Jin utters quietly. “We were working on a project, and all of us just dozed off. That’s it.”

Taehyung’s lips curl into a vindictive, humorless smile. “I don’t care what you were doing. It seems pretty obvious to me, anyway.”

“We aren’t.” I can feel heat pulsing from Jin; his eyes are locked onto Taehyung’s in an intense staredown.

Taehyung finally breaks eye contact and looks at me.

“Get up,” he snarls.

I shrink back into Jin, my eyes wide. The action causes Taehyung’s face to harden even more.

“I said, get up,” he utters. The room feels like it is closing in on me; my chest constricts, I feel faint, weak, fatigued.

“We’re not done with the project,” I squeak.

“You seem plenty done to me. Get. Up.”

Jin opens his mouth, about to say something, but suddenly, Dev stirs next to me. We look at each other in panic.

“I’ll text you when I get home,” I tell Jin. Grabbing Jin’s lacrosse jacket from the nightstand, I nervously pad to the door. Taehyung’s face darkens when he sees me pull on the jacket. He takes my wrist and yanks me out the door, pulls me down the spiral staircase and to his BMW. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely buckle my seatbelt- in another instant, he has accelerated from 0 to 60 miles per hour in a few seconds.

I clutch the sides of my seat as he whizzes through the residential roads, racing through red lights and stop signs and haphazardly swerving around other cars. Honks fill the air but he does not care; his jaw is firmly set as he drives like he is trying to kill us both. I am too scared to tell him to stop so I simply close my eyes and pray that we get home quickly-

A few seconds later the car abruptly halts. I immediately try and open the door- however, Taehyung has locked it.

“I’m sick and tired of you,” he growls. “You take advantage of my friends, you make a complete fool of yourself, you’re an intruder in my house- I’m done with it.”

I stare down at my lap silently, a lump welling in my throat. Everything from the last two nights is flashing through my mind- jumping in to save Janet Harvey, Taehyung yelling at me in public, the goblins, the discovery of what happened to Meena- holy , why do I feel like I’m about to cry?

“You haven’t done a single thing for me. You’ve been an annoyance ever since you got here. So you know what? We’re not leaving this car until you swear you’re leaving at the end of the semester.”

Oh no. I swallow. No. Joo, don’t cry. Don’t ing cry.

“You’re not going to say anything?” Taehyung scoffs- I can practically visualize the condescending look on his face. “Oh, you’re going to ignore me. Yeah, that’s not going to work.”

He moves over so he is closer to me. “Look at me.”

Trembling, I simply continue looking downwards.

“I said, look at me.”

He grabs my chin and jerks my face around so that I am facing him. I stare back up at him with wet eyes.

Taehyung’s expression abruptly changes from one of malice to one of shock. He takes in my disheveled appearance, scanning my tear-stained cheeks and fearful expression with wide eyes. I take a deep, shaky breath, and look away from him.

“Hey,” he says quietly, his voice devoid of its usual spite.

I part my lips, about to say something, but no words come out.

His gaze is locked onto mine. Something changes in his eyes as he stares down at me. Slowly, his hand moves up to my face. A shudder passes through my body as he wipes away my tears with his thumb- a tender gesture that has no place in our relationship.

I swallow.

“What’s with you?” he says. 

“Shouldn’t you be happy?” I say, my voice shaky. “You’re getting to me. You and everything in this terrible town.”

He guides my chin towards him again, so that I am facing him, except this time he is not harsh with his gestures.

“Leave,” he says, his voice low, intense. His eyes are burning with a strange sort of desperation. A shudder runs down my spine.

“Why?” I whisper.

“You have to leave. Please. There are worse things than me in Windsong.” The desperation in his voice rises; he grabs my arms. “Get out of here, Jooyeon.”

“You know I can’t,” I tell him softly. “My mom wants me to stay here-,”

“I’ll convince her. I’ll call her, I’ll meet her- I don’t care what it takes. You need to get out of here. Something- someone- is going to get you-,”

“It’s not that easy. If I could leave, I would. But- I just- there are people counting on me. I can’t...,” I sigh. “You wouldn’t understand. You’ve never known anything but privilege-,”

His eyes narrow. “You think I’m privileged?”

“You are. You were born to wealthy, good parents in a nice city.” And you have magic and power. “But the reason my mom wants me to stay at Windsong is because I’m probably the only one who ever has a chance of leaving my town. Not many people get many opportunities in Lindsborg. Everyone back home is rooting for me.”

Taehyung closes his eyes, exasperation written on every line of his face. I know what he’s keeping unsaid. It must frustrate him, not being able to tell me why I need to escape this place.

And I understand. I didn’t get it before, but after discovering what happened to Meena... it makes sense. I’m terrified. Even though we have Jin’s protection, if they find out that we know about magic, we’re going to be killed.

“I don’t want to stay here either,” I whisper, choosing my words carefully. “I’m... scared. I don’t want to get hurt...,”

I trail off. Our eyes lock. I can’t tear my gaze away from him, the way his deep brown eyes glint in the sunlight, how the light hits his messy hair. There is only a breath of space between our faces.

Slowly, I feel his hand move to my leg. Unlike his previous advances, he seems tentative, almost scared. The feeling of his skin on mine sends electric jolts through my body.

“I’m not going to let anything hurt you,” he murmurs.

My curl up into a wry smile. “That’s ironic coming from you,” I whisper.

Guilt momentarily flits through his eyes; he leans closer to me, so our lips are only a few inches from each other. He looks as if he is on the edge of doing something- opening his mouth to speak, pulling away, or...

And then Taehyung’s lips move onto mine and the next thing I know, he is kissing me. His kiss is not angry or spiteful, or passionate and lustful- no, it is gentle, hesitant, careful. My eyes widen in utter shock; my mind is in a whirlwind as I attempt to comprehend what is going on and what he is doing and what the , this is Taehyung Kim, the person who constantly says he's repulsed by me, why is he kissing me? He moves one hand to the back of my neck, pulling my closer, and keeps one hand on my leg, softly rubbing circles in my skin. His lips are so soft- I take a breath in and smell that musky spearmint smell that’s so him, I’m so confused, what is he doing, am I actually enjoying this?

I can’t tell if five minutes or five years have passed when Taehyung finally closes his mouth, places one final peck on my lips, and then slowly pulls away. I look at him in utter shock. By the expression on his face, I can tell it is beginning to dawn on him what he has done.

I jerk away from him, eyes wide, and fling open the door, grabbing my jacket and scrambling to the house without looking back at Taehyung once. My heart pounds in my chest as I beeline for my room. I hear Andrews call, “Mistress Jooyeon! Where were you?”

“A- A sleepover!” I shout before slamming my door shut and flinging myself onto my bed.

“What the . What the .” I mumble over and over again. “What the . What the . What the .”

He kissed me. He kissed me. What the hell? Why? How the hell did he go from yelling at me to... that? Our kiss replays in my mind and I bury my face in my pillow.

No. It’s okay. It was just a mistake. Or maybe he was just trying to with me.

It really didn’t seem like he was trying to with you!, a voice inside my head yells.

I know! But how else am I supposed to rationalize this?

No. It’s okay. This was just a mistake. No one will know about this. It won’t happen again.

It better not happen again.  

Taehyung must feel the same way I do, because the two of us avoid each other like the plague for the rest of the day. My Sunday is spent in absolute disbelief and the inability to do anything else but think about what he did. Some part of me feels like it was some wild hallucination caused by the craziness of last night- please let it be that, I’d prefer that to what actually happened, because there’s no way he kissed me- him, Taehyung Kim, the worst person I know.

The worst part is is that it wasn’t actually terrible. It was a nice kiss. If someone else had kissed me like that, I would’ve thoroughly admitted that I liked it.

My efforts to focus on my homework are futile; my brain feels like it is trying to jump out of my head and commit seppuku on the spot.

“It’s fine,” I tell myself. “It’s okay. Nothing happened. Pretty soon, you’ll forget about this.”

Please let me forget about this.

The five of us sit in the laboratory, awkwardly staring at each other. Our gazes pingpong around the table. No one knows who to speak first.

Dev clears his throat.

“So,” he says, looking at Lucy and Tom.

“So,” Lucy says, staring at Jin with narrowed eyes.

“So...,” Jin says uncomfortably, looking at me and Dev.

“ happened,” I say bluntly.

“Yeah... I can tell,” Tom says.

Dev, Jin, and I look at each other.

“You start?” Jin asks Dev.

“Sure.”

The three of us proceed to give Lucy and Tom a blow-by-blow account of everything that occurred Saturday night. Lucy and Tom grow progressively more horrified as we speak, occasionally interrupting to exclaim, “Goblins?!” and “Holy , how are you still alive?” When I tell them about Meena (Jin and Dev get too choked up to speak about her), the two of them are stunned.

After I finish speaking, we sit in silence for several moments. Lucy and Tom are utterly dumbstruck.

Finally, Jin says, “I don’t know why you guys started getting involved with magic all of a sudden, but you guys need to stay away from it. I can only protect you for so long. They’re bound to find out sooner or later.” He pauses. “How did you all get your hands on those amulets and weapons, anyway?”

Dev, Lucy, Tom, and I look at each other uncomfortably.

Then I cough, “Er, well, I made them.”

Jin’s jaw drops. “What?”

“Well... okay, so, I found this book in Taehyung’s library because Sasha trapped me in there one day, and it had the basic scientific principles behind magical objects and stuff so I just... you know. It took me a while to figure out how to make my first amulet. Obviously, they’re not perfect, seeing as how my amulets didn’t even fully protect us from the goblins.”

“What the hell,” Jin breathes. “That’s... this is impossible. You- magical objects- you can’t make them like that from scratch. That’s like... making... milk or something from scratch. It’s just not a thing.”

“It’s honestly not that difficult- it’s all quantum physics and chem, with some math thrown in. We make our magical objects here, actually.”

“Wha- here?! What? In this lab?”

“Yeah. All the equipment we need is here-,”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard! Why would you do that here, the place where literally half the students are magical creatures?” Jin wrings his hair. “Are you trying to get killed?”

“We haven’t been caught yet!” I protest. “And no one comes here. It’s fine.”

“This is crazy,” Jin breathes, shaking his head. “I don’t even know what to say. You- wouldn’t you have had to use some kind of magical substance in the amulets and weapons?”

“Yeah... uh...,” I scratch the back of my neck. “Well, Taehyung came home one night, and he had these burns all over his body from- what did he say- Training?-,”

“Say no more,” he groans. “Oh, boy.”

“Actually, do you know where we could get some stronger magic?” Tom asks Jin hesitantly. “We should probably make better amulets, you know... for protection and all.”

Jin looks at him tiredly.

“Fine,” he sighs. “That would probably be a good idea, anyway. I’ll get some magical elements or something you can use to make... magical objects... god, even saying that out loud sounds crazy.”

“Thanks,” I say.

He looks like he is about to say something else, but the first bell rings and we have to get to class. As I am grabbing my backpack, Dev stops me.

“Can we talk for a few moments?” he murmurs.

I hoist my bag onto my back. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“I’m sorry for being a total to you lately, Joo. I was just scared and- well, you know what happened to my sister. I care about you, and I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

I give him a hug. “It’s okay. I was pissed at first, but after learning about your sister, it’s totally understandable.”

“It’s funny, though. You were totally right about Jin. He’s one of the good ones- probably the only good one.” Dev wrinkles his nose. “Not going to lie, it’s weird thinking about him liking my sister. That’s just... gross.”

I snort. “Ooh. Are you going to beat him up?”

“He’d kick my .”

We chuckle. Relief floods my senses; it feels so nice being comfortable with Dev again. I’d almost forgotten how cool he is (when he wasn’t accusing me of “fraternizing with the enemy”).

“But anyway,” he says. “I’m sorry, and I should’ve listened to you.”

“Yeah, no problem, dude.”

“Taehyung’s still a piece of , right?”

My face burns- I am caught off guard for a moment. An image of him flashes into my mind-

“Yup!” I say, forcing a laugh. “Still a piece of .”

A/N: LMFAO YALL ARE ING WILD WHY DID YALL THINK SOMEONE WAS GONNA DIE THIS CHAPTER O M G I SAID THAT HALF OF YOU WOULD HATE ME IF SOMEONE DIED WOULDNT ALL OF U HATE ME. but ya UHHHHHH that happened LMFAOFJASDKFhasdgasdf thoughts??

guys. so idk if u noticed but i usually put an A/N after my chaps (lel). last chap i didnt because i literally posted it while i was DEAD drunk. guys. i Sinned last night. i Sinned in Seoul. oh my God. i..... omg.  lmfao but i woke up this morning with 26 new comments on reboot and i was like whathte happened

ok guys like...... i think this story is gonna be a looooot longer than i initially anticipated..... like i thot i would make this a story that was the same length as my others, but like..... ihave 3 arcs planned out for this...... and like..... i have the same feeling about this story rn that i had during the part 1 chapters of "the classified accounts of ami hwang" which is Interesteing..... i ing love it!!!!! the second arc will be the most similar vibe-wise to TCAAH tho.... it'll actually be what i initially wanted to make TCAAH but didn't have the balls too. heehee u will See!!