Shownu sat on the bed in his new dorm room, trying to digest everything that he had learned in the past two hours. He was a warlock, not human, a warlock. It was insane. All the logic in his brain told him none of this was possible; all of these people were crazy, right? However, there was something. Something inside of him that whispered that it was all true. Magic and supernatural creatures were all real.

"This is crazy, right?" Minhyuk said, taking a seat beside the older, "It’s just... it's crazy."

"I know," Shownu nodded, "I'm not sure if I believe it's all real."

"Hyungwon sure isn’t buying it," Minhyuk sighed, "he's convinced that all of this is some kind of joke."

"However,” Shownu frowned slightly, recalling everything that happened in cafeteria, "Jooheon didn't seem shocked at all, do you think he knows something?"

"No way!" the other boy replied. "He would have told us. We don’t keep secrets, especially not after... after what happened." Minhyuk was in a near whisper by the end of his sentence, a painful expression on his face.

"We’ll ask him tomorrow," Shownu declared, desperately looking less painful, "That Woozi guy seemed nice."

"He did," Minhyuk nodded, thinking of the boy who'd talked to them on the ride to Dark Lake. "Do you think we should have taken him up on his offer to sit with him and his friends?"

"Don't know," Shownu said, "he seems nice, but we don't know his friends." He paused for a moment. "But they all left the room when the headmistress told all the returning students to leave, right?"

"Yeah. So that means that they're in the know about this place. Think we should ask them about all of this?" Minhyuk waved his hands around to indicate what he meant.

"Maybe," the oldest of the pair replied. "We could ask our new roommates when they show up. If they're returning students, then they'd be able to explain things to us."

"Right," Minhyuk nodded, "but who knows when they'll be back."

"There's probably some kind of curfew here, right?" Shownu shrugged, "We’ll just wait a little bit and they'll be back eventually."

"Sorry to disappoint you.”

The pair turned to find one of the boys they had seen Woozi sitting with standing in the doorway after eavesdropping on their conversation. "But Dark Lake doesn’t have a set curfew. I mean, I guess there's one for the really young kids, but for the older students, we’re kind of left to our own vices. Sori trusts us to act like adults about this kind of thing."

"Sori," Minhyuk asked. “that’s the headmistress' name right?"

"That's her," the boy nodded, "I'm Choi Seung Cheol by the way, but everyone calls me S.Coups. I've been attending Dark Lake since I was, like, seven, so feel free to ask me anything about this place. I'm a shifter by the by."

"I'm Son Hyunwoo, better known as Shownu," Shownu replied. "This is Lee Minhyuk."

S.Coups frowned slightly after their introductions. They seemed so, closed off and guarded. He couldn’t help wondering about the background they had. However, it also made him determined to make friends with them and help them learn to open up.

"You've been here since you were seven?" Minhyuk asked, "Why?"

"My parents died when I was six," S.Coups shrugged, moving to sit across from the pair, "I spent a year on my own before Sori and Ravi tracked me down and brought me here."

"Ravi?" Shownu asked.

"He's Sori's husband," S.Coups told them, "and the head shifter teacher. He's really cool. They both are." S.Coups' grin from talking about Ravi and Sori gave Shownu and Minhyuk all they needed to know about his relationship with the teachers.

--

Suho sighed, leaning back in his chair. He hated working overtime. His chair was uncomfortable and sitting at a desk all day was incredibly boring. The only real upside to his work space was that he finally had his own office.

Suho had never realized how much he hated his coworkers with until was in an office away from them. The other ISBIP agents with desk jobs were unpleasant, especially considering Suho wasn't one-hundred percent confined to his desk, unlike them. All they ever did and moan.

“The field agents at their jobs.”

“We were so much better we were in the field”.

“Desk jobs are so boring.”

Day in and day out, all they did was complain to the point of driving Suho insane.  He couldn't believe how bitter some these agents were. The only thing worse were the complaints from those injured during the war like him?

God damn, how he hated hearing these agents rambling on about how much they'd done to save people. It was total bull, and it took everything Suho had to keep his mouth shut and not call them out. Not again.

He'd once made that mistake, way back when he'd first been assigned to a desk. Some jerk had been bragging about how he'd been right there for everything, trying to make himself out to be some kind of war hero. Suho hadn't been able to keep himself from snapping at the older agent, the wounds, literal and metaphorical, still far too fresh from battle for him to let something like that slide.

But it wasn't worth it.

Suho had just kept his mouth shut after that, as he tried to ignore everyone. After buying his time and playing his cards right, he’d finally gotten a solo office; he was beyond grateful.

"Day's almost done," Suho muttered to himself, looking over at the photos decorating his office. "I wonder how the first day went."

He pulled out his personal cell phone, hesitating for a moment before dialing one of the numbers on his contact list.

"Hello," a familiar voice answered after only a few rings.

Suho smiled slightly, happy to hear the voice of one of his oldest and closest friends.

A/N: hey guys, Shiro here! the next chapter might take a little longer to come out. i've run into some computer trouble that's limiting the time i can spend writing bit time. it might be a little bit before i can get a new laptop.