It's the third day this week that Jihoon is running to school late with his breakfast of burnt toast still in his mouth. He's already incurred enough absences to get yelled at by teachers most of the semester so he picks up the pace, polishing off the rest of his toast and wiping the soot-colored crumbs from his mouth.

Jihoon's almost at the school gates when his luck runs out and he trips on his untied neon shoelaces and falls. His brain tells him he's going to fall to the ground but he's suddenly floating in mid-air, the school building replaced by a multicolored void of pastel colors surrounding him, and he wonders out loud: "What the actual ?"

"Hey! That's not very magical boy-like to say!"

Jihoon lets out a yelp when a small man in a sparkly neon green suit appears before him in an instant with a very disapproving look on his face. He flails his limbs in midair trying to get to his feet on the ground, only there is no ground to put his feet on. "Who're you?! Where is this?!"

"I'm Sungwoon. I've been observing you for a while now, and I'm pleased to announce that you've been qualified to be a magical boy!" the guy says with glee. "Isn't that great?"

Jihoon gawks at him. "What..?" Is he sleeping in and having a weirdass dream again? More importantly, where did Sungwoon buy the suit he's wearing?

"I'll explain later. You'll be late to school again! Which is exactly why you're magical boy material!"

Jihoon falls flat on his face, and he sees the familiar sight of the school gates in front of him. "Oh, that was weird," he grumbles to himself as he picks himself up to walk to the school slowly. He's late anyway. Might as well relax.

-

"Hi, Jihoon. Ready for your first day?"

Jihoon screams at the sight of the guy from this morning, sitting in his room in his pajamas and playing with his game console. "Why are you here?! Who are you, even?! Are you a burglar?! Take the pajamas but not the games, please!" Jihoon pleads. Should he call the police now? His mom?

"I told you this morning that I'm Sungwoon," Sungwoon whines, still mashing buttons on the controller. He's holding it like such a noob that it makes Jihoon kinda mad. He finishes the game level and whoops victoriously to himself before turning to Jihoon. "Where was I? Oh! First day!" He fumbles with his shirt pocket and tosses Jihoon whatever he grabs from it.

"What is this?" Jihoon examines the overbedazzled key he caught with both his hands. There's a huge pink heart-shaped jewel in the middle and Jihoon just knows this key can only unlock the gayest of powers.

"Your magical boy transforming key!" Sungwoon says like it's the most obvious thing and Jihoon should already know this. "Go on, try transforming," he urges impatiently.

"What do I say?" Jihoon asks dumbly.

"Oh yeah, I haven't thought of a name yet," Sungwoon scratches his cheek. Jihoon can't understand why this guy was ever given the task of bestowing anyone powers. "What can you do well?"

"Fake-cry?" Jihoon tries.

"Nooo, what would you even do with that skill?"

Now that was offensive. "I can also wink well," Jihoon huffs. He blinks his eyes simultaneously at a rapid pace to show Sungwoon.

"Oh, that's cool! We'll go with that." Sungwoon starts typing on what looks like a cloud-shaped smartphone. "Let's look that up on the free online magical boy name generator."

The magical boy name generator comes up with "Knightwink", which was kind of cool until Sungwoon pointed out that it had "" in it.

"I don't want that name, give me a cooler one," Jihoon whines. "I don't like Knightwink-"

Suddenly there's a cloud of pink and yellow pastel smoke and Jihoon's lifted into the air and spun around, only to be placed in front of his full-length mirror looking... Magical? He screams."What the is this outfit?!"

His hair is pink and the top of it is tied in a small pigtail... He hasn't had apple hair in years and this is totally embarrassing. Maybe not as embarrassing as the huge bow with the jewel heart on his shirt and the ruffles on his sleeves, which isn't even the worst thing about this costume as it even includes puffy, pantaloons-like shorts. Looking closer at his reflection in the mirror, it looks like he's wearing pink contact lenses too. Overall, Jihoon hates this.

"I hereby quit the magical boy life," he declares.

"Oh no you don't!" Sungwoon squawks. "The transformation key turns into a weapon," he tries to talk Jihoon back into the magical boy life.

The sword the transformation key turns into would be cool except it still has the stupid costume jewelry heart that the key had.

"Quitting," Jihoon threatens.

"No!" Sungwoon stomps his sock-covered foot. He tries to appeal to Jihoon' emotions next: "Don't you hear the sound of people who need your help?"

And as if on cue, Jihoon hears the sound of an old lady crying about her cat stuck in a tree.

"What is my power aside from looking cute? Can I even fly? Or jump?" Jihoon asks as Sungwoon pulls him to the open window. Sungwoon annoyingly climbs on his back and demands that he jump out and run to the direction of the old woman's voice and Jihoon can already feel his magical boy powers weakening. This guy wasn't as light as he looked.

The cat already went down by itself by the time the two of them get to the tree, but Jihoon somehow gets Points for Effort in the form of a small crystal which is apparently the old lady's feelings of gratitude.

"What do I even get if I collect a lot?" Jihoon turns the crystal against a lamppost's light. It sparkles and shows a multitude of colors and Jihoon found it really pretty. He kinda wants to give it to his mom but she would probably wonder where he got it and he can't say he got it from an old lady after a night out in a ruffled costume. "Can this stuff be converted into cash?" He could use some help with his tuition fees and he sure needed new video games to play. Not that he would have any time to play games lately if he had to go around saving cats after school.

"No, even better!" Sungwoon claps his hands in glee. He pauses dramatically before announcing: "You get your love reciprocated by whoever it is you like!"

"And what if I don't like anyone?" Jihoon challenged.

"Ha! Impossible. Every magical person has a love interest. Sailormoon has Tuxedo Mask, Sakura has Syaoran, the list goes on and on." Sungwoon's flipping through the apps of his magical cloud-shaped smartphone and Jihoon wants to argue that Madoka had no love interest and the magical girl life was to her. "Ah-ha!" Sungwoon exclaims after a while.

"What?"

"Lai Guanlin, sixteen, born in Taiwan, tall and very good at basketball, IG handle edcurry30 oh he can speak three languages! That's cool." Sungwoon shoves the phone at Jihoon's face to show a picture of Guanlin at school that looks eerily like it was taken by an idol fansite master. "There's your love interest."

"How do you know that?" Jihoon tries to say nonchalantly, but goddammit why doesn't he have the magical powers to not be embarrassed at having a crush and keep his face not red.

"I know everything!" Sungwoon cackles. "Now get up and go do more good deeds. Those crystals won't collect themselves."