The teacher pursed her lips at the leave of absence letters in her hand, casting a quick look at Wonsik and Sanghyuk standing by her desk, hands folded in front of them.

After a while, she released a little breath and put the letters down. "Alright," she said. "I'll accept it."

Both looked pleasantly surprised. "You-you will?" Sanghyuk asked.

She nodded. "Everything seems to be in order, so nothing I can do," she said. She then sighed a little. "No matter the tiny suspicions I may have, nothing's wrong." 

Wonsik turned to Sanghyuk, mouthing "suspicions?"

The teacher then sighed, pushing a lock of her hair back and then waving her hand dismissively at them. "Either way, you may go."

The two bowed deeply before ducking out of the room. Once out, Wonsik released a huge breath before straightening his tie again while Sanghyuk closed the door behind them.

"What was that about?" he asked.

Wonsik shrugged. "I'm not sure." He turned his head slightly to look at the closed door. "Hey, don't you think Teacher Lee was acting weird?"

Sanghyuk coughed lightly. "Weird is an understatement." He then paused and turned to Wonsik. "What are you thinking?"

Wonsik deeply exhaled, running his temples. "I'm thinking maybe missing so many days wasn't the best course of action."

Sanghyuk raised an eyebrow. "Why? You think Teacher Lee knows?"

Wonsik shook his head. "No, I don't think she actually knows what's going on," he admitted. "However, I do think she's starting to suspect that something might be going on."

Silence fell over the two of them as they thought about their teacher now getting involved. Sharing a quick look, Sanghyuk picked up the bag he had dropped on the ground.

"Let's just go to lunch," he said.

Wonsik grunted in reply and the two began making their way down to the cafeteria. On the way, however, Sanghyuk bumped into a student, a girl.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he quickly said, bowing to her. 

"It's okay," she assured him before going on her way. 

He took a minute to readjust his blazer. "You okay?" Wonsik asked him.

He nodded. "We've faced worse than this," Sanghyuk said.

"What's worse?" a voice behind them suddenly said. 

The two turned to find a boy standing there. "Oh, Kwanghee," Wonsik acknowledged.

"What are you doing here?" Sanghyuk asked him.

"You guys didn't answer my question," Kwanghee pointed out. "What's worse than being bumped into?"

Sanghyuk and Wonsik shared a look. "Um...midterms?" 

"Okay, so what we can guess from the previous victims is that they all have some sort of connection to us," Wonsik said, turning around and pulling out a notebook before placing it on the table in front of them. "Taking that into account, I've narrowed down the potential victims to the people who are in some way connected to us."

"That's a lot of people," Taekwoon said.

"He's right," Hongbin agreed. "With that logic the entire school if not the entire town is at risk."

"True, very true," Wonsik said, pointing at them with his finger. "But...going by the patterns we've observed so far, the victims had to have some kind of direct connection to the four of us."

He then opened the book to a page full of names. "So I've cut down the list to mainly our classmates and our teachers."

Taekwoon and Hongbin peeked in the book. "That's still a lot of people," Taekwoon commented.

Hongbin sighed, putting his banana milk down and folding his hands across the table. "Why us?" he softly asked.

Wonsik paused. "Yeah...that's the real question, isn't it?" he said in a low voice.

Taekwoon looked around to find that the third member of their "team" still hadn't joined them yet. "Hey, where's Sanghyuk?" 

"I think he went to the roof," Wonsik offered, taking a bite of his bread. "Said something about needing to clear his head."

Taekwoon nodded before digging into his ramen, while Hongbin looked at the list, looking at a page full of names.

Because of them, all those people could be killed at any time.

Sanghyuk opened the door to the roof and stepped out to find that he wasn't alone.

"Oh, aren't you...?"

The girl turned around. "Oh, I remember you," she said, recognizing him. "You're that underclassman I bumped into earlier."

"Sorry about this," Sanghyuk quickly said, making to leave.

"It's okay," she said. He paused with his hand on the door. "The roof is a public place. No reason we can't share."

He sighed. He had wanted to be alone...but, well, why not?

"Sorry for intruding," he said before coming away from the door and towards the railing.

"So, are you that new kid from Seoul?" she asked him.

"You know me?"

She shrugged. "We don't really get transfers from the city here. Usually it's the other way around. So, yeah, word spreads."

He smiled lightly. "Yeah, I'm from Seoul." 

"Why did you leave?" she asked him. 

He shrugged. "Family stuff," he simply said.

She quickly got the hint that he wasn't going to let out more and turned to look at the view. From the place they were, they could see half the town.

"I'm Go Woori, by the way," she said. "I'm in 3rd Year Class 2."

Hm, Hongbin and Taekwoon's class, he thought.

"Han Sanghyuk," he offered. "2nd Year Class 3."

She turned away, and so did he. While he usually was happy to chat, this time he wasn't really feeling up to it.

"Do you come up here a lot?" she asked.

"Sometimes," he said. "It helps me clear my head."

She gave a light chuckle. "That's cool," she said. "It helps me too."

Sanghyuk glanced at her before looking back over their town and into the woods.

The second the bell rang, Hongbin turned around to Taekwoon behind him. 

"Let's find Wonsik and see if he's found any other patterns," he suggested.

"It's still a lot of people," Taekwoon disagreed.

"Maybe it is," Hongbin said. "But the best we can do is narrow down the potential victims to a number we can all try and protect."

"So much for protecting," Taekwoon mumbled.

Hongbin raised an eyebrow. "If you have something to say, then just say it."

"Look around," Taekwoon said in a hushed voice. 

Hongbin looked around like he'd been told, seeing the faces of the children he'd shared his high school years with. "And...?"

"Any one of them could be next, and why? Just because they study in the same class as us," Taekwoon said. "Who knows? Maybe the next person to interact with us will be the next victim."

"What's your point?" Hongbin asked.

"We're just four," Taekwoon said. "Two wolves, one druid and one hunter. How on earth do you think we can protect every single one of them?"

Hongbin paused for a moment before shifting to face him. "So, what do you suggest?"

Taekwoon stayed silent. Hongbin gave a light chuckle. "Yeah, I thought so."

"If you two are done, then may I have your assignments?"

They looked up to see their Class Monitor with his hands stacked up with assignments. 

"Your assignments?" he prompted again when they were silent.

They dug into their bags and pulled out their assignments, done weeks before, before this entire thing started, getting them out of the loop for now.

"Thank you," the Class Monitor said as they placed the files on the stack.

"Hey, Namjoon," Hongbin said, gazing at the stack of assignments. "Isn't that a lot of assignments."

"It is," Namjoon agreed. "But I've got someone helping me." Saying so, he walked over to place the current stack on the teacher's table and go collect from the other rows.

Hongbin turned back to see Taekwoon looking after him. "Taekwoon-ah," Hongbin said, getting his attention. "What's wrong?"

"Do you know what just happened?" Taekwoon asked.

Hongbin shook his head after his mind came back blank. "No, what?"

"We may have just doomed him, him and probably his entire family," Taekwoon said, his voice heavy. "Because he talked to us right now, Kim Namjoon may be dead soon."