~

“Damn Kyuhyun. You look horrible,” Hyukjae said as Kyuhyun joined them in the hallway outside a couple of their classrooms. Kyuhyun’s hair was a complete mess with sticks and leaves all stuck in it, mud all over his face and clothes. He also had noticeable tears in his clothes and scratches on his hands and even one on his face.

“What happened this time,” Henry asked. Sungmin and Donghae walked over to him to help clean him up while he explained.

“You know that tree-lined ditch between here and the train station, that runs along a street that’s basically an alleyway that’s barely wider than a car,” Kyuhyun asked. Everyone nodded, most already knowing where this was going. “Well someone decided they were going to drive through it today and almost ran me over. Instead I ended up falling into the ditch.”

“Dude, what has been happening the last couple of weeks? Yesterday you locked yourself out of your house for the millionth time, missed your train again, and your backpack strap broke,” Sungmin listed out.

“Don’t forget last week he had his flash drive corrupt and lost his presentation, which the only other copy was on his home computer since his laptop crashed the week before,” Hyukjae added.

“And it always rained when he planned to work on that project at the park, both last week and earlier this week,” Henry said.

“His phone’s screen cracked a couple days ago too, but he can’t afford to get it fixed or replaced. He’s also been splashed by cars going over puddles a lot in the last three weeks. Have we missed anything,” Donghae asked.

“The train thing has been happening for about a month and the time I was super early for it, it broke down. Even though my sister and parents haven’t had any problems, I’ve been stuck taking cold showers for a while now. And I started putting a spare key out just in case I forgot my keys, and I dropped it the other day and had a cat come and steal it before I could pick it up,” Kyuhyun explained.

“This isn’t normal. You need to do something,” Sungmin said.

“I’ve been trying. I carry an extra set of clothes and an umbrella, I’ve left earlier for the train and learned the bus schedule just in case. I’ve put spare keys just about everywhere including giving ones to you guys, and I check the weather more.”

“Have you talked to anyone about it?”

“I’ve talked to you guys, my parents, and the school counselor. I’ve also looked online for help.”

“I think you need to go find someone else,” Hyukjae suggested.

“Like who?”

“Someone in a more supernatural field,” Henry said.

“I’m not going to a psychic; those people are all quacks and a waste of time and money.”

“Not a psychic Kyu. You need to find a mage,” Sungmin said.

“A mage? We don’t live in a video game Min. How is someone who calls themselves a mage any better than a psychic?” Sungmin rolled his eyes at Kyuhyun’s outburst.

“You find a legit mage and they will be able to find out what is effecting you. A psychic is strictly for your mind and future, a mage does more. And honestly, psychics are a type of mage,” Sungmin explained.

“You talk as if they are real people, they are not. Mages are just from fairytales.”

“Fine. Whatever,” Sungmin answered, very annoyed and glanced down at his phone. “Donghae and I have to leave. Our class is starting soon and it’s over in the next building.” Sungmin didn’t bother saying goodbye to anyone, just angrily walked off. Donghae stayed back a second to say goodbye and grab his backpack before catching up to Sungmin.

“What pissed him off,” Kyuhyun asked loud enough for them to still hear.

“Sungmin,” Donghae whined, trying to keep up with Sungmin speed walking pace. “Slow down a little, would you?” Sungmin huffed but stopped and let Donghae catch up to him.

“Sorry.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I know Kyuhyun doesn’t believe in magic, but it still just makes me so mad when he acts like I’m crazy anytime we talk about it. I’m serious, I think he needs to find a master mage to solve whatever is going on.”

“Could we just ask our masters?”

“I don’t think mine would help much. He doesn’t really like dealing with regular humans. And your new master doesn’t seem very capable of helping considering her age.”

“That’s true. She’s a good teacher but she’s not very mobile anymore. She only agreed to take me on as an apprentice because I had already spent years training and I could help take care of her,” Donghae confirmed.

“There should be someone who is able to help.”

“Would it help if we told Kyuhyun what we are? He might be more open to the idea if he has proof that we are real.”

“No. With how he reacts now, I don’t want us to be the one to reveal magic to him. What would he think of us. You haven’t even told Hyukjae yet.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m not sure how to tell him. We only started dating recently.”

“And yet you want us to try and tell Kyuhyun.”

“Good point.”

“In the meantime, we should find a mage who would be able to help him, so when he gets to that point, he has somewhere to go,” Sungmin said. “Now let’s go, we’re going to be late if we don’t hurry.”

~

“Hey, where were you this morning? You don’t have an early class today, right,” Hyukjae asked when Kyuhyun walked into their classroom.

“No. This is my first class of the day. Why?”

“Why weren’t you at Mrs. Choi's test then?”

“What do you mean? Her test is later today when we have her class,” Kyuhyun said.

“She emailed us yesterday morning, said she had to move the test to earlier in the day because she had to leave for a family emergency out of town this morning right afterwards. She asked that anyone who would have a time conflict message her before the new time and she will leave the test for them in the testing center right afterwards. Anyone who didn’t show up and didn’t message her would be marked as missing the test and absent for the day,” Hyukjae explained. Kyuhyun paled as Hyukjae went through everything and began to search through the email on his phone.

“I didn’t get it. I don’t have any emails from her since the one when she had to change our classroom for a day.”

“That’s weird.”

“Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?”

“Because we don’t see each other on or Tuesday schedules and I assumed you saw the email,” Hyukjae pointed out.

“You have your laptop on, can you see who all she emailed? If she completely missed sending me the email I might have a case for getting a makeup test done when she gets back.” Hyukjae agreed, opening the email on his laptop. The two carefully scanned through the large list of names, but near the bottom clearly read Kyuhyun's email address. Kyuhyun then logged into his own email on the laptop, still finding no email in his inbox, deleted, or spam folders.

“You are so screwed.”

“I’m going to email her anyways. Since I never got it, maybe she will show some leniency.”

“I doubt it,” Hyukjae said. “She is always super strict.”

“Well I can't just ignore it. I have to at least try something.”

“Good luck. Let me know if I have to vouch for you or something. Also, I think this gets added to the list of crazy things that are happening to you.”

“Probably,” Kyuhyun said in a defeated voice. He was trying to quickly type out the email on Hyukjae’s laptop before class started.

“I think we are way past all of this being a crazy coincident. We’re at the ‘universe is out to get you personally stage’. I think you need to take up Sungmin’s suggestion from the other day.”

“Not you too,” Kyuhyun groaned out.

“I know it sounds a little crazy but you either have somehow gained the worst luck ever or the universe is literally out to get you. Either way, I don’t think there is a normal answer to it all, so why would there be a normal solution?”

“But a mage? Anyone who thinks they can use magic is just delusional.”

“Are they? Who says there can’t be someone out there who can legitimately use magic? It’s a big world with a lot of unexplained events.”

“I still disagree. Anytime someone has presented some proof of magic, it’s been disproven by many others.”

“Even so, I don’t think you can take that as an absolute that there is no magic.”

“Do you believe magic exists,” Kyuhyun asked.

“I don’t know if it does or not. I have no proof that it does, but I also don’t know every single thing that exists in the world and never will and in the space that I don’t know, it easily could exist.” Kyuhyun was about to speak again when their professor walked in cutting their conversation off.

The following week Kyuhyun was on his way to university and as per usually he just barely missed his train. Without any hesitation, he switched direction and walked down to the bus stop instead. For what ever reason, Kyuhyun never had an issue with the bus, it just came a little later and he would still have to walk a few blocks, but it was always on time and was a much better alternative to walking the whole way. Once on the bus, he sat back and played on his phone for a while. However, when the bus took a turn he was not expecting and heading a different way from usual he looked around slightly panicked. He first double checked the bus number and confirmed he was on the correct one, but that was when he noticed the electronic announcement board. According to the board, the bus would be taking a detour and not making it to a couple of the stops due to construction preventing the bus from traveling its usual route. He quickly pulled up the bus route on his phone and took the amended route into consideration and realized the next stop would be the closest one for him to get off at.

Once off the bus, Kyuhyun took a moment to orient himself and then heading towards the university. He glanced at the time on his phone to make sure the detour didn’t cost him too much time when the first couple of sprinkles started. Looking up at the sky, he noticed dark clouds rolling in. Kyuhyun paused to search his bag for the umbrella he started keeping in there just for this situation but couldn’t find it. Angrily he zipped the bag back up, only for the zipper to split and had to spend a minute convincing it to close properly. By the time he really started moving on his way towards university, the rain had started coming down at a nice steady pace.

Kyuhyun was most of the way to his university, waiting for the light to change to cross a busy intersection. When the light changed he began to cross with the other pedestrians who were caught in the rain, but only a third of the way across he heard people shouting and looked to see a car speeding right towards him and the people immediately around him. Everyone including Kyuhyun quickly moved to get out of the way, but due to the slickness of the road, Kyuhyun fell landing hard on his right shoulder, thankfully out of the way of the car that sped past all of them. He looked around first to make sure no one was hurt and had another gentleman offer him and hand up, checking to make sure he was alright as well. Once out of the street, everyone was checking to make sure no one was injured, and the same gentleman who helped Kyuhyun get up reminded him to go to the hospital at some point to check his arm and shoulder. Kyuhyun agreed, if nothing else but to reassure the man, glad that no one else seemed to be injured in any way and continued to make his way to university.

Thankfully the rest of his journey to university was uneventful, but he arrived soaked completely through and grimacing at the pain in his shoulder. And while his friends had become used to him showing up haggard and beat up, they were still shocked every time it happened.

“What the hell happened this time,” Sungmin asked the moment they saw him and Kyuhyun took the time to give them all the details.

“It’s getting worse, Kyuhyun. You need to do something different,” Henry pointed out after they helped him get cleaned up and changed into his spare clothes.

“He’s right. And are you sure you even want to go to class right now? I think you should get your shoulder checked out pretty quickly,” Hyukjae said.

“I’m fine. We have a decent break after this one. We can go then,” Kyuhyun stated.

“Alright. If you can’t write or type well, you can borrow my notes later to use. Let’s go sit down in the classroom.”

“Thanks, Hyuk.”

“Kyuhyun,” Sungmin started. “Donghae and I looked into it and found a very credible mage nearby. He doesn’t advertise himself at all and most people think he just runs a bookstore. Just give it a try, will you? It has to be better than just letting whatever this is get worse.”

“We can’t force you to go, but we’re worried, and this can’t make it worse,” Donghae added. Kyuhyun looked at both of them skeptically and a little annoyed but took the folded piece of paper that Sungmin was offering him. He immediately opened and read it.

“The Mage Yesung at AB Books?”

“Yes. And it’s real close to here, so you can’t say that it’s too far away,” Sungmin added.

“Fine. If I get super desperate, I’ll look into it.” Sungmin rolled his eyes at Kyuhyun’s answer but at least it was better than an outright no.

The remainder of Kyuhyun day was filled with many more incidents. In his first class with Hyukjae, his chair broke causing him to fall and more so, he tried to brace his fall with his right arm, causing himself more pain. During their longer break, Henry, Kyuhyun, and Hyukjae headed to a local hospital to get Kyuhyun’s arm checked out. While waiting, a child nearby was playing with a ball against the wall behind them, when he missed and hit Kyuhyun in the back of the head. Back on campus, between classes, he had a rollerblader crash into him and the bulb in of his class’s projector exploded when he was sitting directly below it. Thankfully most of the incidents were minor and aside from landing on his already injured arm, non-injury producing. However, by the time of Kyuhyun’s last class which started already late in the evening, he was worn out and ready to just be home.

When Kyuhyun finished his final class, it was already well past dark, but he could still see the storm clouds very quickly rolling in and felt the wind picking up drastically. Battling the wind, he made his way to the train station as quickly as he could, hoping to beat the rain. Just outside the train station, he found the handful of other late train riders leaving the station, and multiple police vehicles parked out front with their lights flashing. A middle-aged woman spotted him worriedly looking at the station and stopped to tell him it was closed due to some incident that caused an outage. She didn’t know what the incident was but was certain that was the main reason for the police being there. Dejectedly, Kyuhyun started for the next station, knowing it would be next to impossible to try and find a running bus stop that was going where he needed between how late it was and the construction that already detoured his earlier bus.

On the way to the next train station, the wind picked up even further and rain started pouring down. Just walking down the street was a struggle. It wasn’t long before the lightning and thunder started up too. Only a few cars were driving down the road and Kyuhyun could not see anyone else walking and as most shops were closed or closing at this point. Paper and some trash occasionally flew past having been picked up by the wind, so Kyuhyun wasn’t very surprised that he sometimes got hit. He was surprised however when a drink can hit his temple. The hit caused him to stumble and he dropped to a knee and held his head. Even though the rain was quickly washing it away, Kyuhyun could still tell with the help of a streetlight, that he was bleeding. He carefully glanced around, trying to see if someplace close was still open that he could duck into and treat his head but to no avail. The street seemed to be completely dark aside from the streetlights. Though in his search for a place, her realized he was very close to the address listed for the shop Sungmin told him to go to. And with his current state and the events of his day, he feels desperate.

With his new destination in mind, Kyuhyun finds a shop awning to give him some mild shelter from the rain so he can grab the paper from Sungmin out and get the actual address and name again. Since it was in his pants’ pocket, the paper was wet but thankfully still readable. And with the address in mind again, he knew he only need to go over one more street and it should be only a block or two further up. He stayed under the awning for another moment, though with the wind, the awning wasn’t giving much relief. Deciding the break was enough, Kyuhyun started off again, making his way slowly to the bookstore. When he was on the correct street, he carefully started looking at all of the store signs for ‘AB Books’ and silently hoped the store would still be open. Just a little further ahead he could see the store’s sign, and more so, he could see lights still on and a person inside. As he got closer, he could see the person was cleaning and that the store did seems closed, but he tried the door anyways. Although fighting the wind, the door was unlocked and opened for Kyuhyun.

“I’m sorry, we’re closed for the…” Kyuhyun heard the man say, back still facing him, but paused when he turned around. Kyuhyun took a moment to decide what he wanted to say.

“Please,” Kyuhyun started, hearing how rough and weak his voice was. “I need to find the Mage Yesung.”

A/N: So, I don't know if anyone will be annoyed with how this chapter ended, but I'm not really sorry about it.
Honestly, I originally planned on going further in this chapter, but I expanded on Kyuhyun's before going to the shop than I originally planned. So if I went further it would have been by not a whole lot and I would have had to figure out the best stopping point, so I decided against it. But I promise Chapter 3 will definitely get beyond this point in time.

♥