- October 19, 2005 -

As the nights grew longer, an icy chill seeped into the castle walls and lingered during the day. Charms was everyone’s favorite class now, with how warm Flitwick liked to keep his classroom. The higher up, in the castle, the colder it got, so their study closet on the seventh floor was practically freezing at all times.

To combat this, Kibum and Minho smuggled more blankets and sweaters upstairs, as well as putting lit candles around them as they studied, to leech even a little bit of the warmth from the tiny flames.

Minho’s socked feet repeatedly tapped the wall beside Kibum, as he was sprawled out on the floor, wrapped up in two of the three blankets they had. Kibum shivered as he tried to focus on the etymology of healing spell they learned in Charms today. He almost had it, but his concentration was broken when Minho’s foot rested on his arm for a second and lifted when Minho murmured, “Sorry.”

He stared unamused at the back of Minho’s head when he chuckled at something that was written in the Defense textbook. Slowly, he moved away and reached into his last care package from Grandma, grabbing one of his spare quills. He took the feathered end and, checking to see that Minho wasn’t paying attention, started tickling the arch of his foot. 

Minho’s toes curled and he moved his foot away for a second, and when it fell back into place, Kibum started tickling it again. He tucked his quill away under his blanket and scrambled to look like he was studying when Minho turned around to scratch his foot. As he laid back down, he pulled out their notes from Defense to look over. 

When he was sure that Minho was back to studying, Kibum started to pull out the quill again, only for Minho to hurridly sit up and start smashing edge of the parchment. Kibum watched him, his eyes wide and the quill still posed to tickle Minho’s no-longer-present feet, his brow furrowing when Minho looked back at him.

“It was in the candle,” he said, holding up the now scorched edge of the parchment.

“Did we lose anything important?”

“Uh...” Minho looked back at the notes, scanning them. “Just your bearded chicken doodle.”

Kibum scoffed. “Bearded...chicken?”

Minho pursed his lips to hold back his growing smile. “What was it supposed to be?”

“A dragon.” Minho’s high-pitched laughter filled the small study closet and Kibum rolled his eyes as he started laughing himself. “Okay, can we get back to studying now, please?”

Minho nodded and grabbed his textbook before he scooted back to sit beside Kibum.