- October 1, 2007 -

“...and, as you can see on page 48,” Flitwick said, Minho reaching over to flip the page. “The Mahoutokoro robes change colors with their grades, starting with a pale pink and transposing all the way up to gold if they receive high marks in their studies in school.”

“What?” Kibum whispered, pulling the textbook closer to him to inspect the pictures showing the shift in colors. “That’s so cool, what the hell?” 

“What is Mahoutokoro?” someone behind them asked. Minho wasn’t sure who because his attention shifted to Kibum. He couldn’t help but smile at Kibum’s curiosity and interest in it. 

“The Mahoutokoro School of Magic is Hogwarts’ sister school in Japan,” Flitwick said. “It’s actually the oldest of the eleven magical schools around the world.” 

Minho hummed in thought, then leaned over to whisper to Kibum, “If we had stayed in Korea, we might have gone to that school instead.” 

“Hm...what?” Kibum asked after a second, looking up from the textbook. 

Minho shook his head with a smile. “Nothing.” Kibum nodded absently and went back to reading about the color-shifting robes. 

Once class was over, Kibum packed up quicker than usual. Minho followed his lead, stuffing everything into his backpack and jumping up to follow Kibum without zipping it up all of the way. Usually, after Charms, Minho would go straight to his dorm room to change out of his uniform and drop off his backpack, but today, he followed Kibum to Slytherin. 

If Kibum noticed, he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he probably expected it. 

Minho plopped down at the foot of Kibum’s bed and took the books he shoved toward him, setting them down behind him as Kibum dug around in his trunk. “What are you doing?” he finally asked.

“I wanna try it.” 

“The spell?” 

“Mm.” 

He pulled out his pale yellow “Miracle” t-shirt, tossing it over his shoulder as he closed the lid of the trunk, and smoothed it over. Then, he felt around for his wand, which Minho leaned back to grab it from where it was tucked in between the pages of his Charms textbook. 

“What was it again?”

“Uh...’ Minho leaned back again and flipped through Kibum’ book. “Colorvaria.”

Kibum nodded, muttering it under his breath as Minho sat back up. He pointed his wand at the t-shirt and said the spell. Both of their breaths caught as a ring of pink rippled across the shirt, changing it from pale yellow to rose pink.

“Woah!” 

“That’s so cool!” 

“Was that the color you wanted?” Minho asked.

Kibum nodded, flipping over the t-shirt. The color had shifted on the back, too. “This will make clothes shopping that much easier if I can change the colors to whatever suits me best.” Minho blinked. Yeah, that made sense. He hadn’t really thought about it that much. When Kibum looked up, there was a worrying mischievous twinkle in his eye.

“Wha -- “ Kibum blinked, his expression becoming a mask of innocence. Minho squinted then snatched Kibum’s wand away. “Whatever you were thinking, no.” 

Kibum his teeth. “You’re no fun.”

Chuckling, Minho scooted back and dropped Kibum’s wand in his nightstand drawer. “You’ll thank me later when we don’t have detention.” 

“We?” 

Minho scoffed. “Yeah, like I’d let you go off and do some dumb by yourself.”

“True.” Minho glanced away from Kibum, only to look back a second later when he realized his dimples were showing. “What do you want to do? We’ve got a couple of hours before dinner starts...”

Minho just shrugged. “I don’t care. Whatever you want to do is fine.” 

“Whatever?” His gaze darted to his nightstand and then back to Minho.

“Not that.” Kibum rolled his eyes with a huff and Minho laughed.