Yerin paced as she waited for her teammates to show up, today was the day they were going to see her skill, today was the day, they were finally start having to train together. She was nervous, what if, after all that talk about her skill being only allowed to be displayed in the training room, it wasn’t impressive? She paced around the room nervously, a trail of flames remaining where her bare feet stepped as she burned out of her uneasiness. Eventually, the temperature of the room was so high, that when Yuju walked in, she yelped and stepped back out. Hiding behind the door and looking in a small crack, she called out to her leader.

“Yerin unnie? Are you okay in there?”

“Huh? Oh, yea, yea I am sorry. Why are you over there like that?”

               Yuju laughed and reached into the room just far enough to tap the thermostat, turning the air conditioning up high before walking in and opening her thermos, splashing out the small fires on the ground. The floor remained singed where Yerin’s footprints were at and the leader sighed as she realized what she had done.

“Sorry, I’m just really, really nervous.”

“It’s okay, even if your skill is just dancing flames over your fingertips, I’m sure you’re still a very skilled individual, I guess you haven’t heard the rumors that go around about you, have you?”

“Rumors? About me? Probably about how bad and stuck up I am, that’s the only kind I hear.”

“What? Who said that? I’ll drown them for a while. But no, Yerin unnie is one of the best students at this academy, and a lot of people respect you.”

“They do? Then why didn’t anyone ask to be my date to last year’s ball?”

               Yuju giggled as Yerin huffed and crossed her arms while pouting, for a junior who had so many more responsibilities than she did, she was rather cute and carefree. But it surprised her, that Yerin didn’t get a partner to the ball, she had expected that every boy in the school would’ve tried to ask her.

“You really went alone?”

“Yep, my lonesome self, went alone to get free food. At least that was worth it, the pizza was to die for really.”

“You’re saying that the fire princess of our school, went to the ball alone?!”

“Yes, that’s what I’ve been saying?”

               Yuju was speechless for a few seconds, making Yerin worried. Was it that big of a deal? She already knew why they didn’t ask her, many didn’t dare go near her because they thought they were leagues too far apart in skill and would only be rejected or that there would be too many others asking her out already. Too bad that meant that no one asked her, and no one even approached her. Her last year teammates were transfers so they didn’t attend because they were not used to the partying aspect of the free time they had at this academy.

“Well, this year, if no one asks you, tell me alright? I’ll do something about it.”

“Do something about it? Yuna, why don’t you be my date then? Hm?”

               And just like that, her playful personality was back again. Yuju chuckled as she shook her head, Yerin was a funny person and a hell of a person to be hanging out with. Once you get behind her nervousness and got to truly know her that is. When they had first met and learned that they were teammates and roommates, Yerin was so stiff that their first night had ended up like sleeping alone in the room, Yerin had made no sounds what so ever and Yuju could barely here her breathing that she was worried that her leader might have died from stress.

“Fine, I promise that if you don’t get a date this year’s ball, I’ll be your date.”

“Assa! I’ve got a date!”

               As Yerin happily bounced around the room, their two maknaes wandered in, confused and out of context. Still, seeing Yerin being happy put a smile to their faces.

“So, we’re starting team training, today right?”

“Yea! I’m also going to demonstrate my skill, which I should probably do before we get into the exercises and stuff.”

               Standing in the middle of the room, Yerin closed her eyes as she concentrated, her hands that were at her sides raising up to be parallel to the floor. Slowly, the girls watched as flames began to off of Yerin’s hands, dripping as if liquid over her palms and onto the floor where it pooled. It wasn’t solid like lava, but the flames were definitely denser than it was than when you just light a gas on fire. They stared in awe as that liquid fire gathered into a ball and lifted into the air as Yerin opened her eyes again, forming the ball into the shape of a bird, they watched as it took the form of a phoenix and took off from Yerin’s hands, flying over their heads like a real living bird.

“Woah.”

               Yuju held her bottle of water nearby in case anything caught on fire as Yerin continued to concentrate, when she stopped though, the phoenix exploded outwards like a small firework and it rained little bits of fire that usually burned out before hitting anything on the ground level. Relaxing as the flames disappeared properly, Yuju set aside her bottle. It wasn’t as if she needed water to conduct water magic, it was just faster. When she usually did water magic, she had to pull it out of the atmosphere, gathering all the water droplets around her, but still distributing it so that no one was bothered by the arid side effect or letting it become so dry that fires could catch easily.

“So, how are we supposed to fight as a team? We all are from different schools, which is also something rare I believe.”

“Right, usually the teams would just consist of two elements, opposing ones to cover each other’s weaknesses, the only teams that I’ve seen that end up like this are senior groups which were already made before you guys’ entrance ceremony the other day. The reasoning I think is because with each element, there are more ways to cover weaknesses of each other, as well as making well powered combos.”

“So, it’s not against the rules to make a fire tornado?”

               Yerin grinned mischievously at SinB who started to grin the same exact way. Umji sighed as Yuju watched curiously. They were a team, but inside their team, their roommates were their partners. Watching as SinB started spinning up a mini tornado and urging Yerin to add her flames to it, Umji closed her eyes and leaned against the far wall, wanting to be as far from the disaster that would definitely occur.