“Siyeon! Wake up! Breakfast is ready!” A loud voice booms throughout the dorm. The smell of bacon and coffee permeates the air, making the person still on the bed rouse from her sleep. She slid her legs off the bed and stood up to stretch.

After washing up, Siyeon sits down at their small dining table, drooling over the breakfast laid out in front of her. “Thanks for the food, Bora.” The older girl watches Siyeon devour her food like she hadn’t had a meal in ages. It was simultaneously flattering and gross with the way the younger girl was conducting her non-existent table manners.

“No problem. Have plans for today?” Siyeon lowers her fork to think over her schedule for the day. No classes today and no low level missions assigned to her. No homework either since Siyeon is surprisingly a diligent student (something completely unexpected from her, if Bora was being honest. The girl looks like she would either kill someone or goof off all day). The only thing Siyeon has planned was training so she tells Bora that.

Bora rolls her shoulders to work out kinks. “Mind if I join you at the gym? And then we hit our usual place after?” The coffee machine beeps, indicating that it’s done. Bora grabs two mugs, one with a cartoon wolf and the other with a small white bird. She applies creamer and sugar and pours the strong coffee into each cup.

Siyeon nods once Bora turns back around and accepts her cup of coffee. Bora always made it delicious and she knew exactly how Siyeon likes to have her coffee (and eggs. Scrambled, by the way).

“Sure. Let me finish this and we can head out.”

“Take your time. Don’t choke.” Bora leaves the kitchen to change her clothes into workout clothes. Siyeon scrambles to finish her food as quickly as possible so that Bora doesn’t have to wait long. She knows that the older girl is often anxious after a mission like that, so she needs to let off some steam at the gym.

(“Siyeon!” The black-haired girl groans, barely able to hear or see anything. The air is scorching hot, making it harder for her to open her eyes. It must’ve been at least over 120 degrees celsius. Her body won’t listen to her, staying numb on the ground. She feels herself being lifted off the ground and placed against a tree trunk, relieving some of the heat she felt from the center of the impact.

A hand comes up to cup her cheek, “Hang in there. The medics will be here soon...” she hears a girl say. Siyeon waits a couple of minutes for the ringing in her ear to stop and for her vision to clear. “...Bora?”

Bora hears her name and looks down, relieved that the younger girl’s eyes are finally open. “You’re okay. The helicopter is landing now. Rest.” Siyeon grips her hands, watching as Bora slows her breathing to a more manageable level. “You were really brave, you know?” She tells Siyeon. Who knows how far that dragon would have gone if it weren’t for her.

“Yeah. Thanks for saving me, Bora.” Siyeon rasps, feeling the exhaustion take over her again.

“No, you’re always saving me so I should be the one thanking you.”

Siyeon wakes up in the hospital wing a few days after, given a clean bill of health from Jiu. She heard from the professor that the two boys and Arin came back safely and that Park Jaewon tried to take the credit. Kim Bora wasn’t having that bull and nearly burned all his hair off. The dragon’s body was completely incinerated in the aftermath.)

Thankfully, the gym at the academy is outfitted with special rooms for students with more quirky powers. It also offered them some privacy from invasive eyes of the student body. Siyeon did not need them to know that she got along well with one of the top students and that she was somewhat immune to her flames. The redhead’s fan club would come for her head for touching their ‘Queen Bora’.

The black-haired girl gets up to change her clothes when Bora steps out of her room, making her stop in her tracks. Bora was wearing a sports bra with a thin cardigan and track pants. Her midriff was exposed, giving Siyeon an eyeful of her flat but toned stomach.

The redhead notices her gaze and decides to . “Like what you see?” Immediately, Siyeon’s face explodes with the color red. The younger girl adverts her eyes to the ceiling and tries to blindly walk to her room, all while sputtering apologies for ogling Bora. Bora, on the other hand, gets a kick out of watching Siyeon get embarrassed and her squeaky laughter fills the dorm room. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t flattered by Siyeon’s staring but she isn’t looking to start anything anytime soon. Hero business comes first and she wouldn't want to sour relations with the one person that does not get burned by her.

They finally make their way to the gym and luckily, there are hardly any students milling about because of the weekend. Many go out into the city on their days off to enjoy the time off from school. However, upon entering the gym, fellow rank 5 student Kim Jiu is running on the treadmill. The blonde notices the duo and waves them over. She stops the machine and gets off to wipe her sweat with a towel.

“Training so early in the morning, Doc?” Jiu snorts into her water bottle and throws her dirty towel at Siyeon, hitting her square in the face.

“Not a doctor yet, Lee Siyeon.” Siyeon grimaces and throws the towel back, only for Jiu to catch it smoothly.

“Why aren’t you spending the day off outside like the rest?” Bora asks. It wasn’t uncommon for those in the medical track to avoid the gym and any physical combat altogether but Kim Jiu was a special case. Bora first met her in a basic combat class and they quickly became friends regardless of their ranks. Jiu continued with her hand-to-hand combat classes, citing her reason as needing to defend herself should the situation arise. It was a bit of a contradiction considering she had a healing power but in her words, she “wasn’t going to be slaughtered like a pig”. The two rank 5 students no longer shared combat classes since the upper tier classes were more specialized for each power but they still remained in close contact as fellow high ranking students. It also helped that they shared a mutual friend in Siyeon.

“Eh, got to keep in shape considering I spent the last few days studying in a chair. I’ll probably head out after another 10 minutes.” Siyeon and Bora waved goodbye and headed off for a training room. As they passed by the treadmill, Siyeon’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. The timer read 3 hours and 50 minutes. Jiu had been running for nearly 4 hours straight! The girl must have incredible stamina and it made Siyeon think of that muscle hello kitty meme. Kim Jiu definitely didn't seem like the buff type.

“Say, have you ever fought Jiu in those classes you shared?” Siyeon asks, closing the training room door behind her.

Bora begins her warm-up stretches on the ground. “Nope but I have seen her kick every single one of her opponents in the . The girl never lost in a hand-to-hand fight. Obviously, if there were powers involved then that would be different. Why?”

“Nothing.”

--

The puppies were running all over the place, excited for playtime. Siyeon immediately crouches down to play with a grey one named Wolf. She really shouldn't play favorites but this little one was totally her favorite. Bora watched fondly as the younger girl gets tackled by overexcited pups wanting to play with a human. A tall man in an apron and glasses approaches her with an easy smile.

“Hey Jun. The dogs look like they’re doing great.” Bora greets.

“Yup, they’re getting healthier as the days pass. Hopefully, people will adopt them into good homes soon.” Jun hands her a green apron as well and leads her to the back room. There were several cages with dogs either sleeping or sniffing around. They all had some sort of injury, like a nick in the ear or a damaged limb. This room was white and sterile, doubling as a vet room and a storage room. “These guys just came in last week. I hear they were being trafficked but then the detective found where they were being held. Poor things were starved and abused.” He explains.

“Detectiv