Chapter 16:
Lessons, always lessons

We were back in the practicing room with Kaolen. Jimin and Tao were at it again, having gone to each-other as if some magnetic force was pulling them together. It was kind-of nauseating to watch. And annoying, as I didn’t really get to do anything but sit there and watch. Claiming they were only doing this to find the right methods to teach me. Bull and seriously irresponsible. Me just sitting doing nothing was definitely something I was going to change. Quickly.

"Hi, Chen," I said, walking over to him. He was standing by the benches, drinking some water from a bottle.

The pokerfaced guy only nodded as a greeting.

I didn't really linger but cut straight to the case. "Can you teach me martial arts?" I asked, staring at him.

Chen met my gaze briefly, and I thought I saw surprise flicker in his eyes.

"Isn't Tao supposed to do that?" he asked.

I rolled my eyes as I answered, "Well, as you can see - he's a little busy at the moment," I looked ahead at the fighting couple in the middle of the hall - as busy as ever in their own fighting world. I looked at Chen again. "So will you help me?" I asked.

"Umm," he started. "I don't really think I'm fit to do so,"

"Only being shy, are we?" I smiled, hopeful - taking his comment "fit" quite literally. "All of you guys know martial arts pretty darn well,"

Chen looked ahead as he answered. "I think you should ask Lay or Kris instead,"

At that moment Lay came walking over, a lazy smirk playing by his lips. "As much as I'd like to teach you, both Chen and I are going out tonight," he said, clearly having heard what we were talking about.

"Going out? But don't we have to stay at campus today?" I asked, thinking back to the rules I'd been introduced to a while ago. Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays were definitely on-campus days.

At this Lay only smirked and winked at me before he waved goodbye. "See you later, Sora," He looked at Chen. "Come on,"

Chen put down the bottle he'd had in hand, and nodded at me. "Goodbye," he said. Thereafter they just walked away.

So either these guys had extra privileges or they were breaking the rules right now. I wasn't really sure if I even bothered to find out. The fact that they just walked away annoyed me a little, though.

Oh joy, I thought. Guess I'll just have to use my last option. Kris.

The guy of my horrors was sitting down on one of the benches by the wall, staring down at a cellphone in hand. He seemed pretty preoccupied with that thing, but hell - I was much more interesting than a freakin' smartphone.

"Okay, Kris - teach me,"

"Why would I?"

"Don't ask any questions, just do it,"

"Then I'll just refuse instead - not that I wasn't going to do that anyways,"

"If you don't teach me I'll color your hair again."

"You won't dare," Kris said, seemingly even, but he was looking up at me now, and I'd gotten his attention.

"I'm thinking of green this time, don't you agree?" I said, faking interest on the matter as I looked wonderingly at the space in front of me.

Anger flashed behind Kris' dark eyes, and I found some joy inside that I was able to affect him. There was something satisfying about having Kris wrapped around my little finger. By the means of using threats perhaps, but he would still do what I asked him for. Vanity at its best.

In one quick movement Kris was on his feet, still as sharp as ever. I took one step back, because having him in his full height beside me suddenly made me realize how close we were standing.

“Okay,” Kris breathed out.

I stared up at him in expectation.

“From what you’ve showed me, you literally know nothing.”

We were out for a good start. I rolled my eyes at him, but didn’t say anything.

“Chance is, you don’t even know the basic things like how to land if you end up being slung to the floor,”

“There is a special way to land?” I asked a little perplexed.

“My point exactly,” Kris sighed.

And that’s where our journey began.

Kris wasn’t especially patient, and he often found me being “seriously incompetent”, but he helped me a lot more than Jimin had done, and that was only after one afternoon. Seemingly Tao and Jimin hadn’t even noticed that we had begun doing something on our own, not until we were done for the evening, and then Jimin yelled out that she thought it was a fantastic idea for us to be working together. Her sincerity was left to be discussed.

--

If my power was an apple, it’d be a pretty rotten apple.

At least I thought so.

Other people (like Suho and Kim Chajoon) might not think so, but I did.

An annoying, grumpy and ill-tasting apple.

“Agh! I can’t do it!”

I had been drawing apples on at least 20 sheets of paper now; green, red, shiny, yummy-looking. Sketched ones. Full ones. Big ones. Small ones. Manga-like ones. Real-like ones.

Nothing effin’ worked.

“It’s alright Sora; you just have to try a little harder!”

The two teachers in the room with me said this almost in chorus, and Jesus Christ, the synchronization didn’t weird me out since it was about the 20th time they’d said it. They’d long since sat down in some chairs by the wall, but kept staring at me and my drawings intently. For these private classes, they’d just assigned me some teachers. Not really sure where my powers were headed, the teachers in the room with me were pretty randomly selected. Kim Hyunjoong, the biology teacher with powers somewhat linked to biology; and Yoo Ah In, the art teacher with what was unknown powers to me. It was probably associated with the arts though, since it seemed like the teachers at this school were given subjects that fit their so-called talents. Come to think of it, all the teachers I’d had had been male – more specifically handsome males.

“I’m freaking tired of apples – can’t you give me something – anything else to draw?”

I’d never look at an apple the same way again.

“But you haven’t transformed the apples into reality yet, Sora – you can’t just give up,” Kim Hyunjoong said calmly.

There was something about his tone and words colored with his dark brown hair and reading-glasses that sparked something inside of me.

“I’m not giving up!” I exclaimed.

“Good,” Yoo Ah In said, grinning.

“But I’m so sick of this – haven’t I proved that I can’t do it?” I sighed, exasperated. “It’s been three fu-“ I stopped as I realized I was with two elders. No swearwords with the teachers. I glanced up at them, checking if they’d noticed my stutter. They remained unfazed. “It’s been three days.”

Three days with three hours of practice every day, not getting any closer to revealing anything about my powers. After Princepal Chajoon had put me in private classes to learn and discover, I had firstly been searching around online to find stories about people in the same situations as me. Sure, a lot of the stuff out there was fiction, but there had to be some truth to the stories, right? 

They’d tested out if me drawing was the same as creating what I drew in real life, but it was quickly discovered that this was not a fact.

Thereafter, they’d set out to finding out if I needed to draw well to be able to create it in real life and put me in art classes to get better at it. Yoo Ah In had been a pretty good illustrator, but I’d read some of his literature, and it was even better. They were mostly poems and lyrics actually. Finding their way to me was during the times I’d made small-talk with Mr. Yoo in-between classes – slowly I’d lured the fact out of him that he liked to write.

Not important. 

After getting my drawing techniques polished, they’d set me to draw apples. For my own and everybody else’s safety, they said – and probably because they didn’t want me to create new life-forms as I drew. Every precaution was taken.

Whether or not I was able to create life was a big question. Was I only able to change what was already created, or could I make up stuff on my own?

When they’d given me apples to draw – apples with distinct differences that is – they found out that I was able to do stuff like change the color of them.

And now they wanted me to advance.

“We just have to motivate you in some way,” Kim Hyunjoong said, still using that calm tone of voice.

“I have an idea!” Cho Kyuhyun said. How the hell he’d appeared in the room I truly wasn’t sure of. Perhaps he’d just gotten there. Or perhaps he’d been hiding behind Yoo Ah In’s muscular form.

“What?” Kim Hyunjoong asked, looking at the math teacher expectantly.

“Let’s starve her,”

“What?” I yelled shifting my eyes to the lanky teacher, just a little bit shocked.

“That’s actually a good idea,” Kim Hyunjoong said. I shifted my gaze to him and stared in horror. “What?” I repeated.

“At least that way she’ll be motivated,” Yoo Ah In joined in and shrugged his shoulders.

“That’s illegal,” I stated. “Cruelty to children, cruelty to man – we’ve got human rights you know,”

“Doesn’t hinder the fact that it might help you,” Cho Kyuhyun retorted, shrugging his shoulders again.

I could only stare at the three teachers and knew that they wouldn’t change their minds.

The door was already locked, I knew that from the times I’d had to go to the toilet and one of the teachers would follow me there – did they think I’d run off or something? Right now, I really wanted to though, so perhaps they’d always thought of that as a possibility. The only thing they needed to do was to wait. I suppose I at least had something to distract my mind with, maybe opening a book or two.

“Just know that I’m not agreeing to this,” I muttered. “This is torture,”

“Mild torture,” Cho Kyuhyun corrected. I shot him a glare.

And then all we could do was wait.

I soon found out that they wouldn’t let me touch anything else than my pencils and the papers on the table, and after two hours of silent treatment and nothing else but sketching to do – and they wouldn’t let me draw anything else but apples, I was going crazy. Crazy and hungry. Which seriously wasn’t a good combination.

After a while it flooded into something more desperate, not just because hunger was a powerful and very basic instinct, but because this isolation was reminding me of something. Something painful. Somewhere along the time I’d been inside that room, the comfort of having teachers there turned more into discomfort. Their carefully composed postures and the gazes they sent me were touching a nerve inside of me that led vivid pictures to me in small flashes, and I shuddered every time. I’d been through something like this before. Not quite like this, because the memories were more painful but still.

“Please, let me leave,” I pleaded, looking at the teachers around me, finally stopping by Yoo Ah In to try and appeal to his conscience. He had seemed more like the soft one deep inside.

Finally someone said something, and I worshipped the sound of it. Surprisingly it wasn’t Yoo Ah In’s voice I heard; it was Cho Kyuhyun’s. As the words registered I wasn’t really sure if I was still contented with hearing a voice. “Just a little longer Miss Song, I’m sure if you just wait a little longer you’ll be able to make a feast,”

The glare I shot him was mostly desperate.

And then the silence continued.

There was a growing feeling inside of me. Not just the grumbling in my stomach, nor the feeling of despair – it was the feeling of anger. Defiance. If the only way for me to get out of that room was to make apples, then I’d effin’ make apples.

Time it took. Thoughts it took. Effort it took.

And then suddenly the sound of something hitting the floor, my eyes widening, the teachers’ eyes widening, a gasp from my side, and there was green, red, shiny, yummy-looking, rotten-looking apples all over the place.

“Huh. I guess we have apples for the whole school for days to come now.” Cho Kyuhyun said dryly.

I choked on a laugh, relieved. “Feel free. Can’t say I really want apples that much right now.”  Then I bent over the table again, taking another sheet of paper and started drawing. One minute later, some sketching and a lot of wishing I found my mouth watering as the most tasty-looking steak had appeared on a silver-plate in front of me. “This though-“ I started, grinning. “I want.” 

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//heemiah