A/N: Happy Birthday, Mery. <3

It wasn't the first time a student crashed against him head-on, protesting against his strict rules and high expectations. He admitted that his expectations were high, but they weren't unattainable, especially not for these elites that were specially handpicked to be trained as official hunters for the VHA. Perhaps his cold and detached personality had been in play, but the education pedagogy he developed was effective, even affirmed by his first two batches of students who hated him at first but came to thank him upon graduation and beyond.

Since Kangin had invited him to teach at the academy four years ago, which brought about an end to his lifestyle of moving from town to town, he had treated all his students the same, human or vampire regardless. So what was it about this student that resulted in his thoughts refusing to leave him?

The door to his private room suddenly burst open, the situation all too familiar to him as Hyukjae's voice boomed across the room, "My Prince Kyu~~~".

He raised an eyebrow in skepticism. "Why haven't you left your chirpy, overly friendly persona?"

"As you wish, Your Highness," Hyukjae answered with his wide gummy smile, spinning into the room without asking for permission.

Kangin followed in with his usual grin. "He's had too much fun to switch out, Kyuhyun. We haven't had a new student since this year's batch came in."

The third and last vampire filled into his bedroom, closing the door and striding towards the windows immediately. Knowing what was going to happen next out of routine, Kyuhyun reached for a random file behind him, whipping it out as a shield for his face.

The blinds were pulled open with a ‘swoosh’, eliciting the usual groaning complaint from Hyukjae. "Yesung hyung! How many freaking times did I tell you not to draw the blinds in the daytime?!"

Yesung didn't respond, instead silently closing his eyes as he soaked up the sunlight filing in through the blinds. It was a habit for the red-haired vampire, and though Kyuhyun never asked, he could always sense that feeling of yearning and longing, something he attributed to the reason they all knew but never spoke of. A brief exchange of glances with Kangin confirmed what they both sensed as usual, though Yesung's emotions always came and went as quickly. "You're out of character," the red-haired vampire stated, before turning to Hyukjae with a slowly spreading smile.

Gasping dramatically, Hyukjae stormed over, yanking the adjustment cords to shut the blinds. With an exaggerated display of relief, he panted loudly, "I thought I was going to die, oh my god oh my god. I really hate the sun; it burns!"

"The dramatic persona , Hyuk." Yesung's honest comment was rewarded with a pout.

"You need to brush up on the cute one too," Kyuhyun added, sending Hyukjae blabbering grumbles under his breath about a certain unkind prince.

"Kyuhyun, how's the new student?" Kangin interjected, adopting his academy headmaster's tone naturally.

"Before that," Kyuhyun returned his file to the precise position on the shelf behind him, spinning around on his chair, "Don't call me Kyuhyun, hyung," he directed his gaze at the purple-haired vampire who was going to open his mouth again, "And I'm no prince."

"Well, according to Vampirism Chapter 2 on the Vampire Society, purebloods are essentially royalty, our natural rulers," Hyukjae countered, snapping into his professor persona.

"Park Jongkyu who teaches Vampirism in Eden Academy is listed as a Class A vampire, and when I'm here – no, no matter where I am, I'm Park Jongkyu, a teacher that is merely a common hate target for the students," Kyuhyun said, his natural authority and charms intertwining subtly with his words, compelling the other vampires to obey.

There was a brief period of silence before Kangin broke it by clearing his throat. "I won't mess up your name when we're with other people, but sure, Kyu. So how's the new student?"

The change in conversation was gladly supported by Hyukjae. "I like him. Some temper, but he's a cheery, good kid that will make a fine hunter."

"Who's the new kid?" Yesung tilted his head, curiosity in his eyes betraying his usual nonchalant demeanor.

"You'll meet him in your class after lunch," Kangin answered, ignoring Hyukjae's grumpy persona's soft comment about how little time he has to sleep before the changeover of classes, then turning back to Kyuhyun. "I hope he is worthy of your recommendation."

"You recommended him?!" Hyukjae jumped up from the sofa he had comfortably claimed as his bed for the past minute, a teasing smile taking over his face. "Since when did our Kyu bother about the recruitment of hunters and enforcers?"

"Where did you meet him?" Yesung joined the questioning, clearly intrigued by the topic. "Why didn't we hear about it?"

"It's nothing worthy of mentioning. Our missions overlapped the previous weekend. He was a private hunter in disguise that retrieved something belonging to the target, thus I reported accordingly."

"Reported as in he told Leeteuk and I about it, suggesting that the kid would likely become one of the top hunters if we take him in," Kangin clarified, "The part about the missing evidence never got to the others."

"Ohhhh, somebody is interested in…" Hyukjae looked over at Yesung, who grinned and finished the line, "Somebody~"

Disregarding the excited hi-fives and cheers from the two vampires, Kyuhyun met Kangin’s eyes. "I stand by what I said about something being wrong about him."

Kangin frowned. "Even after meeting him today?"

"Yes, he was distracted during class today. Whatever was wrong with him was bothering him. I need more time to find out what it is."

Kangin leaned closer, as though the closer distance for a softer whisper would be uncaught by the other two battering vampires. "Why are you concerned?" If spoken by Hyukjae, the question would come off as a tease, but Kangin was serious in his tone.

"I don't know," Kyuhyun replied truthfully. "Instinct."

Kangin nodded, satisfied with the answer. The instinct of a pureblood was not to be meddled with. Sometimes, its accuracy and how it led to significant matters scared even Kyuhyun himself.

And after that incident, Kyuhyun learned never to go against his instinct again.

~

He couldn’t really believe that he had been convinced of this babysitting task that he had never failed to refuse the academy in the four years of his teaching career. The only exception was two years ago – and no, he didn’t accept the academy’s request that semester too – because the hunter-in-training had been an awful pain in the . When Changmin finally graduated last semester, he thought he would be free again of such trouble, but there was new trouble for him to deal with. What was even more annoying was that he invited that trouble for himself.

Kyuhyun quickened his steps down the familiar hallways of the academy, heading towards the distant source of noise that was turning louder with each step. He had to find the new trouble before everyone left for mentoring period in the afternoon, leaving the new trouble to disappear to god knows where to join some other hunter or enforcer, or worse, to go on his own adventures. In the latter case, new trouble would have proved that he was really more trouble than he is worth.

“Kyu!” A gummy smile popped up in front of his face, purple strands sticking out in all directions. “What brings you here?”

Kyuhyun scanned the hand-to-hand combat instructor that doubled as a physical training instructor and tripled as an identity manipulation instructor. “Why are you all covered from neck to toe when you’re indoors?”

“Well, it’s day time,” Hyukjae shrugged casually as he threw his gaze around the hall at the sparring students. “The evil sun will stretch its clutches at me once I step out of this place or any shade.”

Mimicking Hyukjae’s inspecting action, Kyuhyun’s gaze jumped from pair to pair, easily finding the new trouble practising in the corner of the hall. “I never knew how you can take PT day classes when you simply loathe the sun. And if I didn’t remember wrongly, the last time I passed by your combat class, you were dressed light like the students.”

“My PT day classes are indoors,” Hyukjae rolled his eyes, then narrowing it in displeasure. “And that one and only time you passed by, it was a night class.”

“I see,” Kyuhyun replied absently, earning another roll of eyes from Hyukjae.

“Whatever, my prince. It is unsurprising that you’re too busy to notice things like that,” the combat instructor deliberately said in retaliation.

“You know I don’t mean it that way,” Kyuhyun sighed, pulling his gaze away from new trouble to give his full attention to the fellow vampire.  

However, Hyukjae waved dismissively, changing the topic immediately. “So, what brings you here?”

“I…” Flashes of the conversation with Kangin and Leeteuk just five minutes back ran past his mind. “I’m here to collect Lee Sungmin.”

“Collect?” Hyukjae spun swiftly with a quizzical expression. “What for?”

“It’s mentoring period next.”

“Yes,” Hyukjae nodded slowly, not seeming to catch the ball.

“And it’s for the whole afternoon and may extend even till the night,” Kyuhyun added.

“Yes…?”

“Lee Sungmin missed the mentor allocation last week since he only came in three days back.”

“And so?” Hyukjae prompted with a raise of eyebrow.

“And so,” Kyuhyun dragged the word into a silent sigh. “I am to be