[CONTENTID1]

Six 

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[CONTENTID2]

The next afternoon, you furiously flip through your pages of messy notes, trying to memorize in some last minute information before the test, though the effort is probably futile at this point. Your head spins with sleep deprivation, after having spent an entire night cramming with Jungkook, and the letters on the page blend with the numbers.

"Hey, _-ah, come with me."

You look up to find Namjoon casually leaning a hip against your desk. "What? Sunbae, the test is in less than ten minutes!"

"If you're not ready now, you'll never be ready," he wisely counsels before grabbing you by the wrist and dragging you out of your seat.

"Ah, where are you taking me, sunbae?" you half-heartedly protest as you jog to catch up with his longer strides.

He doesn't say anything until he's led you across the room to a group of girls in the front and whirls you around, "Hey, Aorn, here's that new ice mage I was telling you about."

A tall girl with waist-length blue hair whirls around with a wide smile, "Oh, that's her? Hey, babe. Oh, you're cute."

You're spellbound by the laidback attitude and easy smile so indicative of lightning mages, "O-oh. Sunbae-nim," you bow deeply, "My name is _."

Namjoon grins at your exchange, "I'll leave you guys alone to talk," he waves at the two of you before retreating back to his seat.

The blue-haired lightning mage rests a hip against her desk and examines you with curiosity, "So I hear that you're interested in joining a circle?"

"Um… Maybe. I haven't given it a lot of thought, to be honest."

"Well, that's fine. Maybe we can have lunch one day and talk about it?"

Your face flushes slightly, ecstatic at the idea of hanging out with cool, older students, "Yes, that sounds great, sunbae!"

"Great! Let me just give you my contact info and we'll—"

"Unnie! Are we getting an ice mage?!" A cheerful little brunette with her hair in braids comes bouncing up to the lightning mage and rests her chin on the older girl's shoulder.

"Maybe, sweetie. This is _."

You smile at the bouncy brunette girl, "It's nice to meet you," you say, offering your hand.

She takes it with a wide grin, "You, too! My name's—oh!" She suddenly breaks off, mid-sentence to stare down at your interlocked hands. The smile drops off her face.

Panic flashes through your system as soon as you make contact with her skin and you rip your hand away. But the damage has already been done. When she looks up to meet your gaze, her eyes are wide and her teeth chattering with fear.

"Mimi?" Aorn nudges the younger girl, "Mimi, what's wrong?"

But she can only stare at you with huge eyes. Your entire body tenses, but at that moment, the bell rings. Relieved, you tear yourself away from the situation, without bothering to say good-bye first, and launch yourself back in your seat. The test begins shortly afterwards, but you can't focus. All you can think about is Mimi and the terror in her wide brown eyes… Does she know?

The next day, at the end of class, Professor Nam hands back tests right as the bell rings. You cross your fingers tightly and pray for anything higher than 50%... Actually 50% would be higher than you deserve, but you hope for the best, regardless.

"Not too bad," Professor Nam gently says as she lays your paper on your desk.

You peek through your fingers at the test, and almost jump out of your seat in surprise at the two large red numbers on the top of the page. You bite down on your palm to muffle your cry of joy and bounce out of your seat, eager to rush out of the classroom and brag about your grade to Sooyoung.

You swing the door open and almost run straight into Jungkook in your haste to leave. He seems have been waiting for you in the hall and perks up at the sight of you, "How'd you do?!" He excitedly asks.

"C!" you exclaim in pleasure, holding up the bright red "74" on the top of your test with pride, "What about you?"

"C-minus!" He yells back, all smiles.

"Yes! We did it!" You whoop, then jump in the air to high-five him so hard that the loud slap echoes through the hall and turns heads. Your hand burns from the aftershock but you're grinning too hard to care.

Namjoon happens to walk out of the classroom at that moment and raises an eyebrow at the spectacle, "You guys are idiots," he sighs. And with a shake of his head, he strolls away, his test with the red "99%" tucked under his arm.

You pause for a moment, embarrassed. But then Jungkook erupts into laughter, "Ignore him! We did better than I thought, noona!" Then he realizes his mistake and claps a hand over his mouth in terror, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry. That was a slip up. I didn't mean to—"

"Don't worry, Jungkookie," you ruffle his hair, "You can call me 'noona' if you want to. I mean, I've already spent the night in your bed, so I feel like we should be at that level by now," you tease.

"Alright… noona," he hesitantly tests the word on his tongue, then breaks into a wide grin, clearly liking the sound of that.

You laugh and swing an arm around his neck, "Come on kid, I'll treat you to ice cream to celebrate our success!"

A week later, you're finally settling in as an elemental mage on campus. The material is still as difficult as ever, but you're doing better in class, and your ice powers are even progressing. You're still nowhere near as talented as Yoongi, but during breakfast one morning, you manage to freeze Sooyoung's mug so much that she drops it with a shriek, making the ceramic shatter into a thousand tiny pieces. Of course you get heavily reprimanded for that incident, by both Sooyoung and the entire custodial staff, but it was worth it. You're growing more confident in your abilities and finally begin to accept your role as an ice mage.

"Alright, settle down class," Professor Nam claps her hands at the beginning of class, "We're going to break into our groups for conjuring now."

Immediately, the sound of chairs scraping on the linoleum fills the room, but you stay put, a bit embarrassed. But then you glance over and realize that Jungkook is also motionless next to you. He's taken to sitting next to you in class these days, much to Jimin's dismay, and you've gotten to know him so well that you can easily read the veiled distress on his face. "Aren't you going to get into your conjuring group?" you ask him.

"What's the point?" He whines, leaning over to plop his head on your shoulder, "I can't conjure anyways."

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