Chapter Text
Hwang Miae couldn’t go ten seconds without hearing Kim Cheol’s name.
“Cheol’s really back, did you hear?” Her friends huddled together as they made their way to lunch, chattering excitedly around Miae. For her part, Miae was trying very hard not to engage in the conversation. There had been mutterings that he would be returning over the past few days, but the gossip had reached a fever pitch since–and this was just what Miae had heard–he really was back.
Truthfully, Miae found it all a little tiring. So he was back, so the prestigious quidditch exchange program that had whisked him away after third year had fallen through, so he would be around again…what was it to her? She pulled her wandering eyes away from scanning the busy halls again for a glimpse of him.
For the rest of her gossip-starved classmates, considering the first two weeks of term had gone by with little incident, it was only natural to pounce on the subject of Cheol’s return from Ilvermorny with terrifying eagerness. “Do you guys think he actually…you know. Did what they’re saying he did?” Jihye whispered conspiratorially.
“No way,” Miae said automatically. The girls swiveled their heads at once to squint at her.
“How are you so sure?” Yunhui laughed. There was a sneaky little fire coming alive behind her eyes, but Miae was quick to snuff it out.
“I mean, Ilvermorny is just so far. All we have are rumors, there’s no way to be sure.”
“I guess you’ve just gotta hope for the best, Miae. Since you’ll have to see him more than any of us–”
Miae laughed loudly, hurrying them along to their usual table in the red-adorned Gryffindor corner. She pretended she couldn’t see her friends exchanging knowing looks behind her back.
The conversation continued even without her input. “They’re saying he beat the kid so bad he’ll never be able to fly again.”
“But you remember what Cheol was like, right? That American kid probably did something to deserve it–”
“How well did we know him, anyway? And you saw how he treated Miae–”
“I heard it was just a quidditch accident, not a fight–”
“What, they collided and only one of them was sent all the way back to–”
A sudden hush fell over the room, and her friends’ bickering came to an abrupt stop.
“Well, there he is. You can ask him for yourself,” whispered Yunhui.
Kim Cheol’s eyes were fixed soundly to the ground as he made his way to the Hufflepuff table for the first time since they were all third years. Momentarily forgetting how much she didn’t care, Miae gasped quietly, her hand rising to cover her mouth. His face was mottled with purpling bruises, one eye puffy and cheeks all scraped up and scabbed over. He clenched his jaw, clearly uncomfortable with how much attention he was getting.
Slowly, sound flooded back into the room. Someone pushed past Cheol in a hurry, and he jostled the Gryffindor table as he dodged the student’s towering plate of food. For the briefest moment, his bruised eyes drifted to meet Miae’s own, wide open. She jolted upright, opening her mouth to say nothing. His lips seemed to curl into an expression she couldn’t quite decipher.
Then time resumed, and he brushed past the Gryffindors without a second glance. Miae wondered at her own prickling disappointment. It wasn’t like they’d ever been close –they had been far, far from it–for him to greet her or…or whatever she had been expecting him to do. Still, she slumped back in her seat, turning over his bruised face in her mind.
As little as she had truly known him in their three years together at Hogwarts, Cheol had never been the type to get violent. He was a Hufflepuff, after all…he and his Hufflepuff friends would only stick to each other, always walking away from any fights blooming in the hallways. Miae was more likely to get in the kind of brawl bad enough to get kicked out of America than him.
Or…she might have been, years ago. She liked to think that she had changed, maybe just as much as he seemingly had. Miae drummed her fingertips on the table restlessly, biting back a strange grin. Her friends were once again taking turns to shoot her looks, but she couldn’t help it. The quidditch season couldn’t start soon enough.
The further she ventured into fifth year, the more Miae realized she couldn’t say that she was truly passionate about anything. Sure, she had things she liked (her friends, the old muggle comics that she still kept up with, wizarding pop groups), and even things she loved (quidditch) but nothing that she dreamed of spending her life doing. She couldn’t exactly play seeker forever…she wasn’t sure she even wanted to. To tell the truth, she wasn’t all that concerned about her future herself, but as soon as the year had started, the professors had begun pouring on the pressure to get everyone to take OWLs seriously.
The sheer number of essays she had been assigned in just two weeks seemed to her like a unique form of torture, and yet–she was taking it seriously. Merlin, she’d done nothing but write since the semester began. But they couldn’t seriously expect her to plan out her entire life at fifteen, could they?
Sparks twirled up and faded from the fireplace. The words she had spent the last two hours scratching into parchment were blurring together in her bleary eyes. Chin slipping from its perch on her palm, she nearly fell face-first into her essay–her terrible, awful, uncooperative essay–on the theory behind summoning charms. Next to her, Jinseop snorted.
“Clearly the OWL student life is not for you,” he taunted, eyes focused on his own essay. His brown hair swooped over his eyes obnoxiously. Miae ran a hand through her own stringy bangs. She needed a haircut.
Well, there was always an endless list of things to get done, and at the rate that she was going, a haircut probably wouldn’t be happening anytime soon. Miae yawned, stretching dramatically. “Yeah, yeah. Couldn’t find anyone else to write your paper this time?”
Jinseop hummed an annoying little tune and ignored her loudly. Miae rolled her eyes.
The Gryffindor common room was empty this late at night other than the two of them. She rose and stretched on clumsy legs, wishing she could go out and fly for just a few minutes. The night air always felt so good when she was on her Comet–sharp and thrilling, whistling loud enough for her to forget just about everything else on her mind. But it was far too late for her to be able to sneak out of the castle without getting caught, and she wasn’t trying to get in trouble on her first month back.
Still, her gaze wandered to the common room door. “I’ll be right back,” she said after a moment of thought, glancing briefly at Jinseop.
There was a delicate stillness to Hogwarts at nighttime. With all the students in bed, the air was free to buzz with magic, the walls shimmering and shifting, faint whispers sounding behind every painting and tapestry.
Miae adored it.
Before coming to Hogwarts, she used to count every passing airplane so that one day she could wish for one thing that she wanted the most. These days, having just about exhausted the stars she could wish on in the plane-less Hogwarts skies, every new oddity that she noticed as she walked the familiar halls seemed like a lucky charm. A good omen.
Tonight, it was the way the nearby paintings seemed to smile down at her as she made her way to the still-life that concealed the kitchens. For at least her first year at Hogwarts, she had felt out of place: the child of muggles, the one who was too loud or too excited. As a fifth year, though, things seemed to have settled into place. Even if nothing else had gone her way, she would’ve been content just knowing that the castle had undeniably grown a soft spot for her.
The painting of the bowl of fruit swung open before Miae could even reach out to tickle the pear. She giggled, a quiet joy rushing through her veins as she stepped into the warmth of the kitchens. The house-elves had gone to bed for the night, and the kitchen’s usual spread of food had been stored away neatly save for a tray of snacks out on the counter for the students who were bound to be wandering late at night.
The only thing out of place was the student who had actually wandered out to help himself to said snacks. Miae had gotten so used to being the only one in the kitchen past midnight that the sight of the familiar broad shoulders hunched over the snack tray made her lurch back.
She guessed that she should have expected him to be here. He was a Hufflepuff, after all, and she had lost count of how many times she had run into him in the kitchens before he had left for Ilvermorny. She briefly considered the idea of turning back without a snack, but she had resumed walking before the thought even fully crossed her mind.
“Oh, hey, Cheol,” she chirped, mustering up all her late-night confidence as she reached past him for a chunky-looking cookie.
Cheol flinched violently, nearly dropping his own even chunkier cookie. He glared down at her. Several very long moments passed before he tilted his head creakily in some semblance of a nod back at her.
Miae studied him, a little amused. “It’s nice seeing you back here. Everyone missed you a lot the past year, I think. Your team definitely did.”
The perpetual wrinkle in his brow was deepening visibly, but Miae was determined not to back down. “How was Ilvermorny?” she asked, smiling her widest smile.
“What?” he mumbled.
“How was Ilvermorny? You know, America, studying abroad, playing American quidditch? Everyone’s so curious, but I wanted to hear about it from you.”
Cheol turned a flat stare back at her for a moment before exhaling. “How’s that your business?” he asked.
Miae opened her mouth to retort, but Cheol seemed to have already moved on. Quickly, he grabbed another heaping handful of desserts from the tray and spun around, leaving the kitchens without another word.
Miae stared at the door behind him, stunned. Why was he always so cold ? It was one thing when they were first years and she was only the tiny, troublemaking muggleborn following him around because they’d known each other as little kids. Even she could admit how that could’ve been annoying–she was plenty embarrassed about it now. But was it really so wrong to make small talk with a classmate after not seeing him for a year?
But then again, that’s how he had always been. She didn’t know why she ever expected him to be different. Ears hot, she stormed out of the kitchens, vowing never to initiate a conversation with Kim Cheol again. She would just knock Hufflepuff out of the air once quidditch season started, that’s what she would do. He would never see her coming.