Chapter Text
Vines snaked up age-worn brick, their leaves covering the expanse of the building like a painter covers their canvas. Paint seemed to chip faintly around the edges of the white siding, showcasing the dark brown wood underneath. Most of the buildings on this campus blurred between the lines of tactfully worn and in a state of disarray. It seemed ironic that a place that housed students from families as rich as it did would appear to be anything less than immaculate. But the campus had been around for hundreds of years, before humans and magic became mechanical and stored in textbooks and computers.
Others would say it gave the entire place a homely feel, edges worn down to be soft, trees and other various shrubbery covering more ground than sidewalks. Given everything, it seemed as if the surrounding forest had simply continued to grow around the buildings, most windows covered with aforementioned vines, flower beds occupying whatever space they could. It seemed that nature was trying to reclaim the space that was disturbed so long ago. Showing that no matter what humans did, it would exist long after its structures, magic existing since the beginning and existing until the end.
The main building seemed to have the worst of the greenery, despite it being the most heavily occupied at all times. It housed the multitude of offices of the staff, from the professors that taught such mundane topics as History, Math, basic Science, to those that taught more interesting subjects - Cosmic Convergence, Magic Discovery, Lost Items of the Past, the list grew on and on. The magical subjects tended to be both bizarre and intriguing - the higher year one was, the more obscure classes one could find. Even still, everyone was required to take the basics.
However, its largest space was the mess hall, a place that housed various food stalls that ranged from your typical every day fair, to specialties from around the world. No expense was spared, the section of the building looking almost the complete opposite from the outside, save for the tables matching the dark wood siding. Dark oak, blackened metal and exposed beams gave it a significantly more modern look compared to the other buildings that surrounded it. The ceiling was high, helping to dull the chatter of the students who milled around during the morning rush.
The smell of coffee and freshly baked pastries dominated the space, helping to open bleary eyes and stifle wide mouthed yawns. The first classes of the day began at 8:30 am sharp, which means that Eric only had 30 minutes to finish the croissant sandwich in front of him and clean up any of the excessive crumbs that made their way onto his slacks. He was only running a little bit late - hitting snooze an extra time this morning because he had been up later prepping for his class on Familiars and Various Creatures. Even though the semester had just started, it was the class he was most excited for and wanted to do his best in. The same could not be said about the International Relations class he was required to take.
Crossing campus this early was the easiest time out of the day, since only first years and random upperclassmen who somehow didn’t require as much sleep as the rest of the population took early classes. The dew still clung to the grass, refusing to leave even as the sun began to rise higher in the sky, as if it couldn’t bear the thought of being away from the green. The trees seemed weighed down, as if it too hadn’t fully woken up from its slumber without the sun. The world was still halfway slumbering, voices soft around Eric as he entered the building furthest away from campus.
From the main building, it took around fifteen minutes of a walk to reach it. It was a purposeful thing, as this single building housed the classes that required a larger expanse of space behind it. Various classes either working directly with magical creatures, or learning about them from the basic level through artificially colored pictures in textbooks, was its dedicated purpose. Eric had already taken the basic class the year before, on a whim, so he was able to move up to the second level .
Familiars and Various Creatures was a class dedicated to learning about the general spell casting of familiars, and other basic magical creatures one might find in everyday life. Familiars had become a common occurrence within the last two to three decades because they could theoretically never leave you, if you had enough concentration and energy to sustain them. Other basic magical creatures were ones that either were domesticated to assist humans doing daily tasks, or ones that were ever growing in abundance the stronger the cosmic energy was utilized and concentrated on Earth.
They had already moved onto the beginning of the third week, glossing over the introductory chapters rather quickly. The professor wanted as much hands-on practice as possible due to the fact the next level class specifically worked on casting and creating your own Familiar, a single spell taking up an entire semester.
Sliding into his spot with just barely five minutes to spare, Eirc pulled out his textbook and laptop, opening up his notes from the previous class to give himself one more refresher before the professor began the lecture. His desk mate had already beaten him, though that was unsurprising. Hyunjae was stickler for being on-time; which meant he was at least fifteen minutes early to everything. Eric only wished he had that level of discipline.
Hyunjae turned his head towards Eric, a tired smile on his face. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Eric responded, voice rough from him using it for the first time this morning. He coughed a bit, only slightly embarrassed he sounded as if he had just woken up.
“Have a good weekend?” Hyunjae asked as their professor walked into the classroom, also looking as half awake as the rest of the class. She began shuffling random books and pieces of paper on the desk, turning on a computer and the large, smart board displayed behind her.
Eric hummed softly, rubbing at his eyes with a fist. “Yeah, still trying to get back into the swing of things. Feel like this past break was longer than normal.”
“Yeah, I can’t help but agree,” he chuckled softly. “I almost didn’t make it on time today.”
“So you were going to get here ten minutes early instead of your usual fifteen, got it.”
Hyunjae’s eyes widened, a defense ready on his lips, when the professor finally clapped her hands together to signal the beginning of the lesson. Eric could only snicker to himself, feeling much more awake than he did when he first walked in. Something about teasing Hyunjae gave him an energy burst, like an extra cup of coffee straight to the veins.
The two of them had known each other since last year - Eric had entered his second year, and Hyunaje his third. They ended up in the same Entry to Familiars class, both seated at the same desk they were at now. Eric had explained that he didn’t really have a reason to take the course, stating that it seemed interesting and he needed to fill the space on his schedule. Hyunjae had laughed at that reasoning, saying that he was here only because he came from a family gifted with Familiar and creature control magic. Though he himself didn’t really have much interest in the subject, at least it made his family happy. It didn’t help that he had been particularly scolded when he didn’t take the Entry class as a freshman but no matter, he could still get through all of them in a timely manner.
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A few weeks have gone by with very little activity to report. Well, that's the kind of letter Eric sent off to his family, anyways. Even though the school was, on paper, a place where the magical and mystical was studied, it often was a boring day to day experience for the students. Nothing that Eric couldn’t handle, but one does often look for a bit of fun and excitement when they’re trying to distract themselves from homework assignments.
With class dismissed at the half hour mark, everyone stuffing sheets and pencils, laptops and textbooks back into their book bags, the next stop was the mess hall. Open from 6:00 am to 10:00 pm every single day, the mess hall was the place where everyone congregated throughout the day. But with the way classes lined up, there were peak times during breakfast, lunch and dinner time where you could find almost everyone that attended the university stuffed together amongst the tables. During lunch, especially, because once the 10am courses finished at 11:30am, there wasn’t another round of courses until 1pm.
Which is where Eric and Hyunjae found themselves, dropping their bags on a table that already had two individuals beginning to eat their lunch. Jacob looked up to smile at both of them, saying they would watch their stuff while they stood in line. And also telling them that they were serving fries today at the American booth, which was arguably the best day out of the week whenever they decided to do it, according to Eric.
Jacob and Younghoon continued to work through their lunches as the other duo meandered to whatever food stall they felt like having. Once they returned, some fifteen/twenty minutes later, Younghoon proceeded to fill the group in on the happenings of the day. The juiciest was that a new student had moved in across the hall from him, into that vacant dorm room that everyone had been questioning since they got back from break. Whatever student was there, Younghoon couldn't remember the poor boy’s name, had to take a leave of absence due to family issues.
“Yeah, but we’ve already started the second semester of this school year?” Jacob asked. “So how does that work?”
Younghoon shrugged. “There’s plenty of people on the waitlist, so I’m sure this guy happened to be next. They attend other schools, but are just waiting for the moment to transfer in. Plus, they have to have some kind of background, else they wouldn’t have made it in the first place.”
“Hopefully he’s okay to catch up on work and stuff,” Hyunjae chimed in. “Our classes are already hard enough without coming in weeks behind.”
Eric could only nod his head along to the conversation. Not because he didn’t care, he was just too worried about his next class to feel like contributing to the conversation. But still, his feelings and sentiments were the same. While this university was big, in the sense that the campus was large, and so were the buildings, there truly wasn’t that many students in each grade attending. At some point, you would run into someone who knew someone, and at most you were one degree removed from everyone. So this new student was definitely going to be the center of attention for at least two weeks. Maybe more if he was interesting enough.
Younghoon didn’t have much more information to provide, except that he had plans to corner Sangyeon later and demand details in exchange for specialty chocolate that one could only find in the town where Younghoon was from. Sangyeon was Younghoon and Jacob’s RM at their dorm, and they had grown somewhat close due to shared mutual interest. Was it a niche trading card game that most people thought was kind of lame? Maybe. Did they have a game night planned later in Sangyeon’s only slightly fancier dorm room that was 5 down from Younghoon’s? Probably.
Hyunjae, who cared very little for this kind of talk, was already pulling out his tablet to look over the reading for his next class. Of course he had already done it, with annotations and important information highlighted, but he was unfortunately one of those insufferable people who enjoyed answering the professors questions in the middle of the lecture. Eric was not that kind of student in the slightest, and while he slightly envied Hyunjae’s dedication to being a student who passed all of their classes with flying colors, he was your run of the mill student. The classes he enjoyed, he excelled at. The ones that weren’t nearly that interesting, ones that he was only taking for credit reasons, he struggled to get the work done and turned in on time.
Luckily for Eric, he and Younghoon shared a class after lunch. One that Younghoon did enjoy because it was Practical Magic for Practicalities. Eric had to take it just based on his major – most people did. But Younghoon loved this class because he was planning on getting his degree in Practical Magic and go on to work in city development. The one thing about practical magic that was both fascinating and annoying was that all spells built on top of one another. So in order to learn the most complicated sequences, one had to learn the basics and everything on up.
Because that was the most practical way to do things. And Eric hated it.
He wished he could just take his Familiars and Various Creatures for the entire day, for this entire semester. Well, he felt that way about his magical creatures classes, which makes the most sense with him being a Veterinary major, with a concentration in Magical Creatures. He couldn’t wait until they started getting more hands on in his classes because that was much more exciting than staring at a screen and trying to memorize mathematics or other spells.
Eric could only half lay, half slam his head down with a thud just thinking about it. Why was Wednesday the worst day of the week? Why hadn’t someone who was significantly smarter and more powerful than them come up with some kind of tonic to fix this middle of the week feeling? And if they had, why was it not included in all University vending machines for a slightly unreasonable price?
“Ya ready to head to our class, Eric?” Younghoon asked him mere moments later, a chuckle slipping through his lips. “Though maybe you should grab another coffee to go for your troubles.”
Eric grumbled, saying something directly into the table that no one else could possibly understand. Something about how there would never be enough caffeine in the world to help him. Hyunjae did roll his eyes, but all in fondness. Jacob said something about meeting another friend, Kevin, before their next class, so he unfortunately had to leave whatever pity party Eric was attempting to throw. Eric again grumbled something back about him being a piss poor friend, at least that's how Jacob took the noises coming from him.
Younghoon hooked an arm underneath Eric’s torso, hoisting him up with one jerk. Eric of course did not appreciate the gesture until he realized they did in fact need to head on out or else they would be late. And Eric really did need another coffee to not fall asleep during the lecture.
The two stood in line for a coffee, just an iced americano because Eric needed something easy and cold, before heading across campus to the Practical Magic department building. Younghoon had more friends in this class than Eric did, which meant it was no surprise that a guy that Eric vaguely remembered as Changmin saw them just outside of the entrance and joined himself at Younghoon’s hip. Changmin was an incredibly likeable person and Eric didn’t mind his presence as much as other friends of his friends.
“Hello Eric,” Changmin said, leaning past Younghoon slightly to give Eric his signature grin. It was incredibly infectious, Eric had to admit. “How has your day been?”
By this time, Eric was in better spirits. That after lunch crash couldn’t prevent him from being a nice person, that's for sure. “It’s been good. How was your morning class?”
“It was fine, honestly. Not my favorite, but we had a new student in there that just joined us, so it was interesting for once.”
“Oh? New student?” Younghoon jumped in. “Do you think it's the same one that Sangyeon was telling us about?”
Changmin gave a noncommittal shrug as they trudged down the hallway. “Probably, given the circumstances that literally no one ever joins us in the middle of the semester like this. Well, at least a month in. The professor didn’t do any introductions, but I’ve never seen him before today.”
Younghoon began asking questions, Eric chiming in with his own question for every three that Younghoon produced. Changmin couldn’t answer too many of them because this new guy sat across the room from him and he just saw him walk in and out with no one else.
Eric nodded. “It's probably hard to make new friends so quickly.”
“Which is just a shame,” Younghoon pouted as they took their seats in the lecture hall. “Everyone needs a friend that can show them the ropes and give them the exact schedule of when to get into the library to secure your own private space on the 3rd floor. Which is the best one.”
“Don’t worry,” Changmin snickered as the professor began booting up the smart screen. “I don’t think he’ll have a hard time getting people to be interested in him.”
“Oh?” Eric asked, setting up his laptop and opening up the previous document he had taken notes on. “What makes you say that?”
Changmin leaned in towards both Eric and Younghoon, a slightly terrifying smirk on his lips.
“Because he’s hot as fuck.”