survival school ➳ svt°

• chapter twenty one ;

Mingyu raised an eyebrow at him, confused yet amused at the same time.

"With who?"

"U-Uh? What was I saying? Sorry, I spaced out!" Wonwoo jumped out of his bed and ran off to the bathroom with his phone, locking himself instantly inside. He tried to text Junhui, but then remembered the boy could be sleeping by now and he didn't want someone who was just as tired as him. He tried to text Jihoon too, but the latter just sent him a tricky message saying 'Unfortunately this user does not accept messages during the dark. Please try messaging again during daylight hours. Thank you.'

Wonwoo sighed not knowing what to do. He leaned to the dry bathtub, feeling stressed yet again. Closing his tired eyes and giving in his worn out body to the floor, he fell asleep.

. . .

The sunrise peeked through their blinds, being the cause for waking Wonwoo up. Wonwoo squinted his eyes as he tried to get used to the sudden light, but realization hit him when he saw he was lying on his bed. Didn't I fell asleep in the bathroom? At the same time, the aromatic scents of two different flavored coffees came to his nose.

"Oh, you finally woke up. Good morning."

"Mingyu, you shouldn't have. You know, the school dining hall exists for a reason."

"They make bad coffees, so I thought I should make us coffees myself."

Wonwoo had no choice but to agree with him at that.

. . .

It was another normal day, all of them were gathered at their usual spot in the dining hall, eating breakfast without any obnoxious interruption. They were having a topic talked about, one that Mingyu brought up himself.

"So, it's all basically about curses of this school," he began, chewing his egg roll hungrily. "It said everyone who enters this place are automatically cursed on their first step here. Even animals."

"Does that mean even Eunwoo's doggo is cursed too?" Seungkwan questioned, grabbing a piece of sashimi roll from the main dish with his wooden chopsticks.

"Yeah, pretty much like that," Mingyu responded. "That's specifically why it died."

"But it was killed from a real-life situation, not a preternatural event." Hansol butted in.

"I think we can die from human activities too, and those could be parts of a curse." Wonwoo said, his voice raspy from just waking up a few minutes ago.

"Wonwoo hyung has a point." Chan chimed.

Mingyu just nodded, agreeing at their comments. "And about the Sachiko charm, well, the book said that every damned activity you do here will be real. May it be a ritual or a ghostly game, it will really come true."

"That's sad to hear," Soonyoung pouted. "We can't do Spirit of the Glass or Coin anymore."

"At least I don't have to join any of your bullshits and hear your high-pitched screams anymore." Jihoon frowned in disgust, remembering the ugly memories they had as he spoke.

"We really have to be careful all the time," Junhui murmurs, but audible enough for everyone to hear. "We don't know what will happen to us in the future, the next thing you know is we're dragged into an empty room and choked till our last breaths."

"I know right," Minghao bobbed his head in agreement. "There are masked killers in our classes disguised as delinquents."

"I guess we're all in the same boat." Seungcheol sighed.

"Don't you have time talking about this to your dad, Cheollie?" Jeonghan interrogated.

"I can't talk to him. He never lets me. He's too busy with business works here and there." Seungcheol answered, sorrow and fury detectable through his face. "And if I ever ask him about this academy, he'll just ignore me and treat me like an air."

"That's harsh," Jisoo had his face disoriented as to show disappointment, lips turned upside down in hate.

"There's another problem here," Seokmin voiced. "How will you get that book back in the library, Mingyu?"

Silence.

. . .

It was 1 in the morning when Mingyu had the steel guts to actually go out of bed, sneak out of the dorm, and tiptoe all the way to the library. It was a building apart for they had the school building and the dorm building, thus he had to cross the bridge and go through the hallway that connected the two constructions. It was just now that Mingyu realized how chilly it was outside, eventually regretting to put on his warm sweater before jumping out of their window without anyone noticing. Well, everyone is strictly asleep at this godly hour anyway.

Mingyu literally suffered, swinging from window to window in mid-air with a book in one hand wasn't a good idea but it was the only thing he could possibly do. He can't just casually walk out of the dorm at past midnight in his pajamas and pretend like it was a normal daily thing to do, for he was clearly aware that there are cameras attached to every corner of the hallways on every floors of the dorm. Luckily for him, there are no cameras watching him when he's seizing onto window sills (he might as well also wished that no one from inside their dorm rooms would notice that a figure is hanging onto their windows at 1 am) and practically trying to get to the hallway bridge.

Mingyu succesfully gripped onto another window with his foot resting at a window sill below him (thanks to his height, he managed to fit the distance and length of the window sills apart or else he would've have nowhere to rest his feet on and only rely on his one spare hand) as he swung dangerously from window to window till he safely landed his feet on the hallway's open window as he quietly jumped inside, his bare feet coming in contact with the cooled floor.

He stays hidden, not showing himself by the window and dropped his body down to not be shown through the open windows. He sit-walked towards the end of the hallway, trying to be silent as possible. When he did, he runs towards the library that was 5 classrooms away from the hallway bridge. There were no cameras there either, so he was able to get to the library safely. Opening the door gently as he tried to not make any noise, Mingyu stepped in the room with his unclothed feet coming into contact with the freezing cold floor once again. There was no one around, not even the librarian. It was such a wonder for Mingyu as to why the library was unlatched, but immediately shrugged the thought off when he remembered that the librarian is a very careless person. Even with all the lights off, the male was still able to see with the lights from outside through the window, may it be the moonlight reflected by the river or the streetlights at the court. Mingyu rapidly dashed towards the risked section, again aware of the cameras' non-existent presences. He's gonna be okay, he must not worry.

Once he placed the item on a shelf, he took a deep breath. He ran back towards the entrance, now leaving the place and crept to the hallway bridge without any noises. He was able to fortunately get there without being caught, luckily enough it wasn't the same experience he got during their night here before the first day of school, that time when he got chased by the dorm keeper and ended up bumping to Jihoon.

By the time Mingyu got back to their dorm (he almost got inside the wrong window when he lose track of the window sills arrangement before reminding himself that theirs was the second one from the left), Wonwoo was still sleeping peacefully, his closed eyes feigning zero disturbance. The sight made the conscious male smile, causing him to come into the conclusion that he must've fallen too. Mingyu draped a blanket over the sleeping one, not wanting Wonwoo to freeze into an ice stone. He brushed his fringes away from his forehead, tucking some of them behind his ear.

"Good night, hyung."

. . .

Y'all aren't going to kill me for updating for 3 days straight right,,,

Also Meanie's spotlight will finally end next chapter (I suppose) so we can now focus on the next case ! Spoiler bubu it'll feature our bby Channie :))