Wooyoung yawns while other students pass him inside their classrooms. His bag is slouched over one shoulder and his tie hangs loosely almost like a vacant noose. The male's deeply blue eyes attract attention from fellow werewolves but he declines all attempts at approaching him with a shake of his head and a small snarl.
He sniffs the air for Mingi's smell yet nothing of that sort appears. Wooyoung gets a whiff of burnt wood and his eyes spark with interest as he searches for the scent's owner. Some heads turn as well.
Werewolves all have their unique scent yet most of them have neutral nature related fragrances. Since the line between omegas, betas and alphas is blurry because of the many changes the wolves experience being half human, stronger scents associated with true alpha's are rare.
Three males are making their way towards the classroom with stares accompanying them along the path. They stop since some werewolves are standing in front of the door, blocking the way.
Wooyoung inspects all three of them as his hands unconsciously cross below his chest.
The closest to the door is also the tallest of the three, probably somewhere near Mingi's height. He is wearing the uniform and something akin to various herbs and earth comes from him. It's a confusing mix, not showing the male's possible status.
The second one has a strong scent of apples and it's the first thing that crosses the blonde's mind when he shifts his attention towards him.
His hair is light brown and he looks the most put together.
The owner of the burnt wood scent is a different story though.
Wooyoung's eyes rake over the muscular body, waking up animalistic interest. The black haired werewolf looks good with his jacket over one arm and a waistcoat over his chest and small waist.
What entrancing proportions.
A yip leaves one of the werewolves and Wooyoung turns his head towards a girl.
He chuckles, snapping out of his staring. The male is about to turn to see has Mingi finally arrived when his blue eyes meet eyes the colour of honey wood.
The male tilts his head slightly, displaying attentiveness while few of his black strands fall on the sides of his face.
His eyebrow raises up as Wooyoung's heart flutters.
His inner wolf lets out something similar to a hum and that's enough for the blond male to get inside the classroom, screw his late friend.
Wooyoung hopes his wolf goes back to sleep and doesn't appear but that's probably the last thing she has in mind.
When most of the werewolves and first years have found their seats, Mingi storms in the classroom, going straight to his roomate.
"I thought you wouldn't come." Wooyoung says, hiding how glad he is to have a friend here.
"We agreed that the first one wakes up the other one as well! Where did that deal go?" Mingi asks, hurriedly pulling out notebooks from his bag.
"You told me you are getting up!"
"And you believed me when I was mumbling, still half asleep?"
Mingi feels his body screaming for him to sleep and his eyelids are falling in front of his eyes on their own. If only his stomach wouldn't ask for breakfast he missed.
"Well excuse me, I'll make sure next time not to believe a word you say."
"That would be better, thanks."
Wooyoung shakes his head and watches the teacher walking in, stopping in front of the students.
"Hello and welcome to human, werewolf and vampire behaviour analysis or HWV analysis for short. I am mr. Saltir. Now, don't get confused because even if this is a course for the roses, the new transfers and anyone wishing to dig deeper in the quirks of our behaviour is welcome here. I see a few old faces, hello to you and I hope to see you all being active as these lessons are based on discussion and conversation. Those who think they can just sleep the whole time and not move a finger, the door is to your right, use it."
One vampire actually takes the chance to get up and walk out, leaving Mingi wide eyed as he leans closer to the werewolf.
"If he would do something like this in my old school, he would have no hair at the back of his head due to my teacher beating the shit out of him with a rolled paper."
Wooyoung snorts.
"You got hit there?" he whispers.
"Sometimes when they couldn't silence us or get us to participate in stuff."
"Let's start with more theoretical things. I will ask all of you to open your notebooks and write down today's theme. We will start with werewolves. To begin the analysis of their habits and behaviour, we have to know a bit about the stereotypes. Write down "werewolf stereotypes" please."
"Oh, this will be interesting." comments Mingi as his pen slides along the paper.
Wooyoung sighs next to him.
"Yeah."
The male bumps his shoulder in the other's with a grin.
"Cheer up. We will go buy some snacks after this." he whispers.
That makes the blond male smile and write down the words flowing out of the professor's mouth.
"Don't you have a lecture after this one?"
"I have time for a caramel bun." the red head shrugs his shoulders.
"Of course you do." Wooyoung says after finishing writing how it was believed a werewolf can turn another human into one of his own by biting him so people were scared of big black dogs, afraid they were actually werewolves.
He feels uneasy when his inner wolf begins as if looking around, urging him to do the same.
Ignoring any better judgement, the blond male does turn his head left and right. The wolf wants him to check behind him so Wooyoung faces the back.
Turns out what bothered his wolf was the attractive werewolf staring at the back of his head and now it bothers Wooyoung as well as he raises his eyebrow in the same fashion the black haired male did before.
Mingi is about to talk to his friend in the middle of class some more before he notices the werewolf's attention is somewhere else. Following his gaze, the human sees a few creatures sitting in the rows above them, only one looking down towards Wooyoung.
"He has sharp eyes." the red haired male says and receives a glance from his friend.
"He does." comes an answer with a snort.
Wooyoung then turns back and restarts writing in his notebook while Mingi looks at the rest of the people behind them. His head turns immediately after a few seconds.
"For all that's holy..." he whines, his nose almost touching the notebook's paper.
"M?"
"The forest paedophile."
"Repeat?" Wooyoung asks, wrinkles appearing on his forehead.
"The one chasing me and then turning into a naked man!" the male hurriedly explains in a hushed tone.
"Which one?" the blond male is fast to look back again until mr. Saltir speaks up.
"I expect focus while I'm talking."
Both of them turn back to scribbling about werewolves, not seeing the real deal, now clothed though.
"Show me later." comes a whisper from Mingi's right and he nods.
The lesson ends when the red head has four pages full with his sophisticated handwriting and he has a hard time feeling the right hand's wrist.
"That was a lot to take in."
"I will now be watching you very closely to see if this is actually correct."
"Oh, I dare you." Wooyoung flashes his teeth jokingly.
They put their stuff back in their bags before exiting the classroom.
"The tall one with the dark brown hair." Mingi leans closer to whisper, pointing at the male in front of them, who is walking with two others.
"Ah, the herb and earth one."
Confusion settles on the red head's face.
"What?"
"He smells like a mix of herbs and earth." the blond werewolf shrugs, his eyes accompanying the black haired werewolf until the first corner where their paths separate.
"Really? Could the herbs be marihuana?"
Wooyoung giggles as Mingi gets into a serious mode.
"No, not that kind of grass, I believe."
The narrow tower staircase takes them to the basement floor, where a long line has already formed by the cafeteria. Wooyoung and Mingi squeeze in the long snake shaped formation.
"Why were you having a stare competition with that guy back there?"
"We were just exchanging glances. More than once. I don't know. He bewilders me just like the rest of the werewolves because the man seems to be a descendant of the alphas."
"So like, he is the boss?" the red haired male asks, showcasing his small understanding of the creatures.
Wooyoung chuckles with a head tilt.
"You're not that far from the truth. He is a born leader. Something like the active kid in class, who always leads in group projects and stuff. It just means he has a distinct personality befitting someone, who gives orders."
"Oh, so an extrovert. That sounds nice."
The blond male though shares different thoughts.
"Eh. Those types of werewolves usually are jerks because believe it or not, they have been raised like dogs for a beauty contest. They know they are above average because everyone has told them so, which is understandable yet irritating none the less. Cocky in attitude and so on. They also make the best bullies."
"Not so nice." Mingi corrects himself.
They step closer to the cash register as the line shortens.
"And why were you so hard to wake up? Not that I tried, you just slept like you were hit with a brick."
"Thanks for the comparison." the male grumbles. His hand goes to scratch the back of his neck rather awkwardly afterwards.
"I couldn't sleep so I went out for a walk."
"Really? And I didn't hear you leave? Damn." Wooyoung curses.
"Was the walk nice? You didn't catch a cold, did you?"
"It was alright."
The werewolf is about to leave it at that and begin to think what he should order until Mingi says the next sentence.
"I went to the graveyard."
The blue eyes pop out quizzically.
"Graveyard? And that was an alright walk? Hongjoong is rubbing off on you more than you think."
Mingi giggles, taking a step closer to the displays of food. His smile dims.
"It's just that after our time in the graveyard I felt pretty useless and Hongjoong saying he doesn't know when or how I will be able to communicate with the deceased left me fully awake last night. I went out, sat on the bench and tried it out. The runes didn't work just like the first time but I think I can do it with tarot cards. I saw one of them."
Wooyoung turns his head towards the male.
"First of all, I'm sure Hongjoong didn't mean it in a mean way. You would have to be some prodigy to have it nailed at the first go."
"Hongjoong did it in one go."
"Yeah, well a prodigy or a devoted student, which you're neither of."
"Hey!" Mingi pushes the blond sideways.
"It's true! So don't feel bad about it and in the end, you did see one...spirit or soul. What did they look like?"
The red head has the picture of the woman right in front of his eyes.
"It was a very graceful and royal looking woman with many accessories. I don't know how long she has been dead but she looked pretty ancient. I'm not sure, never been big on fashion."
Wooyoung snorts.
"I believe you could tell if the clothes she was wearing could be found in one store's front window."
"She talked a bit as well. Her name is Beaux."
"That's an interesting one." his friend agrees and they step in front of the cashier.
"Good morning. Iced americano with a chocolate cookie please." Wooyoung says to the girl.
"And one caramel bun." Mingi adds.
"Good morning. Sure." the girl turns around to start making the drink.
"What did you talk about?" the blond male asks.
"Nothing in particular, she just told me she was kinda present when I was in the graveyard with Hongjoong but at the same time she didn't stay long enough for Hongjoong to mention her. Then she told me to go and rest because a new sun was coming."
"Well...if I would have met a woman in the middle of the night in a graveyard, who speaks like this, I think I would have called some kind of health institution to come and pick her up."
"And they would come and take you because they wouldn't be able to see a blue fog shaped like a woman. Oh, I would love to see you trying to describe her to them." Mingi is laughing at the scenario his mind has come up with while Wooyoung rolls his eyes.
"Thank you." he says to the girl, who offers him a cup of coffee and a bag with two sweets in it.
Both of the males take out money to pay for the order before stepping out of the line.
"Isn't your lesson starting soon?"
Mingi's brown eyes glance up at the clock and a sigh leaves him.
"Give me my bun and off I go." he stretches his palms out for the bag.
The human fishes out the caramel filled bread and sinks his teeth into it, the sweet and slightly salty cream-like substance disappearing in Mingi's stomach in a flash.
"Off you go then." Wooyoung waves to the male, who begins to walk towards the stairs.
"Bye!" he calls before climbing the staircase in search of his next classroom.
It's specifically for necromancers so even if he thought he would see emptier rows, he wasn't expecting so few of them.
He counts seven other people in the room, the eight one being a girl, who comes in later.
Surprised by the sheer amount of necromancers as if they were endangered species of animals, the male sits down.
A man in his forties, Mingi guesses, enters the room, introducing himself as mr. Anex.
"I want to start with introducing you to all that inhabit this Academy and its grounds. Some of you have seen the graveyard on the left side of the building, yes? At least the metal fence at the foot of the hill? Good." he nods his head, seeing three hands raised up, including Mingi's.
"There are six gravestones for seven spirits. To begin the story of how they came to be here, we have to go about two thousand years back in the past, when the Academy was first built. The founder of this place didn't wish for his name to be registered anywhere so we only have speculations of who he was and how he lived yet we are pretty sure the man was a necromancer.
This building was a school but about all that is long dead. You see, there were more necromancers in the past century than today. The rows were full, some even had to stand only to hear about the knowledge and skill they wished to master.
Since necromancy revolves around those no longer living, they had to get something to try their skills on. At first when the bones of deceased persons were brought here, students learned about manipulating them, moving and even making them appear out of the ground. Nowadays that level of skill is taught only if a person seems well gifted in that area otherwise it is too dangerous to teach it. People donated their dead relatives for science as we called it but the numbers were too little for about four hundred students that resided here at that time. The necromancers began focusing on the spiritual side of it, the communication since some students displayed an art for it. There is one famous necromancer, which we will learn all about in later lessons, who had the gift from childhood days. It was him, who suggested making a graveyard close by for students to use since that's the right way to get a spirit to stay. Under no circumstances should you separate the spirit from his flesh and bones, no matter how old they are. Now, why is no one writing that down?"
Eight heads snap down their tables and press their pens to the paper. Quiet scribbling filling the air, the teacher looks at every student until he has their undivided attention back.
"The Academy began focusing more on the spiritual side of the dead. Our ancestors have spent months in graveyards, writing down many life stories and memories even the person's relatives had no idea about. Feel free to use our library for the materials as well. We learned a lot through these books about how things happened in history and why.
The spirits we have here have all been selected by the necromancers before. We haven't really understood the particular reasons for their choice and the spirits themselves don't hurry to answer us so we are left with what we know. The spirits, write that down too, are named Janis, Killian, Ian, Theobold, Billy, Beaux and Dahlia."
One brunet lifts his hand up, making mr. Anex pause on his words.
"Why are the graves six if spirits are seven?"
"I will be talking about that in a minute, thank you for the question." the man nods.
"The first one joining our Academy was Beaux, followed by Janis, Killian and Ian, Theobold, Dahlia and then Billy. Keep in mind that calling her just Beaux may get you in trouble. She was once a mighty ruler of an ancient civilisation and it doesn't matter that it's no longer here. Address her as Queen Beux if you want to get on the spirit's good side, which I do recommend."
Mingi's throat runs dry at the words. He tries to recall how many times he called the woman Beaux since the Queen part is registered as zero already.
He raises his hand, getting a nod from the teacher.
"What if Queen Beaux introduces herself as just Beaux?"
The man hums.
"That is an unlikely event yet call the spirits as they allow you to call them."
He clears his throat before continuing.
"Janis was an old farmer back in the day. He doesn't remember much but we assume from his stories that he lived somewhere in Eastern Europe. As for Killian and Ian, the reason we have only six gravestones is because they were buried together."
"As lovers?" the only girl in the class asks.
Mr. Anex chuckles.
"Killian was a homeless man, roaming the streets of London in the 19th century. Ian was his dog, who stayed loyal to the bone. Killian died of cholera. If you ask the man about his death, he will only talk about Ian not leaving his side. Someone saw the two on the streets and decided to dig a shallow grave, putting them both together. That's the reason we have one more spirit here and since you asked about lovers, Killian is head over heels over his dog even centuries later."
Mingi and two other guys can't help but let out quiet coos.
"Theobold was an American, who died of natural causes. His life though was full of adventures, some of which we will discuss in later lessons. As for Dahlia...her end was very tragic, that is all I can say before we dig deeper into her case. Billy is our latest spirit and the most unstable one. Be careful when conversing with him, he still has a hard time adapting to the place yet if most of the spirits have accepted their death, Billy has taken a liking to it."
"He likes that he is dead?" the brunet from before asks.
"He says he is happy like that. Billy committed suicide to feel calm and he says now it is calm all day round. Think twice when talking to him. Those are all of the spirits residing in this territory. We will learn about them one by one in the first semester. Now I'm ready to let you go faster but don't get used to this. See you in the next lesson."
"Goodbye!"
"Have a nice day."
The new necromancers are out the door in a flash, leaving the man to watch the last red head exiting before the wood slams shut.
His attention shifts to the window as he goes to gather papers for a lecture he is about to read for the third years.
The lawn is pale green as the clouds stand in front of the sun. The trees sway in the wind.
The professor's eyebrows furrow when he notices three shadows near the woods but blinking again, his eyes show him only a clearing with no one in sight.
Mr. Anex closes his eyes to rest his sight, which isn't getting any younger.