The ranking spar between Suho and Jaejin had been scheduled for the following Monday. Which meant Suho only had the weekend to prepare.

Sunghyun had cleared his plans to accommodate this.

He pulled on a pair of padded gloves as Suho did the same. They’d reserved a training room for the day, where no one else could bother them.

“I’m sorry I can't help you that much,” Sunghyun said. “I’m not really a spear guy.”

“This is more than enough,” Suho responded.

There wasn't going to be better practice than sparring against the top of the grade. And Sunghyun had a lot of experience dealing with ranking spars—he got challenged all the time last year. Most students gave up quickly after seeing the first few though, and he didn't intend to accept any this year.

“Are you ready?” he asked, taking a spot opposite Suho in the fighting ring.

“Yeah.”

“Alright.”

He put up a basic guard.

“Come at me when you're ready.”

Without another word, Suho charged forward. His fist was deflected off Sunghyun’s guard and swooshed by his ear. The impact was even harder than Sunghyun had expected.

“Not bad,” he said, “but you're clearly a beginner.”

“Can you be meaner?”

“Pardon?”

They both stopped as Sunghyun cocked an eyebrow.

“I meant—um, Jaejin’s the type to say a lot of distracting stuff,” Suho explained. “I think it’d be helpful if you tried throwing me off like that too. So I can get used to it.”

It took him a second to absorb that. Then he cracked a mischievous smile.

“Sure,” he replied. “I’ll do my best to be mean about it then. You’re really clumsy. Like, it’s kind of embarrassing.”

Ouch. Even though he knew Sunghyun was going overboard on purpose, Suho wasn't used to hearing words like that. He let it sink in.

“I’d tell you to go back and re-do all of first year, but you only have two days,” he continued. “So stop wasting time and come at me again. The only way you're going to fix this is to get used to fighting.”

Suho nodded.

“Okay.

He threw a fist at Sunghyun. It deflected off his guard, but he was faster to follow it up this time. Sunghyun dodged and weaved, keeping an eye on Suho’s movements—analyzing them. Unlike Suho, he hadn't come here without any sparring experience. He’d awakened young, and his struggling orphanage had been quick to try and get him to become someone strong. He’d taken martial arts classes regularly up to entering National, though they were just the everyday ones anyone could enter.

Still, it was enough for him to easily duck under Suho’s punch, no matter how fast and powerful it was, and uppercut him in the chin.

“Yawn. I’m getting bored,” he remarked. “Do you think I’m a sandbag with no hands?”

He didn't want to admit it, but trash talk came to him pretty easily. He’d survived a full year of it already.

Suho backed up, making distance. Sunghyun let him take some time to think.

He’d fought vaguely humanoid monsters before. Bipedal with long limbs… there were a few. He remembered how they’d moved, how they fought, how he’d dealt with them…

He charged in again. He was swifter this time, forgoing strength in favor of swinging faster, more accurately, and really seeing his opponent.

Sunghyun smiled. He was a fast learner. However—

“You’re open, dumbass.”

Sunghyun’s fist was buried in Suho’s stomach in no time. Suho made distance again, clutching his midsection and coughing. The top student’s strength was nothing to scoff at, even though he clearly was taking it easy on a friend.

“What’s with your movements?” he asked. “Have you never fought something with a brain before? You can't just watch me, you have to know what your own body looks like too. And you’re fulllll of openings.”

Sunghyun motioned for Suho to come again.

“I’ll give you another try, newbie.”

Suho straightened up and took a deep breath. But almost too quickly for him to register it—

A fist came at his face.

Suho barely got his guard up, deflecting it away by a hair. The impact pushed him off balance and back.

“Oops,” Sunghyun said in a mocking tone, “my hand slipped.”

“You—”

Suho tried to hit back, but Sunghyun immediately slipped past his clumsy guard and got him in the chin again.

“First strike wins,” he remarked. “Why would your opponent ever let you have it so easily? I’ve never seen anybody fall for that.”

Wow. Even though he’d been the one to ask for trash talk, Suho was starting to feel his head getting hotter. It really could get under your skin, whether you believed it or not.

He let his body think for itself and pushed back. Sunghyun was a good fighter, but he wasn't one to take unnecessary risks. He naturally took a step away to make distance, and Suho decided he wouldn't let him have it.

He stayed close, in that range that made Sunghyun uncomfortable. When it came to their bare strength and agility stats, the two of them probably weren't too far apart. The difference came in skill, so if Suho couldn't force his own skill to rise to Sunghyun’s level, then he’d just have to drag his opponent’s skill level down.

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Sunghyun cracked a smile, a little peeved himself.

“You’re too damn good at adapting,” he said. “But still…”

He hooked his foot around Suho’s ankle and kicked it out from under him.

“You’ve got no idea what you’re doing.”

As Suho stumbled, Sunghyun smashed his fist into the side of his face.

He thumped down on one knee, holding his jaw, reeling.

“Can't get up?”

Sunghyun kept teasing him. But Suho stayed on the ground.

His head was ringing. Not just from the hit—but something else felt like it had been shaken loose. Something that should've stayed where it was.

Fucking loudmouth.

A feeling of revulsion bubbled up from deep within him. Towards what, he had no idea. It was taking over his head, sending a veil of black over his vision, muffling the sounds around him—

“Hey!”

Suho looked up. Sunghyun was in front of him, shaking him by the shoulders. His eyes were wide with confusion and concern.

“Are you okay? Did I hit you too hard?”

He inspected Suho’s face. He didn’t think he'd hit him that hard. He had assumed Suho was just sulking at first, but the look that had clouded over his eyes…

It would scare anyone.

Suho’s head was still ringing, but the feeling was retreating. Slowly, he came back to reality.

“I’m okay,” he said.

“You are not. I called your name a bunch of times and you didn't hear me at all.”

“It’s fine.”

Sunghyun was stunned into silence for a couple seconds. Did he not understand the severity of what just happened? He might as well have blacked out. And then something clicked for him.

“Are you used to this?” he asked. “This happens often?”

“Not often.”

He answered a little too quickly. Suho drew back, finding it hard to meet his eyes. He didn't want to elaborate. But Sunghyun wouldn't let it go.

“Hey. Don't go silent.”

“This used to happen when I was a kid,” Suho finally admitted. “I’d black out randomly. But it’s been years.”

“So what’s happening now?”

“I don't know. Could be stress.”

They stayed there for a moment, both unable to come up with an answer to this problem.

“Are you going to be okay?” Sunghyun asked. “Jaejin’s not going to go easy on you. If getting hurt triggers this, then…”

“I need to prove to him that this won’t happen.”

Suho sat back and wiped the sweat from his brow.

“And I guess I also want to figure out how to make these episodes go away.”

“So you… want me to keep hitting you.”

“That’s the gist of it.”

Sunghyun sighed. Randomly blacking out. If he thought of it as some kind of narcolepsy, it was easy to understand. But to make it stop happening…

“Well, I’ll do my best to help you,” he said, “but I’d like you to know that I think fighting Jaejin is a stupid idea.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I went through with a stupid idea.”

Sunghyun chuckled. He stood and pulled Suho up.

“Ready to go again?” he asked.

Suho nodded.

“That’s what I'm here for.”

“Then come at me.”

They had the practice room reserved for the whole day.

Suho charged at Sunghyun.

⊕

Suho returned to his dorm bruised and exhausted. The swelling from his wounds had been reduced after a visit to the infirmary, where the school nurse scolded him while applying soothing water and ice magic, but he still clearly had been beaten up.

By the end of the day, Sunghyun had been in similar shape. They’d really gone at each other, trying to figure out what was triggering his episodes. But another one hadn't happened, so all they could conclude was that it wasn't getting hurt alone that caused them.

He felt better after getting that all out. A bit of the pressure had lifted, knowing that he could fight without the issue popping back up. The trigger was something aside from violence. Or just violence. He had also wanted to test out if cigarettes had something to do with it, but they were banned on campus. And watching videos of people smoking hadn't done anything.

Suho laid down in bed, over the covers, and sighed. Did everyone have this hard of a time in high school? He had no real point of reference. The kids in those high school dramas always seemed to have it even worse, but Jun had told him to stop watching them as research.

He raised his wrist and opened his stat window. He clicked to the second page, where his skills showed up.

image [https://i.imgur.com/mmtbNHK.png]

Animal Instinct. It was a vague skill. Suho didn't know what to make of it. Sunghyun stressed that SS-rank was super high, and that those kinds of skills were usually life-changing, but he genuinely had no idea what it did. The skill database didn't seem to know either.

Did it help him in combat? He had good reflexes, but that was because of his experience with monsters. And he wasn’t so fast that he thought it was special. Did it help him sense threats? Possibly. Sometimes he did get gut feelings that danger was on the way. But when it came to monsters or gates, the dogs always located them first. And anyway—

Neither of these things were up to the standard of “SS-rank”.

But he’d been thinking about something lately.

It was labeled as passive, which meant it was always on—always doing something to him.

Maybe it had something to do with all the times he couldn't remember.

Passive skills technically couldn't be toggled off. But that didn't mean they were impossible to block. After all, skills were just a manifestation of what your own body could do. If you prevented your body from doing it…

Then there was a way to turn off any skill. Even an SS-rank one.

Pit padded into the room as Suho clicked to the search function on his watch. The dog lifted himself up onto the bed and flopped half his body over his owner.

Suho looked through sales listings on the academy’s exchange site. The medical and support department kids often traded a lot of useful supplies to the hunting department. He hadn't used the marketplace before, but he quickly found what he needed.

Pit’s face suddenly got in the way of his screen.

“Pit… hey.”

He had to squirm away as the dog encroached on his space. But Pit insisted on squeezing in even closer, stuffing his nose into Suho’s neck, then burying his huge snout under his head.

Suho was forced to sit up.

“What’s going on?” he asked, confused.

The dog was sniffing madly, nose stuck to Suho. He inspected his shoulders, his neck, his back… finally the hood of the hoodie he was wearing.

Pit barked, loud. Suho twisted around and grabbed the hood.

“Is something stuck in here? What’s got you so worked up?”

He flipped it inside out, assuming it was some food particle that had the dog in a hungry frenzy.

Instead, a bug flew out.

A firebug.

It zipped through the air, fleeing at top speed, trying not to be seen. Not fast enough.

Suho’s hand snapped down around it. He could feel a faint miasma coming from it, the familiar sensation that came from all monsters. He made a decision in a split second. His fist tightened almost by habit, and he crushed the bug.

Fzzt.

Suho flinched as white hot pain went through his palm. When he uncurled his fingers, his skin was smoking and red. Remnants of the bug remained among ash. It had self-destructed.

He pushed Pit’s face away as the dog tried to lick up the remains. Were there feral bug monsters in Seoul? There were plenty of harmless monsters that had just integrated with the landscape. But he’d never heard of ones that exploded on contact.

“…What the hell was that?”

He let Pit descend on the remains of it, cleaning his hand.

Suho was confused all over again. He had plenty to worry about already, yet there was always something more.

He collapsed back onto the bed and let out a huge sigh. Maybe it was like what the elders always said, when they were complaining about the next tiny, annoying thing that had gone wrong in their garden.

When it rains it pours.