Hunters healed fast, and the school’s hospital was running overtime to treat every injury that the students had accumulated over the 10 days of midterms. So Suho was discharged Sunday morning—right before he was slated to see the headmaster in her office. His arms were still on the road to recovery, but he could manage the wounds on his own now.

He gulped before entering her office. This wasn't how he’d wanted to start the second half of his semester. Maybe because the elders back in the village never did anything but praise him for being helpful, Suho hated the feeling of getting told off.

He entered. Last time, he’d sat across from her at the desk. But today, Hyuna was sitting on a couch by the coffee table, serving herself a steaming cup of tea.

“Sit,” she said without even looking up.

Suho nodded and quietly took a seat across from her. She took a sip of her drink, letting the silence stretch on. It wasn't common that the headmaster herself meted out punishments for students. But it also wasn't common for students to misbehave like this. Usually they only ever dealt with smoking on campus or conflicts between kids. How to deal with someone who was acting like Suho and the friends he’d dragged into his scheme… she had thought about it for a long time.

Hyuna was new to being the headmaster of a school, but she wasn't new to people. Before coming to National, she had been a solo hunter who refused to join all the guilds that came barking up her tree. It just wasn't in her nature to belong to someone else. Because of how she kept rejecting them, she had seen every side of hunters—all the good, and all the bad. And yet, this was still a first.

The day before, she’d spoken to some of Suho’s compatriots and given them suspensions. Missing all of your classes, especially for a full week, was often hard to academically recover from. But Yuna, who in the previous year had been the most rigid disciplinarian, had accepted it begrudgingly. Kitae, an incoming second year with no standing and no academic background, hadn’t seemed bothered at all. And Sunghyun—the literal valedictorian of his class, whom she would never have imagined needing to punish—had been too distracted by how annoyed he was at Suho to react much either.

Normally, kids came to her shaking in their boots. Many of the students who had been with Jihyuk were. But some of them were turning weird. She was certain the culprit behind their new behavior was sitting right in front of her.

Lim Suho had been an anomaly from the start. The Bureau hardly ever recommended students. It was normal for teenagers to meet and influence each other, but the people Suho was affecting were some of the highest achievers in the whole school. The stakes were too high for Hyuna to leave him alone. He needed to be punished, but it also needed to be something that fixed his unpredictable behavior. As if such a perfect solution existed.

“You’ll be suspended for the same length of time as the others,” she began, getting to the point. “One week. Do you have any objections?”

“None.”

Suho felt bad despite what he outwardly said. It’d be hard to catch up after missing an entire week of classes, but he’d certainly brought it upon himself. He’d have to take responsibility for it somehow.

“There’s more,” she continued. “Do you have any experience with magic courses?”

“Um, no, headmaster.”

He thought the question was rather unrelated to the topic at hand, but he diligently responded.

“Good. Starting during your suspension, you’ll be assigned to the magic department as a volunteer student assistant. Your job will be to help the faculty with whatever they ask of you—preparing classes, printing papers, anything.”

“How long should I stay with them?”

“You will be there until the end of the semester. If you are ever absent from your duties, then I will assign you more.”

Suho tensed a bit. There was still another 8 weeks in the semester. Two months of time, in addition to having to make up for missing the first week… it’d be hard to balance, but he’d have to make it work.

Hyuna saw him calculating his schedule in his head. It wasn't common to assign someone an assistant role as punishment, and definitely not for that long. Assistants were usually students on scholarships or kids from the non-hunter departments. But this was the only thing she could think of that actually might help him. The way Suho behaved was a result of years of physical combat in his home village. His brain was trained to constantly react to situations like he was on the front line. Spending some time with the magic faculty, doing a job where he was forced to slow down and focus on the details, might just teach his mind some balance.

Keyword: might. Hyuna had no idea if this would work. Trying to decode the way Suho thought was a job she didn't want to do again. She took another sip of her tea.

“You’ll also have to complete remedial work for the first year raid architecture course,” she said. “The first year professor will oversee this. You have until the end of the semester to complete and turn in all the required assignments.”

“Pardon?”

Not only did he have assistant work and a suspension to worry about, but now he had been signed up for an entire other course? Suho’s head was racing, trying to piece together how he’d manage all of this. But Hyuna wouldn't budge. The raid architecture course was one of the first year core classes. It taught the basics of how to plan fights against monsters, and most importantly, when to run away. Suho had missed it, and he’d proven now that he needed it.

“I won't negotiate, no matter what you say,” she bluntly stated. “This is what I’ve deemed necessary for your growth, and for your safety. Do you hate the magic department?”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“That—no.”

Suho had only ever seen the magic instructors in passing. They seemed okay?

“Then you shouldn't mind helping them out,” Hyuna said. “And haven't you always been enthusiastic to learn? The raid architecture course is a staple of National’s curriculum. It will be good for your education.”

“Ah, yes.”

Suho found himself agreeing, though he knew she was twisting it in a weird way. He had passed the written entrance exam to become a second year, so he technically had already been tested on all the core curriculum of the first year. But he had to take one of those classes again? And what would the magic faculty do with a melee student? He felt like he might get kicked out for knocking things over, rather than doing much to help.

“How are your injuries?” Hyuna asked, changing the subject.

“…Better,” Suho responded. He was wary of her stacking even more punishments on his plate, but she seemed to be done with that.

“That’s good. Do you think you can return to your practical classes by the time the suspension lifts?

“I think it’s possible.”

“Coordinate with your instructors if you need more time. They’ll understand.”

“I will.”

Hyuna scanned his arms. He had his uniform back on, but the bandages extended all the way over his hands. She had always been a fairly cold person. Hunters got hurt—that was just reality. If the cadets here wanted to become hunters, then they had to expect injuries every now and then. It had never bothered her before. But the fact that this time it had been outside of her control…

She needed to put on a stern persona as the one in charge, but in reality, she couldn't wait to find the person responsible for this and have their neck in her hands.

“Can you lift basic things?” she asked.

Suho nodded, a bit confused.

“Yes, that’s no problem,” he replied.

“Great. Then let’s start your suspension duties now.”

Hyuna tapped her watch a couple times.

“Send him in.”

There was a click at the office’s door. Suho turned to look. Lucian de Loren waved to him as he entered, a soft smile on his face as always.

“Good to see you again, Suho,” the professor said. “I’ve heard that you’re going to be helping out the magic department?”

“He’ll be yours for the rest of the semester,” Hyuna said before Suho could get a word in edgewise. “Use him for whatever the faculty needs.”

“What a treat. I can already think of a great place for him.”

Suho looked between them, starting to feel a bit of dread settling in. Why did it feel like he’d just signed up for something he couldn't handle…?

“What are you waiting for?” Hyuna asked, sending him a look. “Get going. Your punishment starts now.”

⊕

While Suho was getting dragged to the trenches of the magic department, Sunghyun was cooped up in his dorm, laying on his bed, staring at a hologram with an unsent message being projected from his watch.

He actually wasn't that mad at Suho anymore. The initial feelings of anger had worn off over time. But it still felt awkward to talk about. He had never been particularly good at handling human relationships, despite what it looked like on the outside. He could pretend to get along with people, but that was easy because he never actually thought much of them. Now…

Sunghyun closed the window, rolled over, and groaned into his pillow. Friendships were so difficult. He was definitely realizing that now. He’d assumed it’d be as easy as just being nice to Suho, since Suho was such a good kid that of course the problems would never come from his side…

He’d been sorely mistaken. He’d trusted Judgment too much. The skill could pick up the kind of karma that people had accumulated, but that didn't exempt them from making questionable decisions. Suho could be a good person and still fuck up. His choice to rush back into the danger zone had taken Sunghyun so off guard that it had basically fried his brain for the first few minutes. He’d let out some candid thoughts that might have been better left inside.

Suho hadn't heard Sunghyun cuss him out, but it still felt awkward on his end. He’d never been the type to do that before. Now how was he supposed to act?

“Ha.”

Sunghyun scoffed at himself.

“Act? You're not supposed to act around friends.”

He still needed to work on this whole “being genuine” thing. He’d never known a life where he didn't pretend in one way or another.

“Alright. Let’s just do it.”

He might as well start here. Sunghyun opened the message window on his watch again and started typing out a text to send to Suho. But before he could finish it, another notification came up.

“Oh—”

His eyes flicked towards the clock on the wall. It was exactly noon, still the Sunday after the midterm. They’d be back in class tomorrow—well, the kids who hadn't been suspended. It was the time when the general student rankings updated. The incoming second years would finally have official ranks with the school. Sunghyun had forgotten about it while agonizing over his relationship problems.

He hesitated to click the notification for a second. He never had before, but the midterm had been so strange this time around that it seemed odd to be going on with school matters as usual.

He bit the bullet and tapped it. The general rankings popped up. As expected, his name was still in first place. Although he’d spent a ton of points on random items to send into the frog’s belly, the point values had been frozen once the midterm had come to an emergency stop, long before they started to fight back. His grade had remained where it was.

Yuna was still in second place. That was also expected. He spotted some familiar names below hers, where they usually were, but then—

…?

Sunghyun sat up, double checking that he was really reading this right.

image [https://i.imgur.com/QRmV6lJ.png]

The name sitting in 6th place was Lim Suho.

“Aha.”

Sunghyun let out a confused chuckle, not sure how else to react.

“He really might grab our ankles one of these days.”

It shouldn't have been that surprising. He had ranked third on the practical, and he always studied hard, so he’d done fairly well on the written exam as well. Sunghyun was both excited and nervous. He was happy to have someone around he could compete properly with, but at the same time…

There was nothing scarier than a person who diligently improved, day by day. Because that meant that nothing they did was a fluke. Suho would never drop under rank 6—only rise from it.

He fell back onto the bed.

“I’m such a fucking hypocrite.”

He should've been proud of Suho. After all, he’d helped him get that rank by training together. But for some reason, it felt like his brain could only focus on the idea that he was the only one who had gone nowhere.

Sunghyun closed the message he was about to send Suho. Now wasn't the time to meet up casually for lunch. He moved to a different screen and booked a training room instead.

Of all people, he couldn't fall behind.