Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jimin drops her bag onto her bed, plops onto it, and sighs. She’s never gotten in trouble at school before, even though it was only for a few minutes. The second she explained that she was late because her dad’s car broke down, everything was settled. Still, it felt humiliating.

She sits up and pulls her laptop over to her from the other end of the bed. A few seconds after they open it, the doorbell rings. She can hear her mother answer it before the door closes again. Must’ve been the mailman.

She hears footsteps approach her door, and her mom knocks before opening the door anyway. She has an envelope in her hand.

“You, uh… have a letter.” she says.

Jimin raises her eyebrows. Who even sends letters anymore? She doesn’t have any bank accounts or insurance to be getting letters from.

“Maybe it’s SUGA.” she thinks out loud. Something about him seemed like he would write a letter instead of an email. She stands up and walks over to her mom as she hands the letter to her. She opens it to find something that clearly wasn’t written by her online friend, the handwriting is way too neat.

“Dear Jimin Park,” she reads the letter out loud, “we are pleased to inform you that you’ve been accepted into the opening class of the new Monster High School.”

There’s silence between her and her mom. “Monster High?” she whispers.

“Isn’t that supposed to be the new all-monster school…?” Jimin says with the same amount of confusion in her voice as her mom’s. “I guess it wasn’t supposed to be all-monster after all, or maybe they made a mistake.”

Her mother remains silent.

“Maybe I should write back to them, just to be sure.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary.” Her mother stops her before she can turn to her desk, “I used to work with their new principal… She knows who we are.” she says, “Maybe they’re making a special exception for our family.”

As she says that, Jimin’s laptop sounds off with a notification from Discord. She moves over and opens the app to find that SUGA has messaged her.

SUGA: Hey, uh… did you just get a letter from “Monster High”?

“SUGA got in too.” Jimin says. She starts writing back.

Jimin: Is there something you’ve been meaning to tell me?

SUGA: No, I’m just confused. I thought it was supposed to be all-monsters.

“Is he human?” her mother asks.

“I guess so, he’s just as confused. Maybe it isn’t supposed to be all-monster.”

There’s a moment of silence between the two of them once again.

“Well, maybe it’ll be good for you. A change of scenery with all new classmates and teachers…” their mother says.

Jimin will just have to make it through the rest of the school year.

SUGA has never sent Jimin a photo of what he looks like. They’ve tried asking again, wanting to catch him once they arrive at their new school, but he still refuses. The only thing that makes Jimin sure they aren’t talking to someone who’s actually in their 30s is that he got into Monster High.

Jimin: Is there anything you can tell me so that I’ll recognize you?

SUGA: I’ll recognize you.

That’s not the answer they wanted.

SUGA: I’m still not sure if I can go to this school. My mom has made it very clear she doesn’t want me to. I’ll have to find a way to sneak out if I really want to.

Maybe they are talking to someone who is secretly in their 30s… at least SUGA hasn’t made any romantic or sexual advances on them.

Jimin has met monsters before, but it’s only been a year since the revolution. He remembers hearing the name Jungkook everywhere during that time, especially by his friends who later came out to him as monsters. This Jungkook person is considered a hero, a revolutionary. Maybe they’ll be attending Monster High as well, it would be an honor to meet them, even if Jimin isn’t a monster like they are.

Jimin wonders if he’ll see some of his online monster friends at school too as he lugs his last bag into the back of his father’s car. He takes a seat in the back as his mom and dad sit in the front. It isn’t that far of a drive from Portland to Salem. He, Geralt and Miyako agreed to meet in the city for lunch before going to campus, at least he knows he has two of his friends joining him.

He chose an easy fast food restaurant to eat at. The three kids sat at their own table as their parents sat at the one across from them.

Jimin checks his phone again and opens Discord. One new message from SUGA.

SUGA: Just landed in Salem. Was able to sneak by with a friend.

“SUGA again?” Gerald teases him.

“He just landed.” Jimin says. He never thought about where SUGA was even from, that never came up in their conversations.

Jimin: We’re eating at Del Taco.

“You know he could be some 30 year old wanker, right?” Miyako says with a mouth full of rice.

“Yeah, I know.” Jimin says, “But he seems to be actually attending high school, so..”

“Okay, maybe he’s a 300 year old wanker.” Miyako says.

There’s a silence in the room and a few gasps when the doors to the restaurant open and two figures walk inside. Jimin stares in awe as the sunlight hits one of the man’s scales.

“Oh my god,” Geralt whispers.

“What are they?” Jimin leans over to whisper, still having to learn what certain monsters are called.

“A dragon.” Miyako says, voice still low, “Do you not have any idea of who that is?” she says in shock, mouth agape when Jimin shakes his head. “That’s Rap Monster. He was the first openly monstrous musician… he’s a revolutionary.”

Jimin turns back to the pair as they walk over to the counter to order. The humanoid dragon is very tall next to the person he’s with. He’s dressed in a white blazer with a colorful pattern on it that seems to look as though someone drew on it with markers, along with ripped, black skinny jeans. When he first walked in, Jimin noticed his red tie with black writing on it loosely tied around the open collar on his white button-up shirt.  Jimin thought he got the attention of everyone else because of how he was dressed, not necessarily him actually being famous.

His hair is a dark blue-grey, and cut very short. However, the thing that really stands out about him are the shiny scales covering his neck and the pieces of skin poking out of his outfit. He also has a skinny, scaly tail with a bit of dark brown fur on the end.

But the man next to him looks completely human. He has strawberry blond hair styled with window-bangs. He’s wearing a button-up shirt and brown overalls. Jimin thinks that his boots are adding a little bit more height to him, meaning the man is probably even shorter. But he’s one to to talk with how short he is himself. He’s considerably more pale than the musician next to him.

Everyone watches as they order and turn to the tables. Jimin and the short one make a brief second of eye contact before the man turns away. He can see him mouth something to the dragon and gesture to the group.

Jimin, Geralt and Miyako all look at each other with wide, panicked eyes as the pair make their way towards the table.

“May we join you?” The dragon asks, voice so deep that it makes Jimin’s heart jump, and clearly it has an effect on Miyako too as he notices a dark blue tint on her cheeks.

“Yeah, yeah, sure, uh…” Geralt says before he and Jimin scoot over. The monster takes a seat next to Jimin and the other man sits across from him. Jimin notices the scar across his eye.

“So, uh… what’s the world famous Rap Monster doing in Salem?” Miyako asks, laughing at the end with the awkward tension in the air.

Jimin notices the cringed stare in his striking green eyes and the pained smile on his face. “Oh, uh, please, call me Namjoon…” he says, “I’m thinking of retiring that name.”

“Okay, uh, Namjoon… in Salem… eating with us ?” Miyako sounds progressively more and more out of breath.

“I’m here for the same reasons you are.” Namjoon says, “I’ll be attending Monster High.”

The three friends freeze in place.

“How did y--”

Jimin’s question is cut off when Namjoon and the other man’s phones both go off with a notification and the doors to the restaurant open again. This time, a man wearing sunglasses and a hoodie over his head walks in.

“Hey, Hoba!” the man calls out, his voice a lot deeper than Jimin imagined.

The new guy scans the room and sees the group at the table. He skips his way over.

“We already ordered for you.” the man says.

He takes a seat next to the other man and looks at the three friends who were once at this table alone. While Jimin cannot see his eyes through his sunglasses, he knows he made eye contact when he points at him and leans over to the other guy. “Is that him?” the man nods.

The guy reaches his hand across the table, takes hold of Jimin’s, and shakes his hand. Jimin can feel hard scales on his hand as well, maybe another dragon. “Jung Hoseok!” he introduces himself, “And you just be Jimin!”

“How--”

“Hoba,” Jimin is cut off again, “You know you don’t have to keep your hood up.” Namjoon tells Hoseok.

“Are you kidding?” he responds, “Do you have any ideas about the glares I got at the airport? I’m not taking this down until we get to campus.”

“Wait, Hoseok?” Geralt asks, “Like, ‘Hope on the Streets’ Hoseok?”

He smiles and nods, “Yep, that’s me.” he says.

“Hold up, we’re sitting for lunch with a famous musician and a famous dancer?” Geralt stares into his hands and blinks, processing the situation the three have found themselves in.

“Which begs the question,” Miyako turns to the one man who has yet to introduce himself, “Who are you?”

Everyone looks at the man with the scar as he scans the room, avoiding looking at any of them.

“I’m uh… I’m Yoongi.” he says, “Nothing special about me.” he looks at Jimin, “But uh… you know me as SUGA.”

There’s a silence across the table.

Jimin makes an exaggerated sigh of relief, “Oh thank god you’re not some 30 year old creep.” he laughs.

“Oh my god!” Miyako yells, “I’ve been friends with someone who’s friends with someone who’s friends with Rap Monster!”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“We’re not exactly friends.”

Namjoon and Yoongi speak at the same time.

“You called him a friend in the message you sent me.” Jimin says.

“They’re friends.” Hoseok says, “They just don’t want to admit it.”

“Shut up, Hoseok.” Yoongi mutters.

Hoseok starts laughing, “Oh, men and their refusal to acknowledge their emotions.”

Both Miyako and Jimin look at Geralt, the only man in their group. “Yeah.” is all that Miyako says.

When they finished their food, and mostly engaged in small talk and sharing their excitement for the school year, they set off to campus. Jimin learned that Namjoon applied to the school because he wanted a normal high school life, to not be in the spotlight for the rest of his teenage years. He also learned that Hoseok quit being a dancer after a certain incident he refused to discuss.

Jimin also figured maybe he could be more himself around the kids at Monster High, maybe be out publicly, not hide in the closet anymore. At least he learned that Yoongi would’ve been cool if he told him during their online chats, learning that Hoseok is agender and they seem to be close friends.

The family drives through the woods before the school building begins entering their view. A huge, castle-like building comes closer and closer, the sunlight reflecting on what appears to be a purple exterior. Three large towers come out from what looks like to be the main school building. Jimin learned along the way that Monster High is a boarding school, the towers must be where the dorms are.

Jimin’s parents park the car in a lot full of many others. They get out and help Jimin with his luggage. As they walk through the main doors, they enter the foyer, which separates into two hallways and has two sets of staircases leading to the second floor of the school building. Jimin watches as his new classmates walk around, everyone trying to find their way through the school building, which seems more and more like a maze as the family makes their way through. He starts feeling out of place, everyone around him has something in their hair, features on their skin, something with their face, maybe an extra limb or two, and he’s just… Jimin. White skin, short, straight, black hair, two arms, two legs, two light hazel eyes… he’s the one who feels like a freak walking next to someone with rotting skin.

He didn’t want to admit it, but after the revolution, he felt out of place with Geralt and Miyako as well. Geralt has green skin, some bumps on his skin, and a little bit of fur on random parts of his body. While Miyako has pink skin with blue scales around her arms and legs, and web-like ears, fins on her legs as well. Jimin knows he’s going to stand out as a student, and he’s not sure if standing out would be good in this case.

The family eventually finds the staircase that leads to the dormitory. They continue to walk past classmates and Jimin observes how no one seems to know which door leads to their dorm, but when they approach a door that isn’t theirs, it won’t open. They also watch as some students go up to a door that does let them in. Perhaps there’s something magic deciding the rooms.

So Jimin tries any door that he can. Eventually, one door glows in front of them and allows them to open it. As Jimin steps into the room he’ll be living in for the school year, he notices one half of the room set up, with the rest of the room being barren and empty.

The one part of the room that is set up has a large, queen-sized bed with princess curtains along the edges, hanging from the ceiling. Jimin isn’t sure how, but there’s a small body of water in the corner, a tiny fountain hanging from the wall. There’s a walkway from the bed to the fountain made up of stone, while the rest of the floor has a dark blue linoleum texture. The walls around it cave in, making the room itself look like a cave. The ceiling has vines dangling from it. Maybe that’s why the doors glow and the door has to allow the student in, the room changes based on who is going to live in it.

But that means that side of the room is Jimin’s, and it doesn’t make any sense. Jimin takes another step closer inside and finds himself stepping on a section of seashells, separating the floor of his part of the room from the rest of it. The closer Jimin steps to his side of the room, he notices that there’s a door in the middle of the rock on the walls, squinting through the glass he can see a balcony lined with a wooden fence and a marble stone lining. A blue light emanates from the fountain, reflecting the water onto the cave-like walls. Something about it feels too mystical for a lowly human like Jimin to live in.

Jimin’s parents step in with the luggage Jimin couldn’t carry alone. They seem just as in-awe of the room around them.

“Well, I’m sure you won’t hate sleeping in here.” his dad jokes, “You won’t need a white noise machine with that water running.”

Jimin thinks about spending the night in this room and feels a sense of peace. The running water is very calming and soothing, and the room seems to be naturally quite dark. He may actually have more trouble leaving his bed and waking up though.

“Remember, we’ll be just a phone call away, alright?” his mother smiles, “Please, call us right away if you need anything.”

“I’ll call you every week, alright.” Jimin promises.

His parents slowly back out of the room and leave Jimin to unpack everything himself. They know he can be particular about where to put stuff, so he actually does appreciate him letting him do that himself, in peace.

He finds that the wall on the side of the room closest to the door has knobs to hang his clothes up, and a rock-like drawer to put anything that can’t fit in the hangers. He notices a bird cage on the bedside drawer as well. He did hear that the school allows pets, maybe the room thought of Jimin as a bird owner for some reason. That actually doesn’t seem too bad, having a little friend like that. He’s never had a pet before, but this room seems to be giving him signs towards a specific kind.

Jimin sits down on the bed and is surprised by the soft, silk and linen texture of the sheets, and the softness of the mattress itself. The room really wanted to pamper him into staying, or at least to see the school year through before deciding whether it’s too weird and to transfer. This room feels like it was made for a princess, he starts feeling as though the room must’ve mistaken him for someone else.

The other half of the room begins taking shape. The floor becomes a smooth, grey stone and a circular bed forms near the wall. Stone snakes come up from the group and surround most of the bed, leaving a space large enough for someone to crawl inside. White, stone pillars grow from the ground on each of the corners of the other half. The bed seems to have the same silk and linen textures of Jimin’s, but it forms a fancy design in shiny, gold accents. Multiple statues take shape as well, some of them being birds. Maybe this room simply has a fascination with birds. Another, larger statue forms near the wall furthest from the door, a woman with snake hair and a snake body holding a baby with snake hair.

It hits Jimin. He’s rooming with the child of Medusa. Fear fills his stomach, causing a strange taste in his mouth and a lump in his throat. He knows he shouldn’t judge someone on their parents, but the fear of waking up in the morning and accidentally making eye contact with his roommate suddenly became a fear he never knew existed.

The door opens and a familiar face walks in. He and Hoseok look at each other and the fear washes away. Even though he doesn’t know Hoseok that much, he can tell he’s someone who would be very careful to not hurt anyone.

“Oh, hey!” Hoseok says with a large smile on his face. He closes the door behind him and walks over to the circular bed. He stops in his tracks when he sees the giant statue. The smile drops, and so do his bags. “Why did they make this?”

“I don’t know, the room just forms on its own.” Jimin says.

To Jimin’s surprise, he sees a more violent side of his roommate, maybe he should still be afraid… because he watches as the gorgon opens his bag and takes out a tennis racket. He takes a running start at the statue and swings at it with so much strength and might, that the head of the mother comes clean off, screaming as he takes the swing. The head smashes against the wall and breaks into a million pieces, and the rest of the statue crumbles with it. The shards disappear into the floor, fading out of existence, as though the statue never even existed.

Hoseok stands there, shoulders going up and down as he breathes in and out. Jimin stays in place, terrified to even blink.

He turns around and must’ve seen the terror in Jimin’s eyes, because his body relaxes and he sets the racket down. “I’m sorry…” he sits on the bed, “I don’t want to get into too much detail because, well, we don’t really know each other like that, at least not yet, but I… don’t have a great relationship with my mom and, well, it kinda felt like that statue was mocking me.”

Jimin just nods, “I get it, I mean, I don’t get it , but I… it’s just understandable.”

Hoseok perks his head up again and smiles, “But this is fun, being roommates with one of my boyfriend’s online friends.”

Jimin chokes on his own spit, “Boyfriends? One of ?”

If Jimin could see past Hoseok’s sunglasses, he would’ve noticed his eyes going wide, but he does notice the blush developing on his cheeks. “Oh, I uh… forgot that he never told you.” he looks back at him, “Just tell him that I told you and that I’m sorry. He was just worried about how a stranger on the internet would react to finding out they’ve been interacting with a queer.”

“The feeling was mutual.” Jimin confesses, “I didn’t tell SU-- Yoongi that I’m genderfluid because I was scared of how he would react…”

Hoseok smiles again, “It’s actually kind of funny, I’m closer with Yoongi and Namjoonie is closer to Agust D, we’re all dating, well, except for Yoongi and Agust D, of course.”

“Agust D?” Jimin asks, that’s a name he’s never heard before.

Hoseok freezes again, “Why do I feel like dumping every piece of information I know onto you?”

“I kinda just have that aura, I guess.” Jimin says. Now that he’s heard someone voice it, he’s noticing that everyone has just sorta trusted him with everything, told him everything.

“Well, maybe you’ll meet Agust D some day. Don’t let him fool you, he seems scary and intimidating, and I have seen him brutally beat someone with chopsticks, but that guy had it coming.” Hoseok says as if it’s a completely normal piece of information to drop. Jimin hopes that he never actually do meet this Agust D.

Seokjin finishes setting up his study desk and takes a look at the rest of the room. One half of it is still empty and barren, and there’s a certain monster he has in mind that he prays won’t be his roommate. Everything else is coming together quite nicely though. The room has no windows so far, which he’s grateful for, he won’t have to cover any when the sun comes out. He has a large, black and pink coffin against one of the walls, which is cushioned inside, and is actually quite comfortable, he might add. The room must’ve also picked up on some of his hobbies, because he has his own mini-kitchen in the corner closest to the door, and a dark red couch in front of a giant TV screen and multiple game consoles.

He sets his guitar on the stand created by the room and sighs before sitting down in the chair. As he settles down, a rumble starts through the room. His roommate must be coming in. He looks over to the other side of the room and is instantly confused, the room seems to be struggling with what to make of it.

The color palette is changing from darker colors to lighter colors, and the decorations seem to want to be more Victorian, but another, more contemporary aesthetic keeps wanting to shine through. Eventually, he watches as the bed forms, a nice, king-sized bed with a large back, many pillows, and soft-looking sheets. However, it’s still struggling on the colors. It’s going back and forth between white and blue, and black and orange. The sheets finally decide on something, though it leans more towards the darker side. The sheets form a leaf-like pattern with white, dark grey and red. Outside of the bed, the only thing that seems to not have trouble forming is a nice bookshelf and a wooden wardrobe. The desk forming has a dark blue cloth over it and a Victorian-style lamp. One window forms, with light grey curtains, which Seokjin is thankful for, because then he can close them. A rug takes form in front of the bed, with a brown and white palette and a Victorian-styled pattern.

Outside of the Victorian-era decor, the other aesthetic comes through too. An electric piano takes shape along one of the walls, along with a modern computer and many speakers, and other music-related tools forming on the desk. A large mirror forms as well, next to the wardrobe. The only thing that stayed the same during the transformation was the dark wooden floor.

The door slams shut almost as soon as it opens. Two monsters stand against the door, heavily breathing.

Are they sharing that side of the room? Is that why the room was struggling to form? Seokjin wonders.

The taller monster is obviously a dragon. However, Seokjin is having trouble distinguishing the other. He has long, black hair, which contrasts with his pale skin, accented by visible pitch black veins. He wears a dark, baggy jacket over a white t-shirt and dark, ripped jeans. He wears many gold accessories. Poking through his messy hair are two, long, janky and pointed horns, just as black as his veins.

The two monsters open their eyes after catching their breath, and Seokjin notices the horned monster has one black eye with a striking white pupil, and the other is purely black, and has a black scar across it. He watches as the monster scans the room and groans.

“He just had to affect the room as well.” he grumbles as he steps towards the bed.

“It’s only fair.” the dragon says.

“Are you two sharing this room?” Seokjin cuts into their conversation.

The dragon turns towards him, then back at the other side of the room, then back to him, “Oh, no. This room obviously isn’t made for me…” he glances towards the bookshelf, “Although maybe my room would have a bookshelf like that too.”

The other monster sits down on the bed, “Hm. Surprisingly comfortable.”

“I don’t understand.” Seokjin says.

The two monsters look at each other, then back to him, “Is it okay if I stay here for the night? I promise I’ll go and find my own room in the morning.” the dragon asks.

“Why?”

“There’s a crazy mob outside.” The other monster answers, “My Joonie here is quite a celebrity.” he smirks to the taller man, still standing near the door, “Rap Monster, stupid name but great music.” he laughs.

“Rap Monster?” he notices the dragon cringe at the name, “Like that monster musician.”

“Yeah, yeah, he gets all the credit, but I was around too!” the other turns over and lays on his stomach, feet kicking in the air as he holds his chin on the top of his hands, “Name’s Agust D, they/he, but I’m pretty much comfortable with anything.”

“Seokjin, he/him.” he answers, “Son of Dracula.”

“Well I’ll be damned, a room full of important people, huh?” Agust D’s smirk widens.

“Namjoon, he/him.” The dragon says, “Please only call me Namjoon, I want to retire my old rap name.”

“Should’ve done that earlier, but I’ll take it now.” Agust D says.

“I was 13!” Namjoon argues, “Let me live!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Agust D leans the top half of their body down and turns onto their back, still looking at the dragon, “c’mere.” They make grabby hands towards Namjoon. The dragon rolls his eyes, but smiles and walks over. As soon as he gets close to the bed, Agust D grabs onto him and yanks him down on the bed.

Seokjin steps closer to his coffin, he should probably go to sleep soon, be well rested for the first day of school tomorrow, but his roommate seems… odd, stranger than he expected.

He clears his throat the moment he hears a small whimper coming from the bed.

“Right, sorry!” Namjoon sits up straight, “I’m so sorry!”

In contrast, Agust D groans and slowly pushes himself up, “Is that coffin soundproof?”

“I don’t think so.” Seokjin answers, tone as flat as possible. “Are you two…?”

“And what about it?”

“Nothing.” Seokjin says, “I’m gay too.”

“Of course you are.” Agust D chuckles, “You’re a vampire, you’re all queer.”

He wants to argue, but they’re not entirely wrong.

Right as he opens his coffin, he hears Agust D say one more thing, “Oh, before you call it a night. If you see someone different in this bed in the morning, don’t say anything.” He turns to the monster with furrowed brows, “It’s a long story.” he says before he slams back down onto the large assortment of pillows.

He looks at Namjoon for answers. The dragon just covers his face with his hands, “I promise, I’ll be gone in the morning.” he lays back down. Seokjin watches as Agust D instantly wraps their arm around him and pulls themselves closer until they lay on top of him. He steps into his coffin and closes it on himself, slowly drifting off to sleep.

Chapter Text

Namjoon turns as he slowly wakes up. He feels the weight of someone else on top of him and remembers where he is. He opens his eyes to a dark room, the curtains covering the window. He can see the sun setting through the sliver between the curtains. He wants to open them to wake himself up a bit more, he doesn’t want to hurt the vampire in the same room. He looks down to the man at his chest and sees that the horns are gone, his strawberry blond hair has returned, and his veins aren’t as visible against his pale, pink-tinted skin.

He tries his best to get out of bed without waking Yoongi up. He starts taking in more stimuli from the room and hears the faint sound of a pan sizzling on a stovetop. He turns to the corner he remembers seeing a kitchen and finds the vampire turning off the stove before pouring whatever food he’s making onto a plate.

He tries to sneak his way to the door.

“Leaving without saying goodbye?” Seokjin says, just loud enough to get his attention, but not too loud to wake his sleeping roommate.

“I have to find my room before everyone else wakes up. I’m afraid I’ll spend the entire school year being trampled.” he whispers back. He turns to Yoongi, still sound asleep in his bed, “When he wakes up, tell him he passed out while we were getting chased, and I brought him to his room safely.”

“What is he?” Seokjin asks, and he seems completely unaware of how personal of a question that is.

“We don’t know.” Namjoon answers honestly, “Yoongi doesn’t know anything about Agust D, and we want to keep it that way.”

Seokjin hums as he takes a bite of his food, “You dating this one too?”

“Yeah.” Namjoon answers, “I met Agust D before I met him. After I met Yoongi, Agust D made it very clear to me that I cannot speak about him when Yoongi is around.” he says, “I don’t know why he can’t know about the other, but…”

“I’ll try my best.” Seokjin says, “Can’t guarantee I won’t slip up though.”

Namjoon glances back at the sleeping man before reaching for the doorknob, leaving into the purple-bricked hallway. He takes the time to actually notice the school, not being able to properly take it in before. He hears the click of his shoes against the hardwood floors of the halls, and the plantlife lining the walls, vines going along the bricks and certain plants hanging from pots on the ceiling. He starts to wonder what his room will look like, if Yoongi’s room being influenced by his and Agust D’s interest is any indicator of how the rooms work. He hopes he has a bookcase like Agust D has. Though, it seems like the room didn’t have any idea of what his partners exactly are, since Seokjin’s vampire traits showed in how the room looked, but nothing stood out as an obvious indicator for Yoongi’s side.

He’s grateful that the hallways are cleared due to everyone else still sleeping, but rushes to find his door because he knows that others will be waking up soon as well. He’ll have to get used to school at night, considering how much he thrived in sunlight, maybe it was just his cold-bloodedness that needed the heat, but he’s sure he can find some supplement in the meantime, he’ll get his time in the sunlight during breaks.

He tries door after door, waiting for one to budge open. He finally puts his hand on a door, fortunately near the hallway of Agust D’s room, that seems to let him turn, but won’t open. It’s probably piecing itself together, though maybe his room will take less time than them waiting outside of Yoongi’s, due to that room having to decide for two people.

He is right as it doesn’t take long before he gets the door to his room open. He steps inside and sees a dark room on one side, but the other side lit bright with a large, floor-to-ceiling window with light curtains shining onto a large, king-sized bed with a simple covering. The bed is simple, but the rest of the room isn’t. He sees a dark red couch on the wall opposite of the window, on the wall next to it, a desk with a computer and a keyboard, stuff for him to make music with. Paintings line the walls, all of which he recognizes as paintings he rather liked at the different museums he’s visited. The room recreated paintings? If he ever got the chance to see the Mona Lisa enough to like it, would it have appeared in this room? He steps onto the beige tile with an almost intricate design carved into it. His closet seems to be in the wall, with white sliding doors. On the bedside table, there is a small bonsai tree. Outside of the beige and whites of the floor and closet doors, the rest of the room is a combination of blues, greens, reds and yellows. The walls form created wall-paper on itself with a cloud-like design. But, the most important part, he notices a large bookshelf.

As he makes his way over to the bed, he looks at the opposite side of the room, a little brighter due to the faint sunlight coming in through his window. The wall-paper on the other half of the room is green with vertical, white lines. Their closet is also in the wall, but their doors were regular doors with handles, with it being a two-door system. There is a violin hanging on the wall. The floor on the other side is a dark brown, and it seems to be designed to look like dirt. They have one painting on the wall, right above the bed, which is round, with a fabric border, the actual bed part being sunken in, with an opening on one side of the bed, it looks like a dog bed that is meant for a humanoid. There’s a rug in front of the bed, and the bed is a dark red color, much like his couch. There are a few trees in the room as well, which fascinates Namjoon even more than the kitchen and TV in Seokjin’s room.

It seems that the faint sunlight coming into the room is waking up his roommate, tossing and turning in the bed before they slowly sit up. They rub their eyes with their furry hands, with long, dark nails curling into their palms. They yawn and stretch, showing their sharp teeth.

“What time is it?” his deep voice says with a big of a growl, clearly still tired.

“Almost 6 PM.” Namjoon answers.

The other monster groans as he sits up, stretching a bit more. Namjoon sees two fluffy ears pop up from his curly, dark brown hair. He opens his eyes wider and Namjoon sees a striking yellow glow come from them, with his room still mostly in shadow. Now that side of the room makes more sense, and causes more confusion as he looks back to Yoongi’s room for any signs of what he could be.

It’s when they look at each other for a while that his roommate’s jaw drops and he lunges forward, a strained gasp coming from him. “You’re Rap Monster?” he practically screams.

He sighs, he’s gonna get tired of repeating this, “It’s just Namjoon. Kim Namjoon. I’m retiring that name, I’m not here as a celebrity, I’m here as a student.”

His roommate still stares at him, “Oh, Jungkook is going to freak out!” he starts pacing the room, “They’re gonna lose their mind when they see you!”

“Jungkook?” Jungkook knows who I am? “They’ll be shocked to see me ?” Now it’s his turn to sound starstruck.

“They’re your biggest fan!” his roommate says, “They talk about you all the time!” he reaches his furry hand out, “The name’s Kim Taehyung, or Taehyung Kim, I don’t know, I’m still getting used to having to use my name in Western order.” he says.

Namjoon shakes his hand and makes a mental note of how soft the fur is, but he doesn’t say anything, it would be highly inappropriate.

The conversation is interrupted by a scream. Taehyung covers his ears, clearly being more affected by it with his hypersensitive hearing, and the two look up to see the sound coming from a skull-shaped alarm in their room. The speaker sounds as well.

“Welcome students to the official first day of Monster High!” Headmistress Bloodgood’s voice comes through the speaker, “We have opened the creepateria for breakfast, and we will go through the rest of orientation after everyone has been fed.”

Namjoon looks down at the clothes he slept in, cursing at himself for not changing into his pajamas, though it makes sense, he wasn’t in the clearest mind when he went to sleep. He rushes to his closet, putting away the rest of his clothes from his bag, and quickly changes into new clothes to start the day.

Taehyung does the same, changing into a red sweater over a white flannel. He puts an earring on one of his ears. Meanwhile, Namjoon changes into a green sweater with white accents over a white collared shirt and a tie.

The two leave the room, Namjoon bracing to be chased just like he was yesterday. To his relief, it seems as though everyone is too hungry and tired to notice him. He makes his way through the hallway and stops right in front of Yoongi’s door, telling Taehyung to go on ahead of him.

The door opens and out walks the short man he was hoping to see. He’s wearing a brown blazer over a white button-up shirt with a black tie. He’s wearing a dark blue cap and hoop earrings. He’s wearing the dark green pants that Hoseok hates because they’re a horrible texture, according to him.

“Hobi’s not gonna like your pants.” Namjoon says as the two make their way down the hall together.

“Well, I wanted to wear something nicer for orientation.” Yoongi answers, “Especially since I’ll have to try extra hard to impress everyone around here, I clearly do not belong.”

“Don’t say that. Everyone belongs everywhere.” Namjoon says, though he knows that Yoongi does belong, or at least Agust D does. He looks back to the door, “Is Seokjin not joining us?”

“He’s already eating breakfast.” Yoongi replies, “He says he might as well use that kitchen. If breakfast is too… overstimulating, I might just ask him to make me breakfast every day for the year, eat it in our room instead.”

The students leave the dorm towers and enter the main school area, making their way downstairs and to the main foyer again. They enter the large, two-story room that holds the cafeteria, or the creepateria, as the headmistress called it.

They make their way through the lunchline, or breakfastline together. Once through, they look around to find a place to sit. Luckily, a hand comes up to wave them down, Hoseok sits at a table near one of the windows, with Jimin sitting there as well. The two join them at the table.

“It’s really loud in here,” Yoongi says after eating a few bites, “I don’t think any room is meant to have this many beings in it.”

But Namjoon is distracted by how Jimin is looking at Yoongi, like he’s trying to find something in particular.

“Yoongi,” Jimin says, “do you have any idea why we’re here?” Yoongi hums in response, “don’t you find it weird that we seem to be the only humans here?”

There’s silence across the table.

“You’re human?” Namjoon asks. Yoongi didn’t tell him and Hoseok about that.

Jimin nods, “That’s why I’m so confused.”

“I don’t know either.” Yoongi answers. It pains Namjoon to know and not be able to say anything, but there’s the possibility that informing him could cause more anxiety than him thinking he’s human at a monster school.

“Maybe you both have some monster connection and don’t know it?” Hoseok suggests. Namjoon wonders if it’s obvious to the other two that he’s hiding something, or if it only seems obvious because Namjoon knows as much as he does. At least about Yoongi. Maybe Jimin is completely human, he doesn’t look out of the ordinary in any way.

“My only monster connection is you two.” Yoongi says.

“My mom said she’s friends with Headmistress Bloodgood, but I don’t know if I want to have the answer be some form of nepotism.”

Namjoon stays quiet the entire time. He’s always been quiet in these conversations, he doesn’t know if he truly has the heart or confidence to lie.

Breakfast doesn’t take long, being thirty minutes. The alarm screams again and the announcement calls for everyone to meet in the Clawditorium. They go out to the hallways again and through a door into an area in the center of the school building, an auditorium. Namjoon can’t help but laugh to himself, he wasn’t aware that the school would come up with a bunch of strange names to call their regular school establishments, but it does add to the uniqueness of this experience.

He, Yoongi, Hoseok and Jimin sit next to each other in one of the fewer-back rows. After everyone is seated, Headmistress Bloodgood walks onto the stage.

“Welcome,” she begins, “to the grand opening of Monster High!” There's applause coming from the audience, so Namjoon politely joins in, “This is a great accomplishment. We are glad to be known as the first ever all-monster school.” He can’t help but notice how Yoongi brings his hand up to his mouth, and begins to knaw on his fingernails. Namjoon gently takes hold of his hand and brings it back down. “Now, I will hand the mic off to our student body president, let me introduce Jungkook Jeon.” She bows and extends her arm to the side as she leaves the stage.

Taking her place, is a young monster made of a mix-match of different bodies. They have bolts on the side of their neck that shine with the lights of the stage, their eyes seem to shine as well, in a way that is atypical of an undead type of monster. Their black hair is short, and there seems to be more accessories shining in the light on their face. They appear to be as dressed-up for the first day of school as everyone else, with their red and gold tie and blue button-up shirt, but they’re also wearing a fuzzy hoodie.

“Hello!” they say into the microphone, “I’m Jungkook Jeon, student body president and one of the founders of Monster High!” There’s another round of applause for the monster. “To start off, we will have regular breaks to return home, such as Fall break, Winter break and Spring break. We will also have a dance during this semester, and a big dance at the end of the year.”

Most of the orientation presentation is going through certain events that will happen throughout the school year. Most of it aligns with what high school would be like in the human world, and how the day would be about getting to know the teachers and signing up for extracurriculars.

Leaving the auditorium, each student is given a piece of paper with their locker number on them. Jimin reads their paper to head to locker 13 . They find themselves separating from Yoongi and Hoseok immediately, as Hoseok sighs and reads his locker number as 115 , having to go up to the second floor to get to his locker, and Yoongi moving to the other end of campus to get to locker 93 . Namjoon reaches his locker first, with locker 7 .

As Jimin opens their locker and starts putting in the essentials, and thinking of ways to decorate it as the school year goes on, two other figures approach similar lockers that catch their eye. One has broad shoulders and is wearing a dark red cardigan, and they notice pointed ears poking out of his fluffy, black hair. The other is Jungkook. The mix-match of materials takes a stop one locker away, at locker 15 . Jimin’s breath gets caught in their throat at the simple thought of being just one locker away from the monster they’ve heard so much about the past year.

The vampire, on the other hand, does not look pleased as he opens his locker on the other wall of the hall.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” he says.

Jungkook turns around the moment they hear him speak, turning at the speed of light to stare at the vampire with wide eyes. They’re a lot more… soft than Jimin thought they’d be, in their features that is.

Jungkook seems just as annoyed as the other monster on the other side of the hall, “Just my luck.” they say.

“Perhaps Headmistress Bloodgood did this on purpose, force us to be around each other more than we already have to be.” The vampire says, arms crossed across his chest.

Jimin tries their best to ignore the bickering happening between the two monsters as they finish setting up their locker, taking their bag and sneaking their way between the two and down the hall, on their way to the grand foyer again to see the clubs and extracurricular activities available, and to get to know their schedule and meet their future teachers.

They pass through the different booths providing information about the after school activities. They don’t find any of the sports teams interesting, they’ve never been much of a sports person anyway. The most they did was taekwondo, but they don’t see any booths for any sort of martial arts clubs. They are a little tempted by the cheerleading team, or the fearleading team, as the banner of their table reads.

There also aren't any extracurriculars that catch their eye too. That is, until they walk past a table with a werewolf standing behind it, one that Jimin can’t decipher the human-school equivalent for, which does interest them. They pause in front of a table reading the Ghoul-Wraith Alliance and look at the pamphlets on the table.

“Hello!” the werewolf greets them, “I’m Taehyung, he/they/vim!” vi reaches out vir furry hand for Jimin to shake, which they do, “Jungkook should be here any moment to answer any of your questions, but they’re the one who came up with this club.”

“What is it, exactly?” Jimin asks, trying to sound as genuinely curious as possible instead of possibly passive aggressive, as they pick up a pamphlet and open it up. Though, the pamphlet seems to answer their question anyway.

“The Ghoul-Wraith Alliance, a safe space for queer peers and monsters of all kinds to chat and interact.”

“Oh!” it hits them, “Like the gay-straight alliance ! Alright, now I get it.” they chuckle lightly to themselves, “Well, it’s nice to know we have something like this here. When and where exactly do you all meet?”

“Those are questions for Kookie!” Taehyung laughs, “Where the hell are they?” they whisper, a slight growl in their voice.

“My locker is right next to theirs.” Jimin replies, “They were fighting with a tall vampire when I made my way over here.”

Taehyung sighs, “My father most definitely put their lockers close to each other just to see what would happen.” he says as he bites on his chipped claws, “Well, Jungkook likes Fridays, so I’m gonna take a guess that we’re meeting on Fridays.”

“I’d like to join.” Jimin says with a smile, “I’m Jimin, I’m genderfluid. At this moment, I use they/them.”

Taehyung smiles, showing his sharp canines, “I’m agender.”

The crowd gets quieter, so Jimin turns their head to see Jungkook making their way to the table. They make eye-contact and the monster smiles at them, picking up the pace and taking a stop right behind the table, next to Taehyung.

“Hello!” They say, “Sorry I’m late, thanks for helping me out, Tae.” they say to the werewolf, then turn their attention back to Jimin.

“They were just wondering when we’re meeting up.” Taehyung says, gesturing to Jimin.

“Fridays, at 5 AM.” Jungkook responds, “Glad to know that we’re gonna be getting some monsters in this club.”

Jimin tries not to let their uneasiness show in their behavior, keeping a smile on their face as they nod, “Yeah, yeah… we had a GSA at my old school, but I didn’t really feel safe enough to join it.”

Jungkook keeps a smile on their face as well, “I was excited when I learned this was a thing! I knew I needed to start one here.”

“My old, human school didn’t have one.” Taehyung says.

Another pair of footsteps approach, and Jimin sees Jungkook’s smile falter as they glare at the being approaching. Jimin turns to see the same vampire they saw before making his way to the table as well.

“Are you following me?”

“Don’t be so full of yourself, but I know that a world outside of yourself is hard to fathom when you’ve only been alive for a year.” The vampire responds, “I’m just here for the gay club.”

“You’re not invited.”

“Oh, so a gay man isn’t allowed in your gay club just because you don’t like him? How inclusive.”

Jungkook grumbles in response, “Fine.” they shove a pamphlet into his hands, “We meet on Fridays at 5 AM. Now, go.”

The vampire rolls his eyes, “You’re such a pouty baby.”

“I could say the same about you.”

“Alright, enough.” Taehyung stands up from vir chair, “I don’t wanna deal with this for the next three years, so either work it out or stop talking.”

“I’ll be happy to.” the vampire says, “When they apologize.”

“Why should I apologize? I didn’t do anything to you!” Jungkook argues.

As the conversation gets more and more heated, Jimin finds themselves subconsciously backing away. It isn’t until they bump into someone that they notice that they’ve been doing so. They profusely apologize to the monster they just bumped into as they make their way through the crowd and away from the increasingly explosive confrontation.

They simply make their way to the staircase and up to Headmistress Bloodgood’s office to receive their schedule for the school year. They see the line reading to the office and wait, taking in their surroundings of the pinkish bricks making up the walls, with the more purple bricks on the lower third of the wall, the pillars with green scales on them, and lean forward a little bit to see the lower floor over the purple barricades of the second-floor hallway into the foyer. They didn’t expect the school to look exactly like this, an almost normal school building with small altercations. They take a second to look up as well, looking into the night sky through the windows on the ceiling of the foyer. They pull at the sleeves of the dark green cardigan they wrapped around their shoulders, their nerves on how to face Headmistress Bloodgood and debating whether or not to tell her that she has made a mistake, that they don’t belong there.

When they finally reach the door, they’re called inside, entering the room while a skeleton leaves. They try not to let themselves stare at the monster for too long, not wanting to make their human-ness obvious to those behind him.

They stand up straight the moment the door closes behind them, too scared to walk further into the office. Headmistress Bloodgood’s body turns in her chair while her head sits on her desk, her arms calling for Jimin to walk further into the room.

“Come on in, Mr. Park, I don’t bite.” she says, then her eyes glance to the other side of the room, “She might though.”

Jimin turns their attention to a large, blue horse laying down on the floor near the windows. They take a deep breath and step further into the room, they feel as though they aren’t breathing.

Bloodgood slides a piece of paper across her desk and expects Jimin to pick it up, which they do. They look and see that they have been given their schedule throughout the rest of the school year.

First Period: Clawculus. Second period: Dance. Third period: Clawstronomy. Fourth period: Choir. Fifth period: Psychology. Sixth period: Phys-ick. Seventh period: Oceanography. Eighth period: Study Howl.

“I’m glad to know you’ll be joining us, your mother has said nothing but kind words about you.” Bloodgood says.

The words, “You made a mistake.” get caught in Jimin’s throat. They simply nod in response instead. “Thank you, ma’am.” they stutter out.

Bloodgood smiles, “I hope you have a good time here, looking at your past records, I’d say you could get a spot in our Student Council if you wish to. You show a lot of promise.”

The smile on Jimin’s face feels forced, but it must be misread as genuine when Bloodgood waves them off, and tells them to get to know the building and their future teachers.

Hoseok takes a step inside the classroom that will hold his first period, which is a music class. He feels at home seeing the instruments lining the walls, along with the computers connected to some speakers, and a few amps in another corner. He looks towards the white board at the front of the class and sees a taller man in a dark cape, a mask covering half of his face. There is a sense of relaxation throughout his body, seeing another monster that still feels the need to hide their features, even when they have been liberated and can be themselves in public.

He is about to leave and head out to feel out his next class, dread filling his stomach at the thought of it, but two figures walking into the room distract him long enough, and gives him another way to procrastinate figuring out his next class.

“Yoongi, Joonie!” he runs over to bring the two of them into a hug, “You’ll be in this class too? Thank goodness, I’d feel lonely.”

“Yeah, this is our second period.” Namjoon responds.

Hoseok frowns, “Oh, this is my first…” so he will feel lonely.

As he looks to Yoongi, who looks away from him the moment their eyes meet, though he looks sad about something as well, possibly the same thing. He notices the strange blinking that he tends to do from time to time, and then he wordlessly moves to one of the pianos in the room. He closes his eyes and begins to play.

It always fascinated him. How he can just drop everything, like he has a hypnotic draw to any piano that enters his line of sight, and play so effortlessly. It seems like everyone else in the room feels the same, as their other peers have stopped their conversations to turn their attention to the music being played. Both Hoseok and Namjoon move further into the room, getting closer to their boyfriend, who is so entranced by the piano that he doesn’t notice them getting closer.

Once he finishes his go-to melody he always plays on the piano when he has nothing else to play, applause comes from all sides of the room. It seems to snap him back to reality as he looks around at his peers. He politely nods his head in a slight bow. Hoseok does find it strange, as he looks to the teacher, that he is the only one to not clap.

“Beautiful, as always.” Namjoon smiles.

“And the song was nice too.” Hoseok chuckles to himself, proud to see the pink tint appear on Yoongi’s cheeks at the comment.

“Shut up.” he says as he scratches behind his ear.

He notices the teacher making his way to where they are, “Quite a beautiful melody there, young man.” he says.

“Thank you, sir, I wrote it myself a while ago.” Yoongi responds.

“Interesting,” he says, “I swear I’ve heard that melody somewhere before, deep in the woods of Scotland, years ago…”

Hoseok freezes.

“I’ve never been to Scotland.” Yoongi replies, “It doesn’t seem entirely impossible that other people have come up with similar arrangements…”

“Yeah,” Hoseok cuts in, “I knew a pianist back in Scotland, and he had a similar style.” He can’t have Yoongi finding out, at least not this way.

“I didn’t know you’ve been to Scotland before.” Yoongi says. Shit.

He decides to laugh the comment off, “Yeah, I was nine, I don’t remember most of it…”

“Nine years old…” the teacher whispers, “how horrid.” not loud enough for the others, but enough for Hoseok to know what he means, and he knows that the teacher knows exactly what he was in Scotland for.

“Yoongi is a very talented pianist, and quite skilled with the guitar and drums, as well.” Hoseok tries his best to change the subject away to what was on the teacher’s mind.

“May I get a last name, Yoongi?”

“Min, Yoongi Min.” he answers.

Finally, the teacher’s shoulders relax. Hoseok doesn’t quite get why he needed to know his last name, but his answer seems to have eased his nerves.

“I’m the Phantom of the Opera, teacher of this class.” His mask starts making sense to Hoseok, then his mind goes to the worst case scenario as he processes how he seems to know a certain area hidden in the forests of Scotland.

As the teacher walks away, welcoming the three of them as his new students, Namjoon turns to Hoseok, “What was that about?”

Hoseok hums in response, still trying his best to keep his composure, “There was a big riot in Scotland back in the day, one of the first signs of the revolution.” he decides to tell them.

“And you were there?”

He nods, “I lived with my aunt and uncle in Scotland for a while.” He keeps a smile on his face, “I don’t remember most of it, though.” He looks down at his schedule, “Well, I should probably see what my second period is all about, I’ll, uh… see you two at lunch?”

There’s an awkward tension in the air as he leaves the room. He’s never had to lie that intensively to either of them before, but it’s for their own good, and a bit for his own as well. Knowing that one of his teachers was a victim of that same mad man who took him will make it harder for him to continue pretending that it never happened…

It feels as though his body is moving on autopilot as he makes his way to the other side of campus, entering a large room with one floor-to-ceiling mirror and a bar on said mirror. The room still has the purple colors of the rest of the building, but the floors are made of wood instead of linoleum. He tries not to look at his reflection in the mirror.

“Hey, Hobi.” a voice breaks him out of his blank state as he turns to where he heard it. Jimin stands up from being kneeled over, tying a change of shoes as he notices the pair of sneakers that are no longer on his feet, “I guess I’ll get to see this Hope on the Streets in action after all.” he says with a smile.

“I told you, I don’t dance anymore.” Hoseok responds, “I tried to ask Headmistress Bloodgood to change my schedule, but I don’t think she listened…”

“Oh, come on,” Jimin rolls their eyes, “I’m sure these folks would be the last to judge you if you’re a little rusty.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

Jimin turns to the mirror and walks onto the dance floor, “Maybe you just need some inspiration.” they say before their feet begin to move.

It’s a very different style than what Hoseok used to do, their body moves a lot more fluidly, not being popped into place like what he usually does. It looks like their feet barely touch the ground, like they’re moving in the air. This is the second time Hoseok notices everyone stop to admire one of their peers as they perform, and Jimin seems just as oblivious towards it as Yoongi did.

Once they stop moving, catching their breath, they finally notice how everyone has stopped to watch them. A more mellow and polite applause takes over the room and Jimin bows, a lot more dramatically than Yoongi did. Their shoulders seemingly touch their thighs as they bend the upper half of their body down, one arm outstretched. It’s clear that they are rather confident in their skill.

“Well, show me what you’ve got.” Jimin teasingly challenges Hoseok, still sounding a little out of breath.

Before Hoseok can think through taking Jimin up on their challenge, he finds his body moving towards the dance floor as his bag drops off his shoulders. His movements are a little more erratic, but mostly due to his own surprise at his body moving without him wanting it to. As his brain catches up to his body, he starts taking more control, making his body move more aligned to actual choreography. He hasn’t danced in so long, and the smile on Jimin’s face when he finally catches it in the mirror he’s been avoiding makes him forget why he stopped.

“‘I don’t dance anymore.’” Jimin mocks his voice. He doesn’t know how they convinced him to.

Seokjin leaves the gymnasium as soon as he enters. The moment he catches the ugly mix-match of body parts, he turns on his heels. He knows where the gym is. He’s seen inside of it. He doesn’t even know why he’s being forced to go through the same orientation as the rest of the student body, he was involved in the creation of the school, he already knows everything about it.

Though, his avoidance is in vain as the speakers screech, with an announcement from Headmistress Bloodgood about gathering back into the creepateria for lunch. He groans, knowing that the doors wouldn’t let him back into his room to eat, being forced to eat with everyone else.

He thinks he may have some peace, as long as he can sit alone, but once he gets his tray full, he notices that no table is left empty. There is, however, a hand waving him down. A hand that reflects the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. He knows he can’t pretend to not notice, he knows that walking away would be ruder than approaching them.

All hope of peace is gone completely when he sees that the monster sitting next to Namjoon is the same one from the previous day. It’s a shame, he actually found himself liking Yoongi a lot more, even if Agust D looks more obviously monstrous.

Either way, he sits down across the table from the two of them.

“How has today been for you?” Namjoon tries to strike up a conversation.

“I share a bunch of classes with my arch nemesis and my locker is right across from them.” Seokjin answers.

The conversation is interrupted by two more monsters sitting down at the table, one Seokjin recognizes being near his locker earlier, the other he simply recognizes because it’s impossible to not know where someone gets a head full of snakes.

“You know they make special Gorgon contacts now, right?” Seokjin says, pointing at the monster’s sunglasses.

“They do?” he says, sounding like he’s caught off-guard, “Where can I find them?”

“I’ll see what I can do, if you want ‘em. They’re a rare and expensive item.” Seokjin says, “My dad’s a powerful figure, I’m sure he can get some for me if I ask.”

“Is Jungkook’s father powerful as well?” the smaller, paler one asks, “I’m only asking because you two seem to really not like each other.”

Seokjin rolls his eyes, “Jungkook’s ‘father’ is a dumb human who accidentally cursed himself with immortality in a failed science experiment. If you ask me, Jungkook is just another experiment to add to his list of failures. But yes, unfortunately, Dr. Frankenstein is a powerful figure as well. I’m honestly shocked that the Monster Parent Association still lets him hang around with us, considering both of his monsters have caused some sort of trouble with the human world.” He points to himself, “Mine, on the other hand, deserves to be a part MPA. Dracula, maybe you’ve heard of him.”

“Yeah, I heard he killed innocent people for nutrients.” Agust D says, voice full of snark and a smartass smirk on their face.

“Oh, yeah, and what exactly did your father do to gain such a reputation?” He’s about to say, ‘That’s right, no one knows who your father is,’ but he stops himself when he notices the dark and intense frown appearing on the demon’s face.

He hears one of the snakes on the Gorgon’s head hiss at him, reaching out in an attempt to bite him, but unable to due to the distance between them.

“Hey, if you can’t take, then don’t dish, alright?” Seokjin says. He can tell that Agust D is biting back the urge to say something more, with their fist tight and bottom lip bruising between their sharper than average teeth. Even with finding new details in their appearance, Seokjin still can’t quite determine what the monster is.

The Gorgon glances down and sees the schedule for the monster next to him, “Why would they put Yoongi in Mad Science, Monster History and Monster Anatomy? He’s too squeamish.”

“What about Yoongi?” the human-passing one speaks up.

Agust D whips his head around, squinting at the guy until his eyes relax, “Jimin?” he eyes him up and down, “Wow, you’re prettier in person.”

“Thank you?” he responds, “Do I know you?”

“Agust D,” they reach their hand out, “I know we haven’t met formally, but I know a lot about you through your messages with Yoongi.”

Jimin’s mouth hangs open, but doesn’t shake his hand, “You’re the one who beat up a man with chopsticks…”

Agust D’s hand drops and they look to the Gorgon, “You told him about that?”

“I didn’t tell them every detail.” he tries to defend himself, “You sit in a room alone with them and then tell me you didn’t infodump, they’ve just got that aura.”

Jimin waves, “Yeah, uh, Hoseok told me about the three-- er, four of you… He, he didn’t mean to, it just slipped out that you’re all dating--”

“Except for Yoongi and Agust D.” Hoseok interrupted.

“Right, except for Yoongi and Agust D… ‘for obvious reasons’ that were never given to me.”

Seokjin is about to speak, but is cut off when the bell screams again and everyone clears out of the creepateria. Fortunately, Seokjin does get a break as he walks to where the skullinary arts class is.

Taehyung walks into a rather small room with a stair-like stage leading to an elevated part of the room. There is a piano in one of the corners of the room, and there’s purple panels on the walls to better soundproof it. They know that they are falling a bit behind on checking out their classrooms throughout this first day, just catching their fourth period after lunch has ended, but they were also part of the founding members, so they don't feel like they are missing anything that they don't already know.

The teacher catches vir eye, with her dark reddish-purple hair and soft skin. The feathers poking out from behind her ears, and the scales on her arms and legs make her identifiable as a modern-day siren. It makes sense that a siren would be hired as the choir teacher.

Although, their attention on her causes them to bump into another classmate as they enter the classroom. Taehyung recognizes their short, black hair and fair skin right away.

“Oh, hey, Jimin, right?” Taehyung greets.

“Oh, yeah, uh… Taehyung! That’s right.” Jimin greets him back with a smile. “Yeah, this is my fourth period… I’m falling a little behind on my orientation.” they let out an awkward laugh.

Taehyung laughs in response, “Mine too, and so am I.” they elbow Jimin and point to the teacher, “Nice of them to give us a siren as our teacher, huh?”

“That’s a siren?” Jimin whispers, but Taehyung isn’t sure if it was rhetorical or not, or if they were supposed to hear them, “I just… I thought they were mermaids.” they say when they notice Taehyung looking at them, seemingly knowing that they heard them with their sensitive hearing.

“Well, there’s two different types of sirens, though most of them have blended into some combination over the years. Multicultural relations and all.” They keep a smile on their face, even if they feel a tinge of generational envy towards the sirens for them mixing by choice rather than what happened to their ancestors.

Their teacher turns to greet more students as they come in through the classroom doors, but he notices her smile drop when she spots the two of them. She tries to build her smile back up as she approaches them.

“Taehyung, I presume?” she asks.

Vi fears that vi may be in trouble for some reason, but vi still nods and answers, “That’s me.”

“Ah, your father has told me a lot about you.” they are definitely in trouble, “Said I should keep my eye on you.” They are certain he said that to all of their teachers. She then turns her attention to Jimin, “And you are?”

“Jimin Park,” they answer, “I, uh… I’m glad to be here. I was part of my old school’s choir, but I don’t know if I can keep up with a siren like I did with my last coach.” they say with an awkwardly wide smile on their face.

“Oh, nonsense, I’m sure you’ll impress me.” she says, “It’s not healthy to hold yourself up to standards that high.”

“Of course, ma’am.” Jimin nods.

“It’s Miss Choi,” she introduces herself, “I hope you two enjoy your time here, though there’s probably going to be a learning curve for all of us.”

Taehyung chuckles, “And a learning curve for you to make it clear when you’re using your powers or not.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she keeps the smile on her face, “I wouldn’t want to forcibly push someone to do something they aren’t comfortable with. I’ll have to be careful with my wording.”

Taehyung says their goodbyes to Miss Choi and Jimin as they head to their next few classes, with their fifth period being another music-centered class. It’s a general music class, and they recognize the Phantom of the Opera as their teacher, someone also close to their father. They feel his eyes on him throughout the entire ten minutes they spend in the classroom, but the stare makes them rush through the class orientation as quickly as possible to get out of the room.

Jungkook stares wide-eyed at the diagram of a body hung up against the wall of the Monster Anatomy class. Outside of the art, music and physical deaducation classes, they are also looking forward to this class, and not just because their father is the teacher. Their father already promised them that they would not play favorites when judging the work of his students, but there’s a part of them that knows that’s a lie. Though, they have been built with a lie detector ability, so it wasn’t hard to deduce that he was lying to them.

They turn and accidentally bump into a smaller monster as they enter the room. Their hand drops onto the floor and they end up bonking heads with theirs when they lean down to try and pick their hand back up.

“Oh, my ghoul, I’m so sorry.” they laugh, bending down again and actually catching their hand this time, sticking it back onto their wrist.

“‘My ghoul?’” the demon responds, or at least Jungkook thinks they’re a demon, they do have long horns and black eyes.

“Yeah, I’m trying to get it to catch on.” Jungkook responds.

“Good luck with that.” they respond, then their one white pupil eyes them up and down, “You’re Jungkook, aren’t you?”

“Did you miss the meeting in the Clawditorium?” Jungkook responds.

“Yeah… I guess I did.” They continue walking into the room, stopping at the diagram, “Hm, that’s another one of your father’s creations, isn’t it?”

Jungkook nods, “Yup, he’s gonna be teaching this class so, he wanted to use one of his tests as an anatomy example.”

“Wait, what?” they say so quickly that Jungkook almost doesn’t catch it.

The sound of their father’s boots hitting the ground rushes over as he stands between him and the demon. Before they can speak though, their father quickly grabs the wrist of the other monster and starts dragging them away. Jungkook takes a step to follow them, but their father turns towards them and says, “Do not follow us.”

So Jungkook stops in their tracks and watches as he drags the demon-like monster into the supply closet, and they can hear him lock the door to it once it closes with them inside. They’re curious to know what they’re talking about on the other side, why their father was in such a rush. So they wait outside.

When the door opens again, the two step out, their father looking more relaxed than he was when he pulled the student in.

Jungkook is about to ask about what happened, but the demon walks to the other side of the room to inspect more of the diagrams hanging on the wall. When they turn back to ask their father, they see that he’s gone too.

So, instead, he approaches the demon again. “Do you know my father?”

He jumps a little bit, and Jungkook notices a bit of the veins on his neck becoming clearer before turning to pitch black again. “Oh, uh, yeah… my father used to work with him.” he answers, “Things didn’t really work out, they had widely different ethics…”

“Really? Who’s your father?” Jungkook asks, “Maybe I know him too.”

“There’s no way you could.” he responds, “My father died before you were created.”

“Oh, I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be, he deserved it.” he looks at Jungkook a few more times before saying, “The name’s Agust D.”

“That’s an interesting name.” Jungkook smiles, “Does the D stand for something?”

“No, at least I don’t think it does.” Agust D responds.

“Oh, okay.” Jungkook turns towards the door of the classroom, “I should go check out my last period. I’ll be seeing you around then, Agust D?”

“Is this your second-to-last period?”

“Yes.”

“Then, we’ll be in this class together.” Agust D smiles in return, but it appears smug and his tone doesn’t sound genuine. Jungkook guesses it’s just his general attitude, and tells themselves to not take it so personally. He’s probably a nice guy under the surface.

So they leave the room and head upstairs. They walk to the far end of the building, to a classroom they know lead to the main balcony of the school for the clawstronomy class. They walk into a room with floor-to-ceiling windows and a glass door making up one of the walls to the outside. They stare, eyes wide at the starry sky outside, mesmerized by the bright dots taking up the sky beyond the tips of the forest.

“It’s beautiful, huh?” a deep and oddly familiar voice comes up from behind them, “Living in the city for so long, I almost forgot what the sky could look like when out in nature.”

Jungkook smiles in agreement, “In my two years of being alive, I haven’t seen it so bright.” he turns to the voice and freezes immediately. Behind them stands a tall, humanoid dragon wearing a comfortable sweater and dimples showing on his face. They can’t breathe, they’ve never experienced an issue with their lungs before, they’ll have to talk to their father about repairing their lungs if they can’t intake enough air inside. But they don’t understand why they’ve froze.

The dragon must have noticed as well, “Jungkook, are you okay?” he asks.

“Ra… Ra…” they’re trying to say the name they know the dragon as.

“Oh, right, it’s Namjoon.” he introduces himself with his real name, “Taehyung did tell me that you would freak out when you see me…” he laughs and covers the bottom half of his face with his hand.

“Y-You, Taehyung, Tae, Tae spoke with you.” they manage to stutter out.

“We’re roommates.” Namjoon answers.

Jungkook tries to even their breathing, “You, you’re attending?”

“Yeah,” Namjoon answers, “I’m trying to live a normal teenage life…” he explains, “So, I’m just going by Namjoon Kim now.”

“Okay, okay, Namjoon.” Jungkook repeats the name in their attempt to memorize it and prioritize it over the name they knew before. “I’m, I’m a huge fan!” they blurt out, “I-I watched one of your shows and I was, I was… enamored, I, I just, I…” they try to steady their breaths, “Sorry, sorry, I’m not usually like this. There must be something wrong, I, I should talk to my father…”

“You’re nervous,” Namjoon grins, showing off his sharp canines, “but you’re nervous about me ? You’re a hero!”

“So are you!” Jungkook responds, “The first openly monstrous musician, how can I not be nervous around you?”

“I wasn’t alone…” Namjoon covers his mouth again, turning his head into his palm, but Jungkook can pick up on the dimple giving away his smile.

“Right, right, there were others like…” they pause, their brain processing the classmate from the previous class, “ That’s why he looked familiar!” they pace the room, “At least I’m not alone in having my arch rival at this school with me, you’ve got yours here too! We can team up, take them both down!”

“I’m not following.” Namjoon’s smile stays, but the crease in his eyebrow makes it clear to Jungkook that he is confused about something, “I don’t have any arch rivals.”

“Yeah, you do! Gloss, that demon who always antagonized you!” They smile, “At least I know his real name now.”

“You’ve met him?”

“We’re in Monster Anatomy together.” Jungkook answers.

Namjoon nods, “Well, please, don’t try to antagonize them on my behalf.” he steps closer, “Promise me, you will not try to fight them.”

“I can’t make that promise.” Jungkook says, “I will defend your honor if he tries anything, but only if he strikes first, is that a compromise?”

Namjoon’s face scrunches up before his body relaxes, the fur on the end of his tail hitting the ground. “Fine, I’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t start anything with you.” Jungkook finds it hard to believe that Namjoon could convince Agust D to not do anything any more than they could probably convince Seokjin to do anything. “But, one more thing.” Namjoon puts his pointer finger up, “He’s not a demon. He doesn’t like being called that.”

Taehyung finally gets to the classroom for his seventh, and final, period, Monster History. Vi knows vir father put vim in this class to keep vim educated, but vi isn’t much of a history buff. But, then again, vi isn’t great at science either, but it seems that vi will be sharing that class with Jimin as well, and vi’s already grown to like them, so maybe a good classmate will make this class enjoyable.

As they scan the bookshelf, looking for anything that could catch their interest, they quickly give up. There is a book written by Doctor Frankenstein about the Mass Experimentations called How a Man Split in Two , but despite being close to the human that wrote it, they feel even more nervous about attending this class, knowing they will have a unit on what left their wolf form with a strangely-colored scar.

Speaking of the Doctor, he walks into the classroom with another student behind him, one that looks very familiar from a distance, but their horns and skin don’t ring a bell for them. Though, it seems like the monster must recognize them from somewhere too, since the moment they look at them, they look away as quickly as possible.

So, vi decides to approach them.

But the Doctor leaves the room before he gets the chance to notice Taehyung walking over. As he gets closer, more of the other monster’s features look familiar, the shape of his face, the shape of his nose, the shape of his eyes, but his eyes don’t look familiar. He’s never seen a monster with his one pitch black eye and one eye with a white pupil.

“I’m sorry, have we met before?” Taehyung asks.

The monster quints before leaning back again with a sigh, “No, I don’t think we have. You just look like someone, I had to do a double take, considering that someone is human.”

“Oh! Okay, because you look vaguely familiar to me too, but maybe you just look like someone I used to know.”

“Yeah…” he does hold out his hand, “Agust D.”

“Taehyung, he/they/vim.” they respond by shaking his hand, “You?”

“Right, whatever is fine.” Agust D shrugs, “I’ve never really cared.”

“Alright!” Taehyung says, “You know Doctor Frankenstein?” they ask as the two walk further into the classroom together.

“Old family friend.” Agust D answers, “Do you know him?”

“I’m friends with Jungkook.” Taehyung answers.

“Ah…” Agust D hums in response, “Y’know, they were a lot more awkward than I thought they’d be.”

Taehyung chuckles, “Well, they don’t have that much pressure on them now as they did before, they can finally let their vulnerability show to others.”

“Must be a nice feeling.” Agust D whispers to himself, but his lack of eye contact and his low voice shows that Taehyung wasn’t supposed to hear him. Unfortunately, a werewolf’s ears are hypersensitive, even when not fully transformed.

The bell screams again, and the intercom calls for students to either return to their dorms, or get acquainted with any extra curricular they are interested in. Taehyung rushes out of the room, almost forgetting to politely say goodbye to Agust D before leaving, in order to reach the Monster Anatomy classroom, where Jungkook has designated the GWA clubroom.

When Yoongi opens his eyes, he’s in a shower stall in the locker room, already changed into gym clothes. The day has gone by in a blur, and he’s not quite sure where he’s supposed to go next. By instinct, he knows to take his phone out of his bag, and sees the time, coming to the conclusion that he must be nearing tryouts for the Casketball team, as the brochures in the main foyer called it.

He finds a door that leads out of the locker room, walking onto the outdoor Casketball field. There’s only one being in the bleachers that he recognizes, his dark scales reflecting the moonlight. He jogs his way over to where he’s seated.

“Hey, Hobi’s busy with the tryouts for the tennis team.” Namjoon says, “But he wishes you luck!”

“I wish him the same.” Yoongi responds.

“And after you’re both done, Jungkook told me about this school’s version of a GSA. I figured we could join it.” he holds his hand out, and Yoongi takes hold of it without thinking.

When he does realize what he did, he says, “Yeah, yeah, that sounds… fun.” he isn’t exactly sure it will be fun. He’s never been openly with Namjoon or Hoseok, the idea of everyone knowing is a little frightening.

The tryouts go well, and Yoongi does make the team, even if his mind was elsewhere during most of the match. He looks up to the bleachers as he collects his things, seeing Hoseok approach Namjoon, sweating a bit himself from his own adventure.

The two look at Yoongi and motion for him to follow them. Hesitantly, he does. As they walk down the hall together, he feels scaled hands reach for both of his, one on each side, but he puts his hand in his pant’s pockets and looks to the floor. He isn’t ready for this. Everyone will be staring at them, he’ll already have enough attention with him being human, this will only give his classmates more cannon fodder.

“Wait,” he stops in the hall, “I just… I forgot my phone in the locker room! Go ahead without me, I’ll catch up.” he lies. He almost goes back on his word when he sees Hoseok’s frown, but he turns around before he can change his mind.

When he turns the corner, out of sight of them, he stops walking. He clutches the fabric of his shirt, back leaning against the wall, and tries to steady his breathing. The burning sensation across his arms starts to dissipate as he focuses on counting the numbers on the lockers. He mimics the movement of putting in his own locker combination to ground himself more into the environment of the hallway.

He peeks his head around the corner, and sees that Hoseok and Namjoon did go on without him. The sharp pain in his heart returns, he should be in there with them. He’s letting them down.

Despite his body desperately not wanting to move, he uses the strength he has to force his legs to step forward, continuing down the hall. On their walk, he recalls Namjoon saying it’s in the Monster Anatomy classroom. Doesn’t he have Monster Anatomy on his schedule? Why can’t he remember where the classroom is? He doesn’t even remember checking out that class.

Though, it seems like his mind subconsciously remembered where to go, because he stands right outside a door with a plaque labeled “Boology/Mad Science/Monster Anatomy.” Through the barred window, he can see a group of students inside, and he catches Namjoon and Hoseok. Their arms are wrapped around each other and they’re laughing together.

That’s what stops him from reaching for the door handle. He isn’t ready for that kind of public display. Not yet. So he turns around and heads back to the dormitory.

Chapter Text

Seokjin opens the door to his bedroom. He braces for someone he doesn’t want to see, but is relieved when he sees a short, blond man hunched over the desk in the corner, typing on his laptop.

Seokjin throws his backpack onto the couch on his side of the room. “Your boyfriend missed you at the GWA.”

Yoongi flinches, “Huh?”

“The Ghoul-Wraith Alliance,” Seokjin says, “Namjoon was sad you didn’t go.” he slams himself down onto the couch, laid alongside.

“Oh…” Yoongi turns in his chair to face him, “I… couldn’t go.”

“You know no one here would judge you for being gay, right?” Seokjin says, “You don’t have to hide that here, or anything here.”

“I do have to hide, though.” Yoongi says, “I can already feel everyone’s eyes on me just for how I look.”

Seokjin pouts, “But appearing human isn’t the same as being gay. No one here would be upset at you for that.”

“It’s not about appearing human, it’s about being human.” Yoongi says, “I don’t even know why I’m here.”

Seokjin stiffens slightly, “Being human?” he turns his head to actually look in Yoongi’s direction, “You think you’re completely human?”

“I am.” Yoongi says, “My mom is human, I never met my dad, but his parents are human, so… I just don’t want everyone to know that, I’ll be on the chopping block for sure.” he bites his nails, “Plus, Namjoon is a famous musician known for being groundbreaking, everyone’s going to ask me all these questions if they know we’re together.”

Seokjin stays quiet, mostly because he doesn’t know how to process the information given. He knows that Namjoon said that Yoongi doesn’t know about Agust D, but he didn’t tell him that he believes he’s completely human.

“Do you think we’d hunt you down if everyone knew?” he decides to ask that instead, some of him is genuinely curious if this human side of him still has a bit of prejudice.

Yoongi shakes his head, “No, but I would understand if everyone here wouldn’t trust me, or they’d make my life hell because of their anger towards my kind.” he leans back against the chair, and sways it side-to-side.

“Why would you even be here if you are human?” Seokjin asks, “We only accepted students whose monster parents sent a letter of recommendation, I mean, aside from Jungkook, Taehyung and I, because we founded this school.”

Yoongi stops moving his chair, “I don’t have any monster parent to send a letter. I don’t know who would’ve recommended me.”

“I can always sneak into Headmistress Bloodgood’s office and find your letter of recommendation. We can see if you recognize the name it’s signed with.” Seokjin turns over, laying on his stomach.

“You’d do that for me? We barely know each other.”

“I’m sure we’ll get to know each other.” Seokjin says, “I mean, we are living together.” he moves his pointer finger around Yoongi’s side of the room, “Like how I know you’re a very organized person.” he looks around the clean and pristine half of the room, compared to the pile of clothes on the floor next to the couch.

“I don’t like it when things get too messy. I was very tempted to clean up your side of the room, but I didn’t want to anger you if I touched something I wasn’t supposed to.” Yoongi says.

“By all means, clean my side of the room, too.” Seokjin gestures around his half of the room, “I give you full permission.”

Yoongi lets out a very slight smile, turns back in his chair, types a bit on the laptop on his desk, then turns it off.

Jimin walks into the creepateria, avoiding looking at anyone. He simply gets his breakfast, then scans the room as quickly as he can to see where Namjoon and Yoongi are seated. Hoseok walks past him, so he decides to follow his roommate to where the other two are.

“Evening.” Namjoon greets them as the two of them sit down at the table.

Yoongi doesn’t say anything, and Jimin notices the barely touched food in front of him, despite Namjoon’s tray being almost empty.

“Maybe I should just have breakfast in the dorm.” Yoongi mumbles, “It’s a little too chaotic in here.”

“Would Seokjin be against you inviting guests over for breakfast?” Namjoon asks, “I wouldn’t mind joining you in there instead of here.”

“I’ll ask, but I’m sure he’ll be fine with it. As long as there aren’t too many people invited.” Yoongi responds, “Maybe just the four of us, well, five if counting Jin.”

“Good thing you’re inviting me.” Jimin says with a cringed smile on his face, “Then Jin won’t have to feel like a third wheel, or fourth wheel I guess.”

Yoongi tilts his head slightly.

Hoseok coughs to bring attention to him, “I may have let it slip to him that we’re dating.”

Jimin catches the look of fear in his eyes, and the way his body tenses, shoulders up and unmoving. It barely looks like he’s breathing.

“It’s alright,” he says, “it was an accident, he didn’t mean to. You can relax, I won’t tell anyone else.” Yoongi’s shoulders drop almost instantly. “If it helps any, I’m queer too. Genderfluid, specifically.”

“You are?”

Jimin nods, “I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure how you would react.”

“I didn’t either.” Yoongi says.

“We missed you at the GWA yesterday.” Hoseok says, “We didn’t tell anyone there we were waiting for someone, but we were still hoping you would make it.”

Yoongi frowns, “I’m just not ready for that kind of public statement yet.”

“We’ll be here for you when you are.” Namjoon says, sneaking his hand over to Yoongi’s to cover.

Yoongi nods, then starts actually eating. Jimin feels a slight bit of relief.

“Jin said he could sneak into Bloodgood’s office and get my letter of recommendation. I could find out who sent me here.” Yoongi changes the topic of conversation.

“Letter of recommendation?” Jimin asks.

“Yeah, apparently everyone here had to have someone in their family send a letter to get them enrolled.” Yoongi says, “Which means that someone sent me over here, and I want to know who.”

“Oh, yeah…” Namjoon says, “I remember my mom and dad talking about that.”

“I’m sure it was my mom who sent mine. Anything to get me away from home.” Hoseok says.

“Could Jin find mine as well? I’d like to know who sent me here too.” Jimin asks, “For all I know, it could’ve been a friend of mine who just wanted me to join them.”

“I can ask.” Yoongi says, “Or maybe you could ask him yourself? He’s the tall vampire, black hair--”

“Yeah, I know him. We met at the GWA yesterday.” Jimin says, “Our lockers are across from each other, too.”

“Right…” Yoongi’s sentence trails off, “How many are in this GWA?”

“Not that many, really.” Namjoon answers, “But the founding students are in it, y’know, Jin, Jungkook and Taehyung.”

“Taehyung?” he asks.

“The werewolf kid, they’re best friends with Jungkook.”

“That name sounds familiar.” Yoongi says, “But I’m not quite sure where I’ve heard it before.”

“You’ve probably seen something about them in the news during the revolution.” Hoseok says, “You may just need to see their face to know for certain.”

The alarm sounds for the end of breakfast and the first passing period. The four stand up from their table and make their way out of the creepateria and to the main foyer. Jimin stops by his locker, looking around to see if he can spot Seokjin before heading off to clawculus, but can’t catch him before he has to rush to the classroom.

He and Namjoon meet up again when their shoulders bump trying to get through the door at the same time.

“Oh, sorry.” Namjoon steps out of the way, motioning his hand for Jimin to go ahead.

“No, no, you go first.” he says. Now he fears that this could turn into a back and forth, but he should’ve watched where he was going, it was clear that Namjoon should’ve been the first one in.

To his surprise, Namjoon simply walks inside with a polite nod. No argument.

Jimin follows him inside and decides to take the seat next to him, only recognizing the dragon so far and feeling most comfortable sticking by someone he knows at least a little bit.

The bell for the end of passing period sounds. Someone whose entire body is wrapped up walks in, though his light blue eyes aren’t covered. He’s also wearing a blue vest and a red tie.

When class is over, the bell rings and everyone gets up to leave. Jimin stops by his locker again to pull out his bag with a change of clothes for dance. He’s relieved to know that he’ll have a friend in that class too, if Hoseok hasn’t managed to convince Bloodgood to change his classes.

To his relief, he sees Hoseok tying his shoes when he enters the classroom. Jimin approaches and sets his bag of dance clothes down next to him.

“Hey, you need me to cover you?” Hoseok asks. Jimin hums in response, confused as to what he means, “So you can change? Block off others from watching?”

Jimin shakes his head, “No, but thank you. I’m fine changing in front of others.” he says as he takes his leather vest and then lifts his tanktop over his head.

“Okay, just making sure.” Hoseok says, “I’m comfortable with it as well, but I know a few non-cis folks who aren’t, so…”

Jimin changes out of his ripped jeans and into white sweats, pulling a hoodie over his head as well. “Yeah, I don’t experience all that much body dysphoria, especially at this moment. But, again, thank you.”

When he’s done changing, the announcement goes off, celebrating the first real day of the school year.

“Also!” Jungkook’s voice sounds after a moment of silence from Bloodgood, “We will be holding Student Council elections starting today, and for the next two weeks.” They say, “We will accept applications until the end of tomorrow.”

“I thought Jungkook was already Student Council President?” Jimin asks, mostly to himself, but looking at Hoseok anyway.

He shrugs in response, “I thought so too, but maybe they aren’t, or they changed their mind?”

Jimin thinks back to Bloodgood telling him that he should consider working with the Student Council. He isn’t sure how he could without drawing attention to the fact that he’s not a monster, and then there would be no way anyone would vote for him if that got out. He was involved with his old school’s Student Council, but he’ll have a harder time making it work at this new school.

Namjoon keeps his eye on Yoongi as their teacher starts a lecture. He isn’t entirely sure why Agust D can’t show himself in this class, but he has to make sure that Yoongi stays in control. The Phantom’s lecture is interrupted by the announcements, along with Jungkook sharing the beginning of Student Council elections.

“You should sign up.” Yoongi tells him.

“What?”

“For Student Council.” Yoongi says, “I think you’d be a great president.”

“I thought that was already Jungkook…” Namjoon says, “Either way, I don’t think I could handle schoolwork on top of being in Student Council.”

“Bullshit.”

“Why don’t you sign up?”

Yoongi freezes up, “Seriously? I can’t sign up, I’m human.” he stops mid-sentence, realizing the volume of his voice, and then whispering the rest to Namjoon.

“You were in Student Council at your old school.” Namjoon says, “You already have experience.”

“At a human school.” Yoongi says, “I can’t work in the Student Council for a school I don’t belong at.”

Namjoon pretends to think for a bit, resting his cheek on the palm of his hands and making a long humming sound. “I’ll run for Student Council if you do.”

“Excuse me?”

“I won’t run if you don’t run alongside me as my VP.” Namjoon says.

“Even if I was at another school, I’d never want to be Vice President. That’s too broad of a label.”

“Fine, but I still won’t run if you don’t run for something.” Namjoon says, “Maybe I’ll run for VP.”

Yoongi rolls his eyes, “You’re being ridiculous. Just run by yourself.”

“Nope. I’ll only do it if you do.”

There’s a loud cough from the front of the classroom. The Phantom’s one visible eye stares at the two of them with a frown on his face and his arms crossed.

Yoongi leans back into his seat. He waits for the Phantom to turn back around to the board to finish writing down the day’s lesson plan to turn his head back to Namjoon.

“Fine. I’ll join you.” he whispers. Namjoon smiles in response.

After lunch, Jimin walks through the foyer at the front of the school and sees a new bulletin posted. He steps closer to see a sign-up sheet for the Student Council.

“Thinking about signing up?” a deep voice behind him says. Jimin doesn’t do a good enough job hiding his flinch as he turns around, “Oh, sorry, I thought you heard us.” Namjoon says, a smile on his face, and the usual poker face on Yoongi.

“Bloodgood said I should, she was impressed with my record.” Jimin says, “I was the class president at my old school, but this is so, so different…”

“Yeah, I feel that.” Yoongi says, but takes the pen anyway after Namjoon finishes writing his name down.

“You’re running too?”

Yoongi nods, “Joon-ah is making me. He says he won’t run if I don’t.” he lets go of the pen, and Jimin smiles a bit at seeing that his handwriting isn’t any better when romanized. “Hey, I’m not used to writing in English all the time yet.” he notices him smiling.

“You weren’t any better at writing in Hangul.” Jimin says, “At least you didn’t have nice handwriting in the pictures you’d send.”

“You try learning how to write at 13.” Yoongi argues.

“I didn’t think the school system was that far behind in Korea?” Jimin keeps his teasing tone. His body seems to move on autopilot as he takes the pen and writes his name underneath Yoongi’s.

“No, I’m sure that they were teaching students how to write back there from a young age.” Namjoon says, “At least I learned how to read and write in elementary.”

“You also don’t have amnesia.” Yoongi responds, “Maybe I did learn how to in elementary school, but I don’t remember elementary.”

“Like, at all?” Jimin asks as they walk through the halls.

Yoongi shakes his head, “It’s odd. All I remember is getting up in the middle of the road while it was raining. The best I can guess is that I was hit by a car.” he puts his hands in the pockets of his shiny, leather jacket, “I remembered basic stuff, like my name and age, but other than that…”

“We met because I was put in charge of tutoring him.” Namjoon says. He then stops in front of a classroom, “This is my fifth period.” he waves to the two of them, “I’ll see you guys later.”

Jimin and Yoongi wave back to him before the door to the classroom closes behind him.

“What’s your fifth period?” Yoongi asks, continuing down the hall.

“Psychology.”

Yoongi smiles, “Mine too.” his shoulders relax a bit, “At least we have one class together.”

They enter the classroom, taking a seat next to each other on a long bench. Jimin sets his notebook neatly on the desk, but Yoongi pulls out his own and Jimin watches as he very meticulously angles the object to be perfectly aligned to the edge of the desk. Jimin never thought he’d ever meet someone neater and more organized than him.

His eyes move up to meet Yoongi’s side profile, getting a closer view of the scar across his eye. Jimin runs a hand through his hair as he tries to think up how to bring up the topic without sounding insensitive.

“Yoongi…” he starts by whispering his name, “was… was your scar the reason you never sent me a picture of yourself?”

He taps on the notebook, “Yeah…” he answers, “I honestly don’t know how it happened. I was worried you’d find it… gross.”

“Not at all, I wouldn’t have judged you for it.” Jimin says, “But I understand.” he keeps his eyes to his own desk, “Was it the car crash?”

“As I said, I don’t know if I was hit by a car, I just can’t think of any other explanation.” Yoongi says, “But, no. It was already there when I woke up, and it looked like it was there for a long time.”

Jimin opens his notebook as the teacher walks in, and their conversation ends when the lecture begins.

Taehyung takes vir seat, one of the middle rows. Vi finds it’s the perfect place to be able to see the board, but not too up close that vi will definitely get called on to answer questions. Vi doesn’t take in who is sitting next to vim until vi reaches down to pull vir notebooks out of vir bag. Vi looks up to see a familiar, black-eyed creature looking back at vim.

Vi jumps slightly before laughing off the initial scare, “Oh, it’s you.”

Agust D hums and nods. “Taehyung, right?” they smile back at them, “I see we have a similar scar. Makes me feel a little less out of place.”

Taehyung’s smile drops, “Yeah… it’s uh… it’s a long story.” they reply.

“I’d imagine.” Agust D says, “Mine is too.”

The class begins with a roll call, Taehyung answers when his name is called. Eyes turn to look at him, clearly recognizing his name. He’s not sure he’ll ever be used to the attention, but at least he’s known for a good reason.

“Yoongi Min.” the teacher calls. Taehyung’s back straightens, even though vi doesn’t recognize the surname.

Agust D lifts their hand up, “Here.”

Taehyung whips his head to look at them. “I thought your name was Agust D?” he asks.

“That’s just a nickname.” he responds, “I just prefer it to my legal name.”

Taehyung looks back towards the board, contemplating what he wants to say. “I used to know a Yoongi too.”

“Really?” Agust D replies, “Not exactly a common name.”

“Yeah, but he wasn’t a Min, so…” Taehyung says, “I always wonder how he’s doing. If he’s okay…”

Agust D taps his claws on his desk, “Well, you never know, you could still reunite one day.”

Jimin keeps her poster simple, a black and white picture of herself with a “Vote for Jimin Park” in bold letters across it, along with text saying “Student Council President” on the bottom end. She doesn’t want it to be colorful or attention-grabbing, mostly due to worry that others would look too closely and notice that she lacks monstrous features.

She, Namjoon and Yoongi all set their posters next to each other, deciding to work on their campaigns together, considering they aren’t all running for the same position. All three are rather professional, but Namjoon’s poster is in-color while Yoongi’s is duochromatic, with blue and red. Jimin asked him why he chose that design, but he said he doesn’t know.

The next weeks of debates are a bit taxing, but Jimin knows how they work and they know the right things to say.

However, they should be prepared to finally be asked what exactly they are.

One debate, Ciro, their competition, interrupts Jungkook as they try to moderate.

“So, Jimin,” he begins, “may I ask what exactly are you?”

Jimin freezes on the spot, their back straightening and fist clenching on the podium in front of them.

“Ciro, I’m the moderator, I’m asking the questions.” Jungkook says, “Someone’s species shouldn’t matter for student council president.”

“I think it does.” Ciro responds, “We can’t have some dirty species, like a werewolf as student council president.” Spit escapes his mouth past his fangs as he speaks.

“What’s wrong with werewolves?” Jungkook says, their own voice sounding annoyed.

“They’re half angel!” someone from the audience shouts. There’s silence a bit after that. Jimin recognizes Miyoko’s voice calling out, “It’s unfortunate that they took after their human mother’s side.” They let out a sigh of relief.

“I just don’t like talking about it.” Jimin says, with a polite smile directed towards Ciro, “But can we trust someone who judges others by species to represent the entire, diverse student body?”

Leaving the stage, Jimin has to catch Ciro as he trips over something. It’s an instinct to catch him, even if they wanted to let him fall in some form of karma. They look up to see Seokjin’s red eyes glowing through the darkness backstage.

“I can’t believe you’re still a separationist.” Seokjin grumbles, “Werewolves are not the enemy.”

Ciro rolls his eyes, but walks away without saying a word.

There’s a bit of commotion, the sound of things falling over, and then a short figure bumps into Ciro and sends him to the ground, no one catching him this time. Agust D ignores him completely as he rushes over to Jimin and Seokjin with an uncharacteristically panicked gaze.

“I can’t go on that stage!” he whispers, though his tone is more aligned with shouting, “Once Joonie is done, it’ll be Yoongi’s turn, and he’s not here!”

Jimin turns over his shoulder to see Namjoon sorting his notecards. The other students running for vice president, Pia and Lyn, walk past the three of them to prepare for their part of the night’s debate. In response, Agust D steps away from the stage again, further into the wings, biting on their long, black nails. It’s interesting, Jimin has seen Yoongi participate in that same habit, though he does so even when he’s not stressed out.

“Hang on,” Seokjin walks after them, “what--”

“Seokjin Kim,” Jungkook’s voice plays over the speakers, “if you aren’t on this stage within the next minute, it means you have forfeited the race.”

Seokjin groans with an exaggerated slump of his broad shoulders. He jogs towards the stage and into the lights, approaching the last podium to get set up.

Jimin approaches Agust D instead, “Where is Yoongi?” he asks.

Agust D looks them in the eye, and there’s something eerily familiar about their eyes, but it feels almost wrong for them to look directly into their own. It’s as if they’re looking into the gaze of someone else.

“He’s just not here.” he answers.

“Is he missing?”

“What the hell was he thinking?” they start pacing again, “I can’t go out there, there’ll be some people in the crowd who might recognize me. And he can’t go out there, because there will be someone who will recognize him and all this effort would be for nothing--”

“Tell me what’s going on.” Jimin interrupts them.

Agust D opens their mouth, but quickly shoves their own claws inside and bites down on them. It’s as if they’re fighting their instincts to answer their demand.

“We can’t do this. It’s too risky.” he says through his claws and sprints out of the theatre.

When it comes time for the candidates for treasurer to give their first debate, Yoongi’s name is called with no answer. Jungkook gives him another five minutes, instead of Seokjin’s one he was threatened with, then announces that he has forfeited the race.

“I don’t remember forfeiting the race.” Yoongi mumbles as he takes down the posters around the hallways, “I don’t even remember the day of the debate at all.”

“Not even waking up?” Hoseok asks.

Yoongi shakes his head, “I swear, I need to see a psychiatrist. These blackouts are really stressing me out.” he shakes one of his hands as he speaks, “I just need to find someone who won’t tell my mom about it.”

Hoseok frowns, “I’m not sure if a psychiatrist can solve your problem. Maybe it’s all leftover amnesia from whatever event you first woke up from?”

“Why would my memory be so selective then?” Yoongi asks in return, “There is something wrong with my brain, I can feel it. My blackouts have gotten worse ever since the school year started, it’s like half of my day every day is gone.” he continues as the two walk down the hall, Yoongi taking down his posters one by one.

Hoseok can hear every panicked thought of each snake on his head, and he tries his best to focus on his own voice, not wanting to appear as if he has the combined nerves of seven minds.

“Well, maybe your psychology class will have some answers, or your teacher might know someone who can help.” Hoseok says.

Yoongi solemnly sighs, heaving his shoulders in the process.

The announcements come on when Hoseok stands up from tying his dance shoes. It goes through more of the mundane rounds, but this week should be the end results of the election. He’s thankful that Namjoon and Jimin ran for different positions, though he knows he would vote for Namjoon even if they were, but it does make it easier to choose because they aren’t.

Jungkook’s voice comes through the intercom to announce that they have counted the votes, “And student council elections have come to a close, thank you to every candidate that ran!” They say, “But, now it’s time to announce our student council for this year.”

Jimin straightens their back and holds their hands together, bringing their hands close to their mouth as they close their eyes, as if silently praying for their victory.

“For our Student Council President, the monsters have voted for Jimin Park.” Jungkook announces.

Jimin screams in excitement. Hoseok shakes their shoulders as well, screaming even louder. Everyone else also offers their congratulations. The other dancers gather around the duo, but most of their focus stays on Jimin.

“And our Student Council Vice President is Namjoon Kim!” Jungkook continues the announcement, and they sound much more excited about naming the vice president. With how they acted during the first GWA meeting, Hoseok knows how the Frankenmonster feels about his boyfriend.

Hoseok screams again, and shakes Jimin again. Though quieter, Jimin also shares excitement with the announcement of their vice president.

“Good.” Jimin sighs in relief, “I like Namjoon, I’m sure we’ll get along better than I would with anyone else… plus, he knows…” they don’t finish their sentence, but Hoseok can infer what they mean. Namjoon knows that they’re human, which makes Jimin’s job safer. “Shame Yoongi couldn’t continue the race.”

Hoseok bites the inside of his lips, “Maybe it’s for the best… having two humans on the Student Council might cause more trouble if either of you were to be caught.”

Jimin looks down at the floor, “Yeah, you’re probably right…” they put their bag into a cubby against the wall, “Miyoko really saved my hide, huh?” they laugh, “Half angel… I would’ve never thought of that.” They then pause, then their eyes widen, “Wait… what if I really am half angel? Or quarter angel?”

Hoseok smiles, “You certainly look like you could be a wingless angel.” he says, “And our more ethereal bedroom would make sense.” He isn’t sure whether he should be encouraging Jimin’s hypothesis, but he supposes there’s no harm in at least wondering.

Jimin, on the other hand, has a determined look in their eyes. They stand up straight, “I swear, by Winter Break, I will figure out what I’m doing here.” They step closer to Hoseok, “Will you help me? Will all of you help me? You, Yoongi, Namjoon, Miyoko, Geralt, maybe Seokjin too? I’m sure that if we all work together, we can find out something. And we could also help Yoongi too.”

Hoseok’s smile becomes more cringed, “I-I would be glad to help you…” he doesn’t answer the part about Yoongi.

“Thank you.” Jimin responds.

Their teacher claps their hands to get everyone’s attention the second the announcements turn off. Jimin turns away and moves to the dance floor, Hoseok following close behind them.