Set My Soul On Fire [Part Four]
The punching bag swung furiously as his ungloved hands pounded into the heavy thing, his knuckles cracking open the longer he kept up the hard pace. When one of his legs came up to slam into the side of it, he watched in dissatisfaction as it fell to the floor for the third time that hour.
“I’m surprised you didn’t just tape his face on the poor thing,” an amused voice called out from the doorway to the school’s gym. He didn’t have to turn to know who it was, seeing as how only four other students in the entire school would openly talk to him in the first place.
“What do you want, Sungyeol?” he asked in annoyance, though thanked the taller boy as he helped him right the standing bag once again, going at it with even more fervor than before.
“I haven’t seen you in a few days, and the professor said something about a murder mystery. Just felt like being nosy,” he shrugged, though looked around hesitantly.
“If you’re looking for the ghost, it’s in the corner to your right,” Dongwoo said without having to look at his friend.
“Seriously?!” The younger boy squeaked, rushing up to hide behind him, stopping his angry workout unless he wanted to hit Sungyeol as well. There were times when he did, but today wasn’t one of them.
“Jeeze, I’m kidding,” he rolled his eyes. “Don’t you know by now that when you’re around I make them leave? Unless you’re pissing me off, of course.”
“Well good thing we’re best friends then,” Sungyeol smiled, hugging him from behind, his long limbed body wrapping around him like vines.
“Speaking of, how’s L doing?”
“I’m not talking to that idiot at the moment,” Sungyeol growled.
Kim Myungsoo, aka L, was Sungyeol’s on again off again boyfriend of three years. They’d met in the academy, but ever since Myungsoo had become the ‘ice prince’ guitarist of the up and coming band Eye Candy, they’d been fighting more often than not. Not that it was very surprising that they fought, being polar opposite elementals. How a fire and ice wielder relationship would even work in the first place, he had no idea, Myungsoo only ever joking that it was very ‘steamy’ when they had sex, which always made the fire wielder poke him in the ribs angrily.
“I just wanna punch him in his stupid, arrogant face,” Sungyeol growled, his hands catching fire, making Dongwoo’s shirt that he’d been clinging to go up in flames.
He cursed, flinging himself from the fire elemental’s embrace and patting at his chest roughly, finally opting to just take the shirt off all together before any real damage was done.
“Oops, my bad, I’ll go get you one of mine,” he shrugged sheepishly, his innocent smile making Dongwoo sigh.
“I’ll be here, but don’t take too long!” he called out after Sungyeol, whose long legs were already rushing him off to his dorm, at least, that’s where he assumed he was going. You never really knew with Sungyeol.
Dongwoo shook his head, walking into the locker room, stripping down and grabbing a towel from Sungyeol’s locker -hopefully it was clean this time- before heading to the showers.
He didn’t bother to turn the lights on, never did really, and cranked the water as cold as he could stand it. His knuckles were raw, but would heal soon enough, just another perk to being a freak, harder to kill and quicker to heal.
It was when he was grabbing for the bar of soap that he realized he wasn’t alone anymore. Breaking off a small piece of it, he chucked it at the far corner of the room, a chuckle soon following.
“How many times have I told you, you can’t hit me until I- ow!” the remaining bar of soap smacked him in the face, “manifest…” he whined, rubbing at his nose.
“And how many times have I told you to quit peeking on me in the shower?”
Sungjong smiled sheepishly. “I have an excuse this time. Myungsoo’s just come back so Sungyeol wanted me to bring this to you so he could kick his ass,” he shrugged, twirling a shirt in his hands.
“Is he accusing him of cheating again?” he asked, rolling his eyes when Sungjong cat called at him as he stepped out of the shower to grab the towel.
"He's never cheated on him a day in his life, for some reason he just likes Sungyeol thinking he is. Probably for the make up sex?” Sungjong pondered to himself out loud.
“Sungyeol’s too insecure to realize L’s been love struck since the moment they met.”
“Speaking of not realizing you’re loved, where’s Woohyun? He never misses an opportunity to watch you shower.”
“You’re seriously disturbed, Sungjong.”
“And proud of it, but you’re avoiding the question.”
Dongwoo glared at the younger boy, drying off quickly. “He’s at home. In the closet.”
“And here I thought you were the one still claiming to be straight.” That earned another glare. He snatched the shirt out of Sungjong’s hands before he got any funny ideas about playing keep away.
The shirt itself was black with a rather tacky skull design and had Sungyeol’s signature holes around the collar; he always ripped the tags off his shirts. Myungsoo’s fashion must be wearing off on the lanky boy, black seemed to be all they ever wore now.
“I ordered him there,” Dongwoo sighed, realizing Sungjong expected a reason as to why Woohyun was in a closet back at home when he looked up to see the boy’s over dramatic curious expression.
“And he agreed… why? Since when does he listen to you?”
“I… didn’t exactly give him a choice.”
Sungjong’s eyes widened impossibly before he burst out laughing, the sudden emotion causing him to hover several feet off the ground. Sungjong’s powers involved invisibility, phasing, and self levitation, and being the youngest in his group of friends, he was the least in control of his powers, strong emotions still triggering them at random. Like now.
“Laugh all you want,” he growled, “but that asshole’s been lying to me.”
“About all his supposed conquests?”
“What? No, about… wait, what?”
“Oh, not that then,” Sungjong shrugged, motioning zipping his lips when Dongwoo tried to pry farther. He even unzipped them again to add, “So what was he lying about?” When Dongwoo went on to explain all the happenings of the night before, omitting the astral sex, Sungjong merely tilted his head quizzically. “Are you telling me you’re going to believe a dude that’s most likely trying to kill you over the familiar who’s been by your side for months now? Seems pretty shitty.”
“But I’ve always found it weird that he does that. It just doesn’t make sense that he would bring that up randomly.”
“Really? When Woohyun’s pretty much your protector and he wants him out of the picture?”
“I can protect myself!” But Sungjong just rolled his eyes.
“Well if you’re so worried about it, why don’t you ask Professor Kim?”
“That dude’s such a douche.”
“But if anyone would know…” Sungjong let his voice trail off.
“I know, I know,” he muttered, waving goodbye to his friend before stalking off to his mentor’s office.
____________________
He didn’t bother knocking; he’d know he was coming anyway. That was one of the perks of precognition, he supposed. Swinging the door open haphazardly, he was still disappointed that the man sipping tea at his desk didn’t jump at the sudden intrusion, instead continued to scroll on his computer lazily. Probably looking at porn.
“I am not looking at porn, will you sit down already?” The man sighed, pushing his large plastic framed glasses up higher before grasping at the bridge of his nose in annoyance.
“Do you have to read my mind every time we talk?” Dongwoo groused, flopping into one of the comfy chairs in front of Mr. Kim’s desk. They had to be comfy, otherwise no one would stay longer than two seconds. His teacher glared at him but didn’t comment on the silent dig.
“Just tell me what you want, Dongwoo,” he sighed yet again. Apparently he annoyed the hell out of the older man. Good, but he still needed information.
“Even though you probably already know why I’m here, I wanna know if that photographic memory of yours ever read anything on necromancers.”
“Eidetic.”
“Bless you.”
Mr. Kim looked like he was having a brain aneurism, but continued through gritted teeth. “If you weren’t my student…”
“You’d what? Talk circles around me?” Dongwoo quipped.
“I could make you brain dead in under a millisecond.”
“You already think I’m brain dead.”
That finally got a smile out of him. “True. So why do you want to know what I know about necromancers? You are one, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“No shit, Sherlock, but it’s not like I’ve ever actually met another necromancer before. We’re kinda rare.”
“Not so much rare as… death prone, no pun intended.”
“It’s always intended with you,” he glared.
Sunggyu continued, smile gone, “Necromancers, from what I’ve read, tend to die off in their early to mid twenties, either from suicide, occupational hazard, insanity, the like, and last I checked, you’re 23. Not looking too good for you.”
“Does it ever say why, specifically, that we tend lose our shit?”
“It’s all speculation, but some have said it has to do with all the transference you have to partake in to actually raise something back from the dead. Give up too much of yourself too fast and anyone’s bound to go a little nuts. Who’s to say you don’t lose a little piece of yourself every time you use your power?”
“Then what the fuck is the point of this power if it only kills us?”
“The longest living necromancer on record lived to be hundreds of years old, actually, but you’re not gonna like why.”
“Well you’ve already pretty much hinted that I’m going to die any day now, so might as well put the icing on the cake.”
“Sacrifices. Back in the day, it was a lot more acceptable for a necromancer to kill livestock or even, say, a human and drain their blood to reanimate corpses. Rather frowned upon now, especially if you’re going to school here. I believe we teach you to use your own blood, correct?” Dongwoo merely nodded slowly. “I mean, it’s not very hard to make the connection. The less sacrificing you do and the more of yourself you offer, the sooner you get drained, tapped, depleted.”
“Yes I get it thanks,” Dongwoo said with no real heat to his voice. Woohyun, living as long as he had, must have known about all this. No wonder he had looked at him like he was crazy the first time he opened vein for a corpse in front of him… and he probably wasn’t kidding about all those chicken jokes either.
“Why do you look relieved to hear this?” Sunggyu asked, though already knew the answer.
“Shut up, you’re a dick,” Dongwoo said casually, flipping him off as he walked out the door.
Sunggyu kept a blank face as he got up to shut the door after his departure, but as soon as it closed, he fell to the ground in hysterics, tears rolling down his cheeks as he laughed. That kid would forever be his favorite student.
A/N: Ahhhh I love writing all these character interactions! Yay for INFINITE! Hmm... not much to add xD Most likely smut in the next chapter, folks! Ah, also, I am actually going to try and keep up with my tumblr. Gonna do this thing called Random Writing Blurbs which tells you what I'm writing/updating atm and gives a little snippet of said chapter! If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, feel free to follow me on my tumblr: http://fullmoonsyn.tumblr.com/
Lanna
FMS
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“I’m surprised you didn’t just tape his face on the poor thing,” an amused voice called out from the doorway to the school’s gym. He didn’t have to turn to know who it was, seeing as how only four other students in the entire school would openly talk to him in the first place.
“What do you want, Sungyeol?” he asked in annoyance, though thanked the taller boy as he helped him right the standing bag once again, going at it with even more fervor than before.
“I haven’t seen you in a few days, and the professor said something about a murder mystery. Just felt like being nosy,” he shrugged, though looked around hesitantly.
“If you’re looking for the ghost, it’s in the corner to your right,” Dongwoo said without having to look at his friend.
“Seriously?!” The younger boy squeaked, rushing up to hide behind him, stopping his angry workout unless he wanted to hit Sungyeol as well. There were times when he did, but today wasn’t one of them.
“Jeeze, I’m kidding,” he rolled his eyes. “Don’t you know by now that when you’re around I make them leave? Unless you’re pissing me off, of course.”
“Well good thing we’re best friends then,” Sungyeol smiled, hugging him from behind, his long limbed body wrapping around him like vines.
“Speaking of, how’s L doing?”
“I’m not talking to that idiot at the moment,” Sungyeol growled.
Kim Myungsoo, aka L, was Sungyeol’s on again off again boyfriend of three years. They’d met in the academy, but ever since Myungsoo had become the ‘ice prince’ guitarist of the up and coming band Eye Candy, they’d been fighting more often than not. Not that it was very surprising that they fought, being polar opposite elementals. How a fire and ice wielder relationship would even work in the first place, he had no idea, Myungsoo only ever joking that it was very ‘steamy’ when they had sex, which always made the fire wielder poke him in the ribs angrily.
“I just wanna punch him in his stupid, arrogant face,” Sungyeol growled, his hands catching fire, making Dongwoo’s shirt that he’d been clinging to go up in flames.
He cursed, flinging himself from the fire elemental’s embrace and patting at his chest roughly, finally opting to just take the shirt off all together before any real damage was done.
“Oops, my bad, I’ll go get you one of mine,” he shrugged sheepishly, his innocent smile making Dongwoo sigh.
“I’ll be here, but don’t take too long!” he called out after Sungyeol, whose long legs were already rushing him off to his dorm, at least, that’s where he assumed he was going. You never really knew with Sungyeol.
Dongwoo shook his head, walking into the locker room, stripping down and grabbing a towel from Sungyeol’s locker -hopefully it was clean this time- before heading to the showers.
He didn’t bother to turn the lights on, never did really, and cranked the water as cold as he could stand it. His knuckles were raw, but would heal soon enough, just another perk to being a freak, harder to kill and quicker to heal.
It was when he was grabbing for the bar of soap that he realized he wasn’t alone anymore. Breaking off a small piece of it, he chucked it at the far corner of the room, a chuckle soon following.
“How many times have I told you, you can’t hit me until I- ow!” the remaining bar of soap smacked him in the face, “manifest…” he whined, rubbing at his nose.
“And how many times have I told you to quit peeking on me in the shower?”
Sungjong smiled sheepishly. “I have an excuse this time. Myungsoo’s just come back so Sungyeol wanted me to bring this to you so he could kick his ass,” he shrugged, twirling a shirt in his hands.
“Is he accusing him of cheating again?” he asked, rolling his eyes when Sungjong cat called at him as he stepped out of the shower to grab the towel.
"He's never cheated on him a day in his life, for some reason he just likes Sungyeol thinking he is. Probably for the make up sex?” Sungjong pondered to himself out loud.
“Sungyeol’s too insecure to realize L’s been love struck since the moment they met.”
“Speaking of not realizing you’re loved, where’s Woohyun? He never misses an opportunity to watch you shower.”
“You’re seriously disturbed, Sungjong.”
“And proud of it, but you’re avoiding the question.”
Dongwoo glared at the younger boy, drying off quickly. “He’s at home. In the closet.”
“And here I thought you were the one still claiming to be straight.” That earned another glare. He snatched the shirt out of Sungjong’s hands before he got any funny ideas about playing keep away.
The shirt itself was black with a rather tacky skull design and had Sungyeol’s signature holes around the collar; he always ripped the tags off his shirts. Myungsoo’s fashion must be wearing off on the lanky boy, black seemed to be all they ever wore now.
“I ordered him there,” Dongwoo sighed, realizing Sungjong expected a reason as to why Woohyun was in a closet back at home when he looked up to see the boy’s over dramatic curious expression.
“And he agreed… why? Since when does he listen to you?”
“I… didn’t exactly give him a choice.”
Sungjong’s eyes widened impossibly before he burst out laughing, the sudden emotion causing him to hover several feet off the ground. Sungjong’s powers involved invisibility, phasing, and self levitation, and being the youngest in his group of friends, he was the least in control of his powers, strong emotions still triggering them at random. Like now.
“Laugh all you want,” he growled, “but that asshole’s been lying to me.”
“About all his supposed conquests?”
“What? No, about… wait, what?”
“Oh, not that then,” Sungjong shrugged, motioning zipping his lips when Dongwoo tried to pry farther. He even unzipped them again to add, “So what was he lying about?” When Dongwoo went on to explain all the happenings of the night before, omitting the astral sex, Sungjong merely tilted his head quizzically. “Are you telling me you’re going to believe a dude that’s most likely trying to kill you over the familiar who’s been by your side for months now? Seems pretty shitty.”
“But I’ve always found it weird that he does that. It just doesn’t make sense that he would bring that up randomly.”
“Really? When Woohyun’s pretty much your protector and he wants him out of the picture?”
“I can protect myself!” But Sungjong just rolled his eyes.
“Well if you’re so worried about it, why don’t you ask Professor Kim?”
“That dude’s such a douche.”
“But if anyone would know…” Sungjong let his voice trail off.
“I know, I know,” he muttered, waving goodbye to his friend before stalking off to his mentor’s office.
____________________
He didn’t bother knocking; he’d know he was coming anyway. That was one of the perks of precognition, he supposed. Swinging the door open haphazardly, he was still disappointed that the man sipping tea at his desk didn’t jump at the sudden intrusion, instead continued to scroll on his computer lazily. Probably looking at porn.
“I am not looking at porn, will you sit down already?” The man sighed, pushing his large plastic framed glasses up higher before grasping at the bridge of his nose in annoyance.
“Do you have to read my mind every time we talk?” Dongwoo groused, flopping into one of the comfy chairs in front of Mr. Kim’s desk. They had to be comfy, otherwise no one would stay longer than two seconds. His teacher glared at him but didn’t comment on the silent dig.
“Just tell me what you want, Dongwoo,” he sighed yet again. Apparently he annoyed the hell out of the older man. Good, but he still needed information.
“Even though you probably already know why I’m here, I wanna know if that photographic memory of yours ever read anything on necromancers.”
“Eidetic.”
“Bless you.”
Mr. Kim looked like he was having a brain aneurism, but continued through gritted teeth. “If you weren’t my student…”
“You’d what? Talk circles around me?” Dongwoo quipped.
“I could make you brain dead in under a millisecond.”
“You already think I’m brain dead.”
That finally got a smile out of him. “True. So why do you want to know what I know about necromancers? You are one, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“No shit, Sherlock, but it’s not like I’ve ever actually met another necromancer before. We’re kinda rare.”
“Not so much rare as… death prone, no pun intended.”
“It’s always intended with you,” he glared.
Sunggyu continued, smile gone, “Necromancers, from what I’ve read, tend to die off in their early to mid twenties, either from suicide, occupational hazard, insanity, the like, and last I checked, you’re 23. Not looking too good for you.”
“Does it ever say why, specifically, that we tend lose our shit?”
“It’s all speculation, but some have said it has to do with all the transference you have to partake in to actually raise something back from the dead. Give up too much of yourself too fast and anyone’s bound to go a little nuts. Who’s to say you don’t lose a little piece of yourself every time you use your power?”
“Then what the fuck is the point of this power if it only kills us?”
“The longest living necromancer on record lived to be hundreds of years old, actually, but you’re not gonna like why.”
“Well you’ve already pretty much hinted that I’m going to die any day now, so might as well put the icing on the cake.”
“Sacrifices. Back in the day, it was a lot more acceptable for a necromancer to kill livestock or even, say, a human and drain their blood to reanimate corpses. Rather frowned upon now, especially if you’re going to school here. I believe we teach you to use your own blood, correct?” Dongwoo merely nodded slowly. “I mean, it’s not very hard to make the connection. The less sacrificing you do and the more of yourself you offer, the sooner you get drained, tapped, depleted.”
“Yes I get it thanks,” Dongwoo said with no real heat to his voice. Woohyun, living as long as he had, must have known about all this. No wonder he had looked at him like he was crazy the first time he opened vein for a corpse in front of him… and he probably wasn’t kidding about all those chicken jokes either.
“Why do you look relieved to hear this?” Sunggyu asked, though already knew the answer.
“Shut up, you’re a dick,” Dongwoo said casually, flipping him off as he walked out the door.
Sunggyu kept a blank face as he got up to shut the door after his departure, but as soon as it closed, he fell to the ground in hysterics, tears rolling down his cheeks as he laughed. That kid would forever be his favorite student.
A/N: Ahhhh I love writing all these character interactions! Yay for INFINITE! Hmm... not much to add xD Most likely smut in the next chapter, folks! Ah, also, I am actually going to try and keep up with my tumblr. Gonna do this thing called Random Writing Blurbs which tells you what I'm writing/updating atm and gives a little snippet of said chapter! If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, feel free to follow me on my tumblr: http://fullmoonsyn.tumblr.com/
Lanna
FMS
web counter