Episode 02: Return of the Pikachu
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It's the last two that Jinki has trouble with, and the truth is that even after he's started his third year of what would probably be the equivalent of high school, he still hasn't found his niche. Or a weapon of choice.
"We're in our last year of schooling; what do you mean you don't have a weapon yet?" Kim Jonghyun asks as if this is something he's just realized. What adds insult to injury for Jinki though, whether unintended or not, is the fact that Jonghyun is brandishing around his own impressively large sword. It's a black broad sword with red and gold accents that sparkles in the practice room's fluorescent lighting and never fails to make Jinki insanely jealous.
"I just don't, okay?" he mutters and he remembers when he once dreamed of having a sword just like Jonghyun's.
It was back when he had first enrolled in the academy, lured in by its promises to make him into both an important and better person who would change the world. He had been bright-eyed and naive and hopeful -- or at least more so then than he was now, according to schoolmates like Jonghyun -- and the dream of becoming a sword-wielding hero for the side of good fueled him everyday.
The classes were nothing short of exciting as they all learned how to strike significant blows and where to attack and how to parry and thrust and find their balance whether using both a sword and a shield or just a ridiculously large sword. At the beginning, when everyone had been the same as Jinki and couldn't tell a saber from a rapier, it had even been fun.
And then one day, Jinki accidently dropped his dagger and managed to slice off one of the professor's toes and it seemed to all go downhill from there.
By the end of the year, it wasn't a surprise that he had completely failed at swordsmanship and the dream had been dashed.
It wasn't like he had much of a chance anyway, especially in comparison to students like Choi Minho who looked every bit like the heroic knights they studied in history. Tall, broad-shouldered, charismatic, and handsome Minho was the epitome of what Jinki had hoped to become and his traditional knight's sword was the weapon Jinki had dreamt of wielding for months.
How Jonghyun -- short, clumsy, somewhat dense Jonghyun -- ended up with a sword that was almost as tall as himself was a mystery for the ages, but it didn't make Jinki feel any less disgruntled.
"Jjong is just overcompensating," an underclassman had told him snidely, with a careless flip of his hair, "and you're just not meant to be the hero."
And that's what led Jinki to take up magic in his second year.
Magic was a tricky thing. Everyone had the potential to learn magic, but not everyone could master it. Jinki found this out the hard way when he chanted what should have been an easy incantation for pulling water out of the moisture in the air resulted in the dying of every one of his classmates' hair into ridiculous colors.
The professor easily got rid of the colors in everyone's hair with the exception of Kim Kibum, the same underclassman who had prompted him to take up magic.
For some reason, the dye in his hair wouldn't come out for weeks, and he had managed to convince everyone by that time that Jinki had subconsciously done it on purpose even though that made little to no sense.
Of course everyone -- barring Kibum -- had forgiven him eventually given his reputation at the academy for being a good-hearted, well-meaning and yet luckless student, but just like the dagger incident, Jinki's lessons in magic seemed to become progressively worse until the professor had taken him aside and asked him to reconsider.
"But I'm not good at swordsmanship, and it's already the second term of my second year," Jinki had argued half-heartedly, eyes already blurring with tears. It wasn't like he was expecting the argument to do him any favors or for the professor to offer him any sympathy, but he had to try.
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"You just need to find what you're good at, and start from there," the old man had said, and he left Jinki to think it over as he hobbled back to his classroom.
For the rest of the year, Jinki had spent his time trying out all sorts of weapons from morning stars to bows and arrows to gauntlets. He even took up healing magic and buff magic classes.
In the end though, the result was the same. He just wasn't very good at any of it.
So how he ended up assigned to a practice room with Jonghyun, Jinki really didn't know.
"Maybe you're my moving target," Jonghyun supplies unhelpfully once he had finished warming up. His sword was already back in its sheath and he's sweaty all over.
Jinki scoots over a couple of inches.
Suddenly, the two of them hear the door open and in comes three underclassmen: Kim Kibum, Choi Minho, and Lee Taemin. All three have their weapons out, although Kibum is the only one looking like he's about to attack.
"Have you seen him?" Kibum asks haughtily as he points his staff at Jinki who wonders if he should be offended or threatened. It does have a very sharp tip. "He trips over air -- there's no way he's a moving target."
Jinki looks around the room at Jonghyun and Minho who both have swords of different types, Kibum who has a staff, and Taemin who's wearing a pair of gauntlets and greaves and then suddenly it clicks and he feels very sick because really, what were the professors thinking? Sticking the five of them together like that?
By the time he's realizes it though, Jonghyun and Kibum's argument has escalated into a series of "My weapon is bigger" and "Your weapon is another word for overcompensation" jokes and jabs with occasional remarks from Minho about how awesome his own sword was and there doesn't seem to be a clear way to express his epiphany.
Eventually, he and Taemin just end up sitting against the wall of the practice room, watching as the three others brandish their weapons with as much showboating as possible. It soon becomes obvious though that Taemin isn't staying out of the fight because he's a good little kid, not with how he smirks every time one of the others gets dissed.
"What do you think, Hyung?" Taemin asks Jinki straightforwardly, his eyes still on the display of teenage idiocy before them.
And even if he looks distracted, Taemin is obviously curious about Jinki's opinion. It feels good to be listened to, especially when he feels like he's right. The 'hyung' the underclassman added in there was nice too.
So Jinki tries to explain it, first by thinking it out and then by slowly going over the concept with Taemin. Eventually, the other three start settling down and listening because he's making a lot of sense.
They're all on the verge of ending their basic schooling, and because no one is ever ready to strike off on their own at first, the higher-ups have formed a unit. They're the traditional five man band, and they'll have to work together in order to pass the next stage of their hero training.
"So we're a band of heroes about to graduate?" Minho asks, and he smiles brightly, "Do I get to be the hero, Hyung?"
Jonghyun snorts, pushing Minho's face away impatiently. "No way, I'm the hero. I'm the one with the big sword." He shakes the jewel-encrusted hilt of his sword for emphasis, but the only immediate reply is Kibum's eye-rolling.
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Despite the chaos though, Kibum hears the opinion of their youngest and scoffs. But for the first time since Jinki's met him, it sounds more playful than condescending.
"Sure, Jinki hyung will just be our idea guy and throw books at people. There's no other use for him anyway."
And Jinki smiles, because that's more than he's ever hoped for ever since he failed that first course. He finally feels like he belongs somewhere, even if that somewhere involves younger boys who act more like boys than the heroes they were training to be.
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