#20200714

You aren’t sure why Hyunjin is staying human ten minutes into the assignment, but it doesn’t stop you from staring at him hopefully.

“Don’t even think about it,” he grumbles for the nth time. 

When you point to his back, he rolls his eyes and takes your notepad from you.

‘I already found out about your little secret, so just stop it already.’

You look at him with a sly smile of disbelief. 

‘You sing and manipulate your spells with different vibrations instead of words,’ he writes with a triumphant smirk.

The way your usual cheerful demeanor falters at his words almost makes him feel bad. Almost. Instead, he writes, ‘Just give up and stay off my back.’

You take the pad back. ‘How did you find out?’

It’s Hyunjin’s turn to be flustered; he did not foresee this question. ‘Changbin told me.’

Your grin tells him that he messed up his answer and that you realize that he’s lying. Do you really trust the older dragon that much? He looks at the note that came with your drink earlier that you’ve stuck to the back of the pad. Or did you trust Chan?

You gesture for him to keep the paper when he tries to hand it back and indicate for him to write another answer. Hyunjin feels his cheeks tingle with heat uncomfortably, so he finally turns dragon and walks ahead of you with his long strides… 

… right into a goblin nest.

He had wondered why you clocked him in the head with a pebble moments before he heard the threatening screeches of the vile creatures, but now he is wondering why you followed him here, panting and bent over your knees, if you knew what he-- and now you as well-- has gotten into.

Anyone else taking this assessment would be delighted to find this many targets in one place, but not him. Goblins, although weak, are crafty, especially in large numbers. The worst of them are mother goblins, protective and merciless. Hyunjin doesn’t need to take a look around to know that they are what makes up most of the muscle force in a nest. Thankfully, they all seem to be ground goblins, meaning he can still fly up and incinerate everything on the ground before he inevitably crashes into something.

But then, there’s you. Despite his apathy towards your kind, he isn’t cruel enough to kill you. At the same time, both you and him are not getting out of this unscathed if you stay any longer, Twilight Terror or otherwise.

In his indecision, Hyunjin barely notices you signing something towards him. He recognizes the alphabet and thus the two letters you are repeating to him.

‘G-O.’

He watches your small smile-- a familiar smile, he thinks-- as your necklace gleams white and his wings unfurl. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a goblin arching her morning glory backwards with her gaze trained on you.

Hyunjin lets out a distressed roar as he feels himself lifting off the ground as you grow smaller and smaller in his field of vision. Thankfully, you dodge the first blow from the goblin, but how much more can you take, especially with the other ones quickly approaching? 

Without thinking, Hyunjin swings his tail downwards and sweeps you off of your feet and onto his back. He shoots several breaths of fire onto the meddling vermins down below as you take him out of the area. His ears perk up at the sound of your voice. It’s smooth and even just like his current flight. It’s a beautiful sound, he decides as he gets lost in it, ignoring the nineteen beeps that sound from his kill-count necklace.

He flies off the edge of the forest and over the neighboring sea where the morning sun reflects orange and gold off the waters. Once out of harm’s way, you let out a peal of giggles at your and his success. Hyunjin can’t help but grin too. Part of him wonders how you are able to stay so on pitch while laughing.

Laughing.

The sounds of six years ago come flooding back into his head. Laughing. He was laughing too with his rider until he heard his turning more sinister.

“Lee?” a feminine voice calls out. 

Hyunjin can’t remember who said that. He only recalls trying to move, but his muscles not listening, not when they had sworn their existence and loyalty to his rider. The weight that he had come to adore on his back became heavy and suffocating. The same weight he feels on him now.

You feel your powers losing control over the dragon, starting with the unfamiliar tail. Hyunjin veers hard towards the left due to the imbalance and crashes into the side of the cliff. Something snags Hyunjin’s purple pendant off and it falls into the ocean with a splash. Without it in his proximity, Hyunjin returns to human form as the two of you free fall after the stone.

Hyunjin grabs onto a sturdy branch along the fall, but you aren’t so lucky. 

“Y/N?” he calls out. “Y/N!” 

Thankfully, you quickly resurface onto a rock and wave to him with a bright smile in your annoying wet-but-still-pristine uniform. 

He involuntarily lets out a sigh of relief and begins lowering himself down to meet you. When he turns around again, he sees you falling comedically backwards into the waves.

“What do you think you’re--!”

You begin swimming, and it doesn’t take a fool to know towards what. Just beneath the surface floats a gem that glows a purple hue. Luckily, it doesn’t look like you’ll have to dive deep for it. 

Wait.

Stones don’t float.

It’s a sea goblin! Hyunjin watches in horror as the vermin notices you and pulls you under the waves for a tussle. You unsheath the dagger at your thigh but miss its head as you thrust forward your weapon. The goblin slams you against a sharp rock, dying the surrounding water red as a sharp pain blossoms from your shoulder. It again hurls you at another rock, this time making sure your head meets it first and knocks you out.

Hyunjin is already swimming by the time your body sinks to the ocean floor. The goblin is racing him towards you to finish the job. No, not to finish the job; it’s racing to take his necklace! Hyunjin notices a familiar glint attached to a chain wrapped around your dagger. You hadn’t missed your thrust earlier; you just had a different goal that what everyone imagined. 

By some luck, Hyunjin reaches you first and ignores the sharp nails being dragged across his abdomen as he holds you and your knife against him and takes you to the surface to transform.

The goblin doesn’t stand a chance. It quickly swims deep into the ocean upon seeing the dragon, but a little water is no trouble for a Terror. Hyunjin sends a deafening roar after it and follows with a flame so hot, water evaporates immediately in its proximity.

A soft chirp sounds from his remaining necklace. Beep! Twenty. 

“Y/N!” he squeaks at your unconscious form.

The only visible injury is the one on your arm, dying your white coat the same color as its underside, but Hyunjin knows how dangerous head injuries are. He puts his ear to your chest; at least you are still breathing. 

If he were Hye Ji or any other dragon, he would hold you between his mouth and fly back to school, but with his tail, he will be risking giving you another concussion if he attempts that. He could make the journey alone since he is used to the falling, but that would mean leaving you alone. He slams the useless appendage against the sea despite knowing that you’d object to it if you were awake.

Then wake up and scold me! he screams internally.

To make matters worse, the water Hyunjin evaporated is already raining down on him. He shelters you away under his wings and roars repeatedly in distress.

After a solid minute, he hears a reply from an upperclassman proctor. “Is that Hyunjin?”

He lets out another roar, his feet shifting anxiously. “Yes! Yes! Over here!” Soon enough, Hyunjin can make out the familiar shape of his roommate and his rider. 

Of course it's Chan.

“Where’s L/N?” Chan gasps as soon as Changbin puts him down.

Hyunjin lifts his wing up for the other male to see. As soon as he spots your form, Chan pushes past the dragon and scoops you up into his arms.

“A concussion,” Chan announces. He looks at Hyunjin. “In the case of a medical emergency, I have the right to make you terminate your assignment before the allotted time you have for your task. Return your tracker now and aboard my dragon.”

Hyunjin transforms and tosses the metal necklace to him with a dark lookl. “I finished already anyway.”

He ignores the stunned look on Changbin’s snout as he climbs on the reptile. Although offensive, he can’t blame his friend for his surprise; Hyunjin hasn’t completed a single assignment with a rider since he enrolled, but for some reason though, he isn’t proud of his new achievement. As the trio flies to campus, a heavy feeling weighs in his chest where his necklace used to hang.

The wind in his face that he used to enjoy so much now makes him sick. Your limp body in his arms only reminds him that he’s never going to truly be able to fly again. He has to admit that you are the most versatile rider he has ever seen, so if you aren’t able to control a tail like his, then maybe it is time to finally face the truth. It’s finally time to call it quits.

Your resilience both mentally and physically is admirable, Hyunjin notes when he sees you out of the infirmary and walking about in less than a week. The next thought he has is to hide so you can’t see him. However, what you want to find, you will find.

‘You didn’t visit me once in the clinic,’ you pout accusingly.

‘Why would I visit you?’

He expects you to pull another ‘Because you’re my dragon!’ nonsense, but instead, you take his hand and put something cold in it. He looks down to see his necklace that he never took back from your dagger.

To your shock, he hands it back to you. “I don’t need this anymore.”

‘What?’

‘I don’t need this anymore. Keep it. Sell it. I don’t care.’ There’s a reason why he’s gone a week without retrieving it from you in the first place.

With a tight frown, you stand firmly with your feet apart and press the notepad against his chest, demanding an explanation.

‘I’m quitting. I’m not going to be a dragon anymore. I can’t graduate anyway by the way I’m going. I just wanted’ he crosses out the last three words and hands the pad back to you. I just wanted to tell you first before leaving. Maybe that’s why he has been avoiding you.

You’re oddly unfazed by his decision. You simply write, ‘Why?’

He looks at your shoulder. The one blemish you have on your uniform resides there. The stitching is so fine, you can hardly tell it’s there, but the faint brown of dried blood is more obvious. ‘I don’t have to explain myself to you.’

‘Just because I got a little hurt--’ you begin to write.

‘It’s not that,’ he interjects with a scowl.

‘Then what?’

Hyunjin huffs in annoyance. He knows you won’t give up until he tells you, so he writes, ‘Fine, you want to know why? It’s because I can’t fly. Not by myself, and not even with a rider as skilled as you. What is a Twilight Terror that can’t fly? Even a hatchling can do that!’

Your frown deepens. ‘Sure you can. We were doing fine after the nest.’

‘And then I dropped us.’

‘That was my fault! I’m not used to your tail, but we can get it with more training.’

The memories that returned that day flash back into Hyunjin’s mind. ‘It wasn’t you. I just can’t be helped.’

‘I’ve never once met a dragon who could not be helped,’ you pen stubbornly.

Hyunjin eyes your pure white pendant with suspicion but doesn’t dwell on the thought. ‘Well congratulations, you’ve met your first. Shouldn’t you be happy anyway? You’ll be assigned to a regular, functioning dragon after I’m gone and can graduate this academy without any problems.’

You scoff silently after reading his message and point to your ear. ‘Do you think I want a regular dragon?’

He bites his lip.

‘Hwang Hyunjin. Stay at Sheng at least until the New Year’s Race and I’ll be out of your scales for good. If you don’t, I’ll quit too and follow you until you come back.’

You’ve been stern with him before-- it was a tactic that you tried in order to get him to listen to you in training-- but never like this. If he were to be honest, it frightens him a little.

He pushes your notepad away begrudgingly and you know you have won. He can put up with this for three more months, he decides. Or, better yet, he can make you quit before then, and Changbin cannot say anything about it this time; he had already given you a chance to save yourself.

‘And Hyunjin? I’d be very sad if you left :(‘

He hates the way you curl the letters of his name so cutely. 

It’s much easier to get Hyunjin to allow you on his back now either because you were already there before or because he’s given up on controlling his dragon form altogether. Still, he only agrees to it when the two of you are alone and out of sight from the other dragons. You get yourself and him excused from regular class-time training with the other dragons and instead move your practice time to after dusk when you and him can be alone.

With the extra hours in the day, Hyunjin begins studying fields he hopes to go into after he rescinds from Sheng Academy. Sometimes, when he walks to the canteen for a quick nibble, he finds you in a vacant classroom with a tail made of old dragon scales that’s shaped to represent his own.

Not having a fin at all and constricting one of Changbin’s is similar, yet very different. Hyunjin doesn’t understand why you are trying so hard for this when he can’t fly with his past haunting him even if you did figure out the kinetics. It’s pathetically futile and not at all heartwarming, Hyunjin tells himself.

Today is one of those days where he’s out for a snack. He spots you through the regular window, although today you aren’t alone.

What’s Chan doing here? He quickly skidaddles to a hiding spot.

The male has his hand just above his sternum like you usually do. Around the pseudo tail swirls blue magic rather than white. 

Why are you teaching him how to spellcast like you, Y/N? Hyunjin curses. You’re supposed to be helping me fly again!

The tail suddenly jerks itself across the room, and Chan gives you a lopsided guilty grin. You wave it off and place your hand on his chest and motion for him to try again. Hyunjin swears he’s flexing the muscles in the area as you do so.

‘Good,’ you sign when he gets the tail to flick as intended. You try to step back, but Chan pulls on your wrist to get you to keep monitoring him. However, he pulls a little too hard, and you crash into his arms.

Chan’s Adam's apple bob up and down at your close proximity. Your lips part as a gasp escapes. The male’s eyes shift down to them and he lifts your head closer, his eyes threatening to flutter shut.

Transforming into a dragon in the hallways is strictly forbidden, but Hyunjin figures he has enough time before getting caught to set Chan’s pants on fire. 

‘Our dueling assignment is in two days,’ you remind him.

Hyunjin isn’t paying attention; he’s too busy grinning at the little burn mark on the tail of your coat. He seems to be ruining your pristine clothes little by little.

You motion for him to lower his head for you to climb on, and to your surprise, he cooperates without a word today. 

Did something good happen? you wonder, stroking him a few times.

The two of you have been making pretty good progress. Like with Changbin, you can get through the easy course in an acceptable amount of time, but it isn’t enough. With the assignment coming up, you want to push him a little further. 

His chest rumbles as he lets out a noise of concern when he feels your increase of energy and sees you leading him towards intermediate course. You ignore him and push on. 

Over the first beam, dodge the log projectiles, slant thirty degrees counterclockwise through the triangular hoop, and fly vertically up the twenty story wall. 

You get through a few more obstacles with only a few hiccups, but none great enough to stop you on your track.

Clear your head, Hyunjin tells himself. Don’t mess this up. Just focus on the course!

Finally, you make it to the last challenge: a rotating hollowed out rectangular prism. The slit cut into it is barely enough to fit the Terror’s wingspan. A dragon would have to rotate perfectly in sync with it for thirty meters to fly through. 

You pat him twice as encouragement and lean forward to brace yourself.

Breath…

Hyunjin enters the tube with his eyes trained on the exit, leaving the rotation up to you. The spin is against the natural direction of the way Hyunjin’s tail tilts, so you amp up your magic to a level according to your best judgement, hoping the leeway space is enough for any fine tuning. 

Thirty meters. Twenty. Fifteen. Ten… Seven… Five, three, two, one!

You pump your fists into the air when Hyunjin’s tail clears the last of the intermediate course, and the male jerks up his head to let out a celebratory roar. The motions combined with you forgetting to turn back down your powers tosses you off his back, and the two of you tumble onto the sand below, laughing and cheering.

“Oh my claws, I can’t believe we did it!” Hyunjin laughs carelessly, unaware that he’s transformed and rolled on top of you with his body held up by his forearms. 

Maybe not all riders are so awful. Maybe.

His smile warms your heart; it’s a sight you don’t see often, but one you can get used to. Has his cheeks always been so fluffy? You reach up to cup them to see if they are an illusion.

Hyunjin blinks in surprise at your touch. It is only then that he realizes how close you are and his brain malfunctions. 

‘Pretty,’ you form the word soundlessly with your lips. 

It was a mistake for him to look down at your lips, he realizes with a huge blush. He quickly pushes himself off of you and scratches into the sand, ‘Sorry.’

You shake your head and begin brushing off your clothes, hoping that the stains won’t be too obvious. That’s two marks on your uniform that he has attached fond memories to, Hyunjin realizes. He wonders how many more he can get on you.