#k-comfyspace

“So, here’s where I’m leaving you.” Minji stopped her tracks at a door.  I scanned it from top to bottom as other people in different costumes entered the room. “Handong and Bora will stay with you for now.”

“And where are you going?” I raised my eyebrow, definitely not intending to know more about this mysterious girl with an addiction to dressing like the Victorian times. Even her uniform was the Victorian equivalent of my new clothes.

“To my class?” She chuckled. “I already passed this course.”

“Let me guess,” I sneered, a smug smile growing on my face, “Monstering 101? History of Trick or Treating?”

“Literature.” All the girls answered in a chorus, visibly confused. 

“Oh.” I cleared my throat, losing the tone.

“Yeah, I flunked this one last year.” Bora shrunk in her place, shrugging. “It’s kinda hard to grab onto books and stuff when you’re-”

“A projector?” I raised my eyebrows, plucking my mouth.

“Death.” She answered. 

I rolled my eyes at her insistence on that. I had to admit the technology was impressive. Back in the world of normal humans, holograms were barely starting to pop out, still looking pretty glitchy. And here she was.

“Fine, I should get going or I won’t get to class in time.” Minji smiled before turning around. “You guys have fun!”

“Sure...” I scoffed while the other two waved enthusiastically. “Cause it’s been very clear how much fun I have been having lately.”

Bora just went through the wall instead of the door and Handong took my hand and dragged me inside the classroom. I knew I was putting up a bit of resistance, enough to still make clear how much I didn’t want to be here but not enough to make Handong fight against me.

And it looked like a pretty normal classroom to me, except for the strange amount of different plants hanging from the tall ceiling. I thought plants need sun to grow so… lusciously. 

The tables were for two people and were placed in rows from the front to the back, with some of them already occupied and different people in their own costumes talking and moving between them. 

A knot formed on my throat, taking me back into my own years of being in school. Not the best memories and definitely not something I would do for fun like these people.

After quickly scanning around, I chose the seat besides Handong just to not go too far from the very little that was already familiar to me. 

“Hey!” Bora’s scream made me bolt up from the chair startled. 

“Bora what the hell?!” My hand bolted to my rapidly rising chest. 

“This is my seat!” She complained right back to me.

“You don’t even need to sit!” I motioned violently with my hands while I tried to even my breath. “You don’t even have a body!”

“But I have feelings!” She furrowed her eyebrows, pouting her lips. “And they get hurt very easily, you know?”

“There’s a lot of seats available around Y/n,” Handong broke in before things scaled even louder. “Just find another one.”

“So you’re going to make me sit with complete strangers?” I mumbled, Both Handong and Bora nodding back at me. 

A groan escaped my mouth as I moved through the room, trying to find a different place to sit. Any table close to Handong and Bora was already occupied so I had to look even farther from them.

Until I saw one that was close to the door, not that I was planning to escape, but if the occasion arrived where I could consider that an option, it wasn’t a bad idea to be prepared for it.

I just approached and sat down, crossing my arms. But the entire room went silent when I did, even some gasps here and there. I was so eerily silent and heavy on my shoulders that I had to turn around to discover the reason for the sudden silence.

Everyone’s eyes were firm over me, wide and concerned. And I squinted my eyes at them trying to decipher the reason for their stare.

“What?” I faced the whole classroom. “You’ve never seen a completely normal h-”

“Y/n?” Handong whispered.

And just when I turned to her, everyone’s eyes changed their target to someone behind me. I was just about to turn around when I heard someone clearing their throat.

“Excuse me,” Another voice taunted behind me. “What are you doing on my seat?”

“Sitting? What does it look like I’m doing here?!” I turned to face them while complaining loudly. “Does everyone have an assigned seat in this class?! Where are we? Elementary School?!”

“You’re new, aren’t you?” Two girls were looking back at me with their eyebrows raised and their arms crossed over their chest. The one who spoke back to me had black, shiny, horns growing out of her forehead, while black and purple veins were visible through her pale skin.

“Against my own will.” I scoffed.

“You’re funny.” The other girl was smaller, and looked almost completely normal if it wasn’t for her serpent like pupils and spiked ears. She put her elbows over the table, resting her head over her hands. “Who are you?”

“I’m Y/n”, I side eyed her, increasing the distance between her face and mine. “Who are you?”

But instead of saying her name like any normal person would, of course why would I expect her to do that in this freak place, in some kind of amazing display of technology way beyond my comprehension, she turned into me.

My face, my body and my expressions, like looking into a terrifying mirror that refused to follow my movements. 

“I’m Y/n!” She repeated in her own voice but came out of my body.

And I could only watch her completely with my mouth dropped and eyes wide open as she cackled at my terrified face.

“C´mon Gahyeon!” The other girl chuckled at the scene, rolling her eyes. “You had your fun with the new student, let me have some for myself.”

She closed in slower, licking her lips as she scanned me from head to toe. She waved her fingers around the air, creating dark puffs of smoke. And inhaling them just made the inside of my nose start burning, a strong sulfur smell coming out of them.

I coughed my lungs, my hand volting up to cover my nose and the other fanning the air in front of me. I stood up from the chair, trying not to give in to her provocations.

“Wow!” I complained, “Would you like me to introduce you to the concept of showers?”

All the people looking around chuckled at my comment, making a slight smug smile appear over my own lips.

“What the-” She jumped back, squinting her eyes, “What kind of monster are you?”

“Again with that stupid question!” I growled making the laughter around die quickly, “I’m not a monster, I’m a normal and completely not deranged h-”

“Zombie!” Bora blasted up from the desk below me, putting herself between me and this other girl. 

“I’m not a zomb-!”

“These new cases are totally weird, don’t you think Yoohyeon?” She chuckled as the other two girls raised their eyebrows, looking at each other and back to a rambling Bora. “Practically no decomposition and a lot of denial for someone with no brain.”

“Yeah, one would think they lose care of everything when they get buried.” The smaller girl scoffed. 

“Right?” Bora giggled nervously. “That’s what we were thinking too! But anyway, I think we have bothered you too much, I’ll be escorting them to their seat-”

“No! Wait! Bora!” But it was Handong’s hand that dragged me away from the two girls, who looked back at me with their eyebrows raised.

“Bye Y/n!” Gahyeon waved back at me with certain coquetry as she watched me.

“Oh and, if you would like to hang out with some real monsters,” Yoohyeon winked back at me. “Hit us up.”

“Some what?” I whispered only for me as they both took their seats on the table I was occupying previously.

“Y/n!” Bora’s eyes opened wide as she faced me, trying to get hold of my arms.

“What?!” I furrowed my eyebrows at her expression. “She started it!”

“Good morning class!” A tall man with a very particular white mustache and large robes entered the room, prancing happily.

“Morning?” I stammered, looking at the dark sky through the window behind me.

“We’ll talk later!” Sua mumbled after rushing away and back to her seat. 

Leaving me alone in the middle of the room, I only turned around to find an empty seat beside another girl completely covered in tarnished and stained bandages. Some of them hanging loose from her arms and legs. She was reading from a book from which I couldn’t understand the letters or engravings. They looked like drawings? Hieroglyphics even?

I took the seat beside her, huffing as I settled into it. She just turned around with her eyes wide at me, looking from head to toe. And I had no intentions on getting on to another fight so I just sighed.

“Is this seat taken too?” I muttered, signing to where I was sitting. 

She shook her head, even a small smile growing over her also tarnished and kind of dry lips. With her hand she let me know I was in a good spot for now and returned to read her book.

The bearded man still took his time to settle onto the desk in the front of the classroom, the volume on the room slowly lowering as he did.

“Dope mummy costume by the way,” I exhaled, with a small smile growing on my own face. “What did you make the bandages with? Coffee?”

She turned back to face me with one of her eyebrows raised, her lips pierced in curiosity.

“You don’t talk much do you?” I chuckled, resting one hand over my chest. 

The girl shrugged, shaking her head. 

“That’s perfect.” I sighed. “It’s just that everyone else here seems to love to talk over me so this is good for a change.” 

The bearded man started talking in front of the class, his voice strong and booming enthusiastically through the room as he expressed with a smile. But my mind couldn’t focus on anything that wasn’t Blah, blah, blah and blah. 

My eyelids started weighing a bit too much, and my head was just starting to fall off my hand when the door slammed open, bolting me up.

Another girl was standing on the arch, mostly disheveled, like she had just woken up and decided to come to class with the same wrinkled and even a bit ripped plaid shirt over the stained uniform. She was breathing heavily as her hand bolted up, trying to fix her own hair.

Her eyes were strong, piercing. But right now full of worry as she looked at the professor with something I could only describe as puppy eyes.

“Miss Siyeon, but you’re ten minutes late!” The bearded man looked at a watch he had gotten out of one of the pockets in his large gown.

“I know Professor!” She panted, holding herself from the archway of the door. “It’s just that yesterday’s moon was a full one and-!”

“Oh, right!” The professor nodded. “Just go splash some water on your face and come take a seat darling!”

“Thanks sir!” She bolted away as my eyes tried to follow her out. 

And I didn’t realize that I kept my eyes over the door until I saw her bolt back in after a minute or two, with her hair slicked back with water and her breath even more controlled. 

She had her sight low as she walked through the tables and everyone paid barely any attention to her. My eyes followed her even as she chose an empty seat in the back of the class, plummeting down and rushing to get her books out of the old backpack she wore.

And I just couldn’t get my eyes off her until maybe she felt the weight of my gaze upon her and looked in my direction, making me snap away.

But how could I not pay attention? She was just another girl in the class. And in a room full of people with costumes and crazy makeup, how could I not notice the only other normal looking girl in the room with me.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

“I can’t believe you made me sit through all of that!” I wanted to rip my scalp out.

Three hours straight of lectures, classes, and all those types of things that I had already gone through long before coming here. Jiu, Bora and Handong just looked at me as I kept ranting through the halls, other students just side-eyeing me as I passed beside them.

“I know I was never the best student back home but c'mon!” I spat, looking at the ceiling, “That doesn’t mean I have to go through it all over again!”

“What do you mean you were not the best?” Bora cut me off, her eyebrows furrowed as she moved backwards. “You were answering those questions incredibly fast!”

“I’m more surprised that you guys didn’t know the answers!” I scoffed. “Like Sheridan Le Fanu? Wrote a novel about vampires even before Bram Stoker. Vampires, you know? The monster Jiu is always dressed as?”

“We don’t talk about Bram Stoker.” Minji side-eyed me, completely serious. “He was a traitor, a very good friend of my grandma was killed because he sold us away.”

“I’m sorry, what?” My thoughts halted at such a statement. 

“But don’t talk down on yourself!” Bora’s hand tried to pat my shoulder but went straight through it. “The professor even gave extra credits for one of the questions!”

“Yeah, one about Mary Shelley!” I sneered. “How could you not know about the writer of Frankenstein? Considered the first modern science fiction novel? The reason why every security guard is named Frank?!”

“I told you I flunked this one last period.” Bora just pouted, looking down.

“Wasn’t Mary Shelley a good friend of Dr. Frankenstein thought?” Jiu raised her eyebrows, mumbling. “I remember an uncle telling me about the times he used to hang out with them over in the UK.”

“Minji, what-” I had to let out a huge huff of air out of my mouth.

I preferred shutting my mouth and just keep walking behind them. There was no use fighting someone so intent on acting her own narrative. In fact I guess it was just easier ignoring this weird thing they had going on. 

They weren’t bad to hang around when I forgot the whole Halloween facade. 

We got into a busy and moving cafeteria, with people holding trays full of food and sitting at wide tables. They were chatting and playing among themselves while eating food that some I recognized and other I didn’t. 

And based on my experience here on the first day I wasn’t really interested in knowing about them very thoroughly.

Minji and Bora started walking towards one side and Handong to another, leaving me standing in the middle, completely confused. 

“You really won’t like going with them.” Handong extended her hand towards me, and remembering today’s breakfast… or dinner as they called it, I was gonna take her advice.

I sprinted towards her with the tip of my toes, grabbing her hand. It only lasted one second before my cheeks blushed and I retrieved my hand from hers. 

As I scanned through the food stands there were a lot of things that looked incredibly tasty and… alright. But could I really trust everything I was looking at? I grabbed a tray for myself and went for the things that waked less suspicion in me. Almost copying what Handong was grabbing for herself.

Following Handong through the maze of occupied tables, I scanned all the other people in the room. I found Siyeon, sitting beside other students, talking and laughing loudly. Once again I wasn’t able to take my eyes off her and how normal she looked in comparison to everyone else. And she looked my way making me face my front again.

We got to where Jiu and Sua were already sitting and waiting for us. Well, Sua was just floating on top of the bench, but by now should I really be describing it in detail? Jiu had a tall metal glass still with her usual deep red liquid and she sipped it as Handong and I sat down in front of her.

But as I raised my head I noticed the girl that sat beside me on Literature sitting by herself on another table far from us. I wanted to call her to invite her with us but just then I realized I had no idea what her name was.

“Hey…” I called the girls beside me while pointing at her. “Do you know that girl’s name?”

They looked around to glance at her before turning back to me glancing at each other with disoriented gazes

“Not really.” Handong answered. “I don’t know anyone who knows it.”

“Me neither,” Bora shook her head. 

“How come no one does?” I questioned. 

“Well, it’s not like she’s very communicative.” Jiu replied. 

“Touche.” I stood up from the table, walking her way. Neither of the girls on my table put any resistance to the idea. “I’m gonna go invite her over.” 

And as I closed in, she raised her eyes and met me with a light smile and a gentle wave.

“Hello again!” My hands fidgeted, playing with the sides of my uniform. “Would you like to come sit with us?”

She tilted her head, looking over my shoulder at the girls back at my table. And they also waved pretty shyly back at her. Timidly, she nodded, grabbing up to her tray and standing up. 

“By the way,” I chuckled, rubbing my nape. “I never really asked for your name.”

“I’m Yubin.” She answered in a soft and low voice, making me snap my head towards her in surprise. “You can call me Dami too.”

“Dami.” I was still kind of shocked by just hearing her talk back to me. “I like your name! It’s pretty.”

She chuckled, nodding back to me. While we walked I was able to take a look at the food she had picked and it also looked pretty normal to me. A fair assortment of fruit, bread, honey and a glass of some kind of yellow beverage that smelled like beer. But it couldn’t be beer right? Beer in a school? I decided to eat my question about it for my own sake.

But before we could arrive at our place, I was cut by someone on my way, stepping way too close to me for my confort. 

“Oh hey! I didn’t see you there!” Gahyeon honeyed her voice.

“Really?” I rolled my eyes. “It looked kind of purposeful of you to step in front of me.”

“You’re really funny!” She chuckled to my own confusion, playfully slapping my shoulder. “Anyway, good thing I found you, Yoohyeon and I talked about it and we wanted you to have this-”

She slipped a folded piece of paper on the front pocket of my shirt, tapping it lightly. I looked at it without getting it out, furrowing my eyes.

“What is that for?” I asked, looking back at her.

“We heard that you were assigned to cabin thirteen.” She raised her eyebrows, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “So it’s in case you ever need a… backup plan.”

“What is so bad about cabin thirteen?” I squinted my eyes, shaking my head towards my frien- They weren’t my friends yet, but they at least treated me alright.

“It’s not about what’s bad! It’s about what could be better.” She sneered, winking back at me. “Well I’ll see you around Y/n!”

She sprinted away, being stopped and greeted by a multitude of other monsters in the cafeteria. And that was something that didn’t happen with Jiu, Handong and Sua. Less even with Dami, who was the only one I was certain that I liked because she didn’t talk much.

Deciding to ignore that interaction, I sighed deeply and signed Dami to keep walking towards our table. The girls received me with confused and perplexed looks as we sat down on our seats.

“Hey, I want you to meet Yubin.” I introduced her to the rest of the girls as she waved timidly.

“Yubin?” Bora hit her up with her enthusiastic self, “Your name is pretty! How come I never heard it before?”

“Well, nobody asked before.” She answered, shrugging. 

Sua, Minji and Handong all jumped surprised at hearing her talk back, but quickly just accepted it, continuing with their meals.

“Y/n-” Jiu closed in on the table towards me, whispering as if to make this a secret between both of us. “Do you know Gahyeon?”

“Ah, yeah. And Yoohyeon too.” I scoffed. “I sat on their apparently assigned seats in literature and they made a big fuss about it.”

“Yeah, you know how they are.” Bora added, closing in too. Jiu rolled her eyes at her words, making me think there was more history between them than I thought. “We even saved Y/n from outing themselves as a human.”

“You almost did what?” Jiu almost choked on her gulp of wine.

“Well, Yoohyeon asked what kind of monster I was and I was about to answer honestly,” I frowned towards Bora, “Until someone interrupted me.”

“I believe the words you’re trying to say are ‘Thank you’” Bora’s smile grew on her lips, genuinely proud of her action.

“Thank you?!” I scoffed back. “You keep calling me brainless and you still want me to go and thank you? Why would I want to be associated with you?!”

“Because we’re trying to protect you!” Jiu growled between her teeth. “You can’t be around telling everyone that you’re human Y/n!”

Yubin snapped her head towards me, her eyes widening. 

“Why do you guys keep insisting on this charade!” I scoffed. “I’m aware that a lot of you may not like me because I don’t like this either! Halloween is a complete waste of time to me and for you it’s like a religion okay? I just want to get out of here and if everyone has to know that I don’t care!”

“Well you should!” Jiu snapped back at me. “We don’t really know why you are so insistent on making this a lie. But there are monsters like Yoohyeon and Gahyeon here that would kill you if they knew your real identity.”

A loud laugh burst out of my body, making me twist with my hands over my own stomach. Other students even turned their heads towards our table.

“Yeah sure! And I fly with white glistening wings when I jump down from the bunk bed.” I chuckled, still trying to keep my laughter in. “You don’t even drink blood, it’s just a cheap wine you carry around.”

I grabbed her glass with the thick liquid, now half full and tilted it to my mouth.

“Y/n!-” Jiu reached for my hand and barely missed.

But the liquid smelled way too far from the grappey smells of wine and was thicker than it. Upon touching my lips I was met with a metallic and sour taste. In the shock, I swallowed the bit of liquid that entered my mouth and it covered all its way down to my stomach. 

Slamming down the glass on the table, my other hand bolted straight to my mouth. My eyes widened as I gazed upon Jiu, trying not to make a scene in the middle of the cafeteria.