Everyone in class, began to clear their tables and stack them on top of one another, placing them along the four sides of the classrooms.
They were all very excited to have this practical class and all the young and aspiring necromancers were all chirping away while clearing the table very animatedly and Tsukiko was no exception. She always looked forward to their weekly practical classes as they gave her the opportunity to test out the progress, she'd made in class so far and would also be able to know more of the mistakes she made when using her magic, so it was good learning opportunity for her.
Tsukiko hummed a tune as she did her share of the preparations and out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Jae-sung.
"I wonder if Jae-sung had any practical classes in Korea.", she thought, "I'll go ask him". She tried waving her arms and yelling his name in a half whisper, half shout but for some reason, he didn't notice and continued to stack chairs. Feeling a bit exasperated, Tsukiko decided to try to wave her arms even harder and thankfully, he was able to notice her. He briskly walked towards where she was and was visibly confused.
Tsukiko felt a little sorry for him, seeing him in this state and tried to make him feel less confused. "I wanted to ask you about something regarding the practical class", she said. Almost as if he guessed what she wanted to as, he answered her question with another question. "Let me guess, you wanted to know if we had any practical classes in Korea?".
Tsukiko, "..."She was so shocked that Jae-sung was able to accurately guess her question, and with so much ease too! she even started to welcome the possibility of him being psychic. Seeing her have such a strong reaction, Jae-sung realized that he was right and answered her question. "To answer your question, yes we had practical classes in my old school in Korea, in fact, we had them every day after each class".
Tsukiko, who had already come over her shock was surprised to hear this, after all, they had these classes once a week, sometimes two, but never the entire week. She wanted to ask how doing practical classes everyday felt since she had never experienced such a fantasy when the teacher told them that it was time to get started on the practical.
Tsukiko and Jae-sung stopped talking and faced the teacher in order to see what she was going to do. There were suddenly two rectangular blocks of marble on the floor which both had something on them, though, nobody could see what those somethings was as they were covered in thick black silk.
The teacher dramatically moved around the two marble blocks in circles and spoke with her arms behind her back. "Students, today we will be working with metamorphosis and transformation magic which were the last thing you were all taught before this class, right? the students gave an excited 'Yes' and she continued speaking, " Now, I'm sure some of you have started to ponder about just what was behind these veils, well I'll tell you they are the materials that you will be using for this class". As she said this, she dramatically unveiled the two objects on the marble blocks. On the first one, there was a book, and on the second, there was a fishbowl.
Some of the students were confused while others like Tsukiko immediately got it. "We're supposed to turn the book, into a fish". And they were right. The teacher told them to watch her, and she dramatically raised her hand and pointed it at the book and closed her eyes. Soon, a loud bang was heard and there was an eruption of smoke.
Once it cleared, everybody saw that the book that once lay motionless on the marble block, had now become a lively orange fish. The class was in awe, and they all immediately brought out their wands, wanting to try it out as well.
The teacher turned the fish back into a book and told the class that they'd have to do the same. Some immediately became less enthusiastic as the magic to change something back to its original form, was much harder than changing it to something else.
Seeing the way the students had lost their eagerness, the teacher decided to make things a little more interesting and made it compulsory for every student to participate in the class or it would mean instant failure. There was obviously, an uproar from the students claiming that the teacher wasn't being fair but of course, no matter how loud their shouts, she still didn't change her mind. Begrudgingly, the students came out one after the other in order to attempt the transformation magic.
There was a total of 20 students in the class, so the teacher arranged the students into four sets with five people in each one and went on to call each student at random to step out and try to transform the book into a fish and back into its original form. Some students were able to do the first step, but when it came to the second, they would have a bit of trouble, some even messed up on the first step and all sorts of things happened.
Like one of the newer students tried to do it, he aimed wrong and accidentally turned one of the other students into an Asian black bear, though nobody was afraid, after all, monsters were more frightening, so frightening that this big bear looked adorable and was in swarmed by people, patting his head and stroking his fur.
The teacher shook her head and sighed as she turned the bear back into a boy. After this, there more mishaps and nobody had been able to do what the teacher told them to do. Finally, it was Tsukiko's turn. She walked towards the book and fishbowl, feeling a little nervous after watching everyone else. Still, she shook it off and raised her hand towards the book, wanting to try her very best. Just as she closed her eyes, the sound of thunder rang in everyone's ears. Tsukiko immediately snapped her eyes open and joined everybody in looking out the window. A large thunderstorm had appeared out of nowhere and the sky that was originally bright, had become depressingly grey.
All the students were panicking but under the guidance of their teacher who told them to stay away from the window and hide under the tables, the situation didn't escalate any further and the students obediently did as she asked. As Tsukiko had been in the very front of the class, she was the last person to reach the table.
She saw Jae-sung, crouching under a table as well with his brows knitted. Tsukiko felt a bit worried and went towards Jae-sung. Although, before she could reach him, another round of thunder and lightning came. Strangely enough, Tsukiko started having very intense headaches as soon as this happened, and her entire body felt weak. "What...", thought Tsukiko. "...is happening..to me".
This was the last thing Tsukiko thought of before she blacked out. The next time she woke up, Tsukiko found herself in a room that smelled like medicine and hand sanitizer, with white walls and a lot of machines.
She was in the hospital. Tsukiko struggled to sit up, but immediately felt a very sharp pain from her head. Suddenly, the door opened, and two people walked in. Tsukiko's vision was still a little blurry but once her eyes cleared up, she saw that it was Miyuki and Jae-sung and they both rushed to Tsukiko's side when they saw that she had woken up. They immediately started asking her questions like, "How do you feel?", "Should we get the doctor for you?", "Would you like some water?", and Tsukiko was a bit stunned at all the questions. Trying to stop their endless barrage of questions, Tsukiko said, "I'm fine and yes, some water would be nice".
Miyuki immediately went to get some water for Tsukiko and gave it to her, she even offered to feed it to her to which Tsukiko refused. She only had a little headache, she wasn't crippled. Tsukiko didn't know whether to laugh or cry and could only keep drinking her water. When she was finished, she very seriously asked, "What happened after I fainted?". Both Miyuki and Jae-sung looked nervously at each other, seeming like they were contemplating on whether or not they should answer her question.
Tsukiko saw the hesitation in their eyes, and tried to convince them that she could take it, whatever this 'it' was. Finally, after a lot of pushing and pulling, Miyuki and Jae-sung finally gave in and told her everything. Apparently, right when Tsukiko had fallen down, Jae-sung ran over to her and asked the teacher for help and she told him that they needed to take her to the nurse's office.
Jae-sung carried the unconscious Tsukiko on his back and followed the teacher out of the class to the nurse's office. On the way there, Miyuki saw Jae-sung with Tsukiko on his back and a serious expression on his face, and also followed them asking Jae-sung what had happened.
They were both terribly worried about her and quickly made their way to the nurse's office. Once they got there, the teacher explained what had happened and Jae-sung laid her down on the bed. The nurse immediately got to work, but she couldn't even get close to Tsukiko. She tried to check her pulse but was nearly electrocuted. On top of that, Tsukiko's body had become extremely hot.
The nurse knew that she wouldn't be able to do anything and immediately called for an ambulance. The school owned a hospital that was in close proximity, so the ambulance, with all sorts of necromancers who specialized in patients who got ill due to unnatural reasons, and they loaded her onto the stretcher and into the ambulance.
Miyuki and Jae-sung were both terribly worried about her and asked their teacher for permission to follow Tsukiko to the hospital and she approved. The thunderstorm was still very much active during all of this and showed no signs of letting up. It seemed to even grow louder and larger and had even reached the hospital.
They were able to reduce the fever she had and stabilize her, though they were even able to eradicate whatever had been causing her to have electric currents in her body. Of course, normal doctors wouldn't be able to do this, and she was treated by necromancers that specialized in medicine magic.
Jae-sung and Miyuki explained all this to her, "And that's all that happened before now", said Jae-sung. Both Miyuki and Jae-sung looked at Tsukiko worriedly. Tsukiko smiled helplessly at them, though her heart warmed at all they had done for her. She sat up and took both Jae-sung's and Miyuki's hand. "Thank you", she said. Jae-sung said nothing, though the rims of his eyes were red.
Miyuki started bawling and hugged Tsukiko and started going on and on about how she was so worried and thought Tsukiko would die. Tsukiko patted her back, trying to pacify her. "Don't cry. Look, I'm alive, aren't I?". This worked a bit and Miyuki quieted down. "You are", she said while hugging her again. Jae-sung watched this all go down and smiled at how close the two friends were.
Miyuki had insisted on staying with Tsukiko longer, but since it was already 5:00PM and she didn't have the heart to tell Miyuki to stay. So, after convincing her to go home, Miyuki hugged her again, and bade her farewell. Jae-sung stayed a little longer and spent the rest of the visiting hours watching over Tsukiko and talking with her. Tsukiko appreciated the company, though she also wanted him to go home as it was getting terribly late.
She tried to convince him to do so but he did not yield, though once visiting hours were up, he had to go. So, he reluctantly left the hospital room and told Tsukiko to get better soon. Tsukiko waved at him and smiled. As soon as he left, Tsukiko was extremely tired and fell into a deep sleep. Once Jae-sung left the hospital, he started to walk home.
Of course, as a rich young master, he could have asked his chauffeur to pick him up, but he had something he wanted to do, so he could only walk. Jae-sung kept taking a lot of turns and continued to do so for around thirty minutes, until he abruptly stopped walking. "You've been following for quite some time now, haven't you? Show yourself and I'll show you mercy".