“Strength doesn't come from what you can do.
Strength comes from overcoming the things you thought you couldn't”.

★★★AUNGPAO POV ★★★

We were sitting in Professor Earth's classroom when we saw something unexpected through the open door. A man was carrying one of our classmates, Fourth as it turned out later, and Gemini was walking briskly next to them. Such an event was not an everyday occurrence, so of course P'Earth couldn't stop us from running out of the classroom. We were very curious about what was happening.

Chokun looked at me, I looked at him and nodded. It seemed to me that we were thinking the same thing. While the professor was busy herding the students back to the classroom, we slipped out and quietly followed the mysterious man and Gem. It turned out that they had reached the doctor's office. We stopped and hid behind the nearest bend in the wall.

“What now?” Chokun asked me, breathing loudly, bending down and resting his hands on his legs.

“I don't know. I guess we're waiting. Something doesn't feel right here”.

“You’re right. Something doesn’t seem right to me either. Especially that black and pink flowerpot on the windowsill. It wasn’t there yesterday.”

At first I thought he was crazy, but then Chokun pointed to the nearest window, and then I noticed it too. We looked around, but luckily the corridor was empty. We approached the windowsill as quietly as we could, and then Chokun picked up the flowerpot. He turned it around and suddenly an inscription appeared in blood-red font, probably Arial: “The curse of the traitor is still active and returns to reap its harvest,” but to our surprise the inscription was in English. Someone had clearly enchanted the flowerpot so that when you touched it, you would see this sinister, horrible, and bizarre inscription.

“Broooo... Why is it written in English?” I asked.

Chokun shrugged.

“I don’t know, probably whoever wrote this didn’t know Thai, so that rules out our people, but… I have a better question: what curse are you talking about?”

“Hmmmm… Maybe we should ask one of the older students? Like Khaotung? I heard Khaotung and First are nice people. They’re older than us, so they must know something.”

“They either know or they don’t know.” Chokun expressed his doubt. “I’d rather ask one of the professors, they know all sorts of legends and stories.”

“Okay, but which professor? Because you don’t mean Professor Tay, right?”

“Nooooo, I know P’Zee better. Let’s go to P’Zee.”

We were about to do that when someone interrupted us. Fourth’s sister entered the doctor’s office. She came from the opposite direction from Gem, Fourth, and the other man.

“Hey, bro, what’s she doing here?”  I asked Chokun a question, and we both wanted to know the answer.

“Something must have happened to Fourth. Yes, yes, something definitely happened to him. Something bad. Maybe that damn little asshole Gemini attacked him?”

“Do you think he could have done something to him?”

“A billion percent. They hate each other. It’s clear as day that Norawit was just waiting for an opportunity to finish off Nattawat. You’ll see that tomorrow he’ll be triumphant and bragging to everyone about how he defeated poor, naive Fourth.”

“You know? Somehow I don’t think it’s possible. Sure, Gemini doesn’t like…”

“He hates him, not just dislikes him,” Chokun corrected me without hesitation.

“Okay, fine: Gemini hates Fourth, but I don’t think he can play that dirty. No. I think it’s something else. There’s some kind of secret in this, and you know what?”

“No, but I’m sure you’ll enlighten me in a moment.”

I punched him playfully on the arm. His supposedly innocent jokes and the way he responded to me sometimes irritated me, and today it certainly didn't make it any easier to talk to him, because I had no idea when he was being honest with me and when he was using sarcasm or other artistic means.

Be careful, or I won't tell you anything", I shook my finger at him.

“Noooooo don't be like that, tell me!” He clung to me like some lovesick mutt. I snorted shortly, and then replied.

“And that we're the ones who'll solve this riddle!”

“You think... You think that the two of us are supposed to solve a riddle together that perhaps the wisest minds of our magical world are pondering?” There was skepticism in his voice.

“Yes, the two of us, listen, what we'll do...”

And I started explaining my plan to him. It didn't help much, because a moment later the guy who had previously carried Fourth and Tu Tontawan appeared in the corridor. We moved as close as possible to the corner of the wall to be able to listen to what they were talking about. Here she smiled flirtatiously at this strange guy. They were talking in English, which also seemed suspicious to me.

“Who's this guy? And where does P'Tu know him from?”  I got interested, but Chokun put his own index finger to my lips, ordering me to be silent. A moment later we heard something we didn't understand at all.

“Good job, Yukino, you were very convincing as Tu. It was a great idea to get them drunk, when we get back to the hotel, you'll get your reward, you deserve it”.

“Great idea, great, but now I'm in danger. Pierre, please do something, you can't let me get dragged into this. It'll ruin my career”.

That strange man ruffled our friend's hair with affection. I wrinkled my nose, as if some unpleasant smell had reached it. Chokun and I looked at each other, completely confused. Why did this man call Tu 'Yukino'? Who was this Yukino?

“Don't worry, honey, I'll fix it.  I had to find out if that old geezer Off Jumpol hadn't sent them after us on purpose, but it looks like he hadn't. I tried to get them to talk, but all they told me was what I already knew. It seems no one has connected P'Squirrel to Pierre Gasly yet!”

The other man laughed merrily, but even his laughter gave me an unidentified sense of danger.

“They're just suckers. But how did you know about Raphael, Susanne and Thomas?”

“Remember that little gryphon we gave NuNew?”

She just shrugged.

“Maybe, so what?”

“Yuki, don't weaken me yet! Don't tell me you've forgotten about our Suzie! She's such a little gryphon. I gave her to NuNew in exchange for tickets to the F1 race along with VIP passes to the paddock.  At the same race in our garage there will be one of those girls from BlackPink, apparently someone the musician has a crush on is a fan of Black Pink. It was easy to convince him”.

“Okay, but it’s just an ordinary furball.” Now we knew for sure that the person who was pretending to be Tu wasn’t the real Tu, because Fourth had told us that his sister loved all kinds of animals and would never call a magical creature ‘an ordinary furball’.

Chokun had already taken his phone out of his pocket and started recording. I nudged him in the side and pointed out the cameras placed in many places on the walls throughout the Institute. This was one of the novelties that P’Off had introduced to our world. I thought it would be worth watching the footage from these cameras. One of the guards patrolling the corridors of our unit was Great Sapol, a boxer in the Non-Magic world named Yoryak. I knew him very well, my parents and I were neighbors at his boxing school.

The man, whose name was Pierre I think, talked to Tu for a while longer, and then they both went into the doctor’s office again.

“Damn, I don’t like this.  I don't like Gemini, but this time I have to warn him somehow. Do you have his phone number?”

“No, what about you? I never thought I'd need it, after all Gemini is such a rich, arrogant jerk, and everyone knows he became a model because... Okay, I won't repeat the rumors, because maybe they're just rumors, anyway, I decided it wasn't worth hanging out with him”.

“Great decision, admirable, except now we need someone to work with, and Poon and Pahn say that Gemini can supposedly be trusted, to a limited extent, of course”.

I have no idea where this argument would have led us if time hadn't been running out and Chokun had finally given up and thought of something else.  He logged into an Instagram account he hadn't used in a long time, found Gemini (it turned out that Norawit had once written to him with a rather polite request for the next week's schedule), sent him a video he had recorded, and then wrote a short message.

chokun_jkz: Gemini, watch this yourselves, I have a suspicion that this isn't Tu Tontawan. She looks and talks like her, but the words don't match her.

Gemini only read the message after a few minutes that seemed like an eternity, when we were standing against the wall and Chokun was literally biting his fingers from stress.

gemini_nt: what's that supposed to mean?

chokun_jkz: how are WE supposed to know?! You tell us! What did you do to Fourth?!

gemini_nt: I didn't do anything to him! Why would I do anything to him?

chokun_jkz: I don't know, maybe because you hate him? That's reason number one.  Motive number two: you both want to be kings, you hurt him to get rid of him

I read their conversation in IG DMs with bated breath. If I were Chokun, I wouldn't be so bold, but he was just going for broke, not caring about the consequences, not worried that Gemini might take revenge on him for such remarks. I was impressed, but at the same time I thought it was a very bad way to ask someone for help.

gemini_nt: ...

chokun_jkz: REPLY!!! You did something to him, didn't you, you selfish, snobbish, heartless and mannerless idiot with no soul?!

gemini_nt: one more word like that and I'll block you

chokun_jkz: are you threatening me?
gemini_nt: I'm not threatening anyone, I just think that talking to a kid like you makes no sense

“He probably won't help us after all,” I said and patted Chokun on the back comfortingly.  “We have to manage on our own.”

“No, Aungpao, we need Gemini. Only he can tell us what happened.”

“Then maybe we should give him veritaserum?”

“Truth elixir? Where are you going to get it? And how are you going to make Gemini drink it?”

“I saw some sports supplies in Professor Earth's locker. We'll sneak up on him and borrow a bottle, maybe he won't notice the difference or think it was P'Mix who took it. Don't worry, it'll be okay.”

Chokun quickly started typing away on his phone again, writing another message to Gemini, this time in a much gentler tone:

chokun_jkz: sorry Gemini. I'm just worried about Fourth. Whoever came into the office as Tontawan is not our Tu. You saw the video, it's just a fragment because IG won't let you send a longer one, but I have more recorded.  Whatever happens, keep an eye on Fourth, keep an eye on him, those two strange people might want to hurt you

I wasn't sure if Gemini would understand our intentions. Chokun and I quickly agreed that I would go and steal the veritaserum, and Chokun would continue to watch the doctor's office. At least that was the least we could do for our Fourth, who was friends with the girl I liked since the first day we met her at the camp in the countryside.

😭❤️🥹🌠🙏🐦🎉🦜🌌🇪🇸🐇😤☀️🐝🙃😌😈😅🤩💖🥲💦😉🇵🇱😘🤭🌞😂🔥🫥💨🤭🌞🫥🙃🥵☀️

Hiii my Magicals!!!

How are you?!?!?

So... Is this what you expected? 👀

Yeah, this little griffin was here at the beginning for a reason 👀 in this story everything has some reasons behind it 😉

I hope i didn't disappoint you with this chapter.

Also I said before that Chokun, Aungpao and Poon are going to be important in this story 🤭 I mean... I love them!

Have a nice day MAGICALS!

Love u all!

~yours P'Magical 🤭

I really hope this story somehow brings you joy or helps you go through the day or your life or anything. I wished this story to be inspirational but I'm not sure if it's gonna work.