★★★ Chokun POV ★★★

I didn't like all this.

Maybe I was acting a bit irrational, but I had no choice. I found out that Aungpao was a member of Perth's gang. I followed him to room 609. I didn't have any plan in mind, I just followed him.

They caught up with me quickly. Aungpao disappeared somewhere, I suspect he used a secret passage somewhere in that damn room.

“What are you doing here?" Joong roughly pushed me against the wall so that my back hit it. It hurt, but I wasn't going to show them what a wimp I was.

“I-I was just passing through,” I tried very hard to make my voice sound calm and my excuse believable. They weren't convinced. There were three of them, Joong, Pond, and Perth.

That I always have to have such bloody bad luck.

“Don't lie.  You must have been trying to spy on us. How lucky we are that we put a silencing spell on that door, otherwise that puppy could have caused us trouble”.

“PUPPY?! Oh no, I demand you to apologize for treating me like that! I'm just as much a student of the Academy as you are, you have no right to treat me like that!”

Some stupid courage made me say that.

Perth smiled mockingly.

“Oh, indeed, we forgot something,” Perth put his hands together as if in prayer, bowing low. For a moment I thought I might have gotten away with it. It would be nice, right?

And then, completely unexpectedly, it was Perth who punched me in the stomach with all his might. I cringed in pain.

“You should show us more respect. You're just a poor guy, and I'll be the king”.

“I wouldn't be so sure.  Someone who uses violence to get things done has little chance, and you certainly won't beat Fourth, everyone loves him, everyone will vote for him!” I replied defiantly and earned a kick in the stomach for that.

“I know! That idiot Jirochtikul must have sent him after us. I bet he had that kid eavesdropping on us,” Pond butted in. He walked over to me, crouched down next to me, and roughly grabbed my face in his hand, looking me over from every angle. “Speak up, but that's it, did he send you?”

“No, I came because I wanted to”.

“Well, well, well... We're going to go into denial, aren't we? Well, then there's nothing left for us to do but open confrontation. Boys, take him,” Perth ordered in an authoritative tone that brooked no argument. To say I was a little afraid of him would be an understatement.

Perth was known for his boorish nature, a man who cared only about power and wealth. It was said of him that he had no heart and that he had sold his soul to the devil.  I think it's probably just gossip, no intelligent and sensible person would sell their soul to the devil, but who knows what kind of nonsense is going through the mind of such a psychopath?

Pond and Joong grabbed me by the arms and started pulling me towards the elevator first (we were on the sixth floor, and we had to go down to the fourth), and then to the apartment that Fourth shared with Gem.

I found myself in a very stalemate situation.

Perth opened the door to their room without knocking and entered as if it were his own place. In my opinion, this showed a lack of basic manners and bad upbringing. Joong and Pond pushed me to get inside as well. The sight we saw caused interesting reactions in my tormentors.

Pond was clearly embarrassed and looked away.  Joong patted him on the back and whispered something that sounded like, “Well, I guess you just lost in our bet”.

A bet? What bet was it? Despite the excruciating pain that was practically tearing through my stomach, I was curious enough to look up.

Perth, on the other hand, seemed to think that two king candidates kissing was cause for celebration. To my surprise, he let me off the hook. I guessed why. It was a matter of principle; Gemini and Fourth had just broken one of the most famous rules for candidates running for King of the Magic World in Thailand.

I expected some help from Gem or Fourth, but I was sorely disappointed. Gemini pretended that I meant nothing to him.

That's when I got an idea.

Since I can't count on my friends, I'll become friends with my friends' enemies. Who knows, maybe I'll get something good out of it?

And then they dragged me to the "initiation". It was a terrifying event and I won't describe it in full. In any case, there, in the ruins of a long-abandoned bank perfectly hidden almost in the center of our part of town, I met people I didn't expect to see there.

Namtan, Film and June were busy creating graffiti on one of the walls, which depicted an octopus with three eyes. Mark and Ohm Thipakorn were sitting next to each other on a blood-red leather couch and drinking wine from tall glasses that looked more like champagne glasses to me.

Aungpao and Java were dancing to some very loud, booming song that I didn't know.

It was like entering a lion's mouth. Much later I was told that this place was called the lion's den and it was not without reason that in the center of the room there was an easel with an oil painting of a lioness with two lion cubs,  and in the background behind them, a lion with a powerful mane was lounging.

Someone had hung colored lights on all the walls, just below the ceiling, using a spell, and since it was already late evening and there was no glass in the windows, these glowing lights gave the place a strangely mysterious, but also attractive atmosphere.

At the very end, I noticed... Prim! She was sitting on P'Win's lap, feeding him grapes. I knew it. I knew it was not worth trusting her.  I wonder what Gem and Fourth would say if they found out that P'Prim's boyfriend was P'Win, a "cursed" man, thrown out of our Institute for the treason he committed. It was a famous story. P'Win betrayed some of the secrets of our magical world, he couldn't stay with us. His runes were taken away, but his memories weren't erased. I don't know why, this part of the story is quite blurry and incomprehensible, and everyone who told it had their own theory about why P'Win wasn't punished as he should have been.

“Oh, you're here already! What took you so long?” A guy in a white T-shirt approached us, proudly showing off his big muscle. He was taller than me and definitely older. He had a plaid red shirt tied around his waist, and his hands were in the pockets of his paint-stained pants.

“Sorry, Guide, it took us a while, but we have a new volunteer who wants to join our gang.”

Perth smiled so friendly that for a split second it seemed like he was still human, but then he went back to his cruel self.

“Who’s that?” The man, called Guide, walked around me, looking me over from every angle like I was a used car for sale.

“One of ours, don’t worry. He’s a kid who borrowed money from us, he’s not really dangerous,” Joong explained, greeting the man with a light, short hug.

“What if he turns out to be dangerous?”

“No way, he's scared of us, he won't do anything stupid, right nong Chokun?” Perth gave me that big, fake-looking smile again.

“Don't worry, P', I'm not going to cause any trouble. I'm just looking for friends,” I assured him quickly, and they burst out laughing.

“Did you hear him?!  Nong is looking for friends here!” Joong shouted so loudly that several people nearby heard him.

And I understood too clearly for the second time that day that you can't trust even your friends. Everyone will betray you, it's a matter of price, everyone can be bought. I was starting to understand Gem and his behavior better and better. It seemed that young master Norawit was simply trying to fit in and survive in this sick jungle. I had no choice but to blend in with the crowd and become one of them. This option seemed especially tempting when Aungpao and Java both approached me, Java handed me a can of beer and Aungpao put his arm around me.

It was strange, but this was the place where I felt most at ease.

Most of the gang ignored me, they were busy with their own business. Java and Aungpao led me to a separate room and I almost cried out with delight.

The room wasn't  just a normal place, it was a real, miniature forest. I saw three coniferous trees, two deciduous trees, including one that was definitely an apple tree covered not only with leaves and pink-white flowers, but also with fruit in various stages of ripening.

Multicolored parrots flew around us, and on one of the higher branches of a nearby deciduous tree sat a beautiful, red-gold phoenix.

There were also wooden benches, lots of flowers, real grass, little mice in different colors, hamsters and guinea pigs. It was simply heaven on earth! I could stay there forever.

Holding beers in our hands, the three of us sat down on a bench. Aungpao put his arm around me again.

“So you do want to be with us after all,”my friend said and took a sip of beer.

“I don't really have anywhere else to go anyway, you know my story”.

“Aungpao may know, but I don't,” Java interjected, looking at me with a look that seemed to be full of curiosity.

“I'll tell you someday, I don't have the energy for it at the moment, I promise I will tell you someday or if you want, you can ask Aungpao, he'll tell you”.

“Oh yes, he will definitely say, he's a chatterbox!” Java laughed shortly, and I immediately decided that I liked him. He was different than in class, more relaxed, calmer, even a bit nostalgic.

Did they just trust me so easily? What this gang was even? This didn't look serious... More like a place to hang out with friends. Only later I found out the scary part of it, when they took me to yet another room and told me to shoot a little piglet.

“No, please, don't make me do this”, I asked and Joong laughed.

“Why? Are you scared to shoot this little animal?  And what if in real life you will have to kill someone? For example an evil person or demon?”

“This is not my role. I'm only an ordinary student”.

“So you say you won't kill it?” Pond asked me to make sure. I nodded and said not looking him in the eyes.

“No, P', I won't kill innocent animal. It didn't do anything wrong to me”.

“Good, very good, you passed the test”.

“It was a test?”

“Yup. Just so you know we also don't kill innocent animals. We sometimes kill people if they are evil or they deserve it, we make demons disappear, but we never kill animals. This is one of our rules. Other rules will be introduced to you later”, P'Guide informed me and I felt a little relief. Is this finally a place for me? Did I just found my place in this world?

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Thank you for being here, lovely people 🙏😭🥹

And I'm sorry for mistakes, I was sleepy while I wrote it... 😭

Love you all, your Magical