Although Halloween had passed, the coffee shop where Hyejin sat sipping her mocha was still decked out in the typical decorations. There were skeletons on the walls and plastic pumpkins glowing by the windows. The counter had several spiders that looked like they were scuttling around it and down the cobwebs that hung off it.
Of course, normally it seemed a little dark and spooky. It was a selling point for the young witches attending Rainbow World Bridge Academy. While it wasn't publicly acknowledged as a school of witchcraft, the locals weren't stupid enough to be so blind. They figured it out decades ago. Since there had never been much in the way of problems, they accepted it as just a part of the little town.
The design of the school uniform helped to minimize differences of backgrounds and status. It was a simple unadorned black button up blouse and a knee length black skirt. The single ornament was a silver belt with a buckle displaying the school coat of arms, a lion with a crown above it and two ancient swords on either side of the lion. Matching dark stockings and shoes finished it off. It might have stood out except there were a couple hundred similarly dressed girls frequently around town.
While it successfully hid any hint about Hyejin's background, it did nothing to make the eighteen year old unnoticeable. Her tanned skin, dark deep brown eyes and the mole on her cheek would have attracted attention no matter what but they were all the more striking when set against her long jet-black hair.
The uniform was also not much of help to hide just how well she had filled out. Her breasts were large enough that there was a slight gap in between a couple of buttons of her blouse. Normally that wasn't the case but today she had on a blouse from past years. Her body narrowed at the waist and then flared out to show a nice rounded bottom. She had an effect that stopped both gender in their tracks to admire her before moving on without bothering her. The entire town learned their lessons to leave the magical students alone, decades ago.
When she moved away to attend the Academy and began to truly fill out into a lovely young woman, she couldn't even see it herself. Looking in the mirror, her sharp features always caught her own eyes. As she started her fourth year, she still found it hard to break out of her shyness. Her circle of friends was small and many of her classmates mistook it for arrogance. A school of witchcraft was no different from any other type of school. Cliques abounded and there were the inevitable mean girls.
The fact that Hyejin was at the coffeehouse alone wasn't unusual. She often sought out solitude as she is an introvert and even found herself feeling awkward among her friends. She didn't study with others unless it was necessary. It didn't help that she was as naturally gifted as any other girl at the school. Having advanced well beyond her classmates, there wasn't much to be gained from group studies. At least that stopped most of the malicious tricks. Very few wanted to face the inevitable and unstoppable revenge. She was just too much of a powerful bitch.
Right now, she had a thick tome open in front of her. At first glance, she seemed to be intensely studying it but if you were to observe her for several minutes was it apparent that the page never turned. As unobtrusively as she could, Hyejin tried to keep the barista in her view. It wasn't always easy but she had lots of practice secretly observing people through her thick lashes.
Having the typical schoolgirl crushes was the norm among the young witches as at any other all-girl school, but they tried extra hard to keep them secret. The teachers at the Academy took their jobs seriously and that meant enforcing all the rules, including those about sex.
The consequences of scorned lovers were particularly severe when those involved could do magic. If it went beyond what was publically acceptable, they hid it as fumbled encounters under the cover of darkness, late in the night.
Most of them were the natural result of utter curiosity and the enforced sex segregation. The number of girls who were truly oriented towards other girls wasn't much different from the rest of society. Hyejin knew that she was one of them. Unfortunately, her own introduction was with one of the merely curious ones. A few kisses and some caresses scratched that itch enough to satisfy the other girl but for Hyejin, that brief experience confirmed that she was truly gay.
