Win No Matter What

CHAPTER 1 - FIRST IMPRESSIONS

It is dusk. The sky is violet with pink hues and wisps of clouds are stretched across it like spun thread. It's the kind of dusk that makes you feel like the day has been a satisfying one where you worked hard to fulfil your tasks for the day.

You look up at the large dark-stained wooden door, with the shimmering words that read "BigHit Academy of Sorcery" in magnificent midnight blue. It seems to rise to the sky and anyone looking up immediately feels the gravitas of those words. Behind the imposing door lay the Academy's reputation and due expectation of the person about to step through it.

You have mixed emotions; your whole life you worked diligently and made sacrifices to be given the privilege of standing in front of this door and become a teacher at the prestigious Academy. Did you really deserve to be here? Would you really be able to live to their expectations? Will it live up to your expectations?

Before your thoughts have a chance to magnify those doubts, they are suddenly interrupted by a tap on your shoulder. You are jolted back to reality and look across to see an elderly gentleman looking at you quizzically.

"Hello young lady, have you decided whether or not you're going to go in?" he asks.

"Oh yes, sorry, I'm the new...." you begin to say, when the man waves away your reply and says "come on then, new teachers have to meet the Principal before their induction."

You follow him through the overwhelming door, temporarily forgetting your earlier nerves, and take a look at your surroundings. You are led through to a round courtyard where an elegant stone fountain stands in the middle. The 'fountain' is a flute-playing angel and the water spouting through it appears to glisten. 

You notice streams of students arriving in parallel to you and going into the building through side entrances. They are all dressed in blazers of four different colours, which you assume represent the four Academy Houses. They are chatting away, some excitedly pointing at you, presumably taking you to be 'fresh meat'. However, most of them ignore the fact that there is a new Evil Sorcery Defence teacher walking with the Academy's main grounds keeper.

You try to keep up with the elderly gentleman who is quite spry for his advanced years. At first glance, he appears to be over 70 years old, but in the world of sorcery, that visual can't necessarily be trusted. You wonder what his role is in the Academy as he confidently guides you to the building's entrance. He is wearing a brown flat cap and a knee-length apron over his moss green overalls. Not a typical teacher's attire so you assume he is a gardener? You'll find out soon enough. You don't get a good look at his face, but it is tanned brown, and you can see his grey-ing hair peeking through the flat cap.

You don't have much time to take in your surroundings as you walk briskly to keep up with your guide. You pass under an archway adorned with the crest of the Academy into a smaller square lawn courtyard. The lawn is made up of four jigsaw shapes with narrow paths in between them like an 'X'. You wonder whether your guide designed it. Speaking of which, you can't keep referring to him as "the guide".....

"Er, thank you for showing me where to go, Mr .....?" you ask.

"Everyone calls me Uncle Hak-Kun, on account of me being older than most of the staff here" he chuckles.

"Nice to meet you, er, Uncle Hak-Kun, my name is Min Rumi. I'm the new Evil Sorcery Defence teacher." You were expecting the typical, "no, really? You're too young to be an ESD teacher", but it didn't come and the lack of any response made you wonder whether he heard you.

Before you know it, you have entered the Academy and Uncle Hak-Kun is taking you up two flights of stairs separate from the students who were walking into rooms labelled 'Year 7 LYH', 'Year 7 LYT', 'Year 7 LYA', 'Year 7 MOTS' etc. You had read in your induction pack that the four Houses represented the four flagship BTS albums. You don't really know too much about BTS, though; you skipped that part of the induction pack. You wondered what the members were doing with their lives now.