Late | k.ys

13

Three weeks after San's strange request, another magician decided to visit Yeosang.

The boy was just walking away from the cafeteria, eating a chocolate pudding inside a small plastic cup for desert. He was putting his books into his bag when he saw a strange sight on the ground.

A tiny lizard, heading straight at him.

Yeosang raised a brow, certain that these kinds of lizards, the common house gecko, don't just randomly start charging at people. They were usually frightened of humans and would scramble to get away as quickly as possible, even if they lost their tail in the process (not that it was a major issue for them anyway). As the gecko continued his courageous (or stupid) crawl to Yeosang, he lifted his foot, ready to squash the reptile out of existence. But something that happened next caused him to nearly choke on his pudding and lose balance.

The lizard had stopped moving for a few seconds, before promptly vanishing in a cloud of yellow sparkles. In its place was a tiny object, thin and cylindrical.

A pencil.

Yeosang nearly dropped the remains of his chocolate pudding. After gobbling the rest of it up, Yeosang rubbed his eyes and blinked, before glaring at the gecko again.

The gecko wasn't there; the pencil lay in its place instead.

Yeosang felt woozy all of a sudden, certain he was hallucinating. Surely lizards don't just transform into pencils out of the blue, don't they?

But then he looked down at his chest, and saw the necklace glittering under the sunlight from the hallway windows like a thousand golden stars. His memories rushed in without a warning, reminding him of where he is and what he is doing.

Right. The magicians.

Yeosang knelt down to the ground and glared at the pencil, as if doing so would tell him which magician was summoning him. He attracted a few weirded out looks from other students, causing him to spring back to his feet. He shouldered his backpack as he watched the pencil, careful not to let it out of his sight.

Then suddenly, a tail grew from the eraser tip of the pencil.

I knew it, Yeosang thought triumphantly as the pencil started growing tiny legs. It is one of them.

As soon as the pencil completed its transformation back into a lizard, it started scuttling away from him. All five senses alert, Yeosang hurriedly tails the creature. It moved in quick, brisk movements that Yeosang had to lightly jog to match its pace. Strangely, the other students didn't seem to notice a sophomore running after a tiny reptile. He continued to follow the lizard until it abruptly turned right, heading straight into the boys' bathroom. Yeosang paused, catching his breath, before walking in. He entered the seemingly empty room; the gecko he had been following had vanished from sight. Suddenly, the door to the bathroom slammed shut behind him. Yeosang whirled around to see a familiar mop of blonde hair. He sighed with relief.

"You scared me!" Yeosang exclaimed.

"How else was I supposed to lure you in here?" Hongjoong raised an eyebrow. Yeosang spotted the lizard on the palm of his left hand. The tip of the wand Hongjoong held with his right glowed with golden mist as swiftly brought the stick sideways in the shape of a crescent. The lizard convulsed before its head and limbs vanished, morphing back into the same pencil it was before. Hongjoong slipped the pencil into his pocket.

Yeosang blinked, still not adapted to the sudden transformation of living beings to animated objects. "You know... you could've just approached me like a normal person and ask me to talk to you."