1
Choi Su-Bong’s nose burned.
Not from nerves. From coke.
It was his thing, not that anyone at Elemental High would know. Not yet, anyway. He popped the bottle of eyedrops into his bag and grinned at his reflection in the car window. Purple spiky hair? Check. Light Element uniform? Check. Secretly-born-Music Elemental? Also, check. And definitely illegal.
His mom pulled up to the towering gates, visibly emotional. “Don’t screw this up, Su-Bong. This school—this is your second chance.”
He rolled his eyes but nodded. “I got this, Mom. I’m gonna make you proud.”
She looked unconvinced but drove off anyway. The gates clanged shut behind him. Ahead, the school stretched out like a myth: floating towers, glowing trees, a lake that shimmered between colors. The six legal dorms branched out like petals from a central courtyard, each themed like their respective elements. Su-Bong's was Light—the cleanest, shiniest one, naturally.
His Light dorm was a crystalline dome of glowing white walls and blinding floors. Too clean. Too fake. He already hated it.
The first thing he noticed? The silence. Students walked with heads down. No laughing. No chatter. It was like someone had ripped out the soul of the school.
“Is this a prison or a campus?” he muttered.
That’s when he saw her.
Han Se-Mi.
She was leaning against a blood-black pillar that pulsed like it was breathing. She had black hair in a sharp bob, a silver lip ring, and a presence that screamed don’t come closer—which of course meant Su-Bong immediately did.
“You’re new,” she said, voice flat, eyes scanning him like he was an item on a menu she didn’t like.
“First day. You?”
“Been here. Too long.”
He tried to grin. “You a Dark Element?”
“Obviously.”
“Cool. I’m Light.”
“You learned Light,” she said.
His grin faded. “How’d you know?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she leaned closer. “This school? It’s alive. It watches us. Moves things when it wants. Swallows students who break the rules.”
Su-Bong blinked. “Like… alive alive?”
She nodded. “You ever wonder why the illegal dorms aren’t just abandoned? Why no one goes near them?”
He hadn’t. But now, he really did.
“They’re not abandoned,” she said, backing away. “They’re hungry.”
Before he could ask more, a bell rang—deep, sonorous, vibrating through the air like a heartbeat. Orientation was starting.
Se-Mi disappeared into the shadows, and Su-Bong was left staring up at the school that now seemed more like a mouth than a place of learning.
“Welcome to Elemental High,” he thought, cracking his knuckles. “Let’s see if I survive.”