How did I end up here again?

"Evie, right? Aren't you ordering anything? Are you full?"

I smiled sheepishly before grabbing the menu. What was his name again? Jake? I could not believe Sunghoon dragged me after classes to have dinner out of all things with these two men. Even more than that, I could not believe Sunghoon made friends on the first day. How did this true introvert manage to do that? When I only ran into one teacher and that was not even intentional.

"Oh, I think Evie will have the same as me. A medium rare steak," Sunghoon said, covering for me.

"You have your steak medium rare? Me, too! Jay, too," the blond man cheered, grinning. He resembled something like a happy golden retriever. He was what a heartthrob would look like.

"We'll have the same," the sharp, suave looking man whom I thought was Jay said and raised his hand for the waiter. It was easy to picture that face in a romantic action movie. Honestly, how did the principal find these fine men to agree to be teachers out of all professions. They looked like they belonged in magazine covers.

"Which subject do you teach?" Jake asked, smiling at me.

"Oh, I teach art from now on." I gave him a smile unknowingly. His smile was contagious.

"Neat. I teach math." He turned to the man beside him.

"I teach English. I used to live in the US," Jay said and met Jake's gaze.

"And I teach social studies, thank you for asking," Sunghoon said when no one even asked him.

"How long have you been friends?" Jake asked us. He sure was curious.

"We've been together for... let's just say many many years. Long enough to grow tired of him," I said, chuckling when Sunghoon glared at me.

Jake widened his eyes. "You two are dating?"

A very disgusted screech left both Sunghoon and I as we leaned away from each other at the same time. "No!"

"Never!"

"Not in a million years!"

Jay snorted and covered his mouth. "Just for the formalities' sake, how old are you?"

I started panicking, eyes flitting from side to side. "L-Late twenties."

"Y-Yeah, late twenties," Sunghoon echoed, laughing awkwardly.

"Oh, we're around the same age then! Us, too," Jay said, his tone surprised but expressions not really surprised. "The other teachers are in their late twenties as well."

This school was weird. Or maybe I was the only one finding it odd that so many young teachers were around but no one over their thirties. Was it a trend these days to be a teacher?

"It would've been nice if you met them today, but they had other plans," Jake said, pouting and then smiling. "But we have welcoming party on Friday for you guys! We do that for every new recruit."

"Ah!" Jay exclaimed, covering his face with one hand. "I remember my welcoming party. They pushed me to drink all the time and made me pissed drunk!"

Jake slapped his shoulder, laughing. "That's because you claimed that you were a heavy drinker and bet that you wouldn't get drunk no matter how many bottles you drank! Like why would you do that to yourself and keep drinking!"

"Whatever..."

I sure hoped that we would not get pressured to drink.

"Don't worry, we don't act like that," Jake said to me as if he read my thoughts. "It's just our Jay here was boasting and challenging us as he went on."

I chuckled. "I-I see..."

"You two don't talk much, huh?" He wondered and I was already feeling pressured despite his previous reassurances.

I just smiled awkwardly and Sunghoon stayed silent, probably thinking of what to talk about. Luckily, our steaks came out faster than I thought, so we dug right into it to avoid the silence. I really needed to work on my social skills and act more friendly. I had less interactions like this in my former job, so it was somewhat of a whiplash. Though I had to do what I had to do to settle into this new place so that we would not move cities again.

"What are your hobbies?"

I cleared my throat. "I li-"

"Do you guys like fishing? I like fishing," Sunghoon interrupted me, cutting right in.

Jake widened his eyes and exclaimed, "Oh! I love fishing!"

"He's crazy about fishing," Jay laughed. "He goes out fishing every once in a while with Heeseung and Niki."

All those names were flying past my ears.

"We should totally go together!" Jake had stars in his eyes. "I know a few places near with such big finds! Let's go sometime soon!"

"Alright." Sunghoon laughed, backing away a little from the enthusiasm and turned to Jay. "What about you?"

"I prefer to stay indoors or go shopping instead."

"Oh, our Evie is like that, too," Sunghoon said and pointed at me with his thumb, making them look at me. "Jungwon, too. He's one of the new kindergarten teachers. These two stay home most of the time."

"So you three are friends? You decided to work together?"

"Yeah, there's another one in the kindergarten. His name's Sunoo and we've all been together for a long time."

I glanced at Sunghoon. He might as well tell all the stories about us unprovoked. I did not know why he was so easily telling them about ourselves, but I could tell that he was very comfortable with these two men whom he met for just one day, but it was very uncharacteristic of him to go on and on about ourselves. I nudged him and made him realize how he was oversharing when he was talking about our daily routines.

"Were they not able to come today?" Jay asked us.

"They were exhausted after handling so many children for a whole day for the first time," I said.

"Ah, we were like that, too," Jake sympathized. "It was all so new to us, but it was an experience. And we won't be teaching forever so there was no need to be so caught up in it. They'll get used to it."

I nodded.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I took it out to see a message from Sunoo.

Sun:
Don't forget to get my mint choco ice cream when you come back

Me:
Why don't you just go out yourself and get it

Me:
It'll take like 5 min

Sun:
🥺

Me:
Fine

Sun:
🤗

Me:
What does Wonie want

Sun:
idk

Me:
🗿

"Then we'll have lunch together tomorrow?"

I snapped my head up in bewilderment. What did I just hear?

"Sure," Sunghoon happily agreed, making my eyes widen at him. Excuse me?

He finally turned to look at me and got startled before saying, "You don't have to come, Evie."

Double excuse me? Did he just exclude me on top of making plans without me? Since when did our vampire pact stop working in situations like this. How was he going to eat normal meals and skip drinking blood? I had so many questions at the tip of my tongue, waiting to be spilt if there were no humans in front of us.

I gritted my teeth, grinning menacingly at him. "If it's okay with everyone, I'll join, too. Is that okay?"

"Of course!" The other two readily agreed while Sunghoon gulped, feeling threatened. "You can meet the others tomorrow. They're very nice people."

"Can't wait." I fake laughed.

That night, Sunghoon had an earful from me for deciding and doing things on a whim just because he liked a few humans. Jungwon agreed with me while Sunoo sympathized with Sunghoon and sided with him, making me almost retract his mint chocolate ice cream until he protested and made a presentation about his plans to blend in with the teachers with Sunghoon.

We all ended up agreeing that lunchtime and dinnertime hangouts would help us settle in and have friendly relationships with the others.

I told them about my bloody situation that happened on accident to warn them about any kind of situation that could arise, and they all agreed to be careful.

But what do you know? That man and I met again during lunchtime that next day.

┗━━━━━━༻♔༺━━━━━━┛

I'm still here yall~ Dropping a sudden chapter just because I felt like it lol

I was so busy with school and then Enhypen comeback
I bought like over thirty albums for romance untold 🫨