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Okay, stop Seungmin if you've heard this one before but: you're sixteen and you're in love, and you're sitting in the car next to the most beautiful boy you know. And you've wanted to tell this boy that you've liked him ("Since friggin' forever," or, at least as Jisung likes to put it over their large-sized milk teas and SAT handbooks after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when Hyunjin conveniently has club swim practice. Unholy shit, it's like Seungmin can hear his nasally, harmful decibel level voice even now. They've gotta stop hanging out so much, centuries-old family friendships be damned) for a while now but it never seems like the right time to say it. And so this feeling ends up swelling and swelling and swelling inside your chest until something ruptures and your heart fails and you die, just like that ("I'll go in the family plot," Seungmin told Jeongin the last time he'd talked himself through this scenario, which was yesterday. "Next to great-uncle Jinyoung or something. He was the High Priest, you know? That'd be pretty cool." Jeongin only twitched his ears at him, looking thoroughly unimpressed before darting off). It can't be all that bad. At least you take your dignity with you to the grave."Earth to Seungmin," Hyunjin says, nudging him with an elbow. Seungmin can hear the grin in his voice, fuzzy in the dark. "You didn't fall asleep on me, right?"Seungmin rolls his eyes. "As if." He traces a path through the tiny stars sparkling in the sky with his finger. "I'm just waiting for this song to end before I go.""Wow,” Hyunjin mimes getting shot in the heart, “really feeling the love, bro." The hand clutching his phone distorts the song playing on its dismal speakers. "You'd choose Day6 over me any day, huh?"Not necessarily. But Seungmin has an image to uphold ("You mean that stage in adolescence where you pretend you're above feelings because that's what you think is 'cool,'" Jisung told him once with a sigh and the appropriate air quotes. "I really don't understand you mortals sometimes.” He then proceeded to use the formula for a triangle to find the area of a circle), so he goes, "Yeah. Totally. I mean, have you seen Young K?""Get out of my car!" Hyunjin fake-sobs into his hands. "I can't believe this whole time you've been using me!"Seungmin just laughs and goes along with it. "You call this thing a car?" he jokes, because Hyunjin drives around this old beast of a thing. Okay, so it's really his parents' hand-me-down Honda Civic, the fifteen-year-old model where the interior's all leather and there's no Bluetooth audio and the fanciest feature is the sun roof that Hyunjin sometimes opens after they've laid the front seats all the way back so they can crane their necks to look out at the punch-out of the night sky for stars, kind of like they're doing right now. But anyway, it always wheezes up the hill to Seungmin's house like some old dog. He'd gotten it for his sixteenth birthday back in March and Seungmin spent the past summer burning his buttocks on the passenger seat, Hyunjin grinning at him beatifically every time through the rolled-down window when he pulled up to the curb.Hyunjin sits up now, popping his seat back into place. "Okay, but seriously though," he leans over to meet Seungmin’s eyes. "You sure you don't want me to walk you to your door? You live next to the fucking woods, Seungmin.""I'll be fine," Seungmin shrugs, stepping out of the car before reaching over to pull his seat back upright, too. It jams a bit before snapping into its normal position, hitting Seungmin in the head. Hyunjin laughs. "Trust me, nothing in the woods is scarier than my Aunt Sunmi.""Oh yeah, when am I gonna finally get to meet her?" Hyunjin asks. "Or your other aunt? Or your family in general? C'mon, my mom brought out my baby photos the first time you came over!"Seungmin shrugs again. "That's 'cause your mom's nice. And you were a cute baby, Hyunjinnie." He laughs when Hyunjin sputters at his parent's nickname for him. "No, I feel like Aunt Sunmi would actually bite your head off." (No joke, Seungmin's heard from Aunt Hyelim about how Sunmi ate her last husband whole – quite literally. "She married him for the mortal flesh," Hyelim had said, seemingly nonchalant about the entire affair. There are some things about the whole witch business that Seungmin admits he'll never really get used to.)"This is so unfair," Hyunjin starts to complain. Seungmin slams the car door in his face and cracks up at his stricken expression, to which Hyunjin just rolls down the window and keeps calling after him. "Rude! This isn't over, Seungmin Kim!"Seungmin turns around once he's at his front porch. "Hey, Hyunjin," he says. And oh god, there it is, the beginning of that tell-tale swelling in his chest, the kind that makes Seungmin wants to tell Hyunjin about this feeling that he's been feeling for a while now and I was wondering if you felt it, too –"Good night," Seungmin tells him instead, swallowing the lump in his throat.And Hyunjin smiles back, the kind that causes his whole face to sort of scrunch up, that Seungmin would rather stare at for hours instead of keeping his gaze fixed at the stars through the sun roof. "'Night, Seungmin."He starts up the engine, but doesn't drive away until Seungmin's closed the front door behind himself. Seungmin knows this because he glances through the curtains at the receding tail lights of his car, his breath fogging up the glass as he whispers a safety spell for Hyunjin's way home. And then he runs up to his room and shuts the door behind him with a snap of his fingers. Yeah, so here's the thing:Seungmin's a witch. Or, more accurately, a warlock. Half-warlock, from his mom's side.But that aside, Seungmin's honestly just your normal sixteen-year-old. He goes to high school, he hangs out with his friends, and hell, he even studies for the SAT on weekends. And okay, Seungmin also spends winter break and odd holidays at the Academy of Unseen Arts learning about ritual magic and demons, and his warlock friend Jisung is already in his seventies ("Still in my prime of warlock adolescence," he'd proudly told Seungmin the first time they met, when Seungmin started tutoring him in SAT math), and Seungmin's pet fennec fox Jeongin isn't so much a pet as he is Seungmin's familiar, sworn to protect him from all sorts of magical harm ("Kkami loves when Hyunjin pets him so why do you hate me so much?" he'd yelled after Jeongin's bushy tail as he scurried away from Seungmin's lap again), but really. Warlock or not, Seungmin still gets pimples and the occasional adolescent voice crack.And before you ask: no, Hyunjin doesn't know about the whole warlock thing. And yes, unfortunately, it does make Seungmin's crush on him all the more complicated. "Can you please tell your aunts to get you a cell phone?"Seungmin looks up from his milk tea to frown at Jisung. "What? Why? We have a landline." (And besides, Seungmin's aunts don't believe in modern technology. "'Magic,' they call it," Aunt Sunmi had scoffed whilst reading a newspaper article on the newest Apple product during breakfast. "They obviously haven't seen a necromancy ritual before." It'd been a struggle just convincing Aunt Hyelim that he needed internet in the house to take his online Chem quizzes.)Jisung rolls his eyes, drumming his pencil against the plastic cover of Seungmin's workbook. "Yeah, and that landline's for your aunts' mortuary business." The timer for the mock test section they were supposed to be taking goes off. Jisung makes a face at it, as if it'd just caused him a colossal inconvenience. "And I'd rather not risk my life astral projecting into your room again, just for details about how your 'date that wasn't really a date' with Hyunjin went."Seungmin throws the timer, still beeping, at his face. It hits Jisung right in the nose. "Shut up," he hisses, eyes instinctively drifting towards the door of the café. (As Aunt Hyelim likes to put it, "Speak of the devil, and he shall appear." And then she'd tuck Seungmin into bed, turn off the lights with a smile, and leave him to have nightmares about that alone, in the peaceful darkness of his room.) "It's not like I asked you to do that, anyway!" (He really didn't – "Did my aunts let you in?" Seungmin had asked halfway through detailing how Hyunjin had driven back to school to pick him up, took him to get ice cream because you're stressed, Seungmin, you need to have some fun!, and paid for everything despite Seungmin fighting him for the bill in front of the cashier. "Uh, about that," Jisung had said with a mischievous grin. And then the first bird had turned up on Seungmin's windowsill, indicating all was not well and in-balance in the spirit realm. "I'm so telling your mom," said Seungmin before pushing a whining Jisung back into his physical form.)"And me and Hyunjin are just friends," Seungmin insists when Jisung, who's rubbing his nose, continues to look unconvinced. "He even called me 'bro' the other day."Jisung sighs, leaning back in his chair so that the front two legs are hovering off the ground. "Seungmin," he says. "You gotta face it. You have one huge, big, enormous, hellfire-shaped crush on him."Seungmin pulls a face before looking back down into his milk tea again. "Do not." He stirs his straw through the tea leaves and watches as they resettle into a pattern. He lowers his voice. "I mean, maybe a little one. Maybe. Tiny."Jisung shakes his head and holds up a hand. "You were late to your dark baptism because he surprised you for your sweet sixteen," (Okay, fair, that actually did happen. But in his defense, Hyunjin had looked so sad when Seungmin had first brought up that he had "plans with his aunts" on his actual birthday. "It's tradition," Seungmin had shrugged. And then the corners of Hyunjin's mouth drooped further and Seungmin suddenly felt like the worst person in the world. "I mean," he'd started, trying to appease him, "maybe we can do something the day before?"Big mistake. Hyunjin drove them up to the lookout point at night, and after they'd talked for hours sitting on the hood of his car, he'd brought out a slightly-lopsided single slice of cake from the glove compartment. "It's twelve so," he'd told Seungmin with the largest grin on his face, illuminated by the flickering birthday candle, and then proceeded to launch into an adorably pitchy rendition of Happy Birthday. Cue the oh shit moment of Seungmin remembering his rite of unholy passage. He's pretty sure he's supposed to still be grounded, except Aunt Sunmi and Aunt Hyelim don't really know what the mortal concept entails.)Jisung ticks off another finger. "We expelled a sleep demon from his house after he told you he had one nightmare," ("What's wrong?" Seungmin had asked when he'd gotten into Hyunjin's car one morning a couple weeks ago, and Hyunjin proceeded to bury his head into Seungmin's chest instead of steering off towards school. "I had a dream," Hyunjin hiccuped, "that Kkami ran away, and that you – you hated me!" Seungmin patted his back as Hyunjin wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his hoodie. "You said you'd rather make micropayments than hang out with me anymore." And after seeing Hyunjin get detention for nodding off during History class and consequently being late for his after school swim practice, Seungmin made up his mind."Hey there, demons, it's me, ya boy!" Jisung whispered as they followed Hyunjin to his room the weekend after. "Don't do anything, you know," Seungmin had told him as they were standing on the front porch after ringing the doorbell, gesturing in what he hoped looked like a representation of magic and their witch ancestry. "Warlock-y," he'd concluded with a sigh when Jisung had just stared at him, confused. And then Hyunjin's mom opened the door. "This is so cool," he continued when Hyunjin told them to wait outside his room, probably frantically cleaning the disaster zone on the other side. "We're like, actual cryptid hunters!" Seungmin kicked Jisung in the shins to get him to shut up before Hyunjin opened the door again."Um, is that the bathroom?" Seungmin asked in between working through some Chem problems with Hyunjin on his bed.Hyunjin looked at him with a funny grin. "Yes, that's the bathroom. You've been here a million times, Seungmin, you know?"Seungmin felt his ears heat up at that. And then to make matters worse: "I have to go to the bathroom too," Jisung announced, shutting his laptop with purpose.Hyunjin looked to Seungmin. Then to Jisung. Then back to Seungmin. "There's only one toilet," he said.Jisung followed Seungmin, who'd given up trying to make this whole ordeal seem normal, into the bathroom. "Don't worry, I'll go in the shower!" And then they'd used Hyunjin's toilet water to cast the sleep demon away. They made sure to flush afterwards.)Seungmin opens his mouth to protest, but Jisung cuts him off by leaning over the table to peer at his drink. "And are you seriously doing a love divination with your milk tea tea leaves right now? I knew you getting the oolong unstrained was suspicious!""Keep your voice down!" Seungmin hisses again, stepping on Jisung's foot under the table. "Okay, yeah, so I like him. Happy now? And what does this have to do with me getting a cell phone?"Jisung smiles, leaning back in his chair again with his arms crossed against his chest smugly. Seungmin will never understand how a warlock who's been alive for seventy years can still derive satisfaction from these sorts of petty arguments. "So that every time you need someone to turn to for relationship advice," he opens his arms like Seungmin will ever want to run to him for a hug, "I'm here to help you. Just a text or call away."Seungmin snorts. "No thanks," he says. Jisung's family was truly old money – the Hans have been rich for literal centuries – and while the stigma of witches associating themselves with mortals has faded slowly over the past few decades, the Hans built their fortune by investing in their businesses, most prominently in the tech field. Jisung's dad is fascinated by the internet, and the last time Seungmin got invited over for dinner at their house, Jisung's mom tried to hand him the newest iPhone ("We have so many extras, it's really no big deal!" she'd told him when he politely refused). The Hans' openness to interacting with mortals is also the reason why Jisung's been trying to get into university for the past twenty years. ("So you have to take this SAT to get in?" Jisung had asked when Seungmin gave him his old practice tests. "No wonder all I've gotten is rejection letters. Maybe I shouldn't have cursed so many generations of those admission employees' families.") "I'm good." He flips back to the passage he was working through."Seungmin, c’mon!” Jisung whines, shaking his arm. When Seungmin doesn’t look up, doing his best to muddle through the reading, Jisung gasps. “Oh my god, is that Hyunjin?" Unholy shit. And Seungmin won't admit it, but he cracks his neck from looking up so quickly to see no one on the other side of the glass doors.Jisung can't stop laughing at his reaction. "Dude, this is proof," he chokes out, still leaning back in that chair. “You're so in love with him.”Seungmin narrows his eyes. So much for respecting your elders, and with a flick of his fingers, Jisung and his chair go sprawling onto the floor with a screech. Now it's Seungmin's turn to laugh instead.
Hey Hyunjin, so there's something I've been meaning to tell you
Hey Hyunjin, remember that time I shut the door in your face when you rang the doorbell to my house? Yeah, that wasn't because Aunt Hyelim was working with a new mortuary client and the body was slightly decomposed and smelly. That was because Aunt Sunmi was conducting a seance with her dead husband in the living room who, did I ever mention, she ate whole
Hey Hyunjin, I hope we can stay friends after I say this but I totally understand if this is too much for you to deal with. And I wanna tell you that you mean so much to me
Hey Hyunjin, I'M A FUCKING WARLOCK
"I thought you were working on your Chemistry homework," Aunt Sunmi says just as Seungmin starts to furiously press the delete key again. When he looks up, her head is poking through his ceiling and the ends of her long hair are tickling his shoulder.Seungmin scowls, slamming his laptop closed as fast as he can. "And I thought you and Aunt Hyelim agreed to stop wall-walking to check in on me after I turned nine." ("An apple a day," Aunt Hyelim had told him after another nightmare woke him up in the middle of the night, screaming, "keeps the sleep demons at bay." And maybe it was the placebo effect, but Seungmin's dreams had been completely fine after that, and he'd started eating his daily after-dinner fruit again, like a truly well-behaved Child of the Night, as Aunt Hyelim liked to put it. She was cunning like that.)"I told you!" Seungmin hears Hyelim's voice from her and Sunmi's shared bedroom above his. Sunmi just clicks her tongue. "Oh, pish posh," she smiles, dropping through the ceiling and onto Seungmin's bed, accidentally kneeing him in the side and sending Jeongin running off from where he'd been napping next to Seungmin. "I'm your aunt." She pinches his cheek with a pleased expression on her face. "Let me speak with my darling nephew, hmm?""Your darling nephew's already sixteen," Seungmin frowns, rubbing the side of his face after she lets go. "And you said you were going to bed ten minutes ago." (She'd planted a big kiss on the top of his head as Seungmin was trying to submit his timed online quiz through the barrier of her arms. He finished with ten seconds to spare and Aunt Sunmi grinning down at him with her oxblood-colored lips, whispering the end of a good dreams spell in a sing-song voice against his forehead.)Sunmi rolls her eyes at that. "You're going to be a baby to me and Hyelim until you're at least seventy-five." (Seungmin's aunts don't look it, but they're already a century old. Seungmin only remembers this exactly because last month when they'd celebrated Aunt Hyelim's birthday with a large store-bought cake, Sunmi had planted a heaping number of already-lit candles on its surface with a wave of her arm. "That should be all one hundred seven of them," she beamed at him, and then ran upstairs to get Hyelim. Seungmin counted – she was actually one off. But it was already enough of a fire hazard so he didn't dare bring it up.) "And I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to stay up too late. The spell only lasts so long, you know."Seungmin laughs. "It's barely even the witching hour," he starts, holding out his hand and conjuring his SAT workbook into it. "Plus, I have to help Jisung go over his test." ("I enchanted it," Jisung had told him, handing Seungmin back one of his old College Board prep books. "So that when you write in it, it'll show up on my book, too, in real time! Cool, right?"Seungmin squinted at him. Jisung was leaps and bounds ahead of him at the Academy but: "So you want me to be your twenty-four seven SAT teacher," he replied dryly.Jisung clapped his hands and pointed at him. "Yes. Exactly that." Seungmin really doesn't get paid enough to hang out with him, centuries-old family friendships be damned again.)"That's my smart boy," Sunmi says, ruffling his hair. "You should invite him over sometime," (Seungmin makes a mental note to never bring that up to Jisung) "And your other friends. Like the little mortal one!" (Hyunjin's actually nearly six feet tall.) Sunmi nudges him with one of her bare feet, the nails on it painted a firetruck red. "How come you've never introduced him to us before?"Seungmin swallows. (Because I'm afraid you'll eat him alive, his mind unhelpfully supplies, and I'd rather not have my best friend be dead.) "It's not like we've known each other for a long time," he tries. (A lie – Hyunjin's been his friend since his family moved from Las Vegas when they were in sixth grade. "Are those mandu?" he'd said shyly, standing beside where Seungmin was sitting at his usual haunt, alone in their math class. When Seungmin nodded, Hyunjin gave him a wide grin in response, one of his bottom adult teeth still growing in, and pulled a chair over. "Do you mind if I have one? I forgot my lunch at home and I don't have money for the cafeteria and I..." He looked like he was about to cry.Seungmin pushed the tupperware over tersely and Hyunjin's eyes sparkled like Seungmin'd just put the sun up in the sky for only him to see. And that was the beginning of Hyunjin happily eating half of Seungmin's lunch, even to this day. "He's a swimmer," said Seungmin when Jisung had wiggled his eyebrows at him suggestively the last time he'd accidentally brought it up. “Of course he has a big appetite.” He kicked Jisung in the shins when he started making kissy faces at him. "Shut up.")"Invite him over anyway," Aunt Sunmi says, waving a hand dismissively. "Me and Hyelim are always talking about meeting your friends, you know?"Oh, God. "Yeah, sure," Seungmin starts stiffly. (Never in a million years, is what he's actually thinking.) "Now can you go? Jisung's starting to write weird things in the margins." (seungmin r u ignoring me again? / i got 5/20 right UNHOLY SHIT I'M A GENIUS / take that succubitches guess which warlock's gonna get into college this year!! THIS WARLOCK)"Alright, alright!" Sunmi gets off his bed before leaning over and pressing another kiss on the crown of Seungmin's head. "Don't work yourself too hard, hmm?" Seungmin nods, starting to erase Jisung's writing as she starts to leave. (r u gonna help me now / how about now??? / :( seungmin more like seungMEAN) "And if you ever need any help writing love letters," she says, lingering at the door of his room. Seungmin chokes on air. "Let me know.""'Night, Auntie Sunmi," he manages before she winks and shuts the door behind her. Jeongin leaps back onto Seungmin's bed and resettles where he'd been laying before Sunmi came in."You know," Seungmin gives him a look. "Does protecting me from all magical harm include my overbearing aunt?"Jeongin stares back at him for a moment. And then he rests his chin on Seungmin's knee and closes his eyes. On Thursday, Seungmin hears Hyunjin's car squeaking down the street before he sees it. By the time Hyunjin's rolled the passenger side window down, Seungmin's already pushing his arms through his backpack loops and starting down the front steps of the school."Hey," he says as he opens the door, the sharp smell of chlorine familiar and sticking to the interior. Hyunjin's hair is still wet from the pool, and his grin lights up his entire face. "Thanks for the ride. I could totally just take the bus instead of you driving back after swim practice, you know?"Someone snorts in the backseat. Seungmin twists to look behind him while he's buckling his seat belt. "That's what I told him. But 'noooo, Changbin, what if something in the woods eats him on his way home?'" Changbin rolls his eyes. Seungmin can feel him tapping his foot against the back of his seat. "Just let loverboy here drive you, alright?"Hyunjin's ears turn red at that. "That's so not what I said," he mutters, shifting the car into drive. And then he glances at Seungmin and tilts his head toward Changbin, who's now preoccupied with something on his phone. "You don't mind, do you?"Seungmin shrugs. "No." (Long story short: Seungmin and Changbin kind of had beef. They've been in the same school since elementary, and when he was a third grader and Changbin a fourth, Changbin had pushed Seungmin into the blacktop, in what he'd tattled was an accident later to the teacher supervising the playground. And then Seungmin kicked him back and they'd both ended up with a two-day suspension for the fight."Uh, hi," Changbin said a few weeks before summer started last year, hands in the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie and the hood pulled over his hair, wet from his last event. Seungmin pressed his lips together, focusing on Hyunjin stretching on the blocks for his own race. Whereas Hyunjin had been swimming since he was a kid, Changbin only joined their high school's swim team to get out of regular physical ed, and Seungmin had witnessed his belly flop into the water and subsequent last place twenty minutes ago. "Mind if I sit with you?"Seungmin didn't say anything at that. Changbin took the seat next to him anyway. "Soooo," he started as Hyunjin took his starting position on the block. Someone blew the whistle, and then he dove into the water, kicking with the grace of a dolphin. "Look," Changbin interrupted just as Hyunjin swam to the lead. "I just wanted to apologize. For that thing that happened in elementary school? I was such a – " little succubitch, "– dick as a kid. And honestly, I've wanted to say sorry for years now, not just because you're like, Hyunjin's best friend and now Hyunjin's kind of my friend too." Seungmin watched as Hyunjin reached the other side of the pool, flip-turned, and pushed himself back around. "So, um. Yeah. I really do feel bad about it and, uh, I know you've been holding a grudge."For the record, Seungmin did not hold a grudge. "Oh," Seungmin finally said, glancing at Changbin just as Hyunjin won his race, his team erupting in cheers that echoed against the tiles. “Okay.”He'd stopped hexing Changbin's pencil during their Stats tests after that. Changbin, unfortunately, still pulled a D plus on their last exam.)Hyunjin smiles back gratefully before checking his blind spot and changing lanes. "Oh yeah, what happened to Jisung? Aren't you supposed to tutor him today?" he asks as he turns his blinker off."Jisung?" Changbin echoes. When Seungmin spares him a look, his eyebrows are furrowed, probably racking his brain going through their school's limited Korean demographic. "Who's that?""A family friend," replies Seungmin, nonchalant. "He goes to some private school an hour away." (Yeah, with curriculum that includes making potions and casting blood curses. Sometimes Seungmin thinks he should cut Jisung some slack about not knowing how to find the volume of a sphere but the formulas are literally right inside the front cover of the workbook.) He turns back to look at Hyunjin, whose eyes are focused on the road, "And food poisoning." (dude the high priest is coming over to our house for dinner tmrw, Jisung told him via Messenger last night. cant study SORRY gotta go look for fresh pig in the woods. the dark lord's FAVE mmmm, to which Seungmin had typed back, Wow, thanks for that info and I won't miss you.) "He thinks he got it from some pork, apparently.""Man, that sucks," Hyunjin says, pulling into the driveway of Changbin's house. It's on the other side of town from Seungmin's, but then again everything is – only Seungmin's aunts dare to live that close to the woods. "See you tomorrow at practice," he calls to Changbin, who's already manually unlocked his door and starting to climb out."Yeah," Changbin tells him. "And I'll send you the party invite tonight. Make sure I don't forget." He lingers, body still leaning inside, with one hand on the door and the other against the frame of the car. "Oh, let me invite Seungmin, too. No need to thank me! And thanks again for the ride, Hyunjinnie." And then he winks exaggeratedly, slams the door closed, and cackles to himself as he walks up to the front door of his house.Seungmin waves at him, confused. "Is he always like this?" he asks Hyunjin, who's mumbling something along the lines of Oh my god, I'm going to kill him under his breath. "And what does he mean by ‘party?’"Hyunjin flicks on his headlights before pulling out of Changbin's driveway. "I was supposed to invite you," he frowns. "And Jisung. Do you think Jisung wants to come? I mean – " Seungmin opens his mouth (about to say either NO or I think Jisung might be unfit for public consumption) but then Hyujin barrels on. "Look, I know you're not the party type," ("Your idea of a Saturday night," Jisung deadpanned the first time he'd gone over to his house for dinner, “is putting together a one thousand pieced puzzle? No offense, but I haven’t seen that in a teenager since the 90’s.” He’d been sucked into helping Seungmin finish it two hours later with a, “Wait, this is oddly therapeutic though?”) “but I just thought.” Hyunjin clears his throat, tapping his index finger on the steering wheel. “It’s – it’s on Halloween. And I know you’re usually stuck passing out candy with your aunts!” (“What a cute little pumpkin!” Sunmi cooed last year, pinching a toddler’s cheeks. “Hyelim, do you remember when Seungmin was this tiny and adorable – ” “HAPPY HALLOWEEN,” Seungmin interrupted and placed a handful of candy into the bag the kid’s father was holding.) “So I thought this would be, like, a cool change of pace or something? And it’s at the pumpkin patch Felix’s family runs, you know Felix, right?” (Seungmin did know Felix. He had kind of bowl cut, was in Seungmin’s accelerated Chem class – wait, no that was Daehwi.)When Seungmin doesn’t reply, Hyunjin just lets out a short, awkward bark of laughter. “Never mind, it’s stupid, right? I’ll just stop by yours and we can eat your leftover candy in my car again – ”“It’s not stupid,” Seungmin says. They’re at a stop light, and Hyunjin turns to look at him. Seungmin’s not sure if it’s the red from the tail lights of the car in front of them or an actual blush blooming on Hyunjin’s cheeks. “It sounds,” he searches for the right word, “fun.”Hyunjin cracks up at that. “Sound a little more soulless, will you?” He elbows Seungmin playfully before leaning back in his seat. “But thanks. And you know, we really don’t have to go if you don’t wanna. I like eating all the Almond Joys because kids these days don’t appreciate them.” (Seungmin doesn’t mention that he specifically picks them out of the bowl before the trick-or-treaters start to show up because he knows they’re Hyunjin’s favorite.)“How about this,” Seungmin starts. The place where Hyunjin nudged him feels tingly, like little beetle legs are crawling all over his skin. “We go to the party. But if Changbin starts doing something unfunny, we bail and go see a movie.”“Okay,” Hyunjin says, sitting upright again. The light turns green and his smile turns blinding. “Deal,” and then he presses on the gas. Seungmin's a good, straight A, advanced curriculum kind of student. Where he's going with this point is that he makes sure to finish all his homework and take a math section of an SAT practice test before sidling up to Aunt Hyelim in the kitchen and asking, "Do you think I'm no fun?""Whoa, whoa," Hyelim laughs, stirring whatever's boiling over the stove before covering it with a lid. "What brought this on all of a sudden? Did someone at school say something? Because you know what Sunmi said about how it's okay to curse someone, as long as it's temporary – " (Oh, Seungmin remembers. "We do it all the time," Sunmi had shrugged while Hyelim nodded in agreement. "Nothing like the good ol' price of virility to pay for cutting your Aunt Hyelim in line at the supermarket. Pity because I think they were trying for another baby this month.")Seungmin shakes his head. "No, it's just." He leans over the counter top, resting his chin on his hands, palms flat against the tile. "Hyunjin invited me to his friend's Halloween party, and he told me we didn't have to go but I think he really wants to. I don't know, I know he doesn't mind if I say no but I just...feel bad.""What does this have to do with you being no fun?" Hyelim asks. She walks to the counter that Seungmin's slumped over and tidies up his hair with her fingers. "From what it sounds like, Hyunjin cares a lot about you. And that even if you tell him that you don't wanna go to that party, he'll still have fun with you regardless."Seungmin presses his lips together. Aunt Hyelim made it sound so easy, like it was something a little sprig of thyme couldn't cure in one of her potion recipes. But: "What if I care about Hyunjin as more than a friend?""Oh, Seungmin." Hyelim has that mischievous glint in her eyes that she gets when a client orders a closed casket and she's about to tell Sunmi. "Are you saying you have a little crush – ""Don't tell Aunt Sunmi!" whispers Seungmin as he checks the ceiling for any sign of her. (Luckily clear.) "She'll do something weird again," (In the fifth grade, Seungmin accidentally let it slip that he liked this girl in his class named Jisu. Cue his Aunt Sunmi's attempt to put a bit of love potion in her Capri Sun after the Fun Run. She'd been subsequently banned from being a parent volunteer and Seungmin gave her the silent treatment for two weeks until he had to get a guardian's signature for his book report and Aunt Hyelim had been busy manning a funeral showing.) "And she'll never let me hear the end of it."Hyelim mimes a zipping and locking motion against her mouth. "Don't worry, I made the kitchen wall-walk proof," she promises.Seungmin droops back onto the counter top at that. "I wish there was some easy way to figure this out.” (Okay, good, straight A, advanced curriculum kind of student aside, Seungmin had spent a solid hour after he came home typing different variations of How to tell a mortal you like them when you're a WARLOCK. Only about five search results turned up on Google and one of them was the link to Jisung's Tumblr page. Seungmin lost another solid twenty minutes there.) “I mean, how did mom confess to dad? About her feelings and the whole witch thing?"“Hmm,” Hyelim considers, leaning on the counter top on the other side of the stove. “She was just honest about it. She was straightforward like that, your mom.” Whatever’s boiling on the stove releases a puff of lavender steam into the air between them and it fogs up Hyelim’s gentle smile. “And they knew it’d be hard. But your dad loved your mom so much that they got married and had you anyway, you know?” (Does Seungmin know. He can’t count the number of times he’d heard the “When a witch and mortal love each other very much” talk from his aunts whenever someone asked about his half-human blood back before Seungmin started high school and they used to attend the Church of Night regularly. Half-breed children are still a bit of an anomaly, apparently.)Seungmin sighs. “Sometimes I think I miss them. But then I realize I don’t remember anything about them because I was a year old when they died, and I have you and Aunt Sunmi, and then I feel like I don’t have the right to say that.”“You can miss someone even if you see them every day,” Hyelim reassures him with a hum. “That doesn’t make how you feel any less real, you know?” Seungmin turns his head to look at her again, cheek pressed against his hand. “And I think that if Hyunjin cares about you as much as it sounds like he does, he’ll accept the warlock part of you, too,” (Okay, Hyunjin might be Seungmin’s best friend in the entire world, but he’d also had nightmares about Jack Skellington after they watched The Nightmare Before Christmas in theaters last Halloween, so Seungmin’s not too sure about that.) “And if it goes wrong, well,” she shrugs lightly while turning off the burner. “That’s nothing a little memory spell can’t fix.”Seungmin sighs again. “You’re right,” he agrees, mouth scrunched small in seriousness before he yawns wide. “Must be that hundred-year wisdom of yours, huh?” he teases. His teeth clack together unpleasantly on the close.“Hey, I don’t look a day over twenty-six!” Hyerim jokes back as she levitates a bowl down from the highest shelf of the cupboard and closes it shut with a swish of her fingers. “And if that were the case, your Aunt Sunmi would be this smart too, wouldn’t she?”“You’re right,” Seungmin echoes again, a little sleepily. It’s almost one thirty, and he’s got a quiz in Stats first thing in the morning and not nearly enough time to keep thinking circles around how he feels about Hyunjin.“Of course I’m right.” Hyerim ladles a generous helping of whatever she brewed up this time into a metal rice bowl and hands it to him. “Now drink up and go to bed, okay?”And Seungmin's never been able to deny Aunt Hyelim anything, so he does. It tastes like a dream wherein he gets full marks on his test, the mid-autumn air lying cool and crisp against his tongue, and the feeling of his heart inflating like a balloon every time Hyunjin pulls up to the curb in that hand-me-down Honda Civic of his, smiling even before Seungmin can see his face through the rolled-down window. It’s the best night’s sleep he’s gotten in a while. It's not hard on paper, taking Aunt Hyelim's advice. But then Seungmin's halfway down the steps of his porch after Hyunjin called their landline ("You know, honking would be a whole lot easier," Seungmin told him, the phone pressed between his shoulder and ear as he tugged his socks on. "But that's a public disturbance," Hyunjin laughed, a ticklish kind of sound even over the staticky line, "And I don't want your aunts to hate me before I even meet them." “Oh,” and then Seungmin tripped over the phone cord in his rush to the door) when he realizes this: Hyunjin's an utter, cry-at-predictable-romance movies, coo at banners-in-the-hallways promposals kind of romantic. And nothing about sitting in Hyunjin's car thirty minutes before first period starts and telling him why they've never been able to hang out on three-day weekends and oh, by the way, I have a huge crush on you fits that criteria, unfortunately."Morning," Hyunjin grins when Seungmin slides into the passenger seat and puts his backpack on his lap, like any normal day of them going to school. What's not so normal is that Seungmin's set himself up for failure even before he could begin, and he's never gotten below an A minus on anything before. "You ready for that Stats quiz? I think Changbin even ditched practice yesterday to study for it."Seungmin shrugs while reaching to buckle his seat belt. He's gotta abort mission and regroup on his original plan. "Should be okay. Changbin's just not good at Stats, I think.""Ooh, smart Seungminnie," Hyunjin coos, poking Seungmin's cheek as he waits for the engine to start up again. He's smiling that smile that makes his nose scrunch up now – the one that makes the mole under his eye disappear, and the one that makes Seungmin fall hook, line, sinker for him all over again. "Don't forget us normal people when you're off being a genius, okay!"Seungmin can't help but laugh as he swats Hyunjin's finger away. "Do you really think I could?" Hyunjin starts to aww but then he adds, "Because I think you crying all over me through the haunted house in eighth grade is pretty unforgettable."Hyunjin sticks his tongue out at him. "I know you love me!" he insists before heading down the road. And yeah, fuck, Seungmin really does. He can't stop the swelling feeling in his chest when he glances at Hyunjin's profile, focused on the road and mouthing along to whatever popular song’s playing on the radio, for the entire ride there.What do you think about this, Seungmin writes in his charmed SAT workbook to Jisung after his quiz ("I guess it's remedial classes for me again over winter break," Changbin frowns when they passed them in. Out of curiosity, Seungmin glanced at his test paper before handing it forward. Changbin had already gotten the first two problems wrong). 1) I get Hyunjin alone, 2) I take him to that big oak tree in the woods, you know the one where I had my dark baptism?, 3) I tell him how I feel and that I'm a warlock, 4) It either goes really well or I have to bring my spellbook so I can wipe his memory lol.Jisung's chicken scratch handwriting starts appearing in the margins. 1st of all, THIS IS Y I TOLD U TO GET A FONE (Seungmin erases the “f” and replaces it with a “ph” at first. And then he erases the entire thing – there’s no room for extraneous statements between Seungmin’s premature midlife crisis and a giant block of reading comprehension on the other side of the page), also if u didnt say this was a love confession id say it sounds like ur gonna murder him and dump his body in the forest.Oh. (Seungmin actually thought it was pretty romantic, being at the site of his unholy rebirth with his crush. Maybe he's been watching the wrong kind of rom-coms.) But I'm not???LOL, Jisung writes back. well hows he supposed to know that?“Dude,” Changbin whispers from behind. Seungmin scrabbles to shut the book before turning his head, only to see Changbin squinting his eyes at him. “You’re seriously studying for the SAT right now? What kind of fire are you playing with?”“Shut up,” Seungmin hisses in reply, pulling out his Stats notebook and starting to copy down whatever their teacher’s writing on the board. “The PSAT’s next week, okay?”In any case, Seungmin’s not worried about the PSAT. What Seungmin is worried about is Hyunjin never wanting to hang out with him again if he tells him that he’s learning how to resurrect spiders from the dead instead of cleaning the house with his aunts over Thanksgiving break.“I don’t get it,” Jisung tells him when they’ve resumed their usual Tuesday-Thursday SAT study sessions. Seungmin glances up from his Chem textbook, expecting to have to answer another question about why taking the square root of a negative number made it imaginary (“Is that what i stands for?” Seungmin didn’t answer that one). “You’ve been friends with Hyunjin for like, ever. At least by mortal high schooler standards.” He chews on his straw, chin resting against the lid of his cup. “Do you really think he’s gonna stop hanging out with you just because you know how to do a little magic?”Seungmin frowns. “You make it sound like I’m a party magician or something,” (Jisung gives him a look. Okay, yeah, Seungmin might be a good, straight A, advanced curriculum kind of student in mortal school but he wasn’t all that great in some of his classes at the Academy. As of yet, he likes to say. He ran straight into a brick wall during his first wall-walking class. As of yet) “He thinks the woods are haunted, and I literally have a wandering spirit as a pet.” He shrugs. “I don’t know what he’s gonna do.”What Seungmin does know is this:Hyunjin Hwang’s got stars in his eyes and a smile that makes them crinkle into moons, and when he got his parent’s hand-me-down car on his birthday, the first thing he did was pick up Seungmin and drive them to McDonald’s for fries. And Hyunjin’s the kind of person to offer rides unsolicited, and the kind of person who walks over to Seungmin again when they’re in sixth grade the day after he eats half his lunch, hands him a banana milk from the Korean supermarket on the other side of town with a small smile tugging on his lips, and pulls over a chair to sit next to him in that math class. And Hyunjin likes to put his chin on Seungmin’s shoulder when they study together, grinding his teeth as he glances at whatever Seungmin’s working on, and Hyunjin cries when he gets bad grades on tests and pulls all-nighters studying to make them better. And Hyunjin always smells faintly like pool chlorine and fresh laundry when he hugs Seungmin, and Seungmin’s so, so afraid that he’ll let go someday and never come back.Unholy shit, he realizes as Jisung goes back to muddling through math problems, Jisung’s right for once. Seungmin’s got it bad – like really bad – for Hyunjin. And in true and unsurprising adolescent fashion, of course when things start out bad, they only end up spiraling into the “even worse” territory. Example A:"Seungmin!" Sunmi yells from downstairs on Saturday morning. "Phone call for you!" (Seungmin doesn't want to be awake right now, much less have a phone call. He swears any time before noon on a weekend had to be Satan's hour.)"I lost Kkami in the woods," Hyunjin starts blubbering before Seungmin can even finish saying hello. (A moment later the thought of Hyunjin just spoke to AUNT SUNMI also belatedly flits across his mind. Seungmin really doesn't need another meddling-aunt-with-a-love-potion incident. He still can't look Jisu in the eye without wanting to die when they pass each other in the hallways at school.) "I took him out for a walk this morning, you know there's...there's that one trail he likes – shit, I – Seungmin, I don't know what to do.""Hey," Seungmin says gently. Hyunjin sounds like he's crying on the other end. "Hey, Hyunjin. It'll be alright. Kkami's a smart dog, he wouldn't have gone far," (Seungmin's not so sure about that, actually. Hyunjin raised Kkami like his own son since he'd been a puppy, and Seungmin didn't think it was normal for owners to taste their dog's food before giving it to them. That said: Kkami was easy lunch for wayward spirits in the forest.) "Are you near my house?" Hyunjin lets out a mumble of a yeah. "Okay, I'm coming to help you. We'll find Kkami, okay?"Hyunjin's standing at the start of the trail, wiping his eyes, when Seungmin sprints there. "Your hair," he laughs at Seungmin's bedhead and in between crying it sounds like a gurgle. That only makes him laugh like that again. "It's like a bird's nest."Seungmin pushes his shoulder with a finger in retaliation. "I literally just rolled out of bed," ("Never thought I'd see a day you'd be up this early on a weekend," Hyelim noted when he rushed past her down the stairs. "Are you going out in your pajamas? There's still breakfast on the table – " By this point, Seungmin was already out the door) "You owe me."And then Hyunjin starts to cry again. "I mean," Seungmin blurts before Hyunjin pulls him into a hug, "That was a joke, you know? Haha. But if you wanna buy me lunch sometime, I think the caf's serving the good pizza again." Hyunjin presses a sob into his shoulder and Seungmin remains utterly useless. "Okay, but tell me what happened with Kkami.”“We were walking,” Hyunjin sniffles from where he’s still buried into Seungmin’s left shoulder. “And then Kkami’s leash got tangled in this bush. And you know how Kkami’s usually a good boy, right? So I – I unclip his leash so it’s easier to untangle and then he runs away and now I can’t find him.” He unwraps one of his arms from Seungmin’s waist to wipe at his eyes again. “I’m the worst owner ever, and now I bet Kkami’s scared and alone, and I – ”Seungmin rubs Hyunjin’s back. “Hey,” he says. “Don’t say that. It was an accident, you know?” Hyunjin nods against his neck and Seungmin is definitely not blushing. “And we’ll find him, okay? Let’s split up and go look for him, how does that sound?”Hyunjin lets him go, nodding and using his hoodie sleeve to press his tears dry. “Thanks, Seungmin,” he tells him. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” and it’s so sincere that Seungmin almost forgets that he’s been hiding half the truth about himself from Hyunjin for years, and then it’s a slap in the face when he remembers two seconds later.“That’s what friends are for,” he manages to smile. Hyunjin hugs him again before heading back down the trail. Seungmin watches him go until he’s lost in between the foliage.Seungmin’s halfway to the oak tree, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one’s around, when he whispers a locating spell onto a twig (This one Seungmin knows he can’t botch up. It’s a staple in their household when Aunt Sunmi misplaces her keys more often than not, and half the time they’re in her coat pockets). It hovers in the air before whizzing through the trees and forcing Seungmin to run after it, and then it stops not far from the trail, but further away from where Hyunjin’s supposed to be searching. Seungmin puts his hands on his knees to catch his breath and then he looks down at where it’s pointing and – well, unholy shit.“You can’t just summon me to your room,” Jisung gabs as soon as his silvery spirit appears in the center of the circle of candles Seungmin set up (from last year’s Bath & Body Works’ sale and half-used from Sunmi’s last seance. “Time to stock up,” Aunt Hyelim says every time the Black Friday advertisement comes in the mail. His room’s gonna smell like sickeningly sweet overscented wax for days). “I’m not dead yet, and if the Undertaker comes and gets me right now, I hope you know that it’s your fault – ”Seungmin rolls his eyes. “How much do you know about necromancy?” he interrupts.“What do you mean ‘how much do I know about necromancy?’” Jisung starts. Seungmin undoes the bundle just outside the candles and shows Jisung Kkami’s corpse. “Unholy shit, is that a dog?” He squints and looks a little closer. “Is that Hyunjin’s dog?”Seungmin nods. “And you – you wanna necromance it. Back to life,” continues Jisung, staring at Seungmin with deadpan eyes. Seungmin nods again. Jisung sighs and pushes back his hair. “Geez, well, this is a first, and I’ve been alive seventy years. What did you even tell him?”“I couldn’t just tell him the truth!” Seungmin says. “Hyunjin’ll be devastated if he finds out Kkami’s dead, you know?” (“Did you find any sign of him?” Hyunjin asked when they met up at the start of the trail again, looking small and defeated. “No,” Seungmin managed to reply in place of your dog became goblin chow! “But I think we should call it a day for now and come back tomorrow. I mean, Kkami’ll be okay, there’s stuff for him to eat in the woods like – ” And then Seungmin realized he had no plausible examples. “ – squirrels.” Luckily Hyunjin just nodded along. He wasn't very well-versed in biology.) “And you know, as a warlock, this is the least I can do right? As a friend?”Jisung’s face splits into a wide, teasing grin as he settles cross-legged on Seungmin’s floor. “Mmhmm,” he hums, drawing it out. He rests his chin against his fists and bats his eyes. “And for your huge, big, enormous, hellfire-shaped crush too.”Seungmin’s cheeks feel like they’re on fire. “Shut up.” He kicks Jisung’s apparition with his socked foot. Where it should’ve connected with his shin only dissipates for a moment before reconstructing back into its silvery self. (“Dude, that hurt.”) “Witching hour, tonight in the woods. Are you coming or what?”“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jisung cackles. “Hearing about your teenage love story keeps me young, you know? It’s like, when are you just gonna warlock-up and kiss him – ” And then Seungmin cuts a hand through the air, summoning a gust of wind that blows out all candles at once, and Jisung the apparition disappears.Seungmin finds RUDE ): scribbled over a “This page is intentionally left blank” while he’s taking a practice test later that afternoon. He laughs, pencils in a LMAO, and flips to the next section. A guide on how to bring your best friend slash subject-of-your-very-big-crush-that-has-driven-you-to-the-point-of-attempting-necromancy’s dog back to life:1) Successfully sneak out of your room without your overbearing aunts noticing. Use your familiar if necessary ("Wake up," Seungmin said as he shook Jeongin awake from his nap on the windowsill. Jeongin hissed in response. "Okay, okay, you can keep napping, alright? But I need you to transfigurate into me first." Once a Jeongin-who-looked-like-Seungmin was tucked into his bed with another hiss – and wow, how had Seungmin not noticed that he had that bad of pimple on his nose this entire week; good thing he hadn't mustered up the courage to confess to Hyunjin yet, his cowardly tendencies were a thing of evolutionary adaptation, genus: saving, species: his own ass – he'd opened his window and jumped out. Instead of floating down, he hit Aunt Hyelim's thyme bushes full-force. Yes, Seungmin acknowledges he needs to study harder in his telekinetics class). Make sure to be as inconspicuous as possible about what you're going to do in the hours leading up to it ("What're you up to?" Aunt Sunmi said, looking over his shoulder at his laptop screen before dinner. "Necromancy!" Seungmin shouted in panic. Sunmi furrowed her eyebrows at him, confused. "I mean, nothing.” He laughed nervously for good measure. “They kinda rhyme, don’t they?" Thank God Aunt Hyelim told them to clear the table before Sunmi could ask him about it further. Seungmin only talked about the upcoming PSAT for the entire meal).2) Have some dog treats on you in order to summon the spirit back to the physical realm ("They're Kkami's favorite," Hyunjin told him before he left for home, leaving them in bowl on Seungmin’s porch. Seungmin vaguely remembers going to the pet store with him over the summer, watching as Hyunjin opened up the bag right then in the car and bit into one before shrugging and handing it to Kkami. Seungmin also vaguely remembers forcibly trying to fall out of love with him after that, but then Hyunjin grinned up at him, Kkami in his lap licking his face, and Seungmin came to terms with the fact that he was just going to be in love with a dog-food eater. Things could be worse, he guesses). "Oh, that's smart," Jisung says as he's drawing the pentagram into the dirt (It turns out crooked and the circle lopsided. "Close enough," Seungmin shrugs, pulling out Kkami's body wrapped up in one of Jeongin's blankets and the Bath & Body Works candles that he used to summon Jisung from his backpack. "This actually smells like s'mores," Jisung notes, nose dangerously close to the flame. "Why does our friendship always come down to SAT tutoring and now necromancy rituals? When're you gonna invite me to do something mortal-fun, like a bonfire?" And that's when Seungmin remembers that Halloween party he's supposed to go to with Hyunjin, and he accidentally invites Jisung right then and there. Fuck, future Seungmin is going to regret this moment, isn't he).3) Know the verses of the incantation before you start reciting them ("Restore life to Kkami…Hwang," Seungmin fills in the blank when he reaches recite full name here. Jisung busts a lung laughing at that. "A death for a death, and a life for a life – wait, what? Unholy shit, do we have to kill something?" And since they didn't have a toy dog breed of equitable life force on hand, Seungmin and Jisung spent the next hour finding snails to step on and scrape off the bottoms of their shoes to put on the opposite end of the pentagram. His high tops are ruined for good).4) And even if you do all of the above correctly, the ritual still might not hold ("Rise," Seungmin and Jisung chant. "Rise!" A gust of wind picks up around them and the blanket holding Kkami's body. When it settles, Kkami's unfortunately still as dead as before. "Maybe we have to do it again," Jisung comments, "like, sometimes I forget a dash and my whole Tumblr layout becomes one huge error." Seungmin frowns, muttering, "I am not spending another hour killing snails"), but don't become too discouraged ("What am I going to tell Hyunjin?" sighs Seungmin as they're walking out of the woods after burying Kkami and wiping away the pentagram. "He's going to hate me, isn't he?"Jisung gives him a look. "Seungmin, I really don't think Hyunjin's capable of that," he says. "Like, yeah, he might be upset but he didn't even get mad at me and he thinks I peed in his shower."Jisung's got a point. And Seungmin's so tired of holding all of his feelings for Hyunjin inside of himself, and so tired of hiding everything warlock from him that he lets Jisung loop a comforting arm around his shoulders, the full moon through the trees illuminating their path back to Seungmin's house).Hey, Seungmin sends to Hyunjin on Messenger before he falls asleep. Jeongin snuggles up to his side for once, the blue light of the screen reflected in his dark eyes. We need to talk tomorrow, and then he shuts his laptop before he can take it back."Why does adolescence suck so much?" Seungmin asks Jeongin as he scratches behind his ears. Jeongin just purrs in response. And to think Jisung's been going through it for the last fifty years. Seungmin suddenly feels sorry for him as he drifts off into sleep. Seungmin's resigned himself back to working on the Hey Hyunjin, I'M A FUCKING WARLOCK letter and to living his life with his SAD DAY6 SONGS FOR A SAD SEUNGMINNIE playlist as the original soundtrack (ay wanna take a practice test rn? Jisung sends him over Messenger. Seungmin changes his nickname in their chat to whenyoulovesomeone_day6.mp3 in lieu of an actual reply. ): wanna get boba instead, Jisung types back before changing his own nickname to cheerup_twice.mp3. Seungmin just responds with a succinct ㅠ to encompass his newfound half-warlock but of-his-entire-existential dread) until he's walking down the stairs to the kitchen and he hears:"Fascinating," Sunmi muses. "You have a witch's mark under your right eye." And Seungmin only knows one person with a mole located there – it's the one that disappears when his eyes crinkle up into a smile, that Seungmin's had so many dreams of pressing his lips against and tracing his finger over, feather light. Unholy shit. "How lucky. Seungmin was right to choose you as a friend, what did you say your last name was – ""Hyunjin!" Seungmin blurts, running into the dining room. Sunmi's got her typical Sunday newspaper open in her hands and Hyunjin's halfway to reaching for a cookie from the assortment that Aunt Hyelim only brings out for "special guests" (a.k.a their grieving, mortal mortuary clients. Oh, and on one occasion, the current High Priest, inspecting the protection spells on their property. She especially enjoyed the oatmeal raisin). "Oh my god, Auntie Sunmi, why didn't you tell me he was here?"Sunmi smiles a little devilishly. "Hyelim called you down ten minutes ago," (fuck, Seungmin probably missed that through blasting Day6 and his general teenage angst), "And I just want to get to know your friends," she replies, flipping the paper back up. "He goes out of his way to drive you to school every morning, the least I can do is ask him how long you two have known each other, hmm?" She turns her smile on Hyunjin. "Don't you agree?"And whereas Seungmin's brain is short-circuiting, Hyunjin (as the apparent epitome of the boyfriend-you'd-bring-home-to-meet-your-parents, except Hyunjin's never going to be Seungmin's boyfriend in this incarnation – after he tells him the truth about what happened with Kkami – or in any of the next five hundred. Or, as Changbin likes to call it, the “he's trying to steal my parents from me” charm) just shoots her one of his beautific grins. "Of course," he laughs. "And I always tell Seungmin that I want to meet his aunts, so this is great!""Oh my god," Seungmin says again, covering his face with his hands. "Let's just go. Goodbye, aunties." After Hyunjin tells Sunmi it was a pleasure meeting you and thank Aunt Hyelim for the cookies, Sunmi just raises her eyebrows knowingly at Seungmin behind his back. It makes him consider forgoing all the immortalizing properties of magic in favor of burying himself into the family plot right there and then."I'm so sorry about that," Seungmin starts as soon as they get into Hyunjin's car. "You guys didn't actually talk for long, did you? I – " And then Hyunjin flings his arms around him, only making contact with Seungmin's shoulders over the central console, his breath tickling the back of Seungmin's neck."Thank you, thank you, thank you," Hyunjin tells him, pressing his lips to the side of Seungmin's head. Seungmin's still clutching the seat belt buckle in his right hand as if it'll save him from whatever this is. "What did I ever do to deserve a friend like you, Seungminnie?""What," Seungmin starts, a sort of terror causing his stomach to churn. That, or the fact that he barely got enough sleep last night, and insomnia gives him indigestion. “What're you talking about?" There's no way Hyunjin could've known about Kkami, unless –Hyunjin lets out another one of those watery laughs. "Your message last night," he mumbles. "And this morning, my mom woke up to something scratching on the door, and it was Kkami! God, I'm never going to let him off his leash on walks again." He lets Seungmin go and looks at him with those stars in his eyes and that mole twinkling like a faraway Jupiter in a clear night's sky. "This is what you wanted to talk about, right? You found him, Seungmin, I. I could kiss you right now!"Seungmin blinks at that, Hyunjin's hands still on his shoulders. His thoughts come and go in this particular order:1) Hyunjin just said he could kiss him (It's a figure of speech, the rational, will-completely-crush-the-PSAT this coming Wednesday part of Seungmin's brain tells him. But what if –).2) Kkami's alive. Which means by some unholy miracle, the whole necromancy thing actually worked. (Fuck, Seungmin sends Jisung later that day, we did it, we're successful dog necromancers now. Jisung responds with an audio clip that’s just him going WHOOP WHOOP for a good ninety-three seconds. Aunt Hyelim thought it was the fire alarm.)3) Seungmin could really kiss Hyunjin now, too. And then Seungmin remembers that there's a five thousand word confession letter he typed out that's still pulled up on his laptop screen back in his bedroom and he just..."Yeah," says Seungmin. He presses his lips together in a closed-mouth smile instead. "I guess I did." Hyunjin throws his arms around him again, blubbering "You're the bestest friend ever," and well. Seungmin can't really tell him now, can he? On Thursday, Jisung just comes right out and says it in the middle of Seungmin working on his Chem lab: "Dude, for someone who likes to stay two days ahead on his homework, haven't you been procrastinating too long on the whole Hyunjin thing?"Seungmin loses track of the calculation he was doing in his head. When he glances up, Jisung's tracing the lid of his beverage cup with an index finger, looking bored out of his mind. "Don't you have something better to do?" he scowls, pulling out his graphing calculator. "Like, I don't know, inflict magical mayhem on people?""That got old fifty years ago," Jisung replies. Seungmin punches the numbers into his calculator with more force than necessary. "And I'm just saying.” He puts his hands up in surrender. “Brew yourself a little truth potion and tell him what's been on your mind, you know?""It's not that easy," Seungmin frowns back, stubborn. "It can't be that easy," not when he's been thinking about it every time Hyunjin showed up in his driveway this week to pick him up for school, smiling and humming along to the radio and listening to Seungmin talk about the PSAT, when Hyunjin does end up buying him the good pizza from the caf ("I ran as soon as the bell rang and got you the biggest slice," he told Seungmin when he finally showed up at their usual spot on the bleachers, grinning like a cat that got the canary. "Aren't you proud of me?" And god, he was a boy after Seungmin's own heart, except for the fact that he already had it), and when Hyunjin brought his face super close to Seungmin's yesterday that Seungmin closed his eyes in anticipation, only to feel Hyunjin's breath move away from against his cheek ("You had an eyelash here," Hyunjin said, poking the top of Seungmin's cheek gently. "Here," he held out his index finger and Seungmin tried to hold down the blush threatening to creep up his neck, "blow it away and make a wish").Jisung squints at him. "Seungmin, you think the questions that ninety percent of people get wrong on the SAT are 'easy,'" he says. "And Hyunjin looks at you like you're the reason the sun rises every day. Like, this is literally like if one plus one showed up as a multiple choice question, and two out of four were completely bogus options, and you purposely choose the wrong answer instead." Seungmin bitterly graphs a random cubic function on his calculator to distract himself from what Jisung's saying. "Continuously.""Shut up," Seungmin says, kicking at his shins halfheartedly (he doesn't intend to make contact but he does, and Jisung hisses in pain. "Sorry," he apologizes sheepishly). "But I like," he scrunches up his face in thought, "I always get stuck when I'm finally alone with him, you know? I'm never gonna be able to confess, and Hyunjin's never gonna have to know, right – "Jisung smiles around the plastic straw he's chewing. "That's what the truth potion is for, my friend," he reminds him (and well, Seungmin might be great at Chem but he'd mixed in the ingredients in what he thought was a more efficient order his first potions class and promptly forced the entire building to evacuate). "And just tell him tomorrow. At the party thing?" (Oh, Seungmin totally forgot that was happening. Now he vaguely recalls ignoring the constant "Let Changbin Seo know if you can make it to LIX'S HALLOWEEN EXTREME (YEET!!!)," notifications on Facebook and Hyunjin asking him if they wanted to coordinate costumes. "No thanks," he thinks he told him, lost in thought over going as boy who died of heartbreak c. 21st century. It's been a long week.)Seungmin glares. Jisung, unfortunately, has a point. "Stop being kinda right," he says. "I hate it when you're kinda right."Jisung reaches a hand across the table to pat Seungmin's arm reassuringly. "Seungmin, I've got fifty-four years on you. Of course I'm always right." As it turns out, Seungmin does know Felix. He's the kid with freckles and dyed-orange hair that sits beside Daehwi in his accelerated Chem class, and Seungmin remembers seeing him at a swim meet cheering alongside Hyunjin and Changbin."Thanks for coming, Seungmin," he smiles when they show up at the entrance, where a bunch of kids are screaming in the bounce house. And yeah, it's not so much a typical party as just a bunch of high schoolers fucking around at the pumpkin patch completely sober, but Seungmin prefers it that way ("No alcohol," Aunt Hyelim called after him before he closed the door of Hyunjin's car. "You'll have decades to enjoy that after you turn twenty-one, alright?" Seungmin can hear Hyunjin trying to stifle his laughter from inside the car. "Stop embarrassing me Aunt Hyelim, oh my god.") until he realizes there's no way he and Hyunjin are ever going to get a moment alone. "You're dressed up as..." Felix trails off, furrowing his eyebrows in concentration."The grim reaper," Hyunjin supplies with a fake-fanged grin. (No one has to know that Seungmin's just re-wearing his dark baptism robes or that the blood stains on the hem are actually from real cow blood. Except: "Dude, I can't believe you didn't burn those," Jisung whispered to him behind Hyunjin's back when they ran into each other outside of the parking lot. "They're so friggin' ugly, I wouldn't be caught dead in them.")Felix nods, still considering. "I didn't have time to make the scythe," Seungmin quips, clutching his refilled-with-truth-potion Dasani bottle a little tighter at the neck. (That's what Seungmin spent his afternoon working on. He hopes Aunt Hyelim doesn't notice that there's a marked difference in how many anise grounds are left in the tin. He accidentally spilled them all over the counter.)"Cool, cool," Felix grins. "Well, I gotta get back to the ball house. Some kid pooped in there and my sister's making me clean it up." He rolls his eyes. "But yeah, I think everyone else is over by the pumpkin carving.""Thanks, Lix!" Hyunjin waves after him. "God, these fake teeth are killing me," he says once Felix's gone, pulling them out of his mouth. Hyunjin's dressed as a vampire himself – black button-down and jeans with his hair gelled back and a smudge of fake blood painted down the left corner of his mouth ("How do I look?" Hyunjin asked once Seungmin turned to look at him in the car. Even in the dim half-light coming from Seungmin's front porch, Hyunjin looked... "Half-dead," Seungmin managed to blurt instead. Nice save. "Uh, yeah. I guess that's what I was going for?" Hyunjin laughed nervously before starting the car). He turns to face Seungmin. "Should we go look for Jisung?" ("I'll go scope out a good spot for you to confess," Jisung also told him after the whole robe discussion. "I'm the best wingman, you know? You owe me!" And then he ran off before Seungmin could tell him not to.) "And are you sure he doesn't need a ride back home? It'll be super late.""I think he'll be okay," Seungmin shrugs (he can't just say that Jisung enjoys travelling through bends of time-space instead. That's how he gets to and from their SAT study sessions at the boba café. The one time Seungmin tried it with him, he threw up. Good thing Jisung always transports himself into bathrooms). "We can do whatever you want."Hyunjin's face lights up at that. "Let's go to the photobooth!" he says, grabbing Seungmin's hand and tugging him toward the line, and Seungmin can't seem to wipe the love-struck smile off his own face when the camera flashes."You guys are laaaaate," Changbin whines once they've arrived at the pumpkin carving station, two strips of pictures and a shared candy apple later. ("What kind of emoji is that?" Seungmin asked, squinting at the pumpkin Changbin'd been working on. "Can't you see?" Changbin said back, tracing over where he'd lopsidedly carved in a face. "It's a Snorlax!" "I can see it," Hyunjin shrugged when Seungmin looked to him for help.) "So late that we all decided you guys should go through the haunted maze first. Like, we were supposed to all go in together, you know? But you guys can be our guinea pigs and tell us where the scary parts are." Changbin shrugs, the devious smile still on his face. "Or if you're too scared, you can just pay for all of our hot dogs later."Seungmin rolls his eyes. "I bet you can't make it through the entire thing without screaming," he dares. (Haunted houses were child's play compared to actual human necromancy. Seungmin's really seen it all in the educational videos they play at the Academy.) And then he remembers, unholy shit –"Haunted maze, huh?" Hyunjin begins nervously before swallowing. Changbin wiggles his eyebrows at him, and Seungmin's pretty sure anyone who knows Hyunjin knows that Hyunjin isn't great with the dark. "I – uh, yeah." He grabs Seungmin's hand and starts walking toward the entrance of the attraction. "I'm – I'm not afraid! Let's go, Seungmin!"Seungmin stops a few steps away from the entrance. "Hey Hyunjin, are you sure about this?" he asks gently. "It's just a joke, I don't think Changbin really means it – "And if Seungmin didn't things were already going so not-as-planned for the both of them, Hyunjin grabs Seungmin's water-bottle-that's-not-holding-water, unscrews the cap, and takes a big, Adam's apple bobbing waterfall from it. "My throat was really dry," Hyunjin says when he registers Seungmin's shocked expression. "Man, is that some infused water or something? It tastes like you put Emergen-C in it – ""Um," says Seungmin in between opening and closing his mouth like a fish. "You weren't supposed to drink that."Hyunjin tilts his head in a question. "Oh?" he starts at the exact moment Jisung comes barreling toward them from the exit of the maze with an EXCUSE US."Okay, so there's like nothing in there but it's dark which I think is super romantic, were you guys about to go in there? Because, then, perfect, I was gonna tell you that this is the place!, you know, even if it's really not haunted at all..." Jisung pauses when he realizes that Seungmin's not telling him to shut up. "You good, Seungmin?"No, Seungmin isn't good. "Jisung," he hisses, glancing over to Hyunjin still waiting at the entrance. "He just downed half my bottle of truth potion.""Oh," Jisung replies. "Oh. Well, the worst side effects are just like, constipation? And I mean, you made more than one serving didn't you?" Seungmin doesn't say anything. "Oh, okay, you made only one serving. Well, unholy shit.""What am I supposed to do?" Seungmin groans, rubbing at his face. "And now Hyunjin's truth-drunk and – "Jisung hits him on the shoulder insistently. "Well, you're gonna have to figure something out because Hyunjin's going in." When Seungmin whips his head around, Hyunjin is, indeed, being ushered into the maze by the employee. "I believe in you, make good choices!" he hears Jisung call after him as he sprints back over. (Unfortunately, Seungmin is going to let Jisung down. He thinks they both know this.)"Sorry about that," Seungmin tells him once they're starting down the first corridor. All the lights have been shut off in this section of the pumpkin patch, and the straw's stacked up so high that Seungmin can't see over it even if he jumps. "It was just Jisung being Jisung, you know?" and then Hyunjin loops both his arms around Seungmin's."I'm scared," Hyunjin whispers. And other than the faint sound of carousel music playing in the distance and Seungmin's heart pounding on overdrive and candy apple sugar, so insistent that he swears Hyunjin'll hear it, the air's loud with silence. Seungmin turns them down the path on the right. "I'm sorry, this is just like eighth grade again, isn't it? I – " (except Seungmin didn't have this huge, hellfire-shaped crush on Hyunjin back then. Yet). Hyunjin buries his head into Seungmin's shoulder. "I just," he mumbles again into it.Well, this is great. Hyunjin's terrified, and Seungmin's terrified of confessing, and now all of Seungmin's plans have backfired and he's never going to be able to tell Hyunjin the truth and then they'll drift apart, for the better, after they graduate in another year and go off to different colleges. "It's okay, Hyunjin." Seungmin suddenly feels afraid of that future more. "We'll be at the exit before you know it – ""No." Hyunjin tugs him to a stop. Seungmin turns around to face him, eyes starting to adjust in the dark. "I'm not supposed to be scared. I mean – I wasn't supposed to tell you that I was," Hyunjin's talking fast now, tongue tripping over the words like he's trying to get them all out at once. "I don't know why I told you I was. I'm supposed to tell you something else, and Changbin told me it'd be cool if I did it in here because 'test of courage!' and all and," Hyunjin laughs humorlessly, looking down into the open palms of his hands before looking back into Seungmin's eyes. Seungmin can see the stars in them even now, in complete darkness. "This was supposed to be different than when we were in eighth grade! I don't know why I'm telling you this but – " he sucks in a breath and then licks his lips nervously. " – what I'm supposed to say is that I like you, Seungmin. Like, enormous-crush-on-you for years now kind of like. And I know I should've told you sooner but it just never seemed like the right time – "Seungmin stares. Something doesn't add up – Hyunjin drank a truth potion, not a love potion, but Hyunjin doesn't like like Seungmin, Seungmin – "Hyunjin, I'm a warlock," he blurts out before he can stop it.Hyunjin pauses with his mouth open in mid-sentence. "Or, half-warlock," Seungmin corrects. "Like, on my mom's side. That's why aunts are kind of – different? They're witches, and on three-day weekends I lie and say I can't hang out with you but it's really because I attend this whole different school to learn about magic and stuff, and I didn't know how to tell you for the longest time and now you're truth-drunk because the water you drank from my bottle wasn't water, it was truth potion, and oh yeah, I brought Kkami back from the dead with Jisung because I knew you'd be really sad if you figured out he died." He takes a moment to catch his breath. Hyunjin's still standing across from him, mouth slightly open, and it's cute until Seungmin realizes that Hyunjin's never going to want to talk to him anymore. "I, I understand if you don't wanna be friends after this, I." Seungmin feels like he's about to cry. "Yeah."Hyunjin, on the other hand, looks like he's about seconds from bursting out into tears. "Seungmin," he starts shakily. "Is this some complicated way of trying to tell me you don't like me back? I – if you don't feel the same way, we can just stay friends, you know? Unless you don't want that either?""What?" Seungmin panics. "No, no, it's not that! I like you too." Hyunjin wipes at his eyes with his shirt sleeve. Now that everything's pretty much been said, all of his fears leading up to this moment seem small and faraway. "Like, like like you. Like, also enormous-crush-on-you for years kind of like you. But I just – I'm really a warlock, Hyunjin," Seungmin ends pathetically."Oh," Hyunjin sniffles, crouching down to hug his knees. After a beat, Seungmin walks over to sit down beside him on the straw-covered ground. "I thought you were trying to turn me down somehow," he lifts head up from where he's burrowed it into his arms to wipe his nose, and then he turns to glance at Seungmin, eyes wet with tears, through the dark, "so you really like me?""Yeah," Seungmin laughs quietly. His heart feels like it's three times too big for his ribcage, ready to break away from his body and drift up into the sky. "I really like you, Hyunjin."Hyunjin nudges him weakly with his shoulder. "Because then it doesn't matter to me, whatever you are." He coughs before laughing a little. "Do you remember in eighth grade when Jeno Lee dared me to go through the haunted house alone without crying?""You cried anyway," Seungmin points out. (Literally, within the first few steps. Seungmin remembers he had to throw that new sweater into the wash as soon as he got home.)Hyunjin nudges him again, a little stronger this time. "I was scared of the dark, okay!" Seungmin gives him a look. "Am still scared of the dark," Hyunjin amends. "But then someone came and found me when I got too scared and hid in a corner. And you know what that someone told me?" Hyunjin exhales – his face so close to Seungmin's that he can feel it against his own cheek – before the corners of his mouth pull up into a small smile. "'The dark isn't so scary, you know. Because if you close your eyes and rub at them, then there's a whole galaxy behind your eyelids. And if it wasn't dark, you wouldn't be able to see that, would you?'" Hyunjin reaches for his hand, laces his fingers in between Seungmin's. "And that was you. You were that someone." Hyunjin's looking at him. "And that's where my enormous crush started."Seungmin looks back. And for the first time in a long, long while, his heart doesn't feel like it's two seconds away from exploding. Okay, stop Seungmin if you've heard this one before but: you're sixteen and you're in love, and you're sitting in this straw maze in complete darkness next to the most beautiful boy you know. And you've wanted to tell this boy that you've liked him for a while now but it never seems like the right time to say it. And so this feeling has just swelled and swelled and swelled inside your chest, and maybe you didn't say it in the right way, but it's out there now, and it turns out that boy loves you back.So now:"Hey," Seungmin starts, after a moment of silence, palm still sweaty in Hyunjin's. "Can I kiss you?"And Hyunjin's smile is so wide at that that Seungmin thinks it might break his face. "Thought you'd never ask."