Work Text:
Seokjin wakes up in a bed that isn’t his.
That is far from the weirdest thing that will happen to him today, though he doesn’t know it yet.
He wakes up, even, in a good mood. A smile curls at the corner of his mouth as he takes in his surroundings and the pleasant soreness in his body. He feels rested despite the little sleep he got and happily satiated as one tends to be after a night of good, unhinged, slightly kinky sex.
He plucks his phone from the back pocket of his discarded jeans to check the time. It’s a little past eight, longer than he usually sleeps in even on weekends. He’s got a whole streak of text messages from Taehyung and a couple from Hoseok, but he ignores them. If they ask, he’ll tell them he ran out of battery (which is a complete lie –he’s got 65% left). Right now, he wants to keep living in this peaceful bubble for a little longer, away from his best friends harassing him about how he uncharacteristically spent the night with a man he had just met a couple of hours prior.
Today is going to be a good day, he decides. Warm and sunny and stress-free.
He sits up in the bed and peeks through the heavy curtains covering the window, only to find a stormy sky, its blue hues swallowed entirely by dark, ominous clouds.
That is his first disenchantment of the day.
But well, he guesses he can’t exactly expect the weather to adapt to his own moods, though that would be very nice.
He hears noise coming from somewhere in the apartment and the nice, alluring whiff of coffee tickles his nostrils. And Seokjin is only human, so he shrugs some clothes on and lets the scent guide his steps through this unfamiliar place until he reaches a kitchen.
He finds Min Yoongi standing on the other side of the kitchen island with his back to Seokjin. He’s clad in a plaid shirt opened on a grey t-shirt and a black beanie is resting on top of his head, surely to hide an alarming case of bed hair, though some black strands are still poking out here and there.
Seokjin has never been one for one-night stands, but when they have piercing dark eyes, sinful hands, pretty lips that curve into a seductive smirk and the unexpected addition of nipple piercings, he’s not stubborn enough not to make an exception.
If he usually avoids one-night stands, though, it is because of the awkwardness of the morning after.
He and Yoongi had clicked the night before, conversation flowing with ease between somewhat shy smiles and tentative flirting. Seokjin had gone out with Taehyung and Namjoon to celebrate the end of a particularly harrowing week at work. Some of his students had managed to rope him into aiding them in organizing a conference about the depiction of time in literature through the centuries and their keynote speaker had cancelled at the last minute because she was sick so Seokjin had to step in and give a speech about chronology and chronometry and whether time is cyclical, linear or multi-directional and honestly, he chose Literature instead of Philosophy to avoid this kind of headache. He kind of blacked out while giving the speech but he got a thunderous round of applause by the end of it so it’s safe to say he probably nailed it. Obviously.
(When Seokjin saw him before he had to leave to teach his dance lesson, Hoseok said it might have to do with the fact that Seokjin had left a couple of buttons open on his chest to deal with the lack of air conditioning in the amphitheater, but Hoseok is a bit of an asshole, so Seokjin choses to believe it was entirely thanks to his stellar performance.)
After the first round of drinks, his friends both became too busy to pay Seokjin much attention. Taehyung, because he had taken it upon himself to hustle a random stranger at pool, and Namjoon because he was busy being oblivious to the pretty man with sinful hips shamelessly hitting on him.
Taehyung had dragged them to that particular bar on campus, Moonlight, because it is rumored to be haunted. Seokjin had managed to avoid it thus far, not out of superstition (that would be positively ludicrous) but because he doesn’t particularly strive to drink his pink cocktails among a crowd of leather-clad people who fancy themselves ghostbusters and demon hunters.
Though it didn’t take long for Seokjin to realize he didn’t mind much, neither the bar itself nor the leather-clad people. Yoongi was manning the bar in his own regalia of leather and silver, jewelry shining around his wrists, ears and fingers, and had given him a bemused look when Seokjin ordered a cherry blossom cocktail, which had turned into a smirk when Seokjin lifted a defiant eyebrow at him, daring him to make a remark about his choice of drink.
Yoongi had said nothing and served Seokjin his cocktail –it was delicious, the perfect blend of sweet from the cherry vodka and peach puree and bitter from the sake. Seokjin had turned back to face the crowd, watching Taehyung grin over his shoulder at the stranger he had roped into a pool game as he sent a ball flying into a hole in a complicated maneuver, brandishing his stick proudly –no pun intended. The bar was buzzing with a unique energy, something warm and welcoming that was miles away from the rumors surrounding the place.
After a moment, Yoongi had asked him if he was there chasing ghosts. Idly, Seokjin had looked at him and thought he wouldn’t mind chasing any sort of magical creature if it meant he was greeted with the vision of Yoongi’s pretty, pink lips curving into a smirk. Out loud, he had asked Yoongi if that was a euphemism for something and Seokjin had felt a deep, magnetic pull in his stomach he hadn’t experienced in a long, long time at Yoongi’s answering chuckle.
He doesn’t know what it says about him, that he was attracted to Yoongi the moment he opened his mouth to basically ask Seokjin if he was a ghost-hunting lunatic, but it’s too early for introspection and Yoongi is gorgeous, so really, fuck that.
Through their conversation, Seokjin learned that Yoongi actually owned the bar, that he lived just upstairs and that he was very welcome there as soon as Yoongi had closed, something he did swiftly once Seokjin agreed, claiming all the people who were still lingering in the bar were friends of his anyway. That included the tattooed guy Taehyung had been annihilating around the pool table –though he didn’t seem to mind when Taehyung linked their arms together and promptly declared Pool Guy was allowed to walk him home like he was doing him a favor– and the pretty pink-haired man who had been hitting on Namjoon, who seemed far less pleased and called Yoongi unsavory names before taking one look at Seokjin, mumbling ‘okay, fair enough’ under his breath and disappearing through the door. Considering how unapologetic Yoongi had been about kicking them out, Seokjin was inclined to believe they were indeed his friends, for the only other option was that Yoongi’s customer service skills were thoroughly lacking, and if Seokjin had to testify on it, he would swear under oath that Yoongi’s customer service was absolutely outstanding. Worth six stars out of five on Yelp and a lengthy review on the marvels his hands (and mouth) were capable of.
Seokjin had felt very welcome indeed, for long hours after that, a feat he probably has Namjoon dragging him to the gym every week to thank for.
If one-night stands are all this much fun and satisfying, Seokjin thinks he might do it more often. Though he’d like to do it more often with Yoongi in particular.
Which probably defeats the purpose of one-night stands, but he’s never been one for technicalities and Yoongi has a clever mouth in both wit and other charming areas, so, again, fuck that.
He thinks maybe Yoongi might be swayed into agreeing with him, because he turns around from the counter where Seokjin assumes he is preparing breakfast (not really a one-night stand thing either, if Seokjin’s limited knowledge on the matter is to be believed) and looks up when Seokjin approaches, giving him a tired but lovely smile.
And all of it would be okay, perfectly acceptable and even a great omen according to all of Seokjin’s standards, if Yoongi wasn’t also stirring a large wooden spoon into a large metal pot that emits thick clouds of purple smoke and a strong sweet scent that should feel sickening but somehow isn’t.
“There’s coffee in the pot,” Yoongi says, jerking his chin in the direction of the counter without stopping his stirring. “Mugs are in the second cupboard from the left.”
Seokjin blinks, licks his lips, short-circuits.
“What are you doing?” he asks, pointing a finger at the pot (cauldron?).
Yoongi stays impassive, as though this is a perfectly normal occurrence for him. “Brewing a recovery potion?” he says, in a tone that suggests Seokjin should have known. “In case you feel sore or tired or both. I know I do.”
Now, Seokjin has never been a great judge of character. When he was in primary school, his first instinct had told him to befriend a young kid with chubby cheeks and thick-rimmed glasses, much like himself, who turned out to be an atrocious bully. His poor appraisal skills didn’t improve as he grew up. His first girlfriend outed him to the whole school when he confessed to her he might have doubts about liking girls at all and his first boyfriend, in college, cheated on him so frequently and with so many different people he probably broke a bunch of world records. His second boyfriend burned one of his favorite Mario figurines to ashes because Seokjin called him by another man’s name in the middle of sex. (In his defence, Seokjin was most definitely not seeing another man; it was the name of an obscure XIXth century playwright whose entire bibliography he had crammed in the span of two days for an article. An article that was published in a very prestigious periodical review, so it was probably worth getting dumped. He misses that Mario figurine, though.) More recently, the professor Seokjin trusted to supervise him throughout his PhD and help him achieve his career dreams ended up stealing Seokjin’s ideas, and his naivety about the fairness of the academic world at the same time.
His track record doesn’t really show any sort of progression, because Seokjin tends to assume the best of people before he’s forced to see the worst, but this is a whole new level of rock bottom.
Of course, the first and only time Seokjin lets himself be seduced into a one-night stand, he winds up waking up to a weirdo brewing a purple concoction in a fucking cauldron and calling it a potion. (The seduction was very much happening on both sides, but that’s beside the point.)
He really should have seen it coming.
“You’re...brewing a potion,” Seokjin repeats, dumbfounded.
Maybe Seokjin misunderstood. Maybe it’s just a figure of speech and what Yoongi really means is that he’s making hangover soup, though neither of them had drunk all that much and he’s never seen purple hangover soup before.
Maybe Seokjin’s love life is not a complete and utter failure.
Yoongi is quick to shatter his hopes.
“Yeah,” he says, grinning that infuriatingly pretty grin of his, all gums and crinkling eyes and round cheeks. “Do you like spells better? I find potions are less uncomfortable on an empty stomach, but I’ve got this covered too, just let me know when you want your breakfast.”
Oh Lord, why can’t things ever be easy for him?
That is, in a weird twist of fate, his second disenchantment of the day.
Seokjin’s mouth falls open and because his survival instincts are no better than his judgment aptitudes, he finds himself asking, “What on earth are you talking about?”
Yoongi frowns, his smile slowly fading. “Oh, did I get ahead of myself? I, uh, I thought you might stay for breakfast. Last night was fun and I thought...maybe we could do it again.” When Seokjin blinks at him, speechless, his eyes widen with panic. “Not the sex! Though that would be great too, but I meant spending time together. With maybe some wine and dinner and...Fuck, I’m an idiot,” he finishes with a grimace, shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.
His face is flushed, pink blossoming high on the apple of his cheeks, and Seokjin inwardly congratulates his brain because it did at least one thing right. Yoongi is lovely.
Seokjin sucks in a deep breath. “I meant why on earth are you talking about potions and spells and breaking I don’t know how many hygiene rules by stirring some weird stuff in a cauldron in your kitchen instead of frying eggs like a normal human being,” he says, and if his voice comes out more squeaky and frantic than he meant to, he feels somewhat entitled to the frenzy.
Yoongi lifts an eyebrow, huffing a small laugh. “Nice one,” he says, sounding far more amused than Seokjin can comprehend.
“I’m not joking.”
Yoongi’s brows furrow, pink tongue poking out to lick his lips, which is a little distracting because Seokjin has firsthand experience on what this tongue is capable of, but not so much that it eases the pandemonium in his mind.
“I’m...not a normal human being?” Yoongi says, almost like a question, as though he expects Seokjin to confirm his crazy fantasy. “I’m a witch.” He licks his lips again and seems to hesitate for a moment, before he asks, “Aren’t you a witch?”
Oh, Seokjin really hit the jackpot this time.
Taehyung and Hoseok are going to have a field day with this one.
Namjoon will just give him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, which might be even worse.
“Of course I’m not a witch, you freak!” Seokjin exclaims, too loud in the otherwise quiet kitchen. It makes Yoongi startle and drop his wooden spoon. “Because that would be ridiculous because witches aren’t real and the most magical thing in my life is how I was able to reach thirty and the end of my PhD without being crippled with debt.”
“But… But you have such a magical aura,” Yoongi says under his breath, looking puzzled.
And normally, Seokjin would be very pleased at the compliment, but Yoongi just single-handedly ruined the post-multiple-orgasms bliss he had ignited himself, so Seokjin doesn’t feel prone to accepting flattery right now. Which is tragic in itself.
“Magic isn’t real,” Seokjin insists, emphasizing each word in the hope that it will make Yoongi snap out of the pipe dream he seems to be living in.
Yoongi frowns and, without uttering a single word, snaps his fingers.
Seokjin isn’t very proud of the yelp that slips past his lips when a full breakfast suddenly appears in the kitchen island between them.
“Please, tell me more about how magic isn’t real,” Yoongi says blankly, an air of defiance in his piercing dark eyes.
Seokjin backs up a step, his skin going ashen and he blinks rapidly, raising a hand to stop Yoongi when he reaches out to him.
“I–I have to go,” he says with an awkward chuckle, panic stirring in his stomach, which, for once, is begging for a swift exit rather than the delicious breakfast Yoongi just magicked into existence. “Yeah. Go. I’m gonna go. I have...a class to teach!” he blabbers, even though he has exactly zero classes to teach on a Saturday morning. “Copies to grade. Emails to respond to. S–So many things to do. Yeah. Bye.”
“Seokjin, wait!” Yoongi calls out, but Seokjin is already turning around and heading to the front door, taking the steps down three at a time.
He misses a couple and it’s a miracle in itself that he doesn’t tumble down the flight of stairs and breaks his neck. Right now, his will to get out of here and away from Yoongi and his madness and his pink lips and pierced nipples is stronger than gravity.
Gravity can suck it.
The keys are thankfully in the door and Seokjin unlocks it and is out the two-story building before Yoongi can catch up to him.
Once outside, he braces himself with a shuddering breath.
“Why me?” he grumbles pitifully to himself, kicking petulantly at a pebble. It shoots up in the air and directly at a black cat sleeping peacefully underneath a nightshade bush in Yoongi’s garden, hitting it softly in the flank.
It startles awake and hisses at him, as if to say “Why do you think, asshole?”
Seokjin apologizes to the cat and walks away with his head low, wondering how in a world that is already designed to be a safety hazard for people, he somehow manages to find ways to make it worse for himself.
☽☾
He’s already power-walked all the way to his car, parked on the other side of the park where Moonlight stands on campus, when he realizes he’s not wearing shoes.
There is no way he’ll go back to Yoongi’s apartment –or his bar, ever, and Taehyung will just have to get over it– so he tries to be sensible about it and convince himself he is simply channeling his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great ancestors who didn’t wear shoes to go about their day and no one thought that was weird. Or he’s just channeling Taehyung, but Taehyung is beautifully weird, so that’s something to consider. Still, the brat hates shoes, and that doesn’t seem to hinder him in his everyday life so there’s no reason Seokjin can’t just drive home, take a long, soul-cleansing shower and grab a pair of shoes before he has to meet the rest of them for the charity fair Namjoon managed to convince Seokjin to attend.
He can do this. No problem.
Except: problem.
His car isn’t starting.
That is, in all his barefootedness, his third disenchantment of the day.
He tries at least five times and doesn’t quite resist the urge to slam his head against the wheel when all of his attempts are in vain. He glances up and nearly jumps out of his skin when he finds the same cat he kicked the pebble at earlier staring back at him, sitting on the hood of his car and looking as decisively unimpressed as a cat can.
“I said I’m sorry,” Seokjin blurts out, before promptly pondering that he might be going stir crazy at last.
Maybe the mind-blowing sex the night before was the last straw he needed to abandon all semblance of rationality. Maybe his brain hallucinated the whole scene with Yoongi because of the overflow of adrenaline. This is why he should never break out from his routine, ever.
One-night stands clearly don’t do him any good.
He turns the key in the ignition again but it makes another miserable sputtering noise and stubbornly refuses to listen to both Seokjin’s prayers and curses.
Resigned, he heaves out a deep sigh and steps out of his car. He plucks his phone from his pocket and searches for Taehyung’s number. He hits call furiously, but the device is uncooperative. The screen fades to black, even though he had plenty of battery left, and starts heating up so much Seokjin drops it with a sharp yell, his palm burning.
He stares at his hand in shock and looks down only to watch, powerless, as his phone dives to the ground and, in a maneuver that defies the laws of physics and all logic he has painstakingly earned through years in the academic world, flips into the air, directly in the direction of the nearest sidewalk drain, which is a good five feet away.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Seokjin cries out, along with a colorful string of curses he isn’t entirely proud of.
He throws himself onto the ground to try to catch it, but his phone is either offended by his crudeness or unbothered by his desperate pleas and it slips right through the holes of the drain, diving to a certain death in the sewer.
For a moment, Seokjin stays frozen, laying down on the pavement, phoneless, carless, shoeless and witless, wondering how the Universe is going to fuck him over next.
The Universe finds a new way, because of course It does.
“Dr. Kim?”
Seokjin is laying down on the pavement, his fingers reaching desperately through the drain holes in a foolish attempt at grabbing his phone, which is probably already being used by rats to organize their planet overtaking. He looks up slowly. The first thing he sees is the damn cat, glancing at him with a look Seokjin swears is deeply amused.
For a brief, crazed moment, Seokjin wonders if it was the cat that called him, but then he sees a pair of shiny leather brogues next to an equally shiny pair of stilettos. He continues looking up until he meets the befuddled gaze of the dean.
“D-Dean Bang,” he says, plastering an easy smile on his features, though he has a feeling it might make him look even more like a maniac. “Good morning. Lovely day, isn’t it?”
Dean Bang blinks, surprised. “I...suppose. What are you doing?”
And Seokjin is nothing if not confident in his abilities to look good under the most dire of circumstances, so he doesn’t let the dubiousness in her tone throw him off. It feels kind of deserved.
“Dropped my phone,” he says with a light chuckle. If the concern on her features is any indication, it must make him look like a madman. “Clumsy me. What about you? What are you up to on this fine morning?”
Exactly nothing about this morning has been fine apart from the first blissful minutes after Seokjin had just woken up and he was still deeply content about the night he had and utterly oblivious about the sheer craziness of the man he slept with, but he wisely keeps that to himself.
“My husband and I are meeting some friends for breakfast,” she says, gesturing awkwardly at the man standing at her side.
Will their breakfast be magicked out of thin air by a pretty barman with stupidly attractive eyes and a deceptively charming blend of confidence and coyness or is that just Seokjin’s life?
Pushing the thought away, he gives her husband a polite smile.
“Mr. Bang. Pleased to meet you.”
For the first time, in these very normal and perfectly appropriate circumstances, he doesn’t say.
“You...too,” the man answers, sounding not very pleased to meet him.
Which is a heresy. Seokjin is a fucking delight, thank you very much Mr. Bang.
“Do you need help?” the dean asks.
Seokjin finally extirpates his hand from the drain, swallowing a moan of pain when he feels his skin catch on something sharp and pointy.
“Could I borrow your phone?” he says in a mellow tone.
“Uh, of course,” she says.
Seokjin bravely pulls himself to his feet and holds out a hand to grab the phone she extends to him, only to realize it’s covered with blood. So, that was the something sharp and pointy he felt.
Her eyes widen in horror but Seokjin doesn’t lose face and takes the device with his other hand, quickly typing in Taehyung’s number, thankful he memorized it years ago.
They stand in an awkward silence when the phone rings and Seokjin prays inwardly for Taehyung to pick up.
When he finally does, Seokjin regrets the day he was born, and the day he met Taehyung when they were children, and every single day after that.
“Hello?”
“Tae, it’s me.”
And Taehyung, sweet, terrible, demon Taehyung yells in his ear, loud enough that Seokjin has no lost hope that the dean and her husband won’t be able to hear it too:
“Hyung, you filthy animal! I can’t believe you got us thrown out just so you could have sex with a man you just met! Did you do it on the bar counter? Please say you did it on the bar counter! How kinky was it? I know it was kinky. His whole attitude screamed kinky.”
It was only reasonably kinky, an inane, instinctive part of Seokjin wants to reply, defensive.
Instead, he resists the immediate urge to hang up, mortification crawling up his chest. His ears burn with embarrassment and all of his foolish hopes that the dean might not have heard are obliterated when she clears her throat and looks away, anywhere but at him.
“Tae,” he says softly, taking a step back on trembling legs. “I need you to come pick me up.”
“What, you got dicked down so good you can’t drive home?” Taehyung says with a boisterous laugh.
Seokjin feels something die inside of him. His soul, probably. His dignity, definitely.
“My car broke down,” he squeaks, attempting for a whisper and failing miserably. “I’m on campus, near the park in front of the bar. Please, Taehyung.”
Taehyung seems to hear the urgency in his voice, because he is much more serious when he asks,
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Seokjin lies. “Can you come pick me up?”
“I’m sorry, hyung, I’m already at the fair. Namjoon asked me to come in early to help him set everything up and Hobi took my car to go get the second batch of pastries you baked yesterday. He left without his phone, but I can come pick you up when he’s back.”
Seokjin sighs, running his free hand across his face and into his hair. It takes the dean’s eyes widening in alarm for him to realize it’s still covered in blood that he has now spread to his cheeks and forehead.
“No, it’s okay. I’ll meet you there.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Taehyung asks again. “If that guy hurt you, I’ll burn his bar and everything he holds dear down to ashes.”
Because of course Taehyung would threaten to commit arson while Seokjin’s boss can overhear him.
“I’m fine,” he repeats lamely. “The fair is closer than home. I’ll meet you there. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.” He looks down at his bare feet, considering. “Maybe thirty.”
“Okay, I’ll save you some pastries before Namjoon and Hobi eat everything.”
“We’re supposed to sell those pastries, not eat them,” Seokjin says, matter-of-fact.
“I think I’m losing you, I’m going through a tunnel,” Taehyung shouts, pausing between each syllable in an obnoxious imitation of the connection breaking off. “See you soon. Love you.”
He hangs up before Seokjin can reply.
Seokjin hands the dean her phone back with an awkward chuckle, mortification still seeping through his veins.
“Kids these days.”
She gives him a tight-lipped smile, clearly unwilling –or unable– to see the humor in the situation. Her husband reaches out, offering Seokjin a tissue to wipe his face and hand and self-esteem clean. Seokjin accepts it with a grateful nod, but the moment he takes hold of it, a strong gust of wind blows the tissue from his hand. The three of them watch, dumbfounded, as it escapes each of Seokjin’s attempts to catch it with graceful twirls and slips into the sewer to keep his phone company.
A heavy silence falls between them.
“Well,” Seokjin says with faux cheerfulness. “I better get going.”
The dean frowns, staring down at his feet. “You’re not wearing any shoes.”
“Ah, yes. I’m trying something new,” he says with as confident a smile as he can muster.
She blinks, but seems to admit this isn’t the weirdest thing she has heard in their interaction so far.
“Get your hand checked out, Dr. Kim,” she advises. “Have a good day.”
Seokjin nods, even though he can already feel this day is going to be the Baddest Day of All Bad Days. He already longs for the stress-free, content feeling he had experienced upon waking up.
When he finds himself standing alone on the pavement, barefoot and hands dripping with blood and probably looking like a –still handsome, because nothing can alter the fact that he was blessed with exquisite beauty– serial killer, he hears a soft meow somewhere at his feet.
That bastard cat is laughing at him, he just knows it.
“Shut up,” he tells it, too far gone to question the sanity –or lack thereof– behind it.
He takes off in the direction of the campus stadium where the fair is being held, wincing as he stubs his toe on a crack in the pavement.
☽☾
He manages to get to the fair mostly unscathed –his feet would disagree if they were sentient at all, but he hasn’t achieved such a level of madness that he thinks his body parts have minds of their own. Not yet, anyway. Give him until the end of the day and if it keeps going like this, he might change his mind.
As he walks onto soothing grass, he thinks, at last, his ordeal may come to an end.
He ignores the heavy gazes setting on him as he trudges awkwardly across the lawn, the soft grass feeling like a welcome relief after the roughness of concrete against his soles. He knows he must look like an absolute mess. He stopped in front of the window of a shop to wipe as much blood off his face as he could with the sleeve of his hoodie, which he then realized was a) too small for him, b) not his and c) the only top he was wearing during his unfortunate encounter with the dean and her husband, his collar bones peeking out to expose his state of little-dress and a few red bruises that he can’t blame on walking into a door. He could only hope they would take that small glimpse of skin for what it was: a blessing. Anyway, there is still some blood on his face, but he managed to smear most of it into looking like dirt, which is an admittedly better alternative than looking like he just murdered someone in cold blood.
Still, he’s dirty, bleeding, barefoot, wearing a hoodie that’s too small with nothing underneath, starving, in a general state of pain and to top it all, he probably has an alarming case of bed hair. He wants to go home, take a long enough shower to earn him a lecture on being environmentally-friendly from Namjoon, and maybe stay inside for the next three weeks to wallow in self-pity over his pretty one-night stand who turned out to be a nutcase.
He spent the painful walk to the stadium telling himself that it is still early in the morning –he thinks, anyway– and that the chances that he would run into one of his students are thin. He doesn’t recall ever being up and about before noon when he was in his early years of college, much less to go to a charity fair that would earn him zero points for his grades.
That is, perhaps as punishment for the countless fairs he didn’t attend as a younger man, his fourth disenchantment of the day.
No sooner has he stepped onto the lawn that he hears a worried but far too loud voice call:
“Shit, Professor K. Are you okay?”
Seokjin considers making a run for it, but he’s too aware of how that will make him look like even more of a madman to go through with it. Instead, he slowly turns to face the small group of students from the book club he and Namjoon started to broaden their horizon on international literature, supervising a stand overflowing with delicious-looking pastries. His stomach grumbles obnoxiously.
He digs in the back pocket of his jeans –ripped and tighter than he would usually ever wear them in front of students– for his wallet, which is thankfully there.
“It’s been a day.”
Seokjin gives them a shaky smile, though he feels like he might start crying anytime now.
“It’s only nine thirty, Professor,” Soobin points out and Seokjin can’t believe he was his favorite up until now. Soobin is a little asshole, just like the vast majority of Seokjin’s students.
Seokjin laughs obnoxiously. “Ah, yes, of course. Still early for you all, but I’m always up very early, so it feels like my mornings are a lot longer,” he lies. They can take that as a lesson on Acting and Smooth Talking, something they should get familiar with if they want to continue on the academic path. He jerks a bloody finger at the mountain of pastries. “Give me one of those, I’m always happy to support–” His gaze falls to the small sign on their desk, “–the Humans vs Zombies club.”
“Thank you Professor!” Yeonjun says with a grin. “It means a lot.”
Seokjin hums in acknowledgment and opens his wallet to pay for the pastry, only to find it completely empty. He goes still, gazing up at his students with an apologetic glance.
Did pretty Yoongi rob him in addition to traumatizing Seokjin for the rest of his life enough so that he’ll probably never again have sex with someone he hasn’t thoroughly investigated beforehand? Great, that’s a box Seokjin hadn’t ticked off yet.
“I thought I had some change,” he mumbles, and this time it does feel like he is on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry. I’ll come back later.”
“Oh no, it’s okay,” Soobin says, shoving a pastry in his hand. “You can pay us back later, Professor.”
“But–”
“Really, take it. We insist,” Yeonjun presses, nodding in encouragement. “You look like you need something sweet.”
Seokjin sighs, curling his fingers around the pastry. “Thanks,” he mumbles dejectedly. “You’re my favorite students. Don’t tell the others.”
They give him wide smiles in response and Seokjin walks away, feeling like a failure who needs to rely on his terrible students (he loves them, really, but they’re devils, all of them) to buy himself some breakfast after a barefoot walk of shame throughout campus.
He’s nibbling on the pastry when he finally spots Taehyung, who’s busy installing a balloon arch in rainbow colors that fit both the pastries Seokjin prepared the day before (shortbread lemon bars with rainbow icing) and the charity they are here supporting. Namjoon is standing next to him, chatting up a petite woman holding a pamphlet and probably convincing her she can help by finding her inner light and being true to herself or some other similar philosopher shit.
Taehyung is partly responsible for how shitty his day has been (yes, even if it’s only nine-thirty, thank you very much Soobin) because he’s the little shit who dragged Seokjin to a haunted bar, but Seokjin can’t wait to hug his best friend and maybe cry a little on his shoulder and smear blood on his favorite silky turquoise shirt in retaliation.
Taehyung takes one look at him and his mouth drops open.
“Holy fuck, hyung. What happened to you?”
“You look like shit,” Namjoon adds unhelpfully, turning away from the woman to blink at him.
“Fuck you, I look incredible,” Seokjin grouses.
He takes another bite of his pastry and munches furiously on it, glaring at his stupid friends like they’re the sole reason behind all of his troubles. He’s about to reply, probably something deadpan and petulant, when he feels a piece of pastry lodge itself in his throat, obstructing his trachea.
His eyes bulge as he struggles to breathe, clutching as his throat, simultaneously trying to swallow and suck air into his lungs, both to no avail.
“Hyung?” Taehyung calls, voice laden with worry. He runs around the desk of their stand and wraps an arm around Seokjin, who is hunched over, heaving.
“He’s choking,” Namjoon announces, still unhelpfully.
His next actions are, thankfully, slightly more useful. He gently pushes Taehyung away from Seokjin and wraps his arms around his waist, placing the thumb of his fist against Seokjin’s abdomen and pressing against it with a quick, forceful thrust. He does it several times, until the offensive piece of pastry shoots out of Seokjin’s mouth and lands in the grass with a sad thud, right on a black paw that is quick to swat it away.
Seokjin refuses to glance at the damn cat (what the fuck is it even doing here?) as he falls to his knees, his temples throbbing and his heart still pulsing with fear, tears pearling on his lashes, taking long lungfuls of air. Breathing is amazing when you’re not choking, really. Best feeling in the world, right after not being bamboozled by your incredible one-night stand.
Namjoon kneels at his side, rubbing his back. “You okay?”
“I’m having a really bad day,” he says, his voice barely louder than a croaked murmur.
“I meant the choking.”
“Oh, yeah, then I’m great. Fucking peachy, Joon,” Seokjin replies, throwing Namjoon a glare.
Namjoon takes a step back, raising both arms in defense.
Taehyung sits down in front of Seokjin with his legs crossed and grabs his hands, squeezing them gently. Seokjin winces, wondering for a moment if he’s about to lose his hand. It stopped bleeding, covered with dry clot now, but it’s still throbbing with pain.
“Why are you barefoot?”
“I didn’t realize I wasn’t wearing any shoes when I ran away from the maniac I spent the night with,” he mutters shamefully.
Taehyung grimaces. “That bad?”
“I had a really good time last night and I woke up this morning and he turned out to be a complete lunatic,” Seokjin sighs.
“Is that why you’re covered in blood?” Taehyung asks, brows pulling into a frown. “Did he hurt you? I’ll kill him and they’ll never find his body.”
Seokjin shakes his head. “That was all bad luck. I don’t know what’s happening to me. Today’s been awful.”
“Do you want a hug?”
Seokjin looks up at Taehyung and nods sheepishly, lips puckering into a pout. Taehyung gives him a reassuring smile and pulls him into his arms, carding his fingers in the hair at the back of his head. Seokjin feels a little bad for staining Taehyung’s favorite shirt with blood after all.
“You stink,” Taehyung says softly, resting his head against Seokjin’s.
Seokjin sniffs. “I know.”
“Hobi should be back soon,” Namjoon says, rubbing a comforting hand along Seokjin’s back. “You can go home and get some rest. But first, let’s get you seated, okay? And I mean not on the ground with everyone staring at us.”
Seokjin feels his ears dusting with pink and he nods against Taehyung’s neck.
He draws back, only to be abruptly halted in his movement by a stinging pain in his lobe.
“Wait, hyung,” Namjoon says. “Your earring is stuck on Taehyung’s shirt.”
“Of course it is,” Seokjin murmurs to himself, heaving out a deep sigh. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
That’ll teach him to wear the dangling silver earrings Hoseok got him for Christmas. They’re pretty and he had felt like accessorizing last night, sue him.
He hates it when fashion fails him.
Namjoon gently disentangles them and pats Seokjin’s back in comfort when he’s done, reaching under his armpit to hoist him up to his feet.
He and Taehyung guide him around the desk of their stand to one of the plastic chairs like Seokjin is an old person who’s struggling to walk on his own. Which is fitting because he does feel like he aged ten years in the span of a few hours.
“Thanks, Joonie,” Seokjin mumbles, accepting the glass of water he hands him. He takes a careful sip, relieved when it doesn’t turn into sand in his mouth.
“So, what happened exactly?” Taehyung asks once Seokjin has gulped it down –without choking, a miracle! “I didn’t think you’d show up before this afternoon after last night. Hobi and I even bet that you wouldn’t show up at all when I told him about the sexual tension between you and Sexy Barman.”
A few early fair visitors are already roaming the alleys and the handful of them that cast a look at their stand alternate between worry, puzzlement and horror as they take in Seokjin’s disheveled appearance. It’s safe to say they won’t be selling many pastries so long as Seokjin is sitting there.
He heaves out a deep sigh, resting his head against Taehyung’s shoulder. Taehyung grabs his hand, and Seokjin feels a tingle that makes the pain in his palm dull a little. Maybe beyond his lack of credit debt, his handsome face and his unfortunate encounter with Yoongi in the morning, Taehyung is truly the most magical thing in Seokjin’s life.
“Sexy Barman turned out to be a lunatic, I left my shoes at his place in my rush to get away from him, my car broke down, my phone nosedived into the sewers, I ran into the dean while I was reaching down to grab it and then she heard you screaming about my sexual exploits from last night,” Seokjin says in a breath. “Oh, and I think a cat is trying to kill me. Or is maybe taking pity on me and trying to adopt me because of how much of a failure I am. One of these two.”
“What did Sexy Barman do?” Taehyung asks, gently brushing Seokjin’s greasy and bloody hair off his forehead.
Seokjin is about to reply when a tray of pastries is deposited on the table in front of them, and a loud voice chimes in:
“Hyung, what the hell happened to you?”
“Don’t ask,” Namjoon says with a grimace.
Hoseok lifts an eyebrow, but either Namjoon’s request is commanding enough or Hoseok simply accepts that sometimes Seokjin does things that shouldn’t be questioned and reaps the consequences because he shrugs, shoving a pastry in his mouth.
He doesn’t choke on it, the lucky asshole.
Seokjin allows himself to feel a pang of envy.
“Did you bring back my car?” Taehyung asks. “I think Jinnie needs to go home and have a long nap.”
That is the best thing Seokjin has heard all day.
“Yes, but I had to park miles away because of the crowd,” Hoseok replies, which is not the worst thing Seokjin has heard all day, but still bad nonetheless. “I didn’t think this thing would be so popular. Your car’s near the creepy alley by the Chemistry building that always smells like they’re stashing decomposing bodies there.”
He tosses the keys at Taehyung. They somehow hit Seokjin in the forehead instead of landing into Taehyung’s waiting hand. More than anything that happened to him today, it makes Seokjin truly ponder if he’s been cursed with Abysmal Luck, because Taehyung has the quickest, most impressive reflexes he’s ever witnessed in a human being and that was such an easy catch an infant could have nailed it.
Seokjin sighs, resigned. He picks up the keys from his lap, rubbing at his forehead and pulls himself up to his feet, grunting when his whole body protests at the movement.
“I’m gonna head home,” he mumbles. “I’ll try to come back later to give you a hand.”
“Don’t worry about it, hyung,” Hoseok says, gently patting his shoulder. “We can handle it.”
Taehyung leaps to his feet. “I’ll walk with you to the car.”
As if on cue, the previously empty spot in front of their stand is suddenly packed with people eyeing the pastries hungrily, forming a long queue that makes Seokjin wonder how synchronized these people’s sudden desire for lemon shortbread can possibly be.
“I’ll be fine,” he tells Taehyung. “You give Namjoon and Hobi a hand. This is more important.”
Taehyung looks hesitant, but he takes a look at Hoseok and Namjoon, who are already overwhelmed trying to serve the hungry crowd and nods. He slips his sandals off, depositing them in front of Seokjin with his toes.
“Take these,” he says. “You know I hate shoes anyway.”
Seokjin gives him a tired smile, ruffling Taehyung’s hair.
“Thanks, Taetae. I’ll message you from my laptop when I get home.”
Seokjin slips the car keys in the pockets of his hoodie –Yoongi’s hoodie, actually, but the bastard gained a free pair of shoes, so Seokjin might as well call it his hoodie now; an eye for an eye and all that– and walks away with a last wave at the trio.
☽☾
Aside from the couple of times he trips on his own feet and the fact that he rips his expensive jeans on a rose bush that seems to materialize out of thin air, Seokjin’s walk to the Chemistry building is uneventful.
The streets and parks of the campus are nearly empty, most people probably already at the fair, so Seokjin doesn’t embarrass himself further by running into more of his students or one of his exes or, worse, Brad Pitt.
He spots Taehyung’s car easily. It’s an old, battered thing whose outside mirrors are taped to the structure and that sometimes needs a hammer hit on the starter to roar into gear. Seokjin has asked Taehyung a hundred times why he hasn’t bought a new one yet, but Taehyung is oddly sentimental about this sort of thing and Seokjin has come to acknowledge he’ll get rid of it when it either stops working altogether or develops a mind of its own and drive itself to the nearest wrecking yard, whichever comes first.
Right now, though, it’s Seokjin’s saving grace and he’ll never say a bad word about Taehyung’s car again –or, at least, for the next couple of weeks... days.
If Seokjin is pressed to explain what happens next –and he will be, if he knows his friends at all– all he will be able to say is that he must have been a phenomenal asshole in a past life.
It’s not that Seokjin is particularly lucky.
He misses the bus just like everyone else, and sometimes he bangs his head on his bedroom door on the mornings he drags himself out of bed without having fully woken up yet. Not so long ago, he went through the agonizing ordeal of dropping his box of sex toys and watching them spill at his feet in front of the worker who had come to fix his bedroom’s window in his and Taehyung’s shared apartment.
Seokjin is no stranger to Bad Luck and, on some particularly difficult days, Excessive Misfortune.
But this, he thinks, is a whole new level and perhaps the Universe is taking back for what it gave him –namely, a handsome face, a wicked sense of humor and the flexibility of an Olympian gymnast– to restore the balance.
And really, fuck the Universe.
He’s a relatively good person.
He helps old people cross the street. He pays his taxes in advance and only complains a tiny bit when they’re too high. He cares about the environment. He buys sustainable. He loves animals and, for the most part, they love him in return. He accepts his flaws and his mistakes, admits them and tries to grow from them. He sends flowers to his mother without any particular occasion. He always tips, even when the service is objectively subpar.
He’s, on days where the Universe isn’t playing with his nerves, a joy to be around. He always tries to find and focus on the positive in any given situation. He knows he shouldn’t take his friends or any of his achievements for granted and always strives to ensure they remain solid foundations for his future.
Scratch relatively good. He’s a fucking stellar person, he doesn’t deserve this.
This being, in order:
He starts fiddling with the keys as he gets closer to the car. A freaking cyclist comes out of nowhere and promptly bashes into him, sending him flying a good two meters, head first into the only puddle of mud around (it hasn’t rained in a week, Seokjin notes inwardly, what the fuck?). The cyclist shouts a half-assed apology over his shoulder and doesn’t stop to check if Seokjin has died from either the shock or the embarrassment.
Seokjin, ever the optimist, tells himself maybe the mud mask will do wonders for his skin, though he wipes what he can with the sleeve of the hoodie anyway and spits some on the asphalt. He considers sending a letter to the mayor to make bikes illegal, though he thinks Namjoon might never forgive him if he does.
He picks himself up, only to realize both his wrist and his left side hurt like hell. He tries to stand, but pain has him falling over, and it takes the full strength of his uninjured arm and all of his resilience for him to stumble to his feet.
He spots the car keys a few feet away at the edge of the creepy alley every sane person on campus avoids like the plague because it smells like what Seokjin assumes Depression and Gloom would smell like.
He drags himself there, limping and hurting and just about to lose his damn mind, when he sees It.
The Demon. The Creature from Hell. The Rotten Beast.
The feline equivalent of the Hollywood movie adaptation of the Last Airbender.
The black cat.
It stares at him placidly, blinking lazily, but there’s something wicked in those eyes, Seokjin knows it.
“I’m not scared of you,” he tells the Beast, mostly because he is very scared of It and is trying to convince himself.
The cat keeps staring, unimpressed, sitting down with one of Its paws on the keys.
Seokjin takes a careful step closer and slowly, inch by inch, reaches out.
“Don’t scratch me,” he asks him.
The cat obediently doesn’t. Instead, It waits until Seokjin is getting a foolish taste of hope, brushing the key chain with his fingers before harshly sinking Its teeth into the junction between his thumb and his index.
Seokjin yelps, though the pain is considerably idler than the one in his wrist and ribs (and self-esteem) and draws his hand away.
The cat hisses at him, grabs the keys into Its mouth and flees into the creepy alley.
Not one to give up, or perhaps too stubborn to admit he should just curl up on the ground and sleep until his bad luck wears off, Seokjin runs after the cat, stopping next to a heavy dumpster that reeks of chemicals and other things he doesn’t want to think about.
The cat is sitting on the dumpster’s lid, keys dangling from Its mouth.
“Look, let’s be reasonable about this, okay?” Seokjin says, because he’s past caring about how insane he sounds now. “I’m sorry for kicking that pebble at you this morning. It was an accident, I swear. If you give me the keys and let me go, I’ll buy you a can of tuna.”
The cat doesn’t seem interested in the offering.
“I’ll fish you a whole tuna myself,” Seokjin says, voice high-pitched with desperation. “I’ll even cut it into sashimi for you. Just please, give me the keys.”
After a moment of consideration, the demon opens Its mouth and drops the keys onto the ground with a clattering noise.
Seokjin swallows a triumphant cry. If he’s learned anything today, it’s that he shouldn’t rejoice too quickly. He bends down and picks up the keys. When he looks back up, he’s positive the cat is smirking at him.
He swallows hard, but before he can negotiate a truce –or his sanity’s recovery– a heavy cloud of purple, pungent smoke emerges in front of him, similar to the one he saw hanging over Yoongi’s cauldron a few hours ago.
And then it dawns on him.
Fucking Yoongi.
Fucking lunatic, nipple-pierced, sex-fiend, pretty Yoongi.
He’s a witch and he cursed Seokjin.
He cursed him with misfortune and clumsiness and being hated by cats (and, maybe worst of all, a certain disappointment with all the people he will share his bed with in the future when he inevitably compares them).
But Seokjin can’t do anything about it right now, not that he would know what to do, because his head is spinning, his whole body is hurting and there’s a demonic cat looking very satisfied with his state of disarray.
Seokjin has lost his mind, that’s it.
It only took less than four hours, and that is perhaps the saddest thing about this whole ordeal.
How quickly he descended into madness.
In his dizziness, he doesn’t manage to soften his fall as his knees give out. His senses are overwhelmed and all he can register is the strong, acrid scent of vinegar lingering in the dark alley.
Chemically-induced hallucination, any reasonable, pragmatic person on campus will say if Seokjin shares with them what happened before he passed out. Which he won’t, ever. He can’t exactly admit he was defeated by a demonic cat, lest he winds up in the nearest asylum.
Not chemicals, Seokjin has one last moment to argue with himself. Fucking magic.
And then everything goes dark.
☽☾
Hushed voices stir Seokjin awake, though he can’t bring himself to open his eyes, his head pounding with a raging headache.
“His wallet is empty,” a voice he can’t identify murmurs. They sound disappointed.
“Bro, he doesn’t even have a phone.”
“Shit, maybe he’s homeless. We should leave him alone.”
“Wearing those jeans? I doubt it, they’re worth what I make in two weeks. And the rings on his fingers don’t look cheap either.”
“Should we call an ambulance?”
Are the people trying to rob him actually taking pity on him?
Oh wow.
That’s an all-time low.
Every time he thinks he’s reached rock bottom, he surprises himself and digs deeper.
But surely he can’t go any lower than that, right?
Seokjin groans as he opens his eyes, squinting at the darkness.
“Oh shit, he’s waking up.”
He turns his head slowly, his neck stiff and his body plagued with a sourness far less pleasant than the one he experienced when he woke up in Yoongi’s bedroom in the morning. He barely has time to catch sight of two hooded silhouettes dashing off before they’ve disappeared around the corner.
Pain lancing through his body, he pulls himself on his knees and takes a few deep breaths before he tries standing, his legs wobbling dangerously. It’s a testimony to how bone-tired he is that he doesn’t screech his lungs out when he spots a rat scurrying away from him, deeper into the darkness of the alley.
Bursts of his day swirl in his mind, waking up at Yoongi’s, his odd behavior in the morning, the black cat, his streak of bad luck after that.
And Seokjin has always prided himself on being a pragmatic, level-headed (and very handsome) man, but after everything that has transpired today (yesterday? he has no idea, at this point), he has no choice but to reconsider.
He’s heard Taehyung talk about magic and witches and spells before, though he always put it on his outlandish ways. Taehyung’s life goal is to befriend an alien, so it was hard to take his blabbering about enchantments and necromancy at face’s value.
But now…
Now, Seokjin doesn’t know anymore.
What he does know is that it all started with Yoongi.
The damn Beast from Hell was napping in his garden after Seokjin fled his apartment and Seokjin accidentally kicked into a pebble and everything went downhill from here.
And whether it is real or not, he is fairly certain whatever is happening to him has to do with Yoongi, so Seokjin is going to make sure he fixes it if it’s the last thing he does –which it might, seeing how his day has gone.
Resolve restored, Seokjin walks out of the alley. He’s holding onto the dirty wall and going far more slowly than his renewed determination should warrant, but he’s going.
And Yoongi better be ready, because he’s pissed and not above violence if it is what it takes for things to get back to normal.
Rain starts pouring down on him the moment he steps outside of the alley.
Evidently, he doesn’t have an umbrella with him.
Which is, all thoughts considered, probably a good thing.
He’s been told he has an electrifying presence before, but he doesn’t particularly fancy getting struck by lightning.
It’s a fifteen minutes walk to Yoongi’s bar and by the time Seokjin sees it in the distance, he is both drenched and bitter. Anticipation curls in his stomach. Now that he is almost there, he has no idea how to approach Yoongi about this. Though if he is quite honest, Yoongi should take one look at him and immediately understand that something has gone very, very wrong and that Seokjin wants reparation for it.
And for one last time, the Universe sees the hope blossoming on Seokjin’s mud-stained face, slaps him at the back of the head and says, “No.”
He advances into the park, crossing it in the direction of the bar, when he hears a low growl somewhere at his back, close enough to have him promptly halt in his steps.
Seokjin turns his head slowly and meets red eyes shining through the obscurity. His breath hitches in his throat as he takes in the huge, black dog glancing at him hungrily, white flecks of saliva dripping from its jaw. It looks as feral as Seokjin did when he decided he needed to lose weight a few years back and he followed an awfully frugal diet for a few weeks.
The saddest part, he thinks, is that Seokjin has always had a great relationship with animals.
That is his fifth disenchantment of the day.
He can recognize the signs of an unfriendly one, and this one doesn’t seem willing to let Seokjin rub its belly and scratch behind its ears.
“Oh, come on!” Seokjin says angrily to no one at all, or maybe to the dog. “Really? What is this now? You want my empty wallet? The key to my office?”
The Very Big Dog blinks at him, head tilting to the side as though confused that Seokjin’s first reaction isn’t to bolt. Seokjin surmises that it must not be very used to not having people running away, especially because it looks more wolf than dog, wildness in its eyes and posture.
“Look, be a good boy and leave me alone, okay?” Seokjin tells the dog-or-maybe-wolf. “I’ve got a witch to threaten and unless he pissed you off too and you want to join me, I am in pain and exhausted, so I really have no time for whatever this is.”
The Big Fucking Dog takes a step closer, baring its crooked, sharp teeth at him, body hunched down, ready to jump.
Seokjin sees red.
“I said no! Bad dog!” Seokjin cries, exasperated. “I’ve had a really bad day. I’m starving, I’m bleeding, I’m pretty sure some of my bones are broken and my boss probably thinks I’m a maniac. I’ve had enough!”
The dog freezes, seemingly surprised again.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Seokjin snaps. “Go find a stick or something because you’re not eating me and if you’re unhappy about it, take it up to the relevant authorities. And when you find them, tell them to get fucked from me.”
It takes a step back, ears flopping down with a pitiful whine, its eyes glowing red.
Seokjin pulls himself to unsteady feet, his whole body throbbing in pain. His head hurts so badly he thinks it might explode, but he is so angry the pain in his ribs and wrist almost feel trivial. He’s pretty sure his head is bleeding too, along with his hand and his feet and now that he thinks of it, he’s not entirely convinced there is a part of him that isn’t bleeding.
Seokjin has only known about magical beings for less than a day, but he’s already deeply tired of it.
He doesn’t know if there’s a hierarchy in place in the magical community but if there is, Yoongi’s boss is going to receive a scalding letter. Seokjin has never once in his life penned a reclamation letter, but this one is going to be lethal. They’ll talk about it all the way to the Witch Headquarters, or Hell, or whatever it is.
“Stay!” he tells the dog, weaving the same authority into his voice he sometimes has to use on his students. The animal cowers back with another whimper.
Huffing, Seokjin turns around and finally, finally, makes his way to the bar.
He shoves the door open, ready to throw hands, or maybe a chair, or whatever he can grab first as soon as he’s stopped swinging on his legs.
He supposes he mustn’t look as menacing as he hopes when he careens forward, knocking over a chair.
The first thing he hears is laughter.
It isn’t the cackle of a witch celebrating their triumph; it’s the loud, unabashed guffaw of a person who hasn’t had The Worst Day of All Days.
It makes Seokjin’s blood boil.
The second thing he hears is a familiar voice, and he easily recognizes Taehyung’s pool partner, a wide-eyed man-child who looks barely old enough to drink, let alone work in a bar, with soft features and tattoos spreading all the way up from his right hand to the sleeve of his white t-shirt.
“Hyung, a drunk vagabond just walked in.”
And honestly, fuck everyone, but fuck him in particular. Seokjin is so glad Taehyung hustled his ass.
“Get him something to eat from the kitchen. I’ll deal with it.”
“You’re going to deal with me alright,” Seokjin grits out between clenched teeth.
A hand lands on his shoulder and even in his angry, slightly maniacal daze, Seokjin recognizes Yoongi’s touch, firm but gentle.
“Hey, there,” he says, cautious. “Is everything okay? Do you want to take a seat? Some water?”
Seokjin looks up, his eyes ablaze with fury, and curls the fingers of his bloody hand around the collar of Yoongi’s stupid leather jacket, yanking. Yoongi staggers forward, making a noise of shock in the back of his throat.
“Fix me, asshole,” Seokjin demands, pure rage seeping through every word.
He watches as realization dawns on Yoongi’s pretty –and not soiled with blood and mud and rightful hysteria– face.
“Seokjin?” he says, lips parting.
“Fix me,” Seokjin repeats, each word punching out of his throat, shaking him by the collar a little.
Yoongi blinks. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, you gremlin,” Seokjin snaps. “You happened. You did this to me. So you’re going to fix me. Now.”
His stomach lurches, nausea creeping up his throat, and he sways a little on his feet. Yoongi reaches out to grab his waist and steadies him, looking both worried and stunned.
“Seokjin, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, and he looks sincere, his dark eyes almost pleading. “Fuck, you’re bleeding.”
“No shit, I’m bleeding!” Seokjin wants to yell, but his head is spinning and it doesn’t come out as more than a pathetic grunt. “You cursed me, asshole.”
“No,” Yoongi says, a little desperate. “No, Seokjin, I swear I didn’t.”
“Then your cat did,” Seokjin says, barely aware of how that makes him sound. “It wants to kill me. That fucking Thing from Hell is after my neck.”
“What? I don’t own a cat.”
Bullshit, Seokjin thinks. Yoongi looks like he owns at least a dozen cats, half of them that he unknowingly adopted because he probably feeds all the strays in the neighborhood.
“It was in your garden this morning and It followed me around all day and It was there every time something terrible happened to me! It stole Taehyung’s car keys and then knocked me out with some weird purple powder!” Seokjin expels a deep breath, and in a moment of staggering clarity, holds back an exhausted sob. “Oh my God, what am I even saying?”
“Shit,” Yoongi says unhelpfully. “Fuck.”
“Uh,” Pool Guy chimes in, carrying a plate of bread, cheese and grapes because this bar doubles as a stuffy wine and cheese hosting place, apparently. “Did you say Taehyung?”
“Fuck off, Bambi,” Seokjin grunts. “You evil magical people are not getting anywhere near my baby.”
His vision blurs when he blinks and he swaggers forward. Yoongi tightens his grip on his waist. Seokjin forcefully banishes from his mind a flash of the same hands gripping at his skin to guide them both to staggering pleasure less than twenty-four hours ago. Fuck Min Yoongi and his perfect, devilish hands.
“Help me put him down and kick everyone out,” Yoongi tells Bambi. He really seems to be doing that regularly. It’s a miracle his business is still afloat, truly. “Then call Jimin. I know this fucker has something to do with this.”
“Are you saying Jimin hit this guy on the head and they had a mud fight?” he scoffs in disbelief. There’s a pause and then, “Actually, nevermind. That does sound like something Jimin would do.”
“Jeongguk,” Yoongi grits out. “Now.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the denominated Jeongguk huffs, as though Yoongi is ordering him to go do his homework. He probably does have homework, Seokjin’s groggy mind provides.
He can’t be more than twelve.
“Everybody out!” Jeongguk yells over the soft music playing in the background. “Yoongi apparently broke some guy with his dick and now he has to fix him!”
Seokjin can’t bring himself to be offended, because what if it’s true? How does he know Yoongi did not indeed ‘break him with his dick’? His knowledge on how magic works is non-existent and his experience so far mediocre, but he wouldn’t be shocked if that was the explanation behind it all. Yoongi does have a spectacular, powerful dick.
There’s a shuffle, some disapproving grumbles and then nothing but the background noise of some hip-hop band rapping angrily about capitalism.
“I’m gonna fire you someday,” Yoongi pledges.
“Nah,” Jeongguk says confidently.
He turns out to be a deceptively strong twelve-year-old because he reaches forward, slides his arms under Seokjin’s armpits and lifts him up like he weighs nothing.
Seokjin can’t feel the pain in his body anymore, every part of him either sore or numb. Jeongguk puts him down again on the closest leather booth seat, his head swimming with an almost pleasant kind of nothingness. He’s probably dying. He didn’t know near death came with naturally induced anesthesia. How nice. How convenient.
“You’re all figments of my imagination, aren’t you?” he blabbers faintly, his head lolling to the side. “Why couldn’t my brain conjure a better afterlife? Like a nice field with alpacas and fresh fruits and Yoongi’s nipples.”
Jeongguk makes a disgusted noise. “I’m gonna call Jimin.”
“He’s feverish,” Yoongi says in a tone Seokjin is pretty sure is defensive. Of him? He can’t know for sure.
“Still don’t wanna hear about your nipples, hyung,” Jeongguk retorts.
“They’re pink and very sensitive,” Seokjin hums.
Jeongguk makes a gagging noise, and then he’s gone.
Seokjin inhales sharply, letting himself go to the cool lethargy looming over him.
“Hey, hey, stay with me,” Yoongi presses. “Try to stay awake, okay? You’re safe here. Jimin will be here soon and you’ll be fine.”
Seokjin forces his eyes open out of sheer stubbornness. He tries to answer, but his mouth feels dry and all that comes out is a woeful moan.
“You know, I really liked you,” he mumbles. “I had a really great time last night and then you had to go and be an evil witch and curse me.”
“I didn’t curse you,” Yoongi repeats, lips puckering into a pout.
“Don’t be cute when I’m dying,” Seokjin hisses.
“I’m always cute,” Yoongi replies, the corner of his mouth lifting up in a sweet, albeit sly smile. “And you’re not going to die on my watch.” His fingers brush over Seokjin’s brow. “This is going to sting,” he warns.
Another wave of nausea hits Seokjin, followed by sharp, penetrating pain. He groans, too exhausted to scream, and slouches back in relief when something cool washes over his whole face, soothing both the physical wound and the headache pulsing in his temples.
“Oh fuck, that feels good,” Seokjin sighs.
His head is still swirling, though. Or maybe it’s the ceiling. Neither feels like a great option.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“I don’t know at this point,” Seokjin mutters. “My ego is very hurt.”
“Tell me about it,” Yoongi says with a teasing undertone. “I had a really great night with a guy last night and I was planning on cooking him breakfast and asking him out on a proper date this morning but then he called me a freak, told me I wasn’t real and bolted through the door before I could try to explain. I’m not sure my ego will ever recover.”
Seokjin chuckles under his breath, the sound turning into a hiss when his ribs throb.
“Oh, that definitely must have hurt,” he replies weakly, resting a hand over his side. “But I’m sure you deserved it.”
Yoongi gently lifts his hand and replaces it with his own over Seokjin’s ribcage. He feels a slight tingle, and the pain slowly alleviates.
“I guess I should have double-checked he truly was magical,” he says sheepishly. “I just… assumed.”
“Are you saying that because of how great I am in bed?” Seokjin says roughly. “I’ve never been told my dick is magical before. I really don’t think I should be as flattered as I am right now. That’s probably why I’m still single.”
Yoongi snorts and reaches out hesitantly to card his fingers through Seokjin’s hair. He doesn’t seem to mind that it’s absolutely disgusting.
“I mean, you basically accused me of trying to kill you, threatened me and then mumbled something very odd about my nipples and I still kicked everyone out instead of throwing your stubborn ass out. It’s not like I’m faring much better.”
“Guess we both have low standards.”
“Guess so,” Yoongi replies, smiling.
He takes Seokjin’s injured hand into his own, his brows knitting in concentration, and Seokjin doesn’t think he has his fever to blame for the colorful sparks he sees dancing around their linked hands.
“You really are a witch.”
“Yep.”
Seokjin blinks, eyes roaming over the empty room. He’s starting to become a little more aware of his surroundings again, the fuzziness of his mind slowly quelling. His gaze stops on the broom resting against one of the walls by the pool table, and the words are out of his mouth before he can think better of it. Maybe his fever isn’t getting better after all.
“Do you fly on this?”
Yoongi looks over his shoulder, his eyebrows shooting up behind the hair poking in his eyes when he sees what Seokjin is looking at. He turns back to him, expression unreadable.
“Yes, of course,” he says flatly, gaze steady. “How else am I supposed to check if the children I cook in my gigantic cauldron for dinner are boiling down nicely?”
Seokjin splutters, but he catches a hint of a smirk at the corner of Yoongi’s lips, and he winds up glaring instead.
“Asshole,” he grumbles.
“That’s not a very nice way to talk to the guy who’s healing you.”
“You’re only healing me because it’s your fault I’m injured in the first place, Mrs. Fairfax.”
Yoongi blinks. “Was that… Was that a Howl’s Moving Castle reference?”
Seokjin doesn’t reply, sending him a deadpan look, and hands over his wrist. Now that the pain in the parts of his body Yoongi has healed (and Seokjin is wisely choosing not to think too hard or too long about the fact that he’s being healed with magic) is slowly dulling to a muted ache instead of lancing pain, he’s feeling all the parts that were injured too but in less painful ways. He wonders if Yoongi can do anything about his bruised dignity.
Yoongi’s tongue pokes out to wet his lips and he grabs Seokjin’s wrist, sparks gliding softly across his skin, soothing.
“And here I thought the sparks between us were just… you know, chemistry and an instant connection and all that jazz,” Seokjin says, but his joking tone falls flat.
Yoongi brushes his thumb against the soft skin of his wrist, mapping idle circles in between intricate patterns. Seokjin isn’t entirely sure it’s meant to heal any actual wound. Not a physical one, anyway.
“Not sure how attracted to someone who unironically uses the expression ‘all that jazz’ I can be,” Yoongi says, his smirk turning into an apologetic smile when Seokjin glares at him. He inhales sharply, his gaze falling down to their joined hands. “They were. An instant connection. I felt it too,” he mutters, a flush of embarrassment on his cheeks. Yoongi doesn’t seem to like talking about feelings and what they can possibly involve any more than Seokjin does. “I didn’t use my magic on you. I would never do something like that.”
There’s a clamor somewhere at the entrance of the bar, and then Bambi is back next to Yoongi, another man in tow. Seokjin recognizes the pretty pink-haired man who had thoroughly lacked subtlety while hitting on Namjoon the night before, though Namjoon still had seemed oblivious to the whole thing.
Yoongi throws him a nasty glare. “What did you do, Jimin?”
Jimin pulls a face, but he looks at Seokjin instead of acknowledging Yoongi. “I’m so sorry,” he says, sounding sincere. Though in his current state of half-awareness and half-inebriation, Seokjin doesn’t trust himself to read anyone accurately. He’s also awfully distracted by Yoongi’s fingers rubbing softly against his skin. “I really didn’t mean for anyone but Yoongi to be affected.”
Seokjin hums, too tired to be angry at the moment. He’ll save it for later.
“He probably deserved it,” he says, his lips quirking upwards. “He’s a bit of an ass.”
Yoongi gapes at him, looking positively offended. He lifts his fingers and a platoon of red sparks hits Seokjin right between his eyebrows in retaliation, though the sensation they leave in their wake is more pleasant than irritating.
“He is,” Jimin says, unrepentant. “But I’m really sorry. I don’t know how that happened, the spell I used normally only affects people with magical auras.”
“Is this when you tell me I’m a witch too and try to make me join your cult?”
“Coven,” Yoongi corrects. “It’s called a coven.”
“Sorry,” Seokjin says sincerely. Somehow, he’s learned today that he doesn’t want to get on a witch’s bad side, especially not involuntarily. “Your coven.”
“You’re not a witch,” Jeongguk chimes in. “There’s just something about your aura, so the demon probably latched onto you and targeted you instead of Yoongi.”
“What’s wrong with my aura?”
“Nothing,” Yoongi says. “It’s just...There’s something magical about it. That’s why I thought you were a witch.”
“I have a magical aura?”
The three of them nod in unison.
“It can happen to humans when they’re near magical people,” Yoongi explains. “If you’re close to magic, it affects your aura.”
Seokjin lifts an eyebrow. “Are you saying your dick is magical now?”
Yoongi gives him a pointed look, but it’s belied by the light pink blooming high on his cheekbones. Behind him, Jimin snickers in his hand while Jeongguk scrunches up his nose.
“No. Even if it was, we didn’t spend enough time together for it to catch.”
Seokjin hums pensively. “So is it like when you pet a cat in the street and when you go home, your pet gets mad because you smell like another animal? Do I smell like magic and it made the demon cat mad?”
“I...guess that’s one way to put it,” Yoongi says, looking a little stunned at the comparison.
“Fuck me,” Seokjin groans, slamming his head down on the booth. He either doesn’t realize his own strength or his Bad Luck is still hanging around, because he ends up doing it much more violently than he anticipated and wincing in pain.
A smirk curls at Yoongi’s lips when he reaches out to soothe the pain with delicate fingers.
“Already did that.”
Seokjin rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t quite manage to conceal the smile poking at the corner of his own mouth. He swats Yoongi’s stomach for good measure, though the movement tears energy for him that he should probably be preserving.
“How are you planning on fixing me then?” Seokjin asks the three of them, curving a defiant eyebrow.
“We need to banish the demon,” Jimin says. “Jeongguk is going to draw a banishing circle and we’ll do that right away. It shouldn’t be long.”
Jeongguk claps his hands together and swirls around, pushing away tables and chairs with a wave of his hand, clearing up the floor. He summons a chalk stick out of thin air. Seokjin only flinches a little bit. He’s getting better at this whole accepting that magic is real and that he’s somehow found himself in the middle of a coven Tupperware meeting. Jeongguk kneels down, immediately going to work.
While he does, Seokjin manages to precariously push himself to a sitting position, Yoongi reaching out to help him.
“I’m going to go to the basement to pick up some ingredients. Are you going to be okay?”
Seokjin nods, giving him a reassuring smile. “I’m fine, Yoongi. Don’t feel so much like I’m dying anymore. Or only on the inside, anyway.”
“Your ego is gonna need a little more time to heal,” Yoongi replies with a sweet smile. “Nothing I can do about that.”
“My friends would say that can’t hurt.”
Yoongi snorts and squeezes his healed hand one last time before leaving the room. Seokjin watches him leave and does not let his eyes roam down Yoongi’s figure and stop on his ass. Except he does, but he deserves some nice things after the day he’s had.
Jimin clears his throat next to him, though Seokjin waits until Yoongi has disappeared through the door behind the bar before he looks up at him.
“I’m really, really sorry,” Jimin says. “I just wanted to get back at Yoongi for kicking us out just as I was making progress with that giant with the pretty dimples and the huge arms last night. It was supposed to be harmless fun.”
Namjoon, Seokjin’s mind provides. Of course he got cursed because of Namjoon. This beautiful, oblivious, helter-skelter genius of a man.
“It didn’t feel harmless when I got my ribs and wrist broken and a fucking wolf tried to eat me.”
“Yoongi wouldn’t have gotten hurt, he’s got protection spells and wards and–wait, a wolf tried to eat you?”
Jimin’s eyes are wide, lips parted in shock.
“Or a very big dog. It’s unclear.”
“How did you stop it?”
“I yelled at it and called it a very bad dog,” Seokjin admits with a disbelieving chuckle. “I was so mad about this whole day and I just couldn’t take it any longer. The poor thing probably didn't see that lecture coming.”
“And...it worked?” Jimin asks, dumbfounded.
“I’m very impressive when I’m mad,” Seokjin says. “Something you should remember in the future if you try cursing me again. The only reason I’m not yelling at you right now is because I’m very tired and also I’m pretty sure I’m high on Yoongi’s magic. I feel almost too good.”
Jimin smirks. “I think you humans just call it having a crush,” he says, eyes lighting up with mischief.
“Don’t push your luck, Jimin,” Seokjin says, glaring half-heartedly, if only to hide the blush creeping up his face. “I can still whoop your ass.”
Jimin presses his lips together, but he still looks like a demon himself, which makes Seokjin wonder why he needed to summon one in the first place. He seems perfectly capable of wreaking havoc on his own.
“Done!” Jeongguk calls loudly, just as Yoongi reappears behind the bar, arms filled with various glass containers, which really does make it seem like a typical Tupperware meeting.
Some of them are glowing faintly and Seokjin has a thousand questions tumbling against the barrier of his mouth but he holds them back. He’s had enough of magic today without adding unicorn hair or fairy dust or centaur’s penis on top of it.
“You have to stand in the middle of the circle,” Jimin instructs him, as Yoongi moves around to deposit the containers along the chalk lines.
Seokjin curves an eyebrow. “I swear, if this is all an intricate ploy to make me do weird shit and laugh about the gullible human later with the rest of your witch community, I’m going to be very upset.”
Jeongguk huffs. “You’re weird.”
“I’m weird?” Seokjin echoes in disbelief. “I’m the most normal person you’ll ever meet, Bambi. I’m so normal I like doing puzzles and I always do my taxes in advance.”
“I...don’t know if you were boasting or if that was a self-drag,” Jeongguk says, looking dubious. “Either way it’s a bit sad.”
“Oh my God, Yoongi, you found your soulmate and he’s just as boring as you,” Jimin whispers not so discreetly.
“Shut up before I curse your ass so that you can never sit on a chair again without it trying to bite you,” Yoongi threatens. Jimin must deem it plausible enough because he cowers back to the other side of the circle.
Yoongi turns to Seokjin and holds out an inviting hand. “You have to walk into the circle,” he instructs. “It’s completely safe, I promise.”
Seokjin hesitates for a moment, watching Yoongi warily. His gut instincts are telling him to trust Yoongi, but then again, nothing in his track record suggests that he should listen to his gut instinct, ever. He’s always had an abysmal record on listening to reason, so he takes Yoongi’s hand anyway. It’s a little calloused, a little rough and his grip is strong on Seokjin’s fingers but equally delicate, like he’s afraid of scaring him away.
Seokjin steps into the circle, feeling a rush of something he can’t identify washing over him, powerful and dizzying, tickling at his lower stomach and prickling at the tip of his fingers.
“I’m gonna let go now,” Yoongi says. “Everything’s going to be fine. You might feel a little prick but it’s only going to last for a short time. It’s the demonic energy being sucked out of your body.”
“Not the first time someone I’ve slept with has told me that,” Seokjin says. He’s met with three astonished gazes, and he gives them an awkward chuckle. “I make bad jokes when I’m nervous.”
“Yoongi makes bad jokes for no reason,” Jeongguk chimes in with an oddly reassuring tone.
“It’s like you’re made for each other,” Jimin agrees.
“Why do I put up with you two?” Yoongi despairs.
They stand outside the circle, each standing before one of the glowing glass containers Yoongi brought up and hold each other’s hands to close the circle. It does very little to convince Seokjin that he did not indeed find himself being coaxed into becoming a cult’s playtoy.
He closes his eyes, braces himself with a sharp breath, and he remembers very little after that.
☽☾
He doesn’t fall asleep, but he finds himself stuck into some kind of trance, swimming between awareness and the complete opposite. Sometimes, he hears Yoongi and his friends whispering in a foreign language. Sometimes, he sees the black cat flashing before him, green eyes alight with malice. Sometimes, all he can think of is the night before, Yoongi’s hands roaming over his naked chest, his own mouth stopping to give Yoongi’s nipples the attention they deserved, the thin layer of perspiration coating their bodies and the back and forth of their hips moving together to find a rhythm that suited them both. In those moments, he feels laughter knocking at the edge of his consciousness, and it feels like the warm, loving bickering he’s witnessed between Yoongi, Jeongguk and Jimin. Even in his half-awake state, horror dawns on him when he realizes it might be because they are able to see the thoughts flashing through his mind in rapid succession.
His concerns are confirmed when he starts seeing things that he knows aren’t from his own mind. Taehyung being walked home the night before, his hair in disarray, his grin wide and boxy, his eyes flickering every now and then over his shoulder to his companion to make sure he’s still following. An intricate cocktail being made by deft hands, one of them tattooed, until the glass resembles more an art piece than a beverage. (And Seokjin knows that can’t be his memory, because he would never bother with something like this, considering the drink will end up being drunk no matter how pretty it looks.) A dance under the moonlight, the elegant flow of a body guided by the wind blowing through the leaves of high trees.
And then, Seokjin sees himself, but it looks like he’s watching himself from an outside perspective, like he astro-projected out of his body (he did think he had at one point during his night with Yoongi, but that’s a different feeling entirely). He can see the expanse of his shoulders, the muscles of his back shifting as he leans back against the bar, the fondness of his gaze lost into the crowd. Yoongi’s gaze doesn’t move from him, but Seokjin knows he was looking at Taehyung wiping the floor with Bambi’s ass at the pool table like a proud mama bear encouraging her cub to take its first (soul-crushing) steps. Seokjin walking into Yoongi’s kitchen the next morning wearing his pants but Yoongi’s hoodie, looking sleepy and smiling, hair poking in every direction.
Seokjin feels his heart pounding in his chest and then the prickling sensation Yoongi warned him about, like a million tiny needles poking his body at the same time. It’s not painful, but it’s uncomfortable enough that he tenses, his defensive instincts kicking in and struggling against the intrusion.
(A little late, if Seokjin can say so himself.)
It all stops as suddenly as it started and Seokjin falls to his knees at the same time his eyes open, catching himself on his hands before he can faceplant.
That is a good sign that his Bad Luck has been cast away, he tells himself.
Yoongi wipes off the chalk with his foot and steps closer, crouching next to him and stroking his back.
“It’s over. It’s done.”
“That has been the weirdest experience of my fucking life,” Seokjin mumbles to himself, leaning back against Yoongi’s shoulder.
“Wait until I actually take you out on a date,” Yoongi says as he wraps an arm around his shoulders to steady him. Seokjin can hear more than see the smile he’s sporting.
Seokjin’s heart does a thing in his chest. Like a flutter, or a somersault, or maybe there’s still some demonic energy inside him. Whatever it is, his stomach lurches and a shiver travels up his spine.
Before Seokjin can reply, the door to the bar bursts open with a loud clamor and Taehyung, Hoseok and Namjoon storm in, wearing matching murderous expressions and, on Hoseok’s part, holding a crowbar. It should perhaps worry Seokjin that he doesn’t find this as odd as he should.
What he does find odd, however, is the fact that Taehyung is glowing.
Not full-on sparkles à la Edward Cullen. No, he’s positively glowing, a bright, almost blinding white light forming a halo around him.
“I take it back,” Seokjin mutters, mostly to himself. “Now this is the weirdest experience of my fucking life.”
“Give us back our Jinnie-hyung, you vermin!” Taehyung exclaims boisterously, pointing a glowing hand at Jimin, whose eyes are wide (and still slightly amused, which would worry Seokjin if he hadn’t understood by now that Jimin seems to appreciate chaos a little too much. That’s probably why he was attracted to Namjoon, after consideration.) “Or I will hex all of you so hard, your great-great-grandchildren will still be pooping butterflies long after you’re g–”
He freezes when he sees Jeongguk standing in the middle of the room, and his cheeks go nearly as red as his hair. “O-Oh, hi,” he stutters, all of his righteous rage depleting like a sad balloon.
Jeongguk is in an offensive position, hands raised in front of him after the ruckus of their arrival, but he deflates when he sees Taehyung, and the sparks at his fingertips shoot hazardously through the room, hitting one of the walls with brutal force, leaving a dent in the paint. At his back, Seokjin can feel Yoongi’s shoulders slouching in defeat. Something tells him this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.
“Hi,” Jeongguk chokes out.
Taehyung and Jeongguk stare in each other’s general vicinity but refuse to meet eyes, looking like a sad pair of shy puppies. Seokjin frowns, wondering what the hell this is all about, but he’ll ask later. Right now, he has to defuse the situation before more holes are made in Yoongi’s walls.
He clears his throat, and Taehyung somehow tears his eyes away from pointedly not looking at Jeongguk while simultaneously looking at Jeongguk and peeks behind his shoulder, his gaze falling on Seokjin.
“Jinnie!” he exclaims, skipping forward.
“Hi, Taehyungie,” Seokjin says. “I lost your car keys, I’m sorry. Also, you’re glowing.”
“I guess that explains why your magical aura is so strong,” Jimin remarks offhandedly, before wiggling his eyebrows at Namjoon, as if to say ‘my magical aura is pretty strong too, wanna try?’
Namjoon just gives him a polite smile like the beautiful, kind and oblivious giant he is.
“It’s because of the tracking spell I used to find you. Why are you in the middle of a summoning circle?” Taehyung asks, pointing at the chalk marks on the ground. His eyes narrow menacingly on Yoongi and Seokjin feels him lift both his hands in a defensive posture.
Something akin to protective instincts rise up in his chest, though Seokjin is pretty sure Yoongi could defend himself without much of a problem.
“A demon latched onto me and cursed me with bad luck and they helped me get rid of it because Jimin here was the one who summoned the demon in the first place,” he says matter-of-factly. “Or something like that. The details don’t make sense to my human brain.”
“It was an unfortunate accident,” Jimin chimes in, but he sounds more like he’s trying to get in Namjoon’s good graces than apologetic at all.
“How do you summon a demon by accident?” Hoseok rightfully points out.
Seokjin has plenty of questions of his own, though.
“Are you not human?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow at Taehyung.
“I’m a fairy,” he says.
Seokjin licks his lips. “Is that...a recent development?”
“No, I’ve always been a fairy.”
That is his last disenchantment of the day. He doesn’t mind this one too much.
It makes sense, after all. Taehyung has always been somewhat otherworldly, in the best possible ways. It’s the last nudge he needs to decide maybe magic isn’t so bad. Nothing about wide-eyed, beautifully odd, extravagantly kind Taehyung can be bad.
“How come I never knew you were a fairy? We’ve known each other since you were five.”
Taehyung shrugs. “We’re not allowed to tell humans unless they find out by themselves. I tried to nudge you in the right direction but you were pretty adamant about magic not being real.”
Yoongi snorts behind Seokjin’s back. He elbows him in the ribs.
“And what are you two?” Seokjin inquires, turning to Namjoon and Hoseok.
“I’m fabulous,” Hoseok replies flatly.
“I’m confused but rolling with it,” Namjoon says.
“They’re both humans,” Yoongi says, because he must be the only helpful person in a five mile radius. His voice is lower the next second, meant for Seokjin’s ears alone, his warm breath brushing idly against the back of his neck. “Do you want to take a shower upstairs?”
Showers. Humanity’s greatest invention, right after greasy food and nipple piercings.
Seokjin can’t nod quickly enough.
Slowly, Yoongi helps him to his feet, one hand gripping at his waist and the other at his arm.
Seokjin walks to his brats on wobbling feet, patting their cheeks placatingly when he’s close enough.
“I’m fine,” he promises. “I’m just going to take a shower. We can talk about the fact that Taehyung has been glowing for the past five minutes later.”
“Oops,” Taehyung blurts out and promptly goes back to his non-glowy usual persona, though his hair is now a vibrant blue.
Seokjin decides to accept it as his new normal.
“You two can clean up,” Yoongi tells his own brats.
“But, hyung,” Jeongguk whines, lips puckering into a pout, “it was all Jimin’s fault, I didn’t do anything!”
“I literally pay you to work here,” Yoongi argues. “Cleaning up is part of your job.”
“I can help you clean up,” Taehyung offers cheerfully.
“O-Oh.” Jeongguk gulps. Seokjin can see the argument dying in his brain. “Okay. Yes. Sure. That sounds good. Fun. Let’s...Let’s clean up then.”
Yoongi rolls his eyes and grabs Seokjin’s hand without further ado, pulling him toward the back door, Seokjin waving at his friends over his shoulder. It gives on the garden where he met the black cat slash demon this morning, and on the door to the staircase that leads to Yoongi’s apartment.
“Can’t they just use magic to clean up?” Seokjin inquires as he climbs the stairs behind Yoongi, hands still firmly clasped together.
“That’s probably what they’re going to do, if they have any strength left for it,” Yoongi says, deadpan. “They’re just brats who like to complain and make my life harder than it needs to be.”
“What do you mean if they have the strength for it?” Seokjin asks, brows furrowing.
Yoongi unlocks the door of his apartment, motioning for Seokjin to get in.
“Practicing magic uses up energy,” he explains as he tosses the keys in the little jade bowl at the entrance. They land into it perfectly. “Especially demon banishing. It’s draining.”
Seokjin’s frown deepens. “How are you not exhausted after healing me and doing this then?”
Yoongi blinks at him, his dark eyes amused and, now that Seokjin is paying attention, a little hooded.
“I am,” he says.
He shrugs his jacket off, laying it neatly against the back of a kitchen chair.
“I’ll make you something to eat. Bathroom’s that way.” Yoongi scratches at the back of his head with his index finger, a small smile on his lips. “But you already know that. Clean towels are in the closet. Make yourself at home.”
When he emerges from the shower, feeling ten years younger after getting rid of the day’s grime and the dry blood lingering on his hair and skin, Seokjin stares for a long moment at the heap of dirty clothes he discarded as soon as the door was shut behind him. He’d rather go through another day like this one than wear them again –perhaps ever– so he wraps a towel around his waist and trudges out of the bathroom, walking back to the kitchen.
Yoongi is sitting at the table, leaning against the wall, his head resting on his hand and his eyes shut, lips parted slightly in slumber. He startles awake when Seokjin walks in, rubbing at his face to wake himself up.
“Made you ramen," he croaks. “That’s all I had around. I need to go grocery shopping.”
“Do you have some clothes I could borrow?” Seokjin asks. “I should get dressed before I eat.”
“Must you?” Yoongi says, voice stretched low and gravelly. His lips curl up in a smirk he probably wants teasing but with the crease marks on his cheeks and his barely-awake state, he mostly looks like a sleepy kitten.
Seokjin is irreversibly charmed.
“I don’t think you’ll find anything about me eating ramen naked sexy,” Seokjin opines. “I haven’t eaten anything all day. Unless you’re conducting an experiment on how fast I can become unattractive.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Yoongi says, and he must realize what he said a second later, his sleepiness rendering him more honest than he would let himself be, because his cheeks flush a pretty pink before he gets up to his feet and ducks his head, mumbling. “This way.”
Yoongi guides him to his bedroom –and Seokjin does not let flashbacks of the night before invade his mind, Yoongi pressing him against the door and kissing him senseless, rummaging blindly for the knob with one hand and for Seokjin’s zipper with the other. He hands Seokjin a pair of sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt from his closet before unceremoniously diving headfirst into his bed, curling up with his back to Seokjin to give him a semblance of intimacy.
Seokjin gets dressed quickly. The sweatpants wrap tightly a little above his ankles but the t-shirt fits him well enough. It smells like citrus and laundry and Seokjin smiles happily when he turns around, the smile freezing on his lips when he finds Yoongi fast asleep on the bed, hands tucked between his thighs, breath fluttering against his pillow.
Now if he’s asked later to justify his actions, he might blame it on demonic possession. In that moment though, he thinks Yoongi’s pretty pink lips puckered in slumber and his eyelashes fluttering lightly are to blame. Yoongi looks adorable and inviting and Seokjin is a man with little self-restraint and a soft spot for pretty, pink things. He finds himself crawling up on the bed before he can think better of it. The blankets are warm with Yoongi’s body heat and Seokjin has had a long, long day.
He just wants to lie down for a few minutes, lulled into a sense of peace by Yoongi’s light breathing at his side. Yoongi turns over in his sleep, mindlessly reaching out. When he does, the moonlight pouring from the windows catches on his soft features, hitting him with a light glow that has nothing to envy Taehyung's.
He wraps an arm around Seokjin’s waist and pulls him closer, burying his nose against Seokjin’s shoulder.
“You smell nice,” he mutters sleepily.
“It’s your body soap and your clothes. Self-obsessed much?” Seokjin replies lowly, because he’s a bit of an idiot and his heart is racing wildly in his chest.
Yoongi makes a sleepy sound in the back of his throat, halfway to a chuckle but not quite.
“If you run away from me again tomorrow, I’ll be very upset,” he murmurs.
Seokjin slips his arm under Yoongi and gently squeezes the back of his neck.
“You can always curse me to stay with you forever,” he replies, though the joke probably falls flat when he nuzzles against Yoongi’s hairline like a goddamn lovesick fool.
“Sounds like an ordeal,” Yoongi replies, his lips brushing softly against Seokjin’s collarbone. “I’ll just seduce you with reheated ramen and sex.”
Seokjin’s breath catches in his throat, but he’s too exhausted to do anything about it.
“I love a foolproof plan.”
“Are my planning skills what will end up convincing you to go on that date with me after all?”
“I do love a man who knows how to file his taxes,” Seokjin replies, feeling himself going boneslack as Yoongi’s fingers slip under the t-shirt and brush against his hipbone.
“Wait until I tell you all about my first-aid travel kit tomorrow. And then you can help me plot my revenge on Jimin.”
“I’m officially seduced,” Seokjin announces, and it’s perhaps too honest to fully be a joke.
Yoongi hums in satisfaction.
There’s silence for a long time, the two of them laying down holding each other.
Seokjin falls asleep with a smile on his face.
☽☾
Seokjin wakes up in a bed that isn’t his.
An arm is wrapped tightly around his waist, a nose pressed against his nape, a strong chest lifting with gentle breaths against his back. Lips brush against his skin, leaving shivers in their wake.
That is his first enchantment of the day.