Chapter Text
The problem with having nearly all of his friends convinced that something is happening between him and Mingyu is that now that the thought is almost constantly at the forefront of his mind, it's hard to ignore how his feelings may have changed. Which is terrifying for several reasons; reasons he stays up late at night worrying about now, the thoughts replacing his usual 3 am existential crises, something he never thought he'd miss.
But it doesn’t stay contained in his dark bedroom for long, as these things never do - by day three Minghao's brought these thoughts to work in the form of daydreaming about holding Mingyu's hand at the most inappropriate moments. Like right now, with Mingyu three steps away from him, cutting up slices for the display case. His hands are rough and worn, and Minghao was thinking about offering him hand cream when his thoughts had slipped rather quickly into Minghao taking Mingyu’s hands into his own and personally applying said hand cream.
The knife in Mingyu’s hand catches the light and breaks Minghao out of his daze just as Mingyu notices him standing there. He smiles warmly and puts the knife down with a clang. "What's up?"
Minghao blinks, flustered. “N-nothing.” He stutters unintelligently, too focused on the confusing whir of emotions pooling in his stomach from the phantom warmth of Mingyu’s hands between his palms to remember how to have a normal conversation.
Mingyu just looks at him, blinking a few times in confusion when Minghao just Stands There so he books it out of the kitchen - clean coffee cups he’d completely forgot he was holding clanking as he goes - like an absolute moron. He nearly bowls Seungcheol over when he turns toward the coffee machine, yelping a little in shock as Seungcheol reaches out and steadies him before he can go stumbling into the bench or drop the cups.
“Careful.” Seungcheol scolds lightly. It’s just the three of them working and the cafe is mostly empty, apart from the regulars who come in to use their powerpoints and WiFi without buying anything. (Minghao really thinks Seungcheol should make them buy something, but he knows he’s too soft to do so and it’s too late now that most of them have been coming in since even before he was hired.) They really don’t need three people to close the cafe on a Monday; they’ll be lucky if they get a single customer within the last hour before the cafe officially closes. But Minghao definitely isn’t complaining, even if he can tell Seungcheol is getting suspicious of his sudden interest in his personal life.
He pulls away from Seungcheol, opening his mouth to apologise or argue that he was being careful (lies), when he’s cut off by, yet another, Mingyu Noise of Distress.
Seungcheol looks at him and lets out his own noise of distress. “What now?” He groans with the full force of two years worth of manager responsibilities, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Minghao quietly thinks he should take up yoga; being a solo manager of an entire cafe before he’s even reached his thirties is bound to cause irreversible emotional damage if he doesn’t take time to wind down between shifts. Especially with employees such as Mingyu. But Minghao likes his job, so he keeps that thought to himself.
He follows Seungcheol into the kitchen, strongly dreading what they’ll find. He may like his job but these past weeks have been far more emotionally exhausting than they’ve had any right to be. There’s a dull pain behind his eyes that flares to life, having been on and off for the better part of the week.
Seungcheol stops a step into the kitchen and lets out a distressed yelp and Minghao has to shoulder past him to get a view of the scene. His stomach drops like it’s flung off the highest point of a moving rollercoaster.
The first thing he sees is the blood, like a dark beacon under the kitchen fluorescents, and for a solid few seconds he can’t look away. Then Mingyu lets out a hiss followed by a pitiful whine and he snaps out of it. Mingyu is clutching his hand, his right one, the one that wasn’t holding the knife, close to his chest. It’s wrapped in his apron, ties still clinging loosely to his lower back where he couldn’t untie it completely in his haste.
Minghao rushes forward, unthinking, and tugs Mingyu’s hand out of his apron to assess the damage. Mingyu yelps in pain and he mumbles an apology over the blood rushing in his ears, unwrapping Mingyu’s hand more carefully. He only sees the cut for the briefest of moments, enough to see that it’s deep, before blood completely covers it. Someone curses under their breath (it might have been him, he can’t tell) and Seungcheol tugs them both over to the sink. He lets go only when Mingyu’s hand is softly pulled out of his but his hands remain hovering in the air, twitching. His mind races with all the spells he knows. He’s supposed to be a healer why can’t he think of anything to help right now? Mingyu is hurt and bleeding and he’s useless-
“Ya, Myungho. Come back to us.” Seungcheol calls worriedly. He blinks and realises his whole body is trembling. Mingyu is looking at him with a matching worried expression while cold water washes the blood from his hand and Seungcheol stands to his side digging through the first aid kit. When did he get that?
“Hao? Are you okay?” Mingyu asks.
“Fine.” Minghao answers immediately, embarrassed at how his voice shakes on that one syllable. He glances back at the bench Mingyu evacuated. There’s the tiniest puddle of blood pooled on the chopping board, barely ten drops of it, but he could have sworn it had covered the entire bench. He looks at Mingyu’s hand again and realises the cut isn’t as deep as he thought, certainly not deep enough to have nicked anything vital.
“Myungho, go sit down for a bit. We’ll take care of this.” Seungcheol orders. When Minghao doesn’t move he stops raiding the first aid kit long enough to nudge him towards the break room. He goes, something awful and heavy settling in his stomach.
His magic swirls restlessly among his forearms, unused.
♤
Mingyu finds him the next day before Minghao starts his shift. He’d caught an early bus, restless for no reason, and there’s still twenty minutes till he has to clock in. He barely slept the night before, rolling in self deprecation. His reaction to Mingyu getting hurt was nothing short of dramatic and he hates how affected he was, his own insecurities with his magic overwhelming his common sense. He knows he’s not even supposed to do magic in his workplace, which was one of the reasons he applied for the job in the first place. Jihoon had told him it would be the best idea to get a boring human job to give his magic a break from time to time and he has to agree.
Mingyu stands awkwardly in the centre of the room, eyeing one of the broken stools apprehensively. He looks hesitant, which is rare enough to be alarming. It’s like there’s something he’s trying to figure out how to say, or worried about how to go about approaching a subject. Minghao nearly offers him his own seat. Mingyu’s discomfort is starting to rub off on him and it sets his nerves on edge.
“How’s your hand?” He asks before Mingyu can say anything. It’s wrapped up tight in a bandage with a couple of food safety approved blue plasters covering it for no purpose other than decoration. Nobody was more pleased than Seungcheol that the cut wasn’t deep enough to require stitches but Minghao likes to think he was a very close second.
“Stings a little.” Mingyu answers, rubbing at the skin around the bandage.
Minghao hums in sympathy, awkward and unsure what to say. Guilt pools in his stomach again, joined by a side of self-hatred.
“It’s not as bad as it looks.” Mingyu tries, attempting reassurance but achieving the opposite.
“People only say that when it’s exactly as bad as it looks.” Minghao laughs but it sounds flat even to his own ears. Mingyu’s smile turns strained and minghao looks away. He kind of wants to swallow his own foot.
Mingyu quietly steps closer and crouches down till he’s eye level with Minghao, who’s nervously fiddling with his fingers, and holds his hand out. Minghao looks at it for a confused second before realising Mingyu must want him to heal it. He swallows through the lump in his throat.
“I can’t.” He whispers, wrenching the words from the centre of his chest where it hurts the most.
“Can’t what?” Mingyu asks patiently. His eyes are shining, always shining.
Then, when Minghao stays silent he says. “Kiss it better?”
Minghao physically jolts at the shock of the words and bangs his knee against the underside of the desk. Mingyu laughs, loudly, until he realises Minghao’s actually crying just a little bit because that fucking hurt and Mingyu starts throwing rapid fire apologies like they’re a rap verse.
“Are you okay?” Mingyu gasps out when Minghao just keeps rubbing his knee. His face is burning and his knee is throbbing so bad he feels like dying.
“Sorry, that was a really bad joke, huh?” Mingyu continues, chuckling awkwardly.
Oh. Minghao thinks. That hurt.
“It’s fine it- You’re fine.” He stutters out, chest tightening. Mingyu doesn’t look any less apologetic but there’s something sad tinting his smile that Minghao can’t find a reason behind. He tries not to read too far into it and Mingyu leaves before he can really ask about it anyway.
It’s probably nothing.
♤
Three days before the new moon and two days since Minghao’s last shift at the cafe - where he embarrassed himself in front of Mingyu and spent the rest of his shift hiding in the kitchen - it’s three hours after he’s clocked in when he realises that now Mingyu is actively avoiding him at all costs and he can’t really figure out why. None of his friends are being particularly helpful about it, as usual.
Seungkwan walks into the kitchen while Minghao is moments from metaphorically tearing his own hair out (read: making a milkshake) and asks without preamble or any sort of context: “What did you do?”
Still, Minghao knows exactly what he’s referring to.
“I don’t know.” He groans. “He was fine the last time I saw him.”
Seungkwan contemplates that for a second before sighing and hip checking him out of the way to take over manning the ice cream scoop. Minghao slumps against the counter gratefully. “What happened the last time you saw him?”
“Nothing we were just at work, I was-” avoiding him. running from my feelings. trying to figure out what the fuck is going on without confronting anything-
“You were?” Seungkwan prompts. He raises an eyebrow at the ice cream, effectively judging Minghao without even looking in his direction. He’s almost impressed.
“...Busy.”
Seungkwan actually rolls his eyes. “Okay, so what about the last time you talked to him?”
Minghao blushes an angry red at the memory. Mingyu’s sweet puppy eyes, his teasing expression that was just a little too sincere to be confidently played off as a joke.
Kiss it better?
He sighs and explains the disasters - both the accident the night before and the train wreck of a social interaction the day after - with as little emotion as he can and refuses to look anywhere near Seungkwan. He hears Seungkwan drop the ice cream scoop into the tub once he’s explained the ‘kiss it better’ situation and he feels judging eyes burning through the side of his face.
“Dude.” Seungkwan deadpans.
“What?” Minghao huffs, defensive. He looks over when Seungkwan doesn’t say anything and recoils at the force of Seungkwan’s glare.
Seungkwan rolls his eyes again and fishes the scoop out of the tub, waving it in Minghao’s direction. “Then what?”
“Then nothing. He left and we didn’t really talk for the rest of the shift.” He finishes.
Seungkwan shakes his head. “There’s something you’re missing. What were his exact words when he was apologising for the awful pick up line?”
“Umm.” Minghao tries to think. “‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to? Are you okay?’ Something like that?”
“That’s it?”
“Uh…” Minghao’s stomach flips at a memory. “He said ‘Sorry bad joke?’”
Seungkwan gasps dramatically and turns back to him with alarming urgency. “And what did you say?”
“Um…” Minghao starts, slightly frightened, “‘I-it’s fine?’”
Seungkwan drops the scoop onto the bench this time, the clattering of metal against metal making Minghao jump. He whirls around to confront him with a finger pointed straight at his chest.
“You’re a complete and utter idiot.” Seungkwan accuses.
“Thank you?”
“Oh my god.” Seungkwan throws his hands up. “You have no idea do you?”
Minghao shakes his head.
“He was flirting with you, you dumbass, and you completely shut him down! No wonder he’s avoiding you.”
“So?” Minghao defends hotly. “He flirts with everyone, it doesn’t mean anything!”
“Oh my god.” Seungkwan repeats, practically growling. “Get out of my kitchen.”
♤
He texts Mingyu the night before the new moon. Mingyu hasn’t said a word not related to work to him since The Incident, as Seungkwan has aptly named it, and he doesn’t know if Mingyu still wants his help or if he’d rather find a different mage. One that actually has experience in counter curses and doesn’t ruin things with feelings .
(Yes, somewhere between his talk (argument) with Seungkwan and now he’s finally, finally accepted that maybe he Does have feelings for his coworker; that maybe his friends had been right and he’s been in denial for a while now.)
Mingyu texts back almost immediately that yes, he still wants Minghao’s help and he’s really sorry for being weird and Minghao isn’t sure how to move on from that. He’s glad Mingyu isn’t mad at him, at least, so he counts that as a win.
He falls asleep shortly after, anticipating. Tomorrow is a big day.
♤
“Did you bring everything?” Wonwoo asks in lieu of an actual greeting. Minghao silently holds up his bag of supplies to eye level and Wonwoo steps back to let him in with a satisfied nod. He’s been in Wonwoo’s apartment once before this; when he first moved in and Wonwoo was nice to him for approximately seven whole seconds. It’s similar to Minghao’s in size with a mirrored layout so that their kitchens share a wall. Minghao likes it because it means their bedrooms are on opposite ends of their apartments and he has absolutely no desire to know what Wonwoo gets up to in his spare time.
He follows Wonwoo into his Study-Turned-Tumblr-Esque-Witch-Lair - the one additional room that Minghao’s apartment doesn’t have, so Minghao is forced to cast either where he sleeps or where he eats - while warily glancing around the furniture for a spot of shimmery white scales. He’s unnerved that Junhui didn’t answer the door with Wonwoo; the hellish familiar could be anywhere.
The obnoxious sound of the tacky beaded curtain hanging over the study doorway echoes around the large room behind Minghao as he steps through the threshold and he freezes as he spots who’s sitting inside.
“J-Jihoon?”
Fuck.
His tutor looks over at the call of his name, distracted from his conversation with Joshua, both perched on the window sill next to Wonwoo’s alter.
“Hao.” Jihoon replies, voice betraying no emotion. Minghao feels the hair at the back of his neck stand straight at the sound of it. He flinches when Jihoon stands abruptly, dropping off the windowsill with a graceful thud and pushing past Minghao, through the beaded curtain without saying a word. Minghao sends a pleading look around the rest of the room; over Joshua’s pleased grin and Seungcheol - god knows what he’s doing there - who at least looks a little sympathetic. Wonwoo is ignoring everything in favour of pretending to read through the ritual for the millionth time.
He begrudgingly leaves the room and all of its protective wards to face his tutor and role model, hoping against all hope that Jihoon at least makes his death swift and painless. He finds him in the hallway a few steps away from the study, arms crossed and he makes sure to keep his head down as he approaches.
It’s pointless though when Jihoon says “Minghao, look at me.”
Minghao does as he says, wincing when he meets Jihoon’s steely gaze. He holds his breath as Jihoon just looks at him, unmoving, face set in stone. After a beat, he sighs, and Minghao can hear the disappointment in it. “I really wish you’d come to me about this, Minghao.”
“I’m sorry.” Minghao says quickly before he can continue, but Jihoon just holds a hand up to stop him.
“But,” He continues, “I have to admire how hard you worked to find a solution on your own. And your idea was pretty decent, but it wasn’t perfect and if Joshua hadn’t been keeping me in the loop you could have ended up seriously injuring someone.”
“I’m sorry.” He repeats, dropping his gaze on the floor.
“Hey, I’m here to help you, yeah?” Jihoon claps a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I’d rather you tell me about your dumb boyfriend drama so I can help you fix it safely than-”
“Wait- boyfriend drama?” Fucking Jeonghan. Fucking Joshua. “Oh my god for the last time, Mingyu’s not my fucking boyfriend.” He tries to sound threatening but it comes out more tired and whiny.
“I never said he was.” Jihoon counters, raising an eyebrow. Minghao flushes bright red and clamps his big mouth shut. Jihoon laughs. “You can tell me about it later.” Minghao is making no such promise, in fact he’d much rather stick his head in the toilet than discuss this with one more nosy ‘friend’.
Jihoon, thankfully, drops the subject and shoves Minghao back towards the study after a few more lines of nagging. When they reenter the room, Joshua has abandoned his perch to help Wonwoo draw a pentagram in the middle of the room, straight on the hard wooden floor, while Seungcheol watches over their shoulders. Which reminds him-
“Seungcheol, why are you here?” He asks, suspicious. To his horror, a blush spreads quickly across Seungcheol’s cheeks and he clears his throat too many times before answering.
“I’m here to supervise?” He explains. Joshua snorts without looking up from the grimoire in his hands and Minghao glares, even more suspicious. “It’s my duty as a manager to uh make sure that none of my employees are seriously injured and unable to work.”
“Okay, sure, but we’re not even at work?” Minghao argues, utterly confused. Seungcheol just shrugs, nervous eyes darting over to glance at Joshua for just a second, just long enough that if Minghao weren’t watching, he would have missed it. Jihoon interrupts to drag him away, effectively cutting Minghao's interrogation short, but he swears to himself he'll get to the bottom of whatever is happening between Joshua and his manager.
He busies himself with helping Wonwoo with the ritual preparations, while Jihoon instructs over Minghao's shoulder and Joshua yells random encouragements to Wonwoo at random intervals.
Minghao's plan is simple. In theory. Minghao and Wonwoo will combine their magic so Minghao can harvest just enough power to interact with Mingyu’s life force and manually ‘heal’ whatever hex has been put on him. They have to take all of their ingredients, including the ginger root and some daemon's saliva that Wonwoo supplied personally ("Do I even want to know where you got daemon saliva from?" "I wouldn’t if I were asking you.") and pulverise them until they make a thick paste, which Minghao will then have to spread over Mingyu's hands to make his spirit accessible. It's all very complicated and he's sure there's an easier way to go about this that Jihoon will definitely tell him about as soon as all of this is over, but for now this is the best plan he’s got.
Wonwoo starts making the paste while Jihoon talks Minghao through the adjustments they need to make. “You and Wonwoo will end up sucking each other’s magic dry if you try to do this with just the two of you,” He explains, “So I’ll be joining to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
He nods gratefully. That could have ended horribly.
There’s a knock on the door and Joshua leaps up to answer it while Minghao’s heart starts racing in his chest. It’s almost 11, meaning that can only be Mingyu, the man of the hour. He tries to subtly fix his hair in the reflection of the window beside him without drawing attention to himself, hoping his eyeliner hasn’t smudged. He’s wearing his favourite ‘Tumblr Witch’ outfit which consists of a cardigan with its sleeves rolled up, a low neck shirt and ripped jeans, all varying shades of black. His charms tinkle together whenever he moves his arm and his ears are lined with all the earrings he’s not allowed to wear at work. This is the first time Mingyu will see him outside of work where he actually put effort into his outfit and he feels nauseous just at the thought of it, suddenly thinking of all the alternate clothing choices he had and cursing himself for not wearing something colourful.
Beads clank against wood as someone enters the room behind him. To his surprise, it’s not Mingyu but Chan, another mage who lives on the same floor as Wonwoo and him who walks in first.
“Hey Hao!” He greets when he spots Minghao, waving happily with a fabric bag wrapped around his wrist.
“Chan? What are you doing here?” He asks. Mingyu walks in at that moment, looking unfairly good in double denim, hair slicked back and cheeks dusted pink from the tepid air outside. Minghao near swoons at the sight of him.
“Dunno but Wonwoo said there’d be food and second hand embarrassment, so.” He shrugs, grinning. “I brought regeneration tea!” Minghao glares at Wonwoo, who returns it with a cocked eyebrow and he turns back to his grimoire with a huff. He hears Mingyu strike up a quiet conversation with Seungcheol and tries not to think about how Mingyu hadn’t even spared him a glance when he’d walked in. He pretends it doesn’t hurt and focuses back on the task at hand. They talk through the ritual twice over, speaking their way through each step so they’re all confident and won’t need to restart it in case someone messes up. It’s not a particularly long ritual but it will be exhausting. Depending on how far they get, it may be impossible to safely restart more than twice. Minghao calls Mingyu over after they’ve confirmed everyone knows what they’re doing and they run him through it.
Once they’re all set and ready to go, the rest of the room clears out - because it’s dangerous for anyone not involved in a ritual to be in the same room - and they are left alone. Jihoon and Wonwoo take their places in the pentagram and Minghao quietly instructs Mingyu where to sit. Mingyu still hasn’t really looked at him outside of a few glances he thought he caught in his peripheral vision but were probably just tricks of the light. He has the sudden, soul-crushing realisation that after tonight Mingyu has no reason to talk to him outside of work-related issues. He can’t even pretend it doesn’t hurt this time.
Mingyu settles and Minghao shakes himself out of it. He can’t afford to be distracted. He grabs the bowl of paste and an unlit green candle and kneels in front of Mingyu, taking the final position. He lights the candle with his own lighter - black with a silver rune carved into it - and settles it in front of him on the part of the pentagram where the outer circle meets the point of the star.
“Give me your hands.” He surprises himself by how steady his voice is. Now that his goal is in front of him he finds it much easier to stay focused. He doesn’t think about how soft the skin of Mingyu’s hands are as he smears the paste across his open palms, quietly instructing him to keep them spread facing upwards for the duration of the ritual. Mingyu nods and Minghao sits back, placing the empty bowl on the floor behind him.
His legs are already cramping familiarly beneath him and he hopes this doesn’t take too long. He looks at Mingyu and sees the anxiety in his posture despite how hard he’s trying to hide it, keeping his back straight and eyes focused on the wall behind Minghao’s head. Minghao sends him a reassuring smile that he doesn’t even look at and lets his eyes flutter shut. His hands naturally find the other two mages without looking and as soon as they lock together he feels stronger with their combined energy and magic. This is always his favourite part of practicing; of spell casting and witchcraft. The undeniable empowerment and momentary feeling of invincibility.
Mingyu shuffles nervously in front of him and he begins. Wonwoo’s magic intertwines with his own, the dark shadow of it wrapping around Minghao’s own - purple, the colour of a healer. Their magic together grows stronger, the channel flowing through their bodies till its overflowing and dizzily wrapping around the circle. Jihoon’s magic bursts forth, a brilliant white of a light mage, and wraps protectively around them both; safety, balance, warmth.
Minghao breathes in magic and starts the incantation. Wonwoo and Jihoon join and their magic glows brighter behind his closed eyelids. The chanting and bursts of magic reach a crescendo and Mingyu’s soul finally flickers to life, a colourful shadow of his figure close enough to Minghao he could reach out and touch it. Minghao directs their magic forward, unhesitating, prodding and poking around, soothing, searching. He finds something, a small black smudge on an otherwise bright and colourful canvas and he directs the magic towards it, changing the incantation and chanting louder until the smudge has melted away into the shadows surrounding them and Mingyu’s soul is left unmarred.
He calls his own magic back into himself as Jihoon and Wonwoo do the same, until it reaches his fingertips and he ceases the incantation. His eyes flicker open to Mingyu staring at him expectantly with a flicker of hope and something unnamed in his eyes.
“Is it gone?” He asks, out of breath even though Minghao was the one doing all the work. Minghao’s head feels heavy and light at the same time, something that means he may have pushed himself just a little too hard. As long as he doesn’t get a nose bleed Jihoon won’t know and he can get away with it.
He breathes in deeply and lets go of the hands still held between his own. “There was no bad luck curse.” He pushes off the ground, legs almost giving out when he stands up too fast. Mingyu stands faster and holds an arm out when Minghao stumbles.
“What? What do you mean? There was nothing?”
Minghao ignores him and reaches for the empty bowl, ready to help clean up until Mingyu gives up and leaves but Jihoon snatches it out of his hands before he can. Go talk this out he mouths and shoos them both out of the room. Wonwoo flicks a hand at the beaded curtain and it melts together into a heavy wooden door and slams shut in his face.
“Real mature!” He yells to nobody. He doesn’t look at Mingyu hovering next to him and heads in the direction of Wonwoo’s bedroom, knowing he wouldn’t get through the living room of meddling friends if he tried to leave.
“Minghao-” Mingyu calls after him.
“There was a small hex.” He blurts, bursting into Wonwoo’s room and flopping onto his bed. Junhui lets out a small hiss and Minghao finally spots him wrapped around the curtain rail where he must have been the whole time. “But it wasn’t the kind of bad luck you thought it was.”
“What kind was it then?” Mingyu asks. He’s hovering awkwardly in front of the closed door, hands hanging limp at his sides. The paste has started to dry and crack at the edges of his palms. Minghao grabs the tissue box off Wonwoo’s desk and hands it out to Mingyu, who takes it gratefully and starts wiping the gunk off his hands.
Minghao closes his eyes and listens to his own heart beating in his skull.
“Mingyu?” He asks in lieu of an answer.
“Yeah?”
“The bad luck…” He starts, swallowing his nervousness. “Does it happen at home too? Or is it just at work?”
Mingyu is quiet for a moment. “It’s the worst at work.”
Minghao nods to himself. “Jeonghan thinks you have a crush on someone at work.” His voice betrays none of his nervousness, something he is immensely thankful for. He hears how Mingyu’s breath stops, just for a moment. Then the bed dips by his knee as Mingyu sits down and Minghao lets his eyes flicker open to catch the panicked expression on Mingyu’s face.
“...And what if he’s right?” Mingyu answers after a painfully long silence. His voice is so small, like he always tries to be. Mingyu is always packing himself up into the smallest spaces, compensating for his loud personality by being as physically unimposing as possible.
Minghao sits up and stays up, even when his head spins and throbs and begs to be laid back down. “Then you should probably do something about it before you put someone in the hospital.”
Mingyu looks over at him and he looks terrified . Minghao feels bad for putting him on the spot; for taking so long to notice; for taking just as long to acknowledge his own feelings. Maybe his friends were right, maybe he is an idiot.
“Are you saying…?” Mingyu asks, eyes darting nervously between Minghao’s, searching for something Minghao is willing to give. He nods minutely and Mingyu’s eyes light up in what he dares call hope.
“Minghao.” he starts. The way he says his name - like it’s important, putting emphasis on every syllable - it makes something bloom in Minghao’s chest, warm and exhilarating. “I really hope I’m reading this right because I tend to jump to my own conclusions a lot and my friends are always telling me I’m like a professional at missing important information-”
Even his rambling is cute. God Minghao is whipped. He can’t help but giggle and Mingyu blushes all the way down to his neck. “Sorry.”
Minghao shakes his head, silently encouraging Mingyu to keep going. He doesn’t think he could stop smiling if he tried. His arm starts cramping a bit from propping his body up so he lifts it, pulling it into his lap-
Mingyu takes a deep breath and says: “I really like you, Minghao, as more than a friend-”
The relief and pure, unadulterated happiness Minghao feels from finally hearing those words is cut off rather abruptly by a low hiss and a sharp sting in the skin of his palm. He screws his eyes shut in pain and tries not to yell out in pain. His hand hovers between his bed and his lap, hidden behind Mingyu’s back as he obliviously powers through his confession.
“- I’ve liked you for an embarrassing amount of time, honestly Seokmin kept telling me I was being dumb but I just couldn’t stop.” Mingyu pauses his rambling for a second to look at Minghao and his giddy smile fades into something more concerned. “Are you... okay? You look a little pale. Did I read the situation wrong or-”
Minghao shakes his head urgently before Mingyu’s face can fall any further, wincing through the heavy sloshing in his skull from magic overexertion. He’ll be damned if he lets Junhui ruin this for him. “No, no you’re fine I like you too it’s just-”
A fresh wave of pain in his hand cuts him off with a whimper and he’s starting to feel a little nauseous.
“Just…?”
“Junhui bit me.”
Mingyu blinks. “What?”
“Junhui.” He swallows thickly. “He bit me. Is currently biting me.” He gestures weakly with his unoccupied hand at where Junhui is currently latched on so tight it’s hard to tell where his arm ends and snake begins.
“Oh my god.” Mingyu’s voice pitches up at least three octaves. “Is he poisonous?”
“Venomous.”
“What?”
“Venomous. Not poisonous.”
“Oh my god is that important right now?”
Minghao shrugs weakly. “I can’t really feel my hand,” He finally answers, “So uh, chances are…” He chuckles even weaker and Mingyu’s starting to look pale now.
“Shitshitshit-” His hands hover over Minghao uncertainly, not touching but urgent to do something . “Wonwoo!” He yells helplessly.
Minghao tries to focus on Mingyu and how pretty he looks in the low light to get his mind off the fact that his entire arm has gone numb and the room has started to sway a little. Junhui is still holding strong, fangs nestled deep in the soft flesh of Minghao’s palm and he swears the little fucker is smirking. Fucking asshole.
Wonwoo bursts through the door as Minghao’s hearing turns muffled and his cackling laughter sounds like it’s miles away.
♤
“At least you didn’t need to go to the hospital?” Mingyu tries, smiling sheepishly at Minghao glaring over the rim of his teacup. The rest of their friends have unanimously agreed to leave them alone in the kitchen while Minghao downs a gallon of regeneration tea and recovers from... literally everything. He’s still trying to figure out if he’s grateful for the alone time or not.
“Shut up.” He barks with no bite. His hand is wrapped just this side of too tight and the sight of it brings back a flood of memories; Mingyu with his hand decorated in blue plasters, puppy dog eyes on full display, leaning close enough to Minghao he could feel the breath on the side of his face as Mingyu had said: kiss it better? He can’t really stop the smile that breaks through his angry facade.
“Sorry.” Mingyu mumbles but he’s smiling too. The worst part is Minghao can’t even really be mad at him. He’s still a little dizzy from the snake bite but his chest feels lighter than ever, a giddiness bubbling below his skin threatening to break free in a happy laugh any second. It mixes with the antivenom pumping through his veins, reversing the worst of Junhui’s ‘mostly non lethal’ venom.
He shakes his head, letting a small giggle slip through. “It’s fine.”
Mingyu smiles so wide that Minghao’s cheeks hurt just looking at it. (But that could also be his own smile, he can’t really tell.)
“What was the curse?” Mingyu asks suddenly.
Minghao’s smile dims just a fraction. “What curse?”
“You said I had a hex, just not the bad luck curse that I thought it was.”
Minghao flushes, smile turning embarrassed. “It was a, uh… it was bad luck but-” He flounders, avoiding eye contact. Mingyu giggles at the sight of it and Minghao lightly swats in his general direction. “It was targeted.” He explains, gesturing uselessly. “Like, specialised I mean, for a certain aspect of life.”
Mingyu is failing to suppress the force of his grin, pointy canines digging into his bottom lip when he asks: “So what was this one for?”
Minghao suspects he already knows the answer. “Your love life.”
If Mingyu’s smile was bright before, it’s absolutely blinding now. Minghao has no idea what he was so scared of. All of his fears and insecurities are washed out in the bright light of Mingyu in his purest form.
“Minghao.” Mingyu says. It sounds like both a question and a beginning. Minghao lets a happy laugh bubble out of the cavity in his chest and Mingyu laughs too. They laugh at nothing and everything; at how insane this whole situation is, at how happy they are that they made it to the other side. (Minghao might also be a little loopy from the venom and whatever Chan put in this tea, but that’s neither here nor there.)
Mingyu hops his chair around the table, the wooden legs scraping loudly against the floor, until he’s sitting directly next to Minghao and their laughter dissolves into giggles, pitching louder when Mingyu nearly topples over when one of the chair legs gets caught between a tile.
“Are you sure you got rid of that curse?” Mingyu laughs and Minghao just grins and shrugs. God he really couldn’t stop smiling even if he wanted to. They go quiet and just look at each other, for a long moment, lost in each other. They’re no longer in Wonwoo’s kitchen, there was never a curse, their friends aren’t in the next room talking about them and there isn’t antivenom pumping through Minghao’s veins. All there is is adrenaline and the anticipation of something more; something new and exciting.
Minghao thankfully has the foresight to move his teacup out of the way as soon as Mingyu starts to lean forwards, elbow brushing over the vacated spot on the table not moments later. Minghao brings his hand up to rest at the back of Mingyu’s neck just as his lips are captured in a kiss sweeter than caramel.
He admits, he’s definitely thought about kissing Mingyu a few times before. He wondered what kind of kisser he would be; maybe clumsy and enthusiastic, as he is with everything in life; maybe a little shy and nervous, unsure of himself because he was so eager for it to be perfect. Once, he imagined Mingyu being an aggressive kisser, controlling and dominating, pushing Minghao against the wall with his hands on his shoulders and hips pressed together.
Mingyu kisses like none of these.
He starts off sweet with careful but confident pecks before Minghao has the sense to reciprocate and opens his mouth just the slightest to make each kiss longer than the last. Then, Mingyu changes. He brings a hand up to Minghao’s jaw and thumbs his bottom lip open further until he can lick into his mouth, filthy and obscene and Minghao can’t help the gasp he lets out at the sudden change. Mingyu grins and laughs at the sound and Minghao accidentally kisses his teeth but he doesn’t care, not about that or the creaking floorboards outside of the kitchen, alerting him of eavesdroppers. He kisses Mingyu back with a fervor he wasn’t aware he was capable of and Mingyu eagerly matches every move of Minghao’s mouth against his own.
It’s not until Mingyu drops a hand to Minghao’s hip, brushing it up under the hem of his shirt, across the skin of his hip and digs his fingers into the soft flesh that Minghao lets out a noise dangerously close to a moan and their friends storm into the kitchen in a body of noise. Mingyu keeps laughing as they’re manhandled out of the kitchen, hand gripping Minghao’s and smile never dropping. Above the yells of disgust and opposing wolf whistles as they’re swiftly kicked out of Wonwoo’s apartment, Minghao catches Mingyu’s sparkling eyes and thinks: How did I get so lucky?