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Magic is what you do to make the outcome you desire become reality.
If that's true, Asra has been doing magic since before he could even write his own name. Magic, after all, is really just a matter of willpower.
(He might not have a family, or a fortune, or even just plain luck—but willpower? That he has in spades.)
Cold, alone, and abandoned on the streets, a dirty little ragamuffin thinks: I won't die. I'll survive.
And he does.
He fights for every scrap—whether food, cloth, or kindness—thrown his way.
I earned this, he thinks, stuffing his mouth with hardened day-old bread. I earned this, he thinks, fashioning a scarf from scavenged cloth to ward off the chill. I earned this, he thinks, counting out coins from a pocket discreetly picked.
When he learns magic-magic, it's much the same. Every charm he studies to cast successfully, every spell he burns countless herbs to get right, every fleeting glimpse of the future he gleans from hours upon hours upon hours of listening to the cards, Asra thinks: I earned this, I earned this, I earned this.
(Magic is really just a matter of willpower, and Asra is a very willful person indeed.)
But when he meets you, when he—whether by accident or windfall or some kind of cosmic justice—somehow endears himself to you, all Asra can think is: did I earn this?
(Every smile, every touch, every kiss, every scrap of affection you deign to bestow on him—Asra questions how he earned it, if he even did at all.)
Like when he drops by your shop to see you, riding on the flimsiest of excuses, and you give him a smile that could be magic in itself.
"And what did I do to earn such a welcome?" he asks when you run out from behind the counter to envelop him in a tight hug. It's said in jest, but part of him really does wonder.
(And a smaller, more frightened-little-kid part of him fears: if he didn't earn this, will it get taken away?)
But you don't hesitate, don't falter—you only squeeze him tighter as your eyes twinkle with amusement.
"Nothing," you say, still smiling at him. "You were just being you."
Bewildered: "And?"
Your eyes soften. "And that's more than enough for me."
Asra's heart gives one loud thump beneath his ribcage, but if you notice, you make no comment as you lean in to kiss him.
(Could love even be earned? he wonders. Could happiness?)
Maybe it doesn't matter.
As your fingers tug insistently at his hair to urge him closer, as his hands find themselves pulled by something like gravity to rest on your waist, as the feel of your mouth against his makes him stop caring that you're still standing at the open doorway in plain view of all Vesuvia, Asra thinks: maybe it's you who's doing the magic.
Maybe he didn't earn this. Maybe he doesn't have to.
(Maybe—just maybe—you want this new, bright, tentative thing between you to be your reality, too.)
And if it makes you as profoundly happy as he feels in this moment, well—couldn't that only be a good thing?
Asra is a magician; of course he believes in magic.
But you—you with your warm hands at the back of his neck, you with your quiet, huffing chuckle as you pull away, you with your dazzling magic and disarming smile and a glimmer of something in your eyes that could be I love you, given time—
—you make him believe in miracles.