Work Text:
Maybe it was the wording of the ad that made Hoseok ultimately decide to walk down to the forgotten alleyway behind the supermarket that smelled of rotting food and decay, or maybe it was the title itself, Potion Brewer Needed - Apply Within at 1523 N. Webster Ave., or maybe it was just the fact that he doubted anyone else would do it considering that potion brewing had been made obsolete by the rise of medical science. He needed a job so whatever it was that drew him in hardly mattered.
He stands outside of the shop, lost to time, in his dirty converse and ripped backpack. Vines grow around the wooden door, set back in the stone front with a tiny white sign that reads ‘Min Potions and Brews, Est. 1554’ hanging from a crooked nail. The rise of the supermarket on one side and the towering end of the shopping strip on the other blocked essentially all sunlight from reaching the door, allowing mushrooms and fungus to grow around the door, some of the toadstools glowing just enough to be noticeable. There’s an almost magical feeling to the space, but also a creepy one which makes Hoseok reconsider his choice to stop in and ask for an interview. Well, he supposes it’s too late to turn back now. Hoseok gives the door three heavy knocks not even really knowing if he expected an answer so he’s surprised when it opens a fraction right away, a sliver of pale face and one eye peering through the crack.
“What.” A thin voice asks, irritated.
“Uhh… I was looking for Mr. Min.” When the eyeball continues to watch him, unblinking, he continues, “For the ad in the paper. I wanted to inquire about working here.” Hoseok fishes the ad out of his back pocket, holding up in front of the eye, which narrows.
“Come in.” There’s a series of heavy clicks and clangs and then the door opens much wider, showing a short and desperately thin male with pitch black hair hanging into his amber eyes wearing a ratty sweatshirt and jeans. “Don’t touch anything.”
Hoseok gingerly steps inside, noting the sudden increase in temperature and the bubbling and sizzling noises echoing from deeper in the shop, away from this main area full of dusty bottles lining wooden shelves to the absolute maximum in a rainbow of colors, hues, opacities and contents. The building is hardly what anyone would consider ‘well lit’, scarcely a few candles casting tiny spheres of light over the counter and the cobweb ridden cash register. Big logs of herbs and flowers hang from the low rafters, making the place seem cluttered and claustrophobic. Hoseok’s pretty sure he sees a big, fat toad hop across the counter before it disappears into a corner too dark for him to see properly. Some of the bottles, upon closer inspection as he moves into the space, are vibrating, some are glowing, and others are overgrown with fur in varying shades. Hoseok grimaces as he spots a spherical bottle with a wet, twitching tongue lolling from the center.
“This way,” The man directs, heading off to the right and ducking under a short length of curtain, the kind you see in Japanese restaurants. “Sit over there.” He points to a faded, bordering on molded, wooden chair that looks one good sit away from collapsing. Hoseok doesn’t think it can support his weight as the wood creaks under him but it holds. The man then goes to the giant cauldron in the corner, bubbling with pale white liquid and stirs it with a paddle, making the concoction hiss loudly. This back area must be where the potions are made, lined with shelves full of ingredients ranging from ornate crystals to tufts of fur and piles of dirt. The black tail of a cat is peeking out from behind a shelf, twitching and curling, body completely hidden from view. There’s also a chicken in the corner that looks to be sleeping in a pen lined with straw, a cup of seeds under a little red barn that looks to be more of a home for barbie dolls than an actual animal, though it does seem to be big enough for the bird to sit under.
“Who the heck still reads the paper?” The man mutters as he stirs, tapping the excess liquid off the end of his paddle and laying it over the mouth of the cauldron before coming to sit beside Hoseok on a matching rickety chair. “I only have one question for you; are you allergic to cats?”
“No.” Hoseok says, straightening his spine and prepared to give his best first impression because he really needed this job.
“Okay, then. You’re hired.” The man gets off his chair and reaches up onto a high shelf to grab a stout purple bottle, popping the cork and dumping something that looks like tea into his palm.
“What? Are you going to ask me anything else?” Hoseok sits dumbfounded and confused in his chair, watching the man pour the tea into the cauldron.
“No? He asks, sounding a little bit offended. “I don’t care about anything else. As long as you don’t sneeze over everything then you can help me just fine.”
“Uhh...okay. When do I start?”
“Right now. Grab that blue wing for me.” He points over Hoseok’s shoulder to a little shelf lined with bird and bat wings. The feathers are soft under Hoseok’s fingers when he picks it up, noting the way the plumage changes color at the ends. “I said grab it, not examine it.” The man huffs, snatching the object away and tossing it into the frothing liquid, bubbling over the flame.
“What are you making?” Hoseok asks timidly.
“None of your beeswax.” The man replies, hardly threatening when he only came up to Hoseok’s shoulder and he had a generally non threatening, humorous aura about him like a wizened old man. “Just do as I say and don’t ask me questions. I’m not a teacher.” Hoseok nods rapidly, wondering what he had just gotten himself into. “Anyways, I’m making an ocean brew. Makes dirty water clean. Have it on special order for aquariums and such. Big seller.”
Hoseok raises an eyebrow, noting that the man had just very much contradicted himself. There’s a dangly earring in his right ear shaped like a crescent moon. And Hoseok can’t help but notice that he’s rather ghaunt and unhealthy looking with a deathly pale complexion and frail looking limbs. The chicken clucks softly in its sleep while Hoseok sits and waits for orders. “Do you usually make stuff like that?” He asks after the man has done nothing but stand in front of the cauldron and stir for near twenty minutes.
“Industrial stuff. Fixing people’s messes. Make this clean, fix this pipe, want this faster. Cheap excuses for hard work. Disgraceful to my craft. But big sellers. So whatever.” The man scowls as he speaks but it softens by the end and he nods approvingly.
“Does anybody ever stop by the buy things?” Hoseok watches the cat emerge from behind the shelf, slinking along the edge of the room silently.
“Regulars. Shady bunch, the lot of ‘em. Lucky I don’t ask questions. But my silence has a price.” He smiles at that, tiny teeth on display.
“Oh.” Hoseok cringes as he thinks about the type of back alley business he just got himself involved in. “What’s your name? What should I call you?”
The man stops stirring and looks at him, amber eyes almost glowing in the light from the fire. “Huh. You can call me Yoongi. Don’t wear it out.” He goes back to his stirring, humming under his breath.
Hoseok isn’t quite sure what to do after that so he just sits, doing occasional fetching tasks for Yoongi and trying not to step on his silent cat who always showed up near Hoseok’s feet whenever he was going to take a step. As it turns out, Yoongi is quite a nice fellow, and he talks a lot once you get him going, always in short, clipped sentences. As the months go by, Hoseok making a lot of bank for not a lot of work and never seeing one of these ‘regulars’ that Yoongi was always mentioning. By the end of month four he’s gotten quite good at using the mortar and pestle and his new job is to constantly grind dried plants into dust, but he doesn’t mind, especially now that he’s gotten Yoongi to tell him stories while he stands in front of the cauldron and stirs. Some of his favorites are about the cat god and how she came to live amongst the stars and the crocodile who cried fake tears. The shop has become familiar to him now, the ins and outs of where things are and which shelf or drawer contained what things. Yoongi tells him to dust the cobwebs off the bottles in the front and Hoseok stares dejectedly at the endless wall of containers knowing it would probably take him two full days.
He sets about placing the bottles from each section of shelf on the counter one at a time, dusting as he goes and being careful not to drop anything. He finds all manner of strange and sometimes absolutely revolting bottles this way, asking Yoongi about the ones that were of interest. The bottle with pink glittery fluid in it is for making rodents live longer, the one with the eyeball is to restore someone’s sight, the one with the gross tongue -- which flops over Hoseok’s hand when he picks it up and he almost screams -- is for eloquence of speech, the one with the fur is for changing the color of a dog’s coat and the one that vibrates is for improved singing ability. Hoseok hums as he works, listening to the cluck of the chicken and the wet plop of the toad as it wanders, occasionally catching a glimpse of Witch, the black cat, as she patrols the edges of the shop. Hoseok reaches his hand back to grab the last bottle off the shelf, pulling back like he’s been electrocuted when something hard and leathery touches his hand. He holds a candle up to the shelf and stares at the diamond shaped bottle, resting on its side, the pair of bat’s wings attached to it flopping around uselessly. He picks it up gingerly and slides off his stool to show Yoongi, hunched over the cauldron as usual and when he sees it his eyes go wide.
“Where did you find that?” He asks, holding out his sallow palm for it.
“On the back of one of the shelves. Why? What is it?” Hoseok watches him stare at the glass bottle, face devoid of emotion.
“This one is broken. A failed attempt. When I was young and stupid.” Yoongi hands the bottle back to him. “Not for selling. Throw it away.”
“What was it supposed to be?” Hoseok asks, watching the wings flap lethargically.
“Immortality brew. But I didn’t make it right. Now I’m stuck like this. If I could I would try again, but it takes a long time. Have to keep the shop going.”
“How do you know it’s wrong?” Hoseok had never even thought it was possible for Yoongi to make something incorrectly. Everything he’d seen had gone from the cauldron to the bottle to be shipped out from the post office across the street, which was Hoseok’s main job.
Yoongi stares at him as he stirs, “I drank it. I’m a ghoul now, stuck between your world and the next. Cursed to be lonely and hungry forever. I can’t eat food, maybe you’ve noticed. And you’re the closest thing to a friend I’ve had in a long time.”
“I’ve seen you eat before. You eat the rats. Witch brings them to you.” Hoseok scowls, wondering why Yoongi would lie about it. After all the weird things that had happened in the shop he hardly considered Yoongi eating raw rat to be out of the ordinary.
“What? How did you find that out?!” Yoongi stops stirring and glares at him.
“I’m here literally all the time. How could I not notice?” Hoseok rubs his thumb over one of the wings on the bottle, full of blood red liquid.
“Whatever. Speak of it to no one.” Yoongi angrily picks up the paddle again, looking down into his mixture. Ocean brew again, Hoseok can tell just by looking at it.
“Well, maybe I want to try to make this. Would you tell me how?” Hoseok holds up the bottle to inspect it in the severely limited light, but his eyes have grown accustomed to it now and he can see even the darkest corners in perfect clarity.
“No. It’s dangerous.” Yoongi’s eyes flicker up to Hoseok’s defiant ones.
“I want to help you. Tell me how to make this.” He shakes the bottle, wings flopping.
Yoongi lets out a long string of grumbles, “Start with a sprig of fresh lavender, dipped in rose water and dried under the waning gibbous.”
Hoseok smiles and heads for the shelf of plants, kept under a tiny window that let the sunlight in just enough for them to thrive, and picks a stem of purple flowers. The brew itself takes Hoseok months to make under Yoongi’s guidance and he could certainly see how it wouldn’t have been possible for him to do while keeping the shop open and the orders filled. Yoongi tells him new stories every day and he has actually started to smile, like all the way with his gums showing, and as the brew nears its completion Hoseok catches him dancing like a fool on more than one occasion. Yoongi is a very funny man, full of dry wit and crass jokes, and he’s honest for the most part and sometimes he can be cute. Overall, Hoseok finds that he likes Yoongi a lot and he’s gotten so good at making things now that he can’t think what he would do other than work at the brewery for the rest of his life. So when the day comes that his creation is finished Yoongi stands in front of it, hands on his hips, inspecting the little vial of shimmering golden liquid, much unlike the blood red contents of the bottle with wings.
“Wow….You did it right. I’m impressed.” His eyes flicker from Hoseok’s face to the vial and back again, “Well, go on, drink it.”
Hoseok smiles, “I want you to have it. I’ll make myself another one next summer.”
“What? Oh, no. You don’t have to stay here. I only needed help until I could finish the summer orders.” Yoongi shakes his head rapidly.
“Maybe I want to stay anyways.” Hoseok counters, a wry grin pulling at his lips. “Now drink this before I force it down your throat.”
Yoongi narrows his eyes, grumbling. He tips back the vial, smacking his lips and grimacing. “That shit is horrible.”
For some reason Hoseok collapses on the floor at that, Witch pouncing on him from where she was watching his feet. She bats at his face before skittering away and Hoseok nearly cracks his ribs from laughing so hard. Yoongi smiles at Hoseok’s contagious giggles, the sallow, unhealthy quality of his skin growing fainter by the minute and replaced with a rosy, human glow. Hoseok could never leave this place, could never leave Yoongi, could never leave the toad or the chicken or Witch, even though she still hated him. And twelve months later, when Hoseok finishes making his own immortality brew he downs it in one gulp and ends up grimacing in much the same way that Yoongi had because it really did taste like a combination of the top ten worst things imaginable.
“Told you.” Yoongi says, grinning with half a sandwich in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. Hoseok turns to look at him and, without thinking, plants a kiss right on his unsuspecting mouth. “What the heck was that for?” He grumbles, blushing red as a tomato.
“None of your beeswax.”