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Yoongi traced with his fingertips along the elegant lines and curves of the words, following their flow on the pages of the ancient and yellowed tome, and murmuring each one of them in a soft, raspy, voice.
The ink was gleaming under the moonlight, pulsating of an iridescent light that made it look almost alive, as it probably was, somehow, imbued of so much arcane knowledge and jealously kept family secrets.
Yoongi smiled as he watched the words quiver at the touch of his finger. The Min’s Ancient Tome of Magic was the most prized and precious heirloom of his clan. Started at least a thousand years ago by their founder, and passed down generation by generation. Each individual contributing with his own special touch with everything from potions to spells, before leaving it into the hands of the next generation.
Seeing this powerful and ancient treasure recognize him as the rightful heir and warmly welcome him every time he browsed its pages was a sight Yoongi would never stop feeling secretly happy about.
He never told his mother or grandma, but he often talked to the object whenever he felt insecure or undeserving of his title or heritage. After all, being chosen as the protector of the Tome instead of his older brother had certainly been something unexpected for both the boy and the rest of his family.
It caused a bit of a general panic when everyone found out that the second born’s name had, one night, magically appeared on the book, right under his mother’s name on the page of the Chosen Heirs of the Min’s clan.
This way, quiet, aloof, Yoongi had ended up becoming the unexpected heir, instead than charming and skilled Yoonchul, who had studied all his life to fit the role.
To the young boy’s surprise, his older brother had, for this unpredictable event, the most relieved and happy reaction among his kin, for he had always wished to see the world and learn about human society more than anything else.
He gladly left the Tome and its responsibility to Yoongi and left the coven not more than a week later, with a bag on his shoulder and a bright smile on his lips.
Yoongi had to learn everything he possibly could about advanced magic and the responsibility his title brought to his daily life. It had been hard at the beginning, being thrown into all that so suddenly, growing insecure and a bit resentful day by day, but then, with time, he gradually started accepting his role and his new life.
And there he was, a few years later, always as quiet and aloof as his younger years, but now a little more mature, a little more experienced, and a lot more patient.
After all, renewing the protection spells on the perimeter of every property of his clan had always been one of his most dull duties. It was important, of course, he couldn’t possibly let orcs, evil spirits, or, worse, humans , roam free on their territories. But yes, it was a rather tiresome and boring job.
At least he had the Tome with him to keep him company and cheering him up with his dancing letters and their warm familiar glow.
Yoongi took another step on the perimeter of the garden he was currently re-enchanting. His feet stepped lightly on the dried out grass, its creaking sound increasing the eerily sense of neglect that propriety was in.
It was an old abandoned three-stories mansion that used to belong to a, now extinguished, branch of the Min clan. Its structure was now a bit crooked and eerie, with a couple of holes in the roof and a huge amount of dirt on what had once been pristine white walls.
The residual magic in the air was still quite strong though, and that, probably, was what was actually preventing the structure from falling into itself and crumbling to pieces.
It was such a pity, really, to leave that thing in such condition, but in the course of centuries, clan Min grew considerably smaller in numbers, causing the neglect of more and more houses and other properties.
After the sudden spike in human technology many of them, like his older brother, had chosen to abandon their magical roots to live amongst the modern wonders and huge metal and glass towers of the human cities.
But, in special cases, as with that mansion, the human cities came to them. And that was, unfortunately, the main reason he had to work so hard that night. More and more human buildings had been built all around the property during the expansion of the nearest city and now it required even more care and attention to protect it from snooping and nosy human busybodies.
Fortunately for the magical folks, the humans who actually managed to accidentally discover bits and pieces of their culture weren’t taken seriously by the rest of their kind. ‘We have to bless the cynical materialism of human society for this.’ his grandma always said.
Yoongi accidentally walked over a small branch, scaring a couple of critters who jumped hurriedly out of the way. The young man kept whispering the incantation under his breath. He had almost finished the perimeter, just a little bit more and he could finally go to sleep for the evening.
A sudden cry in the distance broke him from his trance and he quickly shoots up his face in that direction, before cursing into his mind and hurriedly resuming the incantation chant. He shouldn’t get distracted like that during a ritual spell, the flow of the world was important in magic and mistakes related to that were a real headache to undo.
And, after all, it was only a couple of drunkards walking down the street and screaming some sort of folk song of their kind at the top of their lungs. Nothing to worry about, really.
Yoongi finished the incantation with a sigh. Feeling the magical barrier immediately strengthen. He closed the Tome with care and lazily paced back to the entrance of the mansion, curiously glancing over the fence at the strangely dressed people walking by the street.
A couple of them were dressed in robes, like him. But they looked somehow… cheap? Made of a terrible shiny and colorful material that hurt his eyes and every wizard’s sense of style.
Another one just had a huge white sheet over his body, with two holes for the eyes. And... was that other one dressed as a huge orange?
Yoongi frowned, thinking of Yoonchul wearing something like that. Was this the new fashion these days? He pitied his brother.
Without giving it a second thought he opened the old entrance door with a small gesture of his hand. The interior was as gloomy and eerie as the outside, even if, thanks to Yoongi’s cleaning spells of the day before, it was a lot nicer than when he’d first arrived.
The mansion in itself was actually quite lovely if one could take the time to renovate it from scratch. Of course, nothing that a couple of days and a handful of spells couldn’t fix.
In fact, if it wasn’t for its poor location in the city’s suburbs, Yoongi would have gladly taken it as a secondary residence, for whenever he needed a bit of time off from the mess of the Min’s clan main villa.
Shuffling his feet on the old wooden floor, the young wizard navigated through the darkly lit foyer and tiredly made his way towards the main staircase. A high but quite narrow corridor welcomed him to the first floor. On both sides, a good number of paintings were hanged on both walls, arranged in a family tree of some sorts. Elegant magically painted branches linked each portrait in an intricate way, their leaves gently moving to an invisible breeze.
At his passage the many faces captured on the canvases curiously turned to him, some of them waving happily with their nicely painted hands and some others just staring sternly at the young wizard.
Yoongi smiled a little and gave a slight nod in passing. He was way too tired to stay and chat with the paintings that evening. They didn’t seem to mind too much though, as it was quite late into the night and most of them were asleep.
Yoongi couldn’t really blame them for talking his ears off the day before, after all, they branch had completely extinguished or moved away and it had been almost a year since they last had the company of someone other than each other.
He stopped in front of an old embellished oak door that obediently opened for him once it saw him approaching, eager to finally open for a living soul.
He dodged his open suitcase on the floor and slumped on the large mahogany bed in the middle of the room. He sighed against the comforter, further relaxing his muscles on the fluffy and comfy surface.
Without even changing his robes, he felt himself sliding into a deep slumber.
Yoongi woke up with a start at the loud shrill of a scream, trying to quickly blink his sleepiness away by zeroing onto his surroundings.
There was nothing wrong in the room, all his things were in place and exactly as he remembered them to be. His staff, the book, his suitcase, a couple of robes thrown haphazardly on a chair, the little rows of potions he left on the table…
A second scream cut into the silence of the night, making Yoongi turn around in the direction of the window, where the long and thin curtains were swaying gently in the nightly breeze.
He quickly took out his pocket watch and glanced at the curled numbers under the little hands of the clock. It was 4 AM. Way too late into the night for things like that. He just hoped it wasn’t something dangerous or terribly urgent, with less than an hour of sleep he felt more like a rock than a skilled magician head of his clan.
Yoongi quietly got out of the bed and tiptoed over the old wood, trying to make as little noise as possible. He moved aside the curtains and peeked outside, mentally recalling every protection or dueling spell he remembered and praying the fates he wouldn’t need to use them.
The garden around the house looked glum and sleepy, as if nothing more than the chill October breeze and Yoongi himself were awake. Even the animals felt strangely quiet.
And then he saw it .
In the center of the garden, between the branches of an old secular oak tree, there was a huge squirming shadow, shaking and wriggling around like a trapped beast.
Yoongi tried his best not to let out an embarrassing high-pitched scream, successfully closing his own mouth with his free hand at the last second to drown the sound.
He must have had somehow managed to fuck up the protection spell a few hours ago, probably because of the drunkards of before, leaving a weak spot in the barrier. But how that thing had found the crack into the enchantment and sneaked inside was beyond of him.
Without giving him time to properly panic, the shadow screamed again, but this time, it didn’t really feel like a scream. More like a...
Yoongi frowned and squinted harder, trying to determine the nature of the creature.
Because what he previously thought to be a scream now sounded like a… mewl ? A squeaky, desperate and graceless mewl.
He quietly murmured a spell under his breath and a fluctuating blue ball of light materialized right from the ground next to the tree, before slowly floating upwards towards the strange shadow.
Once its whole figure was enveloped in the cold light of the ghostly fire, Yoongi immediately relaxed his shoulders and gave a big sigh, feeling an incoming headache making its way.
He pushed with his hands against the windowsill to stand upright again before lazily shuffling down the stairs, not bothering to quicken his pace. That creature was not going to go anywhere anyway, and neither Yoongi’s eyebags tomorrow, apparently.
He ignored the curious questions and glances from the portraits and made his way out of the front door and into the garden. With a quick glance he assessed that, yes, the figure was still where he had last left it, and no, the situation didn’t look any better from over there.
Because the creature that was currently stuck on that poor old tree was a human boy, of roughly Yoongi age or maybe a bit younger, mewling gracelessly and shaking like crazy, tightly holding onto the wobbling branches like his life depended on it.
His features were pretty soft for a male, and Yoongi got lost for a moment in the plumpness of his lips, before taking in the tasteless way in which he was dressed. Baby pink thin upperwear, tucked into a pair of black trousers that had more holes than fabric, and a strange headband that seemed to loosely reproduce a pair of cat ears, clumsily placed over his pastel pink hair. He also had no shoes on and more than a couple of scratches on his arms and clothes.
The pretty human was currently staring at the ghostly light Yoongi had conjured a few minutes before like it was going to pull out a set of teeth and eat him alive, which it perfectly could, of course, but the boy didn’t need to know that. Not when he outright started hissing at the thing and mewling even harder as it got closer.
Yoongi sighed again, deciding to intervene before things got out of hand and his will ‘o’ wisp could take offense and decide that eating the human was more fun than twirling around him as it was currently doing.
The wizard whistled once and the spirit floated back obediently in his direction, making the human notice his presence at last. He froze for a second, before squinting his eyes and almost losing his hold on the branches. He wobbled a bit in panic before turning his attention towards Yoongi again and giving him a big, stupid, and flirty grin.
“So handsome, my prince ~ ”
Yoongi blinked. “Excuse me…?”
The boy leaned towards him with glossy eyes, fumbling on his precarious balance. He pouted in what Yoongi felt was supposed to be a cute way and frowned in confusion. “Aren’t you here to save Diminie?”
Yoongi glared at the intruder and pressed his lips together. “What I’m here for, kid, is to escort you to the exit and make damn sure you won’t come back.”
The boy waved his arms around, catching himself again at the last second before he could plummet like a sack of bricks on the ground. “You can’t do that! Diminie likes it here, Diminie is a cat and cats love trees.”
Running on less than an hour of sleep, Yoongi was starting to lose his patience. He threw the boy an icy glare and crossed his arms.
“Well, this tree here doesn’t like cats. You should find another one to climb.”
The pretty boy’s eyes filled with tears, making Yoongi even more uncomfortable. An inebriated and lost human? That he could do. But an inebriated, lost and crying human? That was way out of his comfort zone.
The boy sniffed loudly between tears. “But! Diminie can’t get down! He was waiting for his prince to save him!”
Yoongi groaned and sighed for the umpteenth time that hour. “I highly doubt you need a prince to get down, that would be highly impractical for cats and humans all over the world, and, furthermore, I don’t happen to have one in my suitcase so we’ll have to do without it.”
The boy giggled. “You’re so funny. You’re the only one here, right? And you’re handsome. So you’re my prince! See ? You even made the evil ghost go away!”
Yoongi didn’t ‘see’ anything but he was too damn tired to argue with someone whose mind, clearly, wasn’t completely present at the moment. He pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “Can’t you just, I don’t know, jump off of there somehow?”
The human shook his head vehemently, his soft looking pink hair following the movement. “Diminie is scared!”
“Ok, shit. I’m going to levitate you down from there. Just stay put, ok? If you move too much you’re gonna fall on your face and I’m not taking responsibility for that, understood?”
The human frowned cutely in confusion. “You’re gonna what?”
“Not important, just… Try to stay still now.”
Yoongi murmured something and the boy’s clothes and hair started fluctuating around, as if they were completely submerged in water. The wizard flicked two fingers, concentrating his energy to lift up the body from the tree but a sudden scream of the human and the unexpected resistance of his limbs on the branches made him wince and let go.
The boy was now full on crying, holding onto the branches with a death grip. The ghost light was trembling in the air and Yoongi was pretty sure it was laughing at them. Yoongi sighed and leveled the will ‘o’ wisp with an icy glare before turning once again towards the human boy.
“Listen, kid, if you don’t let go of the damn tree when I lift you up, you’ll never move from there, understand?”
“But it’s scary! I don’t wanna fall!”
Yoongi scoffed. “You will fall if you don’t do as I say. I can assure you of that.”
At this, the boy’s sobs turned even louder. Yoongi wanted to die. Or fireball the human out of existence, possibly, but that wasn’t really a choice, as he strongly doubted the oak the boy was on would approve of such markings on his bark.
He took a deep breath, trying to scold his features into a kind and friendly smile. “Look, I’m just trying to help you. It’s cold out here, don’t you want to go home to your fireplace?”
The boy sniffed. “... I don’t have a fireplace.”
Yoongi nodded condescendingly. “Ok, then whatever your kind uses to warm things up.”
The boy looked pensive for a moment. “A microwave?”
“Yes, a maigowaif , don’t you wanna warm yourself up in your maigowaif ?”
“But my brain will fry!”
“Why do you humans… Ok, I don’t even wanna know. Just, trust me on this and let go of the tree when I lift you up this time, okay?”
The boy looked a little scared, still, but nodded silently.
Yoongi mumbled the spell a second time and, after a long moment of hesitation, the human boy finally let go of the branches and started fluctuating in the air. He waved his arms and legs around, uneasily trying to deal with the sudden lack of gravity. He looked as baffled as a fish in mid-air and Yoongi couldn't suppress a chuckle.
Just for fun, the wizard made him twirl around a little in the air, prompting a series of high pitched screams of terror from the human, before gently putting him on his feet on the grass, where the boy took a dizzy step forward and fell straight on his face.
In retrospect, maybe Yoongi should have made him land in a sitting position but, in his defense, half of his brain cells were asleep and the other half dead tired from the previous days of spellcasting.
The boy didn’t seem to mind too much, as he was somehow giggling face down in the dirt. Yoongi honestly wasn’t sure if it was due to the alcohol or if it was what they called ‘normal teenage human behavior’.
Yoongi dismissed the will ‘o’ wisp with a gesture of his hand, letting it return to the ground. The boy was a human, sure. And a big piece of hassle. But he seemed too out of it to really pose a threat or to even tend properly to himself.
The young wizard took a couple steps closer to the boy, crouching down next to his, now strangely still, body.
“Kid? You alright there?”
After a short silence, Yoongi hesitantly poked him on the shoulder. No reaction.
“You’re not dead, are you..? Weren’t you, like, giggling ‘till a minute ago?”
After another couple of unsuccessful pokes, Yoongi grew bolder and shook his shoulder vehemently. He really didn’t want to have human guards poking around the propriety for a missing person.
They couldn’t see the house of course, due to the enchantment that made the entire lot invisible and impossible to find, but that night it failed him already once and Yoongi hadn’t enough energy to redo the entire spell from the beginning to cover the mistake.
But the boy wasn’t moving and Yoongi had started to panic, until he heard a soft noise coming from the body.
He quickly rolled him on his back and leaned closer. As he did that the soft noise of before grew louder and a rowdy snore filled the silence of the garden.
Yoongi swore under his breath and actually contemplated fireballing the boy this time before sighing and getting up, his tired libs and nerves screaming for mercy.
It was going to be a long night.
Yoongi stirred the scoop three times clockwise, added a handful of peppermint leaves, and stirred again twice in the other direction.
The morning light was already filtering through the thick dark curtains that covered the windows of the living room, but the faded glow of the autumn sun, growing weaker day by day, was still too energetic for Yoongi at that hour.
He paused his work to yawn tiredly in front of the small cauldron that was hanging precariously over the flames of the rather large fireplace on one side of the room. The potion had a dull green color and various pieces of herbs were floating around the concoction. It was almost done, he just had to add the bark and the frogs now.
“Did you kidnap me?”
A shaky voice made him jump a little on his feet, and turning around he found the pretty human from the night before eye him wearily. He was lying on the old couch in the center of the room, his body curled up in a ball under a thick blanket.
Yoongi scoffed at his words and turned towards the cauldron once again. “You finally woke up. How are you feeling?”
Yoongi still wasn’t sure why he hadn’t dropped his drunk ass on the streets a few hours before, and instead took him and let him crash on the couch. Maybe it was because the boy's shirt looked really thin and cold, or maybe some kind of selfless ghost possessed him. Who knew.
“I feel like shit, thank you very much, but you didn’t answer my question. Have I been kidnapped?”
Talk about being grateful. Yoongi sighed.
Three stirs clockwise. A piece of white willow bark. Two stirs anticlockwise.
“Well, judging from your loquacity, you’re pretty much fine and ready to go now.”
Yoongi turned around and scanned the room for a pewter container. Where did he put it?
The boy sat up from his lying position with a confused expression on his face, the blanket that was covering him up gently sliding down his torso. “Going where?”
But maybe he got up a bit too quickly for his hangover body, because he squeaked weakly just a second later: “Oh God, I think I need to puke.”
Yoongi’s eyes zeroed in terror on the bowl the human had just grabbed from the small table on the side of the old couch. “Wait! Don’t do it into that pewter-”
The young wizard cringed at the sight of the boy hunched over the object, emptying his stomach on his unfortunate, and rather pricey , ingredients.
“...container.”
Yoongi was trying very hard, for the third time, not to fireball that annoying creature into oblivion, when said boy screamed in disgust after noticing the original content of the bowl. “Are these intestines? Oh my fucking god , I was taken by a serial killer.”
Yoongi rolled his eyes and unhooked the cauldron from the fireplace, before throwing a glare into the direction of the couch. “Would you, please, stop with the kidnapping thing? And those are frog’s guts, in case you wanted to know. I needed them for your hangover remedy.”
The boy shuddered and shook vehemently his head in disgust. “I am not eating that.”
Placing the cauldron on a piece of cloth over the small table between the couch and an old armchair, Yoongi sighed. “Of course you aren’t, you puked all over my ingredients.”
“Why do you even have those in the first place! And who are you? And why am I-” The boy’s eyes widened in realization before he shamefully sank his face into his hands, bumping over his strange and fluffy artificial cat-ear headband.“Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...”
Yoongi grinned at his misery. It was childish, yes, but the boy was ultimately the cause of his current headache and lack of sleep so he felt at least obliged to do so.“You remember now?”
The boy peeked from between his fingers. “Please, tell me I didn’t…”
Yoongi expertly poured the content of the cauldron through a filter and into a finely decorated Chinese mug. “If you mean trespassing on a private property, getting stuck on a tree and mewling your heart out at 4 am… Yes, you kind of did.”
“Ok, I’m- I’m so terribly sorry for that. I was drunk out of my mind and alcohol tends to make me go a little crazy and I was at this party, you know, and Taehyung dared me to try this strange mix of vodka and-”
Yoongi walked around the table and handed him the mug. “Drink this. For your hangover.”
The boy accepted it into his small hands but peered at the dull green liquid with suspect and a pinch of fear. “What is that? More dead frogs?”
The young wizard shook his head and poured from a second small cauldron with a slightly different colored liquid a mug for himself, before slouching tiredly on the armchair in front of the couch. “Just herbs. The frogs were just for taste, it’s a little bland without them.”
The boy gave him a suspicious look. “It’s not poison, right?”
Yoongi lifted an eyebrow and took a sip of his tea. “If I wanted to get rid of you that way I would have done it while you were busy snoring.”
“You... have a point.”
“Besides, you’re the real criminal here. I’m just a poor soul who offered a couch and a warm fireplace to a trespasser, instead than kicking him out of my property like every sane person would have done in my place.”
The boy nodded shamefully, lowering his gaze to the mug in his hands and biting his lower lip. “...Another good point.”
He hesitantly brought the thing close to his lips and took a sip, tasting the flavor on his tongue before scrunching his nose. “You’re right, it’s kind of bland.”
“Told you. Do you want some sugar in it?”
The boy looked a bit surprised at the offer, but he nodded nonetheless, handing him back the mug over the table.
While Yoongi went through his ingredients in search for the right glass container, he heard the human cough awkwardly behind him.
“So. Nice house, I guess? You live here alone?”
Yoongi chuckled, generously adding a couple spoonful of sugar and a pinch of chili powder to the boy’s mug, before giving it back to him. “Are you trying to make conversation now?”
Jimin took the mug back with a polite nod, cheek as rosy as the baby pink color of his hair. He was indeed quite pretty. “Well, I feel a bit bad about last night. And, even if you kinda look like it, I doubt you’re actually a serial killer, so…”
He took a gulp and his eyes immediately brightened. “It’s a lot better, actually. It’s sweeter but also tastier? Did you put something else in it?”
Yoongi nodded. “I added a bit of chili powder to give it a little kick, it’s the next best thing after frogs for this kind of healing tea.”
“Hell, I’m just halfway through and I feel better already. You should commercialize this. You’d make tons of money from drunk people all over the world. Just, leave the frogs out of it though, that’s just weird.”
The boy chuckled to himself, before smiling brightly into Yoongi’s direction. “Anyway, I’m Jimin.”
The wizard took a moment longer than necessary to register what the boy had just said. “I thought your name was Diminie.”
Jimin groaned, shutting his eyes and hiding his bright cheeks behind his mug. “Can you, please , forget about that? Or everything else I said last night, really.”
Yoongi snickered and lifted an eyebrow, leaning towards Jimin’s direction with a teasing smile on his lips. “Like the fact that you called me your ‘ handsome prince’ ?”
“Oh god. Please erase it from your memories. Delete it. Burn it and throw away the ashes. ”
Yoongi gasped in fake shock. “So I’m not handsome anymore? You hurt me, Diminie.”
Jimin shook his head, his fluffy pink locks following the movement. “That’s… not the point. I-”
“I’m Yoongi.” The wizard’s grin then melted into a warm smile, his nose scrunching a bit and his gums on full show.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Yoongi saw Jimin holding his breath for a moment and emitting a little ‘oh’ before nervously looking away, cheeks still as red as before. The boy was about to combust and Yoongi found that really fucking adorable . Maybe not throwing him out had been a good decision, after all.
If Yoongi had to be honest, he was still pretty much weary of humans, but he couldn’t help but be a little curious about them, now. Or maybe it was just because of that strange pretty boy currently squirming on his couch.
Jimin’s kind had been hunting them for generations, fueled by their own ignorance, envy, and fear. They used their religions as an excuse to wipe out entire covens, one after the other. It didn’t matter if they were necromancers or healers. They were still an abomination to the eyes of their gods.
But when technology arrived everything changed for the better, it got harder to hide, yes, but people gradually forgot about them, believing them to be just another old fairy tale from the past. Yoonchul once told him that some humans believed them to be green skin monsters who flew on broomsticks, which was rather ridiculous in Yoongi’s opinion, but Yoonchul just found it extremely funny.
What would his dear older brother say if he knew that a few years down the road his grumpy little sibling would take pity of a human, help him, and find himself willing to learn more about him and their kind? His mother would be horrified, of course, but Yoonchul? He’d be so fucking proud.
Yoongi smiled wistfully to himself, gaze lost somewhere far away into his past, before taking another sip of his tea and returning his attention to Jimin.
“About your previous question, my family owns this house but I don’t really live here. It’s… kind of a temporary thing. Just a couple of days, until I finish my business here.”
Jimin put down his empty mug on the table, before adjusting again the blanket on his legs and nodding in thought. “It’s... quite an eccentric choice of interior, I have to say.”
“Really? It’s a bit dusty and old, and there’s a couple of holes in the attic, but other than that I find it pretty normal.”
Jimin giggled. “Well, you find normal putting frog intestines into your herbal hangover tea, so I shouldn’t really be surprised.”
“I would have powered them before putting them in but, yeah. I guess your kind does have different recipes from ours.”
The boy frowned. “Is your family, like, Mormon or something? Or hippie, I don’t know.” He hurriedly waved his hands in front of him, eyes wide. “I mean, my roommate is into some pretty strange shit and I love him to bits anyway, so I’m not judging. I’m just curious, I guess?”
Yoongi felt a bit lost. Meremon? Ippy? “I’m... not quite sure what you mean.”
“It’s because you look like you live in another world. It’s pretty cool, though? I feel like I ended up in a coven of witches or in a haunted mansion.”
Yoongi frowned. “But you did.”
“I... did what?”
The wizard put down his own mug on the table next to Jimin’s while throwing a confused glance at his guest. “I thought we were already over this. Didn’t you remember what happened last night? And I don’t mean you embarrassing yourself. I think that part’s pretty clear.”
Jimin licked his lips and scrunched his nose. “I was... drunk, and a bit high, frankly. I’m pretty sure I even saw a ghost last night so my memories are not exactly reliable . I mean, it was Halloween and all but a ghost ? That’s a bit much.”
Yoongi nodded calmly. “You mean the blue floating flame, right? It’s a will ‘o’ wisp. It’s more of a spirit than a ghost. A conscious being made of magic. Ghosts are a bit different.”
The boy’s eyes were as large as an owl’s now. He clenched his fists into the blanket, opening his mouth a few times before actually managing to speak. “How did you know what I saw? It couldn’t… It couldn’t really be there, right?”
“It was. I called it.”
Jimin almost yelled. “You what!?”
Yoongi blinked, not even fazed by the boy’s reaction. “Well, I thought you were a dangerous animal.”
“In Busan!?”
“You’d be surprised if you knew what kind of beasts crawl in big human settlements. All kind of nasty creatures.”
Jimin gaped. “I’m trying to decide if you ’re crazy or if I am, because I’m actually listening to you.”
Yoongi chuckled. “Wanna see something really crazy then?”
Yoongi flickered two fingers up and from the cauldron near the fireplace a spiral of water rose into the air, floating gracefully in front of Jimin until it formed a perfect sphere of water.
The boy was paralyzed, watching the object with wide eyes and mouth agape. He was quite a funny sight and Yoongi couldn’t help a soft chuckle from escaping his lips. “Try touching it.”
“It’s not going to kill me, right?”
Yoongi shrugged. “Can’t promise you that.”
Jimin threw him a dirty glare and the wizard laughed in amusement at his angry pout. “I’m kidding! It’s just water, Diminie. Nothing to be afraid of.”
After blushing prettily at the use of the nickname, Jimin extended one hand in front of the sphere and poked lightly on its surface. The water started turning around itself, like it had been caught into a tornado, before taking the shape of a cat.
Yoongi didn’t know why the human walked around with a feline-shaped headband but, judging from his charmed expression, he really seemed to like those animals. He mentally congratulated himself for choosing that form for his little prestidigitation show.
The cat walked in the air until he reached Jimin’s hand, sniffing it with apparent curiosity. It then gave a little lick at his fingers, making the boy giggle.
“It’s… so pretty.” He tried to pat the little animal’s head, but when his fingers dived right into the creature he jumped a little on the couch for the surprise.
Yoongi smiled. “As I told you, it’s just water.”
Jimin retracted his hand, watching his fingers in amazement. “I touched it, but I’m not wet?”
“It’s because I’m controlling every drop. I can change its shape whenever I want, but also what gets wet and what doesn’t.”
The cat swished its tails and jumped into the air, its forms thinning and losing its shape before turning again into a long spiral of water that dived back into the cauldron.
Yoongi chuckled at the amazed expression on Jimin’s face. “How did you like that, kid?”
Jimin jumped from the couch in excitement. “It was amazing! Oh my god! How did you do that? Can you teach me?”
Yoongi blushed a little at the human boy’s praises. “It’s a simple enchantment, it’s usually used as a cleaning spell, but it’s quite entertaining as a party trick too. I can do this kind of thing because my people are connected to the magic energy of this world.”
Jimin nodded energetically, drinking in his every word.
Yoongi felt a sudden pang of guilt hit him. Maybe presenting this world to someone who couldn’t actively take part in it could be a little cruel. He hadn’t really thought about it.
He frowned, scratching the back of his neck. “I can’t teach you though, because you’re human. Sorry, kid.”
The wizard saw the boy visibly deflate for a second but before he could apologize again Jimin gasped and brought a hand to his mouth. “So you did actually make me fly last night, right?”
Yoongi laughed. “Yes, I’m glad you remember now.”
Jimin waved his hands towards a couple of dusty bookshelves that covered entirely one of the walls of the room. “And all those books? Are those about magic too?”
“Well, not everything, but I guess a good chunk is based on it.”
Yoongi sighed and shook his head, a small smile on his lips. “I thought you’d be more freaked out than this, honestly.”
Jimin run a hand through his pink locks, momentarily distracting Yoongi.“Are you kidding me? I met an actual wizard the night of Halloween, a magical water cat licked my hand and now I learn that there’s way more to the universe than what the rest of society thinks. I’ve never been more freaked out in my entire life, Yoongi.”
He took a moment to take a deep breath and calm down. “But it’s like, a positive freak out? Because this is the third coolest thing ever after contemporary dance and cats.”
The boy looked pensive for a second before shaking his head vehemently. “I would have said alcohol too, but I’m not drinking till next year after what happened last night.”
“Just, what’s aloueen ? You keep saying that. Is it some kind of human traditional festivity? Is it connected to your strange cat shaped headband?”
Jimin gave him a surprised look. “You really don’t know?”
Yoongi coughed in embarrassment. “We don’t really meddle with humans more than necessary, so there are a lot of peculiarities of your culture that we ignore. It’s kind of a two-way street, I guess, because humans generally believe we’re just old stories and legends.”
Jimin hummed in thought, before plopping down again onto the couch, making a little cloud of dust in the still air of the room. He had quite a determined look on his face and the wizard couldn’t help but grow a bit nervous.
“Yoongi?”
“...Yes?”
“Let’s make a deal.”
The wizard frowned, taking in the image of that strange human. Looking all soft and pretty on that dusty couch, but with a glint of fire in his eyes.
“A… deal, you say? About what?”
“About us. About knowledge, and curiosity and all that jazz.”
“All that what?”
“It’s just a human figure of speech. Not the point now. What I mean is, let’s share our worlds. I’ll show you mine and you’ll show me yours.”
Yoongi eyed him wearily. “... Is this some kind of traditional human mating ritual? Because I think you’re moving way too fast here.”
Jimin rolled his eyes but a soft pink blush appeared on his cheeks. “I didn’t mean it like that, c'mon! I’ll teach you everything you ever wanted to know about our culture, absolutely everything . In exchange, you could let me know more about yours, and your cleaning spells and your crazy magical daily life.”
Yoongi felt a bit taken aback. This was new, exciting and possibly the most dangerous thing Yoongi could ever do. A magnificent cataclysm and fucking terrible idea.
The sane part of his was screaming to freaking erease the human’s memory and let him go on his merry way, like he had planned to do from the beginning. But another part of him wanted to know. If humans were really as bad as they were in the past, if some kind of understanding could be made. Maybe not with everyone, of course. But Jimin…
Jimin was intriguing. Yoongi didn’t quite grasp why, but there was something in the human boy, something warm and bright, that called out to him. He was like a beautiful exotic flower begging to be studied, with his excited smile, soft pink cheeks and peculiar love for cats.
And, before he even knew what he was doing, Yoongi found himself mumbling softly. “...It’s nothing too exciting, though. You might get bored.”
Jimin’s smile grew even brighter. “Let me decide that." The boy then extended a hand in his direction, leaning with his whole body towards him, while his the other hand was placed precariously over the table between the two.
“So, are you in, Yoongi?”
Maybe Yoongi was crazy. Maybe Jimin had been a wizard all along and slipped some kind of potion into his tea.
Because he outstretched his hand and took Jimin’s smaller one in his, smiling hesitantly at the pink-haired human boy giggling in front of him.
And as dangerous as everything could end up being, in that moment it just felt right.
Epilogue
For three things, Min Yoongi, 254th head of the Min clan, is remembered by its family and the rest of the magical community.
The fact that he had been one of the very rare second born babies chosen by the Min’s Ancient Tome of Magic as heir, as well as one of the youngest;
The sheer amount of knowledge about human culture collected and documented over the years;
And ultimately, his share in helping the magical community to grow more accepting when it came to humans, and to open its doors again to the children who had once chosen to forsake their blood for the dream of living in the cities, and with them, also their descendants.
But only the people close to him knew what he really believed to be his biggest achievement in life: the simple act to take a human boy’s warm hand in his and never letting go of what would later become the hand of his beloved husband Jimin.
Or, as he still liked to call him after years spent together, Diminie.