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Have you heard about the Travelling Wizard? No? Oh, it’s a wonderful story. Put on the kettle, and I’ll tell you all about him - it’s so interesting, and I think you’d love to hear it.
… Oh, thank you. There's really nothing like some tea on a cold evening, is there? Especially around this time of year… you know I saw some snow on the ground when I was on my way here. And it's a nose-nipping day.
Yes… Yes. The Travelling Wizard. Of course I heard this story from a friend of mine, who said her mother had an uncle who met the Wizard, but you know what stories are like - I always remember it around this time of year, because of the holly bushes.
Well… There used to be a wizard who lived behind a red door which always had fresh holly and mistletoe hanging from the knocker, even in July. And nobody knew where the door might turn up - on a brick wall, or where a front door used to be, or in a little tree in the woods, or in the back of a quiet bakery…
*
“Good morning, Yoongi!”
Yoongi, freewheeling down main street, holding his hat onto his head, rings his bell in response, but he can’t stop. For one, he’s already late, and for two he’s not sure he can stop; his bicycle is very old, and the brakes have a tendency to stop functioning without warning, and in any case he doesn’t want to be the idiot who goes head-over-handlebars on the street.
“Good morning,” he shouts, when he’s got control of his bike again. The air is crisp and cold, and his nose is red when he turns his head to look into the shop windows at his speeding reflection, but he can’t be unhappy about it. He’s almost late.
“Yoongi, good morning!”
“Morning!” He shouts, recognising the boy waving a fresh bread roll at him. He sticks his legs out either side of the front wheel, digging his heels into the ground, and squeezes the brakes as hard as he can.
“Yoongi!”
“I’m okay,” he says, gingerly disentangling himself from his bicycle. It’s dented a little, but that happened long before Yoongi ever owned it; the bicycle is something his grandmother found in the river one day, while she was feeding the ducks. It emerged, covered in pondweed, and Yoongi (who hadn’t even been tall enough to sit on the saddle then) helped her carry it back up to her house on the hill, where they spent a happy sunny afternoon polishing the leather and tapping little dents out of it. Yoongi’s grandfather painted it a lovely shade of duck-egg blue, and a friendly neighbour wove a basket to hook on the front, and when Yoongi was tall enough to ride it his grandmother taught him how. Push pedals, hold on tight, don’t fall over!
“You took a pretty big tumble,” Jeongguk says, kneeling down to help Yoongi to his feet. “Oh - you idiot, look.”
Yoongi looks where Jeongguk’s pointing, and sees another thick tear in the knee of his trousers. “Oh, damn. I just repaired those!”
“You’re bleeding, that’s what I meant!”
Yoongi brushes a little of the blood away with his thumb. “It’s fine. The skin will fix itself, but my trousers won’t.”
Jeongguk laughs, and tears him off a little of the bread from the roll in his arms. “Eat that - I bet you got up too late to have anything, right? And you’ll be late if you don’t go right now.”
“Oh! Shit!”
And Yoongi is back on his bicycle, clutching his woolly hat to his head, soaring down the hill towards the red door, which had appeared just overnight on the wall of the town’s pear orchard, holly and mistletoe in a darling garland hung over the door knocker. He yells something, possibly a thank-you for the bread, but Jeongguk can’t hear him. His mouth is too full.
*
The Travelling Wizard! Of course, Yoongi’s heard of him - everyone has heard of him. The red door with the holly and mistletoe appears every once in a while, maybe once a month, maybe once and then not for a decade, maybe once and then never again. When you knock the door swings open, and then the stories start to disagree with each other; some say it is a cave full of dark things, others that it’s a huge mansion full of servants and joy, others that it’s a woman, others that it’s a man, others that it’s a fallen star wearing a hat and shiny shoes. Does the Wizard grant wishes?
Yoongi’s grandmother used to put her chin on her hand and smile. Oh, he had such a lovely face, she would say, when he asked her about the Wizard. Such a genuine boy, he was, and he was so grateful for the company. I used to bring him biscuits and ask him how he was doing. I don’t think many people asked him that.
So Yoongi is heading down the hill as fast as he can so he can meet the Wizard first. He has a very special request, a special wish, and he wants to make sure the Wizard can grant it.
Oh, please, please. Let the Wizard be able to grant it.
When he sees the curling branches of the bare pear trees, he sticks his heels into the ground again, and tries to slow down with a little more control than he had earlier. It wouldn’t do to see the Wizard with his hat covered in soil and his elbows in bruises, would it?
The pear orchard is ominous around December, mist wrapping around branches that are usually dripping with heavy fruit. In summer, the whole town gets involved, picking fruit in string bags, bare feet, pears for lunch, sunhats flopping over eyes, sound of song on the treetops. The whole town is decked out for the holiday season, but this far out, Yoongi just feels as though he’s trespassing somehow on land that should only exist in the summer. Like the trees are telling him to leave them alone.
Breath quickening in the air, he leans his bicycle against the wall and goes to knock on the door, under the holly and mistletoe garland. It looks far too cheerful, in this foreboding cold.
Knock-knock-knock.
What is it they say? Holly and mistletoe, kiss her quick - holly and mistletoe, o’er the candlestick. Something like that. Yoongi used to play kissing games with the boys and girls in town, around this time of year; someone would hang mistletoe on a fishing rod and dangle it out a window, and everyone would shriek and peck each other on the lips and then run away screaming, faces bright red and giggling.
Nobody else is here to meet the Travelling Wizard. Yoongi needn’t have rushed.
And the door -
Creeeeeeak -
Swings open.
Yoongi would never have guessed what was inside. When he would listen to gossip about the Travelling Wizard, he never fell down in one camp or the other or the third - he just couldn’t have pinned the man down to anything, but he wouldn’t have pinned him to this.
Inside the red door is a cozy yellow room, yellow because of the glow of the firelight, decorated all over with little bits of greenery, plants festooned over a mantelpiece, three candles on top of a low, scarred wooden table, red rugs on the floor, a low, beamed roof, a basket of sticks, the smell of something slow-roasting. Dried lavender hangs in bundles from the beams on the ceiling. Books sit in messy piles all over the floor, spilling from the bookshelf across the lower wall; in a corner of the room, there’s a flight of stairs going up to some mysterious dimension. There’s some wilting snowdrops in a jug beside a small tree, decorated for Christmas.
Yoongi takes this all in within half a second, his mouth open just a little - and then a man appears in the doorframe, smiling widely, deep dimples on his cheeks. “Hello,” he says cheerfully, “My name’s Namjoon. What’s yours?”
"You're real," Yoongi says flatly, and then colours. That was so rude, a little-him whispers inside his head. The Travelling Wizard is smiling at you and his dimples are there! You can't be rude! "I'm - I mean - I'm sorry. My name's Yoongi."
"Yoongi," the Travel- Namjoon repeats, as though it's the loveliest word he's heard all day. "That is nice to know. Come on in, I just have a pot of tea ready, and nobody else seems to need me. Did you want something? Some company? Or a wish, perhaps? I'll see what I can do for you, either way."
Bewildered, Yoongi follows him inside. The red door, holly and mistletoe, swings shut behind him.
Indoors is so much warmer than it looked, which is a real achievement. Yoongi can feel the frost vanishing from the tips of his toes, the tops of his fingers, and as he melts into the carpet he can see the Travelling Wizard - Namjoon - still smiling, pottering over to the fire with a black cast-iron kettle in his hand. He's dressed nicely, a shirt, trousers, bare feet, and he has prettily-painted nails, toes and fingers. They're a seasonal red and alternating green, like a candy cane, and both his thumbnails have a shiny layer of glitter lacquer. As he bends over to put the kettle on the fire, he hums a gentle little tune.
"You have a lovely home," Yoongi says, drifting uncertainly further into the room. He doesn't want to impose.
(Namjoon is so pretty. Nobody ever told him the Travelling Wizard was pretty.)
"Oh!" Namjoon looks around, as though surprised. Yoongi finds that hard to believe - surely everyone who comes to the Wizard for help must think so. "Well, thank you awfully much. It's not very big, but it's home, y'know?"
"I do," Yoongi says. Thinks of his grandmother's house, a narrow three-storey so thin he can barely fit his bicycle into the front room. Of the cold, and the mice in the walls. But it's home.
"Sit, please sit," Namjoon waves at one of two big, red armchairs around the hearth. "Where are my manners? Please sit. Do you like gingerbread?"
"Oh, yes," Yoongi says fervently. He pinkens when he realises how eager he sounded. "I mean - um. Yeah."
"Excellent," Namjoon dimples at him, eyes twinkling. He doesn't look much like a wizard, but in the best of ways. "I make lots of gingerbread around this time of year, and no matter how much I eat there's still lots left over, and it doesn't do to be wasteful. Do you like cinnamon?"
"Um. Yes."
"Wonderful."
The Travelling Wizard grants wishes, everyone knows that. He travels around, hence the name, in a magical house that appears behind a red holly-and-mistletoe door on any wall you care to choose, no matter how deep the space is behind it. He's powerful, and he's been around for a very long time, or perhaps only a very short time - nobody is sure how far he can travel, and maybe he can go in more dimensions than three. Yoongi had imagined he would be old and bearded, or maybe an old witch instead, or maybe three evil gnomes in a cloak and a dark hat. Not this... young man. This young, very handsome wizard, tall and a little clumsy the way he knocks into the mantelpiece on his way to pour the tea, his smile wide and bright, his eyes twinkling. This is probably the furthest person from the Travelling Wizard Yoongi could pin down.
"Gingerbread and cinnamon," Namjoon pronounces, wobbling over to Yoongi and the other armchair with a tray. "And tea. I added milk, but no sugar - if you want some, the bowl's just over there on the table."
With a whispered enchantment, three table legs grow out of the stone floor underneath the tray, and catch it gently, lowering it to just within arms reach of both of the big red armchairs.
"Thank you," Yoongi says, reaching out for one of the gingerbread men on the ceramic plate. The rim of it is painted with cheery holly garlands, rimmed gold paint. All the gingerbread men have little wizard hats piped onto them in blue sugar, and bright smiling faces.
Yoongi eats an arm, first. Namjoon dunks a head in his tea.
"So, Yoongi," Namjoon says, crumbling gingerbread between forefinger and thumb. "What brings you here?"
"Someone told me the Travelling Wizard grants wishes," Yoongi says, rubbing his arm nervously. "I heard the door had appeared down near the orchard, so I thought - well, I - you know. I thought I would come down here and see what you could do for me. If you could."
Namjoon smiles at him, and Yoongi breathes out. "I do what I can for people who come asking," he says. "What can I do for you?"
"I need a magic spell," Yoongi says all in one breath, like it will be less embarrassing if he gets it out of the way without the rest of him noticing. "I need a magic spell to... tomakesomeonefallinlovewithme."
Namjoon's face doesn't change from his expression of pleasant interest, and the only movement in the room is the tick of the clock and the way his hand reaches out for another gingerbread wizard. "To make someone fall in love with you?" He repeats, very slowly. "I'm sorry - is that what you said? I couldn't quite make out."
Yoongi mutters something that might be a yes and nods his head, his face on fire, sinking deep into the armchair. He knew on his way here this morning that he would have to say some pretty humiliating things to get some help, but he thought he would be saying them to... to some sexless wizard who's, like, five hundred years old and has nobbles on his knuckles. Not to this pretty, interesting boy with the gorgeous smile and the thighs. (The thighs.)
Namjoon's face looks oddly - scary. A little dark. "I don't do love potions," he says. "I don't - take people's choices away from them. Who is it?"
"Oh!" Yoongi flails his hands in the air, back and forward, his mortification only growing. "Oh my gods, no, no, nothing like that-"
"Then what did you mean?"
Miserably, Yoongi stops flailing. "I want a magic spell to make me more... lovable," he says. "I'm not in love with anyone in particular. It's just that nobody in particular is in love with me, and I - well, I'm not very - um. I'm not very good at that sort of thing, and I heard stories you know, about the Travelling Wizard, and I thought you could help me... help me."
There is a pause, during which Yoongi is sure Namjoon will be able to hear his heart thrumming, and then the Travelling Wizard says "Oh."
Because yeah, sure, he's just noticed what everyone around Yoongi seems already to have realised; there's absolutely no hope for him. Trousers all ripped and hat all creased and bicycle all cleaned because his grandmother got it for him, smiling so roundly that it must hurt to look at him, groceries in the basket, tripping over words, stumbling over sentences, going blank when someone pretty so much as looks his way. The truth about Yoongi is that he needs a magic spell to make him someone worth looking at, and he wishes he'd never come to Namjoon for help, because now Namjoon can see it too. Namjoon can see that Yoongi is some sad, lonely little man on a bicycle, and what will he do? Laugh at him?
"I have mince pies in the stove," Namjoon says, and smiles. "Do you want one?"
"Oh," Yoongi blinks. "Um. Sure. If you're offering."
Namjoon stands and brushes his hair off his forehead, looking so pretty in the winking firelight that Yoongi wonders if he isn't just hallucinating. He smiles. "I - I think I want to think about the spell for a few days, if that's okay. I'm not saying no, but it's quite a big step - a spell that open-ended might have consequences I can't prepare for. You might change in appearance, you might change in personality, and I have to think... and you have to think about if you want that, of course. I wouldn't force you into taking anything you decide you don't want."
Yoongi looks down at the tear in his trousers. "That sounds okay," he says quietly. "Thanks for - considering it, I guess. Um."
"More tea?"
"Yes, please."
As it turns out, the mince pies are the best Yoongi's ever tasted - when he asks Namjoon what's in them, Namjoon just taps the side of his nose and winks. Then he knocks over a jar with his elbow, which turns out to be full of cinnamon and sweet spice, and Yoongi makes a face at him aha-i-discovered-your-secret, and Namjoon blushes red for some reason, and they drink two more full pots of tea. The plate full of gingerbread wizards has long since been decapitated.
"Come to see me tomorrow?" For some reason, Namjoon looks uneasy, and he's holding his arm across his chest. Yoongi's standing in the doorway of the house, one foot in the real world, one in the cosy land Namjoon's created behind the orchard wall. "You need to see me for - um, I need to measure the spell against you. All my spells are personalised."
"Oh," Yoongi says. Secretly, he's quite pleased Namjoon wants to see him again so soon, even if it is just for the spell. "Of course I will. What time?"
"As early as you like," Namjoon smiles at him. Yoongi could get used to seeing that.
As Yoongi is pushing his bicycle up the hill he soared down this morning, he smiles.
(It's dark, now, too. When did that happen?)
But oddly enough, this has been the nicest day he's had in a long time. Namjoon is funny, and interesting, and makes him laugh, and he's the best thing Yoongi could have wished for when he guessed what would be behind the red door, the holly and mistletoe garland. It's been a warm day, and a new day, and a fun day full of gingerbread and tea. Yoongi will miss Namjoon, when the spell is done and he is someone that others can fall in love with.
(A treacherous part of him asks: what if?)
But, no.
Yoongi won't ask for too much from the Travelling Wizard. He's sure Namjoon has company, friends, far more than he needs; what would one more Yoongi do to add to that number?
But when he goes to sleep that night he's smiling.
And behind the magic door at the pear orchard, behind the holly and mistletoe, the Travelling Wizard Namjoon is curled up in his bed - alone, sure, but smiling all the same.
*
The very next day, Yoongi speeds once more down the hill of the high street, freewheeling with his legs kicked out either side of the front wheel of his bike. A rattling assortment of items dance about in the wicker basket tied to the handlebars, and with every rotation of the wheels the spokes slap against his jeans, creating a whirr-burr noise that the people of the town are long used to at this point.
"Yoongi!"
As yesterday, Jeongguk is waving cheerfully across the street at him. Yoongi does his best to brake and, unlike yesterday, doesn't actually fall off; he wobbles to a halt near the pavement and leans his bicycle against the postbox there. "Jeongguk," he smiles, the other boy jogging up to say hello.
"You vanished yesterday," Jeongguk points out, bottom lip looking a little pouty. "I thought we would be able to hang out. Don't tell me your wish took that long?"
"I haven't actually had it granted yet," Yoongi says. Scratches the back of his head self-consciously. When he was younger, he had thought Jeongguk might be the one for him, someone to help him stave off the loneliness in his grandmother's empty house, but Jeongguk is too much like a brother to him. They grew up together, and it's very hard to look at someone romantically when you've seen them crying in a sandbox because their nappy needs changing.
"What?" Jeongguk slaps a hand to his mouth, a little melodramatic, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "No wonder the queue to get in was so long yesterday. Are you hogging the Wizard, Yoongi?"
"No!" Yoongi exclaims defensively. "Nobody came calling yesterday - I would have known."
"Aha - so you spent the whole day together?"
"No."
"Now, now, hyung," Jeongguk is now grinning, like a cat with cream on his whiskers, "I don't like a liar. Is he pretty?"
"No," Yoongi says again. But he knows he's been caught in the act. Jeongguk knows his tell, his cheeks turning pink when he lies, and there's no point in pretending through his clenched teeth. "Um. Yes, he is, but he's also the Travelling Wizard, so whatever you're implying is - so - beyond what I want or think or - imagine, or anything-"
"So you spent all day yesterday cosied up with a pretty wizard," Jeongguk says as though Yoongi hasn't spoken at all. "A wizard who could gift you a wish, but hasn't yet, and has presumably asked to see you again all day today?"
"Maybe he hasn't," Yoongi says haughtily. "Maybe I'm going to the orchard."
"It's December, hyung. There aren't any pears."
"Hmph."
Jeongguk gives him a piece of bread, as usual, and Yoongi shoves it in his mouth so he can freewheel down the rest of the hill to the orchard below, wreathed in mist. If he squints he thinks he can see the little stroke of red paint, the holly and mistletoe garland around the door knocker, and what is it they say about mistletoe? Although to do that, the door would have to be a lot higher. Namjoon is a very tall man, after all.
Yoongi is bright red in the face by the time he draws to a stop along the orchard wall. His hands are sticky when he wipes his forehead, and he feels so embarrassed - not only did he tell Namjoon his silly wish yesterday, but Namjoon listened seriously and promised to help him, and what is Yoongi meant to do now? Is he meant to accept the wish and accept whoever finds him lovable first?
But what if he wants to be greedy? What if he wants one particular person to find him worthy of loving?
"Immoral Yoongi," he hisses to himself, staring in at the gnarled old pear trees. "That's immoral. Bad."
When he's sure he's calmed down and his face is the normal colour, he unhooks the basket from the front of his bicycle and settles it in the crook of his arm. Gingerbread cookies smile out at him, nestled among a few rolls of the special cheese he was saving for a rainy day, the praline chocolates Jeongguk got him for his birthday, and the pear-and-apple pie made from the last of the frozen pears Yoongi had from this year's harvest. He was up until late last night, flour on his forehead, carefully cutting little leaves out of pastry, and he doesn't mind that awful much having no pears left until summer again. He'd much rather give them to Namjoon than eat them himself. The joy of sharing, right? Of giving? Of seeing something received?
Before he knocks on the door, he feels his cheeks one more time. They're... warm, but Yoongi suspects that this is the best he'll get.
Oh, dear.
Knock-knock-knock.
"Come in!" Namjoon shouts from within, and the door creaks open with a merry little squeak. The bells in the garland jingle.
"Hello," Yoongi calls into the room, no longer full of strange allure, "Namjoon? I brought you a few things!"
"I'm upstairs!" Comes the voice. "Um - uh - I'm just - doing a few things-"
There's a crash, and a muffled swear. Yoongi steps through the threshold, feels the door swing shut behind him, and looks up; near the mouth of the wooden staircase leading to the secretive second floor, purple smoke is billowing, sparkling a little from the light of the many candles and the crackling fire. "Namjoon?" Yoongi says hesitantly. "Are you okay up there?"
Namjoon's face appears within the smoke, his cheeks pink. "I'm fine," he says, "I'm - fine, yeah. Um. Please make yourself at home. I'll be down in. Um? A moment."
"Okay...?"
Yoongi sets his loot down on the table, arranging the gingerbread on the little plate he brought, propping the bottle of wine up. It's not very fancy because Yoongi isn't very fancy, but he bought it last night after leaving the little red door, and he thinks even if Namjoon doesn't like the brand or the... grape, or whatever, he'll appreciate the sentiment. Hopefully. And the biscuits.
Oh, gods, what if he doesn't like the biscuits?
"I'm so sorry, I'm mortified," Namjoon says, descending the stairs. His hair is purple and fluffy, now, and Yoongi can't stop looking at it. "I swear I'm a good wizard, I just - I was thinking of something else. The spell - um. The spell backfired when I wasn't looking."
Yoongi covers his mouth, but the laughter bubbles out between his fingers anyway, and before he can stop it he's giggling, clutching his sides. Namjoon looks so forlorn, and so pretty.
Namjoon is silent for a second -
And then he's grabbing Yoongi's shoulder, bent double, cackling. They fall into their armchairs, and Yoongi thinks, dazedly, that this might be what it could be like.
*
As the days keep turning, and December keeps spinning, the red door of the Travelling Wizard refuses to leave the brick wall, the pear orchard. More often than not, Yoongi is seen with the Wizard - a long man with a puff of purple hair and a sweet smile - clinging onto his bike, sharing the single saddle, freewheeling down the main street and laughing, heading out to some of the forests, a lake perhaps, looking for something to do with their days. More often than not they find it.
Yoongi finds something else, those cold mornings, those cold afternoons, those evenings warming their hands by a magical fire that never dies. He finds that he'll miss Namjoon, when the time comes for him to go travelling once more, and he finds himself comparing Namjoon to the faceless love-of-his-life in his imagination, the person who will fall for him when he's lovable, and finds them wanting.
He realises that the person he wants to love him isn't just anyone who'll see him for who he is and love him.
He realises that the person he wants to love him is Namjoon.
Namjoon, whose hair has turned green in another spell accident, who laughs so freely, who covers his face with a crooked hand when he smiles, who winks when he says something silly and who blushes when he says something funny. Namjoon, who pipes little stars onto the hats of his gingerbread wizards. Namjoon, who has so many stories told about him, so many dreams hung upon him, so much magic stored in his clumsy body. Namjoon, the Travelling Wizard - and bit by bit, Yoongi realises that he's in love.
In love with Namjoon.
Oh, no.
And sometimes Yoongi looks over at Namjoon, lost in concentration, deep in magic, and wonders if he could ever feel the same way for anyone. If Namjoon could ever feel the same for him.
Inevitably, he decides that that is far too much to wish for.
*
"I'm going to go soon," Namjoon says, one evening in deep December. The jingle-bells have been ringing more often through the town, and it's close to the day when the Saint will come visiting good children through open window panes, leaving sugared fruits and neatly wood-carved magical toys at the foot of their beds.
(The Saint is the most powerful of all the wizards in the world, or so Yoongi has been told. Her presence makes other wizards uncomfortable, and since she can't go around all the bedrooms in one night - it takes her most of two days with the turning of the Earth - other wizards make themselves scarce.)
He should have realised this was upcoming, since Saint's day is less than a week again, but all the same it's a cold shock. Yoongi blinks. "You're - leaving?"
Namjoon tangles his fingertips together. "I - yes. I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you earlier but I - I couldn't. I just. I was having too much fun, and I didn't want to ruin it, if we both started to count down... the days we have left."
Yoongi picks at the hole at the knee of his trousers. He feels like the wind has been knocked out of him. "I didn't realise. Will you be back?"
"Ah," Namjoon looks even more uncomfortable. "Did I ever explain to you the magic of my house?"
"No, you didn't."
"Let me do that, then." Namjoon stands and shoves his hands deep in his pockets, chewing on his lower lip. "I - I'm sure you've heard stories about the Travelling Wizard. Hell, I've heard stories about me that make me look twice, and I am me. Truth is, a very long time ago, the front door of my house was cursed by an angry wizard. She told me that until I found someone I really loved, I would be cursed to move for the rest of my days - I have no idea where my house is. I have no idea how to get back to the town I used to live in. Even when I'm the one deciding to move, I have absolutely no control over where the door goes. I - it's brought me to some odd places. I wish I could come back, but I've... I've never been to the same town twice. Not even anywhere I recognise twice."
Yoongi sits back, mouth open. "I had no idea," he says, horrified. "You should have said - I would have tried to help you break the spell-"
"The spell can only be broken when I find someone I really love," Namjoon says. "I tried every other way."
And a little part of Yoongi says oh. It isn't me, then.
And then he feels terribly selfish, but he doesn't stop thinking it.
"So you're going then," he says quietly.
Namjoon nods. "Before the end of the month."
"Oh. Okay."
They sit in miserable silence beside the crackling fire, and all Yoongi can look at is the mug that had tea in it just a few minutes ago; it's chipped at the rim, something Namjoon presumably did long before Yoongi showed up. A curse, of course, and the Saint's arrival will only shift him - because no story about a wizard is complete without a curse. Namjoon, the Travelling Wizard, is just another story.
Yoongi wishes it was easy enough to think that.
"I'll miss you," he whispers. "You - I haven't had this much fun in years. Thank you for coming with me every day."
"I wouldn't have missed it for the world," Namjoon rubs his face with his hand, roughly, like he can't quite believe he's having to say it. "You made my month. I'm sorry I never finished your spell."
"I thought it took all month to make," Yoongi says slowly. "That's what you said, right?"
Namjoon looks miserabler. "Um. Not quite."
"Then - what?"
"I didn't want to finish it and give it to you and leave. I wasn't quite ready to - you know. Give up on hanging out. On being friends," Namjoon turns oddly pink on the last word, like he had a hard time saying it. His fingers knot together. "I'll make it for you tonight if you still want it, but I don't... Yoongi, I don't think you need it."
Yoongi scowls at his knees. His tattered trousers. "I just want to be loved," he says, and he can hear how childish it sounds. "And if you're going to leave... I don't want to be on my own. I live in my grandmother's house on my own, and I don't really see anyone most of the time, you know? This has been the best month I can remember. So, yeah, I do want the potion - the spell. The magic. Whatever."
Namjoon's brow furrows, but when he looks up to Yoongi he seems to decide. Maybe it's the set of Yoongi's face. He knows he's determined. "I promise I'll have it made before it's time for me to go, okay? I do have to take a few days, but I will be done before I leave you."
"That's fine," Yoongi says begrudgingly.
For the first time since he's met Namjoon, there is an awkward, lingering silence, and Yoongi leaves early, wheeling his ticking bicycle up the street with a trudging depression to his shoulders that hadn't been there the day before.
He knows now something he wished he didn't.
He wants Namjoon to love him, not just anyone at all.
*
Oh, I'm sorry. Can I have another cup of tea? I just need to remember exactly how the story ends, is all, and I wouldn't want to do either of them any disservice. You know me and my stories.
...Thank you terribly. I'm so parched - oh, and a biscuit! I must have done something good in a past life. You're so kind. Where was I?"
The Travelling Wizard and Yoongi, yes, yes. They are a silly pair, aren't they? Both of them looking for someone to love them back. But this is the whole beauty of the story, you know, that neither of them knew what is perfectly obvious to anyone who looks at them for more than a second. Yes, I remember how it ends now.
*
"Yoongi!"
In the pear orchard, Yoongi doesn't look up from the book he's reading, balanced on his knees. He's sitting in the crook of an ancient trunk, the fragile tips of the smallest shoots tapping the top of his head. It's a wary place, a lonely place, but for the first time since the red holly and mistletoe appeared, Yoongi hadn't felt like going to see Namjoon. He hadn't felt like he would truly have... got on. Not with Namjoon's leaving hanging above them both, a twisted sword of Damocles.
"Yoongi!"
But that's Namjoon shouting. Well, he may shout all he likes - Yoongi turns a page - Yoongi refuses to look up.
"Yoongi!"
When Namjoon's face appears between the book and Yoongi, he's forced to look at him. Namjoon's smiling, which is odd, and his hair is a new colour, very pale pink like cherry petals in spring. "I asked that boy from the bakery where you would be," he says. "Jeongguk? He said that when you wanted to be alone you came here. But I don't want you to be alone, so I'm here too."
"You won't be very soon," Yoongi says sulkily. "What do you want?"
"I need to talk to you. It's really important."
"So, then. Talk."
Namjoon sits down heavily beside him, seemingly unaware or uncaring of the fog that makes the mossy ground damp. He tucks his legs up, looking as comfortable as he does in his big red armchair behind the magical door. It's the first smile Yoongi's seen since Namjoon broke the news of his leaving, and although a part of him is irritated Namjoon can be happy when he's leaving. But maybe that's self-centred of him. Maybe Namjoon is excited to leave.
"I realised something last night, Yoongi," he's saying, and tugging one of Yoongi's hands away from his book to hold it between his. Yoongi doesn't pull away - how could he?
"What did you realise?" And Yoongi can't help how delicate his voice sounds. Maybe he cares far more than he wants to.
"I know how to break the curse!"
"I thought you said there was only one way to break it?"
"I have to fall in love," Namjoon looks beatific, "But the person I fall in love with doesn't have to love me back. And - Yoongi, I have fallen in love. I can stay here. My door doesn't have to move when the Saint comes - my door doesn't have to move ever again, unless I want it to."
"Oh!" With who, Yoongi wants to say, but he can't be upset when Namjoon will stay. He isn't that selfish.
Namjoon's face creases into a gentle smile. "Don't you want to know who it was?"
"A little," Yoongi shrugs. He's grinning. He can't help it. "I'm so happy for you - I'm so happy. But when on Earth did you find time to fall in love? We were together every day."
Namjoon doesn't say anything, but oddly enough, his smile widens. Yoongi feels like he must be missing a trick.
"Who? Namjoon, don't be mean," he shoves his knee into Namjoon's. "Who?"
There is no noise in the pear orchard. Nothing alive, until you realise that everything is alive. Little worms wriggle happily in the soil below the roots of the trees, and the trees themselves are alive, and the grass flat underneath them, and Yoongi and Namjoon as people, and the whole world is full of such life that it seems silly to suggest that winter is a time when anything at all dies. It's just the naptime of the world.
All this happens in a second, and in a minute, and all the time.
And then Yoongi smiles, a small thing, gums and teeth, and puts his other hand over Namjoon's. "Really?"
"I couldn't help it when you're so lovable," Namjoon says softly.
And under the growing trees, lips press against lips, and Yoongi smiles into the sweetest of kisses.
The bells on the holly and mistletoe jingle, and there's a whisper in the air; a curse, evaporating. A perfectly normal red door sits in the wall of the orchard, as though it had always been there, and certainly always is.
And always will be.