Archive of Our Own

You find strange stuff when you roam around your friend's grandma's house.

Hueningkai won't deny that Taehyun had indeed told him not to touch anything while he went to get his things from his bedroom so they could go to the pool afterwards. To be fair, he had definitely thought it was just tea! Taehyun's grandma had offered him tea multiple times and nothing had happened! But it couldn't be just tea this time; tea doesn't make you feel extremely cold then extremely hot, it doesn't make your head feel as if there are fireworks inside of it or make your stomach feel as if it is turning like a washing machine, and it sure as hell doesn't shrink you to the size of a barbie doll. Yet here he is, carpet hairs up to his calves, the coffee table far too high for him to reach. The teacup is lying on it, the last few drops of tea forming droplets on the glass. Around him, everything looks out of proportion, but really he is the one out of proportion.

He's glad his clothes shrunk with him, even if he has no idea how that could've happened—not that he knows how him shrinking to a tenth of his original size could happen any better—but he doesn't have time to think about it any more as suddenly he sees movement in the corner of his eye. It feels like he's in a movie when he turns his head very slowly towards a cat. A majestic, black long-haired cat with piercing green eyes, but at this angle, it’s also a very big cat with very sharp teeth. The cat gets up and Hueningkai lets out a little " uh oh... " before he's running for his life. Alas, he’s not running very fast. Damn you, short barbie legs . He runs and runs and every time he looks behind him the cat is getting closer and closer, trotting after him. Hueningkai curses himself out, he can't outrun a cat! He's not even sure he could outrun one in his normal size but now... Now it's like trying to go up an escalator. The one that goes down. And you're walking.

I'm doomed , he thinks while screaming in a voice smaller than his body.

"Hyuka?" a voice calls from the room he's running towards.

"TAEHYUN-AAAAAAAAAAAAH— OOF!"

Suddenly Hueningkai's body is lifted up by a hand that's as big as him, and he hits a chest that's bigger than he remembered it to be.

His savior kneels to pet the cat for a moment before sending it back to the bed she had been resting on before making Hueningkai take the biggest sprint of his life. Or well, the smallest, depending on the scale you consider. Nevertheless, the cat goes, and Hueningkai’s savior pulls him away from his chest—the latter's small hands not strong enough to keep holding his shirt—and smiles at him.

"I told you not to touch anything," he says. “Why didn’t you listen?”

Hueningkai blinks up at Taehyun and frowns. “How was I supposed to know that tea would turn me into a minimoy ! I thought you meant it like— so I wouldn’t break anything!”

Taehyun chuckles but doesn’t respond right away. He looks around for a second, then down at his pool bag he dropped on the ground to catch his tiny friend. “Well, I’m guessing pool day is canceled, then…”

Hueningkai rolls his eyes, resting his face in his hands, elbows propped up on Taehyun’s fingers that wrap all around him.

“Let’s go in a cat-free zone, alright?” Taehyun says, and Hueningkai nods.

When Taehyun moves, however, everything seems to move too fast. When he leans down to grab his bag, Hueningkai feels like he’s falling, and lets out a small screech, and another when Taehyun stands back up. The latter frowns at him.

“Why are you screaming again, I’m holding you, you’re fine?”

“You move. Too. Fast.” he looks at his giant—who used to be smaller than him—friend.

“Ah, I see.” He chuckles again.

Hueningkai feels a bit offended that Taehyun seems so amused by the situation, and as they climb up the stairs, he tells him so. “Why do you find this so funny, I’m still freaking out over here? I’m barely twenty centimeters tall !”

Taehyun reaches the top of the stairs and pushes the door of his room under the ceiling. “I’ve seen weirder, you would be surprised.”

Hueningkai doesn’t even know what to reply at this point, so he just scoffs and frowns. If his mind wasn’t still stuck on the fact that he’s literally shrunk, like wool in warm water or like Shrinky Dinks, then maybe he would be able to laugh about it, or even wonder what could possibly be weirder than this.

The door shuts behind Taehyun. He drops his bag down and goes to sit on the floor next to his bed, gently putting Hueningkai on the bed itself, at about eye level with him now. Hueningkai struggles to find his balance on the too-fluffy covers but he manages to keep standing, not wanting to lose any more centimeters on Taehyun by sitting. He puts his tiny hands on his tiny hips and stares up at his friend with the angriest face he can make, ignoring the other’s rictus. “So?”

“You look so cute like this,” Taehyun replies, and Hueningkai whines.

“Yah! I need answers over here!”

“You’re right, you’re right. Ah…” He scratches the back of his head, looking for words, before sighing, the push of air almost making the younger lose his balance. “I don’t know how else to say it but… Grandma Soohyun? She’s a witch.”

Hueningkai blinks at him, speechless. Taehyun notices the incredulity and drops his head before standing and letting himself fall on the bed next to Hueningkai. Except he must have forgotten that the other was so small and light because the force sends him flying in the air, making him screech once again and fall onto Taehyun’s stomach with a huff, barely affecting the giant at all. Hueningkai is starting to be angry, and he gets up quickly, walking on Taehyun’s body towards his face. Taehyun’s head is resting on a pillow, meaning that it’s at the ideal angle for Hueningkai to grab his face, one cheek with each hand.

“Listen now you big stupid face, you’re going to need to stop making fun of me and start speaking.”

“I’m not making fun! I’m saying the truth: my grandmother is a witch, and so is every oldest child of the generation, from my great-great-great-great-great… grandparent, to her, to my father… And to me.”

Hueningkai sighs, letting go of the other’s face and sitting on his chest. “So now, not only is Grandma Soohyun a witch but you’re one too? Well, a wizard.”

“Nope. I’m a witch.” He puts an arm behind his head so he can keep looking at Hueningkai.

Hueningkai whines and glares. “This is not funny, Tyun! I’m twenty centimeters tall and that leaves me no room for your jokes!”

Taehyun sighs. “I know it’s hard to believe, but I promise it’s true.”

“Prove it, then! Show me your magic”

“Ah… The thing is…”

“What, let me guess, you can’t ?”

“Well…”

“So you expect me to believe you’re a witch that can’t do magic?”

“No, I can! I just can’t show you. The house is so full of Grandma’s magic that I’d risk setting off something.”

Hueningkai lets out an nth whine, burying his face in his hands. Then, he suddenly sits up again, an idea popping up in his mind. “So let’s go outside.”

“The garden might even be worse, with all the magical herbs.”

“No, outside, like… Not in the property.” Hueningkai stands up.

“But you can’t go outside like this!”

“I’ll hide!” Taehyun sits up, grabbing Hueningkai and setting him on his knee.

“And I can’t risk someone seeing my magic.”

“We’ll go to the school, no one’s there during spring break, right?”

“I don’t think so, no…”

“Then let’s go!”

“But—”

Hueningkai stands on the knee. “No buts!” Then, he slides down Taehyun’s knee and climbs his chest—it’s pretty easy when he weighs practically nothing and he can grab onto the fabric pretty easily—and stands on his shoulder, holding onto his hair. “Let’s go!”

Taehyun scoffs, but he stands up—not too fast this time, so Hueningkai doesn’t fall the equivalent of almost six stories—and leaves his room, getting back down the stairs, heading towards the door. As he puts on his shoes, the cat comes to see them.

“We’re just going to take a walk, Eclipse, tell Grandma we’ll be back by dinner time if she’s back before us.” Hueningkai doesn’t comment, he’s seen Taehyun talk to the cat before, but he used to think it was just a cat-person thing, now he’s starting to believe it’s not just that. Eclipse meows back. Definitely not just that, then . “Yeah, she’s probably not going to be back before tomorrow, but at least you know!” Eclipse scrunches her nose, accepting Taehyun’s scratches on her head before heading back to her bed.

“So you talk to cats?”

“Not all of them, but Eclipse is Grandma’s familiar, she can communicate with other witches too—although she has a stronger connection with Grandma, they don’t exactly have telepathy, but they can send each other… feelings?”

“Does that mean you have a familiar too?”

Taehyun lets out a small sigh, getting up and grabbing his keys. “Not yet, but it shouldn’t be long now. We usually get them around sixteen, but I’m kind of a late bloomer so it’s no wonder I haven’t found them yet.” Before opening the door, Taehyun pulls up his hood, letting Hueningkai get comfortable inside of it. He locks the door behind him and walks down the small path, giving the garden door the same treatment, and then they’re finally walking down the street. Hueningkai can’t see much aside from what is exactly in front of Taehyun and the latter’s side profile.

“Late bloomer?”

“Yeah, witches don’t develop their powers at birth. Imagine a baby with magic, that would be disastrous.” He chuckles, and Hueningkai reckons that even if it does make sense, it’s the kind of joke only someone familiar with Taehyun’s world would get. It saddens him a little, to understand that he’s not part of Taehyun’s world . Not in that way, anyway. “Usually witches are like six or seven when their powers start to appear. At that point, they know what it is and even if they don’t know exactly how to handle them yet, their powers are still weak and they have more than enough time to learn to use and develop them. But me…” he scoffs, somewhat bitter, “I didn’t show even a spark of magic before I turned nine.”

They turn in a street and stay quiet as they walk past someone.

“How come?”

“I don’t know, honestly, no one really does. When I turned eight my family started to worry, and my parents got into big fights because my mom said that maybe my dad had gotten someone else pregnant before her and that was why I didn’t have any powers, because I wasn’t my dad’s firstborn child.”

“Wasn’t there any way to tell without you showing any powers? Like I don’t know… In movies, they have tattoos or weird-colored blood.”

Taehyun laughs. “Nothing like that, no. Witch children start to talk to familiars a bit before they get their powers, but I used to communicate with my Grandma’s and my dad’s by meowing back—they both have cat familiars. It’s not a big deal though, because on the day of my ninth birthday I almost blew up my parents’ kitchen with how strongly my powers hit me. It’s like… as if magic came in a pipe and mine had a cork in it that just popped out with the pressure—everyone got sprayed. My aunt got stuck with noodles for hair for a whole month.”

Hueningkai laughs along. Taehyun smiles, but there’s still this kind of sadness he always wears when he talks about his family.

“Tyun?”

“Yeah?”

“How come you’re living with Grandma Soohyun?” He’s asked this before, but every time, Taehyun would change the subject, or answer but give him a different explanation each time. However he feels like this time, Taehyun would answer honestly.

“My dad got a good position in a magical committee thing overseas, my mom didn’t feel like she could raise a witch and she wanted to stay in Seoul, so they sent me to live here with Grandma.”

It’s quiet for a moment, but as much as Hueningkai wants to say something, he knows Taehyun would hate hearing anything close to ‘ I’m sorry ’. He thinks of something else to say but he suddenly spots someone coming their way and in a hurry to hide, he loses his grip and starts to fall, only barely catching himself on Taehyun’s red hair, tearing a yelp from him.

“Ouch, Hyuka!” He then spots the person on the sidewalk and gains composure again. “Ahh, I forgot to remind Hyuka of the… homework,” the boy says to himself awkwardly, trying to pass the call as a kind of monologue, walking past the slightly weirded out stranger with a smile that Hueningkai would call stupid if he could see it. 

“Nicely done,” he mocks, straddling the boy’s shoulder for better balance.

“Maybe if you didn’t pull my hair, what are you, Ratatouille?”

Hueningkai rolls his eyes, even if Taehyun can’t see. “Ratatouille is the name of the movie, the rat is called Remy, and don’t call me a rat, thank you. Plus I didn’t pull your hair. Well, I did, but not intentionally.”

“You’re the size of a rat.”

“Wait ‘til I’m taller than you again and you’ll see who’s the rat.”

They playfully banter for the rest of the walk to their school. They sigh at the sight of the building, but no one is around and that was what they needed so Taehyun starts walking again to the front.

“Is it locked?” Hueningkai asks.

“Of course it is.”

“Can you unlock it?”

“No.”

“Wha- so let’s just go behind, why did you go to the—”

Suddenly, the door opens on its own, as if a ghost pushed it.

“How…?”

“I can’t unlock it, but I can push from the inside, and since it’s a fire exit too, it works.”

Hueningkai gasps. “That’s… that’s so cool!”

Taehyun chuckles and enters the school.

It’s strange to them, seeing it empty like that. Usually, the place is crawling with high school students, chatting from all sides, but now the hallway is completely deserted and silent.

“Where should we go?” Taehyun asks, walking slowly along the hallway.

“The cafeteria doesn’t have a door from the inside, we could go there?”

“Good idea! I didn’t feel like going into a classroom during the holidays.”

It might be even weirder to see the cafeteria empty since it’s the loudest place in the school when it’s open—aside from maybe the gymnasium during basketball games, but that doesn’t really count as school—after all, they didn’t come here to see people. So Taehyun sits down at one of the tables and offers his hand as an elevator so Hueningkai can stand on the table. The room feels so big like this, with the light coming in from the large windows of the patio portion of the room, it reminds Hueningkai of science-fiction movies, especially with how clean and big everything seems like this.

“What now?” Taehyun asks him, chin on his hand.

“I should be the one asking you,” Hueningkai responds. “We came here so you could show me your mojo so… Show me your mojo.”

Taehyun looks around, looking for inspiration. His eyes stop on the water fountain and he smirks. “I practiced magikinesis last month, let me show you…”

“Magikinesis?”

“Yeah like… Telekinesis but it’s magic. I made it up, so shut it.”

Hueningkai laughs but he doesn’t add anything about the name, lets Taehyun get up and go towards the water fountain. He takes a glass and fills it up about three-quarters of the way, and walks back to their table. Hueningkai thinks it’s their table , as in the table they usually sit at for lunch, too, but with everything being ten times bigger than usual, he’s not sure anymore. Taehyun sits and puts the glass of water in front of Hueningkai.

“Ok, don’t distract me!”

Hueningkai does a zipping-mouth gesture and throws him a thumbs up. Taehyun then focuses on the water, his mouth twitching as if he had been used to saying something—a spell, probably—to make it happen, and before long, it happens .

The water starts moving, shaking at the surface lightly, then going up in the air in a stream. Hueningkai’s jaw drops, and he looks up at the water, which Taehyun starts to twirl above him, in one body first, then droplets leave the main body and dance around it, the light coming through it and casting tiny rays all around Hueningkai. He thinks it’s beautiful, and turns on himself to look at it better, he even reaches a hand to touch the water. It’s wet , he thinks. Of course it’s wet, it’s water, but… It’s water! Flying! He starts laughing with excitement, and claps his hands, turning to look at Taehyun.

However, his smile drops as he sees people approaching from behind.

“Tyun—”

“What the fuck?”

Taehyun startles and loses his focus, making the water drop on Hueningkai, who screeches.

“What the fuck ?” another voice speaks up.

“Langua— What the heck ?” a third one adds.

Taehyun turns around, and Hueningkai jumps to his arm, hiding himself. Taehyun has the reflex to pull him down to his hoodie’s pocket.

“What are you guys doing here?” Taehyun asks, not standing up so he can keep his front pocket out of view.

“Yeonjun hyung and Beomgyu were helping me with chores to cancel their detention from the prank they pulled last week.” Hueningkai recognizes Soobin’s voice. He’s somewhat relieved that it’s friends and not strangers, or bullies, but still. The three boys don’t know about Hueningkai’s problem . “What are you doing here?”

“Uhh… I was hungry?”

“So you came to the school’s cafeteria to take… a glass of water?” That’s Beomgyu.

“I meant thirsty.”

“Why was the water flying?” Yeonjun asks. He was probably the first one to enter the room.

“It wasn’t. You startled me and I dropped my glass!”

“It’s standing perfectly upright…” Beomgyu notes.

“I have amazing luck.”

“Was that a rat on the table?” Yeonjun continues, and the two other boys echo the word ‘rat’ in a strangled voice.

“Hey!” Hueningkai shouts, offended.

“What was that?” Soobin squeaks.

Taehyun sighs. “Oh boy… Remy pinch my hand if I can… Show my tiny chef.”

Hueningkai chuckles and thinks for a moment. We’re screwed anyway, so why not ? He tells himself. And if Taehyun is okay with revealing the others that magic exists, Hueningkai is too. So he pinches the hand that was with him in the pocket—“Ouch! Not that hard you ass!”—and that hand pulls him out of it. Taehyun has spun around on the bench and when Hueningkai is in the light again, he’s face to face with three very very surprised faces. Shocked, one might even say.

“Is that…”

“Hi guys,” Hueningkai tries, waving his hand.

They’re back to square one, Taehyun explaining to the boys that he’s from a family of witches. Hueningkai has gotten a little more used to it now, and seeing the others’ faces as they react is hilarious to him. He tries to lighten up the mood by telling them about his race with the cat, but they don’t seem sensible to it for now. Taehyun skips the details he’d given Hueningkai, about his parents and about being a ‘late bloomer’, and it’s bittersweet on the latter’s tongue. He’s glad Taehyun trusted him enough to tell him, but it still makes him sad for Taehyun. He’s fine , he tells himself as he looks at his best friend’s face, he’s been living with this for basically ten years, he’s used to it, and even said he likes it like this . But he can’t help but have this heart pinch while he looks at him. He looks away when Taehyun catches him staring, turning his eyes to his hyungs instead. As it happens, the three of them are looking back at him.

“W-what?”

There’s a pause before Hueningkai is suddenly pulled by Yeonjun’s hand and brought to his cheek in the strangest hug he’s ever gotten. “You’re so smaaaaall!” He’s careful not to poke Yeonjun’s eye with his elbow and sends Taehyun a distressed look, but Taehyun is just laughing behind his hand.

When Yeonjun pulls back—or well, holds Hueningkai further from his face—he looks malicious, smirking in the way they all know to be nothing but trouble. “So small…”

Hueningkai knows him well and he crosses his arms, scowling. “I’m not climbing inside the vending machine.”

Yeonjun sighs but nods, handing him back to Taehyun. As if Hueningkai belonged in Taehyun’s hand. After all, he is his best friend, and the only one that knows anything about magic here, but Hueningkai likes the idea. And he feels comfortable in Taehyun’s hand.

“So how are you going to get him to the right size again?” Soobin asks.

“Put him in a press like in Willy Wonka?” Beomgyu suggests.

“Are you mad ?” Hueningkai protests, voice strangled.

Taehyun laughs. “I’ll ask my Grandma tomorrow, she’s not home tonight. But she should be able to fix it easily. After all, only she knows what was in that tea.”

“All I know is that it tasted really good until it made me turn into… Whatever I am right now.”

“A garden gnome.” “A Barbie doll.” “A baby.” “A lilliputian.”

Hueningkai stares. “I hate you guys, did you know that?”

“Hyuka, I forgot to ask, but how much of the tea did you drink?”

“The whole cup. I don’t sip tea slowly… And it wasn’t very hot either so I didn’t need to wait.”

“You didn’t wonder how it could still be warm even though Grandma left this morning?”

Hueningkai shrugs. “I don’t pay attention in physics. The tea was warm and smelled nice, I drank it.”

Taehyun sighs. “Right. Well, we should get going before any more unexpected guests show up. I figure you’re convinced now, right?”

“Right.”

Taehyun gets up, leaving Hueningkai on the table while he cleans it up—manually, not wanting to splash anyone more—before picking him back up and bidding the others goodbye.

As they walk out of the school, Hueningkai back in his hiding place, he wonders. “Isn’t it a problem if people know about magic?”

Taehyun hums. “Soobin hyung, Yeonjun hyung and Beomgyu hyung are friends, but this is bigger than friendship, and it doesn’t add anything inherently good to their lives.”

“So… What? Is the witch police going to kill them?”

Taehyun turns his head to send a surprised glance to Hueningkai and laughs. “Of course not! I cast a little spell on them.”

“You can erase memory?” Hueningkai gasps.

“Not exactly. The spell doesn’t work for a specific or long period of time. It’s more like… Giving them the impression of waking up from a dream? At first, they remember and they’re just going to get on with whatever chores they’re doing, but after a few minutes or hours depending on each person, they’ll have forgotten. I suppose that if someone reminded them of it it would ring a bell, and even if it was told to them with details they would remember, but it’s not like something like that would come up in a conversation, is it?”

“No, you’re right.”

The information leaves a strange feeling in Hueningkai’s chest. Like often, he wonders, as Taehyun walks them back to his house—which come to think of it, it does look like a witch’s house—and he has nothing better to do than wonder, as the streets are a bit more populated now since people are leaving work at this time. In particular, he wonders if Taehyun will use the spell on him. He doesn’t want him to, Hueningkai concludes. Even if it’s a little strange, or even very strange, he feels like in just around a few hours, he’s gotten closer to Taehyun. He understands a whole new part of him now, and it’s so special that he wishes to never forget it. He wants to treasure it, treasure this shared experience, treasure Taehyun’s trust. He also wonders if Taehyun has used the charm on him before.

“We’re here, Hyuka.”

“Hm? Oh, right.” He climbs into Taehyun’s hand and Taehyun sets him on the kitchen counter.

The black cat—the familiar, Hueningkai has learned—trots into the kitchen a couple of seconds after them, jumping on a stool, eyes level with Hueningkai’s. They stare at each other for a moment, the small boy trying to ignore the cold sweat running down his back. Eclipse meows again, but she’s looking directly at Hueningkai this time.

“Uh…”

“He doesn’t understand you, Eclipse,” Taehyun chuckles, “he’s not a witch.”

Eclipse tilts her head and meows again. Hueningkai looks to Taehyun for an explanation but he just frowns and shakes his head. Eclipse stares at the small human on the counter for a few more seconds before jumping off the stool.

“What did she say?” Hueningkai asks, walking closer to Taehyun, who started making dinner… For one. “Is this really going to be enough for the two of us?”

Taehyun shoots him a glance and laughs. “Have you seen your size? You’re not going to eat a lot.”

“Ah, right, I forgot.”

While Taehyun cooks, the younger feels bored. He thinks about his phone, still in his bag in the entryway. He quickly asks Taehyun to get it for him, and he’s a bit distraught to see that his phone, which used to fit in his hand, is now almost his size. After a small moment of shock, he unlocks it—with the code, his fingers far too small for the phone to recognize his prints—and opens the notifications. It’s almost a whole workout, to work around his phone with his whole body, after a while he decides to lay it on its side, resting against the fruit basket. He answers a few messages, then opens the camera and tugs at Taehyun’s sleeve so they could take selfies together. It looks funny, Hueningkai muses. These pictures make no sense, and after all, it’s not a big deal, he could just pretend that he edited them if anyone asks. When Taehyun goes back to his cooking, Hueningkai explores the different options of his phone, trying a few games but quickly realizing that it’s ten times harder than when he was ten times bigger, until he opens youtube. That’s the best thing so far, watching videos on the screen that’s now in the proportions of a home cinema for him.

Taehyun finishes cooking and sets his plate next to Hueningkai, taking a seat on a stool behind, watching the videos with him. “You can eat a bit from my plate, but I don’t know how practical that’s gonna be for you… I can cut you a piece of fruit if you want.”

Hueningkai, of course, starts by assuring him it’s fine and takes on the task of eating normal-sized people food, and after almost choking on a grain of rice, he accepts the chopped up banana slices. He does get to eat some ice cream for dessert, though, which he finds taste exactly the same whether eaten with a spoon or a needle.

It’s only nine when Hueningkai lets out a loud yawn. That’s weird , he thinks, I slept in this morning .

“Being so small is probably draining,” Taehyun says as if he’d read the younger’s mind. Can he? Can you? He thinks again, but as Taehyun only puts the clean dishes into the drying rack and wipes his hands on the towel without a word, he concludes that he probably can’t, or at least that he hadn’t. “Let’s get you to bed, then.”

Hueningkai gives him a dirty glare when Taehyun shows him the dollhouse in what used to be his aunt’s bedroom. “I’m not sleeping here, the fabric is itchy and it smells like mold.”

“That’s the only bed your size,” Taehyun retorts, but he doesn’t argue, taking Hueningkai into his room again. “You can sleep on a pillow with a handkerchief as a blanket.”

It’s the plan, originally, but when Hueningkai lays down on the pillow with the handkerchief, he hates it. “You’re never happy,” Taehyun sighs, but is it really his fault if nothing in this house is adapted for people his size? “It kind of is your fault that you didn’t stay at a normal size.”

“Ugh,” he rolls his eyes. “Wait, Tyun, you sleep on your back, right?”

“I mean… It depends on the day but I guess I can yeah, why?”

“I could just… Sleep on your chest?”

There’s a pause, where they just look at each other, and as Hueningkai notices the older’s cheeks turn pink, he feels his own heat up. “Never mind, I’ll just—”

“No no, it’s… It’s a good idea, if you think that’ll work for you.”

Past the awkwardness of the request, Hueningkai discovers that it does work for him. Taehyun’s chest is warm, and his shirt has enough softness for it to be comfortable too. The rise and fall of it as Taehyun breathes and the beating of his heart right under his skin are a plus, and secretly it might even be Hueningkai’s favorite part. He had ditched his tiny shoes and tiny jeans to be more comfortable but kept his underwear and t-shirt as he categorically refused to wear the barbie clothes Taehyun offered.

Lying on Taehyun’s chest feels a little awkward as neither of them is saying a thing. Although they went to bed because Hueningkai felt tired, he can’t seem to find sleep now, and judging by the way Taehyun regularly fidgets or lets out breaths similar to sighs, neither can the witch.

“Are you asleep?” Hueningkai finally asks, more to start a conversation than to really check if the other is awake.

“No, are you?”

“No.” It’s obvious, but the little one doesn’t feel like cracking a joke. “Can I ask you something?”

Taehyun chuckles, and it makes Hueningkai’s body shake with it. It’s a strange sensation, although not unpleasant. It makes his heart flutter. “You just did, but go ahead, ask away.”

“How much was real?”

The brunette guesses a frown by the tone of his friend’s voice. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… When we hung out, did you ever use magic?” He feels a little guilty asking this, but he can’t help it as the curiosity is too strong in him.

However, Taehyun indulges without hesitation. “If you mean my magic tricks, those weren’t properly-so called magic. They’re tricks, I mean. I didn’t use my powers. I started learning them around the time I realized that it wasn’t normal that I didn’t have powers. It was the closest to magic I could get.”

Hueningkai takes the information in with a hum. The answer wasn’t exactly what he was expecting, both in the sense that he hadn’t been thinking about his tricks, and that he didn’t think said tricks would have such a backstory. “That’s not what I meant, though. I meant more like… On me? Did you use magic on me? I won’t be mad if you did, because whatever you did clearly hasn’t changed me or anything like that.”

It takes Taehyun a moment to respond. “I pulled a few pranks on you, I suppose? Like that one time your pencil wouldn’t stop falling off the table, or the time your hair wouldn’t dry after we went to the pool.”

“That was you ?” Hueningkai exclaims, offended, raising himself on his arms.

Taehyun laughs and nods. “You always have funny reactions to stuff like this because obviously, you couldn’t tell it was me. You’re cute when you’re frustrated honestly.”

“No wonder you were always laughing at my misery…”

“Hey now! You’re also really clumsy, not all of it was my fault.”

Hueningkai rolls his eyes but smiles. “Alright, alright, that’s fair.” He pauses for a moment, but he knows that he won’t be satisfied until he really gets an answer. “Did you ever… Use that spell on me? The one that makes it feel like a dream that you forget?”

Taehyun freezes slightly and Hueningkai’s heart drops to his stomach. The silence is almost an answer in itself but he tells himself that he shouldn’t be mad because he promised his Taehyun that he wouldn’t be. He can’t help but feel a twinge of sadness, though.

“I did. Not a lot, but sometimes I— I said things that I shouldn’t have.” Before Hueningkai can even frown, Taehyun follows up on his statement. “Not bad things! Just, you know… Sometimes you let stuff slip up and you want to slap yourself immediately. Well, instead, I just… pretended I never said them.”

“Mhm, that makes sense.” The words are kind of bitter on his tongue, but he swallows the taste and tells himself that he should be less selfish than this. After all, Taehyun’s secrets were probably ones he had all the reasons to hide. “Are you… Are you going to do it again? When I’m back to my normal size?”

A pause, again. Hueningkai thinks this silence is nothing close to comfortable, and he hates it. But when Taehyun’s voice cuts through again, it’s tinted with the same emotions he’s feeling. A bit of doubt, worry, but mostly; hope. “Do you want me to?”

He doesn’t. Should he? Would the reasonable choice be to forget about this? After all, he’s seen movies and read some books, and he’s learned through them that knowing stuff puts you and your close friends and family in danger. He doesn’t want to put Taehyun in danger.

“If you do, even if I’m not powerful enough to do it, Grandma probably could. But you… You don’t have to, if you don’t want to. I won’t make you.”

Hueningkai’s heart squeezes and suddenly he feels selfish again. He doesn’t! He wants to remember this, because despite everything it was fun, because it brought them closer together and because the feelings of lying on Taehyun’s chest is so precious to him.

So, “I don’t,” he says.

Taehyun sighs lightly, in what the other interprets as relief. “Good.”

Taehyun isn’t sure what time it is when he wakes up but having forgotten to close the curtains before he and Hueningkai fell asleep—which had been pretty quickly after their conversation ended, the quiet snoring coming from his little body endearing Taehyun to no end before he too dozed off—he can see it’s still dark outside. He would move to close them so they wouldn’t be woken up too early, even though the sun still rises up in the late morning at this time of the year, but he can’t. Still half asleep, Taehyun frowns and blinks a few times to try and see better in the darkness. There, still on his chest, Hueningkai sleeps. Except the boy has gained his normal size back, and all of his normal body weight rests atop the other.

He could be annoyed, after all, it’s not exactly making it easy to breathe, but he’s not. Taehyun smiles, threading careful fingers through his friend’s brown hair, the light waves soft to the touch. Hueningkai hums and his head moves. Taehyun expects him to move away, bothered by the gesture—he’s only half ashamed of making the most of his sleeping state—but instead, he moves closer. The younger sleepily buries his face in Taehyun’s neck, his nose just in the crook of the red head’s collarbones. Taehyun’s heart squeezes so hard he’s afraid he might die just right there and then. He would die happy, sure, but he doesn’t want it to happen just yet.

See, the thing about Taehyun is that he can’t make his mind up. He isn’t usually hesitant, or even regretful, but when it comes to Hueningkai, he can’t seem to get it just right. After it took him weeks to determine whether or not he had feelings for the brunette—he did, he concluded while watching him run away from Yeonjun after making the older drop his ice cream by screaming in his back—and after it took him months to decide whether or not he would tell him—he would, he convinced himself after he’d spotted Hueningkai attentively reading the end of the year’s ball poster in the hall—it was still taking him so long to decide how and when exactly he would do it.

Don’t mistake him, he had tried already. But every time, whether because Hueningkai hadn’t been attentive enough and hadn’t heard him or because he blurted it out at the most random moment, he had considered his attempt an instant fail and had precipitately cast a dream spell. Every time, Hueningkai had blinked twice, cocked his head to the side and frowned, shaking his head when Taehyun mumbled a small ‘what?’ as he tried his best to hide the creeping blush.

It was just a question of timing, but Taehyun seemed to always be the worst at it. Again, now, he feels ready. But Hueningkai is asleep, would it be useless? He wants to do it for himself, too. And again, now, he hesitates.

Through the window, Taehyun watches the sky slowly turn from black to navy, to a variety of pinks and oranges, to its regular blue color. The sunrise isn’t such a slow process, but it feels like time is stretched as Hueningkai’s heart beats peacefully against his own.

Eventually, the light wakes the younger up. Not too quickly, though, and suddenly Taehyun feels like his moment is running out.

“I like you,” he blurts out, the words falling somewhere in Hueningkai’s hair.

His heart stops, just for a moment, just while Hueningkai is frozen, before the younger raises his head from his chest and looks up at him. He has sleep in his eyes, barely open yet, his cheeks kind of puffy and his lips in a natural pout. Hueningkai stares at him like this for a moment, impossible to read.

Another failure , Taehyun thinks.

However, before he can cast yet another spell, Hueningkai stops him. “Don’t.”

“H-huh?”

“You were going to make me forget again,” the younger says, there is no bitterness in his voice, no reproach, “weren’t you?”

“How—”

“It’s like you said yesterday, unless you're reminded of the dream, you don’t remember it. Last night I thought about what you could’ve made me forget, and I dreamed of it. I dreamed of every time you’ve said those words.”

Taehyun feels his body get incredibly warm, the sensation spreading from his chest to his neck and to his ears until it reaches his face too.

“Before, I thought they were just dreams, wishful thinking. This time, don’t let me forget before I can say them back.”

The redhead doesn’t know how he can just say that without stuttering, without blushing or anything, but Hueningkai’s face is still painted with sleep, and Taehyun figures that he’s probably still asleep, in a way. At the border to hold onto the memories, and still be aware of what is happening around him—or under him.

The brunette blinks slowly, resting his chin on his hand so it won’t hurt Taehyun’s chest. “I don’t think I was able to put a word to it before, because every time I came close, you would take it back and I would be sent back to wondering. Now, I think I can. I like you too, Tyun. A lot, not like a friend, not like I used to. It’s why I didn’t want to forget, because I want to know everything about you. I want to go to sleep every night having learned a new thing about you.” He smiles, a bit more awake now. “Are you crying?”

“Am I?” Taehyun says, and the wetness of his own voice startles him. Indeed, there are tears gliding along his cheeks, rolling past his ears and wetting his neck.

Hueningkai nods, yawning in the process. Taehyun chuckles, raising his hands to wipe the salty water away, and when he brings them back down, he brings them to wrap around the younger. “Okay, I won’t.”

Taehyun thought his heart would go crazy learning how Hueningkai felt, and if it did beat faster when he’d confessed, the younger’s words had calmed it down. They feel the same way. He feels the same way . To say he’d never thought it would happen was a lie, because he wasn’t that oblivious, and knew that Hueningkai didn’t look at others the way he looked at him—with the number of times Beomgyu had told him, it’s not like he could forget—but the probability that it is just because he was his best friend was still high and he didn’t want to set himself up for heartbreak. Nonetheless, getting confirmation felt so sweet.

Feeling light again, Taehyun let himself drift back to sleep.

When he wakes up again, the smell of pancakes floods the room and the weight is gone from on top of him. Taehyun sits up and looks around, but Hueningkai is still there, simply lying next to him, scrolling on his phone. Distracted by the abrupt movement, Hueningkai looks at him and when their eyes meet, he smiles and flushes, locking his phone. “Hi,” he says, voice small. The early morning’s events seem to have caught up to him.

“Hi,” Taehyun says back, scratching the back of his head with an embarrassed smile.

He doesn’t need to think about what to say, though, because his grandmother calls from downstairs, calling the boys to breakfast. She’d probably sensed they were both awake, now.

Without a word, they make their way downstairs—not before Hueningkai put some pants back on—and sit at the counter, greeting Taehyun’s grandmother warmly and the plates of pancakes even warmer. They dig in, still silent, and Taehyun avoids his grandmother’s curious yet still somewhat knowing looks.

As Hueningkai helps himself to one last pancake, covering it in syrup, Soohyun finally sits with them and speaks. “So, Hueningkai, how was it?”

The boy’s head shoots up and he exchanges surprised looks with Taehyun, who just shrugs. He has no idea what she means either.

“T-the pool?” Hueningkai tries before shoving pancake in his mouth.

Soohyun laughs. “I doubt you went. I meant the tea.”

Hueningkai almost chokes on his bite. “How do you know?” he asks between two coughs.

“The cup was obviously empty. I’m sorry I left it in the open without a warning, but tell me: how was it? It hadn’t been tested yet.”

So, Hueningkai starts telling the story. It’s rather short as he keeps the school encounter for himself, which Taehyun is thankful for. The brunette tells the grandmother all about how it felt to be the size of a doll. All the while, Taehyun can’t keep his eyes away from him, and his heart flutters when Hueningkai looks back but he doesn’t shy away, enjoying the way the younger’s cheeks get dusted with pink.

At the mention of some detail Taehyun wasn’t paying attention to, his grandmother suddenly claps her hands together. “Yes! That’s it! Thank you boys, I’m going to adjust the recipe now!” she exclaims before walking away to her study-slash-potion room. Taehyun had stayed away from that room ever since he accidentally knocked something off a shelf and caused his arm to disappear for a week. He shivers just thinking about it.

It’s just him and Hueningkai once more, and he bites his lip, unsure what comes next. However, they get interrupted again, this time by Hueningkai’s phone through which his mother reminds him that he has to be back before lunch as they have family coming over.

Thus, Hueningkai gathers his things and walks out the door, Taehyun watching him in its frame. He stops a few steps away and turns back, walking up to the second to last step, causing him to be slightly shorter than Taehyun. He looks up at him and gulps, pinching his lips.

Taehyun smiles, then yelps when the younger grabs his cheeks and brings him down to meet him. Their mouths crash in somewhat of a painful way, Taehyun’s teeth colliding with Hueningkai’s upper lip.

They both let out a sound, and Hueningkai lets go of him.

“Hyuka!” Taehyun complains, almost whiny.

“I’m sorry!”

He looks like he’s about to run away, so Taehyun grabs him again.

“Wait,” he says, making sure he understands what’s happening this time.

Once he sees in the brunette’s eyes that he knows Taehyun is going to kiss him, he does. He bends down, slowly, just enough so that their lips touch softly.

It’s short, too short to really have a taste to it, but Taehyun knows they’ll have time to have better ones. Later.

Hueningkai smiles like an idiot, but the redhead is pretty sure he’s mirroring it.

“Okay. Okay, I’m gonna go, then.”

“Mhm-hm.”

Taehyun lets him go, but not even five steps later, Hueningkai turns around one more time.

“You’re— you’re my boyfriend now, right?”

Taehyun smiles impossibly wider and nods.

“Good! Good. Yeah.”

And so he goes, the excitement in his step similar to the one in Taehyun’s heart.

Yeah , Taehyun thinks. Yeah, good .