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“You know, that demon wasn’t actually so bad,” Hyunjin murmurs with a dreamy expression on his face that is still slightly red after the battle.
“Yeah?” Seungmin asks skeptically. “What makes you think so?”
To be completely honest, Seungmin doesn’t really care about the answer Hyunjin’s going to give him. He’s too tired for it and all he wants right now is to get to the temple and get some good sleep to recharge all the energy that he spent today. No, correction: he isn’t just tired, he is absolutely exhausted and washed out, which is why he’s so surprised that Hyunjin, who was injured almost as badly as Jisung, still has enough strength to talk.
They’re slowly approaching the city and Seungmin thinks he’s never been happier to see those white towers and stone houses in his whole life (which is, of course, not true: he feels this way after every battle that drains energy out of his body). Saying “they” would be a bit too much, though, as it’s only Seungmin who moves on his own with Hyunjin slowly levitating behind.
Seungmin spent the last bits of energy on casting that spell just to make sure that Hyunjin wouldn’t have to walk the whole way back to the city and regretted that decision around ten times already. Perhaps it’d be wiser to stay there and wait until Hyunjin regained enough energy to open the portal instead of spending hours walking, but Seungmin’s never been so good at making important decisions and all he wanted at that moment was to get back home as soon as possible.
When Jeongin, the youngest in their team, accidentally summoned a huge demon he couldn’t control, the only choice they had was to fight and at least try to defeat it before it would defeat them. Jeongin is a warlock who still has a long way to go before mastering his skills, but he enjoys playing with the unknown forces so much that he doesn’t truly care if it backfires, finding joy in discovering new things even if they are more than ready to kill him.
Obviously, if they all died in that battle, they would eventually come back to life, but it would take days for the spirits to reunite with their bodies, and afterwards they’d be weak and vulnerable for weeks until they regained all the health and energy; and even that doesn’t mean that they’re immortal. They can still die and coming back to life isn’t such a pleasant process, but Jeongin doesn’t seem to bother with that question, instead constantly endangering himself and all the people around.
Seungmin isn’t as against it as it may look, in fact, he adores Jeongin a lot, and, after all, he’s glad that Jeongin usually does his new experiments with the other guys around and not when he’s alone (although, come to think of it, who actually knows what he’s doing when he’s alone?). He finds reassurance in the fact that he and Minho are always near to help and heal the others if needed, but at the same time really dislikes that they all are so careless with their lives and treat danger as something fun rather than serious. As soon as they killed the demon and were all ready to collapse onto the ground from exhaustion, Jisung quite literally said that it was “big fun, as always” as if he wasn’t brought back to life by Minho in the middle of the battle upon dying from a mysterious curse that neither of them knew how to cure.
“Well, I didn’t die and you didn’t die too, so I consider it a win,” Hyunjin’s voice brings Seungmin out of his thoughts and back to reality.
Right, Hyunjin is just as carefree as Jisung and Jeongin, and, honestly, it is just tiring. Seungmin doesn’t respond, although he really wants to remind Hyunjin that he was extremely close to dying three times and that he is currently suffering from some poison that Seungmin, as a priest, cannot heal. Arguing with Hyunjin makes absolutely no sense, and right now is not the best time for it anyway as they’re both slightly out of their mind after the long and draining battle.
Don’t get him wrong, Seungmin loves being of help, this is why he chose to be a healer, unlike Felix, who chose the path of dealing damage and uniting with the dark shadow forces, but that doesn’t mean he enjoys wasting his energy on completely unnecessary fights, especially if he ends up taking care of Hyunjin every single time.
Seungmin doesn’t remember when it started, but what he knows is that, technically, he isn’t even supposed to be doing that, isn’t supposed to continue healing Hyunjin after defeating another monster or demon. Hyunjin is a fire mage, so anything that happens in his life outside of their team shouldn’t concern Seungmin – after all, the mages are perfectly capable of creating unique gems to restore health and energy and know a whole bunch of spells that help them recover faster than anyone else can.
And still, every time Hyunjin puts himself in danger, every time he suffers from different curses, poisons, uncontrollable bleeding and other unpleasant effects, every time his spells backfire and damage him instead, Seungmin’s heart aches and he finds himself spending the last bits of his own energy to save this silly mage’s life. Seungmin isn’t sure what it means to him, but Felix calls it being “hopelessly in love”, causing him to blush every time and tell Felix to do something about his own poor love life instead. It isn’t love, right?
“Dying isn’t such a horrible thing,” Hyunjin continues behind his back, still levitating slowly, as if Seungmin didn’t ignore him for the past ten minutes. “I like the warmth I feel in my body when you bring me back to life. And if we all die, I get to see your angel form as the last thing before my ice block spell breaks and I die too.”
“Hyunjin,” he winces a little. “It isn’t ‘angel form’, this skill has a name and I believe we’ve been through this conversation a million times already.”
“I know,” Hyunjin snorts and Seungmin can almost hear him roll his eyes dramatically. “It’s not like you remember all the names for the spells that mages use, right? And besides, I like saying angel form better.”
Seungmin doesn’t want to admit it even to himself, but he actually does remember the spells and skills names that mages have, he even did some extra research on that in the library to see which spells Hyunjin still doesn’t fully control and gently guide him to working on them more. He only did that for Hyunjin’s own safety, to make sure he would finally stop hurting himself during battles, so it isn’t such a big deal, or at least that’s what Seungmin likes to think.
They finally reach the bridge, behind which lies the city, and that’s when things take quite an unexpected turn: Hyunjin suddenly remembers he’s always wanted to try walking on water while under Seungmin’s levitation spell. On any other day Seungmin would just sigh and keep him company, already used to his antics, but today they both need to rest. Seungmin is too tired to argue, he knows Hyunjin is stubborn enough to ignore all his words anyway, so he threatens Hyunjin with some new curses he learned this month instead.
He is rather surprised to see that Hyunjin believes he can actually do it, even when they both know there’s no way to intentionally hurt your ally unless you’re officially fighting, like during a duel or other special events. Perhaps it has to do with the way he glares at Hyunjin upon hearing that, or maybe Hyunjin notices how his hands tremble from supporting the levitation spell all this time, but he quickly corrects himself and says he wants to try it next time, when they both get enough rest and free time. Seungmin just smiles at him, hoping that it will serve as a good answer.
Once in the temple, Seungmin decides that Hyunjin can walk on his own now, but as soon as he sets his feet on the floor, Seungmin understands it was a mistake. Hyunjin can barely stand without help, so Seungmin lets him lean on his shoulder for support and, groaning, walks them both to his tiny room under the very roof.
Seungmin knows he is extremely lucky to have a room for himself, albeit very small, a place where he can actually rest both his mind and body without having to worry about disturbing someone with his dark thoughts or lack of energy. He used to share a room with Felix many years ago, before they chose to train for different paths, and he was enjoying it very much, but now he just knows that he wouldn’t be able to spend so much time together with a shadow priest. Felix himself is an actual sunshine despite spending most of the day in his shadow form, but the energy he radiates makes Seungmin feel vulnerable and uneasy; he doesn’t like to be surrounded by dark magic.
Thankfully, healers have their own space in the temple, which is why Seungmin gets the opportunity to bring Hyunjin here after almost every battle. It’s kind of become a habit of his, their post-fight ritual, of sorts, and even though he tries not to think about it much, Seungmin actually loves how repetitive it is, loves knowing what’s going to happen next. Most of the time he sits in the chair next to his bed until Hyunjin falls asleep, and then Hyunjin unconsciously pulls him into his embrace and they spend the rest of the day or night sleeping like this.
They never talk about it afterwards and, honestly, Seungmin likes it this way, because he doesn’t need to think about what it is, doesn’t want to label whatever this is – to him it’s just the nicest way to restore energy lost during the day. Hyunjin is always warm and holds Seungmin so gently as if he is made of glass and can break easily, and he smells of bluebells and ashes at the same time, so Seungmin truly enjoys sleeping on his chest.
Today isn’t any different, or at least that’s what it looks like when they get into the room and Hyunjin instantly collapses onto his neatly made bed, creating a mess of it in no time. Seungmin doesn’t feel any better, but he knows Hyunjin had a harder time today, so he quietly brings a chair closer to the bed and takes a seat. For a few moments they stay silent, so Seungmin closes his eyes and inhales the familiar and comforting scent of his room.
The peace and quiet, however, doesn’t last long: Hyunjin suddenly winces in pain and lets out a whine that he tries to cover by faking a cough. He’s shivering slightly, but other than that there are no visible signs of the effects that the mysterious poison has on him, and yet Seungmin can easily tell that it hurts a lot, no matter how much Hyunjin tries to hide it. It was the first time for them to fight with a demon of this kind, so, obviously, Seungmin has no idea how long it will last, but it pains him to see Hyunjin like this.
The worst part about this is that it’s not even Hyunjin fault, like it would be in most other cases; the demon’s spit was poisonous, and since Hyunjin became its target when Jisung died, he was also affected by it. Hyunjin whimpers again, but this time the sound is muffled by his palm, and Seungmin looks at him with worry written all over his face. He wants to run downstairs and try to find someone who would be able to heal it, but is too afraid of leaving Hyunjin alone without his constant yet almost invisible support.
“You really should’ve asked Minho to heal that poison,” Seungmin tells him quietly.
He starts murmuring simple healing spells again, those that don’t take up too much energy but are still helpful, and his fingers instinctively come to touch Hyunjin’s wrist – he knows it doesn’t matter, but still wants to believe that if he touches Hyunjin while casting those spells they will have stronger effect. He used to believe in that as a child, but the romantic illusion shattered as soon as he started training and found out it didn’t change anything, and yet, years later, he still finds himself doing it. Hyunjin just chuckles at that, but his answer catches Seungmin off guard.
“He is still mad at me, so we don’t talk,” is what he says. “I was practicing fire blast last week, and I was a bit afraid of hurting someone in the process, you know, so I went to the forest and… Minho might’ve seen me accidentally burn down a tree. Like… to ashes.”
Seungmin’s eyes go wide as saucers when he hears that; now he understands why Minho looked so pissed during the battle and literally refused to heal Hyunjin unless he was in real danger. Minho is the only night elf in their team, so it’s obvious that he’s the closest to nature, but he is also a druid which means the forest is his first and most important home (despite having an actual house, Minho still loves sleeping outside in his cat form). Seungmin knows Hyunjin didn’t want to do any harm to the nature, he only wanted to practice his skills away from people, but seeing this must’ve hurt Minho a lot. He still doesn’t think this is a valid reason to leave Hyunjin suffering as well, but he guesses he doesn’t really have the right to decide for Minho; he won’t ever understand the true value of the forest anyway.
“And besides,” Hyunjin continues. “He was a little too busy fussing over his favorite warrior. Did you see how he spent half of his energy to bring Jisung back to life when that demon showed his teeth?”
Of course, Seungmin noticed that and is still beyond grateful for it. Only druids can bring someone back to life in the middle of the battle, but the spell is so demanding and difficult that it can only be one person and there is no guarantee the druid will have any energy left after this. Minho and Seungmin are both healers, so Seungmin knows how hard it was for him; today’s fight was extremely draining for all of them, but healers especially.
“Hyunjin, you understand that if he didn’t, you’d be the next one to die, right? Your spells were insane today.”
“Yeah,” Hyunjin admits, biting his lips as he speaks. “But he didn’t do that for me! He did that to help Jisung in the first place.”
“Well, even if so,” Seungmin agrees without much hesitation; they all know what’s between those two. “That thing is called love, and I guess to Minho it is more important than everything else.”
Frankly speaking, Seungmin is curious as to why Minho fell for Jisung, who doesn’t know how to sit still for more than two minutes and is so different from him in literally any other field. In addition to that, Jisung is a human and also a warrior, which doesn’t sound like a druid’s ideal type; Seungmin guesses love doesn’t ask and has no barriers. Minho looks genuinely happy with Jisung and it’s no wonder that he does everything he can to protect his warrior and make sure he survives every battle they fight. If Seungmin was asked about the most peaceful scene he’s ever seen, he wouldn’t even have to think before telling them about that one time when he was picking herbs for his new potions and saw Minho curled up on Jisung’s lap in his cat form, purring softly as Jisung was gently stroking his ears.
“And if you loved me, would you do the same for me?” Hyunjin then asks out of the blue.
Seungmin finds himself blushing furiously at the question as his jaw drops and he doesn’t know what to say. He knows Hyunjin isn’t in the right mind now, knows he shouldn’t be so serious about this playful question, but he just can’t help it when his heart starts racing suddenly. To avoid having to reply, Seungmin reminds Hyunjin that he isn’t a druid and can’t do this at all – with love or without. A thought comes to his brain uninvited, telling Seungmin that he basically did the same for Hyunjin to the best of his abilities today, spent all the energy to make sure Hyunjin made it through the battle alive and felt better afterwards. He simply brushes it off.
“But, hypothetically, would you?” Hyunjin, being the most stubborn mage Seungmin’s ever met, insists.
He doesn’t know what to say, because… would he? As Seungmin asks himself this question, he realizes he already knows the answer to it, always have known, but doesn’t want to spill it to Hyunjin so casually. That deep thinking process must have found its reflection on his face, because Hyunjin drops the subject and goes quiet, looking a little guilty all of a sudden. Seungmin wants to assure him that it didn’t make him feel uncomfortable in any way, but when he opens his mouth, he feels a wave of tiredness wash over him and finds himself unable to resist closing his eyes for a moment.
Such sudden blackouts when he disconnects from reality for a minute or two don’t happen too often but they aren’t that shocking to Seungmin anymore; it usually happens when he is completely drained but continues to push himself beyond all the possible limits – it happened a lot during his training period when he would keep casting healing spells until he fainted and someone else would have to cast healing spells on him instead. To Hyunjin, however, it is completely new, so he clearly freaks out, but Seungmin only notices that when he slowly starts coming back to reality.
“Hey, hey, angel, are you alright?” Hyunjin whispers and then Seungmin feels a light touch to his shoulder.
He opens his eyes and, once the room is back in focus, sees that Hyunjin is sat up despite the obvious discomfort it brings him. His face is paler than it was before and Seungmin knows it has nothing to do with the poison; he gulps when he realizes that he made Hyunjin this worried. His mind, however, takes ages to process the fact that Hyunjin has just called him an angel during a moment of despair and not just for fun. His heart skips a beat, but then he nods and sees relief all over Hyunjin’s face.
“Sorry,” Seungmin mumbles. “It happens sometimes, I should’ve warned you beforehand. What were you saying?”
“Ah… it’s nothing,” Hyunjin replies, flashing him a smile that’s too bright for this situation. “You need to rest, stop wasting your energy on me. Yes, Minnie, I see and I feel everything, I’m a mage for a reason, remember? Come here.”
“I—I don’t know…” Seungmin stutters, a little hesitant. “I’m not supposed to be helping you in the first place, so…”
Hyunjin frowns upon hearing that, he clearly guesses that Seungmin is unsure about sharing a bed with him this time, but has no idea why. As much as he would love Seungmin to elaborate, however, he doesn’t ask, choosing to stare at the ceiling instead as though it doesn’t bother him at all.
“Shouldn’t you be in the Mage Tower in the evening? You know, doing some learning for your mage stuff, so that your scorch spell stops backfiring every single time?”
Seungmin wants to slap himself in the face when he says it, and he would gladly do so if he wasn’t this exhausted. He hates himself for making things so awkward between them, hates that he is so stupid and is afraid of simply melting in Hyunjin’s embrace after all the things they’ve talked about just now. Felix would call that love too, but Seungmin tells the Felix in his mind to shut up and lets out a heavy sigh.
“Sadly, I am afraid I cannot make it to my evening class as I am currently dying from some unknown and very disgusting poison. Chan should’ve kept a better eye on his little warlock and none of this would happen. God damn, I still can’t believe we’ve got a paladin crushing on a warlock of all people, this is just so ridiculous.”
That makes Seungmin giggle, because it is actually funny: Chan is a warrior of Holy Light, but has a very fat and obvious crush on a boy who is full of dark energy. Their team is, indeed, full of interesting people.
Seungmin is grateful that the atmosphere is a lot lighter again, but then Hyunjin says something and his breath hitches.
“I know a way to help me recover faster, though, and I’m sure it won’t be that damaging for you as constantly supporting your healing spells on me,” he suggests with a playful smile but it is clear as day that he is extremely nervous.
Seungmin decides to take a leap of faith and plays along, asking what he’s got on his mind.
“A kiss. One kiss from a beautiful angel.”
Hyunjin doesn’t hesitate when he says that while Seungmin blushes redder than a tomato and looks away. When he finds enough courage to establish eye contact again, he sees Hyunjin biting his lips so aggressively that it looks like they’re one moment away from starting to bleed.
“Alright,” he finally breaks the silence, voice shaky. “But only if you promise that you’ll stop putting yourself in danger so carelessly. If you do, I’ll talk to that angel of yours and maybe convince him to give you a kiss.”
“Seungminnie,” Hyunjin shakes his head in disbelief, a smile playing on his lips. “I promise, I do.”
“Good,” Seungmin murmurs as he crawls onto the bed and sits next to Hyunjin, unsure of what to do next.
He wants to be as bold as Hyunjin, he really does, but all he knows is blushing and ignoring the obvious flirting from his side. The next thing that happens is Hyunjin pulling him closer, making him settle on the pillow so that their faces are only a few centimeters away now. This is a familiar position, they’ve done this before, so Seungmin feels comfortable and safe, and he even finds himself instinctively leaning closer to inhale Hyunjin’s sweet scent. There’s nothing he wants more than to bury his nose in the crook of Hyunjin’s neck and fall asleep just like that, but they still have an unsolved question and Seungmin waits for Hyunjin to take the next step.
“So, what did the angel say?” Hyunjin asks in a whisper, slightly embarrassed too.
There is, however, this look of mixed hope and determination on his face, that makes Seungmin lean forward a little and press their lips together as he squeezes his eyes shut. Hyunjin smiles into the kiss, pulling him in by the waist and stealing another kiss before he whines again, looking a bit guilty for, as he believes, ruining such a romantic moment.
“You have to sleep,” Seungmin mutters into the fabric of his robe. “The pain will go away.”
“Thank you,” Hyunjin whispers back. “For, you know… Always being here for me.”
Seungmin gets comfortable on Hyunjin’s chest, still careful not to put all his weight onto the tired mage, and feels so happy to hear the soft scent of bluebells mixed with a bitter ash scent. Hyunjin’s neck is warm and Seungmin finds himself unable to resist leaving a kiss there as well, something he’s been dreaming to do but couldn’t admit even to himself.
“Jinnie..?” he mumbles sleepily a few minutes later, feeling comfortable and protected with Hyunjin’s hands on his back.
“Mhm?” is an equally sleepy reply he gets.
“The answer to your question was yes.”