Chapter Text
The witches paraded into Makkeumdo on a Wednesday morning.
The whole village woke to a rhythmic shaking of the ground, puzzled faces peeking out from windows and doorways.
The air was brisk and blue as the sun got ready to make its appearance, and no matter how hard he looked at the foggy end of the road, Jungkook couldn't find the answer to his questions.
(And did he have a lot of those.)
The shakes were getting progressively stronger: they were not enough to knock someone off their feet, but enough to make Jungkook feel like he was badly attempting a dance at the SummerDay Festival.
In the house up front, Chungha's rosy face peeked curiously from the window, quickly followed by her mother.
“Jungkook-ah, what is going on?”
“I would like to know,” he hollered in reply. “Can you see better from up there, noona?”
“It’s a house!” came another voice. Jungkook swiveled around, trying to have a direct view of the monastery’s bell tower.
Sure enough Namjoon was leaning outside the window. He was far away enough that he looked tiny, but voices carried extremely well at the bottom of the mountain.
“How can a house do this?” he screamed back.
“It’s moving! It has le-“
The gasps from the surrounding houses took his attention away from Namjoon, and he turned his gaze to the beginning of the street where the outline of a- of a house, it truly was a house- was becoming more and more clear.
It was not big, but it looked massive as it barely squeezed through their main street, knocking on the handyman's wooden sign and dragging Mister Wang’s precious flower boxes up and away from the front of the post office, much to the sleepy horror of their owner.
The house was all dark wood and foggy windows, just like Fisherman Park’s cabin, but the cracks in its planks and the curve to its wall just looked like the proof of a losing battle against time, instead of neglect.
Jungkook blanched as the house kept getting closer, its long and gnarly legs creaking every time it took a step. A house on legs. A house on legs in his village.
Before he could even think about doing anything, the house groaned, shook, and then skidded to a stop a few meters away.
A wooden door creaked open on the front of the house and Jungkook found himself holding his breath as a pointy hat peeked outside, followed by a sturdy set of shoulders and a long body draped in a hivory woolen coat.
“Good morning, dear village of Makkeumdo!” The man’s nasal voice sweeped effortlessly through the village and all heads turned towards him, caught.
Another man slipped out of the door, movements as fluid as water. He wasn’t wearing a pointy hat but as Jeongguk strained his neck and squinted his eyes he spotted squizzly black stains on the man’s hand. “We hope not to have bothered your sleep too much!” The man’s voice was definitely too cheerful for an apology, the sun glinting against his smile.
“I’m Hoseok, this is Seokjin, and we are pleased to make your acquaintance.”
They gravitated towards each other and the pointy hat got thrown in the hair before it flirted with the floor and then up again, to rest on its owner’s- Sejin’s? shoulder. Jeongguk’s breath caught in his throat, captivated as they bowed their heads before raising them again with twin smiles and a glint in their eyes that he couldn't quite figure out, one the mirror of the other.
They were far enough that Jeongguk didn’t have a clear view of their face, but he could tell they were handsome by how they carried themselves. Their shoulders braved the sky, backs straight and arms open in invitation.
Their coats swung in tandem motions as they moved, every step and flick of a wrist a coordinated dance accompanying a quickfire banter that Jeongguk honestly couldn’t follow, too busy staring-
“We will be your neighbors for an indefinite amount of time.”
“I’m sorry, what?!” Jeongguk took a step forward and another right back as the house crept again, stooping forward as it raised on its legs.
“Once again, so happy to meet you!” The shorter man- Hoseok? threw a smile in their general direction, ink stained hands gripping to the porch’s railings as the house tilted them around.
Blue smoke started huffing out of the chimney as the other man stuffed a hand in his hat and threw out colorful sparkles, once and twice while the house was turning around. Another rumble shook through the ground, the chimney looking like Minari whenever she tried to dislodge a fur ball from her throat.
Jeongguk’s heart stopped in his chest. “To the g-!”
A shooting star flew out of the chimney in a blaze of smoke and sparkles, flashing into the sky whistling like a mad kettle. Jeongguk watched it aim for the sun before it got swallowed up by its light, heart beating like a drum against his sternum.
What the hell had just happened?
When he looked back down, the street was doused in vanilla tasting blue fog, and the house was gone.
A few hours after, the word witch was already dropping from mouth to mouth in ushered whispers.
Jeongguk had never seen a witch before.
When she was still alive, his grandma used to tell him stories, filling quaint afternoons whenever his parents were too busy managing the village. She told him about horns, and about fangs, and insufferable personalities. About princesses turned into frogs, and rats turned into valets, about despicable women and evil old ladies.
Sometimes Namjoon passed out to the village the leaflets that the Monk’s Order sent him. The witches on those leaflets didn’t have horns and fangs, but they had pointy hats and brooms and cauldrons filled with animal entrails.
Jeongguk wasn’t sure what to believe. It frankly all seemed a little too ridiculous to him. He had met his fair share of exasperating women (most of them had a permanent seat in the Festival Committee, and did everything but organizing the Festival season), and none of them had bizarre appendages. They could be found boiling cow intestines, but that was to make gopchang, and Jeongguk was sure there must have been an exception for that. He doubted witches would go around wearing Ms Lee’s hand stitched floral skirts.
He had to admit, though, that life was peaceful in the village, and little had changed over the years. Maybe if he had grown up in the capital, where people had learned to make light from potatoes, he wouldn’t have had trouble believing in the existence of women with horns. But alas, Jeonggukk had never been anywhere else, so his skepticism stayed.
That same day, the Festival Committee had urged him to call a village meeting.
This actually meant that Jungkook had opened his door to find five old ladies camped outside, arguing and chattering away with urgency before pinning him under their old beady eyes.
So, not even half an hour later they had managed to gather the whole village in the small village hall. Those days they didn’t need that much space.
Just as usual, Ms Han stood in the middle of the hall, authoritative despite the few inches of height that old age had left her. “We called you here to talk about the worrying events of this morning. I’m sure you are all very upset-“
Jungkook just sighed before gently interrupting her. “Thank you for opening the meeting, Ms Han, but today is going to be busy so maybe let’s skip ahead to what worries you?”
Ms Han looked at him as though he had grown a second head, but before she could open her mouth to say something, Ms Lee was standing and brushing the folds of her skirt. It was peonies today.
“Witches, Jungkook dear! What could be worse than witches?” Voices raised in agreement from the crowd.
“Who said anything about witches?”
“Those two are only trouble, you can tell. And when there’s trouble witches are close.” Ms Lee shook her head, grey wisps of hair falling from her bun.
“I agree,” he conceded. “The parade was a bit much, and they could have talked to me before moving since they are close to the village and I am village head...” he trailed off. “But even if they were witches, just because some of them are bad doesn’t mean all of them are! And maybe they’re just rumors. How would you know? Have you ever met one?”
“There’s no need to know anything! You can just tell. Everyone knows those are nasty people. We shouldn’t waste any more time and get rid of them immediately!”
“They didn’t even move into the village!”
“The bottom of the hill-side is close enough!” Ms Han clicked her tongue, disapproval thick in her voice. “Wouldn’t be surprised if staying away from them wasn’t enough. I’m sure their house has legs just so they can chase poor people to the end of the world!”
“That wouldn’t surprise me!” said Ms Oh. “I swear I’ve never seen teeth as pointy as those two this morning! They might as well have been wolves!” A gasp echoed from the hall.
“And there were goat intestines hanging from the ceiling!”
Fisherman Park found Ms Kang in the middle of the crowd, arms crossed and eyebrows raised.“Oh, and how would you have seen that?”
“When they opened the door, you big-“
The hall exploded in chatter as everyone tried to make their contribution, voices overlapping and drowning each other out until only snippets were recognizable. “-ars filled with toads’ eyes!” “-turned into wolves!” “-ind as a mole but at least I don’t stink of mackerel every day of the year!” “-uld we call monks to get rid of-”
“Namjoon-ssi! Aren’t witches and monks mortal enemies?” Suddenly you could hear a pin drop in the hall, all eyes trained on Ms Han. “What are you going to do about it?” “Tell us, Namjoon-ssi.”
“Well, that’s not really, you need to take into account- I mean, historically, but you need to know that there are different views-” Jeongguk sighed and rested his head in his hand for a second. He knew even this brief respite wouldn’t last long: the village’s attention span was criminally short.
In fact; “Don’t witches fly on brooms? How can we defend ourselves from that?”
That was it. It had been going on for long enough. .
“Let’s stop making assumptions based on people you've never met. They haven’t even been here for a day yet and you already want to send them away on the basis of what? That they’re a little-” His mind flashed back to the house. “Quite a lot weird?”
He sighed. “Technically they're not even within the village boundaries, so I can't do anything about it.” His tone softened at the sight of his citizens, some looking embarrassedly to the floor, a few of the elders with frowns on their faces. “I know we're not used to having new people around, but let’s try and give them a bit of a chance, okay? You’ll see that we have nothing to worry about.”
The hall emptied with only a few grumbles, feet moving swiftly as the villagers remembered the long list of duties awaiting them for the day.
Only two figures stayed, heading towards him with sympathetic smiles. The taller one, drowning in a sweater as usual, reached him first, arm thrown over his shoulder. “I like them!“ Taehyung announced cheerfully. “Well, I did only see them passing in the distance while I was in the fields, but they waved at me!”
“If I didn’t know you were such a good judge of character I would be worried about your low standards.” Yoongi’s only greeting was a questioning stare, eyes half-lidded but focused on Jeongguk. The older hid it well behind his rough exterior, but the affection and care he had for his friends was evident in moments like these. It was one of the things he appreciated the most about Yoongi. Jeongguk answered only with a tired shrug of his shoulders, and received a pat on his back. “They are...eccentric for sure, but it doesn’t mean anything bad is going to happen. I just hope they won’t bring any unwanted attention around here.”
Jeongguk shot him a sad smile. “I’m sure everything will be alright.”
The bells in the monastery tower managed to ring almost twenty times before Jungkook’s words were proved to be wrong.
Seungkwan, one of the Lee twins, grew fangs overnight. So there they were, not even a full day later, back in the village hall.
The kids’ mother was softly crying, hand petting his head for self-comfort more than anything else, a sob breaking out of her whenever she caught sight of the boy’s new enhanced teeth.
“I like them,” was all the boy had said, before he had tried to bite off the finger that his twin had put in his mouth.
They twins were now running after each other, tumbling in the grass outside and soon pulling little Chungha with them.
“You see, Jungkook-ah? They have turned poor Seungkwan into a witch.” Ms Han declared, crossing her arms over her chest. The sight of her precious niece rough housing with the twins had only distracted her for so much.
Ms Oh gasped. “You wouldn’t say such a thing was possible, was it?” She frettingly checked her 25 year old son’s teeth, before sagging with relief when she saw that all teeth were smooth and round.
“Witches are born, they can’t be turned.” murmured Namjoon absentmindedly, nose deep within a leather bound book that looked to be heavier than the logs Jungkook and other men in the village had to carry around before winter started. A soft exclamation left his mouth before he turned the book towards them, pointing to a specific spot on the page. Several eyes trained on the page, slowly mouthing out the word. “But no natural process could cause such mutation, so it is the work of a witch.”
A gasp resounded in the hall.
“So they were witches…”
“What poor timing! Right before Junghyun’s wedding too!”
That was the last straw before the hall erupted into chaos once more. Men and women alike argued worriedly with one another, thinking about all the energy and hard work that had gone in the preparations, worrying about it all being for nothing. The exuberance that had filled the village at the idea of finally seeing another wedding quickly turned into dread. Everything had to go perfectly. They couldn’t afford not veen a small misstep, quite literally
Seeing Junghyun’s drawn eyebrows and Yunha’s wringing hands as they locked eyes through the crowd was what finally brokeJeongguk. They had been waiting for so long. It was his duty to make sure everything went smoothly and they lived a memorable day, not just for themselves, but for the village. They needed this.
And this meant he had to go and face the witches.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure it was a misunderstanding. I’ll make sure Seungkwan’s fangs will go away and we won’t have anything to worry about for the wedding.” He patted the head of the twin in question, who just pouted up at him.
“Don’t bite anyone in the meantime, okay?” Seungkwan just shrugged. His mother leaned down to wipe some mud from his cheek before raising again and taking Jeongguk’s hand into hers. “Thank you, Jeongguk-ah. We’re all counting on you.”
I know, he thought, but didn’t say anything and just smiled back at her.
He only had to find time to meet with two elusive witches, in between the wedding and prepping the fields and the monthly check-ins with all the families that were rolling around, but he could do it. He had to.
At least he wasn't worried. He really believed this had been a great misunderstanding. His mind flashed to the day before, to the way the two witches had moved in complete harmony, how their gazes had caught before they had started the speech and such tenderness had filled their expressions for the briefest of seconds. There was no way people like those were bad.
Considering how no one had seen a sign of the two witches for the past two days, except for a smoking chimney on the side of the mountain, they had made themselves weirdly available when Jungkook actually needed them.
He found them strolling in the main street that same afternoon, just as he was unsuccessfully trying to convince Mr Wang to leave the care of his precious flowers to help with the Chois’ cows for a few days, as they were busy with wedding preparations.
“I have to go, but I’ll be back, Mr Wang, and I expect to find you tending to wheat instead of tulips!” He left the older man’s complaints behind him as he hurried towards the couple.
“Misters! Misters witches?”
The tallest figure- Seokjin?- turned around first, revealing almond eyes glinting under the shade of his pointy hat. Pillowy lips split into a smile as soon as their owner noticed Jeongguk walking towards them, hand tugging the cape of his companion. The other turned with a shake of his head, revealing a sharp profile and a strong jawline, windswept hair turned golden by the touch of the sun. One of his hands reached up to fix his bangs, showcasing not ink stains, but intricate tattoo designs that covered his whole hand, wrapping around his wrist and disappearing into the cuff of his blouse.
Jeongguk had been right. They were handsome, with soft brown hair and soft features and soft capes around their shoulders. Everything about them screamed innocence and naivety, but there was a sharpness in their gaze, an upward tilt in their smiles that disrupted their image and filled Jeongguk with the urge to observe, scour their expressions until he had figured it out.
He feared he would have spent hours doing so, had the full intensity of their undivided attention not been too much to bear. Jeongguk averted his eyes, with the image of twin heart-shaped smiles imprinted in his mind, as though he had stared at the sun too long.
“Village head Jeongguk! Such a pleasure to finally meet you! Me and Hoseok were just talking about what lovely place you have here.”
Seokjin took off his hat with a flourish before bowing in greeting, quickly followed by the other. Whatever tension had gripped Jeongguk seeped out of him at that moment. They were nice. A bit exuberant, for sure, but nice. There was nothing to worry about.
“Ehm, thank you.” He carded a hand through his hair and chuckled. “I’m happy I caught you here, I actually wanted to talk to you two about something.”
“Well, talk away.”
“We’re all ears.”
Their open smiles showed no fangs, but Jeongguk had to admit there was something sharp about them that made the two feel bigger than they were.
He shook away that feeling. Probably something brought on by the prejudices of the other villagers. Those two were being helpful, and so far had shown no signs of being the trouble everyone said they were.
“I'm not sure if you’ve heard, but one of our kids has grown fangs and-”
Hoseok’s eyes grew to the size of two saucer pans, Seokjin’s mouth dropping open.
“Oh no!” They turned to look at each other. “Don’t tell me!”
Jeongguk looked at them through squinted eyes. Suddenly he felt like going back on his words.
”It's that for sure, isn’t it?” Their faces were close, voices a whisper but still loud enough for him to hear.
He really didn’t like this. “What? Is something wrong?”
“Well,” Hoseok turned back towards him, expression apologetic. “We happened to lose just yesterday a case of Seokjin’s potions…”
“Unfortunate incident!” interrupted the other, leaning against Hoseok. “It was one of my best batches yet.” Hoseok nodded in agreement, then he tilted his head towards Jeongguk as though letting him in on a secret. “Pretty pricey stuff.”
“Anyway, I’m sure what happened is that the kid stumbled upon it and drank what he shouldn't have. Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do for him.”
Jeongguk’s mind was running a mile a minute, all the worst possible scenarios playing in his head in a nightmarish cacophony.
“What’s gonna happen to him?” How was he going to explain this to Seungkwan’s mother? What if it got worse? “Is he in danger? ”
Seokjin snorted. “Oh no, nothing of the sort. The potion will wear off in a couple of days, without harm to the kid.”
“Or anyone else.”
“Unless the kid likes to bite” Laughter erupted from Hoseok’s throat, soon joined by the other in a squeaky crescendo, until they were leaning on each other to stay on their feet.
“Are you kidding me? You lost- you lost body altering potions, a kid ended up drinking one of those and you’re laughing about it?”
Seokjin sobered up immediately, eyes turning to steel. “Well, no one got hurt, did they?”
Hoseok laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezing softly and tension seemed to melt out of the other. The smile returned on his lips, voice sweet. “Don’t worry, we’ll be more careful next time, okay?”
“Now, we have to hurry along or we’ll be late for dinner. Hope to see you soon, Village Head Jeongguk.”
Jeongguk was left to watch their retreating backs, feet hitting the ground with rhythmic precision after what he imagined must have been years spent together.
As expected, the village had not been quite satisfied by that answer.
However Jeongguk wasn’t sure much else could have been done, as it did appear to have been simply a mistake on the witches’ part, a mistake that they had assured wasn’t going to happen again. So he limited himself to warning everyone to stay away from weird looking bottles left laying about, and set about waiting for Seungkwan’s fangs to disappear.
Just like promised, by the next day they were gone, and with only two casualties. One being Minari’s tail, after the kid had tried to test the strength of his new attributes, and the other Seungkwan, when the cat expressed her discontent with being used as a chew toy.
Still, it happened again. And again, and again.
Innocuous but still worrisomes afflictions started popping up in the village every couple day. Ms Kang’s hair turned pink. Ms Oh’s son grew a tail. Chungha, to her great delight, took to floating a few inches off the ground.
And not only that. On one particular day they had been afflicted by gusts of wind that specifically targeted hats, a phenomenon that Hoseok had excused with a spell gone awry. A spell that, of course, they couldn’t do anything about, except waiting for it to pass and resign to running after hats.
On another day, while the duo was practicing targeted lightings strikes, they had scared the cows so bad it had taken a search party the whole day to get them all back and Mr Wang, who had been on watch duty instead of the Chois, had closed himself in his house with his flowers for the next two days, refusing to even open the door for Jeongguk to talk to him.
The witches had profusely apologized with their misplaced cheer and complicit smiles, that had started to make Jeongguk feel a little lost, as he couldn't for the life of him figure out whether he was in on the joke or the one being laughed at.
All of these little incidents had been caused by the witches’ carelessness, and all accusations had been met with a shrug of their shoulders and no solution except to accept the situation and move on.
With this in mind, on top of the wedding preparations (that had surprisingly been the only thing to run smoothly), on top of reassigning duties as spring got ready to leave its place to summer, Jeongguk was heading to the monastery as Namjoon had requested his help to prune a tree. He had been meaning to grab lunch before going, but Chungha’s mother, Haileen, had needed a hand with a stuck drawer and both Yoongi and the handy man had been busy. So there he was, hungry and sore after almost losing a battle against a drawer.
Turns out all Namjoon had needed him for was holding his ladder. “Between the witch stuff and the marriage you’ve been all over the village these last days. Figured I’d give you an excuse to breathe a little.”
Yoongi was also in the monastery garden, sitting against the bark of a tree and hiding from his duties. As the village head Jeongguk should have probably reprimanded him, but even though there was still so much left to do, a break would only do them good. Just a small one.
“What makes me curious is why you haven't made them leave already?”
That was a question Jungkook himself was not sure he could have answered. The two witches had been the source of one too many problems, were never around when it came to taking responsibility for their mistakes, and always acted as though they knew something Jeongguk didn’t, which wasn’t in itself a bad thing, it just irked him a lot. But they also weren’t evil. There was something in the way they behaved with each other, when Jungkook spied them walking together, something that made him stop dead in his tracks every time. Maybe it was the openness of their expressions, maybe the sheer adoration in their eyes when their gazes locked.
Something that made all the annoyance and frustration at the chaos they created wash back like a rolling wave against the guilt and anger he felt at his own indecisiveness. Because, he thought, there was no way two people who loved like that were anything but good.
They were a puzzle, a puzzle that reminded Jungkook of afternoons spent in the family shed, picking old tools apart because he was desperate to see how they worked, and then running after his father, to ask him for help whenever he inevitably forgot how to put them back together.
This all seemed too intimate to share though, even to Namjoon whom he had known for three years at least now.
“I’ve been too busy with all the preparations for the wedding to properly talk to them.” He shrugged.
Namjoon and Yoongi exchanged a glance with each other, but didn’t say anything.
The sheers kept snipping away at the canopy above, tiny branches and leaves falling on Jungkook’s hair.
“Let me tell you! Ms Oh commissioned me another full set of furniture, like I’m not busy enough helping out the Lees with their livestock. I told her, I can fix what’s wrong with the old set, but she said no, she wants a new one ‘cause Yunha is getting married.”
“Isn’t the wedding in like a week though?” asked Namjoon.
“That’s what I’m telling you!” Yoongi thrust his arm at the sky, face scrunched up in a pout, and Jungkook giggled at the sight.
“Even in normal conditions that would be rough, but now that everyone’s busy doing the work of two-three people? I don’t know what she’s expecting.” He sighed, then turned to look at Jungkook. “Everyone’s spread out too thin, Jungkook-ah. We are too few and the fields are too big, and if you throw a wedding on top?” he tsked, and Jungkook’s hands clenched on the ladder. “You should have told them to wait next year to marry, or at least not to expect some big ceremony.”
“That’s what I told them last year,” he snapped. The snipping above stopped. He kept his eyes stubbornly on the ground, not wanting to meet Yoongi’s gaze. “I’m the village head, you think I wouldn’t know? It just didn’t seem fair, not after they’d been waiting so long.”
A branch rained down from above, right on Yoongi’s head. “Ouch, you prick.” Namjoon just shrugged, half smirking.
Jungkook leaned his head on one of the steps, nose scrunched up. “Plus, I figured everyone could use a pick me up after last winter.”
Yoongi just hummed from where he was sitting, before sighing. “If even only one of us were a witch, I’m sure we'd be finished with all the chores in like, half a day.” He crossed his hands behind his head.
Seokjin and Hoseok had proved countless times that witches were extremely powerful, but Jungkook wasn’t sure how much their magic would come in handy when it came to fieldwork.
“Is that true, Namjoon-hyung?”
The man lowered his shears, still for a second and back tense. “Pretty much, yeah. All witches have different affinities, but their powers are all deeply tied to the earth. A witch would surely be plenty more useful than a boring monk like me…” He released a mirthless chuckle.
Yoongi threw a tiny pebble at his calves. “Now, now, Namjoon-ah, you already help us plenty-“
But Jungkook was no longer paying attention. Witches could be useful. Witches could be the solution, if only… His mind went back to the tales his grandmother told him, to the foxish grins Hoseok and Seokjin always wore when apologizing.
If only he managed to find some that behaved.
He shook his head. Entertaining wishful thoughts wouldn’t bring them anywhere, not when there was so much that needed to be done.
The secret that Jungkook refused to speak out loud, but that everyone knew about, was that the village had been so desperate lately (lately being for the past two years at least) that even scrawny kids were put to work, especially with the farming season fast approaching.
No one liked to think about it, but it was Jungkook’s duty to remember that last winter they had scraped by, and that they needed this summer and harvesting season to go as well as possible. That was hard to do when the tools were left abandoned in dusty sheds because there weren’t enough hands to hold them.
That was why, that night and all the following ones, after he finally laid down to sleep, he couldn’t stop thinking about Yoongi’s and Namjoon’s words.
Namjoon had once told him that a person couldn’t think about more than seven different things at the same time. Or something like that. He had said that the monks had conducted experiments and had counted themselves. Jungkook hadn’t asked more questions on how someone could organize thoughts neatly enough to count them, but now he wished he had, because he felt as though his thoughts were stumbling all over each other, crossing and intertwining, head and tails lost till they were little more than the jumbles of yarn Minari liked to play with.
Tomorrow he would have to go collect Yunha’s dress from the tailor in the next town over, since her family was busy. He could take the opportunity to buy some red pepper seeds. They had had to give up on that colture last year, but It would be nice to have a taste of them again.
As he dozed off, that night, he made a list of places that could use a witch’s help, in the village.
Every night he came back to it, a soft whisper in the back of his mind, a never ending thing he tweaked, added to, got lost in, until he ended up falling asleep.
He always gifted his last moments of consciousness to fields freckled with red, nestled around Makkeumdo’s bell tower, to the last Kim of a long and numerous line.
When he went to meet Taehyung, a few days after, he found him crouched next to a tiny strawberry plant, thumb caressing lightly at the leaves.
Taehyung was the closest thing to a witch Jungkook had ever seen. Since they were small he had liked to play with the dirt, befriending worms and making anything under his care bloom and sprout. Even then, his fields were no match for him, not on his own.
Cicadas buzzed around, witness to the heat that had already started to feel stifling.
“How are you?” asked Jungkook.
Taehyung turned to him, eyes glinting and smile splitting open his cheeks. “The little plants are all healthy,” he got up, not bothering dusting away the dirt on his pants. “This could be a very good year.”
Jungkook decided not to mention that he hadn’t answered his question. “Quality or quantity?”
A grimace distorted Taehyung’s features. Jungkook knew that it was a question someone had to ask, he just wished it didn’t fall on him.
“Eh,” he turned to look at the fields. “It’s got the potential to be both, but you know I can’t take care of it all by myself. I could grow and harvest a very nice batch, but small.”
Jungkook bit the inside of his cheek, eyes on the horizon. The strawberry fields spread as far out as the eye could see.
“Can you really not spare even one person to help me out here?”
“Everyone is focusing on the most important crops. We can’t survive winter off on strawberries alone.”
Taehyung just nodded, head hung low. Silence hung between them for a second.
“The ladies from the Festival Committee said our strawberries are the best in the county.”
Jungkook snorted. “They say a lot of stuff.”
Taehyung leaned over to bump his shoulder against him, not forcefully but also not kindly.
“I was thinking… Maybe we could grow them, but not for us. If we managed to grow a nice batch to sell at the market…” he let the silence hang for a second, stare fixing Jeongguk from under his eyelashes.
“It would be nice to have some more money…” mused Jungkook. Strawberries sold for a good price at the market, and just like the list he came back to every night, it was not hard to think where they could spend some more money. Repair the Oh’s shed, buy some clothes for the kids that weren’t just scraps mended together, buy more seeds, maybe even get some workers from the next town over to help, pay someone to actually fix the Choi’s roof. Buy books for the kids and their lessons with Namjoon...
But could they even begin to make it work?
A few days later, the witches struck again.
The village was in a frenzy, everyone running around in a flurry of dishes and flowers and last minute details, getting ready for the wedding of the year. The sky had been cloudless and forget-me-not blue for the whole morning, until a deep fog had descended from the hills, bringing wet, wet hair with it. All the ladies’ meticulously styled hair, the result of hours of work, had curled and frizzled in less than five minutes.
Jeongguk should have expected the knock on his door, and Ms Han’s enraged expression on the other side.
“Village head Jungkook, this has gone on for too long!”
So here was Jungkook, going to meet his death in the form of two witches.
There was no way he could have refused. A proper talk with the witches had been a long time coming, and no one could hold off Ms Han when she meant business. Using Jeongguk’s actual title was proof of it enough.
If Jeongguk hadn’t personally seen the house strolling around in their main street a few weeks ago, he would have easily believed it had always been there. It looked as though the forest had grown all around it, branches curling over its roof and poking into open windows.
Some walls leaned to the right, some to the left, leaving Jeongguk wondering how the house hadn’t sagged on itself yet and was instead sitting there quietly, a small prideful miracle.
In the sparse space that the trees left, a small but varied vegetable garden filled the forest with color.
Jeongguk tried spying inside from the windows in the front, but the inside was so dark that the exercise proved itself to be futile. He quickly walked a few steps back. Better not make a fool of himself before such an important talk.
After a deep breath, he walked to the door and knocked gently.
The door rattled under his knuckles before it swung open and Jungkook was hit with a vision of beauty.
Skin, lips, eyes, warm.
The two witches stood in the door, sporting matching grins that Jeongguk had learned both to expect and dread with soft exasperation, but that day their gaze felt more intense, sharp with purpose and expectation. He felt like a mouse pinned under their gaze.
Hoseok sneaked an arm around Seokjin’s waist before lifting an eyebrow amused, smile opening into a heart, and just then Jungkook realized they were waiting for him to speak.
He cleared his throat. “Good morning. Could we talk inside?”
The inside looked like it belonged to another house. It was bright, and in near perfect condition. The floorboards creaked in a friendly way and as much Jungkook looked around he couldn't see goat intestines nor toad’s eye nor cauldrons of boiling blood. There was a cauldron in the kitchen, but the softest smell was rising from the concoction that was brewing, so Jungkook figured they were in the clear.
Seokjin steered him with a polite chuckle when he saw him heading towards the kitchen, settling him at the living room table instead. “The tea will be ready soon.”
“Ah- Thanks but-”
“Shh. Let us treat our guests right.”
In a moment Hoseok emerged from the kitchen, leaning over Jeongguk’s shoulder to settle a steaming cup in front of him, chest brushing with his hair.
“We are so sorry for the trouble we have been causing you.”
Seokjin took his hands in his and Jeongguk could only focus on how smooth and cold they felt to his touch, so much so he almost failed to register the witch’s words.
“In fact, if you came to ask us to leave, we completely understand!”
“You must be so eager to see us go away!”
Well. That was unexpected. Jeongguk hadn’t fully expected to have to drag Seokjin and Hoseok out of the village kicking and screaming, but he also hadn’t expected this conversation to go without protest.
“Uhm. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Of course I know you never had bad intentions, but I have to think about the good of the village first, you know?”
The two nodded vigorously at him.
“Well, if that’s all, then I guess I’ll go. It’s been nice meeting you.”
He made to scoot his chair back to get up, but something stopped it from moving. He turned his head to find Hoseok’s hand gripping the chair, looking down at him with a too polite smile that suddenly made Jeongguk feel uneasy.
Seokjin coughed politely. “Actually,” A folded piece of paper was dropped in his hands.
Jeongguk unfolded it slowly, feeling the weight of their gazes on his head, as the room suddenly felt a lot smaller.
Inside, was written a long row of numbers with more zeros than Jeongguk knew what to do with. He looked up, brows furrowed. “What’s- What’s this?”
Hoseok leaned down, mouth close to his ear. “That’s our fee.”
“For leaving.” Seokjin rested his chin in his hands.
A what.
All of their past interactions flashed in front of Jeongguk’s eyes. He thought of all the excuses, of the glee in their expressions whenever he went to complain about the effects of their latest mishap, their too cheerful apologies.
Like a puzzle slowly coming together, he could finally recognize what that glint in their eyes, the same that distorted their innocuous image, was. Mischief.
“You’re doing this for money.” And for fun, but that he didn’t say.
They had fooled all of them (Jeongguk) with their good meaning but clumsy personas, so they wouldn’t be suspicious as they exasperated and annoyed them to the point they’d be willing to pay them to leave.
And it had worked.
Well, almost. Because what they didn’t know was that, as the village head, Jeongguk was very familiar with the village funds, and very familiar with the fact that they hadn’t seen that kind of money in two years at least.
“Everything alright?” Came Seokjin’s voice, sickly sweet.
“Sure. Just a second.”
He had to think fast, he had to do something!
He obviously couldn’t pay them to leave, but at the same time there was no way he could have let them stay, not while they kept behaving like this and disrupting the work in the village. Their pranks had already set them back several days on their timetable, and they couldn’t afford any more delays.
His conversation with Yoongi and Namjoon came back to his mind. Then Taehyung’s words.
They didn’t have money now, but they could get it by selling produce at the market. And they would need some more workers, maybe five or six, to be able to grow and harvest a decent enough batch. But if those workers were witches in need of money, two would probably be enough. It could work. Except for the fact that those witches still needed to be paid, and they had no money.
They had no money, yet. If everything went smoothly (and everything was going to go smoothly, Jeongguk was sure of it), they would have had that money and more by the end of the season.
If Jeongguk chose to omit that detail to make convincing the witches easier, well, no harm no foul, right?
“What if I paid you to stay? And work for us, of course.”
The practiced and calm demeanour of the two disappeared in a flash, leaving space to indignant splutters.
“Excuse me? And why would you think two witches would want to be some- some peasants’ lap dogs?” Seokjin spit out those last words, ears red and eyebrows drawn. Hoseok left the grip on Jeongguk’s chair and stalked around the table, hand swiftly back in its place on Seokjin’s shoulders. With a squeeze, the other’s features smoothened once again and he let himself fall back in the chair, eyes still shooting daggers at Jeongguk.
Hoseok fixed him under his stare, eyebrows raised. “Witches’ services are expensive, are you sure you can afford us?”
“We have the money. You could get much more than this sum if you stayed for the summer.” He bit his lip, hoping nothing in his body language could betray that lie. He pushed the piece of paper back to Seokjin.
The two witches turned to look at each other, lost in a world of their own and leaving Jeongguk wondering how anyone could get to know someone else so well they could have whole conversations without saying any words.
After a few moments Seokjin nodded hesitantly. Hoseok squeezed his shoulder again and shot him a grateful smile, to which the other just answered with a shrug, hand reaching up to take a hold of Hoseok’s.
Hoseok turned to him, gaze determined. “We’ll do it.”
Before he could fully open the door to his office, a few leaves still stranded on his shoulder from the trek back from the witches’ house, Ms Han was on him.
She was tugging on his sleeve, that single decisive tug that set her apart from the kids grabbing on his clothes as they jumped up and down, or the villagers who used it as a leash to drag him around impatiently.
It had already been a long day, and Ms Han was about to make it worse. He put a small smile on his lips.
"Ah, good morning again, Ms Han. Can I help you with anything?"
"You let the witches stay." It was a statement, not a question. Jungkook cursed. News in Makkeumdo travelled worryingly fast. Sometimes it was useful, but most of the time it just came to play in giving him a headache.
“They were very sorry about all the trouble they caused, and offered to work for us as an apology.” He couldn’t certainly tell her that he had offered them the job, and would be paying them in full, eventually. Just another white lie.
He crossed the threshold into the office, hoping that would deter Ms Han from taking it further, but she just followed him inside. She was truly relentless. She could have made a good village head.
"You think having these two ne'er-do-wells around the village will be a good idea? Village head Jeon," Jungkook sighed. They only called him by his title when they wanted something, or were discussing an extremely serious issue, and that just went to show the amount of respect he got around here. "Have you already forgotten what they did? Are you just gonna sit and watch how they turn this village into their playground?"
Jungkook straightened to his full height, turning to look at Ms Han dead in the eyes.
“Ms Han, I only think about the good of the village and you know that very well. You know we’re struggling, I would have been crazy to refuse a witch’s offer of help."
Ms Han narrowed her eyes, greying hair brushing against her clenched jaw and pursed lips.
"Well, I have to go make my rounds and the Chois need help with their newborn calf. See you later.”
He checked a few documents on his desk then left her behind, distracted already by all that needed to be done.