Archive of Our Own ^beta

The whole family has been cursed since not long after the founding of the Mungyeong Jeon.

Seven hundred years of bad luck—of magic turning dark, heartbreak and heartache, mishaps, and sorrow. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel for anyone with the blood Jeongguk inherited.

It’s his family’s legacy, after all.

A cruel generational joke with no real punchline, save for the ones they make themselves to keep the bleakness of it all from swallowing them.

Jeongguk grew up hearing about his curse, but he didn’t truly understand what being cursed meant in the beginning. Not until he was old enough to recognize how he was different. Life with the curse was all he knew, and when he was a kid, he hardly even noticed the effects of it, really. But as the years went on, the curse only dug deeper, becoming impossible for Jeongguk to ignore its existence; every aspect of it engraved in the fabric of his relationships, touching everything around him. A darkness that sweeps over the everyday and suffocates even the most important moments in his life.

He feels like he’s been clinging onto a fraying thread for years now because he doesn’t know how to do anything else. But he’s so tired of it—hanging on with shaking hands, alone and afraid of himself. He wants solid ground beneath his feet. He wants to live.

This is what brings Jeongguk to the door of apartment 207, five minutes from Wangsimni station on a Friday evening—potion burns on his palms and bags beneath his eyes. There’s a plain black umbrella leaning against the wall beside the frame, and Jeongguk is reminded that he needs to buy another one for himself—having broken his sixth one of the year in yesterday’s storm.

It would’ve been easier if he had used a pinch of ground stone ear mushroom and a transportation spell to get here, but why would he risk it? Magic has been known to blow up in his face. Literally and figuratively—the scar on his cheek being proof of the former.

His mother always warned him against being open about their family’s weakness, but it has become increasingly difficult for Jeongguk to conceal the nature of his curse.

But that’s why he’s here.

Don’t hope for anything, he reminds himself as he rubs the back of his hand beneath his nose, sniffing quietly. People like you don’t get to hope. It’s for the best. No more disappointment.

The instructions he found online were simple: enter the code at the apartment’s main entrance, take the elevator to the fifth floor, and knock three times on the apartment door. Now that Jeongguk is here, however, his hand stops an inch before his knuckles hit the wood.

It’s probably pointless.

This is far from the first time he’s tried to change his fate, and the services offered here are the most risky of all that he’s tried so far.

But he’s here anyway.

Barely standing. Driven by the exhaustion that’s seeped through his skin all the way to his bones from the secret of the curse to the constant wariness he carries just by existing. Jeongguk thinks it’s a combination of that and sheer desperation that finally brings his knuckles to the door, three knocks in quick succession that sound too loud in the quiet hall of the apartment building.

The lock clicks, and Jeongguk blinks as the door swings open, no one there on the other side of the threshold. He hesitates with each step he takes to get inside the apartment, moving as slowly as he can.

He’s spent enough time around magic and curse-breakers to know that some witches can be possessive, and he’s wary of how crossing boundaries could leave him on the unlucky end of magic yet again.

(Pun intended.)

It seems, though, Jeongguk thinks as he steps out of his boots, the rumors about the curse-breakers by Wangsimni station are true.

The power of these witches’ magic is palpable, and it sends a shiver down his spine.

But instead of being faced with the cold, impersonal decor of most magic shops in the city, the atmosphere of the apartment is almost as personal as his own home. Metaphorically speaking, as he tries to keep his decor to a minimum—less stuff also means less stuff to break. Still, this isn’t what he expected. It smells like incense and oranges, clove and freshly washed laundry. That is, until—

“No, hyung, I said eye of salamander, not eye of newt!”

A loud blast rips through the apartment, immediately followed by the scent of something horrifically burnt and vaguely acidic, a haze of smoke spreading into the entryway from the hallway to his right.

Great, Jeongguk thinks. I haven’t even been here five minutes, and I’ve already fucked up their day. He winces slightly as he walks closer to the source of the smoke and the smell, a door that’s half open only a few steps down the hall. He has an impressive list of bad first impressions at this point, and this is just one more to apologize for.

“Eye of— this is for that wizard’s order, Jimin-ah.” A cough, then, “You sure you have the notes right?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I double checked after what happened with Namjoon’s batch. We wouldn’t want another green boils incident or a toad-turned-two-foot dragon.”

The voices grow louder as he continues down the hall. He’d think that the witches were angry, if it weren’t for the laughter that reaches his ears a second later. So he takes a deep breath, gathers his courage, and keeps moving.

He’s here for a reason, and he can’t turn back. He won’t, not now.

Jeongguk blinks a few times through the haze, finding two witches standing over a cauldron that’s clearly the source of the minor explosion, wondering if he should start with a hello or an apology. He’s saved, however, from his own indecision when one of the witches notices him lingering awkwardly in the doorway.

“Oh, good! Thought you might’ve gotten lost in the kitchen. The doors like to move around,” he says, barely glancing at Jeongguk over his shoulder as he waves a hand over the still-smoking cauldron. “Will you come help us with this?”

Jeongguk startles, feeling a not-so-faint spike in his heartbeat. Usually, people urge Jeongguk to back away from a project-in-process. Not this.

Never to come closer.

“Are you sure? I, uh, don’t really use magic often,” Jeongguk says. And although he protests, he tentatively steps forward, red socks padding quietly over the dark wood floor. His classmates have all learned to avoid him during their potions lab, considering he once melted a cauldron into the floor. “I might make it worse.”

“This is simple,” the second witch says. His voice is lower, more gruff, and Jeongguk can already see the years of experience in the way he handles the potion bottles on the small table beside him, not even bothering to check the nearby recipe book before dumping a blue vial into the cauldron, some of the smoke clearing with a low sizzle. He grabs a handful of what looks like pine needles from the shelves on the wall and tosses them into the cauldron, too. “You can’t possibly make this worse than it already is now that Jimin’s had his way with it.”

“Just follow our lead,” the other witch—Jimin—says. He flashes Jeongguk a smile before beckoning him over, shoving a small mortar and pestle into his hands. “And I’m ignoring that comment, Yoongi-hyung. This is just as much your fault as it is mine.”

“Whatever you say, Jimin-ah,” Yoongi answers, and his lips quirk up in the corners as he looks at Jeongguk with amusement dancing in his eyes, dark and sleepy.

Jimin snorts, sweeping the end of the table clear with a wave of his hand, the half open bottles and bowls flying neatly back to the shelves. There’s an ease to his magic that Jeongguk’s never had, and Jeongguk bites his lip as he sets the mortar and pestle down on the edge of the table.

“Sorry for the mess. We weren’t expecting you so early,” Jimin says. He slides a bowl of jujube next to the mortar, and at Jeongguk’s questioning look, tells him almost conspiratorially, “It’s for the taste.”

The cauldron is still faintly smoking. Jeongguk blinks at it, entirely unconvinced that any amount of jujube will make it sweet enough to cover up the burnt acid. Still, he tosses a few into the bowl and begins grinding them.

“It’s okay,” Jeongguk answers. “I’m never right on time.”

Sadly, that’s true; he typically misses his bus, or he’s so early that he falls asleep waiting for them at the stop—or, in two instances this year alone, the buses simply break down while he’s riding them.

He probably owes the Department of Transportation an apology—or twenty.

“Jeon Jeongguk, right?” Yoongi says. His hands are glowing faintly as he holds them over the cauldron, and Jimin brushes past him to pull a book down from the shelf, flipping through the pages. “You didn’t say in your message what kind of curse we would be taking a look at today.”

“Oh, right,” Jeongguk says, and suddenly finds the ground jujube in the mortar to be the most interesting thing in the room. He takes a deep breath before reciting the familiar list he’s recited for too many curse-breakers before, “It’s eternal bad luck from a generational curse. Things break when I touch them, or when I’m near them. Magic has always been tricky for me. And, um— it affects people that I’m around.” He bites his lip, staring resolutely at the table, and adds quietly, “like your potion going wrong as soon as I came inside. I’m sorry about that, by the way.”

“Jeongguk-ssi,” Yoongi says, and to Jeongguk’s surprise his voice sounds faintly amused rather than annoyed. “You don’t need to apologize. The potion going wrong was Jimin’s fault, not yours.”

“Our fault, hyung,” Jimin teases, and Jeongguk glances up from the table to find Jimin laughing at Yoongi, like both of them truly don’t care that Jeongguk is standing right beside them with his curse.

“You’re really okay with me being here?” Jeongguk asks. The last curse-breaker he’d met with, upon hearing about the nature of the curse, had immediately ushered Jeongguk from the shop and into the building’s hall to continue their discussion with a mildly panicked look on his face.

Yoongi and Jimin haven’t even taken the mortar and pestle from him.

He’d known that curse-breakers working together is rare, and that this dynamic could lead to some non-traditional methods, but he hadn’t expected that this would apply to him.

“Should we not be?” Jimin runs his finger along the page of the spellbook as he speaks, but he looks up at Jeongguk with his brow furrowed. “Curse-breaking is our job, Jeongguk-ssi. We wouldn’t turn you away because of yours.”

Yoongi’s hands stop glowing, and he reaches for the ground jujube in front of Jeongguk. He nods in approval before he scrapes it out over the cauldron. “Thanks.”

Even though Yoongi and Jimin seem adamant about allowing him to stay, it still doesn’t feel real to Jeongguk that they had accepted his presence in their work space—their home—without so much as a nervous glance after only meeting him a few minutes ago.

“Is there anything else I can do to help?” Jeongguk tries, silently telling himself to ignore just how foreign those words feel before quickly pushing back a strand of hair that had fallen out of his bun—his way of hiding the unfortunate haircut that his mother swore looked good the last time he spoke with her, grainy video call and her typical worried questions about whether or not he was eating enough up in Seoul.

“I think we’re almost set for the moment,” Jimin says, snapping over the cauldron. A spell flares brilliant orange as it dances from his fingers to the potion below. “And aren’t we the ones supposed to be helping you?” he teases with an eye-crinkling smile.

“Speaking of which,” Yoongi says, wiping his hands off on a nearby rag, “we’d like to hear a bit more about this curse before we make any attempts to break it.”

Jeongguk stares blankly. After telling the last few curse-breakers he’d met that he’s tried various treatments in the past, each of them had elected to work off of his past diagnoses rather than analyze the details of his curse all over again, especially after Jeongguk explained how complex it is.

He’d told Yoongi and Jimin that he’d been to curse-breakers before when he scheduled the appointment, though he’d glossed over the details out of fear they’d turn him away. He’d assumed that they’d work in the same way as the others, but of course—nothing about Yoongi and Jimin has been similar to any curse-breaker he’s worked with so far.

“The more we know about the curse, the faster we’ll be able to break it,” Jimin adds, seeming to notice Jeongguk’s hesitance. He must be satisfied with the potion because he stirs it one last time before putting a lid on the cauldron, his full attention turning to Jeongguk. “It’s safer that way, too.”

“A lot of curse-breakers try to address the symptoms rather than the core, so it just bounces back,” Yoongi says, and he takes the spellbook Jimin set aside, shelving it with a quiet sniff. “Anything else you can tell us could be useful.”

Has Jeongguk really been wasting his time with other curse-breakers? Beyond his disappointment at the fact that a proper treatment for his curse might have been so close all along, it seems almost too good to be true that he could potentially walk away today with a solution to the problem that had been plaguing him his entire life.

Don’t start to hope, he reminds himself. It’ll be worse when it doesn’t work out, so don’t hope.

“Oh,” Jeongguk says. “I— I didn’t realize that. What do you want to know?”

“How about we discuss this over tea?” Jimin suggests. He brushes his palms off on his multi-pocket apron, avoiding dirtying the stretched-out-tee underneath as he steps away from the cauldron. “Do you like tea, Jeongguk-ssi?”

“Yeah, that would be nice,” Jeongguk says softly.

Jimin’s smile brightens, though it quickly fades into something more vaguely amused when he walks to where the door was a few moments before, the wall now completely smooth. “Hey,” Jimin chides. “We’ve talked about this. No misbehaving around guests.”

Yoongi makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a snort. “Come on,” he says from behind Jeongguk. “We’d like to get to the kitchen.”

Jeongguk’s eyes widen as the air shimmers faintly, a ripple of magic running down the yellow wallpaper as the door reappears.

“Thank you,” Jimin says, patting the frame before reaching for the knob. He pushes the door open, and the hallway Jeongguk entered from is gone, warm light and tiled floor greeting him as he follows Jimin into the kitchen, Yoongi trailing in after them.

As Jimin fills a kettle with water, Yoongi directs Jeongguk to their kitchen table. The surface of it is hardly visible, every inch of space crowded with various pots hosting a variety of plants, some of which Jeongguk recognizes as magical.

“We aren’t usually this disorganized,” Yoongi tells him, ignoring the way Jimin mutters something that sounds suspiciously like “speak for yourself.” He removes a stray ginseng plant from one of the chairs and then brushes the seat off with his hand so that Jeongguk can sit. “So, this curse of yours,” Yoongi says as he rearranges the ginseng to stack precariously on top of a few pots of cilantro. “What do you know about how it was cast?”

What do I know? Jeongguk asks himself as he sinks down into the surprisingly comfortable wooden chair. He knows about how it affects him—but he has already told them that. He knows how it’s affected his mother, and his grandfather, and even heard a few stories about his great-grandfather, too.

He has lived through the consequences of it his entire life.

That’s what he knows.

“It’s about seven hundred years old now,” Jeongguk supplies after a moment of hesitation. “My mom always said it was a curse made with dark magic. Um. Something about,” Jeongguk’s voice grows a little smaller, and he hunches in the chair as he tugs at the sleeves of his sweater, “a shadow to keep light and love at bay until our dying days?”

Jimin lights the burner beneath the kettle with a wave of his hand. “Why do they always make the worst curses rhyme? It’s like something out of a bad fairytale.”

“Insult to injury,” Yoongi deadpans. Then, turning his attention back to Jeongguk, he adds, “You said a shadow?”

Jeongguk nods, tucking another unruly strand of hair behind his ear as he shifts in his chair.

“Curses usually prey on darkness that already exists,” Jimin says, the water in the kettle reaching a gentle boil. “Sometimes it’s more tangible—curses that attach themselves to nightfall or caves or other dark places. But more often than not, they lurk around in the Unseen. I don’t sense any shadow on you. Hyung?”

“I don’t either,” Yoongi confirms. “Probably Unseen, then.”

Jimin hums in agreement as he pours water into the purple mugs on the counter. When he’s done, he sets them down in front of Jeongguk, avoiding the remaining plants in the middle of the table.

Jeongguk waits for Yoongi to reach for one of the mugs first, then carefully takes the crescent moon-shaped handle of the other into his hands, instantly feeling the way the warmth of it reaches his skin. It smells like pine needles, homey and calming. “Thank you, Jimin-ssi,” he says, making sure his grip is steady enough to hold it up but not strong enough to break it.

“You can call us hyung, if you’d like,” Jimin says softly. He joins them at the table, taking the seat on Jeongguk’s left.

Jeongguk looks up from the tea with wide eyes, catching a glimpse of Yoongi’s nod at Jimin’s words. Compared to consultations he’s had with curse-breakers in the past, this feels much more personal. Almost like… like they care about him in addition to the paycheck they’re going to receive.

It’s not just about what they’re saying, or how they treat Jeongguk or each other. It’s all of it, from the way they’ve tried to make him comfortable to how seriously they’ve taken his curse and his desire to break it, to something else that Jeongguk can’t quite put his finger on; like, in a way, they understand what he’s going through, going past just books and magic words.

There’s no worry stone slapped into his hand for the low price of twenty thousand won, or a box of curse-be-gone draught for thirty-four thousand to drink every morning for a month. It’s questions and tea and “we wouldn’t turn you away.”

It’s this that makes his answer an almost easy one.

“Thank you, Jimin-hyung,” Jeongguk tries, welcoming the way that fills the space between them. “Please, um, speak informally to me if that’s okay with you.”

Jimin hums, returning Jeongguk’s smile before his expression shifts into something more serious. His gaze travels up to the skylight that’s magically appeared over the table—stars dancing around even though the sun hasn’t fully set, the remaining sunshine casting the kitchen in a golden glow somehow brighter than the rays outside. Jimin fiddles with some of the rings decorating his fingers, and Jeongguk realizes Jimin’s attention doesn’t seem to be on the skylight but somewhere deep within his own thoughts.

“Do you know much about the Unseen, Jeongguk?” Jimin asks, slowly looking back at him.

Jeongguk shakes his head after a moment, nothing but a few stories from his childhood and mentions in university lectures coming to mind. He knows some witches draw power from the Unseen, but Jeongguk’s mother always warned him against it when he was growing up. Messing something up in the physical world was usually an easier fix than messing up something in the Unseen, after all. “Not really. But you said that the curse might have… attached itself to something Unseen? What does that mean?”

“Witches are taught about the Unseen as just the realm of magic, so most curse-breakers miss the whole point. It’s a lot more than that,” Jimin says, a hint of exasperation in his voice, like he’s had to say this before—had to argue about it, maybe.

“Books aren’t all there is to learn from,” Yoongi murmurs. There’s a faint sound of wings flapping from somewhere behind Jeongguk. “Sometimes you have to look outside the box for answers. And sometimes you have to write down your own.”

A flurry of motion in the corner of Jeongguk’s eye makes him turn in his chair, and he finds a set of large yellow eyes staring right at him. At first, Jeongguk thinks it’s a small dragon, but then he sees the whiskers and the pointed ears and he realizes it’s a black cat with sleek fur and a set of dragon wings.

There’s a yellow collar around the cat’s neck, a small silver name tag attached. Bari, Jeongguk reads silently, squinting to make out the small font.

Jimin clicks his tongue and Bari must recognize it as an invitation because he quickly folds his wings, landing neatly in Jimin’s lap before closing his eyes. Jimin gently strokes his head as he continues, “The Unseen is also made of thoughts and feelings—hopes and fears and dreams.”

When Jimin doesn’t add anything else, Jeongguk looks up from the winged cat and catches Yoongi and Jimin sharing a glance.

Jimin must see something in Yoongi’s expression—something he doesn’t seem to need words to understand—because he soon nods, and Yoongi takes a deep breath before speaking. “Dark curses dealing with the Unseen are more common than you might think. This isn’t the first time that we’ve broken a curse like yours. The part that makes them so difficult to figure out is that they’re easily misunderstood.”

“Many curse-breakers rely on tradition, including old curse-breaking methods,” Jimin explains, and Jeongguk chews on his lip as he listens. Bari’s golden eyes are fixed on him, watching from Jimin’s lap, but Jeongguk barely notices, too caught up in Jimin’s words to pay attention to much else. “But the more we learn about curses, the more we realize that they’re far more complex than was originally thought. Magic like that influences people in different ways, for different reasons. It’s almost… sentient.”

“So you think my curse is like that?” Jeongguk asks, watching Jimin reassure him with a quick nod and a gentle hum.

The way Jimin speaks—the way he talks about curses—it makes Jeongguk think that maybe there’s actually a chance of it working this time around.

A real chance.

And here Jeongguk goes getting his hopes up again, rising by the minute like a flame that keeps creeping taller inside his chest, bound to burn him if this fails. “You said— you’ve broken a curse like this before. How did you do it?” he questions.

His eyes shift from Jimin to Yoongi when they don’t answer right away. He almost misses the way Yoongi lets out a quiet breath at the question as he raises his mug to his lips, steam still curling from the surface of the tea.

Jeongguk catches when Jimin discreetly leans down and murmurs into Bari’s ear. Bari flicks his tail once, letting out a soft chirp before he flaps his wings, jumping over the table and nearly knocking over a small mugunghwa vase before he lands on Yoongi’s shoulder. He settles around his neck, tail falling over the neckline of his sweater as Jeongguk glances away, his lips curving up for a moment before he ducks his head to hide his smile.

“We’ve found that the first step to breaking Unseen curses is to have the person afflicted confront their innermost thoughts and emotions—the vulnerable ones these curses prey upon,” Yoongi says.

Jeongguk blinks, not entirely sure what confronting his innermost thoughts and feelings would lead to—or how it would help. “What do you mean?”

Yoongi blows lightly across the top of his tea before setting his mug down on the table again. “The curse like yours that I mentioned before, it attached itself to the fear of being unlovable,” Yoongi says quietly.

“A curse of fear?” Jeongguk asks.

“Not really,” Jimin replies. “The curse was, when it was spoken and cast, to never know love. It took years and several rounds of curse-breaking attempts before it became clear that the curse didn’t prevent love. It made it impossible to recognize love. Half of the curse was fear itself. Because how can you recognize that someone loves you if you’ve convinced yourself that you can’t be loved?”

Jeongguk understands that. He thinks of how much fear has ruled over his life—the constant terror in the back of his mind that he’s going to ruin everything and everyone he touches.

The person who was cursed to never know love must’ve been just as lonely.

Across the table, Yoongi is scratching between Bari’s ears, and Jimin’s smiling at them both.

Jeongguk has long stopped wishing for someone to smile at him like that. Hope and unbreakable curses usually don’t go well together. Yet Jeongguk is here, and Jimin and Yoongi are offering him hope—and he’s scared of how much he wants to believe in them.

“But you were able to break it,” Jeongguk says tentatively.

Jimin nods, and he pushes his chair back, abandoning his tea as he stands.

Jeongguk watches as Jimin circles the table, walking towards the kitchen counter. Bari lets out a quiet chirp, leaping down from Yoongi’s shoulder to land with supernatural grace on the hardwood floor. “You don’t like honey cookies,” Jimin mutters to Bari as he opens a jar, then looks at Jeongguk, arching a brow in a silent question.

“Yes please,” Jeongguk says, and holds out his hands to accept a cookie from Jimin even as his thoughts fixate on Jimin’s nod—on the fact that Jimin and Yoongi broke a curse similar to his own. “Can I ask if… the person, once you broke the curse, were they able to recognize love again?”

“Yeah,” Yoongi says softly, and Jeongguk blinks, looking over to find a gentle smile on his face.

Jimin sets a cookie down across the top of Yoongi’s mug, freeing his hand to then place it on Yoongi’s shoulder, squeezing lightly. Yoongi lets out a quiet breath, leans into his touch, and rests his head against Jimin’s arm as his smile grows somehow softer, eyes no longer on Jeongguk, but somewhere far beyond the kitchen—far beyond the apartment.

(Like he’s remembering.)

As if the story he’s telling isn’t just one he saw unfold, but one he lived through.

Suddenly, Jeongguk has no doubts about trusting Yoongi and Jimin. Whether their attempt to break his curse will work or not, Jeongguk believes that they will try their best to help—and maybe even succeed. As much as he believes in the unwavering strength of his curse, he wants to give them a fair shot. They deserve it, after all, because if he’s reading this right, then… “Yoongi-hyung?” he asks quietly—still not sure if he has permission to know about something so personal.

Yoongi hums an affirmation, his lips still curled up in the corners. “Not something I usually talk about, but yeah. It was a bad relationship that ended with a curse, and for a while things were…” He breaks off, and Jimin rests his chin on top of Yoongi’s head, still standing behind the chair. “Things were rough. But then we broke the curse. I’m not going to lie, it can take some time to, hm… unlearn things that curses like this make you feel and believe. But I’m doing better now. And you’re going to be fine too, Jeongguk.”

Jeongguk has gotten his hopes up about breaking his curse more times than he can count, but it’s been a long time since he felt like this—like he could truly, finally be free from the curse that has always consumed his life, and finally live without it haunting his every step.

His throat is tight, and he can feel his eyes prickling. Rather than do something like start crying in front of two virtual strangers —though he wonders if sharing the secrets of curses makes them less like strangers now—he shoves the honey cookie into his mouth and starts to chew.

Jimin and Yoongi are both watching him, and he looks down at his half-drunk mug of tea instead of facing either of them.

But they’re patient.

They’ve been patient with him since he walked into their apartment, and he’s almost painfully grateful for it. Jimin and Yoongi just seem like they’re… good. He doesn’t know why anyone would want to cast a curse on Yoongi. He can’t imagine why anyone would want to cast a curse on someone else at all, actually, but he especially can’t imagine why anyone would want to hurt someone as kind as Yoongi.

Jeongguk wasn’t the target of a curse, just collateral damage. Whatever Unseen shadow the curse was set to prey on, it belonged to someone far up Jeongguk’s family tree.

It’s just been a fact of life. Jeon Jeongguk: cursed, not good for himself, not good for anyone else.

“Jeongguk?” Jimin asks softly. He’s sitting back in his chair next to Jeongguk now. Jeongguk had been so lost in thought he hadn’t even noticed him move.

“Thank you,” Jeongguk says, wrapping his hands around his mug again, the sleeves of his oversized sweatshirt covering his palms. He glances up at Jimin first, finds Jimin looking back at him, waiting for him to continue before his gaze settles on Yoongi. “For telling me, I mean.”

Yoongi hums in response, low and a little raspy. Jeongguk likes the sound of it. “Wanted you to know that there are happy endings for curses like yours—like ours. We’ll get it figured out.”

“My curse wasn’t specifically targeted at me,” Jeongguk says, and he fidgets with his mug, tracing over the handle with his fingers. “Will that change anything?”

“If it’s a curse on your bloodline, it’ll actually be easier to break,” Jimin says, brushing back his hair. “Curses tend to lose potency from generation to generation. The tricky thing is that it’s affected you for so long. You’ve spent your life in the shadow of the curse, and in that sense, it’s grown within your own thoughts, stuck to all the dark places where you’re vulnerable.”

Jeongguk is quiet for a few moments, and he watches as Bari comes back into the kitchen, this time on four legs rather than using his wings. “So it’s easier and harder to break?”

“Yeah,” Yoongi agrees. “I mean, on one hand, enough light will force the shadow away. Jimin and I can take care of that with some sun magic. On the other hand, you’ve had a little over twenty years that you’ve felt this curse—and it’s fed off any darkness that you’ve given it. Even when we break the curse tonight, that kind of shadow over you will take some time to shake.”

When we break the curse tonight, Jeongguk thinks, almost dizzy with the words. Yoongi really thinks it’s a matter of when and not if. He tries to focus on the rest of what Yoongi said, chewing on his lower lip. “A shadow. The curse will still be there even if it’s broken?”

Jimin crosses his legs beneath the table as twists one of the silver rings glittering across his fingers. “Not quite. It’s like… when Bari was a kitten, we’d found him with a broken wing. We think he must’ve hurt himself while flying because he was terrified to use his wings, even after he’d healed up.”

“Jeongguk isn’t a dragon-cat,” Yoongi deadpans from across the table.

Jimin wrinkles his nose at him. “It’s a metaphor, hyung.”

Jeongguk lets out a small laugh, and Jimin’s scowl fades back into a smile.

“The point I was trying to make before I was interrupted,” Jimin says, and he pointedly ignores Yoongi’s snort, “is that while there was a reason for Bari to be afraid of flying, he wasn’t hurt anymore. He was holding himself back. He had Yoongi-hyung and I both there to help him as he got his strength back, but he’d convinced himself that he couldn’t fly, you know? It took a few months before he tried again.”

“And dive-bombed a couple times into the couch face first,” Yoongi says dryly, and Jimin reaches across the table to smack his arm even as he laughs. “But that’s what I meant earlier. It’s a process. When you’ve been hurt—when all you know is being vulnerable, you find ways to protect yourself, but those can also become the very things that hold you back—it’s not easy to see past it all. But you have to try. To heal and to grow.”

“Breaking the curse is one thing,” Jimin says. He retracts his hand, wrapping it around his mug again as he looks at Jeongguk. “Healing from it is another.”

Bari pads back into the kitchen, no longer sulking, seemingly over the fact that Jimin didn’t feed him a honey cookie. They all turn to watch him, and the cat blinks his large golden eyes, seeming to evaluate Jeongguk as he stops beside Jeongguk’s chair.

“You okay with cats, Jeongguk?” Yoongi asks.

“Yeah,” Jeongguk murmurs, and he feels a smile creep across his face as Bari extends his wings with a small shake of his head. He can see now that the one on the left is a little bit bent, a bumpy ridge along the side that’s probably a scar.

Bari flaps his wings once, twice, and then he’s in Jeongguk’s lap, wings brushing lightly against Jeongguk’s chin.

“Oh,” Jimin says softly, and Jeongguk glances up at him and Yoongi to find both of them smiling, too.

Bari folds his wings, and he stomps a few times around Jeongguk’s thighs before bumping his head against Jeongguk’s hand, and Jeongguk gently scratches behind a silky black ear.

He’s never had pets before—not human pets, magical ones, or even a familiar. No one in his family had one for as long as the curse was cast; the chances of mistakenly summoning dangerous creatures instead was way too big. He thought about getting a dog from a shelter once or twice, but he’s always been too scared that the curse would affect them too, the same way it does people Jeongguk is near. He couldn’t even bear the thought of that.

With Bari in his lap now, Jeongguk takes extra care to be gentle, to keep his touch light and his legs steady.

“What do you say about breaking your curse now, Jeongguk-ah?”

Jeongguk’s breath leaves him in a rush at Jimin’s voice, at the affectionate curl of his name. Don’t hope, he reminds himself, but his throat is tight and his eyes are burning. He strokes Bari softly, down his spine between his wings. The scar is more visible up close, long and jagged. But it’s healed. Don’t hope, you don’t get to hope—

“Yes,” Jeongguk manages, and it comes out as a whisper. He can’t bring himself to look up. He doesn’t know what to do with the bright thing inside his chest—the flame that feels like it’s going to take over, burn out of control, hurt him with how much he wants it. “Please.”

There’s the sound of chair legs scraping against the wooden floor. “I’ll get everything ready,” Yoongi says.

Socked footsteps retreat from the kitchen, and Jeongguk keeps stroking down Bari’s spine. He doesn’t know if he has a thousand questions or one, and what they would even be if he could put them into words.

“Jeongguk-ah,” Jimin says, and Jeongguk’s name sounds safe in his mouth. “You really will be okay. I know that sounds empty now, and it’s okay if you don’t believe it yet. But things will get better.”

Jeongguk’s throat hurts from how much he’s trying not to cry—not to embarrass himself in front of Jimin, who he met approximately an hour ago.

“I… I’d like to believe that,” Jeongguk says.

He bites his lip, quickly deciding on tea over tears as he lifts his hand, careful not to bump into Bari’s wings as he reaches over him. His caution makes no difference though, because his knuckles hit the mug at just the right angle to tip it over and send it rolling off the table, spilling the hot tea across it and Jeongguk’s hand.

Bari startles, opening his wings and flapping over to a nearby counter, landing with a disgruntled noise.

“I’m sorry,” Jeongguk says immediately. All at once he’s reminded of just how present his curse is, and panic rises in him at the thought that Jimin might change his mind about him now that he’s seen just how destructive Jeongguk is.

He feels painfully awkward. Like suddenly he’s taking up too much space in Jimin and Yoongi’s home, and he does the first thing he can think of to remedy the situation, kneeling down to retrieve the mug from where it had rolled under his chair.

With horror, he realizes that one side of the handle has cracked, leaving it hanging only by the top part. Only when Jeongguk touches it, the whole thing breaks away from the rest of the mug and falls into his hand.

And, just when he thinks that the situation can't get any more embarrassing than it already is, he looks up at Jimin, and promptly bursts into tears.

“Oh, Jeongguk-ah, are you okay?”

The worry in Jimin’s voice is so genuine that it makes Jeongguk cry even harder. He flinches when Jimin crouches down beside him to take the remains of the mug. His touch is careful as he takes Jeongguk’s hand to inspect the back of it.

“That tea was still hot. Did it burn you?”

Now that Jeongguk thinks about it, his hand does sting where the tea had splashed him—but not as badly as the tears that he can’t quite seem to quell.

He slaps his other hand over his mouth when he lets out a strangled sob instead of actual words. Jimin doesn’t seem to care, though, as he runs his thumb over Jeongguk’s skin. Jeongguk jerks slightly, a half-aborted move to pull back, but Jimin just frowns at the reddening spot on his hand. “I’m sorry, it looks like it hurts. Let me get you a salve.”

The last thing on Jeongguk’s mind is tending to his burn. He can hear a steady dripping sound next to him, the puddle of tea expanding from the table and making an even bigger mess. “No, ‘m okay. Just— I’m really sorry,” he says again, this time even more miserably. Then, pointing out the obvious, “I broke your mug.”

He broke Jimin and Yoongi’s mug, then promptly started crying in their kitchen.

This is the precise reason he never goes to the homes of people he knows. He breaks things, apparently humiliates himself with tears, and ruins the mostly one-sided conversation he was attempting to keep up—

“I can fix the mug,” Jimin says, interrupting Jeongguk’s thoughts. “And I can wipe up a bit of tea.” Jeongguk’s vision is blurry with tears, but there’s a kitchen rag in Jimin’s hands now that hadn’t been there a second ago. He must have summoned it, because he hasn’t left Jeongguk’s side since he burned himself. “Spilled tea doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you, Jeongguk-ah. It just means that there’s something to clean up. Only that.”

Jeongguk wipes his face with the back of his sleeve. “Sorry,” he whispers again, not just for the tea.

Jimin just shakes his head. He uses the rag to catch the tea dripping to the floor. “You know, Yoongi worried about all the little things for a long time, too.”

Jeongguk watches as Jimin stands to soak up the rest of the tea on the table with the rag, grateful at least that the tears have stopped, even if his throat still aches and his eyes feel puffy.

“It was difficult for him to stop seeing omens in accidents, even though he could remember his life before the curse. So much time had passed that it was like watching someone else’s memories, and he couldn’t connect to those feelings anymore. Instead, everything was a reminder of what he had gone through. Spilled milk, a botched potion, not feeling worthy of love if he could barely recognize love himself—it all felt the same. When people are under stress for a long period of time, every emotion feels heavy, more frightening.”

Jeongguk’s curse isn’t like Yoongi’s, but despite the difference between them—are they really that different?

Yoongi hadn’t lived his whole life with his curse, but he hadn’t been able to shake away the pain it caused him even after it was broken. Not at first, at least. Yoongi’s curse had made him unable to recognize love, to embrace it, while Jeongguk’s made him a walking warning sign, a destructive existence, a person who caused other people hurt. And Jeongguk has always felt unlovable, so he understands that.

He thinks Yoongi probably understands a bit about him, too.

“Really,” Jimin says softly, leaving the damp rag on the table to join Jeongguk on the floor again. He snaps quietly and a drawer opens from one of the cabinets beside the sink. A small bottle dances through the air and Jimin catches it without even looking back, the bottle suddenly pinched delicately between his fingers. He pops open the lid and reaches for Jeongguk’s hand, and Jeongguk lets him take it, his breath shuddering the smallest bit at Jimin’s gentle touch. “We met in an alchemy class at university but we reconnected years later when we ended up co-workers at the same potion brewery. When he finally told me about his curse, I knew we could find a way to break it because I already loved him then. Only it wasn’t that easy, even if he did love me, too.”

Jeongguk hums to himself, watching Jimin spread some sort of cool, green salve over his burnt knuckles. “Because Yoongi-hyung believed in the curse?” he wonders.

He can tell how much Jimin loves Yoongi. And how much Yoongi loves him in return. Their eyes are so soft when they look at each other, even while they bicker. He can’t picture them not being like that together.

“Because he believed in what the curse meant, and he found reasons to think it was true. All the doubts he had before were suddenly things he thought made him a person that no one would ever love, cursed or not.” Jimin caps the little bottle again, gently guiding Jeongguk’s hand back to his lap as they sit on the floor together.

Overhead, the skylight has faded from sun to darkness, and the stars glitter through the magic pane, now circling the moon without a single cloud to hide them.

“Thank you,” Jeongguk says quietly.

Jimin just smiles, sending the vial back to the kitchen drawer with another wave of his ringed fingers. “No problem. It’s a special mix Yoongi makes for burns. Feel better?”

Jeongguk glances down at his hand. The stinging is completely gone, just a cool tingling now across his skin. “Yeah. That’s incredible.”

“Yoongi’s really damn good at making healing salves. Don’t tell him I said that, though. I keep insisting mine are better.”

Jeongguk lets out a small laugh, and they lapse into silence again. Jeongguk slowly looks up at Jimin only to find him looking straight back, that same softness in his eyes. “You two seem really good together.”

Jimin’s smile broadens. “Yeah. I mean, it took work. We used to have an occasional fight, and both of us were more… passive aggressive when we were younger. But we learned. And we barely argue at all now.”

Without meaning to, Jeongguk furrows in brow in confusion.

Jimin seems to clock his reaction, snorting. “We tease a lot. It’s one of our love languages.”

“Oh,” Jeongguk says quickly, tugging at the crumpled hem of his sweatshirt. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t apologize. One time we started bickering while we were at the market. I think he was haggling over some stardust? Anyway, I told him he should stop trying to scam ahjummas out of their money and the lecture I got from the witch he was bargaining with,” Jimin giggles to himself, and Jeongguk can picture it. “Don’t you be giving Yoongi-yah a hard time! He drives a hard bargain but he’s a good boy. You be kind to him!”

Jeongguk laughs, and finally wipes at the corners of his eyes, catching the stray tears formed from embarrassment, and then from relief.

Jimin genuinely seems to care about his well-being as if he’s more than just a customer—and he isn’t upset about the mug, either. But more importantly, he seems convinced that Jeongguk can get better, just like Yoongi. That Jeongguk can heal and grow and maybe even have a relationship like they do someday.

You don’t get to be close to people, the voice in his head makes sure to remind him, pushing everything away. And it’s true. The bond they share is something that had always felt so unattainable to Jeongguk, but now…

Jimin reaches carefully for Jeongguk’s hand, the one still covered in salve, and Jeongguk lets him take it. “What I’m saying in all of this is that it’s okay to trust that things will work out. A little bit of hope goes a long way, Jeongguk-ah.”

Jeongguk nods and, just this once, lets himself be hopeful.

“Hey.” Yoongi’s voice comes from behind Jeongguk, and, still crouched on the floor, Jeongguk looks over his shoulder to see Yoongi leaning against the frame of the kitchen door. The walls have changed color, too, now a pale shade of lavender. Yoongi’s eyes are soft as he looks at Jimin and Jeongguk.

And his words make Jeongguk’s heart skip a beat.

“Everything’s set up.”

The room is quiet and empty when Jeongguk steps inside. The windows are dark, and the night beyond feels cold and real, and it reminds Jeongguk of the world outside Jimin and Yoongi’s apartment.

They’ve made him feel safe here. They’ve ignited the hope Jeongguk thought was long gone, and even though he’s still scared, something has shifted.

Jeongguk takes a deep breath.

The only decoration is the circle of yellow stones on the floorboards, glowing faintly. They’re spread out wide enough from each other that the space in the center could fit two people standing, if they were nearly chest to chest.

Other curse-breakers have had fantastical set-ups and talismans plastered to the walls. One of them even performed some sort of exorcism on Jeongguk, which was terrifying in its own right. The nightmares he’d had for weeks after that had discouraged him from seeking out other curse-breakers for two months—one of the many traumatic experiences he’s endured leading up to this moment. So this isn’t exactly what he had pictured when he set up this appointment.

But then again, when have Yoongi and Jimin, over the course of the night, been what Jeongguk expected at all?

“Sun stones,” Jeongguk says quietly, stepping closer to the edge of the circle.

“For the shadow,” Yoongi answers. He closes the door behind them. The lighting in the room is dim but comforting, brightened by an array of candles on an old oak chest, and the sun stones glinting a soft gold on the floorboards. “Do you want us to explain how this will work?”

Fear and hope and desperation cause Jeongguk’s throat to grow tight again. He shakes his head. “It’s okay. I—” He wants to get it over with, but it’s more than that. Despite only knowing Yoongi and Jimin for a short period of time, he trusts them to do their job. “Just let me know what to do.”

Jimin leads him into the center of the circle with a hand on his shoulder. Jeongguk shivers as he enters the circle, the humming energy of the stones washing over him.

“It’s best to be as close as possible to the stones,” Yoongi instructs.

Jeonguk kneels down, the calming effect of the stones and Yoongi’s voice leading him to obey without thinking, eager to comply and finally break the curse. It’s also easy when Yoongi speaks gently, assuredly.

“Close your eyes,” Jimin says and sinks to the floor outside of the circle, tucking his legs beneath him. On Jeongguk’s right, Yoongi does the same.

Jeongguk’s breath shakes when he exhales, and he lets his eyes fall closed.

“The curse grows in the darkness.” Yoongi’s voice is low and rasping, but it’s steady all the same. “You can find it if you look. It’ll be familiar.”

At first, Jeongguk doesn’t know where to look. There’s nothing but darkness with his eyes closed anyway. He opens his mouth to say this when he feels a brush of magic, magic so painfully familiar and cold that he’s certain that it’s his own, coaxing him to look deeper in his own mind.

Jeongguk shivers again, this time feeling it beneath his skin.

There’s a yawning darkness there at the base of his skull, stretching from his spine, creeping through his head. A sense of foreboding washes over him, the same feeling he’s encountered countless times as his curse has affected him.

“You found it?” Jimin asks quietly, and Jeongguk can feel goosebumps along his skin, the temperature of the room suddenly unpleasantly cool.

“Yeah,” Jeongguk whispers.

It’s the shadow that tells him he’s better off alone, the darkness that whispers in the late hours of the night that it’d be better if he’d never been born, the suffocating void that takes hope and replaces it with the bleak knowledge that Jeongguk is only made for curses and broken glass and footsteps avoiding him in university hallways.

“Let the light in,” Yoongi murmurs.

It’s so dark.

He’s spent so much time between the shadows it feels like it’s all he is sometimes. He’s so tired of living in fear of it, but for the first time, it’s as though the light is calling to him like a distant star.

The darkness tries to pull him back in, tendrils of black ichor in his mind’s eye.

He sees himself sitting alone in his middle school classroom, the desks nearby empty either from avoidance or accident by virtue of being too close to him. He sees himself cringing back in high school when the boy he liked leaned in for a kiss, because he didn’t want to hurt him, too. He sees the looks of disdain in university classrooms, frustration in grocery stores, worry in his mother’s apartment back in Busan.

“Jeongguk-ah,” Yoongi says. “The light’s always been there. You have to let it in. The curse isn’t stopping you now.”

Jeongguk’s lungs burn when he inhales, and he reaches for the light, reaches for the star as it grows, burning hotter and brighter.

Maybe Jeongguk has gotten too used to blaming everything on the curse.

It’s time for him to let go of the curse and let good in instead. He’s exhausted from clinging on so tightly. And he’s more ready than he ever has been to move on.

Yoongi did it. He thinks Jeongguk can, too.

Light bleeds around him yellow and warm and even through the veil of his closed eyes, he can feel the sun stones glowing.

“Just like that,” Jimin’s voice is high and clear, ringing like a bell guiding Jeongguk forward. “Just like that, Jeongguk-ah.”

Jimin believes Jeongguk can break the curse.

And maybe it’s true that Jeongguk doesn’t deserve to have hope, but what choice does he have? Hope is a desperate thing, and it’s clung to him just as he’s clung to it.

He’s spent so long trying to break his curse that he doesn’t think he can bring himself to stop until he succeeds, no matter how long it takes, no matter how many times he gets hurt. He can’t keep living the way he is now, he knows that for sure. That’s why he has to put everything into breaking the curse now, and trust that he’ll be deserving of a better life, one uninhibited by his curse, someday.

Heat flares around him, washing over his skin, and Jeongguk gasps as he tips forward with the air in his lungs and falls into the light.

And then it’s all gone.

Jeongguk opens his eyes, blinking a few times. The sun stones are glowing just as faintly as before, and the room is dim and comfortably cool.

“Jeongguk?” Jimin asks quietly, and Jeongguk’s gaze slides over to him. Jimin is smiling slightly, a question in his eyes. “How do you feel?”

Jeongguk tugs at the hem of his sleeve. He starts to get to his feet, but his knees are weak, and he collapses back down again. He’s tired, still a little shaky, still a little nervous. “I don’t… I don’t think I feel any different.”

“The curse is broken,” Yoongi says, picking up one of the sun stones that sits between him and Jeongguk before gently placing it in Jeongguk's hand. Yoongi's calloused fingers curl around Jeongguk's own, securing the stone in his grip. It’s still warm against his palm, glowing more warmly, pale yellow turned deep amber. “You might not be able to tell at first, but that’s normal. The same thing happened to me.”

Jeongguk stares at him blankly. All of the emotions from the night, the highs and the lows, both wash away into emptiness. He’s supposed to feel different. He’s supposed to feel better. He’s supposed to not feel like himself. Ending the curse was supposed to—

“I thought this would fix me,” Jeongguk murmurs. The stone glows dimly, peeking out from between his fingers. Yoongi’s hand is still gently wrapped around his, and Jeongguk doesn’t know why it makes him want to cry. “It was supposed to fix me.”

“Oh,” Jimin says, so softly it aches. And then he’s moving forward, rising up on his knees in front of Jeongguk to carefully take Jeongguk and Yoongi’s clasped hands in his own. “None of this was to fix you, Jeongguk-ah. You aren’t broken. You never were.”

Jeongguk stares at their intertwined hands. Not broken.

Never broken.

“Your curse was hidden in the Unseen. Healing isn’t just about making that go away, it's also about choosing who you are and what you want without it,” Yoongi says. He squeezes Jeongguk’s hand before he lets go and stands up. “It takes time.”

Jeongguk nods, turning the words over in his mind.

He’s spent his entire life with the curse hanging over him, always mindful of how his choices could affect him later on—from avoiding baggy clothes with strings as not to get caught on anything to learning how to tread lightly in his own home so he didn’t break a possession he couldn’t afford replacing to closing himself off from the world—from everyone.

The curse may have been broken, but his old way of thinking hasn’t. Not yet. And he realizes just how strongly he held on to both the curse and his own fears.

He understands exactly what Yoongi meant.

“I… I don’t think I know who I am without it. That’s the problem,” Jeongguk admits in a quiet voice, more to himself than anyone else. And as his own words ring in his ears, he feels both the weight of that realization and the relief from Yoongi's reassurance, just by acknowledging it out loud. What they gave him feels like a light at the end of the tunnel, real this time, rather than desperate longing, but he still has to find the way out. “How do I do it? How do I… find myself?”

Jimin gently tugs on Jeongguk’s hand, and they both get to their feet. He stands close enough that he has to tilt his head back to meet Jeongguk’s eyes. “By living. Trying new things, seeing how it all feels without the curse—how it makes you feel… Realizing slowly if the clothes you wear, what you do, or the things you avoid were because of how the curse made you feel or because they were already a part of what makes you you. It’s okay to take your time with it. It’s okay if some things you thought would go away are still you in a different way, or if you find yourself liking things you never thought possible and even if for a while you don’t recognize yourself in them, it’s okay to follow your heart if it tells you there’s something there.”

Yoongi picks another sun stone up from the floor, turning it over in his hands. “You don’t have to figure it out alone, Jeongguk-ah. Or overnight. Or all at once. I know most curse-breakers see their jobs as a one-time-thing, a done deal to work through and move on to the next, but that’s not us. We’re here for you. We know what it’s like to face the aftermath.”

Their words don’t take away Jeongguk’s uncertainty or his fear, but he trusts them. They’ve shown him that he’s allowed to have hope, and this, to him, is everything.

His hands are still trembling, and he clutches at his oversized sleeves to steady himself. He breathes out shakily, overwhelmed, unsure of how to answer. “Thank you,” he says.

Jimin smiles. “All we did was put some sun stones in a cleansing circle. You did the work yourself.”

But without them—would he have ever known how to break the curse on his own? Could he ever have mustered enough hope—real hope—to do so without somebody to lean on? He opens his mouth to protest, but he’s interrupted by the sound of his stomach growling loudly.

Yoongi barks out a quiet laugh. “I guess we’ve skipped dinner, huh?”

Jeongguk feels heat rush to his cheeks as Jimin cocks his head to the side, staring at a blank wall in the room. “Can we have the time, please?”

A clock appears immediately, blinking into existence. It’s an old grandfather clock, dark carved wood and swinging pendulums. It ticks happily, almost like it’s glad to have been summoned.

“Already ten,” Yoongi murmurs.

Jeongguk blinks in confusion. Wasn’t it just before six when he arrived? “It’s late,” he says, and squints to see the clock hands positioned just as Yoongi had said.

“The sun stone ritual takes longer than it feels,” Yoongi tells him, seeming to catch on to Jeongguk’s surprise. “And requires a lot of energy. We could all use something to eat and then some sleep.”

“Twelve hours, knowing you,” Jimin teases, and Jeongguk feels the last of the tension drain from him, leaving nothing but gnawing hunger and heavy, tired eyes.

He should go back to his apartment. If his curse really is broken, he might be able to take the train without causing mechanical problems. He should take the train back to his apartment, and then eat whatever is left in his pantry, which is probably a pack of ramen at this point.

But Jeongguk doesn’t want to leave.

He’s overcome with this feeling of warmth, of belonging, and he doesn’t remember the last time he felt as safe as he does here with Yoongi and Jimin.

“You should stay for—”

“Why don’t you eat with—”

Yoongi and Jimin start at the same time, only to break off and look at each other. Jimin narrows his eyes as Yoongi sighs. “I wanted to invite him,” Jimin protests.

“Well you did.” Yoongi sniffs loudly and rubs his hand under his nose. “It just so happens that I wanted to invite him, too.”

Jeongguk’s head swivels back and forth like he’s watching a tennis match before a small laugh escapes him, shy and quiet as it spills from his lips.

Jimin and Yoongi stop mid-argument and look at him.

“I’d like to stay for dinner, and eat with you both,” Jeongguk says. They want him here. Even if it’s just for a meal, they want him here, they want him to stay longer. They’re not afraid of him. They seem like they may even like him.

He likes them, too, he thinks.

(He definitely does.)

Jeongguk still has a lot of questions. There are a lot of things he doesn’t know about himself, including who he is without the curse. Or what his life will be like from now on.

But he knows he wants to stay for dinner.

That much is simple, and he doesn’t have to second-guess it. He’s opened up a world of possibility and potential, and seems like Yoongi and Jimin will be there while he explores it—he knows he doesn’t have to second-guess this, either.

The whole family had been cursed since not long after the founding of the Mungyeong Jeon. Jeongguk was the first to break it, but he didn’t do it alone.

“Who keeps putting my star charts with the potion books?” Jimin saunters into the study with his hands on his hips. His narrowed eyes dart from Yoongi, who is currently curled up in an armchair, and Jeongguk.

There’s a beat, and then Yoongi and Jeongguk both point at each other.

“Hyung!” Jeongguk exclaims, but he can’t help giggling under his breath. “I don’t even know how star charts work.”

Yoongi’s face is innocently blank. He closes the book he was thumbing through and sets it down on the small table between them with the air of someone who knows they’re being closely watched. “Neither do I.”

“Hyung, you literally taught me how to read the stars yourself,” Jimin says flatly.

The three of them fall into silence before the corner of Jimin’s mouth twitches and they all burst into laughter.

There are days like this now that the curse is broken. Days that began with Jeongguk tentatively working part time at the shop to the nights that he spends over here, followed by the mornings when he wakes up with Bari nuzzling at his neck with a cold, wet, nose, demanding pets. And the moments in between, in which Yoongi reaches for his hand absent-mindedly or Jimin rocks up on his toes to kiss Jeongguk’s cheek.

Days that used to feel too good to be true for someone like Jeongguk. Days that he sometimes feels like are still too good to be true now, until Yoongi and Jimin smile at him and he realizes that he belongs here, with them, like this. Days that he now doesn’t know how to live without—that he can’t imagine ever giving up on.

Today they start slow with banter and laughter before they get to work, breakfast dishes still in the kitchen sink, morning light filtering through a window the shop graciously provided across the back wall of the study.

“I may have been the one to put them away last,” Yoongi says, eyes still crinkled. He stretches as he gets out of the armchair. “But you have no evidence to convict me.”

“You’re ridiculous, hyung. No shame at all,” Jimin mutters, but he closes the distance between them to kiss Yoongi on the cheek, then leans down to where Jeongguk is sitting on the floor beside a box of books and kisses the top of his head. “They belong in the yellow bookshelf, for future reference,” Jimin says, making sure to click his tongue in mock disapproval before he disappears back toward the potions room, and Yoongi and Jeongguk share another fond look before Yoongi shuffles out of the study and into the kitchen—probably to wash their breakfast dishes.

Jeongguk has his own work cut out for him.

He’s going through a batch of spell journals Yoongi bought at a second-hand store last week. The pages are weathered and worn, and Jeongguk has to keep reminding himself that it’s not his fault when one of their bindings cracks. He pushes down the instinct to drop the books and back away, taking a long breath before setting aside the damaged tomes for Jimin to repair when he has the chance.

Magic still isn’t easy for Jeongguk.

He hasn’t shaken the fear that he’ll do something horrible by accident. Jimin and Yoongi have been working with him slowly, and Namjoon, one of the teaching assistants at the university, always makes time for Jeongguk during office hours. He spent so long avoiding magic because of what might go wrong that he’s spent the last several months making up for lost time.

It takes the better part of the day for Jeongguk to sort through the journals. Partly because he keeps getting distracted with the writing, partly because he’s still overly cautious in handling them. The books belonged to a curse-breaker a century before, who carried her own curse from her family lineage. Jeongguk hopes she somehow found a way to break it.

He hopes she’s had the chance to live without its shadow.

The shop has conjured a skylight in the study, letting sunlight rain down on Jeongguk as he works. The light has begun to fade to pinks and oranges by the time Jeongguk is working to catalog the final few tomes.

“Jeongguk-ah!” Jimin’s voice rings through the hall and the open office door.

Jeongguk perks up at his name, and he carefully places one of the spell journals in the “doesn’t need repair” pile before he leaps to his feet. “Yeah?” he asks, eyeing the stacks of books just a step away.

He’s always been used to double and triple checking his work, and that’s one of the things that stayed with him, even if it’s been nearly three years now since the curse was broken. He still likes making sure everything is in order, and doing what he can to prevent them from going wrong and being always prepared.

Jimin appears in the doorframe, which is currently painted with a pale pink that complements the soft yellow of Jimin’s sweater. “Yoongi-hyung is almost done with the summoning circle. How are you with sorting through the journals? Do you want to keep working or are you ready now?”

“I’m almost done.” Jeongguk takes another look at the journals, thinking of the witch’s messy scrawl and her lists of ingredients for breaking curses of inconvenience, the tea she learned to brew for a cursed cold. He thinks he might try out some of her methods around the shop. Just a few, and carefully, but he wants to try.

A few years ago, he wouldn’t have dared to try. Not magical remedies, and certainly not what they’re about to do. But these days, the thought of trying new things fills him with excitement and wonder and hope.

Jeongguk nods. “I can do the rest later.”

He might not be able to finish sorting through the journals right away, but that’s okay—he has a feeling he’ll be a little preoccupied over the next few days.

Finding a familiar is an unpredictable experience, or so he’s been told. Yoongi and Jimin have never personally tried it either. It’s something new, something Jeongguk is trusting will turn out okay, even if there’s a mistake or two in the process.

After all, he’s going to have Yoongi and Jimin with him, and the thought of this makes the nervous tinge to his thoughts tilt to the side of excitement instead.

Bari chirps, flying into the room behind Jimin and heading straight for Jeongguk’s shoulder. He nibbles at Jeongguk’s hair, pulling slightly. Jeongguk grins to himself, raising his hand to scratch Bari’s head. “Don’t be jealous. Even if this works and I get a familiar, I’ll always have time for you, too.”

Jimin laughs softly. “You’re cute.”

Even though it’s been years since Jeongguk came knocking on their door, with potion burns, a horrible haircut, and fear coursing through his veins, he still blushes slightly at the words, ducking his head. Jimin is always free with his affections, telling Jeongguk he’s beautiful in starlight, or that he’s kind when Jeongguk helps the older witches at the market carry their shopping bags.

It’s been a slow, winding process. Jeongguk still feels skittish sometimes in crowds, worrying that he’ll cause a problem for someone, especially at places brimming with magic like the Witchling Night Market. But it helps that Jimin and Yoongi never see Jeongguk as the problem. They simply see him.

Bari lets out an annoyed meow right in Jeongguk’s ear.

“Bari-yah,” Jimin scolds, “don’t misbehave.”

“He’s not,” Jeongguk says immediately, and Bari pushes his face into Jeongguk’s cheek, purrs starting to rumble through his body. Jeongguk’s mouth twitches in amusement. “And even if he is, he’s learned from you and Yoongi-hyung.”

Jimin lets out a squawk of disbelief. “What? Me? Never. If he’s picked up any bad habits I had nothing to do with it.”

Jeongguk laughs, and gives Bari another pet before gently shrugging him off and into his arms. He passes the purring cat-dragon to Jimin, who cradles Bari in his arms.

“Let’s go help hyung finish preparing the ritual.”

The doorframe is now back to a solid white as Jeongguk walks through it with Jimin and Bari right behind him.

Jeongguk never thought this would be possible. All of it, really, but today, he’s in a state of disbelief over summoning his familiar.

His mother once told him about a great uncle centuries ago who accidentally summoned a demon that wreaked havoc on his village and got him thrown out of his home. Jeongguk doesn’t know if the story was true or not (because then, who stopped the demon?) but he figures it was his mother’s way of making sure he didn’t try anything too risky.

But now he’s opening up to those possibilities and new experiences.

It helps that Yoongi and Jimin are open to those things, too.

Yoongi especially seems to enjoy experimenting. He can spend hours in the potion lab, patiently mixing in things and reciting incantations. Sometimes he gets so focused that Jimin and Jeongguk have to gently nudge him out and remind him to sleep and eat. Sometimes he causes a minor explosion. Last week, he accidentally created a potion that made the whole shop smell like burnt toast.

Jimin didn’t even pretend to be annoyed, instead simply laughing and tugging on Yoongi’s sleeve to get him out of the smoky room. Jeongguk politely asked the shop to open up the windows, and it listened to him. They took a walk outside even though it was raining while the shop aired out. Because mistakes were just mistakes.

Accidents were just accidents.

(That’s all.)

Jeongguk finally found a TA who wasn’t scared of him based on his cursed reputation. Namjoon worked with him patiently, helping him catch up on labs and classes. He’d told Jeongguk he was clumsy and forgetful enough that he didn’t really think curses would make his life much harder, and then never mentioned it again. Jeongguk is grateful for him.

Bari is still perched on Jeongguk’s shoulder as he steps into the room that the shop seems to reserve for rituals. Instead of sun stones now, though, there are runes painted in blue and yellow, the symbols all in Yoongi’s careful calligraphy.

“Are you sure you used the right rune here?” Jimin asks, using his socked foot to point at one of the symbols near the back wall.

“Pretty sure,” Yoongi answers, arching an eyebrow, and Jeongguk squints at it. He’s still years behind Yoongi and Jimin in terms of magical skills and knowledge—he couldn’t have set up the ritual to find a familiar without them. But he did try some of his own research.

“It’s a variant, right, hyung? One of the new experts on familiars recommended this rune for stabilizing the summoning circle,” Jeongguk says, tugging absently at the hem of his sleeve.

“Look at you two,” Jimin coos, and Bari seems to take that tone of voice to indicate that Jimin is calling for him. He launches himself off Jeongguk’s shoulder and Jimin lifts his arms to catch him in time. Jimin presses a kiss to Bari’s head. “I have such brilliant partners, don’t I, Bari-yah?”

Jeongguk laughs shyly. Brilliant, Jimin said. Jeongguk hopes Jimin knows he and Yoongi feel the same way about him. Jeongguk’s just still so unsure of how to respond to compliments, but when he glances at Yoongi, he sees that his cheeks are faintly pink as well.

The new, kinder voice in his head tells him that they both know he feels.

Yoongi clears his throat. “Okay, okay, if you’re done inspecting everything, are we ready?”

Jeongguk’s smile fades slightly, and he takes a slow breath in before nodding. “Yes. I’m ready to try.”

Yoongi passes Jeongguk a scroll that they’ve all studied for the last week—one they bought at the magical bookstore not far from Jeongguk’s campus.

Jimin gently squeezes Jeongguk’s arm, and Yoongi and Jimin flank him on both sides, their shoulders brushing. It gives Jeongguk the calm he needs to unfurl the scroll, and he begins to read the incantation, carefully threading his magic through the words and into the rune circle on the floor in front of them.

Jeongguk’s nearly on the last line of the spell, his brow furrowed in concentration, when a black blur launches into the circle from his left and—

“Bari!” Jimin shouts just as Jeongguk stutters out the last word before he understands what’s happening.

The runes illuminate as Bari meows, and for a horrible moment, Jeongguk’s lungs seize with an old and familiar fear, because what if Bari gets hurt? What if Bari is hurt because of him?

I fucked this up, I fucked this up, I fucked this up, Jeongguk thinks, panic starting to rise in his chest. The instinctual reaction to back away from the destruction he caused kicks in, but he manages to stay. He roots himself in the room in his place between Yoongi and Jimin—a place he’s stood for the last several years through so many mishaps and mistakes. Breathe, he reminds himself. Jimin and Yoongi are here to help, we’ll keep Bari safe, he’ll be okay. I can fix this. We can fix this.

“Bari,” Yoongi repeats urgently, stepping toward the circle of runes only to immediately jerk back as a figure appears. A tall figure. A definitely non-animal figure.

“Huh?” the figure says, and Jeongguk finally sucks in a sharp breath of relief as he realizes that while there is a person in the middle of the familiar summoning circle, that person is also holding Bari, who is safe and sound, in their arms. Bari begins to purr. Loudly. “Cute cat.”

Yoongi, Jimin, and Jeongguk all take a moment to stare incredulously, but Jimin recovers first. “What… who are you?”

The figure cocks their head to the side, luminescent silver eyes locking on Jimin. “I’m Taehyung. Who are you?”

Jeongguk’s mouth hangs open slightly. This is definitely not what he intended. Not by a long-shot. There’s supposed to be a familiar in the middle of the circle. Instead there’s a person? A person with strange glowing eyes? What if they’re dangerous? What if they’re not and Jeongguk just snatched someone out of their home? Jeongguk’s thoughts start twisting again, tangling in the back of his mind.

But then Yoongi’s hand is on Jeongguk’s arm, and Jeongguk exhales shakily. Yoongi’s voice is calm as he answers, “Min Yoongi. This is Park Jimin and Jeon Jeongguk. We’re a curse-breaking coven.”

Jeongguk goes from panicked to reassured to floored within a span of a few seconds. Yoongi’s never called them a coven before. Neither has Jimin. But that’s what they are, isn’t it?

Golden warmth spreads through Jeongguk’s chest, a callback to the feeling of a sun stone pressed into his hand the night they broke his curse together. He still carries one. It’s threaded through a black cord on his neck, a reminder to let the light in, even when shadows are looming. Jimin kept one from the curse-breaking ritual too, as did Yoongi. Jimin’s is on his night table. Yoongi keeps his in his pocket.

A coven indeed.

“It seems our cat was jealous of Jeongguk trying to summon a familiar,” Jimin says, and he folds his arms over his chest as he looks Taehyung up and down. He clicks his tongue. “Bari-yah, come here. You caused quite an incident, didn’t you?”

Bari chirps in what definitely sounds like agreement before hopping out of Taehyung’s arms and padding over the runes to wind around Jimin’s legs.

“It also might’ve been the incantation,” Jeongguk says, looking from Jimin to Taehyung. “I’m really sorry. I don’t know what happened but… we’ll figure it out.”

He feels Yoongi squeeze his arm again, and glances over to find him smiling softly. Almost proudly. “Yeah, we’ll figure it out. Taehyung, was it?”

Taehyung nods, strange silver eyes curving slightly as he grins at them. “Well, it’s certainly an unexpected adventure.”

“The best ones usually are,” Jimin says. He gives Taehyung a once over. “Where are you from?”

Taehyung hums, his voice a comfortable low baritone. “It’s a bit of a long story… I was kind of in between places before I was pulled here. Well, actually, I was on my way to grab a drink to wash down some awfully dry Fae Chicken delivery I had for dinner.”

“Oh?” Jimin asks, then his face lights up almost mischievously. “Right, where are our manners? We can talk over tea.” He turns toward the blank wall where the door was previously. “Kitchen, please.”

An open archway appears, the kitchen table covered in plants just beyond, pale wood floors and the smell of freshly baked bread and sesame.

Jeongguk bites his lip before offering Taehyung what he hopes is a reassuring smile. He knows what it’s like to be here, to show up somewhere a little bit lost. “The tea here is the best.”

“Then how could I turn that offer down?” Taehyung runs a hand through his hair, the color as silver pearlescent as his eyes, and he returns Jeongguk’s smile with his own boxy grin.

Jeongguk feels the last of his nerves fade. Even with a stranger in the room, even with the ritual gone wrong, even with so many unknowns. Jimin leads them into the kitchen, Bari still winding around his legs meowing for attention, and Jeongguk feels Yoongi’s hand slip into his own. There’s a long night ahead of them, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Jeongguk’s smile grows a little bigger.

“Welcome to our magic shop.”

✧

While drinking a glass of hot tea
And looking up at the Milky Way

You’ll be alright, oh, this here is the Magic Shop

✧