Archive of Our Own ^beta

It had been a long time since summer meant breezes moving Beomgyu’s hair and trees singing a song he could understand. Beomgyu had missed coming to this village.

“You seem lost in thought.”

It had been long too since he had felt as brave as to look with open adoration at someone he had only just met. “I was thinking… I missed this place.”

“You used to come here often, right? Taehyun refers to you as an old friend, too.” Yeonjun was looking at the water, still feeling out of place. Which was a curious thing, given that he had been a local for more than a couple of years now.

“My grandma used to come here every summer and spend the season visiting acquaintances, attending the neighborhood parties, and playing cards with her friends. We used to tag along!”

“Arin and you?”

“Yes, and her siblings–my brother, too. When our parents would let us come, I would spend the entire day with Tae, watching cartoons or just exploring the illustrated books my grandma has. You know how TV reception gets with the wind.”

“Yeah,” Yeonjun chuckled. “When was the last time you came here?”

“I think… maybe ten years ago?”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. My mother never liked this place, and so we were kinda expected to dislike it too… In the end, we just came some weekends, when our grandma just couldn’t stay alone and none of the adults would have time to accompany her.”

Yeonjun's expression looked sad. Beomgyu couldn’t imagine what he must have been projecting in his face. The feeling of nostalgia associated with that village was so heavy that it wouldn’t go away even when he was there for an extended period of time this summer. And yet, under such a sad premise…

“How come you didn’t know though, I bet Tae speaks of me all the time.”

“Nope, you haven’t come up at all.”

“What about Arin?”

“Again, who are you?” Beomgyu slapped his arm. “Hey! But for real, I don't mean it in a bad way, I guess you didn’t come up. She did talk about her sister, I think she got pregnant or something?”

“Oh, yeah, we don’t really talk about that. I think that’s why my grandma stopped coming as often, she always blamed herself. I don't know why though.”

“Is that why you—?” Beomgyu guessed the ending: why they’re selling.

“No, no, my cousin got pregnant again twice after that one, so it’s definitely not the place. But my grandma is old, and she doesn’t come anymore. And my parents and uncle want to finish this…”

A scream came from inside the house. Beomgyu jumped.

“I’m guessing either a bug in the shower or we ran out of hot water, what do you say?”

“Huening Kai mentioned a slither earlier, so maybe a snake?”

“Oh, shit, should I go check?” Beomgyu had been ready to wait for Soobin to come screaming the news, but if it was a snake… “Wait, I’ve never seen a snake around here.”

“Me neither. So if it’s a bug you won’t go check that Soobin is safe?”

“And standing up from the one time I successfully caught the canal active hours? Nope, Arin can handle it.”

“Something tells me you wouldn’t want to face the bug either.”

“I don’t know what are you talking about, I am the bug killer in this house.” After the raised eyebrow, he felt compelled to confess one of those lies. “Okay, no, that’s Arin. That’s why she’ll handle it if it was, in fact, a bug.” On the side, he noted to check if the tall tiny window in the bathroom still had a net to protect it from intruders like those.

“So, is this a ritual you did often?” Yeonjun was full of questions–about the place, the customs, the games they used to play–something that, for Beomgyu, was amazing. To him, Yeonjun was the local, but to Yeonjun, Beomgyu seemed historically informed, as if his once constant existence in this space meant knowledge. (He did have that too.)

Beomgyu’s home is an hour away in the city. Right now he stands at a small village on the mountain shore. His grandma managed somehow to buy the property they were now redying for selling. A place that Beomgyu remembers for its one main street, and the fact that there was no one to walk it all day–it almost looked deserted most of the time. It worried Beomgyu, he remembered kids (well, teenagers) on the main square. Now, not even that.

Driving in a week ago had been a literal walk down memory lane, but also shocking in how much had changed: the games in the children’s play area of the main square looked like they hadn’t been painted in years, and the rust could be seen from the street where they passed through. Even Soobin had held onto his comments, knowing damn well that both Beomgyu and Arin were a smack away from shutting him up if he said anything about the looks of it. It was too special to them, and it hurt to see it like that.

It had been a week since their arrival, and meeting with Taehyun had introduced them to all the changes. For starters, a lot of people left, and since certain services started being available, kids stayed inside watching television and playing video games instead of going outside. They were making Beomgyu feel old. Of course, he liked video games, but his grandma didn’t have a console, and the TV at hand was thicker than the refrigerator. So they kind of had to go outside to get some entertainment, or read, or something along those lines.

Beomgyu used to know this village as well as he could without breaking and entering–a thing he had accidentally done, because properties were gigantic. He had no idea how they would map out his grandma's property. The house started far back enough to leave space for three cars to park–albeit twisted, managing space–in the front yard, then the house, and the back yard… Well, it had a small canal deviation that crossed the backyard from one side to the other–made from a hole in the ground, not with stones like the one they were currently standing at–and it was only rerouted on special occasions. Beyond that was the big walnut tree, behind which a badly-kept wire fence tried to limit the yard’s reach… except someone had once gone through and left behind a hole. As kids, Beomgyu (and his brother), Taehyun, and Arin had gone through it, again and again. Behind that fence were the grapevines. Following even more you could get to a meadow-like clearing that then reached the alleyway to the abandoned camping site.

Right now, all of that was hidden by the overgrown weeds.

“Beomgyu?” Yeonjun knew by now that Beomgyu was prone to spacing out. Sometimes, in the slow hours after midday, it just happened.

“Yes, sorry. You asked about a ritual?” To Beomgyu, everything was a ritual. Yeonjun would have to be more specific.

“The canal thing?”

Ah, the canal thing. It was an ancient construction, the stone having been carved in a furrow through which water would run at certain moments of the day. Beomgyu had learned recently that it had been part of a watering system, partially unique to the area. He was in charge of redacting the fliers and forms about the property’s sale.

“Yes. You know, even when we’re covered by the mountains and at a high altitude, it still gets quite hot if there are no clouds in the sky. Global warming, am I right? And as kids, we just spent our time running around. So, just dipping our feet in the canal was the most glorious thing.”

“I get it. It’s quite slippery.”

“It is!” That had just awakened a lot of memories. “Okay, so, you can’t place fences over the canals. And if you have the size of a child, then going all over the village through the waterways is a possibility. This is not to say you should, or that I have broken and entered into every single property in this village, of course.”

Yeonjun rolled his eyes, he had no doubt that his new friend had done just that.

“I wonder how you would know that.”

“To be fair, the most we did is go from here, the house, to the grapevines. It’s a long stretch, but it's easier than to just walk on land. My brother once lost a flip flop on this stream, and then he slipped, so that was fun.” Yeonjun looked surprised, and more worried than entertained by the recount of the event. “Oh, he didn’t hurt himself. I mean, he does have a tiny scar on his back, but so do I. He was tiny enough to fit in the canal and heavy enough to not be carried away. It was fun, I promise.”

“You didn’t get the flip flop back?”

“I don’t really know where the stream leads, or where the water comes from.” Then, Beomgyu pouted. “No, that’s a lie. I have a memory of a place that reminded me of an oasis in a low vegetation area, probably closer to the mountains. Makes sense it would be this cold. Also, it runs on stone.”

“Beomgyu?”

“Yeah, sorry. I think my grandpa once took me there, but I don’t remember how, or why. I can call my dad and ask if you want? We could even drive there right now.”

“Oh right, you have a car,” Yeonjun teased, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Shut up, I never take it out now. We should do a small trip.” Beomgyu was growing embarrassed about proposing an escape plan with this person he had met a week ago, but Yeonjun was smiling like that, how could Beomgyu resist?

“Well, I try to use the mornings to study a bit, but I guess we could use the afternoons right, especially right after midday. Are we taking Soobin?” Yeonjun was looking over Beomgyu’s head. Beomgyu didn't need to see behind him to know that the feeling in his chest–mocking mixed with a twinge of betrayal–wasn't his, but Soobin's.

“So, you two are here planning secret romantic trips and only now you wonder what you’ll do with your annoying soulmate?” Soobin was pouting with his arms crossed.

Beomgyu was already in the process of standing in the canal. Yeonjun took his hands to provide balance, as the younger one turned to face Soobin.

“No, I wasn’t planning on inviting you to begin with,” Beomgyu said in a mocking tone. It was really hard focussing on roasting Soobin when Yeonjun’s hand was holding his hip to make sure Beomgyu wouldn’t slip on the stone.

“Yes, I can see that.” Of course Soobin knew, not only because of their long-lasting friendship, but because of the goddamn bond that they shared, which let them superficially feel what the other was experiencing, assuming the emotion was strong enough.

“Shut up. Why did you scream?”

“There was a toad in the shower.” Soobin shivered from head to toe–Beomgyu shivered, too. The distraction had worked. “It took me so long to notice… I wouldn’t have if the damn thing hadn’t made a sound.”

“Did you get it out?”

“Hell no. And Arin is not doing it either, she just went to visit a neighbor or something so you wouldn’t ask her.”

“Ah yes, the Choi pride. Well, we can ask Kai, he fears nothing.”

“Or you could flutter your eyelashes and ask your witch boyfriend right here?”

The “he’s not my boyfriend” overlapped with Yeonjun’s “of course.” He was so goddamn nice.

As a blushing Beomgyu made his way back inside, Soobin was still chuckling.

“This summer is gonna be so much fun.”

⚗️

Yeonjun’s summer, although it was looking to be more interesting than he had expected, was still tarnished by the prospect of studying. On the one hand, he loved immersing himself in magical subjects, but–if he wanted to make his family proud–he should at least get the highest notes in all of his magical assignments, and even thinking of that was stressful. On the other hand, potions weren’t it for him. He wasn’t bad, he just wasn’t the most precise when it came to making them, and precision was an important part of potion-making. If Yeonjun did his magic as freely as he cooked, well, potions required an approach similar to baking. And he was not good with measuring cups and stuff. Or patience.

Right now, the potion in front of him had been simmering at different degrees for the entirety of the last week. It looked like an iridescent blueish color, but he knew it was supposed to be clear. He just saw it that way because of who he was and who he had become. It was one of the hardest to make, a love potion. It was also one of the hardest potions to grade: how do you know it works if it looks different to everyone. And the list of side effects was awful too, Yeonjun did not feel at peace while mixing this potion.

“Oh, it’s looking nice!” Sunmi entered the room and spared Yeonjun the compliment. Typically, her compliments were followed immediately by critique, but she didn't add anything this time. Instead, she simply removed her cardigan and hung it from a chair nearby.

“You sound surprised, were you expecting me to fail miserably at it?”

“Yes.”

“I—” Yeonjun’s biggest weakness was honest people. “You could’ve sugar-coated it.”

“I’m sorry,” Sunmi laughed as she took a peek at the potion, from the other side of the table. “Did I hurt your feelings? Do you want a lollipop and a pat on the head? I can give them to you.”

Yeonjun denied. Beomgyu and Soobin had humor like that too. It was different, however, and it also hit differently when it wasn’t strict family banter. Maybe it had to do with their bond. Yeonjun was deep in thought and with a smile–small, but noticeable enough to catch Sunmi’s interest.

“What color is it for you?”

“Blue. No, wait—” Yeonjun was out here spilling his secrets, as if Sunmi wasn’t the confidant of his mother. They weren’t on good terms now, maybe she’d show him mercy.

“You have a crush!” Or not.

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. It was supposed to be another color, we tested it before, remember?” They had made a simple test to measure results: they had taken a well-made and aged love potion from the house’s storage and both made notes about how it should look and smell for when Yeonjun’s potion would be ready. It had not been blue back then, or smelled as it did now. “It looks the same color for me and smells the same. What do you smell?”

Yeonjun kept quiet.

“C’mon, dummy, I already know, entertain me.”

Yeonjun rolled his eyes. He neared his face to the potion, trying to maintain the speed he was mixing at.

“Grass… rain.” His nose scrunched. Sunmi was watching him attentively, with something soft in her eyes. She was in her supportive aunt role. “There’s something more. I think… ripe figs?”

“Interesting. A nature person.” How could she even know? “I mean, don’t look at me like that. They all come from the ground or the sky.” Yeonjun’s eyebrow didn’t falter, his lack of belief holding strong for an answer. “Maybe Kai said something about the Choi kid and his windy friend.”

Yeonjun was going to talk with Kai later.

“It’s neither of them.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am, they’re soulmates. I wouldn’t mess with that.”

“What the hell does that have to do with what you feel? I’m just reading the love potion.” Yeonjun looked away. He was not having this conversation with his aunt. “Look, kid. I just want to make sure you understand that this potion is strictly for practice and you may not, under any circumstance, make use of it. If it’s good enough after you stop brewing it, and it maintains its shape until I come back, I will consider adding it to my stash.”

That was… tempting. Sunmi was the witch of the village. That was the authority under which he was being trained. Not to take the spot, given he didn’t live there, but still. He could become the witch of other places too. Whatever. It was a great acknowledgment if his potion would be added to the house stash.

Sunmi was taking a week-long trip to a village at the other end of the province, where summer was hitting the hardest, and Yeonjun was going to be the one the citizens would go to if they needed anything. To be fair, he didn’t expect that many visits. It wasn’t usual to have a lot of people knocking on their door, and there were a lot of other specialists in the area. Sometimes traveling to the next town, bigger and with some nice restaurants to spend a Sunday with the family was a better option. Yeonjun could understand. He should take his new friends there.

What were they talking about? Ah, yes. Yeonjun wanted to get some facts straight.

“I’m gonna ask you some questions, please don’t take them the wrong way.”

“I can’t promise anything, but ask away.”

“If I can’t use it, and I’m guessing that’s a rule that doesn’t apply only to me, why do you keep a stash? Like, what’s the good moral use you could get out of it?”

“Well, no one said I would use it for good. I’m certainly not selling it either. Oh, take notes! If someone were to ask while I’m not around, a thing like a love potion does not exist. Do not sell it, share it, or administer it to anyone.”

“Are you leading older men to give you their fortune with love potions?” No judgment, it sounded like a good plan.

“That’s a good idea actually. I could totally pull women too.” Nice, and now that she was distracted…

“It’s not that hard to undo a love potion.”

“We’re out of the antidote, you’d have to make it and that would take about the exact same time it took this one to brew. I am ready for every possible comeback you might have to want to use it. The answer is no, Yeonjun.” When Sunmi took a stand it was quite hard to get her out of there. She was arm-crossed and resting over the table. She was ready for more buts. Yeonjun got the message.

“It’s okay, I wasn’t planning on using it, to begin with. I just had my doubts, some of the things you said sounded very double standard-ish.”

“Oh, kid, come here. I have to whack you well before I go.”

Yeonjun laughed and dodged his way out of there.

⚗️

It had been a lie, of course. How could Yeonjun slave away in that tiny basement for a week and not try the love potion? The only way to know if it had worked was by putting it to use, and since Sunmi was obviously not gonna help him, he would recruit the help of the people he knew he could count on.

For example, he knew he could count on Kai, but it would be weird to request that from his brother. He did share the plan with him. “It’ll end with tears,” he’d said between laughs so, of course, Yeonjun didn’t take him seriously. His premonitions were getting worse by the hour, Yeonjun was taking a mental health break and deciding not to believe this to be one.

Yeonjun knew Taehyun would say no. Immediately. He would open his mouth and Taehyun would shut him down by putting an entire deck of cards in it. He could even picture it as if it had already happened. So no, Yeonjun wouldn’t risk it. That left his two new friends and if he only asked for help from one of them, you do not get to judge him.

Or you do because the second part of the plan had to do with how to undo the love potion if there’s no antidote available. There’s an antique solution, straight from songs, proverbs, and fairy tales. He introduced it to Beomgyu, making sure he knew. He repeated it a couple of times because a side effect of a love potion is a hazy mind and generalized confusion. This comes in hand with new feelings being imposed on the system.

“And that’s the only way to undo it?” Bomgyu was watching inside the cauldron. Yeonjun wanted to ask about the usual cues, but first, the consent.

“Technically, there’s a counter potion, but we don’t have any available. It would take another week to make, and—”

“And you’re too desperate to wait.”

Well, yeah. And this was also the perfect scenario to interpret what Yeonjun didn’t dare to ask. Beomgyu knew that too, but of course, he wasn’t going to make it easier for the witch.

Yeonjun was looking away, ashamed to admit that he needed to know he had done it right. He couldn’t wait a week until Sunmi came back and judged the potion’s stability alone. He needed the real thing.

“Okay, if that’s the only way to make me not love you, then yeah, you can do it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Do you want me to sign something, or do I record a video…?”

“No, no, it probably won’t be necessary.” If the potion worked, he would not resist either. Consent always came first though. On the other hand, he couldn’t hold it anymore: he was seeing it clear again because of the distance, but Beomgyu kept swaying in front of the cauldron. “What does it look like, what does it smell like?”

“I’m guessing this is like that one book right?” Yeonjun couldn’t tell if Beomgyu was referring to an actual potion-making book or a fictional one. He kept quiet as Beomgyu leaned in to get a better sense of the potion. “It’s reddish, less like Soobin’s hair and more like the sun through closed eyes, you know?” Yeonjun tried to nod and not think of the odd void in his chest. “It smells like walnuts, caramel, and moss.”

“That’s an odd combo.”

“Is it now? What do you smell, sir, a perfectly balanced essence? Seems unlikely.” That was true, but Yeonjun’s combo didn’t include as many edibles. Mixing the thought of something sweet like caramel with something slimy like moss… weird.

“What does moss even smell like?”

“Like a feeling.”

“What?”

“Um, I can’t quite explain it because I’m bad with smells. If you ask Soobin he can tell you I cannot understand perfume descriptions at all.” Beomgyu stopped for a second, considering. He wasn’t as sure when he started talking again. “Moss to me smells like green and life, and the joy of a soft touch but also danger in what’s tiny and everywhere.”

Huh.

“Did you practice that?”

“No, I visited Taehyun this morning. He kicked me out because my readings were too poetic.” Beomgyu took a finger to his chin, remembering something. “Moss also came up this morning, we were talking about the canals possibly being in his tarot cards. He didn’t agree.”

Yeonjun was amazed that in the same small village, two active future-readers were being joined by a third kind. Not that reading the future was Beomgyu’s thing, but he sure could confuse Taehyun when he was doing his thing. That did not happen when he spent time with Huening.

“Well, I don’t think I understand.”

“That’s ok, neither did Taehyun. I should go and apologize to him too.” Beomgyu looked worried at the door. “Are we doing this?”

“Yes, sure.” Yeonjun moved closer to the table and to Beomgyu, the potion acquiring again the blueish tint. “If you’re ready…” He used the ladle to fill a third of a glass he snuck from the kitchen and then offered it to Beomgyu.

Beomgyu took the glass with confidence, raising it to eye height. He then made eye contact with Yeonjun.

“It's just one drink, what's the worst that could happen?”

A whole list formed in Yeonjun’s mind.

“It’s a love potion, so technically it’s not that either, but go off I guess.”

And after a small chuckle, Beomgyu downed it.

⚗️

“What did you do to him?”

Yeonjun was too stunned to speak. Not five minutes after the love potion had been consumed, Soobin had knocked on his door, asked Kai where to find his brother, and had stomped into the basement ready to kill. He found Yeonjun pretty much where Beomgyu left him, paralyzed in the middle of the room. The only difference was that he was sitting on the floor now.

“I don’t… I’m not sure what happened.”

Soobin’s anger diminished (only a little bit) being faced with Yeonjun as out of it as he looked. He walked to him and kneeled in front of him.

“Well, let’s start from the beginning, what happened?”

Yeonjun looked wary. He knew Soobin had to punch him at least once that day.

“He agreed to help me test the love potion I did this past week. The thing is, after taking it, he just walked away.”

“Hm.” Soobin sat. “I’m guessing that’s not how it was supposed to go?” Well, no.

“Love potions are as straightforward as it gets. After a minute or so of taking it, you fall head over heels for the first person you see. Alternatively, you can add a specifier, something from the person you want to fall in love with to the potion, but we didn’t do that. I guess… it didn’t work. I must’ve done it wrong.” Yeonjun stood up and walked to the family potion book. He had taken it out of the bookshelf as soon as he arrived that summer and it hadn’t been returned to its rightful place since. It was old, but well cared for because it carried some of the most important family recipes. “But I don’t understand why… all the clues about the potion’s state were correct, he could tell so too.”

“That’s the potion?” Soobin took a peek at Yeonjun’s table.

Yeonjun moved to the side and dragged the book with him, so Soobin could get a better view.

“Yes. It’s blue for me. Beomgyu saw it red. You should see it blue, too, I guess?” The frown on Soobin’s face warned Yeonjun that something was definitely off.

“No, it’s silver. Is this potion like the dress thing?”

“The—? No, no, although that’d be cool. No, the color and smell have to do with the person you like-slash-love.”

“Oh. Why would mine be blue?”

Shit. Well, Yeonjun had dug himself into this situation. He turned back to the book.

“I’m not sure, but the color can vary from person to person. It takes into account the person as they are and how an individual might perceive them, so I guess that would be why.”

Or he had been wrong.

Soobin looked conflicted: half-smiling, half-angry.

“Yeonjun, may I ask if you perhaps thought that Beomgyu likes me and I do him?”

“I mean, would it be that far-fetched?” Yeonjun flipped to the next page in the book, the one with the entire side effects list. “You two are soulmates after all.”

“Yes, we are. That's why I’m here. I haven’t seen Beomgyu since lunch but ten minutes ago this awful feeling started growing in my chest. I don’t know if your potion worked or not, but it did something for sure and it is not something that feels okay. If it bugs me then it must be killing him. Also, ugh, I’ve seen him since he was a kid, no thank you.”

Well, that was bad news.

“A bad feeling?” Yeonjun turned back to the page, reading the damned side effects again. He knew them all by memory, reading them didn’t help with anything.

“Why didn’t you take the potion? Wouldn’t that way work better, since you would experience it on your own skin and that?”

“Well, yeah, but,” Yeonjun straightened and faced Soobin, “I couldn’t. Because I already have—” Oh no. “—feelings for him.” He was the absolute dumbest witch on earth. He should've asked before. “I know what happened.”

Walnuts and moss didn’t mean anything to Yeonjun… caramel, however…

As Yeonjun turned once more towards the book, Soobin was still considering the confession he could’ve absolutely lived without knowing. Ugh. One week in and Beomgyu was already pulling hearts all around the village. He was going to be so annoying—a sudden ache in his head made him wince.

“Okay, so tell me, because this is not okay. I have to go check on him.”

“Here,” Yeonjun said, signaling at the bullet point in question.

The taller boy read aloud: “If the person already has feelings for the same individual the love potion would affect the perception of, —Who wrote this?— then the potion would have the opposite effect.” Soobin looked to Yeonjun. “You didn’t know?”

“What?”

“That it would do that? Because Beomgyu having feelings for you is so goddamn obvious, we wouldn’t need a reading from anyone to get to that conclusion.” No, Yeonjun hadn’t noticed. He was sure of the soulmate bond meaning… Soobin was seeing him struggle, but his patience was running thin. “That would explain whatever the hell he’s feeling. I don’t think he has ever hated anyone, not with this… shade it has.”

“What is it with you two describing feelings as colors?”

“It’s a Beomgyu thing, and it sticks. Don’t change the subject. How do we undo it, is there an antidote?” Yeonjun nodded. “Okay, and does it work for an impromptu hate potion the same, or should we change the—why do you look so defeated?”

“We don’t have stock for the antidote.”

That was either the silence before a punch, or Soobin was truly speechless. Yeonjun hoped for the latter.

“Are you dumb? How were you gonna undo it then? Is Beomgyu really this dumb? Why did he agree to take part in this?” Soobin was scratching his head, ruffling his hair.

The witch could understand. He felt shy and stupid suddenly. Beomgyu hated him now, enough that he had just walked out of the place without sparing him a look.

“We did have a plan… but it won’t be possible to do it now, not if he really despises me.”

“That sounds fishy, but whatever he’s going through, it’s giving us a mild stomach ache so, fix it.”

“I’ll start brewing the antidote right now.”

“How long will it take?” Soobin was walking backward to the door. Yeonjun didn’t want to answer. “Tell me!”

“A week.”

“Oh, god.” Soobin held to the frame of the door: he didn’t want to leave until being sure he had asked all the questions. There was one more. “Is there anything else I should know about this?”

Yeonjun hugged himself, it was chilly now that the sun was setting.

“He probably is having it bad because feelings he had were overruled by the exact opposite of what he felt. It’s not that he didn’t like me, it’s that those feelings kinda gave the wrong signal to the potion and they became infected, growing in the wrong direction. He must be feeling really bad, and he probably doesn’t even remember why—mild amnesia and haziness are common immediate effects of the potion. That’s why his leaving cut the explanation about what was going on. Try to tell him, if you can. I know he’s not here on the best terms, this can only make this worse.”

“He must be about to explode.” Soobin was filling with anger again. “This is not over, Choi Yeonjun, I will kick your ass as soon as I make sure my best friend is okay.” He turned and left.

Yeonjun couldn’t wait.

⚗️

“I knew I’d find you here.”

“Here?” Beomgyu turned to the voice. The headache was so strong he suspected he passed out for a moment. “Why?” He couldn’t even understand where he was. Everything felt like a dream, one of those where you dream you wake up and start your day, but really you’re still tied to your bed.

Looking around, it turns out a change of perspective was required. He knew these branches, at least the broader and older ones. The tree had grown an array of new branches that he didn’t remember avoiding while climbing the tree… to be fair, he didn’t remember anything at all besides the headache. How, when had he gotten into the walnut tree? Was it past six already? Because if not—

It was Arin who had found him. She was now climbing up too.

“Do you need a hand?”

“Don’t be a smartass, I can get there on my own. I was always better at climbing this bitch ass tree—lovingly—” she added, patting the branches she was holding from, “than you.” The taller tree branches shook a bit with the rising wind. Beomgyu heard a laugh.

“Right.” Beomgyu was still trying to figure out what had happened.

It was obviously sometime in the afternoon and his stomach was upset. As he watched Arin climb, he remembered he visited Taehyun that morning. They had spoken about the canals, and that it didn’t look like a good day to near them. Maybe Beomgyu had gone near them? He was not the biggest fan of following advice… even less if his own reading didn’t match up with Tae’s. They usually would fight about how to interpret something. He couldn’t place his finger on it, but he could tell he had agreed with not nearing the waterways… but he had wanted to so much. The canals were not the actual canals, though. Tae and Beomgyu had been speaking about different things.

“Soobin is looking for you like crazy, something about feeling bad and Yeonjun.”

Beomgyu's stomach flipped with disgust. Yeonjun. Why though? Had he seen Yeonjun that day?

“I guess I’m avoiding Soobin?”

Arin finally sat at the nearest branch, a couple of centimeters lower than where Beomgyu was and to his right.

“Well, maybe. You were really excited about visiting Yeonjun this morning, and Soobin didn’t look happy at all, but I think that maybe was because of how early we made him get up.” Ah, yes. The property mapping. Beomgyu was almost done. His stomach did another turn. That meant calling the person who would give them the measurements and design the professional planes. Why was he even bothering if someone else was going to do the same job, and even better? The answer was because some things were supposed to be left out of the mapping, and he knew that, but still… He didn’t like organizing schemes when the outcome was for someone else.

Arin was in charge, along with Soobin, of cleaning the house. They had been removing the things they wanted to keep, setting them apart in boxes. The piles of memories were growing by the garage door, so they could load them in the truck that would take it all back to the city. Then they would have to repair what they could–walls, windows, the floor, and the leak in the kitchen sink that was long overdue to be fixed–and save the small stuff like the discs, cassettes, books, and candles. It was a long way to go, getting it all ready for visits, but that was the last expected step from them in this sad vacation they were on, the last step being to completely let go of a place that had shaped them so much.

“I mean, you have been doing an amazing job at avoiding him: you’re either with the neighbor from across the street or with Yeonjun,” again, it was nausea this time. Why? “Who would’ve thought my good friend would trade me for my cousin?”

“Why would I even want to spend time with Yeonjun?” His nose scrunched at the thought. Arin pursed her lips but didn’t add anything. Soobin had been right. Witches… that’s why she never followed the path. She stretched and touched a walnut until it was ripe enough to pull it out.

“Don’t you think magic explains a lot of this place?”

“What do you mean?”

“How could we be so happy back then? Everyone hated each other–and this house, this village as a whole–and yet we were running around, the happiest we’ve ever been.”

Beomgyu had wondered similar things in the past. He couldn’t remember one single time his mother had been excited about visiting their grandma, and yet, every time the kids in the family were offered to go spend a week or so with her, they would jump at the chance. And it wasn’t… there wasn’t much to do. No TV until the very last year (oh god, they had to call someone to help them install a better system), board games with missing pieces (for some reason, this benefitted Beomgyu, he had won at Monopoly enough times that neither Taehyun nor Arin wanted to play with him anymore), cassettes they couldn’t reproduce because the equipment for it was broken.

“We liked to explore. The happiest I've been was climbing the church tower when the guard was not around.”

“Oh my god, I remember being so scared of being caught.”

“You stayed on the ground, coward.”

“Someone had to let you guys know if the guard was coming back.” The guys had been Beomgyu, his brother, and Taehyun. It was a couple of years before Huening Kai’s family moved in.

“Sure.”

“You know, when you guys stopped coming, that’s when Yeonjun and I became friends.”

“Did grandma warn you about boys and gave you The Talk?”

“No, and for that I thank whoever I should thank.” Arin visibly shivered. “It was either before my sister… or she didn’t know, my grandma. I was not about to reveal my social life to her if she was gonna restrict me from having it.” Besides, as far as Arin knew, Grandma loved the Choi family. They always had the salve and ointments she needed, only under their spells could she get a full night of sleep.

“Does it happen to you? On one end you want to defend grandma from losing this place, but at the same time… she didn’t stand up for it. She even spoke quite badly of it after.” Beomgyu had overheard that conversation in their grandmother’s house back in the city. He had immediately texted Arin, with whom he didn’t regularly speak. They chatted a lot after finding out the plans, and they were the first to volunteer to handle getting the house ready for selling.

“Yes, I know what you mean. Why isn’t she here if she loves it so much? I know prepping the property to sell is heartbreaking, but if it’s the last time we get to be here…” It was the same look on their faces, the pain of a nostalgia they felt from the past and a loss they could see oncoming.

“You want to go to the next town tomorrow? We have to go fetch someone to map this place and price it anyways, something tells me we’ll have a better chance there than here. We can also start looking for someone to do repairs to the walls.”

“Sure,” Arin smiled. “You want to go to the hotel, right?”

Ah, he had been caught. There was an old hotel in the next town, which had a restaurant open for visitors on the side, with a big playground at the back. In said place, a tall house in a tree type of construction. He was sure it was still standing, and that it could hold them (it had held their parents when they wouldn’t come down from it).

“I’m sure Soobin will love it,” Beomgyu mentioned. Any place that gave him the funny happy child feelings made Soobin happy too.

“Speaking of Soobin, you might want to talk with him, he was in your bed in the living room, moping.” Arin smiled at him and handed him the walnut. He took it. The walnut was happy. Arin’s touch was always so tender with plants. Beomgyu couldn’t really affect them, only understand them–and, in some cases, even hear them.

The walnut tree had missed them, and it was sorry about hurting them: Arin had a scratch, and Beomgyu was covered in them. Beomgyu made a mental note to find someone who could trim it, it was also blocking the passage to the fence in the back. Oh god, they would need to fix the fence.

“Was I here for long? What time is it?”

Arin was already on the ground. She checked her phone.

“It’ll be 7 P.M. in a couple of minutes. Don’t worry, Soobin came to look for you well into 6, you weren’t out nor here during the critical period.”

Phew. Beomgyu loved his cousin.

“Can you set the kettle?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll go check on Soobin.”

“Good luck.”

⚗️

Soobin was not okay. Whatever bad feeling Beomgyu was going through it had seeped to the back, but it was still active somehow, like a mechanism that could go on working without taking the spotlight. Soobin wondered if the soulmate bond was near wherever that goddamn potion had set, because it hurt.

He rolled towards the ceiling. There were some drawings on the bookshelf immediately above him.

It was a weird house, filled with beds. It was perfect for a slumber party: the front door lead to this long living room. It had in the first half a sofa (that could be turned into a bed), and to the left, behind a chest-height bookshelf, a smaller room with–you guessed it–a queen-sized bed. If instead of turning left you followed straight on, passing the sofa, there were–again–two beds, each on opposing sides of the room, making a wide hall in between them. Soobin had claimed the one by the window for himself, and Beomgyu the one by the wall, under floating shelves covered in boxes of incomplete board games.

Then, two doors. The one to the front led to the room they called the gallery. Not only did the room contain the kitchen and dining areas, it was so wide and expansive—stretching from one side of the house to the other as one long space—that it even had enough space to contain another bed, which Arin had claimed as her own. The door to the left led to the smallest bathroom you could picture and, behind it, the main bedroom, with another queen-sized bed. It had been their grandma’s bedroom. It didn’t come as a shock that neither Beomgyu nor Arin tried to sleep in that room (although they did offer it to Soobin) but when no one tried to claim the other big bed? Weird. Soobin wondered if the ones they had taken were the beds that belonged to them the most when they were younger. He knew that Beomgyu didn’t like sleeping near windows, instead always choosing the bed closest to the door. So that had made sense, all the other beds were by a window.

Soobin rolled over again. He was in the fetal position in Beomgyu’s bed, watching through the window above his bunk. There were empty cactus pots. He wondered what happened to them, and how he knew what they had been.

If he was being honest, he was feeling a bit left behind. He had come here because he had nothing else to do back home, his parents weren’t planning on going anywhere, and the prospect of being stuck all summer in his room didn’t sit well with him. But also, the bond hurt when they were far apart. Soobin wondered if it hurt only him, because he had never discussed it with Beomgyu. He worried that maybe Beomgyu was too used to the uncomfortable feelings to say anything.

Except he hadn’t had into account the Beomgyu that existed in this place. It was a different Beomgyu, because certain memories were more prevalent to him than back in the city.

In the city, it was the Beomgyu that he had gone to school with, the one that discovered he could hear and feel plants at the age of fourteen. The one he had known to be bonded with since they were sixteen. Soulmates were a weird thing: not that common, but they existed. Visiting a tarot reader at a fair made them aware of the unusual link between them. It didn’t change anything: they had kissed once and never again, that just wasn’t the relationship they had. But they felt each other after a couple of unintended bonding sessions, and some daily rituals could increase the awareness they shared of each other. It was funny most of the time, and useful to make sure the other was okay. They could never feel bad alone and that was… both a good and a bad thing. Sometimes people need to feel bad. And knowing someone else is going through it with you, it just didn’t feel right.

Something was wrong now: the bond, although everpresent, wasn’t crystal clear. If Soobin felt bad, Beomgyu didn’t find out until it was so intense he could barely hold it in, and the same happened the other way around. Happy feelings and nice sensations were easier to read and perceive, because they did them both good, and they could go unnoticed. Right now Soobin felt like shit, and he knew those weren’t his feelings. But if he felt this bad, then how could Beomgyu be even standing?

This had to be a side effect of Yeonjun’s potion. If that was the case, Soobin was ready to go murder and bury the witch. Coming to this village, although good on the soul for Beomgyu, made him remember that Beomgyu had a past Soobin was not a part of, and that there was so much he could never relate to. Instead of teaching Soobin the ways of the village, the secret alleyways and the native plant life, he had run right back to his childhood friend, and his new love interest. Soobin liked to feel needed, but not exploited. When all he did all day was help Arin move boxes…

No, that was a lie. He liked their neighbor, and he felt like he never had a chance to shoot his shot with Beomgyu there… it was uncomfortable. Must’ve been an extrovert thing to just flirt with Yeonjun out in the open. Even more knowing that he, Soobin, would not let him live having done so as publicly.

Soobin came here to have summer adventures, and instead, he was helping with a move he didn’t care about. He had developed a crush he had no time to take care of, and lost his best friend to a summer romance that was not that anymore. And on top of all of that, the goddamn bond was giving him the strongest headache he had ever felt. It wasn’t fair.

“Oh, there you are.”

Soobin just made a sound, to acknowledge his presence, but not too much. The man of the hour had appeared for the highest point of his internal monologue trying to convince him to run away. It felt bad being miserable when others were so happy. Although, if the pain he was feeling was a clue for something… then the others weren’t as happy.

“I’ll make some tea.” Beomgyu sat by his side and patted Soobin’s head. “Is this headache yours?”

That deserved a reaction.

“No? It’s yours.” No room for questions. Soobin had an amazing grasp of his emotions, this one was coming from the Beomgyu’s section of his aura.

“Huh.” Beomgyu’s brows knitted. “I see.” What the hell did that mean? Soobin sat up.

“What’s going on?” He, of course, did know. But he wasn’t sure if Beomgyu did. Or how much of it he was aware of. He had been put in charge of remind him.

“I don’t feel good. I must’ve caught something.” That was weak. Diseases were not picked up by the bond. Beomgyu caught Soobin’s stare and added, “I don’t know, I just feel ill… but with myself? Like there’s an intruder and I can’t catch it. But,” he waved his hands, “with feelings? It’s so weird.”

No, that was exactly it. Beomgyu was too smart.

“Why do you think you feel that way? What did you do today?”

“Are you psychoanalyzing me?”

“Perhaps?”

Beomgyu rolled his eyes. Then, he took a pensive breath.

“I visited Taehyun, and Arin told me I wanted to visit Yeonjun too? I must’ve done that.”

“You did! I just came from seeing him. He was worried, you stormed out of there without a word.”

“Ugh.”

Interesting.

“Ugh?”

Beomgyu covered his mouth. He looked surprised.

“I—” This was almost painful to watch for Soobin. “I don’t think I like him.” Soobin frowned. That was just wrong. “Like, at all. I’ve been having the most awful reactions to his name being mentioned. Knowing that I could cross him in the street makes me shiver.”

The kettle started whistling in the kitchen.

Soobin had no words.

“I better go get that,” said Beomgyu, as he hadn’t just confessed that he disliked a person he swooned over that same morning. “What do you want?” He heard from the gallery.

“Just… tea.” Soobin sat his feet on the floor. He hadn’t had the will to remember Beomgyu’s eternal array of tea… No, he didn’t have that here. City Beomgyu vs. Village Beomgyu.

As he walked through the door to the kitchen, he could tell there was something in the air. A bad vibe™ (if you will). Arin was sitting in her bed, waiting for her tea. She looked like she didn’t want to say anything either, to not disturb the waters.

“How are you gonna do then? We see him all the time at Taehyun’s, or when we’re in the main square.”

“I don't know, I don’t want to see him.” The stomach ache grew just a little bit. There was a war inside of Beomgyu, one that he wasn’t aware he was hosting.

“Are we talking about Yeonjun?” Arin asked. She looked wary too.

“Not if I can avoid it.” Beomgyu turned to her and handed her a mug. “We can and should change the subject.”

“Why?” Soobin was both building theories in his mind and testing the limits of this potion-infused reality. Beomgyu didn’t hate people, that wasn’t him. Beomgyu would create excuses for the most awful people whilst Soobin would not-so-secretly bash them. And they could co-exist as best friends because the balance of it all was a principle they abide by.

“I don’t know, I just don’t like him!” Beomgyu’s explosion times were shortening too.

Soobin cast a look Arin’s way. She was shocked as well. That was the same guy he was talking so highly of that same morning.

Magic was a terrifying thing, and it was breaking Beomgyu’s psyche. As he received the cup of tea that was being handed to him, Soobin created a group chat and sent an emergency meeting message. He declined the invitation to spend the next day in the neighboring town. A pouty Beomgyu was better than an angry one.

⚗️

“I don’t think I quite understand why we’re here?” Taehyun was shuffling his cards.

Soobin looked at Yeonjun, defeated. He had been in the village for a little over a week, and he was goddamn sure that in front of them was the most intelligent person among men. Yet how could they get his help if the matter was not clear or—

“Well, I did this potion—”

“Not that, dummy.” Taehyun scoffed and laid his deck of cards on the coffee table. “I understand that you and Beomgyu are dumb enough to do what you did, what I don’t understand is the emergency meeting.” He was looking at Soobin now, with a stare Soobin didn’t feel he had the strength to hold.

“I need help. I know the antidote will be ready in a week, but every second of it… I think Beomgyu is hurting more than he lets us know…” Then, he rubbed his chest. “It’s hurting me too. I suspect adding a new set of feelings to whatever he had in there already might’ve moved some things around, and I don’t think he’s aware that the bond is somewhere in there too.” Soobin felt rather vulnerable explaining this.

Yeonjun had taken a seat by Taehyun. As far as Soobin knew, they were the magical youth of the village. As for the relationship between the two, he had no clue.

Where Taehyun seemed to be taking a logical approach, Yeonjun was on the verge of drowning in guilt. Soobin wished he could tell him it was not his fault, but it was.

“The worst part is that he doesn’t understand why he feels that way. He refuses to talk about you. It’s physically hurting him.”

“Well, it seems like the only option is to keep him away from you for a week, I guess?” Taehyun said it so simply.

He was right, of course.

Yet, Soobin had more to add.

“The thing is, he doesn’t hate Yeonjun.”

“Didn’t you say he hurt when his name is mentioned?”

“Well yeah, but—”

“Oh, god, are you about to thicken the plot?”

That was debatable.

“I don’t know. He’s smarter than to blindly accept whatever his body suggests. I know this, because I know him. He is so far away from being in touch with his feelings—the actual physical manifestation that they might have—that I don’t think he’s taking very well his body proposing how he should feel about someone. Because he will cut the subject short if we ask him about you,” he said, signaling Yeonjun. A spark shone behind his eyes. “I think the nonsense behind it all will drive him nuts before even a week goes by. And even so, we don’t know if the antidote will work because you’ve never made it before.”

“Yes, that’s true.” Yeonjun looked down. “We still don’t know if the original potion was correct, maybe it went wrong and that’s why this all backfired.”

“I see you’re still in denial. Shouldn’t this be proof that he felt something?”

“It’s not that I’m fishing for a confirmation,” Yeonjun replied, only a tiny bit angry, but desperate still. He looked stressed. “I misread a very clear indication and brought harm to a person I care for. And even to you, and Arin. I know Beomgyu works better when he’s happy, how is he even gonna face the preparations for selling the house when he can’t get out of his mind. His entire being is contradicting itself, he must be so confused as to why it’s working that way.”

“Okay, now you’re just stressing because you can,” Taehyun intervened. He took his cards from the coffee table and turned them around, facing down. It seems like he had been making intense eye contact with the top card and Soobin wondered what had it been, how had he not noticed? “We cannot do anything about what has already happened, but we can help what’s to come.” He rubbed his temples. “Soobin, I’m guessing you have a proposition?”

“I think we can get to his logical mind,” He said, pacing again. “He is smart, he notices that something is wrong. If we help him see that he has no reason to hate Yeonjun, wouldn’t he just… agree? Wouldn’t he be cured?”

The ding of a message could be heard. Taehyun grabbed his phone and sighed while watching the screen.

“So, why is Kai with them?”

“Oh.” Soobin stopped. He took a seat. “I felt bad when I told them I couldn’t go with them. So I asked Kai if he wouldn’t mind.”

“Well, he sent us a selfie.” Soobin and Yeonjun watched the picture as Taehyun lent them their phone. It was a selfie: Arin had taken the picture from the side, and Beomgyu was half smiling and not looking at the camera since he was driving. In the middle backseat, Kai, smiling. The comment said: “the vibe is summer.”

“What do you think it means?” Yeonjun wondered, looking at Taehyun.

“I’m not sure.” He looked back at Soobin, deep in thought. “Would you say Beomgyu is vibe-driven or he waits to formulate an opinion on people?”

Soobin had no idea what this had to do with anything, and it took him a moment to figure out the answer. Beomgyu was… complex. And by that, he could only think about how different they were.

“He’s both. He has a strong sense for people, he gets the vibes… but he also knows how subjective that is. That’s why he gives everyone a chance. It leads to some people taking advantage of him, but he always comes back intact. On the other hand, I always go by vibes, and I’ve gotten hurt more times than him for sure. So, both—Oh my god! That’s it!” He ended with a scream that caused the other two to jump on the sofa as he stood up. “He is not having his usual dual perception. He’s not having either. Because if he were following the vibes, then he would love Yeonjun, and even if that weren’t the case, he would be smart enough to double-check that based on his actual impressions after interacting. He is going off on a wrong vibe!” He concluded with a smile on his face that was not mirrored by the others.

“So?” Taehyun asked.

“So,” Soobin rolled his eyes. “We show him that he’s wrong. We show him that he would love this dude,” casually pointing at Yeonjun.

“I don’t know, seems…” Taehyun didn’t know how to word what he wanted to say delicately. Yeonjun by his side was starting to brighten up with hope. “It seems like too much hypothesizing, and little proof.” There.

The thing is, now that Soobin had the idea, he wouldn’t let it go easily.

“I know, but we can try, right? We have an entire week in which I dare to bet that my best friend will go mad otherwise we do something. And what can be the worst thing that happens? This is already the worst-case scenario.”

That was true.

“Okay, what do you have in mind?”

⚗️

“Are you okay?”

Beomgyu turned to Kai. He seemed absorbed by a trance of memories, one Kai couldn’t take part in.

“I was remembering how much fun we used to have here,” Beomgyu confessed. “I can't believe we still fit in these hammocks, we always thought they were so big and sturdy. Turns out they were made to hold us our entire lives.”

“Well, that’s a bummer,” Arin commented. She was in the hammock to Beomgyu’s right, and Kai to his left. The younger boy didn’t have a good view of Arin because they weren’t swinging. “When did you turn into a poet, huh?”

“I’ve always been one, what are you talking about?”

“I call bullshit.”

“The grass does too, I guess I’ve been discovered.” They laughed, in the way only people connected to the earth could.

Kai was amazed by these two. He had seen Arin once or twice when she used to hang out with Yeonjun some summers, but he never knew she could give to the earth in the way she did. Daisies were happier when she was around, and he could see the earth in the future growing greener and stronger. He couldn’t say that though.

As for Beomgyu, he could talk to plants! Or well, not precisely that, but in a way, he could. Although, he was growing deaf to some of the warnings of the ground. Kai could see how in the future this would be a problem. He couldn’t say anything about that, either. He could, however, try to help the planning that was happening not that far away from there.

The treehouse was in front of them. It was a wooden construction that heavily laid on a tall tree Kai couldn’t tell the name of. It had a hanging bridge, ten feet off the ground, and a second tower that didn’t have the support of the tree, as the main construction did. Kai had already gone up and down through both towers, hearing Beomgyu tell him about where they used to hide, and which spot would cause their parents to climb the treehouse as well. It was unimaginable for Kai, given neither of his parents had ever gone to fetch him or Yeonjun, but they were also not allowed to come in here. They could only play in the swings, the seesaws, or the small merry-go-round where the three of them had just spun until the ravioli threatened to come out.

“What do you miss the most about back then?”

Arin had gone to the bathroom, it was only Beomgyu and Kai now. Not that Arin couldn't hear, but something about her having come back a few more times over the years after Beomgyu was forbidden to do so made for a breach, even if it was a tiny one.

“The feeling of an early afternoon with friends.”

“A… what?”

“You probably know…?” Beomgyu was trying to read in his eyes the answer he wanted to hear. He decided he didn’t find it. “There’s a legend. About a mythical creature that snatches kids who won’t be inside for nap time. It lives in the leaves of fig trees—You never heard anything about this?”

“My parents aren’t big on learning the local traditions or legends. But my aunt is.” Kai knew where this was heading, but it was fun to fill in the empty spots of what had already happened. “She just wouldn’t let us go out when the sun was at its highest and until it was lower… She said the heat was the worst at those times and also that no parents were around to check on kids. Is that it?”

Beomgyu nodded. His brows were worried about the loss of the mythical element, but the story checked up. “It has always been a story about not letting the kids be snatched when the parents weren’t around. Also, preventing sunburns and heat strokes. But yeah, it comes back to this creature, with a hand made of wool and the other one of metal. It’s such a fundamental fear in us that you won’t catch Taehyun or Arin stepping out during those hours.”

“But I’ve seen them!”

“Well, yeah, there’s always an exception: you don’t go alone. The bad guys can’t get to you if your homies are there for you.”

“That sounds… like foreshadowing.”

“Oh?”

“Nothing,” Kai said, with a smile.

Beomgyu swung a little more, further. His eyebrow clearly showed that he was still thinking about it. Then, he stuck his heels on the ground, stopping cold and lifting some earth. He apologized softly to the grass before turning to Kai again.

“Is this the future telling thing?”

Ah. He knew. Kai nodded.

“Oh, so this will be important then?”

“No.”

“But you just said about—”

“It’s… it’s different when I say it.” Kai was looking at a stray dog that was walking the bridge to the restaurant. He’d find home soon. The wind lifted their hair, throwing some hot air against their faces. “It’s somewhere in my bloodline. We can see some things about the future… but we can’t share them. Or the way we see them, we understand, but it’s so abstract that it’s impossible to make sense of it when explaining.”

“So you see it but you can’t say it? Or warn or make use of it?”

“Well, that’s the thing, if I were to make use of it, it would either change or not happen entirely. Besides, I can’t see my future. Hence if I act or do something, I could change what I saw… or not act when I should.”

“Mm,” Beomgyu hummed. He was intrigued. “Okay, then tell me something.”

“I could. But you wouldn't believe me, or you wouldn't understand it. It would end in a big fight, or something that only hate could help fix.”

“The? What?” Beomgyu didn’t hate people, and neither did Kai. Oh. “That was it, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, but now it won’t happen, most likely. Also, I can never see when things will go down. Like fruits from a tree that’s not in season. So this, if it happens, it could be years from now.”

“Sounds messy.”

“Yeah, it’s not very appreciated around here.”

“Oh, that’s not what I meant.”

“I know, me neither. I know you don’t mean it. I think I can explain this one. It’s not that people don’t like it, or me, because of what I see and say. But sometimes it is frustrating only getting it once the thing I foresaw happened. Taehyun hates it with his whole being. Even moreso, given he’s also in the future-reading aspect of magic. We work so differently that he can’t take the lack of logic in my ways.”

“But… that’s unfair.”

“Is it?”

“It’s… weird, Taehyun is the fairest person I know.”

“Precisely. I don’t try and it comes to me. And with what I know, I can do almost nothing.” Kai extended his legs, swinging forward. The first impulse was always the one gravity fought the most. “He busts his ass every day trying to read what the cards say. It must be frustrating. It’s like we’re both in our bubbles of effort.” Kai liked Taehyun so much. However, Kai wasn’t his favorite person as of now. He hadn’t been for a while. “He is being fair. He does the work and gets an accurate reading in return. I do nothing and I still see it so clearly, like a moment when water and childish instincts could bring us back together. But it just won’t happen yet.”

By his side, Beomgyu understood what he meant by being unable to explain the visions. He’d keep an eye open for any of those clues. He, too, had felt like Taehyun hadn’t received his interpretations so well. He would, however, be wary of the canals from now on.

“Guys!”

Both Beomgyu and Kai turned to Arin, who was excitedly walking toward them.

“The cutest thing just happened! A family inside decided to adopt a dog that was wandering around!”

While Beomgyu asked why had it been so touching for her, Kai smiled. He had set the stone at the top of the hill, readying it to roll down whenever the others decided which plan to go with. Kai had done his part.

⚗️

Beomgyu didn’t want to be here. He was facing the old lady that had been selling him water balloons since he was nine. She looked as lovely as ever—that is to say, she looked as though she had never been happy, not even once in her life. Mood. He paid and received the six water balloon bags. As he turned around, he couldn’t avoid the churn in his stomach when spotting Yeonjun’s smile.

He had tried to stay home. There was always a crack to fill in a wall, or an old photo book to look at and cry. But no, Soobin had mentioned the plan, and he just had to be there.

He wanted to help mend the bond between Kai and Tae. He hadn’t pictured them as best friends, but it made sense since they were the same age. And what else could Kai’s prediction have meant besides this? A water balloon fight? Water and childish instincts?

Speaking honestly, it could mean anything, but he would still try to fix that friendship. He was overstepping, too—and procrastinating something else, he just couldn't remember what.

As he was walking back to the olive tree, under which the guys were resting, he could hear them discussing the team distribution.

“But it has to be fair for everyone.”

“It'll never be if you guys have Yeonjun, he’s like… his magic is the widest among us, he could do stuff.” Kai's mocking tone could annoy Yeonjun just enough, in the way a brother can say a joke, mean it as a joke, and still get you in trouble over it. Not that Beomgyu would know anything about that.

“That sounds so bad, who do you think I am? Also, there’s only five of us. Without Arin, we’ll always be uneven.”

“It’s quite windy too,” Soobin noted, worried. Beomgyu had noticed, too. That could both be an advantage and a disadvantage to the team that had Soobin in their lines. He could soar. It depended on the strength of the soles.

“I should take Beomgyu,” Kai said, smiling at him once he sat by them.

“Why?” Taehyun was committed to finding a good solution to the distribution. Kai shrunk a bit in front of the question but answered nonetheless.

“The only thing I can supply is filling the water balloons and maybe a reading that could escape me… but you don’t like them, and Soobin hasn’t deciphered one single premonition since we met. Not that that’s a bad thing, of course—” he started calming Soobin, who already looked offended.

“It’s not. I’ve lived with him the majority of my life and I still don’t understand a lot of what he says,” Yeonjun added.

Beomgyu read that as rude. Kai was right there, why would they speak about how no one understood him?

“So it’s Kai and me, against you three?” Beomgyu asked, trying to get the conversation back to its course.

“No, I can’t have Yeonjun with me,” Taehyun said. “We’d be too powerful, and I am not willing to deal with his ego.”

“Okay, rude.” Beomgyu was impressed by the nerve in that affirmation. “I’m… I’m a fairly good thrower.” Also, the best strategist, a thing Tae knew better than anyone else.

“Yes, but you’d be dragging Kai’s dead weight.” Taehyun took one of the bags and inspected the contents. “Kai, what if you stay in the middle and just fill water balloons?”

Beomgyu was gonna argue, isolating him couldn’t be the best solution at all. Yet Kai beat him to it by agreeing. The younger leaned toward him and confessed, “physical activity is not my forte, I’d be way more helpful if I could help both teams by not moving much.” Only that stopped Beomgyu. He was carrying a lot of impulses in him if he was suddenly feeling the urge to smack Taehyun too.

“I’ll take Soobin,” Taehyun said. “Something tells me you have good aim.”

“I don’t know about that,” Soobin shrugged, “but I will win this.” If Soobin had anything, it was the nerve. First, to proclaim his team would win without Beomgyu on their team. The disrespect. Second, he should be feeling disgusted. Why would he abandon Beomgyu with Yeonjun?

A bad feeling was starting to settle in Beomgyu’s stomach. This one was different. It just felt like doom.

“We will each take a faucet in the corners of the square, fill as many balloons as we can, and then attack the other team until we grow too tired or someone surrenders. Maybe then Kai can determine a winner.” Taehyun was analyzing the layout of the place as he spoke. “Kai, you should fill balloons in the middle too, that will be available to any who wishes to take them. That way we’ll be forced to meet in the middle.”

“That seems fine,” Kai agreed. Soobin was nodding too.

“Soobin and I will take this corner, Beomgyu and Yeonjun can take the one near the pub.”

Beomgyu felt like he hadn’t been consulted and Yeonjun was not saying anything either. He hadn’t minded the idea of playing along with Kai. Why had the opportunity been snatched from his hands?

Beomgyu took his bag and marched towards the pub side.

“We have five minutes to fill the balloons, good luck!” Taehyun said behind him. Beomgyu only hoped Yeonjun was following instead of just standing like an idiot.

Beomgyu reached their faucet and ripped open the bag. Almost all of the minuscule balloons fell. He huffed, took a handful of the ones he could see, and laid them away from the mud. This was gonna get extra messy, and fishing for extra water balloons in the dirt was not an easy task. He had been there.

He took the first one, a tiny orange thing, and stretched it. From his peripheral vision, he could tell Yeonjun was taking notes. Beomgyu then took the lips of the balloon and stretched it until it fit the faucet’s stream. Then, he twisted the handle. The entire process took less than twenty seconds. As that balloon was filling, he stretched the next one, a green one.

“You seem very used to doing this.”

There’s something in the way we pronounce things, the way our voices fill with meaning the messages we mean to transmit. Yeonjun spoke like the most natural thing for them was chatting about the trivial stuff. And a memory Beomgyu didn’t want to think about could confirm it. The canals and the memories, and their perception of the town. But the feelings associated with that blurry memory could not be summoned here. Beomgyu wanted Yeonjun to do nothing else, just to shut up. And that was surprising, even to himself.

However, since they were on the same team, he should at least share some tactics. He snapped the balloon from the faucet and signaled it to Yeonjun, so he could start filling his blue balloon. With ease, he double-tied the neck.

“Well, I have been doing this since I was tiny. My fingers were smaller now and wouldn’t break stuff as easily… although I didn’t have the strength to tie the balloons as securely as I can now.

“Did these sort of fights happen that often?”

“Not really. They were a luxury even. Wait—” Yeonjun had taken his balloon out of the stream and was now attempting to tie it. “That’s not full, it’ll never break. Fill it a bit more, then I’ll show you how to tie them.”

Yeonjun nodded and continued. He signaled Beomgyu that he had been talking about something else. Right.

“Playing this meant being drenched and having mud all over us. Our parents didn’t approve of it, and when we came with them, we didn’t bring that many clothes for one weekend. My grandma didn’t have a washing machine back then… She still doesn't." He added that to his mental note of things to not mention in the sale information. “But, when we came with our grandma for extended periods, we could do whatever we wanted. And this, this was great. Taehyun is so fast and scary, and he throws the balloons with such strength. If you can, try to get hit in the back, otherwise, it’ll hurt like hell. Don’t let him hit you on the face, and believe me, he’ll try. Wait, wait—”

Yeonjun’s balloon exploded from the water. He laughed. Beomgyu just tried not to think about the sound and how that was a valuable asset they had lost. They still hadn’t found any broken ones, but there were always some, and they had just missed perfectly fine ammunition.

“Look, it has to be filled enough that you still see the color of it, but if it looks like it’ll break, then it will. You have to leave enough space to tie it, and that’s always the hardest part. Arin was an expert at tying balloons, she never agreed to teach me her ways.”

“What was your thing?” Yeonjun was now filling a new balloon, this time keeping an eye on the faucet.

“I was a strategist.” Beomgyu took a peek at the other side of the square. Kai seemed to be struggling, and Taehyun was close to opening a water balloon filling factory by how automatized he had managed the process to be. “And I also have the best aim amongst us.” He lowered his voice. “Don’t tell him I said this, but Taehyun’s aim sucks so much. He makes up for it with strength, but half of the time he won’t get to you.”

Yeonjun laughed. He was definitely telling Tae later.

“Okay then, mastermind, what should we do? Do you have observations already?”

“First, this.” Beomgyu took another balloon from the faucet. Yeonjun was still trying to tie the second balloon, the one he had filled to the exact point. Beomgyu’s pile kept growing by his side. “You take it and try to push the water down. Right where the neck meets the body of the ballon, you pinch there. Straighten the neck from the lips and twist it around the fingers at the base. Then pull through twice.” Yeonjun followed his demonstration attentively. Beomgyu wondered how good of a student he could be. He didn’t have a single drop of faith in Yeonjun, honestly. “I think we should ignore Kai’s stash and go straight for Tae’s. Kai seems to be filling the balloons with too little water, like your first attempt. Those won’t explode. Although, if Taehyun gets to them and the ability to aim suddenly manifests in him, we’re screwed, those are the ones that will hurt the most. If we get to their faucet, we won.”

“So the goal is to get their balloons?”

“Yes. I’m betting right now that both Tae and Soobin will go for Kai’s stash at one point, and that’s the moment to sneak to their headquarters. But, the key is to never leave our corner alone, or they could do the same.”

“Who should—?” And then, the first balloon hit Yeonjun’s back. Soobin was standing by Kai in the middle of the square.

“Guess the time is up. Listen to me.” Beomgyu started talking fast as he locked another balloon on the faucet. He also handed two balloons to Yeonjun. “Duck!” A balloon went over both their heads. Beomgyu felt relief, but also the wish that it had hit Yeonjun in the face. Why…? “Try to get to Kai, and shoo Soobin away. Use his balloons if you lose these. I’ll try to fill as many balloons as I can. I’m guessing Taehyun is also building up their stash.” Yeonjun turned around. Soobin was back at picking ammunition from their base, on the other side of the square.

“Something else?” Beomgyu under pressure was fun. Yeonjun had imagined he would scream a lot more, but maybe it was the thing. The hating thing.

“Yes. Take these,” Beomgyu said, as he handed a bunch of empty water balloons to Yeonjun. “There’s another faucet by the gazebo in the corner, closer to the church’s entrance. If anything were to happen and this spot gets compromised, don’t let them have the balloons. Just fill more and keep throwing.”

Yeonjun nodded and headed to the center of the square. He was having more fun than he had expected, even if he was dripping already.

Kai was calmly filling the balloons. Beomgyu had been right, they were underfilled.

“How’s it going, bro?”

“Remaining dry for now, but I see you can’t say the same.” Kai laughed.

“Soobin caught us distracted.”

“Oh? So is the plan working?” Kai had been the one to assure everyone that if they were to do anything related to water, Beomgyu would agree to join.

“I don’t know.” Yeonjun scratched his head, scanning Taehyun’s corner. The crown of someone’s head could be seen behind the tiny wall where their faucet was located. Yeonjun couldn’t identify which of them was. “He is speaking to me, which is good, I think. Even if it’s unfounded hate, he doesn’t have an excuse to ignore me… although, I think he wants to. He just can’t justify it. That’s my guess. Also, he is so competitive, oh my god.”

“Oops.” The balloon Kai was tying got loose and his shirt got wet in the front. He was laughing. “Yes, Soobin said that he will give his all to this game. And that he should start screaming any moment now. Apparently, he has very good aim, so that’s better for you.”

A balloon crashed on the floor in front of them. Taehyun was frozen at the other end of the center of the square, passing the statue. Yeonjun smiled. Beomgyu had been right about the aim thing.

“Sorry, Kai, gotta go.”

“Good luck!” Kai shouted to the figure of his brother running full speed to a retreating Taehyun. Their laughs could be heard from where he was. It was nice to see them have fun. This was something they all needed, whether they got to do it under an exceptional circumstance or not. It was nice, too, that they could all care enough to take part in helping mend a mistake.

Peeking right, he saw Beomgyu moving from their spot of land to the side of the gazebo. Interesting.

Beomgyu spotted him and smiled. He scanned the area, and when he spotted Yeonjun chasing Taehyun, he neared Kai.

“So, what's your premonition?” he asked once he got to his side, sitting there.

“Oh?” Kai was not expecting the question. He never was. “Well, until the wind moves the mills, everything will be fine.” Maybe that wasn’t enough. How could he even—?

“I see.” Beomgyu was eyeing the church. Then he smiled back at Kai. “You’ll stay here the entire time? What if you went and dropped a balloon on Soobin, huh?”

“Are you trying to recruit me?”

He rolled his eyes as he stood up. Then, Beomgyu hopped onto the patch of grass behind Kai’s spot.

“Perhaps.”

“What are you doing?” Kai was always half amazed, half scared of Beomgyu's antics.

“Going undercover.” Beomgyu winked at him. “Try to fill those balloons a bit more, by the way. Otherwise, Tae will leave us all bruised up.”

“Tae? But—”

“Here he comes, you never saw me, bye!” And Beomgyu ran in the other direction of their base, ignoring Soobin being showered by water balloons from Yeonjun.

Beomgyu was on a stealth mission. He was sure he had seen a bucket in the playing area… at the same time, he was so close to Taehyun’s base. The only problem was that if Yeonjun was entertaining Soobin, and Taehyun had reached Kai, both of the bases were as unprotected as they could get.

He jumped two of the low walls surrounding the main halls leading to the center of the square and continued ducking. He had a balloon in each hand.

Ah, he could see them. There were about five more balloons by Soobin and Taehyun’s base. The dumbasses. He arrived and took two more. Then, he threw one at Soobin, drenching him. His ammunition carried way more water.

Soobin turned, surprised. “Why are you there?”

“When there’s no rules friend—” He threw another one at him. Soobin tried to avoid it, but half of it still exploded in his arm.

“Oh my god, Beomgyu come here!” He shouted as he picked a small balloon from the floor. That one was probably from the ones that wouldn’t burst. And Soobin had an accuracy when throwing that matched and even outdid his own. So of course Beomgyu started running. At him. He ran at him.

Soobin screamed and shot away too, almost by instinct. In his peripheral view, Beomgyu caught Yeonjun and Taehyun, both with a single balloon in his hand, running after each other. They seemed confused. He could bet that they hadn’t found the balloons in their base. The importance of foreseeing these sorts of movements.

Beomgyu wondered if Yeonjun would remember the gazebo comment.

The wind was rising, moving some tree branches and adding ambient sound to their laughter. You never remember how near the mountains you are until an echo comes with any nature noise.

Beomgyu threw the other water balloon, which landed on Soobin’s shoulder. Then, of course, his vindictive friend turned and threw his'. He turned and received it in his lower back.

“Ouch!”

“That’s what you get for invading! Now, what if we—” And then Soobin was flying away.

No, literally flying away.

Soobin was a descendant of some sort of air-sensitive clan. In other words, he was light. And wind liked to play with him.

“Shit,” Beomgyu mumbled as he watched. He had seen this coming. Quickly looking back, he made eye contact with Kai. Right! Beomgyu then ran toward the church.

The church was built above the ruins of two windmills. The village's name came from this fact too. He only figured that out when investigating to write the flier to sell the house. It made sense, given the inner structure of the bell tower. It was a mess, yet it still stood.

If Beomgyu had understood Kai's words correctly, that was the place to catch Soobin before he ended in the middle of the mountains. This was why this village had been so dangerous for Soobin to begin with. Yet, he had insisted on coming.

Yeonjun and Taehyun had also noticed and were now running to the center of the square, where they could see better and try to… fish Soobin? Somehow?

Beomgyu was ahead of them and coming from the other side, so he stopped having a peripheral vision of them as soon as he turned towards the church.

There was one thing Beomgyu had not foreseen. It was a small village. And if there was no mass scheduled for the day, the man in charge could've just… not opened it that day. Which was the case. It was a Wednesday afternoon, no one was on the streets.

Beomgyu's race was stopped by a lock on an ancient door. His nervousness built upon hearing the tree tops trying—and failing—to catch Soobin. They knew what it was to be messed with by the wind.

And the wind, the wind was so funny. It loved playing around with anything it could get its hands on. Sadly, Soobin could handle so much before getting motion sickness. Beomgyu could feel Soobin's fears mixing with his panic. Hopefully, he could remain in the square area enough. If Soobin was to be snatched towards the mountains, they could spend days searching for him.

He hadn't heard Yeonjun reaching his side. Beomgyu had no time to complain about anything, whether it be the weather, the water dripping from their clothes, the unfortunate timing, or his general increased disgust now that Yeonjun was too close to him. He had no time because Yeonjun leaned, knocked on the door twice, and then snapped his fingers in front of the knob.

Beomgyu heard the door unlocking. Something in his stomach turned. Like honey mixing with milk.

“Go,” Yeonjun opened the door and signaled inside, “I'll follow you."

Beomgyu nodded and started climbing the ladder on the right side. It was wide and resembled the built-in stairs that you would see in kid's playgrounds, except this one was not attached to the opening in the roof and was roughly made of what seemed to be unfinished tree branches. He had no time to fear falling hearing Soobin's exclamations outside. If they missed their window… when Beomgyu turned on the first floor already, he caught Yeonjun letting go of the stairs and started climbing them himself. The stairs trembled with no support.

Beomgyu was amazed at how little this place had changed since the one time he and Taehyun had climbed it, but it was still a mess. From where he was standing he could cross to the left tower, the skeleton of the other windmill, or continue on the one he was at the moment. Instinctively, he chose to remain on the northern tower. It was the one he had visited before.

Another ladder was there, leading to the cornice by the archways surrounding the bell. It hung over him, the rope reachable in case he wanted to suddenly announce to the village that he was intruding.

Yeonjun's head was peeking through the hole in the floor when Beomgyu started climbing the second ladder. This one inspired so much fear in him, it was the reason why he had only reached the bell once. While the one by the entrance door meant trespassing, it was still somewhat safe, wide, and with thick steps. The one on the first floor was all about hoping the wind outside would not magically knock it over, one assured flight to sudden death.

Then, it stopped shaking. Beomgyu assumed Yeonjun was holding it from the base. A sudden feeling of repulsion made him scrunch his nose. Why did he not feel grateful?

As he reached the top, he pulled himself up to the wooden cornice. He briefly turned around to check on Yeonjun, who was about to reach too. Beomgyu would ask later how he managed to stabilize the ladder. He proceeded to climb out the window. There was a small ridge on the outer side where he could stand.

“How long can you hold there?" After years of being a comet in the wind, Soobin had learned to glide in it. Besides that, the trees' attempts to keep him in the area were giving them time to come up with a plan. Except Beomgyu had made it here: high enough to make eye contact with his soulmate, yet just out of his reach.

“Not much longer." Soobin was static, surfing the wind like one would in those chambers to practice skydiving. The weeping tree by the gazebo in the square was being moved by air, just enough to tie one of its hanging leaves around Soobin's ankle. Beomgyu felt certain his friend would not fly to the mountains… Yet, if the wind diminished, he would find himself being scrambled eggs in the highest spot of the main square.

“Where's the bond?" Yeonjun asked as soon as he stepped out of the ladder. He was still inside the tower, behind Beomgyu, the railing of the building keeping them apart.

“What do you m—?

“Where in your body?"

Ah. “Just under the center of my back," Beomgyu answered, making eye contact with Soobin.

Then, a warm presence right where Beomgyu had said. All of sudden, stability, which turned necessary once Soobin started getting closer and closer until Beomgyu had to catch him in his arms and hope not to fall. Except Yeonjun was still holding his back, and he helped him catch his soulmate.

“If you let me fall, we are over!” Soobin screeched, his legs wiggling in the air, trying to hold onto the ridge.

The relief in Beomgyu’s stomach overpowered the awkwardness as he let out a nervous laugh. He and Yeonjun pulled Soobin inside the tower. Once both his feet were in and he was hugging Yeonjun like letting go would mean flying away, Beomgyu took a second to analyze the situation. He was still standing on the ridge outside the tower, the other two were inside. As he started to climb in, he heard Soobin asking how Yeonjun made it. Beomgyu was curious too. The only thing he knew for sure was that Soobin being suddenly pulled towards him was not something he had ever conjured before, it for sure hadn’t been him.

“I just pulled from the bond,” Yeonjun said, shrugging. He looked wary. Beomgyu squinted.

Nonetheless, “Thank you.” Having imagined already telling Soobin’s parents that he had to scrape their son off of the floor sure was a humbling experience.

Yeonjun smiled and turned around, ready to climb down.

“Where on earth are your shoes?” Soobin was being too loud to not be wearing his weighted soles.

“Down there,” Yeonjun laughed as he pointed down. The soulmates peeked through the opening to the lower floor, only to see both shoes by each side of the ladder’s base. “It keeps the stairs firm. I think I caught a splinter though, so I should go take care of that.”

“Right,” answered Soobin, unimpressed.

Both of them stood there and watched Yeonjun disappear down.

“He saved you,” figured Beomgyu.

“He did.” Soobin side-eyed his best friend.

Suspicious. The heaviness in Beomgyu’s chest felt conflicted.

“Why weren’t you wearing your weights?”

Soobin’s nervous laugh was followed by his immediate attempt to climb down and almost tripping straight to the first floor.

Beomgyu turned around and looked to the square, where Kai and Taehyun were chatting with Yeonjun. Something was off.

⚗️

“Wait, I don’t think I understand.” Arin was looking at Beomgyu with the same expression she had when they were six years old, on a boring summer afternoon. They’d decided to organize an impromptu relay race, and after Beomgyu had explained an entire strategy to win, she’d looked at him just this same way.

“Which part?” Beomgyu sighed. He was too interested in blowing the steam from his tea.

“You said they had a plan?” Arin was adding milk to hers. And yet another spoonful of sugar.

“See? You did understand! Why do you want me to say it again?”

“You’re unbearable.” Arin snorted. She crossed her legs in her bed, which was directly in front of the coffee table where they would eat most of the time. They were in the part of the gallery that contained the kitchen—Beomgyu was suddenly reminded that he had to figure out how to describe the gallery in his sale pamphlet. “I want you to hear yourself saying it, because it sounds like you want them to be plotting all of this. And that’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?”

“Why, would it mean I’m desperate for attention or something?”

“No, I never said that. But, if it worries you that much, you can always ask them.”

“Why, so they know I'm desperate for attention?”

“Gyu.”

“I know, I know.” He was overthinking it, that’s what Arin wouldn’t dare to say. In her defense, if she did, he would never share a worry with her again. Although, the sudden placement of a wall in front of a worry would resemble too much the ways of their elders. No, no, in that household they would speak it out. “I wouldn’t have noticed if they hadn’t tried so hard with the restoration of the camping site though.”

Arin laughed. “They tried too hard and then you were enlightened or something? Oh no, they’re trying too hard, they must be scheming behind my back,” she said, lowering her voice tone trying to match her cousin’s.

“Well, yeah!” Beomgyu laughed, too. It sounded dumb, but it had been exactly that way: they just said that they wanted to restore the pool. That meant water. That meant Kai and Tae would be near a water mass and he was not missing the chance to help them make amends. At this point, Beomgyu was wondering how much of Kai’s reading had been an actual premonition, or just blatant manipulation… Of course, it couldn’t be manipulation, because you can’t exactly control how people will interpret things. “When on earth have you seen Soobin excited to do community work?”

“Never, but I don’t know him that well, and also, he had been doing all the heavy work around here while you fooled around with Yeonjun.” Beomgyu’s stomach did the thing. A nasty thing.

“Okay, ignoring the indirect—thank you very much. I’m sorry, too. He was just… smiling while collecting stuff. His facade almost fell when the entirety of the village’s kids appeared at the door. He likes kids, but he’s awful with them.”

“He does give the vibe of being very good with kids.”

“I know, right? Anyways, he was put in charge of them, along with Tae.”

“Oh, Tae, huh?” Arin wiggled her eyebrows.

“Explain yourself, right now.” If Beomgyu was missing something that Arin knew, it was for sure the end, and he was way more fucked up than he had thought. She sipped from her tea first.

“He’s there right now, is he not? In the neighbor’s house.”

“Yes, and Yeonjun and Kai are probably there too, planning how to ruin my life next.”

“Don’t you think it’s time to let it go? Why would they even be plotting all of this?”

Beomgyu slid down into his chair. It was a big and old wooden chair that their grandma had ordered tailored cushions for and then proceeded to pile above even more stuff, like blankets and scarves and tinier pillows.

“They probably want me to like Yeonjun again.”

“I thought you already did.” There was a caution in Arin’s tone that let Beomgyu know she was aware of the potion thing. Soobin had probably told her. That was okay.

“I kinda stopped. It flipped in a way. I think of it as if I developed an allergy to him. To his name even, it’s quite awful.”

“How do you feel about that?” She looked worried.

A smidge of paranoia made Beomgyu wonder if maybe Arin was collecting information for the secret organization happening across the street. Even if that were the case, his hands were warm because of the tea, his stomach was happy because of the honey, and he felt comfortable in the comfiest chair around. So, he wouldn’t mind being a little bit vulnerable with someone that understood enough about himself.

How scary to open up even to people who understand you.

“It pisses me off. They feel bad because I’m being too harsh to him, but I don't want to be, I have no reason to—and yet, even thinking of him makes me angry. Scratch that, I do have a right to be angry, too, but they just decided to ignore that.”

“Sounds awful. What do you mean with the reason part?”

“He made me feel like this.” Beomgyu bit his lips and took a second to collect himself, to make sure no tears would pour out. That was the problem, emotional stability had been ripped out of his hands because someone had overruled one of his feelings. “I was fine dealing with the house, and the loss of this damn place, and whatever my inner child could be feeling, but now? I can't stop being unreasonably angry at something else. It’s unfair. It’s like I have no choice over my feelings.”

Arin left him a minute to gather himself back before she could start the roasting.

“We do come from an emotionally constipated family, are you sure this is such a foreign experience?”

“Oh my god, are you the actual devil?” Arin laughed at that.

“Imagine I were, what would that make you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You were always the worst one out of us.”

“Uh, hell no, I’ve always been a delight.”

“Sure.”

The tea was growing colder. Beomgyu took a sip or two. The cookies were too far from his reach, he’d have to move. Unless—

Arin watched him stretch his hand towards the table and let it hang there. She also purposefully ignored his pouting and puppy eyes.

“No, get them yourself.”

Beomgyu sighed and just plopped back in the chair. There was no enjoying it that way.

“So, what happened after? You didn’t finish your story,” Arin pointed, as she chomped on one of the ring-like cookies. Specifically the vanilla ones with the pink frosting. Disgusting. Beomgyu liked the chocolate ones with yellow better.

“Well, we cleaned the pool—Yeonjun, Soobin, and I—while Taehyun and Huening Kai went out to look for kids.”

“Oh, so the kids’ appearance was part of the plan for the day?” Arin leaned and pushed the bowl filled with cookies in his direction. They were now within reach. Beomgyu smiled a thank you toward her.

“Yes,” he said, as he picked an Oreo, “but not as early. They were supposed to come when we were already filling the pool, we were still brushing around and wiping. Soobin was figuring out the filtering system, which he was relieved from by Taehyun, and then redirected to the kids’ care area instead.”

“Ah, see, I could figure on my own that Tae and kids don’t get along.”

“That’s mean, why do you say that?” Taehyun-related comments that didn’t sound like an angel’s prayers? Not on Beomgyu’s watch.

“Well, he doesn’t have younger siblings or cousins.”

“Neither do you.”

“I have nephews, remember? And Soobin does too.”

“Okay, whatever. That doesn’t mean anything. But, yeah, he preferred to work around the filter. Yeonjun and I finished cleaning, and then we just brought the hose to fill the pool.”

“Mm,” Arin hummed. “Two questions.”

“Shoot,” said Beomgyu, leaving his now-empty mug on the table as he reached for another cookie.

“One, where was Kai? Two, where the hell did you get the hose from? The place was abandoned, right? Was someone paying for the water all along? That would be such a waste of resources…” Arin was outraged.

“Kai was entertaining kids with Soobin. They were the babysitter team.”

“Not the babysitter team!” Arin laughed.

“I have no clue about the water. Nobody told me where it came from.”

“Beomgyu,” his cousin crossed her arms. “Did you steal a random hose from someone's backyard and fill the community pool?”

“No.” But his tone said otherwise. Arin threw a cookie at him full-force.

“Then you wonder why they want to sell the place!”

Beomgyu fished the cookie from the folds in his shirt and proceeded to take small bites from it. Vanilla ring, where was the taste?

“Do you think about that too?”

Arin froze. She was probably not attempting to have this conversation right now. Silly her, shouldn’t have poked the beast.

Beomgyu’s cousin laid back in the bed. She had been sitting on an edge and didn’t fix that angle so her back was now curved against the window’s thin stool. It had to hurt, it was made of metal. A ghost pain from being in that same exact position made Beomgyu stretch in his seat.

“So,” She let out a loud sigh. “I know we’ve been avoiding speaking about this, but—”

“See, that start seems off, where are you—”

“Mostly because you have been running off with your summer love—” the stomach pain, again. Would it ever end? “—but I understand wanting to ignore it.”

“I wasn’t avoiding it,” Beomgyu complained, and Arin arched an eyebrow in disbelief

“Soobin has been doing all the heavy lifting. Even I am feeling guilty. I was even tempted to pay him! Me! I have no money.” She stressed each sentence by throwing her hands in the air and letting them fall back on the mattress. Beomgyu refused to laugh, he could feel the burn coming this way. “And you,” shit, “you have to come up with twenty words in a document. And I know you already have the design, so it’s not even an aesthetic block, whatever block you’re dealing with.”

“Hey, watch it. My artistic ways cannot be insulted like this.”

“Then don’t let them be? Use them, I don’t know. I know you don’t want to sell, Gyu, but it’s not our call.”

“Why not?” Beomgyu pulled one of the pillows from behind his back and hugged it to his chest.

“You know why.” Arin slid to the side, no longer relying on the window. Now she was just lying diagonally, twisted in a way that it couldn’t possibly be comfortable. “First of all, they wouldn’t sell it to us. We—you, me, the both of us together—couldn’t possibly pay for maintaining it. And…” Arin sighed. A dog could be heard somewhere in the street, barking. “Something tells me it’s not about the property. Or maybe it is, but it’s not a matter of maintaining it.”

So that was how his uncle had told the story. No one to maintain it. Only Beomgyu himself knew his family's reasons… and the theories that had been going on behind closed doors as to why their grandma had agreed. First of all, the actual legal reasons. It wasn’t that deep actually. Since it was their grandma’s property, it only had to be split into two. But then, if she actually died, then the property had to be agreed on for selling it. If they did so now, it was just a transaction their grandma had a say on.

Beomgyu’s mother had already said she didn’t care about the place and that if she could, she would never take another step into this village. Statements like “I’ve never in my life been happy there” hurt Beomgyu, because he had been free in this place—and because parental validation was a very real thing on this side of the family. He wouldn’t know about Arin’s.

The other theory Beomgyu’s mom had was that his uncle didn’t want to share the property title with her. With those matters, Beomgyu decided not to intrude. He didn’t understand what had to happen for two siblings to grow apart and he was scared as shit he would find out one day. He loved his brother.

“If it were a matter of maintaining it, I could do it,” Beomgyu mentioned.

“No, you couldn’t.”

“What?”

“I’ve seen how your parents insisted on you doing homework back in the day. I can’t imagine them being any less intense about college. You wouldn’t have the time to spend it here, Gyu.”

She was right. Beomgyu ate the last of his cookie and stretched.

“I’m guessing you wouldn’t either?”

“I’d love to,” Arin said. Her eyes were scanning the ceiling. “But I already had to start over in another college, I wouldn’t want to waste any more time getting that degree.” Beomgyu knew she had it hard in her old college. He wished they were the type of family who were comfortable enough to share even a pat on the shoulder to make each other feel better. But he was far away, too comfortable, and scared of breaking the cycle.

“You’ll get it, I'm sure of it.” He placed all of his manifestations into that short promise. Outside, the trees were moving because of the wind, almost like nodding along. They knew, too.

Local rumor had it that their grandma was too sad because of the death of her husband, her two children not getting along, and her driving permit being taken away after the accident. No way to reach the village when your mobility gets reduced to depending on others.

“So, we just sell it?”

“Technically, we wouldn’t be doing that either, given we don’t have the authority or the papers to. We just leave everything ready for when it happens, maybe we show the place to potential buyers. I doubt we’ll have to, but even still.” She sat back up and reached for her forgotten mug. She scrunched her nose when she picked it up—Beomgyu could bet that the tea was cold already. “We just… I guess we just say goodbye to it.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll miss it.”

“Me too.”

The front door’s knob sounded like someone was trying to force it open. Both Arin and Beomgyu perked up and looked at the ashtray where they left all the keys. The one with a Buneary keychain was resting there, among the ones that belonged to the Choi cousins.

“By the way, I saw how your suitcase keeps getting bigger than when we arrived,” mentioned Arin. Before Beomgyu could come up with something witty in response, Soobin barged in from the garage entrance.

“I keep forgetting to take my keys,” said the boy. Before he could even sit, he was already heating up the kettle under a signal from Beomgyu.

⚗️

Soobin was taking his sweet time before returning home, walking in the alleyways with Taehyun and Kai. The group was feeling the blow to their attempts. By what Beomgyu would tell Soobin at night, which he’d relay to the group later as reports on their progress, they weren’t actually managing anything. It was Saturday, and Beomgyu still hated Yeonjun’s guts.

Their second plan didn't work. The only thing Beomgyu could understand from cleaning the pool was that Yeonjun was neat. And that’s it. He’d rather spend the time cleaning the house and fixing up holes in the walls than hanging with Taehyun or Kai or even Soobin, whom he had dragged all the way out to this village.

Soobin wondered if the association between spending time with any of his friends and Yeonjun being there was already forming in Beomgyu’s brain. But he did spend time with Arin, and she was with Yeonjun when she was not in the house—well, and other friends. Soobin hadn’t paid that much attention.

In all fairness, the place had turned out to be quite peaceful. And planning all the stuff to make Beomgyu like Yeonjun again had kept Soobin out of the house and away from the hard work of carrying stuff and cleaning. These were his vacations too, after all, he had a right to let loose for a bit.

But then, the weight on his stomach… wasn’t his.

“You know, it’s still there. It just doesn’t hurt as much.”

“What is it?” Taehyun had his arm intertwined with Soobin’s, as they wandered the alleyways. Kai was at the other side of Tae, looking around. He appeared to be looking for something.

“The pain. The… okay, it isn’t painful anymore, that’s the thing. When Beomgyu feels something very intensely, I feel it too. It’s a part of the soulmate thing, right?” Soobin looked around. The other two nodded, expectant. “Well, at first, the potion made it hurt so much that I couldn't even get out of bed. Like a weight holding me down. But now… It’s just annoying enough that I remember it’s there, but if it were milder, then I wouldn’t know.”

Taehyun hummed. Soobin knew what he would say next. It had been enough time for him to figure out a lot about the boy. Taehyun, like fortune-tellers and psychoanalysts, would lead you to the answer and then extract it from you. But most of the work, you had to do yourself.

“What do you think that means?”

“I have two answers, or well, theories.” Soobin had been it mulling over. He was smart, he knew it was never the reason he wanted it to be.

“Tell us,” Kai said. He was nearing the fence of the property they were about to pass.

“The first one—the better one, in my opinion—is that the effect of the potion is wearing off.”

“But—” tried Taehyun, but Soobin was faster. He knew already.

“Yes, it doesn’t work like that. I don’t get why though, it is something he consumed. Shouldn’t he digest it at some point?”

“You make a good point.” Kai laughed.

“They do wear off… but since it changes such a fundamental part of the being, it takes longer to disappear from the system,” explained Taehyun. “It’s like smearing grease on a rough surface and letting it set. It’s really hard to get off.”

Soobin understood. However—

“I don’t like it.”

“Me neither, imagine making potions.” Kai’s nose scrunched.

“You only say that because Yeonjun has been doing them all summer instead of spending time with you,” accused Taehyun.

Kai laughed again.

“Maybe. What’s the other theory?”

Soobin didn’t like this one as much.

“Well, maybe he’s growing used to the feelings. His body didn’t like them before because they weren’t how he actually felt. They were external to him and strange. But now…”

“Oh, you think he’s not fighting them anymore? Like, they’re,” Taehyun waved his hands, “becoming a part of him?”

“Yes and no. More like growing used to walking with a blister. It still hurts, but then you learn how to avoid placing weight on it.”

“And that’s the option you don’t like, right?”

“Exactly.”

Kai had seen something ahead and was walking faster to reach it. Soobin and Taehyun kept their pace.

“What if the end of the summer comes around and he has to always walk around carrying a heart full of the wrong feeling? Wouldn’t that change him?”

Taehyun gave Soobin a kind smile.

“A lot of things out of our control could change him. And Yeonjun is almost done with the antidote anyway. We have enough time to do one more of our plans before it’s done.”

Soobin nodded, he liked that.

“Besides the entire angry-Beomgyu-thing, I’ve been loving these hangouts. I would’ve never thought of doing community service for fun. I mean, it’s not like this time we did that but… you know.” He had also liked the water balloon fight, but he felt shame when thinking back about it. If he had only worn his weighted soles. They had been losing the war, anyway, so it sort of helped in that way.

“Speaking of changing him…” Kai stated, leaning over a fence.

“We kinda passed that topic already but sure,” said Taehyun, unlinking from Soobin’s arm and nearing the future seer. “Be careful, Kai; that’s private property.”

“Tae… do you see that?”

Taehyun made a questioning noise and leaned above the fence, under a branch that avoided Soobin’s sight from identifying what they were looking at.

“Oh no,” he said. Then, Taehyun turned back to both of his feet. “I mean, it could be anything…”

Kai raised an eyebrow.

“Right, because the other nature-affecting person we know is too under the same amount of conflicting feelings.”

“We don’t know that,” Taehyun said. By his tone, Soobin could tell he didn’t believe it either.

“What is it?” He was holding at bay the tantrum over being left out.

Both readers looked at each other. Kai nodded. Taehyun was the one to speak up. Secretly, Soobin gave thanks. It had been enough time shared between them to notice that the layers of Huening’s foreshadows were too much for him to understand. Taehyun was a bit more forward.

“You’ve seen apocalyptic movies right?”

Okay, not a great way to start it.

“Yes.”

“Well, one of the first things to change is the plant and animal life.” Soobin nodded, trying to remember specific examples, but he couldn’t. It didn’t matter, he knew what Taehyun was referencing. “Well, look.” He pointed at a tree.

Yes, sure. Soobin ducked under the branch—it was a small tree!—and leaned over the fence. He couldn’t see a lot in the area Taehyun was pointing at. Coming to this village had made it painfully obvious that he didn’t know shit about plants. Yes, sure, he could name the house plants in Beomgyu’s home, and their general personalities, but the tree he was currently inspecting? No clue. The sure thing was that, if it was a fruit tree, it wasn’t the season.

Oh, never mind, there was a small sphere near the trunk.

One. Single. Fruit.

“It’s not fig season, not yet.”

“So? It’s just one fruit. It can happen.”

“Maybe. But both of us saw figs in our readings about this issue with Beomgyu and Yeonjun.” Soobin turned to his friends and straightened out from under the branch. “They weren’t a good omen.”

“Wait… that’s why you said that thing about apocalyptic movies?” Tae nodded. “Okay, but it can’t be that bad.”

“It’s not… the-world-ending sort of threat, but it’s not good either.” By Taehyun’s side, Kai was nodding.

“So…” Soobin rubbed his chin. “We should do something, right?”

“Definitely. I was so ready to wait for that antidote, but…” Taehyun was looking at the fig with worry.

“The good thing,” Kai added, “is that there’s also good omens!”

“Nice, have we seen any yet?”

“No.”

Soobin’s demeanor fell. Damn.

“This is Beomgyu’s backyard though, we should go check on him,” said Taehyun. He then headed through the alleys.

“Why not enter here then?” To Soobin it made no sense that they wouldn’t just… enter from behind.

“Have you walked the space between the actual backyard and here?”

“I haven’t had the pleasure yet.”

“Then try it once you have.”

“Rude,” whispered Soobin.

At his side, Kai laughed. He was inspecting a walnut tree, a secret he couldn’t tell behind his eyes.

“Only Beomgyu would dare to enter this place without a map. He truly has the best orientation senses in this group.”

Soobin knew. He had lost his way too many times before.

(And Beomgyu had found him, leading him back home.)

⚗️

In the end, Beomgyu hadn’t told the others that he knew about their dumb attempts to make him like Yeonjun back.

Something about them trying so hard to fix a thing that had no issue being broken in the first place… He felt anger even before accurately pinpointing the reason for his silence. Yeonjun’s presence by his side was interfering with each one of his thoughts. Beomgyu wished he could erase the witch from his view. Then he felt bad about that, because that was mean. But then, Yeonjun kinda deserved it for playing with his feelings—although he had agreed to it.

Ah, the eternal search for someone to blame.

Beomgyu looked around, leaning away from Yeonjun.

He loved these roads. They had never been covered in asphalt, there wasn’t enough economic support for it. And, there was no need either. They were secondary roads that connected certain spots with others. The clue was that no house front gave to them, only the backside of the properties.

Beomgyu liked to imagine each terrain as a rectangle. One-fifth of them, on the shorter edges, were the houses, the ones that would face the street. Then it was all wilderness. Local flora, the majority of them covered in unruly grapevines… Or maybe they did have someone to look over them, Beomgyu had never been in the village during harvest season.

Taehyun had a bad idea for this plan, in Beomgyu’s opinion. They wanted to cartograph the alleyways. As if that were a necessity. Old ladies knew not to wander in case anything happened (no one would find them), and kids knew not to be there after the afternoon and until tea time. The cars were not recommended, and they hardly made an actual shortcut anywhere.

One time, his father had been lazy enough to pull the car and go through them. Beomgyu had memorized the entire net of unmarked roads in his brain. That was all he needed. No one else seemed to be in need of a map of them, so why bother?

Besides, the entire distribution had been awful too. Both teams had gone to the western roads, instead of sending one to the eastern side (the ones behind Taehyun’s house, on the other side of the street), and Beomgyu had been paired with Yeonjun. He didn’t even bother hearing the explanations, knowing about their plan automatically disabled the credibility he might’ve had in their reasoning. They were on the first road, the one immediately to the back of his grandma’s house. Taehyun, Soobin, and Kai had both come up with the idea and the distribution. They were on the road parallel to this one, closer to the mountains.

“They’re spending too much time together, I hope Soobin is not tarnishing their ideas.”

Yeonjun turned to Beomgyu, surprised at being acknowledged. “Tarnish?”

“He is meaner than he looks, he has cheated in every game we ever played since we were toddlers.”

“I thought you guys met in middle school… also, aren’t you also a natural cheater?”

“Excuse me?” Okay, maybe the hatred was founded. Imagine telling Beomgyu the truth to his face. “Sometimes, messing with the facts makes for a far more interesting retelling.”

“So which part of that statement contains actual facts?” Yeonjun laughed, endeared.

“The part of him being a cheater.” Beomgyu kicked a stone.

“So, the baseless one?”

“It is not baseless if it had a testimony, and I am it.”

“Yeah, but you just blew your credibility by confessing to messing up the facts.”

“I—” Calling him on his bullshit too? How dare he.

Beomgyu looked up from pouting at the ground. He found Yeonjun scribbling on a piece of paper. Curious. Once he figured out the ploy, he wasn’t expecting the others to actually carry through with their participation in the farce. He was sure as hell Soobin was not paying attention at all, and that Kai didn’t care. Beomgyu had a few times successfully guessed on Taehyun’s likely actions so he was not gonna worsen his record by even attempting.

However, Yeonjun was taking notes.

“Don't you know these roads by now?”

Somewhere in his mind, Beomgyu knew he was not being the most polite person in the world. But the tummy ache had lessened and he preferred to be rude than suffering right now. Yeonjun didn’t seem affected either. Good.

“I wish I did, but something tells me there’s a reason I shouldn’t know them.” Beomgyu waited as they took a couple more steps, but Yeonjun was not adding more information.

“Elaborate, please?”

Yeonjun looked at him, surprised. He had forgotten that he could speak more than a couple of words to this person. He wasn’t—hopefully—going to bite him if he said something he didn’t like.

“I mean, I was taught that when certain knowledge doesn’t stick, perhaps it is because we’re not supposed to know it. Not at that moment at least.”

“And you just accept it?” Beomgyu couldn't understand that.

“Sometimes the things that should happen, do. Like that, knowledge can stick, or not. It’s a small philosophy I like to believe in.”

“It’s dumb.”

Yeonjun’s silence was too loud to ignore. He wanted to know, but didn’t dare to ask. Unluckily for him, Beomgyu was going to tell him the same. He was holding too much anger in.

“It’s dumb, because then you forget to tell me the effects of a potion that has ruined this summer for me, as if it wasn’t already bad. And it’s dumb, because you can justify that with an it was meant to happen. I can’t live with that.”

Well, apparently they were going to have the conversation now. Beomgyu mentally smacked himself. He knew he was more… mouthy when angry, he should’ve known to keep quiet.

“You remember?” The witch’s expression was indecipherable.

Of course, he did. Beomgyu just nodded. He had spoken with Soobin, and then reconstructed a majority of what happened that day. It was like remembering a dream, so the details weren’t clear. But Beomgyu remembered what happened, and mostly why and how.

“I can’t remember if I said it already, but I’m sorry.”

Beomgyu stopped walking. He didn’t turn towards Yeonjun. Facing him would mean another churn in his stomach, more bad taste in his mouth. Yet, a part of him did want to tell him that it wasn’t his fault. It was though. It was both their fault.

“My aunt forbade me to try the potion with anybody, and I still asked you to.”

Never mind, it was Yeonjun’s fault. Knowing didn’t feel liberating though. It just felt the same: like it could’ve been avoided had all the parties involved been aware of the whole truth. And the whole truth was no more, because any nice feelings Beomgyu might’ve had, they were now upside down, fundamentally different from what they were. It was sad. A heartbreak by its confirmation.

“Then why did you?”

Yeonjun was uncomfortable. Beomgyu could tell by the way he was standing, and how he was avoiding eye contact. A hand brushed the hair out of his face, the other one was scratching his index against a thumb. Something about him being so physically affected made it better, the knot in Beomgyu’s stomach.

“I am not proud, but because I was insecure.” Before Beomgyu could ask, Yeonjun clarified: “I didn’t believe that you would like me back.”

“Ugh.” Beomgyu started walking again. He was ready to flee, he didn’t care about the map project anymore. The authorities (if they existed, he had never seen them) could take care of it.

“Wait, where are you going?” Yeonjun sounded agitated. He was definitely following him.

“Home. I need tea and a rewatch of 2012 to get the taste off my mouth.”

“The… movie about the end of the world?”

“The same one.” Liking John Cusack should count as a vibe check by Beomgyu’s standards.

“May I join?”

Well, now the plan was spoiled.

Beomgyu climbed the old fence made from thin tree trunks. He knew a lot about inside plants, but he could really work on his tree identification. Or well, was it not justified if it was no longer growing from the ground? That way the tree itself could’ve given testimony. Knowing the trees when they were no more was a job more suitable for a woodworker perhaps.

He was feeling better now.

“Fine, now come.”

“Where are we even? Shouldn’t we… not trespass?”

Of course, he was too much of a good boy to follow along.

“Weren’t you making the map?” Beomgyu turned around and made his way through the prairie-like space. Further in and to the right, the trees started.

He heard Yeonjun’s “Ah!” and smiled.

They needed to find the knotted tree, the one that looked like a small “Y.” For Beomgyu, entering from unusual spots was the hardest. When facing the same stuff from another point of view… Well, things sure changed. That’s why he was agreeing now. He would do it himself if the others wouldn’t confess their hidden plan.

He looked back. There, the canal they had avoided by going over the fence and not the actual door. He wondered if maybe he should test fate.

The ghost of Kai’s smile made him think otherwise. Maybe not today.

He found the tree at the same time Yeonjun reached him.

“So, how do we find the way?”

Beomgyu took a step away from the witch, recovering some space for himself.

“First, the knotted tree. Behind it lays the first wire fence. Then, we could go through the grapevines, or towards the skull. I think this last one will be better.” To enter the house from the grapes they would have to walk through the canal that bordered the house. That one where they used to chat in the early afternoons.

It seemed long ago. Beomgyu avoided thinking of the good experiences in case the potion tarnished the memory. It was a constant contradiction: to cherish the feeling when reminiscing, but avoid the actual in the flesh person it was about.

He was brought back to reality when he spotted the tree. Its thin branches spread apart, making room for a child to feel like entering another world if going through them. That had been Beomgyu’s dream long ago: crossing away from his reality and into another one, a more stable one.

He didn’t need more magic, like in those movies, and he certainly didn’t need less. He didn’t mind it. Beomgyu just wished he could escape.

He crawled through the hole in the wire fence and rolled his eyes on the other side once Yeonjun asked if it was safe.

“If I could do it at seven and keep both my eyes, it’s safe.”

“I’m sure you’re bigger now,” Yeonjun’s strained voice retorted.

“And still as agile, catch up.”

A laugh of disbelief later, Yeonjun was walking behind him again.

It was wide terrain. This time, they were covered by the high branches of thicker trees than the ones before, in the other section. The ground was made of removed earth, stones, and leaves. It was moist, so the likeliness of the natural canal (the ones that were just holes dug on the ground) to overflow and hydrate the entire section recently was high. It hadn’t been recent enough for it to turn into mud though.

Only a couple of years ago, Beomgyu had understood that they were not all the same piece of land, whose ownership belonged to one single person. Or maybe they were, but after wiring it up and locking the land in, they never returned. One of the biggest problems in selling his grandma’s house was that there were no blueprints, hence pricing the territory was impossible. But that was on the way to being solved.

All the steps they were taking now, still belonged to a place he thought to be his in his childhood, under a family name he had never claimed—yet it stood as proud as the rest on the family tree. Right now, they were moving through an unnamed kingdom as theirs as any, with the law of the land on his side alone. He had been here first, he lived in it first. Even if it wasn’t his to claim.

It was sad, saying goodbye to the things you never owned, but believed to.

Yeonjun broke the silence with a surprised scream. Beomgyu snickered, already knowing what had caused it. He skipped towards the second wire fence and slipped an arm above the cow skull.

“Say hello to my friend.” He had never been able to reach it as a child, both because of how scary it looked back then, and because he had been significantly shorter.

“What the hell is that, and why is it here?” the witch asked, a hand on his chest trying to calm the heartbeat. Beomgyu laughed and crawled to the other side of the fence.

“I don’t know. It was always here.” No, wait. “Actually, I think it appeared on the ground randomly once. Either my grandpa or my oldest cousin—Arin’s brother—hung it up there, as a welcome to however might want to sneak in.”

“Does that mean…?” Yeonjun didn’t finish because he stumbled while going through the fence. Beomgyu grabbed his forearm and helped him stabilize.

“Yep,” he said, letting go. He turned, an arm spread to encompass the place they were in now. “Welcome to the house.”

It was not visible, so it didn’t hit as much. But after a couple more steps and passing by the walnut tree, the white house was visible. They jumped the small waterway in the middle of the backyard and made their way in. The gallery was empty.

“Arin, get the computer, we’re watching 2012!”

A shout came from the toilet area:

“Again?”

Yeonjun, who was closing the gallery door, laughed. Beomgyu ignored him.

⚗️

Soobin was angry. But he didn’t want to show it just yet, so he was giving Beomgyu his ugly stare. Not quite the judgy one, no. This one could annoy Beomgyu eight times more.

“I told you it was stupid.”

“So you just left us wandering around? We were worried sick when you guys didn’t make the meeting spot!” Soobin was standing at the end of the bed, in the door opening between the rest of the house and the gallery.

It was the next day, and his soulmate had finally simmered on his bad feelings and claims to explode on Beomgyu, just as he was about to take a post-lunch nap.

“Yes, we did. Actually, I did, and Yeonjun followed, so he’s just as bad as me. Why don’t you go give him hell and let me rest?”

Soobin gasped.

“Because you are my soulmate, not him. I don’t give a shit if he happens to act like a piece of shit, but the moment you do it, it means something to me, too.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.” Beomgyu spaced the words, just so Soobin could get a hand of how annoyed he was right now. Sadly, sometimes similar feelings could get confused with one another, and right now it was Soobin’s annoyance fighting his own for a space in his chest, and in his fists. “Can’t you just… let me sleep?”

Soobin stomped a foot on the floor. It was ceramic—a wooden floor would be better for their bones, but tradition outweighs health sometimes, and getting it into his grandma's head… No, he was both forgetting that his grandma didn’t know anything about construction (neither did Beomgyu), and that right now he was fighting with Soobin. He turned back to face his tall air-like friend. He was speaking and he was not registering anything from what was being said:

“... luck finding me when that happens.”

“Sure, sure,” said Beomgyu, laying back and fluffing up his pillow.

Soobin huffed and stormed out through the front door (from the inside, you didn’t need the key, which he surely had forgotten).

Yeah, no, Beomgyu’s grandma had just asked some random distant relative that lived in the area to build the place, which is why it all looked like a collage of different rooms. The gallery had been the last thing added, alongside the garage. And a wooden floor wouldn’t work with the local weather: it rained too often. Without proper care—exactly what the house lacked—the hypothetical floor would’ve rotted by now.

Closed eyes and sensitive ears are not a good combo. Not when you’re trying to sleep. Besides, Beomgyu always got the city-mouse reaction of missing the sirens, the piping making weird sounds, and being eerily aware of his neighbors’ doings. He practiced the breathing exercises his therapist had once recommended, those that didn’t work but distracted him enough to fall asleep in the soundless landscape.

Like painting a picture of senses, he counted: the wind through the leaves, the drip they had to fix in the kitchen’s faucet, Arin’s soft snores in the gallery. There was also the weight of one of his knees over the other, the smell of paint from their grandma’s room, and the annoyance in his chest.

Beomgyu opened his eyes, ready to huff and get up to do something since sleep was avoiding him when he made eye contact with Soobin’s weighted soles. Not again, was his first thought. The second one overcame him when he figured out the hour.

Beomgyu stood up and ran out the door. He skipped the opening steps and the small trunk acting as a limit between the parking area in front of the house. As he crossed the opened reddish gate, he started listing reasons why he was a dick, and he should do better in the future. The main one was making sure his best friend understood the lore of the places they visited. Beomgyu could actively remember Soobin slipping away into dreamland just as he was explaining the importance of not being out alone during the early afternoon. Naptime was sacred for a reason… Or not, but this was not the time to figure out if the “please rest, little kids, or else” legends were true.

He crossed the street without looking and knocked on Taehyun’s door.

No one answered.

The first plant on the windowsill whispered something about visiting friends. The second one was trying to pronounce a name. Beomgyu got close enough until he could decipher the first “Hue-” and he ran away after a quick “thank you.”

If Taehyun was visiting Kai, then Soobin might be there as well. Although the question of what his soulmate would have done if he hadn’t found Taehyun at home either started to knock on the back of his head like an unwanted guest. Nothing guaranteed the same course of action, plus he didn’t speak to plants as Beomgyu could.

He felt like a kid again, running to deliver a message from home to the rest of his friends—brother and cousins—given that back then they didn’t have…

Oh, he was a dumbass.

Slowing down, Beomgyu took the phone out of his pocket. He dialed Soobin and, before he could even lift the speaker to his face, it was already going straight to the voicemail.

He had already reached the main square.

Looking around, he confirmed that Soobin was not there. He was so close to Huening Kai’s house that he decided to head there nonetheless. Even if Soobin wasn’t there, maybe Taehyun and Kai would know where he could’ve headed. They had been spending enough time together to hypothesize the places he could be visiting. Beomgyu couldn’t think of any other place he could be other than Taehyun’s house or maybe the main square… which brought him back to the not-wandering-along-at-these-hours warnings, just how much of it had Soobin heard and interiorized?

Kai’s house was next to the closed public library, just passing the main square and to a side of the road that led out of the village and into the highway. The last time Beomgyu had been here, he had run out after taking the potion.

Ah yes, the required tummy twist.

Only the nervousness in the back of his head, reminding him that he was out in the street when the sun was at its highest made him knock. He wished so hard that Huening would open the door that it felt like an actual mock when Yeonjun did.

“The witch of the town does not take requests at—”, he said, but it got cut short by the recognition. “Hi.”

Well, fantastic.

“Is Soobin here?”

“No.” Yeonjun looked confused. “Should he be?” Beomgyu felt the initial panic make a comeback.

“Are Kai and Taehyun here then? Can I talk to them?”

“No, they had a birthday party in the next town.” Yeonjun scratched his head. “Arin’s there too—I think she drove them, actually. I was gonna go, too, but with my aunt gone, I couldn't leave this place unwatched for a long time.” Beomgyu squatted down and hugged his knees. The panic was settling in each hair strand. “Hey, are you okay?” Yeonjun’s presence was close, and Beomgyu’s body didn’t like that… even though his mind needed it.

“Soobin and I had a fight. He ran out. I think he’s alone out there.”

“Oh, no.” Of course, he understood.

The next thing Beomgyu heard was Yeonjun’s footsteps getting away. He looked up to find the door still open. Was he supposed to come in or…?

“I’ll help you find him,” said Yeonjun from inside. He came back to the door with a small bag and a baseball cap. Beomgyu had to stand up to let him out, the sound of the key confirming the closure of the house.

“Wh—” Pause. Why? No. Better: “Weren’t you supposed to stay here just in case? Open for business?”

“Well, yes, but this is more important. Also, people won’t come by at this hour. I wouldn’t think so at least.” Yeonjun turned around and placed the keys in his bag. Then, he patted it. “If we cross paths with anyone that needs something, I can manage with the stuff in here.” And he smiled.

The urge to puke pulled at Beomgyu, while the calmness in his head of having support in this accidental quest pinned him right where he was standing. He wondered if the potion’s effect could be broken from will alone, or if he was surely on his way to becoming mad. If it couldn’t be at least diluted, Yeonjun’s kindness would make Beomgyu’s brain-to-body connection implode.

Although, if it meant finding Soobin and bringing him back to safety, he could take it.

⚗️

“So like, it’s definitely this way,” Yeonjun said, his hand grasping air.

Beomgyu was walking behind him, filled with doubts.

“Why would he follow the canal?” Taehyun’s warnings and Kai’s words had definitely left a scar on him. Yeonjun being here added to it.

“I don’t know, but this soulmate thing sure is useful.”

“What do you mean?” Beomgyu could feel the warmth in the spot in his back where the soulmate bond lived.

The two of them had walked back to Beomgyu’s house and then Yeonjun had asked about the bond again, this time accompanied by a permission request: “Can I touch you?”

He agreed. While Beomgyu’s partition between what the potion commanded of him and what he really wanted to do split his head in half with pain, Yeonjun grabbed the bond from where it left Beomgyu’s back and followed it to Soobin.

It felt really weird, like knowing someone’s hearing your phone call, but having no proof other than paranoia.

They had followed the waterways beyond Beomgyu’s kingdom. He knew them towards the west, to the mountains, and the camping site. He had never gone east, behind Taehyun’s house. It was the gray space between the highway and the village. Stories of illegal donkey races and even more off-the-law motorbike competitions. Processions that began in the deserted blank spaces outside town and that crossed it, only to disappear into dust as soon as they were out of the known populated spots.

If ghost stories were suddenly invading Beomgyu, it was because of the hour, the heat of the sun, and the fear. The only thing keeping him calm(-ish) was that there wasn’t a lot of tall plant life in the area they were now, just the one canal they were following and bushes. No fig trees, so Soobin had to be safe. Just lost.

“Does it feel different when you are near him?”

Beomgyu looked up at Yeonjun. He was looking around. If he had to bet following his top-notch body language reading abilities, Beomgyu would say Yeonjun had lost the trail.

“No.” He walked until they were side by side staring at the empty road ahead. “It’s more of an emotional bond. But it doesn’t change in intensity by closeness, not most days, at least. It does hurt if we’re far apart. Did we lose him?”

“I don’t know why, I should be able to hold on to it. But the bond just slipped from my hand.” And of course, Beomgyu couldn’t help him look for it because he couldn’t see it.

“Can’t you grip it again?” He turned and looked at Yeonjun over his shoulder. The witch looked endeared.

“It's not that I lost it, I just can’t hold it in my hand anymore. Like water,” he clarified.

Instead of worrying about that (the headache was enough, thank you), Beomgyu focused on the other keyword.

“Water,” he whispered. He was sure Kai had said something like that a few days ago. Beomgyu looked around. “Where did the canal go?”

Yeonjun was surprised. He, too, had forgotten about it. The duo scanned the area. It had turned extra hard to spot it once they stepped out of the populated area. There, in some fractions of the way, it was just a plain furrow, like back at the unowned land behind Beomgyu’s house.

“I do hear water though,” Yeonjun said.

He was right. It seemed surreal even, given around them all they could see was earth and jarillas.

Yeonjun followed his ear. He backtracked, Beomgyu close behind him. Then, he spotted it: the sink in the ground where the canal diverged from the road.

“Here!” He ran to it and, upon reaching it, he saw an opening in the bushes. Yeonjun looked at Beomgyu with a smirk and then dived head in, left foot first making sure not to get into the small waterway, right foot after, making it through the bush wall. Then he turned around and lent a hand to Beomgyu. The younger boy looked doubtful but accepted it.

As soon as both of them had made it through, Beomgyu understood where the sounds came from. They were at the place where all the canals started from. And by the edge of it, Soobin, sitting like the main character in a drama.

Before he could even say anything. Beomgyu fell to his knees. Yeonjun held his hand, the one he hadn’t let go, even firmly. “Are you okay?”

That made Soobin notice them. “Oh, when did you guys make it here? This place is hypnotizing.”

Beomgyu didn’t have time to make a mental note of how he should’ve noticed the annoyance disappearing. It was unbearable, the breach inside of him.

Soobin must’ve caught up too that something was going on. “Guys?” He got closer. Then he spotted Beomgyu on the ground. “Oh my god, what’s wrong?” He was running towards them when Beomgyu heard Yeonjun explaining how he had just collapsed after seeing him.

“We should move him out of the canal, we don’t know if at the hour this one will activate.” Beomgyu agreed, but the prospect of using his voice felt utopian. He didn’t even feel the hands under his armpits, carrying him near to the big pool and away from the furrow.

He could hear the voices but it was undecipherable. He was confused too. As he felt the tears coming out from the pain, he tried to rationalize it. He had been hesitant to take Yeonjun’s hand, but he knew better, that doing so could lead to finding his best friend in the world. Yes, it was a small thing, but it meant so much. And when he did spot Soobin, the relief in his heart almost split him in two. On one side, he could cry out of gratitude, on the other, the potion was making him reject the bigger part of himself.

That made sense. The potion was forcing him into accepting its purpose. But he didn’t want to. Sound became a thing again. An argument.

“You said there was a way.”

“I said I wouldn’t do it unless I’d get his express approval or that it was an extreme situation.”

“Your damn potion is killing him!”

Oh, that could be it. He was feeling feverish, over all that pain. The worst was that closing his eyes didn’t work. Attempting to escape was not allowed through sleep.

“I don’t know if that’s—”

“Ask him then!”

The headache was unfathomable. His worst migraines had been during exam season and this one was far stronger than those.

“Beomgyu, is this the potion?”

Beomgyu nodded. Speaking seemed like an impossible task.

“Yes. Thankfulness—stuff.”

“What?” Soobin was somewhere above Beomgyu's field of view.

“It’s possible that his feelings towards me are not those the potion intends him to have. The conflict is killing him from within.” Yeonjun suddenly entered the space in front of Beomgyu that he could see. A small window filled with that which he hated the most. “There’s a way to undo the potion without the antidote. But you’re not gonna like it.”

“Just tell him!” Soobin was losing his patience and Beomgyu was losing himself.

“I remember.” And he did. It had been a week of reconstructing that one afternoon. He knew what it was. “Do it,” he conceded. Why had Yeonjun not told Soobin he knew and that he had agreed already?

Yeonjun sighed before nearing him.

A warmth Beomgyu couldn’t see settled in the right side of his jaw. Yeonjun looked so sad it almost brought him joy. In return, he hated himself more. There was so much hatred within him that it felt like it was overflowing in every direction, towards every memory it could touch.

And then, Yeonjun kissed him.

The string holding it all together snapped. The canal activated as the hour struck.

Beomgyu fainted.

⚗️

“You have to be shitting me. A kiss?”

“As you hear it. Must have been awful because he fainted right after.”

“Well, did it work?” Taehyun asked. Kai by his side seemed calmer about the entire situation.

“Yeah.” Soobin stretched his arms above his head. “The bad feeling is gone, at least for me. And although he was crying by the end of it, he seemed at peace.”

“I told him.” Kai left out a little laugh.

Taehyun eyed him but didn’t ask. Instead, he turned back to Soobin.

“Did you know it could be undone that way?”

“No, but from what Yeonjun mentioned when carrying Beomgyu back, it was a fair shot. All I knew was that there was something he hadn’t tried.”

“Then why did we bother doing all of this?” Taehyun stood up and walked angrily behind the couch. He continued to pace, refusing eye contact with the people in his house.

“Do you think Beomgyu would have accepted had the situation been different?” Kai turned, laying his arm on the back of the couch to sustain his own weight. “If Yeonjun had pulled that card from under his sleeve and confessed a kiss was the key to emotional freedom?”

“Yes? Of course he would have!”

“No,” Soobin shook his head. “I agree with Kai. He was too against Yeonjun’s entire being to even consider closeness. If he had come to Beomgyu the day after the potion proposing that, he ought to be blessed by some deity to walk out of there alive.”

“This is so dumb,” Taehyun said, before coming back to the couch, crossing his arms, and pouting. He remembered something. “When was the antidote supposed to be done?”

“Tomorrow.” Soobin’s sour smile was enough.

“Of-fucking-course.”

“The important thing here is that we were instructed by Beomgyu himself, through a text message, to roast your ass for stepping outside in such dangerous hours.” Kai was probably trying to give it a light tone, almost like a joke, but it ignited both Soobin and Taehyun back to the discussion.

“It’s just a dumb belief, I can’t believe you’re all scared of the boogie man.”

“It is not a man, and I will take you myself under a fig tree and leave you there. Good luck breaking free motherfucker!”

Soobin stood up and, laughing, he ran out the door. Taehyun was close behind him, fuming.

(“Why was he even so mad?” Soobin asked some time after.

“It was either relief or figuring out my readings turned out to be truer than his. Or you, Beomgyu and Yeonjun’s general stupidity, it’s a hard thing to cope with sometimes,” Kai answered.)

⚗️

“Just come inside, will you?” said Beomgyu, opening the door in a swift heart-stopping motion.

Yeonjun jumped from where he had been standing, stuck in a speech he was having a hard moment finishing up.

“How much of that did you hear?”

“Enough. You don’t need to apologize.”

It had been two days. An antidote for a love potion was ready and unused.

“Of course I do!”

Beomgyu walked across the house to the gallery. Once there, he set the kettle.

“What tea do I make you?” That was a trick question, they still only had one kind.

“Why won’t you accept my apology?” Yeonjun leaned on the doorframe, unsure to go in further.

“Because you warned me? I knew about this, because you knew there was no antidote. I knew about the kiss way out.”

Yeonjun remembered. Yet…

“The situation changed though. It wasn’t a love potion anymore, you would’ve hated me even more if I just forced you to do it.”

“I know.” Beomgyu took out two mugs and placed the tea bags inside. He turned and leaned on the counter, waiting for the water. “That’s why the way it went down was perfect.” Yeonjun’s horrified expression made him add: “I know, it was an awful circumstance and it hurt like shit. But it went the way it had to, and I had already agreed on it from the start because you knew—and told me—there was no antidote. Overall, Soobin’s recklessness just fastened everything.”

Those words again, replaying one over the other.

…end in a big fight only the ones we hate could help fix…

…when water and childish instincts could bring us back together…

Beomgyu hated that Kai had been right. He had seen it ever since that day, probably. By not explaining his words, he had made sure the foreseen events happened just like that.

“I’m still sorry… about everything.” Yeonjun finally stepped in and settled on Arin’s bed.

“Yeah, me too. I wasn’t very nice to you.”

“That’s okay, I had it coming.”

“No, you didn’t deserve that. Now tell me if you want sugar in this or not.”

Yeonjun laughed and answered. After they were both seated, a mug in front of each, he continued with the subject:

“You do know why it backfired right?”

Beomgyu sipped his tea slowly. He had thought about it. Of course, he knew: Soobin had spilled the beans so fast it was almost embarrassing to know he’d do the same with the stuff Beomgyu had ever said. Actually, Soobin probably had already exposed his inner workings to all of their friends if the past group scheming was anything to go by. Beomgyu sighed.

“Was it because I already had feelings for you?”

Yeonjun snickered. He seemed ready to tease him about it instead of further explaining, or even sympathizing with his experiences.

“Love-y feelings if we’re being precise. Why didn’t you say anything?”

Oh, hell no. That smug smile on his face couldn’t be.

“Why didn’t you? Of course, you knew the only way to undo it was a kiss, I’m not sure what that says about you. You could’ve asked Tae or Soobin, or even Arin, yet you asked me.” Beomgyu was pointing a finger at the witch, accusatory.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.” Yeonjun picked up the mug and took a sip, looking away through the nearest window.

“Then I have no clue what you are talking about either.”

They both continued to get lost in the steam over their beverages. That is until—

“Would you go out with me?”

“Yes.”

⚗️

“Why do I think it was you?”

They were waiting for the muffins to fully cook. A nicety to soften the impact of visiting, or something like that. Kai had mentioned that the day was going to be hard and of course, Soobin and Beomgyu took it as an invitation.

Soobin laughed, not really wanting to talk about it. The water was nice on his feet. Beomgyu had screamed when he heard the canal and dragged him out. It was only his second time taking part in the event. Soobin kinda understood it. He also suspected that when Arin, Beomgyu and the rest of their relatives did it, they were far smaller than they were now. Soobin barely fit, his knees by Beomgyu. The close distance felt almost confessional, and that could be dangerous.

“You’ll have to be more specific.” There was no denying the conversation, Beomgyu knew how to read him. The best he could try was to play dumb, but even that could be read into by his soulmate.

Beomgyu laughed.

“C’mon, what were those attempts at leaving me alone with Yeonjun?” He leaned back, digging his hands in the dirt. Soobin wondered if that was because of the running water in front of them, how easy it’d be to clean. “Taehyun would’ve let me go through it on my own. God knows his cards are loud about self-discovery and shit.” Beomgyu rolled his eyes. Soobin actually liked that Taehyun didn’t care as much, it was refreshing from his own will to intervene in everything. Beomgyu lifted a second finger, and only then did Soobin understand he was counting. “Kai would’ve removed himself, too, from the situation because, well, he can’t spoil the future he knows, right?”

Soobin swallowed. How come after all these years he still forgot about Beomgyu’s observational skills? Probably because of how they differed from his own.

“Yeonjun is kinda obvious: guilt.” Beomgyu looked at his three fingers, and then back at Soobin. His eyebrows made him look sad, or sorry. “I think it was an amazing idea.”

Soobin snorted.

“No, you don’t. You suffered every bit of it.” Beomgyu shivered. “I still can’t believe you even tried to watch 2012 with him, how did that even go?”

“Arin sat in the middle and I got lost in the plot.”

“Sure!” Soobin laughed.

Beomgyu had something he wanted to say, and he didn’t know how to get to it in an organic way. Soobin felt the stress somewhere near his side. It had to be eating him if he could sense it.

“I just thought that maybe you would change your mind if you saw that he was nice. And…” This one was a secret, a fear he thought to be too speculative to share with the others. “I feared you might distance yourself from us… from me.” Soobin looked right at the wire fence and the grapevines behind it. He wondered what the village was like during harvest season. An odd feeling overcame him: he’d never know. “This place is gigantic. I mean, no.” He waved his hand toward the backyard. “We tried going through the alleyways the day before we proposed to you the plan to map them. And even though they knew nothing would happen to them—legally—if they stepped on the property, neither Taehyun nor Kai dared enter. They had a reason too, they had seen something that meant bad things. They stayed on the other side of the fence.” He was not making the point. “What I’m trying to say is that in this place, only you could find the path. And if you got lost, if you wanted to, none of us would know how to reach you.”

“But the bond…”

“I’ve known you since we were kids, and I have never beaten you at hide-and-seek. Or chess. Or anything.”

“Playing by the rules, you mean.” Soobin gave him an angry stare. “Sorry, people don’t believe me when I tell them you’re a cheater.” He pulled a hand out of the dirt and inspected the snail he had found. It was tiny, about an inch in height.

“What is it?”

“I’m sorry.” Beomgyu blurted and stared into his eyes.

Awkward, Soobin was asking about the snail. He’d just go along with it.

“Why are you apologizing?”

Beomgyu lowered the snail to the stream and washed the dirt off it.

“I’ve been neglecting you.” Oh. And Soobin thought he had done such a great job covering it up. “Arin told me several times, but since I failed to see it myself, I didn’t do anything about it.” There’s something scary about some insecurities being seen by others. Soobin wanted to cry, but alone, away from Beomgyu’s loving stare. “I should’ve left you alone with Taehyun more often, too, but we still have time.” And he had to screw it up. Feelings? Heartfelt conversations? No, no. Better to have a soulmatecide by drowning.

Soobin took a deep breath. He summoned the patience he had to learn to develop for specific situations like this and turned back to his friend.

“I hate you,” he said in the most emotionless tone possible. Beomgyu burst out laughing.

“Why, because I discovered your stupid crush?”

“No, because you’re so slow to see things, and so fast to put everything together.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” Beomgyu said, toning down his excitement.

“I know you will, but I’m also sorry that you feel like you have to.”

Beomgyu gasped.

“Rude.”

“Is it?” Soobin arched an eyebrow. “What happened, it's done. And I upset you, and you upset me, and now we’re even. If we weren’t, it still wouldn’t matter, because I have you and you have me. That’s enough. As long as you come back, everything will be alright.”

The stress was gone.

Beomgyu smiled at Soobin and handed him the snail. Sobin took it in a reflex, smiling back. Then he screamed and dropped it when he noticed the small antennas coming out from the conic shell.

It fell on the stream and went away.

“Way to kill the mood, snail murderer.”

Inside, the alarm from Beomgyu’s phone let them know it was time to check the oven.

“Why would you even hand me that, you know I don’t like bugs?”

“It wasn’t a bug, it’s a… well, not a bug, that’s for sure.” Beomgyu stood up, holding onto Soobin’s shoulders, and backed out of the canal, into his flip-flops. “A poor little snail. Why wouldn’t you get rid of the toad then?”

Right.

“What happened to it, by the way?” Soobin too stepped out of the water.

Beomgyu shrugged.

“I have no idea,” he said as he entered the gallery.

Soobin stood in terror. He wondered if running away from that village was still possible, or if Taehyun would have an extra bed for him to sleep in that night. There was no way he was resting in peace ever again with the fugitive toad he had showered with.

⚗️

Yeonjun was back at the house, in front of the cauldron holding the antidote. It sure would work for something else. With a couple of extra weeds, it could work as a plant fertilizer or something.

He covered it with a circular wooden lid, except that, without the ridges, it didn’t look like it fit this one particular pot. The whole point was to keep it stored with no contact with air or light. After it was sure he had done it right, then it would be safe to pour it into crystal vials, and maybe even sell it. He still hadn’t figured out how he was going to explain it to—

“I’m back!” It wasn’t unusual that Sunmi would announce it at the top of her lungs but only as soon as she could scare the shit of Yeonjun. Only then the sound of the front door could be heard, followed by Huening Kai’s giggles.

“Of course you two would conspire to give me a heart attack,” Yeonjun said, making sure to cover the cauldron he had just been looking over.

“Kid, if that causes you one, maybe you should go get checked. I’m the old one here, after all, you can’t take my title just yet.”

“Your title?”

Sunmi was taking off her cardigan and leaving it on the hanger along with her bag.

“The title of senior person of the house, of course. You’re not becoming the witch of the village just yet, calm down.” She looked around, smiling. She had that look, the one of a college student coming back home and finding their room exactly as how they had left it. “Although, I heard from the grannies that you did a great job in my absence.”

“Oh, really?” Yeonjun wished he could pay more attention and recharge in the compliments, but if Sunmi kept wandering around, it was a matter of time until she discovered the cauldron that wasn’t being used over a week ago when she left. “You—we didn’t have that many clients. Just some ointments for bug bites and stuff.”

“Well, you know the ladies, they like young meat.”

“What?”

Right then, Sunmi found the other cauldron, the one that held the love potion he had just finished when she left.

“Oh, don’t act all surprised. Now, let’s see if it stood the passage of time.” She lifted the wooden lid and peeked inside.

Yeonjun couldn’t help but walk near her, expecting the judgment.

Sunmi was awfully quiet.

Outside, the sound of kids running through the street. Yeonjun wished he could race them and run away from his spot. He really needed to get high grades on potion making and Sunmi’s evaluation was as valuable as the ones in the academy.

She hummed.

“Same color, same consistency. The smell is also stronger.” She turned around, no expression on her face. “What should we do about you, kid?”

“What do you mean?” He knew the potion worked, why was she not mentioning that it was the perfect love potion… unless it had always been a bad batch, and that’ why Beomgyu—

“What should we do about that kid you gave it to?”

Yeonjun deflated.

She knew.

“How—?”

Sunmi crossed her arms. Her frown showed just how angry she was.

“You really think I would leave you unsupervised with a potion as dangerous as this one?” She argued, extending an arm towards the cauldron. “Besides, no matter how hard your brother tries not to spill, the readings were crystal clear.”

But the readings can only be made before they happen.

“You already knew?”

“Of course I did! You haven’t figured out how the future is sewn into his speech yet, but it was all over his words from before I left. That’s why I got rid of all the antidotes, dumbass. Maybe that way you wouldn’t attempt such a stupid way to face your crush.”

She turned around and closed the cauldron. Yeonjun felt devastated. Why hadn’t she told him—she had. She warned him. Of course. If she had told him about Kai’s readings, it would have changed for something else, which she couldn’t have foreseen. “But then why didn’t you get rid of the potion, if you knew what would happen?”

“Because,” she said, a coldness to her tone, “I wanted to trust you knew what was best. That you would listen.”

Ouch.

Yeonjun lowered his head. He was done arguing about guilt.

“Your potion is perfect. I’ll store it later today, and you will help me with it, because there’s nothing more humbling than attempting to get that thick ass liquid into small vials without spilling.” She walked until she was standing in front of him. For a second, he wondered if she would hug him or something. “Move aside now, I gotta check your antidote too.”

“How—?”

“You haven’t moved an inch since I walked in, it doesn’t take a genius.”

Yeonjun took a step aside and let her through. She removed the lid and got closer to the surface of the potion. She blew on it and then analyzed the pattern of the waves.

“This one is perfect, too. I’m done scolding you. Good job.”

Yeonjun stood, quiet. So did Sunmi.

“That’s it?”

“What else is there?” She closed the lid again and turned to her nephew. Her frown was gone. “You made a mistake, you fixed it… I assume?” Yeonjun nodded. “Then that’s it. Well done, I’m proud of you. Potion-making is hard and stressful, but you managed to finish two of them while tending to your friends whom you wronged. I’d say that’s more than enough.”

Yeonjun lowered his head. Yes, it was enough.

He felt Sunmi’s arms around him, patting his head so he could rest on her shoulder.

“There, there. It’s okay.” Yes. That’s what he wanted her to say. “You did okay.”

From the door they could hear Huening Kai’s distant voice:

“Guys, Soobin brought some baked goods, do you want something?” And after that, something that sounded like Beomgyu complaining about him being there too.

“The soulmates, I’m guessing.” Sunmi laughed, and Yeonjun nodded. “Nice, let’s go meet them. I have some more nagging in me.”

“Oh, come on,” Yeonjun complained, feeling the oncoming blush.

Sunmi laughed and marched there.

Sighing, Yeonjun looked around. He took the recipe book and closed him. He walked to the small bookshelf and stored it back in.

Through the window, he saw it was starting to rain. Caramel could be smelled on the way to the kitchen. Of course.

He walked there, closing the door behind him.