Chapter Text
If there’s something Wonwoo despises, it’s surprises. They inflict some sort of primal reaction to his innards, making them curl into themselves and tighten and make him want to disappear. It’s weird, but it’s what it is, and Wonwoo has learnt to roll with it. He still tries to avoid unnecessary happenstances though, sticking to his routine as much as witchly possible.
Said routine involves tending to his vegetables and flowers, taking walks along the nearby stream, or —if the weather allows it— laying down a blanket and taking a nap under one of the many cypress trees surrounding their home. When he’s forced indoors, though, one will likely find him holed up in his room or glued in front of Vernon’s TV, soaking up human documentaries like a sponge.
His daily schedule slightly varies when new students arrive and require tutelage. But that variety only comes along every other blue moon, so Wonwoo generally sticks to his garden.
It’s funny that the thing that he dislikes the most in the world interrupts his tending to his beloved garden.
Wonwoo is forced to his knees, pulling out old roots and clearing out the weeds, when a pair of arms wiggle their way around his midsection. That alone should alarm him, but really, cohabiting with Soonyoung and Chan for the best part of his twenty-six years has cultivated his immunity to pranks and jumpscares, while having Jun as his best friend and roommate has expanded his limits regarding physical touch.
What draws the line is the soft, slightly moist, breath that tickles his ear, mystery lips ghosting against his skin as an equally mysterious voice whispers to him, “I’m so glad to finally have you in my arms, my cute Wonwoo. I’ve been thinking about you, thinking about holding you,… kissing you.”
The last word is highlighted with a lingering kiss against his temple. As a result, a shiver runs down Wonwoo’s spine and his cheeks blossom into a furious blush.
His mind is screaming at him to escape the stranger’s hold, but his body is trapped, both literally and figuratively; his arms are held down, tight against his body, while his heart is thumping away, clearly affected by the amorous confession.
Stuck in indecision as to what approach would be wiser to follow, Wonwoo startles at the low whistle that breaks the silence. The hands around his middle fall lower as the body glued to his back turns around to face the source of the distraction, and Wonwoo takes advantage of the loosened grip to break free.
“Wonwoo~ I didn’t know about your exhbitionist streak,” a sickly sweet voice calls from across the beaten path. “I got to say, I’d love to see more of it.”
Six years into being neighbours, and Wonwoo still wasn’t completely sure whether the whole lecherous persona was a vampire thing or simply a Jeonghan thing.
A derisive tsk from beside him, draws his attention back to the actually important matter at hand. From this angle, Wonwoo can study the personal-space-invader’s face, finding it unfamiliar at first glance. In fact, he’s so busy cataloguing the man’s features and comparing them to known countenances, that he misses the lovesick smile that pulls at the stranger’s lips for a good while.
And when he finally has Wonwoo’s attention, the man tucks a wayward strand of Wonwoo’s hair behind his ear before trailing the same hand over his cheek and across his jawline. Wonwoo can merely hold his breath while the stranger gently presses against his chin until his face tilts back, leveling their gazes.
“Roses wither in shame in front of your beauty,” the man says, quietly and nearly awestruck. Somehow he’s procured one of Wonwoo’s budding flower stems, and lifts it up between them.
Wonwoo isn’t entirely sure what bothers him the most: the fact that this oddity of a man plucked his precious flower out of the earth without consent or the fact that his comparison doesn’t make a lick of sense?
“Those are gardenias,” Wonwoo mutters, taking satisfaction at the way the man’s smile falters for a single second before his composure rights itself.
“All the roses have withered away, just as I said.”
Wonwoo magnanimously doesn't point out the row of rose bushes in full bloom next to the gardenias. If only for the slightly hazy, unfocused gaze that settles on him right after the stranger reaches his conclusion.
He knows that kind of stare, he’d be no witch if he didn’t recognize it. He’s lectured many-a students on love spells and their individual characteristics, and the cow eyes this man is currently serving him are the most common identifier.
Oh my Moon.
“Get a room~” Jeonghan yells from his porch. “Or don’t, you know.”
With an enchanted man hanging off of him like an overgrown fungus, and with no time to waste, Wonwoo ignores Jeonghan and instead focuses on fighting the tingling numbness rushing up and down his legs as he pushes himself off the ground.
The man quickly follows, and there's a tiny moment in between where Wonwoo fully expects to plop back down on his ass. But then the arms return to their spot at his waist, as if being the ones to guide Wonwoo instead of the other way around, and he allows himself to welcome the gesture, if only for its steadying properties.
It all lasts for the ten or so steps it takes them to reach the front door of the house, then, in quick succession, Wonwoo hears a thud, a groan, and then silence — not even his own heartbeat.