Chapter Text
Seunghyun starts at the sound of his alarm clock, it's shrill ringing piercing the otherwise quiet small town air in the way only technology could. He groaned, fumbling with it for a few agonizing seconds before finally succeeding in shutting the damn thing off. In his tired and groggy state, he wonders, briefly, if he could get away with calling off of work for the day and sleep until well past noon instead.
He abandons that fantasy less then thirty minutes later when he remembers that he has bills to pay, the fear of homelessness ripping him unwillingly out from underneath the sheets. Even if his boss bought whatever halfassed excuse he managed to come up with, his coworker (and certified Best Friend™) Seungri would almost certainly find him and drag him to work himself. The thought of being nagged at by the younger seems a fate worse than death — or in his case, worse than having to load furniture into delivery vans all day.
Despite his prior reluctance, the task of getting ready for work goes by smoothly every morning. Tired or not, he's a well oiled machine when it comes to routines, so he's able to make up for some of the time lost laying in bed by brushing his teeth, showering, and getting dressed at record pace. He has to skip breakfast, but he knows that's his own fault.
Seunghyun bikes to work every morning, taking the same route as always, and despite skipping breakfast, he manages to be a few minutes late. Seungri, of course, points this out. He always does.
"Took you long enough. Is it really that hard for you to get to work on time?"
Seunghyun doesn't dignify that with an answer, instead choosing to straighten out his uniform. Seungri isn't moved by his lack of response, either, and changes the subject easily.
"We got some new items in. Since you're the Furniture Whisperer around here, I think you should handle the displays," Seungri said, nodding towards a collection of cardboard boxes crammed in the corner of the shop.
Seunghyun rolled his eyes, "I'm not a Furniture Whisperer, I'm just the only one here who has any fucking taste."
"Yeah, yeah, why don't you tell that to the chairs in the dining set, I bet they'd really appreciate your superior taste in interior design," he teased, snorting out an ugly laugh when Seunghyun scoffed and got to work.
Teasing aside, Seunghyun did have good eye for interior design — as soon as the new merchandise was unboxed, all dark wood pieces with clean, modern edges, shining in their newness, he was envisioning the perfect setup.
When Seunghyun had first come here, the shop was floundering. Despite their quality pieces, they just weren't selling as well as the other furniture stores and none of the staff knew why — that is, until Seunghyun convinced them to let him do some rearranging. Turns out, all the store needed was someone like him — someone who could combine furniture pieces and decor from different sets in such a way that it was visually pleasing. Someone who could take their drab displays and make them something more, something that people could look at and envision in their own homes.
So Seunghyun secured a job working his metaphorical magic. He had to say, as much as he hated waking up before the shop opened for the day, it felt good to be doing something he loved. Design and art had always been his passion, but he'd never been much good at creating phyisical pieces. Early mornings or not, being able to work hands on with such skillful, custom designs was a dream of his, in a strange way.
He's adjusting a centerpiece on the new display table when he's broken out of his trance. At some point, Seungri went from taking inventory in the back, to hovering behind him to watch him work. Seunghyun nearly flinch when he caught sight of him standing so close, but caught himself — and more importantly, the fragile centerpiece.
"Sorry, just wanted to tell you that we're opening in a few minutes," Seungri said sheepishly.
"I'm nearly done. Could you get those chairs?"
Seungri complied, taking the chairs one by one and placing them at the table. "Oh!" He said suddenly, nearly startling Seunghyun again. This time he didn't seem so sorry. "Did you hear that a witch moved into town?"
"So?"
"So?! Isn't that cool? We haven't had a witch here since, well, ever!"
That isn't entirely true. There was an elderly witch he'd met once or twice around town when he was a kid, but he figures Seungri was too young at the time to remember her. Most sizeable towns had several witches living in them at any given time, but in a small seaside town like this, it wasn't uncommon to go a few years between seeing them. From what Seunghyun understood, witches were common enough to be treated fairly normally, but uncommon enough that you could technically go your entire life without meeting one — either way, it didn't matter to him. They were just people. People who were treated like royalty.
"I don't get what the big deal is, no one freaked out this much when Daesung moved here a few months ago," Seunghyun muttered.
Seungri looked at Seunghyun incredulously, as if he was personally offended that he would compare Daesung to a witch he hadn't even met yet. "That's because Daesung isn't fucking magic, Seunghyun."
"So? Magic isn't anything special, it's just like any other talent someone could have," Seunghyun said defensively, "besides, you don't even know them, they're probably a brat — could you imagine everyone treating you like you're special from the day you're born? You'd be spoiled rotten!" Perhaps he wasn't giving this witch a fair chance, but he didn't care. Ever since rumours started to spread that a witch was looking to move there, he'd heard nothing but talk about this witch, glorifying them in a way that would be sure to let them down. Magic or no magic, no one was this special. To be frank, it was annoying.
"Alright, alright..." Seungri mutter, "what's got you so grumpy?"
His question was clearly rhetorical, because before Seunghyun could answer, he was walking away to open up shop. He scoffed, shaking his head to himself. Today would be a long day.
—
Four hours into his shift, Seunghyun was starting to regret skipping breakfast. After he'd finished setting up displays, it was onto the less fun part of his job — loading delivery trucks. Since their shop offered same day delivery, he was stuck in the back room most of the day doing heavy lifting, and by noon, he was sweaty and exhausted. He could use some caffeine.
Luckily, by the time he was feeling too tired to work any longer, his lunch break had rolled around. Less luckily, it was his turn to pick up coffee for he and Seungri.
Having to do things he didn't want to do seemed to be the theme of today.
That being said, the thought of coffee was the only thing keeping him going, so he hopped on his bike and quickly headed down to his favorite coffee shop — the only place in town that brewed something strong enough for his liking. Seungri always joked that Seunghyun liked his coffee more bitter than than himself (then would immediately add 'if that's even possible.) and he was right, to be fair. That didn’t make the joke funny though.
He stopped his bike just short of the shop, hopping off and leaning it up against the building, not worried about thieves in such a small, closeknit community. As he entered the building, he was struck with the intoxicating smell of freshly baked cakes and coffee.
"Hey, Seunghyun! The usual?" The cashier greeted, familiar smile still pleasant and warm after all these years.
"Yup," he smiled, pulling out his wallet before she even recited the cost — he knew it by now — and handed her the cash.
"Alright, we'll call your name when it's ready," she replied, handing him back his change.
Seunghyun nodded his response, making his way to the nearest empty table while he waited. He sat with his back to the door, pulling out his phone to distract himself during his wait. He had a few texts to answer — he didn't know why his friend's even bothered texting him, he took forever to answer — and while he was tapping out a response to Youngbae, a bell rang over head, signifying that someone had entered.
Seunghyun didn't look over immediately. He didn't think much of it at first, actually, until he heard a meow. That caught his attention — as far as he knew, pets weren't allowed in here, and who the hell took their cat out of the house anyways?
He got his answer as soon as he looked up, eyes falling on an unfamiliar figure. The first thing that caught his eyes was his hair, which was pastel orange and perfectly styled. Next, the source of the meow — a large cat with long, smokey gray fur and beautiful wide, green eyes, perched on his shoulders like some grossly oversized parrot, somehow maintaining it's balance without digging it's claws into the boy's clothes. Speaking of, he was dressed head to toe in black — from his oversized sweater, to the skin tight black jeans he wore on his thin legs, to his black Doc Martin boots.
It was obvious to Seunghyun immediately that this boy was the witch everyone was talking about. He was a walking a cliché, with the cat and the funeral-worthy garb to match. Seunghyun wanted to scoff and roll his eyes, and yet... There was something more about him, something vaguely enchanting.
Before he could pull his eyes away, the boy looked back at him, and Seunghyun's breath caught in his through. He was... cute. Small and timid looking. Soft, if his deep brown eyes were anything to judge by.
The two held eye contact for an uncomfortable amount of time, staring contest broken when Seunghyun's name was finally called. He blinked out of his trance, standing up so quickly that the boy flinched. Seunghyun blushed as he quickly made his way past the witch, nearly dropping the bag of food in his flustered state. Why was he so nervous? He hears a giggle erupt behind him, further cementing his distain and frustration. Annoyed and embarrassed, Seunghyun gripped the bag tighter and shot him the nastiest glare that he could manage as he walked out, which quickly shut witch-boy up.
—
"Late again. What's the point of riding a bike when you could just walk here in half the time?" Seungri quipped as soon as he stepped through the doors.
"Shut up." Seunghyun shoved Seungri's order into his hands, still on edge from his prior fumble.
"Shit, someone's grumpy. What, coffee not bitter enough?"
"No," Seunghyun insisted, "pretty sure I saw the witch at the coffee shop."
Seungri scoff, "That's what got you so pissed off? Seunghyun, you're bordering on prejudice with all this witch hate."
He'd been so caught off guard, and to think that brat had the nerve to laugh at him when they didn't even know each other. It wouldn't mean much if it was anyone else, but at this point, Seunghyun was almost desperate for a reason to hate him. Still, in the back of his mind, he knew his reasoning was too petty to admit to Seungri.
"That's not it," he lied. "I'm not mad, just tired."
Seungri dropped the subject quickly, peeking into his bag and pulling out a muffin with a pleased smile. "So, what are they like? Did you say hi?"
"I don't know, he came in as I was leaving," Seunghyun said quickly, "and no, of course I didn't."
"He?" Seungri faked a pout. "I was hoping it'd be a girl. Oh well, I guess you can have him then," he laughed.
"Gross." Seunghyun rolled his eyes. Seungri tried to quiz him more about the witch, but he wasn't having any of it, so he eventually dropped the subject altogether and vowed that he'd just have to meet the guy himself.
The rest of their lunch break was spent talking about other things, Seunghyun never quite able to get the witch boy off his mind as he sipped on unpleasantly lukewarm coffee. All the guy had done was laugh, but to Seunghyun, he might as well have insulted his mother and spit in his face — he was offended, and all but convinced that he was right about witches being brats.
It was a shame that such beauty was wasted on him. It really wasn't fair — you couldn't be magic, and beautiful, and treated like a king — rules were already being bent and broken for him and his obnoxiously elegant cat — when he hadn't done anything yet for the community no less!
More important, something about him was affecting Seunghyun, like fog cast over his mind. He didn't have control over himself back there — as soon as they met eyes, he was under his spell, perhaps literally.
In other words, he was fucked.
He really should have been stayed home today.