Chapter Text
“Does this… happen a lot?”
Hyunjin glares, confusedly, at the idle lump of black resting on Jisung’s front porch. He pokes the tip of his shoe into it, retracts with a yelp and a scowl.
“Yes.” Jisung deadpans, sighing.
“Are you… okay?”
“Yes.” Jisung grits again, spinning on his heel and dissapearing into the hallway. “Just peachy.”
See, Jisung always thought that he was coaxed onto the earth on the right side of the coin, at birth. Yes, his magic is unstable at its own will, promiscuous, and perhaps a little unsettling intensity-wise upon first encounter, but he’s lead a relatively average life. He’s got a viable degree in production, he works from home — which is all he’s ever wanted out of life, anyway — for some completely mediocre studio; he lives in a mediocre, plant-ridden house that he bought for himself with his own money, and he’s got a cat and a Hyunjin.
Perfectly domestic, just lonely enough to render his magic largely harmless, and peaceful.
That was, of course, up until three months ago, when a smirky, pretty stranger didn’t live right across the street from him, and dead crows had not begun randomly dropping inside his property lines.
He suspects the two facts should most probably be unrelated, but he’s petty enough to start throwing blame around after he’s had enough unprompted smirks thrown at the general direction of his residence. It must be considered a health hazard, and at this rate, he’s pretty certain it’s intentional.
Hyunjin is hot on his heels, then, not even bothering to take off his shoes. “What the fuck, Sungie?”
Jisung rolls his eyes so far back into his head that his vision spots for a moment as he pads into the kitchen. “Take does damned shoes off, Hyunjin, you just got bird corpse all over them.”
“Exactly!” Hyunjin sputters, hastily prying them off his feet. “Why? What—how did you—I thought it was a one-time thing!“
“I don’t know.” Jisung grunts, throwing the fridge door open with more force than the rusty thing deserves and pulling out his emotional support water bottle. He’s been so prone to headaches lately, it’s driving him halfway insane. A babbling Hyunjin certainly isn’t any help.
“I’ve tried, like—burying them at first, but there were so many, and I didn’t want to ruin my lawn.“
Hyunjin blinks at him. “Have you tried, say, the trash?”
“Yes! And I got a complaint from the neighborhood watch! For animal endangerment!” He smashes himself against the counter, sucking at the straw of his bottle dejectedly. “I’m the one the damned animals are endangering. One landed on my head yesterday, Hyunjin! I had to take three showers!”
Hyunjin, the fool, snickers. “Good. You need like four, at the very least, on a daily basis.”
“This is not funny.” Jisung swats at his head, removing himself from the kitchen to topple down on his couch in a flurry of exaggerated fake gunshots. “Kill me, Jinnie. I want to be free of this torment.”
Hyunjin is still blinking at him from the threshold. “So… what? You’re not piling them in the backyard, are you?”
Jisung lifts his head from the cushions, a devilish grin playing at his lips. “I am absolutely piling them in the backyard.”
𓅪
“Ew.” Is what Hyunjin so intelligently provides, when he’s escorted onto said backyard, staring at a rather hefty pile of dead birds with only a tinge of concern creasing his face. It’s mostly disgust—but it’s nice to know he cares, somewhere… deep down.
“What do I do?” Jisung moans, cradling a hand to his nose. The stench is horrendous. “Even if I get rid of them, more just plops down. It’s unending.”
Hyunjin runs an elegant hand through his hair, considering. He seems to have stumbled upon an idea, gulps in a startled breath, and swiftly regrets it, taking multiple steps back to lean on the back door instead. “Eugh. Um—have you considered that you may have killed someone in a past life?”
“Seriously?” Jisung gasps, no sarcasm in his tone. He’s at a despairing rate towards the very limit of his sane mind, and every solution is a viable one, no matter how unlikely.
“That was a joke, Sungie.” Hyunjin deadpans.
“Oh.”
“Actually,” he restarts, tapping a comical finger to his chin, “No. Wait. Actually…”
Jisung fights to keep himself from jumping on his heels. “What?”
“I think I know who might help you.”
“What?” He asks, dumbly. “Wait—who?” He reiterates, momentarily faltering when Hyunjin carelessly saunters inside after that ominous pit of a statement.
“Hyunjinnie, who!” He calls after him, running into the living room to trail after his evasive best friend. Really, he’s a hassle to keep around, except for when he has vague ideas that vaguely promise to help his sporadically inconvenient afflictions.
Like a month before, when the first crow had unceremoniously fallen and Jisung had been so anxious he’d had the stomach flu from eating too much chocolate ice cream in the dead cold of winter, and Hyunjin had the brilliant idea of teaching him how to make instant hot chocolate and showed up at his door with an entire colony of mass-ordered hotchoccy powder. That certainly was a point in his favor. Not that Jisung’s counting.
“Just you wait!” Hyunjin calls back, throwing his front door open, already scrambling to get his shoes on.
“But—movie night?” Jisung pouts, hugging himself in the entryway when a breeze gently travels through.
Hyunjin visibly softens, reaching a hand out to pet Jisung’s hair impassively. “We can still have movie night, babe. I’m just going to grab someone and come back. Won’t take long.”
“O-kay.” Jisung hums, rolling his eyes as he twists out of the light hold.
𓅪
An hour later, he’s twisting Hyunjin’s arm as he corners him on the steps to his cursed porch. “You brought Freckles?”
“Aish, let go!” Hyunjin yelps. Jisung shows mercy, if only because he cannot listen to Hyunjin whine for more than ten seconds before his mind succumbs to an impending rage fit, and lets him pout as he rubs the arm Jisung was just strangling. “He’s, like, gifted. He just knows things, it’s fucking scary!”
Jisung snorts. “I don’t fucking care that he magically knew the exact location of your prostate on first attempt, Jin. This is serious!”
“I am serious!” Hyunjin retorts. “He will know what to do. Trust me.”
Felix turns, then, apparently having gathered enough from inspecting the single deceased crow that lies wayward in a corner. Jisung hasn’t bothered to pile it with the rest, yet.
There’s a glint in Felix’s eye. Jisung doesn’t fucking like it, that bottomless source of joy on top of the wide, knowing grin. Never mind that his Jinnie has been pining despondently for almost a year, now. Something about Felix’s eyes on him makes him squirm, makes him feel transparent, like those glorified bambi eyes can see right fucking through him.
“Have you ever ignored fate, Jisung?” He asks, and Jisung shudders like a breeze just ran through him.
Jisung was born into magic, sure. He’s not particularly spiritual. His magic doesn’t really do, anything, exactly—except radiate off of him like a cloak of unsettling chides. Strangers usually give him a wide berth. Friends stay over for no longer than twelve hours.
Except Hyunjin. He’s an absolute bloodsucker, actually, and unapologetically renders Jisung lethargic by the time he steps off property. He doesn’t know how Felix can stand him.
“I don’t… think so?”
“Well, it seems to me that you’ve definitely been ignoring something. I have never seen such a potent warning before.”
Oh, so this is a warning. Great. Absolutely not terrifying or horrendously anticlimactic at all.
“Should I be scared of also dropping dead, or…”
“Oh, no, don’t worry.” Felix waves a hand between them, smiling like this is such a common occurrence. “These are just, you know, inconveniences to bother you into straightening the problem faster. Practically harmless.”
“Harmless, right.” Jisung nods. He supposes he’ll just pretend nothing is amiss so his body can catch up to it and stop fucking trembling.
“Yeah, so, you just have to find out what you’ve been ignoring.”
“Me?” He shrieks, eyes blowing wide. “Aren’t you supposed to, like, know everything? Can’t you tell me?”
“It doesn’t work like that, Sungie.” Felix hums, smile bordering on amused, like he’s entertained at Jisung’s naivety. “But I can stay for a while! Do some energy readings, try to give you a base to start from.”
“Yeah. Okay. Sure.” He mumbles, still willing his limbs to quit the damned shivering. He’s not going to die, Freckles can apparently help, and he’s just got to find something he’s ignored lately, besides the dishes in his old sink.
There was a reason the house was so cheap, he supposes. Perhaps his magic accidentally mirrored its drainage problems into its own proprietor.
Come to think of it, he’d thought the real estate agent had been off putting, too. Kim, something. Perhaps their unsettling magic conspired to turn the sign of his lease into a bind that melded his field into the zone of the house.
He shudders. His house is so not coming alive to heed premonitions. He needs coffee.
𓅪
Jisung sits on his couch, chipped mug of coffee cradled in his palms. It’s startlingly bitter — Hyunjin had been so kind to have offered to make it, but aloof enough to burn his offering right onto the bottom of the pot. Too busy staring at Freckles tinkering about, meditating in the middle of the floorboards like a psychotic monk.
To be fair, even Jisung thought he’d start levitating for a minute there.
Now he just glowers at the wall, trying not to stare right at Felix, who is obviously more in the process of turning a deep, steady shade of red under Hyunjin’s scrutiny instead of helping Jisung’s cause. Whatever. Each to their own.
He turns though, when there is a light shuffling, followed by a rather loud shrill—he definitely sees the surface of his coffee ripple with the sheer volume. Felix is leaned into the window, seemingly jumping on his tippy-toes, staring right across the street into — oh, no.
“Oh, Jisung!” He exclaims, again, ripping his gaze from the window and slobbering his unwarranted joy all over Jisung. “You didn’t mention Minho-hyung was here!”
“Minho? Who’s Minho?” Jisung looks around dumbly. His train of thought is a wreckage. Is he… haunted? Does Felix do necromancy as a side hustle?
“No, silly. Your neighbor.” Felix smiles, halfway across the foyer before Jisung processes the fact that he hadn’t said that thought aloud.
Such an excellent development, that his best friend’s impossible crush can also read minds. He can only imagine the temper tantrum Hyunjin is going to throw when he finds out. Jisung will be the one to bear the brunt, while Felix will stay—jovial, probably, smiling his stupidly adorable smiles and flustering Jinnie beyond mend while heinously knowing every single thought flitting through the poor man’s head.
He sighs, drags himself to his porch with a wariness he hasn’t felt in a long time. And… yeah, what the hell. It gets worse.
Surely, the view that greets him cannot be that of his neighbor as he looks up from where he was mowing the damned lawn in the middle of the afternoon, startles, and completely beams at the sight of the little witch. Surely, he hasn’t just heard a loud, rich, “Lixie!” and watched Felix be dragged into a huddling bear hug right on the guy’s front yard.
Except, that’s exactly what just transpired in front of his very own eyes. That he’d thought weren’t impaired and undependable minutes ago.
Felix goes with a smile so blinding Jisung is afraid Hyunjin is going to permanently alter his face with the depth of his scowl.
“Great.” He grumbles to himself. “Smuglord and Sunshine are besties. I might gag.”
“I sure hope that’s all they are.” Hyunjin mutters.
“Yeah.” Jisung sighs, for at least the hundredth time that day.
That is when he decides, he needs something to enliven his life. Because this — at the rate his stress levels are operating — is simply not going to cut it, and he can virtually see the depression slump hurtling at him full force over the horizon just behind Minho’s house. Fuck. He needs a challenge, maybe. He’d use to love challenging himself, and his friends, even strangers. Somewhere along the way, between the rambunctious college years and now, life got hard, and the urge to survive by means of tranquility weighed more than his spontaneous bouts of joy.
It could be the case that he’s been mistaking the soundlessness of tranquility with a sincere sense of peace, rather than facing it head on: an easier way to label his definite, pounding loneliness.
Certainly not a place to have an almost-middle-age-crisis slash revelation, watching two people make small talk across a street like a fucking creep, but he’ll take what he can get.
Hu turns to Hyunjin, feigning calm like his mind hadn’t been trashing a mile a minute. “Tell you what—I’ll make a move on Smuglord if you come clean to Felix.”
Hyunjin blinks at him. “Come clean, as in?”
“Finally admit you want to fuck him into another dimension, maybe.”
“Han Jisung!” He shrieks, landing a hearty slap at his arm before he can dodge it. Jisung involuntarily rubs at the spot. Damn, does he slap hard.
“Deal?” He grins at his dearest best friend, sickly sweet.
Hyunjin squints at him. “You’ll really ask him out?”
“Ask him over, more like. But yes.” He quips. He can do this—he used to be so good at this. Things cannot change that much. Right?
“Fine, then.” Hyunjin shrugs, but he doesn’t miss the lewd look he’s leveled with. “You’re on.”
“Jisung! Come here!”
Jisung startles. Felix has apparently decided then be the best time to wave him over, enthusiastic even in his expectancy. The neighbor — Minho, is also watching him, which, no.
He turns to Hyunjin helplessly, but his friend is of no use just when it matters most. He shrugs, again, scurrying inside the house with a wink and a righteous stride. Jisung plots three different ways to kill him in the second it takes to turn back around and plaster on a smile that even he knows must look forced.
He crosses the street thinking up a million different cuss words strung together in various collocations. It’s fun. And calming. He’s totally zen.
Felix grins at his approach, slinging a casual arm over his shoulder. “I had no idea you two were neighbors, Sung!”
“We haven’t yet met, I think.” Said neighbor offers a hand, a light smile tugging at his offendingly soft-looking lips. Fuck. “Lee Minho.”
“Han Jisung.” He offers back, cursing up another batch at his clammy hands as he shakes Minho’s hand.
Minho’s smile widens with a twitch, glance landing at their interlocked hands, crawling to his face, then, miraculously, it flits to where Felix’s arm is hanging off of his shoulder.
Oh. Oh.
Jisung’s mood brightens immediately. Perhaps he had been smart to stir up a challenge, as it currently seems to be oh for one in his favor.
“Jisungie here has a dire case of cosmic intervention, I’m afraid.” Felix helpfully provides, right then.
Yeah, fuck this little witch, actually. Jisung shoots daggers at the side of his face.
“Oh, really?” Minho counters, seeming politely interested, but directing the question at Jisung himself.
He fakes a sigh. “Apparently. That’s what this shit-face is telling me.”
“Hey!” Felix quips, swatting at his shoulder. “I’m trying to help you.”
“Thanks.” Jisung deadpans.
Minho chuckles, glancing between them. “I suppose this has something to do with the birds?”
Right, fuck. Jisung buries his face in his palms, groaning. “You’ve seen them?”
“Uh, yeah.” Minho scrunches his face. Cute. “I’ve seen you throw them out a couple of times, and—I can actually hear them. Dropping. They’re quite loud.”
Really, this is just amazing. Of course his blatantly-gorgeous-extremely-Jisung’s-type neighbor has seen him haul around chunks of dead crows like a fucking weirdo. Three fucking hollers. He briefly wonders if his heinously concocted plan of asking him over for dinner after he’s solved his Dead Crow Infestation Problem is soiled.
It probably is. Alas, Jisung is nothing if not violently persistent. Nothing can be let down the drain in his strategic play. Minho is yet to be acquired.
“Well, sorry about that. Much louder over there.” He points a thumb back to the direction of his own house.
“Must be awful.”
Jisung feels his smile border on manic. “Awful is the pile in my backyard. Wanna see?”
He just wants to get Minho inside the perimeters of the house, so he can boast to Hyunjin about how quick it had been. Ask Minho over? Already aced. Is it cheating, if it’s not under the pretense of romantic intentions? Sure, obviously—but not if Hyunjin doesn’t realize it.
Minho looks startled for all of two seconds before he shrugs. “Sure, why not.”
𓅪
Sure enough, Hyunjin is currently gaping at him from the living room couch as he leads Minho innocuously to his back porch.
“Here is the batch from this week.” He explains, making frantic “ta-da” hands at the rotting pile. Gauges Minho’s reaction. Hm. Maybe he should’ve thought this a little more thoroughly.
Minho looks mildly disconcerted. A lot carefully neutral. “Like I said.” He spares Jisung a glance. “Awful.”
Felix hovers in the corner, seeming distraught.
“Can’t you, like, get rid of them?” Minho asks, frowning—most probably at the smell. It does seem to be the key quality of this tragic shit-show.
“Tried burying, burning, general thrash-throwing, deep-cleaning, everything you can think of, baby.” He smiles ruefully. “It’s all wasted effort in the end. Might as well pile ‘em.”
He realizes now that this might not rate on world’s best pick-up strategies, okay? But it’s what he’s irrationally and impulsively decided to work with, and he’ll milk every last drop.
“Total bummer on the life-quality thing, too, you know?” He pouts, mixing that with a pinch of helpless desperation. Bon appetit, Min Ho.
True to his premonition, Minho scowls, brows furrowing, top lip jutting. It’s kind of really pleasant to stare at, actually.
Okay, so, this might be backfiring on him. Jisung sort of wants to bite Minho’s lips. Which was not part of the intricately woven game plan. But whatever.
Minho’s scowl deepens, and he swivels abruptly to approach Freckles, who’s somehow gone faintly pale and is looking quite like a cornered animal in the… well, corner.
“Hey, Lix, you okay?”
“Remind me how you two know each other again?” Jisung blurts, rubbing at his nape, sheepish and bewildered at how sickly Freckles has gotten. How did he not notice that?
“University.” Minho curtly provides, at the same time that the little witch breathes, “I don’t think you should stay here anymore, Jisung.”
“Oh, cool. What major?” Jisung asks, smiling—until his brain promptly catches up with him. “Wait, what?”
Hyunjin materializes on Felix’s other side, locked in a potent glaring contest with Minho’s hand, currently cradling the witch’s shoulder. Jisung really does try to hold back his sigh, but at this point, it’s no use.
“What do you mean?” He exhales through his nose. This is okay, he tells himself. It’s fine. Freckles will know what to do.
“Your energy field…” Felix mumbles, voice shaky, “is waning. Around the birds.”
“What?” Minho quips, head snapping at Jisung. He watches him, feline eyes narrowed to a slit, for a few, tense moments—and then his jaw drops open. “Oh my God.”
“What?” Jisung presses, arms coming up involuntarily to wrap around himself.
“They’re suckling on you.” Minho accuses.
Felix sags into Hyunjin’s awaiting arms. “You’ll be drained dry if you keep staying here.”
Jisung gapes, heart jackrabbiting at an unforgiving pace. He might pass out, actually. Fuck. “Dry, as in?”
Minho abandons an armful of Felix to wrap around Hyunjin, in favor of striding up Jisung. He comes near enough for it to be socially acceptable, maybe, and then closer — too close. Presses the back of his hand to Jisung’s forehead. His hands are cold. “Have you been having headaches, or nausea?”
Jisung squirms. “Yeah…”
“Been spacing out more regularly?” Minho raises a brow, hand sliding down his temple, his cheek, until it settles behind his nape, his hold firm and unrelenting.
“I don’t know.” Jisung mumbles, feeling breathless, no doubt growing pinker the more Minho stares. “I do that a lot, it’s hard to tell.”
“Hm.” He hums, staring at Jisung’s chest absentmindedly, then, his other hand comes up, settling right on the middle of his sternum.
Jisung feels it, then. Minho’s magic. His eyes flutter closed entirely on their own accord, a velvety coil snaking around his ribs, silky like fur, faint like a breeze, almost imperceptible. It feels as though he’s standing directly under sunlight, the way his entire body warms—and the light, sugary scent shouldn’t be emanating from the magic but merely Minho’s proximity. Its dizzying.
“What—what are you doing?” He breathes out. Surely, Minho can feel his pulse thrumming under his hand. Perhaps it’s a side effect.
“Replenishing what you’ve already lost.” Minho mumbles.
Replenishing? That’s quite impossible, actually. Transfer of magic is a lost art, and incredibly dangerous to perform if one’s not a —
“You’re a Healer.” He hears Hyunjin’s incredulous accusation, and he frowns.
“I thought — aren’t Healers extinct?”
Minho scoffs, hands pressing more insistently. “Evidently not.”
Jisung is growing increasingly worried with how floaty his head is getting. His eyes would’ve rolled back hadn’t they been already closed, and he feels every single limb tremble with the rate of his pulse.
“Minho-ssi.” He whispers, feeling like his chest is being caved open. Like the raw breeze is catching on his insides. It’s not cold, just, intense.
“You can call me hyung, darling.” Minho murmurs. Such a soothing timbre, his addled brain provides. “You okay?”
“Mhm.” He can’t trust his voice not to break.
“Just a little bit left, baby. Try to relax.”
Jisung’s breath hitches. Minho’s probably calling him that on purpose, so he’d be less overwhelmed, less antsy, but still. Still. His brain has gone static, and it latches onto the nickname. Darling. Baby.
Then, Minho’s hands retreat, and Jisung sags like they’ve been the only anchors holding him up. He tips over, face landing right against Minho’s shoulder, and he feels the distinct warmth of arms wrapping around him.
“It’s okay.” Minho’s saying. “Let’s get you out of here, hm?”
“Where?” Jisung mumbles, eyes flitting open to look for Hyunjin, or Felix, but neither are there.
“Felix said you should crash at my place. For a while. Until he figures something out.”
Jisung doesn’t remember hearing a conversation at all. “But—I wouldn’t want to, like, inconvenience you.”
“It’s really no hassle.” Minho smiles, looping an arm around his waist to support his weight as he walks them back into the house. “You should get some of your stuff.”
“Where’s Jinnie and Freckles?”
Minho’s lips twitch. “Hyunjin took them home. Felix’s magic is… adaptive, let’s say. He gets affected by things fast. He should rest before he comes back to work on here.”
Jisung pouts, despite himself. “I feel bad, now.”
Minho hand squeezes around his waist. “It’s not your fault, darling.”
Jisung grumbles, trudging into his room, trying to wrap his head around the fact that his very hot neighbor — that he likes to regularly ogle across the street — has taken a rather rapid liking to touching him and calling him pet names. And is inviting him to stay at his house. And is still unfairly gorgeous doing it.
What a fucking day.