Chapter Text
Seonghwa’s senses were on high alert.
Yeosang must have also sensed his unease as he had been watchful for the past few days.
Seonghwa’s jaw was clenched and his brow was furrowed in deep confliction, sitting for hours on end in the solitude of his garden — away from social interactions like some crotchety old garden gnome. In turn, his dear younger (more sane) brother had begun to follow him about their home like some perpetual, lovingly concerned, cloud.
But Seonghwa paid it no mind.
Instead, he continued to work within the confines of his fruits and vegetables. Evading sleep like a ghost light on the moor — flickering close but just beyond reach. Tempting him into a false sense of calm before he’d jolt himself awake to work on another gardening task.
Something was wrong .
Not with the house — Seonghwa had triple-checked the wards and even re-oiled the herb bundles the great aunts had taught him to make in every room with hawthorn, mugwort, and salt.
No, it wasn’t the home.
But the visceral pull continued — an aching worry that itched under Seonghwa’s ribs. A kind of unease that didn’t come from a bad meal or overwatering precious cucumbers. No, it was an unease sourced from the side of him that was blood-deep knowing passed down through generations.
And that made it worse.
Because acknowledging it would mean using his power . And Seonghwa had promised himself long ago — he wouldn’t. Not unless it was necessary. Seonghwa refused to know what caused the deep ache that itched in his ribs, caged like a wild bird thrumming its wings with a need to be set free. He refused to let his body shut down to find out, because every time he closed his eyes, he was haunted by a thrum just beneath his skin, a static crackling like summer lightning off in the distance.
But the feeling, the gnawing worry, was the familiar sensation he used to get just before something tragic happened. The time his father’s ship got lost at sea and met his untimely end. The time his mother had passed from a broken heart while Seonghwa was at the park with his brothers.
No, Seonghwa refused to sleep and refused to consult the grimoire. The family grimoire that had sat untouched on the highest shelf in the apothecary, gathering more dust than legacy, and which kept flashing in the back of his mind. He hadn’t cracked its spine in over half a decade, hadn’t dared whisper its incantation in all that time. The last time he had, it had cost him a piece of himself he wasn’t willing to lose again.
And so each morning, Jongho and Yeosang found Seonghwa in the garden, toiling away in the same muddy apron, a disheveled mess of dirt and faded fabric. After the third day, Jongho seemed to be getting restless with his hyung’s fortified passion for the great outdoors.
“Sangie, shouldn’t we tell him to take a break?” Jongho’s gaze was fierce as he looked on from the kitchen window.
Yeosang hummed in return, “He’ll be fine. He had mentioned wanting to tend to the weedlings this week.”
And yet, the next day when Jongho came to visit, he’d glanced over the fence and nearly fainted at what looked like a tall hunched-over stump skulking about the garden.
Seonghwa looked like he hadn’t changed or showered. There was no trace of the person who had once been so meticulous about his appearance. Really! Jongho had always known his hyung to be someone with an uncanny ability to spend hours on end touching grass and all types of plants and still return with not even a speck of dirt under his well-trimmed fingernails.
However, the fabric of Seonghwa’s clothes clung to his skin, soaked from the rain that had poured the night before. His hair was greasy and matted, falling into his eyes. He didn’t seem to notice, or maybe, he simply didn’t care. His shoulders were slumped and downtrodden. His posture was far from the tall, elegant figure he once was four days ago, and the deep dark bags under his eyes made it clear he hadn’t slept properly in days. The smell of wet soil and damp moss clung to him, seeping into the air like a quiet warning that sent alarm bells off in Jongho’s head.
Jongho’s steps could be heard as he brushed through the overgrown grass. “Hyung, how long have you been out here?”
Seonghwa nearly dropped the old watering pot he’d been using. “ Aigo , Jongie you nearly made me drown my poor Akako!” his hands trembled as he cradled the watering pot, as though it were the only thing tethering him from the near reality of overwatering his heirloom tomatoes.
“ Tch , hyung the only one who looks like they’ve drowned is you.” Jongho scoffed, “Have you even had breakfast?”
Seonghwa’s ears reddened, “I’m not hungry—” Jongho’s scrutinizing gaze had the older tactfully continue, “... yet . I’ll go inside after I finish doing some check-ups on my cabbages.”
Jongho continued to squint at the older before huffing at whatever conclusion he’d come to from his impromptu study. “I’m making some hotteok for Sangie. I’m saving you a plate.” Seonghwa sagely nodded, before Jongho continued, “And..you really should wash up when you come inside. You’re starting to look—”
Seonghwa cut him off with a flippant wave of his hand. “Yes, Jongie.” His figure was now hunched over a cluster of tear-shaped leaves. “ I’ll make sure to shower.”
And still, when evening came, Yeosang said his goodbyes to Jongho but the plate of hotteoks remained on the kitchen island cold and untouched.
After a few more days of skulking about the garden, Seonghwa had moved himself into the greenhouse away from Jongho’s continued insistence on coming inside to bathe and Yeosang’s watchful gaze through the kitchen window.
“Seonghwa-ya, the shop, the plants…everything will go to waste if you don’t take care of yourself first.” Yeosang stood by the greenhouse’s door, his tone soothing, like the trickle of a small stream.
But Seonghwa had simply nodded, not meeting the younger’s gaze. “I’ll get to it later.”
The following morning things hadn’t improved. Yeosang had entered the greenhouse to find Seonghwa still laboring away. The older’s hands were stiffly gripping a garden fork, his eyes were unfocused, his apron streaked with more grime, and his boots caked in mud—an unsettling sight for the usually immaculate eldest brother.
“Hyung,” Yeosang had whispered, trying not to push too hard. “You’ve barely slept or eaten anything these past few days. Come inside.”
Seonghwa gave a slight shake of his head. “I’m not hungry,” he replied, his voice so distant it barely sounded like his own. There was a long pause between the two brothers.
Yeosang stared at Seonghwa for a long moment, before nodding, “I understand, I’ll leave some rice porridge out in case you do get hungry.”
Later that day, Yeosang had taken a quiet walk through the garden, his eyes scanning for any sign of improvement in the plants. The once pristine garden had gradually become a tomb of tangled vines and wilting leaves. The plant beds were overwatered and the leaves wilted and yellowing. Everything was still overgrown, and the flowers had started to look faded.
By the seventh day, Seonghwa had hardly moved from his spot in the greenhouse. When Jongho entered, Seonghwa remained seated at his worktable, cradling a sack of fertilizer. His apron was so heavily caked with dirt that it looked like it had been part of the soil. He didn’t notice when Jongho stepped in and didn’t flinch when the younger one called out his name.
By nighttime, there was still no sign of Seonghwa getting any better. Jongho and Yeosang had grown more concerned, but there was nothing they could do to force him out of his trance.
He still refused to come inside to eat or bathe. And when Yeosang had magicked a quilt that smelled like sun-dried cotton and chamomile for Seonghwa to try to at least get some rest on the front porch, Seonghwa had scurried back to the greenhouse like a spooked stray cat. His body had grown frail, his posture weaker, as if he was slowly disappearing into himself. The only thing that remained constant was the potted plant, held tightly in Seonghwa’s hands.
“What do you think caused this?” Jongho asked when he’d come to deliver the Parks’ packages that had piled up on the front porch.
Yeosang had tried for a smile, attempting to hide his concern bubbling underneath his composure.
“I do not know,” Yeosang replied, “At first I had thought that he might be going through his seasonal sabbatical.”
Jongho furrowed his brow in confusion, “He runs a flower shop,” their shoulders grazed as the two moved the parcels into the kitchen, “how much of a rest is it if he continues to work with flowers and refuses to eat, sleep, or bathe when on break?”
Yeosang hummed in thought, “Perhaps the artemisia needs more tending to than initially thought?”
“Maybe,” Jongho began patiently, “we should go see if we need to brace ourselves for prying him away from those shrubs again.”
Shuffling from the kitchen’s side door caused the two to stop and wait with bated breath. Seonghwa’s tall, frumpy form stopped at the kitchen’s doorway.
“Hwa-hyung?” Yeosang called out after a few minutes of silence as their only welcome. “Is everything all right?”
Ever since Seonghwa had taken up the craft of plant-tending, he’d prided himself in magically never getting a speck of mud on his pristine clothes. Elegant, slender, and sleek were words commonly associated with the eldest Park brother at a given moment. But currently, Yeosang and Jongho stared in equal parts appalled and consoling at the figure shambling its way into the kitchen.
Seonghwa was still dressed in his muddied apron which was haphazardly loose around his body, the fabric dangling untied over his form. Yeosang’s eyes widened as he noted the older’s lack of concern for his boots dropping dirt with every step he took throughout the kitchen.
“You left your Bamazon packages at the door for a week,” Jongho stated, arms crossed as he leaned against the kitchen counter.
Seonghwa shook his head, as if to clear his mind, “Has it been a sennight?”
Seonghwa took a seat at the kitchen island still cradling the dripping pot he had walked in with.
The duo shared a look.
He’s joking, right?
I’ve never known Hwa-hyung to be this woolgathering.
Jongho stood taller, “Hyung, you can’t keep going on like this.”
Yeosang nodded encouragingly, eyes darting from the cradled pot of grass(?) to the deep crescent moons under Seonghwa’s tired eyes.
Seonghwa remained impassive, “Going on like what, Jongie?”
“Hyung, just look around.” Jongho implored, “You’re tracking in mud, which you hate. You haven’t done any of your daily in-town tasks, let alone your weekly tasks. Quite frankly, I doubt you’ve come into contact with any body of water unless it was to water your plants. Sangie and I have yet to see you eat anything. And I can surely bet that if I were to open your bedroom door you’d have an out-of-ordinary amount of dust in there from refusing to leave the greenhouse.”
“And you’re carrying around grass,” Yeosang added, eyes locked on the dripping pot as if he could will it away.
This seemed to be the breaking point of the impromptu intervention.
“Ikkimasu is not grass , they’re moss .” Seonghwa clarified, tightening his hold on his beloved plant offspring.
Yeosang’s eyebrow arched in a bemused epiphany.
Jongho’s brow straightened as he stared flatly.
A pause of silence passed between the trio before Seonghwa let out a deep, long sigh.
“I’m sorry for worrying you both,” he began, “my senses have been… off for these past few days.”
“Hyung, it’s okay to not feel well. We-we just wish you would lean on us to help you, please .” Seonghwa had always had a soft spot for Jongho, he had raised him since their school days. So for the younger to be looking at him with pleading eyes and a hopeful gaze it was only a matter of when Seonghwa would cave into such a request.
Nodding in understanding, Seonghwa finally placed Ikkimasu on the table before rubbing his eyes. Yeosang shared a look with Jongho, who after some moments rolled his eyes in a put-upon manner before the two swiftly moved to encompass their hyung in a warm embrace.
The newfound peace within the kitchen was shortly interrupted as Seonghwa heard the wards throughout the estate grounds begin to hum in warning.
Someone is coming.
And just like that, all Seonghwa’s excuses shattered.
Soon the rumbling roar of a car engine seemed to increase in volume, followed by three consecutive honking BEEP, BEEP, BEEP from outside the cozy home. Yeosang and Seonghwa looked at each other.
Could it truly be?
But in his last text, he had never mentioned…
The brothers broke apart, leaving a pouting Jongho muttering “I hate when they do that” as they rushed to confirm who was quickly driving up the old dirt path of the Park home.
For nearly 300 years, the Park family had been blamed for everything that had gone wrong in their small coastal town. If a dry spell struck before harvest, if cattle strangely disappeared in the middle of the night, or if a rooster stopped crowing at dawn then the townsfolk were sure to believe that a Park had some degree of involvement with the strange turn of events.
For Park Seonghwa, he’d come to understand at an early age that it didn’t matter if a misfortune could be explained by logical reasoning or scientific method the townspeople would be sure to point their fingers towards the “peculiar Parks” who lived at the end of Camellia Lane.
Surely it couldn’t be true that one sole household could bring so much misfortune and chaos…that is unless such a family had one Park Wooyoung in the midst.
During their youth, the brothers had tried to keep a low profile. Having just moved into their familial estate after the untimely passing of their parents, the last thing on their minds was any form of hell-raising or mischief-making.
But, as time continued to pass, the townsfolk seemed to continue to blame the young Park brothers for whatever new mishaps or misfortunes had occurred since their arrival. And so, the youngest Park brother became the nail that stuck out with his refusal to be the scapegoat of the coastal town.
If schoolyard name-calling of “witch” or “orphan” were met with a swift pointed finger and vehement “I hope you get warts!” by one young Park Wooyoung, then who was to blame if said school bullies ended up covered in bandaids-smelling of apple cider vinegar? If Jang Soohyun said it was a shame that the Park brothers were too eerie for their good looks then it was her fault that she [along with anyone else who had dared to agree] would be plagued with intense acne for the coming months. And if stupid muscle pig Min Joon were to dare to trip an unsuspecting Yeosang in the hallway between passing periods then it was his fault that his very same foot would be run over within that very same month.
These were all purely coincidental incidents that gave Seonghwa stress-related gray hairs to his already natural silver head of hair.
Seonghwa truly couldn’t believe his eyes, parked at the gate of the old stone fence stood none other than the youngest Park brother, leaning casually against the hood of his Cadillac.
Park Wooyoung was a black cat. Wandering wherever he pleased with his crafty, vulpine grin, a mischievous gleam in his dark eyes, and quick wit.
“Woo!” Yeosang smiled as he broke into a run.
“Youngie!” Seonghwa followed close behind.
The three crashed into one another in a forceful clash of outstretched limbs and beating hearts.
“Stars above, I missed you both!” came Wooyoung’s muffled voice.
Taking a moment to look over his youngest brother, Seonghwa’s heart seemed to freeze over.
A swelling of purples and blues marred Wooyoung’s cheek — cruel reminders of fists that had landed too hard, too many times. The bruises seemed halfway to healing, but the anger behind them echoed a fresh telltale of trouble recently encountered.
Seonghwa’s stomach twisted.
This is what I felt, wasn’t it? That restless feeling. That tightness in my chest . He hadn’t had proper sleep for nearly a week before Wooyoung arrived — something unshakable had clawed at him. He’d paced the halls, and stared at the ceiling fan in the dark, heart hammering with the weight of unspoken dread.
And now, looking at the bruises blooming across Wooyoung’s cheek and neck, the pieces fell into place far too late.
I should have called. I should’ve known .
“Who did this to you, Woo?” Jongho, who had approached with less speed, also noticed the bruising across Wooyoung’s face and neck.
“I’m fine, Jongie — and that's hyung to you,” Wooyoung demanded, ruffling the hair of an unimpressed Jongho. Jongho stared before Wooyoung continued, “Don’t worry your precious little head.”
Wooyoung pulled away from the affectionate hold before continuing, “The bastard got what he deserved in the end.”
“Good,” came Jongho’s measured response. “He better hope to never show his face here, even if he did.” Seeming satisfied with his response, Jongho nodded before giving a welcoming hug of his own.
“I shall help you with your luggage.” came Yeosang’s quip as he opened the back door of the Cadillac. Jongho immediately took the suitcase from Yeosang as they walked back up the porch’s steps into the house.
Seonghwa stayed back, He couldn’t move.
He took another look at his Youngie, gaze falling hard on the way Wooyoung’s lip twitched when he tried to smile.
“Are you sure you are fine?”
He cradled the unmarred side of his brother’s face, gently — so gently — as if Wooyoung might break under anything more than a whisper of a touch.
And in that moment, he wasn’t looking at all of his brother’s debonair flare and devil-may-care theatrics. He was looking at the little boy who refused to let go of his hand when they first moved into the Park estate. The little boy who used to climb into his bed when thunderstorms rolled in, eyes wide with fear and arms curled around his favorite blanket. The boy who whispered secrets into Seonghwa’s ear in the dead of night because only hyung would understand .
And now, he’d been hurting. Alone.
Why didn’t I know?
Why didn’t I just let myself fall asleep? Why didn’t I check?
Wooyoung met Seonghwa’s gaze, “Hyung, I’m fine now”
And Seonghwa nodded, lips parting but no words came out. Because fine wasn’t enough — not when guilt coiled around in his ribs like an unforgiving vice, not when his instincts had screamed something was wrong and he had refused to understand .
But he would now.
He’d never ignore that feeling again.
Going in for one more welcoming embrace, Wooyoung let out an oomph at the sheer force Seonghwa used. As if trying to squeeze all the air out of the younger one would show just how much Seonghwa cared for and missed his youngest brother.
Swatting at Seonghwa’s shoulder, Wooyoung’s muffled voice pleaded “Hyung, please, you smell like fertilizer and compost hate fucked and had a bastard love child.” Breaking free from the cocktail of micronutrients, Wooyoung pinched his nose, “Why do you smell like medieval times?”
Seonghwa laughed for the first time in weeks, fondly ruffling Woo’s hair, “It truly is nice for you to be home, Youngie.”
The duo made their way inside, only for Yeosang, Jongho, and Wooyoung to immediately steer Seonghwa straight to the bathroom to take a much-needed shower.
***
By the time Seonghwa was done with his highly-anticipated shower, the bathroom mirror was well-fogged with steam. Hair pushed back with his favorite bunny headband, Seonghwa was well past his cleansing, finished exfoliating, and halfway into his moisturizing routine when he felt the shift in the estate’s wards. Pausing mid-circular motion, Seonghwa’s head turned to the closed bathroom door. The chilled ringing tingled down his spine as goosebumps rose on the back of his neck.
Danger.
Quickly, Seonghwa’s slippered feet descended the old staircase two at a time to go where the source of the tingling sensation grew strongest.
The lights throughout the home had long since been turned off sometime between Yeosang’s awkward, long-drawn-out farewell to Jongho and Seonghwa’s forty-five-minute shower concert. Instead, candles illuminated the dark corners of the hallway, elongating shadows in every nook and cranny throughout the house.
Coupled with the tasteful amount of antique decor, old portraits of Parks long since passed, and traditional taxidermy of a vast array of animals and insects alike made the hallways look more like an emporium of oddities and curiosities than a household to three in their late twenties. If the townspeople could see into the Park estate now, it truly would be hard to dismiss all the accusations of witchcraft and sorcery.
So what nightmarish horror was Seonghwa met with?
One (1) Wooyoung in the entrance hall hunched over an old battered trunk that he seemed to be mustering all his strength to drag across the knobbled floorboards. Stopping mid-pull, Wooyoung looked up, eyes widening at Seonghwa’s confused frame standing at the base of the stairs.
“Fuck!” quickly straightening himself, Wooyoung stepped in front of his trunk “Hyung, I thought you had gone to bed for the night.”
Readjusting his bathrobe, Seonghwa looked to Wooyoung, his ever-growing suspicion increasing tenfold with every second Wooyoung spent fidgeting in front of the chest. Seonghwa swore he saw it rattle aggressively before Wooyoung not-so-secretly sent a well-aimed kick to cease any more signs of movement.
The brothers stood in silence for a few minutes.
The younger hoped the passing of time would yield a turned cheek and a “good night” of tired reluctance. The older growing more impatient for a mundane explanation of “Oh, this old thing? The extra luggage I forgot to ask Jongho to bring in before he left” before Seonghwa could guiltlessly make his way back up the stairs and into the bathroom to finish his moisturizing and begin his haircare routine with a sound mind and clear conscience.
…
…
…
An owl could be heard hooting off in the dark.
Seonghwa, at his wit's end and annoyed with the seemingly ceaseless silence, made his way to the luggage trunk.
“Wait, hyung! I don’t-”
Opening the chest, Seonghwa’s heart dropped straight down into his ass.
Bound and gagged was a person.
A man who looked very much passed out.
A man with dark hair, abnormally pale skin, and dark patches of discolored bruising along the joints of his arms and neck. Who, with each passing second that Seonghwa continued to look at, looked very much not living.
The body in question was stiff!
“Hyung, please help me get rid of the body.”
Seonghwa’s heart felt like it was going to give out. He turned wide-eyed to look at Wooyoung’s pleading eyes and clasped hands.
“Woo,” Seonghwa’s mind was reeling, thoughts racing a mile a minute, “You drove a dead body to our home?”
Who was this person standing in front of him? Surely, it wasn’t his baby brother who had brought a corpse into their family home. Could five years away from home be all it took for his dear, slightly chaotic brother to drive through several provinces with a hidden corpse in tow?
“He was already dead when I killed him. I swear on the moon and sun!”
“What do you mean he was already dead? Who even is this ?”
Could five long years cause a drastic change in logical reasoning and critical thinking skills?
Gaping, like the world’s unluckiest goldfish fresh out of water, Wooyoung floundered to answer.
At that moment, the corpse in question moved.
It not only moved but wildly thrashed about so forcefully that it was able to escape the confines of the luggage trunk. Inhuman grunting could be heard as the corpse made to stand on his feet. And as if the universe had a sense of humor, it just so happened that Wooyoung had forgotten to bind the corpse’s legs before tossing him into the trunk. His speed was too quick for either of the brothers to fully register before Wooyoung was pinned up against the wall in a crushing grip. Restrained hands violently squeezed Wooyoung’s throat as the latter thrashed and struggled to escape the rabid attack.
Fear and adrenaline coursed through Seonghwa’s veins, His blood pumping like a cornered rabbit about to be caught.
A spell!
Panicking, Seonghwa grabbed the old mantel clock at the entrance table and purposefully swung the blunt object.
The polished, solid marble of the clock let out a resounding thud upon impact with the skull of the raging stranger. And as if strings had been snipped off a marionette puppet, the corpse fell lifelessly. An echoed thump of dead weight falling suddenly to the ground.
For a brief moment, a silence filled the entrance hall. All that could be heard was the labored breathing of the brothers. Wooyoung crouched on the ground gasping for much-needed air. Seonghwa looked down at the perfectly intact mantel clock clutched in his hand.
Oh, that’s not normal.
Breathless, Seonghwa wiped away at the non-existent wrinkles of his bathrobe. “We'll put it in the apothecary.”
Wooyoung’s eyes were wide in shock as Seonghwa passed him the mantle clock, not wanting to have to feel its weight for a moment longer.
Seonghwa took a deep breath before mustering his strength to heave the dead weight of the stranger back into the trunk and fasten the locks for good measure. Refusing to use magic, Seonghwa used the entry rug to wrap around the trunk before pulling it further into the house, straight to the front doors of the apothecary workroom.
After some struggling, where Wooyoung was forced to quickly and efficiently unlock the doors while Seonghwa waited, looking down his neck like a hawk in wait for the hunt, they were finally able to enter the dusty workroom of Park’s past.
The two pulled the dead weight of the trunk further into the room.
For generations, the Parks had prided themselves as a family with an inherited skill set for an affinity towards nature and all that comes from it. The fruit reaped from generations of skill refining could be found within the ancient workroom on the eastern side of the Park’s ancestral residence. Bottles and jars of dried herbs could be found in most, if not every corner of the room. A diverse array of herbs and plants in a multitude of drawers and shelves that spanned from floor to ceiling. The room had been perfect for its original purpose; to practice spell-casting, potion-making, and alchemy. However, Seonghwa had only ever used the room for his herbalist work when his time allowed him away from his garden and greenhouse.
Currently, the Park grimoire sat innocently on the workbench, opened to a page Yeosang had surely dog-eared with little thought about the proper care for sacred texts. The ink was dark and elegant, the script winding like ivy, etched by their great-grandmother’s hand. The page trembled ever so slightly under the flickering light of the workroom.
Seonghwa’s hands hovered above it. They shook.
The memory of earlier—of Wooyoung pinned against the wall by something inhuman, bruised, and gasping—echoed in his mind like a thunderclap.
He had felt it then. The old magic. The call. He’d felt the spells stirring inside his chest the moment Wooyoung had been placed in harm's way. The incantations like a second skin, waiting to be worn again.
And that terrified him more than the creature ever could.
He didn’t want to go back.
He didn’t want to become someone who relied on that magic—who got too cocky and refused to take heed to the warning signs.
“I’m not doing this,” he muttered, voice hoarse, as he sat on the trunk turning away from the open book.
“But hyung—” Wooyoung stepped closer, his voice raw but more gentle than usual.
“No,” Seonghwa shook his head and childishly crossed his arms, “No, we’ll find another way. No more ancestral invocations, no more rituals that require blood or breath. Not until I know you’re safe.”
“I know you’re scared, hyung. But it doesn’t have to own you.” Wooyoung smiled—soft, sincere, without any of his usual mischievous smirk. “You're not the same person you were back then. And we’re not alone. You have us.”
And maybe that was the first moment in days Seonghwa let himself breathe.
He wouldn’t do it alone. And really what other alternative could he think of to get rid of whatever Wooyoung’s plus one even was to begin with? Dead or alive the thing had hurt his brother and clearly, Woooyung was at his wit’s end and scarred enough to feel the need to bring the creature home for help.
Seonghwa uncrossed his arms before conceding, “Fine, we’ll use the book.”
Wooyoung nearly jumped for joy as he made his way to the workbench. Holding the ancestral grimoire, Wooyoung paused before flipping its pages, “Do you think it’ll have anything on necromancy?”
“For our sake, I sure hope so.”
After five minutes of skimming through the texts of magical practices and rituals, Seonghwa and Wooyoung agreed to unlock the luggage trunk. It took an added ten minutes of quick sparknotes reading of the pages on expelling bad entities from mortal hosts for the brothers to lug the corpse onto the work table and begin to gather the materials needed for casting.
Let the record show the current generation of Parks had only ever watched their great aunts perform rituals from the sidelines or through cracks behind closed doors. Seonghwa could still remember his first time being taken to a house call for a distraught housewife looking to have her wayward husband return home. That same night his Great Aunt Bora had shown him the Park grimoire. Having been no older than ten, Seonghwa had been awestruck by the sheer amount of old pages within the book and the detailed drawings they held. Their beloved Great Aunt Seo-yeon had also been extremely vocal during their upbringing that the brothers should begin the family practice early on.
But small-town prejudices and Seonghwa’s rebellious nature in his youth were the immovable objects that collided with the unstoppable force of the Park ancestral birthright. He wished now he hadn’t been so headstrong in his objections to learning his great aunts’ teachings.
With fifteen minutes of knowledge for casting out entities under their respective belts, Seonghwa and Wooyoung had situated the corpse man on the worktable, lit up candles throughout the room, and began burning the required herbs for cleansing the space.
Holding a needle over the corpse’s eye, Seonghwa began, “Once we get this malevolent spirit out, Wooyoung so help me, you are explaining who this person is and how the hell he ended up like this.”
Wooyoung, who had prioritized perfecting the star pattern on the corpse’s chest, sent a sheepish smile towards the older, “Of course, hyung.”
Suddenly, the corpse darted off the work table with inhuman speed. Crouching at the entrance of the apothecary, its piercing red eyes glowed like burning embers, watching them like a cold-blooded reptile would two cornered mice. Seonghwa could feel the air in the room shift, the chill giving rise to an unsettling sensation as goosebumps rose on his skin and the hair on the nape of his neck stood on high alert.
“Hello, Wooyoungie,” it purred, its voice smooth and crisp. Before either of the brothers could react, it lunged forward, a blur of agile speed and brute strength.
Wooyoung stumbled back, a scream clawing at his throat as he barely dodged the outstretched talons that aimed for his throat. In his haste, the worktable had been upended, all the materials having fallen haphazardly across the floor.
Panic surged through Seonghwa’s veins as he placed himself between Wooyoung and whatever the fuck had awoken from the luggage trunk. His eyes darted to the silver tools on the counter, but the corpse-like creature was faster, cutting off Seonghwa’s path with a menacing grin and inhuman speed.
“Oohh, why stop the fun?” it taunted, stepping closer, hunger dripping from its every word “The night is just beginning.”
Seonghwa’s body tensed, fingers twitching toward the silver dagger, but his mind spiraled.
You can stop this. End it .
To use the dagger meant murder. Looking at the fear on Wooyoung’s face, Seonghwa was willing to commit.
And to use your powers…
No. Seonghwa could feel it flickering under his skin, rising like embers gasping for air. The power that had been begging to be unleashed. It thrummed in his bones, sharp and electric.
The monster lunged —
With a burst of adrenaline, Wooyoung grabbed a random jar from a shelf, the glass cool against his palm. He swung it with precision, catching the creature off guard. It hissed, recoiling slightly at the contents of concentrated monkshood splashed across its face, sizzling on its pale flesh. The creature snarled in agitation, a set of fangs bared and eyes glinting with a mindless fury. Wooyoung barely had time to gasp as the creature closed in on them, its speed blurring the lines of reality.
“YOU’RE MINE PARK WOOYOUNG!”
Time snapped like a rubber band.
Seonghwa moved. His hands closed around the silver dagger he’d magicked across the room, its hilt heavier than the weightlessness he felt inside his chest.
Please, don’t make me use it.
The pounding in Seonghwa’s head grew louder — at first he mistook the sound for the beating of his own heart — but then it shifted more rhythmic and relentless. Footsteps. Heavy and fast echoing like thunder.
But Seonghwa couldn’t afford to look. All he could do was grip the dagger tighter and hope he’d made the right choice when the blade found its mark.
Just as the creature’s hand reached for Seonghwa’s robe, a flash of green light erupted as the doors to the apothecary flung open. Yeosang burst into the room, his Shinchan pajamas and mismatched slippers on full display as his hair swirled like leaves caught in a gust of wind.
“You have overstayed your welcome.” he declared.
With a flick of his wrist, he summoned a vine that snaked from the apothecary window, wrapping around the creature’s legs and yanking it back. The corpse snarled in a frenzy of anger, trying to break free, but Yeosang glided forward, with more grace than someone who had freshly awoken from the middle of their sleep should have.
His eyes sparkled with mischief as the creature snarled in outrage, still trying to break free, but Yeosang skipped forward, “Get out.”
Seonghwa and Wooyoung watched in awe, and a bit of fear, as their brother sent out a burst of energy that could power several backup generators. The corpse was pushed straight through the apothecary wall; the air around them buzzed with magic.
There was a moment of silence as Seonghwa looked to the crater of splintered wood and broken glass where a beautiful bay window once stood.
Since when did Sangie learn to do that?
“I know this might sound foolish right now but I just-I just really wanted to say: thank you.” swallowing down his emotions Wooyoung continued thickly, “Thanks for being my brothers.”
“It’s okay, Youngie,” Yeosang stretched as if freshly energized from a light power nap, “let us just put this all behind us now.”
“No.” Seonghwa enunciated, quickly losing his fortitude of patience for the evening, “This is not okay . How did you even find that, that thing , Wooyoung?”
The shutter of a camera could be heard off to the side followed by the bright light of a camera’s flash. Yeosang stood some feet away from the freshly made hole in the wall, his peace sign still visible by his cheekbone, as he made eye contact with Seonghwa and Wooyoung’s aghast faces. Slowly putting down his hand, Yeosang began to type on his phone before humming in satisfaction and hitting send.
“Yeongie,” pausing to take a calming breath, Seonghwa persevered, “Who could you possibly be texting at a time like this?”
“Jongho,” Yeosang replied, “He says to make sure I layer, heart emoji .”
“Yaahh” Wooyoung sounded simultaneously amazed yet scandalized.
“Seriously?” Seonghwa deadpanned.
“Of course,” still typing away, Yeosang continued, “Jongho would never jest when it comes to properly layering. Just last winter he insisted I wear his sweaters to ensure I would never feel the onset of the winter frost settling in.”
“I must have done some great misdeed in my past life!” Seonghwa wailed, flicking his wrist to fix the workbench before falling in a defeated slump onto its flat surface.
“What do you mean, hyung?” Yeosang looked genuinely perplexed like he hadn’t just woken up in the middle of the night to command vines to his will and throw a whole corpse through the window to save his brothers, “Was that why there was a vampire in the house?”
“Sangie,” Seonghwa’s words were muffled by his hands covering his face, “What do you mean vampire?”
“Well, he certainly was not a fierce ghoul, hyung,” Yeosang replied, fingers continuing to type on his phone.
“Wooyoung, explain,” Seonghwa commanded.
He could feel the onset of a migraine forming.
Wooyoung in question had been slowly inching towards Yeosang’s phone to get a closer look at the conversation that had his brother enraptured. At the mention of his name, he stood pin-straight at attention.
“I swiped right on JackB and we matched!” Wooyoung had some good grace to look remorseful as Yeosang arched a brow in interest and Seonghwa sighed in suffering. “I met up with Chung Sang-jun once, at a cafe, but he gave me the ick when he started talking about a connection to surpass centuries, so I blocked him. He was too intense and overbearing; it gave desperate.”
Yeosang nodded in agreement as Wooyoung continued “I didn’t know he would be this much of a lunatic until he started stalking me and leaving dead birds in front of my door.”
Seonghwa felt deeply disturbed, “What about the part about him being a vampire?” he urged.
“I swear on the stars, I didn’t know. I thought he was possessed when he broke into my apartment!” Wooyoung clutched at his neck, the faded bruises marred with fresh hues from the night’s events, “That’s how he ended up in the chest. I was hoping to use the grimoire to expel whatever fucked up creature was nesting inside him.”
Surely, it could be true that one sole household could bring so much chaos and misfortune if such a family had one (1) Park Wooyoung running wild in their midst.