Archive of Our Own

Woonhak is no stranger to mucking up his potions. Over the years, he's seen it all. He's burnt them, spilt them on his clothes, accidentally set fire to the row of very expensive vials his mother had painstakingly arranged on the shelves and watch them splatter one by one into his elixir—like an infuriatingly clumsy game of dominoes. 

But throwing up fresh flowers into the cauldron mid-stir? Now that's a first, even for him. 

His fingers clutch the edges of the cast iron like it's a lifeline, cold to the touch. His hair is plastered over the coat of sweat on his forehead, lips chapped, throat dead, and the thick dark liquid under him swimming in speckles of white that still stains the insides of Woonhak’s mouth, bitter on his tongue. 

It's the obnoxiously loud chewing in his ear that finally breaks him away from his miserable reverie. 

“What do you want?” Woonhak rasps out, looking sideways at the tawny ball fur levitating in the air, grinding his teeth along a long stalk of carrot until it's disappeared past his rotund snout. “I'm just resting up. Just for a bit,” Woonhak huffs, and with it, hiccups two more petals into the ruined potion.

The bunny shoots him a pointed look, twitching his ears to convey his disapproval.

“I’m not asking him. I can figure this out on my own, Leehan,” Woonhak tells his familiar, straightening up despite the urge to keel over again, readjusting his robes, undoing the top button to let himself breathe easier, and then he picks up his wand from where it had flown down onto the wooden floorboards. 

It's a little musty here. Smells like dust and old earth and chemical spills. There are cobwebs on the ceiling, and he's pretty sure he'd seen a fist-sized spider scuttle away behind one of the flasks some time ago. The basement is by no means an ideal workshop for a budding apprentice of the alchemical arts. It's dark and wet, and feels kind of like being locked in a chicken coop overnight. Or a dungeon, probably (he hasn't actually been in one, but he'd rather not offend the king and find out the hard way). 

Leehan is right. He was supposed to be brewing a cure, not barfing into the potential remedy for his ailment. But this is his life for the foreseeable future—until he can figure out how to stop vomitting out garden plants just because he, unlike most people, had gotten distracted the second he'd left his house and stepped foot into the metropolis that had promised to make all his wildest dreams come true. His rabbit in hand, broomstick in the other, and wide, sparkly eyes that held nothing but the naive innocence that it would be an easy feat. 

Easy? Being eighteen was easy. Wolfing down meat and mash and waffles for breakfast—that’s easy. Being smothered with affection by his family while he simply existed and frolicked around to his heart's desire? Also a piece of cake. Easy to love, easy to be loved. That was Woonhak's life until almost an year ago.

And now.

There’s a slight bump in the road. A pitfall that Woonhak should have seen from up on his broomstick a hundred feet in the air, but had been too distracted by the shininess of a new city to notice, and by the shininess of a new person he couldn't help but admire—

"Are you still wasting your time trying to follow the recipe word to word?" The sharp reprimanding voice stops his thoughts short. It has Woonhak's skin prickle with goosebumps, a chill spiking through his entire being like winter had blown into the room in the middle of spring, and he knows—he knows it has nothing to do with the leaky ceiling or the damp floor or the mould on the walls.

It has everything to do with the dark-haired man in a nightcap who is shooting a grumpy look at Woonhak's frozen figure, his lips downturned in undisguised judgment.

“You should give up potioneering if you won't listen to me and start relying on your intuition,” he says, curt and biting.

Woonhak’s heart skips a beat despite the sting of those words, like it always does. What a wretched thing it is, his stupid heart with too many feelings to bear. He has to fight the bile threatening to push past his chest, a discreet hand slipping under his robe and pressing down over his undershirt like it would help soothe the urge to throw up again.

He turns around, lowering his head politely, a little in shame too. “My intuition's not very good, you know that, Sir.” 

“Then make it good. And do it in daylight, preferably,” Taesan chides, the glow of the oil lamp hanging from his arm casting a waxy yellow over his perfect, porcelain face. Woonhak regrets that he'd looked up to see it. Because now he wants nothing but to find a bucket and spill his guts into it—anything but the torture of how devastating his…his mentor looked when there were shadows caught in a dance on his features, flickering in and out with every tiny shift.

“Alright,” is what Woonhak manages to say, barely a rasp before he turns around once again, pretending to make a move of packing up the apparatus and desperately hoping that's the end of the conversation. 

It isn’t. Taesan lingers, he always lingers when Woonhak doesn’t want him to, and he always leaves too quickly when he desperately hopes he’ll stay. On away jobs, on solo expeditions that he insists don’t require company, no matter how hard Woonhak tries to tag along. He always ends up pawing at the front door like a kicked puppy after it shuts behind Taesan, and the sickness just gets worse the longer he stays away. It would be so easy if Woonhak could just cut it out like a tumour, wake up and not want him as much as he does. 

But.

“I want to see you at dawn behind the counter, not a second too late. We have deliveries to sort through tomorrow and I won’t be home.”

Of course he won’t. Woonhak will have to wait, again.

“When will you be back?” he asks, voice small, attempting to keep hope out of it. 

“Midnight. Don’t stay up for me,” Taesan replies, and it could be considerate if not so apathetic. Woonhak knows he’ll stay up anyways, whether he wants to be waited on or not. He’ll only fall asleep once he knows for sure Taesan is back under the safety of his own blanket. 

Woonhak mumbles out a quiet ‘okay’, then busies himself with pouring out the slimy contents of the cauldron as he hears the creak of the door shutting behind him, heavy footsteps padding away until it tapers off into the groan of the stairs leading upwards. And then—nothing. Just Woonhak and his shallow breaths that he’s suddenly hyperaware of. 

The second he's sure he's alone, he grabs for the cauldron again, and a spew of tiny white flowers flows up unrestrained through his oesophagus and back into the half empty slosh of potion. “Fuck,” he groans as tears spring up under his eyes, feeling raw and spent, like he was forced to swallow sand. Leehan hops over to his side, bulbs of black staring down at Woonhak’s slumped state, his cheeks pressed to the flat of the workbench. 

“It’ll be fine,” he manages to speak, and it's only after his familiar has nuzzled into his skin with warm fur that the heat slowly makes its way back to his body, in small but effective increments. “I’m gonna be fine. I promise,” he repeats with a gentle smile, mostly to himself, willing away thoughts of midnight dark hair and coffee eyes in case he has to spend the entire night cleaning up after his own sick.

How awful…

Of all the people in the world that Woonhak could have developed these enormous feelings for, it had to be him. The one person who would never return them, let alone look his way unless he absolutely had no choice but to. 

Of all the millions and billions of people in the world, why did it have to be Han Taesan that he fell for?

“Primroses are one of the first flowers to bloom in the spring, symbolising renewal and optimism—and early youth. They—” Woonhak pauses to grumble, tapping the tip of his wandlight over the page, blotched brown from foxing. “You know, I’m not gonna keep reading out to you if you keep getting distracted.”

Leehan shuffles as he flops back onto his tummy, visibly bored with having to play the unwilling listener to Woonhak’s bedtime recitation. 

“I’ll get you candy if you don't complain,” he appeases, and Leehan mewls and bounds over happily, bouncing on top of Woonhak’s shoulder to get a better view of the tome in his hand. The two-way deal is nothing new to them. All that processed sugar is terrible for rabbits, so Woonhak will just have to spell-protect them before Leehan finds the stash eventually. 

“Hmm…” He thumbs through alphabetically until it lands on the letter D. “Here we are—daisies.”

The attic is quiet and eerie at this time of night, not all that different from the basement. It's oddly shaped, and big enough for just one person. And the only light is the halo around Woonhak's wand from underneath the tent of bedsheets covering his figure as his eyes begin to burn from overuse. But he knows he can't turn the room lights on and risk getting another scolding from Taesan, who, despite living on the floor underneath, seemed to have an inbuilt radar for finding faults in his apprentice.

Woonhak had everything back home before he'd left—a warm four-poster bed, a room to himself where he could laze around till midday before his mother started to call for his private lessons. It was Woonhak's decision to leave. It's entirely his fault that he wanted more than just the countryside air and familiar faces. 

It took a lot of convincing to get his mother on board, and by convincing he means restless pestering until she had rolled her eyes and gave in with the condition that he doesn't get run over by a flock of pigeons in the sky on the way there. That was that. He bid farewell and never looked back, not once, promising that he'd be back after making a name for himself, and that he'd write every week so that she wouldn't miss him too much.

However, his mother had forgotten one tiny detail.

That, Kim Woonhak is a hopeless, senseless romantic. 

His mother had sent him away across the country for his mandatory witch training, to get certified and return back after making his family proud—not to go fall in love with the first guy he meets there.

Except—

Taesan wasn't just any guy, was he? He was the acclaimed Mage of the North. The youngest mage to have his name on a published paper, the most talented alchemist in all of history. The handsomest too, some would say. His only vice was his tendency to shut himself in his lab or room for hours on end, and the obvious contempt he had saved for anyone he deemed imperfect or incompetent. Which was most people. 

See, eighteen was a good year, an easy year. But nineteen? That's a whole other monster that Woonhak hadn't seen coming. 

It started slowly, his curiosity blooming with the flowers in spring. 

But along with the change of seasons, so had some part of him. The symptoms went from a comfortable warmth in his chest, to an erratic twist of his innards that just wrung itself into a mess—growing bigger and bigger and bigger until everything came out spilling because he couldn't contain it anymore. He'd always thought falling in love would be like being lulled to sleep, something to look forward to, to experience for himself what everyone else seemed to have so much to say about. 

Turns out, it's all a hoax. It's a disease, apparently. Something that ate away at his body and mind, a parasite that would no doubt kill him if he didn't do something to fix it—and soon.

Why hadn’t he just listened to his mother and stayed the sweet boy he'd always been? Ugh, maybe he should've taken the easier route and joined a coven like she had suggested, instead of overshooting his ambitions and heading straight for the belly of the beast. 

“Daisies,” he continues down the page, clearing his throat and any dangerous thoughts with it. “Pure love. Innocence. Loyalty.” His chest squeezes. Daisies. Loyalty. He’s quite intimate with both of those things. 

He has flipped through so many books on curses and jinxes and magical maladies during his stay, since this turned into a problem he couldn’t just chase away with ignorance and distractions—but none of them gave an answer to fix this…this pain. He'd turned the local library upside down in his search for a cure, and while there had been mentions of feelings manifesting into physical entities (like accidentally dreaming up your worst fears during a nightmare and coming to face with a spider or a snake upon waking up), flowers branching up from the stomach and pushing past the mouth wasn’t ever mentioned in detail.

He understands why though, the shame of letting something like that be permanently etched into a page for outsiders to read. He gets why no one would talk about it even if they weren't the only one to have gone through something similar. 

Which means, he’s got to concoct an antidote himself. And it would make perfect sense had he been good at potioncraft. Or alchemy. Or anything, actually. The whole point of him travelling all the way here was to learn, but now he has to figure it out without help from the one person who was supposed to teach him—because the same person happens to be the object of his desires, and the primary cause of his affliction. 

But it's fine, yeah, it's fine. It's not like he's spitting up blood just yet. Woonhak can solve it before it turns ugly, he tells himself as he pushes down the metallic taste at the base of his throat, swallowing spit to keep it down.

“Should we try some new herbs tomorrow? White willow bark and laudanum, maybe,” he thinks out loud, words beginning to float across his vision, too tired to actually make any sense now. 

Leehan paws at his hair, begging for attention.

“No carrots. You keep eating them up,” Woonhak refuses firmly, ignoring the twinkling eyes peering down at him from above. “I can't come up with another excuse the next time he sees ingredients missing from the shelf. You know how observant he is.” Despite his words, Woonhak is aware he's weak to the pout, and that he'll give in once his familiar levels him with a whimper that shouldn't sound as sorrowful as it should. For now, he'll pretend like he has some control over saying no. 

He removes the sheet over him to head to bed, eager to finally sink into the pillow and slip into a calm dream that hopefully won't have him waking up with the urge to throw up again. But the second he does, dawn has already begun to break through the cracks in the old windowpane. 

Woonhak had accidentally stayed up all night again, fussing over a cure instead of sleeping like he should have. 

And right on cue—

“I’m leaving!” comes the shout from downstairs, then the rude bang of a door closing. It's curt, it's distant, it hits Woonhak right where it hurts, for some reason. 

He leans up on his elbows to get a clear view out his window, eyes tracing the cloaked figure that's strutting out the house and into the horse drawn carriage awaiting him there. The sun has barely creeped up, so everything is still dim and foggy. Woonhak hates that his first thought is whether Taesan is wearing enough layers underneath to keep him warm for the morning. If he got sick, he'd surely act like it doesn't bother him and lock himself inside his study for longer than Woonhak would like. 

Once the carriage has disappeared past the periphery of the square, Woonhak flops back down, a wistful sigh escaping his mouth.

“This is ridiculous, huh?” he asks, staring up at the ceiling. Leehan is snoring beside him, rolled into a ball, oblivious to his inner turmoil. 

But like every day, Woonhak decides to not be a disappointment and gets up without wasting time. He brushes his teeth in the tiny attached bathroom, tames his hair with the spelled cream his mother had packed for him, then puts on the exact attire Taesan expects him to wear while on duty. Then he charms the dark shadows under his eyes with the wand and smoothens it to look less demonic, takes a swig of throat medicine for his voice, and heads down to start the day (even though it had never really ended for him the previous night).

It’s a small store, cramped with equipment and ingredients—brass scales balanced on top of the worktable, jars with strange looking potions and crystal dusts, grimoires stacked into every empty gap—it’s every mage's dream condensed into a cluttered, smoky-scented space. 

Woonhak has to first carry the orders from the apothecary next door before he can open up shop for the day. He knows it’ll be a busy one, given Taesan insists upon not hiring a second helper for whatever logic is unique to him that he refuses to say out loud. “Intuition, use it to figure it out yourself,” he’d just say if Woonhak were to question his methods. Or, more likely, he’d just level Woonhak with a look of disdain that clearly meant that he thought he was an idiot. Both of those are unfavourable to Woonhak’s fragile feelings, so he generally steers clear of asking questions if he could help it. 

The bell above chimes twice when he steps through the front door of the apothecary, making sure to plant a wide grin on his face when he spots the silhouette tending to one of desks at the corner, crushing some sort of strong-smelling leaf into a mortar. 

“Jaehyun Hyung!” Woonhak calls to get his attention, and the shorter man turns around at his loud voice.  

“Woonhak-ah,” he greets back, rubbing the sweat off his brow with an elbow. “You’re early as usual. Did he not let you sleep in again?”

“I don’t mind.” Woonhak shrugs, barrelling for the heap of parcels on the floor. “These are for us, right?”

Jaheyun nods, putting aside the medicine he’d been preparing before coming over to help. Woonhak wobbles a little at the last box placed into his arm. Jaehyun seems to be quick to notice. “You really don’t look fine. Have you even had breakfast yet?” 

“Ah… It’s fine, Hyung.” Woonhak smiles sheepishly, waving it over with a shake of his head. “I’ll grab some bread later. Bossman’s not gonna be happy if I end up missing customers again, I’d rather keep my head.”

“You can call him Taesan, y’know,” Jaehyun says with a roll of his eyes, already making for the backside of the store, beckoning Woonhak. “He’s all bark and no bite, trust me.”

Woonhak reluctantly places the boxes on the counter before following with no choice; he doesn’t want to be rude to Jaehyun, not when he’s been the only consistently nice company he’s had in the past couple months. Jaehyun drags a chair out of him at the tiny dining table near the kitchen set-up behind the shop, offering him a plate piled with eggs and sausages and greens. It’s more than what Woonhak would have bothered to make for himself, having not much of an appetite nor the time to spend on curbing it. So he’s grateful to know that Jaehyun shares without making a fuss of it. 

“So he’s been out again huh—that Han Taesan?” Jaehyun asks halfway through his glass of juice. 

Woonhak’s fingers tighten over his fork, but he keeps his expression neutral, his mouth still chewing away to mask how stiff the rest of his body feels. “A work thing, I think,” he says once he gains control of it again.

“He should really stop disappearing without telling anyone about his whereabouts,” Jaehyun lets out a disapproving tsk, as though he was simply scolding a child with a knack for wandering off and not a successful adult with responsibilities to meet. 

But it says more about Woonhak that he wishes he could worry about Taesan as freely as Jaehyun seems to. That feels like a privilege reserved for close friends—not someone who could barely hold his attention for longer than a minute. 

“He’s always been like this, you know, hasn’t changed a bit since I met the guy half a decade ago… Okay, no—maybe not always,” Jaheyun continues in his train of thought, blind to how Woonhak’s ears perk up in interest, pathetically fast. “He used to be kind of cute at first, before going all out Count Dracula.”

“Huh?” Woonhak asks, a tight coil at the base of his mouth where he should be swallowing his food. There was a time when Taesan wasn’t…Taesan? And did Jaehyun just call him cute? 

“Oh yeah! I haven’t told you yet?” Woonhak shakes his head before Jaehyun continues, “This he will kill me for telling you, but I don’t want you to keep thinking that guy’s mean and aloof like the gossip columns love to paint. He used to be sorta naive—like you!”

“Like me…?”

“Believed every word out of my mouth no matter how idiotic it was. I mean, he'd still act stubborn, but you could get him to do almost anything as long as you dangled it in front of him like catnip.” Jaehyun's voice goes airy with a chuckle, reminiscing old memories that Woonhak is a stranger to. Part of him wishes he could hear this from Taesan himself. 

“Shame what happened. He hasn't done anything stupid with me since then…” Jaehyun's voice tapers off, tinged with melancholy. He returns back to absentmindedly stab at the meat, tossing it around a few times before it eventually makes its way into his mouth. 

Woonhak suddenly feels the fear that they wouldn't come back to this topic of conversation ever again if he doesn't prompt it now. “What do you mean, what happened?” he asks, trying to sound normal, not like this was important to him. 

“Hm?”

“You were saying,” he pushes gently. “Something happened to him…”

Jaehyun looks up to meet his eyes, clarity making its way back to his gaze. A low sigh escapes his lips before he straightens up. “Yeah…uh…he wasn't always so uptight when he was with Sanghyuk. Before he'd sworn off love for good.”

In all of his nineteen years on this planet, Woonhak has never fallen off his broom and broken bones before, but he figures this is what it would feel like if he did.

It's a fall and a sucker punch all at once. Knocks the wind right out of his lungs, puncturing a hole through his stomach and letting out the acid there to leak into the rest of him, burning him inside out. And then, the slow flood of panic. 

Jaehyun, however, remains unaware of his predicament. “He was downright terrible at this magic thing before he met Sanghyuk, actually. Tried to fireproof a tonic once and accidentally time travelled to the 1500s. Almost set off a whole apocalypse, too, but that's a story for another time,” he laughs. “Anyways, alchemy wasn't even an interest for him until Sanghyuk decided he wanted to write up a paper and Taesan was just too lovesick to say no to him.”

Woonhak's heart isn't functioning anymore. It's about to collapse from the news thrown at him.

Taesan…was in love!? 

“They got together and broke up all in the span of publishing a single thesis. Would be funny if I hadn't been caught in the middle…they made me decide whose name would go first and I had to flip a coin and run out of there before Taesan singed a hole through me because he lost. The whole thing was messy; Sanghyuk broke his heart, went on to make a name for himself abroad, and now Taesan’s sworn off love for good,” Jaehyun shakes his head in disappointment. “You’d think he's still in love with him with the way he’s always so moody now,” he scoffs light-heartedly, a casual sound that could be sarcastic.

If Woonhak didn't suddenly feel like dying.

Fuck fuck fuck. There's someone else, of course there's someone else that Taesan likes, potentially loves. Never stopped loving, apparently. 

It's the stuff of his nightmares. Woonhak had never thought there would be a bigger obstacle than his own incompetence. His own shitty luck at finding the wrong person to hand over his heart to. But the entire universe has conspired against him and made it all the worse because there's someone else. 

“He's got to down a calming draught and take a vacation for a bit, that should fix up that stick up his ass quickly—” Jaehyun is saying, derailing off into taking digs at his old friend, not at all attuned to how stiff and silent Woonhak has gone. 

His breaths are a thin line, and all he can focus on is the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach before butterflies sprout there, fluttering their wings uncomfortably around the walls before pain begins to prickle inside. He can't keep it down—there’a a wave of green-faced envy crashing through him, growing flowers in its wake and turning him queasy. 

He needs a bucket. Or a cauldron. Anything that's not a plate full of food to barf into. 

“Hyu—” he tries, but the nausea is too strong to hold down. Woonhak springs up from his seat, pivots on a heel and books it for the storefront. Jaehyun probably tries to follow, he isn't too sure in the wake of needing somewhere safe to expel the contents of his stomach into. 

Door, road, door, stairs. That's all he knows. Muscle memory does most of the work, Woonhak just lets his feet move on its own accord with adrenaline and puke mixing into a disgusting solution inside of him. He can taste how pungent it is already, unbearably bitter than all the other times before. 

He remembers to lock the door behind him on instinct alone before reaching to hug the toilet. And out it goes, pushing relentlessly past his tongue and right into the bowl, over and over until he's heaving loudly. 

And because his body is dead set on hurting him, right at that moment, his treacherous brain decides to conjure up an image of Taesan smiling—being happy, being carefree with a faceless stranger who Woonhak does not need to see to know is (or was) the love of his life. It's absurd and magical and disgusting all at once, and Woonhak is just a kid who realised he would never be someone's favourite. 

Pfft, a sinister voice that sounds like his own sneers at the back of his mind. Favourite? You were never anything to him. Don’t get lost in the fantasy of things. Don't lie to yourself like that. 

A choke rips through his chest and he doesn't even hear it as his own. It's like watching a wounded animal from afar, taking pity on its woe but unable to do anything to help. The string of daisies just keeps coming without rest, with a force strong enough to leave scars inside his cheeks. 

This time, Woonhak is unsurprised that it’s smeared red and tastes like metal. 

Why was liking someone so difficult? Taesan has never said a nice word to him, let alone graced him with a smile. A grimace, yes. The purse of lips he reserved for especially troublesome mistakes, yes. Never a kind smile, nor a kind sentence. And it was easier when Woonhak could tell himself that it was just his personality, that he just had a cold temperament in general. That he scowls at old ladies the same way he does at Woonhak’s blunders. That he usually regards even Myung Jaehyun with the same respect he’d reserve for a bug on the road. That’s just how he is—strange and callous.

Yeah right…

Now Woonak knows it’s all a delusion he’d talked himself into. Now, he knows that there is a person out there who’s seen Taesan at his happiest, has been the cause of it, too. All these facts should be enough for Woonhak to know that this crush of his—and it feels almost offensive to call it just a crush, because it certainly feels like a heavier thing—will never truly be returned the way he wants it to. 

It’s Sanghyuk who has Taesan’s heart; there has never been space for anyone else there, Woonhak would be just stupid and greedy to wish to be a replacement. 

And pathetic—did he mention pathetic?

He hears the thump of paws on wood like a distant call, and it takes every bit of strength to stumble over to the door and unlock it. When he looks down, Leehan is staring up at him in undisguised worry. 

“I'm fine,” he lies. Okay no, it's less of a lie and more of just wishful thinking. If he says it enough times, then he’ll make himself fine—a little like a spell. 

Leehan doesn’t believe a word of it. He nips at the hem of Woonhak’s flowing robe and drags him down to sit on the edge of his bed, careful to not topple over the mountain of research books propped up all over the floor, then hopping up to curl up in his lap and spare some of his own magic to seep through his clothes and into his skin. “Thank you,” Woonhak mumbles as he hunches over with his face in his palm, rubbing over the pinpricks of tears that had threatened to well up from pain. 

It’s well past dawn and the city outside has started to take life—sounds of bicycle bells and ice cream trucks and people tossing coins into the fountain taking shape from out the window, and the customers will have started to line up by now. Woonhak should get up and return back to work. Otherwise he’ll have to squirm in front of Taesan when he comes back to see none of his duties have been completed. 

Despite everything, he doesn’t want to see that dejected sigh of his when Woonhak has failed at yet another thing—it would sting worse than any parasitic flower ever will. 

When he begins to wobble to his feet, Leehan pounces on top of him to stop him from leaving. 

“I can’t stay, you know that.”

Leehan’s tail wags a little, and Woonhak has watched him enough to know it’s him saying, “Yes you will, or I’ll nip your hand next.”

“There are packages to be picked up, and the customers won’t serve themselves. We can’t go out of business just because I’ve got a bad stomach bug. What will Taesan think—” The universe is a funny machine, because the second he utters his name, another fit of coughs rip past his mouth and out comes a fistful of daisies, again. They sit in his palm as though to mock his bravado. 

Leehan is just as judgemental. The bunny is making quick work of dragging Woonhak’s limp legs on top of the mattress and covering him up with the blanket. Woonhak tries to protest, but his groans are weak and worthless, dulled from how dizzy everything has gotten now that he's flat on his back. 

“Jaehyun Hyung will be looking for me,” he manages to mumble before his vision goes all blurry, the tips of his fingers and nose frosty despite the absence of a breeze. Leehan nudges his cheek and only then does he let himself close his eyes, mouth parted slightly, lips cracked.

The world around him turns to splotches of colour on blinding white, then a burning orange, then fades to pitch black. He doesn't even know it's happening when it does. Just that his muscles are too heavy to hold up, and that his eyelids don't have the energy to be willed open anymore. 

Woonhak is drifting, floating on clouds, feeling weightless everywhere but in his heart—that part of him keeps racing faster than his body can catch up. And the clouds morph into shapes of animals, into a swooping swallow, then a pretty four leaves clover, and he's felt all of this before—not in a dream; it had been real the last time, he’s  certain. 

It was spring, he remembers clearly—birdsongs and pollen in the air, morning mist that looked inviting enough to glide through, the town square a neat stack of brick on brick underneath him as he carefully landed near the fountain and mounted off his broom. Exploring the city could wait—he couldn't waste a second to dawdle around before he'd gotten to the Alchemist's Emporium, hidden between the local apothecary and a quaint, family-owned boulangerie. 

And then…

It was like time had stopped moving when he'd stepped into the little shop at the corner of the road. 

His lungs stopped breathing then. And his pupils, they had grown bigger than they'd ever had—surprisingly devoid of heart shaped sparkles that could be expected in such a situation, like in the romance comics he liked to read back at home.

When Woonhak had seen Taesan for the first time, he had been glaring down at a customer from behind the counter, wearing a collar so high and a cloak so dark that he looked more like a vicar and less like the notorious head alchemist whose name had spread far and wide across the country for his accomplishments at such a young age. 

And then his eyes shot up to meet Woonhak’s, a storm brewing on his face. “Appointments only,” he had stated flatly, just a hint of a sneer on his lips. 

Woonhak could have ran then, pretended to have waltzed into the wrong location, or even refused to take a stranger’s cold attitude with pliance and snapped back with just as coldly. 

But if he had, then he wouldn’t be Woonhak at all, would he?

Instead, he had put on his brightest, sweetest grin, and trundled on with the hope that the other man would warm up to him once he understood that Woonhak was as harmless as a field mouse—just an earnest, enthusiastic witch-in-training.

It didn't happen in the snap of a finger, no, it had been a painstaking journey of Woonhak trying his very best to stay within the lines Taesan had drawn for him. To start off, begging was the only reason he'd even accepted Woonhak as an apprentice. Flattery didn't work, appealing to his sentiments with pouty lips and a backstory of how far he'd travelled to get here just for a chance to learn under the Han Taesan also did not work. 

Woonhak had to get down on both his knees and grovel in honest shame for Taesan to finally crack: a roll of his eyes, a flick of dirt from underneath his fingernail, then a venomous, almost apathetic “Do not make me regret this.” 

And regret he would not! 

Well, at least, that was the general plan. 

Woonhak tried everything to be a good student for him. Of course he hadn’t lost sense of his purpose for coming here in the first place—he’d sought out the best alchemist in the country for a reason after all, to absorb everything there was to be learnt on magical arts, to observe Taesan to the point that his genius will have bled into his own abilities and turned him into a proper witch, worthy of the public's admiration.

It didn't hurt that there was a harmless ulterior motive bubbling up underneath it, too. He hadn't even meant to, his feelings just grew legs and ran rampant with no one sensible to tame it.

At first, it was just a matter of wanting attention, convinced that all he needed to do was be his bestest, brightest self. Woonhak used to be called a human flamethrower after all—and he'd preferred to take it in the positive, he lit up every room he'd walked into sort of way, and not the, he seems like the type to accidentally set fire to people sort of way. He’d never stay quiet during the private lessons, always asked tons of questions like he'd always been encouraged to in order to keep boring days exciting. He'd even come up with his own reasonings and hypotheses before Taesan would delve into the theory of a concept, trying to see if he could arrive at an answer with his own rationale without help. 

But then Taesan tossed it all out and insisted he should talk less and listen instead. Nothing more had to be said for Woonhak to shut up and hold his tongue despite really needing to share his opinions. He showed up early for his classes, dressed diligently, not a hair out of place, stayed up every night poring over readings in the hopes he’ll impress the mage one of these days with an alchemical breakthrough. A teensy praise even—that’s all he wanted. 

Ironically enough, the first time the petals came happened to be one of his good memories in this place. The best, even. 

It was one of those slow afternoons when Woonhak had been trying very hard not to slump down onto the counter with his cheeks in his hand, eyelids drooping wearily and melting in the heat. He remembers it all, how cool the touch had been on his forehead, how the air suddenly smelled like bergamot and lemon and static magic, and Woonhak’s senses had gone so groggy with ease that he’d leaned into it without thinking. 

“Your stomach is grumbling,” someone had said, bluntly, through the white noise buzzing in his ear. Then the hand pressed firmer, had brushed aside the sticky strands of his hair and whispered again. “It’s loud.”

Woonhak doesn’t remember what he’d thought when his eyes finally opened a smidge just to see Taesan’s features peering down at him, devoid of any real emotion, just a hint of disapproval between his brows and a scolding dancing at the tip of his tongue, lips pursed. Woonhak could have fainted then—or in a moment of misjudgment, or terrible impulse, he could have tried to see if he could swallow that dissent into his own mouth.

Thankfully he’d just sat there frozen, staring like an idiot instead. 

Then Taesan had said, “If I hear you do that one more time, I’m kicking you out for good,” and before Woonhak’s heart could wage war against himself, “There's a loaf of bread on your table—go eat that. And once you're done, come down and polish the stones on the shelf. They’ll need to be powdered for the healing elixir tomorrow…” He waited for a beat, like he had been deciding whether to say the next part at all. Then, “The last one you brewed wasn't bad. The customer says their infection is non-existent thanks to the potion.”

If he were any less delirious, maybe it wouldn't have sounded like a praise in his head. Taesan says it like he's got better things to attend to, like Woonhak had been holding him up by being difficult. But still…

It's when he had realised how good it could feel when Taesan's voice landed softly on his ear instead of the sharp chides that usually resounded in Woonhak's brain.

“Oh,” he had only replied dumbly, but Taesan was already out of earshot by then, somewhere deep in the shop that Woonhak isn't allowed to trespass into. When Woonhak bites into the loaf left for him in his bedroom, keeping it out of reach from Leehan's curious nose, he's flooded with warmth even if it's gone kind of stale from the weather. 

Taesan had got it for him; how could he not be happy? 

And then came the hiccup, and the first flower of many to come. A single white petal spat into his palm between a half chewed piece of bread. 

He thinks he could have ended it there if he really wanted to—but did he want to? 

Call it an addiction, but he just craved to hear a compliment for how hard he'd been working. A ‘You're doing good’, or, ‘I can see that you're improving. Keep it up’. Anything, really. 

It was several more months before he had accepted that wheedling praises out of Taesan was possibly the hardest task of his schooling just yet. A rare thing that never came without a bite or a hint of venom, or smothered in sarcasm if he was feeling particularly miffed.

But Woonhak still chased after that first feeling of elation with no end in sight. The flowers were fine back then, kind of proof that his affections existed in a real, tangible form. He likes his mentor. He likes Han Taesan. What's wrong with that? It was enough to catch sight of him in small windows of the day, to turn at a fateful time and see how the sun kissed his profile when he'd sunken into his book in the corner, tongue peeking out as he scratched footnotes into it with his quill. Woonhak could be happy with just watching, he had thought. 

And then came Myung Jaehyun in all his theatric, slimy glory. 

“Yah, Han Taesan, are you gonna let your Hyung carry all these bags by himself?” were the first words Woonhak had heard out of his mouth.

Taesan had regarded him without even lifting his head up. “What do I get for it?”

“I’ll pay you in lotsa kisses,” Jaehyun had replied with a greasy wink and a kissy face that Taesan looked up just in time to be victim to. 

The whole thing was strange to Woonhak; it's the first time he'd seen anyone treat Taesan without cowering in fear of being put under a deadly hex. But Jaehyun just kept going, wiggling his eyebrows to entice Taesan into helping him out. 

And just when Woonhak thought Jaehyun would be thrown out of the shop for a lack of decorum, Taesan had gone ahead and said, “If you can keep your hands to yourself and shut up for the next hour, I’ll carry your stupid bags, fine?”

It's embarrassing how quickly Woonhak’s face had blanched at the realisation that Taesan had just agreed to someone's demand, and without even putting up much of a fight. When he’d seen the two of them exit the store, every paranoid nerve of his lit up in rapid succession, and then his feet took him all the way to the bathroom before he'd heaved more white petals into the toilet, leaving him confused and exhausted and angry all at once. 

It didn't stop after that—even after he'd learned that Jaehyun was an old friend of Taesan's and nothing more. He's naturally flirtatious like that, touchy in ways that Taesan seems to have given up on avoiding, but all of it, every sling of an arm around Taesan's shoulder, every silly remark made about his pretty hair or his grumpy pout, all those comfortable acts between friends that Woonhak shouldn't be so alert to, all of it began to swim inside of him like a monster about to eat him alive if he didn't feed it in time. 

Woonhak had thought that he and Taesan were getting closer, but it seems that most of it had been real only inside his mind. 

Because he’ll never be what Jaehyun or Sanghyuk is to Taesan. He’ll never be an equal that deserves to stand on the same pedestal as him, just someone doomed to watch from afar without ever being allowed to touch. 

His stomach is lurching at the thought of it, bile travelling up again and leaving his body aching for some comfort. It's so gross inside; he wants to empty himself completely so that nothing is left to be expelled. Doesn't matter if it leaves him empty, everything is too big to bear and Woonhak is just a person after all. 

But some vile, contradictory, self-loathing part of him holds onto the same feelings like a lifeline. He doesn't want to stop feeling warm all over when he sees Taesan. Or slow down the erratic pace of his heart when he lingers longer than he usually does. It's turned into something he could count on these days—even if the sky turned upside down today, Woonhak’s body will still remember the way it burns with want when Taesan is close. Just one look would do to soothe it, anything really. And the longer he stays deprived of it, the more he wants, in all the selfish, loving ways Woonhak has come to understand over the past year.

Does it even matter that he might be dying from suffocation, if he still has love in his heart when he leaves for good? Maybe it's stupid to suddenly be okay with death, but Woonhak thinks he’ll be fine if he could take the memories he has of Taesan with him when he goes to his grave. Every look he's stolen when Taesan was too distracted by more interesting things, every piece of information he'd pocketed from people that knew him better than he ever has, all of those trinkets he’ll hold onto as keepsake if this is his last day on earth.

There's a light brush over his skin, like the bristle of feathers, or like petals leaving kisses over his cheek. Then a bright white light is slipping under his eyelids and turning everything quiet, like the end of something both good and terrible. 

That has to mean just one thing.

Ah, he's dying. 

It certainly feels like he is. This ought to be what dying feels like, right?

“—grab the fever potion, the one with the green stopper there—” someone is saying, or maybe Woonhak is hearing things. He's not quite sure where witches go after death but this doesn't feel like the afterlife for some reason.

He feels fur under his chin, nuzzling and nudging at his jaw, and it's just a feeling that he should part his lips that has him open his mouth. That has to be from Leehan's magical bond with him… Yeah, probably. It'll be a shame to leave him behind like this, without a proper farewell, but Jaehyun would take him in and care for him—he’s always had a soft spot for the bunny. 

But still…

Woonhak will miss holding him. He wonders if Leehan will miss him too. Jaehyun might miss his company, and he'd likely cry for a long time too, that much is definite.

Then there's Taesan. 

Woonhak can't really imagine a Han Taesan that misses him. But maybe that's for the better—he doesn't like to envision Taesan hurting either, even when it's an unrealistic and absurd image. 

Cool liquid runs past his tongue and into his throat—like candied apples melted into medicine—he gulps on reflex, and it leaves the torn flesh around his voicebox slightly relieved. A gentle breeze nips at his neck and cheeks, easing the burn, whistling through the cracks in the window like it sometimes does. 

And everything is peaceful at once. No loud noises, no loud thoughts to rattle against his skull. Just the feeling of floating on clouds. 

Woonhak finds himself slipping away comfortably—the first peaceful sleep he's had in a long, long time.

The first thought he has when he finally wakes up is, why the heck is the ceiling too bright at this hour of day?

Woonhak is blinking through a haze of confusion, barely aware of the fact that he's drenched in cold sweat from his hairline to the back of his knees. His robes aren't on him anymore—just a thin shirt and some linen shorts he has no clue how they got there. The blanket is drawn up to his chin, tucked on either side of him, keeping him from thrashing around for answers. 

“Leehan?” he calls, wondering if his familiar had somehow shapeshifted into a human and put him to bed while he was blacked out. It's a wild assumption, sure, but stranger things have happened in the world of magic—like spitting up flowers for example. 

There's no answer. No tawny feet bounding over to demand dinner—wait, breakfast? The sun is high up in the sky but Woonhak is sure he had slept for longer than just an hour or two. Time moves differently when he's exhausted, he supposes. 

It's a little shaky when his bare feet finally hit the floorboards, a headache begins to form in his temple like a sheet being wrung, and then a wet piece of cloth falls from under his bangs into his palms. 

How in the world a bunny managed to do that without fingers to work with, he doesn't know. He's grateful, however, for the consideration—at least someone here cared about him.

Woonhak's fingers are ready over the doorknob, prepared to trudge out without bothering to dress up to make sure Leehan hadn't wandered off into places he shouldn't be—when the handle twists on its own from the other side, and he’s forced backwards to almost fall flat on his back, feeling the floor slip under him before an arm steadies him by the shoulder. 

“Why are you out of bed?” comes the all too familiar voice. 

When Woonhak blinks into consciousness, Taesan is standing there—just as confused when his eyes begin to run over Woonhak’s half clothed state. He pulls him up by the material of his shirt before finally taking his hands off him. 

“I was—” Woonhak stumbles around for a reason. His ears heat up, flustered, and he can already hear the awkward stutter in his voice before it comes. "There was…uh…so there's my bunny…"

"Who? Leehan?"

Woonhak's eyes widen at how casually Taesan says it. He was not aware that Taesan knew anything beyond Woonhak's name and age. And potentially embarrassing morsels of information about his life that he'd let slip when running his mouth between lessons. "You—you know his name?" he asks, surprise unhidden.

"Of course I know; he told me," Taesan states, scoffs, like it should be obvious. “He’s fine, don’t worry, just next door at Jaheyun’s right now. I had to pry him off of you so I could give you the medication without him sniffling in my ear.”

Okay, so Taesan talks to his familiar. Right, that's totally normal for a powerful mage like him to understand animals, no biggie. Woonhak just hopes that Leehan had enough loyalty to keep his mouth shut about Woonhak's troubles.

"He also told me you skipped out on eating, again," Taesan says, crossing his arms sternly, brows meeting in the middle and making him look intimidating and out of place in Woonhak's tiny room. "I had to leave back home midway because Jaehyun sent for me saying you'd been locked in the attic with no sign of life inside."

Woonhak feels guilt prickle through him. Then fear. If he hadn't managed to disappoint Taesan before by some miracle, he sure had nailed his own coffin shut now. He jumps to apologise without thinking. "I'm sorry I left the store unattended. It's all my fault, I'm so, so sor—"

But Taesan seems to have different plans that don't involve roasting him over a fire because he puts a palm up to silence him. "I’m not talking to you while you look like you're one breath away from collapsing. Go lay down.” His voice lacks its characteristic sharpness, but it's authoritative enough to have Woonhak obey without a single protest. He climbs back under his blanket, blinking up at the ceiling with a small gulp, waiting for the beration. 

No doubt Taesan would flip his lid any time now. He's just charging up for the lecture, ready to point out how Woonhak hadn't locked the front door before disappearing off into the house. 

“You slept for a whole day, did you realise?” he asks.

Woonhak gulps again. “No.” He sucks in a sharp breath when he realises that he's messed up, scrambling to correct himself again. “No, Sir. I’m sorry.”

“Stop being sorry,” Taesan huffs, leaning down by the bedside to rummage through his satchel. “Your fever’s gone down since it started, but you're still quite dehydrated. When's the last time you drank water?”

“...”

Taesan sighs, pinching his nosebridge exasperatedly. “I’ll bring you some along with your lunch. Stay put.”

Woonhak doesn’t dare to talk back; he just lays there unmoving, counting down from ten to one to calm himself down. It feels so strange, to be tended to for what feels like the first time since he’d left his family. He’s gotten used to being the one serving other people’s needs, so when Taesan arrives back with his lunch and coaxes a glass of water into his hand, it feels as though he’d stepped into an alternate dimension as a byproduct of his fever-induced hysteria. 

He stays quiet the whole time. So does Taesan for most part—he checks Woonhak’s temperature again, makes an offhand comment about how it’s his fault for pulling all-nighters cooped up in the basement instead of taking care of his health, but all the while, he’s also slipping soup and medicine past his lips and waiting keenly until he’s swallowed for the next spoon. Woonhak doesn’t complain, he does as told, murmurs a yes or a no when asked to, basks in the whole ordeal like it had been a fever dream until Taesan slides the curtains closed and leaves him to rest alone.

It’s so odd and nice and creepy, all at once. 

At some point, Leehan returns back to sidle up to his side, a warm weight over his arm where it lays limp. Woonhak slips in and out of slumber, unaware of what time or day of the week it is, but he feels himself getting better, slowly. 

Until a terribly convincing nightmare of Taesan and his wonderful, faceless Sanghyuk has Woonhak shooting out of bed with a terrifying gasp, retching loudly before he barrels past the bathroom door to empty his innards once more.

He can feel how weak he’s gotten that he can’t even push down his impulses anymore—the flowers are heavier this time, big enough to get caught in his windpipe and take several harsh coughs to dislodge. His throat tightens on itself, and his chest is caving in with pain; Woonhak’s fingernails scrape across the floor as he catches his breath once, face wet from the tears that had escaped and clung to lashes and skin. Every thought he has leads to Taesan’s fingers on his temple while they had tended to him in bed, and it does nothing but bubble up another blossom in his stomach, waiting for the next wave of nausea.

Woonhak is so caught up in his mission to keep it down that he misses the door creaking open behind him.

“... Again?”

He barely has time to acknowledge the fact that it's Taesan's voice before he's coughing out again, blood and spit mixing with the flowers as they spurt downwards, dribbling from the corner of his mouth when he can't pause to breathe. Sounds dull around his ears, and there's a chill ghosting across where his skin remains uncovered, like the onset of another bout of fever.

“C’mon, don't push it back in. It’ll only make it worse,” Taesan’s gentle voice finds him—and he barely even registers how strange it is to hear it like that, tender—and there's a sturdy palm running across his back and easing the puke out steadily. By the time Woonhak is done, he's all but gone boneless where he rests on the floor, knees tucked under him and feeling like jelly, the rest of him a mess. 

“Hey,” Taesan says after some time—he isn't sure how long it takes between now and before. “Hey, look at me. You can't fall asleep here.”

“I can try.” Woonhak doesn't mean for it to come out as a joke, but Taesan’s voice is light when he speaks again.

“No you won't,” he says like he's coaxing a child into eating his greens. Soft and steady, his palm never leaving the spot where it rests on Woonhak's spine. “Hak-ah, if you stay here all night, then I doubt Leehan will leave either.”

Sure enough, the bunny is looking at him from near the door, hesitant to approach as though he'd be invading something serious and scary. The way he's anxiously blinking does not go amiss; Woonhak knows their shared bond means that he feels the fatigue too, and the dread that comes with knowing that it's worse this time compared to the last. 

“Up,” Taesan prompts once, hauling him to his feet before leading him back to bed. The deja vu is a bitter thing in Woonhak's mouth; he isn't sure what he's supposed to do. Panic, probably. Pretend that he doesn't have a clue what's going on with him to save himself the shame of having to risk a confession, or worst yet, a downright rejection. 

He stays still when a piece of cloth moves over the corner of his lips and dabs at the remnants of blood and spew there, then it's replaced by a finger holding his jaw, turning it to either side as Taesan diligently assesses the damage. 

“Open,” he instructs, thumb grazing over Woonhak’s lower lip, and it's not like he can resist obeying. He tries hard to not meet Taesan's eyes when he parts them without questioning, ignoring how his touch doesn't burn him alive when it crosses the distance and runs along the row of teeth, almost sending a shiver down Woonhak's spine when it grazes the flesh of his cheek. 

“Hm,” Taesan hums simply before deciding to retract his hand. “These aren't fresh scars.”

“Oh.” The air in his lungs has all but vanished. Woonhak stutters for an excuse. “You don't have to—” He gulps, forcing his body to forget the feeling of being touched. “It's nothing, really. Just a backfired spell, yeah…”

Taesan doesn't say anything at first. He just looks, fingers resting so close to Woonhak's arm over the mattress, then with the softest voice he has ever heard from Taesan, he says, “You don't have to lie to me, okay?” 

“Huh?” Woonhak asks, dumbfounded—scared. 

“About the…about the sickness.” He says the word with gentle caution. “Magic is weirdly in tune with our bodies, it's practically an extra limb. Sometimes, it’s hard to keep separate from your emotions and it starts showing up in ways you don't want it to.”

Woonhak's brain still hasn't caught up to this progression of events. “Is this a riddle?” he questions, blinking in confusion.

“No.” An airy chuckle escapes Taesan, a foreign, terrifyingly sweet sound if there ever was one.  “It happens to a lot of us. When we keep things locked up inside instead of letting go, sometimes it manifests as flowers, I guess.”

“How do I get rid of it?” Woonhak asks before he can stop himself. 

Taesan thinks his answer through, gazing out into the moonlit window as he figures out his words before letting them out. “You either make peace with your heart and be brave enough to say the truth," he says finally, “or you let time wash over and heal it for you. The more you suppress your emotions, the harder your body will fight back against that restraint. It could hurt you… Really bad.”

“Will I die?” Woonhak doesn't even know why he keeps asking, especially when Taesan seems to be oblivious to the fact that he's likely the cause of Woonhak's flowers.

“No,” Taesan says it with surety, with a confident shake of his head before he meets Woonhak’s eyes in the dim light. “It’ll pass. You just need to wait for things to make sense.” And maybe, just maybe, if Woonhak braves a deeper look into the tremor in his voice, he might hear a slight edge of regret there. He doesn't want to, not when he has the sneaking suspicion that his words have something to do with his ex boyfriend of how many ever years. 

They're not people that talk to each other like this. Not people who touch or test boundaries. This is pity, Woonhak reminds himself, not kindness. And even if it was, it's temporary. 

“Okay,” he says before scooting back to lay in the pillow again, letting Taesan do his job of spooning some tonic into his mouth, and soothing Leehan’s worried whimper into Woonhak's open palm.

“He brought me here. You got yourself a good familiar there,” Taesan remarks as he empties the last dregs of the golden liquid into Woonhak's mouth. 

“Yeah,” Woonhak manages a smile, not being able to help gracing Leehan with a few pats for being a good friend to him. He waits patiently for Taesan to take his leave, quelling any and all questions slowly taking shape in his mind. It’s not like he could get answers tonight, no matter how badly he wants to. 

But Taesan doesn’t get up. He turns to face away from Woonhak, but his perch on the bed is unchanged. There’s a howl of wind from outside, crickets chirping in timed intervals, and a firefly that had accidentally flown through the window and drifted around in the dusty attic room like a tiny, lost star. Taesan traces its movements with his eyes, his fingers fidgeting in his lap before he breaks the quiet. 

“Does it hurt a lot?” he asks, voice heavy despite the obvious attempt to level it. 

Woonhak doesn’t know how to deflect this time. So he simply says, “Sometimes.”

“You—” Taesan begins, grunting through the edge of the word, a hint of frustration surfacing. “You look smaller than before.”

“Just the stress,” Woonhak says, and it's a half truth. 

But Taesan doesn't take it as it is. He huffs before looking down at his lap, at his own nailbeds that seemed to have been picked apart to no end. “You could have come to me…if you were looking for a cure. I’m supposed to guide you through alchemy after all.”

“I just didn't think you'd be happy I'm throwing up daisies into your toilet,” Woonhak attempts to make light of the situation, hoping that there won't be follow up questions to that statement. He isn't in his right mind to come up with a why. “Plus, you said there wasn't a cure anyways. It wouldn't have changed anything.”

“Yeah,” Taesan sighs, shoulders slumping in his loose shirt. “It’ll get better with time. You'll learn to forget things once you find someone better for you.” 

He says it like a fact. Like he's told it enough times to believe it himself. Woonhak doesn't understand why he sounds so confident when he speaks like this.

“What if I don't?” 

“You will,” Taesan's response is quick and curt.

Then, even if he shouldn't, he asks anyway. “Did you?”

The sudden tension in Taesan’s silhouette is evident even in the shadows. Maybe Woonhak has finally managed to ruin the makeshift report they'd built just for the night. This is when Taesan usually regards him with a grimace and refuses to entertain him with even a comment before stalking off. And maybe Woonhak wants to see if he will—that could be why he brings up sour feelings from the past without courtesy. 

But Taesan doesn't leave. He takes a deep breath, then nods. “I did. Once I figured that he had a good point for leaving me, it made the whole thing silly to be so bitter about,” he laughs mirthlessly, making light of his own feelings. “Mine were Hawthorns by the way.”

“Huh?” 

“They tasted like sugar, so it wasn't all that bad,” Taesan continues, like he hadn't just thrown Woonhak off a cliff with the sudden revelation. “But like I said, it isn't forever. Whether it be heartbreak or anger or resentment, don't trust your feelings too much, they can trick you into hurting yourself so much more than you think you're capable of. It could suffocate you to death—but only if you let it. And you won't.”

“Because I’ll move on?” Woonhak asks, voice small, his face pressed to the pillow as his fingers begin to itch for some warmth. 

“Exactly,” Taesan's smile is audible in his words, “you’ll realise this wasn't a huge deal at all when you look back at it. You're too smart to get swallowed up by a person.”

And Woonhak—he’s struck by two feelings at once: the heat rising from the tip of his fingers to the edges of his ears, leaving him flustered because Taesan had called him smart, and the terrifying, all-consuming realisation that what Taesan had said sounds a lot like a prediction.

“What if I don't want that?” Woonhak is asking—saying—his voice is unmistakably clear, and his fingers have reached out to grip the hem of the other man's shirt, demanding he look. 

“What?” Taesan turns just the slightest, not meeting his eyes properly, and it's only then that Woonhak realises how pinched his voice has turned, and how there is a tear rolling down his cheek, making way for the rest to follow. 

“I don't want these feelings to disappear,” Woonhak confesses, and his chest starts to squeeze against his ribs again. It's too much. Taesan is going to run if he keeps this up. 

He thinks Taesan will pry his hands off of him, scold him for overstepping, tell him that he should sleep it off after all, that this is all stupid and childish and fake, and that if he were smarter, he'd give up sooner than later. 

In a haze of want and dread, Woonhak asks,  “Can’t you look at me just once? Please.”

“I'm always looking at you,” Taesan whispers like a confession. “You're never looking at me when I do, but… I do. All the time.”

It stills something frantic in Woonhak's heart, knocks the wind out of him that his fingers need to hold onto the fabric lest he loses consciousness. 

“But not the way I want you to…” he manages to say.

And this is what has Taesan finally shift to meet his eye, almost like he's hurt Woonhak would assume that, like he wants to correct the statement the same way he does when Woonhak makes mistakes while reading a textbook out loud. But he seems to lose to his restraints, then finally says— 

“I can't reach for things that won't last,” Taesan admits. “Once you have me, you’ll find out I’m not the kind of person you can like easily. It's easier if you realise that sooner.”

Woonhak's brows scrunch up, but he latches onto the hint of hope in Taesan's words. “I don't want easy,” he presses stubbornly, struggling to lean on his back against the headboard, his hand encircling Taesan's wrist with newfound defiance. If he wanted to push it off, he would have done it by now.

“You've told me easy is a coward's way out,” Woonhak says.

“I said that about alchemy. Not people.”

“How is it any different?” Woonhak is relentless now, he doesn't get why Taesan would ever think he could be unloved so easily. He can feel petals rise up when he speaks again— “You say I’ll get over these feelings, and you seem to know it's your fault I have them, but you won't just reject me outright…aren't you taking the easy way out if anything?”

“I'm—” Taesan stutters, then after a beat, softens. “I'm sorry.”

“You also told me not to be sorry,” Woonhak pouts, swallowing down the discomfort. “You say a lot of hurtful things, you know, but I've never stopped liking you even once because of it. What makes you think anyone could ever be anything less than in love with you?” 

A while back, Woonhak would have thought peeling back his flesh and bone and laying down his heart like this would be the fix to his ailment. Repressed feelings unravelled at the seams, right? Fate proves him wrong when he feels overwhelmed with every version of affection he has for Taesan, and he knows he's about to cough up daisies again. He doesn't know if he has it in him to survive this one.

Taesan doesn't notice. His fingers move absentmindedly within Woonhak's grip “I left because I thought that if I stayed, I’d get greedy and let you keep wanting me—even if it slowly kills you from the inside,” he gulps. “The longer I stayed, the sadder you looked. I don't like seeing you sad like that.”

Then, after a beat—

“I kept waiting for you to realise I wasn't worth all of it.”

“Hyung,” Woonhak calls, tests to see if he’ll be shot down. He doesn't care if he does this time. “You’d have to wait an eternity for that to happen.”

If this is the last chance Woonhak gets to convince Taesan that he is every bit deserving of the kindness and love he seems to have sworn off to protect himself, then he’ll spend the night repeating it over and over until Taesan believes him. 

“I'll hurt you without meaning to,” Taesan says, inching closer until he has practically crawled into the space next to Woonhak, their knees touching. “And I’m terrible company.” 

“Neither of that is true.” Woonhak shakes his head.

There’s a ghost of a smile across Taesan’s lips first. He’s never looked so soft like this before. His eyes are speckled with brown, and Woonhak can map out each one when they’re so close, his warmth seeping into Woonhak’s own skin where they accidentally touch but don’t bother to move away. As though sensing the sacredness of this moment, Leehan scurries away from beside him, ever the understanding familiar that Woonhak is glad to have.

“I really did try, you know,” Taesan confesses, hesitant but clear. “To keep away. You would look at me so bright and hopeful, and it terrifies me that I keep wanting to see it. Want it for myself.” 

Woonhak doesn't know what to make of that, or if he's even allowed to excavate past the dangerous assumptions beginning to bubble up inside of him. But Taesan brings a thumb to press against his cheek, like he's brushing away a stray lash that had fallen on it. “I was scared you’d know I wanted you too.”

Oh.

The blood rushing through Woonhak's body scorches his organs in its wake. It's like it dissolves the angry flowers attempting to still keep blooming there, eating away at its roots until they've all but gone. The releof doesn't come yet; his heart thunders against his ribs, and all he can hear is the echo of Taesan saying I wanted you too.

A flood of memories whizz past his brain—of all the small ways Taesan loves. Wants. Leaving food out when Woonhak skips out on meals and pretending he hadn't done any of it. The way he coughs awkwardly every time Woonhak had looked up at him in admiration, when he never held back on letting Taesan know how he was his role model, when he brushes away the compliment with the excuse that it was distracting to their lessons. All the careful, silent ways he cares, and sometimes, the chides that come out sharp even when he means to be simply worried. Woonhak realises. 

It was him all along. 

No one else. Just him.

Oh.

“Can you keep wanting me?” Woonhak can't help but keep the plea out of his voice, nor the ghost of a sob that's crawled its way up his throat, ready to escape if he loses hope again. “Please?”

“I—” Taesan gulps. “I don't think I could stop if I tried… I have been trying, nothing works.”

Woonhak has never seen him this nervous—or he's never noticed it till now, at least. He moves closer to Taesan, letting their limbs tangle up naturally with the shift. The tension between them is a taut rope, but Woonhak is determined to snap it in two with his own two hands. 

“You called me something before,” Woonhak recollects in a hush. “I’ve never heard you say my name like that.”

“Jaehyun gets to call you that,” Taesan responds. His hand has dipped lower to graze at Woonhak's jaw, still unsure of the next step. “Can't I? 

“Call me that again,” Woonhak demands firmly. 

It seems that Taesan is all too satisfied to comply, even though it comes out quiet and tender. “Hak-ah,” he whispers. “You’re too good for me. One day, you’ll surpass all of this and I won't be able to stop you from outgrowing this place.”

“I’ll take you with me if I do.”

“You’ll outgrow me.”

“Promise I won't,” Woonhak says, watching how the glow of the little firefly has caught on Taesan's lashes, the dip of his nose and the worried frown on his face. “I’m still learning things, but I’ve always known I would never grow out of you. If I had any choice in the matter, I’d have kept the flowers over letting myself lose you.”

He doesn't know which of them pushes first, or when exactly the distance has thinned to a ghost of a gap, but they're kissing like oxygen isn't a necessity anymore. It's soft, and lovely, and warm. The kind of kiss that ties up all the feelings between them into a single act of honesty. Taesan goes in for a second just when Woonhak presses forward; they end up entangling their breaths until Woonhak is gasping for air, and a single petal slips past his lips and onto Taesan's tongue. 

Woonhak knows, on instinct, that it's the last piece of what he'd held onto too tight—and now it's no longer just his. Neither of them panic, just dives in back like it would be a grave sin to stop now, when there’s so much still unspoken between them and touching is the only way to make sense of it. 

“I won’t leave again,” Taesan presses the vow into his mouth, “I promise.”

And Woonhak smiles, tasting more than just the aftertaste of petals on his tongue.

Unlike before, it’s sweet.