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#flower & fruits give out bendy straws
dorkshadows · 3 years
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Responding to the jttwfestival speed run!:
#oh my buddha these are good a;ldkjlsdfkd#Never forget Emperor Tang Taizhong was not only the patron who sponsored this journey -- but he was apparently so impressed by Tang Sanzang#he decided to become his sworn brother -- Tang Sanzang is so high on the food chain it's so funny lsdfjldksjlsdkj#'Red boy. Out of all the villains he was the one who terrorised the pilgrims most'#I love and hate that Red Boy came the closest to killing Sun Wukong. The Red Boy trauma is real#loving role switch -- where everyone waves goodbye to Tang Sanzang and he goes off the map for years#then they realise they left him with 3 incredibly fucked up demons and go 'oh yea'#role switch where Sanzang just runs away with the demon disciples lkjlkljkjllj#THE FLOWER & FRUITS  V  LOTUS LANTERN TEASHOP DRAMA WHEN??????#WHEN DORK WHEN???#since we get so little of Puti in adaptions despite his importance in Sun Wukong's life I'm so fascinated whenever a tidbit of him pops up!!#Definitely an underrated relationship#like - so angsty too - he clearly loved Wukong so much he taught him all these forbidden as hell secrets of the universe -#but in the end he expelled Wukong which in the world of this time also doubles as disownment#some adaptions are like 'ok you should go back to flower fruit mountain now :) bye wukong'#'ok byes~'#other adaptions are like 'PACK UP AND GTFO OF MY MOUNTAIN WUKONG' 'SHIFU NOOOOOO'#and I can't a;ldfk#oh right you're strong enough to finish and enjoy wukong's christmas adventure.....#everything comes back to marshall tianpeng#lowkey in real life I know a person who is named after Zhu Bajie called 'Tianpeng' and I *surprised pikachu face#thanks for this speedrun dork#we absolutely needed it - especially your takes on underrated moments/ characters#:D
THANKS EARL :D So glad you like these!!
You’re right- Sanzang is so high on the aristocratic food chain and it’s so funny because he doesn’t know how privileged he truly is until he gets back to Chang’an hahaha. Tang Taizhong really said, “I’ll pay for the journey!” then went home, and then Tang monk lost all the supplies (except for a bowl) the emperor gave him, including his guards and the one horse.
Red Boy 100% traumatized the pilgrims for years. The first time I learned about the Red Boy part as a kid, I thought it was funny. Then when I read about it again later, I was like, “you know, this is legit TERRIFYING.” He’s a 300yo demon with the temper of a spoiled child, and he also has fire powers. Like, it’s a miracle the pilgrims survived.
# then they realise they left him with 3 incredibly fucked up demons and go 'oh yea'#role switch where Sanzang just runs away with the demon disciples lkjlkljkjllj# YOUR TAGS HERE! Tang Sanzang disappears, then when they see him again, he’s leading his disciples on havoc in heaven 2.0. “Tangseng? I don’t know him. The name is San zang, ‘Zang’ for 葬礼”
Flower & Fruits vs Lotus Lantern tea shop drama will come this year, I promise!! Maybe as a fic, maybe something else, but I really want to make like, a fake menu and everything! Imagine ordering flower fruit boba tea, and it’s like milk with flower fragrance and there are little monkeys on your cup. BRO IMAGINE. Also imagine going into Lotus Lantern for a light snack and tea, and to pet the resident dog.
You and me: *Puti angst solidarity* 
asdfasdf I felt that, sometimes they part so peacefully, sometimes they act out a whole soap opera in front of the other students, complete with screaming, screaming + tears, and tears + screaming. Puti is so important but so many adaptations use him as a plot device or skip over him! 
I can’t believe you haven’t finished Wukong’s Christmas Adventure! It’s so cursed, but cursed in an addicting way. It won’t make you happy, but it sure will make your brain feel things XD
asdfasdfasd I’m sent by the fact that you know someone named Tianpeng irl. The fact that someone named their kid after Zhu Bajie of all people is a world record. (Also how could everything not return to Marshal Tianpeng? it is the alpha and the omega, the start and the end)
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alilbihh · 5 years
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hocus pocus — 1
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masterlist  previous part  next part
pairing: maknae line x reader
summary: jungkook wags his tail and his eyes look like truffles. jimin drinks blood out of juice boxes and bendy straws and tries to wink but ends up blinking both his eyes closed. taehyung likes the ocean and all kinds of art and apologizes to rocks. you don’t know if they want to take you out the date way or the assassination way and somehow you think it’s both. 
genre: werewolf!jungkook, vampire!jimin, hybrid!taehyung, witch!reader; crack (lmao); humor (??); poly!au (in the future!)
words: 6.3k
a/n: this is entirely self-indulgent. this will benefit no one but me and will have 3 parts. thank u
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This kind of patience better earn you a great seat in heaven, you think offhandedly.
"Please help me! The test was only announced today and I don't have much time, I need a potion that gives me photographic memory!" Says a desperate looking girl, hands clasped together as she repeatedly whispers a mantra of pleases under her breath, as if worried she'd push you over the edge if she were to say it any louder.
Little does she know she's, metaphorically speaking, already pushed you. Hard. With no remorse. Probably followed by a series of stabs to the back.
"Please, I would do anything!" She looks frantic. The only time you've seen her unclasp her hands was to pull desperately at her hair. She's pretty, you'll give her that, the kind of pretty that makes people more easily soft and influenced to her desires. But you're no sucker, and you're certainly not soft.
"Anything?" You whisper, leaning forward a bit. She nods, hope pooling in her round, pretty eyes.
"Anything!" You're not really used to people interrupting you during your free time. She at least has the decency to keep her voice down in the library, but you have a feeling the librarian and usually easily irritable students would easily succumb to her puppy dog eyes and let her scream all she wants.
You don't tell her that there is no such thing as a potion for photographic memory. You don't tell her that, even if such a thing were to exist, it would have drastic long-term side effects. As in, death.
"Anything anything..?" You lean forward a bit more, the female eagerly mimicking the action. You stare into her pretty eyes, the honey gold of her skin. "...even study?"
The female deflates, shameful as she twirls at a strand of her hair. This girl is just one of the many reminders on why you should never have been known as the campus witch in the first place.
You also should have just stayed in bed, despite the uncharacteristically calm day you've been having. You should have slept through your subsequent assignments and uncountable morning classes; but Jungkook had pulled the sheets out from over your head that day almost knowingly, reminding you how much you're paying for tuition. Curse that familiar of yours.
(Jungkook's voice also seemed to be the one to coax you into giving the girl a discount on your widely known all-nighter potion; which really just mostly consisted of a monster and some ground coffee beans, but she didn't need to know that. But you're still definitely, definitely not a soft witch.)
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Three years ago you started a shop of your own, one typical of a witch like yourself. All herbs and tea leaves and scented candles and crystals, ground sunflower seeds and fruits and, later on, potions; the thing that's gathered the most attention in your community, from both supernatural beings and, as harry potter so delicately put it, muggles alike.
On Sundays, you sit behind the shop's counter on the red cushioned bean bag chairs that Jungkook likes so much, taking in the low hanging vines of your small, dainty little shop, the smell of old parchment and the sound of fluttering pages, the shelves of books barely anyone but yourself reads but are familiar and comforting nevertheless.
On Sundays, people stop by; sometimes for tea, mostly for potions, and one time someone asked for a potion to help him get laid but even so, business is buzzing, Sunday or not.
On Sundays, you tolerate Jungkook's grunts and groans of boredom, the boy taut as violin strings until he starts arm wrestling with the plants and reading books by the corner, his long hair obscuring your view of his features as he bounces all over the place.
In the corner by the bookshelves sits a fish tank you'd gotten over a year ago, courtesy of Jungkook, now barren of fish of any kind. (The male managed to get a goldfish at some point. He named it ironman. It died a week later, now buried in Yoongi's greenhouse, and you coaxed some flowers into sprouting around its grave for his sake. Mostly lavender, reminiscent of your familiar. Lavender helps you sleep. Lavender soothes small hurts.)
Sometimes, if you're lucky, you'll hear little snippets of a singing voice, murmuring when he thinks no one can hear him — and you can almost feel the creaking of the floorboards and bookshelves ceasing, the books shifting about in their spines halting at the mere sound of it —  as if even the walls are straining to hear the tiny little sounds of your familiar's voice.
And although Sundays are meant for that, meant for all of that, on one particular Sunday you find yourself out of faerie tears to mix into your concoctions. An odd ingredient it is, but important nevertheless. And you know just the faerie willing to hand over some more.
"Yoongi!" You squeal as you enter the greenhouse, messenger bag over your shoulder, glass vials inside of it clinking together as you walk.
The greenhouse isn't big— not as big as Yoongi would have liked it to be, anyway— but it's tall enough to make room for trees of all sizes. Certain panes have been removed on its walls to allow the branches to carry through towards the sky, as if Yoongi would rather tear the place down than tear off a branch. Vines curl around your feet as you walk, tickling at your legs, and the plants greet you softly as you pass, (except the roses. They don’t like you too much and they tend to gossip quite a bit).
You tip your head up to stare at the hazy sky through the glass. It's humid and will probably rain later, another late summer storm.
You hear a grunt.
Hunched over a flowerbed sits a tuft of black, the endearing sight bringing a smile to your face that remains even as the male in question notices your amusement, frowning as his brows furrow and his nose crinkles.
He stands up as gracefully as his little faerie ass can manage, wiping the accumulated sweat on his forehead away with the back of his hand, a streak of dirt on his cheek and, somehow, on his nose. "Yes?" He mutters, grumpy and all, despite his patience as you move to grab an empty vial from your bag.
You stretch the empty glass expectantly, "I'm in need of some faerie tears, my good man."
The man waddles towards you in typical Yoongi fashion, inspecting the vial for a second before his gaze shifts to you, eyes squinted. "You know I don't cry," He says stubbornly.
"Oh, please. You’re one of the softest boys I know. Didn't you take theater in high school? The tears don't have to stem from real sadness, you heathen."
His cheeks redden at your reminder, grabbing the vial from your hands with a huff. "I just messed with the lighting for a while. Fixed the sound. It's not like I acted, damn you."
"But still! You gotta feel some sort of.. kinship. Come on. I'm not asking for much!"
"You're asking for my bodily fluids. It seems like quite a bit to me."
You hide your smile with your hand as you watch the male grunt and grimace, trying to get the tears out by sheer force. His body is shaking a bit at the strain, and you finally laugh when he lets out the breath he'd been holding with a dramatic, Yoongi flair. "Can't do it?" You ask through laughter.
"Shut up." He shoves the vial onto your chest. "Anything else for you to humiliate me with?"
"Huh. I am in need of some pixie dust, now that you mention it."
"Hobi probably has some of that, he's full of pixie friends." You, personally, aren't a fan of those tiny little rascals. The ones around your hometown were known for trouble, pulling at your ears and pushing objects off tables.
Though you suppose the ones around your current home weren't all bad. You've caught a few helping motivate your plants by your window to sprout, and sometimes you find petals by your windowsill that weren't there before, all layered with pixie dust. Sometimes they simply flutter overhead, tossing pink dust at passersby, and sometimes you hear them sneezing by your ear, drunk on plum blossoms.
They hang around Hoseok almost regularly, and it's not uncommon to find a few napping on his head and shoulder, warbling softly in their sleep. That merman attracts a whole bunch of creatures, so you don't blame them, really.
"Well. Walmart probably has some faerie tears, anyway. Thanks, Yoongs!" You pat at the now frozen male's chest thoughtfully, the man blinking slowly with wide eyes. You take off into a sprint at his bewildered WHAT? from behind you, laughter on your heels.
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"Here, noona." Your familiar mutters as he walks into you finishing some paperwork, your form hunched out of view under the shop's counter, red bean bag hardly a chair for such a feat but at least it's comfortable. He places a cup of tea by the coffee table beside you, still steaming, the smell wafting through the tiny expanse of your homey shop.
"Thanks, Guk." You murmur in response without looking up, but you still catch his tail let out a tiny wag at that before he nods and shuffles away, almost like a waddle, and disappears into the closet-sized kitchen, large clothes swallowing his form adorably.
He shuffles back a few minutes later with his own cup, sinking into the bean bag beside you. He stretches the cup towards you after a second of hesitation, "Sorry, but could you heat it up please? Do that thing?"
You chuckle, sitting up straight to drop your papers on the counter before turning back towards the werewolf, "'course." You take the cup, fingers brushing against his, and you see him recoil in his seat as he sinks further into it.
Your fingers cup the mug lightly, and you feel the liquid slowly heat up, becoming darker in color. Your eyes catch his gaze as you hand it back, his eyelashes trembling as he looks down, cheeks dusted a shy pink, taking the drink generously. "Thank you," he mutters.
The moment is interrupted by the gentle chiming of the wind chimes tinkling in welcome as someone opens the door, and you stand up with a groan the second you hear it. Gently placing your cup on the coffee table, your attention shifts to the customer tripping into your shop, the smell of rain and autumn and wonder on his heels.
"Can I help you?" You ask, albeit uselessly as he continues inspecting your array of books without a word, pausing at the poetry section.
Maybe you shouldn't have bought those bean bags. They're low enough to hide you completely from view of anyone if you were to sit and you, being the one to sit by the register, kinda have to do that a lot. You take to standing, taking occasional sips from your tea when you think the boy that stumbled in isn't looking.
The boy suddenly marches towards you. Eyes you for a minute. Blinks profusely. "Morning," he says after a moment, voice soothing and soft, like melting butter and dripping honey. He slides a book onto the counter. Poetry.
"Good afternoon," you answer with a twitch of your lips, "Is this all?"
He clears his throat, his cheeks a bit flushed, "Yes."
You can feel his eyes on you. They flick over you quick and then again slower and then again one more time, dragging like a lip being pulled through teeth. You feel tingly.
With a hum, you mutter the price you know by heart as you stuff the book into a bag. His voice interrupts you.  "Do you sell blood here?"
You blink, catch Jungkook freezing from where he's seated. The boy in front of you at least has the decency to look sheepish after a moment, smiling with just a twitch of his lips, and it's then you notice the ever protruding fangs that line the sides of his teeth.
"Uh, nope, sorry."
"Hm." He hums. "How long has this been here? It's, well. Nice. Must be nice to work here."
You scoff out a laugh, "It has its downsides. Pay is shit, mostly. You're mostly just making drinks and making sure no one is doing anything stupid or trying to hide a body in one of the vanishing bookshelves."
"I already disproved that theory, noona!" Comes Jungkook's interjection from somewhere below you, voice laced with an odd sort of pride. "I sat there for an hour and didn't disappear."
"That... okay." Maybe you would scold him in any other setting, seeing as the bookshelf was completely capable of actually making him disappear — but seeing his pretty, honest eyes, his cupid's bow pulled into a smile, well.. who were you to take that away?
It's only then you remember the strange vampire you still have yet to know the name of was here for a reason. Your eyes stray to the book he'd bought, and you notice he seemed to dwell on which to buy for a bit too long. "Do you like poetry?" You mutter as you hand over his purchase.
"Nope." He grins. "I'll be back!" The boy says it like a promise before closing the door behind him, nimble as a cat and grinning like one, too, giving the dream catcher by the entrance a dangle and, in a blink, he's gone.
"That was weird." Jungkook mutters through the rim of his cup, and you agree with a simple nod of the head. “He was pretty, though,” he adds thoughtlessly. You nod again.
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You spend your lunch, as you usually do, in a coffee shop close to campus, Jungkook sipping on a milkshake beside you and Yoongi sitting opposite you both, the latter pumping an unreasonable amount of sugar into his coffee.
"So Hobi's in this wack exercising mood these days. He signed us both up for couple's yoga classes."
Your lips twitch upwards at that before you purse your lips, trying to hide your smile. "That's.. wild."
"Yeah. Worst part is that I don't even mind going that much 'cause I know it'll make him happy. Gross, huh?"
"Super gross, dude."
Yoongi picks up his spoon and promptly stabs at the thick layer of sugar in the bottom of his cup, stirring glumly. "Anyway, how's the shop? Anyone walking in asking for condoms again?"
"Well, no, but I was asked if I sell blood bags."
Yoongi raises a brow, probably more surprised that there's a vampire on campus than he is surprised at the question. "Huh. That is weird. Was he cute?"
"Yoongs, you are not asking me if my vampire customer is cute. Tell me you're not." The man promptly starts to sip loudly at his coffee, avoiding eye contact stubbornly. You sigh. "Yes. Yes he was. Damn you." The man grins.
"He really was, though," Jungkook speaks up for the first time since you all sat down — not counting the little hello he'd whispered to Yoongi — and you watch as he sinks down his seat, smiles this shy little thing, cheeks and nose all scrunched up, trying to hide it as he sips aggressively at his oreo milkshake.
You smile knowingly at him and he all but melts, looking out the window, the tips of his ears a pretty pink.
"That so?" Yoongi says, watching you over the rim of his cup, "I was starting to think you two were cave gremlins incapable of feeling. How nice for you."
You scoff out a laugh, "Easy for you to say, you met Hoseok on Grindr."
"And we are positively thriving, thank you for asking."
"Oh!" The tiniest sound, whispered more to himself than anything but you manage to catch it anyway, your familiar's eyes widening prettily as he spots something out the window as his whole face breaks into a smile, cheeks crinkling at the edges, "It's Hobi-hyung!"
"Where?" Yoongi asks but sees him immediately after, the man in question spotting them through the glass and waving frantically, like he thinks you all might not see him.
Hoseok opens the door to the coffee shop cheerily, both the dulcet soft chime above the door and the usual light he carries on his shoulders alerting others of his presence. There are remnants of pixie dust on his shoulders, strapped to his clothes, glued to his hair. He smells of salt water and chlorine and dried flowers and something like pomegranate, just on the edges. The smile that always seems to be perpetually glued to his face brightens as he power walks towards your table by the corner.
"Hey! What're you all doing here?" He asks with a laugh as he slides on the seat beside his boyfriend, and Yoongi allows himself to be hugged by Hoseok, who hugs everyone.
"We're the physical manifestations of Y/n's inner demons." Yoongi says before Jungkook snorts out a laugh endearingly.
"How're classes, Hobi?" You ask, managing to ignore Yoongi only due to several years of training.
Yoongi groans at your question. Pretends to be annoyed. "His yoga classes or his dance classes?" Hoseok laughs at that, a loud and confident thing.
Hoseok laughs a lot. Dances a lot. Smiles a lot. Sometimes helps his dad teach little kids how to swim. Sometimes sea foam sticks to his eyelashes. Knows nothing about flowers but listens patiently when Yoongi talks about them, when Yoongi talks about his greenhouse and his love for jasmines and sweet sweet bubble tea.
You watch as Yoongi listens to Hoseok's ramblings, very much enamored and very much enraptured, eyes filled with love love love, a shy but fiercely sure thing. He's watching with the same soft, scrunched eyes he tends to be looking at everything with these days; at his plants and his friends and his music, like they're something precious, something to be cherished. You watch and it fills you with a not-jealousy, an almost-jealousy, an almost-want.
You want that kind of love, and yet you stray away from it at the first chance you get.
Yoongi leans in close, whispers something in his ear, and it's then that Hoseok snorts the coffee he'd been drinking through his nose, flushed from the tips of his ears down to his collarbones and suddenly they're all laughing, the two sneaking glances at each other. Glances you feel are private, intimate, probably something you weren't meant to see. You look away, feeling as if you're intruding.
Your eyes catch shifting from your peripheral vision, and you turn to see Jungkook moving hesitantly about in his seat, nibbling at the straw of his now empty milkshake. He stops. Purses his lips. Makes eye contact for a second before looking away.
You sigh. "If you clean out the backroom at home tomorrow for twenty minutes, I'll buy you another drink."
Jungkook perks up immediately. "How about if I clean out the backroom for ten minutes?"
"Twenty."
"..Fifteen?"
"Twenty."
"Seventeen."
You consider it. "...Deal."
Jungkook bursts into a celebratory dance as Yoongi tries hard to rein in his smile. You flip the two off before catching Hoseok's eye. WHIPPED, he mouths, enunciating it heavily just to be annoying, so you flip him off, too.
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Two years ago, Jungkook entertains a visit to the town's newest herb shop; his expectations low and, despite his pack sending him out to search for medicine, his eyes were mostly searching for amusement.
Witches. A funny lot, all of them. They gather leaves for a living and use brooms as a means of transportation and they sprinkle basil into their soups and they think they know how to — how to herb.
The werewolf approaches the wooden door — printing paper taped to it with 'open' written in sharpie — and in he steps, wind chimes tinkling in welcome. If there was one thing he was expecting, it wasn't this. 
The air smelled like wood and scented candles, paint that's just beginning to dry. Shelves lined the walls from top to bottom with potions and tea and crystals and, well, herbs, and in the far back stood a nearly empty bookshelf, only half the books on the shelves and the rest still sitting in a box not quite in plain sight but not exactly hidden, either, as if the owner hadn't quite finished packing them.
If Jungkook holds his breath just right, he can feel his heart beating in sync with something in the air. Something living. 
Jungkook approaches the counter, searching left and right. No one in sight. "Hello?" He calls out. Flinches when he feels a thud, followed by a very abrupt, very loud—
"OW."
He leans forward tentatively after a moment of hesitation, glancing beneath the counter and, sure enough, there you are. This small thing curled on the floor, rubbing at your head from when you'd just tried to stand. No pointy hat or a big nose or dozens of moles, no evil laugh threatening to tumble out your lips, hidden just under your tongue.
It was just you. Wide eyed you. Sweet smelling you; sugar cookies, his brain supplies even though he didn't ask it to. Sugar cookies and vanilla and dark woods and something like coriander, just on the edges.
"Why were you sitting on the floor?" He asks you, the first thing he asks you.
You look up at him. Stare for a while. Your eyes don't linger on his ears stretched up in curiosity, black fur tipped with brown, or his tail wagging a bit behind him. He grabs at it to make it stop.
"I don't have any chairs." Is all you say, the lilting tone of home in your words. Jungkook laughs that terrible laugh of his, the one with his grin stretched ear to ear, his nose and eyes crinkled terribly. His laugh makes you laugh. Your laughter is terrible too, he notices.
He gets the medicine, tossing a pouch of coins onto the counter, courtesy of his pack. They have a knack at bringing the most inconvenience possible and living as if it were the nineteenth century.
Jungkook thought that would be it. But his father needed more scented candles and his brother needed more tea and his mother whined, like, once, that they were out of basil. And of course there are other shops that sell scented candles and tea and basil, but yours happened to be on his way every time.
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True to his word, the vampire does indeed come back.
Despite barely talking to the boy, you know a bit about him from his interactions with Jungkook and what Jungkook, himself, shares with you. There's a dog with angry and very expressive eyebrows as his lock screen. His lips are naturally pouty and his hands are never quite still. Jungkook once stepped into the kitchen with peppa pig bandaids on his knees and despite knowing fully well that it could be any one of your friends, Yoongi is the least prepared person you know, Hoseok was working at that hour, and Jin only carries hello kitty bandaids from down the street, so you have a pretty clear idea of who's responsible.
And despite all that, you know little to nothing about the man personally.
"Noona, he's.. so nice. He's, like, my weekly reminder that I am, in fact, bisexual." Jungkook speaks as he polishes a crystal, sky blue in color and warm in his palm, and you watch him from between the bookshelves, placing your newly ordered volume of Jim Morrison's books through the available spaces.
"That's nice, Guk-ah." And it is, it really is. He's starting to move on and he's happy and his eyes are shining brighter than the crystal in his hands, tiny constellations hidden behind his eyelids, his eyelashes. "Tell me more?"
And so he does. He explains in a tiny voice, a soft one, occasional giggles and nose crinkles and bunny teeth as he talks about this mysterious boy and it all just feels like. So much.
The shop's lights dim the slightest bit. Jungkook doesn't comment on it.
It goes on until you both hear a loud gurgle from the closet-sized kitchen followed by the scent of smoke, and it's only then you remembered the potion you'd left brewing in the cauldron. You trip only once in panic, and Jungkook's laughter echoes through the walls and it follows you the whole way there.
It's a small little thing. A typical witch cauldron in its finest, smaller than average, sitting over your stove and under the kitchen cupboards. They're all filled to the brim with color-coded tupperwares, its ingredients labeled in sharpie in each respective container; because otherwise you wouldn't be able to distinguish the luck potion from the mashed potatoes, the health potion Jungkook thinks tastes like dirt from the apple sauce.
Somewhere between you opening your window to let the smoke out and your attempts at dwindling the damage, your familiar approaches you from behind and looks over your shoulder curiously, ears moving about in alert. "Can you save it? Is it still good?"
"Yeah, no thanks to you." You say in response, but there's no bite to your tone. He bites your shoulder playfully, a tiny howl slipping from his throat. You chuckle, fully endeared.
You grab a nearby measuring cup. You'd prefer glass vials, but they were all being used at the moment, sitting somewhere in your cabinets. You should probably move them somewhere else. Last time they were left alone too long, one exploded and ruined everything else you'd left in that cabinet.
"Do you know if we got any crystal orders recently?"
Jungkook hums at your question, chin propped on your shoulder, his arms still and unsure at his sides. You should probably nudge him off. Some selfish part of you, the bigger part, doesn't let you.
"Um. I think so. Maybe last week? I think you shoved them in a box somewhere." You probably did. It's starting to become a bad habit of yours.
"Dammit."
Jungkook laughs. "What do they do, anyway? Do they predict the future or something?"
"No, unfortunately. Only specific kinds of witches can do that. Divination is pretty hard so I'm pretty sure, like, only Namjoon is capable." You huff out a laugh, "And they're for curses, mostly."
"Namjoon-hyung can do everything so he's the only exception." He pauses. "Except context clues. He's very bad at context clues."
"And taking care of plants," you add. Just last year you'd given him a succulent because you figured it was the easiest thing to keep alive. It died within a week.
You grab a ladle and scoop up some of the liquid from the cauldron, bringing it to your lips before blowing softly. Probably a bad idea to taste test unknown substances, especially in its early stages, but you decide that it's as good a day as any to challenge death, so you swallow some determinedly. It doesn't burn in your throat, just fuzzes and warms a bit on your tongue, so that's a good sign.
"Are we cursing someone?" Jungkook says with a toothy grin before then resolutely, decidedly, adamantly, rests his hands on your hips, twisting his head so his cheek is on your shoulder instead of his chin. You can feel his breath on your neck, goosebumps prickling at your skin, his touch burning even through your clothes.
"No." You say, feeling small. "Not today. Crystals aren't made for that, Gukkie." You mix the wooden spoon through the concoction absentmindedly as you continue, "Plus, curses need a lot of magic. Usually more than one witch. And don't ask Namjoon because I know he would say yes if you asked."
"I think you can do it yourself." He mumbles, nose pressed to your neck.
"Sweet talk isn't going to make me curse someone." You say but your eyes are wide and lovely, as if you'd give in with just a bit more persuasion. "Who do you have in mind, anyway?"
"No one," he hums for a bit, lips pursed, and they tickle your neck a bit in a not-kiss. An almost-kiss. "Yet."
A hearty laugh bursts from your chest and Jungkook giggles along, giggles, the sound delightful and lovely and the cacti on your windowsill hum, leaning into it. You find yourself doing the same. The kitchen gets a tad bit warmer and the lights get a tad bit brighter.
"Any crystal can curse someone if you throw it hard enough." He grins, bright and unreserved. His eyes look like the chocolate truffles he drools over when commercials for it show on TV.
Some days it hurts more than others. This intimacy you have with Jungkook, how safe he makes you feel. How sometimes is hurts just a bit, just around the edges, where it's easy to hide. How sometimes it hurts too much, when the words are all up in your throat and blocking your airway, no space to let your rib cage expand when you try to draw in a breath.
"Guk- grab me some aloe vera roots, please? Please." You whisper, afraid that if you talked any louder the other words would come tumbling out. Your heart sits so big in your chest it's taking too much effort to hold it in place. Hands claw around it incessantly, some squeezing at it and others making it harder for you to breathe.
Jungkook untangles himself from you just as the lights overhead flicker indecisively. His hands don't linger. They feel like they might linger. They hover over your hips for a second, as if he stopped them from lingering.
He says something that sounds like okay, noona but the words get lost somewhere between his tongue and his teeth and only half of it makes it out. You hear cupboards opening and closing—feel Jungkook lingering in the air you breathe in.
You turn around and the werewolf is moving aside your many tupperwares, reading the label of the ones he finds the strangest. He picks up one with a soft pink color, the liquid bubbling unpleasantly. He places it right back, brows furrowed.
"How do you know how to make all this stuff, anyway?" He exclaims with a huff, closing another cupboard with a thud.
"Pinterest. Yoongi. Years of training, maybe. Or not. I think I stopped paying attention after seventh grade."
He laughs a bit at that, a soft thing. Hands you the tupperware with the root you asked for, which ended up being shoved somewhere in the fridge. You really should reorganize your things.
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You take trains sometimes.
Faraway trains, hidden somewhere in the deepest part of the city. Trains taken straight out of Ghibli films, splashes of watercolor and pencil art drawn by hand. You take them when you feel like getting away, like outrunning the heartbreak chasing you down, like you want to go somewhere but have no destination in mind. You get off on stops where you don't know where you are.
The train sometimes takes you to farms, where the horizon is burning against the tips of the wheat, setting the world on fire. Sometimes it takes you to towns you haven't even heard of, where everything is homey and everyone knows each other and the flowers sitting on windowsills to bask in the sun greet you softly.
Everything is nice. Calming. You like when the train goes through tunnels, the dark inviting and comforting, a childlike wonder. The sound of the rail wheel on the track almost lulls you to sleep at times, white noise in your ears, and the few people in the train agree — most already doing exactly that, slumped against the seats.
The train skids to a halt. Nothing compels you to get off, so you don't.
People are leaving, a mother sitting in the seat in front of you urging her daughter awake, the old man sitting a few seats back getting up slowly, with kind eyes and laughter lines. You stay slumped by the window, sunlight warming the side of your face.
Amidst your daydreaming and despite the available seats, a man gets on board, spots you, sits beside you. He watches your side profile for a bit, as if waiting for you to complain or call him out on it. You don't, so he gets comfortable in his seat, closes his eyes. His skin is the color of honey and gold.
He looks absolutely horrible. Well, not outwardly—not outwardly at all. He's wearing slippers with little rabbit ears drooping horribly endearingly, a flannel and basketball shorts, two articles of clothing that don't match at all, as if he grabbed them last minute, but he makes them work. You have a feeling he would look good dressed in cardboard and trash bags.
His ears are a light brown color, and on his head sat a pair of antlers, the tip of one broken off a bit.
But his aura. His aura is absolutely horrible. It's gloomy and so unbelievably dark, hovering over his form and twisting into something ugly.
Maybe this strange man is like you. Maybe he likes to take train rides to the middle of nowhere in early mornings, when the clouds are still blurring over the horizon. You catch him staring at it, the horizon; right when you look up and see him looking not at you, but just past your head up to the skies.
You stare, too. The silence stretches, and a voice—thick and smooth like honey—breaks it. You're comparing him to honey a lot, you notice. His voice and his skin. You'll call him honey boy for now. "Blue."
The sky is awfully blue today, only a few clouds hovering overhead. "It'll rain soon," you reply thoughtlessly.
"How'd you know?" You sense a lilting tone of comfort in his tone of voice. He has a bit of a lisp. His eyes are big and open and honest.
"The leaves are turned on their back, the crickets are chirping, there were some colorful streaks on the sky today." You can tell he's processing the words, taking them to heart, listening gently.
"Oh." Is all he says. The silence stretches again. It doesn't last long. "Are you sad, too?"
Your eyes are wide with surprise when you turn to look at him. A grin splits across his face at your unintentional open admittance, and it's so pretty you can't look away.
The man explains he hasn't gotten more than four hours of sleep for the past two weeks. That he hasn't properly interacted with another human that wasn't his roommate and his mom probably since last Wednesday ("Maybe, that might have been a fever dream," he adds. You laugh). That he's been functioning solely through chocolate, granola bars and vitamin gummies—not coffee, no, he can't stand caffeine—and you laugh until he opens his backpack and pulls out, like, thirteen kitkats.
Describing honey boy is some new word you don't know. Like all the gentle love in his heart has manifested itself, is seeping out through his skin. You wonder how many strangers he's charmed in his life.
Honey boy hums a song absentmindedly from beside you, probably unaware that he's doing it. His voice is a deep timbre that fills the silence in a quiet way. His voice is nice and the train ride is nice and for a second it feels like you've run so far ahead from the heartbreak that it's likely impossible for it to ever catch up.
"Do you like the ocean?" He asks after a bit. The train is getting closer to it, to the ocean, and you can see the line where the blue of the sky blurs into the blue of the ocean. He answers before you get the chance to, "I really like the ocean. I would come here a lot with my grandparents. I like how my dad used to chase me around the sand and my mom would sing to me and my grandma would buy me cotton candy from the vendors that walked by and my grandpa would playfully pull at my antlers. And how the pretty scaled mermaids kept the tide gentle when I was learning to swim and it's, just. A cradley sort of place."
The way he views the world is so gentle. "It'll kick your ass, though," you mutter.
He giggles, really giggles, and it comes out as a ehehe kind of sound. It's cute, your mind supplies even though you didn't ask it to.
"It will, won't it?" He says between laughter. "Sorry, I'm talking too much, aren't I?"
"No!" You say too quickly. Clear your throat at the realization. "No, you're not. I like when you ramble."
Pretty pink on his cheeks. He looks small, somehow. "You sound like someone I know."
"That's good. You should have those kind of people in your life or else you'll go mad."
He laughs. The train skids to a stop the same way it always does, but it feels different. The man goes to stand up, hesitates, sits back down. Looks at you, almost as if to ask for permission. "Will I see you again?"
Your breath hitches in your throat. "I don't know."
"Gram says that people that are meant to find each other, will." He looks determined. One of his ears twitch. "See you soon."
And with that he gets off the train, doesn't look back for even a second, is saving that glimpse for when you see each other again. A part of you doesn't think you will. Another finds itself wishing for it.
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