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Wonwoo just wants to go home.
In all honesty, he probably should’ve seen this coming. He wasn’t even planning to attend Soonyoung’s last-minute end-of-term party, but he was guilted into going after he got sent several pouting selfies from Soonyoung, Jeonghan, Joshua, and Seungcheol reminding him that it would be their last Christmas together before the elder three graduated. What could go wrong? they said, it’s just a little get-together! But of course, like many, many of Soonyoung’s ideas, the party ended up in flames. (Hell, Wonwoo would’ve preferred an actual fire to the mess they’re in right now, at least they would’ve known how to fix it.)
He should’ve just skipped the whole thing, seeing as he was going to drive home to Changwon the next day, and drinking the night before a 4-hour drive was probably not a very good idea. Of course, there was always the option of tagging along with Seungcheol, who just got his teleportation license, but that also meant that he’d be subject to the painful slow burn that is Seungcheol and Joshua for one more day. Third-wheeling those two was like watching an excruciatingly drawn out Naruto filler episode, except it never ends. (Seungcheol and Joshua can pretend to not-flirt all they want but at this point everyone‘s just waiting for the wedding, they’re basically married already).
Unfortunately, Wonwoo did go to the party, and Soonyoung did drunkenly screw up a ritual, and now he’s here, stuck in the middle of nowhere in another dimension with his ex-boyfriend.
“God, could you walk any slower? It’s almost as if you want to be stuck in this dream realm forever.” Wonwoo scoffs as he stops to wait for Junhui a few meters ahead.
“Well, sorry I’m not Usain Bolt,” Junhui huffs under his breath, slowing his pace down even more. He resists the urge to roll his eyes. The amount of eye-rolling he’s done since they’ve gotten here has almost definitely already beaten his personal record of 13 in one hour. That’s probably not good for his health.
Wonwoo sighs. “Just hurry up.”
Currently, they were following the (hopefully abandoned) train tracks they had come across shortly after they came to. After Soonyoung’s disastrous attempt at seer magic, Junhui and Wonwoo found themselves in a field in the middle of nowhere. The only indication of where they might be were the little glowing sprites dancing around each other in the tall, technicolored forest a few steps away from where they appeared.
“Maybe we shouldn’t take our chances getting lost in the forest…” Junhui had suggested. The fae were a notoriously capricious bunch, most especially if they felt threatened in any way, whether they actually are or not. Goodness knows how they’d take to a pair of lost human seers suddenly appearing on their home turf.
They go on for a while without speaking, neither wanting to address the awkward tension in the air. This is the first time they’ve been alone together in nearly half a year, with none of their friends around to act as a buffer. A year ago this would’ve been a welcome respite for them away from pressures of school and their friends’ teasing; they used to find comfort in one another. But the Wonwoo and Junhui of that time are long gone.
They find a cat.
It’s got a fluffy pastel pink coat (not unlike most of the landscape they’ve seen here), and its twin tails curl around each other at the tip in an almost heart shape. Junhui takes to it immediately, crouching down and holding out his hand for it to sniff at.
Generally, Wonwoo sees himself as a cat person. His apartment doesn’t allow pets, but he always stops by Mingyu’s work at the animal shelter as often as he can to play with and take care of the cats, and he’s befriended pretty much all of the neighborhood strays. Wonwoo’s always thought of cats as kindred spirits, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he were a cat in his past life. And yet, even he is hesitant to approach this one. Common sense dictates that you should be wary of wild magical creatures, and this is definitely not a household cat from Earth. However, he doesn’t think it’s dangerous at all really, judging by the way it cuddles and clings to Junhui’s pant leg. Its aura is perfectly harmless too, from what Wonwoo can sense. It’s just, there’s something about the little glint in its eye that leads him to believe that it’s not just an ordinary feline.
He continues to just observe them for a while, watching them play around a bit as he sits down a few feet away.
“Don’t you feel something... odd, about the cat? What if she’s dangerous?”
“Of course not, she’s just a kitty!” Junhui frowns. “And the cat is named Huihui, she’s my baby now,” Junhui strokes the cat’s furry upturned tummy, cooing softly as she meows up at him.
“Still, it’s better to be safe than sorry,” Wonwoo gets up to walk over to the cat. He looks her in the eye for a minute, when Huihui suddenly wrestles herself out of Junhui’s grasp and scurries off ahead of them.
Junhui looks at him pointedly before running off to follow Huihui.
Wonwoo sighs and starts to run after them.
Huihui ends up leading them to what looks to be a small, overgrown temple. Larger pieces of ruin backdropped the once-pristine white building, almost camouflaging it with the rest of the ruins. Huihui pads off inside, Wonwoo and Junhui in tow.
Junhui runs his hands over the carved runes covering the inner walls, inspecting the hieroglyphs accompanying them. With luck, this could be their ticket home.
“Do you think these could help us get back?”
“I don’t know, aren’t you supposed to be the runology expert?”
“Never mind, just pretend I wasn’t talking to you,” Junhui mutters. He muses over the carvings, taking note of the ancient, obsolete runes he’d never seen before.
Wonwoo brushes past him, going over to investigate the small golden box tucked away in the back of the room on a stone table. There are a few raggedy, old books sitting on the table as well, the kind that Wonwoo feels like would crumble if he so much as touches them. He wouldn’t have been able to read them anyway, they look like they’re written in some ancient fae language.
Inside the gold box, Wonwoo finds a hefty 6-sided crystal inscribed with as many runes as there were on the walls.
”Hey Junhui, I found something.” He holds it out to the other seer for him to inspect.
Junhui takes the crystal and holds it up next to the carvings on every wall, going over and comparing each one.
“Well, from what I can tell, all of this is for some kind of gate spell? I don’t know, just something to do with gates. Not sure how this could help us, though.”
“Oh, fuck.”
Jeonghan wakes up to an alarmingly small number of people in his apartment. On any given day there would normally be at least a minimum of 3 people occupying the space, which may or may not include any of the 3 actual residents. But there definitely should be more than 4 other people in the living room right now considering absolutely nobody was sober last night, and if there was one thing Seungcheol strictly enforced at these parties, it was the ‘no drunk driving’ rule.
Wait, Seungcheol. Jeonghan realizes the distinct lack of the other’s loud post-party nagging. Where is he? And Joshua?? Shit, where the hell are the rest of the kids???
Just as Jeonghan was about to go into full-on panic mode and start tearing at his hair, he feels a light tap on his shoulder. “Hyung? I think you might, uh, wanna check this out...”
Mingyu cautiously leads the elder over to where the others are huddled behind the sofa and murmuring quietly amongst themselves. The three of them look quite distressed, with Seungkwan in particular glaring exasperatedly at the floor.
On the floor lay a bunch of mismatched runes that seem to be taken from Jeonghan’s room, arranged in a crooked circle pattern with a very familiar white fluffy ushanka hat lying right in the middle. Jeonghan groans.
“Goddamit, Soonyoung.”
“I’m hungry,” Junhui whines for the nth time that (hour? Wonwoo’s sense of time is properly fucked considering how weird time seemed to pass here, the sun has literally set and risen no less than 3 times since they got here). They’re currently sat by the edge of a shallow brook, taking a break from walking as they mull over what to do next. Huihui’s basking in the sun behind them, taking a cat nap. Wonwoo wishes he could take a nap too.
They haven’t really spoken since the temple, having been too exhausted to once they started walking under the heat of the pink-tinted sun. So far Junhui’s complaints have been the only sound filling the silence.
Wonwoo begins to stand up to stretch his legs when he spots Junhui eyeing a nearby fluorescent green berry bush and the yellow fruit tree next to it.
“Don’t even think about it. We don’t know what those are, they could be poisonous for all we know.”
Junhui pouts. “What if it’s not? I feel like I’m going to die if I don’t eat right now.”
”Again, we don’t know if these are safe, it might just make you die faster.”
Junhui groans and flops onto his back next to Huihui. “I can’t believe you’re going to let my child just watch her only parent waste away like this, shame on you.”
“That’s just how life is sometimes,” Wonwoo plays along, shaking his head. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she gets a good life and proper education with me.”
“I thought you said she might be dangerous, hm?” Junhui teases.
“I never said that,” Wonwoo blinks innocently. “Huihui is my friend.”
The pink cat meows and rubs her head against Wonwoo’s outstretched hand as if in agreement.
”Traitor.”
A few minutes later, something blindingly bright flashes through the sky for a split second before dark clouds gather and start to drench Junhui and Wonwoo in neon pink rain (why is this world so pink?).
Wonwoo immediately raises the back of his jacket to cover his head. “Great, a storm, just what we needed,” he mutters.
“This is rain, right...? Please let this just be rain,” Junhui sniffs at his shirt, trying to check if it was just water and not some kind of weird sky piss.
They quickly huddle underneath the yellow fruit tree, struggling to not get any more wet, when Huihui once again runs off. “Huihui, come back!” Junhui follows her again, dragging Wonwoo along.
It doesn’t take long for Huihui to find them a place to take shelter in, this time leading them to a quaint little cabin not too far away from where they were.
The place looks abandoned, but they try to tread carefully just in case any sprites or other creatures are nearby. Inside, it seems just as abandoned as the earlier temple they found, but a lot less dusty.
“Seems a little lived-in, don’t you think? Hope we don’t come across whoever might own it, the fae are just so unreasonable when they’re angry.”
“I see you still haven’t gotten over the elf incident.”
“It was traumatizing! I apologized immediately because I didn’t know a thing about Korean fae etiquette yet but he still went and cursed me for a whole month! I could barely sit through classes because of that.”
Wonwoo chuckles as he sifts through a few cupboards, looking for towels. “Well, we’re just here to dry off anyway, we shouldn’t be staying for too long.”
They wait out the rain sitting by the window, observing the landscape. They’ve already dried off now, the neon pink water thankfully not staining their clothes.
Wonwoo looks questioningly at Junhui when the other places a small flower vase on their table. “I found this in kitchen, it just reminds me of that immortal flower I found during our herbology practical,” He lightly twirls the purple flower around with his hands. “I haven’t seen it in a while, wonder where I left it...”
“You left it with me,” He turns away, fiddling with the sleeves of his sweater. “I told Minghao to tell you about it. You never came back to get it.”
Junhui hums wistfully. “You know... it might not be the only thing I left with you.”
“Hm, well, there‘s still a couple of your hoodies in my drawer too...”
“That’s not what I meant,” He says quietly. “My heart, it’s still with you.”
The rain starts coming down even harder. Wonwoo can’t process what Junhui’s saying.
“I... I think I’m still in love with you.”
“Then why have you been avoiding me?”
“I don’t know,” Junhui sighed. “Guess I was just too frustrated to face you again, frustrated with you, with school, with myself. And like, I kept getting reminded of the fight whenever I saw you, and I unconsciously started avoiding it because it scared me you know, how angry we both were.”
“...I was scared too,” Wonwoo confesses. “The thought that we’d never go back to how we used to be, I didn’t want to accept it. Ironic really, considering we were almost definitely going down that path before all of, this, happened.”
It’s liberating, to be able to get this off his chest. If there’s one thing Wonwoo and Junhui have in common, it’s their tendency to bottle up their worries, thinking that if they don’t acknowledge them, the negative feelings would just go away. But that’s the thing, they don’t, feelings just don’t work that way. You have to feel your emotions, otherwise they’ll pile up, and the longer you let them stew, the more it’ll weigh on you until you just can’t handle it. That’s why you need to feel them, you need to let them free in order to let go of the burden.
“I can’t believe it’s taken us this long to actually just... talk,” Junhui laughs awkwardly. “We’re ridiculous.”
Wonwoo falls lightly forward, resting his forehead to against Junhui’s shoulder. He feels like his heart might burst if he looked at Junhui right now. “I’m sorry I didn’t try harder.”
“Neither of us did,” Junhui reaches over to squeeze his hand. “I’m sorry too, Wonwoo.”
The rain has already stopped falling by the time they notice that the cabin door was ajar. The cat was gone.
“Huihui! Huihui, where are you?”
The two shout the cat’s name, searching for her in the plains surrounding the cabin. They were spotted her heading towards here a while ago, but they’d lost her again once she’d gone deeper into the long grassed fields.
However, Junhui and Wonwoo’s search came to a halt as they found themselves unable to look away from the lights. Millions of lights line the dark sky, painting it with colors not unlike an aurora. More than that, they felt a vigorous energy calling towards them, something they can’t quite understand.
They find that it’s impossible to tear their eyes away, and it feels almost blasphemous to blink, to miss even a second of it. The rich azures and verdant greens weave in and out of each other, almost like a waltz, with hints of pink and lilac faintly blending into their dance.
Soon enough they tire of standing, and they find a lone tree to sit under at the edge of the plain.
(Last summer, they were sitting by the Han river just like this, gazing at the stars the night before Junhui left for China for the week. They were content. They didn’t know it was going to be the last time they would be for a long time.)
They just sat there for a while, not speaking, but just taking in the beauty of the sky and the warmth radiating off each other. Wonwoo’s missed this, the easy silences they shared. There haven’t been many people who felt comfortable with his quietness or understood his preference for silence. With Junhui, he’d never felt pressured to keep talking, both of them comfortable enough with each other to just, be together, without having to say anything. Junhui didn’t have any expectations of Wonwoo, letting him be free to just be himself. The only thing Junhui really asked of him was to listen, to indulge him as he told stories about everything and nothing. Wonwoo didn’t mind, it was endearing to hear him talk of the things that made him happy, and even the things that made him sad. Junhui was just so strong, yet unguarded, once you got to know him. He wears his heart on his sleeve for the people he loves, wanting to share all his highs and lows with those he cared for.
Silences were easy between them, but it seems that he took it for granted. They were seers, but a seer is not a mind reader, something Wonwoo had realized a little too late back then.
Just as Wonwoo feels like he could drift off, Huihui wakes him as she jumps onto his lap right as a flurry of blue butterflies suddenly appeared.
“Wonwoo, Junhui!” Is Huihui talking? Wait, no.
“Jeonghan hyung...?”
“Yes, it’s me,” One of the butterflies fluttered closer to them. “Look, I don’t know how long this potion will last so I need you to listen carefully.”
Junhui and Wonwo sit up attentively.
“We got all the others back already, but it took us a while to figure out how to get you two out of there. Apparently you guys got transported to a much farther realm where there aren’t any active portals leading back to Earth.”
Jeonghan sensed the two getting worried, “Relax, all you need to do is activate a portal on your end so the spell can reach you.”
“Okay so how do we do that?”
“The grimoire says all the portal needs is an inscribed crystal and a gate, hopefully you’ve seen anything like that?”
“Well, we have the crystal, but no sign of a gate.”
Butterfly-Jeonghan pauses for a moment. “Jihoon says try to find someplace with very concentrated magic, that’s where they found their extraction point. Alright, I’ll check back in with you in a few hours if you haven’t gotten back yet, okay? Try to hurry, Soonyoung’s dad is picking him up tonight and we need him here to keep our side of the portal open. Good luck!”
The flock of butterflies disappear in a swirl, leaving Junhui and Wonwoo to their own devices.
“God I am going to kill Soonyoung after this. Junhui, do you have the crystal?”
“I thought you had it?”
“So I guess that’s a no,” Wonwoo gets up, picking up Huihui as he does. “Come on, let’s head back to the cabin.”
They arrive to find a dragon guarding the cabin’s front door. A fucking dragon.
This was really not the best time for them to both be seers with absolutely no combat magic experience.
Thankfully it doesn’t seem to have noticed them yet, and so the two try to sneak around and head for the back of the cabin. Wonwoo easily spots the large crystal lying on the desk near the front window and signals Junhui to head in through the back door as he stays watch.
Junhui retrieves it as quick as he can, trying not to make a sound. He gets out of there immediately after, not bothering to close the door, instead picking up Huihui as he and Wonwoo get the hell out of there.
It feels like they’ve been running for miles when Junhui abruptly stops.
“What is it?”
“Huihui’s getting too restless, I can’t carry her anymore.”
“Here, give her to me,” Wonwoo reaches over to take the cat, but Huihui leaps out of Junhui’s clutches and runs ahead. She looks back at the two when they don’t make any move to follow her, and so runs back to tug on Junhui’s pants. She won’t so much as budge even with both boys trying to pick her up.
“Is she leading us somewhere again? We have to head to the temple and activate the portal already,” Junhui hurriedly gestures to the crystal. Wonwoo frowns.
“I think she might actually know where the gate is,” He looks the cat in the eye again, “She’s been showing us all the places we needed to go, hasn’t she?”
Junhui looks a bit perplexed, but makes up his mind once he hears the batting of ginormous wings getting closer and closer to them. He sighs and says, “Alright then, let’s go, I trust you Huihui.”
It turns out that the aurora plain is where Huihui was leading them back to, this time all the way to a set of vine-covered pillars in the center of the field. However, before they could reach the structure, they see a large dragon-sized shadow looming over them just as it plucks the crystal rune right out of Wonwoo’s hands.
Ah, shit. Panicked, the pair look at each other, willing the other to do something. Wonwoo sighs as he sees that Junhui really does not want to deal with the dragon, especially a fae one.
Wonwoo swallows his fear as he tries to remember the protocol for dealing with fae dragons and then gingerly calls out, “Um, hello, we’re really sorry about taking your crystal, we really didn’t know it was yours.”
It doesn’t seem to believe them, but it doesn’t lash out again. Wonwoo takes that as a signal to go on.
”Right, so, the thing is, our friend, Soonyoung, accidentally screwed up a spell and sent us here. We just need to use it to get back, we promise we weren’t going to bring it back with us.”
It’s a tense next few minutes as they wait for the dragon to make a decision.
They brace themselves as the dragon takes a deep breath, but instead of flames, it conjures the crystal and drops it by their feet. The two let out sighs of relief.
“Isn’t having a dragon guard one crystal a bit overkill,” Junhui muses out loud. Said dragon appears to have heard Junhui’s comment and evidently isn’t so pleased, as it blows a small flame in his general direction.
“Ow, alright, sorry, no need to get so fired up,” The seer nervously laughs, jumping back to avoid the searing fire.
“Do you have a death wish?” Hisses Wonwoo as he grabs hold of the crystal and drags Junhui over to the pillars before he could annoy the dragon any further.
“You know how I get when I’m under stress, I can’t help it,” He hisses back, “And don’t pretend it wasn’t a good pun, Jeon Wonwoo.”
“Unfortunately I’m not pretending,” he retorts as he lodges the crystal into the crevice in one of the pillars.
Junhui picks up his pink cat. “I guess this is goodbye, huh,” he smiles sadly. “Goodbye Huihui, ’m gonna miss you lots.” Junhui hugs the cat tightly to his chest for the last time, before setting her gently back on the ground.
Wonwoo crouches down and pats her on the head, quietly thanking her for helping them out the whole time.
”So, time to go home then,” Wonwoo unconsciously holds out his hand to Junhui, getting a little surprised when the other does take his hand and pulls the two forward into the portal between the pillars.
Their friends immediately came to crush them in a hug after the portal spits them out onto the 3 seniors’ living room couch. They cause a huge commotion, nearly breaking the small sofa from everyone’s weight. Later on, once Seungcheol orders everyone to carry on cleaning up their mess, the two slip away into the guest bedroom to lie down and get some rest.
“Hey Wonwoo?” Junhui whispers from under the blanket.
Wonwoo hmms in response, already slowly drifting off to sleep.
“What do you think about getting a cat?”