Chapter Text
There’s a café down the street from where everybody lives that’s in between a diner and a 7-11 convenience store.
The awning is a faded peach, and unlike the greying paint on the rest of the shophouse, the walls are a clean, bright white. The windows are framed by wood that doesn’t look like it could come from anywhere around here, and on either side of the windows sit two benches that are never occupied. A fluttery menu on a brown clipboard hangs by the door, and if anyone were to look close enough through the peach curtains behind the glass, they’d realise they can’t see anything at all.
But no one ever really looks close enough.
So the café sits there quietly, air-conditioning unit strapped to the metal scaffolding above humming sleepily, and wow, you think to yourself, walking by – how is that little place still there till now? It’s almost like magic.
It’s a lot like magic, actually.
*
Ryu Minseok does opening for the café in a haphazard list of steps – he turns on the lights, a maze of bulbs hanging down from the overgrown ceiling, and waves a hand, starting the row of machines down the counter that’ve been quietly cleaning themselves through the night. He pokes his head into the kitchen to say hello to Changhyun and Hyunjoon, snags a sweet pastry before they can stop him, then proceeds to navigate the rest of the café in a lazy zigzag, righting all the chairs stacked on the tables.
The least tolerable part of this morning routine is heading up the stairs through the beaded blinds, feeling his way through the darkness, before pulling back the dark teal curtains hiding the full-length windows adorning the curved walls, letting the blinding sunlight stream in, unfiltered. It’s made better, though, by the thought of Wooje finally coming by this afternoon.
Today, Minseok finds a bright vermillion and white butterfly on one of the tables, and spends five minutes walking around with it on his finger, peering at the glass to the forest outside, to no success. This happens sometimes, when your café’s also the gateway to a fairly busy faerie forest crossing – someone leaves a window open by accident, and the next morning, the upper floor’s full of leaves and squirrels and the occasional stray hungover pixie.
There aren’t any open doors today, though, and Minseok eventually gives up. Must be a magic leak somewhere, he’ll let Hyukkyu know to take a look at it. He leaves the butterfly on a sunflower growing through a table and heads back downstairs.
Ryu Minseok ties an apron around his waist, pulls four successive shots from the espresso machine and dumps half a bottle of sugar syrup into a cappuccino cup, and prepares himself for the start of another bland day.
*
It’s been almost a hundred years since fae first left the shrinking circles of forest and started living among humans, though still much later than others – the werewolves and vampires had been doing it since forever.
Fae were just sticky like that. They stayed with their own people and within their own circles. Some circles, smaller than others.
They still like the same things they did in the past – lots of milk, honey, but the true blue urban fae must’ve evolved to fit the times, because they’d picked up things from modern humans along the way, one of them being a raging caffeine addiction.
The café’s busy enough that Minseok’s hands don’t stop moving until it’s late in the morning. This would be the point where he restocks the beverage bay, draining the last of his second cup of coffee and setting about making himself another one, while Kwanghee takes his break.
A comfortable, plain little routine.
Then the chimes above the door tinkle.
Minseok doesn’t look up from the cupcake he’s holding, trying his best to stick the peach sugar-spun wings back into the stiff white swirls, so the first thing he notices is the silence.
It’s funny how silence spreads, like a halo outwards from its source, though it’s technically nothing other than a lack of sound. His insides rearrange themselves when he thinks they’re looking at him, but as it turns out, they’re not – they’re looking at the man standing at the counter, who doesn’t seem to realise this.
The man, who is very noticeably, painfully, human.
Minseok puts the cupcake down. Years of customer service training take over. “What can I get you?”
Above the terror, he’s mostly incredulous. Even if this guy made it through the warlock-grade wards surrounding this territory, how does he not notice the fireflies? The ivy? The way magic is falling over this place like a thicket of leaves?
Though, one look at him answers Minseok’s question, more or less – this giant human is hunched over, the hood of his black jacket pulled over his equally black cap, glasses frames slipping down his nose. He might just fall asleep standing.
The human blinks when he registers Minseok’s voice, reaching under his glasses to rub his eyes. “Could you give me one, uh…” his nose scrunches. It makes another wave crash amidst the existing chaos in Minseok’s chest. “Ice-blended dewdrop mist latte, extra whipped cream in your largest size available?”
Behind the boy, a patron looks at his own iced coffee, then back up, baffled. Minseok doesn’t blame him. He wonders what must’ve triggered a chain of events that’d lead a human to walk into this café, and proceed to rattle off by heart the most blatantly basic fae order Minseok knows.
“Oh,” the boy says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “And one cup of tea. Earl Grey.”
“Right,” Minseok says. His brain feels like it’s slogging through a mud flat. “Right. Uh, give me a moment.”
“My name is Minhyung,” the man says sleepily. He looks up at Minseok’s befuddled stare. “So you can call out my order later, right?”
“Right!” Minseok feels hot all over. He desires for this interaction to be over as soon as possible, and starts messing with his espresso machine.
Around them, the café seems to return to normal, almost – they’ve seen stranger things, like the time they had a pixie come in with her elf boyfriend and suffer lovingly through a blue milk ambrosia frappucino. The elves are an inclusive and welcoming species (sarcasm intended), and the staring had stopped after a while.
And still, every time this human glances over at Minseok, he feels like he’s caught in a downstream current, trees and sky whirling past him faster, and faster. This isn’t fear, he knows he has nothing to be afraid of (doesn’t he?) – so why does his heart beat this way, still?
“What’s your name?”
Minseok turns around, hesitantly, not even sure if he’s the one being spoken to. The human is smiling, dark eyes like onyx through his bangs. He still looks half-asleep.
He’s a human, how could he possibly know the implications of asking an elf their real name during their first meeting?
“Mm,” Minseok mumbles, glancing away but looking back almost immediately, like he’s magnetised. “Mmh.”
“What? I couldn’t hear you,” The human chuckles. It’s a horrible, delicious husky sound, morning clinging to the edges of it. It makes Minseok want to keep it on one of those dandelions that elves send their voices through between the realms.
“My-name-is-Minseok,” Minseok says speedily, turning around to place the orders on the table. “Here.”
“Thank you, Minseok,” Minhyung’s hands, blocky and strong compared to the tofu fragility of Minseok’s fingers, wrap around the drinks. Their fingers brush, and Minseok feels like he’s been electrified, like a bolt of lightning’s just struck the still lake of restless magic inside him.
In all his (arguably still short) eighty years of living, it’s his first time touching a human. Could all of them make him feel this way, or was it just Minhyung?
When the human smiles this time, his eyes smile along with him. “See you around!”
He meanders back out of the café, and Minseok clings to the counter, head full of clouds.
From the kitchen, he sees Kwanghee peeking out and smirking, and knows he’s doomed.
*
Around midday, Wooje divebombs Minseok while he’s trying to make himself a fourth cup of coffee.
“Hyung!” He’s a mess of black hair, flushed cheeks and outstretched wings, like he always is after a trip across the Crossing. There’s a flower behind his ear, a simple white daisy. “I came with more nectar!”
He’s the café’s occasional travelling merchant, of sorts. Elves didn’t have many friends outside of their circles, but Wooje wasn’t just any sprite – it was impossible to meet him and not like him in some way. He’d followed Minseok back to the café one day, and once Hyukkyu found out he was Minseok’s friend, he’d semi-employed the sprite to venture across the Crossing every now and then to get things that’d need a pair of wings to harvest.
The other elves in the café had gotten used to Wooje showing up after a while. Hyukkyu didn’t exactly tolerate the unfriendly stares from elves who believed sprites should be in their place in the service areas, rather than out in the café front.
“We shared the same lineage barely a thousand years ago,” Kwanghee had scoffed the moment he’d heard those complaints. “It’s not like he’s a goblin, or a human, or something.”
No, Minseok thinks absent-mindedly, plucking the daisy out from behind Wooje’s ear. None of them could ever imagine allowing a human amongst us. “Right, Changhyun will be happy with that. Who’s this from?”
“No one,” Wooje huffs, suddenly embarrassed, grabbing the flower and putting it back. He gets off the counter, flitting whimsically amongst the machines. “I overheard them talking. Hyunjoon-...Choi Hyunjoon, he said a human came into the café this morning.”
Minseok’s heart does a funny flip-flop at that memory. “Yeah.”
“He also said you forgot to charge him for his orders.”
Minseok groans, sinking onto the stool behind the counter. “I knew I was forgetting something.”
“It’s fine, it’s probably not every day you guys get a human in here,” Wooje shrugs, whimsical. “What was he like? The human?”
“I don’t know,” Minseok says uncomfortably, starting to putter around the bar to calm his nerves. “He was tall. Big.”
“Big? Which part of him was big?”
“I don’t know. All of him. His hands,” Minseok pratters. His hand slips on a rag, letting it fall to the floor, and he almost knocks his head on the counter hastily trying to pick it up. “He was standing and blocking out the light, I don’t know, he was big, okay?”
“Okay, okay,” Wooje still looks confused. “I thought all humans were big?”
“I don’t know,” Minseok repeats, like a slightly off-kilter premonition. “It’s not like I see their kind every day, other than out this window.”
The truth was, he did look at humans, when the others in the café weren’t watching him. He stared out the leaf-lined window and watched them going about their day, in their strange looking clothes and mouths moving widely but silently, going around on their cars and buses that were so hot and went so fast. He knew for a fact that most of them weren’t as tall as Minhyung, who was almost as tall as Jaehyuk and Jihoon. Most of them weren't that far off from the elves and sprites themselves.
“Well, I guess I don't see a lot of them much either,” Wooje shrugs, looking sheepish. “Anyway, your café has the usual protection wards, right? How do you think he got through them?”
“We don’t know. Do you?”
Both Minseok and Wooje shoot up, the elf both smiling and nervous. “Hyukkyu-hyung!”
Hyukkyu lets out a dry chuckle, handsome, sharp features barely marred by his exhaustion. “You handled the human this morning well. I’m more worried about why the wards didn’t work in turning him the other way.”
“He ordered two drinks, one of them was a fae drink,” Minseok informs quickly, watching Hyukkyu’s expression turn thoughtful. “You don’t think…?”
The opening of their world up outside of the fae went against everything their old laws stood for. Deep in the forests across the Crossing, there were still sects of fae who followed those laws very closely.
But most fae these days just turned a blind eye. Mostly because the little breaks in their borders made some fae very rich, very fast. Minseok didn’t care, but less because of the money, and more because he knew Wooje was seeing a shifter spirit across this Crossing, and their path ahead was full of things that would break many, many old laws.
He steals a glance at Wooje half behind him, and sure enough, the little white daisy is missing from his ear, both hands held behind his back.
“They’ve never gone this far,” Hyukkyu says, casting a look at the door. “Our magic means nothing if our own kind turn on us. If I just had...” he regards his hand with some disappointment, watching the black seal caging the magic in, flowing blue. Though he should be used to it by now, Minseok still feels a stab of guilt. “Changhyun, you and I will just have to re-cast before we leave.”
“Well, he didn’t cause any harm,” Changhyun shrugs, though more likely to get out of casting duty than anything else. “He just ordered his drinks and left.”
Kwanghee looks thoughtful. “We should find out more about what he knows.”
“Hm. We should make sure no more stray humans end up wandering into our cafe,” Hyukkyu says drily. “I’ll ask around before I leave for the capital. See if anyone else has been having the same problem,” the owner leaves the shop. “If the issue is isolated to our Gateway, the human shouldn’t come back once we re-cast the protection spells. And if that human does come back,” he looks at Minseok. “Take care of it, Minseokie.”
“Yes hyung,” Minseok slides back behind his espresso machine. He glances at Wooje, whose delicate honey wings start to slowly relax once everyone leaves.
“I’m going back, hyung,” he whispers, holding his daisy. “I’ll see you around.”
Minseok’s mood starts to dip, and he sighs, rubbing at a spot on the counter. Back to the bland, busy days full of nothing, he supposes. “Okay. I’ll see you around.”
The sprite flits back upstairs, and Minseok finds himself standing alone behind the counter once more, hands both hot and cold, remembering the rush of something that felt like more.
*
Hyukkyu leaves for the capital through the Crossing the next day, bringing Changhyun with him.
He hugs Minseok at dawn at the glass doors to the magical gateway above their café, petting down his unusually pokey elfin ears like he used to when Minseok was just a kid, running to him after getting bullied by the other elves.
“I’ve told Kwanghee and Hyunjoon too, to keep the café safe. I’ve cut short the journey, so Changhyun and I should be back in just over a week. Jihoon will be dropping by too,” Hyukkyu says quietly. “If that human happens to come back, just send him off the same way you did before, until we figure out what’s wrong with the wards and fix it for good.”
Usually, Minseok’s miserable when Hyukkyu has to leave for the Crossing. But this time, he’s feeling a little anticipatory, a little hopeful even, about the reduced surveillance for the next week or so.
“Okay.”
“Hm,” Hyukkyu is watching him shrewdly, and Minseok quickly folds his hands behind his back.
“What?”
“Nothing. You’re not usually this happy to see me go.”
“I’m not happy!” Minseok argues, with feeling this time. He’s not. If he had it his way, Hyukkyu and the others wouldn’t ever have to leave at all. “You’ll be back as soon as you can, right hyung?”
“Of course. I don’t want to stand in the same clearing as Sanghyeok for a moment longer than I have to,” Hyukkyu drones flatly, before he turns to leave, Changhyun waving avidly at Minseok. “Just make sure everything’s the same way we left it until I get back. Changhyun, stop eating our food, we’ve got a three-hour journey to go.”
Minseok stands at the second level with Kwanghee to watch their backs until they’re out of sight, specks against the viridian and brown of the dawn-lit forest.
They’ll be back, he knows, and things will go back to the still, bland pace he’s grown so used to.
But in the meantime, who knows what might happen, to shake up this boring little life?