Work Text:
“It’s a full moon tonight,” Jihoon mutters under his breath as he slumps in his chair, staring out of the window. Everything in this small village of his is just so familiar to him, from the sloping roofs of each house to the multi-colored doors, to the gentle melody of wind chimes and the scent of flowers from Mrs. Chu’s back garden. How is he supposed to leave all of this behind?
“You can come back after a year, you know,” Woozi says gruffly, batting Jihoon with his tail as he walks past. “I think we should leave now, before the weather gets bad.”
Jihoon sighs, dragging himself off the chair to pick up his bag and broom. Woozi’s right, as always, but that doesn’t make him any more willing. At least the sky is clear tonight, stars shining beautifully ahead of him. That’s supposed to be good luck, but why doesn’t Jihoon feel happy about it?
The problem is, every single witch he’s seen leave have always been full of excitement to discover another world, to explore places so foreign to them that it’s expected of him to enjoy it like everyone else does when he’d be happier off staying at home and learning how to do divination. It’s not like he has a choice anyway. In the end, he’s still dragging himself down the oak stairs, with Woozi trailing behind him. In the end, he’s still leaving, even if he doesn’t want to.
The wind outside is chilly, and right as Jihoon turns to get a jacket, his mother shows up at the door, holding a jacket for him. “Keep warm, okay sweetie? I’ll miss you so much. Call home when you can, and remember to eat. You always skip meals, it worries me.”
Jihoon laughs as he slings the jacket over his shoulder, reaching out to hug his mother. Even if he’s half a head taller than her, even if he’s turning eighteen today, it seems like she’ll never stop stressing about him. “I’ll be careful, Mom. Don’t worry too much about me.”
“Alright, alright. I suppose it’s time to let go, huh?” she chuckles, but his mother still holds him tightly. “I know you’re worried about what will happen, but if you follow your heart, everything will fall into place. And if things don’t work out, there’s always no shame in coming home, okay?”
“Okay.”
His mother finally lets go, wiping away her tears. It’s goodbye, that’s for sure.
It’s goodbye, Jihoon thinks as he greets every one of his neighbors. They’ve all come to send him off - it’s a ritual, and now it’s his turn. There’s just so many parting gifts, from homemade snacks for his trip to brand new spellbooks. There’s so many people he’s leaving behind.
It’s goodbye, Jihoon thinks as he mounts his broom and takes off, waving to everyone as he keeps soaring higher and higher, until he can see the canopies of the trees in the distance. The only one left with him is Woozi, who’s sitting comfortably in his bag and probably falling asleep right now. There’s so many miles ahead of him, too many paths he could take. Flying straight is the easiest. He’ll just see where that takes him.
In the loneliness of the winter night, with only the stars and Woozi to keep him company, he decides that saying goodbye is too hard.
After hours of flying through the night with only a sleepy Woozi as his companion, Jihoon finally sees something of interest - a small seaside town, beautifully quaint. Dawn slowly breaks, sunlight reflecting off the waves in beautiful beams and tinting the town in a gentle golden hue, like a mystical veil that Jihoon is continuously pushing through. The whole city is painted in soft pastels, in blues, pinks, and off-whites. It looks nothing short of dream-like, like something you’d see right out of a Ghibli film.
For some reason, everything in this town just feels right. It’s like something is just waiting for him here. Or maybe, he’s just tired of flying and seeing a place to live for the first time in hours just excites him. “Woozi, do you think this is okay?”
Woozi grumbles, not even bothering to peep out of the bag. “It’s your life, do what you want.”
That’s a yes, Jihoon supposes, so he begins his descent into the sleepy town, watching as everyone wakes up as the day begins. He watches as people pile into trundling buses, yawning as they drag their feet after the sun impishly rising higher and higher, peeking behind buildings to say hello. Old ladies fill the marketplace, a place with so many multicolored awnings plastered with stall names and conflicting smells that it really just gives him a headache.
This is it. This is what he’s been looking for.
Eventually, Jihoon gets tired of exploring and finds himself settling down in a small alleyway. Rustic lamps line the street as people stare at him through their windows, peeking out behind curtains and pointing at the boy on the broomstick in curiosity. It’s not exactly a nuisance since Jihoon knows that it’s not malicious, but something about all the attention he’s getting makes him feel like he should walk instead.
The bakery that he stops outside is already bustling with customers, and Jihoon watches from the outside as a boy cheerfully serves everyone without faltering at all. Something about him draws him in, and Jihoon finds himself taking a step closer and pushing the heavy oak door open.
He looks up as the chimes on the door rings and smiles brightly at Jihoon. “You must be the new witch I’ve been hearing about, why don’t you come and help me out for a bit, and I’ll make some lunch for you?”
It’s quite a strange proposition, especially since he’s very sure that he’s never met the baker before. But, really, what is there to lose?
Business gradually dies down as the morning crowd leaves, sated from the sugary baked goods and fresh loaves of bread. It’s kind of… nice, actually. Everyone in this town just feels so patient, so open and welcoming that it makes Jihoon feel comfortable. A sense of homeliness washes over him with every smile that he’s greeted with.
Junhui, or so the baker says his name is, slinks into the back and busies himself with sorting out lunch as soon as the crowd dissipates, humming under his breath as metal clinks against metal. In this house that isn’t even his, something still reminds Jihoon of life back at home. Maybe it’s the smell of baking that reminds Jihoon of lazy Sunday afternoons with his mother as they’d bake bread for breakfast the next day. Maybe it’s the sound of fire crackling that reminds him of reading by the fireplace on quiet winter nights with Woozi.
He doesn’t even realize that he’s starting to tear up until Junhui places a plate of fried eggs in front of him and hands him a tissue. “Are you homesick? I can cook something to help with it,” he offers kindly, sitting down next to him. Jihoon shakes his head, but Woozi pops up to nudge Junhui into feeding him.
“If you’d like,” he says, scratching Woozi under the chin, “You can stay in the attic. I use it as a guest room, but no one really ever visits. And sometimes… I know how lonely it gets to be away from home for a long time. I haven’t been able to find time to fly home in a long, long time.”
“Do you ever miss your family?”
“I do. Every day. But I can’t just leave the bakery, it’s my baby.”
Loneliness is a feeling that Junhui knows all too well, and Jihoon’s already starting to understand. The cocktail of sourness and bitterness have yet to fully settle into his bones, but it feels like Junhui could help understand, help to teach him how to cope.
With that, Jihoon smiles and accepts the offer.
In such an unfamiliar environment, Jihoon has still somehow managed to find himself a few constants in these past few weeks. Namely, the delivery service he and Junhui have set up together since Jihoon was itching to use more of his magic, and flying helps him better manage his magic flow. It made sense at the time, with Junhui insisting that it would be no hassle to set up - after all, it was his own idea after all.
Maybe he shouldn’t have, though, since now this very cute boy won’t stop trailing behind him on his way home from the market and asking him questions about everything, and Jihoon can’t help but slow down so that the boy can catch up on his bike. It’s hard to explain why. He doesn’t want to.
“You’re the new witch right?” the boy says, beaming so brightly that it hurts. “I’m Soonyoung, welcome to Busan!”
“... I’m Jihoon.”
“Yeah, I know, Jun told me about you already! Y’know, I saw you on the first day when you came to our town, and it was so cool to see you fly on a broomstick! We were talking about you at the aviation club meeting, and I would like for you to come and join us one day?”
Woozi’s nudging him and telling him to accept the offer, but something’s holding him back, hesitation growing from the ground like vines and rooting him to the spot. Getting to know more people would definitely help him in getting accustomed to the town, but it’s not like he really ever dealt with large groups well, and a club really doesn’t sound like his thing.
The aviation club is definitely inviting him just because he can fly on his broom, doesn’t that make him nothing more than an animal at the zoo to be gawked at?
It’s almost as if Soonyoung read his mind, because his smile softens. “I know it might be too much for you, you don’t haf‘ta! But… It would be nice. It’s a casual party for us to celebrate us finishing our project, and maybe you can just get to know them a little first?”
Soonyoung hands him a small envelope, topped with a wax stamp and everything. It’s such a dramatic invitation for a small get-together, and Jihoon can’t imagine the lengths that the club went to just to impress him. It’s… endearing? Sort of? He’s not actually sure to react.
“Okay.”
“Really? Great! I need to leave now, but I hope I can see you again soon!” With that, Soonyoung speeds off, and Jihoon can’t help but watch him as he leaves.
As he continues to fly back to the bakery, his heart floods with warmth at the thought of Soonyoung and how brightly he shines, like a star falling from the sky in the middle of the day.
Bright. He likes that.
The sound of door chimes on stormy days aren’t anywhere near normal to Junhui, considering that no one would want to take shelter from the rain in such an out-of-the-way bakery, much less seeing a soaking wet Jihoon sneezing almost every second.
“Ji, why are you here! Aren’t you supposed to be at Soonyoung’s thing?” Without thinking, Jun grabs a dishtowel off the counter and starts trying to dry Jihoon’s hair off, to his discontent.
“’m fine, don’t worry about me. I just wanted to finish one more delivery-”
“Your teeth are chattering and you won’t stop shivering,” Jun interrupts. “How can I believe that you’re fine? Go and rest, you’ll fall sick if you push on like this.”
Jun gently pushes him into the kitchen, forcing him to stay home. “I’ll make you soup, get changed and rest, please.”
It sounds like a plea, for some reason, like the voice of a drowning soul. Maybe he’s projecting again.
Jihoon just feels like a rag doll with how haggard he feels, barely even realizing how drained of energy he is after he spells himself dry and curls up in his bed. Walking up the steps took too much energy, and all he wants to do is sleep.
Woozi isn’t even here, having scuttled off and hidden somewhere the moment that he heard Jihoon say he was going off to make some deliveries. It’s cold and dark and reeks of loneliness in his room when he knows that he’s left with no one around.
The problem is that Jihoon knows that he can’t keep relying on Jun for the rest of his life, not when Jun already has so much on his plate, pretending that he won’t have to choose between his family in China and his boyfriend in Korea one day. One day, he’ll be nothing more than another burden on Junhui’s plate, and he doesn’t want that, knows that he has to learn to stand on his own two feet.
God, he really, really wanted to try. He wanted to make friends for once, but he still managed to mess this one thing up. He really did want to see Soonyoung.
Jihoon drifts between consciousness and sleep, stirring whenever Junhui pops in to help him ice his fever down or to leave a bowl of congee next to him. It’s hard to even stay awake for long when exhaustion has numbed him infinitely. Woozi walked back in at some point in time and curled himself up on Jihoon’s chest. The knocking on the door, however, is more foreign than expected.
“Jihoon?” a voice calls out. “It’s Soonyoung, can I come in?”
He doesn’t have the energy to say yes - or to say anything at all, really - but Soonyoung walks in anyway, as if he knew Jihoon would want him here. Honestly, Jun probably told him to just go in since he might’ve been sleeping, but the thought doesn’t cross his mind until he sees Soonyoung quietly place a thermos on his study table.
Jihoon groans as he tries to drag himself to sit up, startling him. “You’re awake! Don’t push yourself too hard, I’ll bring the soup over instead.”
It’s odd to see someone being so invested in his well-being, considering that he already thinks Jun is overbearing for wanting him to stay home for the time being. If it was anyone else, Jihoon would most definitely feel uncomfortably vulnerable, but it’s not like he minds the attention too much if it’s from him. With Soonyoung, it’s a stranger fussing over him. Why should he care?
A thermos of soup has never felt more flattering, though.
They fall into a comfortable rhythm with Soonyoung looking through his shelf of spellbooks and flipping through them while Jihoon sips on the soup. Occasionally, Soonyoung asks about a spell he sees in the book, and Jihoon tries his best to explain it as simply as he possibly can. It’s not like Soonyoung would ever be able to wield magic, but he looks terribly cute when he’s confused and trying to figure something out.
When Jun comes up to remind Jihoon about dinner, he asks Soonyoung if he wants to stay for a while more. And of course, he does, along with a promise to Jihoon to go check out the blimp at the coast when he’s better.
Dinner feels warm.
“Hey, Woozi?”
“What’s wrong now?” Woozi mutters as he curls up next to Jihoon, staring at the ocean from the windowsill. “Missing home again?”
Moonlight caresses his face gently and Jihoon closes his eyes, listening closely to the ocean waves as they crash against the shore. Again, and again, as the waves ebb and flow in an eternal cycle. He sighs wistfully as the warm breeze kisses his cheek, longingness flowing through his veins like a boat on a stedy stream.
The answer isn’t an easy one.
There’s nothing wrong, per se. He’s starting to get into the rhythm of things, slowly memorizing the map of the town and making friends with the old lady who always requests for their delivery service to send baked goods to her niece. The boys at the aviation club are awfully noisy too, and his phone is always buzzing with messages from their club chat. It’s never about aviation, but Jihoon doesn’t mind. Their warmth and excitement are enough to make him want to stay.
Stupid, stupid aviation club president Kwon Soonyoung, dumbly making him fall in love with the town and everyone in it, to the point that he doesn’t even know what he wants anymore, to the point that he just wants to stay here and live out the rest of his life. Stupid Soonyoung and his crazy antics and hour-long calls, making Jihoon miss him more than anything, making his heart swell with love and fondness.
As much as he misses life at home, misses the smell of flowers blooming around the year and his mother calling him down for dinner when he’s too busy reading, he can’t bring himself to think about leaving. How could he leave Jun, who’s been taking care of him like they’re long lost brothers, or Wonwoo who’s been helping him with getting used to the area, or Soonyoung?
Here is nice. He has friends here, a steady job, and a sparkling life ahead of him.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Jihoon finally says. “I miss home, but I think I want to stay.”
Right now, Jihoon’s exactly three minutes early and he’s still too nervous to knock on Soonyoung’s door. Hell, he’s not even sure about why he’s so hesitant to show up to something that Soonyoung himself invited him for, but anxiety is perverse and surrounding him in all directions.
The front door swings open anyway, and Soonyoung looks ever the same, sunshine grin and brimming with energy as he drags him to the garage. “I wanted to show you this, and if you’re okay with it, maybe we could go for a test ride?”
When the garage door opens, all his questions are answered. It’s a bike with a propeller.
A bike. With a propeller.
Jihoon doesn’t know if he should laugh or cry, but the hopefulness on Soonyoung’s face makes it hard to say no either way. If you told him months back that he’d be on a bike with a stupid propellor his height with a boy that he’s stupidly following around like a lost puppy, he really would have scoffed.
Oh, how the tables turn.
It’s a nice ride, at least, as they make their way down to the coastline. Soonyoung focuses on trying to steer this monster of a bike, and maybe Jihoon leans against him just a little bit too much.
Things with Soonyoung are never easy, though, because in the blink of an eye Soonyoung’s swerving to avoid running into a stray pup, and they’re barrelling down the steep side of a hill. Maybe he should’ve expected something like this to happen, but Jihoon barely even needs to lift a finger as he casts a spell to try to slow them down before either of them gets hurt.
He’s still thwarted by a pebble.
The moment they run into the rock, they’re both flung off the bike into the meadow, and the bike is completely botched, though Jihoon can’t exactly say that that’s much of a shame. Soonyoung doesn’t even seem particularly crushed at the fact that it’s crushed, muttering about how the prototype didn’t even take off with such speeds.
When Soonyoung turns to look at him, Jihoon can’t help but burst out laughing at how tragically messed up he looks with grass in his hair and dirt smudged on his shirt.
“I made you laugh!” Soonyoung says, thrilled, and Jihoon just laughs even harder.
Even so, he looks ethereal, and Jihoon accepts it fully. Soonyoung always does.
They end up lying down in the meadow, too tired to actually make their way down to the beach, talking about everything under the sun. It just feels right, like he’s talking to an old friend that he’s known ever since they were born.
He stares at Soonyoung as he rattles on about the physics of flying, and how he would probably have to improve the bike, but all Jihoon feels is fondness. Maybe that’s why it felt right to come to Busan. Maybe it’s because this is where his place is, next to Soonyoung. Maybe… He’ll write home tonight to tell them that he wants to stay, because he found his home.
Perhaps he should’ve expected this, that things just have to go so, so terribly wrong the moment that they start going right for Jihoon.
He can’t remember a time where he couldn’t understand Woozi ever since they became familiars, and staring at Woozi now feels exactly the same as looking at any other cat. That isn’t supposed to happen - he’s not supposed to feel so foreign and distant.
The moment that he tries to cast a simple levitation spell, it fails, and the panic inside of him starts rising. Jihoon grabs his broom as he rushes out, desperately trying to get it to fly. It doesn’t work. It never does.
In this place so far away from home, Jihoon’s never felt lonelier than now, having everything he once knew stripped away from him like some cruel joke of the gods. It doesn’t feel real, he’s never heard of a witch losing their powers, and the stress won’t stop drowning him in his own desperation to right things again.
Who even is he without his magic?
As expected, Jun finds out almost immediately, though it’d be hard to not notice Jihoon faceplanting himself into the gravel outside. In between dabbing antiseptic on his wounds and feeble attempts to comfort him about the broken broom, Jihoon only feels the cloying sympathy from Jun suffocating him. He’s too helpless, too useless without magic.
“You can just work at the shop until your powers come back, I’ll tell people that we’re repairing your broom? Or-”
Jihoon cuts him off without thinking. It’s not like he knows what he wants to say or what to do, he just doesn’t want to hear the pity party from him drag on for any longer. “Jun, we can’t- I can’t- I don’t know. I don’t know if my powers will ever come back.”
“Does it matter?”
“... What?”
“Does it matter?” Jun repeats again, slower this time. “So what if you can’t use magic anymore, you’re still Jihoon to me, and you’re a treasured friend. People like you for you, dummy, and if you thought any of us would chase you away for losing your magic, you must be out of your mind. So, stay. Let’s figure this out together.”
Jun reaches out to shake his hand, and Jihoon grabs it, only to be pulled into a tight hug. “You’ll get through this.”
At that moment, the dam breaks, and Jihoon starts sobbing into Jun’s chest. He’ll be fine, he’ll be fine, as long as his friends are here with him. He has friends he can lean on, and he won’t forget it this time.
Soonyoung starts showing up almost daily, asking Jihoon if they could do deliveries together on his bike since he’s dying of boredom while waiting for summer break to pass. Jihoon isn’t daft, he knows that this is all an excuse to help keep the delivery service running while he has no powers, but he doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he knows.
Besides, if he hears Soonyoung say that he “likes him without his powers anyway” one more time, he’s will most definitely combust.
He’s starting to accept it - denial never does anything good anyway. He has a terrible, terrible crush on Soonyoung and it probably isn’t going away any time soon. Yet, there’s no way to rationalize why he likes Soonyoung this much, not when he could definitely find dozens of better boys easily.
Even if Soonyoung’s not the brightest or the most handsome, does it really matter when he’s still making Jihoon smile, when he’s going out of his way to cheer him up at his worst? It’s his warmth that makes Jihoon wants to stay around, preferably forever, for this lifetime and the next, that makes him feel like things can and will get better one day.
It’s not like Soonyoung will reciprocate the feelings, but Jihoon’s happy enough to just be friends, as long as he can stay by Soonyoung’s side. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want anything to happen, but hearing something so romantic makes his heart clench and twist in ways that he cannot imagine, like a million pins pricking at his heart.
But, for now, with Soonyoung by his side as they’re making their daily round for deliveries, Jihoon would like to just savor the moment and learn to lean on him.
It doesn’t register in Jihoon’s head that he’s staring at Soonyoung through the television, eyes plastered onto the screen as he mindlessly scrubs the same dish for the thirteenth time.
It's been weeks since he's lost his powers, but he's really been getting on well thanks to Jun and Soonyoung's constant efforts to cheer him up, and Wonwoo offering to lend him his bike for as long as he needs it. It's... Better than nothing, he guesses, but it's not the same. In the end, he's still a witch, and waiting for something to inspire him and bring his powers back is dumb. Screw the way the body works with mana.
“Ah, isn’t that friend of yours who does deliveries with you?” Madame Choi asks, and Jihoon nods. “He’s a nice boy, quite the keeper I’d say.”
“What?” he sputters as he snaps his head to look at Madame Choi, and amusement is practically spelled out on her face. "We're not dating!"
She laughs at his vehement denial, as if she knows something he doesn’t, and goes back to watching the news, humming softly to herself.
To think that he would’ve missed watching the news if he made his way home immediately after delivering bread for Madame Choi, instead of staying for a while longer to help her clean up. It’s like watching a scene of a movie unfold in front of his eyes as a strong gust of wind blows and things all start going wrong: everyone present at the ceremony failing to hold the blimp down and it starts flying away.
The only one still holding on is Soonyoung.
Something snaps in Jihoon. “Madame Choi, I’m sorry about your broom! I need to try and save him!”
Within seconds, he’s grabbing a broom from the door and barrelling out of the house, forcing and willing himself to start flying, because it’d be too late otherwise.
No one else can save him, and he can’t let Soonyoung go like that.
The wind catches in his hair as he realizes that he’s starting to float off the ground, and without thinking, he starts going at breakneck speed. Who cares if he can’t properly control the broom yet, as long as it brings him back to Soonyoung? Fighting and wrestling for control against the broom is nothing compared to what’s at stake.
When he finally reaches, he can vaguely feel the crowd staring and pointing, but that’s nowhere as important as the exhaustion plastered on Soonyoung’s face. He knows, in that second, he’s not going to make it to Soonyoung’s side to help him onto the broom.
Plan B. “Let go, trust me Soonyoung!”
Recognition flickers in his eyes, and Soonyoung turns to stare at him, as if considering if some angel of death is here to trick him into ending his life. But, Jihoon’s here in front of his eyes, and Soonyoung knows better than to doubt him.
He never could, anyway. With that, he falls, falls, falls.
And of course, Jihoon catches him. Grips onto him like the existence of the world lies in his hands.
The crowd bursts into cheers, and Jihoon’s shaking with adrenaline as he finally starts the descent back onto the ground. The moment that they reach, though, Jihoon tackles Soonyoung with a hug and nearly squeezes the life out of him. “You scared me! Why are you so reckless, you could have died!”
“You got your magic back-”
“That’s not the point!” Jihoon insists, but his protests are quickly shut up by a kiss from Soonyoung.
With that, his worries melt away. Soonyoung’s still here, still by his side, still alive and well and actually kissing him on the lips. For now, he can suspend his frustration and focus on the fact that he has both Soonyoung and his magic back, and forgive Soonyoung's stupidity for a while.
When they finally break away, Soonyoung’s blushing feverishly and mutters under his breath, “It’s… a thank you. For saving me.”
Jihoon finds himself leaning against Soonyoung's chest, laughing dryly at his stupidity.
“Then, this is my thank you for existing, and helping me through everything.”