Work Text:
Personally, if Park Sungho was a witch, he'd use his powers to completely eradicate sickness from the face of the planet earth.
Unfortunately, he isn't a witch, and he also knows that's not how witch powers work. But the funny thing is that his roommate is a witch, and while he did not eradicate sickness from the face of the planet earth, he did eradicate sickness from Sungho. The issue now is that Sungho's pretty sure his roommate did more than eradicate sickness, and by that he means he's pretty sure his roommate has poisoned him.
Now, he knows that assuming his witch roommate has poisoned him is very prejudiced. It's the 21st century—separation laws are lone gone, societies have come together, and honestly compared to everything else in their magicky world witches are pretty low in threat level. Basically, assuming his witch roommate has poisoned him makes him worse than a traditionalist great-grandfather who judges who you bring home for holiday dinners. But Sungho isn't prejudiced. He's got nothing against the supernatural. He donates blood to the vampire blood bank every so often to show generosity. When he was little, he wished he was born a devil instead of a human because he thought devils were cool. He has a werewolf best friend and a mermaid best friend, for God's sake!
He promises he has valid reasoning for assuming his witch roommate poisoned him. After all, if he weren't poisoned, why would he be feeling like… this?
It all started with the stupid sickness itself. Finals week was rolling around, and finals week meant Sungho was all over the place, and being all over the place meant not taking care of himself, and not taking care of himself meant a single weather change caught up to him way too fast. The result was a bed-ridden Sungho with a stuffy nose, soreness, and scolding courtesy of his witch roommate, also known as Lee Sanghyuk.
For some background, Sanghyuk is the perfect roommate—poisoning aside. He's quiet, unlike Sungho's old roommate who had a fancy for howling in the middle of the night (Jaehyun). He doesn't leave fur everywhere, unlike Sungho's old roommate who was 'too lazy to clean up after shifting' (Jaehyun). He's not too crazy about socializing, unlike Sungho's old roommate who was so popular on campus that every time Sungho walked with him, they'd be stopped at least thrice (Jaehyun). He doesn't start whining and moaning for his boyfriend every month, unlike Sungho's old roommate who was unbearable during ruts (Jaehyun, Jaehyun, Jaehyun).
It's not just that he's indefinitely better than Sungho's old roommate though. Sanghyuk's just comfortable to be around. He remembers things Sungho doesn't, is attentive when it matters and mindless when it doesn't. He doesn't push for starting conversations but doesn't hesitate to listen to what Sungho has to say. He lets Sungho rant about third-wheeling his two best friends and won't complain when Sungho gets rowdy watching FIFA. The best part is that he respects Sungho's independence, so the two of them never go out of their way to intrude on each other's lives. Of course, there's times when they're both tired or their schedules line up and they eat takeout together, maybe watch a movie or show that at least one of them won't like (they've got different literary tastes, that's for sure). But what matters is that, when their lives are only intertwined in that roommate-relationship way, there's no need to worry about how his actions affect Sanghyuk or how Sanghyuk might feel about him. It's simple. Sungho likes simple.
Sanghyuk poisoning him makes things complicated. As the plaintiff, Sungho would like to explain: he was under Sanghyuk's care for the three days that he was bed-ridden (Sanghyuk had been kind enough to take those three days off, claiming that the last thing he wanted to do after finals was go to school), and it was under Sanghyuk's care that he was fed poisoned broth. Poisoned with what, you ask? A love potion. Yes, Sungho was poisoned by Sanghyuk's love potion.
Sungho has to admit, it's very cunning of Sanghyuk. Love potions are inconspicuous, the symptoms barely noticeable. But if there's one thing Sungho prides himself on, it's self-awareness. Which means when his heart starts beating fast around Sanghyuk and he can't seem to get Sanghyuk's toothy smile, kind eyes, pin-straight orange hair, scattered moles, soft personality and even softer hands out of his mind, he immediately senses that something's wrong. He can't even look at Sanghyuk without feeling the symptoms. (It must be a strong love potion.)
Why Sanghyuk would want to feed Sungho a love potion? Sungho's not sure. He's still coming to terms with it himself—there's little he can do when his body has started freaking out around Sanghyuk. At the dining table, his leg instinctively moves to press against Sanghyuk's. When they're watching a movie together on the couch, his palms grow extremely sweaty. Immediately after the door swings open, signaling that Sanghyuk's arrived home, Sungho perks up. It's terrible; he feels like a middle school girl with a crush, which he supposes is the point.
With his claim having such sound proof, Sungho would confront Sanghyuk about it. The key word is would. The truth is that while it's sort of troublesome and Sungho has never experienced this before (he means that he's never fallen in love before, not that he's never been poisoned before) (though he hasn't been poisoned before either, for the record), it's not a bad feeling. It's just… a complicated feeling. Sungho doesn't like complicated, but complicated is okay when it's Sanghyuk. Is thinking that an effect of the love potion?
Confrontation isn't happening. Curiosity, on the other hand, is happening, and Sungho thinks it'll plague him for a long long time. There's only so many YouTube searches of, How do I know if my roommate poisoned me, Witch poisoning roommate story time, How to get treated for potion poisoning, Do witches usually poison their roommates, and, Can you die from witch poisoning, one can conduct before one realizes that they might never get answers to their questions without confrontation. Sungho has pretty much resigned himself to his fate at this point.
Oh well. It could be worse. Wondering how his actions affect Sanghyuk and what Sanghyuk thinks of him is annoying, but he's not dying, even if he feels like dying every time Sanghyuk goes out and doesn't tell him where he's going. (Which is stupid, because Sungho isn't his boyfriend and has no right to demand to know who Sanghyuk is going out with or whether Sanghyuk is talking to other guys.) (Unfortunately.)
(He even consults condemned ex-roommate about his symptoms. Jaehyun just replies, "Sounds like you're in love," which Sungho rolls his eyes at because, duh. It's called a love potion, not a hate potion.)
Being poisoned becomes a problem when Sanghyuk starts avoiding Sungho.
Sure, they had never directly interfered with each other's lives, but they'd interacted plenty. Sungho can tell that Sanghyuk is avoiding him—it's even more obvious now that he's begun paying attention to Sanghyuk's every move. And with the love potion screwing him over, there's really no way for him to not be upset about it.
If he were in any other predicament, he might've just been confused. A little annoyed, if he thought it was a problem that Sanghyuk should talk to him about. At most, angsty that he had nobody else to talk to about FC Barcelona's recent won match. Right now, he feels like he could lose his mind if somebody did so much as bump into him on the street. The loss of Sanghyuk is like a gaping hole in his side, and it's not even a loss, really. Sanghyuk's still around in the apartment most of the time (he's not fond of going out—Sungho knows that) (he also wishes he knew more about Sanghyuk in general, but- ugh, the potion's getting to his head); he speaks to Sungho when Sungho speaks to him; he doesn't avoid Sungho's gaze, at least, not significantly more often than he used to. They just don't have those coincidences anymore, those crossing-of-paths even when Sungho knows they could happen. There are so many open opportunities and yet Sanghyuk never takes a step to initiate it. Well, he hadn't really been the one initiating it before anyway, but he'd had this sort of welcome air around him, staring at Sungho as if goading him, Ask me to have lunch together.
Now, in those open moments, Sungho opens his mouth halfway and then finds that Sanghyuk's already turned away from him. It takes all his effort not to rip his hair out once he realizes so.
Sungho might be a bit miserable. Just a little bit. He also might be a bit frustrated, because the least Sanghyuk could do is not feed him an obsessive love potion and then proceed to pull away without giving Sungho the attention he needs. Now Sungho feels a desperate cat pawing at the door of a locked room, the room in question having a very enticing dish of fragrant cat food inside. Not to imply Sanghyuk is a very enticing dish of fragrant cat food. Anyway, he might not have the guts to confront Sanghyuk about the love potion, but he's too frustrated to not have the guts to confront Sanghyuk about avoiding him.
"What's up?" he asks Sanghyuk as soon as he's cornered the latter. Cornered is a strong word, especially given that all he's done is placed a hand on the back of Sanghyuk's chair while Sanghyuk is snacking on a bag of chips.
Sanghyuk's chewing slows. He turns his head slightly, though not enough to make eye contact with Sungho. "Hm?"
"What's up," Sungho clarifies, "with you."
Sanghyuk turns his head further this time, blinking slowly at Sungho.
"You've been avoiding me," says Sungho.
"I'm sitting right here," counters Sanghyuk.
"You've been avoiding me," Sungho insists. "What's the deal? Did I do something wrong? You won't even watch the newest episode of that K-drama with me."
Sanghyuk blinks at him for a little longer, then turns to face forward again. He reaches into his nearly-empty bag and pulls out another chip. There's no response.
Sungho frowns. "Hey, come on. We're on good terms." …Well, as good as terms get when you're a poisoner and a poisoned. He attempts to lean closer to Sanghyuk if only to see if he can pry out the answer via proximity, but his heart starts beating way too fast at the idea of being close to Sanghyuk. He instead shuffles to the side of Sanghyuk and continues, "If it's me, I'll fix whatever it is. I just need to know-"
"It's not you," Sanghyuk admits softly. Sungho immediately shuts his mouth. "If anything, it's me. I just… thought I'd give you space."
Sungho frowns again. "Space? What would I need space for?"
"Are you uncomfortable rooming with a witch?"
The question comes out of nowhere. Sungho recoils at the implication of it—he's not an asshole, and it hurts that Sanghyuk would think of him to be. "We've roomed together for months already, Sanghyuk, and you're a witch, in case you forgot."
If Sanghyuk were meaner, he'd mock Sungho for pointing out the obvious. Here, he just leans back and breathes out. "The issue," he says, and then he doesn't elaborate.
"The issue?" prompts Sungho.
"Nevermind." Sanghyuk crumples up the now-empty chip bag. "I'm at Dongmin's tonight, to work on a project. I'll be home late, so, sorry in advance if I wake you up. Stealth is a vampire thing, not a witch thing."
"I know," Sungho replies instinctively. Before he can question any further, Sanghyuk slips out of the chair and away to his bedroom.
Naively, Sungho thinks that's all it takes for them to go back to normal. He's not sure what normal even entails at this point—normal as in before the ignoring, after the poisoning or normal as in before the ignoring, before the poisoning? Sungho feels like he could consider the poison pretty normal now. He's had plenty of experience adapting to it ever since Sanghyuk started pulling away from him.
Whatever normal is, they're far from it after the confrontation. Sanghyuk seems even more distant now that Sungho's pointed out his avoidance, which is both frustrating in that he's clearly proving his whole 'I'm not ignoring you' thing wrong and that he's away from Sungho, as in away away, and the missing effects of his presence are ever-clear. To cope, Sungho has memorized Sanghyuk's entire begin-the-day routine: get out of bed too early for Sungho to catch him (5:30am, and as much as Sungho, um, likes… Sanghyuk, he's not willing to wake up at 5:30am for the off-chance that Sanghyuk will say more than three words to him), pack brunch for both himself and Sungho, leave the apartment to catch the early-morning train down to the school campus, meet up with Han Dongmin at a nearby cafe, and stay there until the 8am lecture time rolls around. And no, Jaehyun, Sungho is not a stalker for knowing all of that. He's just resourceful, as in ever since he found out Jaehyun's underclassman friend Woonhak is particularly close with Sanghyuk's best friend Dongmin, he's been using Woonhak as a secret-agent-spy because the latter is too scared of Sungho to say no. Mid-days and afternoons and evenings get a bit blurry—Sanghyuk somehow comes up with new excuses every single time, though they can't really be considered excuses. It's not like Sanghyuk ever had an obligation to be around Sungho in the first place.
Does knowing exactly where Sanghyuk is in the morning actually provide any comfort? Not really. If anything, it's a little torturous; Sungho will glance at the clock as soon as he wakes up and immediately think about what Sanghyuk's doing, how his coffee might taste compared to the day before. And no, Jaehyun, it's not obsessive. It's called keeping tabs. It's called documenting. It's called Sungho feeling extremely unnerved when he doesn't know what Sanghyuk is doing, because what if he's riding on a motorcycle with Dongmin and the two of them get into a crash? What if he accidentally falls for a devil's scam and signs away his soul? What if he's going on a blind date with somebody else that's way more composed and emotional than Sungho?
"Bro, that's exactly what an obsessive stalker would say," Jaehyun deadpans.
"Maybe you just need to find the root of the problem," suggests Donghyun. He's sitting on the couch next to Jaehyun, feeding some beef jerky into Jaehyun's mouth like the latter is a dog (which is sort of true? Dogs evolved from wolves… hm).
"The root of the problem is that he won't tell me what the root of the problem is," Sungho complains. He wants to suffocate in the fluffy carpet he's laying on, but he's also somewhat sure that it's covered in remnants of Jaehyun-wolf-hair, and he doesn't really want a mouthful of Jaehyun-wolf-hair.
Jaehyun chews noisily. "If he's not telling you, it probably means he thinks you should already know what the root of the problem is."
"How am I supposed to know what the root of the problem is if he doesn't tell me what it is?"
"Critical thinking skills," replies Donghyun. Ever the emotional analyst, he continues, "Put yourself in his shoes. What could you have done wrong that he could be upset about?"
That's difficult, because Sungho thinks just about everything he does is perfect. …Maybe that's the root of the problem. "Ugh. I don't know."
"Lol," Jaehyun says through his mouthful of beef jerky (pronounced loll, not L-O-L, which irks Sungho more than it should), "this is funny. I've never seen you this crazy about someone. It's probably just something dumb you did, like rank his favorite song at the very bottom of your song tier list, or reorganize the shoe rank only to misplace all of his most-worn shoes, or, um, hm, search up Do witches usually poison their roommates on YouTube."
Sungho frowns. "…How did you know I searched up Do witches usually poison their roommates on YouTube?"
"A hunch?" Jaehyun suggests at the same time Donghyun answers, "Hyung, it's on your TV's YouTube search history."
"What?" Sungho shoots up from his place on the carpet. To his horror, when his vision refocuses on the YouTube TV page that's currently open, just below the search bar is a very distinct: Do witches usually poison their roommates, followed by, How do I know if my roommate poisoned me, Witch poisoning roommate story time, How to get treated for potion poisoning, and, Can you die from witch poisoning. His heart sinks to his stomach. "Fuck."
"What, don't tell me you didn't know your YouTube search history shows up here too, and so you didn't bother to clear it, and then Sanghyuk, using your TV and YouTube account because you two usually share, came across these searches sometime afterward and immediately assumed you viewed his witch identity with hostility." Jaehyun blinks. "No way that's why he's avoiding you, right?"
Sungho squeezes his eyes shut. "Fuck."
Donghyun hums. "So it was something dumb you did."
"Well-" Sungho sighs harshly and fumbles around with words inside of his head. "Well, to be fair, he did poison me."
"We've gone over this, Sungho-"
"He did! Honestly, none of this wouldn't have happened if he hadn't poisoned me in the first place. And besides, the only reason why this whole avoiding thing is bugging me is because I'm non-consensually in love with him. So really, it's not my fault-"
"Do you want him back or not?" Jaehyun interrupts, half-whining. "If you want him back, you can't be high and mighty about this, Sungho! You need to get on two knees and beg him to forgive you!"
Sungho whips his head around to stare at him incredulously. Turning his gaze to Donghyun, who looks awfully serene, he asks, "Does he usually get on two knees and beg you to forgive him when he teases you too much?"
Donghyun shrugs in response.
"Okay, maybe don't get on two knees and beg him to forgive you," Jaehyun concedes. "But you have to at least clear things up. He's probably not mad at you—just guilty. Like, come on. You're human."
"Thanks? I knew that?"
"The last thing he wants to do is scare a human," Donghyun explains gently. "That's probably why he's giving you space. Just be honest with him, Hyung, and you two can go back to normal."
Honest. Sungho winces. Okay, well. He can do honest. Whatever it takes to go back to normal, he supposes.
Like deja vu, he corners Sanghyuk again when the latter is sat in a chair eating. The only difference is that this time it's not at their house, and it's noticeably not just the two of them: Dongmin sits across from Sanghyuk. He's staring at Sungho with furrowed eyebrows and unconcealed disdain, which Sungho would take offense to if he didn't assume that Sanghyuk had told Dongmin about the situation and Dongmin's impression of Sungho had therefore gone down the drain.
"Hey," says Sungho, placing a hand on the back of Sanghyuk's chair.
Sanghyuk doesn't bristle, but it's near thing—he does that thing where he doesn't sigh but his whole body seems to follow the same motion, and then he turns his head so that he can look at Sungho. "Sungho."
"Why are you here," Dongmin snaps before Sungho can answer Sanghyuk. Sanghyuk turns back to Dongmin and levels him with an indecipherable glare. At that, Dongmin huffs, rises from his seat, and says, "Whatever. Have fun getting on two knees and begging him to forgive you."
Sungho blinks. Before he can wonder when exactly Dongmin managed to sync brainwaves with Myung Jaehyun, the former's walked straight through the open cafe door. The bustle of customers around them muffles quieter words, but Sungho swears he can hear Dongmin mutter something about 'stupid humans'. He decides to take offense to that one.
"They get cranky in the morning," Sanghyuk explains when Sungho takes Dongmin's seat. "Vampires, I mean."
"I know." He doesn't add I'm not stupid; given the situation at hand, he's not sure he has a right to say that. "Honestly, you've got no business dragging him out this early in the morning."
The corner of Sanghyuk's lip twitches upward, though he looks too tired to be really smiling. "You make it sound like I'm forcing him to be here."
"Who knows? Maybe you've got him under an obedience spell." Sungho pauses, then continues, "That's a joke. I don't actually think you put people under random spells, because I don't think you being a witch is a big deal. You're just like a normal roommate but with, um, a broom. And a wand, sometimes. It's not like I actually think you curse people on the daily, so, well—I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm sorry for searching up Do witches usually poison their roommates on YouTube. But to be fair-" he winces. "Okay, Jaehyun told me not to blame you, but really, if you didn't want me to search up Do witches usually poison their roommates on YouTube, you probably shouldn't have poisoned me."
Sanghyuk's hand, previously stirring a spoon in his cup, stills. His eyebrows have raised up past his ginger bangs, and he looks like he'd rather be anywhere else but across from Sungho. "I didn't," he starts cautiously, "I didn't poison you."
"But you did," refutes Sungho. "Look, I mean it. I genuinely have nothing against you being a witch. I have nothing against the supernatural at all! It's rich coming from a human, I get it, but I know what I'm talking about. I also know that you've poisoned me. And I- I mean, I guess I have nothing against that too? I just have to know—why would you poison me and then proceed to get upset that I'm confused why you poisoned me? The least you could do is not avoid me, because that sort of makes the whole curse-poison-whatever worse, and that's when it really starts getting inconvenient-"
"Sungho," Sanghyuk interrupts. He looks even more bewildered than he had thirty seconds ago. "I didn't poison you. What could I have possibly poisoned you with?"
"A love potion," Sungho answers immediately. "Duh. I have all the symptoms. My heart starts beating fast around you. I can't seem to get your toothy smile, kind eyes, pin-straight orange hair, scattered moles, soft personality and even softer hands out of my mind. Everything you do sticks in my head and I don't know how to see any act of service you do for me as just a roommate thing. I care about where you're going and who you're going with way too much, and I feel sick if I even consider the prospect of you being interested in someone else. I'm constantly afraid that something bad will happen to you, so I've memorized your whole morning routine as well as your go-to spots through Kim Woonhak. I feel awful whenever you're not around because there are too many unknowns, and I need to know everything about you. It's so complicated, and inconvenient, and I swear it's the cause for the one gray hair I found in my head three days ago. I don't mean anything by admitting this, but- you can at least take responsibility, can't you?"
Sanghyuk is silent for a few moments. Then, he says slowly, "Sungho, love potions don't exist."
"What?"
"Love potions are a fairytale thing. I don't know who you think us witches are, but we can't do that sort of magic. Our limitations are similar to genie-magic. Can't make somebody fall in love, can't revive the dead, can't kill anyone." A light flush rises on Sanghyuk's cheeks. "I… I thought you knew this?"
Sungho's mouth parts. He can't seem to find it in himself to shut it. "I- no, I. But. I feel like that's- everybody knows witches make love potions. That's a given."
"Every supernatural knows that's not true, but maybe not every human," Sanghyuk ventures hesitantly. "I thought you of all humans would know, because… because I'm a witch."
"No, that's- I just- I guess it makes sense but I-" Sungho squeezes his eyes shut, resisting the urge to rub between his eyebrows. "I just don't get it. If I'm not poisoned, why do I feel like this?"
Sanghyuk doesn't reply. When Sungho musters up the courage to open his eyes once more, he finds that Sanghyuk's flush has brightened, now sitting higher on his cheeks and the tips of his ears too. Sanghyuk reaches up and fiddles with an earring for a while before he says quietly, "You know, what you admitted just now sounded a lot like a confession."
"A what? A confession?" Sungho points a finger at himself. "You mean, a confession that I thought you poisoned me? Sanghyuk, I-"
"A love confession," Sanghyuk interrupts. He finally drags his gaze to meet Sungho's then, and he must see something in Sungho's dumbfounded expression because he once again not-sighs-but-bodily-sighs, reaches over, and grabs Sungho's gesturing hand. Sungho falls limp under his touch, and that's how Sanghyuk easily links their fingers together, pinky against pinky, thumb tucked into the connecting crevice.
Sanghyuk's hands are softer than Sungho remembers. It might be because he'd previously only felt it in passing moments—fleeting touches reaching for the same TV remote, taps on the shoulder to catch attention, high-fives when successfully guessing who would choose who on Love Island. This is miles more tangible, or at least miles more deliberate. The connotation makes Sungho start to sweat. He's not sure if Sanghyuk can feel his sweat pressed between their palms.
"Now, because you're human," Sanghyuk murmurs. He's regained his composure by now, slipped into that persona that Sungho is just slightly less familiar with. It's the sort of confidence he wears when he knows he knows more than someone else. Sungho doesn't like knowing less than someone else, but clearly- well, clearly his brain is malfunctioning with the direct contact. "I'll teach you a bit about magic, Sungho. Love potions make you fall in love. Take out the potion, and that's just love. Falling in love isn't a magic thing. It's a human thing."
"Um," Sungho says, eloquently.
"You think a lot, so I'm sure you can figure it out for yourself," Sanghyuk continues, "but if I cared enough to give you space after I thought you had an issue with my witch identity, that should mean something. And holding your hand right now," he gives the hand in question a light squeeze, which does nothing good for Sungho's heart, "that means something, too."
"I-" Sungho stammers, "I- okay, this is- I'm processing."
"I know," Sanghyuk says simply. He lets go of Sungho's hand then, though that doesn't seem to help with Sungho's recovery. "All I'm saying is it's not that complicated. You like simple things anyway."
"Well, yeah, but-"
"I'll give you time." Sanghyuk stands up from his seat, pushing his cup towards Sungho. "It's hazelnut coffee, by the way. You can have the rest."
Sungho doesn't get the chance to ask why Sanghyuk ordered his favorite drink without knowing he'd be there. He doesn't get the chance to say anything, really, which is a fact that has him throwing his head back in despair once Sanghyuk's made it out the cafe door.
Anyway, Sanghyuk giving him 'time' is generous. 'Time' equates to approximately three hours in which Sungho comes to terms with the stupidity that is him failing to search up Do love potions exist or what does it mean if you've started developing feelings for your witch roommate, and instead proceeding to search up Do witches usually poison their roommates. He then not-so-gracefully accepts the fact that, yes, you can fall in love with someone, no potions involved.
"I'm in love with you," Sungho says when he corners Sanghyuk at the campus cafeteria. Dongmin, sitting to the right of Sanghyuk, rolls his eyes.
Sanghyuk smiles at him sweetly. In response, Sungho's heart starts beating fast—unbearable, but whatever. He supposes he had all this time to get used to it anyway, and it's going to happen all the more often in the future, so he might as well accept his fate. Sanghyuk says, "I hope you really don't have prejudice against witches, because you have a witch boyfriend now."
Ugh. Sungho feels like he's dying. The miniature version of himself clutches at his heart and falls to the floor dramatically. "I don't have prejudice against witches," is what he ends up saying out loud.
…And if anyone asks why he'd ever assume that his witch-roommate-now-boyfriend had poisoned him, he'll just tell them that it all started with the stupid sickness. In the end, it's still about eradicating sickness from the face of the planet earth. (But his witch-roommate-now-boyfriend can do that for him now, can't he?)