Archive of Our Own

With a shove to his lower back, courtesy of the master of the guard, Junhui’s knees hit the cold marble ground with a painful thud. He would rub at them, to distract from the pain, if his arms weren’t tied behind him, each shoulder held firmly to by a red uniform-clad soldier, both of whom salute the long-haired emperor seated before them with heels clicked firmly together without a care to Junhui’s physical discomfort. Come tomorrow morning, he’ll find dark bruises.

Well, should Junhui have a tomorrow morning.

As far as signs go, kneeling in the throne room probably means he’s not going to be beheaded just yet.

“We’ve found the missing mage, your majesty,” barks the man standing on his left, voice unnecessarily loud in the small enclosed space.

The scroll shrouding most of the emperor’s face from view is quickly furled back up, and he peers over the hands stowing the item away in order to inspect Junhui’s appearance. “Good. Very good. Where did you find him?”

“In the mountain ranges to the southwest, my liege, close to the border between the Royal Yoon Kingdom and the Hong Territories.” It’s the guard to the right who speaks this time, voice equally loud and unbearable. Junhui can’t hide the wince on his face.

Emperor Yoon sits up straight, scooting forward to the edge of his gilded glorified armchair, with all its sparkling crystals and intricately carved shapes on its four shiny legs. Eyes narrowed, he asks, “Lascaux?”

Upon hearing the word, Junhui instantly straightens his back, head snapping up to look straight into Yoon Jeonghan’s gaze with wide eyes. His brain whirrs. That means they were right and all of the time wandering the plains and forests hadn’t been futile. Well, not that it matters anymore if he was on the right track or not, considering the fact that he’s here now.

“Presumably, your highness. Maybe about five leagues west.”

With only the flare of Jeonghan’s nostrils, the guard who shared this piece of information immediately backs off, firm hands wrapped tightly around Junhui’s arm.

Emperor Yoon clucks his tongue and flicks his head sideways, hair flipping out of his face. He surveys Junhui carefully, irises obviously sliding slowly from head to knees, taking the time to rest on his jaw and the cut of his clothes. “Interesting.” Jeonghan’s lips twitch. “Not bad. In fact…well done.” He laughs once before returning to a more serious expression.

“Your partner, the fire thrower, we found him first. Did you know that Yao Mingming is dead?” Jeonghan asks, eyes casually looking away to inspect a split in the silk hem of his long robes.

He doesn’t see the tears that well up in Junhui’s eyes, and of course he doesn’t hear the echoing torrent of water rushing forward past Junhui’s shoulders, much less the loud scream filling Junhui’s ears. “Yes sir,” Junhui replies forcefully, blinking back the stinging sensation and willing his voice to stay steady, “I know.”

Jeonghan’s lips twitch, but he doesn’t voice his surprise. “Well, the Court reports officially say it was an accident, with no witnesses, so I can’t give you much more information on what happened. As for the case of your…wandering…” Jeonghan sits back and runs a hand through his hair. When he releases the strands from his grasp, they cascade around his shoulders beautifully, framing his facial features to emphasize strong, sharp cheekbones and a pointy chin.

“I have already ordered the requisite arrangements. You will return to the training camps and Captain Choi will look into finding you a new partner so you can get started on the job as quickly as possible. You do remember the first oath you took as a magician, right?” Jeonghan’s tone leaves Junhui with the cold feeling of being precisely measured and calculated, yet the emperor’s eyes curve playfully after he speaks.

It doesn’t make sense. Yes, it was an accident, but it was a magic-related accident. Junhui had agreed to return to the castle with the expectation that he’d have his magic stripped from him, the magical energy wound around the core of his being tortured out until it separated from the other human parts of him, as was the norm for magical accidents. He stares at the emperor with confusion, but he’s clear headed enough to answer the question. “To protect the people, sire.”

“That’s correct. To protect them. And you would do well not to forget it. Any further attempts to run from those duties will not be met with such leniency. This isn’t just your job, it’s your obligation as a part of our society,” Jeonghan reminds him, tone still firm, eyes still dancing. “Release him.”

Just like that, the ties around Junhui’s wrists are removed, and he can feel the undoing of anti-magic enchantment on him, his own magic unbinding from the rope and returning to his hands. He gasps for air, not because he hadn’t been breathing, but because without his magic it had been a restricted sort of breathing, like only half of him was being allowed to live while the other half thrashed about in captivity. The reaction seems to be something Jeonghan expects, because when he motions with two fingers for someone to bring him something to drink, the serving hand is already prepared.

Junhui holds the wooden flask in his hand and blanches at the water inside. Not more water, surely. Anything would be a better drink than this. And is there something in it, for him to be offered something by the ruler? Poison perhaps, or a truth serum. He could separate it out, with his powers, but that makes him feel faint again, the thought of doing anything with the water sending his guts churning inside of him. In the end he tilts the cup tiny bit, the water touching his lips, but getting not much further. He notices the difference from pure water right away, retracting the liquid from his mouth. A test, maybe. Or a quieter means of killing him.

“Dismissed!” Emperor Yoon announces, catching the movement with sharp eyes. He waves his hands to signal for the party of soldiers accompanying Junhui to leave them.

Junhui hands the cup back to the boy who brought it to him and wipes his lips with the back of one hand. He bows his head, body folded in half at the waist in a display of respect. Respect, not fear.

“Ah, Wen Junhui,” Jeonghan says, quieter, gentler. He leans sideways on an armrest, elbow cushioned by the soft pads, fingers tapping repetitively on the side of his face. Jeonghan raises his other hand to hold up his finger tips, pressing them together before releasing, and producing a gentle fountain of water that shoots up into the suddenly drier air and then disperses before the droplets can fall anywhere. The humidity returns, a change minute but detectable to someone of Junhui’s powers. Jeonghan smiles at him. “Us water bearers, you know, we have to look out for one another. You’re powerful. That’s good, it means you’ll be important.”

Junhui smiles back handsomely, chin lifted with bravado, but he still cannot understand why they would let a monster walk free.

Captain Choi finds him a new partner, an air whisperer from the north, hailing from a town not far from Junhui’s own birthplace. Their partnership dies before getting a chance to flourish when Junhui begins a waterless rain ritual for tranquillity in the same stretch of field as Minghao’s laundry, and Minghao refuses to believe that the air-drying process would have taken so long if Junhui had just chosen a different spot. Nonetheless, word from the emperor asks for Junhui to enter active duty as quickly as possible, and the training staff comply by rushing the pair through partner trials and passing them despite their lack of successes.

Even the emperor, however, admits defeat after the two are brought to the court medics less than a week after their Promotion. The two of them, bickering over which direction to travel, never stopped fighting each other long enough to fight their common enemy – an imp who took advantage of their distracted states to snare them in a magic-suppressing trap without food or water for days until a traveller found them exhausted and dirty in the bottom of a giant pit.

The barracks for mage apprentices feels even smaller the next time Junhui returns to it, with the cold grey stones lining the hallway pressing in on him from both sides and the low to the ground bed in his tiny room, barely long enough to hold his entire body, leaves not much room for other furniture. They give him lodgings in the same wing as the one first one he occupied up until promotion over four years ago, tucked in a corner this time, and coincidentally in the part of the garrison furthest from the room he lived in a year prior, across from Xu Minghao.

In order to make it to his room from the main entrance, he’s forced to pass by his old lodgings, as well as Mingming’s, his memories drawing him into such a dazed state that he walks straight into someone else.

“Sorry, I mustn’t have been paying attention. Oh, Junhui!”

Younger Junhui, with his long hair pulled into a ponytail, spins just out of reach of younger Mingming, who yells just as they round the corner, disappearing from sight with fading laughter. Junhui blinks, returning to the present. Before him is a familiar face, one with wide eyes and strong eyebrows.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s Hansol, do you remember me? What are you doing back here, weren’t you paired?”

It comes back to him with the name. Wood carver. They teamed up during the fishing expedition, in the very first task assigned to apprentices last year. Maybe if the tutors had allowed them to continue working together, they’d be partners now, instead of having wasted a year only to return to training.

“I do remember. And I was,” Junhui informs him shortly. He quirks a corner of his mouth up and back down. “Things didn’t work out.”

“That’s too bad. I’ve actually found it easier to control my magic since finding a partner to work with!”

That circumvented any question of whether they might work together again. Junhui controlled his expression, smiling tightly. “Congratulations,” Junhui says, “I hope it goes well.”

“Thanks! We’re actually going to eat now. Do you want to meet him?”

“Ah…” He hesitates, hoisting his satchel further up on his shoulder. “I was just headed to my room. I’m a bit tired…”

“Oh, I’m sure you can meet him some other time. If you just got here, you should get some rest.” Hansol waves with a wide grin on his face when he leaves, and Junhui holds onto the forced smile until he’s no longer in the hallway, face and shoulders dropping immediately.

He sighs at the door to his room, glaring at the doorknob for lack of anywhere else to focus, and stands still in front of the entrance for three deep breaths before he quickly shoulders the wood open and enters. The only place to call his own for the next few months of his wretched existence, gifted with powers he never wanted, tasked to protect a kingdom that ordered his allegiance without question, and so on, and so on, and so on.

The satchel lands with a muffled thump on the floor where Junhui drops it carelessly at the foot of the bed. He drops onto the woollen mattress without removing his clothes. Although at the time he spoke the words it had been a lie to say he was tired, now, on a soft surface with the sun beginning to set, Junhui closes his eyes and sleep overtakes him easily.

The waterfall is so loud.

Water starts to fill Mingming and Junhui’s lungs, neither of them getting air to breathe. The corners of his already blurry vision start to blacken, and he can feel Mingming’s grip on his hand tighten. “Mingming, hold on!” Junhui tries to shout, but his throat is closed up and he’s losing the ability to focus. In his panic, he loses more of his ability to command the water, and everything happens at once. The turret of water grows, Mingming loses his footing from the force of the cascading water, Junhui feels Mingming’s hand slip from his fingers, there’s a scream. Mingming falls back off the edge of the cliff.

Junhui wakes all at once, sitting up immediately. His breath comes in ragged gasps, chest heaving as if he’s just run the 60-yard dash, but the deep inhales and exhales calms him a little from the nightmare. When his breathing returns to normal, he wipes his sweaty palms on his knees before swinging his legs over the edge of the bed so his feet rest on the wooden floorboards. He takes a moment to rub his face before standing and crossing quickly to the doorway.

Outside, the moon shines clearly despite the still dusty sky, evening air slightly cooler than when he arrived and pleasantly brushing the hair on his forearms whenever the light breeze picks up. He stands at the fence not far from the side entrance closest to his rooms with his hands resting on the wooden planks. If it weren’t for that fence supporting his weight, he would have collapsed at the sound of hushed voices.

“Please sir, if you can train him…” The pitch of the voice is low enough to rumble from Junhui’s eardrums all the way down to his toes, each vibration knocking the particles of every atom in his being, but tranquil and smooth like a pleasant trickle from head to toe of cool water on a warm day instead of, say, a violent cannon. And, instead of the coldness Junhui associates with deep voices, the voice radiates warmth.

“You know very well that I can’t or he’d already be here. You can keep waiting to partner with your brother forever, Wonwoo, but it’s simply unprecedented for a death magician to be accepted into the emperor’s service. The courts are unlikely to change their minds.” Junhui can’t see the speakers’ faces, but the lilt in this second voice echoes Captain Choi’s, a voice he’s heard nearly daily on and off for several years.

“He’s only nineteen.” Then, quieter, “He’s getting worse.”

Captain Choi doesn’t reply for a long time. “Killing an ant won’t even make it onto the royal guard’s radar, I suggest he try small things like that first.”

“I’ve told him that.” The first speaker grows frustrated, calm tone turning agitated. “He won’t even let someone step on a grasshopper if he can help it. He refuses to lose control so he just refuses to use his powers.”

Oh. Junhui could empathise with that.

“I don’t know what to say. I’m afraid the ruling is final and comes down from way above my head. He won’t be allowed on site, and if you try to bring him in secret, he’ll likely be incarcerated. You should cooperate with whoever is assigned as your partner and get out of here to at least see him instead of staying stuck in this place forever.”

Junhui doesn’t hide himself at the sound of footfalls, not when he hasn’t been intentionally eavesdropping, but they never come close to where he’s standing, instead fading into the night. The sound of shaky, staggered breaths and choked cries, however, remains for an uncomfortably long time.

Free practice by the river always ends up with the apprentices split into groups, which divide and divide into smaller and smaller clusters over the course of the day. At the outset, the water bearers band together to show off model water animals that can even move like their real life counterparts if the caster is particularly talented. After the novelty wears off, however, the other magicians wander further and further away, especially once the demonstrations turn into lessons for the less initiated, useless to those who cannot command water.

Junhui does not join them. He sits on the dry shore in the shade of a large willow tree, as far away from the water’s edge as possible. The way he sees it, he can either keep his eyes open and see the tripping brook over rocks up stream, or remain blind to it with only the accentuated trickling and cascading assaulting his ears. The latter doesn’t require him to squint against the rays of sunlight reflecting off the clear stream, so he rests with his back plastered to gnarled bark, hips resting between two exposed tree roots the size of his thighs.

Mere moments before he slips into unconsciousness, a familiar voice jolts him awake, with the sham hushed tones of a gossip who does not lower their voice although their friends keep a wary eye. “Of course I’m back here,” Minghao says with exasperation, “who on earth could partner with Wen Junhui? I can’t believe I have to go through training again, all because some higher ups thought he deserved special treatment.”

Junhui scoffs and rolls onto his side, but the ridges of the tree poke uncomfortably into his skin and he can’t stop concentrating on the digging sensation to attempt to return to slumber. He never asked for their partnership to be expedited.

“Don’t look so glum.” That voice is unfamiliar. “I never got a chance to be partnered last year, and some of us are going into our fourth round of training.”

There’s a splash, a choked squawk, and more splashing before a third voice enters the fray. “The fourth and last round. I’m getting partnered and leaving after this.” Junhui’s eyes fly open, no longer interested in his afternoon siesta. That tingly feeling in his toes returns, the same one from the night he moved into the training barracks, recognizing the voice belonging to the owner with the curious request for the captain.

“Really? Why now, Wonwoo?” Right, that was what Captain Choi called him. “Didn’t you say you would stay here forever unless your brother bothered showing up?”

“Yeah, because everyone here is awful at magic! Seeing you losers, I never wanted to work with anyone other than him…But I realized if I stay here any longer, I have to see all of you miserable excuses for mages continue to fail, and that’s boring me to death.”

“I wonder who they’ll try to pair with you this time,” mutters the second voice. “It seems to just get worse and worse every year, or you just complain more and more.”

“A little bit of both, probably.” Junhui still can’t see them but Wonwoo must do something in the water because there’s a series of gentle plops as calming as Wonwoo’s voice itself. “Just have to go with it this time, though, I don’t really have a choice.” So he planned on taking the captain’s advice then.

“Hopefully you don’t get stuck with your partner in a dirt pit within days of Promotion,” Minghao says sarcastically.

Wonwoo makes a noise of dismissal, voice loud and sure of himself. “Even if I was paired with someone whose magic was that bad, I definitely think I’d save myself, thanks.”

“Well,” Minghao admits, “Junhui’s magic wasn’t bad. He was powerful enough that the captain wanted to rush him into active duty, after all. But he was a horrible person. I hated him. Hate him. So fickle and hypocritical, and always looking like the world owed him for something or otherwise that it should die at his hand.”

“I’m glad you aren’t working with him anymore,” voice two says cheerily. “Maybe we can request to be partners this year.”

Some quiet, while Minghao mulls over the possibility to the background music of calm waves lapping at the side of the riverbed and tickles the reeds on its route slowly meandering south. “I never said you weren’t also a horrible person, Mingyu,” he says.

Junhui’s face twitches, one nostril lifting up, lips curling nastily. Well, Minghao was a horrible person and Junhui hated him too.

Thankfully, the tasks for apprentices change every year, or Junhui would be bored out of his wits standing in the sun, waiting for others to finish before his own turn. Instead of an expedition further from their main base, this year’s primary assessment happens in the backyard of the training courts, where rows of targets are propped up at broadening distances with tiny flags mounted at various points across different boards. Each magic wielder must fell the flags but only the flags to succeed, with the faster the clearance, the better the result.

As far as evaluations go, this one poses the least difficulty to the metal workers, who simply bend the metal flags in order to pass, without worrying about the wooden target boards. Only one blasts too hard, removing the screws from the easel holding up a target, but still receives a higher mark than the highest performing wood carver, since all of them attempt to move the board around the flag instead of vice versa.

When Junhui lines up with the five other apprentices of different elemental capabilities, at least two pairs of eyes turn toward him. The first is Minghao’s, which narrow and glare without secrecy. The second pair belongs to Captain Choi, finger ready to stop the hourglass almost before it’s even turned over. The expectation is not unwarranted. At the sound of the alarm, he calmly lifts his fingers, and in quick succession, downs each flag with a tiny jet of water, whose movement is shaped from a distance by his fingertips, which curl ever so slightly to achieve the desired effect.

“Excellent control, Wen,” proclaims the captain, without sounding truly impressed nor shocked.

Junhui bows his head toward him and turns around, head still bowed when he returns to rank and file, hearing Minghao’s distinctly accented muttering about “showing off”.

If Junhui wanted to show off, he’d generate giant columns of water next to the targets that whipped out at the flags. This wasn’t about big displays of power, however, it was a testament of his finesse. How much he’d forced himself to refine his technique and master complete restraint over his powers. Accuracy and judiciousness often maximize efficiency in dangerous situations, and valued examining finesse before strength.

The next line of apprentices forms the last row. Usually, the last row consists of two types of people – those who are desperate not to be seen, and those desperate to be seen. The contributions of just one apprentice, however, eliminates any focus on the others. After the start bell, Junhui feels the magic before he sees it, his hair ruffling unnaturally in the wind while a gust wraps around him, not cold or uncomfortable, but certainly unexpected. The gust of wind a takes down not only the entire row of flags in the apprentice’s path, but knocks down every single flag on the field, and does so simultaneously. Not a target board blown even a millimetre out of place, but every single one of the metal flags blown sideways.

“What, don’t I get a compliment too?” asks the air whisperer, voice carrying deafeningly in the silence. A rich, resonant tone Junhui has heard three times in three days, each time sending a shiver down his spine. Another blow and the wind lifts all of the flags upright again. Once more and they all fall over. Each time the wind strikes every target flag in the field, a ripple of gasps and murmuring tears through the apprentices observing what unfolds.

Junhui’s jaw clenches and his fingers curl to dig deep into the fleshy part of his palm. Rather than his pride being stomped on, Junhui despises the man for his complete lack of respect. No regard for his fellow magic users, no deference to those in authority, but more importantly, a flippant attitude toward the powerful magic bestowed upon him. Whether you considered it a gift or a curse, magic was something bigger than each individual, not a toy to be taken lightly, not to be disdained.

“Back of the line, soldier,” Captain Choi says, finally, rubbing his forehead with eyes closed and shoulders drooping. He doesn’t raise his voice to shout, but it still conveys past the eruption of whispers.

Wonwoo returns to the queue of other air types, and Junhui glimpses the arched look on his face on his proud march back, quickly matching that name, voice, and face together in his head. That face, he’d seen that face before, a year ago, on several occasions, maybe once before on this very field. It belonged to that silent magician who never participated in any of their drills, and was never asked to contribute. Their interactions were minimal, considering Junhui barely received adequate time to eat and sleep when and Minghao were placed in the accelerated tests, but that didn’t mean Junhui never noticed the man off to the side watching the others with a bored expression, eyes neutral, mouth in a slight frown.

Given the current situation, Junhui can only interpret his past behaviour to mean Wonwoo holds these exercises in contempt, seeing all of these magicians, apprentices and tutors alike, as beneath him. The obviousness of his scorn makes Junhui grind his teeth. He never got along with Minghao, but he could designate a few positive adjectives to describe him like ‘resourceful’, ‘diligent’, or ‘ambitious’. But for Wonwoo he can only think of a single, illuminating word: asshole.

In Junhui’s opinion, Captain Choi has a right and a duty to rebuke Wonwoo for ridiculing the task and undermining the captain’s authority. Without exception, however, they’re all dismissed as a group, no additional feedback granted, and most trainees are happy for something to gossip about on the trek back to their rooms. Junhui hangs back to speak his mind to the captain, but after meeting his gaze, Choi Seungcheol simply lifts an eyebrow and shrugs before turning his back on him. He frowns, a line creasing in his forehead between both eyebrows, rolling words in his mind to decide on what he can say.

“Wen Junhui!” A voice interrupts him, setting all the hair on his skin standing up with gooseflesh. Junhui turns to face the source of his unease. “Jeon Wonwoo, air. You’re water,” he declares confidently, informing Junhui of both his knowledge and blustering personality.

Junhui blinks at him with detachment and flattens his lips.

Wonwoo grins lazily, rolling up the sleeves of his tunic to the elbows for meeting what he perceives as a challenge head on. “Aren’t you curious how I know who you are?”

The answer to that question is surely Minghao, but catapulting back gives Wonwoo more leverage. Control. Your thoughts, your emotions, your magic. Don’t let him get the best of you by being an asshole, don’t let him see how much you already spurn him for everything he’s said and done. “No.” Junhui pivots on the sole of one leather shoe, eager to shake him off.

“Wait,” Wonwoo says, catching Junhui’s wrist and tugging to spin him back around.

Junhui stares down at where Wonwoo is grabbing onto him, eyes full of ice, before slowly raising his gaze to glare at Wonwoo with full force. He waits until Wonwoo lets go of him before coldly spitting out, “What do you want?”

Wonwoo’s grin doesn’t fall, taking the animosity as a challenge. He wets his lips and snorts lightly, chin lifted loftily when he speaks, blasé, with no room for question. “Let’s be partners.”

Even if his recovery is quick, Wonwoo still catches Junhui’s shock, and responds by closing his lips over his teeth, cheeks pulled upward triumphantly. Junhui knows better than to scowl, schools his expression into a neutral one, and carefully looks down his nose. Eliciting a reaction is a sign of power, something Wonwoo doesn’t have over Junhui, allowing him to exert his own autonomy by carefully maintaining his lack of interest. “Oh? Why would we do that?”

“We’re the two strongest here, after all,” Wonwoo says. It comes easily to him because he prepared for push back, stockpiled explanations with which to convince Junhui, should he have any reservations. His confidence in those rationalizations shows his hand.

“I don’t care.” Apathy provides Wonwoo nothing to sink his tenterhooks into, affords him nothing to refute or parry. Wonwoo opens and then closes his mouth, briefly stunned. Junhui seizes the chance to get away, pushing past someone tall and lanky headed in the other direction.

“Wonwoo, there you are! Were you talking to,” a pause, “Wen Junhui?”

“W-what?” Wonwoo stammers, still caught up on his utter rejection. “Oh, Mingyu. Hi.”

“You know Junhui was horrible to Minghao right? A complete dick,” Mingyu says peevishly, not bothering to lower his voice. “I bet he keeps to himself so much because everyone who knows him hates him. He’s an awful person.”

Junhui’s eyes flash as he strides off, but he doesn’t really disagree with that pronouncement of his character.

“Huh? Oh yeah, just terrible. I was…uh, rubbing the fact that I’m better than him in his face.”

He does a double take, head shaking with surprise, but doesn’t stop walking away.

Junhui’s inclinations, as ever, mean nothing to the ordered hierarchy of command above his head. They ignore his opposition to partnering with Wonwoo as if he’s invisible, and it’s a worse method of dismissal than a clear declination of his desperate request to partner with absolutely anyone else (except Minghao, of course).

Tutoring mages pass out assignments along with the mail at breakfast, arranging practice partners for those not yet paired, giving them afternoon slots for the second set of testing so they may familiarize themselves ahead of working together on the endurance challenge. Junhui unfolds the slip of paper and refolds it quickly under the impression that he won’t recognize the name and will simply memorize it for later. As soon as he’s looked away, however, he has to place the assignment on the long mahogany banquet table, flattening the crease with a fingernail to check whether in that initial glance down at the name, he’s simply read wrong. He hasn’t.

Maybe there are two of them. Junhui looks up, eyes scanning over the backs of heads or ducked faces, turned to face and talk to their companions. There’s only one other person looking up over the others, and he’s staring at him with his lips crooked upward, self-satisfaction painted all over his face. Junhui exhales slowly throw his nose, turning away with pursed lips. His fingers scrunch the assignment slip inscribed with the words ‘Jeon Wonwoo’ into a wadded up ball, squeezing around it like destroying the paper will destroy the man himself.

“That sucks,” Mingyu yells, voice cutting clearly to Junhui’s ears as if they’re meant for him instead of Wonwoo. “Request someone else, I’m sure they can still change it now.”

Junhui’s eyes flit back to that part of the dining hall, and he watches Wonwoo’s smugness turn into wide-eyed panic. “Uh, yeah, really blows. Guess I’ll ask the captain,” he says, head turned toward Mingyu but eyes staring straight at Junhui. Junhui looks away again, fighting down his sense of triumph.

“Honestly mate, still better you than me.” Minghao doesn’t fake remorse or pity, all gleeful cackling with his hands around Mingyu’s shoulders to read Wonwoo’s paper. “Ha! Your life’s going to be miserable, fucker,” he says pleasantly, helping himself to another serving of gruel, and reminding Junhui he’s yet to finish his own breakfast as well.

The endurance exam is a recycled exercise, difficult as it is to push limits in a structured setting, one that requires partners to work together on keeping a small object in the air for as long as possible, using their magic. Scored for both length of time, number of touches, and even distribution between partners with a maximum of twelve points for each category, it takes hours to get through, requiring the entire day to be blocked out for testing, and no entertainment value for observers or participants.

In order to make perfect marks, Mingming had built an entire motorized contraption, powered by the steam from their combined magic, and the two of them had stood around offering their examiner tea while they waited for the time to pass, and she’d commended Mingming on his crafting abilities. Mingming had been at things like that, using his hands—

Junhui startles at the sound of someone pouring themselves a cup of water from the silver pitcher, flowing liquid landing loud and tinny in his ears. He shakes himself from the memory.

“Hey,” whispers a voice by his ear, soft and rich, and Junhui startles again, whirling around with his hands outstretched in self defence. It’s Wonwoo, he’d recognized it in an instant from the way the air at his fingertips hummed. Junhui could hit the man, smack that obnoxious ear-to-ear grin right off his face, but he drops his hands.

“What are you doing here? Not going to ask the captain to switch partners since you’re so much better than me?” Junhui snarls.

Wonwoo’s smile fades and he opens his mouth wordlessly for a moment. “You heard that?” He rubs a knuckle against the shell of his ear, eyes darting left and right at the level of Junhui’s knees. He looks embarrassed, but then looks embarrassed to be so embarrassed, looking up again with deliberate, unfazed eyes. “Well, I did do better than you.”

“So go find a partner that matches your level,” Junhui advises, getting to his feet.

“That’s just it. There’s no one other than you who’s good enough,” Wonwoo says quickly, before taking a step back and covering his mouth with one hand, surprised by his own admission. “Not that you’re actually good,” he says, this time more cautious. “I’m not saying you’re good, I’m just saying you’re better than the others here. My little brother could crush you though.”

Junhui shakes his head, with one eyebrow raised. “Look, your friends hate me. You think I’m beneath you. I find your complete irreverence of your powers despicable.” Junhui lays out the facts clearly without filtering too much emotion into his words. “Don’t force yourself. It’s probably too late to swap, but you can try to find a different partner and I’ll try to find one of my own, we’ll put our requests in, and that’ll be the end of that.”

“I actually spoke to the captain already,” Wonwoo says slowly, after Junhui’s taken a few breaths. He looks at Junhui with the outside corners of his eyes oddly low, lower lip protruding out. When Wonwoo smiles, his lips tend to stretch thin and wide, but with the muscles of his face more relaxed, Junhui sees that they’re actually quite full.

No need to memorize his face now, they’re not going to be partners. “So you already made the switch?”

“Err…I, uh, I think, um, it was too late to change partners,” Wonwoo says, stopping and starting several times. “Anyway I told him I’d like having y—” He breaks off, studying Junhui’s inquisitive expression. Junhui eyeballs him, gesturing with his head to go on. “Uh, that I’d like having us go earlier in the day since we’re good enough not to need more preparation.”

“That’s fine,” Junhui says tightly, exhaling dejectedly. “When exactly is earlier?”

“Um. Right after breakfast?”

“Right after—that’s now,” Junhui spits out. “Do you have a plan or something?”

Wonwoo gives him a look of bewilderment. “No, of course not. Why? Do you need one?”

As soon as they reach their warded off area, Wonwoo grins. “Captain Choi, I’m glad to know you’re conducting our evaluation yourself.” He steps into the centre of the ring, where a metal ball and its feathered tail sits, hovering in the air. Wonwoo picks it up, hefting the weight of it in his hand before throwing it at Junhui, who catches it with a surprised ‘oh’.

“I conduct about one twelfth of the evaluations myself,” Captain Choi says, “as there are 12 instructors in total. It’s luck of the draw, I’m afraid.” There are wrinkles lining his temples, which crease more normally when he smiles quickly.

“If you say so.” Wonwoo beckons for Junhui to toss their object back to him. “So when can we start?”

“You may begin now, if you are both ready,” Seungcheol says, stepping backward with his hands clasped behind him, at full attention to what they’re doing.

Junhui only has a second or two to respond to Wonwoo, who whistles lightly and the ball rises high into the air on a breath of wind conjured from Wonwoo’s fingertips. A bell chimes. He smiles and another gust joins the mix, lobbing the chrome bearing in Junhui’s direction.

Before it descends further, Junhui quickly shoots a jet of water into the air, pushing the ball back skyward. He directs it mostly up instead of forward, to give them more time before Wonwoo has to react himself. If this is Wonwoo’s idea of playing keep ups during an endurance test…well, it’s going to take a lot of energy, and going slowly and lightly would help them last longer. They had air and water between them to do anything with, even something as simple as encasing the ball in a bubble, but of course the one without any regard for training or magic itself would turn the exercise into a game.

The thing is, Wonwoo isn’t content to let it stay a game. He turns it into a sport. All of a sudden the metal ball is speeding toward Junhui’s face and he has to smack at it with a whipcord of water, sending the thing flying nearly out of bounds. Wonwoo changes its direction by changing the air pressure, and navigates it back centrally, wagging his finger at Junhui as if he were the one being brash and careless.

No matter how Junhui tries to slow their pace, Wonwoo pushes forward, steadily faster and lower, until Junhui becomes fed up with the taunting and engages, if only to show Wonwoo he’s not the only one with fast reflexes or hidden strength. The normally leisurely test drives Junhui to moving so much he starts sweating, and starts to wick away the water clinging to his skin into the air. Their demonstration also draws a crowd, entertained for once by the ferocity of their back and forth, the kind of sporting spectacle people paid to see in the cities. Wonwoo not only matches Junhui stroke for stroke but challenges him to reach further, faster, and for the length of the hour their eyes remain fixed to that metal ball bearing, neither of them saying a word.

The bell chimes again, and the audience they’ve gathered applauds, but Wonwoo doesn’t let the ball touch the ground, serving it over to Junhui’s side of the field again. Unwilling to be first to halt, Junhui continues, scrambling to lash out a watery stream in Wonwoo’s direction.

“Enough!” yells the captain, holding his hands out to stop them. Neither listens. The dispersing crowd reconvenes, pulled back by the stunning display like fireworks whenever either of them strikes out. Air, water, air, water, eyes rolling from side to side to follow the trajectory of the metal, never descending too far, but always moving quickly enough that you think it just might.

“I said, that’s enough!” Seungcheol roars, putting a forceful stop to the drill by absorbing the force of impact with a column of soil rising from the earth, which falls back with a thud.

When the dust settles, the air is still thrumming with Wonwoo and Junhui’s magic, pulsating in sync so strongly that Captain Choi averts his eyes and shudders to shake off the feeling of continued vibrations dancing on his skin. “I should deduct marks for failing to obey instructions, but that was some great work. Twelve out of twelve across the board,” he announces, and Junhui can barely hear it over the loudness of the high frequency humming noise.

The water droplets suspended in the air shimmer with flecks of gold, hanging thickly over their heads and not dissipating. Wonwoo tries getting rid of it all with a quick gust of wind, but to the alarm of them both, that only creates a new stream of glitter, shiny and blinding wherever the sunlight bounces off, like the inside of a snow globe, only the flakes don’t seem to be falling. It’s also added a second warble to the air, interfering with the initial noise to create distinct beating tones echoing off of the trees still standing. He bites his lower lip and chances a glance at Junhui.

Even if the movement is slight, Junhui senses it right away. His eyes slowly swivel away from Captain Choi’s retreating form to rake over Wonwoo’s appearance. There’s a reflected wonder in his eyes where his pupils are blown wide, mirrored flush on his cheeks, and the other is breathing just as heavily as he is, chest visibly rising and falling in time with the steady rhythm of their magical energies, which continue to mix together.

Junhui looks away when Wonwoo’s tongue darts out. He wonders just how far their matching expressions go because he’s never been more turned on in his life.

“What was that?”

Junhui speeds up.

“Junhui, wait, you can’t tell me that wasn’t out of the ordinary for you too,” Wonwoo calls out after him.

No, it was really fucking weird, and Junhui isn’t going to deny the fact that he’s practically sprinting away to escape from having a conversation about it. At least part of the running away has to do with how freaking hard he is in his pants, and the shame colouring his face that he refuses to allow others to see.

“I know you hate me, but Junhui, please,” Wonwoo pleads, voice trembling. The gold everything has finally dissipated but the warbling sound in the air is still ringing in Junhui’s ears, a distant echo but audible nonetheless. He sounds lost and broken, although whether that’s because he’s actually lost and broken or if it’s just a striking contrast to his normally boisterous confidence remains a mystery to Junhui, who suffocates from his sense of responsibility. The waterfall is so loud.

People had been watching them. Junhui’s breathing doubles in speed, water seeping into his vision. The corners of his already blurry vision start to blacken. Not just one or two trainees, not only the mages’ captain, but anyone in the area who wasn’t supposed to be otherwise occupied. His throat is closed up and he’s losing the ability to focus. They’d seen him, both of them really, with their magic intimately intertwined, leaving them vulnerable to all whose eyes were upon them. Junhui feels a little like an exhibitionist, exposed in front of an audience like that, while his magic reacted instinctively and intensely to Wonwoo’s goading, dancing out of his control. The waterfall is so loud.

He doesn’t exactly invite Wonwoo along, but he slows his steps minutely so the other can keep up with him, storming straight back into the barracks. When the door closes behind him and they’ve stepped into the safety of the stone halls, Junhui can finally revert to a normal walking speed, shoulders sagging gratefully to put rock between him and the nearest source of water, a greater barrier than mere air and distance. Wonwoo hasn’t said anything since that terrified little ‘please’, but he’s still trailing after Junhui. Junhui, whose mind spins blurrily at the events that had just unfolded, affecting his gait to be messy and side to side instead of a straight line.

Junhui stumbles, reaches out to put a hand on the large rocks lining the hallway, misjudges the distance and goes careening sideways. Wonwoo catches him physically, instead of with his magic, supporting Junhui’s weight against his shoulder. “You need to sit down,” he says.

“Don’t tell me what I need,” Junhui shouts back, but it’s more of a whisper.

“Just let me—” Junhui’s hauled upright, and physically dragged forward.

“Don’t,” Junhui says weakly, “don’t.”

He finds his bearings again, sitting on a mattress. It’s not his room. His room is tucked in the corner, some part of his brain whispers, so this isn’t his room, but his magic sings here, at home despite the unfamiliarity. There’s a cup of water pressed into his hand, and he shrieks silently, shoving it back at whoever’s handing it to him, much to Wonwoo’s confusion. “It’s just water.”

“Don’t!” Junhui bellows, rising to his feet, sure and steady.

“Alright, alright, you don’t have to yell! You just got all faint-y on me and I thought I was going to get in trouble for pushing you too hard to the point that you died or something,” Wonwoo grumbles, leaving the cup on the bedside table.

“Don’t be so flippant about death,” Junhui admonishes quickly, glaring daggers.

“Fine, I won’t say anything. I didn’t want to say anything anyway, I just wanted you to explain what the fuck just happened. What was all that,” Wonwoo waves his hands ambiguously, “shiny shit? Has that ever happened to you before? I didn’t know magic could feel like anything, much less feel like that, all heart hammering and exhausting. Was that just me?”

“I don’t think it’s supposed to feel like that.” Junhui digs the heels of his hands against his brow bone, using the pressure to alleviate some of the tense throbbing between his eyes. “I don’t know what that was but I’ve performed magic with a lot of other people and that’s never happened before.”

“It’s a sign right?” Wonwoo approaches nervously, with one hand on his chin and the other wrapped around his own waist. “That we’re really strong, especially together, if our magic reacted like that? So we should be partners. Especially if it’s never happened to you before and you’ve already been partnered once.”

Junhui puts a stop to that ugly, ugly train of thought by grabbing at the fabric of Wonwoo’s tunic, tugging him forward so he can make no mistake about the anger in Junhui’s eyes. “No,” he says icily, “I hate you.” It doesn’t make sense that this is happening to him, that they’re so disgustingly compatible, when he and Mingming were water and fire, two sides of the same coin, childhood friends, best friends, knew each other inside out. They were supposed to be perfect together, they were supposed to form a long-lasting partnership, they were practically soulmates who moved in sync with constant awareness of what the other was doing without having to look, having an acutely shared understanding of each other’s thoughts without having to say a word. He was supposed to partner with Yao Mingming, not Jeon Wonwoo. “I fucking hate you.”

After the initial shock of being yanked forwards, Wonwoo doesn’t react by stepping back or telling Junhui to let go. He looks at Junhui calmly, expression indifferent, before his eyes slide down from Junhui’s eyes to his collarbones. Wonwoo wraps his hand around the fist Junhui has in his shirt, squeezing instead of prying those fingers apart, and watches Junhui’s neck while Junhui’s throat bobs as he swallows. He leans forward, tilting his chin up before returning to where he was, settled back on his heels. “Do you though?”

The ugly thought rears its ugly head. “Yes. I hate you, I hate you so fucking much,” Junhui whispers. The tiny fuzzy hairs on the skin at tips of their noses brush. His head inclines backward. “You think you’re so good at magic so you don’t try when others struggle, and act like everyone here owes you something just because you’ve been around for so long. You act like you’re better than the magic, like it’s just a measuring stick to show people how much better you are than them, but you don’t know that you’re in way over your head. Magic, alone, without a wielder, can do things you’ve never even dreamt of.” He hisses so Wonwoo can see it, hear it, and feel it.

Wonwoo crowds into Junhui’s face, voice clear and high when he says, “Fuck. You.” Junhui can feel his breath against his mouth. “Yeah, I hate magic, but you don’t get to judge me for that.” Junhui’s lips tingle.

This close, his eyes survey the individual pores of Wonwoo’s skin, stretched tight over high cheekbones. There’s a translucent glow to him, and Junhui angles forward so they’re nearly mouth to mouth. You could barely slip a sheet of paper between them, but Junhui tears himself back again, breathing harshly through his nose. “And you can go fuck yourself, because if you carry yourself like that where other people can see, of course they’re going to judge your actions.”

“You’re awful, you know that?” Wonwoo whispers, and it’s impossible to pretend that their lips aren’t touching when he speaks, not with Junhui’s nose pressed to Wonwoo’s cheek. Their eyes meet and Junhui can feel the fluttering of air against his skin from the movement of Wonwoo’s eyelashes when his eyes slip closed, and their lips touch again, firmly this time, with purpose. There’s no movement, nothing more than light pressure, but Junhui feels the air lifting every hair on his body, including all the strands on his head, a gentle breeze skimming daintily over his skin.

Wonwoo’s lips are soft and plump and just the tiniest bit chapped. Junhui stops leaning forward and opens his mouth, ready to lick them to smooth over the cracks, but instead there’s a tiny dribble of water from his magic, swooping across Wonwoo’s mouth in a quick and gentle stroke, and Wonwoo shivers from being so close and from being touched by Junhui’s element. Junhui feels a response in kind, the gust dancing up Junhui’s arms to ghost at his mouth, already tingly, but now crackling with energy.

Their magic is teasing each other, but Junhui isn’t interested in being playful. He kisses Wonwoo roughly, hands untangling from his shirt because of the distance it creates between their chests. He brings them both to rest on the small of Wonwoo’s back, hauling him forward so one of Wonwoo’s thighs is between his legs. Oh good, he’s sporting a matching semi.

“Fuck, yeah,” Junhui says through his teeth, the veins of his neck prominent. It’s at once an answer to the forgotten question and a response to Wonwoo grinding his hips forcefully, thigh rubbing against Junhui’s crotch. He takes Wonwoo’s lower lip between both his own two, providing a little suction with his mouth. His teeth graze lightly over the sensitive skin there, and then he licks, tasting barley tea and rice gruel, followed by something tangy and airy, like beaten egg whites with citrus zest for garnish, a taste so delicious on its own he could fill himself up better than with a meal just from licking and licking at Wonwoo’s mouth.

Wonwoo makes a whining noise reminiscent of the high pitched whining that had been following them around in the morning, his arms wrapping around Junhui’s neck, desperate for his own taste of Junhui. His tongue slips into Junhui’s mouth, and presses against Junhui’s, strong and unyielding. It should be gross, all the slickness and swapping spit with someone he hates, but there’s only desire to get closer when Junhui rolls his hips slow and sensual. Wonwoo bucks up against him with a gasp.

Junhui opens his eyes and sees it’s not just the air lifting at his hair or sweeping over his skin, the water from the cup Wonwoo brought out is now swirling around them in a ring above their heads, fast and churning. “Uhnn,” Junhui grunts, straining to breathe properly with Wonwoo’s mouth against his neck, tongue lapping at the delicate skin, mouth warm. Wonwoo’s hand supports the back of Junhui’s head, and Junhui shifts helplessly, digging his fingers into Wonwoo’s back muscles, earning twin moans when his squirming brings their cocks together, brushing against each other through several layers of fabric.

He feels undone. Junhui mutters the words, “I still hate you,” air that Wonwoo swallows with his mouth, so that he’s covering Junhui’s lips again. They kiss and part, kiss again, and part again, mouths interlocked once more when there’s a loud knock at the door.

“Wonwoo?”

“Shit,” Wonwoo swears, tearing his mouth away. The wind dies down and the water dissipates, some of it returning to the wooden mug, most of it evaporating. He wipes the spit from his lips with the back of his hand, chest heaving with the force of his breathing, heavy from arousal.

Junhui stares at him, jaw slack. Wonwoo’s cheeks are pink, his hair mussed from whatever the hell his magic had been doing, and there’s a dazed look in his eyes.

“Wonwoo? Are you there?” The dazed look flickers out of existence, just like his dilated pupils converging to their normal size with each blink.

“Yeah, give me a second,” he calls out, pushing Junhui into the corner behind the door. There’s an unmistakable rise in his pants and he has to walk stiffly, to open it, poking his head out. “What do you want?”

“You’re back!” Mingyu says brightly. He takes a step forward, stopping suddenly when Wonwoo leans his weight against the door. “You’re not going to let me in?”

“No,” Wonwoo says. “Tell me what it is quickly.”

“How was your test?” Mingyu asks.

“Great,” Wonwoo tells him, too distracted to think about what he’s saying.

Mingyu claps his hands together. “Really? Does that mean you convinced the captain to let you change partners?”

“What? Oh, no, but it was fine, we got praised so it’s cool.”

“Really? You mean you got full marks? You have to tell me about it, Minghao’s so ready to laugh at you about having to deal with Junhui, you know, but it’s neat that you were good enough to still score so high while he was being an asshole. We only managed—”

“—Listen, Mingyu,” Wonwoo interrupts impatiently, “can we discuss this at dinner or something?”

“Yeah, sure. Are you busy now? What are you doing in your room anyway, there’s nothing to do except sleep. Were you napping?”

“Um, yup.” Wonwoo fakes a yawn. His hand quickly covers his mouth, stifling his voice. “Endurance testing’s exhausting, wanted to sneak some sleep in while we don’t have any training, you know how it is.”

“Bastard, I’ll see you at dinner then.”

Wonwoo doesn’t even say bye before slamming the door closed, turning immediately to Junhui in the corner, sidling up close until their foreheads are touching. Their breaths mingle and it’s Wonwoo’s hand on his chest that wakes Junhui up. He pushes Wonwoo away, stumbling forward so his back is no longer to the wall.

“Junhui?”

The air circulates, ice cold against Junhui’s face. He’s still rock hard, but he’s shaking with anger at himself, and that overrides base needs. That was what losing control looked like, a perfect example of falling victim to his own feelings, and letting those emotions dictate his actions instead of rational thought. He sucks in a deep breath at the way the breeze carefully tucks his hair away from his face, a soft caress against his forehead.

“Still hate me?” Wonwoo suggests wryly.

Obviously the answer is yes, but it feels wrong to say it when the water droplets come back, looping lazy circles around gentle gusts of wind. His throat is closed up and he’s losing the ability to focus. Junhui blinks. “I’ll wait…He’s probably still in the hallway, so I’ll just wait another minute before I leave.”

“Fine,” Wonwoo says flatly, eyes quickly going dead and emotionless. The air goes unwaveringly still around them and the water coalesces together, shaking with uncertainty. It expands, dampening the air in the room marginally. Wonwoo throws his hands up in the air, stepping close. “You know, my friends might, but I don’t actually hate you.” His voice drops, low and heart-fluttering, right beside Junhui’s shoulder. “Can you at least think about the partnering thing? Just…consider it.”

Junhui doesn’t say anything either way, and closes the door behind him.

They’re sitting back to back. Mingming has a ring of flames around them, warm and protective. Junhui drops his head onto Mingming’s shoulder, laughing at the patterns of shadows cast by the flickering fire.

“My turn,” he whispers, spreading his hand open, palm up, sending a fountain of water up into the air that falls like the sea spray around them, chilly but gentle, delighting in each tiny bead of water reaches his skin. He shakes his head, nose pointed at the sky, sighing deeply at how refreshing it feels. Junhui could sit like this forever, in the open air, nighttime serving as their blanket.

Mingming sighs. “You’ve put out the fire again.”

Junhui puts in the partner request.

He knows when Wonwoo reads the memo because there’s always a slight increase in buzz when mail’s passed around in the mornings, but the exact timing is served by a puff of air in his face. When he looks up, Wonwoo sticks his tongue out at him.

“Hold on, are you serious?” Mingyu asks, tugging the sheet of paper out of Wonwoo’s hand to confirm. “You’re really being assigned to partner with Junhui?”

“I know I said better you than me, but I feel kind of bad now.” Minghao pats Wonwoo’s back with a sad frown on his face, exchanging a worried glance with Mingyu. “Maybe if you do your weird air thing that blocks soundwaves you can make it so you never have to hear him yelling at you and it’ll be okay.”

Mingyu anxiously folds down the corners of the paper, shooting Wonwoo a concerned look before addressing Minghao’s idea. “But won’t he still have to see him? This sucks, I didn’t think it would really happen. The captain seemed like a reasonable guy whenever I talked to him, not the kind that would force you to work with a dick.”

“I’ll live,” Wonwoo says, like it’s a hardship.

“As you’re aware, the whistle is your master. One for start, two for stop. If you don’t obey the whistle, we will step in, and it won’t be pretty. Ready? Start.”

Speed of reflexes can come as a direct spar with the mage tutors, but they prefer to be able to observe with their full focus, hence the pair by pair practice rounds. Each magician is given a limited amount of power to attack and parry, using their own elements, with the first to “land” five blows winning the round.

Wonwoo’s always been in the habit of toying with his opponents.

“Don’t be a dick,” Junhui mutters out of the corner of his mouth, annoyed. The pair across from them are already sweating from the exertion, although Junhui and Wonwoo have barely moved a muscle. “At least pretend you’re trying, for their pride.”

“Nah, don’t want to give them false hope,” Wonwoo says, grinning. He lifts his single finger, bending the direction of the wind quickly and precisely, landing a blow along the line where any further he’d be slicing across the poor boy’s neck.

“One finger? Really? You can’t even act like it’s taking your entire hand?” Junhui mumbles, stopping the force of his water when it’s right above the opposing duo’s heads. The end of another round, this time maybe lasting five minutes instead of one. It’s been a project, trying to reign in Wonwoo’s attitude, one of those plans that takes them two steps forward, one step back with every time it seems like he no longer reeks of disdain for his role, or the responsibilities of the people around him.

“Nice job,” Wonwoo calls, and he might mean it genuinely, but after putting in no effort to defeat them, it sounds like sarcasm.

Junhui sighs and slaps a hand to his forehead.

“Whatever, I’m trying, okay?”

Wonwoo’s like that all day through to the last match-up, sending their competition off with a wave and a grin while telling them, “I think that might have lasted ten minutes, I’m impressed!”

He’s still beaming when they’re called to a meeting with Captain Choi in his office after dinner, finally reigning in his happiness when the two of them are standing at attention in front of the captain’s desk.

“Junhui,” Captain Choi says gravely, “You know the emperor’s orders still stand. He wants you on the line as quickly as we can get you out there, and now that you have a partner, one that you requested I might add, we’re hoping the third time’s the charm.”

“Third time?” Wonwoo mutters. Junhui stomps on his foot.

“If you two can finish the rest of the tests without the training days in between, and I’d be surprised if you couldn’t, the plan’s still on the table.”

“Accelerated promotion?” Wonwoo pipes up, back straightening, eyebrows shooting toward his hairline. He smiles at the captain with hopeful wide eyes that never leave Seungcheol’s back as he paces from one end of the room to the other. The days flip back in Junhui’s head, and he remembers the conversation Seungcheol and Wonwoo had on his first day here, out in the fields where no one was supposed to overhear, secret and mysterious.

The captain’s eyes soften. “That’s right. If it weren’t for standard procedure, I’d be willing to Promote you right now, but protocol is protocol.”

“Of course,” Wonwoo says, suddenly sombre and deferential to the captain. Junhui has never heard that tone of voice before. “Everything in due time.” That’s another first. He even bows his head when they’re leaving, closing the door quietly before walking in line with Junhui. He skips as he walks, and the air in the hallway whispers loudly, bouncing back and forth against the walls, whistling when he follows Junhui into his room.

“I’m finally graduating,” Wonwoo says to Junhui’s back, mouth a coy smile. “And you’ll be reinstated as mage.”

Junhui turns from the window of his room, eyes sliding from the green plains and forest outside to land on Wonwoo, standing a distance not much greater than the span of his hand away. The air in the space between them expands like sugar candy after the white baking soda has been sprinkled in, pressing against Junhui’s chest in a way that makes it hard to breathe.

“We’ll really be partners. For real.” Wonwoo extends his arm forward, hand cupping around Junhui’s neck. They hadn’t touched. Not physically, not since the day of the endurance test, when their argument while not-kissing turned into a-little-more-than-kissing. He’d let his magic and his body get away from him then, losing his sensibility and responding wantonly to Wonwoo.

He’s still in his right mind in the present, when Wonwoo runs the side of his thumb against the soft skin behind Junhui’s ear, leaning in. Junhui bats Wonwoo’s arm away, expression hard. “Why do you want to be Promoted so quickly?” The warbling in the air dulls, becoming a muffled flutter, before vanishing entirely.

The deflected hand hovers between them for only as long as the whistling in the air, before Wonwoo pulls it close to his chest, crossing both arms to challenge, “What did the captain mean he said third time lucky? Was Minghao not your first partner in active duty?”

In the standoff, neither of them are able to use their magic. Junhui’s water refuses to soak Wonwoo’s shirt, and Wonwoo’s air refuses to knock Junhui off balance. They stare at each other, not quite glaring, but neither willing to be the first to give, neither willing to share their cards. Junhui doesn’t trust Wonwoo. Wonwoo was friends with Mingyu and Minghao for a reason, and those two hated Junhui visibly and passionately. And while he worked on not hurting the feelings of every apprentice he met, Wonwoo didn’t attempt to admire the power he was harnessing every time he applied his magic, whether in practice or to achieve some actual purpose.

But even if in Junhui’s head he couldn’t cast his suspicions aside, his magic never doubted Wonwoo’s magic. While admonishing Wonwoo for his carelessness, the water from wherever Junhui could pull always continued tripping over and lacing together with the air, droplets dancing in the wind. And so, despite not wanting to be first to relent, Junhui speaks up, offering what he knows without gifting Wonwoo his own secret. “Does your brother live far from here? Will we have to travel a long way to see him since the emperor won’t accept him into his service?”

“How the hell…? I’ve never told anyone about that. Only the captain knows and he wouldn’t…” Wonwoo gapes, backing up into the pallet supporting Junhui’s wool-stuffed mattress, his calves hitting the edge of a wooden slat, not forcefully enough to trip him up, but he falls, and Junhui lunges forward to catch him. Wonwoo sinks into the bedding, sitting with his head down, fingers pulling tightly on each other.

Junhui lowers himself as well, a hand on either side of Wonwoo’s knees. “An accident.” It’s not with guilt that Junhui shrugs, but he’s somewhat apologetic. “You suspected I’d get Promoted faster than the others a second time, didn’t you?”

“Yes, and I’m dying to leave this hellhole, but I didn’t use you.” Wonwoo looks up, catching Junhui’s drift remarkably quickly. “You think I was taking advantage of that fact?” He searches Junhui’s face for some evidence otherwise, only to reflect hurt when he realizes that’s exactly what Junhui believed.

“Your friends hate me, even though one of them has never even spoken with me before, and you have something you need to do as well as a means of achieving that thing faster. I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to take advantage of, not necessarily me, but the opportunity that presented itself.”

Wonwoo reels backward, and all of the moisture in the air draws in that direction, forming a protective barrier between him and Junhui even though it should be Junhui’s element to control. “Take advantage of the opportunity? I didn’t use you to see my brother, Junhui. I don’t even want to see my brother. I can’t see my brother, not until I’ve figured out a way to save him.” His voice is cold, just like the air when it sifts to Junhui’s ears, chilling him as it slips past the collar of his shirt, down his neck, and along his spine. It’s a quiet kind of confession that Wonwoo voices into his spread hands, the ones so impossible that they can’t be said louder than a whisper. “I can’t see him without being consumed by my own guilt at being alive and healthy while he’s sick and stuck at home, so instead of confronting that, I’ve been hiding away here for years. But I figured, if I’m alive I might as well be living, since Bohyuk’s been confined to one town for most of his life.” Wonwoo’s eyes are blazing when he looks up at Junhui again. “Take advantage? Of what? Your constant determination to leap to conclusions about me? Do you think it’s been easy with your lecturing and thinly-veiled hostility? Do you really think I hate you just because Mingyu and Minghao do?”

The condensation in the air trembles at the deluge of questions, and Junhui starts to sweat with the amount of force he has to exert to prevent any of it from reaching Wonwoo’s face. His hands, too, grip tightly around the edge of the mattress to prevent them from wrapping around Wonwoo’s thighs, or arms, or face. “I don’t hate you,” Junhui says after a beat, answering Wonwoo’s real, unasked question. He swallows the lump of emotion in his throat, melting under Wonwoo’s gaze, terrified of revealing himself. “I don’t hate you, but you should despise me. Minghao’s right, you know. I’m not a good person, and I’ve done awful things.”

“I’m not going to hate you for something you did in the past. I don’t hate you, and I’ve never hated you.” Wonwoo hesitates, scooting up to the edge of the bed. “You don’t agree with me very often. Minghao and Mingyu…they agree with me all the time. But it’s not like I hate you because you challenge me, or that they’re my friends because they never debate whether I’m right or wrong. It’s annoying when they want me to rant about you, but it’s also annoying when you act like all this is pretense.”

“I’m like the dirty secret you’re keeping from your best friends. When we work together you smile and laugh like everything’s okay, but then they ask and you whine about how much work it is and how tired you are. It feels like pretense.”

Wonwoo reaches out for Junhui, who gives up his hand without putting up a fight. He places Junhui’s palm over his chest, and the dust in the room starts to swirl in every corner, wind picking up even though they’re indoors, like mini tornadoes collecting sawdust and tracked in dirt. “How can this be pretense?” Wonwoo whispers, lifting his chin to indicate the movement of the air around them. “My magic expands when you so much as breathe. It flutters when I look at you and flies completely out of my control when we’re touching. I don’t get it. You were right, I thought of magic as a tool, not something that had a mind of its own, but when you’re casting at the same time as I am, it takes over me. How do I pretend something like that?”

The hand on Wonwoo’s chest shakes, sliding down the length of his torso to his thigh, which Junhui grips for balance. His knees ache from being stooped on the floor, so he shifts his weight back onto his toes, but Wonwoo notices and pulls him forward until he’s sprawled over his lap. Heart hammering, Junhui conjures up contained whirlpools to join the twisting wind currents. He catches his balance by placing his hands on Wonwoo’s shoulders. “I did have a partner before Minghao, and we worked together for three years. We were very good partners, you know. The best. When we were in training we set records, that’s how good we were. He was my best friend, too, we grew up together and knew everything about each other. His control over fire was unlike anything I’d ever seen or have seen since, and because he was fire and I was water, we balanced each other. It really was the perfect partnership.” Junhui slides a single droplet from Wonwoo’s shoulder down to rest in the crook of his elbow, letting the slow movement of cool water ease his tension a little. “We never had the gold fireworks. I wasn’t dizzy after every time we cast together. My magic didn’t chase after him when we were eating dinner or spin circles around his head when we were in the same room, it never used to play around when I wasn’t specifically commanding it to do something. I don’t get it either.” Wonwoo’s muscles only relax after hearing those words.

Wind ruffles through Junhui’s hair, mussing the strands every which way, and then skims down the rest of his body, tickling him at the sides, knees, and elbows. It’s harder to achieve the same effect with water, because Junhui doesn’t want a drenched Wonwoo getting his bed wet, but he sprays his face with a gentle mist, leaving Wonwoo spluttering through his laughter. “Aw, look, they’ve spun into one big twister,” Wonwoo says proudly, nudging Junhui to turn his head sideways.

There’s a part of Junhui in that, the combination of whirling air and churning water curled together like braided rope, spinning without inflicting any damage on the floorboards of Junhui’s room. He turns away from it, a quip at the ready about his contribution being larger, but his thoughts blank when he sees Wonwoo staring at him, lips parted and eyes only half open, but gaze intense. “Are you—?” Turning around changes Junhui’s weight and the slightest friction against his pants makes his eyes widen.

“Yeah,” Wonwoo huffs out breathily, wincing when Junhui moves again. “Sorry. I can take a hint and smacking my arm way is a big enough hint, but it’s just…”

“Oh. That was then. I was angry.” Junhui’s magic does a good job of convincing him he’s in control right now. “But this is—”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. He places his thumb and forefinger around Wonwoo’s squared chin and guides his head forward until he can feel Wonwoo’s mouth on his cupid’s bow. The invitation is too enticing for Wonwoo to resist, and the kiss is like a massage against Junhui’s lips, one that eases every knot in his muscles, including the ache in Junhui’s head questioning whether or not he’s really in charge of his actions. Junhui shatters that thought with a jet of water, which leaps and loops near the ceiling, and he kisses Wonwoo back without any reservations.

Wonwoo’s arms wrap around Junhui’s waist, pulling him in, and they topple backward, with Junhui’s hands still cradled around Wonwoo’s face. He makes a strangled noise against Wonwoo’s mouth, and Wonwoo laughs at him, chin rising with the backward tilt of his head. Junhui can feel the shaking wherever he’s plastered to Wonwoo’s chest, and he pouts. His method of retaliation is to attack at Wonwoo’s neck, teeth skating along Wonwoo’s pulse, biting and licking like an annoying pixie, zapping at someone who accidentally knocked over their flower collection.

“Don’t be like that,” Wonwoo says, laughing more. “Can I take your shirt off?”

Junhui only agrees because Wonwoo’s tugging his own tunic over his head, sending it flying into the air, billowing as it lands in a heap by the door. As soon as Junhui’s shirt is removed, Wonwoo lets a gust send it flying to join his own. Junhui raises an eyebrow. “Like what you see?”

“You don’t have to fish for compliments from me.” Wonwoo looks appreciatively at the vertical indentation running down Junhui’s belly. He reaches out tentatively, a single finger running down that line so lightly it’s like Wonwoo’s just a gust of air. When his hand reaches Junhui’s navel, it trails back up, this time sliding along Junhui’s broad chest with enough pressure that there’s no question of who he is. He sighs happily at being able to dig his fingernails into Junhui’s strong back muscles, gnawing his lower lip between his teeth.

It should be Junhui’s teeth doing that, he thinks, so he leans down and seals the air between them in a bruising open-mouthed kiss. His fingers press at the spaces between Wonwoo’s ribs, which are firm and prominent under his skin, whether by sight or by touch. They slip lower down, lingering on Wonwoo’s abdominal muscles the way his tongue lingers at the roof of Wonwoo’s mouth, pressing and pressing in a thorough exploration of his future partner.

The way Wonwoo’s tongue curls against his own is distracting, and Junhui has to pull away, switching to modest pecks down his chin, along his jawbone, down to his neck. It’s easier to focus on what he’s doing with his hand that way, which unties the front of Wonwoo’s breeches and ghosts along the length of Wonwoo’s hard cock, water collecting against his palm to provide slickness when he palms him, slow and teasing.

“Wait,” Wonwoo huffs, grip tight around Junhui’s bicep. “Shit.”

Junhui nips once at his earlobe before leaning back, propping himself up on one forearm so he can look at Wonwoo while he speaks. It’s no good, he takes one look at Wonwoo gasping for air and every bit of him twitches as if struck. He lowers his gaze to his own hand, removed from Wonwoo’s trousers and splayed out on his chest instead. “What?”

“I, the thing is, I have barely any idea what I’m doing.” He scowls and turns his head as soon as he’s done saying it, breathing out hard and fast through his mouth.

“Really? So gutsy on the outside but you’re actually inexperienced?” Junhui rolls his hips as a test and leaves a trickling of water in the hollow of his sternum. There’s already a pretty pink colouring Wonwoo’s chest, which only intensifies after Junhui’s jest, and he relents. “I’m not that much more sure than you either, I bet,” Junhui admits. He drags his hand across Wonwoo’s chest until it settles just below one of Wonwoo’s pectorals. The pad of his thumb sweeps over the nipple there, earning a full body shiver that goes straight to Junhui’s cock. He does it again, the other direction, and then keeps his thumb there, lightly stroking the side using a small circular motion with his thumb. “Does it feel good?”

“Are you kidding me? Yeah,” Wonwoo says quietly, breath hitched. Junhui can feel him watching his face.

“Then we’ll go until it stops feeling good, how’s that? Just tell me.” Wonwoo’s nipple is hard between Junhui’s index finger and thumb, and Junhui pinches lightly. Wonwoo lets out a tiny gasp, and Junhui squeezes again, twice, in quick succession.

“Alright,” he chokes out, sliding his hand down the length of Junhui’s lithely muscled arm until it’s coiled weakly around his wrist. The wind picks up again, and Junhui studies the cast of long shadows on Wonwoo’s face and torso from the setting sun, giving him a mysteriously regal aura. He’s been so hard for so long.

Junhui sits up to tug Wonwoo’s pants down to his knees, hurrying to do the same to his own, but only managing to get them past his ass before he’s upon Wonwoo again, kissing him hungrily as his hips push down, rubbing against Wonwoo’s lower abdomen, feeling himself nestled in the crook where leg joins body. Wonwoo’s cock lies trapped between their stomachs, and every tiny bit of movement elicits a moan from his mouth, singing a delectable song to Junhui’s plundering tongue, sliding irrepressibly along his lips.

The skin on skin contact feels amazing, but the most intimate feeling, the one sending shocks radiating out to Junhui’s head and toes, comes from wherever their cocks are touching. Junhui makes an effort to angle his thrusting down, maximizing the slide against each other. He grunts, frantic to press their bodies closer, rocking forward in jerky motions, each one accompanied by another guttural cry.

“More,” Wonwoo demands, low and airy, slapping his hands on Junhui’s ass and forcing his hips down for the increased pressure, building the speed faster and then holding the rhythm once he’s tossing his head back and arching up into Junhui.

“Does it still feel good?” Junhui rolls and rolls his hips, supporting his weight on his knees and a clenched fist.

“Just like that. Don’t stop.” Wonwoo knows what he likes, hands curled into the sheets, lower back curved upward and straining his hamstrings. Desperate noises escape his throat and join the ringing in the room that mostly covers over the heavy breathing and sounds of wet skin against wet skin. Junhui smiles at him, sliding his fingers along the soft skin of Wonwoo’s cheek, breath warm and gasping right beside his ear, maintaining the steady pace of his movements, providing the friction they both desperately need. It doesn’t take that long for Wonwoo to buck up, crying out as he spurts hot come, wet and stringy on both their stomachs.

Junhui slows a little to let him recover, murmuring his name quietly against the corner of his jaw as Wonwoo’s choked cries calm to deep breaths. When Wonwoo stops shaking, Junhui slips two fingers into Wonwoo’s mouth, revelling in the immediate response. Wonwoo sucks Junhui’s fingers while gripping Junhui’s forearm, not willing to let him remove his hand even after they’re glossy with his own saliva. Junhui doesn’t really need spit for this, not when he can make things wet without touching a single cock, but somehow it’s better to have his hand slippery from Wonwoo’s mouth when he rubs himself off, his come joining Wonwoo’s to paint a sparkly white image on that gorgeously chiseled abdomen.

For a while there’s only the sound of heavy breathing, with the ringing from the magic dissipated in the hazy aftermath, the room eerily still without the presence of their combined magic. “Again. Well…later. But again.” Wonwoo lifts his knee and slips his foot underneath Junhui’s ankle so their legs are twisted together much the way the air and water in the room sits, tight, humid, stifling – unmoving. Even lying stock still, Junhui’s entire body feels like it’s pulsating long after he’s waved a hand to clean them up.

“Mingming!” He scrambles to his feet and races forward, reaching for Mingming’s hand, grabbing on. His element is water magic, damn it, he should be able to control it. But no matter how hard Junhui tries to stop the onslaught, more and more water continues to pour over them, surrounds them.

Water starts to fill Mingming and Junhui’s lungs, neither of them getting air to breathe. The corners of his already blurry vision start to blacken, and he can feel Mingming’s grip on his hand tighten. “Mingming, hold on!” Junhui tries to shout, but his throat is closed up and he’s losing the ability to focus. In his panic, he loses more of his ability to command the water.

loses more of his ability to command the water.

the water

water—

On the morning of their Promotion, Junhui stirs with the sun prickling his sleep-sensitive eyes. He turns his head to bury his face in the bicep of the arm with his hand under his head, using it as an escape. His other arm pulls Wonwoo toward him, slipping from under his neck to curl around his shoulders and draw his body closer. The leg Wonwoo has thrown over Junhui’s stomach twitches, and he lifts one of the hands curled up at Junhui’s side to scratch his own nose, but he’s back to soft snores within moments.

Junhui wavers between waking Wonwoo up and letting him sleep longer. The ceremony will happen when it does, whether they’re early or not, but he’s awfully tempted to witness Wonwoo’s excitement as soon as possible, to watch the way his face brightens and his entire body vibrates with anticipation. He doesn’t shake him awake.

Truthfully, Junhui dreads going through with this. As he paints the air with a ribbon of water, streaming looping circles lazily above their heads, the suffocating feeling returns, triggering the drowning reflex at the back of Junhui’s brain and forcing him to inhale deeply. It would have been easier if Emperor Yoon had locked him up in a physical prison, where everyone could look at him and see the bad that he sees inside himself, the bad that led to Mingming’s death on that cliff, because Junhui couldn’t stop the waterfall. Better for it to be obvious than a mental torment that’s kept private, invisible claws holding onto him without mercy. What if it happens again? What if it happens again?

“Stop it,” Wonwoo slurs, rolling forward to press his face into Junhui’s shoulder.

Startled, Junhui snaps his neck toward him, nose buried in Wonwoo’s hair. “Stop what?” Thinking? Worrying?

“The circles.” Wonwoo points upward without opening his eyes, where miniature streams decorate the walls and ceiling, waving up and down.

“You can feel that?”

“Yeah, it tickles. You’re disrupting the airflow in this room when you circulate water like that.” Wonwoo pats Junhui’s stomach admonishingly, smacking his lips together to clear the taste of sleep from his mouth. His cheeks lift faintly. “And you tell me not to play around with my magic.”

“You shouldn’t play,” Junhui says automatically, hand falling to Wonwoo’s side. “It’s too powerful to be treated like a toy—are you sleeping again? If you’re already awake we should get up, we’re leaving today.”

Wonwoo’s eyes fly open. “Is that today? That’s today. I’m awake, let’s go, let’s go.”

Just as Junhui imagined, Wonwoo bounces wildly between the walls all morning, dragging him to join Minghao at breakfast and digging in without heeding the frosty glower Minghao shoots in their direction.

“Where’s Mingyu?”

“Sleeping, probably.” Minghao snatches the pitcher of water just ahead of Junhui’s hand, holding it just out of reach. Junhui scowls, but plucks his cup and fills it with conjured water, much to Minghao’s dismay.

“Still? It’s such a beautiful day—”

“You didn’t want to get out of bed either,” Junhui reminds Wonwoo, knocking his arm to pass over a slice of pancake, which Wonwoo does without hesitation. “Don’t rib your friends when you’re the same way.”

“Get off your high horse,” Minghao mutters, rolling his eyes. “You’ve never joked around like that? As if.”

Junhui pulls a face. “At least I have a horse, you’re stuck walking around with nothing but your shoes.”

“That doesn’t even make sense, how is that a good retort in any way? You’re so dumb, I can’t believe anyone can put up with you. I bet that’s the real reason they try to put you through training faster, so they don’t have to take care of your stupid ass any longer than they have to.”

“You’re even—”

“Will you two knock it off?” Wonwoo looks up from his mail with annoyance, eyes narrowing at each of them in turn. His hand shakes, and he slams it into the table, startling everyone around them, to make his point clear. “For fuck’s sake, give it a rest. You’re like a pair of feuding fairies, I swear.”

“What’s wrong?” Junhui asks immediately, detecting the change on his skin. The air pressure’s not sitting right, like there’s not quite enough oxygen and he’s sensitive enough to feel slightly faint-headed.

“You’re doing that thing,” Minghao says quickly, leaning in toward Wonwoo’s face.

The bubble bursts and Junhui breathes normally again. “It’s nothing,” Wonwoo mumbles, hiding his left hand underneath the table. He chokes on the food in his mouth when Junhui reaches down to grab the letter from him, pushing him away half-heartedly with his right hand, but staring down into the table.

“If he doesn’t want us to know, then don’t pry. Why do you have to be such an asshole?” Minghao chastens, but he’s leaning over the breakfast spread in an attempt to read the paper as well.

Junhui scans the letter and folds it back up, tucking it into one of his pockets. “If he wanted to stop me he could have. Would have.”

“Well, what is it? What did it say?”

“Not much,” Junhui chirps, holding onto Wonwoo’s hand. “I think he’s just getting cold feet about leaving this place after living here for so long.” It wasn’t a particularly long letter, that was true, but Wonwoo’s mood certainly wasn’t because of their Promotion.

“Yeah well, I wouldn’t be looking forward to spending time with you either,” Minghao snarks. “I know what that’s like and all I can say Wonwoo, is ‘good luck’. You’re going to need it. I’d rather die than partner with that one again.”

All of the water from the pitcher by Minghao’s plate rises out of the container and soars into his face, making a splashing noise that leaves him snorting and spitting with wet hair and a drenched shirt. “What the fuck?!” He yells, leaping to his feet, fist brandished behind his head, wiping the water out of his eyes. “Are you fucking serious right now?”

“Don’t be so flippant about death,” Wonwoo says quietly, placing a hand on Junhui’s arm. That hand pulls him out of the roar of a waterfall and the sound of a fading scream, calming his heartbeat and easing frayed nerves. As he returns to the present, the place where Wonwoo’s touching him acting as an anchor, he looks around to see everyone staring in their direction. It’s only then that he realizes what he’s done, having lost control of his magic because of his quick temper, and then using it to attack someone.

“Oh,” Junhui says.

“Oh? Really? That’s all you have to say, you fucking piece of shit?”

He dries Minghao as quickly as he can. Not particularly thoroughly, because he risks pulling moisture that does belong in Minghao if he gets too close, but Junhui draws most of the water off of him, until his hair is only slightly damp and his shirt is water-free, if a little stiff. “Sorry.” Junhui covers his face with his hands, mortified. It’s happening again. It’s happening again. “I’m really really sorry, I didn’t mean to do that, seriously.”

Minghao glares and grumbles and sucks loudly on the back of his teeth, but he sits. “Fucking try that again mate…” He sighs. “At least you know how to apologize now, I guess.”

“Where to?” Wonwoo shoulders his rucksack somberly, voice glum. After breakfast, their faces had been equally stoic despite the celebrations, both struggling to smile at Captain Choi who walked them to the gates and waved them off. Wonwoo stayed blank and unfeeling while Mingyu sobbed a farewell into his shoulders and Minghao told him he’d always have his back. He appreciated the gesture, truly, but couldn’t vocalize that gratitude, nor contort his face into a happy expression when it wasn’t his genuine emotion. Junhui remained apologetic, which probably served to make Minghao even more uncomfortable than the months of diatribe and underhanded jabs, as well confusing Mingyu when he realized that Minghao had seemingly forgiven him for all the things he’d complained about.

“Huh?” Junhui replays the morning scenario in his head a million times, each with a different way of handling the situation that doesn’t result in him losing his cool and assaulting Minghao with his powers. Not rising to Minghao’s bait. Not taunting him. Apologizing earlier. Keeping full control of his magic at all times.

“Up north to see your family?” Wonwoo suggests, unaware of the debate warring in Junhui’s head. “That’s where you said they were from, right?”

“My family?” Junhui blinks and looks at Wonwoo. “Why would we go see them?”

“Alright then, what direction did you head in last time?”

With Minghao and Mingming both they’d walked east. The eastern coast was Junhui’s favourite place in the kingdom, with its rocky shores and small fishing villages, where everyone made you feel welcome even if you’d never met before. It was cheap to stay in those towns too, not to say that the emperor’s stipend was trifling, but more often than not they were guesthouses run by elders who were self-sufficient and opened their homes out of generosity, rather than for income.

Patrolling the area never bored him, with the constantly spawning kappas and kelpies and other garden-variety pests, but the largest problem they’d ever encountered were rogue magicians trying to capture a haetae for the single horn emerging from the goat-like creature’s forehead. There was a tranquil atmosphere there, the kind that never made Junhui feel any emotion other than happiness.

“We already have a bearing,” Junhui says quietly, pointing down the path that would take them toward the forest. Putting the afternoon sun on their right, he doesn’t wait for Wonwoo to catch up before starting the trek. “We have to go southeast.”

“Southeast? What’s southeast?”

“We have to go see your brother.”

Wonwoo stops walking, which takes Junhui a few moments to notice, even if he’d been expecting some sort of resistance.

“You read the same letter as me, Wonwoo, we have to see your brother.” Junhui sighs, doubling backward to where Wonwoo’s standing with his arms crossed and glaring. The hot sun beats down on Junhui’s brow and he covers his face with one hand, fingers on either side of his temples, kneading small circles.

“You read the same letter, so you know I can’t see him. He’s still sick, and if I can’t make him better, what’s the point?” Wonwoo turns stubbornly to the side, boring a hole in the ground with the tread of his shoes. “I’m not going back.”

“The way your mom described it, you might never be able to see him if you don’t do it now,” Junhui says gently. “Let’s go, hm?”

“I won’t. Don’t fight me on this, Junhui, you can’t win.” Wonwoo faces a tricky dilemma, but one he decided a route for long ago and hasn’t changed, even with the addition of new information. Like the fact that the rate at which Bohyuk was getting worse had accelerated, and time wouldn’t wait for Wonwoo to drift aimlessly through training or wander through fields without a direction.

Junhui doesn’t answer. He lifts his satchel over his shoulder, one arm clutching the leather strap, the other wrapped around Wonwoo’s wrist, dragging him along. Wonwoo digs his heels in, but slides down the hilly slopes all the way to the forest.

“Minghao was right, you’re horrible and I hate you.” Wonwoo yanks his arm back, glares at Junhui, before staring longingly up the hill again.

“I’ve already told you that Minghao was right about me,” Junhui mutters, amused.

Wonwoo shakes his head and looks skyward. The deciduous trees in the forest quell with the wind, leaves rustling when shaken, but reverting to their original positions after it blows. They’re connected firmly to the branches now, strong in the heat of the summer, when the rainy season had filled the tree roots with water, along with dampening the soil and forest floor. Sunlight filters down only through the sparse cracks of the dense canopy. “Why are you doing this?” he asks, staring up into an old elm. “I don’t want to watch him idling all day. He played around a lot as a kid, always running off, bouncing with energy. Am I just going to go stare at him sleeping half the day away and spending it the rest of it indoors, where someone can keep an eye on him and he doesn’t exert too much energy?” The tree leaves shake again, a little more forcefully, and a single oval-shaped leaf with a pointed end flutters down.

Junhui holds out a hand and to catch the leaf in his palm, plucking it by its stem with the fingers of his other hand and twirling it in front of his nose until it comes to a stop, the blade a separating line down the middle of his face. “You won’t be staring at him because you can still talk to him. Would you rather wait until he’s not able to do even that much?”

“Stop it! Stop talking about that version of the future like it’s inevitable. I’m working on it, alright? If I go home without something that’ll be acknowledging failure, and I can’t let him go like that, I won’t do it.”

Above them, the trees are still. Even the birds out foraging are silent, returned to their nests or roosting momentarily on the nearest branch, disturbed by the furor of loud voices below flashing predatory warning signs. Junhui, too, is still, save for the rise and fall of his ribcage when he breathes and the slow blinking of his eyelids while he looks at Wonwoo. “What are your ideas?”

Wonwoo looks at him, wounded, lost. A baby bird out of his nest, and all the trees in the vicinity look the exact same.

“Never mind.” Out of his satchel Junhui fishes out the new certificate presented to him earlier in the day, the one proclaiming their status as ‘Mages of The Yoon Kingdom’, and places the leaf on top of the mulberry bark paper before folding the sheet in half, pressing the corners together. He carefully tucks the elm leaf and its new protective covering back into his bag. “I wish I could keep the leaf alive even if it’s not attached to the tree but it’ll probably dry out in a week, but it’s just such a pretty shade of green.” He smiles wistfully, beckoning Wonwoo forward. “You can work on an idea while we walk, right? We don’t have to go east, but let’s move south. The weather is nicer, for one thing. We’ll have plenty to do on our hands since there’s no shortage of fox spirits and poisonfeather birds in the forests, and you never know when you’ll run into a dokkaebi goblin or gangshi corpse.”

And if they stay far enough from the coast, Junhui never has to see the ocean. Or put someone at risk because he’s too close to a large source of water, since moving a large quantity is easier than conjuring from nothing.

“Do you think we’ll find any imoogi?” Wonwoo asks, perking up.

Junhui frowns. “No. No, we’re not fighting any dragons.”

The forest comes awake as soon as the sun rises, or even a little bit before, when the first rays peek out over the horizon and from high up, the birds begin to chirp and warble. Junhui wakes to the sound of two kingfishers vocalizing their displeasure at encroaching on each other’s turf, and rolls over with a hand over his ears. The tousle is too loud to be covered, however, and Junhui opens his eyes with a groan.

Across from him, Wonwoo’s head is nestled inside his bedroll. Junhui isn’t particularly worried about his breathing, considering Wonwoo’s powers, but the sight is still worrying, seeing him cocooned like that, as if curling in on himself wrapped in a shield. He almost feels bad about the night before, when Wonwoo had hugged his kit and stared at Junhui settling into sleep with eyes hopeful for an invitation. Junhui had bid him goodnight and watched Wonwoo sulk as he laid down his own sleeping gear with the thought that things would be better in the morning.

Junhui reaches out a hand to lift up one of the flaps, revealing a tuft of hair and letting in a stream of light that has Wonwoo recoiling and muttering angrily into the cloth. “Why is it so loud?” The sounds of the fauna in the forest vanishes suddenly, the air going so still Junhui can’t hear the rustling of his covers or his own breathing. All that remains is what’s inside of him, a strangely prominent gulp when he swallows against the numbing silence surrounding them. He taps the rolled up ball, roughly where he estimates Wonwoo’s shoulders to be, three times with sharp jabs of his fingers.

The dead air lifts, returning birdsong and leaf rustling to Junhui’s ears. “What?” comes the muffled voice. “I wanna go back to sleep.”

“How did you do that?” Junhui asks, vaguely terrified. The complete absence of an entire sense was worse than being robbed for something like money. An entire part of him felt like it went missing when he couldn’t hear anything.

“I dunno, I’ve always been able to make the air not move. You can’t hear sound if nothing’s vibrating so,” the explanation is cottony, like Wonwoo is eating sugar candy that makes his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth, and it doesn’t dispel the queasy feeling he has at not being able to hear at all. “I’m gonna do that again so I can sleep for another hour and if you wake me up this time I’m gonna blow your ass back where we came from.”

Junhui slips back into unconsciousness himself, his dreams perpetually situated under the roar of a waterfall, and even though they both get a complete night’s rest, neither of their moods improve. Junhui still too scared to use his magic, Wonwoo’s still testy about his brother. Other than the pygmy marmoset that finds its way wrapped around Junhui’s satchel strap, they encounter nothing but trees, shadows, and overhead flapping from birds moving too quick to see.

Around sunset, Wonwoo starts complaining. “I’m bored. When are we going to find civilization again?” He sits on a fallen over tree trunk, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands while he watches Junhui bent over a log with what might be the kingdom’s smallest hatchet.

When he travelled with Mingming, fire had never been an issue. They never needed kindling or tinder, no flint or matches or firewood. It had always been just a snap of the fingers away, even when it was raining heavily, something so accessible Junhui never had a second thought. That was what made him and Mingming a good match, wasn’t it, with fire and water they were set to survive in any situation. Well. Almost.

In the case of Minghao…they never got far enough that a fire was necessary.

“We’ll be in town in about three days time if memory serves. And if the map’s right,” Junhui says, hauling the logs into a pyramid at the centre of his ring of stones. “If you’re bored you can try helping.”

“What am I going to do? I can only start feeding the fire oxygen once you’ve sparked something,” Wonwoo says, changing position by crossing his legs. He tilts his head sideways, eyes fixed on the firewood. “It’s not like the fire’s going to cook me anything anyway, I hate fish.”

“Well you could have said that earlier when I was elbow deep in the stream trying to spear one down!” Junhui says shrilly, throwing down the wasted match, snapped in half from his frustration.

Wonwoo shrugs. “You could have gotten that in half the time if you’d just used your magic. It’s not my fault.”

Junhui finally lights something and Wonwoo hurries to stoke the flames, keeping a wary eye without exerting much effort. “What are you going to eat then?” he asks, standing and patting dirt off his hands and trousers, from where he had been kneeling in the soil, trying to get the fire going.

“We still have salt pork and fermented vegetables.” Wonwoo lifts up his rucksack and shakes it around a little, once the fire is burning stably on its own. “It’ll keep me alive until we’re not stuck in the wild. There’s a reason people live in cities you know, and why mages choose villages to protect. So they don’t have to be nomadic.”

“That’s a lovely plan. Sit in one place and wait for a way to save your brother to fall into your lap. Sounds exactly like what I’d expect from someone who can eliminate sound.” Junhui waves the skewered fish over the fire when he talks, punctuating his final words with forceful jabs in Wonwoo’s direction.

Wonwoo rolls his eyes and pulls out his jar of horseradish, hugging it to his chest. “At least it’s a comfortable plan,” he says defensively. The pickled vegetable crunches loudly between his teeth amidst the soft crackling from the fire, but he chews quietly, with his mouth closed. After swallowing, he continues, “Anyway, you don’t even have a plan. I thought if I just followed you, with you having been, you know, around the block already, you’d have somewhere you wanted to go. A monster you wanted to defeat. That sort of thing.”

“If it were up to me, I’d give up my position as a magician and go become a jeweler and make decorative headpieces or something,” Junhui mumbles.

“Well I know that now.” Wonwoo savours the salty flavour of his food, smiling priggishly at at Junhui’s unseasoned, odoriferous fish. “But given just the fact that the emperor wanted you in his employ, and as quickly as possible, I assumed you’d been given some special task or something.” His voice drops lower, recapping the lid with a grave expression. “A mission maybe, exciting and difficult enough that it’d distract me from what was going on at home.”

His element is water magic, damn it, he should be able to control it. But no matter how hard Junhui tries to stop the onslaught, more and more water continues to pour over them, surrounds them.

“I know what it’s like,” Junhui says roughly, “to want to feel useful when everything seems useless. But you don’t have to find a permanent way to keep him alive as the only thing you can do to help him. And you can still at least pretend like you’re looking for kindling or something, when we try to get a fire going.”

Wonwoo is thoughtful for a moment. He looks away from Junhui nibbling at the white meaty bits of the cod, up to the purpling sky visible in a patch of tree-less canopy above them, as dusk settles and the forest prepares for a night of rest. “Bohyuk would like you, I think. Or at least he’d ally with you. You don’t take any shit, and he’d benefit from having someone else to gang up on me with. And you call it like it is. Even now, after all this time, even though I mostly know, I still can’t admit what’s happening to him.”

“I’m still bored. There’s nothing to do, and the scenery’s been the same for like three whole days, Junhui,” Wonwoo whines, beating back a branch in his way so hard that it thwacks backward and hits him in the arm on rebound. Two days later, still in the thicket, and Junhui begins to regret parting ways with Minghao. He bickered with him, but at least, unlike Wonwoo, Minghao was never this much of a nuisance when the occasion called only for quiet.

“That’s not something I can change,” Junhui mutters darkly, clutching his bag so his hands don’t reach out and accidentally strangle Wonwoo. “If you were expecting a scenic tour around the country, you should know that the rite we went through was a job promotion, not a wedding ceremony. This isn’t a honeymoon romp.”

“Aw, life partners! Even better than mage partners, and more long term too. I didn’t know you were thinking that far ahead in our relationship.” The fluttering breeze curls at the ends of Junhui’s hair, tickling his neck. Wonwoo’s teasing continues, since Junhui doesn’t rise to the bait. “You’d look lovely in a nice blue petticoat, I think, and I’m sure we can figure out something to do with your hair. I didn’t know you were already so set on being with me long term.”

“How could I not want that,” Junhui says, cantankerous. He hugs his bag to his chest to prevent it from swinging and getting caught on the low-lying shrubbery. “I’ve never hated someone more in my entire life, so why wouldn’t I want to live with them?”

“You don’t have to be so grumpy.” After hopping over several fallen branches, Wonwoo crashes into Junhui’s back and pouts when he isn’t given a hand to steady himself. “I know you don’t really hate me.”

“I wouldn’t bet too much on that one,” Junhui grumbles, lifting Wonwoo off his feet to plop him down safely over a pixie parade, as he’s not paying attention to where he’s going.

Wonwoo places his hands on Junhui’s shoulders for support, and then keeps one there once they’re safely away from the flighty sprites, comforting and warm where it rests. He massages the muscle there, though it’s mostly bone his thumb squeezes into, sending shivers down Junhui’s spine when the wind picks up, just in their vicinity, brushing teasingly at Junhui’s neck. “Not going to play?” Wonwoo asks, voice low and sparkling. It has the opposite of when Wonwoo keeps the air still, vibrating deeply in Junhui’s ears, and all over his body, and Junhui shudders again.

“I told you, magic isn’t a toy, you’re not supposed to just whip it out when you’re in the mood to amuse yourself with it.” Junhui shrugs Wonwoo’s arm away, pointedly not looking at his face when it falls, and ignores the vacant feeling around his neck. Up ahead, there’s a clearing, and an ancient oak toppled over, with its trunk lying across the main path. At waist height they might be able to climb over it, or they could go around, or—

It suddenly lifts up, and Junhui whirls around to see Wonwoo with a hand out, streaming air underneath the body of the tree to lift it up high. “This is the most I end up doing a day, no wonder why my magic’s so bored. Even I’m bored. I’d be remiss if I was wasting my magic or hurting someone with it but it’s not like—”

“Wonwoo, watch out!” The tree trunk that Wonwoo hurled to the side with a dismissive wave of his hand slams into an enormous wall of water, and Junhui pulls at it to cushion the force of the throw, before altering its trajectory into the forest floor, crushing some bushes and flowers below. That’s a better fate than where it was originally headed, straight into the small clay cottage and its dilapidated thatched roof, sitting just off the beaten path.

Wonwoo goes still from the shock, eyes wide and hands held by his head as he surveys the scene before him. He recovers while Junhui pants from the suddenness of having to draw on so much conjured magic without warning. “Well, at least we know you haven’t forgotten how to use your powers,” he says weakly. “No wonder you won all the records for reaction time and your sheer strength is pretty impressive too…”

“That’s what you have to say?” Junhui bores holes into Wonwoo’s face with his eyes and Wonwoo shrinks back. “I just told you not to play around with magic and you think it’s fine just to toss something in the air without another thought? We didn’t need you to clear that tree so dramatically, you could have gotten someone killed!”

“I’m sorry, okay? Heck how was I supposed to know that house was there when it was hidden back behind all the trees? Luckily no one did die okay, there’s nothing breathing in that house so it’s alright, relax.”

“Just because no one’s in there doesn’t mean you can just destroy it! Why don’t you have any regard for your surroundings? Being a magician doesn’t put you above people’s lives or their livelihoods! You don’t have any respect for your magic at all.” In his anger, Junhui brews a storm, and the raindrops falling on his and Wonwoo’s heads refuse to stop while he’s shaking with ire. “You’re disgraceful.”

Wonwoo clears the precipitation with a wiggle of his fingers, squaring up toe-to-toe with Junhui. “That’s rich. Do you think you act like you do respect magic by avoiding using it? You don’t really respect it, Junhui, you’re just scared of it. And I’m the disgrace? At least I can acknowledge that I was wrong and apologize for what clearly was an accident that I didn’t mean to happen. You’re a fucking hypocrite.”

“I don’t avoid magic,” Junhui says coolly. “I’m careful with it. Careful, the way you’re careless with your words and your actions. Carelessness is how people die.”

“What are you still on about?” Wonwoo shouts, right up in Junhui’s face. “No one died! There’s literally no one but us two in this entire miserable forsaken forest. Who’s gonna end up dying? You? Me? Stop speaking in hypotheticals when it didn’t. Happen. Everything’s okay. End of story. I fucked up. Let’s move on okay? I get it and I won’t move something again if I can’t see where I’m putting it down.”

“You’d be surprised,” Junhui says tightly.

“At what?”

“What can happen even if there are two magicians.”

Wonwoo scoffs, setting off again with a frown and not bothering to check if Junhui’s behind him. “Isn’t that half the point of putting is in pairs? Checks and balances or whatever? If you fuck up, I can stop you. If I fuck up, you can stop me, like you just did. Things worked out, okay.”

“And if they don’t, who takes responsibility for that?” Junhui demands. “I don’t know the extent of my powers or yours, and bad things happen on a greater scale with stronger magicians, like people dying. You can’t bring people back to life once they’re dead, you know. That’s why I can reign myself in.”

“Uh, listen. You’re good, but you’re not that good. If we got into a fight, it’s not like I wouldn’t be able to stop you. But like I said, that’s a good thing. You can also stop me. No one’s going to die—what’s brought all of this on anyway? Is this a personal experience kind of thing? Because you’re way too defensive for it not to be. Did something happen when you were partnered with Mingming?”

Junhui freezes halfway through a step, leg hanging in mid-air. “How do you know that name?” His voice is ice.

“Did he die? Is that why you needed a new partner? Did he die because of accidental magic?”

Something in Junhui snaps, and his magic expands again. This has happened before, and it’s not just in his head when he yells, “Don’t talk about him! Don’t talk about things you don’t understand! You have no right, you despicable human being!” There’s a wave of water rushing past him, so loud, so so loud. It bowls quick as a flash toward Wonwoo, enough of it to sweep him off his feet, to drown him.

Wonwoo moves quickly, mounting a defense for himself by creating an air bubble around his head, and then lunging forward to match Junhui’s assault, giant surge of water to massive surge of wind, tunnelling forward until their magic meets in the middle, clashing fiercely and erupting to hit the ground, the trees, everything around them.

Then, as quickly as both water and air raced toward each other, the elements vanish. Not into thin air – they absorb into each other, water latching onto air, air clinging onto the water, and spiral upward, shooting through the top of the trees, high and out of sight.

“See?” Wonwoo squints up against the sunlight. “You stopped me, I stopped you. You think you’re so powerful but my magic can stop yours so it’s not like there’s anything bad that can really happen. Aw, shit.”

Junhui sinks to his knees with his hands to his face, sobbing desperately with heaving shoulders and his head pointed down. “I could have hurt you…I could have hurt you…” He chants the words like a mantra, into Wonwoo’s chest after Wonwoo sprints toward him, rushing to hold Junhui upright.

“But you didn’t? See?” He brushes tears off Junhui’s face, thumb stroking the skin of his cheek soothingly. Wonwoo smiles encouragingly to show Junhui that he’s alright. “Ah, we’d better sit down, you’re really wrecked from that, huh?” He drags Junhui to his feet, and shoulders him to the giant tree trunk he’d nearly taken down a house with just moments prior, propping him up so they’re both straddling the wood underneath them, Junhui with his face pressed against Wonwoo’s sternum.

Wonwoo places his arms gently around Junhui’s torso, rubbing his back while muttering down into the top of Junhui’s head, his hair tickling his nose. “It’s not that bad! Once again, no one died, and also, no one got hurt.”

“I could have…I could have…”

“I don’t really think you could have hurt me at all, regardless if you despise me or whatever. Even if your magic were up to it, which, by the way, clearly something up. The fact that our magic is willing to elope together without us? I don’t think you’re going to be hurting me any time soon, but let’s just say it could. Let’s say either of us did manage to will our magic against the other, it’s not like we’re defenseless. I’m not as slow and dumb as Minghao, if you throw a jug of water at my face, I can block it. I’m good enough at magic to do that, unlike him.”

A laugh rises, unbidden, in Junhui’s throat, and he lifts his head, giggling into Wonwoo’s neck. Wonwoo pats Junhui’s cheek and leans his head down, cradling Junhui in his arms protectively. “Don’t cry, it’s really not the best use of your abilities. And it makes you look ugly.”

Junhui tilts his chin and bites down on Wonwoo’s collarbone. “Who are you calling ugly?”

“There there, there’s no need to be insecure. I know no one can match up to my handsome appearance, but you’re decent enough when there aren’t tears all over your face.”

Junhui bites down again, tongue darting out into the dip just below his neck.

“Okay, we may have had some good post-fighting make-up times in the past, but I am not down for shenanigans in the middle of the woods.”

With the delays, it takes them an extra day of walking to make it to town, but they arrive earlier in the day instead of around dusk the way Junhui had expected, and in the sunlight they can take in the buildings and activity along the main street after being quickly pointed to the only guesthouse.

“I only have the one room right now,” the owner warns them, “since the summer always brings in a surge of builders who go back home once it’s winter and they can no longer work. I have extra bedding, but there’s not that much space. Do you mind?”

“That’s alright,” Wonwoo says brightly, laying down a sum of copper coins for their deposit. He stares longingly when she tucks the money away, even if Junhui’s told him repeatedly that they’ll make it back quickly doing odd jobs the villagers need help with. “We can share the room.” They can probably also share one set of bedding, so that she doesn’t need to wash another quilt needlessly when they leave.

Their payment covers a meal every morning and one visit each to the private bathhouse. This luxury Wonwoo partakes in immediately while Junhui wanders into town. Since there’s still light left in the day, it’s time he can use to find out where their assistance is most needed. Most of it is physical labour, repairing worn down rooftops, and the like. He can visit door to door to take a look at the downspouts, but he’ll have to ask someone in order to figure out their rainwater collection system, and if there’s anything he can do to help their stores, should they be insufficient.

In the courtyard of the town centre stands a large post, covered with mulberry paper pinned over more layers of mulberry paper. Junhui reads sheaves of announcements, advertisements for work, and news bulletins, scanning them quickly for jobs that he and Wonwoo can pick up. Some tasks come easier to them, with their gifts, and it’d be a waste not to use them. Nothing catches his eye at first, until he circles around to the back to see five portraits, quickly sketched, and a news article about the emperor putting down a rebel insurgency.

“I didn’t think the academy was still sending out new magicians,” says a mild voice behind him. Junhui startles and turns to find a village elder, long beard billowing gently under the gentle wave of his large white paper fan. He immediately thinks that the old man wouldn’t need the fan at all if Wonwoo were here, capable of striking up a breeze even in the hot summer weather.

“I beg your pardon?” Junhui says, after bowing quickly once he’s realized he’s been staring.

“I thought the emperor would be keeping all the new recruits to himself with the trouble brewing.” The man folds up his fan and holds it, along with both his hands, behind his back, scrutinizing Junhui from head to toe.

“What sort of trouble, may I ask?” Junhui squirms under the inspection, not used to being circled while spoken to.

“Emperor Yoon likes to play favourites, and the nobility only enjoys that while they’re the favourites.”

“I’m afraid I still don’t understand.”

“With the upcoming marriage of the Hong princess to the emperor’s son, the Hong Territories will be absorbed by the Yoon Kingdom. Of this, almost everyone is certain. But how will they be ruled? It seems the nobility were informed of a puppet government, where select members of the emperor’s closest aides would be propped up to play important roles in the new government, receiving hefty land and monetary compensation for having to transplant their families. But what of those who would rather stay? Or those who aren’t picked to move? The snubbed wealthy noblemen are buying off mercenaries to kill off the emperor’s confidants, and the emperor has had to take action by amassing an army of his own. One of magicians, who are a little less easy to buy off, by trade. We haven’t had a mage pair around here in months, they’ve all headed off into the city. I’m surprised you were allowed to roam free.”

Junhui shakes his head. “The magicians swear oaths to protect the people, not the emperor. I’ve met him and he emphasized that himself. If he’s amassing an army of mages, then surely they feel it’s how to keep the kingdom safe. But the magicians have always roamed free. They must be there by choice.”

The man laughs, “What does this old man know? You’ve met Emperor Yoon? Then you’ll have a better idea than me. Enough politics, I’ve been waiting to find someone who can deal with a small problem of ours. If you’ll come with me?”

They walk down past the bustling marketplace, the shouting replaced by greetings when they pass. Junhui assumes he’s their appointed village head, as old as he is, although he does not ask.

By the gates of the temple, he’s presented a carved stone lion, its eyes round and angry, mouth open wide with pointy teeth bared. “It seems a wayward traveller picked up a mother who left her egg sac here before dying,” the village elder says mildly, pointing into the mouth of the beast. Inside, the weak baby arachnida squirm within the cavern, still too small and hungry to migrate without their fully formed four pairs of legs. The corpse of the maternal spider remains untouched, the red rings around her abdomen a loud warning of the toxin within. “I’m afraid we were at a loss as to how to remove them from inside without losing one and spreading their poison.”

“They don’t die easily either,” Junhui says, straightening up. “Trying to squash them would just release the toxin and they’re so small at this age that they likely wouldn’t be dead.” He requests a leather pouch with a wide rim, one that can be tied up. Using carefully controlled streams of water, he foists each of the critters into the bag, filling it with water before tying it off. “They won’t drown, not really. The best thing to do would be to freeze their bodies and then seal the bag in setting sap before burying the whole thing deep underground, as far away from your water source as possible. Don’t let your chemists find out, lest they try to harvest them.”

“You won’t kill them?” The old man looks surprised. “I’ve seen water mages do it by draining the liquid from their bodies until they’re shells of themselves. Isn’t it a risk to leave them alive?”

Junhui shrugs. “There’s no point killing them if we can prevent them from hurting anything. They’re still living and breathing beings.”

“When you said you’d met the emperor, and given your current location, I thought you’d…Well, you know, every government needs a court magician. Someone powerful, clever, and willing to protect the country at any cost, even if it means murder. I suppose you aren’t the killing type, are you?” He barks out a laugh, loud and right in Junhui’s ear, before whacking him on the back, more forcefully than his thin frame would suggest he was capable of.

Junhui grimaces.

“What did you get up to all day?” Wonwoo asks, left hand on Junhui’s knee under the table, the other spooning beef stew into his mouth. He looks calm and relaxed, skin pristine and soft, without any tension in his body.

“Got rid of some spiders,” Junhui says around a bite of rice. He’d been paid handsomely too, although he couldn’t shake off the feeling that it wasn’t just for exterminating some pests. “How about you?”

“I finally feel clean again. The bathhouse is amazing, you should see it for yourself. And then after that I took a nap and helped the owner clean out some of the yard and the toenmaru. Do you know what we’re doing tomorrow?”

“I was planning on taking a look at their water storage, but other than that, you can find your own jobs.” The turnip melts in Junhui’s mouth and he slurps warm broth with contentment. To some degree, Wonwoo was right about village protecting being a more comfortable way of living than travelling from town to town. He’ll have to indulge in the bathhouse soon, after the days of living on forest floor.

“Seems kind of boring.” Wonwoo looks around, watching the gambling games taking place a few tables away with a hand around his cup of tea. “I guess they probably won’t let us play because they can’t tell if we’re cheating or not, right?” He sits dejectedly, pouting at Junhui with too much mischief in his eyes to be a good sign.

“Everything’s kind of boring to you. Walking around in nature is boring. Being surrounded by other people is boring.”

“Yeah, because nothing’s happening. It’s the same thing over and over again, and I need some kind of excitement, but everything I find fun you frown at so even if I find something to amuse myself with, you say no.” He licks at his spoon and looks up at Junhui under batted eyelashes and Junhui snorts.

“I’m not your keeper. Go do whatever you want.”

Wonwoo brightens, dropping his spoon with a clatter and straightening his back. He grins widely. “So you’ll duel me right in this room?”

Junhui gives him a deadpan glare, and resumes eating his soup.

“See?”

“That involves more than one person. I’m also not your entertainment box that just comes up with a way to amuse you at the slightest whim.”

But he’s still mostly at Wonwoo’s beck and call anyway.

“Tell me a story,” Wonwoo requests, when the stars blanket the sky and Junhui can no longer make out Wonwoo’s face in the darkness of his room. He can feel him though, tugging at his fingers under their shared blanket.

“How old are you that you want a bed time story?”

Wonwoo rolls onto his side, curled up with his knees pressing into Junhui’s hipbones. “I don’t know, I took a nap in the afternoon so I’m not that sleepy. Tell me about Mingming.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Junhui says snappily.

“I mean, just about him. What was he like, that sort of thing. Was he an old man like you? Did you two have no fun, ever?”

Junhui ponders the question for a moment and then shakes his head. “No,” he supplements, in case Wonwoo can’t tell by the movement. “Actually, well. Maybe. I think when we were partners, I was the annoying bratty child.” Wonwoo pokes him in the cheek at the insult and Junhui laughs. “He never said no to me though, so I guess you have it worse with me than I did with him.”

Cleaning. With water and air, they get asked to do a lot of power washing, of walls that hadn’t been scrubbed since they were first erected, inside furnaces, exhaust vents, chimneys. None of the ondols have been used since the first days of spring, but Junhui sneezes at the soot until Wonwoo puts up a bubble of clean filtered air around his head, maintaining it like it doesn’t take up magical energy the entire time that they’re working.

Most families pay them upfront, but then invite them in for tea and sweets when they’re finished, admiring the whiteness of walls that had been stained grey for so long their original colour remained forgotten. Usually there are smaller tasks after the fact, when a grandmother remembers an old ward she had, and whether they could fix it if it was broken. They supervise a drought-prevention ritual in the main temple, with nearly all of the townsfolk in attendance, and after that the work mostly dries up from mundane to nonexistent.

“We should head further south,” Junhui tries, testing the waters to see if he can bring up seeing Wonwoo’s younger brother again.

To his surprise, Wonwoo agrees. “We should. It’s boring here. But you should still definitely soak in the bathhouse before we leave.”

The bathhouse is empty and warm when Junhui enters, the water heated from underneath the floor. Tugging on one handle gushes hot water into the wooden tub, tugging on another fills the room with steam. Junhui breathes it in and lowers himself in, sinking so the water covers his shoulders, lapping at his chin when he moves. He could easily fall asleep and turn into a prune with how comfortable he feels, at ease not just because the warmth is relaxing, but also because he feels at home under the water, enveloping him into its calm embrace, soothing tired muscles and washing away sweat and grime from a week of hard work.

He scrubs at his skin until it’s pink and raw, revealing a new layer underneath, while the dead flakes are washed away, draining out into the water collection for plants and crops out back. It’s like he’s a new person when he steps out, one that’s soft, if a little damp, and smiles at the sight of Wonwoo’s back. Wonwoo, who waits outside on the long narrow wooden porch running around the perimeter of the building while Junhui soaks, drawing abstract patterns in the dirt of the courtyard with his shoes and then using his magic to replace the sketches with a blank slate every so often, when the space gets too crowded to continue.

Junhui watches him for a while but has to interrupt. “Is that us? Are you drawing a picture of us?” The carved image of two stick figures disappears with a strong gust of wind.

“No,” Wonwoo says quickly, a scowl on his face as he slides his eyes up from Junhui’s slippered feet to his wet hair, the droplets disappearing mostly as they fall, caught and dissipated by Junhui’s magic.

“That’s too bad,” Junhui teases, climbing down the stairs and heading back to the main guesthouse, where their rooms are, toeing off his shoes before sliding open the door. He holds it open long enough to say behind him, “If you said yes I was going to say you were cute. But I guess you’re just bratty.”

“What? Wait!” Wonwoo trailing after him. “What does that even mean? Why do you keep calling me a brat?”

“Because you are one,” Junhui says, matter of fact. He tugs Wonwoo into their room, and closes the door behind them, sitting down on top of the plush bedding to towel dry his hair even though he could do it much more easily and quickly with just his magic. “And isn’t it naptime for you or something?”

Wonwoo slides down to rest his head in Junhui’s lap. “Yeah, are you going to be my pillow?”

“Better occupation than storyteller, I suppose,” Junhui says, dropping the towel to look down and pat at Wonwoo’s head, fingers carding through his hair. Wonwoo nestles his face against Junhui’s leg, eyes heavily lidded, humming happily at the petting. “Okay,” Junhui winces, “Not there though, that’s not meant to be a pillow, I don’t think.”

Wonwoo turns his nose so it’s buried against Junhui’s crotch and starts laughing so hard he has to thump at his chest to breathe again. “I didn’t even think about, I mean, you’ve had your hand around mine, what’s the big deal?”

Junhui pushes Wonwoo’s head away, scrambling back with an unamused expression, and Wonwoo pounces on him, lying on top of Junhui’s prone body with his arms around Junhui’s neck. He presses a kiss just behind Junhui’s ear and blows out a stream of air, breath teasing along Junhui’s cheek.

“Would it make you feel better if I had my mouth around yours?” Wonwoo asks, licking his lips.

Junhui isn’t particularly interested in verbalizing an answer, not when he can just groan and pull Wonwoo in for a kiss while Wonwoo slips a hand under the collar of the absorbent robes covering Junhui’s shoulders.

They kiss slowly. Junhui’s been here before, hungry and desperate for more of Wonwoo like he would disappear any minute, because none of it was enough to satisfy the sharp ringing in his head or the dryness in his throat. Now that he knows he likes the little bit of everything he tried and Wonwoo’s weight on top of him assures Junhui that he’s not going anywhere, that he has time to explore. Junhui kisses him with a hand under his jaw, and Wonwoo tilts backward when Junhui’s thumb slices itself against the jut of bone and his fingers brush along the soft lobe of Wonwoo’s tiny ears. He kisses him surely, with a calmness he doesn’t feel in his heart, and can sense Wonwoo’s breath hitching with the way the air around them goes still, before returning to the gentle vibrating. When Wonwoo’s hand slides to the back of Junhui’s head, his hair is completely dry.

Junhui likes it when Wonwoo’s perfect teeth graze against his lips, claiming them for his mouth, likes it when the tips of their tongues touch and likes it even more when Wonwoo’s tongue swirls around his. When there’s absolutely no air between their mouths at all, that’s when Wonwoo does the most magic, shooting sparks that sizzle and fry Junhui’s brain where they’re connected. With the floor at his back, Wonwoo’s arm under his neck, and his body above him, he’s completely consumed. The air is filled with Wonwoo’s magic anyway, wrapping around him tightly, tenderly.

“Can we stay like this forever?” Wonwoo asks, hand sliding down Junhui’s chest. The robes have to go, and Wonwoo never stops touching him while he’s shrugging them off. Lying naked and bare, the rub of Wonwoo’s trousers is maddening against his skin and Junhui has to gasp with closed eyes before he can answer.

“Wouldn’t we need to get up and eat at some point?”

Wonwoo bends down, sliding his leg purposefully where Junhui’s most sensitive, watching the shake of Junhui’s chest. He blows warm air over Junhui’s belly before coming up to lift his chin for another kiss, and then one more. “What do I taste like?”

“Addicting,” Junhui breathes out. It’s a weird question but his answer is at the ready anyway, and his hand tugs Wonwoo back as if to prove his point, so he can lick at the corner of Wonwoo’s lips, and press their mouths firmly together. He’s dizzy from the sensation, but he can’t get enough of it, and holds Wonwoo against him to taste more.

Wonwoo presses a hand firmly down on Junhui’s ribs, probably feeling the powerful thump of his heartbeat underneath skin and sinew and bone, and Junhui’s left holding his head up, mouth opening and closing against air from Wonwoo’s absence. Wonwoo’s eyes dance and he leans down, close, but still too far away for Junhui’s preference. The question “Then why would we need to eat food?” falls from Wonwoo’s lips, tumbling against Junhui’s mouth before it’s replaced by Wonwoo’s tongue, sliding back into Junhui’s mouth with assertiveness.

He lifts his head again, admiring the sheen on Junhui’s lips, and shuffles down so his head joins his hand further down Junhui’s torso, patting sympathetically at Junhui’s bicep when Junhui whines and drops his head down to the floor with a loud thump. He’s otherwise unconcerned by Junhui’s whining, however, eyes closed and enjoying the moment with the side of his nose nuzzled to Junhui’s cock, hand wrapped around the base.

“Hmm,” Wonwoo says, only it seems to Junhui nothing more than a hum, vibrating delectably against his skin.

“Taking a nap anyway, are you?” He swats at Wonwoo’s head, raising his hips up and writhing.

Wonwoo smiles. Junhui can feel his mouth move, but it infuriatingly doesn’t do anything more than smile. “You’re a very nice pillow. This is a very nice spot, and I think my head just instinctively knew where to rest against you.”

“This isn’t time to stop and smell the roses,” Junhui grumbles.

“That’s true. You don’t smell like roses anyway. You smell like—like, I don’t know, like I should be breathing you in instead of the air in the atmosphere,” Wonwoo says, waving his hand in the air. He presses a tiny kiss to Junhui’s dick, as if in thanks, and then wriggles around to spread Junhui’s legs further apart so he can lie between them, weight supported on his elbows, before parting his lips and sliding them over the head of Junhui’s cock.

At first it’s not particularly pleasant, little more than just warm and wet, although the initial glide stirs something in Junhui’s belly. Then Wonwoo tightens his lips and moves his head up and down and Junhui’s toes curl. Somewhere between Junhui’s ragged gasps and quiet moans, Wonwoo figures out that what he really responds to is being sucked like a piece of sugar candy, and though it tires out the muscles of his cheeks and his jaw aches, Junhui’s hands are tangled insistently in his hair, and that sort of makes up for it. Wonwoo isn’t otherwise very skilled or technical about it, but Junhui is happy to fuck his mouth while Wonwoo shoves his hand down his pants and Wonwoo gets too hung up trying to get himself off to notice how close Junhui is to coming until it’s too late and his mouth is filled, and he swallows it all down, every drop of creamy saltiness, with Junhui’s cock still in his mouth until he gets oversensitive and has to sit up and shove Wonwoo away. By that point Wonwoo’s nearing his own climax, and he comes all over his own hand, a thickening, slightly-sticky mess that Junhui pulls toward his face.

“I want to taste,” Junhui says, and then each of Wonwoo’s fingers is in his mouth, sucked clean with gentle care. His calm demeanour is also wiped off by Junhui’s flattened tongue, although it looks dirty more than anything.

“I told you. Why would we need to stop to eat?”

“You really don’t have to help you know.”

“But it’s easy for me, and I want to!” Junhui smiles at the guesthouse owner with curved eyes, rolled up bedding folded over his arms. He carries it to the back courtyard where he’s already moved her two wooden tubs, and dumps it in along with the other laundry. “You’d have to carry water over to pour it in but if I’m here I can just do this,” he explains, and then conjures some until both buckets are filled and she tops them up with soft soap, made of lye and animal fat.

He helps her into one of the washbasins before stepping into one himself, trodding carefully to squeeze out dirt and grime, pounding into the fabric with the balls of his feet, and laughing when she makes a dance out of it. The water is cold between his toes, and the blankets are squishy underfoot, but it’s a nice day for it, out in the sun that bakes the skin on his nose, with the water cooling his ankles.

“It helps to have rituals,” she says, finishing up her dance. “To keep timing, and to know where you are. After you’ve done several loads, well, you kind of forget how long this one’s been compared to the last.”

That makes sense. “Alright. Maybe you should teach me the dance too.” So he learns it, when they’re squeezing out soap from the linens on flat rocks, and then again when they’re placed back into clean water to rinse. She nods approvingly during their next batch, when he only has to glance at her to know what part of the dance is coming up, but doesn’t need to watch her for the entire sequence of movements. It’s very intricate, patterns that require a precise number of steps on alternating feet, and then sometimes both feet together. He changes the direction he’s facing several times, and adds in her crazy arm motions when they’re on the set of bedding for the third guest room.

“This has taken much less time than usual,” she says appreciatively. “I mean, I do appreciate you doing the washing with me, but having the water filled up so quickly is much easier on my back.”

Junhui beams, happy that she’s accepted his help after seeming so reluctant at first, and then grins even wider when he sees the gates open, bringing in a haggard looking Wonwoo with a hand on his back, limping up the steps to the rooms. He’d told him the rice fields weren’t easy work, not that Wonwoo listened, obviously.

“How long have you been together?”

“I’m sorry?” Junhui blinks, drawing his attention away from Wonwoo’s silhouette to gawk at the guesthouse owner.

“I mean you two, how many years you been paired mages? Your magic seems very practiced and you work together very well,” she says, smiling at him.

“Oh. Not years, only a few weeks actually.” Junhui smiles back, if a little awkwardly, hurrying to catch up with the part of the washing dance she’s at, which requires balancing one on foot.

She covers her mouth to hide her surprise. “But surely you’ve known each other for longer!”

“A few months, maybe?” Junhui laughs when her jaw drops again, draping the duvet over a drying line. “We didn’t have to work for it, I don’t think, the way some mage pairs have to. Our magic just naturally worked well together, luckily, so it was easy.”

He trips and falls, landing in the tub of water at her follow-up question. “I suppose the other aspect of your partnership is new though, since you didn’t tell me you were together when you were signing in. You don’t have to be shy you know, you could have just told me you only needed one set of bedding and I would have understood. I may be old but I understand these things.”

“What?” Junhui asks, rising to his feet and foisting water out of his trousers. “What?” He repeats the question again.

“You’re so sweet on him! The beginning of a relationship can tell you a lot about how it will turn out, you know. I think you two will last a long time.”

“Err.” Junhui isn’t sure how to put it. It’s not that he doesn’t want her to know about his relationships, it’s that he doesn’t really have one. That he and Wonwoo might have touched each other’s bodies a few times, but that didn’t mean they’d touched hearts or anything. “We’re not, um.” Strictly speaking, non-platonic mage pair relationships are frowned upon, the same way any civil servant relationships are frowned upon, seen as bringing private lives into the professional sphere, as magic use serves as their jobs. A little action on the side normally goes unchecked, mostly because they often spend so long away from others and isolated and even if they’re magicians they still have needs, but to sustain long term partnerships, well, everything was less complicated without romance attached.

She elbows him aside so she can hang up the last of the bedding, and beckons at him to follow her so they can leave the tubs back in storage. He looks at the hair bun on the back of her head, waddling along behind her while carrying the two wooden casks and figures he can let it go, since they’ll be leaving in a day anyway, and her misconceptions won’t really leave any effects on him. Her little misunderstanding isn’t a really big deal.

After helping with the laundry, the guesthouse owner is adamant that Junhui takes a jar of her fruit preserves, as well as pickled cabbage and dried beef strips with them for their journey south. She tells them there’s better food in town because farmers travel toward the city hub in order to sell their produce, giving them a larger variety, but meaning that it’s less fresh than the garden picked food she works with.

Junhui has to empty his entire bag to reorganize the contents in order to fit everything she’s given them in his pack, a little abashed at the sheer amount of food they’re leaving with. Even if he had washed blankets with her, it was surely more than was warranted, and she ran a guesthouse, so she had many mouths to feed in the winter months.

“That’s nice,” Wonwoo says, tightening the straps of his backpack after he’s fit all he can into his own bag. “But I refuse to bend to your strangely high morals when there’s free food to be had. Now hurry up.”

The elm leaf from the forest flutters to the floor when Junhui takes the last of his things out, an alarmingly vibrant green, looking as healthy as it had when it first fell to their feet nearly a fortnight ago. Not only had its colour not faded one bit, it hadn’t dried out at all in the pages of mulberry, sitting in the hot sun as Junhui had left his bag lying around on more than one occasion.

“Is that supposed to still look like that?” Junhui wonders aloud, picking it up and placing it back in the folded up protector that their Promotion certification served as. “I thought it was going to die.”

“Yeah but then you wished for it to stay alive,” Wonwoo reminds him, peering down curiously with both hands free. He lifts the leaf up and away from the paper, slapping Junhui’s hand away to get him to return to packing. The veins in the leaf are still turgid with water, even though it’s been cut off from any water source for so long, and surely this wasn’t the kind of leaf that could close up and retain its water over a long course of time, especially not when the mulberry paper would draw water out of it. “Do you think your magic was supplying the leaf with water without you knowing about it?” Wonwoo asks. “That’s pretty impressive.”

“How would I know if that’s what happened or not if it was doing something without my knowledge?” Junhui crosses his arms over his chest, unimpressed by Wonwoo’s reasoning. “But how could my magic be acting like that anyway? Wouldn’t I notice something was off…if I was maintaining it all the time, wouldn’t that be tiring? Shouldn’t I feel weaker than usual? I don’t, so I doubt it. Maybe it’s a magical leaf from a magical tree.”

Wonwoo looks skeptical, and he places a hand on the certificate, noticing how damp it feels under his fingertips. The ink on the paper is swollen and although the letters aren’t runny, they’re certainly not displaying the crisp edges that they started off with when they were given the documents. If that much water had been wicked away, the leaf really should be drier to the touch, but its waxy coating is still smooth and its underside bright and full of life.

“Well there’s something feeding water into it and it’s not me or the air,” Wonwoo says finally, dropping the plant back on the sheet of paper, before folding it back up and tucking it into Junhui’s bag, now filled with glass jars weighing down on his change of clothes, among other, more compressible things.

“It can be my good luck charm.” Junhui lifts the bag over his head and slides open the door to their room. “Might be counteracted by your presence though.” The jibe isn’t meant to be sophisticated, just meant to get a rise out of Wonwoo, who follows him down the steps jabbing Junhui in the back along the way.

“Oh there you are. Good, you haven’t left yet.” The owner of the guesthouse comes bustling out from where she’s cooking something, drying her hands on the apron tied around her waist and covering the warm coral petticoat she’s wearing. Her voice has grown to be comforting over the past few days, warm and familiar where it’s husky and resonant, punctuated by her regular sighs.

“Of course we’d say goodbye first before leaving!” Junhui says, laughing. He feels like he’s being folded into a cloud when she hugs him, her layers of clothing providing a great deal of padding, and enveloping around him. Wonwoo practically disappears inside her petticoats, being thinner than Junhui, engulfed in her sincere embrace.

She smiles at each of them in turn. “It’s good that you know how to be proper people, because magic or not, I would have chased after both of you with a broom handle if you hadn’t stopped by first. Anyway, I had one last present, as a thank you for making laundry day so speedy.”

Before Junhui can see what it is, she’s curled his fingers around a small round tube, which she rushes him to stuff into the side pocket of his bag without being given a chance to inspect.

“I figured, after our conversation yesterday, that this might be something you need,” she says with an unassuming smile. After patting Wonwoo on the top of his head, and then both of their backs as they head out the main doors, she bids them goodbye.

“What did she give you?”

Junhui looks down with a finger pulling at the opening to the satchel pocket, seeing only a small glass vial with a viscous golden liquid inside it. A potion of some sort, maybe. “I don’t know. I don’t even know which conversation she’s talking about since we had several yesterday.” His hands smell faintly of dried seasoned seaweed.

The next stretch of the country is less dense forest and more open plains with barley and buckwheat fields that grow tall enough to make Junhui’s elbows itchy when they rub against the flowering plants with their brown seeds. There are scattered trees where they take their rest, lying in the shade to snack on the food they brought with them, and napping with a gentle breeze generated by Wonwoo to keep them cool.

Since the light remains longer when there aren’t hundreds of trees and their respective foliage blocking out the sun, they walk steadily through the evening hours. It’s cooler then, as it is in early morning, making the trek pleasant. As a result, they spend more time hiking per later in the day, counterbalanced by long afternoon breaks when the heat is almost unbearable, and it evens out so that they’re covering a greater distance than they had at the beginning of their trip.

In the meadows they cross paths with strange new creatures, mostly low to the ground shape-shifting ants and fanged rodents, in the dearth of the noisy forest birds. The tall husks of the starch plants provide cover and shade for them, hidden away from winged predators. Because of their small size, Junhui and Wonwoo barely have to work to dispatch them, sending them careening off course to clear a path for them to walk but leaving them otherwise to their own devices, as harmless and inoffensive as they are.

The night, too, brings about something different from the forest. Where they had fallen asleep staring up into rustling leaves, they now lie in full view of the stars, stretching as far as the eye could see, dipping beyond the horizon on all sides. They were so dense and bright and unobstructed Junhui could reach out a finger and trace out nearly any shape he wanted, as long as he imagined it hard enough. A phoenix here, a lion there.

“You can’t really touch them,” Wonwoo says, arms behind his head as he stares up where Junhui’s pointing. “I don’t know why but when I was small I thought they weren’t so far away, and if I could fly, I could know what a star felt like.”

“As strange as it may sound to you, that’s actually quite fitting with your character even now.” Junhui drops his arm and his gaze to look at Wonwoo’s profile, the tip of his nose pointed toward the heavens, a black outline in the darkness.

“I mean, I just wanted to fly. I spent all of my childhood figuring out ways to put more air between my feet and the ground.” He adjusts the position of his head, elbowing Junhui’s forehead in the tight confines of their shared bedroll. Junhui had given up trying to make them stick to using their own after the second night, when he woke up with a parasitic Wonwoo clinging around him like a leech, and figured it was useless either way. Wonwoo laughs and turns his head to press their foreheads together, like he can rub the sharp jab away with his skin. He probably can. “I spent so much time trying to fly that I naturally became better and better at using my magic, and because I didn’t know many other people who could, I just assumed it came easily to all kids.”

“Bit of a shock when you arrived to apprenticeship then, was it? Everyone comes in with different levels of abilities, and different amounts of training.”

“No, I was prepared for it by that age. Bohyuk…when Bohyuk was born, it’s weird, we all have brown eyes in our family, but for the first few months his eyes were a bright blue. They darkened over time but everyone thought he had a huge magical aura, but there wasn’t any of the stuff that happened when I was a baby. Nothing falling over, no tornadoes spinning in the yard when he started crying, never anything out of place.”

“It’s not uncommon,” Junhui murmurs. “Most families don’t have kids born with magic, and when they do, it can only be one sibling. That happens a lot.”

“I know, and our parents weren’t worried. They joked that they never had any magic and managed to live fine, and having one supernatural kid was trouble enough, that they probably couldn’t handle two. I would show him mine though, in secret because my mom wanted me supervised at that age when doing magic, in case I broke something. Before he knew how to talk he could smile and clap at things floating in the air at random. Then…then we started finding the mice my father was leaving traps out for dead before they’d even reached the snare. And our house was always strangely devoid of mud daubers during the twice a year infestations that everyone else in the town had. I don’t think anyone thought much of it.” Wonwoo turns his head away, letting Junhui’s cheek fall into his shoulder. “He really liked to run as a kid. I was the one obsessed with flying but he never walked anywhere, not even when he was called for dinner. It was always run run run, stop to wait for me to catch up, run run run some more. And while the insects were kept away, he was really healthy. When he stopped running and started getting sick all the time, I think that’s when he figured out although we hadn’t caught on yet. Even when we realized I don’t think anyone quite understood it. I didn’t know death magic was a thing until the captain told me that name years later.”

Junhui lifts his head. “I don’t understand. What exactly is death magic? And how is that making him sick?”

“He’s dying, and his magic is what’s killing him. That’s why I hate magic, you’re not wrong about that. I don’t think there’s anything good about it and it’s just something I can do, but not something I feel any awe toward. His magic wants to take life. It’s not surprising that it’s turned toward its owner’s to seek its purpose. I’ve always kind of thought…if I really wanted to save Bohyuk, I’d have to take someone else’s life.”

Some of the nocturnal moths, beetles, and cicadas are coming awake, each adding its distinct high-pitched buzzing to the night. Junhui hears those sounds, but he hears Wonwoo’s voice more clearly. “You can have mine you know,” he says, rolling over onto his back. “I wouldn’t mind dying.”

“Don’t be so flippant about death.” Wonwoo sounds annoyed. “You’re the one who said that first. Anyway, it’s not a permanent solution. He doesn’t want to kill things, and if he kills one, that might buy him some time, but he’ll have to kill again, and again. He’d hate that and having to survive doing something you detest is not really living life either.”

“Yeah, I’d agree with that. It’s why I don’t think I’d mind dying.”

“Why do you hate magic so much? Don’t tell me you have a dying little brother hidden somewhere too. Did magic kill someone in your family?”

“It’s kind of the opposite of with your brother. His is forcing him to die. My magic’s forcing me to stay alive.”

“If that’s the case then I think you want to stay alive. Your magic listens to what you want more than what you think or say you want. Like with the leaf.” Wonwoo’s voice drops to a whisper. “Like every time you tried to push me away but your magic wouldn’t let you.”

“I can’t believe you.” Junhui shakes his head vigorously. “I hate you!” In that instant, he does.

“Don’t say that,” Junhui says quickly, breath coming in short bursts. “Don’t say that, please. That just makes it worse.”

He despises

He despises

He despises—

“It has to do with Mingming, doesn’t it?” Wonwoo purses his lips when he feels Junhui’s body tensing beside him, giving away the answer unintentionally. He sucks loudly on the back of his teeth. “I wish I knew what happened but that’s up to you. Anyway, I just wanted to talk about the stars, not reveal my secret machinations as someone considering murder to save my brother’s life.”

Junhui relaxes a fraction. “How’d you figure that you couldn’t really touch them? Did you manage to fly?”

“Sort of. I broke my arm hovering near the roof once and stopped trying after that. I think that counts though, don’t you? People said it was impossible to fly, but there I was, way up off the ground, and not coming down anytime soon. Makes you believe anything can happen. Maybe we’ll find someone that can figure out a way for Bohyuk to live without him becoming the serial killer he doesn’t want to be.”

Actually, part of the reason they move faster these days is because Wonwoo’s stopped dragging his feet, no longer reluctant about moving closer to his family home. He’s still unenthused, but he looks forward now to what they might see along the way, and to arriving at the next city, especially after the villagers in the last town had spoken of the wealth of people and backgrounds who inhabited the city, bringing with them new food, fancy clothes, and more know-how. It makes sense now, that he’s been fed hope and curiosity, wondering if there would be talented healers who might cast light on his brother’s condition, having more knowledge from being exposed to a larger population. ‘Maybe,’ thinks Junhui. “Definitely,” he says.

“Honestly, being able to control water is useless if you can’t control the rest of the storm,” Wonwoo grumbles, jumping and stumbling sideways at the thunder for the fourth time that morning.

Junhui’s magic can deflect the rainwater away from them so that they stay dry, but he can’t actually stop the rain from falling, nor the lightning flashes and rumbles of thunder, looming closer and closer. It’s like they’re walking toward the sound, for some reason, even though the clouds don’t seem to be moving in any direction. “What’s the point of controlling air if you can’t just blow the storm clouds away?”

“Me? All that?” Wonwoo points up. “So far away? By myself? You’re crazy. I could move like that one cloud right above our heads a little bit but there’s literally an entire sky full of them. I can’t actually control the wind patterns and—alright, point made.”

With a bit of luck, they’ll arrive in the capital of the western county soon, but Junhui is willing to walk a little longer if they haven’t reached it by then. He doesn’t want to have to sleep in the mud, or try to find shelter when there’s nothing but plains to be seen.

“It’s kind of nice though,” Wonwoo says, slugging an arm around Junhui’s neck and leveraging his weight so Junhui’s supporting both of them instead of just trying to hold himself upright. “You’re sort of like a personal umbrella, but from every direction. The oil-paper ones are too small to provide that much shade unless the rain’s falling directly overhead. And plus, it’s hard to get you to use your magic at all otherwise.”

Junhui rolls his eyes and lets a few droplets splash onto Wonwoo’s nose, looking up at the next rumble in the sky with concern. “That doesn’t sound like thunder,” he says, cocking his head to the side. “Does that sound like thunder to you? I mean you still jumped, but wasn’t it too prolonged?”

“With the light flashes? What else could it be other than thunder and lightning?” Wonwoo trudges forward, not looking up or waiting for Junhui to catch up. “I’m pretty sure I see the top of a tower from here, let’s just get to the city as quickly as we can and stay indoors until the storm lets up.”

In their steady hike toward the gates, there are more roars that still don’t sound like thunder to Junhui’s ears, and flashes of light that light up the fields but don’t seem to be coming from a central point in the sky. Instead it seems to be radiating from above the centre of the city walls, which they approach from the north side. “Uh, I see what you were calling a tower earlier, but I don’t think that’s a tower. I think you jinxed us.”

Wonwoo squints at the screaming people running from the open reinforced studded gates. “Are they running away from something?”

“Yes, fuck. It’s a fucking dragon.” Neither of them have seen one up close before, but the green dragon slithers in the sky with its massive serpent-like body and four enormously clawed legs, roaring down with its pointy teeth exposed and its long beard swishing over tops of houses as it loops circles above the civilians below. A white hot flash erupts from his mouth, and Junhui realizes that he was both right and wrong. It wasn’t lightning in the truest sense, not the bolts of energy sent down from the clouds. Instead, it’s lightning with a dragon as its source, setting wooden roofs aflame.

“Good timing, we’re just in time to save these people.” Wonwoo says, sprinting off into the city.

“Wait! You can’t just!” Junhui breathes heavily, trying to shout and chase after him at the same time. “Dragons are supposed to be a good omen! They bring down rain for crops when they’re pleased, they don’t just randomly flood cities where people don’t need water. It’s got to be angry about something you can’t just—”

“Don’t worry, I have a plan. You should try to put out that fire though!”

Junhui loses sight of Wonwoo after that, stopping to help a family with an infant gather their things before hurrying to conjure water to douse the flames on the nearest house. The dragon attacks everywhere, not picking out anyone or anything in particular, but stomping down and breaking the pillars of buildings, clutching abandoned food carts in its claws, and gnashing its teeth over terrified soldiers, trying to stand guard outside of the government building. After a spear is thrown in the direction of its chest, javelin style, its attention is drawn, and it emits another burst of energy from its throat, leaving heavily armored soldiers leaping away for their lives and a trail of smoky ruin in the dragon’s wake.

“Oi!” There’s a yell and then a blast of wind that throws the dragon backward, tumbling in the air for several rolls before it regains control, shaking its head and immediately searching for the source of the attack. “That’s right, not the people. Come over and fight someone that can actually defend themselves.” Wonwoo takes a running leap up onto a wheelbarrow and then from there jumping, probably with the helpful lift of the wind, to land on the roof.

“Crap,” Junhui swears, rushing in that direction, but it’s hard against the flow of people all trying to run away. He tosses out water in the direction of any fires he sees but he can’t slow down to make sure they’ve hit their targets, not when the dragon is screeching like that, and Wonwoo had made himself the central target of its anger.

Wonwoo’s plan, it seems, is to somehow choke out the dragon. It might make sense, given the fact that he can draw the air out of its lungs and make it faint from lack of oxygen. It would be a decent plan if it accounted for the fact that the dragon would fall and crush the buildings and people below it, or for the fact that the dragon is enormous and breathes in a lot of air. So much air that Wonwoo’s straining to control it before the dragon’s lost consciousness, and sensing his struggle, it starts to lash out.

He releases the flying creature with a gasp, panting heavily from the exertion, and jumps backward when it extends a pointy hand in Wonwoo’s direction, right off of the roof. Instead of sinking, however, he hovers in mid-air, and dances backward onto the next support beam, crouched and struggling for breath.

Junhui catches the tail of the dragon with water, using the rain instead of conjuring his own, and turning the turret into a whip that yanks it back from attacking further. When the dragon turns around, he stuffs a wave spraying down its throat, hoping it will enter the thing’s lungs and not just its belly. Regardless, it serves as enough of a distraction that he can vault the same sequence of steps up to the rooftops.

“Took you long enough,” Wonwoo wheezes, a slight lift to his lips. He stands shakily, and his magic tangles around Junhui’s, leaving his fingertips tingling.

Junhui gapes at him. “You were the one who said you had a plan! And that I should put out the fires! What is wrong with you, who takes on an entire fucking dragon on their own?” The dragon, now that there’s no water snorting up its nose, slithers in the air towards them, and with the combined force of anger and pain, readies itself to shoot out another lightning bolt.

“Nuh-uh,” Junhui grunts, pouring out water from his hands and reforming the high pressure whip. He uses it to wrap around the base of the dragon’s head, where he’d imagine its throat should be, if it weren’t just a massive long tube for a body. He compresses, and he can feel Wonwoo doing the same with the air around the water, the two of them squeezing to prevent the dragon from breathing. As its eyes slip closed, the dragon topples forward, crashing through the house below Wonwoo’s feet and sending him flying backward.

Junhui screams, reacting quickly to catch him with a spouting jet of water that cushions his fall. “Wonwoo!” In the time that he’s let go of the magical grip around the dragon’s neck, it snorts and shakes its head, roaring and whipping its tail around to send Junhui off balance and nearly falling off the roof himself. “Shit, shit, shit!” He’s going to have to kill it. There’s no way around this, not with the thing so pissed off it’s snapping its teeth at him and refusing to break. He’s going to have to kill it, because there’s no way of simply trying to subdue the thing that will end with him still alive.

Well, there’s something to be said for drawing air out of the beast’s lungs, and another to be said for filling it, only with water instead of air. That was kind of like drowning too, only Junhui didn’t have to conjure the water, as long as he could direct the existing rain in the sky. With the dragon’s mouth open again, he sends as much as he can tumbling forward, gushing into its long body, and maintains that force until it’s choking. He continues still, feeding its bloating belly, gouging it so it’s too heavy to fly and collapses to the ground looking more like a pufferfish than a snake.

While it’s weighted down, he draws the last feeble magical energy still in Junhui’s power out, and tightens the water around the dragon’s neck like a noose, choking it until it’s no longer breathing. He bounds down to its head, giving it a good kick. When he gets no response he doubles back to Wonwoo, sitting with his head against a mostly destroyed wall and coughing but alive in the space of the stone walkway between two houses.

“Why must you always do things the hard way?” Junhui yells at him, terrified out of his wits. “Just to say you can?”

“We defeated the dragon, didn’t we?” Wonwoo says, laughing weakly.

The turret of water grows, Mingming loses his footing from the force of the cascading water, Junhui feels Mingming’s hand slip from his fingers, there’s a scream. Mingming falls back off the edge of the cliff.

As its eyes slip closed, the dragon topples forward, crashing through the house below Wonwoo’s feet and sending him flying backward.

“You almost died. Fuck, you almost—.” He sinks to the ground, catching his own breath.

The waterfall is so loud.

Junhui can barely hear his own voice over the roar of it, gushing and gushing while he yells, “Mingming!”

Junhui screams, reacting quickly to catch him with a spouting jet of water that cushions his fall. “Wonwoo!”

Junhui breathes in and out slowly, vision returning from black, but fear’s still clogging up his throat. He wants to swear at Wonwoo, and punch him, and then kiss him to know that he’s still solid and alive and breathing, and then hit him again. He can’t lose someone else, not another person. Not another dead partner to bury and not be allowed to mourn because the central government needs him to be functional.

He’s invested Junhui realizes with a jolt. He needs—

“Didn’t though. You saved me. Haven’t we had this conversation before or something?”

Junhui shakes. His hands shake and his voice shakes and his heart shakes. “You’re a fucking idiot, Jeon Wonwoo.”

The taskforce of armed guards regroups and find them sitting exhausted by the dragon, and lead them away so they can stab into the thing and guarantee that it really is dead. The dragon blood mixes with the water everywhere, leaving the street awash with pink and brown, hideous and putrid enough that the entire road is closed off in both east and west directions, dividing the city into two halves.

“Who are you?” demands the mayor when they’re brought in front of her, eyes filled with skepticism. “How did you defeat the dragon? Were you the ones to bring it to our doorstep in the first place?

Too exhausted to be defensive, Junhui pulls out their folded certificate, elm leaf still wrapped inside and green as ever, handing it over for her inspection. She takes it, scans it, and then beckons for someone else to look at the paper as well. After accepting their identities, she lets them leave, but has no words of thanks for saving the city, not when half her office buildings were destroyed in the fight.

The regular townspeople, however, are more appreciative.

“You can stay for as long as you want, free of charge of course. I saw you put out the fire three houses down—this inn would have burned down if you hadn’t stopped it from spreading.” The innkeeper, who introduces himself as Soonyoung, smiles at them with curved eyes after Junhui inquires as to availabilities. “I’m afraid I don’t have two rooms right next to each other right now, though.” He bends down to unlock a rack of keys under the bar table.

“That’s alright, we only need—”

“That’s fine. We’ll take the two, even if they’re separated,” Junhui says quickly, speaking over Wonwoo and smiling charmingly at Soonyoung. “And we have the money, so we’ll pay for the rooms. It’s part of our jobs to save cities and battle monsters, so we couldn’t accept staying for free and overstepping your hospitality like that.”

“Well, if you’re certain…” Soonyoung trails off, frowning at the coins Junhui deposits onto his sign-in booklet, the ones earned from the work in the last village. “Let me at least help out wherever I can. You’ll be looking for work, but there will be plenty of it after the destruction the dragon left behind, rebuilding, and trying to wash away the blood and soot. If there’s anything at all that you need, just say the word.”

“Actually,” Junhui starts, pulling Wonwoo forwards, “my friend got a bit of a knock while we were taking the dragon down. You wouldn’t happen to know where we could find someone to look him over, would you? I’m sure the healers are all helping people who are injured and he says he’s fine but I’d feel a bit better if even someone from the apothecary took a look at him to be sure.”

“Yeah, I know a guy.” Soonyoung swivels around, hollering up the staircase behind him. “Channie! Come down, would you? Can you go grab the chemist?” The innkeeper turns back to Wonwoo and Junhui. “He’ll be down in a moment. Why don’t I show you to your rooms—or actually, I’ll show you to yours,” here he nods at Junhui, “and then I’ll come back downstairs and wait with you,” another nod, this time at Wonwoo, “until Chan comes back.”

“That sounds great,” Junhui says cheerfully, shaking off Wonwoo’s hand on his wrist. “Thank you so much.”

The room isn’t large, but it’s cozily furnished, with pale blue drapes and a densely patterned quilt on the bed. There’s not much else in the way of furniture, just a stool, a bedside table, and a small dresser that he can leave his satchel on. He kicks his shoes off at the door, lines them up neatly at the entranceway, and then walks inside. Junhui sits down on the bed, the ropes supporting the mattress squeaking and sagging a little underneath his weight, and rubs his face with his hands, still wired and loopy.

Behind his eyelids, the sight of Wonwoo falling backward replays again and again in his mind, on a shared loop with the memory of Mingming falling off that cliff, and Junhui swallows. One of them is still alive, and he’s grateful for that. But at the same time, he isn’t grateful for the reminder it serves, of Junhui’s past failures.

“I miss you,” he whispers, cold and terrified in the warm sunshine. Junhui pictures Mingming’s face and says the words again, and then another time, losing count. He doesn’t notice when that face morphs into Wonwoo’s, with their similar catty grins and dark tapered eyes. He also doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but he does, resting fitfully without the sound of Wonwoo’s soft snoring and warm body pressed against his side to accompany him.

Junhui wakes before the sun’s rays have breached the horizon, starving and disoriented. The early rising and hunger can be attributed to going to bed before dinner, but the disorientation comes from how heavy he slept, with no recollection of his dreams. He’s still wearing his clothes, not an usual sleeping arrangement.

No matter how early he thinks he is, the innkeeper is awake before he is, plating eggs and seafood pancakes while Junhui stumbles out of the washing chambers blearily.

“Sleep well?” Soonyoung asks without looking up, whistling lightly and throwing a towel over his shoulder. “Ah, the magician!” He smiles at Junhui, who takes a seat and yawns.

“The mattresses are very soft,” Junhui says. “I slept like the dead.”

Soonyoung laughs. “The dead wish they were only sleeping. Not to be too morbid in the morning. Eat up, go on, I have to collect the eggs from out back. Will you make sure anyone who comes downstairs also takes a plate?”

“Sure,” Junhui agrees. “Um, ah, are you still making more of the pancakes? The other half of the duo isn’t a very big fan of fish.”

“Oh! I’ll whip up more when I get back, but it’s the same batter, I can make some with cabbage instead.”

Junhui nods, chewing on breakfast. “Thanks,” he says, around a mouthful of food. “I appreciate it.”

He notices the difference from the sleepy little town they last visited instantly after stepping foot outside. Despite the early hour, there are already people wandering the streets, most hauling carts full of produce or their own wares off to the market place, or carrying shoulder poles on their backs, with heavy buckets of water or rice attached to the bamboo yoke and hurrying down the damp road to wherever they need to go.

After the rain, what are normally dusty streets are dark and muddy, with unavoidable puddles that Junhui works on clearing as a first step, on his way to the centre of the city, where the damage was greatest. He can’t raise beams and clay the way he can raise water, but they’ll be in need of any helping hands they can get anyway, and it’ll be hard physical labour to take his mind off of thinking too deeply.

“Still alone?”

Junhui whirls around, and his jaw drops at the sight of the old man with the long beard that he assumed was the village head in the last town they were at. “Weren’t you one of the elders? What are you doing here?” he asks, and then because he realizes he’s being rude, he quickly bows his head and clears his throat. “I mean, how can I help you?”

“Oh, I’m sorry if I misled you to believe that, but I was very much a visitor, as you were. Only, I had arrived there a week or two before you did, and introduced myself to the villagers. They knew me and I knew them, maybe that’s why you thought I was part of their town.” He smiles, but it’s eerie, with the large black gaps between his teeth, and the way his entire face wrinkles, lining his face and making his eyes disappear, indiscernible from the other folds of skin. “It’s lucky that we meet here.”

“Lucky? What?” Junhui doesn’t believe in coincidence, and the old man creeps him out. It doesn’t add up that he’d know about the spiders, unless he was a mage, or the very traveller that brought the spiders to the last city. He might be jumping to conclusions, but something about him doesn’t sit right, and the way he explains the situation makes Junhui feel like he’d been wilfully misled, rather than accidentally so.

“Why, of course it’s lucky! If you hadn’t showed up here, I don’t know if the village would have been able to survive the dragon attack you know, you and your partner arrived in the nick of time, I would say.”

Junhui narrows his eyes. “You were still in the village when we left. How did you arrive here faster than us?”

He chuckles at Junhui’s suspicion, unperturbed by the hostility in Junhui’s voice. “Can’t an old man be capable of transportation too? I hitched a ride,” he says, eyes gleaming. “I’m not sure if I’m surprised or not that you’re not with your partner again today either.”

“He’s sleeping,” Junhui informs him coldly.

“Most mage pairs rely on each other after establishing their partnership. It becomes more and more difficult to cast separately, and that’s if they’re strong enough to use their powers individually at great extents before the partnership.”

“What are you talking about this time?” There’s someone walking down the street, but as soon as they spot the old man, they speed up and shuffle away, hiding their face from sight. The oddity does not go unnoticed from Junhui’s gaze. “If people couldn’t use their powers by themselves then we wouldn’t have individual training or testing at the academy.”

He chuckles at the scurrying townsfolk, whistling gently and seeming to speed up the pace at which they were fleeing their part of the road. “I’m not doubting their existence,” the old man says slowly, “but how often do you see one person being able to carry out those challenges on the backs of their own abilities without the help of someone else? Most magical apprentices struggle through those activities before they’re paired up, simply because the level of magical energy isn’t high enough in most people to achieve the sort of records you have, Wen Junhui. And then once they’re partnered, they rely on the balance of powers to make casting an easier task, but you and your partner have only ever combined forces independently. It’s all very interesting from a bystander’s perspective, you know.”

Junhui steps back, but he’s blocked off from behind by a wall. “How the fuck would you know any of that that? Why do you know my name?”

“Come now, surely you didn’t think an audience with the emperor was a normal feat? Or accelerating your Promotion? He’s been watching, you know, carefully looking for a water bearer to prime for the court magician role for years.” He takes a step forward, staring boldly into Junhui’s eyes. “Tell me,” he says, voice suddenly like ice, seeping into his blood and freezing Junhui to the spot. “Did you kill the dragon? It wasn’t the soldiers that came gloryhunting afterward, no, it wasn’t your mage partner either, although he tried to do it himself. You ripped the life from the beast’s throat.”

“I’m, it wasn’t,” Junhui can only stammer, cowering under his stare, unable to lie with the man’s eyes boring a hole to peer straight into his soul. “I had help. If it were just me, I don’t think…”

“You could have killed it? Not many people can kill an angered imoogi, tricked by a lie-whisperer to believe they will achieve their immortal status should they succeed in tearing down a city. To do so single-handedly…”

“Wait,” Junhui gapes. “Did you set a dragon on the city because you wanted to test me? To see if I were capable of slaying a dragon? And if I could you’d want me to, what, drop everything and run to the southwest to support the shadow government and I don’t know, ‘silence’ anyone who disagrees with the emperor? Are you out of your mind? Is the emperor out of his mind? What the is wrong with all of you?”

“You know, those words could be considered treason. People have been given the death penalty for less. Do you not want to keep your head on your shoulders?”

“I feel like, after I killed a fellow magic user and wasn’t even given a slap on the wrist for it, me calling you perverse bastards what you are isn’t going to warrant me getting beheaded either, because I’m apparently destined to be,” Junhui spits, “important.”

“Well, you’re our best option but you’re not indispensable. I’ll let the government know about your success, but if you’re unwilling…we’ll have to try and be more persuasive. After that…”

“Leave me alone!” Junhui yells.

“Junhui? Are you alright?” It’s Soonyoung, clutching a basket of eggs. “I thought you were headed to the city centre to see if you could help rebuild.”

Junhui turns his head, staring. “Uh, yeah. Got lost along the way I guess. I’ll head there now though.”

“Come back for dinner alright? It’s pub night!”

“Sure.” When he looks back to glare at the old man, he’s already gone.

Despite the innkeeper’s request, Junhui shows up long after the dinner hour, having worked until sunset. In the morning he’d used his powers for churning the waterwheel for hammering iron and ore that would be needed in the reconstruction, but by afternoon he was standing alongside the others, hefting wooden panels on his shoulders, or sanding planks, depending on which job had fewer works at the time.

He’d stayed on until the last of them had left, when not even the dwindling purple in the sky and torches lit with fire could light their paths, returning to the inn sweaty and sore in all his joints and muscles, and covered in a layer of sawdust. Before he enters, he washes his face in the courtyard, feeling the night breeze cooling his skin. He can hear the music and voices from the outside, and it’s a rambunctious kind of evening, despite the events of the day before. Or maybe because of them. Nothing like a near death experience to make you want to live your life to the fullest.

It’s not just music and voices when he ducks his head under the archway. It’s also dancing. Junhui watches, amused, as several drunken villagers tap and twirl past him on his way to the bar.

“There you are! I was beginning to think you’d gotten lost again. Didn’t I tell you to come back early? I’ll go put something on the stove for you, you can’t have eaten.”

“That’s alright,” Junhui says quickly. It looks like a busy night and he figures that the drinks will continue flowing. “Don’t want to pull you away from the bar.”

“Nonsense. Channie can take over, can’t he?” Soonyoung says, winking and fondly slapping the other man behind the counter with his rag. “I’ll pour you a drink and get started on that. It’ll be quick, don’t worry.”

Junhui smiles appreciatively, and slides two copper coins across the table before starting in on the rice wine, flavoured with a hint of plums, the tart fruity sweetness slightly masking the strength of the alcohol.

“Are you mad at me?”

He chokes on the liquid in his mouth with the weight of Wonwoo’s arm drooped over his shoulders. Wonwoo staggers a little to hop onto the stool next to Junhui’s, resting his head on one elbow and staring at Junhui a little sleepily.

“What?”

“I haven’t seen you since yesterday, it’s like you’ve been avoiding me. And you even got us separate rooms, there wasn’t any need for that.” Wonwoo hiccups, covers his mouth with one hand, and pouts in the general direction of where he thinks Junhui’s face is. Which is slightly more toward his shoulder than Wonwoo normally points if sober.

“It’s better if we’re not in the same space all the time,” Junhui says gently. “We’re always together, so it’s natural to need some time apart.”

“That’s not true. I don’t need to be separate from you. Quite the op-oppoppo. The other. The other thing.” He yawns and then frowns at himself for yawning. “Anyway you never answered. Are you mad at me?”

“No,” Junhui answers truthfully. He leans sideways to look at Wonwoo’s sleepy face, observing it over the rim of his flask. “Should I be mad at you?”

“I didn’t do anything! That’s why I wanted to know if you were mad. It didn’t make sense.”

“I hope you weren’t trying to work out the reason all day,” Junhui jokes. “Don’t want to make your brain work too hard, you’ll hurt yourself.”

“That’s mean. I was working all day, trying to dry the streets. Everything’s flooded, you know.” Wonwoo nods emphatically, head bobbing up and down rhythmically. Junhui nods along with him, amused, and then starts tilting his head from side to side to see if Wonwoo will follow the movement. He does, and Junhui laughs delightedly, open mouthed and closed eyed, Wonwoo catching on and giving off a bright smile of his own. “What did you do today, Junhui?”

“Lift heavy things and put them back down, mostly.” Junhui shrugs, hesitates. “I met someone interesting but I’ll tell you about it later, when you can remember.” He also doesn’t want to risk other people overhearing.

“He’s not drunk enough to black out but you’ll still want to keep an eye on that one,” Soonyoung says, returning with a plate that he slides toward Junhui. “Been drinking since dinner hour started and wouldn’t have stopped if I hadn’t noticed him nearly falling headfirst into the table.”

“Really?” Junhui asks. “Might be time for you to go to bed then, Wonwoo. I’ll help you up.”

“No! I can go by myself, I don’t need your help.” He stands on wobbly feet, but manages to walk in a straight line, and with the support of the handrail, makes it all the way up the stairs and out of sight without falling over even once.

Junhui sighs, turning back to his food.

“My apologies if it’s not my place, but I’m glad you two are equally as warm.”

“What?”

“He was quite worried about you. Very morose. I asked him if he wanted me to pair him up with one of the dancers to lift his spirits and he looked very offended. Said he was waiting for you.”

“I’m always pretty worried about him too,” Junhui admits, ignoring the other part of the innkeeper’s comment.

“I can tell,” Soonyoung says shortly, watching Junhui swallow down some rice with a swig of fortified wine. “It’s cheaper to only ask for one room, you know.” He winks and Junhui chokes.

“Well, not my place. What brings you two round these parts anyway? On a mission? Looking to slay monsters? It was a mighty fine job you did with the dragon yesterday, rumour has it. Story’s been buzzing among all the visitors today.”

“None of them could have seen what happened with the dragon,” Junhui says dismissively. He swallows down a mouthful of soup before continuing. “We’re looking for a way to…get rid of something? There’s a bad thing and we have to figure out a way to destroy it without destroying the thing it’s part of, but we haven’t quite figured out how.”

Soonyoung tilts his chin down, thinking. “Like a cursed talisman? Break the spell without breaking the object?”

“That sort of thing, yeah.”

“Hmm, well, I don’t have any experience with that, but if you want my advice, you should take a look at how it was made. Like, if I cook something and it turns out bad but I don’t want to throw it out, I have to figure out every step, starting from the beginning, in order to understand what went wrong. And then only after I’ve figured out the beginning can I try to salvage the food. Does that make sense?”

“Sure,” Junhui says, not really sure how that will help them. Bohyuk was made the same way every human was, even if he’d been given magic—

“You’ve really never heard of Lascaux?” Mingming asks. “It’s supposed to be the birthplace of magic.”

“The birthplace of magic.”

“Oh. Yes that makes a lot of sense. That’s actually very very helpful,” Junhui says rising. “Thank you so much, Soonyoung, for watching over him and the food and advice and everything. Really, you don’t know how much I appreciate it.”

Junhui storms up the stairs, rushing to knock on Wonwoo’s room. “Wonwoo? Are you in there? Open up!” Junhui pounds his fist on the wooden door.

“Junhui?” Wonwoo mumbles sleepily, pulling the door open with a creak. “How’d you know where my room was?”

He freezes, not entirely sure himself. “Your magic, probably. It’s always causing a fuss.”

“Not when I’m asleep though,” Wonwoo rubs his eyes with a frown on his lips. “And I was definitely sleeping. You scared me awake. What’s wrong, what happened? What’s so urgent?”

“I have an idea. We’re leaving tomorrow. I don’t really know if it’ll work, but it’s worth a shot, and it’s the only thing we’ve got to save your brother so I say we try.” He’s still trying to work out what it is that drew him to this door, but it was like he’d always known. So maybe it wasn’t Wonwoo’s magic working up now. But Wonwoo’s magic was always singing to Junhui’s magic, so he must have picked it up last night or this morning, even if briefly, even if only subconsciously. That was the compatibility of their magic, even if Junhui never felt it with Mingming or Minghao or anyone else.

“Leaving tomorrow? But we just got here yesterday. It’s a pretty nice city, I wouldn’t mind staying here for longer.”

“I’ll tell you about it in the morning, I guess,” Junhui says. “Just go back to bed, I’m sorry for waking you.”

“Junhui…” Instead of closing the door, Wonwoo takes a step forward. “Stay?”

Then he’s rubbing his cheek against Junhui’s neck, soft exhales tickling Junhui’s collarbone. He slowly curls his fingers into the front of Junhui’s shirt and tugs him closer. Junhui can only sigh and place his chin over Wonwoo’s shoulder, arms wrapping around his waist for a tight hug. “You should rest.”

Wonwoo wraps around him tighter. “It’s harder to fall asleep without you.”

“Wait,” Junhui instructs, leaving Wonwoo to grab at the air. “I’ll be back.” He quickly repacks his satchel in the still of the moonlight on the wooden floorboards of his own room. The glass vial the last guesthouse owner had gifted him falls to the ground when he swings the bag over his head, clattering and catching his attention. Junhui had forgotten about its existence, but now that it’s in his hands, he’s once again curious as to the contents. He pours out just a drop onto the palm of his hand and rubs it with his fingers. It had the same consistency as cooking oil, the kind you roll ice balls with, seasoned with flakes of dried seaweed. Smelled the same too actually, it probably was sesame oil. Oh. Oh.

“You’re really warm,” Wonwoo says, hand on Junhui’s cheek. And he is, but that doesn’t stop him from resting comfortably with Wonwoo’s head tucked under his chin.

“Lascaux? The caves, right? Of course I’ve heard of it,” Wonwoo says hotly, once they’re on their way the next morning. “Who hasn’t?”

Junhui keeps his head down.

“But I never thought that myth had any substance. The birthplace of magic, that sounds insane, kind of like the old creation myths that say we’re all here because of a bear that descended from the heavens. You’re saying that the Lascaux caves are real? That they’re an actual thing in our country?”

He nods. “And he confirmed the location. I don’t have a map exactly, but I remember where I was and I figure when I see the cliffs I’ll be able to figure it out from there. The emperor said it was west of where they found me so we’ll have to hug the coast and then move in from there. I was really close to the Hong counties, I think.”

“I think it’ll be cool if we can find them,” Wonwoo says, biting his lip. “But I don’t know that we’ll find a way to save Bohyuk. If it’s the birthplace of magic but everything’s dispersed since, then there’s not going to be any magic left there, you know? They’re caves, not a secret location for buried treasure.”

Be that as it may, Emperor Yoon had acted like finding the caves would not only be difficult, but exceptionally rewarding for a magician. “But we’re bound to find something there, right?” Junhui pushes. “So let’s just head that way for now.”

“I’ll follow you,” Wonwoo agrees. “Like I said, even if we don’t find anything useful, it’d be pretty impressive just finding the caves and saying we’d been there. How many mages make the pilgrimage to the source of their powers? Not many I’m guessing, if it’s that well hidden.”

“Speaking of other mages,” Junhui segues clumsily, “there was something else I meant to tell you about yesterday.”

Wonwoo gives him a look as if to say go on, out with it, but Junhui trips over his tongue, not quite sure how to explain.

“That time when I met the emperor, it was a really odd set-up. I think he tried to poison me as a test of whether I could distinguish real water from a potion, and then he told me that powerful magicians were ‘important’ to him or whatever. And then there was this old guy…” Junhui recounts the memory of both encounters to the best of his ability, trying not to forget any details. It had been so surreal that his brain treated it more like a dream than reality, which made some things hazy, but at least the bare bones of what happened remained accurate.

“Are you sure they’re testing you?” Wonwoo asks, when Junhui’s finished speaking his piece. “It sounds more like they’re trying to murder you, only making you fully aware of what they’re doing while they’re at it.” He frowns. “I’m going to have to become your bodyguard.”

“If they were trying to kill me, I feel like that old man could have done it easily. He was so creepy. Besides why would you try to tell the person you’re killing that you’re killing them?”

“So you believe him? That the emperor wants to make you the court musician in the new government but only if you obey his command and kill off the people he doesn’t like?”

“Yeah, I mean, everything that’s happened is so ridiculous that the explanation almost makes sense, don’t you think? I mean, all the pieces fit, but I guess it’s a case of what’s the most parsimonious theory. The thing that I don’t understand is why they’d want me to be that person, when I haven’t actually done anything.”

“Maybe that’s part of the appeal. Maybe, since you’re an unknown, other people in power can’t control you. I’m not saying this again but you are pretty good at magic too.”

“Say that again,” Junhui teases, nudging Wonwoo’s shoulder.

Wonwoo nudges back, disgust written on his face. “Shut up. I’m just happy and excited that we have a purpose and aren’t randomly heading south without a real reason. I wondered what we were going to do when we got to the borders for a while. If we’d cross into a different country, or head back.”

“Head back where?” Junhui asks. “I know you lived at the academy for years but that’s not home anymore. Regardless of whether or not we find the caves, and whether or not we find anything helpful in them, the next place we’re headed to is where your family lives.”

In the silence, Junhui has to turn cautiously to look at Wonwoo, staring out toward the horizon with unreadable eyes. “Yeah,” Wonwoo says finally. “I think I figured that would be the next step, but I don’t know that I wanted to acknowledge it. I don’t want the end of this journey to be the end of Bohyuk’s life but it feels so final. We need to have an end goal after that. We have to go somewhere where the emperor can’t bother us and where it’s sunny and warm but not bug infested and where you don’t feel too scared to let your magic out to play.”

“Planning for our future together already? That doesn’t seem premature to you?”

Wonwoo gives Junhui a look of bewilderment, almost an exact replica of the one from the academy months and months ago, when they were still strangers. “No, of course not,” Wonwoo says. “Why? Does it seem premature to you?”

On the gravelly southwestern shores of the Yoon Kingdom, Junhui and Wonwoo walk alone. There have been no towns established nearby, not when the ground is untillable, and the sun bakes their backs after only a short period of exposure. No critters live here either, with the lack of vegetation preventing support of other life, from too much salinity between the stones.

There’s something else at work here, too.

Junhui can feel it. Living things have a way of adapting to life in the hardiest of places, where nothing should grow. The lack of life here has something else as its source, and he wouldn’t be surprised if it were magic related.

“What, exactly, are we looking for?” Wonwoo asks, nose wrinkled and eyes squinting at the bright light reflected off the pale rocks. It doesn’t help that everything looks so uniform, that the sun is blinding, that the caves are supposed to be difficult to find in the first place.

“Some kind of shelter, I guess? I’d imagine it’d have to be pretty deep if magic was created there, but there’s a lot of rock faces in this area that seem to be caves. I don’t know, I’ve never found it—if I did I don’t think I’d have so much trouble,” Junhui mutters.

“I didn’t mean to say you should know, I just mean, are there any hints? Should I just walk around and hope I walk into something important?”

Put like that, Junhui finds it absurd too. He’s not sure what Mingming was expecting when they were looking for these caves, but he seemed sure they’d know, and Junhui had…what had he done exactly? Wandered aimlessly for days, beckoning at Mingming every so often to look at something neat and ask if that’s what Lascaux would be. The answer was always a no, a rueful smile, sometimes a ruffle of Junhui’s hair like he was being a cute younger sibling when in reality, he had been born before Mingming by six moons. What did you look for when you were trying to find something that existed before known human history?

“Do you think our magic would recognize it?” Wonwoo asks suddenly. “It recognized each other as important or something. The gold sparks. That was just to find a mage partner. If we’re really talking about where all magic came from, there should be some kind of signal, right?”

It’s not a bad idea. “I’m afraid of casting, just in case, though. What if something’s fragile and we damage it?”

Wonwoo steps beside him, poking Junhui in the elbow with a very determined look on his face. He reaches up to brush the hair out of Junhui’s face, longer now than it had been when they finished their apprenticeship. He hasn’t had a chance to cut it since. Wonwoo’s fingers are light against his temple, skimming across the skin, but very firmly tugs each strand into place. “Are you still scared of magic when we’re looking for the source of its birth?”

Junhui’s breath hitches. His hand joins Wonwoo’s by his head, and slowly lowers his arm until both their hands are resting at their sides. “No,” he admits.

“It’s not the magic that you’re scared of. It’s something else, and it has to deal with your old old partner.” Wonwoo squeezes Junhui’s fingers, blinking rapidly before staring into Junhui’s eyes. “You’re helping me figure things out for Bohyuk. Can I help you with this?”

“I—I don’t know that you’d want me to help you find a way to help Bohyuk if I tell you,” Junhui says, trying to slow his breathing. The context of the conversation is too similar to the real deal, all of the rocks and the cliffs and their search for Lascaux. He’s had multiple episodes of déjà vu since the events unfolded, but the memories are at their sharpest now.

Wonwoo lifts one eyebrow. “We’re kind of stuck together now. I was serious about having our future planned out, and in my envisioned future, I don’t ever tell you to leave.”

“I told you,” Junhui pulls his hand away, slightly hysterical. “Promotion wasn’t our wedding. This isn’t a honeymoon vacation. We’re not married.”

“I wouldn’t mind if we were,” Wonwoo says, taking a step forward. He doesn’t reach for Junhui’s hand again, but his face is serious enough that it still gives Junhui panic. “I feel alive around you. My magic feels alive around you. I wasn’t about to ignore the fact that everything about you is compelling to me. I can’t ignore it. And when I gave in to that knowledge I realized something else—”

A loud caw interrupts whatever Wonwoo has to say, and they both look up into the sky. It suddenly looks like there are two suns, one white-yellow, beaming down brightly. The other is a ball of feathers in a wide variety of shades of vermillion, growing in size with each passing second.

“Really?” Junhui’s baffled. “A jujak? First a water dragon, now a fire bird, is this another test or something?”

“Get down!” Wonwoo hollers at him, tugging him down by his sleeve so they can duck for cover when the bird swoops past, a torrent of fire breathed out of its wide-open mouth. It comes back for a second attack, still missing their heads. The pheasant-like fowl doesn’t just breathe fire, its entire body erupts flames, somehow leaving the vivid plumage in tact.

“This is ridiculous!” Junhui waves a fist in the air after the tail of the bird. “Stop trying to kill me! How can you—”

He has to dive sideways when it suddenly changes course and aims straight for Junhui’s neck, but when it passes, it’s strangely fire-free.

“Was that you?” Junhui yells, this time at Wonwoo, who has his hands above his head. “Did you somehow put out that fire? Because it doesn’t seem to like that very much.” Junhui tries it for himself, dousing the massive, ugly bird with a deluge of water, conjured on the spot. Not only does it extinguish the flames spewing from its mouth, but it gets a deranged expression its eyes, enhanced by the bright red irises.

This time, when the bird comes at him, he’s ready. He holds his hands out and sprays the thing with water, pushing it back even though it continues to flap forward, beak angled in Junhui’s direction. He directs the force of the stream sideways, out past over the edge of the rocks, and then aims downward, until there’s a loud squawk.

“Is it dead?”

“I don’t want to take my chances,” Junhui says, tugging Wonwoo along. “Let’s find some cover so it can’t see us if it decides to come back. I swear, if I found out it’s still Emperor Yoon and his weird minion, I’m going to kill the king, beheading or not. Anyway, how did you do that?”

“Do what? Put out the fire? If you starve a flame of oxygen, it’ll die out. So I just sucked away the air feeding into the bird’s body and…it was put out.”

Under the shade of an overhanging rock, Junhui holds Wonwoo’s face in both his hands, looking at him with concern. Wonwoo, for his part, stares back, equally worried about Junhui’s mental state. The largest burn either of them has isn’t from the jujak, but from standing out too long in the sun, and both of them, it turns out, are capable of putting out fires. That was the compatibility explained then. They were, the two of them, at the end of the day, a pair of firefighters.

Junhui inhales deeply, filling his lungs with oxygen as far as his rib cage will expand. “I’m scared of how well I can put out fires.”

“No luck?” Mingming calls down from the top of the crags, one foot planted against a massive boulder.

Junhui shakes his head regretfully, eyes not meeting Mingming’s. The lack of any signs leaves him too disappointed and dejected to really frown, mouth simply remaining in a neutral position, but his face says enough with the shadows cast on his skin from weeks and weeks of walking with minimal food or sleep. His expression reads ‘I’m tired’, loudly broadcasting ‘I want to go home’. He climbs the rocks to where Mingming is, draping himself over his shoulders with his face nestled against the back of his neck. “Why do you want to find the cave so badly, anyway?” Junhui asks, voice small and soft and pouty. “What’s so special about them?”

“You’ve really never heard of Lascaux?” Mingming asks, turning around to give Junhui a grateful squeeze, before his hands rest on Junhui’s head and he strokes the hair at the crown while Junhui rubs his cheek into Mingming’s sternum. “It’s supposed to be the birthplace of magic. I was hoping…” He sighs, pulling back to hold Junhui’s shoulders and look him in the eye, sad and sorry at the same time. “I think I’m going to have to put a request in for a partner change.”

“What?” Junhui tears away from Mingming’s touch. His throat itches when he speaks. “A partner change? You want to put in a request for a partner change? But…why?” There’s more than a flash of hurt in his eyes, more like waves of it, mixed deeply with betrayal.

Mingming reaches out to grab at Junhui’s shoulders, but fails. “I just…I need a change. I don’t think I can keep working with you.”

Junhui can’t accept Mingming’s answer. “You can’t keep working with me? Why? Is it because I’m not good enough?” His emotions get the best of him, and along with the tears that fall to his cheeks, fat droplets of water fall on both their heads from the sky, water that Junhui cannot hold back.

Mingming makes it so that he doesn’t have to, warming the air so it all evaporates, turning into steam and dispersing into simple water vapour that the both of them breathe in and out with the air of every breath. “Look at our magic. Even now, they’re destructive forces to one another. Your water…it’s crushing me. I always feel damp and dampened when we cast together, even when we don't cast together. It’s part of you, just like the fire is part of me.”

“But we fight so well!” Junhui yells. Then, in a whisper, as if trying to convince himself, “We fight so well together, everyone says so.”

“That doesn’t…I think that says more about our friendship than our powers. I’ve always felt like I’m caged when I’m around you. I thought if we could find the caves and figure out how water and fire magic coexisted in the beginning, I thought it could be okay. But we’ve looked everywhere, and I’m so tired, and you look exhausted.” Mingming smiles although his heart his breaking, thumb brushing away the tears on Junhui’s face. This amount of water he can handle. But that’s about it.

“That’s why we were looking for the caves? Why couldn’t you just tell me? What kind of friendship do we have if you’ve kept something like that from me all this time? I can’t believe you would do something like that. I can’t believe you.” Junhui shakes his head vigorously. “I hate you!” In that instant, he does. He despises Mingming.

“This isn’t the time to be childish and emotional, Huihui. Can’t you just handle this like an adult? We can part amicably and switch partners but stay friends, I never meant for it to get this far. Don’t you see?” Mingming’s voice cracks. “You’re drowning me.”

Junhui’s magic acts of its own accord, sensing his emotional strife. The word ‘drowning’ triggers something, especially in conjunction with Junhui loudly professing his hatred. It produces a waterfall right over their heads. The strength of it knocks both of them over, throwing Junhui backward to land on his ass in a dry spot while Mingming is submerged underneath.

The waterfall is so loud.

Junhui can barely hear his own voice over the roar of it, gushing and gushing while he yells, “Mingming!” He scrambles to his feet and races forward, reaching for Mingming’s hand, grabbing on. His element is water magic, damn it, he should be able to control it. But no matter how hard Junhui tries to stop the onslaught, more and more water continues to pour over them, surrounds them.

Water starts to fill Mingming and Junhui’s lungs, neither of them getting air to breathe. The corners of his already blurry vision start to blacken, and he can feel Mingming’s grip on his hand tighten. “Mingming, hold on!” Junhui tries to shout, but his throat is closed up and he’s losing the ability to focus. In his panic, he loses more of his ability to command the water, and everything happens at once. The turret of water grows, Mingming loses his footing from the force of the cascading water, Junhui feels Mingming’s hand slip from his fingers, there’s a scream. Mingming falls back off the edge of the cliff.

The waterfall is so loud

so loud

so—

The sound of water falling and falling rumbling in Junhui’s memory is replaced by a roar in Junhui’s ears from Wonwoo’s lips crashing into his own.

Junhui pushes him away. “I wanted to. For that split second, I would rather have had Mingming dead than separating from me. I hoped for his death and it happened. I killed him, Wonwoo. I’m a murderer, just like the emperor wants to believe. You said my magic only listened to what I really wanted, so there you go, I really wanted to kill him, and now he’s dead.”

Wonwoo’s mouth is covering his own again, kissing him, and Junhui whines, but he’s powerless to do anything but kiss back. Wonwoo’s too hungry and Junhui, well, he doesn’t want to push him away, even if rationally he really should. There’s a tongue in his mouth and he melts, unable to hold himself upright any longer.

“Fuck, Junhui, fuck. That’s some heavy shit,” Wonwoo pants, leaning down over him. “But I’m not a deity and I’m not the emperor, that’s not something for me to judge you over. I didn’t know him, I wasn’t there, you were the only witness. Even taking it exactly the way you described it, it sounds like an accident.”

Junhui tries to interrupt, but there’s a finger at his lips, shushing him, stroking his chin, petting the side of his face. Comforting.

“Even if it wasn’t an accident. Even if, it doesn’t matter. You’re also not a deity or the emperor, you can’t judge me for being in love with you anyway.”

Wind brushes Junhui’s cheek, a steady presence.

“You’re not a monster. You have your morals in the right place. You regret what happened so much it prevents you from functioning normally, and you don’t want to do it again so you’ve mastered a tight control over yourself, and your magic, even reigning in your emotions. Who am I to say that’s not good enough? When Bohyuk is at home and I desperately wish he would kill something so he can stay alive? It’s not my place. I know my place, and it’s beside you. I’m not leaving.” There’s a pause when he leans down to press another kiss to Junhui’s mouth, slow and gentle. “I love you.” Again, softer, “I love you.”

Frighteningly, when those are uttered from Junhui’s on mouth, he realizes it’s not the first time he’s thought bout the fact that he was in love with Wonwoo. That had been a fact sitting deep within him, simply unacknowledged, but still true for quite a while.

He wants to give back, since Wonwoo has such unwavering faith in him.

He wants to make Wonwoo happy.

And if that means he had to fight the odds to save Jeon Bohyuk, he’ll do it. He’ll do anything for Wonwoo’s happiness.

The rest of it is mostly a blur.

He remembers there being a fair amount of magic involved.

He remembers the vial of sesame oil, and Wonwoo warming it in his hands, but still the unfamiliar feeling it pouring inside him, the intrusion of fingers, and then Wonwoo’s cock.

He remembers being stretched out and full and kept on edge, he remembers being asked what it felt like. He doesn’t remember his answer, it either had something to do with air magic or flying, although those two might mean the same thing, but he does remember his climax, he remembers coming for what felt like an eternity and a half.

The rush in his ears is loud. But it’s not the rush of water surrounding him. The waterfall has been replaced.

Love is loud.

When he opens his eyes, Junhui is greeted by the sight of mutely coloured swirls and stripes, painted right onto the rock face above them. There are etchings too, dark and deep, of various shapes making their mark, with only a little fading, into the rocks for years. Decades, perhaps centuries, possibly over several millennia. With his head still lying on the ground, the images are a little blurry, but he knows what the pictures are, and what they mean.

He starts laughing, loud and uncontrollably, his entire body shaking with the force of his laughter, his voice echoing loudly off the rocks. It wakes Wonwoo, confused and sleepy, wrapped like a drop bear around Junhui’s arm. “Is it even morning?” Wonwoo mumbles. “Why are you laughing so hard?”

“It could have been worse. I mean, it could have been a shamanistic ritual. But I think it’s still pretty bad to perform sex magic in the caves of Lascaux.”

“Lascaux? Right, we’re looking for that. I’m sure we’ll find it,” Wonwoo mutters sleepily.

“Too late,” Junhui says, still chortling, “I think we already found it.” Now that he’s realized where they are he can feel a persistent quivering under his skin like the flesh underneath has been pulled taut. He cannot, however, distinguish the buzzing in his ears from the constant ringing whenever he’s in close proximity to Wonwoo’s magic, which might explain why he hadn’t realized where they were.

“Well, where is it?” Wonwoo demands, eyes shut.

Junhui taps the top of his head with two fingers. “Here. Right here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re not in a cave we’re under some rock thing—” and then Wonwoo breaks off because he finally opens his eyes and sees what Junhui’s looking at.

Describing magic to someone is difficult. Junhui finds it easier to demonstrate by action, since conjuring is an entirely internal sensation, although he’s never successfully taught any of the younger mages what he means. The water is always at his fingertips but to use his powers, to draw the magical energy out of his internal store, requires a pulling action. A delicate pulling action, like a musician might tug on the string of their gayageum instead of a rider yanking on the reigns of a horse, and the essence of magic comes tumbling out.

Manipulating the water once it exists, whether conjured or otherwise available, is always much easier. He can sense its presence, feel it tactically, but it doesn’t usually feel wet or fluid. It has a peculiar shape that molds seamlessly in his hands, connected unwaveringly even if separated by a significant distance, to bend and sway in whatever course he chooses, and it obeys those directions without resistance. It’s a little different from Wonwoo, who can separate the individual particles and feel the air on an infinitesimal level, but who still carves a track for his air magic with ease.

The images on the walls, they depict that feeling two-dimensionally. Junhui stands and walks along the opening edge of the rock, staring up at the six figures who wield their powers, earth, fire, water, air, metal, wood. The mural for each is intricately designed, large and sweeping, with careful use of dark and light to maximize the effect of the few neutral colours.

At the furthest back point of the cave, a single circle, shaded to give the appearance of a sphere, and surrounded by dashed lines, suggesting movement. The ring surrounding it depicting an explosion into three smaller designs. Four waved lines, spanning out toward air and water, a sprouting plant with flames for leaves growing in the direction of fire and earth, and a cross laid over another cross, with cardinal lines pointing toward wood and metal.

When he walks back to the front of the rock face, the mouth of the cave if it were really a cave, he sees the magic in a different light. The paired elements are facing each other,

“You know,” Wonwoo says, hand a hair breadth away from touching the walls, “I thought the birthplace of magic meant where magical energy came from. But it’s not what this is, is it? It’s the birthplace of the first people who tried to explain magic.”

“If it were magical energy that stemmed from here, then how children continue to be born with magic? Magical births are spread all over the country and I don’t think having one central source could generate the energies over that distance. But most magicians are born to non-magical parents aren’t they? And often times magical parents give birth to non-magical children. Where does that magical energy come from?” Junhui wonders.

It’s Wonwoo’s turn to laugh. “Sex magic. You don’t need to have magic to perform sex magic, so.” He paces around the front of the rock, hands reaching upward. “It’s like the magic itself is trying to find release. It must have been volatile when it was pure and divided itself into parts in order to gain stability. These elements, they’re balanced, and at the end,” he points to the line that Junhui had assumed simply meant the end of the drawings, “no more magic. It’s found completion. Gives credibility to that old wives’ tale, you know, ‘mother and father, metal and wood; marry together, magicless childhood’. They balance each other out and then there’s no more of it.”

“There’s something I don’t understand though,” Junhui says, walking again to the front of the cave. “There’s no death magic. There’s only the six types here and none of them involve taking life.”

“If these were drawn by humans who had magic, then it’s not too much of a stretch to think they never met anyone with death magic before. How many death mages have you heard of? I didn’t even know it was a possibility until I didn’t have any other word for what Bohyuk was doing. Maybe all the death magicians died before anyone figured out what was killing them. You can’t cure something if you don’t know it exists.”

Unconvinced, Junhui frowns. “How could they not know? If they could figure out what pure magic was like, in the beginning, shouldn’t they still know that death magic exists? What if it’s the other way around? They already had a cure so it stopped existing?”

“Well, they didn’t leave any evidence or clues of that, if it happened. I’m not hoping for a cure anymore, Junhui. I never really expected us to find an answer here at all.” Wonwoo stands beside Junhui, shoulder to shoulder, and looks up with him at the drawings. There aren’t any pictures of killing or death, no white spaces or cadavers, nothing to suggest that there was anything other than the elements at play. “But thank you anyway, for bringing me here.”

Junhui combs over every drawing again, insistent on finding even the smallest hint. But Wonwoo loops an arm around his and leads him away. “Let’s go. You’ve done enough. I think I’m ready to send him off now.”

No one’s really ever ready to send someone to their death. Whether it’s accidental or on purpose, anticipated or sudden, at your hand or somebody else’s or no one’s at all. It’s the finality of it. Making mistakes, having regrets, there’s a means of atonement when everyone’s still living. With death, the state of affairs in the final hour is the state that remains for eternity. For Junhui it’s tumultuous confusion over his partnership with Mingming, and a lingering question of whether or not they were even friends. For Wonwoo, who ran due to a sense of remorse, it’s an unaskable question of whether it was better to live in the face of both his brother and his guilt or neither.

Junhui imagined Wonwoo’s hometown to be small. Wonwoo boasted, after all, about being the best in his classes as a child, and being gifted enough and capable of such great things with his magic that he won awards for it. Heuristics would suggest that would be possible for even a mediocre magician, if there are few other mages to serve as competition. He sees now how illogical it was to believe Wonwoo to only be the best among a small sample size. Wonwoo was one of the most powerful mages at the apprentice academy, which collected magicians from across the country. But that doesn’t change what he had expected the city to look like, nor does it diminish the shock he feels at seeing the outer city walls, white clay bricks stretching endlessly both left and right.

“I can’t remember if they were always this grey, or if they’ve gotten dirtier since I last saw them,” Wonwoo says. “Come on.” He leads them past the two soldier at the open gates and onto the busy street leading into the city.

Many travellers must visit here, for the first few stalls are all for taking care of cart animals, before the road is lined by all matter of food stands, their owners shouting enticing prices as Wonwoo and Junhui pass by. “Bean paste stew,” Junhui whispers. “Shredded squid.’

“My dad can cook better,” Wonwoo tells him out of the corner of his mouth. He keeps a hand at Junhui’s back, applying pressure to keep him walking.

“You live in a coastal town,” Junhui says with wonder, inhaling the scent of spiced eel. “How can you not like fish when everything here must be seafood? What do you eat while everyone else is shucking shellfish?”

“I get by.” He takes them to the city centre, which is a perfectly circular park, and the source from which all roads extend out toward the city walls. There he points out all the major landmarks, leaning his head against Junhui’s to indicate the direction of the ocean, the government offices, his childhood school. Despite how populous the city seems, someone still sees and recognizes Wonwoo, delighting when he and Junhui are able to help her carry her cabbages toward the market, before resuming their eastward plight to Wonwoo’s home.

It’s a sizeable estate. From the outside, that’s all Junhui can surmise, that the property is large and has several old fruit trees, with towering networks of branches, all healthy and filled with dark green leaves, which rustle upon their approach. Junhui holds Wonwoo’s hand, rubbing a thumb over the knuckles, and the rustling dies down. After knocking thrice on the heavy wooden doors, inscribed with his family name, a voice calls out, “Yes! Coming! Who is it? If you’re looking for—”

The door swings open, brass handle oscillating from the force of the pull, and a woman with hair pulled into a tight bun, some strands greying at the temples, steps out. Her mouth is small, to match the rest of her face, and she has a familiar pair of lines on her face, around the sides of her nose and mouth. She doesn’t say a word for half a moment, almost as if she didn’t recognize the man standing before her. There’s no shock, no dropped jaw or widened eyes, just slow careful blinking. “Wonwoo..?”

Junhui lets him go so mother and son can embrace.

“You’re back,” she states. “You’re partnered?”

“Yes, I am. To both of those things.” Wonwoo smiles, tugging Junhui forward. Without warning, he tells her, “This is Junhui. I think we might marry.”

“Well!” She pulls him into a quick embrace, while Junhui gapes to himself. “Bohyuk will be happy to see you both, but you better come in quickly while he’s still awake.”

Inside, mulberry paper screens block out some of the sunlight, and they walk through three sets of doors before there’s a voice calling out, “Mom? Who was at the door?”

“You’ll never guess,” she answers, “so just see for yourself.”

The reunion of the two brothers is even more emotional, and Junhui can understand why Wonwoo was too plagued by guilt to sit at Bohyuk’s bedside. His hands shake and he winces just in the process of hugging someone, and, Junhui will find out later, he can barely dress or feed himself, although he always insists on going it alone. There’s pain laced with his every movement, but even though it takes all the muscles of his face to do so, Bohyuk still smiles widely after being introduced to Junhui.

“My brother’s pretty annoying,” Bohyuk says with a raspy voice. “I would know. So thanks for not abandoning him to die in a ditch somewhere.”

Junhui smiles back, but he knows it’s him who’s grateful Wonwoo hadn’t abandoned him.

“You wish I were lying in a ditch somewhere, but if I were dying I’d figure out a way to crawl back here so you could finish me off first, at least.” Wonwoo’s hand on Bohyuk’s shoulder squeezes gently.

“See?” Bohyuk looks straight at Junhui. “He’s just come back and he’s already being a nag.”

Wonwoo splutters and reels backward, hand never leaving Bohyuk’s arm. “How was that nagging?”

“You still want me to cast to save myself. I’m not going to do it.”

From the corner of the room, Junhui hears a sigh and he turns to look at their mother with her hands clasped together, resting on top of her skirt, eyes lowered to the ground. He reaches out to put an arm around her shoulders at the same time Wonwoo slides his hand down to Bohyuk’s elbow, and then his wrist, and finally comes to pat his hand over and over. “I know,” Wonwoo says after a moment, looking down instead of at Bohyuk or his mother. “I know.”

“Err really? I mean good. It’s good that you know.” But he looks sad, and a little lost.

For a week or so, they play catch up, Bohyuk listening to the many stories Wonwoo collected over the years at the academy, Wonwoo needling Bohyuk’s own stories from him after much pushing and prodding. It’s like they’re collectively holding their breaths while pretending to go on normally, even though there’s insufficient air to breathe, and Junhui finds that too uncomfortable to stay near. He wanders, doing what he does in every city, helping neighbours with crops, or laundry, or any miscellany of household tasks to take up time during the day.

He returns, one day, to find Wonwoo waiting for him with the cracks in the veneer starting to show. They’re standing outside in the courtyard and Wonwoo’s face is plastered against Junhui’s neck. “I lied. I’m just pretending to be okay with it but really I want to go out and catch mice and hold them up to his face and force him to kill them because they threaten to bite my hand or something.”

“He’d despise that. He’d despise you for it, too. Anyone would if you act so counter to their wishes.”

“That’s why I’m standing here instead. So I can’t do something stupid.” They stand for a while longer, and Junhui can only hold him, in lieu of holding him together.

“Oh there you two are. I was calling inside for you to come to dinner but got no answer and then realized neither of you were anywhere to be found!” Wonwoo’s mother beckons them indoors with a wave of a towel, the scent of steamed buns and roasted vegetables wafting out of the open door.

“We’ll be right there,” Wonwoo calls out. “Sorry for worrying you!”

She scoffs, turning around and muttering to herself as she heads back in. “I don’t worry about you two. You’re grown men, if you don’t want to eat your father’s cooking, that’s fine, I’m sure you’ll both live. With water and air, you two have all the magic necessary to sustain life.”

That turns the gears in Junhui’s brain, and Wonwoo’s head whips around to look at him too. “Life magic. Water and air together is life magic. Do you think…?”

“That it balances out death magic? Yes, that makes sense.”

“How would we find out if it’s true? How do you balance out magic in one generation? We’d have to combine ours and then physically give it to him, I don’t see how that’s something we can actually do, even if it might work theoretically.” Junhui worries at his lower lip, thinking fast.

“If you can figure out how to give someone your magic, we could try it, but I don’t really want to hold out hope. No one’s ever found a way to transfer powers.”

“No one’s ever found a way to transfer powers, but what if you don’t need to transfer powers?” And he has Emperor Yoon to thank for the idea. “People can chain magic to an object, right? That’s how almost all magical bindings are created, because otherwise magicians would just magic their way out of capture all the time.”

“Okay, I don’t know how to do that, but say we bind our magic to an object, and then what? We bind the object to him? Does that mean he has to carry our magic with him at all times? If that would work shouldn’t just our magical energies being near his now help him?”

“Since we arrived, has he been getting worse?”

“No,” Wonwoo admits. “But it’s only been a week, and he’s not getting any better either.”

“But over the course of that week, I’ve been gone most of the time. It’s not really life magic if you only have air, right? I think we can test the hypothesis at least.” Junhui slowly considers what they know. “What if we cut out the middleman? What if we just bind our magic to him. To his magic. Wouldn’t the three cancel each other out?”

“I still don’t know how we’re going to bind magic to anything, but wouldn’t that mean we wouldn’t be able to use our magic either? Like when something’s balanced it’s not just one direction. Both sides are equal. If we manage to neutralize his magic, we’d also be neutralizing our own.”

Junhui looks into Wonwoo’s eyes, and it’s not even a sacrifice. “I told you once I’d trade my life for Bohyuk’s. Trading in just my magic to save him? That’s like giving candy to a child.”

Wonwoo purses his lips, fighting down a myriad of emotions. “Well I suppose I always did hate magic after I realized I was only ever going to hover and never truly fly.”

“Are you boys ever coming inside or should we start dinner without you?”

“Son!”

“Yeah?” Wonwoo lifts his head from the page, calligraphy brush paused halfway to the inkwell. He lowers it against the porcelain holder and walks out, sliding the door open. “What is it?”

“Not you,” his mother says, impatiently patting his hand. “The other one.”

“I’m here mom,” Bohyuk says, sticking his head out from the kitchens. There’s a giant wooden spoon in one of his hands, covered in a fragrant red sauce, that he keeps from dripping to the ground with a quick lick.

She clucks her tongue and shoves her hands on her hips. “Not you either! Where’s the other son?”

After a lot of rustling, another door slides open, and Junhui steps in with a blanket over his arms. “You called?”

“Yes, there you are Junhui. There’s a man at the front gates asking for you. Tall, old, very long beard – do you know who he is?”

“Unfortunately,” Junhui says, with narrowed eyes.

They’re still narrowed when he opens the main door, greeted by the sight of the emperor’s minion, who had followed Junhui and Wonwoo from city to city for so long.

“Interesting that you’re here,” he says, smiling.

“What do you want?” The embroidery won’t thread itself, and Junhui had built up a pretty good pace before the interruption.

“It’s, shall we say, the final offer.”

Junhui grins, his teeth becoming needlepoints, ready to stab into his wrinkled skin, elder or not. He was certainly powerful enough, if he could sway the minds of dragons, and he never did move like a man with weak bones or joint issues. He finds he has very little sympathy for him, and snarls without remorse. “Can’t help you!” Junhui chirps happily. He senses Wonwoo’s presence even in the absence of footsteps or wind tickling his cheeks. The breeze remains the same as it had been all morning. It’s not a magic thing…it’s more of a—

“No magic anymore. For either of us,” Wonwoo says, eyes cold. His arm wraps around Junhui’s waist, hand holding him and conspicuously presenting the garakji on his fingers.

“Come now,” says the man, seemingly amused by the hostility. “You can’t just quit magic. That’s a skill, and there’s the oath to think about too. You’ve both promised to protect the citizenry of this country with your magic, and it’s not something you can renege on lightly.”

“We’d protect the people if we had magic. We’d protect them from old men like you who send the possibility of death in the form of magical creatures to someone because you want to ‘test’ them. But we can’t do that now, even if we wanted to. No magic doesn’t mean we quit magic, it means neither of us have any powers anymore.”

“That’s not possible.” His face hardens, and he wears his frown grotesquely. “Your magic is balanced but not enough to reach equilibrium!”

“And yet.” Junhui wiggles his fingers, also fitted with garakji, and nothing happens. No water, no moisture movement. “I hope you can report that to Emperor Yoon and apologize on my behalf. Water bearers might have to look out for each other, but I won’t be helping him as I’m not one anymore.”

“You caused this somehow,” The man accuses, pointing a finger at Wonwoo’s face.

Junhui can sense the change in the atmosphere again, as Wonwoo grows increasingly ready for a fistfight. He thinks it’s a little early for mama to have to be cleaning bloodstains out of the wood. “No, it was all you. Trying to hire someone who didn’t want the job and making up your own rules to do so, all while having no regard for human life. You caused this, but you’re also going to turn around now because you’ll need to quickly find another solution, and I hope this time you don’t send a dragon after whoever you select.” He shuts the door in the old man’s face.

“It’s actually very hot seeing you hate other people,” Wonwoo says, chuckling. “Reminds me of the first time we kissed.” He leans forward and presses his forehead to Junhui’s, sending tingly sparks shooting through his skin, and the hair on his arms stands on end.

It’s not a magic thing. It’s a them thing. Just them.