— AMBROSIA.

( bio — stats —  playlist )

hi everyone (peepo, 19+) i’m so excited to be here! introducing im haksu, country boy from the south and fae of nature who is hopelessly unaccustomed to academy and city life, and is working towards becoming a capable intelligence specialist. more info under the cut (and if you fav this post i consider it open invitation to manifest in your dms... so watch out...)

...

“ i’ve got time! ” she’s exuberant, flouncing into his room and throwing his covers off. hm, there isn’t a present hiding under the sheets. maybe it’s under the bed? she nearly knocks her head on the floor as she bends her body down to check, spinning back to face haksu when she doesn’t find anything. “ where’s my present? gimme gimme! ” grabby hands stick out, seulki throwing her butt onto the bed. she bounces, legs dangling off the edge with enough space to kick around.

she’s not exactly a stranger to his room, more its semi frequent occupant and chatterbox. so she shouldn’t be shy, to be plopping on his fluffy duvet and watching haksu around his room, but there’ve been some… happenings lately. flutters she’s not sure how to deal with, so to speak, location of which have been in the middle of her chest. just for giving day, though, she thinks she could set all of that aside for a little while. “ hey, remember when we were lil’ kids and you stole my hot cocoa? ” cups her face in her hands, leaning forward with a cheeky grin. “ you still owe me one! ”

For a long time, he’s been used to his room being quiet, so it would seem like someone this chattery would throw things off. Somehow, though, that has never really been the case with Seulki. Maybe it’s because she’s eased herself back into his life slowly and then all at once, her presence becoming part of his everyday patterns as surely as lunch-at-one and dinner-at-six. (Or maybe he had just kept a space empty for her ever since she’d moved away.)

“Didn’t I only steal the cocoa ‘cause my marshmallows went missing?” he asks, but the spirit of giving day is contagious enough that he disappears for a moment to fill an electric kettle and see if they still have cocoa powder (check!). Then, he goes to his window to nudge aside the curtains, peering at the collection of pots sprawling out over the sill.

One in particular, covered with shiny animal stickers and wrapped in ribbon at the base, is a relatively new addition. A springy vine sprouts from the dirt, hugging a little bamboo-stick support beam, and it glows a healthy green. He brushes a fingertip across a clamshell-shaped leaf, before lifting it up between his palms.

“Okay... here it is.” Haksu sets down the plant on his nightstand next to his bed. It’s not really a surprise, because he couldn’t wrap it, so it’s with a bit of a sheepish smile that he jumps into an explanation, turning the pot here and there so Seulki can see its best angles. “It ain’t in season right now but if we keep it warm enough it might flower and fruit anyway… uh, I can help you with takin’ care so don’t worry, and - um - you should name it, and…”

...

but he leaves it undefined, this thing, only knows it as a spectre that pulls him into situations that he finds the need to justify. situations like these, where he creeps up on his dormmate with palms curled around the base of his warhammer. the sharpened end kisses the back of haksu’s neck and he pauses, just before the dig, holds it threateningly there like a thought, then the better part of him pulls it safely away. junho grins, “we sparring?”

and there’s a skill imbalance, like how haksu is a whole tier above him, but junho justifies that it makes haksu the better sparring partner, offers a tough challenge to better hone his skills and discover his weak points. the truth: haksu’s intelligence, and he’s combat. tier above or not, he wants that to mean something. and what it means, he won’t let himself define this either, simply squares his shoulders to make room for the spectre to swell within the cages of his chest.

Perhaps you don’t know the meaning of ‘waking up’ until your roommate has held their warhammer against your skin without warning. Haksu straightens his neck and tilts his head, the coldness lingering even when the weight is eased away, and the steel he lacks between his palms glints in his gaze instead, just for an instant, as adrenaline starts up in a thrumming buzz underneath his skin.

It’s something new that’s developed over his time at SMA. A love for that particular thrill of a fight, a readiness for it that was always missing back home whenever beasts broke through the barrier or rumors broke through particularly seedy circles. Maybe it’s because he’s learned how to be better at it - how to look at someone and pick out their weaknesses to use against them, even before the fight’s even started.

And Junho doesn’t have many of them. He’s never really sparred with him before, with their respective primaries, and he’d be lying if he says he isn’t interested in experiencing Junho’s technique, a boy who’s brought his hammers all the way to SMA. (Haksu keeps his amusement about that quiet, the way he’s upgraded from hitting nails through wood to hitting monsters in half. He’s done a very similar thing with his scythe himself.)

...

Swallowing, Yiseul’s eyes widen as she watches the way the unmistaken frost closes over the bunker’s door handle, slowly but surely spreading to the area around it. The cold stings when she attempts to place her finger against it to check its authenticity, and there’s no way she could deny who or what exactly had done this when she retracts her finger to place it against her lips to sooth the pain. But it was no time to panic, not yet, no. Even though every fiber in her being is ready to wail, she can’t, not yet, no, not when she’s already made a fool of herself running around to help round up the people she has to guide to safety. No, maybe it’s a joke, maybe she wasn’t seeing this, talk herself out of it, you know? That’s all it was. Humor in the darkest hour. That’s all. The nature fairy turns to her companions with a deep breath, avoidant of parliament’s faces behind her lest she want to break, however her eyes are wide and full of terror, betraying the cool emotion she attempts to paint across her face, “Haksu, did you do this? It’s not funny if you did– make it go away, please. We need to get in there, or something…”

He glances over to their group, who’ve become more restless as the cold sweeps in like a ghost. It was already hard to maintain relative calm amongst them - something completely out of Haksu’s area of expertise - but the dip in temperature has a hubbub of complaint arising once more. “Is somethin’ wrong?” He glances towards Yiseul’s wide eyes, doesn’t miss the glint of terror nor her ice-bitten fingertips. This isn’t normal, is it?

But time is of the essence, and it’s dangerous to be underground here much longer. So he takes a few steps forward to the front, crunching the sudden appearance of frost underfoot, and exhales fog as he reaches for the handle. “Hold on. Lemme try.” And boldly, he squeezes the centuries-old metal. A beat passes before he feels the sting as he attempts to brute-force it open, the cold ache seeping into his bones, and he doesn’t manage to twist the knob very far until he has to let go with a muted wince.

Haksu sucks in a breath between his teeth. For a moment, his hand-print is outlined in the doorknob before new frost covers it again, and he glances down to his palm to see that it’s become an unpleasant blush-purple, and - okay, he’s shoving that into his pocket, now.

“Shit,” he says between gritted teeth, quiet if not a bit strained. This is most certainly, definitely, not normal - and definitely not something he’d anticipated having to deal with, and he steps back from the door once he notices a thin film of ice forming over his boots, too. “What in Maruhan’s… what’s going on… Yiseul, we need - we need fire, or something, or…” Fire. Heat. Warmth!

[  fire charmix HAN JIHYUN is currently connected to air charmix GU SEULKI. a holo-notif on her comms device informs her of the other connection initiated by intelligence specialist IM HAKSU and the message waiting for her. the transcriber notes that her recent outgoing comms have mostly been to either GU SEULKI or IM HAKSU. HAN JIHYUN ends her communication with GU SEULKI, midway through the latter’s speaking.   ]

JIHYUN  :  jihyunie’s here. 

[  the transcriber notes HAN JIHYUN’s lapse into informal communication and that radio protocol has not been used since the second call.  ]

JIHYUN: seulki’s fine. she was talking to me like, literally, as you called me. she wants me to ask if you wore your… seriously, is she your mother?— she wanted me to ask if.. if you wore your long padding because it’s… cold.

[  the following sentence is muffled.  ]

JIHYUN: maybe- […] shitty partner? […] beomseok, are- […] no, it’s hakseulki, it’s- […] therapist calls it co- […]

[  a rustling sound, like a cover’s been removed.  ]

JIHYUN: anyway. seulki’s perfectly fine. you are perfectly fine, too, so i’ll pass that on. how’re you doin’ in the north? do you need help with anything? 

JIHYUN: right. over and— wait, by help, i mean, like, directions. if you ask me to ask if she’s had lunch, i’ll find a way to block you on here, bestie. over and out.

HAKSU : huh? it ain’t that cold down here… so i didn’t really think… wait, jihyun.

[ it is worth it to note that radio communications are meant for emergencies only, so as to avoid flooding channels with unnecessary clutter. specialist IM HAKSU, however, seems to have misunderstood their purpose, or greatly underestimated what exactly constitutes an ‘emergency’. ]

HAKSU : last thing, cross my heart. when’s seulki gonna be going on break? can y’let me know when she does?

HAKSU : they get breaks, right?

[ there is a rush of static, assumed to be a sigh into the audio receiver. ]

crazy, huh.  ( ` the little fist bump makes her smile, a tiny one that’s more lips pressed together than her usual, all teeth displayed grin. haksu’s not wrong about the situation they’re in, and all the more that means he should stay where it’s safe, but there’s nothing much either of them are going to be doing after that announcement… yet. she returns the knock against his fist, a little harder than the first, resolute certainty clenched in her hands )  okay, partner. ‘s up to us. so you gotta tell me what you’re thinkin’, okay?  ( ` a tap to the side of his head, lips bunching up to the side )  you’re my smarter half!  ( ` she doesn’t flush at the reminder this time, head a little too tangled up in the impending invasion that they’re going to have to deal with. seo yerim might’ve said stay put, but they’re guardian fairies to be—and she’s a charmix of air. there was no chance of that, really, but she’s not telling if you don’t! and speaking of plans in the making… )  oh! i gotta go find the others.  ( ` she’s pretty sure her best chance is gonna be all those fairies who’ve unlocked their charmix, and she knows just the pair to bother for recruitment of her top secret, panic induced mission! what was that about smarter halves, again? she bounces off and out into the corridor, staying put an easily forgotten thing of the past already )  be right back!

smarter half. for sure. ( ‘ it’s with an unashamed acceptance that he agrees wholeheartedly, head tilting to the side - and the sentiment coaxes a ghost of a smile from him. still, seulki moves too fast for even the quickest-witted to keep up with. ) wait, hold on - ( ‘ he tries to say, momentarily soothed nerves jumping like they’ve touched a live wire, but the words falter and die and seulki’s already out the door: a crushing failure on im haksu’s part. an off-putting silence follows, one that sets off the warning bells in his head. ) not lettin’ any damn witches get anywhere near, ( ‘ he murmurs under his breath, brow furrowing as he grabs a jacket and his dorm room keys. the beginnings of his own plan begin to form in his head, figure-headed by a singular goal - because silence and seulki is a combination exclusive to morning meditations, and there’s no way he’ll let that change. )

HAKSU  :  howdy, is jihyun there?

[ this is intelligence specialist IM HAKSU’s 4th ( fourth ) time calling for fire charmix HAN JIHYUN. regardless of clearly accumulating experience using the comms, HAKSU has yet to master professional etiquette. ]

HAKSU  :  jihyunie, can— can ya check up on seulki again? ‘cause… last i hear is she’s still doin’ some… tough rubble-movin’... like jenga n’ all that… can ya lemme know if she’s finished that building? this’ll be the last time for real. so... thank you kindly, and uh— haksu out— uh… o—over.

HAKSU  :  also please update me on this a-s-a-p, it’s an emergency, sorry n’ thank you so much. over.

...

but there was no escaping his roommates. or well one of them in particular - rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as haksu’s announcement echoes through the room. his tone borderline disrespectful but kinam decides to let that go for now as he tries to make sense of haksu’s half question, half accusation.

“what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” kinam asks, snatching a shirt from the pile on his desk with such force that the rest of it comes crashing down the floor with it. he knows damn well what it means -  it’s more so offering haksu a chance to reel it back in before he really loses it. if what haksu was saying was true, if witches really had come back, then they had bigger things to worry about than to entertain baseless rumors. but confrontation seems unavoidable at his point. “seriously dude, what the fuck is your problem?”

“what - what d’you mean what does that mean...” frustrated, he turns away while kinam puts on his clothes. there’s no way he’s clueless to it, right? or is he just pretending to be? “ain’t y’all on…” there’s a pause, and haksu almost falters from saying it, but irritation pushes it all out into the chilly morning air. there’s no salvaging this, anyway. “ain’t y’all on the witches’ good side? you and your family?”

lucky for them. he thinks that out of everyone in this dorm room right now, kinam would have the least chance of getting murdered by witches. if he’s learned anything about higher-class living, it’s that family names tend to carry a lot of power, and it seems like they’ve finally found themselves in a situation where it benefits.

( ┈┈ ⋆⛧* it is alas, a painful truth, that at the end of the day, the intricacies of a person can ultimately be summed up into a handful of traits. that is to say, here is song bitna, a couple of alphabets embossed into the rectangular pieces of red plastic they call labels. here’s the first: self-centred. ) oh… ( ┈┈ ⋆⛧* why else would bitna think that she’s the only one who’s suffering all the time? they’re all going through the same catastrophic event, yet even at his admission of not knowing what to do in these last moments, she doesn’t quite get it. understanding is an acrobat at the tip of her tongue, too skilled to fall. ) probably. ( ┈┈ ⋆⛧* second is her tactlessness. she watches the ripple of water he makes as he puts his hand in the water. ) but if you don’t learn it now, it’ll be even later. at that point it’ll just be a joke that you don’t know it. ( ┈┈ ⋆⛧* third comes denial. like maybe if she occupies herself with something, all of this will go away. she slips into the water, shivers at the cold but she holds down the gasp. bitna turns and faces her body toward him as she treads water. ) i can teach you… if you want. ( ┈┈ ⋆⛧* her manicured left brow raises in anticipation. )

haksu brushes grass from his knees. the surrounding wildflowers have closed their petals to slumber underneath the moon, and he yawns into his scarf, finding himself a bit too close to doing the same. giving day is approaching its end, and he’s all full on home cooking and buttery pastries from his surprise trip back home, and very warm inside bundles of fleece.

here, at maruhan’s shrine, he closes out his final stop for the day.

ginkgo blinks an amber eye in his direction as he rises, stretching out a cracking back; she doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to follow suit. so haksu takes his time laying out a parting offering of colorful jay feathers next to the still-smoking incense, weighed down with a nice stone picked up on the walk over. he rubs over it to make it a little more shiny, before settling back, satisfied.

“time t’go,” he says. ginkgo gives a little snuffle before she picks herself up, following him down the mossy steps. it’s her who finds the gift first, about five minutes into their walk, and she pauses in the middle of the path to sniff at the ground.

catching freshly-fallen snow into its soft fractals, the sprout from the giving tree is a patch of white against white. but ginkgo’s nose cleans off a good bit of the snowflakes before he crouches down to give it a closer glance. it sways gently, and looks ordinary, not much different from the wildflowers at the temple, but haksu likes it a lot, and with a burst of giddiness he gives ginkgo a few fierce head rubs.

“hello,” he greets it. fondness rounds the edges of his voice as he nudges a finger against its leaf, brushing off a clinging flurry. if he breathes slow, and listens close, he can almost hear the soft tingling of magical bells. are you mine? he wonders to himself, watching the way it seeks out the wind, leaning into it like an embrace.

ginkgo sits and waits patiently, her big tail swishing back and forth, as he digs his gloved fingers carefully underneath the sprout and lifts it out of the earth. it fits snug in his palms, and he holds it up to the moonlight to get a clearer look.

there aren’t many hours left in the day to help it bloom, but haksu isn’t in a hurry. there has been plenty of running and rushing in this year already. so he cups the plant near his chest and continues on his walk, scrunching up his shoulders to shake off the snow.

“you’re just a student, aren’t you?” says mister park jungmin (a name haksu only knows from the laminated name-tag hanging around his chest). his voice echoes in the dimly-lit passageway, amongst the pattering of footsteps. “that’s all the protection we get? not even a winx?”

and, yeah, if he were putting himself in his shiny loafers, maybe haksu would be hesitant, too - and afraid, most of all, with exactly one specialist escorting this ragtag mixture of businessmen who’d come straight from their company buildings, through tunnels that haven’t seen fae’s light in a century. but he isn’t exactly expecting a witch to jump out of the darkness and strike them down with a bolt of lightning, so to speak. it’s been drilled in that the main reason he’s here isn’t to fight, it’s to keep a stocked quiver and a strung bow, hold the light up high, and most importantly: lead the way.

“uh, yes, but it’ll be alright,” haksu answers in a way that he hopes sounds convincing. then he raises his voice, so everyone can hear: “ain’t so long left, everyone. maybe… half-hour, tops.”

but half an hour is a very optimistic prediction, he realizes, as his lantern illuminates a very dusty fork in the path. it’s there that he pauses, and glances down to the static map on his holo, all the little lines crossing each other becoming a blurred, knotty mess. seconds tick by. he steals a glance to mister park, who raises his eyebrows — and haksu clears his throat before anything else makes it out of his mouth, making his absolute best guess as he forges ahead to the left.

maruhan, i hope that’s where we’re supposed to go.

it’s with a hurriedly washed face that haksu picks up the conductor’s mantle and puts a pause to seulki’s improvised percussion, his dorm door as the starring instrument. maruhan, there’s no way she’s already up for giving day - even earlier than him - but there she is, all bouncing with endlessly-coiled energy, bright and happy and seulki. a grin tugs at the corners of his mouth even before he notices the present, gaze dropping down to the box in her hands.

“ah,” haksu says. as it turns out, his words do a lot less communication than his face does, tinged a pleased pink as he reaches out for the wrapped little gift. “what is it? oh — …” there’s a note. he takes a moment to open it up and mouth over the words, brows rising. it may be cold, but his chest has never felt warmer (which is saying something, considering haksu’s lived through many of the most infamous summers of the south) — and a smile bursts in full aching force over his face.

there’s a tiny, quiet moment where he holds the box in his hands, basking in the simple happiness of receiving a gift from a dear friend. then he realizes with a start — he has to do something extremely important, too! well, there are several important things he’d meant to do, but seulki’s a bit early for the second one, which still needs to go in the oven...

seulki shakes the box, and it rattles a little. good, she didn’t forget to put it in before she wrapped the whole thing up in her nicest giving day wrapping paper, held together by mismatched craft tape and topped with a lopsided, passably cute bow on the box. there’s even a cryptic, anonymous card attached to the ribbon—though it’s probably clear as a baby’s bottom that this is gonna be an wonderful, amazing, super cool present!

a knock, a tap, then the little drummer boy’s entire rhythm section played against haksu’s door. “ wake up, wake up! it’s giving day! ” she shouts through the gap in the door, hands cupped against it, “ you need to give me a present! i’ve got yours with me! haksu~ ” and on she yells, stretching out the syllables in his name the longer he doesn’t come to the door, yodelling her giving day wishes down the hallway until she gets the attention she wants. then the door opens, and seulki nearly falls flat on her face, ack! but she’s got lightning fast charmix reflexes and she holds her gift aloft in time, presenting it to haksu with a flourish of jazz hands.

“ happy giving day! ”

📼 : the holiday cheese playlist for the best way to celebrate giving day!!! enjoy or you’ll turn into the grinch!!!!      ♡, seulki

☆ SEULKI’S CHEESY CHARMIX CHRISTMAS MIXTAPE!  ☆

for you (holiday remix)  lee hi

have it all  jason mraz

you & me song  joy crookes

mistletoe  geeks, phantom, esna

the lotto  ingrid michaelson, ajr

banana pancakes  jack johnson

santa tell me  ariana grande