Halotick

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Jooseon period drama of courtesan Gyeongsu (Hoseok) and impoverished cloth merchant Yoongi. Hoseok is a very rare male hybrid, prized for his lineage and training, but he’s still just owned property to a city entertainment parlor. Yoongi is determined to set him free, but without money that’s a pretty hard thing to do.

Imagine a sunday, at that point in time when the sun is high in the sky, burning down in a relentless assault of summer heat. Its around 2 in the afternoon, and its bloody roasting outside. Youre in your garden, on your knees, pulling the next wave of weeds from between the lettuce. You look around for a moment, sitting back and wiping the sweat off your brow. Hoseok is nowhere to be seen and with a sigh you realise that he mustve gotten fed up with helping around in the garden.

Spending his days cooped up in the studio, practicing his flurry of steps for the next set of concerts, or perfecting a new fast track with Yoongi, rapping until his throat became so sore you could swear his natural voice had dropped a couple of octaves in just a week. He had been moping tiredly around the apartment on that friday, and with quite some resistance, you had finally managed to convince him to enjoy the summer a bit and come out of the dark dimly lit workplace and into the sun. Tan his skin up a little bit, soak up some energy, steal some strawberries.

He reluctantly came along, and you actually suspected he only did because of said strawberries. But, as you glance over to where they are growing, it had been a disappointing sight to see no red adorned the small plants. No flowers either, this year wasn't looking too good for picking them if none ever appeared.

Hoseok had given you a meek smile at your disappointment, promising you he came along for you in reality, but the jitters in his fingers showed he was just suffering through the short trip to your little plot of land. In reality he very obviously showed a need to get back to work, being ever the perfectionist that he was. It most certainly didnt help that you caught the sound of yoongis tune coming from his pants pocket several times, and noting how Hoseok tried his best to pretend he didnt hear it and eventually putting the phone away in the little onsite shed, next to your bag.

He tried so hard, you knew he was there because you asked him to, but by now, seeing him gone, you fully realise that as good as your intentions might have been, it wasnt working out at all. Though disappointed at his disappearance, you simply assume that he had gone out to find some shade and practice his dance steps away from the sweltering sun.

When was the last time you had seen him? Looking at your watch, and noting the strength of the light having changed, it must have been well over an hour. Yours and his belongings were still in the shed, you realise, together with the bottles of cooled water.

Shit. You were parched, and if you were who knew how Hoseok was faring, doing straining physical work with his dance practices. He hardly ever went outside in the first place, let alone dance there, and even then the sun would hardly be burning this hot.

Shooting up you hurry to the shed to grab a bottle of water for the both of you. What if he had been too dehydrated? What if he had gotten lost in the maze of communal mini gardens? What if had fainted? What if he had gotten a sunstroke? The thoughts race through your mind as you collect the water, shooting through your mind in one giant lump of guilt and worry.

You're about to turn on your heels and sprint to... somewhere, thoughts halted on where to even start and other variations that all boil down to the same worrying scenarios, when you bump into a heavy chest and hear a sickening squish.

With a stumble you drop the waterbottles and in that instant your eye catches something red on your chest. You gasp and your gaze shoots up to find an equally red splot on a green shirt that you recognise as Hoseoks favorite, and his wide surprised eyes set in a sweaty face just above it.

You stare at him, unblinking, and he stares back just the same. His chest heaves up and down, red green fabric sticking to his skin. He had been running, if his state is anything to go by, hair damp and sticking up at odd angles, here and there strands glued to his temples and forehead, and pinkish red lips parted in a faint heart shape to draw enough breath.

Just as you are about to heave a sigh of relief, he holds up a large strawberry in front of your face, half of it being squished into a lump, and its then that you become aware of the scent of strawberries coming from your chest, noting how it must have been a handful that saw their demise when you crashed into him, or him into you.

Hoseok pouts and tilts his head ever so slightly to look at the fruit between his long fingers.

"It was in the shape of a heart.. biggest I could find too, aw.. I'm sorry honey, I'll go back and see if I can steal a better one."

Melting at his words, you throw your arms around his shoulders and hug him tightly, sighing deeply at the sweet gesture. Hoseok however makes the sound of disgust pushes you away, nose scrunched up at the sticky sweet strawberry jam that has both your shirts stuck together.

He closed his eyes for a moment, shutting out the bright ray of sunlight that had so suddenly invaded his train of thought. It stung in his eyes, and he realised the time spent studying was becoming too long, even for him.

Squeezing the bridge of his nose he sighed softly, looking up at the offending light piercing past deep purple curtains. Small particles danced in the sliver of light. Muted sounds crept past the fabric, becoming a strange erratic hum.

He tilted his head, sweeping back a strand of bright golden hair. Clever light blue eyes skittered in minute movements back and forth subconsciously as he listened to the tones. He recognised them as laughter, anger, disapproval, jealousy.. A plethora of tones, a plethora of emotions. They scrambled through one another and for a short moment, they were too much, too confusing to contain in his head.

Sliding his chair back he walked over to the curtain swiftly, closing it with a sharp tug. He knew that it was a futile attempt to shut the voices out, but it was the principle of the matter. They would fade away in the hurricane of thoughts if he couldn’t see them, if he couldn’t see the light that indicated the life outside his quarters.

Foolish, of course. People were always there, it didn’t matter if it was day or night.

Oh how he longed for the quiet sounds of the desert, the oppressing heat and blazing sun. A play where life would hardly exist, and what life there was, it was always hidden. Just his hands in the hot sand, the minute feeling of grains against his numb skin, the thrill of touching ancient magic through his veins. When the sand storms hit and grated his skin and burned his throat, he welcomed the sensations like a balm.

Closing his eyes he let himself drift off towards the sands down south. To the marred rocks that grew extremely potent lichen. The fields of white dunes between the regular sandy ones, a remnant of a long time ago when a giant skeleton of a beast had been eroded to become sand itself. The deep black inks given by the sap of the little succulents growing near the nests of the silithids. The sound of the waves crashing near his old abode, the sooty smell coming from it’s burned remains with the faint hint of blood and whiskey when the sun was strong enough to heat the old wood and release the scents of days long past.

He shut off the thought immediately. It was folly to long for something like that like a child depraved of a toy.

Nomine had burned it down in a moment of petty revenge for nothing. With it he robbed Hadravar from the place he called home, where he’d been in control in every way he desired. Where he could burn in any way he want, craft and destroy, satisfy his eternal curiosity, or deal with the demons moving around in his mind, the product of many years of hardship.

Bleak eyes moved to the array of small bottles standing on a desk nearby, glittering in yet another ray of disobedient sunlight. He blinked, surprised. 

Why the desert. Why now? He approached the bottles as if they held the answer to this question, as if they had whispered to him to follow his footsteps back to where he belonged. He peered at them for a long time.

The bottles sat silently, unmoving. Just one basked in the sliver of light, and his train of thought had halted his memory of its contents inside that one.

Turning to the curtain he realised it was not wide enough for both tasks. Wretched rented room.

Walking towards the other side of the curtain he twitched his fingers in habitual annoyance at his environment seemingly wanting to thwart him in all he did. But the vials needed protecting, discoloration already showing in the lit one, the result of the sunlight on the content, the white making way for grey.

Just before he ended the light reaching it, the bottles found the strain too much, rapidly shifting from a shimmering grey to an endless dark inside.

That instant he remembered and flung himself to the desk,snapping his hand forward to grab the bottle and releasing a surging stream of green flames from his shoulder over his arm to his fingers and into the glass. The chemical reaction seemed to halt for a moment before it slowly began to take on the green flame from the inside.

Hadravar retracted his hand from the bottle, watching it float into the air in front of him.

The bottle imploded without a sound, but with a smell that assaulted his nose and he turned his cheek slowly to avoid it. There was a sharp, short sound indicating the bottle had gone somewhere else than his current reality. He checked the floor to make sure, but he couldn’t find any shard of glass, nor any of the powder that had resided inside.

Waving a hand to waft the stench away from his room, somewhere deep in his mind hoping it wouldn’t reach the headmaster of the academy across the courtyard. Not that he couldn’t handle the ensuing chaos, but it would be such a drag to settle all their minds and thoughts.

A stray strand of blonde fell before his eyes.

He sighed deeply, resigned.

What a waste.

Hadravar repressed a shudder of artificial cold creeping through his bones. It was nothing new to his mind, and he knew already his eyes had shifted shades from their light grey to a vibrant mossy hue. He couldn’t face anyone now anyway, not that he wanted to in the first place.

He rubbed his bare arm, noting the hairs standing upright with goosebumps. He felt tired and weary. It wasn’t something that was supposed to happen, but the small surge of magic had done enough. Not that it was something he wasn’t experienced in, he certainly was, but to a far lesser extend than his other schools. As such, his limits with this had been much lower and he felt empty, depleted of the source. It had been months, by now. He contemplated taking an artificial dose of the magic himself from one of the other bottles in his study, showing their poisonous green content from a shelf far from his reach.

No.

He would not give in. Not yet..

Turning his head to the large windows of his study he peered at the bright sun trying to shine its way through the heavy velvet curtains.