still in bloom

.｡*ﾟ✩.*. — there wasn’t a single place jinhai could currently go and amuse himself to relieve the accursed boredom surfacing through his mind. advancing on his homework or being productive to advance his studies where on his list as he meandered through the halls of crocus, neither was seeking out a group of fellow peers who bring chaotic disaster everywhere they go is the way he wanted to spend his evening; yet, there must be someone he could go for well-needed company. an idea came to his head: to visit his one of his favorite teachers.

fortunately, jinhai did not get lost in his search for mister cha’s classroom, finding around the institute with unfamiliar ease as the former would always find himself astray from the paths he was required to take, having a severely poor sense of direction. regardless, the male wasn’t going to dwell on such a measly thought, arriving at the aforementioned male’s door and knocking on it three times to indicate his sudden and unannounced arrival, letting himself in only when he heard the other respond.

❝ unwilling scapegoat? i am more eager to try whatever you seem to be creating than reluctant, cha-xiansheng, ❞ jinhai returns the smile with his own polite one, emphasized by the keenness in his tone. ❝ it smells toasty. is this your first time making this kind of tea? ❞

one of the first rules introduced to him, when seojoon underwent the orientation session for the teaching assistants, was that they should refrain from harbouring favourites. magic thrives with encouragement, and teachers with unshakable bias often fail to give equal attention to students. 

seojoon knows this very well, and yet this was one of the first rules he broke during his rather short tenure. the fault lies in his disposition - he’s naturally inclined to be affectionate, and it blossoms further when someone returns it. he’s grown to be closer to the students who share similar energy as him, and jinhai’s one of the kids who seojoon tries to keep tabs on. he considers the boy his own, in an oddly familiar way. 

plus: the boy was equally passionate about the sacred art of brewing tea. 

“yes, so please set your expectations very low,” he warns with a slight smile, letting the tea stew for just a minute more. “i’m afraid i’ve never been able to quite master brewing as well as my mother.” he’s struck by a thought while pouring and he stops - literally one quarter way through the second cup - with a harried give me a second as he disappears into the cupboards. 

“it’s just as well you came in, really,” he beams, placing two amber stones in front of him. “i’ve been hoping to make calming stones, you know, to replace the calming draughts and. well. i haven’t quite been successful.” he lets out an embarrassed chuckle, fiddling with the smaller rock. “they’ve been making me fall asleep completely, rather than calm me. what do you think the problem is?”

──   ✧  jaejun popped a lolipop in his mouth, the cherry flavor tying him over for a late night. he needed to catch up on an assignment he might’ve accidentally slept through. he had an odd cycle of staying up studying or practicing and then occasionally napping in class. he made his way through the halls, steps a memorized pattern. he’d walked the direction many, many times. if there was one teacher, or rather teacher assistant he liked the most, seojoon would be it. it just so happened he needed to ask a question over alchemy. while jj would happily experiment … the school didn’t want him blowing up a room. boring.

knuckles rapped on the door. he shifted from foot to foot, unsure if the man was present. the answer came quickly, settling his thoughts. sucker pulled from his lips with a pop !    “  annyeonghaseyo, seojoon,  ”    he greeted with a small nod. boots stopped at the mention of a new recipe. surely, it couldn’t be bad, right ?    “  i – if i get sick. i’m telling my professors it’s your fault.  ”

seojoon stares hard at the student in front of him, half wondering whether he should have sealed the door shut before jaejun could have come in. he’d hardly ever do that to the boy, but it’s a thought he entertains nonetheless, just to rile him up further. “really? this is the thanks I receive? in return for single-handedly raising you?” 

it sometimes feels like seojoon has raised jaejun, but mostly because he spends a worrying portion of his spare time worrying over the boy. they share a lot in common, more than both of them are comfortable to speak about and it’s second nature for seojoon to harbour these little pockets of worry for people he cares about. 

“it’s not one of my more creative recipes,” he assures jaejun, now, sifting the mixture into two china cups. “this is actually my mother’s creation. we tried boiling the barley but it just...” he shrugs a little, trying to settle on a word, “disintegrated into nothing. a little disgusting. pressure cookers uphold the integrity of the grain better.” 

he slides one of the cups over to jaejun’s side, settling a bowl of brown sugar in between them. “so how bored were you that you ended up in my cabin?” he asks, trying to pretend he was nonchalant about asking the question. 

seojoon’s heart beat like crazy against his fingers, even with the lotion and rubber supposedly acting like a barrier inbetween them —his own heart perhaps as fibrillating, as agitated because of that contact, because of those words still lingering but still leaving him aching for a sentiment he wasn’t even sure he was worth feeling. let alone being the recipient of —that was just utterly impossible. a scam. a big fat lie just like all the alleged twists in a kdrama.

he liked seojoon, he dreamed of seojoon’s lips uttering words of eternal love and break curses to save his own soul, he dreamed of those dimples showing only for him because he said something dumb and seojoon was just laughing out loud, of lazy mornings and intense nights ending up with collarbones lined in dark gray marks and their names on each others’ lips. 

he dreamed too much for one who was a reject of both worlds, that’s the realization.

so at a distance that was ridiculously short he kept focusing on his work and his work alone, as if that could help his heart calm down a little —spoiler: resistance was futile—, the lips pursing and humming just while coated fingers would trace the lines of black and gray and black again, an unsurprising scenario despite what was going on being totally out of the ordinary. “ thank you. ” god, could he use some more words? he never had a problem running his mouth. why now. why with him. “ if you… want to see them, i can show you them now. it’s not a big deal. ” 

seojoon has been fascinated by tattoos since a very young age. his mother has one, a family symbol, she used to say, a majestic bird perched on flaming branches imprinted on the inside of her wrist. he would trace it whenever she let him, wide eyes taking in the delicate sketches that etched out the hawk. 

the fascination never quite left him, really. 

ahreum is a different sort of fascination, one that sets his heart singing, one that leaves his ears ringing, one that prompts him to ask please say my name, just once. he bites down the insane requests building inside of him and instead nods, his smile curving up more. 

“now’s great, yeah,” he nods, and he knows eloquence is usually his forte but it has deserted him completely at the moment. he doesn’t quite mind. if it makes ahreum fluster the way he’s doing right now, seojoon is willing to sound like a complete idiot any time of the day. “a l l of them, i’d love to see everything you’ll show me.” 

he waits for ahreum to finish before tugging him close by the hand, using the pretext of wanting to study the butterfly in detail. “where’re you hiding the rest, ahreum-sshi,” he asks softly, glances up and-- 

oh. he’s even more breath-taking this close, isn’t he?

just like his breath was something so light it could easily get mixed with cold airs whispering from the vents, his hands were cautious, soft despite the layer of rubber and water —his touch was the one of a person who knew what the hell needed to be done when it came to controlling a tattoo, and his focus never seemed to falter.

well, that was until seojoon’s voice reached his ear and he could feel himself at a halt —fingers barely trailing the ensemble he created on the other’s chest ( a symbol of unexpressed freedom ; the bird flying away from the egg, the smoothness of hydrangeas and lavender surrounding the picture like a cautious background ), his own cheeks so warm and perhaps of the same hue of pink he used for droplets of unseen color on the ink.

“ ah—— “

fuck.

he could swear his heart was running like crazy and his face throbbing in a redness he couldn’t even see, his eyes so wide and doey he’d rather look like portrait of a purity he felt like never having to begin with. seojoon’s face always looked like a sculpture from a god and every time he’d look at the chisel of the jaw and the way the dimples curved nearby those lips he could feel himself dying.  “ t—thank you. ”  to the compliment? to the backtrack? couldn’t tell.  his hands were moving on their own to continue the job and apply the lotion onto the tattoo, but his mind was everywhere.  “ i… think you only saw the one on my hand, right? the butterfly. ”

he wants to kiss the colour on ahreum’s cheeks. it’s a realisation that sinks into him the more he stares at it, the gentle ebb of pink that spreads across ahreum’s face. it takes him a while, to reach this stage where he’s able to admit he craves physical intimacy from another person but-- 

but here he is, a hair’s breadth away from the man he had mistook as an angel earlier. and he wants to kiss him.

it’s a very welcome realisation.

he’s sure ahreum has felt the erratic drumming of his heartbeat by now. it gives him an odd sense of courage, false perhaps, but one that coaxes him back to his earlier sitting position, one where he’s right at the edge of the seat, close enough to catch the slight tremble of ahreum’s bottom lip.

yeah, he does want to kiss him. definitely. a little a lot. 

“mm, i did, this one,” he hums, sudden nimble fingers ghosting on the butterfly perched on ahreum’s hand. “it’s pretty,” he echoes again, a broken tape record at this point. he’s long forgotten about the rain, forgotten why he’s had to stay put here in the first place.

“will you show me the rest?” 

theirs was a meeting one would hardly forget, and probably also insert in a comedy book as some sort of slice of life-esque skit meant to have people laugh at the amount of ridiculousness and social awkwardness a drunk magi and a tattoo artist could possibly bring. which was a lot. and it almost involved an ‘uwu’ tramp stamp.

he was kind of glad he didn’t go with that plan, somehow. god knows if things would be different.

“ okay, we should have one room free for that, so follow me. ” his hands had worked already in fixing the pile of sketches back into some semblance of order before stocking them aside with his pencils, hopping away from the reception desk to aim towards one of the open doors of the shop. they had several rooms so that artists on duty could be working at the same time, but it happened to have one room free from time to time. nonetheless, hygiene was important thus he had to wash his hand on the small sink nearby the door, wear a pair of silicon gloves, wash again everything with the gloves on before inching towards the other. “ take a seat and let me see how’s the healing going –you’ve been applying the lotions i gave you, right? ”

seojoon needs a few shots, right now. preferably, tequila. quick and easy and something that’d rile him up fast enough so he isn’t left alone in a room with ahreum, standing too close to him. 

seojoon needs to be drunk right now, but that is not a remote possibility. he unbuttons his shirt, just four buttons down, tries not shiver at the hiss of cold air brushing against his fledgling tattoo. 

ahreum is so close to him now, five, four, three inches away, and seojoon’s never been quite fond of poetry but god, he does feel like writing a verse worthy of the way the light catches on ahreum’s slight curve of his jawline.

“hi,” he whispers. half of his brain is acutely aware of the border of professionalism he’s trespassing, the other half turning into muffled cotton. i’m so sorry for acting like a fool last time, he wants to say. please let me make a better impression, he wants to say.

“you’re so pretty,” he breathes out instead. 

fuck. 

     ❝ well, you are at least a few good inches taller than me, aren’t you? ❞ yujin places his hands onto his hips with a playful huff–eyes narrowing and plush lips turning into a teasing frown. he can’t hold the expression for too long, though, as seojoon is soon stepping into his personal space and doing just what he asked. yujin reaches out to give his arm a soft, thankful squeeze. a nurturing touch that soon turns into a playful swat when the older male holds the vial up into the air and away from yujin’s small, waiting hands. ❝ fine, okay! i’ll make you some tea. ❞ with a roll of his eyes–that’s more loving than it is harsh–yujin turns towards the small stove. with practiced ease he moves the various pots and cauldrons aside in favor of grabbing the tea pot. ❝ just put it down over by the large book, will you? ❞

     a soft silence falls over them while yujin begins to steep the tea, but it’s far from uncomfortable. he quite liked seojoon’s presence, and it was all but a breath of fresh air when he found a wizard who had no qualms with him being a squib. sometimes yujin wondered if he hadn’t found joon if he would have been lucky enough to stumble across seojoon instead. he didn’t think he’d mind being the other man’s trainee at all. but the potion shop has already claimed his heart ( as did his mentor, but that was another story ). with a teasing look, yujin pours seojoon’s tea into a mug before sliding it over towards him. he leans against the counter and wraps his hands around his own, head nodding towards the bundle of flowers. 

     ❝ well i know you didn’t bring those for me. ❞ he all but sing-songs, smile child-like and playful. ❝ so who are they for? ❞

seojoon stumbled upon the shop and the lovely apprentice shuffling around in it on one of the warmer autumn afternoons, having been on a search for the infamous shop owner but ending up acquainted with yujin instead. he’s always preferred to keep to himself so to have someone like yujin - a friend - is a rather welcome blessing. 

and sometimes a pain, going by the look on yujin’s face which tells seojoon the teasing will not end till he answers. 

“no one in particular,” he stresses unnecessarily, even though him choosing peonies earlier had been strongly influenced by a particular memory. “if you’d like them though, for the shop-owner--” seojoon cuts off his words with a wry grin. “oh, a slip of tongue. the shop, of course. that’s what i meant.” 

he takes a long sip of the tea, hiding his smile behind the cup. “the tea’s lovely, by the way.” 

three sharp raps on his door pauses his pruning work effectively. perhaps he has spoken too soon? 

“come in, please,” he calls out, just as the pressure cooker keens in a final whistle, loudly insisting to be taken off the stove. “you’re just in time,” he smiles, “i’ve been meaning to try this barley tea recipe on an unwilling scapegoat.” 

keeping himself that calm was some kind of slow torture —for he could feel indeed the way his heart would flutter at the mere sight of that one person he knew he couldn’t have because of how complicated their kindred was making things to be ; he still could feel the fear nestling so close to his love for the fright of being abandoned was always much more real than reality itself.

thus he’d observe, draw along, in reverential silence. thus he’d just let that love of his grow like a wildflower in the hopes of it simply withering away on its own naturally —or rather deluding himself he could.

“ it’s——fine. ” his nose would scrunch, the small shoulders in a shrug and the unfnished portrait of the other to be hidden amongst other papers, rather getting his hands on a few sketches for some future ink. “ no, you aren’t. how’s the chest going? it should be healed nicely by now. ”

he had stumbled upon the place by complete accident, really, the first time around. he had been a little inebriated, a little too bold — and when he stepped into the shop, a little lovelost. ahreum was, is, beautiful in a way seojoon had only imagined flowers could be. 

like wild peonies in the dead of winter, a splash of colour against the unending sheet of white.

“that’s good,” he says softly, venturing closer into the shop. it’s an odd dance they’re both intertwined in, both moving closer to the center in calculated steps. they’ll have to meet eventually, he thinks. 

“my-uh-- yeah, my chest—” seojoon’s hand presses against the dull pain spreading through his chest, barely present now unless he focuses on it. “it’s, uh, it’s going? uh.” so much for his supposed infamous eloquence that his students point out repeatedly. he lets out a nervous laugh, chances a glance at the way ahreum is definitely quirking up an amused smile. 

“do you want to check?” 

he regrets it the moment he says it and he just stares blankly at the other, wondering when he’s going to get booted out of the shop.