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Chapter 9: This is rididculous!

Summary:

Hwanwoong tells Geonhak something shocking and continues to act weird.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Geonhak watches the small boy before he groans into his arms that were folded on the table between them. He is trying to process what his friend had told him earlier. It was a string of words that couldn't make sense to their sixteen, seventeen-year-old self. It can make sense but it sounds incredibly wrong.

"Are- are you sure?" Geonhak asks again, for the fourth time. From the distance, he could hear a familiar shrill voice, Geonhak assumed, yelling at a student playing too close to a certain flowerbed in the middle of their school. Geonhak feels his hair stand on end. Hwanwoong whines.

Hwanwoong jumps close to him, grabbing his hand and places it on his chest. "Hyung, feel my heart. It's so loud and fast and I get jelly knees hearing it."

Geonhak could feel it, in fact, it is as fast as his own heartbeat at the moment. He wonders if it is Hwanwoong's heart or his. But these hearts are hammering for different reasons, according to Hwanwoong. Geonhak asks if Hwanwoong is mistaking terror for whatever he is feeling right now.

"Her voice sounds so sweet, hyung," Hwanwoong says, sending shivers down Geonhak's spine. He grimaces and yells to stop Hwanwoong from continuing his words.

"Yeo Hwanwoong, Mrs Lee just tore your diary yesterday because you forgot to put it away during her class." Geonhak pulls his hand away. "You were cursing her so much,  I thought you were manifesting her to divorce her husband."

"Ah, it might be wise to manifest that."

Geonhak slaps Hwanwoong on the cheek, carefully to only get him to snap out of it but not enough to hurt him. Hwanwoong thanked him for that.

"Hyung, I think I'm in love with that crazy gardening teacher, Mrs Lee," Hwanwoong finally told him after moaning and groaning, almost like fighting his inner self but on the outside, as he sat Geonhak down after break time.

Geonhak shudders at the memory that happened not ten minutes ago. Hwanwoong told him he had suddenly thought the scariest teacher in school attractive. The teacher who is obsessed with her flowerbeds around school, the teacher whose voice would trigger your fight or flight response. It seems like Hwanwoong is still somewhat aware that he is losing it as if he's only partially hypnotized. Hypnotized? It does seem like it, but what are the chances? Hwanwoong was still normal yesterday. While normal is subjective, not having a crush on Mrs Lee is definitely the norm.

"This is freaking me out," Hwanwoong whines. He paused, looking unsure. "I'm gay."

Um.

"Okay," Geonhak says, trying his best to sound calm. This might be one of Hwanwoong's biggest moment, but is he sure he wants to tell Geonhak, of all people, right here, right now, in a panic. "That's good-"

"Since I was four, hyung. I've never fallen for a woman. I don't know how to!" Hwanwoong's voice started to sound like a scream, like a man possessed. Geonhak quickly catches Hwanwoong, covering his mouth and dragging him away from the other students. Geonhak scolds Hwanwoong for being insensitive to his surroundings and a bit too loud. Hwanwoong tells him that he will have a class with Mrs Lee after the break and he is terrified of what he might do because this is Mrs Lee they are talking about. He could truly end up in trouble if he does something inappropriate.

"Calm down, Yeo Hwanwoong," Geonhak shakes the smaller boy. "It's a crush, right? How do you handle that?"

Hwanwoong's eyes widen as if he is hit by an epiphany. He lets out an excited breathless cheer, right the second the bell rings. "Geonhak-hyung, this is why I trust you to be my voice of reasons." He pecks Geonhak on the cheek and runs back to class, leaving Geonhak in shock.

I'm your what now? Since when?  Also, are you...

 

When school ends, Geonhak has to walk home with Hwanwoong clinging to his back underneath his blazer. "Hwanwoong, this won't help with your case at all."

"Shut up, hyung," the smaller boy instructs him to ignore him and walk home. While everyone is looking at them, Geonhak tries to stifle a burst of laughter. Hwanwoong did not keep his cool at all and ended up uprooting the flowers from Mrs Lee's beloved flowerbed in an attempt to give them to her. Luckily, or unluckily, in this case, Hwanwoong's house is just around the corner of the school. Geonhak is forced to walk up to Hwanwoong's room, only that would make the younger boy release him. Geonhak could see Hwanwoong's swollen eyes and feel the warm wet patches on his back. Geonhak presses his lips into a line in order to hold another laughter bubbling up his chest. Hwanwoong frowns at that expression and dramatically throws himself on his bed, burying his face into the pillows. "Laugh all you want, hyung. I'm going to beg my parents to transfer me out of that school tomorrow. This is going to be the last time you see me."

"Hwanwoong ah," Geonhak plops down on the bed next to Hwanwoong and pats his butt. "Too dramatic. It's just a fever hallucination. You should have just rested at home. Why do you insist on going to school?"

Hwanwoong hums and whines that Geonhak would not understand since he doesn't take school seriously as Hwanwoong does. That earns him playful spanks from the older boy. Geonhak stands up and gives the back of Hwanwoong's head one last rub. "Alright, rest well, Hwanwoong. Take tomorrow off too."

"Like I have a choice."

Geonhak leaves Hwanwoong's house after telling the gist of the story to Hwanwoong's mother. He takes the route he usually does to get home but stops just between the gates of two houses that has an alleyway small enough to fit only one person. He follows the path in the alleyway which opens up into an area different from the neighbourhood he was just in. Geonhak walks to the lone, small, old-looking establishment, a tea house and enters it. He sees the back of a familiar-looking man, dressed in red hanbok with small details that Geonhak doesn't really care enough to note. Geonhak pulls out a glass vial from his blazer pocket, which looks like a bottle of perfume, complete with an atomizer. Inside the vial is a shiny red liquid floating around in shiny yellow liquid that would shift around to form yellow dots within the fragments of red like stars in patches of what looks like red skies. Geonhak puts it on the counter, almost too fast that his hand bangs on the counter, attracting the attention of the man.

"My my, I presume something had happened?" The man, known as the owner, looks at Geonhak with his cat-like eyes and smile.

"It went horribly wrong," Geonhak says, angrily.

"Oh my, that is unfortunate. But it did work?" The owner says, in a sly tone. "Now, do you still believe that magic does not exist?"

Geonhak bites his tongue. He remembered a few days prior when he was lead to the shop by sheer curiousity of finding the alleyway that he know was not there before. While it was awkward for him to step into a place he had never been to, alone at that, he braced himself and entered it. He met the owner, Youngjo and his fox-like companion or assistant, Seoho. They got into a slight disagreement when Youngjo talks about magic. Geonhak was never one to believe in things like it, while he's not that up to date with science and technological advances, Geonhak is the type to just live and believe in what he can see. Youngjo decided to produce something to help with what he thinks was Geonhak's deepest desire and that was the vial and its content.

It was one thing to admit that Youngjo might be right, it is another to admit that he had actually used the love potion on his own best friend, causing the friend to suffer and be miserable as it went the wrong way. Geonhak decided to not say a word and let Youngjo assumed with whatever expression he had on his face. He sees the older man's sly smile, yet saying nothing, as if waiting for the magic words to come out of his mouth. 

Geonhak pulls out a small ziplock bag from another blazer pocket. It contains an earring of a darker coloured metal. It's thin and barely looking like anything, but it is in a shape of a feather. Geonhak produces it from the bag. Youngjo's eyes widen as he understands what Geonhak is trying to do. Youngjo and Seoho had told him that they can grant wishes with a price. Seoho had added that it doesn't have to be expensive but just enough to be an important thing to the wish maker.

Geonhak gives the earring one last look, his cherished item. It was given to him by Hwanwoong when he told him he was going to get his ears pierced. Hwanwoong is in the student council so it was only natural for him to be against Geonhak as it would get the older boy in trouble at school, yet he said nothing and gifted him the earring one day, a few days before getting it done. It might be nothing to others, even Hwanwoong himself, yet to Geonhak, it meant a lot.

Youngjo holds out his hand, palm facing up. "Only drop that item when you are sure about your wish and make sure it doesn't have unwanted consequences or downside because once it's done, there is no turning back," he repeated the words he had said to Geonhak that day.

Geonhak takes a deep breath, focusing on only the wish he had. He drops the earring on Youngjo's hand.

Thank you for believing in us. 

Notes:

I think I've seen it in an anime before, or perhaps in a few animes.