Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A death in springtime is never a good sign.

The small hanok in the forest looks as though it’s been dressed for a wedding, not a funeral. White silk banners, neat rows of white chrysanthemums—everything painfully immaculate.

But the air inside is so heavy with incense that even the breeze refuses to come in. The smoke sits thick and low, coiling around the mourners, bathing everything and everyone in a thin layer of rot beneath the sweetness.

There’s something almost wrong about dying now, when the earth is trying its best to start over. When buds push through soil, and the birds return to sing their songs after the long winter.

Death in spring feels like a mockery.

Seokjin kneels stiffly on his cushion near the back of the room, the hem of his hanbok brushing against the cool lacquered floor.

His knees ache already, and the smoke has begun to sting the corners of his eyes, but he keeps his face perfectly neutral. Hands folded loosely in his lap, expression arranged into something between respectful acknowledgment and mild boredom.

From where he sits, the room stretches like a fever dream: white on white, punctuated only by the faint glint of copper candleholders and the dull gleam of ceremonial bowls. The body lies in the centre beneath layers of silk, completely still, almost artfully posed. Around it, the coven members bow and weep, clutching at each other’s sleeves.

Seokjin watches them for a long moment and wonders if he’s the only one who notices how performative all of this feels.

He’s attended enough funerals to know what genuine mourning looks like—messy and uncontainable. This isn’t that. This is almost painfully choreographed.

Just an act.

He’s about to look away when something catches his attention among the endless white blooms. Hidden in the sea of chrysanthemums, almost swallowed by their heavy petals, a single white mugunghwa peeks through, almost shyly.

His heart gives a small, private jolt.

Ah. So that’s how it is.

He almost smiles, catches himself in time.

Composure—always. The last thing he needs is anyone noticing that he’s noticed.

A voice at his side breaks through his thoughts. “Didn’t think I’d see you here, hyung.”

Seokjin doesn’t startle but rolls his eyes before turning his head just enough to catch the sage beside him out of the corner of his eye.

“Oh?” he murmurs. “And why wouldn’t I be here, Namjoon-ah?”

The younger man’s lips curve knowingly as he leans closer to whisper.

“Plenty of reasons. You don’t belong to this coven, for one.”

Seokjin hums, noncommittal. “I’m just paying my respects.”

“Sure, let’s call it that.” The sage chuckles folding his arms, and turns back to face the front.

They fall silent again, the sound of the chant rising and falling around them like waves.

Death, Seokjin muses, has never particularly moved him.

It isn’t that he’s callous—it’s just that after a few hundred years of watching powerful beings crumble into dust, sentimentality just doesn’t feel as intense anymore.

Witches aren’t meant to die easily anyway. They stretch across centuries, bending around time like stubborn weeds. And when one of them finally does fall, it feels less like a tragedy and more like a crack in the order of things, a reminder that even eternity has weak spots.

This one, though—this death—feels different.

When a coven head who’s lived for centuries and shown no sign of decay simply doesn’t wake up one morning—well. That’s not ordinary.

It’s curious. And concerning.

“Have they chosen a successor yet?” Namjoon asks under his breath, eyes tracking the movement of a white-robed witch entering from the far end of the hall, carrying a deep bronze bowl with a live flame flickering in it. The fire casts brief, restless glows across the mourners’ faces, making them look less human by the second.

“No,” Seokjin murmurs. “They’ll drag it out for a year, at least.”

“Of course,” Namjoon huffs under his breath. “Can’t rush indoctrination.”

He earns an elbow to the ribs for that.

The Coven of Light—Seokjin still can’t say the name without it leaving a bad taste on his tongue. They’ve spent the last few centuries convincing themselves that isolation is purity, that cutting themselves off from every other branch of witchcraft somehow makes them closer to their so-called divine.

They’ve built this entire identity on denial: no practical magic of any kind is permitted. Just endless prayer and self-flagellation, disguised as enlightenment.

Seokjin almost laughed when the letter appeared in his mail drawer. Would have ignored the invitation to the funeral altogether if curiosity hadn’t been stronger than pride.

Now, watching their ritual unfold, he wonders if that had been a mistake.

At the front, the lead mourner lifts the bronze bowl high, voice trembling with practiced reverence.

“Lee Yoona, our beloved leader, our mother not through birth but through the rightful path. We mourn you, we ache for you, we—”

Seokjin tunes the rest out, gaze drifting back to the mugunghwa. He can’t help thinking about how specific that spell is—how personal the choice in flower.

How it will refuse to bloom unless the magic comes from genuine intent.

Mugunghwa. The simplest of flowers. A symbol of resilience.

The air shifts. A collective inhale moves through the crowd. The bronze bowl tips forward and the flame pours out like liquid light.

“You become one with the Light today!”

“No darkness remains!” The coven echoes in unison.

The fire catches neatly, spreading over the shrouded body without smoke or sound. Three witches throw themselves upon the pyre, robes flaring as the magic swells around them. Gasps and shocked murmurs ripple from the mourners—Seokjin merely pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Ground grave soil and powdered obsidian,” he mutters. “Amateurs.” A cheap trick they most likely got from a random goblin.

Namjoon’s shoulders shake with quiet laughter beside him.

When it’s over, the body is gone, reduced to a mound of grey ash. The coven falls upon it like the devout at a relic, pressing their fingers into the ashes, marking their foreheads, smearing the grief into their skin.

The performance is nearing its end.

“Let’s go before they start eating the ashes,” Namjoon murmurs, rising to his feet.

Seokjin nods faintly, also getting up to escape—only to stop when a small figure steps into his path.

A girl, barely into her teens, hood drawn low, skin pale and translucent as candle wax. She looks up at him with glassy eyes and an expression so vacant—it almost makes Seokjin look away from how familiar it looks.

“Renowned shopkeeper,” she says softly, voice flat and strangely formal. “Will you not stay for the mourning meal?”

Seokjin glances past her, to the front of the room where the ashes are being gathered into an ornate urn by trembling hands. The three witches who handled the body are still crying, streaks of soot running down their faces.

There it is again—the wreath with the mugunghwa. A second bloom now unfurls beside the first.

A spell he created centuries ago. One he only ever taught to a single witch.

A witch who’s probably elbows-deep in garden soil right now, coaxing herbs to life behind the shop. A witch who once had that same vacant look.

Seokjin smiles faintly.

“I’m afraid I can’t,” he says finally, keeping his tone mild. “I have matters waiting elsewhere.”

Important matters, like burning these clothes and washing this stench out of his hair.

The girl blinks twice, nods, and drifts away into the white-clad crowd. Seokjin watches her disappear into the crowd before turning on his heel and stepping through the open doors into the cool spring air.

Namjoon waits by the steps, gaze distant as he looks towards the half-barren treeline. The pipe he always carries is balanced delicately between his fingers and the faint ribbon of silver smoke rising from it smells cleaner than the entire coven combined.

“I thought I was gonna have to bail you out.”

Seokjin hums, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeve. “I thought you stopped smoking.”

Namjoon laughs quietly, already hopping down the steps.

“Habits die hard. Walk and talk?”

“Walk and talk.” Seokjin sighs and falls into step with the sage.

They walk without speaking for a long time.

The further they move from the hanok, the lighter the air becomes—less cloying incense, more forest. The wind finds its way back to them at last, cool and damp with the scent of thawing earth. Underfoot, the ground is soft, soaked from snowmelt, giving slightly with every step. Seokjin can almost feel the weight of the ceremony sloughing off his shoulders, replaced by the gentler hum of the living woods.

“So,” he says eventually, once the coven is far enough behind them, “tell me. What of the werewolf?”

Beside him, Namjoon hums around the mouthpiece of his pipe thoughtfully before exhaling a slow tendril of smoke that curls into the sparse canopy of trees above them.

“I think I’m wearing him down.”

That think does nothing to inspire confidence. Seokjin cuts him a side glance, unimpressed.

“Why is it taking so long?”

Namjoon only chuckles quietly. He slows his pace, stopping altogether by a crooked oak. “He’s stubborn,” he says finally, dragging his fingertips along the dark grain of the trunk. “And proud.”

He turns back toward Seokjin, pipe balanced neatly between his fingers. “He’ll come around. I have my methods.”

That earns him a soft snort. “As long as they work. We need him.”

They start walking again, unhurried. The path winds gently downhill, the moss growing thicker, the air tasting greener.

The forest beneath their feet is waking from its winter slumber—alive in a way that feels almost tangible, a quiet thrumming just below the soil. Power stirs in the roots, wild and unkempt, older than the useless coven foolish enough to claim dominion over it.

He glances sideways at the sage, eyes lingering on his bare feet, half-covered in dirt and patches of early moss.

Sages. Immortal hippies. For all their wisdom, they never quite outgrow the performance of asceticism. He can already picture the state of Namjoon’s floors, streaked with mud.

He’s still halfway through that thought when the sage breaks the silence again, voice lower this time, a little hesitant.

“How’s Jimin?”

The question stills him mid-step.

“What about Jimin?”

“How’s he holding up?”

Ah. The death.

Seokjin resumes walking before he answers. “He’s fine.”

The answer lands too quickly, too flat. Behind him, Namjoon clicks his tongue against his teeth.

“Is he really? Hyung, you know what they did to him—”

“He’s fine.” Sharper this time, enough to cut the sentence short.

He could tell him, if he wanted.

He could talk about the way the shop had gone quiet the morning the news arrived, how even the plants in the shop seemed to sense something foul in the air—stems drooping, petals curling. He could tell him how Jimin had stood behind the counter, expression unreadable except for the faint tremor in his hands, the soft catch in his throat when he’d finally asked who it was.

He could describe the hours after, the silence so thick it had felt like a pressure against the chest, and then the strange, breathless calm that had followed—like something uncoiling at last, releasing its grip once the young witch came to terms that a monster from his past simply no longer existed.

But those things don’t belong to him.

If Namjoon wants to know, he can haul his ass down from his mountain and ask Jimin himself.

“Really,” Seokjin says, for finality this time. “Everything’s fine.”

Namjoon doesn’t push further. They keep walking, the rhythm of their footsteps syncing again.

The forest opens ahead into a clearing, the sunlight pale and fractured through the branches. In the centre, the light bends unnaturally, rippling faintly like heat over stone.

Seokjin exhales through his nose, the first hint of relief slipping through. “Thank fuck. Portal’s still open.”

He’s been craving the familiar scent of his own space—the warmth of candlewax, the low hum of the wards, the little random noises the shop made. A bath. A meal. Maybe even an episode of that ridiculous mortal show Jimin keeps binging into the early hours of the morning.

Anything to wash this day from his mind.

“Before you go,” Namjoon says suddenly, hand disappearing into the sleeve of his robe. He produces a small envelope, the wax seal dark and plain. “From Yoongi.”

Seokjin takes it, turns it over in his hands. “He really needs to learn how to use Kakao chat. I’ve told him it’s more efficient.”

Namjoon smiles faintly around his pipe. “He says it’s safer.”

“Of course he does.”

“Apparently,” the sage adds, tapping out the last of the ash from the pipe-bowl, “the Bureau’s stirring.”

Seokjin’s head snaps toward him. “The Bureau?”

Namjoon nods, gaze flicking toward the letter now tucked into Seokjin’s sleeve. “Read it later. Too many ears on the wind.”

Seokjin frowns but lets it go. The sage is right. You never know who’s listening or watching these days.

He presses his lips together and offers a single, wordless nod.

They reach the clearing’s edge, where the air begins to shimmer. The portal stands open between two gnarled roots, its surface rippling faintly like water caught in sunlight.

“Hyung.”

Seokjin turns, finding Namjoon watching him with that same quiet seriousness that never seems to leave his face.

“I keep asking,” the sage says, rubbing the back of his neck, “but… are you sure this is going to work?”

They’ve known each other for what—a hundred years? More? And still he finds a way to question him.

“The cards don’t lie, Namjoon-ah.”

The sage hesitates. “But—”

“My cards don’t lie.”

That’s the end of it. Namjoon exhales slowly, shoulders easing, the edge of a smile tugging at his mouth.

“Then I trust you.”

Before Seokjin can reply, the man’s form shimmers at the edges, breaking apart like mist in sunlight until there’s nothing left but a faint scent of burnt leaves and a pair of muddy footprints in the moss.

Seokjin blinks at the empty space, sighs through his nose.

“Fucking sages,” he mutters. “Always with the theatrics.”

He adjusts his robe, steps closer to the warped light, and tips backward into the waiting shimmer. The forest folds inward with a sound like a breath being drawn, and the cursed place finally blurs away.

⋆˚₊ 𖤓☽˚.⋆

The world steadies around Seokjin with a rush of warmth and a soft crack of displaced air.

He blinks rapidly, and the dim light of the shop comes back into focus—the familiar rows of glass jars, the lazy tilt of the ceiling fan, the faint shimmer of protective wards humming through the air.

Evening has already settled outside. Through the windows, the sky has gone a bruised blue, and rain clouds are gathering low above the shop. It will rain hard tonight, better make sure the windows are closed.

Home. Finally.

He exhales and stretches his shoulders, but the jump through the portal still leaves a static sting along his skin, a reminder that he really needs to fix the damn thing—maybe add a stabilizing rune, or a time anchor. It’s been lagging more and more lately, and the last thing he needs is to come out of it with half his limbs in another dimension.

He’s still considering when a quiet sound pulls his attention forward: the soft, steady rhythm of someone breathing.

He looks toward the counter and finds his apprentice slumped across it, fast asleep.

Jimin’s silver hair is a wreck—clumped from sweat, sticking up in odd directions, catching the candlelight in pale streaks. His cheek is smooshed flat against a stack of half-written notes, one arm dangling off the counter, the other tucked beneath his chin. His hands are caked in dried soil.

Seokjin just stands there for a moment, looking at him.

It’s ridiculous, really, how fond he’s become of this little disaster.

Four years ago, he had been sworn off apprentices entirely for over a century—too much trouble, too many chances of getting stabbed in the back. Yet here he is, watching one sleep-drool on expensive enchanted parchment, and his first thought is that the kid needs a haircut.

He breathes out through his nose. He’s going to get a neck cramp like that.

Then the smell of his clothes wafts up to his nose—thick, stale incense from that ghastly coven, clinging to his hanbok like a damn curse.

He grimaces. Absolutely not.

Within seconds he’s peeling off the outer layer of silk, then the under-robe, muttering curses under his breath. When he’s done, he’s left standing in nothing but boxers and socks, hair sticking to his forehead, glaring at the heap of fabric.

He snaps his fingers once, and the fireplace flares obediently to life. With a theatrical flick of his wrist, he tosses the offending garments into the flames. They catch instantly, burning blue at the edges.

The sudden burst of light stirs movement behind the counter.

Jimin groans, voice thick with sleep, and lifts his head slowly—eyes half-lidded, hair sticking up worse than ever. He blinks blearily toward the fire, then toward Seokjin.

“Why the fuck are you almost naked?” he rasps.

Seokjin raises a hand and flashes him a peace sign, cocking his hip to the side. “Laundry day.”

Jimin stares at him for a beat, unimpressed, then drags a dirt-smeared hand down his face. The smear doubles across his cheek.

“You reek of that place,” he mutters, wrinkling his nose and pushing himself upright.

Seokjin hums, entirely unbothered and pads closer to the counter to peer down at the mess of papers, eyes scanning Jimin’s scribbles.

“You missed a stroke here,” he murmurs, reaching over to correct a symbol with one finger.

Jimin glares back weakly.

“I was testing the alignment, geez.”

“Mhm.”

He can’t help the fond smile that tugs at his lips. Jimin’s grumpiness is almost comforting—proof that whatever shadow the day cast over them hasn’t settled too deeply.

As the younger witch begins tidying, Seokjin leans on the counter, chin propped in his palm, watching him move about the shelves—the neat efficiency, the way he mutters ingredients under his breath like a chant. Dirt flakes from his hands as he gathers dried herbs and bottles, setting them down on the counter with soft clinks.

They talk idly about the funeral as Jimin works. Nothing heavy, nothing detailed. Just observations—too much white, too many dramatics, too much noise. Jimin snorts in agreement, reaching for the last bundle of chamomile.

“Did anyone…” he hesitates, eyes still on the herbs. “Did anyone ask about me?”

Seokjin stills.

Four years. Four years since he’d taken the boy in, ripped the rot from his mind and taught him to live his truth, to wield magic as intended. Four years of watching him rebuild piece by piece.

And still, sometimes, the past slips out like an old wound reopening.

“No,” Seokjin answers quietly.

Jimin’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t look up. Just nods once mutely, avoiding looking the older witch in the eye.

The silence stretches thin as he grinds the herbs together, movements careful and gentle. But the faint tremor in his hands tells Seokjin more than words ever could.

When the mixture is done, Jimin slides the mortar across the counter without a word.

Seokjin takes it, inhales deeply. The scent melts the tension from his shoulders almost instantly—chamomile for calm, a trace of clove for his aching joints, lemon balm to cleanse, and a whisper of osmanthus—stocked straight from the tree outside of the shop.

Home, bottled in scent.

He smirks faintly. “Wah, Jimin. I taught you well.”

Jimin only hums, busying himself with rearranging jars that don’t even need rearranging, the tips of his red ears betraying how he really feels.

“I’ll go take a bath,” Seokjin says, gentling his tone. “You start dinner.”

That earns him a flat, unimpressed look over one shoulder.

He clicks his tongue. “Fine. I’ll take a bath, you open the wine, and I’ll make dinner. Deal? Then we can watch that terrible show of yours.”

Jimin’s mouth twitches. “Really?”

“I’m a witch of my word, Jimin-ah. What’s it called again? Love Land?”

“Love Island,” Jimin corrects, but he’s fully grinning now, cheeks bunched up and eyes slanted into those signature crescent moons.

“Yah, such a brat.” Seokjin grumbles, but there’s no heat behind it. Jimin has never inspired anything but fondness in his person—it’s kind of scary.

Satisfied, the older witch pats the counter twice and starts toward the stairs. Halfway up, he pauses, frowning.

Something gnaws at the back of his mind—a small, crucial detail he’s forgotten.

Then it hits him.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he mutters.

He burned Yoongi’s fucking letter.

Chapter Text

He’s halfway through huffing out the chorus of some old rock song under his breath—something cheesy about running with the devil—when an icy gust cuts through the trees and knocks one of his earbuds loose. It dangles uselessly against his chest as he ducks on instinct, nearly tripping over himself.

The fucking ghost misses him by inches.

“Jesus fuck,” Jungkook mutters, clutching the slab of gravestone tighter to his chest.

Jeon Jungkook really—really—fucking hates his life sometimes.

Right now he’s ankle-deep in mud, half-frozen, and sprinting through a haunted forest with a ten-kilo piece of cursed rock. The sweat on his skin is already going cold in the early-spring wind and every breath feels like he’s inhaling knives.

Behind him, the ghost shrieks again and Jungkook vaults a low branch, landing hard enough to jolt pain through his knees.

He’s been running around the perimeter of this damned forest for five hours straight. Not exactly something he’d willingly choose to do on a Friday night.

He could be somewhere—anywhere—else. Preferably on a deserted highway in the middle of Arizona. Nothing but wind in his hair, the engine of his motorcycle screaming under him, and infinite choices.

But no. He happens to be here. In ancient, haunted fucking Korea. In the woods. Running for his goddamn life to fulfil a whim of a witch.

Fuck Kim Seokjin. Just thinking about the man makes Jungkook grit his teeth.

He doesn’t know what’s worse—the fact that the guy calls himself a “shopkeeper” like he’s running a corner store instead of some eldritch hell-hole, or that everyone seems to worship the ground he walks on.

“Only The Moon and Kim Seokjin can solve anything,”—used to be the popular saying when he was growing up.

Yeah, well, the moon hadn’t fixed shit for him. So far, option two doesn’t seem very promising either.

He ducks another branch, mud splattering up his jeans. The ghost screeches, closer this time, that dead-cold air aiming for his neck.

He hates ghosts. Hates the way they sound, the way they linger, the way they refuse to mind their own dead business. He’d rather deal with a goblin, honestly. At least those little fuckers want something tangible—food, chaos, shiny buttons. Ghosts just wail and ruin the mood.

“Transparent dickhead!” he yells over his shoulder, taking a sharp turn.

He can’t help the wild laugh from bubbling up. He must look insane. Covered in mud and sweating buckets, throwing insults at a centuries-old apparition.

Maybe he is insane. Has to be. Kind of. After all, what kind of self-respecting werewolf takes errands from a witch?

Oh right. The useless kind that can’t shift.

Even burning from exertion, his lungs manage to squeeze a little from the thought.

Years after leaving Busan, the word alpha still sits in his gut like a bad meal.

Presented at sixteen, failed by eighteen, exiled by twenty-two. No family, no pack, not a single tangible thing to his name. Just a half-formed wolf rattling in his ribs like a shameful secret.

Funny things they are—rumours. No matter how far you leave them behind, no matter in what seedy corner of the world you are—they always seemed to dig you up. Always.

Jungkook left. Packed his shit, got a one-way ticket to the States and ran. What else was left there for something like him?

A bunch of branches snap behind him. Jungkook doesn’t look back—just pumps his legs harder.

The gravestone’s weight drags against his arms, the engraved symbols biting into his palms. Seokjin had told him—very specifically—that he needed this particular piece of a gravesite, from a particular shaman that died in disgrace.

That should’ve been his first red flag. The second was the way Seokjin had told him not to leave the forest until daybreak.

He really needs to learn to clarify all of the details before agreeing to play errand-boy.

Another angry scream splits the air, followed by a blast of freezing wind that sends him sprawling sideways with a gasp. His shoulder hits the dirt first, then his hip. The gravestone lands squarely on his stomach with a thud that knocks the rest of the air out of him.

“Fucking—ow—”

Before he can scramble up, something cold and wet coils around his ankle. Jungkook kicks out, but it’s like trying to fight fog. The thing yanks, dragging him backwards through the mud, his palms clawing uselessly at the earth.

He grabs onto a tree root, cursing through clenched teeth, muscles straining as he tries to pull free.

“Let me go, you fucking—decrepit glow-stick!”

The ghost answers with another banshee wail and tightens its grip, the cold biting through denim, straight into skin. Jungkook’s vision sparks white for a second.

“This is so fucking stupid,” he growls through the pain, grabbing the nearest object—unfortunately, it’s the damn gravestone—and swings.

Somehow, the rock connects with something intangible but very sensitive, judging by the deeply offended screech that follows.

“Yeah, that’s what you get,” he spits, jerking free.

And then he’s running. Again. Mud, roots, low branches, the whole nightmare looping for the thousandth time that night.

Jungkook skids down a muddy slope and squints when his eyes catch on a familiar sight—through the gaps in the trees, a faint grey light is starting to bleed into the sky.

Dawn.

“Come on, come on, come on—”

He bursts into the clearing at the exact second it decides to show up—one thin blade of sunlight slipping through the canopy.

The ghost lunges with perfect, hateful timing. Its claws rake down his back before the light fully hits—four searing lines that rip the breath from his lungs. Jungkook stumbles forward with a strangled curse, crashing sideways onto the damp grass, still clutching the stupid piece of gravestone in the crook of his elbow.

Panting and shaking, he manages to roll halfway onto his side to face his pursuer.

The shamans transparent form hovers a few steps back, frozen at the edge of the shadowy treeline, glaring at him with those black, beady eyes.

Jungkook grunts and raises his arm to give the ghost the slowest, weakest middle finger ever delivered in supernatural history—crooked wrist, shaking elbow, finger barely lifting past a sad forty-five degrees.

“Yeah,” he rasps, “fuck you too.”

The ghost’s expression contorts with rage—just as the daylight shifts. A tiny fraction, but it’s just enough.

Jungkook grins weakly when the fucker lets out one last furious screech before the edges of its form begin to peel away, unravelling like burned film. Piece by piece, it dissolves into the growing light.

Then it’s gone.

He slumps fully onto his stomach, chest heaving, forehead pressed against the cool gravestone. He can’t stop shaking and his whole back feels like it’s been set on fire. He’s pretty sure there’s—yep, that’s dirt in his mouth.

“Fuck me.”

After a few deep breaths, Jungkook manages to fish his phone out of his jacket pocket. He fumbles with the screen for a second before hitting the call button on his most recent contact.

The line barely rings before it’s picked up.

“What?”

“Got the rock,” Jungkook grunts.

“Oh, fantastic!” Seokjin’s voice brightens instantly. “How was the old man? Still got that ridiculous ponytail?”

Jungkook tunes him out, trying to stand, but the moment he does, white-hot pain shoots up his spine. He can’t even stop the pathetic whimper from escaping him.

There’s a pause on the other end.

“...Kid? You good?”

“Back,” Jungkook manages through gritted teeth. “Bleeding.”

“Oh for the love of—don’t move.”

Jungkook opens his mouth to respond, but the ground underneath him starts sinking in. The grass ripples, and that goddamn portal feeling starts—like his stomach is being dragged through a keyhole.

“Oh no,” he groans. “Not a fucking—”

And he’s falling.

⋆˚₊ 𖤓☽˚.⋆

Portals are probably the fastest way of transportation known to the supernatural kind. And like most things relating to witchcraft—Jungkook fucking hates them. Honestly? It feels like being chewed up and spat out by a cosmic garbage disposal.

He’d rather walk everywhere for the rest of his life.

WHUMP

He lands on something soft face-first. Couch?

The impact knocks a grunt out of him, but his body doesn’t seem to respond. His limbs feel cemented into place, like someone poured wet concrete over him.

He tries to lift a hand, a finger, anything—nothing wants to move.

Mildly concerning.

A slow, creeping panic rattles through him, but even that feels far away—buried under the same thing paralyzing his body.

Jungkook takes a deep breath, hoping that at least one of his senses still worked.

The scent he inhales seems both oddly familiar and strange at the same time.

Sharp and earthy—herbs and plants that he can’t even name—layered with an undercurrent of rich smoke. A fire, maybe? Incense? Beneath all of that, there’s a faint sweetness sticking to the edges, like fruit ripening in the summer sun.

Definitely magical. Definitely not a places he’s ever been to before.

The couch beneath him creaks as it adjusts to his dead weight. Somewhere above him, something glass clinks softly like a wind chime. The whole room feels like it’s humming, soaked to the brim with magic.

Yeah. Witch territory.

He’s definitely on Seokjin’s turf. Fantastic.

“Wow,” a familiar voice mocks somewhere above his ear. “You look like you picked a fight with a combine harvester.”

Jungkook has a few choice words lined up in response, starting with “go fuck yourself”, followed by “you owe me double”. But his tongue stays glued to the roof of his mouth, utterly useless.

Fuck.

He survived that damn forest only to become an unresponsive sack of rice in front of the most irritating witch alive.

He feels movement—soft steps padding closer. A shadow shifts over him and Seokjin’s magic brushes the air—that strange, warm, static ripple he remembers from their one and only meeting. It’s unnervingly comforting, like stepping too close to a fireplace on a cold morning.

Not that he’d ever admit that out loud. He’d rather bleed out than feed that ego.

“Let me see…” Seokjin murmurs, tone slipping into something annoyingly close to genuine concern. Jungkook feels a cool fingertip press into the torn fabric just above one of the gashes.

“Oof. Yeah. You got minced, kid.”

Jungkook would roll his eyes if he could. Instead, he lies there, face half-smothered in plush fabric, feeling a little like a hunted boar thrown over someone’s shoulder.

“This might sting a little,” Seokjin warns—seconds before warm energy blooms across Jungkook’s back.

He braces for more pain, but it feels more like hot honey being poured over his skin. Dense, slow-moving, seeping into every shredded muscle. Jungkook can’t stop the low, broken sound of relief that slips out of him. Embarrassing.

“Good, it’s working.”

The magic sinks deeper, threading itself through the shredded tissue, knitting and soothing it back together until the raw pain until it dulls into something more bearable. Jungkook’s mind drifts—he’s so tired, his whole body hurts. He could probably fall asleep right there.

Then Seokjin clicks his tongue.

“JIMIN!” he suddenly bellows, voice so loud Jungkook swears his soul tries to leave his body. “FRONT ROOM, NOW!”

A distant thud echoes from upstairs, followed by an irritated groan.

“It’s six in the morning!”

“Don’t I fucking know it,” Seokjin calls back cheerfully. “We have a bleeding situation on your favourite couch—”

Footsteps thunder down the stairs before he can finish the sentence.

A door slams open at the bottom.

“Hyung, why the hell is there a werewolf bleeding on our sofa?”

The voice is clearer now. A little raspy from sleep, but sharp-edged with irritation. Jungkook’s fuzzy brain tries to attach a face to it, but everything behind his eyelids is a smear of colour.

“He ran an errand for me.”

“But that’s my job—”

“Oh jesus—just get his ankles, I don’t have enough arms.”

That earns a deep sigh and some muttering, followed by more footsteps. Jungkook senses the other person—Jimin, or whatever—approach his legs, a second field of magic brushing along his awareness.

It’s different from Seokjin’s. Colder. A little sharper where the other is all soft edges and polished control. He feels him settle near his feet and the magic reaches out, lapping at his ankles like freezing lake water.

Jungkook’s muscles twitch in response. Even though the same relief comes, he still feels all the hairs on his body stand on end, that built-in defence instinct warning him that nothing is ever entirely safe when magic is involved.

But beggars can’t be choosers when one becomes a meat based scratching post.

All he can do is take deep breaths through his nose. In and out. In and out. Herbs. Smoke. Fire. Seokjin’s odd baby-powder smell. The electric tang of the wards around the shop. The damp spring morning. His own sweat and blod. Fruit. Apples? No—peaches.

Peaches?

Peaches.

So that’s what he could smell earlier.

Bright and sweet. Ripe peaches. The kind you bite into in the middle of August and the juice runs down your wrist.

The smell rolls through his senses before he can brace for it—sweet and lush. His mouth floods with saliva.

Which is humiliating enough, but the real problem is the moment his exhausted, half-frozen brain reminds him where he is and who he’s smelling.

A witch. A fucking witch that smells like a childhood memory of summer, with magic that feels like cruellest of winters.

Clearly, he doesn’t get to catch a damn break today.

Jungkook tries to breathe through his mouth instead, but it doesn’t help much—this way, he can almost taste the peaches on his tongue. Jesus.

Who even smells like that?

The magic continues to move over him in steady waves—Seokjin’s warm and soothing, Jimin’s cooler, sharper one. Together they sweep through his limbs, thawing him out piece by piece like a slab of frozen meat. Sensation seeps back into his fingers first, then his calves, then the tight pinch in his spine starts dissolving.

Somewhere near his feet, Peaches speaks up.

“Swamp hag?”

“Nope,” Seokjin answers easily, fingers skimming another burst of heat along Jungkook’s lower back. “Nasty shaman spirit. Terrible haircut.”

There’s a soft hum of acknowledgement, no other comment.

For a little while, there’s only the ambient sounds of the shop and rustle of fabric when one of the witches moves. The pain ebbs into a dull, distant ache steadily. Jungkook’s eyelids stay heavy, but the paralysis continues to loosen one muscle at a time.

He wonders what his pack would think of him if they saw him like this—at the mercy of two witches who could probably fry him in less than one second.

Pathetic. They’ve always seen him as something lesser. A failure, someone barely deserving to be called a werewolf.

Incomplete.

What would his mother think? His father? They’d be so disappointed. Their one and only son reduced to this.

The magic suddenly stops and retracts all at once—a clean snap of a string.

“That should do it,” Seokjin announces, pushing himself to his feet. “Jimin-ah, fetch the nightshade tincture. Three drops only—don’t overdo it, please.”

There’s muffled grumbling, a shuffle of bare feet across wooden floors, the sound of bottles clinking around.

“Alrighty, wolf boy, ” Seokjin claps his hands, “up you go.”

And then Jungkook is being lifted up into the air by an invisible force and flipped onto his back like a cushion. His back hits the plush couch, thankfully without even a hint of pain.

He tries to lift his head again. His body is still refusing basic requests, but his jaw twitches once—progress.

“Hold still,” Seokjin says, which is unnecessary because Jungkook couldn’t disobey if he tried. A hand presses to his shoulder to stop him from twitching around.

A moment later Jimin kneels beside him, and that scent hits again—even stronger from this angle, like shoving your whole face into a bucket of peaches.

His wolf responds instantly somewhere in a deep pocket of his mind. There’s a low curl of curiosity somewhere in his gut, which Jungkook immediately stomps on with whatever dignity he has left. Absolutely not. He is not going to entertain that idea.

The witch unscrews the tincture with a quick twist, muttering under his breath about how the bottle is always “in the wrong damn place” and angles Jungkook’s jaw, surprisingly strong fingers prying his mouth open.

“I swear hyung, if he bites my hand—”

“Yah, relax. He’s harmless—look at him.”

If Jungkook had any control over his body, Seokjin would be picking bits of couch from between his teeth right now.

Three drops of the potion hit his tongue like fermented lawnmower juice, but the magic spreads fast—pins and needles unravelling down his spine, warmth crawling back into his limbs. His fingers twitch, his jaw loosens against the fingers still holding it, and then—

Jungkook eyes snap open.

He lurches upright without coordination, forehead slamming squarely into something both soft and solid.

Not something. Someone.

An affronted yelp cracks through the air, and Jungkook’s momentum collapses backward as he lands back on the cushions with a pained groan, hands flying up to clutch his poor forehead.

Then the air in the room goes tight.

A force cinches around his ribs in one brutal sweep, invisible pressure locking him in place, squeezing enough to make his breath stutter in his throat.

The same magic that was healing him just minutes ago is now sharpened into an icepick and pointed straight at his heart.

Jimin’s magic.

It pours out of him in a cold, feral rush, coiling around Jungkook’s lungs like a pair of ghostly hands.

Jungkook freezes—looks up through the curtain of his messy bangs.

The witch is already glaring back.

The room narrows around that one singular moment.

Jimin crouches only a foot away, magic crackling around him in thin silver threads. His eyes are narrowed and bright—sharp lines of fury cut through warm brown, pupils blow from adrenaline as he stares back at the werewolf, unblinking.

And there’s blood—copper penny scent mixing with juicy peach—running from the curve of his nose down to the bow of his lip, catching at the corner when he wipes it with the back of his wrist. The smear paints a diagonal streak across his cheek.

He looks dangerous.

He looks like every single witch he’s ever been warned about.

He looks—

Jungkook’s breath stutters, caught on the wordless feeling twisting low in his chest.

He doesn’t look away. He can’t.

Something in the air shifts between them, a tension that feels like the world is bottlenecking, like a wire drawn between two points that were never meant to meet—and now can’t seem to separate.

The wolf in Jungkook bristles, instincts sparking hot under his skin, demanding he push back, snarl, do something, anything—yet he stays still, pinned as much by the spell as by the electric pull of staring into the witch’s furious eyes.

He sees the others fingers flex, and the magic around his lungs tightens in warning. Jungkook doesn’t even try to stop the growl from forming in the back of his throat.

“Try that again,” Jimin spits, voice thick and hard-edged, “and I’ll—”

“Enough.”

Seokjin’s voice slices straight through whatever spell knitted itself between them.

The pressure collapses instantly. Jungkook sucks in air like he’s been underwater, the chill leaving his lungs in one swoop.

Jimin jerks back with a frustrated snarl, wiping his bloody nose with the heel of his palm. Jungkook’s wolf still crackles beneath his skin, instincts howling for retaliation, but one hard look from the elder witch is enough to make him reconsider.

“Honestly,” Seokjin clicks hsi tongue, looking between them like they’re misbehaving toddlers.

"Isn't it a little early for theatrics?"

Jimin bristles. Jungkook grinds his jaw, irritation and embarrassment clawing under his skin.

Seokjin sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Jimin, go get dressed before you vaporize someone. And you—” he points at Jungkook, “stay put and try not to use your skull as a weapon again.”

The younger witch throws a sideways glare at the elder. But it doesn't last. He huffs, pressing a finger under his nose as he stands and makes a sharp turn on his heel to walk way.

Doesn't even spare a single glance for the werewolf.

But Jungkook keeps staring.

He tells himself he’s watching because he doesn’t trust the witch to not circle back and have another go at him. That’s logical. That makes sense.

But his eyes track the subtle shift of his shoulders, the pale line of his neck and bare legs, the way his hair glints silver as he briskly walks away from the dim light. The soft shimmer of leftover magic trails after him like dust motes disturbed in sunlight.

A strange feeling hums low in Jungkook’s ribs—a peculiar echo of the moment before it broke apart.

He tries to find a name for the sensation, but there is none. How would he even go about explaining that he didn't quite mind all of that fury directed at him? That, actually, it felt almost familiar. 

Best not to go there.

The room feels lighter the moment the witch disappears up the stairs.

A pale hand waves in his line of sight, Seokjin’s face appearing a second later to peer at him curiously.

“You good wolfie? Do I ned to check for a concussion?”

Jungkook tears his gaze away from the stairwell, heart still thudding unevenly.

“I—,” he inhales, trying to steady the tremor under his ribs, “fucking hate witches.”

And then promptly blacks out.