You aren’t someone who normally receives the morning mail from an owl, but there’s a Snowy Owl perched outside your window. Held in its beak is an elegant, burgundy envelope with your name and address handwritten in black ink. Should you decide to open the window, your winged messenger will take off to the skies after handing you the envelope. You look for a seal or family crest to no avail, yet it still carries the aura of something official. Do you dare open it?
Opening the envelope releases the warm, ashy scent of incense. Yellow flower petals shoot out from the envelope as though they were spring loaded, and they bring with them the refreshing scent of Ylang Ylang oil. You look inside the envelope. As it turns out, its actual contents aren’t as elegant and mysterious as you’ve been lead on to believe.
It’s nothing but a flyer for some store holding a 50% off sale. Ah, marketing tactics these days! You scan some of the offers for this strange place – Yuuko’s Shop, it’s called – and none of them are accompanied by pictures. The coupon expiry dates are odd too, most of them either expiring decades ago or will expire decades from now. You read only some of the deals:
Enchanted Glasses are 50% off – be able to see magic for the very first time!
Owl Delivery Service are 50% off for a limited time only
Fortune Telling is purchase 1 meeting, get the other half off!
Whether you choose to visit the address or throw the letter in the garbage is up to you. But before you make your decision, the bottom of the flyer catches your eye:
Get all your magical needs before it’s too late!
Something big is coming soon.
☹︎☜︎✌︎☝︎🕆︎☜︎😐︎✋︎☪︎☠︎✌︎
- Yuuko Ichihara
if you were the type of person who had a proper childhood you would have probably thought the same thing: it was late.
seungjoon had to tighten his grasp on the strap of his backpack, eyes almost watering in emotion. there was an owl with a letter right there by the window of his room, just waiting for him to approach. he had read the books; he had watched the movies. each step he took meant another missing heartbeat, and the closer he got the stronger he could feel the magic.
the boy knew how inaccurate his guess was, but the fan inside of couldn’t hold back such thoughts when he opened up the window and the owl did not seem the least startled. “did mcgonagall get lazy these last few years?” and by few years he meant the delay of a delivery meant for when he was eleven - and that was ten years before. when he took the letter, though, it was obvious it was meant for something else. before seungjoon could even attempt to give the owl a pat on the head, the bird flew back to the city.
he stared at the envelope in his hands; felt it with his fingers. there did not seem to be a single clue to who the sender was and it only helped his curious nature take over. before he could open the mysterious message something told him to look around. seungjoon had, after all, just received a letter by owl mail - something he had never seen happen before (or at least in real life). the boy quickly checked his room to make sure nothing was tinkered with, and then out the window for anyone creepily staring at him in the shadows. as the final move, he closed the window again, sliding with his back against the wall to sit on the floor.
carefully, the envelope was opened, yellow flower petals falling from the inside. had he been in a movie with a mysterious music playing in the background it would have certainly felt like it was the most magical thing he had ever seen - but in the dead silence he found himself in, the scene was almost silly. the petals fell on his lap slowly, and he could only stare at them in uncertainty. not knowing what they were supposed to mean seungjoon placed them in a pile by his side to investigate later.
the content of the letter was also just as silly as the previous situation he had found himself in. a store sale. well, at least it smelled nice. he investigated each item listed, wondering how genuine the offers were. the expiry dates were probably wrongly typed, which broke whatever elegance they had managed to give off with their delivery - yet seungjoon couldn’t help but think maybe they were exactly how they were meant to be.
the owl delivery service certainly interested him. he could already see magic, as weird as it was for him to think - but maybe a pair of enchanted glasses would be enough to prove his sister he wasn’t crazy. the bottom of the flyer still managed to be more interesting than its other contents. could you really print emojis? last time he tried doing it for an assignment they had all come out as question marks. except maybe they weren’t emojis.
seungjoon quickly reached inside his pocket, getting his phone out of it. wingdings. it took him some time to search for each symbol at a time, unable to use a quick translator since the symbols were printed on paper. leaguekizna. something was coming and it involved owl mail, awkward silence, and printed emojis. he took advantage of the phone in his hand and searched for the other things he did not know.
the name signed, yuuko ichihara, didn’t seem to lead nowhere. urban dictionary could only connect kizna to some catgirl from some random anime, and he couldn’t really take that too seriously. maybe he should watch it later (for investigation purposes). after staring at the flyer, the internet, and the pile of flower petal by his side, seungjoon could only conclude whatever other information he needed could only be found at the mysterious shop. he wouldn’t want to miss out on such amazing sale.
