━ ⟨ › he sits across from her with a frown that’s focused, a thought that something feels off but then the warmth in his chest argues that he’s just stupid. he was missing something this whole time and it’s seol who’s going to fill it. the heavy tingle of pleasant warmth when he thinks of what it’s like to love and be in loved, and he’s completely sure this is right. his cards buzz in his bag and he can feel the urge to take them out but, why does it feel like they’ll say something he doesn’t want to read right now? seol is definitely someone that matters, seol is the person he was meant to meet tonight ⟩ ━ ❞ y’know, seol-ah, it’s so weird, but like, like it’s so stupid, but i thought i loved sung? ❞ ━ ⟨ › he blinks away the fog of his head to focus on seol ; he was looking for someone before wasn’t he? he looks away from seol to glance around at what he was looking for but it’s irrelevant now and his eyes snap back to her again before even seconds pass ⟩ ❞ it’s super, duper weird. i don’t know why i keep thinking that. i think something’s so stupid, haesung isn’t the person i should love, right? ❞
several times during the journey from her room down to the nearest ‘common’ area has meihua seriously considered turning back, rewrite her hasty promise of participation as a lazy excuse — actually, i’m tired; actually, this seems dumb. but she’s committed now, more so with each step towards the rest of the night. it’ll be fine, probably. it usually is, she just worries more these days than she’d ever care to admit.
her position is far too comfortable to not gamble on a good time every now and then, is that not the very purpose of being comfortable?
seonchan is right where he said he’d be, ever so reliable. it’s nice to see him nevertheless, but she’s still sort of reeling from jumping out of bed to get to here in time; meihua greets him with a drowsy smile and a small wave.
“it’s really empty,” she notes, observant as always. not that she’d have expected anything else past curfew, but the emptiness is more definitely more striking in person. “anyway, hi, and thank you for waking me up.” sarcasm rounded out with a soft shrug, passively acknowledging that she’s been just as complicit.
“are we all set?” it’s not like he’s gonna say no, but she’s been told it’s polite to ask.
he didn’t ask the cards. there’s no point in asking when it’s mei, chasing down the threads that linked to her usually just lead to dead ends. sometimes, seonchan wonders why, but then, why does it matter? fate is as fate does. pun intended but, if it’s not in the cards for him to know more about mei, he’s not interested in more. not when the things he does read accurately are benign madness. but it’s her madness that he’s grown to admire, and it’s what draws him. it’s why her name is the first to pop into his head for this mission, even with her seat on the council. it was a risk. normally, one he’d check his fortune for but this was just a gamble. his brief text to her met with a dry one of her own and now he’s waiting patiently.
less patiently as time goes on because, what if she doesn’t come ? he needs to get the globe by tomorrow, it’s all a part of the plan. and then he sees her, looking mellow and muted in the dim light with a sleepy smile. he returns it with candor. “ it’s empty because it’s late,” he points out, just as needlessly with an eyebrow raised in jest. “ you’re late. but hi.” he takes initiative to close the distance between them with a few steps so that they’re close. towers over her. “ i’m set.” he affirms, gives her another smile that he hopes will be clear but just in case it isn’t, he expresses it verbally. “ thanks, for comin’. means a lot.” his dialect has turned daegu all of a sudden but maybe that’s because he’s about to grab her hand in the same breath and blink them out of there and for some reason he’s nervous. maybe mei is one of the only girls he isn’t awkward around for ten minutes at a time, but still. still, look, it’s not stupid, alright ? girls are great. it isn’t his fault.
he doesn’t even ask if she’s ready, just holds up that smile and reaches out and grabs her hand, pulls his wand and side by sides them out onto the street in a quiet neighborhood walk, a few minutes outside the shopping stretch he plans to take them. looking around and then back to her his smile shifts to apologetic and he breaks the contact. “ i owe you ; i don’t really understand girls...” he admits, sighs heavily and wishes he could hide inside of his hoodie. “ i asked if you’d tag along because maybe what i need to pick up is...for a girl ? ” he pretends like it’s a question but it’s absolutely because of that and he grimaces. “ and maybe it’s good to, y’know, bring a girl with me. and you’re a girl.” he nods at himself like he’s proud. “ the first shop is up there, i didn’t want us to be seen apparating in so, we can just walk.”
tonight his cards are stowed away rather than in his hand or jacket pocket and maybe it’s a sign. when did his friendship with mara become close enough that he didn’t need to rely on the crutch that was divination? giving her a bump of her shoulder with his where she was next to him. quidditch was not for him. brooms and flying ? terrifying. the horrifying things they play with that are the balls ? what the hell. the point system ? who even came up with it. yet he went to every single game. a duty of being close friends with most of the team. go chollimas go! tonight was a sweeping victory for the team, not that he’s surprised. the card spread that he laid out in the privacy of his dorm room when he awoke predicted an auspicious day. but he still clapped for them like it was fresh news. hey, it’s good to be confirmed. at least he isn’t losing his touch. he lost track of daehyun today but it’s fine, mara is here in front of him and he serves up his biggest grin, nudging her playfully, amicably. ❝you were pretty amazing out there today.❞ bright smiles are haphazardly tossed to anyone who makes eye contact that passes by them. ❝can i take you out for some food to celebrate? maybe i’m literally starving because maaaaybe i forgot to eat before the game today? so like, two birds one stone.❞ he drags out the a and his tone gets more and more sheepish as he speaks but, it’s good to go out with mara anyway. she deserves it.
especially because, he happens to be aware thanks to a passing comment recently, that she’s been a little homesick. or at least, maybe it was just that one day but, that one time was enough for him to sympathize to the core of him. so he had dragged mei out to get the gift for her. the globe she could peer into and hopefully, relieve a bit of that negative emotion. his smile turns a bit muted, almost soft, as he hopes that she enjoys it. he didn’t tell her it was from him. it wasn’t needed. it wasn’t a gift given for the praise of feeling altruistic. it wasn’t about him. it was about her.
there’s compelling mysteries at play here. chan shouldn’t have an opinion in any case, but it’s thanks to happenstance. too bad he doesn’t believe in chance, not really. when that professor blinked right into ju jak dorms carrying chan’s head of house in arms that night. he had been occupied practicing for his charms assignment in the late night guided by sleepy light and swaddled in silence. he didn’t sleep as much as he should, but he was going to. he really was. he didn’t even have his deck spread, it sat in a neat, patient pile on the tabletop. a deck at rest still has energy. it’s comforting. he needs to be able to feel it, at least, even if it’s temporarily subsumed.
it’s an instinct when he sees them, the duo of professors appear with a muted snap and the air pinching around them. his polite bow, the teachers leaving, all in just moments. there’s a stale atmosphere like lake water in the room with just him, and the aura of the professors, and chan feels the blue-gray autonomy of it, the living energy and scent of liquor. it’s gossip and he files away that the professors han he hears so much about, had taken to their room together. but when the head of house hyeon mu comes back, he pauses.
his hand reaches out in a form of impulse. not actually spreading the cards or cutting the deck, instead chan just draws the singular top card. just one card right off of the top as he makes eye contact with the professor with a light smile. his gaze darts down and he expects to see suit of cups, maybe pentacles, he expects a number of possibilities. because he hadn’t expected to see either of the professors again. breaking curfew and inter-house mingling doesn't count when you’re staff does it ? but it’s still funny and it still subverts his expectations. the card that lands face up on the desk next to his charms textbook is major arcana and it comes with a crawling numbness into his fingers. why is that ? he doesn’t understand. the card, JUSTICE, major arcana, reversed: + dishonesty, + hiding one’s true self. divination should just fucking tell him what it means. he yearns to pull another card but he swiftly checks the motivation.
“heya professor,” he begins slowly, leans back in his chair to soften his presence. “i was just doing my charms assignment, coincidentally.” a moment passes and he almost doesn’t call attention to it, but then, he can’t resist. what’s a boy to do? he can’t help himself. “come here with professor han saetbyeol often ?” a smile that’s meant to be unassuming and nonthreatening, “i don’t think i’ve seen you here before, though.”
ju jak commons energy was off the charts. it rapidly became a colloquy in anarchism when the number of first through third years started to outnumber sunbaes who just wanted peace and quiet for their YSAT studies. throw in the random garnish of other houses who had snuck in yet looked right at home here and it’s a damn party. of usual, chan enjoys room reading. hey, nothing feeds the cards like utter chaos. flip a card look up and find a fortune, it’s fools gold. but reading the cards to the sound of chaos when his arithmancy was screaming at him from the back of his mind ? that’s when being a divinist becomes the worst imaginable thing ever and he wouldn’t wish it on anyone. when you’re enjoy yourself. reading some poor kid’s relationships drama energy through the cards. and all of a sudden things get passive aggressive. flip a card and he double takes because oh. that one was for him. KNIGHT OF SWORDS reversed + unfocused and he stares down offended. PAGE OF PENTACLES, also reversed + awareness that you’re off track, + procrastination . well he’s fucking trying to. it only takes one more flip before he sighs into the open air and scoops up his cards like an angry kid called home from a party early. stupid responsibilities, stupid divination. can’t even procrastinate in peace without realizing the consequences and being self aware.
but apparating out and into the open air is good for him, he has to admit. the expanse of vivid, sultry blue and undying orange from the peeking horizon that the buildings of yosul and seoul block, turned down to dim in late evening. the fresh air helps too, he strolls and thinks, ju jak commons was too loud for the kind of constructive thinking that’s good for convergence. but then he thinks on it. stews it, turns it and over like pulling glass noodles until something digestible comes out of his recollections and mental churning. the commons was bustling, even hyeon mu and baek ho there. against regulation and all that. but there was one person missing. at this point, he isn’t surprised. but he is centered again. a wand wave and the useless thing sends him to just outside the field. the quidditch pitch seems more distinctive beneath the blazing glow of evening tide washing it in blood orange and blue. his shoulder propping against the metal of a bleacher as sure enough, lo and behold, daehyun the nearly permanent fixture here.
he’s a quidditch training infomercial, on loop even when no one watches, selling something that makes chan sigh. a gripping acknowledgement of hard work and dedication? the potential of burn out. probably. chan doesn’t know, all these years he’s known daehyun, daily discussions, even different intonations in the buckle of their banter and chime of daehyun’s laughter when it doesn’t fill the room. six years and he’s fully aware of the hair pulling frustration he’s about to go through in the event he tries to pull daehyun down from that training. yet, he approaches. it’s unyieldly really, this spirit of his. what entitty of fate took a look and thought: yes him, give that one the ability to read energy and the probabilities of the universe. he’s going to handle that just fine. chan encroaches the field with a loud yell of nondescript greeting and then plops himself right down into the grass. not sidelined as usual during games, but right in the middle, in what is likely danger zone. throwing his bag around to extract his arithmancy homework and start it up.
he waits until daehyun strays low and close enough that he doesn't have to yell this time. ❝come here often ? ❞ his smile and voice are a lilt of friendly informality, ❝more importantly. wanna do math with me ? ❞ he wiggles his brows, turns the sentence into a pick up line but his expectations are in the gutter. doesn’t even need to ask the cards this time.
♡ for anyone interested i’m yeehaw incarnate, my name is nikki, cdt, i would be house baek ho i think and i haven’t written in group rp in a long time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ usually i stick to indie but i’m trying to practice self care so, here i am today. thank you for coming to my ted talk. i prefer to plot over discord, because tumblr has an agenda and it ain’t mine, so please tumblr message me if discord is a possibility. if not, that’s alright too partner. anyway let’s get this show on the road.
these pages are mobile friendly !! feel free to click here for the full biography profile and stats, and click here for the connections page but they’re garb. onto the summary below !!
chae seonchan, please call him chan, age twenty three, he’s in his final year before post grad in house ju jak. he is a divination major and a huge divination and runes nerd, it’s like when math majors just talk about math all day but worse because he’s talking about (͡ ͡° ͜ つ ͡͡°) the future maybe. oh also he’s a half-blood country boy who moved to seoul when he was thirteen.
kind, open-minded and he’s very chill until he isn’t.
he’s like the friend who’s always got a fidget spinner out just getting to town yeehaw but instead of a fidget spinner, imagine it’s a deck of tarot cards. and instead of memes he’s spitting out big fat dank unwanted predictions.
he’s got a lot of decks that he thinks have different juju and they look different. lowkey if you are his friend you can maybe tell what kind of a day he’s having by the deck he has on hand.
he prefers to practice the kind of divination called cartomancy. basically, this the one that predictions are made through cards. it’s the same type of divination that trelawney preferred in the original hp universe ? he sucks at tea leaves and other kinds by comparison. he’s a one trick 😑
cliche guy who’s so nice to girls they think he isn’t into them so they friend-zone him thinking he’s already friend-zoned them or is ghei, and he’s in a state of perpetual sadness.
he likes to be given gifts but don’t be surprised if he gives you a return gift shortly after even if ur like “chan it’s your birthday...just take the dang gift.” he’ll just ( ಠ ͜ʖರೃ)
sometimes he gets this ‘yeh u livin but r u rly alive tho dawg’ energy and idk where it comes from or why he do that
intro sample
something had changed. oh. that’s not true. everything had changed, a boy no longer running around covered in scrapes, strawberry stains and magic while he could hear the sound of his mother whispering beneath her breath on top of the tinkling concord of stonework runes. his father a maeobsa who’s only magic was to somehow til a whole field in a single day. hey, that was magic to seonchan back then, too. something in the way everything was magic then, out in the middle of daegu, was a nostalgia so painful it was better just to forget it entirely. because the birds sound different in seoul. they sing a sadder tune.
he peers at his hands, a spread across the table of laminated tarots as he patiently, somewhat absentmindedly shuffled, arranged, removed, resorted, replaced. just until it feels right. there’s no point in paying too close to attention, because fate does what it wants, he isn’t changing it, he’s interpreting it, after all. a darting glance, shifty, why does he always look so shifty when someone passes his table in the common room, and then he flips them all. seonchan finds loose threads and misleading leaps in most of them. but the eight of cups, upright mocks him, he scoffs. scoffs at a card. because what do you know, stupid card. EIGHT OF CUPS, right side up :+ﾟescapism, +ﾟsomething missing. yeah. ya think ? he rolls his eyes. divination is so stupid. he loves it so much, the prolific sense of calm that comes when he turns it with his own hand, on its head. EIGHT OF CUPS, upside down : +ﾟtry again, +ﾟwalk away from unfavorable results. that’s better. ha, take that stupid cards. whoever said divination is bullshit, whoever said it wasn’t useful or accurate ? he shuffles them together like he’s about to play 52 card pick up and shoves them all right off the side of the table into his rucksack. slings it over his shoulder like it had personally offended him and sets off out of the divination classroom. people talk, people say divination is for suckers. he thinks it’s everything, and he plans to show them that too.
dm me for more information and let us brainstorm, i’m bad at intros *sob*
