[ ✉ → seungwoof 🐶 ] hey. i know it’s like.. 3 in the morning, haha. but um. yeah. how do i phrase this without feeling dumb? or awk. well i guess that you kinda maybe saved me a little bit. is that too melodramatic? ok yeah it totally is, but… it’s true. i never thought anyone would want to bond with me. or be my friend, actually. bcuz i’m… well, me? but you don’t seem to mind. thanks!! ….i guess. gods, i dunno what this msg is even about anymore. i’m talking to myself. on a text. i’m a loser. you’re never going to see this. i hope you’re sleeping well!! i’ll try sending good dreams through the brain waves, haha. c: you think it’ll work? we’ll see tomorrow i guess! you’re my best friend. i want to make you happy always and never disappoint you ever. xxoo
send “lie to me” + a question, and my muse will answer it with a complete lie.
nothing could possibly be worse than this. not a single damn thing. he stands there before seungwoo with shoulders curved in and his arms wrapped tightly around his middle, as if there was a black hole swirling in the center of the boy’s stomach, slowly eating him up, shrinking him smaller and smaller, from within. the effort he exerts to keep his mouth clamped shut reveals itself as perspiration beading across his flesh, dampening his fair hair and glistening upon his upper lip. a subtle trembling grips his bones and rattles them about, showing in the knees rather than the hands. hansol thinks he’s going to become ill. instead of vomit purging forth from his mouth, horrible, horrible lies tear their way out of him instead, burning his throat with the acrid stinging caused by their terrible sharp edges. hansol doesn’t have a mean bone in his body, and yet he’s about to shred one of the most important people in his life with unwarranted cruelty. ` i’m sorry seungwoo-yah, i’m so sorry, i don’t mean this, it’s a curse, please hear my thoughts, i– `
before the hex can worm the first word off of his tongue and into the air, he begins to cry. he can’t bring himself to look at his familiar. he can’t. so he stares down at his sneakers and lets gravity pull his tears down, and down, until they plip quietly onto the ground. “…i hate you. i hate your stupid face. i hate your smile. i hate how it makes me feel. i hate your voice. but i hate your laugh even more. and how you make me laugh. i hate it. i hate the way you wore beat-up converse to the dance. i hate having you in my head. i hate hearing your thoughts, especially when you don’t realize that i’m listening. they’re annoying. they drive me crazy. i hate how you bring band-aids to me whenever i mess up and hurt myself because you care. i hate that– how much you care. i hate your gentleness; it’s weak, pathetic. i hate how much we aren’t alike. i hate how much you don’t balance me out. i hate that you’re my familiar. i wish i’d have tripped over you that day in the rain. i wish we’d never met.”
“you mean nothing to me, seungwoo. less than nothing. i wasn’t lonely before i met you. but now, i’m…” he physically chokes, unwinding his arms from around himself to wipe furiously at his tear-streaked face. it’s easier to just let the lies come spilling out in a rush than to fight each and every one, he knows that, but it’s still killing him inside. it’s all too much. too untrue. “…i’m so unhappy. i don’t feel like everything is alright with the world when i’m around you. not at all. you make me sick—just looking at you makes me sick—and i…”
hansol touches his familiar’s cheek with trembling fingertips. softly, briefly– and then gone. “i don’t just dislike you, seungwoo. i don’t love you.”
before he dare say anything else, hansol flees. he runs and runs and runs until he’s certain he isn’t being pursued and his legs are aching with lactic acid. he collapses, curling around that black hole of hurt in his gut, and weeps. no lie previously uttered has ever been more hurtful– or so very, very wrong.
`seungwoo, where are yooouuu? dammit, i wish that we would’ve had time for a couple more bonding classes before the ball… how is telepathy supposed to work again? are you getting any of this? i feel silly for talking to myself in my own head if there’s no one at the other end… yah, seungwoo! please pick up the magic brainwaves ‘cause i lost my cell phone and i can’t find you when the ballroom is all wiggly-wobbly!`
`how’s the date going? am i intruding? i’m sorry i didn’t ever text you back! see reason ‘a’: i lost my phone again! okay, umm– if you can hear me, think your location directly into my brain! or, uh… tell me what animal i’m think of in three..two…one! did you see a red panda, too? aren’t they adorable? shit– i wasn’t supposed to answer myself, was i? seungwoo, what animal am i thinking of now?` hansol squeezes his eyes closed and tries to picture a beagle in his mind’s eye as clearly, and with as much painstaking detail, as his foggy, erratic brain can manage. the only beagle dog he can remember in his current state happens to be his familiar in canine form… so he goes ahead and sends seungwoo memories of seungwoo. that’s some trippy inception stuff right there! but before hansol can mentally recreate seungwoo’s cute little dog nose just right from that day they met in the rain, a slight bump from two grinding girls knocks him off balance and he finds himself clutching a stranger’s bicep for support. giggling at the apparent swaying of the floor beneath his sneakers and the chandelier above his messy blond head, hansol mumbles a slurred ‘sorry’ to his savior and moves away from the person once some solidity has returned to his jello legs. `i’m sorry, i don’t think i’m doing the telepathy thingie right… if i can’t even hear my own thoughts, there’s no way i’m gonna hear yours, seungwoo….`
hansol sees only one viable option left. he will simply have to tackle every brunette boy that looks like a possible match for seungwoo until he finds the actual boy he’s looking for– well, that, or he could also probably check the banquet tables. yeah… that’s probably a better idea. not as much fun, though. so, as a last resort: definitely the tackling.
fortunately for all seungwoo-sized brunette men in the room, hansol only throws himself at one of them, and it happens to be the correct one– yoo seungwoo, in the flesh, hovering around the food spread. he isn’t a large boy–rather, he’s firmly in the ‘lithe and light’ end of the body type spectrum–but hansol nearly sends them both crashing into a punch bowl full of ruby liquid nonetheless.
“seungwoo! oh my gods, you… you look amazing,” the platinum-haired witch giggles breathlessly, whirling them both round and round as he squeezes the living daylights out of his familiar, “…like, seriously! so handsome! look at this fancy shirt!” hansol releases seungwoo to give the other boy’s crisp white dress shirt a quick smoothing over with his hands, tugging at the lapels to finishing righting what his tackle attack knocked askew. “you clean up nicely, seungwoo! but i… i love your shoes most of all. we match! aaaand… holy minotaurs, are you trying to make a noose or something? c'mere.” hansol grips the end of seungwoo’s tie with one hand and cinches his dear familiar’s wrist in the other, guiding them both back to the relative safety of the punch bowl. without missing a beat, he wrestles the knot free with surprisingly deft fingers and gets to works on re-tying seungwoo’s tie.
“ha! i bet you didn’t think i had it in me, huh? i’m actually not too shabby at tying ties. but it’s always easier to tie one for someone else. and i just hate ‘em. they’re tooootally suffocating, right? try not to tug on it so much. it’ll only make it worse.” hansol keeps on talking as he ties, although his intense, starry gaze remains focused on his hands and their rapid work. he prays to all the gods he can remember that seungwoo will somehow not notice the subtle swaying of his body. “hey, heeeey! soooo, i tried to communicate with you via the linkage of our brains and all that awesome stuff, but… i think i was just talking to myself? probably. as usual. did you get any unexplainable thoughts of red pandas? also, you’ll never guess what i’ve got in seolhyun’s purse,“ hansol looks so excited that he might spontaneously combust, referring to the lady’s purse he currently holds in his possession. ”…fine, i’ll tell you! spiders, seungwoo! cute, baby spiders! i saved them after seolhyun tried to kill them with this purse. that’s why i have it, by the way; she threw it at me. and the spiders. and it’s even their birthday tonight! can you believe someone would try to kill spiders on their birthday? will you help me set them free later– oh! oh shit, that’s right, i knew i was forgetting something! you’re on a date!”
hansol gently cups seungwoo’s face in both hands, having finished adjusting the tie. a fresh grin dawns upon his lips, and with it, a slew of quiet giggling follows. “where’s the lucky girl, hmm? i’m so sorry i didn’t text you back in time, seungwoo–i, uh, kinda lost my phone again–but you just need to be yourself. if she doesn’t like you as you, then how are either of you two ever going to be happy? well. you could also turn into a dog. girls like dogs, right? and that’s technically 'being yourself’– no, no, scratch all the stuff! just be yourself. the human one. that’s all you need, okay?”
“well, are you having a good time? hmm, hmm?” he gives seungwoo’s cheeks a little parting squeeze before playfully nudging an elbow into the other boy’s side– and then hansol freezes, eyes widening with realization for a second time. “shit. i mean, crap. i don’t wanna intrude on the date! am i intruding?” reaching for seungwoo’s hands, hansol glances around for any sight of a girl who might be waiting for the return of her date. “also, don’t drink the punch. it’s, like, suuuper good… especially after the fourth cup, but… don’t. i think there’s something in it. too late for me, though.” at that, he can’t help it; the seriousness of his visage cracks, transforming into more giggles and ear-to-ear smiling.
rain. important things happen in the rain. like kisses, for example. or funerals. rain is a cleansing force of nature. rain baptizes. there’s a rebirth to be found after each rain. rebirth and renewal – or you slip and fall on rain-soaked cobblestones, and are muddied up to your knees. either way, something important happens in the rain. important things also happen in threes. that’s just the way life is; life likes patterns, numbers. so does the universe. for good or ill, something will be important, and it will come, without a doubt, in threes.
hansol sprints across the courtyard, a blur of black fabric and silvered hair, pumping his legs as fast as they’ll go. his arms are raised above him—his hands hold a raincoat, stretched taut like a tarp—and his neck bends slightly to hide beneath the makeshift protection. the rain finds a path in anyway, as rain often does, and wets his blond head and alabaster face. he laughs like a madman and spurs himself to go faster, splashing straight through a puddle on his bee-line path to the safety of the main hall. it’s a warm rain, a late summer rain, so he’s not worried about wet feet and their potential ramifications. he practically grew up outdoors; a refreshing rain won’t sicken him with sniffles or the chills. and his shoes? ha, who cares! the times when childhood spirit shows its familiar, nostalgic face again happen far too rarely for hansol to waste one fretting over soggy shoes. the sneakers shall just have to take the sacrifice.
he pushes onward, through the pelting spray of a fierce, humid downpour, at precisely three thirty-three in the afternoon.
the young witch has almost reached the entrance to the main hall. his eyes are dark today, uncovered by blue lenses and, for once, showing as their natural color—toffee-brown, so rich they look nearly black unless caught in full sunlight—and they are wide, with pupils blown as big as two full moons. adrenaline sings its way through his veins. almost there, almost there! he slows a bit, lowering his jacket until it plops, waterlogged and droopy, atop his equally soaked head–
and he swerves at the very last moment to miss the little dog that stands in his path.
gods, he hadn’t seen it, hadn’t seen it at all—maybe because of the thick, sideways-falling rain and its blurring effect upon human vision, or the distraction his own childish delight had provided, but either way he hadn’t seen it—and, with all of the strength in his corporeal and incorporeal selves, hansol turns his telekinetic energy against his own body. blood vessels burst in his nose and the bruises on his lower back reopen beneath the skin; then, as if hit by an unseen object, a crush of invisible force slams into hansol’s side and sends him careening to the ground… just out of reach of the dog.
he doesn’t move for a second, curling fetal-shape around himself. shock helps to numb most of the immediate pain. what ... had just happened, exactly? okay, so he’s got blood in his mouth… that’s a start, even if it’s a gross one. speaking honestly, he’s pretty unsurprised by the headache, bruising, and bloody nose. physical injuries are the norm whenever he actually manages to perform witchcraft; some sort of cosmic-level payback, he supposes. but that… that thing he just did to himself…well, he’s kinda never really executed such a feat of telekinesis before. son of a griffin, it sure does hurt, but it remains an unbelievably wonderful success in his, erm, rather dazed eyes.
oh, crap! the dog! the dog, the dog, the dog!
he finds the strength to push himself up immediately, biting back a hiss when the pain finally catches up to a body operating primarily on adrenaline and concern. aw, mega crap… he appears to have skinned both knees raw upon impact. (‘ha–what are the chances i’d skin my knees the day i wore ripped jeans?’)
then he looks at the dog. and hansol smiles, a half-giggle, half-sob escaping him when he sees the little dog unharmed. “sorry for all of that. did i scare you? don’t be scared, okay? i’m a pro at only hurting myself. heh. i wish i could say that i’m usually not such a walking disaster, but then i’d be lying to you. and i don’t like lies. they make my heart heavy.” he smiles wider. it’s a gentle smile. the rain cleanses all of the blood from hansol’s face in no time at all.
“i’m just glad that you’re alright, cute puppy! may i…may i pet you a little? would that be alright? it should be safe; no promises or anything, but gravity can’t make me fall over or off something if my butt is already on the ground.” chuckling at his own humor, hansol tentatively stretches out his hand. he waits. he watches the little dog’s eyes for any signs of displeasure, fear, or persistent resentment at nearly being tripped over. (`i don’t blame you if you wanna bite my hand, little one—...`) then, slowly, he touches the crown of the creature's head with careful, smoothing fingertips. he trails them along the length of one of the dog’s floppy ears. it’s as soft as velvet, and elicits another smile from the boy.
“thank you for forgiving my clumsiness. is it okay if i pet under your chin– oh. oh, wait.”
hansol’s expression of pure, contented joy splits into one of horrified realization within mere seconds. his hand freezes atop the dog’s back, soft fur still running between his fingers. the rain continues to fall from the heavens; upon hansol’s face, it now trickles over cheeks flushing pink with embarrassment. “gods, i can’t believe i forgot to ask this again before petting another animal here!” a thin, sheepish grin quivers onto his still blushing visage. “a-are you a familiar, by any chance? u-um…bark once for yes, and twice for no! and…a-and, uh…could i keep on petting you? only if you don’t mind, of course…”
