heeseung works at an apothecary. hes beautiful. hes making potions. he’s also a bit of a hermit.
there's jars of plants you never even knew existed, yet he never strays far outside his home. you wonder how he sources his materials. but if you were to ask him about it, he’ll smile at you and tell you it's a trade secret.
in reality, he’s largely commissioning his well-traveled friends. jakes always taking bounties in the neighboring kingdoms, so heeseung will gladly take the opportunity to send him off with a list of peculiar roots and harvests to bring home.
(note: heeseung only asks jake for plants. learned very quickly that toad eyes and gryphon hearts were more of a jay commission. you’d think a bounty hunter would be able to stomach taking out animals. but even they have their boundaries)
his business is on the lower level of his home and he resides upstairs of the cottage. he lives in the forest, just on the outskirts of town so he can keep a small stream of customers, but out of the way enough as to not be bothered. most of his money comes from important clients with the large and complicated orders anyway. he’s remedied the oddest diseases, created strangely specific poisons– its always been a natural talent of his to know exactly what ingredients go in the most random potion you can think of
heeseung feels absolutely no need to market himself, no matter how much his bard friend, sunoo, insists on the importance of networking. he makes enough to maintain his quiet life in the forest, and enough to pay his friends for their travels. thats all he needs.
now im branching off into where you fit in. thinking of different possibilities
maybe you’re one of his gatherers. you mistake one of the flowers he sent you to get for something else and the one you grabbed is accidentally poisonous. you turn up to his shop lightheaded and he has to treat you!!!!! you’ve passed out the second you arrived to his shop so he has to carry you upstairs to his bed. he’s never housed another person before!!! his upstairs house isn’t even equipped to let any of his friends visit or more than 15 minutes. but maybe he finds having you up there with him isn’t too bad.
another thought: heeseung will very rarely be found outside of his shop. only occasionally to gather plants and materials for himself at godawful hours in the night when he can't sleep. the problem is. you really like him. and you don't have much business to be found at an apothecary that often. so you have to make up random reasons to keep visiting his store. one day you’ll need a charm to keep your bread from going stale too fast. (thats never been an issue) or. ooooh your plants keep dying… can you give me a potion for that!!! (you don’t know how to garden.) he never catches onto your excuses and instead is oddly attached to helping you out with your little tasks. hes being paid good money to work on this potion for his wealthy client. but instead putting all his energy into helping you nourish your fake garden.
last idea: maybe you’re a lower level thief. you know better than to blatantly steal from a man who has multiple shelves of toxins. so you decide to make up a story about a sick friend whose illness took a turn for the worse and you don’t know what to do!!
and just as you weren't foolish enough to outright steal from heeseung, he’s no different. he’s heard enough lies in his life to know when someone's trying to con him. especially with his profession. but the thing is, he doesn’t care. he plays along and gives you a few balms and tells you it’ll help your friend. he even gives them to you for free, since the situation seemed so desperate. you thank him and take your leave, not thinking too much about the fact that simple balms weren’t enough to save someone on their deathbed. heeseung knows what you're up to, and made something you’d easily be able to sell for a good chunk of money.
you sneak away to a nearby city and end up making a good amount off of his balms. but on your way back home, the bag of coins weighs heavy in your hands.. sighhhsss. thievery isn’t for you…... when you get back, you decide to return to the apothecary and wait for a moment where heeseung isn’t on the floor to slip in. you leave the bag of gold on his desk with a note reading ‘my friend wasn’t actually sick. im sorry’ and quickly exit before he sees you. but to your surprise, the pouch is back on your kitchen counter when you wake up in the morning with a parchment attached. ‘i know.’
