The Manager’s Guide to Demon Boybands: A Witch’s Oath
Chapter13/Chapter14/Chapter15
Outdoor Fan Shoot — Early Afternoon
The skies over Seoul had been clear all morning.
A blessing, according to the shoot director. Perfect conditions—sun-dappled clouds, a mild breeze, the kind of soft light that required minimal editing. No filters, no fuss. Just nature doing the heavy lifting. A rooftop garden had been rented for the occasion, styled in florals and delicate pastels. Paper parasols leaned artfully against benches. A vintage watering can was placed just off-center. Someone had fluffed the hydrangeas.
Her clipboard had already been flipped through twice. The call sheet had no typos, the prop checklist was intact, water bottles were distributed evenly, and a small, discreet pouch of glamour stabilizers sat at the bottom of her tote. Backup stabilizers. In case anyone’s charm cracked mid-pose. She wasn’t expecting it. But that wasn’t the point. She never expected a problem. She prepared for it anyway.
Her earpiece crackled faintly—then nothing.
The kind of quiet that meant someone somewhere was slacking—or something else was listening.
Beneath the neat layering of her protective wards, she felt it. A subtle shift in the air, like silk catching on a nail. Her wards didn’t buckle. But they rippled—just once. Like something had brushed against them, curious or lost or both.
Something tugged at the edge of her field.
Wild. Untethered. Probably accidental. She had seen it before—new mages playing with ambient weather without understanding how to shut it down. This wasn’t cast with intent. No direction, no structure. But that made it worse. Magic like that had no anchor. No aim.
And unfocused magic always hit someone.
She moved without urgency, turning slowly as if checking her schedule notes. The click of her pen covered the subtle shift in her expression as her eyes scanned the space.
The rooftop was quiet. Stylists fixing hair. The boys joking softly by the hydrangeas. Nothing overt. But the air shimmered in strange ways near the metal railing. The sound of distant traffic dulled like it had been muffled. And across the rooftop’s edge—just beyond the safety line—a tall antenna leaned into the sky from the building opposite, vibrating faintly with static.
This wasn’t a direct attack. There was no hex. No curse signature. It was more like someone had dropped a live wire into a puddle and walked away. Careless. Dangerous. Someone had stirred the sky and left it to unravel on its own.
She reached into her tote, fingers closing around a small glass tin. The lid clicked open with the soft snap of habit. Inside: mirror-dust, finely ground and faintly glowing, like powdered glass under moonlight.
She dipped her fingers inside.
The shimmer clung to her skin. Not bright. Not visible to anyone untrained. But enough.
Enough to bend stray magic away.
To hold the weather at bay.
She exhaled slowly, grounding herself.
She didn’t need a spell circle.
The shoot was just finishing when the temperature dropped.
Not in a slow, creeping way. Not in the way shade might slide over a rooftop or a breeze might curl through flower petals. It dropped like something had cut the sky open and let the chill spill out.
Romance stood near the flower cart, clothed in loose white linen like a Regency ghost caught mid-dramatic exit. His hand draped over a bouquet of baby’s breath and garden roses, held in the least natural way possible—as if it had personally offended his concept of masculinity.
“Hold it softer,” the photographer called.
Romance smirked. “I am holding it softly. This is my softest.”
Behind the potted rosebush, Baby had already finished his shots and was stealthily peeling open a second snack bag. He crouched behind the hydrangeas like an idol in exile, popping honey-almond clusters with the skill of someone who knew exactly where the cameras weren’t.
Jinu stood at the edge of the set, scanning the pose list like it was a war plan. His brow was furrowed, not with worry, but with the exacting concentration of someone trying to predict five outcomes at once and eliminate four.
Mystery leaned against the trellis.
Silent. Half-shadowed. Present in body, distant in thought.
It was Abby who noticed first.
He was lounging near a rack of pastel cardigans, eyes tracking the sky with casual curiosity—until the hair on his arms lifted.
“Hey,” he called, squinting upward. “That cloud looks like it wants to fight.”
She turned so fast her earpiece shifted.
Not just direction—intention.
She felt it hit her wards like a shoulder bump in a crowded hallway. Not malicious. But not passive either. Something conjured this. Something without finesse. And now the sky was bending.
The clouds above them didn’t roll—they tilted.
The pressure system snapped sideways in a way no natural storm should. A low rumble followed, not the kind that heralded thunder but the kind that echoed wrong in the bones. Too dry. Too early. Too much.
This wasn’t weather. This was summoning.
She dropped the clipboard.
Not carelessly. Not in panic. The motion was fluid, deliberate, like a stone dropped into still water.
She stepped forward, one foot grounding her against the magical disruption, and flicked her fingers once, clean and practiced.
A ripple shimmered along the rooftop perimeter—just for a moment. The crew didn’t notice it. But she did. So did one other.
The edge of her ward flared like stretched glass. She drew her fingers low and curved them upward, pulling the boundary into shape like threading a bubble around the rooftop.
It slammed against the invisible barrier with the force of a car crash—and shattered.
Rain followed, sharp and fast, slicing through the air like silver needles—until it met the ward line. Each drop flattened, skewed, and scattered sideways. The entire rooftop stayed dry.
Completely, unnaturally dry.
The photographer blinked, visibly shaken. “That… passed fast?”
Jinu frowned and looked skyward. “We didn’t get a single drop.”
Romance raised both arms as if conducting a weather symphony. “Maybe I scared the storm off,” he said, grinning.
“No,” Baby said, deadpan, not even pausing in his chewing.
Mystery tilted his head toward you.
She calmly knelt, picked up her clipboard, and dusted off the cover like nothing had happened. One page flipped in the wind, but she caught it before it could fly.
“Clear skies for the next hour,” she said, adjusting a line on her schedule with smooth, even handwriting.
The stylist muttered something about Seoul weather being weird lately and moved on.
The photographer nodded and clapped. “Alright, next setup! Romance with the tulips, Mystery on deck.”
But the energy had shifted.
Not because the storm passed.
Because something else had been held at bay.
Later — Post-Shoot Debrief
They gathered beneath one of the parasols that hadn’t blown away.
The rooftop looked picture-perfect again—petals scattered in curated chaos, the props now slightly sun-faded, the air sticky with late afternoon haze. The stylist crew was already packing up the floral arch. A few assistants chased down a rogue makeup sponge that had somehow made it all the way to the neighboring balcony.
The Saja Boys sat in a half-circle, sipping lukewarm sodas and looking sun-dazed, as if the shoot had drained them of both moisture and functioning brain cells.
Romance sprawled with the kind of ease that said he believed the day had gone well because he was there. He stretched his arms over his head, shirt riding up just enough to be strategic, and yawned theatrically.
“So,” he began, voice syrupy-smooth. “Are we gonna talk about how we were dry in a literal monsoon?”
“Microclimate,” Jinu replied immediately, tone clipped like he’d been waiting for this.
Romance rolled his eyes. “Bro, we were the only microclimate on the block.”
“Studio warding?” Jinu offered, less confident now.
“No way,” Abby said, pointing with his soda can. “There were like five real estate signs out front. That building doesn’t even have working elevators.”
“I tripped on a loose tile,” Baby added, licking powdered sugar off his thumb. “Place is haunted. Or bankrupt. Maybe both.”
Romance sat up, now interested. “Okay, but like—no one flinched. Not even her. Wind slaps the ward, rain hits an invisible wall, and she’s just... adjusting her clipboard like it’s Tuesday.”
There was a collective pause.
Baby squinted. “You think she cast something?”
Jinu scoffed. “She’s our manager, not a weather witch.”
Romance leaned forward, voice dropping to mock-dramatic levels. “Main. Character. Energy.”
Abby chuckled. “Unbothered. Powerful. Slightly terrifying.”
“Sounds about right,” Jinu muttered.
“She did have that jar of glittery powder,” Baby said thoughtfully. “Mirror-dust. That’s not in a manager starter pack.”
“Could be from Olive Young,” Jinu argued weakly.
“Jinu” Romance said, utterly serious, “nothing from Olive Young stops rain.”
None of them noticed the slight shift in the breeze. The way the air bent just around their circle, like something still lingered in the leftover edges of your spell.
Mystery hadn’t spoken once.
He sat with his hands folded, gaze angled just slightly away from the group—toward the other end of the rooftop, where you stood near the edge, phone in hand, texting one-handed while tucking her clipboard under her arm.
She wasn’t looking at them.
He could tell by the way her fingers paused, mid-message. Just long enough to register the conversation.
Then she resumed typing, unbothered. Or pretending to be.
That Evening — Your Journal
The scent of lemon balm lingered in the air, fresh from the protective incense she’d burned at the apartment window. Her hair was still faintly scented with ozone. She didn’t bother to change out of her work clothes. She just sat at her desk, kicked off her shoes, and opened her journal.
The page welcomed her like an old habit. Pen already in hand. Words waiting.
Journal Entry — Rooftop Fan Shoot: Weather Incident
Residual storm magic detected mid-afternoon.
Source: likely student-tier conjuration, unsupervised.
Drawn through leyline rupture—unanchored pulse near nearby broadcast antenna.
Wind pressure reached threshold. Glamour disruption potential: high.
Deflected using mirror-dust perimeter shell.
No glamour break. No staff exposure. Crew unaware.
Saja Boys—partial suspicion.
Romance: vocal curiosity.
Jinu: dismissive, but watchful.
Baby: inquisitive. Possibly intuitive.
Abby: uncertain. Protective instinct triggered.
Mystery: observant. Too much. Will need distraction.
She tapped her pen once on the edge of the page. Then, deliberately, underlined two phrases they’d used:
“Main character energy.” “Unbothered.”
A smile tugged at her lips.
Maybe just this once, she’d let this myth build itself.
Let them believe she was something dramatic and mysterious. Something powerful but safe—on their side. That belief might keep them out of deeper truths for just a little longer.
She closed the journal softly and reached for her tea.
Outside, thunder rolled again—distant this time. Natural.
AN: Back to our regularly scheduled program. No weather apps were harmed in the making of this chapter. However, several parasols were emotionally compromised, a bouquet was held in an aggressively unnatural way, and one (1) manager may or may not have outmaneuvered a minor sky-based apocalypse without spilling her tea.
Not saying she controls the weather.
But also not not saying that.
Taglist: @poem-bee @gremlinartstudio @wantstoliveinfantasy @lovely-maryj @buggaboobich @idkokfu @osball @tenaciouskittenpuff @venommie @honey-and-sweetdreams @luna-looniesblog @lyunsafebubble @tulnukaz @levifiance @mysteris-things @aerissblog @anxiousskylar @downbadgirlypoo @misdollface @renchai @rithalie-sideblog @tsukimoon-chan @reixtsu @ghostiiess
