The partners in crime landed in the cafe bathroom, Woohyun latching onto the door to catch his balance from his unsteady landing. Sunggyu rolled his eyes as he walked out of the bathroom, Woohyun stumbling out of the bathroom and running a few steps to catch up to his partner.

This time, Woohyun opted for a butterscotch-flavored giraffe cookie, while Sunggyu stuck with his strawberry shortcake crab. The two of them grabbed a seat in a booth in the corner on the restaurant, outlooking the street outside. The cobbled street was full of people walking around, some with small pets that looked like teakettle-shaped dogs. The buildings were tall and all stuck together, made of reddish-colored stucco. The roofs were equally bright, covered in emerald green and sapphire blue tiles. Shops lined the bottom floors and some second floors of the houses, but the upper floors seemed to be residential.

The sun was lower on the horizon now, giving everything a lovely pink glow. Woohyun stifled a yawn, realizing that his body had grown quite weary. He couldn’t really tell how much time had passed when travelling to new worlds with, probably, different constructs of day and night, but he supposed that this new world had roughly the same timeline as his did.

“It’s pretty crowded out there,” Woohyun commented.

“Well, it’s hard to find safe places to live when you’ve got fire-breathing dragons and basilisks that can turn you to stone just prowling around,” Sunggyu pointed out.

Woohyun nodded and munched at his cookie, just about finishing up when Hoya walked into the cafe, holding the door open for two other men behind him. Hoya shot a wink at Sunggyu as they walked to the cashier, to which Sunggyu rolled his eyes and muttered, “Gross.”

Woohyun snickered slightly as he shifted over in the seat, making room for Hoya’s unanticipated guests. The three of them soon arrived at the table, Hoya sitting next to Sunggyu with a dark chocolate, gorilla-shaped lava cake. An incredibly tall man with very dark blue hair, so dark that it appeared black besides the spots on which the light shone, sat down next to Woohyun, who crossed his legs in hopes of offering the tall one a bit more leg room, with a s’more with lion-shaped graham crackers. Woohyun couldn’t help but take a moment to admire his hair - it was perfectly, probably recently, dyed, unfaded and with color all the way down to the roots.

The last of Hoya’s companions, a man who was just about Woohyun’s height with honey brown hair, grabbed a chair from an empty table nearby and sat down at the empty edge of the table with an ice cream decorated to look like some sort of fox-like creature, perhaps a jackal.

“Hey guys, this is Sungyeol and Dongwoo,” Hoya gestured at the tall one first, and then the one on the end of the table. “They’re both oracles in training, but they’re getting close to graduating so they’re starting on their pair missions. We met while I was wrestling a particularly feisty cockatrice.”

“I see. It’s too bad you weren’t turned to stone,” Sunggyu said, a bit more prickly than usual.

Dongwoo’s eyes widened at Sunggyu’s jab, looking at Hoya in confusion. Hoya laughed lightly, “Don’t worry, Dongwoo, that’s just what our relationship is like.”

“Ahh, I see,” Dongwoo said, smiling brightly. Woohyun felt the corners of his mouth twitch upwards in response almost immediately, but kept himself from smiling along with the man. He looked down at his cookie, as looking at Dongwoo for too long was like staring into the sun.

“Isn’t a cockatrice like a chicken?” Woohyun asked.

“Well, yes...with a snake tail and dragon wings.”

Woohyun considered the image for a moment, “Well, dinosaurs are basically chickens, and dragons are basically dinosaurs, so that sounds a lot like a chicken to me.”

The table stared at him.

“What? It’s true. Well, chickens are dinosaurs, but same thing.”

Hoya looked at Sunggyu, who shrugged. “He’s not wrong.”

Hoya rolled his eyes, “Anyways, how did the Sirena situation go?”

Sunggyu and Woohyun went over the whole spiel, neither of them failing to mention the other’s shortcomings. Hoya regarded the two of them with mild bemusement, one eyebrow slightly cocked, and his head resting against his fist. He was so still that Woohyun wondered if he had fallen asleep with his eyes open for a hot moment. Sungyeol and Dongwoo chuckled along, both of them keen to hear what the job of a real oracle was like.

When the story was finally finished, Hoya the statue reanimated and wolfed down a few bites of his gorilla cake. “Well, that’s good. What’s up next on the list?”

“We got a lead - very small, but still something, on whoever’s leaving the portals open, but it’s hard to pursue someone and clean up their messes at the same time. Hopefully we can get more information as we resolve issues. As for you two,” Sunggyu squinted slightly at the oracles-in-training, “Please be sure to close your portals properly.”

Sungyeol’s eyes widened and he feigned shock, “How could you accuse me of such a thing! I always make sure to personally observe the closing of all of my portals.”

Sunggyu raised an eyebrow, though the only way anybody could really tell, since his eyebrows were hidden beneath his bangs, was that one eye opened slightly wider than the other. “Don’t be so proud of doing something you’re supposed to be doing, anyways.” He turned his piercing gaze towards Dongwoo, who remained happily oblivious despite the awkward silence as he played around with all of the different toppings on his ice cream.

Deciding that Sunggyu wasn’t about to catch Dongwoo’s attention anytime soon, he sighed and turned back to Hoya.

“I’ve got a fairy situation. Apparently, someone has opened a portal between the fairy and human world and they’ve decided it would be fun to start the changeling industry going again - and we all know what happened with the last changeling,” Sunggyu grumbled.

“What? What happened?” Woohyun asked. “What’s a changeling?”

“Sometimes, fairies think it’s fun to trade a fairy child for a human child. The human child grows up in the fairy world and the fairy child grows up in the human world. As for the last one,” Sunggyu paused and wrinkled his nose, “Well, he was just elected president of the United States.”

Woohyun’s eyes widened. “Sunggyu. Please, for the love of God, please do not let any more changelings into our world.”

Sunggyu shrugged. “Not all of them are bad. Some of them are movie stars. They just have a lot of extra energy, so it’s hard for them to lead particularly normal lives. Anyways,” He turned back to Hoya, “You know what I usually need for taking care of fairies.”

Hoya nodded. “I should have some in stock. Are you guys resting soon?”

Sunggyu nodded. “We’ve been up for a while. I think it’s about time to turn in for the night.’

Hoya nodded. “Then, I’ll have your supplies to you by tomorrow morning.”

“Thanks,” Sunggyu said as Hoya and his companions got up to leave. Hoya clicked his tongue and made a gun with his hand and pointed it at Sunggyu on his way out.

“Bye,” Sungyeol said cheerily.

“Byee!!!” Dongwoo said, with about ten times the cheer of Sungyeol and Hoya combined, though Woohyun was unsure of Hoya really counted for any cheer at all.

The two of them waved as Hoya and his new posse exited the restaurant. Woohyun stared as they walked outside, slightly disappointed to not see a dragon fly down to pick them up. They spent some time picking at the last crumbs of their individual desserts, before Sunggyu broke the silence.

“He’s light brunette,” Sunggyu hissed at Woohyun.

“What?”

“Don’t you remember what the Sirena said? The person that made them go through the portal had light brown dyed hair.”

“No. A lot of people had light brown dyed hair. Have you seen Korea?” Woohyun shot back, “Anyways, aren’t you just jealous that your best friend has new friends to play with?”

Sunggyu opened his mouth to retort something, but closed it again with a simple glare at Woohyun. “You should be keeping your guard up.”

Woohyun grinned and cackled lightly, “Jeeaaaalous. Anyways, did you see how happy and friendly that guy was? There’s no way he’s that manipulative, evil person Jessica was talking about.”

“So you do remember. And don’t refer to the Sirena like she’s your best friend or something. The last thing I need you to be doing is falling in love with a creature that doesn’t belong in your world, so don’t even think about it.”

Woohyun pouted, “Right, right, whatever.”

“Anyways, let’s go find ourselves somewhere to sleep for the night,” Sunggyu said, getting up and heading back towards the bathroom.

“Aren’t the employees going to notice the fact that you keep coming out of and disappearing into there?” Woohyun asked.

“I know the owner of this place.”

“Oh.”

Soon enough, Sunggyu had whisked them into an empty hotel room. Woohyun was about to question the validity of their residence, but the thought of sleeping outside (or somewhere else equally uncomfortable) shut him up.

At the very least, he had a bed to himself. When he lied down, he found himself drifting off to dreamland within moments, his mind and body welcoming the sweet embrace of sleep.

OMG...is this...an update???

Haha, indeed, it is. Sorry for that crazy prolonged hiatus! I had a summer internship in California and damn, did life get away from me (staring at my gpa this semester like...pls just let me leave).

Anyways, it's winter break, and DAMN nanowrimo this year has given me hella motivation to write, so y'all should be seeing a lot more of this and of other fics soon!