“I’m not a wizard, it’s still a witch even if I’m a dude.”

This isn’t exactly how you pictured tonight would go.

“Okay, so it’s fine if I call you wizard dude, right?”

“Do I sound like a non-dude?”

He doesn’t. The new guy who runs this tiny, squalid yet mystifying little corner of the French Quarter is anything but feminine; he’s got a jaw that could cut if you got close enough, and he has the voice of a warrior, husky and strong and oddly reminiscent of the feeling of a shot of bourbon going down your throat. He’s got eyes like a cats’ and in two different colours: one a pretty hazel brown and the other a rampant, thunderbolt blue.

But you just can’t see the witch in them.

“Anyone can be a dude. Unless you don’t like being called dude. Then just let me know, I’ll call you other stuff.”

For years now, this particular slit of eighty square feet has been occupied by members of the occult. New Orleans has never been shy about these groups, what with its rich history and endless run ins with things that are less than natural and at the same time very much earthly.

“You can refer to me as warlock if it matters that much to you.”

This isn’t your first time on this block but it is your first official time in here, given the fact that the spot had been desolate since Katrina and you were way too young to know to come here before then. This boy, whose white hair darkens to magenta about halfway down its strands, is the first tenant since the disaster, and his reputation is weirdly good when it comes to voodoo and exorcisms (though you just prefer to call it purification to avoid any run ins with Western religions); some claim he's the best alchemist in centuries.

Usually you hear the best comments from the super legit witches, the ones that have been in the Quarter for generations, with bloodlines running right back to the sugar cane fields of Saint-Domingue. You’ve been to see some, too, and some are terrifyingly legit. Some are even beyond your comfort zone of weirdness, and that’s saying a lot.

But this guy looks Eastern. Maybe at first glance he could look a little like the pretty boys that come from south of the Caribbean Sea, but he’s definitely not Haitian or Creole.

At least as far as you can tell.

“Yes, you guessed it. I’m Asian.”

He can read your mind?”

“I can’t read your mind, but I can read your eyes and you’re kind of embarrassingly transparent.”

“Thanks?”

“You’re welcome. Now, why are you bothering me?”

“Look,” and he does, stares right into your eyes and you finally feel it —  the jolt of white hot electricity that hits you whenever you finally catch the aura of one of them, one of you, and then all of your doubts about him disappear, “I’m not here to ask for a palm reading or any of that bull. I know you’re real, and I need your help.”

>my demons are blocking out the light

How you got into this entire predicament in the first place is actually a pretty funny story. When you were twelve, you finally figured out why the people in your school avoided your house like the plague when you were growing up, why your parents were never invited to town meetings, or town council events; why you always went to fairs and festivals and birthday parties on your own.

Turns out, your entire family tree are Wiccan, with real magic running through their branches and veins, and though New Orleans can hardly afford to be narrow minded about it, it looks like it’s still too weird to follow a niche religion and still raise a perfectly normal family.

Oh, well. You were always a er for countercultures, anyway. And you never stuck around for the part where normalcy could bully you too much, because the moment you found out about your lineage, you decided that yours was going to be the life of a nomad.

So you moved. You and your immediate family, that is. Between moving from New Orleans to Paris, from Paris to Florence and from Florence to Seville, then to Prague and finally New York, you decided to dedicate your time to harnessing whatever knowledge was passed down to you from your parents and grandparents in between classes and language lessons. And you found out that you weren’t just Wiccan. You are part of an entire clan of witches, real scary ones. Your entire family bloodline is a merge of victims of the Inquisitions in Spain and Italy, the blood of Haitian slaves and the magic flowing through the soil of Brazil; you’re actually directly descended from the union of all these bloods and a witch of Salem, one who even came to have the ageless spirit of a Japanese fox as her familiar.

That much is pretty badass, in your opinion.

Now, usually at this part of the story, there’s supposed to be some event that calls you to action and makes you turn all your gears toward harnessing the magic in your blood and whatever, right?

Well, that’s also happening, in part. Which is why you’re here.

In all of the stories that you’ve been hearing since age five at every family reunion (you have one every Hallow’s Eve), you were totally uninformed of a single, pivotal fact.

Spellcraft is a skill that needs to be constantly honed, or it gets lost inside its host and can’t be recalled again. Because times have changed and technology has pretty much eliminated the need for magic, your family hasn’t been able to make use of their own for decades.

And you only excel at one kind of magic.

Now, while that is quite fine and dandy (some witches can’t even get telekinesis down), your current problem needs a master of a lot of trades.

Specifically speaking, you were born with the gift of Empathy. It’s rare, most kids are born with the gift of Valor or Wisdom, which is a perfect base for alchemy mages or spellcraft mage. Empathy could be channeled into alchemy, it’s what happens with most of those born with it, but with your luck, you grew into something else.

A sensory mage. The only one you’ve met, to date.

More about that later, though.

Before the year is done, you have to be another kind of mage, an elemental one, or you might never be as cool as your ancient great-aunts (who are still blissfully alive and even driving) and you’ll never have awesome stories to tell your great-grandchildren when you’re a silver fox at 107.

And you also might get killed by the end of the year.

So here you are, back in murky America, on a wild chase for a good elemental mage to learn from. Your first instinct was to take someone from your own family, but no one had been able to conjure a significant spell in over fifteen years. The strongest in the bloodline, your great-grandmother, hasn’t been able to do anything besides use elemental magic (for a single element: water) since 1952.

That, and a little bit of alchemy that helped her out considerably when she was working toward the war effort through the 60s. And while she’s still a total badass at it, it doesn’t help you at all right now.

Besides that, you were pretty much out of luck, so you branched out. You went to consult with all the scary witches in the Brazilian favadas, some who could see the blood of your ancestors and speak to them too, but couldn’t awaken their power from within you. Other witches, from Boston and Cordoba, denied you completely, because they couldn’t see any salvageable potential in you and had no time for useless exploits when they could be making bank doing fake readings of tarot cards to dumb tourists.

Too bad they never found out you’re just about the rarest mage out there right now. Too bad you were too scared to show them.

And so, the fates have brought you here. To this very strangely decorated spot, with Persian rugs and Japanese art hung on dingy walls. It smells like patchouli and jasmine everywhere, though you’re sure you smell Hermès radiating from the male’s body.

The male’s very attractive body, should you add.

“I think I asked you a question. In English, too.”

Your eyes retrace a path from the mole under his collarbones back to his eyes, and after you’ve regained your wits, you tell the boy your name. “I’m a sensory mage.”

Then his eyes widen, and you know he understands.

“You like Korean food?”

As it turns out you do; you've tried just about every notable kind of food and liquor in your young age. And this boy, whose name you don't know yet only because you're rude and forgetful and skipped the introductions in favour of getting your wants and needs out of the way first, seems kind of impressed at you and your tolerance for Korean soju.

After sitting here for an hour, it feels kind of awkward to ask for his name, anyway. Especially since you’ve been sitting at this bar sitting next to each other like age old friends, and you feel drunk and stupid but you don’t want to let it show.

“How did you manifest? Like, the first time you channeled your energy into the physical world?”

It’s amazing, how open he is about it here. You feel like this is a place he trusts, more than anything, or that his words are so specific that they might escape all suspicion in their plain directness.

“Uh,” the smile you give him tells him everything he wants to know. You have every intention of giving him a straight answer, but the story isn't all that pleasant, though he knows you're going to tell it anyway. “I kind of sort of bleached my best friend’s hair, permanently.”

Not that Taemin has too many complaints, but it is true that his hair won't ever go back to its chocolate brown. For now though, he’s pretty happy with his white blond head, even happier to be able to dye it any wild colour he fancies.

Right now it's lilac, and it looks pretty good on him. Everything looks pretty good on Taemin.

Taemin, who's in Boston and probably having the time of his life in college while you sit here because you don't know what you're going to do with your life but you're oddly inclined to believe it has nothing to do with business or finance or whatever makes people rich these days. A part of you does still envy Taemin, though, because he's always had it all and he was the only person to ever want to share everything with you.

You miss him.

“You must like him a lot.”

“It's not my fault, you can't help liking someone you've spent the better part of your existence with.”

Pink Hair nods, and you're suddenly reminded of that one magical girl anime you never finished because the main girl's hair is the exact same shade and you can't remember her name for —

“Kaname Madoka. That’s who you're thinking of. And no, I took another colour as  reference. Kaname’s is a lot lighter.”

He watches anime. And he has some decent taste, too.

“It's not my favorite, stop thinking about it. You're so awkward.”

“So stop reading me.”

“I can't help it, kind of comes with the whole self-inflicted psychic heterochromia by magic thing.”

He pours you another shot of the clear sweet stuff as you process his words. So he did this to himself?

“It's how I first manifested seven years ago.”

The air is somber, suddenly, and you take your shots together.

“My name’s Jonghyun. And I hate drinking, but the look on your face told me you like spicy soups and getting wasted for no reason.”

He’s more honest, more blunt than a lot of people you’ve met, and you’re really very grateful for it. So you refill his glass, and he does the same for yours, and the conversation hits a pause as a petite lady sets down two abundant helpings of soondubu jjigae in front of each of you, accompanied by seven side dishes and rice.

“Did you get Empathy at birth, too?,” you ask because you can’t help it, because Jonghyun fits him perfectly and the fiery look in his eyes makes you feel warmer than you have in the past few months and you think you see some of your own weirdness in him.

Maybe you have finally found yourself a true comrade.

“Yes.”

Maybe he can save you.