•∞•∞•∞•∞∞•∞•∞•∞•

Minho fixed his hoodie once he arrived at the entrance of the village, while Little Henry sat on his left shoulder easily, the tiny fingers holding onto Minho’s hair for balance.

“Is this Jonghyunnie’s old village?”

“Mmh, yeah it is,”

He grimaced at the sight of the village – the grass was no longer green, in fact it was colored with muddy brown, the earth was as dry as one could get and it was extremely hot that it made Minho sweating under his silky robe. He heard Little Henry gasped in surprised and Minho just sighed in response.

“Merlin, this village looked terrible!”

They gasped and Minho watched on without exactly entering the village. Even though the village was scorching under the hot burning sun, there was an emptiness that Minho couldn’t seem to shake off. He grumbled, eyebrows furrowed when he felt his mood went chaos – a mixture of annoyed, sorrowful and anger all mixing into one.

“Henry,”

He grumbled the fairy’s name and they quickly flied up, above Minho’s head and dug their tiny hand into the dress’s pocket, taking out a handful of shiny powder before they sprinkled it on Minho. The fairy dust gracefully landed on Minho’s robe and Minho’s face relaxed on instant, all the negativity was bashed away.

“Bless you, my Henry,”

Minho murmured, fingers reaching out to rub the tiny cheek in gratitude and Henry giggled excitedly, feeling happy that he’s able to help the Guardian. They went back down and sat back on Minho’s left shoulder with a smile. The Guardian moved on and stepped into the village, the fairy dust was doing a great job at keeping the negative emotions at bay, but Taemin’s curse was so powerful that he could feel that even Henry’s fairy dust couldn’t hold on any much longer.

He distinctively heard a child crying, but it wasn’t a cry of rebellious child, but it was cry of sorrowful that tugged at Minho’s heart.

“Minho!”

The tall Guardian jerked up at the call of his name, turning around only to find Jinki coming up to him, hoodie off and white robe trailing behind the Highest Guardian.

“What’s the matter?”

“Are you going to Jonghyun’s village now?”

“Yeah, unless there’s a change of plan?”

Jinki shook his head, his eyes down casted as he mulled over his next words. Minho stood there patiently. Jinki was never a mumbling mess, and Minho believed there’s a good reason for his behavior now. He watched as Jinki took a deep breath and looked up with determined eyes, like he just made up his mind about something.

“When you visit the village, I want you to lift up the sorrow curse,”

If Minho was surprised, he did a good job at hiding it by nodding easily.

“Yeah, sure. But may I know why? We don’t usually lift up any curse within one year it’s been placed on,”

“It’s true some of the villagers deserved it, for what they did to Jonghyun. But there’s also those who don’t, and an innocent child may belong in those group. I just don’t want to make the mistake of punishing those who are innocent,”

“Ahh,”

Minho hummed and agreed easily. Jinki was right and as the Highest Guardian, he should knew better and Minho would trust his judgment.

“Okay, I’ll do that once I arrive there,”

Jinki let out a relief sigh, like he didn’t expect him to easily accept his decision. But how could Minho not? Jinki had been nothing but wise from the moment he knew him. And for that, Minho offered him a reassuring smile and raised up his right hand, palm opened for Jinki to hover over it. And when Jinki’s hovered his hand over his, his lips didn’t move – Jinki never needed to mutter out a spell – but his eyes changed from soft blue to gold and Minho felt the warmth on his hand. The small light connecting their hands became bigger and bigger and when Jinki’s hand touched his, the light disappeared into his palm, flowing into his blood and spreading around his body like a wild fire.

Minho shuddered at the power he felt running through his vein, his eyes fluttering shut unconsciously.

“You okay?”

Jinki asked, voice layered with pure concern and Minho opened his eyes to see Jinki was holding onto his hand, the light was gone – so did the gold eyes. He let out a small huff and grinned up at the Highest Guardian.

“I’m okay, but I don’t think I will ever get used to have a small part of your power in me,”

Minho couldn’t lift up the curse, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t. That blessing didn’t befall upon him, or any Guardians for that matter because only the Highest Guardian had the power to lift up a curse, only Jinki and Changmin could do that. Sometimes, when Minho was given the chance to lift up the curse in Jinki’s stead, Jinki had to share some of his power to the said Guardian and Minho would have the taste of the actual magic resided in Jinki.

And it scared him.

Just being bared to this smallest form of Jinki’s magic had his body shivering, his blood flowing so fast through his veins that the first time he received it, he had the difficulty of breathing. He couldn’t and wouldn’t want to know how the full extent of Jinki’s magic felt.

Jinki smiled knowingly and squeezed his hand in gesture of comfort and guilt.

“I’m sorry,”

“Nah, I’m cool. Thank you for trusting me enough to do this,”

“Minho?”

Henry’s voice chirped and Minho blinked back into reality, his eyes focusing back on the sight in front of him. The cry of the innocent child still tugged at his heart, it wasn’t an empty sob, but it was a cry full of pain and sorrow and loneliness and all emotions that Jonghyun had to deal with since he was a child, but with the curse, they would feel twice as much and Minho didn’t want to imagine how tired their bodies were for the constant crying.

“Sorry,” He murmured, flapping his hands so that they were exposed to his eyes and not hidden by the robe’s sleeves. “Let’s do this,”

He whispered to himself, eyes closing as he let the magic flowed more readily inside of him before he start to cast the spell that could lift up the curse.

“The moon has awoken
within the presence of the sun
and shall for the fallen
be free of darks
for the light has been broken
and the spell has begun,”

The brown irises behind the closed eyelids started to glow as orbs of lights floated on Minho’s open palms, swirling and trashing around like wild animals in a cage. When Minho opened his eyes again, they were all white and on instant, the small orbs of lights became bigger and bigger before Minho clasped his hands together, letting out the wild animals from the cage and watched on as the light spread in circular shape, growing wide from where he stood, to the nearest house, to its backyard, reaching the empty morning market and to the last dry grass in the village. The blinding light stayed for another few seconds, before it shrunk until what’s left at the middle of the village was only a ray of light, taking up all the negative energy within it before it disappeared into the moon up above.

For one’s eyes, the village might remained unchanged, but Minho could feel the curse had been lifted as Henry’s fairy dust stopped struggling against the negative emotions. The village was once again in a complete silence, like someone just pressed a pause in a story, void of cries and sobs.

“We did it, right?”

Henry asked, eager for confirmation and Minho nodded with a smile, his brown orbs were back like usual but the smile on his became cautious when the villagers started to appear out from their homes.

“Is that…our Lord?”

One of the villagers claimed, and Minho held back his frown at the sight of red, swollen eyes – probably the result from the constant crying – and his question was answered by other villager who carefully stepped out from her house.

“It is!”

She claimed and Minho watched unperturbed as she ran over, stopping only a few feet away from him before she fell to the ground, bowing down to him until her forehead was touching the dry earth.

“Thank you for lifting up the curse for us!”

She cried out and more villagers came out to mirror her a  ction and Minho barely raised up an eyebrow at the display. Human, he mused out in silent, always so eager to please when they were on the receiving end of their blessing.

“I will pass the gratitude to Jinki,”

He said instead and more heads raised up to look at him and Minho noticed one of them was Jonghyun’s father. He didn’t look that good, judging by the messy dry hair and smudged face, but again, he never was. Minho hid his distaste and looked away from the man.

“Jinki…Jonghyun’s soul mate?”

Jonghyun’s father asked with a disgust that was so clear in his eyes and Minho didn’t bother to hide his grimace this time.

“Don’t spell out their names with that foul mouth of yours,”

He warned, other villagers were quick in hushing him and wanting him to stop from angering the Guardian, but the man was nothing but a fool.

“You have no right to treat us like this! Aren’t you a Guardian? A Guardian should guard us instead of punishing us because of a worthless human being,”

The man sneered and Minho could hear the tiny growl emitted from Henry’s small body when they heard Jonghyun was being addressed so lowly like that.

“And do you have the right to abuse your child like that?”

“I do, he’s my son, I can treat him however I want!”

The man spat and the blatant disrespect given to Minho was enough to spur a woman to tug at Jonghyun’s father harshly.

“Hajoon! Stop it!”

She screamed in hush voice but Minho could hear her all the same, as clear as the sky above. Hajoon grumbled in annoyance and pushed away the woman with a strong force that cause the woman to stumble back on her behind.

“Let me go! I’m going to give them a piece of my mind,”

Hajoon said, walking over to him with a growl and Minho remained emotionless once Hajoon was one step away from him.

“Jonghyun is my son, and I have been taking care of him since he was born. And all of sudden, you, almighty Guardians came here and judged us and decided he wasn’t raised right and punished us. Are you sure that you are a Guardian, not a Satan who easily take a revenge on someone whenever they pleases?”

Hajoon sniggered while the villagers behind him cowered in fear. Minho let out a deep sigh – he wasn’t here to be involved in some pathetic drama.

“I shall entertain you no longer,”

Minho concluded calmly and that seemed to spur on more anger from Hajoon’s side as the man spat angrily at him, the dirty saliva landing a few millimeters away from Minho’s robe.

“Did my son feed you with his lies?! What kind of pathetic story that the disgusting sold to you that the Guardians are all suddenly on his side?!”

What happened next was quick and hidden by the villagers’ eyes, but it made Minho smug so much that he kept retelling the story when he was back at the Dark Forest later. It was just a small gesture – a flick of his fingers inside the robe’s sleeve and he might have send the man flying across the earthy road harsher than he thought, but no men needed to know that.

Hajoon fell on the road with a loud thump, his groans of pain were like a music to Minho’s ears. Other villagers scrambled to help the fallen man and Minho gave them a sincere smile for the first time since he arrived.

“Have a good day then,”

He wished and turned around, his steps taking him away from the village as the white mist clouded his back, growing thicker and thicker, making Minho looked smaller the more he walked on before the Guardian slowly disappeared from the plain sight.

•∞•∞•∞•∞∞•∞•∞•∞•

Jonghyun didn’t have enough time on his hands to visit the library until the next week, when Jinki was away for a long meeting at the Light Forest, stressing over invisible spells in a larger scale for days now and probably would still discuss about the spell in his upcoming meeting. He fixed his robe, pulling on his hood until it landed on his hair and walked out from the room he shared with his lover. If his judgment was right, he had until the sunset before Jinki came looking for him, and he wanted to make use of the free time as much as he could.

He went down to the clearance and took to the right, the enormous tree housing so many rooms inside its trunk still amazed Jonghyun until this day. He never knew such size of tree existed, much so to house so many rooms and people inside it. The tree in which the library was built was different from the tree in which he slept in. If he were to compare them to a state of town, it was like the trees were the buildings that had different rooms and functions.

He smiled politely at the Guardian who walked passed him at the entrance of the tree and went up to the first level, the swirling staircase did such a good job at hiding any sight of the library until he actually reached the top. And once there, he stopped on his track to admire the room of books – the room was in a circular shape, as like any others, but what caught his eyes was the wooden table being placed at the middle of the room.

The table was high enough that it reached the same height as his waist, but on the table was a huge, deep black stone surrounded by beautiful flowers and lively grass like they were actual alive. Jonghyun noticed there’s a ray of light reflecting on the stone and he looked up, finding a line of circular windows decorating along the higher part of the wall, where the sunlight came through.

“So beautiful,”

He whispered out in awe, eyes studying the windows and blinked in surprise when he realized that the sunlight would always be able to come through because the windows were built so that they would match the movement of the sun – from sunrise until the sunset.

“Isn’t? I might have to say this is my proudest creation of all and it still flatters me whenever the Guardians shower it with praises,”

Jonghyun turned around to the sound of the voice, lips tugging into a soft smile as he bowed lightly at the Guardian.

“Hello, nice to meet you. I’m –”

“Kim Jonghyun? I can see that, from the embroidery on your robe.”

Jonghyun reached out to grip at the hood of his robe unconsciously.

“My robe?”

“Yes, haven’t you noticed that the color of embroidery on the robes was different for each Guardians?”

The white hair man blinked at the sudden question and hesitantly nodded.

“I…guess?”

The Guardian chuckled, and Jonghyun wasn’t sure if it was only his mind playing tricks on him or what, but the chuckles sounded a lot like he was mocking him on his limited knowledge. He pressed his lips into a thin line and watched as the Guardian walked over to the stone, hands behind his back in leisure pose.

“In the Dark Forest, it is forbidden for you to have the same color of embroideries, as we believe the colors represent our identities and places. The Guardians must carry their own identities proudly, and plus it is easier for Jinki to decide who will be given the task, from an easy task to the most difficult one, according to the color of the embroideries.”

The Guardian turned around to face him, the blackness of his eyes caused Jonghyun to look away in uneasiness that he couldn’t explain.

“And Jinki gave you his robe, which meant he regards you as someone who has the same status as him.”

 The silence between them stretched out so long that Jonghyun even thought of leaving, but was cut short when the Guardian laughed and shook his head, as if he was being silly.

“I apologize, I just realized that I haven’t introduce myself yet. I’m Joon, the one who takes care of this library,”

Joon.

Jonghyun took a better look at Joon this time, now that he knew who he was. He was tall and well built, but the void in his smiling eyes had Jonghyun felt unsettled. Did he do something wrong to this Guardian?

“…Jonghyun?”

“Huh?” Jonghyun looked up at the call of his name, only to splutter in shock that sent him stumbling backward, but he wasn’t allowed to go that far as the grip Joon had on his elbow prevented his fall.

“Are you okay?”

Jonghyun was sure he could hear the concern in those black eyes, but something was wrong and he didn’t like it here.

“I’m okay,” He answered, smoothing his unwrinkled robe in a subtle attempt to shake off Joon’s grip on his elbow and took a few steps back as if he was trying to look around.

“I’m just – just, um surprised. Because I didn’t know about the symbolic of the embroideries,”

He said with a light voice as much as possible, but he wouldn’t and couldn’t miss the sharp stare from Joon as the Guardian’s eyes trailed the gold embroideries on his robe.

“How can you?”

The weight of judgmental opinion in that voice was so heavy that it had caused Jonghyun to look down in shame. Yeah, he still had a lot to learn and whatever knowledge he learnt when he started staying here was probably not something he should be proud of, if he were to compare to these magical creatures.

“Anyway!” Joon claimed with a smile, clapping his hands together to change the topic. “I’m sure you’re here because of the wonderful books! What kind of book you’re looking for?”

Jonghyun looked around the library nervously, the circular row of book shelves were placed facing the stone was making his head spinning.

“I, um, I’m not sure. J-Jinki said, he had some books he already reserved for me?”

Joon nodded his head a few times in agreement at his question. “Yes yes, he did stop by the other day to personally pick up some books for your reading. I have them stored in the back room, please, by all means follow me,”

Jonghyun wet his dry lips in a gesture to soothe his anxious heart and followed Joon to the back room, moving past all the book shelves until he reached a semi-circle wooden door, at which Joon pushed it to enter. He waited at the entrance of the room, eyes looking around at the surprisingly rectangular room. There’s one big table full of books and scrolls on his right, and two book shelves to his left and front respectively. Joon picked up a few books and one scroll from the shelf at his front, and Jonghyun’s eyes widened excitedly at the prospect of reading a scroll. He always read the scrolls that Jinki brought back home, but they were full of spells that he couldn’t understand.

He had whine about that one day, and Jinki just kissed him on his forehead with an amused smile.

“Here you go,” Joon passed the books and the scroll to him, and he received them with a grateful smile.

“Thank you, um, Joon-ssi,”

Joon dismissed his gratitude by flapping his hand around. “Ah, no worries! There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Jinki.”

His heart stuttered a bit at the reply. Ah, how could he forget that Joon harbored some deep feelings towards Jinki? But his lover told him that they already settled that long time ago, that he wouldn’t have to worry about it.

But still.

“Also, can you pass some words to Jinki?”

“A-Ah, yes sure, of course I can do that,”

“Perfect. Please tell him that the night he stopped by, he left his box here,” Joon gestured to somewhere around his behind, and Jonghyun took a peek at the closed wooden box sitting on the book shelf. “Maybe remind him to pick it up later? I don’t know if it’s important or not since I don’t dare go around and snooping at his thing,”

“Jinki…came?”

He blurted out in daze of surprise and Joon nodded easily, eyes tracing the box with a fondness that had his heart twisted at the new information.

“Yeah, and he brewed a good tea too. I must say his brewing skill surpassing all the Guardians here,”

Joon joked around but Jonghyun wasn’t really listening to his ramble anymore. This new ugly feeling inside him was making him unable to think clear. What was it? Was he…jealous? But he shouldn’t be, right? Because Jinki had made it clear to him that there was nothing between him and Joon, but still.

Jinki came here during the night and that was a fact he couldn’t change. And for what? The library wasn’t a well-known place for a group of Guardians to come here to talk and relax, so why would Jinki came here during the night? Was it the night he came back late to the room because of his prolonged meeting? The images of Jinki sitting here, brewing tea for Joon with his soft smiles and beautiful laughter had his throat clogged up. He couldn’t breathe – and he needed to get out from here as fast as his feet allowed him to.

“Jonghyun?”

“Ah, yes yes, I’ll…um, send the words to him. I think…I have to go now. Um, thank you for the books, Joon-ssi.”

He mumbled quickly and his heels, walking down the swirling staircase without looking back. Jinki didn’t tell him he went to visit Joon, more so at late of night. He gripped the books tighter against his chest as the insecurity tugged at his poor little heart. He knew he shouldn’t be like this, but knowing that Joon harbored some feelings towards Jinki, and with Joon being the beautiful creature that he was – Jonghyun couldn’t help but feel scared that one day Jinki might realized that the Guardian was a better match for him.

“Jonghyunnie?”

Jonghyun looked up from the ground –he hadn’t realize he was already out from the huge tree and was standing in the middle of the clearance– and stared at Minho through his blurry eyes. Eh, blurry eyes?’

“Merlin, why are you crying? Are you hurt somewhere? Are you okay?”

Minho fussed, taking the books from him and handing him a silky handkerchief for Jonghyun to wipe his tears away. Instead of taking it, Jonghyun stared at the small piece of cloth with a cloudy mind as tears rolling down more heavily, staining his pale cheeks with warm tears. He didn’t mean to cry. Merlin, why was he crying anyway?

But he was, and it was like the gate of flood was being unlocked when Minho asked him that question and he couldn’t stop at thinking of so many possible futures things would happen, mainly revolving around Jinki and Joon.

“I can’t,”

He sobbed and broke down on the spot, causing Minho to flutter around him in concern.

“What? What is it? You can’t breathe? Oh my Merlin, answer me Jonghyun. Bloody hell, where is Jinki?”

Minho’s questions was left unanswered as the smaller man sobbed into Minho’s chest, body heaving with how hard he was trying to hold back his sobs. Jonghyun couldn’t – he couldn’t bear the thought of Jinki leaving him. If Jinki did leave, Jonghyun didn’t think he could survive another separation.

•∞•∞•∞•∞∞•∞•∞•∞•