In the middle of Seoul Station, Junho was standing next to a stranger, staring at a map of Korea. Close to 15 minutes now, they had been standing there in silence, and it was starting to feel awkward. Though, silence was probably better than going on about a ‘magical lake’, and having people stare at them funnily for being a couple of crazy weirdos.

“Ahem” Junho cleared his throat, “Have you found it?”

“Yes” Chansung looked at him happily, before pointing onto the map: “There.”

Face-palming, Junho didn’t really know how to respond to that, and tried hesitantly: “Are you absolutely sure that’s it?”

“Yeah, positive” he replied smiling.

“Chansung-sshi…” Junho started hesitantly, “We can’t go there.”

“Why not?”

“That’s in North-Korea.”

“And?”

“And we can’t go there.”

“Why?”

Sighing, Junho rubbed his temple, “It’s a very long story, but we just… can’t.” In response to the frown he was given he added hopefully: “Isn’t there… anywhere else we could go?”

“Hmmm…” Again, Chansung looked carefully at the map, staying quiet for a while. “Maybe, but it’s further away, so…”

“China… Finland… I don’t care, anywhere but North-Korea!”

Luckily it didn’t come to that, because Chansung pointed to a place that actually belonged to South-Korea.

“Naju?” Junho read off the map, “Is that where we should go?”

“I still believe the other place is better” he replied reluctantly.

“Trust me, it’s not.”

“But it’s closer and the lake is bigger.”

Sighing, Junho contemplated how it was possible that Chansung didn’t even know about North-Korea. But when he thought about it more carefully it did make sense. At this point there were only two possible options, either this man actually was a fairy like he claimed, or more probably he was crazy, and in both cases he didn’t have any need to follow politics. So Junho did his best to explain: “In the North, above this line,” he pointed to the map, “…there is an… evil wizard controlling the land, so we can’t go there.”

“Oh, I understand” Chansung nodded in agreement, “So let’s go to the other place!”

After smiling at his small victory, Junho’s lips quickly turned into a frown once he realized that they didn’t have any money, so they had about as much chance of getting to Naju as the South Pole. In spite of his irritation, he did his best to explain to Chansung that in order to get on the train they needed to buy tickets first.

“That woman is in a cage!” he replied in horror.

“Uhm, it’s fine, she can get out, really.” Sighing, Junho tried to explain that even though the ticket sales person was behind a glass, it wasn’t a cage.

“That is going to make this so much more difficult,” Chansung replied worried.

“I think the fact that we have no money is more of a problem.”

Since Chansung insisted, once more Junho explained in detail how the ticket transaction would work, if they actually had some money.

“OK, I think we can do this” Chansung replied after thinking, grabbed a brochure with the train routes and pulled Junho to the line.

For a moment Junho contemplated how he should tell him that no matter how handsome he thought he was (or actually was), he couldn’t just flirt himself to a train ticket. Once they got closer, Chansung reached for a pen in his bag, and made a circle around Naju, then he opened up his palm, revealing a small pile of glitter, which he gently blew over the brochure.

“Again with the glitter?” Junho thought to himself annoyed, he hadn’t forgot about being nearly drowned in it back at his grandfather’s place.

Soon they were next in line, and Chansung carefully pushed the brochure through the small gap at the bottom of the glass in front of the ticket lady.

“We want to go there…”

“To Naju?” The woman replied, after glancing quickly at the brochure.

“Look closer please.”

After a short glance at him, the woman brought the brochure closer to her face, and said “It says Naju…”

But then there was like something happened, Junho wasn’t sure if he was seeing things, but her eyes became glazed and her face muscles relaxed and she just stared at them like a zombie.

“Two tickets to Naju” Chansung said politely, and the woman did as she was told. Afterwards, he thanked her, and dragged Junho away.

“W-What the hell happened?” Junho asked completely stunned.

“Fairy dust” Chansung replied cheekily.

“Fairy-what-now?”

“Common, let me show you.”

After dragging him to a fast food restaurant, Chansung asked him what he wanted, and then ordered all sorts of things. The employee gave them the food, but once he asked for the money, without being too obvious, Chansung blew some glitter at him, and said: “We already paid.”

“Yes, yes of course” the employee said with a monotone voice, and then thanked them.

In total shock, Junho sat down with Chansung at one of the tables. Technically this was stealing, and very wrong, but it was still exciting, being able to break the rules without anyone noticing. Plus he was really, really hungry. So with a dash of guilt he ate his hamburger.

After eating they went to the platform, and managed to sit down, waiting for the train. Now when they finally had a few minutes to slow down, Junho’s mind started to work full speed. The longer he stayed with this man, the weirder everything became. The strangest thing was that his story was starting to make more and more sense, which probably meant that Junho had completely lost it.

Secretly glancing over to the man next to him, Junho couldn’t really see anything strange about him. If actually he were a magical creature, shouldn’t there be something obvious to give him away?

But even though he took a closer look, he couldn’t really see anything out of the ordinary. He was just a normal man, albeit a very handsome one, but still very human-looking. Junho shook his head, this was so crazy, he didn’t know what to think. Though with every minute a bigger and bigger part of him, was starting to believe his story, as crazy as that sounded, but what else could explain all the weird things that had happened?

One thing didn’t make sense, though. Even if everything this man said was true, it still didn’t make any sense why he would know his grandfather.

Again he looked at Chansung, who was starting to look pretty bad. His forehead was covered in sweat, even though it was drafty and not especially warm on the platform. The train was arriving soon so it wouldn’t be good for him to fall asleep.

“Chansung-sshi, are you awake?”

“hmm” he muttered back.

After a short pause, Junho asked again: “How did my grandfather find out about you? Fairies, I mean?”

Instantly Chansung’s eyes opened up and he looked at him skeptically: “You really don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

Taking a deep breath, the fairy hesitated briefly before continuing.

“Master Park, your grandfather… he was a wizard.”

In total shock, Junho stared at him and muttered back:

“Uh… What? No he wasn’t!”

“Yes he was” Chansung replied softly, raising himself up, and looked at him carefully before adding: “…and so are you.”

Mouth gaping, Junho’s mind turned blank, and he had absolutely no idea how to reply to that insane statement. But before he could object, tell him that this time he was absolutely 100% wrong, the train arrived, so Chansung stood up, grabbed his wrist, and dragged him on board.