“I’ve never been ice skating.”

            “You what??? You’ve never been ice skating?”

            Hongbin shook his head.

            “Nope.” Jaehwan looked at him incredulously.

            “How old are you? That you’ve never been ice skating. That’s a crime.”

            “I’m just twenty-two, and it’s not like it ever got that cold where I lived.” Jaehwan laughed.

            “Well yeah, it doesn’t really get that cold here often either, but we’ve got the magic to make up for it! Anyways, we are going to fix this immediately.” Hongbin stared at him,

            “It’s the middle of summer, Jaehwan, where are we going to find a frozen pond?” Jaehwan pointed at him.

            “Weren’t you listening? Between me and Hakyeon we’ve got it covered, trust me. Now where’s Hakyeon? I gotta go tell him about your crimes. He might even break up with you. Can’t believe you’ve never been ice skating.” Jaehwan continued to mumble as he left the room in search of Hakyeon. Hongbin rolled his eyes.

            “He’s never what???”

            Hongbin sighed.

            “I can’t believe you’ve never been ice skating!” Hongbin rolled his eyes again.

            “I already explained to Jaehwan that I’ve never had the opportunity to go ice skating, it’s not like I never wanted to.” Hakyeon grabbed at his arm.

            “Still! I’m so sorry you’ve been deprived like that, oh, it must have .”

            “Not really, no one else ever went ice skating so I wasn’t really missing out on anything.” Hakyeon huffed.

            “Well, we are fixing that today.” Hongbin looked over at him.

            “Today? It’s sunny, and warm outside. And where are we going to find a body of water big enough to go ice skating on? Are there any big lakes around here that I’ve just never known about?” Jaehwan and Hakyeon looked at each other.

            “We could go to that one we usually go to? The one out by the orchard.”

            “Oooh, yeah, that’s the one I was thinking about. It should be big enough, yeah?” Jaehwan nodded.

            “Definitely.”

            “Can one of you explain what’s going on, like, hey, Hongbin, we are taking you ice skating in the middle of summer, here’s how we’re doing it?” Hakyeon continued.

            “Should we invite Sanghyuk? He likes ice skating.”

            “Yeah! I’ll invite Wonshik, even though he complains about it every time he still secretly likes it.” Hongbin waved his hand in front of them.

            “Hello?” Hakyeon turned to him.

            “Hmm, we are gonna have to find skates that find you, I think I have some extras in my storage room, come on, let’s find a pair that fits!” Hakyeon grabbed Hongbin and pushed him down the hall.

            It was thusly that Hongbin found himself following an elf, a satyr, a vampire, and a cat outside through a field of grass, holding a pair of ice skates in one hand, the other being occupied by said elf. He was still a couple steps behind everyone else mentally, but they all seemed excited, even the usually sulking Sanghyuk, so he was just going along.

            It wasn’t a long walk until they came up on a small lake nestled between two little hills, that didn’t look to be too deep and was pretty calm, sheltered from the breeze by the hills. Hongbin was completely sure that it was not frozen and that he could not walk, much less skate on water, but it didn’t deter the others. Hakyeon and Jaehwan looked at each other, and Hakyeon dropped Hongbin’s hand to go over and stand by the water with Jaehwan.

            “How thick?”

            “Hmm, not too thick. I’d say we could just go over three times, maybe four, should be enough.” Jaehwan nodded, and tentatively stepped forward, and Hongbin figured he was putting his foot in the water, but instead where he touched the surface it hardened up into a clear ice, and the fairy put his weight against it, and looked over at Hakyeon when it stayed solid. The elf did the same, stepping onto the water-turned-ice, and the two of them started running across the lake, ice forming in their wake. Hongbin watched in amazement and Sanghyuk laughed at him.

            “Have you never seen either of them do any magic? Must be a treat for you. Jaehwan can do a whole bunch more than Hakyeon, but Hakyeon’s better with natural things, like flowers and water and everything, and his is more predictable than Jaehwan’s, fairy magic is always kinda wild, but Jaehwan’s better at it than you would think, considering everything else he does.” Wonshik glanced over, grinning at Hongbin.

            “Yeah, and he’s twice as annoying about it.” Hongbin looked back over to the two on the lake, which was getting more and more solid. Jaehwan tripped at one point, and Hakyeon started laughing at him until Jaehwan lunged at him, knocking him off balance. Hakyeon yelled at the group standing on the shore.

            “I think we’re good to go, guys!” Hongbin watched as Sanghyuk and Taekwoon put on their skates, and as Wonshik attached his little skates to his hooves, and decided he was probably supposed to do the same thing. Hakyeon had gotten up and glided across the lake to help Hongbin get up, and Hongbin held onto the elf’s forearms as he tentatively stepped onto the ice, wobbling. Hakyeon smiled at him.

            “Yep, just step right on, and then I’ll pull you, okay?” Hongbin nodded, and let Hakyeon pull him further up across the ice. He was still swaying a little bit when Hakyeon decided to let go of him, and he had to flail a bit to regain his balance on the thin skates, but as soon as he was still again he looked up at Hakyeon’s grinning face.

            “Now you just gotta start running.” Running sounded like the opposite of what Hongbin wanted to do, but he watched as Sanghyuk chased Jaehwan around, and he did look kind of like he was running so Hongbin decided to imitate that.

            He was pretty good at it, if Hongbin would say about himself, and he caught on pretty quickly. His quivery skating was nothing compared to the way Hakyeon glided across the ice, or the way Sanghyuk sped around them all, but he hadn’t fallen down so he considered himself to be doing well.

            Wonshik was the first one to fall, and when Jaehwan ran into him the fairy went down as well, laughing the whole time, and Wonshik started shoving at him, resulting in the both of them getting more stuck. Taekwoon was skating mostly by himself until Sanghyuk decided to go in circles around him, resulting in Taekwoon shoving him, knocking him over too, and then avoiding the vampire as he tried to pull Taekwoon down with him. Hakyeon was just staying right next to Hongbin, watching and laughing at the others, occasionally turning to face Hongbin and going backwards while talking to him about something important, or exciting, and Hongbin genuinely had a good time.

            It was starting to get dark when Taekwoon finally stated that he was tired and wanted to go home, to which Wonshik told him to go alone and Hakyeon agreed with Taekwoon, smacking Wonshik on the back of his head. Hakyeon pulled Hongbin along with him as they crossed back over the ice to get to the side they had started from, and Jaehwan pulled up the rear, ice melting under his feet slowly.

            “So! How was it? You did really well! You only fell a couple of times, better than Sanghyuk did on his first time, or his second.” Sanghyuk glared over at Hakyeon.

            “Not everyone grew up ice skating like you, I had to learn on my own. You didn’t even help me as much as you helped Hongbin, of course he did better.” Hakyeon just stuck his tongue out. Jaehwan landed on the shore, jumped the last little bit, the lake completely unfrozen behind him.

            “Let’s do it again sometime, yeah?”

ICE SKATING!!!

i know its a common thing for people who are just starting ice skating to be bad at it but i didn't feel that trope vibe for me in this piece

more magic-y things bc that was p much part of the intent of the whole universe from the get go look how far we've come

i love writing authors notes and then reading my actual writing bc i really give up on 90% of language propriety when i actually write and the difference is fun eyy

i showed someone this and they were like um excuse it's supposed to be hakyeon and i not me and hakyeon and i told them that the day they use perfect grammar in all of what they say is the day i will consider putting perfect grammar into one of my characters

this one doesn't really have a ship, other than the underlying chabean and raken which is basically the two ships in this au so

yep enjoy!

and thanks for reading, subscribing and commenting!

~Win