April 22nd, 1996

The little bell above Siwon’s shop door jingles, announcing a new customer coming in. He looks up from a pile of ash he’s currently carefully pouring into the right leather bag.

“Yo,” the guest greets, closing the door behind himself and approaching the front counter with a huge smile on his face. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much,” Siwon replies. “Why are you here?”

“Just visiting,” the man says, smiling even wider. He puts his elbows on the counter and looks down at the pile of ash Siwon is sorting through. “Gotten any requests today?”

“A few, yeah,” Siwon says. “I’m making a love charm.”

“Whoa. Sae Ryun is going to scold you when he finds out.”

“He won’t, because you won’t tell him,” Siwon says, looking pointedly at his friend. “Right, Haneul?”

Haneul raises a dubious brow at Siwon. Then he straightens up his back.

“Okay,” he drawls out. “I won’t tell him. But only if you tell me the recipe for that anti-aging potion of yours.”

Siwon throws a stray cloth at him. Haneul staggers back, laughing.

“I’m joking, I’m joking!” he defends. “Even if I did tell Sae Ryun about your antics, he wouldn’t hear me. He’s too busy with his very pregnant wife. Ugh.”

“That’s the truest thing I’ve heard all day,” Siwon agrees, finishing up the ash business. He ties the last bag of it and goes to put it where it belongs, at the back of the shop. He grabs his jacket and goes back to the front, lifting the lift-up counter to join Haneul by his side. Haneul sends him a tight smile; even in Siwon’s dim-lighted shop his blue eyes seem very bright.

“So. What are we doing today?” Siwon asks curiously, opening the door to the shop. Haneul exits first, then Siwon, and the owner locks the door.

“A little trip to the forest,” Haneul explains. “I think we got ourselves a rabid were of sorts.”

“Werewolf?” Siwon asks, putting the keys back into his coat pocket.

“No, smaller,” Haneul replies. “We’re thinking werefox.” Siwon whistles. “There’s been a few killings around the town. It’s probably hiding somewhere in the forest during the day; there’s been one attack there, you probably heard about that one.”

“Yeah. Sae Ryun coming?”

“Duh.”

They head to Siwon’s car. Siwon starts the engine and they drive all the way to the Park household, Haneul sorting through his stuff and making sure all his guns are fully loaded; Pearl Jam is blasting through the radio as they reach Sae Ryun’s house.

Sae Ryun himself stumbles out the door a few seconds later, probably having seem them arrive through the window. He throws his backpack at the backseat and then jumps in himself.

“Hey,” he greets. “Can we drop by a convenience store on our way there? I need to but some honey. And pickles.”

Haneul makes a throwing up sound, pretending to puke.

“Your wife is mental,” he comments.

“She’s pregnant,” Sae Ryun replies, offended.

“Same thing,” scoffs Haneul at the same time Siwon says “We got the memo.” He looks at his best friend through the review mirror. Sae Ryun winks at him. “Have you decided on a name yet?”

“It’s a close call between Yunji and Sena,” Sae Ryun replies.

“I like Yunji better,” Haneul says. “It's pretty.”

*

Now

“Mom,” you say, walking into the kitchen with a bunch of photos in your hands. Your mom looks up at you. She’s in the middle of painting her nails, which is a very vulnerable position for any woman. “Who’s that? He appears in a lot of photos with Dad and Siwon, but I can’t remember him.”

You sit down next to your mom and show her the photo. It shows your dad, Siwon and a guy you don’t know that looks slightly foreign, all leaning against Dad’s jeep. It’s old, a bit bleached. You show your mom a different photo, of the three of them drinking beer by a tiny wooden table in a garage somewhere, and then the third one, where Siwon is holding up a fish and your dad has a huge grin on his face. The third guy is holding a fishing rod above their heads like it’s some kind of a prize. He looks quite young, younger than Siwon or your dad.

Your mom’s eyes go a bit glassy when she sees the photos. She puts the nail polish away and looks down at the photos, a smile spreading on her lips.

“That’s Haneul,” she says, her voice soft.

Seeing her face, you decide to pull out more photos. Dad holding a tiny photo, him and Haneul staring down at it, a cigarette in Haneul’s mouth; a photo of Siwon and Haneul laughing loudly, a photo of the three of them wearing suits and smiling elegantly at the camera (a photo that seems to be the oldest of them all), and finally, a photo of your mom, her belly round, when she was carrying you. Haneul is standing next to her, his hand resting on your mom’s belly. Your mom is laughing widely and Haneul looks weirdly proud.

“Who was he?” you ask softly. You look at your mom to see tears in her eyes. She the last photo with something akin to awe; you frown at her in worry.

“It was your dad’s friend,” Mom replies. “Sae Ryun’s and Siwon’s, too. The three of them were inseparable. We called them the Three Musketeers.”

You look down at the photo. Seeing your Dad’s smiling face makes your heart ache, but it’s comforting at the same time.

“What happened to him?” you ask.

Your mom takes a few seconds to reply. She exhales deeply before doing so. “He died,” she says. “A few months before you were born. I don’t know what happened exactly. I didn’t know about magic back then; I just knew your father, Siwon and Haneul were all involved in some dangerous business. One day your dad called to say that Haneul is dead.”

You get dizzy with sudden sadness. You realize that you’ve known Siwon your entire life without knowing this important thing about him, without knowing how much he’s lost. He had no family that you knew of, no roots, he never spoke of his parents or his childhood, and the pain after losing your father was the main thing connecting the two of you. Now you’re finding out that he’s lost two of his closest friends, both of them while fighting the bad guys.

Suddenly, all the times he’s looked at you with worry in his eyes, all the times his gaze would get a bit misty at the mention of your dad or his past, it all clicks into place and makes your insides twist with overwhelming sadness.

You cover your mouth with your hand, shocked.

“He’s the reason we named you Yunji,” your mom whispers. “He liked that name.”

I bet you thought, after seeing the chapter image, that Siwon knocked someone up in the past!!!! nope

Have an angsty backstory of our favorite never-aging druid Siwon.

Love you chocolate ganache tarts with pecan crust!