Tea should be taken in solitude. 

-C. S. Lewis

The next day, Sungjong came by his house again. To be honest, it did not surprise —nor, strangely enough, did it bother— Myungsoo . In fact, he had expected the lean hunter to swing by his little house often.

“Any lead?” Myungsoo asked out of courtesy. The smaller boy shook his head slowly and asked him in return. The solitary older guy pretended to think for a while before responding. “Nope. Not a single soul other than you.”

The traveller sighed and made what looked like a small pout. Myungsoo could not help but notice how much of a cutesy witch-hunter he was. He inwardly gave himself a slap and made a mental note to not be fooled by such a behaviour. He knew Sungjong was assigned to slay those like him. Maybe it was that quirk, after all, that made him the hunter that he was that day.

His tongue suddenly betrayed what he was thinking though.

“Care for a little evening tea?” Myungsoo offered, not really aware of what he was doing. It was absolutely not like him to invite anyone, not to mention a hunter, to his private dwelling.  He cursed silently as the realization eventually hit him. But what was said was said.

“Sure,” Sungjong was visibly a little surprised by the offer himself but immediately made the move to enter without much hesitation. Soon, the young traveller was in his sanctuary which was never open to mere acquaintances before. “Yah. Didn’t expect your cottage to be so neat.”

Myungsoo’s simple cottage was indeed very neat. It was mostly furnished with wooden things –bookshelves, tables and chairs. The flames of the hearth radiated a warm, reddish chocolate colour over the whole place. It was undoubtedly cozy without being over-the-top. Myungsoo was actually not much of an organized and neat person. But he was not the kind to live in a mess unfittingly euphemized as a home either. He had kept pretty much everything as tidy as possible, stacking books in one corner when he was too lazy to return them to the shelves and cleaning the whole of his cottage at least a once or twice a month, for example.

Once his guest had settled in, he asked him whether he had any preference regarding tea, listing what he had in the kitchen shelf from the traditional Earl Grey and English Breakfast to favourite natural blend like Camomile and the rather inexpensive Chai tea.

“No. Not really. I’m not a tea fanatic,” was the answer. “I like any lemon-flavoured tea though.”

Sungjong was silently gazing through and admiring the rows of bookshelves when Myungsoo served two cups of brewing hot Chamomile on the table. He then put on a sheepish smile and sat back on the comfy sofa with the host.

“I don’t have any lemon-flavoured tea at the moment. The lemon balm in the garden is not ripe either,” he explained. “Here, though.”

The young witch-hunter sat there looking at what Myungsoo put near his cup of tea. There were three lemon drops each wrapped in shiny yellow.

 “Well, you sure have a good taste for sweets,”  The younger lad chuckled, visibly pleased as he unwrapped one of them. “Who would’ve guessed someone like you has a sweet tooth.”

He didn’t get any response from the slightly taller guy, which prompted him to continue.

“Anyway, it’s good to see you have a stock of these sweets,” he paused, cautiously and coyly sipping his tea in a way that reminded Myungsoo of how the village girls drank. “When you have a lot of thoughts, have a lemon candy.”

Myungsoo just stared at him, somewhat dumbfounded at such a display of what appeared to be cuteness. He could not deny, however, that Sungjong had always had that air with him – everything he did was literally cutesy. And somehow it was not really a bad thing to Myungsoo. It oddly did not bothered him one bit.

Or maybe it was a bad thing. He was a warlock after all. And what Sungjong did was hunt his kind.