Chapter 2 – An Empty Jar

Hongbin flies through the doorway and slides to a stop with a pained grunt. Feeling a little winded he gets to his feet and is really surprised to find himself in Hakyeon’s bedroom. Not as surprised as he was about the whole situation in the first place though.

Hakyeon his lying in his bed, propped up on one elbow staring at him with sleepy eyes. Curled up against Hakyeon’s chest, purring loudly, is Leo. Hongbin hadn’t seen Leo since he’d run out of the sitting room yesterday and he looked to be significantly happier with the sorcerer now than he had then.

They must have come to an agreement, Hongbin thinks. Then he realises that that’s crazy. Leo is a cat, he doesn’t agree to anything.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Hakyeon asks with a smile.

Hongbin doesn’t think it’s funny. “I-I just fell through the floor and ended up in your bedroom!” he practically screams.

Hakyeon smiles calmly. “Sorry, I forgot to mention that. It’s also something I’m trying to fix.”

Hongbin s around for the words he wants to say but ends up stuttering out several partial sentences before he’s able to form a full one. “What exactly just happened?”

“If you wander around before I’m out of bed then the house will ‘deliver’ you to me. It’s a part of the security spell.”

“That doesn’t seem very safe,” Hongbin grumbles.

Why would the house put someone right in Hakyeon’s room? Isn’t that putting Hakyeon in danger?

“Ah, well, not to toot my own horn or anything, but frankly not many people would be able to beat me in a fight.”

He reaches out and slowly pats Leo down his back. “Leo’s only beaten me once and he cheated.”

The look on Leo’s face says he disagrees. He pulls away from Hakyeon and walks towards the bedroom door. With a sigh Hakyeon sits up.

“I’ll be out in a minute. If you follow Leo he’ll take you to the kitchen.”

Hongbin follows Leo down a hallway that seems to be curved, then up nine flights of stairs – Nine. Hongbin counts them. – and then they enter the kitchen through the pantry.

“I’ll never get used to how random this house is,” Hongbin mutters to the cat.

Leo jumps up onto the bench and wags the end of his tail happily. Hongbin perches himself on one of the stools and absently pets him, muttering about how annoying it must be to live in a house that constantly changes.

Hakyeon appears five minutes later, fully dressed but with dripping wet hair. Hongbin wonders why he didn’t just use a drying spell but when he voices this Hakyeon smiles sheepishly.

“I’ve been banned,” he says. “I’m not allowed to use any minor spells for a month.”

Hongbin is about to ask who had banned him when he looks at Leo. Leo had been the one to ban it if yesterday’s ‘fight’ was anything to go by. Could Leo talk then? Could only Hakyeon talk to him? His old teacher’s bird used to talk with semi-intelligence. Was this the same thing?

He’s a cat, Hongbin sighs to himself. He’s thinking about this way too much. He’s practically verging on being obsessed with how much thought he was giving that little black cat.

Leo abandons Hongbin then, running across the kitchen bench until he’s right near Hakyeon. It mustn’t be anything new because Hakyeon leans down and Leo climbs onto his shoulder with little struggle. He doesn’t seem too bothered by Hakyeon’s wet hair, purring loudly almost the instant he’s perched in the right spot.

Hakyeon starts cooking breakfast then, frying some bacon and eggs and making toast. He quizzes Hongbin about the things he likes to eat and what he doesn’t like to eat and how he had slept as he cooks. Hongbin watches on, impressed when Leo doesn’t wobble even a little on Hakyeon’s shoulder. Was he using magic to stay on?

Hongbin realises after an almost embarrassing amount of time that Leo is using magic, but not for what he’d thought he was. Hakyeon’s hair is drying way too fast to be natural. At first Hongbin thinks it’s Hakyeon drying it, but then why wouldn’t Hakyeon just use a spell that died it instantly? It must be Leo. Right?

“Do you want your egg flipped?” Hakyeon asks.

The question throws Hongbin off for a second and both Hakyeon and Leo look at him curiously. He should just ask about Leo and clear everything up, otherwise he’s going to go crazy.

“Hongbin?”

“Um, sunny side up is fine,” he says finally, chickening out from asking.

You’ll ask later, Hongbin tells himself. He knows it’s a lie but whatever.

Twenty minutes later and they’ve finished eating. Hongbin had watched Leo steal three out of four pieces of bacon from Hakyeon’s plate and eat them without Hakyeon trying to stop him. He wants to point out that bacon isn’t good for cats – it isn’t good humans either, after all – but he doesn’t, it wasn’t his place to.

“I’ll leave the dishes to you,” Hakyeon murmurs, rubbing Leo between the shoulders.

Leo lets out a quiet meow and Hakyeon grins. Had the cat said something? What? Hongbin wonders.

“Let’s go get started then, Hongbin,” Hakyeon says before the younger man can demand what the hell was up with Leo.

“Ah, okay,” Hongbin replies, getting to his feet.

He follows Hakyeon out of the kitchen through the door to the garden. There are two sheds, fairly close to each other. Hakyeon heads for the one that doesn’t have windows and Hongbin figures it must be a potions lab or something.

He’s wrong. They go in a shed and enter a random hallway in the house. Hakyeon heads off to the right without even a pause in his step. Hongbin shakes off just how wrong that was and follows.

The potions lab is quite a bit bigger than that shed. It looks like it’s stocked for everything, though Hongbin doubts Hakyeon kept his more valuable supplies in here.

“I want you to make the hardest potion you know. Then we can get to the ones you don’t know.”

Hongbin nods and starts gathering ingredients. He feels a little self conscious about making potions in such a giant room and being watched so intently by someone who could probably brew this in his sleep, but he pushes it aside, he’s here to learn.

As he works Hakyeon alternates between watching him closely and gathering up empty jars and bottles. For a second Hongbin wonders where Hakyeon got his ingredients. Most sorcerers had someone that supplied them directly, sometimes they were even full time employees, but Hakyeon didn’t seem like the type. Hongbin regrets getting distracted when looses count of how many times he’s stirred the potion bubbling away in his cauldron.

A high pitched meow draws their attention away from their tasks and Hongbin tries to keep up his count. Leo is sitting in the doorway, staring intently at Hakyeon. Hakyeon glances at him and then goes back to writing the list of things to order. Leo meows again and Hakyeon sighs.

“Not now, you ate just before.”

Hongbin is surprised by how annoyed Leo looks. The cat waves his tail angrily and then leaves. Hakyeon sighs, muttering that Leo ate way too much.

Half an hour later Hakyeon inspects the potion. He puts it through every test he knows but doesn’t try it himself. He knows a stink palette potion when he sees one and would prefer to keep his sense of smell as one that can also smell the good things.

“I finally finished the list. I can’t believe how low I let the stocks get,” Hakyeon says as Hongbin cleans up. “I’ll send for my supplier and hope he has everything in stock. I doubt he will though.”

“He doesn’t get you ingredients exclusively?”

“He’s a potion-maker that caters to the needs of the towns in this area and supplies me and the other sorcerers with ingredients he has spare. Generally he’s enough to keep everything going.”

Hongbin thinks it’s weird that people were going to someone who wasn’t a sorcerer or sorceress for their potions. He was from the capital where magic was policed and laws on who could sell magic were strict and those that dealt in it needed to be registered as a sorcerer. Were the rules more lax in these towns that were on the outskirts of the country?

“I hope I got everything. Once I have it all you can start working on finishing up the potions you don’t know.”

“Thanks,” Hongbin replies, scrubbing at the cauldron.

Hakyeon hears something shift on a shelf and when he looks up Leo is there with eyes that are obviously holding a grudge. Hakyeon’s eyes fall on the empty jar Leo is sitting next to, tail still angry. It used to contain wasp stingers and Hakyeon quickly writes that on his list, only to then notice that there is a challenge in Leo’s face.

Hakyeon takes a step towards the shelf. “Don’t you dare.”

Hongbin looks up just in time to see Leo push the jar off the shelf so it shatters all over the floor. Then he turns and disappears through the wall, tail high in the air.

Cats, Hongbin thinks. They’re arseholes.