Chapter 24 – A Decision Made

Ravi groans as he wakes up, rolling onto his back and ignoring the nagging voice at the back of his head that is telling him to get to work. He’s just resigned himself to having an unproductive morning when he remembers what had happened the night before.

He flings an arm out, eyes flashing open at the same time, only to realise that Hongbin isn’t there. His mind replays the events from last night and he takes a moment to think. Hongbin was obviously torn over what to do. It probably had something to do with Hakyeon taking away sorcerers’ magic by force, maybe because they kept things from him, possibly a little bit because his future was uncertain now. Ravi didn’t blame the apprentice for being undecided.

Unable to put off the morning any longer Ravi stretches and forces himself out of bed. The sun hasn’t risen yet but he gets dressed and goes downstairs. He isn’t at all surprised to find Hongbin working over a cauldron.

The apprentice is frowning at the potion he’s stirring and Ravi holds off repeating his comment from last night. Before he can say anything though Hongbin is speaking.

“Did you know that Sanghyuk was being kept in the basement of my old teacher’s house?” he asks.

“No,” Ravi answers truthfully. “I didn’t.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Hongbin mutters.

Ravi scrambles for something to say but he can’t quite figure out what Hongbin wants to talk about. Hakyeon? Magic? The prince’s plans? Luckily Hongbin once again jumps in before he can open his mouth.

“I think the worst thing is because I can’t really disagree with what Hakyeon is doing now. While I was there I didn’t realise how little the other apprentices valued the lives of the creatures they were using. Maybe I was like them too –”

“Hongbin–”

Hongbin cuts off Ravi’s protest, finally looking up from the potion. “I was! I knew what creatures were but I still didn’t think anything of it. I never questioned whether we should be sacrificing all these creatures to make potions, not once… Until I came here.”

“That doesn’t make you like them,” Ravi states. He’s eyeing the potion that is being neglected, a little concerned by the colour it’s beginning to turn.

“Well it doesn’t make me like Hakyeon either,” the apprentice grumbles.

“I wouldn’t say Hakyeon is a great example of what to be like,” Ravi replies with a shrug.

Hongbin frowns at him in confusion so Ravi explains. “Until Hakyeon went to the palace to work the two of us used a lot of creatures. We liked to experiment with bases which generally use major creatures as a base. I got interested in substitutes just before he left because creatures are expensive.”

“Oh,” Hongbin mumbles. “At least he’s doing something now though.”

“Hakyeon asked you to help, right?” the potion maker asks. “Why don’t you?”

“But help doing what?” the apprentice asks.

He’d been awake all night trying to figure all of this out and for the most part he had. He just had no idea what Hakyeon thought he could help with. His thoughts on what sorcerers had been doing all this time. His thoughts on the prince’s plans. His thoughts on finding something new to do with his future. He’d come to terms with it all. It was only this one thing that kept his mind racing in circles; if he was going to have his magic taken away eventually why should he bother?

Ravi shrugs at Hongbin. “Frankly, at this stage, I don’t think you’ll be doing a lot. Hakyeon will probably train you though.”

“But why?!” Hongbin demands.

Ravi sighs and makes his way over to the younger man. He eyes the frankly glorious failure that’s bubbling away – almost smoking now – in the cauldron and then sticks his hand in and it begins empting instantly.

“Just go with it?” he suggests.

To his surprise Hongbin’s eyes light up. “Really?”

“Yeah?” the potion maker replies, verging on confused. “Don’t you ever just let things happen?”

“No.”

In truth Hongbin’s whole life had been planned out for him since birth. His school, his friends, his future job, had all been decided by his parents. They’d even been the ones to initially push him into magic, insisting that his teacher had a high role in society and would open doorways into the palace. It was only after coming to live with Hakyeon that things had gone off the tracks. He’d never even realised he could just take things on without a plan before. Following that thought Hongbin wonders if he needs to follow his parents’ plans at all. 

“I… I want to try that,” he says. “Letting things happen, I want to try that.”

Ravi feels his mouth pull up into a smile. “Good. Let’s do it.”

Hongbin watches the last of the potion drain before looking up at Ravi, only now aware of how close they’re standing. “Do you want to come with me? To tell Hakyeon?” he asks.

“Sure,” the potion maker grins. No work would get done today anyway. “Let’s have breakfast first though.”

“Leo,” Hakyeon whispers, running his fingers along the younger man’s back.

“Mmm?” the Anyegi murmurs, waking up. He forces an eye open so he can groggily stare at the sorcerer questioningly.

“What do you think Hongbin will do?”

Leo groans and stretches, pulling Hakyeon closer. “Go back to sleep.”

For a second Hakyeon considers doing as he’s told, considers relaxing and simply enjoying the feel of Leo snuggled against him, but he’d been up all night worrying and it just wasn’t going to happen.

“What if he doesn’t want to help?”

“Then he doesn’t have to help,” the Anyegi says matter-of-factly.

Hakyeon begins to pull away, begins to rise up to argue but Leo just holds him tighter. “It’s not up to you, it’s his decision. He has a right to decide.”

The sorcerer sighs and tries to relax. “I know.”

Honestly he still didn’t know exactly what Hongbin would be doing if he did agree to help, it wasn’t like he was particularly advanced in any area of magic. For a second Hakyeon feels bad that Hongbin won’t be able to become advanced at magic but he’s quickly diverted from the thought by the feeling of Leo’s fingers on his thigh.

“Are you trying to end the conversation with ?” Hakyeon asks in disbelief when his leg is pulled up and hooked over Leo’s hip.

Leo plants a kiss on the older man’s throat. “So?”

He doesn’t want to think about Hongbin anymore. He doesn’t want Hakyeon to think about Hongbin anymore. He’d seen Hakyeon get obsessed over tiny things before and he was right on track to doing it again with this.

“But –”

“Sanghyuk’s asleep still and Hongbin isn’t here,” Leo cuts him off.

That completely distracts the sorcerer for the opposite reason of what Leo had wanted.

“Hongbin isn’t here because–”

“Hongbin. Isn’t. Here,” the Anyethi reiterates. “Nobody can walk in.”

Or fall through that stupid door, he adds. He threads his fingers through the older man’s hair and begins to trail kisses along his jaw.

“I thought you were annoyed because we haven’t been able to for a while.”

“I-I am,” Hakyeon replies.

He’s a little flustered by the thought of Sanghyuk waking up. Unlike Hongbin he’s in the same wing of the house as them and also unlike Hongbin, he didn’t have an en suite. He had a tendency – a bad one in Hakyeon opinion – of using theirs after he wakes up.

“It’s fine,” Leo soothes as if reading his mind. “He’s a teenager. He’ll sleep until we wake him up.”

That’s what I’m worried about, Hakyeon cries internally, he doesn’t want to wake Sanghyuk because of that, he’d never hear the end of it from the Anyegi. On the outside Hakyeon simply grunts his acknowledgement and pushes Leo onto his back.

“Fine, but don’t forget that this was your idea if something happens,” he says, tugging his shirt off.

Leo tries to hide his pleased smirk but fails. A win is a win, and this time he won.

Sanghyuk practically cries in relief when Hongbin gets home. He races to the door with his tail wagging happily. Ravi greets the puppy enthusiastically.

“Are you getting bigger?” he asks the Anyegi.

Sanghyuk barks in confirmation.

Hongbin frowns at the puppy. Was Sanghyuk any bigger than he had been? Hadn’t the puppy always been this big? Maybe because he rarely went a day without seeing Sanghyuk in his dog form he couldn’t tell.

“So your dog form finally started aging again, that’s good,” Ravi notes, scratching the puppy between the shoulder blades before making his way to the lounge room where he finds Hakyeon and Leo cuddling on the couch.

It was weirding Sanghyuk out, seeing Leo being so affectionate. He knew they were together. He knew they probably did things. He just didn’t want to know about it. Ever. At all. Puppy-Sanghyuk watches on in disbelief as Hongbin and Ravi settle down in chairs without even batting an eye at the couple.

“So?” Hakyeon asks calmly.

He’d had time since this morning to thinking over the situation and accept that Leo was right; it wasn’t his decision to make. If Hongbin didn’t want to help then he didn’t want to help, Hakyeon would just have to let the apprentice practice magic until the last possible moment before taking it away.

“I don’t know how exactly you think I can help, but I’ve decided to just go with it,” Hongbin states.

He’d chanted the sentence over and over in his head on the walk here and was glad when it didn’t come out sounding rehearsed.

“Oh,” Hakyeon mutters.

Leo elbows him sharply in the ribs when Hongbin’s mouth falls open in surprise.

“No,” Hakyeon backtracks. “I just thought that you’d refuse, that’s all.”

“…Why?” Hongbin questions.

“Ah, well, because you’re Yeongsik’s apprentice,” Hakyeon replies bluntly.

Hongbin frowns for a second, unsure of what to say to that. Hakyeon had made his opinion on Yeongsik clear last night and while Hongbin now knew what kind of person he was, he couldn’t bring himself to instantly hate the older sorcerer.

“Well,” Ravi interjects. “He’s your apprentice now. You better take responsibility when he starts getting your stupid ideas.”

Hakyeon can’t help the stupid grin from appearing on his face and Hongbin kicks the potion maker’s foot gently. Somehow Ravi had lightened up the atmosphere with one sentence.

“Personally I’m more afraid of Sanghyuk taking after Leo,” Hongbin states.

Both Leo and Sanghyuk glare at him like they’d taken offence but he just laughs, finally feeling like he can relax.

Hakyeon detangles himself from Leo – ignoring the look of absolute disbelief and annoyance Leo throws in his direction – and stands up. “Let’s go Hongbin, if you want to help we need to get training right away.”

Hongbin gets to his feet, feeling a little bit of excitement at the thought of learning new spells. “Awesome.”

That moment you realise you never wrote about Hongbin’s family, despite having had it planned since chapter 3. My bad. His family is rich but not in very many social circles yet. They planned on using Hongbin to get into some. He sort of went along with it until now, never thinking to go against them.