Minhyuk did the only thing and probably also the most risky thing that he could come up with. He waited until the sun had set and darkness covered the streets. Of course Hyunwoo had made him promise that he wouldn't do anything stupid but seriously he should have known better. When it came to Hyungwon, Minhyuk threw all caution into the wind. He wanted to see the other boy, he needed to know that he was okay. So when the sun had finally vanished behind the horizon he climbed over the wall and sneaked towards the building of the sect, using the apple trees in the orchard as some kind of cover whenever he saw movements behind the dim lit windows. He counted them. From the tallest and oldest apple tree three windows to the right on the second floor, that was Hyungwon's room.

Minhyuk sighed. There was some kind of weird flower entwining itself along the wall of the building, leading all the way up to Hyungwon's window and even higher. He had climbed these branches more than once, every time Hyungwon said it was safe for him to come and visit him. Usually Minhyuk brought gloves to save his hands from the merciless thorns. But tonight he had forgotten about them, his mind too occupied with the worry about Hyungwon.

Again he sighed. This was indeed a very bad idea. He grabbed the branches tightly and bit his lips in order to hold back his pained groans when the thorns tore through his flesh. His mind told him to go back, but his heart wanted Hyungwon and so he ignored the pain and started to climb. When he was high enough, he carefully reached over to the ledge of the window, peaking through the stained glass first and when the only one he saw was a slender figure cowering in a corner of the room, he knocked quietly.

Hyungwon peaked through his hands and when he recognized the shadow at the window as Minhyuk, he shook his head and motioned for the older boy to go away. But he wouldn't, so after a while Hyungwon gave in, pulled a mask on to cover his face and opened the window for the older boy.

“Ah Hyungwon, don't let me wait out there for so long,” he complained and looked at his bleeding hands.

“Are you bleeding? Did you hurt your hands?” Hyungwon gasped at the sight.

Mihyuk nodded but hid his hands behind his back. “It's fine.”

“No, it's not,” Hyungwon said with determination and rummaged through his drawers, returning to Minhyuk with some bandages, “Give me your hands.”

While Hyungwon gently cleaned Minhyuk's hands and put the bandages on them, the older boy looked at his face intensely.

“Hyungwon-ah,” he murmured finally, “what happened?” He tried to take the mask off of Hyungwon but the younger boy evaded his hands.

“Hey, what did they do to you? Why are you wearing a mask?” Still Hyungwon kept looking at the floor, weakly fighting against Minhyuk to push him away, but the older boy was persistent.

“Let me see,” he mumbled, managed to cup Hyungwon's face and pulled off the mask. He looked at him and gasped. Hyungwon's face was covered in dark marks, one of his eyes was almost swollen shut, his jaw was red from the beating and equally swollen, and he was still bleeding from a small cut right above the eyebrow, the blood slowly trickling down alongside his temple and down his bruised cheek.

“Who did this to you?” Minhyuk hissed, slowly wiping away the trail of blood with his thumb, “They did this, didn't they? They beat you up?” His voice was trembling with anger and hatred. He jumped to his feet and strode through the room, clenching his fists while Hyungwon's anxious eyes followed his every move.

“You are not going to stay here for much longer. We will get you out of this,” he said in a dangerously low voice.

Hyungwon shook his head, “Hyung, I can't just leave. They'll find me no matter where I run to and when they do, they'll kill me.”

“Then we'll kill them first…”

“… also the curse is still a thing that exists…”

“We'll break the curse,” Minhyuk turned around, dropping to his knees in front of the still crouching Hyungwon and gently took the boy's face into his hands, “I don't care what it takes, Hyungwonnie. I love you and I want to be with you for the rest of my life. And I want to shower your pretty face with kisses and I want to make love to you. You are my world, Hyungwon.”

The younger boy bit his lip. It took all his self control to not kiss Minhyuk's hands.

“I know,” he mumbled, his face clearly showing how much it pained him that he couldn't say the words that he wanted to say the most.

“Please Hyungwon,” Minhyuk begged, “think. There must be a way to at least break the curse. That would be a start. And then we can run away together and if they come after us with witches and hex bags, then we'll voodoo them to death.”

Hyungwon smiled weakly. “We don't practice voodoo here.”

“But hex bags?” Minhyuk asked and his eyes went big.

“Yeah…”

“Okay, but do you know a spell or something that can break a curse? I know that they educate you about magic and everything.”

Minhyuk shivered as he thought back to the first time that Hyungwon had told him about magic. Back then it had scared him and he had thought that Hyungwon was insane until the boy had demonstrated by making the water in the river run into the opposite direction for a moment. Then he had come to the conclusion that both of them were probably insane. But now talking about magic seemed normal, he had just accepted it as a part of his reality but nevertheless it was a scary part of reality.

“Well, I don't really know about a spell that could break a curse,” Hyungwon said slowly, “but the essence of every spell that a witch performed stays in her spell book even after her death. That's why the curse is still active even though the witch has probably been dead for a couple hundred years.”

“So, if we destroy her spell book, it's gonna destroy the curse as well?”

Hyungwon nodded, “I think so.”

“You said that the book in the crypt could be a spell book.”

“Yeah, I think it is,” he agreed.

Minhyuk seemed excited at the thought. “Then can't we just go there and rip it apart and the curse will be broken?”

“No”, Hyungwon laughed silently, “it's not that easy to destroy a spell book. You can damage its physical form but that won't destroy it. Do you remember what I told you about the Magic World?”

“It's the second reality. Everything here has a counterpart there,” Minhyuk recalled.

Hyungwon nodded, “Exactly. But we are rooted in this reality and have a counterpart there, everything magical however is rooted in the second reality and has a counterpart here. So in order to destroy something magical it has to be destroyed in the Magic World.”

Minhyuk sighed while his brain tried its best to keep up with the conversation. “So what does this mean? We have to go to the Magic World?”

“Oh, God no, I hope that won't be necessary,” Hyungwon exclaimed, seemingly scared of the thought. “If we burn the book with Magic Fire, then it'll be destroyed in the Magic World, too.”

“Magic Fire?” Minhyuk repeated slowly.

“Don't judge me. I didn't make up its name.”

“I'm not judging you,” Minhyuk promised, “Can we just make one of those fires and burn the book then?”

Hyungwon shook his head. “It's not that simple.”

Minhyuk rolled his eyes in annoyance. “Of course it's not,” he sighed, “when is stuff ever simple. Okay tell me, how can we do this then?”

“The main problem here is that a witch's spell book can only be destroyed on the day of her death. So we'll have to wait until then anyway.”

“When is that?” Minhyuk wanted to know, hoping that it would be soon.

Hyungwon shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know. Like I told you, officially we believe in a god not a witch. But there is The Day Of The Beginning as we call it. And despite its name all of our ceremonies are actually centred around a certain flower which symbolizes death. So I think that day would be our best bet.”

“Okay, when is it?”

“It's next week, so not that long from now. But…”

“Don't tell that there are any 'but's,” Minhyuk pleaded. The thought alone that Hyungwon had to stay in this hell for yet another week was already heartbreaking for him.

“I'm sorry, hyung. The problem is that all those ceremonies take place in the crypt with the book. Nobody is allowed to leave throughout the entire day, so there is really no way that I can set it on fire just like that without anybody noticing me.”

“Oh,” Minhyuk's jaw dropped down in disappointment. “But we have to find a way. We have to.”

“Well, unless we are going to burn down the entire building with everyone in it, I don't see how that could happen.”

Minhyuk stayed silent for a while, then he cleared his throat. “So let's burn down the entire building.”

“I'm going to be in that building,” Hyungwon reminded him with a slight hint of accusation in his voice.

“Yeah, right,” Minhyuk grumbled and an expression of hopelessness crawled up on his face.

The younger boy chuckled at the sight. Minhyuk looked so unbelievably cute with that pout.

“Don't worry, Minnie. You know, there are a lot of things that magic can do.”

Minhyuk's eyes locked with Hyungwon's, “What are you saying?”

“I am saying that there is a potion that can protect someone from the Magic Fire.”

“So you made me worry for nothing?” Minhyuk exclaimed in annoyance and pushed Hyungwon by the shoulder, immediately regretting it when the younger boy flinched and gritted his teeth in pain.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you,” Minhyuk mumbled, caressing Hyungwons neck, “Where else are you hurt?”

Hyungwon shook his head. “It's okay. It's not that bad.”

“Princess! Kick your pride out of the window for once, will you? Just tell me!”

Minhyuk looked fiercely and saw Hyungwon's still face crumble under his gaze. Soon the you