When Jungkook carries the black cat on his hands and gets back from the hill where he played kites, he catches Minah sitting in the front yard, picking vegetables. Minah senses Jungkook’s presence, so she looks up at him and checks him from head to toe. He looks sweaty.

“Where have you been?”

“Been playing kites on the hill. It was so much fun!” Jungkook exclaims, stretching his smile from ear to ear.

“I figure.” Minah nods, pointing to the stocks of firewood afterward. “You two were pretty fast, hm?”

“I’m not sure about Sihyuk’s part, though.”

That earns a laugh from Minah.

“He’s always very lazy and slow.” She adds and continues to her laughter. “Did he lead you to the hill?”

“Yeah. He’s going home to call his family over.”

“I know.” Minah nods again before letting her eyes focus on the fresh vegetables again.

“Preparing for dinner this soon?” Jungkook asks when he has settled himself down on the staircase in front of the house, next to Minah feets away.

“Mom wants me to eat dinner here. I told her we are leaving soon, so she wants to prepare dinner a little sooner.” Minah looks to the cat, which is now lying comfortably on Jungkook’s lap. Jungkook is patting its head gently and fondly. Somehow, Minah shifts her gaze away when Jungkook sends that exact gaze to her.

“What’s wrong with Gongdol? He’s not usually fond of strangers.” Minah mutters nonchalantly.

Jungkook chuckles, looking at Minah as he leans closer to study her expression.

“What? Are you jealous?”

“Jealous? Do I have to be?” Minah defends.

“Of course, it’s your family cat,” Jungkook states matter-of-factly, making Minah bite her lip anxiously. “You thought I asked if you are jealous of the cat, not me, didn’t you?”

“Cut me some slack.” Minah immediately retorts and rolls her eyes. She blinks several times under Jungkook’s observation.

“Cute.” He finally says and shifts his gaze back to Gongdol.

“I’ll beat the hell out of you if you keep teasing me,” Minah says through gritted teeth.

“The cat is cute, I mean.” Jungkook shrugs and presses his lips into a thin line. His eyes glow with amusement.

Minah huffs in frustration. She takes the two baskets of vegetables up and attempts to go inside, but Jungkook quickly holds onto her hand.

“You probably came to the front yard to wait for me, right? Just stay. I don’t want to face your parents in the kitchen for now.”

Minah sighs and places the two baskets back to the ground.

“You’d better not tease me anymore.”

“Why didn’t you take advantage of the time I’m not around to grant your parents wishes? They would be the two most suitable roles for you to grant wishes if I were you.”

“I would be so miserable then. The so-called friend that is you would disappear without any warning.”

“My god. I didn’t expect that answer.” Jungkook remarks, looking at Minah with amazement. “As expected from our Minah. You could have just said something like you are grateful enough to give me more time outside of that bottle.”

“Well, that’s correct, too. But of course, I’m not over the granting wishes business, yet.”

Jungkook pouts slightly at her.

“I won’t step back to let you do everything you want, though.”

“You are mean, do you know?” Minah side-glances Jungkook. “You don’t consider my situation at all. I’m petrified of ghosts. It’s so dark there; I don’t want to be locked like that. I may have a heart attack.”

At that, Jungkook doesn’t answer. He lowers his gaze to Gongdol, though his hands have stopped patting Gongdol as he listens to Minah.

“And one more important thing. I already talked about my younger sister. Right? She has already had a husband and is now on a honeymoon.”

“Hence she is not here.” Jungkook takes in the information.

“Yeah. So mom and I made a small deal. If I have a boyfriend to show her within the next two weeks, she’s not gonna pair me up with a dude in this village. That guy looks very distant, and he rarely speaks to me. But mom says he’s interested in me. Can you believe that? I can’t just sit still inside the bottle and deal with that pale, lady-like-legs dude for the next few weeks!”

Jungkook furrows his eyebrows.

“He’s probably not that bad, is he?”

“I'm being honest.” Minah ensures and looks at Jungkook with serious eyes.

Jungkook avoids her gaze and looks down.

“I… I still can’t.”

Minah only sighs in return. The heavy silence enters from then on, until they have to head inside to prepare for dinner.

The dinner with the three-generation family is right in the front yard, with a big rectangular table. The sun is falling, but its light is still quite intense.

Minah keeps acting cold toward Jungkook even though Jungkook tries a few times communicating with her.

“Hey Minah, why are you isolating your friend? He can’t enjoy his food because you are making him feel uneasy.” Mom criticizes Minah, who is sitting across from Jungkook. The latter looks at Minah with timid eyes. He quickly turns to her mom and forces a smile.

“It’s alright, mother.”

Minah smirks, however. She looks from her mother to Jungkook with confidence.

“You are exaggerating things, mom. See? He says it’s alright.”

“See? That’s your problem, Minah! You can’t expect men to fall for you when you have that kind of attitude!” Mom shakes her head and gives Minah disapproving eyes. Minah seems hurt by her sentence as her facial expression falls.

Jungkook can sense her sudden change in mood and looks at her mother only to be sure that she is not going to stop picking at Minah.

“Just let her be, mother.” Jungkook quickly aids before her mother can talk more. “As far as I have known, she’s pretty attractive to men.”

“I don’t think so. Even when she has that pretty face, men won’t put up with her hard head.” Mother argues without any trace of regret in her words. Minah only keeps eating, but her pace has become more hastily.

“You know she’s still good, right, mother?”

“I know. But I wish her attitude would be a little bit more positive. That’s very important to leave a good impression on someone.” Her mother concludes bitterly.

Minah looks up to Jungkook to make eye contact with him. Jungkook smiles lightly at her while she keeps gazing Jungkook with an unreadable expression.

Dinner passed just like that. Minah and Jungkook are left with Sihyuk and his little family while her parents are away for a while.

“Hey bro. Have you bought a new watch? It looks cool!” Minah points at Sihyuk’s wrist.

“It looks cool, right? I just bought it yesterday. Though now what I want more is a headset so that I can listen to music more effectively.”

That causes a bored eye roll from his wife.

Minah giggles while Jungkook looks at her confusedly. She then bends forward to talks privately into his ear.

“Sister-in-law is the one who holds all the family finance, so Sihyuk doesn’t have money almost all the time. He’s funny. I have this idea.”

She turns to Sihyuk with an excited gaze.

“Sihyuk! So… if you have a wish right now, it would be…?” Minah asks, anticipating his answer.

“I want a headset instead of this. This is not as worthy as I expected.” Sihyuk says and immediately after he has finished his sentence, the same glass bottle appears again inside Minah’s pocket. She reaches for it and pours a little dust inside down. A glowing light exceeds from the sand. When it doesn’t glow anymore, Sihyuk’s expensive watch disappears, replacing it is now an old, cracked surface watch.

“He’s very indecisive. Watch this.” Minah whispers near Jungkook’s ear so only him can hear. He lets out a grin as he watches her excited face.

“So… Sihyuk. Now that you have bought that headset, any regrets when you chose to buy it and used up all your allowance?”

“Well… now that you pointed it out, I actually want to buy a new watch more.”

Minah shrugs at Jungkook who gives out a chuckle. The next wish is exactly just the opposite of the first.

For five more wishes, Minah uses them to fix a little hole in Sihyuk’s shirt, lengthen his hair by one centimeter, fix the broken glass water container that his little daughter caused, sharpen the blade of the ax he’s using, and find his long lost favorite cassette.

With the last wish, Minah notices Sihyuk’s scar on his arm.

“Sihyuk… that is quite a huge scar, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. It hurt so much. I sliced myself when I fell in the jungle weeks ago. There was some sharp stone lying there.”

“Oh… do you wish that the scar never happened?”

“Of course.” Sihyuk nods, agreeing to Minah.

But the bottle of magic dust never appears, no matter how many seconds have passed.

“Why doesn't it appear this time?” Minah asks, looking at Jungkook.

“It is not appearing? Are you sure?”

“Yeah. There’s still one wish less for Sihyuk. And yet the bottle won’t appear.” Minah says, rummaging in her pocket. There is absolutely nothing there.

She grunts in annoyance. With that, she proceeds by granting Sihyuk a wish to clean his smelly feet.

When they bid their goodbye to the family and are moving to the train station, Minah speaks up.

“It’s useless for a genie, hm? Health is what we want the most. The genie bottle doesn’t view health-related wishes as possible. That’s upsetting.”

Jungkook keeps silence as he looks into space.

“I guess physics is natural, after all,” Minah concludes when they get to the train, settling down next to each other.

“So even a genie can’t cure illness, hm?” Jungkook asks, chuckling dryly after some seconds.

Minah studies his slightly sad face for a while. They both keep silent for about ten minutes before Minah speaks up.

“By any chance, is something bad up to your mother? You have mentioned about visiting her before. Is she… in a hospital or something?” Minah asks and then turns her side to look at Jungkook. However, he is not awake. He’s sleeping soundly next to her. His lips are slightly apart, and his face looks peaceful.

Minah looks back to the front and lets out a small smile.

“You have worked hard.” She murmurs to herself.

With that, she also falls asleep for the rest of the journey.

A/N: this fantasy rule and stuff is getting kind of messy. lol. if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

thank you for reading. for the next chapter... hum... there will be some content that you should reconsider before reading. I will definitely paint the 'inapproriate' texts with the color red. So, if you are under 15, I think you should not read those parts XD well, unless you are fine with hot stuff... [I don't know if it's hot enough though, but it's better to inform you guys first].

hope red is still friendly to the eyes!

And thank you so much for the two early upvotes! You don't know how happy I felt when I recieved that notif *tearing up dramatically*