Minji sat at the worn table in her kitchen and gazed idly at the marks that littered it’s surface. She remembered where all of them came from. The shallow ones were from her cutting up various indigents for food and spells. The hole on the left side was from when she carelessly spilt an acidic potion. But she forced her eyes to look away from the initials carved in the opposite corner. That was a mark she’d rather forget existed.

Finally, there was a knock on her front door. She didn’t move to open it and the person let themselves in, as they always did.

“You’re late, Hoseok,” She said icily, as a habit. The man simply shot his stupid, irritating heart grin at her.

“I took on a hunter’s name years ago, Minji,” He whined. “Why do you still call me that?”

“You know why,” She was curt. The sooner that man left, the better. “Just tell me why Monster sent you.”

Hoseok crossed his legs and folded his hands together. “You’re no fun anymore. Monny just want to report the usual. We haven’t killed any wolves, we haven’t broken the contract with Jaebum’s pack, and you’re always welcome to come visit if you get lonely. That’s really it.”

“Are you telling me the truth?” Although she’s rather eat glass for the rest of her life, Minji met Hoseok’s eyes to see if he was telling lies again.

“Why would I lie?”

Minji fixed him with a cold look. “I know you lied to me last year. You’re running low on ingredients, weren’t you?”

Hoseok didn’t answer. He stood up from the table, coughed, and strolled over to the front door. “That’s all I was told to say. See you later, Minji.” 

Fury boiled under her skin as she watched him vanish into the forest, leaving her question unanswered. Minji couldn’t stand him. He was a horrible sick and twisted person. Hoseok was as worse as they came. The day he rotted in hell couldn’t come soon enough.

***

As a part of the agreement Minji negotiated between the werewolves and the hunters, once a month they had to report to her what was happening within their groups. This helped her find out if there was any tension in between the werewolves and the hunters and solve any problems before they blew out of proportion. The report from the hunters tended to be… trying, since they sent Hoseok to her more often than not. But Minji always looked forward to the werewolves reports.

Te day she was expecting them to visit it, she put on a kettle on the stove and took three teacups from the cupboard. After that, she put pulled out the milk and sugar for her guests. They would be arriving soon.

There was a knocked on the front door just as the kettle began to whistle. She quickly poured the boiling water over the tealeaves to let it steep while she greeted her guests.

“Eunkyung, Yugyeom,” The witch smiled at the couple and ushered them into her house. “Perfect timing, I just finished a fresh pot of tea.”

Eunkyung gave Minji a warm hug. “We always come at the same time every month; We know you make tea on purpose.”

“What’s wrong with wanting to make you feel welcomed?” The couple followed her into the kitchen, where she poured them a fresh cup. “How’s the pack?”

“They’re still nagging me for not telling them that Eunkyung was my mate.” Yugyeom pouted.

“And who’s fault is that?” Minji but still set a large plate of cookies in front of him. He gladly helped himself.

“It’s been over a year already… Plus, Youngjae found his mate, too! Why aren’t they picking on him?”

“Because Youngjae decided to live with his mate’s pack.” Eunkyung, use to his sulking, simply helped herself to one of the cookies as well. “It’s easier to tease someone if you live with them.”

Yugyeom took a sip of tea to save himself from having to answer that.

“You haven’t had any trouble with the hunters then?” Minji asked.

“No, they’ve minded their own business since last year.” Yugyeom answered.

“Good,” Minji let out a relieved sigh. “As long as there’s no fighting between the two of you, my job is relatively painless.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that!” Eunkyung turned to her friend. “I know you like, make sure that theres no fighting between us and the hunters. But other than that, what does the witch of a forest do?”

“She let’s us live here!” Yugyeom chimed in.

“Really? But I thought the we have our territory and the hunters have theirs?”

“That is true, but by the laws of nature, this forest is mine,” Minji folded her hands together and gazed at her friend. “Being the witch of the forrest is more than just a title. I was born when this forest first grew and I will die when the last blade of grass withers. ”

“Wait,” Eunkyung looked at her with wide eyes. “How old are you?”

“Truthfully, I’ve lost count. I know I’m older than 500, but birthdays aren't special anymore when you're as old as me.”

“Minji is really nice for a forest witch though. She could have let the hunters kill us, but she didn’t.” Yugyeom said. “Or that’s how JB explained it to me when I was a kid.”

“It was something like that.” Minji looked amused. “The Board of Witches summoned me and gave me a Problem I was tasked to fix. Since witches are often seen as the voice of reason within the humanoid world, solving Problems are kind of like our taxes. We’re given one every few decades to solve.

“My problem was a group of hunters and werewolves were having regular fights that I had to stop. I could do it however I wanted and, yes, I could have taken the easy way out and had the hunters kill you but I don’t like violence.”

“So, instead you negotiated an agreement and gave them a place to live?” Eunkyung summed up.

“Yes,” Minji said. “Most of their fights were over silly things or a lack of resources. I made both groups happy by letting the hunters stay closer to the humans so they could protect them if a wolf roamed wild and giving the wolves a protected area to transform every month. Simple, really.”

“I’m still impressed, though.” Eunkyung smiled. “You got two groups that are enemies by nature and have maintained peace between them for years!”

“Well, mostly,” Minji tease. “I thought little Jungkook’s crush on you would ruin everything. He was so protective, I was almost certain he’d breach the ‘no hunting’ rule.”

Eunkyung groaned and covered her face. “I don’t even want to talk about him.”

The rest of the afternoon was simply slipped away from the three of them as they caught up and reminisced about the past. Like always, Minji enjoyed her time hearing the reports much more with the wolves since Hoseok or, J Hope as he went by now, wasn’t there to bug her. 

She had had enough of him for many, many human life times.

When it was close to dinner time, Eunkyung and Yugyeom said good bye and returned to their house on the other side of the forest. Minji listened to the forest whispering about them until it told the witch they had made it home safely.

A/N: Surprise! I actually managed to come up with a plot I like for a Silver Rose spin off and I’m super glad I get to expand on Minji! She’s such a fun character, I can’t wait until I get to develop her more! Even better, the leading man is our hope and angel, J Hope! He’s one of my ult biases so I think I’m going to have fun with this!

If you haven’t read my story Silver Rose, you can read this as a stand alone! All you really need to know is Eunkyung is Yugyeom’s human mate and the werewolves and hunters don’t exactly get along (if you couldn’t tell already lmao)

Are ya’ll as hyped as I am about Silver Lotus? Let me know what you think so far!