“I wish I could just, wake up in the right body every morning. That I could wake up as Gwi or as Ki without having to think about it.” Gwi complains.

“That’d be so wonderful.” Tae agrees.

They’re laying on the floor of the upper level while Minho and Jonghyun sit against the wall eating the last bit of their lunch. Minho and Jonghyun look at each other, trying to decide who’s going to be the comforter today. Jonghyun nods towards the door, signalling that he’s ready to bear the weight today. Minho stands, walks over to Gwi and kneels at their side.

“I’m going to go work on that skin salve in the basement. If you want to come down, you’re more than welcome, love. Otherwise have fun commiserating with Tae, ok?”

Gwi nods and makes no move to get up, so Minho reaches down and kisses their cheek before heading down stairs.

Today is not the first day Gwi and Tae have woken up dysphoric about their bodies. It had taken a while for Gwi to be honest with Minho about their feelings concerning the matter. Communication had made the whole ordeal much easier and though it wasn’t an overnight success, Gwi appreciated the way Minho did his best to alter and improve his behavior. When Tae came into the coven, it had taken just one heart to heart conversation with Gwi for them to come to an epiphany. Though Minho, Jonghyun, and Jinki strived to be good about their terminology and treatment of Gwi and Tae, there were some things that no amount of vocabulary or affection would be quite able to ease.

Later that same afternoon, Jonghyun moves down to the basement when Minho’s in the middle of making salve for rosacea. He pokes his head down the hatch and watches Minho stirring the potion, waiting til he’s in between steps to ask for permission to enter.

“Minho, I have an idea. Can I come down?”

Minho nods, not looking up from where he’s grinding up herbs with a mortar and pestle. Jonghyun comes and sits on his right side, taking care not to knock over any of the vials surrounding him.

“So if you can make potions that alter bodies and I can make charms that alter bodies and perceptions, why don’t we make something for Gwi and Tae? To help them be happy with their bodies?”

“Let me finish this, and then we can talk about it.”

“Can I sit on your bed until then?”

“Sure, sweets.”

Jonghyun moves to the pile of pillows and blankets Minho and Gwi use as a bed and lays down so he can watch Minho work. He finds Minho’s magic eye the most charming out of all of the coven’s; the golden color seems to match him more than anything else, his amulet glowing the same color below. Minho’s humming and it harmonizes with the sound coming from the cauldron. Jonghyun struggles not to sing along with it, fearing he’ll mess the potion up. He gets sleepy; one second, Minho’s working on the potion, the next he’s ladling it into bottles.

“Are we good?” Jonghyun asks.

“I’ll come sit with you when I’m done.”

Jonghyun nods and sits up. Before he came to Minho’s house, he’d never learned any potion making. His mother was a chanter, so he simply learned from her. He’s slowly learning from when he works with Minho, but it’s still slow going overall. Eventually, Minho finishes filling bottles and puts them in the bucket to take up next time they go upstairs.

“Ok, we’re good now. Go ahead. Actually, is Gwi still upstairs with Tae?”

“Yup.”

“Ok cool, now go ahead.”

“So I guess we start by figuring out if it should be more perception wise or transformative?”

Minho goes to his bookshelf, pulling his book of beauty recipes out. He flips through but doesn’t seem to find what he wants. He closes it, sitting down next to Jonghyun.

“I would say if we can figure it out, transformative would be better. Even if it’s just temporary, like a day’s worth of change. Perception would make it worse, I think. Because for them, it’d be like being doubly in the wrong body.”

“Let me go get my spell book.”

Jonghyun stands but Minho grabs his arm.

“They’re going out with Jinki later, remember? They’ll be gone til tomorrow night. Let’s wait until the three of them are gone, and then we can work in peace and surprise them.”

“Oooh that’s good.”

Minho stands and they both walk towards the ladder. Minho lets Jonghun climb first. Once on the shop level, Minho pulls his bucket up and starts putting the potion out.

“Are you two done? I need to pack but I don’t want to interrupt if you can’t watch the shop yet.” Jinki asks from where he sits at the counter.

“We’re done, you can go pack, hun.”

Jinki slips off his stool and heads upstairs. Jonghyun stays in the shop with Minho. They help the steady stream of customers that come in. It’s a good day, sales-wise. Minho flips over the closed sign on the door and at the same time, Jinki, Tae, and Gwi make their way downstairs. They each have their backpacks on and Jinki detours into his study room to pull out two broomsticks.

“Don’t you need three?” Jonghyun asks from where he’s resorting study charms.

“I don’t think Tae’s ready for solo flying that long, so they’re riding with me.” Jinki explains.

“That’s a fair point.” Minho says.

Tae huffs at the exchange but doesn’t add anything to defend themself. The five make their way outside through the backdoor. Out in the back couryard, they exchange kisses and goodnights. Gwi mounts their broom, and after a minute or two of struggling, Tae and Jinki mount theirs. They wave as the fly away into the moonlight. Jonghyun and Minho quietly make their way back inside.

“I’m going to grab my spellbook, I’ll meet you below in a minute.” Jonghyun says, running up the stairs.

Minho heads down the ladder, heading into his hidden study. He grabs out two books and manages to close the way before Jonghyun makes his way down the ladder.

“Ok, so I have a transfiguration spell that we might be able to incorporate?”

“That’s a good start.”

They both sit on the bed and flip through their respective books. Jonghyun finally seems to notice the new books.

“Where did you get those?” he asks, closing his.

“They were my mama’s. Actually I think they were my grammy’s.”

“I didn’t know you could read old runes?”

“It takes a while but I try to keep my comprehension level consistent.”

“How did you learn?”

“My grammy taught me.”

“Huh.”

Not satisfied with any potions in his book, Minho decides to turn to the best source of information he has. He stands and searches for a mirror bowl.

“What are you doing? Did you find something?” Jonghyun asks excitedly.

“No, I’m going to ask my mama what she thinks we should use.”

“But Minho, your mama is dead.”

Minho smiles and continues looking for the bowl. Once he finds it, he goes to his supply shelf and grabs his bottles of morning dew and moon river water. He sits on his cushion and pours equal parts onto the mirror bowl. From where Jonghyun sits, he can’t fully see what’s going on. The bowl starts to hum and Minho’s magic eye turns gold. He takes his amulet off and puts it into the bowl. Light of almost the same color starts shining out of the bowl and the humming goes higher in pitch. After a minute, Minho smiles.

“Hi mama!”

The bowl sings in what Jonghyun assumes is response.

“No, I’m okay, mama. I have a question for you.”

Jonghyun zones out as Minho recounts Gwi and Tae’s dysphoria but perks up at the mention of his own name.

“-so Jonghyun and I want to make them something that can help with that. We were thinking something like a transformation charm and a beauty potion together but I’m having trouble finding the right one. What do you think?”

The bowl sings for a while and Jonghyun gets lost in the tune.

“Jonghyun, will you hand me the bigger book?”

Jonghyun picks up the book and carries it over, sitting next to Minho. He can’t see anything in the bowl, even with his magic eye, so he simply tries to look at the pages Minho flips between. The bowl starts singing again.

“So we make three of them? Oh, I understand. Ok. Thank you, mama, I love you!”

The bowl emits one last note and stops glowing. Minho pulls his amulet out, drying it with a cloth. Jonghyun looks at him expectantly.

“Did she have anything helpful?”

“Yeah, actually. Apparently my grammy used to make something for my bibi.”

“Bibi?”

“Yeah. They were one of my mama’s sibling. They were genderfluid too. They died in an accident before I was born so I only met them in a non-corporeal form.”

“Oh. So, what did she say to do?”

“There’s an age reversing potion in here that’s meant for like wrinkles and age spots and bad bones and things.. Basically, what we’re going to do, is I’m going to make the potion but with a few changes to it. And then I’m going to divide it into three parts. Somewhere in here is a chart for the three chants. One is for masculine traits, one is for feminine traits, and one is for neutral traits. The effects are supposed to last around a day per tablespoon.”

“Well that sounds easy.”

Minho laughs. “Yeah, it’ll be easy for you. Here, get me a paper and I’ll write down the chants for you.”

Jonghyun reaches behind him and grabs Gwi's portable desk.

“I’ll go make us some food while you copy and then after we eat we can get to work.”

Minho nods and starts copying. Judging by the fact that the potion has four pages worth of instructions, he knows it’s going to be a long night.

***

Four hours later, Minho’s halfway through his potion. He’s brought his largest cauldron out and enlisted Jonghyun’s help with handing him ingredients as he goes. He’s getting tired but with hopes of Gwi's happiness he continues on. He adds one last spring of horehound to the brew before pricking his finger and adding a few drops of blood. Jonghyun goes to follow, but Minho stops him.

“Don’t worry. It’s not strictly needed by the recipe; mama said it would make the transformation easier is all.”  

He gives the mixture a final stir pulls his sweat drenched shirt off over his head, and then sits down on his bed, turning over a hourglass.

“Are you alright?” Jonghyun asks in a soft voice.

“Yeah. It’s got to brew for 2 hours now. I’ve got to rest. Will you make sure I’m up before the time runs out? If it sits longer than that it’ll spoil and I’ll have to start over.”

“I’ll make sure you’re up, don’t worry. Do I need to stir it or anything?”

“No, just leave it be. If it looks like it’s going to boil over you can get me but it’ll fine otherwise.”

“Ok. Sleep well.”

***

Minho wakes to prodding at his shoulder. It’s been a long time since someone besides Gwi has woken him up and it’s an odd sensation.

“I’m up, I swear.” he groans.

“Your timer has like 10 minutes left I think.”

“Thank you, sweets.”

After a bit, Minho finds the strength to sit up. He’s feeling better, but he’s still tired. By a miracle, he makes his way to the cauldron in time to give it a much needed stir. The brew starts to whistle and Minho hums along with it. Over the next two hours, he continues adding and humming and stirring until finally, after nine hours worth of worth, it’s done. Jonghyun helps him pour it into three smaller cauldrons so that they can be charmed and bottled.

“Ok, so the neutral one just needs the charm, nothing else, so let me get bottles for it and then you can charm it real quick.” Minho says.

He searches around for white bottles and finds four large sized ones. Jonghyun’s lighting his candles by the time he comes back, warming his voice up for the chant. When he’s ready, they cover the other two cauldrons; Jonghyun puts his hands on the cauldron and he begins his song. Minho tries not to listen to the spell, afraid it will distract him from the other two. Though his grandmother had wanted him to be a chanter when he first started learning the different types of magic, he was easily overwhelmed by the sounds and thus gravitated more towards the quiet hum of potion making. Jonghyun’s voice is beautiful and it’s hard not to get trapped by it. Quickly enough, the spell is done and Minho does his best to pour the silver liquid equally into the four bottles.

“Which one are we doing next?” Jonghyun asks, drinking water.

“Uhh I don’t have a preference.”

“Why don’t you find bottles first and then we’ll go from there?”

Minho nods and wanders around the store room again, looking for any pink/red and blue bottles he can find. When he has enough, he brings them over.

“Ok, so I have to add jasmine to the feminine one and sandalwood to the masculine one while you’re chanting so let me know when you’re ready and which one you’re doing.”

“Let’s do the feminine one first.”

Minho gets the bottles and the jasmine ready and Jonghyun begins his song. As he stirs it, the potion turns from silver to a peachy pink. When it’s done, they pour it and seal it, putting it with the other bottles. They do the same with the masculine potion, which turns a periwinkle blue. When they finish, Jonghyun extinguishes his spell candles.

“So.” he says, wiping his hands. “Which one of us is going to see if it worked?”

“I’ll do it.”

“Maybe we should test it on something first, a bird or something.”

“Jonghyun, you know that things don’t work the same between us and them. I’ll be fine.”

“What if you get stuck?”

“Then I’ll just take the masculine one.”

“Oh. That’s true.”

“Mama said it should last 15 hours so I’ll take it now and we can see how long it actually works for.”

Jonghyun reopens one of the pink bottles and pours the potion into a glass before filling it with whatever juice he’s been sipping on all night. He mixes it well before handing it to Minho.

“I’ll...I’m going to go upstairs for a few minutes, so you...have some privacy.”

“Thanks.”

Jonghyun goes up to the upper level and heats up some soup. With how hungry he is, he can only imagine how starving Minho is. When he’s done, he brings the soup back. He sends it down in the bucket with a warning before heading down.

“So are we going all the way with you using female pronouns during this or-” Jonghyun starts, stopping in surprise when he finally faces Minho.

While he isn’t sure what he was expecting, he’s blown away.

“How do I look?” Minho asks.

They’re both surprised at the higher -- though still low -- pitch of his voice, and Minho instinctively reaches a hand up to his now adam’s apple-less throat.

“You know, you make an incredibly handsome man, Minho, but you also make a spectacularly beautiful woman.”

“How would you know if my face is beautiful if you’re just staring at my chest.”

“Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen s?”

“Uhh 10 or so hours, when our last customer left.”

“Yeah but she had a shirt on.”

Minho reaches behind to pick his shirt up off the bed and puts it on.

“Why are you such a creepy, Jonghyun.” Minho teases.

“Sorry, I’ve been reading my magic spell book.”

Minho shakes his head.

“So are you still wanting me to call you Minho? And when we’re running the shop tomorrow, should I still use masculine pronouns if I’m directing a customer to you?”

“I’m honestly too tired to worry about that right now. Help me clean this mess up and I’ll let you know in the morning.”

***

“So what am I calling you today?” Jonghyun asks while they eat breakfast.

Minho tilts his head, pursing his lips. “Why don’t you refer to me using female pronouns today? That way we know if I for sure if I actually definitely look like a woman.”

“Minho, you have s, hips, and your voice is that of a sweet sultry lady. I think you pass.”

Minho glares at Jonghyun. “You know how important this is. If I spent 9 hours on this potion, I want to know exactly how well it works.”

“Ok, ok. I will. What name should I call you? Minjung?”

“That works.”

“What are you going to wear today, Minjung?”

Minjung looks around and stands. Jonghyun watches her go to the corner of the room and uncover a large trunk, which she opens. She rummages  around in it for a few minutes, before gasping and pulling something out. She turns around and holds up a red dress to herself.

“Do you think this would be okay?”

“Yeah, probably. Was it your mama’s?”

“No, it was my Bibi’s.”

“Are you going to wear a bra?”

“Absolutely not.”

Minjung pulls her shirt up over her head and slips the dress on before pulling her pants down. Normal clothes discarded, she spins around and looks expectantly at Jonghyun.

“I said it last night and I’ll say it again, you make a mighty fine man but you also make a pretty pretty girl.”

Minjung blushes at the compliment and they make their way up to the shop level, opening for the

day. As promised, Jonghyun refers to Minjung only as a female. It’s fine at first, and she enjoys the compliments on her looks, but as time goes on, she wishes the potion would wear off and she could go back to her normal, male self. She knows she could go downstairs and take the masculine potion and be Minho again, but when she thinks of Gwi’s struggles, she makes up her mind to persevere.

After a particularly handsy male customer (who was more than willing to pay by marrying Minjung), Jonghyun tells her to go to the basement to calm down. She does, taking her paints and label paper. She arranges all the potion bottles in two groups and sets about making labels. She puts little flower fairies on Tae’s bottles: the feminine bottles get roses and jasmine, the masculine bottle gets broad leaves, the neutral bottle gets little pieces of tree bark. It takes her a little longer to decide what goes on Gwi's bottles. Nymphs go on the feminine bottle; mermen on the masculine bottle; tiny cherubs go on the neutral bottle. Calmer and satisfied with her artwork, Minjung leaves them to dry and goes back up to the shop. The rest of the day passes quickly and quietly. There’s a few customers that come in but only one buys anything, and soon enough they’re closes for the day.

“So what was it like being a lady for a day?” Jonghyun asks as he locks the door.

“Interesting but I’m more than ready to be a man again.” Minjung says with a sigh.

“How much longer do you have?”

“About 30 minutes.”

“Too bad you’ll be a man again by the time they get home. If you still want to see what is like for a woman, I’ll willing. If not, I’m going to go wash up.”

“I am still curious but I am in no way in the mood for it so I will pass today, thank you, sweets.”

They sit down and eat their dinner in silence, waiting for the others to come home. There’s a clang and the back door bursts open. Minjung and Jonghyun both tense up, worrying that they’re being robbed, but laughter reveals the reality of it.

“We’re home early!” Tae yells, waving their hands above their head.

They stop and pull their arms close to themself when they see Minjung.

“Oh I’m sorry I didn’t realize you had someone over.” they say, turning to Jonghyun.

Jinki and Gwi walk in at the mention of a guest. Jinki nods politely and Gwi has a very skeptical look. Minjung and Jonghyun look at each other and burst out laughing.

Says, “I guess that’s our proof that it worked?” Minjung says, holding her hand out for a hi-five.

“You don’t recognize who this is?” Jonghyun says to the others.

“How would I recognize her? The only woman I’ve ever seen you talk to is Taeyeon from the flower shop!” Jinki says.

Gwi stays quiet but walks closer to Minjung, staring her down. Minjung watches as the gears in her head turn and the light in her eyes turns on.

“Minho?” they ask softly.

Minjung nods and Gwi takes their hands.

“Minho???” Jinki and Tae exclaim simultaneously.

“Why? How? I don’t...What happened?” Gwi asks.

“It was Jonghyun’s idea...” Minjung starts.

“But Minho figured out how to do it!” Jonghyun chimes in.

“Do what?” Tae asks.

“Come down and I’ll show you guys. Actually, give me like five minutes because this is wearing off and I feel like the process looks gross.”

They all stand in the shop as Minjung heads down the ladder.

“We worked together on this, we worked really hard. Minho even let me help him with the potion that’s how hard it was.”

The other three look between themselves, confused but intrigued. From below, they hear Minho -- in his normal low voice -- call them down. Jonghyun heads down first, followed by Ki, Tae, and Jinki. Minho’s standing with his freshly labelled bottles. He’s traded his dress for his pants and there’s a feeling of relief amongst the five to see him as a man once more.

“So these are potions for you two. They change you, so you can present in the body you want to present as. It lasts for about 16 hours or so, so if you take it in the morning it should last all day. There’s a feminine one, a masculine one, and then a sort of gender neutral androgynous one that I don’t understand but Mama said it was important so I’ll let you figure it out-”

Minho’s explanation is cut off by Gwi stepping forward and planting a kiss on his lips. Jonghyun picks up where Minho left off.

“So the masculine one is for when you take the feminine one or neutral one for a lot of days in a row and get too accustomed to it. Or if you’re like really wanting to look like super macho or something. I was going to try it to see how it increases things but I was afraid I’d grow a mustache.”

Tae and Jinki laugh at the last part, Gwi still too busy kissing Minho to hear anything being said. Jinki picks up the bottles labelled for Tae and puts them in the bucket.

“We’re going to go turn in for the night, you two have fun down here, don’t make anything too saucy.” Jinki says with a laugh.

“Thank you, Minho!” Tae beams before heading up the ladder.

He waves and soon the three of them are gone. He pulls on Gwi's arms, walking backwards, until he feels their bed. He sits and lays on his back, pulling Gwi down with him.

“What made you decide to make that?” Gwi asks.

“Like I said, it was Jonghyun’s idea.”

“How did you come up with it?”

“I didn’t.”

“But Jonghyun said...”

“I asked my mama how to make it.”

“You called your mother up just to ask how to make a potion?”

“Yes. Apparently she and grammy used to make the same thing for Bibi before they passed.”

“Why were you a woman when we got home?”

“I wanted to make sure it worked.”

“You could’ve let Tae or I try it, it would’ve been fine...”

“I wanted to make sure it was right. It took me nine hours to brew it so there was a lot of time for error and I wasn’t about to put all that work in just to have you disappointed when it didn’t work.”

“You’ve never considered yourself a woman though, never wanted to be a woman.”

“That’s true. I’ve always felt comfortable in being a man. But I know that this is something you struggle with and I wanted to make sure that it was going to be right. I wanted to try and understand a little bit of what you mean when you say you feel like you wake up in the wrong body.”

Gwi looks ready to cry but manages to whisper a thank you. Minho kisses them, adjusting around so that they’re properly laying in bed.

“So, the dress was my Bibi’s. Some of her and my mama’s clothes are in that trunk. Remind me to tell Tae too, but you two are more than welcome to wear them when you’re trying out the potion at first. Once we get it tweaked right, we’ll go get you two some new dresses or makeup or whatever you want, okay?”

“It really means a lot, Minho, I really really appreciate it.” Gwi whispers after a while, finally starting to cry.

“Hey, hey, hush now. I’m happy if it makes you happy. Do you remember what I told you when you first explained all this to me?”

“That you love me and support me no matter what presentation I identify with.”

“Exactly. So if I make something like this, and it helps you feel happy and it helps you feel more at ease, then even if it takes a whole year to make, I’ll do it for you.”

Gwi puts a hand on Minho’s cheek, crying too hard to even try to kiss him. Minho kisses their forehead and waves the candles out so they can go to sleep.

“What if I take it and decide I don’t like having a woman’s body?” Gwi whispers after a long time.

“Then we see if Tae likes it and if they do, we’ll just give them all the potion. And if neither of you like it, then we’ll just sell it as a special. It’ll be fine, love. I won’t be mad or anything. It’s just something to try, my love. Hush now, let’s just get some sleep, okay?”