Hyungwon grips the aged book tightly in his fingers, the cracked leather of the face of it digging into his soft flesh. He stares with shaking pupils at the door before him, acutely aware of all those that pass behind him. The door opens, revealing a very disgruntled-looking boy with floppy blonde hair. His confused pout gives way to a loopy smile, and a hand comes up to push back his hair.

“Wonnie,” Minhyuk greets, his eyes bright. His gaze immediately flits down to the book, curious. “What ya got there~?” he asks, leaning towards it instinctively. Hyungwon frowns, holding the book closer to his chest as he steps away.

“A book I found,” Hyungwon answers, his eyes darting around to make sure no one around had heard. Of course, no one had, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious... especially when holding such a priceless object like what Hyungwon currently has in his possession.

“… What kind of book?” Minhyuk asks, growing suspicious due to his younger friend’s odd behavior. Hyungwon jerks his head to the side, toward the tree line spreading out from behind Minhyuk’s home.

“Spell book,” the younger replies. “Could we… test it out? In the woods?”

“What kind of spells can we test out in the woods?” Minhyuk says, though he moves to grab his sweater, anyway, before shutting the door behind himself and following Hyungwon off the porch and to the woods. “Unless you found something to, you know, turn trees into power conductors, or something…” After all, magic has been utilized for more practical matters, like building houses, making goods, blah blah. Anything for the betterment of their society… which meant anything to the detriment of anything else.

“You’ll see…” is all Hyungwon says in return. Minhyuk frowns, not used to being the one left in the dark, and continues to follow the younger passed the tree line.

 

When Kihyun woke up this morning, he hadn’t been expecting to run into his destiny. He’d left his home, gone to work his shift at the library. He’d found an old book in the throw-away box filled with a different kind of magic than he’d seen before, one on self-transmogrification. He’d pocketed the book immediately, saving it from its awful fate of further neglect and decomposition, and he’d taken it home.

Inside were all kinds of spells and rituals to turn into different kinds of animals and objects. He’d been immediately fascinated, since he’s pretty much wasted his whole life studying the only types of magic made readily available in this town, and this was the first taste of a different kind of outlet he’s never been given access to before…

So, he took it out to the woods, opened it to the incantation meant to turn him into his spirit guide, and next thing he knew he was a fox… If only that were the craziest thing to happen to him today.

 

“…Love spells,” Minhyuk deadpans, staring at the book in confusion. Hyungwon’s holding it open, a surprisingly cute, gummy-like smile pulling at his thick lips. It almost makes him regret say what he does next. “Wonnie, love magic is… ancient. It’s the kind of stuff people did when magic was first discovered. How do you know anything out of this book would still work?”

Hyungwon pouts, starting to flip the pages.

“That’s why I want to test it out,” the younger answers, sounding slightly defensive. “I found it in the library and took it, and I figured you’d be willing to try out at least one spell with me…” Minhyuk purses his lips, rolling his eyes.

“Found a book of love spells in the library where that cutie clerk just so happens to work,” Minhyuk verbally muses, a wry smirk coming to him. A light pink dusts Hyungwon’s cheeks, and he pointedly doesn’t look at his friend as he continues thumbing through the pages. The older can’t help but snicker under his breath, shaking his head in defeat as he takes a step closer.

“Which one were you wanting to try?” he asks. He doesn’t miss how Hyungwon’s shoulders fall in relief before he turns his gaze fully to the aged book.

“Maybe this one…” Hyungwon mumbles thoughtfully, coming to a stop on a page entitled ‘To Attract Those of Your Kind.’ His brow furrows as he reads through the short description of the full intent behind the spell and the incantation itself. “It’s supposed to attract someone of the effected’s kind, not the caster’s… So, we could just cast it on an animal, and it’d attract the same kind of animal to it.” Minhyuk hums in acknowledgment, taking Hyungwon’s word for it since he’s a bit rusty with his Latin.

Hyungwon straightens up, throws his head back, and looks around with steady eyes for an animal, any animal, that may pass by.

Suddenly, as if on cue, a fox with the oddest of colorings Minhyuk has ever seen skips into their sight, seemingly chasing some unseen rodent. Or just living its life. Whichever. Hyungwon’s gaze narrows, not losing sight of that fox for a moment, and his lips move quickly as he utters the incantation.

“spirituum venti
preco ego ad te,
generi ad mihi adducere
ita ut et nos amant in aevi”

The organgeish, pinkish fox stops in its tracks, its black-tinged ears twitched as it its head towards the two humans it hadn’t noticed just before. He seems to hesitate, paws picking up only to press back down into the soft dirt. His tail swishes back and forth, its dark eyes seeming to twinkle.

Hyungwon frowns, glancing back down to the page to make sure he’d read it right. He misses how the fox’s body seems to elongate, the legs growing taller and the head growing wider. The fur falls off its body, replaced by flesh. He only looks up when the bones start cracking, the small mewl from the fox growing into a grunt of pain.

Minhyuk’s jaw drops open in utter shock, and he roughly shakes Hyungwon’s arm to get him to look up from the book, not realizing the younger is in fact watching as the fox they’d just enchanted turn into a human shorter than either of them, with the same-colored hair and the same twinkling eyes… He smiles at the astonished men—smirks, even—as he starts strutting his way towards them.

Minhyuk’s still shaking Hyungwon’s arm, and Hyungwon bats the hand away as he gulps thickly. He snaps the book closed, pushing it towards Minhyuk as if that’ll make it seem like he’d said the spell and not the younger.

Hyungwon becomes very invested in watching how the leaf under his shoe curls up and crackles as the cutie librarian clerk he’s been crushing on for weeks walks up to him with all the confidence of the world exuding from his features, despite the fact he’d just been a cutie little fox just a few moments before.

“Hi there~” he greets, tilting his head to the side. His pink lips curl around his sharp canines in a smirk, his eyes flitting up and down Hyungwon’s form. “I’ve… seen you before, right? At the library in town…?” He takes a step closer, and Hyungwon nearly swoons. “What brings you all the way out here?”

“A love spell,” Minhyuk pipes up, his boisterous tone shaking Hyungwon out of his bashfulness only for the younger to punch him in the arm. The librarian’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, his gaze skipping between the two before settling on Hyungwon’s features once more.

“Ah~ …Well… that’d explain it.” He chuckles breathily, leaning even closer, so close Hyungwon can smell his cologne now. It smells like flowers and sweets and ink and freshly-printed paper… all of Hyungwon’s favorite smells.

“Sorry, we thought you were a fox,” Hyungwon apologizes sheepishly. “I didn’t think you’d be human…” He turns to Minhyuk making as if to grab the book back. “We can change it back! We can take it back! Don’t worry, I can fix this, I can—”

The librarian’s hand comes up, his fingers gently curling around Hyungwon’s bony wrist.

“Why don’t we just get coffee instead?”

Hyungwon shakes his head adamantly, repeating that he can fix this mess. The shorter can’t help but laugh.

“You know, Hyungwon,” he says, causing the younger to choke on his words, “the secret behind love magic isn’t like other kinds… Real love doesn’t just appear out of thin air, some level of affection already has to be there for the spell to even somewhat work. That’s why it was thrown out so long ago, because people just stopped believing in it. It wasn’t working how they wanted, so they abandoned it.” Hyungwon’s brow furrows, not exactly why he’s getting a history lesson now of all times… or how the librarian knows his name… or why the man hasn’t let go of his wrist yet… or even why the light in the shorter’s eyes is making butterflies erupt and flutter about in his gut.

“H… How do you know my name?” he asks, deciding that being the easiest for the cutie librarian to answer. Of course, he knows the man’s name, too. Kihyun, Yoo Kihyun. It’s been on all his rental receipts for the past month.

“You’re my best customer~” Kihyun explains, lifting his shoulder in a single shrug, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Minhyuk glances between the two, smirking knowingly. He can recognize the beginnings of something great when he sees it. He claps Hyungwon on the shoulder, shooting him a small wink before starting off, back to his home.

“I’ll have this for safekeeping,” he tells his friend over his shoulder, waving the spell book around. “It’s worked plenty well for you already… I doubt you’ll need it again.” Hyungwon shouts after him, but he doesn’t listen. He glances at the book in his hand as he walks, humming a soft tune under his breath… Maybe he should try this out on that barista at his favorite café…

Hyungwon glances at Kihyun again, pupils dilated and shaking when he realizes Kihyun’s still holding onto his wrist.

“You didn’t answer me about the coffee,” Kihyun tells him, tone light and slightly teasing. Hyungwon nods once, his heart beating madly in his chest. Kihyun nods, as well, his hand slipping from the younger’s wrist to his palm, lacing their fingers together. There’s a thin layer of dirt on the older’s hand, but Hyungwon doesn’t mind.

He chews on the inside of his cheek as he lets Kihyun lead him out of the trees and back onto the street, thinking over what he’s said… He can’t help but smile as the man’s meaning suddenly hits him, the thinly-veiled confession sinking in and making him feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

This whole love magic experiment has just turned out much better than he’d thought, and he couldn’t be any happier about it.