“Ahhhh--”

 

Taemin instinctively winced, waiting for the second half of the sneeze. When it didn’t come, he looked sympathetically toward Jonghyun, catching him wiping his nose on the back of his hand with an expression of mild dissatisfaction.

 

Looking out the window of the carriage, Taemin reflected that there was more pollen in the air than usual--fluffy, white spores floated carelessly in the stagnant air of the forest, visible in the rays of light that cut through the foliage above. He reached a hand out to try to gather one in his hand, and was quickly admonished by Kibum.

 

“Taemin-ah, keep your hand inside!” 

 

With a bashful look, Taemin brought his hand back inside the carriage and surveyed his fellow occupants instead. Kibum, Jinki, and Jonghyun squeezed together on the left side, while Minho and Taemin sat with the box of goods to be delivered in between them on the other side. The carriage moved forward rhythmically, tugging forward with every step of the horse. 

 

They had been on the road for two hours already, and Taemin was finding his first mission somewhat less exciting that Leeteuk and Heechul had led him to believe. With all their fussing about manuscripts and plans contained in the small lacquer box to his right, Taemin had believed Imperial soldiers to be just around every turn and dip in the road, waiting to ambush the newly-formed group. He had stayed up all night coming up with various scenarios and possible ways to use his powers to foil the yet-to-manifest enemies’ plans. 

 

He had also had nightmares about super-powered bugs foiling his plans, but that was another story.

 

Taemin was born with a unique ability to entirely negate magic. It was not something he could control--Heechul described it more as a “blessing” than a trainable ability. Magic of any kind simply would not affect him, whether it was Jonghyun’s healing powers, Key’s telepathy, or anything else the Super Junior members had tried back at the headquarters. It was the reason he was revered in his estate as a parlor child--he alone had not fallen ill to the strange mist that surrounded the grounds one month, and ever since, he was seen as an icon of good fortune.

 

The familiar bitterness rose in his chest. Whenever he thought about his pandering family, the distant but obsequious pats on the head or lavish gifts, the way he was treated the same way the shrine in the alcove was, he could not help but fall into the suffocation those memories invoked. But he was different now, he had cut his locks and sold his clothes until no trace of his former appearance remained.

 

Save for his face, that is. Putting aside modesty for the moment, Taemin reflected forlornly on the smoothness of his features, paleness of his skin, and daintiness of his figure. As loathe as he was to admit it, he looked the part of the wealthy lord’s son, which frustrated him to no end.

 

Determined to change the course of his thoughts, he turned to Minho, who was gazing distantly out of the carriage, chin in his hand. With earnest eyes, a strong brow, and a neutral expression, he looked the part of a trustworthy merchant, Taemin reflected bitterly. He couldn’t stay too angry, though, not at Minho and especially not over something so superficial.

 

While Jinki was the one who saved him from that stifling house, Minho was a close second-favorite hyung. He also had a blessing. Minho was completely invulnerable to any physical forces--a slash with a sword would stop just as short as a flick to the forehead. Well, unless it was Taemin doing the flicking--it seemed Taemin negated Minho’s blessing, as had become evident after numerous sessions with Heechul using Taemin to poke at a resignedly stoic Minho. 

 

Still, while Key and Jonghyun tended to coddle Taemin, Minho quietly murmured words of advice from Taemin’s side, often calling the younger boy to his side to show him how to properly tie a sailor’s knot, fill a rice pot, start a fire, or any other of the numerous things he had learned while working as a house servant in a lord’s estate. 

 

Not that Key or Jonghyun meant anything less than well. Their pats on the head, generously heaping bowls of rice at mealtimes, and general adoration warmed his heart multiple times per day. Sometimes, that heartwarming transitioned a little too close to the superficial pandering that he grew up with, was all. 

 

That, and he couldn’t stand the image of himself as the frail, delicate child being pampered by fawning others.

 

Blinking to get rid of thoughts of his former life, he turned to the final member of his travelling group, aside from the man steadily driving the cart. Jinki-hyung, with his short-cropped hair and loose robes and reading glasses, looking for all the world unbothered by the hitching movements of the cart and clattering of wheels against rocks below. 

 

Jinki was somewhat mysterious to Taemin, even though he was the hyung he had known the longest. Behind a generally calm and affable demeanor was a private man, with unique interests and an equally unique power--amplification. While he could produce very little supernatural phenomena on his own, pair him with another power-user, and he could double their impact. Jinki’s power appeared out of all of them to be the most amorphous and strange--weeks down in Heechul’s lab had shown the team that Jinki could assist Kibum in projecting his telepathy or strengthen his predictions; he could join Jonghyun in a duet to double the healing capacities of the bard; when in contact with Minho, he also turned impenetrable; and when holding hands with Taemin, he also became resistant to magic. 

 

Somehow sensing Taemin’s attention, Jinki looked up from his book to smile in Taemin’s direction. Startled at being caught, Taemin blinked and smiled back before forcing his attention elsewhere. 

 

Outside, the pollen was increasingly heavy--when Taemin looked up, he could see the fluffy spores clinging and coagulating on the tree branches, forming bundles of pillowy balls that reminded Taemin of the comfort of his futon. Looking down, he could see the wisps and dances of pollen along the ground where the horses hooves displaced them. It was a mesmerizing site, calling into mind the warm atmosphere of the poetry competitions around the fire, where family members and household friends composed verses on the beauty of snow in the new year. Taemin himself had never seen the snow, instead secreted away to the inner sanctums of the mansion to prevent sickness and contact with ill-wishing deities. But he imagined that snow would be just like this. With these musings, the rhythmic tug and pull of the cart, and Minho’s warm shoulder beside him, Taemin found himself falling asleep.

 

…

 

Blinking awake, Taemin glanced around him. He giggled at the site of his teammates, who by the looks of it had also nodded off in the interim. Jonghyun had his mouth open, across from Minho who simply had his head bowed, breaths coming soft and even. Kibum had his head on Jinki’s shoulder, while Jinki appeared to have his head back and resting on the ledge underneath the window. 

 

Taemin stood up to stretch, and only then noticed that the cart itself was no longer in motion. This was strange. 

 

“Hyung,” Taemin whispered, poking at Minho’s arm. “Minho-hyung, are we stopped?”

 

Finding no response, Taemin peeked at Minho’s face and found his eyes closed and mouth relaxed. Worry began to worm its way into his heart, as he found his pulse start to rise and his blinks come more frequently than before. 

 

Fumbling with the latch to the back door, Taemin ran to the front of the cart, only to find the horse standing upright and still, and the driver slumped over and snoring. Taemin’s mind blanked. He stood, frozen, in front of the cart, unsure of what to do. 

 

Like a lightning bolt, the black lacquer box flashed through his mind. Taemin crawled back into the cart, banging his elbows on his hyung’s knees until he reached the box. It was sealed, just as before, and had been sitting in the same spot it occupied for the entirety of the journey. Not wanting to unseal it, Taemin placed it in between Minho’s feet for safekeeping before slipping back out the door. 

 

Hands on his hips, Taemin surveyed the scene before him. The pollen was no longer falling, but piled up on the sides of the road and the roof of the cart. It wasn’t until some of the pollen stuck uncomfortably to his neck that Taemin realized he was sweating.

 

Biting his lips, he looked around. Off to the side of the road, there was a patch of dirt noticeably free from any pollen. Curious, Taemin approached to find a small cluster of yellow mushrooms poking out of the ground, an equidistant force somehow keeping the pollen away from the base of the tree the mushrooms grew from.

 

Maybe these mushrooms could wake up his teammates, Taemin thought. Putting aside the fact that he wasn’t sure exactly how he would use them--waving them in their direction? Putting them in their sleeping mouths?--he bent down to pluck the small, button-like caps.

 

As he was eye-level to the ground, he noticed another batch, also with the same shielding effect, a few meters away. Perhaps more mushrooms would make for a more powerful effect, Taemin mused, heading over to collect this new batch as well.

 

As he reached the stump this new discovery was under, Taemin heard a faint whispering noise. He stood bolt upright, frozen in place for a moment, before glancing around himself. Was anyone there? Had they caused this?

 

After a few moments, the whispering died down, only to pick up seconds later. Unable to distinguish words, Taemin could determine the direction the voices were coming from. Heart pounding in his chest, Taemin resolved to sneak closer toward the thick patch of forest, keeping his eyes peeled for any movement.

 

Finding none, but only hearing slurred whispers growing louder, but not more distinct, Taemin crept forward into the pines, a thick, spongy layer of pine needles hiding his footsteps.

 

“Rain…..rain...rain…” seemed to come clearer and clearer through the whispers, which sounded like a multitude of voices and accents, jumbled and melismatic and not at all choreographed.

 

Finally, a break in the dense woods seemed to be the source of the noise, a clearing much too small for the hundreds of whispering voices Taemin could make out.

 

Carefully, curiosity taking the forefront over fear, Taemin peeked inside the shadowy clearing.

 

The first thing Taemin noticed was the scent--fresh, clean pine combined with a heavier musk, one that instinctively felt old, and weighty. As Taemin’s eyes adjusted to the dimness of the space, he could make out a few luminescent spots, glowing a pale purple. Tree trunks, stumps, and fallen logs gradually became visible, and when Taemin’s eyes had fully adjusted, he gasped at the sight in front of him.

 

On every tree branch, stump, rock, and patch of ground, there were hundreds of mushrooms, all facing what Taemin recognized from his youth as a massive matsutake mushroom in the center, easily the height of a man. Ruffled maitake fronds spilled down the side of a stump, while turkey tails fanned out over a fallen tree’s upended roots. Oyster mushrooms, pale and pearlescent, covered the side of a trunk like scales. The same yellow button mushrooms from before scattered like spilled gold in between clumps of grass and spongy undergrowth. 

 

It was magnificent; it was otherworldly.

 

“We are praying for a thunderstorm.”

 

Taemin jumped back, searching for the gravelly voice that seemed to echo from the various pines, stumps, and crevices.

 

“We would invite you to join along, but it seems you have little magic to contribute.”

 

Glancing wildly about, Taemin found the giant matsutake was the source of the voice, with the smaller mushrooms shaking with its echoes.

 

Taemin, suddenly conscious of the yellow mushrooms in his hands, shuffled quickly to fold them behind his back.

 

“Do not worry, young one,” the matsutake boomed, “We create beautiful, individual appearances and patterns designed to entice, to make the world love us, so that they can spread our spores widely. But our true lives, our hopes and struggles, lie in the roots below, hidden from gaze.”

 

As the echo dripped down the folds of oyster mushrooms, something in that statement caught inside of Taemin, tugging at his heart and resonating within him. 

 

“But why did you need to make everyone fall asleep?” Taemin blinked away some stray pollen, as well as the tide of emotion that had suddenly overcome him.

 

“Oh, was it sleep this time?” the old matsutake chuckled. “In times past, it has been dancing.”

The maitakes rippled in their laughter, and Taemin couldn’t help but giggle at the thought of his teammates suddenly starting to dance. 

 

“But why,” he persisted.

 

“We do not control how others react to our magic. We only know of our affairs, our hopes and dreams.” The pine trees around the giant matsutake shifted to reveal a bright blue sky. There was a loud groan, and then, “Perhaps tomorrow.”

 

“Still,” the voice continued, “you had best be on your way to your companions. Our spores will lose their effect soon, and they shall awaken.”

 

“Oh,” Taemin glanced at his armful of mushrooms, “Did you want these back?”

 

Laughter circled around Taemin from all sides, rippling off the maitake, braying from the shelf fungus and turkey tails. “No,” the voices chorused.

 

“They shall make a delicious soup,” the matsutake declared. “Second only to myself in flavor.”

 

Grinning, Taemin bowed at the matsutake before returning down the path he’d come.

 

…

 

“You said mushrooms talked to you?”

 

Minho blinked to consciousness, frowning as he registered the prodding to his face. Irritated at being drawn out of slumber, and further annoyed at finding Kibum standing above him shrilling at the others in the cart, Minho slapped his hands away.

 

Noticing the faint layer of powder covering the cart, Minho noticed a pile of white fluff had built up in the folds of his robe. He also noticed Taemin practically bouncing outside of the cart--which was, for some odd reason, still--grinning and displaying a bundle of yellow...something. Buttons? 

 

Kibum took the opportunity to wet his thumb in his mouth and wipe at Minho’s forehead. Unable to conceal his disgust and irritation--he could take care of himself, thank you--he jerked to the side, ignoring Kibum’s too-earnest-to-be-believed declaration that he was just trying to help.

 

“It was great, they said they wanted rain, and that their mushrooms are just the outside, and--”

 

A wicked idea flashed through Minho’s mind, and he carefully schooled his face into a blank expression. 

 

“Kibum?” Minho inflected his voice up at the end.

 

Key shifted closer, and Minho blew directly down into the gathered powder in his robe. It puffed up satisfyingly into Kibum’s face.

“Yah, Choi Minho--” Kibum began; for all his volume, though, he couldn’t completely conceal the slight upturn of his mouth. 

 

Taemin paused in his ramblings to smile at the familiar build-up of a Minho-Kibum quarrel. Back with his teammates, picking up right where they left off, it was as if his adventure into the mushrooms had never happened. Still, he was much less nervous than before. The old matsutake’s words still rung somewhere in his mind--but he could think about that later. 

 

For now, he mused, he thinks today will go alright.