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“Fairy! We need a refill over here, use those wings for something won’t you?” A disgusting man at a table in the corner of Jisung’s restaurant with a group of friends sneering at his stupid joke calls to him. He scowls with his back turned but puts on his service smile as he walks towards them. He’s quaking a little, not good with groups especially when they obviously don’t want what’s best for him but money has to be made and he’s low on tips for the week.
“Please excuse the wait, we’re rather busy tonight.” He says in his fake sweet voice, ignoring the way a few of the men are snickering as they look at his wings.
“What the fuck kinda fairy are you? Your wings are tiny.” The man is obviously drunk but Jisung has no doubt he’d be just as unpleasant sober. He tries to stand further away when he feels someone pinch at his wings and jumps. “You’re pretty small in general, huh?” More laughter from the table. “Bet someone could just-”
Jisung is already snapping, face red with embarrassment and anger, knowing his manager won’t understand his problems and tell him to work somewhere else if he can’t handle drunk customers at one of the only restaurants in town with a full serving bar. He picked this place because the tips and pay overall are better, but he’s starting to wonder how much trouble it’s really worth. “Don’t just touch people you don’t fucking know.”
“People?” The lead of the unruly gang snorts. “You’re not a fucking human.” Jisung’s so frustrated tears collect in his eyes. “Look at him, little fairy boy is fucking crying. I can give you something to cry about.” The man starts to stand and Jisung backs up, knowing he’s much bigger than him and he isn’t risking going to jail fighting. He’s about to dip to the right side and run to the kitchen, when something unexpected happens. The man suddenly disappears in a plume of green smoke and in his place is a huge and ugly toad covered in warts. Jisung gasps with wide eyes. The table erupts in laughter, obviously not very loyal friends.
“Anyone else wanna spend the night in the wet grass tonight?” Someone stands next to Jisung, he can see a black cloak out of the corner of his eye and he turns his head to see. The man is obviously a warlock, wearing robes from his graduated academy - but he’s so handsome that Jisung wouldn’t be surprised to find out he’s a hybrid of fairy or vampire as well. The men at the table grumble to themselves, lay down cash for the bill without counting much from their wallets but Jisung can tell there’s no tip and head out the door. He stares at the toad, then looks at the warlock who’s already looking at him. “Don’t worry, it wears off in about an hour. He’ll be fine, just slimy.”
“Why didn’t you help before they started getting physical?” Jisung scoffs, picking up the payment and stacking dirty plates.
“The spell takes up to five minutes to prepare,” the warlock says apologetically. Jisung’s tired of the shit he deals with over his race that no one even gets right. Sure, this man helped him in the end but why wait until he was already in danger to act.
“Well, thanks for the help.” He glances at the toad again, sitting there croaking to itself. “He can’t stay in here. We don’t allow animals.”
“He’s not
my
pet.”
“Well, you should have thought before acting.” Jisung pouts, taking a stack of plates and is shocked when the warlock moves in to split the load. “What are you doing?”
“Helping.”
“Customers don’t need to -”
“I haven’t bought anything yet, I’m just loitering.” Jisung looks away, walks to the busboy station and puts the plates to wash showing the warlock where to put his stack. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Jisung. Seriously, what are we gonna do with the jerk?”
“Don’t even want to know mine?” The older man pouts.
“This is my job, dude! I have to get him out of here before the manager notices.”
“So just throw him outside. I’m Minho by the way. Not that you care.”
“I can’t just throw him outside. He’s a fucking frog, what if he gets eaten!?”
“He’s a toad. There’s no wild animals in the city. He’ll be fine until the hour is up.”
“Fine, but I’m not touching him. You did this, you pick him up.”
“I did it for your sake!”
“I didn’t ask you to help!”
“You were about to cry!” Jisung blushes, biting his lip, he picks up a takeout bag and storms up to the toad. With his hand inside the plastic baggie, he picks up the vile thing and storms to the back of the building where he puts it down on the ground by the trash cans and covers it with some cardboard. When he comes back in, Minho is still standing there looking shocked.
“Thanks. Now are you buying something?” The older’s eyes soften and he gives a smile, one that Jisung doesn’t want to admit is really cute, but keeps looking into his eyes determinedly. He was not a child. He was only about to cry because he’d heard it his whole life and it had been a bad day and now the guy’s a frog and this warlock dude is in his face. He just wants to go home.
“Can I buy you a drink?” Jisung’s eyes widen again, his mouth opens in awe.
“I-” he looks at the clock on the wall above the kitchenette and sighs, “you know what. My shift just ended, I’d love a drink.”
Somewhere along the hour, the man turned back into his even more vile self and stumbled home distraught and confused while Jisung and Minho talked at the restaurant bar. Jisung is sipping on a Pina Colada, a choice that Minho made fun of him for but was impressed when he tried it himself, and Minho is drinking some Japanese imported beer.
“You don’t seem the type to let words get to you.” Minho makes conversation, finger tracing the rim of his bottle, and Jisung sighs.
“I’m not. I just -” he pauses, glaring at his piece of pineapple as if it’s hurt him “I hear it a lot, and I had a bad day.”
“I’m not really caught up on fairy culture. What’s the deal with your wings being small?” Minho looks at his back and makes a strange expression, Jisung curls in on himself a bit - his wings twitching from his anxiety. His wings
are
small, they’re translucent and not decorated like fairies with butterfly wings. He resembles a tiny dragonfly instead and maybe he’d be self conscious about it even more if he even was what they assume.
“They’re not that small.” He grumbles. Minho smiles at him.
“Nah, they’re not. They’re really pretty though.”
“Shut up. They’re plain.”
“Not plain, just simple. I like them.” Jisung blushes and drinks deeper, while Minho looks in concern.
“You’re not driving home, are you?”
“Wouldn’t have accepted the drink if I was. I live a block away, I walk.”
“Oh, I live close by as well.”
Jisung looks at him in suspicion. “This isn’t a date or anything. I’m not going home with you.”
“I wasn’t-” Minho splutters, choking on his beer then stopping to think. “Why can’t this be a date?”
“It’s just a drink. Cheapskate.”
“Ah, right. Faeries are used to people waiting on them hand and foot at beck and call. Sorry, couldn’t be me.”
“I’m not a fairy!” Jisung shouts a little too loud, the bartender giving him a look before going back to polishing glasses. “I’m a pixie. It’s different.”
“A pixie? I thought those died out.” Minho closes a hand over his mouth immediately after he says it.
“They did. Except for my family.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Nah, I’m not a part of that history.” Jisung laughs it off. “I’m just tired of all the fairy jokes. It’s not like being a fairy with small wings would be bad either. They’re just assholes.”
“They are.” They’ve both finished their drinks, but they both don’t really want another so they sit there with empty cups just chatting.
“What about you then? Warlock robes, but you have so much,” Jisung attempts to phrase the energy Minho gives off eloquently, he really does “confident gay energy.” Amazing, Jisung.
“There’s so many things wrong with that.”
“You were stereotyping fairies.”
“That I was.” Minho laughs, it’s loud and kinda whiny and Jisung is taken off guard by it. Warlocks are known to be all business all the time, many never getting married or even dating at all. They don’t make jokes, and they don’t laugh with so much joy. Jisung starts to think he is a hybrid after all. “Wanna know a secret?”
Jisung raises a brow in interest.
“Won’t tell you unless you come closer.” Minho grins at him. His smile is driving Jisung a little wild. The man is seriously handsome, he’ll give him that and his personality isn’t
bad
. So maybe this can be a date. It’s been a while for Jisung since he’s found interest in someone anyway. Too busy with school work when he’s not working or sleeping. He sighs and leans closer, breath catching when he can feel Minho’s lips close to his ears that are turning red. “These aren’t my robes.”
“That’s illegal.”
“I didn’t steal them. I just borrowed them from a friend.”
“Why are you impersonating-” Minho puts his hand over Jisung’s mouth with worried eyes.
“I’m not. I can’t explain here. Why don’t I walk you home?”
“I don’t think I want to walk home with a criminal.” Jisung wipes at his mouth after Minho lets go. He’s genuinely a little worried about who the man really is.
“Come on, it’s nothing like that.” Jisung is good at puppy eyes, he’s the
best
at puppy eyes. He’s the cutest and always gets what he wants from Changbin when he has to deploy the technique, but he thinks Minho might be pretty damn good at it too. “I don’t want you to walk home alone after what happened.”
“Oh. I’ll be fine. Was gonna fly anyway, faster that way.” He clears his throat and stands, patting down his pockets to make sure he has everything. “But I guess I’m too tired to fly, so come on. Tell me as we walk.”
The night air is warm, it being summer and all, and Minho is disappointed he can’t offer his jacket to Jisung. He’s always wanted to do that for someone.
“So, how come you’re a thief?” Minho hums in disapproval.
“I
told
you. I’m borrowing it.”
“Does he know?” Minho stops walking, stares at Jisung in awe.
“What?”
“Does Chan know that you’re borrowing his robes?” Minho looks scared and Jisung laughs, stepping closer and poking his finger onto Minho’s right side. “Name tag.” Jisung is surprised at the firmness under his finger and spreads his hand until he’s pretty much groping the warlock. “Ah! Sor-” Minho grabs his hand, smiling and bringing it to his face. Jisung is red as can be, can’t believe he just did that without thinking.
“Your laugh is really cute.” And then Minho kisses the back of his palm, and Jisung almost blacks out from embarrassment.
“You can’t just-”
“Sorry. Did you not like that?”
“It’s not what I said.” Jisung rubs the spot his lips touched thoughtfully, they’re almost to his apartment. “The robes. You’re avoiding the question and I don’t like that.”
“No. He doesn’t know, but it’s fine. I did it before. I just use it to get discounts at bookstores and had to go pick something up before I walked into your restaurant.” Minho says it as if it’s not a big deal at all but Jisung knows both him and the warlock whose robes he stole could get expelled for things like that. Warlocks are a proud group.
“Wait, if you’re not a warlock - how did you turn that guy into a frog?” Jisung stops, they’re in front of his building now. There’s a street lamp flickering every so often in front of it, that Jisung was scared of for a whole month before he realized it was faulty wiring.
“Toad. I didn’t say I’m not a warlock.” Minho rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet with his hands inside his jeans pockets and a smile on his face.
“So why not use your own robes?”
“Don’t have any. I never went to an academy.” Jisung balks at that, something almost unheard of. Expelled students moved out of the country, to live in human settlements and pretend they never even knew magic existed after the shame of not belonging to an academy, but this man grins as he says it. He’s looking at Jisung with fondness and Jisung thinks he kinda understands a little.
“You like magic, but you’re not like the others.” Jisung says, meaning it more as a question but he’s sure he’s on the nose.
“Who doesn’t like magic?” Minho laughs again.
“Your laugh is cute too.” Jisung blushes and presses himself against the lamp post, a long while since he’s flirted with anyone.
“Yeah? Maybe you should give me your number, or I might just have to keep going to that restaurant every night to get it.” Minho reaches out his phone, and Jisung takes it, putting in his number and name with a frog emoji. Minho laughs when he sees it.
“We might not be humans, Jisung, but that doesn’t mean we’re all the same as our kind. Academies are boring, but I’m proud to be a warlock.” Jisung smiles wide at him, pleased to meet someone with these same thoughts after spending a long month questioning if something really is wrong with him for not caring that his kind is all but gone.
“Aren’t you limited in what you can do if you don’t go through an academy though?” Jisung is really interested in magic, he wanted to practice when he was little but his grandmother told him that pixies hadn’t done magic for centuries and to not waste his time but Jisung likes flowers and pixies are good at natural magic. He never tried again after that, but now he’s thinking he could.
“That’s what everyone assumes but I’ve got three familiars already I should actually be getting home to before they miss me too much.” Familiars are a good way of gauging a warlock’s magical power, being extensions of that power and a warlock’s identity. Three was something only the elders could do , as far as Jisung remembered. He stared in awe. “I’ve learned a lot on my own, it’s fun. I could teach you sometime.” Jisung squeals and flies into the air, blushing and setting himself down again.
“Could you!? I want to use natural magic!” Minho laughs and reaches out to brush some hair out of Jisung’s eyes.
“Sure, you’d be great at it.” Jisung pauses, looking at Minho’s lips. A kiss on the first date might be much, but Jisung feels a connection and he’s really thinking about it. “Don’t be embarrassed to fly. Be proud of who you are. It’s so cool.” Jisung can’t take it. He grasps Minho’s lapel and drags him forward, their lips meeting a bit harshly before he feels Minho smile and turn Jisung’s chin gently to accommodate. It’s a romantic kiss under the moonlight, under a creepy street lamp, with a criminal. Jisung couldn’t have known this is how his night would turn out. They separate and Jisung smiles at him. “Do you wanna come in and watch a movie? Changbin is at his boyfriend’s tonight.” Minho smiles back and nods, taking his hand again and starting for the building when his phone rings. He sees the Caller ID and cringes. Jisung laughs when he sees
Chan
lit up on the other man’s phone screen. He’s happy to see Minho answer it and not just avoid the problem.
“Did you take my robes again?” Jisung can hear the man yell through the phone from where he’s standing and laughs even harder.
“Dude, come on. It’s fine. I got like three hundred won off one book.”
As they walk up the stairs to Jisung’s apartment, Jisung thinks he wants Minho to come to the restaurant more often.