the luck fix

by beautifulnotrealistic

Summary:

Beomgyu uses up a lifetime's worth of luck in one day, and his two wizard boyfriends might be able to fix it.

Emphasis on might.

Notes:

• For cafenite.

for nox - i hope you enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it!

It’s a Tuesday night, and Tuesday nights are the best night of the week: the night when the three of them pile into bed and watch a movie. No exceptions allowed, no matter what. And that no exceptions clause gets tested frequently, considering one of Kai’s boyfriends is a fairly famous rock star. It’s not uncommon for Beomgyu to come home late from the recording studio, moaning about over-exhaustion, only to be thrown a pair of Soobin’s pajamas and dragged straight into bed. No exceptions.

That night, though, Kai is the troublemaker. There’d been a potion mix-up at the hospital, and he’d been tied up with all the other healers mixing up antidotes for all the patients who’d been leaking acid from their ears all day.

He’d sent Soobin a mind-ping that he’d be home late, and Soobin had pinged an unnecessarily loud don’t you dare forget it’s movie night, Kai-ya! right into Kai’s left eardrum. He’d texted Beomgyu, too, a standard be-home-late text. Beomgyu had sent him back a string of rude emojis and an extremely tempting photograph that made Kai greatly regret still being at work. No magic needed to communicate that.

When Kai finally bursts in the front door at nine in the evening, tired and frustrated and smelling strongly like acid, his boyfriends are already in bed in their usual positions. Soobin is sipping his nighttime tea with a book and his stupid little reading glasses on, and Beomgyu is tucked so far under the covers that his body looks like a growth on Soobin’s side.

“Ta-da!” Kai says, tossing himself down on the foot of the bed. “It’s me, the main attraction.”

“Fucking finally,” Beomgyu complains, struggling to find his way out of the blanket, and Soobin lowers both his book and his tea.

“Bad day?” he asks sympathetically.

“Got worse when you sent me that photo,” Kai grumbles.

“I didn’t send any photos,” Soobin says. “You know I don’t understand them.”

Soobin can barely work a phone. He’s got a weird brand of magic in his blood that makes them go haywire.

“He did,” Kai says, poking the lump that is Beomgyu’s body.

“Oops,” Beomgyu says gleefully, finally escaping from the prison of the blanket. His hair is all messed up, and Kai blinks at it twice, watching it instantly detangle itself. Beomgyu doesn’t notice. He doesn’t notice a lot of their magic, and they never feel the need to point out the things that slip by him.

“What was the photo?” Soobin asks, lifting his tea again.

Kai scrolls through his phone and shows him. Better for him to see it for himself.

Soobin’s eyebrows go up. “Damn, I wish I could use phones,” he mutters, hiding behind his mug.

“You didn’t delete it?” Beomgyu teases. “So horny, Kai-ya. You gonna make it your lock screen?”

“Isn’t it against your contract to look at porn at work?” Soobin says over the rim of his mug, and Beomgyu’s smile turns into a cackle.

“I cannot believe you didn’t notice him sending me dick pics when I’m working overtime,” Kai complains. “And that you didn’t stop him.”

“I can’t control him, you know that.” Soobin lifts his arm so that Beomgyu can tuck himself back against his body. “That would be unethical.”

“I didn’t mean with magic,” Kai says, hauling himself off the bed. “I meant, like, as a boyfriend.”

“Can’t control me that way either,” Beomgyu says in a singsong voice, draping his arm over Soobin’s chest. “Hurry up and get ready. I already picked the movie.”

Kai isn’t in the bathroom long; he just needs to wash the smell of acid out of his hair and give his pores a quick scrub with Beomgyu’s latest perfume-y body wash. He swaps his hospital uniform for Soobin’s flannel pajama pants, and when he steps back into the bedroom, he’s expecting everything to be ready to go; for the first frame of the movie to be frozen in midair, projected by Soobin’s mind, as always. But Soobin isn’t playing the movie yet. Instead, they’re having the dog argument again.

“You have to get over the poop thing, Beomgyu-ya,” Soobin is saying.

Kai groans internally. They’ve had the dog argument at least four times already in the three years they’ve all been together, and it’s getting old. They want a dog, but they’ve never adopted one, because Beomgyu says if they had a dog, Kai and Soobin would have to deal with all the poop duties. And Soobin patently refuses to let Beomgyu get out of poop duties.

“Why would you make me, little non-magical me, carry around literal bags of dog shit when my tall, powerful boyfriends can just vanish away the poop with their big, strong magic?” Beomgyu says. He’s rolling around on his belly in the middle of the bed, trying to be cute, and it always works on Kai, at least.

“He makes a fair point, hyung,” Kai says, closing the bathroom door.

“He absolutely doesn’t,” Soobin says stubbornly. “This is an equal relationship. We’re not his magical sugar daddies.”

“No, but you could be my magical dog poop daddies,” Beomgyu says cutely, rolling onto Soobin.

“Beomgyu, ew,” Soobin groans, slapping away Beomgyu’s hand as he tries to poke him in the dimple. “I’m never gonna get that phrase out of my head now. And I hate it. I hate it.”

“Kai would do it,” Beomgyu persists, flinging Kai a glance over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t you, baby? Pick up dog shit for me?”

“Vanish with magic? Sure. Pick up, like, with my hands? No can do,” Kai says. He flings his work clothes in the direction of the laundry hamper.

“You have to see this dog,” Beomgyu says, nodding at his phone. “You’d pick up poop for this dog, Kai-ya.”

Kai grabs Beomgyu’s phone where it lays abandoned in the middle of the bed to look at the picture from the shelter website, still open on the screen. It’s a tiny miniature dachshund with a bow tie.

“Oh my god, he’s perfect,” Kai coos.

“Right? And he’s at a foster home near here. We could go get him, like, tomorrow.”

“Yeah, but we aren’t getting a dog,” Soobin says crossly. “Not if Beomgyu won’t walk it.”

“I wanna name him,” Kai says. “Can I name him?”

“You need to hear my options,” Beomgyu says excitedly, rolling off Soobin to kneel in the middle of the bed. “I’ve got a whole list, depending on his personality. If he’s a feisty one, I’m thinking—”

“Pumpkin,” Kai says.

“Pumpkin is a terrible name for a dachshund,” Beomgyu says. “No, it has to be snappy.”

“Pumpkin is snappy!”

“No, Pumpkin is a fat cat name.”

“I like Pumpkin, Kai-ya,” Soobin pipes up.

“Hyuung,”  Beomgyu complains. “Nooo.”

“Thanks, Soobin-hyung,” Kai beams, and Soobin allows him a brief smile.

“But we’re not getting him,” Soobin adds sternly. “Absolutely not.”

“What? You don’t want Pumpkin?” Beomgyu grabs the phone from Kai and holds it so close to Soobin’s face that Kai can see the image on the screen start to flicker from the interference of his magic field.

“Ow, you’re gonna shock me.” Soobin winces.

“Pumpkin wants you, hyung,” Beomgyu says in a baby voice.

“Pumpkin doesn’t know I exist. He’s a dog on a screen.”

“See, isn’t Pumpkin the best dog name?” Kai says, slipping into his side of the bed. He prods Beomgyu, who crawls back under the covers too, letting Kai snuggle their bodies together in the spot that Beomgyu had been keeping warm.

Kai closes his eyes and soaks it all in for a moment, all the things that make him the luckiest man in the world. The warmth of their collective bodies, the feeling of Beomgyu’s hands fanning out on his bare back, the smell of crisp, clean sheets. Soobin always likes to change the sheets just before movie night.

“Not as good as my names,” Beomgyu says under his breath. “I was gonna say Theodore. Or Herbert.”

“Old white man names? For a cute little puppy?”

Beomgyu nuzzles his nose into Kai’s. “Aren’t they dignified?” he smiles, and Kai pecks his soft lips, wrapping him up in a hug under the covers. “Imagine yelling Herbert at a dog park.”

“And that’s all you’re doing. Imagining.” Kai hears the clink of Soobin’s mug landing on the saucer on his nightstand. “No more dog talk tonight, okay? This is a steamy movie. Don’t ruin the mood.”

When Kai pulls his face away from Beomgyu’s, a screen has appeared from thin air at the foot of the bed, the picture shimmery and slightly transparent. It looks like Beomgyu picked something romantic, from the sudden swell of a dramatic soundtrack.

“We’ll wear him down,” Beomgyu whispers to Kai. “He can’t say no forever.”

Beomgyu dozes off an hour into the movie, right before the first sex scene, and Soobin pauses it immediately.

“This is terrible,” he says. “Wanna switch to an anime? He won’t complain.”

Kai is half asleep himself. “Can we just snuggle?” he yawns. “Go to bed early? Do Beomgyu’s routine and call it a day?”

“You’re no fun,” Soobin whines, pouting at Kai in the dark, but he rolls over to press his forehead to Beomgyu’s while Kai delicately wraps his fingers around Beomgyu’s wrist.

“One day we’ll forget to do all this, and he’ll wonder what the hell hit him,” Soobin says, closing his eyes. “He’ll get the worst sleep of his life and have all the nightmares I’ve been blocking out for the last three years.”

“You’d never let us forget,” Kai says, thumbing down Beomgyu’s vein to find just the right spot. He closes his own eyes just as he does, pulling Beomgyu’s energy through their point of contact and visualizing it landing in his own brain. Instantly, all of Beomgyu’s data pops into his head, ready to be tinkered with: his lung capacity, his current heart rate, whether any lingering injuries are zapping down his energy levels. Everything looks good; no major fixes needed.

Kai visualizes himself stepping into Beomgyu’s energy field, placing a healing charm right against his life force, just like he does every night. It’s easy, like dropping a bath bomb into a jacuzzi, and it’ll get rid of any minor aches and pains that his boyfriend might feel over the next twenty-four hours. Just a little something to make his life a bit better.

It’s the least Kai can do. He’s one of the most powerful healing wizards in the country, although Beomgyu doesn’t quite know that. As far as Beomgyu is concerned, Kai is a promising rookie healer with a decent job in their local hospital’s magic department, not a world-famous expert spirit healer. It’s not like it’s a lie: he is a promising healer at the local hospital. He just also develops powerful new healing spells and potions on the side. It’s safer for Beomgyu not to know all the details.

Beomgyu knows Soobin teaches magic to fledgling wizards at a small magic school, and that’s all he’s ever asked about. He’s never asked if Soobin literally wrote the book on modern transmutations — basically, turning things into other things. If he did ask, the answer would be yes, but he hasn’t, so they don’t tell him.

It’s not like it’s rare for magic users and non-magic folk to coexist, but it’s just a little… complicated. Beomgyu already gets enough attention in the gossip pages for having two wizard boyfriends; there’s no need to reveal to him that his wizard boyfriends are almost as famous in the magic community as Beomgyu is in the non-magic one. He’d just stress about their safety, and neither of them want that. And he might try to get involved in their careers, to help them somehow, and both of them would rather he stay away from other magic users. Not all wizards get along well with regular humans.

Instead, they use their magic to make his life better in small, quiet ways. He makes their lives better in more than enough ways, even without magic. Giving him the world’s most restful sleep every night is a tiny way to pay it back.

There are only two stats that Kai can’t improve: Beomgyu’s overall happiness and his lifetime luck. And like always, they’re almost perfect. It’s the best end to Kai’s day, checking that big green ninety-eight percent in Beomgyu’s happiness score and his eighty remaining luck points.

Every non-magical human starts with one hundred luck points, and now and then Beomgyu uses up a luck point getting away with something stupid, like the time he decided to crowd-surf into a rowdy mosh pit in the middle of one of his concerts. But reaching age twenty-six with eighty remaining luck points sets him up well for a long, lucky life. Kai won’t worry about them until Beomgyu drops below fifty points — the lower they get, the more misfortunes Beomgyu will encounter.

Beomgyu doesn’t know about his luck points. If he did, he’d probably ask Kai to check them constantly, and Kai doesn’t want to worry him. He doesn’t know about any of his stats, actually — he has no idea that Kai can see the full summary of his life in the blink of an eye. It might make him feel weird, like a toy for his wizard boyfriends to play with, and that’s the last thing Kai and Soobin ever want him to feel like.

Kai hears Soobin start to hum right as he mentally steps out of Beomgyu’s data, the bedroom starting to fade back into view. Soobin always hums the same little song when he casts his spells to turn nightmares into dreams. Beomgyu wakes up humming it sometimes, and it makes Soobin blush bright red. It means he dreamed about Soobin.

“All good?” Soobin asks softly. He could check Beomgyu’s stats himself, but he’s always struggled with the healing magic that comes so easily to Kai.

“Perfect,” Kai says. He lifts Beomgyu’s wrist and gives it a little kiss. “You need any healing, hyung? Any headaches today?”

“Nah. All good. You want nightmare protection?”

“I’ll face the scaries myself,” Kai smiles. He hasn’t had a nightmare in four years, since he started dating Soobin. Being around him is enough to keep his dreams happy, and adding Beomgyu to the equation three years ago only made them better. He never asks for the spell, just like Soobin always turns down Kai’s healing. All their magic is for Beomgyu.

“I wanna be in the middle tonight,” Kai says, plopping back onto the bed. “Spoon me?”

“Such a princess,” Soobin whines, but he’s already clambering over Beomgyu’s body, squeezing himself into the tiny inch of bed between Kai’s body and the edge of the mattress. “Beomgyu’s gonna be pissed in the morning when he’s not in the middle.”

“He never gets pissed at me,” Kai murmurs. He snuggles his face into the back of Beomgyu’s neck, wrapping his arms around his thin waist, just as he feels Soobin’s long body fold around his own back. He’ll probably overheat between them, but it’s worth it for the extra cuddles.

Soobin blinks the movie screen out of existence.

“Sleep tight, hyung,” Kai whispers, settling deeper into his pillow.

“Sleep tight, baby,” Soobin says, though his voice still sounds wide awake. He strokes up and down Kai’s arm, and Kai can practically hear his brain still whirring.

“Something on your mind?”

“We should get him a dog for his birthday,” Soobin says. “Imagine how cute he’ll be about it.”

“So cute,” Kai says. He would be. “What about the poop thing?”

“Of course I’d pick up poop for him,” Soobin says, as if he hasn’t been staunchly insisting the opposite. “I’m just being a dick.”

“You’d be his magical dog poop daddy,” Kai says.

Soobin is quiet for a second.

“I hate you,” he says. “I absolutely hate you.”

“Night night, hyung,” Kai giggles. “Love you too.”

He dreams about a little dachshund licking Beomgyu all over his face. So incredibly cute.

 

---

 

On Thursday evening, Kai drops his keys outside the front door. They jangle to the ground, and before he can let out a colorful swear word, he hears an unexpected noise from inside the apartment: a high-pitched bark.

Kai freezes. He presses his ear to the door, and nearly leaps away from it as another bark echoes through it.

What the fuck? They don’t have a dog.

He races to pick up his keys, jamming them in the lock. When he swings the door open, a tiny white ball of fluff is staring at him in the entryway, tongue lolling and tail wagging.

“Beomgyu-hyung?” Kai bellows. “What the…”

“Kai-ya!” he hears Beomgyu call out. “Don’t you love her?”

Kai steps into their apartment, and the dog is immediately all over him, jumping on his leg, nipping at his pants. Its tail is wagging so fast it’s basically a blur.

“Calm,” Kai whispers automatically, reaching down to rest his hand on the dog’s head, and it settles down onto the ground, artificially sated. Its tail still thumps, though. 

Beomgyu wheels around the corner. Kai’s eyes lock on to a pair of bandages covering half of his left cheek, but his face is lit up in an ear-to-ear grin, radiant.

“What did you do?”

“Meet Pumpkin!” Beomgyu says. “Isn’t she perfect?”

“Beomgyu-hyung, what…” Kai says weakly, leaning back against the door. He lets his work bag drop to the floor, and the dog immediately lopes over to it, giving it a lethargic sniff.

“Wow, she must love you,” Beomgyu says enthusiastically. “Look how calm she’s being!”

“I charmed her,” Kai says, and Beomgyu makes a little oh, duh. “Beommie-hyung. Tell me?”

“Oh god, it’s such a good story,” Beomgyu says, reaching down to scoop up the little dog. Pumpkin immediately licks his cheek, and Beomgyu laughs, kissing her on the nose and letting her slobber right on his lips. “Should I save it for when Soobin-hyung gets home?”

“No, now,” Kai says, but all the sudden he hears a key in the lock again, and Pumpkin lets out a much softer yap. Soobin’s home early.

“Perfect,” Beomgyu says happily as Kai flings himself away from the door before it can crash into him. “I’ll just tell you both at once. It’s the best story. I think it was my destiny to find her.”

“Tell that to Soobin-hyung,” Kai says, although somehow he doubts Soobin will put up as much of a fight as he had said he would. Beomgyu’s angelic face is positively glowing, beaming as Pumpkin yaps at the door, and Soobin always caves to Beomgyu when he wants something that much. To both of them, actually.  

The door swings open again.

“Gyu, why are you—”

Soobin freezes in the doorway, taking in the bundle in Beomgyu’s hands, and Pumpkin starts to wriggle ferociously, trying to escape to sniff out this new human. Kai should have used a stronger calm charm.

“Meet Pumpkin!” Beomgyu coos. “Isn’t she the best?”

“You’re kidding,” Soobin says stonily.

“I’m not,” Beomgyu says. “She’s ours.”

Kai feels a little knock in the back of his mind, and he opens up his brain to Soobin’s ping.

You didn’t tell me? Soobin’s accusatory voice fills his head.

“I got home less than a minute ago!” Kai defends himself, holding his hands up as Soobin slams the door closed.

“Kai-ya’s innocent, hyung,” Beomgyu says, giving Pumpkin his finger to nibble on. “This is all on me. Look, I think she’s teething! Ouch—”

Pumpkin bites down a bit too hard, and Beomgyu pulls his hand away, shaking out his finger.

“Let me fix,” Kai says. Beomgyu holds his finger out obediently, and Kai kisses the tiny bite mark away, his skin sealing back together as Kai’s lips lift off of him. He reaches for Beomgyu’s soft cheek, hidden under his bandages. “Face?”

“Oh, no, you can’t fix these,” Beomgyu says, whipping his face away from Kai and pointing proudly the bandages on his face. “These are my battle wounds from saving Pumpkin, and I’m keeping them. Letting them heal the old-fashioned way.”

“You hurt yourself, for this dog?” Soobin says, scandalized.

“Don’t you dare say dog like that,” Beomgyu scolds. “Honestly, hyung, You’re a monster.”

“I’m not a monster. I love dogs,” Soobin says crossly. “What I don’t love is you hurting yourself to, I dunno, pull a dog out of a tree, when you could have just called one of us to do it for you.”

“I thought you didn’t want me using you as a magic errand boy, sugar daddy, whatever. This is an equal relationship, remember?” Beomgyu wags his finger at him obnoxiously, and Kai reaches out and grabs his hand before Soobin can snap back at him.

“Argue later,” he says. “I need to hear the story, or I’ll explode.”

“Let’s go to the living room,” Beomgyu says, starting to head out of the hallway. “I got the cutest bed for Pumpkin, and it’s set up in there.”

“Already? You already picked shit out for our dog, without letting me help?” Soobin follows him, finding a new thing to argue about.

“Oh, now she’s our dog?”

“She better be, if I’m walking her.”

“I got a leash, by the way,” Beomgyu says, leading them into the living room. There’s a massive dog bed in a red plaid print taking up most of the floor in front of the artificial fireplace, and at least five dog bones and plushies are already strewn around the floor. If Kai hadn’t seen this very room that morning, he’d think Pumpkin had been living here for weeks. “I got everything you need for walk duties. Even poop bags—ow!”

Kai’s heckles go up, but Beomgyu only collided with the leg of the couch.

“I’ve been clumsy as hell today,” Beomgyu laughs, flinging himself down and patting the cushion next to him. Soobin beats Kai to it, so Kai settles down in the beanbag on the floor instead, and Beomgyu piles his feet into his lap.

“Go,” Kai says. “Story. Now.”

On Beomgyu’s lap, Pumpkin crawls closer to Soobin, settling her head down on his arm. Her tail beats twice on Beomgyu’s leg before calming down too.

“Isn’t she the best?” Beomgyu coos.

“She’s not bad,” Soobin admits, giving Pumpkin his hand to sniff. His stony expression is melting. “I wish she was bigger.”

“She can fit in my backpack,” Beomgyu points out. “Better for taking the metro.”

“Can dogs fly?”

“On the carpet? Dunno, wouldn’t she fall off? Maybe they make a seatbelt for them or something. Check the air-magic site.”

“Hyung!” Kai interjects. “Story!”

He’s fixated on those injuries on Beomgyu’s cheek. As a healing wizard, seeing injuries and not being able to heal them eats him up inside. It makes him feel like he swallowed bees. But part of his oath is to never heal someone who doesn’t want to be healed, and Beomgyu is too tough for his own good about any actual injuries. When he gets a paper cut, he begs for a healing kiss immediately, but when he broke his toe tripping on an amp, he pretended it was just a bruise for a full day. Kai needs to know how hurt his boyfriend actually is before he can begin to think about the dog that materialized in their home.

“Right, right. The story.” Beomgyu sighs dramatically. “Remember the photo shoot I was telling you about? At the scrap metal yard?”

“Yeah, and I told you to get a tetanus booster,” Kai says. “Please tell me you didn’t step on anything rusty.”

“He wears shoes, Kai,” Soobin says. “Calm down.”

“Not during this shoot, actually,” Beomgyu says. His voice is bubbling over with excitement, and it’s getting hard for Kai to keep worrying about him with all this happy energy in the air. “It was, like, me dressed up in this forest nymph-y outfit, surrounded by old industrial parts. All about the contrast, you know. Silk shirt, and these loose pants that kind of looked like a gown. They even put flowers in my hair.”

“Pretty,” Soobin says.

“Yeah, you’re gonna jizz yourself when you see the final shots.”

“Why do you always act like I can’t control my dick?”

“Because you can’t, when it’s about me.”

“Hyung, story! Soobin-hyung, come on.” 

Pumpkin starts nibbling on Soobin’s shirt, and Soobin shuts up.

“Sorry, babe,” Beomgyu says apologetically, wiggling his toes under Kai’s fingertips. “But I’m fine. No need for any healing.”

“So, you’re at this photo shoot, in your nymph outfit,” Kai prompts.

“Right. I’m posing in this, like, burnt-out helicopter shell, and right when they finished the first round of shots, I saw Pumpkin. She was this little white blur, racing across the scrap yard, dragging something behind her that was stuck on her fur. So I put my shoes back on — no tetanus, Kai, I promise — and tried to find her, but she had disappeared. I got the photographer to help me look for her, and we found her at the bottom of this deep pit, tangled up in barbed wire. That was what had been stuck in her fur.”

Kai immediately focuses his attention on the dog. Is she hurt?

“She’s fine, Kai,” Beomgyu says, smiling. “You’re too sweet.”

“So, what happened?”

“Well, I climbed into the pit, of course. The lighting guys had a bunch of ropes in their rigging kits, so we tied one onto this light pole, and I kind of…I dunno, rappelled down.”

“On a rope?”

“What the fuck, Beomgyu-ya,” Soobin exhales. “And the managers let you do this?”

“Oh, no, I shook off management,” Beomgyu giggles. “I told them I was going for a coffee break, and then hid behind some scrap metal until they lost track of me. Nah, it was the lighting guys who helped me. They said I looked like Indiana Jones.”

“Okay, so you get to the bottom of the pit. Then what?”

“Yeah, so then I had to make my way over to her, and there was a ton of broken glass down there. I have no idea how Pumpkin got down there without cutting herself up. But I picked my way through it and got her all untangled from the barbed wire. I didn’t cut myself once, Kai. You’d have been so proud of me. And then I wrapped her up in my shirt, like a little bundle, and climbed back out with her.”

“With the rope again?” Soobin is getting carried away with the story. “How’d you do that with the dog?”

“I made a little baby sling out of my shirt, basically,” Beomgyu says proudly. “And I almost dropped her, like, twice, because she was so skittish that she kept scratching me. That’s how I fucked up my face, from her scratching me while I tried to climb out of the pit with her. It was pretty reckless.”

“At least you’re honest,” Kai says under his breath.

“But it’s a good thing that I did it, because literally five minutes after I got out of the pit, this dump truck showed up. Apparently that pit is just, like, a dumping ground for bags of recyclables, like cans and bottles and shit. And then when it fills up, they sell it all to be melted down or ground up and reused. But he dumped like a whole truckload of bottles, and Pumpkin totally would have been smushed.” Beomgyu beams. “I’m basically a hero, you guys.”

“All I’m hearing is that you could have been smushed,” Kai says.

“He’s so sweet,” Beomgyu says to Soobin. “Look how much he loves me.”

“I’m not kidding, hyung. That was so dangerous.”

“Yeah, and I did it all in a nymph outfit,” Beomgyu says, as if it had been a compliment.

“That’s pretty fucking cool,” Soobin says, scratching Pumpkin behind the ear. Kai immediately glares at him, pinging you’re not helping into his brain. “Okay, okay! It was stupid. Really stupid. But really cool.”

“Worth it,” Beomgyu says. “Now we have Pumpkin. And I named her for you, Kai-ya, so lighten up, please?”

“Here.” Soobin leans forward, dropping Pumpkin into Kai’s lap. She’s a warm little ball of happiness, pressing her paws up on Kai’s chest to try to lick him on the face, and Kai tries his hardest not to smile. Her tail is tickling Beomgyu’s toes as she wags it frantically.

“Do you love her?” Beomgyu asks.

Pumpkin manages to reach Kai’s ear, nibbling it, and he giggles. It’s so ticklish.

“I knew you would,” Beomgyu says. “Do you forgive me for being an idiot?”

“I’ll think about it,” Kai says, but when Beomgyu catches his eye, he can’t hold in his smile. Yeah, it was stupid and risky, but that’s Beomgyu. He always puts everyone else first, even a little stray dog in a junkyard.

Beomgyu flings himself off of the couch onto the beanbag, landing square in Kai’s lap. He kisses the back of Pumpkin’s head, combing Kai’s bangs off of his forehead with one hand.

“What should we teach her?” he says. “I wanna teach her to high five.”

Pumpkin flings her head around to lick Beomgyu’s smile. He’s so fucking happy that Kai just can’t be upset at him. Kai is terrible at holding onto negativity, even if it’s justified.

“I wanna teach her the thing where she guesses which hand the treat is in,” Kai says.

“She might not be smart enough for that.”

“Worth a try, though.” Kai squeezes one of Pumpkin’s little paws as Beomgyu rests his head on Kai’s shoulder, petting the back of the dog’s head. “Oooh, could we teach her to play dead? Like you make a finger-gun at her, and she rolls over with her paws up. I’ve seen that on the internet.”

“How about teaching her to sit?” Soobin asks from the couch.

Beomgyu groans.

“He’s so boring,” he says, and Kai hums his agreement. He’s not boring, but it’s their usual banter, so Soobin just crinkles his face up cutely at them. “Lemme look up some videos. We should teach her how to play dead first, so that she can fake out any intruders.”

“Shouldn’t she be scaring off intruders instead?”

“Soobin-hyung, she’s not a guard dog,” Kai says. “She’s a princess.”

Soobin stands, rolling his eyes.

“Just let me know when she needs to take a shit,” he says, heading towards the kitchen. It’s his night to make dinner. “I have a feeling that’ll be my main dog responsibility.”

“I ordered her personalized dog bowls already,” Beomgyu says to Kai. “They’re Halloween themed. For Pumpkin, get it? You’re gonna love them.”

He offers Pumpkin his hand to sniff again, and Pumpkin bites his finger.

“That’s the third time she’s done that,” Beomgyu says, as Kai kisses it better again. “Why me, Pumpkin? Bite Soobin-hyung instead.”

“She must think you’re the tastiest,” Kai says. “And she’s not wrong.”

It’s weird, though. Pumpkin does bite Beomgyu, over and over. And only Beomgyu. She’s a perfect angel to Kai, sitting on his lap at the dinner table and panting with her little black eyes fixed on each bite of food he brings to his mouth. She’s even sweeter to Soobin, napping on his belly while he grades papers on the couch. But when Beomgyu tries to give her a rope toy to tug on, she bites him instead.

“She’s not strong enough to hurt me, Kai,” Beomgyu says, hiding his hand and refusing to let him heal it another time. “She’s just excited. She loves me the most.”

He picks her up, and she pees on him.

“Either she hates you, or you’re cursed,” Soobin says, laughing from his spot on the couch.

“Should I get my stuff? I could mix up a counter-curse,” Kai says, looking towards the medicine chest where his home stores of potion supplies live, but Beomgyu scoffs.

“Pumpkin didn’t piss on me because I’m cursed. Magic folk are so dramatic. She’s just not house trained yet. And Soobin-hyung, that’s your job.”

It’s a chaotic night of researching dog training techniques and puppy-proofing an apartment with far too much clutter in it, and by the end of it, Soobin has had to use his magic to re-weave a corner of the carpet after no one noticed Pumpkin unraveling it, and Beomgyu’s been chomped on at least two more times. They’re all ready to turn in early, but even that isn’t without incident. Somehow, Pumpkin manages to scratch Beomgyu on the cheek while crawling into bed between him and Kai, another wound to go with the ones she gave him during the rescue. He still won’t let Kai heal them.

“Let’s take tomorrow afternoon off and play with Pumpkin,” Beomgyu whispers as Soobin turns the lights off. “You in, Kai-ya?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Kai says, feeling for the little ball of warmth tucked between them. He can hear her panting in the dark. “I’ll ping Taehyun in the morning and see if he needs me. Can we take her to the pet store?”

“What more could you possibly buy her?” Soobin says from Beomgyu’s other side.

“Sweaters. So many sweaters,” Kai says, mind filling with possibilities. Maybe he can enchant them to keep her safe, add a little protective charm that will steer her away from any other junkyard pits.

Beomgyu hums next to him, his fingers colliding with Kai’s in Pumpkin’s soft fur.

“Night, you three,” he says happily. “Boyfriends and Pumpkin. So cozy.”

It is cozy. It’s always cozy, with three in the bed, but a puppy makes it cozy and fluffy. It takes serious effort to stay awake as Beomgyu starts to doze, his rhythmic breathing filling the air over Pumpkin’s soft snores, and Kai is barely nodding off when Soobin prods him in the arm over Beomgyu’s body.

“Gotta do his routine,” he whispers. “Don’t sleep yet.”

Right. Kai blinks his eyes back open, fumbling for Beomgyu’s hand. He pulls it off of Pumpkin’s warm fur, wrapping his fingers around his wrist like he always does and bracing himself to dive in.

Despite his dangerous adventure, Beomgyu’s health stats all look normal. He even has a special glowing buff floating around his overall health reading: a confidence boost, and Kai smiles at how badass his caper must have made him feel. He musters up his usual healing charm, summoning a little extra spark from the back of his brain to make it stronger than usual tonight. Those scratches better heal without scarring Beomgyu’s lovely face.

Kai almost forgets to check his luck and happiness, but he catches himself at the last moment. Maybe that ninety-eight in his happiness score will have gone up after Pumpkin’s rescue. He mentally pans around in Beomgyu’s brain, and sure enough, his happiness score is ninety-eight point five. That’ll make Soobin regret bitching so much about her.

He’s already preparing to zip back out of Beomgyu’s brain when he casts a glance at Beomgyu’s luck points.

Eight.

Eight remaining luck points. Kai looks around, making sure the accompanying zero that would make it eighty hasn’t just taken a break, but no, it’s eight. Beomgyu has eight luck points, when the night before he had eighty.

Kai’s vision starts to blur.

“Soobin-hyung?” he calls in a panic, even though Soobin can’t hear him when he’s in Beomgyu’s head. Soobin will know how to fix this. It must be a mistake. “Hyung? Hyung, help me, Beommie’s—”

The sound is just echoing around in Beomgyu’s skull. Kai manages to shake himself, yank his energy back out of Beomgyu and envision it landing back in his own chest. The moment he feels his senses reconnect with his body, he lets out a terrible sob.

Soobin stops humming his song. “What’s wrong, baby?”

“Hyung, h—hyung,” Kai sobs. He squeezes Beomgyu’s wrist too tightly, totally forgetting that he’s asleep. Beomgyu doesn’t react, though. He’s a deep sleeper.

“Is everything okay?” Soobin reaches for Kai’s shoulder, his eyes wide in the dim light filtering in through the window.

“No, no.”

“Something wrong with Beomgyu?”

“Hyung, his luck points. They’re—they’re—”

Kai’s breath is coming out in hitching, wracked spurts.

“Baby, I need you to calm down,” Soobin says in a low hush, leaning over Beomgyu’s sleeping form and wrapping his hands around Kai’s neck. He pulls his forehead to Kai’s, and Kai feels him tugging at his anxiety, as if a hand is trying to take a little piece of it away. He’s casting a calm charm.

Kai lets it happen. His heart is plummeting through his body, his neck prickling with anxious sweat. He doesn’t like depending on magic to regulate his moods, but this feels like an exception.

When his breathing slows and his thoughts iron themselves flat, Soobin speaks again.

“Tell me what’s wrong, Kai-ya.”

“Beommie-hyung lost seventy-two luck points today,” Kai says.

“You’re joking.”

“Why would I joke about that?” He feels the snap of anger even though his irrational calm.

“What was his score yesterday?”

“Eighty.” Kai sees Soobin do the math in his head, and his already-wide eyes begin to widen even further. “Hyung, this is so bad. So bad.”

“He has eight luck points?” Soobin lets go of Kai’s neck, hands falling limp onto his shoulders.

“Yeah. Only.”

“What…what does that mean?”

Kai shakes his head.

“I don’t know,” he says. “He’s gonna be…be unlucky. Really, really unlucky.”

Soobin looks down at their sleeping boyfriend, laying between them, and Kai follows suit. Beomgyu’s long hair is all over one side of his face, swept off the other side by Soobin’s hand when he went to soothe his dreams. One of his hands is resting on Pumpkin’s back as she dozes on his chest, curled in a ball. He’s completely at peace, unaware of the drama building up around him.

“Fuck, Kai-ya,” Soobin says. He reaches out to brush Beomgyu’s hair away from the other half of his forehead, and his perfect, defined features loom out of the darkness. Beautiful. “What does that mean? Will he get hurt?”

“Hyung, I have no idea,” Kai says. He feels the calm charm slowly dissipating. His panic is hammering at it too heavily. “Everything could go wrong for him. Or maybe just dumb things, like how…damn, like how Pumpkin kept biting him.”

“What about big stuff? Health stuff?”

Kai shakes his head. He’s never thought for a second that anything like this could happen. Beomgyu’s luck has survived until adulthood relatively intact; most kids lose a solid chunk of points breaking their leg or having some kind of childhood mishap, but Beomgyu escaped all that. And Kai always assumed that he and Soobin would be able to safeguard him enough that Beomgyu would never need to use his luck. When you have two magic boyfriends, the world doesn’t use up your luck points saving your house from a typhoon or protecting you from disease. Your boyfriends take care of that for you.

“You’re a healer, Kai. You know shit about human bodies. Can’t you fix the points? It’s an injury, in a sense. Right?”

Kai shakes his head. “I don’t think I can fix stuff like this. This is big stuff. We can’t mess with…with existential things, luck and happiness and heartbreak. Just the physical stuff.”

“What’s a bad luck score?”

Kai almost doesn’t want to say it, but he knows Soobin deserves to know. Every night, Kai always thinks it: as long as it’s above fifty. It’s the one piece of information he remembers from the day they talked about luck points in his Human Data Analysis class at healer college.

“Fifty points is where you switch from lucky to unlucky,” Kai says, and Soobin swears, burying his face in his hands.

Based on his score, Beomgyu must be one of the unluckiest men in the world.

“Why the fuck did he go after that dog?” Soobin curses to his hands. “He used up…how could that have used up so much of his luck?”

“I dunno, hyung. Maybe that dump truck was supposed to smush him, and all Beomgyu’s luck went to delaying the truck by a few minutes. Or he almost fell off the rope onto that barbed wire. Or maybe there was a rabid dog there too, and Beomgyu saw Pumpkin instead, and narrowly missed getting rabies. Or maybe—”

“I get it,” Soobin growls, burying his fists in the bedding now. “God, he’s such a fucking idiot. Bouncing around like a kid, not a care in the world about his fucking safety—”

“Don’t say that,” Kai snaps. “That’s a terrible thing to say. This isn’t his fault, he doesn’t even know he has luck points, and you love that he’s that way, you always say he’s the most interesting thing about you—”

Soobin isn’t interested in logic or reason. “He’s just barreling through life, assuming everything will go his way. And now look what happened, all because he had to jump into a damn junkyard pit after a stupid dog.”

“But it does go his way, hyung,” Kai says angrily. He knows Soobin doesn’t mean any of it, that he’s just projecting all his fear onto anything that he can grasp, but none of this is helping with Kai’s own anxiety. “Because we make it that way for him, and we don’t tell him. When’s the last time anything went wrong for him? Remember when you cursed that journalist who was gonna flame his album, and everything he wrote for the next week mysteriously deleted itself? And then hyung was ecstatic about how his comeback got, like, universal acclaim, and you made me promise not to tell?”

“Don’t fucking blame me for this,” Soobin says. Kai senses his energy darkening. “You do it too. He barely even remembers what a headache is anymore. You hex the sidewalks in front of him so all the cracks even out.”

“I don’t want him stubbing his toe,” Kai says before he can help himself.

“See? No wonder he thought he could just dive headfirst into a pile of barbed wire. Everything comes up roses for him, why wouldn’t this?”

Soobin runs a hand over his face again, shaking his head into his palm.

“What the fuck do we do, Kai-ya?” he whispers, anguished. “We can’t just set him out there with his luck like this. He’ll…I dunno. He’ll get crushed by a falling piano, like in old comics.”

“I was gonna say hit by a car,” Kai says, and Soobin lets out a frustrated noise.

“See, that’s actually plausible. Do you know, like, car-warding charms? I could do something aversive, like what I put on those water-repellant hats, but it probably won’t repel an entire—”

“Hyung, that’s insane. What, should we do a protective charm for literally everything? His brain will get all fuzzy with all that magic on him at once. And where would we even start? Anti-car charms? Anti-Pumpkin pissing on him charms? Anti-mean journalist charms?”

“We need to figure out what’s actually gonna happen to him,” Soobin says, not totally listening. “Research it. I’ll go to the library at the academy tomorrow, it’s got a whole section of theory books that no one ever touches. I bet there’s something in there about how luck functions.”

“Or I could Naver it,” Kai says.

Soobin grumbles under his breath.

“Hyung, don’t be a luddite.” Kai is already fumbling for his cell phone, pulling it off the charging pad on his nightstand.

“A what?”

“Luddite. Like, you hate technology.”

“I don’t hate it. It hates me.”

Beomgyu lets out a soft noise, his lips parting and resealing in his sleep. He turns on his pillow, shifting onto his side facing Soobin, and Pumpkin tips off him onto Soobin’s lap.

“You’re a little devil,” Soobin tells Pumpkin. “Are you? Are you actually a demon?”

Kai casts him a look as his phone unlocks. Soobin is squinting at the dog in the dark, trying to detect any traces of magic.

“Don’t blame her, hyung. She’s too cute to be a demon.”

Soobin grunts, hmph. He tries to place Pumpkin back in Beomgyu’s arms and the dog flails, punching Beomgyu in the arm with her little paw instead.

Kai doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It’s like a slapstick routine, the way everything is going wrong between the two of them, and it would be funny if it weren’t so frightening.

“Look it up faster, Kai-ya,” Soobin urges, and Kai whips his head back to his MagiNaver search. Running out of luck points. There won’t be any useful information on the regular internet, that’s for sure, but maybe other magic users have posted about this issue on the magic side of it.

He scrolls down the page of search results, finding an old post on a magical emergencies forum from a few years ago that looks just about right. The page has a small back-and-forth between the original poster and one commenter, and Kai starts to read.

My non-magical friend keeps getting into accidents, and when I checked his stats, he only had fifteen luck points left. What does this mean for the rest of his life?

“Tell me, tell me,” Soobin says.

“Still reading.”

“But is it good?

I’m sorry, but your friend’s going to have bad luck. That’s pretty much all we know about how luck points work. It’s beyond magic.

“Not good,” Kai says. The walls are closing in on him. The calm charm is totally gone.

“How bad? Really bad?”

Are there any spells or potions that can restore his luck points? I’m a pretty decent potion brewer, if that matters.

Not that I know of, but I’m not an expert. Luck is very complicated; maybe if you look into the theory, you can come up with something to try. Until then, could you give your friend a shield cloak? It’ll keep him from being hit by small projectiles or other moving objects when he wears it. Maybe try a few spells to up his handsomeness too, as unlucky people tend to get into altercations easily, and it’s hard to get mad at pretty people :)

“Bad,” Kai says squeakily. “Unfixable bad.”

“Lemme see that.”

Soobin lunges for the phone before he remembers that he can’t touch it, and Kai slaps his hand away. He angles the screen for him instead, scrolling when Soobin gives him a nod. When he reaches the bottom of the page, they just sit, staring at each other in the blue glow from the phone screen. The air feels like tar.

“Bullshit,” Soobin says, finally. “There’s something. It’s fixable.”

“Hyung, I don’t think it is,” Kai whispers, letting his phone fall to the bed. “I think he’s just out of luck.”

His lip is trembling. Soobin notices, even in the dark.

“Hey, hey,” he says, reaching to stroke a finger under Kai’s shaking lip. “Stay strong. We can do this. Who’s the best healer on this side of the Pacific Ocean?”

“Don’t talk me up like that. I’m only so-so. I can’t heal his luck.”

“And who invented the modern method of watershaping?”

“You did. But I don’t think making shit out of water is gonna help with this particular problem.”

“Not the point.” Soobin says dismissively. “I’m powerful, and you’re powerful, and we’ll fix it. If we can’t get him his luck back, we’ll figure something else out. There’s no other option.”

Kai rests his hand on Beomgyu’s cheek, and Beomgyu stretches out, cycling his limbs slowly under the covers. The contact was enough to just barely wake him, and he blinks twice.

“Kai…ya?” he says, turning his head around to look at the source of the touch. His voice is all creaky. “You up?”

“No. Sleep, hyung,” Kai says.

Beomgyu rolls around to face him instead of Soobin. He’s already succumbing again.

“G’night. Love you,” he murmurs, fanning his hand out on Kai’s knee where he sits cross-legged.

Soobin makes a sudden gesture, as if to grab Kai’s knee too, but he halts himself.

Kai swallows. “Love you, hyung,” he whispers. “Sweet dreams.”

Beomgyu slips back into his slumber, and Kai and Soobin don’t talk again. What is there to say? In a minute, the phone screen turns itself off, and the room is dark again. Kai holds his breath as they sit, unmoving, surrounding Beomgyu with their larger bodies. The stillness is stifling.

“We’re fixing it tomorrow,” Soobin says finally. “And tonight, I’m giving you good dreams. You can’t stop me.”

For once, Kai lets him.

 

---

 

“Tell me the plan again, so I know we’re on the same page.”

“Okay. You go to work, hit the library, look into luck theory and luck repairs. I make up a good excuse, stay home all day, get Beommie-hyung to stay with me somehow. I won’t let him out of my sight.”

“Yeah, and keep him from getting hurt. You’re not just cuddling with him on the couch all day.”

Kai furrows his brow.

“That was my plan, actually. I was gonna play sick and get him to nurse me back to health.”

Soobin groans, dropping his head back against the closed bathroom door where they’re having their early morning brainstorm session.

“Kai-ya, you’re a magic healer,” he says, exasperated. “A better excuse, please.”

“No, no, it’s going to work. I promise. I have the perfect plan for selling it.”

“Well, whatever it is, it has to be good, because he’s going to hate us making him stay home,” Soobin says. “He’s got rehearsal for that award show today.”

It’s Kai’s turn to groan now. Beomgyu’s band has a performance that Sunday, a televised one for the Silver Key awards, and the risks of his situation are far too great to let him go to the tech rehearsal. Falling lights, fucked-up stage effects, tripping during the choreography and plummeting off the stage… They can’t let him go to the set with his luck like this.

“Yeah. Exactly. So make it a good excuse, because he absolutely can’t go to that rehearsal.”

“What if we haven’t fixed it by the award show?”

Soobin leans forward to press his forehead to Kai’s.

“Don’t think about that. It’s not happening.”

At least he’s in this with Soobin. Kai’s always thought Soobin would have made an excellent healer, if his natural magical abilities had aligned better with healing magic. He’s good at split-second decisions, at maintaining calm, at reassuring Kai when he’s at his lowest lows.

“You trust me?”

Kai nods, and Soobin kisses him.

“I’ll take Pumpkin out before I go to work,” Soobin says. “Get back in bed with Beomgyu. Keep him there as long as you can, okay?”

That’s a good idea. Beomgyu can’t get hurt in bed. Maybe Kai should bewitch him, so he oversleeps, but that makes him feel weird. Instead, he just crawls back under the covers as Soobin carefully peels Pumpkin out of Beomgyu’s grasp, tiptoeing out of the room with her. It would normally have made Kai smile to see Soobin so completely and totally caving on the poop issue, but he’s too worried to smile. Appreciating his one-eighty-seven-centimeter boyfriend being cute with their five-kilo dog will have to wait.

“Ping me if there’s a disaster,” Soobin says, slipping out the bedroom door. For once, there might actually be.

 

---

 

“Kai-ya, you know I want to cuddle more. I always want to cuddle more. But I’m running so late.”

Kai groans exaggeratedly and clings on tighter to Beomgyu’s torso under the covers.

“Don’t feel well, hyung,” he mumbles.

“Oh?” Beomgyu works a hand out to lift it to Kai’s forehead. “Oh my god, you’re burning up, love.”

“Am I?”

Beomgyu drops his hand to Kai’s cheek, and Kai focuses the ball of hot air he just conjured up on that spot instead.

“You’re toasty,” Beomgyu smiles. “You’re lightly charred.”

“Like a marshmallow,” Kai says, keeping his voice floaty. He has to sell that he’s sick.

“Can’t you do some of your razzle-dazzle? Make it better? I can’t leave you alone in bed when you’re sick like this.”

“Okay. Making it better.” Kai scrunches up his face as if he’s focusing hard. He holds it for a few seconds, then lets his features snap back into neutral.

“Not working,” he says. “Hyung, my magic’s all bumpy.”

“Bumpy?” Beomgyu wriggles his body up higher on the bed, reaching for his phone on the nightstand. “Kai-ya, I’m, like, twenty minutes behind schedule already. You sure it’s not working?”

Kai faceplants into Beomgyu’s flannel pajama shirt.

“Hyung,” he mumbles. “Hyung, I’m sick. Help me feel better.”

Beomgyu’s hands work into Kai’s hair. He’s still holding his phone, and it knocks into Kai’s skull.

“Well, this is a role-reversal,” Beomgyu says, amused.

“Nurse me back to health?” Kai lifts his head, digging his chin into Beomgyu’s chest and peering up at him, and Beomgyu coos. He brushes a finger lightly over Kai’s sulky lip.

“Oh, baby. You really need me?”

“Feels like I’m gonna melt and vomit at the same time,” Kai says. “Is this what sick feels like?”

“You never…” Realization dawns on Beomgyu. “Have you always just healed yourself when you have a cold?”

Kai nods.

“But your magic isn’t working right now?”

Kai shakes his head and pouts. “Too sick.”

Beomgyu lifts his phone. “That’s it. I’ll call in.”

“You’ll miss your rehearsal? For me?”

“Of course for you. You’re sick for the first time ever. You need a little pampering, don’t you?”

He gives Kai a sly look, and Kai nods and hides his face again. He’s not a very good actor, and the lie he’s telling would fall apart in an instant in front of a magic user — a cold wouldn’t dull his magical abilities. But Beomgyu isn’t a magic user, and he’s too endeared to question it. Why would Kai lie about this, anyway?

“They’ll hate me, but it’s worth it,” Beomgyu says, and Kai hears the digital clicks of him scrolling through his phone. “I know the drill anyway. All these tech rehearsals are the same. What’s the worst thing that could happen? They boot the lead singer from the band for missing a rehearsal because of a family emergency?”

He laughs, but Kai feels a rush of panic. Yes. Yes, that’s exactly the worst thing that could happen.

Beomgyu lifts the phone to his ear, and Kai homes in on the ringing sound with his eyes closed.

The tone switches to a voice, someone saying Choi Beomgyu? Are you on your way?

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to miss the rehearsal,” Beomgyu says in his most mature voice. “Something very important has come up in my family.”

There’s a loud eruption from the other end, and Kai channels all his thoughts into that sound. You want this, he thinks. You want Beomgyu to rest. Tell him to stay home.

It’s a lot harder to control someone’s thoughts when you can’t see them, and Kai isn’t nearly as good at this as Soobin is, but the noise quiets down.

Family? The voice echoes.

“Yes, one of my partners is…um, very ill.”

Kai squeezes his eyes as tightly as he can to focus better on the other side of the call. Family’s important. Beomgyu should be with his family.

Whatever the voice says next sounds warm and friendly.

“Wow, that’s so kind,” Beomgyu says. “The whole day? Hyung, that’s too much. I can come in—”

“Stay with me,” Kai whines. “Don’t go in.”

“I’ll text you,” Beomgyu says apologetically. “I’ll text all the guys and let them know. And I can come in early tomorrow and get all the notes from Minhee-noona.” A pause. “I’ll tell him you said so, hyung. Thanks so much.”

Beomgyu ends the call and starts scooting back down in Kai’s arms, laying down again.

“So? You’re staying?”

“Yeah, I’m staying,” Beomgyu says, kissing Kai on the nose. “That was kind of weird, actually. Seunghoon-hyung is never that nice. I was expecting to get chewed out and hang up with him screaming my ear off, but instead he just told me to stay home all day and tell you to feel better.”

“Don’t overthink it,” Kai says. If he does, he’ll probably realize that magic was involved. “Can we make out?”

“Not if you’re sick. You need to sleep. That’s the most important thing in non-magical healing. Sleep.”

He presses his hand to Kai’s forehead again, and Kai barely manages to heat up the air in time.

“Yep, sleep,” Beomgyu says firmly. “You stay here and rest. I’ll go—”

“No, stay!” Kai says in a panic, gripping on tighter.

“I’ll be back, Kai-ya. Just gonna go find Pumpkin and get my iPad. And I do have to shower, you know.”

Kai’s mind fills with a vision of Beomgyu slipping and falling in the tub.

“Gimme five minutes, and I’ll be back in bed, okay? And pick something to watch. We can even watch one of your animes, and I won’t whine the whole time about the sound effects.”

It would be too weird to complain. Kai lets Beomgyu slip through his arms and pad out of the bedroom. A moment later, there’s a loud yowl from the hall.

“Beomgyu-ya?” Kai calls, shooting up in bed.

“Fucking…god damn, Pumpkin…it’s okay, I’m okay…”

Beomgyu hobbles back into the room, dumping Pumpkin onto the bed and flinging a rope toy after her.

“It’s like she was trying to trip me with this. Ditched it square in front of the doorway.”

Kai buries his face in Pumpkin’s fur and tries to zone out the noises he hears Beomgyu make as he putters around in the living room, but there are no major disasters, just a finger closed in a silverware drawer. The shower could have gone worse, too.

“Water wouldn’t get hot,” Beomgyu grumbles, climbing back into bed in a fresh pair of boxers. His hair is still soaking wet and freezing cold, but Kai doesn’t mind. A cold, wet Beomgyu in bed with him is a safe Beomgyu, even though Kai is cold and wet now, too. Maybe this luck thing isn’t so bad, if it’s just minor accidents and tiny bits of misfortune. They can work with that.

He feels a knock in his mind two hours later, just as Beomgyu pauses the show streaming on his iPad to get up and make Kai tea.

It’s not looking good, Soobin pings him.

“Hyung! No tea,” Kai says in a panic. No boiling water allowed anywhere near Beomgyu.

“Really? But it’ll help settle your stomach.”

“My stomach’s fine,” Kai says, which is true.

Beomgyu shrugs. “No tea, then,” he says, flopping back down. “Can I hit play again?”

How bad?

Bad. I found a good book on the topic. It said luck points are un-replenishable, and bad luck can mean anything.

What kind of anything?

Oh, you know. Anything from—

“Kai? Want me to hit play?”

“Yes, please,” Kai says, burrowing into the comforter to avoid Beomgyu’s gaze.

Beomgyu clucks affectionately.

“You’re totally out of it,” he says. “It’s just a little cold, babe. It’ll pass.”

Soobin had kept talking in his brain, but Kai totally missed it.

Sorry, could you repeat that, hyung?

Yeah, bad luck is bad luck. Stubbed toes, broken bones, losing your job, catastrophes. Anything and everything.

Kai finds Beomgyu’s knee under the covers and squeezes it.

But I have a plan, Soobin continues. Don’t panic, baby. I’ll be home at lunch. How’s it going with Beomgyu?

“Soobin’s in there, isn’t he?” Beomgyu asks, stroking Kai’s hair.

“Yeah. How do you know?”

“Your eyes get unfocused. Like you’re daydreaming.”

“He says he’s coming home for lunch.“

Beomgyu laughs. “Perfect timing. Someone will need to take the dog out, and I’m already taking care of one puppy.”

Kai plays along, wagging his tongue at him.

“I should fuck off work more often,” Beomgyu says, poking Kai in the tongue. “It’s so much cozier in bed with you than at a tech rehearsal with my bandmates.”

It’s going fine, because I won’t let him leave the bed. Get home quick, hyung.

 

---

 

Soobin steals Kai as soon as he’s done walking Pumpkin.

“He’s too sick to talk about magic,” Beomgyu says stubbornly, clinging onto Kai’s hand as Soobin tries to drag him out of bed. “No work talk today.”

“It’s not work talk. It’s just one question.”

“Well, ask him here!”

“Can’t. You’re here.”

“Oh, and I can’t hear magic talk? Rude.”

“It’s about you,” Soobin says, frustrated.

That stops Beomgyu in his tracks. “Me?” he asks, letting go of Kai’s hand. “Me and magic?”

“Yes. We’re…we’re making you something. Now stay in bed and keep your nose out of it.”

“You should have said that from the start!” Beomgyu grins lopsidedly. “Take him, take him. Make me something nice.”

Soobin drags Kai out of the bedroom. The moment the door closes behind them, he flings Kai’s hand away and races towards his abandoned briefcase in the living room, with Kai at his tail.

“You said you have a plan?” Kai says, breathless even though it’s barely a five-second run. “Hyung, can we fix it?”

“No. But I think we can counteract it.” Soobin presses his fingertip to the case’s lock, and it falls open. Inside is a huge book with yellowed pages and a fractured spine. “You should read this, all of this. But the gist of it is that luck can’t be repaired, but it can be reversed.”

He opens the book to the spot marked by his green leather bookmark and points a finger vaguely at a paragraph, but Kai doesn’t look at it.

“Reversed? Like…we could transform his bad luck into good luck?”

“Sort of. I bet I could pull something off. It’s basically just a transmutation, isn’t it? Just a really complicated, reality-bending transmutation, and as far as I know, it’s never been done before. But I think I could do it.”

Soobin wrote the book on transmutation. If anyone could do it, he could.

“So then where do I come in?” Kai asks, twisting his fingers together.

They hear a dull yell from the direction of the bedroom, and Soobin’s eyes flash.

“Don’t,” Kai says, grabbing his forearm to still him before he can go check. “It’s something with Pumpkin, I’ll bet. He’s been getting into minor collisions all morning around the house, and if we make a big deal about them, he’ll get worried about them too.”

Soobin relaxes, but his face remains alert.

“If we let this go on, it’ll only get worse,” he says. He taps the open pages of the book. “Bad luck accumulates. This book says it builds up in the energy around a person and draws in even more bad luck. Maybe today he’s crashing into things and getting nipped by Pumpkin, but tomorrow it could be that plus his band falling apart, and then the day after that he could get hit by a meteor.”

“Don’t say that, hyung,” Kai says, digging his nails into Soobin’s arm.

“I have to, Kai-ya. It’s the truth. And it's a good thing he has the eight points he has, because once his luck runs fully out...”

Soobin doesn't have to finish his sentence. Kai can tell from his expression exactly what Beomgyu's luck running out would mean.

“Then tell me where I come in. How do I help, if you’re the one transforming his luck?”

“I’m not the one transforming his luck. We’re doing it together.”

Soobin closes his eyes, and Kai feels that knock on his mind again. He lets in the message, and Soobin shows him a blackboard covered in notes — the one in his classroom at the school he teaches at.

“On the left,” he says, and Kai looks at the list to the left of the blackboard: a series of questions.

Protection potions? Luck source and harvesting? Luck bolstering — two contributors? Area of effect warding?

None of it makes any sense to Kai.

“I need you to figure out how to make a potion that would ward off damage, but specifically damage to a person’s luck,” Soobin says. “You make protection potions all the time at work, right?”

“Yeah, constantly. Take a drink before you do something dangerous, and for the next hour or so, your body is more resilient to damage. But they’re weak, hyung, and they don’t heal damage that’s already been done.”

“We don’t need to heal damage that’s been done. We’re not going to heal Beomgyu’s luck points. We’re just going to focus on reversing all the misfortune that’s coming at him. We’re making him a shield.”

Kai frowns. A shield?

Soobin pulls the image out of Kai’s mind, and when Kai sees his face again, he’s beaming.

“Do you think you could modify a protection potion to make a person’s body resilient to misfortune instead of physical damage?”

“Fuck, hyung. I don’t know. I mean, I’d have to tinker with it. I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

“How do you make the protection potions?” Soobin doesn’t seem like he really needs to know the answer. He’s asking a leading question, because he has a point he wants to make, and Kai can humor him.

“Um. Well, I start with some basic potion work, brewing the right base. Then I need to draw in some health points to give the potion strength. I usually use my own life force, because it recharges pretty fast. I just feel kind of shitty for the rest of the day.”

“So you use your own strength to boost someone else’s,” Soobin says eagerly.

Kai gets it.

“You’re saying we can use our own luck to boost Beomgyu-hyung’s? Put it in a potion?”

“Why not? I think it would work. If anyone could figure out how to make it work, it would be you, Kai-ya. You’re a genius healer.”

Kai shakes his head.

“I don’t think magic folk have luck in the same way that regular people do, hyung. We don’t have luck points.”

“Oh, but we do,” Soobin beams. He was obviously waiting for this gotcha moment, and on a normal day, Kai would roll his eyes at him. “It’s all in that book, the book on luck theory. Magic folk have a pool of luck that made us magic in the first place. We’re magical because we’re lucky.”

“Never heard that before.” Kai frowns.

“Well, it’s true. Read more books, Kai-ya. Watch less anime.”

Annoying, because Soobin watches far more anime than Kai does, but Kai can let it slide. Soobin holds the book out towards Kai, nudging it into his chest until he has no choice but to take it.

“I bet you can figure out how to harvest some of our luck and put it into that protection potion. Use our luck to fight off all the unlucky things coming at Beomgyu. And when you succeed, instead of making him drink it, I’ll put a vial of it into some kind of shield that he can wear all the time. A necklace, or something. Otherwise it’ll just wear off a few hours after he drinks it, and he’ll have to be drinking the potion constantly to stay lucky.”

“Basically, you want to make, like, a luck reversal pendant?”

Soobin nods. “Imagine this.” He zooms one hand through the air. “Bad luck whizzing at him, something about to go terribly wrong, and—” he bounces his hand off Kai’s chest, just above the book “—it’s channeled into the shield, full of protection potion. Bam, it’s reversed before it can hit Gyu’s squishy little human body. His luck still sucks, but the shield takes all the hits for him. A luck boomerang.”

Kai clutches the book, digging his fingertips into the rough page edges. It’s not the world’s most far-fetched idea. Kai’s an excellent potion maker, and he makes experimental potions with his coworkers all the time. Whether he can figure out how to harvest luck is the real question. And even if he can…

“Hyung, if we give Beomgyu our luck, and our luck is the source of our magic, what happens to our magic?”

He thinks he knows the answer already, and Soobin nods.

“It gets weaker,” he says. “Luck can’t be healed. If we gave some of ours to Beomgyu, our magic would suffer.”

Kai drops his eyes to the ground, to Soobin’s feet. There’s a tiny hole in the toe of his sock, but Kai can’t bring himself to mend it.

“But I think it’s the only way to do it, Kai-ya. On an ethical level, the book says a person has to be willing to give up their own fortune if they want to reverse other misfortunes. It’s a zero-sum game.”

“Makes sense,” Kai says in a small voice.

Soobin steps closer. “Is that okay?” he says quietly, cupping Kai’s cheek.

Kai wants to hesitate, but he knows he can’t. “Of course it’s okay,” he says. “It’s still hard.”

“I’ve always thought you were too powerful, anyway,” Soobin says lightly. “Scary, the way you just look at shit and it fixes itself.”

Kai blinks it off. He can’t waste energy worrying about what his magic will be like after they do this. He can worry about that later. He’s going to do it no matter what.

“I’m gonna need to move fast, if we’re trying to pull this off as soon as possible,” Kai says, brushing the back of his hand over his eyes. “I need to talk to Taehyunnie. And start experimenting.”

“Go to the hospital,” Soobin says quickly, drawing his hand away from Kai’s face. “I’ll stay with Beomgyu.”

“Yeah, well, he’s convinced I’m deathly ill.”

“Get Taehyunnie to come here, then. I’ll get Gyu out of the house, you can brew in the workroom.”

Kai shakes his head. “He can’t leave the house, remember? Minimizing risk?”

But just then Beomgyu’s footsteps pad down the hall, followed by the clattering of Pumpkin’s nails on the wood floor.

“Sorry, sorry, you can keep talking about me in a minute,” Beomgyu says airily, swinging around the corner. “But the vet just called me back, and they can squeeze Pumpkin in for her check-up in an hour. Hyung, could you stay with Kai-ya?”

“You’re going out?” Soobin says.

“Yeah, I’m not sick,” Beomgyu says pointedly as Pumpkin leaps up onto the couch, settling down and scratching her ear with her back paw. “Do you have classes this afternoon? Because Kai can’t be alone, all the sick feelings are too overwhelming for him. He needs a lot of emotional support.”

Maybe Kai’s been overselling the ‘sick for the first time’ thing.

“I’ll come with you to the vet,” Soobin says immediately.

“What? Hyung, I said stay with Kai.”

“I want to be invested in the care of our child. I feel like we’ve been starting to bond on all the walks you’re making me take her on.”

“It’s fine, Beomgyu-hyung,” Kai pipes up. “I’m exhausted. I was just gonna nap this afternoon anyway.”

Beomgyu crosses his arms. “You sure?”

Kai nods.

“You’ve nursed me halfway back to health already,” he says, and Beomgyu flaps his hand at him, a little aw, shucks. There’s a red mark on the back of his hand in the shape of Pumpkin’s teeth. Kai thinks he knows what caused that yowl a few minutes earlier.

“Lemme tuck you back in, and then let’s get going, Soobin-hyung,” Beomgyu says, reaching for Kai’s hand and noticing the book clutched in his arms. “Holy fuck, that book is a weapon. It’s the size of three Pumpkins.”

“Magic stuff, for you,” Soobin says, no-nonsense, and it’s not a lie. He turns to Kai. “I’ll ping you when we’re coming back, okay, baby?”

“And wake him up?” Beomgyu scolds. “No, Kai-ya needs to rest. No work, no play. Just sleep it off.”

 

---

 

Kai truly wishes he could have just gotten back in bed and slept this whole thing off. Maybe he would open his eyes again and find that it was all a dream, that one of Soobin’s nightmare transformation charms had gone haywire. But instead, the instant the door closes behind Beomgyu and Soobin, with Pumpkin still audibly yapping at the inside of her carrier, Kai sends a desperate message to summon his best-friend-slash-coworker, Taehyun. This luck potion thing is a two-man job.

“Capturing…luck. Hmm.” Taehyun flips a page in the old book, propped open on his knees as he perches on a stool in Kai’s workroom. Well, it’s not really a workroom. It’s a walk-in-closet that barely fits two bodies and a cauldron, but it’s better than nothing. Square footage in Seoul isn’t any cheaper for magic users.

“There’s basically nothing I could find in there about it,” Kai says, brushing his sweaty hair off his brow. “You’re not supposed to try to mess with luck. Good luck charms are total nonsense.” His cauldron is already bubbling, full of the basic ingredients that he’d use to start a traditional protection potion: water from three different rivers, a pinch of ash from an elm-wood bonfire, a few stalks of lemongrass. Kai reaches his hand straight into the fire, gritting his teeth as the heat laps at his enchanted snake-hide protective gloves and smothering one of the logs to lower the temperature.

This kind of basic potion-making is the bread and butter of his healing work, and Kai is proud of how he’s perfected his techniques. But Taehyun works in the Rare Cases division of the hospital, problem-solving for strange maladies that other healers can’t get to the bottom of, and he’s more creative when it comes to experimental magic than Kai is. They make a good team: Taehyun puts his big brain to work coming up with possibilities, and Kai makes them a reality with his superior practical skills.

“Well, what things can you capture? Like, health, strength, that kind of thing?”

“We capture health with blood. You know that. Drawing a bit of blood out of someone sucks out a bit of their health with it, and adds it to whatever you put the blood in.”

“What about love? You can capture love, right?”

Kai sits back on his heels, flapping his hands through the air to cool his gloves before he touches something and melts it by accident. Love. How does he capture love? Actual love is a crucial component in a love potion, but he hasn’t made a love potion in years. He didn’t need one to win either Soobin or Beomgyu, and he hasn’t needed one to keep them. The ethics of the whole thing are a bit questionable, anyway.

“Yeah, I can capture love. It’s hard, though.”

“But you can do it. With a net, right?”

“Yeah. Right. The person who wants the love potion has to gift me a story, a memory, something that captures their own love. Describe it to me, and the love they’re trying to give seeps out of them in, like, a haze. If they were willing to give me a good enough memory, I can collect enough love from the air to make the potion, and then that’s what they have to feed to their target.”

It’s a zero-sum game. Give love to get love. 

“Well, maybe capturing luck works the same way,” Taehyun says thoughtfully, resting his pointed chin on his fist. “Luck is a zero-sum game, you know. According to this book, to give someone else fortune, you need to accept misfortune. Just like the love thing.”

“That’s what Soobin-hyung said. But it’s not like he can just…I dunno, tell me a story where he was lucky, and give me that luck. I can harvest love from stories because people are giving me the love in those stories, but luck’s all about the future, isn’t it? There’s no way to take luck out of a past event.”

“Maybe you could try to harvest it from your futures,” Taehyun says. “Go to a truth-teller. Get a prediction, a good one, and then give that up instead.”

“That…” Kai frowns. “That’s not the worst idea. Give up our own good futures for Beomgyu’s?”

Taehyun crinkles up his face. “It wouldn’t be everything good in your futures. Just a few good things. You could stomach that, right?”

Kai nods, because he has to. But the link between his own luck and his magical ability is nagging at his thoughts. How much of his magic will this take?

“I can ping Yeonjun-hyung if you want, see if he can squeeze you in.”

Kai stares down into his cauldron, watching a lick of blue-tinged mist curl off of it and dissipate, then another.

“It might take away some of my powers, you know,” Kai says, as calmly as he can. “Giving my luck to Beomgyu.”

Taehyun leans over on his stool and wraps his narrow fingers around Kai’s arm. He almost knocks the book off his lap, and Kai tips sideways off his stool, but Taehyun just clings on.

“What do you care about more, Kai-ya? Being the best healer in Korea, or Beomgyu-hyung?”

“You’re the best healer in Korea, not me,” Kai says automatically.

Taehyun narrows his big eyes at him. “Not the point. Don’t swerve me.”

Kai picks at the hem of his sweater.

“I’ll tell you. It’s Beomgyu-hyung,” Taehyun says matter-of-factly. “And hyung would want you even if you had no magic at all. Soobin-hyung, too.”

“What if we go through this whole thing, and manage to pull it off, and it’s for nothing?”

“Nothing?”

Kai brings his gloved hand to Taehyun’s, squeezing it.

“The luck thing. What if we give up a bunch of our magic, and it doesn’t really help, and Beomgyu-hyung is still unlucky forever? And then I’ll just suck at magic for no reason at all?”

Taehyun shrugs.

“Isn’t trying enough of a reason?”

Suddenly, Soobin knocks so hard at the back of Kai’s head that it almost hurts.

“Soobin-hyung’s pinging me,” Kai gasps, grabbing at the nape of his neck, and Taehyun leans back on his stool, nodding and reopening the book.

Hyung, what’s—

Need you at the vet now, Soobin’s voice booms.

Now? Why?

Minor disaster. Can’t explain. Take the carpet, we walked.

Should I bring—

Just you. Fast.

Kai feels Soobin’s presence disappear, and he blinks rapidly.

“Something wrong? Your heart’s pounding. I can hear it from here.”

Taehyun is far too good at reading people, literally.

“Some kind of disaster at the vet,” Kai stammers out, leaping to his feet and almost knocking over the cauldron. “Fuck, Taehyun-ah, this needs to be stirred for thirty minutes, and then I have to add the ground walnuts and chromium ore. Could you—”

Taehyun shrugs. “Nothing better to do,” he says.

Kai could kiss him. He doesn’t, because Taehyun gets squirmy about that shit, but he almost does.

“You’re the best. The best.”

“Not the best healer, though. Objectively, that would be you.”

“I’ll fight you over that later,” Kai says, flinging open the closet door. “I’ll ping you the rest of the directions, okay? I’ve got them memorized.”

Their flying carpet is rolled up and dusty next to the front door. They rarely use it; Beomgyu prefers walking or riding their bikes together, and when they’re traveling without him, Soobin and Kai usually go to the nearest teleportation station. It’s only when they need to collectively travel far distances that they take the carpet; non-magic folk can’t teleport, and Soobin flat-out refuses to ride his bike more than a mile, even though he’s got “thighs built for biking,” in Beomgyu’s words.

If Soobin wants Kai to bring the carpet, he must be anticipating needing to carry Beomgyu back on it. Either way, it’s a bad enough omen that Kai is shaking as he drags the carpet out the front door and into the elevator. He snags the tassels on the front door of their building and almost falls off as he settles into the driver’s seat, weaving his fingers into the tassels to keep himself anchored.

The fastest you can go, he urges the carpet, picturing the unassuming little veterinarian’s office that Beomgyu used to bring his pet gerbil to. It’s only a ten-minute walk away, so when the carpet accelerates into the air so fast that it turns their narrow street into a blurry tunnel, Kai knows it’ll be a matter of seconds before he arrives. Even so, the trip feels too long.

He leaves the carpet on autopilot, as his mind is far too jittery to assist with steering, and it almost collides with a two-seater flying at the same altitude in the other direction. Kai zones out the shrill curse that the driver bellows after him. He’s not a good driver, anyway. He’s heard worse.

The carpet skitters to a stop, and Kai rolls off it, slamming to his feet and twisting his ankle. He takes off towards the office at a run, sending a bolt of healing magic towards his painful ankle as he does and almost forgetting to park the carpet on the rack out front.

When he bursts through the door, he doesn’t need to ask what went wrong. The entire place is full of birds: parrots, parakeets, cockatoos, even a little white dove fluttering in circles around the room. And it seems like every dog that had been in the vet is having a field day, barking and chasing and lunging after the birds, with a few overwhelmed owners trying desperately to calm them. In the middle of the waiting area is Pumpkin, leaping gleefully into the air and getting nowhere near the birds, though it’s not for lack of trying. And sprinting into the room is —

“Kai-ya, help,” Soobin yells. “Beomgyu’s in the last room. Go help him, I gotta get them back in the cages.”

“What happened?” Kai hollers back over the shrill hooting of the birds.

“Bird disaster, Pumpkin got loose, Beomgyu fell — just go.”

Kai goes. There are four doors branching off the hallway, and a staff member comes sprinting out of one of them as Kai sprints by. She’s far too overwhelmed to care about the stranger running into the exam rooms of her veterinary practice, so Kai ignores her, narrowly squeezing by her in the hallway.

He bursts through the last door.

“Hyung? Hy—oh, hyung.”

Beomgyu is laying on the floor on his back, his limbs a crumpled heap. He’s crying.

“Hyung, what happened?” Kai races forward to help him, arms outstretched. He cradles Beomgyu’s head, helping to lift it, and just as he’s about to wipe his tears, he realizes that Beomgyu isn’t crying. Well, he’s crying, but only because he’s laughing so hard.

“Kai-ya,” he sputters out. “Kai-ya, fuck. What a day, huh?”

“What happened? Are you hurt?”

“Ankle,” Beomgyu chokes out. “Kai—are the birds still out there?”

Kai nods, and Beomgyu bursts into another peal of laughter.

“I’ll explain after you— ouch, heal this motherfucker. Shit, she’s stronger than she looks.”

“Who?” Kai reaches for the ankle that Beomgyu gestures at. His foot is sticking out at a weird angle.

“Pumpkin,” Beomgyu says. “We’d just gotten in here when the birds got out. Fuck, that burns, Kai-ya, could you—”

“Can’t. Healing hurts sometimes,” Kai says apologetically, lifting his hand off of Beomgyu’s swollen ankle. It looks like a fracture, and he sends another wave of his fusion charm through Beomgyu’s joint.

“Beauty is pain,” Beomgyu grimaces. “Anyway, no idea how the bird thing happened. But I had just sat down on that exam table with Pumpkin in my lap, still on the leash, and a bird fucking flew in here. She went—Kai, she went absolutely apeshit, it was adorable.” Beomgyu chortles, and Kai feels a rush of melancholic affection. He wonders what Beomgyu would say if he did know about his lack of luck points. Probably something charmingly self-deprecating, to try to make Kai smile. He’s always good at silver linings.

“She’s not even fifteen pounds, hyung. How did she hurt you?”

“Ah, she leapt off the table to chase it, and yanked me down from the sheer force of it. I just landed weird. No idea how it got fucked up this badly, it was like a four-foot fall. Not my lucky day, huh?”

If only you knew, Kai thinks, sending a final wave of healing energy into Beomgyu’s swollen ankle.

“Hey, you’re feeling better?” Beomgyu asks, suddenly looking worried.

“Mostly.” Kai shrugs, not making eye contact. “Don’t think about me, Beommie-hyung. You have a broken ankle.”

“Not anymore. Good as new.” He reaches out a hand, and Beomgyu helps haul him up to sitting. “Why don’t I let you heal me more often?”

“Because you’re stubborn?”

There’s an enormous crash, followed by Soobin’s yell.

“Stay here, and don’t go out there,” Kai says. “I should help with the birds.”

“I kind of think it’s my fault, actually,” Beomgyu says, looking guilty. “I crashed into one of the cages with Pumpkin’s carrier on the way back here. I didn’t look back, but there was a pretty loud racket. Too loud.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t you,” Kai lies. It definitely was.

Most of the birds have been wrangled back into their cages by the time Kai gets back into the waiting room. All the dogs are asleep, including Pumpkin, as well as most of their owners; Soobin must have gotten a bit overenthusiastic casting a sleep hex on them.

Soobin is chasing down a green parrot with a net. When he sees Kai, he visibly relaxes.

“Grab,” he pants, grabbing a pen from the desk and flinging it at Kai. It transforms into another net in midair, and Kai catches it, taking a swing at the dove fluttering above him.

“Did you fix Beomgyu up?”

“Good as new,” Kai calls over. He takes another swing and nabs the dove.

“God, this luck thing is a fucking nightmare,” Soobin says. “We should lock him in the house. It’s taking years off my life.”

“What’d you say?” They hear in a familiar voice. Beomgyu is limping into the room on his still-swollen ankle. “What’s taking years off your life?”

“Beomgyu, back in the room,” Soobin bellows.

“All right, all right,” Beomgyu says, crossly. “Only it’s boring as fuck in there. I came for Pumpkin.”

Kai narrowly misses hitting Beomgyu in the head with the net. He could have sworn he wasn’t aiming anywhere near him.

“Go, hyung!” he yells, and Beomgyu grudgingly limps away.

It takes another twenty minutes to get the last of the birds and promise to the livid staff that they’ll find another veterinarian, and then five more to load Beomgyu and his stiff ankle onto the carpet with a very excitable Pumpkin, fresh from her nap. Soobin holds the dog on his lap on the carpet on the way home. Kai has a funny feeling that she might have gone flying if they left that particular job to Beomgyu.

 

---

 

Taehyun is gone when they get back, but the potion looks perfect. He hadn’t even asked for instructions.

“He’s the best healer in Korea,” Kai says, poking the glowing blue liquid with his stirring spoon. Soobin snorts beside him, but Kai doesn’t let him disagree. “Now all we need to do is get the luck into it.”

“Did you come up with a plan?”

“Um, yeah, actually.”

“I knew it. You’re a genius, baby.”

Kai scratches at the back of his neck while Soobin swoops in and pinches his ass.

“Nothing special. It might not even work.”

“Any idea is better than no idea, which is what I have. What’s the plan?”

Kai settles down onto the stool that Taehyun was sitting on earlier and gives Soobin the rundown. They need to get a solid sense of the good luck ahead of them, so that they can give it up for Beomgyu. And the only way to do that is —

“I hate going to see Yeonjun-hyung,” Soobin grumbles. “I mean, I’d like it if we were just going to hang out. Or going over for dinner, he always does good dinners. But I hate going to Yeonjun for, you know, Yeonjun.”

“I think it’s cool,” Kai says. “Just because he predicted that you’d go in for the first kiss and Beomgyu-hyung would reject you doesn’t mean it’s not cool to get your truth told.”

“I didn’t like it when he teased me afterwards.”

Soobin’s cheeks are a bit pink, and Kai can’t resist squeezing one of them.

“I teased you too, Soobinnie-hyung. Even Taehyunnie teased you.”

“Sore spot,” Soobin says grumpily. It’s been three years and he still gets grouchy about the fact that Kai kissed Beomgyu first. Beomgyu claims it wasn’t intentional, that he only dodged Soobin’s kiss attempt because he thought Soobin was trying to swat a fly, but Kai knows Beomgyu chose him because he’s cuter. Duh.

“Well, we’re going. Taehyunnie said he’d ping him for me, and I can check in with him right now.”

There’s a loud rap on the closet door.

“Guys? Minor disaster, everything just fell out of the freezer when I opened it.”

Beomgyu pokes his head into the closet, and his eyes fall on the cauldron.

“Wow, it’s beautiful!” he exclaims. “Is that the thing for me?”

“No,” Soobin says, still sounding grumpy.

“What got into him?” Beomgyu asks Kai.

“He doesn’t want to see Yeonjun-hyung tomorrow.”

“We’re seeing Yeonjun-hyung tomorrow?” Beomgyu’s whole face lights up, his whisker dimples popping into place beside his nose as he smiles. He loves getting his truth told. It impresses him even more than it impresses Kai, and Kai’s floored enough by it as it is. “Awesome, you didn’t tell me! But it has to be early. I need to be at work, like, all day.”

Kai’s stomach rolls. That means a whole day of dangers, and there’s no way they can talk Beomgyu into skipping yet another day of work. Not the day before his award show performance.

“So, um, freezer help, anyone? All the shelves popped out. Pumpkin’s devoured like five ice cubes.”

Soobin snaps out of his funk. “Yeah, coming,” he says, stepping toward the closet door. “Make it a short appointment, could you?” he mutters at Kai as he slips out, shutting the door behind him.

Kai squeezes his eyes shut and pictures himself zooming into Yeonjun’s trendy apartment, settling down next to him for a conversation. He knocks on his brain.

Hyung? You there?

There’s a slight delay.

Hey, Kai-ya. I heard about the luck catastrophe.

Kai hears Yeonjun chuckle.

It’s not really funny, he complains.

No, it’s not, Yeonjun concedes. So, you’re coming for a reading tomorrow? I’m fully booked. It needs to be early.

Early is good, Kai says. And it has to be short. Soobin’s being a grouch about the kiss thing again.

They settle on seven in the morning, which Kai knows Soobin will complain about even more. Thank god both of his boyfriends are so cute when they’re grumpy.

I’ve got a good feeling about this, Huening-ah. Not a real prediction, just a feeling. From what Taehyunnie told me, I think you’re on the right track.

Kai wishes he could hug Yeonjun, but mental conversations don’t work that way.

Don’t get my hopes up, he says instead.

 

---

 

Waking up early isn’t easy on Saturday morning. The rest of their Friday hadn’t exactly gone smoothly.

“It was funny, hyung. I’m really, really sorry, but it was funny.”

“It hurt,” Soobin says. “It hurt, Kai-ya. Make it better.”

“I already made it better. I healed it right away, remember?”

“Well, make it more better.” Soobin puckers up his pretty, full lips, and Kai obliges. He’s so soft to kiss.

“You should have seen it coming,” Kai tells him. “It’s your own fault. Of course something would go wrong. He has eight luck points.”

“It’s easy to forget about the luck thing when he’s naked,” Soobin says, and Kai has to agree. “How was I supposed to know he was gonna have a coughing fit?”

“But you have two boyfriends, hyung. I could have done it. I wouldn’t have bit—”

“I was thinking you’d be doing other things,” Soobin interrupts, pulling Kai onto his chest in bed. “I had a whole plan for the night, and then Beomgyu’s bad luck ruined it.”

Soobin’s usually the ringleader on those nights, and things usually go a lot smoother than they did that Friday.

“Well, just more of an incentive for you to cooperate at Junie-hyung’s today,” Kai says soothingly, swooping down to press another kiss into Soobin’s perfect cupid’s bow. “Maybe he’ll predict a future where no one ever bites your dick again.”

“Isn’t the whole point of seeing Junie-hyung that we’re going to give up whatever good luck he sees in our futures?”

Kai’s face must have fallen, and Soobin smiles instead.

“Yeah. Not giving up that one.”

Beomgyu flails next to them, rolling over and trying to tug all the blankets onto his own body. He’s barely awake, far too sleepy to have registered anything the others were saying.

“Hyung, get up,” Kai says, shaking him by the shoulder. He does it as carefully as he can, just in case Beomgyu’s luck is making his body extra frail.

“No,” Beomgyu groans. “Had a rough night.”

“You’re not the one who’s dick got bitten,” Soobin says.

“Yeah, the fire part wasn’t great for me, though.”

Kai had almost forgotten about the fire part of the night. The part when Beomgyu had slipped out of the living room, past Soobin distracted with the dishes and Kai teaching Pumpkin to roll over, and went to set the mood in the bedroom. Lighting a dozen scented candles was apparently too much for his eight luck points. Soobin had put his watershaping spell to excellent use.

“It’s just a curtain, love,” Soobin says. “We’ll get new ones. Nicer ones.”

“Scary,” Beomgyu mumbles. “So many weird things happening lately.”

Soobin shoots Kai a pitiful look.

I can finish the potion today, if everything goes well with hyung, Kai pings him. It’ll be over before we know it.

 

---

 

Yeonjun lives in a trendy two-bedroom in Sinsa-dong, and it would be too big of a space for one person if he didn’t need a spare room for his divining practice. He always says the future doesn’t come to him if his environment isn’t just right, which apparently means a spotless room full of low-slung, minimalist furniture, Rothko-esque prints on the walls, and a collection of tiny bonsai trees. It makes for an interesting contrast with the rest of his cluttered bachelor pad.

“You’re early,” he observes, swinging the door open. “Had a good flight?”

Before any of them can greet him, Pumpkin races past him into the apartment, yanking the leash out of Kai’s hand.

 “Oh! You brought her? Pumpkin, right?”

“She’s not good enough with her bladder for us to leave her at home yet,” Beomgyu says apologetically, as Yeonjun opens the door wider to let them all file in. “It’s okay, right? I should have had one of them ask you.”

Pumpkin is already making herself at home in the pile of throw pillows on Yeonjun’s couch.

“As long as she doesn’t piss anywhere,” Yeonjun says, playing with the sleeves of his long, flowing tunic. He dresses all floaty whenever he has a truth telling session, and Kai always thinks it makes him look like royalty. “She’s a dear, isn’t she? I thought you wanted a big dog, Soobin-ah.”

“You know I never get what I want with them,” Soobin says, reaching out an arm to wrap it around Yeonjun in a quick hug. “Thanks for this, by the way.”

“Whatever I can do for you,” Yeonjun says, waving his hand loftily through the air. “Happy to help with the…dilemma.”

“Dilemma?”

Beomgyu is over on the couch by Pumpkin now, but he’s paying a bit too much attention.

“It’s nothing,” Kai blurts out, halfway through untying his sneakers. “I just… um, I had a few bad dreams about the future. Wanted Yeonjun-hyung to help convince me that they’re just dreams.”

“I never have bad dreams,” Beomgyu says. “Wonder what it’s like?”

“Count yourself lucky, princess,” Soobin says. “Should we get started? Beomgyu’s got a busy day today.”

“And so do I,” Yeonjun says. “A full day of bookings. Business is booming.”

“Well, I’m just glad you could squeeze us in,” Kai says, and Yeonjun waves his hand again.

“If I’m being honest, Taehyunnie laid on the guilt pretty hard,” he says confessionally. “This is fucking early for me. I might not do my best work.”

“Can I light the incense?” Beomgyu asks eagerly, leaping to his feet, and Yeonjun nods. “Let’s go, let’s get started. I wanna hear about my future.”

They head into Yeonjun’s divining room, where he’s laid out four cushions around a low table in the center of the room. Soobin hovers anxiously as Beomgyu lights the incense sitting in an elegant bamboo holder in the center of the table, his watershaping spell at the ready to put out any unwanted fires, and Yeonjun floats around the room to collect various items from the small shelves holding his bonsais.

“Does Pumpkin need her own cushion?” he asks, so seriously that it makes Kai giggle.

“No, hyung. She can sit on me. But that’s very thoughtful,” Beomgyu says, just as seriously.

“Could you read Pumpkin’s future?”

“I can try, Kai-ya,” Yeonjun says, giving Pumpkin a once-over as Beomgyu herds her into the room. “Never tried on a dog before.”

“She can’t pick a card, though,” Soobin points out, and Beomgyu elbows him as they settle down on their cushions.

“Don’t be a downer.”

“We’ll try it when we’re done with you all. Who’s going first?”

They usually let Beomgyu go first, but Kai’s too anxious today.

“Me?” he says hopefully, before Beomgyu can ask.

“Scoot up to the table,” Yeonjun says. “Hands?”

True divination abilities are exceedingly rare. They’re so rare that Soobin tells Kai that when he met Yeonjun in university, he assumed Yeonjun was joking when he said he was there to study truth telling. When Kai met him years later as Soobin’s plus-one at one of Yeonjun’s Halloween parties, he spent the whole night following Yeonjun around and asking him nagging questions about what it feels like to have the gift. Soobin tried to get him to stop, but Yeonjun didn’t mind; he asked Kai almost as many questions about his healing practice. The problem with being a powerful truth teller is that it doesn’t leave much room in your brain for other kinds of magic, and Yeonjun is fairly hopeless at almost everything else.

It always makes Kai shiver to have his fortune told. He feels it now, a shot of frission up his spine as Yeonjun takes both of Kai’s hands in his and laces their fingers together.

“Clear your mind,” Yeonjun murmurs, letting his head fall to his chest, and Kai tries his best to think of absolutely nothing. It’s a bit hard to do with Pumpkin panting somewhere to his right, and he closes his eyes to try to block out at least one source of sensory distraction. “Is it clear?”

“Um, clear as it’ll get,” Kai says. He hears Beomgyu stifle a laugh.

“Soobin-ah, pass me those cards,” Yeonjun says. “Put them between our hands?”

There’s a shuffling sound, and a light sensation on the back of Kai’s hand.

“Sorry,” Soobin mutters. “Card jumped off.”

“Pull that one out, then,” Yeonjun says calmly. “It wants to be there.”

They sit in near silence for another minute, Yeonjun gripping tightly onto Kai’s hands and doing something in his brain. Kai can feel him in there, bumping around. It’s like he’s scratching at Kai’s brain cells.

“Okay,” he says suddenly. “Cards. Pick another one.”

Kai wriggles his fingers free of Yeonjun’s grasp and opens his eyes. The large deck of antique tarot cards is resting between his fingers, and he pulls a card out of the middle of the stack.

“Left hand,” Yeonjun says, and Kai obeys. “And that other card, put it in my right hand?” Kai does that too.

“I wonder why that card fell off,” Beomgyu stage-whispers to Soobin.

“Because I crashed the deck into Kai’s hand. Duh.”

“Shut up,” Yeonjun snaps, and they both shut up. “Kai, tell me. Blue flame or gold sky?”

Kai knows the drill by now. He’s supposed to say the one that sticks to him.

“Gold sky.”

“Dancing swan or flying lion?”

“Uh, dancing swan.”

“Angel or devil?”

Kai casts a glance at Pumpkin’s beady little eyes. “Devil.”

Yeonjun lifts his head and flips the cards around in his hands. The Empress and Temperance, reversed.

“Hm,” he says. “Okay. Could you spill the tea?”

Kai reaches for the little teacup that Yeonjun had placed on the table. He pours a drop of it out onto the wooden tabletop, and they all watch the bead of liquid tremble in place. 

None of the three of them have any idea how any of Yeonjun’s divining tools work. He says it’s impossible to explain, even to other magic folk, and they’ve never questioned him.

Yeonjun lays the cards carefully on the table and wipes up the spilled tea with a handkerchief.

“You only want the good truths, right?”

“This time,” Kai says. He can usually stomach the bad news, too, but all they need today is luck.

Yeonjun sighs and smiles ruefully. He points at the Empress.

“This one, with what I felt in your hand and head, is a very good sign,” he says. “Growth. Fertility.”

“Um, we’ve got three dicks between us,” Soobin butts in. “No uteruses.”

Yeonjun glares at him. “Could you please,” he says, and Soobin looks at his hands. “It doesn’t mean conception, although it might have, if the tea had been different. No, this is about emotional fertility. Love growing.”

“Could you get a bit more specific?” Kai asks nervously. He has a feeling that’s not quite good enough to draw luck out of for the potion.

“Soobinnie’s gonna propose to you,” Yeonjun says bluntly.

“Yeonjun!” Soobin says in a rush. “Goddamnit. I can’t believe you just did that.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” Yeonjun says to him. “Really? You didn’t let me help pick out the ring?”

“Hadn’t bought it yet,” Soobin mumbles.

“What about me?” Beomgyu says eagerly. “Is he gonna propose to me?”

“I didn’t read your story yet. I can’t say.”

“Yeah, you too,” Soobin says, sighing. “Was gonna get a ring box with two rings and ask you both at once.”

“Is there more?” Kai interrupts, right as Beomgyu starts to exclaim something.

He has a feeling that Beomgyu is giving him a strange look, one arm flung around Soobin’s neck, mid-jubilation. The Kai of two days ago would be turning bright red at this news, hiding in his hands and giggling and positively bouncing about it, just like Beomgyu is on the verge of doing. But the Kai of today can only think of what Taehyun had said next to that cauldron: Give up a few good things. You could stomach that, right?

He doesn’t want to give that up.

“Of course there’s more.” Yeonjun points at the Temperance card, positioned upside-down. “Most of what this is telling me isn’t great. But the lack of balance it indicates is actually a good thing, especially with your devil choice and the path of your tea droplet. You’re gonna get a big promotion, and it’ll positively ruin your work-life balance. Beomgyu’s going to hate you for at least a month, and then everything will settle down, and he’ll love you for buying him a new guitar with your bonus.”

“Oh, Kai-ya,” Beomgyu gushes. “Chair of potionwork, right? That’s the one you wanted?”

“Right,” Kai says faintly. He barely feels Beomgyu kissing his cheek, sloppy and wet. He’s been right on the edge of that promotion for over a year now, working his ass off at the hospital to prove that his young age doesn’t mean he’s not worthy of such a big position. He doesn’t want to give that up, either.

“Is that enough? I could pick out a few smaller things. You’re going to get a really good haircut next month. Oh, and the next time you and Soobin have sex, it’s going to be mind-blowing.”

“It’s always mind-blowing,” Soobin mutters.

“Yeah, that’s enough,” Kai says. He’s half in a daze. Which one does he give up? Will he get to choose? Luck is a fickle thing, not meant to be messed with. He doesn’t know if the universe will like him toying with it. Maybe he’ll lose all of it, and none of it will come true. Not even the haircut.

“So who’s next? Soobin-ah? Get both of you wizards over and done with? Beomgyu’s brain is so much easier to pick apart.”

“Thanks for that,” Beomgyu sulks. “I’m smart too.”

“Didn’t say you aren’t. Your brain’s just so neatly organized, and these two are rats’ nests up there.”

Kai struggles to pay attention to Soobin’s reading. Beomgyu is positively buzzing with excitement next to him, squeezing Kai’s hand and whispering we’re gonna get married, Kai-ya, and he doesn’t know what to do with his mouth. He can’t smile when he knows it won’t come true — at least not the way Soobin had planned that it would. But he can’t make Beomgyu worry about him, either, wondering why he’s so tense when such happy news was just revealed. He settles on a kind of dazed expression, as if he’s just too overwhelmed to talk about it, and that seems to do the trick.

“It’ll get published next year,” Yeonjun is saying. “And it’ll be a massive success. I mean, as much as an academic tome on stoneshaping can be a massive success.”

“Anything about us?” Beomgyu asks. “Me and Kai?”

“Well, the wedding is going to be beautiful,” Yeonjun says, and smiles. It’s a paper-thin smile, his normally plush lips pressed tightly together. He knows the knife that that must put through Soobin’s heart.

“Oh my god, I’m about to melt,” Beomgyu coos. “Pumpkin, you’re gonna have three daddies.”

“What, she doesn’t already?”

“She’s a bastard. Her fathers are unmarried.”

“Do Beomgyu,” Soobin says, much quieter than his regular speaking voice. “Clock’s ticking.”

Beomgyu eagerly scoots his cushion forward.

“I wanna hear how good I’ll look at the wedding,” he says, handing Pumpkin over to Kai.

But something strange happens.

“Honestly, Beomgyu-ya. This has never happened to me before,” Yeonjun says, furrowing his brow. He squeezes Beomgyu’s fingers tighter between his own.

“Could he try the questions? Or the tea?” Soobin suggests.

“I can’t think of the questions. I’m trying, and I’m drawing a blank. And every time I try to enter his brain, I’m hitting a locked gate.”

“Lemme do the tea and the cards,” Beomgyu says, slightly desperately, but Yeonjun shakes his head.

“They won’t give me enough information on their own,” he says apologetically, letting go of Beomgyu’s hands. “Everything is fuzzy behind my eyes, like I can’t see. And I can’t find your truth if I can’t see. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

“’S okay,” Beomgyu says, although he looks totally crestfallen.

“Maybe Yeonjun used up his magical energy,” Soobin suggests.

“Maybe,” Yeonjun says, although the three wizards in the room all know that’s bullshit. They know exactly why Yeonjun can’t read Beomgyu’s future, and it’s because it’s far too uncertain. “That might be it. You can go first next time, okay?”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Beomgyu sighs. “At least I heard all about my wedding from the two of them. And we know I’m gonna look pretty. I don’t need you to read that in my future.”

Yeonjun smiles and reaches across the table to stroke Beomgyu’s cheek.

“Not at all,” he says. “You’ll be gorgeous, Beommie. Like always.”

Soobin suddenly stands.

“Something wrong?” Beomgyu asks, looking up at him.

“Bathroom,” he says, fleeing the room.

Beomgyu looks sadly back down, catching a glimpse of the dog on Kai’s lap.

“I guess that means no reading for Pumpkin, right?”

“No reading for Pumpkin,” Yeonjun says, standing too.

“Oh, you were supposed to have a full day of clients. Will you have to cancel?”

“His magic will recharge soon,” Kai lies. “Let’s go get our shoes on, hyung.”

Soobin’s eyes are puffy when he emerges from the bathroom a few minutes later.

“Stomach felt weird,” he says in Beomgyu’s direction, looking at Kai with pleading eyes. Kai wants to rush to him and fling his arms around his neck, but that’s not what Soobin wants. Instead, Kai blinks at him, willing his swelling away, and in a moment Soobin looks mostly normal.

“So,” he says, clearing his throat. “Ready to go?”

“Let’s get Pumpkin home, and I have to call my mother,” Beomgyu says eagerly. “I need to tell her the news.”

“It’s not news until he actually proposes,” Yeonjun says lightly, leaning against the now-closed door to his divining room. “Hold off, Beomgyu-ya.”

Thank you, Kai pings to Yeonjun. Thank you so, so much.

Tell me how it goes, Yeonjun pings back. And it’ll be okay. Good things are still in your future, even if it’s not these good things.

 

---

 

There’s no way to stop Beomgyu from calling his mother when they get home, a bit later than they should have due to Beomgyu almost falling off the carpet when Soobin made a too-short stop. At least it leaves the other two with a good opportunity to sneak off alone to the workroom.

“It’ll still happen,” Soobin says the moment the door closes. “Just not that way. But it’ll still happen.”

“I guess it’s okay if it doesn’t,” Kai says, trying to sound strong as he peers into his cauldron. The potion has cooled off overnight, reaching the exact right shade of sky blue. It’s ready for the luck to get mixed in.

“Kai-ya.” Soobin claps a hand onto his shoulder and squeezes. “You know it’s the three of us forever, even if it’s not us married. You know that, right? Or maybe we will get married. Maybe Beomgyu will propose.”

“Not now that he’s expecting it from you,” Kai says.

“Or you. You might propose.”

Kai frowns. He’d never thought of that.

Soobin gives Kai a weak smile, just barely wide enough for his dimples to pop into his cheeks. He’s putting on a very convincing brave face, but Kai knows him too well to fall for it.

“Look, let’s get started. Maybe it won’t even work, and we’ll still have those futures.”

“That’s not a good thing. If it doesn’t work, we’ll have even bigger problems on our hands.”

Soobin frowns.

Kai shrugs off Soobin’s hand. “Could you make me a net? A finer one than we used at the vet, please. It has to catch a mist.”

Soobin looks like he wants to say something more, but instead he just pulls a long spoon out of the rack hanging next to the door. He squints at it, and a moment later he’s holding a net made of gold mesh.

“Lovely,” Kai says admiringly, but his hand wobbles as he reaches for it.

“Let’s give it a try,” Soobin says. “No need to dawdle. It’ll only make it harder.”

Kai doesn’t know if it’s possible to be harder. They’re willingly giving up some of the best things in their future — some of the luckiest things in their future. And to do it, they’ll be losing a chunk of the luck that makes them such powerful wizards. The only thing that makes it possible to stomach is that little sentence Taehyun had planted in his brain.

Isn’t trying enough of a reason?

“Okay,” Kai says. “Let’s do this.”

He grips the net with both hands and focuses on Soobin’s pretty black eyes, ringed with delicate lashes.

“I’ll do it the way I do with love potions. You ready?”

“Ready,” Soobin says, staring back.

“Tell me the story of the luck you want to give me.”

Soobin takes a deep breath and starts to talk.

“I’ve been trying to get another book published for a whole year, but my editor keeps turning it down,” he says. “He says stoneshaping is too niche.”

“And where does the luck come in?”

“The editor is going to retire early to move to the Caribbean with his younger lover, and the publishing house is going to replace him with someone who loves stoneshaping.”

Kai stares into his eyes, imagining that his own eyes are magnetic. He pictures himself drawing the luck right out of his story in a mist, sucking all the goodness out of it with his magnetic power.

“That’s lucky,” he says.

“Very. And not only that, but there’s going to be a movie out about a stoneshaper in ancient Egypt, and everyone’s going to be clamoring to read my book.”

“Good timing. That’s even luckier.”

Kai clenches his fists as he concentrates. Come out, come out. Maybe luck is too different from love.

But then he sees it: a fine silvery mist escaping from Soobin’s chest, slipping out where his shirt ends at his collarbones. It’s faint at first, thin and weak, but as Kai concentrates even more, narrowing his eyes and boring into Soobin’s pupils, the silvery substance gets more and more opaque.

He can tell Soobin is surprised, his eyes flaring, but he settles back down immediately. They’re not done yet.

“Is there any other luck you want to give me?”

“Yes,” Soobin says. “I was going to propose to both my boyfriends next year.”

“And how is that lucky?”

Soobin shifts on his stool.

“They’re unbelievable, and they both want me,” he says quietly. “They both were going to say yes. I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

The mist pours out of him, so thick that it almost obscures Kai’s vision, making it impossible to focus on Soobin’s eyes any longer. He wants to cry.

“Is that enough?” Soobin’s voice says from the other side of the fog.

Kai needs to get his shit together. He shakes his head, clearing his thoughts, and tightens his grip on the net.

“Duck,” he says, and starts swinging the net after the tendrils of mist. He has to gather up Soobin’s luck before it can dissipate into the air, and the net is fine enough to trap the shiny particles. Soobin ducks his head to avoid the trajectory of the net, and Kai swings it with a fervor, trying to collect every last wisp of luck floating through the air. None of Soobin’s sacrifice can go to waste.

When he’s done, he tips the net upside-down over the cauldron, and silver flows out of it like water.

“Stir counterclockwise?” he asks, and Soobin grabs a long stirring rod from the rack. As he stirs it, the potion grows lighter and shinier, the surface taking on a shimmery sheen.

“Looks good,” Soobin says. “Is that enough?”

Kai lowers the empty net and leans over the cauldron, giving the vapors coming off the surface a sniff.

“Not quite,” he says. He thinks it should be sweeter. A finished love potion should make his mouth water, and maybe this one is the same. “We need mine too.”

Soobin exhales, his chest caving in.

“Kai-ya, I don’t know if I can do it. I’m not good at these kinds of spells.”

“You have to,” Kai says. “You’re not doing it alone, you’re doing it with me. And if I try hard enough to give you my luck, it’ll make it easier for you to pull it out. I think I know how it works now.”

Soobin pulls the rod out of the cauldron and carefully props it up next to it. He reaches out for the net.

“Okay,” he says. “Remind me how the spell intention works?”

Kai sends him a ping of the feeling Soobin needs to perfect, that magnetic focus and pull. It’s all about the intention with this kind of mind magic, and letting Soobin feel it for himself will work better than just telling him. Soobin closes his eyes for a moment, letting Kai’s feeling fill his body, and when he opens his eyes again, his expression is stern and determined.

“Let’s go,” he says. “What did you say to start it?”

“Tell me the story of the luck you want to give me.”

Soobin reaches for Kai’s hand with his free one, and Kai lets him take it.

“Tell me the story of the luck you want to give me, Kai-ya,” Soobin says.

Kai stares into Soobin’s dark eyes.

“My promotion. I’ve been qualified for a big promotion at the hospital for ages, but they keep refusing to give it to me because I’m too young. They said it wouldn’t look good if the older wizards have to report to a twenty-something. They said they won’t give it to me until I’m thirty-five.”

“And where’s the luck?”

Kai breathes out, hard, and imagines all his good feelings, all his surprise and excitement flowing out of him. “I’m going to get it,” he says. “Something’s going to happen, and they’re going to give me the promotion soon. Ten years early.”

Soobin is concentrating so hard he looks constipated.

“Lucky,” he says.

“So lucky,” Kai echoes, trying and trying. He pictures his chest opening and everything pouring out of him, his frustration and his anger, all overturned by a stroke of good luck.

Something gold flashes into his peripheral vision, and Soobin yelps, his eyes flitting to Kai’s chest.

“No! Stay focused,” Kai says, squeezing Soobin’s hand. “Stay focused, or it’ll stop.”

Soobin nods. He blinks rapidly and then widens his eyes, locking them back on Kai’s.

“There’s another thing. Another lucky thing ahead of you. Right?”

Kai nods without breaking their gaze.

“My boyfriend’s gonna ask me to marry him. Soobin-hyung.”

Soobin’s fingers relax a little bit around his own, stretching out and gripping on again.

“Why is that lucky?”

“Because I’ve been in love with him for ages,” Kai says. “Since I was nineteen, and I thought he would never love me back. I was too young and annoying. And then he did, and now I’ll get to have him forever.”

“Kai-ya…”

Kai can feel Soobin’s focus slipping. The gold mist is glowing around the edges of his vision, making the whole closet brighter.

“Keep going,” he urges. “Ask more.”

“Why—why else is it lucky?”

“Because I have another boyfriend, and Soobin-hyung loves him as much as I do. He’s going to ask him too, and I’ll never have to pick between them. I’ll get to have them both.”

There’s so much gold in the air that Kai can almost feel it coating his skin. He’s grateful for the way it hides him, because it means that Soobin can’t see him duck his head, composing himself. They’re doing this for Beomgyu. It’s not something to cry over. It’s going to save him.

He’ll earn his promotion eventually, somehow. And Soobin will publish some other book, some other time. And they’ll be together forever no matter what. Soobin’s proposal plan getting ruined doesn’t change that.

“Catch it, hyung,” Kai urges, his throat thick and scratchy.

It’s Kai’s turn to duck. Soobin chases after the gold mist, shoehorning all of it into the net, and Kai narrowly avoids getting swiped in the face. When Soobin overturns the net into the cauldron, the surface turns an almost opalescent hue, barely tinged with blue.

“Looks good,” Kai says, taking up the stirring rod. “It looks really, really good.” He gives it a whiff, and it smells so sweet he almost reels away from the impact of it on his nostrils.

“You think? Is it anything like a love potion?”

“It’s lighter. Love potions are usually pink, not blue. And it’s thicker, too.” Kai lifts the stirring rod and lets a stream of the potion drip off the end of it. “But that makes sense that it’s thicker. It’s closer to a protection potion than a love one, and those tend to be pretty sturdy.”

“Is it ready? I have an idea about the object to transform into the shield, and I can go get it today if the potion is ready to fill it up.”

Kai shakes his head. “It needs time to cure. About…” He swipes a finger across the potion’s surface and feels its texture. It’s a bit too oily. “Twenty-three hours, I’d say.”

Soobin cocks his head, thinking.

“That should be okay. What time are we going to the ceremony?”

It hadn’t been too much trouble for Beomgyu to get an extra plus-one. His band’s fandom is fairly fascinated with Beomgyu’s two wizard boyfriends, and the Silver Key organizing committee was thrilled by the prospect of thousands of fans tuning in to watch both of them walk him down the red carpet.

“Not until noon. You’ll have to work fast to be done in time.”

“No worries,” Soobin says. “I’ve got all the spells picked out already. I’m gonna imbue the necklace with potion, plus add anti-destruction charms, plus give it a button that Beomgyu can push to summon one of us instantly. A few other features, too.”

“He already has that for me,” Kai says. “It’s called texting.”

“Why do you have to rub that in my face? I’m already jealous enough I don’t get the dick pics.”

He watches Kai give the potion another stir.

“So which of us is tagging along to the office with him today?” he asks. “Because there’s no chance we’re letting him go alone. That place is a minefield of problems. If he goes alone, the next thing we know, he’ll have caused some calamity that gets him booted from the label.”

“I’ll do it,” Kai says. “You worry about getting everything ready to make the shield. I’ll Beomgyu-sit, you Pumpkin-sit.”

 

---

 

Kai goes to Beomgyu’s management company every now and then, usually just to pick him up for a date or to attend a casual event. It’s not often that he tags along for a regular workday. But it’s an easy sell, when he asks Beomgyu if he can come with him that day. They’re all so busy with their own careers, they don’t get nearly enough opportunities to participate in each other’s. Well, Kai and Soobin don’t really want Beomgyu trying to participate in their careers, but that’s a different story.

“I just want to watch you prep for the big day tomorrow,” Kai says. “And it’s been so long since I’ve gotten to see you at work.”

“It’s like Take Your Child to Work Day, but for boyfriends,” Soobin helpfully suggests.

“Cute,” Beomgyu says, hiding a smile. “Yeah, okay. I’m always happy to show you off, Kai-ya. Wanna bike?”

“No!” It’s too assertive, and Beomgyu looks taken aback. “I just mean, um, I’m still not feeling completely well after yesterday. A bit too achy to bike.”

Beomgyu shrugs, bending down to grab his shoes and narrowly missing slamming his head into the wall. Kai swears he saw the wall move, swaying away from Beomgyu’s head as Beomgyu bent over, and when he shoots a look at Soobin, Soobin gives his head a little shake. Don’t let him notice.

“Carpet’s okay, then,” Beomgyu says. “Is Pumpkin gonna be all right with you, hyung?”

“She’s coming shopping with me.” Soobin casts a glance at Pumpkin, happily snoring in a little ball in the fuzzy bed that Beomgyu bought for her, surrounded by shredded-up toys. “She better behave at the jeweler’s.”

“Jewelry? Is this part of the thing you’re making for me?”

“Maybe,” Soobin says. “Maybe not.”

Beomgyu straightens up again, both shoes on. “You both spoil me,” he beams. “I’m so lucky.”

The inaccuracy of that statement sinks in again the moment they land the carpet on the curb outside Beomgyu’s management company, after Kai manages to successfully steer them there with no incident. The street seems suspiciously busy, and Kai has barely locked the carpet onto the rack out front when a swarm of paparazzi and tabloid journalists start surging toward them.

“Choi Beomgyu! Is there any truth to the rumor that you cancelled your tech rehearsal because of a feud with Mnet?”

“What? Rumor that I—what?”

“Beomgyu, here! Online betting sites have your chance of winning the Best Artist award at only one-to-twenty, down from—”

“Beomgyu, did your boyfriend Huening Kai recently break up with you because of—”

Where the fuck is security? Kai thinks in a panic. Beomgyu is frozen under the camera flashes, clinging onto Kai’s arm — the building’s security guards normally keep this kind of media far from the building entrance, and Kai can’t remember the last time Beomgyu got blitzed by the paps like this.

Kai starts yanking him through the throng. He needs to protect him somehow, and all he can think to do is drown it out, so Beomgyu doesn’t get quite so overwhelmed. He snaps his fingers and suddenly the world is totally silent, the hollering voices turned into gasping mouths.

“Come,” he says, the only voice that can speak. At least for the next thirty seconds, that is.

He grabs Beomgyu like a security guard would, around his shoulders, and pushes him towards the building. Luckily, the sudden loss of their voices seems to have distracted the crowd too much for them to keep surging at him, and the two of them make it into the building a few seconds later, rattled but unhurt.

Kai snaps again.

“Holy fuck,” Beomgyu pants, his voice croaky. He stumbles over his feet as he gets his bearings, and Kai helps right him again. “What happened to the guards?”

“Must have gone on a smoke break,” Kai mutters, trying to temper his rage. Normally, he’d be furious about the company being negligent with Beomgyu’s safety, but he knows this isn’t really the guards’ fault. Beomgyu’s bad luck is superseding the regular order of things.

“Total bullshit,” Beomgyu says, grabbing Kai’s hand and walking him through the lobby. He reaches into his pocket to grab his ID card, running it through the scanner at the front desk. “I’m just glad it was me that got swarmed and not one of the kids, you know? I can handle worse, but the trainees would get so rattled.”

Kai shakes his head to himself, and Beomgyu notices.

“What?” Beomgyu picks up the pen to sign his guest in, smiling at him.

“Nothing. You’re…”

“Adorable?”

“Yeah,” Kai says. “Too thoughtful.”

Beomgyu shrugs, looking down at the sign-in sheet, and suddenly squeals. The pen had burst all over his hand.

“Such a weird day,” he says, after Kai siphons most of the ink back into the pen with a poor approximation of Soobin’s watershaping spell. “It’s like the universe hates me.”

Kai’s laugh sounds too hollow. He hopes Beomgyu didn’t notice.

They make it up to Beomgyu’s practice studio without incident, although the elevator does lurch strangely just before it stops on the seventh floor. Kai yelps at the feeling, flinging his hands up as if he were about to fight the elevator, and Beomgyu laughs at him all the way down the hallway.

Beomgyu’s band Night! At the Cafe has four other members, and they’re thrilled to see Kai. Like Beomgyu, they’re all former idols who left their groups at the end of their seven-year contracts to pursue a different venture. Kai only knew Beomgyu during the tail end of his idol days, but he thinks being a rock star fits him much better. He still gets to tear up the stage, dancing and singing and performing, but he also gets to play his guitar and, together with the other guys, write all their own music. It’s perfect for him. And his popularity skyrocketed once he and the guys formed the band; Beomgyu gets much more press for being a pretty-boy rock star than he did for being a pretty-boy idol.

“When did we last see you and Soobinnie, the holiday party?” Dojun says, stretching his shoulders as Kai settles down next to the mirror. They only do actual choreography for a few of their title tracks, but somehow Beomgyu says his body aches way more after a vigorous performance on lead guitar than it did after any of his fully choreographed shows as an idol. Maybe it’s all the headbanging.

“Too long ago,” Sungho cuts in. “You two need to come to the afterparty tomorrow and catch up. I bet you’ve got good wizard stories, right? Bring anyone back from the dead lately?”

“You can’t bring people back from the dead, Sungho-hyung,” Beomgyu says, dropping his bag next to Kai. “We’re gonna go through the three-song set a few times, and then I’ll take you to the studio, okay, babe? I’ll play you what we’ve got for the next mini album.”

“Play him In My Element, that’s the best one. You’ve got a great bridge in that one.”

“That’s the first nice thing Sungho’s said about anything I’ve written all year,” Beomgyu deadpans, and Kai giggles.

“Do I need to make them all be nicer to you?” he says, and Sungho flings his hands up in mock terror.

“That’s less funny when both of your boyfriends are a head taller than me and magical, Beomgyu-ya,” Sungho says.

“Sometimes I wonder if they only like me because they’re afraid of you two,” Beomgyu says, smiling at Kai. “Okay, this’ll take an hour-ish. Go get a snack from the machine in the hall if you get bored.”

Kai stays rooted to the spot as staff members filter in, helping the band rearrange amps and drums and gear into the exact formation of their stage set the next day. He makes terse conversation with a few vaguely familiar faces, always keeping half an eye fixed on Beomgyu, using magic to clear extension cords and amps out of Beomgyu's way as he bumbles around the room and cushioning his fall with a slowing charm the one time he successfully manages to trip himself on his bandmate’s foot.

It’s the first time Kai is really using his magic since making the luck potion, and as he casts spell after spell, he notices his brain starts feeling…sore, like it’s been overused. It’s not that he can’t do all his normal spells, but they’re exhausting. He’s got less magic to draw on, and it’s making it harder to stretch it out. But it could have been much worse: he’s still a wizard. He’s just a wizard who tires easily.

When the rehearsal kicks off for real, Kai can sense the electrical short coming through the wiring before it happens; Soobin would be far better at tamping down the surge, but Kai manages to tame it enough that it only makes the lights on their amps flicker. Beomgyu pulls his fingertips off his guitar for a second, as if he’d been briefly shocked, but he’s playing again before anyone notices, and Kai breathes easier. He has a headache for a while after that, and he can’t even cure it; it would just tire his brain out even more to use more magic to cure his magic-induced headache.

Luckily, he has an excellent distraction from the dull ache: Beomgyu. Kai almost forgets why he’s there a few times, watching the band work through their set again and again. It’s too easy to be entranced by Beomgyu, to get absorbed in his passion as he screams into his mic and dances madly around the stage with Dojun during the second song’s drum solo. The last song in the set is one that Beomgyu wrote entirely himself; Kai remembers Beomgyu taking over his workroom to tinker with the guitar solo over and over and over in relative privacy, and he smiles uncontrollably as he watches him practice that solo for tomorrow’s big stage. Beomgyu was already famous when Kai started dating him, but that hasn’t made Kai any less proud of all his successes.

“Looking intense today, Kai-ya,” Donghyun tells him during the break between their second and third runs through the set. “You’ve been staring at your man like you’re trying to see through him.”

Kai shrugs. “Just absorbed in the show,” he says. “How’s your mother?”

“Oh, good. She wants to have the whole band over for Chuseok again this year. You and Soobin-hyung are invited for sure, she’s still raving about how you fixed her sewing machine…”

Kai keeps an eye on Beomgyu out of the corner of his eye as the drummer keeps speaking. He’s talking to one of their managers, and it doesn’t seem to be going well. The other man’s brows are furrowed as he glares at Beomgyu, who’s gesticulating a bit too wildly.

“Sorry, Donghyun-hyung,” he says. “I’m gonna go—”

Right as he’s about to stand up, Beomgyu turns and walks away from the manager, an annoyed expression on his face.

“One more set?” he calls out, already lifting the strap of his guitar over his head. “Let’s get this shit done already.”

Kai doesn’t ask about it until they’re back in the elevator afterwards, heading up to Beomgyu’s private studio on the tenth floor.

“What was that about, with the manager?” Kai asks, leaning casually against the elevator wall.

He can feel Beomgyu’s temper flare.

“Nothing for you to worry about.”

“No, tell me, hyung,” Kai says.

“Really, nothing.”

“Tell Hueningie?” Kai’s been using his aegyo a lot less since he turned twenty-five, but that only makes it more effective.

Beomgyu sighs, poking Kai in his pouty cheek.

“Unfair,” he says. “It’s not a big deal, though. Just some drama about the next album. They want us to promo it at the award show, and I said we’re not ready yet. None of the songs are even done. The whole concept might still change. But the company doesn’t trust that our fans will wait for our comeback, even if it takes a while. ”

“They’re not good at letting you guys take the wheel,” Kai says, and Beomgyu nods.

“They treat us like trainees sometimes. But we’re patient. We’ll keep pressing for what we want until we get it. We’re their second-biggest group, after the new girl group.”

“Everyone loves girl groups,” Kai says.

“Especially Soobin-hyung. Did you know he knows all their dances already?”

The elevator doors open, and Beomgyu trips over the crack.

“Fuck! God damn, why am I so fucking—”

Kai kneels to help him up, but someone is already reaching for his arm.

“Choi Beomgyu-ssi?”

Kai looks up into the face of the company’s CEO. He doesn’t look happy.

Oh no, no no. Kai’s brain fumbles around for a fix. What could fix this?

“Sajangnim, I am so sorry,” Beomgyu stutters, trying to clamber to his feet. He accidentally scratches down the man’s front as he fumbles for purchase on his arm, almost pawing him right in the crotch. “Oh my god. I am so, so sorry.”

The man opens his mouth to speak, and in a panic, Kai thinks laugh, laugh. Laugh. This is hilarious.

“Beomgyu-ssi, are you always this clumsy?” the CEO says, and breaks into a titter far too childish for a sixty-something. “Goodness. Don’t do that on stage tomorrow. That wouldn’t be good for the company, would it?”

“I think it would be charming, actually,” Kai babbles, totally improvising. “Wouldn’t it be?”

“Indeed,” the CEO chuckles. “Wonderfully charming. Who are you, incidentally?”

“Um, this is my boyfriend, Huening Kai,” Beomgyu says, finally perched back on his feet. He awkwardly wipes off his knees, casting a strange look between the two. “You met him at last year’s holiday party.”

“Keep him on his feet, Huening-ssi,” the CEO says, clapping Kai on the shoulder. “He’s precious to us here.”

“To me too, sajangnim,” Kai says, bowing his head politely.

“Good luck tomorrow,” he says, breezing by them into the elevator. “And to the rest of the band. Pass it on.”

“Of course, sajangnim,” Beomgyu says, watching the elevator doors begin to close. “Have a good—”

The doors shut, and Beomgyu looks at Kai.

“That was you, wasn’t it?”

Kai squeezes his lips together.

“It was! It was you, fool!” Beomgyu laughs, poking him in both sides at once. “Did you make me trip, too?”

“No!” Kai giggles. “No, just the laughter, I swear…”

“You and your fucking charms,” Beomgyu smiles, giving him one last poke and kissing him on the nose. “What was that, a charming charm? A charm charm?”

“Just a case of the giggles,” Kai says, as Beomgyu pulls him down the hall towards his studio. “You should be thanking me. Such language, in front of your CEO…”

His headache is back, the price he has to pay now for righting Beomgyu’s wrongs.

“He called me precious,” Beomgyu says, still smiling. “The CEO, precious. If I don’t win tomorrow, at least I’m precious to the CEO.”

“And me. I said you were precious to me, too.”

“Yeah, but you don’t sign my paychecks.” Beomgyu unlocks his studio door, swinging it open.

Beomgyu’s studio is a small space, but he’s made it his own. Throw blankets drape over the arms of his squishy leather couch, and a trendy plant in a hanging pot cascades down to the windowsill. His desk is decorated with trinkets from his world tours, and one wall is taken up by a collection of traditional woodblock prints. The other is filled with Beomgyu’s own photos, polaroids and prints from his old-school film camera. Kai sees his own face too many times and looks away. Soobin and Beomgyu always tell him he could have been a model, but Kai isn’t so sure.

“That one’s my favorite,” Beomgyu says, pointing at a picture of Soobin kissing Kai on the cheek right next to his desk. “Look at your eyes. You’re smiling so hard you’re going blind.”

“Gross,” Kai says, tossing himself down on the couch. “So, what are you playing for me?”

“I’ll pull up that song Sungho was talking about.” Beomgyu turns the monitor of his computer on and types in his login. “Hey, what’d you think of the set?”

“It was awesome. Especially the part where you headbanged,” Kai says, scanning his eyes around the room. Nothing seems like it’s too dangerous in here. The plant could fall on Beomgyu’s head if he went over by the window, but Kai could fix a cracked skull in an instant. No big deal.

“That part’s not really planned,” Beomgyu says distractedly. “I just can’t help it. Hmm…let’s see. They’re always rearranging the shared drive, I can never remember where they save the latest files…”

He reaches for the water bottle perched on the shelf next to his desk, grabbing at it absent-mindedly. It spins off the shelf onto the desk, the lid popping open, and Kai reacts too late.

Beomgyu curses, grabbing for the bottle. Kai lunges for it too, trying to cast Soobin’s watershape spell, but it takes too long for his worn-out brain to wrap itself around it, and the bottle has already spilled all over the keyboard.

“It’s okay—it’s just the keyboard,” Beomgyu says, ripping a few tissues out of the box on his desk and starting to blot up the spill on the keys. “I’ll just turn it off and let it dry out, and—“

He freezes, and Kai seizes the moment to get a grasp on the watershape spell. He focuses on the water in the keyboard, managing to siphon most of it back out of the device and onto the desk.

“That might do it,” he says, relieved. “Not a disaster.”

“Fuck, fuck fuck,” Beomgyu says in a panic, grabbing the computer mouse. “Oh, fuck.”

“What?”

“The songs.” Beomgyu starts clicking madly, windows appearing and disappearing on the screen. “They’re…oh my god, Kai-ya, they’re gone.”

He lets go of the mouse and buries his hands in his hair, digging through his scalp.

“Kai, help,” he whimpers. Kai can hear his heart rate speeding up, and one of his hands flies to the back of his neck, stroking down the baby hairs there.

“I’m sure there’s a backup,” he says, although he isn’t. “Don’t worry, Beommie-hyung.”

“There—there isn’t. Well, there is, but that was the master copy, and I hadn’t backed up the changes I made on Thursday yet. The backup is old.”

“Could you just make the changes again?”

Beomgyu gives him a withering look. “No,” he says. “Obviously not. I don’t even remember what I did.”

Kai pulls Beomgyu’s head into his chest.

“I’m a wizard, love,” he says. “Everything’s fixable. Show me where the IT department is?”

It’s the whole reason he’s there: fixing all of Beomgyu’s disasters. A half-hour and several mind-pings to Soobin later, the files are restored, thanks to Soobin’s clever suggestion of hitting the physical server with a de-aging hex that restores it to the exact moment when the water was spilled. Bummer for anyone in the building who’d saved any work in that half-hour, but that’s not really Kai’s problem.

Instead, Kai’s problems are the broken nose that Beomgyu accidentally gives Dojun during their final costume fitting that afternoon, smacking him in the face as he pulls his shirt over his head. And the blueberry that Beomgyu almost chokes on, snacking while he listens to their marching orders for the next day’s event. And the words he overhears while Beomgyu is in the bathroom, just minutes before they leave to head home for the day.

He’s dawdling in the hallway, flipping his phone between his hands as he waits, barely taking notice of the man and the woman about to walk past him.

“…thinks the market might be changing,” the man says, his head ducked low to the woman. “And if it does, Night would be the first to go.”

Kai’s head shoots up. The man is wearing a sharp-fitting suit, and the woman is in a blazer and spiky stilettos — obviously executives.

“Changing? The teen market’s held steady for years, and they love Night. This is the first I’ve heard of that.”

“Yeah, it’s new as of yesterday,” the man says. “He said it’s a sudden whim he had, but that it might hold water. The members have been getting big heads lately. And if we dropped Night from the label, we’d free up more space on the roster for a new boy group. Idol groups are easier to promote.”

Kai makes himself invisible against the wall as the two pass, completely ignoring him. He’s just a nobody in jeans and a t-shirt. They’re not afraid of him overhearing even if they did notice him.

“Those boys better win big tomorrow, then,” the woman says. “Shame they don’t know their heads are on…”

Their voices fade as they walk further down the hall, and the bathroom door bursts open.

“The hand dryers are broken,” Beomgyu’s bright voice says, and two wet hands drag themselves down Kai’s shirt. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing,” Kai says quickly. “That guy had a nice tie.”

“Oh, I think he’s in artist management,” Beomgyu says. “Dunno. I never hang out with the suits. Ready to go? Can you ping hyung and ask if he made dinner? Because I’m fucking famished.”

Kai seethes the whole way home, barely listening to Beomgyu’s excited chatter about the day ahead of him. Beomgyu’s band has been nothing but a success. All of their recent releases charted high on Melon, and their last album hit the number two spot on Billboard. Beomgyu’s been offered a half-dozen high-visibility modeling partnerships, and him and his bandmates have been getting great press on the variety show circuit. There’s no logical reason for their label to be thinking of dropping them, absolutely none. And the worst thing is that Kai knows that the fact that it’s illogical is the whole point. It’s just unlucky. They’re getting unlucky.

“Do you really not want to talk about the proposal?” Beomgyu says in a hush as they roll up the carpet outside their apartment building. “Because I’m absolutely bursting at the—”

“Let’s let it be a surprise,” Kai interrupts. “Okay? I want it to be, like…storybook. I don’t wanna think about it too much ahead of time, or it won’t be a surprise.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to ruin your storybook surprise,” Beomgyu says, zipping his lips exaggeratedly. He pats Kai on the top of the head affectionately as they prop the carpet up in the elevator, leaning his cheek against his chest as the doors close, and Kai nuzzles his head into Beomgyu’s scalp. He’s exhausted, and he feels like all the magic he’s had to use today has fried his body from the inside out. When this is over, he’s going to have to learn how to economize his spell use in a way he never had to before making the luck potion.

“Something up?” Beomgyu asks, feeling his tension.

“Are you excited for tomorrow?” Kai says instead of answering.

“More excited for the afterparty than the ceremony,” Beomgyu says, tilting his head to peer up into Kai’s face. His eyes are crinkly at the corners, his dimples creasing around his nose. “That’s when I get to celebrate our victory with you and hyung. It’ll be the best part.”

Kai buries his face in his neck as he hugs him, gripping on so tight that Beomgyu has to pry him off when they reach their floor. The shield better work, and it better work fast. They need to fix this by the award ceremony, and not just so they can have a good afterparty. Beomgyu’s entire career is hanging in the balance. The bad luck is snowballing, just as Soobin said it would.

Soobin’s in the kitchen when they get home, heating up toppings for bibimbap, and when he sees Kai, he pats his breast pocket knowingly. Got it, he mouths. His trip to the jeweler must have been successful.

How’s your magic doing? Kai pings him. Even that feels like stretching a sore muscle.

Everything is taking twice as long, Soobin pings back. You?

Everything just hurts.

“How was my Pumpkin today?” Beomgyu coos as Kai scoops her up from the ground, where she’d been jumping all over his leg. “Still a bitey little terror?”

“No bites,” Soobin says. “And she’s a pro at sitting now. We practiced all afternoon, didn’t we, Pumpkin?”

Kai doesn’t tell Soobin about what he heard outside the bathroom, and he certainly doesn’t tell Beomgyu. If all goes well, it won’t matter, anyway. Nothing will happen to Beomgyu’s band.

He retreats to the workroom after dinner, letting Soobin hover around Beomgyu and deal with all of his minor disasters for the rest of the evening while he focuses on the potion. It’s coming along nicely; he’s left it barely-simmering over an enchanted flame all day, and the oily surface texture is reducing. But it won’t be ready until the morning, and if something went wrong, they’ll have no way of redoing it in time for the ceremony. All they can do is wing it.

Soobin shows him the necklace in the dark, after they’ve tucked Beomgyu into his normal spot between them in bed.

“It had to be something he’d never want to take off,” he says, handing Kai the little velvet box. “Tell me if I made a bad choice. I know fashion isn’t my strong suit.”

Kai lifts the lid, tilting the box so that the moonlight from the window illuminates it. It’s a triangular locket, made of silver, with something rough on the face of it that catches the light.

“I think I did a good enough job with the engraving,” Soobin says sheepishly as Kai twists it around to get a better look. “I mean, I’m solid at manipulating metal, but getting the font to look neat was tricky, especially now that I have to go extra slow. And there wasn’t enough time to get the jeweler to do it with his non-magic tools.”

Each corner of the locket has a letter engraved on it: S, B, K.

“Good? Think he’ll want to wear it?”

“Of course he’ll want to wear it,” Kai whispers. “Hyung…”

“Oh, baby. Don’t get emotional,” Soobin says, reaching for the box. “Save it for after we pull it off, okay? Tomorrow morning, I’ll hit the locket with all my spells and fill it up with potion, and we’ll put it on him and watch his luck change. Then you can get as choked up as you want.”

“Won’t it leak?”

“I’ll seal it, Kai-ya.”

“But it’s a locket. It’s supposed to open. You can’t give someone a locket that doesn’t open.”

Soobin sighs. “You’ll see,” he says. “I’ve got a whole plan. Don’t worry.”

 

---

 

Kai has such a good dream that night. He’s a baby bird in a very fuzzy nest, tucking his little bird face into the feathers of his bird siblings, and his mother bird drops a worm right onto his beak. It’s wet, but in a good way. Kind of like a warm puppy tongue.

“Guys, guys, fuck, fuck,” he hears from outside the nest. “Wake up, now, now!”

He doesn’t want to wake up. It’s so cozy in this nest, buried in the fuzzy fur of the other birds.

“Kai-ya, Jesus, get up,” Beomgyu nearly wails, shaking him. “It’s almost noon. I’m supposed to be there at noon!”

Kai opens his eyes. Pumpkin’s fur is all over his face, and she gives his nose another lick.

“Noon?” he hears Soobin mumble next to him. Their legs are still entangled, and Beomgyu is leaping all over both of them in a panic.

“Eleven-forty-five. None of the alarms went off. I swear I set five of them, I swear.” Beomgyu pounds on Kai’s back. “Get up, I’m gonna be so late…”

Kai rolls Pumpkin off his face and sits up in bed, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“What can I help with?” he yawns, stretching out his fingers. He squints at Beomgyu’s unkept hair, his fraught, wide-eyed face.

“Literally everything,” Beomgyu says. “We have to get on the carpet and go, now. I don’t have time to shower, can you clean me with magic? And Soobin-hyung, what did you say you needed to get done this morning? Because you need to do it, like, yesterday.”

Soobin sits bolt upright in bed, and Kai flings the blankets off of them so fast that he almost sends Pumpkin flying. The shield. They needed to make the shield this morning.

“Where the fuck are you going?” Beomgyu shrieks after them as they both spring from the bed and sprint from the bedroom into the hallway. “I said I needed—”

Kai flips the light on in the workroom, and the potion is still gently simmering.

“Did it overcook?” Soobin asks desperately.

Kai grabs a spoon and dips it into the potion, drawing out a spoonful and letting it fall back into the cauldron.

“I don’t think so,” he says. His voice cracks. He’s barely been awake for thirty seconds. “Hyung, just do it. How can I help?”

Beomgyu pounds on the closet door.

“One of you needs to help me,” he shouts, sounding nearly hysterical. “I can’t be late, I can’t, and without magic I won’t be ready for a fucking hour—”

“Kai-ya’s coming!” Soobin calls, giving Kai a panicked look. “Okay. I’m gonna stay here, take care of all this, and I’ll meet you there. We’ll get him the necklace before…before he goes on stage. We’ll make it happen.”

“How long will it take?” Kai grabs onto Soobin’s arm, seeking something stable and steady.

“I don’t know,” Soobin says, bringing his hand to Kai’s. “I’ll try to make it quick. But I’ve never made a luck shield before.”

The door starts to open.

“Go help him,” Soobin says, pushing Kai out the door. “Go, go. I’ll meet you there.”

It’s absolute mania. They have ten minutes to get ready and get halfway across the city, and even a magic carpet can’t fly that fast. Beomgyu’s final hair and makeup will be done by stylists at the venue, but he’s supposed to be fed and showered and dressed and in the stylist chair at noon sharp, and it’s eleven-fifty-one.

There’s no time for a real shower, or a real meal. Beomgyu strips down and Kai blasts him with soapy water from the sink, hitting him with a jet of hot air to dry him in seconds.

“I should patent this process,” Kai says, trying to make Beomgyu smile, but Beomgyu is beyond smiling.

“I can’t believe the alarms didn’t go off,” he moans, as Kai rips his pajamas off to give himself his own five-second shower. “Fuck, have you seen my razor?”

Kai can very much believe the alarms didn’t go off, but he can’t exactly say that. He waves a finger down Beomgyu’s face, imagining all the hairs melting off his chin and narrowly missing melting off his eyebrows, too.

“Thanks, babe,” Beomgyu says, relieved. “Lemme wolf something down, and we’re going.”

“You’re still naked,” Kai says.

“Damn. That’s an important one, isn’t it?”

Kai pictures a world in which Beomgyu’s bad luck led him to walk the red carpet naked. At least it’s not that bad yet.

Soobin and Kai both have stylish designer suits they’re supposed to wear, sent to them by one of the fashion houses that Beomgyu models for. But if Kai tried to put his on right then, he’d probably make an absolute mess of all the bells and whistles and rip a hole in it somewhere. Instead, he flings the dry-cleaning bag with his suit over by the door, next to the rolled-up carpet. He’ll have to find time to get dressed at the venue.

“Shoes, clothes, wallet, keys, phone,” a newly-dressed Beomgyu says thickly, yanking a shoe on with one hand and sticking a granola bar in his mouth with the other. “Can ‘oo think of anythin’ else?”

“I’ll magic it up if I do,” Kai says, grabbing a granola bar for his own pocket. He hears a shrill noise at his feet, and looks down to see Pumpkin pawing at him, eyes fixed on the granola bar.

“Fuck,” Beomgyu swears. “Fuck, Pumpkin.”

“You didn’t get a sitter or anything, did you?”

“A sitter? For a dog? Why would she need a sitter?”

“Well, can we leave her? Because if we can’t, she needs a sitter, hyung.”

“We can leave her if you’ll clean up all the piss that she’ll piss everywhere,” Beomgyu says, yanking his other shoe on. “Holy shit, we do not have time for this right now.”

Kai moans in frustration. There’s nothing else to do. He bends down and scoops Pumpkin up in his arms.

“She’s just gonna come with, then,” he says. “Toss me your backpack?”

Kai doesn’t bother to be subtle about his paranoia when they board the carpet. He casts an enormous shield charm around the whole thing, a translucent bubble that will repel anything about to impact them — birds, other flying carpets, meteors. He’s not taking any risks.

“Feels like overkill,” Beomgyu says, clutching Kai around the waist as they take off.

“Not taking any chances when you’re about to be late,” Kai says, urging the carpet on faster.

He feels Pumpkin shift on his back, her fuzzy head poking out of the open zipper of the backpack.

“I wish she had a little dress,” Beomgyu says sadly, offering her his finger to lick. Kai casts a glance at them out of the corner of his eye, just in time to watch Pumpkin sink her teeth in again. It’s almost affectionate, as if she’s just decided that biting is the way she kisses Beomgyu, and Beomgyu doesn’t even react. He’s used to it.

“I can glam her up once we get there,” Kai says, refocusing. He hears the dull thud of something glancing off the shield and flexes his brain to keep it active. His concentration is starting to waver. He’s never struggled with his concentration before.

“I’m gonna fly you right into the venue, okay?” he says, gritting his teeth. “Straight backstage. Not dealing with the paps today.”

It’s more complicated than it sounds. Kai aims the carpet at the wide-open loading dock on the back of the venue easily, but he mistimes the spell he casts to push the double doors open, and the shield charm evaporates as it slams into the doors, opening them with a bang. They tumble into a narrow backstage passageway, screeching to a halt in front of a confused PD with a clipboard.

“Choi Beomgyu,” Beomgyu gasps, clutching his side as he hauls himself off to his feet. He had tumbled off the carpet, and Kai just barely managed to slow his fall. “I’m with Night! At the Cafe.”

“You’re late,” the man says, unamused. “Follow me.”

Kai abandons the carpet, tailing Beomgyu as closely as he can with Pumpkin clutched to his chest in her backpack and his suit slung over his shoulder. The venue is massive; by the time they reach the correct dressing room, it’s already half-past noon, and Beomgyu’s stylists are deeply unhappy. They yank him behind a curtain, a frenzy of limbs and clothes and motherly scolding, and Kai relaxes for the first time.

We’re here, he pings Soobin. How’s it going?

It’s never felt hard to ping someone before, even over long distances. But this time, Kai feels the distance between them like molasses dragging on his words. He has to push them into Soobin’s head, and it’s tiring.

Slow but steady. I’m so slow now, Kai-ya. Be patient with me.

Soobin’s magic isn’t what it once was, either.

Just watch the clock, Kai pings back. The red carpet portion of the afternoon starts in less than an hour, and if Soobin isn’t there by the time Beomgyu has to walk it, it won’t be good.

Kai hovers madly while Beomgyu sits in the makeup chair. He can’t relax for a second. First, a minor leak opens up above the chair, ruining Beomgyu’s hair when it’s halfway styled. Then Dojun walks by and spills his can of coke all over Beomgyu’s face, destroying his perfectly contoured foundation. Kai finally gives up and just casts a shield charm around him and his makeup and hair team entirely, his brain trembling to maintain it. It doesn’t stop one of Beomgyu’s makeup artists from almost stabbing him in the eye with an eyeliner pencil.

“I can’t believe you brought the dog,” Dojun says, dropping onto the chair next to Kai and giving Pumpkin his finger to lick. Pumpkin doesn’t bite it. “Are you gonna dress her up?”

“Oh, right.” Kai lets the shield charm drop for half a second, squinting at Pumpkin instead. A little red hair bow poofs into her fur between her perky ears.

“What a diva,” Dojun coos. “Is she walking the red carpet with you?”

Kai’s stopped listening. He’s too busy fixing the shield charm, worrying that something went wrong in the moment that it was down. All this ongoing magic use is grating at his nerves, wearing them down.

“Aren’t you supposed to get changed, too?” Dojun asks. “You’re not walking the red carpet in those, are you?”

Kai looks at his legs. He’s still in his Mickey Mouse pajama bottoms, and a flood of panic jostles his brain enough that he almost drops the shield. He needs to step away to get ready himself, and that means leaving Beomgyu unsupervised. But there’s no other option. He’ll make it quick.

“Could you watch her while I go change?”

Dojun shrugs. He’s already in full hair and makeup and a crisp ivory suit, ready to go.

“If she messes up your suit, I’ll fix it,” Kai says, grabbing the dry cleaning bag. “I’ll be back in two minutes.”

It takes more like five. Even magic can’t help Kai figure out how all the fiddly decorative straps of the couture suit are supposed to lie across his chest, and he nearly drops his cufflinks into the toilet of the bathroom stall he’s changing in. When he’s finished, he barely spares a glance at himself in the mirror. Beomgyu will tell him he looks good no matter what, anyway. All he can think about as he sprints back to the dressing room is whether the shield had stayed up, whether something had gone wrong, whether Pumpkin is rampaging around the venue and they’re about to get asked to leave—

“Honestly, noona, it’s fine,” he hears Beomgyu saying as he steps back through the door.

The shield charm is still up, but on the other side of the sheer purple plane, Beomgyu and one of his stylists are staring at his chest. There’s an enormous gash in the shoulder of his shirt that most definitely wasn’t there when Kai had left to change.

“What happened?” Kai rushes forward, letting the shield charm drop. He feels his brain relax and cracks his neck, trying to shake the fatigue out of it.

“Oh, just a little accident,” Beomgyu says reassuringly, flexing and twisting his arm. The blouse-y silk shirt that he was meant to walk the red carpet in is torn straight through, revealing a flash of his slim shoulder and sharp collarbone.

“I’m so, so, so sorry,” the woman cries. “I don’t even know — It must have gotten caught on my ring, and — we can find another—”

“I can fix it, noona,” Kai says, relieved. Torn clothing is bad, but not a disaster. He reaches his hand for the frayed tear, but Beomgyu grabs it and slaps it away.

“Leave it.”

Kai drops his hand in surprise. “Why?”

“I don’t need you to save me every time, Kai-ya,” Beomgyu smiles. “I like it like this. It’s sexy, right?”

“I think it’s hot, Gyu,” Dojun calls out from his chair.

“See? Let’s just leave it, noona. It’s art. Who can tell it wasn’t intentional?”

Beomgyu pats the crying stylist on the shoulder, and Kai reaches for a tissue from the vanity.

“Let me clean up the edges a little, at least,” he says quietly, and Beomgyu rolls his eyes. “Just so it doesn’t fray.”

Beomgyu sighs and tilts his shoulder towards Kai.

“But only a little,” he says. “I’m going to work it. It’s one of a kind now, that’s all.”

Despite all the mishaps, Beomgyu is in an incredible mood. Kai lingers next to him, staying eagle-eyed, and all it does is make Beomgyu giggle about having “a wizard bodyguard.” He hums through the songs they have planned, practically dancing in his chair. He offers a stream of commentary as one of his stylists turns her attention to giving Kai’s face a quick glow-up, too. And as his bandmates trickle into the room one-by-one, Pumpkin finds herself with four new dog sitters.

“I bet my dog would love her,” Minjun, the bassist, calls over. “But he’s a fifty-kilogram Rottweiler, so he might be kinda intimidating.”

“Nothing intimidates Pumpkin,” Sungho says. He’s flicking a chopstick from the mess table across the floor for Pumpkin to fetch, and every time she does, they break into raucous applause. “She’s a bad bitch.”

“Soobin-hyung thinks she might be a demon,” Kai offers.

“Don’t call my child a demon,” Beomgyu says, giving his hair one last fluff in the mirror. It’s half-past-one, and Night! At the Cafe’s call time on the red carpet has technically passed already. Kai managed to charm the angry event manager into letting them walk last instead, and it was exhausting. She was a tough one to charm.

“Can I walk with Pumpkin?”

“She might pee on your nice shoes, Sungho-hyung.”

“But Beomgyu has two dates. Can’t I have one? Pumpkin?”

“Speaking of dates, where’s Soobin-hyung?” Beomgyu asks, standing.

Fuck. Where is Soobin?

You almost here, hyung? We’re about to walk the red carpet.

No. Kai-ya, I promise we’ll get it to him in time. Just go without me. I’m doing my best.

To Kai’s shock, Beomgyu doesn’t seem particularly upset when he tells him that Soobin won’t be there for the red carpet.

“Why not?” he asks. “Is it for a good reason?”

“Um, yeah. A really good reason.”

Beomgyu shrugs. “I trust hyung,” he says. “He wouldn’t miss it if it wasn’t important. And lucky for me, I’ve got two boyfriends.”

He drops his cheek onto Kai’s shoulder for a second, and a stylist rushes forward to fix any minor hit to his makeup immediately.

“How do I look?” Beomgyu asks, smiling at Kai as the woman retreats with her brushes.

Kai drinks him in. He looks like a statue, carved perfectly out of marble, yet somehow still rosy and pink and full of energy. The cuts on his cheek have faded to the faintest scars, healing quickly due to Kai's health charms. The loose, flowy cut of his silk blouse makes him look a bit like a prince, and the slash on his shoulder does look intentional, an edge to break up all his softness.

“You know how you look,” Kai says.

“Gorgeous?”

“See? Told you you know.”

Beomgyu reaches through the open lapels of Kai’s jacket to pluck one of the harness-like straps poking out from under it.

“I should pay whatever stylist set you up in this bondage-lite getup,” he says. “A suit with a leather harness? Fucking genius.”

“It was your stylist, hyung,” Kai reminds him.

“Night! Let’s go, time to walk!” someone calls, and Kai weaves his fingers through Beomgyu’s immediately. He’s about to be the most high-fashion bodyguard Beomgyu’s ever had on the red carpet.

The red carpet is a blur of activity, and Kai sees danger everywhere. He barely remembers to pose for the cameras, even though Beomgyu’s given him and Soobin crash courses in red carpet etiquette at least five times already. Instead, he irons the carpet flat in front of Beomgyu’s feet every time he notices a trip-worthy bump. He dims the bright lights when Beomgyu starts blinking in them. He snaps away the puddle of pee that Pumpkin leaves at the foot of one of the photo backgrounds before it can turn the carpet maroon. Luckily, she’s a massive hit with the crowd, despite the pee incident. Even Beomgyu’s bad luck can’t make Pumpkin less cute.

It’s not just little disasters, though. Beomgyu’s luck is too bad for that by now. Kai tosses up another shield charm when a gatecrashing sasaeng nearly bursts over the barricades, throwing herself at Beomgyu with a massive print-out of his own face. She bounces off it and into a lunging security guard, and while everyone around them oohs and aahs over the pretty violet bubble, Kai pulls Beomgyu in for a hug.

“All good?” He murmurs, his own heart pounding.

“All good,” Beomgyu whispers, gently pushing Kai off, but not before the photographers capture a few photos of them locked in an embrace. With Beomgyu’s luck, there’s no way those won’t end up in some negative post about them later — Choi Beomgyu’s Raunchy Display.

Beomgyu maintains his composure perfectly. This is his job, after all, and even though Kai can tell he’s rattled, he doesn’t show it. But all the shield charms and safety spells are making Kai feel dizzy, as if he’s overexerted himself. It’s not that his magic is running out; it’s more like his body is just worse at remembering how to cast spells, expending too much of his energy on things that should be simple. By the time they reach the end of the red carpet walk, the idea of casting another hex makes Kai feel like he’s about to burst into tears.

“Wonder what happened to the other one?” he hears a photographer mutter as the group walks past the final bank of media and through the main doors of the venue. “Trouble in polyamorous paradise, huh? That’ll be great for the clicks, a picture of just the two of them with a big red X on the other side…”

Kai wants to explode the man’s camera, but he can’t risk it. He has to save his energy for more important things, like protecting Beomgyu from actual danger and communicating with Soobin from halfway across the city.

Hyung?

Kai-ya. I need to focus.

Look how good he looks, Kai thinks, trying to send an image of Beomgyu smiling and petting Pumpkin on the red carpet to Soobin. It’s so much harder than pinging words. It’s like dragging a tire through the molasses.

It’s blurry, Soobin pings back. But he looks beautiful. Why the fuck did you bring Pumpkin to the red carpet?

Focus, hyung. Just get here soon, okay? They’re performing third.

Third? Fuck.

What?

Nothing. I’ll be there. Go keep him safe.

 

---

 

“You’re really supposed to be in your seat,” Dojun whispers. “Go sit down. Enjoy the show.”

“Can’t,” Kai whispers back, eyes fixed on the riggings supporting all the backdrops and set pieces hanging in the high space above the stage. There’s no way something won’t collapse on the band while they’re performing, and he wonders if he should try to construct some kind of stage-sized net to catch falling objects. Fuck, that would be exhausting, even on a good day. That’s Soobin’s kind of magic, not Kai’s.

“Why not?”

Kai furrows his brow. How can he explain why he’s huddled backstage with the band, clutching a tiny dog to his designer clothing, instead of observing from his seat like he’s supposed to? He’d told Beomgyu he wanted to watch from the wings so he could give him a last-minute hug right before he performs, but that was total bullshit. He just couldn’t risk Beomgyu getting into any backstage accidents.

“You’re not usually this protective,” Dojun observes, scratching Pumpkin behind the ear. They both watch as the sound guys adjust Beomgyu’s mic pack, a dozen feet away from them. “Is something up today?”

“I’m not being protective,” Kai says.

“Just didn’t want to sit alone? Where’s your better half? Or I guess your better third?”

“He’ll be here by the time you all go on.” Kai tries to believe it. They’re only minutes from showtime. The second group to perform has already wrapped up, the curtain drawn again so that the crew can change over the set, and he can hear the muffled sound of a presenter reading out one of the award categories on the front portion of the stage. But he hasn’t heard anything from Soobin in over fifteen minutes, and he doesn’t want to check in again in case it slows him.

“Well, go down so you can sit with him when he gets here,” Dojun says. “There’s a side door, you can sneak right into the audience.”

“Kai-ya,” Beomgyu whisper-shouts at him. “Go to your seat, babe.”

Kai shakes his head. He won’t go.

Beomgyu shrugs, holding his arms out for a stylist to loop his leather jacket over them. He’s instantly transformed into something substantially more badass.

“I can’t wink at you in the audience if you’re not in the audience,” he says. “But have it your way.”

It’s freezing cold backstage. Beomgyu tucks his arms around Kai’s body once he’s all prepped and ready, watching as a member of the tech crew places his guitar right in the center of the already-lit spotlight behind the curtain.

“One minute,” he whispers in Kai’s ear. “Is hyung here yet?”

Kai swallows. He doesn’t know. He’s afraid to ask.

Just then, one of the managers swarming around them lowers her headset off of one ear. “Beomgyu,” she hisses. “Your boyfriend’s here.”

“I know,” Beomgyu whispers back. “I’m literally hugging him, noona.”

“No, the tall one. Taller one.”

Kai’s heart leaps.

Hyung? He pings. You’re here?

“Soobin-hyung’s here?” Beomgyu squeezes Kai even tighter.

“Yeah, he forgot his ticket. They just asked on the intercom for someone from our team to come verify that it’s really him.”

“He’s such a moron,” Beomgyu whispers, smiling so wide that it practically summons a stylist with a lip color touch-up. “Cutting it so close…he gave you heartburn, didn’t he?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve looked like you’re in pain all day, worrying about him. It’s all good now, baby. You said he’d be here, and he is.”

Beomgyu unravels his arms from around Kai’s neck. There’s a countdown clock on the back wall of the stage, and it’s only listing seconds. Forty-eight, forty-seven.

“Sure you don’t want to go watch with hyung?”

Kai-ya, stop them. Stop them from starting. I have it.

Get back here, Kai pings desperately. Get backstage, we can put it on his neck right now, we’ve got…forty seconds, where—

I’m in the theater, Soobin yells frantically into Kai’s ear. I’m coming down the aisle, I’ll be right in front of the stage. Our seats are in the second row. Stop them from starting.

But how can I—

“Night! At the Cafe! Places,” a hushed voice says, and Beomgyu squeezes Kai’s hand one last time.

“Daddy’s gotta go be a rock star,” he whispers to Pumpkin. “Cheer for me, okay?”

He hurries onto the stage before Kai can grab him, slipping into the darkness and beelining for the glowing spotlight.

“Curtain in ten, nine, eight…”

Kai-ya, stop it. Stop them from starting.

Hyung! I don’t have the fucking necklace, get me the necklace!

I can throw it, could you just—

What, run onto the stage? Are you—

“And…curtain,” a quiet voice says into the intercom, and the curtain starts to rise.

Kai’s body seizes up in a hysterical panic. Stop this, he thinks. What can he do to stop it?

Cast something powerful, Soobin practically screams. I’m burnt out, I can’t do it myself, Kai, you need to stop that curtain…

Kai races through spells in his mind. Charm? Color-change? Fireshape? He could grab onto the curtain with an invisible hand and yank it back down, but there’s no way his brain is strong enough right now to hold down a half-ton stage curtain. He could cause a mass panic somehow, but that might just hurt Beomgyu. If he was really in his element, he could freeze time entirely for up to ten seconds, but the thought of even trying that makes him want to curl up and take a nap.

He’s exhausted, he’s weary, and he can’t remember how to do magic anymore. There’s only one thing he can do.

“Go, Pumpkin,” he urges, tossing the little dog towards the stage.

Pumpkin takes off like a rocket, sprinting towards her owner in the spotlight just as the lights begin to come up on the rest of the stage. She leaps up at Beomgyu, crashing into his guitar with a clang, and Kai hears a loud gasp from the direction of the audience.

“What the fuck?” someone hisses into his ear. “Get the fucking dog off stage!”

There’s a single drum hit; Donghyun must have gotten his cue to start the song, but none of the other members start playing along with him. Instead, Dojun laughs into his microphone as Beomgyu crouches down in the middle of the stage to scoop up the dog, and Kai spots Sungho hiding his face in his hands as he sputters too.

Beomgyu is unshakable, though. He just rolls with it, as if it was meant to happen.

“Um, meet my dog,” Beomgyu says into the awkward silence, lifting Pumpkin and showing her to the audience. “Isn’t she cute?”

Someone in the audience shouts out not as cute as you! and the whole venue fills with giggles and cheers.

Kai watches everything unravel, completely frozen. Is this a bad thing? What kind of terrible press will this lead to? Or is this adorable and charming?

Get out there! Soobin pings into his ear, right as the voice behind him hisses “Get that dog off the stage!” He feels a hand on the small of his back, pushing him, and before he knows what he’s doing he sprints onto the stage towards Beomgyu.

“She likes to bite me,” Beomgyu says, right as Pumpkin nips at his hand. “See?”

The stage lights are glaringly bright as Kai stumbles towards Beomgyu, the audience’s laughter immediately hushing. Beomgyu notices him out of the corner of his eye, turning in surprise. His brow furrows in confusion.

“Hyung,” Kai says, reaching him. “Hyung, I need to…”

He looks out into the audience, looking for Soobin, and immediately freezes again. It’s so bright that he has to squint to make out individual faces, and when he does, the scale of his fuck-up hits him like a brick. Thousands of faces are staring at him, an audience full of celebrities and fans and people who matter, the CEO who signs Beomgyu’s paycheck and the executives who want to end his career, and Kai is making an absolute joke out of Beomgyu’s big night.

“What’s wrong, Kai-ya?” Beomgyu says softly. Well, it’s not soft. He’s wearing a microphone, so it fills the whole venue.

Kai looks back at him. He doesn’t look upset at all. He looks concerned, like something must be terribly wrong for Kai to be out here like this. He’s worried about Kai.

“I have something for you,” Kai says stupidly, looking at his empty hands.

Catch, Kai-ya, Soobin pings.

Kai can’t summon up the energy to catch the box with magic. He just flings his hands up, and the velvet box lands right in his palms. Soobin must have enchanted his throw, because no way could they have pulled that off without magic on at least one end. The audience fills with gasps, and Beomgyu’s brow only furrows further.

“This couldn’t wait?”

“No,” Kai says. “Not at all.”

“Here,” a voice says, and someone holds a microphone out towards Kai. He takes it without thinking, raising it to his lips. He has no idea what’s about to come out of his mouth. Maybe they’ll need to hex every single person in this venue into forgetting the whole evening.

“Um, hi,” Kai says, turning to the audience. “I’m Huening Kai. Choi Beomgyu’s boyfriend.”

Second row, right aisle, Soobin pings, and Kai’s eyes find him. He’s standing up, the only one in the crowd not seated, and haphazardly dressed in a tuxedo without a bow tie. The stage lights are making Kai’s vision hazy, but he sees Soobin nod, smiling. Keep going. I’m with you.

“One of Choi Beomgyu’s boyfriends,” Kai corrects himself. “He has two. And we wanted to give him something important.”

Kai turns to Beomgyu. His perfectly-tinted lips are hanging open, his smoky eyes wide. Pumpkin wriggles in his arms, scratching at his leather jacket, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“Beomgyu-hyung, I love you,” Kai says, trying desperately to pretend they’re alone, and not in front of the fucking world. “I love you, and Soobin-hyung loves you. And we’re so lucky to have you. And I know this isn’t how you thought this would happen, but…”

Beomgyu is starting to smile, his eyes shrinking into little half-moons, and there’s no audience at all anymore. It’s just them, and Soobin in Kai’s brain, and Pumpkin pitching a fit in Beomgyu’s arms. Kai drops to one knee, and he thinks he hears a scream, but all that matters is Beomgyu clapping a hand to his face, his eyes sparkling.

“Will you marry us?” Kai asks, fumbling with the box. He has to drop the mic to get it open, and he thinks it makes a terrible sound. He doesn’t know. He can barely hear anymore.

“Kai-ya,” Beomgyu cries. He drops the dog, and both of them leap at Kai, falling into his arms at the same time. It’s madness around them, absolute chaos, but all Kai can think of is get that necklace onto Beomgyu, now.

“Take it, hyung,” he whispers into his ear, as Pumpkin licks at his neck and Beomgyu kisses him all over the cheek. “Wear it.”

Beomgyu pulls away just enough to pull the necklace out of the open box, holding it up so that it glimmers in the harsh spotlight.

“It’s stunning,” he sniffles. His makeup is about to go to shit, eyeliner already smudged under his eyes, and Kai thinks he looks more gorgeous than ever. “Did Soobin-hyung make this?”

“We both did,” he says. “Open it.”

It better open. It’s a locket. It has to open.

Over all the ruckus, Kai vaguely hears get up here, Soobin-ah booming over the sound system in Dojun's voice. Donghyun starts up a drumroll that must be timing Soobin’s progress up the stairs leading to the stage, and Beomgyu lifts his teary face to look at something over Kai’s shoulder, breaking into a peal of laughter.

“You’re insane for this,” he says, just as a heavy, warm body hits Kai’s back. “Absolutely insane.”

“Put it on, princess,” Soobin’s voice says from behind Kai, his arms wrapping around them both as he drops to his knees too. He sounds on the verge of tears himself, and Pumpkin adds her excited yapping to the chaos, scrambling to try to kiss him. “Open it.”

Beomgyu manages to free both of his hands from the tangle of bodies and fur, prying the locket open. Inside it is a glowing stone, precisely the shade of the luck potion and shimmering with a mysterious, iridescent halo.

“For me?” Beomgyu breathes.

“For you,” Soobin says, lifting it from Beomgyu’s hand and draping the long chain around his slender neck. The locket falls across his sternum, still open, and Beomgyu cups it between his hands. The light the stone gives off makes his entire face glow.

“I love you so much,” Beomgyu whispers. “Both of you.”

Soobin yanks their heads together, working one of his big hands into each of their scalps. The hairstylists must be having a meltdown.

“Forgive us for this mess?” Kai whispers.

“This is the best mess of my life,” Beomgyu sniffs, laughing.

Kai can barely breathe. He’s so overwhelmed. Did it work? Is Beomgyu safe? Did he really just propose to Beomgyu during a televised award show?

It takes at least fifteen seconds for him to realize that the noise filling his ears has taken on a solid form. The crowd is chanting something at them.

Say yes! Say yes! Say yes!

Beomgyu yanks himself out of the hug, wiping his eyes and grabbing the abandoned handheld mic from the stage. His own headset is completely haywire, knocked mostly off in all the hugging and kissing and crying.

“Of course I said yes!” he cries into the mic, beaming, and the audience erupts.

 

---

 

It takes twenty minutes to get the show back on track. Beomgyu improvises a beautiful, teary speech about his boyfriends, and by the end of it, the place is in tears. The stage has to be reset after all the stylists and managers swarmed onto it from backstage, and the CEO of Beomgyu’s management company seizes the opportunity to make a booming congratulatory speech.

“I’m sure you’ll be seeing more of our happy trio in Night! At the Cafe’s promotional content for years to come,” he says, casting a warm look at the three of them, still huddled together, and Kai has never been so happy to hear about the company monetizing Beomgyu’s private life. Years to come. There’s no way the label will drop them after all this attention.

A funny thing happens when the band starts their long-delayed performance, with Kai and Soobin finally tucked into their seats. In the middle of Beomgyu’s guitar solo, he lurches towards the edge of the stage, like he tripped over an invisible wire — and then rights himself, tipping back onto his feet so suddenly that he nearly falls in the other direction. It’s as if an invisible force swooped in to protect him, and Soobin and Kai immediately stare at each other.

“Holy shit,” Soobin whispers excitedly. “You saw that, right?”

“The shield,” Kai whispers back, flinging an arm around Soobin and squeezing him. “You’re a genius, hyung.”

“You’re the genius, baby.”

Someone behind them hushes them loudly, and Soobin rolls his eyes, turning back toward the stage.

“As if literally everyone here doesn’t know we’re his fiancés,” he mutters under the sound of Beomgyu’s wailing guitar. “We should be able to talk over him. No one else, though. Just us.”

Fiancés. Kai stares at the side of his face, letting the word sink in, and Soobin notices, flashing a look at him just as the rest of the band joins back in and the crowd erupts for Beomgyu.

“Hey, you know you still have to propose to me, right?” he whispers into Kai’s ear, clapping manically. “Make it good, Kai-ya.”

 

---

 

They take a limo to the afterparty, abandoning the carpet at the venue. There’s no way any of them will be sober enough to fly home afterwards. It’s only four in the afternoon, but the band insisted on showering Soobin and Kai with the champagne meant to celebrate their victory, and Kai feels like most of the alcohol sunk in through his pores. Or maybe the drunk feeling is just his all-encompassing happiness.

“My phone absolutely blew up,” Beomgyu says, curled into Soobin’s lap and tracing the words Best Artist on the trophy in his lap over and over. “My family group chat is completely obliterated. My cousin sent me a voice recording of her just screaming for twenty seconds.”

Pumpkin springs off of Kai’s knees and onto Beomgyu’s, batting at the trophy.

“It’s not a toy,” Soobin scolds, trying to brush her back onto Kai’s lap instead, but Beomgyu drops the trophy and lifts Pumpkin to his face, kissing her on the nose. The dog doesn’t bite back.

“She’s better than a trophy,” he coos. “She’s my good luck charm.”

Kai can’t hold it in. He snorts.

“What? Look at all the good things that have happened since I found her.”

“Yeah, good things,” Soobin snickers, hiding his face in Beomgyu’s neck. “So many good things.”

Beomgyu narrows his eyes at Kai.

“Tell me what you’re laughing about,” he demands.

“I shouldn’t,” Kai chortles, wiping his eyes. “Hyung. You do it.”

“Nope. On you, Kai-ya.”

Beomgyu picks up the trophy, holding it menacingly above his head like a weapon.

“Fine, fine,” Kai says, sighing. “You…um, you got unlucky this week. Very, very unlucky.”

If they’re going to marry him, it might be time to be a bit more honest about their magic. Beomgyu can handle it.

“I did?” Beomgyu lowers the trophy, confused.

“You have luck points,” Kai explains. “Or you did. And you used them up, saving Pumpkin.”

“I used…”

“But we fixed you up already,” Soobin cuts in, weaving his fingers into Beomgyu’s. “We made you a…real good luck charm. A luck shield, to protect you from bad luck.”

Beomgyu’s eyes flick down to the locket.

“This is a good luck charm?” he says slowly.

“Yep,” Kai says. “Soobin-hyung invented it. Never been done before. He’s a genius. A literal prodigy.”

“Only because you invented a way to harvest luck,” Soobin deflects. “Gyu, you wouldn’t believe the brain on this one. It’s scary.”

“Well, it’s less scary now, because I kind of suck at magic,” Kai laughs. He feels like rolling down the window and screaming, hollering his happiness to the world. It doesn’t matter that everything is mildly exhausting now. He can take more naps.

“You suck at…” Beomgyu is struggling to follow.

“Yeah, I suck more,” Soobin says. “Did you see how long it took me to transform that potion? Took me a fucking hour just to solidify it. I invented that charm, and yet—”

“You invented a charm?”

Beomgyu grabs Soobin by the shoulder, reaching out for Kai’s hand too. His confusion is melting into something different, one corner of his mouth tilting up.

“You’re telling me you guys are powerful?” he says. “You’re important?”

“Um,” Kai says. “Maybe a little.”

“Maybe more than a little,” Soobin adds. “But it’s not a big deal, baby. We didn’t want to scare—”

“Oh, it’s a very big deal,” Beomgyu says, breaking into a smile. “What kind of stuff can you do? Could you two fly me to the moon?”

Soobin frowns. “It’d be a bit complicated, but probably. How long would you want to stay? Kai’s almost out of vacation time this year.”

“What about breathing underwater?”

“That’s a Kai thing,” Soobin says.

Kai shrugs. “Waterlung potion. I can make one that lasts a week.”

“Fuck this afterparty,” Beomgyu says excitedly. He lunges off Soobin’s lap, towards the privacy screen blocking off the driver. “We’re going home, and you’re telling me exactly how powerful you are. And then we’re gonna do shit.”

“What kind of shit?” Kai asks.

Beomgyu turns around, the screen partially lowered.

“I have a few ideas about world hunger, to start,” he says. “I can’t believe you haven’t fixed world hunger yet. Oh, and could we walk on the bottom of the ocean, just for kicks? Do you think the fish are creepy there?”

Soobin leans forward too, lifting the privacy screen again.

“We’ve got forever to walk on the bottom of the ocean. Party first, okay? Today’s about you.”

“I’m not emotionally prepared to meet any creepy fish today,” Kai says, collapsing back on the seat. “Drinks, please. And then a nap.”

“No naps for you today,” Beomgyu says. “We’ve got too much to talk about. And a whole wedding to plan. Oh, and someone needs to take Pumpkin on her evening walk.”

Pumpkin crawls onto Kai’s lap, her little hair bow barely hanging on after all the pets she’d gotten from well-wishers at the venue.

“You can say whatever you want about her,” Beomgyu says proudly. “She’s still lucky to me. She’s perfect.”

“I think so too,” Soobin says. “Even with all the poop she poops.”

“Hey, if we’re getting married, are you still my magical dog—”

“Don’t fucking finish that sentence, Beomgyu-ya.”

Kai closes his eyes, sinking his fingers into Pumpkin’s fur, letting the sounds of their bickering fill his ears. He doesn’t have Beomgyu’s luck shield, but he feels like the luckiest man in the world.

 

 

Notes:

💕

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