Work Text:
Are you a PETTY BITCH like me? Do you wish you could MILDLY INCONVENIENCE your enemies without breaking the bank? With 7+ years of experience in bringing minor misfortune to others, MysticBoyLeeKnow has a 100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEE when it comes to curses, hexes, and generally malintentioned magic. Same day casting with video proof provided.
Minho leans back, carefully scanning his revised storefront bio. It’s a lot of all caps, but he’s not mad at that. Once he’s satisfied, he moves onto updating his curse listings. His Etsy page has been long overdue for a fresh coat of paint—he doesn’t even offer the “headphones get caught on every door handle” curse anymore. Everyone’s got bluetooth now.
He’s in the middle of revising the description for his “forgetting their umbrella the next time it rains” curse when his inbox pings. Someone has ordered a “4:45 meeting that could’ve been an email” curse for their coworker. Minho pauses his task to get started on the order. He’s got all his casting supplies neatly filed away in a desk organizer, which he rummages through now for a fresh candle and lighter, pre-cut scraps of paper, and a pen topped with an orange cat paw. The pen is not magical but Minho wouldn’t dare hex without it.
Minho’s filming setup is already good to go, his phone propped up on a stand in front of him as a ring light casts a flattering glow around his face. He presses the record button. “Hello, Hwang Hyunjin,” he greets the camera seriously. “Here is your hex for Han Jisung. May he be cursed to sit through a 4:45 meeting that no one wants to be there for yet still somehow runs for an hour and a half.”
He writes Jisung’s name on the scrap of paper in neat letters, along with the specific curse Hyunjin wants to cast. Minho shows the piece of paper to the camera, then lights the candle. He closes his eyes, paper still in hand, and exhales. Then, he holds the paper up to the candle’s flame and lets it burn up into a cloud of mint green smoke. He licks his thumb and extinguishes the candle’s flame between his thumb and forefinger before beaming at the camera.
“Thank you for choosing MysticBoyLeeKnow! You will receive your curse confirmation package in three to five business days. As always, do not inform the recipient of this curse, as subject awareness will neutralize its effects. Please rate and review if you’re satisfied with your service.”
Minho stops recording and waits for the video to export to his laptop so that he can send it to Hyunjin. The ashes of the burned paper are scattered across his desk, and he scoops them up into a small glassine envelope, then prints out Hyunjin’s itemized receipt. Minho notices Hyunjin’s loyalty points tracker—geez, this Hyunjin guy sure has ordered a lot of curses on Jisung—and decides to throw in a couple of freebies for such a devoted customer: a sticker of Dori in a tiny witch hat with the MysticBoyLeeKnow logo stamped on his chest, along with a knotted mint green cord that Hyunjin can keep tied around his middle finger to prolong the curse’s effects.
Magic still flows fiercely through Minho’s veins when he finishes taping up and weighing the package. He doesn’t have any active orders, but he’s got one more spell left in him.
Minho reaches for the very back of the very bottom drawer of his desk organizer and pulls out a pen with a cartoon golden retriever head on the end. He doesn’t film himself for this spell, just writes Kim Seungmin on a new scrap of paper. Underneath that: May he encounter only green lights on his way home tonight. Minho closes his eyes, holding the paper to his heart, and exhales.
Blessings don’t need to be burned the way curses do. They need to be nurtured, kept close and precious. Minho tapes the piece of paper in an unassuming composition notebook labeled TAXES AND BORING STUFF, which he keeps at the bottom of a bookstack on his desk. He’s going to need a new notebook soon.
Seungmin comes home twenty minutes later. He doesn’t announce his arrival, just gives each of the cats a cursory scratch between the ears as he makes his way inside. Minho is still tapping away at his laptop. Seungmin peers over Minho’s shoulder.
“‘Introducing my proprietary Mondays Hex,’’’ he reads off the laptop screen. “‘Do the basic-tier spells feel too small for the person you have in mind? Curse your nemesis with a case of The Mondays—an entire week where nothing goes quite right.’” Seungmin gives a low whistle. “Now, that’s cold-blooded.”
“I’m playing around with the idea of higher-tier curses,” Minho explains, twirling his cat pen around in his hand. “I think it’s time I start transitioning into more premium clients.”
Seungmin pats Minho’s shoulder approvingly. “Tiered pricing structure, premium differentiation—textbook monopolistic competition moving toward monopoly pricing. I could use you as a case study for my microeconomics class.”
He sounds genuinely impressed. Minho feels his ears getting hot from the compliment, and he reaches up to play with his own earring. “Okay, nerd,” he says, rolling his eyes. “How was class?”
“I asked a question about the readings and the entire lecture hall went silent. So, same as always,” Seungmin replies cheerfully. He frowns. “I’m convinced that the department head hates me, though. I’ve told him so many times that I prefer teaching the earlier classes, and he keeps saying that he’ll ‘consider it.’ Whatever that means.”
Minho makes a mental note to look up the name of the economics department head later. He would be a great guinea pig to test out the Mondays Hex on.
Seungmin’s face lights up. “Oh, but the craziest thing happened just now,” he says. “I didn’t hit a single red light on my drive home! Isn’t that so lucky?”
Minho tries his best to look surprised. “Wow. That really is lucky.”
Seungmin shakes his head. “But I’ve talked about my boring day enough already,” he says. “What did you get up to today? Any interesting clients?”
Minho tells him about all the petty spells he cast today, everything from a “single sock lost in the dryer” hex to an “accidentally like a three-year-old post by your ex” curse. He tells him about Hwang Hyunjin and how this must be the twentieth curse he’s ordered for Han Jisung. Seungmin suggests that Minho personally message Hyunjin with a discount code for the new Mondays Hex, which is actually a very sound business suggestion.
Eventually, Seungmin ducks into their bedroom to change and wash up from his day. Minho fidgets with the pastel purple knot tied around his ring finger, smiling to himself.
Tuesday is Minho’s favorite day of the week. On Tuesdays, Seungmin teaches his remote class, which means he’s home, which means he’s with Minho. Which means that in between fulfilling orders, Minho can fuck with him as much as he wants.
“Can you see my screen?” Seungmin furrows his forehead, eyes flickering between his two monitors as he fiddles with something in the settings. He’s got on the mildly annoyed but focused expression he only wears when he’s in Professor Mode, framed by square, thick-rimmed glasses because he can’t be bothered to put in his contacts when he’s working from home. Minho, watching from the kitchen, stares at him for so long that he forgets to close the fridge. “Can you see it now?”
Seungmin lets out a frustrated huff, evidently still unable to share his screen. After thirty seconds of silent clicking, Seungmin breaks out into a pleased, professional smile. “There. Sorry about that, guys. So, as I was saying, one real-world example of a prisoner’s dilemma—”
And then he continues his lecture as if nothing had happened. Minho is a little annoyed. That curse had been custom-designed for Seungmin, and he’d shrugged it off like it was nothing.
The next time Minho comes into the kitchen, he lingers by the fridge again and grabs something without looking. He thinks it may be an apple. Or an onion.
“ —what? I’m sorry, could you repeat that, Yoona?”
Yoona repeats herself. Seungmin still looks confused. He is really, really, really cute when he’s confused, brows knit together, lips pressed into a slight pout. Minho forgets what he’s supposed to be doing for a moment and nearly drops the apple/onion. “I’m sorry, I still can’t hear you, you keep cutting out. Can you just type what you said in the chat?”
Once again, Seungmin recalibrates smoothly, moving on from the issue without any further comment. Minho is more annoyed now. He’s also starting to feel very warm in his hoodie.
Minho is in the middle of writing his third attempt at a curse on Seungmin when Doongie unceremoniously hops off his lap and wanders toward the kitchen. He follows the cat curiously, the curse paper still in hand.
Doongie trots into Seungmin’s room and jumps onto his desk. Seungmin starts petting Doongie on his head, not pausing his lecture once. Doongie leans into the curve of Seungmin’s fingers like he belongs there. Minho swears he sees a flicker of a smile on Seungmin’s lips, fonder than the Professor Kim he presents to his students. The unfinished curse goes slack in Minho’s hand.
Minho had taken off his hoodie a while ago. He’s sweating anyways.
Class ends, and Seungmin wanders into the kitchen looking for lunch. He asks Minho a question, but he’s still wearing the glasses, so Minho doesn’t quite hear it.
Seungmin cocks his head curiously as he makes his way over to Minho’s workstation. “Did you hear what I said, hyung?”
Minho blinks quickly. His whole face feels hot, up to the tips of his ears. Seungmin’s expression shifts. He leans in, one hand propped on the table, the other cradling Minho’s cheek. Minho reaches for Seungmin’s face. His thumb catches on the frame of his glasses, and then he’s curling his fingers into the back of Seungmin’s neck, scratching softly at the short, bristly hair at his nape. When they kiss, slowly, indulgently, it feels like an exhale.
Seungmin starts to pull away. Minho nudges him forward again and claims one last kiss while he can.
It is 2:30 p.m. on a Monday, and Minho has been bouncing between Instagram Reels for an hour now. Seungmin always tells him he shouldn’t “doomscroll”—whatever the hell that means—but Mondays are not a very curse-filled day, and Minho is caught up with all his orders, and he’s bored.
Soonie is the first to notice, jumping off Minho’s stomach and bolting to the entrance. The door rattles with the turn of a key, and suddenly Seungmin is in the apartment, beaming brightly, his work bag still slung across his body. He stops in his tracks when he sees Minho lying on the couch, three empty pudding containers lined up neatly on the coffee table. Minho’s phone is playing a video about a miniature subway station for cats.
Seungmin glances down at the containers. He doesn’t look annoyed that Minho has left them out in the open. Just amused. “Have you had lunch yet?”
Minho gestures wordlessly at the empty pudding containers. Seungmin nods, understanding.
He leans down to look at Minho’s phone. “Is that train fully functional?”
Seungmin is in a weirdly good mood right now. Like, the kind of good mood where Minho half-expects to find a tail wagging behind him. “I think so,” Minho answers. He clicks his phone off and sets it on the couch beside him. “But I think a subway system would go against the inherently nomadic nature of a cat, yeah?”
“Totally,” Seungmin says as he sets his bag down. “And besides, who would fund a fully functional subway system for cats? That would imply a kitty city government. And kitty public-private partnerships with kitty train manufacturers.”
Minho readjusts his position on the couch, pulling his knees in to leave an open seat. Seungmin takes it. “How was your first class of the semester?” Minho asks. He drops his legs onto Seungmin’s lap. Seungmin lets him.
“It was great!” Seungmin loosens the tie around his neck and undoes his topmost shirt button. Minho gets briefly distracted by the sudden appearance of his collarbones.
“—and then Haewon—I told you about Haewon, right?—she came up to me after class to tell me that she got an idea for her thesis because of today’s lecture. Isn’t that amazing?” Minho hums supportively, still staring at Seungmin’s neck.
“I swear,” Seungmin continues, grinning, “I just work better in the morning. I’m so glad I got the 8 a.m. classes this semester.”
“Congrats,” Minho says. “Guess you finally have someone in admin who likes you, huh?”
“Guess so.” Seungmin idly thumbs at the pawprint tattoo on Minho’s ankle, tracing the outline from muscle memory. “I’m so happy. Now I can spend the rest of my day here.”
With you, he doesn’t say, but Minho hears it anyway.
“Okay,” Minho says, “just don’t bother me when I’m trying to work, alright?”
Seungmin glances over at the empty containers, then back at Minho. “You still have pudding on your face.”
Minho’s hands fly to his face, feeling for where it might be. Seungmin laughs. “You’re missing it completely. Let me get it for you.”
And then Seungmin is leaning over him, his knees bracketing Minho’s hips as he presses his thumb into the corner of Minho’s mouth. Minho swallows hard, and Seungmin’s eyes flick down to watch the bobbing of his throat.
“There,” Seungmin says quietly, thumb lingering near his lips. “Got it.”
Minho is about to pull Seungmin in by the front of his button-down when his laptop pings in the familiar pitch of an Etsy notification. Of course. Zero orders all afternoon, and now is when he gets one.
“I should get that,” Minho says. Neither of them move for a while. Seungmin pulls away first, mumbling an excuse of his own about needing to answer some emails.
Minho is flushed and a little unsatisfied when he sets his desk up for the order, but he’s okay with that. There will be more afternoons.
Seungmin is doing that thing he does when he’s nervous, where he paces around the room in figure eights. Dori trails behind him curiously, weaving between his legs and rubbing against his ankles. Seungmin doesn’t stop once. He continues mumbling his lecture to himself, Minho watching from the dining table.
“—but the entire prisoner’s dilemma changes when the game is played repeatedly. Suddenly, you have a reputation to uphold, future games to consider. You have people who trust you, and you realize that you trust them too.” Seungmin pauses. He glances down at his index cards, then groans. “Oh, duh.”
Seungmin is usually composed, unbothered, and there is a part of Minho that enjoys seeing him act so uncharacteristically. There’s another part of him that is afraid Seungmin will give himself vertigo if he keeps winding around the room like this. Without realizing that he’s doing it, Minho rubs the purple thread tied around his ring finger.
“Seungmin-ah,” Minho calls out, and he can’t help the way his voice goes soft. “You’ve been practicing the lecture for so long already. I think it’s okay for you to take a break.”
He shakes his head. “If I do well on this mock lecture, then they’ll finally promote me to associate professor. Then I’ll have tenure, which means I’ll have job security, which means—” Seungmin glances over at Minho for a moment. “The point is, this is important. I have to be perfect.”
Seungmin doesn’t usually get nervous before lectures. But these are not usual circumstances. Minho wants to tell Seungmin that it’s okay, he’s sure he’ll nail the lecture, and even if he doesn’t, that’s okay, too. He knows that Seungmin, a perfectionist in the same extreme sense as Minho, won’t be convinced by this.
So instead, Minho says, “You’ll do well when it matters. You always do.”
Seungmin stops in his tracks. Dori, still trailing behind, bumps into his ankles. The cat sits patiently, waiting for Seungmin’s next move. Seungmin exhales and stuffs his note cards into his hoodie pocket. “Okay,” is all he says, and that is the only response Minho needs.
He runs through the mock lecture two more times with Minho as the audience. Minho doesn’t even offer joke questions when he raises his hand. Instead, he asks about cooperation and altruism and how sometimes, we make decisions that don’t benefit us at all, and isn’t human behavior so irrational?
Seungmin pauses, a little taken aback by Minho’s genuine question. “Actually, cooperation and altruism are both highly rational when you account for the right variables,” he replies, still speaking in his smooth presenter voice. “Variables like long-term reciprocity, emotional cost of defecting, and especially the value you place on the other person.” Minho pretends to type notes on his laptop, his face fixed in a studious grimace, and Seungmin breaks character for a second to laugh.
When Seungmin finally concedes that he’s practiced all he can, he places a hand on Minho’s shoulder and tells him not to work too late. Minho says sure. Then, Seungmin disappears into their bedroom, and Minho gets started.
He reaches into his desk organizer and grabs the golden retriever pen. Seungmin left his index cards on the dining table, and Minho grabs a blank one now. He begins to rip it in half, then decides against that—he’ll need a lot of writing space for this one.
As always, he starts by writing Kim Seungmin at the top of the index card. Then, underneath: May he fall asleep quickly tonight and have pleasant dreams that leave him smiling when he wakes up. May he be rid of his nerves about the lecture. May he remember every important point without needing his note cards. May he see me in the audience and know that I am rooting for him.
Minho closes his eyes, holds the index card to his chest, and exhales slowly. Then, he tapes the card into his TAXES AND BORING STUFF notebook and closes it. The rest is up to Seungmin.
When Minho wakes up, Seungmin is already gone. This isn’t unusual considering how much earlier Seungmin has to wake up for his classes, so Minho just hopes that he ate enough for breakfast before he headed out.
He walks out of their bedroom, then stops in his tracks. Minho had left his TAXES AND BORING STUFF notebook out on the dining room table last night. He blinks. Thank god he got to it before Seungmin. He puts the notebook back in its usual place at the bottom of the bookstack.
Minho works through the orders that he’d received overnight, including a first-time request from Jisung to curse Hyunjin. He kind of hopes that they never resolve whatever issue they have with each other, because he would likely lose two streams of revenue. Which is probably what Seungmin would say if he were here. Sometimes, Minho feels Seungmin’s absence so strongly that it starts to feel like he’s in the room with him.
As usual, Seungmin doesn’t announce himself when he gets home. Minho continues working on his current curse. “Hey,” he greets, “how was the mock lecture?”
Seungmin is quiet. Minho stops writing. He sets down the cat paw pen and turns to face Seungmin, a little concerned. “It went well, right?” The purple thread burns around Minho’s ring finger.
He doesn’t look upset at all. In fact, he’s smiling. “It went well,” Seungmin says. “Just like you said it would.”
Minho nods. Pleased, relieved. “See? I told you it would.”
Seungmin walks over to Minho’s desk and leans against it. His hand is very close to the TAXES AND BORING STUFF notebook. “I don’t know, hyung, it was sort of weird. One second I was really nervous, and the next, I felt totally calm,” he says. “It was almost like magic.”
The spell had worked better than Minho could’ve imagined. He considers opening a side hustle where he sells minor boons and blessings, but then decides against it—there probably isn’t a market for it. Who in their right mind would spend money to wish well on another person?
Seungmin takes his hand off Minho’s desk, away from the bookstack. “I’ll make dinner tonight,” he says. “What do you want?”
Minho tells him that anything is fine, just not a boiled chicken sweet potato protein powder blueberry smoothie, and Seungmin laughs, says fine. He cooks steak and risotto, which is doubly impressive considering Minho didn’t realize Seungmin even knew how to pronounce risotto. Said risotto resembles juk more than anything remotely adjacent to Italian cuisine, but the steak is cooked medium rare the way Minho likes it, and anyways, Seungmin had made it, so Minho clears his whole plate.
Later, Seungmin keeps staring at Minho as they do the dishes together. “Hey, dummy,” Minho says, pinching Seungmin’s arm with wet fingers. “Take the damn plate before I break it over your head.”
Seungmin blinks. He takes the damn plate. “Sorry. I’m just thinking.”
“About what?” Minho says, rinsing and soaping up a steak knife. “The fact that risotto isn’t supposed to have the consistency of soup? Because I think it’s about three hours too late for that revelation.”
Seungmin shakes his head. “Just that it was a good day today,” he says, smiling. “Thanks for that.”
“Um. Okay? You’re welcome, weirdo.” Minho washes the soap off the knife and carefully offers it to Seungmin, handle first. “Try not to stab yourself putting this away.”
Be careful, is what he’s really saying. Be careful because I can’t control everything, only the small things. The rest is up to you.
Seungmin gingerly takes the knife from Minho. “Okay, hyung.”
“Hey, hyung,” Seungmin says. “Can I have your opinion on this graph?”
Minho stops tying knots into a mint green thread, setting it down on his desk. “Sure.” He glances at the large poster board in Seungmin’s hands. “Is it for a conference?”
“Mm, not exactly.” Seungmin pulls his poster stand closer, then props the graph up on it. “Can you tell me what this graph is describing?”
Minho is about to roll his eyes and complain that he’s not one of Seungmin’s students, he doesn’t need to talk to him like that—but then he looks at the graph, really looks at it, and he nearly falls out of his chair.
It’s a scatterplot. The title: “Irrational Cooperation in Repeated Two-Player Games: A Case Study in Altruistic Behavior Using a Non-Random Sample of One (1) Lee Minho.” Minho wants to disappear into the floor.
Seungmin pulls a laser pointer from his pocket and starts highlighting specific parts of the graph. “See, the X-axis tracks time, and the Y-axis tracks the number of ‘lucky’ occurrences I encountered.” He brackets the word “lucky” with finger quotes. “Notice the positive trend upwards, indicating a gradual increase in ‘lucky’ occurrences over time.” Dear god, he has a line of best fit and everything.
“What are you talking about?” Minho asks flatly.
Seungmin doesn’t answer, just pulls another poster board out from behind the stack. There’s a second graph. Of course there’s a second graph. It’s Seungmin.
This time, it’s a bar graph. Seungmin points his laser at the first column. “This is the number of instances in which I didn’t encounter a single red light on the drive home.” It’s an embarrassingly large column. Seungmin moves onto the next column, thoroughly describing each one. “And this is the number of instances in which my committee meeting ended at least 15 minutes early. The number of instances in which I pulled into the faculty lot to find the best parking spot conveniently empty. The number of instances in which I plugged a USB into the port the right way the first time, even though it usually takes me three tries.”
Now, that one really had been entirely for Minho’s sake. There’s only so many times he is willing to reteach Seungmin that he just needs to plug in the USB with the logo facing up.
Seungmin pauses at the last column, like he’s not sure himself what to make of this data point. “The number of instances in which Doongie asked me for pets while I was teaching class online.” Underneath this column, Seungmin has written in red marker, “possible confounding variable?”
“None of this means anything,” Minho insists, feeling more flustered with each passing second. “So I tested a few minor spells on you. I was just using you as a guinea pig.”
Seungmin hums. “Interesting argument,” he says, pushing his glasses up his nose. “This leads me perfectly into my final piece of evidence.”
He pulls out a book. Specifically, he pulls out Minho’s TAXES AND BORING STUFF notebook. He opens it to the page with the index card. Minho feels mortifyingly, horrifyingly seen. “You left this on the dining room table the night before my mock lecture,” he says. “Did you forget that I literally do our taxes?”
For a moment, Minho can’t think of anything to say at all. He’s too stunned by the revelation that Seungmin knows. Seungmin knows now, and Seungmin knew then, on the morning before his mock lecture. Seungmin knew, and the magic still worked. Only now, Minho is not sure that magic had anything to do with this at all.
Minho says, in a quiet, defeated voice, “Seungmin-ah.” He can’t fight it anymore. The notebook is irrefutable.
Seungmin’s face softens. He sets the notebook down and steps closer. Seungmin wraps his arms around Minho’s waist and pulls him against his chest. They stay like that for a while, Seungmin rubbing small circles on Minho’s back as Minho buries his face in his chest.
“You’re such an insufferable dork,” Minho says into Seungmin’s shirt. “Who prepares two graphs?”
Seungmin shrugs. “They were running a sale at Kinkos.”
Minho hits Seungmin on his chest. Not for any reason in particular. Because he’s annoying, because he’s perfect, because he’s Seungmin. And Seungmin lets him.
Tuesday is still Minho’s favorite day of the week.
“Just give me a sec to share my screen…” Seungmin frowns at his monitor. “You can’t see it? How about now?”
Seungmin notices Minho watching from the kitchen. He’s leaning against the fridge, mid-bite of pudding. When Seungmin raises his eyebrow, unimpressed, Minho cocks a finger gun in his direction. Seungmin reacts instantly, clutching his chest like he’s been shot. Minho laughs out loud.
“Sorry about that, folks. Been having technical difficulties lately. As I was saying…”
Seungmin continues his lecture. Minho stays there until he finishes his pudding, then he gets back to work: films a video for Hyunjin, takes a few new photos for his Etsy page, films another video for Jisung. When he finishes working through his backlog of orders, he sets the cat pen down and stretches. Seungmin should be wrapping up class right about now.
Minho grabs his golden retriever pen. He writes Kim Seungmin at the top of an index card. Underneath that: May he know that his very handsome, very sexy, very flexible boyfriend has finished all his work for the day and would like some attention.
He folds the index card in half and hands it to Seungmin, who is in the middle of drafting an email. Seungmin’s face turns pink as he reads. He pulls Minho onto his lap, and the wish flutters to the floor, fulfilled.