HAPPY ENDING | svt ✓

⁷³ : days

"it's been 4 days."

seungkwan placed his tray on the table, vernon counting the number of days that had passed on his hand and sighing.

when they returned that saturday, the school was surrounded with black clouds, a complete contrast to the clear skies that they had been under the entire day.

seungkwan was about to dismiss any suspicion, chalking it up to the school running on fairytale magic but the second they stepped foot outside, woozi immediately called seungcheol, claiming that the god had overexerted his magic.

but he was met with no response.

"how is it possible that none of us can find him?" vernon asked, mindlessly stabbing into his food that on normal days, he would've already been halfway through. "and hans' been out of it since then too."

seungkwan buried his head in his hands.

it felt as though with every step they took forward, they were always pushed back five, constantly losing the momentary upperhand they had worked hard for and being left with more questions than answers.

a part of seungkwan wished that he could ignore it all and go back to how he was before. perhaps, he could ignore the fact that seungcheol was gone, jeonghan was in a comatose state, dokyeom had been isolated or maybe even ignore that sitting across from him was someone destined to be a prince.

but he couldn't.

as much as he avoided talking about it, he had found solace in the group of friends he had made and for the past 4 days, his mind could not find peace knowing that there was trouble lurking in every corner ready to hurt them.

"...and it's- kwannie? earth to kwan?" vernon snapped him out of his train of thought, the boy staring at him with wide eyes and concern painted across every feature of his. "are you okay?"

"you're one to talk — you've barely eaten." vernon chuckled nervously before putting a piece of lettuce in his mouth. "that doesn't count."

"yes it does!" seungkwan rolled his eyes, a small smile on his face thanks to vernon. "but anyways, i miss them a lot. it's only been 4 days but it hurts not knowing what's going to happen to them and it makes me so stressed out that..."

as vernon continued talking, seungkwan watched him fondly, agreeing with what the prince had to say and focusing on him despite the creeping paranoia that someone (or something) was lurking in the shadows, watching them intently.

–––

jeonghans' hand twitched, joshua immediately sitting upright and checking on the boy, only for his hope to be crushed yet again, his heart sinking so far down that he felt as though it had gone to the underworld.

4 days had passed and despite their efforts to wake the blonde boy, nothing had worked.

the magic users had exhausted every spell in their spell books, minghao had tried to wake him up through physical therapy and mingyu even tried to lure him awake by using his favourite food.

but to no avail — he was as still as a statue.

ever so often, joshua would stand up to fight the numbness of his legs but apart from that, the boy had refused to attend a single lesson, not giving a damn about fairytales when in reality, his best friend was on the brink of death.