strawberry sunday ❧ k.jw | ✔

eight

SUNDAY

You were one of the first ones up that morning, and ate breakfast with the earlier risers: Taeil, Doyoung, Jaehyun, and Johnny. More were beginning to stir throughout the house as the first of you finished breakfast and cleared out of the kitchen to make room for the next wave. The two witches caught up to you in the narrow hallway that held all the bedrooms and one bathroom.

"Hey, Y/N," Taeil said. "We're going out, wanna come?"

"Sure, where are you going?" You questioned, pressing to one wall to allow a zombified Donghyuck to walk by.

"There's a coven nearby that runs an apothecary downtown we want to check out."

"Taeil also wants to get an invite to their dawn sacraments next Sunday," Doyoung snorted.

"And you don't?" Taeil scoffed back.

Doyoung's silence was answer enough.

"Yeah, I'd love to come!" You nodded enthusiastically. "But are you sure you want me to? Or that I'm like, allowed to?"

"Of course!" The older reassured you.

Doyoung added, "Just don't touch something if you don't know what it is."

"To be safe."

It was a short ride into downtown Cape Solaria, which was comprised of just a couple small cross streets. Colorfully painted storefronts with wooden signs for a candy shop, flower shop, bakery, several different restaurants, bar and pool hall, among other things. And tucked at the end of all of them, a simple sign that just said Apothecary. Street parking was easy to find, and you wondered if it was always like that or just because you were there so early in the morning.

You kept close to your friends in the store. The aisles were narrow, as it seemed like the owners had packed as many shelving units in here as possible. They were filled with jars of herbs, vials of liquids, and bowls of crystals. Some things were familiar to you, some were not. You kept your hands to yourself nevertheless.

Taeil and Doyoung would occasionally pick something up and show it to the other, and they would either nod or shake their head as to whether it would be purchased. You knew the two of them had been friends for some time, but you realized then that you didn't actually know for how long.

"Can I ask you guys something?" You spoke up from where you were beside Taeil, who was perusing some jars of various powders. Doyoung was examining some of the larger crystal formations.

"Can I ask you something first?" Taeil countered.

"Oh, sure. It's only fair."

"Is your question about somebody?"

"Uh, yeah?"

They looked over their shoulders at each other, matching smirks growing on their faces before turning back to their individual sides of the aisle.

"Of course, Y/N," Taeil answered for them.

Opting not to address that little moment, you went ahead with your real question. "So how did you two meet?"

Doyoung immediately hissed, "Taeil, I swear I will—"

"What, Doie? Hex me?" Taeil laughed. "You really need to try to talk things out with people before jumping right to hexing. This is how you nearly get your friend drowned in your bathtub."

"Yeah, whatever," he grumbled back.

"I'll take that as a concession that I'm right." The older hummed happily. "Anyway, Y/N, to answer your question, we belong to the same coven back home. So Doyoung and I have known each other since we were kids, kind of like you and Donghyuck."

"If you can call two families a coven. In our town the only witches are my family and Taeil's. Covens are usually at least five families."

"And now you and I have got a two-person coven, Doie. It's not how many, it's what you are to each other."

"Gross."

Taeil rolled his eyes, turning his focus to you, "He knows that, he likes to pretend like he's still nine years old and believes in cooties or something."

"Why didn't you want Taeil to tell me that, Doyoung?" You questioned the younger witch.

"It's what usually comes next," Doyoung sighed, picking up a couple black crystals.

"How we came to university." Taeil offered.

"Oh yeah, if you had a coven back home, why'd you come to college?" You tilted your head. Covens were family for witches, both spiritually and literally. To leave their coven and come to college wasn't entirely unheard of, but also wasn't a typical trajectory for young witches.

"I didn't care about higher education one way or another, but Doyoung really wanted to do it. He didn't want to go by himself, though. Begged me to come with him."

Doyoung snapped around, "Fuck the hex, I'm just going to find some duct tape and—"

Taeil kept speaking to you, voice fond as he recalled the memory, "I mean, we grew up in the coven together, that was all we knew, it was scary to leave. I was terrified of leaving our families and coming here. But brave little Doie still wanted to go, so I told him of course I would go with him. We were a coven, after all."

"I hate when you do that," Doyoung huffed, moving onto some herbs.

"Do what?" Taeil asked humorously.

"Be nice so I can't be mean to you. Why can't you just spike my tea to give me bunny ears so I can put wartweed in your acne cream?"

You couldn't help but laugh at the image of Doyoung with bunny ears and poor Taeil with warts on his face.

"Because we're not in middle school anymore," Taeil grabbed a few small jars. "But if you want to start a prank war, I'm sure Jungwoo would want to get in on it too."

You all were now going down the next aisle, which was primarily live plants.

"After seeing you get your ass kicked at volleyball yesterday, I would love it if he did," Doyoung chuckled.

You felt something brush against your arm, and looked down to see a lover's embrace vine from the top shelf beginning to wind itself around your forearm.

"Ack! No, no," you said sternly, gently brushing at it. It got the idea, retreating back up to the top shelf. Thankfully it was a young one that hadn't bloomed yet, so you were actually in your right mind to shoo it off.

Meanwhile, Taeil and Doyoung were still bickering like an old married couple.

"I did not 'get my ass kicked.'"

"Ten to four, Taeil."

"Hey—"

"And you kept eating sand too."

"Not my fault he thought tripping me was just as funny the fifth time as it was the first time."

"He was right."

"And my partner—"

"Oh yeah, blame the human," Doyoung clicked his tongue and shook his head in disapproval.

"Don't put words in my mouth! All I'm saying is that Johnny played like he thought the ball was going to explode if he hit it too hard. Y/N actually knew how to play off of Jungwoo's magic."

Both witches turned back to look at you.

You raised your eyebrows curiously, "Hm? Yeah, I mean, I grew up with plenty of magical hijinks with Donghyuck."

"And...?" Doyoung prompted you further.

"And... Jungwoo and I are lab partners, so we already work together a bunch, I guess?" You filled in, voice pitched up as if it were all a question, not exactly sure what they were expecting from you.

They were still looking at you.

"Come on, guys, give Johnny a break, I think he's done pretty well at keeping up with all of us, all things considered. And the poor guy had to deal with Mark molting last year."

"Speaking of—" Taeil peered around, "Have you guys seen rattlesnake skin?"