fledarmûs || woosan

「chapter 8」: hot chocolate

"Wait wait wait, so what you're saying is that we have been living with actual half-human and non-human creatures and this whole time no one has ever thought to mention a thing?" San dropped himself onto the arm chair he always sat in when his witch taught him something, opened his already halfway filled notebook and shook his head in disbelief as he titled a new page with 'half-human creatures'.

"Well, yes," Wooyoung affirmed, seemingly confused that San thought that to be shocking, and crossed his arms in front of his abdomen, "I mean, would you have believed people if they started talking about the tree spirit genocides in the South-American rainforests? Or the growing problem of the UV-radiation becoming so strong that even nights can be dangerous for vampires? Or the fact that crops are getting sprayed with so many pesticides and herbicides that there's only very few fairies left in the entire world?"

The other's pen hovered over the page, then he looked up and frowned. "Isn't it kind of a concern of public safety to know that we're living with creatures that change into wolves every full moon, drink our blood or can kill us just because we heard them sing? I mean, yeah, I wouldn't have believed it if people just started talking about it, but why isn't it common knowledge in the first place? I feel like it's kind of important to know that I could end up as a snack for a vampire whenever one of them feels like it."

His witch winced. "Don't let my friend hear that, they have a few vampires in their family and there's, uhm." He paused, massaged his wrists and closed his eyes, then ran his hand through his hair. "How do I explain this in the shortest way possible... ah, yes, so. You know how it's always been humans that kill what they fear or don't understand?"

San frowned. "Well, yes, you mentioned that when you ranted about the witch burnings the other day."

"Yes, good." Wooyoung nodded and began pacing back and forth from the window looking out onto the garden and the rain to the ebony desk on the opposite side of the room, passing shelves filled with plants, books and seemingly merely decorative items. "But in order to get everyone to hate and really fear for example vampires, humans told especially children a lot of very wrong things about them. You know, 'Don't go out at night or the evil vampire will come and drink your blood' and the likes."

Beginning to write down what he found to be important, San ripped his gaze away from his boyfriend and forced his focus on the topic at hand rather than the man who told him about it. They did this often; Wooyoung would tell him everything he knew about a certain topic of the supernatural world and San would write it all down to not forget any of it. Sometimes it felt as though he was back in one of the lecture halls of his college and listened to his professor, except that this time every topic was fascinating.

Like every other time, this went on for at least an hour. The witch would talk and talk, at some point always letting a never-emptying glass of water appear in his hand and drinking from it every now and then, and San would write it all down in key points and diagramms, asking anything that came to his mind and excitedly writing the answer down. About halfway through, Yeosang would poke his head into the room and come back a few minutes later with a plate filled with cut fruit and occasionally some sort of baked good, to which the other two would thank him gushingly and eat it all in a matter of minutes.

This time was no different, and by the time the witch dropped into the armchair next to San, the man had filled another fifteen pages in his notebook. "I swear, my voice is gonna kill me one of these days," Wooyoung groaned, his voice a little croaky, like it was every time their little lessons in supernaturality lasted longer than one and a half hours.