Witchcraft on His Lips

t e n

because donghyuck didn't want to have to see mark outside of school unless it was for lesson purposes, he made the executive decision to meet up with mark during lunch. mark was quite angry about this because not only was he being forced into this, but he was being taken away from his friends and mark was a horrible liar. he made up some bullshit about having a huge project that he needed to work on every free chance he had because he couldn't just tell them the truth. the good thing about his friends was that even though they were loud and obnoxious, they knew they were loud and obnoxious and didn't try and join mark in the library. donghyuck was already at the fiction table that mark usually hid out at.

¹ "tooe kan lenga frishat." donghyuck muttered when he walked up. donghyuck had his back to mark, and his booted feet up on the desk, leaning back in the chair.

"how did you know it was me?" mark had no idea what he said but he didn't need to to know that if anyone else had heard him speaking the witch language they would have been scared for their lives and run to tell all their friends. 

"i'm pretty sure you're the only one who knows this table even exists." donghyuck sarcastically replied, watching mark walk around the table to sit across from him. mark just nodded with a small 'oh' and got out his black language binder, flipping to the blank notes he'd gotten from jaehyun. donghyuck had been instructed to teach him pronouns and basic possessives. donghyuck sat up properly and pushed the fake black frames he had on further up his nose.

"right so i'm going to tell you what they are and then we'll play a game of i say something and you guess what i said without looking at the notes. if you get them all right or at least a decent number we'll just quit for the day."

"how am i supposed to know what you're saying if i can't look at the notes?"

"this is incredibly easy mark," donghyuck sighed, "if you can't do this then there's no hope for you," granted donghyuck thought it was easy because he grew up learning both korean and vidimanu like anyone in a bilingual household would do. but mark didn't have to know that, "i and me are ye, you is kan, he is héch but there's an h that's silent in the front, yeah like that. she is séch, we is xons, they or them is téaa." mark copied down the words in the chart on the worksheet and looked up when he was done.

"can we practice these before doing the possessive stuff?" donghyuck stared blankly at him for a long moment before sighing and leaning back,

"i guess. cover the paper with your hand," donghyuck watched mark like a hawk, arms crossed, "héch."

"he."

"téaa."

"they or them."

"xons."

"we."

"ye."

"i or me."

"séch."

"she."

"i told you this was easy now flip the paper over." mark smiled sheepishly but donghyuck didn't think the action was cute at all, instead he was mad mark wasted his time with the little quiz.

"hey do you guys have spell books?" mark suddenly asked.

"what?"

"yeah like big, old books with tons of spells in them. because-."

"shut up."

"no but it has something to do with this."

"i don't care, shut up and let me teach you so i can leave before the period ends," mark snapped his mouth shut with an annoyed but very small glare. donghyuck's regular gaze easily overpowered it, "to make anything referring to one's self, add salu to the end of it. so myself is yesalu, yourself is kansalu and so on. his or him is hées and her or hers is sées. yours is kasn, their is téjir and add is to make it theirs. ours or our is xuorn." donghyuck went on and on, teaching took and take, give, gave, get, yes, no and many other basic words. they ended up taking the whole period but of course, just like with magic, mark was pretty good at it and picked it up very quickly. donghyuck decided it was just because he was a good teacher. clearly mark had come to terms to the new him, witch powers and all, because two days ago in training donghyuck could tell mark was chomping at the bit to keep going even after taeyong called it quits for the day. and he obviously loved learning a new language which made donghyuck even more annoyed with his hyper, excited behavior. he met up with the other three in the hallway since they all walked the same way and he knew which was to go to meet them on their way.

"how was tutoring?" jisung asked with a slightly teasing tone that donghyuck was not in the mood for.

"that shit took way too long." donghyuck grumbled.

"was he good at it?" renjun asked.

"unfortunately."

"why is he good at everything?"

donghyuck gave him a depressed look, "hell if i know."

♰

in all honesty, mark knew donghyuck hated him. he knew that everything he did annoyed the latter, and he knew that none of the younger witches liked the fact that he was good at magic without even trying. he didn't care all that much, it hurt a little that the one of them who was supposed to be making sure mark was okay with everything happening and was adjusting well hated him the most, but he couldn't just change how donghyuck viewed his placement in his life. it wasn't his fault he was a ceelite and it wasn't his fault he actually was liking magic and learning about all of this. for his entire life witches and magic were fairy tales and nothing more. now he learned that not only was magic possible and real, but he could practice it. he was curious about everything. sue him.

he sat on his bed in the dark with a bowl in his lap. for the past few days he'd been doing little tricks for himself whenever he could catch a moment alone. warping the stream of water coming from the tap as he brushed his teeth, passing fire between his fingertips and then watching it go out when he was in the shower, using his powers to turn off the lights when it was time for bed and then using that light to make stars fly across his ceiling.

for all his snarky words and unnecessary glares, donghyuck had made a good point about how magic felt. mark noticed the changes though they were very slight. he wanted to use his powers all the time, show off how strong he was, show the others how much cooler, how much better than them he was. he never used to be arrogant or conceited and he blamed it on his magic. he had also unfortunately noticed the sudden distaste he had for all his clothes which were drab and too much like everyone else's. mark really loved the new confidence magic gave him.

he held his hand limp, fingers facing downward as water dropped from his fingers into the bowl. in a perfect row, thumb to pinky the drops fell one after another. it was therapeutic in a way to listen to the slow drip. once the bowl was filled with lots of water, mark stopped and curved the pool upwards like he was creating a clay vase in a ceramics class. with wondering, wide eyes his puddle climbed higher and higher, rippling and threatening to spill onto his hair. he broke the stream, splitting it into hundreds of little droplets above his head. he dropped his left hand, tossing the bowl still in his lap onto the floor.

his right hand was doing more work now, since his magic wasn't balanced through both hands. taeyong had briefly explained this to him and had said it was like working out and one arm is stronger than the other. if you are able to lift ten pounds with both arms it will seem easy after a while. but ten pounds on one arm would feel like a lot of weight to carry because it was used to having the other arm in support. eventually it would get stronger and would become used to carrying that ten pounds on it's own. this was the first time mark had ever tried it and he could confidently say taeyong was correct.

"mark?" hanbin's voice called out into the house, followed by the shutting of the door that lead to the garage. mark cursed under his breath,

"yeah?" he squeezed his fists until the water burst into steam, fogging up his room.

"we have dinner! it's takeout!"

"okay! one second!" he jumped from the bed to open the window, pulling the vapor out the window and leaving no trace of it behind. he breathed a sigh of relief and left his room for dinner like he had been bored out of his mind and just waiting for them to get back.

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𝓽𝓻𝓪𝓷𝓼𝓵𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷𝓼

1 • "tooe kan lenga frishat." = took you long enough.