Everything You Do Is Magic | seventeen au

Chapter 6: Moving Out & On

He couldn't have picked a worse day to move out.

Minghao's apartment was located nearly directly across the street from a large office building. He never really cared about the company that worked inside, all he knew was that they started months ago and ran a skincare business. Apparently, the company has gotten themselves into a bit of a scandal.

"I don't even feel sorry for them," Mingyu grumbled as he placed neatly folded piles of Minghao's clothes inside a large cardboard box which came up to his mid-thigh. "They should have thought out their campaign more thoroughly."

"Do you think their CEO hated half-creatures all this time?" Seungkwan asked from where he was carrying a stack of novels from Minghao's bedroom into the small living room-slash-kitchen.

Mingyu stood straight, hands on his hips. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up due to the humidity inside the apartment. Minghao hadn't bothered to get himself a new air conditioner since the current one broke, and no matter how many windows they opened it still felt like they were slow-cooking in an oven. "Seungkwan-ah, their new campaign literally said that the products weren't meant for the use of half-creatures, even though they have half-creature employees. I'm pretty sure that gave it away."

The griffin hybrid scoffed with this disgusted look Minghao had never seen on the other's face, not even when Seungkwan realized yesterday that he and Soonyoung have been using the same toothbrush for three days. "That's so stupid. I used their face moisturizer before and nothing bad happened." He pressed the stack of books towards the others and flopped onto the couch indignantly. "Does that CEO think our skins are so different that they had to make a whole campaign excluding us?"

Minghao's enhanced senses picked up the mess of megaphones and speakers being used by the crowd just outside the company's building louder than Mingyu and Seungkwan could. The sounds of chanting repeated like a broken record as Minghao separated the things he'd be donating from the things he'll take with him.

The actual apartment complex was so old that Minghao always had a small fear the walls would just collapse in on them. His apartment was small and dingy, which meant having boxes and bags out made the space even more cramped with little to no room to walk. It was clean, though.

"Minghao-ssi." Seungkwan peeked out the window behind him. His gaze was down at where the large crowd was gathered for the protest. "Has this happened before?"

Minghao, without looking up, shook his head. "Not to that company, I don't think. I've been inside stores where obvious half-creatures have been denied entry or weren't given service, but this is the first time I'm seeing an actual protest." A Korean language book was in his hand, the spine of it bent and the edges crooked from overuse. The cover itself had markings of old age. Needless to say it went to the donation pile.

"I've actually experienced that before. When I was younger I used to just get weird looks or strangers would distance themselves, but then as I got older actual restaurant owners didn't want a demon to be seen in their establishment. It's why I started asking Jun hyung to make my horns invisible whenever I go out," Mingyu said. Minghao couldn't clearly see his face from where the demon was bent over, but Mingyu's tone told Minghao that he wasn't as affected by such incidents. He seemed to accept them for what they were.

Minghao didn't know whether that was good or bad, not being affected by something anymore because it happened so regularly.

"Remember when Soonyoung hyung accidentally breathed out fire while we were inside a mall?" Seungkwan decided to put together a box for the books. He wasn't as nonchalant about recalling past instances as Mingyu, in fact the look on his face said that he still felt like the event happened just hours ago. "A security guard actually threatened to aim his gun at Soonyoung. We were so scared I think all of us almost cried."