Chapter Text
There’s a potion for almost everything. Multiple actually.
Love potions, though. They are a tricky thing. Minho would know.
The heavy door groans as he steps into the shop. One of his cats, Dori, followed him to work today. He has a favorite spot on the counter; next to the wall, but also close enough to receive scratches. He settles there after his morning inspection of the premises.
Minho lights up the candles and dusts a few old bottles when he gets behind the counter — the ones that rarely get bought, the strong ones. The smell of wood and candles almost masks the sweet aromas from the hundreds of bottles behind him. The scent clings to Minho’s clothing and hair. To the pores of his skin and the very center of his being. It smells like home.
He makes his way into the back room, lantern in hand. The wooden floor creaks under his boots. The cauldron is unscrubbed. He should get to it before opening time.
Mixing potions didn’t come naturally to Minho. It was an inherited profession. There weren’t many like him in this kingdom, probably not even in the world. Some places even deemed it illegal.
He washes his hands in the basin before and after cleaning up. Maybe even once in between. The first rule of a potion maker is to always keep your hands clean and healthy. Minho remembers his grandmother teaching him that, among many other things. She was a vicious woman for a love potionist. She’d told him how even one drop of blood from a cut in his hand could end up in a disaster. How one rub of his eyes after mixing a potion could end up in him losing himself in love.
Love is poison. At least in potion form.
The door drags open, and a palace worker comes in. One of the three that always come in the early mornings right before the shop’s opening. Minho hasn’t bothered learning their names. He has the order ready to go, as he always does. He gives it to the boy and gets a vial of blood back. The boy thanks him and leaves.
The worst thing about love potions is that even the strongest ones won’t last. One would have to take and take and take. Take until they become dependent. On the potion or the love? Minho doesn’t want to think about it, less remember it. It’s what keeps his business running.
Most days he doesn’t have much traffic in the shop. He enjoys the quiet. Traces the familiar patterns on the wooden countertop. Makes potions in the back with careful hands and too many looks at the recipe book, even when he could recite the steps in his sleep. He keeps the shop open for four hours every other weekday. Otherwise, he leads a simple life in the village.
The door opens fifteen minutes before closing time. A small statured man looks around for a moment, eyes fitting on the potions behind the counter before landing on Minho. He fiddles with his long sleeves. Stays still for a moment too long. Makes the silence awkward.
”Hello, how can I help you?” Minho asks. He tries to sound unbothered to make his new customer comfortable. He gets new customers from time to time, but most he knows by now. Some travel far and wide to seek him out, but he usually hears about them way before they ever enter. Word of mouth is his method of advertising. He doesn’t dare do anything else. Love potions shouldn’t be for everyone. Maybe not anyone.
”Hello,” the man says carefully and moves to the counter. Minho looks at him. Waits for him to talk. He’s handsome in a boyish way. His black hair is fluffy and his lips pursed. He fiddles with the ends of the hair back at his nape before trying to talk again. His ears are blood-red.
”You know, I’m closing in ten minutes,” Minho tries to spur him on. He doesn’t have the opening hours displayed outside. Not anywhere. Word of mouth. It’s the wrong move, he decides right away. The man takes a few short breaths, eyes wide. They’re dark brown, like tree bark after he drops it in the cauldron, and swimming with panic as they try to adjust to their new surroundings.
”I-I’m sorry! I didn’t know. I’ll come back another time then,” he says, backing up towards the door stiffly. Dori decides it’s a great time to hop on the counter next to Minho right then. It startles the man so badly that Minho sees him jump before he turns and runs out. The door to the shop is heavy, but the scrawny man manages to open it so that it hits the wall next to it. He is a tiny dot in the distance when it finally closes behind him.
”Don’t scare my customers like that,” Minho tells Dori.
✧˖°☾☽°˖✧
”There’s a man walking back and forth outside your shop,” the palace worker says before leaving with his delivery.
Minho waits for five minutes after he’s left before pushing the door open.
”Hey,” he yells to the man. He stops mid-pace, eyes round when they spot Minho.
”Come in, it’s cold out here,” Minho says and gets back in. It takes more than a few minutes, but finally, the door opens delicately. The man from before steps in. He licks his lips and looks around, still standing in the doorway. It takes him less time to get to the counter this time. He wears heavy boots with no signs of distress on them, leather immaculately brown, laces looped just under the hems of his pantlegs and many times around his thin ankles.
”Hello, how can I help you?” Minho asks like last time. The man is red-cheeked, red-nosed and red-eared. Minho can see him taking deliberate breaths. He’s like a little scared animal, reminding him of Dori when he’d first found him here.
”Uh, I..” the man starts. He has a clear voice. He places his hands on the counter and fits his eyes on them. His red fingers shake until he presses them white hard on the wood. ”Sorry. I’m bad with new people. I mean. People,” he stammers out. Minho smiles.
”Is that why you want to buy a love potion?” he asks. The man’s eyes widen even more.
”I- No. I mean, yes? Kind of. Not really,” he tries to explain. Dori jumps on the counter again, and the man’s hands fly off of it like they’d been burned. Dori seems amused, whiskers wiggling like he’s trying to smirk. He drags his tail on Minho’s arm.
”His name is Dori. You can pet him,” Minho tells him.
”Oh, okay,” the man says and reaches out to Dori, who immediately basks in the attention and rubs his head against the man’s hand. He’s always been quick to purr, unlike the other two lazing at home.
”What’s your name?” Minho asks. He can make the mood more comfortable. He might not be a natural at potions, but he’s pretty good at selling them.
”Me?” the man asks, like there’s someone else in the shop with them. ”Jisung,” he immediately continues.
”Nice to meet you, Jisung. I’m Minho. You can sit down on the stool next to you, and we can talk about potions.” He points to the chair next to Jisung, whose hands are still buried in Dori’s fur. Jisung sits down gingerly, and Dori follows him. It’s like sitting at a bar. Pick your poison.
”Why do you need a love potion?” Minho asks again. He leans to tap Dori’s back but Dori is too focused on the head-scratches to notice. ”It’s important for me to know so I can give you the right kind,” he adds.
”How many years have you been doing this?” Jisung asks. It’s not a question that Minho was expecting, but he tries not to let it show. His customers tend to know him, even when he doesn’t know them.
”Well, it’s a family business, so basically since I was born,” he answers casually. Jisung leans his head on his hand, elbow on the table right next to Dori. His hair flops to the side. He has long lashes, Minho notices.
”So, you’ve basically heard everything then?” Jisung asks, and, ah, Minho might know where this is going. ”Sure. So, you want to lose your virginity then?” he asks with no frills. Jisung springs up like a wire at his words. ”I- I’m not. I mean. No. No, that’s not it,” he says. Dori hops off the counter, and then it’s just them.
”Then what is it?” Minho asks. Yes, he’s heard many reasons for purchasing love potions, but usually, they stay similar. Usually, it’s the want to make someone love you. Want you. Even if it’s against their will. But Minho can’t judge. It would be unprofessional.
Jisung’s hand moves to his neck, feeling for a pulse likely rabbiting. ”Well, I need to make myself love someone,” he says. It’s surprising, Minho thinks. Jisung’s eyes meet his for a fleeting moment, and Minho sees something quite sorrowful in them.
”Why?” he asks.
”I need to marry a woman,” he says, and Minho notices how his gaze wavers when he says woman. ”For my family,” Jisung adds. Minho feels a lump in his throat. Too familiar.
”You don’t like women?” He asks, just to clarify. Jisung doesn’t say anything, just nods. Minho can see tears brimming in his eyes. He doesn’t want to sell Jisung a potion. He wants to take his hand and lead him out of his shop and back into the crisp morning air, but he can’t. He knows he can’t. He sighs.
”I’m sorry,” he says. Maybe it’s crossing a line to lay his hand on Jisung’s shoulder, but he still does it, allowing himself a moment before turning back to pick out a bottle from the shelf.
He slides it across the counter to Jisung, who takes it in his hands and traces the simple lines of it. The label is in Minho’s handwriting. Ingredients are never listed.
”Let’s start slow. Take it when you see her. It should work for a maximum of two hours.” If it works, Minho doesn’t add.
Jisung gnaws at his bottom lip with his teeth. ”Okay,” he says. He pays up and leaves as quietly as he’d entered.
Minho has a peculiar feeling when he closes up the shop and heads home with Dori meowing under his armpit. He’d given Jisung a weak potion on purpose. It was unprofessional. Very much so.
✧˖°☾☽°˖✧
It’s early morning when Jisung comes in again. Minho barely hears the door open from the back. He leaves the recipe book and herbs reluctantly. The mortar only has half of them in. He knows that he can decipher which ones by just looking at them, but it still makes him nervous to leave mid-step. He washes his hands as quickly as he bears.
Jisung’s posture is better when he sits down, and he even manages to nod hello when Minho greets him. It’s colder today, but he’s still dressed the same. Clean-cut and simple, yet still telling of wealth; his linen shirt colored royal indigo, black pants clearly tailored for his delicate measurements, and a jacket made of soft-looking wool, meticulously felted on the inside.
”It didn’t work,” he says. He fidgets, gaze fitted above Minho. On the bottles behind him. ”Is there something wrong? With me?” His eyes flicker to meet Minho’s and surprisingly stay there, waiting for Minho to answer. He seems steelier today. More solid.
”No. There’s nothing wrong with you, Jisung,” Minho says. The man draws in a breath when he hears his name. Maybe he didn’t expect Minho to remember it. His lips purse and Minho finds a mole under the lower one.
”I just gave you a weaker potion to start with,” Minho says. He turns around, feeling guilty. He picks out a more expensive bottle, something a little stronger. Something he would actually give as a starting potion.
”Here,” he says and hands the bottle to Jisung. ”It’s on the house.”
Minho has a complicated relationship with potions. Usually, he doesn’t let it affect his work. When the palace worker comes in the mornings, he doesn’t think about poisoning her. Even if that’s exactly what he’s doing.
What he can’t stop thinking about is Jisung poisoning himself.
✧˖°☾☽°˖✧
”Hello again,” he says when Jisung comes in. Minho has been expecting him. He even came in earlier than usual to make all the new brews and the one potion he never wants to make, but has to. All this, just to be freed of any responsibilities for one man.
He hates being in the shop. The smell, the constant worry in his mind, and the constant itch in his hands, dirty.
”I think I need something stronger,” Jisung mumbles. He has the two empty bottles with him, and Minho doesn’t dare let him know that he doesn’t need to return them. He sits down in his usual spot.
”It didn’t work?” Minho asks. He’d expected this one to do the trick. Usually, the potion always wins over the mind.
”Not really. I mean, I could talk to her, but I didn’t feel anything.” Dori meows and then decides to jump straight into Jisung’s lap. The man starts petting him like he’s been here a hundred times. A lot of his clients love Dori, but only a rare few have ever been given this much attention.
If he's honest, this isn’t something he has experience with. His grandmother did. Because there is always a potion strong enough. Even strong enough to rewire your brain to love something that doesn’t come at all naturally to it. Minho knows it very well. He knows what that kind of potion needs, of course he does. There’s one of them sitting in the back at this moment, waiting for another morning, for another palace worker.
The thought of it alone makes him uncomfortable to the point of nausea.
So, he sells Jisung another potion. This time stronger. He hopes it works for the other’s sake, but with more ferocity, he hopes that it doesn’t work. Hopes that nothing in his shop works. That Jisung will be forced to give up.
✧˖°☾☽°˖✧
”No?” Minho asks when he sees Jisung enter on another Wednesday morning.
”No,” Jisung answers and sets the empty potion bottle on the counter. Minho takes it with a level mind and level hands. He has to control his expression when he discards it under the counter.
This was Jisung’s eighth bottle. They didn’t have much left to try anymore. Only the second most potent that Minho would allow himself to mix from his grandmother’s recipes. The strongest one he was reluctantly ready to sell.
”Jisung?” he asks.
”Yes?” Jisung looks pensive. He was getting discouraged, too. It's been two months since he first stepped foot in Minho’s shop, and nothing had worked yet. He’d spent a lot of money on the potions, and based on his careful explanations, Minho could detect that he was very nervous about trying them. It must have been a difficult time for him.
”I don’t know if there’s a potion I want to offer you anymore. The next one’s going to be very strong, exponentially stronger than the previous ones. Are you sure you want to do this anymore?” he asks Jisung.
Minho is admittedly scared. The potion he’s about to give Jisung took three months to brew. It’s the strongest he has at hand. It’s supposed to work for a short time, as all love potions do, but make the taker completely infatuated to the point of sacrificing themselves for their love.
Jisung looks down. He’s been looking more put together lately when he comes into Minho’s shop. More accessories, hair set to a middle part with its natural fluff smoothed out. He watches as Jisung bites at his lip, a habit.
”I don’t have a choice,” is all he says.
”Are you sure that you don’t?” Minho finds himself asking. He shouldn’t dig deeper into his client’s issues. It won’t do him any good. He’s already too invested because he doesn’t want to sell Jisung this potion and he doesn’t want to see Jisung go through this.
”It’s what my family wants,” Jisung says and takes the bottle from the counter. He stands up and looks Minho in the eyes. ”How much?”
Minho sighs. ”Jisung, I know I shouldn’t involve myself, but you should live for yourself. Believe me, I’ve been there.”
”How much?” Jisung repeats, interrupting him. He doesn’t want to think about what he was almost about to disclose. Some part of him is glad to be spared of the pain.
”Just take it,” Minho says and excuses himself to the back room. The cauldron sits in the middle of it all with menacing force. Minho looks at it for a while and ponders if even he is living for himself.
✧˖°☾☽°˖✧
Jisung doesn’t come in the next week. Minho finds himself worried. His cats circle him around all day, and all of them follow him to work for a change. He needs to mix a replacement potion for the one that Jisung took but can’t bring himself to do it.
It’s quiet. The cats are sleeping in a pile on the floor where there’s a sunny spot created by the window. Minho feels like he’s on the verge of insanity. He’s had memories appearing more frequently since Jisung made an entrance into his shop and his life. Memories he’d rather not remember.
Memories of love.
He sighs and goes to the back room. He’s missing a herb for the potion. He should go to the market tomorrow and get it. Idly, he sweeps the floor and arranges the recipe books back to their original order. He’d changed it after his grandmother passed. She liked them to be ordered alphabetically. Minho prefers them organized by potency; the strongest ones at the bottom. He wants to suffer for it. To lift the heavy pile day after day to get to the one on the very bottom.
He lifts his long sleeves to his elbows once he’s done. It’s warm, one of those rare early winter days that still smell of autumn.
The scars on his hands throb. He pulls his sleeves back down.
”Minho?” he hears from the shop. Relief washes over him.
Jisung still looks like himself. He’s standing in the middle of the room, solid and lively. He seems carefree today, in complete contrast to Minho.
”It did more than the previous ones! There is hope if you can just make a stronger one,” Jisung slides next to the counter, and takes his usual seat. His smile lights up the room like a flickering candle. Minho has never seen him smile in full before. He doesn’t smile back. Can’t.
”Jisung, that was the strongest one I have,” Minho tells him, still feeling gloomy. He crosses his arms on his chest to stop the throb that’s settled into his bones by now.
”Can’t you just make a stronger one?”
”I can, but I won’t,” Minho tells him. The bottom of the pile. The strongest of them all. He won’t let it get used on another person ever again.
”Please,” Jisung says. ”Minho, I need this.” Pleading eyes meet his. Minho feels like giving in, but he won’t. Never when it comes to this.
”No,” he simply answers.
”Why not?” Jisung asks. Minho eyes him carefully. Behind the brightness still lies the same undercurrent of melancholy. The sadness is hard to read, but Minho has written it enough to decode it by now.
He leaves the counter and goes to the door, followed by Jisung’s curious eyes. He locks up the shop with practiced ease, with the years of doing this weighing on his back like they’ve never done before.
He sees Jisung swallow when he turns around to wander next to the fireplace.
”There is a potion strong enough,” he starts with. ”It’s so strong that it can override any romantic or sexual preference. Strong enough to rewire your brain for a moment. Strong enough that you won’t even notice it doing it before it’s done,” Minho says.
He moves to face Jisung. Takes Jisung’s hand in his. Traces the veins he can see through the skin.
Jisung looks at him with confusion in his big eyes. ”What would it require?” he asks. Almost a whisper.
”Blood,” Minho tells him. Jisung’s hand stops Minho’s fingers from tracing the veins.
”I’ll give you my blood,” Jisung tells him. Minho takes his hand and moves it back to his lap.
”I won’t take it. I will never make that potion for you, and I’ll make sure no one else makes it for you either,” Minho tells him. It’s the least he can do.
”Why?” Jisung asks again. Minho closes his eyes.
When he opens them, Jisung is looking at him. He’s so vulnerable, offering Minho his blood. Offering Minho his life on a platter for him to just play with.
Minho sits down on the stool next to Jisung, rolls up his sleeves, and shows himself.
”It almost destroyed me,” he whispers and looks down at his scars.
Jisung lets out a small gasp. His fingers come up to touch Minho’s arms. They’re cool against his skin. ”I’m sorry, Minho,” he says.
”Don’t,” Minho manages. He looks down at Jisung’s fingers. They’re crooked.
”It was my grandmother,” he finds himself telling. ”She wanted me to marry a woman of very high status. Made us drink the potions until all we knew was love for each other. Once you’re that deep, you don’t want to stop.” Minho swallows.
”Then what made it stop?” Jisung asks. His fingers are still on Minho’s arms. The throb is a quiet hum under his skin.
”She died. My grandmother. I missed a week of the potion and snapped out of it at her funeral,” he laughs bitterly. It had been a very eye-opening affair.
”What happened to the woman?”
”She’s still taking it,” Minho admits. ”It’s my worst sin.” He thinks back to all the mornings. The three palace workers with their quiet acceptance.
”For you?” Jisung’s touch finally leaves him.
”No, of course not. She’s like us, Jisung. Forced to be with a man even when she feels nothing for men. Except for her, it’s a necessity. It can’t be helped,” Minho says and shrugs. He can’t tell Jisung more. He’s already revealed too much.
”You’re gay too?” Jisung asks him, hands coming back to grasp at Minho’s. Minho laughs. That’s what Jisung is choosing to focus on.
”Yes. I realized after the potion wore off. My grandmother probably knew way before I did.” Minho looks at Jisung’s reaction and is surprised to see curiosity instead of pity. Jisung leans his side on the counter. He looks at Minho from his head to his toes. Really takes him in.
Jisung is quick, and he’s silent. That Minho has noticed in all the times the other has visited his shop. He’s quick now, too, getting on his feet, stepping between Minho’s knees, and pressing a kiss on his mouth.
It’s silent. Jisung is close, his knees knocking together between Minho’s. Minho looks up at him. The shy man who’d fleed from his shop the first time they’d met, is now so bold in front of him.
Minho finds himself tracing a hand up the side of Jisung’s thigh. Finds himself closing his eyes when Jisung takes it as permission to lean in once again.
The press of Jisung’s lips is gentle, but Minho feels himself tipping closer and opening up until he tastes the other’s saliva on his tongue.
Jisung’s fingers tug on his hair. His mouth moans against Minho’s lips. The scent of the potions is intoxicating, but it has nothing on Jisung’s fingers when they tickle Minho’s neck and slide into his hair.
The kiss becomes intense quickly. It makes Minho’s skin burn hot under his clothes. Jisung tugs him closer until Minho’s forced to stand up and pull them away from the counter.
The cushions on the floor are full of cat hair, but that’s only a small detail in his mind when Minho spins them around, and Jisung lays himself on top of them. The cats have long since vacated the spot and scrambled to the back. Jisung looks ethereal as the natural light from the window hits him. Minho gets on top of him.
Opening the buttons of Jisung’s shirt feels like a religious experience. His skin is unblemished and beautiful under. Jisung’s hands wander under his shirt until Minho gives in and tugs it off, too.
Their bare chests fit together as their lips meet again. They don’t bother getting the whole shirt off Jisung, long sleeves still covering his hands as the shirt pools next to his bare sides.
Minho feels like tasting Jisung all over, so that’s what he does. It’s been a long time since he’s been like this with another person. Even longer since he’s felt something during it. He wants to make Jisung feel good. Because soft, delicate, bold Jisung deserves the world. Deserves anything he desires.
Minho traces his mouth on the hard planes of Jisung’s torso. Licks the spot where Jisung’s ribs break the skin and gets the other to shiver. He pays extra attention to Jisung’s navel and traces his hands on narrow hips.
Jisung’s hands are soft and gentle in his hair, petting him. He lets out soft sounds at Minho’s touch until Minho releases him from his pants and plants his mouth where Jisung is the most sensitive. Then his touch becomes more desperate and his sounds loud and melodic.
Minho licks and sucks him until Jisung trembles and comes on his tongue, back arching up from the floor.
He looks ravished and beautiful when he gets up and switches their positions.
Jisung’s hands are surprisingly strong and sure as they maneuver Minho around and out of his clothes. The open shirt hangs off Jisung’s shoulder, but he doesn’t even notice it. He bites Minho’s inner thighs and palms him until he’s flushed and desperate.
It doesn’t take Minho long to fall apart after Jisung gets his delicate lips around him. Jisung sucks hard and presses bruises on his thighs as he tries to keep Minho still when he releases. Minho’s whole world feels like it’s turning upside down under Jisung’s hands. Maybe it is.
✧˖°☾☽°˖✧
“Do your parents know that you’re gay?” Minho asks in the afterglow. Jisung’s shirt is still open, streaks of sunlight bathe him into an angelic being. He sits up on the floor and strokes Jisung’s hair. He seems sleepy.
“They do,” he answers. Minho desperately wants to know more. It’s the first time he’s been this interested in another person after his grandmother’s passing almost five years ago. He looks at Jisung’s unmarred skin, not deserving of even the smallest of cuts. He realizes then that he would go to the ends of the earth to protect it. Then, a moment later, knows that it’s just a projection of himself.
Jisung’s hand lands on his thigh. He yawns.
“Yet they still make you marry a woman.” Minho dares to say. Jisung spares him of a reaction. It seems that there is no question at all about it. He still answers Minho.
“It’s for monetary reasons.”
“The things people do for money and love,” Minho muses. Jisung’s eyes fall to the scars littering his arms and torso.
“I know about the first and you the last,” he says. Minho’s lips twitch into a smile despite the subject matter.
“How much is she worth?” he asks.
“Mostly just land, but my parents want to sell it. The royals are interested, it’s close to the castle,” Jisung says. He swats Minho’s hand away and sits up to face him. “I really need that potion, Minho. Please, can I have it?” He sets his hand back on Minho’s thigh. Strokes up and down. Too high.
“Love potions are a lucrative business, you know,” Minho says. Fights back. Jisung takes his hand off and starts buttoning his shirt with tight lips. The cats are making a ruckus in the back room, and he should get to it soon. “I also have a sizable inheritance,” he adds.
“Okay?” Jisung says, eyebrows drawn together, shirt already buttoned and eyes roaming the room to find his coat.
“If you need to marry for money, I have money. No need to sell anything.” Minho shrugs. It’s like saving Dori, he thinks. It seems valuable. Jisung is a breath of fresh air in his shop. In his life. Someone selfless. Someone worth saving.
“You’re proposing to me?” Jisung asks, flushed and now solely focused on Minho. His hands clasp the cat hair-littered cushion on the floor. It sends particles up in the air that glimmer in the sunbeam.
“I’m offering you a better deal,” Minho answers and gets up to hand Jisung his coat.