Chapter Text
Chan finally succeeds with concocting his first usable version of a love potion.
Being a witch is already a spectacular enough feat, but Chan's always been told that, with his eptitude and the strength of his magic, he is almost prodigal. Of course, he was often told this with the kind of tone that meant you're going to give us trouble, and that was something that Seungcheol grew to take personally.
The first time Chan's been told that, it was from someone who didn't even know him, not really. It was just some random who scanned his records, took a look at his magic, and decided he fit the mold for magical miscreants.
Chan is used to it, in any case. His magic isn't exactly straightforward or clean-cut, and he can see how that would intimidate the most straightlaced of magical practitioners, and when they go through his past, the apprehension just becomes even worse. Despite this, it should be obvious how despite how often he experiences this, it's still leagues more humiliating when they say it in front of other people than just telling him this to his face, and even more still when they inform other people of it like it's their right to do so.
When one of the administrative people in charge of him saw fit to say that in front of Seungcheol, Chan had nearly hexed him.
Luckily Seungcheol felt the same. Chan didn't even have to do anything.
Maybe Chan should have thanked that person who deemed it appropriate to tell the most stubborn person to ever exist something even resembling a warning. He's almost a hundred percent certain one of the primary reasons why he'd even been asked to join the coven, aside from his ambition and potential (duh), is because Seungcheol couldn't stand people telling him what to do.
It isn't even like that those people were correct in their assumptions. Sure, Chan's personal track record within the coven hasn't been the best over the years. There was the incident with the front door he'd blown off its hinges that pissed Seungcheol off so much that he'd chased him around the house for a solid fifteen minutes before his old man bones started creaking and he had to stop, but that was also Junhui's fault for surprising him, and the time he accidentally turned Jeonghan to a maltese, but that was cute and Shua hyung didn't seem too mad about it (he didn't even undo the spell until Jeonghan the maltese was peeing on his fancy signature shoes), and also that one incident with Chan's pet venus fly traps that still prompts a haunted look in Seokmin's eyes.
It was nothing too serious, though. Definitely not the level of chaos you'd expect for someone whose been described as a walking calamity. A flight risk. An explosion waiting to happen.
In fact, Chan's been the pinnacle of good, a combination of both hard work and innate talent, and he's always been praised for it. Unlike the hyungs, who have elected to remain in the fields that they've chosen, Chan's always been the type to experiment with his magic, taking what he liked from the practices of his hyungs and somehow making it his own.
So maybe he's grown a little cocky. Chan knows he's good, that's the thing. His spells always work out and he's one of the best at potions in the coven and the hyungs always tell him that he's a diamond, his potential untapped and his desire for growth unmatched.
Maybe his head has really grown a little too big. It doesn't matter. His hyungs always think that his cockiness is cute. He had been surprised, back then, to find that even the most selfish parts of Chan are something precious in their eyes.
So if this fails, what is the worst that could happen, realistically? It just wouldn't work. They wouldn't even find out. If they do, they would scold him, of course, but Chan knows that so long as it isn't harmful to himself or the coven, Seungcheol would let it slide after a thorough talking to. They'd maybe forbid Chan from potions for a while, but Chan has other things to concern himself with, like spells and casting. Chan's made sure that it isn't harmful when ingested, and that the side effects are nonexistent. It's fine. He wouldn't want to purposefully hurt them for his experiments, anyway.
Meanwhile, if it succeeds—which it probably would, considering Chan's potion success rate of ninety eight percent, confirmed by both Joshua and Soonyoung, the former presenting the information with baffling certainty in Chan's abilities, and the latter glowing with warm pride—then they'd definitely think it would be funny and a good thing.
Love potions are not on the market for a good reason, but between witches who made potions, it's a right of passage to succeed in brewing one of them, especially considering how difficult it was to get the recipe right.
(When Junhui made his, he'd tripped and accidentally made Chan's venus fly traps fall in love with Seokmin. It's ranked first place in the board of Episodes Caused By Love Potion, but Chan's determined to beat it.)
He knows that his hyungs like him well enough, but it would be nice to see what would happen if they were well and truly obsessed with him. It isn't like they keep him out of things or that they actively make him feel excluded, but…
"Oh, you're cooking?"
Chan looks up where he's been squatting, standing guard over the oven, and grins. "Yeah," he tells him, pride clear in the line of his shoulders. "Cookies."
Seungkwan's face does something—a grimace and a scrunch all that once—that makes Chan roll his eyes. Seungkwan always took it upon himself to humble Chan, or so he always says. "Pass."
"Come on, don't be dramatic. I'm not that bad."
Seungkwan sniffs. "Says you," he says primly. "There's a reason your digestion is shit, you know. Pun intended." He grins at Chan rolling his eyes. "Mingyu hyung would love to start cooking for you too. Why don't you eat that instead of giving yourself diarrhea?"
Chan tries not to pout, but he's sure he's failing if the way Seungkwan's smirking at him is any indication. He knows that Mingyu would make anything for him too, if he asked.
Mingyu's a kitchen witch, one of the best in the field, and as the coven calls him, the heart of the home. When he cooks, he always places deliberate care into the meals, making sure that each specific plate will cater to whatever problems that the person eating it has. He's started digging into recipes for back pain recently, especially after Seungcheol started moaning about his aching joints—aigoo, our hyung-nim's getting old, Seungkwan said, which had earned him a smack upside the head from Seungcheol. Chan's sure if he asked, Mingyu would find a way to make something that'd cure even the tiniest, most insignificant anxieties in Chan's heart.
But in the years he's stayed here, he's always been too shy to ask Mingyu for a specially made meal or drink directly. He's taken bites when Mingyu feeds it to him himself with his chopsticks during mealtimes, of course, to watch how Mingyu's puppy dog face brightens with pleasure, and of course, like everyone else in the coven, has been force-fed it when he was sick, but his personality makes it difficult to add on to the eleven other people Mingyu was already cooking for.
Now that he thinks about it, even Minghao, who joined the coven last, managed to ask for this much faster than Chan.
"I'll get the hang of it," he tells him, pretending to sulk.
"Sure you will, Chan-ah."
Chan's excuse has always been that he wants to improve in making his meals independently, at weaving magic into his food. They've accepted this because Chan is Chan, and he's always been competitive and serious about his personal development. They know that his perfectionism is terminal, that he spends hours making potions and practicing spells when he could be out doing more fun things.
Well, Chan is never going to be a top notch cook, but he can at least make basic meals now thanks to his stubbornness not to be a burden.
"I will!"
Seungkwan snorts derisively. "Not anytime soon," he waves off. Chan only flips him off with a laugh, standing to take the oven mitts.
Seungkwan's always been playful and direct. He and Chan got integrated into the coven at around the same time, but they've known each other even before that, having attended the same school; Seungkwan had just been acquainted with the idea of being a healing witch then, but under Jihoon's watchful eye, immediately became someone remarkable, juggling his school work and the realization that magic existed.
Chan had not adjusted as well as he did, and even up to now, Chan still thinks of Seungkwan as some deity, some fantastical being for having accustomed himself to the newness so quickly. Luck has made it so they are this closely intertwined; the years have only strengthened their bonds.
"That's it," Chan says, taking the tray out of the coven and placing it on the kitchen counter. "You're not getting any."
He surveys them with a critical eye and nods to himself with satisfaction. Oatmeal cookies, nothing fancy, cut into shapes, with the love potion already mixed in the dough. He's even made exactly twelve of them, each one fashioned into hearts that he'd painstakingly had to cut and form. It's not anything impressive. Seokmin and Joshua, the more competent members when it came to cooking, could probably replicate it in a jiffy.
Still, once Seungkwan joins him by the counter and sees the amount of effort Chan's put into the cookies, he says, "Come on, Chan, I was only kidding," and Chan finds himself glowing with happiness.
Playfully, he says, "Nope, no, you should've thought of that before you pissed me off."
Seungkwan sticks out his tongue at him, reaching out to steal one of them. Chan slaps his hand away. "Wait until all the hyungs get here," he scolds. "I know auntie Jwa didn't raise you like this!"
Seungkwan whines and complains, but obeys nonetheless, staying still with a pout on his face as Chan walks over to the kitchen doorway, where they've installed a bell for mealtimes or snacks.
With thirteen people living in the same home, it was often disastrous whenever it was time for meals. The first few months of all thirteen living together had been hell, with arguments happening back and forth about people not leaving behind food for the others to eat. Seungcheol, having had enough, decided that if any of the meals were ready or if anyone had snacks to share, they could just ring the bell. The magic he'd casted on it made it so that you could hear it ring even if you weren't in the house or wearing headphones (this was added primarily for Vernon's benefit).
Soon enough, they hear the troubling sound of footsteps coming from all directions, and soon, the kitchen is filled to the brim with eleven other men all scrambling to see what was on the kitchen counter. Jihoon, of course, makes it to the stools by the kitchen counter first; despite being the shortest, the mass of witches naturally part for him, like they're the Red Sea and he's Moses.
"I made cookies," Chan says, a little bit embarrassed with the weight of everyone's eyes on him, but he's never been one to be ashamed by the spotlight.
Jihoon's expression doesn't change, but he does take one in his hand. This is probably the most tension-filled few seconds of his life. If Chan didn't hide the smell of the love potion or if the magic wasn't masked well enough, it's certain that Jihoon would be the one to know.
Chan watches as Jihoon watches it for a moment and bites into the cookie. The youngest member of the coven would have breathed out a sigh of relief if it wouldn't have immediately blown his cover.
"Not bad," Jihoon says, in that same begrudging tone he always uses when admitting something, and that's all it takes for everyone to clamber forward and start to fight for their individual shares.
Seungkwan finally takes one, cackling in victory even as Chan pretends to take it back, and shoves it in his mouth. Mingyu follows after, along with Seokmin, who ruffles Chan's head and calls him a good boy. Chan lets him, but not without giving him a long suffering look that he, of course, only laughs at.
Soonyoung whoops, plopping on the stool beside Jihoon, and makes grabby hands for Chan to feed him, which he does. Soonyoung, despite his skill level and frightening mood switches, always plays baby with Chan. Soonyoung's scolded everyone in the group at least once or twice, a perfectionist in his blood, but Chan's among the ones he has only rarely snapped at. Minghao always says Soonyoung gets mean under pressure, and that's not exactly wrong.
But Chan likes Soonyoung, likes it when he's nice, and even likes it when he's mean, because Chan flourishes under praise and criticism both, and appreciates when people are honest, even when they don't spare his feelings. For this reason, Soonyoung likes him back just as intensely.
"Oh, our maknae," Soonyoung cooes through the bits of dough in his mouth, and Chan tells him he shouldn't speak with his mouth full. He pouts, but obeys.
It's when everyone's finished and already badgering him to make some more that Chan remembers the purpose of the cookies. The love potion, he remembers, will only work after twenty four hours, and it's specifically targeted to change their feelings about Chan. It's not permanent, dissolves after a startlingly short period of six hours, but that'll be enough to see if the members change any.
Once it wears off, he'll show them the embarrassing videos of them acting out of character and it'd be the world's greatest prank. Even Jeonghan, Joshua, and Jun wouldn't be able to top this! It'd be one of their legendary episodes until the end of time!
Wonwoo raises both brows from where he was rubbing crumbs off his mouth. "What are you smiling so weirdly for?" he asks cautiously, looking a little bit scared.
"Nothing, hyung," Chan sings, reaching over to pat his cheek. Wonwoo looks even more confused by that, probably because Chan doesn't usually do too much skinship. "Nothing at all."