Magic Man, SeongJoong

꧁•⊹٭𝙱𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚔𝚏𝚊𝚜𝚝٭⊹•꧂

Hongjoong sat at the cluttered table, pushing things aside and putting things on the floor just to create room for the plates, and to ease his mind. A part of him couldn't believe he had agreed to cleaning this whole mess of a castle. He watched as Howl delicately placed the eggs and bacon on the fine china plates for the three of them.

"Pick one grandpa." Yeosang said, holding 3 different utensils. Hongjoong was taken back for one second, being called grandpa caught him severely off guard, yet that's what he currently was because of the god awful curse on him. He chose the only fork available.

"These are the only ones clean." Yeosang muttered and he handed Howl a utensil too. Hongjoong knew he had a lot of cleaning to do.

Hongjoong's eyes strayed towards the man who sat opposite him on the small cluttered table. His outfit was a different style than the one he wore just yesterday, he was adorned in a lovely red patterned cloak where the collar flicks high in grandiose style. He was cutting the stale bread easily with a sharp knife and handing it over to the other plates waiting on the table. Hongjoong thanked him for the bread.

"Haven't had a real breakfast for ages." Yeosang said excitedly, and Hongjoong let out a small smile. Hongjoong wasn't surprised at the fact the small child hadn't had a proper breakfast for ages, but it was still a sight to see when Yeosang started scooping the egg into his mouth from the plate directly.

"Hongjoong, what's that in your pocket?" Howl questioned and Hongjoong stopped in surprise. His pocket?

He reached inside his trouser pocket, and his fingers felt something paper like. He pulled it out, the brown paper, crumpled and barely legible. He placed it in the middle of the table confused. Since when had this piece of paper been in his pocket?

Hongjoong watched as Howl went to pick it up however, as soon as it touched the delicate skin of Howl's fingers, it burned him and small blue sparks erupted from the paper. Hongjoong was shocked, and immediately felt he needed to apologize despite not knowing what that paper was. He was even more shocked when the paper dissolved into the wood of the table, leaving behind a residual.

"It burned into the table!" Yeosang said, his mouth finally clear of all the food he shoved in, "Master Howl, this is..."

"Ancient sorcery." Howl was looking down at the mark burned into his table, a small smirk playing at his features, "It's quite powerful too."

"The Witch of the Waste?" Yeosang guessed, and an involuntary shiver ran down Hongjoong's back. The witch of the waste, Hongjoong can remember his face.

"He who catches a fallen star, oh heartless man. Your heart will be mine." Howl read from the mark burned into the table. Hongjoong listened to every word, it was written like a poem. He wondered what the witch meant.

Howl placed his hand over the mark, burning it away with his own magic. It was now the second time Hongjoong was witnessing the man in his magical element and it was amazing – as Seonghwa's hand moved over the mark, it disappeared from the dark wood.

"It's gone!"

"The mark is, the spell is not." Howl announced to the two humans sitting at the table. Hongjoong couldn't believe his luck, he was witnessing something so unusual.

Hongjoong was saddened when Howl stood up from the table with his full plate, he watched the back of the wizard as he fed the food to the fire demon and told Mingi to move the castle 100km. He wondered what the wizard was thinking after receiving such a threat which happened to come out of his own pocket. Hongjoong felt worse when he realised he didn't get to plead his case. Howl had already disappeared upstairs, beyond where Hongjoong had ventured.

"Do you work for the witch of the waste?" Yeosang questioned Hongjoong suspiciously.

Hongjoong was taken back by the young kids brazenness, "Don't be silly! The Witch.."

Hongjoong completely forgot his ability to talk about the witch was forbidden, anytime he wanted to curse the witch by speaking about the curse placed upon him, his mouth was forbidden to open and utter a single word about it. At no point in time could Hongjoong disclose anything that happened to him, he was trapped and it was frustrating.

The more he tried to force open his mouth, the tighter it would close and all he could do was mumble. The strange looks from Yeosang were piling onto the already large heap of anger in Hongjoong's soul, and completely caught Yeosang off guard when he banged his rather small hands on the table, making books and all sorts of rubbish fall to the floor.

"Curse that Witch! I can't wait to get my hands on him." Hongjoong uttered mostly to himself, "Let me finally begin eating."

Hongjoong didn't know if he began eating to gain strength for cleaning or to fist fighting that witch, who was taller and every much more stronger than him. Yeosang watched the old man in wonder – he couldn't help but think he was a little childish.

It wasn't long after the food they ate that Hongjoong was suited up for tackling the castle's mess. He first began with rubbish, anything that could be thrown into a bag and then into a bin, he did it. He pushed everything to one side – all the dirty dishes he threw into a overflown sink. Broken plates were thrown out, and all the furniture was pushed to one corner. If Yeosang hadn't witnessed the determination of the old man, he would've thought that Hongjoong was trying to tackle a plague.

He was dressed in his weird clothes, yet had a messy shirt covering his hair and the back of his neck. He had a towel hanging out of his pants to clean off his hands easily, and he had tied another towel around the bottom of his face to cover his mouth and nose. The large brush in his hand was used to sweep all the dust from the floors, the ceilings and every small crack Hongjoong could reach with his small height.

"Get out of here bugs." Hongjoong muttered as he swept up all the little bugs littering around.

Yeosang's job was to bring out all the messy stuff which dropped from the piles Hongjoong had set up, in fact, the child was convinced the old man was making more of a mess inside so Yeosang took it upon himself to bring it outside. He brought all of the books outside to keep them safe from harm's way.

After the dust was cleared, Hongjoong grabbed a brush and started unloading buckets of water on the floor to clean it, his end goal was to see the floor sparkling under the daylight. So, he brushed and he scrubbed like his old age wasn't a problem.

"Hongjoong! I'm going out!" The fire demon shouted out.

Hongjoong was so deeply into his cleaning, the shouting from Mingi was merely background noise, his voice wasn't registering in his head so he continued to work. The sweat began building on his forehead. Hongjoong then moved to work on the ashes building around Mingi, yet the desperation the demon was facing still hadn't registered in Hongjoong's mind.

When Hongjoong walked back into the castle, he realised Howl was holding a blue dying flame. Hongjoong internally panicked. However, his panic was settled when Mingi burst into life again by the breath of Howl and he was placed gently back onto fresh firewood. Howl turned to Hongjoong with a small smile.

"Try not to torment my friend, Hongjoong." His voice was soft and silky, yet Hongjoong felt like he should've been shouted at for not paying close attention.

As Howl walked passed Hongjoong and to the door, Hongjoong realised Howl had changed his hair. It was still the magnificent blonde Hongjoong was used to, yet it was styled and cut differently than before.

"Yeosang, tell our cleaning assistant not to get too carried away."