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Taehyung had been busking outside the Silver Web shrine, the little one downtown that had been there even before his parents were born, for three days in a row before he saw the witch who tended it. He kept playing the cheesy pop tune he was in the middle of on his little bright-yellow ukulele, even though his ears perked up at the sound of the old-fashioned sliding door squeaking over the wooden floor several meters behind him. He was sure then that he was going to be shooed away - that the witch of the shrine, as tolerant as he or she might have been to the urban hustle and bustle around their fenced-off shrine, was not going to go so far as to allow a Hawaiian-shirt clad man to warble Stayin’ Alive to passers by within earshot of their gate.
He shifted his posture, rotating himself just slightly so that he could see the shrine out of the corner of his eye. A human figure was definitely emerging, clad in the old-fashioned all-black robes of a spider witch. He was holding something - a stick? Taehyung almost gave up then and fled for fear of getting menaced with a weapon, when he realized - it was a rake. The witch came out and peacefully, quietly, raked up all the leaves from the tiny little garden that buffered the shrine from its fence, and then went back inside.
The trees that had dropped all those leaves were one of the main reasons Taehyung chose that location to busk anyway. Old trees, big branches, lots of shade. No passers-by ever seemed to be interested in visiting the Silver Web shrine itself, but at least it made something interesting for them to look at as they walked by, an old-fashioned bit of greenery and wood architecture in between the ice cream shop and the cell phone reseller. Interesting enough - and shady enough - to be willing to pause to dig out a few coins or a smaller-denomination bill to throw into his basket. (Cheery yellow, to match the ukulele.)
Taehyung had a whole strategy, built entirely around the ukulele. He went all-out with his busking persona: not only the yellow ukulele and the loudest Hawaiian shirt he could find, but board shorts (with leggings underneath when the weather was colder), a big straw hat, and giant sunglasses. It was eye-catching, and sometimes drew smiles. Anything to get a little passive advantage.
It was the very next day after that first one when the witch came out to rake leaves, when the witch coincidentally came out again to rake leaves at exactly the time when Taehyung was playing, that he realized they were probably coming out on purpose to listen to him. Maybe? Or maybe he was just full of himself. So, really, maybe it was three or four more days after that, after the witch had come out to rake leaves without fail each time Taehyung was there playing - raking fewer leaves each time (because honestly, not that many were falling each day), more and more slowly, drawing it out - that Taehyung realized they were definitely coming out on purpose to listen to him.
So then the next day he angled himself as he played, so that he was more sideways and would be able to get a better glimpse of his silent, shadowy audience member. Sure enough, just halfway through his first song, the witch emerged with the usual rake and got to work slowly and laboriously scraping up the fifteen entire leaves that had fallen in the previous twenty-four hours. It would be less work if they just leaned down and picked them up one by one, Taehyung thought to himself. I guess that’s not the point, though.
Once the witch got closer to the fence, Taehyung could see that it was a man - and shockingly young, too. Spider magic was becoming less and less popular these days, or so Taehyung heard. Something must have drawn this guy to it, though. He had cat-like eyes, a sort of elfin face, and his shoulder-length hair was held up in a little half-up ponytail.
Taehyung had, of course, learned the basic information about the main magical orders when he was in school. There was The Order of the Dragon, which was mostly pyromancy and of course the one that kids always said they wanted to get into. There was Hearthstone, for kitchen and garden and even some animal magic. There were The Crystal Seers, whose purification magic relied very heavily on being able to hold a complete, complex visualization in mind for extended periods - which had the side effect of their order producing very talented visual artists, which meant in turn that their temples sold some absolutely killer merch and were very profitable. And then there were The Golden Hawks with their earth-moving powers, and The Golden Order with their telekinesis and the way they got very offended if you mixed them up with The Golden Hawks. And The Silver Web, concerned with more esoteric areas like textiles and the currents of the air (and yes, spiders and other invertebrates). Taehyung mused that they must have been more popular in ancient times, when thread and cloth were so much harder to make, but clothes and nets and blankets and sails were still vital to life.
The days went by, fall deepened and became colder, and sunset began creeping earlier into the day. Each time Taehyung spent some time playing outside the shrine, the witch still emerged. And then, he’d go back in, and turn on a light against the coming twilight. It seemed so cozy, and Taehyung started to think of it as part of the ritual of busking at this particular place. He’d arrive, set up and play, the witch would come out and “rake” as a silent, unacknowledged audience, then go back inside, and the light would come on. The image of the temple, windows aglow with the gentle light through the screens, would form the backdrop as Taehyung packed back up again. It was somewhat dreamlike, as if Taehyung were briefly in a different time and place on those afternoons.
Then, one day, things changed. Taehyung got to the shrine and there was a sign posted:
[PERMANENTLY CLOSED]
[CLOSEST SILVER WEB SHRINE IS NOW AT 411 SANGDO]
[WALK THE WEB IN PEACE]
Taehyung gaped at it in shock. It didn’t occur to him that such a thing was possible. He felt a sudden wave of panicked sadness wash over him. He never got the chance to speak to the witch at all! Or even learn his name! He thought of him as a kind of companion, but then selfishly never did anything more. He stood there a moment, trying to process the sick feeling of having missed his chance at something. He felt, in fact, rather ashamed of himself. He realized he had sort of been thinking of the witch as part of the aesthetics of the location, not as a human being.
He hoped the witch was okay. He hoped he wasn’t too sad about his shrine closing. Hopefully there was a bigger place he could go, where he could still do his spider magic in peace and not be lonely. Taehyung swallowed down the lump in his throat as best he could. He played there, the same as he had, but felt a wave of sadness when nobody emerged to rake leaves, and when no light came on inside at the end of the afternoon.
The next time he came by, the windows and doors had all been boarded up. Taehyung supposed that, ironically, the inside and the eaves were probably all getting filled with spiderwebs now. The days continued to go by, and Taehyung continued to play outside the shrine. It was still a nice location and he usually made a good amount of tips - he just had to accept feeling a pang of regret each time he showed up and had to be confronted with the sign and the nailed-up boards and the darkness again.
🕸
One day, when fall had nearly given way to winter and Taehyung was just about ready to call an end to the outdoor busking season, Taehyung showed up to the shrine and there was somebody already there. He was leaning against the fence outside the shrine, on the side opposite from where Taehyung usually set up. He was wearing a plain, giant black t-shirt, black jeans, black boots, and a black beanie. It definitely got the point across, Taehyung thought to himself with amusement.
Then he did a double-take, and tried to peer at the man’s face without seeming like he was.
Was that…the witch who used to live at the shrine?
The man didn’t look at Taehyung as he put his ukulele case down and got ready to perform. He was looking at something on his phone. Perhaps he was waiting for someone to come pick him up. Taehyung’s mind was spinning, unsure if he could trust his eyes. Dressed so differently, he felt like he couldn’t be sure if it was the same person or not.
In any case, he started playing, thinking that if he worked up the nerve, maybe he’d just walk a few paces over there, after a song or two, and just ask him directly? Then he thought of the picture the two of them made here, and almost laughed out loud. The cool dude with a low-key goth vibe on one side of the gate, and Taehyung in his loud floral shirt, straw hat, sunglasses, and surf shorts on the other.
Then, four chords into his first song, one of his ukulele strings broke. Taehyung looked down at it in dismay as the two ends sprung out, curling and waving zanily out from the saddle and the headstock. He had spare strings - at home, of course. He preferred to pack light. He’d never had a string break when he was out on the street before. He looked up to see a passerby give him a look halfway between dubious and sympathetic, and a nervous giggle bubbled out of him in response. Then, as the pedestrian turned his head and walked past, Taehyung’s eyes automatically followed him, and then slid over to the man in black leaning against the fence.
He was looking curiously over at Taehyung. Looking more directly at his face, Taehyung was even more sure that it was the witch.
“I- I could fix that for you!” he said, pointing to the ukulele. “I can mend the string.”
“Um,” Taehyung said blankly. “Sure, if you want to give it a try?”
So with a tiny little smile, the man pushed himself off the wall and walked towards him. Taehyung held out his shiny yellow ukulele, expecting him to take it from him. Instead, once he got close, he simply stuck out his two index fingers, and put one one each end of the broken string - at the saddle and the headstock. Then, he smoothed the string back down, pulling his fingers closer together, until they met back at the point along the neck where it had broken. His fingers made a little poyt-poyt-poyt noise as he dragged them over the frets, pressing the string down gently as he went. Then, he lifted his fingers - and the string was whole again.
“Oh wow!” Taehyung said, impressed. “Thank you so much!”
The man gave him a much bigger smile then.
“So, are you the-” Taehyung asked, jerking his head sideways towards the shrine. “The um, you were at the Silver Web shrine here, weren't you? That was spider magic, right?”
The man’s face took on a strange mixed expression - a flash of brightness in his eyes from being recognized, and a tinge of sadness, probably about the shrine.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “You- you recognize me?”
Taehyung nodded and smiled, and tucked the ukulele carefully under his arm.
“I thought it was you when I first got here today, but I wasn’t sure,” he admitted. “It’s nice to talk to you finally! My name is Taehyung.”
“It’s nice to meet you too, I’m Yoongi.” the witch replied, and they bowed to each other.
Taehyung didn’t want to let this chance slip away. He didn’t want to leave today with even more regrets that he didn’t follow up on his desire to get to know Yoongi.
“So!” Taehyung said to him conspiratorially, “which of the songs I played here was your favorite?”
Yoongi smiled back but looked a little embarrassed.
“You could tell I was listening?” he asked sheepishly.
Taehyung grinned at him.
“I mean, either that, or you’re the world’s worst leaf-raker,” he teased.
Then, he took a deep breath and took a more serious tone.
“I’m really sorry that the shrine was closed,” he said sympathetically. “Have you been okay since then?”
Yoongi’s face fell then, and he looked quite miserable.
“It’s complicated,” he replied softly.
“Can I buy you a ramyeon and a coffee or something?” Taehyung asked, trying to seem casual even though his heart was doing pitter-pats. “I mean, I was out front here invading your space all those times, and you saved my day by fixing the string, so…let me make it up to you?”
“Well,” Yoongi said reluctantly, not meeting his eyes, “I also listened to you playing for free all that time, and don’t you need to, you know, keep playing? You just got here…”
Taehyung shrugged nonchalantly.
“It’s not like it’s a regular job,” he insisted. “I’m in charge of how long I stay. I’d love to have a chance to sit and talk with you, if you have the time now.”
Yoongi actually blushed a little.
“Okay, if you’re sure,” he said quietly. “I’d enjoy that.”
So Taehyung packed up his bright-yellow ukulele and just a few minutes later they had walked to the nearest ramyeon restaurant and gotten their orders in.
“So, can I ask you how you got started with spider magic?” Taehyung asked.
Yoongi looked pensive.
“Well, I actually don’t know anything else,” he said with a shrug. “I was adopted by the Silver Web order as a baby.”
“Oh.” Taehyung replied, taken aback. “I thought they didn’t do that any more.”
“They don’t.” Yoongi said with a rueful smile. “I was pretty much the last one, they stopped the practice after that. Anyway, it was fine, I mean I was always the youngest of the initiates and trainees as I worked my way through their school.”
Then he sighed.
“Of course, spider magic is getting less popular - it’s just the most esoteric of the orders,” he explained. “Everyone these days wants to learn pyromancy or kitchen magic.”
“Is that why your shrine had to close?” Taehyung asked.
“Pretty much, yeah,” Yoongi said sadly. “They decided to consolidate and only keep the most popular shrines open. Everyone else was supposed to get moved to the main temple up on the hill but in the end there wasn’t enough room for all of us, so they decided based on order of seniority.”
“Oh no,” Taehyung said, appalled. “They just… kicked you out?”
“I mean, they gave me a little payout to start over,” Yoongi replied in a small voice. “Helped me find an apartment and all that.”
“That’s so unfair, though,” Taehyung argued. “They’re the ones who took you in in the first place! It- it wasn’t even your choice to join!”
Yoongi shrugged, his eyes wet and his face unhappy.
“I still have my magic, it’s not like they can take back all the training they gave me,” he replied weakly. “I mean, it does feel unfair to me too, but I can’t do anything about it - I just have to, just, keep moving forward on my own.”
Just then, their food showed up, so they both let the conversation lapse in favor of slurping noodles and broth. Taehyung mulled and stewed over the situation. The absolute unfairness of it rankled at him.
“Well!” he finally said declaratively, startling Yoongi a little at the way he broke the silence. “We’re friends now, so you don’t have to do it all on your own. Can we exchange numbers? We should hang out.”
Already pulling his phone out of his pocket, he was hoping Yoongi would smile at this suggestion, but instead he looked even more miserable…and guilty?
“I’m sorry,” Yoongi said, pushing his bowl away slightly. “I have to confess something.”
Taehyung let his hand fall again and listened to Yoongi with trepidation.
“It was my fault,” he said regretfully, looking down at the table. “I broke your ukulele string.”
“What?” Taehyung asked, totally baffled.
“I used my magic to break your string,” Yoongi repeated miserably, “so I’d have an excuse to talk to you.”
“Wh-why?” Taehyung prompted, still no less baffled. “I mean, we’ve seen each other a bunch of times-”
“Because you’re intimidating,” Yoongi admitted in a small voice. “All the times you were outside the shrine I tried to work up the courage to say hi but I never did. You’re so cool and confident, standing out there playing for everyone.”
Taehyung felt absolutely stunned. He looked at Yoongi, every picture the cool, put-together goth-tinged witch (a witch! With magic powers and everything! Dedicated to his craft since childhood!) and then contemplated his ridiculous, easily-smiling, Hawaiian-shirt-and-board-shorts clad self.
And what could he do then but laugh?
“INTIMIDATING?!” he shrieked, falling over sideways in the restaurant booth from the force of his guffaws, “ ME?!”
He saw Yoongi smiling at him nervously so he made an effort to collect himself after letting himself give in to laughter.
“How am I intimidating to you?” he asked, still chuckling. “You talk to spiders!”
“The spiders don’t ever talk back,” Yoongi explained with a pleading expression, his shoulders hunched a little.
Taehyung just shook his head and smiled, and slurped up a huge mouthful of noodles to give himself a moment to think.
“Intimidating!” he finally muttered again in a blustering tone, giving Yoongi a wink when he looked up at him.
Then Taehyung leaned back and gave him a mischievous look.
“You know, I think you’re going to have to make this up to me,” he said archly. “This lunch is on me, so you have to pay for the next one.”
“The- the next one?” Yoongi replied cautiously.
“Yes,” Taehyung stated firmly. “The next one, and perhaps even one or two more after that.”
“Oh, okay,” Yoongi said with a shy smile and a slight blush, looking as if he were catching on. “Sure, I’ll accept that as my due penance.”
🕸
After they’d been going on dates for a year, Taehyung informed Yoongi with great ceremony that he had finally been forgiven for calling him intimidating.
“Oh, so you’re finally going to stop bringing it up?” Yoongi said with a little smirk, sitting at Taehyung’s table making the steam rising up from his morning coffee form into little hearts before it dissipated.
“Yes, we can put it all behind us now,” Taehyung said with relish.
But that night, long after they’d fallen asleep together, with Taehyung curled around Yoongi, Taehyung was awoken by something. He blinked and lifted his head up and tried to figure out what was happening, but then he realized that Yoongi - on his side, facing away from Taehyung - was crying.
“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” he asked softly, caressing Yoongi’s side.
“I don’t want you to forgive me,” Yoongi blurted out brokenly. “I don’t.”
“Um,” Taeyhung responded unhelpfully, trying to wake himself up sufficiently to figure out what his boyfriend was getting at.
He grabbed at him gently, buying time by manhandling him around and getting him properly cradled close in his arms.
“Come here,” he said, pulling him in and caressing along his back. “Why don’t you want me to forgive you?”
“Because that’s why we’re together,” Yoongi tried to explain, still crying. “It’s a stupid reason, but it’s the reason. My- my parents gave me away, the order gave me away, I don’t want you to have a reason to be done with me too.”
Then he cried some more, as Taehyung’s still-twenty-percent-asleep brain tried to think of something to say that wasn’t absurd.
“That’s absurd,” Taehyung said and then bit his lip, annoyed at himself. “Yoongi, it’s- it’s the middle of the night, everything always seems extra horrible now.”
Yoongi sniffled loudly and clung to Taehyung even more tightly.
“I won’t be done with you, ever,” Taehyung said. “I love you. I’m keeping you. Okay?”
Yoongi didn’t answer but his tears seemed to have slowed considerably.
“We’ll talk in the morning, alright?” Taehyung went on. “I promise, I’m yours. Okay?”
This time, at least, Yoongi nodded into his chest. Taehyung grabbed a few kleenex from the bedside table, let him wipe his face, and then wrapped him back up. He was relieved when Yoongi fell back asleep in his arms fairly quickly.
Yoongi was very apologetic in the morning.
“I’m sorry I said all that weird, gloomy stuff last night,” he said over breakfast, trying to sound dismissive. “I think I was mostly asleep, just saying meaningless dream stuff, you know.”
“Yoongi, it’s okay to be sad about what happened to you,” Taehyung said. “Of course that sort of thing would change how you feel about life, and commitment, and all of it.”
Yoongi suddenly looked dangerously close to tears again, so Taehyung stepped around the table and hugged him.
“In fact,” Taehyung said calmly, “I’ve found that, on further thought, I haven’t fully forgiven you.”
Yoongi managed a wet chuckle against his shoulder.
“Yes, I realized I still feel a little resentful,” Taehyung went on. “And the only thing that can possibly soothe me is if you move in with me.”
Yoongi pulled back and looked at him in shock.
“Really?” he whispered, “Do you really mean it?”
“Yes,” he said confidently, “we’re going to go out today and pick out matching keyrings.”
Yoongi was smiling so hard that he couldn’t even really kiss Taehyung, so Taehyung contented himself with kissing his cheeks instead.
“And, um,” Yoongi said finally, squirming a little under Taehyung’s kisses, “I love you too.”
And then maybe Taehyung cried a little too, and they each said it a few more times for good measure, and still didn’t manage any real on-target kisses for a good long while.
🕸
Yoongi still got sad at times, of course. Taehyung knew that it was the sort of thing you didn’t ever really “get over,” you just learned to live with it. He just tried to be there, provide hugs and coffee and whatever else seemed to help at the time. But that’s just how the human brain worked: it had to remind you about being sad every so often, and you just had to wait for it to pass.
So Taehyung was slightly worried when he got home one day, about six months after they had been living together, and Yoongi didn’t seem to be anywhere inside. He was expecting Yoongi to be home - and in fact, he saw Yoongi’s keychain sitting on the counter just inside the front door. (They had both gotten heart-shaped charms: silver for Yoongi and pink for Taehyung. Sometimes when Yoongi left in the morning he took Taehyung’s “on accident” and then tried very hard not to laugh when Taehyung went off on a dramatic rant at the end of the day about how he couldn’t believe Yoongi would do such a thing and he’d better give Taehyung a kiss to make up for it.)
Then, Taehyung glanced out the back door to the balcony, and saw Yoongi’s legs sticking out, indicating he was lying flat on his back out on the bare concrete floor outside. He gasped and ran for the door, sliding it open roughly in his haste. He stuck his head out and looked down at Yoongi wildly.
“Are you okay?” he cried out, seeing that Yoongi was at least conscious, his eyes open and looking at the upper corner of the underside of the apartment balcony directly above them.
“She won’t listen to me,” Yoongi said in a wavering voice.
“Who?” Taehyung asked, coming out slowly so he could kneel next to Yoongi’s hip.
“The spider,” he said, lifting an arm to point to where he was looking.
Indeed, there was a spider web, with a little brown spider in the center of it, up in that corner. Taehyung sat and contemplated it for a moment, putting a soothing hand gently down on Yoongi’s belly.
“What are you trying to tell her?” he asked finally.
“She has to move!” Yoongi said in frustration, reaching up and scrubbing tears out of his wet eyes. “When the birds come to roost in the courtyard tonight, she’s going to get spotted and eaten!”
“And she just won’t?” Taehyung asked.
“No!” Yoongi cried despondently.
“You can’t, like, just move the spider web?” Taehyung asked.
“No,” Yoongi replied despairingly. “I mean, I could move the web, but I’d never be able to get it anchored again.”
“Maybe we could try to capture her, and knock down the web, and move her somewhere else?” he suggested next.
“That’s so mean though,” Yoongi gasped, lying there on his back looking up at Taehyung, his eyes filling with tears.
Taehyung had the fight of his life to not smile then, at his poor, sweet, sensitive boyfriend.
“Surely it’s better than getting eaten by a bird?” he suggested gently.
Yoongi sighed, and held up his hand. Taehyung got back up into a crouch and then helped Yoongi get to his feet. Taehyung got a glass and a piece of paper, and used it to trap the spider right out of her web.
“Oh, she’s pissed,” Yoongi whispered as Taehyung walked past with the captive, and gave a sort of distressed giggle.
They took the spider all the way downstairs and to the opposite side of the building, to the maple tree next to the dumpster. Once she had been lightly tossed in the direction of the trunk, they headed back inside with the empty glass.
“I’m sorry I made such a big deal out of it,” Yoongi said glumly.
“Don’t be,” Taehyung said, putting his arm around his shoulders. “Do you feel better now?”
“Yeah,” Yoongi said.
“Well, that’s what matters to me,” Taehyung said with an air of finality. “Let’s go inside and get dinner.”
Yoongi put his arm around Taehyung’s waist as they kept walking.
“Alright, sounds good,” Yoongi replied quietly.
So they ate dinner, and the sun set and the light from their apartment shone out through their windows, and somewhere nearby a spider started spinning a new web.