twitchy witchy
jongyu, au with parallel universes and magic shhh, unbeta'd, for jarnscye
6,618 words
(disclaimer: all the poetry is shakespeare's)
Once upon a time, in a land somewhat far away, there was a witch. She was an okay kind of witch, by human (and squirrel) standards. By witch standards, she was pitiful. She was mocked, made fun of and blackmailed. Some days she would wake up and cry because the tickets that she'd worked so hard to conjure to some show or other, had been stolen from under her pillow. So she was not just a witch, she was also a very sad one. She lived in a village that was not on the map, and the village was called Village of Witches, which was pretty uncreative, but witches aren't known for their creativity. Much.
Gwiboon, however, was a creative witch. Creative, and pretty, and very attentive to what she wore. She dressed in pink dresses with white polka dots and frilly things and silk stockings. She was not, as you have probably guessed, a tremendously evil, hardcore, black-dress-and-broomsticks sort of witch. She rode a Harley Davidson and was currently in love with a tall, handsome young lad from the human village Jimyong, and sent him roses everyday. She didn't know his name, but she was convinced it started with 'M'.
As I mentioned before, I believe, Gwiboon was mocked. In all honesty though, that's putting it lightly. Gwiboon was bullied because she did not like the pointless troubling that makes a happy, proud witch the happy, proud witch she is. No such witch is happy and proud without some mischief, some malicious act, some dastardly deed hidden in the folds of her figurative cloak. (Figurative, because the hardcore witches are becoming a tad bit scarce these days.) Gwiboon didn't mind making it rain on a particularly sunny day and laughing at all the surprised, soaked humans - that kind of thing was amusing. But electrocuting them with lightning or giving them bad dreams was terrible. Eternal bullying, though, does take its toll now and then. Gwiboon may have been immortal, but she was still just a witch. She had feelings and weakness, too.
So she engaged in nasty, horrid things when her sorrows tolled high.
This is where our story finally starts.
* * *
One fine day, Prince Jonghyun and his well-meaning elder cousin, Prince Jinki, decided to ride out into the woods and beyond. Theirs was a kingdom of valour and aegyo, a world of silken clothes and fair maidens and fair lads, a whole universe of such happiness that it would slightly repulse the reader and make their teeth rot.
Gwiboon sometimes teleported herself away to this universe, when she was saddest. This time, however, she was angry. A frightfully wicked witch had burnt all her clothes and eaten all her cake and drank all her champagne. Gwiboon was going to wreak so much havoc that nobody, mortal or immortal, would ever provoke her again.
Unknowing of the great peril that rose up, invisible, in their path, the two young princes happily talked of their next bird watching meet, before Prince Jinki began to plan out what they would do if they spotted a unicorn.
"Unicorns are myth," Jonghyun refuted, airily.
"They're real," Jinki protested. "Father's seen a whole tribe of unicorns."
"My father hasn't."
"Well, your father isn't exactly the source of all knowledge in the world, you know," Jinki said, rather disagreeably.
"Neither is yours."
They were going to argue a whole lot more, it seemed, and very heatedly as well, if it hadn't been for the unicorn that suddenly pranced into view.
"Hello," it snarled, lips curling up menacingly.
The princes' horses neighed, and stepped back, nervous.
"See?" Jinki pointed, triumphantly.
"That can't be a unicorn," Jonghyun shook his head. "The things aren't supposed to snarl. They just don't."
"They do, actually," the unicorn trilled, voice changed completely. It batted its lashes charmingly, too. The horses reared in disgust, flung their royal riders off their backs, and galloped off for all their worth. The two princes sat on the turf, dazed, as the shining white beast cantered toward them, and nuzzled their hair.
"Go to sleep," the unicorn said, gently, and began to cry.
"Oh," Jonghyun thought he heard the unicorn sob. "Why does my temper cool so quickly?"
And though they were both confused and wanted to comfort the poor, startling creature, they felt themselves obediently yanked by their expensive collars, to sleep.
* * *
Gwiboon was greatly embarrassed. She was embarrassed beyond words. She felt all the witches' eyes on her as she dragged her feet, heavily, towards the Board of Deeds.
"Pitiful," they would cackle, behind their hands, once they learned of what she had done. And they would hoot in a most unladylike manner. Gwiboon sincerely wished she was a lady, at times. Immortality wasn't a patch on attractive gracefulness.
I am almost there, she panicked. I am actually going to report of what I've done, today. Of course, turning back wasn't an option. That would be to flee, and a happy, proud witch never flees. There is no reason to. Gwiboon cast her eyes about, wildly. Not a single witch waved at her, not even a ghoul attempted to smile her way. Why did she have to fly into tempers and do the stupidest things?
The Board hung before her, millions of deeds scrawled across it.
Perhaps I should explain about the Board of Deeds; in every village, there is a humongous board of corkscrew wood, that is either nailed onto an even more humongous wall, or simply levitated. In the beginning, the Board use to be levitated by a team of young witches who didn't have much else to do. They would take five hour shifts, holding hands and concentrating their magic in an upwards direction, to keep the Board up. As younger generations came and went, they grew more and more rebellious and out of hand. Many a great deed has been lost due to adolescent witch carelessness. (An adolescent witch, by the way, is a banshee. They're very emotional and scream a lot during that period of their lives.) So the Boards, it was decided, would be nailed up. All was well, for a time. Deeds were etched into parchment with very sharp, hot quills and pinned onto the board. (This is where IKEA got its great furnishing idea from - sans the hot quill part.) But then the banshees became shrewd, and decided that they wanted money. Now Board-levitating is a summer job kind of thing - but for all seasons, not just summer - and many banshees enjoy a wealthy life.
The Board of Deeds is full of memorable deeds, the kind of magic a witch does only a few times in her life, a true burst of ideal witchery and maliciousness that makes ghouls (baby witches) tear up and cry with respect and inspiration. Gwiboon's grandmother, for example, had thirty Deeds on the Boards, an impressive feat. Gwiboon's mother, eighteen. Quite above average. Gwiboon's sister had seven. Seven is usually the lowest limit. You are not a true witch until you have seven Deeds. Less than seven, and you are a hag. Gwiboon was a hag. This was her third Deed. The first two had been alright - erupting a volcano and creating Hawaii, filling the Dead Sea with salt. But this one...
* * *
When Jinki woke up, he heard a million different sounds, smelt a thousand different smells, and saw nothing whatsoever. Oh, and he felt really scratchy twigs under his butt. He blinked, trying desperately to see something.
"Jonghyun?" he called. His voice was strangely high pitched. Nervousness, maybe, or lack of use. He must have been knocked out for hours. "Jonghyun," he repeated, and scared himself by scratching behind his ear with his foot. That shouldn't have been possible. He didn't know how to accomplish such an acrobatic feat. He turned his head up in franticness and (finally!) saw light. "Hmm," he mused aloud, and almost yelled at the sound of his voice. Something was so, so terribly wrong with it, but he couldn't figure out quite what.
"Jinki," said a voice some ways away, and Jinki would have jumped out of his skin if he could have. He now understood what was wrong with his voice.
"Jonghyun," Jinki replied, with as level a tone he could muster. "We need to get out of here."
"You sound awfully funny," Jonghyun noted, and immediately a thump was heard, followed by snores.
This was ridiculous. They were stuck in a mountainous cavern of some sort, if such things existed, and while Jinki wallowed away in fright by himself, Jonghyun decided to sleep!
He bravely struck out a few steps, and found himself on all fours instead of on his feet. He took a few more steps. He seemed surprisingly faster on his hands and feet, so he decided to go with it. Then he bumped into Jonghyun. At least, it sounded like Jonghyun snoring. It didn't feel like him, though.
"Jonghyun!" Jinki cried out, in confusion and fear. "Cousin brother! Is that you?" As if in answer to his subconscious prayers, the clouds outside the mountainous cavern parted, and sunlight fell through a hole in the wall and fell upon them both, Revelation style. Jinki took a good look at Jonghyun, a good look at his own body, turned around to meet his fluffy tail, and fainted dead away. On cue, Jonghyun woke up. "Well, hello there," he cooed, at the sight of the unconscious creature in front of him. He stretched out a hand to pet it, caught sight of the hand, screamed, and, for a few hours, knew no more.
* * *
I turned into a unicorn, she wrote, words coming out painfully slow. "A unicorn," someone tittered. "What did you do, run people through with your horn?"
She ignored everyone as best as she could. Who had come up with the clever idea of making the words of your deed glow in the air like fireworks, for the whole village to see? She wrote on. For after stalking two mortal beings (princes) in the forest, I found that they were in need of one. She paused. If she played with words, got a little vague, perhaps it wouldn't all seem so... pathetic. I approached, disguised, and rid them of their horses. Then I enchanted them and - the words were flowing out faster now. Granted, there weren't a lot of words to begin with, but still. A terrible witch she was, perhaps, but still a good storyteller. - transfigured them into beasts. Done. She heaved a great sigh, and put the quill down.
"What beasts?" a banshee screamed.
"Unspeakable," she replied, coolly. Unspeakably tiny, she elaborated, in her head, and swept out the arena. Nobody said a word. She made a mental note to give herself a pat on her back when she reached home.
* * *
Jinki and Jonghyun huddled by themselves on a branch, watching the sunset. Birds called and frogs croaked and leaves rustled. It was very pleasant, and they would have been very happy, if it weren't for one little thing.
"I suppose..." Jonghyun chittered, trailing off.
"It's a very nice sunset," Jinki completed, nodding his head. His tail twitched and brushed Jonghyun's comfortingly.
"It's just --" Jonghyun's little voice broke with sadness, and he hid his face in Jinki's furry shoulder.
"I know, Jonghyun, I know," Jinki put a paw on his head, words filled with pain. "We're squirrels."
* * *
Gwiboon spent many sleepless nights over what she had done, trying to work away her alarmingly human-like conscience by weeding her garden, stitching Givenchy tags onto several home-made dresses, and concentrating her magic onto her roses. Her buds grew into blossoming, beautiful flowers in three days, and she sent them off to the handsome young lad whose name started with an 'M'. The magic was supposed to make him fall in love with her as soon as he smelled them. However, this was not the actual case. Gwiboon began to worry after five months of no sign or token of his affections for her. All the other boys had been smitten at first sniff! Still, she doggedly kept at the roses. Perhaps he was just hard to get. A feminine characteristic, for those times, to be sure, but an attractive one all the same.
Her life was going well and healthy and conscience-free, the other witches no longer disturbing her, when, one day, there came a knock at the door.
She opened it, smiling pleasantly. "Hello," she said, but nobody was there. She looked around. Still nobody was there. Then a squeak came from her feet. She looked down. She stared. She sat down. She sighed. She shook her head. She regretted her magic. She regretted her temper. She regretted her witchery. She regretted parallel universes and the fact that she sometimes teleported to them. She regretted her choices. She started crying. She rocked back and forth. She wailed like a banshee. She sighed again. She regretted her existence.
Then there came a sound of two someones clearing their throats.
* * *
Life had been very difficult to adjust to, in the beginning. They were born princes, first of all. Human princes. And second, they were born into the Universe of Contentment. If, for example, you became a squirrel in this universe, changing from a human, then you chose to be one, out of your own free will. If you had any problems with the change, there were two clear options. One, you could battle it out like the brave warrior you were at heart, or two, you asked to be changed back, and that was the end of that.
At least, that's the way it'd turn out if there were any squirrel-transformers in the Universe of Contentment.
"We're doomed," Jonghyun wept. Jinki stared at him unhappily, paws holding onto Jonghyun's tail. "Don't think like that," he said, whiskers trembling. "Please."
FOUR HOURS LATER
Jonghyun sniffled for the eighty seventh time in his sleep, and Jinki lay curled up at the hole in the tree, staring at the moon moodily, round eyes red. Finally, as an owl hooted and flew dangerously close by, he retreated, nestling next to Jonghyun.
THE NEXT MORNING
"I'm hungry," Jinki announced, by way of greeting, as soon as Jonghyun opened his eyes.
"Golly," his fellow princely squirrel realized. "So am I." They stayed in shocked silence for a while. Then:
"What do you think squirrels eat?"
"I'm not sure."
"Perhaps we learnt it in our science books?"
"We did learn that squirrels were vegetarians," Jonghyun supplied, hopefully.
"Raw carrots, then?"
"I hate raw carrots," Jonghyun commented. "I'm sure we can have cucumbers."
Jinki gave him the most withering look a squirrel can manage. "I'm allergic to cucumbers."
Jonghyun grinned. "I know."
SEVEN HOURS LATER
"I can't actually taste this stuff," Jonghyun mumbled through a mouthful of tulip petals.
"Maybe it's just as well. I ate flowers before, when I was younger. They were disgusting."
"That's just because you're stupid," Jonghyun shrugged, climbing up the trellis and burrowing his nose into another flower. Jinki stalked purposefully over and set his teeth on the stem. Jonghyun squeaked and tumbled onto his head as the plant wavered and broke.
SOMETIME IN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS (THEY WERE BEGINNING TO LOSE TRACK OF DAYS AND NIGHTS)
Their days had fallen into a regular routine.
As soon as they got up, they drowsed and stretched. That done, they discussed which part of the woods to explore, then set out for breakfast. They lived a life so happy, they could have written autobiographies vivid enough to make animal-book-readers everywhere cry with joy and wistfulness. However, as new squirrels, they did not have good enough paw control to write. And even later, when they regained the ability, they were too busy with other things to bother writing about their wild adventures as domestic rodents.
EXACTLY ONE MONTH LATER (THEY COULD TELL BECAUSE OF THE MOON)
"Do you know," Jinki called across the tree branch. "I think we should try turning back into humans."
"That would be great," Jonghyun sat up on his haunches, knocking a walnut against the trunk and listening to it carefully. "But we don't know how."
"Well," Jinki spat a seed at the leaf on the tree opposite. It swerved in the wind and was lost forever. "We can always find out."
"From where? And who? And what?" Jonghyun attempted to crack the nut with great aplomb. It didn't crack. "I wish you could just punch this thing open with your finger, Jinki," he added, plaintively. "I am so hungry for walnuts."
Jinki rose a tired paw. "I have no fingers," he stated, then continued on with sudden passion, "And I won't be getting them any time soon if all you do is eat walnuts and avoid trying to brainstorm a means of escaping this situation with me!"
Jonghyun's tail trembled, and he stared at Jinki, setting down his walnut. "Alright," he said, slowly. "Let's start thinking." He hopped lightly towards his cousin, and sat staring at him. Jinki stared back, slightly weirded out. "Is there something in my eyes or on my nose?"
"No."
"Then why are you staring at me?"
"I'm memorizing your face."
There followed a stunned silence.
"Because then we'll be humans when we find out how to become ones, and I'll never see your squirrel face again."
"Oh," Jinki said, weakly. "I'm glad you're so sure of our future."
Jonghyun gave no reply, and Jinki realized that he'd have to come up with any bright ideas that were possible to come up with, by himself.
A FURTHER HOUR PASSES
"I have an idea, you know," Jinki proceeded to relate, slowly, "But it would require other squirrels."
Jonghyun roused himself from his stupor. "Other squirrels?"
"Yes, but the problem is that we don't know how to talk Squirrelish."
"What's Squirrelish?"
"Oh, you know. The languages that squirrels speak."
Jonghyun folded his arms, resentful. "Always interested in English, you are. Squirrelish. Why not German? Squirrelan? Or Vietnamese? Squirrelese? Or Tamil? Squirrelil? Although that's actually probably Squirril, for easier pronunciation," he added, on a sudden thought.
"Whatever the language is called," Jinki ignored him, diplomatically, "We don't know it. We're still talking our own language, just in squirrelly voices."
"That's true," Jonghyun acceded. "So what do you propose we do?"
AFTER WHAT SEEMS LIKE A DECADE OF CONSTANT TRIAL AND ERROR WITH NO SUCCESS
"It's no use," Jinki hung his head, sadly. "All the squirrels hate us. We've been at this for days, and I still don't even know the squirrel call for water. How on earth will we be able to ask anyone where we are, or what to do?" He plodded up the branch and entered the nest. Jonghyun spread his arms, and Jinki gratefully rushed into the squirrel-hug. "It's alright," Jonghyun said, consolingly. "We'll find a way."
Jinki heaved a sob.
FINALLY, AFTER MUCH MENTAL STRUGGLE
Jonghyun was sitting on a high branch, apparently enjoying the breeze and the way the branches above him danced and swayed, when it came to him, like a bolt of lightning truth, a lungful of clean air after one has been swimming underwater for a long time, the first uncivilized and highly frowned upon lick at a tablespoon overflowing with treacle. "I HAVE IT!" he yelled, waving a triumphant paw in the air, and lost his balance, falling to his doom.
"WHAT DO YOU HAVE?" Jinki shouted, sprinting out the nest in excitement, just in time to see Jonghyun gracefully diving past the home-branch. "NO, WAIT, DON'T TELL ME. I WILL SAVE YOU FIRST," he roared, and leapt after him.
They landed on a nest of squabbling blue jay chicks, and rolled off as quickly as possible before they got pecked to death. The chicks screamed profanities after them, and the two tired princes hopped off to the ground to rest among the tree's roots. "Now," Jinki panted, sweat shining on his button nose, "What was it that you had?"
"An idea," Jonghyun said, impressively. "We don't know how squirrels communicate, but I've figured out how trees talk."
"Trees talk," Jinki repeated, dumbly.
THREE DAYS LATER, WELL-LADEN WITH NUTS
"You think maybe you can teach me how to understand trees?" Jinki called out, running after Jonghyun.
"You have to relax, and not pay much attention. Then you'll get it," Jonghyun called back.
Jinki gave an exasperated sigh. Being the slower one at running was so annoying - all you got to see of the squirrel in front was its bushy tail. The tail kind of dominated your view of the world, and you could barely process other objects properly. The rest of the universe you had to figure out through peripheral vision. Most exhausting. At this rate he would be ageing ten years every hour, and ten years is quite a lot to a squirrel; he began to worry about the possibility of him dying while trying to attain human form, when Jonghyun stopped suddenly and caused Jinki to barrel into him for the fourth time that day.
"A little warning would be nice," Jinki muttered, rubbing his sore head with a paw.
"I could say the same thing to the trees," Jonghyun huffed, sitting up on his haunches and cocking his head. "But you don't hear me saying it."
"Since when did you become a saint?" Jinki frowned, and bit into an acorn. It was too sour for his taste, so he handed it to Jonghyun, who devoured it at once. Jonghyun liked acorns.
Jinki waited while Jonghyun stretched, fluffed out his tail, and burped. "Do you have any idea how far we must go?"
"No," Jonghyun attempted to look appropriately worried, and failed. "But I'd say it's going to be a long trip. The trees say about four months."
Jinki nearly aged the rest of his life and got a coronary right then. "Why is this my life, Jonghyun?"
"No idea," was the infuriatingly cheery reply. "On we go!"
* * *
She looked up quickly.
"Are you," a skinny squirrel piped up, "A certain Kim Gwiboon?"
"To be sure," said she, voice cracking with defeat. "Do come in. Make yourselves comfortable." She waited politely, head resting against the door frame, but neither squirrel made a move. "Come in," she insisted.
"Pardon us," the other squirrel stepped forward, equally skinny. "We wouldn't mind coming in, but you're in the way."
"It's intimidating," the first one added.
So Gwiboon gathered her wits, and willpower, and stood up, ushering them inside.
"What..." she paused, uncertain. "What will you have?"
"If you don't mind," one of them said, "The flowers in your garden will do marvellously." And without waiting for her consent, it leaped out the window and proceeded to wreck her garden.
Her knees knocked together. This was too much. The unicorn transformation had taken a lot out of her. The lack of sleep these days was wearing her down, and now the cause of her insomnia had turned itself in to her house, eating her flowers and, in the other squirrel's case, testing her furniture. Serve you right, said her alarmingly human conscience, and she was forced to sit down due to lack of strength.
"And you?" she smiled, tremblingly, to the squirrel in front. Its button nose quivered.
"I'd like my cousin and I to become human again."
A little bit of her strength returned. "Ah," she said, and swallowed. The squirrel's expression became suspicious.
"What?"
"Well," she started, then stopped. A rodent's scream pierced the air.
"Please continue," the squirrel pleaded, settling itself down on her sofa cushion. "He's a little unbalanced, because of our trip. We've been travelling for four months now."
Four months. Her knees knocked together again. "I see," she nodded. "It must have been terrible, Mister...?"
"His Royal Highness Prince Jinki," the squirrel announced at once, proudly. Gwiboon recalled with a flash that the two boys had, indeed, been royalty.
"Right, right. Of course. My prince. The catch is that to break the, er, spell, some requirements need to be fulfilled." There she was going again, lying off the top of her head. She felt slightly proud of herself, slightly ashamed. There was no way to break the spell, because there was no spell. The humans had it all wrong. Once transfigured, always transfigured. There were exceptions, of course, because love was known to break most bounds, but still. Exceptions were exceptions, not the rule. Gwiboon tended to go by the rule.
But the squirrel looked up at once, hopefully. "Yes?" it said. "What requirements?"
That's right, Gwiboon, a voice in her head spoke up, scornfully. What requirements? What'll you do when they find out you're lying?
She cleared her throat, tears threatening to swim in her eyes. Oh, dear. And she was in love, too. Why must things go wrong so? "Sacrifice," she said, thickly. "You need to be put to a test, each of you, and sacrifice something that is vital to you to the other. But it has to be a simultaneous thought on both your accounts, or it won't go through."
"But I'm a squirrel," the squirrel prince said, weakly. "What can squirrels sacrifice?"
"Nuts," the other squirrel popped its head up into the window. "We can sacrifice nuts to each other."
"They're not vital to our lives, Jonghyun," the first one intoned. "We can eat flowers, like you're doing right now."
"Oh," Prince Jonghyun-squirrel said, and dropped out of sight again.
"Isn't there anything," Prince Jinki-squirrel whispered, desperately, "Relating to true love or something? A kiss? Something infinitely more pleasant than sacrifice and being on the brink of death?"
* * *
HALFWAY THROUGH THE TRIP
(This is actually a very awkward part of the story to tell, but it is important, and so I must tell it.)
There is something about squirrels in the Universe of Contentment that only squirrels of the Universe of Contentment know, and I, too - and in a few moments you - know. Nobody else knows. No scientist. No biologist. No squirrelologist. Nobody. Not owls, or birds, or earthworms. Not witches, or demons, or elves. And that is that, in springtime, squirrels really, really, really want to make babies. If no squirrel is around to have babies with, they'll carry out the Action on rocks or trees or twigs or even the ground. Sometimes they'll do it with rats, but the rats never remember, and the interspecies babies run away as soon as they're born. The reason I know is because I know the whole story, and the reason I know the whole story is a secret. However, the fact remains that halfway through the trip, very near the teleportal zone which would zap the two prince-ling squirrels into the universe of Kim Gwiboon and her roses and oblivious knight in shining armour whose name she didn't know, springtime came. And with it, the pheromones.
First, of course, they ignored each other studiously, and argued about the stupidest things, and got into fights. It was very alarming, because they had been brought up to think very contentedly, and to never argue, and never scratch. Apparently this changed since Gwiboon came to their Universe in a wrathful mood. It had started a chain reaction, and now unbecoming thoughts of destruction and sad feelings of hate and hurt were wrought into the world. So, to come back to our two squirrels, there they were, fighting it out bravely, each trying to be as stoic and platonic as best as his squirrelly self could. This, however, could not last long.
One night, as soon as the sun had set, It happened. (As in, they did It.)
What was worse, Jonghyun realized he'd been trapped all along in the body of a girl squirrel. This was terribly embarrassing, to say the least. Details will not be pushed in this account, but it is enough to know that by the time they reached the teleportal zone, and the trees finally told them the name of the witch who had turned them, Jonghyun was feeling rather sick and cranky, and he felt strange things happening in his stomach.
Indeed.
* * *
Gwiboon shook her head sadly. "I don't think so."
The squirrel reached out its paws in the air, violently. Perhaps that was the squirrel way of showing 'I want to strangle you'. Gwiboon sighed. "I know how frustrated you must be," she consoled him, "But I really am not sure if there is such a way. You could always try, I suppose, but as far as I know..." she shook her head again.
* * *
THE NIGHT THEIR HEARTS BROKE BECAUSE GWIBOON SAID THERE WAS NO WAY THEY COULD TURN BACK
"Why did you bring up the subject of true love?" Jonghyun snapped. "We've had enough of this love thing in the past few months, I'm sure you'll agree."
If squirrels could blush, Jinki was flaming red like a sunset in the Sahara. "I couldn't help it! You're my cousin, we must share some bond of true love. And that aside, whatever happened wasn't any romantic kind of love, it was... squirrel chemicals," he ended, lamely.
"Squirrel chemicals? Squirrel chemicals? How is that different from humans? Humans just have... well, humans just have human chemicals! Everything else is the same!" Jonghyun sat back on his hind feet and tried to howl about his feelings, and failed.
"You're not a wolf," Jinki told him, forlornly. "There's no point."
"Don't you try to implicitly tell me what to do," Jonghyun snapped. "You're an idiot, and I should never have done It with you."
Jinki sighed, and lay down. There wasn't much to say.
THREE DAYS LATER, AFTER A COLD FEUD
"I think," Jinki started, nibbling on the sad remains of Gwiboon's garden.
"I don't care what you think," Jonghyun interrupted, rudely.
"I think that we should try and actually fall in love, and then maybe something will happen."
Jonghyun dropped the leaf in his paws and stared at him. The expression in his eyes said something like, 'What are you on.' (A phrase they had learned recently from the banshees that passed by.)
"We have nothing else to try!" Jinki explained, in desperation. "We must try all the venues!"
Jonghyun got so angry he began to cry.
WITHIN TWO HOURS' TIME
"Oh! Fair squirrel mine," Jinki stammered, trying to recite a poem.
"I ain't no squirrel of yours," Jonghyun fumed, and turned his back resolutely on his cousin.
"I-I, uh, I..."
AFTER TEN MINUTES
"Love is a smoke," Jinki started again, "Made with the fume of sighs." He appeared pleased with himself.
"No wonder we're not in love," Jonghyun commented, dryly. "None of us has sighed in forever."
"Oh," Jinki blinked, then sighed, exaggeratedly.
Jonghyun sighed in reply. "No, Jinki."
"You sighed, too!" Jinki jumped up, excited. "Are we in love now?"
THE PASSAGE OF TIME WILL NOW BE SHOWN AS '[...]'
"If I profane with my unworthiest hand," Jinki read aloud, "This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims -- wait, what?"
[...]
"Oh, how this spring of love resembleth, the uncertain glory of an April day, which now shows all beauty of the Sun, and by and by a cloud takes all away!" Jinki yelled to the garden, beaming at his own confidence. "Yes, indeed, that should do it."
Jonghyun fell out of a tree. "Look, Jinki," he said, gently. "If you're so dead set on making us fall in love with one another, maybe I should take a turn at this poem thing, too."
Jinki felt warm and tingly. "Would you? Would you really? You'd read me nice poems?"
[...]
Striking yet another pose, Jonghyun began, voice ringing out clearly:
“Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O any thing, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.”
"Encore! Encore!" Jinki applauded happily, clapping his hands. "That was spectacular!"
[...]
The moon shone down kindly on two very tired squirrels, nestled together on a heap of chewed roses. Gwiboon looked out, and smiled, and sighed.
[...]
Jonghyun woke up very uncomfortably, with bright sunlight in his eyes, no shelter above or around him, and Jinki pacing up and down, reciting under his breath.
“True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more inconstant than the wind, who woos
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.”
Jonghyun sighed, and turned on his side.
[...]
"Perhaps," Jinki spoke after a week of fruitlessness, "Perhaps poems aren't the way to start love."
"Indeed not," Gwiboon called from across the yard, clad in boots and brandishing a rake. "Poems are food for love that has already grown, you know. Love can only be born from mutual... things."
Jonghyun felt slightly sad. "I liked having people read poems to me."
"You think it'll work, then?" Jinki grinned eagerly.
"No," Jonghyun said, quickly. "Not at all."
But Jinki was not one to give up so fast.
[...]
Jonghyun began to wake up to all manners of odd things placed in his lap, on his head, a few feet away, supported by a stand. A doll's crown, a bracelet of diamonds (conjured, probably), a poem Jinki had written painstakingly himself on a board, lots of acorns, a chestnut, some flowers, a cucumber slice.
"Jinki," Jonghyun said, slowly, "Why are you doing all this?"
"So that you can fall in love with me, and then we shall be happy forever after," Jinki replied, solemnly.
Jonghyun nodded, resignedly, a little disappointed. "Very well."
Jinki tried reciting another poem then, but it was a very intimate one by E. E. Cummings and they both got embarrassed quickly. "Perhaps another day," Jonghyun blinked rapidly, before scampering away.
[...]
The strange things inside Jonghyun's stomach stopped happening, and he never felt anything like that again. He also felt tremendously sad, cried a lot, and hugged Jinki at least three times a day. Jinki felt very alarmed by this sudden change in Jonghyun's behaviour. Either the young fellow was planning something dangerous, or he was suddenly very upset. "Are you alright there?" he said, awkwardly, as Jonghyun sobbed into his shoulder.
"No," was the miserable reply, and they stayed like that for a long time.
[…]
"I, um, I got you lots of cucumbers today," Jinki rolled them forward, as Jonghyun climbed down from the tree.
"Thanks very much," said Jonghyun, eyes watery.
[...]
"Do you know something," Jinki spoke up once, as they drowsed in the afternoon sun. "I think you have really cute eyes."
Jonghyun sat up. "You what?"
But Jinki was already asleep.
Jonghyun lay back down eventually. He curled up, a slight smile stealing over his face.
[...]
"Jonghyun," Jinki announced one day, four and a half months after Jonghyun had first ripped up Gwiboon's garden. "I'm going to stop bothering you, now, because I've realized that you actually want to stay as a squirrel, and that's why you'd rather not turn into a human or anything."
Jonghyun choked on a stamen. "Wha-?!"
"So I thought, well, Jinki, do you love Jonghyun or not. And then I thought, well, I'm not sure about the romantic part, but I do know that I love him. And I decided that if being a squirrel makes you happy, then being a squirrel is good enough for me, too, and I'll just, stick around and make sure nobody hurts you. That's all," Jinki took a deep breath and climbed up the tree.
Jonghyun was left staring dumbly at the place where his cousin had just stood.
[...]
Jonghyun didn't see Jinki around for the rest of the day. Not the day after that. Not the day after the day after that, either. "Jinki!" he shouted, racing around the house and the garden and the village. A banshee screamed at him and a ghoul tried to spit at him, but in general, nobody paid him any attention. By the fourth day he was back to being the skinny little creature he'd been when he'd first arrived at Gwiboon's house, and, he was beginning to realize, miserable and lonely. Gwiboon had left five days ago on a trip somewhere, and nobody was around.
Then he heard a voice, and froze.
"Jonghyun? Jonghyun?"
That was Jinki's voice, but not Jinki-squirrel's voice. "Jonghyun? Are you there?"
Jonghyun hid in the bushes, trembling. This couldn't be happening. He wanted to cry and shout with selfishness and anger at himself. The one thought that resounded in his head was, I thought we would both change.
"Jonghyun," Jinki lowered his voice, and went down on his knees, large, familiar hands sweeping gently through the leaves, looking for him. "Jonghyun, where are you?" Jinki sat up, hands on his thighs, looking around, a frown on his face.
Jonghyun closed his eyes, curled up his tail around his hind legs, and huddled away, three feet away from Jinki's face, shielded by leaves.
Jinki looked for him and called for him for hours. By sunset, Jinki sighed and went back inside the house. Jonghyun wanted to vomit.
Then Jinki appeared at the window, right above him. "Jonghyun," he whispered. "Please don't have left me."
Gwiboon closed the windows at night, but Jinki didn't. He pushed the shutters wide open as far as they could go, then hung his head and made his way to the sofa in the living room.
[...]
In the morning, he woke up to a small, beating heart on top of his own, a little squirrel staring at him with hollow eyes. "Jonghyun?" he breathed, reaching up a hand to stroke its back.
"Yes," said Jonghyun, sounding miserable and subdued. His voice was raw.
"Hey, were you crying?" Jinki asked, hands folding protectively over the creature. "What happened?"
"I wasn't crying," Jonghyun trembled in his palm, tail flailing. Then, "Well, fine, I was." And before Jinki could say anything, the skinny squirrel raced up his arm, held his jaw firmly in its paws, and smacked its muzzle against Jinki's mouth.
The next second he was sent sprawling against the wall, and the little squirrel remained arrested in air, a little sphere of gold shining over and through it. The sphere glowed bigger and bigger and brighter and brighter, until Jinki had to screw his eyes shut and sink to the floor, hands over his face. The glass table in front of the sofa shattered into countless shards, and suddenly there was a boy his own age kneeling in front of him and shaking him by the shoulders.
"Jinki," the boy said, urgently. "Jinki. Can you hear me? Can you see? Why're you covering your eyes? Did I do something to you?"
Dazedly, Jinki removed his hands from his face. Jonghyun the same as he did the day they went riding in the woods, so many months ago. Almost a year had passed. He was wearing the same clothes, the same bangs, the same earring and collar. "Jonghyun," Jinki said, slowly, before grabbing his face and kissing him again.
* * *
When Gwiboon came back from her trip, the house was empty, the glass shards and her living roomg table tidily swept up in a corner, the garden fixed as best as possible. A little note was tacked onto the sofa cushion where Jinki once sat.
'True love works!' it said. She sighed, and thought wistfully of the boy whose name started with 'M'.
6,618 words
(disclaimer: all the poetry is shakespeare's)
Once upon a time, in a land somewhat far away, there was a witch. She was an okay kind of witch, by human (and squirrel) standards. By witch standards, she was pitiful. She was mocked, made fun of and blackmailed. Some days she would wake up and cry because the tickets that she'd worked so hard to conjure to some show or other, had been stolen from under her pillow. So she was not just a witch, she was also a very sad one. She lived in a village that was not on the map, and the village was called Village of Witches, which was pretty uncreative, but witches aren't known for their creativity. Much.
Gwiboon, however, was a creative witch. Creative, and pretty, and very attentive to what she wore. She dressed in pink dresses with white polka dots and frilly things and silk stockings. She was not, as you have probably guessed, a tremendously evil, hardcore, black-dress-and-broomsticks sort of witch. She rode a Harley Davidson and was currently in love with a tall, handsome young lad from the human village Jimyong, and sent him roses everyday. She didn't know his name, but she was convinced it started with 'M'.
As I mentioned before, I believe, Gwiboon was mocked. In all honesty though, that's putting it lightly. Gwiboon was bullied because she did not like the pointless troubling that makes a happy, proud witch the happy, proud witch she is. No such witch is happy and proud without some mischief, some malicious act, some dastardly deed hidden in the folds of her figurative cloak. (Figurative, because the hardcore witches are becoming a tad bit scarce these days.) Gwiboon didn't mind making it rain on a particularly sunny day and laughing at all the surprised, soaked humans - that kind of thing was amusing. But electrocuting them with lightning or giving them bad dreams was terrible. Eternal bullying, though, does take its toll now and then. Gwiboon may have been immortal, but she was still just a witch. She had feelings and weakness, too.
So she engaged in nasty, horrid things when her sorrows tolled high.
This is where our story finally starts.
* * *
One fine day, Prince Jonghyun and his well-meaning elder cousin, Prince Jinki, decided to ride out into the woods and beyond. Theirs was a kingdom of valour and aegyo, a world of silken clothes and fair maidens and fair lads, a whole universe of such happiness that it would slightly repulse the reader and make their teeth rot.
Gwiboon sometimes teleported herself away to this universe, when she was saddest. This time, however, she was angry. A frightfully wicked witch had burnt all her clothes and eaten all her cake and drank all her champagne. Gwiboon was going to wreak so much havoc that nobody, mortal or immortal, would ever provoke her again.
Unknowing of the great peril that rose up, invisible, in their path, the two young princes happily talked of their next bird watching meet, before Prince Jinki began to plan out what they would do if they spotted a unicorn.
"Unicorns are myth," Jonghyun refuted, airily.
"They're real," Jinki protested. "Father's seen a whole tribe of unicorns."
"My father hasn't."
"Well, your father isn't exactly the source of all knowledge in the world, you know," Jinki said, rather disagreeably.
"Neither is yours."
They were going to argue a whole lot more, it seemed, and very heatedly as well, if it hadn't been for the unicorn that suddenly pranced into view.
"Hello," it snarled, lips curling up menacingly.
The princes' horses neighed, and stepped back, nervous.
"See?" Jinki pointed, triumphantly.
"That can't be a unicorn," Jonghyun shook his head. "The things aren't supposed to snarl. They just don't."
"They do, actually," the unicorn trilled, voice changed completely. It batted its lashes charmingly, too. The horses reared in disgust, flung their royal riders off their backs, and galloped off for all their worth. The two princes sat on the turf, dazed, as the shining white beast cantered toward them, and nuzzled their hair.
"Go to sleep," the unicorn said, gently, and began to cry.
"Oh," Jonghyun thought he heard the unicorn sob. "Why does my temper cool so quickly?"
And though they were both confused and wanted to comfort the poor, startling creature, they felt themselves obediently yanked by their expensive collars, to sleep.
* * *
Gwiboon was greatly embarrassed. She was embarrassed beyond words. She felt all the witches' eyes on her as she dragged her feet, heavily, towards the Board of Deeds.
"Pitiful," they would cackle, behind their hands, once they learned of what she had done. And they would hoot in a most unladylike manner. Gwiboon sincerely wished she was a lady, at times. Immortality wasn't a patch on attractive gracefulness.
I am almost there, she panicked. I am actually going to report of what I've done, today. Of course, turning back wasn't an option. That would be to flee, and a happy, proud witch never flees. There is no reason to. Gwiboon cast her eyes about, wildly. Not a single witch waved at her, not even a ghoul attempted to smile her way. Why did she have to fly into tempers and do the stupidest things?
The Board hung before her, millions of deeds scrawled across it.
Perhaps I should explain about the Board of Deeds; in every village, there is a humongous board of corkscrew wood, that is either nailed onto an even more humongous wall, or simply levitated. In the beginning, the Board use to be levitated by a team of young witches who didn't have much else to do. They would take five hour shifts, holding hands and concentrating their magic in an upwards direction, to keep the Board up. As younger generations came and went, they grew more and more rebellious and out of hand. Many a great deed has been lost due to adolescent witch carelessness. (An adolescent witch, by the way, is a banshee. They're very emotional and scream a lot during that period of their lives.) So the Boards, it was decided, would be nailed up. All was well, for a time. Deeds were etched into parchment with very sharp, hot quills and pinned onto the board. (This is where IKEA got its great furnishing idea from - sans the hot quill part.) But then the banshees became shrewd, and decided that they wanted money. Now Board-levitating is a summer job kind of thing - but for all seasons, not just summer - and many banshees enjoy a wealthy life.
The Board of Deeds is full of memorable deeds, the kind of magic a witch does only a few times in her life, a true burst of ideal witchery and maliciousness that makes ghouls (baby witches) tear up and cry with respect and inspiration. Gwiboon's grandmother, for example, had thirty Deeds on the Boards, an impressive feat. Gwiboon's mother, eighteen. Quite above average. Gwiboon's sister had seven. Seven is usually the lowest limit. You are not a true witch until you have seven Deeds. Less than seven, and you are a hag. Gwiboon was a hag. This was her third Deed. The first two had been alright - erupting a volcano and creating Hawaii, filling the Dead Sea with salt. But this one...
* * *
When Jinki woke up, he heard a million different sounds, smelt a thousand different smells, and saw nothing whatsoever. Oh, and he felt really scratchy twigs under his butt. He blinked, trying desperately to see something.
"Jonghyun?" he called. His voice was strangely high pitched. Nervousness, maybe, or lack of use. He must have been knocked out for hours. "Jonghyun," he repeated, and scared himself by scratching behind his ear with his foot. That shouldn't have been possible. He didn't know how to accomplish such an acrobatic feat. He turned his head up in franticness and (finally!) saw light. "Hmm," he mused aloud, and almost yelled at the sound of his voice. Something was so, so terribly wrong with it, but he couldn't figure out quite what.
"Jinki," said a voice some ways away, and Jinki would have jumped out of his skin if he could have. He now understood what was wrong with his voice.
"Jonghyun," Jinki replied, with as level a tone he could muster. "We need to get out of here."
"You sound awfully funny," Jonghyun noted, and immediately a thump was heard, followed by snores.
This was ridiculous. They were stuck in a mountainous cavern of some sort, if such things existed, and while Jinki wallowed away in fright by himself, Jonghyun decided to sleep!
He bravely struck out a few steps, and found himself on all fours instead of on his feet. He took a few more steps. He seemed surprisingly faster on his hands and feet, so he decided to go with it. Then he bumped into Jonghyun. At least, it sounded like Jonghyun snoring. It didn't feel like him, though.
"Jonghyun!" Jinki cried out, in confusion and fear. "Cousin brother! Is that you?" As if in answer to his subconscious prayers, the clouds outside the mountainous cavern parted, and sunlight fell through a hole in the wall and fell upon them both, Revelation style. Jinki took a good look at Jonghyun, a good look at his own body, turned around to meet his fluffy tail, and fainted dead away. On cue, Jonghyun woke up. "Well, hello there," he cooed, at the sight of the unconscious creature in front of him. He stretched out a hand to pet it, caught sight of the hand, screamed, and, for a few hours, knew no more.
* * *
I turned into a unicorn, she wrote, words coming out painfully slow. "A unicorn," someone tittered. "What did you do, run people through with your horn?"
She ignored everyone as best as she could. Who had come up with the clever idea of making the words of your deed glow in the air like fireworks, for the whole village to see? She wrote on. For after stalking two mortal beings (princes) in the forest, I found that they were in need of one. She paused. If she played with words, got a little vague, perhaps it wouldn't all seem so... pathetic. I approached, disguised, and rid them of their horses. Then I enchanted them and - the words were flowing out faster now. Granted, there weren't a lot of words to begin with, but still. A terrible witch she was, perhaps, but still a good storyteller. - transfigured them into beasts. Done. She heaved a great sigh, and put the quill down.
"What beasts?" a banshee screamed.
"Unspeakable," she replied, coolly. Unspeakably tiny, she elaborated, in her head, and swept out the arena. Nobody said a word. She made a mental note to give herself a pat on her back when she reached home.
* * *
Jinki and Jonghyun huddled by themselves on a branch, watching the sunset. Birds called and frogs croaked and leaves rustled. It was very pleasant, and they would have been very happy, if it weren't for one little thing.
"I suppose..." Jonghyun chittered, trailing off.
"It's a very nice sunset," Jinki completed, nodding his head. His tail twitched and brushed Jonghyun's comfortingly.
"It's just --" Jonghyun's little voice broke with sadness, and he hid his face in Jinki's furry shoulder.
"I know, Jonghyun, I know," Jinki put a paw on his head, words filled with pain. "We're squirrels."
* * *
Gwiboon spent many sleepless nights over what she had done, trying to work away her alarmingly human-like conscience by weeding her garden, stitching Givenchy tags onto several home-made dresses, and concentrating her magic onto her roses. Her buds grew into blossoming, beautiful flowers in three days, and she sent them off to the handsome young lad whose name started with an 'M'. The magic was supposed to make him fall in love with her as soon as he smelled them. However, this was not the actual case. Gwiboon began to worry after five months of no sign or token of his affections for her. All the other boys had been smitten at first sniff! Still, she doggedly kept at the roses. Perhaps he was just hard to get. A feminine characteristic, for those times, to be sure, but an attractive one all the same.
Her life was going well and healthy and conscience-free, the other witches no longer disturbing her, when, one day, there came a knock at the door.
She opened it, smiling pleasantly. "Hello," she said, but nobody was there. She looked around. Still nobody was there. Then a squeak came from her feet. She looked down. She stared. She sat down. She sighed. She shook her head. She regretted her magic. She regretted her temper. She regretted her witchery. She regretted parallel universes and the fact that she sometimes teleported to them. She regretted her choices. She started crying. She rocked back and forth. She wailed like a banshee. She sighed again. She regretted her existence.
Then there came a sound of two someones clearing their throats.
* * *
Life had been very difficult to adjust to, in the beginning. They were born princes, first of all. Human princes. And second, they were born into the Universe of Contentment. If, for example, you became a squirrel in this universe, changing from a human, then you chose to be one, out of your own free will. If you had any problems with the change, there were two clear options. One, you could battle it out like the brave warrior you were at heart, or two, you asked to be changed back, and that was the end of that.
At least, that's the way it'd turn out if there were any squirrel-transformers in the Universe of Contentment.
"We're doomed," Jonghyun wept. Jinki stared at him unhappily, paws holding onto Jonghyun's tail. "Don't think like that," he said, whiskers trembling. "Please."
FOUR HOURS LATER
Jonghyun sniffled for the eighty seventh time in his sleep, and Jinki lay curled up at the hole in the tree, staring at the moon moodily, round eyes red. Finally, as an owl hooted and flew dangerously close by, he retreated, nestling next to Jonghyun.
THE NEXT MORNING
"I'm hungry," Jinki announced, by way of greeting, as soon as Jonghyun opened his eyes.
"Golly," his fellow princely squirrel realized. "So am I." They stayed in shocked silence for a while. Then:
"What do you think squirrels eat?"
"I'm not sure."
"Perhaps we learnt it in our science books?"
"We did learn that squirrels were vegetarians," Jonghyun supplied, hopefully.
"Raw carrots, then?"
"I hate raw carrots," Jonghyun commented. "I'm sure we can have cucumbers."
Jinki gave him the most withering look a squirrel can manage. "I'm allergic to cucumbers."
Jonghyun grinned. "I know."
SEVEN HOURS LATER
"I can't actually taste this stuff," Jonghyun mumbled through a mouthful of tulip petals.
"Maybe it's just as well. I ate flowers before, when I was younger. They were disgusting."
"That's just because you're stupid," Jonghyun shrugged, climbing up the trellis and burrowing his nose into another flower. Jinki stalked purposefully over and set his teeth on the stem. Jonghyun squeaked and tumbled onto his head as the plant wavered and broke.
SOMETIME IN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS (THEY WERE BEGINNING TO LOSE TRACK OF DAYS AND NIGHTS)
Their days had fallen into a regular routine.
As soon as they got up, they drowsed and stretched. That done, they discussed which part of the woods to explore, then set out for breakfast. They lived a life so happy, they could have written autobiographies vivid enough to make animal-book-readers everywhere cry with joy and wistfulness. However, as new squirrels, they did not have good enough paw control to write. And even later, when they regained the ability, they were too busy with other things to bother writing about their wild adventures as domestic rodents.
EXACTLY ONE MONTH LATER (THEY COULD TELL BECAUSE OF THE MOON)
"Do you know," Jinki called across the tree branch. "I think we should try turning back into humans."
"That would be great," Jonghyun sat up on his haunches, knocking a walnut against the trunk and listening to it carefully. "But we don't know how."
"Well," Jinki spat a seed at the leaf on the tree opposite. It swerved in the wind and was lost forever. "We can always find out."
"From where? And who? And what?" Jonghyun attempted to crack the nut with great aplomb. It didn't crack. "I wish you could just punch this thing open with your finger, Jinki," he added, plaintively. "I am so hungry for walnuts."
Jinki rose a tired paw. "I have no fingers," he stated, then continued on with sudden passion, "And I won't be getting them any time soon if all you do is eat walnuts and avoid trying to brainstorm a means of escaping this situation with me!"
Jonghyun's tail trembled, and he stared at Jinki, setting down his walnut. "Alright," he said, slowly. "Let's start thinking." He hopped lightly towards his cousin, and sat staring at him. Jinki stared back, slightly weirded out. "Is there something in my eyes or on my nose?"
"No."
"Then why are you staring at me?"
"I'm memorizing your face."
There followed a stunned silence.
"Because then we'll be humans when we find out how to become ones, and I'll never see your squirrel face again."
"Oh," Jinki said, weakly. "I'm glad you're so sure of our future."
Jonghyun gave no reply, and Jinki realized that he'd have to come up with any bright ideas that were possible to come up with, by himself.
A FURTHER HOUR PASSES
"I have an idea, you know," Jinki proceeded to relate, slowly, "But it would require other squirrels."
Jonghyun roused himself from his stupor. "Other squirrels?"
"Yes, but the problem is that we don't know how to talk Squirrelish."
"What's Squirrelish?"
"Oh, you know. The languages that squirrels speak."
Jonghyun folded his arms, resentful. "Always interested in English, you are. Squirrelish. Why not German? Squirrelan? Or Vietnamese? Squirrelese? Or Tamil? Squirrelil? Although that's actually probably Squirril, for easier pronunciation," he added, on a sudden thought.
"Whatever the language is called," Jinki ignored him, diplomatically, "We don't know it. We're still talking our own language, just in squirrelly voices."
"That's true," Jonghyun acceded. "So what do you propose we do?"
AFTER WHAT SEEMS LIKE A DECADE OF CONSTANT TRIAL AND ERROR WITH NO SUCCESS
"It's no use," Jinki hung his head, sadly. "All the squirrels hate us. We've been at this for days, and I still don't even know the squirrel call for water. How on earth will we be able to ask anyone where we are, or what to do?" He plodded up the branch and entered the nest. Jonghyun spread his arms, and Jinki gratefully rushed into the squirrel-hug. "It's alright," Jonghyun said, consolingly. "We'll find a way."
Jinki heaved a sob.
FINALLY, AFTER MUCH MENTAL STRUGGLE
Jonghyun was sitting on a high branch, apparently enjoying the breeze and the way the branches above him danced and swayed, when it came to him, like a bolt of lightning truth, a lungful of clean air after one has been swimming underwater for a long time, the first uncivilized and highly frowned upon lick at a tablespoon overflowing with treacle. "I HAVE IT!" he yelled, waving a triumphant paw in the air, and lost his balance, falling to his doom.
"WHAT DO YOU HAVE?" Jinki shouted, sprinting out the nest in excitement, just in time to see Jonghyun gracefully diving past the home-branch. "NO, WAIT, DON'T TELL ME. I WILL SAVE YOU FIRST," he roared, and leapt after him.
They landed on a nest of squabbling blue jay chicks, and rolled off as quickly as possible before they got pecked to death. The chicks screamed profanities after them, and the two tired princes hopped off to the ground to rest among the tree's roots. "Now," Jinki panted, sweat shining on his button nose, "What was it that you had?"
"An idea," Jonghyun said, impressively. "We don't know how squirrels communicate, but I've figured out how trees talk."
"Trees talk," Jinki repeated, dumbly.
THREE DAYS LATER, WELL-LADEN WITH NUTS
"You think maybe you can teach me how to understand trees?" Jinki called out, running after Jonghyun.
"You have to relax, and not pay much attention. Then you'll get it," Jonghyun called back.
Jinki gave an exasperated sigh. Being the slower one at running was so annoying - all you got to see of the squirrel in front was its bushy tail. The tail kind of dominated your view of the world, and you could barely process other objects properly. The rest of the universe you had to figure out through peripheral vision. Most exhausting. At this rate he would be ageing ten years every hour, and ten years is quite a lot to a squirrel; he began to worry about the possibility of him dying while trying to attain human form, when Jonghyun stopped suddenly and caused Jinki to barrel into him for the fourth time that day.
"A little warning would be nice," Jinki muttered, rubbing his sore head with a paw.
"I could say the same thing to the trees," Jonghyun huffed, sitting up on his haunches and cocking his head. "But you don't hear me saying it."
"Since when did you become a saint?" Jinki frowned, and bit into an acorn. It was too sour for his taste, so he handed it to Jonghyun, who devoured it at once. Jonghyun liked acorns.
Jinki waited while Jonghyun stretched, fluffed out his tail, and burped. "Do you have any idea how far we must go?"
"No," Jonghyun attempted to look appropriately worried, and failed. "But I'd say it's going to be a long trip. The trees say about four months."
Jinki nearly aged the rest of his life and got a coronary right then. "Why is this my life, Jonghyun?"
"No idea," was the infuriatingly cheery reply. "On we go!"
* * *
She looked up quickly.
"Are you," a skinny squirrel piped up, "A certain Kim Gwiboon?"
"To be sure," said she, voice cracking with defeat. "Do come in. Make yourselves comfortable." She waited politely, head resting against the door frame, but neither squirrel made a move. "Come in," she insisted.
"Pardon us," the other squirrel stepped forward, equally skinny. "We wouldn't mind coming in, but you're in the way."
"It's intimidating," the first one added.
So Gwiboon gathered her wits, and willpower, and stood up, ushering them inside.
"What..." she paused, uncertain. "What will you have?"
"If you don't mind," one of them said, "The flowers in your garden will do marvellously." And without waiting for her consent, it leaped out the window and proceeded to wreck her garden.
Her knees knocked together. This was too much. The unicorn transformation had taken a lot out of her. The lack of sleep these days was wearing her down, and now the cause of her insomnia had turned itself in to her house, eating her flowers and, in the other squirrel's case, testing her furniture. Serve you right, said her alarmingly human conscience, and she was forced to sit down due to lack of strength.
"And you?" she smiled, tremblingly, to the squirrel in front. Its button nose quivered.
"I'd like my cousin and I to become human again."
A little bit of her strength returned. "Ah," she said, and swallowed. The squirrel's expression became suspicious.
"What?"
"Well," she started, then stopped. A rodent's scream pierced the air.
"Please continue," the squirrel pleaded, settling itself down on her sofa cushion. "He's a little unbalanced, because of our trip. We've been travelling for four months now."
Four months. Her knees knocked together again. "I see," she nodded. "It must have been terrible, Mister...?"
"His Royal Highness Prince Jinki," the squirrel announced at once, proudly. Gwiboon recalled with a flash that the two boys had, indeed, been royalty.
"Right, right. Of course. My prince. The catch is that to break the, er, spell, some requirements need to be fulfilled." There she was going again, lying off the top of her head. She felt slightly proud of herself, slightly ashamed. There was no way to break the spell, because there was no spell. The humans had it all wrong. Once transfigured, always transfigured. There were exceptions, of course, because love was known to break most bounds, but still. Exceptions were exceptions, not the rule. Gwiboon tended to go by the rule.
But the squirrel looked up at once, hopefully. "Yes?" it said. "What requirements?"
That's right, Gwiboon, a voice in her head spoke up, scornfully. What requirements? What'll you do when they find out you're lying?
She cleared her throat, tears threatening to swim in her eyes. Oh, dear. And she was in love, too. Why must things go wrong so? "Sacrifice," she said, thickly. "You need to be put to a test, each of you, and sacrifice something that is vital to you to the other. But it has to be a simultaneous thought on both your accounts, or it won't go through."
"But I'm a squirrel," the squirrel prince said, weakly. "What can squirrels sacrifice?"
"Nuts," the other squirrel popped its head up into the window. "We can sacrifice nuts to each other."
"They're not vital to our lives, Jonghyun," the first one intoned. "We can eat flowers, like you're doing right now."
"Oh," Prince Jonghyun-squirrel said, and dropped out of sight again.
"Isn't there anything," Prince Jinki-squirrel whispered, desperately, "Relating to true love or something? A kiss? Something infinitely more pleasant than sacrifice and being on the brink of death?"
* * *
HALFWAY THROUGH THE TRIP
(This is actually a very awkward part of the story to tell, but it is important, and so I must tell it.)
There is something about squirrels in the Universe of Contentment that only squirrels of the Universe of Contentment know, and I, too - and in a few moments you - know. Nobody else knows. No scientist. No biologist. No squirrelologist. Nobody. Not owls, or birds, or earthworms. Not witches, or demons, or elves. And that is that, in springtime, squirrels really, really, really want to make babies. If no squirrel is around to have babies with, they'll carry out the Action on rocks or trees or twigs or even the ground. Sometimes they'll do it with rats, but the rats never remember, and the interspecies babies run away as soon as they're born. The reason I know is because I know the whole story, and the reason I know the whole story is a secret. However, the fact remains that halfway through the trip, very near the teleportal zone which would zap the two prince-ling squirrels into the universe of Kim Gwiboon and her roses and oblivious knight in shining armour whose name she didn't know, springtime came. And with it, the pheromones.
First, of course, they ignored each other studiously, and argued about the stupidest things, and got into fights. It was very alarming, because they had been brought up to think very contentedly, and to never argue, and never scratch. Apparently this changed since Gwiboon came to their Universe in a wrathful mood. It had started a chain reaction, and now unbecoming thoughts of destruction and sad feelings of hate and hurt were wrought into the world. So, to come back to our two squirrels, there they were, fighting it out bravely, each trying to be as stoic and platonic as best as his squirrelly self could. This, however, could not last long.
One night, as soon as the sun had set, It happened. (As in, they did It.)
What was worse, Jonghyun realized he'd been trapped all along in the body of a girl squirrel. This was terribly embarrassing, to say the least. Details will not be pushed in this account, but it is enough to know that by the time they reached the teleportal zone, and the trees finally told them the name of the witch who had turned them, Jonghyun was feeling rather sick and cranky, and he felt strange things happening in his stomach.
Indeed.
* * *
Gwiboon shook her head sadly. "I don't think so."
The squirrel reached out its paws in the air, violently. Perhaps that was the squirrel way of showing 'I want to strangle you'. Gwiboon sighed. "I know how frustrated you must be," she consoled him, "But I really am not sure if there is such a way. You could always try, I suppose, but as far as I know..." she shook her head again.
* * *
THE NIGHT THEIR HEARTS BROKE BECAUSE GWIBOON SAID THERE WAS NO WAY THEY COULD TURN BACK
"Why did you bring up the subject of true love?" Jonghyun snapped. "We've had enough of this love thing in the past few months, I'm sure you'll agree."
If squirrels could blush, Jinki was flaming red like a sunset in the Sahara. "I couldn't help it! You're my cousin, we must share some bond of true love. And that aside, whatever happened wasn't any romantic kind of love, it was... squirrel chemicals," he ended, lamely.
"Squirrel chemicals? Squirrel chemicals? How is that different from humans? Humans just have... well, humans just have human chemicals! Everything else is the same!" Jonghyun sat back on his hind feet and tried to howl about his feelings, and failed.
"You're not a wolf," Jinki told him, forlornly. "There's no point."
"Don't you try to implicitly tell me what to do," Jonghyun snapped. "You're an idiot, and I should never have done It with you."
Jinki sighed, and lay down. There wasn't much to say.
THREE DAYS LATER, AFTER A COLD FEUD
"I think," Jinki started, nibbling on the sad remains of Gwiboon's garden.
"I don't care what you think," Jonghyun interrupted, rudely.
"I think that we should try and actually fall in love, and then maybe something will happen."
Jonghyun dropped the leaf in his paws and stared at him. The expression in his eyes said something like, 'What are you on.' (A phrase they had learned recently from the banshees that passed by.)
"We have nothing else to try!" Jinki explained, in desperation. "We must try all the venues!"
Jonghyun got so angry he began to cry.
WITHIN TWO HOURS' TIME
"Oh! Fair squirrel mine," Jinki stammered, trying to recite a poem.
"I ain't no squirrel of yours," Jonghyun fumed, and turned his back resolutely on his cousin.
"I-I, uh, I..."
AFTER TEN MINUTES
"Love is a smoke," Jinki started again, "Made with the fume of sighs." He appeared pleased with himself.
"No wonder we're not in love," Jonghyun commented, dryly. "None of us has sighed in forever."
"Oh," Jinki blinked, then sighed, exaggeratedly.
Jonghyun sighed in reply. "No, Jinki."
"You sighed, too!" Jinki jumped up, excited. "Are we in love now?"
THE PASSAGE OF TIME WILL NOW BE SHOWN AS '[...]'
"If I profane with my unworthiest hand," Jinki read aloud, "This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims -- wait, what?"
[...]
"Oh, how this spring of love resembleth, the uncertain glory of an April day, which now shows all beauty of the Sun, and by and by a cloud takes all away!" Jinki yelled to the garden, beaming at his own confidence. "Yes, indeed, that should do it."
Jonghyun fell out of a tree. "Look, Jinki," he said, gently. "If you're so dead set on making us fall in love with one another, maybe I should take a turn at this poem thing, too."
Jinki felt warm and tingly. "Would you? Would you really? You'd read me nice poems?"
[...]
Striking yet another pose, Jonghyun began, voice ringing out clearly:
“Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O any thing, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.”
"Encore! Encore!" Jinki applauded happily, clapping his hands. "That was spectacular!"
[...]
The moon shone down kindly on two very tired squirrels, nestled together on a heap of chewed roses. Gwiboon looked out, and smiled, and sighed.
[...]
Jonghyun woke up very uncomfortably, with bright sunlight in his eyes, no shelter above or around him, and Jinki pacing up and down, reciting under his breath.
“True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more inconstant than the wind, who woos
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.”
Jonghyun sighed, and turned on his side.
[...]
"Perhaps," Jinki spoke after a week of fruitlessness, "Perhaps poems aren't the way to start love."
"Indeed not," Gwiboon called from across the yard, clad in boots and brandishing a rake. "Poems are food for love that has already grown, you know. Love can only be born from mutual... things."
Jonghyun felt slightly sad. "I liked having people read poems to me."
"You think it'll work, then?" Jinki grinned eagerly.
"No," Jonghyun said, quickly. "Not at all."
But Jinki was not one to give up so fast.
[...]
Jonghyun began to wake up to all manners of odd things placed in his lap, on his head, a few feet away, supported by a stand. A doll's crown, a bracelet of diamonds (conjured, probably), a poem Jinki had written painstakingly himself on a board, lots of acorns, a chestnut, some flowers, a cucumber slice.
"Jinki," Jonghyun said, slowly, "Why are you doing all this?"
"So that you can fall in love with me, and then we shall be happy forever after," Jinki replied, solemnly.
Jonghyun nodded, resignedly, a little disappointed. "Very well."
Jinki tried reciting another poem then, but it was a very intimate one by E. E. Cummings and they both got embarrassed quickly. "Perhaps another day," Jonghyun blinked rapidly, before scampering away.
[...]
The strange things inside Jonghyun's stomach stopped happening, and he never felt anything like that again. He also felt tremendously sad, cried a lot, and hugged Jinki at least three times a day. Jinki felt very alarmed by this sudden change in Jonghyun's behaviour. Either the young fellow was planning something dangerous, or he was suddenly very upset. "Are you alright there?" he said, awkwardly, as Jonghyun sobbed into his shoulder.
"No," was the miserable reply, and they stayed like that for a long time.
[…]
"I, um, I got you lots of cucumbers today," Jinki rolled them forward, as Jonghyun climbed down from the tree.
"Thanks very much," said Jonghyun, eyes watery.
[...]
"Do you know something," Jinki spoke up once, as they drowsed in the afternoon sun. "I think you have really cute eyes."
Jonghyun sat up. "You what?"
But Jinki was already asleep.
Jonghyun lay back down eventually. He curled up, a slight smile stealing over his face.
[...]
"Jonghyun," Jinki announced one day, four and a half months after Jonghyun had first ripped up Gwiboon's garden. "I'm going to stop bothering you, now, because I've realized that you actually want to stay as a squirrel, and that's why you'd rather not turn into a human or anything."
Jonghyun choked on a stamen. "Wha-?!"
"So I thought, well, Jinki, do you love Jonghyun or not. And then I thought, well, I'm not sure about the romantic part, but I do know that I love him. And I decided that if being a squirrel makes you happy, then being a squirrel is good enough for me, too, and I'll just, stick around and make sure nobody hurts you. That's all," Jinki took a deep breath and climbed up the tree.
Jonghyun was left staring dumbly at the place where his cousin had just stood.
[...]
Jonghyun didn't see Jinki around for the rest of the day. Not the day after that. Not the day after the day after that, either. "Jinki!" he shouted, racing around the house and the garden and the village. A banshee screamed at him and a ghoul tried to spit at him, but in general, nobody paid him any attention. By the fourth day he was back to being the skinny little creature he'd been when he'd first arrived at Gwiboon's house, and, he was beginning to realize, miserable and lonely. Gwiboon had left five days ago on a trip somewhere, and nobody was around.
Then he heard a voice, and froze.
"Jonghyun? Jonghyun?"
That was Jinki's voice, but not Jinki-squirrel's voice. "Jonghyun? Are you there?"
Jonghyun hid in the bushes, trembling. This couldn't be happening. He wanted to cry and shout with selfishness and anger at himself. The one thought that resounded in his head was, I thought we would both change.
"Jonghyun," Jinki lowered his voice, and went down on his knees, large, familiar hands sweeping gently through the leaves, looking for him. "Jonghyun, where are you?" Jinki sat up, hands on his thighs, looking around, a frown on his face.
Jonghyun closed his eyes, curled up his tail around his hind legs, and huddled away, three feet away from Jinki's face, shielded by leaves.
Jinki looked for him and called for him for hours. By sunset, Jinki sighed and went back inside the house. Jonghyun wanted to vomit.
Then Jinki appeared at the window, right above him. "Jonghyun," he whispered. "Please don't have left me."
Gwiboon closed the windows at night, but Jinki didn't. He pushed the shutters wide open as far as they could go, then hung his head and made his way to the sofa in the living room.
[...]
In the morning, he woke up to a small, beating heart on top of his own, a little squirrel staring at him with hollow eyes. "Jonghyun?" he breathed, reaching up a hand to stroke its back.
"Yes," said Jonghyun, sounding miserable and subdued. His voice was raw.
"Hey, were you crying?" Jinki asked, hands folding protectively over the creature. "What happened?"
"I wasn't crying," Jonghyun trembled in his palm, tail flailing. Then, "Well, fine, I was." And before Jinki could say anything, the skinny squirrel raced up his arm, held his jaw firmly in its paws, and smacked its muzzle against Jinki's mouth.
The next second he was sent sprawling against the wall, and the little squirrel remained arrested in air, a little sphere of gold shining over and through it. The sphere glowed bigger and bigger and brighter and brighter, until Jinki had to screw his eyes shut and sink to the floor, hands over his face. The glass table in front of the sofa shattered into countless shards, and suddenly there was a boy his own age kneeling in front of him and shaking him by the shoulders.
"Jinki," the boy said, urgently. "Jinki. Can you hear me? Can you see? Why're you covering your eyes? Did I do something to you?"
Dazedly, Jinki removed his hands from his face. Jonghyun the same as he did the day they went riding in the woods, so many months ago. Almost a year had passed. He was wearing the same clothes, the same bangs, the same earring and collar. "Jonghyun," Jinki said, slowly, before grabbing his face and kissing him again.
* * *
When Gwiboon came back from her trip, the house was empty, the glass shards and her living roomg table tidily swept up in a corner, the garden fixed as best as possible. A little note was tacked onto the sofa cushion where Jinki once sat.
'True love works!' it said. She sighed, and thought wistfully of the boy whose name started with 'M'.