fairy thief!au

*

to be continued :)

***

The fairies were rapidly disappearing from Younghyun's forest, and he was sick of it. Where were they going? That was an interesting question. The blue-haired hermit did not know.

What he did know, however, was that numerous magical creatures were filing complaints. He was tired of hearing, "My plants all died because the fairy I asked to take care of them while I was on vacation was kidnapped," and "I'm sick of my neighbor's bullshit; he disappeared, and his stove was still on; my house nearly burned down along with his," day in and day out. All of the whining was giving him major headaches, and he was afraid that he would break down any second due to sleep-loss. So he did what any normal person in his situation would do: he placed a tracker on one of the fairy queens and asked her to meet him in the middle of the woods in her little, ornate, brightly-glowing carriage. And, whaddaya know? She was caught, just as many other fairies had been in the last few months. But at least now Younghyun had some coordinates, amirite?

Late at night, he set out on the journey, rubbing his blurry, fatigued eyes while he sloppily chewed on a loaf of bread. Only food could keep him awake at such an ungodly hour, and that's how he found himself scarfing down three baguettes before he finally stopped beside the place the GPS was indicating with a blinking red dot. The blue-haired man halted his chewing as he took in the sight of the glowing blue mushrooms lining the neat front lawn and the small toadstools illuminating the thatched roof with their blinking lights. "It looks so... nice??" He turned off his flashlight and allowed his eyes to adjust to the faint lighting provided by the various agarics. "So cozy..."

His feet moved on their own, and the hermit soon stood before the window, taking in the sight. His eyes widened in astonishment. Inside the house, jars lined the shelves flanking each wall. The multicolored glasses blinked at different paces; some of the lights danced around softly, others harshly let off warning signals in Morse code, yet others simply did not glow at all, though the shadows within them proved that they were not empty. As Younghyun stared on in confusion, his brows furrowed together and his lips squished into a pout. Why would somebody steal fairies and put them in jars that were so out in the open? And how had nobody noticed this yet?!

The hermit finally snapped out of his daze when his GPS gave out a beep to alert him that its battery was running low. He switched off the device and stashed it in his duffel bag full of necessities such as ramyun packets and sprites' teeth. Then he stealthily pushed up the window and squeezed through it into the comfortable cottage, not bothering to close it at that moment. That would come later.

He drunkenly swayed as his shaking legs carried him over to the jars lining the closest wall, and he carefully eased as many jars as he could into his duffel bag without making too much noise. Then the blue-haired man tripped back out the window and slid it shut behind him before sprinting as far away as he could from the cottage before his breaths became pants and his eyes were incapable of seeing his feet hitting the mossy ground in front of him.

Younghyun came back to the cottage every night for a week, stealing as many jars as he could and letting the fairies out in the early morning once he returned to his own hut. None of them remembered anything except being stuck in their jars, so he couldn't prod for details (which really annoyed him a lot, because he wanted clear answers as to who put them in there and for what reason). There was only one more wall of jars left, though, and the hermit was honestly feeling quite proud of himself. But then the inevitable happened.

He was caught red-handed.

Just as he was about to climb out the window with his trusty duffel bag in tow for the seventh night in a row, a small, brown-haired boy came out from the corner which led to the kitchen (where there were seemingly no fairy jars, as far as Younghyun could tell from the time he investigated it a few nights ago). The hermit froze in place, an awkward smile tugging at his lips. The boy simply blinked at him with his slightly-crossed eyes and said, "Abeoji... It's so late... What are you doing in my home?"

Younghyun's vibrant blue hair fell over his eyes in clumps and he blew it away with an exasperated huff. He didn't look old enough to be mistaken for a grandpa... did he? "Hmmm... Why do you think I'm here?"

"To teach me how to catch a fairy thief, obviously!" the must-be owner of the house giddily yelled out, and his hands immediately rose to pull at the strands of brown hair flanking the sides of his face like curtains. "I've been trying to catch them for weeks, but they keep stealing my fairies for some reason! They're really stealthy, you know..." The small boy tutted in annoyance. His finger twirled around a particularly curly lock of hair as he tenderly made his way closer to Younghyun on light feet, and his lips tugged into a soft grin. "And I haven't even caught a glimpse of them yet. So I don't know who I'm trying to catch..."

Brian mentally face-palmed. Can't you see he's right in front of you? he thought to himself and couldn't keep back the urge to roll his eyes and shake his head. And aren't you the one who was the thief in the first place? What a silly boy...

"But you see... I'm not silly at all." The boy's grin seemed to suddenly take on a malicious glint. Younghyun's gulp vibrated down his throat as his adam's apple bobbed like a fishing line being tugged in by a fish. And, suddenly, the fish was crazily tugging him under water, and he was gasping for air.

The brunette's fingers were around his neck.

Younghyun gagged, his throat screaming for the air it was being deprived of. His hands would have risen to fight back, but a mysterious force was holding them back, was constraining him until he was as useless as a snail stuck in a circle of salt. He was in deep shit, and there was no getting out of this one.

Soon enough, the brown-haired boy's wide leer became a fuzzy rotten orange peel in his mind's eye, and Younghyun floated away on a sea of broken fairy wings, his brain frayed from the fingers pressing a fatal pressure into his neck.