Gemini didn't tell Fourth what he had planned for them, but the next day, right after his lecture with Professor Tay Tawan, he took Nattawat to the world of the Non-Magical, having spent a good hour choosing an outfit, adding light make-up, and doing his hair to look best.

The first place they visited was, to Fourth's surprise, a karaoke bar. They both had a great time, finally allowing themselves to forget about all their worries and problems for a while. Fourth laughed loudly and happily like never before. Gemini spent most of the time just watching him in awe.

“Why didn't you become my boyfriend sooner?” Gemini asked after they had taken a short break from singing.

“Because you were busy hating me,” Fourth shrugged and smiled sweetly at him. “But now tell me, when did I become your boyfriend?”

“Right now, FotFot, right now.”

“Did you even ask if I agreed?”

“I don’t have to ask, I know that. Besides, you sang that you loved me yesterday, that’s enough of an answer,” Gemini gently pinched Fourth’s cheek.

“You’re a smartass. What if I didn’t agree?”

“Then I’d find another boyfriend,” Gemini joked, and Fourth rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest and sighing in irritation. “I was kidding. No one can be better than you, FotFot. Come on, don’t be mad at me.”

“Okay, you’re lucky I have a soft spot for you this time. Okay, I agree.”

“That’s the point. It wasn’t that hard, was it?”
Fourth looked into Gem's eyes, but found nothing there except something he could probably call admiration, and at the same time longing, hope combined with fear, because he felt it himself. Gemini reached out and brushed Fourth's bangs away from his forehead with his fingers.

“I know you're scared, so am I. There's no shame in admitting that you're scared. This is new to me too and I'm scared as hell, but you know what? The most important thing is not to give up because of this fear. Fear can't have power over us, otherwise we won't be able to function normally. You already know me, FotFot, you know that life with me isn't easy, but if you accept me as I am, that's enough for me. I know that I'll have to change, I wasn't a good person, but you're the one who makes me want this change myself”.

“Gem...”

“Yes, I know... We won't give up, do you hear? We'll both continue to fight for one of us to be chosen as king. This isn't over yet.  Our professional rivalry is still going on. After all, we can show our subjects, prove to them that what is between us will not negatively affect the fate of our world.”

“You said it beautifully.”

“Thank you. I spent two days composing this speech in my head.”

Norawit's sincerity, his words, his look and the fact that he was holding Nattawat's hand the whole time, made tears glisten in Fourth's eyes, but this time they were tears of emotion.

“Does that mean we are fighting on?”

“Yes, FotFot, we are fighting on and we are fighting together, shoulder to shoulder. You might be my rival for a kingdom, but I will do my best to win and to support you. If I'm gonna lose to someone, I prefer it to be you. What do you think?”

“Fantastic! I love you!” Fourth said it completely sincerely and Gem felt that these words were meant especially for him. “But first we have to find out who wanted to eliminate us both from the fight for the throne.”

“Oh, that's easy. I talked to Joong Archen and Prim. I think you know who it was too. Someone I once treated like a close friend. Another candidate for king, who knows no better methods than dirty tricks”, Gemini smiled at Fourth. He felt really proud of himself for being able to sneek into his enemy's gang and getting most important informations.

“Perth Tanapon,” Fourth said quietly, and fragments of the footage from the cameras in front of the Knights of Light Institute building came to mind. In many of them, he saw Perth in the company of various people, including Prim, and most often he saw Pond, Force, and much less often Joong with him.

“Yes. We just have to prove it's him.”

“I think I even know how. I talked to Chokun two days ago, he's a good guy, but he wants influential friends too much. He confessed to me that he joined Perth's gang.”

“Excellent! So we have another one of our people on the inside.”

“Another one of our people? How so? Who else is in Perth's gang?”

“A lot of people. Perth feels unpunished, he's not afraid because he thinks I'm someone who doesn't matter, who doesn't have any power over him. Even Chen doesn't want to know him anymore.”

“Chen? Are you talking about Joong Archen?”

“Yes, I mean him. You know Perth treats them all like his servants, in his eyes only those with money and power matter. He used to be different, but he's changed. Would you guess that tough and handsome guy Aydin is in love with my brother?”

“Shut up! Are you serious?!”

“Completely serious. He warned me that if he sees Phuwin making out with ‘his wifey Dunk’ again he'll ‘rip Phuwin's legs out of his ass’. Well, if I were Phu I'd run away.”

“You’re cruel,” Fourth lightly punched Gem in the thigh.

“Why do you think that?”

“Because Phu is your friend and Dunk is your brother, you can’t treat them like that, they are not toys, they have feelings, they're a couple.”

Gemini, seeing how seriously Fourth said it, laughed out loud. Nattawat gave him a dirty look, coming to the conclusion that Norawit had clearly gone completely crazy and there was no way out for him.

«Why I had to fall in love with such an idiot too?» — Fourth thought with resignation.

Gemini finally stopped laughing and started explaining to his boyfriend how it really was.

“Dunk and Phuwin are not a real couple. They only pretend to be together. It's called work. My brother got a role in a BL series, the main character, and the director asked him to choose someone he wanted to play with. Dunk chose Phu because they had known each other for a long time, they have good chemistry and it was a huge opportunity for Phu.”

“Wait... Are you telling me that they are just pretending to be in a relationship?! So this is all fake?”

“Not everything. Their behaviors around us, I believe that they come straight from the heart. When Joong told me that he was in love with Dunk, I figured out that Phu and Dunk would pretend to be a couple in our world as well. I knew that if they pissed Chen off, he would start fighting for Dunk. We always want what we can't have, isn't that right?”

Fourth thought for a moment.

There was a lot of sense in what Norawit was saying, and yet Fourth was terrified by the intrigue that Gem had come up with. If he was the one who suggested something like that, it was scary to think what else he could be capable of. But Fourth didn't want to be afraid. He put all his doubts aside. What will be, will be.

“Does that mean that Joong and Dunk are in a relationship?”

“Not yet, but I give them a month at most and they'll get together.”

“Then, cheers to our new couple!” Fourth raised his glass of water (Gem refused to even have a little alcohol under any circumstances, so they both drank mostly water and soft drinks). Gem raised his glass as well and they drank a toast to someone Fourth had recently considered an enemy. He briefly thought that if Joong was willing to betray his long-time gang just because he was in love with Dunk, then maybe love wasn’t a bad thing after all.

🙃💖❤️‍🩹💔☺️🫂😂😂🫂☺️💔❤️‍🩹💖💖

Hi my lovely MAGICALS! 🪄✨

Long time no see, huh?

I'm sorry.

A lot was happening recently and... Yeah... That's why you got two chapters today.

Also I love your suggestions, definitely gonna use them.

Maybe it's sad, but... The inspiration to write previous chapter was Liam... Liam Payne...

You know? On the first day I didn't even believe it was true. I kept waiting for someone to tell me it was fake news... I had hope. But with each subsequent post I saw on TikTok and Instagram it slowly started to dawn on me...
A part of me probably died with Liam that day. After all, Payne was very important to me at some point in my life... The years 2019-2022 were the years of my huge fascination with the members of the band One Direction.  They helped me survive... Then Didi introduced me to the world of Formula 1, and I also found the world of Thai BL... And somehow Liam and the rest of the guys faded into the background...
I didn't even know what was going on with them lately.
And then Gem and Minnie reminded me of 1D.... Because she posted a 1D song, and then Gem did the challenge and all the memories about 1D came back...
It's fucking hard to believe that he's gone. That there won't be any more of his music, nothing...
I'm sorry. I know, it's probably irrelevant to you, but this is a part of my life and I had to share it with you, my beloved Khun Noo and Magicals. Take care of yourselves, my dears. And may Liam rest in peace.

You know?  I remember many other deaths of people who were somehow important to me: Antek Juroszek, a young, teenage ski jumping talent, Håkon Krostoffer Tande, brother of Daniel Andre Tande, a ski jumper from Norway, Dilano van’t Hoff, a Formula 3 driver. These are people I didn’t know personally, but who had a certain influence on my life. You can’t get used to the death of people who mean something to you.

And what’s even worse?
The day before Liam died, I had a dream in which Gem was driving under the influence of alcohol and... and caused an accident. Luckily, he didn’t die. In my dream, it only ended with him hitting a tree, but it was still terrifying.
After what happened to Liam, I can’t help but worry about others. Even though I know they are damn strong. Even the strongest people can be broken if you know how. That’s what I’m afraid of. But I hope it’s just a fear without a reason.
Take care, Magicals. Magic loves you!