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aibaexchange2019-01-01 01:16 pm
Prompt 46
Rating: R-ish?
Word Count: 12.3k
Pairing: Aiba/Ohno with some Aimiya friendship thrown in.
Summary: (Prompt) Aiba is a wizard who specializes in creating new spells. He's created a new love spell but his first experiments don't turn out quite like he expected.
Notes: This was a lot of fun. I hope this is even vaguely close to what the prompter was looking for! Also, a lot of the setting, and some of the herbs and book titles and such, are not my creation but are taken from a book/game series called The Witcher. Most everything else is my doing. I left honorific-use in because I think it sounds better, and it’s a magic world I partially made up so why not honorifics!
Warnings: It gets a bit dark at parts, obviously with any kind of love spell story there’s a hint of dubious consent for all the touchy bits, and there’s some anger/jealousy/verbal abuse warnings I guess for a tiny bit of the story, but it’s mostly a happy story, and no one dies and it’s an ambiguously happy ending I think?
Prologue
Putting the final touches on the curling yellowed scroll laid out across his library table, Aiba tapped the feathery end of a quill to his chin as he considered his wording. He wasn’t always the best at wording things, but he wanted to get this right and he needed to be clear about what was required. Slowly, he scratched out a final sentence and rather less carefully signed his name beneath it before going back to check for mistakes.
If there were any mistakes, a pinch of magic could always set the words straight.
Outside the high tower he occupied, night had long past fallen. Within, small stacks of books and piles of scrolls cluttered his table, and they painted flickering shadows on the walls in the candlelight as Aiba read over the notice.
He could only hope that someone capable would happen upon his request.
When he was satisfied that his words were as clear as they could be, Aiba gently rolled the scroll closed, sealed it with a bit of frayed twine, and tucked it into the pocket of his travelling cloak. He would set out in the morning.
For now, it was after midnight, and no time to be wandering through the forest, or the maze-like bog. More accurately, it was a very dangerous time to be doing any of those things.
Instead, Aiba decided it was time to get some rest.
---
In the morning, though by the time he got moving it was really late-morning, Aiba enchanted his tower door to lock, slipped passed the courtyard gate, and began his trek down a short but meandering forest path. It was a familiar path to Aiba, leading the way out of the forest where his tower was hidden and into the damp and murky swamp which surrounded it.
Both the forest and the swamp were full of hazardous creatures best left avoided, but they remained the only route between Aiba’s tower and the rest of the world, including the small village he was heading for now.
It was the closest village by any measure, and the locals were, for the most part, tolerant of Aiba’s presence on their outskirts. Occasionally, the locals would send a person in need his way, or an envoy to entreat his help back at the village, whether he was capable of helping the situation or not. Sometimes, even if he wanted to help, he couldn’t. Aiba didn’t generally advertise his talents for exactly this reason, but there was no way he could ever turn away anyone who needed him. He usually did everything in his power to assist.
In exchange, when soldiers with pointy pikes moved through the area and requested the location of any and all magic-doers, the village residents would very kindly not give him up. It was a mutually beneficial relationship, Aiba thought, and he was grateful for their help avoiding a painful end on a fiery pyre.
That just sounded terribly unpleasant.
As Aiba approached the edges of the village he could hear the familiar babble of its inhabitants and the telltale buzz of the few magical objects hidden within their homes. He ignored them today, as he did most days, since a few bits of magic here and there never hurt anyone.
There was rarely anything strong or menacing harbored in this sleepy little village, anyway.
He found his objective, a weathered wooden notice board, just outside the village inn. It was covered in a variety of requests, warnings, and official statements, not to mention a great deal of tiny paper corners where scrolls of the past had been ripped from the nails which held them in place.
Aiba, of course, didn’t have to bother with nails. A quiet snap from the pads of his fingers was enough to spark the slight magic needed to adhere his unrolled scroll to the most central location on the notice board.
Help Required! Dangerous work! Pay Guaranteed – Half Up Front!
HELLO! Thank you for your interest in this notice.
Do you like adventure?
Are you capable of travelling through creature-infested territory?
Can you identify rare and potent magical herbs in the wild?
THIS IS THE JOB FOR YOU!
Please visit the tower in the swamp.
Aiba Masaki
“Nobody is going to miss that!” Aiba declared loudly, distressing a cluster of nearby chickens who clucked at him reproachfully and scampered off down the unpaved dust trail that was the village’s main road.
Aiba apologized sympathetically after the chickens, but he was unsure if they heard him in all of their uproar.
Now, he only had to wait and hope for a person to stumble upon his notice. A person who had the fortitude to accept such a task. Surely, there must be someone.
With a pleased hum, Aiba adjusted the hood of his cloak, pulled it tighter around himself, and decided he would pay the barmaid a (brief, he reminded himself) visit before he began the winding journey back to his tower.
Part One
Following the instructions of a barmaid and a few tipsy locals, Ohno Satoshi trod through the murky swamp, checking every now and then that he was keeping the high stone tower that marked his destination in view to ensure he remained on the correct path. Crows called at him indignantly as he moved through their territory, and Ohno nodded at them as respectfully as he could as he passed them.
An eerie fog crept through the scraggly trees which were rooted in the thick muck all around him. He got turned around more than once, and had to double back to the main path again. Once, Ohno was fairly certain that he nearly encountered a menacing fog-creature, but he managed to circumvent the thick clouds of fog that often foretold their presence.
He was just grateful he hadn’t needed to draw his sword.
Eventually, he found himself at the edge of a denser forest of greener and healthier-looking trees which signaled his exit from the swamp, and his arrival at the tower. It was a short walk down a winding narrow path, through the trees and the undergrowth to the tower’s modest courtyard.
A small, iron-rod gate swung on rusty hinges, wavering creaky and unsecured in the faint breeze that occasionally swept by.
Ohno fought off a bit of a shiver, and carried on. The base of the tower was encircled by an old and rickety-looking wooden staircase. The staircase led up some height to a similarly decrepit-looking wooden door which was inset into the tower’s stone.
The stairs looked… slightly less than secure.
Why was he out here in the middle of nowhere knocking on the doors of mysterious strangers again?
Oh, right. He needed the coin.
When he reached the top of the staircase Ohno discovered that it too had a tendency to sway in the wind. He did not hesitate to knock rather firmly and hoped that the wind did not pick up.
“YES, HELLO! BE RIGHT THERE!” A voice yelled at him.
Ohno realized the voice emanated from a tiny pine cone hanging just above the door.
Clever magic, really. It made him smile, just in time for the door to swing open and reveal the man Ohno could only assume was the contract-issuer. There was a smudge of something green and sticky-looking on his cheek and his hair appeared at the moment to be slightly awry.
“Hi!” greeted the stranger with unexpected warmth.
“Uh, hello. I was- I hope I’m in the right place here, I- ,”
“Oh, yes! Yes, please, come in! If you’re here then you probably meant to be. It’s not an easy place to get to accidentally, now is it?” He laughed and it was, Ohno realized, a pretty unique sound. Ohno quite liked unique sounds, though now did not seem like an appropriate time to say so.
“Um…no, I guess it’s not.”
He let himself be ushered past the threshold and into the tower, scanning the room he was led into, which looked to Ohno like some odd combination of a lounge, an oracle room, and a waiting room. There were no windows, low lights, and a lot of potted plants. Glowing objects were scattered about on shelves or hanging from the ceiling in various configurations. There were also a handful of comfortable looking upholstered benches and an alarming number of cushions on the floor.
It looked cozy, anyway, if not a bit… eccentric. Ohno really liked it.
“I found this notice. Though it doesn’t say what sort of herbs you’re looking for or where they are, if you know where they are… Are you the person who posted this?”
Ohno held up the notice in question. The scroll was dusty and torn a bit around the edges now but otherwise appeared as it had when it was first posted some two weeks before.
Ohno squinted at the signature at the bottom of the scroll for a few seconds, mouthing the syllables before he made any attempt to speak them.
“Aiba Masaki?”
“Yes! That’s me. This is great, this is wonderful. I was just thinking today over breakfast whether someone would ever… well nevermind that, here you are, aren’t you! What should I call you?”
The wizard sounded extremely enthusiastic. Ohno assumed he was a wizard, based on the cauldron, and the peculiar crystals hanging from the ceiling, and that odd glowing orb thing in the corner over there. As Ohno introduced himself to Aiba Masaki, he pondered idly how a tower with such a round and cylindrical exterior managed to have any corners inside it at all. But… well, magic, right?
Anyway, he wasn’t there to assess the tower’s corners. He was there to do a job or… get a job. One of those. He wasn’t too clear on the details yet.
Rather than explain, Aiba abandoned him in the glowing room and was already taking the spiral stone stairway which led straight up, traversing two steps of it with every one stride. His voice echoed up the high walls as he called down to Ohno.
“Follow me, please! Close the door behind you! My lab is toward the top, I left my list up here since I keep having to add to it…”
Ohno was pretty sure his legs weren’t long enough to take these steps two-at-a-time as the wizard had, but he followed quickly nevertheless, with all the grace of one who occasionally needed to fight for his living.
It was quite a high tower, with many steps to the top. They passed a floor which held a small round kitchen and another floor where most of the walls were filled with shelves, stacked high with books, that left only room in the center for a threadbare overstuffed armchair and a worn wooden table, its top overflowing with half-written scrolls. Aiba introduced the room as his library, but he did not linger there either, and they continued their ascent.
Ohno may have had a few questions but he kept them to himself for now. He didn’t want to be accidentally rude, and Aiba seemed content to do all of the talking for the moment, anyway.
So Ohno listened to him explain all about the wind in the winter that cut through the tower walls like they were made of paper, and how the only real solution was a magically-augmented fireplace. A fascinating concept, one Ohno would have asked more about, but they had arrived at the end of the staircase.
Aiba’s laboratory room topped off into the high wooden rafters of the tower’s roof.
It seemed like a terrible fire hazard for a laboratory, actually, but perhaps magic protected against that too. The lab which occupied this level was pretty impressive, full of glass and shiny bronze, bottles, and tubing, not to mention several layers of parchment on every available surface, and many of the unavailable surfaces as well.
Most of the bottles and jars contained liquids in a variety of colors and, Aiba informed him, thicknesses. A tall man-sized cylinder of blue glass sat dust-covered in the corner (more corners, he noted) and Ohno wondered what it was for, but it didn’t look as recently used as most of the stuff laid out on the tables.
Notably, a good half of the rafters were taken up by a low-ceilinged loft, accessible via the same sort of rickety wooden staircase as the one which circled the tower’s outer walls. Up in the loft, Ohno could see the edges of a bed, covered in a lot of fancy looking fabrics.
It looked incredibly comfortable.
It also made Ohno wonder if the money in wizardry was really this good… maybe it was time for a career diversion.
Somewhat distracted, Ohno did not immediately notice that Aiba had finished shuffling through a small stack of scrolls and was now standing before him with one scroll that was magically unravelling in his hands.
“Here’s what I need to start with- ”
“…start with?” Ohno repeated, leaning in to scan the list curiously.
“-once I get these eleven ingredients, I can start to refine the rest as I go, right?”
“Um. Right,” Ohno agreed, not sure what it was he was agreeing to.
It seemed like Aiba knew what he was talking about, so who was Ohno to argue?
“Right! So, take this list,” the wizard continued. The scroll snapped back into a tight roll, which Aiba proceeded to shove into his hands.
Ohno scrambled to accept it.
“I’ll need everything on here, and I’ve doubled the amounts just so I’ll be sure to have enough but- well I still don’t know, do I? Until I start the concocting… right?”
“Right,” Ohno agreed very firmly, feeling as if he might actually be starting to get an idea of whatever it was they were talking about. Possibly.
There was a moment of silence in which they both stared at each other with a fair amount of eager expectation, before they both realized they were waiting for the other to say something.
“Ah… so.” Aiba finished somewhat less confidently, though it came back rather quickly. “Right! So that’s what I need, and it’ll probably take you a while, but I can wait! Hurry back! …And don’t die!”
Ohno wasn’t entirely sure why, but rather than be alarmed at being warned to just not die, all he could really do was laugh.
Part Two
Some days later, covered in the remnants of an angry leshen he had been forced to battle, Ohno was not laughing so much anymore. He had unfortunately needed to venture into the leshen’s territory for twelve fistfuls of rosethorn thistles.
They were the eleventh and final herb on the wizard’s list.
It was a lot of hard work, all of the traveling, and searching, and fighting. As dangerous as this whole adventure had been, it was also satisfyingly challenging in a way that very few of the recent jobs that Ohno had taken on were.
He had faced several nests of unpleasant creatures in his quest for magical ingredients and though he had no idea what kind of spell he was actually gathering for, he knew enough to identify that it was likely all for some sort of spell. This was not his first time undertaking a contract of this nature.
Pausing to clean his sword before he sheathed it, Ohno felt exhaustion kicking up as his adrenaline faded away. He would need to find somewhere to stay for the night, an inn perhaps, for he was far too tired to start the journey back to Aiba’s tower that night.
Besides which, he was covered in sap and leaves and twigs and he really needed a bath. Or several.
---
After a day and a half of travelling, Ohno eventually found his way back to the tower in the swamp, and to Aiba, to deliver the herbs he had been hired to collect.
“What sort of spell is this for, anyway?” he asked, as he was led up to the library, where Aiba kept his coin.
Aiba did not answer him at first, fiddling with the small pouch of coins that was to be the second-half of Ohno’s pay.
An idea was forming slowly in Aiba’s mind as he considered the next phase of his plan. This spell he had paid Ohno to go to all this trouble for, it had a lot of planning, thought, and magical theory behind it. Aiba had spent the last two months studying similar spells, thinking through the practical effects of every herb he planned to use and their likely side-effects…
Things were finally coming together.
“Actually… it’s for a love spell,” he said casually.
Ohno looked surprised, if not a bit interested, which Aiba thought was probably a good sign, so he went on.
“In fact, I could use some help with the next phase of its development, you know, if you’ve got the time to spare... I can guarantee no long-term effects, of course, and I’ll double what I paid you for the herbs!”
It was a lot of coin, but Aiba really didn’t want to go to the trouble of finding a brand-new person willing to endure his spell tests if he didn’t have to… not if there was a willing participant already here.
“My help? …With a love spell?” Ohno checked.
Though he sounded a bit doubtful, it looked as though he were giving the idea serious consideration.
Aiba nodded, bit his lip, and held his breath.
“I guess if there aren’t any long-term effects… I don’t mind. I could definitely use the coin. Sure,” Ohno agreed with a shrug, and having decided, appeared to have no further second thoughts about it.
At least not yet.
“OH! Thank you so much! That’s really, very helpful. I’ll be taking notes, of course, but I’ll leave your name out completely in my notes. You’ll just be First Subject, okay? But anyway. If you’re sure, then I’ll need to prepare a few questions for the spell evaluation, and then we can probably start in just a few days!”
It was all very exciting.
Aiba hoped Ohno had taken the time to consider what the side-effects, even temporary ones, of a love spell might be. He had plenty of time to think about it, and to back out if he wanted, though Aiba didn’t really think that he would. Ohno seemed like a pretty easy-going fellow.
Though at the moment, he appeared to be slightly torn.
“Ah… I have a job lined up in a village a day east of here, but I can try to be back in a few days.”
“There’s no hurry! That will just give me more time to plan the testing phase!”
He was very excited, though he didn’t miss that Ohno’s smile looked a little uncertain, but he was pretty sure it would all turn out okay. Aiba was very good at spells! Things rarely went wrong when he cast them, and only sometimes went wrong when he created new ones!
Anyway, he’d been planning this particular love spell for quite some time now. It was something Aiba was certain that the world needed.
There were already love spells for passion, spells for eternal love, and spells for fertility, of course, but… there were, to Aiba’s knowledge, no gentle love spells. None with the soft sort of spark that kindled a love meant to last. A real sort of love.
In truth Aiba wasn’t sure such a spell was even a possibility.
Of course that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try, if only for the sake of discovery. Aiba loved to craft spells, he loved the challenge of it, and the trial and error of it all. But also, perhaps, Aiba could admit that his existence in this swamp-mired tower could get a bit lonely.
Dating was not exactly compatible with the lifestyle of a mysterious wizard.
Aiba sighed.
“I should probably be on my way, if I want to make good time,” Ohno said eventually, breaking their silence as he peered out the library’s only small window, watching the sun slowly set on the horizon, basking them both in gilded light.
Aiba thought Ohno sounded a tad reluctant, though it may only have been his imagination.
“Here you go!”
Aiba drew his attention before tossing the bag of coins in Ohno’s direction, who caught it easily.
“Don’t spend it all at the inn! Good luck with your job!”
“I’ll do my best,” Ohno laughed, securing the pouch to his belt as he headed for the stairs. He paused at the top of them, looking back at Aiba. “And I’ll come back in a few days, definitely. Promise.”
“I’ll be here!”
Aiba waved goodbye until the sound of Ohno’s footsteps in the stone stairwell had faded away.
Part Three
As Ohno had promised, in a few days time they found themselves together in the tower’s library yet again, Ohno with his previous task now complete and Aiba with a clear and thought-out plan of attack for his first try with this new spell.
After all of his careful preparation, it was finally time.
He had cleared the table of all unnecessary items, books, and scrolls, and the necessary ingredients were laid out and arranged to facilitate the spell’s casting. He was doing this in the library, as Aiba had already learned the hard way that experimenting with spells in a laboratory full of glass was never a good or safe idea.
He began by measuring the necessary amounts of each herb and substance into a worn wooden bowl. He measured each in amounts sufficient enough to create a spell with approximately twenty minutes of effectiveness. As with all spells, the right ingredients, halved or quartered, would merely shorten the spell’s expected lifespan. In theory. If the spell was successful, he could always lengthen the period of effectiveness with a larger quantity of ingredients.
For now, twenty minutes seemed adequate.
The bowl worked as a casting vessel. In addition to the herbs and a small amount of vital magical fluids, Aiba dropped a small rosy crystal into the bowl with a quiet plop and waited for a reaction.
“You’re taking this very seriously,” Ohno observed, sounding a tad amused.
“Well of course I am! If I mess this up, the spell could go horribly wrong!” Aiba admitted, though he perhaps could have phrased it better.
“Uh… how horribly?”
“Shhh, I’m trying to concentrate. You’ll be fine, don’t worry,” Aiba reassured, sprinkling a bit of black pearl dust overtop the concoction
It had begun to turn an opalescent-purple color and was burbling on its own. This would be the spell’s base, and he would also need a catalyst at the time of casting, and of course…
“The tea!” he exclaimed. “I nearly forgot.”
With a flick of his fingers, the sound of pottery rattling drifted up from the kitchen below them.
Aiba winced slightly, but it didn’t sound as if anything was broken, and shortly thereafter a small cup and teapot came whizzing up the stairwell and into the library to settle themselves on the table.
“There we are,” Aiba said with some satisfaction and a beaming smile.
With a prod of his finger, the kettle filled itself with water and began to heat. As it did, he gathered another small handful of herbs from a second pile, forced them into a tea ball and dropped them into the kettle.
“As soon as that’s done, we can begin!”
“What’s the tea for?” Ohno questioned, perching on the arm of the armchair and watching as Aiba continued to fuss over the configuration of the candles and the correct alignment of the symbols he had chalked onto the wooden tabletop.
“It connects you to the spell. It’s a cleansing agent, and it makes your body more… willing to receive the magic… kinda,” Aiba tried to explain. “It’s all part of the process!”
“Ah,” Ohno replied profoundly. “I see.”
Aiba wasn’t sure if he did, but that was okay too.
When it had finished steeping, Aiba presented the small cup of herby tea to Ohno.
As he drank, Aiba added the catalyst, a small pinch of puffball mushroom dust, to the wooden bowl, which shortly began to expel a rosy-colored smoke, and thus began the spell’s ritual.
The words he used were ancient, but Aiba knew their meaning well enough to impart the phrases that he crafted with the power they needed to have. He willed his own magic into the spell, and the air all around Ohno crackled with magical potential, ready to receive it.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Aiba prompted quietly, his heart somewhat in his throat as it always was before a big spell. He could feel the spell’s energies vibrating the air between the casting vessel and Ohno. “You may want to step back a bit.”
Obediently, Ohno put some distance between himself and the table, from whence a growing ball of light had started to form.
“I think I’m ready,” Ohno said, bracing his feet apart, and looking a bit nervous about what was coming.
“Here we go,” Aiba whispered, more to himself than to Ohno, and unleashed his hold on the percolating spell.
The spell flew toward Ohno in a rush of air and sparkling light. Aiba used a combination of elaborate gesticulations to help manipulate the energy, draw it out into the room, and guide it gently to Ohno, all of the components melding together to form the will of the spell.
So far, so good.
When the spell’s activity had settled and the magic had worked itself down into all of the places that it needed to be, Aiba lowered his hands.
Ohno seemed to be glowing with a faint golden aura, and was staring blankly at Aiba’s armchair.
He looked rather dazed.
“Ohno-kun?” Aiba tried carefully. “…How do you feel?”
Ohno did not immediately answer, and Aiba watched him shuffle forward and slowly brush his fingers over the arm of Aiba’s chair.
“This is a very nice chair,” Ohno finally said, running his palm along the back cushion.
“Um,” said Aiba. “Thanks?”
“No, I mean… I really…”
Ohno trailed off, and with mounting horror, Aiba watched him lean down to happily rub his cheek against the chair in a way that reminded Aiba very much of a cat. He got the feeling that Ohno would probably be purring now if he had the ability to do so.
“I really love this chair. I think- ”
Once again Aiba’s horror level rose as Ohno proceeded to then straddle the arm of the chair and wiggle.
“I think I’m in love with this chair,” he said in a tone of dawning realization.
“Oh.” Aiba sighed. “Oh no, this isn’t right.”
Thankfully, Ohno did not escalate his relationship with the armchair any further than sitting on said chair and occasionally stroking the well-worn fabric.
Aiba took a few notes, but as this result was so very far from the spell’s intended purpose, well… there wasn’t much to be gained from questioning Ohno any further.
Eventually the spell’s effects subsided.
“That was definitely not something I’ve ever felt for a chair before,” Ohno admitted, when Aiba asked what he could recall of the spell’s effects. “But I remember everything. It was definitely… powerful.”
“It’s rare to get a spell right on the first try,” Aiba acknowledged. “Still… that was probably something I should have anticipated sooner. I’ll have to be a lot more specific next time!”
He was already running through the possible solutions in his head.
“So…” Ohno said after a while. “…when’s next time, then?”
Love Spell Attempt No. 1
First Subject became infatuated with inanimate object (armchair) instead of Second Subject.
Notes: Restrict spell to human subjects (add burdock root, adjust spell phrasing).
Specify respective spell subjects with addition of hair strands (at least 2 subjects per spell).
Part Four
‘Next time’ came in two days, after Aiba had taken the time needed to make any necessary alterations to the spell’s composition.
The most important component of the new additions was obviously the hair strands. Aiba didn’t know why he didn’t think of it the first time around. Of course specifying the focus of the spell on the desired subjects was a pretty important part of a love spell.
Live and learn, he reminded himself, as he prepared for his second attempt at this love spell of his.
When Ohno arrived, Aiba was still arranging and chalking symbols on the tabletop around the wooden bowl, so Ohno busied himself scanning the bookshelves of Aiba’s library.
“The Natural Obscurity of Curses,” he read aloud. “What’s that about?”
Aiba glanced up from his notes and thought for a moment.
“Ah… like, sometimes, people curse themselves, or other people, by accident, just by saying something in the wrong place, or to the wrong person, or with the wrong words. It’s a real problem! People aren’t careful enough!”
“Mm,” Ohno hummed noncommittally. “Accidental curses.”
“Right.”
That answered, Aiba went back to his notes, and Ohno went back to his browsing. A few minutes later, however…
“Tyromancy,” Ohno read. “or, the Noble Art of Cheese Divination…”
There was a quiet in the room as Ohno absorbed this, and Aiba waited for the inevitable question.
“Wait. Cheese divination? Like… like cheese-cheese?”
“Yes, with cheese!” Aiba said cheerfully. “It’s actually really useful! And quite ancient. It’s… really, though, the study of cheese coagulation. But nobody ever likes to say coagulation so… tyromancy!”
The weight of this new information seemed to shock Ohno into silence.
When the rest of the spell’s preparations were complete, Aiba did not waste any time wiggling his fingers at Ohno, until a single strand of hair plucked itself from Ohno’s head and floated over to the bowl of mostly-prepared ingredients on his library table.
“Ouch…” Ohno complained slightly, rubbing at his head.
Aiba giggled quietly. “It was just one little hair! Plus, it’s gonna stop you falling in love with the chair this time!”
“That was pretty weird.”
“Right. Now you should definitely fall in love with me!”
There was a silence that followed this statement in which they both blushed slightly and were not quite able to look at each other.
Ohno cleared his throat slightly.
Aiba forged on. “Anyway. Do you think you’re about ready? Your tea is here, I’ll just need to add the catalyst when you’re ready!”
He did his best to infuse a bit more enthusiasm into the moment, since after all, he had high-hopes that things would go well this time!
Unfortunately, when the ritual was complete and the spell had been cast, things went awry once again.
At first, Aiba was sure it had worked.
The look of pure adoration he was getting from Ohno was just… well it was undeniable, wasn’t it? It was hard not to smile when you were being looked at like that, like you were some kind of superhero.
But then, things took a slight turn.
“How do you feel, Ohno-kun?” Aiba chimed hopefully.
Within seconds of his speaking, Ohno’s eyes had begun overflowing with tears.
“Y-your… your voice- it’s really, really beautiful,” he gasped quietly. “You’re beautiful. I’ve never seen or heard anything so beautiful in my whole life!”
Aiba didn’t know how to react to this.
“H-hey… it’s okay. You don’t have to cry, I’m not- I mean, it’s nothing to cry about!” Aiba laughed a little nervously, but he didn’t think he was being much help at all, for when he approached Ohno the man shrunk back toward the bookcases with wide, damp eyes.
“N-no… I can’t touch you. You’re too special. I shouldn’t. You’re so amazing… I think… I think you must be an angel. Are you? I think I can see your wings!”
Aiba didn’t think he was making that up either, because Ohno kept looking just behind Aiba like there was something just over his shoulder that Aiba couldn’t see. It was, potentially, one of the strangest things anyone had ever said to him.
“Um. You see… you see wings?”
“They’re right there!” Ohno insisted, pointing. “You are just so amazing.”
“Maybe you better sit down,” Aiba decided to suggest, as Ohno was looking just a tad shaky and he was still sort of crying, but he wouldn’t let Aiba touch him.
“Anything you say,” the man declared, and Aiba believed him as he watched Ohno slowly sink to the floor, staring still up at Aiba in awestruck wonder.
This was definitely not what the spell was supposed to be doing.
“Ahh…I messed it up again,” he sighed unthinkingly.
Ohno gasped. “No, no, no! You couldn’t have messed it up. If you did something then it has to be perfect… because you’re perfect. So it must be right!”
Aiba had never seen the man so reactive before, not to mention he kept reaching out to touch what Aiba could only assume were his own invisible wings.
This was such a weird day.
“Okay. Well how about you just… you keep doing that,” Aiba eventually concluded. “I need to look over my notes.”
“Yes, master,” Ohno whispered quietly.
Aiba stared, fighting off the laughter he could feel bubbling up.
Don’t laugh, this is all because your spell failed.
He managed to keep it together, despite the way Ohno kept crawling closer to him and whispering about how beautiful he was. It was funny for a few minutes but then it was just… kind of annoying and awkward.
In any case, definitely not the spell he wanted.
But there was always next time.
Love Spell Attempt No. 2
Spell creates too much emotional distance, endows strong feelings of reverence, awe of Second Subject’s objective beauty. Excessive crying. Possible hallucinations.
Notes: Increase emotional closeness (add bryonia), lower awe-factor (reduce arenaria leaf).
Part Five
This time, there was no mistaking when the spell had taken full effect.
One moment, Aiba had been frowning at his notes from the previous experiment, and the next…
Ohno was very much in his personal bubble. He had Aiba a bit pinned, caught up against the edge of the library table. At first, Aiba was so startled he nearly spilled his inkwell.
But then, Aiba couldn’t help but be curious as to the exact nature of this reaction. He wasn’t sure what the spell was doing here exactly, but the only way to find out was to ask!
“How are you feeling, Ohno-kun?” Aiba questioned quietly. Since Ohno was so very close, he had to peer down over the back of his shoulder to see him properly.
As if in answer, he felt the very deliberate press of Ohno’s hips against his bottom that, for all intents and purposes, popped whatever bubble Aiba had left.
“O-oh…okay, then. That’s um…”
Aiba reached for an even vaguely appropriate word and came up empty.
“…hard?”
When he felt Ohno hum against the nape of his neck, Aiba somewhat regretted his choice of words. Also maybe his choice of spell ingredients because this was definitely coming on rather strong.
Not… that it wasn’t nice. It was kinda nice. It felt very…
Oh. Wow. Wait, he really shouldn’t be getting sidetracked here. Then again, he couldn’t exactly turn around or it would likely only make the whole situation… more difficult.
“Aiba-kun, you seem a little distracted,” Ohno sighed against his ear.
Aiba was fighting very hard to find his thoughts in all the-
Uh-oh. One of Ohno’s hands was wandering. It took a journey across his stomach, which was fine. It was still very distracting, but it was fine… until it began to venture lower.
“W-wait, wait-,” Aiba warned, grabbing for his wrist.
“Sorry,” Ohno apologized, but he did not sound sorry, and his lips were moving just beneath Aiba’s ear and it was so distracting.
Aiba opened his mouth to say as much, but all that emerged was a softly restrained moan that he very much did not plan to share.
He supposed he had two options, which were that he could spend the next fifteen minutes trapped against this table with Ohno pressing against his backside or he could lay down some ground rules and just…
“Ohno-kun,” Aiba tried to cut through the spell’s fog to really get the man’s attention. “Are you listening?”
“Mmmn…hmm,” Ohno hummed in what Aiba hoped was an acknowledgement.
“I’m going to try and kiss you,” Aiba went on, as if this were the most ordinary suggestion in the world. “For my notes, you know… But we’re just kissing, alright? No wandering hands.”
“They won’t wander,” Ohno promised, but even Aiba could hear that his resolve sounded a little shaky.
“If your hands wander, then I’ll be forced to magic them behind your back, okay?” Aiba grinned rather impishly at the thought, though, he realized a bit too late it probably did nothing to encourage Ohno to keep his hands to himself.
Though his breathing remained a bit stuttered, which Aiba could feel as close as they were, Ohno seemed to take the time to absorb what Aiba was actually saying to him.
After a moment Aiba could feel him nodding.
“Okay,” Ohno agreed.
Aiba needed no further encouragement to twist himself around enough to cup extremely flushed cheeks and attach his own lips to Ohno’s, in what Aiba realized was their very first kiss.
As first kisses went, there was not much to complain about.
Ohno’s lips retained the faintest flavor of the tea Aiba had steeped for the spell, but Aiba still tasted them thoroughly, to be sure he fully documented any unusual results.
Not that there were any. There were, however, some explosive results, because obviously turning around meant Ohno’s front was now pressed very firmly to his own, and that was an entire other level of distraction for Aiba. He felt Ohno whimper ever so quietly against his mouth, and Aiba propelled them around and away from the desk and, rather coincidently, they landed against the side of the armchair.
Aiba nearly fell backwards over its cushiony arm.
Now that they had started the kissing, Ohno didn’t seem inclined to stop, and Aiba really wasn’t sure he wanted to either. Despite his own lingering reservations, it had been a painfully long time since he had kissed anyone at all, and Aiba found himself falling into the naturally intoxicating slide of their lips twining together with an ever-increasing addition of tongues that was just so very…
“H-hot…” Aiba gasped a little, when they finally managed to break for air.
Ohno was gasping a bit at him, and though it was very tempting to just go right back into… but…Now that they parted, he could see more clearly the striking dilation of pupils in Ohno’s dark eyes.
Even in the moment, it seemed just terribly wrong to keep going when the man was clearly driven by the spell’s magically-infused instincts.
…No matter how good it felt. And it did feel very good, but still it didn’t feel right. Though Ohno had given his consent to these experiments, knowing very well what a love spell could entail, Aiba still felt there was a line, and that line was right about here. He didn’t have the heart to cross it so selfishly.
His lips kept drifting dangerously closer to Ohno’s though, and for the first time, Aiba was not exactly sure how much longer the spell was likely to last.
“We can’t keep going?” Ohno mumbled somewhat dejectedly.
“It is not the best idea,” he reasoned in his most reasonable tone, hoping it was convincing enough for both of them. “You are very distracting.”
It was his only good excuse.
As close as they were, he could feel Ohno laughing at him.
“Oi. I’m trying to be a professional here!”
“Yes, this has been very professional kissing,” Ohno continued to laugh, which only inevitably drew Aiba into laughter too.
He realized after a moment that the magic fizzle of the spell was beginning to fade, and Ohno’s eyes were returning back to their normal state. As was, presumably, the situation in his trousers.
“Well that was fun,” Ohno offered when they both seemed to have mostly composed themselves.
“Right, fun!” Aiba agreed, though what followed was a slightly frustrated sigh. “Only… really not the spell that I’m going for, you know? It had a little too much, um…”
“…things did spiral pretty quickly,” Ohno said, politely disentangling his limbs from Aiba where they had gotten rather wrapped around Aiba’s middle.
Which left the wizard free to collapse listlessly back onto the armchair they had been leaning against. “Yes,” he sighed.
“Do you think you know what went wrong?” Ohno queried.
“I didn’t… I mean, in the moment it was a bit um, difficult, to think about the details of the spell this time. But… well I think I have an idea what was wrong. I’ll just need to tweak a couple of the herbs, and some of the desire levels definitely need… adjusting too,” he mused, head tilting thoughtfully as he did.
It had been a decidedly interesting reaction this time but not the worst one by far. Aiba remained fairly giddy about the spell’s potential to improve.
It would, hopefully, only take a little more tweaking and he could get it just right.
But that night in his bed, and for several nights to come, Aiba would find it quite difficult to forget the results of this particular spell-attempt.
Love Spell Attempt No. 3
Emotional distance rectified.
First Subject experienced extreme passion. Very difficult to resist.
Desire for physical contact could be dialed back? Spell version may require further study at future date.
Notes: Dial down physical closeness (lower quantities of fool’s parsley).
Reduce overall desire potency and pheromone reception (condense rosethorn thistle before combining).
Part Six
When Ohno arrived at the tower for their next attempt, he made his way up to Aiba’s library and was surprised to discover that someone else was already there.
“Hey! This is a friend of mine. He’s also a wizard! Nino, this is Ohno-kun.”
“We’re called mages, remember,” Nino reminded him. His tone suggested this was not the first time Aiba had made this mistake.
“Right!” Aiba chimed dutifully. “Don’t be rude, introduce yourself!”
“Fine, fine. Ninomiya Kazunari.”
His introduction was curt, but a hidden smirk played at the corners of his lips, and Ohno felt his eyes lingering a bit longer than most when they met his own.
Ohno understood what he meant about being a mage after only a moment of observation. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but this close the ears were pretty hard to miss. Ninomiya was an elf, and elves called their magically inclined individuals mages.
“He’s here to help me monitor the spell’s progress this time,” Aiba explained.
“And to have drinks later,” Nino added pointedly.
“Right, and the drinks.”
“Okay…” Ohno said uncertainly, remembering vividly how out of control things had gotten during the previous experiment. “Did you, uh… did you fix some of those problems we had last time?”
“Huh? Oh-OH! Definitely. Yes, I definitely fixed those. …Probably.”
Aiba was visibly flustered.
Ohno swallowed a bit hard.
“It’ll be fine! Whenever you’re ready, Ohno-kun!”
Aiba indicated that the spell was mostly prepared, including the freshly made tea.
Ohno took the time to strip off his sheathed sword, and leaned it against one of the book-filled shelves. Apparently, it caught the mage’s attention.
“That’s an elven sword,” Nino pointed out, eyeing the hilt rather critically. “…It’s fairly good quality.”
“Oh wow! You know, I could feel it was an enchanted sword, but I never noticed it was elven magic,” Aiba mused.
“There’s a very distinct difference, if you’re paying attention to the vibrations,” Nino informed Aiba with perhaps the most enthusiasm he had displayed yet.
The subject matter was pretty much over Ohno’s head. He knew he had a magic-infused elven sword, of course, and he had paid elven prices for it too, but the finer points of its magical signature were rather beyond his current understanding of magic theory.
It seemed to take the two sorcerers a moment to recognize that they had lost Ohno somewhere back around the subject of vibrations.
“Ah, I guess we should start the spell, huh? Are you ready now?” Aiba checked.
“I’m ready,” Ohno affirmed, and seated himself in the previously empty armchair to sip his strange tea. When the spell hit him last time, it made his knees a little weak, among other things, so he thought it was probably better to be sitting.
This time, as Aiba worked the spell, Ohno noticed the elf, Ninomiya, contributing as well. Swirls of magic light, a distinctly different shade than Aiba’s, sparked from his fingertips and joined the swirl of magical energies spilling from the little wooden bowl on the table.
Then Ohno felt the spell beginning to take over, and soon he was in its control.
---
“Ohno-kun?” Aiba prodded gently, ignoring the look of skepticism from Nino.
Ohno groaned something unintelligible, frowning as his gaze flickered warily between the two sorcerers in the room.
“How do you feel?” Aiba continued hopefully.
At the very least, Ohno did not appear to be immediately groping Aiba again, so they would not be getting the same results as last time.
“He looks kind of annoyed,” Nino noted, arms crossing his chest. “Are you sure the spell worked?”
“Of course it worked! You saw it go into him!”
“Masaki?” Ohno murmured.
Aiba’s eyes went a little wide. That was new.
“Um… yes?”
Ohno was now definitely glaring, as it turned out. Honestly it looked terribly out of place on the man’s normally placid face.
He didn’t sound like himself either.
“Since when do you have drinks with strange elves?” He was eyeing Nino very suspiciously now.
“Um… he’s a friend?” Aiba tried.
He had already told Ohno that when he introduced them, but… well, maybe the spell just made him forget for a minute.
“I don’t like him,” Ohno announced, and Aiba was sincerely disturbed by the level of coldness not only in his voice, but in Ohno’s narrowed gaze. “I don’t want you to see him tonight. He should leave.”
Nino snorted, which, if anything, only seemed to piss Ohno off more.
Or really, Aiba amended, Nino was pissing off the spell, since he was pretty sure Ohno had been fine with Nino before the ritual.
Aiba was starting to realize it might have been a mistake to bring in a third party when you were testing love spells… it was bound to get confusing.
On the other hand, maybe Nino’s presence was revealing flaws in the spell that had been there all along.
It was worth exploring, anyway. “Ohno-kun, he’s not hurting anything. Focus on me, okay? How do you feel?”
Slowly, Ohno pulled his attention from Nino to look at Aiba, and Aiba felt his heart stutter slightly.
No one had ever looked at him quite like that before, so possessively, it was thrilling but also… it was kind of terrifying.
When he spoke, Ohno’s voice held that same note of determined possession that Aiba could see staring back at him. He sounded almost angry, and Aiba really didn’t care for that, or that his spell was causing it. It did not suit Ohno at all.
“You’re mine, you know. He can’t have you. No one else can have you. Not ever. You’ll always be mine.”
“I think maybe your spell needs a jealousy adjustment,” Nino suggested unhelpfully. He sounded really far too amused by the situation. “He thinks we’re having an affair and I haven’t even touched you yet.”
“Don’t say yet!” Aiba rushed to correct, but unfortunately, Ohno was already on his feet.
He had Nino by the collar of his robes before Aiba knew what was happening.
“You are not allowed to touch him. Masaki is mine,” Ohno insisted. “I should slice you in half for even suggesting you touch him with your naughty elf hands.”
Aiba gasped, and it was then he noticed that in the commotion, Ohno had gotten hold of the hilt of his sword and pulled it free of its sheath.
It would likely not have been very difficult for Ohno to make good on his promise before either of them had the time to stop him.
“Okay, whoa-whoa-whoa! STOP!” Aiba shouted, and snapped his fingers hard.
Ohno was jerked back, with enough force that his back hit the bookshelves hard and several stacks came toppling loudly down to the floor. He was frozen in place, unable to move his limbs, and at the moment, that was exactly how Aiba needed him.
Nino’s eyes were huge. “What the hell, Aiba, you didn’t put in a safeguard for this?”
He gestured a bit wildly to the immobilized Ohno still stuck to the bookcase.
“He could have killed me!”
“I’m sorry!” Aiba apologized somewhat desperately. “I didn’t think!”
In another flick of Aiba’s fingers, Ohno’s sword fell from his grip and clattered to the floor. Just in case.
Ohno was glaring at him. “Let me go. I won’t let him touch you. I’ll kill us both before I let him touch you.”
“Ookay… that’s enough of that,” Nino declared, and with a wave of his hand, a swirl of cloth materialized from nowhere and danced briefly around Ohno’s head before tying itself tight to his mouth, effectively gagging him.
“Oh my,” Aiba said. “This is not at all what I expected.”
“He’s seriously pissed off,” Nino noted. “You’re gonna have to fix that for next time.”
“Uh… yeah,” Aiba agreed. “Also, I don’t think I should have anyone else here next time, no offense.”
Nino eyed him suspiciously. “How are you going to know you fixed the jealousy problem if you always test the spell alone?”
“He’s never been angry like this before! I think… I think I over-corrected for last time. I went too far the other way. I think… I dunno. I might have to start over from scratch,” he sighed.
“What happened last time?” Nino finally asked warily.
Aiba flushed.
“He uh… he got really…touchy.”
“Touchy like annoyed?”
“No, touchy like… he did a lot of touching,” Aiba gestured for clarity.
“Oooh.”
“Shut up,” Aiba whined, because Nino was smirking at him now, and this was really not the time.
He could feel Ohno struggling to break through the grip of his spell, even now. The longer Aiba kept him frozen, and Nino kept him gagged, the harder he seemed to rage against the magics that were keeping him in place.
Aiba winced.
“It’s a good thing I caught him before he started swinging his sword around or you could have gotten really hurt!”
“Yes, thank you for saving me from your own creation. Very heroic,” Nino teased and wandered over to give Aiba a sympathetic pat on the back.
Though muted, they could both hear Ohno growling.
Nino examined the scattering of books lying on the floor with the abandoned sword, and nudged one with the toe of his shoe.
“How long will this spell last anyway? I’d like to help you clean this up before we…” He trailed off, eyeing the rather furious looking Ohno. “…have those drinks.”
Ohno muffled something inaudible around the gag that sounded suspiciously like he was insulting Nino’s mother.
Never a good idea. In most instances, Aiba knew, it was a good way to get yourself cursed into the middle of next century. Thankfully, Nino knew it was only the spell talking this time.
“Not long, maybe another…” Aiba glanced at the ticking clock, and guessed. “Fifteen minutes?”
“Well, I’m going for a walk. I’ll let you two work this out, and I’ll be back later. I don’t recommend you let him loose until then,” Nino warned. “He might actually kill all of us.”
“Yeah, okay… good plan,” Aiba said somewhat blankly, part of him wondering where on earth Nino was planning to walk at this hour that was any less dangerous than the situation in here.
Then again, Nino was an elven mage. There likely wasn’t much danger in the surrounding forest that he couldn’t handle just fine.
Anyway, Aiba was kind of in shock that the spell had gone so very wrong this time. He was still trying to work through what he had changed from the last iteration that could possibly have caused such a violent reaction… such a violent love.
“It’s not your fault, you know,” Nino reassured as he disappeared down the stairs. “Love spells are a bitch.”
---
When the spell finally subsided, Nino had been on his walk for a bit, and Ohno was terribly embarrassed.
He couldn’t seem to stop apologizing. Which was funny, because Aiba kept feeling like he was the one who needed to apologize to Ohno for putting him through all of that.
“I feel really terrible, I had no idea it could get so bad,” Aiba excused as he magically unwound the gag Nino had so helpfully provided.
He released Ohno from the magic which held him to the bookshelf, but, having been stuck like that for so long, Ohno’s knees wobbled rather dangerously and Aiba had to hurry to catch him.
“No, I feel terrible,” Ohno was saying. “I was such an ass. I almost killed us all!”
After a moment of slightly awkward stumbling about, Aiba managed to help Ohno into the chair.
“But it was my spell!”
They continued like that as Ohno slowly worked the feeling back into his limbs. Afterwards, he collected his sword while Aiba deftly charmed books back into their places.
Eventually, they both realized they were getting nowhere apologizing.
“I’m going to head back to the inn,” Ohno eventually said, sounding particularly exhausted. “I don’t want to interfere with your… drinks.”
They were both blushing now.
“You could stay, you know. You could have drinks with us,” Aiba suggested, even in spite of his better judgement. “Clear the air?”
Ohno shook his head. “I don’t think I should. That whole… the spell and then your… the magic trap thing you did where I couldn’t move, I think that really took a lot out of me. I should probably try to… sleep it off, a little.”
Which was probably the sensible thing to do, but it didn’t stop Aiba from being mildly disappointed. He realized he had wanted to spend time with both of his friends, as it had been so long since Aiba even had two friends in the same place at the same time to spend any time with.
But this time, it was simply not to be.
Ohno said his goodbyes, and Aiba waved him off down the path, wishing him safe travels, and still harboring a great deal of guilt over the evening’s events. It would be a hard thing to shake.
But he was sure that the addition of Nino and a few drinks would likely improve the night just fine. They had some catching up to do, anyway.
Love Spell Attempt No. 4
First Subject experienced heightened levels of jealousy and need for eternal togetherness.
Emotions taken to unhealthy extremes.
Note: Extremely dangerous. Spell incarnation to be destroyed following successful herb adaptation.
Part Seven
The following day, Nino had to be on his way dreadfully early, claiming he had a ship to catch. Aiba bid him farewell with a rather massive hug that Nino tolerated with practiced patience.
Aiba would miss him.
Feeling only mildly hungover, he decided to make the trip into town to meet Ohno at the inn and discuss his plan for the spell going forward.
“Okay… we need to start from scratch. That was almost very bad.”
Ohno frowned. “I’m really sorry about that. Tell your magic elf friend I’m sorry, yeah? I feel super bad about it.”
“It wasn’t your fault, it was the spell,” Aiba excused for what was perhaps the thousandth time. He would probably always feel at fault for creating the spell that way, even accidentally.
He would still definitely write Nino to say that Ohno said sorry. Despite everything that happened the night before, the elf seemed to be rather fond of Ohno anyway. Aiba was still holding out hope that they could all have a drink some time, whenever Nino returned from his travels again.
“Well, it won’t happen again,” Aiba promised, sighing somewhat tiredly. “I know what went wrong now. I just need to… completely rethink the whole spell… is all.”
He felt a soft pat of support on his shoulder from Ohno and he was very grateful for it just then.
This streak of unsuccessful spells was really starting to get to him. Aiba was usually really good at narrowing down exactly what a spell needed to do its job, but no matter what he did with this one, everything seemed to be going wrong.
“You will figure it out, I know it. You’re really determined.”
Ohno grinned at him encouragingly, and Aiba could see a warmth and kindness in his expression that had been very much missed when Aiba’s spell had made him so cold and angry. It was reassuring to see him back to himself, and hopefully Ohno was right and he would figure out the spell.
But first, if he did want to get it right, then Aiba would need to send Ohno out into the world again in search of new, even rarer herbs.
He had prepared a list.
---
It was a week and a half before Ohno returned again with the ingredients that Aiba’s new spell recipe required. It wasn’t just herbs either. In addition to the honeysuckle blooms, holly fruit, and ginatia petals, Aiba had requested some magical substances as well. Some were simple acquisitions at any alchemist’s, like the quicksilver, and the sapphire dust, but then, there was the tricky stuff… like the essence of troll heart.
Not a whole lot of essence of troll heart lying around waiting to be found, Ohno discovered.
But with the help of a witch from a neighboring village, he managed to track some down, and it was the last of the new ingredients Aiba requested.
He hoped they would do the trick. It seemed lately that Aiba was getting rather down over the spell not working out. From what Ohno could tell, Aiba was used to getting his spells right in a try or two, and he seemed to be struggling to sort out what was going wrong.
Ohno didn’t know anything about crafting spells, so he wasn’t likely to be much help on that account, but he did his best to be helpful anyway. He had been experiencing all these attempts after all, so in every test, Ohno did his best to describe what he had felt in the right words.
Last time had been hard. He had been so very angry, so very furious at the thought of anyone but him even talking to Aiba. It was the most bizarre feeling when in reality he so rarely felt so strongly about anything. Annoyance? Sure, all the time, even, but real anger?
That wasn’t something he was intimately familiar with, and it had been an incredibly draining experience that Ohno wasn’t eager to repeat.
He really hoped that whatever happened with this next spell, it didn’t involve jealousy or anger.
---
In Ohno’s favor, the spell had not made him angry this time.
To his detriment, it was not at all the happy buzz of love that Aiba kept going on about whenever he talked about what the spell was actually supposed to be. No, this time, as the spell took hold, Ohno’s heart only felt as if it were breaking into a million tiny pieces every time he looked at Aiba.
It was not ideal.
Ohno thought he might have had his heart broken before, but he had never felt emotional pain like this.
“How are you feeling, Ohno-kun?” Aiba asked him, and it was so immensely sweet of him to care, so wonderfully kind of him to ask, but…
“I can’t…” Much as he wanted to hold them back, for his dignity’s sake if nothing else, Ohno felt himself begin to cry. It wasn’t the first time the spell made him cry, but this time… it was not in joy. “It hurts… so much. I’ll never be good enough for you. I’m not strong enough for you, and you’ll never really want to be with me.”
He was so busy trying to explain, Ohno did not realize that Aiba was also crying until he looked up and saw the wizard wiping desperately at very watery eyes.
“Ohno-kun, try to remember it’s only the spell, okay? And I’m right here. I’m right here with you, see, I am with you!”
“No, you- “ Ohno shook his head, his thoughts wouldn’t come through, only this pain, tearing through his chest with brutal sharpness. “You don’t understand.”
Still, he fought to explain, because Aiba looked very worried about him, which, in its own way, broke Ohno’s heart just a little more.
However, there really was only one way to describe how he felt.
“It hurts so much,” he gasped, feeling the wet trail of tears down his cheeks. He shook his head, knowing he wasn’t managing to be terribly coherent just then. “I’m so sorry.”
Ohno only felt a shockwave of relief from the pain when he was, quite suddenly, enveloped in a tight hug. Aiba was hugging him, and it felt like the most comforting embrace in the universe just then.
“Shhhh. It’s okay. Don’t cry. Please, don’t cry!”
Aiba was patting his head, but he was sniffling too, and Ohno was sniffling into Aiba’s shoulder and it was just very…
“This isn’t love is it?” Ohno whined slightly, grateful that Aiba was allowing him to rest his head on Aiba’s chest, since it was helping to quell the tide of heartbreak he felt when they weren’t touching.
“I really hope not,” Aiba said hoarsely, still absentmindedly patting at the back of Ohno’s head.
Not that Ohno minded it so terribly.
“I think it’s just some of the new ingredients,” Aiba said with some resignation. “I don’t have the balances right. But hey- hey it’s closer than last time, right?”
Ohno made a weak attempt at a smile, and Aiba let up his head-patting.
“Are you okay now?”
“I think so. The…the hug is helping,” Ohno mumbled, feeling his cheeks flush.
“Okay. It’s okay. The spell should be over soon.”
Though he hadn’t noticed it at first, Ohno realized now that Aiba was rocking him ever so slightly, which he thought was really sweet. Aiba really was, a very kind person. It made him wonder, more and more often now, what Aiba even really needed a love spell for in the first place.
Surely almost anyone could love him.
In another few minutes, the spell would fade, and he would be fine again, and Aiba could start trying to work out where the spell had gone wrong again.
But for now, Ohno was content to let Aiba try to comfort him.
Love Spell Attempt No. 5
First Subject experiences extreme loneliness, feelings of inability to obtain Second Subject. Very upsetting.
Feelings of heartbreak only negated by physical contact.
Note: Several components cancelled out by addition of hornwort, introduce petals of verbena to counteract these effects in next attempt.
Part Eight
“If it doesn’t work this time, I may need to call an end to the experiments. At least for now. I think maybe my theories need more work,” Aiba announced when Ohno had returned to the tower, a few days after their last failed attempt.
“Well, I’ll appreciate the break,” Ohno mused after a moment of silent contemplation. “This has all been very… like a big thing that goes up and down and all around really quickly. Very that.”
“Hmm,” Aiba hummed. “That’s a good analogy.”
“I hope it works though,” Ohno added with soft assurance. “You’ve been working really hard to get it right.”
“Thanks,” Aiba shrugged. He was trying very much not to get his hopes up, and yet still somehow maintain an optimistic outlook for the spell’s potential.
It was a tricky balance.
“You think you’re ready for the final try?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Ohno shrugged.
The two of them exchanged encouraging smiles, and Aiba began what could prove to be their final ritual of the spell together.
Nothing went horribly wrong in the spell’s casting, so that was a good start. Aiba braced himself for the inevitable clear signs of failure that always seemed to come during these experiments… but it never arrived.
There had been no sudden and immediate change in behavior, which was promising.
“Ohno-kun? How do you feel?” he asked, fumbling around for his quill, before giving up and summoning a new one instead.
Ohno was seated in the armchair, peering at Aiba with a somewhat distant gaze.
“I feel good,” Ohno said, and then, after a moment, smiled faintly at Aiba. “I love you.”
Aiba blinked at him, and with a flick of his fingers, set his quill to scribbling. He was far too distracted to write by hand now.
“Tell me about that,” he pressed, realizing with some embarrassment that he sounded a bit breathless.
“You are a wonderful person. You make me happy, you make my heart happy.”
Ohno’s voice did not sound entirely like his own. Hints of the spell were still edging out the man it affected, though at least for once he sounded… under control.
“I love you.”
Leaving his quill scribbling steadily over a long scroll, Aiba approached Ohno, who was still holding that same slight smile. It was honestly a little creepy.
Creepy was decidedly not the point of this spell.
The point was to create a genuine love spell. To discern if he had come anywhere close to accomplishing that, however, Aiba would need to ask a few more questions.
This was, auspiciously, the first spell attempt they had done that ever progressed to the point where the questions list that Aiba had prepared all along was actually relevant to the experiment, in so much as nothing had gone deeply wrong before he even got to the questions this time.
And so, Aiba began with the first question on his list.
“On a scale of one to ten, please indicate your level of affection…”
---
“Alright, and if you could please, stand on your left foot, yes… and try to touch your elbow with your tongue.”
Aiba observed the results of this request with a soft frown, and checked something off on his list.
“Alright… that’s all of my questions. You answered every one!”
Which was true. In this final attempt, it had worked to the satisfaction of every metric Aiba had created for the spell. After all of the time spent crafting its specifics, he finally found the right combination, the spell that checked every box.
And yet, it still wasn’t quite right.
For all the gentle, loving nature of Ohno’s manner, his responses, and his actions, all of them reflecting the happy bliss of love that this spell aimed for, yet there remained a certain hollowness there. In place of the warmth and affection Aiba had come to expect to see in Ohno’s eyes whenever they met, there was a chilling emptiness in its place, one that Aiba did not find very appealing at all.
Because these were not Ohno’s choices, or Ohno’s words, and they would never be.
It was merely the spell.
With a slightly defeated sigh, Aiba sank into the familiar comfort of his armchair’s weathered upholstery.
This really wouldn’t do. Was he ever going to find a spell that fully captured the dizzy warmth of real love? He was starting to be pretty sure that the conclusion to this experiment was that it was just an impossible task.
Lost in his ponderations, Aiba somewhat lost track of Ohno, until he felt the warm press of a cheek to his knee and found himself blinking down at the dark top of Ohno’s head.
“Ah…” said Aiba, somewhat nervously.
The spell was likely still in effect, and in his current position, it was hard to tell exactly what it was that Ohno intended to do down there. However, Ohno just sighed to himself with quiet contentment and continued to rest his cheek against Aiba’s knee, which was quite okay with Aiba.
This was comfortable.
If not for that lost and faraway look in his eyes, Aiba would almost have said that he really nailed the spell this time.
But it still felt wrong, and it wouldn’t be long now before the spell began to wane and Ohno would begin to return to his normal senses.
Aiba admitted to himself that he would miss this nearness of him, but he would also welcome back the now-familiar glint of amusement and bewilderment that Ohno always seemed to project when he looked at Aiba.
That would be better than this, he was sure.
In the meantime, Aiba thought it was okay to pet Ohno’s hair for a bit, since it was really soft, and it was in his lap and everything. It seemed the thing to do.
When he glanced down again, Ohno was peering back at him thoughtfully, and his eyes were as clear and aware now as they had been the first time he had ever walked into the tower. Aiba felt himself flushing slightly, but Ohno did not seem bothered at all by their current configuration. He seemed relaxed resting against the armchair’s front, his cheek still pillowed and warm in Aiba’s lap.
“Hi,” Aiba said tentatively.
“…Hey.”
“All back to yourself?”
“Pretty sure,” Ohno agreed, though his brow had furrowed thoughtfully.
Aiba couldn’t help but ask. “Any final thoughts?”
Ohno frowned. “I don’t know… what do you think? Did it work this time? Is it what you wanted yet?”
Those were the real questions, weren’t they?
Aiba smiled down at him a bit sadly. “I don’t think so. It was really good, this time, I mean it was exactly what I wanted, or, what I thought I wanted the spell to be. But…”
“But not?” Ohno supplied.
“Right,” Aiba sighed. “It was, sort of, too perfect. It was too sweet and way too easy. It wasn’t really you, either, your eyes were still all… blank and not you… you know?”
Uncertainly, Ohno nodded, and Aiba continued.
“I just don’t know how to fix that. I think… maybe it just won’t work. Even after all that we did, I think it might really be hopeless.”
Aiba was feeling pretty defeated, and more than a little irritated.
Really, he had tried so hard, and it was never right. At this point, he wasn’t sure a spell could ever capture what he was trying to find.
“I just wanted to make falling in love… easier,” he concluded eventually. “You know?”
Ohno had been quiet for a time, listening to Aiba speak, but when he lifted his head to answer, his tone was surprisingly wistful.
“I think… maybe, if it’s real love, then you’re supposed to fight for it. You’re supposed to want to fight for it. Because… I guess because sometimes love is worth fighting for. So, if a spell makes it too easy then it won’t feel like real love. It won’t be right at all.”
As he spoke, Ohno had started to look a bit misty around the eyes. It was making Aiba feel a bit misty himself.
And Ohno was right, of course.
In the end, Aiba thought it was rather amusing. Ohno, who spent most of his time on the road fighting monsters, was able to provide the simple wisdom that Aiba had spent so much of his time searching for with this spell.
Real love needed to be fought for, and a spell just couldn’t do that.
Love Spell Attempt No. 6
Final attempt. Spell resulted in near-real, but troublingly empty affection.
Overall experiment declared unsuccessful.
Note: First Subject demonstrates true caring and affection for Second Subject only after spell-related effects have faded.
Second Subject has also developed strong emotions and feelings related to First Subject.
Potential link between spell theory/spell creation process and both subjects’ long-term feelings? Needs further study.
Epilogue
They stayed that way for a while longer, Ohno’s cheek resting now against Aiba’s thigh while Aiba’s fingers still played in Ohno’s hair.
It was exceedingly comfortable. No spell required.
But eventually, Ohno rose to his feet.
“I should probably be on my way,” he muttered quietly to the bookshelf, and Aiba thought he sounded a bit hoarse.
“You’ll come back and visit sometimes, right? I might have more work for you! You never know,” Aiba reasoned, making no attempts at all to hide his own hopefulness.
“I’ll come back,” he answered softly. “I’m always looking for work, anyway.”
“Right,” Aiba snickered.
In the lull, the two of them finally shared an honest grin.
Aiba found himself wishing that Ohno didn’t have to go, but he knew very well that he did, and that he was being silly, since Ohno had just said he would be back.
…Aiba would just have to come up with some good excuses to hire him again.
“Well, be safe out there.”
“I can take care of myself,” Ohno promised, calmly refastening his sword to his back, a sight that had become so very familiar. “I’ll be fine.”
Aiba watched him, and only just resisted pouncing him sideways with a hug that could potentially have impaled them both on that sword.
“I know. But be safe anyway!” Aiba insisted.
He flushed a bit when Ohno bestowed upon him an affectionate grin and a farewell hair-ruffle.
“I’ll see you next time, Aiba-chan.”
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I laughed a lot, I felt actually bad for Ohno and Aiba each at various times, and I was completely rooting for them. That ending! Agh! Just like Aiba I didn't QUITE get that satisfaction you know? You left us to our imaginations!! But that's great. I truly believe Aiba will find some more things for Ohno to do for him ;D
Thanks for the exciting read, I am sure I'll be back to read this one again.
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I had definitely thought about stretching out the ending longer and giving them a more definite end but I really liked the idea of leaving it open ended, because I feel like there's probably more to their story to tell!
Thanks again for reading, I'm glad someone enjoyed it!!
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Nino as Aiba's elven friend was great too - I hope Aiba gets his wish to have a drink with both of them someday.
The ending has such promise for the future - I'm sure Ohno will be visiting lots and Aiba will have plenty for him to do. And then Aiba can learn that the love will flow naturally and doesn't need to come from a spell.
Thank you for writing and sharing.
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I know they'll get to have that drink! Not only that but there's probably a Sho and a Jun lurking about in this world for them to have that drink with too, lol, more people for Aiba to traumatize with magic!
Thanks again for reading and I'm glad you enjoyed it!