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rmbz101 · 2 years ago

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Hidden Magic

This is my first Boy’s Planet fic. (To my followers from other fandoms Boy’s Planet is a kpop survival show that’s currently airing)

I would post it on ao3 but there are a bunch of parts that are mostly just summary.

It’s a Seok Matthew centric au. Featuring pre-relationship matthaobin (Seok Matthew, Sung Hanbin, and Zhang Hao) and magic.

This is an advance warning that it’s very long (10 pages in google docs), but I hope you enjoy it anyway!

Hanbin and Hao are princes of neighboring kingdoms. Both have strong magical abilities and are lauded as the best of their generation.

Hao is the most controlled fire mage in centuries. Fire is the element known for being easy to make but hard to control. Plenty of people can make huge fireballs, but they’re hard to direct, hard to prevent from burning down everything around them. So sure Hao can create infernos in seconds, but what’s more impressive is that he can keep them hovering safely around him waiting to be directed. And what really got people’s attention was when they discovered he can create tiny detailed scenes with little twists of his flames.

Hanbin is the most powerful water mage in centuries. Water is the element known for being easy to manipulate but hard to make powerful. Reforming water is no big deal, but most have to have that water already there and so are severely limited by location. So Hanbin's ability to reroute a river wasn’t taken too seriously, but the time when he created a rain cloud in the entrance hall was, and even more so the time when he almost flooded a foreign prince's castle.

Their two kingdoms have been at peace for centuries, but despite that, Hao and Hanbin have met face to face very few times. They write letters to each other, but both spend much of their time in lessons learning how to lead their kingdoms.

The last time they saw each other they were 14 and now, four years later, they’re adults and finally of age to attend the best magic academy in the nations.

Hao is sent with 7 attendants none of whom are old enough to actually attend classes. Thus they are given apprenticeships in the town around the school’s castle and they return to the castle in the evening once classes have finished.

Hanbin is sent with only one “attendant” who is just barely old enough to be enrolled. He’s been Hanbin’s manservant for years and everyone in their castle knows full well that Matthew is more of a best friend than a servant.

Matthew is a weird case, he clearly has magic and can do all of the basic non element specific magical exercises but can’t do any of the basic exercises for determining an element, let alone the ones for controlling them.

Hao gets along with Hanbin even better in person than over letters and quickly clicks with Matthew as well. The three are soon known throughout the school as a trio and it’s rare to see one without the others when they’re not in class.

A few months in and Hanbin and Hao are excelling exactly as expected. Matthew is doing amazingly at all the theory and non-elemental work he’s given, he seems to understand magic in a way no one’s seen before, but he still has yet to actually use an element. Since they don’t know what element he is, he takes classes from all four tracks. His teachers love him but are very worried about why he seems unable to progress.

One of the few classes the three boys all have together is Wild Magic, a class designed to teach them how to connect with and eventually use the magic found around them rather than their own.

See, most mages instinctively use their own magic to force the elements to do what they want. Good mages, like Hanbin and Hao, can make their magic connect with that of their element and guide the element so it does what they want. Great mages can simply reach out and control the element’s magic itself without needing to use their own. This is why Hanbin and Hao still have to take the class.

One day this class is taking a field trip to the nearby woods. They are supposed to spend the day surrounded by the elements and attempting to reach out and get a feel for what their elements’ magic feels like.

Hanbin and Hao have no problem doing this and so basically just get a free day to hang out in the woods. They get permission from the teachers to wander so long as they don’t go too far, and to take Matthew as long as he promises to keep his magic extended outwards the whole time. Afterall Matthew doesn’t exactly have a specific element to be focusing on connecting to. They’re told to be back by four or the teachers will assume something’s wrong and track them down.

The three have a great day, they climb trees, go swimming in a pond, have a picnic, and decorate each other with flowers.

It’s as they’re heading back to the group that things go wrong. Hao and Hanbin are princes and so while there are many things they know, which berries are safe to eat is not one of them. All the berries they’ve ever been around were the ones served with meals, so neither of them thinks twice about picking and eating some of the berries they pass.

Matthew is a little ways behind them. He felt guilty about having so much fun while his classmates were all working especially since he feels like he’s behind. So he decided to spend the walk back with his magic extended out as far as he can send it. (Which is pretty far since he’s spent years only able to work on things like distance and control of his own magic.)

When he catches up to them he’s too late to stop them from eating the berries that he knows full well are poisonous.

He reaches them as they collapse.

He quickly sends out a panicked burst of magic in the direction of their teachers, hoping that for once it’ll do something that’ll get their attention. He tries to get them to drink some water and then sits by their side holding their hands and desperately hoping that they’ll be okay.

Lee Seokhoon is surprised to feel something he’s never felt before, a foreign magic reaching out and tugging on him (partially on his magic but also partially on something deeper, something more core to his very self) pulling him in a direction with a clear feeling of panic. He doesn’t know why this fills him with such a sense of urgency, why he doesn’t even question the feeling before taking off in a sprint towards the source of that magic, using his own control of the air to push him faster.

He arrives to see Matthew tightly holding the hands of the two prodigies who are unconscious beside him with his eyes squeezed shut. His face is screwed up in worry and there are tears leaking out from under his eyelids. The three are surrounded by a faint glow. When Matthew opens his eyes Seokhoon notices just how pale he is.

As Seokhoon lifts the two with some air Matthew explains what happened while not letting go of the other boys’ hands. Seokhoon decides it would be cruel to separate Matthew from the other two. So he lifts all four of them up on a platform of air and flies them back to the school, dropping a note to the other teacher as they fly over.

When they reach the medical room Matthew is even paler than before and seems to be swaying back and forth.

The lead doctor looks the two boys over before doing a double take. She turns to Matthew and Seokhoon and confirms what type of berry they’d eaten. With the confirmation her forehead wrinkles, but she makes a paste and gets the two boys to swallow it.

She turns back to them and tells them that the type of berry they ate should have put the two on the edge of death by this point. That she should have had to rush if she wanted even the slightest chance to save them. But instead they had both seemed like they had only just eaten them, barely having any effects.

Just as she finishes speaking Matthew’s vision starts to go blurry, the room starts spinning and the ringing, that he’d been assuming was from his panic, suddenly spikes. He feels himself list to the side and then nothing.

Hao is the first to wake up. He blinks his eyes open confused as to why he’s so cold. He startles as he hears Ricky (the most senior of his attendants) loudly exclaim. Within seconds the doctor is fussing over him checking his vitals, asking him how he feels, and telling him not to leave his bed.

When she’s finished Hao looks over at Ricky and asks what happened. Ricky explains that Hanbin and he had eaten poisonous berries and had been unconscious for the past six hours. Hao looks where Ricky gestures and sees Hanbin laying in the next bed over.

As if all he needed was Hao’s eyes, Hanbin stirs and the cycle of getting fussed over repeats.

Once the doctor’s finished, Ricky explains everything again to Hanbin. When he seems to be finished speaking Hanbin nods before suddenly gasping and asking where Matthew is.

Hao quickly realizes how strange it is that Ricky is there for him but Matthew isn’t there for Hanbin.

Ricky seems nervous in the face of both of their rising panic.He tells them that Matthew had been with them when they passed out and had been brought back with them but had passed out from unknown causes.

The two are even more frantic and ask where he is. Ricky tells them that he was put in the quarantine room until the lead doctor can figure out what happened.

Even as he says that, the door opens and Matthew is brought in and put on a bed near the other wall.

Hanbin calls the doctor over and asks what’s wrong with Matthew. The doctor explains that for some reason Matthew seems to be suffering from magic exhaustion despite there having been no signs of him suddenly gaining an outlet for his magic in the spot Mr. Lee had found them.

Magic exhaustion is a nasty thing that most mages only experience when they’re very young and still learning their limits. It only takes one experience of being unable to get out of bed for a week, unable to control their element, for most to not push their magic too hard.

The doctor asks if he’d managed to control an element earlier that day. Hanbin and Hao confirm that he hadn’t and the doctor admits that she’s not entirely sure how Matthew had exhausted his magic then.

The two are asked to remain in the medical room for observation overnight and then they can go to classes the next day. Ricky offers to step in as Hanbin’s attendant while Matthew can’t, but Hanbin refuses. He’s only ever had one manservant and doesn’t want someone else filling Matthew’s spot.

Matthew sleeps for two days straight. Hanbin and Hao are far more distracted in their classes than anyone is used to. Neither sleeps very well and both have trouble eating. The only ones who can make either feel even a little bit better are the other.

But on the third day, while the two are at lunch, Matthew wakes up.

The two are immediately called for since Matthew is panicking at not being able to see if they’re okay. They rush to his side and, at the sight of them not only awake but flushed from running, Matthew calms.

When it’s explained what happened Matthew seems just as confused as the rest of them about where his magic had gone.

Lee Seokhoon soon joins them and asks Matthew if he saw what caused the strong magic that’d pulled him towards them. Matthew says he doesn’t know. Mr. Lee asks him to just recount everything that had happened in case there was something he just didn’t recognise.

Matthew recounts how he’d been walking behind the other two stretching his magic out when he’d seen them stop, pick some berries, and eat them. He’d sped up a bit to catch up when he’d realized what type of berries they were and started running. He’d reached them as they fell. He’d sent out a pulse of magic towards the teachers hoping to have some effect that would get their attention.

He interrupts his story to note that while he’d sent out a decent amount it was nowhere near enough to have exhausted him.

He continues explaining that he knew he couldn’t carry both of the boys so he had tried to mitigate the poison's effects with some water and then waited for help to arrive.

The doctor says that he had probably sent out more magic than expected in his panic.

Matthew retorts that he could still feel his magic swirling around with his panic as he tried to take care of the other boys.

The doctor says that it’s the only thing that makes sense since he hadn’t done any magic after that point.

Mr. Lee doesn’t say anything but a theory is brewing in his mind. There are simply too many unexplainable things about this situation and he needs to do some research.

Hanbin and Hao spend much of the rest of the week in the medical room by Matthew’s side. They bring him his homework and the notes that they (and many other students who all like Matthew) had taken for him. Hanbin also spends the week as a bit of a mess suddenly learning all the things he was used to relying on Matthew for.

When Matthew finally rejoins his classes he’s mobbed by his classmates who all want to tell him how much they missed him and how glad they are that he’s back. He appreciates it, but it’s also kind of a lot and he appreciates Hanbin and Hao who pull him off to a secluded corner of the castle for lunch and dinner.

The two are both more affectionate with him than normal. When he questions them about it they explain that they’d been really scared those two days he wouldn’t wake up. Hanbin goes even further. He’d realized over that week that while Matthew had sat by his sickbed many times over the years, He’d never actually seen Matthew sick. He couldn’t remember a time when Matthew hadn’t been right by his side.

Besides the newfound closeness, things go back to normal pretty soon. At least until their next wild magic lesson that is.

At the beginning of class Mr. Lee sets the students to trying to form the connection they’d found on their trip with smaller sources. Once established they were supposed to try to use their magic to guide the element’s magic in a push and pull.

While they were working on that he pulled Matthew aside and told him that he had some things for him to try. This wasn’t uncommon for Matthew, plenty of teachers gave him separate practical assignments to try to get him to find his element. What he was being asked to do was new though.

Mr. Lee wanted him to extend his magic and then just explain what he felt. He was a little confused as he didn’t see how it would help, since he had never been able to feel anything elemental no matter how hard he tried.

When he said that, Mr. Lee’s eyebrows raised. “Are you saying that you can feel something non-elemental?”

Matthew was even more confused, “Well yeah, I can feel pretty much everything non-elemental? But no matter how hard I search I can’t feel any of the elements. I thought you’d been told I couldn’t use an element yet?”

Mr. Lee was gaping at him “When you say you can feel pretty much everything what do you mean?”

“Like, I can feel the magic in the grass, and the trees, and the animals, and in you, and in my classmates—at least until it merges with their element—and when I have my magic out it’s like there’s a map of where everything is.”

“Matthew, why didn’t you ever tell anyone that you could feel all of that?”

“Well can’t everyone? Isn’t that why kids are supposed to practice extending and retracting their magic? So that they look past all that and find their element?”

Mr. Lee just sits there looking at him stunned for a second, before gently replying “No, most kids can’t feel anything when they extend their magic. Most just notice the real world effects of them pulsing their magic. This course is usually most people’s first time feeling anything with their magic. Part of the reason your princes are so special is that they learned how to feel their element early.”

“But then why can I feel so much?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I think you may not be an elemental mage, you might be some entirely different type of mage.”

“I’ve never heard of a non-elemental mage before though?”

“There are stories of people cropping up every few decades who’s powers don’t quite line up with the typical elements. I’ve never heard of one who couldn’t control any of the elements at all, but it’s not too hard to believe. With that being said though, I think we’d probably better bring this to the headmaster and the medical team after class.”

Matthew wanders back over to Hanbin and Hao in a daze, brushing off their concern and resting his head on Hanbin’s shoulder.

Hanbin and Hao share a concerned glance but since he doesn’t look distressed they silently agree to wait till later to bring it up.

After class Mr. Lee takes Matthew to the medical room where the headmaster is waiting with the lead doctor. They move into the doctor’s office so they can sit down while Mr. Lee explains to the headmaster what had happened on the trip and then about their conversation in class.

The headmaster leans back in her chair and rests her head on her hand “The stories about mages who’s magic was abnormal is certainly true. I went to school with one myself. But there are several unusual things here.

“First of all, the fact that your magic doesn’t sound like it has any overlap with the elements. My classmate was classified as a metal mage. She could control metals in the ground like an earth mage, but she could still control them even after they’d been forged with fire. What established that she wasn’t just a special earth mage was that she couldn’t control the non-metallic parts of the earth. But she could still control some of the earth.

“The second strange thing is that from your confusion about sensing it seems that you’ve always had the ability to use your magic to connect

“Which leads to the third thing: you can seemingly feel other people’s magic and control it similarly to how we control the elements.”

At Matthew’s confused look she explained, “There was nothing there that could’ve pulled Mr. Lee’s magic like he describes. Nothing, that is, except you. Mages can only feel that which we’re able to connect with. You being able to feel other people’s magic suggests you can connect with it. I believe that you sent your magic out with the intention of getting a teacher to come help and so your magic connected with Mr. Lee’s and convinced it to push him towards you with all the same urgency you were feeling. Having never used your magic to connect before you probably used too much, causing the magical exhaustion you suffered.”

The room was quiet for a minute after she finished before both Matthew and Mr. Lee started to speak. Mr. Lee gestured for Matthew to go first.

“I wasn’t out of magic!” Matthew exclaims, “When I was waiting for help I could feel my magic reaching out. I could still feel Hanbin and Hao’s magic flickering as they fought the poison. I wouldn’t have been able to reach out like that if I’d used up my magic.”

Mr. Lee cut in before the headmaster could respond, “I’m also not entirely sure that Matthew’s powers are as simple as being magic itself. For one thing, if it was then he should still be able to feel the element’s magic. And when he pulled at me, it didn’t feel like he was just pulling at my magic. Sure that was a part of it, but there was some deeper part of me also being pulled.”

The doctor spoke for the first time, “If we’re considering all the oddities of the situation then we should also consider the state that Prince Zhang and Prince Sung were in when they arrived. They really should have been much worse off than they were.”

Mr. Lee spoke up again thoughtfully, “When I first arrived on the scene I could’ve sworn I saw the boys glowing. I’d passed it off as a trick of the light, but I wonder if it had something to do with their state.”

As they’d talked the headmaster’s eyes had narrowed. “Matthew, you said you could feel the Princes’ magic fluctuating while they were poisoned, right?”

At his nod she continued, “And yet there was no fire or water reacting to it. No internal signs that they’d been using their elements to fight the poison.”

She had directed the second statement to the doctor and at her nod picked back up, “So perhaps Matthew wasn’t actually feeling their magic but something else. Something that maybe he then used the rest of his magic to control, preventing the poison from spreading and draining him. Something unconnected to any of fire, earth, air, or water. Something that, if Mr. Lee is to be believed, is connected to both someone’s magic and to themself.”

She paused for a moment, a funny expression covering her face, before proposing, “Could Matthew be a…life mage?”

They sat in silence as the idea sank in. The adults were trying to comprehend what exactly that would mean. Matthew was fighting with just how right that felt.

Surely that couldn’t be right? He was just the kid who couldn’t properly do magic, not some powerful mage with a rare ability. And yet there was some part of him deep down that screamed out that this was exactly who he was.

The headmaster suddenly stood up and walked across the office to one of the potted flowers on the window sill. After asking the doctor if she could use it for an experiment, she brought it over to the desk. She asked Matthew if he could feel it with his magic. When Matthew said he could, she asked him to do what they’d been working on in the Wild Magic class, reach out and try to connect with it.

Matthew had seen most of his classmates struggle with this—he wasn’t counting Hanbin or Hao since they were prodigies and he obviously wasn’t one of those—so he was surprised when it was as simple as brushing up against what he could feel a little more intentionally than normal.

The flower suddenly perked up and, when he sent a little more magic towards it, it grew taller, sprouted several more leaves, and bloomed more than it had been before.

Matthew pulled his magic back and looked up at the others. They were looking at the flower in shock. It seemed to confirm their suspicions.

What Matthew didn’t know was that it was incredibly rare for someone to have such good control over their magic the first time they used it, let alone the first time they used it by connecting. And what the teachers didn’t realize was that, while this was the first time Matthew had—intentionally—used his magic and gotten a result, it wasn’t his first time using his magic. He’d spent years honing his reach and control while trying to find his element.

The headmaster told him to go rejoin his friends as it was dinner time. She told him to keep attending the classes he was enrolled in and that she’d get him a new schedule better tailored to his skills by the end of the week. She also promised that by the next day his teachers would all know what was happening so they could adjust his classes in the meantime.

When Matthew arrived at dinner Hanbin and Hao’s concern from earlier had escalated into full fledged fear. They peppered him with questions about why he’d missed afternoon classes and where Mr. Lee had taken him.

He promised that he’d explain when they were in private and not in the middle of the entire student body.

They reluctantly agreed and sped through eating the rest of their food.

The three went back to Hanbin’s room, where Matthew explained what had happened both in and after class.

The two were understandably shocked, but then a grin suddenly broke across Hanbin’s face.

Hanbin launched himself at Matthew, “You’re saying that you’ve found your magic!”

It had been Hanbin who’d always comforted Matthew about his inability to control an element. Hanbin who’d wiped his tears when he’d been bullied. Hanbin who promised to always be his friend no matter whether his magic never worked right.

It was Hanbin who was the first one to realize just how big of a deal this was for Matthew. And so it was into Hanbin’s shoulder that Matthew finally let himself cry.

He cried for all the years of heartbreak that could’ve been avoided. For the relief at not being broken. For the fear that they’d turn around and say that they’d been wrong and he really didn’t have proper magic.

When the tears started Hao quickly moved to rub his back and whisper how proud of Matthew he was. Matthew soon fell asleep, tired out from the crying and all the shock of the day.

Hanbin and Hao picked him up and carried him to his room, which was attached to Hanbin’s. As he slept they made a promise that they’d support him through his journey to learn his new power.

— — — — — — —

This is where I’ll leave this for now, but I may come back and add more to this at some point.

#fanfic #boys planet #seok matthew #sung hanbin #zhang hao #lee seokhoon #ricky #The headmaster is Solji but I didn’t have a good place to say that in the fic #When I was rereading this before posting I realized how often I switched tenses so sorry about that #I struggle so hard to write romance so hopefully the vibes were strong enough to get the idea across #This is the first kpop fic I’ve ever posted so surprise to anyone who didn't know I liked kpop #If you liked the fic you should vote for Matthew on the mnet plus app

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