tfw when you've been sick for a week and can't think straight enough to write so what you end up getting is a mish-mosh of electrical impulses that happened to flash through your neurons at the moment you sit down to the keyboard...

Case in point.

Anyways, I hope it's readable, and if it's not...well, definitely critique me.

LASTLY! I want more suggestions from my readers! As you can tell, I am very unskilled in ~le making out~ and ~le dirty~ scenes. But what do my children want? Let me know.

Usually, Kyungsoo had no problem with Sehun testing out new beauty products on him. After all, some of those facial things felt really nice, and Kyungsoo's hair never looked better after using the fancy sea salt shampoo and conditioner set.

Kyungsoo did, however, have a problem with Sehun turning him into a girl. 

"Don't come near me with that...thing!" he howled, holding a textbook between him and the lion hybrid creeping towards him with liquid eyeliner in his hand. Sehun cackled.

"Oh, come on, Soo, you'd make such a better girl than Suho does," Sehun cooed.

Suho chuckled from where he sat on Sehun bed, running a hand over what was left of his foundation.

Kyungsoo tried to kick Sehun in the shin, but he missed, giving Sehun an opening. Sehun pushed Kyungsoo back down onto his bed and held his face steady with one hand, the other one wielding his eyeliner like a sword.

"No!" Kyungsoo thrashed. "Let go of me!"

"Oh, come on! I'm good at this!"

"NOOOOOO!"

Someone slammed on the door, and Suho opened it quickly, stepping aside just in time to avoid getting his shoulder knocked out of its socket as Jongin stormed in, then stopped, wide-eyed and speechless at the scene before him.

Kyungsoo pointed at Sehun. "He's trying to put makeup on me!"

Jongin looked up at his childhood friend.

Sehun nodded in confirmation with a guilty smile. "I'm makeuping him."

"SAVE ME!"

Jongin rolled his sleeves up, and Sehun took a step away. "Alright, you little booger piece of  ," he growled, a smirk spreading across his face. "Time for you to get some!"

Sehun stuck his tongue out and ducked under Jongin's arm, then turned around and grabbed him in a headlock. Kyungsoo scrambled back against the wall, watching--equal parts amused and concerned--as the two hurled expletives at each other and wrestled.

Finally, Luhan stuck his head in through the open door.

"What the  are you guys doing?" he demanded, maneuvering his antlers through the space with the grace only he could have. 

Jongin and Sehun, caught in an awkward choking position, exchanged a look, then pushed away from each other.

"There we go." Luhan grinned at Kyungsoo and Suho then left, shutting the door very pointedly behind him.

Surprisingly enough, the person Kyungsoo surprised the most in admitting his favorite movie was Legally Blonde was Baekhyun.

"What?" Baekhyun demanded, scrambling over Chanyeol and Jongin to study Kyungsoo's face for lies. "You said you liked The Blair Witch Project!"

"I said that one gave me nightmares."

Baekhyun flumped down onto his stomach across the two taller boys' knees, prompting grunts from both of them. "Oh. My bad."

"I don't like horror movies."

"But you said you liked The Blair Witch Project!"

Kyungsoo sighed and curled up tighter in his blankets.

Incidentally, Baekhyun and Chanyeol had chosen some obscure horror movie to watch, something about surgeons practicing illegally and killing people, recorded on video. As the low humming noises started from the tinny speakers of Chanyeol's laptop, Kyungsoo snuggled up closer to Jongin. The wolf hybrid looped an arm around the smaller boy's shoulders. 

Like any typical horror movie, it started with vague scenes with spatters of crimson and low murmurs. Pass the scalpel, John. More of the numbing agent. Be careful with those...yeah, right there. Perfect.

Slowly, the frame focused, and Kyungsoo closed his eyes, ducking his head under Jongin's chin and comforting himself in the gentle thumping of his heartbeat. 

When Kyungsoo's eyes opened, he was alone on his own bed, the curtains drawn tight across the window and blankets tangled around his limbs. Someone--Jongin--was speaking quietly, rubbing Kyungsoo's foot through the sheets gently.

"No. It's too--I said I don't want to...okay. Yes. Yes. Fine...no. Alright. Bye." 

Jongin dropped his phone, the hard object falling onto Kyungsoo's tail. "Sorry," he mumbled, rubbing his face, then looked over at Kyungsoo. "Oh. You're awake." His expression was uncharacteristically dark, as if weights hung on the edges of his eyes and mouth and dragged them down. A dress shirt hung ed from his wide shoulders, half-tucked into his belted pants, shadows deep in the crevasses.

Kyungsoo sat up. "Kai, are you okay?"

Jongin sighed and flopped onto his side, head resting on Kyungsoo's legs. "Nah."

"Talk to me."

"Nah."

Kyungsoo flicked one of Jongin's wolf ears, and the hybrid snarled half-heartedly.

"Okay, fine," Jongin said. "My mom just called."

"Yeah?"

"Mmh. And she told me that I'm getting a visitor sometime soon."

"Who is it?"

"...someone I don't want you to meet."

Kyungsoo leaned down. "Who is this?"

"Shush."

"Fine."

The clock ticked 6:49, a pin drop in a quiet room. Dim grey light slipped under the drapes and dusted the floor.

"We need to eat dinner, right?" Kyungsoo said, finally. 

Jongin nodded. "Let's get dinner. I want to eat with Areum today."

The lights on the sides of the pathways had gone on by the time Jongin and Kyungsoo made their way back to the cafeteria, empty plates and cups in hand. Jongin had been worryingly quiet, speaking only to agree with Kyungsoo that the day's rice was undercooked. And Kyungsoo hadn't pushed him.

As they waited for a group of girls to pass by, though, Jongin finally spoke.

"Have you ever read that story about the dragon who decided to help humans?" he asked, turning to look at Kyungsoo in the underglow of the pathways.

Kyungsoo blinked, then shook his head.

Jongin made a knowing sound and turned back to the intersection of walkways before them. "Well, a formerly evil dragon sees the harm that it did to the towns around its cave. So he stops doing bad things to them. Then when another dragon comes to attack the town and try to steal their resources, the old dragon tries to negotiate and threaten the other one. That doesn't work, because the new dragon just wants to kill and plunder, so the older one fights and chases the intruder away, but ends up dying."

"...oh." Kyungsoo looked down at his plate, a few grains of rice stuck on the tongs of the fork. 

"Yeah. Sorry if that was out of the blue. I just wanted to--"

"Don't apologize. I like learning about stuff like this."

Jongin smiled to himself and balanced his foodware on one hand to reach for Kyungsoo with his other.

A clanging noise rang out from the main commons building, a warning to the students that there was half an hour left of lunch and two more until curfew.

"Do you want to go to the candy shop later with Chen and Baekhyun?" Kyungsoo asked, remembering a text message conversation he had had earlier. "I think Chanyeol has a test tomorrow or something so he can't go..." He trailed off, spotting a dark figure lingering by the well-lit entrance to a classroom building. "Hey, who's that?"

Jongin squinted. "I can't tell...greyish hair and wolf ears? I can't really-- !" He squeezed Kyungsoo's hand. "Come on."

"What?"

The person by the classroom turned, red eyes flashing briefly in the dimness. 

" . Let's go."

Jongin pulled Kyungsoo in the direction of the dorms, the cat hybrid dashing full-out after the taller boy.

"What's going on?" he demanded.

Jongin threw open the door to the dorms, bursting into the common room and slamming the door behind him. Lay and Kris were sitting across from each other at a coffee table, bent over a game of chess until the bang of the door startled them to their feet.

"Kai?" Kris moved across the carpet towards the gasping pair. "What's up?"

"There's a man out there who shouldn't be here," Jongin managed, dropping his and Kyungsoo's dinnerware onto a stool. "Grey suit jacket and blue jeans, wolf ears..." He swallowed. "Red eyes and light hair." With another thick swallow, he leaned in and whispered something into Lay's ear.

Lay smiled gently. "We'll take a look, okay?"

Kris glanced out the window. "Go to your rooms. I'll have Tao or Luhan do rounds."

The trip up to the third floor was excruciatingly tense, with Jongin refusing to let go of his cat hybrid's hand. 

"I'm staying with you, okay? Just wait a moment. Sehun should be there. I'll grab my stuff." Jongin fumbled for his keys.

"Kai, what's happening?" Kyungsoo finally demanded.

The wolf hybrid froze, keys halfway into the keyhole of his dorm door. He took a breath in, as if to say something, before letting it go and unlocking the door.

"Kai?"

Jongin locked the door again, shouting through the wood to Chanyeol not to come out before sighing. 

"There's a guy," Jongin said slowly. "Who I sort of know. He's like me. Werewolf. Scary. Tall. Greyish hair and red eyes like mine. I never actually...I don't remember him. I don't remember what he was like or what he did. All I know of him now is that...he's dangerous. Very dangerous. No one knows what he'll do or when he'll do it. My mom said he was my best friend when I was little and we used to play together all the time, and that he protected me. Then his episodes got...really bad. And they had to send him away because we got in a fight and he hurt me and my...yeah. He hurt me. So I haven't seen him since...a while.

My mom just called telling me that he was...not really back, but he's visiting before going back to wherever he's supposed to be. And he's supposed to be an in orange. But that guy that we just saw...that's him, Kyungsoo, that's the guy that I knew. I remember the bracelet he was wearing, it's the one my mom gave him. Silver chain with a little raindrop hanging off of it. He's not supposed to be here, Soo--"

"KAI!"

The two boys flinched, and Jongin pulled Kyungsoo between him and the wall.

Lay came thundering up the stairs, out of breath and more flustered than Jongin had ever seen him. An angry red mark had risen on his face, as if he had been slapped hard. The cougar leaned against the wall.

"Yeah," he said. "The guy wants to see you."

An angry growl reverberated up the stairwell.

Jongin glanced back at Kyungsoo. "I don't want to--"

Someone yelped--it sounded like Kris--and a single pair of footsteps grew louder.

Lay whirled around, taking a step in between the entryway and the other two hybrids. Kyungsoo snuck out a hand, gripping Jongin's forearm, paralyzed by fear of what was coming.

The footsteps stopped, and a handsome man stepped through the staircase door, adjusting a well-fitting grey suit jacket and re-tucking his white shirt into his pants. 

"Whew," he said, rolling the sleeves up. "Kids these days. Real feisty."

Lay moved a foot back, a subtle shift to fighting stance.

The man held up his hands. "Whoa, buddy, you nearly tore my jacket. I'm not getting in a spat with you again."

Kyungsoo found himself studying the man, taking in every feature. Sparkling but tired eyes, short hair, a strong jawline, taller than Jongin...

Jongin nudged him back.

Lay nodded towards the stairwell. "Sir, if I may kindly ask you to leave--"

The man's hand flashed out, grabbing the Dragon by the front of his shirt.

"Hey, cutesy," he said calmly. "I don't like taking orders." A smirk crept across his lips.

Before anything could happen, Jongin moved to lay a hand on the man's arm. "Knock it off."

The man turned his piercing red gaze on the other wolf hybrid. "Didn't you hear me? I said--" He froze. "Hey, you're..."

Jongin looked back at Kyungsoo. "Hey, Soo? Do you know what happened to the dragon after he died?" There was a thick silence. At that, Jongin smiled...

"The townspeople buried him."

...before shifting his eyes back to meet the man's.

"What was that?" the taller wolf hybrid asked, raising an eyebrow. "Don't remember you being the sentimental type. G-d, I haven't seen you in such a long time though, can't say for sure."

Jongin swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing.

"Hi, Dad."