So I'm not actually that good at romantic stuff and intercharacter romantic relationships. Bear with me. Your author is socially awkward and unskilled in le dating.

The dorms look like this.

Also, I don't actually have a method for naming my chapters...I just sort of do whatever comes to mind, so please put up with that, too. Sankyuu~

Jongin woke up with a clear head and good attitude.

His episode was over.

Hallelujah.

Amber gave a wave when she left, and the caretaker, Yonghwa, walked him back to the dorms. 

"That one wasn't too bad," Yonghwa said, smiling his trademark sly smile. "Just some tranqs and you were knocked out for most of it."

Jongin wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing.

They were almost at the entrance of the dorms when Suho came out of nowhere.

"Hi, Mr. Jung," he said. "Could I borrow Jongin for a second?"

Yonghwa glanced at his charge. "Well, I don't have any business with him. Go ahead, take him."

"Thank you, sir." Suho smiled charmingly and took Jongin's hand. "I need to talk to you."

They ducked around the corner of the dorm. Much to the wolf hybrid's surprise, Suho whirled around and grabbed Jongin by the shoulders.

"Kai," he said, eyes wide and usual smile gone. "You need to help me." His fluffy collie ears were pressed flat against his head, and his tail pointed straight towards the ground. Looking closer, Jongin could spot a few bruises and cuts under the older boy's bangs.

Jongin's heart dropped. How bad did something have to be for Suho--perfect Suho--to ask him for help?

"I don't know what I can do, but--"

"Oh, I know you can help me. Hang on." Suho pulled his phone from his pocket and swiped through something, then turned it around for Jongin to see. "I need you to help me find this guy."

In a blurry photo, a very tall, very rainbow-haired, very familiar lion hybrid had his arms around a raging and somewhat bloodied Suho, ducked down to whisper something in his ear.

"When was this?" Jongin asked, taking Suho's phone and looking at it more closely.

"In the parking lot, when I was coming back from vacation." The collie hybrid ran a hand through his silky brown hair. "Some guy was getting all up on a girl and I stepped in and he hit me and--"

"Okay," Jongin said, holding up a hand to stop Suho from getting into the inevitably gory details. "So what's Sehun doing?"

"Sehun?" Suho grabbed his phone back and squinted at the screen. "So that's his name?"

"Yes..."

"Sehun. Okay. I won't forget it." He looked back up at Jongin with a pleading look (puppy eyes, Jongin thought). "What was the question?"

"What's he--what did he do?"

"He stopped me," Suho said, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world. 

"Okay. What else?"

"Well, he said...uh, he said, 'Hyung, don't get so worked up. He's not worth it'. Then I told him that that boy was being a...well, a few of the more colorful words in my vocabulary." Suho cleared his throat and smiled sheepishly. "He--Sehun--said that if I kept at it, I could get hurt, and that he didn't want to let his match get hurt." Faint roses bloomed on his cheeks.

"Match?"

"You know, like in those old fairytales or psychology or the like. When two hybrids are, you know, fated to be together."

Jongin couldn't help but be a little doubtful. "I know, it's a carnivore thing, but Oh Sehun said that?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"That just doesn't sound like something he'd say."

"You know him well?" Suho's eyes drilled holes into Jongin's face, expectant and excited.

"Y-yeah, since we were really little."

"Oh, that's fantastic," the older boy gushed. "That means you could help us get closer, and then I--"

"He probably just said it to get you to calm down," Jongin blurted out, then clamped his mouth shut, afraid of a potential Suho explosion.

To his surprise (and relief), Suho turned bright red. "Well, the thing is, I k-kinda...felt that way back. Like, the moment I saw him, and when he started talking, it felt like...I don't know. It felt like something fell into place."

Jongin opened his mouth to say something, but found that he had nothing to say. 

Suho either didn't notice or didn't care that his dongsaeng was speechless. "Well, you will help me, right? Can you arrange for us to meet sometime?"

Jongin just nodded, thoughts racing at a thousand miles a second towards a cat named Kyungsoo.

On the last dinner before classes started again, the dining hall was packed with family and students. Even Bora was occupied.

Kyungsoo was devastated.

"Boorrraaa," he wailed into Jongin's shoulder. The wolf hybrid patted the shorter one's back awkwardly, unsure if he was actually crying or not.

"It'll be open tomorrow," Jongin said.

They ended up getting dinner in takeout boxes and debating whether to eat in Areum or the dorm lobby.

"It's cold outside," Jongin insisted, trying not to let the cat drag him into the woods. "And it's supposed to rain."

"But the lobby is full," Kyungsoo replied, pointing with his chin through the window of the boy's dorms. Indeed, it was. 

"But I don't wanna eat outside," Jongin whined.

"I do. It's hot inside."

"No it's not."

"Come on, don't be such a puppy."

"I'll have you know that I'm a wolf and could easily kick your kitten a--."

"You probably could, but I don't care at this moment in time."

Jongin wrenched his wrist free from Kyungsoo's hand, almost dropping his box dinner. "Then let's go to my room. Chanyeol's getting back tomorrow morning, so it's empty."

Kyungsoo felt a wave of panic wash over him, followed by a giddy excitement.

Jongin seemed to sense it. "What?"

"Nothing," Kyungsoo said. "Let's go."

Jongin's room was a little smaller than Kyungsoo's (but then again, Kyungsoo had the corner room). It had one window in the middle of the wall opposite the door. Both sides were symmetrical: a workspace was parallel to the window and door, the chair in between the wall and the table; the bed continued directly from there towards the door; a dresser rested at the end; and wardrobes stood sentinel on either side of the door. Small shelves jutted out over the beds over corkboards, and electrical outlets were placed next to them. Small nooks were built into the walls next to the desks on the left and right sides of the room. The left held trash and recycling cans and a coat rack; the right had a minifridge, a tall and thin shelf containing snacks and utensils, and a microwave. Everything clearly had its own spot, and nothing looked out of place.

It smelled faintly of vanilla, of cookies baking in the oven, of a home far away.

"It's a little messy," Jongin said, putting his box on the shelf above the bed on the left. He smoothed down the world map tacked onto the corkboard and picked up a small whiteboard that had fallen off its pushpin.

"Messy?" Kyungsoo repeated, marvelling at how neat the place was in comparison to his room. He and Sehun were neat freaks with their work, but their room? Forget it.

"Yeah, messy. Come on, sit down," Jongin said, waving Kyungsoo over to the desk and clearing a space for him.

Kyungsoo sat down on the rolling chair cautiously, as if a sudden movement would destroy something. "Thanks."

"No problem," Jongin said, settling down at the head of his bed and opening his box. "Could you grab some chopsticks? They're on that shelf."

Kyungsoo picked out two takeout chopsticks from a full cup and gave one to the wolf hybrid. "Your room is probably a million times neater than mine and Sehun's."

Jongin snorted through a mouthful of rice and chicken (when did he even open the chopsticks?). "I don't want to see what your room looks like, then."

Kyungsoo laughed, digging into his own food. Brown rice and tikki masala. Yum. "You don't. It's mostly Sehun, though. He's got enough beauty products to drown someone in."

"He almost did kill me," Jongin said, pointing at himself with the chopsticks. "G-d, that was a rough time. When we were like eight, he tried putting eyeliner on me and he stabbed me in the eye."

"I don't think that counts as killing you."

"It does too. Another time, on Halloween, he dressed me up as--hang on, I have a picture." Jongin reached under his bed into a plastic box, pulled out a photo album, flipped through a few pages, then dropped it on the desk for Kyungsoo to see.

A very pretty and very makeuped girl in fishnet stockings, short shorts, black boot heels, a white tank top, and a big black leather jacket hanging off one shoulder leaned against a boy in a Phantom of the Opera mask and outfit, with hair so white it looked like ice under the streetlight the two stood by and fake blood dripping down his front.

"That must've been hard to get out," Kyungsoo said, pointing at the blood. 

"That was actually one of Sehun's dad's old work shirts. It was ripped in the back, but you can't see it." Jongin rested his chin on the desk. "It was surprisingly warm that year, so that actually helped."

"Sehun did a good job," Kyungsoo said, taking a sip of iced tea from the increasingly handy shelf in the nook.

"He did," Jongin said, smiling sheepishly. "I never thought he'd be good at doing girl's makeup."

Kyungsoo choked on his tea, and he hacked when he finally managed to swallow it. "Wait wait wait. Hang on. Which one are you?"

Jongin looked at him strangely. "The girl, of course."

Kyungsoo picked the photo album up and looked closely. 

Oh my f---ing G-d.

The girl was, indeed, Kim Jongin. Her--his?--long brown hair was really a wig, given away by the strands of blonde falling over the left ear. Underneath the blue eyeshadow and thick black eyeliner were the same childish eyes. The leather jacket hid most of his broad shoulders, but the bit that was revealed was too strong, too wide, for a regular girl. Not just that, but the way he stood in the heels was clearly indicative of discomfort.

"Oh my G-d."

"Yeah, he did a good job," Jongin said, a trace of bitterness in his voice. "I got hit on so many times that day."

"Wow."

Jongin sighed and put another clump of rice in his mouth. "The only thing I liked about that day was that I looked good, for once."

Kyungsoo frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean, it was maybe the only time I looked good. And it was as a girl."

"You always look beautiful," Kyungsoo said automatically. 

Jongin looked up quickly, his rust-red eyes meeting Kyungsoo's golden ones. "Wha--don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying," Kyungsoo said, putting down his chopsticks. "You're gorgeous. Well, okay, those are girl terms, but--yeah, you're beautiful."

Jongin stared, soft reds appearing on his cheeks. "No, I'm not."

"Yes." Kyungsoo leaned forward. "You are."

The vanilla smell seemed to strengthen.

Finally, Jongin looked away, ears flicking nervously. "Well, whatever you think." He shoved a large piece of chicken into his mouth.

"D--- right," Kyungsoo said.

They ate in silence for a while.

"Hey," Jongin finally said. "What happened while I was having my episode?"

Kyungsoo swallowed some rice the wrong way, and it took a full two minutes for him to stop coughing.

"No, nothing, don't worry about it," he said, rubbing at his watery eyes.

Jongin sipped from his can of iced tea contemplatively. "Well, Amber said I harassed you."

D--- it.

"Yeah, you did, but you were on tranqs, so it was okay." Kyungsoo waved his hand as nonchalantly as he could.

"Did I actually harass you?"

Kyungsoo froze. "Uh...no."

Jongin raised an eyebrow. 

"Okay, yes, you did. But everything you said and did, well, I know it was just the tranqs, so, it's, it's okay..." Kyungsoo stuttered.

"What did I do?"

"Well, you were singing 'I Will Always Love You', you know, Whitney Houston, and Adele, and you called me a sweetheart, and you kissed me on the hand, and you marked me, and..." Kyungsoo trailed off when Jongin choked. "What?"

"I whated you?" he demanded.

"Marked?"

"Oh, for f---'s sake." Jongin flopped back on his bed, food bouncing dangerously on the edge.

"What's the big deal? You were just on tranqs, right?" Kyungsoo asked, peering over the headboard at the wolf hybrid. "Right?"

Jongin covered his face with his hands. "Okay, well, let's start by saying that I probably--no, I definitely--meant everything."

At that moment, a pin could've dropped, and Kyungsoo would have heard it like a trumpet.

"What?"

"You heard me." Jongin sighed. "Among the large carnivore hybrids, there's an old folktale thing called a match. It's the belief that everyone has someone they were meant to be with, and marking is instinctually claiming the other partner. You can't accidentally mark someone. It's always...well, for a reason." He peered through his fingers at Kyungsoo. "So...it wasn't just tranqs."

Kyungsoo's hand went to the spot where Jongin had bitten him. "...oh."

Jongin continued. "You can tell if someone is your match if there's...uh, an immediate attraction, strong protective urges on the dominant one's part, and nurturing from the other. Apparently you're able to feel it as soon as you see each other, but..." He stopped at Kyungsoo's face, which contained a mix of confusion, surprise, and...what was that?

Relief?

Oh.

Oh G-d.

"Don't tell me--" Jongin started.

"So what do I do if I think I've found my match?" Kyungsoo said.

They stared at each other, both of them red in the face.

"Hey, Jongin," Kyungsoo said, turning away. "So I kinda, sorta, maybe like you...a lot...?"