So unfortunately, from this point on, I may not be able to update as often. It's crunch time at school (as many of you may know :/) because midterms are coming up, and I, being the not-very-smart-but-still-hardworking student I am (I wish), will focus on that. I love you guys, though, and I'll do my best~

I may or may not be relying on very clichéd romantic scenes as inspiration... *thumbs up*

Note: all the characters except Kris, Xiumin, and Luhan are in sophomore year (Kris and Xiumin are seniors, Luhan is a junior).

Oh, and the journal entries are from both people. You'll have to read from context to figure out who's writing it. Excitement (totally).

November 30th:

Jongin hasn't treated me any differently after I, well, confessed to him two days ago. Actually, he's been even nicer, if that's possible. 

School's back on. For a few days, there won't be too much homework, but I don't expect that to last long. One of the seniors in skills group said she had a project due this Friday. That's crazy. The turkey's barely digested and some people already have full-on projects.

Oh G-d. I can't stop thinking about him. It's terrible. I'm trying to read a book and in my head I'm imagining him asking me out. This is stupid. I shouldn't get ahead of myself. I'll go take a shower.

There was steam coming off of Kyungsoo as he stepped out of the bathroom and into the (ridiculously) cold hallway. He shivered and smoothed down his dripping hair, wishing he had brought a sweatshirt or jacket or winter coat. That last option sounded great.

The lights at the end of the hall, above his room, were broken, so he had to search for his keys in the darkness, to no avail. 

"," he grumbled, throwing his hands up.

Sehun was out, probably guy hunting. Chen was scarily good at picking locks, but he probably had a music lesson. Aside from himself, there was no one else on the floor.

However, a prickling sensation, as if he were being watched, started up on the back of his neck. Kyungsoo shivered and looked around, suddenly realizing just how alone he was.

"Soo?"

Never mind.

"Hey, Chanyeol," Kyungsoo said, looking over his shoulder at his friend and best friend's significant other. 

The tall leopard hybrid smiled. "You locked out?"

"Unfortunately."

"It's cold. You want a sweater or something?"

"That would be great."

Kyungsoo brushed past the other (much taller) boy into the vanilla-y room. Jongin wasn't there, but his backpack and sneakers were, and the closet was thrown wide open.

"Kai was late to dance," Chanyeol said, noting where Kyungsoo was looking.

"I see." Kyungsoo sat down on Chanyeol's bed. "I don't think your sweaters fit on me."

"No, they wouldn't," Chanyeol admitted with a shrug. "But I wasn't thinking about mine." He moved over to the open wardrobe on Jongin's side. "I'm sure Jongin's would fit better."

"Wait, I can't just--"

"Sure you can." The leopard smiled cockily and threw a sweater at Kyungsoo. "This'll be a little big on you, but it's warm, and Jongin doesn't really wear it."

Kyungsoo turned it over. The top part was black, the midsection was marled, and the bottom was dark grey. On the right sleeve, around where the bicep would be, there was a small white embroidered paw print.

Chanyeol watched as he slipped it on. "It's okay, right?"

"It's fine." Kyungsoo shook his arms, watching as a good inch of sweater sleeve fell over his fingertips. When he stood up, he felt like a chrysalis in a cocoon, awaiting a transformation. "What do I do now?"

"Um. I didn't think that far." Chanyeol smiled ruefully. "You can stay here, if you want."

"That'd be great." Kyungsoo flopped back onto the bed, curling up with Chanyeol's fuzzy floral throw blanket.

Chanyeol sat down at the foot of the bed. "So what's up with you and Kai?" he asked, smirking.

Kyungsoo flushed. "Oh. That--uh, it's--"

At that moment, the doorknob started rattling, and someone swore outside.

"Coming!" Chanyeol said, raising an eyebrow at Kyungsoo and standing to open the door.

"Thank G-d," Jongin groaned, pushing past his roommate and throwing his jacket onto the foot of his bed. "I couldn't find my keys for a second. That would make it the third ing time in the past week." He dropped down heavily onto his own bed and rubbed his temples.

Kyungsoo and Chanyeol exchanged a glance, and the cat hybrid cleared his throat. "Err...Kai, you okay?"

Jongin looked up, and his gold-tinted skin drained of color. "K-Kyungsoo."

"You alright?" Chanyeol repeated.

"I'm fine." Jongin reached up to the shelf above his head and pulled down a juice box. "Just that Jimin and J-Hope got chosen as the featured pair for the dance concert, even though Lay and I worked really hard."

"Aren't you also worried about aski--" Chanyeol started, but Jongin gave him a look so sharp that even Kyungsoo flinched.

"Not now," he said, going back to drinking juice.

"Do you want to go for a walk?" Kyungsoo asked quietly.

Jongin stopped slurping. "Mm?"

"We could...uh...talk about Mission Seho?"

"Ah." Jongin crushed the juice box and threw it at Chanyeol. "Chuck it for me." He stood up, tossed his jacket over his shoulder, and held out a hand for Kyungsoo, pulling him gently to his feet.

The hallway was still as quiet as before, but it was no longer eerie with Jongin walking next to him.

"I saw Sehun near the athletics building when I was coming back," Jongin said as they made their way to the staircase, as if his worries were gone. "Not like he ever actually exercises. Probably going after Tao or Luhan or someone."

"He said to Suho that they were matched," Kyungsoo said, scratching at his neck. "Why would he go around looking for other guys?"

Jongin shrugged. "That's just how he is. All he wants are cuddles."

"Hm."

Their footsteps echoed in the stairwell, and the fluorescent lights flickered, throwing tall shadows across the whitewashed walls. Kyungsoo found himself pressing closer into Jongin, afraid of any spiders that could be lurking in the corners.

At the landing between the second and first floor, Kyungsoo grabbed Jongin's arm.

"Kai, are you sure that the dancing was the only thing bothering you?" he asked, heart aching at the forlorn face his companion wore.

It disappeared quickly. "No, but don't worry about it, okay?" Jongin poked Kyungsoo's orange ear and chuckled at the way it flicked.

"I can't just forget about it," Kyungsoo said, not letting go as Jongin tried to pull away. "I care. A lot. Remember?"

Jongin's gaze softened, and before Kyungsoo could register what was happening, he placed a feather-light kiss on the cat's forehead.

"I do remember," he said quietly. "Come on, I wanna show you something."

Kyungsoo was too flustered to realize that their fingers were intertwined.

Sehun was reading a book in front of the athletics building when Jongin and Kyungsoo found him, oblivious to the chill and the cloudy skies overhead that threatened rain, maybe even snow.

"Hey, Brathun," Jongin called out.

Sehun didn't look up. "Yo, Dark-Skin."

"Brathun?" Kyungsoo asked quietly. Jongin just smiled.

Sehun glanced up, one fluffy lion ear flicking. "Oh. Hey, Soo. Where you guys going?"

"I'm going to show Kyungsoo the dance studio," Jongin said excitedly.

"Oh. Haven't you ever been there before?"

Kyungsoo nodded. "But that was a few years ago--maybe four--before I had to stop doing sports."

Jongin wanted to ask, but Sehun got there before him. "Oh, so you stopped even before Kai and I got here."

"Yeah."

"I bet you were good," Jongin said.

Kyungsoo smiled, blushing under the attention of the two other hybrids.

"Go on, check out the dance studio," Sehun said, waving them away with a faint, rare smile. "It's closing soon."

Kyungsoo only started questioning the legitamacy of Jongin's claim when they walked past the dance studio.

The arts building was essentially an auditorium with classrooms and studios behind it, with the dance studio being the centerpiece at the very back. A wooden door with glass inset and a long window running down the wall against the hallway.

"Kai?" Kyungsoo said, stopping in front of the dark window. "Isn't this the dance studio?"

Jongin stopped a few feet further down the hall. "I'm showing you the other one."

"There's another one?"

"It used to be a private instruction room. Only I really use it now, because it's pretty small and isn't good for much." Jongin reached out for Kyungsoo's much smaller wrist. "Come on. It's not scary."

There was a single offshooting hallway even further back, behind the main studios, that held what used to be small private instruction and music practice rooms. They had since been repurposed for storage and teacher offices.

Kyungsoo shivered when he noticed the cobwebs in the corner. In fact, the whole back hallway made him nervous. It was dark, musty, and ominously quiet, everything needed to tug on Kyungsoo's cat instincts and set him on edge. 

The last room on the left, however, had a red ribbon bow tied around the handle and a whiteboard on it reading "Kim Kai(dashion)" in red marker. Jongin stopped before it, frowning at the text and wiping off the parentheticals with his sleeve before fishing out a key and unlocking the door. He pushed it open and flicked on the light.

"Come in," he said, as visibly excited as a child on Christmas.

The room was, as Jongin had warned, nothing spectacular. It was about the size of Kyungsoo's dorm, maybe two or three feet wider, with the same cream-colored walls. One long window spanned the wall across from the door and tiny entry hall, two mismatched curtains--they looked to be made out of old blankets--drawn across and meeting in the center. A pair of patchworked couches--Kyungsoo recognized them as being the ones the boy's dorm had thrown out at the beginning of the year--sat against the wall on the far right, an overturned laundry basket serving as a table in between them. The vinyl flooring had started to bubble up in some places, which Jongin stomped on.

"I haven't been here for about two weeks," Jongin said, putting his hands on his hips. "Looks like they took out the mirror."

Kyungsoo approached the window cautiously, slowly drawing one (very thick) curtain-blanket off to the side. An iron fence rose halfway up the window, separated the arts building from the woods. 

"Areum is somewhere back there," Jongin said, coming up to Kyungsoo's side and pointing off to the right.

"Oh." Kyungsoo leaned against the glass, trying in vain to see his beloved garden.

He couldn't help but notice how warm the wolf hybrid's arm was against his own, even through his sweater. Kyungsoo found himself staring at Jongin's hand, how it drummed against the ledge and mimicked the sound of the freezing rain that had started falling outside. Tm-tm-tatm-ta.

"That's my sweater, isn't it?"

Jongin was looking at the paw print on the sleeve, a smile tugging on his lips. Kyungsoo stuttered out an apology.

"I--I didn't mean to--I mean, Chanyeol gave it to me because I was--"

"Hey." The taller boy rested a hand on Kyungsoo's head. "I was going to say, it looks good. Is it warm?"

Kyungsoo blinked. "Oh. Yeah."

"Good." 

A thick, pregnant silence hung the air, broken when thunder growled, shaking the walls. The lights went out abruptly with a crackling noise.

" ," Jongin groaned, his voice suddenly impossible to hear even to himself under Kyungsoo's frightened wail.

The cat hybrid howled unintelligibly, quivering next to the window that let in a negligible amount of light, his only coherent words being variations on the taller boy's name.

Jongin's mind was moving far too fast to be helpful. "Hey, Soo, it's okay, I'm here. I'm here. It's just a blackout, it's just a blackout." He fumbled about, searching for a way to calm down his companion.

Something clicked, and he pulled out his phone, ignoring Kyungsoo's whimpers for just a few moments as he searched through his playlist.

"DJ Got Us Falling In Love" was the first song that stuck out to him, so he pressed on the track title and put his phone on the windowsill.

Dancing had always come easily to Jongin. It was like flirting to Sehun, or smiling to Lay, or crazy eyes to Luhan. Second nature. And because of the years of dance lessons and recitals he had to endure, he wasn't usually embarrassed by the facades he put up on stage and the moves he had to do.

So when the deep throbbing of Usher's song started, all of Jongin's doubts fell away, leaving nothing but pure instinct.

Kyungsoo became quiet, but neither of them noticed exactly when. All he was aware of was the way Jongin moved like a liquid, each body roll as smooth as velvet and each step so sure of itself that they made Kyungsoo want to believe in everything Jongin did.

The kind and warm exterior that Jongin had worn thus far was gone, disintegrated, completely evaporated to some deep crevasse of the universe. He was Kai now, wild and strong and dangerous, a werewolf without the bloodthirst.

"DJ" ended with Usher thanking the DJ, and Jongin mimicked it, winking and turning with a haughty hair flip.

Half of the next song on Jongin's playlist--GDFR--played before either of them spoke.

The rain was still falling heavily and there were still lightning bolts that turned the grey clouds white for a split second and Kyungsoo was still awkward, short, nervous-wreck DO Kyungsoo, but Jongin was there.

"How was it?" the wolf asked, a more familiar half-smile that pleaded not guilty gracing his features.

Kyungsoo felt words come to life and die in a matter of heartbeats in his mouth. "I--it was--good."

Jongin laughed, then pulled Kyungsoo to his side. "Your turn."

"What?" Kyungsoo gripped Jongin's sleeve. "I can't--"

"I think you can." Jongin cut him off, and leaned down to choose something else from his playlist.

"Give it to me, I'm worth it--"

"Oh no," Kyungsoo said.

"You can do it. Just move."

"I--I can't--"

"I believe in you."

The smile Kyungsoo gave him made Jongin's heart stop. Still, he could see how unnatural it felt for Kyungsoo to try to feel out the beat and coordinate his limbs, so he decided to step in.

"Here, try to follow me." Jongin stepped in front of Kyungsoo, his body reacting almost immediately.

That was better.

Both of them were laughing by the end, out of breath from attempting the seductive moves in the proper dance while adding in as much discomfort as wasn't necessary.

"Shouldn't we get back to the dorms?" Kyungsoo asked, smoothing his cherry red hair back and trying to reign in his grin.

Jongin raised an eyebrow and glanced sideways at the window. Rivulets of water streamed down thick and fast, tiny white gemstones glittering in the wet glass.

"Never mind."

Jongin picked his phone back up in time to hear the first delicate notes of IU's "My Old Story" hum from the small speakers. He turned the phone on with a small scowl, fully intending to stop the music until he saw the elation that flitted across Kyungsoo's face.

"It's IU," he breathed.

Jongin looked down at the album art on his screen, then back up at the happy cat hybrid and his swishing tail, flicking ears, soft mouth turned up into a dazzling smile. An idea began to formulate in his mind. "Well, do you want to dance to this?" he asked, summoning a boldness he didn't know he had outside of dance.

Kyungsoo flushed and looked down at his feet. "Well, if it isn't a bother...I've never slow danced before."

Jongin didn't know whether he should laugh or feel bad, but that was lost when Kyungsoo put his sweatered arms up on Jongin's shoulders.

"Hopefully you know what you're doing," he muttered, putting a burning forehead on the taller boy's shoulder.

Jongin smiled, hoping that Kyungsoo wouldn't hear his racing heart and mistake it for something else. He rested his hands on the smaller cat hybrid's waist.

Even the thunder didn't matter after that.