He didn’t mean to fall asleep, honest, or at least that’s what he told Tessy the next day as the dragon angrily sprouted moss all over Taemin’s side of the room, covering the boy’s homework and desk and sheets and pillow and even his dresser in a thick layer of it. Taemin wrinkled his nose as Tessy worked on building a little moss cage around himself as well, so that the boy can’t even apologize properly. Jongin woke up, either from Taemin’s constant pleading or the smell or the ing humidity.

“, sorry Tessy,” he said sheepishly, getting up and trying to find a single pair of boxers that wasn’t soaked through. Tessy expressed his anger through unbearable amounts of moss, but Monggu preferred to cover Jongin’s entire side of the room in a suffocating fog. He wrung out the safest pair he can find, sighing as he put them on and glared weakly at the reddish-purple creature. Monggu glared back harder, sitting up on the boy’s dresser and just sprinkling mist everywhere.

“I guess we were a little too… um… energetic last night,” Taemin said as he rubbed the back of his hickeyed neck. Tessy huffed from inside his cave, causing it to vibrate a bit, but using so much of his magic to with Taemin’s morning had exhausted the dragon, and they both knew it. Slowly, the moss retracted and so did the mist, since it was exhausting to be mad for long if their owners weren’t in the same emotional vein.

Slowly, Tessy, crawled into Taemin’s arms and laid there pitifully, preferring to pout now. He reached up with his claw and gently scraped it against Taemin’s chin, not breaking skin but definitely communicating that Tessy was not ing happy. Taemin sighed and kissed his dragon’s scaly head.

“Okay, okay, we’ll go right after class, okay?” he said gently. The dragon let out a trill of skeptical happiness before hopping back onto the desk so that Taemin could get dressed. The boy found his uniform and struggled to put it on, his arms and legs sore from last night, a fact that didn’t escape Jongin. The older boy laughed and pinched Taemin’s bare , causing his roommate to jump and whack him in the face with a shirt.

“What was that for?” the boy laughed before he was tackled onto the bed.

“You know damn well what!” Taemin shouted, laughing too because something about being here in this moment was just too good. Tessy screeched at the sight, knowing exactly what two half-dressed humans in bed together would end up doing. He swooped down, biting and nipping at Taemin’s ear and screaming in his ear until the boy finally got up and finished getting dressed. As soon as Taemin was out of the way, Monggu sprayed Jongin with water until he was up too, grabbing a towel.

They went to class slightly damp and still chuckling to each other, their very irritated dragons biting and hissing at their ears again. Taemin parted ways with Jongin at calculus, waving to his friend, and scratched Tessy under the chin as he took his seat. Taemin was irritated by the entire existence of this subject, which was making Tessy irritated as well. The dragon paced around the desk and sprawled out on it, snarling angrily at the possibility of having to actually witness Taemin do math.

“Don’t be so condescending,” Taemin scolded, poking the dragon’s soft tummy with his eraser. He heard a laugh behind him and turned, glaring at Yunho. The boy was a senior too, although a few months older than him. His red-and-gold striped dragon, Bambi, was sitting all tall and pretty at the edge of his desk, his wings folded neatly with an air of sophistication.

“Hey, moss-boy, isn’t it just a shame that your dragon didn’t get run over when he ran away?” the older boy teased, leaning his cheek on the heel of his hand and raising an eyebrow. Tessy immediately scrambled to his feet and hissed defensively. If anyone was going to make Taemin feel like for Tessy running away, it definitely wasn’t going to be some 2-bit wannabe pop star who could only ever talk big about getting into a dance academy.

“Shut up, Yunho. Go stick your head back in the teacher’s ,” Taemin sneered. Bambi’s ear flicked, and he sent a small stream of water into Taemin’s face. That did it. Tessy screeched and vines sprouted from Yunho’s desk, wrapping tightly around Bambi. The striped dragon cut through them with another jet of water, but Tessy wrapped another set of vines around his throat.

“Hey, ing quit it!” Yunho demanded, grabbing at the vines and tearing them with his hands. Taemin just glared at him, feeling his face go red all the way up to his ears, and Tessy channeled that anger by grabbing Yunho’s left wrist with more vines and pinning it to the desk until the boy was screaming as he watched Bambi squirm helplessly, firing water up into the air.

The class watched in horror and fascination, not used to seeing a dragon fight in such a prissy school. Honestly, if Taemin hadn’t already been stressed and upset from Tessy running away and his plans to go back to that creep Minho, then this might not have happened, but he was too sick and tired of his situation to care if everyone was watching. He wanted to hurt someone, anyone, and Yunho just so happened to piss him off.

“Mr. Lee, what do you think you’re doing?” the teacher demanded the second he walked in the door and saw the debacle that was his classroom. Tessy immediately retracted the vines as Taemin’s attention snapped forward, but it was too late. Bambi fell on the desk and flopped dramatically, partly from exhaustion and partly to sell the act. Yunho, similarly, started sobbing as he cradled his wounded arm.

“I don’t know, he just went crazy,” the older boy said desperately, which made Taemin bristle and Tessy nearly start again. The steely-gray dragon from the teacher’s shoulder flew to Yunho and sniffed at his wound before rolling his eyes and swiping over it with his tongue, healing the few tiny wounds on it.

Yet, the fact that Yunho was blatantly faking his “injuries” didn’t seem to faze the teacher as much as it should have, and the entire class knew why. Yunho was a teacher’s pet. Something about his pomp and circumstance seemed to appeal to school staff. Something about the fact that his most-used line was “My great performance is owed completely to my great teachers” somehow appealed to them.

“Mr. Lee, to the office,” the woman said sternly, even as her dragon huffed disapprovingly. Taemin rolled his eyes and groaned as he got up, gathering his things and just thanking his lucky stars that he wouldn’t have to sit through another day of calculus.

The people at the office knew him pretty well at this point. He was in there at least once a week, but fighting was a new extreme even for him. This was, by the way, after he’d been dragged in once for making Tessy spread moss over an entire classroom so that he wouldn’t have to take his stats final. The counsellor tutted disapprovingly as she looked over Taemin’s file, her bright pink dragon wrapped around her shoulders and looking at Tessitura with equal disapproval.

“Taemin, you are aware that if you slip up one more time, I’ll have to call your parents, right?” she said, peering over the edge of her file. Her dragon seemed to delight in the threat, already quivering with excitement as Taemin sighed and rubbed his face. Tessy tried to nudge him comfortingly, but the counsellor’s dragon was faster, moving at a ridiculously fast pace and cutting between the two of them. Tessy was sent barreling backwards in the air, whimpering softly.

“Don’t, please,” Taemin pleaded softly, reaching out and grabbing Tessy. He pulled the dragon to his chest, not willing to lose contact with him. The dragon whimpered and buried his face in his owner’s chest, but the pink dragon cut between them again. Taemin nearly grabbed it, his fists wanted to wrap around that deceptively brightly colored body so badly and just squeeze, but then he’d be in a world of trouble.

“You know the rules now, Mr. Lee. We’ll be adding another detent—”

“Mr. Lee?” another voice said, and Taemin looked up to see a man with a mustache and beard encircling a tightly pressed pair of lips. Taemin got up and scooped Tessy into his arms again, looking at the man defensively. The counsellor scowled at the interruption, getting up.

“Siwon, wouldn’t it be better—”

“Mr. Choi to you, ma’am,” the man said, fixing her with a sharp glare. The woman huffed and sat down before Mr. Choi looked at Taemin and beckoned to the boy. “Come with me. I just want to talk,” he said with a gentle smile. Taemin didn’t trust the smile, but it was better than being here, so he followed Mr. Choi down the hall.

“Is this about the fight?” he asked as they walked, trotting a bit to keep up with the older man’s pace. He could see the dark blue dragon on the man’s shoulder, covered in scales so large that it looked like it had been cobbled together from a collection of rocks and pebbles instead of born from dragon fire.

“A bit,” Mr. Choi said, opening the door to an empty classroom. So, this man didn’t work for the school, then. If he did, Taemin reasoned, he’d have a proper office. Taemin sat at a desk in the front row with Tessy curled around his shoulder. His hand the dragon’s tail tenderly as he watched Siwon drag a chair over so that he was sitting directly across from the boy.

“Mr. Choi—”

‘You can call me Siwon,” he said with a “kindness” that made Taemin swallow hard, but the boy wasn’t about to fight this. He’d rather get through this process, whatever it was, unscathed, so he just nodded slowly.

“Siwon, I didn’t start the fight. My dragon ran away yesterday, and I only just managed to find him, but Yunho was a bit—I mean, he was a jerk, and he started saying that Tessy should have gotten run over,” he explained, trying to be careful with his words. The way Siwon stared at him so critically was making him feel tense and nervous, and he could feel Tessy’s claws digging into his shoulder because of it.

“I see… Taemin, can you explain how your dragon knew to fight like that?” he asked slowly, folding his fingers and leaning his chin on his knuckles and looking into Taemin’s eyes unflinchingly. Something about his stare was making the boy feel dizzy, and his dragon’s glare was burning a hole into Tessy’s eyes.

“I don’t know, Tessy just loses his temper sometimes,” he mumbled, gripping Tessy’s tail tighter now. Tessy’s claws dug harder into his skin, almost drawing blood. The air felt like cotton dragging its way down the boy’s throat and he could feel his body burning up from the inside.

“Does your dragon often lose control?” Siwon asked, looking at the creature. Tessy looked away immediately, pressing his face to his owner’s cheek. He was scared, Taemin could feel it in his heart, and he hugged himself subtly.

“No, not… not often,” he said softly. “And usually when he’s mad, he spreads moss everywhere. He only uses vines when—”

“When you’re angry too?” Siwon guessed. Taemin nodded slowly, seeing the gears turning in the older man’s head, which only made Taemin grip Tessy’s tail harder. The man’s dragon looked between the two of them as Siwon sat back in his eat and curled a finger under his own dragon’s chin.

Suddenly, Taemin felt Tessy’s tail slip from his hand, and he barely had time to turn his head as the dragon barreled out the window, leaving a spot of shattered glass on the windowsill.

~

Minho was less surprised this time when Tessy showed up, but his eyes widened at the crisscrosses of cuts on his little body. He quickly picked up the creature and brought him to the workbench, Denz flying to his side and nuzzling the bleeding, exhausted dragon. Minho sighed as he fidgeted with his hands before grabbing a roll of bandages from the shelf and dressing Tessy’s wounds. The dragon whimpered and twitched a bit, but Denz was by his side loyally. Minho watched the two creatures curiously.

It was weird, the sight of Denz being so close to another dragon, since he was usually such a prickly son of a . Even he and Comme Des didn’t get along this well, which was saying a lot, and he’d known Comme Des for years. Yet, he seemed completely enamored with this dragon who he’d only known for a day. Minho smiled and ruffled the top of Denz’s head. The dragon looked up at him in annoyance.

“Don’t give me that face. You’re the one with a new boyfriend,” he teased. Denz snarled and nipped at Minho’s hand, but he immediately went back to comforting Tessy as soon as he heard the other dragon whimper. It was sweet, Minho had to admit, so of course he had to keep teasing. “My wittle baby dwagon is all gwown up. It’s sho swe—”

He stopped when he remembered who Tessy belonged to, his eyes focusing on the wounded creature as he finished bandaging him up. He sighed as he closed his eyes, realizing that the kid would be back again. Taemin, or whatever his name was. The last time they’d met, it hadn’t worked out so well, and he wasn’t all that sure he wanted to meet him again, but the sight of Denz curled so sweetly around Tessy’s body made him pause.

Maybe this could be… good? Maybe this could be a good idea, letting Denz interact with another dragon. He chuckled at himself, the creature’s back, feeling ridiculous for these thoughts.

“Alright, you two. Be good here, okay? Don’t play too rough,” he said to them both, scratching Denz behind the ears before going to make some dinner for the three of them. It was weird that Denz got along so well with Tessy, considering Minho was more than jus a little annoyed with Taemin’s existence in his life. Usually, dragons and their owners agreed on who to like and dislike.

Denz flew in at the smell of burning meat, with Tessy following him weakly. Minho scoffed and tossed them both some meat, watching them gobble it up greedily. Minho reached out and rubbed Denz’s ear, making a face at the dragon, who just made a face right back.

“I knew you loved meat more than you loved me,” he teased. The dragon hissed back playfully, but was cut off by the sound of someone banging on the door.

“Open up! Minho, open up!” Taemin shouted. He’d barely been able to convince campus security to let him out, and he’d had to take two busses to get here and he was just tired and he wanted to cry and Tessy had run off again and this was just a bad day. It certainly didn’t help that Minho seemed to be taking his sweet time.

“God, I was wondering when you’d show up,” Minho sighed as he finally opened the door and smirked at the boy. Taemin groaned and pushed his way into the building, skirting around the counter and the glaring a bit at the man who was following him with every step he took.

“Where’s Tessy?” the boy demanded, frowning hard at Minho and waiting for the man to take him to his dragon. Minho just laughed and leaned back against the workbench, crossing his arms and looking Taemin up and down. The boy had to look away, trying to remember that he was angry and not here to just stare at this guy.

“He’s in the kitchen with Denz,” Minho informed, taking his sweet time to tell Taemin since the boy was being extra annoying with that frown. Who did this kid think he was, trying to act tough? Taemin rolled his eyes and tapped his foot impatiently.

“And where is the kitchen?” he demanded next, tilting his head to the side involuntarily. Minho laughed a bit, finding the action a bit cute, but Taemin straightened up right away and intensified his frown, or at least tried to. The boy didn’t have any real experience with this sort of thing, but he was starting to get pissed off.

“Hm… ask me nicely,” Minho demanded, stepping closer and smirking at the boy cruelly. This was more fun than he’d had in a while, watching the contortions of emotions on Taemin’s face as the boy struggled to contain them. God, it was adorable.

“Please… tell me where the kitchen is,” Taemin said slowly, narrowing his eyes at the man and clenching his fists hard. He wanted to hit him, he wanted to hit him so damn hard, but he knew that would just get him in more trouble. Minho pulled away and hummed nonchalantly as he held out his hand.

“Come on, follow me, princess,” he teased. Taemin’s private school uniform was ruffled like a chicken’s feathers when it got upset, which only made Minho more delighted. His hand was ungraciously slapped away, so he just shoved it back into his pocket and started to walk to the kitchen with Taemin close behind. He opened the door to the kitchen and watched Taemin run up to Tessy, scooping up the creature.

“Tessy! You can’t just run away like that!” he screamed, holding onto the dragon just a little too tightly. Minho groaned and went over to Taemin, letting Denz crawl up his arm.

“You’re going to bust his wounds wide open,” he cautioned, watching with amusement as Taemin quickly loosened his grip. Tessy panted hard and crawled back onto the table before hissing grumpily at Taemin, which made the boy frown.

“What? What’s with that face? I’m not the one who went barreling out a window,” Taemin snapped at the dragon, who just hissed louder. A bed of moss started to grow under his feet, which made Minho raise an amused eyebrow. Truly, fighting with your own dragon was some teenage behavior.

“What did you do to this poor little guy to make him go out a window?” he scolded playfully with that smirk on his face again. Taemin felt like slapping it off his face.

“None of your business! Tessy, we’re going home right now,” he ordered, opening his arms, but the wounded dragon, peeved that his time with Cadenza was being cut short again, planted his feet in the bed of moss and just hissed again. The moss spread further along the table as Tessy got more and more annoyed.

“Hey, can you guys resolve this before I end up scraping moss off all my furniture for the next month?” Minho demanded, using his nails to peel the growth from his already-scratched-up kitchen table. Taemin groaned with frustration and rounded on the man. That was the last straw.

He punched Minho right in the face.

~

A/N—Writing aggressive dragons makes me violently delighted. Writing aggressive Taemin makes me even more delighted.