xlv. While You Were Dreaming I

“Hello, again.”

Zico kneeled down, getting on level with her dark eyes: dark chocolate brown laced with black charcoal that was smudged beyond repair. She locked gazes with him, her stare piercing through matted locks of hair freshly-dyed a dirty red. She was a far cry from her usual glamorous appearance, but that look of hers made up for it.

It more than made up for the dirt smudged down her exposed arms and legs. 

Across ghostly pale cheeks. 

He reminded himself to get her some food after he grew to stop loathing every fiber of her being.

Thinking about how pitiful she was to once more go from predator to prey to prisoner helped just a bit.

“This must be, what?” He counted in his head, taking longer than he should have, and with good reason, “The third time we’ve met in a dark, damp room that just happens to have a handy set of handcuffs installed?”

She rattled at her bindings, tugging her bare legs closer to her chest, lips cracking as she laughed, “The third time’s the charm.”

“I don’t assume you want it to be though.” He peered over her knees, the sparkling sequences on her shirt that caught the light as she moved drawing his attention, “You really didn’t want to be caught like this, did you?” 

She was wearing a t-shirt and black shorts. To him, it looked like she just rolled out of bed. Like the last thing she expected to have happen to her was this. 

“You couldn’t have. You wouldn’t let yourself be so weak as to turn yourself in. So, tell me.”

He gestured to the room around them, the unused pantry turned jail cell in the basement of Sunggyu’s grandfather’s home. Or, rather, Sunggyu’s home now, all things considered. 

She was a fool to come, all things considered. With the handful of new female werewolves, twin wolf Enforcers, and all the backup they brought with them lingering in pockets everywhere since Graduation day, there was no way she thought she’d be able to surprise them. 

Springfield was their territory now.

Werewolf territory — like it used to be, before the Containment Zone incident. 

Though she must have grown crazier in the time since he’s last seen her. 

Because no matter how pitiful Jeon Hyosung looked right now, she was a fool to turn herself in in the town whose affairs caused the Hunter faction’s leaders in Denmark to disown her and leave her like this in the first place.

 “Why’d you come back to Springfield?”

Zico — or Woo Jiho, as she would fondly call out into the darkness that very same night — asked, because he truly wanted to know. Because he didn’t expect to ever see her again. Because he completely, and utterly, wanted her to escape. 

“I fell in love with my natural-born enemy.”

He deadpanned at her confession.

“Would it kill you to be serious for once?”

Her laugh echoed like a broken record in his ears, seemingly endless as it sung further and further into the empty void that was his patience, blindly searching for the needle of needless affection in the haystack.

“It’d probably kill both of us.” She smiled widely, averting her frowning eyes. 

“I really just don’t get it.” He grabbed onto her hands, his fingers trailing down dry skin as he pulled her out of the shell she’d formed to protect herself, “Why’d you come back, Jeon Hyosung?”

“I’m in love with you, Woo Jiho.”

She confessed for the second time, his touch leaving her extended legs, her eyes no longer wandering from his. And for a split second, for a single moment, he bought it. 

And his next words were genuine, spoken without an ounce of hesitance.

“I’m positively flattered.”

“It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise.” She reached forward, grabbing hold of his right hand, “You’re handsome,” tracing circles down each knuckle, “You’re charming,” fingernails coated in cracked black nail polish massaging into his palm, “You’ve got an attractively twisted sense of humor,” with lips playing out a smile, “You’re practically a prince.”

With a single tug, he pulled his hand from her, standing up, averting his own frowning eyes, “And you’ve got a knack for bluffs, my princess.”

She let out a long sigh, pulling her legs to her chest, receding into her shell once more, before shrugging and lying through her teeth, “If I were bluffing, I’d be trying to lead you into a false sense of security.”

“And you’re not?” He jeered as he moved to leave, knowing he’d never get anywhere but closer to her huddled over form, her bare legs, and her barer words should he stay any longer. 

“Absolutely not.” She blurted genuinely, without even the tiniest drop of hesitance, “Rather, it seems like someone’s been misled about exactly how fitting he is to play the leading role of his own story.” 

He shut the door behind himself, deciding he’d forgo a trip to the kitchen and let the loathing sink in as much as it possibly could. 

Hopefully, farther down than her laughter managed to traverse. 

Completely, and utterly.

“You think Jeon Hyosung was forced to surrender to us.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you’re thinking it.” Seohyun smiled at him, hands clasped together in her lap as they sat together on the back porch of his Grandfather’s, his, house. Donning a white dress that clashed with his dark-colored clothing, she was smiling in the midst of all of this. Pure and unstained by it all.

And it settled him somehow. 

Knowing he had such an influential, powerful, and collected ally gave him the confidence to speak his mind — something he hadn’t done in what felt like a lifetime. 

“If she was sent to us to play the martyr in all of this, then we still have a few enemies left in Denmark.”

“A few?” She laughed softly, shaking her head at his naive words before proceeding to rid him of his ignorance. To inform him of the reality of his situation, as readily as always. “The Werewolf faction will, and forever, have much more than just a few individuals attempting to eliminate us, our entire race, completely and utterly.”

“Much more so now than ever, correct?”

She nodded, reaching out, laying a steady hand of long, delicate fingers on his shoulder, “There have been worser times, you can be certain of that. Whether this is one of those, however, only time will tell.”

Bending over, rubbing his face with his hands, he mumbled beneath a frustrated sigh, “We don’t have time to waste.” 

And Seohyun smiled once more at the sight, “Then find a way to make more, Sunggyu.”

Her insinuation was the farthest from the kind he expected from her.

And it empowered him somehow.

The next morning, he’d set off towards the basement, much more than prepared to be tainted and stained by it all.

B-bomb stared on in disdain at the scene, seemingly ripped out of a slapstick comedy routine, playing out in front of him. He didn't ask for this. For a kitchen splattered here, there, and ultimately everywhere with flour. For, on all days, it to happen on — of course —the day he was in charge of cleaning up after lunch. 

"Just in' perfect." He mumbled to himself, arms crossed.

He didn't ask for this. 

He didn't ask for her: the red-headed girl with big eyes and a voice that made you think she was a wolf in disguise — and, technically, she was. Technically, she was who his caring older sister Jiyeon had decided upon as “worthy of his graces.” 

She didn't say as much. She didn't have to say anything. He could see it in that expectant look she was throwing him since the young, energetic red-head arrived not even two days ago. 

Miso was her name. 

The taste, quite honestly, never grew on him. 

As for the person, well Jiyeon begged to differ. 

“She's cute,” Myungsoo commented beside him, appearing like a ghost, slithering in like a snake, and other comparisons B-bomb was much too tired to spend his time thinking up. Suffice it to say, he didn't grant Myungsoo a response to his rather unnecessary comment. 

Not liking the word he used to describe her, B-bomb instead busied himself with thinking up one that suited her more. Something less forgiving, more pessimistic. More fitting, less anything else. In the end, he came up with this:

Bear.

She stomped here, there, and ultimately everywhere. Destructive against everything she touched — the term delicacy holding no meaning. Imposing with a roar that could scare your lunch right out of you. Tenacious enough to keep doing it again and again and again.

And that smile on his sister’s face as she stares at him lovingly couldn’t be bigger. 

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?” She pursed her lips, playing dumb.

“Stop!” U-kwon’s scream penetrated his eardrums, akin to a dying whale.

“What?” 

Miso immediately raised both hands high into the air, a natural reflex if B-bomb’d ever seen one. Which means this happens often. While washing the fruit U-kwon assigned her to after she exploded a flour bomb in the kitchen, while preparing anything simple, she can — without a doubt — turn everything into an ordeal.

“That’s vinegar, not water.” U-kwon breathed a sigh of relief at having stopped her before she went to far, moving the strawberries beside her as far away as his arm could stretch down the kitchen counter. 

“Vinegar. Water. What’s the difference? It all goes to the same place in the end, doesn’t it?” Miso opened the bottle, sniffing it tentatively, mumbling loudly, “Comes out of the same place too.”

“Yeah, sure. But, I’d rather it went in and came out nicely instead of painfully. So, yes. There’s a difference.”

“Venison. Quail. It all tastes like chicken in the end.” Miso shrugged, “But, I think I understand what you mean.”

“Do you really?” U-kwon looked on at her suspiciously, hair a disheveled mess from how many times he’d run his fingers through it since he entered the kitchen with her almost twenty minutes ago, “I have a hard time believing that.”

“Not only is she cute, she’s also an an eager learner with a sense of humor. What’s not to love?” Jiyeon nudged at B-bomb’s arm roughly, not knowing her own strength in the face of her obvious anticipation of some kind of “relationship” forming between himself and Miso.

“That sense of humor she’s got is a little bit twisted, don’t you think?” B-bomb stepped away from her, not a fan of bony elbow-caused bruises. 

Jiyeon closed the distance between them, making him get down on her level, trying to make him see what she saw, as she forced him to her height via her arm around his shoulders, “You need someone to twist you up a bit, baby bro.”

He shrugged her off, “Stop it.”

And she played dumb, “Stop what, baby bro? Stop what?”

He looked on at her with judging, loathing eyes. 

Exactly how much did Jiyeon expect him to teach her? It'd be a never ending struggle until the day he thankfully passes on to heaven, hell, or elsewhere. It'd be anything but easy. It'd be annoying, frustrating, and he may even develop baldness at an early age — he never did.

His upper lip curled as he exited the noisy kitchen, walking by Myungsoo who was pleasantly relaxing in the living room, smiling from ear to ear, “I swear, if you say anything—”

“I'm sure you're thinking enough for the both of us.” Myungsoo laughed as B-bomb questioned what he did in his past life to deserve such a fate. 

But Jiyeon, well-versed in the terms of courtship and the process of amour, figured her little brother needed someone who could throw a few challenges into his life here and there. 

Or, ultimately, everywhere.

Minah would rather be anywhere and everywhere but here. After declaring their mutual feelings of dislike for one another, she still had no idea why Lee Sungjong was so attached to her. She was his speed dial number nine after Hyunjoo. She was his go-to person to call about nonsense like the school’s calendar. On weekends and holidays, on all the days in between, she felt like she was being dragged by her collar anywhere and everywhere by him.

Was he discontented with the amount of attention he received from the handful upon handful of others in his life? Even if he was, even if he was lonely in some sense of the word, even if he needed someone since Hyunjoo’s departure, even before that even if just a little bit, why?

Why her?

She couldn’t figure it out as she tapped away, mindlessly hammering in combo after combo. Deciding to play Street Fighter because why not? Because she’d really rather not talk to Lee Sungjong, who appeared at her doorstep this late afternoon. Two hours had passed since then, enough time for her to question it, but why not?

Why not just sit in silence for a bit longer?

Why not wait for him to say something first, because why else would he come looking for her if not to get something off his chest that he couldn’t to others? Others who knew him better. Others who cared more. Others like the boy named Park Kyung he brought along with him. Park Kyung, who had busied himself with one of her many new portable gaming devices — Japanese RPGs apparently a favorite of his.

Eventually, Sungjong’s reason would come out. More words. More explanations for why he came to her again. But, at this point, she didn’t care anymore. She didn’t care what he had to say. She’d listen, she’d respond, and she’d send him on his way — as per usual. 

Eventually, this eventuality came at around half past seven.

“How’d you change so much, Minah?” He asked.

“I stopped being so scared of everything.” She answered.

“What were you scared of the most?”

“My dad.”

“What would you do if the person you were scared of couldn’t disappear so easily?”

“My dad didn’t disappear easily.”

“It’s all hypothetical. Just answer.”

And she did, “Well then, me.”

Kyung laughed from somewhere in the vast living room of Minah’s home, and Sungjong distracted himself with the task of staring on at her long enough to lose against her flurry of combos. Despite her answer, her expression didn’t flinch in the least. Despite the futility of his struggle, she made it seem like just another part of daily life. 

Just their ed up daily life.

Life that had to be dealt with, no matter how much it . No matter how much they cursed to the skies and the galaxies above, there was no point in complaining. 

Because Life went on whether they wanted it to or not.

“You’re welcome.” Minah spoke up as she backed out of the victory screen to character select once more, choosing her options carefully. Sungjong turned away from her in turn, unknowingly having lost every single match up until this very point in time — yet not caring in the least.

They had come to an understanding about their feelings for each other once more.

And neither said a word more as Kyung shouted out merrily, fist-bumping to an 8-bit tune, “Level up!” 

No one was saying anything. There was nothing to be said, really. It hadn’t been long since they first met. Besides that, when they already knew all there was to know about one another, all the basic facts like birthdays and middle names, there were no words to fill the silence. Not a one of the three minded, though.

As Yoona sat on the couch, legs propped onto Sooyoung’s lap as she tapped away at her phone, she didn’t even bat an eyelash at where Woohyun was, slumped over in the lounge chair before them. His sullen expression, the bags under his frowning eyes, the obvious worry reflected in them, Yoona didn’t see any of it. She didn’t care for any of it. 

Not it, and certainly not the fit he and a handful of others threw upon discovering their darling Song Hyunjoo had hopped on the next plane to Italy. She hadn’t known the girl long enough to miss her, but she understood the longing of the male werewolves to some degree.

There’s a certain kind of attraction to the familiar that’s not easily replicated.

Song Hyunjoo was familiar, comfortable, and had more than made her mark on them to facilitate a kind of painful and abrupt sorrow at her sudden departure. 

Yoona understood that. 

She did more than anyone. 

And while her friend, Sooyoung, whose lap she was currently using as she would a stack of pillows, understood that as well, was more than experienced in the matters of her own ed up life to understand all of it, it didn’t mean she could simply ignore it. 

That Sooyoung would choose to simply look past the plight of the younger wolf before them.

That she shouldn’t open and say what she did didn’t occur to her in the least.

“Ya know what? Your complacency disgusts me.” 

Yoona looked up from her phone for the first time since she had sat down this early evening, surprised with the serious tone Sooyoung used with him. With Nam Woohyun, who couldn’t and wouldn’t be able to recognize the change in her vocabulary from the familiar. From the comfortable. From her charming accent that granted her a specific kind of attractiveness, abandoning it for the sake of proving a point. 

What point exactly?

“Make a decision and stick with it, ya waffler.”  

Sooyoung lectured before she herself suddenly left, tossing aside Yoona’s legs and Woohyun’s eyes. 

Woohyun cast a both confused and inquiring glance Yoona’s way, to which she shrugged. 

Soon enough he, too, left. 

And Yoona, left without a place to rest her legs, unsatisfied with the empty fluff within the pillows at her side, called out to the first person she saw pass by, “Ding-dong, Jang Dongwoo!” 

No matter how attractive “familiar” was, Yoona understood the importance of making new friends in unfamiliar places.

For her legs’ sake, at the very least.

They had met by pure coincidence. All four of them, that is. New friends and old. Friends that weren’t really friends at all and others that wanted to be more than just friends. Just an entire, as Minah would say, “cluster,” right there in front of the stack of strawberries in the fruit section of the local supermarket. 

Firstly, there was the pair of Yura and Niel. 

Since school had ended, they had found themselves in each other’s company more often than not. It may have been due to the uncertainty of what they saw Graduation night that they sought certainty anywhere and everywhere they could — something they refused to talk about till this very day. 

It may have just all been coincidence that he arrived at the supermarket a handful of minutes after her. Either way, they greeted each other between rows of noodles and decided soon after to make their way through the establishment together. 

Secondly, there was Ricky. 

Ricky, who had received a text from Niel just as his best friend left for the market. Noticing the sparseness of the fridge and the cabinets in the kitchen, he himself decided he’d join up with Niel. He didn’t have a car, but he never had a problem with walking — despite how late it was. 

He regrettably ended up running as he locked eyes with a familiar face across the street. Because a voice, yelling from the recesses of his mind, told him to. He’d call it his own version of “Spidey Sense” later on. But then, at that very moment, he didn’t care what he called it. 

He was caught, even more regrettably, by the boy he wanted nothing to do with.

Who wanted everything to do with him.

And the boy was smiling, one arm draped across the captured Ricky’s shoulders, as he dragged him over to Yura and Niel in front of that foreboding stack of strawberries, cheerfully saying, “Yes, I’d love to join this both lovely and ridiculously ignorant crew you’ve got here! I’d say thank you but, let’s be honest, it’s more appropriate for me to say ‘You’re Welcome,’ don’t you think?”

His head of hot pink hair was gone, exchanged for a cropped brown.

On his temple there remained a bruise — faded with wasted time. 

But his cheeky attitude remained as Lee Byunghun, better known as L.Joe, forced himself onto the modest group of friends — intentions nothing but pure and unstained.

A/N:

Since the chapter was going to be super long (much longer than I thought. I still have another half to write and I thought I'd be able to fit it all into the word count this chapter makes up), I'm just giving this, part 1 of 2, to you guys ahead of time. (I also feel like the more stuff you guys have to take in, the harder it is to take in. I feel like that 100% of the time.) Whatever characters you didn't see here, you'll see in the next chapter!

Sidenote #1: I activated something called "Chat" for this story (located at the bottom of each chapter). Use it to your content, but beware of spoilers!

Sidenote #2: Springfield's 2nd anniversary is coming up! Click here if you have ideas on how to celebrate it!

Sidenote #3: Personally, my favorite scene here is probably the Minah/Sungjong/Kyung scene. Level up!

Celebrate good times, come on!
Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

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