They don’t actually meet up the next day, but the day after that- a weekend. It’s carefully arranged so that they convene at a place where Kyungsoo’s scent won’t be so obvious to her, and it sort of works despite Sehun’s confusion and general air of ‘what the hell?’

With permission from various family members, they decide on a children’s playground near the borderline, because of the amount of people likely to be there, and thus hopefully the quantity of conflicting smells might confuse her. Also it wouldn’t be too suspicious to find one of the neighbouring pack wolves nearby. They hope.

Kyungsoo informs him on the bus that it’s a good thing it’s windy too, the blustery weather might keep her from being able to smell them properly at first.

When they reach the playground, there are a lot more little children around than they expected, all bundled up in scarves and thick coats, red faced and screaming. It’s nice to be somewhere other than school, or one of their houses; he doesn’t think they’ve been anywhere like this before, especially lately as it’s dangerous to go out and Jongin is mostly swamped with work anyway.

There’s only one swing free, so they race to get to it first. Kyungsoo, being the enhanced supernatural creature he is, wins and seats himself on the black plastic seat and starts rocking back and forth before Jongin gets the chance to even breach the dirty blue tarmac boundaries.

“Push me,” Kyungsoo demands, looking up at him with what must surely be an attempt at puppy eyes,

“Push yourself,” he retorts, leaning gingerly against the swing frame next to him. The paint is peeling and he doesn’t want to get it all over his clothes. Kyungsoo glares blankly at him for a moment, before realising he’s not going to get much more of a reaction out of him than a shrug, and proceeds to start swinging.

While Kyungsoo goes higher and higher, more so than the little girl with earmuffs next to him, Jongin pulls out his phone to interrogate Sehun. He’s late, if only by a little, but knowing him he’s probably only just gotten out of bed. This is one reason he so rarely goes out with his friends, because he gets left behind all the time. Or ends up waiting ages for people to turn up.

Well, not always, but often enough for him to eventually decide that is wasn’t worth it. And he doesn’t enjoy half of the things they do for fun, like how is loitering in the street at night fun? It’s cold, and more often than not wet around here, so they all have to wear raincoats and ugh. Video games are so much more fun. And so much safer, too.

It turns out that Jongin is right; Sehun has only just woken up, and he’s only just getting dressed. Jongin sighs exasperatedly, but then rethinks the situation. Maybe that means Jadzia is still coming at the arranged time. Perhaps they can get a word with her without Sehun, before he turns up.

“Kyungsoo, look at this,” once he slows down enough for Jongin to lean over him without getting killed, he shows him the texts. Kyungsoo looks pensive for a moment but then beckons for him to come closer. He then pulls the completely unsuspecting Jongin onto his lap, braces him with his arms around the chains and hands clasped in front of his stomach and pushes off again.

Jongin has long since become used to how Kyungsoo pushes him around like this, and for the most part he doesn’t mind. Sometimes he even likes it, and being able to trust Kyungsoo not to hurt him when he does these kinds of things is… liberating.

With both of them sharing the playground equipment, they don’t get very high, their combined weight keeping them down. Kyungsoo’s face is pressed into his shoulder, and there’s the swoosh sound of his hair rubbing against the water resistant material of his coat. It’s going to go all static-y if he’s not careful, but he doesn’t say anything because he secretly wants to see him looking a bit silly.

Unpolished Kyungsoo is his favourite Kyungsoo, and he most often gets to see him when they wake up in the mornings, bed hair, drool and all.

He casts his eyes around again, searching vaguely for someone small, with short blonde hair that could be Sehun’s girlfriend/imprint. All he can see is small children and their parents. He notes that there aren’t many fathers here, and the few that are, are playing energetically with their kids while the mothers chat at a metal picnic table off to the right.

“Kyungsoo, what are we going to say to Jadzia?” her name still seems weird coming out of his mouth, and he hopes she doesn’t mind him calling her that, when she finally turns up. It seems like the kind of nickname you might use if you’re close to a person, and they’ve never actually met her.

“Um.” Kyungsoo hesitates, “I don’t know,” he admits, adjusting his arms before he loses all feeling in them.

“Make sure she doesn’t hurt Sehun,” Jongin mumbles, unsure why he’s feeling so protective over him. Maybe he’s just being selfish; Sehun is his friend, and even if they don’t hang out as much as they used to he doesn’t want to share,

“She can’t; if she imprinted. It’s hard to explain. But there’s no way I would willingly hurt you, you know that, right? I love you,” Jongin rolls his eyes but the corners of his mouth twitch up anyway, no matter how much he tries to keep it a straight line,

“Same,”

“What- you! I just did a beautiful romantic little speech and you reply same? What kind of boyfriend are you? You ing ,” Kyungsoo complains, slowing the swing to a stop,

“’Same’ as in I love you too, idiot,”

“Why not just ing say that then,” Jongin can feel him making faces at him, even though he can’t actually see it, before they start swaying together again. A few minutes later the girl beside them jumps of mid-swing and runs towards the monkey bars,

“Ok, that swing's free now. You can get off,” Kyungsoo says encouragingly, shifting his knees beneath him to get him to move. He doesn’t budge,

“No I like it here,” he insists, and instead of threatening to manhandle him, he just lets him be.

“Ok, but you’re still looking for Jadzia right?”

“Mhm,” Jongin coughs a little as his eyes sweep the area once again. He glances over the car park on the other side of the fence, and does a double take; there’s a girl standing on the corner of the pavement where the entrance is.

Is she blonde? He can’t tell, the only reason he knows it’s a ‘her’ is because she’s wearing a skirt which is fluttering in the wind; she has a hat and scarf on which is covering her hair. But she looks like she’s waiting for someone,

“Does that look like her?” he asks, pointing as discreetly as possible in this position.

“I don’t know Jongin I can’t see. You’re kinda sat on me, and your head is not see-through,” Jongin gets up with a disgusted sound, and points again,

“There,”

“…I can’t tell, do you want to go closer?”

“Not especially,” Jongin mutters under his breath as he begins to make his way over to see her better. Kyungsoo follows after quickly, and slips his fingers between the spaces in Jongin’s. He’s wearing those glove-mitten hybrid things, so his other hand is basically concealed from public view, even if it doesn’t quite fit properly in the woollen sheath.

He glances around to make check that nobody is giving them strange looks for holding hand, as not everyone is tolerant of their sort of relationship, but luckily no one cares, or seems to have noticed them.

As they draw nearer they can see short lengths of hair poking out from underneath her hat- a grey sparkly knitted thing-and they come closer to the conclusion that it is in fact who they were waiting for. One last test; while remaining a fair distance away, call out her name and see if she responds,

“Jadzia?” Jongin calls, after being probed by Kyungsoo, and a moment of ‘you do it,’ ‘no, you do it.’ Her head swivels, eyes almost comically wide, and quirks an eyebrow at them, and yet again Jongin is surprised of how normal she looks-almost all the people he knows that are wolves are the sort of people you would never suspect,

“Are you two Jongin and Kyungsoo?” she asks, her voice a pleasant mix of airy and forceful. They nod nervously, unsure of what reaction to anticipate. She would outright attack them, not here in the middle of a densely populated area.

She approaches them with a friendly smile and an outstretched arm mid-wave, but then the wind changes and she freezes. Her face drops like a frigid iron weight, and her hand drops to her side,

“Why are you here?” her tone drips icicles in the gusty wind, as she stares them down. , Jongin thinks, maybe she would attack us here.

“We’re Sehun’s friends,” Jongin tries to play dumb, “we arranged to meet up here,”

“I mean why is one of you here on our territory?” she snaps, jerking her head harshly at Kyungsoo,

“It’s not your territory, its borderline. No-man’s land. That’s why we chose this place,” Kyungsoo swoops in and takes charge, “have you told Sehun what you are yet? I can see just by your face that you haven’t,” she scowls at him thunderously, her thick lines of eyeliner make her look less like a celebrity and more like a villain from a film with this face.

“What’s it to you?” she sneers,

“We just don’t want him to get hurt, ok?” Kyungsoo continues in a softer tone, “He’s Jongin’s best friend,”

“You know as well as I do that I can’t hurt him,” she snarls,

“That doesn’t mean that he can’t be hurt,” Kyungsoo squeezes his hand as tightly as he can without breaking bones. It hurts, but Jongin knows that it’s because he still feels guilty for not protecting him in time. Jadzia’s face softens, just a smidgen, gaze flitting between the pair of them,

“You have been injured,” she deduces, inclining her head at Jongin, who nods and inspects the little bits of gravel scattered across the ground. She bites her lip, and looks around-perhaps searching for Sehun, who should be here any minute now- but her eyes keep darting back to Kyungsoo, who is tensed and ready too.

Just in case, though, Jongin knows he wouldn’t risk breaking his clothing unless absolutely necessary,

“I want to promise you he won’t be hurt-he’s important to me too-but I can’t. I can, however, promise that I will do my very best to keep him from harm,”

“Thank you,” Jongin sags into Kyungsoo’s side slightly. The whole atmosphere relaxes, and Jongin wants to try something; “I know it’s probably not common, but. Could we be friends?” he offers, hopeful.

Jadzia says nothing, but doesn’t make any indication against the suggestion. The few moments of silence until Sehun arrives pass by agonisingly slowly, and in the meantime Jongin notices his ears and nose beginning to burn from the cold. He uses his gloved hand to rub at them, using the friction to warm up his extremities, and Kyungsoo smiles indulgently at him.

Finally Sehun hops off his bus looking harried and unkempt and speed-walks to the entrance gate of the playground, obviously looking around for them. All three of them share a smile at his obliviousness-after all Kyungsoo’s hair isn’t easy to miss- and Jongin calls out to him,

“Sehun! Over here!” and waves at him. Sehun jumps, and heads over to them with his hand pressed over where his heart might be, and shaking his head,

“Oh my god guys, you scared me,” he mock-punches them, then engulfs Jadzia in a hug. Jongin never appreciated how short she was before, she’s a little bit shorter than Kyungsoo, but her head only barely reaches Sehun’s shoulder. Also, she seems to be glowing, radiating some kind of cheesy inner light and it makes such a difference. She’s gone from distant celebrity to evil villain to lovesick girl. Jongin smirks at Sehun, who has a similar sort of expression, and listens to their semi-private conversation,

“You could’ve given me a lift here you know,”

“You didn’t ask, and you weren’t awake anyway,”

“Well. You could’ve phoned me or something,” she laughs,

“Have you even checked your phone? You probably have like ten texts from me,” Jongin thinks it’s sweet somehow that they act differently together, as Sehun’s never this mushy, or pouty normally, but Kyungsoo thinks differently,

“Do we act like that? Ugh, no wonder people take the piss,” Jongin blinks him, not missing Jadzia’s amused smirk, until Kyungsoo, bewildered, says, “what?”

--

ok then well since i dont really have that much to say except frenchfrenchfrenchallthetimefrench but i actually like stromae so idm that much ^_^

anyway please comment and stuff; what do you guys think of jadzia?