Chapter 3
To Belong“Jongdae? Jongdae, son, wake up.”
“Mmm, what…? Who...?”
“It’s me.”
“Daddy? Why are you up? What’s wrong?”
“Listen, Jongdae, you need to listen to me.”
“Yeah?”
“No matter what happens, always remember what I’m about to tell you.”
“Dad, you’re scaring me…”
“Even if I don’t come back, you need to keep these words close to your heart.”
“What...? Wh-where are you going?”
“Promise me! Promise you’ll remember!”
“Okay, okay, I promise! But w-what’s wrong? Where are you going? Why do you look so… scared?”
“Jongdae, just remember; this world will be cruel to you, hate you, hurt you, try to kill you, but always just keep moving. Eventually, you’ll find a place you’ll call home, forever. A place to belong.”
“Dad? Dad! No, don’t go! Dad!”
----
Jongdae awoke in a start, his eyes shooting open and his breath leaving him in hefty pants. For him to have any dreams was quite rare on its own, but for him to remember it, and have that one in particular? He figured his psyche must completely messed up now for that to happen.
Sighing, he sat up slowly, trying to figure out where he was, as he noticed that he was in a bed, in a room, in a house entirely different from Baekhyun’s cabin. Unlike the small wooden establishment off to the side, this place was a fully furnished house, from the looks of it. Gone were the chipping-away hardwood walls, and in their stead, stood cleanly painted, eggshell walls, lightly illuminated yellow by the dull lamp kept on in the corner. The entire room, and probably the whole house, screamed modern, and rich, at that. Yet, despite all that, Jongdae still felt a surprising about of… homeliness from this place. There was a certain comfort that he felt just from being here, a feeling so strong it struck worry in him at the same time.
He jumped slightly in his bed from surprise when he heard the soft opening of the bedroom door, and from it, stepped out a man, just around Jongdae’s height, if not a little taller, with a pretty relaxed countenance and some pretty deep dimples. There was a certain familiarity to his face that brought memories of the full moon incident rushing back into Jongdae’s brain, and the very thought of it made him cringe a bit.
“So you are awake,” the man said, smiling as he quietly shut the door behind him and walked to besides Jongdae’s bed. “How are you feeling?” Jongdae thought about it for a minute, before replying.
“Somehow… not like ,” he said, in slight awe. It was true; all of his injuries from before felt like distant memories at this point, the only signs of any injury ever being there were the superficial bruisings he received and some slight discomfort in certain parts of his body.
“That’s good to know.” The dimpled man took a seat on the edge, scanning the half-breed with his eyes quickly before placing a hand on his hand quickly as he nodded to himself. “Your fever seems to have gone down significantly as well, which is good.”
“I had a fever?”
“A pretty intense one, back when they first brought you in a couple days ago.” The man paused, before a smile pulled its way up on his lips once more. “I’m Yixing, by the way, or Lay, if you’d prefer. I’m the healer of the pack.” Pack? He couldn’t mean… the EXO pack, could he?
“Jongdae,” the half-breed replied absently, more focused on the first part of Yixing’s statement. “I’ve been out for a couple days?”
“Yup, though really, your body needed it; there were so many random internal bruises and scratches that you seemed to have had for a while, but never got fully healed. You needed all those to heal, in addition to whatever extra injury you got that night. It’s probably the reason why your friend woke up before you did, even though he got more injured—”
“Wait,” Jongdae interrupted as he remembered. “Where’s Baekhyun? How is he? Is he okay? Is he—”
“Call down,” Yixing stopped him. “Your friend, Baekhyun, is perfectly alright. His body will need a little bit more time to fully recuperate, but other than that, he’s healthy as ever. Bouncing all around and chatting it up like he was never injured in the first place. No need to worry about him.” Unable to stop himself, Jongdae let out a shaky sigh of relief, before looking up at Yixing in suspicion.
“So… where am I?” he questioned, not sure what to expect in the answer.
“Our ‘hide-out,’ I guess, if you wanna call it that.” Yixing said with a scowl. “I personally don’t like calling it that, but Sehun—our youngest— insists on it, saying it sounds super cool and low-key, like we’re some sort of spies or something, and since Tao— or I guess, you know him as Zitao— is his best friend, he managed to convince him to call it that, and it’s been on a downfall since then…”
Jongdae stopped listened as he heard the name ‘Zitao.’ Where had he heard that name before…? It look him a minute before he realized who that person was, and the realization made him gulp slightly.
“Zitao…” he said, effectively cutting off Yixing from his little rant. The man looked at him in surprise, and Jongdae continued hesitantly, “So then… are you guys really the EXO pack?” At his question, the healer let out a shaky laugh, and nodded.
“The one and only, at your service,” he said teasingly, but Jongdae really wasn’t in the mood for jokes and games (odd, considering his personality and who he was and all, but still).
“Why… why did you guys help us?” he asked, his voice soft and low, as though he didn’t even really want to ask the question at all. But he had to; this was something he wanted to know since he awoke to found himself alive and well. Yixing raised an eyebrow at the question, and he continued. “You could’ve easily just killed us, or better yet, just left us for dead. If another pack didn’t come around to do it, our wounds most certainly done us in anyway. So why would you not only help, but save us? We’re nothing special to you— we’ve never even seen you— and we’re most certainly nothing special to society. I mean, c’mon, a rogue and a half-breed? Who gives a about—”
“Stop,” Yixing interrupted, but he didn’t sound angry or frustrated. He just sounded… upset? “Look. I know you probably won’t buy a single word I’m about to say because of all the you’ve likely faced in your life, but let me tell you: not everyone entirely degrades the worth of non-full-bred, non-purebred wolves outside of a pack. I mean, most of them do, not gonna lie, but there are still those who don’t. We’re part of that portion that doesn’t. Our policies are simple: we take in whoever needs to be taken in, and we help as best as we can, If they join us afterwards, that’s great! If not, then that’s fine. There’s no ulterior motives, none of that. We just don’t want people dying at our doorsteps.”
Jongdae desperately wanted to doubt him. To not believe in him, to say he’s lying, to call him out on some sort of falsehood. Distrust was the half-breed boy’s security blanket, and it had never let him down emotionally growing up in the hell surrounding him. Yet, here he was, sat on the bed and staring into Yixing’s eyes, unable to spot even a fleck of insincerity in his eyes. Jongdae liked to think that he was good at reading people, but god damn— if this healer boy was lying, then he was more emotionally deceiving than nature should even allow.
“...Okay?” Yixing pressed softly, and before he could even try to stop, Jongdae found himself nodding.
“Okay,” he confirmed, unsure and uncaring of whether he’d just made a huge mistake. Yixing smiled at his response though, so he figured that it may not be all that bad.
“C’mon,” the healer said, standing up and holding out an arm to the half-breed boy. “Time for you to meet the pack.
----
Jongdae didn’t care who was here. He didn’t care who was listening, who was watching, who was thinking— whatever. As soon as he laid eyes on him, rage filled his body, and he knew that this was something he needed to do, and for ’s sake, he was going to do it without restraint.
“You ing moron!” he practically screamed. As soon as he and Yixing had went downstairs, the half-breed boy had narrowed in his focus on a certain rogue boy, who just sat on a couch and seemed to be happily chatting and messing about with some others. And not just random ‘others,’ for that matter; members of the pack that ing saved their necks.
Everyone in the room turned to gawk at Jongdae, but the boy couldn’t care less. He marched up to Baekhyun, who wasn’t put off at all by his scream, without even a glimmer of hesitation as he stared down at his dumb-as- best friend and started his scolding.
“You could’ve gotten us killed!” he continued, and the other man seemed significantly less intimidated by his irritation than Jongdae hoped he would. “We agreed never to leave the riverbank, but you did, and for what? A ing deer? Seriously? Were you even thinking?!” Baekhyun just scoffed at the words, staring back indignantly at the other.
“No, Jongdae, I wasn’t,” he snapped back, but there was no malice in his words really, “because, unlike you, most wolves don’t think during a damn full moon.”
“...Oh,” Jongdae replied back dumbly, and Baekhyun rolled his eyes. The half-breed huffed, unwilling to admit his irrationality. “Well, that was still pretty stupid, even for that. Like, did your instincts not tell you when you were about to get maimed?”
“Oh, they told me; they just didn’t care when they were struck with the thought of having food that wasn’t pizza for the first time in months,” Baekhyun replied back snarkily, and Jongdae practically pouted.
“ you, pizza is awesome,” Jongdae muttered, before plopping down in the spot next to Baekhyun (when had everyone moved away from them?). He stayed quiet for a moment, looking down at his hands, before finally, he slowly raised his eyes to meet his best friend’s questioning ones. Realizing the other wasn’t going to let him go without saying what was on his mind, Jongdae sighed and said softly, “So… are you alright?” Immediately, the look in Baekhyun’s eyes softened, something caring and warm flashing in them, though he didn’t let that show in his body language or voice.
“Ahhh, I guess,” he drawled as he clasped his arms above his head in a mock-stretching position. “Mostly healed, thanks to Lay, but I still can’t walk for too far of distances at one time, and I definitely won’t be running for a little while.” Jongdae scoffed at the words.
“Well hurry up and heal; there’s no way in hell I’m carrying you back home all the way,” he replied, but it was then that he immediately realized he said something wrong.
Everyone else in the room, including Baekhyun, seemed to tense up at once, time practically freezing in place. Feeling like he was missing something, Jongdae turned to his best friend in hopes of an explanation, which the other seemed reluctant to give.
“Jongdae…” Baekhyun finally started, hesitance lacing his voice. “...we’re not going back to the cabin,”
The tension in the air subsided slightly, but not nearly enough.
“...What do you mean?” he asked eventually. Baekhyun heaved a sigh as he ruffled his hair in frustration.
“I— just— I mean we’ll go back to get our things but—” he forced out, before slowing himself down. “Let’s just say that soon enough, I won’t be a rogue anymore and you’ll have someone besides me to beg to buy you food.” He explained, but when he noticed Jongdae was no less confused than before, he sighed once more and spelled it out for him. “The cabin’s not our ‘home’ anymore… this place is.”
Jongdae stared at his best friend blankly.
So, if they’re not staying at the cabin…
…and this place is supposed to be their home…
...and Baekhyun’s not gonna be a rogue anymore…
...then…
“...WHAT?!”
“God dammit, do you have to yell?” Baekhyun griped, and Jongdae very much thought he was a bit off the mark right now as for what was important. “Like, I know I scold ya sometimes, but you don’t have to scream your head off—”
“That is not the point right now!” Jongdae exclaimed, albeit a bit flustered. But before he could continue with his questioning/telling-off, someone else came forward, interrupting the conversation.
“I think now would be the time for me to step in,” the man spoke with a deep voice, and Jongdae turned to face him, immediately recognizing the man to be the EXO pack leader, Kris Wu. . “Now, Jongdae, was it?” The half-breed nodded his head slowly, not so sure what to do in the situation.
“Don’t seemed so scared!” another voice chirped up from behind Kris, and Jongdae looked over to see Zitao peering out from over Kris’s shoulder. “He seems really cold and mean, but he’s actually a softie.”
“Tao!” Kris reprimanded (though Jongdae swore he saw a little flush on the pack leader’s cheek), and the mentioned boy pouted but stayed quiet.
“I’m not scared,” Jongdae added, and really he wasn’t— at least, not because of Kris. The Alpha, though definitely tall and intimidating-looking, was far from frightening for Jongdae. The thought of what he could do to them, however: now that was a bit frightening.
Still, he was ignored, and Kris continued with his talk.
“Jongdae, I understand you’re probably confused,” the pack leader started, and the mentioned boy crossed his arms indignantly as he awaited the explanation. “We’ve talked to Baekhyun about this too, and he agrees with our terms. You’ll be safe under our pack, and you won’t have to constantly run just to avoid getting killed, as long as you stay along pack lines. It’s a win-win, really.”
...What the was this guy talking about? He was really expecting them to just up and join his pack because, supposedly, it would be ‘good’ for them. Okay, sure, they seemed like pretty decent people, considering how they not only didn’t try to kill them for existing, they also drove away people that tried to do said thing, and healed the injuries they had gotten from those people trying to do said thing, but still. And Baekhyun supposedly agreed to this? Really? The Byun Baekhyun? The man who was too stubborn to move the flower pots from his garden five centimeters so Jongdae wouldn’t accidentally hit them every time he opened the cabin’s front door? That Baekhyun? Furrowing his eyebrows, Jongdae looked over at his best friend, but the man just avoided eye contact.
“...You’re saying that this is a ‘win-win’ situation,” he started once he realized he wouldn’t be getting any answers from Baekhyun any time soon. “But I seem to be missing something here. How exactly, pray tell, does our existence here help you in any way whatsoever?” As soon as he finished his question, he saw, out of his peripheral vision, Baekhyun tense up, and he swore he saw Kris’s jaw clench slightly too (though to be honest, that man already had a pretty tense expression to begin with).
“That,” Kris said, and Jongdae attention focused on him, “has specifically to do with your presence.” The half-breed raised an eyebrow, silently urging the Alpha man to continue, which he did. “We have reason to believe that you, Kim Jongdae, are the soul mate to one of our pack members.”
Silence.
No one moved, no one talked, no one breathed— or at least, that’s what it felt like. Jongdae could barely keep himself from letting his jaw hang slack in shock, though his eyes did widen and bulge out slightly. Everyone was staring at him, expectantly… they weren’t… serious… were they?
“You…” he said finally, not even sure where to begin. “You don’t actually believe in that right? That soul mate ?”
Passed down in legends from generation to generation, the werewolf kind often told stories of soul mates— of two wolves being destined to be together eternally, from the moment they were born. Mating was extremely important in their culture as it was, so the idea of having a soul mate was precious in the storytelling world. Yet, not everyone would be born with a soul mate. There would be only one way to tell if one had a soulmate, and that would be the formation of a singular tattoo-like mark on the arm during early childhood. The problem was, only one of the soul mates would gain the mark then; the other would only gain their mark after meeting their partner for the first time. Parents often prayed to whatever deities the wolves may have had, just hoping their pups would have soul mates, as such a strong mating bond was seen as a sign of great power.
To Jongdae, however, it was just a big pile of made-up horse crap.
“...Right?” he asked again when no one answered, and Kris sighed.
“As far-fetched as it may seem at times, soul mates aren’t simply fictional,” the Alpha explained, but Jongdae wasn’t buying it.
“C’mon, it’s just a bunch of hocus pocus that old people tell their grandchildren to entertain them; it’s nothing more than that,” Jongdae persisted, but he sighed no one seemed to be on the same thought process as him. He raised his hands up in mock surrender. “Fine, prove it to me; show me this supposed soul mate of mine. I should be able to feel it if they’re my soul mate, right? So show ‘em to me.” Kris sighed at the attitude, and Baekhyun hit his arm as a warning to tone it down a bit, but Jongdae didn’t want to at all. Who the did they think they were, trying to pull someone like this on him? What had he done to them, huh? To pull such a dumb joke on him like this and—
“It’s me.”
----
“It’s me.”
Was it possible for words to run chills down someone’s spine? Because that’s exactly what Jongdae felt the moment he heard that quiet, off-to-the-side voice.
“Who the ing AC?” he asked in a mutter, more to himself than anyone else, as he turned to see who spoke.
He may have been chilly before, but now, he was downright shivering, his body uncontrollably trembling as his eyes met with another’s. Whose, he couldn’t tell. He couldn’t look around, couldn’t even look at the person’s face. All he could do was focus on was their eyes, those round, seemingly endless pits of darkness, and whimper when he felt something akin to the feeling of all his blood freezing up at once.
Yet, barely seconds later, it was all changed, those orbs of blackness becoming something much softer, more accepting, as suddenly the cold was subsiding. No, that sounded too calm; the cold didn’t subside so much as it was ripped out him, as an electrifying heat filled his body. He cried out, clutching at his forearm, where he felt the most warmth, finally breaking eye contact with the other person to curl into himself from all the pain. It felt as though little bursts of shocking electricity were pricking individual points on his skin, and the pain was immense for each.
But then, suddenly, something was grabbing him, and that cold from before was back, shooting through his body, but this time, it wasn’t icy, horrifyingly frozen and suffocatingly dense. Instead, a relieving cool washed over him, and as he looked up to see who was grabbing him, he felt the pain in his arm halt all together.
He raised his head, only to feel the same eyes from before staring down at him in concern. With dazed eyes, he finally observed the rest of the person’s face. A man, with a rounder face, single eyelids, and a sweet, calming smile gracing his lips, stared down at him, taking both his hands in his own and intertwining their fingers relaxingly.
“The worst is over,” he said, and his voice was just as soft as his disposition. He lifted Jongdae’s right arm to show to boy. “Look.”
The half-breed complied, looking down at his wrist, only to see something that wasn’t there before, something that had never been there before. A small, black mark, cleanly and crisply formed, but at the same time, so thick, as though it had merely been drawn in by some sort of professional calligrapher. After a minute, Jongdae realized that the mark was in the shape of a snowflake, and, from an accidental glance, he realized that the man in front of him had a similar mark, his in the form of a small lightning bolt.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Jongdae said, his voice airy and shaky as he still tried to catch his breath. The other man, still holding his left hand and his right arm, chuckled at his words, and Jongdae looked up—he noted that the eye contact felt calming, somehow.
“I’m Minseok,” he said, and Jongdae found himself repeating the name in head over and over again. Minseok, Minseok. Miiiinnnseokkkkk. Beautiful. “Nice to meet you, soul mate.”
“L-likewise,” Jongdae stuttered out, suddenly extremely exhausted. Minseok seemed to notice this immediately.
“From what I heard, the bond can quite a bit of energy out of you, so maybe you should go back to bed,” he said frantically, and Jongdae couldn’t help but find his worry a bit endearing.
“I-I’m fine,” he said with a bit of a huff. “I just need to… get used to this.”Minseok smiled.
“Well, Kyungsoo’s made a wonderful breakfast, so how about you come join us?”
Jongdae found himself nodding before he could even process the question.
Look who's backkkkkkkkkk
And we finally have some xiuchen action yeeee B)
hopefully how long this chapter is makes up for how short the last one was lol
also just as a side note it may seem weird that jongdae is so wrapped up in this mindset of 'they're gonna kill me why wouldn't they kill me of course they're gonna kill me' and all, but you have to remember that he's basically been conditioned to feel that way after being chased and nearly killed so many times in his life
so yeah
just wanted to mention that
anywayyyyy i hope you enjoyed this chapter! there's only gonna be more drama and fun from here, so make sure to stick around for it, and if you have any questions, concerns, or just anything to say, make sure to let me know in the comments below! As always, happy reading <3
And we finally have some xiuchen action yeeee B)
hopefully how long this chapter is makes up for how short the last one was lol
also just as a side note it may seem weird that jongdae is so wrapped up in this mindset of 'they're gonna kill me why wouldn't they kill me of course they're gonna kill me' and all, but you have to remember that he's basically been conditioned to feel that way after being chased and nearly killed so many times in his life
so yeah
just wanted to mention that
anywayyyyy i hope you enjoyed this chapter! there's only gonna be more drama and fun from here, so make sure to stick around for it, and if you have any questions, concerns, or just anything to say, make sure to let me know in the comments below! As always, happy reading <3
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