Can't Live Like A Dog (When Born To Be A Tiger) Pt 3.

Prompt: Nature's Fury

Jaebum woke up to screaming.

Loud screaming, intense, very high pitched and a tinge of annoyance in it.

He jerked awake immediately, looking around in alarm. It wasn’t everyday that he woke up to screaming.

Scratch that. He had never once woke up to screaming before. Not even before the apocalypse.

The bed was empty, but the rumpled sheets on it informed him that he hadn’t been alone at night. He scrambled to sit up, and looked around the room, trying to find anything that would clue him in on why there were screaming. This early in the morning. His heart was still racing when Youngjae strolled in.

“Hyung! You’re finally awake!” The younger shouted, grinning at him before poking his head out of the door to yell, “Jaebum hyung’s awake!”

“How could I not be? With all that screaming going around. What’s going on?” Jaebum grumbled half-heartedly as he got out of bed.

“Oh that. That was just Jackson scaring Bambam by jumping out from behind the couch.” Youngjae informed him, pulling his hyung by his hand into the living room, going slowly to give Jaebum time to regain his bearings.

Jackson?

Bambam?

Jaebum was left in momentary confusion at the unfamiliar names before the memories from last night flooded in.

Oh.

Them.

The moment he entered the living room, he found himself immediately accosted by a warm body.

“Jaebum! Im Jaebum! I have been hearing so much about you! Since like ever coz Mark and Jinyoung could never shut up about you, you know. They kept talking about how good looking you are, and I gotta say, you certainly do live up to their standards! It’s not everyday when you have those two dishing out compliments like that. They don’t even think that Song Joong Ki is good looking! Can you imagine that? The blasphemy! Youngjae mentioned you in the passing too! Quite a few times, actually. You’re really good at music and film, right? Also, B-boy King! Shame that we’ve never got a chance to actually meet each in the dance studio before. I’m Jackson, by the way, but you should already know that since I’ve introduced myself yesterday, but you seemed a bit out of it then. You feeling better now? We should choreograph a dance routine someday, consisting of B-boy and martial arts tricking. Can you imagine how lit that would be? Mark too. He’s really good at tricking. You should ask him to show it to you someday. Also, Yugyeom and Bambam are both amazing dancers. They were in their school street dance school team. We should have a dance off someday. Jaebum - can I call you Jaebum instead of Jaebum hyung? I mean it’s just a technicality since we’re just like only two months apart - man, it’s finally good to actually meet you.”

Jaebum could only blink in surprise at the boy blabbering on and on in front of him before pushing him away slightly, still holding onto him though. Not too much that Jackson would get offended or hurt, but just enough so that he could have space to breath. And think.

There was a whole lot of information and questions in that speech to process. Jaebum decided to go for the one that was the easiest to answer.

“What? Slow down. Wait. I’m good, thank you. No, you still have to call me Jaebum hyung. What’s going on?” He ignored the younger’s pout as he made his way to the sofa and plopped down on it heavily, looking around. “What’s happening?”

Youngjae joined him on the sofa gleefully, stretching himself over Jaebum’s lap like a cat while Jinyoung answered the question for him.

“Well that’s Jackson, and that’s -“

“Yeah, yeah. I know. Yugyeom and Bambam right? Huh. The clothes fit better than I thought they would but we still need to go out and find clothes that are your proper size.” Jaebum interrupted with an impatient wave of his hands and a once over of the two youngest, much to Jinyoung’s amusement. “I meant, what’s going on exactly? Like what’s your next plan now?”

The noisy group immediately fell silent in front of them.

“Huh. We… haven’t thought that far yet.” Mark answered sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment. “Well, I guess we could just hang around here and see what happens next?”

“Seriously?” Jaebum wasn’t all that surprised though. They had been rather hyped up about finding Jackson. He would have surprised if they did come up with a plan. He himself hadn’t even thought that far either until a few minutes ago.

“Well, I guess first breakfast. Then clothes for the maknaes. And more food.” He said, eyes sweeping over the group of boys standing and sitting in front of him, mentally calculating the amount of food they would have to plunder off from the supermarket.

6 other hungry mouths to feed, 7 including himself but probably more since Jinyoung and Mark ate surpassingly a lot, and he suspected that Jackson might follow that trend too. And Youngjae, Yugyeom and Bambam were still growing boys. It might be the apocalypse but for all Jaebum cared, he had a group of boys to feed. Properly.

“Right then, should we go?” He asked, gently rolling Youngjae off his lap, and onto the floor. And onto Bambam. He stood up, stretching his sore muscles.

“You? Going out?” Jinyoung asked in surprise.

“Why not?” Jaebum shrugged, feigning hurt at the underlying disbelief. “We can leave the maknaes at home for a change.”

He was getting rather sick of being cooped up within concrete walls. No matter how beautiful the apartment had been when they first arrived.

“But we need to get clothes for them.” Youngjae argued, ignoring the fact that he was now counted as one of the maknaes too.

“It’s fine. We can bring the entire shop back for them. No one else needs those clothes after all, and it would be a waste to just leave nice clothes lying there with no one to try them on.”

“Why don’t Jackson, Bambam and Yugyeom stay behind for today? You guys must be exhausted after all that running around for the past few days.” Mark reasoned, looking at Jaebum for approval for the idea.

He startled slightly when he realised he had all six heads turned in his direction, as if waiting for his decision. His decision was the final word.

Huh. He didn’t know when he became the leader of their small group, but sure. If that was what they wanted.

He couldn’t deny that he felt honoured that they trusted him that much.

“Yeah. That sounds good.” He said, looking at Jackson. To his surprise, the usually energetic younger simply nodded and dropped onto the sofa like a stone without any protests. They must be really tired.

“After breakfast though.” Youngjae piped up with a grin, when Jaebum’s stomach alerted them of its presence with a growl.

After pancakes and maple syrup, they could afford to spoil themselves every once in a while, they began to get ready for their journey out. The other three were rather used to it, since they had been through the process every single day, but for Jaebum it was rather nerve-wrecking. Since it was his first trip out. In a really long while. His last outing out probably was a week after they moved in.

It didn’t take that long to get ready. Everything was proceeding normally, just that this time, they had to split into two teams - the food teams and the clothes teams. Somehow, there ended up being a small quarrel between who was to go with Jaebum before Jinyoung ended the argument by dragging the targeted male out of the door, ignoring the protests behind them.

Mark and Youngjae set off to get the clothes since they knew Jackson’s size better than he did. And probably the other two as well since Jaebum fell asleep during their fitting of attire the day before. And well, he wasn’t really worried about them getting out of hand. Like he had said before, they could just bring the entire store back and no one would mind.

Jinyoung was placed in charge of the food, since he was usually the one who cooked and knew the ingredients well. Jaebum didn’t really have a preference on who he ended up being paired up with or what he wanted to do, though it did slightly surprise him that it was a matter to be fought over with.

He just wanted to get out of the house.

“You need to take a stand more often, hyung.” Jinyoung chided gently, happily shining their linked hands together as they walked down the empty street.

“I do.” He protested. “I just don’t really mind. For this, I mean.”

Jinyoung simply smiled at him, and pressed a kiss against his cheek. His walk not once faltered as he continued to drag Jaebum down the road, ignoring his hyung’s bewildered gaze. “You indulge us way too much, hyung. One day, we won’t know when to stop.”

Well, if that didn’t sound foreboding, Jaebum didn’t know what else it sounded like.

He couldn’t deny this tingle that went up his back at Jinyoung’s slightly possessive and dark voice at that sentence.

The days soon faded into one another once again, and it felt like normalcy had finally found its home in their lives. The trips were no longer daily, since all the pieces of the puzzle had been found and there was no need to leave each other for long periods of time. On the rare occasion that they did head out for food or anything else that they needed, they always made sure to leave at least two people at home.

One, to look after the house, and two, to have someone to come home to.

Of course, nature outside dictated otherwise, but at this point in time, even the changing and dramatic weather had become the norm. It was a miracle that South Korea was left standing for so long, when even Malaysia, the Philippines and parts of China had been wiped out.

Jaebum knew that it wouldn’t stay that way for long though. But he couldn’t bring himself to carry about it right now.

Each of them somehow found their own space in the group and with each other. For a group of boys, they were really physical when it came to showing their affections. Not that Jaebum minded though. He had enough time to get used to it when living with just Jinyoung, Mark and Youngjae back in his university dorm.

That felt like years ago.

It still did take him by surprise every now and then to be woken up in between warm bodies, having a kiss pressed to his lips (something that seemed to be increasing in frequency and done by everyone,) and hands roaming everywhere.

But it felt like home, so you wouldn’t hear any complaints coming from him.

They were like a family. Jaebum was the appa, or the grandfather of the group, depending on what type of teasing mood the maknae line were in on that day. Jinyoung was the self-proclaimed umma, not that anyone disagreed with that sentiment. Mark was like the cousin and Jackson somehow ended up becoming the u