Kyungsoo was waiting for her in the kitchen when she stepped downstairs, his eyes already on her the minute her footsteps echoed along the stairway. When she locked their eyes together, they flashed a soft shade of yellow, mixed with a deep, deep shade of golden, before fading into normal brown. She realized he had been waiting for her from the beginning, alongside Jongin and Joonmyeon, whom were drinking red wine while sitting on the chairs right across Kyungsoo’s, separated by the countertop.

Joonmyeon was also watching her, she realized when she glimpsed at him, his lips slightly red from the sip of wine he had taken. Jongin wasn’t looking at her, but he laid his glass of alcohol down on the counter and started clicking his fingers on the surface. She knew immediately he had known she there either.

She walked towards Kyungsoo casually, and presented her wrist to him. He took a look at it, raised his eyebrows, and looked back at her with a look of askance.

“Yixing told me to go to you,” She told him gently, looking backwards at the two boys watching them before deciding to drag one of the chairs closer to Kyungsoo so that she could sit down in front of him, and he’d be able to fix her wrist more easily. “He wants me to fix this, so, will you?”

“You’re an idiot.” Kyungsoo rolled his eyes, irritation radiating out of him in large waves, yet his cheeks were soft, fluffy, and extremely red. She found herself blinking her eyes, not understanding what that meant, but not asking anything about it.

She winced when Kyungsoo yanked her wrist closer to him, his fingers tightly wrapped around the area under her bruise. It shouldn’t zap her like how it did, since he wasn’t exactly touching the wound, but the roughness of his sudden yank was enough to create such reaction out of her. She pursed her lips, hoping he hadn’t caught on to that small twinge of weakness she allowed release. Fortunately, he didn’t catch anything; but, Joonmyeon surely did.

“Careful, Kyungsoo,” He murmured gently, dragging his chair closer to her until she could faintly feel the warmth radiating from him behind her back. “Be gentle with her. She’s not a werewolf like us, and she doesn’t tolerate as much as we do.”

Kyungsoo peeked at her, which she caught and gave him an awkward smile at, and he rolled his eyes harshly. Except, he was blushing again.

“Fine, whatever. Jongin,” The boy raised his head with a questioning look at the mention of his name, and Kyungsoo waved at him neutrally. “Go bring me a pouch of ice. She needs to cool the bruise off, it’s nothing serious.”

“I can bri—“ She was cut off by Kyungsoo, who gave her a look that dared her to say more, and Joonmyeon, who wrapped a warm hand around her left shoulder, pushed her back to her seat so she wouldn’t move away. Her heart pounced out of her chest, and it cooled down as soon as possible. Yet, there was still a soft throb that she could feel, because Joonmyeon was touching her.

“Don’t you dare move,” Kyungsoo murmured vigorously, half-harshly and half-awkwardly. He was never good with dealing with.. these.. sort of things. “Jongin have perfectly healthy legs and arms. Let him do it.”

She didn’t say anything, but she watched as Jongin raised from his place lazily, his eyes half-lidded and laced with sleep. His steps, as he walked through the large kitchen, were sluggish, casual, and a little drowsy. She concluded he was tired, extremely so. She wondered if he had dance practice today, and if he were exhausted. Shouldn’t he go sleep? Why was he awake when she was sure they had nothing to do the remaining hours of the day?

Her eyes – and thoughts – were interrupted by Chen bouncing down the stairs with a lively air around him that made her face him immediately. He was holding a giant smirk up in his gorgeous face, and his dark brown hair was styled to perfection. Her heart raced at the dark look flashing in his eyes, especially when they landed on her, and then those eyes of hers fell down on his clothing choice.

Her eyes snapped backwards on Kyungsoo almost right away once he pressed the ice pouch Jongin have presumably acquired for him harshly on her wrist, and she frowned at him – Joonmyun just told him to go gentle on her, and here he was pressing the ice roughly on her? He had looked like he had listened, but apparently, he didn’t. She kept giving him a look, totally forgetting about gorgeous Chen looking so ready to party all night with his semi-formal getup, until Kyungsoo finally realized she was staring at him. He snapped his head towards her with wider eyes than before, his lips twitching into a small scowl that took over his face automatically.

“What?”

“You’re kind of an , right?” She rebooted quickly.

Silence.

Everyone looked at her with a look at her words; and Kyungsoo looked a bit stupefied, before he was downright irritated, more than before (if that was even possible) while Chen all but snorted. She realized what she had said after Chen came into her personal space, placing an arm around her shoulder and pulling her upper body towards him, until he was squishing her in his embrace. His other arm wrapped around her stomach, going all the way to her side. At the sudden tightening embrace of his, she found herself unconsciously standing up on her toes, taking her hand from Kyungsoo so she could reach Chen – she was a tiny girl. They were all at least ten centimeters taller – and have him squish her cheek with his.

“I like you very much,” Chen told her playfully, although there was a spark of softness in his tone that made his words seem truthful to her ears, casually making her heart thud behind her ribs. He continued to rub their cheeks together, as if feeling her marshmallow skin on his rougher one, and her cheeks darkened, darkened, and darkened; until she could feel them heating up. “You’re so spicy.” He continued, humming deeply from within his throat, his arm around her shoulder unconsciously squeezing her gently, bringing her more into his embrace. Honestly, he was naturally a skinship monster, so she was used to him spontaneously hugging her, touching her, and rubbing himself on her. Werewolves in general were skinship lovers, but in the house, everyone restrained themselves, especially when it was about her. But, Jongdae never bothered.

Which should irritate her, since she was the opposite. She never liked to be touched.

However, she found herself wanting to be touched, and it made her squirm. In a good way, not in a bad way where she’d want to run away.

The sound of multiple footsteps from the front door, coming closer to them, made every werewolf around turn to catch the newcomers, which made Jongdae release her from his extremely warm embrace. Despite the pinch of disappointment at her release, she found herself copying their moves, blinking at the werewolves who entered.

Minseok’s blank eyes greeted her, along with Baekhyun’s extremely dark eyes and Sehun’s troubled ones. When she glanced at him, Sehun meeting her eyes. He immediately looked worse than one second ago, and she realized that he was feeling bad about what he did to her.

Unconsciously, she started rubbing her bruised wrist, as if his presence reminded her of his actions. Seeing this, Sehun was quick to follow the line of her vision, and he caught a small smudge of purple and red, mixed with delicate yellow. As soon as he took a glimpse of it, his eyes immediately flashed a deep shade of golden that made her insides twinge, twinge and twinge, to the point she felt squeeze, her windpipe getting sliced by a sharp knife. Just a small glitch of color in his eyes, and she’s already reacting like this? Would she have combusted if he showed something more?

She looked away from Sehun with raging heartbeats, and her eyes fell on Minseok’s face, whom was flicking an envelope in his hands that was as white as his hair—

Wait,

What?

“Hyung, what did you do to your hair? You look like a male version of Elsa, or oh! Jack Frost!” Chen snorted; sounding so highly amused that it literally appeared on his curled lips. She didn’t bother roll her eyes at him, nobody did; actually, busy staring at Minseok and waiting for him to spit it out.

“We have a party to attend,” Minseok all but ignored Chen’s mischievous attempt to evoke a reaction out of him, and handing the envelope he had in his hands to Joonmyeon, whom already stood up to meet the Alpha in the middle of the living room. “It’s a semi-formal. Everyone are going to be there, even our parents. We are all invited.”

“You’re going too.” Baekhyun murmured softly to her, standing beside Minseok and dipping his hands inside the pockets of his dark black suit pants. She was too busy gazing at Minseok’s fluffy, icy, and beautifully-crafted hair to notice Baekhyun’s warm eyes staring at her, waiting for a reaction.

Everyone looked at her at Baekhyun’s words, and she still gaped at Minseok as if she was seeing him for the first time, heart accelerating so loudly in her heart she was terrified a highly developed creatures like her mates would be able to hear. It was impossible, fortunately, to hear the internal organs of the body by normal ears, even by werewolves, and she was grateful, because these boys were going to be the cause of her heart diseases in the future.

Minseok looked gorgeous. He had already been gorgeous, but the white mob of hair on his head, softly falling down on his dark eyes, made her stomach churn with hundreds of butterflies, and her slightly parted jaws were loose, hanging down as if a weight was forcing them apart. She couldn’t close !

“Baby,” Chen sounded so amused, but the way he said baby was so utterly gentle she could combust in her spot. He didn’t hesitate to come closer to gently knock his knuckles on her chin, closing her parted mouth. “I know he’s a smaller version of Elsa, but it’s not that much of an eye-sore.”

“I.. I know that,” She stuttered, her cheeks reddening slightly and her eyes half-wide. She locked her eyes with Minseok, and he simply just raised his eyebrows, wondering what the hell was wrong with her. She was amazed. “I just..