---

The light seeping through the window illuminates a small portion of the wooden floor, before it travels up and lights up the wall. The fruit bowl containing semi peeled oranges and apples rests in the middle of the small glass table next to the couch. As the wind howls outside and threatens to slam the window shut, the sound of fingers scurrying across a keyboard occasionally fills the air as a chair creaks. The small cluster of lint that usually rests on the floor dances in the air as Sehun rolls his chair back before stretching his entire body. He checks his watch and sees that it's nearly time for his break. With a low sigh, he looks around the empty room. In the short amount of time he's been at work, which is nearing three hours, Sehun has managed to finish Jongdae's entire report from start to finish. Despite this, Sehun found himself typing one letter a minute during the first hour.

Sehun ended up letting Jongin go this morning. As Sehun cracks his knuckles, he spins around in his chair and slumps slightly as he eyes the window, which is casting a light so bright it threatens to blind him. He's still got the knot in his stomach that showed up seconds after sitting Jongin down in the early hours of the morning, mere minutes after his alarm went off, before he proceeded to break the news to the younger. Throughout the two minute discussion, Sehun recalls his mind occasionally blanking out and his heart threatening to burst out of his throat; a sensation he's still riding the coattails of as he leans back in his chair and eyes the vacant room.

It all started with Sehun waking up at seven as usual, nearly knocking the alarm clock to the floor as he attempted to switch it off in his dazed state. Despite not feeling entirely rested, he remembers feeling more refreshed than he had in what seemed like months, courtesy of arriving home and getting straight to work the second he walked in the door. With the fall rendering his desk entirely useless, Sehun found no other option than to sit on the downstairs couch. As he worked, Sehun constantly tried shoving the thought of Jongin alone in Jongdae's room out of his mind, and all of a sudden, he found himself playing Jongin's voice on repeat in his head from their minor altercation. It got to the point that Sehun sat from five to seven not getting anything done, and he eventually had to get up a fetch a glass of water to bring him back on track.

'What's the point of me even being here if you're not going to pay attention to me?'

The words echoed in Sehun's head for a good half hour, playing like a mantra, and even though Sehun might have felt like throwing himself out the window at the time, he recalled a heavy feeling settling in his chest as he buried his head in his hands. Despite one of his colleagues offering to let him borrow his laptop, Sehun found himself ploughing through Jongdae's report at snail's speed, especially when he caught a whiff of Jongin's scent whilst adjusting his position on the couch. One thought quickly lead to another, and before Sehun knew it, he lay awake imagining how scared and lonely Jongin must have felt as he slept on this very spot, probably feeling trapped with the storm practically threatening to rip the house off the ground. For a minute, all Sehun could hear was Jongin's voice as the latter spoke to him from the other side of the door, begging to be let in, and honestly, as much as Sehun hates himself for ignoring Jongin, he still doesn't regret his decision. 

Sehun tried to force himself to focus on Jongdae's report, only to give up less than five minutes later before placing the laptop on the table. A certain numbness filled his body as the words continued to make his head spin. Sehun knew for a fact that leaving his job was out the window (he'd always cursed himself for choosing to be good at a job that came with heaps of work on the daily), as well as leaving Jongin alone at home even for a few hours, and no matter how hard he tried finding a decent balance between the usual heaps of work and spending time with Jongin, he just couldn't make it work. Over the course of two weeks, he'd managed to miss four deadlines, some of which were partially due to sleep deprivation. Sehun's brain seemingly had some sort of vendetta against him, given the fact that it chose to flood his mind with images from the day he and Jongin visited the pond and watched the sun set, which made it almost impossible to type. Sehun felt himself grabbing and squeezing a cushion as he recalled the twinkle of genuine joy in Jongin's eyes as the latter caught fish with his bare hand. That evening, Sehun would come to realize that he'd missed an important deadline, which in turn resulted in him staying up all night to catch up. 

The mental image of Jongin moping around the office, unstimulated and energy filled, filled Sehun's head as he buried his face in the couch. The more he worked, the more he distanced himself from Jongin, and the more time he'd spend with Jongin, the more deadlines he would miss. Sehun remembers cursing himself for constantly failing to find a balance between work and Jongin's happiness, and it wasn't until made it to the halfway mark in Jongdae's report that it hit Sehun like a freight train.

Inevitably, Sehun found Jongin snoozing not on his bed, but on the kitchen counter, the following morning (Sehun figures he must have forgotten to lock the door in his stressed state), and whilst Sehun felt instant relief at knowing Jongin was here, safe and unharmed, a part of Sehun felt dreadful since he knew it would make things a hundred times more difficult. As Jongin, who seemed rather on edge after being woken up, downed his morning glass of milk, Sehun felt his heart clench at how unusually silent the younger was being. When Jongin stared at him with innocent eyes and a milk mustache, Sehun nearly backed down, but he forced himself to sit Jongin down at the kitchen table after a brief inner battle, anyway.

Time seemed to slow down as Sehun explained how he, due to his constant work flow and Jongin's uncontrollable, hyperactive antics, found himself unable to focus on both at a working level simultaneously, and therefore saw no other option than to let the younger go. Sehun went on to reassure Jongin that he thought the decision would be the best for the both of them and how much he cherished their time together, all whilst Jongin listened with an unreadable expression on his face. Sehun could practically feel his heart shriveling up at his own words, but he knew that Jongin deserved better than somebody whose job required them to work from dusk until dawn (not to mention somebody who would be alright with living in constant fearing of the state of their house and belongings).

Jongin didn't say much, almost like he expected what was coming, and the knot in Sehun's gut only tightened when Jongin proceeded to get out of his chair and nearly tackle him to the floor in a tight embrace. It wasn't until Jongin nuzzled his face in his neck whilst emitting a low whimper that Sehun caved; Sehun ended up telling Jongin that he was not allowed back inside the house, with the exceptions of bad weather and if he got extremely hungry, both cases in which Jongin had to knock on the door. Jongin simply nodded before walking to the hallway, tail between his legs as he put on his jacket and shoes. Afterwards, he stood by the door, ears flat and hands in his pockets as he sent Sehun a look that nearly had the latter's knees giving in, but Sehun didn't get a chance to say anything before Jongin opened the door, leaving it wide open as he stepped out into the cold morning air. With a lump in his throat, Sehun watched Jongin walk away before he slowly disappeared from view. Sehun ended up standing in the hallway, feet bolted to the floor for fifteen whole minutes until he walked over to the door and closed it.

A strong gust of wind enters the room and Sehun slams his hand down on a couple of papers before they blow off the desk. His stomach is growling with hunger but he doesn't feel like eating. Instead, he gets up and shuts the window, feeling himself shiver when cold air hits him in the face. The second he locks the hatch, Sehun feels his stomach cramp up with what he assumes is hunger when he thinks back to all the times he had to stop Jongin before the latter could fall to his death, all because of birds. Sehun can practically feel the material of Jongin's shirt against his palm as he yanked the latter back into the room, and Sehun ends up standing by the window whilst staring at his hand for an embarrassingly long time until there's a knock at the door.

"...What exactly are you doing?" Chanyeol asks, a look of confusion on his face as he walks over and hands Sehun a stack of papers. Sehun assumes he must have recently returned from one of his many smoke breaks, given that he reeks of tobacco. "Sometimes I lie in bed wondering if that little er got himself fired on purpose just to stress us the out." He huffs before running a hand through his hair.

Sehun shrugs. "Don't worry about it," he murmurs as his eyes quickly scan over the papers. On any normal day, he would have resented the thought of extra work, but this time it nearly makes him jump for joy. Muttering a low 'Thanks', he sinks back into his chair. When he fails to hear Chanyeol leave the room, however, he blinks. "Hm?"

"Can't good ol' colleagues hang out?" Chanyeol snickers, his footsteps echoing as he makes his way across the room and sits down on the red velvet couch. Sehun notices him eyeing the half-assedly peeled fruits in the bowl. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a bent, unlit cigarette before putting it in his mouth, only to huff in annoyance when Sehun sends him a deadly look. "There aren't any smoke detectors in here, ."

Sehun rolls his eyes. He sometimes wishes there were smoke detectors in every room of the building, since he wouldn't need to deal with the entire corridor smelling like smoke in that case. "Baekhyun might let it slide every time, but I won't," he simply says, flipping over a piece of paper. It's not until he hears the familiar click of Chanyeol's lighter that he growls in warning, which causes the latter to put it away with a scoff.

"Y'all are such s," Chanyeol hums, resting his hands behind his head as he gets comfortable on Sehun's couch. "Where's your boy toy?" he asks casually before propping his feet up on the armrest. 

Sehun stills before blinking. "What--" He blinks again before sending Chanyeol a look. "My boy toy?" he repeats, fighting the urge to choke his colleague with an apple. " outta here, you--"

"You know," Chanyeol says before shifting and eyeing the bright red velvet. "The one responsible for spreading hair all over the goddamn place," he mumbles before holding up a few short strands of shiny, jet black fur. He quickly drops them to the floor and shivers in disgust. When Sehun doesn't say anything, he rolls his eyes. "You know, the one who--"

"I know who the you're talking about, Einstein," Sehun huffs, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "And the hell do you care," he mumbles, turning on his computer and crossing his legs. "Don't put your feet on the cushions--!"

Chanyeol scoffs before sitting up and picking up an orange. He throws it in the air, only to miss catching it, and he lets it fall to the floor. "Because I'm interested," he simply says, eyes flashing as he sends Sehun an overdramatic puppy face. Sehun thinks it looks absolutely revolting. "Please, tell your good ol' pal Chanyeollie--"

"First of all, shut up," Sehun sighs, grabbing a pen, "and second of all, don't do that, you look awful." He mumbles to himself before proceeding to highlight a sentence. "He's...not really in the picture anymore," he says and can't hold back the heavy sigh that leaves his lips subsequently. "Could you leave me alone and let me wo--"

"Shame," Chanyeol says before Sehun even gets to finish, as he fiddles with his lighter. "Pets sure are a to handle," he adds, bouncing his foot up and down in impatience. "That's why I don't want 'em." He accidentally steps right onto the apple on the floor and groans in disgust. "The 's up with these things, anyway," he mutters, grabbing an orange and eyeing the strange nail marks all over the peel.

Sehun bites his lip. "Jongin did it," he says quietly, gripping the highlighter tighter when he thinks he feels something graze against his leg. Looking down, he momentarily wonders if Jongin snuck into the building without anybody noticing and curled up at his feet, but there's nothing there. Of course. It's not until Chanyeol starts fidgeting with his cigarette pack that Sehun blinks. "Hey, can I ask you something?" He spins around in his chair and spins the pen around in his hand.

Chanyeol blinks before looking up and raising an eyebrow. "I dunno, can you?"

Sehun rolls his eyes. "Anyway, y'know, a couple of days ago, when you and Jongin were in Jongdae's room?" He looks at Chanyeol, whose eyes seem to flash. "Yeah, that time. What were you two talking about, if I may ask?" he hums, spinning back to face his desk as he proceeds to flip through the papers.

Flicking his lighter on and off, Chanyeol crosses his legs. "Why do you ask?"

"Don't get cocky," Sehun scoffs. "It's just--" He clamps his mouth shut, not really knowing what to say. "He just...started acting really weird afterwards." He shivers when he recalls nearly crashing his car as a result of googling possible illness symptoms in hybrids. "Like, he wouldn't even talk to me-- Nevermind." With a quick shake of his head, he scoots closer to his desk and doesn't even give Chanyeol a chance to answer before he's shooing the latter out of the room.

--

Staring at his reflection, Jongin sloshes a finger around in the water and watches as his own face becomes distorted by the ripple below. The entire bridge vibrates as a handful of people come rushing towards the edge, ready for their evening swim, and Jongin nearly gets his hand stepped on by a small child as he slowly moves aside. Eventually, an old man shoos Jongin off the bridge, threatening to step on the latter's tail if he didn't make space for his family, so Jongin only mumbles under his breath before getting up and walking off. 

Jongin walks over to the tree he'd been cowering behind last week whilst protesting his bath, and Jongin feels his heart tighten when he thinks he picks up Sehun's scent, but he tells himself that scents don't linger for over a week as he proceeds to walk around the tree until he's safely concealed by the plants. Jongin feels his knees giving in as he quite literally collapses onto his bottom on the ground, nearly splitting his back open against the bark as he slides down the trunk of the tree. He hears the laughter of the children a few feet away as they splash happily in the pond, and Jongin has to cover his ears when he feels his chest tighten. 

Honestly, Jongin doesn't ever, as long as he lives, want to admit that Chanyeol was right. The thought makes him want to vomit, so Jongin pulls out the squishy avocado air freshener from his pocket and kneads it anxiously. Even though Jongin knew deep down that Chanyeol might have been speaking some truth, he was too busy trying to restrain the urge to slash the taller in the face as he spoke, which he sort of regrets right now, because Jongin figures that if he'd come to terms with it sooner, he wouldn't have bothered returning to Sehun's house last night. Because if he hadn't, at least Jongin wouldn't be walking around with his entire chest feeling like it might explode any second. Even so, Jongin knows for a fact that he never wants to hear himself say that Chanyeol was right.

It's not like it came as a surprise; in fact, it wasn't until after Jongin jolted awake earlier and saw the look on Sehun's face, and realized that the latter wasn't going to beat him up for sleeping in the kitchen, that he felt his gut coil. The sensation only grew when Sehun proceeded to ask him to take a seat at the kitchen table after the younger had helped himself to a glass of milk. At first, Jongin expected Sehun to chew him out for drinking milk without permission, but  it soon turned out to be much worse than that after Sehun recited the words that Jongin doesn't want to think about right now (or ever, for that matter). Even though Jongin didn't find himself all too fazed, since he figured he was basically out on the streets anyway, he still found himself struggling to keep himself upright as he tried his hardest not to fall off his chair. Jongin barely even heard Sehun's words anyway, given the fact that all he could hear for a solid minute was his pulse pounding in his ears. The apologetic look on Sehun's face has plastered itself in every crevice of Jongin's brain, which wouldn't be an issue if it didn't make the coiling in Jongin's gut tighten every time he thought about it.

Eventually, Jongin has to rest his head against the hard oak and close his eyes to stop his head from spinning. He wants to cry, but can't, and he ends up snapping a twig in half with his hands as he clenches his jaw. The sky is already starting to darken and Jongin crosses his arms across his chest, which he immediately regrets doing since he's hit with a blast of Sehun's scent. Jongin has no idea how it's still clinging to him more than ten hours after he hugged Sehun, and he doesn't know if he likes it or downright detests it as he buries his hands in his face.

Jongin seriously hopes it doesn't rain tonight, even though Sehun told him he was allowed to come in 'in case of heavy rain or a storm' or 'if he's ever starving', because Jongin doesn't see the point in staying in somebody's house if you're only going to leave the following morning. A dragonfly flies past his face but Jongin doesn't even have the energy to get up, so he sloppily swats it to no avail.

The pain in his spine soon causes Jongin to leave his cozy hiding space, and he figures he must have dozed off after attempting to catch the insect, given that the sun has set completely now. He instinctively longs for the warmth of Sehun's bed and the safety of lying next to Sehun, something Jongin never even realized he needed until he finds himself standing alone on the bridge. The water is just as dark as the sky and Jongin figures that if Sehun was here, the latter would make a remark about 'not being able to see his own hand in front of his face'; a saying Jongin heard from a movie he watched years ago, which somehow made him think of Sehun.

As Jongin listens to the calm sloshing of the water beneath him, he eventually grows cold before turning on his heel and walking towards the park. The hard gravel crunches beneath his shoes as he approaches the playground. Jongin briefly wonders if he should curl up inside the slide a few feet away but opts against it when he recalls all the painful static shocks that travelled up his tail after his first foster sister pushed him down one of them when he was sixteen. So Jongin sighs into the night before spotting a decent looking berry bush. He pulls up his hood before curling up underneath it. Running a hand across the ground, Jongin thinks it feels strange feeling nothing but dirt and pebbles underneath his palm instead of soft sheets, but he shoves the thought aside before wrapping his tail around his ankle and closing his eyes. It suddenly hits Jongin that his first foster mother warned him about this park when he first came to them, saying something about 'strange people' before redirecting him somewhere else when he begged her to push him on the swings. Jongin isn't sure if he simply doesn't care enough to begin with, or is too tired to. Either way, he doesn't think he'll be able to walk another two steps without collapsing face down in the dirt.

Thinking about his foster mother only makes Jongin's heart race, and when a mixture of confusion, loneliness and emptiness flood his body all at once, Jongin has to imagine Sehun laying next to him as he paws at the air in a kneading motion in front of him. Jongin desperately craves a glass of milk to cheer himself up, especially since he hasn't eaten anything in hours. He figures he should have gotten Sehun a present to cheer the latter up when he was stressed and angry and Jongin mentally slaps himself for being so foolish. A cold gust of wind passes and threatens to blow his hood right off, but Jongin presses a hand on top of his head as he waits for it to pass. Surprisingly enough, it works, and he gradually dozes off to the sounds of the branches rustling in the wind above his head.

--

"What's that thing?"

"What thing? ."

"That thing, by your foot!"

"Is it dead?" 

"Wait, it's got ears!"

"Tug on them and see if they're real!"

"You do it, --!"

Jongin stirs awake less than twenty minutes later, mind blank as he blinks into the darkness. For a brief second, he internally panics and he wonders why he isn't lying on the foot of Sehun's bed, but reality hits him soon thereafter. Jongin swallows thickly as he raises himself off the crusty dirt and hisses when a few branches scrape against his ears. It's not until he hears a slurred snicker that the smell of beer and whisky hits him, making his already queasy stomach even more sick. Looking up, Jongin's ears flatten when he sees two dark shadows hovering above him. One of them leans in closer to his face, and Jongin leans away when he feels two fingers harshly pulling on his ear.

"Oh, it's alive!" one of them, a male who seems to be no older than Jongin himself, exclaims in a drunken haze. "It's alive!" He reaches out and attempts to pull on Jongin's ear again, only for the latter to hiss and smack his hand away. "And it's angry, too!" He laughs loudly, a sound that nearly makes Jongin's ears bleed, as he waves a half empty beer can in the air, its golden color glowing in the moonlight. Some of it flies out and lands in Jongin's hair, much to the latter's disgust.

The man's friend, who looks like the type of person his foster mother would warn him about, squats so he's mere inches from Jongin's face. The latter can smell the strong whisky on his breath. "It looks like one of those weird cat-human-animal things," he mumbles bluntly, grabbing Jongin's tail with a tattooed hand, only to curse when Jongin attempts to swipe his face with a hiss. 

"Really? Does it have an owner?" the taller male holding the beer can slurs before reaching out again and wrapping his fingers around Jongin's tail. "Lemme check--" He ignores (or presumably doesn't hear) Jongin's shriek of protest when he proceeds to drag the latter out from underneath the bush like a toy, before furrowing his eyebrows. "I don't see anythi--"

"You don't check their , idiot," the older grunts before squatting down and grabbing Jongin's shirt, lifting the latter a couple of inches off the ground as he squints to adjust his drunken eyes. "I don't see , I don't think it has an owner," he mumbles, taking a drag of his cigarette with his free hand.

Jongin coughs loudly when the man proceeds to blow smoke right in his face. It suddenly hits him that his mother told him to wear his collar every time he wandered outside alone, but he doesn't remember for the life of him where he put it, since he doesn't remember feeling it in his jacket pocket earlier. He doesn't get time to think about it any further when he's roughly pulled to his feet by his hood. In the commotion, Jongin ends up struggling himself out of his jacket. A low noise of surprise escapes Jongin's lips when the taller male grabs his arm and presses him close to his chest whilst he pats him on the back.

"Don't worry, little kitty thing, I'll feed you and take care of you and love you," said man slurs as he pats (or, to be exact, forcefully whacks) Jongin's back repeatedly, barely able to hold onto the can at the same time. The smell of alcohol is overwhelming and Jongin worries he might puke all over the muddy ground if he isn't let go of soon. Suddenly, Jongin emits a loud shriek when his tail gets stepped on, and he doesn't even realize he's slashed the man clear across the face until he's shoved backwards subsequently.

Both of them stumble, Jongin nearly hitting his head as he falls to the ground and misses a bench by an inch. As the man proceeds to loudly curse drunken obscenities, Jongin scrambles to get to his feet, nearly tripping over his shoelaces as he turns on his heel. Except he barely makes it three steps when he's grabbed again and slammed down onto the dirt below. In his struggle to roll onto his stomach, Jongin barely registers the swift kick to his waist until a sharp pain is spreading through the entire left side of his torso, which is closely followed by the shorter male hoisting him to his feet shortly after. Whilst his mother may have taught Jongin about the dangers of running into dangerous people, she never taught him how to deal with said people after running into them, and Jongin finds himself blindly thrashing in the man's grip as he attempts to burn the fur on Jongin's ears with his cigarette.

"Look, it's crying," the taller male slurs, poking Jongin's teary face as the latter stifles a sob. "I didn't know cats could cry," he adds, plopping himself down on the bench as he wipes his bloodied face. He takes a swig before tossing the can at Jongin's head. It hits the ground with a dull thud. 

Jongin manages to break free from the tattooed man's iron grip and nearly stumbles twice as he scrambles to run towards the pond, not even bothering to pick up his jacket as he hears the two men shouting at him from behind. As he rushes past the bridge and ends up at the familiar intersection a few feet away, Jongin nearly gets hit by an oncoming car as he practically flies down the street, barely avoiding colliding with an elderely couple making their way in the opposite direction. He doesn't have it in him to turn around and see if he's being followed, so Jongin opts to keep running until he's in familiar territory.

The familiar building comes into view a couple of minutes later and Jongin stops and catches his breath, hoping his scent won't attract any of the neighbor's dogs nearby. A mixture of comfort and utter sadness settles deep in his gut as he stares up at the front door. Sehun probably isn't awake at this time, and Jongin would rather not get turned away a second time, so he climbs the few stairs to the patio and hopes he doesn't trip and split his skull open from the way his legs are quivering. The patio light turns on (or was that a light inside???) but Jongin pays it no mind as he slowly, slowly curls up on the front step. 

With the wooden door pressing against his back, Jongin feels a wave of security wash over him, although it's quickly diminished when he suddenly catches a whiff of Sehun's scent through the crack at the bottom of the door. Almost as if on cue, one of the neighborhood dogs start barking and Jongin can see it frantically running back and forth behind the gate, its yellow eyes glowing in the patio light as it keeps its gaze locked on Jongin. Jongin instinctively cowers at the sound, although he figures he'd much rather risk getting torn to shreds by a dog than go anywhere near the park or pond ever again.

The hard cement is ice cold when pressed against his cheek, making a shiver run up Jongin's spine. His ribs still ache, as well as his ears, not to mention that his tail is most likely sprained, but he attempts to shove the thoughts away as he carefully wraps his tail around his ankle. A cold gust of wind passes and Jongin shivers, letting Sehun's scent lull him to sleep as he curls up and closes his eyes.

Jongin doesn't get many hours of sleep that night.

---