The next morning Minho woke up to see that he was the only one left in the room. Typically that wouldn’t have phased him in the least, however, if he remembered things correctly, there should be a fluffy little ball under his palm. Oh god, had he turned over on top of their fragile little friend?

Frantically he pushed himself up on one elbow and somehow managed to arch his body like a bridge – a very slanted bridge. (Note to self: work on flexibility.) Finding there was no fox pancake beneath him he felt relief for all of two seconds. He flopped back to his original position before sitting up and patting and brushing through his giant duvet. Why had he even taken the big one out in the first place? It wasn’t that cold.

A sneeze shook his frame as his runny nose made itself known once more – something in those dark caverns was making it burn and his eyes tear up. 

He groaned as he blew his nose into the closest tissue he could find. Right. He was the one with the cold. Either way it was the fifth day now and he’d actually been getting better – for the past two days it had been bad upon waking up but as he got up and moved about, it would calm down and go away. Of course there was the occasional sneeze but they were becoming fewer and fewer.

‘Many thanks to whatever stopped me from sneezing on little foxy,’ he thought. It could have been a disaster. Scared was one thing, he could stumble his way through calming a scared kit (, apparently). But sick? He didn’t even know how to deal with a sick dog, short of taking it to a vet, let alone a sick fox – which, by the way, they had to hide from anyone outside their group. Felix had once tried to convince their manager to let him keep a hamster. He’d been shot down quickly and efficiently.

Yes, he was definitely not looking forward to anyone finding out about the fox.

Having thoroughly looked through his bed as well as turned his duvet every which way possible he was certain the fox was not in his linen nest nor somehow stuck inside the blanket. Looking around the room, the other beds were neatly made – Jisung’s influence no doubt, there were no blankets or clothes on the ground that could be hiding the pup. Ooh! Maybe he was under the bed!

And maybe Minho should have moved slower because maybe then he wouldn’t have ended up in a heap on the floor with a painful throbbing in his wrist. He waved it a few times with a slight hiss, sincerely hoping it would go away after a while – this was one problem more than he could handle at the moment.

Despite his trouble the space beneath his bed turned out to be just that – space. Well ok, there was some dust and what seemed like paper scraps but the point was, there was no fox. Panic started to claw its way up his throat.

He shook his head as if it could help in some way. Throwing a glance at the clock, he saw it was 10 in the morning. It made sense for the boys to be up. Maybe Jisung and Felix had taken the pup. Trying to make the others more comfortable with him and all.

‘Yeah,’ he nodded to himself, ‘That must be it.’

He managed to change out of his pyjamas and into a simple white t-shirt and shorts before he couldn’t take it anymore and marched right out the room… in as controlled and calm a way as possible. Maybe (hopefully and preferably) there was nothing wrong and the pup was napping in Felix’ or Jisung’s lap.

Getting closer to the living room and kitchen he felt his hope diminish as the boys’ voices became louder and clearer – were they trying to whisper?

“Hyung~. What are we going to do~?”

Seungmin was obviously trying to keep his voice low. It wasn’t working as well as he probably thought.

“Well first,” Chan, ever the responsible leader, was obviously putting immense effort to sound calm “we are going to try and keep it down so Minho-hyung doesn’t wake up.”

Minho was getting a serious sense of déjà vu for some reason.

“Then some of us are going to start cleaning up and the rest will look for him.”

The dancer walked in before they could say anything else. 

“Look for who?”

He froze behind the couch as he laid eyes on their dorm. Any panic he had managed to hold down was now curling his stomach into a ball. Safe for Hyunjin, everyone else was in the room, gathered in a semi-circle, looking like some sort of mafia in the middle of a vital meeting. Every single head shot up and the boys looked at him in pure fear. With good reason, too.

He had never yelled this loudly in his life.

“What in the fresh hell happened here!?”

 

---

 

It was 8:30 in the morning and Jeongin had never felt so disoriented in his life. Ok, that was probably a lie, considering he didn’t remember a relatively large portion of his life even though he wasn’t even of age yet. Spending most of your time in animal form could have that effect. The longer he stayed as a fox, the stronger his instincts became, overriding human reasoning. His memories became less coherent until, at some point, they just weren’t there anymore. Considering how he’d been living (surviving) up until the previous night, he was actually happy about it. Even with the blank spots in his memory he’d risked everything to get away from his owner. He didn’t want to remember what had been blocked – didn’t want to think about what the man could do to him if he found him.

Slowly coming to his senses, Jeongin realized he was snuggled up against something solid, yet he was very warm and comfortable. He let out a quiet whine before nuzzling into the solidness, feeling its texture and catching a whiff of a scent – a very human scent. His head shot up, though his eyes remained closed, and he took a couple of sniffs of the air. There was more than one person in there with him – their scents mixing and blending together. Oddly enough, the combination didn’t bring on the usual fright. The opposite even, it comforted him, albeit with a scrunch to his nose – there might have been something of an unpleasant underlying tang to the mix. One that your typical (non-hybridie) human wouldn’t be able to catch. 

No amount of tilting his head appeared to help understand the situation though. 

Sighing, he opened his eyes, at first squinting at the bright light. His vision cleared revealing white walls and a digital clock in front of him. Looking around the room made him calm even as he spotted two other sleeping boys on the nearby beds. Looking down, however, almost pushed him into a panic.

Now, seeing Minho snoring away peacefully below him wouldn’t have made him freak out. Realizing he had his leg – his currently very human, very bare leg – thrown over both of Minho’s made him incredibly… shocked? Shocked enough to throw himself back, completely certain he could get his feet under him in time to land on them. Alas, he did not account for his foot – his human freaking foot – getting tangled in the covers.

Instead of the swift, somewhat cool, display of agility Jeongin had pictured in his head, he ended up awkwardly hanging off the side of the bed.

Groaning he tried to curl himself back up to the bed – surely his animal reflexes and flexibility would help him pull through.

After a series of grunts and a steady ache in his abdomen, he ended up slipping further down the bedside. The only reason his head didn’t hit the floor was because he was supporting himself by one arm, awkwardly bent at the elbow to accommodate the position. Curse his long lanky limbs – it was so much easier to manoeuvre in fox form. And in human form… well apparently he couldn’t even get out of bed!

He whined pitifully as he finally let himself carefully slide onto the floor, neck bending at an odd angle as he slithered along until his back was flat on the carpeted ground. Oh so slowly, he turned to one side, keeping his legs together and his movement controlled so as to make as little noise as possible. Just as the tension in his thighs peeked, there was a rustle of sheets behind him. Any control he may have had effectively disappeared and his feet, his poor bare feet, hit the hardwood floor with a painful thud.

Digging sharp fangs into his lower lip and hissing, he gripped his feet as if it would somehow ease the pain – his fluffy tail, having proportionally enlarged to fit his human size, puffed out and curled until the tip of it met the outline of his spine, his ears falling limply to either side. He sent a sharp look at the bed behind him where Felix was snoring away peacefully, not at all aware of the pain he’d just caused by turning over.

Jeongin’s ears flattened, however, once he realized what could have happened, had Felix actually woken up and seen him. He had to get out of the room.

He was already at the door before a thought struck him – it was breezier than it should have been. And it was breezy all over. A single glance down at his chest, among other things, had him flying to the wardrobe.

Now clad in a grey hoodie, a few sizes too large for his narrow shoulders, and black sweatpants that bunched up at his ankles with the corners dragging along the floor, Jeongin wandered into the kitchen hoping to find something to silence his howling stomach… Howling may have been overreacting but it was definitely at least grumbling under its metaphorical nose.

Jeongin started sniffing loudly and stretching his neck this way and that to try and see as much as possible without actually walking around. 

Overall, it wasn’t exactly a wide space – a white fridge squished into the corner next to a line of cupboards and counters, one of which had the obligatory sink on it. A relatively large microwave – with stains on the inner side of the door, Jeongin wrinkled his nose – sat between the fridge and sink, angled so as to not take up the entire counter top. Beyond that there was an oven – clean and sparkling as opposed to its smaller cousin – and a toaster. Jeongin imagined there was likely a rice cooker somewhere as well, though it probably made things too cramped to have it out all the time.

All in all, it was surprisingly well-equipped.

Having surveyed his environment Jeongin made about a dozen small, hesitant steps toward the tall fridge, glancing to his left and right with every second ‘bound’. Cautiously, he pulled the door of it with one hand. He pulled the - he puuulled. He PULLED…

Harshly, he yanked the door of it with both hands, stumbling back when it sprung open. He then watched petrified as, seemingly in slow motion, the largest milk carton he had ever seen tilted off its stable placement at the edge of one of the fridge’s shelves and proceeded to fall to the ground. Thankfully there was no white explosion but there was a very loud thunk.

Jeongin stood frozen for a few seconds, ears twitching frantically, before crouching in front of it, trying to pick it up, eyes wide open through all of it. After several unsuccessful attempts (which meant several more not-quite-as-loud thunks) he finally managed it. The discovery that milk had leaked out to form a small puddle below the carton, and by extension soaked the side of said carton, had him whining pitifully in the back of his throat. His ears fell flat while his tail curled between his legs. 

What was he going to do? He couldn’t just leave it like this, they’d know he’d done something – even if he was able to turn back to ‘foxy’ before the boys started coming out. And the mean silver one would probably yell at him again. He whined once more at the memory of the day before.

‘Ooh, I know-’ his ears perked, ‘clean up! I’ll just clean it up.’

It only took him a few minutes of scampering to find the kitchen paper, of which he tore sheet after decorated sheet and dumped it on the puddle. Seeing the first two more or less disintegrate from the liquid had him wrinkling his nose in distaste and so he continued his ministrations – not wiping or placing the sheets by hand but standing as far from it as he could and dropping it with an outstretched arm. As if literally distancing himself from his mess would somehow make his implication in it less obvious.

Just as he was pondering whether he could grab the paper, wipe the spot and throw the evidence away without getting any of the mess on himself, his keen ears picked up voices from one of the boys’ rooms. Uh oh.

He let out a series of high-pitched, but quiet, whimpers as he hurriedly threw the tissues into the nearby trash can and struggled with fitting the milk carton in there as well. The sound of a turning doorknob alerted him of his lack of time and so he hugged the carton to his chest and shoved himself behind the door of one of the counters. Having sat on his own tail, he shifted uncomfortably, banging his head on the ‘ceiling’. It made him yelp but at least now his tail was free and, thanks to his animal side’s nocturnal nature, he could see just fine despite the pitch black darkness inside the cupboard.

Still, he felt miserable as evidenced by his pouting face and lowered ears.

Despite having fit into the tiny space quickly, Jeongin was far from comfortable – legs bent at the knees and curled to his chest pushed the milk carton’s edges into sensitive skin, he had to keep his head lowered and there was something heavy pressing at his hip. Stuck as he was, what did it matter what it was? 

He didn’t have much more time to ponder as it seemed someone was making his way to the kitchen. There were three voices actually – if Jeongin remembered correctly, it must have been the short one with the pretty (though funny) hairdo and the sourpuss. The pout intensified. He didn’t recognize the third voice though.

“Ah, hyung did you really have to wake us to make pancakes with you,” Pretty head questioned groggily. He did not sound happy.

“Yes,” Sourpuss deadpanned, suddenly sounding incredibly close. He must have come in front of the cupboard Jeongin was hiding in.

“Why us though? Why not Hyunjin?”

“Hyunjin-ie needs rest after yesterday’s ordeal.”

“What about Minho-hyung? He actually knows how to make these good!”

There was a rustle of clothes as Sourpuss groaned. Jeongin giggled to himself – he was very happy with the nickname he’d come up with.

“I’m doing this to make things up to him.”

“Things like kicking him out of his own room and yelling at his new friend?”

The third unknown voice joined the conversation and Jeongin, preening and subconsciously smoothing out his own tail at already being seen as someone’s friend, decided he liked this one.

“I~,” Sourpuss started indignantly but seemed to deflate mid-way through the word (long as it was) “Well, yes.  I guess that’s accurate.”

“And Felix and Jisung?”

“I didn’t want to risk waking Minho up. And besides – don’t want the fox running out. Hyunjin still isn’t completely over his scare from yesterday.”

Don’t want the fox running out? Well, Jeongin supposed the fox didn’t run out, if you wanted to get really technical about it. 

There was short silence that left Jeongin picking at his tail instead. Why did they go quiet all of a sudden? Were they moving? He should be able to hear it if they were but what if they could move completely silently – like predators, lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce. His heart almost flew out of his chest before a new voice shattered the silence.

“Good morning!”

Jeongin’s ears perked at the energetic sound of the new person’s accented speech – it was the cuddly freckled boy. What was his name? Felix! He liked Felix, too. 

“Felix, we’re barely out the room! Minho-hyung is still sleeping!”

Oh yay, the squirrely safe one with the round face was here too. It struck Jeongin that it might not be normal to describe someone as safe but he couldn’t help it. No one had ever really made him feel like no dangers could harm him in their presence and now here he was with not just one but two such people. Squirrel Jisung, who had no problem playing with him and watching him scamper around, and teddy bear Minho, who was very comfortable to hug and Jeongin had never slept better in his life! Felix was nice too but he seemed somehow chaotic. Jeongin hadn’t had great experiences with ‘chaotic’ so far.

It did not at all cross his mind, however, that the two might have noticed the absence of a certain canine. That was for the best, seeing as they hadn’t and thinking of it would have only sent his already stressed heart into overdrive.

“Right, sorry,” Felix apologized in a loud whisper. Jeongin’s ear twitched– something didn’t seem right with that combination.

“Anyway, what are you three doing here?”

“Chan-hyung is enforcing child labour,” Pretty-head exclaimed and Jeongin could picture him pointing an accusing finger at Sourpuss’ scandalized face. He snickered into his tail.

“What!?”

Both Jisung and Sourpuss, supposedly Chan, exclaimed.

“Changbin-hyung!”

The unfamiliar voice reprimanded before a short thwack reached Jeongin’s keen ears.

“Yah! You can’t hit me, I’m your hyung!”

“I~,” Sourpuss cut in, “just wanted them to make pancakes with me!”

“Ooh, I want pancakes!”

Jeongin smiled at Felix’ bright tone. The freckled boy didn’t seem to care all that much about the ‘drama’ unfolding before him.

There were a few thuds, progressively getting louder – someone was coming toward the cupboard.

“We need eggs, milk, flour and sugar. Chan-hyung get the frying pan, Seungmin you check-up on the recipe so we don’t mess up-“

It was Pretty head. Jeongin tilted his head in confusion.

‘I thought he didn’t want to make pancakes.’ 

“I thought you didn’t want to make pancakes,” Sourpuss echoed his thoughts with an amused, knowing drawl. The fox hybrid didn’t know whether to be happy he’d get an answer or irked because it was Sourpuss that asked his question.

 “Shut up,” Pretty head murmured so quietly under his breath that Jeongin almost missed it. Chan’s, no wait, Sourpuss’ chuckle on the other hand was clear as a bell.

“You’re so whipped.”

Whipped!? When did he get whipped? He hadn’t shown any signs of pain or discomfort. These guys were weird.

“Yay~ pancakes! Best breakfast ever, right Seungminnie.”

“Sure, hyung.”

“Do we have all the ingredients?”

“I want to help, too!”

“Why don’t you and Jisung grab the ingredients we need?”

“What do we need?”

Their voices were all over the place – it made sense, considering they were most likely moving around, beside the fact that there were like a bazillion of them,  but gosh darn it, it was driving Jeongin crazy. His naturally skittish tendencies were making him twitch.

“What’s going on?”

A groggy voice, though quiet and sounding as fuddled as Jeongin’s mind felt, grabbed the boys’ attention.

“Hyunjinnie!”

Jeongin’s ear twitched. Who was this? Were there really so many of them yesterday? He remembered Minho calming him. Remembered playing around on the couch. Sourpuss yelling at him then arguing with Minho. Then Felix gave him a bath and then Minho, Felix and Jisung played with him in their room. Then it was lights out. He remembered Pretty head. So, Minho, Jisung, Felix, Pretty head, Sourpuss... There had been five of them! And one of those five wasn’t even here! Where did the other two come from? Gosh, his head was hurting from the math.

Large furry ears almost disappeared in dark soft hair as Jeongin realized – he would be in so much trouble if they found him. As a fox he might have been able to get some help from Felix and Jisung at least. But as a human – dressed in their clothes, stuffed in their kitchen cupboard and hugging a gigantic milk carton, which cannot have come cheap and he’d spilled? Nevermind the ears and tail! He wanted to whine so badly. What was he going to do?

“What are you guys all doing here?”

The same groggy voice, slightly louder and less fuddled, wondered.

“Chan-hyung is encouraging child labour.”

“Oh come on!”

There was laughter and Jeongin himself snickered into his tail.

“We’re going to make pancakes.”

Even though Jeongin couldn’t see Felix jumping in excitement, he could certainly imagine it.

“Wanna join?”

There were a few seconds of silence – Hyunnin… wait, no – Hyunjinnie, was hesitating.

“Yeah, sure. I’m just gonna get dressed.”

“No~, hyung we’re all in our PJs.”

“But we’ll get messy~”

“But it’s so much more fun this way~”

“Yeah, ok.”

“Wow, it was so hard to convince you.”

“Do you want me to make pancakes with you or not?”

Hyunjin deadpanned Changbin's comment.

“Alright.”

“Right, so-“

Two hard thuds above Jeongin made him flinch. He wished they would just stay still.

“Let’s get the ingredients out.”

“Woo! What do we need?”

“Milk, flour, eggs, su-“

“Butter!”

“Ooh, can we put chocolate?”

Oh jeez, so many footsteps. The fridge kept getting opened and shut and he could hear clinking and thunking, and they were like a beehive! Jeongin physically held his ears to his head.

“Hey guys?”

Some of the movement stopped as several of the boys must have turned to Jisung.

“Where’s the milk?”

‘I have it,’ the hybrid, ears perked and eyes alert, barely stopped himself from saying out loud. One of his previously occupied hands jumped to cover his runaway mouth. What was wrong with him? Where did his self-preservation instinct go?

“Hmm? Minho was supposed to buy some yesterday. I guess he forgot.”

Jeongin whistled quietly from somewhere deep in his chest. Was Minho going to get in trouble because of him?

“Someone has to go out to get some.”

“I’ll go.”

“You really want to get dressed, huh Hyunjin-hyung?”

A beat.

“Yes.”

“Okay! Let’s find an actual recipe. We want these to taste good for Minho. Just being edible will not be enough this time.”

“Hyung, I’m sorry to break this to you, but your pancakes have never been edible.”

Oohs and aahs echoed through the room, drowning out a playful growl.

“Find me a recipe you little brat.”

A giggle sounded, followed by a door creaking.

“It’s still just sugar we need, yeah?”

“And chocolate!”

“We have chocolate, Felix.”

“But I like chocolate.”

Felix whined.

“Buy the chocolate Hyunjin.”

“Alright already, I’ll get the chocolate.”

The boy relented at Changbins commanding tone and then he was out the door.

“Ok. We have the eggs and flour right here. We’re waiting on milk-“

“And chocolate.”

“-and chocolate. What are we missing?”

“Butter?”

“Butter’s here,” a soft clack indicated someone set the butter container down.

“Oh, we need sugar, don’t we?”

Someone snapped their fingers and started opening the overhead cabinets.

“Where did we keep the sugar?”

And at that moment, as he suddenly became all that more aware of the weight against his hip, Jeongin’s whole being froze in trepidation. Twisting in a severely unnatural position and pulling his tail out of the way, he stared at the heavy bag at his side with wide worried eyes. The word ‘Sugar’ screamed at him from where it was printed in big bold blue letters against a stark white background. Somewhere in the back of his head he wondered who kept a bag of sugar this large and how much these boys consumed of it on a daily basis. But those thoughts were trampled by the horse-race in his chest and the rushing in his ears.

What was he going to do?

No. Don’t panic. They might have forgotten and won’t even look here. Yeah, and they’ll just call Hyunjin to tell him to buy some more. Yeah, yes, he’ll be perfectly fine.

“It’s in one of the bottom cupboards isn’t it?”

‘Jisung! Why~? Why do you do this to me,’ Jeongin curled further into himself, despite the milk carton digging into his belly. Just when he thought Jisung was safe, too. Well you’re no longer that, mister – the hybrid glared at the door.

He pushed himself as far back as he possibly could in the already cramped space as footsteps came closer to his cupboard.

“I think it’s in this one.”

Jeongin’s death grip on the packet of sugar was almost ripping through its paper cover when he heard the familiar clank of a metallic ring against the knob of the door. A sliver of blinding light broke through the darkness and a pale hand came through, grasping blindly for its target.

In a of genius, the hybrid held out the packet directly in the hand’s path and smiled almost victoriously as it pulled back. The unfamiliar boy, who said hand was attached to, crowed in triumph, happy that he didn’t have to actually look inside to find the sugar. He then promptly turned Jeongin’s hopes to dust as he showed his polite nature.

“Hey, thanks.”

Everyone froze and silence reigned for a good minute.

“Seungmin,” Sourpuss started uncertainly, “Who did you just thank?”

(On the bright side, he now knew the name of the ‘new guy’. On the not-so-good side –) more silence before Jeongin heard what he imagined were Seungmin’s knees hitting the kitchen floor before that ring clanked again.

The door opened and he was left looking directly into unfamiliar and very confused brown eyes. They stared at each other for a short moment, Seungmin obviously taking in the fact that not only was there a strange boy in their kitchen (in their kitchen counter non the less) but also that that same boy had enormous sandy-furred fox ears on his head and a tail, longer than his torso, sprouting from the base of his spine. On top of it all, fox-boy looked as shell-shocked as Seungmin himself felt.

Once the information and situation registered for both of them, however, Seungmin fell back on his behind and Jeongin’s fear finally cut through his skin to sink its teeth into his bones.

A pair of legs came into view beside the unfamiliar boy. Raising his gaze, the hybrid found Sourpuss’ shocked expression. Shock morphed to anger before he shouted.

“What the hell?”

Jeongin bolted before the sentence was fully out of Chan’s mouth.