Save for the rapid thudding of a pair of clumsy feet on a wooden floor, there was deafening silence. The boys stood frozen in their kitchen, looking at their fallen leader, who himself had a hard time wrapping his head around what had just happened. It wasn’t every day that bright-eyed and literally bushy-tailed strange boys jumped out of the kitchen counter in an attempt to climb over him… thank god.

In the flurry of action and commotion the boy had grabbed hold of the flour when the others tried to block his path. And man, had he had a go with it. He’d tried to use it as a shield, but in his spastic movements succeeded only in ripping it, then proceeded to fling it around like a sprinkler of white, cough-inducing rain.

Now, laying on his back, covered in floury splotches and focused primarily on the powdery splatter on the previously pristine blue-colored ceiling, Chan was beginning to seriously reconsider some of his life-choices.

“Um…” started a wide-eyed Seungmin from where he sat next to Chan, as he clutched the bag of sugar to his chest like a life-line, “Should- should we do something?”

Chan blinked slowly. Once, twice.

“Yeah. We probably should.”

“So…” Jisung intelligently contributed to the riveting conversation.

Awkward silence reigned supreme once more, interrupted only by a single cough, before a door slamming shut, an inhuman shriek and a shrill squeal sounded from somewhere in the dorm. Hyunjin got back quick.

Beyond the odd flinch here and there, the boys hardly moved a muscle. Chan couldn’t even bring himself to think about what had happened, too busy counting the ‘clouds’ on the ceiling. 

‘Oh hey, it’s snowing flour,’ he thought, possibly on the way to mild hysteria, as he noticed little white flakes falling onto his already pale face.

Changbin and Jisung shared an uncertain glance at the loud thud that came barely a second later, like a sack of potatoes hitting the floor, followed by another series of bangs, this time accompanied by yelps and panicked curses.

“Chan-hyung,” Hyunjin’s frantic voice cut through the dorm as another door slammed.

God, he was actually going to have to get up, wasn’t he? They hadn’t even had breakfast yet and he already felt bone-tired. He just wanted to make pancakes.

Hyunjin flew into the room with wild eyes and a flushed face. Funnily enough, he didn’t seem even half as terrified as last night.

“Some kid just slammed into me in the hallway! Did he break in, are we being robbed? Why are you on the ground, hyung?! What’s-“

“Hyung,” Jisung landed a placating hand on Hyunjin’s shoulder, “You need to breathe.”

“You also need to be quiet,” Chan hissed at the ceiling, “Minho is somehow still asleep. I’d rather keep it that way until we figure this out.”

“Ok, why are you so calm about this? What happened? I mean,“ it was only then that Hyunjin actually took a look around the room and registered the state his bandmates were in.

“What did happen? And why are you all covered in powder?”

“It’s flour,” Chan grunted out as he finally found it in himself to stand, “And I’m not sure what happened.”

“Let’s focus on the breaking-and-enter-er first,” Changbin interjected, earning himself a solemn nod from their leader.

“Hyung~. What are we going to do~,” Seungmin piped up worriedly. And wasn’t that just Chan’s favourite question at that moment. 

“Well first we are going to try and keep it down so Minho-hyung doesn’t wake up. Then some of us are going to start cleaning up and the rest will look for him,” he prattled off as confidently as he could.

Naturally, it was that exact moment that Minho chose to walk in. Why couldn’t things go the way he needed for once?

 

---

 

A few long, excruciating minutes later, the situation had managed to set in just the slightest bit, leaving them in varying states of bewilderment. Chan couldn’t figure out if he ranked high or low on the tier list. But hey, at least Minho wasn’t yelling anymore, now that he knew it wasn’t actually their fault the kitchen exploded or whatever. On the flip side, they would have to wipe their floury -prints off the couch.

“So,” the dancer started slowly, “We should go deal with the kid somehow.”

“Or,” Hyunjin cut in hopefully, “We call management, better yet, the police, and get out of here until they handle it.”

That would be the smart thing to do. However, “Yeah, that will go over so well. ‘Hey, a kid I’ve never seen before jumped out of our kitchen cupboard while I was making apology pancakes for my roommate because we fought over a fennec fox. A flour bag exploded at some point, and oh, by the by, he had a tail’ They’ll think we’re insane.”

“They’ll see him!”

“Unless he finds a way out while we’re sitting here waiting!”

Chan only realized he’d started yelling when Minho gripped his shoulder.

“Alright, let’s try to check for ourselves first. You said he was just a kid, right? How dangerous could he be?”

“I mean, he did get past like, six of us, and then hid in our own apartment.”

“Thank you, Felix for that valuable input.” 

“Hyunjin, did you see where he went,” Chan cut in, getting them back on track.

“Bathroom, I think.”

“Alrightie then,” the leader exhaled loudly before he straightened up and schooled his expression, “I’m going in boys! You block the hallway in case he tries to run again.”

Despite the courageous declaration, Chan didn’t move a muscle.

“Good luck, hyung,” Seungmin patted him on the back before Minho gave him a slight push.

“Go on. I dealt with the fox, you can deal with the kid,” such great friends they were, “I’ll be right outside the door, so you just call out if you need help.”

Wait.

“Wait,” they all halted, “Why don’t you just go in with me?”

“Because cornering a kid that’s probably more scared than us might not be a good idea.”

“… good point.”

And so he found himself knocking on the bathroom door.

“Hey uh… kid?”

His only answer was a rustle on the other side.

“We- we know you’re in there,” still nothing, “Ok, so…” he looked back at Minho with raised brows only to be met with an ‘encouraging’ wave, “I’m coming in, I guess.”

After getting no reaction yet again, and feeling very much as if he was trying to converse with their toilet seat, he started slowly creaking the door open. Next thing he knew, his poor eyes were assaulted by a glimpse of the boy’s bare chest, plus a few other things.

“Oh my god,” Chan whipped his head back around to the hallway, “My eyes!”

“What, what’s wrong, what happened,” Minho questioned frantically.

“He’s , Minho!”

“What? Why are you telling me this just now?”

“He wasn’t before,” Chan exclaimed with a shrill voice, “Help me!”

“How am I supposed to help with that?!”

The dancer took a step back. 

“Get in here,” Chan yelped as he yanked Minho in.

There was a lengthy pause, and Chan, still turned away, could only assume it was because Minho was trying to wrap his head around the sight. Which, to be fair, was technically true, but not for the same reasons he thought.

“Uh, Chan?”

“You got a plan of action?”

“I mean… do we need one?”

Chan once again whipped his head around, bewildered, “What do you mean?”

“It’s just foxy.”

By the time he turned around, Minho was already on the floor with a lap-full of energetic, yipping fox. Chan could only stare as the animal moved almost spastically, seemingly torn between at Minho and nuzzling into his hands.

“Oh I’m so happy I found you, little one. You gave me a real scare when I didn’t find you after waking up,” Minho cooed at it, again with the baby voice, “Promise you won’t to that again. You might give hyung a heart attack.”

‘Foxy’ yipped in response, as if trying to assure the boy, and at his jaw and chin and anywhere he could reach really. And all Minho could do was giggle and pet it.

“I don’t- but he was- what the hell?”

“Are you ok, Chan,” the dancer raised worried eyes to look at him. Was he ok? Had he been seeing things? No. No way, that kid was just there. So where the hell did he go? 

“I’m fine,” he replied tersely. Ok, so maybe his feathers were a bit ruffled.

“Testy.” Minho murmured under his nose as he focused back on the fluff-ball on the floor. Well, that wasn’t helping any.

“I am not testy,” Chan’s voice raised as he paced over to the wide open window. Was it large enough for a person to fit? The kid sure looked thin enough. He struggled to balance on his tiptoes as he stuck his head out and frantically looked up and down the street.

“Oh, yeah. You’re totally calm.”

“I am,” he did not like the skeptical look on the younger’s face, “I am!”

The sound of a stampede in the hallway alerted him to the rest of the group joining them. But instead of them ‘gracefully’ stumbling in like he’d anticipated, Changbin poked his head in instead.

“Is everything ok?”

“Yes.”

“No!”

“Ok then. So um,” Changbin opened the door wider to look around the room, “Where’s our breaking-and-enter-er?”

Hyunjin’s startled yelp and speedy retreat into his own room went mostly ignored. The trauma from last night was still fresh in his mind.

“That’s what I’m asking!”

“Is it?”

“Yes!”

Chan’s raised voice made Minho realize that he might have pushed just the slightest bit too far.

“Right. Sorry, hyung.”

Chan huffed in response and glared when the fox chirped at him.

“Um, Chan-hyung,” Felix sheepishly broke his concentration.

“What?” 

He turned like a raging bull.

“You have flour freckles,” the boy motioned uncertainly toward his own face, as if to paint a clearer picture. They stared dumbly at each other, before Chan wiped his face furiously and looked back up at the other, “Better?”

Felix looked at their typically collected leader, took in the wide eyes, the flared nostrils and the face, which at this point looked like unfinished mime makeup, and decided he liked living.

“Perfect,” he said confidently, throwing in a determined nod for good measure. He did not want to be in Chan’s direct line of sight for much longer. He needn’t worry about that though, as his leader whipped right back around to point an accusing finger at his favorite new friend, a tiny puff of flour flying from the tip.

“You-”, he growled as the fox tried to bury itself in Minho’s belly, “I know you had something to do with this!”

“Well, there go his marbles,” Changbin muttered under his nose.

“Hyung,”  came Seungmin’s whispered reprimand.

“Oh, no,” Minho protectively cradled the fox against his chest as he stood, “We are not doing this again.”

“But I-”

“I don’t want to hear it! Talk to me again when you have those apology pancakes done.” 

“Yah! Minho-yah!”

The boys watched Chan stomp along after Minho with his hands swinging like malfunctioning windmills. They winced at the thought of cleaning up the flaky trail they were all leaving behind.

“Don’t you walk away from me, young man!”

“You are not the boss of me right now, mister!”

The group couldn’t help flinching at the loud bang of yet another door slamming.

“I’m your leader, Minho! I’m always your boss!”

“That is not how leadership works,” was the muffled retort.

Gradually a scandalized, upset yowling built up underneath the yelling. Everything came to a head when Minho’s voice cut out with a pained yelp. Chan’s own irritation gave way to concern as dull thumps and sharp whines reached his ears.

“...ya, Minho-yah. Are you ok?” 

“He bit me.” 

Minho sounded baffled. As if it was absurd the animal that snuck in from the street would bite him.

“I told you-”

“He got scared of me, and he bit me.”

Ah, Minho was baffled that the little fox got frightened of him.

“Oh…”

No one really knew how to respond. It was Seungmin that spoke first.

“Do you need any help, hyung?”

“No,” Minho seemed to shake off whatever daze he’d been in, “No, I’ll calm him down on my own. You guys go clean the kitchen.”

 

---

 

A not-so-short while later they’d managed to not only clean up most of their mess, but to also coax Hyunjin out of hiding to aid them. There was still no sign of Minho or the fox, and the boys’ silence made it clear the morning’s events preoccupied everyone’s thoughts. They were trying to take their mind off things by watching some mindless cartoon, but Chan simply couldn’t shake a certain idea. And he couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“I’m telling you guys that fox has something to do with the kid.”

“Chan-hyung that sounds insane,” Changbin rejected.

“You know what’s insane? A random kid with a tail attached to his bursting out of our kitchen counter! How would you explain the ears and tail without considering it has something to do with the weird animal invading our apartment?”

“Like a hybrid,” Seungmin questioned. Changbin could practically see the lightbulb go off over Chan’s head. He scoffed.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Hybrids can’t stay in human form for more than a couple of hours at a time. If foxy was a hybrid, he would have turned human last night.”

“Ok, so you have a point there. But the kid still could have been a hybrid.”

“So we let a potential run-away hybrid bust through our home and run off god knows where. Do you know how much trouble we could be in if he gets hurt and they track him to us?”

Damn Changbin for being right again. Hybrids were incredibly rare and highly treasured. For one to be hurt or mistreated in any way was unthinkable. If anyone suspected them to have messed with the kid, or worse yet, kidnapped him, there would be hell to pay. Good grief, things were really just going to hell.

“Maybe it was a hallucination,” Felix proposed hopefully.

“A hallucination we all had at the same time?”

“You can’t be agreeing with Chan-hyung on this Jisung-ah.”

“I didn’t say I agreed,” he lamented, “I’m just saying, we all saw what we saw, and it was real.”

“Did we, though? I mean it got pretty hectic.”

“I kinda wish I didn’t see anything,” Hyunjin piped up dejectedly and somehow Chan felt he wasn’t talking about the boy.

“You? I saw the kid !”

In all the time Chan had known his groupmates, he’d never seen their eyes go this wide.

“Wait, what,” Hyunjin yelped, “He wasn’t when he bumped into me!”

“Or in the kitchen.”

“Well, he must’ve got in the bathroom.”

“What, was he gearing to take a shower?”

“I don’t know!”

“Hold on! Did he run out !?”

“Uh…”

“Oh my god, we’re going to jail,” Hyunjin stared out into blank space. 

“No one is going to jail.”

“Guys, it could still be a hallucination.”

“Or it could just be a hybrid thing. They probably get used to their ‘bits’ being ‘free’ and all that.”

“Or,” Changbin cut in, “ It could be Chan-hyung actually is losing it.”

“Why you little-”

“Minho-hyung,” Seungmin shouted, relieved to interrupt the argument, “How did it go?” 

The relief was short lived, however, as it dissipated the moment he registered the scratches along his hyung’s arms and face. The sadness etched into his expression wasn’t helping either.

“Oh my god, Minho, what happened,” Chan rushed to his roommate’s side.

“I couldn’t calm him down,” he mumbled weekly, “He’s still hiding from me.” 

“Maybe he just needs some time,” Felix tried to console, “He might come out on his own in a little bit.”

His reluctant smile dropped once Minho shook his head.

“He’s so scared, ‘Lix. He didn’t even stop whimpering.”

 Chan watched Jisung and Felix snuggle into Minho once he settled on the couch, trying to comfort him, and fought the heavy urge to bring up the damage the fox had done and how dangerous it was to be keeping a wild animal, no matter how small or cute. But that would only start up another argument, and that was the last thing any of them needed. Besides that, there was a part of him that wanted to help the little thing.

He sighed when the silence became too much. And he’d thought it was going to be such a good morning.

“Ok. How about we have breakfast and then try with foxy again.”

They all turned to him.

“I thought you didn’t care for foxy, hyung” Felix casually and oh so innocently stabbed him through the chest.

“I don’t want to have a random street animal running freely around my home. That doesn’t mean I want him to be hurt or scared,” he reasoned, “Besides, I don’t want you all looking so miserable.” 

An awkward amount of time passed before Felix’ timid voice saved him.

“Can we finish those pancakes?”

“I did go to the shop for them,” Hyunjin jumped to his feet, followed closely by Changbin and Jisung. Chan chuckled fondly - it seemed he wasn’t the only one who wanted to move past the tension.

“Come on, hyung. Maybe you’ll have better luck with foxy if you’re feeling more cheerful,” Felix patted Minho’s shoulder before following the rest. Unfortunately it did little to get his worried hyung moving.

“Don’t bite your lips,” Chan poked him in the temple, “The noonas will scold you again.”

“I’m not in the mood, Chan,” Minho grumbled and Chan found himself sighing once more.

“You know, I think Felix is right,” he started matter-of-factly, “I can’t imagine any animal would be comfortable around you when you’re this grumpy.”

“So it’s my fault?”

“It’s both our faults,” Chan cut him off with a tone that left no room to argue, “We shouldn’t have yelled.”

Minho slumped in defeat before wiping a hand over his face.

“What am I supposed to do, hyung?”

“Come have breakfast with us for starters. Then we’ll go from there, yeah?”

Minho’s hesitant nod was more than enough for Chan to tug him off the couch.

“Let’s go.”

He was going to fix this even if he had to cuddle the fear out of that damned fox.