There’s a thick, heavy silence that fills the house when Jongdae steps inside. It’s something Jongdae isn’t used to, he decides, as he walks towards the kitchen in hopes of finding at least one of his brothers. 

Joonmyeon’s car hadn’t been outside, which Jongdae finds worriesome as his eldest brothers were usually home before him and he had stopped to get dinner with Baekhyun anyway. 

He walks into the living room with his eyebrows knit in confusion, but his confusion only grows when he finds Jongin and Luhan sitting around the living room and basically avoiding all physical and eye contact. 

“What’s up with you two?” He questions them with his arms crossed over his chest,

”And where are Minseok and Joonmyeon?”

Luhan and Jongin glance at each other and then look away quickly. It doesn’t look like they’re going to be answering him, Jongdae notes in frustration. 

“Minseok is in his room.” Yifan’s voice says instead, and it startles Jongdae just a little. 

“What about Joonmyeon?” Jongdae asks him because it looks like Yifan’s the only one who will answer him. 

He spoke too soon. Yifan remains silent after Jongdae’s question, and Jongdae purses his lips together. 

“It looks like Yifan and Joon got into some lover’s quarrel.” Minseok explains from behind him with a sigh, and Jongdae turns to raise an eyebrow at his eldest brother. Lover’s quarrel? Between a ghost and a human?

But Minseok isn’t even looking at Jongdae. Instead, all of his focus on Luhan, who’s sitting with his head bowed like a scolded child. 

“Lu, can I talk to you in my room?” He asks, but it sounds more like a demand when he turns and walks back towards his room. 

“Can I just stay here?” Luhan asks in a small, defeated voice, but he gets up reluctantly and trails after Minseok with heavy footsteps. 

That leaves Jongdae with Jongin and Yifan, Jongdae thinks for a moment. It’s quickly changed when the breeze that comes with Yifan’s presence fades away. 

He doesn’t know much about what’s going on between Joonmyeon and Yifan, but he feels a little bad about how dejected Yifan is seeming. 

“Now that they’re out of the way,” Jongdae sighs as he takes a seat beside Jongin and playfully slaps his brother on the thigh,

”what crawled into your coffee this morning?”

Jongin is lost in his thoughts for a long moment, and Jongdae doesn’t like it because usually he gets some sort of reaction from the baby of the family. 

“Hyung... you met Sehun before, right?” Jongin asks in a timid manner, and Jongdae raises an eyebrow at the tone. 

“Yeah. Why do you ask?” Jongdae questions in return, and he can feel his lips curve into a small frown. He can already sense where this is going. 

“What do you think about him?” Jongin asks, oblivious of the growing displeasure in Jongdae’s expression. 

He was right. Jongin does seem to be catching feelings for Sehun, whose... “pack,” or whatever seemed to see Jongdae and their family as a threat. Jongdae doesn’t hate Sehun. He doesn’t even know Sehun enough to hate the boy. In fact, he’s grateful that Sehun had stopped Jongin at the party before he could get hurt. 

“You like him, don’t you?” Jongdae asks anyway, just to confirm it once more. 

There’s no verbal response that Jongin gives him, there’s just the slightest reddening of his ears. 

“I won’t lecture you because you’re old enough to take care of yourself now, Nini.” Jongdae sighs as he turns to his brother. 

“I’ve changed, Dae. You know that I have.” Jongin says in a desperate tone, but his gaze is on his lap and not on Jongdae. He hates being reminded of his past, after all. 

“I know, Nini.” Jongdae replies, and there’s a guilty smile that forms on his lips as he reaches out and pats Jongin on the head. 

“But I worry about you-” Jongdae continues gently,

“- I don’t think any of us could handle seeing you on a hospital bed like that again.”

His throat is heavy as he speaks because he never wanted to remember how close he was to losing Jongin in the past. 

“Jesus, Dae.” Jongin murmurs, and he easily pulls Jongdae against his chest. At times like this, Jongin felt like the elder brother. 

“Please be careful.” Jongdae mutters against Jongin’s shoulder, and he knows a few tears have escaped his eyes and onto Jongin’s nice shirt, but Jongin lets it slide for once. 

“I promise I will.” Jongin agrees, and Jongdae can’t remember how long ago it was that he and Jongin spent time together like this without bickering over something small and stupid. 

Jongdae is the one that pulls away, because he’s suddenly exhausted and doesn’t want to invade Jongin’s privacy more than he has to. He believes his brother, anyway, he’s just a little over protective.

”Hyung.” Jongin suddenly calls, and right as Jongin is about to leave the living room. 

Jongdae pauses where he is and turns around with an eyebrow raised in question. 

“Do you regret moving here?” Jongin asks, once he knows he’s gotten Jongdae’s full attention. 

Jongdae smiles thoughtfully, then chuckles as he remembers the date he had with Baekhyun earlier that day. 

“This town is creepy and sometimes I still can’t believe how easily we accepted the reality of living with a ghost,” Jongdae admits in a playful manner,

“but I don’t mind thinking of this place as home.”

Jongin looks suspicious of his sudden enthusiasm and even asks what happened to suddenly bring Jongdae a change of attitude, but Jongdae pretends not to hear him on his way to his own bedroom. 

He loved Jongin and would easily give his own life for his younger brother, but his family wasn’t all he had to live for anymore. 

No. Now he also had a nosy, sometimes bland, neighbor in his life that made it that much more worth living. 

Was this what it felt like to be in love?

Luhan is silent as Minseok brings him to the elder’s room. Minseok doesn’t know what Luhan is thinking, and he barely knows what he’s thinking himself, but he hates the distance that’s between them. 

When had they become this way?

Minseok takes a seat on his bed and watches Luhan, who stands in front of the shut door and shifts on his feet like he’s waiting to be dismissed or thrown away. 

“Were you ever going to tell me?” Minseok starts off quietly, because he can’t help but feel betrayed and like Luhan was hiding an entire part of himself from Minseok. 

Luhan looks up at him when the question is asked, and there are tears shining in his eyes as he drops his head. It looks like a no. 

“Why wouldn’t you tell me something so important?” Minseok asks, and the hurt in his tone is blatant as he asks. 

“Because I’m a monster, Min.” Luhan admits in defeat, and he slowly drops himself onto the ground with his head bowed. Minseok can see the tears falling onto the floor, though. 

“What?” Minseok asks, and he’s surprised that Luhan would call himself that, and his heart aches. 

“I’ve been alive for three centuries, Min.” Luhan says between his tears, and Minseok can’t begin to imagine how lonely that must have been. 

“And you - you were the first one that ever made my heart feel like it’s beating.” Luhan continues, and he clutched at his chest like it’s going to erupt. 

The hurt that Minseok feels doesn’t fade away, but morphs into another kind of pain all together. 

“I thought that if you knew who I was I would lose you. And I get it. I hurt you and I should have told you the truth but when you moved here and broke up with me I knew you’d find out anyway and I wanted to tell you for myself so I canceled my shoots and jumped onto the plane.”

Luhan’s just rambling at this point, Minseok thinks to himself. He gets off of his bed slowly and walks toward Luhan, though the weeping boy doesn’t seem to notice until Minseok is holding him. 

“Idiot.” Minseok mutters in a fond manner, and though there were plenty of reasons for him to be afraid of getting close to Luhan, those tears have never lied to Minseok before. 

“I love you, Lu. You could never be a monster to me.” He mutters into Luhan’s hair, and he waits patiently for Luhan to stop crying. He cries a little too, because he hates how badly he’s been treating Luhan for the duration of their relationship. 

When they’re both calm enough to talk, their backs are pressed against the door and their legs stretched out before them. Their hands are even intertwined across their laps. 

“Were you born a vampire?” Minseok asks curiously, because he doesn’t know how accurate vampire tales may be. 

“No, I was born as a human.” Luhan says, and there’s an amused smile on his face like he had expected such a question. 

“Then... how?” Minseok asks then, and his eyebrows are furrowed in confusion. 

“I was born with a weak heart.” Luhan explains as he draws shapes across the back of Minseok’s hand using his thumb, as a way to distract himself. 

“I don’t remember the exact details because of how long ago it was, but I remember my parents abandoning me on the side of a road when I was in my early teens,” Luhan explains, and his tone is reminiscent,

“and I might have passed out. Or maybe I actually did die. Because one moment I was throwing up because of a sharp pain in my side, and the next moment, I was being taken care of by a prominent family in the Vampiric Patriarch.”

Minseok is quiet as he absorbs what he’s being told, though his eyebrows are raised in fascination. He had no idea that Luhan had a weak heart. In a way, he was much like Jongin. 

“What was it like?” Minseok asks in a gentle tone. He knows nothing of the life Luhan had lived in the centuries they hadn’t known each other, but being alive and alone for centuries sounds painful. 

“At first I was terrified, like anyone would be.” Luhan admits with a nod, and he’s even shuddering at the memories he holds. 

“But because of Lay and Tao, I was able to make it through. We’ve been blood brothers since I was turned.” Luhan finishes his explanation with a thoughtful chuckle. 

Lay? Tao? Who were these guys and why did their names sound familiar to Minseok? 

“Can I ask one more question?” Minseok continues with his assault of inquiries. 

“Other than the one you’re asking now?” Luhan laughs, and Minseok finds himself smiling as well. 

He could never get tired of the way Luhan sounded when he laughed. 

“Why did you move out of this town? It looks perfect for the supernatural type.” Minseok murmurs, and he notes how quickly Luhan deflates. 

Minseok feels himself redden in embarrassment for asking a question that seemed to hit a sore spot for Luhan. 

“I didn’t want to,” Luhan explains with a shake of his head,

“none of us really did.”

Minseok is about to ask for more of a straightforward answer when Luhan cuts him off with another shake of the head. 

“We were in the middle of a nasty turf war with the wolf pack. We lost a lot of people on both sides, but with our patriarch having been defeated, we were chased out of town.”

A turf war with the wolves? Did he mean those boys at the party Jongdae had been invited to? 

“We didn’t back down easily, though.” Luhan continues, and there’s this spark of pride in his eyes,

“We killed their alpha.”

Killed their alpha? Minseok doesn’t know why, but there’s a shudder that racks his body. Is it because there are too many coincidences that link the people in this town together?

Sehun’s already at the park when Jongin gets there. His clothes are drenched in sweat and he looks heavily fatigued. Jongin guesses he’s lucky that Sehun bothered to show up after all. 

“Did I keep you waiting long?” Jongin asks under his breath as he nears, and he tries his best to keep his face neutral when he sees Sehun bring a lighter to the cigarette waiting against his lips. 

There’s a smile on Sehun’s face as he pulls the cigarette away and tucks it into his pocket. Jongin wonders if he had actually made it that obvious. 

“I do not mind the wait if it’s for your sake.” Sehun tells him easily, and Jongin presses his lips together in an attempt to keep his face from reddening. 

He knows it’s not a successful attempt at all, but it’s betyet than blushing outright. 

Sehun gestures to the swing sets that they had sat on the last time they were at the park together like this, and Jongin silently takes a seat. 

Silence falls on them for a long while as Jongin thinks of what he wants to say and what he wants to ask. There’s so much Jongin doesn’t know about this town and apparently his family, but he’s unable to find words now that they’re together. 

“I met with your brother today.” Sehun breaks the silence, and Jongin’s so surprised that his head snaps in Sehun’s direction. 

“Joonmyeon, I think his name is.”

Jongin remembers the party and how Sehun’s friend Chanyeol has almost attacked Joonmyeon, and then wonders to himself if maybe he shouldn’t trust Sehun after all. 

“What did you do with my brother?” Jongin asks, and he doesn’t mean to sound accusatory, but he wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of Joobmyeon getting hurt by the people Jongin had promised to protect him from. 

Sehun looks over at him with an eyebrow raised, and his eyes are piercing through Jongin in a way. 

“He asked me to help train him so he could protect you and your other brothers.” Sehun says, and he looks away, but his tone sounds a little empty. 

“So you... agreed?” Jongin asks, and he doesn’t know if he should be grateful or angry. Sure, he doesn’t want his brother to get hurt, but if someone with as much influence and apparently strength as Sehun were training Joonmyeon, he’d be able to protect himself. 

“You don’t seem to know it either, so I’ll tell you.” Sehun mutters, and Jongin wonders why he’s changing the subject. 

“Your brother has the blood of a wolf.”

What? Jongin can’t help the way he stares at Sehun like he’s grown a couple of heads since the beginning of the conversation. Sehun has to be joking, right? They all have the same parents!

Sehun can feel his gaze, it appears, because he holds up his arm now, and there are cuts and bruises running along his limb. 

“Your brother did this to me today in training.” Sehun states like it should be more than enough proof. 

“He’s unable to transform right now because he spent his entire life as a human up until this point, but with some more training, he’ll be able to protect you even when I’m not around.”

Jongin’s mind is spinning with the knowledge. What the absolute ? His brother wasn’t a human? How was that even possible? And for Sehun to be training him?

“Okay. I’ll accept that, I guess,” Jongin mutters like he even has a choice in the matter, 

“but even then, why are you helping us like this? I thought you didn’t like us?”

Sehun releases a drawn out sigh and turns to fixate Jongin with a look that has his entire stomach doing flips in nervousness. He’s not sure why Sehun has this affect on him, but he doesn’t even really mind. 

“I told you before, didn’t I?” Sehun asks, and he turns away,

“I don’t want you risking your life when you’re just a human. Your brother will live to tell the tale of he goes against someone with Chanyeol’s strength. I won’t lose you due to your impulsiveness.”

Lose him? Why does Sehun have to speak like that and confuse Jongin’s already aching heart with the mixed feelings he continues to send to Jongin?

“Why me, Sehun?” Jongin asks in exasperation, and he even tugs a little at his hair in desperation to try and understand Sehun’s behavior. 

“Hell if I knew.” Sehun snorts, and Jongin slowly turns to see Sehun’s side profile. His head is tilted back and there’s that serene look on his face as he stares at the night sky. 

He turns just at the moment that Jongin’s looking at him, and the smile that was on his face doesn’t seem to lessen in brightness, but his eyes sparkle with loneliness. 

“The world of wolves doesn’t make sense,” Sehun says a moment later as he turns his gaze back to the sky,

“I spent over three centuries looking for my mate, and just when I lost hope in ever finding her, my mate appears and ends up being a human boy.”

Jongin listens on with growing interest and the nervousness in his stomach grows. Something about Sehun always seemed to make him feel on edge. He wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing or not. 

“Your mate?” Jongin isn’t so dumb that he doesn’t know what that implies. He’s read plenty of stories about werewolves, anyway. He just never imagined he’d be the mate of one, too. 

“Do not worry over it. I am not the kind to force another to have feelings for me.” Sehun says under his breath, and that smile is gone now,

”I’ve gone a few centuries without a mate. I’m sure I can go a few more.”

Jongin stares at him and feels his heart break for reasons unknown to him. Well. He does know. What kind of lonely life did Sehun live for him to be so accepting of the thought of being alone for the rest of it? 

Joonmyeon is drenched in sweat when he pulls up to the house. It’s late enough for his brothers to be asleep or in their rooms, so he’s not too worried about them asking questions. 

But he was mostly worried about Yifan and how the ghost would react. 

Yifan doesn’t really have much say about what he does with his body or his time, but he’s usually home hours earlier than this and worries that the ghost will blame himself. 

He spent about two hours with Sehun at an abandoned clearing in the middle of the woods. It was sketchy and even Sehun admitted it, but it was the best place to train with privacy. 

Sehun’s still a little suspicious too, and Joonmyeon won’t pretend he’s not, but he appreciates the fact that Sehun’s putting his own life on the line to train him. He’s not very strong yet, but finds himself believing Sehun when the younger boy promises him that he’s got potential. 

Whatever that means, anyway. 

When he opens the front door into the house, Yifan is standing just a few feet away from him and there’s a worried crease in his eyebrows as he takes in Joonmyeon’s discheveled state. 

“You are late.” Yifan alerts him with a frown, and Joonmyeon can’t help the frown that forms on his own face. 

“I didn’t know I had a curfew.” There’s a bite in his tone, too. One that he regrets the moment Yifan’s eyes harden and the ghost vanishes. 

Joonmyeon sighs as he runs a hand through his hair. What the hell was that about? He already knew that Yifan’s behavior in the morning had been him trying to do what he thought was best for Joonmyeon. 

Why was Joonmyeon still so upset?

He decides not to dwell on it and goes to his room to grab a clean change of clothes and take it with him to the bathroom. 

Its only when he’s taking a shower that what he had said to Yifan really sinks in. Was it really fair to be so snappy at Yifan when he was just concerned about Joonmyeon’s well being?

When he finishes his shower and he has fresh clothes on, he goes on a search to find Yifan. The ghost had practically vanished and left no trace of where he could be found again, Joonmyeon notes with a sigh. 

In the end, he ends up sitting in the grass in the backyard as he hoped silently for Yifan to return. If only so that Joonmyeon could apologize. 

But Yifan doesn’t return that night, and Joonmyeon wonders if maybe that’s how Yifan felt when Joonmyeon had been out without saying why. 

“Joonmyeon. Please awaken.” Yifan’s voice calls out to him, and Joonmyeon groggily sits up and looks around him. 

It looks like he dozed off in the grass waiting for Yifan?because the sun is just starting to peek out from between the trees to alert him that morning is approaching quickly. 

“Yifan. You’re back!” Joonmyeon notes in surprise, and he doesn’t really understand why he’s so relieved to see Yifan again. 

Yifan stares at him in perplexity for a long while, like he can’t understsnd Joonmyeon’s excitement, either, but his expression changes and there’s a smile on his face that Joonmyeon had never seen before. 

“Why do you make it sound like I left?” Yifan asks, and the innocent questioning in his voice has Joonmyeon staring at him in the same perplexity. 

“When I came home last night you and I had a little argument and then you disappeared.” Joonmyeon explains with furrowed eyebrows, like it will jog Yifan’s memory. 

Yifan just stares at him and shakes his head a couple of times, “I do not recall any argument between us.”

Joonmyeon wants to be mad. He really does. He also said wants to accuse Yifan of feigning ignorance, but Yifan looks genuinely concerned that Joonmyeon was talking about something he had no clue about. 

“Yifan, do you have any lapses in your memories?” Joonmyeon asks carefully, and he’s not even sure if a Yifan will know what he’s talking about. 

“I do not recall anything from when I was alive, save for a few flashes of memories.” Yifan answers with his lips pursed in a thoughtful manner. 

“Is that all?” Joonmyeon asks, and he feels bad for interrogating Yifan, but his inability to remember what had happened a day before was a little worriesome. 

“Sometimes it feels as though... my mind is not with me.” Yifan explains, but he sounds confused as he explains it. 

Joonmyeon is a little confused too. Why couldn’t Yifan remember the things he had lived through? And what did he mean when he said that he wasn’t always with his mind?

When he thinks back on it, he can acknowledge that Yifan’s not always able to properly recall things. But to forget a whole day of memories at once?

“How far back can you remember right now?” Joonmyeon tries, and he’s a little worried about the answer. 

“We were sitting in the kitchens. The blonde trouble maker was there. And your brothers.” Yifan says, and his tone is empty and hurt. 

“Yifan. That was the night of the full moon.” Joonmyeon utters, and he’s a little terrified. It was one thing to have forgotten a day’s worth of memories, but the full moon was several days ago. 

“It... was?” Yifan asks, and when he sounds a little fearful as they talk. 

He opens his mouth to speak again, but his gaze suddenly looks into the distance like something is there, and Yifan vanishes once more. 

Joonmyeon loooks off in the distance of where Yifan had been staring, but there’s nothing there. Absolutely nothing. His eyebrows furrow as he focuses on the space before him where Yifan had just been, and he’s full of suspicion and fear. 

It feels like he’s being watched, he thinks a moment later, and after looking around himself once more to make sure he’s not actually being watched, Joonmyeon gets up and retreats into the house.