Baekhyun sits on a bus, idly scrolling through Instagram and listening to a new pop release on his phone, while passengers board or disembark at every stop along the route. The doors open and shut with a hiss; the bus continues. When it rolls to a stop, he gently moves forward with the force of the brakes. After Instagram is Twitter, with a different audience and group of friends. He shares a relevant post or two, and the amused smile from watching a truck tailgate open to reveal a bed of tumbling puppies drops from his lips. His neck stiffens and tenses—hairs rise along his arms, riding a tingling sensation that begins to spread. He just knows that someone is watching him. He looks up and, sure enough, someone across the bus is looking right at him. Their eyes meet briefly, then he looks away, slightly spooked. He feels too uncomfortable to check again to see if the stranger is still staring, but his body tells him that she is; his skin continues to tingle, as if her eyes are brushing it up and down.

Drawing the hood of his sweatshirt over his head doesn’t help any. It feels like he’s acknowledging the attention but not returning it, acting rudely, so the weight of the stare falls heavier over his shoulders.

The distance from Bucheon to Seoul is only sixteen miles, relatively short, and he’s regretting not just taking a taxi. At least he’d be alone.

He’s moving into a dorm for college after completing the high school requirements. It’s barely a move; his home is a satellite city of the capitol, and there’s a perfectly acceptable university closer to home, but he finally has the means and reason to leave the cold house he and his mom had moved to after the separation.

A little kid shrieks with laughter at a stop, making Baekhyun jump. No one’s looking at him, at least, distracted by the noisy girl being threatened by her sister to be quiet. They’re both laughing. Some other riders chuckle, as well, and others glare.

Baekhyun slouches more in his seat and holds his backpack to his chest.

There’s a ripple of hushed voices as the bus makes a turn at a traffic light. Something is panting and whining like a puppy. The young woman catches a brown, furry body as it tries to wriggle beneath Baekhyun’s seat.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, cheeks flushed. “She’s still a baby and got too excited.”

He barely hears the apology. The child in her hands wriggles and squirms, kicking little legs to be let down to run around. Perfectly round, black eyes meet his and stares. He jumps again at her shrill bark.

They return to their seat. An older woman hands a pile of folded clothes back with an understanding smile.

Baekhyun doesn’t get it.

He starts to think leaving home was a mistake.

The bus stops outside of the university, and a couple adults leave, possibly professors. Baekhyun follows and thanks the driver before the doors close.

It’s a large campus. People mill about, talking or just walking and enjoying the weather. It’s not as humid as it’s been for the last few weeks. He knew before he applied that there would be wolves as well as humans, but he’d forgotten just how great the population of the city actually is.

He’s not surprised when he hears the gossip about a submissive-class wolf; they’re very rare and apparently considered some kind of prize. He is surprised at just how many wolves live out in the open. Students’ status as human or wolf is publicly accessible, but some of them carry their identity on their clothing or bags, accessories in the shape of wolves or bearing the names of packs they belong to.

Baekhyun makes it through campus and is guided to his dorm without incident, although the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention. He knows he looks no different from the next guy, but his perception of himself is decidedly different than others’.

Another boy is in the dorm room when he enters. He’s no taller than Baekhyun, wears fitted pants but a baggy black T-shirt, and his hair is cropped close around his ears and the back of his head. They blink stupidly at one another for a moment before bowing.

“Hello. I’m Byun Baekhyun. I guess we’re roommates.”

“Do Kyungsoo.” He grabs a box from the bed sitting on the opposite side of the room. “Sorry for taking over. I didn’t think I’d brought so much with me…”

Baekhyun tosses his backpack onto the bed. His mom had sent most of his luggage ahead of him, and it’s piled neatly in a corner. He should start unpacking, but he’s so tired. The prickling sensation is gone, and it feels as though his skin is loose over his body, like a blanket.

“I’ll unpack in a little bit,” he mutters, closing his eyes. Kyungsoo hums.

As a child, he has an active imagination, like many children. It’s great fun to make up games and stories with his brother or friends and act out brave feats or demonstrate great strength. It’s hard to turn the imagination and energy off, though, so while he’s wholly exhausted by the end of the day, sleep just cannot pull him under.

He doesn’t outgrow the high energy. He sort of grows into it, joining lots of clubs and sports and making tens of friends. After he turns ten, he gets very lonely, and his mom is nervous about everything. His dad isn’t around much, if at all.

A nightmare wakes him, and he sits upright, holding his arms and trying to get the hairs to lay flat again. Stop shivering. Stop crying. He isn’t a child anymore; he can’t run to his mom and hasn’t tried running to his dad since his tenth birthday.

“Baekhyun?” Kyungsoo’s almost holding his shoulder. The sun is setting outside, and Kyungsoo has a desk lamp on but not the overhead light. Half of his face is orange, giving a strange shine to his eye. “Are you okay? You were making a lot of noise.”

“Sorry,” Baekhyun says softly. His voice is stronger than he feels. “It was a nightmare.”

“You were calling for your mom. Do you want to call her?”

Baekhyun blushes and ducks his head towards the wall. What a great first impression he’s made. Not only is he lazy, but he’s totally dependent on his mom.

“I’ll be alright. I’m sorry.”

“If it really bothers you, you don’t have to apologize for it.” The sunset finds the planes of his face still hidden by baby fat, throwing dramatic shadow across his cheeks and down his jaw and neck. He looks like an old noir detective, reliable and persistent.

“Thanks.” His backpack is still on his bed; he lowers it to the floor and stands up. Kyungsoo’s bed stands nearly as high as his waist, giving suitcase and tote bins a place to sit. “How did you get your bed so tall?”

“You want me to help you? I was worried it was going to wake you up; I nearly dropped it, like, twice.”

It’s a much easier feat with two people. One lifts the bed while the other lines it up with the brass bars set into the legs at even increments. Baekhyun wants his bed as high as it’ll go, and he has to jump to get onto it.

“Maybe knowing the fall is steep will keep me from rolling,” he says. He’s an active, noisy sleeper. Always has been. Hopefully, Kyungsoo is the sound sleeper type.

Once he finds the bedsheets his mom had given him, Baekhyun considers his unpacking good enough and shoves the rest of his things under his bed. He suggests getting food, since it’s late. They’ll be living in close quarters, too; he’d like to have an idea of who Kyungsoo is.

The cafeteria closes for the night at ten o’clock, but there are a couple fast food counters in one building, a cafe in another, and a coffee chain in a building with the library, so they still have options.

First meeting, Baekhyun found Kyungsoo to be polite and quiet. Walking around campus, however, they find a lot of common interests, and Kyungsoo laughs loudly and often. They both practiced martial arts through high school, have a fondness for music and theatre, and prefer dogs to cats, although they both like anything cute.

It’s fun, eating off-brand pizza and chatting like old friends. Baekhyun’s missed the easy bond similarities can form.

Others have the same idea. There are a lot of new people on campus, freshmen and transferring upperclassmen. Old friends and new friends mingle as they continue their hunt for dinner or find parties celebrating a new year.

Baekhyun stares at the pebbled tabletop, arm hair raised on goosebumps. He feels eyes on him and imagines a whisper of breath across his neck.

“Baekhyun.” Kyungsoo taps his hand. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I thought I felt someone staring.”

“They are staring,” Kyungsoo says softly. He nods over Baekhyun’s shoulder, and he doesn’t want to look, but his head turns on its own.

There’s a cluster of people in the outer vestibule of a dorm building, sharing drinks and turning to talk to one another in a way that heavily implies they had been staring.

“That’s weird.” Kyungsoo stands and crumples his paper plate and napkin. “Let’s go back. I have a class right away in the morning.”

“Really?” Baekhyun clings to the normalcy of classes. “Mine don’t start until the day after.”

“It’ll just be an informational thing, I’m sure, but I don’t want to miss it.”

The farther away they walk, the better Baekhyun feels, but then his mind has to remark on how they may have been wolves, and how nice would it be if they just stayed in their own dorm building? Not that they would, of course.

Wolves are free to go wherever they please, whenever they please.

 

Baekhyun sleeps through Kyungsoo’s alarm. It’s mid-morning when he finally wakes up and decides to actually unpack after a shower. There’s nervous energy after a restless night of sleeping someplace unfamiliar, and he nearly falls out of bed before remembering he’s the one who wanted it up so high.

He opens the big window, also the only window, a downside to being a middle room. Their window faces west, so they don’t get much morning light, and it’s a lot cooler in the building’s shadow, but he warms up as he moves.

It isn’t a particularly large room, probably about the size of his bedroom at home. The beds can be piled atop one another as a bunk bed, which would free up some floorspace, but keeping them separate affords a little more privacy and personal space.

As he sets his knick knacks along a shelf a previous student had mounted on the wall, Baekhyun notices how different his things are compared to Kyungsoo’s. While his blankets, clothes, plush toys—pretty much everything—is widely colorful and has no discernible theme, Kyungsoo’s aesthetic is closer to that of classic film. Black, white, and gray. A random splash of red or unexpected plaid shirt. With the white walls and tile floor, it’s like half the room is colorblind.

Or maybe Kyungsoo is, and that’s why there are so few colors. Black and white always go together.

Sliding the last suitcase back under his bed, Baekhyun looks over his things and decides it does look a bit more like home. Maybe he can find a way to hang some posters or a blanket on the wall, though. It’s very cold.

He’s eyeballing dimensions when someone knocks on the door. Kyungsoo has a key; he doesn’t know anybody else, yet.

A girl stands in the hall, bouncing a little on the balls of her fee. She’s pretty, and she greets Baekhyun with a wide smile. “Hello! Welcome to the dorm. I’m the resident assistant for the girls’ floor, above this one, but I wanted to say hi!”

There’s a prickling along his skin that’s becoming familiar, but it’s not as urgent an anxiety as last night or on the bus. “Hello…” She’s wearing a necklace with a smooth, curved stone with a blunt point at one end. It looks like a tooth.

“Isn’t it pretty? It’s my boyfriend’s. He’d like to meet you.”

“I’m busy. Thanks for the welcome.” It’s rude, but he closes the door in her face.

This is probably how it’s going to be. With his status being public record, anyone can look up his name, find his room, and seek him out. Maybe find him outside on the ground or in class. He’s not sure if being alone is better or worse than being in a public place.

He can take advantage of public record, too, though. Stay as unassuming as possible these first couple of weeks, check out his classmates, find out who’s safe and who isn’t.

Opening his laptop, he opens the student directory on the university’s website and types in a search. There’s only one result:

DO KYUNGSOO — HUMAN

It’s a relief.

 

His plan is a bust.

On his way to get a drink from the cafe, a tall boy with a wide smile waves and stops him. His T-shirt says BEWARE THE MOON. Obviously a wolf.

“Hi!”

“Hello…”

“I’m Chanyeol.”

“Baekhyun.”

“I know. I mean—I’ve heard about you.” The smile drops from Baekhyun’s lips, irritation pulling the corners down. “A sub-wolf is really rare, and you’re new to the area, so I wanted to meet you.”

“And now you have. I’ve got class.”

“Oh—Yeah! See you around.” Chanyeol visibly deflates, smile faltering to something awkward and uncertain.

“Probably not,” Baekhyun mutters. He barely manages to not slam the door to his room, abandoning his original plan to go to the cafe. Kyungsoo jumps, catching his visiting high school friend Jongin before he falls off the bed.

“You okay?” He stands between the beds, unsure what he should actually do.

“Sorry. Some guy wanted to talk to me just because of my status.”

“He say who he was? Maybe you can avoid his department.”

Baekhyun shrugs. “Chanyeol something.”

“Really tall? Kind of creepy smile?”

“Yeah. You know him?”

“Most people do. He’s the mayor’s kid.”

“Oh, fantastic. So I can’t avoid him now that he knows me. Maybe he’s blind and stupid, so if I wear a hat he won’t know it’s me.”

“He’s smarter than he looks,” Jongin joins the conversation shyly. “His sister is a reporter; she’s friends with my sisters.” He shrugs. “Chanyeol’s nice.”

Jongin's sweet. Too sweet for his own good. Baekhyun feels bad for being so negative around him, but there's a monster of angry anxiety shaking in his chest. “I really don’t care how nice he is. Talking to me because I’m ‘unique’ just sounds—ist.”

“Like what?”

“Nevermind, Jongin.” Kyungsoo sits beside Baekhyun. “Would you like us to go, so you can relax?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t want to kick you out of your room. I’ll be fine. I’ll just try to channel my righteous indignation into my homework.”

“We’ll be quiet.” Kyungsoo returns to his own bed, and he’s barely settled before Jongin’s claiming his lap as a pillow. He plugs a splitter into his laptop and offers Kyungsoo the other earbud.

Baekhyun slips his headphones over his ears, watching them from the corner of his eye. Kyungsoo introduced Jongin as a high school friend, but there seems to be something more building between them. Baekhyun’s pretty tactile, but he’s also aware of boundaries. There don’t seem to be any between those two.

It must be nice, he thinks, staring at his reflection in his laptop. Having someone to share things with or just be near—easy company.

In the heart of the city, Baekhyun isn’t sure he’ll trust anyone. Not completely. He can avoid the obvious wolves and remember those who approach him based off rumor.

But he’ll never sit beside someone and relax. He’ll worry about their inner animal and what it may do to him or anyone else on the street.

Classes are indiscriminately filled with wolves and humans. The packs form outside of class, joining up like primary school cliques. It’s a behavior humans follow, too. Theatre kids, athletic teams, band…

Some classmates introduce themselves when they sit next to Baekhyun. Once a seat is claimed, there’s an unwritten rule that it is their set seat for the semester. Baekhyun moves if he’s beside a wolf, finding seats closest to the door.

There’s a big part of him that’s pleased when those curious enough to seek him out show their shock at his behavior. Among humans who have no context for his behavior, he’s just moody and sometimes rude. Among wolves, he’s abnormal. There are leaders, foot soldiers, and idle followers. Baekhyun is a lone wolf but social butterfly, smiling and laughing human to human. Once a wolf comes near, a cool mask falls into place, but it doesn’t always hide his rigid posture and readiness to run.

He and his roommate have classes in the same building at the same time on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so they walk together. Kyungsoo has no qualms about stopping and talking to anyone who calls to him, unless they’re running late. Baekhyun feels like a nuisance child tugging at his mom’s skirt when he tries to get Kyungsoo moving again. He can be rude on his own, but he doesn’t want to hurt Kyungsoo, even if it could protect him.

In a way, it’s unfair. People approach Kyungsoo out of friendship. Wolves approach Baekhyun out of curiosity.

Kyungsoo notices Baekhyun’s discomfort while meeting a classmate to get a notebook back. Jongdae is nice. He and the older boys he usually hangs out with are pretty quiet and always polite. He’s sure they’ve never met Baekhyun before, but his roommate refuses to look at them and impatiently shifts his weight to either foot.

“Thanks for this,” Kyungsoo says with a smile. “We gotta get to class. See you.”

They’re early enough that neither of their classes are even out, yet.

“Baekhyun, are you okay? You were really weird back there.”

“I just hate wolves.”

“You’re a wolf, aren’t you?” Kyungsoo had asked him about his status one afternoon, a couple weeks into the semester. His textbooks line up like a study in lycanthropy.

“No.” Baekhyun drops his backpack and sits beside it against the wall. “Not willingly, anyway, so no.”

The door to Baekhyun’s classroom opens, and students pour into the hall. Baekhyun pulls his legs up. Kyungsoo leans against the wall beside him. “Will you talk to me about it later?”

“Gonna make a case study of me?” He flinches when Kyungsoo’s foot nudges his rather roughly.

“I’d like to think we’re friends, and if you’re worried about something, I’d like to know about it.”

The professor leaves hurriedly; her class had gone over longer than anticipated. The next class files in slowly, already resigned to the routine.

“Just talk to me later, okay?” Kyungsoo says.

Baekhyun shrugs. He doesn’t pay much attention in class or his next class. Kyungsoo texts him a photo of takeout he’d ordered, and Baekhyun’s stomach twists.

There’s no reason to avoid it, though; he has nowhere else to go, so he returns to their room and tries to sneak in without Kyungsoo knowing. He usually has earbuds plugged into his laptop. The reflection catches the door opening, and he looks over his shoulder.

“Food’s still hot.” He drops his earbuds in a tangle on the laptop keyboard. A movie is paused on the screen; Baekhyun doesn’t recognize it.

He changes into pajamas and joins Kyungsoo on the floor. They’d found a small table leftover from last semester among other furniture piled up by the dumpsters. It wobbles a bit, but the one short leg stands more evenly with a couple old magazines beneath it.

“So you gonna tell me why you act so weird, sometimes, or can I guess?”

Baekhyun shrugs. His mouth is full of food, anyway.

“Your wolf class is unique and quite rare. Naturally, everyone knows and is curious.”

Baekhyun coughs and chokes. Kyungsoo hands him a bottle of water, looking more disgusted than concerned.

“Is that so bad?”

“For me—” he wheezes and drinks a bit more. “Yes. I’d rather not have people’s attention for something I had no control over.”

“No one controls how they’re born—”

“I wasn’t born like this.”

Kyungsoo looks at the floor, finding the patterns in the worn tile suddenly fascinating. “Oh.”

“I guess there’s no avoiding it, but I just want to be left alone. I don’t want to be like this. Can’t anyone respect that and, like, ignore that part of me?”

Kyungsoo sighs and leans against the leg of his bed. “People don’t know that, Baekhyun. Everyone’s naturally curious, and when they find out some similarity, they’re more curious. I admit, I’ve only heard of your status from a book, and it really only mentioned the possible classes.

“It may be simple lack of education. Rather than running away, you could tell people who approach you why you’d rather not talk about it. Or, and I can’t think of how, but if someone asks, you can politely tell them to off.” He shrugs again. “Because it really is none of their business.”

Baekhyun laughs. “Is there a polite way?” He’s been more than ready to fight, if he’s not left alone, but he’s been able to find an excuse for a quick exit so far.

It’d just be so much easier if he could take a walk or even just go to class without worrying about getting stopped by some eager young wolf.

“I am sorry, though, Baekhyun. I noticed you were uncomfortable and thought you were just being weird. It’s just wolves, though, isn’t it?”

“Pretty much. It’s like they have an image of what I should be like, just based off the class name, so they’re trying to stake a claim or something.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “They really have no idea what I am or how it happened, though. Like you said: It’s none of their business.”

“Would you tell me about it, sometime? Not just because I’m studying wolf sociology, but because, you know…”

“You want to know me better?” Baekhyun bats his eyelashes. “Aww, Kyungsoo!” He makes a grab for him over the table, but Kyungsoo scoots back under his bed with a glare like a fussy cat.

Baekhyun doesn’t give an answer one way or the other, but he feels a bit better having Kyungsoo in his confidence.

After clearing away the food containers and doing homework for a couple hours, they go to bed.

Baekhyun has another nightmare.

It’s a memory.

He’s young, still in elementary school, and pretends to be sick, so he can stay home from school. Dad’s at work; Mom tucks him back in bed and tells him to rest. She’s going to the store to buy more medicine. They’re almost out. It isn’t a far car ride; they live in a pretty suburban area just outside of the city. Baekhyun usually walks to school and can take a bus to his friends’ houses or the mall.

Once she’s gone, he throws off the covers and dives into the video game he’d borrowed from a friend. Time passes unacknowledged. Something scratches softly at the front door, then it opens. Baekhyun turns off the TV and wraps a blanket around his shoulders like a cape.

“Mom?” His voice is far away, getting lost down the lengthened hallway. It’s dark except for the nightlight outside the bathroom door, the moon in the windows, and the lamp post across from their house.

A hulking silhouette fills the doorway, massive and drooling. Two more slink in around it.

He tells them they can take whatever they want; he won’t tell anyone. He won’t say anything to anyone. He’s too scared to go for help. The wolves’ eyes are too red, pupils small and focused.

He’s in a hospital. Most of him is thickly bandaged and unrecognizable. His neck really hurts.

The adults think he’s asleep, and a doctor tries to tell his parents that he’ll become someone special.

He was special before; his mom said so. Now she holds him and frowns at her husband, who refuses to look at him. Maybe he hates the bandages.

Baekhyun wakes up and knows it wasn’t the bandages.

Across the room, Kyungsoo is still asleep. At least Baekhyun didn’t cry in his sleep again. He pulls his blankets up over his shoulder, ignores the full moon outside and the early hour on his watch, and closes his eyes to wait for his morning alarm, when he can go to classes like usual with anxiety as his close companion.

 

---

 

a/n: Written for EXZOO Fest. (prompt no.S002 Baekhyun is used to be human until his house is attacked by rogues of shapeshifters. One of the rogue bites him and turned him into shapeshifter as well. He was only 9 years old when that happen. His father managed to killed the one who bites him but sees Baekhyun as 'contaminated dog' after that incident and avoided him all the time. Only her mom tried her best to keep their family together. 10 years passed and for the whole time Baekhyun managed to suppress his inner shapeshifter. (Rarely shifts into his wolf form, numbing his animalistic instincts). He decided to start fresh and moves and attend a university in Seoul, away from Bucheon his hometown. But because of years of numbing his instincts, he doesn't realise that in Seoul, there's a lot of shapeshifters. Like a LOT. And what he doesn't know, that everyone is looking at him like he's kind of some prized possession. Apparently he's a submissive and submissive is a rare thing in shapeshifters community. He's a boy so he can't get pregnant, but his presence is needed to calms the dominant, makes their instincts to protect even stronger, increase their power etc, so everyone would love to have a submissive in their pack. Thus plenty leader of the pack in Seoul began to court him to be in their pack.

Chanyeol is the son of mayor in Seoul. And he decided that Byun Baekhyun will be a great addition to add into his pack and began to court him as well. Only one problem, Baekhyun hates shapeshifters and rejects himself from being one.)

The title comes from Werewolves of London, by Warren Zevon.

A shapeshifter fic with only a tiny instance of shifting...

How lame. orz;;

There is a fair bit more to this story, but I didn't plan well, Life got nuts, I didn't like what I was writing... So my prompter, I hope you like what there is. I'm hoping to produce more, whether in a new chapter or editing this one.