Joohyun drags her heavy suitcase along the dimly-lit hallway, scanning the numbers on the doors as she passes by. 503…505, and finally, 507.
 

She pulls out the key given to her by the landlady and unlocks the door to her new flat. Instantly, the smell hits her, and she wrinkles her nose in mild distaste. The room smells of one-hundred percent, unadulterated wolf.
 

The lights are on, the room empty, but Joohyun notes the sliver of light filtering through beneath the closed bathroom door as well as the sound of water running, and figures her new roommate must be taking a shower. Not that it would get rid of the smell in any way.
 

Methodically, she starts unpacking her clothes and the sparse number of personal items she’s brought with her. She’s adjusting her newly-placed bedsheets when she hears the bathroom door unlock.
 

“Oh. Hi,” she hears from behind her.
 

She turns around and finds a towel-clad – and only ­towel-clad – girl with still-dripping short, dark hair staring at her in surprise and embarrassment.
 

“I almost ripped your throat out, but I realized you must be my new roommate? Right? Or do I have to go back to my first instinct?”
 

Joohyun blinks at the thought of the girl running at full speed towards her, claws outstretched, towel slipping –
 

“No. I mean, yes. I’m your new roommate. Joohyun,” she says in a rush, as if trying to somehow chase her weird thoughts away.
 

“Ah. Good. I’m Seungwan.” Seungwan smiles at her, teeth glinting and eyes crinkling at the corners, and Joohyun feels her hackles rise despite the smile being anything but predatory. “Are you a va- wait, would that be weird for me to ask?”
 

“It’s fine. I am. And I can smell what you are a long way off.”
 

Seungwan scratches the back of her head sheepishly. “Sorry about that. We’re a weird combo, but I won’t get in your way or anything, I swear.”
 

“As long as you don’t leave any stray fur on my bed, we’ll be fine,” Joohyun replies. She tries to come off as jesting, but her words make Seungwan’s smile dim at the edges.
 

Seungwan nods. “Understood.” She then turns away from her and picks up the folded clothes on her bed. “I should…go change.” She walks back into the bathroom and shuts the door behind her.
 

Joohyun sighs and tries to shake the guilt off as she sits on her bed. It’s better if they don’t get too close, anyway. Such a friendship will never work out.

***

Despite the icy skepticism that just about flows through Joohyun’s veins, she doesn’t mind having Seungwan as her roommate. If she has half a mind to be honest with herself about such things, she may even admit that she likes it.
 

Just as Seungwan had promised when they first met, she’s never bothered Joohyun if she could help it, though the difference in their school hours may have a hand in this too – Seungwan going to day college and Joohyun to night college – so Joohyun will be asleep and have the room to herself while Seungwan is out attending classes, and vice versa.
 

When they do end up being in the same room together, Seungwan usually has her headphones on, bopping her head to some song or humming quietly along with it. The humming would usually get to Joohyun, but she’s found Seungwan’s voice to be quite nice and soothing, and she has to stop herself from feeding her curiosity and asking her what she’s singing along to.
 

Seungwan always makes sure to keep the blackout curtains closed when Joohyun is around, and she never blinks an eye to the pile of blood bags at the back of their fridge whenever she takes out a can of Coke for her late-night study sessions. She’s even taken to spraying some sort of flowery scent all over the room that does a decent job of hiding the stench of wolf.
 

And to top it all off, Joohyun has not encountered a single strand of fur on her bed – not even in the small entirety of her side of the room.

***

Seungwan never bothers Joohyun for more-than-trivial things until a month and a half later, when Joohyun comes back from a party in the middle of the night and Seungwan is blearily awake, flopped on her side with scattered highlighters bracketing the upper half of her body.
 

Joohyun barely gets to slip out a greeting when Seungwan gives her a once-over and quips, “’Irene?’ Is that like some sort of vampiric alias you give yourself while on the hunt?”
 

It takes the few seconds where Joohyun blinks at her roommate and looks down at the sticker nametag she had forgotten to remove for Seungwan to snap upright in self-afflicted shock, sending a few highlighters skittering across the floor in every which way.
 

“! I’m sorry! I- I- I’m barely awake – I mean I was barely awake and just said whatever-”
 

“It is a vampiric alias. We don’t hunt humans in the dead of night anymore though, so we just use it for our blood-enhancing rituals.”
 

Seungwan’s eyes bug out and an almost-imperceptible squeak leaves her lips, and Joohyun tries her hardest not to crack a smile. Or burst into laughter.
 

It takes Seungwan an awfully long while to realize Joohyun was pulling her leg, and as soon as her eyes stop looking so shell-shocked, Joohyun snorts, then lets out the heartiest laugh she’s had in a while.
 

“, I really thought you were doing blood rituals. I mean, sure, whatever gets your blood flowing, yeah? But still.”
 

Joohyun takes off her heels and begins the mundane task of getting ready for bed. “We’ve become more civilized as the centuries wore on, I guess. I mean, I bet they had those way back when, knowing how ridiculous some conservatives are.”
 

Seungwan nods along, lack of sleep and schoolwork seemingly forgotten as her eyes track Joohyun as she moves around the room. Not used to her roommate paying so much attention to her, Joohyun loses sense of herself and gravity for a second, tripping on the bedpost as she turns a corner. Her vampire reflexes act out, but so do Seungwan’s werewolf ones. In a flash, Seungwan is beneath her, catching her arms and pushing her back to her feet, steadying her. “You okay?” Seungwan asks her, eyebrows furrowed in concern.
 

If Joohyun could flush from embarrassment, she would’ve. The warmth of Seungwan’s fingers circling her wrists almost seems like they can travel up her neck and heat her cheeks. And more than that, Joohyun can finally smell her again, in such close proximity. It’s as wolfy as it has ever been, but Joohyun’s insides don’t recoil like she expected. So she panics.
 

She jerks away from Seungwan like she’s been burned, and she lets the guilt seep in when Seungwan’s face crumples in hurt. Seungwan backs away quickly, putting distance between them, distance Joohyun should crave but comes to dislike instead.
 

Coming so close to something changing between their rather indifferent dynamic, though, Joohyun attempts to explain herself in the least ridiculous way. “Sorry, I- you were so hot. Warm! I meant warm.” Okay, that may not have been the least ridiculous way to go about it. But Seungwan stops looking like a kicked wolf and nods in understanding, and Joohyun feels relief flood through her.
 

The tension recedes from the room, and Seungwan starts picking up her highlighters as Joohyun resumes getting ready for bed, rifling through her pyjamas.
 

“Unnie?”
 

“Hmm?”
 

“Why ‘Irene,’ though, if you don’t mind me asking?”
 

With everything that has just transpired, Joohyun almost forgets about how it all began. “It’s just a name I like to use. Handy for international vampire conventions too.”
 

“Oh.” Joohyun turns to find Seungwan smiling. “It’s a beautiful name. Kinda fits you, somehow.”
 

Their eyes meet, and before Joohyun can muster the courage to ask her what she means by that, Seungwan turns away to pick up her books and remaining highlighters from the bed.
 

“I should probably turn in for the night too,” Seungwan says, adding under her breath something Joohyun wouldn’t have picked up if not for her supernatural hearing, “-before I say anything else that I’ll smack myself for in the morning.”
 

Joohyun bites back a smile, but she doesn’t resist it when it blooms fully after she shuts herself in the bathroom to change.

A/N: what is up with me and writing wenrene roommate aus

and i can't wait for seungwan's fur to stray to joohyun's bed

i mean

what