Treasure hunters are common. They seek valuable artifacts with a hefty payoff in mind. While the potential adventures and danger sound thrilling, Kyungsoo is perfectly happy with keeping his treasure for sentimental value rather than monetary.

It’s just super pretty.

Kyungsoo dreams about his treasure. He’s floating comfortably on his dad’s belly, completely sun-dried and content. His treasured jade is clutched in his paws; he rubs its smooth surface with his thumb.

On his back between his parents, the water is loud but not unpleasant. He bobs with the gentle waves and makes a game of the clear sounds above water and the muffled, blurred underwater songs.

With his paws held by his parents, he has no paw to hold his treasure with, and as they ride out a greater wave, it shivers and rolls off his belly and into the water.

It glitters as it sinks, as though waving goodbye.

Kyungsoo lets go of his mom’s paw to reach for it, but it’s too far away, and they’re reaching rapids. It’s time to get out of the water.

He wakes up to his mom’s soft coaxing and fingers through his fur. “Kyungsoo, baby… It’s time to wake up.”

With his dream still fresh in his mind, he surges upright and lifts his pillow. There, right where he left it, is his pretty treasure.

Mom watches fondly and kisses his head, telling him breakfast is ready. Egg fried rice, spicy stewed fish, and seasoned kelp all wait at the table. His brother and dad are already seated; Dad is leisurely reading the newspaper while his older son reads the comics on the back page.

He found his treasure safe and has it in his pocket, so Kyungsoo is feeling pretty happy and doesn’t fuss so much when Mom helps him onto his booster seat.

“Are you excited to go back to school?” Kyungsoo nods, more focused on his chopsticks. He still hasn’t mastered the technique; he has tiny paws. “You’ll be at Lee nim’s house afterwards, remember.” Lee nim runs an after school program. A lot of his friends go there after school, too, and he’s looking forward to seeing them again. Summer break is fun, and he liked being with his family all day—even though his brother picked on him a lot—but he’ll admit to himself that he missed the other kids. They’re pretty fun.

From the middle of July to the middle of August, Kyungsoo’s family all went to a house Dad rented by a river. There weren’t any other kids around, but Kyungsoo had fun with just his brother or by himself. He made games of exploring and picked berries with Mom and fished with Dad.

He thinks he’s got some good stories to share and fidgets in his seat, eager for the day to hurry up.

Kindergarten seems to drag, but Kyungsoo is obedient and pays attention and only takes out his treasured jade during breaks.

Finally, Teacher gathers the after school program kids and escorts them to the shuttle bus. It’s not far, but keeping a group of toddlers and little kids contained is just easier than trying to wrangle them all while walking. Even Kyungsoo has the attention span of a fruit fly, according to his know-it-all brother. He’s not sure what that means, but it’s probably something mean.

There’s no time to show off his jade, as the kids bundle inside and run for whatever toys or books catch their immediate attention. Some of the younger ones barely last between the big hand’s journey from six to nine and curl together for another nap.

It’s cloudier than it had been in the morning, and Kyungsoo doesn’t particularly want to do anything, so he watches the older kids and drifts off, cradling his treasure in his pocket.

He’s at the river again, swimming by himself. Somewhere from shore, he hears his name, but it’s so nice just following the easy current. He rolls over to dive beneath the water and admire the shimmering, glittering pebbles and rocks and fish. Back on the surface, he watches the sky until it gets too cloudy, probably bringing rain. Mom doesn’t like him swimming when it rains; the waters can get really fast really quick, and he’s not as strong of a swimmer, yet.

As he climbs out of the water, he can’t help but feel like he’s left something behind. It’s such a nagging feeling that he gets annoyed and wakes up grumpy.

Immediately, he reaches into his pocket—

Never in all his life has he experienced the panic and sadness of waking up that afternoon and finding his pocket empty.

Waking up was a mistake. Life is just too cruel to a little otter. The whole day is horrible and ruined.

Yixing notices his teary eyes, as well, and follows Joonmyun hyung. “Are you alright?”

Kyungsoo shakes his head sadly.

“Are you hurt?”

He shakes his head again, wiping his nose on his sleeve before Jongdae hyung can stop him. Yixing asks some other kids to give him the box of tissues from a table beneath the window. It hits his feet as it slides across the floor and startles him enough he nearly falls over.

Jongdae hyung picks up the interrogation. “Did you have a bad dream?” If only it was just a bad dream and not disappointing reality.

Sighing, Kyungsoo pulls his tail around and tells the hyungs about his summer vacation and how much fun he had and the tasty fish he’d helped catch and going swimming every day and finding the prettiest stone in the whole river, which he’d wanted to share with everyone, but he can’t, now, because it’s lost, like in his dream.

Is it because he was bad? He doesn’t remember doing anything naughty. Maybe the jade doesn’t like living with him and decided to go back to the river. It’s a really long way, though! It’ll probably get lost, and when Kyungsoo gets lost, he’s scared. He doesn’t like being lost.

He had found it while playing in the river with his brother. A smooth stone, fitting perfectly in his palm. It’s a pretty green and heavier than the other pretty rocks he’d found. When he dropped it, it scratched the big rock he was sunning himself on! So it’s strong and beautiful, and his dad said that’s lucky.

And he lost it.

Neither dog hyung nor panda hyung seem to have immediate magic answers. After looking around their immediate area, they look at one another and shrug.

“We’ll find it, Soo,” Jongdae hyung says. “Be patient, okay?” Jongdae hyung’s smart and very kind, but he doesn’t understand. He’s never lost anything nearly so important.

Still, Kyungsoo nods sullenly. He knows he shouldn’t make trouble for the hyungs, and the babies—plus Zitao, who is still practically a baby even though he’s just months younger than Kyungsoo—are still sleeping. They’re grumpy when they wake up in general, but they’re downright crabby when woken too soon.

Jongdae hyung returns to the other older boys, pointing out cushions to overturn and curtains to lift. His treasure is kind of smallish, after all, and may be easily missed.

It was in his pocket, like always, when he curled up for a nap. He was in-between Chanyeol hyung and Baekhyun hyung, which is often uncomfortable, because they’re both very clingy, but it’s also very warm, which Kyungsoo likes, so he tolerates the arms and legs and covers Chanyeol hyung’s face with a pillow, so he doesn’t snore in Kyungsoo’s ear.

He’s not a very fussy sleeper—unlike Baekhyun hyung, who kicks and flails and whines in his sleep. Usually, Kyungsoo’s on his back, but sometimes he’ll climb onto someone and lie on his belly.

When he woke up, the older boys were playing a video game on low volume or reading, clustered a short distance away from the sleeping cubs and kits but close enough to keep a watchful eye on them. Minseok hyung noticed first and waved him over, making room between himself and Han hyung to share their book.

Minseok hyung says it’s about a couple of kids in the Chinese countryside finding happiness on their family farms. It’s long and has no pictures, but Kyungsoo listens as the boys took turns reading to him. After a few minutes, he got fidgety and reached into his pocket for his treasured stone.

But it’s gone.

Getting to his feet, he digs his paws into his pockets as far as they’ll go, pulling them out and shaking them while jumping in place, hoping it’s just hiding somewhere.

“It’s gone!” Kyungsoo wails.

“Kyungsoo!” Han hyung hisses.

“What’s wrong?” Minseok hyung puts a bookmark between the book pages and sits alert.

Han hyung hisses at him again to lower his voice. “What’s gone?” he whispers.

“My treasure…”

Han hyung looks at Minseok hyung, ears back. “What treasure?” he whispers.

“Your jade? The pretty green stone?”

Kyungsoo nods sullenly. Tears well in his eyes, and he knows crying won’t help any, and he tries to push them back, but his little paws just smear them over his cheeks.

Minseok hyung takes his paw and wipes his face with a tissue, holding it to Kyungsoo’s nose for him to blow. “We’ll ask the others to help look for it, okay? It can’t have gotten far. You had it this morning?” Kyungsoo nods firmly. “At school?” He nods more slowly. And he checked his pocket when first arriving at the after school program, because even if he knows the other kids, it can still be overwhelming to have all their attention when first arriving. His stone is nice and smooth and reminds him of the river, always a soothing presence.

Across the room, Joonmyun hyung stretches and rolls onto his back, drumming his belly. Satisfied, he falls limp. Kyungsoo thinks he looks like a melting scoop of chocolate chip ice cream but can’t laugh.

Yifan hyung pushes Joonmyun hyung with his foot, trying to gain an unfair advantage in their game, but Joonmyun hyung lays on the offending foot, instead, trapping it until Yifan hyung’s whining at him to let go.

Minseok hyung taps Yifan hyung’s shoulder. His quills stand out when he’s startled, and Joonmyun falls over, startled by the sudden movement and instinctive self-preservation. It’s always a soft landing, though, and he rolls upright again.

“Can you help us look for Kyungsoo’s stone? He can’t find it.”

“Where did he have it?”

Kyungsoo morosely pulls the pocket out of his pants, revealing the loose seams and hole. Minseok hyung rubs his head consolingly. “In his pocket, before napping.”

Pausing the game,Yifan hyung gets to his feet. Joonmyun hyung flaps a flipper against his shirt, mumbling about the gross sock smell, and Minseok hyung delegates places for them all to search.

So the boys are tearing the room apart—neatly, as Minseok hyung trails behind them all to put cushions and pillows and nick-nacks back in place—but have no luck finding the stone. Baekhyun hyung, Chanyeol hyung, and Jongdae hyung join the search when asked, but it seems hopeless.

Kyungsoo starts to cry again.

“We’ll find it, Soo!” Chanyeol hyung scratches his nubby, velvety antlers and pushes his glasses back up his muzzle. “It’s gotta be here.” He taps his hooves and declares he’ll check by their jackets and shoes.

“If we find it after you go home, we promise to take really good care of it until you come back,” Jongdae hyung says. He laughs like a pitchy recorder when Baekhyun hyung gets stuck underneath the sofa, grabbing the long, whipping tail and pulling him out.

“It’s not there,” the marten kit sighs. He gets to his feet and hugs Kyungsoo. “I’m sorry, Kyungsoo. I know it’s important to you.”

It’s more than important, but before he can cry harder, Kyungsoo looks around the room at his friends, all crawling into and under things and climbing what they’ve been told to not climb, just to help him look for his treasure.

They must make more noise than intended, because the cub and kit pile shifts and stirs and whines… Jongin rubs his eyes with his chubby fists, yawning widely at the same time. He lost a tooth over break. Sehun sits upright, scowling blearily at the floor. Zitao scrubs at his dark eyes with the hem of his T-shirt and notices Kyungsoo’s teary face.

“What happen, Soo?”

“Nothing…”

“He lost his favorite stone,” Joonmyun hyung explains softly. Zitao’s face crumples, tears springing in his own eyes.

“The green one?” Zitao’s the only one Kyungsoo showed it to, being in the same class. Scrambling to his feet, he nearly topples over when he steps on his own tail. “We gotta look for it!”

“We have, Taozi…” Han hyung shrugs and shakes his head. “Can’t find it.”

The remaining pile of slumbering cubs shifts and yawns. From the depths of the pile, Jongin sits up and rubs his eyes. “‘S’matter?” he yawns.

“Kyungsoo lost something special.”

“Oh…” The cub stands up and pulls Sehun—who’s been on Jongin’s tail in his sleep—upright as well, holding onto his paw as usual. They toddle to the older boys, and while Sehun invites himself onto Yixing hyung’s soft lap. Jongin holds out his paw to Minseok hyung. “Sehunnie was squirming and whining, cuz his back hurt, ‘n this was under him.”

Minseok hyung takes the object, turning it around in his paws, and Kyungsoo shouts.

“My stone!” He takes it reverently, turning it over and cradling it in his paws, making sure it really is his treasured stone. Same green, same lines of orangish-brown, same coolness against his skin. Relieved tears well in his eyes; he sniffs and rubs his nose with the back of his paw.

Yifan hyung nudges him gently. “What do you say, Kyungsoo?”

“Thank you, Jonginie!” He hugs the cub tight, and the panther hugs him back, not quite understanding why but readily accepting the embrace.

“It must have fallen out of your pocket and rolled around while you guys slept,” Han hyung muses. He shrugs. “At least you found it. Maybe you should find someplace better for it, though. I keep my treasure in a box under my bed.”

“You keep everything under your bed,” Minseok hyung says, lips pulled sideways in a disgusted grimace.

“I do not!”

Kyungsoo tunes out the older boys’ bickering. Han hyung really isn’t all that tidy, but that’s not important. He almost puts his treasured stone back in his pocket before thinking better of it. It should stay closer, somehow.

Tucking it under his armpit, he holds his arm close and takes Jongin’s paw to thank him again by getting a carton of milk—which only Yifan hyung is tall enough to reach, but Kyungsoo opens it for Jongin.

Yifan hyung asks Kyungsoo where he’d found his treasured jade stone, and the others look interested, as well, sitting around him on the floor while he tells the story about his summer adventures.

---

a/n: Written for the Mythsoological fest. (prompt no.NP-02 Kindergarden AU with hybrid otter Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo has lost his absolutely favourite stone and he won't play with any of the other kids until he's found it!! Queue the rest of the hybrid kiddy exos helping him find it uwu)

Fun fact: Most of these species are hunted by yellow-throated martens. Cute, but deadly.

7- KMS: Northern pika
7- LH: water deer
7- WYF: Indian crested porcupine
6- KJM: spotted seal
6- ZYX: giant panda
5- BBH: yellow-throated marten
5- KJD: dhole (Asiatic wild dog)
5- PCY: Manchurian wapiti (elk)
4- DKS: Eurasian otter
4- HZT: raccoon dog
3- KJI: black panther (leopard)
3- OSH: snow leopard