---

Even with a lot of pouts and prompting for Agim to explain what he meant, Agim just doesn't budge. And so, a few days go by with more rigorous training at night (and even some pose practicing during the day), lots of anime-watching and eating, and surprisingly no new monsters to fight. That is, until just the day before Jongin's first scheduled hangout with Kyungsoo.

He was just watching this old reality TV show about horrid restaurants when he gets a text from Sehun and a few missed calls from Zitao, Sehun, his ma and then Kyungsoo.

Quickly, he preens himself before he realizes that Kyungsoo obviously can't see him right now and mutters Ugh, stupid to himself. Then, he clears his throat and tries out a y tone of voice (or two) before he calls Kyungsoo back. They'd been texting each other every day so far, just getting to know each other, and Jongin's been delighted to learn that they share similar values and a similar sense of humor.

But, it's definitely not a friendly call just to say hey and shoot the this time.

"Hey Jongin," Kyungsoo greets and Jongin internally swoons.

"Hey, how've ya been?" Jongin responds, definitely not making his voice a little deeper.

"Good good, um sorry if I'm interrupting anything--"

"No no, not at all. I was just uh watching a lil' show but haha that can easily be paused--" He quickly turns off his TV and sits up. "--um, what's up?"

If he had to guess, this call probably has to do with the fish monster terrorizing their local downtown area. (Sehun just texted him a live newsfeed photo.)

"Uhh have you checked the news yet? There's some kinda fish monster downtown that's terrorizing the city."

"Oh yeah, I just saw--" Jongin quietly shows Agim the photo. "--um do you wanna...team up?"

"Yeah yeah, we should meet up halfway or something. Um if that's okay? I live close by to where we first met--" Shuffling sounds in the background. "--oh and Pacôme says hi."

"Haha hi Pacôme," Jongin responds.

"See you in a bit, old friend," Agim adds.

Then, after Kyungsoo informs them of where they should meet up at and Jongin offers to speed them to the monster, it's decided.

So, a few minutes later, with Agim in his arms and a bottle of water in Agim's paws, Jongin manages to lock his home's door before he jogs out towards the nearby woods to transform. Then, after chugging said bottle of water and with Agim still in his arms, he zips towards the rendezvous point (and what would've taken him about eight minutes by car, takes him about eight seconds).

Needless to say, he lets out a good laugh when he appears in front of a wide-eyed Kyungsoo with Pacôme beside him on the sidewalk.

", you in' scared me," Kyungsoo laughs back.

"Hehehe sorry, my bad."

Jongin then realizes just how close he is to Kyungsoo right now, and takes a step back out of respect for his personal space. Meanwhile, Agim and Pacôme are already chatting like the old friends that they are, even as Kyungsoo bends down to scoop up Pacôme so that they can all be zipped away by Jongin.

Jongin then tries to sound cool as he extends a hand out and asks, Are you ready?

Kyungsoo in his lips as he smiles up at him and takes his hand, and Jongin can't help but smile back because even though there's still a lot to learn about each other, Kyungsoo's hand in his just feels so damn right.

And so, Jongin begins a quick countdown for the other three before he zips all the way downtown in just about twenty seconds. As soon as he makes it near where the fish monster should still be at, he turns to look at Kyungsoo and chuckles as he sees how wild his hair looks right now and how puffy their cats' fur is.

"You three okay?" he then teasingly asks before he deems it safe to end the connection and reluctantly lets go of Kyungsoo's hand.

Agim jumps down to the ground and quickly shakes himself--causing his fur to fall back down. "Never better."

And Pacôme follows suit and jumps to the ground, allowing Kyungsoo to pat down his hair, and Jongin takes the chance to admire him with his gaze. Then, once he's done preening, Kyungsoo's eyes widen a bit as he asks Jongin, "Do I look okay?"

"Yeah, you look so se--" Jongin clears his throat as he almost just said y. "--um, you look good."

Immediately, Jongin does the biggest internal face-palm.

But surprisingly, Kyungsoo blinks a little bit faster at that and murmurs a Thanks before he looks away. And this time, Jongin immediately notices his red ears and the rising blush to his cheeks.

"Uh Kyungsoo," Jongin starts without thinking and Kyungsoo glances up at him with wider, curious eyes. "Are you--"

All of a sudden, a loud crash and a bang sounds off nearby, making them all flinch before they whip their heads to the direction that the sounds just came from.

Talk about ty timing...He'd just gained and lost the courage to ask if Kyungsoo's single! Damn it.

"Men, we'll have time for idle chit-chat later," Agim declares, and they both look down at him. "Do you two have a strategy planned for fighting this monster?"

"It looked like one of those sea creatures that shoots lasers from their mouth," Pacôme adds.

"That cannot be a real thing--no ing way," Jongin immediately replies, eyes wide.

Kyungsoo lets out a laugh in what seems like disbelief. "Yeah, like imagine how that'd look."

He then imitates a fish by in his cheeks and makes a noise as he opens his mouth like he's firing off a laser. Jongin laughs hard at his facial expression and feels delighted as Kyungsoo laughs along with him, his eyes crinkled and his smile in the shape of a heart.

"Focus, you two, focus, you two need a plan," Agim says, and the two of them soon calm down. "Do you two plan to fight side by side? Back to back? One after the other? These are some of the things that you should think about once you act more as a fighting duo."

Jongin and Kyungsoo then glance at each other, both seeming to be unsure of how they should go about doing this before a passing ambulance with blaring sirens brings them back to the serious situation at hand.

"Okay, uh how about I go in first and uh distract it with a few spins before you use your heart gun on it?" Kyungsoo asks.

"Yeah, that sounds good," Jongin says as he jumps up and down and shakes his arms to let go of his nerves. "Okay, ready when you are."

And so, with Kyungsoo offering a high five and Jongin returning it, Jongin feels like this fight should go pretty damn well. Or well, he hopes it will.

---

And so, the fight goes...as well as one might expect when you're fighting alongside someone for the first time.

Kyungsoo does his spinning thing with his bo staff and as Jongin watches from the sidelines, he realizes that he has way more questions to ask Kyungsoo during their hangout tomorrow. Questions like if he was in the marching band during high school or something because the way that he twirls his bo staff really reminds Jongin of how the color guard spins their flags during parades and such.

Anyways, as Jongin's lost in thought over marching band and then remembers when he tried to play the flute and failed miserably--Kyungsoo suddenly stops spinning the bo staff and turns to run towards his direction!

Jongin's eyes widen in confusion and he swiftly gets out his ray-gun as Kyungsoo lets out a scared Ahhh! as he gets closer.

"Shoot him--my dizzy spins didn't do !" Kyungsoo yells before he gets close enough to stand by him again with his body in a fighting stance.

He's so close that their arms are touching and if Jongin didn't have to help save the world, he'd be obsessing over their current proximity to each other. Either way, he does learn something new in this moment as he raises his ray-gun just as the fish head monster lowers its head and the beginning of a red beam emerges from its mouth.

Jongin's frenzy move with his ray-gun doesn't have to have him moving around every second--it works just as well when his body's in fight or flight mode. And so, right as he pulls the trigger of his ray-gun, the red laser shoots out and Kyungsoo manages to pull them both down just as Jongin's ray-gun produces dozens of tiny but fast heart rays towards the fish monster.

A few of the rays hit before the monster dodges the rest and shoots out another beam, and Kyungsoo quickly attaches his bo staff to some holster at the back of his suit and then