It was a dull day. Boring, in Kris's opinion. Nothing much had happened. Aside from Chanyeol declaring that Kyungsoo had the cutest cheeks and narrowest shoulders he had ever seen in his whole life.

"Is it possible to train wolves?" Luhan asked out of the blue, putting the rest of his "Chinese" takeaway box down on the table and picking up his can of coke.

"Train them?" Kris mused. "I never thought of that before. But, I guess it is."

"But why would someone bother?" Zitao asked. "If they want them as pets, wouldn't dogs be better?"

"Maybe it wasn't wolves, per se, but some kind of wolf-dog hybrid?" Yixing suggested.

"Hybrids? Hmm, I hadn't thought of that." Luhan thoughtfully rubbed his chin. As a kid, he'd thought that that was what beards were for; for when you were puzzled and trying to think or wrap your head around something. "Wouldn't she have corrected them, though?"

"Maybe she did and we just didn't hear," Kris said.

"But wouldn't she have done it then and there?" Luhan asked.

"I don't know. Maybe we interupted her or something."

"But that wouldn't explain it!" Luhan protested. "She had ample opportunity to correct them."

"Look it up on the computer or something, then!" Kris snapped, ticked off at Luhan.

"Hey, Minseok, what are they talking about?" Sehun asked, nudging the boy and nodding his head at the four transfer boys.

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" he asked incredulously.

"You know Chinese," Sehun pointed out.

"I took, like, one class when I was, like, ten!"

"You still know it, like," Sehun argued back.

"Shut up, Sehun," Minseok growled, annoyed that Sehun mocked his habit. He never mocked Sehun's slight lisp. "Ask them what they're saying."

Sehun looked up at them. When he didn't know the four of the Chinese boys, he'd been intimidated by them. Heck, he was still intimidated by Yixing, Kris and Zitao - he learnt that Luhan's bark was worse than his bite.

"H-hey, guys," Sehun stuttered and the Chinese boys looked up at him. "What are you talking about?"

"Me. No. Understand," Luhan said first and smiled widely. He had never liked that tall Korean guy.

"Zitao, what are you on about?" Sehun asked, glaring at Luhan. While the others had at least tried to change Sehun's first impression of them, Luhan had been quite content to let the chips fall where they may.

"Um, about the new girl's dad and if he's a, um, wolf trainer," Zitao said.

"Oh! Thanks, Zitao, at least you're not a douche."

"A douche? What?" Luhan asked, not understanding the term, but knowing that it was an insult. He stood up angrily and balled his fists at his side.

"You heard me!" Sehun said, but he grinned indulgently. "Ah! Did the baby Lulu not understand me?"

Sehun stood up as well, walked over, and even though he towered over Luhan, who was on the shorter side of the spectrum, Luhan never backed down, but puffed his chest out.

"What do you call me?" Luhan asked. "A baby?!"

"Oh, so you can understand now, but now when I ask you a question," Sehun snapped.

Joonmyun watched them with wary eyes, looking at Kris, silently beseeching him to put a stop to the fight. Jongdae and Baekhyun were too busy fighting over the last can of coke to pay any attention to the squabbling pair.

The others would've been more concerned if this was a rare occurence, but unfortunately, this happened too often for their liking. Chanyeol sighed heavily and got up from where he was sitting.

He walked over to the pair who were sizing each other up and wrapped an arm around each their shoulders and shook them lightly.

"Guys, stop ruining everything. You're both being so hormonal. Is it that time of the month for the both of you?" Chanyeol joked.

"Chanyeol, shut up," Sehun growled out the side of his mouth.

"Hey, Kyungsoo, when's the next full moon?" Chanyeol asked, slowly pulling Luhan and Sehun apart, so that they barely noticed that they were being moved away from each other.

"Full moon? Why? What's happening?" Kyungsoo asked, his eyes wide with curiosity and interest.

"I think that Sehun's a werewolf," he explained and Sehun gave him a withering look that clearly said, “are you serious?”

"I thought we'd agreed that there are no such thing as werewolves," Jongdae chimed in, hitting Baekhyun squarely on the back of the head, so that he could steal his can and gulp half of it down before Baekhyun had even noticed.

"Werewolves are real!" Chanyeol protested.

"Yeah, and I'm a vampire," Jongdae scoffed.

"Anyone got a wooden stake?" Chanyeol asked, exaggerating his voice and widening his eyes. "Quickly!"

"I'll stab him. I don't have a wooden stake, but that doesn't matter," Baekhyun said, looking for revenge. Jongdae mocked Baekhyun, contorting his features and putting on a ridiculously high voice.

Sehun sat down and took the can that Jongin offered him. He had taken it off the table at the beginning of the meal, knowing that a fight would erupt over the leftovers. Sometimes his friends were too predictable.

Luhan cast a glare at Sehun and sat down beside Tao.

"Oi, you two, knock it off," Kris said in exasperation, when Jongdae and Baekhyun's fight hadn't ended and they had begun to talk in ridiculously high voices, each trying to out-do the other, all while mock fighting.

"Do you think that werewolves exist?" Jongin asked ouf of the blue, once the conversation had shifted away to school, homework and to the hot model on telly.

"Doubt it," Kris replied. "Isn't that a bit too far-fetched?"

"You reckon?" Jongin asked, relief flooding him like it was the confirmation that he badly needed. "Yeah, no, you're right. Too far-fetched." Jongin nodded blankly.

"I thought the same of all this -" Kyungsoo said and gestured to his whole body, "before it really happened."

"But this was a legend," Kris argued back. "Werewolves and vampires are myths."

"What's the difference between a legend and a myth?" Yixing asked in confusion.

"Several letters," Luhan said absentmindely, but no one paid him any attention.

"A myth: vampires and werewolves. A legend: what happened to us," Kris explained.

"Someone throw a rock at him," Yixing said under his breath.

"Do and Jongdae'll kill you," Zitao whispered back.

"What about me?" Jongdae asked, his head had snapped up when he heard his name being said.

"You look lovely in purple," Zitao said quickly.

Jongdae looked down and picked at his jumper self-consciously. "What?" he asked innocently. "My mum bought this for me."

"And you look lovely in it," Zitao said. "It goes so well with your eyes."

A pillow came hurtling out of no where and Zitao just managed to duck in time to avoid it hitting him in the face. Yixing, however, wasn't so lucky, as he wasn't paying attention to Jongdae, and the pillow smacked him in full on in the face.

Yixing glared at Jongdae and was going to do something, but then remembered who it was and setted for a death glare and a resolution to get him back.

*~*~*~*

"Alright, you can only have one car; what would you have - a BMW or a Merc?" Jimin asked her dad. Kyuhyun scrunched up half of his face, thinking.

"A Kia," he answered very seriously.

"Dad," Jimin whined, "you're supposed to answer them honestly!"

"I am. I'd prefer a Kia," he replied.

"Fine, fine. Alright, say that you're on life support and -"

"Why am I on life support?" Kyuhyun interjected.

"I don't know. You had a car crash or something?" Jimin said in exasperation. "Anyways, there's a chance that you can get better but it's, like, only a fraction - would you want me to turn off the machine or keep it on?"

"I had no idea you were so morbid, Jimin. Is this what happens when you watch too many dramas?" Kyuhyun asked. "I've half a mind to stop you watching them."

"You can't," Jimin protested. "Mum says I'm allowed to watch them."

"Does she now?" he asked indignantly.

"Yes. Now answer the question."

"Well, I wouldn't be in a car crash in the first place, so there's no point answering."

"It's a game, Dad! I ask you which you would prefer and you answer! It doesn't matter whether or not it's realistic," Jimin told her father in annoyance and put down her knife and fork.

"Stupid game, if you ask me," he muttered.

"Yeah, well no one did," she said under her breath.

She stood up and the chair scratched on the tiles. She picked up her plate and dumped it in the sink, briefly telling her dad that she'd wash up tomorrow and that she had to finish her homework.

Jimin took the stairs two at a time and went straight to her bedroom. She shut the door and pressed her back against it, breathing out heavily as if she'd been holding it in for a week.

She'd overreacted - she knew that, she regretted that. She knew that when she had decided to live with her dad that it'd result in a few spats. No matter who the person was, it took time to get used to living with them.

And her dad wasn't the easiest person to live with. She'd known that living with her dad would be awkward and tense, but she was sure that she would've hated living with her mum more. 

Her step-father, Sungmin, wasn't a guy you could easily hate, you had to work hard to hate such a cheerful and bubbly character such as him, but sometimes Jimin found herself wondering why he had to come into her life.

Why she never had normal parents. Why she didn't have a normal family. Why her parent's weren't still together. But her dad would always do something idiotic and Jimin would remembered why.

Jimin didn't bother her to spare her school bag full of books a second glance, she could do her homework later, she had the whole weekend to do it. She'd settled into her new school. The layout was still confusing and P.E was as hellish as ever, but there was nothing out of the ordinary for a school.

Jimin couldn't remember all of the names of her class mates, but she knew eight out of ten. She couldn't remember the names of the brooding males at the back, but there was definitely a Jong there,  a Yixing,  but the other two names evaded her.

For the most part, she hadn't been bothered or bothered the twelve weird guys, but there were the occasional run-ins: accidentally walking into them; a pen flying from her or Sora's hand when one of them made a wild geture, that landed near them; standing behind them in the lunch line.

Other students had brought up various rumors about the wolves in the week Jimin had been at  the school. She learned that they had started over a year ago.

Jimin walked over to her cupboard and opened it up. She pulled her laptop off the shelf and turned it on. She flopped down on the bed and laid on her stomach, waiting for the machine to slowly start up.

Once the old laptop that Sungmin had given her (he said it was a belated birthday present, but Jimin knew that he had taken advice on one of those books that taught you how to deal with your partner's kids from a previous relationship) decided to turn on, she fired up the internet and typed the town's name in and any key words that she could think of that would get up the desired results.

When she tapped it in and hit enter, she had to sift through nonsense and promoted links to find what she wanted - an article by a local paper roughly a year ago when the “wolves” or whatever they are started to attack the passive wildlife.

Jimin frowned when she came across an article written by a magazine that was froim a magazine claiming that they were “Wolf Whispers”. In her opinion, wolves were too stupid and lacked the necessary mental capabilities to be trained or form a bond with a human. They were vicious carnivals with little regard for anything outside of their pack.

She scrolled through the article, taking in less information than the previous one - she'd already read the majority of the information. Jimin froze when the bottom of the article boasted of “information that hasn't yet been released to the general public”. Her eyes narrowed and she signed when she realised that in order to access it, you had to have a subscription to the newsletter and be a paying customer - and it would send the special edition newsletter to your door “for you to browse at your own pleasure!”

In short, it was only for those crazy fanatics. Part of her wondered if the wolf rumors had anything to do with why they moved, but it couldn't be true. Her dad wouldn't put everything on hold and uproot himself just to chase after a baseless rumor, would he?

"Ergh!" Jimin let out a groan of frustration and roughly closed the lid of the laptop with a snap. She hadn't bothered to turn it off properly and it was probably damaged now, but she couldn't find it in herself to care.

She gently put down the laptop on the floor and pushed it under her bed so that she wouldn't wake up in the morning and step on it. She flailed her arms and legs up and down in annoyance.

She didn't want to be suspicious of her father. She wasn't in some thriller or romcom where the kingka fell for her and rescued her from a family that she didn't like. She wasn't even positive that the popular guy was straight. His eyes wandered a little too much . . .  and besides, her family was a little messed up, but it was her's. It was her imperfect, messed up, lovely family.

~* Fighting *~