Irrationally, Jongin feels the need to tidy his room for Kyungsoo when he wakes up. He clears away some of the dirty laundry, and picks up the manky bowls and cups he's left lying around. He revives the fallen bin, and refills it. He has a habit of knocking it over, accidentally, and has stopped bothering to pick it up.

But still, it's changed nothing. It should all still be the same. That's why he's sat in the front room, glancing at the door every few minutes, mind hardly focused on whatever's on the TV. It’s either a documentary or one of those reality shows where they show before and after of someone's makeover.

He can see his mum trying not to laugh at him on the other the sofa, and he refrains from glowering at her. He will not react, because that's what she wants.

He fiddles with his phone, looking at days old texts from Kyungsoo, and smiling at them, and really not anticipating one that says 'im nearly there, retard’ or anything.

Nothing happens. He didn't actually say what time he was coming over, so Jongin decides that texting him to find out would be a good idea. Kyungsoo texts back seven and a bit minutes later that he's just leaving his house and he'll be about fifteen minutes.

Now that Jongin has a solid time frame, he relaxes a little bit and watches some woman getting her legs waxed. He wonders why he's putting up with this crap, any other day and he would've whined at his mum to make her let him change the channel to something decent.

He extends his legs over the sofa cushions with a grunt, taking up as much space as he can physically manage. Then his mum opens ,

“Make sure to keep your bedroom door open, when he comes over, ok?” she snorts,

Jongin closes his eyes for a second, the his head in her direction with them wide open.

She snorts, and covers ,

“But seriously, no inappropriate behaviour please,”

“Mum,” he groans, “I regret even mentioning anything now, can you please not say anything when he comes?”

“Ok,” she smiles, but Jongin doesn't trust her,

“Promise,” he demands,

“I promise,” she says, rolling her eyes and huffing exaggeratedly.

There's a knock on the door as the ending credits start rolling down the screen, and Jongin rolls off the sofa sideways and sprints the ten steps to the doorway to get it. The door opens with a click, and reveals Kyungsoo, the sun radiating off his crimson hair, and making him look warm and-

“Hey,” he smiles at him, and Kyungsoo smiles back. He unquestionably has a nice smile Jongin thinks to himself.

But today Kyungsoo also looks a little weird, and maybe a touch sweaty on his forehead,

“Are you ok? You look ill,” Jongin says, face creasing up with worry,

“Oh, no, I'm fine,” Kyungsoo waves his hands in reassurance. Maybe he just ran part way here or something. The thought pleases him, makes him feel warm inside, even though it’s unlikely to be true.

Kyungsoo ducks underneath Jongin's arm which is holding the door open, and divests himself of his shoes. He then waves at his mum politely, and she smiles back knowingly. She's not even doing anything wrong, really, she's just being … annoying.

“Go up to my room, I'll be there in a sec, 'k?” Kyungsoo nods lethargically, and heads off upstairs to his destination, and Jongin pats his back. He gives his mum a look.

“Please don't be annoying.” is all he says, before following after his friend-turned crush. He actually doesn't really like that word, because it feels uncomfortably like something one of those cutesy girls’ magazines would say, but 'love interest' sounds too much like something from one of his mum's adult romance books.

When he opens the door, Kyungsoo is lying on his bed with his eyes closed. He sits up the instant he passes over the threshold, eyes wide and a bit frantic. Jongin sits down next to him-not too close- and uses his feet to manoeuvre the Xbox controllers closer so he can pick them up.

“Jongin, I need to tell you-ask you something. Well, tell you first, then ask you something, but you have to. Argh, ,” he grasps a handful of his hair and pulls on it, hard,

“Whoa, whoa,” Jongin says taking the hand, disentangling it and resting it flat on the bed, “what is it?” instead of answering he makes a sort of breathy growling noise, and suddenly Jongin's a bit scared again. This reminds him of when Kyungsoo cornered him in the school hallway.

But this time he knows him; he might be better equipped to deal with it, maybe.

Kyungsoo looks furious, but beyond that-now that Jongin is better at reading his face- he just looks panicked. Jongin risks putting his hand on his shoulder, and Kyungsoo's head flicks in his direction so quickly he misses the movement. He opens his mouth to ask what's wrong again, but Kyungsoo cuts him off by scrambling away from him, and clutching his duvet around him.

“I-please don't hate me,” he says, voice wavering and brittle, and Jongin frowns. This is the same but different to the first time. He's unstable and angry, but he seems more...he doesn't know how to explain it. Fragile isn't quite the right word, and neither is insecure.

“Just tell me, Kyungsoo,” Jongin wants to know what's so wrong that he feels the need to try and tear his hair out.

Kyungsoo keens softly, covering his face with his free hand-the one that Jongin didn't put on the bedsheets so firmly-and leans away,

“You're going to hate me,” he says, voice small but not a whisper, not yet. He curls up, hiding his head between his knees and covering up with the duvet, “you're going to think I'm ing insane again, you probably already do,” he says, and Jongin barely hears it under all the padding, but that doesn't make it hurt him any less. “I don’t want you to hate me,”

Jongin doesn't know what to do. He doesn't want to lie to him, and say that he'll be fine with anything, because if he's done something truly bad, then...

Instead of trying to talk, he scooches closer to the ball of blankets and slings his arm over where he imagines Kyungsoo's shoulders might be. Kyungsoo makes a weird high pitched screech noise, and starts rocking,

“Kyungsoo,” he croons, his best attempt to get him to calm down being repeating his name over and over, and wrapping his other arm around him.

“Kyungsoo, what is it, what's so bad?” by now Jongin's face is pressed into his duvet, and he hope Kyungsoo can hear him.

Kyungsoo sits up quickly, hitting Jongin in the chin with the top of his head, but he doesn't apologise. His eyes are wide, and frenzied. Jongin takes hold of his face with one palm, and gets close,

“Kyungsoo!” he shouts, hoping the shock will get through to him somehow,

“I don't know! I don't know how to ing say it!” he seems like he would be on the verge of tears, but is incapable of producing them,

“Start from the beginning?” Jongin suggests, and Kyungsoo takes a few gulping breaths and he looks like he's beginning to calm down, but suddenly he starts hitting himself. Jongin grapples him by the wrists and holds them down, one arm reaching across his torso. He's a lot stronger than he looks, and it takes a lot of effort to steady him.

“Kyungsoo,” he repeats, and Kyungsoo deflates, and his face flushes so the colour matches his hair.

He turns his face away so Jongin can't see him, then says in his tiniest voice yet,

“I'm not human,”

He ducks his head down, so his chin is touching his chest, eyes screwed up tight, as if expecting some kind of backlash from this statement. Jongin just loosens his arms, letting them slip further down Kyungsoo's back, until his hand hits the mattress.

He doesn't get it,

“What?” if he's not a human, then...”What?” Kyungsoo doesn't move at all, not even when Jongin shakes him, it's like he's locked all of his muscles.

Being the awkward teen that he is, instead of further trying to get whatever's bothering Kyungsoo out of him, he just goes to set up the Xbox. He pries open Kyungsoo's hands, and forces a controller into them, moulding his fingers into the right positions.

“Stop wearing yourself out, and just play with me,” he admonishes lightly, simultaneously selecting criteria for the first round.

Kyungsoo loses the first round, which happens so rarely that Jongin has to rub it in his face. This makes Kyungsoo smile a watery sort of smile, but he looks determined to crush him in the next rounds.

Just as Jongin's abut to click to start their fourth round, Kyungsoo clicks the pause button.

“Ok. I'm good now. I'm- I can control myself now.” he fists his hands on his lap, “what I meant earlier, when I said I wasn't human. Is. I'm. Um.” he takes a breath and says his next sentence so quickly all the words mush together, “I'mawerewolf,” Jongin squints at him, not sure he heard correctly,

“Come again?” Kyungsoo screws up his eyes again,

“A werewolf,”

Jongin blinks once. Twice.

“What?”

--

alright please dont kill me haha i know it's kind of clichéd but please tell me ur opinions (◍•﹏•) there's a LOT more of this still to come btw dont leave me pleaasse

also, now that its not longer a spoiler, here is a picture i drew for this fic :D :