January 4th of 2015

❀4:29 PM❀

“I’m not interested in your huge gay ,” Hongzheng said, after Weijin finished his speech on why he should “totally go to the party” because “he can meet new people” and “get free food.”

“Are you slightly interested in a small gay then?” winked Mingjie, who immediately got shouldered in the stomach by Weijin.

The free food aspect was fairly interesting to Hongzheng; after all, working as a grocery store cashier practically means unemployment (especially since he was very used to a steady and high salary), and he ate five meals every day. But today, a full moon, he would rather stay locked in his room than go anywhere.

“Well,” Weijin nervously mumbles as he brushes his hand against the doorframe.

“Let’s go.” Mingjie tugged at Weijin’s shoulder. “We have other people to ask. You can talk to your crush later.” Weijin blushed furiously after Mingjie said that. “Let’s ask Zihong, maybe he’ll go this time. And Evan. up to him so he can tell his mom to lower our rent.” He laughed, throwing his head back.

Weijin lingered at the door for a while before Mingjie finally dragged him away from his room. “Why would he think that it’s going to be a huge gay ? I mean, there’s gonna be girls there, too,” Hongzheng heard Weijin say.

“Either way, I win,” Mingjie said, declaring his biuality. Hongzheng rolled his eyes. The boys had been hitting on him since the day he moved in, and half of them only did it to freak him out.

❀4:33 PM❀

“Why?” Evan asked, after Mingjie explained why bringing him “is completely unnecessary” because “the ladies deserves eye candy.”

“Why go? Why they deserve you? Be more specific, Evan boy.” Mingjie grinned.

“Why are you asking me to go?” Evan questioned.

“Because you’re such a womanizer!” Mingjie claimed, “Now get dressed! Everyone’s going!” Mingjie turned away before Evan had a chance to object.

When he got back to his room to get dressed himself, he saw Zihong sitting against the wall on his bed, bobbing his head with his flashy red headphones on.

“Are you going to the party?” Jie asked.

“What?” Zihong said, loudly, while removing his headphones.

“I said, are you going to the party?” He took his clothes out of his closet with the hangers, examining which to wear for the occasion.

“What party?” he asked, pulling his headphones around his neck.

“It’s kind of like a mixer, but the point is everyone’s going.” He opened Zihong’s side of the closet and picked out a white t-shirt, a black blazer, and dark jeans. “So this is what you’re wearing.”

Zihong made a disgusted sound with his throat, but took the outfit anyway.

“That’s not how you do a tie,” Chenxiang shouted upstairs with a laugh.

“I know how to do a tie!” Teddy shouted back.

Hongzheng rolled his eyes again, and turned up the volume on his desktop. Focus on the enemies, he told himself, and stared at his computer screen with more determination.

Weijin sighed behind Hongzheng, shaking his wrinkled t-shirt from the uncleaned-laundry pile.

❀1:46 AM❀

“So who the fed Teddy pineapples?” Mingjie asked, looking at the farthest seat in the minivan, where Teddy slept like a little baby.

“I don’t know, we were at the bar, he ordered a drink, and a few minutes later he started bloating like a balloon,” Chenxiang said, with his forearm on his eyes. He nearly cried when the doctor said that Teddy may need to be hospitalized, because he was right next to the little bear when it happened.

Zihong wrinkled his nose, and took a turn at the stop light. “Maybe it was the drink. What did he order?”

“y crocodile or something,” Xiang replied.

“Okay, that’s a wacky name to begin with,” Jie commented.

“Isn’t there like an ounce of pineapple juice in that drink?” Weijin asked nobody in particular.

“Maybe that’s why.” Zihong took another turn and pulled up into their driveway.

❀1:44 AM❀

I’m so hungry, Hongzheng thought to himself. He sat quietly on his bed, his back straight and his hind limbs bent. He was extremely bored because he couldn’t play video games now that his fingers became claws. He knew he would only stay changed for about three hours (one before the moon reaches its peak and two after the moon reached its peak), but he had forgotten to eat dinner beforehand. He his lips.

How long do college parties last these days, he wondered to himself. Jie had told him that they were going to a bar near a neighboring school, and the closest neighboring university was half an hour away. Back when he was their age, his parties lasted till about three in the morning. Maybe I’ll be safe for a few more hours.

But in a few more hours I may have starved to death, he thought of the risk.

Ah, screw it. He began to stumble out of his bed.

He sniffed the air out of habit, inhaling the cologne that must of been from Xiang and Teddy’s room. He started towards the stairs, his tail bumping into everything in his way. He sighed, annoyed with every object in his surrounding.

His hands (and feet) barely fit on the steps of the stairs, and his wings brushed disgracefully against the wooden stair handles. He didn’t bother turning on any lights (let’s be honest, can he really flip a switch with his claws?), and used his amazing dragon eyesight instead. The seventeen steps of the staircase seemed like an obstacle course, but the elegant black dragon tucked in his wings and tail as much as he could, and started towards the bottom.

Every step sent a loud creak echoing in the empty and silent house, but when Hongzheng finally got to the bottom, his sigh of relief nearly knocked off a vase.

Kitchen, Hongzheng reminded himself.

And so the great dragon waddled to the kitchen, careful not to move anything in the living room, and not to leave anything claw marks on the floor made of wooden boards. An anime figure fell on his head when he headbutted the fridge, but Hongzheng decided it was a minor detail (and honestly, he had been through too much in one night to give a ), and kicked it into the darkness that was under the fridge.

He tried to clench his hand into a fist, and leaving only one claw free to open the fridge. But because his majestic animal self had palms half the size of his head, it looked more like he was trying to scratch a spot in the middle of his palm with only one hand. He carefully pulled open the fridge, and the familiar yellow light glowed in the dark, giving the great dragon hope and dreams and leftover turkey.

Though technically a dragon’s stomach acid could digest anything, Hongzheng was raised with manners, and decided to remove the plastic wrap on top of the turkey with the two claws representing his thumb and index finger. I miss having thumbs.

After the plastic wrap was taken off and disregarded, Hongzheng gave the turkey a gentle on the backside (declaring that the meat was his with his saliva; it’s a dragon thing). The turkey was actually from their neighbor’s Christmas dinner, in which the couple baked three turkeys for their family, but the dinner ended as soon as the grandfather was rushed off to the hospital. They decided that the boys should have the turkeys instead.

He bit into the poultry, and though the meat was cold from being in a fridge for so long, the smell and the feeling of the flesh going down into his (bottomless) stomach made Hongzheng crave the bird even more. He took another bite. Then another, and another. And soon, he decided eating with manners when one is at home alone is unnecessary, he swallowed the whole turkey with more grace than a python, and tilted his head up to force the turkey down.

❀1:48 AM❀

The key turned and the door swung open when Mingjie gave it a push behind Zihong. Evan had dumped Teddy on top of Weijin, and the dyed strawberry-blond was waking up.

“Ah(hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh)!” one of the boys had screamed.

A swift movement from the fridge, and a big black… thing was looking at them with glowing jaden eyes. The thing wailed, something popped out of its throat (a turkey?), and it sent a ball of fire into the ceiling.

“What the hell is that?” Chenxiang pushed his way through the door to have a better look. The boys stared at the kitchen; at where the glow of the fridge was.

“Isn’t that a dragon?” Teddy asked, one arm around Weijin.

“Shut up, you’re still high on medication,” Jie said.

“Is it a burglar?” Zihong suggested.

“Where’s Hongzheng?” Weijin asked.

I’m right here, the great dragon said in his head. He tried getting words out of his mouth, but damn his fat tongue and wide mouth.

“Is that what’s left of Hongzheng?” Mingjie pointed at the now meatless turkey, and gasped.

“Why would a burglar steal something from the fridge?” Evan muttered.

“Seriously, that’s a dragon!” Teddy waved his free arm.

Just then, Hongzheng let out a scream of some sort that sounded like a walrus more than a dragon. His message was: I’m right here!

“I think it wants to eat us!” Xiang yelled.

In a state of panic that involved boys and a dragon screaming, Hongzheng launched another fireball from his throat, this time into the floor.

“,” Evan (probably) said.

Then suddenly, the size of the great dragon’s eyes began to shrink, as did all the other parts of his body. His wings shrunk back to nonexistence in his back, as did his tail. His arms and legs deflated, and his claws grew back to normal Hongzheng size. His scales and rough skin suited for soaring in the sky became smooth again. After his transformation was complete, he was hunched over in front of an open fridge.

The boys all had facial expressions that were along the lines of jaw-dropping.

Teddy was the only one who spoke. “You were a dragon, right?”

❀2:09 AM❀

“I was right, he was a dragon,” Teddy said as soon as Hongzheng finished explaining his were-dragon genetics.

Hongzheng rolled his eyes. He was back in his sweater and sweatpants now. It felt great to put his clothes back on and stop being in front of his extremely flirty roommates.

“Seriously, fireball?” Evan finally said after ten minutes of complete silence. He was staring at the ceiling and the floor that was accidentally destroyed.

“So how often does it happen?” Jie squinted his eyes at Hongzheng, one hand on his warm drink.

“Every full moon.” He shrugged.

“When were you planning on telling us?” Zihong asked, sitting next to Mingjie, but not squinting, just staring and looking emotionless as always.

“Never.”

“Will your mom make him move out?” Teddy asked Evan.

“If she believes in supernatural stuff, maybe. But if we tell her, she’ll probably think that we’re making something up just so we can kick him out. In that case, no,” Evan explained, “and besides, he already paid rent for a year so-”

“Kicking me out would be heartless,” Hongzheng pleaded for his stay with his I-don’t-really-care voice.

“Yeah, but he ate the whole turkey.” Chenxiang looked at the spot where the turkey landed when it flew out of Hongzheng’s mouth. (He remembers where it was because nobody wiped the saliva off the floor yet.)

“You know what, I’ll think about… all of this, and tell you what I’m going to do tomorrow morning.” Evan stood up to go back to his room. “And one last thing,” he said to Hongzheng, “even if we decide to kick you out, you’re paying for the ceiling and the floor.”

Hongzheng gave the boy a thumbs up. The other boys began to make their way back to their rooms. All except one.

“Were you really going to swallow that whole turkey?” Xiang interrogated.

Note:

• Hongzheng’s dragon self is based on Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, so that movie/book do not exist in this universe

• the dates of school and break are based on universities near me, as is the weather
• the seal I was referencing to about Hongzheng's screaming is right here: https://vine.co/v/hKdzHjLJrtY