Hongbin dropped into the offered seat, exhaling. Hakyeon was still smiling at him.

            “You must be wondering why we are all here.”

            “Well not really, actually, at this point I’ve decided to not think too hard about any of this.” Hongbin was tired of his brain disagreeing with everything else he was doing, so he choose to instead just give in to whatever was happening. From across the room, Sanghyuk snickered.

            “Wow, Hakyeon, I bet you wanted to sound all dramatic and cool and this kid doesn’t even care.”

            “He’s older than you, and so am I, so use some respect when talking to your elders!”

            This time Wonshik was the one who laughed. He looked at Hongbin.

            “This happens every time we get together, so be prepared to hear a lot more of it.”

            “This does not happen every time, it’s just whenever Sanghyuk comes and decides to be a little brat like he usually does.” Hakyeon pointedly avoided looking at Sanghyuk, who faked an offended look.

            “Oh, sorry, Hakyeon-hyung, I’ll make sure to be on my utmost behavior for our guest who has no idea why he’s here and to whom you have yet to tell anything about anything.”

            “I was getting to it, Sanghyuk, before you butted in and interrupted me.” Sanghyuk did not reply, choosing instead to roll his eyes.

            “Anyways, Hongbin, you obviously know everyone here, so I don’t need to do introductions. I should probably explain how everyone got to be here.” Hakyeon turned back to Hongbin, disturbing the cat in his lap who jumped off and wandered over to the couch near Jaehwan, avoiding the fairy’s attempts to pet it. Jaehwan pouted. Hongbin realized that Hakyeon was talking and tuned back in.

            “-honored to call these losers friends. Wonshik lives nearby, and I ran into him when he ran into me at a market, knocking all of these nice fruits out of my hands and stepping all over my nice shoes, and then not even apologizing to me until after he had forgotten to help me up and didn’t even offer to pick up-“

            Wonshik interrupted him.

            “Do you have nothing nice to say about me? It wasn’t that bad, I just stumbled into you and you didn’t even drop all of what you were carrying, and it’s not like anything was damaged. I swear you don’t even appreciate the little things.”

            Hakyeon glared at him.

            “Anyways, then after he finally apologized he asked me why I was buying so many apples and I told him Taekwoon was making apple pie and needed more. Goat-boy here looked so excited about the prospect of pie that I hadn’t even offered yet, so I relented and told him he could try some.

            “So then he hovered around the bakery until the pie was finished, and then we actually had a conversation and I realized he wasn’t as much of a jerk as he looked like-“

            “Hey!”

            “-and then the next day he was back and after that he kept coming around until at some point we became friends.” Hakyeon finished with a grin.

            “Okay, that’s not how it happened at all, you were so bothersome and you kept asking me to come back and stay longer.” Wonshik pointed at him accusingly.

            “Don’t listen to him, as you may have already noticed he’s a rotten liar.” Ignoring the glare that was shot at him from across the table, Hakyeon pointed at Jaehwan.

            “Jaehwan I met when I was out looking for new pillows. He pointed out one of the ugliest pillows that I had ever seen-“

            “And to this day you continue to judge me for my choice in pillows. I’m never discussing interior decorating with you ever.” Jaehwan shot at him, falling back onto the couch, startling the cat.

            “I told him that it was hideous and he followed me around the store defending his pillow preferences, and then as I was checking out he was complaining about being hungry so I told him that he could come to the bakery and eat there, and then basically the same thing happened that had happened with Wonshik.

            “I hadn’t seen him in a while because he moved, but then as you know we ran into each other again today!”

            “And now I get to visit you at work too, Hongbin-ah!” Jaehwan grinned at him. Hongbin restrained from telling him that he didn’t want any more bothersome creatures hanging out at his peaceful workplace.

            “And then I met Sanghyuk one night-“

            “Hakyeon if you tell the same story you always do-“

            “he was sitting on the street outside my door and he was crying about-“

            “Don’t do it I swear to god.”

`           “Some girl or something, and I felt bad for him so I let him come inside, he dripped water everywhere and messed up my kitchen, it was a disaster and then he-“

            “Stop it.”

            “He was still crying so I made him tea and then I figured out he was a vampire and almost ran him out of the house, you know how elves and vampires get along, but he just looked so sad-“

            “He’s lying, all of this is made up.”

            “That I let him stay, and he fell asleep on my couch and I decided that someone needed to take care of such a ill-mannered kid so I unofficially decided that I be that someone-“

            “I’m not a child, I’m an adult, you always do this-“

            “And so he moved in down the hall and has lived here ever since!” Hakyeon finished. Sanghyuk groaned.

            “You always make me sound so pathetic, I was very manly, not at all like how this jerk is describing me.”

            Hongbin just nodded, unsure of what else to do.

            “So that’s how I met them!”

            Hongbin finally asked what he was curious about.

            “And what about Taekwoon?”

            A low voice sounded from the other side of the room.

            “What about me?”

            The voice startled Hongbin, because there was no one else in the room who could be talking, and he didn’t recognize the voice. He turned in the direction that the voice came from, and quickly turned back.

            Where the cat had been lounging on the couch was now a pale, dark haired man with very feline features. However, there was now no sign of the cat.

            “Hakyeon, you weren’t even going to introduce me? I’m offended.”

            Hakyeon laughed.

            “I didn’t know if you wanted to be introduced or not, you’re always so picky about those kinds of things. Last time I told someone you almost bit my finger off and I think you even left scars.”

            “I did no such thing.” The man on the couch, Taekwoon? Hongbin decided that it was probably Taekwoon, rose and crossed the room.

            “You did so.”

            He reached the table and stood in front of Hongbin, who was still trying to catch up. It must have been evident on his face, because Hakyeon started laughing and Wonshik snickered.

            “Hyung, you probably could have done that better, the poor kid is already probably overwhelmed as it is.”

            Hongbin looked up at him.

            “So… the cat… is?” He trailed off.

            “Is me, I’m the cat. I’m Taekwoon.”

            “So you’re a…”

            “He’s a werecat! Kind of. He can control it, so more like a shapeshifter who can only do cats.” Hakyeon piped up from behind. Taekwoon turned back to him and nudged Hakyeon until he moved over in the chair so that he could sit there as well.

             Hongbin took inventory. An elf, a fairy, a satyr, a vampire, and now a cat shapeshifter.

            “Are there any more surprises I should be aware of? I’ve had a pretty long day.”

            Sanghyuk laughed from his chair across the room.

            “Nope, that should be about all for now.”

this chapter is a little bit shorter than the others? kind of? maybe it just feels shorter to me idk

thank you to all of the new subscribers!!!

i'm still stuck on if i want to make this a ship or not, opinions?

HOW ABOUT THAT COMEBACK THOUGH SO CUTE

Okay well thanks for reading!

~Win