The Pecking Order - Chapter 2
Title: The Pecking Order
Author: .flavored
Rating: G
Genre: Humor, Fantasy, Action, Romance
Fandom: K-pop [mostly Super Junior, BIGBANG, SS501]
Pairings: CuriGD, KyuKira, AnnaMin, YeonMin, YeonSaeng, ChaeHae (All Application Pairings)
Application Link: None
Closed/Open: Closed
Summary: What if underneath this normal world was a world filled with chaos? Madness happens of course.
~ Trailer|~ Forewords| ~ Chapter One
“Erh… Jiyong-hyung?”
The said Hyung in question frowned, and decided that it was questions like these you ignored when you were busy checking out the corridors for a certain scary bat that you really didn’t want to see.
It was also quite obvious that the one asking the question had decided that the question in question was something that wasn’t something that was supposed to be ignored. “Hyung! What are you doing, sneaking around like this?”
Jiyong resisted the urge to bash his Dongsaeng’s head against the nearest marble pillar he could find - actually, at the moment even cement/brick would have done the trick. Or even better yet, he could blast his Dongsaeng’s head off with the power he had been saving from the residue of fans’ love. He just had enough to create a spectacular enough blas-
Jiyong mentally slapped himself, ‘Pull it together, Jiyong! That old bat’s so close, if I use any magic, she’d zoom in on me faster than one could say ‘sprite fart’. ‘Sides, if she does capture me, at least I’ll have a good track record of while I was on my own. But let’s not go there…”
“Hyung?” Jiyong was pulled out of his mental tirade. He glared slightly at his housewife-looking Dongsaeng (you had to admit that he did look like a housewife with that naggy look on his face, impatiently folded arms and tapping foot).
Luckily, Jiyong was saved from thinking up an (entirely false) answer by a very timely entrance by someone tall and dark who had a considerably sexier low voice than the both of them. “Hey, you two.”
“TOP-hyung.” Seungri greeted respectfully, much to Jiyong’s chagrin. He wondered why everyone listened to TOP. Must be the voice.
“Seungri, can I talk to Jiyong alone?” The latter whom had been addressed blinked before smiling slightly, while the former stuttered and spluttered incomprehensively.
“But, Jiyong-hyung was acting all… suspicious.” Seungri protested to which TOP shook his head and explained very simply, “Uh-uh. Not suspicious when you note the way Jiyong turned pale when he saw that leader of that new group we just met. And also the way he quickly sought to exit the minute he could. It’s obviously…” at this, TOP leaned in conspiratorially and whispered into Seungri’s ear. “… woman trouble.”
At this, the innocent and supportive Seungri gasped and gave an all-knowing look to Jiyong, who just shrugged and tried to look hen-pecked. With an understanding nod, Seungri patted Jiyong on the back and quickly went off with a quick, “good luck, Hyung!”
As soon as Seungri had disappeared round the corner, Jiyong immediately bowed gratefully to TOP, before skipping a few steps backward into the corridor, trying to excuse himself gracefully. “Thanks, TOP Hyung. And, actually what you said about woman trouble wasn’t that far off… so… I’ll just be going. Bye!”
“Hey. Not so fast.” Before Jiyong could take more than a step, he felt a choking resistance around his neck. He quickly stepped back before he could choke on his own collar. With some carefully placed quizzicality on his face, he turned round to face TOP. “Yes, TOP-hyung?”
“I want to know why you’re trying to hide from Curione Fatalie.” TOP looked extremely puzzled, staring at his Dongsaeng with worried brown eyes.
“You know her?” Jiyong was genuinely surprised. Though TOP was a Hunter, and thus knew about Eile Domhan, he rarely went down there, since he was born and raised as a human and only found out about the other world when he was much older, after his Hunter abilities had finally kicked in.
“Who doesn’t?” TOP sighed, knowing exactly what Jiyong was thinking. “She’s practically the leader of the Vampire Consul, even if it is unofficial. Did you do something? Or were you being your usual idiot self and went and pissed her off or something?”
“Er…”
“You did, didn’t you?” TOP looked exasperated, “Why did you piss off the Silver Blood of all people? How do you even know her?”
“It’s because he’s bound to me by contract.” A foreign voice, soft, lilting and obviously female suddenly interjected into the conversation the way a sterile needle interjected into the dirty human flesh. “Isn’t that, right, Jiyong?”
Both men turned around in surprise, though one was more of a mix between that and horror, to see, indeed, a young lady leaning comfortably against a wall, dressed in a stylish purple outfit that did not seem to suit her in this situation.
Black leather, a flowing cape, and accessories that clinked would definitely been more appropriate.
The lady smiled. “Hello. Long time no see… Féileacán.”
~*~
“Okay everyone! Ten minutes break!”
Sungmin collapsed onto the floor in exhaustion, along with everyone else around him. An irate thought in his head found it amusing, as if everyone was playing the ‘all fall down!’ game. He would have laughed if he wasn’t too dog-tired to even open his mouth.
“Here, Sungmin-hyung.” Sungmin cracked open his eye to see Kyuhyun holding out a water bottle to him. With the last of his strength, he grabbed the water bottle, wretched it open and gulped its contents down in one gulp.
Kyuhyun chuckled as he settled beside down beside his Hyung, dodging the random drops of water that inevitably would bounce off skin and fly when one drank like a undignified barbarian. “Thirsty, huh?”
Sungmin waited till the last drop of water had spilled entirely into his mouth before he took the chance to glare at his impudent Dongsaeng. “Shut up, Kyuhyun.”
The impudent person just smiled and shrugged, leaning backwards lazily.
Sungmin continued glaring as he noticed that his Dongsaeng, though sweaty, didn’t seem to be the least bit tired. His glare turned accusing. “Did you sneak out of dance practice or something?”
Kyuhyun blinked, then grinned, shaking his head. “No. I was here the whole time - you can ask Yesung… and why do people persist in asking that question?”
Sungmin’s eyes swiveled to the innocent expression in Kyuhyun’s eyes and immediately knew that Kyuhyun knew exactly why people asked him that question. But he decided to answer Kyuhyun anyway. “You’re not dead tired like everyone else - as usual. Freak. No… idiot. Ow.”
Kyuhyun retracted his hand from where it had connected with Sungmin’s head. “I just know how to conserve my strength, that’s all.”
Sungmin wrinkled his nose, and snorted. But he supposed he should let it go since Kyuhyun DID give him some water to drink. “Whatever.”
The two friends sat in comfortable silence for a while. Sungmin smiled at the serenity, and suddenly had to urge to have a nice cold sugary drink. He told this so to Kyuhyun.
“…” Kyuhyun stared dumbly at his Hyung. “So?”
Sungmin rolled his eyes. “So… you’re the Dongsaeng, go get me one.”
“You wish!” Kyuhyun snorted and pushed his Hyung up, “Go get it yourself.”
Sungmin pouted, and he would have continued to urge Kyuhyun to do him this favour, if not for the fact that he only had less then ten minutes of rest left, and that the vending machine outside the practice room was spoilt, and the nearest other was five floors down. “Aish. Fine! Make your Hyung work.”
Kyuhyun grinned his snarky smile. “Well, since you’re at it, might as well get me one too.”
Sungmin responded with a snort and the usual token throwing of his empty water bottle at his the impudent magnae. Kyuhyun smirked, dodging it easily.
He didn’t know that this would be the last time he would dodge his Hyung’s thrown projectiles so easily. Something would happen - something that would have made Kyuhyun regret about his refusal to get Sungmin his drink.
But then again, that was the way these things went.
~*~
“They went WHERE?!”
Anna was close to strangling the small girl in her hands, who in turn, looked absolutely stunned and terrified. It was an odd scene, especially since if you knew the two. One was not for threatening, and the other was not for being threatened.
“Anna… calm down… listen to your Yuio-unnie…” the girl in Anna’s hands said as slowly as she could. “Calm down… they’re just doing their jobs. They’ll be fine.”
Anna took a deep breath and tried what Yuio suggested. It didn’t work. “I can’t calm down, Unnie! This is serious! It’s a disaster!”
Yuio looked quizzically at Anna, wondering what all the fuss was about. “It’s nothing disastrous, just them doing their job. Then again… this IS Kira we’re talking about… but what’s new about that?”
“No! You don’t understand, Unnie!” Anna shook Yuio once, hard. And with a serious look in her soft brown eyes, she stared deep into her Unnie’s pink ones and stated slowly. “That address you gave me is the SM building. Understand me? SM. The building which Kyuhyun, Donghae and Eunhyuk are in. RIGHT. NOW.”
Yuio blinked once. Then twice. At the third, she said something which summed it all up. “Oh, shit.”
~*~
Nobody moved for at least ten seconds.
“Well, aren’t you at least going to say hello to me, Jiyong?” the lady in purple chuckled, then cocked her head thoughtfully to the side. “Wait, I should start calling you ‘Oppa’, shouldn’t I? I’m officially younger than you in terms of normal age… although in Eile Domhan terms, I’m still older than you by at least a year.”
Jiyong gulped. “Erh… there’s no need for that, Curione… er… mistress. Just call me… Jiyong… or underling… or whatever you like!”
Jiyong noticed TOP’s eyes on him. They were as wide as saucers, and he knew he’d probably never get the end of it from him, but there were more important things now - things like saving his ass.
Curione looked amused. “As fun as that’ll be, save it for when you’re really in trouble. Oh, and duck.”
Still automatically tuned for following his Mistress’ orders, Jiyong immediately ducked and was stunned to see an axe flying through the air where his head once was. With an ease that was not normal for any human being, Curione stepped left-ward and caught it before it could crash into the window. “Kira. How many times have I said not to play with my toys before I’m done with them?”
Jiyong tried very, very hard not to shit in his pants when a tomboyish girl stepped out of the shadows. It was hard to see why Jiyong would be afraid of this girl - she wasn’t physically imposing, being at least a head shorter than him, though she was slightly stockier in size than the average Korean pop-star. But Jiyong had a history with this girl, and it mainly comprised of her laughing and him being in a world of pain.
“I’m bored.” Kira shrugged. “Can’t you hurry up?”
Jiyong really hoped Curione wasn’t going to use Kira to kill him, if she was planning to. Because, at least Curione’s methods were a LOT less painful then Kira’s. And a lot less humiliating too, because at least with Curione, he knew he had no choice due to his contract with her. While with Kira… it was just better to do as Kira asked…
Luckily for him, Curione didn’t seem to be interested in killing him yet. “You go ahead first and track our target. I’ll catch up with you.”
Kira shrugged, “If you insist.”
“I do.” Curione gestured Kira off, in a way befitting of a Queen. “Please don’t lose her.”
Kira responded with a very rude gesture, at which Curione did a parody of a broken heart. And with that pleasant exchange, Kira did a heart-stopping thing. She ran straight towards the window, looking as if to crash into it.
At the last minute, the window slid open, seeming to do so entirely by its own means. But Jiyong knew better, and so did Kira as she gave Curione a dirty look as jumped through the open window. Curione shrugged and returned her attention to Jiyong.
Suddenly, for the first time in his life, Jiyong wished Kira hadn’t gone.
To his surprise, Curione chuckled. And it wasn’t that evil chuckle she did when she was about to do something unpleasant to him. It was that pleasant chuckle when Anna came into the room, or when Yuio did something cute, or when Yumi did something spastic… basically when someone did something to amuse her.
“Am I really that scary?” Jiyong jumped in fright as Curione suddenly appeared in front of him. In his peripheral vision, he also saw that TOP was visibly stunned at Curione’s ridiculously fast moving speed. Not that that was really important with Curione so close to him. Curione sighed, “Seems that I am. But you don’t need to worry, I didn’t come to hurt you or anything. Just wanted to see how you were doing.”
Jiyong blinked. Hard. “What?”
“You heard me right.” Another amused chuckle. Jiyong was seriously bewildered. “Just came to see how you were doing. And it seems that you’re doing okay. You haven’t accidentally revealed your true self to anyone yet, and you haven’t killed anyone too. Nor have you violated any rules. I don’t think you have any cause to be worried, right?”
Jiyong nodded slowly, unsure where Curione was taking this. Curione smiled winningly at him. “So, that’s that then. I’ll leave you to get on with your life.” With that, Curione turned round towards the window, leaving Jiyong entirely stunned.
“Oh, and thank you, Seunghyun-sshi, for taking such good care of Jiyong.” Jiyong blinked and saw that his Hyung was, similarly, blinking. “You’re a good Hunter too, from what I’ve heard. I’ll mention your name to Dai. Maybe he’ll give you a recommendation or something.”
Something was seriously wrong with Curione. Jiyong had known her, for his six months of torture with her, to be mean, manipulative, condescending and an absolute spoil-sport. When she had suddenly abandoned him in the normal world, he had been exhilarated, rather than worried about being entirely alone in an unfamiliar world.
So what had changed?
“Oh yeah. Féileacán.” Jiyong blinked at the sudden mention of his true name. Curione smiled at him. “Good job in passing the test, Oppa.”
And with that, she jumped out of the window, disappearing from sight.
“Woah…” TOP blinked for a few minutes. “Was that really the Silver Blood? She’s a lot nicer than I imagined her to be. Why were you hiding from her? It’s quite obvious that she just wanted to check up on you - which is very gracious of her, since you’re just a mere Geancánach and she’s like… Hey! Where are you going?”
Jiyong didn’t hear him, he was too preoccupied with the thoughts spinning in his head.
“CURIONE! DAMNIT! WHAT DID YOU MEAN BY TEST?! COME BACK HERE YOU OLD BAT!”
And then, he too, jumped out of the window and disappeared from sight.
And that was how Seungri found TOP staring in astonishment in an empty hallway, mouth open at an innocently open window.
Today was a weird day.
~*~