Don't Be Scared (And Let Out the Beast) [2/5]
❇ Title: Don't Be Scared (And Let Out the Beast) [2/5] for laughingvirus
❇ Pairing: Kai/Suho, Chanyeol/Suho, Chanyeol/Lay, Baekhyun/D.O.
❇ Rating: NC-17
❇ Length: 36,051 words total
❇ Warnings: bare-backing, fingering, fisting, intercrural sex (thigh-fucking), rimming, sex toys, heat, underage sex (between two minors), issues of agency & consent, graphic description of lycanthropy
❇ Author note: So I may have gone all out during the making of this fic. ALL. OUT. I hope you enjoy the result of this madness. Title from EXO’s Let Out the Beast.
Thanks to G, A, who also helped beta (I love you), and especially the lovely S, the latter of whom helped tremendously, alongside listening to me spout rubbish like, “You know what would make this fic better? If there were fairies.” (Sadly, there are no fairies in this fic.)
❇ Summary: Joonmyun was always warned that there were monsters in the woods behind the school, but he thought they were just tales his friends made up to scare him. They weren’t.
Before he knows it, he wakes up Thursday morning, the day before the full moon.
Tonight is the first of the three nights that the wolf is going to turn, and even though Jongin brushed off the idea of running with a pack, there’s a bubble of excitement running through Joonmyun’s veins. He wants it to work almost desperately.
When he gets to school, he can’t stop fidgeting. Yixing sits next to him in the classes they share and tries to take his hands to stop them from tapping his pen on the table. It only takes a few tugs for Joonmyun to relent, and Yixing tries to keep him still.
“There’s no need to get this excited,” he whispers, except there is. Even though it isn’t much, and it won’t be the end of the world if the wolf doesn’t take to the other shapeshifters, or the shapeshifters can’t resist the urge to attack the wolf, Joonmyun still feels like there is a lot riding on this. If he’s right, there is the possibility they will change Jongin’s schooling experiences forever.
“I can’t help it,” Joonmyun whispers back, but he does his best to still his movements. He’s still bouncing off the walls internally, and there’s little that he can do to stop that.
During lunch, they decide that it would be better for everyone involved if Joonmyun and Jongdae go to Kyungsoo’s house for a sleepover in the evening. It’s the furthest house away from the woods, and therefore would make it harder for Joonmyun to find out what is happening. Joonmyun finds the assumption that he’d endanger himself to see if the wolf likes company rather a little insulting, but consents all the same. At least with company he’ll be less inclined to imagine possibilities.
Baekhyun volunteers to join them. “I haven’t been to yours for a long time, Kyungsoo,” he says. “And the rest of them don’t need me. Four is enough.”
Four is probably even too many, but they had decided that it would be safest if Chanyeol and Yixing go with their two youngest, in case the wolf takes it badly. Sehun and Zitao have fought the wolf before without the others, but this is a different and new situation for everyone. They need four.
“You’re right,” Chanyeol says. “We don’t need you.” He doesn’t say it meanly, it’s more of a tease. Until Jongin, Joonmyun hadn’t realised that Chanyeol even had a mean bone in his body, but now he knows better. He just hopes he can fix that. “You can do whatever you boys do when you’re together. Watch games. Eat. Make out.”
Kyungsoo throws his metal spoon at Chanyeol and it bounces off his forehead, falling to the table with a clang. Chanyeol clutches his hands to where it hit and makes pained whingeing noises.
“Kyungsoo!” he whines pathetically, as the rest of them just laugh at him.
As far as Joonmyun is aware, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo aren’t in a relationship. This doesn’t mean they aren’t actually in a relationship, it just means that they haven’t told him.
And they don’t appear to be about to change this, as once they all stop laughing, Baekhyun bursts out that he has a new noraebang video game that he’d like to try out with all of them. “Together we have the best voices in the school,” he says confidently. “I bet we’d own it.”
This effectively gets Jongdae excited. Jongdae loves everything involving singing. Watching them be so happy, Joonmyun smiles and says it will be fun. It’ll definitely give him something else to think about.
~*~*~
The afternoon races by, and soon school is finished. They all head their separate ways to pack their bags for the sleepover. Joonmyun’s mother drops him off at Kyungsoo’s after she makes him promise to do all his homework before playing games.
Kyungsoo lets him in quickly and Joonmyun toes off his shoes next to the long line of others, suggesting that at least one of their friends and one of Kyungsoo’s parents is home.
“Come up,” Kyungsoo says, and leads him up a flight of wooden stairs and along a clean, white corridor. The closer they get to his room, the louder So Nyeo Shi Dae’s Gee gets, and Joonmyun realises that Baekhyun must already be there.
It’s only another five minutes before Jongdae shows up, and then Baekhyun shoves them onto Kyungsoo’s bed like he lives there, before plugging four microphones into Kyungsoo’s games console. He shares out the microphones and starts up the game.
They cycle their way through Gee-complete with dance moves-, 2NE1’s Fire, DBSK’s Mirotic, 2PM’s 10 Out of 10, Super Junior’s Sorry, Sorry, and many other songs from the years before. Quite a few hours are wasted before they’re called to dinner and Joonmyun remembers the promise he’d made his mother.
Kyungsoo’s parents are nice, and although Joonmyun has never met them before, they welcome him like one of the family.
“It’s nice to meet some of Kyungsoo’s friends,” his mother says. “Aside from Baekhyun here, and Chanyeol, of course. How is that boy?”
“He’s fine,” Kyungsoo assures her. “Just busy.”
Joonmyun looks out the window at the darkening sky and wonders just how busy he already is.
~*~*~
As the moon rises, the young, naked boy, standing in the darkest part of the woods, begins to shift. His body contorts and he screams as his bones break, twisting into new forms which don’t agree with his human body. The screams soon become growls as his jaw and nose lengthen into a snout, and his vocal cords change, losing the ability to make human sounds. The human teeth, nails and hair fall out and new ones grow in place, fur sprouting all over the wolf’s body.
The wolf stands tall and proud, his eyes a dark gold, and he howls. His howl, he believes, will scare away his enemies and other predators. This wood belongs to him.
He has only been there for a few moments when he hears rustling behind him, and he turns to face a large predator, bigger than he is, solid and furry with a long tail. There is a smaller creature next to it. It smells of food but its large curled horns suggest that he will not get close enough to eat it. Behind are the flying monster that attacks him and the shining beast with the single pointed horn.
He growls, and braces himself for attack, but none comes. Instead, the predator crouches before him, lifting its head so its throat can be seen.
The wolf realises that this beast is submitting to him, as it rightfully should, and he seizes the chance to rip its throat out. He hunkers down on all fours, ready to pounce, when an object is dropped from above.
He jumps out of the way of the flying thing. When he lands, he realises that it is food, although it is already dead. But he is hungry, and dead food is better than no food.
He sniffs the meat to make sure it is safe to eat, and then dives in. Maybe he will let the beast live another day.
Once he has finished his meal, the other animals are still there, resting on the ground. None of them seem interested in attacking.
The wolf is full from its meal and it doesn’t believe that these beasts will kill him, or they would have done so already, so he rolls onto his back to scratch an itch. When he sits up, the large beast is grooming itself and the strange animal next to it, rubbing its paws over its horns.
The wolf yips so that they will pay him attention. If they are here, they may as well play with him.
He wags his tail and crouches down, yipping, and the beast pulls away from its small friend to face him, pulling back into a similar crouch. It waves its own long, smooth tail, and the wolf pounces.
They roll each other over across the floor, and chase each other through the trees. The wolf yaps happily as he runs, having not had this much fun in a long time. As a lone wolf, he never has any chance to play. The small beasts can’t outrun him before he eats them.
They run through the night, the other two land beasts joining in after some time, as the one with the wings watches. He barks at this beast, hoping that it will join them, but three are as good. The winged beast refuses to join, but stays watching. As long as it stays, the wolf doesn’t mind.
Eventually, the wolf gets tired. He slumps to the ground next to the large beast and nips at its muzzle. The beast patiently allows the bite that seals them as pack, and waits for him to do so for the other beasts, before rolling onto its side so the wolf can fit next to him. Then he begins to groom the wolf, licking over his fur the way a mother would do, if the wolf had a mother.
The wolf falls asleep.
The wolf is asleep during its transformation back into the human boy for the first time in his entire life, and for the first time he can’t feel the pain.
~*~*~
The next day, Jongin ventures out of his classroom at lunch time.
Joonmyun is sitting in the cafeteria with the rest of them, yawning. They have all been transferring yawns to each other for over ten minutes; Chanyeol for obvious wolf-related reasons, and the rest of them because Baekhyun had kept them up gossiping well into the night. Joonmyun suddenly wonders why he never noticed that some days Chanyeol is really tired. Maybe he just hid it better. Or maybe Joonmyun thought he spent it playing video games late into the night. He’d never have guessed the real reason.
Baekhyun and Kyungsoo had shared the bed and Jongdae and Joonmyun were left to the futon and the floor. Jongdae had won gawibawibwo, as Joonmyun had suspected he would. Joonmyun’s back aches, but he’d never say so.
Chanyeol refuses to say how the previous night had gone, though his smile says enough, Joonmyun thinks.
Suddenly the table grows quiet, and Chanyeol’s eyes widen.
“Hyung,” comes a quiet voice, and Joonmyun turns to find Jongin standing there, tall and thin in his oversized school uniform.
“Hello!” Joonmyun says with a smile. “Do you want to join us? I think I’ve got some extra food you could have.”
Jongin shakes his head. “I just wanted to say thank you,” he says, and then he turns to Chanyeol and bows to him. “To you as well. Last night was…” He rolls the words around in his mouth for a moment. “Good,” he finishes.
Joonmyun watches Chanyeol, whose face goes through a varied range of emotions, before it settles on polite acceptance. “I’m glad you were manageable,” he says. Joonmyun kicks him. From the sounds of pain Chanyeol makes for the next few seconds, Joonmyun wasn’t the only one. “You’re welcome,” Chanyeol tacks on begrudgingly.
“You don’t have to come tonight if it is a problem,” Jongin says, and Chanyeol shakes his head.
“No, we’ll be there tonight and tomorrow,” he says. “It’s easier to keep an eye on you this way.”
Jongin nods and whispers his gratitude, and then turns to Joonmyun. He bows. “I’m sorry,” he breathes.
“It’s fine,” Joonmyun says, and he smiles. “Really. And you’re welcome to sit with us any time.”
Jongin shakes his head and, with a third bow, leaves them.
“You need to learn how to speak publicly,” Baekhyun says to Chanyeol.
“I don’t like him,” Chanyeol tells him, frowning. “And just because last night wasn’t bad doesn’t mean that he’s suddenly great. The wolf did still try to kill Hyung and Jongdae.”
“And now he won’t,” Joonmyun says. “He’s got you to look after him. I know you’ll do a good job.”
Chanyeol sighs. “I’ll do my best,” he says.
“As long as you stop being rude,” Kyungsoo adds, and Chanyeol rolls his eyes.
“Fine, I’ll try and hold it in next time,” he says. “You guys are so picky.”
They all kick him again.
~*~*~
The group meet up on Sunday along with their three oldest members, who they fill in on the situation. Joonmyun doesn’t get to speak to any of them before then, so he is perched on the edge of his seat, waiting for the news of what happened during the full moon and the following night.
“We have now run with the wolf three times,” Yixing says. “He welcomed us back as his pack like we had never left. He is young and he mostly just wants to play, as long as we keep in line and do as he wishes, which he lets us know quickly. If we feed him and play with him, I think we will be able to stop him from being quite as dangerous.”
There is some kind of quiet cheer that spreads around the room. This is a different kind of task, one that is less violent. Few of them enjoyed attacking the wolf, but wanting to play is something most teenagers can understand and sympathise with.
“So it worked then?” Joonmyun asks. “My idea worked, for all three nights?”
Chanyeol nods. “It did,” he says.
Lu Han and Kevin volunteer to run the following full moon with Yixing and Chanyeol, as the youngest two already know that they have practice exams to study for. They need all the weekends and evenings they can get.
They fall into casual discussion about shapeshifting, about schoolwork, and about what exams the two are taking, and Joonmyun starts to daydream, imagining how to paint a beautiful scene of a wolf playing with a unicorn and a phoenix.
~*~*~
Monday comes quickly. Soon they’re sitting together for lunch, Chanyeol and Joonmyun discussing songs they’re considering performing for the club. Chanyeol is thinking about asking Yixing to perform a guitar duet with him.
“Yixing-hyung likes slow things,” he says. “I think we could do something acoustic? That would be really pretty.”
The other three are fighting over who gets the last jelly tube, when a quiet voice asks, from behind them, “Can I have it, please?”
They all turn to face Jongin, who is standing there, looking at his feet and shuffling in place.
Joonmyun doesn’t wait for them to agree, just snatches up the jelly and hands it to Jongin. “Of course you can,” he says with a smile.
Jongin hovers there for a few moments, and then Joonmyun says, “Grab a chair,” and to his utmost surprise, Jongin does, pulling one over from the empty table next to them. Joonmyun scoots over to give him room.
Chanyeol gives Joonmyun a small, judging look, but he just smiles back.
Having Jongin there isn’t too different from not having Jongin there, as he barely speaks. He just sucks away at his jelly slowly and nods along to what the group says.
The only time he speaks is when Baekhyun mentions how it’s a pity the youngest two aren’t going to be around as much, and he says, “I have exams too.” He frowns.
“What day is the next-you know?” Joonmyun asks, in case anyone is eavesdropping.
“It’s a Sunday,” Jongin says, at the same time as Chanyeol says, “Sunday.” Joonmyun nods.
“Do you have any exams on Monday or Tuesday?” he asks.
Jongin shakes his head. “But I have them Wednesday to Friday,” he says, “so I don’t have a lot of time to do any last-minute studying, so I need to revise.” He bites his lip. “It’s a little difficult though.”
Jongdae lets out a little half-laugh and stage-whispers to Kyungsoo, “I think we all know where this is going.”
Joonmyun ignores him. “What do you need help on?” he asks.
“English,” Jongin says. “I’m not very good at it. I’m fine at everything else, but I need to get a B in this.”
“I can help you if you want?” Joonmyun asks.
“Called it,” Jongdae says, and then he hisses. “Ow!”
Joonmyun almost smiles at the thought someone probably kicked him, but mostly just ignores him.
“Oh, I’m sure you’re busy,” Jongin says hastily. “I couldn’t ask you to do that for me.”
Joonmyun rolls his eyes, and opens his mouth to argue, but Chanyeol gets there first.
“Don’t worry, Joonmyun-hyung enjoys nothing more than to tutor people.”
“You can talk,” Baekhyun says. “He tutored you in Maths for an entire year.”
“Yes,” Chanyeol agrees. “And it helped a lot, and look where we are now.” He indicates the table. “Without tutoring me, none of us would have met.”
“Good point,” Baekhyun agrees. “I’d still be human.”
Chanyeol rolls his eyes, but Joonmyun thinks that there’s some merit to what they’re saying. If he hadn’t been asked to tutor Chanyeol, he’d never have met Kyungsoo or Jongdae, or the rest of the group. Maybe he would still have been attacked by the wolf, but he wouldn’t have had this support group to lean on in the aftermath. He wouldn’t have known anything about Chanyeol when he woke up in his house. It would have all been far too strange for words.
Not that it isn’t now, of course.
“Of course I’ll tutor you,” Joonmyun says to Jongin.
“I can’t pay you,” Jongin says.
“You think Chanyeol paid?” Jongdae asks, and snorts.
“Is there anything you’re good at?” Kyungsoo asks.
“Um,” Jongin says. “I don’t know. I kind of like dancing?” He says it in such a tone that Joonmyun thinks that he means it’s his only hobby and his only joy in life, but he doesn’t want to seem like it is. This makes Joonmyun feel quite sad. At least he has his painting and his music.
“Teach Hyung how to dance,” Kyungsoo says, “until you’ve done your exams.”
“Okay,” Jongin says. “I can do that.”
It’s settled. Joonmyun will tutor Jongin after school three times a week, and once they’re finished, Jongin will run through some dance routines with him. It’s a perfectly equal relationship. Joonmyun smiles warmly at Jongin and gives him a box of leftovers to take home with him, just because he’s so happy.
~*~*~
Their first session is a few days later. They sit in the library together, in a corner far away from the eyes of the other pupils, as Jongin is still shy.
They work through his homework together first, focusing on what he’s weakest at. Once they’re finished and Joonmyun has a better idea about what Jongin needs help on, he starts on the easiest thing to explain, and they take a full hour to go through it until Jongin understands where he was going wrong.
“Okay,” Joonmyun says, looking at his watch. “I think that’s enough for today.”
Jongin drops his pen and leans back in his chair, and he stretches. “Thank you,” he says. “You’ve helped me a lot today.”
“It’s no problem,” Joonmyun says. “I’m glad I’m able to help you.”
They pack up their belongings and then Jongin leads them out of the library and down the hallways, getting further and further away from the main body of the school.
Finally, they reach a set of darkened corridors. “Nobody comes to these music rooms,” he says. “We won’t be disturbed.”
The rooms are empty of any furniture, except for a CD player that is plugged in opposite a wall of mirrors. Jongin turns the CD player on, adjusting the volume.
“We’ll do something easy,” he begins, and then he moves slowly, carefully, controlled. It’s a movement that Joonmyun is positive he’ll never be able to make, regardless of how easy Jongin thinks it is, but he tries anyway.
During the next thirty or so minutes, Jongin shows Joonmyun how to do easy and simple moves that look good, and suddenly Joonmyun wishes there would be an occasion where he could show them off. Some kind of dance or club with his friends. It would be completely worth it.
When they finish, Joonmyun flops onto the ground, sweating profusely, but Jongin seems perfectly fine. “How are you not a puddle on the floor, like I am?” Joonmyun asks stupidly. He knows the answer; Jongin does this a lot.
“Used to it,” Jongin confirms. “But also being a werewolf helps. I have a lot more stamina because of needing to move for hours on end. It passes over from the wolf to me.”
Joonmyun nods, and drops his head back to the ground. “I don’t want to move,” he says.
Jongin laughs, for the first time since Joonmyun met him, and it’s not what he had expected Jongin’s laughter to sound like. Although he had expected Jongin’s voice to be low, it’s high-pitched and halfway to a giggle. Jongin laughs with his whole body, almost overbalancing as he bends himself in half to laugh at his knees.
“It’s not that funny,” Joonmyun says, but there’s only mild annoyance in his tone.
“It is though!” Jongin says, and he chuckles, before collecting himself. “We’d better go then, Hyung.” He turns the player off mid-song, the room falling silent except for Joonmyun’s heaving breath.
He reaches out to grab Joonmyun’s hand and pulls him up easily, in one smooth movement, like Joonmyun weighs no more than a three year old. Joonmyun has to stop to press one hand against his forehead as the dizziness subsides, and once it’s gone, he links his fingers with Jongin’s.
Jongin looks at their entwined hands for a moment with wide eyes.
“We’re friends now,” Joonmyun says cheerfully in explanation, and he pulls them out of the room with a happy lift in his step.
~*~*~
School resumes like normal.
Joonmyun has lunch with the same gang, with the addition of Jongin and, on occasion, even Yixing, which is a strange but welcome surprise. They joke during lunch together like normal boys. Normal boys with strange secrets.
A few days later, Joonmyun, Chanyeol and Yixing have their first performance session at the music club.
Joonmyun has prepared Super Junior’s It’s You, because it’s pretty but it’s also not too slow and his voice doesn’t tremble too much when he belts out the chorus.
He’s followed by a boy he doesn’t know who sings 2PM’s 10 Out Of 10 in a somewhat shaky voice; and that boy is followed by a haunting acoustic guitar duet of Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars sung by Yixing and Chanyeol, which the whole club agrees is one of the most beautiful things they’ve ever heard. Nothing following them is quite as good.
The next week’s task is a dance, and Joonmyun’s face pales as Chanyeol leers at him and teases him to participate. He had asked for an occasion to show off, but he doesn’t think he’s ready yet-maybe he’ll just sit this one out.
~*~*~
Joonmyun and Jongin continue to revise and practise as the week goes by, and then the next. Joonmyun begins to look forward to the snippets of conversation they have during the walk from the library to the practice room.
He learns little things about Jongin, like how his favourite colour is sky blue and how he wishes he had dogs. Joonmyun finds himself absently inviting him over to play with Byeol. He also likes Pirates of the Caribbean, but he hasn’t seen it in years.
“I don’t watch much television anymore,” he says.
Joonmyun doesn’t ask him why he doesn’t. “Where do you live?” he asks instead, and Jongin waves his hand indistinctly in the direction of the woods.
“Near the woods,” he says. “Small place. My parents pay for it.”
Joonmyun nods, and wonders if he’ll ever get to see this place. Jongin’s getting skinnier each day and he never seems to bring lunch with him. Joonmyun just doesn’t understand.
“Okay,” Jongin says, before Joonmyun can ponder too long. “Let’s see how far you’ve got.”
~*~*~
Chanyeol corners Joonmyun one day after school.
“I think I’ve worked out why Jongin didn’t know he was-you know,” he says. “Come home with me.”
He leads Joonmyun home by the hand. Yixing isn’t there when they get back, which is a change. Yixing always seems to already be there these days.
“I wanted to keep this between us,” Chanyeol says, presumably noticing Joonmyun’s surprise. “Nobody else needs to know yet.”
He brings up a page on his laptop, a news article dated September 1994.
“It took me ages to find this,” Chanyeol tells him, and he manoeuvres Joonmyun into a chair so he can read the screen better.
It’s a story about two wolves who were killed when scavenging food from a village. Apparently a baby was found nearby and taken to the hospital, but nobody claimed the baby, and they were put up for adoption later.
“According to the hunter newspaper,” Chanyeol says when he’s sure that Joonmyun has finished reading, “they were werewolves and the baby was their child. The baby was adopted before the hunters could get to it.”
“He was just a baby,” Joonmyun says. “One year old. What were they going to do to him?”
“Lycanthropy is inherited,” Chanyeol says. “Once a werewolf, always a werewolf. That’s the hunter code. The baby was always going to be dangerous.”
Joonmyun feels chills run down his spine.
~*~*~
Joonmyun agrees not to mention it to Jongin until they know for sure. They don’t know if he is the baby in question, although Chanyeol seems to think it’s unlikely that he isn’t.
Chanyeol goes back to researching Baekhyun and Jongin’s histories and Joonmyun goes back to performing and practising and homework and video games at the weekend and life passes by peacefully like that.
The closer it gets to the full moon, the more playful Jongin gets. Joonmyun wonders if it’s a side effect of the wolf just being a puppy, or if he just gains excess energy near to the full moon.
Joonmyun does his best to help out; their dance sessions get longer, even though Joonmyun ends up absolutely exhausted, but Jongin also gets tired the longer they dance for. That’s a bonus, because otherwise he says he can’t sleep. He needs to be tired out, like a puppy, before he’s able to rest.
The Friday before the Sunday full moon, Jongin is particularly boisterous, and Joonmyun imagines that if he had a tail, he’d be wagging it like Byeol does when he gets excited.
When their dance session is over, Jongin is still exuding energy. Joonmyun pats the ground next to him. “Sit down,” he says.
Jongin goes to crouch next to him, but he doesn’t sit. Instead, he bowls Joonmyun over.
It’s been a long, long time since Joonmyun play-fought with anyone. He’s too old, too mature, too straight-laced. But something strikes a chord within him and suddenly he’s pushing Jongin over, tumbling with him.
They scrap like small children, or like puppies, rolling each other over and trying to push their weight down to hold the other down. Joonmyun gets the upper hand a few times, but due to being tired, he’s easily beaten.
Jongin eventually flops down onto Joonmyun’s body, dropping his head into the gap between Joonmyun’s neck and shoulder. “Tired now,” he says. “Going to sleep.”
Joonmyun pushes at him weakly. “You’re heavy,” he complains. “Roll over.”
Jongin growls deep in his throat. His teeth scrape over Joonmyun’s shoulder as a warning. “Stay,” Jongin says, his voice different from usual. It’s warmer, syrupy. “Stay with me, my sweet. Stay with your Alpha.”
Alpha?
Joonmyun gulps, and tries to carefully pull himself out of Jongin’s reach, because suddenly he’s scared. But by moving he’d disobeyed Jongin’s orders. All he can feel is pain. He distantly feels himself scream in a rather unmanly fashion.
“My sweet,” he hears distantly, through the rush of blood in his ears. “That will teach you to step out of line again.”
Jongin, who is squishing him down, jerks, and then suddenly he’s on his feet and Joonmyun can breathe again. Jongin’s mouth is smeared with red and his eyes are partway between his usual dark and gold.
“I-” Jongin begins, and his eyes return to their normal colour, although they are frozen wide in horror. He doesn’t continue, just turns and runs from the room.
Joonmyun slides across the floor slowly to the mirror and moves his shirt aside so he can see the damage.
He can’t really see due to the blood staining his shirt and drying across his shoulder, so he forces himself to his feet and staggers out to the nearest bathroom. His shoulder burns as he tries to clean it with a wet tissue and he smears his tears with his sleeve, but he keeps it up.
There’s a ring of teeth marks in his shoulder, but they’re not like any human teeth he’s ever seen. He thinks they might be animal teeth, but he can’t imagine how Jongin the human was able to have such teeth. He can’t believe that Jongin’s jaw was so strong he was able to rip through skin, flesh and tissue, though thankfully not bone as well. He’s going to have a hard enough time using his shoulder in the near future.
Walking home seems impossible, so Joonmyun fishes out his phone with his good hand. “Chanyeol,” he says, when Chanyeol picks up, and he sniffs. He refuses to cry. “Chanyeol, something happened.”
It takes Chanyeol and Yixing less than ten minutes to get to the school. “What-?” Chanyeol begins, and then he stops in his tracks, eyes transfixed on Joonmyun’s shoulder.
“Jongin bit me,” Joonmyun says. When he sees Chanyeol’s expression turn from worried to murderous, he tries, “It’s okay-”
“It’s not okay,” Yixing says, and he presses his hand to Chanyeol’s back carefully, holding the taller boy up. “We don’t know what that means.”
The blood comes rushing back around Joonmyun’s ears and he feels faint. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“Well it’s…it’s possible that he turned you into a werewolf,” Yixing says.
Joonmyun passes out.
~*~*~
“You’re going to have to stop doing that,” Chanyeol jokes half-heartedly once Joonmyun’s woken up. “You’re quite heavy.”
Joonmyun pouts at him. He doesn’t think he’s that heavy.
They’re at Chanyeol’s house, sitting in front of Chanyeol’s laptop and waiting for a Skype call from their oldest members. Chanyeol says that their families have been around werewolves a lot longer, and they might know what the bite did.
“Hopefully nothing,” like Joonmyun had said before, is apparently not likely. It had to have done something.
It comes ten minutes later.
“Hyung,” Chanyeol says, focusing on Minseok. “Hyung, the wolf bit Joonmyun-hyung.”
“Jongin bit me,” Joonmyun corrects. Chanyeol waves him off.
They make Joonmyun show him the bite mark, and he struggles to pull the clean t-shirt that Chanyeol had given him out of the way so that they can see it. Only after washing the skin in warm water and antibacterial ointment, did they realise just how bad the bite is. It’s deep, each tooth leaving a puncture wound, and Chanyeol’s father had told them it would probably scar. It’s already bruising, and Joonmyun finds it difficult to move his arm, though Yixing had done his best to alleviate the pain by wrapping unicorn hairs around the bite. Unicorns are healers by nature.
The three eldest gasp in horror at the state of Joonmyun’s shoulder.
“That’s bad,” Lu Han says.
“But do you know what biting a human does?” Chanyeol asks. “Is he-?”
“I’ve never heard of a werewolf in human form leaving a bit like that,” Kevin says. “There are different kinds of bite in wolf form, but never human.”
“Do you remember how it happened?” Lu Han asks.
Joonmyun explains what happened to them as he wraps the hairs back around his arm and covers it up again.
“That’s interesting,” Lu Han and Minseok chorus.
“What was? Do you know what it means?”
Minseok shakes his head. “It’s curious, but we’ll do some research. In the meantime, I think you’d best treat Joonmyun like he will turn. I’m sorry, Joonmyun. He’ll have to keep you indoors and lock you up. It won’t be very nice.”
Joonmyun turns to Chanyeol with wide eyes. “Really?”
Chanyeol nods. “I’ll do my best to keep you comfortable,” he assures Joonmyun. “You’re my best friend, and anything that happens isn’t your fault.” He turns back to the other three. “We’ll do it,” he says. “And I’ll report back to you once this full moon weekend is over.”
Once the Skype call has ended, Joonmyun curls up into a scared ball, anticipating whatever will happen to him over the weekend. He just prays that whatever it is isn’t as life-changing as becoming a monster.
~*~*~
Joonmyun gets permission from his parents to stay at Chanyeol’s for the whole weekend, and then everything starts.
Joonmyun doesn’t feel any less human than he usually does, but he’s not sure how one feels if they’re about to become a wolf.
They spend most of the day doing their homework and playing video games together, trying to put off the inevitable discussion about that night.
When he comes over, Yixing promises to watch over the Jongin-wolf, along with Baekhyun. Sehun and Zitao are both studying for their exams and can’t make it, so they are all hoping that two will be enough.
Chanyeol refuses to leave Joonmyun’s side, which Joonmyun is grateful for. He’s too scared.
When it hits mid-afternoon, Chanyeol’s family lead Joonmyun down to the cellar, where they have a stone room with a large door.
“We built this in case we ever caught a werewolf,” Chanyeol’s father says. “It’s for emergencies. I’m glad we have it.”
The inside of the room is soft, everything a kind of spongey material.
“It’s impervious to wolf claws,” Chanyeol’s mother explains, noticing him looking at it. “But it’s to protect the wolf from hurting itself.”
Joonmyun nods and watches as they exit the room, leaving him in it. Chanyeol hovers in the doorway once his parents have gone.
“We’re not going to tie you up,” Chanyeol says. “And I’ll be right outside. I’ll be here if you need me. If you-if nothing happens. Knock three times if you’re fine, five times if you need my help. If you lift that floorboard, there’s a book and a torch in there, for when you’re still-” He breaks off, his voice cracking.
Joonmyun nods again, and heads over to the floorboard indicated. He takes out the items and Chanyeol leaves, shutting the door behind him, dropping Joonmyun into darkness. Joonmyun hears the click of a lock, and then three clunks as bolts slide into place.
Joonmyun clicks on the torch and begins to read. It’s a fantasy novel, one he’s read before, but it’s good and it will pass the time.
He doesn’t notice it at first, too engrossed in the story, but eventually he notices how hot he’s becoming.
He’s sticky as well, his clothes sticking to his skin, and for some strange reason he’s getting hard, his jeans constricting. He puts his book down and looks down at his crotch.
He checks his watch first. It’s late, well after sunset. If he was going to turn into a werewolf, he’d have done it now. So clearly the bite didn’t turn him.
Joonmyun knows that he could knock to be let out. His stomach rumbles with hunger, and he wouldn’t mind getting something to eat.
His cock swells even more.
Even though he’s extremely embarrassed, Joonmyun realises that he can’t go out without getting rid of the problem first. He just hopes that there are no cameras in here, and that Chanyeol won’t be able to hear him.
He works his jeans and underwear off over his ankles, freeing his erection and hot legs, and then goes to sit in the corner where he can see the door.
He has nothing to use as lotion, so he spits into his good hand before wrapping it around himself and trying to work out this hard-on. He doesn’t imagine anything in particular, just does his best to stroke where it feels good, trying to come as quickly as possible.
He comes rubbing his thumb across the head of his cock and he catches it in his hand, although he doesn’t know where to wipe it. He blushes with embarrassment when he comes down from his high, and then he realises that he’s still hard.
This has never happened to Joonmyun before. He comes, he grows flaccid. That’s what happens to all boys. But it’s erect, plain as day, sticking out before him.
And he’s hotter still, body burning up. He tugs his t-shirt off, leaving him naked in the room, and wipes his hand in it, before beginning to jack off again.
His body doesn’t complain of oversensitivity, which worries him. Usually if he so much as holds his cock after he’s come, it hurts for at least a few moments. But he feels fine, just hard and hot.
He strokes again until he comes a second time, body shaking and sweating all over. He feels like he has a fever and his cock throbs, still hard as a rock.
Frustrated tears leak from Joonmyun’s eyes as he realises that he’s going to have to ask for help, because his erection refuses to leave.
Being seen in this state is embarrassing, and Joonmyun knows he must be a smelly, sweaty mess, but he can’t help himself. He trembles as he stands, cock solid before him, and he makes his way slowly over to the door.
He bites his lip and knocks five times.
“What is it?” Chanyeol’s voice asks. “Are you okay?”
“I need your help,” Joonmyun says, trying to stop his voice from cracking. “I’m so sorry.”
Chanyeol opens the door, and then stops. “Look mate, I know we’re friends and all, but I don’t like you like this,” Chanyeol says, frowning. Joonmyun can see him try not to let his line of sight drop down.
“It’s not-” Joonmyun wants to press the heels of his hands to his eyes, but he can’t. He presses his good hand to his stomach instead. “I’ve come twice,” he says.
“That’s nice,” Chanyeol says, in a voice that says it’s not at all, and he frowns, wrinkling his nose.
Joonmyun lets out a laugh that’s more a sob than anything else. “It’s not-it’s not going down. Chanyeol, please. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t necessary.” He raises the back of his good hand, covered in drying come, and smudges away his tears, leaving a sticky mess behind.
Chanyeol watches the movement and he gulps. “What do you need me to do?” he asks, sounding resigned.
“Just-just help, please,” Joonmyun begs.
Chanyeol steps into the room and shuts the door behind himself, leaving them in darkness except for the light of the torch on the floor. He walks over to Joonmyun and places a hand on his waist. There’s a little bit of relief from the heat, but not much.
“You’re burning up,” Chanyeol says in surprise, and he steers Joonmyun over to a wall, before pressing his hand to Joonmyun’s forehead.
“I think they’re connected,” Joonmyun says. “Maybe if the heat breaks, this will stop-you know.” He doesn’t want to say it aloud.
“Alright then,” Chanyeol says, and then a second later there’s a hand on Joonmyun’s dick. He doesn’t ask how Joonmyun likes to get off, just strokes briskly. He removes it for a moment to spit into his own hand like Joonmyun did, before wrapping it back around, and it causes momentary relief, cooling Joonmyun down a little.
Joonmyun clings onto Chanyeol’s shoulders, doing his best to stay upright, as the heat takes over his whole body and threatens to make him collapse.
“You’re so lucky I’m such a nice friend and I can’t bear to see you cry,” Chanyeol says. “If you were Baekhyun or Jongdae? You could fuck yourself for all I care. I’m not touching either of their dicks, no matter how close they get to blue balls.”
Joonmyun makes little muffled noises of thanks as his hips buck into Chanyeol’s hand, the pleasure building up slower unlike the pace of Chanyeol’s hand.
“Can’t you come already?” Chanyeol asks, and he strokes even faster. Joonmyun loosens one hand from around Chanyeol and slides it down his sweltering body until he reaches his balls, and he rubs his thumb over one, coaxing it, and then it’s upon him, and he comes fast, strings landing over Chanyeol’s fingers and shirt.
Joonmyun can feel his cock relax, and he slides down the wall when Chanyeol lets go of him. “Thank you,” he breathes.
“Right,” Chanyeol says. “Glad I could help you with your dick problem. Let’s never speak of this ever again. Promise?”
Joonmyun nods his head absently, although he’s mostly wondering why he even got hard in the first place.
“If you put some clothes on and wash, you can come up for dinner, and then you’d better air-freshen this place out. It’s not a sex chamber,” Chanyeol says airily, and then he turns and leaves, presumably to change his own clothes.
Joonmyun dresses like he’d been told, and hopes that that was a one-time thing, because he’d hate to go through it all again.
~*~*~
It’s not a one-time thing.
The night of the full moon he gets hot and hard again, though this time he’s already in bed at home. Hand over his mouth so his parents don’t hear, he gets himself off-once, twice.
His body is still flush and hard and he feels uncomfortable, like there is something he is missing, something he needs to help fix him. His thighs clench as his body rocks, searching for something to fill a gaping hole inside him.
It takes another two times before he softens, by which point all he wants to do is curl up and sleep for a week.
He drifts off with fingers crossed that that would be the last of it.
~*~*~
It’s not even a two-time thing, for partway through one of his classes Monday morning it happens again.
As a teenage boy, Joonmyun is no stranger to random erections during school, and usually he just slides further under the table and waits for it to go away. But it doesn’t go away, because this isn’t a normal erection. His teacher even asks if he has a fever because he’s sweating so much.
He finds himself in a toilet cubicle at lunchtime, stuffing his tie into his mouth so he won’t make a noise as he hastily jacks off.
He sends a text to Chanyeol once he’s softened-It keeps happening. Please find out what’s wrong with me.-and gets an extremely disgruntled agreement. Chanyeol hadn’t wanted to talk about it, after all.
When Joonmyun reaches the lunch table, missing Jongin for once, Chanyeol studiously ignores him. After a while, Joonmyun stops talking to him and instead talks to the rest, frowning to himself.
“Ooh, are Umma and Appa fighting?” Jongdae teases. At his words, Chanyeol freezes, makes a grimace, and turns so his back faces them.
Joonmyun shrugs at Kyungsoo’s confused and asking expression. He knows that Chanyeol is angry, but he doesn’t really understand why he’s angry with him.
“Where’s Jongin?” Joonmyun asks, and Chanyeol explodes.
He stands up, looming over Joonmyun. “Why do you care?” he asks, too loud. People at the nearby tables turn to look over at them and Joonmyun cowers in his seat.
“Shh!” Joonmyun hisses, somewhat frightened that someone will overhear. “You’re too loud.”
“Shut up, Joonmyun,” Chanyeol snaps, but thankfully he’s quieter this time. “Nothing to see here,” he tells the other tables, and the other students turn away again. Chanyeol clearly takes this as a sign to continue, for he says, “I would have thought you’d have known better after what he did to you, but I guess you’re still just a bleeding heart.” He turns and storms out of the room.
Joonmyun stands to follow him, eyes wet, but Baekhyun tugs him back down. “Don’t,” he says. “Let Yixing-hyung.”
Not a minute later, Yixing leaves his separate group of friends and follows Chanyeol out.
Joonmyun bites his lip. He thinks he might start crying, and tries to force the urge away, because he doesn’t want to show weakness in a room of school students who will never let him forget it. “I don’t understand,” he says quietly, when the urge leaves him. He just feels numb. “Why is he so angry?”
“What did Jongin do to you?” Kyungsoo asks.
Joonmyun had forgotten that they don’t know. “He bit me,” he says. When they hiss, loudly, he hastily tacks on, “It was a mistake, and I’m fine.” Well, fine is the wrong word to use. “I’m not a-he didn’t turn me. Don’t worry.”
“You know for definite?” Jongdae asks, worry clear over his face. They all look worried. Joonmyun thinks that the other tables probably think he’s told them the worst news in the world, and hopes nobody talks to him about it.
“Yes,” Joonmyun says. “I’m positive. The bite didn’t turn me.”
“What do bites do then?” Baekhyun asks. “They must do something.”
Joonmyun doesn’t want to bring up his suspicions about the bite making him horny at the full moon because he doesn’t want anyone else to know about it-especially not if they’ll react the way Chanyeol did. “I don’t know,” he says. “We’ll find out, I suppose.”
“Chanyeol wouldn’t be that rude if it was over nothing,” Kyungsoo says. “Defensive, sure, but rude? There must be something he knows that he’s not telling you.”
This sends a shiver down Joonmyun’s spine-the idea that Chanyeol knows something about his predicament but is refusing to tell him for some twisted reason.
“I’m sure Yixing-hyung will fix him for you,” Baekhyun says. “Though I hope that he fixes him with a kiss.”
Joonmyun blinks at him.
Anchor “I forgot you weren’t around since the beginning,” Baekhyun says airily. Kyungsoo scoffs, loudly, though when Baekhyun turns to look at him, he pretends to be examining his lunch. “They have a thing.”
“A…thing?” Joonmyun asks.
“It’s a will-they-won’t-they thing,” Jongdae agrees.
Joonmyun blinks again.
“Those two have been betting on when they’re going to hook up for about a year now,” Kyungsoo explains. “Yixing-hyung is somewhat obvious but Chanyeol is blind.”
“Wait,” Joonmyun says, “they like each other?”
“Yes,” the three of them chorus.
“Oh,” Joonmyun says, somewhat dumbly. That explains why Chanyeol didn’t really want to touch his dick.
“Anyway,” Kyungsoo says, “before we forget why Chanyeol got mad in the first place, Jongin’s studying. For his exams. That you were tutoring him for.”
“Oh!” Joonmyun says, and smacks himself on the forehead. “I totally forgot, what with everything that happened.”
His friends stare at him. It takes him a moment to realise they’re waiting for an explanation-one he’s not willing to give.
“Er,” he says. “They thought I was going to turn. It was stressful.” It’s not a lie, at least.
They nod. “And you didn’t,” Kyungsoo says.
“I didn’t,” Joonmyun agrees shortly.
He wonders what’s going to happen in the future. He wonders why he gets hot and horny. He wonders when Chanyeol will forgive him.
He just doesn’t understand.
~*~*~
❇ Pairing: Kai/Suho, Chanyeol/Suho, Chanyeol/Lay, Baekhyun/D.O.
❇ Rating: NC-17
❇ Length: 36,051 words total
❇ Warnings: bare-backing, fingering, fisting, intercrural sex (thigh-fucking), rimming, sex toys, heat, underage sex (between two minors), issues of agency & consent, graphic description of lycanthropy
❇ Author note: So I may have gone all out during the making of this fic. ALL. OUT. I hope you enjoy the result of this madness. Title from EXO’s Let Out the Beast.
Thanks to G, A, who also helped beta (I love you), and especially the lovely S, the latter of whom helped tremendously, alongside listening to me spout rubbish like, “You know what would make this fic better? If there were fairies.” (Sadly, there are no fairies in this fic.)
❇ Summary: Joonmyun was always warned that there were monsters in the woods behind the school, but he thought they were just tales his friends made up to scare him. They weren’t.
Before he knows it, he wakes up Thursday morning, the day before the full moon.
Tonight is the first of the three nights that the wolf is going to turn, and even though Jongin brushed off the idea of running with a pack, there’s a bubble of excitement running through Joonmyun’s veins. He wants it to work almost desperately.
When he gets to school, he can’t stop fidgeting. Yixing sits next to him in the classes they share and tries to take his hands to stop them from tapping his pen on the table. It only takes a few tugs for Joonmyun to relent, and Yixing tries to keep him still.
“There’s no need to get this excited,” he whispers, except there is. Even though it isn’t much, and it won’t be the end of the world if the wolf doesn’t take to the other shapeshifters, or the shapeshifters can’t resist the urge to attack the wolf, Joonmyun still feels like there is a lot riding on this. If he’s right, there is the possibility they will change Jongin’s schooling experiences forever.
“I can’t help it,” Joonmyun whispers back, but he does his best to still his movements. He’s still bouncing off the walls internally, and there’s little that he can do to stop that.
During lunch, they decide that it would be better for everyone involved if Joonmyun and Jongdae go to Kyungsoo’s house for a sleepover in the evening. It’s the furthest house away from the woods, and therefore would make it harder for Joonmyun to find out what is happening. Joonmyun finds the assumption that he’d endanger himself to see if the wolf likes company rather a little insulting, but consents all the same. At least with company he’ll be less inclined to imagine possibilities.
Baekhyun volunteers to join them. “I haven’t been to yours for a long time, Kyungsoo,” he says. “And the rest of them don’t need me. Four is enough.”
Four is probably even too many, but they had decided that it would be safest if Chanyeol and Yixing go with their two youngest, in case the wolf takes it badly. Sehun and Zitao have fought the wolf before without the others, but this is a different and new situation for everyone. They need four.
“You’re right,” Chanyeol says. “We don’t need you.” He doesn’t say it meanly, it’s more of a tease. Until Jongin, Joonmyun hadn’t realised that Chanyeol even had a mean bone in his body, but now he knows better. He just hopes he can fix that. “You can do whatever you boys do when you’re together. Watch games. Eat. Make out.”
Kyungsoo throws his metal spoon at Chanyeol and it bounces off his forehead, falling to the table with a clang. Chanyeol clutches his hands to where it hit and makes pained whingeing noises.
“Kyungsoo!” he whines pathetically, as the rest of them just laugh at him.
As far as Joonmyun is aware, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo aren’t in a relationship. This doesn’t mean they aren’t actually in a relationship, it just means that they haven’t told him.
And they don’t appear to be about to change this, as once they all stop laughing, Baekhyun bursts out that he has a new noraebang video game that he’d like to try out with all of them. “Together we have the best voices in the school,” he says confidently. “I bet we’d own it.”
This effectively gets Jongdae excited. Jongdae loves everything involving singing. Watching them be so happy, Joonmyun smiles and says it will be fun. It’ll definitely give him something else to think about.
~*~*~
The afternoon races by, and soon school is finished. They all head their separate ways to pack their bags for the sleepover. Joonmyun’s mother drops him off at Kyungsoo’s after she makes him promise to do all his homework before playing games.
Kyungsoo lets him in quickly and Joonmyun toes off his shoes next to the long line of others, suggesting that at least one of their friends and one of Kyungsoo’s parents is home.
“Come up,” Kyungsoo says, and leads him up a flight of wooden stairs and along a clean, white corridor. The closer they get to his room, the louder So Nyeo Shi Dae’s Gee gets, and Joonmyun realises that Baekhyun must already be there.
It’s only another five minutes before Jongdae shows up, and then Baekhyun shoves them onto Kyungsoo’s bed like he lives there, before plugging four microphones into Kyungsoo’s games console. He shares out the microphones and starts up the game.
They cycle their way through Gee-complete with dance moves-, 2NE1’s Fire, DBSK’s Mirotic, 2PM’s 10 Out of 10, Super Junior’s Sorry, Sorry, and many other songs from the years before. Quite a few hours are wasted before they’re called to dinner and Joonmyun remembers the promise he’d made his mother.
Kyungsoo’s parents are nice, and although Joonmyun has never met them before, they welcome him like one of the family.
“It’s nice to meet some of Kyungsoo’s friends,” his mother says. “Aside from Baekhyun here, and Chanyeol, of course. How is that boy?”
“He’s fine,” Kyungsoo assures her. “Just busy.”
Joonmyun looks out the window at the darkening sky and wonders just how busy he already is.
~*~*~
As the moon rises, the young, naked boy, standing in the darkest part of the woods, begins to shift. His body contorts and he screams as his bones break, twisting into new forms which don’t agree with his human body. The screams soon become growls as his jaw and nose lengthen into a snout, and his vocal cords change, losing the ability to make human sounds. The human teeth, nails and hair fall out and new ones grow in place, fur sprouting all over the wolf’s body.
The wolf stands tall and proud, his eyes a dark gold, and he howls. His howl, he believes, will scare away his enemies and other predators. This wood belongs to him.
He has only been there for a few moments when he hears rustling behind him, and he turns to face a large predator, bigger than he is, solid and furry with a long tail. There is a smaller creature next to it. It smells of food but its large curled horns suggest that he will not get close enough to eat it. Behind are the flying monster that attacks him and the shining beast with the single pointed horn.
He growls, and braces himself for attack, but none comes. Instead, the predator crouches before him, lifting its head so its throat can be seen.
The wolf realises that this beast is submitting to him, as it rightfully should, and he seizes the chance to rip its throat out. He hunkers down on all fours, ready to pounce, when an object is dropped from above.
He jumps out of the way of the flying thing. When he lands, he realises that it is food, although it is already dead. But he is hungry, and dead food is better than no food.
He sniffs the meat to make sure it is safe to eat, and then dives in. Maybe he will let the beast live another day.
Once he has finished his meal, the other animals are still there, resting on the ground. None of them seem interested in attacking.
The wolf is full from its meal and it doesn’t believe that these beasts will kill him, or they would have done so already, so he rolls onto his back to scratch an itch. When he sits up, the large beast is grooming itself and the strange animal next to it, rubbing its paws over its horns.
The wolf yips so that they will pay him attention. If they are here, they may as well play with him.
He wags his tail and crouches down, yipping, and the beast pulls away from its small friend to face him, pulling back into a similar crouch. It waves its own long, smooth tail, and the wolf pounces.
They roll each other over across the floor, and chase each other through the trees. The wolf yaps happily as he runs, having not had this much fun in a long time. As a lone wolf, he never has any chance to play. The small beasts can’t outrun him before he eats them.
They run through the night, the other two land beasts joining in after some time, as the one with the wings watches. He barks at this beast, hoping that it will join them, but three are as good. The winged beast refuses to join, but stays watching. As long as it stays, the wolf doesn’t mind.
Eventually, the wolf gets tired. He slumps to the ground next to the large beast and nips at its muzzle. The beast patiently allows the bite that seals them as pack, and waits for him to do so for the other beasts, before rolling onto its side so the wolf can fit next to him. Then he begins to groom the wolf, licking over his fur the way a mother would do, if the wolf had a mother.
The wolf falls asleep.
The wolf is asleep during its transformation back into the human boy for the first time in his entire life, and for the first time he can’t feel the pain.
~*~*~
The next day, Jongin ventures out of his classroom at lunch time.
Joonmyun is sitting in the cafeteria with the rest of them, yawning. They have all been transferring yawns to each other for over ten minutes; Chanyeol for obvious wolf-related reasons, and the rest of them because Baekhyun had kept them up gossiping well into the night. Joonmyun suddenly wonders why he never noticed that some days Chanyeol is really tired. Maybe he just hid it better. Or maybe Joonmyun thought he spent it playing video games late into the night. He’d never have guessed the real reason.
Baekhyun and Kyungsoo had shared the bed and Jongdae and Joonmyun were left to the futon and the floor. Jongdae had won gawibawibwo, as Joonmyun had suspected he would. Joonmyun’s back aches, but he’d never say so.
Chanyeol refuses to say how the previous night had gone, though his smile says enough, Joonmyun thinks.
Suddenly the table grows quiet, and Chanyeol’s eyes widen.
“Hyung,” comes a quiet voice, and Joonmyun turns to find Jongin standing there, tall and thin in his oversized school uniform.
“Hello!” Joonmyun says with a smile. “Do you want to join us? I think I’ve got some extra food you could have.”
Jongin shakes his head. “I just wanted to say thank you,” he says, and then he turns to Chanyeol and bows to him. “To you as well. Last night was…” He rolls the words around in his mouth for a moment. “Good,” he finishes.
Joonmyun watches Chanyeol, whose face goes through a varied range of emotions, before it settles on polite acceptance. “I’m glad you were manageable,” he says. Joonmyun kicks him. From the sounds of pain Chanyeol makes for the next few seconds, Joonmyun wasn’t the only one. “You’re welcome,” Chanyeol tacks on begrudgingly.
“You don’t have to come tonight if it is a problem,” Jongin says, and Chanyeol shakes his head.
“No, we’ll be there tonight and tomorrow,” he says. “It’s easier to keep an eye on you this way.”
Jongin nods and whispers his gratitude, and then turns to Joonmyun. He bows. “I’m sorry,” he breathes.
“It’s fine,” Joonmyun says, and he smiles. “Really. And you’re welcome to sit with us any time.”
Jongin shakes his head and, with a third bow, leaves them.
“You need to learn how to speak publicly,” Baekhyun says to Chanyeol.
“I don’t like him,” Chanyeol tells him, frowning. “And just because last night wasn’t bad doesn’t mean that he’s suddenly great. The wolf did still try to kill Hyung and Jongdae.”
“And now he won’t,” Joonmyun says. “He’s got you to look after him. I know you’ll do a good job.”
Chanyeol sighs. “I’ll do my best,” he says.
“As long as you stop being rude,” Kyungsoo adds, and Chanyeol rolls his eyes.
“Fine, I’ll try and hold it in next time,” he says. “You guys are so picky.”
They all kick him again.
~*~*~
The group meet up on Sunday along with their three oldest members, who they fill in on the situation. Joonmyun doesn’t get to speak to any of them before then, so he is perched on the edge of his seat, waiting for the news of what happened during the full moon and the following night.
“We have now run with the wolf three times,” Yixing says. “He welcomed us back as his pack like we had never left. He is young and he mostly just wants to play, as long as we keep in line and do as he wishes, which he lets us know quickly. If we feed him and play with him, I think we will be able to stop him from being quite as dangerous.”
There is some kind of quiet cheer that spreads around the room. This is a different kind of task, one that is less violent. Few of them enjoyed attacking the wolf, but wanting to play is something most teenagers can understand and sympathise with.
“So it worked then?” Joonmyun asks. “My idea worked, for all three nights?”
Chanyeol nods. “It did,” he says.
Lu Han and Kevin volunteer to run the following full moon with Yixing and Chanyeol, as the youngest two already know that they have practice exams to study for. They need all the weekends and evenings they can get.
They fall into casual discussion about shapeshifting, about schoolwork, and about what exams the two are taking, and Joonmyun starts to daydream, imagining how to paint a beautiful scene of a wolf playing with a unicorn and a phoenix.
~*~*~
Monday comes quickly. Soon they’re sitting together for lunch, Chanyeol and Joonmyun discussing songs they’re considering performing for the club. Chanyeol is thinking about asking Yixing to perform a guitar duet with him.
“Yixing-hyung likes slow things,” he says. “I think we could do something acoustic? That would be really pretty.”
The other three are fighting over who gets the last jelly tube, when a quiet voice asks, from behind them, “Can I have it, please?”
They all turn to face Jongin, who is standing there, looking at his feet and shuffling in place.
Joonmyun doesn’t wait for them to agree, just snatches up the jelly and hands it to Jongin. “Of course you can,” he says with a smile.
Jongin hovers there for a few moments, and then Joonmyun says, “Grab a chair,” and to his utmost surprise, Jongin does, pulling one over from the empty table next to them. Joonmyun scoots over to give him room.
Chanyeol gives Joonmyun a small, judging look, but he just smiles back.
Having Jongin there isn’t too different from not having Jongin there, as he barely speaks. He just sucks away at his jelly slowly and nods along to what the group says.
The only time he speaks is when Baekhyun mentions how it’s a pity the youngest two aren’t going to be around as much, and he says, “I have exams too.” He frowns.
“What day is the next-you know?” Joonmyun asks, in case anyone is eavesdropping.
“It’s a Sunday,” Jongin says, at the same time as Chanyeol says, “Sunday.” Joonmyun nods.
“Do you have any exams on Monday or Tuesday?” he asks.
Jongin shakes his head. “But I have them Wednesday to Friday,” he says, “so I don’t have a lot of time to do any last-minute studying, so I need to revise.” He bites his lip. “It’s a little difficult though.”
Jongdae lets out a little half-laugh and stage-whispers to Kyungsoo, “I think we all know where this is going.”
Joonmyun ignores him. “What do you need help on?” he asks.
“English,” Jongin says. “I’m not very good at it. I’m fine at everything else, but I need to get a B in this.”
“I can help you if you want?” Joonmyun asks.
“Called it,” Jongdae says, and then he hisses. “Ow!”
Joonmyun almost smiles at the thought someone probably kicked him, but mostly just ignores him.
“Oh, I’m sure you’re busy,” Jongin says hastily. “I couldn’t ask you to do that for me.”
Joonmyun rolls his eyes, and opens his mouth to argue, but Chanyeol gets there first.
“Don’t worry, Joonmyun-hyung enjoys nothing more than to tutor people.”
“You can talk,” Baekhyun says. “He tutored you in Maths for an entire year.”
“Yes,” Chanyeol agrees. “And it helped a lot, and look where we are now.” He indicates the table. “Without tutoring me, none of us would have met.”
“Good point,” Baekhyun agrees. “I’d still be human.”
Chanyeol rolls his eyes, but Joonmyun thinks that there’s some merit to what they’re saying. If he hadn’t been asked to tutor Chanyeol, he’d never have met Kyungsoo or Jongdae, or the rest of the group. Maybe he would still have been attacked by the wolf, but he wouldn’t have had this support group to lean on in the aftermath. He wouldn’t have known anything about Chanyeol when he woke up in his house. It would have all been far too strange for words.
Not that it isn’t now, of course.
“Of course I’ll tutor you,” Joonmyun says to Jongin.
“I can’t pay you,” Jongin says.
“You think Chanyeol paid?” Jongdae asks, and snorts.
“Is there anything you’re good at?” Kyungsoo asks.
“Um,” Jongin says. “I don’t know. I kind of like dancing?” He says it in such a tone that Joonmyun thinks that he means it’s his only hobby and his only joy in life, but he doesn’t want to seem like it is. This makes Joonmyun feel quite sad. At least he has his painting and his music.
“Teach Hyung how to dance,” Kyungsoo says, “until you’ve done your exams.”
“Okay,” Jongin says. “I can do that.”
It’s settled. Joonmyun will tutor Jongin after school three times a week, and once they’re finished, Jongin will run through some dance routines with him. It’s a perfectly equal relationship. Joonmyun smiles warmly at Jongin and gives him a box of leftovers to take home with him, just because he’s so happy.
~*~*~
Their first session is a few days later. They sit in the library together, in a corner far away from the eyes of the other pupils, as Jongin is still shy.
They work through his homework together first, focusing on what he’s weakest at. Once they’re finished and Joonmyun has a better idea about what Jongin needs help on, he starts on the easiest thing to explain, and they take a full hour to go through it until Jongin understands where he was going wrong.
“Okay,” Joonmyun says, looking at his watch. “I think that’s enough for today.”
Jongin drops his pen and leans back in his chair, and he stretches. “Thank you,” he says. “You’ve helped me a lot today.”
“It’s no problem,” Joonmyun says. “I’m glad I’m able to help you.”
They pack up their belongings and then Jongin leads them out of the library and down the hallways, getting further and further away from the main body of the school.
Finally, they reach a set of darkened corridors. “Nobody comes to these music rooms,” he says. “We won’t be disturbed.”
The rooms are empty of any furniture, except for a CD player that is plugged in opposite a wall of mirrors. Jongin turns the CD player on, adjusting the volume.
“We’ll do something easy,” he begins, and then he moves slowly, carefully, controlled. It’s a movement that Joonmyun is positive he’ll never be able to make, regardless of how easy Jongin thinks it is, but he tries anyway.
During the next thirty or so minutes, Jongin shows Joonmyun how to do easy and simple moves that look good, and suddenly Joonmyun wishes there would be an occasion where he could show them off. Some kind of dance or club with his friends. It would be completely worth it.
When they finish, Joonmyun flops onto the ground, sweating profusely, but Jongin seems perfectly fine. “How are you not a puddle on the floor, like I am?” Joonmyun asks stupidly. He knows the answer; Jongin does this a lot.
“Used to it,” Jongin confirms. “But also being a werewolf helps. I have a lot more stamina because of needing to move for hours on end. It passes over from the wolf to me.”
Joonmyun nods, and drops his head back to the ground. “I don’t want to move,” he says.
Jongin laughs, for the first time since Joonmyun met him, and it’s not what he had expected Jongin’s laughter to sound like. Although he had expected Jongin’s voice to be low, it’s high-pitched and halfway to a giggle. Jongin laughs with his whole body, almost overbalancing as he bends himself in half to laugh at his knees.
“It’s not that funny,” Joonmyun says, but there’s only mild annoyance in his tone.
“It is though!” Jongin says, and he chuckles, before collecting himself. “We’d better go then, Hyung.” He turns the player off mid-song, the room falling silent except for Joonmyun’s heaving breath.
He reaches out to grab Joonmyun’s hand and pulls him up easily, in one smooth movement, like Joonmyun weighs no more than a three year old. Joonmyun has to stop to press one hand against his forehead as the dizziness subsides, and once it’s gone, he links his fingers with Jongin’s.
Jongin looks at their entwined hands for a moment with wide eyes.
“We’re friends now,” Joonmyun says cheerfully in explanation, and he pulls them out of the room with a happy lift in his step.
~*~*~
School resumes like normal.
Joonmyun has lunch with the same gang, with the addition of Jongin and, on occasion, even Yixing, which is a strange but welcome surprise. They joke during lunch together like normal boys. Normal boys with strange secrets.
A few days later, Joonmyun, Chanyeol and Yixing have their first performance session at the music club.
Joonmyun has prepared Super Junior’s It’s You, because it’s pretty but it’s also not too slow and his voice doesn’t tremble too much when he belts out the chorus.
He’s followed by a boy he doesn’t know who sings 2PM’s 10 Out Of 10 in a somewhat shaky voice; and that boy is followed by a haunting acoustic guitar duet of Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars sung by Yixing and Chanyeol, which the whole club agrees is one of the most beautiful things they’ve ever heard. Nothing following them is quite as good.
The next week’s task is a dance, and Joonmyun’s face pales as Chanyeol leers at him and teases him to participate. He had asked for an occasion to show off, but he doesn’t think he’s ready yet-maybe he’ll just sit this one out.
~*~*~
Joonmyun and Jongin continue to revise and practise as the week goes by, and then the next. Joonmyun begins to look forward to the snippets of conversation they have during the walk from the library to the practice room.
He learns little things about Jongin, like how his favourite colour is sky blue and how he wishes he had dogs. Joonmyun finds himself absently inviting him over to play with Byeol. He also likes Pirates of the Caribbean, but he hasn’t seen it in years.
“I don’t watch much television anymore,” he says.
Joonmyun doesn’t ask him why he doesn’t. “Where do you live?” he asks instead, and Jongin waves his hand indistinctly in the direction of the woods.
“Near the woods,” he says. “Small place. My parents pay for it.”
Joonmyun nods, and wonders if he’ll ever get to see this place. Jongin’s getting skinnier each day and he never seems to bring lunch with him. Joonmyun just doesn’t understand.
“Okay,” Jongin says, before Joonmyun can ponder too long. “Let’s see how far you’ve got.”
~*~*~
Chanyeol corners Joonmyun one day after school.
“I think I’ve worked out why Jongin didn’t know he was-you know,” he says. “Come home with me.”
He leads Joonmyun home by the hand. Yixing isn’t there when they get back, which is a change. Yixing always seems to already be there these days.
“I wanted to keep this between us,” Chanyeol says, presumably noticing Joonmyun’s surprise. “Nobody else needs to know yet.”
He brings up a page on his laptop, a news article dated September 1994.
“It took me ages to find this,” Chanyeol tells him, and he manoeuvres Joonmyun into a chair so he can read the screen better.
It’s a story about two wolves who were killed when scavenging food from a village. Apparently a baby was found nearby and taken to the hospital, but nobody claimed the baby, and they were put up for adoption later.
“According to the hunter newspaper,” Chanyeol says when he’s sure that Joonmyun has finished reading, “they were werewolves and the baby was their child. The baby was adopted before the hunters could get to it.”
“He was just a baby,” Joonmyun says. “One year old. What were they going to do to him?”
“Lycanthropy is inherited,” Chanyeol says. “Once a werewolf, always a werewolf. That’s the hunter code. The baby was always going to be dangerous.”
Joonmyun feels chills run down his spine.
~*~*~
Joonmyun agrees not to mention it to Jongin until they know for sure. They don’t know if he is the baby in question, although Chanyeol seems to think it’s unlikely that he isn’t.
Chanyeol goes back to researching Baekhyun and Jongin’s histories and Joonmyun goes back to performing and practising and homework and video games at the weekend and life passes by peacefully like that.
The closer it gets to the full moon, the more playful Jongin gets. Joonmyun wonders if it’s a side effect of the wolf just being a puppy, or if he just gains excess energy near to the full moon.
Joonmyun does his best to help out; their dance sessions get longer, even though Joonmyun ends up absolutely exhausted, but Jongin also gets tired the longer they dance for. That’s a bonus, because otherwise he says he can’t sleep. He needs to be tired out, like a puppy, before he’s able to rest.
The Friday before the Sunday full moon, Jongin is particularly boisterous, and Joonmyun imagines that if he had a tail, he’d be wagging it like Byeol does when he gets excited.
When their dance session is over, Jongin is still exuding energy. Joonmyun pats the ground next to him. “Sit down,” he says.
Jongin goes to crouch next to him, but he doesn’t sit. Instead, he bowls Joonmyun over.
It’s been a long, long time since Joonmyun play-fought with anyone. He’s too old, too mature, too straight-laced. But something strikes a chord within him and suddenly he’s pushing Jongin over, tumbling with him.
They scrap like small children, or like puppies, rolling each other over and trying to push their weight down to hold the other down. Joonmyun gets the upper hand a few times, but due to being tired, he’s easily beaten.
Jongin eventually flops down onto Joonmyun’s body, dropping his head into the gap between Joonmyun’s neck and shoulder. “Tired now,” he says. “Going to sleep.”
Joonmyun pushes at him weakly. “You’re heavy,” he complains. “Roll over.”
Jongin growls deep in his throat. His teeth scrape over Joonmyun’s shoulder as a warning. “Stay,” Jongin says, his voice different from usual. It’s warmer, syrupy. “Stay with me, my sweet. Stay with your Alpha.”
Alpha?
Joonmyun gulps, and tries to carefully pull himself out of Jongin’s reach, because suddenly he’s scared. But by moving he’d disobeyed Jongin’s orders. All he can feel is pain. He distantly feels himself scream in a rather unmanly fashion.
“My sweet,” he hears distantly, through the rush of blood in his ears. “That will teach you to step out of line again.”
Jongin, who is squishing him down, jerks, and then suddenly he’s on his feet and Joonmyun can breathe again. Jongin’s mouth is smeared with red and his eyes are partway between his usual dark and gold.
“I-” Jongin begins, and his eyes return to their normal colour, although they are frozen wide in horror. He doesn’t continue, just turns and runs from the room.
Joonmyun slides across the floor slowly to the mirror and moves his shirt aside so he can see the damage.
He can’t really see due to the blood staining his shirt and drying across his shoulder, so he forces himself to his feet and staggers out to the nearest bathroom. His shoulder burns as he tries to clean it with a wet tissue and he smears his tears with his sleeve, but he keeps it up.
There’s a ring of teeth marks in his shoulder, but they’re not like any human teeth he’s ever seen. He thinks they might be animal teeth, but he can’t imagine how Jongin the human was able to have such teeth. He can’t believe that Jongin’s jaw was so strong he was able to rip through skin, flesh and tissue, though thankfully not bone as well. He’s going to have a hard enough time using his shoulder in the near future.
Walking home seems impossible, so Joonmyun fishes out his phone with his good hand. “Chanyeol,” he says, when Chanyeol picks up, and he sniffs. He refuses to cry. “Chanyeol, something happened.”
It takes Chanyeol and Yixing less than ten minutes to get to the school. “What-?” Chanyeol begins, and then he stops in his tracks, eyes transfixed on Joonmyun’s shoulder.
“Jongin bit me,” Joonmyun says. When he sees Chanyeol’s expression turn from worried to murderous, he tries, “It’s okay-”
“It’s not okay,” Yixing says, and he presses his hand to Chanyeol’s back carefully, holding the taller boy up. “We don’t know what that means.”
The blood comes rushing back around Joonmyun’s ears and he feels faint. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“Well it’s…it’s possible that he turned you into a werewolf,” Yixing says.
Joonmyun passes out.
~*~*~
“You’re going to have to stop doing that,” Chanyeol jokes half-heartedly once Joonmyun’s woken up. “You’re quite heavy.”
Joonmyun pouts at him. He doesn’t think he’s that heavy.
They’re at Chanyeol’s house, sitting in front of Chanyeol’s laptop and waiting for a Skype call from their oldest members. Chanyeol says that their families have been around werewolves a lot longer, and they might know what the bite did.
“Hopefully nothing,” like Joonmyun had said before, is apparently not likely. It had to have done something.
It comes ten minutes later.
“Hyung,” Chanyeol says, focusing on Minseok. “Hyung, the wolf bit Joonmyun-hyung.”
“Jongin bit me,” Joonmyun corrects. Chanyeol waves him off.
They make Joonmyun show him the bite mark, and he struggles to pull the clean t-shirt that Chanyeol had given him out of the way so that they can see it. Only after washing the skin in warm water and antibacterial ointment, did they realise just how bad the bite is. It’s deep, each tooth leaving a puncture wound, and Chanyeol’s father had told them it would probably scar. It’s already bruising, and Joonmyun finds it difficult to move his arm, though Yixing had done his best to alleviate the pain by wrapping unicorn hairs around the bite. Unicorns are healers by nature.
The three eldest gasp in horror at the state of Joonmyun’s shoulder.
“That’s bad,” Lu Han says.
“But do you know what biting a human does?” Chanyeol asks. “Is he-?”
“I’ve never heard of a werewolf in human form leaving a bit like that,” Kevin says. “There are different kinds of bite in wolf form, but never human.”
“Do you remember how it happened?” Lu Han asks.
Joonmyun explains what happened to them as he wraps the hairs back around his arm and covers it up again.
“That’s interesting,” Lu Han and Minseok chorus.
“What was? Do you know what it means?”
Minseok shakes his head. “It’s curious, but we’ll do some research. In the meantime, I think you’d best treat Joonmyun like he will turn. I’m sorry, Joonmyun. He’ll have to keep you indoors and lock you up. It won’t be very nice.”
Joonmyun turns to Chanyeol with wide eyes. “Really?”
Chanyeol nods. “I’ll do my best to keep you comfortable,” he assures Joonmyun. “You’re my best friend, and anything that happens isn’t your fault.” He turns back to the other three. “We’ll do it,” he says. “And I’ll report back to you once this full moon weekend is over.”
Once the Skype call has ended, Joonmyun curls up into a scared ball, anticipating whatever will happen to him over the weekend. He just prays that whatever it is isn’t as life-changing as becoming a monster.
~*~*~
Joonmyun gets permission from his parents to stay at Chanyeol’s for the whole weekend, and then everything starts.
Joonmyun doesn’t feel any less human than he usually does, but he’s not sure how one feels if they’re about to become a wolf.
They spend most of the day doing their homework and playing video games together, trying to put off the inevitable discussion about that night.
When he comes over, Yixing promises to watch over the Jongin-wolf, along with Baekhyun. Sehun and Zitao are both studying for their exams and can’t make it, so they are all hoping that two will be enough.
Chanyeol refuses to leave Joonmyun’s side, which Joonmyun is grateful for. He’s too scared.
When it hits mid-afternoon, Chanyeol’s family lead Joonmyun down to the cellar, where they have a stone room with a large door.
“We built this in case we ever caught a werewolf,” Chanyeol’s father says. “It’s for emergencies. I’m glad we have it.”
The inside of the room is soft, everything a kind of spongey material.
“It’s impervious to wolf claws,” Chanyeol’s mother explains, noticing him looking at it. “But it’s to protect the wolf from hurting itself.”
Joonmyun nods and watches as they exit the room, leaving him in it. Chanyeol hovers in the doorway once his parents have gone.
“We’re not going to tie you up,” Chanyeol says. “And I’ll be right outside. I’ll be here if you need me. If you-if nothing happens. Knock three times if you’re fine, five times if you need my help. If you lift that floorboard, there’s a book and a torch in there, for when you’re still-” He breaks off, his voice cracking.
Joonmyun nods again, and heads over to the floorboard indicated. He takes out the items and Chanyeol leaves, shutting the door behind him, dropping Joonmyun into darkness. Joonmyun hears the click of a lock, and then three clunks as bolts slide into place.
Joonmyun clicks on the torch and begins to read. It’s a fantasy novel, one he’s read before, but it’s good and it will pass the time.
He doesn’t notice it at first, too engrossed in the story, but eventually he notices how hot he’s becoming.
He’s sticky as well, his clothes sticking to his skin, and for some strange reason he’s getting hard, his jeans constricting. He puts his book down and looks down at his crotch.
He checks his watch first. It’s late, well after sunset. If he was going to turn into a werewolf, he’d have done it now. So clearly the bite didn’t turn him.
Joonmyun knows that he could knock to be let out. His stomach rumbles with hunger, and he wouldn’t mind getting something to eat.
His cock swells even more.
Even though he’s extremely embarrassed, Joonmyun realises that he can’t go out without getting rid of the problem first. He just hopes that there are no cameras in here, and that Chanyeol won’t be able to hear him.
He works his jeans and underwear off over his ankles, freeing his erection and hot legs, and then goes to sit in the corner where he can see the door.
He has nothing to use as lotion, so he spits into his good hand before wrapping it around himself and trying to work out this hard-on. He doesn’t imagine anything in particular, just does his best to stroke where it feels good, trying to come as quickly as possible.
He comes rubbing his thumb across the head of his cock and he catches it in his hand, although he doesn’t know where to wipe it. He blushes with embarrassment when he comes down from his high, and then he realises that he’s still hard.
This has never happened to Joonmyun before. He comes, he grows flaccid. That’s what happens to all boys. But it’s erect, plain as day, sticking out before him.
And he’s hotter still, body burning up. He tugs his t-shirt off, leaving him naked in the room, and wipes his hand in it, before beginning to jack off again.
His body doesn’t complain of oversensitivity, which worries him. Usually if he so much as holds his cock after he’s come, it hurts for at least a few moments. But he feels fine, just hard and hot.
He strokes again until he comes a second time, body shaking and sweating all over. He feels like he has a fever and his cock throbs, still hard as a rock.
Frustrated tears leak from Joonmyun’s eyes as he realises that he’s going to have to ask for help, because his erection refuses to leave.
Being seen in this state is embarrassing, and Joonmyun knows he must be a smelly, sweaty mess, but he can’t help himself. He trembles as he stands, cock solid before him, and he makes his way slowly over to the door.
He bites his lip and knocks five times.
“What is it?” Chanyeol’s voice asks. “Are you okay?”
“I need your help,” Joonmyun says, trying to stop his voice from cracking. “I’m so sorry.”
Chanyeol opens the door, and then stops. “Look mate, I know we’re friends and all, but I don’t like you like this,” Chanyeol says, frowning. Joonmyun can see him try not to let his line of sight drop down.
“It’s not-” Joonmyun wants to press the heels of his hands to his eyes, but he can’t. He presses his good hand to his stomach instead. “I’ve come twice,” he says.
“That’s nice,” Chanyeol says, in a voice that says it’s not at all, and he frowns, wrinkling his nose.
Joonmyun lets out a laugh that’s more a sob than anything else. “It’s not-it’s not going down. Chanyeol, please. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t necessary.” He raises the back of his good hand, covered in drying come, and smudges away his tears, leaving a sticky mess behind.
Chanyeol watches the movement and he gulps. “What do you need me to do?” he asks, sounding resigned.
“Just-just help, please,” Joonmyun begs.
Chanyeol steps into the room and shuts the door behind himself, leaving them in darkness except for the light of the torch on the floor. He walks over to Joonmyun and places a hand on his waist. There’s a little bit of relief from the heat, but not much.
“You’re burning up,” Chanyeol says in surprise, and he steers Joonmyun over to a wall, before pressing his hand to Joonmyun’s forehead.
“I think they’re connected,” Joonmyun says. “Maybe if the heat breaks, this will stop-you know.” He doesn’t want to say it aloud.
“Alright then,” Chanyeol says, and then a second later there’s a hand on Joonmyun’s dick. He doesn’t ask how Joonmyun likes to get off, just strokes briskly. He removes it for a moment to spit into his own hand like Joonmyun did, before wrapping it back around, and it causes momentary relief, cooling Joonmyun down a little.
Joonmyun clings onto Chanyeol’s shoulders, doing his best to stay upright, as the heat takes over his whole body and threatens to make him collapse.
“You’re so lucky I’m such a nice friend and I can’t bear to see you cry,” Chanyeol says. “If you were Baekhyun or Jongdae? You could fuck yourself for all I care. I’m not touching either of their dicks, no matter how close they get to blue balls.”
Joonmyun makes little muffled noises of thanks as his hips buck into Chanyeol’s hand, the pleasure building up slower unlike the pace of Chanyeol’s hand.
“Can’t you come already?” Chanyeol asks, and he strokes even faster. Joonmyun loosens one hand from around Chanyeol and slides it down his sweltering body until he reaches his balls, and he rubs his thumb over one, coaxing it, and then it’s upon him, and he comes fast, strings landing over Chanyeol’s fingers and shirt.
Joonmyun can feel his cock relax, and he slides down the wall when Chanyeol lets go of him. “Thank you,” he breathes.
“Right,” Chanyeol says. “Glad I could help you with your dick problem. Let’s never speak of this ever again. Promise?”
Joonmyun nods his head absently, although he’s mostly wondering why he even got hard in the first place.
“If you put some clothes on and wash, you can come up for dinner, and then you’d better air-freshen this place out. It’s not a sex chamber,” Chanyeol says airily, and then he turns and leaves, presumably to change his own clothes.
Joonmyun dresses like he’d been told, and hopes that that was a one-time thing, because he’d hate to go through it all again.
~*~*~
It’s not a one-time thing.
The night of the full moon he gets hot and hard again, though this time he’s already in bed at home. Hand over his mouth so his parents don’t hear, he gets himself off-once, twice.
His body is still flush and hard and he feels uncomfortable, like there is something he is missing, something he needs to help fix him. His thighs clench as his body rocks, searching for something to fill a gaping hole inside him.
It takes another two times before he softens, by which point all he wants to do is curl up and sleep for a week.
He drifts off with fingers crossed that that would be the last of it.
~*~*~
It’s not even a two-time thing, for partway through one of his classes Monday morning it happens again.
As a teenage boy, Joonmyun is no stranger to random erections during school, and usually he just slides further under the table and waits for it to go away. But it doesn’t go away, because this isn’t a normal erection. His teacher even asks if he has a fever because he’s sweating so much.
He finds himself in a toilet cubicle at lunchtime, stuffing his tie into his mouth so he won’t make a noise as he hastily jacks off.
He sends a text to Chanyeol once he’s softened-It keeps happening. Please find out what’s wrong with me.-and gets an extremely disgruntled agreement. Chanyeol hadn’t wanted to talk about it, after all.
When Joonmyun reaches the lunch table, missing Jongin for once, Chanyeol studiously ignores him. After a while, Joonmyun stops talking to him and instead talks to the rest, frowning to himself.
“Ooh, are Umma and Appa fighting?” Jongdae teases. At his words, Chanyeol freezes, makes a grimace, and turns so his back faces them.
Joonmyun shrugs at Kyungsoo’s confused and asking expression. He knows that Chanyeol is angry, but he doesn’t really understand why he’s angry with him.
“Where’s Jongin?” Joonmyun asks, and Chanyeol explodes.
He stands up, looming over Joonmyun. “Why do you care?” he asks, too loud. People at the nearby tables turn to look over at them and Joonmyun cowers in his seat.
“Shh!” Joonmyun hisses, somewhat frightened that someone will overhear. “You’re too loud.”
“Shut up, Joonmyun,” Chanyeol snaps, but thankfully he’s quieter this time. “Nothing to see here,” he tells the other tables, and the other students turn away again. Chanyeol clearly takes this as a sign to continue, for he says, “I would have thought you’d have known better after what he did to you, but I guess you’re still just a bleeding heart.” He turns and storms out of the room.
Joonmyun stands to follow him, eyes wet, but Baekhyun tugs him back down. “Don’t,” he says. “Let Yixing-hyung.”
Not a minute later, Yixing leaves his separate group of friends and follows Chanyeol out.
Joonmyun bites his lip. He thinks he might start crying, and tries to force the urge away, because he doesn’t want to show weakness in a room of school students who will never let him forget it. “I don’t understand,” he says quietly, when the urge leaves him. He just feels numb. “Why is he so angry?”
“What did Jongin do to you?” Kyungsoo asks.
Joonmyun had forgotten that they don’t know. “He bit me,” he says. When they hiss, loudly, he hastily tacks on, “It was a mistake, and I’m fine.” Well, fine is the wrong word to use. “I’m not a-he didn’t turn me. Don’t worry.”
“You know for definite?” Jongdae asks, worry clear over his face. They all look worried. Joonmyun thinks that the other tables probably think he’s told them the worst news in the world, and hopes nobody talks to him about it.
“Yes,” Joonmyun says. “I’m positive. The bite didn’t turn me.”
“What do bites do then?” Baekhyun asks. “They must do something.”
Joonmyun doesn’t want to bring up his suspicions about the bite making him horny at the full moon because he doesn’t want anyone else to know about it-especially not if they’ll react the way Chanyeol did. “I don’t know,” he says. “We’ll find out, I suppose.”
“Chanyeol wouldn’t be that rude if it was over nothing,” Kyungsoo says. “Defensive, sure, but rude? There must be something he knows that he’s not telling you.”
This sends a shiver down Joonmyun’s spine-the idea that Chanyeol knows something about his predicament but is refusing to tell him for some twisted reason.
“I’m sure Yixing-hyung will fix him for you,” Baekhyun says. “Though I hope that he fixes him with a kiss.”
Joonmyun blinks at him.
Anchor “I forgot you weren’t around since the beginning,” Baekhyun says airily. Kyungsoo scoffs, loudly, though when Baekhyun turns to look at him, he pretends to be examining his lunch. “They have a thing.”
“A…thing?” Joonmyun asks.
“It’s a will-they-won’t-they thing,” Jongdae agrees.
Joonmyun blinks again.
“Those two have been betting on when they’re going to hook up for about a year now,” Kyungsoo explains. “Yixing-hyung is somewhat obvious but Chanyeol is blind.”
“Wait,” Joonmyun says, “they like each other?”
“Yes,” the three of them chorus.
“Oh,” Joonmyun says, somewhat dumbly. That explains why Chanyeol didn’t really want to touch his dick.
“Anyway,” Kyungsoo says, “before we forget why Chanyeol got mad in the first place, Jongin’s studying. For his exams. That you were tutoring him for.”
“Oh!” Joonmyun says, and smacks himself on the forehead. “I totally forgot, what with everything that happened.”
His friends stare at him. It takes him a moment to realise they’re waiting for an explanation-one he’s not willing to give.
“Er,” he says. “They thought I was going to turn. It was stressful.” It’s not a lie, at least.
They nod. “And you didn’t,” Kyungsoo says.
“I didn’t,” Joonmyun agrees shortly.
He wonders what’s going to happen in the future. He wonders why he gets hot and horny. He wonders when Chanyeol will forgive him.
He just doesn’t understand.
~*~*~