Chapter Text
For a freshman, Jeon Jeongguk was a mountain of a boy.
You’d noticed that the second he’d walked into the second-level composition class when his shoulders just barely cleared the door frame, thickly corded muscle hidden beneath the laughable coverage of a black t-shirt and faded jeans, and for a second time had stood still when he’d paused at the bottom of the stairs, surveying the classroom for a seat. You’d looked over your shoulder curiously, and for all the silence in the classroom you could hear the sound of at least ten couples breaking up over text and an almost deafening burst of sexual tension sweep through the nine rows of the small auditorium.
You curled your nose, slightly repulsed at the wave of pheromones that began to dust the air like too-sweet perfume, and wished you could head back to your little apartment and fumigate your sinuses. Your nose started twitching, growing pink and more rounded in the outskirts of your sight, so you rubbed at it to stop the itching and forced back the impulse to shift forms. Most rabbit shifters get a bit antsy around more predatory shifters, but you’d managed to break out of your tiny, bunny-friendly town in Busan and make it to Seoul University in a class of over six thousand carnivores, and fuck if you’d let anyone intimidate you at this point.
When the smell finally started to get to you, you pulled your sweater over your nose and blinked away the tears prickling at the corners of your eyes, before jumping a foot in your seat when a textbook and notebook slammed onto the table next to you.
Jeongguk at least had the decently to look slightly sheepish when he caught sight of your wide eyes and stiff back, muttering as he slouched into the seat, “Sorry, heavier than I thought.”
You stared at him for a second before giving a simple nod back, scooting your notebook and pencil case slightly closer to you. The tinkling of your many keychains catches his attention, dark eyes glancing over at the case and then narrowing slightly, like he’s annoyed at the sound. You huff slightly, forcing back the instinctual urge to hide at the appearance of a larger shifter, and play with the keychains as you wait for the professor to arrive to make a point.
You’re not afraid of Jeon Jeongguk. Even if he’s probably some kind of bear or giant cat shifter, and just a hint of his irritation had your instincts vibrating beneath your skin like a live wire. Your thumb brushed over the plastic dome of chibi Levi’s head, taking comfort in the cartoon scowl and dead eyes, the tiny grey sticks of his 3DM gear. Small could be pretty fucking powerful too.
The first half of the semester passed in a blur of composition assignments, vocal exams and subsequent cough drop binges, and cheap coffee from the student cafe by the Entertainment department. Every Monday and Wednesday, you sat in auditorium 3-A, next to the silent, bulky shadow that called himself Jeon Jeongguk, as you took notes and sneaked banana-nut muffins below your desk for a snack and a tiny smell buffer to the rest of the classroom (banana overrides the smell of all other things, even at the level that shifters process scents. You might hate it when you’re craving a chocolate chip muffin that’s been sitting next to a banana in the coffee shop display case, but damn if you weren’t really fucking grateful by the third week when the torrent of lusty pheromones continued to pour forth like the Great Flood.)
But then, around the middle of October, something had changed.
You were picking which pen you wanted to use for class that day, your latest muffin lovingly cradled in your lap, when the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. You freeze for a second before forcing your hands to continue digging through your pencil pouch for the Ryan pen with the nut-brown ink, when a cough comes from your left.
“Hey, uh...” Jeon Jeongguk paused long enough that you realized he must have not remembered your name. Your nose scrunched up at the thought, a flicker of anger growling alongside your stomach. You wouldn’t need to have your breakfast muffin in shame under a desk if he had just gone to normal freshman classes like he should. (Except he’s a prodigal genius at singing. He could’ve probably transferred higher, if he’d wanted.... talented jerk.) “Sunbaenim.”
A moment of intense, internal debate passed before you glanced at him from the corner of your eye, a voice that sounded frighteningly similar to your mother’s scolding you about being impolite. You didn’t respond to him, but he seemed to take that as answer enough.
“Do you--can I--” he bit his lip, swallowed, pressed his large hand (shit, those veins on his arm are huge) onto his jittering knee, “--did you bring your syllabus to class? I--uh, lost mine over the weekend.”
Another battle inside your conscious took place in the three seconds after his stilted request, before you flipped over the cover of your notebook and opened the front pocket. After the first day, you’d covered your syllabus in doodles and stickers, and a wave of embarrassment hit you when you realized you’d actually drawn a small cartoon doodle of him with huge curves for muscles, a bowl shaped hairstyle, and an exaggerated frown, onto the back of the first page. You hastily turned to that week’s assignments before tentatively sliding the page over the table, looking up at his face for the first time since the beginning of the semester.
You paused. Blinked a few times. Wow. Okay, maybe the pheromone onslaught wasn’t completely unwarranted. Jeon Jeongguk had a jaw so sharp it could cut glass, a prominent nose and pouty lips, clear skin marred only by the scar on his cheek and a couple blemishes by his chin. His hair was the color of melted dark chocolate, the kind you and your roommate Hyorin drooled over on late night binge sessions of k-dramas, when the fancy Lindt chocolate truffle commercials played on repeat for eight minutes and broke your resolutions for one last pint of Ben & Jerry’s made ten minutes earlier.
But his eyes were the thing that really stopped you short.
Most predator shifters had slanted eyes and slit pupils, particularly the feline breeds that hung around the Top of the Food Chain (not just a metaphor, the actual lounge on the rich side of the university housing where most of the bigger cats hung out, got drunk and crunk until four in the morning). Canine shifters had round, glazed eyes that looked friendly and trusting and innocent until they were ate your take-out from the Thai restaurant on the other side of town despite knowing how excited you were to have it for lunch (Hyorin was still in the dog house for that one--one week had not cooled your righteous anger), and then they just look sad and hurt and turn up the charm like it’s your fault. You didn’t want to think about reptile shifters or insect shifters--fuck, those beady eyes and yellow irises appear in your nightmares sometimes.
But Jeon Jeongguk’s eyes. Fucking Jeon Jeongguk’s eyes are huge and dark and shiny, like round malt balls or those fucking Lindt chocolate truffles, and they shine like little starts are hiding within them, and the fan of eyelashes around them is so thick and long and black that idols would probably want to rip those right off his face and stick it to theirs, if it wouldn’t mean having their faces torn off by Jeongguk’s massive claws. (Or paws... you still hadn’t found out what breed he was. Whatever.) Those aren’t predator eyes. Those aren’t the eyes of a carnivore or--or fuck, even an omnivore.
Fuck whatever god had given Jeon Jeongguk huge bunny eyes, like he needed any more advantage over literally everyone in the fucking room. Why not just sign the death certificate of all little forest creatures that just want to have a cubicle in YG entertainment, crafting the same chorus of a song in three different majors for an idol group that won’t give a shit. Evolution was a terrible, unfair mistress of the Earth.
“Sunbae?”
You jerked back to awareness, a weird rattling sound echoing around your head like a cog had fallen out of place when you looked away from your desk neighbor and lunged for your pen, hoping to doodle a portal into another, Jeon Jeongguk-free dimension onto your class notes. How long had you been staring? Shit. Fuck.
Something nudged your curled fist on the table, and you glanced down to see that he’d pushed your syllabus back across the table hesitantly, the corner brushing against your skin to get your attention.
“Thanks... Y/N-sunbae,” he said in that low, growly voice that had the clique of wolf shifters in the row behind choking on air and smelling strongly. You picked it up and shoved it back into your folder pocket, nodding and turning away to hide the mortified blush that you felt creeping up your neck.
It took a second to realize he’d used your name, and then another ten minutes, halfway through the professor’s lecture on beat subversion, to remember that you’d scribbled it onto the front of your syllabus on the first day of class, as if someone would actually go to the trouble of returning it to you if you dropped it somewhere.
You bit your lip, shoved back whatever weird, unwelcome feeling the words had brought, and listened to the drone of technical terms and monotonous details like you were the only person in the classroom, like you were being quizzed on this before class was over. You ignored the tiny ache in your chest that missed home and pushed on.
Jeon Jeongguk was up to something.
You hesitated outside the composition room, jittery anxiety filling your stomach and making you hop on your heels, your fingers tugging uncertainly at the end of your baggy sweater. The instinctual twitch of your nose and ears remind you of how long it’s been since you last shifted completely: two weeks ago, you’d camped out with Hyorin in the living room of your tiny apartment and made a blanket fort, before shifting into your rabbit form and reenacting the journey to Mordor, the bunny Samwise to her Beagle Frodo. (You’re not sure how you ended up with a perfect roommate like Hyorin, but you’d left anonymous peppermints at the housing office just in case they were friendship gods in disguise.)
The crown of your head tingled lightly as the hearing in your human ears wavered between sharp and muted, active and inactive, but you refused to even half-shift in front of your classmates. They could already tell you weren’t a predator, that you didn’t exhibit any of the aggressive tendencies or pheromones that predatory shifters subconsciously released, but they didn’t know what kind of shifter you were and that’s your fucking business.
But your world had been disrupted again by the interference of Jeon Jeongguk, and this time a banana muffin was not going to be the solution. Well. Probably not.
“Morning, Y/N-sunbae.”
You jumped closer to the wall, that tingling at the top of your head flashing into a burn, but you suppressed the half-shift just in time. Jeon Jeongguk hesitated by the door, like he’s waiting for you to head inside, but you’re frozen in place. You stared at him wide-eyed, before your brain caught up to your instincts and you nodded back at him, bowing slightly in greeting. You’re not sure if you’ve ever actually said anything to him. You should. He’s been greeting you just like this for the past three class periods, and it probably looked rude to not answer him kind.
You swallowed thickly, your lips parting and a quick breath spilling forth, cheeks burning as your heart rate kicked up a notch. “Hi.” It’s quick and quiet and so embarrassingly breathy, just a tiny hint of your voice breaking on the end, and all you wanted to do was turn on your heel, sprint to the degree office, and become an economics major to get away from the mortified memory that this encounter would spawn. You were a second from resigning to your fate, when it happened.
Jeon Jeongguk stared back at you, his huge eyes widening in shock. He shuffled for a second on his feet, glancing away from you and down to the floor, his mouth parting slightly before his lips pressed together again, rubbing together like he had on chapstick. Then he looked up and the ends of those lips curled slightly, his cheeks balling up into perfect little plums on his face, and something shy and happy entered that expression. The little stars in his eyes flashed and you forgot how to think beyond breathing.
He nodded once, twice, three times before he strode into the door and up the auditorium seats, clipping his hip on the edge of the row and stumbling into his seat. It took a few seconds before he slipped his hand under his jacket and rubbed at the spot, his other hand pulling his notebook and pencil from his backpack.
You stood in the hallway, long enough that the professor tapped your shoulder with a pointed, almost concerned look, before you took the stairs slowly up to your row and stepped cautiously around Jeon Jeongguk’s chair, your nose tingling when he hastened to kick his backpack out of the way. Something different filled the air for a moment, sweet like mint and overturned earth, and it’s familiar enough that you catalogued the smell in your scent repertoire, distracted for a second, until Jeon Jeongguk glanced at you from the corner of his eye.
His leg bounced under the table, the way it had every day of class since the first nearly a month and a half ago, but the class passed before you had time to be anything but completely off-kilter and slightly suspicious. You packed up your bag slowly, listening as Jeon Jeongguk chucked his things into his backpack and headed for the stairs, pausing for just a second. You noticed his head turned over his shoulder from the corner of your eye as you zipped up your pouch and nestled it with care into your purse, but then his friends called him from the doorway, and he rushed ahead to join them, a small hop in his step.
His friends were loud. Surprisingly so.
You’d tried to pack up your things slowly again, to avoid the awkwardness of possibly walking out together at the same time (even though you’re not sure why this is such a bad thing–years of living an awkward existence have made you more hesitant than the quick, knee-jerk reactions of rabbit instincts). But this time, Jeon Jeongguk took his time finishing up his notes rather than sweeping everything into his bag and sprinting out, his pencil meticulously filling out the last few lines of the Powerpoint.
You fought against the impulse to glance away from your own notes and look, and just closed your notebook quietly, wincing when your pen (this time bright yellow duck in theme) rolled onto the floor. You bent down to get it, freezing when Jeon Jeongguk made a near full-body twitch toward you, and grab it after three tries, suddenly feeling exhausted after spending an hour and a half of class hyper aware of your neighbor. Head bent down, you slid the pen into the pouch and zipped it up, your thumb brushing over the chibi Levi figures on the keychain, when a shout erupted from barely a foot away, somewhere in the decibel range of a foghorn.
“Kookie! Oh, my sweet, tsundere dongsaeng, you’re gonna laugh your ass off at what Jimin just– oh…”
It happened before you could control it, like a switch had been flipped at the shock of sound, and a burning had seared your head and nose for a second. Your heart raced in your chest, hands clenching the table tightly as the fight or flight instincts kicked in, and you wanted to cry at the feeling, at the way you hadn’t once felt completely safe in this huge, dirty city full of cars and trains and people, at the way prey instincts meant that you were always just a little bit scared around predators, always just a little bit on edge and wary and cautious and–and–
Your ears had popped from your head, bright white and fluffy, and you could hear every whispered conversation in the teachers lounge, the wet sticky sound of the girl chewing gum by the water fountain, the crinkling and sliding of papers as your professor shuffled them into a pile at the bottom of the auditorium, the whispered scolding of the redhead standing on the other side of the desk.
“Taehyung, fuck, you can’t just–I keep telling you some shifters have really sensitive hearing, like–like Hoseok-hyung, and you can’t just scream like that out of–”
Iced mocha, everything bagel with cheese and ham, spearmint gum. You could smell it on his breath, half-shifted nose bright pink and twitching, and you wanted to curl away from the smell just next to him–Mountain Dew, Cheetos, and something vaguely close to strawberry-flavored candy– before the other smell, from the week before came back. Minty, rich and earthy like new mulch or freshly watered grass, leather, bubble tea and tapioca.
“Sunbae. Y/N-sunbae.”
A sharp, deep breath suddenly pushed through your lungs, and you whipped to the side and realized that Jeon Jeongguk was unusually close, barely two feet away from you, his hand outstretched. Your back straightened, feet kicking out to push the chair away slightly. He stared at you with a weird amount of concern, like the kind you’d expect from Hyorin or your brothers when you overreacted like this, and it’s enough to have you scrambling for your backpack and purse, hands shaking.
“Ah–wait–” the second boy, the one that had shouted, tried to say, his round eyes growing huge and regretful–canine shifter, you realized belatedly– but you’d taken the opposite stairs at the end of the aisle and left through the door, thoroughly embarrassed and humiliated. People stared as you hurried by, some watching with concern, others curiosity.
The bathroom on the first floor was blessedly empty when you burst into the room and stumbled to the sink, panting as you fought to slow your heartbeat. You must be exuding all kinds of distress signals right now and it’s stupid, so fucking stupid to freak out like that, over just a shout, over just a greeting. You’d grown up surrounded by people just like you, quiet and gentle and playful–nearly all rabbit shifters, with the occasional dog or bird family running around. You’re still adjusting to the loudness of this life, the unending screeches of metal and the apathy of people here, the way big shifters treated everyone beneath them with superiority and ugliness and arrogance. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself for reacting like this, for feeling like this–and yet….
You’d reacted true to your nature, they’d all say. And the unfairness of that made you sick to your stomach.
You skipped class the following Wednesday.
Instead, Hyojin had dragged you around the town, shopping and sight-seeing and eating in cafes decorated like airports and petting zoos, taken you up on the giant tower in the middle of the city to look around amongst tourists and couples, stuffed fried fish skewers into your mouth even though rabbit shifters really did tend to prefer vegetables and meat-substitutes. You’d laughed and talked about anything and everything, and for the first time since coming there, you didn’t walk around Seoul feeling hunted or depressed.
It’d felt good. Amazing, actually. The day had helped you put things into perspective, made you realize that people knowing about your breed type wasn’t such a big deal, Jeon Jeongguk wasn’t such a big deal. That you’d been given an amazing scholarship to the best university in Korea because you’re smart as hell and you earned it, that you’d been given a roommate and a friend that was sweet and kind and went out of her way to make you feel better when you were sad or anxious and to force you out of your rabbit hole a bit to see the world around you.
And sure, maybe your instincts would keep reacting too sensitively to other shifters and situations around you, but… it’d get better over time. When you’d found a footing to stand on and a routine to hold onto. (You’re nearly there already, with good grades and a great friend.)
So by the time you head into the composition auditorium the next Monday, you’re not sick to your stomach or on edge the way you had been in past weeks. Even if Jeon Jeongguk was already sitting there, staring at the empty seat next to him. He looked up immediately when the door to the classroom opened again, his back straightening when he recognized you.
You glanced away and took a deep breath, making your way across the front of the room and up the stairs, catching a whiff of burnt toast and cheap coffee when you slid around his seat.
He waited until you’d sat down and pulled out your notebook and pencil case, his leg jumping so hard under the table that your pens rolled in place. His body was angled toward yours, obviously putting out the subtext that he wanted to say something. You turned to your page in the notes and put your pen on the spiral ridge before slowly turning your head to meet his stare. You took in the clenched jaw, the muscles hopping just under his cheekbones from the strain, his wide, nervous eyes, the way his hand fiddles with a stray thread on his jeans. You thought about the small plan you’d made for that day. Take another quiet breath.
“Morning, Jeongguk.” And you smiled at him, a small one, just to say that you didn’t have any hard feelings about last week. He seemed to be a bit stressed about it.
He paused and looked at your expression, his jaw loosening and his lips parting. The burnt smell faded away from your nose, replaced by that minty, earthy smell you’ve realized must be Jeongguk. His mouth opens to say something, when he fell short and two high spots of bright pink flared to life on his cheeks. “You knew my name?” He asked.
Your head tilted to the side quizzically. “Yes?” Of course, you’ve been sitting next to me for two months, you nearly added.
Jeongguk wavered. His knee stopped hopping nervously under the table, his hand pausing where it was tugging at his earlobe nervously. The moment of silence gave you a second to really look at Jeongguk, the thin white t-shirt and ripped jeans stuffed into tan boots. His hair looked like he’d been put through a tornado on his way to class that morning, so different from the gelled sweep-back he usually puts it in for the day. You remember it’s just below thirty degrees outside when you tugged your scarf into your lap and nestled a fresh banana nut muffin into the nest there. He must have been freezing on his way to campus.
“Y/N-sunbae…”
You turned back to Jeongguk expectantly, slipping a chunk of the sugared muffin top into your mouth and chewing, His eyes dart from the muffin to your face and back again. Did he want a piece?
But the professor walked in the room then, tossing his briefcase onto the podium as he called for the class to quiet down, and Jeongguk sat back in his seat, shoulders slumping.
You tore off a piece of the muffin and held it out to him over the space between you, hidden from the professor’s sight by the table. Jeongguk pulled a double-take, frowning at the tiny offering in your hand. Ah. He didn’t. You ignored the small disappointment and made to withdraw when his hand shot out from between his legs and grabbed the clump of muffin from your palm, so quickly that you wondered if you’d provoked an eating-related reflex, like the way a cat swipes at toy when you pull it back.
You watched in surprise as Jeongguk immediately whipped the muffin piece into his mouth and gave you a nod, before his head bent over his notebook, his face turned away from you. The top of his ears glowed pink.
Huh. Maybe Jeon Jeongguk was okay after all.
An hour and a half later, the professor announced the guidelines for the class assignment, which would be graded and presented in pairs. The man had squinted up at the auditorium for a few seconds before he’d shrugged his shoulders and said, “Just work with the other person at your table. No need to make this complicated.”
You glanced at Jeongguk from the corner of your eye, unsure what to make of the sudden return of his jittery leg and tapping fingers, before offering, “When would be a good time for you? To meet, I mean. About the project.”
For a moment, Jeongguk stared at you, the minty, earthy scent growing weirdly heavier in the air. “Friday?”
And so your project sessions in the library every Friday morning began.
The first session later that week, you’d swung into the coffee shop and bought a few study snacks for the morning, getting an Americano for Jeongguk with several extra packets of sugar and creamer since you had no idea how he liked to drink coffee. When you’d arrived at the library, he’d been waiting out front, nearly twenty minutes early with an identical bag and drink tray from the university coffee shop. You’d laughed awkwardly before heading in and grabbing a table, trading the drinks you’d gotten for each other. You’d been right about the Americano, and the green tea latte became your next favorite drink.
It’d been hard at first. Anyone that had passed by would have thought you were complete strangers that just happened to be sharing the same table to study. You were both quiet and uncertain of the other–conversation came in short, barely audible bursts about what the project should be on, what topics you were both interested in, what kind of medium you should present.
But after the first couple of hours, the tension had faded slightly, replaced by a mutual focus for the project and relief that you were both interested in presenting a section of track with pop background and vocals.
That first session, you’d both worked up an outline and an idea. The next, you’d created the rough draft for the sound, with the help of Jeongguk’s hyung’s studio grade computer software (you’d never met a cat shifter with mint green hair and had wondered if it stayed like that when he shifted. Min Yoongi hadn’t appreciated the question or the snort it had drawn from Jeongguk.) By the third, you’d nearly finished the background and now worked on how the vocals would accompany.
Then, on the fourth session, you stood outside the library for nearly half an hour, glancing down the sidewalk in both directions and rocking on your heels.
Jeongguk was late. Really late.
You checked your phone again, thankful that you’d exchanged numbers even if it meant Jeongguk accidentally sent you a meme instead of his friend Taehyung, but no new messages had come. You tried to think back over the week, wondering if maybe he’d caught the stomach bug floating around campus, but he’d seemed fine on Wednesday.
The project wasn’t due for another two weeks, but you still had to finish the vocal and then write lyrics for it, which would take at least two sessions. If he couldn’t come today, you’d have to find another time to meet, which also sucked because every other class had finals coming up too. You’re supposed to meet Hyorin in a couple hours to go over the last month’s notes for Theory and Application.
You were debating between calling or just sending him a text and heading inside by yourself, when someone shouted your name down the sidewalk. You turned around, expecting Jeongguk, but another boy screeches to a stop barely a foot away from you, grinning like Christmas had come early.
“Y/N, right? Hi!” He grabbed your hand from your side and shook it enthusiastically, and you’re blinded for a moment by the sheer beauty of his warm, golden skin and the lilac shade of purple in his hair. You glanced down at your coffee. Had the barista slipped you something? He’d been winking at you, but you thought that had just been a caffeine twitch.
“Taehyung! I’m Taehyung, Kookie’s friend, remember?” He continued nonplussed at your blank stare. “We met, for like a second, at your composition class, and then I–I kinda shouted and you half-shifted.” Taehyung’s expression grew sheepish, his eyes rounding and glistening wetly in a purely canine show of regret. “Sorry about that, by the way. Jiminie said I scared you pretty bad if it happened so quickly like that.”
You looked away awkwardly, your cheeks burning at the reminder, but smiled at him. “It’s okay, no big deal.”
“Really? Because I will buy you as much cup ramen as my meager student allowance will provide, to make it up to you,” he said solemnly, his lips pressing together.
Your smile grew. “I was just a bit startled, that’s all. It’s fine. No cup ramen necessary.” Although that sounded like a solid plan for dinner that night.
“Ah, that’s great,” Taehyung sighed, his grin reappearing in full force. “I was worried that I’d ruined Kookie’s chances and he’d hate me forever. But that’s a relief, now Jimin can stop lecturing me every time I steal food from his apartment.”
Your head tilted to the side curiously. Jeongguk’s what? “Oh, um, Taehyung,” you began nervously, hoping you weren’t overstepping any boundaries, “is Jeongguk sick today? It’s just, well. He was supposed to meet me here a while ago, and he’s not answering his phone.”
Taehyung paused, his lip curling in thought, before he shook his head. “He was fine last night, we stayed up playing the new Halo until like three. I bet he just forgot to charge his phone, still dead to the world. Come on.” He wrapped his arm through yours and started marshaling you down the sidewalk, talking a mile a minute.
“Um, wait, where are we going?” You asked, glancing at the library over your shoulder.
“To get Jeonggukie, of course. Project’s due soon, right? You can thank me later, it’s really easy to get to his apartment from here so I’ll just take you there. It’s going to be a shit hole though, just to warn you. I doubt Jimin’s bothered to clean up yet, and clearly Kookie’s still dead to the world. Knowing Chim, he’s probably at the gym right now, goes every morning at six, isn’t that crazy?”
You could only follow along, stringing the words together when they seemed to make sense, and by the time the two of you reached the apartment door twenty minutes later, you knew the name of every member in Taehyung and Jimin’s families, all of friends’ recent accomplishments (Mint Yoongi had evidently received an honor for his thesis presentation, a boy called Hope had stolen Taehyung’s heart and put a spell on his–well–, Namjoon ‘of the lagoon’ had placed first in the recent examinations records for his grade, and Jinnie hyung had broken his own record for most steaks stuffed in his mouth.), and what Taehyung would name his future children, all six of them. You probably had enough steal his identity, if you wanted to. Did he always share this much with perfect strangers?
Taehyung pulled open a flap of wall at the bottom of the front door and pulled a key out from the dark hole, grinning from ear to ear. His tail popped up from above his jeans all of a sudden, bright orange fur with a fluffy white tip wagging merrily against the back of his jacket.
“Um, Taehyung, is it really okay to suddenly drop in like this? I mean,” you glanced at the door and bit your lip, “if he’s asleep– we can just reschedule, it’s not–he probably doesn’t want to be seen like this by a–” You pause at the thought. Total stranger? Not really… Acquaintance? Classmate?
But that pause was evidently enough time for Taehyung to open the door and tug you inside, maneuvering out of his sneakers and into the ratty slippers on the floor, Charmander and Bublasaur caught in a Pokemon battle on the strap. “Here, use these,” he said, pulling a pair of plain white slippers from the hallway closet. “There for whenever one of our mom’s visit, so they’re clean. Mostly.”
He sped off into a door on the right, the sound of several cabinets opening and slamming shut following his exit, so you slip off your shoes and step into the slippers cautiously, surveying the room.
Taehyung hadn’t been exaggerating–the apartment was a shit hole. Several empty chip bags and Oreo tins were scattered all over the living room floor, along with shirts, coats, and a white lump that looked suspiciously like briefs. The white of the walls was broken up by the random poster here and there: a kitten hanging from a branch with the inscription: keep hanging in there! with a mustache drawn in sharpie on its face, a M.A.D.E. poster from BigBang’s latest mini-album, an Attack on Titan poster of Levi that you gave a nod of approval to. The other wall across from the hall had three huge windows looking out onto the street and buildings below, a couch that had seen better days shoved under its ledges. Several game controllers were stuffed into the cracks of the cushions, the power button for one blinking helplessly.
A huge clang comes from the kitchen, as though Taehyung had grabbed the biggest soup pot they had and tossed it onto the floor, and the door by the windows slammed open, Jeongguk storming out and cradling his face in his hand.
“Hyung, I swear to fucking god, if you don’t stop–”
You nearly tripped over the coffee table trying to get out of his way, alarmed, when Jeongguk caught sight of you, barely three feet away. He froze, his eyes widening in horror, and you had about a second to appreciate three things: the dark circles under his eyes looked painfully dry. His hair’s been dyed into an ashy blond color that honestly looked really good, even with bedhead (especially with bedhead.) And Jeongguk had a six pack. And arms that could probably break a stack full of bricks in one chop, Karate Kid style.
You knew this, because he wasn’t wearing a shirt when he came out of the bedroom.
“Um…hi, Jeongguk,” you said before immediately wishing you hadn’t, fuck who just said ‘hi’ in a situation like this. This wasn’t a fucking k-drama.
But Jeongguk didn’t seem to notice. He just stared at you for a second before a strangled sound broke free from his throat and suddenly two tall black ears were standing ramrod straight on the top of his head, his nose flashing into a dollop of pink on his face. His huge dark eyes somehow manage to widen even further, something like agony passing through his expression before he whipped back around and dove into the safety of his bedroom, the door slamming shut with a deafening crack that must’ve hurt his ears a bit. His rabbit ears. And the small round shape you’d seen just below the hem of his pajama pants had to have been a tail. A rabbit tail.
Holy shit.
Jeon Jeongguk was a bunny shifter.
(months later)
“You know... it all kinda makes sense now.”
Jeongguk turned his head slightly to look down at you, his arm draped over the back of the couch inches away from dropping down onto your shoulder. He wanted to curl his fingers into your hair, tug you closer against him, but the thought alone had his heart racing, his ears burning to pop out at the stress. He swallowed heavily, trying to focus on the words rather than the sweet, impossibly soft looking lips forming them, but it’s hard to think beyond the warmth of you next to him, the scent of sunshine and comfort rising from your skin. “What does?” He asked, to distract himself.
“You were pretty jumpy for a predator shifter. Your leg was always twitching, and you kept touching your ear when you were thinking. I do that sometimes too,” you explained, a hint of affection in your voice.
That had nothing to do with being a rabbit shifter, and everything to do with the gorgeous girl sitting next to him smelling like Busan sunshine and forests and glancing at him with hesitant, beautiful eyes that made something melt in his chest whenever he looked into them. The day Taehyung had surprised you into half-shifting, those white fluffy ears and that baby pink nose... he’d spent the next three days wondering if he’d met the person his mom always said he’d meet one day. Only for Taehyung to scare you off. (He’d ignored Taehyung completely for two weeks after that, had felt heartbroken when you weren’t in class the next period.)
“Hmm...” he mumbled in reply, before finally gathering the courage to drop his arm around your shoulder, his arm slowly falling from the top of the couch--
“I’m gonna grab another cup of ramen,” you said, sitting up on the couch and looking back at him with sleepy eyes. “Want another one too?”
Jeongguk yanked his arm back onto the top of the couch just in time, ignoring the prickle of heat passing over his cheeks. “Sure--uh--thanks, noona.”
He glanced at the movie on the screen, wondering how long he’d checked out, when you leaned back in, a hand bracing on his chest. He stopped breathing for a second, about to turn his head back around, his eyes dropping to your lips in the corner of his eye, when you nuzzled your nose lightly into the hollow of his cheek, the tip of your nose brushing softly against his skin. You lingered a moment, your heady scent filling his senses, until you leaned back and got to your feet, hastily making your way through the minefield on his floor and into the kitchen, your white bunny ears curling away from the top of the door frame.
You’d given him a bunny kiss. On his cheek. A bunny kiss.
Jeongguk’s head dropped back onto the couch, his own ears popping from his head as he held a hand over his red face.
He’s in love.