Chapter Text
“-and the geography homework is stupid,” Jeongin ranted on. He was mostly just filling the silence as he walked along with Chan. He rarely got Chan’s undivided attention for very long so now, nearing the end of their shopping trip, he was running out of topics. “A group poster- those never go well…” Jeongin trailed off and looked around. People were pushing past him but Chan was no longer beside him. “Chan-hyung!!” he called out, keeping the panic from his voice. There was no need to panic. Chan was a vampire with acute hearing and Jeongin had a powerful pair of lungs on him, Chan would hear him and come straight back. Why go searching for his missing hyung if he could just yell?
“I’m right here, In,” Chan called from just a few feet away with an amused smile. Jeongin had missed him in the crowd.
“Why did you stop?” Jeongin groused. “Were you even listening to me?”
“I was listening,” Chan assured him but he was busy scanning their surroundings. “I smelled the sea. Just give me a minute.”
“Yeah, there’s a seafood shop right there,” Jeongin gestured just up the road. “Come on. I want to go home, Hyung.”
“No. Jeongin, I smelled the sea.” Chan repeated and he pulled Jeongin to the side of the street so they weren’t in everyone’s way.
“You said.” Jeongin was getting grumpy now. He’d enjoyed shopping but his legs were tired and his patience was wearing thin.
“Blood,” Chan hissed in his ear. “Blood from a person from the sea.”
Oooh. That kind of ‘smelling’. Was Chan going to drink a mermaid? Jeongin was sure that Chan didn’t drink blood of any kind but maybe Chan just drank mermaids and they were hard to find up here in Seoul. Jeongin’s mum was going to be really mad if she found out Chan liked sea blood. That was practically his entire family. It was a good thing Jeongin had rejected marine shifting or he might have one day discovered Chan was a lot less friendly.
“This way,” Chan said, pulling Jeongin down an alley. Jeongin really didn’t want to witness a murder but he was kind of in a tough spot with Chan being his guardian and all so he let himself be dragged along.
Chan pulled him further down the alley as it dipped down towards the middle and the general filth of society piled up the further they went. Jeongin held his shopping bags close to his chest, glad he hadn’t given in to the urge to put his new shoes on in the shop after they bought them. They would have been ruined now in the muddy water that was seeping into his socks from an overflowing drain.
“Channie-hy-” Jeongin’s complaint died in his throat as the next pile of rubbish turned out to be a boy about his age, curled up and whimpering, one arm tucked into his chest and the other braced in front of his face. Chan knelt down in the dirty water in front of the boy and waved his hand slowly in front of the boy’s face to catch his attention.
“Hey,” Chan said gently. “Can you hear me?”
This wasn’t a murder. It was a rescue. Of course.
The boy slowly lifted his head. His eyes were blown wide with fear and a cut sliced across the bridge of his nose. His hands were also battered and his hair was soaked and matted. Terra, what had happened to him?
“I’m Chan,” Chan was telling the boy. “Are you hurt? Can I help you?”
“My arm,” the boy whispered. “My arm.”
“This one?” Chan asked, indicating the one the boy was cradling to his chest. The boy nodded. “Can I look?” Chan said. “Where does it hurt?”
“In the middle,” the boy said. “I can’t move my fingers. I can’t move it.”
“I’ll be really careful,” Chan promised and waited for the boy to nod before he put a hand under the boy’s elbow and another around his upper arm and carefully moved it. The boy bit off a scream as his whole face tensed in pain.
“It’s probably broken,” Chan said. “I’m going to rip your sleeve, ok?” he told the boy. Jeongin didn’t think that the boy heard him. “Talk to him, Innie,” Chan ordered him. “He needs distraction.”
“What?” Jeongin squawked. He didn’t sign up for this. “Uhhhhhh, hi.” he started. That was dumb. “My name is Jeongin. Do you have a name?” That was dumber. Someone end him right this second.
“Hyunjin,” the boy whispered as Chan felt along his arm. “I’m Hyunjin.”
“Hyunjin!” Jeongin exclaimed as he panicked about his new responsibility. “That’s great!” What was he supposed to ask now? “How did you get hurt?”
“You’re doing great,” Chan said. It was probably directed at Hyunjin, who had managed not to scream yet, rather than at Jeongin, who was forgetting how conversations worked.
“The rain hit me,” Hyunjin grunted, presumably to Jeongin. Chan had taken off his own shirt and was now ripping it up for a bandage or a sling or something. Jeongin hoped Chan’s insane muscle definition wouldn’t scare Hyunjin more. If he was scared of rain then biceps like Chan’s so close to his face were bound to make him panic. Strangely, Hyunjin seemed puzzled more than anything by the gun show.
“Ok, we’re going to need to get you to hospital,” Chan told Hyunjin as he deftly made a sling around Hyunjin’s arm with his shirt. “Can you stand?”
“Umm,” Hyunjin said, either he was in too much pain to make that call or he was stalling. “You should just leave me,” he decided eventually, gasping the words through his pain. “I’m fine.”
Now you’ve done it, Jeongin thought. If you challenged Chan’s attempts to mother (smother) you he only doubled down.
“We’re not leaving you like this,” Chan said. “If you can’t stand I can carry you.”
“It’s-” Hyunjin cut off his explanation and breathed out hard through another wave of pain as he accidentally clenched his fist.
“Take it easy, Hyunjin,” Chan soothed him. “The sooner we can get you to a medic, the sooner you can get painkillers and someone can set your arm.”
“I can’t,” Hyunjin said. “I’ll be fine.”
“Is it because you’re not human?” Chan asked suddenly. Jeongin had entirely forgotten that’s why they were here. Hyunjin looked human. But then again so did he and so did Jisung and even Changbin mostly passed, though he was a bit on the short side.
Hyunjin’s head shot up. “How do you know?”
“We’re not human either,” Chan assured him. “I can take you to a mystic doctor.”
“A what doctor?” Hyunjin asked. He looked like he was going to cry. Jeongin didn’t blame him. He would have started crying a long time ago.
“A mystic doctor,” Chan said. “People who aren’t human are mystics. I’m a vampire and Jeonginnie here is a shifter.”
“Vampires are real?” Hyunjin whimpered and tried to back himself further against the wall. Poor kid. He had a lot of learning to do.
“Channie-hyung doesn’t drink blood,” Jeongin told Hyunjin who would probably be running by now if he had the capabilities. “He’s not going to bite you.”
“No, definitely not,” Chan said, waving his hands in front of him. “I hate the taste of blood.”
Hyunjin looked doubtful. He turned to Jeongin. “You’re not a vampire?” Hyunjin asked Jeongin shyly.
“Ah, no. I’m a shifter,” Jeongin repeated Chan’s words from before. Hyunjin probably didn’t know what that meant though. “I can turn into a fox, and some other animals.”
Understanding lit up Hyunjin’s eyes. “Oh!” He stretched out one of his legs from where it was tucked under him and.. oh. That was not a leg. Or at least, not a human one.
“Huh,” Chan said. “Well, that one’s new.”
“I can turn my legs human or octopus,” Hyunjin said shyly. “But they’re stuck like this now because I’m scared.”
“Do you have two or eight?” Jeongin asked before his brain to mouth filter could stop him.
Hyunjin laughed melodically. “Eight. Right now I have eight. When I’m human I have two.”
“That’s good,” Jeongin said. “Eight human legs would look really weird.”
“Yeah,” Hyunjin agreed. “Walking would be a nightmare.”