Work Text:
“Minhyuk! Hurry up, you’ll be late!”
Hurridly, Lee Minhyuk spit the toothpaste out of his mouth and rinsed, wiping foam off his mouth as he jammed a white t-shirt over his head.
“Coming, Mom!” He yelled back, yanking his backpack onto his shoulder before racing down the stairs. His mom was waiting for him on the front porch, gentle smile on her face and sleeping bag in her hand.
“I don’t want you to be late, dear,” she handed him his sleeping bag, “Here you go. Have fun tonight, call me if anything happens. I’m sure you’ll have loads of fun, sweetie. Be careful, there had been a lot of forest fires recently, okay?”
“Mom, it’s just a field trip to the mountain,” Minhyuk complained, but bent down to give her a kiss on the cheek nonetheless. “I’ll see you on Sunday!”
He set off down the street out of the cul-de-sac where his family lived. It was only a 10 minute walk to his high school; for most students attending Las Altas High School, they lived very close. With a small population, most people lived in town. They were on the outskirts of the beginning of the mountain, and over the mountain lay a sprawling valley, inhabited only by animals. It belonged to the Park Services, and people only really went there to camp and hike.
Minhyuk’s high school had decided to hold a beginning of the year to one of the many campsites at Las Altas Camping Grounds. Minhyuk hadn’t been upset about it, like some of his friends, nor had he been ecstatic like his others.
With a deep breath of the crisp, dry California autumn air, he plugged his headphones and pressed shuffle.
All my friends are heathens take it slow
“Ay, Minhyuk!” Brandon Lee, one of Minhyuk’s best friends, punched Minhyuk in the arm as Minhyuk approached the campus. Brandon, shorter than Minhyuk and Chinese, sported beady black eyes and dark brown hair, shaped into a manbun at the top of his head. He was perky, quite like Minhyuk. They were a duo that teachers made sure to not sit next to each other when seating charts were made.
“Brandon! Whaddup, you ready for this trip?” Minhyuk slapped Brandon on the back, grinning widely. The two walked to their first period class, Government.
“Yeah man, you know how pumped I am for this,” Brandon exclaimed as he pushed open the door to their classroom. They still had a couple minutes until class started, so they went over to join their friends.
“Nice sleeping bag, Hyukkie,” Chelsea Kim commented dryly. Chelsea, like Minhyuk, was the child of Korean immigrants, but she chose to go by her American name instead of her Korean one, Sumin. Minhyuk would have too, if his American name hadn’t been something stupid—Derek. Who the hell names their kid Derek?
“Isn’t that a Korean cartoon or something?” Eric Pham, the only Vietnamese on of their friend group, picked up Minhyuk’s sleeping bag to examine it, “Sweet.”
“It’s stupid,” Claudia Sainz, a tall, lanky junior (the only junior in both their Government class and their friend group), from El Salvador rolled her eyes, leaning her back against her boyfriend Adel, who was from Iran. “You’re probably not even gonna fit into it.”
“Hey, my cousin left this behind when he visited us here,” Minhyuk defended, clutching the sleeping back, decorated in Pororo characters, to his chest.
“Teacher’s here,” Brandon announced loudly, making the class giggle. Minhyuk took his seat next to Claudia and pulled out his notebook, ready to learn at least a little until they left for their field trip in a couple of hours.
The rest of the class passed in a flurry of turning in homework, making fun of the teacher and surfing Instagram instead of actually listening. Soon, the principal was coming on over the loudspeaker to ask for all seniors to come to the main lobby where they would board the bus.
Minhyuk and Brandon sat next to each other, of course.
“Hey look, it’s kind of cloudy now,” Brandon pointed out the window, droplets running down the school bus window from condensation.
“It’s more foggy,” Minhyuk observed unusually quietly. Just earlier that morning, the sun had been out and shining brightly.
A strange restless feeling settled in the pit of Minhyuk’s stomach. He shook his head, trying to shake the feeling off, and shoved his earbuds into his ears.
Wait for them to ask you who they know
“Alright kids, let’s go,” The park ranger, clad in hunter green and khahi, clapped his hands, calling into his megaphone. Minhyuk shouldered his backpack and fell into the single file line that the class had formed. Somehow, he ended up at the back.
Minhyuk had spent the whole bus ride there chatting with Brandon, and he was feeling pretty tired.
As they entered through the park gates, the kids were chattering and talking, but as they started up the trail that wound up one side of the mountain to their campsite, an eerie silence overtook them.
The air was heavy and stagnant, smelling like old dried grass and a faint tinge of ash, probably from all the forest fires down in the valley. Birds chirped, ducking up and down to catch insects in their beaks. The entire mountainside was covered in dry grass, the occasional tree dotting the otherwise wheat-colored landscape. The grass rustled quietly in the stagnant wind, the occasional hot gust of air fanning over the mountainside, lifting pollen and ash into Minhyuk’s nose. He sneezed once, twice.
There weren’t any teachers to tell him not to use his phone, so he pulled it out and powered up his music.
He kept walking, eyes staring down at the rock embedded dirt trail, placing one dusty foot in front of the other. His backpack was heavy, and he tried to ignore that by focusing on his walking and the music playing in his ears.
The silence, the quiet was welcome to Minhyuk. As home with his busy family and in school with his loud friends, sometimes Minhyuk felt overwhelmed, like he didn’t belong. His friends were all loud and outgoing—they didn’t need another loud person.
His entire song collection had played all the way through by the time Minhyuk noticed that something was up. The dirt trail was no longer the dry, dusty dirt that he had been hiking up the mountain on. It was wet dirt, dark brown, a light coat of fallen leaves and pine needles on top of it. Minhyuk glanced up and looked around.
Pine trees surrounded him. There was no evidence of the mountains anywhere—somehow, he’d managed to make it into the valley. After ripping his earbuds out, Minhyuk took in his surroundings again, breathing heavily. It was getting late, probably six at night. He had enough food and clothing to survive a night, but what if a bear came after him? He couldn’t really climb a tree because all the trees were pine trees without climbable branches.
As Minhyuk glanced around, the heavy feeling of deathly silence permeated the air, honeycombing it with foreboding. A faint smell of smoke—not ash, smoke—filled the air.
A sound disturbed the heavy silence—one heavy swoosh, another and then another and another, as though there was a huge piece of cloth being fanned in the air above the trees.
Minhyuk was just trying to calm his beating heart when—
BOOM!
Minhyuk screamed, heart pounding in his chest.
The pine trees surrounding him exploded in flames, bark and needles flying everywhere. His skin felt torn, shredded. The flames were high as flaming branches started falling. Minhyuk scrambled back, trying to find a way out of the forest. As he turned on his heel, he came face to face with five huge dragons.
Please don’t make any sudden moves.
Dragons.
There was no other thing to call them
Huge, long scaly bodies. Smoke curling out of their whiskered snouts. Leathery, translucent wings sprouting out of their backs, hovering in the air. Sharp claws curled into the soft, damp earth.
They were all different colors, too. The one on the very left was a silvery white, shimmering with every move like it’s skin was covered in a million diamonds. The next was a dark shining emerald green, its belly a deep brown. The one on the far right was bright crimson, snout streaked with gold and orange, purple and black underside. The next was a mixture of turquoise, aqua, sky blue, and teal, rippling across its scales.
And the middle dragon, the largest, was a shining gold, exuding power and confidence as it stared down at Minhyuk.
The air froze, and Minhyuk was suddenly acutely aware of the little details. The way the pine sap smelled as it evaporated in a millisecond, coming in touch with the flames. The sparks in the air from the combusting trees. The glittering of the dragons’ scales, illuminated by the setting sun.
The blue dragon, the one with the rippling colors, beat its colorful, leathery spiny wings once. A hissing sound filled the air behind Minhyuk, making him spin around. The exploding trees, the embers, the flames, were doused in water, steaming and evaporating, as if a huge pail of water had been upended on the fire. Minhyuk could feel humidity in the air, water droplets clinging to his skin.
As he whirled back around to face the dragons, he felt his head grow light, before his vision rapidly faded to black.
+
We don't deal with outsiders very well
“-re just letting him in? After all we’ve built?”
“Kihyun, I don’t need to explain myself, not after everything I told you. There’s something different about him, he might be one of us.”
“Bullshit.”
“Kihyun, stop. There’s a reason why his body was rejecting the medicine. Give it to him.”
“No.”
“Kihyun.”
+
“Who’s Kihyun,” is the first thing Minhyuk asks when he’s helped up in bed by a short, red haired guy. He’s taken in where he is—a pristine white room, a dresser on one side of his bed and a window—barred and shuttered—on the other. Over the door, where one would put a cross if they were religious, was an iron-wrought elaborate X.
“That would be me,” Red Hair says, mouth twisting into something resembling a smile. “You were out for a while. You hungry?”
“Confused, more like,” Minhyuk stares at Kihyun in the eye, “Explain. What happened. Who might I be part of? What medicine was my body rejecting? Please, help me.”
Kihyun sighed. “Hyunwoo really doesn’t want to talk to you,” He muttered under his breath.
“Huh?” Minhyuk leaned forward, looking closer at Kihyun. He wasn’t exactly the most tactful person.
“Look. You know that we’re dragons. You saw us. Yes, dragons exist. Big woop.” Kihyun rolled his eyes, pulling a white plastic chair up to the side of Minhyuk’s bed. “Some dragons are born into dragon families, others are born into human families. A dragon must come into contact with another dragon in order for it to really become a dragon.”
“Okay, and?” Minhyuk arches an eyebrow, arms crossed. His mind is still reeling from the whole dragon thing.
“And, dragons can’t consume human medicine, like pain killers and stuff. You met us, dragons. You passed out. Two hours later, when I tried to give you a human pain killer, you threw up and starting having a severe allergic reaction.” Kihyun mimics Minhyuk, arching an eyebrow and folding his arms. “You tell me.”
“If you’re trying to tell me that I’m part of your little psycho group of dragon-wannabes, you’re out of your fucking mind,” Minhyuk doesn’t normally swear, but it seemed like a good time to do so.
“Yeah?” Kihyun rolled his eyes again—a reoccurring theme, “Here’s an idea. We have this flower, Delphinium. It’s a pretty fuckin special flower, see, because it has healing properties for dragons. For humans, well, I’ll not specify. But for dragons, it’s kind of like a cure-all. We boil it down in purified water to make a kind of drink, I guess, think of it like healing tequila. Headache? Take a shot of that stuff. Broken leg? Knock down a tablespoon. If you take it, that migraine of yours will be gone.”
Now that Kihyun mentioned it, Minhyuk realized that his temples were throbbing in pain. Now that his attention was on it, his eyes almost watered from the splitting pain.
“Fine.” Minhyuk huffed, not believing a word that came out of Kihyun’s mouth. The dragon-human-strange being tipped a vial into the outstretched palm of Minhyuk’s hand, the liquid inside a deep indigo. He uncorked it and sniffed it—floral and yet quite heavy. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tipped the liquid into his mouth. It was thick and viscous, dripping slowly down his throat like syrup down the side of a stack of pancakes.
As he emptied the bottle, a searing pain shot through his chest and wrists. Minhyuk twisted in pain, squirming and thrashing on the bed as he yelled for Kihyun to make it stop.
“I guess he really is a dragon,” Minhyuk barely registered someone comment far away. The pain subsided as quickly as it had started, and Kihyun handed him a glass of water. Minhyuk downed it instantly, his body hot and aching for water. The liquid slid down his throat, cooling it.
“You have any more water?” Minhyuk croaked, bones suddenly feeling heavy. A tall, lanky boy snorted, standing in the doorway to the room where Minhyuk was. He whistled a couple notes, and suddenly Minhyuk’s glass was full again.
“Holy shit,” Minhyuk almost dropped the glass in shock, “Don’t do that!”
“You better get used to it,” The guy smirked, tilting his head, “You’ll be stuck around us for a while.”
“W-what?”
“Look at your wrists,” Kihyun motioned to where Minhyuk’s hand was clutching his water glass. He held his wrists up to his eyes, and this time, he really did drop his water glass.
On his pale wrists were two black X’s, ornate and elaborate, inked into his skin as though they were tattoos.
“If you take your shirt off, you have one on your chest too,” The guy in the door said, “We all have it. It means you’re one of us, one of the X Clan.”
“The X Clan?” Minhyuk asked, in the middle of looking down his shirt (sure enough, he could make out a large black “X” on his chest).
“Yeah, all dragons are part of a clan. You’re in ours,” Kihyun looked at Minhyuk, wrist outstretched so that Minhyuk could see his own wrists, marked with a similar black X.
“Holy shit, this is fucking insane,” Minhyuk buried his head in his hands, just trying to absorb everything.
“I’m Hyungwon, resident water dragon,” The lanky boy in the doorway said, “I’m assuming you know who Kihyun is.”
“I’m an earth dragon,” Kihyun added, “The others are back in town, getting the house ready.”
“What house? What town? What’s happening, don’t you live here? Where’s here, anyways,” Minhyuk was bubbling with questions, leaning forward unconsciously on the bed towards Kihyun and Hyungwon. Kihyun chuckled at his enthusiasm.
“They’re in Las Altas, we’re moving there. We used to live here, you’re right, but it’s too big and we want to be able to live normal lives,” Kihyun explained.
“We’ll come here when we’re doing dragon shit,” Hyungwon explained, “But now, most of our time will be spent in Las Altas.”
“That’s where I live,” Minhyuk explained happily. Suddenly, the smile fell from his face, “Oh shit, the field trip. My friends, the teachers, they’re probably freaking out!”
“Dude, chill,” Hyungwon rolled his eyes, “Hyunwoo figured you were part of their group, so he went and told them we found you injured and took you to a hospital. They believed him.”
“Hyunwoo?” Minhyuk frowned at this new name.
“Ah, right, you haven’t met everyone,” Kihyun smiled sheepishly, “Soon, I’m sure. Hyunwoo is our leader, he’s the eldest and the sun dragon of our clan. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of dragon you are.”
“Oh right,” Minhyuk looked down, subdued, “I’m a dragon.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it!” Hyungwon said cheerfully, sensing the drastic change in Minhyuk’s mood. “Honestly, we can pretty much live as humans our whole life. There’s nothing that forces us to shape-shift into dragons, it’s just pretty fun, honestly. We were a lot more useful back in the day, before automatic machine guns and nukes and shit like that.”
“We were also enslaved,” Kihyun said sternly, “I’m perfectly happy to live life as a human.”
“So what exactly, like, is happening?” Minhyuk asked in confusion as the two dragons bickered in front of him.
“You’ll probably get your dragon powers in the next couple of hours,” Hyungwon explained, “We’ll take you back out to the valley so that you have clear space to, you know, like do your thing without killing anyone.”
Minhyuk nodded in something akin to understanding. The two dragons led him out to the valley, down a couple trails until they were in a clearing, the sounds of animal life filling the air.
“Here,” Kihyun held out another vial, a threatening matte black color. Minhyuk downed it suspiciously and was instantly filled with pain once again, as if a thousand nails were digging into every inch of skin, every organ, every muscle.
“Delphinuim!” Minhyuk could hear Kihyun bark at Hyungwon, before a liquid was forced into his mouth. The pain exited, and Minhyuk collapsed on the brittle, dried grass of the clearing.
“What—“ He gasped for breath, wiping sweat off his face, “What the hell was that.”
“We need to bring you to Hyunwoo,” Kihyun bent down, looking Minhyuk in the eye, “You, my friend, are the moon dragon.”
We don’t deal with outsiders very well
“I’m Hyunwoo,” is the first thing the tall, buff guy says when Minhyuk is driven from the valley back into Las Altas. “The sun dragon.”
There’s something heavy in the air, like something’s happening that Minhyuk isn’t aware of. The others—Kihyun and Hyungwon, and three others that Minhyuk hasn’t met yet—are watching the exchange between the two with sharp eyes. It’s unnerving.
“Can you explain to me what’s going on? Please?” Minhyuk stared straight into Hyunwoo’s eyes—brown, with flecks of gold.
“The thing Kihyun gave you would have transformed you into a dragon normally,” Hyunwoo said slowly, calmly, “Because you are apparently the moon dragon, you can only transform under the moon.”
“What do you mean, ‘the’ moon dragon?” Minhyuk demanded, crossing his arms, “This is all ridiculous. Even if I am, why do I have to be involved with you all? Why can’t I just leave?”
“It’s… not that simple,” was all Hyunwoo really said, “Now that you’re one of us, you’re one of us for life.”
“Well, I don’t want to be,” Minhyuk said firmly, crossing his arms.
Hyunwoo sighed and looked down at the obstinate Minhyuk. “Kihyun, take him home.”
“Wha- Hyunwoo! What about you?” Kihyun squawked, leaping to his feet.
“It’ll be fine. Just go.”
Kihyun sighed as well, and the three unknown guys all inspected Minhyuk, varying levels of disgust on their faces, for some unknown reason.
“Let’s go, Luna,” Kihyun quirked a finger, gesturing to the truck out front. Minhyuk scrambled to follow him, climbing into the passenger seat.
“Why did he just let me go? Why did everyone look like they wanted to kill me or something?” Minhyuk asked curiously, looking closely at Kihyun, who smiled slightly.
“It’s very complicated, Minhyuk,” is all Kihyun would say, hand tightening on the wheel.
Kihyun dropped Minhyuk off at his house, and Minhyuk managed to drag himself up the stairs and fell into his bed, dead asleep.
He slept for probably 15 hours, well into the next day, and was only woken by loud pounding on the door. It was Sunday, and his parents and siblings were all out doing things, so the house was empty.
Unwillingly, Minhyuk dragged himself up, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Hyungwon and one of the guys he didn’t know were standing at the door, looking panicked and scared.
“We need you back at the house,” Hyungwon barely gasped out and yanked Minhyuk into the truck, speeding off towards their house. They got there in under two minutes, probably breaking a ton of traffic laws.
“Where is he?” Was the first thing Hyungwon asked Kihyun as he dragged Minhyuk into the house.
“My bedroom.”
“What the hell is going on?” Minhyuk demanded, trying to yank his wrist from Hyungwon’s crow-like grip.
“Just wait,” Hyungwon gritted through his teeth. He yanked open the door to Kihyun’s room and shoved Minhyuk inside.
The tall, quiet Hyunwoo was lying on the bed, eyes that were unnormally dull trained on him. His veins were dark, almost black, and his skin, normally tan and glowing, was pallor.
“You came,” Hyunwoo whispered weakly, a smile gracing his lips.
“I-I don’t understand,” Minhyuk muttered, forehead creasing in confusion, “what the hell is going on?”
Hyunwoo sighed, tipping his head back against his pillow. It seemed like he was having trouble breathing, rasping with every up-and-down his chest made.
“I didn’t want to tell you, I didn’t want to scare you,” Hyunwoo said quietly, “It’s rare for a clan to have both a sun and moon dragon, but when they do, they’re, uh, they’re mates.”
“Mates?” Minhyuk arched an eyebrow, sneering, “That’s fucking bs. This isn’t Twilight.”
“No, it’s not!” Hyunwoo tried to say, but erupted into coughs. Minhyuk quickly went over to the nightstand and grabbed a bottle of water, uncapping it and handing it to him.
“It’s like soulmates or something, I guess you could say. When I met you, we bonded because, you know, we’re mates. If I’m not around you, I get sick,” Hyunwoo explained quietly, face tight with pain, “No painkiller helps. Only you. I’m already feeling better.”
“Wow, that’s,” Minhyuk sat down on the edge of the bed, peering down at Hyunwoo, “That’s a lot to take in.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Minhyuk sighed, getting up to pace the room. A few minutes of silence passed as Minhyuk processed everything.
“Look,” Hyunwoo disrupted the silence, “You don’t need to worry. Go home, I’ll be fine. I don’t want to burden you.”
“I might be a bit annoyed, but I’m not an asshole, Hyunwoo,” Minhyuk said wryly, turning to face Hyunwoo, “Look. I’m not a huge fan of this whole dragon soulmate thing, and I know it’ll take a while for me to get used to, but I’ll try. I’ll try being in this… this X Clan or whatever. I can’t promise I’ll be the mate you want, or your mate at all, but I’ll try.”
“Thank you,” Hyunwoo smiled gratefully up at Minhyuk, the gold sparkle back in his eye as his skin shimmered in the sunlight. “Thank you so much.”
It looks like you might be one of us