Chapter Text
Juyeon was getting fidgety, his fingers playing relentlessly with the seams of his jeans. The air inside the taxi felt stuffy, as it had started to when he’d first hopped in, what felt like hours ago.
This wasn’t supposed to be a long trip, the driver had promised. He knew the address Juyeon had given him – a street a little on the outskirts of the city, but not too far that it would take hours to get there. It wasn’t supposed to take hours.
Not able to do anything other than stare at the trees surrounding the moving car, wrapping the taxi into the secrecy of a forest that felt almost too sacred for Juyeon to be allowed here, Juyeon started to bounce up his knee anxiously. The last of human civilization they had seen had been a cottage house, one of those that looked abandoned even though there were some clear signs of people living there.
That was ten minutes before. They hadn’t seen anything else ever since they’d engaged in that street – you could barely call that a street, really, as it was more of a gravel path, with lampposts here and there if they were lucky. It was daytime, but Juyeon could picture the gloomy look the path must have at night, and the thought only sent a cold shiver down his spine.
“Are you sure we’re on the right way?” Juyeon asked the driver.
The man glanced at him through the rear-view mirror. “This is the only street that I know of with that name, sir.”
That did nothing to ease Juyeon’s nerves, but he forced himself back down into the seat, eyes travelling outside again.
Today was the day he was moving into his new house. Well, as much as he’d like to call it his, he knew he’d only be there as a resident. He was prepared to be sharing his living space with a few people, as stipulated in the classified ad he had found in the newspaper. He had spoken with the landlord over on the phone, and it wasn’t the people he was worried about.
Although Juyeon would largely prefer not having to profit off some rich dude having an empty room in their house, he had been running out of options. He had just been kicked out of his previous apartment, unable to pay rent after having lost his job. He still had a few debts left to pay back, and he knew it would take a while before he would be back on his feet.
This solution was only temporary, Juyeon had promised himself. He had managed to find a new job and a decent place to live, cheap rent included, in such a record time it almost felt like a dream.
Well, looking at where he was now, maybe it really had been one.
Maybe this whole advert he’d seen in his local newspaper had been a scam, robbing him of the money from the deposit he’d given to secure the room for himself. Or maybe he was going to die at the end of that path, dragging the innocent taxi driver into this horrible fate, murdered by whoever had planned all of this.
“Sir, we’re here”, the driver’s voice pulled Juyeon out of his thoughts.
Juyeon was not prepared for what he saw when he looked out the window.
Sure, he had seen the advert. He had seen the poor-quality picture of the house printed on grainy paper and stained by the rain that had fallen on it. He had done a bit of research online on the house, too, of course. And hadn’t found much.
What was in front of his eyes, towering imposingly over the small yellow taxi, was a house like nothing he had ever seen before. A manor, if you’d like, but Juyeon would describe it as a palace.
It looked old, wooden facade worn-out by the years, but it was still standing, three stories tall, all wood and clear windows, lanterns dangling above the porch.
“Sir?”
Juyeon snapped out of his daze, once again. He handed the driver his money, gulping when he had to fish out his very last bill to meet the fare.
He stepped out of the car, and for the first time it hit him just how deep they’d driven into the forest. There wasn’t a noise around apart from the whistling of the wind. The sun barely reached the ground, this pebbly ground Juyeon was clumsily stumbling onto as he craned his neck to stare at the house.
He managed to haul his suitcase out of the trunk, then signaling he was done to the driver, and the taxi took off immediately, sprinting out of sight definitely faster than when they had been on their way here.
Not that Juyeon knew the guy, but he almost wished he would have waited here with him, because frankly, Juyeon was growing a little scared, and that driver he had exchanged at most two minutes worth of words with had been his last ties to the world he was from, the city that seemed hours away now.
Now that the driver was gone, the fever dream of the notice that seemed almost too good to be true was unravelling before Juyeon’s own eyes.
Juyeon tugged on the handle of his suitcase, the pebbles making it near impossible to roll around. He groaned and lifted it up instead, and finally climbed the dozen of stairs leading to the doubled door entrance.
The wooden doors looked back at him, daring him to knock, and Juyeon had to take a deep breath before he could lift his fist, knocking a good three times.
He waited anxiously, not hearing anything from inside the house – at least there must have been one person inside, because there had been a car parked in front, near the stairs. Or maybe the man living there was just that rich that he could afford to leave his house and choose which car to leave with.
The door suddenly creaked open, revealing a man a little shorter than himself, yet built strongly. He surely was around Juyeon’s age, the realization reassuring him a little. He didn’t know why, but just the sight of him was already putting him at ease.
“Hi!” the man exclaimed. “Juyeon, right?”
Juyeon nodded, responding to the man’s excitement with a shy smile.
“Ah, I’m sorry, I didn’t expect you so early- come in!”
Juyeon nodded gratefully, and lifted his suitcase once again.
“Here,” the man immediately stepped out of the house, “let me take care of this for you.”
He grabbed the suitcase from Juyeon’s hands, and Juyeon was surprised with the ease with which he lifted the thing, that luggage that was as heavy as Juyeon’s life was worth. Juyeon smirked to himself – of course the man wouldn’t have any problem lifting it, he had those arms that would probably be able to crush him if the man suddenly revealed himself to be any sort of evil. But he looked genuinely friendly, so Juyeon doubted the occasion would ever present itself.
“Come in, come in”, the man repeated, stepping back into the house with the suitcase in his hand.
Juyeon followed, and immediately his eyes were darting all over. If the outside had been impressive, the inside was astonishing in all its scale and luxury. Most of the house seemed to be made of wood, from the few piece of furniture in the entrance to the grand stairs stretching right in front of him, but nothing looked cheap – everything smelled much more expensive than that tiny suitcase the man was carrying for him, everything exuded an aura that had Juyeon once again wondering if he was worthy enough of soiling the place with his presence.
“I’m Sangyeon, by the way!” the man spoke again, despite Juyeon clearly not paying attention to him. “This way, I’ll show you to your room- watch your feet, the stairs are right this way”, he laughed, pulling Juyeon by the arm to guide him.
Juyeon’s mind vaguely registered Sangyeon as the name of the house owner he had briefly spoken to on the phone.
Juyeon allowed his eyes to leave the high ceilings and focus on the stairs. He almost missed the first one, way closer to him than he’d expected, earning him a chuckle from Sangyeon, who was effortlessly hauling his beaten-up, dirty suitcase up these magnificent stairs.
Thankfully, Juyeon’s room seemed to be located only on the second floor, as Juyeon let his head tilt back to get a look at the crystal chandelier hanging too many feet high above his head, the tiny gems reflecting the sun coming in from the tall windows.
Sangyeon finally let the suitcase down to pull it with him, wheels squeaking as they rolled against the carpeted floor.
The second floor wasn’t any less impressive than the small glimpse he’d had of the first – Juyeon found himself in a wide hallway lined with few doors, paintings and ancient-looking lamps that probably used to be torch holders back when the manor had been built lining up along the walls.
Juyeon followed Sangyeon down the hallway, trying not to let it show just how overwhelmed he was.
He wasn’t fooling anyone, not when he bumped into Sangyeon because he wasn’t watching where he was going.
Sangyeon simply laughed at him, and patted him on the back. “You’ll get used to it, I promise”, he said, and his words sounded so sincere that Juyeon almost believed him.
“That’s your room, by the way”, Sangyeon pointed at the door they had stopped in front of.
It was the last one of the hallway, and if Juyeon looked to his left there was a small, round window giving him a view of the forest, so thick there were just trees and nothing else visible.
“Aren’t you going to go in?” Sangyeon asked.
Juyeon chuckled in embarrassment. “Yeah, sorry- thank you, uh...”
“Sangyeon”, the man supplied with that kind smile of his. “Did you forget already?”
“No!” Juyeon immediately spluttered out. “That’s not it! I’m just, what, surprised? I didn’t exactly expect this.”
“I’ll let you be, then,” Sangyeon said, clasping his hands together. “Get settled, and I’ll come get you for dinner if you’re up for meeting everyone.”
Juyeon nodded, thankful that the man was finally giving him a breather. Sangyeon wasn’t mean, nor was he uncomfortably loud, or anything of the sort, but all of this was just a lot to take in. And he had a feeling his bedroom wouldn’t be any less impressive than the rest.
“Oh, wait, I just have one advice, before I let you go for real,” Sangyeon said.
Juyeon nodded, and for the first time made eye contact with the man.
Sangyeon looked back at him with his cheery, dark green eyes warm with hospitality. Juyeon almost took a step back in surprise, as he had not noticed Sangyeon’s eyes were anything but a dark brown before.
“There are still a few hours left before dinner, so I’d understand if you’d like to walk around and explore the place by yourself- I just thought I’d let you know that, well, most of the kids like to prank and fool around, so just, be careful when you’re in shared spaces, I guess. I told them to cut you some slack for your first day, but yeah, some of them can be a bit playful,” Sangyeon explained sheepishly.
Kids? Juyeon wondered. He didn’t remember anything in the notice about kids. But then again, he hadn’t been prepared for much, maybe he’d just overread some details in his excitement of finding a room for such affordable rent.
“Kids will be kids”, he opted for a reply, giving Sangyeon a knowing smile.
That seemed to satisfy the man, as he smiled back. “Alright then! I’m leaving for real now!”
And he left, small steps echoing through the hallway as his figure disappeared into the staircase. Juyeon couldn’t see whether he’d gone up or down, but that didn’t really matter.
He took a deep breath in, and carefully wrapped his fingers around the doorknob, twisting it until the tell-tale clicking sound could be heard, and he pushed the door.
He had been right to expect a shock upon seeing the room.
Because that wasn’t a room.
That was a royal suite.
Just from his spot at the door, Juyeon could tell the room was way bigger than any of the crappy apartments he had owned over the years. The large windows let in so much light, bathing the room into a comfortable glow, mixed with the shadows of the trees swaying slowly on the walls.
Juyeon pulled his suitcase inside, and closed the door behind him.
Sangyeon was probably kidding when he had suggested Juyeon might want to explore the rest of the house by himself. It was going to take him hours just exploring this room.
Suitcase forgotten on the floor by the door, Juyeon walked in.
Everything looked straight out of a Middle Age castle like Juyeon had seen in movies, the canopy bed with its burgundy red curtains taking the crown as the most imposing piece of furniture. Juyeon’s fingers barely traced the edge of the mattress, as if he was scared to touch such a beautiful thing.
There was a dresser to his left, probably larger than his whole kitchen in his last apartment. To his right, there was a red couch, facing the floor-to-ceiling windows. Close to the wall, there was a massive wooden study desk, fully equipped with its lamp and chair. When Juyeon looked back towards the dresser, he noticed there was a door – his own bathroom, he found, and definitely not a let down after the luxury of the bedroom.
What was Juyeon going to do with a clawfoot bathtub and a walk-in shower to himself? He didn’t like to clean himself that much to be able to use both every day.
The room was an interesting mismatch between modern and ancient, yet everything was more luxurious than anything Juyeon had ever seen in his life.
His wallet might have been empty, but Juyeon felt like a king as he sprawled himself over his new bed, melting into the soft sheets and drowning in their fresh and clean perfume.
Juyeon spent the following hours trying to get accustomed to the room, and trying to process the fact that he would be the one living in this royal suite for the foreseeable future, all of this space just for himself.
When Sangyeon came knocking on his door, his suitcase hadn’t moved from its spot on the floor, and Juyeon had to scramble to the door to move the luggage out of the way enough for the door to open.
“How’s the room?” Sangyeon asked, his kind smile reappearing on his face.
“It’s- it’s great,” Juyeon replied, “thank you so much for letting me stay here.”
Sangyeon shook his head at that. “Hey, no worries, it was empty and I figured it could probably help someone.”
Juyeon smiled. “Yeah, you have no idea how much trouble you just saved me from.”
The man gave Juyeon an understanding look. “I’m glad I could help- by the way, I came to get you because dinner’s ready, and you can come down if you want to meet everyone. Or if you don’t want to, that’s completely fine, I can bring you dinner here! But just know that everyone is very excited to meet you.”
Juyeon felt his cheeks flush. He wasn’t sure he liked the fact that “everyone” couldn’t wait to meet him, when he was such an ordinary guy, and would most likely never be able to live up to their expectations.
But he had to meet them one day or another, and Juyeon wasn’t a fan of putting things off unnecessarily.
“It’s alright, I’ll come with you,” Juyeon replied.
To his surprise, Sangyeon squealed in response, totally shattering the last remnants of the bored billionaire image Juyeon had unknowingly given him in his head.
“Awesome!” Sangyeon exclaimed.
They both walked down the hallway, Sangyeon giving him a run down of who else lived on the second floor – if he was being honest, Juyeon knew he wouldn’t remember any of it, considering he had never heard these names in his life. But Sangyeon seemed so enthusiastic that Juyeon didn’t have the heart to tell him that.
After spending hours trying to come down from the shock of his royal bedroom, Juyeon should have been prepared for the house’s dining room. Well, he totally wasn’t.
The room wasn’t even that big in itself – far from looking like one from a castle, the dining room was probably the first room to remind Juyeon that he was in an actual house, and not in some royal palace. Still, the sight of the long table and the amount of food on it almost made his jaw drop, had he not been aware of the eight pairs of eyes staring right at him.
Make that just seven pairs, Juyeon realized as his gaze fell on a boy wearing a black leather eyepatch, the piece covering one of his eyes.
“Sit down, Juyeon-ah”, Sangyeon instructed kindly, giving him a warm pat on the back and pointing him to an empty chair.
Sangyeon already felt like an old friend, it was disconcerting, but Juyeon was never against overly friendly people.
Juyeon sat down in the chair pointed to him, nervous under the gaze of everyone around the table, and the awkward silence that had taken over the room at his entrance.
He heard some chair scraping sound further down, and looked to notice it was simply Sangyeon sitting down, far from Juyeon and on the other side of the table.
Someone coughed, and Juyeon finally realized he still hadn’t said anything, while everyone was clearly waiting for him to speak.
“Uh... hi?” he greeted with an awkward smile, uncomfortable under all the attention on him.
“Hello!” the boy next to him immediately replied, with a smile so bright Juyeon was almost blinded by it.
“I’m Hyunjae, nice to meet you”, the other greeted enthusiastically.
Juyeon nodded, smiling shyly. “I’m Juyeon.”
“We know”, Hyunjae giggled. “Sangyeon hyung told us we’d be having a new housemate today. You look nice.”
Juyeon laughed at the comment.
“Okay, can we just get this done so we can eat?” a voice echoed from the other end of the table.
Juyeon looked the way it was coming from, noticing a boy with red hair and black plastic glasses glancing around the table with an annoyed look.
“I’m Changmin,” he glared right at Juyeon.
Juyeon gulped. That guy sure was intimidating, and it was throwing him off. It wasn’t that he was expecting everyone to be as friendly to him as Sangyeon and Hyunjae had been, but he had to admit he wasn’t prepared to meet people who were the complete opposite of them.
“I’m Jacob”, another voice continued, coming from a boy sat in front of Changmin, his hair a dirty blond and his nails painted an elegant matte black. He was leaning a little over the table to be able to meet Juyeon’s gaze with a gentle smile, which Juyeon gladly returned. “Nice to meet you, Jacob”.
“I’m Kevin, and this is Haknyeon”, a raven-haired boy spoke, pointing to the boy with the eyepatch next to him. Haknyeon gave a timid wave, cheeks stuffed full with food. Juyeon chuckled a bit and waved back.
Juyeon’s eyes wandered curiously around the table, looking for someone to introduce themselves next. But no one was speaking, so he let his eyes fall awkwardly onto the feast on the table, and for the first time he took into account the scale of it.
A deep sigh fell from Sangyeon’s lips. “Boys, I said everyone had to introduce themselves.”
A boy farther down the table groaned, and pushed back his chair a little to be able to cross his arms over his chest.
“My name’s Sunwoo,” he spoke, his red hair falling in front of his eyes a bit.
In front of him, a boy with bright, pink hair narrowed his eyes at him, an unreadable expression on his face. “I’m Chanhee.”
Juyeon nodded, shifting uncomfortably on his chair.
“Well?” Sangyeon asked, looking at the boy who had yet to speak.
“Younghoon,” the tall one with jet-black hair mumbled, looking as disinterested as humanely possible, and if Juyeon wasn’t already feeling a little hurt by all the cold attitudes he was receiving, he would have found Younghoon’s visible efforts to ignore him to be funny. Hilarious, even.
Juyeon tried not to take it personal. There were a lot of them, maybe having to introduce yourself to a new housemate so many times could become repetitive, and boring. It did hurt a little, though, when a bunch of his new roommates refused to even look him in the eyes.
“Great!” Sangyeon exclaimed as soon as Younghoon was done. Everyone looked visibly relieved that the uncomfortable introductions were over.
Sangyeon leaned a bit over the table to be able to make eye contact with Juyeon. “Officially, Juyeon, welcome to our house, and I hope you can get along with all ten of us”, he smiled, and briefly raised his glass in Juyeon’s direction.
Everyone around the table took the gesture as a cue to start eating, although before the sounds of plates scraping could fill the room, Juyeon caught one of the red-haired boys, Changmin, muttering an annoyed “eleven” under his breath.
Juyeon diverted his gaze away when he felt Changmin’s seatmate, Sunwoo’s gaze burning holes through him. He instead figured he should serve himself some food, but the options were just so diverse that he didn’t really know what to pick. He hadn’t had a meal that looked anything like that in front of him in over a decade.
“Hey,” the boy next to him, Hyunjae, spoke to get his attention. “You should try the beef! Kevin made it, so you should really take some before it runs out.”
Juyeon smiled, replying a small thank you before reaching for the meat. It was easier afterwards to pick bits and pieces from the other dishes, filling his plate nicely, but not going overboard as he was still a guest, after all, and he didn’t want to overstep any boundaries.
The others were clearly used to meals like that, as Juyeon noticed overfilled plates being passed around between the boys. In diagonal from him, Haknyeon was just receiving a plate Jacob was handing him at a shaky arm’s length, a piece of chicken falling into Sunwoo’s plate in the process.
“Wait”, Juyeon suddenly realized while staring at the empty chair in front of him. “Didn’t Sangyeon say there was ten of you?”
Hyunjae looked across the table, eyeing the empty spot in front of Juyeon. Kevin, sat next to Haknyeon, joined the conversation with a nonchalant shrug.
“Oh, that’s Eric”, he informed Juyeon. “Sometimes he just disappears for a few days, but he’ll come back eventually.”
“He’s not that great anyway, so you’re not missing out on much” Hyunjae supplied mischievously, making Juyeon laugh.
“Hyung! Where did you put the cupcakes?” Sunwoo asked suddenly from next to Kevin, loud voice cutting off all conversations around the table
“There should be ten of them somewhere,” Kevin indicated, searching the table for them.
“Here!” Jacob pointed at the plate in the middle of the table, somehow right in front of Sunwoo.
Juyeon found it a little amusing to see these colorful cupcakes in the middle of a table covered with elements of such a sumptuous dinner, but he chose not to comment on it.
“You only made ten?” Sunwoo shrieked as he leaned in to grab two of them with his bare hands, stacking them into his plate.
Just when Juyeon thought he was done, Sunwoo reached again, this time at the same time as Haknyeon did.
“Leave some for me!” Sunwoo complained loudly when he saw Haknyeon taking two, and he swatted the boy’s hand away in order to take another one.
So these are the kids Sangyeon was talking about.
“Dear god, Sunwoo, please stop embarrassing us in front of Juyeon,” Kevin laughed.
“Oh, that’s his name?” Sunwoo replied nonchalantly, not really seeming to care about Juyeon as he started munching on his purple cupcake.
“You’re impossible”, Haknyeon laughed, leaning across Kevin’s lap to punch the red-haired in the arm.
“And you stole my cupcakes,” Sunwoo groaned.
“You took three of them,” Haknyeon objected.
“Because I’m sharing with Changmin hyung!”
That seemed to be true, at least, Juyeon realized when he saw Changmin already half way through one of the cupcakes.
“You can’t share three cupcakes between two people.”
“Watch us,” Sunwoo glared at him.
“I would watch, if I wasn’t wearing this stupid thing,” Haknyeon aggressively pointed at his eyepatch, but Sunwoo had decided he didn’t care when he turned to his right to Changmin who had just been laughing at the whole thing.
Juyeon almost spat out his noodles when Sunwoo leaned in, placing a green cupcake between his and Changmin’s lips, and the two boys took a bite at the same time. Big crumbs fell from their mouths in between them, neon green frosting and rainbow sparkles getting all over their lips and cheeks, making them both burst into laughter and sending the rest of the cupcake crumbs falling onto their laps.
“Gross,” Chanhee eyed them, scrunching up his nose.
“Totally disgusting,” Hyunjae agreed, before turning to Jacob on his left with a smirk. “Let’s try that.”
“M-maybe later,” Jacob stuttered, his cheeks turning a light shade of pink, and Hyunjae seemed content with the answer, if the way he leaned his head onto Jacob’s shoulder was anything to go by.
“When I asked you to behave,” Sangyeon glanced at Sunwoo, “it meant to not do exactly what you just did. Was it not clear enough?”
“Ooh, Sangyeon’s getting mad,” Younghoon giggled excitedly.
“What if we also want three cupcakes?” Hyunjae asked.
“Yeah, Kevin, you didn’t make enough for everyone,” Changmin taunted, clearly just trying to add fuel to the fire.
“I did make enough!” Kevin immediately protested. “Red couple eats three, I don’t eat cupcakes, Jacob doesn’t eat cupcakes, Haknyeon can have three if he wants, Hyunjae hyung has never eaten cupcakes before so I don’t know where he’s coming from with this, Sangyeon hyung can have his one, Younghoon hyung and Chanhee too, and Eric is clearly not here to eat any, so where’s the problem? I even made an extra one for Juyeon!”
He was panting a little after his little outburst, which left everyone else around the table staring wide-eyed at him. Juyeon took it Kevin was probably not the type to get angry often.
After a long silence, Sangyeon let out a small sigh, despite the subtle smile growing on his lips. “I’ll make cupcakes again tomorrow for everyone, how does that sound?”
To Juyeon’s surprise, both of the angry-looking boys, Sunwoo and Haknyeon, immediately turned into this soft, childish image at the house owner’s offer.
“Good,” Haknyeon spoke in a small, shy voice.
“Thank you hyung,” Sunwoo smiled, cuddling up to Changmin, who ruffled his hair with a roll of the eyes.
If Haknyeon had looked friendly ever since the beginning, it was an odd sight to see Sunwoo with a smile on his face, but it reassured Juyeon that maybe his new housemates weren’t all that bad.
Sleep didn’t come easy to Juyeon that night. Tossing and turning in his too large bed, in the silked sheets almost too soft for his roughed-up body, he oddly couldn’t make himself comfortable. On his mind were the nine new faces he’d come to meet over dinner, the friendly boys and the distant ones, bringing a smile to his face as he remembered their funny antics.
Everything felt like a movie he’d thrown himself into unknowingly, but this was his new life now, and maybe he could get used to it.