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“I hate you, you know that?”
“Yeah, yeah, save it for after we get our grades for this lab, Huang.”
Renjun is pretty sure he’s been cursed. He must be, because ever since he got back to campus after winter break, he hasn’t been able to catch a break. First, he left his bedsheets at home, which ordinarily wouldn’t be a big deal because he could just run to Target and grab some, but of course the one time Renjun actually needed to go to Target, his car broke down. That was incident number two.
So not only was he sheetless and carless, but his dorm room was freezing because his roommate refused to turn the heat on. Luckily, he was able to get a ride to Target from one of the girls in his department, but Jimin wasn’t free until Saturday, so Renjun had to spend an entire week shivering underneath the NCIT pride blanket he got at freshman orientation.
And, of course, because everything terrible comes in threes, the latest incident occurred just this morning in his Chem 315 lab, barely a week later. It was all his lab partner’s fault, if you ask Renjun. Luckily, Renjun is Dr. Qian’s favorite and managed to convince him to let them redo the experiment, but the only time the lab was available was tonight at 8 p.m. So now, Renjun is stuck inside a chemistry lab on a Friday night with Jaemin Na of all people, when he should be in his room watching the next episode of Business Proposal.
“Like,” Renjun barrels on. “I don’t think I’ve ever despised someone as much as I despise you, Jaemin.”
“Are you done cleaning the equipment yet? I don’t wanna spend the rest of my Friday night in a chem lab with you.” Jaemin couldn’t sound more bored with the whole ordeal if he tried, and something about his blasé attitude pisses Renjun off like nothing else.
“At least that’s one thing we can agree on.”
“Well, maybe if you hadn’t ruined our experiment during the actual lab time, we wouldn’t have to be here in the middle of the night fixing your mistake.”
“My mistake? Are you serious? I wasn’t the one that wrote down the wrong amount of hydrochloric acid!” Renjun argues. “You’re just lucky I’m not suing you for damages.”
“Oh, big deal, you got a tiny drop of acid on your bag. You can’t even tell it’s there, quit being a baby.” Before Renjun can protest, Jaemin continues. “I wrote down the right number, by the way. It’s not my fault you can’t read.”
“Are you kidding? Even Dr. Qian wouldn’t have been able to read that horrific chicken scratch. Just because you’re pre-med doesn’t mean you have to have shit handwriting.”
Jaemin clenches his jaw in annoyance, and the sight fills Renjun with a rush of satisfaction.
“Whatever. Just hurry up, would you?”
Renjun wouldn't have been able to hold back his snort at Jaemin’s petulant tone even if he wanted to. Sometimes it’s just too easy to rile him up.
“Alright, alright, don’t have a hissy fit.” Renjun rolls his eyes before collecting his things from their station, including the bag he’d spilled acid on earlier that day. Jaemin’s right, the spot is no bigger than the tip of a pencil, and, truthfully, the slight discoloration is nearly impossible to pick out, but that doesn’t mean Renjun is gonna let it go anytime soon.
“If you’re so eager to spend more time with me, Huang, just say so. I’d be glad to add you to my roster,” Jaemin winks and grins wickedly, a pointy canine poking out from between his lips.
He knows Jaemin’s only saying that to get under his skin, but Renjun’s face heats up in rage anyway.
“Trust me, you are the last person I want to spend time with, Jaemin,” Renjun says. “Come on, let’s get out of here before we end up as one of the ghost stories all the RAs tell the freshman during move-in weekend.”
Renjun and Jaemin finish putting the equipment out on the racks to dry and double-check all the lids on the acids and bases they used—Renjun triple checks the lid on the hydrochloric acid. Then, they grab their bags and start down the hallway towards the exit. It’s a new moon tonight, and Renjun can hardly see anything when he looks out the windows.
“You don’t really believe in those ghost stories, do you?”
“You don’t?” Renjun wouldn’t necessarily call himself a connoisseur of the supernatural, but who is he to say what exists and what doesn’t?
“You’ve gotta be kidding me. Of course I don’t, they’re just stupid stories the RAs tell the freshies to scare them into staying in on the weekends.” Jaemin scoffs. “Ghosts aren’t real.”
“You say that now, Jaemin, but one day when you’re being haunted because you didn’t heed the stories, don’t come crying to me.”
“Please, even if a day comes when I’m being haunted by some ghost—which, it won’t, because ghosts aren’t real—you are the very last person I’d go to for help.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Renjun’s promised himself time and time again that he won’t let Jaemin provoke him, yet time and time again the same thing happens. Renjun doesn’t know what it is, there’s just something about Jaemin that irritates him like nothing else, and every time they get into these petty arguments, Renjun can’t help but react.
“Come on, have you seen you? I could knock you over with a single breath if I wanted to,” Jaemin taunts. “It’d be as easy as blowing out birthday candles.”
Renjun huffs in annoyance and quickens his pace, leaving Jaemin alone in the hallway, laughing to himself. He’s determined not to let Jaemin win this time.
“Aw, come on, Huang. Don’t be like that. Where’s your sense of humor?” Renjun can hear Jaemin’s steps quicken behind him and picks up his own pace, nearly jogging through the dim hallways of Newbourne Hall.
“No wait, don’t tell me,” Jaemin’s voice is getting closer and something simmers in Renjun’s stomach that feels a lot like excitement, but Renjun ignores it. “It’s stuck up your ass, right? Right beside that stick that’s been there since August.”
Renjun doesn’t bother responding, instead choosing to grip the strap of his messenger bag harder and sprint down the hall, a laugh bubbling up from his chest and leaving his lips before he can stuff it back down.
“Wha—hey! No fair! That’s cheating!”
This time, Renjun doesn’t bother trying to hide his laughter. When the exit finally comes into view, Renjun ducks his head and runs faster, putting his arms out in front of him to push open the door. Just before he can cross the threshold, he feels a small gust of wind ruffle the hair against his nape and sees Jaemin beside him. They both tumble out of the building and down the steps as fast as they can on shaky legs—Renjun hasn’t done that much running since his required P.E. course during freshman year, don’t judge him.
Renjun wobbles over to the grass beside the steps and collapses onto his back, staring up at the flickering yellow lamppost and the pitch-black sky beyond it, stars hidden by a thick layer of dark clouds. He puts a hand on his chest as he catches his breath, a smile on his lips.
“I definitely won.” Renjun boasts, breathless.
“You’re ridiculous, you know that?”
“If I’m so ridiculous then why’d you run after me? Scared to be left alone with the ghosts?”
“Please, the only ghosts in Newbourne would be students that Dr. Qian’s failed. I can handle the spirit of a 20-year-old chem major. All I’d have to do is promise to do their ghostly lab reports for them and they’d fall at my feet.”
Renjun snickers. Jaemin’s not wrong.
“The man’s got jokes.”
“Of course, I have to balance out your negative energy somehow, Huang.”
“I’m not negative.”
Jaemin raises his eyebrows in an oh really? manner, and Renjun decides that that’s enough Jaemin interaction for one night. This is feeling entirely too much like comradery for his taste.
“Whatever,” Renjun grumbles as he stands and wipes the grass from his sweats. “One can only be so cheerful when they’re stuck with you as a lab partner two semesters in a row.”
“Hey now, you had the chance to switch this semester. You chose to come back to this, Cupcake.”
“Oh come on, don’t act like I really had a choice.”
Jaemin shrugs, looking entirely too pleased with himself, and Renjun decides he can’t have that.
“It was either be stuck with you for another four months or be stuck with Nick James who’s taking this class for the third time in a row .”
“...And is that the only reason you didn’t pick him as your partner?” Another toothy grin splits his face, and Renjun’s momentarily struck by how many teeth he has. He doesn’t snap out of it until Jaemin cues him with an amused “Hm?”
Renjun kicks the grass under his shoe and mumbles something.
“What was that? Sorry, I couldn’t hear you.”
More mumbling.
“Huang, if you want me to be able to hear you from all the way down there, you’re going to have to speak up. I don’t speak gnome.”
“You—!” Renjun lunges for Jaemin, who deftly sidesteps him, and Renjun has to catch himself on the lamppost to keep from falling.
“Well? We don’t have all night here. I need my beauty sleep, you know.”
Renjun mutters to himself about there not being enough hours in the day to fix Jaemin’s face before steeling himself and glaring at Jaemin. Even in the semi-darkness—someone really should fix the lightbulb in this lamppost—Renjun can make out the amused squint in his eyes.
“I didn’t pick Nick James because we had a tiny disagreement in Bio 210 last semester, okay?”
Jaemin tsks. “Now, now, it’s not good to lie. I believe it was a bit more than a ‘tiny disagreement,’ wasn’t it?”
Renjun rolls his eyes. One of these days, Jaemin is going to get what’s coming to him and Renjun is going to sit there and watch it happen with a well-deserved bowl of popcorn.
“Why bother asking me if you already know, Jaemin? Do you always have to be the most annoying person in the room?”
“You know better than most that I do, Huang,” Jaemin winks. “Well, if you’ve forgotten I guess I’ll just have to remind you. I believe you two argued over whose equipment was whose which culminated in you calling him an— ahem —'incompetent oaf with less of a brain than the headless fish’ we were dissecting that day, am I right? Do correct me if I missed something.”
“Fuck off, you know you’re right.”
“Careful, you’re running out of potential lab partners, Huang, so you better start being nice to me, or else it’ll be slim pickings for you next year. Word travels fast in the chem department, you know?”
“Are we done here? Or do you plan on being a pain in my ass for the rest of the weekend?”
“Oh yes, I’m done now. Wouldn’t want to waste any more of your precious time with my dazzling company.”
“Much appreciated.”
Renjun grabs his phone from his pocket and checks the time. It’s already after 11, which means he’s spent entirely too much time with Jaemin for one day. The rest of the campus may as well be abandoned; none of the other buildings in the quad have any lights on, and the only light in the quad is coming from the handful of lampposts illuminating their facades. Jaemin and him are the only ones stupid enough to be outside in the middle of January so late instead of wrapped up in their beds with a hot drink.
He has a few missed texts from his roommate, Yangyang, telling Renjun that he’s going to the Nu Epsilon Omega party and not to expect him back in the dorm tonight. Renjun chuckles, knowing full well that he won’t see Yangyang’s walk of shame until well into tomorrow afternoon. Yangyang drinks himself to oblivion at every NEO party he goes to and, even though he claims he isn’t going just to see a certain someone, hooks up with some senior from his Sports Med class—Kanhung, or something like that.
Renjun texts him back, even though he knows it’s pointless and that, by this time, Yangyang is probably challenging every brother he can find to see who can shotgun a White Claw faster. Renjun pities his liver.
Renjun
just left the lab, heading back 2 the dorm
use protection!!! im not taking u to the health clinic again
just bc u want to “see what itd feel like raw” yang
When Renjun puts his phone away, he notices that Jaemin’s mood has taken a very sharp turn. Rather than the taunting grin that usually adorns his face when he’s talking to Renjun, Jaemin’s lips are curved downwards in a deep frown and his eyes are narrowed in a way Renjun’s never seen on him before. Renjun’s always thought that Jaemin has the worst posture of anyone he’s ever met—aside from Jisung, the freshman he tutors in calc—but now his back is ramrod straight, hackles raised like a cat. His knuckles are white from the grip he’s got on his phone, and Renjun wants to ask him if something’s wrong, but he’s not sure how to navigate this new side of his lab partner.
Before Renjun can decide if he should ask Jaemin what’s wrong or leave him alone and walk back to his dorm for the night, the flickering bulb in the lamppost explodes, casting them in total darkness as shattered pieces of glass rain down on them.
Renjun gasps, throwing his hands up to shield himself from the glass. He reaches for his phone again so he can turn the flashlight on, but a cold hand grips his wrist before he can grab it, eliciting a surprised yelp from Renjun.
“Chill, it’s just me,” Jaemin’s voice is right next to Renjun’s ear and it sounds more serious than Renjun’s ever heard, even though he seems to be trying to play it off.
“Great, now will you let go of me? I was trying to grab my phone.”
“No time.”
“‘No time?’ Jaemin, what do you—”
Jaemin yanks Renjun’s arm—hard—cutting him off. Another gasp falls from Renjun’s lips, only for Jaemin to immediately shush him. Jaemin drags him down the sidewalk and through the grass in the direction that Renjun knows leads to the back of the Newbourne building, but, considering it’s a dead-end, he has no idea why they’re going that way.
“Jaemin—”
“Quiet.”
“Jaemin, let me go.”
No response. Renjun rolls his eyes, annoyed with Jaemin’s dramatics.
“Why are we walking this way? This just leads to a dead end. We should be going the opposite way towards the dorms. Or at least towards the quad where there are more lights.”
More silence. Figures. Renjun may as well be talking to a tree at this point.
“Did that glass hit you on the head or something? Quit being ridiculous and let me go so I can take you to the Urgent Care—or, better yet, so I can go home and forget you exist for the next 48 hours.”
Renjun isn’t sure where exactly they are now due to the whole not being able to see thing, but he gets his answer when Jaemin pulls him forward and pushes him against the wall with both of his hands on Renjun’s shoulders. Jaemin must be standing close because Renjun can feel puffs of hot hair on his forehead from Jaemin’s mouth.
“Jae—mmph!” Jaemin’s hand clamps down on Renjun’s mouth and Renjun feels what little patience he has left for his lab partner shrivel up. He tries to pull the offending hand from his mouth, but Jaemin is shockingly strong for such a skinny guy, and his hand doesn’t budge no matter how hard Renjun pulls and yanks.
Then, something in the air shifts. There’s a tension that wasn’t present before, and Renjun feels Jaemin’s fingers stiffen around his cheeks at the same time the hairs on the back of Renjun’s neck stand up. As uncomfortable as he is, Renjun can hardly do more than hold his breath in anticipation of what’s coming, even if he has no idea what it is or why his body is reacting like this. Maybe it’s Jaemin’s influence, who’s gone ruler-straight in front of him, crowding Renjun into the wall ever so slightly.
Usually, Renjun would punch anyone who gets this close to him, but that’s normally because he’s fending off drunk frat guys who can’t take a hint. This —whatever Jaemin’s doing—doesn’t feel anything like that. This feels almost…protective? As if Jaemin is trying to shield Renjun from whatever’s causing him to act so odd. It’s a weird feeling, knowing Jaemin is trying to protect him from something in his own way, and not one that Renjun particularly wants to spend time analyzing, so he’s almost glad when the moment is interrupted.
Almost, because what comes next is infinitely worse than any crisis Renjun could possibly have over his lab partner’s weird behavior.
“Here kitty-kitty, come out, come out wherever you are,” A voice croons from the direction Renjun and Jaemin came from. It’s low and raspy, sounding much older than Jaemin and him, and there’s an underlying coldness to it that makes Renjun shiver.
“Come on, kid, you know what I’m here for, so don’t make this harder than it needs to be, alright?”
Renjun thinks the voice can’t possibly be talking to them, but there’s no one else on campus this late at night, much less in the dead-end alley behind the chemistry building.
Renjun looks up at Jaemin and can barely make out the features of his face in the dark, but there’s one thing that stands out about him. Renjun blinks rapidly and looks again, certain he must be hallucinating from the lack of air.
Jaemin’s eyes are red.
That can’t be right, Renjun thinks desperately. That’s impossible.
And yet, here Renjun is, staring helplessly into eyes the color of ripe cherries, so bright they stand out even in the pitch-black night. They’re impossible to miss, and Renjun swears they’re glowing. He distantly wonders if whoever just called out to them will be able to locate them from the faint light coming from Jaemin’s eyes alone.
Renjun is abruptly thrown back into the moment by the sound of metal scraping against the side of the building, getting closer and closer to their hiding spot with every passing second. Renjun grips Jaemin’s arm, eyes wide in alarm, but Jaemin doesn’t look anything more than pensive.
Jaemin looks at Renjun from where his gaze was glued to the direction of the voice, and Renjun feels his heart pound when their eyes meet. Renjun can hardly see Jaemin, but he wonders what his own face must look like to Jaemin. Eyes wide in fear, face clamped under Jaemin’s iron grip, and chest rapidly rising and falling with quick, shallow breaths.
“I’m only gonna ask you nicely one more time, kid,” the voice calls again, this time much closer and combined with the infernal scraping of metal on concrete. “Either come out and give me what I came for, or I’ll come and take it from you myself. Maybe I’ll even snack on that sweet-smelling human you’ve got back there with you. Man, I haven’t smelled blood that sweet in months.”
Renjun freezes, fear gripping his heart and squeezing with an unforgiving strength. He doesn’t dare move or even breathe, being unable to focus on anything other than the alarms of primal terror blaring in his head.
Oh God, I’m gonna die, aren’t I?
Jaemin releases his grip on Renjun’s face as if he’s been burnt, eyes scanning Renjun from head to toe and back again as if it’s Renjun’s fault this is happening to them. Jaemin staggers back, conflict painted clearly on his distressed features, but he looks away from Renjun, towards the voice again, and Renjun can see in his eyes that he’s made his decision.
Renjun lunges forward and grabs one of Jaemin’s arms with both of his hands, gripping him hard enough to bruise. He rapidly shakes his head when Jaemin turns back to look at him, but Jaemin removes Renjun’s hands with his other arm as if Renjun is nothing more than an errant piece of clothing, and offers him a poor imitation of the teasing smile Renjun had been cursing not 10 minutes ago.
Jaemin’s always had what Renjun considers unnaturally pointy teeth, but the canine that usually juts out over his bottom lip has never quite looked like that. Renjun swears it was never that long, and somehow it looks even sharper than usual—if he didn’t know any better, he’d say it looks downright predatory, but Renjun does know better, so he fights off the thought. As strange as Jaemin is, Renjun’s never had any reason to believe he’s anything other than ordinary, but now, he doesn’t know what to think.
Before Renjun can stop him, Jaemin steps out from their hiding spot and goes to face the disembodied voice that Renjun knows will come back to haunt him every time he closes his eyes. He sinks to the ground, knees tucked into his chest and hands held out in front of him uselessly.
“Look,” Jaemin says, a slight tremor to his voice. “I don’t want any trouble.”
The voice laughs—a sharp, broken sound that grates Renjun’s eardrums and makes him wish he’d covered his ears with his hands instead.
“Oh yeah? You shoulda thought of that before you went and stole something that wasn’t yours, Fledgling.”
The end of the voice’s sentence is punctuated with a harsh metal scrape of warning.
“Maybe you guys should’ve held onto it better,” Jaemin growls out, and the hairs on Renjun’s arms stand on end at the sound. “I hardly see how it’s my fault you lot don’t know how to keep track of your things.”
“You’re cocky for a Fledgling, I’ll give you that.”
“I get that a lot.”
There’s a brief pause. Renjun imagines Jaemin and the voice sizing each other up, but he can’t see a scenario where Jaemin comes out on top, especially since the other guy is clearly armed.
“Hm, I betchya do,” the voice sounds vaguely amused and Renjun wishes for the hundredth time that night that Jaemin would learn to shut the fuck up for once.
“Enough of this bullshit,” Jaemin growls again, voice like gravel. “I’m not giving it to you, so leave before I make you regret coming out here. It’s pretty cowardly of you to threaten a defenseless human like this, don’t you think, Hyungwoo? I can’t imagine Taeyong would be pleased to know what you’re doing.”
There it is again, the word human being used as if it doesn’t apply to everyone involved. The first time it was easier to ignore because Renjun thought it was the ramblings of a psychopath, but now that Jaemin’s used it, too, Renjun doesn’t know what to think.
The voice startles Renjun out of his musings by laughing again, and Renjun whimpers, wanting nothing more than to wake up in his dorm room to Yangyang’s obnoxious alarm going off and realize this whole night was nothing more than an elaborate nightmare.
“As if you could face Taeyong after what you’ve done, traitor,” the voice—Hyungwoo—scoffs.
Before anything else can be said between Jaemin and Hyungwoo, Renjun hears a final scrape of metal against the wall and that’s the only warning he gets before a fight breaks out.
Renjun resolutely stays where he’s sitting, both because his legs are too weak to carry him away and because he’s too engrossed in the sounds of fighting.
Smug and annoyed grunts alike can be heard from the other side of the wall, along with constant strikes of metal from Hyungwoo’s blade. There’s also the sound of something tearing, though Renjun can’t tell what exactly is being torn, and the distinct smell of blood, sharp and coppery in his nose, so palpable he can taste it.
It’s impossible to tell who’s winning, but Renjun prays to every possible god that may be listening for Jaemin to win. Or, at the very least, survive.
After what feels like hours of fighting, most of the sounds come to a halt, and Renjun can hear labored breathing mixed with crude laughter, though he can’t tell whose. There’s a brief pause, and suddenly everything is too quiet. Blood rushes in Renjun’s ears with the abrupt silence, and he can vaguely hear two voices whispering to one another.
Renjun cranes his neck to try and hear what they’re saying, but before he can make anything out, the voices cut out with a sharp slice through something meaty. Immediately after, he hears something heavy hit the ground and roll a few feet away, and Renjun’s stomach roils with the knowledge of what the blade just cut off.
Oh my God, he’s dead. Oh God, Jaemin’s dead. Hyungwoo killed him! He killed Jaemin and I’m gonna die next, oh my God…
Renjun can hardly see straight with the circles his thoughts are running in, but the one point of clarity he has is this: He is going to die tonight.
Footsteps echo against the building walls as the winner of the fight makes their way closer to Renjun, and Renjun is shaking so badly he couldn’t get up and run even if he wasn’t having a mental breakdown.
Just as they turn the corner to face Renjun, Renjun slams his hands against his eyes, squeezing them shut as tears run down his face in thick rivulets. He isn’t sure when he started crying, but that hardly seems to matter at this point.
Metal clangs against the ground as the figure drops the blade, and Renjun startles so hard his head slams back into the wall. He dares a glance up to see the person who’s going to kill him and feels his blood run cold at who is standing over him.
It’s not Hyungwoo, but Jaemin, only Renjun has never seen another person—much less the infallible Jaemin Na—look the way he does right now.
Jaemin’s red eyes are definitely glowing now, so intense it’s hard for Renjun to make out the rest of his face. There’s no doubt that his teeth are longer than usual anymore, as both of Jaemin’s canines jut out from his mouth and hang over his bottom lip nearly halfway down his chin. He’s breathing heavily, chest and shoulders rising with each gulp of air he swallows down.
Still, as frightening a figure as Jaemin paints right now, none of that is more terrifying than the state of his clothes.
Jaemin’s jacket sleeves have been shredded so they hang from his shoulders like thick fringe, and the white t-shirt he was wearing is now a dark black or brown color— wait.
Renjun feels a shudder rip through him as another tidal wave of primal fear swells over him and threatens to pull him under.
Jaemin’s shirt is soaked from collar to hem in blood. His chin and throat, too, are stained scarlet, still dripping onto his shirt and the ground beside Renjun. Renjun isn’t sure how he hadn’t smelled the pungent odor before, but now that he’s noticed, he can’t stop the immediate twisting of his stomach.
He barely has time to angle his head to the side before he retches up everything he’s eaten in the last week until he’s leaning on his forearms, shaking as he dry heaves. Everything is spinning, and there are dark spots crowding at the edge of his vision, but Renjun is conscious enough to force a weak “don’t— ” from his lips when he feels a hand touch his back.
Renjun loses time again as he leans over his own puke on the hard concrete, tiny pebbles burying themselves in his elbows every time he adjusts his arms. He doesn’t know how long he sits there trying to catch his breath and convince himself that none of this is happening, but he can hear Jaemin trying to catch his own breath behind him. He’s glad Jaemin took the hint and hasn’t tried to touch him again—or, God forbid, tried talking to him—but with every breath he takes, Renjun can’t help but wish he’d leave him alone.
Don’t get him wrong, he’s glad that Jaemin is okay—thrilled, really, he couldn’t imagine having to take on whoever this Hyungwoo person was—but Renjun’s brain can only handle so much insanity before it starts to shut down, and they passed that threshold a long time ago.
Eventually, after Renjun has calmed down enough to lean back against the wall without the threat of throwing up again, Jaemin speaks up. Renjun keeps his eyes closed, hoping the darkness behind his eyelids will shield him from whatever this conversation is going to hold.
“Are you okay?”
If Renjun could do anything other than grimace, he’d laugh. As it is, he ignores Jaemin and hopes he leaves him alone. Renjun can hardly bear to look at Jaemin in the state he’s in, he certainly can’t hold a conversation with him right now.
Jaemin, of course, has never been very good at leaving Renjun alone.
“Can you stand, at least?” When Renjun still won’t respond, Jaemin continues, words tripping over each other in their haste. “Look, I know I’m the last person you want to talk to right now, and after tonight, if you never want to see me again, I’ll leave you alone, I swear. But you have to get up and let me help you because I don’t know if Hyungwoo brought anyone else and I really don’t think I can fight off any more of those guys tonight.”
Renjun pops one eye open. His night of firsts continues because Jaemin sounds scared. This is not his arrogant lab partner who makes everyone fall at his feet, or the fierce predator that just killed a man, this is another side of Jaemin entirely, and Renjun is getting whiplash from trying to keep up.
Renjun isn’t really sure what to make of this side of Jaemin, but what he does know is that he’s not exactly keen to run into anymore… whatever they are, and Jaemin is his best chance of getting out of this alive right now.
He protected you earlier from Hyungwoo , Renjun reminds himself. You can trust him.
But can he?
Renjun looks up at Jaemin, at the evidence of carnage covering him from head to toe, at the distressed downturn of his lips, pointy teeth making his frown look almost comical when it should be terrifying…
…and makes his decision.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
Renjun nods. “I trust you. Don’t ask me why, because I can hardly believe it myself, but I trust you, Jaemin.”
Jaemin clamps his mouth shut from where he’d been staring at Renjun, slack-jawed, and a tiny voice in the back of Renjun’s mind wonders if Jaemin ever accidentally bites his lip with his elongated teeth.
While Renjun works on standing up on unsteady legs, Jaemin gets to work making himself look like he didn’t just murder someone. He chucks off his torn jacket and t-shirt and tosses them in one of the empty dumpsters before taking a lighter out of his back pocket and dropping it in with the clothes. Renjun stares at him with barely concealed incredulity.
“Do you have experience burning bloody clothes?” It’s not quite the question Renjun meant to ask, nor is it specific enough to get the answer he wants, but Jaemin chuckles humorlessly all the same.
“More than I should.”
Well, that’s not exactly what Renjun wants to hear. His face must reveal his thoughts because Jaemin is quick to offer him a teasing grin.
“I don’t normally make a habit of killing people, if that’s what you meant.”
Renjun nods absentmindedly. Jaemin, still shirtless, approaches him and despite his earlier declaration of trust, Renjun stumbles back a step. Jaemin’s expression falters.
“I thought you said you trust me.”
“I—I do.”
“Alright,” Jaemin doesn’t sound convinced. “Well, are you wearing a shirt under that hoodie?”
“Am I what ?” Renjun splutters, nearly losing his already precarious balance against the wall.
Jaemin smiles then, all teeth, looking every bit the predator that Renjun’s learning he is.
“I can’t really walk around without a shirt on for the rest of the night, can I? That’d only draw more attention to us. Plus, it’s like, 30 degrees right now. I’m cold, Huang.”
Cheeks flaming, Renjun works on getting his hoodie over his head without falling on his ass in the process, grumbling, “Since when has Jaemin Na ever not wanted attention?”
When Renjun finally gets the hoodie off and tosses it to Jaemin, he’s still grumbling—this time about how Jaemin better hope he doesn’t get any bloodstains on his sweatshirt.
Jaemin laughs as he wiggles it over his broad shoulders, the fabric stretching awkwardly.
“Damn, Huang, I knew you were tiny, but this is ridiculous.”
Renjun lunges for him. “Shut up, Jaemin.”
Jaemin holds his hands up in a placating manner, though it isn’t very convincing with the crooked grin still inching up his face.
“Come on, we better hurry,” Jaemin reaches for Renjun’s hand but pauses a few inches away, giving Renjun the final choice. Renjun grabs Jaemin’s wrist.
“Where are we going?” Renjun asks as they start to make their way back to the front of Newbourne. The stench of fresh blood is strongest here, and Renjun sidles closer to Jaemin and squeezes his eyes shut. Jaemin reaches his other hand over to tuck Renjun’s head against his shoulder and whispers to him, despite them being the only ones around.
“You don’t have to look if you don’t want to, but he’s gone.”
“What?” Renjun looks up at Jaemin, brow furrowed in confusion.
Jaemin jerks his chin beside them and, after a moment’s hesitation, Renjun turns to look at Hyungwoo’s final resting place, a gasp leaving his lips not a second later.
“It’s—he’s gone .”
Jaemin hums in affirmation before pointing to a small pile of ash on the ground. “That’s what happens when they— we —die. No evidence.”
Renjun takes a minute to process. His head is swirling with questions and possible answers and he doesn’t know if he should ask. The scientist in him is begging for Renjun to at least ask what Hyungwoo was, but that would also mean asking what Jaemin is, and Renjun isn’t sure he’s ready for that conversation, despite his burning curiosity.
After a few minutes of walking through campus in comfortable silence—well, as comfortable as two people can be after one just murdered someone and the other witnessed it—Jaemin speaks up.
“Aren’t you gonna ask?”
Renjun considers this. He looks up at Jaemin and, even in the dark, he can tell how nervous he is. His eyes are still red, but they aren’t as bright anymore; they’re much duller, almost blending in with the darkness.
“Do you want me to?”
Now it’s Jaemin’s turn to splutter.
“Wha—what do you mean ‘do you want me to’?”
“Do you want me to ask?”
“Well, I mean—kind of? Isn’t that weird to go through all of that and not ask?”
“Alright then. I read about how to handle these situations, so—”
“You what ?” Jaemin’s face goes pale—well, paler than usual, anyway—and Renjun has to bite his cheek to keep from laughing. How could Renjun have ever been scared of him, even for a moment?
“Well, I should start with the basics and ask you how old you are, right? But then, of course, I’ll transition to asking how long you’ve been this age. Maybe comment on how your skin is pale white and ice cold, while I’m at it. You don’t really talk like you’re from another time—just another planet—so that part’s out.”
Renjun can see the exact moment that Jaemin realizes what he’s doing, and this time he can’t hold back his grin when the dots finally connect.
“You figured it out?”
Renjun nods. “Once I calmed down enough to think about it, there was really only one answer that made sense. The fangs and glowing eyes aren’t very subtle.”
“Ah, right,” Jaemin rubs his free hand against the back of his neck, cheekbones dusted a bright pink. “It’s easy to forget they do that when I can’t actually see them. Are they still red?”
“Yeah,” Renjun says. “But they aren’t glowing anymore so you can hardly tell. It looks like they’re fading back to brown.”
“Good.”
“Not that I’m not extremely curious about, well, everything that’s happened tonight, but I’d feel much better if we talked about this when we aren’t walking in the middle of the very open quad. So, where is it that you’re taking me?” Renjun pauses. “You aren’t taking me to a vampire house, are you?”
It’s the first time either of them has said the word, but Renjun can hardly be bothered with that fact when flashes of what a house full of vampires would look like. Would he even be safe there? Sure, he trusts Jaemin well enough, but he’s not stepping foot anywhere near vampires he doesn’t know.
Jaemin’s laughter breaks him out of his worrying. Renjun frowns.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Jaemin says, but the constant giggles he can’t seem to suppress beg to differ. “It’s just—do you know Jeno Lee?”
Renjun frowns at the change of subject but answers all the same. He’s used to Jaemin taking the long way to answer his questions by now.
“The sports science major? Vaguely. I’m pretty sure he hangs out with the guy my roommate’s been hooking up with.”
“Oh, Kunhang? Yeah, he’s pretty cool. I didn’t know he and Yangyang were still seeing each other.”
Renjun whips his head up to look at Jaemin, who keeps his gaze forward, mouth curved in a fanged grin.
“How do you know that?”
“Hm? Know what?” Jaemin winces when Renjun steps on his foot. “How do I know that Yangyang is your roommate or that he and Kunhang have been bumping uglies since Halloween?”
“Both, but never say ‘bumping uglies’ ever again, you absolute moron.”
Jaemin rolls his eyes, not deterred by Renjun’s griping in the slightest. He’s bound to have developed a tolerance after being lab partners with Renjun for so long, Renjun figures.
“I was complaining about you one day when me and Jen were hanging out with Kunhang and he mentioned that you were Yangyang’s roommate. But to answer your other question, I’ve known since the first time they met at a NEO party that they’ve been doing the dirty tango.”
“First of all, ew. I’m banning the phrase ‘dirty tango’ from your vocabulary, too. Second of all, excuse you, I am a delight.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jaemin pats his head. “Sure you are, Cupcake.”
“Whatever.” Renjun rolls his eyes. “So what’s Jeno Lee got to do with this?”
“Well, dearest Huang, we are currently en route to Jeno’s house—he lives off of Glenwood, don’t give me that look—and let me assure you when I say that his place couldn’t be further from a vampire house if he tried. Well, sort of.”
“What does that even mean, Jaemin?”
Jaemin winks as he starts running across the quad, dragging Renjun behind him despite Renjun’s (many) protests.
“You’ll see!”
Whatever Renjun was expecting with a description like “sort of not a vampire house,” it certainly wasn’t this.
Jeno lives in an unassuming, single-level house that’s painted a nauseating seasick green on the outside and an abominable shade of orange on the inside. The carpeting doesn’t look like it’s been changed since the 80s and, quite frankly, neither does the furniture. Renjun makes a mental note to avoid contact with the ambiguously textured sofa in the middle of the living room.
Luckily, the furniture in the kitchen does seem to have at least been purchased in this century, and Renjun isn’t ashamed to admit the sigh of relief that left his lips when Jeno wordlessly guided them to sit at the kitchen table instead of the sofa.
Renjun has no idea if Jeno has roommates, but he really hopes that they don’t get a craving for a midnight snack anytime soon if he does because he’s not sure how they’d explain the fading crimson in Jaemin’s eyes or the leftover tremors of fear wracking themselves through Renjun’s body at irregular intervals.
Renjun can hardly believe it himself, and finds himself looking over at Jaemin every so often as he recounts their night, forcing down the bubble of fear that threatens to explode each time the overhead lights catch on his fangs. Jaemin wiped the remaining evidence of blood from his skin almost as soon as they walked in the door, so now all that’s left of the fight is a scratch about the length of Renjun’s pinky finger on his neck. Jeno tried to convince Jaemin to let him clean it and put a bandage on it but Jaemin refused, claiming that it wasn’t worth it when he’d just heal by tomorrow, anyway.
When Renjun isn’t watching Jaemin, his eyes slide over to Jeno on the other side of the table as he tries to figure out where Jeno could possibly fit into all of this. He clearly knows what Jaemin is, and didn’t look at all surprised when he opened the front door to find them shivering on the porch.
He certainly doesn’t look like a vampire, though Renjun admits he may not be the best judge of that after everything he’s learned—and is still learning. His eyes don’t look anything other than dark brown, even in the light, and his canines look to be normal in both length and sharpness. Jeno isn’t as cold to the touch as Jaemin is, either; he gave Renjun a jacket to burrow into when they got settled in the kitchen, and Renjun could feel the heat radiating off of him when their fingers grazed each other.
Still, there’s something about him that puts Renjun on edge, even when he’s done nothing but welcome them with open arms. Whatever that something is, it’s unnerving enough that Renjun hasn’t been able to relax in the 20 or so minutes they’ve spent with him. His heart rate spikes each time Jeno glances at him while Jaemin tells him what happened, and every little sound in the house makes him jump. Renjun tries to convince himself it’s just the adrenaline that hasn’t worn off from the attack earlier, but he’s more inclined to listen to his gut than ever now that he knows there are vampires stalking the night.
Caught up in his racing thoughts, Renjun doesn’t even notice when Jaemin is done talking and only realizes when the silence becomes deafening.
“What?”
Both Jaemin and Jeno are staring at him, Jaemin like the cat that caught the canary and Jeno like he’s worried Renjun’s suffered brain damage. He supposes that wouldn’t be totally wrong on Jeno’s part given that Renjun’s brain feels about as solid as a 7/11 slushy right now.
“Tired, Huang? Come here, you can rest your pretty little head on my shoulder if you can’t stay awake,” Jaemin teases, patting his shoulder.
“I’m fine,” Renjun grounds out between clenched teeth. “Maybe if someone would bother explaining things to me instead of retelling what I already know, I’d have a reason to pay attention.”
“Then let’s start explaining,” Jeno says, leaning across the table to rest his arms on its surface, and Renjun can’t ignore the difference in muscle mass between Jeno and himself. If things go south tonight, you’d hardly be able to call it a fair fight.
“Renjun?”
Renjun jerks his head up, making eye contact with Jeno who looks like he’s waiting for Renjun to answer something.
“What?” Heat floods Renjun’s cheeks as Jaemin snickers beside him.
“I asked you if you know what Jaemin is.”
Renjun nods, looking to Jaemin to see if he should say it. Jaemin shrugs.
“A vampire, right?”
Jeno smiles. “Yup. I’m impressed, not many humans would figure it out so easily.”
“It was pretty hard to ignore the glowing red eyes and fangs,” Renjun says, sarcasm dripping from his voice before he freezes and chances a look back at Jeno, hoping he hasn’t offended him. He might be a friend of Jaemin’s, but until Renjun knows exactly what Jeno is and where he and Renjun stand, he’s going to be on his best behavior.
Luckily, Jeno doesn’t seem angry.
“I can see why you and Jaemin get along so well, you both have quite the mouths on you, don’t you?”
“We do not get along, Jeno,” Jaemin pouts. “I literally come here every day after lab to complain about how much we don’t get along.”
“Hey!”
“Come off it, Huang, I know you do the same with Yangyang. He always spills to Kunhang, and he can’t keep his mouth shut if his life depended on it.”
Renjun sits back in his seat, arms crossed and mumbled curses leaving his lips.
Jeno laughs.
“Well,” Jeno says. “Jaemin was always a lot more cautious around me, though I can’t say I blame him. I wouldn’t be eager to reveal myself to a vampire hunter, either.”
Even though he says it lightheartedly, Renjun feels his heart clog his throat. He was definitely right to be cautious around Jeno when they first sat down, and even though he’s just a human, Renjun can only imagine the type of person it takes to be a vampire hunter. Jeno Lee is definitely not someone Renjun ever wants to cross, of that he is sure.
“I didn’t find out until recently, actually,” Jeno continues. “It was just a few months ago, and by total accident. Jaemin and I were already friends at that point, as I’m sure you know, but he was always so careful not to accidentally expose himself, so I had no idea he was anything other than a scraggly human.”
“I resent that comment!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jeno rolls his eyes at Jaemin’s complaint. “Do you wanna tell him the story or should I keep going?”
Jaemin sighs. “Keep going, I guess. You’re already telling him.”
Jeno nods. “So, one night at the end of October, I was out doing my regular patrols of the woods around campus, just in case any vampires or other unsavory creatures of the night were lurking—no offense, Jaem—”
“None taken.”
“—when I heard an animal squealing in distress. I knew it was some sort of small rodent, which didn’t really warrant my attention, but it was a slow night so I figured I’d check on it, just for something to do. And what do you know!”
“What was it?” Renjun asks, finding himself more interested in a story about Jaemin than he ever thought he’d be.
“It was Jaemin! The dude was drinking from some poor squirrel he probably caught scouring the forest floor for nuts and had no idea I’d snuck up on him,” Jeno frowns as he recalls the memory. “You were really bad back then, Jaem. I know that night is still fuzzy for you, but bro, I never should have been able to sneak up on you like that.”
Jaemin sighs as if he’s heard that from Jeno a million times already.
“I know,” he turns to Renjun and explains. “Normally I feed on blood bags from the hospital down the road. I’ve got a friend who’s doing his residency there right now, and he always sneaks me a few whenever he can, but there was a big traffic pile-up earlier that month—you remember?”
Renjun nods.
“Yeah, so the hospital needed a shit ton of blood for patient transfusions and Jaehyun couldn’t spare any, so I was pretty much running on fumes since the last time I’d had any was in the first week of October.”
Renjun remembers how run-down Jaemin was at that time last semester; it’d sparked more than a handful of arguments between them because Renjun thought he was just being lazy and making his life hard on purpose. He feels guilt settle like a pit in the bottom of his stomach.
“So, yeah,” Jaemin concludes with a shrug, sounding utterly bored with the whole thing. “My senses barely work at a human level if I haven’t eaten in a while, and I’d held off on the squirrels as long as I could because those things are gross—I mean, do you have any idea what they taste like? No, you don’t, and trust me when I say you don’t want to. Yuck. But dire times and all that.”
Renjun can only nod again while Jeno laughs, full-bodied, before continuing where he left off.
“To make a long story short—I found him, tried to kill him, he tried to kill me, rinse and repeat, and then eventually we both got tired and I asked him if he wanted a burger, and he said he’d rather have some of my blood, so we came back here and did exactly that. The rest, as they say, is history.”
Renjun sits stunned, blinking as he looks between Jeno and Jaemin, who, to their credit, seem completely unaffected. Jaemin takes in Renjun’s frozen form and laughs.
“Bet they didn’t cover this in your college readiness class, did they, Cupcake?”
Renjun takes a few more seconds to collect himself, deciding he’ll unpack all of that later. There are more pressing matters at hand right now.
“So there are actual vampires running around? They exist?”
“Oh, so you’ll believe in ghosts you’ve never seen but not vampires? What am I, chopped squirrel?”
Renjun ignores Jaemin, keeping his gaze on Jeno, who nods solemnly.
“Yup, lots of ‘em. Lots of other supernatural predators, too, like werewolves, demons, faeries, genies, sirens—”
“He gets it, Jen.”
“Right. Sorry, Renjun. But yeah, there are lots of creatures that go bump in the night, especially around here, so you’ve gotta be careful from now on.”
“Why?”
“Because now, word will have spread that you’re under Jaemin’s protection after he killed Hyungwoo tonight.”
“Why would that have anything to do with me? Wasn’t it just a random attack?”
Jeno gives Jaemin a look, and Jaemin suddenly finds the strings on Renjun’s hoodie fascinating.
“If you won’t tell him, then I will.”
Jeno stands from his chair and walks across the kitchen to open a door by the refrigerator that Renjun hadn’t noticed before. The door creaks open on rusty hinges and Jeno flicks on the light before standing back with his arms crossed, nodding for Renjun to go in.
Renjun slowly stands from his own seat before walking towards the door on shaky legs, but before he can get far, Jaemin bolts up and grabs his arm.
“No way,” Jaemin says. “I don’t want him involved in this.”
“You need to tell him the rest, Jaem,” Jeno says, narrowing his eyes in Jaemin’s direction. His fingers flex where they’re gripping his upper arms, corded muscle peeking out from underneath the sleeves of his t-shirt.
“He already knows too much.”
“No, he knows enough to get him killed. There’s a difference.”
A pause. Jaemin flicks his eyes over to Renjun, deliberating. Renjun can’t look away, entranced by their sanguine hue. They’re so glassy, Renjun swears he can see his reflection staring back at him in gruesome clarity.
“You need to tell him the rest so he knows enough not to be killed, Jaemin.”
Jaemin says nothing but doesn’t break eye contact with Renjun, who refuses to look away first. Finally, Jaemin sighs in defeat and drops his hand from Renjun’s.
“Your call, Huang. Once you go down there, there’s no turning back.”
Renjun doesn’t hesitate to walk over to Jeno, who raises a brow in Jaemin’s direction as if to say, “See?”
“Whatever,” Jaemin says and pushes past Renjun to stomp down the stairs into what Renjun assumes is Jeno’s basement. “It’s your funeral.”
Jeno chuckles before offering Renjun another bright grin. “Don’t worry about him, he’s always like that.”
“Oh trust me, I know.”
If someone told Renjun that Jeno’s basement is actually the set for Supernatural, he wouldn’t bat an eye. The basement is huge, spanning a distance that must be at least twice the size of the floor upstairs, and most of the wall space is dedicated to maps and all sorts of bladed weapons. Renjun can count at least a dozen maps, all depicting their town in different decades and all in varying states of decay.
There’s a corner on the far side of the room that’s bare of anything aside from a black circle with a star in the center and a thick layer of white powder—is that salt?—surrounding it. Renjun shudders and quickly looks away.
The rest of the floor space is a maze of tables and sealed equipment bags, and Renjun is careful to tread lightly around them while Jaemin and Jeno walk through it all with practiced ease; their steps are light but sure, a quality born from spending hours upon hours down here, Renjun’s sure.
When they get to the center of all the chaos, there’s another sofa—this one much less questionably stained, thankfully—and a small coffee table in front of it. There’s another map of the city on the table that looks like the most recent of the maps down here, and sitting on top of the map are three things that Renjun takes in with quick succession: a laptop, a flash drive, and a vial of blue liquid with a label that’s been haphazardly ripped off.
“What is this place?” Renjun asks, a mixture of awe and fear in his voice.
“This is where I used to train and store my gear,” Jeno says, sitting down on the couch and pulling the laptop into his lap. “But now it’s our base of operations.”
“Operations? For what?”
“Last chance to be free of this, Huang, you sure you wanna know?”
“Just tell me, Jaemin. Mysterious doesn’t suit you.”
Jeno laughs at Jaemin’s pout.
“I’ll let you tell this story, Jaem.”
“Fine,” Jaemin plops down on the couch next to Jeno. “I’m guessing you don’t know anything about vampire society, right?”
“Aside from the stuff in Twilight? No.”
“Right, so, all vampires belong to covens, which work kinda like human gangs in the sense that power flows through a pyramid. There’s the boss, who’s the oldest and most powerful in the coven, at the top, and then you have the boss’s legion of die-hard supporters and protectors at the next level. As you go through each level of the pyramid, power gets more and more scarce until you eventually reach the bottom. That’s for Fledglings—which are newly-turned vampires—and vampires that have become useless to the coven either because they can’t fight or they fucked around and found out with the boss. Make sense?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Great. As with human gangs, vampire gangs also deal with some… less than legal things, shall we say.”
“What do you—”
“It could be weapons, technology, drugs, or even people. Whatever it is, covens usually stick to their own niche once they’ve found it, and that’s how they do business with the other covens and convince humans to join their ranks, either as a vampire or a walking blood bag. Nine times out of ten, it’s the latter, but any human with enough vampire poison in their system can hardly think straight enough to see through their lies.”
Jaemin spits out the last part like it’s left a bitter taste in his mouth, and Renjun gets the inexplicable urge to comfort him.
“Do you belong to a coven?”
“No,” Jaemin snarls, and Renjun startles back, bumping into one of the other tables.
“He did.”
“Shut up, Jeno.”
Jaemin glares at Jeno only for Jeno to glare back with equal heat. Renjun doesn’t know how he can be so unaffected by Jaemin’s wrath.
“We’re telling him everything, remember? It’s for his safety.”
After the longest 30 seconds of Renjun’s life, Jaemin breaks his staring contest with Jeno and slumps back into the couch.
“I was part of the Lee Coven. It’s headed by Taeyong Lee who’s older and more powerful than just about any other coven leader in the country. He’s got dozens of officers that are ready to die for him at any given moment and spies spread throughout the other covens to gather intel on the other leaders and their movements. I didn’t stick around long enough to get a headcount of everyone, but there are at least a couple hundred vampires in the coven.”
“You said that every coven has its niche, right?” Renjun asks.
Jaemin nods.
“What’s the Lee Coven’s specialty?”
Jaemin reaches forward to grab the vial of opaque blue liquid and holds it up for Renjun to take.
“This is their latest product. They call it Lysophane. It’s a muscle relaxant that could paralyze an elephant with a single drop and works almost instantaneously after consumption.”
Renjun looks in horror at the vial. It’s nearly full, and imagining the damage just this single bottle could do leaves Renjun dumbstruck.
“Humans don’t stand a chance against something like this,” Jaemin continues. “Taeyong plans on mass-distributing it to all the covens in the country so they can use it to drink as much and as often from humans as they want without having to worry about them fighting back. If that’s not fucked up, I don’t know what is.”
Jeno pipes up for the first time since Jaemin started talking to mutter out an, “Amen.”
“And—”
“There’s more ?”
Jaemin nods and grabs the third item on the desk.
“This is a flash drive with the location of every manufacturing plant under Taeyong’s control. It’s all encrypted, so we haven’t been able to hack it yet, but there could be dozens of plants. Hell, there may even be hundreds, we have no idea. Taeyong’s reach is hard enough to wrap your head around when you’re his right-hand man, much less when your team is nothing but a human vampire hunter and a fledgling at the bottom of the food chain.”
Renjun nods slowly, trying to process everything. There’s so much to take in that he knows he’ll forget half of it by the time he wakes up tomorrow, but he’s determined to hear the rest before he leaves tonight. He needs to know what exactly he’s getting into here, if for no other reason, to better protect himself.
“So,” Renjun says when he’s gathered his thoughts. “What exactly are you two planning?”
“Easy,” Jeno says. “We’re gonna track down every manufacturing plant and shut it down before the real production can begin.”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember I said the effects of Lysophane are almost instantaneous?”
Renjun nods.
“Taeyong’s scientists are still working on perfecting the formula. I managed to steal one of the early batches on my way out of Taeyong’s assistant’s office after copying all the plant locations to the flash drive, but it’s just a prototype. I’m working on analyzing the compounds that make it tick right now, but you know how slow chemical analysis work goes, especially with an unknown sample.”
Renjun nods again, not sure what to say to that. If there’s even anything to say. Hyungwoo’s words from earlier are echoing in his head, finally making sense.
He must’ve come to take back the sample and flash drive from Jaemin.
“They don’t take survivors, Renjun. Covens are known for their brutality, but everyone fears Taeyong.”
Renjun’s eyes widen, and, for a moment, he forgets that he’s supposed to be scared out of his mind.
“What?” Jaemin doesn’t seem to realize what he’s done, and Renjun isn’t sure if that makes him feel better or worse.
“You just called him Renjun,” Jeno says.
Jaemin’s eyes widen in realization, and he stubbornly looks away from Renjun, who hasn’t been able to tear his shocked gaze from Jaemin. “Never been called by your first name before, Huang?”
“Not by you.”
Renjun doesn’t mean for it to sound as significant as it does, but there’s no changing what he’s said now. Or what Jaemin said. He’s still wrapping his head around the fact that it took surviving a vampire attack together and planning to cripple the most powerful vampire gang in the country for Jaemin to finally call him by his name.
“Well,” Jaemin clears his throat, sounding wildly uncomfortable. “Don’t get used to it. It was a one-time thing. I was just—nevermind. Whatever! Just forget I said that.”
Jaemin’s quickly working himself into hysteria, and Renjun can feel his lips curve into his first genuine smile of the night. When Jaemin’s not being a colossal pain in his ass, he’s not too bad.
“So?” Jeno prompts, looking between Jaemin and Renjun with obvious amusement. “This is your last chance to back out, Renjun. Are you in or are you out?”
“Would it even matter if I said I wanted out? I’m kinda stuck in this now, aren’t I?”
Jeno shrugs sheepishly. “Pretty much, but I figured it’d be polite to ask.”
Renjun takes his time to answer and looks at Jaemin—at the too-small hoodie he took from Renjun with a miniature Moomin embroidered in the center, at the eyes that have only just reverted back to a harmless dark brown, at the hands that did everything they could to protect Renjun and then some, despite their rocky relationship—and finds he already knows his answer.
It’s the easiest decision he’s ever made despite it also being the biggest and possibly—no, definitely —the stupidest. Renjun still doesn’t fully understand how vampire society works, and he has no idea how many vampires like Hyungwoo they’ll encounter after tonight, but Renjun looks at Jaemin and knows without a shadow of a doubt that he trusts him and wants Jaemin to be able to trust him the same way—even if he’s still his annoying lab partner.
“I’m in.”