Chapter Text
Hematology.
It’s not like Jongdae can miss the sign.
It’s huge, lit up by glaring neons. And it’s red, because of course, blood, so they had to make it fucking red.
It looks pretty new, just like the rest of the ward. Ever since it had become clear that the disease could decimate the human population, a number of hematology facilities had started popping up overnight, like mushrooms, all over the country and around the world.
Assistance had to be provided everywhere. Time was an essential factor when you literally never knew how much of it you had left. And you certainly didn’t want to waste it on a commute to the nearest city big enough to boast advanced enough medical clinics. Imagine sitting on a four-hour train ride, stone-dead for half of it, while the remedy to your death sentence waits for you in the capital. The government had the good sense to move fast, and funds to erect the blood cathedrals where humans went to beg for a cure appeared almost magically.
Jongdae sighs and walks towards the red sign. The automatic sliding door underneath it opens in front of him, revealing a spotless looking corridor with a dozen numbered doors and an empty looking waiting room.
More than a hospital ward it looks like an office building, but Jongdae has to remind himself that it’s probably because the first phase of the procedure is simply bureaucratic.
At least, that’s what his general practitioner had assured a shell-shocked Jongdae upon telling him without mincing words that he tested positive to the disease, right before ushering him to the door, in a hurry to get rid of him. It felt a lot like he feared Jongdae would suddenly drop dead on the premises, which would have been unseemly. He’d thrust some papers with the name of a specialist in Jongdae’s hands, wished him well and shut the door while Jongdae puked in the shrubbery out of sheer terror.
Three months later the queasiness hasn’t quite left Jongdae, although the new doctor, a qualified hematologist, has been a lot more considerate and helpful. Jongdae tries to school his stomach into cooperation and sits on an empty chair in the waiting room of the Siheung Hematology Ward, as far away as possible from the only other occupant. He gives a small, grim nod to the man, then pretends to politely mind his own business.
But he’d seen it. He’d seen the guy’s arms. A patchwork of band aids, bruising, haphazard bandaging, a butterfly needle nestled so comfortably in the crook of his arm like it’s been there for ages.
It probably has been. The only reason why the guy’s arms would be so tormented would be that they kept drawing blood tests and doing injections. Kept trying all the stopgap measures available and collecting samples to monitor the stages of the illness and to send all over the country, maybe even abroad, to find a matching donor.
Jongdae has to resist the impulse to cover his immaculate arms. Unseen, the single mark of the previous day’s puncturing passes for yet another of his moles, his skin hasn’t been ruined.
Yet.
He barely hears the man’s name being called, wondering whether he’ll have to share his destiny.
“Kim Jongdae.”
Jongdae flinches to alertness. A nurse is looking at him over the rim of her notepad, and gestures for him to follow her.
The furry ears on top of her head flutter impatiently when he doesn’t move. After the initial shock, Jongdae eyes them warily. If she notices his distrust and the excessive distance he keeps between them she doesn’t react, probably used to awkward reactions ranging from bewilderment to distrust. Jongdae finds it pretty ironic that it has to be a hybrid, the first he meets in a long time, to be the Charon that will ferry him towards his fate.
The beating of Jongdae’s heart is so fast and strong in his chest, it’s hard to believe the disease could stop it at any given moment, without giving him any particular warning.
And yet.
The sudden phone call that summoned him to the appointment didn’t bode well. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do if they have more bad news for him. All Jongdae wants is for his mother to stop sounding so relieved when he answers her calls every morning, like she’d thought she’d never hear his voice again. He’d like to go to bed at night without wondering whether he’d wake up again the next day, too. It’s a somber existence, and he’s not holding up well.
He follows the hybrid nurse to one of the offices, where his hematologist is waiting for him.
Dr. Choi is rubbing her forehead with one hand, the shape of her eyes and the downturned corners of her lips indicating she probably did not have the pleasure to bear good news during the previous meeting with the waiting room guy.
Jongdae’s stomach drops. But when she sees him she loses the grim look. That’s a good sign, right? If she’s just pretending, Jongdae will literally scream.
“Hello, Jongdae. Please sit,” she says.
Jongdae glances again at the nurse holding the door open for him, but she’s standing at a safe distance and he doesn’t want to stare openly. Not that he has enough brainpower to analyze her animal appendages, anyway. He barely has enough to slip inside and sit down on the chair instead of collapsing on the floor next to it.
He’s been officially under Dr. Choi’s care ever since he turned positive. She’s an older, experienced professional who handles all of Siheung’s weird cases, as she likes to call them. He likes her because she doesn’t beat around the bush, although there are glimpses of something maternal in her manners. Maybe it’s the crow’s feet when she smiles (not often) like she cares.
He saw her regularly, even after she had passed him on to a long line of other doctors, all of whom had fancy titles and zero concrete answers. She regularly updated him on the stages of her search for a solution to his weirder-than-most case. She was prone to brutal honesty, but she had somehow managed to keep him from yeeting himself out of the nearest window so far, so props to her.
Jongdae almost never wanted her search to end. It meant getting some answers. He dreaded those answers.
“Kim Jongdae, B-, 27 years old,” she muses to herself. “Registered in the program since December as positive to the disease, with no familiarity.”
Jongdae nods. That’s all he is, right? A twenty-something freak accident in an otherwise immaculate bloodline. Because that’s just his luck, of fucking course. He used to be Jongdae, an easygoing, fun guy with family and friends and hobbies and a job and a passion for noraebangs and sweaters and flowers. Once the “positive” label was made official, as if someone had stapled it to his forehead, everyone forgot that he was anything more than a sick guy stuck in the disease’s bull’s-eye, so he eventually forgot who he was, too.
He didn’t even want to get tested; his parents, uncles and aunts all tested negative for the genetic mutation that allows the disease to spread, so it was almost impossible for him and his brother to catch it. Emphasis on “almost”.
It was only in December, ten years after the onset of the disease, that he went for a blood test for a completely unrelated reason and accidentally sent the whole hospital into a frenzy.
Just in time for the holidays. Jongdae’s family didn’t have a very happy Christmas.
People like him were just not supposed to exist. His situation was unprecedented, so he became a sensation in the medical community. And that was certainly the last field in which he wanted to become famous.
To make matters worse, and to add to his medical marvel resumé, he was ineligible for the only treatment proven to be effective.
Drumming her fingers on the table, Dr. Choi flicks through his folder to make sure everything is accounted for. “The results are in, and as of yesterday we couldn’t find any further life-threatening alterations in your system. You’re still stable. How are you feeling today?”
What a pointless question. Most of the victims had suddenly dropped dead while feeling at the top of their game.
Jongdae has forgotten the last time he’d spoken out loud. He lowers his head to look at the pinprick on his left arm and picks at the tiny scab. “I’m okay.”
“Good. Before you leave we’ll take another sample to update today’s values on your chart, give you all the necessary papers, and then you’ll be all set.”
“All set for what?”
“They didn’t tell you? We got a match for you.”
With a gasp, Jongdae looks up at her. A match. A match! Meaning he won’t die?
He needs to call his mom. Like, right now. And he needs to cry a little.
Wait. Hold on.
“There must have been a misunderstanding,” he starts, voice shaky. “You said I am not eligible for treatment.”
“No misunderstanding. We have a matching hybrid donor for you.”
He shakes his head. “N-no. I can’t do it. Everyone told me I can’t enter the program with a hybrid. You told me I couldn’t do it. It’s a whole month, I can’t last that long! I thought we were going to start IV therapy with reagents, or something!”
“Don’t fight me on this, Jongdae. I know your medical record by heart, and I am telling you that the moment I put your data in the blood bank we got a hybrid match.”
“But—”
“I asked for your samples to be cross-tested twice because I knew you would make a fuss. Then I consulted three specialists. I got the green light. The treatment itself is perfectly safe. And your match is not an ordinary hybrid anyway, it’s like he was made for you. Living with him won’t trigger any reaction.”
Jongdae barely hears what she’s saying. Just a couple hours ago he was contemplating his own mortality, now he’s being slingshotted into talking about an actual feasible cure.
“What? Who?”
She closes the folder to type on her computer. “I talked to him on the phone two hours ago. His name is Kim Minseok. B-. He lives in Seoul, which is where you’ll have to go to start the treatment. Tomorrow is March 1st, so a few spots have opened in the clinic near Yonsei University. We’ve already notified him, and he’s available and willing to start immediately. He’s ready when you are.”
Jongdae just keeps staring at her, his mouth open.
“He—do I? Have to?” He swallows. “A hybrid match? Are you sure?”
She waits patiently, then pushes the keyboard aside and takes off her glasses. With her hands joined in front of herself on the desk, she clears her throat. “Considering that most hybrids registered or eligible for the program have already donated, it’s a wonder we found a match this perfect for you on your first try. Someone from South Korea, and his specific kind of hybrid. Rarely in my career have I seen two charts overlap so perfectly. I wouldn’t waste this opportunity. It seems that this disease gets to everyone eventually, despite the stop-gap therapies, and we don’t know how long you’ve had it. You could have been positive for years. The longer you have it, the riskier it gets.”
She doesn’t have to tell him that. Jongdae knows. The statistics are appalling.
She sighs. “So I’m sure I don’t have to stress how dangerous it would be for you to avoid or postpone a treatment that has a 99% efficacy rate.”
Statistics again. He coughs. “According to the statistics I shouldn’t even have this thing. And yet.”
“Jongdae. People who got the disease have already sorted it out, or perished. According to the statistics you shouldn’t even be still alive in the first place.”
Fair enough.
“What if it doesn’t work? What if I’m in the 1% inefficacy bracket?”
“If you don’t even try, we’ll never find out.”
“Okay, but what if?”
She sighs, an understanding look in her eyes. “Why are you doing this to yourself? I just gave you really good news. You should try to be a bit more positive.”
“Oh, I’m plenty positive,” Jongdae grumbles, because all he’s left with is questionable humor.
She wears her glasses again only to glower at him from behind the lenses, opening a drawer to pull out some forms.
“Did you do it?” Jongdae asks, impulsively. “Did you have the mutation?”
She doesn’t seem offended by the sudden privacy breach. “Yes, and I caught the disease.”
“Did you sort it out with the blood bank matching? Like me?”
“Yes.” She pauses. “Why are you so worried? The fact that he’s a total stranger or the fact that he’s a hybrid?”
“Uh, both? I don’t know, it’s a huge thing and… I’m quite shocked, to be honest.”
“It is a huge thing. But the guy seems willing to prioritize you. He didn’t ask to reschedule. It’s a good start, isn’t it?”
Jongdae forces himself not to comment that it was not that hard for hybrids to be available on such a short notice. For the duration of the procedure, hybrids entered in the program were automatically exempt from work, paying rent and taxes, and basically every single deadline stopped mattering. They also got paid. The government wanted to make sure to squeeze every last bit of salvation out of the precious creatures.
“I mean, he could, if he needed time. I could get an injection, do another pill cycle, I don’t know.”
“He is ready. Are you?”
“I mean, I guess. I could leave tomorrow, no problem.”
“Good. I know the facility. It’s state of the art. You two will be given a room well-equipped and spacious enough not to stifle a hybrid, so you should find it to your liking. It’s only a month. And then you’ll be set for the rest of your life.”
It’s a no brainer, Jongdae knows it. He’s just too cautious to allow himself to feel relieved, or worse, hopeful.
“Okay. Let’s do this. Where do I sign?”
If Jongdae weren’t still living in a constant desperate attempt at computing the proximity of his own death, he would feel the appropriate joy and relief that a solution is within reach. In fact, it’s been offered to him so immediately and so readily after everyone pointed out that he was literally the last person on earth that could apply for a cure, that he struggles to wrap his mind around the gigantic U-turn that his life prospects have just taken.
Compatibility trials took a couple of months, approximately the lapse of time since Jongdae’s diagnosis and his last meeting with Dr. Choi. He knows many people were not as lucky and waited for years for a compatible hybrid to show up somewhere in the world. He knows many people die waiting; sick humans outnumber hybrids. There’s not enough blood for everyone. His parenthesis of agonizing uncertainty between his previous condition of blissful ignorance and this new state of dazzling hope only lasted two months.
It had been quite traumatic to find out he was probably going to die only in December, after years of considering himself safe because he was dumb enough to assume that the laws of genetics would apply to him like they apply to the rest of the world. To be fair, the entire medical community had apparently shared his wrong beliefs. After they found him, Ministries of Health started compulsory testing even for individuals belonging to “safe” genetic strains. And they did find someone else, thank you very much. They found three more unsuspecting humans. Three. In the world. Talk about recessive genes, geez.
The silent killer, as it is commonly known, is a disease that affects only humans who carry a specific genetic mutation in their red blood cells. Nearly 30% of the human population carry this mutation, which doesn’t cause much damage on its own, just like the disease doesn’t even affect humans who don’t have the mutation; it’s when they meet that they bring out the worst in each other and become deadly.
The thing about the mutation is that it is hereditary, which is why Jongdae’s case is so unique.
They even forced a paternity test on his father. That was kind of awkward, definitely not the happiest day in his parents’ marriage.
According to all studies, the mutation first appeared in humans around the same time when hybrids were developed, in the first decades of the twentieth century. Some scientists thought a bit too highly of themselves and went wild with mass experimentation for the “enhancement of the human race”. When they weren’t actively cutting up guinea pigs, they passed off questionable substances as medicines to patients of all kinds, or recklessly slipped those poisons in meals and beverages to study the effects on a large scale of subjects.
Since said effects were subtle at first, all those people remained unaware and were then left to their own devices. They had children among themselves and with otherwise healthy humans, mixing those still unknown effects in very dangerous dna cocktails.
It went sideways, of course. When they wrapped up the experimentation, all they got were hybrids—humans with animal appendages that looked cute but had no real purpose—and something that could potentially make humans go extinct, give it a couple more centuries.
You know what they say. Fuck around, find out.
The finding out in question was a nearly undetectable red cell mutation that acted like a ticking bomb, a completely asymptomatic genetic variation that would either kill too sparsely to suggest a pattern, or lie dormant in a lot of family trees for about 90 years. It would have just continued to flow through the bloodstream of any unsuspecting human, minding its own business, until some random new disease broke out somewhere, probably thinking the poor mutation looked lonely.
The silent killer attaches itself to the mutated red cells and doesn’t let them go. It clings to its host’s blood and proliferates, making the number of mutated red cells randomly outbalance the regular ones, eventually resulting in a fulminating, massive heart failure.
Jongdae’s impending doom.
There had been a few years of panic, when Jongdae was a teen and the disease first showed up. Researchers and authorities kept running around like chickens with their heads cut off while the public brewed conspiracy theories (that were so spot-on) and the markets speculated on remedies and vaccines (that were so useless). At first no one could tell that what was happening was the result of far older meddling, so the hypotheses of a pandemic caused by chemical warfare was the most credited.
Misinformation and hysteria were always on the agenda. There were lockdowns and looting. Some people took it as their cue to go off the grid or start the purge. Survivalists thought it was doomsday and hid in their bunkers. A variety of new extravagant religious cults were started. There were some mass suicides. A couple of wars broke out, because why the hell not. It was honestly a miracle that no world leader got trigger happy and accidentally nuked a neighboring continent.
Amidst the commotion, the mutation kept claiming its victims, quickly, relentlessly, silently.
Then finally someone paid attention to hybrids, noticed that they seemed to be immune and made the brilliant connection that all that experimenting from the previous century gave hybrids a plethora of issues, but spared them from developing blood mutations of the treacherous kind. Their red blood cells were also mutated, but when mixed with a human’s faulty ones, they would cancel them out.
All previous attempts at finding a cure had been a shot in the dark, but hybrids were the key, they had always been: researchers started from scratch and a decisive cure was eventually developed, and it worked.
Up until Dr. Choi’s cryptic announcement, such a cure had still been unquestionably out of Jongdae’s reach. Because not only he had been blessed with an inexplicable and fucked up genetic heritage, but also with a stupidly hypersensitive immune system, diabolical enough to send him straight into anaphylactic shock should he ever breathe around any living thing with fur.
Hybrids included.
Day 1
As much as he’s confused and nervous and exhausted, once Jongdae arrives at his destination he finds that he has nothing to complain about, at least from a strictly material point of view. He’s the first to arrive, so he’s free to snoop around.
His home for the next month obviously looks like a hospital room and is too blindingly white and meticulously clean to allow him to forget exactly where he is and what’s the purpose of his stay. Yet it’s bigger than he expected, as Dr. Choi had promised, and even though he’d only been allowed to keep his phone and few other personal items (after they had accurately sanitized them and put it in a sort of unbreakable ziplock bags, as the case may be), it seems like he won’t be needing much.
There’s one en-suite bathroom with two separate cabinets containing enough toiletries and towels for a football team. There are two single beds at the opposite sides of the room, each with its own shelves, locker and table. There are more pillows than he could imagine himself ever needing, and comfortable cotton clothes to last him months. There’s also a TV, small but quite new.
There’s an opening on the door, currently sealed, connected to a sanitizing chamber which will process everything they might need and all their food. And there’s a tablet PC, where they can fill in forms to make requests for objects that the staff will enter through the same chamber after maniacally sterilizing them like everything else, and an intercom, for communication with the medical staff that will remain outside.
A small platoon of nurses had disinfected Jongdae from head to toe as well and conducted all kinds of examinations, from urine testings to cholesterol levels to whole STD panels, which had been unnerving and intrusive and borderline mortifying, although necessary. Then they dressed him in a change of gray loungewear with the clinic’s logo on the tag that reeks of yet another variety of sanitizer, placed a semi-permanent butterfly needle in his arm and declared him good to go. Well, good to stay.
Jongdae is a homebody. He wouldn’t have trouble pretending it’s just a cozy staycation, if it weren’t for the fact that the only window overlooks the hallway through which apparently doctors and nurses will occasionally spy on them, and there is enough medical equipment on the table to make him actually recoil at the sight. He avoids inspecting it for the time being.
And the biggest issue of all, his actual soon to be hybrid roommate.
There is a scratch post at the foot of one of the beds. A scratch post.
Once Jongdae identifies it as what it is, he’s a little alarmed. Does his new roommate have actual claws?
Jongdae hasn’t been in the vicinity of a hybrid since he was in preschool. And now he’ll have to live with one for 30 days.
What could possibly go wrong?
He’s been given a rundown of what awaits him countless times in the span of 24 hours, so he has a pretty clear idea of how close their cohabitation will be. They have to be isolated to make sure no external agents like viruses could lead to dramatic complications. Jongdae will receive two blood bags a day, and in order not to drain or turn his hybrid match severely anemic, he’ll give him two blood bags of his own.
He hopes he won’t become the scratch post in the process. He would like his blood to be drawn exclusively through needles, thank you very much.
Jongdae has only been in the room for about twenty minutes when his attention is caught by movement outside. It must be his match, hybrid Kim Minseok.
For a minute his view is blocked by two nurses wearing about any protection they could without being in an actual hazmat suit, busy fixing up Minseok’s patch on his arm. Jongdae suddenly wishes they’d put him in a hazmat suit, too, maybe that’d help. And then—
For a second Jongdae thinks the disease got to him. His heart skips a beat or two.
Wouldn’t that be pretty ironic, perfectly in line with his whole shouldn’t-even-be-sick thing? Dying literally ten seconds away from his first transfusion?
But then his heart resumes working, although racing a bit, and Jongdae tries to identify the temporary malfunction with the surprise of seeing a tail. A very long, very furry tail. It’s covered in long, snow white fur, longer and fading to gray towards the tip. It looks like a cloud as it idly waves from left to right behind its owner.
Surely, Jongdae’s mini heart-attack had to be because of the tail, either that or the big, triangular ears that stand tall on top of the hybrid’s head. They are barely lined with gray, broad at the base, darker at the tip, with tiny white tufts jutting out. His hair is also white, if only different in texture, but if Jongdae looks closely there are some darker, silver stripes scattered in between strands.
The hybrid must be some sort of beautiful fluffy white cat.
It’s basically Jongdae’s worst nightmare.
Another alarming disruption in his heart rate is reported when the hybrid turns to look through the window and smiles upon seeing him. Surely, this time around the shock depended on the elongated and pointy canines. Not on the handsome face around that smile or on the lean gray-clad body underneath it or anything.
When the hybrid—when Minseok comes in, Jongdae is only partially reassured by the fact that he also looks nervous and keeps at a distance. Maybe he has been informed? And he doesn’t seem to be equipped with any noticeable claws, which throws Jongdae off about the presence of the scratch post.
Any further analysis is postponed by the two nurses who enter the room with Minseok and approach the desk with the supplies.
“We’ll start right away. We can’t afford to play for time. You will have plenty for introductions and pleasantries,” one of them starts, the tone of someone saying a well rehearsed speech. “I’m sure you know all the details, since you’ve been forced to sign a pile of documents before getting in here, but I’ll just go over the main points with you once again because after my colleague and I leave, you’ll be on your own and there won’t be any backing out. You’ll be in here until it’s over, unless something happens that could be a hazard to either of your health or lives. Understood?”
Jongdae glances at Minseok. His monolid eyes are the epitome of felineness, sharp and determined, yet the dark brown irises are surprisingly human and warm.
They both nod at the nurse, who continues. “You will complete two allogeneic transfusion cycles a day, preferably one in the morning and one in the evening, for thirty days, for a total of sixty exchanges. Every item you’ll be using is numbered for your convenience. My coworkers trained you to use your IV set and the transfusion devices.”
She waits for them to nod again, then she turns to Jongdae.
“I know you’ve been warned, but I would like to stress that if you start experiencing any kind of malaise you must report it to us through the intercom at the door, but try not to be alarmed because it usually means that the treatment is working. No panic.”
Jongdae grimaces, but nods.
She claps her gloved hands. The sound is very unsatisfying. “If you would please come here and sit down, we’ll check whether instructions were clear so you can be autonomous.”
Jongdae swallows. This is it. His ticket to a long, healthy life.
If he makes it out of that room alive, that is.
He sits down and unpacks the machinery on his side of the table. He proceeds to unwrap all the items and lays them in front of himself, where he can reach everything easily. He extracts the first blood bag of the pile, placing it on the small scale and unwinding the tubes, one for him and one for Minseok. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees that Minseok is doing the same, quickly and efficiently.
Then, he checks the condition of the IV access that has been previously installed into his arm. It’s a huge needle, 16 gauge, the sight of which would have made him faint just a few months ago, and to which he’s quickly grown desensitized since he has spent the greater part of January as the hostage of more than one luminary of the scientific world who felt personally offended by Jongdae’s anomaly.
His access port has an evacuated tube holder, practical for future laboratory sample tubes and for the actual blood collection procedure, given it slots perfectly and therefore doesn’t require him to handle other instruments. All the equipment has been designed to be fool-proof, and Jongdae is grateful for that. Staying alive is difficult enough without having to poke his own holes or worrying about which tube is the right tube all the time.
He guesses he’s ready. He turns on the scale, which starts oscillating, and looks up at the nurse that had been hovering and watching closely. “Good, you can start,” she says. He only sees her eyes behind the mask and the protective glasses, and she’s smiling.
Okay. With a final click, the tube is connected and it starts filling with red. He watches as his defective blood starts leaving him, progressively dyeing red the otherwise transparent tube.
“Perfect! Go ahead. You seem to know your way around this stuff,” he hears the other nurse say, and turns to watch Minseok look up with a close-lipped smile at the praise. Maybe he’s also a nurse? Jongdae has just yesterday met a hybrid nurse, so it doesn’t seem like a remote possibility.
Minseok doesn’t say anything, his ears standing on his head, a little more slanted than before. His tail, that had been dangling over the edge of his seat, rises to stand tall.
“If you have any questions or doubts, do not hesitate to use the intercom. Better safe than sorry.”
And just like that, Jongdae is suddenly alone with Minseok.
Minseok, who is a cat. Minseok, who is going to give his own blood to save Jongdae’s life. Who is already doing it. And Jongdae is not even choking for air yet.
Mind effectively blown, Jongdae turns to him. He better get his thanks off his chest while he still has enough oxygen to do so.
“Hey, I just—”
Minseok startles, as though he didn’t expect any noise other than the vibration of the scales.
Jongdae stumbles over his words when he meets those big, dark eyes. “I just… I wanted to say thank you, really.”
The tip of Minseok’s tail curls, looking like a candy cane. The fur is long and straight, its tip a nice silvery gray at its darkest layer. Jongdae is impressed by the fact that the tail must be at least as long as the hybrid’s lower half. Though potentially lethal to Jongdae, it’s very hypnotizing, with its smooth curling and uncurling. Jongdae reminds himself to be polite and doesn’t spare more than a brief glance before he meets Minseok’s gaze again.
Minseok’s own smile loses the nervous edge. “I’m happy to do this,” he answers.
His voice is soft, clear and youthful. Jongdae’s heart misbehaves again, and this time around he knows he can’t pin it on any human genetic disorder whatsoever. Still, the damn treatment better work fast. Surely putting too much stress on an already endangered heart can’t be good.
“Uhm, well, you also probably know this already, but I’m Jongdae. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Minseok,” he introduces himself, and after what looks like a minute of careful consideration he moves the chair closer and holds his hand out, reaching for Jongdae.
Oh no.
Jongdae yelps and flinches backwards. “Don’t come near me!” he can’t help but shriek, and the next time he blinks, Minseok is crouching behind the other side of the table, clearly into kitty panic, and his tubes are all jumbled.
The hybrid looks terrified at first, then bewildered, but he quickly settles on offended. “What is wrong with you?” he seethes.
What a spectacular start.
“I’m sorry,” Jongdae immediately surrenders.
Haltingly, with guarded motions, Minseok climbs back onto his chair. His ears are so flat over his head, the tips pointed behind him, he looks like he’s in airplane mode. Not that the funny association is amusing Jongdae in the slightest, since the look in the cat’s eyes is clearly verging on murderous.
He starts untangling his tubes, as Jongdae racks his brain looking for something to say.
“I just, uhm —what exactly are you?”
Minseok freezes mid-motion. Only his ears swivel towards Jongdae. The following pause seems to last a hundred years, and Jongdae spends each of those years cursing himself until Minseok’s scale starts beeping, signaling that it’s not receiving enough blood because his tubes are still twisted.
“Shouldn’t you call a nurse to help with that—” Jongdae starts, but Minseok literally hisses at him and grabs the entire device, lifting it and marching off to his bed. With one last wary glance in his direction, he sits down with his back to Jongdae. He sets the machine down on his bedside table and hunches over the scale, repositioning everything until the device is satisfied enough to stop beeping.
Gone is the harmonious slow dance of his tail; fur puffy, it whips the air left and right.
From that moment onwards, only the buzzing of the scales can be heard.
Jongdae hides his face in his hand and curses his immune system.
Jongdae’s machine erupts into merry beeping once he’s done, eight minutes later, before Minseok is even halfway through filling his own bag. From mercilessly slaying invisible enemies made of air, his tail had resorted to just thumping its tip on the mattress.
But then Minseok’s machine also cheers him for a job well done with a tune ten times happier than the atmosphere in the room, and without hesitation Minseok unplugs his tubes and stalks back to the table.
Afraid to receive a tail-slap to the face, or worse, to become a scratch post, Jongdae doesn’t dare to even move.
Rolling his eyes at the state of terror-induced uncooperativeness, Minseok plops the blood bag in Jongdae’s hand and that is a sensation weird enough Jongdae is momentarily distracted.
The plastic is so warm in his hand. It’s the temperature of life, a promise of salvation. He supposes he should be a bit disgusted by the amount of blood just casually sitting in his palm, but Jongdae feels better just by holding it, although it comes from a visibly pissed off person.
They stare at each other for a second, but since Jongdae must look like he’s too afraid to move a single muscle (he is) Minseok has to take the matter into his own hands. To Jongdae’s utmost surprise, he keeps maneuvering until he’s rolled the IV stand next to Jongdae, taken out a saline solution with antibiotics and plugged it into Jongdae’s secondary IV access, doing everything with careful (clawless) hands, deftly and by the book. The nurse wasn’t kidding; he knows what he’s doing.
Then Minseok takes the blood bag back, pushes a few buttons on the infusion pump and moves closer to Jongdae’s arm, stopping right before touching him to connect him. He hasn’t brushed against his skin, not even once.
He’s still close, way too close. Jongdae doesn’t dare to breathe in deeply; none of his medication is allowed in the program. Direct contact could prove fatal.
Without averting his eyes from Jongdae’s arm, Minseok asks: “Do you have a problem with hybrids?”
Jongdae is almost grateful he asked. The answer is so simple. “I’m allergic.”
Minseok probably didn’t expect that answer. He lifts his eyebrows and the tip of his tail vibrates. He steals a nonplussed glance at Jongdae’s face, before he focuses on his arm again.
“Cats?”
“Yes, cats too.”
“Fel d 1? Fel d 4? 7?” Minseok questions, demonstrating surprisingly detailed knowledge on the subject of nefarious cat allergens. He still doesn’t move away, though.
“All eight of them,” Jongdae admits. “Quite severely.”
Another pause. Jongdae is discovering an unexpected talent for apnoea.
Then Minseok clears his throat. “My dominant breed is hypoallergenic in nature, it barely produces any Fel d 1 protein,” he says. “As a hybrid breed, it was bioengineered to produce none at all.”
Oh.
Jongdae releases a slow breath. “I… didn’t know.”
“I figured. May I?”
Jongdae nods, and Minseok swiftly connects him. Together, they watch the red progressively fill the tube until it reaches Jongdae. Minseok’s hand is also warm when he briefly places his palm over the butterfly.
“Heal,” Minseok whispers, before taking Jongdae’s blood and the spare infusion pump and moving back to his bed.
What a weird man.
What a weird man that is saving his life.
Jongdae doesn’t really have a problem with hybrids. He just doesn’t know them.
Hybrids tend to live secluded lives in tight communities grouped in rural areas, suburban at most. The fact that Minseok lives in the heart of Seoul, if Dr. Choi is right, is not unheard of but still uncommon.
They were not segregated, and the distance they put between themselves and humans was the logical result of decades of humans being fucking weird about them. To make matters worse, when the disease’s curve first reared up they had received unreasonable backlash simply for being the flip side of the coin of the same round of genetic experimentation that was killing humans. When the first studies were carried out and someone proposed hybrid blood was used to heal humans, they were subject to a horrendous crime wave due to desperate and ruthless individuals who pursued their own “homemade” methods. Only to be shamelessly courted once it became clear that they were the key to the elimination of the disease.
No wonder they isolated themselves.
All Jongdae knows about them post-disease break are the stories. Not the nice ones. And the statistics. Also not the nice ones.
Tales of objectification, crazy hormones, mental disorders thrown in a blender with unemployment rates, classism, racism, all read through the most shallow of lenses, didn’t really paint a nice picture, no matter how objectively one tried to work with the sparse information that transpired through biased media. Some of that changed when hybrids stepped up and offered to put a damper on the inevitable demise of the human race, but somehow that generous act was misrepresented as greed for money. Instead of restoring their image, it made it impossible to tell apart truthful portrayals and slander.
In Jongdae’s case, his exposure to the hybrid world was even more limited than that of the average human, ever since he was a kid. At first his parents struggled to connect the dots, but then it was clear that petting the neighbor’s cat and playing in the sandbox with the dog hybrid kid had the same devastating effects. The common denominator was, in essence, fur.
And even when it wasn’t severe, it was bad. Jongdae can’t remember a time of his childhood when he didn’t have asthma and/or eczema and/or conjunctivitis. He had to make adjustments from a very young age. His allergies had a say in every person he hung out with, the schools he picked, the establishments he visited. It got better after he was old enough to try vaccines and antihistamines and to be trusted around an epipen, but he still went out of his way to avoid any hybrid interaction whatsoever, scarred by the memories of several emergency room trips.
Not that Siheung was known for its hybrid demographic, on the contrary. The closest he’d been with a hybrid since the disease broke out was the nurse that brought him to Dr. Choi the previous day, and he had been far too overwhelmed to study her then. His nose and tongue had itched the rest of the day, though.
So Jongdae is unnerved by Minseok’s presence. The sheer unfamiliarity would be uncomfortable even if he didn’t manage to piss him off within their first five minutes of acquaintance.
He doesn’t really know how to explain everything to the hybrid without becoming the scratch post, though.
After the first transfusion, Minseok had huddled under the covers on his bed and had stayed there for the entire afternoon. He only got up when the food came, and then when the digital alarm clocks on their medical equipment beeped to let them know it was time for transfusion no. 2 before dinner.
This time around Minseok sits next to him at the table for the entire duration of the procedure, looking fidgety and throwing somewhat hostile glances out of the corner of his eye.
Jongdae’s skin remains remarkably free of any alarming sign of dermatitis, he never has trouble breathing, and his tear ducts don’t misbehave. Maybe Minseok was right, after all.
“Thank you,” Jongdae says when Minseok hands him the second blood bag.
“Heal,” Minseok simply answers, like he’d done before.
Jongdae wakes up in the middle of the night, sweaty and tangled in his sheets. He clasps his mouth shut when he realizes that the noise he’s hearing is his own hoarse screaming.
Heart pounding frantically, he feels around until he recognizes the shape of the mattress and headrest as those of the clinic.
The clinic. Where he’s being cured.
I am alive. I am alive. I am alive.
It takes him a minute to be sure of it. And then another short while to identify his surroundings. He remembers he’s not alone and he curses when two specks of light answer his questioning gaze from Minseok’s bed.
Cat, his brain suggests. Minseok probably has night vision?
Creepy as fuck.
“Are you unwell?” a quiet voice asks with detachment from the general direction of the bright, yellow pearlescent eyes floating in the dark.
“I—I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Nightmare,” he stutters.
Blinking furiously, Jongdae’s own bland and useless human eyes get used to the darkness and manage to make out the rest of the room in the bleary light offered by night light in the hallway outside of the window, and all the small leds of the electronic devices in the room.
He jeopardizes his poor eyes’ efforts by picking up his phone and obliterating his vision with the excessive brightness of his phone screen. Eventually he registers that it’s around 4 a.m.
“It’s so late, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
Minseok is sitting on his bed, legs dangling over the edge, skin left exposed by his shorts. “Do you need me to call someone?”
“No, no… it was nothing. I’ll just wash up and go back to sleep. Sorry.”
He turns on the lights and stumbles to the bathroom to splash his face with cold water. In the mirror, he looks at his trembling hands, at the butterfly needle. He’s so tired. Dangling between life and death is so tiring.
He’s about to go back to bed when he sees, through the bathroom door left ajar, that Minseok has stood up. He’s standing in the middle of the room, between their beds, and is leaning towards Jongdae’s side of the room, almost like there’s an invisible line he isn’t allowed to cross. He’s doing something very peculiar that Jongdae doesn’t immediately interpret; he’s smelling the air, and he seems very absorbed by such activity.
Weirded out, Jongdae keeps watching him. Minseok frowns, then walks to the table with all the blood-related paraphernalia and lets his fingers drum on the transfusion devices. He seems to be considering something, then approaches the intercom. He hesitates, but doesn’t push the emergency button.
In the end, Minseok sits back on his own bed, exactly where he was before. Had Jongdae not shamelessly spied on him, he wouldn’t have noticed he left his spot.
Jongdae exits the bathroom. He tries to send an apologetic smile to the hybrid, but his face muscles disobey and pull into a grimace.
“Do you need me to call someone?” Minseok repeats, his face just as blank as his voice.
“No, thank you, I’m already feeling so much better.”
Minseok lifts a brow and tilts his head, as though he wanted to call out the lie. One of his ears rotates to face Jongdae, and Jongdae can’t tell for sure but thinks that the hybrid is discreetly inhaling to smell the air again.
“Sure.”
Minseok waits until Jongdae has laid down, then turns off the lights.
Day 2
The next day is pretty much identical to the previous one. Jongdae’s not feeling any change, at least physically, and tampers his restlessness by reading an entire book on a digital book reader they had allowed him to bring into the room after scrubbing it with alcohol and nearly breaking it. He prefers hardcovers, but those were on the list of forbidden items because apparently they are a hassle to disinfect properly, so his brother had spent the entire night downloading Jongdae’s entire Goodreads wishlist onto the device so that Jongdae wouldn’t bore himself to death during the next month. His efforts had made Jongdae cry, granted he’d been a breath away from weeping into the car seat during the entire trip from their parents’ home in Siheung to Yonsei.
For his part, Minseok spends the day curled up under the covers in his bed, probably also entertaining himself with a screen. He can only see the back of his ears and some tufts of striped hair. Aside from Jongdae thanking Minseok for the blood bags, they don’t talk. Before falling asleep, Jongdae realizes he hasn’t heard Minseok’s voice at all during the entire day.
The night is also very similar to the previous one; Jongdae wakes up sweaty and terrified, and Minseok insists on calling someone.
“I told you I’m fine. It’s not the—it’s just a nightmare.”
“Two nights in a row?”
“I’ve had them every night since I was diagnosed.”
Regretting the oversharing, Jongdae keeps babbling. “But it should get better now that I’m here. You don’t have to worry. I will probably let you sleep through an entire night, eventually. Look, I’m fine.”
“You don’t smell fine.”
Clearly, Minseok is also regretting sharing the tiny piece of information, but doesn’t add anything.
“What, you can smell these things?”
It’s like Minseok’s features harden. He makes sure to show his pointy canines when he talks. “Why do you care?”
“I don’t know, I guess because it’s… weird?”
He immediately regrets saying that. Minseok’s tail goes back to slaying its army of imaginary enemies, and he scoffs like Jongdae turned out to be just as dumb as he thought. “You really haven’t met a hybrid in your life, have you.”
Jongdae coughs. “Not… closely. I mean, I have, it’s just, you know. You hybrids are...”
Minseok turns away and lies down before Jongdae can find any suitable words, or any words at all.
It’s Jongdae’s turn to switch off the lights. He does so feeling even worse than the previous night.
Day 3
Jongdae decides he can’t bear this any longer. He owes his life to that tail provided lump hidden under the covers, and the awkwardness is driving him up the wall.
So he does the dumbest thing possible, and goes for the obvious, albeit tactless ice breaker, which has already proved damaging twice before. “So what else can you do?”
Minseok looks at him from over the spoon he was about to shove in his mouth. He simply lifts a brow.
“Yeah, I mean, you smell things, and I think you can see in the dark. Anything else?”
There’s a minuscule jerk of Minseok’s head that suggests he was about to have a certain reaction and barely stopped himself. His ears turn backwards, offering Jongdae a view of the immaculate fur blending into his hair. He squints. “Are those the only things you care to know about me?”
The tips of his fangs are in full display when he talks.
“Of course not! I—”
“I can also hear very well.”
“Oh.”
“And no, I don’t meow.”
“Uhm.”
Minseok keeps staring at him, daring him to say something else, but Jongdae is petrified.
With a lifted brow that paints a clear message of “I thought so” across Minseok’s face, the hybrid resumes eating.
Jongdae, spoon in hand, sits there like an idiot for a long time.
Once Minseok has emptied his plates, he looks up and seems disappointed to find out that Jongdae’s food is pretty much untouched. “We’re supposed to consume the same stuff for this thing to work. You should eat.”
“Yeah,” Jongdae says absently, and Minseok shakes his head like he’s truly dealing with an hopeless idiot.
He’s setting his tray in the exchange chamber by the door, when Jongdae talks.
“I’m 27, and I was born and raised in Siheung. I found out I have the disease only in December. I never got tested before because no one else in my family has the mutation. My brother doesn’t have it either,” he blurts out in one breath.
He knows he has Minseok’s attention, because the hybrid is turning around slowly, his ears projected firmly in Jongdae’s direction. He doesn’t interrupt him.
A little heartened, Jongdae digs a little deeper. “Before finding out, I was a salesman in a music shop. I had two roommates, my best friends Chanyeol and Kyungsoo. But they moved out last month. I think they were scared of finding my dead body in the shower, or something. Can’t really blame them.” He inhales deeply, trying to look within himself. “My doctor said you live in Seoul. I never go there. I like the quiet. I like—normal things. I’m a pretty average guy. My typical night out is at the noraebang. I watch way too much YouTube. I don’t hold my alcohol too well. I drink too many sugary soft drinks and americanos. I suppose that if I didn’t get the disease, I’d probably have a heart attack because of those, eventually. I promised myself I’d cut them, if this works.”
“It will work.”
It startles Jongdae. He blinks at Minseok who is still standing next to his discarded tray. “I–I hope so?”
Minseok keeps looking at him, sharp. His nostrils flare a little, but he looks focused instead of irritated. “What else?”
“What?”
“More. About you.”
Jongdae scratches his head. “Uhm. I was born in September. My mom likes it when I sing for her. I like to drive alone at night. I broke my arm when I was five.”
“I broke my arm too.”
“Y-yeah? I, uh, fell from a swing.”
“I fell from a tree.”
“It sucks, right?”
“Yeah.” Minseok makes a soft little chuff that Jongdae decides to interpret as a repressed chuckle of solidarity.
“What were you doing in a tree?”
Minseok opens his mouth, then rethinks his answer with a warier expression, and mutters: “Nothing. Cat things.”
Jongdae swallows. Time to come clean. “I have never really… spoken to a hybrid before you. In person. Since I was very little. I barely saw some, from a distance. I have never even—and I’m sorry if this is offensive, like, if grouping you like this is inappropriate, but—I have never even had a cat or… like, housecats? I have always been too allergic to basically anything with fur so I don’t—know stuff. I’m sorry I do and say everything wrong. I’m just. I’m not a weirdo, I’m just clueless, I swear.”
Minseok stares at him for so long that Jongdae starts fearing he will pounce on him and pierce some additional delightful holes in his skin with those elongated canines of his.
But then Minseok looks like he’s deflating, and looks down, ears flat on his head. The sight breaks Jongdae’s heart a little.
“I have met humans before. Many.”
Jongdae uses all his remaining brain power to shut his mouth before he can ruin the moment with some ignorant commentary. It’s obvious Minseok would know humans. They might live in separate communities but they are surrounded by humans, and Jongdae has a vague memory of a documentary he’d seen ages ago about a variety of professions not being available to hybrids, which meant sooner or later every hybrid had to meet or depend on a human, in varying degrees.
Minseok looks aside, shoulders drawn up ever so slightly. “I’m not very good with humans either. Because humans are generally not good to me,” he says quietly. “I apologize for my behavior. I got defensive too quickly. I am just…”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“I still wish to apologize. You’re just allergic. You can’t help it. I’ll get over myself.”
“It’s fine, really, I’m the one who, well, made you uncomfortable? And I’m sorry.”
Minseok doesn’t say anything to that, and after a while, he nods at the floor.
The silence is broken by the intercom buzzing with some notice from the staff.
“You should eat,” Minseok says quietly, while standing to go check.
The food is cold, but Jongdae feels a little better about himself than before, so he eats gingerly.
Now he’ll just wait for Minseok to come around.
Day 4
Minseok comes around pretty quickly.
“I have a roommate, too,” he blurts out the next morning, as they exchange blood bags over breakfast, with the nonchalance of people who have exchanged such macabre gifts thousands of times before.
“Oh,” Jongdae says, caught off guard by the fact that he’s being spoken to. He nearly drops Minseok’s precious blood into his cup of tea, which would be. Well. No matter how much he needs Minseok’s blood, there are lines he won’t cross.
“Yes,” Minseok confirms, rather stiffly. It’s endearing, really. He probably thought long and hard about which conversation starter he should pick, since Jongdae’s blabbering had given him plenty.
“What’s his name?”
“Baekhyun. He’s 27 like you.”
“Nice. Wait, how old are you?”
“29.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
A beep informs Jongdae that his reinfusion process has begun, and it distracts him for a minute as the warmth of Minseok’s blood seeps through the tube that’s laying on his wrist.
“I thought you were younger than that. You look younger than me, even.”
“I’ve been told,” Minseok says with the faint exasperation of someone who has heard those exact same words approximately a thousand times before.
Jongdae chuckles and picks up his cup. “Sorry. You and Baekhyun have lived together for a long time?”
“Three years. I’ve known him far longer, and in the end it was just logical that we should share a flat, being the only hybrids in the neighborhood and whatnot.”
Jongdae is delighted by how talkative Minseok is this morning. It doesn’t matter that Minseok is sitting on the edge of his seat, knees bent suggesting a readiness to flee that doesn’t pair with the conversation. He’s clearly making an effort. Jongdae can’t even begin to tell how much he appreciates it.
All he can do is smile at him. “I had the feeling that it’s unusual for hybrids to hang around big cities.”
“It is, but we were brought to Seoul as kids. We met in an integration program that failed us both spectacularly. He was just a pup when they brought him in.”
“A pup?”
Here it is again, the guarded expression on Minseok’s face as his chopsticks pause and he tries to measure Jongdae’s reactions out of the corner of his eye. “Dog hybrid.”
Jongdae keeps choosing the simplest path, which is question and answer, trying to sound as unassuming as possible. “So, uhm, since we’ve established I’m just a human who doesn’t know shit, would you please confirm whether it’s just a stereotype that cats and dogs are not supposed to get along?”
The corner of Minseok’s mouth lifts just a tiny bit. “I fucking hate him. But I also would die for him.”
“That was… not educational, at all.”
Minseok stiffens. “This is not a crash course.”
The guy is so defensive, Jongdae truly wonders what he meant when he said humans were not good to him. “I just want us to be more comfortable. And I need to know stuff in order to avoid saying or doing things that can hurt you accidentally.”
One of Minseok’s furry ears does something fascinating; it flattens, then stands, then rotates twice, so quickly it blurs. Jongdae can only assume it’s a reflection of the mixture of emotions quickly taking over Minseok’s face.
They’re once again saved by the bells, under the form of merry beeping from both their machines. Jongdae’s first, and once he’s done unplugging it, Minseok’s. The sounds make Minseok flinch a little, ears pinned against his hair.
“Hey, your timings are improving,” Jongdae teases.
“I was not aware this was a competition.”
“It could be.”
Minseok turns to look at him, once again gauging him. Probably not finding anything other than openness in Jongdae’s grin, he nods.
“Game on,” he deadpans.
Jongdae snorts tea out of his nose.
Day 5
“What the—?” Jongdae yells upon waking up and finding Minseok hovering over his bed, pretty much leaning over his face.
Minseok was clearly caught doing something he shouldn’t, probably sniffing him, because he immediately steps back. Yet he manages to keep his expression blank. “You had another nightmare,” he comments matter of factly.
Jongdae knows that already, but being informed of this by a really close, sleepy-looking Minseok makes the information lose all importance in the face of its envoy. White hair messed up from sleep, semi-closed eyes, askew shirt collar is a very good look on the hybrid.
“I’m sorry,” is all Jongdae can offer before the pause he took to contemplate such a view would turn creepy.
Minseok walks back to his bed, then tilts his head. “That’s a dumb thing to apologize for.”
“I guess.”
“You didn’t have one yesterday, so I thought you were feeling better.”
Jongdae coughs and sits up. “Being here helps.”
Minseok fidgets. Jongdae sees his tail slowly weaving invisible patterns in the air behind him. “Did you really? Find out you had the disease only three months ago?”
“Yeah. why?”
The way Minseok answers “no reason” suggests that there is a reason, but Jongdae lets it slide.
“Hey, I feel like I’ll never say it enough, but… thank you. For. You know. Being the only hybrid in the world who doesn’t send me straight into anaphylaxis? And having blood like mine? And taking time to be here and giving this dumb human some of it? Actually, a lot of it?”
Minseok does a sort of slow blink and turns away, leaving Jongdae a bit puzzled but not worried. Whatever that was, it didn’t feel like the other’s feelings were hurt.
He pinches his index finger and his thumb to pick up a white and gray hair from the blanket next to his pillow. He studies it for a minute, recalling the nine thousand different ways his body would have chosen violence, had such fur come from anyone else.
Transfusion, breakfast, shower. Jongdae calls his mother and answers a few texts from his awful friends who, with the help of his sudden departure towards the coveted hybrid match treatment, have finally overcome the shock of his potential death and have progressed to thinking he’s spending his days at the hospital with an epipen perpetually stuck in his left asscheek and are having the time of their lives with that mental image.
Lunch. Jongdae reads half a book while Minseok colonizes the bathroom for hours, doing who knows what but coming out looking very tidy and calm. Transfusion, dinner. Minseok scratches his own ears whenever he thinks Jongdae is not looking, which is a lost cause because Jongdae looks at him a lot. They wish each other goodnight. Jongdae wakes up two hours later with a scream dying in his throat, and pretends not to see the bright eyes peering at him from the other side of the room.
Day 6
Jongdae starts noticing something. He should have probably noticed sooner, but his clueless ass was more focused on Minseok’s remarkable appearance and his sometimes weird mannerism rather than on the reasons why he did things. And once he started noticing stuff, it was like the things he could pick up on grew exponentially.
What at first he had thought was nervous fidgeting was Minseok’s attempt at restraining himself from doing certain things, like commanding his hands to stay at his sides cost him a lot of effort. What he thought was a sort of tick, like tilting his head or scratching his ears or face, was clear discomfort. Minseok is definitely not shy; he’s just hiding.
Confirmation comes when Jongdae is getting ready for bed. He’s about to leave the bathroom when he notices something unusual, through the semi-closed door. Of course he feels guilty, but mindful of the previous time he spied on Minseok, he decides to wait a bit and look. And sure enough, soon Minseok starts doing things.
He sniffs the air a lot more freely than when Jongdae is in the same room or within earshot. He wanders around aimlessly, occasionally leaning against his things with his whole body, and he seems to especially enjoy sharp corners and edges, where he indulges in rubbing his face. He dedicates his own desk, his locker and his bed frame the same amount of attention, and Jondae can see on his face a sort of serenity mixed with relief. He stares at his still untouched scratch post wistfully, but ultimately forgoes picking it up.
Then Jongdae watches him roll in his bed, rubbing his face thoroughly on the bedding, and once he’s found a comfortable position he watches him preen his ears with obsessive care, like he’d been waiting all day to do that.
Jongdae doesn’t understand, but he’s seen enough.
As soon as he steps out of the bathroom, Minseok goes still like a statue, which is more or less his constant state whenever Jongdae is around. Which is a lot.
“Hey, uh, quick question?”
Minseok looks up, eyes widening with every resolute step Jongdae takes towards him.
Jongdae almost takes pride in the way it pulls an almost feline reaction out of the hybrid; his lips curl a little, exposing the canines, and the tail thumps on the messy bedding.
Jongdae stops when his legs almost touch Minseok’s bed. By now Minseok is basically crouching on his mattress, ready to leap. It’s ridiculous. And cute.
“Are you holding back on me?” Jongdae asks.
Minseok directs his unblinking stare at him. He closes his lips.
Jongdae counts seven tail thumps before Minseok talks. “What do you mean.”
“You’re—hiding, or something?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Man, look, I know I’m a mess, but I must have given you the impression that anything you’ll do will freak me out. It won’t. As long as I don’t become a scratch post, I think I could handle all your feline-ness.”
Minseok goes extraordinarily still.
“I might be wrong, but pretending you don’t want to sniff around everything all the time is doing nothing but unnerving both of us,” Jongdae says.
After a really long time, Minseok finally blinks.
Undeterred, Jongdae continues. “Just, you know, please, uhm, explain. If you see that I don’t… know what’s going on.”
“This is not a crash course.”
“I know.” Jongdae exhales, and lets himself fall on Minseok’s mattress, which apparently is a big no-no, because Minseok shows his fangs again, hissing galore.
Jongdae bolts away from the bed, only for Minseok to clamp both hands over his mouth.
“See? This is what I’m talking about!” Jongdae practically shouts, pointing at his mouth. “Don’t hide! What triggered—that, whatever that was? I want you to tell me what I did wrong, so I don’t do it again, and the other things I should not do! If you have boundaries, I need to know before I break them.”
“It’s not necessary. I can make this cohabitation peaceful for you if—”
“Oh, no, that won’t do. We’re stuck here for three more weeks, Minseok. It’s a long time. I don’t want to frustrate you to the point that you murder me. Doesn’t it sound like a waste of time and energy for both of us, you especially?”
Minseok finally removes the hands from his face. After a while, he nods. “That would be impractical,” he agrees diplomatically.
Jongdae almost laughs. Almost; he’s still not sure whether the other has claws and he doesn’t want to find out.
Minseok points at Jongdae’s bed. “Sit,” he orders, and Jongdae scrambles to obey.
Then Minseok finally settles onto his own mattress, looking for a bit more comfortable and a less threatening position, and clears his throat. “My territory,” he says, gesturing at his half of the room. “Okay?”
Jongdae can work with that. “Okay. Noted.”
Minseok exhales, like he’d thought Jongdae would laugh at him. “You can’t smell it, but. My territory,” he repeats, patting the mattress again to make it clear.
Again, Jongdae agrees. “Yours. No entry.”
“Yes.”
“Okay. You can have the entire room, if you want, by the way, I could be like a guest or something.”
“No,” Minseok says vehemently. “No. Two tomcats don’t share.”
“I’m not… a tomcat.”
“Jongdae.”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry.”
In a flash, assertiveness leaves and self-consciousness takes over. Minseok hides his face in his hands. “I’m sorry, this is so… I never do this. Humans never ask.”
“That’s a shame.”
“No, it’s probably better that way. The human half of me knows it’s dumb. It’s cringe when I say it out loud.”
“It’s not stupid if it matters to you. Even just half of you.”
“But it’s dumb.”
“No. I’m actually sure there is a perfectly logical explanation for everything you do. Humans probably just don’t know about it. Is it okay if I ask?”
Minseok uncovers one eye, his tail forming a graceful S. “I like it when you ask.”
Jongdae smiles. Minseok smiles back. Jongdae realizes he’s never seen him smile properly, and the power of that gummy, slightly lopsided smile steals several heartbeats from him. He doesn’t even pay attention to the momentary stillness in his chest anymore. He knows he cannot blame it on his disease acting up.
“Okay, then. Should I… start from the beginning? The basics, I guess.”
Minseok nods.
“The first day, when I introduced myself. I still don’t know why you got mad at me.”
“It’s really rude to ask a hybrid what they are. Especially by way of introduction.”
“Really? Why?”
“It’s very dehumanizing.”
Now Jongdae can see it, too. He can understand how Minseok felt like his entire identity beyond his animal appendages wasn’t seen and didn’t matter, when Jongdae asked that as the very first thing. In retrospect, that had been a really rude question.
“Oh. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. Now I know that you didn’t know.”
He doesn’t offer further information on the subject. Not that Jongdae expected it. Of course he’s curious, but as long as it works he doesn’t really care about whatever kind of hypoallergenic cat breed Minseok is.
“And you were trying to get close to do something? I’m sorry I freaked out, it’s just that I—”
“Allergies. Yes. I know now. Don’t worry.”
“But what did you want to do?”
Minseok looks vaguely embarrassed. “It was nothing. It was my mistake.”
“I just don’t know what you were trying to do.”
With an elegant leap, Minseok leaves his bed and crosses the room. Immediately, Jongdae scoots aside to leave space for him onto his own bed, which Minseok occupies after a split second of hesitation.
“Hand,” he commands, and Jongdae holds his hand out like he’s expecting Minseok to shake it.
Minseok does shake it. His skin is cool and smooth. Then Minseok seems to be deep in thought. He lowers his face onto Jongdae’s hand, pressing his cheek against his knuckles and swiping it.
It doesn’t quite catch Jongdae off guard, but the energetic push of Minseok’s face still makes his hand fall limp a bit. But Minseok chases the contact, so he lifts it again, and he can spy a spark of pure elation in the hybrid’s eyes. Minseok pauses to sniff his hand, then does it again.
Then he sits back. He looks at Jongdae solemnly, and nods. “Nice to meet you.”
It’s so surreal. Jongdae is so inexplicably happy. “Nice to meet you, too.”
He watches as Minseok has the audacity to blush and he ignores his erratic heartbeat. “Cool. Okay. By the way…” Jongdae coughs. “I’m pretty sure you’re in my territory.”
Minseok looks down at the bed, panicking. Then he looks up at Jongdae, sees the amusement in his smirk, takes a pillow and throws it at his face.
When Jongdae stops sputtering, Minseok is walking back to his bed. There’s the barely concealed shadow of a smile on his face, so Jongdae knows he didn’t push too far.
“Goodnight, Minseok!” he calls after him.
It’s only after Minseok is under his blankets and the lights have been turned off that Minseok grumbles a goodnight back.
Jongdae manages to forget about where he is and why he’s there. He doesn’t think about the disease once before falling asleep. He doesn’t have nightmares.
Day 7
Minseok stops holding back altogether.
The first thing Jongdae sees when he opens his eyes in the morning is Minseok sitting on his bed, preening his ears with closed eyes and a peaceful expression on his face. To Jongdae’s confused mixture of endearment and disgust, he licks the back of his hand and rubs it over the back of his ears.
Upon hearing the rustling Jongdae makes when he wakes up, Minseok stiffens for a minute. Then he seems to remind himself that Jongdae asked him not to hide, and resumes his activity.
Jongdae tries not to stare, and fails spectacularly, when Minseok then proceeds to display remarkable flexibility with some back stretching, and only once he’s satisfied with the cracking and popping of his joints he looks at Jongdae and wishes him a good morning.
Fighting the urge to hide under his sheets, Jongdae grumbles a somewhat adequate response. Still in his tiny gray pajamas, Minseok makes his bed. He folds his sheets with unnerving, manic care, grabs a change of clothes and trots to the bathroom. He shoots Jongdae a small smile on the way. Like the previous mornings, when Minseok comes out of the bathroom, Jongdae is a little disappointed that Minseok’s daytime attire never seems to include short shorts.
Jongdae can’t stop grinning the entire day, trying not to make it too obvious that the change in Minseok’s attitude makes him really happy. Neither of them is as guarded or quiet as before, and the energy in the room is so different compared to the previous day that Jongdae catches himself wondering whether he’s rooming with the same person or if Minseok has been replaced by a lookalike.
If so, Jongdae needs to find the place where those lookalikes come from, because damn. They make really attractive people over there.
Minseok had kept to himself and had been statue-like, delivering one liners only when strictly necessary. He visibly tried to take up the least space possible, and moved slowly, surreptitiously, as though the end goal was to camouflage with the walls. He would have probably succeeded hadn’t they been completely alone. The white hair and fur definitely helped.
But now Minseok is not slinking anymore. He’s a little whirlwind of activity, and even stuff as mundane as taking the trays with their meals to the table looks so different with the way he’s light on his feet and looks more lively.
It saddens Jongdae, to think that he had been the one to stifle him. But he’s also happy he managed to undo that.
After several minutes of observing his careful sniffing, Jongdae can’t help but chuckle. “If the end goal here is keeping me alive, they also need you alive for three more weeks. I am pretty sure that your food is not poisoned, you can stop sniffing at it.”
Minseok glares at him over the tray he had lifted to his face. “Fuck off?”
While Minseok still doesn’t talk first, his default responses have changed drastically. Jongdae had had the feeling the other might be witty, but he didn’t expect him to be such a wry little shit. It’s delightful.
Laughing, Jongdae pushes his own plates towards him, too. “Smell mine, too. Can’t be too sure.”
Minseok rolls his eyes, and finally puts the food down. “Has anyone ever told you you’re insufferable?”
“First time, actually,” Jongdae lies.
“I knew I shouldn’t have lowered my guard. It’s backfiring.”
Jongdae reaches over to punch his arm, whining.
Minseok hisses, but it’s clearly fake. “Now that I’m getting to know you, I’m second guessing my decision to become a donor.”
“Now that’s just mean!” Jongdae whines, laughter in his tone. He nearly chokes on bits of his lunch, and Minseok actually has to stand up and give vigorous pats on his back.
“Stop trying to make all my precious blood go to waste!”
Jongdae laughs harder and coughs into a napkin, knowing that Minseok’s scowl is just a front. The cat doesn’t leave his side until he’s sure Jongdae can drink a glass of water without turning it into a life-threatening experience.
“Unbelievable,” the hybrid grumbles, sitting back down. “Seven years I waited for this, and this is the moron they pair me with.”
Some water actually goes down the wrong pipe as Jongdae sputters: “Seven years?”
Judging by the way Minseok freezes from the top of his head to the tip of his tail, that was not information he had intended on disclosing. Ever.
“You’ve been enrolled in the program—for seven years? And I’m the first match you get?”
Minseok nods stiffly.
Jongdae does the math. “But the program started five years ago?”
Nobody moves for a minute, until Minseok’s fight or flight stance slowly dissolves. He stares into his food. “I was part of the FES.”
Jongdae’s mouth drops open.
The South Korean First Experimental Session, universally known as SouKor-FES, had been an invaluable contribution to finding a cure. During a time where hybrids kept to themselves and were generally more shunned than ever, it had been hard to convince them to once again become humans’ guinea pigs, especially to solve a problem that humans had brought upon themselves. They did not owe anything to humans, if anything humans owed them a big ass apology, which to the present day has yet to be issued.
In spite of this, the FES had been underway in record time, and soon the matching program Jongdae was currently cured by had begun bearing its fruits. It was so needed that no one had asked questions. Where did they find the hybrids? What did the hybrids get in return? Everyone assumed that the government paid them handsomely. Wasn’t that how most pharmaceutical experimentations went?
Still, the FES was a risky procedure based on non-existent data, a venture into uncharted territory, basically a bet with destiny: it couldn’t possibly be worth the money. And there were nasty rumors about hybrids losing their lives. Humans were in a hurry, and were careless with health that wasn’t their own. It was yet another dark chapter that the government had fought hard to bury.
It couldn’t be worth the money. Hybrids either walked in blind, or needed that money desperately.
The shock must be plain on Jongdae’s face, because Minseok’s expression softens. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“But they said… the FES… hybrids died!”
“We were a group of fifty. Two of us died. But it wasn’t that bad. It was more or less what we’re doing here now. Except that we didn’t have reinfusion and there were… other things. So it was a bit… tiring.”
“Tiring? So they just basically drained you? Sucked you dry and let you go?”
No wonder Minseok looked like he knew his way around a blood bag.
“Yes and no. But we kinda knew what we were getting into.”
“And why would you do it?”
Minseok shrugs. “I just wanted to help. I told you Baek and I have been part of an integration program since we were cubs, so we were not so far removed from humans. It felt wrong to just… not do it.”
“Baekhyun did it too?”
“No. He has hypothyroidism, it wasn’t safe for him.”
“Oh.”
Minseok puts down his chopsticks. “I really think you’re making a big deal out of this and I can assure you that it’s not.”
“How can I not? You are not only currently actively saving my life, you’re also the reason why there is a way to save my life in the first place!”
“Jongdae…”
“How am I supposed to ever be able to repay you?”
“By eating your breakfast. Possibly without choking on it.” He stares at Jongdae pointedly, until Jongdae picks up his chopsticks. “Go on. If your dumb ass got tested like everybody else when the disease broke out, maybe we would have gotten this out of the way a long time ago. Now eat.”
Jongdae obediently takes a bite. But later, when they get up to dispose of their trays, Jongdae throws all caution to the wind and forcefully draws Minseok in a hug.
“Ugh, okay, all right, you’re welcome.” Minseok squirms and hisses, unaccustomed to contact. “Let go. Let go! Cool. Now give me your damn tray.”
But whenever Jongdae smiles at him for the rest of the day, Minseok smiles back.
Day 8
Minseok is sitting on his bed, the scratch post laid over his knees, and he’s been rhythmically and methodically ripping it to shreds with his claws for ten minutes.
“That’s kind of terrifying,” Jongdae comments, looking up from his phone.
Minseok studies his claws the same way someone would study their nails after getting them done at the salon. “Thanks,” he says eventually, and goes back to sharpening them.
Jongdae snorts. He briefly looks at his own fingers, and judges that he’s also going to need a manicure soon. He’s so focused that when one of Minseok’s dangerous hands enters his field of vision, holding the tablet where they receive notices from the clinic, he jumps out of reach.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Minseok says, and it sounds like a suggestion.
His claws have disappeared and his hand looks pretty harmless. Jongdae takes the device, making a point to avoid direct contact with Minseok’s fingers. “Where did they go?”
Minseok chuckles and makes jazz hands, on his way to the bathroom. “Magic.”
“You said you’d answer when I ask!”
“Too soon for anatomy lessons, Dae.”
Dae. Dae. Jongdae loves the sound of it on Minseok’s lips.
Day 9
Minseok hands the phone back to Jongdae. “She sounds so sweet.”
Jongdae had been against it initially, but when his mother had asked whether she could speak with Minseok he didn’t have a chance to find and excuse to say no, because he had been coincidentally standing near Minseok, and one of those huge mobile ears had intercepted exactly that piece of the conversation. Minseok had demanded the phone with a serious face and an outstretched hand.
She was really sweet. Maybe overly teary in her expression of gratitude, but Minseok was extremely calm and nice about it. Jongdae is over the moon.
“She is. And I’m such a mama’s boy.”
Minseok chuckles and flicks Jongdae’s hair, going back to his bed.
“What about your mother? I’ve never heard you call her.”
Minseok fluffs his pillow, not answering.
Only then Jongdae remembers him mentioning an integration program he was sent to when he was a kid, and connects the dots. “Oh, Minseok. I’m so sorry. I didn’t—I’m sorry.”
Minseok offers a smile that doesn’t quite involve any part of his face other than his lips, and even those don’t stretch easily. “It’s okay. She’s alive, somewhere. Hybrids don’t… it’s not the same. Not for everyone, at least. Those who have both, it’s great, but those who don’t… it’s pretty common to prefer packs to families.”
“I thought cats weren’t pack creatures?”
Now that tense smile takes an edge of pain. “Yeah. Well, cat hybrids can be. It’s a matter of survival in this society.” He glances at the horror on Jongdae’s face, and hurries to add: “I didn’t have much of a choice when Baekhyun decided I’d be his pack, I’ll tell you that.”
Jongdae swallows. “That sounds cute.”
“Because you haven’t met him.”
Jongdae chuckles. “Maybe I will? After this?”
Minseok blinks at him for so long that Jongdae starts regretting having a functioning mouth.
“I mean,” he adds. “You said he’s a dog hybrid so he’ll probably send me straight into anaphylactic shock, but…”
“You’d like to stay in touch?” Minseok sounds shocked. “After this?”
Jongdae shrugs. “Why not? You’re a decent guy, nice and funny. Why not be friends?”
Perplexed, he observes Minseok’s head tilt, his nostrils flare as he sniffs the air. His tail curls over his thighs.
“I’d really like that,” Minseok says in the end, with poise. He always seems to resort to a façade of diplomatic composure when he’s flustered. It contrasts with his usual clipped responses. It’s adorable.
Jongdae feels all warm and fuzzy inside. “Cool. I’ll buy you dinner.”
“Not because you owe me.”
“Not because I owe you. Because we’re going to be so sick of hospital food and we will deserve something better.”
Minseok’s composure breaks, a sign he’s not as guarded as before. He shakes his head, amused, and drags his blankets over his legs. “I’ve had worse. If I ever decide you deserve the misfortune of meeting Baekhyun, he’ll tell you all about the parsley potatoes they gave us at the integration program’s station.”
Jongdae slips under the covers as well, and turns to the side to look at Minseok. “Do you want to talk about it?” he dares ask.
“About the potatoes? They were less traumatic than he makes them out to be, believe me.”
“No, about… about the program.”
Minseok lays down on his side as well. He’s quiet for a while, then he sighs. “The potatoes were awful, but still arguably not the worst of the many bad parts.”
“Was there a good part?”
“I suppose.”
“What was it?”
Minseok doesn’t hesitate. “Meeting Baek.”
“And… the worst?”
Minseok licks his lips. “I was thirteen when I was brought to Seoul. Baek was eleven. Packs had been providing for us until then, but we were given up when the Government started advertising the integration program. Do you know how that was supposed to work?”
Jongdae shakes his head. To his dismay, he has to admit he didn’t even know such a thing existed.
“We were supposed to be adopted by human couples with no kids of their own, but we both ended up being re-homed several times by foster families who had a bunch of other foster human kids and needed more checks or food stamps. It was like that until we came of age and we could drop out of the program to be on our own.”
Jongdae bites his lips. It sounds terrible.
Minseok shrugs, the movement almost invisible under the blankets. “Humans didn’t see us as kids. Kids also didn’t really see us as kids. Sometimes I think they didn’t really see us as animals, either. I’ve seen pets being given more attention and affection than we were. I was the freak with white hair, which never helped. And Baek and I weren’t always re-homed together, so it was lonely at times.”
“You’re comparing this… with potatoes?”
“It could have been worse.”
“How?”
“Some people were not looking to adopt with very filial intentions, if you know what I mean. We were never assigned to the wrong people. Well, Baek was, once, but he ran away before anything bad could happen. We’ve been lucky.”
“Lucky? You—and you still accepted to enroll in a governmental program to save humans?”
Minseok smiles sheepishly. “Not every human was completely disgusting. Some of the staff in charge of our profiles really cared. They couldn’t make a difference, with all their fighting the system and being understaffed and underfunded. But I knew there had to be some other good humans around and someday I would find them.”
Jongdae wants to cry.
“Minseok…”
“I didn’t mean to make you sad. Hey, I’m doing pretty great. And I was right, I found you!”
Jongdae makes a choked sound that prompts Minseok to get out of bed and cross the distance between them.
“Get out of my territory, jerk.”
Minseok ignores him and sits on his mattress. He hands him tissues with a soft smile. “Nice human.”
Jongdae blows his nose. “I really should have gotten tested years ago. I feel like I should have met you a long time ago.”
Minseok pats the top of his head, nodding. “Nice human,” he repeats, and beyond the amusement in his eyes, Jongdae can see that he agrees.
Day 10
Jongdae turns off the machine, unhooks all the various tubes and closes his access port. Everything has become so automatic now, it’s like he’s done blood transfusions his whole life.
Except that he gets up too quickly, and his head spins.
“Woah, you okay?” Minseok asks where he’s disposing of their used medical equipment.
Jongdae falls back down on the chair. “Sort of. Just dizzy.”
Immediately, Minseok’s ears jerk up. “It’s not your allergies, is it?”
While lightheadedness is an anaphylaxis symptom Jongdae is well acquainted with, it’s usually accompanied by other unpleasant warnings. Since he’s not itching or swelling anywhere, he rules it out immediately. “No, it’s not.”
“It never happened before, did it?”
“I’m sure it’s nothing. I must be just hungry.”
Minseok squints at him, then quickly makes his way towards him.
“Okay, this is definitely not intrusive,” Jongdae grumbles as Minseok sniffs all around him, getting all up in his personal space. Jongdae draws his shoulders up to his ears when Minseok’s breath tickles his nape.
“You don’t smell good.”
“I showered twenty minutes ago, Min, so what the actual fuck.”
Minseok gives one last good sniff to his hair, then wrinkles his nose. Even his tail takes a displeased shape. “I’m calling a nurse.”
“What? No! I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
Jongdae jumps up. His head doesn’t spin, so he points at himself with a flourish of hand movements. “See?”
With the most judgemental and cat-like expression ever, Minseok lifts one brow. “You should trust me on this.”
He looks kind of pissed. His fangs glint under the neons.
But Jongdae is too proud to give in to such nonsense. “Don’t call anyone. I’m fine.”
“We’ll see.”
Three hours later, Jongdae is trying really hard to become one with his mattress. “Call a nurse, I’m literally dying.”
Minseok crosses his arms on his chest. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t use that specific figure of speech, given the reason why we’re here.”
Groaning, Jongdae hides under the fourth blanket that Minseok had just draped over his shivering body.
A timer beeps. “Let me see,” Minseok orders.
Moving excruciatingly slowly, Jongdae slips a hand from under the covers and hands Minseok the thermometer.
“It’s not too bad, but it’s going up.”
“Call a nurse.”
“I’ve already called them, and they gave me medicine and instructions. They’re also bringing some soup.”
“God, no, I’ll throw up.”
“I don’t care. You’ll eat it.”
“What if I throw it up on you.”
“Stop being a fucking baby.”
Jongdae whines. All the bones in his body feel like they’re about to become soup as well.
He manages to swallow four spoonfuls before he starts heaving, and Minseok prudently carries all food out of his sight.
That’s one of the last coherent memories Jongdae has for the next two days: Minseok walking away with his bowl.
After that, only darkness, punctuated with nightmares.
There are just flashes; the beeping of the thermometer, Minseok’s alarmed voice in response to something said through the intercom, gentle hands coaxing him to sit up enough to put his lips around a straw and the immediately refreshing and nauseating sensation of water in his mouth. His name, called over and over again until he says something, and he doesn’t remember what he says, but his voice is hoarse, and the other person sounds relieved. Pills in his mouth. An assisted trip to the toilet to pee that in retrospect is better to have forgotten. The stench of vomit in a bowl. Words of reassurance and promises, even though he doesn’t remember calling for help. Tissues wiping under his eyes. The beeping of the infusion machine, and hands holding his arm down so that he wouldn’t get tangled in the warm tubes that pump life into his veins.
Jongdae is so tired.
“It’s going down,” Minseok says. “It’s finally going down!”
He pulls away, but Jongdae realizes his hand is closed around a wrist, and he squeezes. “No.”
“Just a sec, Dae, the nurse is waiting for me at the intercom. I need to tell her this.”
Minseok gently lifts one of Jongdae’s fingers at a time, until his hand is empty. He tries to open his eyes, but his head spins. Blindly, he moves his hand on the mattress, looking for something. The bedding is warm, like someone had been there until a second prior. “Min. Minseok!”
“I’m here,” Minseok whispers. He takes his wandering hand between his. “What do you need?”
“I’m not sure. I’m… cold.”
Minseok exhales loudly. “It’s the first semi-coherent sentence I hear you make in a long time, Dae. Nice to have you back.”
It feels like someone is hammering nails into his skull. Opening his eyes is not an option, so Jongdae tries to breathe around the pain. “Back from where?” he croaks.
“I don’t know. But I’m glad you’re here now.”
Minseok slips in the bed smoothly, easily, like he’d done it before. Jongdae doesn’t remember. He moves close to him, really close, and he’s so warm and it feels so nice that Jongdae doesn’t even waste braincells wondering how and when and why it had become so familiar and comfortable.
“Are you still cold?” the hybrid asks, his voice near Jongdae’s ear.
“A little.”
Minseok hums, settling down and exhaling. “Are you still scared?”
Jongdae ponders. Well, pondering is a big word; his brain has a glimmer of activity that lasts less than a second and is anything but enlightening. Was he scared? “I think—”
“Yeah?”
Jongdae shivers. Something huge, dark and ominous at the borders of his consciousness. Yes, he’s scared. He’s been scared.
But he doesn’t answer, because he passes out.
Day 14 (?)
He opens his eyes in what he supposes is an early morning.
The lack of noises and vibrations suggests the entire building is still asleep. The lights would usually be off at this time, but the small lamp on Minseok’s nightstand is turned on. Minseok doesn’t need light in the dark, so it must be on for Jongdae’s benefit. It allows Jongdae to see that their room is a mess. Their transfusion devices have been stacked in a heap on Minseok’s empty bed, there are clothes and rags on the floor and a pile of trays and plates on the table.
It smells bad, too. Sweat, leftovers, something metallic, unwashed fabric. The room has lost its pristine condition. Considering how Minseok had liked to spend his free time wiping surfaces and folding clothes, it feels like they’re at a crime scene.
Jongdae tries to roll over, and bumps into a body.
Minseok looks no better than how Jongdae feels. He seems exhausted. Pale, with dark circles, hair and fur tousled. He’s laying belly up next to him holding Jongdae’s hand. In his other hand, over the blankets, he’s clutching a thermometer, a phone, a syringe and a blister of medicine of some kind.
Jongdae sort of remembers, then. And he wants to hold Minseok tight like he’s held him while he yelled and thrashed, fever-induced visions of death stealing the oxygen from the room until he choked on his own breaths and Minseok cried because he didn’t know what to do and punched the intercom because no one would come and he pressed his fingers against Jongdae’s jugular after he’d pass out, terrified of what he could find.
He stares at the hybrid. He’s never had the chance to really see him sleep. Minseok was either always awake before him, or felt his eyes on him and immediately started awake, as if some sort of animal instinct helped him to avoid being hunted.
But this time Minseok sleeps. He must be drained. It’s not a deep slumber, some part of him is still keeping ready to be awake and useful. His eyes move under his closed lids and the rise and fall of his chest is not as evenly-paced as it should be.
Jongdae thinks it’s the fever that makes him want to place his palm over that restless chest, to nose at the corners of those dark-circled eyes. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t dare to even sigh.
Until the damn machinery starts beeping; it’s time to draw some blood.
Minseok jolts awake and sits up, the things he’d been holding scattering on the bedding. He turns to look at Jongdae and his eyes widen.
“You’re awake! How are you feeling?”
“Absolutely fucking peachy. What are you doing in my territory?”
“Dude. That stopped being funny after the first time you said it,” Minseok grumbles amusedly, but moves to get out of the bed nonetheless.
Jongdae finds himself clinging to his hand. “Please. What—what happened?”
The amusement fades from Minseok’s eyes, and he sits back down slowly. He inhales deeply, obviously for the purpose of smelling him. Jongdae wouldn’t have sniffed himself on a bet, at the moment.
“I know what you’re thinking. It wasn’t me, I didn’t trigger your allergies.”
Jongdae hadn’t been thinking about that at all. “What? No, I know.”
“Your fever got out of control, you got hyperpyrexia.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Basically it got too high. Convulsions, confusional states, hallucinations.” Minseok bites his lips and his voice loses the professional tone, becoming small. “You thought you were dead.”
That sums it up pretty well, in Jongdae’s opinion. And he wasn’t even present to himself enough to confirm the rest of it.
Besides the obvious exhaustion, there’s something else in Minseok’s eyes. Like he’d been fighting Jongdae’s own demons with his bare hands for days and had eventually lost hope.
“They said it was the medication mixed with your saline solution. They usually give it to patients after the first week to spike up the red blood cells production. It worked a bit too well and your system tried to fight it. I did some research, it’s a common side effect.”
It all sounds complex enough to be entirely out of the reach of his fatigued brain, so Jongdae doesn’t even bother registering the concept. “How long?”
“Three days.”
“Shit.” Jongdae swallows. “Well. They did say it would get worse before it got better, didn’t they.”
Minseok blinks like he’s trying to assess his condition. Like he wouldn’t be surprised if Jongdae started shaking and screaming again. “I’m just glad it got better. It really scared me.”
It’s the fact that Minseok is not trying to downplay it, that makes Jongdae’s stomach sink. “I’m sorry.”
Minseok smiles at him and squeezes his hand before getting up. Jongdae tries to hold on, but Minseok chuckles. “I’m just going to get the machines for the blood. I’ll be back in less than a minute.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop being dumb, already.”
“It’s a default state, I’m afraid,” Jongdae grumbles, rolling his sleeve up.
Minseok offers an indulgent smile, taking Jongdae’s arm to plug him in. That’s when Jongdae notices that his IV access has been switched from his right arm to his left while he was unconscious. There’s a bandage where it used to be. He moves the blankets around and sure enough, there’s a patch of disturbing red stains next to his right leg. In flashes, he vaguely remembers ripping the needle out, making a mess, and Minseok sitting on him to make him stay still long enough to put another one in. He shudders, and Minseok glances at the stains and quietly clears his throat.
They sit in front of each other in silence for a while, watching their blood change owner. Jongdae tries to ignore how Minseok keeps glancing at him, as though he seriously expects him to break down and is readying himself to rush and take action once again.
Minseok shakes his tiny fists when his machine beeps first. “Ha! Beat you.”
“A victory against the sickly. What a conquest.”
“A win is a win in my book.”
They exchange bags and tubes. Jongdae leans against the wall and closes his eyes, the familiar mild sting of the reinfusion almost anchoring after days of feeling estranged from his own body.
“Do you want to rest a bit more?” Minseok asks softly, like he wasn’t sure whether Jongdae had fallen asleep.
Jongdae nods, eyes still closed. “Yeah. But I want to feel human again. I’ll shower first.”
“Maybe grab a bite?”
Only then Jongdae remembers that they’re supposed to eat the same stuff. If he’s been too sick or delirious to eat anything for days, Minseok must have been starving himself. He opens his eyes and turns his head so quickly he hears something crack in his neck.
“Oh, God. How long since you last ate?”
Minseok hesitates, then shrugs. “The nurses allowed me to eat something while I was waiting for you to wake up,” he says evasively. He sees Jongdae’s horrified grimace and quickly adds, making it worse: “I mean, every now and then I did manage to force some soup down your throat?”
Jongdae clunks his head back on the wall. “Shit. It bears repeating: I am so sorry.”
Minseok flicks the tip of Jongdae’s nose, while scrunching his own. Jongdae is entirely defenseless against such little gestures, and not just because the fever fucked him over.
None of them says anything else until they’re done reinfusing. It’s yet another thing that makes Jongdae feel like shit; it must have been a lot of work, for Minseok, to make sure they’d be able to continue with the paramount blood treatment despite Jongdae’s unconsciousness or active uncooperativeness. And yet somehow he did it. If the roles were reversed, Jongdae is not sure he would have been able to keep another person alive.
“I can’t imagine doing this with anybody else,” Jongdae says, and his own transparency catches him off guard, although he’s not going to take it back.
Minseok looks up in surprise, too, his ears pricking up. He clearly doesn’t really know what to answer to that, and his lips briefly stretch in a wobbly smile.
Trying to stave off the awkward moment, Jongdae forces himself to come up with something that would reduce the implications of his abrupt statement. He coughs. “Like. The entire concept of the matching program. Sleeping in the same room, eating the same stuff. There must have been some really odd pairings, right? People who never hit it off? I imagine it was not always people of the same age, the same sex, coming from the same country, even, like us.”
Minseok shrugs and shoves their used blood bags in an infectious waste bag, as usual taking his time to formulate an adequate answer. He shrugs. “From what I’ve heard from other hybrids that were in the program, there is some sort of tutelage for different sex pairings or when minors are involved. They are still isolated but they are allowed separate rooms at night, and there are security cameras. The clinics give each party in the pairing a lawyer and a ton of documents upon request. I don’t think there have been any incidents, so far.”
“Still, it must be pretty awkward.”
Minseok scratches his head, thinking. He tries to groom one of his ears, and gives up immediately. He urgently needs a shower, too. “Well, a friend of mine got paired with a seven year old girl. The parents requested to meet him beforehand. He’s really tall, has long fangs and the worst case of resting bitch face I’ve ever seen.” He shakes his head, fondly. “The parents were so terrified they almost pulled their kid from the program.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah. I don’t know, some humans seem to expect every kind of depravity from us. Perversions or cannibalism, according to whatever urban myth they heard. In the end they agreed to start her treatment, and her mother was on watch basically the entire time, she didn’t trust the security cameras and camped in the hallway. But Sehun is great with children and by the end of the program she basically considered him an older brother. The entire family adores him. They spend Chuseok together every year.”
“That’s nice.”
“Yeah.” Minseok smiles. His tail gracefully unfurls over his legs. “Before coming here I talked to your doctor on the phone, but she was not allowed to say much. I got your profile one hour before we met, and I was already here doing preliminary tests. Regardless of who I was going to match with, I would have done it.” He pauses. “But I’m really glad it’s you.”
“Even after the shitshow of the past few days?”
Minseok nods, serious. “Yes.”
If Jongdae had any color left in his face, it would be pooling on his cheeks. “I’m really glad it’s you, too.”
They cross gazes, and neither of them breaks eye-contact for a while. Only the appearance of a nurse in the window accompanied by the buzzing of the intercom snaps them out of their moment and prompts Minseok to jump off the bed.
He exchanges information about Jongdae’s condition and listens carefully to her instructions. Jongdae doesn’t mind that Minseok acts like he’s still the one in charge of his health. After all, the hybrid has somehow managed to keep him alive thus far. He’s come to trust him completely, probably more than he trusts himself.
Jongdae waves at her to prove that he’s doing relatively okay, as Minseok taps on the tablet and nods along to her recommendations on food and on the correct order of the blood samples they’ll have to draw from Jongdae the following day, to avoid cross-contamination of additives and whatnot. Jongdae doesn’t understand. He’s not sure he would, even under normal circumstances. But somehow pale, rumpled-looking Minseok still has it in him to be attentive and take notes like a student in class, his tail swaying slowly around his ankles. He’s truly magical.
Once she has left, Minseok sets down the tablet on the cleanest corner of the table and allows himself a small sigh, rubbing his eyes. “Shower?”
Jongdae stretches. “Shower!”
“You go first.”
When Jongdae exits the bathroom, feeling like he has been reborn, he finds that Minseok has changed both their beddings and is wiping every flat surface on sight with a wet cloth that reeks of disinfectant. The trays have disappeared and their machines are perfectly aligned on the table, next to two steaming bowls of soup. The air exchange system has been turned to its highest setting, and the ventilation is contributing to clearing the air from the lingering stink of malaise.
Jongdae discards his clothes, towels and any stray cloth he finds in the chute by the door. He’s either moving in slow-motion or Minseok is being a tornado, because in the time it takes Jongdae to cross the room Minseok has whipped out an electric appliance and has started vacuuming the floor. Jongdae didn’t even know they had a vacuum.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Cats like being clean,” Minseok deadpans, not turning the device off. “Eat.”
As soon as the hybrid is done, he scarfs down his soup and bolts for the shower. Jongdae is barely awake when he’s back, looking a lot better with freshly combed hair and sleek fur.
“Come here?”
“Do you need something?”
“Scared.”
“Oh.” Minseok hesitates, then resolutely slips in the bed next to him. “Get some rest.”
Jongdae doesn’t object. He closes his eyes and drifts off.
Day 15
“Hey, sleepyhead.”
Jongdae mumbles a wordless response and snuggles his pillow to get more comfortable, not quite awake yet.
“Okay. This is—Dae. Wake up.”
The beeping of the machines is so annoying. But Minseok’s chuckles are almost soothing, especially when so closely listened to.
Way too closely.
Jongdae lifts his head, forcing himself to open one eye. He’s been snuggling Minseok, not a pillow.
“Oh shit.”
He rolls away from the hybrid and into the wall. Maybe he should be more alarmed by this, but Minseok looks at ease, and to be honest he also feels very comfortable. Carefully, Jongade lifts the leg he’d apparently hooked over one of Minseok’s in his sleep.
“Damn. Sorry.”
More chuckling. Minseok doesn’t move away, not even to shut down the machine that had been ringing the whole time in the background. He looks at Jongdae with a wide, fangy grin. “Nah, you’re okay.”
Jongdae rubs his eyes in a desperate attempt at wiping the sleep away. There are things he needs to see clearer. Minseok smiling at him in his own bed is a thing he wants to witness in HD.
“I’m not usually so clingy,” Jongdae lies. He is. He’s damn clingy. His ex berated him a lot for it.
Minseok’s smile doesn’t change. “You’re okay,” he repeats. Then, looking like he regrets it, he sighs and gets up to appease and fetch the machines.
Since he’s a genius, or maybe since Jongdae’s sickness forced him to come up with more advanced engineering solutions, he has figured out a way to make the entire transfusion process work while laying down. It takes longer, but it’s way more comfortable in the early morning.
“This is a game changer,” Jongdae says dreamily, covers pulled up to his chin. “You should have figured it out sooner.”
“I really should have,” Minseok sighs, laying back down next to him. He moves around a bit in a way that Jongdae has learned to associate to finding a position comfortable for his tail, then closes his eyes and reaches for Jongdae’s hand under the covers. He barely brushes his fingers before he flinches back, eyes pressed shut.
“Sorry. I, uh. Got used to doing that when you were sick.”
Jongdae has opened his mouth to say it’s okay, but Minseok keeps talking. “It helped you fall asleep. You’ve been sleeping well when I’m here. No nightmares.”
Jongdae shifts his hand until he finds Minseok’s, and holds it. He keeps his eyes closed and a genuine content expression plastered on his face when he feels Minseok has turned to look at him. “It’s really nice, indeed,” he says offhandedly. “If it’s nice for you too, I really don’t mind.”
Few seconds of silence and immobility. Then Minseok shifts his fingers to better lock their hands together.
They both exhale.
“I am really happy you’re my match, Min.”
“I’m really happy, too.”
Day 16
Jongdae knows he still looks rather worse for wear, but Minseok is unnerving him. He keeps sneaking sideways glances at him, like during the first days of their acquaintance when they were trying to figure each other out.
At the same time, it’s a different kind of nervousness, because they’re not strangers anymore, and those glances are entirely different kinds of looks.
For the time being, Jongdae prefers not to indulge in his own delusions. Minseok is a very kind and generous man who is just worried about his health. The attention he gives Jongdae is reasonable from the blood match point of view; he may like Jongdae as one of the very few nice humans he’s ever met and the likelihood of them staying friends after the treatment’s over is increasing, but the only reason why he hovers is that he’s been unofficially appointed as his caretaker, and because what they’re doing must succeed if Minseok wants his work with the FES to be worth something, and if he wants a check upon dismissal.
The fact that Jongdae craves that attention and proximity is entirely unrelated, and it is not just the aftermath of his sickness that is proving harder to shake off. No, he’s got it bad. But that’s just his problem, and he’ll do his best not to make it Minseok’s problem as well. Jongdae doesn’t deal well with awkwardness; they’re barely halfway through the program, making it awkward now would make him want to actually die. Which defeats the purpose of him being there in the first place.
Besides, Jongdae doesn’t want to assume that it’s in Minseok’s nature to even like Jongdae in any way other than what he’s shown so far, although Jongdae doesn’t know many straight men who would hold his hand for days on end, no matter how sick he got. And should Minseok be interested in men, he’s probably committed to Baekhyun anyway. He may even have dropped hints; he talks about the guy an awful lot.
Jongdae had told himself it didn’t matter and it was none of his business, until he got used to waking up with Minseok holding his hand. Then it started feeling a little like it was his business, too, which didn’t make it any easier a subject to breach.
Minseok himself offers the perfect chance that very afternoon, while rubbing his hair dry with a towel. He picks up his phone to check his notifications and chuckles, then huffs. “Hey, Dae?”
Jongdae was making a pile with the clean changes of clothes they were left with. He doesn’t know what the clinic expected of them, but he estimates there are enough gray t-shirts to last them through the entire summer. “Yeah?”
“Can I take a picture of you? Baekhyun won’t stop pestering me to know what you look like.”
Quite smoothly, surprising himself, Jongdae shifts his weight from one leg to the other, leaning his chin on his hands on top of the pile. “Why? Jealous much?”
Minseok finally stops toweling and looks up from the phone. He looks genuinely confused. Then he starts blushing with a quiet “oh.” Flustered Minseok is such a rare and endearing sight.
“No, no, we’re not. Not a couple.”
“Ah, sorry, my mistake. You talk about him a lot.”
Minseok blinks, like his life is flashing in front of his eyes. “No,” he repeats. “He’s my friend.”
Jongdae laughs. “Okay, then. Go ahead.”
Minseok takes his picture, absently. Then shivers. “God no, not Baekhyun.”
“Damn, the guy is that terrible?”
“You don’t even want to know,” Minseok grumbles, walking back into the bathroom to grab his comb.
Okay, then. Not Baekhyun. One less guy to compete (?) with.
“Dae, help me out here. I got tangled.”
Despite not having aced his infusion timings the way he used to before he got sick, Jongdae is already discarding his empty blood bags when he looks over and sees that Minseok is indeed struggling to untangle his tube with his free hand.
He leans over the back of his chair to inspect the damage. “And you called me clumsy. How did you even?”
“I felt something touch my tail and I jumped—whatever. Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing,” Jongdae says, even though it’s taking everything out of him not to sound too amused. He’s seen Minseok startle occasionally, when he got unreasonably scared of something in his peripheral vision, which 90% of the time was nothing. Go figure.
Jongdae walks around the chair. The IV tube got tangled in Minseok’s hoodie, that’s why he can’t remove it. He doesn’t realize how close he got until he can smell Minseok’s fur-friendly shampoo and something tickles his nose. He has to step back and snort through the giggles.
“What?”
“Your ear tickled my nose!” Jongdae protests with laughter.
The incriminated ear swivels.
Minseok looks over, and chuckles. “Did it?” he asks with a mischief that suggests he did it on purpose.
“Yeah, you jerk!”
“Will you free me already?”
“There, done, you menace.”
Jongdae sits next to Minseok. “Will you bite me if I ask you to touch your ear?”
Minseok squints. “I won’t bite you, because you asked.”
“So can I?”
A grimace. “Do you often ask your friends to touch their ears?”
“My friends are human.”
“Exactly.”
Jongdae clears his throat. “I’m sorry. You have a point. Did I do it again? Did I ask a really inappropriate question?”
Minseok frowns. “Yes and no. It’s not inappropriate at this stage of our relationship.”
What stage of their what—
“So can I?”
“If you really have to.”
“Just this once?”
“Okay.”
“Dos and don’ts?”
“Don’t pull. Or pinch. Or press. Don’t even try to touch the inside.”
“Any dos?”
Minseok doesn’t answer. He sighs, rearranging the tubes and avoiding his gaze, before he lowers his head and leans in Jongdae’s direction.
“It’s so soft,” Jongdae whispers, pads of his fingers dipping in the white fur of the back of his ear. “Oh, wow.”
It’s a weird feeling. The cartilage under the fur is soft and thin. He didn’t expect it to be so warm.
“Don’t go against the grain.”
“Sorry. Is this okay?”
“Yes.”
“Wow.”
“It’s just an ear.”
“I can assure you that you won’t feel the same if you touch my ear. This is so much different.”
“Sometimes you sound like you have a fetish.”
It’s a joke. It’s meant to be one. But Minseok is tense, his tail is lowered, straight and a little puffy, and he’s not looking at him.
Has it happened to him before? Has the occasional dehumanization reduced him to a kink, has he ever been objectified? Jongdae might not know much about hybrids, but he knows some of the distorted views humans can have with respect to other beings. Considering how defensive Minseok has been since the beginning, he dreads the answers to those questions.
For good measure, Jongdae rubs a little more gently. “Hey, I am allergic to anything that moves that is not a human. And you, apparently. So this is a new experience for me. I’m positively mind-blown.”
“You’re not helping your cause.”
Jongdae scoffs. “Come on. You’ve slept in my territory for days, if I was a creep I would have touched your tail ages ago. It looks really soft.”
“Please don’t ever touch my tail.”
“I was not going to.”
Jongdae moves with light fingers across the silky ear, then dips them in the cotton candy-like cloud of his hair, right through a darker strand of silver, looking for contact with his scalp right behind the ear.
Minseok closes his eyes and exhales hard, before he flinches away. “No.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Minseok finally starts unhooking himself with deft fingers. The ear Jongdae touched keeps flickering, like it was trying to shake off his phantom touch.
Jongdae decides it’s enough, and stands to give him some space. He perceives even across the room how much Minseok appreciates it, even though he feels his eyes on himself until it’s time to go to bed.
Jongdae unhesitatingly slips into his own bed, and pretends not to be interested in wherever Minseok decides to sleep. Minseok, on the other hand, busies himself with meaningless tasks until he’s just fidgeting in the middle of their room, looking at the floor.
He gathers his courage for a minute, before he clears his throat.
“It’s only fair,” he says.
Jongdae opens one eye. “What?”
“We should change territory tonight,” he says, vaguely pointing at his own bed. “It’s only fair.”
“But you said it’s just yours and you don’t like people to be in it.”
Minseok crosses his gaze, vexed. “I’m not going to scratch you, if that’s what concerns you.”
Maybe it should have concerned him, but the thought was miles away from Jongdae’s brain. Even though he’s no hybrid, he senses that what Minseok is offering is a huge concession in cat terms.
He gets up and reaches Minseok in the middle ground between their beds. “May I, oh mighty predator—”
Minseok lightly knees his butt. “Just get in, idiot.”
Chuckling, Jongdae sits on the bed. It’s Minseok who manhandles him until he has him tucked between the wall and himself, all the while grumbling under his breath. He turns the lights off and closes his eyes, getting ready to sleep.
“Thanks,” Jongdae says, once he’s enveloped in a nice cocoon, smelling of laundry detergent, disinfectant and Minseok. “Things are nice around here. I really needed a change of air. Exploring new lands always excites me.”
“Keep being a moron and I’ll kick you out of the bed.”
“You can’t, you’re on the side of the edge of the bed. Most you could do is flatten me against the wall.”
“Maybe I’ll do that. Keep talking and we’ll see who wakes up a pancake in the morning.”
As much as Jongdae wouldn’t mind being squished by Minseok, he turns to the side to face him. He mentally pats himself on the back when he doesn’t flinch upon finding two bright yellow eyes right in front of his face.
“Hey, really. It’s very nice of you to offer. But if it goes against your instinct or something, I could just leave.”
“It’s fine.”
“I’m serious. I know being in here with a stranger is probably testing enough, so—”
Minseok huffs and grabs Jongdae’s hand. The two lights are shut down, meaning he closed his eyes. “Goodnight.”
Jongdae wants to lean forward and kiss his forehead. He doesn’t.
Day 17
Jongdae wakes up because he’s ticklish. He squirms and feels around, but can’t move because there’s someone who’s laying partially on him.
Minseok’s head is on his shoulder, and his ears are tickling his neck and jaw. Jongdae covers his mouth with a hand, trying not to laugh.
Minseok stirs, waking up. “Dae?” he calls, and upon realizing that he’s basically laying half on top of Jongdae he freezes. Then, carefully, he tightens his embrace instead of dislodging himself like Jongdae had done before.
Jongdae’s heart leaps, and can almost feel the rush of his brain spiking up the production of the good fucking chemicals. Yeah, he rather enjoys being squeezed like that. He especially enjoys the fact that Minseok is the one squeezing him.
“Why are you hiccuping?” Minseok drawls.
“Your ears. Ticklish.”
Minseok tilts his head to move them away from Jongdae’s face.
“Can I touch them?”
Minseok hesitates.
“No pressing, pulling, pinching, ruffling, going against the grain,” Jongdae recites.
“‘Kay.”
Minseok loosens up considerably when Jongdae starts touching them.
“You’re so nice to let me do this.”
Minseok snorts. “Do you really think I’d let you if it wasn’t nice for me, too?”
“Yeah, makes sense.”
They both sigh and relax against each other. Jongdae is feeling incredibly warm, but it’s not displeasing. There’s just a lot more contact than he’d ever thought there would be, before.
Minseok sneaks his arm around Jongdae’s waist, hugging him tight. Jongdae swallows. Minseok wouldn’t behave like this if he was just concerned about his wellbeing as a friend, right?
Right?
“Go lower,” Minseok instructs quietly against Jongdae’s collarbone.
“You sure? I thought you didn’t like it, since yesterday—”
“It’s okay.”
Unsure, Jongdae dips his fingers in the strands of ruffled white hair. It’s so soft, and before he’s realizing it he’s running his fingers through the strands, pressing lightly against his scalp at the base of the ear.
Minseok clears his throat, but he doesn’t move or say anything so Jongdae doesn’t stop. After a minute, he tightens his embrace even more, and clears his throat again.
“You good?”
Minseok nods against Jongdae’s shoulder. “Very,” he says raspily.
Very. Jongdae is scratching Minseok behind the ears like he’s a cat, and Minseok is hugging him like he never wants him to stop. Jongdae is also very good.
Without realizing it, he started rubbing his free hand on Minseok’s back. Minseok arches into it, hides his face on Jongdae’s chest.
Minseok coughs again, then sighs. “I’m sorry, I can’t—”
And he starts purring.
Jongdae wants to scream. He opens his mouth without making a sound.
Minseok melts against him, letting Jongdae do what he wants. Not that Jongdae wants to do anything, he just lays there with the most dopey smile on his face, petting Minseok and feeling the vibration of his purrs against his own body, filling his ears.
He realizes Minseok has dozed off a while later, when he jerks a little in his sleep. Jongdae doesn’t stop, and the purrs he’s causing lull him to sleep as well.
The machines wake them up. Minseok flinches and moves to stand, but Jongdae has both arms around him and traps him. “No. Too early.”
“Let me just—”
“Nooooo.”
“Dae.”
Jongdae flails one hand around until he can aim it correctly, and scratches behind Minseok’s left ear. Minseok collapses on him with a groan. “Had I known you’d use it as a weapon against me…”
“Nice weapon.”
“I’m fucked.”
Damn straight.
But the blood-sucking machine doesn’t shut up.
“Can I please—”
“Fuck, shit, please, before I hurl it through the wall.”
Minseok shrugs his hand off and basically lets himself fall off the bed. Jongdae follows him, and stumbles to the bathroom to pee and try to instruct his dick to stop acting inappropriate.
Minseok uses the bathroom after him and they both slump onto their assigned chairs to start transfusing like normal people and not in bed. Minseok has thrown his legs over Jongdae’s lap, and every now and then Jongdae tickles him under his feet. They’re both sleepy, but they exchange soft smiles over red tubes and they laugh at each other’s hair. Minseok’s especially is standing at a weird angle, courtesy of Jongdae having worked his fingers through it for most of the morning.
Minseok is done first, and does a sleepy, cheeky dance that tears Jongdae apart because of the cuteness overload. Once Jongdae is done, Minseok circles the table and unhooks him, taking all the dirty supplies. “Let me, I’ll put them away.”
He moves to walk away, but Jongdae stands in his way, grabs the front of his shirt, pulls him into another hug with a soft “oomph.”
He doesn’t know why. All he knows is that Minseok’s hesitation lasts less than a split second, before he drops the supplies and pulls him closer still. “Dae. You’re such a sleepy cat,” he chuckles.
“I learned from the best.”
Minseok’s silent laughter is delightful, when it resonates through their chests like that. “As you said, I’m not sure that scratching your ears would work, but just know that I’d do it if it made sense.”
“We should try, one day.”
Minseok disentangles their hug and picks up the supply. “Let me tidy up here.”
Sounds promising. Jongdae falls into bed with a grunt, listening to Minseok bustling around.
There’s a short stretch of silence, then Minseok jumps on his bed.
“Shit, fuck, Minseok. I didn’t hear you. You stealthy little shit.”
“I’d be quite a shitty cat if I didn’t move silently. What do you want to do today?”
“So many options, I really don’t know how we’ll be able to choose.”
“Movie it is.”
Jongdae wouldn’t be able to recall anything about the movie afterwards. Minseok falls asleep against him after the first ten minutes, head on his chest, both of Jongdae’s hands in his hair, purring loud enough to drown out the dialogue on the screen.
Jongdae hasn’t looked at the screen once. Especially not after Minseok’s hands fist the front of his shirt and start pulling and pushing.
Minseok is kneading.
Jongdae is sure that so much internal screaming cannot be good for his health.
Day 18
“You need help with that?”
Jongdae stares at the envelope that has been resting on the table for eight hours now. “No.”
It sounds like a question, and Minseok’s brows shoot up. “Hey. It’s just numbers on a piece of paper. If it was bad they would have let you know, trust me.”
Jongdae knows he’s right. The nurse who had introduced the folder in their room through the sterilizing chamber had been smiling, and no further announcements or changes in his treatment had been provided.
Minseok crosses his arms on his chest. He’s whipping his tail left and right like he’s annoyed. “Just open it.”
Something in his voice makes Jongdae look at him more carefully. And what he sees in Minseok’s unguarded face is that maybe Minseok is equally as scared, although he tries to be rational whereas Jongdae fails.
Jongdae licks his lips. “Lately I have cried after opening every envelope I received.”
Minseok takes a deep breath in. Upon exhaling, he takes his chair and drags it close to Jongdae, throwing his arm over his shoulders. “We’re here to change that. Right? What we’re doing here is going to change that.”
Jongdae joins his hands in his lap, trying to hide the way they’re shaking. He sucks a breath through his teeth when Minseok’s hand lands over his and squeezes.
“Min.”
“I’m here. Let’s open it together.”
Feeling slightly less helpless, Jongdae sniffles. He nods, and reaches for the envelope.
He struggles to focus; just like Minseok had predicted, it’s just numbers on a piece of paper. Values and technicalities he wouldn’t know how to interpret, even if he were detached enough to do so.
Minseok skims through the lines faster than him, and his exhale is shaky, but even without looking at him Jongdae can tell that his lips have taken the shape of a smile. So he forces himself to lower his gaze to the bottom of the page, where the most important piece of information has been highlighted in yellow.
<23.
On March 1st, when he entered the facility, his mutated red blood cells were close to the alarm threshold, at <86, and it would have been even worse had the doctors not stuffed him full of pills for weeks.
“Min…” he says, his voice catching around the lump in his throat, not daring to say it out loud.
Minseok releases the tension with a sort of relieved, disbelieving chuckle, and puts his head against Jongdae’s. “Dae.”
The paper trembles in Jongdae’s shaky hold. “Min, we’re doing it!”
“You’re beating it.”
Jongdae turns to Minseok, forehead to forehead. There’s a triumphant light in Minseok’s eyes, and Jongdae feels euphoria wash over him, like a new layer of skin.
He stands up, his fists gripping Minseok’s sleeves. “I’ll be fine?”
“You’ll be fine!” Minseok laughs and playfully bumps their foreheads together again.
Jongdae laughs, too, and feels invincible.
He surges forward and kisses Minseok square on the lips.
It could go either incredibly well or incredibly not well; it’s just a fleeting thought that he has once the warmth of Minseok’s mouth is against his. The thought is immediately obliterated by the wet drag of Minseok’s lips when he kisses him back.
It goes well; Minseok throws the papers on the table and cradles Jongdae’s face, pushing him backwards until he slams his back against the cabinets.
The rattling noise snaps him out of it, and he lets go. “Sorry, Dae, I—”
Jongdae swallows any further bullshit he was about to utter, and can’t help but whimper softly when such bullshit is replaced by Minseok’s tongue in his mouth.
Jongdae’s current erratic heartbeat disagrees with the encouraging values printed on the paper, but Jongdae is not in any state to care.
Not when Minseok hands on his waist pull him so close, when he can taste him and smell him and get dizzy. His tongue encounters the tip of Minseok’s fangs. Maybe he should have thought about those before. Maybe he’s just reckless. Maybe he just really would have shoved his tongue in Minseok’s mouth regardless. It was bound to happen sooner or later, fangs be damned.
Minseok almost pulls away then, but Jongdae quickly discovers that the fangs don’t really hurt. They’re actually pretty exciting. He makes a sound in the back of his throat, surprise and appreciation mixed, and Minseok relaxes.
He sneaks a hand on Minseok’s nape, and then higher, aiming at keeping him close and petting his ears, and Minseok lets out a disbelieving chuckle, which then turns into smile-shaped kisses down the column of Jongdae’s neck.
It’s so good. It’s so much more than Jongdae had dared to hope. He smiles at the ceiling, feeling completely at peace despite the electrifying buzz under his skin.
Minseok slows down, lifts his head to claim one last peck on his lips.
“Jongdae.”
Jongdae looks into his eyes, and he’s never seen them in this shape; the unadulterated joy in them is intoxicating to look at. Jongdae wants to be the one sparking it, again and again.
Minseok leans into his hand when Jongdae cups his face, and the nurses outside of the door choose that exact moment to speak on the intercom.
“Dinner is ready!”
Minseok jumps away so quickly that Jongdae isn’t sure of how it would be humanly (or felinely) possible to cross a room so fast.
Minseok comes back with the trays and can’t help but laugh at the blush on Jongdae’s face before waving at the nurse who just delivered their food. Jongdae understands the feeling; he also feels on top of the world, and unbeatable, and smug.
Minseok allows him a minute to marinate in his embarrassment for having been caught, so Jongdae walks to the bathroom to wash his hands. What he hadn’t foreseen was the spark of mischief that Minseok projects into the bathroom mirror when he follows him inside and closes the door.
Jongdae has to brace against the sink when Minseok circles his waist with his arms, pulling him unbelievably close to himself, and starts kissing the side of his neck.
It’s so soft, Jongdae is surprised he can hold himself upright. He’s soaring in a layer of elation that is probably way above the stratosphere; all he wants to do is melt into Minseok’s embrace.
Only to go back to planet Earth when the tip of Minseok’s fingers brushes against the skin of his stomach and slides upwards under his shirt, and Minseok nuzzles on his nape and nibbles at his skin. It’s still soft, but Jongdae is an idiot and he is not completely in control of his idiot body, so he startles when once again his heart decides that beating regularly is not all that important.
“Wait,” he pants. “Min, wait.”
Minseok’s wide eyes meet Jongdae’s in the mirror. His cheeks are flushed, his ears are standing tall as he tries to understand what Jongdae is doing, and he seems to lag for a minute before he quickly steps back, demeanor deflating from that of a fierce predator to that of a wet kitten. “I’m sorry,” he says, ears droopy. He coughs. “I got carried away, I didn’t mean to—”
Jongdae turns around and places his palm on Minseok’s chest to shut him up. “I meant it,” he says.
Minseok tries to avoid his gaze, but gives up in the end. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I just. I’m sorry. I don’t—I got carried away, too, but I, uhm. This is good! I just. It’s new.”
Those feline eyes remain fixed and unblinking, then he looks away again, and his tail wraps around one of his legs. “You don’t need to say this just to make me feel better. I shouldn’t have… kissed you like that.”
Jongdae uses Minseok’s shirt to once again pull him closer and meet Minseok’s lips with a kiss. The soft, surprised noise the hybrid makes is so worth it.
“I kissed you first, didn’t I?” Jongdae whispers against his mouth.
Minseok stares at him, dumbfounded. Then he lets out a chuckle. “I guess you did. I guess you did, yeah.” Then he seems to fully grasp the concept and his eyebrows shoot up. “You… did?”
Minseok has never looked so expressive before. Jongdae reaches for his hand. “We don’t have many options but even though we’re stuck in here, I can think of a few more places where we can have this conversation that are not a toilet.”
He pulls a reluctant Minseok out of the bathroom. They both glance at the food and ignore it.
Jongdae stands between their beds and wiggles his brows, pretending to jump left and right over an invisible line, which makes Minseok huff amusedly and push him towards his own territory.
This time around it’s Jongdae who manhandles the hybrid until he has trapped him between himself and the wall. Minseok sits cross-legged, tame, looking especially confused when Jongdae drapes the blanket over their legs and then grabs his shins to lean over.
“Hi,” Jongdae says, leaning forward to peck Minseok again.
Again, Minseok makes a soft little sound, and what Jongdae had intended to be just a peck turns into a languid, deeper kiss. He leans away when Minseok starts purring, and Minseok clamps his hands over his mouth.
Jongdae pinches his thigh. “Don’t hide that.”
Minseok removes his hands, but it’s too late, the purrs have stopped. As much as Jongdae wants to make them start again, he’ll have to wait.
“I, uhm. I liked the direction we were going,” Jongdae says. If Minseok reached down between his legs, he’d find a slowly deflating proof of it.
Minseok doesn’t move, doesn’t answer. He looks pained.
“I don’t know what came over me—and I didn’t mean to bite you!”
“It’s okay! It didn’t hurt.”
“It’s just—you smelled like—” and he stops.
Interesting. “Like?”
“Like you—like I could.”
“Like I said: I wouldn’t have minded.”
Minseok looks down at Jongdae’s chest. He suddenly looks very tiny. “We—hybrids. We don’t rely on verbal communication a lot. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed. I never—”
Jongdae waits.
“I have never kissed a human before,” he whispers, as though it was a scandalous secret.
Using the same kind of hushed voice, but smirking, Jongdae answers honestly: “You could probably tell, but I have never kissed a hybrid. We’re even.”
He pecks Minseok again, then rubs their noses together. “I just. It’s new.”
“Of course, Dae. I put all my ridiculous tiger boundaries and you’ve been great, it would be mean if I didn’t respect yours.”
“It’s okay, I—wait. Tiger?”
Minseok goes very still. “Uhm.”
Jongdae leans backwards to better look at him. “What do you mean, tiger.”
“That’s… not officially, but…”
“Are you not a cat?”
“Yes… not… exactly?”
“You’re a tiger?”
“A quarter?
“Are you asking me?”
“No? It’s just that your voice is becoming increasingly high pitched? And I just?” Minseok licks his lips. “Is that okay? I shouldn’t have told you that. You look—spooked?”
“Spooked?” Jongdae grins. “Min, that’s freaking awesome. That’s so fierce.”
“It’s nothing exciting, really.” Minseok clears his throat. “It was just my grandpa. I’m mostly a white Siberian cat.”
“That is equally awesome.”
Now it’s Minseok who looks weirded out. “For you especially. If my phenotype was anything other than a Siberian, my saliva would literally kill you.”
Fucking allergies letting him have one good thing, at last.
Jongdae feels compelled to once again test the miracle of Minseok’s hypoallergenicity by exchanging some of the aforementioned saliva with a kiss.
“How do you know you’re mostly a cat?” he asks once he’s satisfied with the evidence gathered.
“Tigers don’t purr. Male tigers don’t do packs. And I’d be orange, and a lot taller, with shorter fur… stuff like that.”
“I see.”
“Looking like a total cat makes me more socially acceptable, overall. That’s also a good thing.”
“But you mentioned tiger boundaries?”
Minseok pouts, debating whether to speak or not. “I’m very territorial,” he confesses in a whisper, like it’s something to be ashamed of.
“Right,” Jongdae chuckles. “I thought you’d murder me when I sat on your bed the first time.”
Minseok cringes acutely, and Jongdae kisses the cringe off his face. They have made a lot of progress since the first day, when Jongdae asked Minseok what he was and nearly made an enemy of him just like that. Today Minseok has offered the information first, and while they’re curled up in his own bed, his territory.
The kissing might have helped in that regard.
Day 19
“And just like that, ladies and gentlemen, Kim Jongdae is back on top of his game!” Jongdae proudly announces over the beeping of his infusion pump, while a disgruntled Minseok looks dejectedly at his own blood bag, still half full.
“Unfair. I have smaller veins.”
“I don’t buy it.”
“I have low blood pressure.”
“You do not, I’ve seen your charts.”
“It’s still lower than yours.”
“Whatever you say, pretty boy.”
Jongdae has found out that it’s extremely easy to make Minseok blush, and he’s making the most of it.
But Minseok has a few tricks up his sleeve, too, so when Jongdae walks in front of him to start disposing of their used tubings he catches him around the waist and pulls him backwards until he falls sitting on his lap.
“Minseok!” he protests, when his back is pulled flush against Minseok’s chest. He’s loud but he obviously does not resist. He’s not going to pass up on the chance to have the hybrid wrapped up around him.
Minseok knows that. “Suddenly not scared of traumatizing the nurses anymore?” he whispers.
It reminds Jongdae that they’re pretty much on display, all the time. They may not have security cameras in their room, but there’s a huge fucking window right in front of them.
He stiffens.
“I can feel the elevators. There’s no one on this floor at the moment,” Minseok mumbles before pressing his lips to Jongdae’s shoulder through the shirt.
It still makes Jongdae slightly shiver. “You can feel?”
“Vibrations. I have a sense—like phantom whiskers. And I guess I can hear a lot. That’s also why most rooms in this facility are sound-proof. It’s because of hybrids.”
“Convenient,” Jongdae says, and tries not to let his brain loose on how that could turn to their advantage. In the future. Possibly.
Jongdae wriggles on Minseok’s lap to find a more comfortable position and to avoid squishing the hybrid, which accidentally shifts his ass closer to Minseok’s crotch. Minseok’s hold around his waist tightens, and his hand splays over his side.
“You smell—so nice.”
Jongdae bites his lips. “Thanks?”
Minseok hums, his nose pressed to Jongdae’s back through his shirt. He tries to stay very still.
The infusion pump finally sings the end of the days’ procedures, and since Minseok’s hand doesn’t even twitch from around his side, Jongdae proceeds to unhook Minseok and turn off the device.
They both move to stand, and Minseok’s arm remains firmly anchored around Jongdae’s waist. Jongdae would be a liar if he said he didn’t like it. He would actually be greatly disappointed if Minseok let him go. He can’t rule out that he could potentially start weeping.
Contrary to the usual, Minseok throws away rather carelessly all the used medical equipment and moves their chairs out of the way, uncaring of the way they knock against each other and the table. He guides Jongdae through the room, to his own bed, and without a word he makes him lay down to spoon him.
Jongdae has never been more perfectly content before. And it’s ridiculous how he’s not even exaggerating.
Until Minseok nibbles on his nape.
“Oh!” Jongdae shivers.
“Sorry. I was drowsy.”
“Why do you like to chew on me?”
“I know I shouldn’t. It’s just so nice. Sometimes the cat-things escape my control.”
Jongdae half-turns his head. “Should I chew on you?”
Minseok seems to warm up like a stove in a matter of seconds. “Sure. If you want my brain to explode.”
“Noted.” Jongdae chuckles. “You’re—oh!” he says again when Minseok licks over where he’d lightly bitten him and his breath chills the same spot.
“This is how cats kiss it better.”
Jongdae locks his fingers with Minseok’s where he’s holding him around his stomach and squeezes. The distant thrum of arousal is starting to build in the distance, and Jongdae ponders whether to welcome it. “By all means, kitty-kiss away.”
With a giggle, Minseok licks him again. It’s weird, because the texture is a tiny bit rougher than a human tongue, and a bit dryer, too. Jongdae had noticed when they kissed, obviously, but he enjoyed it. He’d experimented with it extensively the previous night, when he transformed the gentle goodnight kiss Minseok had meant to give him into a long makeout session. Restraint had been tested, hands had been wandering, and Jongdae had dreamed about it after he fell asleep.
That tongue of his. Jongdae is glad to discover it’s enjoyable even when Minseok applies oral attention to the rest of his body. He forces himself not to think about specific parts of his body.
As though Minseok could sense that exact thought, he turns his ministrations into open mouthed kisses along the edge of Jongdae’s shirt. Jongdae is not even doing anything to him, and Minseok is purring his throat out.
Almost unconsciously, Jongdae pushes back into Minseok’s body, and is rewarded by a low groan and an ever so slight push of Minseok’s hips against his.
“Dae. You have no idea—the way you smell.”
And Jongdae figures, what the hell. He lets all his thoughts run loose, and he lets them affect him. If he understood how this works, hopefully Minseok will smell them. He pushes his ass back again, looking for friction, and Minseok inhales sharply, purrs pausing for a split second before they resume, louder.
“How do I smell?”
Minseok curses. He frees his hand and he lowers it to Jongdae’s lower stomach, angling his hips in a way that finally fully presses Jongdae’s ass against his crotch. They both moan; Jongdae can feel how hard Minseok is, and without thinking he takes Minseok’s hand and pushes it between his own legs to make him feel his own growing erection.
Minseok bites down on his shirt as he palms him through his pants. “Shit, Dae.”
“How do I smell?” Jongdae asks again, gruff.
Minseok can’t answer coherently, given the way Jongdae just pushed against his cock again.
It’s getting increasingly warm under the blanket. “Come on, Min. There are no nurses around, right?”
Maybe he shouldn’t have riled him up; Minseok dips his hand in Jongdae’s underwear just as he grinds against him. The feeling of his hand stroking him has Jongdae gasping.
“Stay still,” Minseok suddenly says, and moves around quickly. Jongdae barely has time to understand what’s going on, before Minseok ducks under the covers and turns Jongdae onto his back.
His pants are being pulled off swiftly and small, firm hands are grabbing onto his hips. Before Jongdae can realize it, or even remember that there might be fangs involved, Minseok is swallowing him down smoothly. He doesn’t stop until the tip of Jongdae’s cock grazes the back of his throat, and then presses there and purrs.
Now that is a life-changing experience. All Jongdae can do is grab onto the sheets and pray that the soundproofing is as good as Minseok claims.
Day 20
“Good morning,” Jongdae whispers, upon opening his eyes and finding out that once again Minseok was awake before him. There’s not enough light in the room to see very well, and Minseok’s eyes look partly yellow because of that, but Jongdae can still see the slight furrow of his brows, the focused look that doesn’t fade entirely when Minseok answers his greeting.
Jongdae shifts forward to brush his lips against Minseok’s. “What’s up? Something’s bothering you?”
Minseok frowns a bit more, before he shakes his head. “Not really,” he mutters, but he keeps studying Jongdae with almost unblinking eyes.
“Hey, you can tell me.”
For a minute it seems that Minseok is considering it, but then he shakes his head again. “I’m fine,” he says, pulling Jongdae closer and kissing the side of his head, although tentatively.
“Okay.”
“Get some rest.”
Despite having lived together for weeks, despite having very recently become closely acquainted with each other’s dicks, Jongdae can’t say he can read Minseok well… most of the time he can’t read him at all. This is one of those times. He can only squeeze him, hold on for dear life; he hopes he’s wrong, but he feels like he’s the cause behind Minseok’s frown.
He’s probably paranoid. Or deeply, chronically insecure. He tries to tell himself that, but the distinct feeling that Minseok might be having second thoughts about him starts haunting him. The thought that Minseok might regret what happened between them last night suddenly makes Jongdae feel like he should remove himself from that bed, but there’s nowhere he can go. They’re stuck in that room. If something got ruined, it has to stay ruined for a few more days.
Plus, if Jongdae has to be completely honest, if this is doomed to end soon he’d rather selfishly enjoy the feeling of Minseok’s naked body against his own, perfectly embedded in his arms, molten against his skin. Just a little bit longer. If he’s bound to look like the fool and delusional one, might as well go all the way.
He turns his head to hide his face in Minseok’s neck and burrows in the mattress. They both pretend to have fallen back to sleep for an hour after that, until their daily alarm under the form of the transfusion scale starts with the usual cheerful beeping that will probably give them war flashbacks as long as they’re alive.
Day 21
Jongdae had spent the entire morning creeping himself out by watching the hybrid perform what he identified as another round of stress-cleaning. Not the usual cleaning; Minseok was being aggressive about it.
Have they been making out still, yes. Minseok crowded him against a corner in the bathroom again and proceeded to make Jongdae’s brain cells pop one by one with the help of his excellent mouth and tongue again, and looked perfectly happy about Jongdae returning the favor later on. But Jongdae went through that hormonal ride still without knowing what caused Minseok to scrub the table three times a day or why Minseok seems to randomly get uneasy ever since Jongdae had woken up and caught him staring at him the previous day.
“You don’t receive many calls,” Minseok says out of the blue, closing the cabinet where they put all their cleaning supplies.
Perplexed, Jongdae looks up from the drawer where he was rummaging fruitlessly. “I probably would, if my phone wasn’t dead.”
“Your charger is on your nightstand.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
He plugs it in and turns it on.
“I mean, in general,” Minseok continues. He pauses to scent the corner of the cabinet, nose scrunched as he rubs his cheek onto it. “You don’t receive many calls.”
Jongdae looks up from the screen, which indeed shows zero missed calls. “Uhm. My parents call me every day?”
“No one else?”
“Damn, I know I don’t have many friends, you don’t have to rub it in.”
Minseok stops scenting the door to glare at him.
Jongdae snorts. “People mostly text me, anyway. And that’s not a crowd, either. Chanyeol, Kyungsoo, and a few other friends. That’s it.”
“No one else?”
“Nope,” Jongdae confirms, extremely confused.
Minseok nods to himself, then goes to the bathroom and shuts the door.
That exchange doesn’t help make Jongdae feel less unnerved, and he actually ends up texting people first, just to have a distraction. He hasn’t told anyone about him and Minseok, yet. As far as his family and friends are concerned, he and Minseok are not even that close. He’s not even sure there’s going to be anything to tell, at this point, if they continue to be this awkward and shifty.
Minseok seems less restless in the evening, though, after he’s done cleaning the bathroom and scenting every single piece of furniture in the room. His cheeks are a little red by the end of the long, painstaking process. Jongdae is glad their room is not that big, or else it would have taken a week for Minseok to finally sit down and unwind.
“You good now?” Jongdae asks, looking up from his phone.
Minseok is staring at the ceiling, sprawled on his bed. He turns to Jongdae as though he only then remembered he was there, and beckons him to join him.
Jongdae lifts a brow. “What, you forgot to clean me, too?”
Rolling his eyes, Minseok harrumphs. He taps onto the mattress next to him to stress the concept.
“Oof, okay,” Jongdae grunts when Minseok pulls him to lay down next to him and throws a leg over his hips to trap him. “If you wanted to cuddle that bad you could’ve come to my bed.”
“No.”
He doesn’t elaborate. Not that Jongdae cares much, since Minseok proceeds to straddle his hips and kiss him senseless.
It’s filthy, textured tongue and sharp teeth, and more than once Jongdae hears noises only to realize he was the one making them. Minseok starts purring loudly and Jongdae wholeheartedly agrees.
Minseok allows him to breathe only after a long time. And then Jongdae would have tried to slip in a comment about how fucking weird Minseok is being today, but Minseok looks too good, white bangs framing his face, kiss-bruised lips bright pink and swollen.
Jongdae wants to kiss him again more than he wants his next breath.
Minseok doesn’t grant him other kisses; he dives in to rub his face against Jongdae’s shoulder instead.
“Can I?” he asks, voice muffled by Jongdae’s shirt. It takes a second for Jongdae to realize he’s going to scent him.
Jongdae is definitely missing something. He’s still dangerously uninformed about this entire chapter, but the basics would be that Minseok scenting stuff is like cats marking their territory. That much he knows. He also knows that Minseok is part tiger, and that tigers are very territorial. So there might be some implications in Minseok trying to mark Jongdae as his territory. Or maybe not, maybe it’s just a trivial cat thing. Or, it could be potentially huge. Or—
“Yes,” he answers, before the pause can stretch too long.
Minseok sighs, then proceeds to thoroughly rub his scent all over Jongdae’s shoulders, chest and face. He grumbles about shirts until Jongdae helps him remove them both. He tickles Jongdae in the face with his ears, and their bodies squish together deliciously.
Jongdae doesn’t care that he’s at the mercy of Minseok’s cat things and that Minseok hasn’t uttered more than like ten words the entire day; it’s not like Jongdae minds having gorgeous Minseok wriggling against him, so close, almost too close for comfort, like he wanted to share the same skin. He makes sure to hold him tight and occasionally scratch him behind his ear until he’s done.
Minseok inspects his own work, following with his nose all the paths he’d traced with his cheeks, only to let out a delightful little tigery chuff. He rewards Jongdae for his patience with another steamy kiss and a roll of his hips. He gasps when Minseok gives a soft, teasing bite to his bottom lip with one of his elongated canines.
“Better now, Min?” he asks, breathless.
Minseok latches onto the side of his neck with a very satisfied sound and presses their erections together.
Jongdae supposes he’s better.
From that point onwards, whatever clouded Minseok’s mind is gone.
Day 22
“That’s it?” Jongdae asks the nurse through the intercom. “The last papers said <23. That was days ago. How come now I’m just at <21? Shouldn’t it be closer to zero?”
Minseok is squaring up next to him, glaring at the nurse.
She’s unfazed. “It’s perfectly normal. You experienced a major drop during the first two weeks, what matters is that it’s not fluctuating upwards but rather decreasing.”
Jongdae waves the papers against the glass of the window. “It barely moved! How do we know that it’s working?”
“Because it’s decreasing.”
Minseok lightly pushes Jongdae to the side and slams his hand against the intercom. “I want to speak with the Jongdae’s doctor.”
“I’m afraid that I can’t—”
“Doctor Choi hasn’t been answering the phone today so you either put her on the line now or you let us speak with some other doctor,” Minseok insists, icy. “I’m sure you won’t have trouble fetching one. This is a hospital.”
“Mr. Kim,” the nurse says calmly. “I can’t help you, this—”
“Min, it’s fine, we’ll try again with Doctor Choi, you don’t need to—”
Minseok removes his hand from the intercom and glares at Jongdae, too. “We want answers.”
“Asking to speak to the manager like a Karen is not going to help,” Jongdae objects, as though he weren’t the one having a major mental breakdown for the largest part of the morning.
Minseok scoffs and turns back to the nurse, only to find that she’s gone. Jongdae manages to grab his wrist before he pushes the emergency button to call for help, and Minseok tries to wrestle him out of the way. Jongdae puts up a decent defense, which is honestly impressive considering that Minseok has feline reflexes to his advantage.
“Woah! Minseok!” He drags him away from the window. “Hey! Look at me.” He cradles Minseok’s face. “She said it’s normal, right? I’ll fill in the form to ask to get my blood tested again tomorrow. It’s in my rights, I read it somewhere. Okay? I’m going to be fine.”
Minseok is breathing heavily, his nostrils are flaring. Standing in the way of his lashing tail would probably hurt a lot right now. “I just want to know that this is working!”
“I know, Min. I know. Please calm down.”
Minseok grips his shoulders and shakes him lightly. “I need to know that you’ll be okay, Dae. I need—”
He seems overwhelmed for a second, then he leans his forehead against Jongdae’s shoulder.
The way Minseok is fisting his shirt is not helping. Jongdae thought he’d never see overwhelmed Minseok, and Minseok freaking out while he’s in a state of freakout himself is difficult to manage.
Sure, some part of his brain processes the fact that Minseok looking so terrified means he really cares, which should make Jongdae feel good, but right now the priority lies in containing the spread of panic.
He firmly strokes the back of Minseok’s head and sighs. “Man, that was kinda hot.”
It takes Minseok aback enough to make him forget the issue at hand for a bit. “What?”
“The whole protective-slash-in charge shtick. It was hot.”
“I—what?” Minseok shakes his head and pauses, rewinding the last few minutes.
Jongdae pulls him closer and bats his eyelashes. “Maybe I should call her back and allow you to yell at her some more.”
“You’re unbelievable.” Minseok sounds disgusted, but he says it while nuzzling the side of Jongdae’s neck, so he guesses it’s a compliment.
“How far were you from growling? Do cats even do that? I’m pretty sure tigers do.”
“Jongdae.”
“What? I’m just curious. I guess it’s finally time for me to get more anatomy lessons. We’ve been conducting extensive tactile study sessions lately, it’s time for the theory.”
“Just shut up,” Minseok grumbles.
“Make me,” Jongdae dares, his hands slipping over the curve of Minseok’s ass.
Minseok does actually growl at that.
“We used another sample to run your test again,” a doctor says through the intercom, flanked by the nurse from before. “The results changed, so it was probably a bug in our system.”
“You’re not just saying that because you don’t want trouble, right?” Minseok asks, arms crossed over his chest, in front of the intercom.
The doctor actually looks offended. “Do you think I want to lose my job?”
“So what is it, now?” Jongdae asks.
The doctor presses the papers against the glass, and Jongdae squints at the numbers. The <9 is in bold characters at the bottom of the page, and Jongdae feels immediately lighter.
“That makes more sense,” he hears himself saying, although what he really registers is Minseok’s hand on his back, his exhale ruffling his hair.
The doctor nods. “We will send you copies by tomorrow. You’re doing really well. Do you have any questions?”
“No. Thank you, Doctor.”
They absently stare outside of the window until the medical staff has disappeared in the elevators and the only thing left to look at is their reflection on the glass. Jongdae sees before he feels Minseok leaning in his direction, eyes closed. Then the hybrid kisses his cheek and hauls him closer against himself. “You’re doing it, Dae.”
“We are doing it, Min. This is a group project.” He chuckles. “Actually, you’re doing it. Mostly you are doing it. I just sit back and take your blood rather passively. It’s very—wait. Min? Minseok?”
Minseok is shaking.
“Hey,” Jongdae whispers, cupping Minseok’s face. “Hey, Min. What’s wrong?”
Without looking at him, Minseok shakes his head.
“Talk to me?”
“It’s a lot of pressure.”
“What? Oh, no!” Jongdae shakes his head. “No, it’s not on you! My condition doesn’t depend on what you do! You can’t command your blood to heal me any more than I can command my blood to heal, that’s just dumb!”
“Maybe so,” Minseok concedes. “But I need you to be okay,” he says, like he’d done before.
Jongdae brings their lips together and locks them in a firm kiss. He can feel how Minseok relaxes a bit just like that, then squeezes him until his muscles hurt.
It confuses Jongdae, the sheer weight of the meaning Minseok is placing on this, but it fills him with peace. He feels safe.
Day 23
Minseok is a very interesting individual, with a layered personality. Jongdae is still blindly trying to figure him out.
Not all of Minseok’s short answers to Jongdae’s relentless curiosity are very revealing. Jongdae learns to recognise the discomfort when it crosses Minseok’s handsome face and he steers towards the safer subjects Minseok has no issues navigating, not because Minseok flat out refuses him any answers, but because Jongdae hates the way he looks off to the side and his tail sags.
But at the end of the day, when nothing is bothering him, Minseok is just an overgrown cat. Jongdae reaches this conclusion as he watches the hybrid laying horizontally on his lap, belly up, as he playfully bites his hand and arm with no apparent reason other than the fact that he seems to enjoy chewing on him a lot.
Jongdae pretends to be reading, but every now and then he lifts his hand as though he was trying to keep it out of Minseok’s reach, and Minseok pulls it close again to bite his fingers. To reward him for the great show of predatory skills, Jongdae uses the same hand to briefly scratch behind Minseok’s ear, and chuckles when the hybrid pushes his entire head against his hand and lap.
After a while of this, Minseok grooms himself and grows sleepy. Jongdae looks at how his eyelashes shadow his cheeks, his lips part, and thinks that he has never met a prettier being.
Waking Minseok up to move around and get more comfortable feels criminal, so Jongdae moves his Kindle from one hand to the other and lays his hand across Minseok’s stomach to rub gentle circles through his shirt.
Big mistake, apparently.
The Kindle lands on the floor in the middle ground between their beds, knocked out of Jongdae’s hold by the sudden, disjointed efforts Minseok makes to sit up.
“Min,” Jongdae warns, breathless, eyes locked on where Minseok is crushing Jongdae’s wrist with strong, clawed fingers.
Minseok looks around, his ears swiveling to catch sounds, and for a split second it doesn’t look like he understands the issue. Then he looks at the hand Jongdae had placed on his stomach, sees his own claws puncturing Jongdae’s skin and gasps, scuttling away.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes out, hiding his hands behind his back. “Did I hurt you?”
Jongdae examines his wrist, ascertaining that no damage has been made beyond a couple punctures so tiny the skin had been barely breached. “No, I’m okay.”
There’s a minute of silence, in which they stare at each other trying to assess whether the other is okay.
“I’m sorry,” Minseok repeats. “It’s just my stomach. Cats don’t like it when people touch it.”
Jongdae tries to remember whether he touched Minseok’s stomach before. The answer is yes. He gave him quite a lot of back-hugs and they spooned every night. He jabbed at his tummy as they played around, tickled him to hear him protest. Jongdae grabbed his waist as he fucked into him, held him close. He left trails of open mouthed kisses from his nipples, around his navel, to his hip bone, on his way to suck him. He reached, despite being folded in half, to feel Minseok’s abs with his fingers whenever the hybrid pushed into him.
So that’s confusing. He doesn’t see how this is any different. But Minseok had said that he liked it when Jongdae asked, right? So Jongdae asks.
“Should I not—touch you, when you’re asleep?”
The hybrid swallows and tries to resume the standard composure he uses to mask the fact that he’s nervous. He catches his tail, smoothing the fur on it. It was slightly standing. “I’m not used to baring my stomach. To be touched. I didn’t expect it, that’s all.”
Jongdae frowns. He hadn’t realized he’d been making Minseok uncomfortable the entire time. “Okay. I’m sorry. Noted. It’s like your tail, off-limits. I won’t do it again.”
“No!”
Jongdae startles, and Minseok clasps his hands in front of his mouth.
“I mean, it’s because it never happened before. And since I was asleep, I didn’t see it coming.”
“I’m sure I’ve touched your tummy before.”
“It’s just that we don’t really do that. Hybrids. Cats. It’s too exposed.”
“Okay, then I won’t—”
Minseok grabs his hand. “But I want you to.”
Visibly struggling, Jongdae tilts his head. “You’re not making any sense.”
“Many things about my world don’t make any fucking sense, imagine having to live with those in your head every day,” Minseok grumbles, settling back down next to Jongdae, still holding his hand.
“Help me understand?”
“Help me get over it,” Minseok commands, and guides Jongdae’s hand onto his stomach, over his belly button.
Since Jongdae doesn’t move, Minseok sniggers. “I’m not going to scratch you,” he says, and he wriggles to lift his shirt up to his chest.
With caution, Jongdae lightly presses his palm over Minseok’s navel. Minseok stares at him expectantly. After a long staredown, Jongdae breaks. “Look, if you’re doing this for me—”
“I’m doing this for me,” Minseok interrupts him. “We only let people touch our belly when we trust them. And I trust you.”
“Then why did you freak out, before?”
“Because I’ve never. Well.”
“Let anyone rub your stomach?”
Minseok nods. He doesn’t blink, and he’s stiff, and for a second he reminds Jongdae of how he was during the first days of their acquaintance.
“Not even Baekhyun?”
Minseok rolls his eyes. “He’s more interested in receiving belly rubs than in handing them out. He’s never even tried. Which is good, because I’m not touchy-feely.”
In a remote corner of his mind, Jongdae archives that piece of information as the first lie Minseok has ever told him. Minseok? Not touchy-feely? Jongdae’s personal experience says otherwise. Just that morning Minseok had sat on his lap to brush his teeth.
And yet Minseok is trying to convince him that he never trusted anyone enough to be petted like a cat.
Minseok lets go of his hand and stretches, throwing his arms over his head. He looks every bit the overgrown feline. Jongdae feels his muscles shift under his palm, and all that uncovered expanse of smooth skin is too warm and inviting not to take advantage of the freedom Minseok is granting him.
He runs his palm upwards, towards Minseok’s chest, in the middle of his abdomen, while Minseok is still mid-stretch. It’s almost magical how Minseok immediately relaxes, a shy purring sound making itself heard.
He applies the same firm pressure as he goes backwards. He does it twice more, then he pauses. “How should I do it?”
Minseok licks his lips. “You’re good at this,” he says, voice a little rough. “Really, not bad for a first timer.”
Jongdae chuckles, and repeats his motions until Minseok feels like he’s gone boneless under his touch. He rubs soothing circles over his stomach over and over again. “Thank you for trusting me, Min.”
Minseok has grown too drowsy to answer, but he smiles. Jongdae doesn’t disturb him any further, he just rubs and rubs until Minseok is fully asleep, then drags down his shirt to make sure he won’t be cold, and he lays down as well to take a nap.
He wakes up not long after, because he’s too warm. A brief check of his phone lets him know that it’s almost transfusion+dinner time, but as he spies the hallway outside of the window he can’t see the usual bustling that precedes the arrival of their meals.
Minseok is still asleep, and hasn’t moved from where Jongdae had left him. He wonders how Minseok can sleep so much, considering that they spend an awful amount of time doing that for lack of anything better to do. He usually blames it on their intense physical activity, but there’s a limit to what he can justify.
He smiles to himself, remembering how adorable Minseok had looked as Jongdae rubbed his stomach, and an evil plan forms in his mind.
He lifts Minseok’s shirt again, and lays his hand on Minseok’s bare skin. Contrary to before, the cat doesn’t even flinch, he simply stretches even longer in his peaceful slumber, mouth slightly open, only the tips of his canines exposed.
After a minute, Minseok is purring. Jongdae progressively moves his rubbing motions a little lower, between his hip bones. Occasionally, his fingers tease under the elastic waistband of Minseok’s underwear.
Jongdae smirks triumphantly when he sees Minseok’s cock twitch with interest. He checks over his shoulder; the hallway is still empty. He rubs lower.
Minseok comes not long after with a half-sob, hands in his hair, unsure whether he’s dreaming or not. When he opens his eyes, Jongdae is licking his fingers clean.
He knocks Jongdae over to bite his neck with such enthusiasm they roll off the bed. They’re still laughing next to each other on the floor when the intercom buzzes with their dinner announcement.
Day 24
“This is a terrible idea.”
“Repeating it every 30 seconds won’t make me change my mind,” Jongdae singsongs.
Minseok sighs the very sound of resignation. “I told you I can feel it when people are approaching.”
“I don’t trust your non-existent whiskers to pick up vibration while you’re doing… physical activity.” Jongdae tilts his head, studying his engineering masterpiece, then grabs the folded sheet and climbs over the table he had pushed against the window. “Besides, this is also for your benefit.”
“You say that like I have ever given you the impression of giving a fuck.”
Which, granted, he hadn’t. Jongdae had been the one disturbed by the idea of tarnishing the innocence of random nurses that would walk by the window of their room and be offered a show as Jongdae and Minseok engaged in very intimate activities. Minseok really doesn’t seem bothered; he had actually more than once tossed the blankets aside right in the middle of the act, uncaring of being on display.
For someone otherwise so private, he sure had a lot of confidence showing skin. Jongdae is fairly sure it’s a cat thing, although he’s also sure that if he had a body like Minseok’s, he’d be perfectly confident walking around naked, too.
“I respect your kinks,” Jongdae says, climbing over the table. “Feel free to reach your exhibitionism quota… when your dick is not in my ass.”
“What about when your dick is in my ass?”
“The same applies,” Jongdae huffs, checking the stability of the cabinet he had hauled over the table.
“It’s not like you mind the view.”
“That’s an entirely unrelated matter. Spot me,” he orders, and immediately Minseok’s hands reach up to support him. “Stop feeling me up, Minseok, just make sure I don’t fall.”
With a grumble, Minseok moves his hands from his ass to his hips. After some further consideration, Jongdae steps over the cabinet.
“I can’t reach you there,” Minseok points out, mildly alarmed.
Jongdae grips the upper frame of the window. “Just make sure you catch me when I fall.”
“When?”
“I meant to say if.”
“This is a terrible idea.”
“It’ll just be a minute.”
“Jongdae—”
“Shut up.”
Minseok hisses.
Jongdae makes sure to hide his smile as he inspect the window frame. “I think there’s a gap big enough to fit the sheet. It’ll work nicely,” he muses to himself, and reaches for the corner of the fixture balancing on one leg on the edge of the cabinet.
“Dae, just get down. If curtains were allowed I’m sure they would have installed them.”
Jongdae shoves the sheet in the gap until it’s stuck, and then proceeds to tiptoe towards the other end of the window like a ballerina. “I don’t care if it’s against the rules. It’s not like they can barge in and remove it, that would be against the rules. I would sue their ass for contaminating the room and tampering with my treatment and I would win, and they know that.”
Minseok makes a worried sound when the cabinet rattles, as Jongdae’s weight moves from one end to the opposite. “Dae, come down. I’m serious. I swear. We’ll just defile the shower if you’re so scared of being seen. Okay?”
It’s a nice mental image. Jongdae pauses, fingers tucked behind the window frame. “We’ll definitely do that.”
Chuckling, Jongdae lets go of the sheet and watches as it sags pretty sadly. He tries to drape it in a way that would be at least more efficient, if not aesthetic, and then gives up. It does obscure the outside world from view, though. It will serve its purpose and that’s enough.
“Yes, we will. Now come down. If you fall and die what even is the use of us being stuck in here.”
“Right. Don’t want to get in the way of your compensation.”
Minseok grunts. “What compensation?”
Jongdae turns around to start his descent. “Your government check.”
The smile falls off Minseok’s face. “I don’t—what?”
“What?” Jongdae repeats.
Furrowing his brows, Minseok looks at him like he’s a stranger. It chills Jongdae’s bones. But despite the flattened, backwards shape of his ears, Minseok gestures to him to come down.
Jongdae obeys, and Minseok holds onto him until he’s sure Jongdae won’t be able to fall even if he tries, both feet on the safe and stable surface of the floor. Then he steps away. “My what?”
Lost and vaguely aware of being very wrong about something, Jongdae hesitates. “Your government check? At the end of the match program?”
Minseok steps further away. “You think I’m doing this… for money?”
“Well—”
Minseok looks at him like he’s the dumbest specimen of human he’s ever encountered. That wouldn’t be the first time, except that this time around he also looks a little betrayed. “I was in the FES, Jongdae.”
“Yes? Exactly?”
Minseok pinches the bridge of his nose and turns around, visibly trying to collect himself. When he faces Jongdae again, he still looks slightly offended. “The FES clinical trials only accepted volunteers.”
Jongdae doesn’t understand. “I know. I mean, that’s what I’ve heard.” And then it dawns on him. “Like volunteers volunteers? They didn’t pay you?”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
“No.”
The FES was legendary. There were urban myths of hybrids becoming quite rich after getting their remuneration by making the right investments in health care. Of course, those stories were blown out of proportion. But they did serve the purpose of creating the illusion that there was an adequate reward in store for those creatures who had basically signed up for a suicidal mission.
Minseok never gave off the vibe of the millionaire, of course, but Jongdae had taken for granted that he would have been given something.
People died. And not only Minseok had talked about it like it wasn’t such a big deal, to be experimented on, it turns out he had been dismissed with just a pat on the back after being the key to a cure that saved millions.
“But…” Jongdae swallows. “What about now? The blood matching program gives compensation to the hybrids. It was written on the brochure!”
Minseok looks a little amused, a little sad. “I’m technically still part of the FES,” he explains, a little softer. “There’s a lot of misconception about the FES, but the economic conditions of the contract didn’t change when they merged the FES with the newborn matching program.”
“They’re robbing you in plain sight!”
Minseok chuckles at the outburst. “It’s not theft if I knew I wouldn’t receive a single won when I signed up.”
“But—but that’s unfair! Other hybrids are getting paid!” Jongdae stresses. He notices it bothers him more than Minseok, and he puts that down to the fact that Minseok had years to get used to the notion.
“I don’t care.” Minseok shrugs.
“How can you not care?”
Now Minseok is starting to look a bit impatient, like Jongdae’s tantrum is getting on his nerves. “I don’t. I didn’t enter the FES for the money.”
“For what, then? The glory?”
“Why is it so hard to believe I just wanted to do something good?” Minseok lashes out.
“B-but—”
“I know you’ve been taught to look at hybrids like we’re beggars, like we’re just an abomination that will never fit your precious society because we’re weird and way too comfortable with eternally guilt-tripping the government into giving our communities alms with the money of honest human taxpayers, like we’re part of some giant scheme and we’re weaponizing our immune blood, like any of us fucking chose to be born a fucking hybrid!” he nearly screams.
Jongdae takes a step back, shocked. He hadn’t imagined Minseok capable of being so intense. But now the hybrid’s cheeks are flushed, and his precious eyes look teary.
Jongdae wants to cry, too.
Because every single thing Minseok has said is true. That is, unfortunately, how a lot of humans view hybrids. Even humans that never show open hostility towards them are conditioned to be wary of hybrids, and never bother to investigate the subject.
Minseok’s words hit home and uncovered a truth Jongdae knows too well. Had he not been found positive to a deadly disease and then catapulted into a sealed room with a hybrid specimen, his curiosity about such a wide slice of the population would still be vague and casual at best.
“Minseok—”
Minseok hisses at him when Jongdae’s hand brushes against his arm, and when Jongdae doesn’t let go of his sleeve he growls loud enough that Jongdae flinches back.
Jongdae retreats. After one last upset look, Minseok stalks to the bathroom and slams the door.
Jongdae’s first instinct is to just run after him, but he remembers all the instances in which Minseok had seemed to appreciate being given space, so Jongdae takes all his nervous fidgeting to his bed and allows him to simmer down, hoping that his own head would clear a bit.
He knows that Minseok is not in it for the money. He’s been demonstrating time and time again that he really cared about the destiny of the dumb human, despite it being a responsibility that had been sprung on him overnight. Long before he and Jongdae had become an item, before they even were on speaking terms, Minseok had taken healing Jongdae as his mission. Hell, Minseok had been patiently waiting for a chance to heal Jongdae before he even knew that Jongdae existed, when he gave himself up to science just because there was a slight chance he could make himself useful.
By implying that Minseok is after the money, Jongdae cheapened the very core of who Minseok is, of who he has been since before joining the first experimental session. What he had meant as playful questioning has turned into belittling the efforts of the beautiful soul in front of him, a soul that had been through many trials and tribulations at the hand of the very people he strived to help without expecting anything in return.
The magnitude of his mistake is disturbingly wider than Jongdae had expected. He fucked up.
After a while, he pours a glass of water and knocks on the bathroom door. There’s no answer, so he tries to spy inside.
Minseok is sitting in a corner in the shower, his elbows over his knees and his head buried between his arms. His beautiful, soft ears are so flattened against his hair they almost blend in. The sight threatens to break Jongdae’s heart; he’s sure that whoever developed his treatment did not account for the wide variety of intense emotions he’s been inflicting onto his own poor endangered heart.
“Hey,” Jongdae whispers, approaching slowly, giving Minseok plenty of time to react in case the hybrid was feeling like airing out his claws.
Minseok looks up. There’s a rueful look on his face. Jongdae is no hybrid, but even he can smell how miserable he’s feeling. Jongdae feels like might suffocate if he doesn’t immediately hold him, claws be damned.
He crouches, and before he can even open his mouth to say anything, Minseok reaches for his hand and pulls, making him almost spill the water.
“Forgive me,” Minseok says softly, not daring to meet his eyes. “I didn’t mean to yell at you.”
Jongdae blinks, and understands there are going to be even more layers to a conversation he estimated to be really fucking difficult already. He puts the glass down and crawls into the shower as well, sitting cross legged in front of the hybrid.
“I know,” he sighs. “I’m sorry I pushed you to that ugly place. I was insensitive and superficial, and you had the right to be frustrated.”
Minseok sniffles. He’s not crying, but his brows have a little pinch in the middle, like he’s just about to start tearing up. If Jongdae doesn’t manage to turn those ears back to their original upright shape soon he will start crying himself.
“Still. That doesn’t excuse the way I yelled at you. You don’t deserve it.”
“I’m pretty sure I do.”
Skeptical, Minseok scoffs. “No. You’re not like those people.”
“Min, I’m sorry, but I am those people. Well, I used to be. While I have never thought or spoken ill about hybrids, I was raised in the dark and I never asked myself questions before I met you, and I was pretty comfortable with remaining uneducated about hybrids until I needed a hybrid.” It sounds even more vile, said out loud, but the least Jongdae can do is be honest. “And I can’t just blame my ignorance on my allergies, it doesn’t hold up, though for sure they didn’t help.”
The corners of Minseok’s mouth are downturned, signaling he’s clearly unhappy with what he’s hearing, but he considers for a while and then shrugs. “You’re not like those people,” he repeats quietly.
“Dude. Remember our first few days here? You didn’t even groom or do your cat things because I was fucking weird about it.”
It rips a chuckle out of Minseok’s pursed lips. “And look at us now.”
Jongdae squeezes his hand and lifts it to kiss it. “Look at us,” he whispers against the cool skin of the back of Minseok’s hand.
Minseok sighs at the contact. “We’ve gotten so close, sometimes I forget just how clueless you still are.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’re doing your best, and I can tell you’re a good person. I shouldn’t have grouped you with humans who hurt me, because you’ve never hurt me.”
“And I’m sorry I have given you the impression I have misjudged you. I spoke carelessly. I know you’re not here because of the money. Call it even?”
“It doesn’t feel even.”
“Right, because you didn’t hurt me while I clearly hurt you.”
“No, it’s the other way around!”
“Shut up,” Jongdae says, kissing Minseok’s knuckles again. “I’m fine. I want you to be, too.”
“I’m okay. Just a little shaken. Sometimes the frustration just catches up with me.”
Jongdae feels it safe to scoot a little closer. It doesn’t look like any claws are about to make an appearance, and Minseok’s left ear is angled a bit more upwards, so that’s an improvement. He hands him the water. “You haven’t told me a lot about your past with humans, but you implied there’s a lot to be angry about. That’s a lot of pent up frustration. I’m ready to listen, if you want to share.”
Minseok’s fingers squeeze Jongdae’s, like even just being reminded causes him pain, before he moves to drink.
“I do. I do have a lot of… frustration.” He clears his throat. “But that’s… unrelated. And a long story.” He sighs, “And I’m afraid you will judge me.”
“Never, Min.”
Minseok bites his lips. “It’s still a lot. I don’t want to dump it all on you in one go.”
“Dude.” Jongdae smiles. “You got places to be? Because I’m all yours for, like, the next week. I’m currently the least busy person in the country. The only plan I recall making was involving the very shower we’re sitting in, but that can be easily arranged for later on.”
A smile pulls the right corner of Minseok’s lips, and then it stretches a little wider in response to Jongdae’s encouraging grin. It’s like the sun has started shining in the claustrophobic shower stall.
Jongdae waits patiently as Minseok looks for the words.
He starts with the relatively easy part, his day-to-day life. He had made his job sound super interesting when he mentioned that he was part of a mixed marketing team in a media agency. It’s less exciting when Jongdae hears the actual job description; Minseok’s role is basically to try and redirect the communication strategies of major advertising companies towards minorities such as hybrids. It’s a very frustrating job, as Minseok is forced to keep a straight face in front of excited human marketing specialists who don’t seem to realize they’re trying to sell offensive campaigns to a group of the very people they’re wrongly stereotyping, but it’s necessary. Minseok genuinely believes that policing certain types of communication can make a difference, but the harsh reality is that he’s often forced to compromise, and all those companies fear the occasional costly lawsuit more than they care about the feelings of the group of people they represent.
But then it gets worse, because Minseok starts telling his own story.
His voice loses the professional detachment and becomes small. Minseok keeps his eyes downcast and his tail wrapped almost protectively around his own waist as he talks. It doesn’t leave its post as Minseok briefly outlines how his life had been after he left his pack to be shuffled around foster homes in Seoul. Like Baekhyun and like many other hybrids, he was no stranger to verbal and physical abuse. He got out of the integration program only to be homeless for a short while, and it had been hard to pull himself up by his bootstraps only to keep being faced by blatant disrespect, having to fight for the scraps, never feeling safe as the only hybrid in the room or in a crowd.
By the end of his speech he’s curled up in Jongdae’s lap. Jongdae works his fingers through his hair soothingly, although on the inside he’s dying to run outside and start punching some humans in the face. Any human. All the humans. Even himself.
“I’m so sorry, Min. I feel like there’s nothing I could ever say or do to make it right after what you’ve been through.”
“It’s not up to you. It’s okay.”
Jongdae hums, unconvinced. He tilts his head. “Let me circle back. Especially in the light of what you’ve told me, humans have given you plenty of reasons to mind your own business, and yet you joined the FES. For free.”
Minseok just barely shrugs, his shoulder digging in Jongdae’s thigh for a moment. “I’m not trying to push the narrative that I’m standing on a higher moral ground compared to my peers who enrolled for the money. To be completely honest, even though I already had a roof over my head and a job when the FES started, I wouldn’t have minded the money then, and I wouldn’t mind it now. I just couldn’t stand the idea of you, out of all people, thinking that I’m only doing this because of the money. Like I saw this as a way to get cash. To have a second passive income, or something.”
Jongdae leans down until his forehead bumps against Minseok’s. “I don’t. I know you care.”
“Don’t say that just because.”
“I’m not.”
Minseok pushes against his forehead to make him lean back and be able to look at him from under furrowed brows.
“My first job was for the integration program that brought Baek and I to the city. I was the one who asked to get hired. I thought I could help, and it was the only reality I knew.”
Jongdae nods.
“It was mostly humans working there. Some cared about their job, some didn’t. I was still there when the disease broke out. Around the time the first talks about the FES started, it took my supervisor.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We were not close, but I looked up to her, she was kind and dedicated. I thought it was unfair. I had something she didn’t, and not sharing it was just… it felt wrong. That’s why I joined. To help.”
“Even though humans had been generally horrible to you, with few exceptions?”
“And they would continue to be nasty after the FES. Yes. It didn’t deter me. I am who I am, and I have something someone else needs. I may not get money, but being slightly inconvenienced for a month is still worth it.”
Jongdae cups Minseok’s face, thoroughly humbled. “You’re such a good person.”
Minseok looks up with huge, round eyes. He looks lost. “You really think so?”
“Yes. Yes, Min, please never doubt it. You’re so selfless.”
“Yeah. Baekhyun said I’m an idiot for never withdrawing from the program.”
“I suppose most people might think that, if they knew your story.”
“Maybe I am an idiot. But I was just waiting to meet the other idiot I would match with.”
Jongdae pinches his side, but only lightly, and grins at Minseok’s high-pitched giggle. “Well, from one idiot to another: was it worth the wait?”
Minseok sits up, eyes locked on Jongdae’s lips. “More than.” He looks into his eyes. “We’re okay?” he asks in a whisper.
Jongdae looks at the white, triangular ears finally facing him. He looks at the lopsided shape of Minseok’s smile, and at Minseok’s fingers woven with his.
“More than.”
As though he’d been waiting for that confirmation, Minseok climbs onto Jongdae’s lap and puts his hands in his hair. “Thank you,” he whispers against his lips.
“Oh, Min.” Jongdae draws him closer. His brain is wiped clean of anything he had wanted to add by the following mind-boggling kiss that Minseok proceeds to bestow upon him, soft and gentle lips grazing against his in a maddening way before locking together.
Jongdae literally melts against the tiles, which do him the favor of holding him up despite his body having become boneless. “Min,” he repeats when they have to break apart to inhale, and Minseok takes it as his cue to dive right back in and deepen the kiss, grazing his fingers against Jongdae’s scalp and making him shiver.
They take their time. It’s a reconciling kiss. Jongdae knows a lot more about Minseok, and his admiration for him has grown exponentially. He wants to show it to him, and he proceeds to do so with hands and mouth, like he was made for worshiping him. And it’s not that hard to believe that he’s still alive for the sole purpose of murmuring praises into Minseok’s skin and sealing them there with kisses, since it feels so natural and right to do so, like time has started flowing only to the rhythm of Minseok’s dreamy exhales.
There’s only so much they can take without escalating it, though. Soon their clothes find their way out of the shower; someone turns the showerhead on; body wash and lotions are repurposed; Jongdae gets drunk on the sounds Minseok makes, on the sight of the hybrid bending over for him, tail up and out of the way as he arches beautifully.
A long while later, as they emerge from the steamed up bathroom in their twin bathrobes, Minseok shakes his head. “You nearly gave me a heart attack to put up that stupid curtain, and the first sex you want to have is in the shower where they couldn’t see us anyway.”
“The shower sex was your idea in the first place. I merely executed it.”
Minseok grunts. Jongdae checks the tablet near the door to find, as expected, a notice from the hospital staff regarding the curtain. He makes it a point to ignore it. Minseok tosses him a new blood bag, and Jongdae sends him a flying kiss as he rips open the seals at each end of the tubing. When Minseok slides his full blood bag towards him on the table, he whispers his usual: “Heal.”
Yes, they’re okay.
Day 25
“Sounds like a fun guy,” Minseok comments, as Jongdae ends his call with his brother. He doesn’t care about privacy; Minseok had been laying on his stomach over Jongdae’s legs the entire time, purring his throat out as Jongdae rhythmically ran his hand over his back like Minseok was a lazy house cat whose only care in the world was to occupy someone’s lap. His giant ears obviously caught most of their conversation, flickering every now and then, when Jongdeok’s voice got a bit scratchy through the device.
“I guess sometimes he can be fun. He’s a pain in the ass, but I realized I never gave him enough credit when he’s the one who basically held my family together after I tested positive.”
“How come no one else in your family has the mutation?”
“Go figure. I’m the anomaly. Half the scientific world hates me.” He locks his phone and sets it aside. “Do you have siblings?”
The side of Minseok’s face that Jongdae can see from this angle looks uncomfortable. “One.” He pauses. “That I know of,” he adds with a small voice, like he expects harsh judgment because of that.
Jongdae ignores the last bit. “Brother or sister?”
“Younger sister.”
“Cute. Was she in the program?”
“No. Stayed in Guri with the pack. As much as the government program sounded promising on paper, they knew better than to send a girl.”
Jongdae shivers. “Are you close?”
“We don’t talk.”
“Oh.”
There’s a pause, in which Jongdae leans his head back against the wall and continues to rub Minseok’s back. He remembers Minseok’s offhand comment, while talking about his mother. She’s alive, somewhere. He wonders whether Minseok is really casual about it or it’s just a show.
“How do packs work?”
Minseok doesn’t immediately answer, and Jongdae is ready to let it go. But after a while Minseok clears his throat. “Most felines aren’t really pack creatures,” he starts carefully. “Even actual four-legged felines. Some can live in colonies, some are pack hunters, but that is different. Hybrids though,” he says, and he bites his lips.
Jongdae hums encouragingly.
“Most animals form packs because they need the protection of the number. Hybrids… I suppose hybrids feel the same need, in this society. So it comes natural to just group together. Families aren’t very… structured, for hybrids, so packs are the next best thing.”
“How do they start? Packs?”
“It depends. The one who raised me was actually led by a lioness that was in some way related to my mother’s second mate. That’s how I ended up there. They would have taken my sister and I regardless, though, no question asked.”
“What about your mother?”
“What about her?”
“Was she in a different pack?”
“Yes. After my father—her first mate, left, she followed her new companion.”
“Your father left?”
Minseok shrugs. “I told you. The concept of families is very abstract to us. We abhor it and yearn for it in equal measure, depending on how strong is the influence of society. Family ties are secondary. Mates are what drives us.” He pauses, looking deep in thought. Jongdae stops his hand, not daring to distract him. Minseok has turned his head, so he cannot see his face.
“How do those work? Are they much different from human couples?”
“A lot.”
“Oh.”
Minseok doesn’t elaborate, as usual unwilling to dig very deep. It was probably an indiscreet question to ask, for hybrids. Although Jongdae feels like by now they’ve done enough smooching to warrant a few questions on the subject of romantic-like relationships, he chooses once again not to pry.
There’s a ton of awkward tension in the air for a moment, but it’s gone before Jongdae can fully question where it comes from.
“Since most of the time mating is for life,” Minseok resumes. “A semblance of a family is bound to start, eventually. But even raising kids is always a group effort. It takes a village, after all.” He sighs. “Regular human families look nice, though. From what I can see on TV. Your family, too, seems like a nice… environment to grow up in.”
The tone implies that Jongdae should say something, so he clears his throat. “I’m really lucky,” he says earnestly. “We’re not perfect, but we’re very close.”
“That’s nice.”
“Yeah.” Back to the safer subjects. “What about your current pack?”
Minseok snorts. “It’s just Baek and I and a couple of other packless guys we picked up along the way. He’s obviously the self-proclaimed leader of this pack that exists only in his head, and none of us felines ever bothered to contradict him. We’re basically just some trauma-bonded friends sticking together in a human metropolis. No big deal.”
No big deal, he says. Because trauma-bonding usually happens around small deals. What the fuck. “So it’s like a found family.”
“I guess. Baek’s the closest I’ll ever get to having an actual brother.”
Something vibrates on the nightstand, and Minseok’s tail knocks Jongdae in the face as he turns to reach for his phone. “Speak of the devil,” he grins, showing Jongdae the screen.
“Hey, Baek,” Minseok says, jumping off the bed and walking to the bathroom. He’s a lot more private than Jongdae with the sparse phone calls he receives.
Jongdae sighs, missing the warmth of the hybrid on his thighs. Which is pathetic, because Minseok’s phone calls are always short, and it’s not like he can leave the room, so he’ll probably be back before Jongdae can even get cold. But Jongdae has made peace with being a pathetic man.
Yesterday’s conversation still weighs on Jongdae’s mind, and today’s further revelations about the complexity of the hybrid world deepen Jongdae’s discomfort. Just how much does he not know? How much is Minseok not sharing? It’s becoming clearer and clearer that Minseok has grown up conditioned to hide his hybrid world as much as Jongdae has been conditioned to believe it’s okay to know nothing about that same hybrid world.
Which is especially crazy considering that in recent years a huge chunk of the human population started literally owing their lives to hybrids.
Automatically, Jongdae figures that Minseok’s world is so complex that the few days they have left in that enclosure are not going to be enough to learn even the basics. But will Jongdae be allowed to be a part of it after the procedure is over? Will Minseok go back to his pack and his life he fought so hard to conquer without turning back? How is Jongdae supposed to just catch a train to Siheung and forget about him?
Sure, Jongdae can’t explain half the things Minseok says and does, and the memory of how uncomfortable Minseok had looked two days ago is fresh. But by now they’re sharing a level of closeness that sincerely scares Jongdae. And it’s not just the physical intimacy, which would be considerable by itself; Jongdae has somehow managed to crack open the harder shell that Minseok has built to protect himself from people exactly like Jongdae, revealing a more vulnerable side and trusting him with some of the darkest secrets of his past.
On the other hand, Jongdae has shown vulnerability since the very first time he had a nightmare, and when he was sick his subconscious had apparently trusted Minseok enough to unveil how ugly his soul could turn when wrenched by fear and insecurity. And neither of them had shied away from any of that. It actually felt like they kept drifting closer to each other.
But it’s not like Jongdae has balls enough to just ask The Question:
What are we?
Jongdae is sure that if it were up to him, he wouldn’t consider parting ways. But is Minseok on the same page? Maybe his bad experiences with humans will ultimately lead him to believe that as much as Jongdae is half decent and they get along well, he’s not worth the efforts and the risks. His dumb and ignorant ass is bound to somehow fuck up irreparably. Or maybe what will get in the way will eventually be the unfathomable shape of the debt Jongdae will always have towards the man who gave him his blood to allow him to live.
Maybe Minseok is not at all intentioned in starting anything with Jongdae, because evidence shows Jongdae doesn’t know a thing about hybrids and hybrid feelings; if today’s conversation about family and pack dynamics is anything to go by, hybrids might be more flexible and easy-going with the way they manage their interpersonal relationships, so what makes Jongdae’s stomach fill with butterflies might be just a way to pass time for Minseok. Maybe Minseok is just not seriously interested and he’s just trying the thrill of screwing a human, this new, exotic experience.
It’s not like Jongdae can consider himself the most desirable bachelor he knows, either; he’d say that everything about him is average, his face, his job, his interests, he’s obnoxious, he snores, and no matter how hard he tries his muscles won’t gain as much mass as they do definition, and even that is nothing to write home about. He’s nice enough that Minseok confides in him and sleeps with him, they banter until their bellies hurt from laughing too much and they have the kind of sex Jongdae is not sure he will ever not miss, but he can’t compete with dashing feline hybrid Minseok, and he honestly can’t imagine a reason why Minseok should keep him around after the program is over.
But.
Unless that’s how every hybrid shows the tiniest bit of affection, Minseok behaves like he might as well be literally obsessed with Jongdae.
Jongdae has gotten used quickly to Minseok sticking to him like a wet shirt; being a clingy guy himself, having Minseok constantly in his personal space feels like bliss. He doesn’t mind Minseok stalking him around in the already restricted space of their room. And Minseok looking so worried and ready to take action whenever Jongdae manifests the slightest physical or emotional discomfort is something to think about, too. Jongdae also noticed Minseok’s habit of stealing glances when he thinks Jongdae is not aware (he always is). It is, to say the least, very blush inducing. Another thing worth mentioning is the need Minseok seems to have to scent Jongdae at least once a day, rubbing his face on him, nosing at his neck to inhale deeply; a confusing, endearing cat thing that Jongdae can’t get enough of for some reason. Minseok constantly stroking his hands up and down Jongdae’s waist, sighing as he wraps his hands around his ribcage, nuzzling his nape? The literal pinnacle of Jongdae’s life.
Unless.
Unless Jongdae is so delusional it’s actually laughable.
He wishes he could take a little tour in Minseok’s brain, just to see himself through Minseok’s eyes and understand why he acts a certain way.
He doesn’t want it to end. But the clock is ticking, and they’re moving closer to their discharge date.
When Minseok walks out of the bathroom, Jongdae is still brooding where he’d been left. The way Minseok doesn’t hesitate a split second to toss the phone and climb on the bed with a mischievous grin, all gums and sharp canines, knocking him sideways until they’re laying down in a tangle, is reassuring, if only partially.
Day 26
“Wait, wait—” Minseok gets cut off by another of Jongdae’s kisses, but then lightly pushes him away, stilling him with hands on his hips. “Dae. Uhm.”
“What?” Jongdae scuttles backwards, making the sheets slip from his naked shoulders. He remembers about the curtain now protecting his image and he discards the fabric entirely. He sits back, on Minseok’s thighs, and lets go of the waistband of Minseok’s underwear. “Did I hurt you?”
“N-no, no, I just need to ask you something.”
Jongdae looks at Minseok, skin as pale as the mattress, only slightly flushed on the chest and the sides of his face. There’s a punch of color on the side of his neck and another one around one of his collarbones that Jongdae is totally guilty of, having gotten a bit creative with the mouth in response to the delicious way Minseok had been teasing his nipples and making Jongdae learn a thing or two about erogenous areas of his body he wasn’t aware he possessed.
Under normal circumstances he would at least grind against Minseok to keep things alive, but the look on Minseok’s face invites him to be more careful. Jongdae cannot be self-indulgent when there’s something so obviously bothering the hybrid. “What is it?”
Minseok carefully fixes the sheets around Jongdae, slowly, gently, like he can’t bear the thought of him getting cold or exposed. His hands run over Jongdae’s thighs, over his hips, as he looks for the words. In the end he sneaks a hand behind Jongdae’s nape and pulls him down for a short kiss.
“What is it, Min?”
Minseok inhales deeply. “I need you to tell me that this—this is not just out of boredom.”
Jongdae frowns.
Minseok licks his lips, staring at Jongdae’s chest. “Please tell me this is not just… two guys who have been isolated for too long and need to blow off some steam. I mean! Nothing wrong with needing to get off every now and then and it’s been a month since we had any privacy at all and this is clearly more than consensual and—nothing wrong. But please tell me it’s not just that.”
And there Jongdae had been, fretting over that exact same thing.
He carefully lowers himself back on the hybrid, finding immediate comfort in the warmth of his skin. “No. It’s more than that for me.”
Minseok looks up, eyes going round. His eyebrows pinch towards the middle with a yearning fold. “Really?”
“Like you said. Even if it was just that, I’d be okay with it because we’re clearly both enjoying this. But, uhm.” He can feel the blush creeping up his neck. “I’m actually so glad you brought this up because… well. I’ve been thinking, and… I really like you.”
Jongdae shivers when Minseok’s arm that had been wound around the small of his back pulls him even closer, and his tail brushes against the back of his thighs.
“I really like you, too,” Minseok says so quietly and with a smile so soft, one might think he didn’t want to spoil the words.
There’s so much of that sincere adoration in his expression that even Jongdae’s overthinking tendencies can’t pretend it isn’t there. Jongdae is fairly sure that without Minseok’s arms anchoring him, he would be floating. He doesn’t know what his face is doing, but his cheeks hurt. He’s probably smiling so hard all of his teeth are on display. It must not be a creepy sight, though, because Minseok’s own smile doubles in brightness.
“Even when I’m obnoxious?” Jongdae asks.
“Even then. That’s how you know it’s serious.”
A laugh bubbles from deep within Jongdae. He kisses the corner of Minseok’s gummy smile.
The hybrid playfully licks at his bottom lip and bites it so softly it slips through his teeth. He sighs against the side of Jongdae’s face. “Please tell me this won’t end when we get out of here.”
Jongdae shivers. How is this man real? How can he want the same things Jongdae wants?
He scrunches the tips of their noses together. “I don’t want it to end.”
“Me neither.”
Perfectly at peace with himself and with the world, Jongdae prepares to give Minseok a thorough demonstration of his appreciation. However, before he can even kiss him, Minseok chuckles and speaks again.
“It’s the best gift you could get me today, honestly.”
Jongdae is confused. “Huh?”
“It’s my birthday today.”
“Today is what?”
“Yes, al-co-hol,” Jongdae spells out on the intercom, still wrapped in a sheet like he’s wearing a toga. “Would it be an issue for my treatment if we both consumed it?”
“It might be my professional deformation talking, but I’m not sure alcohol consumption is recommendable regardless of your treatment, to be honest.”
Minseok coughs from where he’s still sitting on the bed, sleepy and amused. “And you said you can’t hold your liquor to save your life,” he points out with a rough voice.
Jongdae turns to tell him off and immediately gets distracted. Minseok is quite the sight to behold, stark naked, ruffled, skin still glistening with sweat and release after Jongdae gave him a passionate birthday gift. The first of several, he hopes.
He’s the most beautiful thing Jongdae has ever seen. He has trouble focusing on the conversation he’s having with the uncooperative nurse through the intercom.
“I’m not asking for a lot!” Jongdae whines. “Just a bottle. Half a bottle! A glass? It’s Minseok’s birthday today, we need to toast!”
“It’s nine a.m.!” the nurse shrieks.
“You don’t have to bring me some now, later is okay, too? Please?”
“Only if you remove the curtain.”
Huffing in disbelief, Jongdae moves the makeshift curtain in question enough to poke his head through and glare at the nurse. “Never!”
She stares back, unimpressed. “You’re breaking your own contract, by keeping that thing up. Don’t make me report you to the Chief Medical Officer.”
Jongdae whines again, stomping his feet. “Can we at least have some cake?”
“Curtain.”
“Cake.”
“Curtain.”
Later that day Jongdae pulls at the makeshift curtain until it dislodges and falls. But the nurses slip them an additional tray with a cake on it for dinner. It’s nothing special but Jongdae gets to watch Minseok stuff his face with it and blush profusely as Jongdae stands on a chair to give him a terrible but heartfelt opera rendition of the birthday song, so it’s a win for everyone.
Day 27
Jongdae sits up with a gasp.
He presses both hands to his chest, frantically looking for his racing heart through the dampness of his shirt. At some point he must have broken into a cold sweat.
“Dae?”
He can hardly answer with a choked sound, struggling to breathe.
Minseok shoots up as well. “Dae!”
“Minseok,” he wheezes.
Strong arms pull him firmly against Minseok’s chest. Gentle lips connect with his temple. He still can’t calm down and tries to squirm away.
“You’re okay, Dae. It’s just a nightmare.”
“I don’t want to die!” he strains.
Jongdae doesn’t recall ever saying it out loud. The concentration of his terror in a single sentence does nothing to ground him, it throws him into an even faster spiral.
“I don’t want to—”
Minseok turns the light on, allowing Jongdae to see the sorrow and the recognition in his eyes. He has probably already seen him like this.
Minseok thumbs at the skin under his eyes, gathering his tears before they trace their downwards path. “It was just a nightmare.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No,” Minseok whispers. “No, no, no, don’t apologize. You’re fine, you’re going to be fine.”
“I’m sorry.”
Minseok shushes him. He pulls Jongdae onto his lap, kisses his hair and rubs his back soothingly, holding him close. Even his tail curls around Jongdae. “Breathe, you’re going to be fine.”
Jongdae’s eyes are wide open over Minseok’s shoulder. He’s scared that if he closes them he will never be able to open them again. He keeps wheezing, like the air in his lungs has become his enemy.
Only Minseok’s whispers in his ear and his hands on his skin help him slowly rationalize what is happening to him. Only the steady beating of Minseok’s heart against his own chest manages to soothe him, and after a long time, lull him into a fitful sleep inhabited by flimsy, gray dreams.
“How are you feeling?” Minseok whispers as soon as he realizes Jongdae is awake.
Jongdae swallows and opens his eyes, staring at the ceiling. He still has a lump in his throat.
With light fingers, Minseok traces the side of his face. Jongdae intercepts that hand with his own and brings it to his lips, before squeezing it against his chest. “I’m sorry you had to see that. I didn’t mean to keep you awake. I thought I’d be stronger than this, by now, since we’re almost done with the treatment.”
“Are you serious?” Minseok leans in, entering his field of vision. “Dae, you’re so strong.”
“Whatever.”
“Hey.” Minseok grabs Jongdae’s chin and forces him to look at him. “I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I were in your situation, cut yourself some slack.”
“Being spoiled rotten by a lovely hybrid in luxurious room in a top ranking clinic doesn’t sound like the kind of situation that grants indulgence—”
“You’re an idiot.”
Jongdae snorts. “Not gonna argue with that.”
“You better not.” Minseok sounds upset. “Why can’t you see it? You’ve been told you somehow contracted a deadly disease that had humans dropping like flies for a decade. And yet I have never, in a month that we’ve been together around the clock, caught you displaying any actual fear or voice the slightest complaint or concern about how fucked up it is that you’re so young and full of life and yet in so much danger. You must have had so much on your mind on your own and yet for weeks you bent over backwards to make this a comfortable experience for me.” Minseok scoffs. “How much stronger do you want to get?”
“You seem to be forgetting how dramatic I have been whenever I had to read some fucking papers.”
“You seem to be forgetting I was freaking out too. Certain situations grant a bit of freaking out, don’t you think?”
“Not to mention the nightly nightmares and those three days of hallucinating tomfoolery.”
“Yeah, right, how unforgivable of your subconscious to take over for a bit.”
Jongdae huffs, covering his face. “Stop, please.”
“I would, but to me you’ve been doing just fine.”
“You haven’t met me before I got here.”
“I wish I did.”
“No, you don’t. Minseok...” Jongdae sits up slowly. “I have been on the edge of a perpetual mental breakdown since last year. It has eaten at me from the inside for months. I don’t even fucking remember who I was before.” He clenches his teeth when he feels his eyes welling with tears. “I didn’t feel young or full of life or strong. I felt—I felt like if I stopped pretending to be any of those things for even just five minutes, I might never pull myself together again. I had no choice.”
“You—”
“You need to understand this, Minseok. I was not strong and brave or whatever it is that people always tell terminally ill patients. I was not, I am not. I am like this because I had no fucking choice. It was either that or crumble.”
“And yet you didn’t crumble.”
“You don’t know anything, you weren’t there. And when I got here you—”
Minseok tilts his head.
Jongdae almost tells him then. How Minseok was the one who held him together. How he meant every world when he said he was happy Minseok was his match, how he wouldn’t have been able to pull through had there been anyone else in Minseok’s place. How Minseok was not just a distraction from his tragic situation, but an extremely compelling reason to cling to his life.
It’s probably too soon, though.
He sighs. “Forget it.”
Minseok waits, but Jongdae doesn’t say anything else. After a while, he scoots closer and pulls him gently until Jongdae is leaning against him. “You sound like you’re trying to say it’s shameful to be afraid and to look for help, like there’s no strength in vulnerability. Like there’s no merit in wanting to survive.”
Jongdae doesn’t answer, his forehead pressed against Minseok’s shoulder.
Minseok kisses the top of his head. “But okay. To me it doesn’t matter what got you to this moment. Whether it was willpower or desperation or instinct, or all of them, or none of them. I’m thankful you’re here, and it makes me sad to see you’re being so hard on yourself after being through so much.”
“Min.”
“I hope that in three days, when we’re out of here and you’re free, you’ll be able to see it. And you’ll be proud of yourself the way I’m proud of you.”
God, this man.
Jongdae has to draw from his most hidden reserves of strength in order not to break down there and then. It would be a waste though, to lose his shit after he managed not to for such a long time.
“Thank you,” he whispers, lips brushing against Minseok’s skin.
Minseok crushes him in a fracturing hug, inhaling deeply. “You’re welcome. And please, for the love of god, stop trying to convince me that you’re not that great.”
“I’m being objective to balance the fact that you’re just blowing smoke up my ass.”
“You are a fucking moron.”
“That’s better.”
Day 28
The white room he’s locked in with Minseok must be some kind of heaven he ascended to. Jongdae sometimes wonders whether he actually died without realizing.
It’s one of those times. He’s laying down with his head on Minseok’s lap as Minseok works his fingers through his hair, on his scalp. They finally got to experimenting whether humans would enjoy petting the way cat hybrids do, and it’s safe to say that the experiment is successful. Dopey and content as he is, Jongdae doesn’t rule out that he might start purring soon.
He opens one eye when he hears Minseok sigh, but it must have been a sappy sigh, because the hybrid is looking at him with an adoring little smile that confirms all of Jongdae’s suspicions about being in heaven.
He squints. “Is that my shirt from last night that you’re wearing?”
Their clothes all look the same, clearly mass produced, but this one has a loose thread by the neck that Jongdae recognizes.
Minseok looks down at himself, confused for a second, then one of his ears goes flat. “Uhm, yeah.”
“We have like a thousand clean shirts each you could pick.”
“No.”
Jongdae is about to protest, when he catches Minseok turning his head to smell the fabric on his shoulder, rather satisfied.
Oh. Okay then.
“What happened to ‘tomcats don’t share?’”
Minseok grunts, then does a thing on his scalp that has Jongdae forgetting any teasing he might have wanted to start.
He doesn’t actually pronounce any actual words until much later, when it’s the middle of the night and darkness enveloped them and hid them from the eyes of anyone who might have a reason to patrol the hospital ward.
Jongdae can feel the increasing desperation between them, they have both felt it in the days leading up to the end of the treatment. They have a flimsy promise about a future outside of that room, yet they try to make the most of the time they have left in captivity. As much as they can hope they will have the chance to see each other again, soon, their discharge is still a line beyond which all they see is a huge question mark. And they can’t help but wonder if it’ll work and they’ll ever get a chance like this, where they spend every minute together, night and day.
They must seize every second.
And since they’re in the mood for role-reversals, Jongdae decides to find out what happens when he bites Minseok.
Minseok hadn’t lied; for a minute it seems like Jongdae really breaks his brain when he nips at the soft skin of his neck. Minseok liquefies under Jongdae’s mouth like a snowman in the summer heat. That’s followed by a lot of growling that starts quiet and peaks with Minseok lifting Jongdae with one arm and tossing him on the other side of the mattress, hands rubbing and pulling just in the right spots, thorough sucking of hickeys and slight hair pulling. Zero complaints on Jongdae’s part. He’s so far gone it’s like a switch has been turned off in his brain, too.
That’s how sometime later Jongdae finds himself on his hands and knees, rebooting his brain and using words for the first time in hours just to beg Minseok to rail him into the mattress, because he’s classy like that.
And Minseok, being always ready to fulfill his needs, obliges him without hesitation. He preps him with the same care as usual, gentle and focused, silent if not for his purrs. He doesn’t let Jongdae touch him and he barely strokes himself twice before he buries himself in Jongdae and proceeds to take him apart.
“Harder, Min, fuck, I’m so close,” Jongdae chokes out an eternity or an heartbeat later, barely hearing himself through the fabric against his face and the sound of skin slapping against skin. He knows Minseok will hear him, smell his needs. “More, Min, please!”
Minseok makes a loud, feral groan. Instead of denying him release like he’s done before, dragging things out, his thrusts change pace, he reaches at a different angle, and Jongdae doesn’t even remember his own name as his entire self leans towards the promised ecstasy. Minseok’s hand is suddenly between his legs and with a few tugs, Jongdae finally shouts around white hot pleasure.
Minseok follows soon, hips stuttering as he pushes his orgasm deep inside Jongdae. His grip on Jongdae’s hips is bruising, like he’s trying to merge their bodies together. He shudders and moans deep in his throat and Jongdae vaguely notices the sting of his claws on his skin.
But it only lasts a second; Minseok pulls out and pitches forward.
Jongdae automatically draws up his shoulders and squirms when Minseok sets his teeth in the tender flesh at his nape.
“Ouch!”
It’s forceful, not the most pleasurable of sensations, but Minseok lets go with a growl as soon as he hears Jongdae’s whine, in any case before he draws blood. He bites the pillow next to Jongdae’s head instead, then suddenly Jongdae is cold and exposed.
Jongdae rolls over, trying to catch his breath. His ears are ringing.
“Min?”
He slaps the bedside table until he manages to turn the light on. Minseok is sitting at the foot of the bed, looking at his clawless hands, heaving in and out breaths that look so difficult.
“Min!” Jongdae crawls over to him, ignoring the burn in his muscles, the vague soreness, the cum trickling down his thigh. “What’s going on?”
Until a second prior he was sure there were a thousand degrees in the room, but Minseok is covered in goosebumps. He circles him with his arms. “Min? Talk to me. Come on.”
“All these hybrid things,” Minseok blurts out, spitting the word like it tastes foul. “If instead of just making us pretty, they gave us control over them—I’m so sorry.”
Jongdae tries to catch his breath. “What are you talking about?”
Minseok looks at him like he’s in pain, face scrunched. “Did I hurt you?”
“Hurt me? Min, I just came so hard I’m pretty sure I’m seeing colors I have never seen before. You didn’t hurt me, what the fuck.”
Minseok ignores him and lowers his gaze to his shoulder, hands hovering like he doesn’t dare to touch. “I’m so sorry.”
“What? Because you bit me? You didn’t hurt me, look!” He offers his shoulder to be inspected. “You chew on me all the time, it’s nothing.”
It sets Minseok off for some reason. “I shouldn’t! I could do something—some damage!”
“But I don’t mind you doing that. And also, not to hurt your feline ego, but I’m not even sure your fangs are sharp enough to do some actual damage, dude.” They definitely are, but now’s not the time to acknowledge that.
“But this!”
Minseok points at a practically invisible pinprick where one of his claws managed to breach the skin of his hip. Jongdae almost laughs.
“Are you serious? That’s hardly a scratch. Let’s compare it to the scratch marks I left on your back yesterday, shall we? This is nothing, Min.”
Minseok meets his gaze with a crestfallen look, before he closes his hands in fists and tucks them under his legs. “I thought—this time around I—”
Jongdae cradles his face. “You worry too much about me. Why do you look so spooked?” He kisses the tip of his nose. “Come lie down, come on.”
Slowly, by means of kisses, Jongdae coaxes the disgruntled hybrid into laying down on top of him. For a while it’s like he’s being blanketed by a wooden plank, but Jongdae has picked up a few infallible tricks and Minseok gradually loses the stiffness, until eventually he surrenders and begrudgingly hugs him back. Shy purrs come not long after that.
What seems to really work wonders though is Jongdae’s suggestion that Minseok should scent-mark him, since he noticed that carrying out the functions of his territorial posturing helps Minseok relax at the end of every day.
They haven’t even showered. Usually Minseok would run a hot shower and forcibly shove Jongdae in it, which Jongdae always whines about but is grateful for in the morning, while this time around he makes his peace with scheduling a very sticky and crusty awakening for tomorrow.
And yet Minseok is very thorough with his cat ministrations, which, yuck. Jongdae is very comfortable with Minseok, but that does not include willingly rubbing his face against his sweaty, cum stained body, let alone licking it. And there Minseok is, lapping at his hips and his neck where he thought he hurt him, as though there was some wound he should heal. If Jongdae ignores the filthiness of their state, he finds it a rather sweet gesture. Still, it’s very fortunate that Minseok doesn’t seem to expect him to return the favor.
But whatever works for him, Jongdae is willing to accommodate. It’s worth it when Minseok curls up against Jongdae’s side and falls asleep purring like a tractor.
Day 29
“Ready to face the outside world?” Minseok asks him, looking up from where he’s folding the few clothes they were allowed to bring, all still unused.
Jongdae can’t help but smile at the contrast between Minseok’s perfectly shaped pile of shirts and the way he’s shoving stuff in his bag with no regard whatsoever for the condition of his belongings. “I don’t know,” he says. “It actually started feeling kinda cozy in here.”
Minseok zips his bag closed and sighs happily, looking at Jongdae. “Right? I’ll kinda miss it, too. I mean!” He quickly corrects. “I won’t miss the blood and you being sick and everything else. I want this to be over so you can be healthy.”
He’s so genuine, Jongdae wonders for the millionth time how he got so lucky, to meet this guy and be honored by his unconditional dedication to preserve his life. And to receive his affection in addition. Wow.
“Min,” he whispers. Minseok is by his side in a flash. “Min, I really don’t know how to thank you.”
Instead of deflecting or starting earnest speeches about his calling to the search of goodness in the human race, Minseok puts his hands on his hips and smirks. “Take me out to dinner and we’ll be even.”
“I already told you I’d buy you dinner!”
“I mean like a date. Not like detoxification from hospital food. I mean like a date.”
Jongdae shoves aside any further wondering about his immeasurable luck, in favor of leaning in to kiss Minseok’s lips, to erase the nervous, shy shape of that mouth. “I will.”
He rather likes the way Minseok’s smile becomes lopsided when he’s hopeful, like it doesn’t dare to stretch fully. He pecks that lopsided corner, then pats Minseok’s butt. “I’ll call Mom, I’ll tell her not to pick me up tomorrow after we’re discharged. What do you think? So I can take you out.”
Minseok hides his face in his neck, nodding. Jongdae can feel his grin, full, unabashed, pressed against his collarbone. He can’t wait for tomorrow to come; and it’s not even because he wants to be declared negative and be given a fresh start to be able to reclaim his life. That almost becomes of secondary importance, compared to the new beginning he’s being offered by Minseok.
Day 30
“Ready?” Minseok asks, standing in front of the door with his duffel bag across his back.
Jongdae takes his hand and squeezes it. “Ready.”
They watch the nurses walk in their direction from the end of the hallway.
“Wait for me outside, okay? At the main entrance,” Jongdae says.
Minseok nods. “I’ll be there.”
“I’ll try to make it quick.”
They did the last transfusion after waking up, basically huddled against each other, and exchanged the last blood bag with a kiss. Jongdae cried, unsure why. Minseok never let go of his hand the entire morning.
Full examinations await them. It’s going to be easier for Minseok, just paperwork and routine checks and a short talk with the doctor in charge of him in the matching program, while Jongdae will have to give several samples and wait for the tests to be processed. He was told it would be a couple of hours at most, and he’s looking forward to spending the rest of the day with Minseok.
They almost laugh when they step outside of their room and smell unprocessed and unfiltered air for the first time in a month. On their way to the elevators, they walk in front of an actual window that actually faces outdoors and offers the insane spectacle of the sky. They turn giddy, pointing at the clouds like they have never seen one before.
And yet Jongdae turns back and finds himself thinking once again that he will miss that room. He entered as a man sentenced to death, and now he’s leaving hand in hand with a man he adores.
He never thought he’d grow fond of that white, aseptic, alienating environment. The sight of those walls threatened to blend his days into memories as gray as their clothes; but there’s nothing aseptic about what those walls have witnessed, and Jongdae felt more present and anchored to himself than he was before he first walked in, thanks to his companion.
The nurses congratulate them and their smiles turn softer when they spy their linked hands, but they pull them in different directions nonetheless. They part ways at the elevators, and Minseok winks at Jongdae before the doors close.
Only then Jongdae starts feeling a little nervous. After all, the final verdict has yet to be delivered, and although he feels as if he has borrowed someone else’s life for a month, he remembers vividly what it was like to know that he could drop dead at any moment.
It’s sunny outside. Jongdae feels great, and he wants to stretch his legs, maybe run. The nurses seem relaxed as they draw his blood, the doctors smile at him when they ask him questions and measure all his vitals. So the change is almost an imperceptible dent in the happy picture, at first.
Then, suddenly, Jongdae knows it’s over.
Jongdae knows it’s over when one of the doctors reads over his charts and instead of handing them to him, she makes a face at the paper. She holds her arm out, squinting, then lifts it closer to her face to read it again. “Let me just run this again.”
Jongdae knows it’s over when another two hours have passed, and he’s been asked the same questions four times, by four different doctors, each with a higher qualification than the one before. He is certain it’s over when all of his and Minseok’s logs have been reviewed for the fifth time, and can feel it in his bones that it’s over when his sixth sample comes back identical to the previous ones. Jongdae silently crumbles when it’s dark outside, and his samples have been sent to a different facility to make sure it was not just a mistake served by a faulty device, and he’s told officially: it’s over.
He can only hear the sound of his own heart. So precious, so precarious. Nothing changed; it could stop whenever. It’s like someone has shoved batting in his ears—the voice of the doctor that finally admits to him he’s still positive seems to come from so far away.
Jongdae stands up and walks to the window. He’s been a hostage of the Yonsei Hematology Ward for seven hours, it’s dark outside, and Minseok is still huddled on a bench in front of the main entrance, waiting for him.
Jongdae stands there staring at Minseok for long enough that Dr. Choi arrives at Yonsei from Siheung, ducks in to nod at him, then leaves to yell at someone. He hears her through the walls.
She comes back a while later. She dismisses the other medical staff that had been observing Jongdae like a dangerous zoo animal and stands next to him.
She doesn’t know that the lonely guy chewing his nails on the bench, four stories down, is Jongdae’s match. She probably doesn’t even single him out in the perpetual coming and going of the people entering and leaving Yonsei.
“I called for an investigation,” she says, as usual foregoing preambles and pleasantries. “They should have detected the upward fluctuation in your cells. The signs were there. They should have looked into it instead of dismissing it as a lab machine error.”
Jongdae doesn’t answer.
“They will be prosecuted, I promise. You may claim for damages. I’ll put you in touch with a lawyer, and—”
“What now?” he asks. “Will you lock us back in that room until the mutation is gone?”
“That would be pointless. If it hasn’t worked until now, it means you’re resistant to the blood transfusion treatment.” She makes a rueful pause, to let him absorb the news. “I’m sorry.”
Jongdae guesses he couldn’t leave that room with both his life and his love. Maybe he should have expected this.
“So I guess I am the 1%, after all. Took you a bit too literally when you told me to stay positive, uh?”
She sighs. She has learned to accept his coping methods.
“Didn’t you advertise him as one of the most perfect matches you’ve ever seen in your career?”
“He is. The compatibility is incredible. It’s not his fault. It’s not your fault, either. You just have a very strong mutation.”
A strong mutation he shouldn’t even have in the first place. The first registered case in history to have the mutation without a genetic strain, the first case in history to perish because by the looks of it non-hereditary mutations are not only weird but also fucking vicious.
This is all so stupid. If there’s never been anyone like him before, how did they know that what worked for other people would work for him? It’s so clear now.
“Jongdae,” she insists. “I know this is disheartening, but—”
Dis heart ening. What a fitting word.
“I know,” he says, just to shut her up, because he can’t stand any more words. His own voice sounds like it’s coming from a body next to him.
But she continues. “We must keep trying. You still have options, we’ll find what works for you.”
“The last time I came to your office, in Siheung, there was a guy waiting before me. His arms were just… butchered.” He looks at her. “Did you find what works for him?”
It’s a really low blow, he knows it.
She swallows. “No.”
“Are you still looking?”
She looks at their feet. “No.”
Meaning he passed away.
Jongdae nods to himself and resumes his staring at Minseok. He’s on his phone now, the screen projecting a bluish aura on his features.
Dr. Choi clears her throat. “You have options. Intensive reagent IV therapy and pills are very developed nowadays and have been producing encouraging results, keeping the mutation at bay. However, what is really recommended in cases like yours, since you have a match, would be match harvesting.”
“What’s that.”
“It’s an advanced medical procedure. Your hybrid match is supposed to undergo a cycle of medications that will alter his bone marrow. Bone marrow is responsible for the regeneration of blood cells. The theory is that by changing his own hematopoiesis, his blood changes, so when you receive it the next time, hopefully it will be strong enough to annihilate the genetic alteration in your system once and for all.”
“You see, that sounds very intriguing, but I don’t fuck with the kind of terminology you’re using here. ‘Theory’ and ‘hopefully’ have proven not to be enough in the past.”
“Jongdae.”
“What’s the success rate?”
“Don’t do this, Jongdae.”
“What about him? What’s in store for him?”
She grimaces, still looking outside the window. She looks at the treetops in the courtyard, though, and not at the figure sitting under one of the trees. “It’s a very complicated procedure.”
“Let me guess, it’s still under experimentation and there’s not enough data to guarantee both of us will end up fine?”
“Cases like yours don’t happen often enough to provide enough data.”
Jongdae had suspected as much. “How does it work?”
“Once his bone marrow is ready, you’ll have to receive one single transfusion.”
“You already made it clear that it’ll be easy for me, what about him?”
“A regular bone marrow transplant wouldn’t work, his bone marrow must be altered. That requires approximately two weeks of preparation. He’ll be injected with medication and kept under observation. A spinal surgery will follow, to extract his hematopoietic stem cells. He’ll be checked in for at least a month, including recovery. And rehab after that.” She sees the horror on Jongdae’s face and hurries to add: “He’ll be excused from work. And he’ll be paid for his trouble.”
Jongdae cringes, Minseok’s reaction when they talked about money fresh in his memories.
“What’s in those things they will inject him with?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Will it hurt him? Will he end up developing some weird aftermath condition you won’t know how to treat because you don’t have enough data or something like that?”
More silence. She probably thinks he doesn’t want to know. And she’s right: he knows enough.
He looks at Minseok. He’s pacing back and forth in front of the bench now. He must be freaking out.
“Did you know that my match was in the FES?”
“Yes. I saw it in his papers.”
Jongdae rubs his forehead. “So, what was it? Reagents, or pills, or this bone marrow thing? Do I have to pick one, then?”
“You’re supposed to call your match first, alert him of your situation and of your options. Match harvesting is strongly recommended.”
“You strongly recommend I jeopardize his health just so you can have more data to offer to the next unfortunate guy with a stubborn mutation?”
“He’ll be taken good care of. We’ll do anything in our power—”
“You’re basically telling me only one of us will come out of this unscathed!”
“The goal here is to get you both—”
“This is disgusting. How is this legal?”
“I know,” she lowers her voice. “But you don’t have a choice. If you want to get rid of the mutation, you need to do that. Reagents and pills only keep the mutation under certain threshold levels, they do not eradicate it completely, and when they do, they’re too slow.” She grabs his arm. “You might not have that kind of time.”
Jongdae jerks out of her hold. He opens his mouth, then he closes it as he thinks it through. There’s no point fighting her, anyway. Her job is to keep him alive, and she’ll do and say whatever it takes because she has probably has had enough of watching her patients wither and die.
“Can I call him right now?”
“Sure. I’ll wait for you. We’re all on standby.”
Jongdae makes his way out of the room, uncaring of the concern and pity of the nurses and doctors crowding the corridor, and looks for an empty office. He sits on the desk, bouncing his heels against it for five whole minutes. Then he walks back.
His phone never left his pocket. He doesn’t even have Minseok’s number.
“We considered carefully. I’ll try the intensive IV thing.”
“Jongdae…”
“I also wish to withdraw from the blood matching program. Take my blood out of the bank or whatever. I don’t want anyone else to be paired with me, I don’t want him to be paired with me.”
She tilts her head, horrified. “I can’t do that! Even if I agreed!”
“Then I want you to make sure that no one but you or whoever will be in charge of my future treatments will have access to any of my personal data, including my past or future progress. Not my family, not the Siheung staff, and especially not Minseok.”
“Jongdae, you have to be sure—”
“Did I stutter?”
She looks unhappy, but doesn’t question him any further.
He signs approximately five hundred forms, repeatedly stating that he will retain full liability if his chosen program doesn’t work and waiving the right to ask for damages. The doctors describe to him how his life will have to change, once again. He listens carefully. He wears his jacket, shoulders his bag, and takes the elevator to the ground floor. He resolutely ignores the ache deep in his chest. It has nothing to do with his disease.
Minseok is curled up on a bench, his arms around his duffel bag and his tail around his waist. He looks around nervously, with wide eyes, like he’s afraid he’ll miss Jongdae leaving if he blinks too much. Jongdae looks at him from behind a corner in the entrance hall of the hospital, then walks in the opposite direction.
He leaves the facility through a secondary backdoor and doesn’t look back.