Chapter Text
Renjun woke to the sound of Haechan’s voice cutting high and sharp through the apartment walls. He pulled the blankets off his head. Down the hallway, muffled, Haechan yelled, “Do you think I give a fuck about where any of you grow fucking fur?”
Swaying with sleepiness, Renjun pulled himself out of bed and shuffled to the door. He paused with his forehead against the doorframe, waiting out a powerful headrush. Jaemin’s low voice snapped something Renjun couldn’t parse. Haechan’s voice rose to a roar. “What about what you fuckers are doing to me, huh?” he yelled. “You’ve all lived half in the real world your whole lives because you can. You can! Shut up, Jeno. You’re a fucking problem too.”
Renjun gently turned the doorknob. Haechan’s voice blasted into his sleep-sensitive ears.
“I’ve been half dead for months! I’ve been relying on you all taking care of me like babysitters—no, like zookeepers for months. For like a third of my life I might as well just not be human, and for the rest of it, it’s all I’m allowed to focus on. And I’ve never cared before because I’ve always lived with people who just face it out loud and treat it like it’s fine. It’s not fine anymore!”
Renjun paused and leaned against the hallway wall to pull his nails over his forearms, brain so scrambled between the mood he went to sleep in and the switch to waking that it felt like a lucid dream. The scratches hurt. He was awake. He shuffled slowly down the hallway, keeping against the wall, still forcing his gritty eyes open.
“No, it’s not fucking fine,” Jaemin said, lower and barely audible. “It’s never been fucking fine. We’ve been trying to tell you since you got here and you won’t. Fucking. Listen. You act like this is some quirky thing we can all just enjoy, but Jeno had a commissioner. There’s someone out there who paid for him to exist. I was someone else’s property before I was even born, someone who probably still thinks they should own me. People know what we were made for, and they treat us like it. You’ve never felt that before. You’re not—”
“Not what?” Haechan snapped. “Not one of you? I don’t get it? That’s what this has been all year? You see me as one of them don’t you? You think I have it better.”
Jaemin’s voice rose to a shout. “It’s not about ‘better,’ idiot. I know you don’t have it ‘better.’ This is about how you don’t walk into every room and have to wonder which people want to keep you as a toy. This is about reminding us about it in a place where we should feel safe.”
“Safe?” Haechan shouted back. “Any one of you could have assaulted me in any way you wanted to this winter and I wouldn’t even know!” Absolute silence fell in the living room. Down the hallway, Renjun leaned his head back against the wall between his bedroom and Haechan’s, head swimming. The image drifted through his head, Haechan body, limp, unconscious, right at his fingertips all winter.
“I used to wake up in the den with bruises on my neck and we never figured out who did it. I’ll never know! You could have starved me or taken weird photos or me, or hurt me, or raped me, and I know you didn’t because I trust you. I trust you to know what it’s like. I trust that you can relate to me enough to care if I’m safe. Why the fuck won’t you trust me enough to acknowledge that Renjun might have furry balls?”
Renjun paused right at the end of the hallway and let the dread sweep through him like a bucket of ice water over his head—one quick hit, a residual shock, and then nothing but Haechan’s angry voice, carrying forward, carrying on, letting it go without comment.
“Why is that threatening coming from me? Why can you make that guess and I can’t? You’ve been helping me change clothes all fucking winter. What does it matter what anyone’s balls in this house look like?”
Jaemin made a frustrated growly noise. Renjun leaned against the wall just out of sight and shook his head like he could get the cotton out of his brain that way.
“I know I don’t get the pet thing,” Haechan pleaded. “I keep bumping that, and I’m sorry. But like, what about me? I need to be able to be a hybrid here and feel safe, and instead I just feel like I’m inside this weird electric fence of rules about things I can’t say, and there is no fucking logic to what’s fine and what isn’t.”
Renjun finally peeked around the corner. Jeno was curled up in the recliner by the windows with his ears flat to his head. Jaemin stood in front of him, ears back. In the middle of the living room, Haechan stood like he was about to draw and fire, ears back and his shoulders squared, making him look bigger.
When he spoke, his ears pressed further back. A sharp aggressive note slipped into his tone. “Why the fuck do you treat your animal traits like they’re dirty or, like, gross, even here? Why are you forcing that on me? It’s not like any of you are happy.”
“How I decide to cope with being seen as a pet is not up to you,” Jaemin said. “And you don’t need to know about it either.”
“Oh, not at all?” Haechan snapped. “I know about all the pet play you get up to. You’re both shit at hiding it, and I don’t care.” Jeno’s expression flattened, echoing the horror still fading from Renjun’s head. “See?” Haechan said. “You think it’s a big deal, but no one here is going to judge you. I know you’re both into piss. That’s part of how rabbits mate, isn’t it? How dogs mark their territory? Don’t deny it, Jeno. I smell it all over both of you all the time. It was all over that bathroom when I moved in.”
Jaemin turned and found Jeno red from his collar to his hairline with a hand over his face, frozen in the middle of shaking his head. “Oh my god, that’s private,” Jaemin said, turning back to Haechan.
“I’m not spying on you!” Haechan roared. “We’re hybrids that live together. I figure shit out whether I’m trying or not! I don’t care! I’m not going to fetishize it or be weird about it! Stop treating me like any other asshole about hybrid stuff, because then I start getting weird about bear stuff, and I need you to help me!” His tone shifted mid-sentence from fury to desperation.
“I need your support, and not just when I’m asleep. I didn’t ask to be here. I know we’ve got different trauma triggers. But I’m not the only one hurting other people in this house.” A deep growl resonated within his last sentence, turning his voice into an animal roar. Jeno’s eyes widened. Jaemin stomped loudly and stumbled, and his hands flew to cover his ears. Haechan straightened and slowed his next breath. He squeezed his fists and pulled his arms in, shrinking himself and his anger with practiced control.
“There’s such a thing as privacy just for personal comfort,” Jeno said quietly. “Haechan, you’re used to being open, but we’re used to people assuming awful things about us in public. Sometimes the luxury of being at home is trusting people to only see exactly what you want them to.”
“You won’t trust me,” Haechan said, voice low and rough. “You people only trust me when I’m too asleep to be myself.” He slumped onto the sectional. “I’m not a threat. I need help.” He squeezed his own ears like he had in the park the first time he argued with Renjun.
“I think I’m with Haechan on this,” Renjun said. Jaemin startled and thumped again. Haechan turned his simmering anger around toward Renjun, and once again became a person Renjun had never seen before, a frightening one, threat sharp in his curled lips and crunched eyebrows. But it twisted, getting softer, frustrated, desperate.
Renjun clutched the wall to stop himself from shrinking away from Haechan again, knowing his flattened ears had already betrayed him. “I think being open about…cat stuff…would be good for me, but I’m not sure I trust you guys to be cool about it.”
Jeno’s eyes flicked between Haechan’s figure on the sectional and Jaemin curled over himself, breathing fast and blinking rapidly, ears flattened in terror. He reached for Jeno and Jeno pulled him slowly down into his lap where he pushed Jaemin’s eyes into his shoulder and slowly pet his hand over his ears. How to soothe a frightened animal 101.
Renjun still hugged his corner, conspicuously still in yesterday’s clothing, hair probably a disaster. “Jeno, Jaemin,” Renjun said, “please know that I won’t judge you either, for anything.”
Jaemin made a very distressed little noise.
“Wish Mark was still here,” Jeno muttered.
“Yeah, me too,” Haechan said. “Trust me, if I had my way I’d still be in the den, probably with more broken bones but at least I’d have pain meds and happiness.”
“Now you’re just trying to hurt people,” Renjun said. “Both of you.”
“Like you did last night?” Haechan said.
Jeno scoffed. “Looks like it worked.”
“I’m sorry,” Renjun said. He shuffled against his corner and forcefully yanked his tail out from between his legs. “Haechan, I promise I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I just…” he ducked back behind the wall, came back out, still not looking at anyone, and said, “More people just found out through fucking Brian that I have pubic fur instead of hair which was an event that really messed me up in high school, but I really shouldn’t care if it’s you guys, right? Like, if I can trust anyone—like if anyone can understand this…”
Jeno’s sour face finally cleared a little. “Renjun, we’re not gonna be weird about that. Pubic fur is, like, pretty normal, right? It’s like, what, twenty percent of hybrids?”
Jaemin finally turned his head out of Jeno’s shoulder, still looking a little wary but much calmer. “Yeah, I think we were more worried about that guy seriously, like, hurting you in the past and bringing it to your attention.”
“He was just an asshole that I got too close to,” Renjun said. “But it’s not your fault he posted weird shit on my Insta.”
“Pubic fur sounds kind of nice,” Haechan mumbled miserably. “Warm. Soft.” He looked like he was clutching his head in both hands, but his fingers scratched the base of his own ears.
“Brian sure liked it,” Renjun said.
Haechan finally turned fully in his seat to look back at him. “Are you alright? Do you need anything to eat? I made muffins this morning.”
Renjun sagged against the wall. “Haechan, I’d love that. Thank you.”
Haechan got up and shuffled into the kitchen, shoulders hunched. In the corner of the living room, Jaemin curled up in Jeno’s lap and wrapped Jeno’s hand in his. They murmured with their foreheads pressed together.
“My hearing is pretty fucking good,” Haechan said. “No, we’re not asking you to make your fucking pet play public. Just stop looking angry if I so much as mention tails. It’s insulting.”
Jaemin and Jeno both looked up at him at the same time, embarrassed again. Renjun’s ears pointed in their direction, trying to catch the conversation, but neither said another word. Jaemin kissed the corner of Jeno’s mouth. They both stood and headed for their bedroom. On the way past, Jeno wrapped his arms around Renjun and gave him a squeeze with his head hooked over his shoulder.
“Muffin or breakfast sandwich?” Haechan asked, without looking at Jeno.
“Can I have both?” Renjun reached back and rubbed Jeno’s behind his fluffy ears.
“Haechan,” Jeno said.
Haechan thunked a frying pan down on the stove and glared.
“I’m sorry.”
Haechan’s gaze dropped, lips pulling down. He turned away. Jeno gave Renjun one last squeeze and followed Jaemin into their room.
“I’m an idiot,” Renjun said after the door closed.
“Why?”
“I had not realized they were together.”
Haechan snorted. He tossed a couple slices of bacon into the pan. “They’re pretty cagey for some reason, but there’s no mistaking the smell.”
“There were a lot of hybrids at the shelter who were paired off as emotional support partners completely non-romantically,” Renjun said. “I’ve stopped assuming it’s that kind of love. But those two are more conventionally functional than most of the people back in the home.”
Haechan threw up finger quotes. “’Well adjusted,’” he said.
“What about the bears?” Renjun said. “How did romance work over there?”
Haechan looked at him, eyes low with caution. “Before you start making fun conversation like we’re totally cool, please let me know if you meant what you said last night.”
Renjun had spent much of his life cripplingly embarrassed, but the lurch in his stomach still caught him off guard, and the thin flicker of fear that caught him at the memory of Haechan’s terrifying anger. Renjun sank his head down behind his arms on the counter, away from Haechan’s deep brown eyes, steeling himself. “Um. No, I—I mean, I meant it when I said it. I really wasn’t trying to hurt you. But my head was in a weird space. I don’t want us to stop. I just didn’t…feel like a person.”
Haechan nodded. “Figured. You three are hopeless.” He slammed down a cutting board and a knife. His face pinched as he worked, jaw clenched, eyebrows squished up in the middle.
Renjun didn’t manage to completely swallow back the plaintive mew building in his throat. “I’m sorry,” Renjun said from behind his hands.
Haechan shook his head like Renjun didn’t need to say it, but it took him a few more deep breaths before he would speak. His own cheeks were unusually pink, gaze lowered. He clenched his jaw and wrapped his palms around his own ears again, rubbing slowly. “Dating at the bear house was really frustrating,” he said, finally answering Renjun’s too-casual question. “We were so monitored all the time and anything sexy was really discouraged. We weren’t made to be…sexually viable, I guess. Pregnancy would almost definitely be a fatal medical complication because of the way real bears…gestate,” he shook his hands out like the very idea agitated him, “and even if that worked out, who the fuck knows what the baby would end up like. And we’re all just so vulnerable to each other in winter.”
“Oh,” Renjun mumbled.
“It’s not like we’re forbidden from relationships but it’s hard to have that when you’re being interrogated and advised at even the awkward first steps of, like, getting friendly. No kind of birth control short of just tying things off really works on us, you know. I’m supposed to get that done one of these days, but…I mean, surgery is kind of complicated for us too. Human anesthesia doesn’t always…” He shrugged.
“Oh my god,” Renjun mumbled.
“Sorry, that’s a lot more answer than you were probably looking for.” Haechan leaned on the counter and stared at the sink off to his right, finger tapping the edge. “We all tend to get really close with someone during mating season when the libido is unavoidable. Bears will court each other for a while in the wild, so sometimes I’d click with someone in early summer and we’d be fuckbuddies for a few weeks and then the chemistry would just disappear. All guys, of course. Can’t fuck girls. I’d always be interested in keeping up a relationship, but it turns out that’s just another thing that makes me unusual as a bear, so that never worked out.”
He chewed on his lip and watched Renjun’s face, something like challenge in his expression. Renjun’s groggy brain wasn’t giving him enough bandwidth to show anything but the discomfort he felt.
“I almost dated a guy in school too,” Haechan said. “We all went to a private school nearby during the awake seasons. We mixed with the other kids sometimes. There was one cute guy, but he didn’t really follow through on the flirting. I think he just liked the ears but didn’t want anyone making fun of him for dating the weirdo.”
“I’ve been there.”
“Yeah, you’d know. Normies are all over you.”
Renjun sarcastically pretended to flip his hair, and Haechan finally gave him a little smile.
Haechan got some cheese out of the fridge and lined it up on the cutting board with his long hands. Renjun rested his head on his arms, watching as Haechan silently sliced it. When he finished, he held a piece across the counter. “Treat?” he said, sly.
Renjun huffed a sigh through his nose and managed a little glare, but he leaned forward and took it with his mouth. As his cheeks burned, Haechan rewarded him with a soft hand brushing his cream-colored hair back, and a scratch behind the ears. He tapped Renjun’s chin and went back to the stove to flip the bacon.
“I caused that argument, didn’t I?” Renjun said.
Haechan’s ears flattened into his wavy mess of hair. “Not everything’s about you, you know,” he said, bratty. “I have plenty of shit to yell at them about without bringing you up at all.”
“Sorry.”
Haechan snorted. “You’re right, though,” he said. “The fight was about you at the start. I still wouldn’t say you caused it. They just told me what that guy posted and I guessed it was about pubic fur. Jeno yelled at me for guessing, but they’d obviously guessed too. I don’t know. I blew up. It’s been coming for a while.”
“I feel like I’ve been part of that too. I’m sorry.”
Haechan turned. “You haven’t been. Renjun, you’ve been the only person even trying. Thank you.”
An awkwardly relieved smile twitched Renjun’s lips. He ducked towards the counter, smoothing his hair back, cheeks prickling with warmth. He’d left his phone in his room. The stove said 11:13. He was half a day behind in his work. “Maybe I need therapy,” he said. “Fucking Brian appearing on Insta should not fuck me up this bad.”
Haechan turned from the stove, concern pinching his face. “I’m kind of out of the loop on what was going on yesterday. They said you were upset. It fucked you up? Like are you good?”
Renjun snorted at the counter. “Um. I spent like six hours yesterday hiding from my own tail.”
“H-hiding from—” Haechan stared, eyes wide. “How does that work?”
“It’s…you know.”
Haechan shook his head.
“Dysphoria. Over the ears and stuff.”
Haechan’s face cleared. “Oh. Some of the bears had that.”
Renjun glanced towards Jeno and Jaemin’s room. “You mean you’ve never had that? I’ve never met a hybrid that didn’t have that.”
Haechan shrugged. “Not over the ears.” Haechan pulled the bacon out of the pan and cracked a couple eggs in. “I don’t recognize myself in the mirror sometimes in the fall. It’s just disorienting to change that fast.”
“Not over the ears though?” Renjun said faintly. As he stared, one of Haechan’s little bear ears flicked. “They are very cute ears,” he said.
“Thanks, I know.” Haechan wandered back over and leaned on the counter, staring right into Renjun’s eyes without ever looking up past his forehead. “So you had a hard night?” he said.
“It was the worst night I’ve had since I moved in.” Renjun thumbed his ears, marveling at how easy it was to do in the morning when it had sent his whole soul crawling the night before. “It used to happen a lot in the group home. In high school it wasn’t such a problem because I’d just get high.”
Haechan’s eyebrows scrunched in confusion again. “I feel like we only ever talk about my life,” Haechan said. “Who is Brian? How do you know him?”
Renjun hummed to indicate he was thinking, and while he deliberated, Haechan went back to the eggs. “He’s…I went to a regular high school. Well, it was a private school but it didn’t have a special hybrid program or anything. I was with foster parents. Brian was my foster sister’s friend. We had chemistry together. Like the science class, not—anyway, I had such a huge crush on him.”
Haechan looked up from the bagels he was breaking apart to put in the toaster. “Wait, foster parents? You lived with a family?”
“I—yeah. Had I not told you that?”
“Hold on, normal high school?” Haechan had frozen half-turned around by the stove, eyes wide. “A sister?”
Renjun had been there for months, bringing his roommates into his life. He’d had some of those conversations over Haechan’s sleeping body in his bed. He’d stopped explaining his history. “I was right last night, you know,” Renjun murmured. “You really don’t know me at all.”
“Tell me everything,” Haechan said.
Renjun had been liberated in infancy, and lived out a childhood in a comfortable little house with seven other cat hybrids from his ‘litter,’ where there was never quite enough attention to go around. At age ten, he was fostered out to a family.
For nearly seven years, he’d had his own room, his own phone, his own wardrobe. He went on their vacations and enrolled in summer camps with their kids. They got him started in modeling and bought him a sewing machine, patterns, and fabric. They put him in classes at a local sewing shop.
When he was thirteen, his older brother took him out on the roof and gave him weed. At fourteen, he and his sister crashed one of their brother’s high school parties. His brother’s classmates were so interested in Renjun’s ears and tail that he had free entry to any of those parties for the rest of high school.
They were all rich kids. They threw parties when their parents went on vacation, or broke into their family’s beach houses. They used fake ID’s and older siblings to supply kegs, then weed, then cocaine. By fifteen, Renjun had figured out that alcohol made him feel stupid and weed made him disoriented, but ecstasy took away every one of his problems and left him flying.
It was around that time that he opened his legs for Brian, and Brian broadcast to the entire school that he had furry balls, and he could no longer pretend he didn’t see just how sexually his peers viewed his cat features. His siblings didn’t show sympathy. His parents refused to notice that their children had problems.
“Brian just told everyone your business?” Haechan said. “Did you slap him?”
Renjun blinked at the blurry crumbs of his breakfast sandwich. Haechan was only halfway through his, and didn’t look like he was interested in finishing. “I hooked up with him like four more times,” Renjun said. “I hooked up with a lot of people after that.”
Haechan sat there silently beside him for a long, still moment, before he kissed Renjun’s shoulder and took his plate to the kitchen.
Renjun breezed over the busted party, the drug test, the hybrid services representative reading out the decision, the whole family turning on each other. Some of the things he left behind still appeared in his dreams. His one little box of multicolored thread featured often, as did a set of books about the history of runway fashion.
He brushed over the group home too, except where it differed from Haechan’s den. “Lots of families,” he said. They’d ended up back in Haechan’s room, Renjun curled up against the pillows, back to the headboard. Haechan lay across the middle, watching him as he talked. “Tons of kids. But the further you get from the lab babies, genetically, the more unpredictable the cat traits are. So older cat hybrids are traumatized, and often, younger hybrids are dealing with really weird physical abnormalities. There’s a generation in the middle that’s doing pretty well, and that’s me. That’s all of us here.”
He talked a little about his alt rebellious roommate who played music too loud and liked to run away. “Still attention starved. Who knows if that’ll ever be fixed.”
“At least that’s not one of my problems,” Haechan said. “I had like fifteen parents.” He propped his chin up on one of his teddy bears to watch Renjun talk, just a big pile of soft brown fluff.
“Can you go visit the den?” Renjun asked.
Haechan raised his eyebrows. “I visited last week after my haircut. Half of them are still asleep, so I didn’t have much to report, but it was nice.”
A sudden ache of joy swelled through Renjun’s chest. He breathed in, held it, nodded until his voice didn’t threaten to wobble. “Good,” he mumbled.
Haechan gave him the softest smile and reached out to squeeze his ankle. Renjun stretched his leg out and poked him in the ribs. Haechan let it happen.
“That’s my whole life,” Renjun said. “Thanks for listening.”
Haechan hummed and rubbed the nub of Renjun’s ankle bone. “None of it’s all that surprising,” he said. “Explains some of the details, I guess.”
Renjun snickered. “You think you know me well enough anyway?”
“I know you should get a therapist,” he said.
Renjun shoved him with his foot, and Haechan wrapped around it, pressing it to his warm chest. For a while, they gazed at each other in silence, back in Haechan’s bed again after so many weeks. All the heat bags had disappeared, as had half the blankets and a good number of cushions. Haechan’s hand wandered up the woven blanket again and loosely caught Renjun’s tail. Renjun admired the warmth of his chocolate brown fur against Haechan’s pretty skin tone.
“Next winter,” Haechan said, “I’m going to get a canopy over this bed so I can close the curtain and make this a real den.”
“I’ll love that,” Renjun said. “I’ll be in here all the time.”
Haechan crawled up between his legs and pushed their foreheads together. “Be in here all the time now,” he said. “I miss you in my bed.”
Renjun wrapped his arms around Haechan’s back and pulled him closer. Haechan’s plush little lips brushed against his. He squeezed his legs around Haechan’s sides, and Haechan moaned softly into the kiss. He relaxed his arms against the headboard and snuggled down against Renjun’s chest, forehead tucked to Renjun’s neck. Renjun scratched the base of Haechan’s ears. “Will you purr for me?”
The deep rumble started. Haechan wormed a hand under Renjun’s back and scratched the place when his fur began to grow over his tail.
This time, it was easy for Renjun to start the rhythm in his own chest. They matched, purring together, scratching each other’s fur.
For a few days, Jaemin and Jeno avoided the common space, so Renjun avoided the common space unless Haechan was in the kitchen. Haechan’s physical trainer, Johnny, came by for dinner. They spent one loud evening around the dining table, Haechan insisting the man was torturing him for money between flirting with both him and Renjun. Their roommates didn’t emerge to eat until nearly eleven after he left and Haechan had finished cleaning up the kitchen.
“I don’t care if they’re mad,” Haechan said from the safety of his bed on a Saturday morning. “If they come back and have a problem with me, I’ll keep yelling. I’m not finished.”
Renjun lay against his chest, anxiety warring with comfort as Haechan scratched his ears. “I don’t like fighting,” Renjun said.
“You don’t have to,” Haechan said. “You’re fine. Just put on your headphones and keep sewing.”
Haechan smelled different outside of hibernation. Cleaner, usually, less like sleep, but somehow warmer. Renjun pressed his nose into Haechan’s t-shirt and breathed. The bacon they’d had for breakfast lingered in the threads. “Don’t forget they’re hurting too,” Renjun said. “We really don’t need to be enemies.”
Haechan’s hand paused on Renjun’s hair halfway through a pull through the strands. He tightened his fingers and tugged gently. “They’re probably just uncomfortable,” Haechan said. “I should probably say something.”
“I didn’t realize you were having such a problem with them,” Renjun said.
“I didn’t either until I was already yelling. I thought they just shut me out for being a bear, but they were shutting you out too.”
Renjun rubbed his cheek against Haechan’s chest. “No, Jaemin actually called me ‘kitty’ once. He apologized, but he did it. Jeno would touch my tail without thinking. They definitely still had lines with me, but they were more lenient than the lines they gave you.”
“The problem is when they try to tell me how I can’t treat my own ears. Or how I can’t treat your furry balls, like their way is the right way no matter what.”
Renjun squirmed on the blankets despite himself, suddenly too aware of the inside of his underwear. “Ok, but we don’t need to talk about my balls.”
“I think it’s cute,” Haechan said. He wrapped Renjun’s cream colored hair around his fingers, right at his crown where it grew lightest, between the brown shading at the base of his ears and towards the back. “Bet it’s this color.”
“Lighter,” Renjun murmured. “It’s a bitch to keep clean.”
Haechan sucked in a breath. “Lighter? White?”
“The places my clothes cover are usually lighter, and between my legs is really warm.” He rocked sideways and patted the front of his pants, lower belly. “Gets a little darker around here, but it’s still as light as my hair. Lower, it’s pretty colorless.”
Haechan’s foot hooked over his knee and dragged him back onto his belly so he could squeeze across both of Renjun’s shoulders and kiss the top of his head. “Pretty boy,” he said. “Can’t wait to see it.”
“Mm. Buy me dinner first.”
“I make you dinner like every day!”
Renjun giggled against his chest, then wriggled out of his grip to hook his thumbs into the band of his sweatpants. Haechan had time to gasp, and then Renjun tugged them down.
“Then you banged, huh?” Chenle said. “Wow. How many years had it been for you?”
“Only three,” Renjun mumbled. “That’s not important.”
Chenle rolled off the bed to flop down on the floor beside Renjun. He pulled out his phone. He’d ditched his leather jacket and hat to lie in his tank top on the bed. Ears and tail out and proud, yellow eyes otherworldly and lovely in the afternoon light. He opened Google and said, “Let’s see, do bear hybrids have mating seasons?”
“Kind of, I think,” Renjun said.
“I have a normal human libido when it’s not warm out,” Chenle said, “so basically I’m horny as fuck all year, but goddamn I’ve got nothing on Jisung, poor little hamster.”
“Male cats don’t really have a ‘season,’” Renjun said. “Neither do hamsters. Like humans, male cats just fuck when it’s available.”
“Oh.” Chenle put down his phone. “Thought there was a bit of a seasonal thing to it, but maybe I just don’t like taking my pants off when it’s cold. Anyway, bears definitely have a mating season and it’s short as fuck. May to July. But if he can get it up in April, you’re probably good for most of the year, right?”
Renjun shoved him onto the floor. “Fuck you, oh my god.”
Chenle howled with laughter and yanked at the blankets, jostling all of Renjun’s sewing supplies towards the edge of the bed.
“Get out of my business, you little demon. Fuck, my pin cushion.” He followed Chenle onto the floor, chasing the little tomato.
Chenle wormed his long limbs into the way as Renjun started digging around under the bed for the pin cushion Chenle had bumped with his shoulder. “Is he gonna give you cubs?” Chenle said, tickling Renjun’s belly. Renjun almost kneed him in the dick. He got his hand in there and went for Chenle’s neck.
“Why aren’t you asking if I’m going to give him kittens, huh?” he snapped.
Chenle shrieked as Renjun got his fingers in his neck and started wiggling them. “Stop, dude!” he captured Renjun’s hand. “It’s weirder when it’s kittens.”
“It isn’t, but okay.”
Chenle snorted. “We both know you like it up your butt too much to be giving anyone kittens.”
“And yet…” Renjun said.
Chenle had started crushing him into the side of the bed. It was only a few inches off the floor, and the blankets hanging all around it left it very dark and dusty. Renjun couldn’t afford to get low enough to see under it while defending against Chenle. His hand hit something, but it wasn’t a prickly cloth tomato. It was a stiff but flexible band. One side felt disconcertingly fuzzy. He yanked his hand back and metal jingled against the floor.
“Oh,” he said. He shoved his hand back under and grabbed it, pulling it out. In front of his face, he held a thick leather collar with a ring attached to the front and soft fuzz around the inside.
“What the fuck?” Chenle said.
“A collar.”
“Yeah, I know it’s a fucking collar,” Chenle hissed. “I can’t tell you how many fucking stylists have tried to put one of those on me for a shoot. It’s never fucking happening. It’s in my contract. No fucking collars.”
Renjun sat up. “The quality is really good.”
“Yeah, it’s for human necks,” Chenle said. “They’ve all got that fucking fuzzy shit to make it for human skin.” He stood and backed up into Renjun’s desk chair like he needed distance. “Why the fuck is that under your bed?”
“No idea,” Renjun said. “You think it would look good on me?”
Chenle growled. It sounded a little silly, nothing like Haechan’s angry rumble, but Renjun didn’t tell him so.
“Probably belonged to one of the previous occupants,” Renjun said. “It was back under the back leg of the bed, and I can tell from the dust it hasn’t been cleaned in ages.”
“Hasn’t this place been a hybrid apartment for like twenty years?”
Renjun shrugged. “There’s no accounting for kink.” He tucked the collar back under the edge of the bed, and Chenle finally relaxed. “By the way, I will not be having cubs. Apparently, it’s been like five months, and he did not last long enough for that.”
Chenle burst into laughter, and forgot the collar.
As soon as Chenle left, Renjun dodged back to his room and got the collar back out from under the bed. Haechan would get back from his workout in only twenty minutes, and if Jeno was going to slam the door in Renjun’s face, he needed time to get over it. He padded quietly over to Jaemin and Jeno’s door and stood still, rocking from foot to foot and preparing to knock.
The door swung open and Jeno stood right on the other side. “I heard you,” he said.
Renjun held out the collar. “I think this is yours,” he said. “I found it under my bed.”
Jeno’s ears flattened. He stared at it, eyes darting from the leather to Renjun’s chest.
“It’s really pretty,” Renjun said. “Looks handmade.”
A hard clench twitched Jeno’s jaw, and he shied away from the door for a moment like he wanted to leave, but he stopped still. His tail lashed once against the door. He let out a hard sigh and took the collar from Renjun’s hand. “I’ve been wondering where this went.”
“It got jammed behind the bedpost.”
Jaemin pushed his rolling chair out from behind Jeno to see what was going on. “Whoa, is that the collar you told me about?” he asked.
Jeno nodded. His cheeks had gone sweetly pink. He looked up at Renjun’s face, head still ducked. “Yeah, this is the really nice one.” It had layers, one thick band with a thinner strap for width adjustment studded around the middle. The fur around the inside looked real. “It is handmade,” he said. “I found it at a ren faire.”
“I bet it looks great on you,” Renjun said.
Jeno chewed on his lower lip. With a shaky breath, he raised the collar to his neck and fastened it with ease. He hooked a finger in the metal ring at the front and tugged. His long eyelashes fluttered. His tail wagged, just a little. “Thanks,” he said.
Renjun stood still on the other side of the door, hands clutched over his pounding heart so he wouldn’t touch his own neck. A heat prickled his cheeks. He wrenched his eyes back to Jeno’s downturned eyes. “I want to thank you for the other day,” Renjun said. “You handled my meltdown. I’ve been meaning to…yeah. Thanks.”
“Not sure we couldn’t have done better,” Jaemin said, dryly regretful.
“I also wanted to say sorry,” Renjun said. “I feel like I heard some things you didn’t want me to hear. Please know you can trust me with it. I want to be someone you’re both comfortable around.” Jeno looked back at Jaemin, who looked back up with his eyebrows raised, having a silent conversation, no longer looking at Renjun, who backed away a step. “That’s all,” he said. “I’ll see you around?”
Jeno turned back around suddenly, determination set all over his face. “I’m a dog,” he said.
Behind him, Jaemin face twisted with anxiety.
“Um. At least, sometimes I think I am,” Jeno continued. He fiddled with the ring in the front of his collar. “Sometimes I look at my hands and I don’t understand them. Or I have to really focus to remember I can talk. It’s not like I want to be a dog or anything. It’s not pet play,” He trailed off quietly. “It’s just how I feel.”
Renjun stood there, clutching himself as a feeling broke over him, one like Chenle’s horror that any hybrid would collar themselves, like the furious pity he felt when Haechan struggled to stay awake, like how his chest ached when he helped the toddler with claws put his clothes on, like his helplessness when he tried to teach a forty-year old woman in the shelter how to read and she flinched when he handed her a book.
“I think I want…” Jeno continued, “like, you and Haechan mentioned being more open about our hybrid stuff.” He leaned on the end of the open door in a way that hid part of himself behind it. Jaemin had pulled his legs up into his seat, watching Jeno with love pinched between his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t blame you if this made you uncomfortable though,” Jeno said. “If you don’t ever want to treat me like a dog, I get it, but I think I would like it if I didn’t always have to close the door, you know, when I’m just not thinking about it.”
Renjun swallowed hard. “I’ll do whatever I can to make you comfortable,” he said, tone low and rasping against his own reservations. Jaemin’s whole body sagged with relief.
Jeno’s tail finally began to wag.
When Haechan got home a little while later, Jaemin and Jeno were both out in the kitchen heating up leftovers. His eyes lingered for just a moment on the black band around Jeno’s neck, and his lips twitched. “Are we eating together tonight?” he asked.
“Yeah, here’s yours,” Jaemin said. He pushed a plate of leftover chicken pot pie across the table. “Let me know if you need extra.” He stabbed a fork into his own elaborate salad and passed Haechan with a light hip check to go settle at the dining table. “Looking good, Jeno,” Haechan said.
Jeno flashed a big smile, tail wagging.
Jeno still walked on two feet and used his thumbs, didn’t pant, still sat in a chair, but he’d started tilting his head to the side when he wanted to listen to something. His gaze followed Jaemin through the room with a calm and unrelenting focus. Jaemin rubbed his back and Jeno leaned against him, tail thwapping hard against the seat. “Can I do that?” Renjun said. “Do you like ear scratches?”
Jeno just grinned at him.
“He does,” Jaemin said. “You don’t really have to change how you treat him, you know. He doesn’t act that different. Just don’t expect him to talk much.”
“Ah, ok.”
Jaemin settled into his chair with his dinner and gazed at Jeno, a worried pinch still held between his eyebrows. “He likes belly rubs too,” Jaemin said, “but don’t do that.”
“Only you for that one,” Renjun said. “Got it.”
“Can I scratch your ears too?” Jaemin asked. “While we’re spelling this out.”
“Yeah,” Renjun said. “I love that. Thank you.”
“He likes tail scritches too,” Haechan said, “but so help me god, if you ever—”
“Yeah, I get it,” Jaemin said. “Do you groom him too?”
Haechan grinned and kept eating his pot pie. Jeno’s tail tapped softly against the edge of his chair. He had his head cocked curiously at his plate. He looked back and forth between his food and the fork for a minute before starting like a person who’s just remembered what they entered a room to look for. He picked up the fork.
“Actually,” Renjun said, “I wouldn’t mind some help brushing my tail sometimes. I hate it. Unless you mind?” he said, looking at Haechan.
He shook his head. “Whatever you need, kitten.”
Jaemin’s nose crinkled, but he said nothing. Jeno’s tail kept tapping the seat. An old feeling sizzled in Renjun’s chest, something like the rage he felt when people called him that, but Haechan’s ear flicked like it was tossing off a fly, and that sizzling feeling swelled into warmth.
“So you’ve been doing this for Jeno for ages, huh?” Haechan asked. “I can’t call Renjun ‘kitten’ but Jeno gets belly rubs and fetch in the park?
“I’ve gotten used to what Jeno needs,” Jaemin said. He met Haechan’s eyes. “Needs, Haechan. Don’t ask me to enjoy indulging in my ‘animal side’ or whatever because you think it’ll be good for me. It won’t be good for me. I still don’t want any part of this.” Jeno’s tail slowed. Haechan’s jaw twitched.
Jaemin leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Just, please don’t forget I have my own comfort levels. I’ve been a little under siege here for the last few months. I’m trying to get better. I’ve gotten so used to defending how I want hybrids to be treated in general that I think I walked all over how you two want to be treated. I’m sorry.” Jeno’s tail sped up again, muffled taps against the wooden chair louder and faster.
“I’ll try not to have a problem when you treat Renjun like a cat,” Jaemin continued, “or talk about yourself like a bear, but if you, like, call me bunny or make any fucking jokes about carrots, I will make it a problem, okay?”
“Yeah,” Haechan said, voice as soft as it had been during hibernation. “Sure. Understood.”
Jaemin nodded and finally relaxed a little. Renjun took his dishes to the kitchen and got ready to wash. Before the water started, he heard Haechan mumble, “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to make either of you uncomfortable here.”
“Jeno never actually minded,” Jaemin said, “And I need to get over it. I want this place to feel like a den for all of us, you know?”
There was a short silence and Jeno’s tail thwaps picked up rhythm again. When Renjun looked over the counter, Haechan was withdrawing his arm back into his own space from where he had reached towards Jaemin. Jaemin’s hand was upturned and open like he’d just let Haechan squeeze it. They both went quietly back to their meals like nothing had happened, and Jeno continued to grin.
In late July, Renjun woke to the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking. He lay tangled in the single sheet on Haechan’s bed, missing all his clothes, warm even with the air conditioning hissing through the vents. When he sat up, a pleasant soreness ached in the thighs and hips.
Haechan had an enormous pile of cookies on a wire rack sitting to the side of the stove. He stood at the counter, shaking a huge bag of sugar into a bowl. A can of pineapple and a jar of Maraschino cherries sat next to his baking pan. He hadn’t bothered to put on more than a t-shirt and a pair of boxers, thighs out in the light of the summer morning through the big living room windows.
Jaemin sat at the counter. “Taeyeon said not exclusively in cookies,” he said. “Cake is just as bad. Put down the sugar and eat some granola or something.”
“Morning,” Haechan said to Renjun, then turned back to Jaemin. “It’s pineapple cake, loser. It’s got fruit in it. It’s healthy. Chill out.”
Renjun greeted Jaemin with a little scratch behind the ears. “Is Jeno already out?” he asked.
Jaemin shook his head. “Day off. He’s in the shower. What do you have going on today?”
“Just a sewing day,” Renjun said. “I like your shorts.”
Jaemin had on little blue cotton shorts that buttoned over his black puff tail with a fastening method that matched the pattern currently holding Renjun’s shorts on. Jaemin’s tank top bunched on top of it. “Mm,” he said with a smile. “Yeah, they’re comfy.” He wiggled his tail.
“Is Mark coming over later?”
“He’s hanging out tomorrow before he and Jeno have to leave for a shoot.”
Renjun climbed onto a stool next to him. “Dear, can you make me some breakfast?”
“I’m not a deer,” Haechan grumbled, but he dropped his sugar immediately and opened the fridge.
“Speaking of deer,” Renjun asked. “Have you ever eaten venison? Bears like deer, right?”
“I love venison!” Haechan chirped. “Have you ever eaten rabbit?”
Renjun side-eyed Jaemin, who glared across the counter and shoved a berry into his mouth somewhat viciously. “Can you hand me the raspberries, please,” he said. Haechan added it to the piles of breakfast ingredients on the counter.
“Yes,” Renjun stage whispered.
Haechan mouthed back Was it good?.
Renjun put his small paw up to block Jaemin’s view of his face as he mouthed back Yes.
“I’ll hang you both out the window by the ears.”
Haechan sealed his lips and got back to the omelets.
Jaemin slowly munched his way through the berries as Renjun chatted with Haechan about his projects for the day. Haechan made omelets. Eventually, Jaemin wandered off and passed by with his camera bag slung over his shoulder and a hat over his ears. He’d been getting more photography gigs over the summer, including more photoshoots for Renjun, which now often included Haechan in sleeveless tanks that showed off his toned arms. He was the only one of them that would go ears out no matter where Renjun wanted to shoot.
Jeno came out before long, collar already fastened for a comfortable day at home. He flopped right down on the sectional, tail wagging, and picked up a controller.
“Jen, omelet?” Haechan called.
“Rmf!”
Haechan sighed and grated more cheese.
When the omelets had been eaten, Haechan went back to baking his upside-down cake. Renjun wandered in and started loading the dishwasher for him. Strong arms wrapped around him, pinning his elbows to his sides and nearly knocking the dishes to the floor. “Good morning, Junnie,” Haechan said, sinking the soft growl into his voice that always made Renjun shiver. “Taking care of me?”
“Taking care of the kitchen,” Renjun said. He barely got the plates out of the way before Haechan walked him into the counter to hold him still while he mouthed at the back of his neck.
Renjun had expected the constant kitchen activity as Haechan ramped up to four full meals a day, the way he always smelled like bread in the oven or kimchi stew. Haechan’s personal trainer had told Renjun to expect the way the definition of Haechan’s arms and legs sharpened week by week, how his spring scrawniness transformed into tight, lean muscle and then thicker arms and legs.
But no one had warned Renjun about bear libido in the summer. Haechan pressed them together, chest to back, hips to hips, squeezing like a boa constrictor. He pushed his nose into Renjun’s hair and breathed in. He’d probably be in Renjun’s room after his first workout, begging to spend his adrenaline between Renjun’s legs or get bent over himself. In the living room, Jeno’s eyes flicked away from the TV to look at them in time to see Haechan start licking just under Renjun’s ear where his scent collected as he slept. Jeno shook his head and went back to his game.
“I gotta work,” Renjun said. “You have a workout in like fifteen minutes, don’t you?”
“Thirty. I need to stop eating for now.”
“It’s really ramping up, huh?”
“I’m starting to feel the hunger in the mornings.” Haechan let him go and got back to his cake. “I’m going to put this in the oven. Can you take it out and, like, finish it while I’m working out?”
“Just send me the recipe and let me know when to set the timer.”
Autumn hyperphagia would look different in Haechan than it did in bears, but Taeyeon said it would involve even more cooking, meals worthy of a body builder, and Haechan carrying around a gallon of water all the time.
Haechan stirred the batter, singing “It’s a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake,” and throwing it back.
“How are you this loud before nine a.m.?” Renjun asked.
“You gotta do the cooking by the book,” Haechan sang into his dripping spatula. “You know you can’t be la~zy~.” Renjun grabbed him by the (soft, slightly squishy) cheeks and kissed him on his pretty lips. He tasted like omelet. Haechan moaned so absurdly that it rang on the walls. Renjun pushed him away and left him giggling there with his cake batter.
After lunch, Haechan wandered into Renjun’s room, still red and dripping sweat with a plate of cake in his hands. He stopped there long enough to express through moans and sobbing noises how much he loved the cake, and then left the plate and all its crumbs on top of a pile of patterns on Renjun’s desk and got in the shower.
Renjun followed him in, as he often did. The showerhead was mounted low to keep the spray away from their ears. Haechan pulled it free and turned the pressure down to carefully massage shampoo past Renjun’s little brown ears that turned away from the water. Renjun first, like always.
Afterwards, Haechan washed his own hair with the same care while Renjun used a brush textured a little like a cat tongue to lather fur shampoo through his tail. He worked slowly, attention pulled away by the brown hair going flat and dark across Haechan’s forehead, the rest of him all honey brown and dewy.
“Whatcha lookin at?” Haechan rumbled, a little bit of a purr in his voice. Renjun reached out and squeezed Haechan’s waist, solid with muscle this late in summer, then stroked down over hips striped with old stretch marks and the soft curve of his butt. Haechan turned, still soapy, and crowded Renjun back against the cold tile. Renjun gasped at the temperature stinging against his warm skin, and Haechan’s arms tightened.
“I’m gonna eat you,” Haechan whispered.
Renjun tried to push him off. It took two tries to get him to budge. Haechan stepped back and caught the spray of the shower, blinking something predatory out of his big brown eyes. He turned under the spray, rinsing off, not quite meeting Renjun’s face.
“Honey,” Renjun laughed.
“You just look like you’d be fun to hunt. I don’t know.”
“Aren’t I the one that’s supposed to hunt for fun?” Renjun said.
“Don’t look so delicious if you don’t like it,” Haechan grumbled. Pink burned on his cheeks and his ears pressed down.
“Mm, am I going to have to deal with this a lot when you get hungry?”
“Probably,” Haechan said. He patted his own face and sighed. “Burning precious calories,” he muttered.
“Get back over here,” Renjun said. “But no biting.”
Haechan stepped close and filled Renjun’s arms with a warm teddy bear hybrid again, purrs kicking up, and immediately snapped his teeth around a chunk of Renjun’s shoulder. Renjun pulled his hair until his stream of apologies hit the right warbling, whimpery note, and exiled Haechan to the cold, waterless side of the shower until he finished washing up.
When they were both clean and toweled off, Haechan let Renjun lean on him while he awkwardly blow-dried Rejun’s tail around his body. They stood against the sink so the cord would reach–their usual spot. Renjun wrapped his arms around Haechan’s chest, eyes closed and perfectly still while warm air fluttered through his fur. Haechan’s arms worked against his ribs as he maneuvered the tail around to blast it.
“I don’t think you ever purr harder than when I do this for you,” Haechan murmured, chasing shivers down Renjun’s spine. Renjun hummed through his purrs and wiggled his hips. Haechan cooed and squeezed his butt. Warm air rushed down his thigh. Warmth pressed against his cheek. Warmth wrapped around his back.
Sometimes Renjun hated to think of winter, of Haechan disappearing back into his blankets for months on end. He’d have to say goodbye to lazy morning sex for a while, and feeling the steadily increasing strength of his boyfriend’s limbs when he wrestled Renjun onto his back to hold him irresistibly close. There’d be less bickering with Jaemin, less holding Jeno between them and baby talking him until he shook himself out of his headspace and told them to fuck off.
But he’d get the sleepy teddy bear back all the time, his little cub to care for. He’d spend another quiet winter in Haechan’s bed, followed by another spring of taking sewing breaks to walk to the park and play catch with his roommates, and another summer of sweating between Haechan’s arms like he basked under a tropical sun, then whatever fall brought, over and over until life tossed him back into the rain.
“Kiss me?” Haechan murmured, just over the sound of hot air on Renjun’s tail. He nuzzled his head against Renjun’s, tucked against his neck. “No biting.”
Renjun squeezed him closer, pressed his lips to the spot on his shoulder that mirrored the bit still smarting on his own, and pressed his lips so softly to his mole-dotted skin. “No promises,” he breathed, and sank his teeth in.