Switchblade - 27
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Taemin is burning hot when he wakes up. He can feel the hot air of an electric heater warming his face and a pile of thick blankets thrown over his body. When he opens his eyes, he sees that he's in an unfamiliar bedroom, but can't bring himself to be surprised about that. When he sees Yukwon's familiar face, he's at least fairly certain that he's in no danger.
"Why am I here?" is the first thing that Taemin says, followed by a hurried new question, "Who were those guys with guns?"
Yukwon is perched on the very edge of a chair next to the bed that Taemin's in. He gives a strange slight smile, "Yeah, about that."
"I'm one of those 'guys with guns'," announces a voice from the other side of the bed. Taemin looks to see the man with the colorful jacket, sitting in another chair. Meanwhile, the blond leans against a wall next to him, and a new stranger stands at the foot of the bed.
Yukwon is speaking, even while Taemin looks at the others, explaining with awkward hesitance, "We were just messing with you a little, telling you to deliver a message. I mean, it's not like we could actually trust you just because we knew your face."
The blond gives a tiny grin, asking "But you're really a human with super healing powers?" There's something about him that's intense. There's an animation to his expression that reminds Taemin of Aaron.
"Maybe," Taemin answers, pushing blankets down off of him. He isn't sure quite why he blacked out, just that he's burning up hot and other than that he feels fine. He sits up before he asks, "Where's Taeil?"
"Cho, you mean?" Colorful jacket questions, "Outside. It's not comfortable for him to be in here. It's his old place, you know? We all live here."
"Uh-huh," Taemin says, looking tiredly around the room "Do you 'mess with people' a lot?"
"All the time," says the blond.
The stranger in the door speaks up next. He has shimmery brown hair sticking out oddly from beneath a black hood. He sounds defensive, saying, "You know it, right? You have to have a sense of humor doing what we do."
Taemin tilts his head. He's never considered the luxury of humor, so much. Positivity, however, is a concept he's familiar with, and he lets it slide as such.
"It doesn't usually end with people bleeding out the mouth," says the one in the colorful jacket, "What's up with that? Are you sick?"
Taemin reaches to his chest, finding the 'charms' on his necklace and clutching them together in a fist. He can't have passed out only because of vampire blood.. "I guess. Kind of sick."
"You were freezing cold," Yukwon leans over, turning the electric heater off. "If it wasn't for your heartbeat, we'd have been sure you were a vampire."
It's not like there's a lot of other humans out there drinking vampire blood. Taemin can't get answers, especially not here and now, so he pushes the subject aside. In a small, sympathetic voice, he comments, "It must be hard for you to see Taeil.. Cho like this."
"We're cool," says the one in the doorway, straight faced.
Colorful jacket leans forward in his chair a bit, speaking seriously, "Yeah, don't worry about us, we're hunters, you know, like you. We know better than to sweat the small stuff."
The small stuff? Taemin looks stunned at him. How can something like that possibly be considered small? He thinks of his own feelings upon meeting the vampire version of Minho. Just the memory hurts. Then, colorful jacket keeps talking.
"It's hard to lose a friend. In our occupation though, you just gotta be thankful when you don't lose all of them."
Taemin smiles at him, a genuine smile, but one filled with sympathy. Even if they do seem to have plenty of 'each others', he can't help but think about how short life is.
"I'm Kyung, by the way," colorful jacket tells him.
"I'm your age," says the one in the doorway with a smile, "Actually, I'm a few months older."
"Jihoon's the youngest," Kyung says with a grin, looking over to the boy in the door, "He's used to being treated like it too."
"He's younger than me," 'Jihoon' repeats, as if it's a very important fact.
The blond grabs hold of Taemin's hand, drawing his attention. He smiles and gives Taemin's hand a very rapid and firm handshake before he says, "My name is Zico."
"Nice to meet you," Taemin says, forcing energy into his voice, "Is this all of you?"
"There's Jaehyo," Yukwon says.
"And one more. They're keeping Cho company," Kyung says. "He didn't wanna be around us," he explains with a smirk that looks like a struggle to hold back emotions, "And we didn't trust him alone with you."
"We're alone together all the time," Taemin immediately protests.
Zico waves a hand, "Doesn't matter if you're bonded. We're not the kind of guys that are going to leave any helpless person alone with a newbie vampire."
Someone leans into the doorway, another man about their age with black hair and buttons down the middle of his shirt. He's expressionless, looking around at them blankly before he quietly announces, "The pizza is here."
Yukwon squeals excitedly, knocking his chair over as he gets out of it. However, just as he runs for the door, Jihoon and Zico step forward to intercept him. They catch his arms and push him back towards the other side of the room.
"You can't have any pizza," Jihoon tells him with a grin.
Zico's arms move to Jihoon and he starts pushing him instead, "Hey, hey, hey, who's the youngest?"
Yukwon pushes Jihoon back as well, "Yeah, you can't have any pizza."
"You both can't have any pizza," Zico says in a fully serious voice, continuing to hold the two away from the door.
Kyung quietly moves out of his chair, tapping Taemin lightly on the shoulder. When Taemin looks at him, Kyung lifts a finger to his lips in a "hush" gesture, then points to the door. While three of them are still arguing about who gets to eat pizza, Taemin calmly climbs out of the bed, following Kyung out the door. The one with the buttons up his shirt closes the door softly behind them.
The living room that Taemin is lead into is small and surprisingly clean, considering he assumes that a bunch of boys live here. There are four boxes of pizza stacked on top of a coffee table - it should be more than enough for everyone. Jaehyo is already sitting on the couch eating one, Taeil next to him.
Taeil stands when he sees Taemin, though, "How are you?"
"You already know, don't you?" Taemin shrugs, smiling a little.
"Shh," Kyung says, sneaking over to the pizza boxes, "We have to eat all of this before the other three figure out what happened."
At that, the door bursts open. Just as Kyung is about to put a bite of pizza in his mouth, Zico tackles him, trying to grab the slice away.
Taemin moves in a hurry out of the way, sitting next to Taeil. With Zico and Kyung going at each other on the floor, Yukwon and Jihoon both grab slices of pizza for themselves before hopping out of the way and choosing a side to root for.
The one with the buttons down his shirt very calmly and quietly takes two more slices of pizza, handing one over to Taemin.
"Thanks," Taemin murmurs, but can't peel his eyes away from the ones fighting on the floor. Taeil's eyes are closed next to him, and Taemin doesn't feel much of a headache from him at the moment.
"These people," Taeil says very quietly, "are weird."
Taemin can only nod, agreeing as he bites the piece of pizza.
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