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i. (past)
Wonwoo's daemon settled very early on. When he came to Seoul, Foxddungie (whose proper name was something more like Foxfire-on-wet-marshland, so a younger Wonwoo might be forgiven for deciding on Foxddungie, which had then stuck) was already a fox, though with fewer tails than it had now. He had always been entirely himself, incapable of great change, it felt.
"Yes, I'm purple," said Foxddungie to the new trainee, who was making a valiant effort not to stare. "And yes, I have three tails."
The boy — Lee Chan — startled, whipped around to look at Wonwoo, half-hidden behind the laptop open on his stomach, and then back at Foxddungee. From his nest of brown curls, a little creature appeared.
beep! went the ... Wonwoo sat up and squinted. An otter? An otter pup. He smiled to himself.
Now, despite all pretensions to the contrary, Foxddungie loved cute things as much as Wonwoo did. Of course she did; they were made of the same soul-stuff.
"Oh?" said Foxddungie, in that strange in-between tenor with overtones that made her sound quite otherworldly. "And who's this?"
"Chan...dalie ..." muttered Lee Chan, who hadn't managed to say anything above about forty decibels since he'd been shown into the dorm a few days ago and been promptly menaced by Seungcheol and Mingyu. Well, mostly Seungcheol, on account of Mingyu having been also menaced by Seungcheol at the time.
Wonwoo raised his eyebrows. "Lee Chan and Chandalie?" he said, not even trying not to let his mouth quirk. So sue him; it was funny. And cute.
A shudder went through Lee Chan's small frame as he clearly tried to contain a jump. He turned with another beeee! floating out of his hair.
"Y-yeah," he replied, chin lifting with the first flash of fire, cutting though the shy meekness. Little did Wonwoo know, then, that that was only the beginning.
In a run-down dormitory stuffed to the brim with anything between fifteen to twenty other teenaged boys, it was easy to be overwhelmed. Especially if you were the smallest, or quiet, or timid ... if you didn't naturally take up space like Choi Seungcheol and his innate charisma, or Kim Mingyu and his lanky, clumsy limbs, or Kwon Soonyoung and his intensity. Wonwoo had managed to carve a niche for himself, but that was possibly only by pure dint of having been one of the earliest trainees in this group, and having earned his place just by surviving attrition.
Moved by some novel instinct, Wonwoo tried to sound encouraging. "It's cute. I like it."
That got him a shy flash of a smile, and a louder, cheerful chirp from the otter pup.
"Chandalie doesn't speak?" asked Wonwoo, and then had to weather a scornful look from his own daemon. "Sorry — that was —"
"No, it's okay." Chan was shaking his head, and coming closer to the yo that Wonwoo was lying on. "Um, not around strangers. I mean —!" He flushed.
"That's okay," said Wonwoo as kindly as he could. "We are, basically, strangers. That's true."
"You won't be if you stay here long enough." Foxddungie padded on past Chan and hopped onto the yo, sitting next to Wonwoo's shoulder. Her tail thwapped Wonwoo in the face. Through his splutters, Wonwoo heard a stifled giggle.
Cute, he thought a third time.
"It's quiet now," said Wonwoo, and pat the empty space on the other side of his body from Foxddungie. "You can watch with me, if you want."
"Oh." Chan seemed to brighten. "I...really? What are you watching, h-hyung?"
"Anime. One Piece."
"I know One Piece!" Chan climbed onto the yo and sat. "Oh, wow, hyung, you have your own notebook?"
Wonwoo blinked. He looked at Chan, at his clothes, well cared-for if slightly worn, the skinniness of his limbs. The kid was from somewhere in Jeolla-do, Wonwoo vaguely remembered.
"Yeah, it was a present from my aunt for getting into the trainee programme." He gave Chan another smile. "She used to like H.O.T a lot, so I guess she was excited about her nephew potentially becoming an idol."
Another quiet little giggle. Wonwoo wondered what it would be like to hear a louder laugh from this shy kid.
"That's nice," replied Chan, sounding a little wistful.
"Yeah," he replied, concluded their chat had come to a natural end, and pressed play.
ii. (present)
"Tsundere-yah," said Chan fondly, "you really are a tsundere."
Chandalie beeped in agreement. She was scrambling from Foxddungie's back onto the side table that held their snacks.
The strawberries that Wonwoo had brought over were ruby red, glistening in the fairy lights festooning Chan's walls, and bursting with sweet nectar. They gave so easily under Chan's teeth, stained his fingers red. Loathe to let any of it go to waste, he flicked his tongue out to try lick the drying juice up.
Well, that, and he had to get back at Wonwoo for teasing him earlier about how much he liked strawberries.
"For Channie," Wonwoo had said, mouth compressed into that mischievous grin, "who still has the taste of a baby." And then he'd taken a bottle of makgeolli out of his bag. "Except, oh wait — babies don't like the taste of alcohol, do they?"
From around knee height, Foxddungie had murmured, "Oh, honestly," and loped off to the living room.
For Chan's part, he'd just rolled his eyes and gone to rinse the strawberries, as Chandalie ran down his back to join Foxddungie.
Here and now, sitting close together in the loveseat next to the window, Wonwoo's eyes sharpened and darkened, his pupils tracking the motion of Chan's tongue.
"Are you sure you know what tsundere means, Chan-ah?" Wonwoo's voice was soft and dark as the navy velvet throw over their knees. His eyes flicked up to meet Chan's own, creased with amusement.
"Yes," said Chan stubbornly. He popped the rest of the strawberry into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. "You."
Wonwoo just laughed, that air-filled, breathy thing that meant he thought Chan was being very cute.
Outside the window, the snow continued to fall, collect on the little ledge that jutted out between panes.
"When have I ever been a tsundere around you?" asked Wonwoo.
Chan burst out laughing. He didn't really understand it himself. It was just that Wonwoo's question tickled something in his chest, made the laughter pop like a champagne bottle. In his defence, Foxddungie laughed too, as Chandalie chattered at her so quickly her words were running together. Wonwoo ignored both their daemons. He was watching Chan, still with that smile on his face. Well, of course he wasn't being cold and unreadable and blunt like this.
"You were soooooooo tsundere when you were younger, hyung! How have you forgotten?"
"I know I have a cold face when I have no expression," said Wonwoo, "but when was I ever cold to you?"
Chan frowned at him. "You were really blunt sometimes." He paused. "Well, then other times you were nice. But I remember when you were teaching me rap! You were scary, then!"
Wonwoo smiled. "What, when I didn't let you get distracted?"
"Yes!" Chan pouted. "You were like a very stern tutor sunbae then. And you — you never — it was so hard to predict how you'd react to things!" He reached out for the bowl of strawberries and bit sulkily into another one as from the other side of the living room Chandalie's "not for me!" floated across.
This time, Wonwoo caught his hand before he could bring it to his mouth and licked up the juice for Chan. Despite himself, Chan felt heat creeping up his neck to his ears. The invisible tether connecting him to his daemon drew taut for a moment as the six-tailed fox and otter pup clearly went into another room, before falling slack again as he relaxed into that knowledge
"I'm sorry for that, Channie," said Wonwoo, lips moving against Chan's skin, eyes locked onto Chan's own. "I was thoughtless and wasn't careful with my words then. But none of that means I'm a tsundere, does it?"
"Haaaa!" Chan wrenched his hand free of Wonwoo's seductive hold and drummed his fists lightly against Wonwoo's chest. "You're so annoying, hyung!"
"Ow! Ow! I'm just saying," Wonwoo half-laughed, half-huffed in pain. He caught Chan by the wrists, "semantically speaking —"
"I'll semantic you!" declared Chan.
Smiling at him, wide and ridiculously and not tsundere-like at all, Wonwoo cooed, "If you want."
"Annoying," Chan told him again, before shutting his boyfriend up with his mouth.