🍂 grow strong 🍂

it’s not until they make it safely to the rented room that arin allows herself to breathe properly. “that was dangerous–”, she complains in a small voice. seeing shibe wiggling his tail happily as yoojung and minghao crouch to pet him does ease her nerves a little, however; it really wouldn’t have been the same without their favorite dog present. “you guys really didn’t have to go through so much trouble…”, yet there’s a shy smile on her lips.

after finding a place to sit – and being very careful at it, after hearing minghao’s warning –, the girl sighs as she scrolls through the song choices. “set the tone, huh? … then, how about our anthem?”, she jolts up all of a sudden, taking a second or two to let the information sink before pressing play. it’s the best song to pick up their moods anyway, and maybe, just maybe, watching everyone loosen up to the beat might be enough to make arin herself relax.

“i always knew you were a furry,” he deadpanned in response to minghao’s rather ridiculous suggestion. though the imagery was cute, the idea that minghao would shamelessly say that a dog wrapped in blanket was his baby… well, let’s not go any further into that train of thought — he’s not in the business to kinkshame his best friend. he let out a muffled laugh at yooa’s retort, although he quickly frowned when he realized what she meant by “having a dog baby”.

“why did you make me think of that,” he grimaced, sending a disgusted look towards yooa. “can we please drop this topic before it goes somewhere we don’t want it to?” vernon made his way across the room and plopped himself onto one of the seats, noting that the floor was indeed sticky, which was yet another path he didn’t want to wander into. however, with that thought, a flash of panic ran through him as he quickly jumped back up from the couch, inspecting the surface carefully… just in case. thankfully enough, it seemed to be relatively clean, save for a few stains here and there, but he decided to sit in the small space in between them — as for where the others would sit; every man for themselves.

to his amazement, arin managed to find a safe spot a few cushions away from him as well — it seems like they had a talent for “avoid the nasty spots”. however, that meant there was only one less safe zone for the others, good luck to them.

“it’s not trouble if it’s for you,” vernon grinned at arin, reaching over to pat her on the shoulder. “i’m sure we’d all do the same for anyone here — including lil’ shibe.”

he barely had time to process her words when the all-familiar sound of electronic… trumpets(?) and clapping started playing through the speakers. as if it was in his blood, he immediately jumped up from his seat and started doing the dance.

Vernon reacts to Wonwoo part 

[ ✉ ➝ dat boi ] TEXT ME BACK SHRIMP SUCKER [ ✉ ➝ dat boi ] VERNON

[ ✉ ➝ dat boi ] i’m coming over :>

as vernon’s best friend, minghao prides himself on knowing everything about him, from his favourite food to his biggest phobia—even his shoe size. no piece of information is too small or unimportant for minghao to know and file away for future reference. so if vernon has some disgusting strange eel kisser’s undies is his house ( why undies? ), minghao needs to know whose they are. it’s his DUTY. and if he accidentally flings them off a rooftop, well, these things happen. it’s not like vernon needs them.

he was just faking his texts for a reaction, and boy did he get one. he didn’t even know who’s underwear he had on his floor, but it really could only be one person, since only one person other than himself has spent time in his room. why was minghao so adamant that it wasn’t his anyways? they’ve known each other long enough to not be shy about little things like this, let alone be fooled into thinking someone else could come between them.

as soon as he received the final text, his heart started racing, like an axe murderer was coming to axe the shit out of him or something. of course, it was nothing of the sort since the worst minghao could do was tickle him — though vernon supposed that could be the worse out of the two choices presented.

the sound of feet stomping closer and closer to his room plus minghao shouting something that the neighbours really could live without hearing, vernon contemplated locking the door, but instead laid on the bed, posing for his arrival.

His smile is kind, even if he’s going to scold the fuck out of Vernon later. Sunggyu has set a squeaky, fold-out table near the couch for his student to reach the bowl of soup. Gyu doesn’t have much – the bowl is on a freaking tin Santa Claus tray – but he does his best to be hospitable.

These kids are the only family he has.

With a little hum, he holds out an ice pack wrapped in paper towels. “Actually, you don’t have to talk right away. Put this on your forehead so that bump doesn’t swell,” he says. “You took a pretty nasty blow to the head, so I think it’d be a good idea to check for a concussion later. Everyone else went home in one piece, only a few scratches here and there.”

None of these kids are getting seriously hurt on his watch.

Sunggyu stands to walk over to the fridge and its evident that he’s not wearing the skin-toned, silicone sleeve over his prosthesis. On a normal day, the sleeve is so lifelike that most people hardly realize that the leg is fake. He’d also forked over big money to the Chobotics company to get one of their state of the art prosthesis.

If Chobotics didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be the design and technology for a leg that could keep up with him when fighting. Plus, they had a great insurance policy for every time he’d gotten it broken. He’s heard rumors that they’re developing one that could be connected to the nerves to function in a way the prosthesis world has never seen before, but he’d always thought a process like that would be painful. The recovery time would simply be too long for him to have the luxury of doing. 

At the end of the day, he’s glad that he only lost a leg and not his life. 

he blinked in confusion as the man handed him a package of… something. it looked wet and gross, but thankfully his brain caught up in time to process the identity of the packet. taking the ice pack from his hand gingerly, he held it up to his head and a sigh of relief escaped his lips. it felt good enough that he didn’t bother keeping up appearances anymore — anyone that saw his sleeping face could deal with anything.

“so i was the only one that got hit?” vernon muttered with a mix of shame and relief. he was glad that no one else got hurt, but at the same time, was he really that incompetent? he had spent countless hours in the shooting range just practicing his aim so he could fight, but even so, was it just not enough? this just meant he had to try harder, because he, of all people, knew that his incompetence would endanger more than just himself. it would endanger his teammates, his friends — him.

“still wasn’t good enough,” he sighed, words coming out just a little more than a whisper. “i already got the gist of what you’ll say,” he raised his volume as such as the other could hear. he hardly even noticed that sunggyu had left and come back in the time that he spent mulling over his own thoughts, but he did pay attention long enough to notice the metallic glint of his leg. that, and something out of the corner of his eye that was way too flashy to be in a normal household, but then again, what was normal in his life anymore.