Mr. No || NCT || Completed

23 - Where everyone has assumptions

The curious atmosphere dissolved into confusion in one blink of an eye. Jeno's natural reaction to Yujin and Jungwoo's shock was to step in front of them without even questioning it, and the others eyed each other, alarmed by the change in the atmosphere.

Chaewon, whose head was turning from side to side, was even more confused.

Just as Renjun was about to tell Yujin that she was being rude (Jungwoo was always so nice, so he got a free pass), the girl shook her head violently, snapping out of whatever spell she had been under.

She pushed gently past Jeno while blinking furiously as if someone had shone a flashlight in her eyes. "I'm sorry!" she sounded genuinely horrified by her behaviour. Jungwoo, who woke up from the daze as well, followed after her.

They bowed to Chaewon while apologizing profusely for their impoliteness.

"What is going on?" Renjun interjected. Something in Chaewon had set off the fight or flight (or, in this case, freeze) response within their doubler side, but he couldn't understand what it was – especially for Jungwoo, considering how in tune he had always been with his animal side.

"I wasn't expecting..." Yujin started but her voice faded mid-sentence and her eyes flickered to Jungwoo, hoping that he would take over.

He seemed as puzzled but tried his best to piece his thoughts together. "According to Haechan you know the basic stuff about doublers, right?" he started and waited for Chaewon to nod before continuing, "We perceive other doublers depending on our own animal form, and can sometimes react unwillingly. Yujin and I both are, uhm, at the bottom of the food chain, so sometimes we get startled by predators."

Chaewon frowned. "But I'm not a shapeshifter."

"We know that", Yujin confirmed, "But at first glance your energy is very similar to that of someone whose soul is connected to predators. We wouldn't have reacted so strongly, though, if someone had warned us beforehand." Her eyes wandered to Renjun, Jaemin, Jisung and Chenle – all of whom had met Chaewon before.

Jaemin lifted his hands in the air to defend himself from Yujin's accusing eyes. "Don't look at me. When I met Chaewon for the first time, I did recognize something odd but it didn't register to me as predator-like energy."

Yujin and Jungwoo apologized again to Chaewon who was so intrigued by the turn of the events that she probably didn't even consider feeling offended. Renjun was close to telling everyone about his assumption that she was a bad omen, but was stopped by the excitement on her face when the mixture of apologies and introductions transformed surprisingly smoothly into a pleasant conversation.

Maybe he didn't need to warn the others about her for now, as long as she kept the bad predictions to herself.

While the others spoke about anything and everything, Renjun and Jisung scrolled through the movie selection. Everyone was especially curious about Chaewon's past as a trainee, and she was happy to answer their questions. She was talking endlessly as if she would cease to exist if she shut up for even one moment.

The film they ended up picking was 'Life of Pi' because Jisung hadn't seen it before. Most of them sat down on a couch, while Chaewon had dragged a big beanbag from the other side of the room, and Jisung sat on the floor in front of Jaemin.

Chaewon was the first one to notice that Renjun was looking for a spot, and pointed at the free end of the beanbag. "Do you want to sit here?"

"No!" His voice was too loud, making Jungwoo almost drop his phone.

Haechan winked. "There's always space here for you, darling", he suggested and patted his lap. Renjun gagged.

Jungwoo and Chenle moved graciously towards the others, making enough room for him.