Mr. No || NCT || Completed

57 - Where feelings are tricky

The wolf was overwhelmed with joy and overrode Renjun's mind easily, pushing the car door open and jumping out to greet its pack members.

"You're back!" the pitch of Haechan's voice hitched when he realized what had happened. The wolf tried to force itself through Renjun and shift his human body into its animal form but he pushed it back. Despite being empty and quiet (other than the loudness of the pack), the large parking garage around them was bound to have CCTV and anyone could interrupt them at any time. It wouldn't be easy to explain the presence of a wolf in the middle of Seoul.

While he was forcing the wolf to stay under control, Renjun was crowded with his excited friends who were all hugging him while talking over each other.

"How is this possible?"
"I can't believe this! How did you - "
"Am I dreaming?"

Renjun had no time to reply to any of their questions as they kept gushing over the wolf that was acting like a puppy inside Renjun's head, squirming, whining and shaking like a golden retriever.

"Did you do something dangerous?" Jaemin wanted to know, narrowing his eyes in worry. Renjun pretended not to hear his question.

Haechan turned towards Chaewon who had exited the car and circled around its hood to meet them. "Are you okay? Did you - you're bleeding."

Chaewon touched her neck - it had been nicked by the man threatening her with a brick. Renjun went to her and tilted her chin to the side. Some blood had trickled down her neck before drying but the cut in itself didn't seem to be very deep.

"We should get it disinfected", Renjun commented. "Maybe we have some stuff at home that we can use."

"What a manly man", Haechan whispered to Chenle and Jisung loudly. Renjun glared at him before letting go of Chaewon's face. She grinned.

"So, it was something dangerous?" Jaemin guessed in a dry voice.
Renjun licked his lips. Jeno, who had been smiling so hard that his eyes hadn't been visible, frowned when he saw the uncomfortable look in Renjun's eyes.

"How dangerous are we talking?" he asked. "How did you even manage to be cured? I thought that it was supposed to be impossible."

Their questions brought back the moment when Chaewon had been wounded. The man who had been threatening her had said: "We were told to leave you alive but nothing was said about the girl."

Coldness spread through Renjun's body. For whatever reason, the men hadn't been allowed to kill him but if Chaewon's hadn't surrendered the vials, would he have killed her? Why were they told to spare his life but not hers?

The wolf accepted his worry despite its own excitement and, when Renjun held Chaewon's hand, it examined the comfort of her touch carefully. While it was acquainted with the love towards the pack, his feelings towards her were still foreign to it.

"We should talk about this inside." Mark had assessed their surroundings and deemed it unsafe for such conversations. "I'll tell the others about the news. Maybe Yuta or Xiaojun can stop by to do a little check-up on you", he planned, glancing at the nick on Chaewon's neck.

As they started walking towards the doors leading to the elevator and staircase, Renjun realized that the 'random parking garage' they were in was, in fact, the one in their apartment building.

"Shouldn't we have a party?" Chenle suggested. He kept looking at Renjun as if he couldn't believe that his soul truly was complete again. It made sense, Renjun could barely believe it himself. "I can bake a cake!"

"No, you can't", Yujin countered immediately from behind them. "Just because you've binged baking videos doesn't mean that you can bake."
Chenle pouted. "How would you know?"
"I will bake it with him", Jisung suggested when he noticed how disappointed Chenle was.
"That's not much better." Yujin didn't budge and Renjun agreed with the sentiment. Every time they had allowed Chenle and Jisung to do something in the kitchen, the outcome had been stuff of nightmares. Their latest experiment entailed a pressure cooker being so overfilled that it exploded, leading to its lid denting one of the kitchen cabinets, Chenle's hands being burned with boiling water and the kitchen looking like a murder scene when the food burst out of the cooker.