The funhouse of murder • Stray Kids X reader

19 ☠️

South: Changbin, Hyunjin and Jeongin

"Innie, how are you doing?" Hyunjin asked for the fifth time in ten minutes. It got to the point where even Changbin started getting annoyed by it. "He already said he was man, let the dude be," Changbin muttered, rolling his eyes. He didn't even know why, but for some reason Changbin just couldn't stand Hyunjin, especially at times like these. For his taste, Hyunjin was just always too dramatic or overprotective when it came to Jeongin. He could only imagine how suffocating it must be for the poor guy.

Not that he specifically liked Jeongin that much to be so annoyed though. Sure they got along quite well, as far as they could get with someone always in the way, but it wouldn't exactly explain why he seemed to get so annoyed at Hyunjin. He usually just shrugged it off though, the guy usually knew what he was doing and was quite good at what he did too, so he tried not to let it get to him too much. But then again, usually it was the eight of them, so he'd have someone else to talk to. Now it was just the three of them on a hot exhausting trip through the desert for at least a couple of hours.

"I really am fine Hyunjin, so don't worry too much okay? Seungmin did a good job at helping me out earlier, so it really isn't too bad," Jeongin joined in too, sounding less annoyed, but that was probably just his sweet character. He never really seemed to be able to go against Hyunjin or make him upset. Probably because Hyunjin always looked out for him and helped him, but he couldn't help but admit that at some times it indeed felt like it was a bit too much.

Though Hyunjin gave Changbin an ugly glare, he almost instantly wiped it off his face to wrap his arm around Jeongin's shoulder. "How could I not worry about my favorite boy?" He let out a dramatic sigh, shaking his head. "Next time we open any doors, you're not going in first anymore. I'll check to be sure you're safe." Jeongin could only nod, not sure what to even respond. Of course he was thankful for it, but it kept making him feel like he needed to be taken care of, and over time he started disliking the feeling more and more, especially since his pride was getting in the way.

And that was frankly how the next two hours were spent. Hyunjin clinging onto Jeongin, Jeongin listening, trying to calm Hyunjin down a little bit with his rants, and Changbin doing nothing but enduring it all.

"Oh, and talking about the rest," Hyunjin continued his topic after talking about the other groupmates' behavior these past few days. "What is going on between you and Y/N? You noticed I don't like her right? She keeps seeming to hang around you, as if she's purposely keeping us apart." Finally Changbin's ears perked up at the mention of Y/N's name. He had been quite curious of what the others seemed to think of her, especially since he himself couldn't quite figure it out.

Jeongin finally let out a sigh, something he had already kept in for the past half hour or so. "Hyunjin, I'm sure you're overreacting. She's just new to the group, so I wanted to make sure she felt like she was a part of the team. Besides, she actually seems like a really good person when you're nice to her, you should try it. I quite like her." He did say that, but he felt quite bad for last night. He liked the way he felt when he was 'taking care' of her, but after opening up she seemed way more uncomfortable around him than at first. He couldn't even keep count of the amount of times she had avoided his glances, making him mentally curse at himself after every time. He really wanted to talk to her more, but he just needed to find a moment they could have alone.

"Didn't she save your life twice?" Changbin added, only making hyunjin roll his eyes. Even Hyunjin himself didn't know exactly why he disliked her so much. She just gave him a weird feeling, which annoyed him every time, despite her indeed having saved him twice already. Which annoyed him even more so, was that he so far didn't seem to have anyone who shared the feeling. Or at least not as much. Even Seungmin, who he thought agreed with him, seemed to suddenly show an interest in her. "Then what about you Changbin? What do you think?"

Changbin shrugged, remembering his conversation with Chan. Hyunjin disliking someone wasn't new, he had the exact same with Jisung when he and Minho joined, but Chan being wary about someone wasn't often. He didn't think too much of it though, Chan always seemed to be overly cautious. "I'm siding with Jeongin on this one. She definitely seems like there are things we don't know about her, but I think she's quite cute actually," he ended with a chuckle, remembering the time she went the wrong way, and the hug they shared early in the challenge.

Hyunjin scoffed, salty his opinion wasn't shared. "Ahh, enough about her, it's annoying." Glanced around, trying to find any diversion to change the topic, staring into the distance to see the wind picking up. He quickly glanced back at the other two, seeing them look in the same direction. "Maybe it's best to go back already. We'd be early, but I'm not sure if it's too smart to go further with the way it's looking there," Changbin suggested. He didn't have much experience with deserts, but he'd seen enough movies to know that looked like the beginning of a sand storm.

"Good idea... let's get back to warn the others."