Homosaurus

3

Jaebum walked out of the lab right into Jinyoung who was eating a donut, sprinkles decorating his pastry filled cheeks.

"You went for a food run while I was possibly dying in there?" With how dramatic Jinyoung made interacting with Youngjae sound, he thought that the scientist would be out there biting his nails to the beds.

"I skipped breakfast to meet you here, I need to eat too. Besides, you look like you're alive." Jinyoung stated with a shrug as if he weren't worried to death earlier.

Jaebum nodded, glancing back into the lab where he'd left Youngjae alone. "Well yeah.... I think he likes me..."

That information got Jinyoung perked up. "Really? He seems to hate everyone. He only tolerates me so we argue a lot."

"Argue? About what? I thought he doesn't speak much?" Jaebum asked.

"We growl back and forth at each other. I have to say, his growl is much scarier, but I won't back down from him." Jinyoung assured, shoving the last of his donut into his mouth.

Jaebum shook his head, reaching out to knock the stray sprinkles off of Jinyoung's face. "Y'know they say scientists can go crazy from their work. Sounds like you right about now."

"Whatever. So what did you do with the thing?" Jinyoung asked.

Youngjae wasn't exactly a thing, so Jaebum made sure to use personal pronouns to at least respect him as a living being. "Well I talked to him, scratched his head, asked him a few questions. He wants me to come back, so I'll be back again to visit I guess."

Jinyoung's eyes widened; he seemed extremely surprised by a lot of what Jaebum was telling him. "He talked to you? He usually doesn't have much to say other than he's hungry or he has to pee or he's gonna kill all of us when he gets out that cage..."

"He seems very hostile towards you and the others." Jaebum mumbled. He has yet to see that side of him, but that might just mean that he's created a different bond with Youngjae than the rest.

"Well we put him there so it isn't a surprise. We have nowhere else to keep him though, so he's just gotta stay locked up." Jinyoung stated.

Jaebum couldn't fathom being locked up in a cage for his entire life, and the fact that Jinyoung was talking about it so casually irked him. How could he just be content with keeping something half human behind metal bars? "So you've never took him out? He's never even seen the light of day aside through the windows? You've got a human dinosaur that you can examine and watch in a natural setting, but you keep it locked up?"

Jinyoung furrowed his brows, taken aback by Jaebum's sudden opposition to his ethics. "Did you not hear me say earlier that this was a secret? What about the danger to humanity part? We can't just have a human dinosaur running around the streets."

"So take him to a secluded place. Take him to that empty field out back or something, I don't know. You can't just lock him up in here all day." Jaebum argued, gesturing to the fluorescent lit all white space that could drive someone crazy if stared at for too long.

Despite anything Jaebum's said, Jinyoung continuously shook his head, not even entertaining the possibility of things changing. "Not possible. He might run away and we'd lose him, can't risk him causing trouble. And adding a new species to the Earth's ecosystem that wasn't naturally evolved but artificially created could totally fuck up shit. Imagine all Youngjae eats are cows and in a few months the cow population plummets. We'd have no more beef. A fucked up food chain leads to us all dying."

Jaebum rolled his eyes. Sure that example was true in a sense, but it was quite extreme. There's no way things would become that out of place by letting Youngjae roam wild and free. "Oh come on, one dinosaur human thing couldn't mess up the entire food chain, he's the only one in existence, right? And besides, even if you lose him you could put a tracker or something on him and find him that way. I think we should be studying how he lives out in the wild, not locking him up."

Jinyoung stood his ground, folding his arms firmly over his chest. "I think not. Our plan is to see how he grows into a full adult, then to x-ray scan him and cut him open for close examination. should probably be in another month or so."

The news caught Jaebum totally off guard, he couldn't keep his eyes from bulging out of his head. "What? You're gonna kill him?!"

Jinyoung looked up at the ceiling, unable to maintain eye contact with Jaebum as he spit out the truth. "Killing him isn't ideal, but if that's what happens then..."

Jaebum's jaw fell open. This wasn't the Jinyoung he knew, one that had no remorse or care for life at all. Jaebum knew Jinyoung too well for him to have this little concern, the change was unsettling to say the least. "Jinyoung what the fuck? That's so wrong, you're doing this all wrong."

Jinyoung pointed a finger into Jaebum's chest, his eyes turning steely and cold. "Don't tell me how to do my job Jaebum. All you do is find the fossils and stare at them, then type up pages of the same shit over and over again about it."

The elder sighed, trying to find a better way to word his argument. "I'm not telling you how to do anything, I'm saying that based off my knowledge of already existing animals, the best way to study them is not in a fucking cage but in the actual real world."

"Even if I agreed with you I can't do anything about that. I'm not trying to die because I let some dinosaur hybrid frolics through a field of flowers." Jinyoung looked around as if he were being watched despite no one else besides them being around. He leaned in close, his voice dropping to a low murmur. "I've got a lot of eyes on me, from the company's higher ups to the freakin government. I have a lot riding on my life right now and if I make even one wrong fucking move, you're little scientist Jinyoungie is bye bye forever."

Jaebum swallowed the hard lump that had gathered in his throat. It shouldn't have  been a surprise that Youngjae was confidential work. Jaebum wasn't even supposed to know about him, no one was, besides Jinyoung and the team of people he worked with. So for the company and the government to be on his back, Jaebum could see the reason why Jinyoung was being so strict despite his own personal beliefs. "Then... what about making an artificial environment in the lab. You have that huge space, I'm sure you can do something with it."

"Jaebum I don't know. I... have to think about it." Jimyoung replied while scratching the back of his head. Jaebum could tell that Jinyoung didn't 100% agree with keeping Youngjae in a cage his whole lifetime, but at the same time, he was in quite the tight spot. Any leaks of confidential information or fuck ups and Jinyoung's life was probably on the line. Jinyoung glanced down at his watch, letting out a long sigh. "Look I've got some people coming in for their shift here in twenty minutes, so you gotta go before they know I let an outsider in."

Jinyoung gave an apologetic pat on Jaebum's shoulder, basically kicking the elder out.

Jaebum shook his head walking past the younger towards the exit. "I'll be back Jinyoung."