maze of memories. | lmh + hjs ✓

f o u r

"i don't know." jeongin frowned. "i swear i didn't even know it existed. what does it even say?" 

felix lifted it up to the light. "it says, 'yang jeongin, subject 4. 02. 08. 01.' and... then nothing. that's all." felix turned to jeongin. 

the fox hybrid was muttering "yang jeongin" to himself over and over again. he began to shake, whispering loudly. "i cant remember... i can but i cant. its there i just cant..." his eyes started to well up with tears. "sorry guys, i don't know why i'm so emotional." 

jisung's heart hurt watching his crying friend. they had all bonded quite a lot over the past few weeks, between breaking out of a government building and stealing to survive. "don't be sorry jeongin." jisung took the fox's hands. "yea." seungmin smiled. he hugged the boy, trying to be comforting. 

"what do the numbers mean?" felix asked while scooting closer to jeongin. "do you have an idea?" he gingerly touched the bandaged ear. 

"hm?" jeongin hummed an response, jolting up. "its my birthday, isn't it. February 8th, 2001."

"how do you know that?" seungmin carefully asked, taking the chip from felix for further inspection. "can you remember?" 

"no... i cant... but when lix asked me what the numbers could mean, something told me it was my birthday." he shrugged "i guess they weren't thorough enough when they tried to wipe our memories." 

jisung sighed. "does this mean we all have a weird ass thing in our ears?" he felt around his soft fur, feeling around for the same plastic that he had touched in jeongin's ear. 

the other two were feeling around as well and sure enough, seungmin found his chip soon after, pulling out with a slight wince. "what does it say?" jeongin peered at the object in his hand, comparing it to his own. felix and jisung had also stopped their search for a moment, curious about seungmin's label.

"it says...'kim seungmin. subject 2. 9.22.00.'" seungmin read out loud, tilting the surface so it faced the others. "kim seungmin..." he seemed to be in deep thought. "nope. nothing. but it does have a nice ring to it." he strained out a smile, obviously trying to shrug it off. 

jisung noticed the strange look on his friend's face but didn't say anything. 

"well, that means jeongin's 19 and seungmin's... 19 as well." felix pointed out. "seungmin's birthday is sooner, though." they had found out the date by stealing glances at the store's newspapers and had learned that it was currently july 29. 

"hey!" a surprised felix abruptly said, "i found mine!" with a quick yank and a small bead of blood, felix was holding another bloody plastic piece in his hand. "that's the third one." jeongin announced, abandoning his new packet of chips to walk over to felix. "lix, what does it say?" 

'its lix HYUNG. well at least according to this." felix informed the younger, raising an eyebrow. "aw. i thought we were the same age." jeongin pouted. 

"we are. but my birthday's a few days before seungmin's, so i'm older than both of you guys! ha, its hyung for you!" felix triumphantly stood up and pranced around the alleyway. 

"by how many days?" seungmin asked, frowning. 

"its on the fifteenth, so..." felix pondered for a moment. "7. i'm seven days older than you." 

"uh nope. i'm not calling you hyung." seungmin rolled his eyes good naturedly. "so FELIX, what's your full name then?" 

"fine. and its lee felix." he hid the chip from them, purposely shielding it. "and it also says subject 3." he quickly finished. 

all three of them raised their eyebrows. "you're hiding something hyung." jeongin declared, snatching the chip from his hand. not even 5 seconds after, the boy started laughing. 

"why are you hiding your name? i think its nice." jeongin showed the other curious hybrids. "lee yongbok (felix)." 

felix was blushing intensely, groaning in embarrassment. 

"pfft. its actually not that bad, you know." seungmin snickered.

"uh... do you guys see yourselves right now?" felix accusingly pointed at the giggling trio. "i feel bullied!" 

"fine, fine, we won't tease you about it." jisung settled down, amusement still bubbling up.

"not ALL the time." jeongin inserted, playfully wiggling his eyebrows.

"i already regret this." felix sighed. "whatever." he aggressively snatched a band aid and ripped off the packaging. "hmph." 

while everyone was distracted with a sulking felix, jeongin had snuck up behind the clueless jisung and yanked the small plastic piece he had spotted out of the cat hybrid's ear. 

"OW WHAT THE FUCK JEONGIN?" jisung screeched at the sharp pain that ripped through his right ear. 

"hA! payback bitch!" jeongin laughed. "but in all seriousness. you weren't going to pull it out yourself so i had to." he shrugged. "not my fault you're so slow."

'i was just going to but.. okay. now give me that." jisung was able to pluck the plastic right out of the fox hybrid's grip. 

"'han jisung. subject 1. 09.14.00,' wAIT I'M OLDER THAN ALL OF YOU! HA CHILDREN!" jisung laughed at his friend's faces. 

"BY ONE FUCKING DAY!" felix screeched back at him, throwing one of jeongin's empty chip bags at him.

"i'm not calling you hyung either." seumgmin chimed in while jeongin just sniffled in the corner. "why is everyone older than me..." he wiped a fake tear away and wailed. when this was happening, felix was chucking chip wrappers at jisung, who was just regretting his life decisions. 

'why are we so chaotic...' jisung laughed at the mess in front of him. they all stopped and stared at each other. jisung had a chip bag hanging off his ear, seungmin was in the middle of gathering all of the chips, felix was about to snatch the bag of unfinished chips from jeongin, who was just sitting in the corner, trying to defend his chips. then, after a moment of utter silence, they all burst into uncontrollable laughter. 

in the back of his mind, he knew things were never going to be normal for them, but in that moment, they seemed like regular high schoolers who were goofing off in an alleyway. 

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here's a double update! i actually have this whole book planned out  :)   sorry that the chapter's kinda short  (also i'm way too lazy to edit this so excuse any mistakes)

#63 in minsung wtf- skdlfjslaklsjdlklksfdkf i love y'all 

also i'm sorry if my author's notes are annoying but you're going to have to put up with me 

thanks for the read <3

WhitefireWolf:

So uhm...yesterday we reached like #63 in the #minsung group and we only have 5 votes and around 56 views so thank you and it was really enjoyable to watch the author freak out at this. And since im lonely and bored ill be just typing notes like this in the chapters.