Junmyeon, the leader of the “EXO Demon Hunter Association”, had managed to book a table at some restaurant, inviting all eleven of them there. It was a monthly thing he did to get them all to work together and “strengthen friendship”. Kyungsoo honestly saw it as a bother, but he would never tell Junmyeon that to his face.
He preferred to keep to himself during these dinner meetings, smiling softly and watching as they all goofed off and chatted about random things. He was brought into the conversation sometimes, an occasional comment here and there, but he mostly stirred his pea soup and scratched at a scar on his wrist, irritating it for the millionth time.
This action managed to be caught by no other than the newbie himself. “Where’s that from?” Sehun asked with mild curiosity, having been seated beside Kyungsoo.
“I-It’s nothing,” he answered nervously and quietly, looking at his lap and searching quickly for an excuse. “I just…got hurt on a mission is all.” That was a huge lie. Kyungsoo remembered what really happened. He remembered cold fingers seizing his wrist and teeth sinking into the flesh, and he let it happen, let the monster have its evening meal happily.
“Have you been getting careless, Kyungsoo?” Jongdae, the werewolf hunter, snorted. Kyungsoo scowled and opened his mouth to respond before someone else spoke up.
“It’s probably because Jongin isn’t there,” Luhan, an incubus hunter, commented, a snobbish air to his words as he picked at his food with an apathetic look. The vampire hunter immediately became frozen and rigid, going pale as his fingers dug into the fabric of his jeans. Silence had fallen over the table, all other hunters looking at each other and trying to decide how to respond.
No one dared to talk about Kim Jongin, especially when Kyungsoo was in the same room.
Junmyeon cleared his throat, being the leader of the ragtag group. “That was out of line, Luhan.”
The pink-haired man gave a dry smile. “My apologies, I didn’t mean to offend anyone. I was just stating a fact. We all know Kyungsoo can’t keep himself together now that his boy toy is gone.”
You’re wrong, Kyungsoo wanted to argue. “That’s not true, and you know it!”
“Oh, really, then why do you reject every trainee that comes to you? You afraid they’re gonna die while you’re not watching?” Luhan retaliated.
“That’s not what happened!”
“Then tell us what did. I have a feeling you’re hiding something,” he growled out, getting to his feet and looking to the rest of the hunters for support. “Come to think of it, I’ve never heard of a rogue vampire killing its prey and taking its useless, dead body back with it. You could’ve easily killed a rogue either way. Your story has a hole in it.”
Kyungsoo narrowed his eyes into deadly slits. “What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting Jongin was turned, and you couldn’t kill him, so you let him go—or maybe you’re keeping him and hiding him away from us. They do say vampires are great in bed, you know.”
“You er—“ Kyungsoo spat, reaching across the table to grab the other hunter’s collar and pull him close, prepared to swipe the smug smirk right off of Luhan’s face. Outwardly, he was angered that Luhan even tried to suggest something like that, but inside he was panicking. If the Hunter’s Council found out that his report about that night was anything but true, he would surely be on trial—because Luhan wasn’t wrong.
“That’s enough,” Minseok, Luhan’s partner, intercepted, getting to his feet and shoving the two apart. “We all trust Kyungsoo and know that he would never lie about something like that. Jongin is gone, and we’ll have to live with that. He wouldn’t want you two at each other’s throats about this.”
Luhan huffed, but backed away and sat back down, giving Kyungsoo the evil eye as he did so. Minseok rarely scolded him, so it was best that he listened.
Sehun, who was utterly confused and lost, nudged his mentor. “Who’s…Who’s Jongin?” he mumbled, just loud enough for Chanyeol to hear. The curly-haired man swallowed the food in his mouth and gave a sad look.
“He was a trainee that Kyungsoo was responsible for training. He was killed three months ago on a mission by a rogue vampire—those really mindless vampires that have no sense of humanity. Jongin and Kyungsoo were close, like lovers practically, so he doesn’t like to talk about it,” Chanyeol explained, shoving french fry after french fry into his mouth.
Kyungsoo moved abruptly, chair scraping against the floor noisily. “It was four months ago.” Chanyeol was terrible at whispering. He grabbed his coat and his bag hurriedly, feeling like he couldn’t breathe and the room was closing in on him with all the eyes focused on him. “Thanks for the dinner, hyung,” he said, bowing to Junmyeon, “I…have a mission, so I should go.”
The blond smiled sympathetically, knowing that trying to stop him from leaving was pointless given what had happened. “Alright, thank you for coming, Kyungsoo.”