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yawnjunie · 4 years

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monster hunting for dummies (1)

chapter one: so far, so bad

Description: Being a gruff, angsty teenager without a filter, you were not expecting to make any friends at your new school. After your first day of school, you decided to stop by the town carnival and have some fun for a bit. But five very annoying honeybees seem to follow you everywhere you go. If your fate hadn’t already been unfortunately entangled with these boys, then the mysterious object the bunch of you found at the fortune teller’s sealed the deal. Little did you know, this was the beginning of a long journey full of all sorts of absurd twists and turns. Word count: 3.4k Warnings: profanity, gore, lethal cuteness/diabetes-inducing fluff a/n: 💡 tip // if you’re on pc, ctrl + “+” to enlarge the screen for a comfy reading mode! we’ve spent a long time planning this story, so please let us know how you think of it so far :) without further ado, buckle in for a wild ride!

———

Wilson High. Probably the most dismal place on the planet. You stared straight ahead, lunch tray in hand.

The cafeteria of the second best high school in the country lay right before your eyes, filled to the brim with top-notch jocks and nerdy A-holes. Someone behind you bumped into you, dangerously shaking the items on your tray. Feeling the weight of your backpack swing towards the right, you stumbled a little. So far, so bad.

You weaved your way through the masses of students walking to their usual seats, already busily chatting about their day. Of course, you kept your distance from the girls with the expensive backpacks and the newest cell phones. Not today, you thought, carefully balancing the food on your tray. Spotting an empty table in the corner of the cafeteria, you sat yourself down and started devouring your food without a second thought.

At least the food here is much better than anything from—

“Hey, you’re that new transfer, right?” A voice interrupted you mid-bite through your cajun pepper-seasoned chicken drumstick.

“Mmmfh, yeah,” you replied, wiping your greasy fingers on a cheap napkin. You looked up, straining your neck to meet the eyes of a boy who just spoke. Squinting from the fluorescent lights, you were only able to make out the looming shadow of the human skyscraper. He had a black backpack slung over his shoulder, and a basketball in the other hand. Who—

As you were sizing him up, his friends were already setting down their backpacks. “‘Bin, we’re going to grab lunch. Watch over our stuff.”

“Alright,” the boy said, awkwardly, seating himself across from you.

“Oh, shoot, I didn’t mean to sit at your table.” You snatched up your napkin pile and picked up your tray. “Sorry.”

“Oh no it’s fine, you can sit here,” he replied, rubbing his ear sheepishly. “If you want.”

You sat back down, shoveling your food into your mouth as fast as you could without choking. This is so awkward. I might as well finish all this food and get out of here.

As you stuffed your face, you looked around at the noisy, yet dismal atmosphere of the room, filled with people you didn’t know and didn’t care about. New school, new air, yet nothing had changed.

No matter where, school just sucked. It was a prison—better described as a hellhole— where bullies and other dull people turned the rest of the barrel rotten. Mental illness was a pandemic; everyone contracted it eventually, either from the schoolwork or from inhaling all the smoke coming from inside the bathroom.

The stuffy confinement of the walls could drive anyone insane. You felt the cool, smooth wall behind you with the back of your hand. This school could seriously be made into a mental ward, if it wasn’t already one. No remodeling required.

Your gaze shifted to the boy in front of you. Of course, every place had its own share of the socially awkward. You, for one, had stopped caring. About nearly everything. In fact, you wouldn’t bat an eye if you failed all your classes; you’d probably end up being a farmer, either way. At best, you’d be a farmer with rudimentary knowledge of chemistry.

Sighing, you ripped another bite of your bread. Shit’s drier than Brandonbury’s humor, and that’s saying something. There was a long period of silence, which the boy in front of you filled by knocking his knees together and picking his fingernails.

Suddenly, you heard a slurred murmur coming from the space in front of you. “Um, wheredidyouusedtogo?”

“What?” Oh, right. There was a person there.

“Like, where did you go, before you came here.” He cleared his throat.

“Oh, yeah. I just went here and there.” You downed an entire carton of milk, wiping the milk mustache off your face with the back of your hand. “Why do you want to know?”

“Just… you know, we’re in the same English class.”

“Okay, and?” You were about to say, but you stopped yourself. Is that too cold? It was an astonishing act, for someone as insensitive as you to think about your words before you spoke. Not that you wanted to come off that way, you just, somehow, didn’t have a built-in thought filter like everyone else. But this time, you didn’t want to sound like a mean person to the first person to strike up a conversation with you in this shitty place.

“...Right. Your name is...” You studied his face. His friend just called him ‘Bin. Does he look more like a Woobin? Or a Yoobin? Changbin? Leebin? You furrowed your brow as you racked up more names. Trash bin, maybe? Haha.

“Soobin.” Close enough.

“Oh, yeah.” You chewed your food slowly, then swallowed. “Cool.”

The boy reached his hand out. “Nice to meet you.”

There was a moment of awkward silence when you didn’t shake his hand. Retracting it, he cleared his throat and looked away in embarrassment.

“Sorry. My hands are greasy,” you said with a shrug. You were wiping them on your last napkin when out of the corner of your eye, you saw his friends walking back with their first rate cafeteria food. Guess that’s my cue.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” you announced as you gathered your trash, preparing to take your leave. “Bye.”

“W-wait,” Soobin cut, making you turn around.

“Here,” you said, wrapping your uneaten bread roll in a grease-spotted napkin and handing it to him, although it was quite non sequitur.

He looked like he wanted those bread rolls. He was staring at them, for like, the entire time I was eating. Kind of creepy, but he’s probably hungry.

“T-thanks. See you around… Wyann, was it?” the boy stuttered, head bowed in embarrassment as he accepted the bread.

Did he pick it up during roll call? People with good memory are creepy. You wondered why anyone would bother to remember your name. It wasn’t like you stood out or anything. Just another face in the crowd.

“What are you, an elephant?”

“What?” His cheeks flushed tomato red. “Are my ears too big for you?”

I didn’t say anything about your ears, but sure.

“Bye-bye.” You rolled your eyes a little. Weirdo.

You walked out the cafeteria and ambled aimlessly down the hallway, figuring that you’d find the bathroom eventually if you kept walking. How did the saying go again? Elephants don’t forget? It’d suck ass to be an elephant, then. Some things are better off forgotten, you thought, shaking off your awkward experience.

It took an eternity of walking, but you found the bathroom. After relieving your pea-sized bladder, you flushed the toilet with your heel and reached down to grab your backpack.

To your horror, there was no backpack to grab.

Being the health-conscious girl you were, you ran your hands under the water for half a second (without soap), then kicked the door open and rushed down in the direction you came. Back in the cafeteria, you scanned the place you’d been sitting at. Sure enough, your backpack was right where you left it, but it was now surrounded by 4 new faces.

I change my mind. I’d rather be an elephant than be in this situation. With a dreadful sigh, you walked up to the table.

“Didn’t you say she called you an elephant?” One of the boys snickered, before being elbowed in the stomach by a taller boy. Seeing you walking to the table, they all ceased their not-so-secretive giggling and cleared their throats, unnaturally leaning against the lunch table.

“Sorry to interrupt, just forgot my backpack.” Avoiding eye contact, you snatched your backpack and started to back away, but as always, the universe didn’t like making things easy.

“Your backpack? When’d that get there?” a boy with dark, curly hair remarked.

“We talked while you guys were getting lunch. This is Wyann, she’s new here. And Wyann, these are the 4 biggest idiots you’ll ever meet.” Soobin explained.

“Okay.” You silently looked the four idiots up and down and they just stared back, both sides at a loss for words. With your eyebrow raised and them frowning back at you, this scenario was straight out of some Disney Channel show. Guess this bread boy isn’t very good at introductions.

“So, Wyann, you’re a transfer? Where from?” Idiot #2 was a boy with wavy blue hair.

“Here and there.”

“Hmmm… do you–”

“Dude, don’t you think you should be the one doing the talking?” Soobin interjected, eyeing his friend awkwardly.

“Oh, right, my name is Yeonjun. I’m just a dude. A really handsome dude. So yeah, you gotta stick around to find out more~”

And if I don’t want to? You thought it’d be pretty funny to say that out loud, but from past experience, you’d found that people didn’t tend to share your sense of humor. Boy, were they missing out.

“Okay.” You simply said.

Just finish saying your names! You guys have one job! Soobin prompted his friends to his left with his eyes.

“Uh, hi! My name is Huening Kai, but you can call me Kai. Nice to meet you. Umm, yeah.” He finished his sentence with a small nod, his curly hair bouncing a little.

“Okay.”

“Well, uh, what is your name?” The boy asked after a moment of silence. He bottled his emotions up really well for someone who looked like he was going to burst from embarrassment the next moment.

“I think you should have your ears cleaned out,” you said matter-of-factly.

“Oh… sorry, I’ll shower when I get home.” It would’ve been a funny comeback if he hadn’t meant it so literally.

Soobin violently facepalmed himself, turning around in embarrassment. When the silence ensued, you answered his question with a heavy sigh.

“You can call me Wyann, but really, my name’s Jared, 19, and I never f*ckin’ learned how to read,” you replied sarcastically. “Between the lines, that is. So I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to get going before lunch ends so I can find my next class, not that you care anyway.”

Turning around to find your next class, you fetched your crumpled campus map from your skirt. Screw school uniforms. If I’m going to be suffering in this hellhole, I’m going to do it in a t-shirt and jeans, starting tomorrow.

You were about to turn a corner in the hallway when a hand stopped you.

“What is it.”

“The social science department’s that way.” A boy with scraggly blonde hair and round eyes flashed a friendly smile at you. Who is this again?

“And how do you know my next class is econ?”

“It’s ‘cuz I’m psychic. And also because all seniors take econ, which only has two classes, and since you weren’t in the first one, you must be in the second one. Here, I’ll help you find the classroom.”

“Cool.” People like this were the type that would get away with murder, and that was cool. But most people found your run-of-the-mill answers off-putting, even when you meant them. And so the rest of the walk took place in silence; for you, a peaceful one, but for him, an awkward one.

–––––––

Tick, tick, tick.

Seconds seemed to slow into minutes. Rather than listen to the monotonous drone of your trig teacher, which was about as interesting as watching sandpaper dry, you turned your attention to your classmates’ side conversations. Not much of an upgrade, but it beat trig.

“Did you catch the latest episode of TEOTFW?”

“Dude, I nearly shit my pants at the part where–”

You tuned the rest out to avoid potential spoilers, making a mental note to watch it later.

“Hey, doing anything this weekend?”

“Don’t tell me you’re throwing another party.”

“Haha, you already know.”

“Don’t you ever get tired of partying, Jackson?”

You didn’t think you and Jackson would get along very well. You had zero interest in parties.

“Wanna go to that carnival after school?”

“What? Since when was it in town?”

“They were setting it up yesterday, so it should be open today.”

“Oh my gosh, I’m gonna buy 50 corndogs.”

At the thought of 50 freshly-fried heavenly-smelling corn dogs, you started to salivate. Sounds like fun. I think I’ll go check it out. After a few minutes of fiddling with your phone under the desk, you pinpointed the location, conveniently just ten minutes away.

When the last bell rang after what felt like an eternity, you were the first one out the door. Your backpack had already been zipped and slung over your shoulder for the past 15 minutes now. Running across the asphalt of the school grounds, you bounded out the gates to sweet, sweet freedom.

On the bus, you took your usual seat: 7th row down, left side, aisle seat. Window seats weren’t your thing; no space to breathe. But then again, that was public transportation for you.

Ten minutes down the road from hell, you could practically smell the corn dogs. The venue was less than a block from the bus stop. It was impossible to miss the flashing lights, the bright colors, and the lighthearted carnival tunes. Instead of hopping off the bus at your usual stop, you jumped right off at the corner of the usually isolated street. And before your very eyes, what was usually a patch of empty grass was now bustling with people and fair booths.

Alright, let’s go get some corn dogs.

––––

Straight away, you ran into a dilemma. Right at the entrance of the place was a towering rocking Viking boat, your favorite type of ride. There was something strangely appealing about feeling your stomach was going to fly out of your body, almost as appealing as stuffing yourself to the brim with oily sausages. Now that you thought about it, you really like abusing your stomach.

Okay, maybe a quick ride wouldn’t hurt.

Being the first person in the queue was among the greatest privileges of mankind. Of course, you went straight to the end of the boat for the maximum thrill. You swung your feet aimlessly, patiently waiting for the ride to start. Most of the riders were parents with their small children, who filed into the middle rows. I’m never having kids. Still, you were grateful for them, because they gave you the whole back row to yourself.

The ride was about to start when a voice interrupted: “Wait, wait! Hold up, we’re coming– oh wow, I’m out of breath.” “Haha, you gotta get out more, ‘Bin.”

Oh dear lord, please no. Not here.

“Or maybe you should quit eating so much bread.”

“Say what you want about my physique, but you’ll never take away my bread rights.”

Please don’t come over here, please don’t come over here.

To your horror, you realized that there was only one empty row left and they were heading straight for it. In a frantic last-ditch attempt, you pulled your hood over your head and turned the other way in hopes that they wouldn’t recognize you. The wooden bench creaked under the weight of five new butts. And it was just your luck that Bread Boy happened to sit closest to you.

“Lucky there was enough room left,” the blue-haired idiot remarked. “Thought we weren’t gonna make it.”

“I’ll say. Maybe if you stopped eating so much bread–”

“Stop teasing me about my bread already. Who are you to talk, anyways? All your nicknames are about food!”

“Well, at least I–”

You rolled your eyes and filtered out the rest of their bickering. What are they, a married couple? Better dynamic than my parents, at least. God, I hope I never get mar–

The ship lurched, jolting you out of your thoughts, and nearly your seat too. For the first time in a long time, you felt a wide grin spreading across your cheeks. With the breeze gusting through your hair, the sensation of thrill in your stomach, and the view from the top of the boat, you felt alive for the first time in a while. At least, until the screams started.

They literally sounded like dying goats. They were hitting notes even you couldn’t hit, and you were a soprano. Not that you knew how to sing, but you could break glass when you stubbed your toe.

The rest of the ride was not a pleasant one. Between the screeching and the obnoxious hyena laughter that followed, you were about ready to jam your fist down their windpipes. Luckily for them, the ride ended and they were spared from your wrath.

“Haha, that was so fun! We should go again!”

Fun, you say? You might have laughed if you weren’t so angry.

“Actually, I think we should dip soon. I dunno why, but I’m getting the heebie jeebies.” Who was that again? Narrowing your eyes, you tried to pin a name on the boy. Oh, never mind. He’s one of the guys who didn’t introduce himself.

“Sure, Tae. You and your spidey sense have gotten us out of trouble too many times to count. But before we go, let’s grab some corn dogs.” The other four followed Tae’s suit and left the boat. It struck you as odd how they trusted his word so easily. What could he have sensed, anyways? Your bloodlust?

Whatever. Now that they’re gone, I’d like to actually enjoy the ride this time.

Finally, you had the back row to yourself again, and you savored every moment of it.

––––

“Hey guys, can we not go in?” Soobin clutched his queasy stomach at the sight of the waterpark installment, shuddering as he recalled his near-death encounter in deep water as a kid.

“Are you scared because you almost drowned in the kiddie pool when you were five because your safety float deflated?” Taehyun asked, a little too loudly. It earned him a few glances from other people in the queue.

“Shut up! That did not happen!”

“Okay, but aren’t you kinda too old to be scared of water? To be fair, you’re over 180cm and the water here is barely a meter high.”

“Still! I don’t like cold water.” He frowned. “Can we please go somewhere else?”

“Like where?”

“We-we could go watch the circus performances!”

“No thank you. Animals in cages make me sad, and I didn’t come here to be sad,” Tae replied. “We could go watch that magic show at 7 o’clock if you want.”

“But that’s at seven!”

“You can wait for us if you want, grab an ice cream while you wait.” Kai suggested, at a crossroads between going on the waterslide and keeping his friend company. Luckily for Soobin, Kai being the good kid he was, he chose friendship. “I could stay with you if you want to go somewhere else, we’ll have them give us a call when they’re done over here.”

“Okay!” the aquaphobic replied immediately, shooting dirty looks at the three boys that chose to stay in line. Linking arms, the two set off to find the ice cream stand.

After picking up their ice creams, they wandered through the fairground without any particular destination. After a while of “Oooh, let’s go into the Mirror Maze!” “No, that one has a shorter line!” and “Oh, look! A bread stand!”, the two boys had worn themselves out with their own antics. Or maybe it was just Kai who felt drained, because his counterpart seemed perky as ever, now munching on his fifth carbohydrate snack. The boy sighed wearily as he reclined in a rickety plastic chair, taking a sip of his overly sweet lemonade.

Staring off into the distance, he suddenly noticed a young boy sitting on a haystack staring him dead in the eyes. The child looked about seven years old, his curly brown hair parted in the middle. Slowly, the corners of his mouth turned upwards without the slightest twitch in the rest of his expression. His eyes didn’t match his smile. Kind of creepy, but then again, kids are weird. Yet something felt off.

“Bro, these nachos are so good! I’m too full to finish it, you want the rest?”

“Psst!” Huening Kai tapped his hyung’s arm quickly and nodded in the direction of the boy. “Look at that kid. Don’t you think he looks kinda cree—”

“Hmm?”

“Wait– where’d he go?” The haystack the boy had been sitting on appeared untouched; not even the slightest buttprint remained. It was as if he’d disapparated. “That’s weird.”

“Oh, right! Tae just texted me saying that they were done over there. We’re going back to meet with them. Let’s go!”

“Alright,” Kai responded, sparing a few last glances before leaving. Call it a gut feeling, but something told him that this wasn’t the last time he’d see this child.

———

chapter one finally out! the original chapter was supposed to be around 7.6k words, but we had to cut it because it was too long 😬😬😬 thank you for reading :)

hmm, i wonder who that mysterious child is?

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