When I got home from work the next day, I noticed that something wasn’t as it should.

“Is there any problem?” I asked.

“No…”, they answered.

“Are you hiding something?”

“No…”

I frowned and started walking around, finally understanding what was wrong.

“Where’s Chanhee?”

“Uh…”, Jacob started. “He’s taking a shower.”

“He’s not. All bathrooms are empty. WHere is he?”

I grabbed Jacob’s collar and pulled him closer, making him bend down to get on my level.

“H-He ran away-”

“He did what?!”

“H-He wanted to go to the zoo, t-to reunite with the penguins…”

“I have to go get him.”

“No, you can’t go outside alone!” Younghoon shouted. “I’m coming with you.”

“Me too”, Juyeon said.

“Come on then, we need to find him before someone else does and decides to hurt him.”

—♤—

We got to the zoo and managed to get inside. We found Chanhee sitting outside the penguin area, hugging his legs and hiding his face down into his knees.

“I’ll go talk to him, wait here”, I said to the two predators that had come with me.

I went over to Chanhee and crouched down in front of them.

“Hey, sweetheart, how is it? Why did you run away?” I asked, trying not to sound mad.

“I-I didn’t feel like I belonged at home...and the g-guys are constantly mocking me...I thought that I could be better off here, but...but I didn’t want to anymore and I couldn’t find my way home...so I stayed here, hoping you would come.”

“I’m here now.”

He sniffled slightly and I stood up.

“Time to go home”, I said and held out my hand. “Come on.”

“I don’t want to in case they’re still going to mock me”, Chanhee said quietly.

“I’ll fix this for you, Chanhee. Come with me. Please.”

He stood up slightly.

“Someone, give him your jacket”, I said over my shoulder.

Juyeon went over to us and gave Chanhee his jacket. The penguin put it on and then looked down into the ground.

—♤—

When we came home, I decided to hold a meeting in the living room.

“Alright, boys”, I said sternly. “I need to talk to you. Firstly, none of you are allowed to leave this house without my permission. It is absolutely dangerous! Who knows what can happen to you?! You could have gotten killed, do you understand that?! I never want you to do it again, do you hear me, Chanhee?!”

“Yes, I-I’m sorry, Y/N…”, Chanhee said in shame and looked down.

“Second. The reason Chanhee left was because he feels that you all have been mocking and excluding him. Is that correct?”

“Well...not entirely…”, Changmin said, clearly uncomfortable.

“We were just joking, we never wanted to hurt him…”, Jacob said, looking as guilty as he sounded.

“And you, predators”, I said, glaring at them. “Didn’t you make a promise to take care of the weaker hybrids? How dare you let Chanhee feel this way?”

“I…we…”, Eric started, looking at the others for support.

“We never thought it was that bad. We usually joke around pretty harshly, we didn’t think that the weaker hybrids would see it as mockery…”, Kevin mumbled.

“You’ve only lived with each other for like a month...you don’t know each other that well yet. Some of them are more sensitive than others, you need to understand that, okay? Now to the third thing-”

“How many things are there?” Sunwoo groaned and threw his head back in annoyance.

“You better close that little raccoon mouth of yours or else I’m going to shove a floor mop down your throat.”

He flinched and straightened his back, suddenly interested.

“As I said, the third thing is, why did you exclude him?” I asked.

“He was always whining how ‘he wasn’t fitting in’ and how ‘I don’t want to ruin your games’ and so on”, Jaehyun said. “So in the end, we stopped asking because he clearly didn’t want to be with us.”

“I did!” Chanhee said offended.

“Okay, okay, let me say how I see it”, I said. “Chanhee, you’re pitying yourself so much that you’re not as clear as a hybrid as the others that you start to close yourself off when they ask you to be with them. When you’ve said no multiple times and shown no interest, the other guys give up to try to bother you. They think you want to be alone. WHen they start joking again, you take it as an insult because you think that they don’t like you. You need to trust them and to take a step forward and the rest of the hybrids need to consider your feelings better.”

“We’re sorry, Chanhee”, Haknyeon said sadly.

“Yeah...sorry”, Kevin said.

“Now, let’s all go to bed, it’s been a long day”, I sighed and started walking upstairs.

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