Hyunwoo was not as stupid as his kids seemed to think. They thought he was oblivious to all the chaos they got up to, and unaware of all their overflowing feelings.
He knew he should've been more insulted that they didn't think he was observant enough to understand them but he couldn't blame them when it felt like the entire Beacon Hills population was missing something directly under their noses. They were used to people not looking after them. Not even caring enough to look at them.
But he had to admit, the kids thinking he didn't hear and see everything did sometimes get very annoying. Especially when Byungho and Isaac were involved.
They'd been fighting about something for ten entire minutes, and it would've been fine if Hyunwoo didn't have super hearing and could tune them out properly.
From the bedroom on the second floor, he heard Isaac groan. “Song, I swear to God-”
Byungho interrupted him to say, “You can’t swear to something you don’t believe in.”
“Why do you have to make everything so difficult?” Isaac asked, frustration coloring his tone. “Let me bandage you up.”
It had been three days since Byungho was attacked by the kanima. He was being strangely difficult about letting himself get better. Hyunwoo had seen him pushing and poking on the wound on his side more than once.
“No, I’m fine.” He could practically see the pout on Byungho’s face.
“You’re literally not. You were paralyzed two days ago. You don’t just bounce back from that. You don’t even have accelerated healing. Let me put the damn gauze on your side for the love of God.” There was a beat. “Don’t make that joke again.”
Byungho sighed, long suffering and annoyed. “Fine. But don’t try anything. I’ll bite your fingers off.”
Hyunwoo got to his feet, silently walking up the steps, to Isaac’s bedroom. The boys were on the floor, with Isaac leaning over Byungho’s smaller frame. He was delicately cleaning the wound with what smelled like an alcohol wipe.
Byungho hissed at the sensation and Isaac looked up at him through his eyelashes. Hyunwoo heard Byungho’s breath catch.
"I never imagined that someone's heartbeat could sound so amazing."
haleton!!
-
Hyunwoo just liked to stop and listen sometimes. When Alan was steadily working across from him in the animal clinic. When they were hanging out, doing their separate things together. When they were lying in bed after long days and even longer weeks.
He just liked to hear the monotonous thump, thump, thump. Just to know it was there. That everything was running as smoothly as it should be.
"Why are you looking at me like that, my love?" Alan asked with a hum. He looked up from the paperwork he was filling out, a smile pulling the corners of his lips up. "Hmm?"
Hyunwoo's own smile took over his face. "I never imagined that someone's heartbeat could sound so amazing."
Surprise shuttered onto Alan's face before he schooled it into neutrality. "You listen to my heartbeat?"
"Of course," Hyunwoo said with a nod.
"Is there a particular reason why?" Alan went back to signing his name with his fancy fountain pen that was a birthday present from Clementine. It was the trademark Beacon Hills burgundy and had his name printed on the side in gold lettering.
His heartbeat stayed steady, giving no sign of nerves or discomfort.
"It's a pack thing. We use it to check on people, to make sure everything is alright," Hyunwoo explained. "And listening to yours is comforting for me. I love knowing that you're at ease around me."
Alan smiled, a real smile this time, reaching out for Hyunwoo's hand. Once he had it in his grasp, he pulled it to his lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. "You make it very easy to feel at ease, my dear."
Alan rolled his eyes, but there was a hint of a smile on his lips. "And next you'll be saying age is just a number."
"I'm not some child whose heart you're going to break, Alan," Hyunwoo replied, pointedly ignoring his point. Sure, age came with a lot of things; responsibility, maturity, wisdom. But just because he was younger than Alan, didn't mean he didn't know what he wanted.
"Please get off of my work table," Alan said, finally looking up and making eye contact.
"Make me," Hyunwoo challenged, crossing his arms over his chest.
"For someone who claims not to be a child you sure are acting like one," Alan teased, an actual laugh falling from his lips.
also this is the hyunwoo pov for a chapter in baby's fic 😎 (under a read more bcuz this got So Long)
-
Hyunwoo wasn't sure he when he suddenly became the go-to for teenage drama. Back home, he'd been the youngest in the pack, the baby surrounded by centuries older werewolves, and witches, and vampires, and whoever else.
He wasn't used to all these teenage hormones and the fact that every teenager he knew was a supernatural creature certainly didn't help.
But he was used to people. Used to helping them. And he was more than willing to help the kids. His kids.
Watching Baby walk into the house, teary eyed and shaking like a leaf was terrifying. He was so shaken up that he could barely get a word out, but he managed to explain that Jackson and Isaac were fighting, and someone was going to get hurt. Hyunwoo suspected that someone already had.
On autopilot, he sent Scott outside to stop the fight, while he got Baby to sit with him in the kitchen, so he could calm him down.
That terror he felt was only heightened when Isaac came in soon after, covered in blood. He wasn't squeamish in any sense, and had long seen his own fair share of blood, but the sight of it dripping down Isaac's face made him feel sick.
He told Scott to take Isaac upstairs so they could talk after he finished consoling Baby – they had to talk about this, there was no way they couldn't – but Isaac refused to move.
He was watching Baby with a look Hyunwoo had never seen in his eyes. It was hurt and rage and unbridled affection all at once.
Baby stared back, still crying and trembling, and Hyunwoo knew letting them try to talk while they were both so upset would be like lighting a match after taking a shower with gasoline. He wasn't going to let them blow themselves up.
"Isaac," he said, softly. "Go upstairs. Please."
Isaac took one last look at Baby, eyes swirling with emotion, before he nodded and went up the steps. Hyunwoo couldn't even bring himself to yell at him for wearing his shoes in the house. There were bigger problems at the moment.
-
Ten minutes later, he managed to get Baby to calm down and get Roxie to drive him home. It was a win of the smallest proportions.
As he walked into his bedroom, where Scott and Isaac had immediately gone to, drawn like moths to a flame, he tried to figure out what to say.
He knew the smart, adult thing to say would be that violence wasn't an answer. But that wasn't exactly true. Especially not for someone like Isaac who had only known violence for so long.
Isaac was curled into a ball in Hyunwoo's bed. He looked so young, so small, and it was almost jarring.
Scott was sitting behind him, hands curled in his lap, looking like he was torn between speaking up or not. Hyunwoo sent him a smile.
"Why don't you go see what Boyd and Erica are up to?" Hyunwoo offered. "Keep them out of here for a few minutes."
Hyunwoo had learned very quickly that Scott always wanted to help, wanted to be useful in some way. It was both a blessing and a curse.
Scott nodded, getting to his feet and practically running out the door.
Hyunwoo turned back to Isaac. The blood was now crusted on his skin, a burgundy color instead of the ruby red it had been.
"What happened?" he asked, as Isaac looked away from him. Isaac was arguably the easiest kid to talk to when he wasn't being a snarky punk. He responded best to direct questions, and expected that Hyunwoo would do the same.
"I beat up Jackson. He's Baby's boyfriend. He'll probably sue me," he explained, still not meeting Hyunwoo's eyes. He didn't look guilty, so much as he looked exhausted. Hyunwoo was tired of seeing that look on his kids' faces. They were so young. They shouldn't look so war torn and weary.
"Why did you beat up Baby's boyfriend?" Hyunwoo asked. He had his suspicions, but expecting Isaac to admit that he had a bit of a crush on his "mortal enemy" would be like expecting pigs to fly.
Isaac sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "He hit Baby, and I kind of lost it a bit," he admitted, "And he knew my dad was hurting me but didn't say anything to anyone. Not that that really matters now, but I was still pissed about it in the moment."
Hyunwoo hummed in thought. "I think that's an understandable reaction."
Isaac sat up, blinking in surprise. "What? You're not going to say I shouldn't have hit him?"
Quietly, timidly, Isaac muttered, "I don't... I don't want him to look at me like that again. Like he's scared of me. Like I'm some kind of monster. Like I'm evil."
"I didn't say it was the right reaction. I just said it was understandable. You were right to be upset," Hyunwoo clarified, "But a better course of action would've been to get Baby out of that situation, instead of exposing both of you to even more violence. But we don't always make the smart, healthy decision in the moment. And if I was you, I'm sure I would've reacted similarly."
Isaac nodded. "Is he okay?"
"I got him to stop crying before he left, but he was still upset," Hyunwoo said. It wasn't really a yes or a no, but Hyunwoo couldn't really give him either one of those responses.
Hyunwoo's heart cracked in his chest. Was that really how he saw himself?
"Well, I don't think you're evil," he said, because he didn't. He would never.
The surprise on Isaac's face made Hyunwoo want to cry. "You don't?"
Hyunwoo shook his head. "I would never. I think you're a kid who was trying to protect his friend. And Byungho won't think you're evil either. He'll probably be mad at you for a while, but he won't hate you."
Isaac visibly sagged with relief. It was incredibly endearing.
"Thank you," he mumbled.
Hyunwoo smiled, reached over and squeezed his shoulder. "Of course. Now let's go rescue Scott from Boyd and Erica. They've been bugging him about you for ten minutes."
