jump!

(for my love)
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/55933876.

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: &TEAM (Band)
Relationship: Harua/Hirota Riki | Maki
Characters: Harua (&TEAM), Hirota Riki | Maki, Byun Euijoo | EJ, Asakura Jo
(&TEAM), Nakakita Yuma, Murata Fuma, Taki (&TEAM), Wang
Yixiang | Nicholas, K (&TEAM)
Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Magical Realism, Crack Treated Seriously, Love
Confessions, Animal Transformation
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2024-05-15 Updated: 2024-05-27 Words: 8,428 Chapters: 2/5
 jump! (for my love)
by isayrie (winwinnie)

Summary

Harua is busy. Between preparing for a comeback and repressing his feelings for Maki, he's
working harder than he's ever worked before.

Waking up as a rabbit complicates things.

 Chapter 1
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

It's almost a normal day. Right up until the alarm goes off, Harua hasn't noticed that anything
is any different to usual. His eyes are just as tired as they've been for the past couple of
weeks. His body aches a little, but with the amount of time they've been spending practising
choreography lately, it would be strange if he didn't ache.

Maybe he wouldn't usually drift off back to sleep. But he'd climbed into bed last night with
the knowledge that he had a completely free day, and he isn't about to waste a lie-in with a
comeback on the horizon. Most days he likes to be up, but he's been trying to rest whenever
he has the chance before the promotions start.

Half of the members are scheduled to be at the company, which is what woke him up in the
first place. He can hear the noise of bags and shoes and coats in the hallway. Someone is
laughing, someone is opening the door with a little too much force.

The conversation carries. Euijoo and Fuma talking about something, Taki shouting
something. Someone who he can't identify is talking around a toothbrush.

It's not loud enough to fully wake him up, but he can't sleep through it either. Instead, he
makes the most of the in-between state, lying with his eyes closed and the blanket tucked
around him. He doesn't even move when the door to the room swings open, and Nicholas
steps in.

It just sounds like he's grabbing a jacket. He does a quick once-over of the room, but his eyes
don't linger on Harua, and then he practically beelines to the clothes hanging on the rack
nearby.

He's already wearing a jacket, but this one must not fit the outfit. Harua watches with half-
lidded eyes as Nicholas shrugs it off and throws it down onto his bed. He hesitates over two,
but then Yudai calls his name from the corridor and he grabs the one closest.

Harua almost tells him he looks fine. He's still half asleep and lying at an angle where he
can't see him completely, but Nicholas always looks cool, and he appreciates it when the
effort he's put into an outfit is recognised. It's bonus points to his 'Number One Fashion
Student' title as well.

Except-

He gets as far as opening his mouth. And not anywhere past that. Nicholas is still checking
his reflection in the mirror, but Harua's tongue feels glued to the roof of his mouth. He hadn't
realised his throat was so dry. The noise he'd been trying to make comes out completely
silent, and it feels more like he's choking than trying to form a sentence.
Harua frowns. He almost goes to reach up and massage his neck, but his position lying down
is odd. He can't move his arm up that far.

Nicholas is leaving before he can really process it. He doesn't check over his shoulder to see
if he'd accidentally woken Harua up, and he doesn't close the door with any kind of thought
about muffling the sound.

"He's not there," he says from the corridor, "He must have gone for a walk already."

There's no mistaking that he's talking about Harua. There are only two people sleeping in this
room, after all.

But Harua is right there. Very much still in bed, and not even trying to hide it. It isn't
uncommon for him to have gone on a morning walk if he's not scheduled to be at the
company, but something about this makes him frown.

Had Nicholas not seen him? He'd looked directly at his bed - or so Harua had thought. Maybe
he'd been more asleep than he'd realised. Maybe Nicholas had been too lost in thought to pay
proper attention, or maybe Harua's body had been hidden beneath his piles of pillows and
blankets.

"I didn't hear him leave," Yudai says. "He must have gone early."

"Or maybe you just weren't paying as much attention as you thought you were," Taki tells
him. His voice gets quieter as he speaks, moving towards the door and out of the dorm, but
Harua still catches the way Yudai's feet hit the ground as he runs after him, and the way Taki
squeaks.

The conversation might continue. It might not. The door shuts with a click, and Harua is left
alone in the room.

All the noise has woken him up. He could probably go back to sleep if he really wanted to,
but he wouldn't wake up for another hour or so afterwards - and then it's just a waste of a day
he could have spent relaxing. The mental list of names of members he knows staying back
today is short. Jo and Maki, and possibly Yuma.

Maki had mentioned something about cleaning last night. He'd announced it - just that he was
going to go through the rooms and take out all the trash that had slowly been accumulating
throughout comeback-preparations - but Harua would have been listening anyway.

Something had changed between them recently. When Maki spoke, Harua turned to listen. If
he tapped his shoulder to get his attention, Harua was already watching him out of the corner
of his eye. If he smiled at something he thought no one was watching, Harua felt his heart
beat a little faster.

He'd become endearing. Not that he hadn't been originally, but this was something...
different. Something that made Harua nervous every time he started to think about it for too
long.
His solution to that issue is to simply not think about it at all.

Either way, he knows Maki is going to start cleaning soon, and he wants to let him know he
appreciates it. It would be rude to still be in bed when Maki's helping out around the dorm,
wouldn't it? He'd planned to at least move the plastic bottles from his desk into the living
area.

He wants to linger. He wants to hover around Maki like the scent of smoke clinging to the
fabric of a jacket. He wants to be steam on a mirror, just fogged up around the edges.

He wants to be near Maki.

He doesn't want to think about what that could mean.

Harua forces his thoughts to come back down to the ground. He wants to help Maki out
because he appreciates how much he does to keep the dorm clean, that's all. Nothing more
than that. Before he can start to spiral again, he makes up his mind to get out of bed and at
least put on some proper clothes.

Except-

This is where the 'normal' illusion of the day starts to fade away. Harua shifts his way over to
the edge of his bed, and sees the ground is... a lot further away than he last remembers. He
isn't talking about a couple of inches. Sticking his head over the side of his mattress and
looking down feels more like staring down the side of a mountain.

He blinks, but the view doesn't change. It's no longer a jump he can make safely. There's got
to be at least ten metres between where he's lying and the floor.

It's dizzying. Harua pulls back, suddenly feeling much more awake than before, only to find
that his body doesn't move like he remembers.

He can't sit up. His arm - he hadn't been able to stretch earlier - is shorter than he remembers,
and his legs trapped beneath his body, positioned in a way that shouldn't feel as natural as it
does.

Pulling back isn't a shuffle. He doesn't sit up and use his arms to pull his body across the
mattress. He doesn't kick off the blankets with his legs - because now he looks down the bed,
it seems to stretch on for miles - and his legs are nowhere near the blankets.

He jumps back with muscles he's not sure he remembers using in this way before, but that
thought is quickly filed away in favour of something a little more pressing.

He's... shrunk?

He's smaller. The barriers at the side of the bunk-bed are huge. He could fit between them if
he wanted too, and he's certain that hadn't been possible when he'd gone to sleep. With the
ground seeming so far away and the length of his bed seeming to have grown, it's the only
conclusion he comes to.
It's impossible, yet it's the only explanation his mind provides.

Somehow, he's shrunk. He's no longer the same height he used to be, but he doesn't feel small
like a child. He feels-

Slowly, Harua looks down.

He's not sure what he's expecting to see. He prides himself on being accepting and unfazed,
but there's still a pit of dread in his stomach before his head even begins to move. A bad
feeling that's been growing in size since he woke up.

It's easy to be accepting of things that happen in real life. There are limits on what's possible,
and at the end of the day, humans are just humans. He can take emotions and confessions and
secrets between other people in his stride. As unexpected as they may be, he's always been
able to nod in understanding and move on with his day.

Things like... this are different.

This doesn't feel like reality. He feels oddly calm after realising his body has changed form,
but is that because his mind is struggling to catch up with the fact this isn't an odd dream? Or
is it just because there's nothing he can do about it?

Either way, he already has a feeling about what he's expecting when he looks down.

Still.

He wouldn't have predicted two tiny rabbit paws.

A noise tries to make its way out of his throat, but it's swallowed by the same dry feeling that
had prevented him calling out to Nicholas earlier. He's suddenly acutely aware of his nose
twitching instead. His teeth are too large in his mouth. There's movement he didn't think was
possible in his ears , and the world suddenly sounds a little too loud.

The fans have always joked that he's a rabbit.

It's his designated animal. At first, he hadn't been able to see it - looking into the mirror had
only ever reflected back his face, after all - but he'd quickly grown into the nickname. Over
the years, it's gotten to the point where the rabbit-lights from the holidays hang down from
the side of his bed, and he carries around a rabbit-themed bag. Introducing himself as a bunny
has become his go-to greeting.

It's always just been a nickname, though. He'd never expect Yuma to one day wake up as a
cat, or Euijoo as an orange.

Why is this happening to him? There's no mistaking it - the paws move whenever he tries to
move his hands, and he can swivel the ears on his head without much effort at all - but there's
no logic or reason behind the transformation.

It's like a bad dream, except Harua is wide awake.

He's only just coming to terms with this new reality when the door to the room opens again.
He'd been so caught up in his thoughts that he hadn't paid attention to the sound of people
coming down the corridor.

Maki steps into the room. He's wearing rubber gloves up to his elbows and carrying a half-
full trash bag in one hand. He heads straight for the collection of bottles on Harua's desk, but
not before emptying the trash bin in the room into his own bag.

Jo isn't far behind him. He also enters the room before the door can close, but he looks
significantly less sure about what he's doing than Maki does. It seems like he's playing along
the exact same lines Harua had been planning to - wanting to help out to show appreciation,
but not quite sure what exactly to do.

He's holding the roll of trash bags in his hand. When Maki eventually fills up the one he's
already holding, Jo is at least quick to take it from him, handing over the next so Maki can
continue cleaning.

Otherwise, he just stands there a little awkwardly. It's odd to be in someone's room without
their permission, Harua agrees, but Jo's standing near to the bed, and -

They're close. Close enough for Harua's nose to twitch and the movement catch Jo's eyes,
even if he hadn't been looking in that exact direction. He turns to look at the bed with a
frown.

There's nothing obviously out of place. Harua is small, and if the rest of his body is the same
pale-white as his paws, he's fairly confident he blends in with the colour of his pillows and
bedsheets.

The movement could have been a sheet. The closing of the door could have created a breeze
strong enough to move one of the blankets slightly out of place, just enough for the weight
redistribution to cause some movement. Nicholas' abandoned jacket could have been sliding
down his covers this whole time.

Jo turns in the direction of the bed, and Harua's heart leaps into his chest.

For a moment, he thinks that Jo is just going to look past him, just like Nicholas had.

Although his mind is shouting at him to let himself be found, his instincts are stronger. Since
Jo and Maki walked into the room, he's barely been able to shift his weight. Deep in his
subconscious, there are only two choices that he's able to make whilst stuck in a place with
beings much larger than him.

He could bolt the moment that they come too close, but the covers are heavy and there's a
wall preventing him from moving too far. Or he could stay completely still and hope that Jo
assumes he'd just bought a life-like plushie. In the end, it's not even a choice that he's able to
make - his mind betrays him, and he's frozen in place like a deer in headlights.

"I think that's most of it," Maki says. He sweeps the plastic bottles into a bag and they rattle
as they fall. It's a loud sound to Harua's newly sensitive ears, and it draws his attention.
It's got to be enough to distract Jo. It has to be, it's a much larger movement than anything
Harua could make this size. Maki's talking to Jo, that surely has to be enough to draw Jo into
looking away.

But Jo isn't predictable in that way.

Harua's eyes move towards Maki, his ears twitch at the sound. It would have been
unnoticeable amongst the sheets if Jo had been a second faster in also following the direction
of the noise - but he lingers on the beds for a moment too long.

They make eye contact.

Jo stares at him. Harua hadn't been looking that way, but his eyes leave Maki the moment that
he realises Jo is looking directly at him. He doesn't dare blink. He doesn't dare move a
muscle. Even if his brain knows it's only Jo - probably the gentlest member out of all of them
- his instincts tell him to freeze in place.

Well. They tell most of him to freeze in place.

His legs are quivering slightly, caught up between the urge to duck away and jump under the
blankets. His nose is twitching as he breathes. Jo stares back at him, expression incredulous
and unreadable, and Harua's ears flinch in the tiniest of movements.

"Oh," Jo says. He blinks. The game is clearly up. He knows Harua is there - or, he knows a
rabbit is there, even if he doesn't know that it's Harua just yet. "Oh."

Maki keeps cleaning. The bag with the bottles in gets tied and placed near the door, whilst he
does a once-over of the rest of the room, nodding to himself when he doesn't notice anything
else that could be obviously thrown away. "Hmm? What's up?"

To his credit, Jo's voice doesn't sound as shocked as it probably should. In fact, he sounds
impossibly calm considering the situation. There's nothing in his tone that suggests he's just
found a rabbit sitting in his groupmate’s bed.

Harua stares at him. Jo stares back.

"Well-" he starts to say, but words fail him. Maki looks over his shoulder to frown at how
strangely Jo is acting. He follows the direction of his eyes, and then Maki is looking at Harua
as well.

His face changes expressions so rapidly that Harua can't begin to place a single one. He goes
from shocked to confused to bewildered, and then he abandons the trash bags on the ground
in favour of standing next to Jo to get a better look.

Harua backs up a little.

They're standing too close. He feels like he's being inspected. The weight of their gazes
makes his skin itch.
"Is that... a rabbit? " Maki says. His eyes widen as Harua blinks back at him. "In Rua's bed?
Are you sure it's real?"

Jo glances at him silently. He'd barely had time to check, and it's not like he has any more
answers that Maki does. Even Harua barely has more of an explanation than the two boys
staring at him - and he's the one that's been turned into a rabbit in the first place.

Maki reaches out his hand. He moves slowly, as if he's scared of scaring Harua. Harua's
instincts are telling him to back away, but his determination to get at least some sort of
communication between them going forces his body to stay still. Even if he's in a rabbit's
body, it's still his mind that's in control.

To prove that, he ducks his head forwards, displaying the back of his neck towards Maki. He
refuses to flinch when Maki starts to run his fingers down the fur there.

His touch is gentle. Maki's hand is warm, and the sensation of being pet is strangely
comforting. It's enough to make his mind stop running quite so quickly. His instincts that had
been telling him to pull away are finally beginning to quieten down - drowned out by the
rhythmic petting, telling him to chase after the feeling instead of backing away.

"It's soft," he hears Maki tell Jo, although it sounds slightly distant now that Maki's hand is
all Harua's brain can focus on.

"It's a real rabbit?"

Maki nods. "Yeah, there's no way that it's a toy," he says, "I can feel it breathing and
everything. Here-"

He puts one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder and pushes up, using the extra height to
lean closer to Harua. His hand leaves the back of his neck, but his body-heat doesn't leave
completely - instead, he puts his hands on either side of the mattress around Harua. Slowly,
he scoops him into his arms.

It's an odd feeling. Harua doesn't jump out from the hold, but he does pointedly ignore how
close the two of them are. They cuddle all the time. All the members do. This isn't anything
different - Maki doesn't even know it's him, he can't read into it.

That doesn't stop his skin from feeling like it's on fire. It doesn't stop the part of his mind that
tells him to lean comfortably into the touch.

There's another hand on the back of his neck, this one slightly more hesitant than the last.
"You're right," Jo says, patting Harua one last time before pulling away, "But... where did it
come from?"

Maki doesn't have an answer for that.

The trash bags are abandoned on the floor as he starts to make his way out of the bedroom.
Even Jo doesn't bother to pick them up as he follows Maki into the living room, all the way
until Harua is being placed down onto the table in the centre of the room.
Yuma had been sitting on the sofa as they'd entered. He hadn't looked up for more than a brief
glance - legs crossed and phone in his hand - but as soon as Harua's feet hit the table with a
solid weight, he looks up.

"What," he says, "Is that?"

Harua shuffles closer to the centre of the table. He doesn't like being so close to the edge,
even if he's more confident he could make this jump than the drop from the side of the bed.
He pushes one of the magazines slightly out of the way, creating more space for himself.

Yuma, Jo and Maki all stare at him. He's created room in a distinctly un-rabbit like way.

"A rabbit," Jo says eventually, and it's obvious from his tone that he has no more of an idea
about the situation than Yuma does. "We found it in Harua's bed. It doesn't seem to have
made a mess or anything, it was just... there."

"And now it's here," Yuma finishes up for him. "You don't know how it got there?"

"We just found it!" Maki says. He'd been looking around like he was going to get inspiration
on what to do next, only to find nothing. "Are we the only ones in? The others just left to go
to the company - do you think this is a prank? Like a hidden camera?"

Jo shakes his head, "They have to give us a warning before they film anything in the dorms."

"What if the others approved it though?"

As soon as the words leave Maki's mouth, he must know how ridiculous it sounds. They've
had hidden camera pranks played on them before, but this is on another level. And even from
Harua's position on the table he can see how dirty the dorms are. With the comeback so soon,
there are plates stacked up on every surface in the kitchen and random clothes strewn on the
back of the furniture. Maki's attempt at cleaning has left full trash bags by the door.

There's no way the company would release something that had their living conditions looking
like this. Especially not if it involved an animal getting free-range of the place.

"Okay, so that's out of the question. Is-" Maki looks around again, "Did they all leave
already? Who's actually gone? We should probably at least tell everyone, are there any of the
hyungs here?"

"We discussed this all last night," Yuma says. "You should know that, if you actually paid
attention."

"I already said I was planning on cleaning!" Maki protests, "I didn't need to pay attention
after they said I didn't need to be there. You can be my guest if you want to swap places next
time!"

Yuma does a full body shudder at that. He may not be one of the messier members, but that
doesn't mean he wants to take as much initiative as Maki does when it comes to keeping the
dorms clean. "No thanks," he says, pulling a face, "I'm happy with just sticking to my own
chores."
Maki grins right back at him, and Jo has to be the one to gently steer them back into the right
direction. "The members who left?" He prompts.

"Oh," Yuma says. He counts off his fingers as he goes. "Everyone who went to the company
was... K, Euijoo, Fuma, Nicholas and Taki. Harua went for a walk this morning, so he's not
here either. It's just us three in the house at the moment. Plus the rabbit."

Maki nods slowly. His eyes have travelled back to Harua-rabbit, but his mind is clearly
elsewhere.

"Harua's shoes are still here," Jo says.

"What?"

"Harua's shoes," Jo twists to point in the direction of the doorway, where their shoes are all
nicely lined up on shelves, "They're still there."

It's not like Harua only owns one pair of shoes. He owns quite a few, but due to the lack of
space in the hallway, most are stored in boxes under the bed until he decides to wear them.
The only ones left on the shelf are his slippers and the shoes he usually wears when he's
walking.

They're not in as good condition as the others, courtesy of a few too many rainy days. As an
idol, he can't exactly be seen on public outings wearing muddy shoes, so it's easier to keep
one pair for when he's not going to see anyone - instead of having to maintain a couple of
pairs that need to be clean.

Yuma also turns to look. He frowns. "That's odd. I mean, I didn't actually see him go for a
walk. I just heard Nicholas saying he must have left."

"I thought you got up early today?"

Yuma's frown deepens. "I did."

The three of them exchange glances. Harua can't tell exactly what's going on in their minds,
but they look from the shoes to Harua's room multiple times. Yuma looks down at Harua-
rabbit and swallows heavily, whilst Jo's wearing the same expression he'd been when he'd
seen Harua on the bed.

There's a strange tension in the room. If they're thinking along the same lines, then no one's
willing to say it. It's an insane suggestion to make. Harua can only hope that his pleading
eyes make some sort of connection with someone.

In the end, it's Maki who cracks under the pressure first. He makes eye-contact with Yuma
and Jo one last time, before turning to stare at Harua one last time.

"This may sound crazy," he says, slowly - as if that's going to make it sound any more like a
reasonable suggestion. Like he isn't about to start talking to a rabbit. "But... Harua... is that
you?"
Chapter End Notes

don't think too much about the accuracy of their dorms here. i looked for info for about
0.5 seconds and then gave up

feel free to take bets on whether this is going to stay as 3 chapters or whether it's going
to spiral into more. every time i try to write the teamies my brain starts to work in
overdrive
 Chapter 2

The fact that Maki wasn't immediately laughed out of the room is a pretty good indicator of
how freaked-out everyone was.

They'd started by asking Harua to thump his leg every time they asked a question: once for
no, twice for yes, and inevitably three for 'I refuse to answer that'. It had worked for a while,
but eventually the scepticism had won out.

"It could be a coincidence," Yuma had argued, "Rabbits move their legs all the time! It could
just be getting comfortable on the table, that's not proof at all!"

Harua had tried to protest that. There was no way a rabbit would be answering the questions
like he was - perfectly timed, information that only he'd know - but it wasn't like he could do
anything more than stare at them and thump his leg another time.

Eventually, Jo had gone and laid down half a sheet of paper on each end of the table. They'd
all watched as he'd written 'yes' and 'no' in neat print, sitting back and declaring that there was
no way a rabbit would be able to fake an answer like that.

He had a point, and Yuma had no choice but to agree even as he folded his arms. Maki hadn't
looked away the whole time. His eyes were trained on Harua with such intent that his gaze
felt like it was burning a hole into his side. He was used to being watched like this through
the cameras, but this wasn't a camera. It was Maki.

That's how they ended up in their current position.

Jo still gripping onto the pen he'd used to write on the paper, twisting it between his fingers
nervously. Yuma's eyes huge in a conflicting mixture of doubt and impossible confusion.
Maki looking like he was still reeling from his 'Harua Rabbit' suggestion not being
immediately shot down, unable to tear his eyes away from the table.

And Harua.

It's only been about half an hour since he'd woken up. He's not a fan of the way that he's
being stared at, like he has an explanation for this. It's all he can do to try and prove to them
that he is still Harua - the discoveries about his newly-changed body are being pushed to the
side in favour of acting as human-like as possible.

He tries to stay still, but it's impressively difficult. There are interesting sounds that he's sure
he hadn't been able to hear before, and his ears move without him having any control over
them. Jo had pointed it out, not as something out-of-character but instead 'is it normal for
rabbits to move their ears like that?', and now it's all he can think about.

Do rabbits move their ears like that? The twitching seems to be instinct - his whole body is
now so much smaller and also convinced that everything large is a predator out to get him -
and he's self-conscious about the way his whole body is quivering. It must be natural, but
he'd never looked at a rabbit long enough to notice.

He's also certain that he can smell almost everything . The scent of some bitter health
medication clings to Yuma's skin, and there's melted plastic in the direction of the kitchen.
Yudai's perfume drifts through the hallway even though it's been a while since he left. There's
soap on their hands and shampoo in their hair.

It's almost overwhelming. Harua's sure that in his normal body, this much sensory input
would feel like one of their filming sets on a bad day. He doesn't know why his rabbit body is
processing all the information as if he's used to it, but he's incredibly thankful that's the case.

In front of him, Yuma makes eye contact. "Okay," he says, "Rabbits can't read. Are you
Harua?"

Harua looks back at him for a second. He hopes that it conveys the exact emotion he's feeling
right now: exasperation that just thumping his legs hadn't been enough. Hopping from one
end of the table to the other isn't exactly convenient. The table may be relatively low, but it's
still some distance from here to the floor. He's been trying to stay away from the edge as
much as possible.

Before they can claim this means he hasn't moved, Harua starts to turn around. He makes his
way to the 'YES' piece of paper, slowly enough that his steps seem deliberate. He doesn't look
at them again until he places one hand onto the sheet, and then he turns his head to stare
again.

"Maybe that doesn't mean anything," Yuma protests weakly, as Jo looks impressed. "He's not
all the way on the paper, that's not what we asked for!"

Harua hops so he's fully on the paper. Yuma's words die in his throat, and he swallows
audibly.

"Harua," Jo says. He looks like he'd accepted it even before the paper-test. No questions
about how this was real, just earnest belief in the strange situation that had presented itself in
front of him. "Wow. You're really a rabbit. That's-"

"Impossible?" Yuma cuts him off. Harua rolls his eyes and starts making his way over to the
'NO' sheet.

It clearly isn't impossible. Yesterday, Harua might have claimed the same thing. But then he'd
woken up as a rabbit, and his definition of what was impossible had had to change pretty
quickly in order to keep up with reality.

Maki hasn't spoken for a while. He still hasn't looked away from Harua. His teeth are
worrying his bottom lip, and he's frowning, "This isn't good," he says eventually. "We're
missing the big question here. How did this-" he gestures to Harua, "- happen?"

That's exactly what Harua has been trying to figure out!

Trust Maki to have his back. Jo just thinks this is cool, and Yuma is too busy trying to
disprove reality. Neither of them have asked what's really important: why Harua's turned into
a rabbit, and how.

"Do you know?" Jo says, turning to look at Harua.

He's already standing at the 'NO' side of the table, so he thumps his leg on the paper in
acknowledgement. Then he shakes his head mutely, and if they'd had any remaining doubts
about whether the rabbit was secretly a person or not, the sheer oddness of the human-like
movement is enough to dispel them.

Yuma frowns. "Are you sure?" He asks, "There's got to be something . People don't just turn
into rabbits for no reason."

They're all looking at him expectantly. Harua has no idea what they're expecting him to tell
them, though. He can't remember anything odd that he'd done - not yesterday, not last week.
They've been so busy with the comeback that he's hardly had time to do anything outside of
normal.

Unless the recording studio he'd used has become cursed, he can't even think of anywhere
he's been alone. Outside of that, it's been non-stop dance practice and photoshoots. Styling
sessions where they pull at his hair, and hours in front of a mirror as the make-up artists fix
every blemish on his skin.

None of it stands out. Nothing is out of the ordinary.

He goes to thump his leg again, but he's almost immediately interrupted. Something about it
is more frustrating than he realised it would be. His throat is dry, but that's not enough of a
reminder that he can no longer talk for his brain to catch up. He keeps trying to speak, only
for nothing to come out.

It makes him feel like he's falling. The moment right before he's brought back to reality hits
like the plunging of the bungee-rope.

Harua hates it. He doesn't want to get used to it, because that means accepting the fact that
he's no longer human. But he's not sure if the painful slingshot of being reminded is worse.

"You didn't... go stand in a circle of mushrooms?" Yuma asks, "Get on the wrong side of an
old lady? Have you seen any straw-dolls that use your hair?"

"You're making it sound like a fairytale," Jo hums.

Harua doesn't think he's been cursed. That's one step too far in the direction of fantasy. If
curses had any effect on idols, then he was certain the whole industry would be turning into
animals left, right and centre.

Jo had spoken so sincerely that both Yuma and Maki looked at him, and then couldn't help
their laughter. There had been a slight tension building, but it disappears the moment that
Maki starts to laugh. The situation is ridiculous.
Harua isn't sure how to feel. He's not laughing alongside them, but that's because his new
body doesn't allow him to. Some part of his mind tells him that he should be offended -
they're laughing instead of helping out, they're making fun of him. But it's drowned out by
the part of him that's relieved his group members are happy. He doesn't like to see them
worried - especially not over him - so this is an appreciated alternative.

"Maybe that's how to get him back," Maki suggests, joking, "Like the frog prince. A kiss
from Harua's true love!"

He's going to be stuck like this forever if that's the case! Kissing someone is very much not in
his plans for the near future. Sure, he might like watching romance dramas, but the thought of
actually kissing someone and being kissed is different. And how's he ever supposed to find
someone willing to kiss a rabbit?

Outside of the members, no one can ever find out that this has happened. Which immediately
limits the number of people he can kiss down to eight, and he doesn't want to kiss the
members anyway!

Not even-

Harua stops his thoughts from going any further. He's familiar with the route that they want
to take. It's the same confusion he's been trying to ignore for a couple of months now -
something he knows he needs to come to terms with, but there's never enough time.

It never seems right. It leaves him with a sour taste in his mouth and a twist in his stomach.
It's the temptation that leads his fingers hovering over the search engine search bar, always
pulling away before he can type anything in.

It's the way that his eyes linger before he rips them away. It's the way that his chest gets
tighter and his thoughts wander.

It's never the right time. There's never enough time. The comeback is a welcome distraction if
he's being completely honest with himself, but that would also mean admitting that he's
putting it off.

The fact that it's Maki talking about kissing doesn't help. It should be illegal for him to say
things like that - it's hard enough for Harua to ignore the flirting they all do with their fans,
and without the depersonalisation of a camera filming them, it's much harder to ignore. Maki
is just making a joke, but - there Harua's thoughts go again.

He's missed part of the conversation. Tuning back in, they've moved on from laughing. The
smiles haven't completely disappeared, but Harua guesses that it's easier to ignore the panic
of the situation when they're not the ones at the heart of it. He prefers this to the alternative,
though. Not when there's nothing that they actually can do. Distantly, he thinks of how Taki is
going to react. Or Euijoo. Or K.

At least Fuma will probably find it funny. And maybe Nicholas as well.

"Harua," Maki says, "Are you sure you didn't do anything different yesterday?"
If he had any idea about what had caused this, he would have found a way to tell them by
now. Harua might not have been able to hold a pen like this, but maybe hitting his paws
against a phone screen would have more luck.

He shakes his head, momentarily forgetting that he's supposed to be using the pieces of paper.
It seems like the others have forgotten as well.

"You weren't a rabbit before you fell asleep, right?"

It's Jo speaking up, and it's a good question - one that Harua hasn't even considered before.
He freezes in place. The eyes watching him don't seem to blink.

He was human last night. Wasn't he? It takes him a moment to think back to before he'd
fallen asleep. Despite his body taking a completely different form, it had taken him
embarrassingly long this morning to place the change. The thought that he'd changed earlier
than he'd thought crosses his mind, but he quickly discards it.

He'd been looking at his phone. Rabbits don't have hands, and he distinctly remembers lying
on his side staring at the screen, scrolling in the dark. He can remember the brightness of the
light hurting his eyes. He'd been looking at some of the concept photos being released soon.
Then he'd gotten too tired and put it down, falling asleep almost immediately after.

"I think we all know Harua's routine," Maki says, "You were on your phone, right?"

Harua signals yes.

"So you must have been human."

He signals yes again.

Maki sits back, obviously disappointed that the line of questioning hasn't turned up anything.
Aside from confirming that Harua really has turned into a rabbit, they haven't gotten closer to
finding out anything else.

"Did you click on any suspicious links?" Yuma asks. "Sorry. This whole thing is impossible
anyway. How do we know that it's not only going to last twenty four hours? Maybe Harua
just needs to go to sleep, and then he'll wake up human again?"

Maybe. Part of Harua's mind tells him that it's not going to work. But the rest of him latches
onto the thought. He's trying not to think about the future, and staking his hopes on an
arbitrary deadline seems like a preferable suggestion. The alternative is coming to terms with
the change. He's not sure he's ready for that.

Jo seems to recognise the expression on his face, or maybe he's thinking about how he'd feel
in the same situation. "Don't worry," he tells Harua softly, as Yuma and Maki start to
brainstorm more ideas for how to turn him back, "We'll get you back eventually."

Harua signals yes again. He's not thinking about what will happen if they can't figure
anything out. Twenty four hours - that's what Yuma said, and so that's what Harua is going to
believe. He can make it through twenty four hours.
Jo reaches out. He's not usually one for initiating skin-contact, but maybe the way Harua's
nose twitches betrays how overwhelmed he is. He pats the top of Harua's head, and the
feeling is nice. He shuffles forwards without even realising, chasing the sensation until Jo can
reach the whole way down his back as well.

It's an odd feeling to convey into how he'd feel as a human. But twenty four hours and he's
back, so he doesn't have to worry about that.

Selfishly, the very back of his mind whispers to him. It wishes it was Maki instead. Maki,
who's still talking like Harua isn't even in the room, who'd looked nervous but has now
forgotten all about him. Yuma is there as well, of course, but Harua knows he doesn't feel the
same annoyance towards him. Even though he's doing exactly the same thing as Maki.

It's not the same. Maki is Harua's best friend. That's why he's feeling this way - it would be
odd if he wasn't wanting Maki to show a little more concern.

That has to be it.

"It'll be okay," Jo says, and Harua ignores how awkward his attempts at being comforted are.
He focuses on the feeling of his fingers in his fur instead, and pretends that it's loud enough
to drown everything else in his mind out.

-------

The Problem: Harua is a rabbit.

A very small animal in a very not animal-safe dorm. He can't do much by himself, but that's
both a problem and a relief at the same time. He can't get himself more water if he needs it,
he can't use a phone to contact the others if he needs help (although he's discovered that he is
able to use the television remote) - and if management comes round unexpectedly, then-

Well. It doesn't matter whether they believe he's been turned into a rabbit or not. Either way,
it isn't going to end well.

The Problem (part two): They're still preparing for a comeback.

Even if Harua is not temporarily on a break, the other members are as busy as ever. They still
have dance practices and vocal training and language lessons to attend. There are places to
be, and those places won't look kindly on an animal being brought along to whatever session
they've been scheduled in for.

The Solution: Babysitting.

One person stays behind from their schedules. They've already told management that Harua
is ill (nothing more serious than a stomach bug, but enough that it doesn't seem suspicious
when he doesn't want to come out of his bedroom), and it's easy enough to say that a different
member is also feeling a little ill.

Or worried they're going to throw up, so it isn't worth going to the extra fitting session. Or
sleeping in through the morning. Or going through their vocal exercises in the dorm. Or -
whatever other excuses they can come up with.

It's a good plan. There are enough of them that they can rotate through the person staying
behind without it getting in the way of the comeback preparations. They get breaks between
schedules anyway, and this just means that everything's a little more planned out than it
would be usually.

Except Harua... isn't sure he's a fan of this solution. Even if he tells himself they're planning
way too far ahead (this whole thing is only going to last for 24 hours, after all), he doesn't
like the idea that he has to be babysat.

Even if his body is that of an animal, his mind is still human. He can still think. He can still
understand, even if he's not able to speak. It's the same annoyance that comes with being told
his 'visuals are too cute' to do a cool concept properly. He's an expert in swallowing down the
indignation.

There's still a bitter taste in his mouth when the first swap-over comes along.

Yuma, Jo and Maki had explained the situation to the members that hadn't been at the dorms.
It had taken a bit of persuasion for them to take it seriously - Harua couldn't blame them, he'd
have assumed it was a hidden camera prank as well - but even that hadn't taken long. They'd
just had to pan the camera over to Harua. Going as far as to buy an actual rabbit for a prank
hadn't been likely, so excuses had been made to management and they'd come back as soon
as they could.

Or- so Harua had assumed.

When the door unlocks, only Nicholas steps through. He pulls off the mask he'd had over his
face and slides his shoes onto the shelves. He's still wearing his coat when he rounds the
corner to look into the living room.

"Nico!" Maki says, standing up. They'd moved to the floor at some point, letting Harua down
from the table and finally able to move without worrying he was going to fall. "You're back!"

The world seems different from so low to the ground. The ceiling is impossibly far away, and
even the couch seems high up. He'd usually cross the room in only a few seconds, but now it
takes him at least a minute to get from one end to the other.

Hopping comes both naturally and not. When he isn't thinking about it, Harua finds that his
legs move on their own. He flinches away whenever someone tries to stroke him, but only
because hands coming from the sky send his heart rate rocketing upwards. His body is
constantly twitching.
But when he's aware that he's trying to move, it's like his brain can't keep up. His legs don't
bend when he tries to take a step forward. His arms are too short and he almost instinctively
tries to stand up. There's a complete lack of coordination, because a rabbit doesn't move like a
human does, and part of his mind keeps forgetting that.

"I'm back," Nicholas says. His eyes scan the room and land on Harua. In the background, Jo
and Yuma both get to their feet and squeeze past him to reach the hallway. All four of them
had been supposed to leave for the company an hour ago. Harua can hear them pulling on
their shoes. "Is this-"

Harua can't help but look away. It's... a strange feeling to have Nicholas looking at him like
this. He hadn't had a choice when he'd been found by Jo and Maki. Even if Nicholas already
knows about the situation, Harua still feels like it could have been kept a secret. He feels too
exposed. He doesn't like the mixture of pity and guilty awe.

Except Nicholas isn't looking at him like that.

"You really are a rabbit!" Nicholas says. Even just the fact that he's speaking to Harua feels
different. Nicholas turns to Maki when Harua doesn't move, "He can hear me, right?"

Maki nods. "Oh, yeah," he points to the pieces of paper now abandoned on the table, "We
were using these originally, but if you pay attention, you can see whether he's nodding or
shaking his head."

Maybe Harua's imagining it, but Maki looks a little guilty at Nicholas talking to Harua. Or
maybe he's just imagining what he wants to see in his expression.

They make eye contact. Maki notices Harua watching him, and looks away. He starts walking
forward without another word, and makes it almost all the way to Nicholas before coming to
a stop.

"Hey," he says, "You can go put your stuff down. I'll stay here for a few minutes - I can say
bye to Harua as well. Since, y'know, he can't come with us."

"I don't think he's missing much," Nicholas says, raising an eyebrow at Maki. There's
probably more he could question, but it's been such a strange day already. In the end, he looks
to Harua and then back to Maki again, then nods. Harua can hear him join the others in the
corridor, but he can't concentrate on the low voices of their conversation.

Maki has turned back to look at him.

There's a distance between them. It's just the length of the living room, but it seems to stretch
on for miles. Harua jumps forwards to get a little closer, so he can see Maki a little better.
Maki stares at him, then crumbles.

He walks back across the room. When he gets to Harua, he drops to his knees and tilts his
back down. Even like this they're not eye-to-eye. Harua is still looking up at him. Maki is still
looking down. But they're close enough that Harua can see his own, strange reflection in
Maki's eyes.
"I'm sorry," Maki says. "It was strange to see you like this. It's strange to think of you like
this, but I shouldn't have looked away just then."

Harua wishes he could reply. He wishes he could tell Maki that it's okay. That he's not sure he
wants Maki to see him like this, and that he just wishes Maki would tell him that it doesn't
mean anything. That he'd grin at him like normal.

But Maki can't lie like that.

He can't read Harua's mind either. He sits up and Harua already misses the closeness between
them, because Maki would normally put his arm around him and pull him closer.

"We'll get you back to normal," Maki tells him, and he's smiling again. Nicholas appears in
the doorway behind him, but Maki is already getting to his feet. "I promise," he says, and he
sounds determined.

Nicholas steps to the side to let him past. If he caught any of what Maki said, he doesn't
comment on it, even if he does raise his eyebrows again and send a pointed look towards
Harua.

Harua watches him go. He doesn't move until he hears Yuma, Jo and Maki shout their
goodbyes, with the door closing behind them.

The room seems oddly silent when they're gone. It's just him and Nicholas. Everyone else is
practising - like Harua should be, but instead he's here, wondering how all of this happened.
He can't even do anything but twitch his nose.

"Well," Nicholas says, turning to Harua. There's a curve to his lips that looks perfectly in
place. A smile that seems odd considering everything else that's happened, but it's achingly
familiar and that matters a whole lot more. "I'm not going to sit around and do nothing with
my free afternoon. Do you think they let rabbits into shops?"
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