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Johnny meets Kun for the first time at a high council meeting to discuss the ramifications of Twilight, the series, on vampire society. 

Well, technically they didn’t meet. At least not formally. Or they did, but not very conventionally. 

They were introduced.

It was more like Kun was introduced and Johnny was introduced separately and the meeting started and then Johnny spent three hours staring at Kun across the table. 

Introduced.

Johnny had known about Kun for a while, heard stories about him through the grapevine of a friend of a friend of a friend, but finally seeing him in person, and at a formal event of all things. 

One can understand where he’s coming from here.

Qian Kun, Vampire comma Hunter, had amassed quite the reputation since then. He was most well known for his skills in taking down volition covens and rogue vamps, but he had also developed a niche for a certain type of... extermination.

Which is, sadly, exactly how Johnny ended up in this situation.

The hindsight is, of course, 20-20. Johnny should have known his eight-step plan to get Kun, Vampire comma Hunter, to fall in love with him would be a disaster.

The first flaw was trusting Chenle to do anything. This is something that both Chenle and the rest of his coven house vehemently deny. Truly, the first flaw was coming up with an eight-step plan, to begin with.

The second flaw was thinking the best way to seduce Kun was by bringing him into Johnny’s home. 

To his credit, this part had made sense when he’d explained it: if Johnny was comfortable with his surroundings then his uncomfortableness around Kun would be canceled out.

That is not, in fact, how that works.

It just gets worse from there. 

But despite any and all flaws, Johnny had gone on with his plan and set it into action, a very tragic nosedive into their current predicament.

To put it frankly: Johnny’s house was infested with rats. 

The long version of the story goes more like this: way back in the early 14th century, a few very obnoxious and very edgy vampires had decided it was a good idea to turn a couple of rats to see if vampirism could beat the Black Death. It could, in a way. The rats lived but tragically, so did the plague. However, due to a lack of Vampiric High Council, nothing was done about it, and plague-infested vampire rats slowly spread across the globe. 

Johnny’s story picks up quite a few centuries later when he decides this is the best way to get Kun, Vampire comma Hunter, into his home.

Discussion of these vampire rats had become taboo within the community. Very rarely were they brought up at High Council meetings, or even Medium, or Low Council meetings. As far as Johnny was aware, there was no real consensus on what was supposed to be done about them besides just “control the population”, whatever that means. Before the previous High Council chair had stepped down, he hadn’t formally defined the term and, well, no one else thought to. In recent years, this has developed two, very different, meanings: Vampire comma Hunters like Kun, and a black market of vampiric plague rats.

For once, the High Council’s lack of clarification worked to Johnny’s advantage.

All it took was $20 and sending Chenle to a sketchy pickup location to acquire not one, but two immortal rats. 

Easy, simple.

One problem.

“Chenle, why are these rats the size of a small dog?” 

The Childe looks up and shrugs. 

“You didn’t think to, I don’t know, ask?” Johnny sighs. The rats are lumbering around the living room like a fat opossum. It is absurd.

“There was no one to ask!” Chenle exclaims. “Just a box in the middle of the alley! I did not want to stick around! You know what they say about the warehouse district!” 

“Fine, fine. I guess we’ll just have to hope everything is fine.” 

Everything was not, in fact, fine.

Turns out when nothing can kill them, rats reproduce faster than before. As Johnny looks out at his formal living room covered in plague-ridden rats he thinks ‘this is what they meant when they said they needed population control.’

“How many rats do you think are down there?” Chenle whispers behind him. 

“At least 150,” Jaehyun whispers back. 

Johnny regrets letting either of them into his home.

“I guess we really will have to call an exterminator,” Jaehyun continues. 

Johnny has half the mind to turn around and scold him for it. Chenle does it for him. 

“He’s not an exterminator, he’s a Hunter,” Chenle supplies. “Very different.”

Jaehyun huffs. “I can’t believe Johnny’s stupid plan worked.”

-

Johnny, being the absolute disaster that he is, does not use the personal number he acquiesced through the very few degrees of separation between them. He still doesn’t know if Doyoung told him he had given Johnny his number and he did not want to risk it. Johnny commits to finding a different solution.

So, he logs on to his website. 

The fact is, Johnny is a vampire. He isn’t ancient like some of the High Council alum, but he is by no means a fledgling. He stands by the sentiment that one should never ask a lady their age, but sitting in front of a computer, he feels old.

It takes him nearly four hours to book the appointment. He does it all by himself, to his credit. Usually, he would have to call Jaehyun and Chenle for something like this, but he did it all on his own. He thinks he’ll treat himself after this.

The downside is that the appointment is for two months from now. Turns out that world-famous, sexy, Vampire comma Hunters have a waitlist and no number of rats in his house can change that.

It takes two weeks for anyone to mention calling in the Vampire comma Hunter. The breaking point is Jaehyun finding a rat in the oven while he’s trying to make a vegetarian lasagna.

“I called this coven meeting to discuss the very obvious situation happening in this house,” Jaehyun says very seriously. “Johnny, did you call Kun?” 

“I made an appointment!” Johnny says confidently. “It’s in uh, six weeks.”

Chenle does his best to hide his laughter but it’s obvious that he fails when Jaehyun glares at him. 

“What?” Johnny asks. “He’s busy!” 

The sigh Jaehyun lets out ages him about fifty years. “Did you call Kun?”

Johnny leans back, appalled. “I made an appointment online! I did it all by myself on the computer!” 

He pretends he doesn’t notice Jaehyun’s growing frustration. Jaehyun does not like that.  

“You have his phone number!” He exclaims in response. He’s exasperated, exhausted. Johnny lets his head fall. 

He mumbles his reply. “But I was nervous...”

Jaehyun sighs and rubs his eyes with his palms. He lets out a big sigh before he talks again:

“The appointment stays, but you’re feeding the rats.”

-

The countdown to the day Kun arrives gets posted on the fridge. Jaehyun spends more time on the top floor of the house to avoid the rodents, meanwhile, Johnny and Chenle revel in the excitement of Qian Kun, Vampire comma Hunter, coming to their coven home.

Feeding the rats was a problem. He started off by giving them the scraps after dinner, but that just led to them hanging around the dining room while they ate. It made Jaehyun squeamish so he started waiting until their youngest had retreated upstairs to feed them.

That plan of action worked for a while until the rats started scaring Jaehyun up the stairs thinking it would get them food. 

Then, he tried feeding them before dinner.

The rats didn’t like this. 

Everything seemed fine. In fact, they seemed to be calmer, more organized. And everything was fine. At least, until the rats started showing up all the way up in the third-floor bathroom.

It was obvious that the rat’s plan for when they weren’t getting what they want was to harass his coven, so Johnny needed to act fast. They were still 4 weeks away from their extermination appointment and if Jaehyun could die he would have from how often he was being startled.

Johnny once again turned to the internet. 

It was easier this time because he didn’t have to figure it out by himself. Not that Chenle was much better, but he was some help. Together, they spent two hours deep diving into pet subreddits and vampire forums.

“I’ve called another coven meeting to discuss the rats.” 

“Jaehyun, why do you keep calling them coven meetings when there's only three of us?” Chenle interrupts. 

Jaehyun sputters, “that’s what they are!” 

“The rats,” Johnny prompts them back on topic. “Jaehyun, the rats.”

“They’re out of control,” he pleads. “Can you please just call him?” 

“I’m working on a solution.” Johnny’s confidence does not deflate Jaehyun’s anguish. “The internet says we should serve them nicer meals.”

“No.” Jaehyun crosses his arms. He shakes his head. “Not happening.”

“Yes!” Johnny affirms. “Chenle read it too!” 

Chenle nodded solemnly. “Yes, that’s true.” 

“I’m not cooking for the rats,” Jaehyun insists. “I am not cooking nice meals for rats.” 

Jaehyun ends up cooking for the rats.

He doesn’t cut corners; he prepares nice meals just for them, leaves them on the living room floor on special plates. He requires Johnny to bring the plates out and back because he’s still afraid of them, in spite of being their chef. He takes to using the back staircase to get to and from the upper floors to avoid the beasts.

Shockingly, it works. 

They leave him alone and start to confine themselves to the lower floor again. 

Jaehyun insists that he hears them scurrying through the walls but he doesn’t see them anymore so the coven considers it a success.

It’s a week before Kun arrives that it happens. 

They’ve fallen into a routine. Jaehyun makes the rats dinner, Johnny brings it out, and everything is fine. 

At least everything is fine until the rats start talking to Johnny.

“Hey big guy, do you think we could get some more squash?” 

Johnny jumps at the sudden voice. He looks around. There’s no one in the room. Another unfamiliar voice enters the fray. 

“Why would you ask that? Big guy when’s your exterminator coming?”

“Is that a ghost?” Johnny asks nervously. He’s looking around but it’s just him and the rats. 

“No, down here.” 

Oh god. He looks down.

“You’re a rat.” Johnny’s voice is shaky. 

“A talking rat, yeah,” the first rat says. 

“I don’t know what you expected, we’re immortal of course we developed language,” the second rat continues. 

With that, Johnny passes out.

When he comes to, it’s to a nibble on his earlobe and a heavy weight on his chest.

“Is he awake yet?” Jaehyun calls from up the stairs. 

“He’s awake!” the rat on his chest responds. That wakes him up for sure.

“Why can you talk?” he asks feverishly.

“Does it really matter?” The rat on his chest hobbles off of him and Johnny scurries to his feet. He supposes it doesn’t really matter. 

“Jaehyun, did you just stand at the top of the stairs while I was passed out covered in rodents of unusual size?”

“What was I supposed to do? Come down there?” Jaehyun yells back. “They hate me!” 

“He has a point,” the first rat reasons. This is not good.

They have another coven meeting. 

For once, Johnny gets to call it. Sadly, he can’t figure out if he’s supposed to invite the rats now.

He compromises and invites the two he’d spoken to. The five of them look silly sitting around the kitchen table. Jaehyun sits as far away as he can; the rats sit on either side of him anyway.

“So they can talk now?” Chenle asks intently. His excitement is worrying. 

“Kun’s coming in 7 days and then this hell will be over. It won’t matter if they can talk then.” The rats move closer to Jaehyun as he talks. He shifts in his seat.

“Well that’s why I called this coven meeting,” Johnny starts. “Can we morally exterminate them if they have sentience?”

A pin drop could be heard.

Jaehyun breaks the silence, “Johnny I will kill you myself.” 

“Not if the rats kill him first!” Chenle chimes in. The rats turn to each other. Jaehyun gets up. 

“What do you mean?” Johnny says anxiously. “Why would they kill me?”

“I mean they were like. Biting you earlier,” Chenle reminds him. 

Johnny looks around in horror.

“We are not arguing about this right now,” Jaehyun says, now standing in the doorway. He looks just about ready to bolt back upstairs. “Kun is the professional, we’ll wait for his professional opinion and I’m sure he’ll say we should exterminate them.”

-

Kun shows up on a Wednesday afternoon, in all of his Vampire comma Hunter glory. Johnny just about kneels over when he knocks on the door. He’s decked out in all black and incredibly sexy.

Johnny, to his credit, is able to explain the situation before Kun and his coven of Vampire comma Hunters enter the home. However, based on their reaction to the living room, he didn’t do a very good job.

“You live like this?” one of Kun’s coven members stage whispers. 

“I mean, I made an appointment,” Johnny shrugs sheepishly. “Your waitlist is really long.” 

“You could have like, called,” another member jumps in.

Johnny blushes. “I didn’t want to assume...” 

If Jaehyun could look through walls he’d be staring right through Johnny right now. Johnny is glad Jaehyun has dedicated himself to never leaving the third floor unless absolutely necessary.

Kun takes one look around and makes a decision. 

He does not deliver the news they want to hear.

“Why didn’t you invite the rats to this coven meeting?” Chenle asks as he walks into the kitchen. Kun and his coven are already sitting around the table. Jaehyun is standing ominously in the corner and Johnny just drops his head into his hands. 

It is silent.

Kun speaks first. 

“Why... would you invite the rats to your coven meetings?”

Chenle scoffs. Before anyone can stop him he replies: “Because they can talk, obviously. They live here, why would we exclude them from coven discussions! Johnny said so!” 

Johnny wishes Jaehyun had killed him when he said he would.

Johnny hangs his head in shame when Kun sends him to go gather the rats. 

Jaehyun has to be physically restrained from running back up to his room but somehow, somehow he is convinced to stay. 

They make a silly bunch, sitting around the table. The two rodents, Johnny and Chenle in their matching sweaters, Jaehyun cowering in the corner, and Kun and his crew decked out in silver and leather like it’s nobody’s business. 

Quite the group.

“I’m going to start this meeting by saying that everything going on here is absolutely unbelievable,” Kun says slowly. If Johnny were any less of a disaster he would see this as a bad thing, but he still hasn’t recovered from being around Kun at all.

“You can say that again,” Rat 1 chimes in. Jaehyun jumps yet somehow the Vampire comma Hunters remain unfazed. 

“Oh wow, they can talk,” one of them says. “Huh.” 

Chenle scoffs. “Did you think I was lying? We take honesty very seriously in this household, we are trying to raise Jaehyun and the rats right!” 

“Please don’t group me and the rats together like that,” Jaehyun groans, head dropping to his hands. “They’re scary.”

A mumble of agreement moves through the room. They are scary.

Kun clears his throat. He continues, “anyways... I think this is so severe we may have to raise it to the High Council for a consult before we continue.” 

“Why!” Jaehyun cries out in distress. “Why can we not just kill the rats?” 

The rats hiss at him. He hisses back. 

“Well that’s why I called a coven meeting,” Kun says. “Can we morally exterminate them if they have sentience?” 

“That’s what I said!” Johnny jumps in excitedly.

Jaehyun moans dramatically. “Perfect. You’re perfect for each other. I’m going back to bed.”

“But we haven’t had dinner yet!” Rat 2 calls after him. The rat watches as he leaves anyway, practically running up the stairs. “Rats... Well, as the rat in question, I think you can and should exterminate us immediately.”

They did not, in fact, exterminate them immediately.

Instead, Johnny showed Kun and the others to the guest rooms and they made plans to bring the matter to the attention of the High Council.

“It’ll be easy to call the meeting,” Kun insists. He must sense Johnny’s hesitance because he doesn’t stop before continuing, “I can use my spot on the Medium Council to elevate the issue.” 

Johnny squeaks, “you’re on the Medium Council?”

Kun squints. “You’re not?”

He is not. He had been on the Low council, way back when it was newly established, but he fell asleep in meetings so often he was politely asked to leave. Johnny pretends it didn’t happen.

The Medium Council only meets on the Third Thursday of the month, so Kun has to borrow their computer in order to email the other council members and elevate Johnny’s issue. 

“How old is this thing?” Kun asks when they show him to the computer room. “Do you ever... use it?”

“Sometimes...” Johnny replies cautiously. “Mainly we make Jaehyun use it, and he has some fancy laptop so it kind of just... sits here.”

Surprisingly, it only takes another week for the High Council to approve Kun’s emergency session. For Johnny, that meant a week of having his crush around the house and flirting almost shamelessly. For Jaehyun, that meant a whole week of an audience watching him feed the rats.

“So you do this... every day?” Ten whispers as they watch the rats eat. 

“Like... twice a day,” Jaehyun squirms. “I uh... I’m gonna...”

“What? Do they make you that uncomfortable?” Lucas asks curiously. “They’re just eating.” 

“There are hundreds of them. They are in my living room. They are trying to kill me. Yes, they make me uncomfortable,” Jaehyun answers. The rats look up. Jaehyun flashes up the stairs.

-

They hold one, final coven meeting before the day they go to the High Council. 

“If they don’t tell you to kill the rats, I swear to God, Johnny, I’m moving out.” Jaehyun has his arms crossed as he steps into the kitchen for the meeting. 

“Jaehyun,” Chenle whines. “You can’t leave us, you’re our baby.”

He retorts, “I will leave before you can say rodents of—”

“Okay...” Kun breaks in, cautiously. “Johnny, do you want to, uh, start?” 

“Oh! Right, yes, of course,” he stutters. “Good news and bad news. Good news, the High Council meeting is tomorrow and they’re catering it!” 

“God, I love catering,” Chenle sighs. Everyone nods in agreement. The council has good catering. 

“And the bad news...” Kun coaxes. 

“Oh yes. The bad news. The bad news is we need to bring the ratpresentatives.”

The room does not erupt into outrage as Johnny had for some reason expected. He is met with agreeable nods and Jaehyun’s resigned understanding. Easier than expected, he thinks. 

At least until he has to explain it to the rats. 

“So we have to make our case as to... why we shouldn’t be exterminated?” Rat 2 asks. “What if I want to be exterminated?” 

“Well,” Johnny contemplates. “Then I guess you can make that point too.” 

“What if I think my reasons why I shouldn’t be exterminated will get me exterminated?” Rat 1 demands aggressively. 

“Uh...” he hesitates. “Well, I guess at your own discretion?” 

That seemed to appease the rats enough for the time being.