Archive of Our Own

It’s an honor to be chosen.

They clad Jongho in green. 

Light green baji, light green jeogori, twii around his waist. It’s not that different from what he usually wears, sans the color he’s never worn, because his mother dyes fabric in different colors to make clothes off. An overcoat is missing and he’s starting to get the feeling that he won’t be wearing shoes but– this is normal.

He can still see his own clothes out of the corner of his eyes, the kind of off white he hadn’t been able to wear on a battlefield but that was par for the course now that he was back home and fitting in with his people. His mother had immediately made a grab for his shoes and given them to his brother. Most likely not wanting anyone else to take them, when they can still be used by her husband and surviving son.

It’s an honor to be chosen.

His father doesn’t come and visit him.

If he is honest with himself, he doesn’t know much about the rites.

There’s an unspoken rule. Not the able-bodied men or the women of marriage age without any children. 

Jongho believes, cannot imagine not believing, because the spirits are everywhere around them, giving the world life and light and yet– Somehow he thought the shaman would have a bit of control. As long as Jongho can remember, in all the stories he has been told, it has always been someone … disposable . An old man. A young girl who hadn’t wanted to marry. A drunkard. Countless more whose sacrifice was promised never to be forgotten, but whom Jongho doesn’t remember.

And now him.

It’s an honor to be chosen.

He rubs his knee absentmindedly and wonders if that’s the reason.

Jongho is young and healthy – mostly. He fought in the war, protecting Silla from Baekje and bringing their people the victory they needed to honor their ancestors and the gods. He left the service honorably, taking a longer route with a brother in arms, unwilling to part and to come back to the life that waited for him at home.

Jongho isn’t sad not to marry Heo Sihyun’s daughter, a girl who he’s seen a few times and has exchanged only a couple of words with under the watchful eyes of their parents.

But he simply thought he would have more time.

His mother kneels before him, retying his jeogori from front to the right. At his confused look, she smoothes the cotton down.

“It’s fashionable to tie it on the right now,” she explains. “A travelling merchant from Hanyang told us all about the newest trends.”

“Ah,” Jongho let’s out. He’s not sure if there is a difference between tying it at the front or tying it at the right, but there are tears in his mother’s eyes. “Thank you, eomanim.”

She sniffs, quietly, hoping not to draw attention to them. Jongho doesn’t know the people making the preparations but he’s thankful that they left him with his mother for the time.

“Ahh, my son,” she says, her hand on his chest. “My beautiful, beautiful son.”

“All thanks to you.”

She slaps him on the chest, just lightly. “What will I do without you?” she whispers and Jongho– Jongho won’t cry.

It’s an honor to be chosen.

He has seen comrades fall by his side, die holding their hand while he told them that the physicians would be with them shortly, buried a gaggle of younger brothers and sisters with his parents who never made it past infancy. Jongho knows death very well. 

He isn’t scared. 

He is just– it’s not.

“It’s an honor to be chosen,” he tells her. “I’ve fought all my life. I am honored to protect my family one more time.” 

He isn’t.

He would have gladly choked on his own blood, lost his head, found himself buried underneath a burning building or any of the other deaths that could have come for him had he fought . But he’s not fighting now. He will just– go.

“Am I not meant to protect you?” she asks. “I’ve brought you into this world and ancestors, it nearly cost me my life and yet– you will leave it before I do?”

Jongho turns his head away. Realises he cannot speak to his mother.

Cannot face her when she starts sobbing, lest he start crying too. He wants to protect her. Her and his brother. Even his father, despite not having seen him all day.

“No-” Someone tugs at her arms and pulls her up.

“Minahssi,” another woman says. “Let him prepare himself alone, you are disturbing his mind.”

“No, no, no, no, please, don’t– I’ll be quiet, please,” his mother begs as they tug her away and out of the room.

Jongho doesn’t say anything and only stares after her. Doesn’t trust his own words.

The shaman turns to him. It’s not the one Jongho grew up with but he guesses that even those who can speak to the gods can die.

“You are ready, Jongho?” he asks and Jongho looks at him. “You haven’t changed your mind?”

Jongho wasn’t asked. His father was informed. His mother wept. His brother looked at him with wide eyes, at Jongho who had still not shaken off the dreams that war brought him, whose unpacked satchel still sat beside the bed he shares with his brother.

Jongho, who wishes he never came home.

“It’s an honor to be chosen, mudangnim.”

*

They leave at the edge of dusk, when the sun has nearly disappeared behind the horizon and Jongho has to squint to see much outside.

The shaman has someone carry torches just to give them a little bit of light. 

They put a cloth over his eyes, not enough that he cannot see anything but enough that no one questions two strong hands around his upper arms, guiding his way forward.

Jongho isn’t a weak man but he isn’t sure if he could shake those off.

The lack of vision means that he isn’t able to see who waits outside the house. He hears his mother's wailing as he is dragged forward. Stepping onto something that might be flowers thrown at his feet. He hears whispers, prayers, thank you s for giving them all a chance to live longer.

And then–

“Adeul,” a voice whispers in his ear. “Adeul, I have tried– I tried– but–” someone rips his father away and Jongho doesn’t know where he goes.

Something like panic settles into him but he forces it down. There is no use for it.

No honor in crying and fighting against them.

He doesn’t want to leave his family with his shame.

So they walk.

Jongho spent his youth in this village, knows the outskirts and forests like the back of his hand but he knows they’re going where no one goes after dark. The deeper parts of the forests, from which hunters do not return, where there are not just evil spirits and demons of the land but which is the home of the deity that protects their village from all of them.

These evils never venture out of the forest even if they could. Even if Jongho can feel their eyes already, despite not having set foot in there yet.

They are all controlled by someone much stronger than them. Something that keeps the forest dark and sets everything in its way ablaze.

Everyone knows that their protector hunts the monsters inside the forest, drawing energy from them to survive and grow stronger. But as twisted as these monsters are, as little can they feed the deity permanently.

Long ago, they tried to take on the monsters themselves, culminating in countless deaths. Then their patron extended their hand over them, pulling the monsters back and allowing their people a chance to live in peace.

And in exchange for the  deity's protection, every decade it demands to be fed properly . 

A human spirit in exchange for protection. 

“Jongho,” the shaman calls out to him and Jongho’s head whips around. “The gods have chosen you to protect us for the next ten years. An honor that will mean your family is cared for in this village until the time of your– their grandchildren’s grandchildren.”

Jongho nods.

“The ancestors will look into your heart and weigh it to make sure that you are capable of protecting us.”

Jongho’s head snaps up.

“Weigh it?” he asks and he assumes the shaman nods. “In what way?”

“Only those of pure heart and just character will be accepted,” the shaman says and there’s something in his voice. Something– Something–

The hands around his arms tighten.

“If you have lived your life in tune with the laws of the land and its people you won’t be found lacking.”

Gods. 

“What if I’m not?”

“You are human. You are acceptable. But our protector can only deliver an honorable death to those who are honorable. To those of– unfit character there can only be pain as you fulfill your duty.”

Gods, he knows , Jongho realises.

He knows.

The shaman must have known before he chose Jongho. Before he chose him as someone disposable because he found out somehow.

Still, he swallows. 

What death is painless, in the end?

“I am ready, then.”

“Good.”

Jongho relaxes a bit but the hands around him stay strong and unyielding. 

He listens carelessly as the shaman calls upon the gods, the spirits and the ancestors, asking for continued good fortune, harvest and many children to work the fields and make the village prosper. 

There are eyes on him. Not just one, but many. Many, many eyes tracking not only his move but most likely also those of the procedure. Hoping for a chance of fresh meat, of food. He’s not sure if he would like to be killed by the monsters or their protector more.

The shaman comes close. That much Jongho can see through the thin cloak and in the shadowy light of the torches. His instrument makes a noise and Jongho is drawn to it immediately.

“It is the blood of Jongho, oldest son of Yejoon and Minah, that we have called forward on this day. Listen– oh great–”

Jongho blinks.

Kind of stops hearing anything.

His throat is warm.

Wet.

It burns.

Something runs down his neck.

He tries to take a breath and finds himself– unable.

Opens his mouth to ask a question but no noise escapes him.

The front of his jeogori is wet.

Pain explodes in his body. He reaches up towards his throat, wavering on his feet and the hands around his arms tighten. 

Tense.

Jongho is thrown back.

He can’t keep himself up on his feet. 

Stumbles.

Falls.

There’s grass underneath his hands. Leaves. Roots. 

Something cracks close by.

A growl.

A thousand eyes.

Jongho’s hands close around the ground. It’s wet. It smells like blood.

“It is the blood of Jongho, oldest son of Yejoon and Lee Minah, that we have called forward on this day,” the shaman repeats and Jongho realises with a sudden notion that his throat has been cut and he’s bleeding out.

So much for their protector being the one to do it.

It’s the last thing he notices.

*

He wakes in a house.

For a second, Jongho thinks he’s dead. Thinks that this is the afterlife and he will have to fall to his knees in front of his ancestors to beg for their forgiveness. 

But then he realises the extreme pain that he is in and he thinks ghosts probably don’t experience pain like this.

His throat feels like– like it has been slit.

He has trouble swallowing. Breathing.

There’s a thick bandage wrapped around his neck and Jongho isn’t sure who could have done that.

When he sits up, there are black spots in front of his eyes and he’s not sure what exactly is going on. His bare feet hit the sandy ground of the house.

“Careful.”

Jongho freezes.

Turns his head. 

It’s dark in the house. And then it’s not. Six candles light at the same time and Jongho doesn’t flinch, doesn’t scramble back but it’s a close call.

There’s a man in the house with him.

He’s a man in the same way that Jongho would call himself an enjoyer of women in that– at first glance he sure seems like one but the longer Jongho looks the more is wrong with him.

There’s something– a crackle, a glint in his eyes, a sharpness in his teeth, the way he moves. A scent, something– burnt.

There’s something so irrevocably otherworldly about this man that Jongho ignores every screaming muscle in his body and slides off the bed, onto the floor and onto his knees, pressing his forehead to the ground.

“Don’t–” the deity starts and then sighs. “Sit up.”

Jongho sits up.

The deity looks at him, a painful look on his face and Jongho doesn’t understand it until he sits up, blood pounding in his head and dark spots dancing in front of his eyes once more and promptly finds himself falling to the side.

“I said careful–” the deity says. “You are deeply hurt.”

There’s a long fingered pale hand on his chest. A stark contrast to the dried blood that has spilled all over Jongho’s clothes. Fingers touching his bare skin, holding him in a way that Jongho imagined to be held by a being from the heavens.

He opens his mouth to apologise for his behaviour, for having the deity touch him, his unworthy skin, sunkissed and naturally dark, just to mark Jongho as the commoner he is. In contrast, the deity's hands are pale and smooth, nothing there that shows he is anything but this .

Jongho believes . Knows with his whole being that gods and monsters walk among them. But he didn’t. He thought he’d die. He thought his soul would be offered and he would move on.

He didn’t think he’d be faced with someone like this.

“Sleep,” the deity says as he lifts Jongho up and back onto the mattress. “Heal.”

It’s not a command and yet it sounds like one. Makes Jongho’s eyes fall close and his mind fall back into a dreamless sleep.

*

He wakes up and nearly feels whole.

For a second he assumes it was all another bad dream. He has had those a lot ever since he returned from the war, since he has seen the horrors that men can inflict upon another for glory and land.

But he is still wearing his dirty jeogori and while there is no bandage wrapped around his throat anymore, there is a dirty one lying quite close to his bed. It’s light inside the house, the kind of dim light that happens during dusk which means that it must have been at least a day since Jongho was offered to the deity.

To give his life in protection of his family.

Was he rejected?

Did the deity find him lacking ?

He’s alone in the room for now. Swings his legs over the side of the bed and waits for something to happen to his vision, his head, his body.

He feels fine for now.

Not even in pain.

It must have been the incredible power of their protector that healed him. Why, he doesn’t know, but it must be for a reason.

He stands up, carefully, bare feet hitting the ground and looks around. It’s a room that he’s in, half as big as the house Jongho shares with his family with a door that is slightly ajar.

There are no weapons, just a bed and washing basin and Jongho swallows. His throat is a bit rough but not painfully so.

When he reaches up with his hands, his skin is slightly raised. Sensitive. A scar. As if his skin had healed fast enough to make him survive.

He creeps through the room, listening for any noise but he can’t hear anything for now. There’s no light coming from the door so he opens it slowly. Jongho isn’t a slight person, isn’t as graceful as some of the dancers he has seen in his life but he knows how to stealth, how to approach someone carefully. To kill them, usually. To get the upper hand.

Not that Jongho should be trying to get the upper hand, he thinks. He was saved. Or– he was supposed to die. He was going to die honorably and help his people. And yet somehow he still lives. What reason does he have to, to defend himself?

When he finds the next room empty as well, he stops.

There’s no one there. The room itself doesn’t even look like anything. There’s a fireplace in the middle to cook and warm themselves, some empty shelves and a corner for sanitary purposes, empty pots and towels.

But it is decidedly empty.

There are no windows and yet the house is slightly lit up by something. There’s a door to his right and it’s slightly ajar but Jongho can’t see any light fall through it.

He moves, slowly, and opens it. Keeps himself behind the door, lest there be someone in front of it but nothing happens.

When Jongho peeks his head around the door, trying to figure out what is outside and where he is, there’s nothing remarkable. Nothing that makes him think he’ll need to protect himself.

So he creeps around the door, unsure if he is allowed or able to leave the house and puts one bare foot over the threshold.

Nothing happens. Jongho stands there, one hand against the frame and waits. Listens.

Birds. Insects. Animals, somewhere. Breaking branches, rustling leaves, everything that is normal for the forest.

There’s a small clearing in front of the house, not much, just enough for it to be built and the forest starts immediately around it.

Jongho steps out, feels the grass and moss under his feet and lets go of the doorframe.

It’s the worst decision he could have made.

The second his hand doesn’t touch it anymore, Jongho feels something– The only way he can describe it as is: cease to exist.

Whirling around, the house is gone. There’s not nothing where it had stood, there is just darkness. Not thick and impenetrable like Jongho might have thought, but quiet. As if it’s too dark for Jongho to see. Yet, when he turns around to the clearing at the front, he can see. Dim light, shining through the crowns of trees.

But when Jongho looks up, there are no tall trees covering the sun. He can see the sky, can see the sun and the bright blue of everything around its yellow light but when he looks around himself everything is dim.

It is no bulgae biting the sun and causing it to darken suddenly, it is simply— dim.

He swallows and squares his shoulders.

Understands that this is not good, that it’s magic, a power he doesn’t understand.

The question is, if he should remain where he is. If the house is gone or if he cannot see it anymore. If there is a way for him to leave.

But then– he understands that he can’t leave. That his family's safety hinges on his sacrifice. He assumes death will come soon. The deity must have been angry that the shaman had killed Jongho, had taken that from him. So death is still within reach, then.

Something rustles at the treeline and Jongho frowns. He squints, tries to see better in the light and then closes his left eye, the one with which he sees worse to make out what it is.

He isn’t stupid. He knows what lurks in the forest and he knows that there’s monsters in there. Jongho cannot go there. Even if he is alive, he knows that this life he is living right now, isn’t his own anymore.

So he walks slowly around the treeline. As far as he can see, before the darkness behind him begins. The shape is like a half moon he realises and doesn’t know if this is a deliberate choice. But then, everything here feels like a deliberate choice, doesn’t it?

Jongho turns around when he hears another rustle.

Sees two ears sticking out of a bush. A rabbit?

For a moment, he considers if he is hungry but– he isn’t. He must not have eaten in one or maybe two days and he has gone longer when necessary, but there is not even emptiness in his belly. There is just nothing.

Maybe, he is dead after all. 

A head sticks out of the bush. White fur and for a moment, Jongho is simply surprised at the unusual coloring. But then the rabbit comes forward, hopping out of the bush and Jongho has one heartbeat to be surprised at its teeth before the rabbit is on him.

How did it get to him so fast? How did it throw him down?

Jongho isn’t sure but one moment he is on his feet, the next he is on the ground.

Something big and massive is holding him down and there’s a hand on him, red hair and then the rabbit is nipping at his neck, giant teeth that weren’t there a second before. Jongho struggles even though he knows he shouldn’t.

Punches the rabbit straight in the face, hears a cry that sounds like a human man and then the hand on his arm is gone. Jongho rolls away, sees something roll away. A human. A rabbit. Everyitme he blinks there’s a different shape but Jongho forces himself to his feet, just as the rabbit regains its footing, red eyes, long arms, sharp teeth, knives in their hands, their feet thumping, their leg twisting about to throw itself at Jongho and Jongho braces himself.

That’s when the whole clearing quietens.

No noise.

No birds, no insects, no rustling.

Jongho’s own heartbeat seems to be the loudest thing in the vicinity.

The rabbit, the man, looks to the side. Jongho tries his best to keep his eyes open so that it doesn’t change shape anymore, but his eyes water immediately.

“Yah,” a voice says. Jongho has heard this voice before. Calm and friendly, but with an edge to it. “What did I say about this one…”

“What?” the rabbit man asks. “Oh, oh no is that it? I thought it was something else.”

“You thought there were two human males with blood on their clothes in this place?” the deity asks and Jongho doesn’t know where to look. The expression on the rabbit man’s face, full of false sincerity and confusion or the raised eyebrow of the deity as he gives the rabbit man a look that Jongho has received from his mother at one point in his life.

“It’s possible,” the rabbit man says. “There were many human males in the forest last week.”

Jongho blinks. Last week ?

“And there are none now,” the deity says and Jongho doesn’t know if the chill going down his spine is because of the implications or because the wind rustles suddenly. 

“So I was hungry,” the rabbit man says. “It’s unfair you’re keeping this one to yourself.”

“You know the rules. Nui told you to stick to them.”

The rabbit man grumbles a bit but his knives disappear in his sleeves, his teeth suddenly become much smaller. He looks at Jongho.

“He looks like he tastes good,” he says and Jongho flinches.

“Mingiyah,” the deity reprimands and the rabbit man rolls his eyes once more.

“Well, then. I will see if I can find something else to feed me.”

“Do that. We will speak soon.”

The rabbit man nods and then Jongho blinks and suddenly the rabbit has jumped past him and disappeared in the bushes again. And Jongho is alone with the deity again, with the protector of his village, the one who has just protected him.

“Thank you, Haneunim,” Jongho says, daring to address the deity but unsure of how to. This deity, their protector, is no king of the gods, no god of the sky but he deserves every bit of adoration that Jongho’s people have for him. He is real and he is so powerful that he can make the forest go quiet, that he can tame a monster and send it away, that only speaks of his might.

Jongho starts to sink to his knees, but the deity is at his side immediately without setting one foot in front of the other.

One hand touches his elbow and Jongho flinches, doesn’t know how to behave when a being from the heaven’s touches him, now that he has all his wits about him.

“Haneunim,” he starts. “I apologise for–” He doesn’t know what he is apologising for. For the deity having to touch him. Jongho has rarely felt a need to question the hierarchy of the world. He knows his place in the world, he knows that he is born a commoner and he will die– he died a commoner but he has seen the nobles run around shouting orders that have never made sense and claim to know better than those of them who had given their blood and life for this country.

Still, Jongho knows how to behave. Knows how to treat those above his station. And yet, he doesn’t know how he should hold himself in front of a deity. If he should sink to his knees and stay there until the being has left his presence if he should apologise profusely for the state of his clothes, of the deity having to touch it.

Jongho isn’t used to not knowing how to behave.

“Are you well?” the deity asks and a hand touches his neck. Jongho flinches.

“I am. Thank you for saving me, Haneunim,” he lowers his eyes to the ground, hoping to convey some kind of respect that will be enough. “Twice. My life is in your hands.”

The deity snorts. “You are not wrong, Jongho,” he draws out each syllable. “Your life indeed belongs to me, does it not?”

Jongho doesn’t flinch at this. Tries his best not to show a reaction at the threat that swings with the words. Instead he dares to peak at the deity out of the corner of his eyes. The deity is tall, with dark hair that falls down his back and front like a young unmarried man. His clothes are– simple. Finer than the ones Jongho died in, surely, well made, grey like the stone and light blue like the sky on a winter morning. Just like Jongho, he isn’t wearing shoes. As he tilts his head to the side, there’s a red glint to his hair and Jongho sees the faintest hint of a smirk on his lips.

He isn’t sure if he should be scared or not.

*

Jongho has never minded being quiet before he went off to war. Growing up in the village, sharing his home with his family, he has known noise all his life. Then, when he went to war and slept in barracks, with the other men on the field, noise became his companion. When they traveled afterwards, the noise became too much sometimes but his brother in arms had also never done well with the quiet that came with looking for places where no one could find them.

Now, Jongho realises that the quiet also bothers him.

He is sitting in front of the house that had appeared once the deity had led them there and he is simply waiting. The deity is in the house, hadn’t invited Jongho inside so he has decided to simply just sit here. Wonders if he should try and remove the stains from his clothing.

His jeogori is ripped where the rabbit man tried to bite or cut him but– his life is in the deity’s hands. Who knows if it won’t be a needless endeavor.

Instead Jongho thinks. Thinks about how to behave, how to speak. Can he ask questions? Will he be allowed to speak at all? How long does the deity intend to keep him? Is his village safe?

When the deity appears in front of the door again, Jongho flinches. Bows.

“None of that,” he says and Jongho slowly rights himself up again. Looks at the ground.

The deity sits down in front of him, the dirt not leaving a single mark on his clothes.

“Jongho, is it?” the deity asks and Jongho nods. “Jonghoyah.”

He flinches. Wants to bow again but in the end just inclines his head. 

“Good, well done.”

Ignores the feeling in his chest.

“Your people have made a mess for me.”

Oh gods. Jongho swallows. “If there is anything I can do, Haneunim, please rest assured I will. My village's safety is worth everything.”

If it means ending his own life so that his family can be safe, Jongho will do it. He doesn’t want to die, he didn’t want to be chosen, but he will do what is necessary.

He dares to look at the deity and the deity looks– contemplative. One hand on his chin, his kind eyes looking at Jongho.

“Your village will be safe, Jonghoyah,” the deity says and Jongho lets out a long breath. “But you are not supposed to be here.”

His relief over the continued safety of his family is nearly enough to make him feel like nothing else matters. But, as it is, what the deity implies does matter.

“I apologise. I–” Can he blame the shaman? Is he at fault for this situation that Jongho is in. “I do not know why the ritual was– done wrong.”

“You do not know?” the deity asks and Jongho shrugs. “And yet, you entered these lands full of guilt and unwillingness.”

The words ring like a bell. Jongho doesn’t know what to say in response. His fingers dig into the soft linen of his bari, his teeth grind.

“I believe someone can want to live and be ready to serve their village, Haneunim,” he says and he knows his tone is insolent and too much. And yet, the deity doesn’t seem angry. Just hums.

“How many years have you seen?” he asks and Jongho tries to remember which year it is.

“Twenty and – three. Or four. I believe.”

“Do you have pup- children?”

“No.”

“A wife?”

“A betrothed.”

“Ah,” the deity makes and Jongho looks at him. Sees something glimmer in his eyes. “That is old for a human male, is it not? I thought most of you married when you have seen twenty summers.”

“That is true,” Jongho agrees and then has to consider how much the deity has seen in Jongho and how much he can give away without being accused of lying. “I have fought for my country, Haneunim. It has kept me away from home for a long time.”

There’s the consideration that other soldiers simply had found wifes along the battlefield, in faraway villages and towns, had fathered countless children, some of which they didn’t claim and some which they did. Jongho could have done the same of course. Had his inclinations been that way.

He wonders then, if deities care. They should, if the shamans are to be believed. They are who their laws are made after, in the end.

“Hm, loyal to the death, then?”

Jongho nods. “And furthermore, I believe.”

A laugh. “Well then. I have been saddled with you, for now. And you may live in this realm until I have decided what to do with you.”

Jongho breathes out. He may live?

Alone. In this house. Faraway from everyone he knows and loves. But he may live.

“Thank you, Haneunim, your generosity doesn’t know any boundaries.”

“Hm,” the deity hums once again. “This won’t be necessary. If you are to be my guest, then you may address me by name.”

He swallows. Inclines his head and doesn’t know if he could call this deity by his name. There are many officers who he would have loved to curse by their name when he had served. But a deity that had saved his life?

“Yunho,” the deity says. “I hope you find your existence here pleasing.”

“Thank you, Yunhonim,” Jongho answers and then he is suddenly alone. With only the house, the clearing and the rustling leaves as his companions.

*

Oh, how wrong he had been.

What he had thought to be a solitude existence within the company with an occasional visit from Yunho has quickly turned into something else entirely.

Jongho tries to keep a routine. There is day and night in the clearing, even if the light never changes much. Still, Jongho rises with the sun and despite the fact that he doesn’t ever grow hungry and that his body still remains the same – what a blessing after hunger-filled winters – he goes through a routine his mother had always been working with, much easier than the one had experienced in the army.

He opens the door and sole window of the house to let some air in, he folds the bed up that he sleeps on, cleans himself with water that seems to appear whenever he needs it and puts his clothes on.

Jongho knows he could fall into darkness easily if he just let himself lie in bed and he cannot do that. Knows that he needs the structure that has been provided for him all his life.

He steps outside and feels what little of the sun he can, he lets his bones and joints crack and walks around the house a couple of times before he settles on the ground inside or outside and thinks– 

Now, Jongho doesn’t like to think too much but there is nothing to be done in the house. No games one could play, no companions, no work to be done. Nothing to read. Jongho can read Hanja well enough to understand commands sent to their troup but he cannot write them properly. Still, maybe he could have read or written something if anything had been present.

Yunho has been around in the way that Jongho has felt his presence but has never had a moment to speak to him, to ask for anything to do. Jongho has always worked. The fields, the market, something. There is a saying that the common man is not made to rest and Jongho is restless.

Or, he is restless most of the time.

Not during what he assumes might be the afternoon of every second day.

He doesn’t flinch anymore when something crawls up his back as he sits and then comes to rest on his shoulder.

Doesn’t swap the rabbit away as it sniffs at his cheek. His teeth haven’t grown again and Jongho does enjoy the break from doing nothing.

The rabbit man – Mingi – always grows bored after some time, always settles in front of him and just stares at him. Sometimes he will ask questions and Jongho will answer.

“What do you do the whole day?” Jongho asks, on the third time that Mingi has come to visit him. He doesn’t know if Mingi is supposed to be here, but Yunho hasn’t pulled him away from Jongho. 

And maybe Mingi has an idea of what Jongho himself could do.

“I hunt,” Mingi answers. “I sleep. I spend time with my–” he stops. Looks at Jongho. “Family?”

“Is that a question, Minginim?” Jongho asks. “Are they your family or not?”

“What is family ? For humans.”

“Your mother or father. Your siblings. Your blood.”

Mingi blinks. “I don’t have those.”

Jongho doesn’t know what Mingi is. A monster. Some terrifying demon that can change shape and rip out his throat if he wants. That Mingi doesn’t have a blood family should be good for Jongho because that means there are less of him in the world.

“Is a family only blood?”

Jongho thinks of his brothers in arms. Of his troup. Thinks of Daehwi, Wooseok and Jungyoung. Thinks of how he would have given his life for every single one of them and yet, they are not considered his family.

So he shakes his head. “Family is a bond,” he says. “Where you protect and care for each other.”

“Then family,” Mingi says and seeing a monster having something like that does something strange to Jongho.

Mingi isn’t human and he could never pass for human but– he seems to have the same wants and needs as one when it comes to companionship. The same wants and needs as Jongho.

“Family is important. Having them around you.”

Mingi tilts his head. “And yet you don’t.”

He looks around to what has become the sole focus point of Jongho’s existence. A house and a clearing.

“Do you miss them? People?”

Jongho shrugs. Isn’t sure if it is alright to admit it, doesn’t want to seem ungrateful. And yet, he nods.

“Well,” Mingi says. “I may not be people but I do know people.”

Jongho doesn’t have a moment to explain to Mingi that he is people before he’s gone, hopped off on his four rabbit legs and Jongho is alone.

No, not alone, he realises and lets Yunho’s presence wash over him, the scent of burning wood filling his nose.

*

“I am not people,” a voice shrieks the next day. Mingi isn’t due for another day and Jongho is surprised to already find someone visiting him again.

And it is indeed Mingi, he notices. White ears turn into red hair as Mingi hops over the bushes and Jongho doesn’t know if he will ever understand how his eyes can see one thing and then another without Mingi ever changing his shape truly.

What he drags with him appears as a young man and Jongho doesn’t notice anything strange about him until he sees the sharp claws digging into Mingi’s skin fur and drawing blood from wounds that immediately heal. The young man drags something behind him and Jongho notices that they’re tails at the same time as he realises he’s looking at a fox.

He scrambles backwards, thinking of anything to use as a weapon so the gumiho doesn’t eat his organs.

“See?” the gumiho points at him and Jongho is ready to fight. He has accepted that he will live out his life as Yunho’s guest, dying whenever the deity decides he will do so, but it will not be at the hands of one of those. “He knows I am not people .”

A gumiho is not people. Not human. But then, neither is Mingi or Yunho and apart from both of their first meetings ending with Jongho covered in blood, he hasn’t been hurt by them. But a fox. No one can trust a fox.

The fox smiles at him, all sharp teeth and hungry eyes.

“Yunho said not to eat him,” Mingi reminds and the fox rolls his eyes. “I just think he’s lonely. Humans get lonely. I have heard.”

“You have heard,” the gumiho spits and creeps closer to Jongho. 

Jongho doesn’t move back, but he gets into something that might be a fighting stance. He has no dreams of being able to kill a gumiho with his bare hands but he refuses to go down fighting. If Yunho decides that his time on this earth is over, he will accept it. But he will not become food.

“Are you?” the gumiho asks, circling Jongho. “Lonely?”

Of course. Jongho has been surrounded by people all his life. Lived cramped together more times than he can count, hasn’t ever had a sleeping space of his own until he was forced to be here. He doesn’t know how to not be around people, even if he doesn’t find it as difficult as one might assume.

“If you are,” the gumiho taunts and something washes over Jongho, something like– need. “You should come with us.”

“Wooyoung,” Mingi says and the gumiho shushes him, uncaring of the rabbit’s words.

“We have many friends, who would love to meet you. Who would find you–” he comes closer and Jongho clenches his fingers into a fist. “delectable.”

His face is so close that Jongho can see the flicker in his eyes, the monstrous glint that betrays him. He leans in, teeth shining and Jongho punches him in the stomach right before he gets to close his teeth around Jongho’s neck. 

The gumiho screams in pain but then he is up faster than Jongho can blink, claws ripping through Jongho’s sleeves, puncturing skin.

“That is enough,” Yunho says, appearing suddenly behind the gumiho. “Did I not tell you to leave the human alone?”

“No one has ever died from being chewed on,” the gumiho interjects and makes another attempt for Jongho’s skin.

He wraps one arm around the gumiho’s middle, pulling him back. He is much taller than the gumiho who struggles against him, ripping his clothes and skin. But Yunho is unaffected and simply throws the gumiho towards Mingi. They stumble into each other, the gumiho cursing and Mingi trying his best to hold him down.

“He is lonely, Yunhoyah,” Mingi says. “Wooyoungie is good company.”

Wooyoungie has his teeth buried into Mingi’s neck and Jongho swallows. 

“Please leave,” Yunho asks them and Mingi shrugs.

“I am sorry,” he addresses Jongho. “Next time Wooyoungie will behave.”

And then they’re alone. Jongho smells a little blood, feels it running down his arm. Yunho looks– annoyed and Jongho doesn’t know if he will have to bear the brunt of his ire or if that is reserved for the monsters who have visited him.

“Come here,” Yunho orders. “Let me see your wounds.”

Jongho follows the order because he does not think there is anything to do but that. He starts rolling up his sleeve before he realises that Wooyoung got him too high. Ends up untying his jeogori and slipping it down his shoulder, pulls the arm out of it with a hiss.

Yunho touches his arm carefully. Draws his palms over the claw marks that litter Jongho’s skin and leaves them scarred and healed.

“Thank you, once again, Yunhonim,” Jongho bows his head. He makes an attempt to dress himself again, but Yunho’s hand is still on his skin. Surprisingly warm, nearly hot to the touch. His thumb rests on another scar, one Jongho has had far longer.

He looks and he sees more.

Jongho is not ashamed of his scars. He fought. He won. He was injured. He kept on going. He will not back down, no matter how dangerous the opponent.

“You have seen a lot of battle for someone your age,” Yunho remarks and Jongho nods.

“My country has been at war for a long time.”

Yunho hums. “All countries are always at war. They come and go, fired by the greed of powerful men.”

He shrugs. He is just a commoner and the interest in who and why they’re fighting isn’t often a big concern when it means that his family is safe and fed.

“Is it true?” Yunho asks. “Are you lonely?”

Jongho does not want to seem ungrateful. He doesn’t want to appear as if he doesn’t appreciate what Yunho has allowed him to do but–

“Yes. I am used to– doing things.”

“Doing things?”

“Working. Fighting. Spending time with my people. Minginim has kept me company sometimes but– There is nothing to do here.”

“Ah,” Yunho makes and tilts his head. Contemplating what Jongho has said and Jongho should be more thankful, shouldn’t ask anything else.

“I will see what I can find to keep you occupied,” he decides. “And I might come visit myself from time to time.”

Jongho remembers the feeling. The scent.

“Do you not do that already?” he dares to ask and Yunho gives him a smile, something that Jongho has not seen like this before.

He does not answer Jongho’s question but then– he doesn’t have to. This is his realm. His home. His life that Jongho carries inside of him.

*

Just like he said, Yunho finds something for Jongho to do.

Weaving baskets is women’s work and had they been in the village, he would have felt offended at the notion of having to do this, but Yunho told him it was necessary. That it was something one of their family had been doing in the past, but that she was happy to pass the work on, to focus on other things.

And Jongho doesn’t mind doing this when none of the villagers can see him. Doing women’s work isn’t so bad when no human men can see you do it, in the end.

He weaves slowly and carefully, finds his hands raw in the evening and yet, whenever Yunho joins him after the day’s work, Yunho heals them with a simple touch.

By the second week his fingertips are callused and a bit scarred and yet, Jongho is happy for the work.

“What do you need them for?” he asks one evening. Yunho is sitting across from him, inspecting the baskets that Jongho has made.

“Carrying supplies,” he explains. “Not all members of my family possess a two legged form with arms.” He says the word family as if it’s a foreign word that he just learnt. And maybe he did from Mingi, who had in the end learnt it from Jongho. “Not all of them prefer it.”

Oh. The other monsters who live in the forest then. Jongho has heard of the horrors but he has never figured out what kind of monsters called the forest their home. He knows some of their names now. Mingi. Wooyoung. The others who Jongho doesn’t want to meet.

Yunho who is stronger than them all and who protected the humans from them.

“They like to travel so they need a way to keep their belongings with them. On their backs–” Yunho points at a basket with shoulder straps he has been struggling with. “Or in their beaks.”

Their beaks. So some of them must be birds. Or dragons. There are many creatures which that could describe, some of them evil, some of them good. He is not willing to find out.

“It is kind of you to get these prepared for them then, Yunhonim,” Jongho says and Yunho shrugs.

“You did complain about being bored, did you not?”

Jongho didn’t complain. He would never. Not to Yunho’s face.

“There are only so many laps a man can do around the house. And I am not risking my luck with the forest.”

“They would not hurt you,” Yunho says. “You are under my protection.”

Jongho thinks of Wooyoung. Thinks of Mingi. Doesn’t mention either.

“But you are right. The forest is not safe for you,” Yunho agrees and Jongho looks at him, surprised. “Your own people might venture into it and find you, think you a gwisin and hurt you.”

“Am I?” Jongho asks. The thought isn’t new to him and he would not be surprised if that was the truth.

“A ghost? Dead?” Yunho asks and Jongho nods. He died. He knows he died. He knows Yunho brought him back from the brink, that he should not be like he is now, walking around, doing things. The fact that he doesn’t seem to need to eat speaks for it. It’s only his legs that make him think he is still alive. Ghosts don’t have legs.

“You are alive. Just– on my terms.” In his realm.

“Might I not be alive outside the forest?” Jongho asks and Yunho frowns. It seems like he doesn’t know the answer to that.

And Jongho himself isn’t willing to find out.

*

Yunho comes around every day. Mingi and Wooyoung every second. Despite the rocky start, Wooyoung turns out to be someone Jongho enjoys spending time with despite– despite being what he is.

He should be scared. Of both of them. Mingi, who he learns is a rabbit always and only changes when he enters the half-moon clearing that is Jongho’s home. Wooyoung, the gumiho who eat men’s livers and hearts, who appear as young maidens or– well whatever the seer finds most pleasing.

Jongho will not question this and he will not speak about it until someone else says it. He wonders if they see Wooyoung differently. If he appears in a form that’s not-human to those who aren’t human.

Both of them insist that Jongho calls them hyung which– Jongho doesn’t always do, mostly when Yunho is around. He doesn’t know how the deity feels about this kind of disrespect.

A month after Jongho first woke, first sacrificed his life for the good of his village, he hears voices he knew before.

He’s sitting in front of the house, trying his best to sew together his own clothes after what they had suffered from. Yunho hasn’t offered to fix them, despite healing Jongho’s skin and Jongho is unwilling to ask for such a small thing.

He has made sure his own clothes were presentable when he served his country and he has seen his mother do this work many times in the past.

So he sits, just in front of his house and he tries his best to smooth out the rips of the clothes, to make it look like he isn’t wearing rags. Still, even with the rips these clothes are finer than anything else he has ever worn.

It’s then that he hears it. A whisper at first, from the rustling leaves in the threes. An animal.

And then.

Adeul?

Jongho looks up. Knows the voice and frowns.

Adeul, my son, are you here?

He knows his mother’s voice as much as he knows that she cannot be here. That she wouldn’t enter the forest. There is another son to take care of and despite her age, he knows that there might yet be more siblings that he will never meet.

But still, despite knowing this, Jongho frowns. Looks up to where the voice comes from. Gets up onto his feet and leaves his jeogori and sewing behind.

With only the thin underlayer and his baji, Jongho doesn’t feel confident to fight whatever it is that may be calling for him.

Adeul, please.

He stops at the bushes. Where the clearing blends into the forest. Where he cannot go.

And there, among the trees he sees something. 

A figure. Black hair, swaying in the wind, a young woman wearing a man’s hanbok and carrying something. A basket, with lines carefully knotted over a soft chest. One like the one Jongho has weaved.

Help your brother, Adeul, can’t you see how he is struggling under the weight?

Jongho blinks. The young– woman doesn’t struggle under the weight. She doesn’t walk straight. Her feet are bare and she jumps onto a log and down, hangs from a branch that she can just reach and laughs. She is dragging something behind her, something that looks like a wedding veil. It’s a strange combination with the baji.

She comes closer to Jongho’s space but she hasn’t noticed him yet. Only when she trips and Jongho takes a step forward, feet touching the leaves in front of him, do her eyes zero in on him.

She tilts her head.

“Jonghoyah, is it now?” she asks and her voice is darker than Jongho assumed it would be. She comes closer and Jongho takes a step back.

Her veil are tails. Another fox. Her teeth are sharp. She is a bit taller than Jongho and Jongho moves further back. He assumes it must be someone else from the family of monsters but– there is no one else around.

As she steps over the branches her figure shifts and Jongho blinks and looks at a young man. The same face and hair, but broad shouldered and without softness to him.

“I am San. I am older, so you may call me hyung.”

“Sanhyung,” Jongho says weakly and tries to bring the two pictures together. He cannot, because the look of San the maiden is already fading from his mind and San the man stands in front of him and slowly brings down the basket he had been carrying. 

“We have found you some entertainment, I believe. Look at it later.”

“Why later?” Jongho asks and San smiles at him, all sharp teeth and handsome features.

Jongho hadn’t thought much of the figure coming towards him through forest but this San, the one who sits down in front of him, broad shouldered and sharp edged, asking him about his life. This one makes something stir in Jongho’s gut.

Oh adeul, his mother’s voice echoes in his ears. Follow your brother so you will never be alone.

Jongho ignores it. He knows something is very very wrong.

*

“I heard you have met San,” Yunho asks him, some time later. Jongho has lost the ability to tell time if he is honest, isn’t always sure how many days have passed, but he still nods. “I hope he behaved himself?”

Again, Jongho nods. San had been perfectly polite. Kind and caring in a way that Jongho assumes an older brother was supposed to be, with a few attempts at clinginess that Jongho managed to dissuade.

He never likes being too close to– people physically, lest they look too closely to Jongho himself.

“He has been nothing but kind.”

“And you did not stop over the threshold,” Yunho says. “Even when you considered it.”

Jongho flinches. Wonders how Yunho could know. But then, didn’t they say. Yunho is connected to the forest in a way that Jongho can never understand, in a way that the gods are connected to the earth. The reason why they pray and devote themselves to them, because only they can feel everything that is around them properly.

Only they know what makes up the world around them.

“I thought– that he might trip,” Jongho explains. “I did not intend to leave this place.”

“Good,” Yunho says. “There might be forces that try to draw you out.”

He nods. He knows what Yunho is referring to and he doesn’t think he has to mention the voice. As someone who is connected to the land he must know about it.

So they sit in silence. Comfortable, the way Jongho likes. He hasn’t sourted through everything that San has given him but he has found a few games, something new to wear that he might keep for when his own clothes fall apart and even a book. He has only opened it quickly and isn’t sure yet, if it might not be too much for him.

“You’ve mended your clothing,” Yunho suddenly remarks and Jongho looks down at his shoulder and sleeve. He thinks they do look alright. You can tell that they had needed stitches and he knows any experienced seamstress would scoff at what he did but for him it’s enough. “You could have told me. Or the others. The one who has given her basket weaving to you, she enjoys mending.”

“I will, next time.”

He doesn’t want to bother Yunho. The deity and his– family of monsters. It’s a strange combination but he assumes there must be a reason for it. Maybe he is keeping them good. Maybe he is making sure that they do not stray from the path that Yunho is guiding them on. There might be many reasons.

And Yunho himself, he seems to be in a mood today. A mood for talking, sharing. Because he turns to Jongho once more and he asks the question that Jongho has been trying to get out of for a long time.

“What do you see, when they step into your home?”

“Who, Yunhonim?” Jongho asks, trying to think of something to say.

“Wooyoungie and Sannie,” Yunho says. “Which form do they take for you?”

Jongho swallows. Doesn’t know what he should answer, what the correct answer should be.

“What they want me to see, I assume?” Gumiho take a shape that pleases you. A shape that draws their victims in. For Jongho that just happens to be the shape of men.

“You call them hyung, I have been told.”

More that he has seen , hasn’t he? Jongho sometimes feels his presence. Smells it. Knows he is never truly alone and yet, does Yunho want him to say it? To admit it? Is this what will – for the second time – be the reason that Jongho’s life ends?

“I do. They told me to.”

“And you see them as such.” It’s not a question. Jongho wonders, not for the first time, if he knows . If Yunho can see into his heart. Can see what is wrong with Jongho.

“I do.”

Yunho hums. Looks at him and there is something in his eyes. Something that makes Jongho afraid.

He hates being afraid. He never wants to be afraid and he thought he’d left this kind of feeling behind him.

“And here I thought human males preferred the form of their females?” Yunho muses and Jongho isn’t sure what his tone says. If he is accusing Jongho or wanting to shame him. If he is simply curious about the ways of men and just wants to know more.

Jongho– doesn’t feel shame for his desires. He is willing to do what is necessary. He would have married any woman his parents deemed appropriate and continued his family's name with her. Marriage has nothing to do with desires and inclinations. Many men took on lovers. One had to be careful of course. Shaming your wife by falling into bed with another woman only hurts her if she finds out. Falling into bed with another man could get complicated if people found out.

“Most of them do. There is naught reason to want someone who cannot help you advance.” Someone to carry on the family line. Children to work the fields. A spouse that would bring money and influence. “I like to make life difficult for myself.”

Yunho laughs. “Is that why they chose you?” Yunho asks. “They like giving me the– disposable ones.”

Jongho swallows. Shrugs. “It might be.” He taps against his leg. “Maybe this as well.” He knows Yunho has noticed his occasional limp. Even with no changing weather in the clearing, he still feels it when the temperature drops too low at night. Feels the pain in his ankle and knee from where he thought he would never walk again.

“Ah, Jonghoyah,” Yunho exclaims. “Is that why they took the kill from me?”

Something icy runs down Jongho’s back.

“Did they think I would not notice if they killed you before me?”

“I do not know,” he simply says. “I thought it to be a punishment for myself. Nothing– that has something to do with you, Yunhonim. Showing that I was not worthy to be killed by you.”

Yunho looks at him. And Jongho, Jongho just looks back. He shouldn’t, now that Yunho knows what Jongho prefers because he cannot look when someone knows but Yunho’s eyes draw him in.

“Would you have fought?” Yunho wonders, a hand suddenly on Jongho’s neck, where the raised tissue of scar meets the rest of his unmarred neck.

“It’s an honor to be chosen,” Jongho repeats the words. “But– humans– we fight to survive.”

“Hm, I know.”

“So– I might have attacked you. Or ran. I apologise for that as well.”

“For something you have not done?”

He laughs, knowing how strange it must sound to Yunho. But Jongho never knows how to behave properly around someone like him. Mostly.

“For taking this from you,” Jongho answers. “I assume you only get to hunt the monsters and demons. I– might have been an easier prey?”

“Monsters and demons?” Yunho asks and tilts his head. His hand is still on Jongho’s neck. Warm and heavy and Jongho– forces himself to breathe.

“The ones you protect us from,” Jongho tells him. “The reason why we sacrifice ourselves to you, Haneunim.”

“Oh.” Yunho laughs. “Of course. That is what I do, isn’t it?”

His hand remains on Jongho’s neck. And Jongho, who hasn’t dared to look at his savior like this before, feels something inside him stir.

*

Jongho isn’t quite sure what kind of power Yunho possesses. He’s a deity of the forest, one with nature. He controls their surroundings and he is powerful enough to drive back the beasts that might otherwise feast on the human population.

He knows that Yunho must be able to see into his heart, into his mind and his core because how else would he be able to weigh the sacrifice’s intentions and decide what to do with them?

But Jongho doesn’t know anything more. Doesn’t know how much Yunho can know about him. If he can feel Jongho’s needs and desires, if he can feel which form Jongho finds pleasing to the eye.

Sometimes it seems as if Yunho looks at him a certain way when Jongho pulls back from the ministrations of his three new monstrous companions with his cheeks flaming and everything else inside him burning. Sometimes Yunho’s hands will linger on Jongho’s skin, too hot to bear and Jongho will do his best to control himself, control his face, his responses.

He doesn’t know if Yunho is waiting for him to slip up and punish him like the shaman had intended to punish him. No, not intended. Jongho did die. The shaman did what he set out to do.

But Jongho is just a man and despite his rigorous feelings that Yunho’s touch doesn’t mean he finds Jongho’s form pleasing. Yunho is, after all, a deity. And Jongho is just a man. Nothing more. Still, despite his firm belief that Yunho must be testing him, toying with him, Jongho thinks.

Jongho imagines.

Jongho dreams.

“Do humans have mating seasons?” Wooyoung asks him, one day. It is just the two of them today and Jongho isn’t sure if that is a good idea. But apart from an occasional nibble on his arms, Wooyoung hasn’t made another attempt at biting him.

“Mating seasons?” Jongho echoes. “Like animals?”

Wooyoung frowns. Crosses his arms and one claw taps against the back of his hands. Jongho wonders if gumiho have mating seasons. They are foxes after all. But then, they’re also spirits.

“No. We do not,” he says. “We simply do it.”

“Just like that?” Wooyoung asks. “Without anything driving you? You could just– mate now?”

Jongho blinks. He’s no stranger to discussions like this, when things had gone quiet on the front they talked about nothing but fucking to pass the time but he’s not quite sure why a being like Wooyoung is terribly interested in it.

“Well, you would have to want to. If you want to make a child you have to get your body ready.” When Wooyoung opens his mouth, Jongho immediately raises his hands. “I will not show you how that works for humans.”

Wooyoung pouts and Jongho crosses his arms. “You are– you look human right now,” He motions at Wooyoung’s form. “You have a–” Waves at Wooyoung’s crotch. Does a gumiho call it a cock as well, or is it something else?

“Oh. Yes, I do.”

“And you know how to use it, I presume.” Jongho does not want to presume. 

Jongho has been alone for too long to want to presume anything about his new companion’s bodies, wants and needs.

“But I cannot make a cub anytime I want to. No wonder you humans spread so much.”

“We do not fuck just to make cu- children,” he insists and then realises that he should not have said it like that. “I mean– We just– we also do it to pass time.”

“Pass time.”

“Because it feels good.” At least it had always felt good for Jongho. He has been with women and men. Women, girls, before he went off to war because had been expected to be interested and then with men when he had the choice. Jongho has taken on both an active and inactive role in these encounters and he has enjoyed both of them. “Do you– do you not do it because it feels good?”

“Of course,” Wooyoung insists. “I mount my mate all the time. Whenever he asks for it and sometimes when he does not.”

Jongho blinks. Wooyoung keeps talking, ignoring Jongho’s shocked silence at Wooyoung’s words. His mate. When he asks for it. Jongho doesn’t know much about gumihos apart from their taste for human organs but– he was not aware that they mated with their own sex. He thought– they are beasts. Monstrosities. Animals. He thought they’d be driven by instinct and nature and would that not dictate that they’d mate with someone who could give them offspring? Or is it their twisted nature that makes them this way? Are they just as twisted as Jongho himself?

“I will have to introduce you,” Wooyoung decides. “He is prickly, but he is mine and he leads us well.”

He– Jongho hadn’t listened.

“Wait. What did you say?”

“I said he is prickly.”

“No I meant–”

“Oh-” Wooyoung smiles. “He leads us well. I did not expect that when I first met him because he is so small but he commands everything.”

Jongho first thinks Wooyoung is talking about Yunho. Yunho– Yunho is the protector, the deity who keeps everything under control, is he not? But Wooyoung talked about someone small and Yunho is everything but small. Jongho has met Yunho so there is no need to introduce him.

“He is strong, then?” Jongho asks and Wooyoung laughs.

“Not really. But– he keeps control.”

Oh- So Yunho is still stronger, then? But this being- this monster– Jongho doesn’t understand and he doesn’t get a chance to question, because Wooyoung is already talking again.

Jongho looks to the forest. He wonders, just for a moment, what else is out there, which other things he doesn’t know about yet.

*

Jongho is cleaning himself when Yunho next appears. He feels him appear in the house as Jongho washes his skin. Despite not getting dirty that easily anymore, Jongho still enjoys the feeling of water running down his skin.

He is shirtless when Yunho appears and knows he should scuttle to make himself presentable, knows he should make sure to look put together. Maybe this is what happens when you spend too much time in the presence of monsters and gods. You lose respect. You only nod and keep doing what you were doing, even when you feel a gaze on your skin.

Jongho pats his skin dry before he reaches for his undermost layer. It’s right next to Yunho’s feet and when Jongho holds it up, they look at each other.

Once again, Yunho looks at Jongho. This time, at his naked skin. His eyes remain at certain places before they move on and Jongho knows it is where his scars are.

When fingers touch the one on his side, he doesn’t flinch. Maybe too used to Yunho’s touch by now.

“Your body is strong.”

Jongho nods.

“That is good.”

He agrees. His body has seldom failed him and never on its own terms. When a wagon had shattered his leg and he spent a year on crutches, desperately trying to be useful enough– Even then his body had done its best to move him forward. To get him back on his feet. He’s weathered hunger, storms, weapons and sickness. And now the occasional teeth of Yunho’s family.

“Does your own form look pleasing to you?” Yunho asks him, curious. His fingernails follow the scars.

“I have never thought of it that way,” Jongho admits. His own body does not need to look pleasing to him. He has never thought to consider himself ugly or handsome because it has never been a thing that was important. “It does what it is supposed to do.”

Yunho huffs. His thumb digs into Jongho’s bellybutton and he seems intrigued by it. Do deities have bellybuttons? Jongho isn’t sure and he doesn’t know how to ask.

“ What it is supposed to do ,” Yunho echoes. “Well it does distract my family, is what it does.”

Jongho blinks. Looks up to look at Yunho’s eyes. There’s nothing malicious in there, just simple curiosity.

“I apologise, Haneunim,” Jongho says, dropping Yunho’s name to show how much he means it. “I assume they are hungry and I thank you for your continued protection.”

Yunho laughs. “Hungry.” He hums. His fingers drive through the hair under Jongho’s bellybutton and he hadn’t tied his baji tight enough, they don’t sit as high as they should and Jongho– is just a man and it has been so long.

“Haneunim-”

Yunho tsksks. “Yunho.”

“Yunhonim, I–” This is a deity in front of him. Touching him with his bare hands and Jongho’s traitorous body responds. Of course it does. 

“Is this form pleasing to you?” Yunho motions at himself with one hand and Jongho–

“I would not dare–”

“Dare.” It’s a command. And Yunho holds Jongho’s life in his hands, commands him to tell the truth so what can Jongho but tell it?

“It does, Yunhonim,” Jongho admits. “I– find it– appealing as any man would.” As any man with Jongho’s tastes would, of course.

Yunho hums. Looks at him. At every little reaction, every hitch of breath Jongho’s sensitive touch-starved body gives. Yunho cups his cock through his baji and Jongho moans, one hand reaching up to grab the lapel of Yunho’s clothes, pulls him closer, being from the heavens or not be damned.

When Jongho leans up to kiss Yunho, Yunho lets out a noise of surprise.

For a second, Jongho thinks he dared too much. But then Yunho makes another noise and kisses Jongho back. He kisses as if he has never done it before. Inexperienced, but eager and Jongho wonders if deities don’t kiss, if they don’t enjoy this simple human pleasure.

But Yunho does, licking into Jongho’s mouth, pressing him backwards until his back hits the wall, two hands on his body and Jongho– Jongho lets him because it is what he needs, what he wants, what he craves.

He lets Yunho kiss his lips, his cheeks, his neck and despite his own bodies screaming needs, the second Jongho has a moment of freedom, he drops to his knees, clawing a the tying’s of Yunho’s clothes and worships Yunho the way he is supposed to do so.

*

Yunho has never been with a human before.

Jongho does not need to ask him, nor does he need it confirmed. He is inexperienced in the way humans take their pleasure, unsure of what will make Jongho feel good or not. Unsure of what will make his own body feel good.

He must spend time in other forms when he doesn’t come to visit him. Maybe as the wind and the air, maybe as something Jongho’s mind cannot comprehend. But as something that protects him and that makes Jongho reach high’s he thought long behind him, lost on a road with someone he had to leave behind more than a year ago.

But Jongho doesn’t care about that much. Enjoys himself and looks forward to Yunho’s visits even more. Wooyoung teases him about it, tells him he can smell Yunho all over him, but there is nothing malicious there, nothing from Mingi or San either that makes Jongho fear for his safety – anymore than he already does.

Still, Jongho spends time alone sometimes, working and trying to pass the time.

Jonghoyah! 

He looks up suddenly when he hears San’s voice.

Help me carry this, it’s so heavy!

Jongho blinks. Looks around himself but he cannot see anything. San often comes through the forest, carrying things for Jongho to do which is packed for him by a woman whose name Jongho doesn’t know. Just knows that she drives a blush upon San’s cheeks. She was the one who had been doing the weaving before Jongho had taken over it.

He gets up to walk to the treeline, looking for San and getting ready to carry anything he might need help with.

Over here.

Jongho follows the voice and cranes his neck. Sees a figure hunched over a big basket, bigger than anything Jongho has seen San carry before.

“I’m here, hyung,” Jongho calls and San waves for him. Waves for him to get closer.

Jongho blinks.

San knows Jongho isn’t supposed to leave the clearing. He, Wooyoung and Mingi might not want to hurt Jongho – too much – but there are still beasts in the forest and he promised Yunho.

“Can you come here?” he asks.

Jonghoyah, please, I think I spilled the food Sangie has prepared for you. I’m so sorry.

Jongho clenches his teeth. Looks. Listens. There’s nothing else there and it’s just San, isn’t it?

He steps over the bushes and San sighs so loud Jongho can hear it. 

His feet touch the ground in front of him and for a second, Jongho’s vision whites out. He steadies himself against a tree, his throat dry, his stomach hollow and clenching with how empty it is and he realises that it must be the clearing that is taking care of his body and not the fact that he is dead. Or undead.

“Sanhyung?” he asks, as he stumbles closer. “How can I help?”

San is still looking at the basket. Jongho closes in, puts a hand on his shoulder and realises the second before he touches him that something is deeply wrong.

San wears his hair like the man he is when he steps onto the clearing, even before his body changes. This– San wears the right clothes. But the hair is falling over San’s back, unkempt and dripping .

San gets up.

Jongho immediately looks at his feet. 

At his lack of legs.

Looks at San’s face and realises it’s not San as San’s face slowly shifts away to something– washed out with sharp teeth and white eyes.

Gwisin.

Jongho stumbles back as the gwisin rises up to its full height. The basket disappears, nothing but a play on his mind and Jongho turns around and runs.

The clearing isn’t far. He can see it, can make it.

The forest before him shifts.

He looks around, can’t see the clearing everywhere, doesn’t know where to run, where to go. 

Stopping for a second, he feels hands tearing at his sleeves, a wail in his ear and he realises he cannot stop.

He runs.

Doesn’t know where. Doesn’t care.

Cuts a corner around a tree and the gwisin is right next to it so Jongho realises that every turn he takes doesn’t confuse the gwisin but just makes it easier for it to catch up. 

So a straight line it is. 

Jongho used to be faster, when he was younger. 

But his leg, his age, his lack of movement for however long he has been in there, none of that helps him now. 

All of it slows him down.

Adeul, wait for me. His mother’s voice calls for him and Jongho curses.

His feet catch on the logs and stones on the ground and he knows he is bleeding, notices it with every step that he takes. It hurts and yet his need to live is stronger.

He jumps over a log and nearly loses his footing on a bit of wet moss right behind it.

A hand wraps around his upper arm and the gwisin is nothing but the ghost of a dead woman and yet– it pulls Jongho around, face nearly half teeth and Jongho does what he does best.

He punches it straight in the eyes.

The gwisin screams, a high pitched noise that makes him keel over and put his hands to his ears.

Your own mother, the gwisin says in his mother’s voice. Your poor eomanim how could you do this to me?

But it’s not his mother. It’s nothing but a malicious ghost, intent on killing him and Jongho tries to open his eyes after the pain in his head had stopped and finds the gwisin’s teeth centimeters away from his face.

Come home, adeul, it says in his head. Be one with me again.

Jongho is ready to punch it again but it starts screaming.

A bird has dug its claws into her shoulder and tries to tug her away. The bird is a pheasant, a peacock, something like that, five colored and Jongho has heard of them. 

Luan , Jinji if female–and this one looks female from what Jongho knows about birds, an omen of peace in the midst of this monstrous forest.

The omen of peace claws and hacks at the gwisin, pulling it away and Jongho stumbles backwards, doesn’t know if he should help this one. He turns around to figure out if the clearing is to be seen anywhere and finds–

A wolf. 

A dog. 

Fire. 

Darkness.

Jongho freezes.

Looks at the jinji, the bringer of peace and light and then at the bulgae in front of him, the demon from the darkness, the bringer of shadows, the giant dog coming closer.

Its fur is as black as the darkness it brings, flames licking at gaps in the fur, giant teeth bared. It towers over Jongho, and it moves towards him.

He steps back. The bulgae steps forward. Leaves behind a dark piece of moss, the scent of burnt wood and Jongho walks backwards as much as he can, hits a tree and nearly stumbles again, bloody feet leaving marks on the ground.

The bulgae sniffs the marks but drives Jongho backwards. Herds him away from the gwisin and the jinji who are still fighting and Jongho considers if he could punch the bulgae or if he might get burnt.

He doesn’t know how long he walks. Hears it growl when he moves too slow or too far into a wrong direction until his arches hit something. Branches and then Jongho feels himself enter the clearing, feels his body settle into a state of not changing despite his feet still bleeding.

He doesn’t know if the bulgae is able to enter the clearing but Jongho’s legs give out in pain and he falls onto his ass, hands propped up behind him at the last minute to keep himself upright and he sees the bulgae’s eyes widen.

He’s right at the house, the clearing isn’t too big. He has the little branches he needs to weave the baskets. They’re not strong but he could hurt the bulgae with it, could he not?

It jumps forward and Jongho is willing to kick it with his torn feet if he can’t reach for the wood but–

Yunho touches his face, skin warm and soft, the–

The scent of burnt wood filling Jongho’s nose.

The bulgae is nowhere to be seen.

Or maybe it is.

Jongho looks at Yunho’s eyes.

Looks at the same eyes.

The eyes of the deity that protects their village from the monsters in the forest. Something that isn’t human. Something that is dangerous. So dangerous that it can keep the other monsters calm.

Not because of some divine intervention.

But because it is even more of a monster than anything else in the forest.

Jongho throws himself on his side and reaches for a handful of long wooden sticks that he hasn’t weaved yet and rams them straight into Yunho’s face.

*

Yunho screams. 

His human form wavers. 

Man. Dog. Man. Dog. Man. Dog.

Jongho seethes. 

Jongho burns. 

Stretches out his arm to get more wood to defend himself and finds himself pressed to his front by hands, paws, hands, paws, he cannot tell. Yunho looms over him, his breath hot against his skin.

Something drips down onto his neck. Blood. Spit. 

A growl on his ear.

“Don’t,” Yunho demands. “Do not attack me again.”

“Liar,” Jongho hisses. “Liar, you monster, you are no god-” 

His face gets pressed in the dirt.

“Calm down.”

Jongho will not calm down.

How many people have they sent into the forest? How many lives have they sacrificed to a god who would protect them? How much have they prayed to this thing that it would make sure they are alright when it’s nothing but another monster, feasting on the flesh that they’re gifting it?

How much fun must that be for Yunho, for his family of monsters?

“Let go of me,” he hisses. “You wanted me to run, did you not ? You want to hunt the humans, that’s why you did not like that they killed me, right?”

Having his prey be dropped at his feet, the best thing already done must have been annoying for something like this. 

“Were you waiting for me to get better?” Jongho asks, screams. “Were you waiting so you could have a proper sacrifice?” He doesn’t know why he is angry. 

Yunho is a monster. His family are monsters. He wouldn’t have been mad had it been one of them.

But he didn’t expect Yunho to be like this. To be different than what he said he was.

Oh, by all the actual gods that lived in this world, Jongho had bedded a monster, had he not? Had all but begged to service him.

Yunho lets go of him and Jongho turns around. Lies on his back, breathing heavily, body hurting and Yunho flickering between man and monster looks at him wide eyed.

“You deceived me. You deceived all of us who have prayed to you, who have begged you to save us.” He’s crying. Oh gods, Jongho is crying, is he not? “How dare you, Haneunim . How dare you play with us humans like that?”

But Jongho shouldn’t be surprised.

Yunho is no benevolent god, isn’t he? 

He is a monster.

And Yunho must see the hatred that rises in Jongho’s heart because he crawls back, slowly.

He flees.

And then Jongho is alone, with his whole world shattered around him.

*

“I think you should forgive him.”

Jongho ignores Mingi, but Mingi does not like to be ignored. Or rather, he doesn’t care if Jongho doesn’t answer, if he gets up and walks off.

Mingi is insistent and he will follow Jongho around. Maybe he thinks if he just tries long enough Jongho will relent but Jongho– he doesn’t think he can relent. Not on this. Not like this. Not now.

“Our nui says it is normal for humans to hang onto these things, but this is not what you should do.”

So Mingi keeps on pestering him. And Jongho– Jongho doesn’t react. Not at all. He doesn’t get into a discussion with Mingi. He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t defend his own reaction. He doesn’t even accuse Yunho. Or his family of monsters. He doesn’t know what he could say right now, if he is honest. What is going inside his mind is– there is too much. Everything just feels wrong.

So he just keeps quiet. Does the work that is being given to him still, by San with his eyes wide and his mouth in a line as if he too wants to say something. But he keeps quiet. He doesn’t pester with words, only with his eyes and his face.

And that too is something Jongho doesn’t like. He just– he wants to be left alone.

“We are not leaving you alone,” Mingi had told him. As if it means something. As if there is a reason why Jongho needs to understand. Oh he does. He does understand. He just wishes he didn’t.

Mingi had stayed the night, had told him things in the dark and Jongho– Jongho pretended he didn’t listen. That he didn’t care.

But that is the problem, is it not? That he cares. He cares so much that it rips him apart and that is what makes it so bad.

“Have you finished brooding?” Wooyoung asks him one day. Jongho is sitting in front of the house once again, twisting the bamboo sticks in different ways to entertain himself. To stop himself from thinking. “Because I need you to come with me.”

That gets Jongho’s attention. He looks up, crosses eyes with Wooyoung and sees the smirk, canines all out and mischievous glint in his eyes. He knows he has cast out his rope and Jongho has gotten caught. Of course, he knows, he could look away. Could make sure that Wooyoung would feel ignored once again.

Wooyoung might just be the third one Yunho sends. Why, Jongho doesn’t know. To placate him, to get him to worship him again, to forgive him. Why Jongho’s forgiveness would be of importance to him, Jongho doesn’t know.

“There is something I want to show you,” Wooyoung says. “I will make sure no one notices you snuck out.”

“Why would I care about that?” Jongho asks, for the first time in days.

And he shouldn’t. He doesn’t owe Yunho anything after finding out that the life Jongho has given him has been under false pretense. He doesn’t owe Yunho anything. But then– he could have left, couldn’t he. He could have gotten out and wandered the forest instead of sitting here, in this protected realm.

“You should not,” Wooyoung says. “You can go wherever you please.”

Jongho hums in agreement. 

“You might just get eaten.”

He shrugs. He might. He might give them a fight. He might not. That is something he hasn’t decided yet.

“I will make sure you are safe.”

Jongho should not go with Wooyoung. In the short amount of time, he has noticed that Wooyoung is almost never up to any good.

It comes with the territory maybe, Jongho assumes. Wooyoung isn’t human and he doesn’t follow the kind of thought patterns and knowledge of what is right or wrong that humans do.

None of them do, as Jongho has so harshly learned.

“What is out there,” Jongho asks. “That I should risk my life?”

He isn’t scared, he thinks. The gwisin was a surprise even though it shouldn’t have been, but Jongho— he doesn’t know if he is scared to die. If he worries for himself. There is nothing in this future but the space Yunho allows him to inhabit now. Now that he knows his true nature, Jongho feels less thankful and more— like a prisoner.

So what if he goes out with Wooyoung? What if he does something Yunho doesn’t want him to do? What if he just— risks his life and lets the real gods decide what his future will be. Jongho— believes of course. He does. His life isn’t his own but— what if he just does what he wants with it.

Just for now? Like he has done before, when they had taken the long road home, when they had abandoned all responsibility to their families and villages and just lived. What if he does that, for a moment?

Yunho be damned. What does Jongho care about his intentions and his opinion?

“Things. People. People-things,” Wooyoung says. “I want to introduce you to some of my friends.”

Jongho blinks. Doesn’t really know if he wants to meet more of Wooyoung’s friends, those who will most likely be more monsters.

But then— it seems like even monsters can be nice, can tell you the truth sometimes.

“When?”

“Now, of course.”

Jongho raises his eyebrow.

It’s early, of course and he isn’t scared of the darkness. But he didn’t expect to leave now.

“Of course, Wooyoungnim,” he decides in the end because what does Jongho have to lose?  Apart from his un-life. “Lead the way.”

*

Jongho doesn’t know what he expected when Wooyoung told him he would show him things in the forest. He doesn’t really know what he expected there to be.

All his life he has heard the stories. Of the horrors that live inside. Not only the monsters, but the animals and plants as well. Misshaped and twisted, affronts against nature, just out there to devour and torture humans, which they see as nothing but food.

And Jongho has seen this first hand, of course. Not only with the gwisin that has attacked him but with the people he now calls … friends, acquaintances. Mingi, San, Wooyoung, they’re all monsters. They do eat humans, they have all said and shown that more than once.

And Yunho. Yunho too of course.

So maybe Jongho expects that to be what he sees when they move deeper into the forest.

And it is.

It isn’t like the stories, where the hero discovers that what he sees is not what he has been told, not this time.

Jongho is no hero. And this is no story.

Wooyoung and the others aren’t misunderstood beings, who aren’t as bad as Jongho was led to believe.

The forest brims with darkness, the trees oozing poison Wooyoung warns him away off, the flowers snapping after them, the animals, even the squirrels and small birds eying them with saliva dripping from their mouths.

Everything treats them as potential prey. Not just him, they also move after Wooyoung.

And Wooyoung– Wooyoung laughs at them. Swats plants away, jumps over ranken trying to tie itself around his feet and he turns to Jongho.

And Jongo– Jongho realises that Wooyoung doesn’t see any of this as horrible. It’s not frightening for him. It doesn’t scare him.

“Why should I?” Wooyoung asks, when Jongho voices the thought, staring down a particularly hungry looking rat in front of them. “They are doing what the gods intended them to do.”

Jongho frowns. The rat makes a jump at them and Wooyoung kicks it away. Jongho isn’t sure if it grows wings as it flies away, shielding itself from hitting a poisonous tree or if he’s starting to imagine things.

All of that, possibly.

“What do you mean?”

Wooyoung turns towards him, walking sideways and still not missing a single step. Jongho doesn’t know the terrain very well, so he’s more careful where he steps. His feet are bare as well – as are Wooyoung’s – but there’s a bit of twinge underneath them, hitting his soles. He hasn’t felt this in all the days – weeks? – he spent on the clearing, but then, it is only here that he feels hunger as well.

“What is a human’s purpose?” Wooyoung asks and Jongho blinks.

Doesn’t know how to answer that. He knows there are different answers that people would give.

A shaman would tell you that living a gods-honoring life is your purpose. The lord who owns the land Jongho’s family lives on would tell them working the fields and paying their taxes would be their purpose. Jongho’s mother would say living a good life and taking care of his parents would be Jongho’s purpose. Her own would be listening to her husband and raising his children.

“It depends on who you ask,” Jongho says slowly. He is aware that there are people at the royal courts who do nothing but think about the purpose of human existence all day. Who get paid to do that. Ridiculous. Jongho’s family has been working themselves to death their whole lives and some person can ponder all day and they have done their duty towards the Lords who decide who gets paid and who doesn’t. Jongho isn’t someone who would ever rise up against the elite but he has seen too many of those in the war camps, contemplating unimportant things loudly.

He looks at Wooyoung. “What is your purpose?”

Wooyoung bares his teeth at him, all sharp edges.

“Fight, fuck, eat.”

Jongho blinks. That is– maybe not surprising. Not the kind of thing his own thoughts had gone to but in the end. Jongho fought for his country, he fucked for enjoyment and would have done it for his family as well had he gotten married and he eats to survive.

So he shrugs in agreement and Wooyoung smiles at him.

“You do the same, I have been told,” Wooyoung continues. “And you eat your pigs and your chickens and your–” he trails off, seemingly thinking about what else humans eat. Jongho is too interested in where he is going with this to interrupt and remind him that meat is not something that is on their table often. They are no nobles after all.

“Because that is what humans do.”

He frowns. Blinks.

Looks at Wooyoung, the gumiho, who isn’t human, who doesn’t think like a human, who has urges that are so different that Jongho can’t even begin to understand them and he asks, “Are you trying to explain that all of these–” he waves a hand at the monsters stalking them from the darkness. “Are not frightening you for wanting to eat us– me? Because that is what the gods intended them to do?”

Wooyoung nods. “We were made to feed on humanity, what is there to be scared of?”

“Death? The taking of a life?”

“Are the pigs scared when you take theirs?”

Jongho is not a butcher, doesn’t have anything to do with unclean people like them, but he has eaten the meat they have slaughtered of course. Pigs are not humans. Humans are different. Everyone knows that.

But then Jongho looks at Wooyoung, who isn’t human, isn’t animal, is something else entirely and he realises that humans are different for Wooyoung as well.

And that is something that one might have to consider.

Not something Jongho even attempts to have an answer for, though. These kinds of discussions, they go far beyond anything he has ever been able to think about.

But he takes note of it. That humans are different for Wooyoung’s people, just like animals are different for Jongho’s.

“What if they–” he waves at the beasts surrounding them, “want to eat you?”

Wooyoung shrugs. “They can try. I might as well.”

Jongho huffs. Doesn’t know if it can be that easy. But then– he and the people he has considered family on the battlefield sometimes talked about their enemies. If they didn’t think the same thing they did. If they didn’t feel like they believed the same. Of course they did. They wouldn’t have fought them.

“I see your point,” Jongho relents and Wooyoung gives him a sharp toothed smile.

“Good.”

His ears suddenly twitch. His tails swish over the ground, touching Jongho’s bare toes and Jongho looks around. Can’t really see anything that hasn’t been there before.

He tries his best to follow Wooyoung’s eyes but Wooyoung seems to be listening and not looking. And Jongho tries to do that as well but- there’s only so much he can do when his own ears are decidedly human.

It’s then that he smells it.

Burning wood. And Jongho bristles on the inside. Clenches his teeth. He doesn’t want to talk to Yunho. He doesn’t want to face him. Yunho doesn’t deserve his forgiveness. Yunho hasn’t asked for it either.

But it’s not Yunho that appears, even though he must be close.

Instead one of the squirrels appears on a low hanging branch.

It’s grotesque in the way it isn’t. Cute, small, with curious eyes, not much bigger than Jongho would assume a squirrel would usually be and yet– its teeth are sharp. Its tiny claws are dripping in blood. 

There’s something so evil about it that Jongho wishes for some kind of talisman to protect him, but knows there is nothing there.

“I asked for more time,” Wooyoung says to the squirrel and the squirrel makes– a noise. It’s not shrill enough that Jongho feels his ears bursting but it is close. He winches and takes a step back.

The eyes look at him.

“Jiabi,” Wooyoung drawls slowly and Jongho blinks. Looks at the squirrel. Looks at Wooyoung, the gumiho, with his foxish features but human form. “Do not be difficult, I am–” he breaks off. Crosses his arms. “No, I am not interfering– I do not care what Seonhwanui has said, I–”

Wooyoung turns around to Jongho. “My mate has decided to be difficult, excuse me a moment, yes?”

He doesn’t wait until Jongho has confirmed that he is fine being left alone in a forest full of monsters out to eat him. Instead Wooyoung stomps towards the squirrel – his mate, husband? – and picks it up at nape, snapping at it while the squirrel crawls all over him.

And Jongho is suddenly alone.

Well– not alone. The eyes are on him.

The scent fills his nose.

He considers ignoring Yunho. Giving him the cold shoulder until he has decided what he wants to feel but Yunho doesn’t even approach him.

“Have you decided to hunt me now?” he asks, feeling strange to drop the honorific, but refusing to give Yunho any kind of respect he doesn’t deserve after what he did. “Is my time over?”

He doesn’t turn around even when he hears the leaves crunching under Yunho’s paws. At least he assumes they are Yunho’s paws.

It would be Jongho’s luck that he talks about betrayal and retribution and then it is a wolf, or a tiger, or a bear that appears behind him, nothing but an animal that is truly out there to eat him.

But it doesn’t. There’s no animal. There is Yunho. His giant form appearing slowly next to him.

When he had first seen the bulgae he hadn’t looked at him too closely. Just been scared, hadn’t considered it to be of interest apart from not wanting to be eaten by it but– now Jongho does have a moment.

Its shoulders reach up to Jongho’s ears and it gives off a heat that would be warming during a winter day but feels nearly suffocating now.

Its mouth is big, much bigger than Jongho’s head and could swallow him whole. This close and from the corner of his eyes the teeth don’t look as sharp. Wooyoung’s mate (?) had had sharper teeth. There’s a bit of texture to its snout. Burn marks, Jongho realises from where it must have tried to bite the sun.

All in all, it’s the sheer size of it and what it means that scares Jongho the most. Or that would have scared Jongho, had he not known what lies underneath the fur and the big brown eyes.

Would his rage not be stronger.

It’s an interesting discovery Jongho makes about himself in this moment.

That his rage at the betrayal is stronger than his fear of death and being maimed.

Jongho doesn’t move and neither does Yunho at first.

When it takes minutes, and Wooyoung doesn’t return, Jongho starts shifting on his feet. There is something crawling over his toes and he is sure it must be some kind of bug that has decided he is its newest food.

Yunho’s snout presses against his side. 

Jongho presses against it. Unwilling to let himself be pushed back where he came from.

Yunho increases his efforts and it nearly knocks Jongho off his feet. He makes a jump back and out of the way, crossing his arms.

“No,” he says. “I am not going back.” Yet. Maybe never. Who knows. Jongho might just decide to sit here and let himself be eaten by bugs. He’s not sure if that sounds worse than being eaten by Yunho.

Yunho makes a noise.

Jongho ignores him. He doesn’t understand him, after all. If Yunho wishes to talk to him then he can do so.

Another huff and Jongho decides he has had enough. Trying to figure out the direction Wooyoung had gone into, he sets a foot in front of the other and just moves past Yunho, deeper into the forest.

It is not his brightest idea.

But then his mother raised him to be strong, honest, and loyal, just not necessarily to be smart. Being smart was for the lordlings.

The forest is thick and it’s dark and he doesn’t know where he is going. Can’t hear anything unusual, nothing that sounds like Wooyoung’s high pitched voice, his lungs that somehow make it possible for him to be heard over distances Jongho thought impossible.

It must be magic that made them disappear which means that Jongho will never find them.

He ducks under a low hanging branch, hisses when his feet slip over something sharp. He is still not wearing shoes. It’s not– unusual. Jongho spent his formative years not wearing shoes but he has gotten used to it, once he became an adult.

While he walks, Yunho follows. Jongho doesn’t have to look back to see him, feel him, smell him. His presence is as overwhelming as it had been when Jongho thought him a deity.

Despite being a monster, Yunho’s presence is still– grounding. Not calming or making him feel safe, because Jongho knows better now and he is too angry to feel anything good around Yunho now, but it makes Jongho remember that he is here. That he is a real human being with a monster right at his heels.

When Jongho turns to the right, Yunho makes a noise and he stops. The noise isn’t threatening, and if it were Jongho wouldn’t know how he’d react. What he does instead is turn around to Yunho for a moment, trying to see anything on his face but– that’s a wolf-dog-monster right there, nothing that can tell him things like a human or something inhabiting a human shape would.

So Jongho looks ahead and sees a little bit of light in the darkness. Nothing unnatural, just the sunlight coming through the crowns of the trees right onto the narrow path that does lead through the forest for those courageous or desperate enough to try and pass through.

It would be his way out. The sun is high in the sky and despite not knowing what day it is, he can guess the time of the day, can guess the direction his village is in.

But– just because Yunho lied to everyone about who he is doesn’t mean that the village knows as well. They – the shaman and those coming with him – saw Jongho die . They saw him taken by their protector .

It is something else Yunho and his family of monsters took from him. He has not only taken his trust, he has taken Jongho from his life. This game or whatever it might be to him, has ripped Jongho and all those that came before him from where he would have lived a good and acceptable life.

He cannot go back.

He can never go back.

Fingernails dig into his palms and he takes a deep breath, centers himself. Turns around to Yunho, sees his eyes and wonders if maybe there can be human emotion in there.

“I do not wish to go back to the clearing–” he stops. “I do not want to be a prisoner there.”

It doesn’t come out as a question, but it is not quite an affirmation either. Jongho doesn’t know what he wants or what he can ask for.

If Yunho will eat him, will hunt him, if he is done with whatever game he has been playing with Jongho since he rescued him or if there is a higher purpose to this.

But instead of attacking him, ignoring him or doing anything that Jongho thought he would, the wolf-dog that is Yunho nods. Tilts his head to the side, points his snout somewhere where Jongho hasn’t gone yet.

So, Jongho follows.

Possibly to his doom.

*

Yunho doesn’t lead him far.

Or he might. The forest shifts around them multiple times as Yunho moves, leaving scorched earth in his wake that Jongho carefully steps into just because it means there won’t be any bugs attacking his poor feet again.

There’s a tree Jongho knows he has seen before but they are not walking in a circle because he looks back and the same tree stands on the other side of him. There’s darkness around him and light and fog and then the sun isn’t shining through the trees, but there’s soft rain and wind and then– birds. A bird singing softly in the distance and the flutter of wings as something whoshes through the crowns. A bit of air hits him as claws dig into Yunho’s shoulder, right where Jongho’s head is and he is face to face with the jinji that has saved him before.

Now– Yunho might be a liar. Pretending to be a deity, something good when he is nothing but a servant of darkness, but a jinji is not. So Jongho bows as deep as he can while standing up. The jinji looks at him with a tilted head, moving ever so slightly with each of Yunho’s steps and blinks its bird eyes at him.

And then it suddenly flies off, its multicolored feathers spanning from one tree to the other and Jongho looks in awe at its beauty. It might be corrupted, to be so close to something so dark, but it is still beautiful.

It flies away, right ahead where they are going. Disappears out of thin air as if it had never been there.

When Jongho looks at Yunho, he is looking at him and he is showing his teeth. Jongho has never been smart, so he does the same back.

“Yunhoyah, you are– Oh–” It is San who welcomes them, clearly surprised to see Jongho. He is standing in front of something dark, something wavering and wet and Jongho doesn’t know what new horrible thing this is supposed to be now.

But San isn’t fully in front of them either. One of his feet is stuck in the darkness as are his tales and he is waving at them.

“Nui said you were bringing a guest but I didn’t think–” San breaks off, canines on display. He steps out of the darkness and close to them, moving his hand carefully over Yunho’s frame with a fingerbreadth between his own hand and his fur. Not wanting to get burnt, most likely. “Jonghoyah it is good to see you.”

He hugs Jongho and Jongho doesn’t know what to do.

“Have you made up? Did Wooyoungie make you see reason? He is so good at that.”

San’s hands are at his shoulders and he looks different in here than he did in the clearing and it takes Jongho a moment to realise that he wears a different skin. The one Jongho had seen before he had stepped over the line.

Does that mean?

“Mingi has been missing you as well, he said you have been ignoring him.”

San tries to tug him forward and Jongho lets him, if only so he doesn’t have to be in Yunho’s presence any longer.

But when San pulls him right towards the dark wall, Jongho isn’t sure if he wants to go through there. If he wants to follow anyone through something like that.

But San just drags him forward, prattling on about how long it has been since he has seen Jongho and Jongho is once again reminded that it sometimes appears as if the time on the clearing and in the forest is different. One of these things that he doesn’t need to understand.

Still, he hesitates as San goes through the black wall, looks back at Yunho who’s watching him with big eyes and swallows. San pulls on his arm and Jongho has a moment to decide before he is pulled through.

He doesn’t know what he expects. To die. For this to be painful. For the darkness, as wet and strange as it seems, to be hot or cold but– there is nothing. It feels like he walks through nothing and yet he walks through everything and Jongho– Jongho opens his eyes, unaware that he had closed them and stands in– a home.

In front of one, to be more precise.

He has travelled; he has seen many towns and buildings in his time. Temples and palaces from afar even, but the house in front of him is neither. Nor is it as small the house Jongho has been living in or the one he grew up in.

There seems to be one main house, long and spacious with open doors through which Jongho can see someone walk to some kind of backyard. There is a front yard where San and him stand right now, with a well, a seating arrangement and a woman working on some sewing. There are flowers and grass and carefully arranged and yet completely wild. Trees standing where a path to the house should be, branches growing out of the dark wall through which Jongho has just stepped. None of it seems to be deliberate.

The house itself, as sturdy as it looks, has multi-colored tiles, different types of wood as its pillars and there seems to be no thought to the energy that they should be arranged by.

Somehow light hangs from one of the tiles and it takes Jongho a moment to see the jinji resting on the roof, cleaning its wings.

“Sanorabeoni!” a voice calls. The woman sitting in front of the house waves at them and San gives Jongho a smile before letting go of him. He runs towards the woman and pulls her up from her seated position. 

She screams as San lifts her into the air and Jongho looks away to give them a moment of privacy out here in the open.

He looks up at the sky but unlike on the clearing, there is no sun to be seen here. There is just darkness and yet, the light here seems to be brighter than on the clearing. Jongho doesn’t pretend to understand it.

When he feels Yunho’s presence behind him, he finally moves, walking forward and towards San and the woman. This must be his love who he had spoken about in the past, right?

“Jonghoyah!” San calls for him and waves him towards them. Jongho follows, if only to not be too close to Yunho. “Let me introduce you, this is Sangha, my–” he breaks off, a slight blush to his cheeks.

“Wife, should he ever gain the courage to ask.”

“Yah,” San complains. “I am waiting for the right moment, you know that.”

Jongho bows in front of her. “It is a pleasure to meet you.” He assumes he will be allowed to talk to her, despite her not being related to him. Out– in the world he would never have done it, would have addressed San in her stead but since San doesn’t seem to be her husband – yet – the situation becomes a bit more complicated.

Still, when San smiles at him, he thinks he has made the right decision.

Sangha, her dark hair elaborately done and her clothes simple but well made, waves again. 

There’s a certain awkwardness in her eyes, a shyness that Jongho has battled with as well in the past. The most striking thing about her is the redness around her eyes, the nearly glassy look of her pupils and her skin, which he had thought simply pale is nearly white with a blue hue to it. This close, he notices that her hair is not dripping but certainly a bit wet.

He has fished people like her out of lakes and rivers. Unlike San’s beloved, they had not been alive. But then- despite her body moving, he doesn’t notice her breathing. It might also be that he isn’t looking closely enough at her chest, to not offend anyone.

“I’m glad to welcome you here,” she says. “And that Yunho and you have made up.”

Jongho wants to correct her. They haven’t made up . Jongho is angry and horrified and yet he doesn’t get to explain this to her, because he feels Yunho behind him once more.

Different, though. When he looks at him out of the corner of his eye he sees a pale hand.

“We will speak with each other now,” Yunho says. “Please make sure we are not disturbed for the moment.”

Jongho could refuse. He could dig his heels into the ground and lean himself against the hand on his elbow but– why would he make a spectacle out of himself? Why would he make all of this so difficult for these … people who have allowed him into their home?

So he goes with Yunho and he considers what he could use as a weapon should he need one.

Yunho leads him around the house and to the back. One of the doors has been pushed open there, tubs full of water there, most likely for washing clothes and bodies. He has never thought about monsters having to wash their clothes.

“Sit down,” Yunho says and it’s not an order. Jongho crosses his arms defiantly. He is tired, his stomach reminding him once again that he hasn’t taken food in ages, his feet burning from the walk through the forest and whatever had scratched and bitten him and yet, he doesn’t want to do something Yunho has ordered him to do.

When Yunho realises that he hasn't followed his demand, he sighs. Staring straight ahead, Jongho doesn’t know what kind of look is on his face, just hears him moving around.

When he has his back to him, Jongho wiggles back and forth on his feet to give them a bit of reprieve.

“Let me help you,” Yunho says and this time it sounds like he is asking, which– is more than Jongho expected. He looks towards Yunho – not at him – and sees him carry water and a rag. “You are hurt.”

Jongho worries his lip between his teeth. Having Yunho perform some more healing on him is something that he could allow himself. It is something Yunho does for him, not something Jongho does.

He slowly sits down on the steps leading up to the door and Yunho kneels in front of him. Raising his eyes, unwilling to look at him, Jongho hisses when Yunho carefully wraps his fingers around his ankle to steady him. The soaked rag is cold and welcome, when he presses it to the sole of Jongho’s foot. 

He’s meticulous and careful in cleaning the cuts and bites, wiping the blood away before pressing the palm of his hand against it, carefully.

The pain subsides and in its wake more calluses and scars are left. Jongho lets out a breath of relief and Yunho hums, before carefully setting his foot onto the step and taking his second one.

All is good and well until Yunho opens his mouth.

“You should not have followed Wooyoungie outside,” he says. “It is dangerous there.”

Jongho presses his teeth together just so he doesn’t answer. Just so he doesn’t tell Yunho exactly what he thinks about him because he isn’t– he doesn’t know what would happen then.

He will be stronger and show restraint.

“I cannot protect you out there.”

“You would not have to, had you not played my people for fools for centuries,” Jongho snaps. Immediately closes his mouth, unwilling to share more.

“You do not understand.”

No, Jongho does not. Neither Jongho, nor all of his ancestors could ever understand because they have been deceived and lied to since the beginning of time.

“It had to be done for your own good.”

Jongho blinks. Looks down at Yunho, healing his second foot right now. He’s not looking at Jongho, his hair falling into his eyes where they have escaped the bun and Jongho notices for a split second the scars around his mouth, the ones that had not been there on the clearing. Where Yunho had made everything seem like he wanted it to.

For his own good.

Jongho rips his foot out of Yunho’s hold and draws it back. Pushes it forward right into Yunho’s face.

Something breaks. There is blood as Yunho screams and falls back, holding his hands to his nose and Jongho jumps to his feet.

He will leave. Leave this place, leave this forest, go somewhere where no one knows he is not supposed to be alive.

Something light catches his eye as he stomps around the house, the jinji looking at him with a tilted head and Jongho nods his head at it again in respect. Gets nothing in return as it just blinks at him.

In front of the house, San and Sangha must have gone inside already so Jongho will just leave. He will go through the strange wall and not look back and–

“Jonghoyah, this is where you are!” Wooyoung walks through the darkness right in front of him. “I was looking for you, you will stay for dinner, right?”

Jongho stops.

Wooyoung looks like he fell down a mountain, his hair in disarray, his clothing ripped and leaves in his tails and ears. The squirrel sits on his shoulder, looking muss less angry but no less evil.

“I was–”

“Yes, you were,” Wooyoung decides. “Seonhwanui must have slaved in the kitchen the whole day to make us a feast.”

He smiles at Jongho.

When he looks back, Yunho is coming around the corner, his nose looking back to normal but with blood all over his face.

“Mingi has been talking about you ignoring him,” Wooyoung reminds him and Jongho feels guilt rising up in him that he shouldn’t feel as the wronged party. “At least say hello to him before you leave?”

He will just say hello. And then he will leave.

*

Sleeping in the house comes surprisingly easy to Jongho.

It should not, surrounded by monsters.

He didn’t even plan for it. He meant to say hello to Mingi only, which led to having to find Mingi sleeping in one of the flower bushes around the house. Being woken up didn’t fare well for Mingi, because he spent the better part of the day clinging to Jongho, his ears flopping everywhere, his teeth digging into Jongho’s clothes. 

And then it was time for dinner and Jongho didn’t know what he expected but the mixture of actual food, eaten by Sangha, the jinji – who had been introduced to Jongho as the aforementioned Seonhwanui – and the squirrel – their leader and Wooyoung’s mate, Hongjoong – and raw meat, bones and organs – eaten by San, Wooyoung, Mingi and Yunho should maybe not have surprised him. 

Mingi, Seonhwa and Hongjoong took the meal in their true forms, which Jongho also isn’t surprised by, but which was maybe a little strange to see. Do rabbits and squirrels eat meat? Alas, Jongho had been assured that Seonhwa and Hongjoong would change into a more representable form at some point this decade to introduce themselves properly.

Jongho had kept himself in between them, eating rice, some radish and abstaining from the raw meat being eaten in front of him. With how long it has been since something has been in his stomach, even this meal feels like too much. He doesn’t know if he should be surprised that he can stomach something, considering his state but then he doesn’t understand how he is here in the first place.

But when the meal had been finished it had been late – according to Wooyoung – and nights in the forest weren’t the safest for someone like Jongho – according to San – so Jongho had reluctantly agreed to spend the night.

The bedroom they all retire to – together, Jongho is not sure how he feels about that – is spacious. Rolling their mats out, there is enough space to be leave proper distance between them but Jongho is pulled towards the pile of mats being shared by San, Wooyoung, Sangha and Hongjoong – still as a squirrel – and he allows himself to sleep on Wooyoung’s other side, away from Sangha and close to the door.

Which, in retrospect, isn’t his best decision. The scent of burnt wood should have tipped him off, but he crosses eyes with Yunho. 

He is a bulgae once more, sleeping close to the door, alert, protecting them. Protecting someone, apparently, if not the humans he is pretending to protect.

Mingi is nestled in between his legs and Seonhwa has made her place on Yunho’s back, her wings spread over his big form.

Sleep shouldn’t come easy, looking at Yunho, burning with anger but Jongho falls asleep while looking at him, while seeing him and– he doesn’t know what that means for his own anger.

*

“Are you angry at us as well?” Mingi asks him the next day. “Is that why you have not spoken to me?”

Jongho should leave. He will leave, any minute now. That is the plan and he will stick to it. He is just waiting for the right time.

Jongho doesn’t answer him at first. Not because he still doesn’t want to talk to Mingi, but because he doesn’t know what the answer is.

Is he angry at the others?

They’re– monsters. Beasts. 

He’s finding that it should have a negative connotation, but it doesn’t. Jongho has no other word to describe them and this is what he uses for them. It doesn’t make them evil, does it? Maybe this just shows his own deteriorating spirit. Maybe he has been in contact with them for too long.

They do what the gods have made them to do. They eat humans, just like humans eat those weaker than them. Less human than them. Are humans less beast then beasts? He doesn’t know the answer but he understands. It is not Mingi’s fault to be born or created the way he was.

“I–” Jongho starts. Doesn’t know how to continue. “I do not blame you for the deception.”

And he doesn’t. He has never asked any of them if what he believed was true. If Yunho was who he pretended to be. None of them have ever spoken to him about it and tried to make him believe. They also haven’t told him the truth.

Yunho has never told him the truth either. Has never outright claimed to be what he is but– none of the others are the ones pretending to be something they are not.

“I am not angry at you– I– just feel–” Betrayed. Ripped away at the seams. What else might be wrong? What else is just a ploy? “Weak. For being deceived.” There is more to it but Mingi is not to blame, is he? Mingi isn’t the one at fault. Mingi doesn’t need to listen to what is wrong with Jongho because he cannot fix it. “Stupid, for believing.”

It’s not the first time this has happened to Jongho. The battlefield. The nobles and their inability to do what their noble blood made them to do. 

Maybe, Jongho considers, everyone who claims to be better than others based on their blood and heritage is part of a deception. It’s not something he considers for long because it doesn’t matter in the end, but the thought hasn’t settled into him for the first time.

“It was the only way,” Mingi says, cryptic and then shrugs when Jongho looks at him with questioning eyes. “Yunho can explain it better, if you will let him.”

Jongho doesn’t know if he will let him explain.

He hasn’t seen Yunho the whole day, knows he went off with Seonhwa and Sangha.

“Will you leave?” Mingi asks, after they’ve sat in comfortable silence. He has started fidgeting, his foot going up and down. Probably eager to change into his true form again.

“I think I must,” Jongho answers. “I am not sure where I belong.”

“There is a place for you here,” Mingi says. “We have all agreed. It is safe, as safe as where you were before.”

But he will not be alone. He doesn’t know if he will want to be alone or if it is just the thought of being close to Yunho that upsets him so much.

So he just hums in response and then frowns.

“Minginim–”

“Hyung.”

“Mingihyung,” Jongho starts again. “Can I ask how much time has passed since I–” Was murdered. “Came into the forest?”

Mingi frowns. Tilts his head and looks at the sky, all dark and without anything to guide them by. The flowers around them are from the spring and the summer, the vegetables growing should not be in season at the same time. There is no time in here, as it seems. Jongho doesn’t know what here is. He has a suspicion that it might be a small part of Gamangnara, but he cannot be sure and he doesn’t want to ask.

“A year?” Mingi settles on. “Maybe a bit more?”

A year. It doesn’t feel like a year. If Jongho had to guess he would have said a couple of weeks. But then– he had assumed that something was wrong with the clearing, with the forest.

He wonders how his family is faring. If his mother has found solace, if his father has stopped blaming himself, if his brother’s children are growing. If everyone is already thinking about the next sacrifice, due in just nine years.

“I think– I should–” Jongho starts and stands up. Mingi looks at him, getting up on his feet.

“You do not have to leave,” he says. “Let him explain.”

Him.

Yunho walks through the wall at that moment. Bulgae, with Sangha trailing next to him and Seonhwa on his back. He looks at Jongho and Jongho doesn’t look away.

When he shifts and Jongho forces himself to keep his eyes on him as his body goes through some grotesque transformation, Seonhwa flies off and back onto the roof, settling there. Sangha gives them both an awkward smile before disappearing into the house where the rest must still be resting.

“Jongho wishes to leave,” Mingi says and Yunho’s eyes drop from him to Jongho. “I told him you’d explain–”

“I will bring you back,” Yunho says.

“Yunhoyah–”

“He wishes to leave, I will respect his wishes.”

Jongho looks in between them. Wonders what is unsaid and what he doesn’t know and then wonders if it should concern him. Considers then, if he actually wants to leave or if he just wants– to stop feeling like this. He knows it’s the latter. This is nice. being surrounded by Yunho’s family of monsters, as he called them. He doesn’t know all of them and he doesn’t know how to act with all of them but– it is nice.

“That would be something new,” he finds himself saying and Yunho’s eyes lock onto him. He didn’t mean to say it. He didn’t mean to be confrontational. But– he is angry. Still. Will maybe always be angry.

“Come,” Yunho says and there is something in his voice. As if he also cannot get rid of Jongho fast enough.

Should he say goodbye to the others? He looks back at the house but he doesn’t want to disturb them. So he just puts a hand on Mingi’s arm, unwilling to give him a hug in front of someone else and walks towards Yunho.

Mingi follows them for a moment and when Jongho looks back he sees him hopping forward, having changed and sees Seonhwa watching them from the roof as well.

Yunho leads him through the dark veil once again and Jongho is barely prepared to step out into the forest again. Things are too loud, too bright, too dark for a second and he wavers, finds a hand at his back and draws his shoulders up.

Once he has gathered his wits again, he steps away, Yunho’s hand falling from his back.

But he doesn’t start walking, because Yunho does neither. He expects him to change, to start on the path that they had taken last time but Yunho is quiet for a moment, standstill, before he lets out a sigh. Twisting his head to his left, he motions there.

Jongho doesn’t know the forest well, not at all actually, but he is sure that this is not the right direction.

Does he fear Yunho? Does he fear for his life? He isn’t sure.

But he follows.

They are quiet for a while, no noise but the animals around them until they get to something Jongho wasn’t aware of.

There is a path. An actual path through the forest. When they step onto it he can see something at the end, to his right. A light, where the trees grow fewer and his village lies.

Is he not to be killed or left in the clearing, then? Does Yunho intend to toss him back where he first found him?

“Were you told the tales of the forest?” Yunho asks, all of sudden. “What happened hundreds of years ago?”

Jongho frowns. “Of course. Humans travelled through the forest and were taken and eaten. They defended themselves. The– inhabitants came for them. Villages outside of it suffered despite not entering the forest anymore.” Until a truce had been made. Until a deity had settled in the forest and kept the monsters at bay. Until it demanded a sacrifice to regain its strength every decade.

“ Travelled ,” Yunho repeats. There’s something in his voice and Jongho doesn’t want to, but he has to look at him. He walks faster, catching up and walking next to Yunho. Sees his eyes, looking ahead. The tick in his jaw, the scars around his mouth. “They came into our home, they felled our trees, they ate our children and yet they blamed us for doing the same thing to them.”

Jongho wants to defend his ancestors. But he remembers Wooyoung’s words. Who ate what and why, in the end?

“And yet your people followed them out, did they not?” Until there had nearly been war. Until an army had nearly been sent, had it not been for the truce.

Yunho doesn’t defend his own ancestors – or maybe himself – either. He nods.

“I have done my best to prevent further bloodshed,” he says and Jongho isn’t sure if it sounds empty to his ears or if he just wishes it did. “I can only try to make the suffering as little as possible. But I cannot change my own nature or those of those around me. ”

“It is not about your nature,” Jongho insists. The trees grow smaller around them. More space is between them, more leaves and bushes without any green on them anymore. Gods, much time had passed, Mingi had been right. “I do not care what you are.”

And it is the truth. He doesn’t. Wooyoung and San, gumiho’s hungry for human flesh, Mingi and Hongjoong and their sharp teeth and ravenous eyes, Seonhwa the only one among them who might be the closest thing to an actual deity and Sangha who Jongho doesn’t know what she is. Yunho could be a bulgae, for all Jongho cares.

“My people believe. They truly believe in–” he waves his arm at Yunho. “They pray to you, they sacrifice to you, they believe you to be something that protects them–”

“Don’t I?” Yunho snaps and Jongho grinds his teeth. They have stopped, the both of them. “Don’t I protect them? Don’t I keep your village safe from the monsters you fear?”

“By being the worst of them all,” Jongho finishes. They’re close, his own chest going up and down. He hasn’t been this agitated in a long time and– he doesn’t know how to let go of his anger.

“Yes,” Yunho agrees. “Maybe. Would you have me tell that to your people? Tell them they have to give someone like me something so that they bring more armies and more bloodshed? Do you think they could understand?”

Jongho does. Jongho does understand what Yunho means, what he’s trying to prevent but– maybe it is because he knows Yunho. Because he knows his family. Because he has seen the monsters in the forest and what they can do. He doesn’t know if everyone could. If everyone would be agreeable. If the status quo that they have right now could be maintained if they knew the truth. But– he has been lied to. They all have been lied to and he doesn’t know if he can– He doesn’t know how to get over it.

“What would you have me do?”

“I do not know,” Jongho says, honestly. “I just know what I feel.”

He feels– small. Stupid. Like a fool. How many things must he find out have been lies? How many things are lies?

“Do you know what I feel?” Yunho asks and his hand is on Jongho’s shoulder. It’s warm as it usually is, the fire of the dark world under his skin and Jongho shakes his head.

“I feel sorry,” Yunho starts. “I am sorry for lying to you. I am sorry for pretending to be someone I am not.”

Jongho stares at him. Takes a breath. Lets it out.

And feels everything inside him deflate.

The fire of anger that had burned inside him goes out with a whoosh.

Jongho has been lied to many times in his life. 

By the lords, the nobles, the shaman, Yunho and yet– he has never before received an apology for it. 

He has never before been able to have his emotions be acknowledged like this.

Everything is too much suddenly. He turns away from Yunho, taking a breath through his nose and letting it out through his mouth.

“Will there be more sacrifices?” he asks.

Yunho is quiet for a moment.

“I told you what would happen, if there are not.”

Maybe it wouldn’t be noticed once. Maybe even twice. But at some point someone would realise that the deity didn’t take any sacrifices and still protected them. How long until humans would forget that there were things to be feared in the forest? How long until they would come back and everything would start anew?

Jongho understands it. He understands the reasoning behind it, he knows the value of sacrifices both for the deities and on the battlefield but– it doesn’t become less difficult to bear them.

Can he? Can he bear to witness, to know, to not warn them? He doesn’t know how to exist like that, does he? But did he question himself this much when they sent men to their deaths and he knew they would die? Is there a difference here because Jongho– he is not the one to decide and he is not the one in charge of anything, but does it make him complicit?

“I do not know what to do,” he says, honestly and wraps his arms around himself. “I do not know how to–” live like this. He doesn’t know. He is just human and he doesn’t know. All of this is much too big for him.

“What do you want to do?”

It’s never about what Jongho wants. Jongho has always known that. He is nobody, he is a son, he is a member of society, he knows what he must do now. He knows what he is supposed to do.

That’s why he went off to war. That’s why he came home in the end, even though he could have lost himself in Wooseok’s arms and never looked back. That’s why he agreed to the betrothal and that’s why he accepted being chosen as the sacrifice.

It isn’t about what Jongho wants.

It’s about what he must do to protect his people.

To protect them.

Does that mean– to keep the lie going? To be a part of all of it. To side with the monsters to protect the humans as a whole?

Is that what he can and must do? So if he can accept that. If he can do that.

What does he want?

He turns around to Yunho. Looks at him, really looks at him, for the first time since he rammed a wooden pike into his eye. It has healed of course, leaving only a faint scar right under his left eye and Jongho touches it, cannot stop himself from it.

Seeing something he inflicted on Yunho’s skin is– strange. It doesn’t bother him, but it draws him to that tiny point, even more than to the big scar all around Yunho’s mouth, the burns from where Jongho assumes he must have tried to catch the sun.

“I do not know,” Jongho says. “I do not know what I want.”

He doesn’t want to go back to his home. He doesn’t belong there anymore. He doesn’t want to go back to the clearing either, all by himself with only the occasional visit.

“I can take you–” Yunho stops. “Back home.” he closes his eyes. “My home. It is safer than the clearing. The veil protects all of us. If you need time.”

“How much time?” Jongho asks. Does he have to know the answer immediately? Does he have to know what he wants the next time he wakes up?

Yunho shrugs. His hand grabs the one Jongho is still touching him with. It’s warm and his fingers touch the pulse point on Jongho’s wrist in a way that makes Jongho feel. He shouldn’t. He’s not sure if he can forgive Yunho so easily, if that is something he needs time for as well.

“You have all the time in the world,” Yunho promises and a weight lifts off Jongho’s shoulders. “You can take as much as you need.”

Jongho nods. Looks down. Looks up. “Should we– Should we get the weaving supplies first?”

Yunho laughs. He is still touching Jongho’s wrist and Jongho knows better, knows he should take more time until he lets himself feel, but something still slips through the wall he built to protect himself.

“Are you planning to give me another matching one?” Yunho asks and Jongho raises an eyebrow. Doesn’t know if he can give himself into teasing at first but finds that the words come easier to him than expected.

“Perhaps,” he says. “Eomanim did not bring up someone who gives in easily.”

Yunho laughs and tugs him forward with him, away from the path and back to the clearing.

And Jongho follows, eyes seeing all the horrors around them, the carnage and bloodshed, the darkness always trying to spill over into the light that’s rising in between it all and lets out another breath he didn’t realise he was holding.

Maybe, maybe he too would be alright.