HyukJae POV

I paused in exhaustion and breathed heavily. DongHae and I have been walking for two hours straight without taking any breaks. At first, I was able to keep up with DongHae but the longer we travelled, the more difficult it became.

A cool breeze whiffed past me. Even if the cool breeze drifted past me shortly, it felt good. I closed my eyes with pleasure and took a deep breath. When I opened my eyes again, I examined the way that was still lying ahead of me. The many wooden steps that were inserted into the earth of the mountain seemed to never end. In addition, the summit of the Yudal mountain was still nowhere to be seen. I probably wouldn’t live to see the end of this day.

„How about a break?”, I heard DongHae ask a few steps above me. He must have stopped as well when he noticed that I wasn't following him anymore. He approached me hesitantly. Only he a few seconds later, he stood beside me and looked at me questioningly.

„How long do we need to walk until we reach there?“, I asked, looking past him onto the way.
„If everything goes well, we’ll be there in about ten minutes. Do you see the turn up ahead? We’ll leave the path there. It won’t be far away from there. I promise“, DongHae said and smiled contentedly.

My heart skipped happily at the sight. Today was somehow different. DongHae acted strangely. Somehow friendlier… more outgoing. He still kept a certain distance, but compared to yesterday it seemed to have shrunken to a minimum overnight. I wondered why.

I cleared my throat and slightly turned away from him to look at the turn ahead. It seemed to be only a few hundred meters in front of us. I couldn’t see a fork in the road though. Did he want to trek through the mountainous forest? I thought we were on our way to his parents. Why else would we have spontaneously decided to spend three and a half hours in a train to travel to Mokpo on a Sunday morning?

The brunette beside me seemed to have followed my gaze, because without even asking the question that was burning on the tip of tongue, he answered it.
„My father loved nature. When I was younger, we used to go many different places every weekend. A few years ago, we discovered a small clearing. Ever since then, we go there to give ourself a short break from the hectic life in the city”.
„What if they decided to stay at home today? Shouldn’t we have dropped by your place first? Maybe your mother would’ve been there”, I asked and looked sceptically at the way ahead of us.

To be very honest, I wasn’t comfortable with the thought of leaving the road. I only spent very little time in nature during my childhood. As I was born and raised in Seoul, I only knew the Nam mountain and I hadn’t ever walked up there either.

„We can go back if you want to?“, DongHae said, whose soft smile slowly left his face. It really seemed to be important to him to visit his father and brother up there today. I looked at the pretty little bouquet of flowers that I had bought as a present for his mother at the train station in Seoul. If it was really that important to him, I wouldn’t get in his way. I agreed to accompany him to his parents this morning, therefore I wouldn't back down this close to our goal.

I decidedly shook my head and climbed up a few more stairs. My act seemed to surprise the younger man. He stood still for a few seconds and watched me. When I was about ten steps ahead, he seemed to wake up from a trance and hurried after me.

Side by side, we scaled up the many steps until we reached the turn he was talking about before. Neither of us said a word during the climb up. I wanted to say something, but I had no idea about what I could talk with him. DongHae seemed to feel similarly. He kept throwing me fleeting glances and opened his mouth to start speaking, but no words left his lips in the end. The few times our gazes met, he hastily turned away and tried to focus his attention on the goal ahead.

At the mentioned turn I let him walk ahead. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he ducked beneath the wooden railing and waited on the other side for me to do the same. Sceptical, I looked at the floor on the other side. The ground seemed to drop down steeply, but seemed to be accessible. Without thinking about it any further, I followed suit and stepped onto the other side.

The earth felt soft and wet beneath my sneakers. After a few steps I realised that the ground was quite slippery because of the many leaves and small branches. I swallowed once and looked down the slope. Even though it wasn’t that steep, it went quite far down.
Fear overcame me. I wanted to move a step ahead, but my legs weren’t obeying me. My hand tightened around the bouquet. I tried to breathe calmly to get rid of the fear, but it didn’t work. Hoping that it would get better if I wasn't able to see the possible danger anymore, I closed my eyes. Unfortunately, that method didn’t help at all. Pictures of me slipping and falling down the slope appeared in front of my eyes, over and over again. A terrible thought of that situation made it even worse.

Suddenly a warm hand grabbed mine. I immediately opened my eyes and saw DongHae offering me a gentle smile.
„If you want, you can wait by the stairs for me. It won’t take long”, he proposed, but I shook my head to show him that I didn't liked that idea at all. DongHae looked at me contemplatively and then started nodding slowly. He offered me another smile and was about to let go of my hand to continue walking, but I didn’t let go. He turned back to me in surprise.

„Can we... continue together?”, I asked shyly. DongHae didn’t answer my question immediately. Only a few seconds later, which felt like hours to me, he nodded. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Carefully and slowly, we continue our way while holding hands and arrived at a small clearing after a few minutes. At the first glance, nothing indicated that anybody would be here or had been here a short while ago. I immediately wanted to move on, since this obviously wasn’t the place DongHae wanted to go to, when I saw the expression on his face. He wasn’t smiling anymore. Grief suddenly shone in his eyes. Strained, he pressed h