“Can't you take a couple more days off?” Jiyong frowned. Seunghyun had been called into work, some important business so he couldn't refuse. “You have a million vacation days pending.” he reminded him. He knew he was being unreasonable, but he had gotten used to having him there. Taking care of Daesung alone was a daunting task, it felt nice to have a partner in crime when disaster struck. And with Daesung, there were back to back disasters all day, every day. Being his guardian was definitely not boring, that was for sure.

“I can't. I'm sorry. I have to go. I don't know how long I'll be stuck there though, but I'll try to make it back as soon as I can, okay? You call me if there's anything.” Seunghyun sent him a feeble smile and turned to Daesung, crouching down to talk to him face to face. “Well, boy, are you going to be a good boy while I'm gone, hmm?” he ruffled his hair a bit and gave him a scratch behind the ear. He treated him exactly like he was a dog. It annoyed Jiyong every time, he couldn't help feeling like he was treating him like he was inferior, like he wasn't a person. But in actuality, Seunghyun's approach was working much better than his, and when he thought about it, it made sense. Instead of trying to stuff him into a person-sized box with strange rules that he couldn't understand, Seunghyun was meeting him half-way, trying to communicate with him in a language he could understand, his own language. In Daesung's mind, he was a wolf, so being treated as such wasn't demeaning at all, it probably made this new scary world a little less frightening.

When Seunghyun disappeared out the door, Daesung followed him. “No, Daesung-ah, you're staying here with me. Stay. Stay.” he repeated, pointing at the floor, trying to convey what he wanted to say through mime and gestures. The disappointed expression on Daesung's face indicated that he understood what he was trying to say, but still he made another attempt to go after Seunghyun. When Jiyong stopped him, he started whining loudly, watching as Seunghyun got into the car. As he disappeared from view, his whining got even louder, he was almost howling. Jiyong was grateful for how remote the cabin was.

Seunghyun pulled the car around and rolled down the window. “I'll be back soon!” he waved. Jiyong waved, and Daesung copied, still whimpering. All of his muscles were on alert, ready to pounce right out of there if given the slightest chance. Jiyong held him back as the car drove off, closing the door.

Daesung looked at him with hurt in his eyes, as if he was the one that chased Seunghyun away. “I think it too, okay.” he said frustrated. They needed a distraction. Something to make the time pass. He decided to use the time to teach him more about the world. Even though he was more comfortable in his wolf-skin, the fact of the matter was that he wasn't a wolf and there was no one that was going to accept him in his wolf-form. He had to prepare him for the world. They couldn't live forever in their own little universe, though Jiyong was starting to warm up to the idea, perhaps more than he should.

He started pointing at various things while stating what they were called. Daesung had no interest at all. At first he pointed too, without bothering with the corresponding names, thinking it was some kind of game, but he soon got bored. Jiyong didn't have the patience for this. He took a deep, frustrated breath to calm himself down. It would be so much simpler if he could just stuff all the words into his brain without having to go through the impossible obstacle that was wolfie-Dae.

Game. That was it!

He dug up some toys from a box he had discovered in the back of one of the closets in the foyer, waving them around to get Daesung's attention who was deep undercover, investigating a butterfly that had decided to visit them. Abandoning the case of the flying butterfly for a red fire truck, he came running. Before he could get his hands on it, Jiyong hid it behind his back.

“Where? Where is it? Where?” he repeated, Daesung looking at him with betrayed eyes, not understanding why he was being so mean to him.

“Here!” he made the fire truck appear dramatically, much to Daesung's delight. He did this several times with different toys, hoping he would get the gist. At least he finally had Daesung's undivided attention, he was enjoying this, making him do it over and over again, chuckling with joy every time the toy reappeared. Finally, he took the red fire truck and hid it again, only this time he kept it hidden in the hopes that Daesung had actually caught on. Daesung wrinkled his eyebrows impatiently, not appreciating the delay. A minute later and he tried to reach behind his back to pull the fire truck out again, behaving like a very unsatisfied customer.

“No... wh...wh..” he tried to give him a hint, to help him along, even though he was losing all hope of being able to teach him a single thing. Maybe he wasn't cut out to be a teacher.

“Wer?!?” Daesung said in a booming voice, still trying to get at the truck.

“HERE!!!” Jiyong pulled the truck out at the speed of light, bursting with pride, grinning like an idiot. Daesung squealed with delight, jumping up and down, not hiding how satisfied he was with himself.

“Mmh! Mmh!” Daesung started pushing his hand that held the truck back behind his back.

“Again?” he asked.

“Agai!!” Daesung pushed and pushed until the truck was completely hidden from view and then watched him with all the anticipation in the world. If he had a tail, it would have been wagging every which way. Jiyong chuckled and they repeated the whole thing again. And again. He could hardly believe how satisfying it felt to have actually succeeded in teaching him something, it almost felt like he was high.

Just when he thought life couldn't get any better, Daesung grabbed a small doll and put it behind his own back, looking at Jiyong with excited, sparkling eyes. No way. Jiyong was speechless. Could it be?

“Where?” he said dramatically, pretending he had no clue where the doll had disappeared to.

“Eeere!” Daesung threw the doll into the air as he chuckled loudly. Jiyong couldn't believe it. Daesung was the smartest wolfboy on the planet! Granted, he was probably the only wolfboy, but still. Amazing. Before he had a chance to show him just how proud he was of him, Daesung suddenly stopped laughing, looking strangely concerned. And without a word, he turned around and ran into the bedroom. Jiyong had no idea what was going on. Had he put too much pressure on him?

Daesung returned out of breath, holding the yellow tennis ball.

“Wer?” he asked, shaking the ball.

“Oh, you want to play with this now. Alright.” Jiyong reached for the ball but Daesung clutched to it as if it was his most prized possession, not letting him take it.

“Wer? Weeeer?!?” Daesung shook the ball, frustrated.

“Here, it's right here, buddy.” he pointed at the ball in Daesung's hand, disillusioned. Maybe Daesung hadn't learnt as much as he had thought. One step forward, two steps backwards. This was going to require every ounce of patience he had, and in his case patience was an extremely rare commodity. Maybe he was doing him a disservice not handing him over to professional people that could give him the help that he needed. He knew nothing about teaching or rehabilitation. What was he even doing?

“Weeeeeeeeeer?!?!” Daesung was so frustrated he looked like he was about to explode.

“Here! Here!” he shouted and tried to take the ball to show him like before, but he wouldn't let go of it. After a short tug-a-war with the ball, easily won by a growling Daesung, whose biceps laughed at Jiyong's excuse of an upper arm, Daesung stood up on two legs, or more like one and a half leg since his wound was still giving him a bit of trouble. Wobbly, he started to hobble around all stiff and awkward, babbling nonsense in an unusually deep voice, randomly erupting into deep laughter from time to time. It was like he was doing a skit. It was like watching the weirdest episode of Saturday Night Live ever made. Ah! It finally dawned on him. He was doing an impression. And a pretty good one at that.

“Wer? Wer?” he repeated in the deep voice, before collapsing to the floor, nursing his sore leg. Jiyong was blown away. Not only had he learned what he had been trying to teach him, but somehow he had been able to make a more abstract connection to the word's meaning as well, all on his own. He realized for the first time that Daesung wasn't a child in an adult body, he wasn't an animal either and he most definitely wasn't impaired in any way. He was a grown man, he had just done his growing a bit differently than other people. A lot differently.

“Aww, you miss Seunghyun, huh?” he said sympathetically. Daesung's eyes lit up at the mention of Seunghyun's name. “He's at work. He's too far away to make him appear out of thin air like the fire truck.” he continued, apologetically. “Although... we could call him. But.. you don't really say much... unless... okay, we can just rehearse a conversation, right? You're a smart little nugget... yes, let's do it!”.

An hour of torture later, along with a bucketload of blood, sweat and tears, both of them going through the full range of human emotion, they were ready. He called Seunghyun.

“Hey, sorry for bothering you at work but there's someone here that wants to talk to you, I think you might have gained a very dedicated fan.” Jiyong started.

“Say what?” Seunghyun sounded confused.

Jiyong held the phone up to Daesung's ear, there was no way he was trusting him to hold it himself since he was an avid fan of making things fly.

“Say something.” he said loud enough for Seunghyun to hear. A moment later Daesung's face was transformed. He looked at the phone with sheer disbelief, wonder and awe, but realizing he couldn't hear Seunghyun's voice anymore, he his ear up against the phone again, anticipation lighting up his face.

“Okay, like we rehearsed remember... 'Hi, this..'” Jiyong said in a low, encouraging voice.

“Hi!” Daesung said in a way too loud but very determined voice. “Dis Dee. Dee miss Tabi. Tabi cumong!!” he continued, the concentration nearly killing him. Not a moment later, Daesung's eyes doubled in size, his ear leaning even closer to the phone, squishing up against it. Jiyong got restless, curious what Seunghyun was saying to him. Daesung chuckled happily. How did he make him laugh when he hardly understood anything at all? Jiyong couldn't take the suspense anymore, taking the phone back despite Daesung's objections.

“Hey, it's me. What the hell did you say to him? He's grinning like an idiot.”.

“It's between me and him.” Seunghyun said in a mockingly serious voice, as if he was guarding the nation's top secret. “What's up with him calling me Tabi, though?” he added in an amused tone. In school Seunghyun had been part of an underground rap-club, performing under the alias TOP. He had become fairly popular for a while, a pack of groupies following him everywhere, much to Jiyong's annoyance, calling him 'Tabi, Tabi' with their over the top cutsie voices.

“Yeah, you try teaching him to say Seunghyun and live to tell the tale.” he told him in a theatrically ominous voice. Seunghyun chuckled.

“Hey, I only have two minutes but let's try video chatting.” Seunghyun suggested, sounding oddly excited..

Jiyong turned the video on, showing the phone to Daesung.

“Dae-dae, hi!” Seunghyun waved. It did not exactly have the desired effect. Daesung freaked out at seeing Seunghyun, not understanding how on Earth he had gotten stuck in that tiny little box. He looked behind the phone as if it was glass, but no Seunghyun there. Agitated, he stared at Seunghyun with worried eyes. “Tabi cumong. Cumong!” he pleaded, wanting him to come out of his tiny prison. Out of time, Seunghyun had to say bye and get back to work, leaving Jiyong to deal with the aftermath. It took Daesung a while to calm down and throughout the day he kept asking to check the phone, to see if Seunghyun was still in there.