“Okay, it's time that you and the TV bury the hatchet.” Jiyong said out loud even though Daesung wasn't listening to him. He had gotten into the habit of explaining everything he was doing so that Daesung would get more exposure to the language and hopefully that way he would learn faster. One could only hope. But if Daesung was going to join the human society at some point, he was going to have to get over his fear of the television. He hadn't dared to go anywhere near it since the incident with the lion. He even made ridiculously long alternative routs when crossing the living room, just to avoid it.

“Dae, come on!” he told him in a louder voice, summoning him to the sofa.

“Cumong!” he sang as he ran towards him and jumped into his arms, his cheek. Gross.

“Yeah, okay, okay, that's enough of that.” he pushed him away, fishing a packet of wet tissues out of his back pocket. He had started carrying them around at all times, for you never knew when you'd need one with Daesung. He wiped his face clean and picked up the remote, cleaning it as well since he had the tissues up anyway.

“See here, this is the remote.” Jiyong held it up in front of him.

“RemOH!” Daesung chuckled and tried to wrestle him for it. Thankfully he was only playing, because Daesung was easily strong enough to do some serious damage. The muscles on that boy were no joke. But it was as if he realized as much himself and was being extra careful not to hurt him. That didn't mean it didn't hurt at all, so he relinquished the remote in the end, leaving his ego more bruised than the rest of him.

However, once in his hands, Daesung had no idea what to do with it. He tried pushing the buttons, eventually trying the on-button, causing the TV to light up, a brightly colored cooking show filling the living room with life. Daesung yelped, throwing that traitorous magic stick up in the air as he threw himself into his arms for protection from the evil TV and the dangerous creatures it harbored. Jiyong chuckled as he softly patted his back. He couldn't help himself. He was too cute and silly, he really was more like a puppy than a wolf.

“There, there. It's okay. I'll protect you. I wont let anything happen to you, I promise.” he ruffled his hair a bit, trying to make him feel safe, even though he had never really felt completely safe himself. Not really, not the way normal people with normal childhoods did. He wondered if Daesung had ever had that, or if he had been putting on a brave face his entire life, like him, trying to survive. Jiyong knew he was totally fine physically, his injuries had healed better than expected after the accident, only the chronic wound in his heart, that had appeared the moment he was left alone in this world, had gotten worse, not better. He had a hard time believing that everything was going to be okay. There were so many dangers in the world, so many dishonest people, it was impossible to protect oneself from it all, let alone other people. That was the biggest danger of all, letting someone in, and losing them. It was his greatest fear.

He tried to quiet his uneasy heart and focus on the present.

“See, food!” he pointed at the TV screen. Daesung's eyes doubled in size, saliva starting to accumulate in his mouth. Jiyong shuddered at the thought of all that saliva ending up on the couch. No, they had to change the station. But he wasn't as fast as Daesung, who leapt off the sofa and reached the TV before he could react, the screen with great passion. The disappointment was equally great when he realized that all the food was locked inside that weird box of tricks and he had no way of accessing it. He looked at Jiyong with a huge pout, as if he could do something about this injustice. And when Jiyong turned out to be just as powerless as him, his eyes looked at him like he had realized that his hero was nothing but a normal human being, visibly letdown.

“No!! Don't chew it!” Jiyong pulled at the remote to get him to stop gnawing on it. He wondered if it was possible for him to be rehabilitated into a normal human, when his heart and soul seemed to be all wolf.

In all the struggle, they must have pushed some buttons, since the DVD player lit up and The Little Mermaid started playing. Daesung was mesmerized from second one. He went to sit right in front of the TV screen and was so focused on the movie, that it was impossible to get through to him. He had temporarily left this world and entered the mysterious underworld beneath the waves. Once in a while he yelped or sighed, even growling at Ursula the sea witch. He seemed to have finally grasped that whatever was inside the screen couldn't come out, so he was less scared than he had expected him to be.

Jiyong used the precious peace and quiet to tidy up and clean a bit. The moment the movie ended, Daesung started jumping around excitedly. “Agai! Agai!” he waved the remote, looking to Jiyong to hook him up with his next fix. Maybe he was more human than he thought, becoming addicted to TV in a matter of hours.

“Yeah, see, this button, you have to push it, push play.” he explained, “See.” he pushed it and the movie started again. Then he stopped it, and did the same again.

“Pray!” Daesung exclaimed excitedly, pushing just about every button on the remote control, making the DVD open and close, and eventually starting the movie, but he had somehow managed to change it to the Spanish version. Jiyong sighed. He was going to let it slide, when Daesung yelled “Fantástico!”. Oh no, it was enough to try and teach him a life's worth of English knowledge in the short time they had, adding another language was not an option. His Spanish accent was pretty good though, even so, he spent a good twenty minutes undoing all the settings Daesung had altered.

“Anyone home?” a beautiful voice called from the foyer, followed by a very pretty face peeking through the doorway. “I knocked, but there was no answer.” Youngbae chuckled, smiling that charming eyesmile of his that could cheer up the grumpiest of grumps.

“Oh hey! Come on in. We're watching a movie, you wanna join?” Jiyong suggested, a subtle wave of flutter traversing his stomach.

“Sure! Do you have popcorn?” Youngbae giggled excitedly, making himself at home.

“Yeah, I think so, but I have to warn you, we have to watch The Little Mermaid, that's our only option since our wolfie Daedae here has commandeered the remote.” he shrugged with an air of defeat. When Daesung started the movie for the third consecutive time, he had tried to take the remote from him, but Daesung reacted as if he was trying to steal his most prized possession, defending it with his life. What did he care if he wasted his whole life watching The Little Mermaid, there were worse things he could be doing. He suddenly understood parents who bent their own rules just to get five minutes of peace.

“No worries, I always liked that movie, especially the songs. I'll go whip up a bowl of popcorn.” he giggled and headed to the kitchen.

“Uh, I can do it... you're our guest...” Jiyong said awkwardly, not sure why he was randomly feeling shy towards him. Youngbae had already seen his absolute worst side, it was not like he could do anything to shock him.

“Guest? Do you really want to hurt my feelings?” Youngbae pouted theatrically, giving Jiyong an attack of the conscience.

“No, no, go ahead. Why don't you wash the dishes while you're at it.” he snorted, putting up a brazen smile. Youngbae just laughed his bright, tickling laugh and disappeared into the kitchen.

Some time later, Youngbae reappeared with two huge bowls of popcorn and a cheese plate on top of them. Smelling the popcorn, Daesung briefly returned to reality, joining them on the sofa.

“Fantástico!” he exclaimed as he dove his head right into the bowl, attacking the popcorn like a delicious prey.

“Okay, you can just have that one then...” Jiyong frowned. There was no way he was sharing a bowl with slobbery Daesung who had just about every single popcorn in there.

“We can share.” Youngbae said sweetly, taking the other bowl out of harms way. Jiyong took the fork to try the cheese, but Daesung intervened, grabbing the fork with utter amazement.

“Dingohoppah!!” he smiled.

“What?” Jiyong tried to make sense of what he was saying, but it didn't sound like any language he'd ever heard.

“Dingohoppah!!!” Daesung repeated, slightly frustrated.

Youngbae went into a giggle fit. “It's Ariel's made-up word for fork. It's from the movie.” he laughed. Maybe this wasn't the best movie for him to watch over and over again, learning some weird mermaid vocabulary.

After a thorough examination of the dinglehopper, Daesung took his bowl and returned to his spot right in front of the TV, sprinkling popcorn everywhere on his way. Jiyong did his best to ignore it. He would clean it up later.

Youngbae took the other bowl and moved closer to Jiyong so they could share it. The atmosphere between them was weird, more charged than usual. Trying to act normal, Jiyong nonchalantly dove into the bowl with his hand, only to meet Youngbae's hand that had done the exact same thing. He got a mild electric shock as their hands softly collided. There must have been a lot of static electricity in the air, he figured. Youngbae giggled somewhat awkwardly and removed his hand. Why were they both acting so weird?