twelve ;

Shuddering unpleasantly, Donghae reluctantly turned the ignition of the car off, then threw an unhappy scowl at the other boy. He defiantly looked up, eyebrows set into a stubborn frown, ready to argue with all his might if he really needed to; that was, at least, until the moment he found a pair of hopeful hazel orbs earnestly staring into his own blue ones. They appealingly blinked a few times and seemed to shine brightly within the dark night, a mischievous glint shimmering within their depth when he lightly cocked his head to the side.

The raven-haired boy felt his heart thump a little faster in his chest at the endearing sight, the corners of his lips twitching uneasily at his own eagerness, and shortly adverted his eyes away. He sighed heavily, then, and scrunched his nose up in grudging resignation. Glaring only for good measure, he finally dared stepping a foot out of the old vehicle and onto the slippery parking lot – only to regret it immediately.

It was outrageously cold and wet outside, even for a day of such gloomy December; snow seemed to be everywhere he looked, tenaciously clinging onto every surface it could possibly reach, which briskly made him wish they had stayed home instead of going out at all. Even in spite of the thick coat he had securely wrapped around himself – Hyukjae’s warmest winter jacket, it seemed –, fierce coldness had still managed to find a way underneath his borrowed clothes and was creeping upon his shivering skin like a starving rat. A particularly nasty one.

Donghae cursed under his breath with a seething tone, seriously considering reaching for the boy and locking themselves up back inside the car.

“Come on,” the latter then insisted, as if reading his mind, and encouragingly tugged on the sleeve of his coat. “Let’s go, you lazy mutt; the faster we get this done and over with, the faster we can go home.” He offered him a small but promising smile and tugged again, nodding approvingly when he finally hurried closer, then quickly led the way to the grocery shop.

There was close to no snow falling upon them – although the frosty layer already on the ground felt thick and crunched nicely under their shoes –, but the wind was real and as unforgiving as ever. Strong and bitter, it furiously whirled around them in such a stormy mess he almost had troubles putting a foot in front of another, which unhelpfully decreased a bit of his sharp visibility. Forced to squint a little, he let out an annoyed sound and gloomily hissed under his breath as he stomped forwards.

A grunt then left his cold lips when wind cruelly blasted his way again, meanwhile he halfheartedly fought the urge to pull Hyukjae close against his chest and hide somewhere warm; at home would be best, his mind kindly supplied.

Curtly shoving his hands into his pockets instead, he lifted his head up a little and carefully sniffled the chilly air to make sure the boy was still close. The damp stenches of gas and cigarettes heavily lingered around the area, but he still hummed in pleasant satisfaction when a familiar, warm fragrance swiftly reached his expectant nostrils as soon as he looked for it. It was faint, driven away from him by the merciless whims of the wind, but still close enough for him to touch its source if he wanted to, smelling woody and spicy and perfect.

A pool of liquid warmth languidly formed at the bottom of his stomach when he eagerly inhaled again, its core swelling a bit bigger each times he took a deep breath in, and carefully helped soothing the piercing coldness surrounding him. He thirstily moved closer, mindlessly contemplating fully plastering himself against the boy’s reassuring back, even if only for a short instant. Well, maybe I could just do that, he considered half-humorously.

As he was about to blindly follow the hypnotizing scent and step on the last couple of stairs that lead to the automatic entrance, caught right in-between uncomfortable waves of winter coldness and indoors heat, a whiff of fresh meat was suddenly brought to his nose. He sharply spun around, sniffling with a renewed diligence.

All thoughts of cold and futile concerns were promptly shoved to the very back of his mind. His pupils dilated in utter concentration while he piercingly scrutinized the dim-lit parking lot, and focused his efforts on finding the source of such promising treat. He almost immediately found it, dark blue eyes easily settling upon a small bundle of dirty fur that was defiantly staring back at him.

Growling, he dangerously bared his teeth at the animal. It was poorly hidden in an underbrush stripped off its leaves, the tip of its pink nose flickering prudently as though sensing a potential threat.

Purring under his breath, Donghae felt his mouth water hungrily at its sight and fleetingly wished he could have been a wolf then, if only to snatch the thing away and relish in the prospect of an appetizing, warm dinner. But he quickly huffed at the appalling thought and sternly scolded himself for it; shifting then would mean leaving Hyukjae and his warmth behind, and he certainly wasn’t inclined to do so just yet. Or any time soon, either, a smug part of his mind noisily offered. He decided to ignore it, at least for now.

Body tensing as his stance promptly lowered into the one of a hunting, he calculatingly wondered if he would be quick enough to rush across the parking lot and seize it before it could escape. Maybe there would even be enough for the boy, too.

“Donghae?” Hyukjae called then, interrupting his thoughts for the second time. He spared him a brief frown, noting his dubious expression. “Donghae, it’s just a rabbit. Leave the thing alone; it’s cold out there.”

“It’s food,” he promptly retorted as he narrowed his blue eyes at the small animal. The touch of concern he heard in his voice was warming, but he was too intent in catching them a decent dinner to care. “It’s yummy food.”

The other raised an eyebrow in mild bewilderment, then grabbed him by the sleeve of his coat and firmly dragged him inside the grocery shop. “Wonderful,” he sarcastically rolled his eyes – though not unkindly, as always – and ignored his protesting grunts. “I’m not cooking any rabbits for dinner tonight, if that’s what you’re trying to say. Now, hurry up and come in – it’s really cold outside and you’re already starting to shiver.”

Donghae threw him an indignant glare. “But, Hyukjae, it’s a rabbit!”

“Oh, come on!”

A couple of seconds later saw the both of them finally stepping inside the warm store, shivering and still bickering lightly.

Bright lights momentarily blinded Donghae’s unprepared eyes when they walked in while a nauseating mingle of food smells abruptly assaulted his sensitive nose, pushing him to wince in slight revulsion.

Yelping, he scrunched his nose up in disgust and blinked furiously, then promptly shuffled closer to the other boy in hopes he would help soothing his unease. He eagerly inhaled as soon as he reached him, before letting out a soft sound of relief when strawberry and spicy undertones easily covered most of the stench lingering around, allowing him to breathe a little more comfortably.

As Hyukjae went to retrieve a basket near the entrance, muttering about drinks and vegetables, he hid his hands in the warmth of his pockets and mildly looked around the noisy shop. In spite of his best efforts, he could still hear the mumbling of pointless conversations around them as though they were directly whispered into his ears, too loud and too annoying, while quiet chuckles and fits of laughter seemed to be shouted right at his face; each small details inside the store were easily caught by his sharp eyes as they carefully skimmed over the place, calm but prudent as ever. There were mostly harmless preys wandering around, but also some potential threats, though nothing he wouldn’t be able to take down if he needed to.

If Hyukjae needed him to.

Soon, he also noticed people he only vaguely recognized – and some others he didn’t know at all – unashamedly staring at him, eyes wide and meddling, meanwhile the whispering grew louder and louder. Donghae barely stopped himself from growling in irritation and grudgingly settled with ignoring them all instead, then finally turned to the boy again.

“You’d have made a very bad hunter,” he finally stated with a disapproving tone. Pausing, he considered folding his arms on his chest, until he figured it would probably look too childish. “A very, very bad one; Kangin hyung would be really disappointed in you and Sungmin would laugh his off. You don’t ignore meat, Hyukjae.” He huffed, then added petulantly, “I want meat, now.”

Hyukjae looked up from his grocery list with a confused frown, before slightly cocking his head to the side. He bemusedly stared at him, plump lips pursued thoughtfully, until his expression slowly cleared into one of amusement.

“There’s really no need to be so mean,” he huffed in mock-indignation. Then, as he fought a grin, solemnly declared, “And I’ll have you know that I would have made a wonderful wolf. The best of all! The most beautiful, really! I bet I’d have you running around at my every whim if I really tried to. And then, who needs to be good at hunting and stuff if you’re here to feed me, hmm? You’d bring me breakfast and lunch and dinner, wouldn’t you? Lots and lots of rabbits everyday – the chubby, very yummy ones.”

A surprised silence followed his innocent words.

Donghae’s eyes widened a little as he stared, startled. “You –…” he started, voice oddly hoarse, and then stopped with a wavering frown.

Curiously enough, the fantasy of Hyukjae being a wolf of his pack had never truly struck him before – at least until that day. Perhaps it was because his subconscious somehow knew it would never happen, but now that such an alluring image had appeared in his mind, he seemed unable – and categorically refused – to erase it. His imagination helpfully supplied him with flashes of a tall creature, standing next to him with slight hesitation but also a kind of braveness he would have found endearing; wild lupine eyes instinctively looking for his own with a sort of challenge he would have wanted to pursue and win, and a dark fur that would have felt soft and fluffy under his muzzle.

He really would have made a beautiful wolf, a smug voice quietly mused in his mind, although it sounded strangely disappointed. It was, after all, impossible not to admire the depth of his hazel orbs, gentle and strong and appealing, and the light shimmers of his vibrant personality that proudly shined within them. He would have been incredible, and there was no doubt that Donghae would have done anything to remain at the same place he now owned in the boy’s life – even if it meant being bossed around by a lower-ranked mate of the pack.

“Yeah,” he slowly uttered under his breath, a spike of nervousness gripping his chest when he realized the destabilizing veracity of his words. “Yeah, maybe I would have.”

Hyukjae laughed, clearly pleased, although he seemed to be still thinking they were only joking. “There you go, then,” he hummed lightly, a cheerful smile nicely pulling at the corners of his mouth.

Then, as he hesitantly made sure there was nobody looking, he discreetly curled a smooth hand around his fingers and squeezed warmly. Giving him another grin – one that looked fonder and more intimate than the previous ones –, he lingered a little longer and finally let go of him.

The raven-haired boy made an odd sound from the back of his throat at the unexpected touch, some nameless noise caught between a whine and a growl, and immediately stepped closer in protest when the other selfishly took his warmth back only a few seconds afterwards.

“Later,” Hyukjae said simply with an expression almost teasing, before finally focusing his attention back of his grocery shopping.

Donghae huffed indignantly, but complied and fell silent.

“What do you usually eat, by the way?” he curiously asked then, sending him a brief glance. Frowning, he thoughtfully compared two different kinds of milk and unconsciously nibbled on his lower lip, unaware of the way Donghae’s eyes darkened at the delicious sight. “When you’re a –… when you’re hunting, I mean. You know, when it’s winter.”

“Rabbits,” he replied pointedly, which earned him amused chuckles. He leaned a shoulder against a shelf, then added more seriously, “Small birds and wild cats when I’m hunting on my own, I guess. We’d try to catch something bigger when it’s the whole pack together, like deer and wild boars, mostly. That’s only what Leeteuk hyung told me, though – I don’t really recall anything except the thrill and the eating, to be honest. But I do remember we managed to take a bear down once. It was very impressive,” he commented proudly.

“I’m sure it was,” Hyukjae chuckled as he put a bag of onions in his basket. “And does it taste any good? Can you remember that?”

Shrugging, the blue-eyed boy wordlessly took the basket away from him to carry it and followed him when they eventually moved away from the vegetable stands.

“Yeah, I suppose,” he said finally, digging into his blurry memories. “I think it really does when I’m a wolf, but I’m not sure I’d be able to eat the same kind of raw meat while being human. Maybe cooked, though.”

The other scrunched his nose up and gave him a skeptical look as he handed him a pack of eggs. “Do people even eat rabbits, though? Or bears?”

“Of course they do,” Donghae scoffed dismissively. Grimacing when a box of cocoa powder was dumped into the basket, he defiantly reached for his favorite brand of coffee and added it to the lot. “Never ate a good roasted bear? Or a confit of bear? Not even braised bear with potatoes and baby rabbits, really?”

“Eww, no!” Hyukjae laughed loudly and slapped his arm, earning curious stares he didn’t notice. “Stop it!”

“Bear sandwich?” he continued innocently. “Bear soup? Bear curry?”

“I said stop it!” the boy repeated in another happy fit of laughter. A wide smile was firmly pulling at the corners of his lips as though it would never disappear, prompting a delicious kind of pride to swell warmly in the Donghae’s stomach, before he cheerfully dragged him to the meat stands. “Let’s go – I think I’ll cook a stew for tonight.”

“Bear stew?”

*

Hyukjae distractedly hummed under his breath while he fiddled with a wet corner of his scarf and picked on a loose thread, comfortably settled back in the passenger seat of the warm car. A quiet yawn flew out of his cold lips as he threw a bored glance outside the foggy window, before he tilted his head around and stole a long look at the other boy. The latter had his blue orbs carefully focused on the dark road, dark hair damp and disheveled from the unbeatable combination of wind and fresh snow – he looked a little like a moody puppy which had just lost a terrible fight against an unforgiving weather of December. Which, Hyukjae mused thoughtfully, was probably the case.

He couldn’t help but smile at the adorable sight, a sort of affection and tenderness he wasn’t used to feel enthusiastically warming him from head to toe.

Surprised, he paused and frowned deeply when he suddenly realized it had already been going on for a good couple of hours already; it almost seemed like the short kiss they had shared earlier – as much as he knew it had remained quite mild throughout, except perhaps towards the end – had triggered an unidentified something within him, without having the common decency of explaining what it truly was about. His body had, in fact, reacted in a way he couldn’t have expected at all, clearly about to demand for more instead of staying mostly passive as it usually did in similar occurrences.

It wasn’t so much that he hadn’t enjoyed any of the few kisses he had received before; they had been quite pleasant as well, after all. But, as a matter of fact, that was exactly the only thing he could ever remember of them – just a slight flicker of dull pleasure he could have found anywhere else had he only wanted to. It was, and had always been, for him, only a brief contact of a foreign mouth upon his own, which usually stirred close to no interest or desire whatsoever within him.

The student truthfully doubted Donghae had managed to arouse any real emotions of lust or need from him either, but it had been real, and different, in a mind-blowing kind of way. For one of the first times in his life – and hopefully not the last –, he actually wished he could feel that light, toe-curling sort of pleasure swell in the bottom of his stomach again as soon as it was possible. And a quiet something he didn’t have the heart to hush told him there was probably no one else than the blue-eyed boy who could provide him more of those foreign feelings.

But once again, he highly doubted it meant that Donghae – and just Donghae – was the only person who could ever make him feel like he had earlier again; he was, all things considered, quite unlikely to fall in love and feel physical attraction with only one person in the world. It seemed more sensible to think that this odd behavior, which seemed to somehow respond to the other boy, had been prompted by the unwavering trust he had put in him as well as the intense relationship they were in the midst of building together.

It still all sounds pretty complicated, he thought wearily; he only hoped that it didn’t mean he was broken in one way or another. Sighing, he finally decided it was maybe for the best if he pushed those agitated thoughts to the very back of his mind for now, and went back to them at a later – much later – time.

“Donghae?” he eventually called a short moment afterwards while his eyes distractedly settled on the tall trees outside. “Can I ask you a question?”

The raven-haired boy granted him a short glance, before he was already focusing his whole attention back on the tricky road that lead to his neighborhood. Gazing at the way his fingers were diligently curled around the wheel, the student idly thought he ought to show him he knew how to drive, too; but just not today, he lazily nodded to himself.

“You already did,” Donghae told him, and it took him a couple of seconds before he remembered what they were on about.

His eyebrow twitched pointedly at the familiar retort, his warmed fingers unconsciously stilling atop the tissue of his now-dried scarf. “Fine,” he suspiciously conceded. “Can I ask you two questions, then?”

This time, Hyukjae was fairly sure he didn’t imagine the amused smirk he saw creeping on familiar thin lips. “You already did.”

The car slowed down to a stop at an intersection, and, without hesitation, the student reached out and punched his arm hard, though he couldn’t bite down the laugh that freely rose up from the back of his throat. An indignant grunt was his reward, before the vehicle started up again.

“You’re an idiot,” he made to sigh disapprovingly but still failed to erase the fondness off his tone, not missing the feeling of déjà-vu their light banter brought to him. Smiling contently, he glanced outside once more when he recognized one of the main streets, and chuckled when an expectant look from Donghae was sent in his direction. He hesitated a little, plump lips pursuing thoughtfully as he tilted his head around to gaze at him, before he was finally taking the big plunge. “Do you… Do you often touch lips with people? With… other people, I mean? You know?”

A thick eyebrow cocked in disbelief, until the blue-eyed boy snorted amusedly. “No, I don’t,” he said in a drawl. “Touch lips with other people, that is.”

Hyukjae blinked at him, eyes wide, and felt a warm flicker of thrill bloom in the middle of his chest. “Oh. That’s – that’s very good.” He paused, then hastily added, “Not that – I don’t mean that you can’t –…It’s just that –… Well, you can do whatever you want, right?” Smooth, Hyukjae, he winced inwardly. Very smooth.

“You’re making no sense at all,” Donghae told him with another smirk as he turned the right flasher on and drove onto a higher road. “I don’t usually sleep around when I actually care about someone, if that’s what you’re trying to ask me; you’re doing a terrible job at it, by the way.”

Stunned and cheeks burning, the student slowly pulled his words apart and put them back together again. His heart abruptly missed a beat in excitement as soon as they sunk in, before starting off again at a worrying pace. , he squeaked mutely. You can’t just throw that at me as if it’s just –… , , – 

“Oh, so you do care, huh?” he nonchalantly, even though he felt nothing like so.

Another snort was thrown his way, followed by a careless hum. “You’re smart – I’m sure you can figure that out all by yourself.” As the car finally approached his neighborhood, his eyes briefly fixed themselves upon him and darkened fiercely, possessiveness burning within their blue depth. “But remember that I don’t share. With anybody.”

. “Well, I – don’t either. So, it’s good.” Hyukjae bit on his lower lip, secretly bursting with something embarrassingly similar to delight. He would never hear the end of it if Kyuhyun learned about it. “Yeah.”

A short silence then fell between the two boys, warm and comfortable, until he decided to break it again.

“Hey, can I ask you another –” The student stopped, suspiciously narrowing his eyes at the other, and then continued pointedly, “Right. Well, I am going to ask you another question.” He saw his blue house coming into view, easily guessing they would reach it in about five minutes at most. “You told me once that you were born a wolf, right? Does this mean that you’ve always lived in the pack?”

The car slowed down when they neared the house, the left flasher flickering into life.

“No,” Donghae finally replied after a long pause, driving onto the path of the courtyard. “When I said I was born a wolf, I didn’t mean it literally. Only that… that it was already in my genes when my mother gave birth to me; she was human when that happened.” A wary sigh left his lips, causing Hyukjae to frown in concern, before his expression slightly darkened. He stopped the vehicle the closest possible to the house and heavily leaned back into his chair, eyes flatly staring outside.

“She used to be a wolf, too, though I think she was actually bitten when she was a teenager,” he continued lowly. “But she hated it to the core; she hated the shifting and having to l