“Not all those who wander are lost.”

J. R. R. Tolkien

Hyukjae and I waited for Kyuhyun to walk up to the platform which took him only about thirty seconds. He was panting while Hyukjae and I waited as patiently as possible for him to continue with telling us his information.

“Jeez, Kyu, you should really do something about your stamina.” Hyukjae snickered despite the situation and I couldn’t help but giggle too. Kyuhyun gave us a glare which seemed more of a pout. “If you’re going to behave this way then I won’t tell you.”

I immediately stopped with giggling but Hyukjae didn’t seem to believe Kyuhyun as he just rolled with his eyes.

“Oh come on, I know that you desperately want to tell us, so spit it out!”

Kyuhyun sulked and didn’t say anything. I bit my lip, I really wanted to know what was going on but I knew that Kyuhyun wasn’t going to say anything unless he got some of his dignity back. I knew that it was childish but I couldn’t care about it now.

“I’m sorry, Kyuhyun. Please tell us?” I pleaded with him.

Kyuhyun grinned and with a pleased face he placed Sungmin a bit higher on his arm. I smiled at the little bunny, I actually wanted to touch him but I focused on Kyuhyun again when he began talking.

“Apparently, the tamers did their rounds with food again and the cage with the snakes were the last one on the list. But when they entered both snakes were gone.”

I looked up to Hyukjae who frowned in thought. “How did they escape?”

“They don’t know yet, but the ringmaster said that they probably wouldn’t leave the circus grounds.”

“How so?” I asked him and Kyuhyun looked down at me.

But Hyukjae was the one who answered my question: “Because they have nowhere to go. They are just snakes with no life ahead of them if they leave now.”

I looked at my tail. I was just as bounded to the circus as the snakes that had run off. “But why would they run off then?”

“My guess is that they are looking for a way to change back… But no one knows for sure, only the snakes know.”

“Kyuhyun are you here?” We suddenly heard a male’s voice from down below. Kyuhyun walked to the platform and looked over the edge before he smiled. “Yeah, come on up.”

I heard several footsteps on the stairs that couldn’t belong to one person and I was right as two new persons appeared that I had never seen walking the grounds. Two handsome males, both tall and with black hair were looking at us.

“Oh, you’re here too.” The tallest said while looking at Hyukjae, he didn’t seem very happy to see Hyukjae. And Hyukjae probably wasn’t happy to see him either because he just rolled with his eyes. “I’ll just go look for them now, Kyu.” Hyukjae just walked away, without looking at me and without saying anything else. It hurt, it was as if he had forgotten all about me, as if I was not important …

“Bastard.” The smaller one said under his breath but all of us had heard it.

“Stop it, Minho. You shouldn’t say that about Hyukjae.” Kyuhyun reprimanded but my brain stopped working when I heard the name Minho. I had heard that name before, Jessica told me that name but it was the name of a lion. And this wasn’t a feline at all but a human… maybe they shared the same name?

“You should stop defending him, Kyuhyun.” The other male warned Kyuhyun. “You know that Hyukjae does what the ringmaster wants.”

“Well, we have to do the same, Siwon. Those snakes are dangerous and you know it. They could hurt Tiffany or the others…”

My mouth fell open. Siwon? Tiffany? Then were these…?

Siwon’s face darkened and he emitted a low growl, grabbed Kyuhyun’s jacket and pulled him closer. His face was threatening as his nose almost touched Kyuhyun’s. “Don’t you dare talk about her getting hurt!”

“Siwon, stop.” Minho was pulling on Siwon’s arm and Siwon let go. Kyuhyun quickly put Sungmin down on the platform and panted a bit to find his composure back but he didn’t seem angry at Siwon.

“Ehm…” It felt like I was intruding on their conversation but I needed to know. The three men focused on me in complete surprise. “Are you two… the lions?”

Siwon and Minho looked at each other for a second before Siwon crouched down where I was sitting and he smiled. “Unfortunately, we are…” 

“B-but … how?”

Minho sighed and sat down on a crate that stood on the left side of the platform. “We don’t know how we change. No one knows what the reasons are for our change, we just do.”

“And it’s extremely painful, both times; when we change into a human and when we change back into an animal again. There is no pattern and no way of sustaining the change.” Siwon finished.

“There is no pattern?” I asked, confused about everything.

“It’s not like they’re werewolves, they don’t change with every full moon. They also can’t change at will. It just happens, sometimes on the strangest times.” Kyuhyun clarified.

“Does it only happen to you all of us?” I felt excitement, maybe I could be human again, even if it was for a little while.

“It happens to most of the animals here, though not all.” I saw the dark expression on Kyuhyun’s face.