“Mom, I’m home!” you said, coming back from school after a pretty busy day.

You frowned. Something wasn’t normal. What was this high-pitched sound? You walked in, careful.

“Mom?”

“Oh, sweetie, you’re home!”

“Mom, what’s this sound?”

“Oh, it’s…”

Your mom came out of the bathroom, smiling… with a tiny, adorable, fluffy malamute puppy in her arms. You let out a long ‘awwwww!’ and approached.

“Oh my god he’s so cute!”

“I found him when I came back from work, he was hurt. So I brought him over to take care of him.”

“Does he have a name?”

“He didn’t have a collar, so I guess he was abandoned… you can name him if you want.”

You delicately took the puppy in your arms and noticed that his right front paw was shaved and bandaged. Your mom was a veterinarian, so she had a common tendency to bring back wounded animals she found to help them. But, most of the time, they had owners, and they had simply fled, so you just had to bring them back to their owner. This time, though…

“Mom, you didn’t put the… the… thing… around his head… so he won’t try to play with the bandages and all…”

“I was about to do that when you came back.”

“Oh, okay…”

You gave him back to your mom and went to put your bag in your room. When you came back, you heard the awkward sounds of a wounded puppy trying to walk around, and you chuckled when you saw the puppy limp towards you, obviously hurt but definitely stubborn to join you. You were a bit further down the stairs, though, and so the puppy stared at you, not daring going down. You laughed and went up a few steps.

“C’mon, here!”

He sniffed the stairs before he hesitantly let the front part of his body fall down one step, finding himself in an awkward position now that his was a lot higher than his head. He tried making his follow, but he ended up falling on the step. You laughed and took him in your arms, hugging him softly so you wouldn’t hurt him.

“You’re too cute. You know what? I’ll give you a name. I’ll name you Wookie.”

Ryeowook, or Wookie, as you liked to call him, had been a very close friend of yours until he had to move out when you two were about ten years old. You had never forgotten about him, since he had also been your first love. Sweet and caring, he had always protected you despite the fact that he was much thinner, much more fragile than you. You had had this childhood love for him, but he had moved before you could tell him about your feelings. Thinking about it, now that you were eighteen, it was probably better like this. The Wookie of your memories, though he was just a kid, would’ve found a way to flee from home just to be with you if you had told him that.

“I wonder where he is now…” you sighed softly, hugging the puppy, who emitted a soft whine, feeling that you were sad.

You smiled and pressed a kiss on the dog’s head. “It’s okay, Wookie. It’s okay…”

Feeling so sad about a lost childhood friend… it was so lame. You still thought about him often, even now. Nobody had been able to replace him.

“I have homework for tomorrow, I’ll do that until supper’s ready, okay mom?”

“Sure, sweetie. Is the dog with you?”

“Yeah, I’ll keep him with me. I named him Wookie.”

“Oh, like your childhood friend! Aren’t you cute ~”

“Mom!”

“Just teasing you, sweetie.”

You pouted and went in your room to do homework.

***********************************

You kept the puppy with you even at night, letting him sleep right next to you. Two weeks passed before your mom let the puppy free of the daily changed bandages, and you smiled when you saw the little paw that now just had a fresh scar surrounded by skin. Wookie sniffed his paw now that he finally had access to it again, and he looked at you with his big gray eyes before he started running around, his big fluffy paws making him slide, and you chuckled, sitting so he could eventually run back to you. You hugged him when he did.

“Hey, Wookie. I had a strange dream last night…”

He tilted his head to the side, as if he were listening to you, and you laughed.

“Don’t look as if you’re understanding anything I’m saying. Anyway… I dreamed that Wookie was back…”

The puppy’s ears flipped up when he heard his name, making you chuckle. “Not you. The other Wookie. I dreamed that he was there. In… in my bed…”

You blushed. “It sounds so wrong when I say it like that…”

The little malamute was only staring at you, and you sighed. “But it was just a dream. I wish he could come back, though… I miss him… I’m sure you would’ve loved him. All dogs loved him.”

The puppy’s stare was the only response you received.

***********************************

That night, you had that dream again. A dream in which Wookie was there, in your bed, hugging you tight, whispering comforting words into your ear. This time, though, it felt more real, and you opened your eyes. You knew you were awake, and yet… why was a… a… a… … guy… in your bed…?!

“What the…” you let out softly, frozen there, questions filling your mind.

The guy froze too when he heard you speak, and you could hear his heart beat faster. You didn’t dare look up or down. Especially down.

“You’re awake…” he ended up saying softly, sighing.

“What the is happening…”

You were too lazy to think about screaming. Anyway, you thought that it would be better if you could sort this out without waking up your parents…

“Shh,” the guy whispered.

“I’m already almost silent…”

“It’s me.”

“Cause that tells me a lot, yeah.”

“It’s Ryeowook…”

You frowned and pushed the guy away, making him fall on the floor with a groan. Not caring a single bit about the fact that you could see him in all of his glory, you took a good look at his face.

Delicate but sharp features, high cheekbones, fluffy hair… he had gotten older, but he hadn’t changed that much. He had lost weight, though, but… it was definitely him…

“W-Wookie…?!”

He chuckled, trying to cover himself. “Yeah…”

“What the…”

“Shh! You’ll wake your parents up. Let me climb back on the bed first, though…”

You threw a blanket at him. “Please have this on first.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.”

He tied the blanket around his waist, hiding the parts you didn’t want to see, and he sat back on the bed. You were just blinking, wondering how the heck that was possible. But then, either it was a dream, either it was true. You weren’t the kind of person who would wonder for long about supernatural things, because you did believe they exist, you had just never seen anything worth mentioning.

“So… um… explain?” you asked softly.

“Oh, yeah. Well, where should I start…”

“At the beginning…”

“Yeah, that’s an idea…”

He stayed silent for a while. “Well, you remember…? When we were kids, dogs liked me a lot.”

“And cats hated you…”

“Well, I discovered why when my parents decided we needed to move. Actually, we didn’t go really far… but…”

“But…?”

“But the goal wasn’t for us to move away far from here. It was for me to discover my true nature. As you can see, I’m, well, a dog. A puppy. I’m not a werewolf or anything, I control my transformations, I’m not cursed or anything. I was born like this, and so were my parents, and my grandparents. As long as one parent has the dog blood, the child will be one of us. I’m… I’m just a puppy because… how do I say this…”

He stayed thoughtful for a while.

“Well, we have ‘two’ lives. The dog’s life, and the human’s life. One won’t grow older if we don’t spend time in this form. And…”

He looked away softly. “I didn’t want to come back to you as a child. I want to protect you. I needed to be strong in order to do so. So I stayed human to grow up… but… the dog wanted to live, to… so…”

He chuckled.

“So I turned into a dog in the middle of the day, randomly. I panicked, so I started running around, trying to find my way back home, but the world was too different as a dog… I ended up getting wounded by a bigger dog when I stepped on his territory, so I ran away… and your mom found me, and there you go, you know the rest…”

You took his right arm softly and observed his hand. On his pale skin, there was a fresh scar. So he really was that dog… You blushed.

“And I said so many embarrassing things…”

He laughed softly. “It’s okay.”

His arms wrapped around your body, and you closed your eyes. Since when was this guy so strong…?

“You missed me, right?” he asked softly.

“I…”

“You said that to the puppy.”

“I… I did miss you… a lot…”

He smiled and pressed a kiss on your forehead.

“I missed you too. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay by your side. I didn’t want anyone else to be so close to you… and I regretted not telling you something before I left…”

You frowned. “Telling me something?”

He hesitantly pressed a kiss on your lips.

“Telling you how much I love you…”

You stayed silent for a moment, frozen there. Wait. Wookie… Wookie loved you? You couldn’t help the laugh, a bit louder than what you wanted it to be. Your childhood friend frowned, eyes sad, thinking you were laughing at him. But you quickly reassured him, going for a kiss by yourself this time.

“It’s probably a dream,” you said in a low voice. “I mean, how could my childhood friend and first love be a puppy, and be in my bed right now?”

“But it’s not-”

“But you know what? I don’t care if it’s a dream. Because it makes me happy.”

He chuckled. “Well… will you let me be your watchdog? I’ll protect you. And bite anyone who dares try to hurt you.”

“But you’re just a puppy…”

“Let me grow up. I’ll grow up as a puppy until I’m an adult dog. And then I’ll come back to you in this form. For real, this time. And I’ll use both of my lives to protect you from everything.”

The thought of Wookie coming back to your side and protecting you made you smile.

“But…”

“But?”

“Don’t come back to me as a friend. I… I don’t think I’d be able to have you by my side as just a friend anymore…”

You hugged him, and he smiled.

“I’ll be whoever you want me to be. But one thing that’s sure is that I’ll stay with you forever. I’ll always be with you.”