Morpheles EH

Warm and cosy room, comfortable bed and a smell of freshly made breakfast. That´s what I found when I opened my eyes in the morning. Something like this is rare for someone like me and this change made me feel totally blissful. I didn´t even want to wake up, but my stomach said otherwise. I had a chicken for dinner and it was really tasty, what is probably the reason I´m awake so early, just to taste as delicious breakfast.

I sat on the bed, but when I tried to get up I stomped on something that was lying on the floor. Something very noisy, because a loud "Ahhhh," made me cover my sensitive ears.

On instinct I transformed into much safer form, smaller, quicker. I felt embarrassed for my cowardly act, because that noisy thing has a name. Donghae or better idiot, as I call him. He stood up and looked around in effort to find me, but when he did he just screamed again. Gosh, so annoying. Well, I shouldn´t complain, meeting someone like me can be disturbing. So, I decided to return to the human form, I use it very often, for communication it´s the best.

My light brown fur changed back into black short hair, long and thin tail disappeared and my body grew a hundred times bigger. As a mouse, the animal I transformed into earlier, I can hide easier, but I hate how squeaky it makes my voice sound. Looking to the front I saw Donghae with his eyes wide and his mouth open. I´m pretty sure, I transformed fully and I´m clothed too, so what´s his problem? He can stop looking like a potato over here, it´s embarrassing.

"Eunhyuk?! H-How did you? The wolf, m-mouse, I don´t understand," Donghae continued stuttering, but after a while I stopped trying to encrypt, what all that word mess means and remembered my hunger. I got an idea.

"Hey, idiot, I´ll tell you what you´re so obviously curious about if you bring me a breakfast," I managed to end his incomprehensible stuttering. This should shut him up and fill my stomach at the same time. And sure, Donghae was out of the door in less than three seconds.

To tell the truth, it wasn´t in my plans to come into someone´s house like that. I wasn´t desperate. I could calmly transform into a human and book myself a room in some tavern, but I was attacked as soon as I came to this land. I know, the wolf form isn´t very suited for striding across the farms and people tend to act harsh towards those, who hide in the shadows, but I still felt pissed off, since I had no intention to hurt or even interact with anyone. I even thought of assaulting someone for real when I met Donghae. Instead of scare or hatred his eyes showed astonishment and curiosity. It made me calm down immediately. In these situations, I really am perfectly like an animal, I act based on instincts and the atmosphere of the surroundings.

Sound of footsteps woke me up from my reverie. There stood Donghae with a plate filled with something absolutely awesome. I couldn´t hide me excitement and it made that noisy brat laugh. In any other time, I would bark at him or at least hide my all-teeth-and-gums revealing smile, if he just hadn´t brought these freshly baked buns with cream and strawberry jam. Thanks God, I´m not the wolf right now, or I would be wagging my tail like crazy.

Digging into my strawberry heaven, I was in mood to answer whatever Donghae had on his mind. I expected him to ask me about my changing ability or something like that, but he was more curious about where I come from and where I´m heading. So I answered him truthfully. I am a guide for travellers who pay for my services. Safely leading them to any place in the world with the ability to guard them and solve any possible problem on their ways. I may sound boasting, but I´m really good at my job. What is safer than a wolf as a guard? Donghae seemed to understand, but I didn´t expect his next question.

"How much should I pay for your services?" What? He wants to travel? I´m pretty sure he has never ever stepped out of this village and now he would like to step out of this country?

"It depends on where you want to go, Donghae," I was honestly curious. What does he actually know about the world outside of his home?

"The Treasure Island."

Wait, what? Like for real? I wouldn´t go as far as to call it a legend, but at least the location of the Treasure Island is unknown. Many famous adventurers failed to find it and some of them had even very unlucky fate. And this brat says he wants me to guide him there? Does he expect me to know the location? Yeah, I was bragging quite a lot here, but this is taking it too far.

"I think I know, where the island lies,” Donghae continued after seeing my surprised face, “I´ve been collecting stories for years now and after putting them into a book I found some clues. I can´t say it for sure of course, but I believe, we have actually quite nice chances."

Donghae´s eyes showed courage and certainty. I was slowly being pulled into them and the word ´we´ just made me weak. Donghae doesn´t look like a rich man and on the journey he´ll be probably a nuisance, but why can´t I decline? Maybe going around with a nice cute idiot instead of greedy, repulsive and wealthy merchants would be the change of pace I´m looking for nowadays. So as crazy as I am, I found myself agreeing. And as expected, Donghae´s payment for my services was quite generous.

"After we find the island, I´ll give you a half of the treasure!" Hahaha, cute.

But I have enough money already to worry about something like this. I´ll just ask him for ten bottles of that heavenly strawberry jam if we don´t find the island. To me my stomach is more important than my wallet.

In only three days we were ready for the journey. The preparations made me realize, that Donghae knows way more about the world then I first thought. And he even let me peek into his precious scrapbook, where so many different kinds of information were stored. From medicine, herbs and animals to legends, history and even a few receipts. Awesome book, I´m telling you. We were prepared to start our long voyage to the north, where according to Donghae the Treasure Island was located.

"I´ll miss you too! Don´t worry, Eunhyuk will take care of me!" Donghae with teary eyes called after equally teary parents and it made me kind of embarrassed.

Is taking care of Donghae different from taking care of merchants? And aren´t Donghae´s parents worried about letting him go with me? How can they entrust their youngest son to a complete stranger? That I´m a good guy is not an issue here, I´m not a human after all. Far from human, do you realize, Donghae? I´m a creature that was deemed to be extinct by many, so rare that not ever you have ever heard about it. The magical scrapbook doesn´t bear a single line about my kind, how come you aren´t scared? It´s fascinating, human ignorance.

Dear Donghae, you´re travelling with a morpheles.