Meadows DH

"Are you kidding me?!"

Eunhyuk just asked me if I could ride a horse. It made me excited, I´ve always loved riding a horse! That feeling of the wind in your hair and that wildness looked really cool. I would always show off in front of girls when my uncle let me borrow his Siwon. The most beautiful horse in the village. So, I was expecting Eunhyuk to transform into the lovely creature, but no, this guy has only scary animals in his stock. In front of me was standing a great deer. Soft dark brown fur, majestic antlers and of course those never-changing fierce brown eyes.

"What´s your problem?" My dear deer friend asked quite annoyed. In a bad mood again, Eunhyuk?

"I´m scared of deer. They look like walking dolls with those round eyes and thin legs. Also, do you expect me to ride to the city on a deer, seriously? That´s so embarrassing," he made me pretty angry. Why is he annoyed when I´m the one, who has to ride on the odd-toed ungulate?

"What´s wrong with you? First, why would you be scared when it´s me here, not some anonymous wild deer," was he making fun of me now? Anonymous deer? So I shouldn´t freak out just because he has a name?

"And people living in the north or in deep forests and mountains often rather ride on deer or elks. It´s normal, Donghae," he tried to persuade me, but his voice was getting louder and crankier.

"I said no, I will walk there. If you don´t like it, just go and eat some grass," I hissed and started walking. No one will talk to me in this tone, especially not a deer!

Or so I thought, but a silver wolf suddenly crawled between my legs and before I could do anything I was sitting on its back. The animal started running fast to prevent me from jumping down and during one big hurdle he turned into that ing deer again. I almost dropped my backpack, and my heart.

I was about to yell at him, but he let out a pained whine, so I decided to make him pay for this later, not now. And the ride wasn´t that bad either. I believed, Siwon was the fastest but in the speed, we were advancing, I was worried I would fly off soon.

"Hold onto my antlers, I hate wearing a headgear," Eunhyuk called and continued even faster. He was right, we would never make it across the meadows by feet.

At lunch time we stopped for a short break. Eunhyuk was trying to catch his breath after his sport performance and I felt really awful. Again, I made him do all the work and only complained instead of simple thanks. I´ll definitely make it up to him later. With that thought I sat down and started preparing a lunch from our decreasing supplies. When Eunhyuk could breathe normally, he turned back into the human and was handed his snack.

"Does it hurt?" I asked him.

"What does?" Eunhyuk asked back without even lifting his head. I could tell, that even the food didn´t bring his mood up.

"When you transform, does it hurt? I heard you whine a bit before and that day, when you turned back from the mouse form, your face was pained too, I remember," I asked him sincerely.

I was kind of worried. I don´t want to be the one to cause him pain. He looked up to me and studied my face. Does he think, I was mocking him? Eunhyuk sighed and took a huge bite of his old-bread cold-rabbit sandwich. No answer, so I took it as yes.

After the lunch we started packing. My companion still haven´t uttered a single word and I felt guilty as hell. I was just putting the leftovers down into my backpack, when I found something. I completely forgot about it. This is surely our life-saver.

"Hey, Eunhyuk, here!" I called and threw the thing at him. He caught it and looked at me with a confused face. "Want a bite?" I added.

Eunhyuk finally resumed to study my secret weapon and his face just, how to describe it, his face started beaming. Eyes widened, mouth opened into a cute ´oh´, and fingers trembling. It was scary, really. I think, even the sun peeked through the thick clouds and brightened grey meadows. That man is a monster.

"Donghae, this is the strawberry jam from your mom! Oh my God!" Eunhyuk exclaimed, hurriedly opening the lid. He immediately coated his finger with the jam and put it inside his mouth. Only loud "Mmmm," escaped his full lips. If I didn´t know better, I would say he just had an .

A few more bites later, we were again on our way to the city. Eunhyuk visibly in much better mood. I even dared to talk again, telling him my new theories about the Treasure Island and how we are going to divide our trophy. How I am going to buy my mom a beautiful dress, expensive suit for my dad and a real horse for my brother. Eunhyuk was just listening, but I knew he wasn´t mad at me anymore.

We were running across the meadows and I could only take in the picturesque sight in front of me. The sun was slowly setting down and everything caught slightly orangey colours. Even my tired guide was breath-taking in the sunset. His fur looked like it was made from gold and small white puffs were coming from his nostrils as the result of the air becoming colder. The outlines of the city appearing on the horizon made me relieved, Eunhyuk looked very exhausted and my back started hurting from the continuous bouncing.

About a kilometre away from the city we stopped. I jumped down and Eunhyuk shapeshifted into his two-legged form. We both stretched and set off in the direction of the entrance gate. Walking on the gravel road leading to the city, I thought about things I wanted to eat and bed I wanted to sleep in.

"It doesn´t hurt," it was almost a whisper but I caught it anyway. Eunhyuk finally spoke up about his metamorphosis. Many hours later after I asked him the question.

"You sure?" I didn´t believe him. We were walking slowly; the air was cold.

"Well, the human form and the wolf don´t hurt at all, the other three of my favourite forms like the mouse for example sting a bit," Eunhyuk answered truthfully. I hummed, encouraging him to talk more. "But the shapes I don´t use often really do hurt. A lot," he admitted. Honestly, for my small ears it sounds pretty painful. I don´t want him to suffer like this. I bit my lip, imagining the pain.

"It´s my concern, you don´t need to worry about me," was he trying to distance himself from me again? It was too intimate to ask him such a question. I bet he won´t talk again for hours now. I dug too deep into that iceberg.

"Thanks for caring, though,” he added quietly and I froze in my walk. Did I hear right? When I come back home, I have to ask my mom, what does she put in that damn jam!