Sungmin loved the forest more than anything else in the whole world.

When he had been eight, his parents had sent him across the country, to one of the most prestigious schools in whole Korea. Sungmin hadn’t really appreciated this, but as he grew up, he came to realize, that he needed to build his own future now.

Parents were useless.

Home was useless.

Home could be changed as many times as possible.

But forest never changed. It stayed constant, like a big pillar of stone in the middle of breakable floors. Sungmin had learned to love the silence and the noise forest offered him, and when he had entered High School, he was elated to realize that the school was actually located in the middle of large meadows and just a kilometer to south, you could enter a beautiful grove.

Sungmin felt safe in the middle of the wilderness.

“SUNGMIN. TEN PUSHUPS FOR LOOKING LAZY.”

Donghae sniggered as he ran past his best friend who was now muttering curses under his breath to the fat teacher across the field. Seriously, he had been running more than anybody else in the whole gym class, and when he stopped for two seconds, the teacher attacks him immediately like a hyena.

A little gush of wind blew through his bangs, relieving a bit of the unbearable heat. The pushups weren’t a problem for Sungmin, but the heat was making him downright crazy. When he practiced karate, he was never forced to train outside in the killing heat, but unfortunately all his gym classes were outside, where the situation was completely different.

With a heavy sigh, Sungmin pushed himself up the last time and started to run immediately to avoid the second attack from his teacher. At least the wind would help him relieve the heat while running.

“The teacher really seems to hate you…” Donghae’s voice appeared from somewhere behind him, but Sungmin didn’t turn to look.

“All the teacher’s hate me, because they cannot expel me because of the money my parents stuff inside their mouths…” the male growled under his breath and Donghae sighed.

“Everybody knows that the only reason you are avoiding expelling is because you’d have to give up the wolf forest…”

Sungmin smiled a bit as Donghae mentioned the beautiful grove. The name had come from the rumors which stated that the forest had been inhabited by a huge pack of wolves some time ago. Of course, nowadays there weren’t any left.

“And you are still here because you’d lose the apple of your eye by leaving.” Sungmin said with a teasing tone and Donghae blushed like a school girl at that.  It wasn’t even a secret anymore between them that Donghae was completely head over heels  for this one girl, who visited his dance practice regularly.

“Have you asked her name yet?” Sungmin asked conversationally as they ran past their glowering teacher who was standing by the finish line, a stopwatch in his hand.

“Not yet…I think she might  have a crush on Taemin, at least if the glances she keeps sending his way indicate anything…” Donghae sounded nonchalant about it, but Sungmin knew his friend better than that. Donghae was obviously depressed.

They ran in silence for a while, before an idea struck Sungmin and he started to smirk. Donghae looked at him questioningly and Sungmin let out a little laugh.

“Wanna go and ditch?” He asked when they turned around the last curve. Donghae lifted his eyebrow questioningly.

“Ditch and do what?”

“The new Playboy has been released. It’s the deluxe number.” Sungmin shot a meaningful glance at Donghae, who started to grin.

“How far can you run if we sprint now?” Donghae asked as they ran closer and closer to the finish line. Sungmin laughed openly.

“Further than the teacher can.”

With this, the boys sprinted out of the field, leaving the yells of the teacher behind them and the boys laughed as they ran like eight year olds, out of the schoolyard, out of the school premises, to the dusty road. Sungmin could already imagine how the teachers would roll their eyes when they heard that the Lee twins had once again done something stupid.

___________________________________________________

“This . Who knew that all the Playboy magazines would be sold-out on the first day ….” Donghae muttered under his breath as the two boys walked along the long gravel road, back to school. After they had discovered that there weren’t any magazines left, they had decided to hang out at the bridge, which lead all the travelers through the microscopically small village, towards the bigger cities. The village really was like a little piece of along a motorway: Nobody liked it, but they had to learn to live with it. In the beginning Sungmin had started to feel almost claustrophobic in the small village when he had been so used to the big cities, like Seoul where he had spent almost all of his childhood.

However, as time passed by, he had learned to appreciate the quiet of the gravel roads and the small, wooden shops scattered along them. Sometimes when school started to get too suffocating, Sungmin would walk the two miles to the village, talk with some of the elderly people, most likely buy something sweet and after that he would walk to the wolf forest, sit there until it was dark, and then sneak back to the school.

Sometimes he did all this with Donghae, sometimes alone, but this time Donghae was with him, and he actually liked to walk in silence with his best friend. It was very soothing in a way.

“Whoa, look! You can see all the stars!” Sungmin lifted his gaze up to the sky when Donghae yelled this, and his eyes widened in wonder as he saw all the sparkling little lights all along the black canvas above his head. The stars hadn’t been this clear in ages, and Sungmin found himself smiling goofily as he tried to search for the different  constellations he had learned beck when he was still young and filled with dreams of being an astronaut.  Donghae looked exactly the same as they stood there, faces towards the sky.

“What would you wish if you saw a shooting star?” Donghae asked suddenly and Sungmin turned to look at him quizzically.

“Why do you ask?” Sungmin asked, but Donghae didn’t answer. However after a while, the younger male said something with a quiet voice.

“I sure hope that I could get out of this hellhole. The only thing that kept me sane has eyes for somebody else. I have no reasons to stay here…”Donghae said with a solemn voice and Sungmin looked at him for a while before turning to look at the stars again.

“I hope that I can become stronger. So strong that one day I can achieve something great by my own strength. Something that will keep me from collapsing.” Sungmin said while smiling slightly and Donghae smiled to him.

“I’m sure you can achieve that easily. As long as you keep your eyes on your goal.” Donghae said, and with this, they started to walk again, back towards the school.

Sungmin was so engrossed by his thoughts, that he didn’t notice that they were closing in the wolf forest at a steady pace. Only when they walked past one very weirdly shaped tree, Sungmin actually realized where they were. He turned to look into the thick foliage of the forest, and even though it was dark, and the forest  looked very threatening, Sungmin never felt fear when being near it.

“Donghae, you can go without me. I’ll go by my own route.” Sungmin said to his friend who just shrugged.

“Be careful, you never know what is in there.” Donghae said and Sungmin waved his hand at his best friend.

Immediately when Sungmin stepped to the darkness of the forest, he felt how all his thought disappeared somewhere. The route was already familiar to the male and as he walked forward, the more serene he felt himself.

In the middle of the grove, there was a small clearing. When the sun was shining, the little rays of light would find their way through the leaves, coloring the grass with all different shades of green. However, Sungmin found himself adoring the clearing in night’s colors a lot more. The clearing had got this mysterious aura around it, and was shining slightly from the moon’s rays. Sungmin let his legs lead him to stand in the middle of the grass mat, and without any further thoughts, he sat down and let himself lean to the nearby tree trunk.

He started to think about the things Donghae had told about his crush. How cute she was, how funny she was, how beautiful her smile was….He really adored the girl beyond all limits and still he ended up being rejected.

Sungmin sighed. He really couldn’t relate to Donghae at all. Maybe that’s why they were best friends: they were like day and night. While Donghae lived up in his own world and thought about things like a child, Sungmin had more brooding view of the world. He didn’t believe in love at first sight, or more accurately, he didn’t believe in love at all. It was useless.

Love was useless.

Sungmin flinched violently when he heard a snap somewhere nearby. His eyes darted around the clearing, trying to see the source of the snap, but it was eerily quiet.

It was too quiet.

Sungmin rose up to his feet, all the while letting his eyes dart from side to side, scanning the area cautiously.  He wasn’t scared, but a certain amount of apprehension had wormed its way up his gut, starting to strangle him steadily.

He was just about to turn around and start walking away, when a sudden movement on his left caught his attention.

The male stared to the dark depths of the forest, feeling how cold sweat started to form on his forehead. Maybe coming to the forest at night wasn’t the best idea after all. Donghae’s warnings about all the wild animals started to ring in his ears  and Sungmin took even more steps backwards, still too scared to actually turn around.

Then something emerged from the darkness, stepping to the moonlight.

Sungmin stared.

The creature stared back.

Well, the creature being a wolf, but Sungmin had never seen a wolf so….odd.

Its fur was shining even in the dim lighting, making it look like the whole wolf was shining. The pelt was very dark brown, if not black. Its paws were strong, obviously made for running and its tail was swaying slowly behind it. The head was big, adorned with two perky ears and a big muzzle. It was panting slightly and Sungmin couldn’t stop himself from appreciating the row of white, sharp teeth in its mouth.

However, the most alarming thing about the wolf wasn’t the sheer size.

It was the eyes.

The animal had the most intelligent looking eyes. They resembled its fur very much, very dark brown, if not completely black. The two dark orbs were staring at Sungmin knowingly, and Sungmin gulped loudly. It was disturbing how a wolf could pierce you with its gaze. Like two onyxes would have wanted to hypnotize you. The male took another tentative step backwards, only to hear very threatening growling from behind him.

The male spun around, only to fall onto his , wincing in pain. When he opened his eyes, he was greeted with the sight of another wolf, and this one didn’t look very friendly.

It had very pale fur, a striking silvery grey shade. Its eyes were staring at Sungmin, but whereas the black wolf had held only curiosity in its orbs, this one was glaring daggers at Sungmin. The grey-brown  irises darted wildly between Sungmin and the black wolf, and Sungmin could only stare in horror as both of the wolves started to walk closer and closer to him, both of them silent.

Then the fight broke out.

Without any warning, the wolves bared their teeth and clashed. The previously silent clearing was filled with the sounds of fighting, saliva and blood was flying everywhere, and Sungmin could just stare in horror as the blood droplets flew past him, couple of them landing on his cheeks.  The ground  was shaking with all the power the wolves were exerting to each other, and pieces of grass started to stick to their fur alongside with everything else.

At some point where one of the wolves let out a pained cry, Sungmin snapped out of his trance and realized the situation he was in. He was actually stuck with two bloodthirsty wolves on a hidden clearing. With this, Sungmin rose to his feet, extremely slowly. Without moving his gaze from the two furious animals, he started to back away. Still very slowly.

Not until he was safely behind a few of the big trees, the male turned around and sprinted.

He didn’t look back to check whether the wolves were running after him. He didn’t stop even though at one point he felt like he would puke from the exertion he put his body go through. His hair was  filled with leaves, some small branches and his trousers had ripped from  several places due to some nasty bushes on his wake.

Sungmin didn’t stop until he was standing before his and Donghae’s dorm room. The male was panting heavily and his eyes were still wide from horror. The pictures from the raging wolves send small pinpricks of fear down his spine and he closed his eyes from the pictures, trying to calm down.

After several more minutes, Sungmin straightened himself and let out a couple short breaths. He had to tell Donghae about the wolves. But he couldn’t do it looking scared less. Sungmin let a small smile grace his lips. If he was scared, the Donghae would be devastated.

_____________________________________________________________

“Sungmin, I think you shouldn’t go there anymore!”

It was a math lesson, the first lesson on Tuesday. Sungmin had told about the wolf incident to Donghae, but regretted it already. the younger male had been constantly nagging about dangerous hobbies and  how Sungmin was testing the limits on purpose. The older one had stopped listening altogether when he realized that Donghae really couldn’t understand how Sungmin’s action patterns went.

He would never give up his visits to the wolf forest.

Yes, maybe he had been a bit mortified (to the point where he couldn’t sleep properly and had laid on his bed, his eyes wide open and thoughts running through the whole incident over and over again.) but nothing, and he meant NOTHING could stop him from visiting the place  which was more like home to him than any other place.

Not even crazy wolves.

They were walking along the big corridors to their next class, when something caught Sungmin’s attention.

“….they are going to be attending here for one week! I can’t believe it!”

“…was informed today, they will be arriving during the lunch break!”

“the M’s?”

“Oh my god, I need to see them!”

Sungmin furrowed his brows. The whole school was named the SM-high school and it consisted of two parts: the Merit scholarships and the ordinary Scholarships. The ordinary Scholarships were given to those who paid the term fees normally and who already had a bit of a name. The Merit scholarships were given to those, who had achieved some kind of a Merit, or whose parents were famous enough to give their children the Merit without him or her doing anything.

The Merits actually lived in a completely separate building, and it was kind of disturbing, because nobody exactly knew where the whole building was located, or how did you get there. The M’s visited the S-school regularly, but the S’s never got to visit theirs. That’s just how it went.

Sungmin looked at the small group of girls who were already gushing about how they would dress, what kind of make-up they would put on and how they hoped that the M’s would visit their classes.

Yeah, it definitely pissed Sungmin off.

On top of the fact that the Merits got to actually live in luxury and have the adoration from the Scholarships (Girls, mind you…) they also had the stunning good looks, looks enough to rival a supermodel.  Sungmin hadn’t actually seen them face to face, but he had seen a photograph some girls had snapped during the last visit, and Sungmin had had to admit it, begrudgingly or not, the girls really weren’t exaggerating when talking about the looks of an angel.

“I wonder whether they will be taking some of us with them this time too…” Donghae’s voice snapped Sungmin back to reality and he blinked a couple of times before realizing what Donghae was talking about.

“I think so. They do it every time.”

The other thing why the girls went always overboard during the visits was the fact that the M’s had been taking in some students from among the Scholarships as ‘studying assistants’ for some time now. There hadn’t been many, but the rumors were that once you got picked as one, your future was secured. Also, the girls were boasting about the percentages at which the studying assistants and the Ms had gotten together. Sungmin couldn’t exactly believe the rumors because there weren’t any sources from which you could look at it.

Because once you left with them, you never got back.

“Arriving at lunch break, huh? Well, it’s the next break after this, you think we should go and see whether the rumors are true?” Donghae asked playfully and Sungmin smirked.

“Oh, now that you don’t have luck with the girls you’re going to bat for the other team?” The male laughed when Donghae blushed and slapped Sungmin’s shoulder.

The boys started to make their way towards the next classroom, when an alarmingly familiar yell was to be heard from the other end of the corridor.

“THE LEE TWINS. STOP RIGHT THERE YOU LITTLE DIPS.”

Donghae and Sungmin winced in unison at the sound of their PE-teacher. they didn’t even have the time to exchange horrified glances before they were dragged away, to one of the most seldom used classrooms. the two boys looked at their teacher nervously. the man was at the verge of bursting from rage at this point.

“WELL. Did the Lee twins have fun running away from PE-class?!” the teacher asked with tone dripping with sarcasm. Sungmin stole a glance from Donghae before smiling like a little angel he was.

“Yes, we did! It was very… refreshing” Sungmin flashed his perfect smile to the teacher, but recoiled immediately when the teacher looked like he was about to burst from sheer rage.

“Well I BET you did have fun when you come back from your little adventure after 11pm! And on top of that looking like you had been rolling on the ground for some time!” Sungmin gulped when he saw the sparks flying from the man’s eyes and looked at Donghae pleadingly. However, the fishbrained friend he was, he didn’t exactly understand what Sungmin meant.

“Are you trying to say that Sungmin would’ve had when we went ditching?! No way, the reason he was late was because he saw a wolf….”

“…SUITED WOMAN.” Sungmin yelled in panic, enclosing the room in silence. Donghae was looking at his friend, completely dumbstruck, and even the teacher seemed to be at loss of words. Sungmin mentally facepalmed and sighed heavily.

“You see, I saw this very hot chick with a wolf suit, and I kind of like flirted with her and things escalated after that, when the woman’s friend came in when we were just getting to the best part, and they started to fight…..” Sungmin’s voice got smaller and smaller as he saw the teacher’s expression turn from furious to downright murderous.

“DETENTION. TODAY. IN THE PRACTISE STUDIO. CLEAN ALL THE MIRRORS. NOW GET OUT!” the teacher  screamed at them and very happily the two boys ran out of the classroom.

“What the Sungmin?! We could’ve gotten out of it without detention if we would’ve told about the wolves!” Donghae hissed angrily and Sungmin just strode forward, his eyes hard.

“I can’t. If I would’ve told about the wolves, the forest would’ve became restricted area for the students. It’s difficult enough to get there without the restrictions too…” the male said quietly and Donghae let out a frustrated sigh.

“Are you seriously ready to protect the forest to the extent that you ignore your own safety completely? Sungmin, wolves are animals! They’ll kill you without a second thought! They won’t care about the fact that you are trying to protect them!” The younger male  growled under his breath, and with this Sungmin turned around to face him.

“I’ll do the detention alone. This has nothing to do with you, and this is completely my fault, so you don’t need to come.” The older male said quietly before turning around and walking out of the corridor, leaving Donghae standing there, completely dumbstruck.

________________________________________________-

Sungmin sighed heavily.

School had ended already and Sungmin was standing in the empty practice studio, scrubbing the mirrors.

He was angry. He was frustrated. And most of all, he was sad, because he had been so mean to Donghae. Even though the fish seemed to be a bit too slow in some occasions, he had been still trying to help Sungmin as well as he could.

Sungmin stopped his scrubbing and wiped his forehead before releasing yet another heavy sigh. The male scanned the huge practice studio, before the frustration finally crawled out of its hiding place and with an enraged war cry Sungmin send the rag sailing through the studio, and landing on the floor with a resounding flop.

The male stared at the rag and clenched his fists. Seriously, he needed to vent all this anger somewhere. Without thinking about it very much, male marched over to one of the cabinets at the side of the studio and drew out a big punching bag, attaching it to one of the small hooks hanging from the ceiling.

The male took of his white T-shirt so that he was only clad in his sweat pants and stared at the punching bag.

“ the boxing gloves. I’m going to punch my hands open.” Sungmin growled before he lunged forward.

Sungmin loved the mixture of sweat and blood on his knuckles. After ten minutes he was panting heavily, but didn’t stop at any point. He was so engrossed in the sensations that he didn’t notice how somebody entered the studio, silently like a ghost.

When Sungmin finally stopped, his knuckles were bloody, and he was covered in sweat. He didn’t hear the footsteps over his ragged breath, but flinched violently when somebody spoke from behind him.

“Have you trained Taekwondo or Karate?”

Sungmin turned around, and his eyes widened as he saw a lanky male before him. He had sweatpants and a black wife beater on him, and a training bag was slung carelessly over his shoulder. He had very….delicate features, but the sheer muscle under his shirt showed that he wasn’t somebody who you could take on just like that. His black hair was a bit shaggy, like he would’ve just gotten out of bed or something. Sungmin narrowed his eyes.

“Who are you and how did you get here?” the male asked suspiciously and the lanky male just smirked at him. Sungmin felt his irritation rise once again and followed the male carefully with his eyes. Sungmin hadn’t noticed it before but the male was obviously Chinese. He had a slight accent and his delicate features just  screamed CHINA.

“You didn’t answer my question.” the male said from the other side of the studio, and Sungmin couldn’t stop himself from noticing how flexible the male was. Either Taekwondo or dancing….Sungmin found himself thinking and without stopping to think he walked over to the Chinese male.

“Actually both. I just dropped Taekwon-do for a while to concentrate fully to Karate.” Sungmin said, all the while analyzing tall lanky male before him. The Chinese male made a couple of stretches before standing up and looking at Sungmin, a smirk playing on his lips.

“How about an all-out match then. The one who gives up is the loser.”  Sungmin looked how the male walked to stand in the middle of the studio, and looked at the younger expectantly.  Sungmin narrowed his eyes and followed him, although a bit reluctantly. The Chinese man just laughed openly.

“I promise I won’t hurt you.  And this will be a good way to let all that anger out of your system.” the male smiled a mysterious smile and Sungmin furrowed his brows.

“How’d you…”

“I think that punching bag will never be the same.”  The male let out a laugh at Sungmin’s bewildered expression. Finally the smaller male sighed heavily.

“Well, it’s your funeral, because if I vent all my anger to you, you are going to be in one hell of a ride.” Sungmin said with a bored tone and the Chinese male smirked.

“I like your attitude. Bring it on.”

~

Kick. Kick. Punch. Block. Block, Duck. Punch. Punch. Punch. Kick. Block. Block. Duck.

Sungmin soon fell to the steady rhythm of the  match, and soon he felt how his muscles actually started to wake up from their slumber. The kicks became faster, punches became stronger, even less of the opponent’s punches hit home.

However, Sungmin started to get angry.

“You’re holding back!” With this, he surged forward, attempting to take the tall male with him to the ground, but before he even had time to react, his back hit the ground with enough force to slightly wind him, but before the lanky man could start constructing an arm bar, Sungmin rolled onto his stomach, and jumped to his feet, only to be dragged down again.

The air seemed to freeze in the studio as Sungmin laid on the floor, his back against the cold panels, the lanky male on top of him. Then Sungmin growled angrily.

“Do something, you have the upper hand here!” the male said angrily, but the lanky male just stared at him. Sungmin looked to the dark orbs observing him, and suddenly his skin went on goosebumps.

This guy was familiar…!

“I think we can end this in a tie.” the male rose from on top of Sungmin, and walked to get a water bottle from his bag, leaving Sungmin lying on the ground. The male was still mortified about the feeling he had gotten from the eyes. His instincts were signaling him to run, to escape, but something else inside him told him that it was okay. Because he was familiar.

“I think you should talk to someone about the things on your mind. It’s not good to kill a punching bag with your rage.”

Before Sungmin could say anything, the male had left, leaving only the scent of sweat and silence after him. Sungmin stared at the door for a good ten minutes before he actually realized what he was doing and rose from the floor.

the mirrors; he needed to talk to Donghae.

____________________________________________________________

“So you’re freaking out because you saw some Chinese guy at the studio and he felt familiar?” Donghae asked confusedly and Sungmin nodded.

It hadn’t taken much effort for Donghae to forgive Sungmin’s weird behavior. Now they were talking silently in one of the lunchroom’s corners, trying to make Sungmin’s feelings make sense.

“It was seriously weird! And I didn’t even get to know his name….” Sungmin bit his nail and stared at the opposite wall with furrowed brows. Donghae smirked.

“Guess what I think Sungminnie? I think you just saw a reeeaaaally hot piece of meat and started suddenly batting for the other team~” Donghae started to poke Sungmin, and the older male just glared at him.

“Donghae, this is serious!”

“Of course, of course! Sooooo…Who was on top?” Sungmin was practically ready to rip his hair out at this point, but his plans were disturbed when awful screaming started to emerge from the corridors. Sungmin and Donghae stared in wonder as all the girls around them started to furiously put on make-up and just scream  randomly. Sungmin lifted his other brow questioningly, but then the reason for the madness arrived.

“OH MY GOD IT’S THE MERITS!” the screams echoed all around the cafeteria and Sungmin growled in annoyance.

“Come on, let’s get out.” Donghae nodded and with this they rose from their places, walking through the masses. Sungmin was practically ready to yell at the girls to get the out of his way, when one very rowdy girl decided to run past him…

….and Sungmin’s grip on the tray slipped.

The male looked in horror as the tray fell in slow motion, plate and glass colliding with the floor  with an ear shattering crash. Donghae stood beside him, equally frozen when all the screaming suddenly lessened and all turned to look at the cause of the commotion. Sungmin bit the inside of his cheek, eyes closed as the flaming red spread to his cheeks.

However, while trying to calm himself, he didn’t notice the three males making their way towards them, successfully getting a clear road to the center of the chaos. Sungmin flinched when a figure reached out his hand before him.

“Come on, somebody need to get the glass pieces cleaned up and I think you’re not a piece of glass.” Sungmin opened his eyes when he heard the familiar voice, and when he lifted his eyes to look to the dark orbs of the Chinese male, he gasped loudly.

Now he remembered why the male seemed so familiar.

Eyes like two onyxes ready to hypnotize you.

Sungmin was sure of it, as unbelievable it was. He had seen this man in the form of a wolf on that night at the clearing.