“A human?! You’re telling me your mate is some stupid human?” He hissed with disgust. I knew he wouldn’t take this well. Stupid, In Hye. Your brother hates humans as much as he hates you.

But how he found out, there was only really one person who knew. My eyes shot over at the youngest in the pack, because this reveal was apparently worthy of the audience of the entire pack.

“You bastard, did you really rat me out?!” I shot out of my chair, but the booming voice that scared the life out of me already instilled mass amounts of fear when he yelled.

“Sit down, In Hye. NOW!”

Sungjong was calm in this, as he turned over to me. “We all have to know if a member gets a mate. The hormones will throw us all off.”

My eyes were throwing daggers at him. I was supposed to tell Woohyun on my own time. I thought Sungjong knew that. But the cat was out of the bag. And now the whole pack knew.

“Well, In Hye? Is he?” Woohyun demanded out of me.

“I can’t control it, you know that.” I spat. Not the best tone to use with the oh-so controlling brother. I was way too angry at Sungjong to really care that Woohyun was angrier.

I haven’t seen Sehun since witnessing that argument…and other things that apparently could easily rip my heart out. And I didn’t see him at all in any of my classes today, so I assumed that he was just avoiding me. Back to normal.

Woohyun let out a sarcastic laugh, rolling his eyes. “Of course it would be you who had a human mate. You’re already different enough.”

Different might have been the nicest term he could come up with. Technically, werewolves don’t have human mates very often. Actually…hardly at all do a human and werewolf mate. Usually it was two werewolf mates. That’s how our parents were. That’s how Woohyun and his mate were probably going to be. And that is how he expected me to be. My brother should have known already that I haven’t followed the status quo in anything related to werewolves.

He folded his arms and shifted his weight on one leg. “Well, go on. Who is it?”

“Oh Sehun.” I didn’t hesitate, nor falter. There was no need anymore, just like there wasn’t a need to deny my growing feelings. It would only make things worse if I had been in denial.

“That lanky kid with a girlfriend?” I nodded. “Let me take a wild guess…” Let’s just say I get my habitual sarcasm from my brother. “He doesn’t know about you, werewolves, or anything related to the sort?”

This time I shook my head. It was a bad thing. Not only would I eventually have to tell Sehun everything, but in addition, I would be exposing the entire werewolf community to a human. I would have to trust a human with that secret…

Crying isn’t something that I fall into. It takes a lot to get me to shed any type of tears. Throw in: me witnessing Sehun completely happy in his relationship with my brother’s anger? That changes things. Woohyun has always been spiteful towards me, for God know’s why. He’s never been vocal about it until today. And like I said, what perfect timing to do it with an audience.

“Damn it, In Hye!” He threw his hand threw the air. Sure, I’ve seen Woohyun mad. I’ve seen him look at me with disgust. I couldn’t describe the new type of low he was pulling except through the words he said to me. “Ruin our family reputation enough, why don’t you?! Everything bad that happens in our family is because of you! EVEN OUR PARENTS DEATH IS YOUR FAULT!”

A feather could drop and you would be able to hear it. None of the boys said anything. I didn’t say anything. The first thing was my hands shaking, mostly because he had never pointed it out like that before. Deep down inside I had locked that single day away, and pent every single emotion so that I’d feel none. I didn’t shed tears until today. And like I always do, I ran.

I think I heard Myungsoo yelling to Woohyun that he took it too far, but the distance between me and my house created that audio barrier where I wouldn’t have to hear anything for long.

I don’t know which was faster, my legs that were running or the tears that were falling. It was the quickest change of my life, the fasted I had ever wanted to pull off all my clothes. I run faster as a wolf. Also, it was easier to cry in my wolf form, because it didn’t really feel like crying.

Sure my eyes would water up, but I’d howl so that even Woohyun would hear the hurt. The screech of a devastated being echoed through the walls of this forest as I cried. My head was tilted back, my white covered snout was raised into the air. I cried for two men, my brother…my own flesh and blood who didn’t treat me as such. And Sehun. Neither of those relationships were working out the way I thought they would.

I might have missed the sound of a shutter if I hadn’t taken a breath. My watery eyes shot open and stared at the boy with the camera. Being emotional didn’t faze him at first but the whimpering was out of my control. If I could describe what humans do, it’s that thing where you try to stop your crying but end up with this ugly hiccupping mess.

Oh Sehun…I don’t know if you show up at the most perfect times or the worst…

I crashed down on the dirt floor, continuing my sporadic weeping. My breathing was erratic, mixed with my failed attempts to keep howling. That was a good time for Sehun to realize there was something wrong with me. “Snow?”

His voice was so soothingly soft. I hate that I give in so easily. The pull is just something my body desires, not my heart. Or maybe it’s my heart too. I’m not sure. Mates were conflicting, that was the only thing I was able to confirm on my own. I can't do anything else by myself.

He bent down besides me and ruffled his fingers through the white locks of my fur, “Why are you shaking?”

I pushed myself off the ground and changed to a sitting position. Sehun on the other hand plopped his body down and inspected every inch of me. My eyes were watering, there was most definitely snot coming out of my nose, and my entire body was shaking; no wonder there was this look of worry across his face. He leaned forward a bit more and started rubbing my back, and we were this close to being in some type of hug. And a side of Sehun I probably had the only pleasure of seeing.

You know how people have that voice when they talk to animals? Kind of the same thing as when people talk to babies. I, Nam In Hye, was apparently a baby. Sehun put his hands on either side of my face and puckered his lips in a sort of mock sadness. He probably thought that it would make me feel better. Which…it did.

“Aw, is my little Snow not happy today? Why not?” He gave me a bright smile and scratched that special place behind my ear. My tail unconsciously started to wag like a dog, and Sehun scratched harder at my response. This was the first time he acted this way around me, I guess he was more comfortable now. At least…he was more comfortable around this me. Maybe what we needed was baby steps.

In that single moment he made me feel better. But overall I still felt horrible. Now it was for a different reason. I observed Sehun as he looked down at the pictures he took, his smile beaming with pride. He was beaming with happiness. My greater assumption was because he “made up” with his girlfriend. He always seemed happy when he was with her.

I felt this wave of pity, but I’m not sure whom it was directed to. I couldn’t help but to think how unfair it is to Sehun that I’m here. That he is my mate. He can deny me, he has that choice unlike me. But there would be a residing feeling within him that he is never really satisfied. It’s part of the pull. How is that fair? When he is already so happy…

My eyes were on Sehun’s figure, but they moved passed behind him to see a little grasshopper land on his shoulder. It took him a good minute to notice, but once he did…all hell broke loose.

“Ah get off!” He flinched back and brushed his shoulder, doing a crazy man dance once it landed on the ground. He kicked it away, in the process making a cloud of dust. Sehun flinched when I sneezed. Tch, shouldn’t have kicked up the dirt like that drama queen. Just a grasshopper.

His spaz moment ended and he gave me a funny look. “You know sometimes I forget how similar animals are to humans. You sneeze a lot like her.”

Great. Not in the mood to listen to you talk about your girlfriend. I know my sneeze is unique anyways. People always ask if it was a sneeze, which is a dumb thing to ask people in my opinion. No, I was just randomly blowing out air in a snort like manner. But it’s not a sneeze…

Once again I heard Myungsoo in the distance, calling for me. Please come home. He was begging me to come home. I didn’t want to, but with Myungsoo actually asking and begging me to come back. It’s not like I had many options. He didn’t beg.

“Oh, your family? Or pack? Which one was it?” Sehun started talking to me, and then muttered to himself. I turned around and ran off, wasting no time to find my clothes and go back to my house.

I didn’t want to go through the front door; to risk running into Woohyun was to put all of my emotions at stake once again. I jumped up to the second story easily, and opened my window to crawl through. It didn’t matter if I was sneaking in or not, if both of them were in the house they would have felt my presence.

I saw Sehun’s questionnaire packet on my desk, ready for me to read. I grabbed the packet and flopped on my bed, looking at the messy thing. There were so many erased and crossed off answers in this thing. I flipped through the pages, just to see marking after marking of his changed answers.

Before I could actually read any of them, I heard a soft knock and then watched the door handle twist open. Myungsoo came in with this solemn look, setting a plate of dinner on my desk and taking a seat at my desk.

“Don’t tell me that he didn’t mean it. He meant everything.”

Myungsoo shook his head. Over the years, Woohyun kept those feelings to himself, but a tiny part of me knew he felt that way. Myungsoo probably thought the same. He put his elbow on the desk, propping up his head. “He doesn’t understand it, Hye.”

Myungsoo left it at that and walked out of my room so that I could eat alone. Woohyun saw that day in a certain light, and the events that happened in his head weren’t the events that happened in mine.

I rolled off my bed and brought my plate over, reading each question very carefully. The first few he had kept the same, the nicknames, his best friend being Jongin. At first he put that he is more of a cat person, but he erased it and put dogs instead. His favorite drink was bubble tea, but I already knew that.

The best book he’s ever read has been Damn Good Advice? Ok, that’s a bit random. Favorite fruit: mini bananas. I guess they had to be mini. Biggest pet peeve is when people judge…well isn’t that just ironic. I mean, I hate that too but Oh Sehun doesn’t like it when other people judge?

As the questions go on, the answers become sloppier. I could tell that he erased a lot, and by the looks of it he didn’t take the questionnaire seriously at first. How I found that out was the question about his biggest fear. I remember exactly what he said: bears. But that wasn’t what was on this paper.

My brother. We had the same answer. I realized we had a lot of answers that were actually really similar. A question on there was if he had the chance to do anything, what would he do. We also wrote the same answer for that one: travel. Get out of this ridiculously small town. Explore. The woods were not enough sometimes.

One of the last questions struck me odd. Of all the things, I would have though Sehun had this figured out. Where do you see yourself five years from now? His answer was that he would like to know. So he didn’t really answer. Unlike me, he had no idea what he was going to do with his life. He didn’t put something cheesy like get married and have a white picket fence house. There was nothing he saw in his future. I was seriously beginning to see Sehun in a different light. How is it that two very alike people just don’t get along?

Sleep escaped me, because my mind was racing through all of the answers Sehun had answered, reanswered, and tried to ignore. Let’s just say I haven’t been able to get a lot of sleep in the past week.

There was a note left on my desk the next day, with handwriting that I know recognized. My place this time. At 3. Maybe I was reading into things, but to me it seemed like Sehun was being nicer to me. Or am I reading into things? He’s inviting me into his apartment…isn’t that nice?

There was this awkward tension between us, sitting next to him made my leg shake rapidly. My heart was beating; there was this tingling feeling down along the back of my neck. I didn’t like it, but at the same time I really liked it.

I walked to Sehun’s apartment at a reasonable pace, my legs were wobbling at every chance that I get. I shouldn’t keep my hopes up for anything. We’ve been meeting like this for a good month or so, nothing will be different. The green building stood so still and peaceful, but little did I know things would be quite different on the inside.

Once I knocked I heard him yelling that it was open. I had only been to the place once, and now he just wants me to casually walk inside like its no big deal. News flash Oh Sehun, this is a big deal. Everything about him was endlessly confusing.

I went in and sat in the exact same spot that I did yesterday, Sehun came out of the kitchen with a glass of water just like last time, and everything was almost back to normal. “Oh…”

He got up and disappeared into the hallway, coming back with my camera bag slung on his arm. The broken one. Once again, I was reminded of something I didn’t want to remember. “You left this here.”

I took the bag from him but it felt unusually heavier than before. Since I couldn’t do anything with the broken lens I had to throw it away. My bag shouldn’t have been heavy. I unclipped the folded cover and saw a completely different, much more insanely expensive lens perfectly fitted into my case. “What the hell is this?” I pulled it out and pointed it at him accusingly.

He looked shocked at my response. No, Oh Sehun, I am not going to fawn over the fact that you replaced my broken lens. “Did you buy me a new camera lens?”

He scrunched up his face with a massive amount of confusion. Looks like he thought he was doing a favor. Not at all. “I-“

“Why would you do that? Why are you suddenly being nice to me?” The mere idea of Sehun buying something for me that easily costs over two grand made absolutely no sense.

“Why are you getting so defensive? I was expecting a ‘thank you’ or something.”

I scoffed. “Thank you? Yes, Sehun the bully bought me a new camera lens. Wow, I’m so greatful for having such a nice bully.”

His face turned sour when I emphasized bully. Like he didn’t know exactly what he was doing. I’m done playing this guessing game with him. I’ve tried so hard to figure out what the real him actually is, but there are so many gaps that the only thing I actually know is that he likes to drink bubble tea.

I needed answers, and I was determined to get them. “Ok, so I spill juice on your new shoes once and that constitutes for all of the harsh things you have said and done to me? You can’t possibly think you aren’t a bully in this situation!”

“Those were expensive as hell, you don’t even know!” He defended, but it sounded more like whining than giving me an actual reason. I’m driving him into a corner, and I really like it.

“What does a middle school boy know about expensive shoes? Sehun, I swear if you don’t give me an answer-“

“Fine, fine. As long as you don’t ask again.” He mumbled the last part, shoving his hands into his pockets and looking anywhere but at me. I could hear his heartbeat; it was more rapid than my own. He took a deep breath in, a deep breath out, and repeated this so many times.

“I’m waiting.”

“I don’t like it.” He said vaguely. So, he’s going to play this way, not telling me everything if his life depended on it. I’m done with your games.

“Don’t like what?” I made my impatience more clearly in my actions, crossing my arms and tapping my foot. He seemed to pick that up fairly quick. Sehun shifted on each leg, uncomfortably looking down at my tapping foot.

“I didn’t like the way I felt around you.”

My eyebrows scrunched up, partly in confusion, partly angry at his choice of words. He doesn’t like the way he feels around me. That wasn’t expected. So he feels bad around me; like really bad? Or confused like how I am around him?

“Didn’t or don’t? That makes a big difference.” Clarification was key here. I needed to know more than anything if he still felt that way. But then again…that only confirmed that he was in fact my mate.

He hesitated. “D-didn’t.” He didn’t sound so sure. But he huffed out like it didn’t matter to him. “Can we just forget the past and get on with the project?”

He grumbled as he sat down, flipping through a familiar packet. He was supposed to read that already, and I was more than uncomfortable that he was looking at my heartfelt answers when I was present. To be fair he never specified which project he wanted to work on. “Why do you like photography?”

I was busy editing the essay when he oh so curiously asked me that. Lot of curiosity in this one. I thought of an answer. And it was a hell of a good answer. “It’s romantic isn’t it? You can capture the most beautiful moments and always remember them. If you have happy memories, it’s like you’ll never forget.”

His gaze stayed strongly on me, taking my words to heart. “So you take pictures of your happy memories?”

Ah, the loophole. I looked down to my lap and played with my fingers, digging under my nails. Doubt rose within me, he probably just wanted to know this kind of thing for the project. “I said if. And no I take pictures of nature. One…has to have happy memories they want to keep.”

I felt my chest tightening at the harsh reality I had just put into words. Was that really true? I…don’t have any happy memories to capture. Sehun cleared his throat and put the questionnaire aside, looking like he had just shot a puppy. He kept silent after that.

I wouldn’t say that I was excited to use the new lens…scratch that I was insanely excited. The model he bought me was one of the most expensive for the camera that I owned, the highest quality. How he was able to afford that, or figure out that it was one of the best, I had no idea.

The next day I took my 3-hour gap between classes to run off into the woods. A new feeling of paranoia was inside of me. Now, every time I come out to this forest, a curious little cat follows me. I was afraid to let loose, but I missed the feeling of my bare feet on the dirt. My human feet, not my wolf paws.

I came to the clearing of a small meadow, and placed my bags and shoes to the side. I reached up to my tight bun and pulled the hair tie out, raking my fingers through my soft hair. My brown locks were blown back by a gentle breeze as the sun tingled against my exposed neck.

 Two other presences alerted me, but they were good. A mother deer, and her newborn doe. She was her child clear, aware but ok with myself being there.

I slowly approached the peaceful animals. The doe was so small and innocent; I couldn’t actually believe I was here to see something like this. I didn’t really care about my camera in this moment.

“Come on, little one.” I whispered to it. She was ready to take her first steps. The baby doe looked up at me with her doe eyes, and I laughed. How could something be so cute? The mother looked down, and pushed her baby up with her nose to prompt her to stand.

The skinny legs wobbled slightly, and it stumbled down at first. “Come on.”

I felt my lips pull wider into a smile. This was life. This was what the forest was about, witnessing the beauty of the true animals of the forest. It felt strange to smile this much, but I didn’t care. I was alone to enjoy this.

The doe tried for her second time, her little legs shook as she was gaining strength. My eyes watched in fascination; she stood her ground, nudged once again by her proud mother, and a proud me.

I thought I was alone, able to witness this in the serenity of my loneliness. That is, until I heard the click of the shutter from the boy who witnessed a girl and her smile. 

Well I was definitely picturing that this chapter was going to be a lot happier. Dang you guys reacted so strongly to the last chapter haha. The angst is intense in this one O.O