My eyes fluttered open, greeting photography of the ceiling of my own bedroom. I felt a sharp pain in my stomach, preventing me from sitting up and moving around. I didn’t have to look around to know he was in my room.

“How long have you been there?” My raspy voice called out. My eyes adjusted to the light, seeing that Sehun was sitting at the desk in my room with his arms cross. His facial expression wasn’t a good one. One thing was for sure: I’m in my room, and so was he.

“I never left.” He gritted through his teeth. He was angry. Clearly he never left, the clothes he was wearing were stained with my blood. It felt like he was refusing to leave.

I ignored his attitude and moved my hand down to the hem of my shirt, lifting it slowly. There was no bandage on the wound, telling me it healed for the most part. But there was a scar. A deep one. I was in clean clothes, deeply concerned about the one who changed me out of the clothes that were stained with blood.

“You’re brother doesn’t like me.” He observed uselessly. He was preparing himself for a different conversation entirely. I could see it in his eyes, he was dying to say something. He knew. He knew.

“He doesn’t like a lot of people.” He only likes the pack. Even then he had argued so much with them lately I was beginning to doubt that as well. He was supposed to be loyal.

“But he still saved you. You’re wrong about him, In Hye. You should have seen the panic on his face.”

“He was doing what he had to. Trust me, he doesn’t care as much as you think.” Otherwise Sehun would have listened to my warning. This whole thing might not have happened if that were the case. Him following me out there and finding me…well if that didn’t happen I’d most likely be dead.

He didn’t respond after that. All his did was bore his menacing eyes toward me, looking unpleased with what I was telling him. His arms were still crossed; I don’t even think he was blinking. In all the years I have seen him mad, this was a new level.

“You’re doing that staring thing I don’t like.” It didn’t make any difference what I was telling him. He continued to stare, and despite the pain I pushed myself up to a sitting position and leaned against my headboard.

“You know exactly what I want to say, In Hye.”

I shrugged nonchalantly. “No, actually I don’t.”

He took in a deep breath through his nose and sighed harshly. He started off by testing the water, not completely delving into what he was going to say. But he and I both know the suspicion he had and I knew there was no way I could really get out of it. “Ok fine. If you’re going to be that way, I saw a white wolf out in the forest.”

My throat started to close, and I greatly resisted the urge to bite the inside of my cheek. I knew it. Oh God he’s figured it out. Instead, I got myself to raise an eyebrow like I didn’t know what he was talking about. Ignorance is best; I’m not ready to tell him. How can I just tell him my biggest secret just like that? “Ok…? There are wolves in the forest.”

He was losing patience every time I pushed the subject away. I was avoiding the inevitable, since it seemed like he was pretty confident in that hunch. I didn’t know he would have figured it out so easily, but putting two and two together it was so damn obvious what had happened. And I was officially screwed.

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. He had been doing that so much I was beginning to think he was upset with me. In the past he wasn’t directing it to me, but now he was. He was upset with me. “Yeah, and I’m sure that all the wolves out there were attacked in the same place that you were. Same area of the forest, same time at night, same spot where you were hurt?!”

His sass was going to be the end of me. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep up this charade, but cocked my head to the side nonetheless. “What are you talking about?”

“Damn it, In Hye!” He snapped, losing control. His body flung out of the chair and stood up. “Stop avoiding this!” His yelling caused me to flinch back. “I want to know why that white wolf had an arrow in its side and why you had the same injury!”

I stayed silent, obviously avoiding eye contact with him. I refused. I didn’t want to say it. I wasn’t going to say I was that wolf. I wasn’t ready yet. This is all too unexpected.

“What? You’re just gonna sit there? Not tell me anything? I trusted you with my problems…why can’t you?” His voice softened a little.

I shook my head, throat threatening to close up. Even if I were able to mask my facial expressions, my body still betrayed me. It hurts. Everything hurt, and it wasn’t just physical pain. My heart was aching and I was reduced to a mere whisper. “Not like this.”

“What is this?! Are you really going to sit there and not explain anything to me? I saved your life, I deserve it!”

I know you deserve it. I know I should be telling you everything. My mind was completely mush, which my body took as an indicator to completely betray me. A hot tear slid down my face, and I didn’t do anything to hide it. Though this wasn’t the first time I cried in front of him, the circumstances of my tears were different. This time he didn’t know why I was crying. He wasn’t the reason behind my tears.

“W-what….” Another one spilled out, this time I bit back to try to stop it, turning my head so I couldn’t see Sehun. My room was becoming fuzzy as my eyes were filled with the salty liquid, occasionally cascading down my cheeks.

“Get out, Sehun.” I rubbed at my eyes with the back of my hand.

“What? No, we’re not done-“

“Woohyun!”

At the speed of light, my older brother came in my room. In that moment it entirely slipped my mind that it was the first time in many years that he was in here. Menacing didn’t even begin to describe the look he gave Sehun as he expected to find himself out. Almost…protective. “I think she said get. out.”

Sehun stood much taller than Woohyun,  but my brother’s overall presence was terrifying and intimidating. Sehun looked back at me, as if telecommunicating that we weren’t done talking about this, and walked out of my room. Woohyun watched him leaving and then decided to look to the ground.

For once I wasn’t afraid of looking at my brother. He just looked…so pitiful standing in my doorway. His eyes were glazed over and the bags under his eyes were pulling his face down in such an exhausted way. It looked like he hadn’t gotten one ounce of sleep in however long I’ve been asleep.

My eyes traveled down to a little cotton ball covered with tape on his arm. I had the same tape covering my arm, hooked up to an IV that was dripping blood. With the realization that my brother donated his own blood to me meant only one thing in the look behind his eyes, he was blaming himself.

I was aware the apology for something like this shouldn’t have been coming from me, but I knew my faults lied in the one thing that ruined Woohyun. The word “hate.” As much as I disliked the things that my brother did, I didn’t hate him. I swallowed back and cleared my throat, which didn’t phase his attention but prepped me for speaking. “I’m sorry, Woohyun. I didn’t mean…what I said.”

The solemn look in his eyes broke my heart as he looked up at me. I knew enough about him to decipher that look as an acceptance of my words when I didn’t need to say them. Mixed with just a tiniest bit of shock that I would actually say sorry. “Are you in any pain?”

I shook my head and that was enough to make him satisfied for now. He left and Dongwoo came up to replace my brother. He checked on the IV and asked me how I felt, checking on the scar on my stomach. “How long was I out?”

He shrugged. “About half a week. Took a long time to flush the silver out of your system.”

Dongwoo explained as much as he was allowed to because apparently keeping secrets from me was still a rule. They knew what shot me yet wouldn’t tell me. The concerning news was that whatever mysterious being shot me was as much of a mystery to them as it was to me. They didn’t know who shot me.

All I knew was in that night I ran out of the house, Sehun saved me. Woohyun saved me. Something more was going on. That’s it. My knowledge was still limited despite this huge thing that had just happened. Ultimately I would be the one suffering the most no matter what. And it’s not fair at all.

I had never felt so useless in my entire life. I couldn’t move without feeling pain, and it reduced me to accepting meals from Myungsoo and being brought a bell to ring if I needed anything.

For the next three days on my way to a full recovery, I wasn’t allowed to leave the house and for once I agreed that it wouldn’t have been a good idea if I did. That being said, Myungsoo had told me thata in the past two days a certain male figure had tried to visit our house unsuccessfully. The only reason I knew that is because on the third day he brought with him these little pebbles he’d throw up to my window like he was some modern day Romeo. Except his reasons weren’t because he was a hormonal teenager who wanted to court me.

I had a good view of him sitting on my bed and Sehun was clever. He was also terrified of my brother after he got kicked out of my house, which is exactly what he wrote on the first note. He didn’t want to yell. Sehun brought a big notebook and a pen, wrote short sentences on the paper, and held it out for me to read. They started semi-nice.

Are you really ok?

Can’t we talk?

I nodded my head to the first one and shook my head to the second. I could see the way his face would twist with discontent and watched as he angrily scribbled his demands.

Meet me in the forest in an hour.

I know you’ll be able to find me.

That was my first real clue that he figured out what I am. He’s had days to sit on this information, if not the entire week since this has happened. Sehun didn’t wait for any response from me. He just turned around into the forest and disappeared. He left me stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Instinct and In Hye’s main thoughts of the day? There was something out there that shot me and it’s possible that I was the target. I’m still in massive amounts of pain and going out there would just make it worse.

In Hye’s choice on the specific matter? Jumping out the window. I was fully aware that the danger still existed and no one needed to tell me that jumping out the window was a stupid and irrational choice to make. Yet the whole time I could only think of Sehun and how to not make him mad at me and get him to like this side of me instead. He was desperate for answers; I was desperate to give them to him, talk to him, try to make him understand and not freak out. In all honestly he was allowed to freak out at this point.

Even though I looked like a mess and was dressed like a slob, it was pretty worth it if I could finally tell Sehun the truth. I landed as lightly on my feet as I could, which was very difficult when my body was focused on keeping my stomach from being in pain.

As soon as I stepped into the forest, I knew exactly where to go. Sehun’s natural scent was all over the place and easy to follow, something that he predicted. I didn’t know if he was thinking of me or not, but thankfully he didn’t go very far out.

I slowly walked, minding each step that was little by little increasing the pain in my side, following the scent I was now so familiar with. The tables were turned now. He knew which direction I was coming from and practically anticipated exactly when I was coming. Sehun looked exactly like my brother, sleep deprived and angry.

While his posture was intimidating it didn’t change my calm state. I refused to let myself panic at this point. Instead of speaking first, I leaned against a tree to try and rest, but it wouldn’t work when I should be back in bed.

“I’m asking again. Why didn’t you tell me?” Sehun sounded frustrated.

Somehow being in the forest made me more vulnerable. You would think that being in a place I was most comfortable wouldn’t have that effect. Yet it seemed like my castle was being broken down, my domain filled with intruders.

And I exploded, regardless of the pain. “I don’t know, ok?! I really don’t want to talk about it Sehun.”

I suppose I wasn’t done with speaking the opposite of the truth. That right there was another lie I was telling him. I knew exactly why I was getting closer to him. He was my mate after all.

He glared, something even now I could never get used to. The fact that he could look straight into me and I could still see disappointment in his eyes hurt a lot. “Friendship is about trust, In Hye. Before we can become real friends, you have to be able to tell me things.”

“Like you would have believed me. I can’t exactly walk up to people and say ‘Hey, my name is Nam In Hye and I’m a werewolf.’" The words rolled out just like that. Or rather word, the word that made it the word of all words. And now my biggest secret was out to the person it mattered to most. Werewolf.

“You didn’t even try.” I don’t think Sehun knew how to argue this. He seemed to be in more of a shock state and this was his way to cope with it…by arguing with me.

“I didn’t have to! You were dead set on the fact that we didn’t exist.” I stumped him with his own words from the past. Technically he said monsters and there was no way in hell he could ever call me that now.

I heard every aggravated step as he left the forest, having no more words to say. All he left me with was he needed to think and I didn’t know what that meant. To my surprise he kept his mouth shut instead of muttering things to himself like he normally does. I assumed it was because he realized I could actually hear everything he said when he did that.

I slumped down, leaning my back against a big tree. I covered my face with the palm of my hand, groaning loudly. My medication was beginning to wear off and all I could focus on was the pain.

“For someone who just got attacked, I’m surprised you’re even out here.” He was always so quiet with his steps. It made me jealous sometimes that he was able to go around without anyone hearing him. Nonetheless his worry for me was blatantly obvious.

“For someone who barely talks, you seem to be doing the exact opposite.” I quipped, lifting my head out of my hands to see my ever-faithful cousin.

With one hand in his pocket, the other reached out for me. I grabbed onto his rough hand and he pulled me up with ease, making sure to be gentle.

“He knows now.” I told him, to which he simply nodded. He jerked his head toward the direction of our house, and we slowly walked through the bumpy forest terrain. As he noticed that I wasn’t able to keep up he ended up having to carry me the rest of the way. It was beyond weird but it did make my life a whole lot easier.

“You sure he can keep that secret?”

I swallowed back and bit down on the inside of my cheek. I wasn’t. I didn’t know if he was the type to go blab it to all of his friends or not. But even so, I began to shake my head in refusal.

“He said…friendship is about trust. So I have to trust him.” He trusted me enough to talk about his personal problems and to let me know where the spare key to his apartment was.

“Trust is a heavy topic, especially for us. It’s putting your life on the line.” Myungsoo was always trying to give me life lessons here and there. At least he was trying. He was probably just as worried as I was about Sehun going off and saying something to someone.

“I know. But you also put your life on the line when it comes to love. Your heart goes first.”

His lips tugged up into a small but noticeable smirk. That face…he was telling me he was proud. “Good, you know what you want.”

Myungsoo jumped up to my window intstead of taking me through the front door in case Woohyun found out that I left. I still had questions, and I felt like Myungsoo would be the one to give me answers rather than Dongwoo. Once I was comfortably in my bed and hooked back up to my meds, Myungsoo sat at the edge of my bed with his hands in his pockets as he looked at me.

“Why was Sehun allowed to stay here? Woohyun didn’t try to kick him out?” All of my thoughts upon arriving back to my room were focused on the new presence. Sehun was here for half of the week just sitting there.

“He was here because you wanted him here.” Pretty sure I was unconscious during the duration of his stay, so I raised my eyebrows and waited for him to explain further. “When you came home, you unconsciously held onto his hand the entire time.”

My whole body lit on fire in an instant and my face was probably as red the center of the earth. And Sehun just let me hold onto his hand like that? The whole time? Oh God...

I slept on that thought alone and couldn’t for the life remember anything about holding Sehun’s hands. In retrospect, I was glad that I didn’t remember it. Otherwise, I’d probably blush every time I’d see him. One obstacle at a time.

From here on out, Myungsoo was the only one who was allowed to protect me as a bodyguard. He’d be following me around wherever I went and would stay in the same place or near the vicinity. I warned him that he had to let Sehun and I have a private talk, assuming that it was going to happen whenever Sehun was ready to talk.

I had no choice but to return to school the next day. All of my professors were told that there was some kind of car accident. I had way too many assignments to catch up on which would have been my main focus had I not seen Sehun in the morning before my classes.

He was alone, sitting quietly at my tree. His long legs were sitting out, bags by his side, and his camera in his large hands. There was no sign of his best friend or his girlfriend, though the latter I wasn’t expecting. He was getting a few looks from the other students passing by, all knew that spot was reserved for someone that wasn’t him. Other students gave me looks as I was watching him with curiosity.

He…looks like me. Defenseless, putting up his guard, wanting to be by himself. It was my fault that he’s become like this. Except, unlike me, he’s choosing to be alone. I figured he needed more space, so I went along to the rest of my classes to let him be.

Though Sehun didn’t show up to Interpersonal Communications, which I naturally assumed he did to avoid me, I found a note on the desk of my last class of the day. After all this time of leaving me notes and writing huge notes for me, it was really easy to figure out who left them.

My place. Normal time. Use the spare key.

I held the note in my hand and looked out to find the one who sent it, but he was nowhere to be seen. I followed his instructions after my class while Myungsoo kept a big enough distance behind me. The spare key was still in the little fairy house waiting for me. I held the key in my hand for a long minute before going in. I had to prepare myself this time. I wanted to be the first one to talk, and not have him nearly blow up again.

Sehun was already sitting in his spot when I unlocked the door, elbows resting on his knees and completely zoning out. He made quick eye contact but no greeting of any sort. “Why did you follow me?” My first question baffled him. I watched his thick eyebrows knit together as he started standing up.

He gestured his hand out towards the window, “In Hye, I saved your life! Shouldn’t you be thanking me?”

“Why?” I gritted through my teeth, pressing him for answers. I gave him some the last time. His turn now.

He rubbed his eyes and frustratingly exhaled. “You’ve never been out at night, have you?”

My mouth hung slightly open. Come to think of it, the last time I had been out at night like that was as I told him, spending time with my brother catching fireflies. Even then, I was with my brother and my parents weren’t that far behind. I shook my head.

“My friend goes out into the middle of the woods at night and there’s a killer on the loose? How am I not supposed to get worried?”

My whole mouth went dry as I desperately tried to swallow information like that. “Worried?”

He rolled his eyes, “Yes, In Hye. Worried. I had good reason to be worried! You were shot! God, why can’t you get that through your head?!”

I broke eye contact and stared off into space. I can’t understand because this progress between us is actually happening. When I thought that it was completely impossible for us to get along at all, a relationship is developing and its scaring me.

Seeing Sehun be like me isn’t something that I want for him. Because of me, his life just became so much more dramatic than it ever needed to me. He deserved a simple and happy life and I knew that wasn’t something he could have with me. So far he wasn’t.

He took a step forward and I instantly took a step back. There wasn’t that much distance between us to begin with and his plan is to lessen that? “What are you doing?”

His eyes looked determined. “You trust me?” He took another step forward, this time eyes begging me to let him. “Please, let me do this one thing.”

His long arms wrapped around me not too tightly. It was like he was afraid to hug me, but at the same time it felt like he was desperate for touch. His arms were slightly shaking as his tall height let him barely whisper in my ear.

“I have never been so scare in my entire life, In Hye. Please…” Scared?

My head was pressed against his beating heart, pounding against my ear. I couldn’t comprehend, let alone speak. In the first time in my life a man ever initiated this kind of contact with me. If he felt like he needed to do this, there was no way I was going to protest.

“Can I ask you something else?” His deep voice whispered delicately in my ear and if we weren’t standing up I would probably have melted…or fallen over. Every breath he took, I could feel it as I slightly moved with him.

“What?” My voice cracked above a whisper.

“Can you hug me back?” The weakness in his voice was my ultimate fall. I could never say no to him sounding like that. My arms gently s around his waist, meshing us body against body. I don’t know what he was thinking nor might I ever, but I knew what it felt like to me. It felt right. 

Oh man! 23 chapters later and Sehun finally knows!! AHHH XD

Quick lil update about life. So I just started a new semester and I feel like it's going to be pretty weird. I have a lot of big assignments and less exams so we'll see how it goes. Also I'm trying to apply for jobs so ugh...life skills...college...death...

New poster! Do you guys make posters?? I thought the old one was really old haha