Everyone knew that they were attracted to one another. And everyone knew that they could not be together.

Hyungwon and Minhyuk seemed to be one of those unlucky almost-couples that were destined to love each other, but also destined to get their hearts broken. Hyungwon was part of a sect, that did not allow him to date or kiss anybody especially not if they were not part of the sect themselves. It was even forbidden for him to say I love you to another person. Even if he didn't mean it.

At first Minhyuk had been in disbelief over this. How could this be true? But Hyungwon had explained it to him, when they developed their “through the fence”-friendship like they had called it. The building in which the members of the sect lived and which they almost never left, was surrounded by a big wall but somewhere in the back between the orchard and the fish pond there was a little hole in that wall. One day when both of them had been still very little, they had met there only able to see a tiny bit of each others faces but it was enough for them to talk to each other and soon become friends. In secret of course, because the sect would never allow Hyungwon to have outside friends.

But even though Hyungwon had explained his religion to Minhyuk almost a thousand times, the older boy seemingly never got tired of asking about it.

“Can you explain this to me again? Why can't you say I love you?”

It was early in the night and they sat on the edge of a bridge, letting the water of the river surround their feet. They were not very far from the sect's building, so that Hyungwon could go back there quickly, which he needed to do often since he wasn't even allowed outside of the wall. But just to spend time with Minhyuk, being closer to him than to just talk to him through a wall, he took the risk of getting caught and sneaked out almost every night. Sometimes even during the day, if he could manage.

Now he sighed and looked up at the dim stars.

“I can't say it because of the god that the sect believes in,” he explained once again. “They believe that the god is protecting us from all harm but in return we have to honour and love only him. So if we express feelings such as love or admiration to someone else than him by kissing or saying those words,” Hyungwon made a vague gesture with his hands, “the god will get jealous and kill us and the other person.”

“Woah, that's creepy,” Minhyuk said, a shiver running down his spine. He took a deep breath and decided to ask the question that had been burning on his mind, the question that he had actually never asked before, “Do you believe in that, too?”

It took a while before Hyungwon finally answered.

“Not really, kind of, but not really.”

“What do you mean?”

Hyungwon splashed the water with his foot. “It's, well, complicated. I don't think that there is this god that the others believe in. My uncle told me this story before he tried to run away from the sect. I don't really know but I think it makes more sense than all that rubbish talk about some god.”

“What did he tell you?” Minhyuk was genuinely curious.

“Hmm, he said that the god is actually a witch. We have this book in the middle of the building in a crypt and the priests say that it is the god's word, but actually we can't read it well and what we can read are mostly just spells and such, so my uncle figured that it could be the witch's spell book and he said that he had heard a story from someone else that explained that it was actually due to a curse that we can't say the thing, you know?”

Minhyuk nodded. “Tell me about that story.”

Hyungwon smiled at the older boy's curiosity and actually he had been burning to tell him about it. “Okay, in that story it says that a couple hundred years ago there was a family and they had two children, two sons. And both of those sons fell i