Shura and Youngjae are friends. More than friends.

They’re family.

They never expected to be so close when Youngjae picked a call from a girl who was looking for a shared apartment. They met the same day in order to show the place to Shura. He lived alone in a quiet neighborhood, in a small house with two rooms and one bathroom. He came to the city and lived alone to study computer engineering at university, so he was renting the other room. When he met Shura, he was at his last year at the age of 22. Both had the same age, but Shura told him she worked as a café waitress.

When he opened the door, the brown haired girl in front of him tripped over him, and both of them fell on the floor. The girl’s face was red from blushing, and Youngjae couldn’t help but laugh at how cute she looked, making her blush more and stand up quickly while repeating ‘sorry’. He got up and told her it was okay, but Shura just thought she made the worst first impression ever.

She was so surprised when Youngjae told her the same evening that the room was hers. After the incident, she was sure he wouldn’t choose her. But he did, and it made her so happy. He even helped her moving and the first day he cooked for her. They spent all the time together since then, knowing everything about each other, becoming friends and best friends so quickly. After three months they felt like they knew each other since forever. They felt like a family. With one exception.

The second month they lived together, there were a few nights Shura spent alone in her room. Full moon nights. She knew how to control the change into a werewolf, his father taught her before he and his wife were killed by a werewolf pack when she was 18. But however, it wasn’t easy to hold the beast inside her, her body shaking, bones trying to break and turn into animal ones. She couldn’t let Youngjae know, so she locked herself in her room and cried silently till everything stopped. Of course, Youngjae heard her, feeling himself useless while his friend was in pain. He thought Shura was like him: a human with psychic powers. When he first knew about his situation, his powers got out and made a mess in his room. He tried hard to control his powers, because moving things with his mind could make a disaster. Maybe his friend was trying to control her powers, but he wanted her to tell him instead of him telling her he heard everything. When Shura came out of her room the next day, they acted like nothing happened.

It was the first days of December when Shura came home from work and found a note glued at the front door. At first she didn’t pay attention to that, but she saw Youngjae’s bag lying on the floor, little red marks on it. She was worried; she picked the note from the door and looked at it angrily.

Join the pack. And a wolf footprint painted with blood.

She ripped it and threw it away, now truly worried, and opened the door. She froze when she found Youngjae’s body lying on the sofa. She run at his side and put a hand on his chest. His heart was beating and Shura sighed in relief. She looked at him. He had bruises on his arms, some cuts in his cheeks and little wounds in his handsome face. He was breathing like he was asleep, but Shura could tell the boy was a mess. She bent down on her knees and placed her head near to Youngjae’s arm.

“Sorry” she said, tears now running through her face. She buried it on the sofa while crying, feeling broken inside. His friend was hurt because of her, of her desire to not join any pack because it was one who killed her parents. And she felt weak, because when she ran away from her home to the city to make a new life, she knew it would be dangerous if a pack found her, so she was moving from town to town, not talking to anyone, not feeling attached to anything, and now she found Youngjae and loved him like her new family. She decided to stay at his place and stop running away, she promised herself to protect Youngjae, but at the end she wasn’t there when he needed her. She couldn’t protect Youngjae.

After a while, she stopped crying. Now, she was more angry than sad. She was, first, angry at herself because she was gone when Youngjae was attacked, and also because it was her fault. But she was now angry at the people who hurt her family. When she felt his body shaking, she got up and moved away from Youngjae. The boy opened his eyes a little, just to see his friend becoming a trembling mess and going away from him. He called her name, but she ignored it. Then he got up with pain, placing a hand on his stomach and followed his friend as fast as he could in his condition. They were now at the garden, and when he reached the back door, Shura was kneeled down, hugging herself, digging her nails in her skin, trying to stop the change. But at her state, she couldn’t. Youngjae knew, and started walking faster towards her direction.

“Stay away, Jae!” she shouted without looking at her.

But Youngjae took another step. He wasn’t afraid of her. He wasn’t afraid of the nails that grew bigger like her teeth, of the hair growing from all her body, and definitely not afraid of her now yellow and angry eyes. But when she turned her head to him, he saw something in her gaze that made him stop and stare at her. Then she understood that the boy wasn’t going to move, so she got up and ran to the forest near their house while her clothes were being ripped.

Youngjae looked at her until her bob hair disappeared into the woods. He realized now that his friend wasn’t like him, but was special anyways. He wasn’t afraid of her, instead he was worried. He knew his friend wanted to be alone for some time, but he couldn’t help but wonder if she was going to be fine out there. What if the guys who attacked him were there? It happened so fast that Youngjae wasn’t really aware until he was dragged into the house and thrown at the sofa, his body suffering from the multiple punches and tears forming in his eyes. Then some male said “tell your friend to join us or we will kill you both”, and something hit him, making him collapse.

Hoping her friend would come back later, he wal