17.EH Stars

I couldn´t believe my snout. It was really a man, and not even an inhabitant of the jungle. It was a young western man, with brown hair and pearl white teeth. I wanted to keep my defensive mode but Donghae rushed forward and embraced the stranger holding a green lantern in his hand. I was this close to putting up offence and attacking the guy, how dares he hug Donghae back?

“I can´t believe I´m meeting people here,” the stranger laughed. Donghae fortunately backed away two steps and I could calm down.

“Trust me, nobody is happier but us to meet you here,” Kyuhyun faked tears. “That is, if you´re also not lost in the fog.”

“No, no I´m not,” the stranger made a big gesture, “come with me. I will take you to the camp.”

We followed the stranger, Henry Lau was his name, to his so-called camp. There were two large twisted rocks that were creating as if a structure and Henry used them to build a tent underneath. The fireplace was also smartly hidden by smaller boulders, therefore protected from the wind. I followed this man´s example and with the help of my friends we put up our tents there too. It was a good place to camp, I wouldn´t have chosen better.

“Did you come here all by yourself?” Donghae was, to my irritation, plastered to the western man and asking him one question after another. I knew it was natural for Donghae to want to know everything and anything about people he encounters, but I couldn´t stop myself from being jealous.

“Actually, I paid a group of locals to take me and my baggage here. They are going to pick me up in three days again,” Henry answered with a smile full of his white teeth. I wonder if I bared my teeth, would this guy close that mouth of his?

“That´s even weirder,” Donghae snorted, “why did you come here in the first place?”

“Solar eclipse,” Henry said and all of us were eagerly or secretly listening.

The fog was still slithering over the mountain as we were sitting around the burning fire and warming up our dinner. Kyuhyun was as every evening cleaning his rifles, handling them as if they were the prettiest women. Zhoumi was putting together his shoes that took a blow during the rough walk through the jungle while quietly humming a song. I was keeping an eye on both, the fire and Henry.

“Is that when the Moon covers the Sun?” Donghae asked and was already pulling out his know-it-all book to write there all the new things he was bound to learn. I gave up on my jealousy by then.

“That´s right,” Henry chuckled at Donghae´s enthusiasm. I wasn´t apparently the only one who thought it was cute. “When the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun, it´s called solar eclipse.”

“Was it necessary to come all the way here into the middle of nowhere, though?” Kyuhyun asked the same question I had on my mind.

“That´s the thing!” Henry clapped his hands and began eagerly explaining with his eyes unnaturally wide. “Solar eclipse happens once in a long time and what you usually see is a partial eclipse. If you want to see a total eclipse, you need to come to the specific place,” Henry was gesturing quickly with his arms, “from where you can see the Moon perfectly obscuring the Sun.”

“And you are here only to see that?” Donghae was back as the main interviewer.

“Actually,” Henry put on a sly smile and wiggled his eyebrows. It made me almost kick the dinner into the fire and jump at him. “I came here to take a photograph.”

After this Henry´s proclamation, I ended up being completely abandoned by the fire. My friends were loudly stomping around Henry´s tent and listening to the explanation on how a camera works. I wasn´t interested, I have seen a camera countless times during my journeys. I can even proudly say that I have been photographed at least three times in my life when I was working as a guide for adventurers. Expeditions always pay huge amounts of money, so I like to join whenever I get the offer. But I didn´t have any chance to boast to anyone. Tsk.

The group rely after I announced for the third time that the food was ready. Donghae perhaps felt that I was a little irritated and sat down next to me. We ate with Henry´s loud voice as a background. He was talking about astronomy. Talking about how the universe was made, strange wild theories about big explosions. I didn´t find it very interesting but Donghae wasn´t even able to finish his meal how much he was curious. Thanks to that we went to sleep very late that night.

And the morning didn´t have any good news. I woke up first, walking around the camp on my four paws, I had to use my smell to get around. The thick cotton-candy fog, as Donghae named it, was still sitting atop the mountain. That meant we couldn´t start descending yet, it would be too dangerous. I sighed and returned to sit in front of Donghae´s tent.

“Oh, no no no no,” I looked up to see Henry. He just came out of his tent; his hair was all over the place just like his expression. This afternoon was supposed to happen that amazing solar eclipse but how would he photograph it in this fog? He wouldn´t. “Whoa!”

“Ah, I´m sorry,” I realised I should have transformed before the western man wakes up and gets a fright.

“Oh my god! It talks!” Henry´s face was full of fear but even that didn´t stop him from running his mouth. “Hey, anyone! There is a wolf!”

Yes, the morning started in a really bad manner. I had to apologize for the fright I caused to the poor astronomer and Donghae even accused me that I did it on purpose. After that our leader ordered everyone to stay put in the camp for safety reasons and that only worsened the situation as Kyuhyun used the chance I couldn´t run away and began teasing me again. And just when I thought it couldn´t get worse, the fog dispersed in the afternoon.

It was right before the eclipse and Henry rushed to set up all his equipment. Everyone was eagerly waiting for the show and my stomach tightened. Switching to much safer form, the silver furred one, I put the tail between my legs and curled behind a boulder. This wasn´t the first time in my life that I was a witness to an eclipse, perhaps this was the first total eclipse. It feels like something is really wrong, like the nature is doing something strange. For what I know all living creatures, except for clueless humans, become quiet in times like that. And so as everyone was making excited calls and wheezes, I stayed curled behind the rock with my eyes closed tightly. I haven´t seen the eclipse that day and I have never regretted.

Donghae of course came looking for me and when he saw me all timid, he didn´t even laugh at my cowardly self. He rubbed the place between my ears and then sat down next to me. We sat there in the corner of the camp until the late evening. The stars started coming out on the vast sky. I transformed into my human form so I could see it all in colours. It was that time of the day when it was still light but the moon and stars were already scattered around the sky. Later I would learn that Henry took a photo of us at that moment. I found out when he gave me the photograph in the morning, apparently Kyuhyun told him that I and Donghae were lovers. Henry felt bad for taking the attention of Donghae and so took this secret photo for us. I will never feel more proud for any of the photographs I´m in than for this one.

“Henry said that this star is the closest to the planet and that´s why it shines the brightest,” Donghae pointed out. I was looking up at the slowly darkening sky with disinterest. “You see different set of stars from various places on Earth.”

“Hm,” I hummed, not even looking at the place Donghae was talking about. My head was reclined and my eyes following the sky absentmindedly.

“You don´t think it´s fascinating?” Donghae asked me with a frown.

“No,” I told him truthfully, “I´m not surprised by those facts because I know that the nature knew what she was doing when she made the moon and the stars. And the least I can do here is to open my eyes and see it all properly. All those beautiful things she made,” I finally turned to look at Donghae. If I did it on purpose or if it were my senses I didn´t know, but I looked at him at that moment because I wanted to see him properly. He was, after all, the most beautiful thing the mother nature has created.

Hello! After the long time of not updating, I managed twice this week. The story is slowly coming to an end, so I gifted you one hella fluffy chapter :P Kyuhyun is enlisting today but instead of being sad, I laughed at Hyukjae´s message he left on sj.label instagram. That little... Anyway, thank you for reading and commenting and take care! - PandaHero