Wonsik panted. "This is harder than I thought."

Sanghyuk paused and turned around. "Quit whining," he told him. "We're going to need as much help as we can get if we're going to find this 'N.'" He used in fingers in air quotations. 

"Easy for you to say," Wonsik said in between puffs. "I've never run so much in my entire life." He straightened up. "In fact, I think I lost weight, and gained muscle. I think I can be a model now!"

"Are you done?" Sanghyuk groaned. "Because I don't know if you noticed, but we have an Alpha to find."

Taekwoon at that point ran up to them, shifting and dusting off his knees. 

"Anything?" Sanghyuk asked.

Taekwoon shook his head. "This area is nearly devoid of any scents," he said. "It's almost like this pack doesn't exist."

Wonsik had sat himself down on a rock to catch his breath. "Honestly, that wouldn't surprise me," he said. "Grandfather has been slowing down in his old age."

"You think he made N up?" Sanghyuk asked.

"He's made things up before," Wonsik shrugged. "Wouldn't be first time, definitely not going to be the last time."

"We should still keep trying," Taekwoon said. "Perhaps he didn't make N up."

"We're wasting time," Wonsik growled. "All this time we're spending on searching for an Alpha who might not even be real...people are dying by the minute, and we're not there to stop them!"

"Not like our presence was much help!" Taekwoon snapped. 

A few moments of silence passed as the weight of what Taekwoon said was absorbed. Wonsik swallowed, knowing the elder was right. A fat load of good them being there every time did.

Hongbin then arrived, and they all turned to him, hopeful. 

"Anything?"

Hongbin shook his head. "Not a single strand of fur."

Shoulders slumped all around. "This is going to take a while," Sanghyuk murmured.

Hongbin sighed and looked up at the moon, his thoughts going back to what happened earlier that day at Old Man Kim's library.

"Where do I find him?" Hongbin asked.

Old Man Kim pursed his lips. "I'm afraid that's going to be a bit of a problem..." he trailed off.

"What is?" Hongbin asked, stepping forward. "Is something wrong?"

Old Man Kim shook his head. "No, nothing much," he softly said. "Just...no one has ever been able to find him."

The four's eyes widened. "Seriously?" Wonsik asked. "No one?"

Old Man Kim sighed deeply. "They call him 'the Ghost through the trees,'" he explained. "If he does not want to be found, no one will be able to find him or his pack. They say that those who found him when he didn't want to be found...well, none remain to tell the tale."

Wonsik dropped onto the sofa. "So what you're saying is that it's hopeless." He threw his hands up in the air.

"Not entirely," Old Man Kim interjected. "They say...you don't find N, he finds you."

Taekwoon stood up. "Excuse me, Grandfather," he politely said. "But we can't just simply wait around for help. Every minute we spend is another minute someone else dies. We need a solution and we need one now."

Old Man Kim exhaled. "Well, I have heard that his territory is to the North of here," he said, pointing. "I don't know exactly where, or how far, but I guess it's a start."

Hongbin nodded. "Yeah, it is a start."

He took in a deep breath, looking at his friends. They were exhausted, cold and mentally drained, after all they'd been through, and now spending hours trudging through the muck. Not to mention, winter was arriving, so the nights had become cold. Wonsik and Sanghyuk didn't have enough protective clothes on. More time and they would catch colds.

He observed Sanghyuk sitting down on a rock as well and rubbing his palms together while blowing on them. As Wonsik panted, his breath came out in fog. Both humans had a very slight shiver around them that they were covering up so that the wolves wouldn't notice.

Taekwoon, on the other hand, while not cold, was physically tired after everything. Hongbin knew that Taekwoon was pretty sensitive, probably even more than him. He recalled how down he had felt when his pet fish of three months died when they were ten. And now, he'd lost three groups of people, one after the other, who had meant a lot to him. He'd lost the two people who'd given his life any sort of meaning.

Hongbin gulped. He couldn't take seeing his friends like this any longer.

"This ends now," he said, walking forward.

"What do you mean?" Taekwoon asked, following Hongbin's movements.

"If we can't find N, we'll just have to make him come to us." 

"And how do you propose we do that?" Wonsik asked, sarcasm lining his voice. He was clearly way too tired, and the cold was not helping matters.

"I'm going for the old fashioned approach," Hongbin said.

"Wha-?" Wonsik began to get up but Taekwoon put his hand up to stop him. The elder gave him a look that simply said, "let him do what he's doing."

Hongbin shifted into a wolf, going a little ways until he found a slight clearing in the woods. Finding a large rock sprouting from the ground, he got on top of it, taking a moment to look around.

It was quiet, secluded, moonlight streaming through the trees into the blue forest.

He then lifted his head to the sky, and let out a howl.

His song resounded through the forest, carrying with it all the pain, all the trauma, all the hurt he'd been through. Everything he'd felt since that day he returned to find his parents dead, to just the last night where he'd held the body of the girl he could've had strong feelings for, he put it into his call, his call for help.

He strained his vocal chords to the last breath and dragged out his howl. As it came to an end, he put his head down and closed his eyes as his throat finally caught on the long drawn out howl.

He looked up to see his friends in front of him, their eyes wide. Shifting back, he was about to ask them why they were looking at him like that, when he realized that they weren't looking at him.

They were looking at something behind him.

He turned around to see a black wolf standing on the ledge a few feet from him. 

A black wolf with a white patch on its chest, and glowing brown eyes.

"Is that him?" Sanghyuk hopefully whispered.

Taekwoon shook his head. "Nope, that's not him."

The black wolf trotted forward, getting down from its rock to leap onto the one where Hongbin was standing. Fixing its brown eyes on him, it swished its tail a couple of times as everyone waited with bathed breath.

The wolf then shifted into a man.

He wasn't much older than them, not more than a few years. He had a big nose, big lips and chiseled features, with his red-brown hair pulled up into a quiff away from his face. He was dressed in an ed black overcoat. Under that, he wore a navy blue sweater over a blue and white striped shirt with a red striped tie.  

To be honest, he was spectacles away from looking like a teacher from a looking like a male model.

The young man adjusted the sleeve of his coat before looking back at Hongbin. "It's about time you called," he said. His dark eyes searched Hongbin's face. "You're Hongbin, aren't you?"

"A-are you...N?" Hongbin asked.

The man shook his head. "I'm not N, no, although I have been mistaken for him before." He chuckled lightly. "My alias is Ken, and I am N's right hand."