—~~—

16

The school year seemed to pass slowly for Jongin.  

The seasons grew cold, the holidays came and went, Jongin grew another year older, and then finally, finally, the summer arrived.  

Jongin found himself back at the camp in the woods with the same boys and the same counselors, mostly everyone returning.  

The first day back at camp, Jongin immediately threw his luggage down and took off for the ravine, following the familiar path. 

Not a day had gone by since he'd left last year, that he hadn't thought about the guy from the boulder.  His dark hair, pale skin, glaring eyes.  

Jongin would even go so far as to call it a slight obsession.

He walked quickly, racing against the disappearing daylight, knowing that this was going to have to be a short trip.  He'd probably have just enough time to make it to the boulder, sit for a bit, and then hightail it back to camp.

Jongin reached the grove that bordered the waterfall and immediately made a dash for the forest, only slightly disappointed when he didn't experience that routine prickle of watchfulness against his skin. 

He kept going anyway.

By the time he reached the boulder he was out of breath, his heart beginning to sink in his chest.  

He couldn't sense the boy's presence like he had been able to last summer.

Jongin pouted and slumped against the huge stone, wiping his sweat soaked bangs from his forehead.  "I'm back," he called anyway.  "How have you been?"

Jongin listened intently, but could hear nothing save the reply of the birds as they prepared to nest for the night.  A couple of fireflys had begun to lazily blink in the encroaching darkness, and Jongin eventually hung his head and sighed.  "I'll return tomorrow."

"Why do you keep coming here?”

Jongin nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of the voice.  He stumbled away from the boulder, turning in a tight circle to stare up at the trees behind him.  

Jongin's eyes darted from branch to branch, the shadows already growing thick in the fading light.  He found the owner of the low voice perched in almost the same place as last summer.  He looked just as Jongin remembered, dark hair, dark eyes, light skin.  The male casually reclined in the trees, full lips pulled down in a frown as he continued to stare at Jongin.  

Once again, Jongin found himself at a loss on how to react to the guy's sudden presence. The silence in the clearing stretched an uncomfortable length.  He finally pulled himself from his stupor and shrugged, answering the man’s question as truthfully as he could.  "Because you're here."

The guy in the tree let out a disdainful snort, and by now the clearing had darkened enough that Jongin could only just make out his features.  

“Go home.”

Jongin could only blink, still staring upward into the thickening darkness, somehow happy despite the harsh words.  "I'll be back tomorrow!"  he yelled as he turned.  He chased the last bit of daylight all the way back to camp, heart thundering in his chest.

--~~--

True to his word, the human boy had come back the next day.

And the next.

And the next. 

And against Kyungsoo's better judgement, he allowed Jongin to come and go as he pleased.  And worse?  Kyungsoo actually found himself interacting with him.

It'd been a long time since Kyungsoo had had any sort of socialization with anyone, much less a Human.  But he was weak to the way Jongin would come sprinting toward the boulder, eyes bright, forehead damp with sweat.  He was such the spitting image of Kai, that Kyungsoo would often have to resist the urge to leap down and tackle the boy to the ground in a bone-crushing hug. 

Jongin may have looked like Kai, may have acted like the Flower Spirit in some regard, but he was not Kai.  

For starters, Kyungsoo did not recall Kai talking nearly half as much as Jongin did.  The boy asked so many inane questions.    

"What's this plant called?"

"How do you climb trees so well?"

"Do you live out here alone?  Where's your house?"

"How do you gather food?"

"Do you have a cell phone?  Can we take a picture together on mine?”

“Um. What’s your name?”

Kyungsoo had answered most of the questions  (those he could at least, he still had no idea what this 'cell phone' thing was, even though Jongin had tried to show him) if only to make Jongin shut up.  But he'd never revealed his true identity...that he was a Spirit of the Wilds.  

And Jongin never pressed too hard to know.  He seemed perfectly satisfied with Kyungsoo's answers, perfectly okay with believing that Kyungsoo was just some weird guy who liked to live in the woods and refused to leave.

Jongin would show up early in morning and stay as long as he could, lounging on Kyungsoo's boulder, attempting to climb a tree, following Kyungsoo around as the Earth Spirit traversed his boundaries.  

He was just always there, and he was hard to ignore, no matter how much Kyungsoo tried.  

Three weeks of Jongin coming around, and suddenly Kyungsoo realized that they were having actual conversations, not just Jongin chattering on and Kyungsoo answering in monotonic syllables. 

They were walking down a wooded path when that realization hit him, and the Earth Spirit drew to a sudden halt, body going rigid. And Jongin, who was following along behind, talking about his favorite season (which was summer), ran straight into him.

The boy was only 16, but he was already taller than Kyungsoo.  They collided and Jongin's hands immediately shot out to steady them both, and Kyungsoo jerked away, feeling uncomfortable at the sudden touch.

How could he possibly be strolling through the woods, holding casual conversation with a stupid Human?  With his enemy?

Jongin had stopped talking, the silence stretching until the younger boy ventured to ask a question.  "Are you okay?  I didn't mean to run into you..."

Kyungsoo simply turned to face Jongin, study him intently.  Jongin stared back, eyes wide in question.

This needed to stop.  

This...this...weird companionship.  

Casual acquaintance, Kyungsoo mentally corrected. 

It could not be.

It wouldn't last.  

He didn't want it.

--~~--

Jongin could tell the moment it happened: Kyungsoo was shutting him out again.

He wasn't sure what he'd done (or maybe said?) that had spurred the change, but it didn't sit well with him at all.

Kyungsoo was a mysterious guy, living in the woods alone, climbing trees quick as a monkey, never really speaking much.  

Jongin could safely say that his sorta-of-kinda obsession had morphed into a full on fixation.  He was just so curious about everything that Kyungsoo was and everything he represented.  A wild sort of freedom, that Jongin couldn't believe still existed in this day and age of cell phones and expectations.  Jongin's landscape wasn't a landscape at all...it was a cityscape, all concrete and asphalt, glass, and chemicals, and people, people everywhere.

Kyungsoo's landscape was green grass, blue sky, red flowers.  Fresh air, wild animals, a sense of communication with the actual Earth. 

Jongin had never longed to know a person more....

...to understand how Kyungsoo had managed to escape society and survive out here all alone.

Jongin still couldn't pin-point the guy's age, he looked relatively young, but sometimes Jongin would catch a gleam in those dark, dark eyes that seemed timeless, like he contained a secret knowledge of things Jongin could only begin to understand.  

The rest of the summer passed by with Kyungsoo slowly reverting back into the same persona of last summer.  

On Jongin's final day of camp he walked out to the boulder and climbed up with a sigh.  He didn't want to go home.  He didn't want the summer to end, didn't want to have to wait an entire year to see Kyungsoo again.

He waited for Kyungsoo to show up, as he usually did, but the sun traveled across the sky and Jongin decided to take a nap.  Eventually the darkness was upon him, and Jongin knew he couldn’t hang around any longer.  He tried to bury the hurt of Kyungsoo’s obvious absence, wondering why he was suddenly being cast back into suffocating silence.

It was a clear message Kyungsoo was sending, even if Jongin didn’t understand the reasoning behind it.

He was unwanted here.

But still, for some reason, he felt as though he shouldn’t give up.   

"I'll be back," he called out.  "See you next year, Kyungsoo."

--~~--

Kyungsoo loathed himself.  Kyungsoo loathed Jongin.  Kyungsoo loathed the fact that he was alone and that he actually missed the presence of one stupid teenaged Human.  

After Jongin had left for the summer, the seasons had eventually started to shift toward winter.  And the winter months seemed to crawl by.  For some reason, Kyungsoo’s restriction within his forest became especially annoying to him.  More so than ever before, he was like a caged animal pacing his prison. Eventually, he decided he needed a way to simply get rid of his excess energy, distract him from the weird sense of impatience that was constantly pressing inward.  

One day he stood atop Kai’s favorite boulder and surveyed the area where their cabin used to stand.  He stared at that space long and hard, and then made a decision.  He would rebuild it.  Kai would probably have liked that.  

So, to waste time during the winter months, the Earth Spirit began to construct a new cabin.  

Like its predecessor, the new cabin was small.  Two little rooms, one with a fireplace made of smooth river pebbles, the other empty save for the floors made of smooth pine.  The windows were open spaces with covers that fit over them to keep out the cold.  He knew he’d have to wait until spring or fall to create a soft sleeping mat.  He’d have to go around and gather dried plant stalks and loose feathers left along the forest floor.

There were times as he was working on the cabin that he had to stop what he was doing and sit down or simply leave the small structure to walk in the forest.  Sometimes the memories just hit him like a sudden rainstorm, pelting him hard and fast, making his chest hurt, hurt, hurt.  

Kai walking in, his hands and knees stained with soil, Kai sitting near the hearth, firelight dancing across the planes of his face.  Kai dancing between rooms, reveling in the good, pure energy that was flowing through the flowers he reigned over.  

Sometimes Kyungsoo had to stop and simply think why am I doing this? 

But he never really could come up with a good answer.  He could have stopped the project completely.  It was just a way to distract himself, pass the time.  Rebuilding the cabin wasn’t important.  Not really.  

Yet, there was always something that made him trudge back.  Because as much as it hurt to relive those memories, it was also the only way he could keep Kai fresh in his mind.   

He finished the house, just as the first signs of spring began to show, and the forest began to thaw. The air became warmer and the impatience in his chest was replaced with a blooming sense of anticipation.

Because after spring came summer.

—~~—

A/N:  Short little chapter.  The chapters get a bit lengthier after this.  

Thanks for the comments so far!!  Glad to know you guys are enjoying the story.

-RedThreads