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”Great. This was just what we needed; a beast coming to rage to yard in the middle of the night!” Nichkhun groused sarcastically.

“Can it really come to yard?”

“Hey, you have just lived outside for over ten days!”

“Okay okay, got it” Wooyoung said, “I’ll try to bluff it! Wait - “

Wooyoung stood up. Boat swayed dangerously. Nichkhun squeezed boat sides with pale knuckles. Wooyoung whistled letting out weird loud noises, then sat back down and took row from Khun. Nichkhun couldn’t help but just watch stunned how Wooyoung puddled water with row and banged it against boat side.

“It stopped!” Wooyoung whispered.

Nichkhun glimpsed quickly to forest. Beast had stopped to peer around.

“Let’s go quickly!” Khun sizzled.  

Brothers rowed like maniacs to the land, leaving the boat hidden behind huge leafy branches. They took fishes and tiptoed quickly to the barn. They had their hays there.

“I’ll put these here and search something to defend ourselves”, Wooyoung whispered. He searched sea salt bag to sprinkle bit salt on fishes. Sea salt were of course gotten by steaming the water part from seawater away. That’s way they could never run out of salt. Nichkhun tried to peer out from between of blanks to keep eye on the yard. Wooyoung delved as quiet as possible. 

”Aissh! There’s nothing here!” he sizzled grumpy, ”Mattock and digging fork, that’s it. We’ll take these.”

Nichkhun bursted. ”Imagine,” he said ”others come to look what is it on yard and there we just fight against the beast with maddock and digging fork like some stupid country bumkins...”, he chuckled to Wooroung’s ear. Wooyoung couldn’t help but just chuckle.

Boys left from barn when they were 100% sure that the yard was empty. They hid their “weapons” to the shades of porch because they didn’t want to tell this part of story for others.  At the downstairs they decided unspokenly to go to get riffle, knife and baseball stick to visible place just for sure.

When Khunwoo entered to the upstairs, there was peaceful mood at the bedroom. The stable snoring  of Taecyeon was the cherry on the top of cake.

”Annyeong”, Junho greeted turning page of tagged comic book. Big guys were sleeping already, as been said.

 Minjun had told Junho to dig a notebook for him from writing desk drawer. Notebook had started to grow moldy as well, but Minjun had done his everything to save it, because he constantly needed something to write in. For Minjun, it was better than gold. Wooyoung was happy to see his huyng so inspirated. He knew Minjun wrote song lyrics or poems - actually Wooyoung thought them as a same thing.

“Did you got anything?” Minjun asked raising his gaze up, only to drop it immediately back as he got an sudden idea.

“Ne”, Wooyoung replied. He glimpsed Nichkhun. Thai nodded.

”What?” Junho asked.

”I knew it”Minjun let out a lazy sigh as he wrote intensively, “Go on, just go on...”  

”We..Well, we were coming back already, but all of sudden Khun noticed some move in forest. It was kinda near to the tree line” Wooyoung told, “I managed to bluff it out and we rowed back heck fast. We don’t know where it went, but hopefully it is now gone.”

“How did you ‘bluffed it out’ then?” Junho asked doing quation marks with his fingers.

“He nearly turned the boat around with his noise making”, Khun said before Woo got to say anything.

Junho chuckled amused. Now even inspired Minjun glimpsed Wooyoung, “I’m so happy you’re back”, he said chuckling quietly before he once again turned back to write.

“Well, at least it worked and we managed to sneak back here”, Wooyoung said. He felt how wave of happiness spreaded to his body. Happy boy climbed to his bed , but stayed to lean to the wall. Nichkhun did the same. Junho was already lower bunk in third bed still reading comics.

“I’m glad that Taecyeon is sleeping already”, Junho said. He listened the snoring above.

“He would had gone nuts.”

Others hummed knowing well what their brother meant. Little by little everybody calmed down to sleep. Moonlight stayed to watch over them.

Brothers fell asleep one at the time. But Nichkhun didn’t manage in it, for some reason. He rolled back and forth, kicked blanket off and on, tried even counting lambs, but still he didn’t fall asleep. Nichkhun sat in his bed for a long time thinking all that had happened recently. In the end he got enough. I guess I should just go straight to have a tea. It always ends like this, Nichkhun tought while going to the downstairs. He did fire inside the stove, placing the tea pan accustomised on it. While waiting he slapped rythymically to the cool part of stove. Just before the tea pan would’ve started to whistle Nichkhun took it off and poured tea to his cup. The cup had Thai print with Thai elephant as its coloring. He had felt himself so lucky when he had found the cup from some cluncker stack some time ago. The cup gave him memories about his childhood, teen years, adolesence, his parents & siblings, beaches, busy marketsquares, tuktuks, basically everything in beloved Thailand, which had existed for a long, long time ago. Despite the fact that Korea had come his 2^nd home country and gave him stacks of memories as well, nothing could beat Thailand, the country he had strong roots in. Suddenly Nichkhun felt huge longing feeling. He wanted to go to Korea and Thailand again - he wanted to go home.

Nichkhun sighed heavily. He looked the steam that reached to the ceiling. Thai found himself from missing Victorya, Tiffany, school friends, class mates, J.Y Park himself, all those co-stars he had had (especially Moon brothers, who got Nichkhun to give them big smile as he remembered them), 2AM, Jaebom..He missed tons of people from the past. He could never got them back anymore. He could never again smile, chat, hug with. He didn’t have them anymore to laugh, party, feel happy, feel sad...

Or apologize.

Nichkhun buried his head to his arms. If something was painful, it was this. He knew that starting to think “If only...” there would be no ending, but he didn’t care a .

If only I’d get that moment back, if I only would get back all that I’d never knew where it would lead me to...On that day when she left from that office door, crossed the road and dissapeared to around the corner, away from my sight...How could I had known that it was the last time ever when I saw her......Why didn’t I think more back then, to think, to talk, to save everything...I should have been that Khun who was always so perfect in everything he did. But after that, I was unperfect. Failed. Was it really me, Nichkhun Buck Horvjekul? Everyone’s favorite, cute forgeiner, Thai Prince...

”Yah.”

Nichkhun took breath. He straighted his back. He had forgotten his tea, but luckily it was still warm.

“You have to stop that”, he whispered for himself.

Damn it...

Nichkhun drinked his tea, but stayed to stare the table. He inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, exhaled again. Now he definitely wouldn’t sleep. Nichkhun put his cup to the dishes. He felt that he didn’t want to go back yet. He felt undone, and that’s why he sat back to the chair. Especially this was forbidden, swirling about something.

it.

For a moment later Nichkhun remembered that the lantern was still on. It was important to save gas. After he had shut the lantern it took a moment before eyes got used to the darkness, which was deep despite the moonlight. Khun actually wanted to stay to window when he noticed how beautiful the scenery was out there. Of course scenery was always beautiful. Nichkhun specially liked the maple branch framing the window in corner upper right. However, scenery needed perfect lighting, timing and weather to get its full beauty. Nichkhun had enjoyed while he was fishing there, on the sea in the color of so beautiful shade of deep blue. He was sure that his “secret” favorite place was as beautiful as well. In that moment Nichkhun decided to go to fish there at some night, with a brother of course. Actually he felt good again. It was so easy to forget himself to this moment.

Wait.

Nichkhun squinted his eyes. Is this only optical thing...That’s not sane, not possible...No, they are grey for sure..Yes, they are grey.

Nichkhun tried his best to peer to horizon. There was now huge, hilly night clouds. No matter how wonderful the moonlight was, now it only disturbed him. Of course clouds are black and grey at nights! he scoffed blinking his eyes.

In that one moment Nichkhun froze.

“No..!”  he exclaimed, not realizing how loud.

Now there was an animal on the yard. And it was certainly a wolf.

We should have known! Nichkhun sweared. He ran to upstairs, pulling door open with that huge power he didn’t know he even had, when thinking it afterwards. Door banged loud. First one Nichkhun noticed was Taecyeon, who sat in his bed with messy hair and eyes wide as plates.

“What the hell!” Taecyeon exclaimed.

“Hurry, wake up! WAKE UP I SAID!” Nichkhun shouted.

”What’s the matter?!”

”There’s wolf on the yard!”

“Pardon me?!”

“Yeah yeah, there’s wolf staring the house!”

At the next moment Nichkhun almost had to throw himself out of the way when Taecyeon threw his blanket away and dashed out.

As others made it to downstairs, Taecyeon had already pulled curtains over in every window on the whole floor. He kept an his hard glance on the yard from the little curtain slot. Moonlight colored his eyes black, skin white. He had their huge matchete in his left hand waiting.

“You did well when you left weapons visible, Khun” he said with low voice, “But you forgot machete. But that’s okay.”

Wooyoung realized that Taecyeon had slept when Khun and he himself had returned from the sea. Wooyoung believed that no one would tell Taec any details. Wooyoung had started to realize what was going on with his brother. He really was little bit scary. Now Wooyoung looked Taecyeon with new eyes after conversation with Khun when they had been fishing earlier at this night.

”What we have there at this time?” Minjun asked. Chansung had taken him to piggyback. Junho stood next to then. He had stoned himself, because he had decided to not to start panicking. His fists were shaking from the power he squeezed them together. Situation was familiar, but at this time it was different as Taecyeon was acting threateningly.

”A wolf. Big one”, Taecyeon answered with low voice. All talking had to be whispering or low voiced, because the wolf would maybe notice them. Then this would turn dangerous, for real.

“How it has found its way here?” Chansung wondered. Wooyoung remembered that Chansung had slept as well at the time of Khun’s and his return. Since he was stable and healthy, Wooyoung would’ve told more details for him if he’d have asked. Khun, instead, had his fingers crossed. He was now really nervous, as he hoped that Taecyeon wouldn’t remember their fishing trip. Then he would blame Wooyoung and him about this and everyone knew well what would be followed by that.

“What kind of question is that?” Taecyeon asked glimpsing maknae with bad face, “Animals can go anywhere they like to.”

Nichkhun let out hidden sigh. Chansung, for his part, let out agreeing noise.  

”What are we going to do now?” Junho asked. He had started to gain some braveness now.

”If it leaves itself, then we can go sleep in peace. If something else happens, I’ll cut its head off or shoot it right there.”

Minjun noticed Taecyeon also carried rifle on his back. Huyng wished that wolf would realize to piss off just for its own life. Situation was really pressuring. Minjun glimpsed Junho, and was surprised how peaceful Junho was.

Brothers fell in to silence, to wait something to happen.

”Oh !” Taecyeon startled all of sudden, throwing curtain to cover. Wooyoung saw it all through the curtain. The wolf sat still and stared house with sharp eyes.

“W-what should we do?” Minjun asked with shaky voice. As he said that, he immediately realized he had been imprudent.

“I’ll go and kill that little before anything happens!” Taecyeon stormed. He dashed away before anyone was able to stop him or even realize what was happening. Then main door banged open with terrible power as Taecyeon stormed to the yard roaring and flinged with machete like total maniac.

“TAECYEON, DON’T!” Chansung shouted with full lungs.

“TAECYEON, COME BACK HERE!” Junho screamed. In the middle of chaos Wooyoung heard both anger and panic.

”Put me down, quick!” Minjun exclaimed to Chansung, ”Go after him!”

In a short moment yard was like a warfield. Taecyeon had now switched weapon; he ran, roared and shooted around like insane. It seemed to Nichkhun like Taecyeon would’ve been in psychosis.

“WOOYOUNG!” Chansung roared. Wooyoung immeadiately understood the sign. Chanwoo ran towards Taecyeon.

“No way!” Junho shouted, now guarding Minjun, “Boys, watch out or he’ll shoot you!”

Nichkhun took hold from him, as Junho had started to shake. No wonder, because Nichkhun was terrified as hell as well. Taecyeon had finally flipped totally. There was no return.

 Three brothers watched how Chanwoo tried to catch Taecyeon. Chansung was reckless when he just jumped on shooting Taecyeon. Right on that moment Taecyeon lost his hold from rifle, Wooyoung took it away. Even three brothers on the sight saw that Taecyeon had really going to destroy the wolf to the last piece ever existed.  

Chansung panted heavily laying on Taecyeon. His ears rang, but still he heard how Taecyeon panted under him as well. Wooyoung sat next to them all tired and loose. Rifle was safe, away from Taecyeon.

“Man, you could’ve got hit”, Wooyoung panted.

“Well, either of us just had to do it”, Chansung panted. He smelled smoke. It was now perfectly silent. Wooyoung had tinnitus, and he knew he wasn’t the only one.

“Nggghh!”

“STAY STILL AND SHUT UP!” Chansung snarled out loud, “I’m not going to get up before you calm down!”

Wooyoung tried to put the safety lock on, but then he realized there were no ammos left anymore.

“We have to start searching more ammos”, he announced.

“ing great!” Chansung spitted out to Taecyeon under him, “Great job Taec!”

“You should be thankful that I saved your life!” Taecyeon kveched under Chansung.

“Well you still could have saved it with less chaos”, Wooyoung snapped. He glimpsed up. Others had arrived to them.

 ”Is everything okay?” Junho asked. He got down and asked: ”Are you ok?”

“I would be if this elephant would get up!” Taecyeon brawled.

“He will if you let us to hold on from you!” Wooyoung exclaimed. He wasn’t going to take a new risk, and he knew that others agreed to it as well.

“All right, all right!” Taecyeon said, “Hurry up! My lungs are squeezing!”

Chansung got up. Wooyoung immediately got hold from Taecyeon’s shoulder pressing it against the ground. Chansung squatted allowing together with Wooyoung to Taecyeon to sit-up. Taecyeon panted, both gasping air and being exhausted . He let out a dry cough. Junho patted his shoulder. He wanted both hug and not to hug his dear. However, he took Taecyeon’s hand giving him relaxing glance. This situation was so strange. Taecyeon had widely overreacted without proper reason for that.

But now they also had another worry.

”Umm..Guys” Minjun started, ”We noticed some greenish clouds there at the horizon. Or actually Khun did.”

Now also Taec and Chanwoo noticed the same, greenish shade at the horizon.

“It’s an optical illusion” Wooyoung announced immediately like this thing was now done, “C’mon guys, let’s go to sleep. It’s late already.”

“No we don’t” Khun said. He wouldn’t move before they had solved this thing thing out.

“It’s not illusion. Are you blind or something?” Minjun said. He squinted his eyes once more, “Everybody, look carefully. Do you see that?”

Junho looked again. He hadn’t seen that as clearly as Minjun and Khun. Now he noticed how seawater steamed, and the steam had light dirty green shade.

“Yes, I see it”, he said.  Junho felt how panic flamed inside him as it also strangled him tightly. He looked up to Minjun. Huyng was now carried by Khun.

“It’s gas, right?” he let out that question that everyone had but wasn’t brave enough to ask it. Now they stoned. All had their eyes on Minjun, even they already saw the answer by themselves.

Minjun nodded.

Following silence was very anxious. Brothers were able to do nothing than just staring to the horizon as the gas slowly came closer them.