Siyeon watched, from the door, as Yoobin slowly put the silver chain - an antique, straight from Siyeon’s werewolf hunter family’s attic - around her wrists and ankles. The basement is dark, damp and dusty, and only the kitchen lights bathe the world beneath the stairs. Even in the low light, Siyeon can see the deep gauges into the walls, made of pure stone, and she shudders, bringing her shawl closer to her body.

Ever since Siyeon was a child, she was taught to hate these creatures that shifted under the moonlight. Taught to tattle to an adult - and later try to subdue, silver dagger on backs to drag them back into the old, blood-soaked hut in the depths of the forest - one of them if she saw any of the warning signs. Taught to not question why her family did this.

Then she found Yoobin, and Yoobin did not have the classic warning signs. Yoobin wasn’t like the textbooks that had taught her, nor like the stories she had learned on the family reunions, cherished and told so many times Siyeon could recite them word by word, inflection by inflection. Yoobin was herself, pure and simple and untamed, and Siyeon fell in love with her at the speed of light. For a while, she convinced herself she was normal, that she did not look at strangers and waited to see the wolf behind their eyes, did not think of how she could lead them into their dooms, did not think of warm blood, cooling on her skin. She convinced herself of many things.

When Yoobin told her the truth of her excuses for why she couldn’t go on date night every full moon (Siyeon, too blinded by love to realize the date, the moon, its meaning fully lost; she knows that, were her family to even catch a whiff of this, she’d be punished harshly), a gasp, hand in , horror in her eyes.

Yoobin thought the worst. Of course she did, but the worst she thought wasn’t the worst Siyeon could offer. Siyeon spills her words, and gracefully breaks up with Yoobin. Safety, she claims. At least her training was useful to contain the tears that threatened to spill.

Two full moons passed before Yoobin was on her doorstep. Siyeon blinked, unsure of her state - this was a common scene in every single one of her dreams, and as such, she couldn’t know how much was reality and how much was a dream, how much trust she could put into her love blind brain. Siyeon hadn’t been staying awake much.

Yoobin had talked. Siyeon had listened. At the end of the conversation, they agreed to never let their worlds merge. It was fine; Siyeon didn’t hunt much ever since she had gone to college. During the full moons, Siyeon would turn a blind eye and not see Yoobin sneaking out around eleven, and coming back at sunrise, shirt torn and mouth bloodied.

The hunts for the “wild animal” around town started soon after. Siyeon did not speak: she went to the attic, retrieved the silver chains, and let them on top of the kitchen table.

That had been months ago. The hunt had stopped, but Yoobin still, every month, wore the chains, still locked herself in Siyeon’s basement.

Their eyes met, for the briefest of seconds. They’re already shining in gold, and a silent conversation happens between them, a million unsaid words in a fraction of a section. Most of them are I love you. Siyeon stays there, at the edge of Yoobin’s world, for as long as she can: when the first bone cracks, signalizing the transformation is beginning, she knows that she cannot stay.

She turns her back, closes and locks the door. Then, with a deep breath, she starts to cook: she knows Yoobin will be hungry when she’s human again.