[Un-betaed]

*****

Yunho braced himself to lean closer to the feral-looked boy, as he wanted to make sure about something. As a physician, his inquisitive feeling was too strong to ignore.

“Hey, can I feel your body?” He asked in a polite way.

“Ah, what I mean…I want to check your body.” He snapped, correcting his words which somehow sounded strange to him.

All the boy did was just sat quietly on the dusty floor while threw him an empty stare, seemed what Yunho had said didn’t get into his ears.

“Ah, whatever…” Yunho didn’t wait for a reply, as his hand advanced towards the boy carefully, putting his palm on the boy’s forehead. His eyes widened once he touched the boy’s skin. “You’re hot.” He gasped.

“Uh, I mean… your heat temperature is a bit different.” He mumbled and grabbed the boy’s wrist this time. The boy still stared at him blankly, just letting Yunho touched him.

Yunho’s face was in a deep frowned as he checked the other’s pulse, and that was when he felt his assumption about the other was right.

“You’re really not human…” Yunho murmured after he tried to make sense of everything, his eyes looking at the boy intensely. After finished his checking, Yunho let go the other’s hand but the boy had grabbed his hand and brought it back to his forehead.

Yunho was confused at first by the boy’s sudden action. “What are you doing?”

Still with no word of response, the boy just held Yunho’s hand against his forehead and closed his eyes, seemingly was enjoying the other’s hand on part of his body.

For the first time since he met the strange boy, a small smile adorned Yunho’s face as he took down the meaning of the boy’s action. “What…do you love it to be touched?”

The boy’s eyes snapped open and grabbed Yunho’s other hand. He put it on his left cheek this time.

“Okay, okay…I get it.” Yunho chuckled this time as he gave a gentle pat on the boy’s head before pulling his hand back. The feeling of fear that he had towards the boy before had slowly dissipated, after seeing how childish the other was actually. It was so contrasted from the first sight of the boy that he witnessed yesterday.

"You're just like a little kid…" Yunho smiled, realizing the fact.

Yunho then got up from his seat. The dusty, torn couch made him sneezed once he stood up. “Aish, how long you’ve been living in such a haunted place like this without even do the cleaning?” He diverted his eyes to look around a dilapidated old house, he assumed the place must had been abandoned more than hundred years.

The boy was still knelt on the floor, staring up at Yunho unblinkingly. Those stares didn’t send Yunho a feeling of chill anymore, what Yunho saw at the moment was a pair of dark-grey, naïve eyes stared at him as he continued observing the other closely.

‘If he is really like what the mythical story told… I think he’s not purely dangerous. He is indeed just a young boy who has an unfortunate life.’ Yunho thought, trying to be rational.

“Hey, how old are you?” Yunho asked, suddenly the feeling of wanted to study about the queer boy came barged him.  But the other seemed love to remain silent; that was what Yunho thought.

“Are you pretending to be mute? I know you can speak, Jaejoong.”

As that name escaped his lips, Yunho caught a bit reaction displayed on the boy’s face.

“Ah, your name isn’t it? You told me yesterday your name is Jaejoong, right?” An amused smile tugged Yunho’s lips. This time the latter nodded his head solemnly.

“So, Jaejoong…” Yunho paused as he started to think a way to make the boy speak, hoping if he able to make a conversation with the boy, it would be easier for him to find his way out of the wood later, considering the other probably more familiar with the secluded place.

“Tell me…how long you’ve been living here?”

Jaejoong got up from his knelt and walked to the old painting of the white fox that hung on the shabby, cracked wall of hanok.

Yunho watched Jaejoong’s move curiously and decided to follow after him as Jaejoong pointed something that scribbled on the painting.

Yunho took a closer look. “This is…a year of this painting being drawn?” Yunho mumbled before started calculating in his mind, as he looked at the date written on the old painting of white fox. 

“It’s more than thousands years…” He whispered and looked back at the silent boy.

“You… you’re actually could understand what I’m saying. But you don’t know how to speak back, uh.” Yunho said as he found the other was indeed understood his words.

“How could you just know to mention your name... That’s bad.” Yunho said again before he walked back to the couch and grabbed his backpack.

“Ah, I really need to clean myself up. I felt so sticky after run like a maniac last night…” He kept babbling as he thought what had happened last night. It was all the after-effect of shocked that drove him to be panic and run like a scaredy cat after what he had saw last night.

Yunho took off his cloth before he turned around and found Jaejoong still didn’t stop staring at him. “Tch, what you love about staring at me like that with those big-rounded eyes of yours. You see…we’re just same.” He said as he pointed to his bare chest and to Jaejoong’s, since the boy’s was still in shirtless too.

“Oh, well…I think not that same.” Yunho murmured. “I’ve a muscle compare to you. That’s my pride as a man...” He continued and smirked. It was more like he was just talking alone.

“Aish, it’s useless to have a talk with you.” He sighed, finally realized it was really a hopeless effort to talk to the unresponsive boy. But he couldn’t help it, it was better to keep making a conversation until the boy used to. Since from his observation the boy must had been living a very long time without having another presence of human around him. That must be the cause of why he lost or forgot how to speak.  For someone to be abandoning and living alone for thousands years must be the most impossible thing for a mere human to go through.

‘He’s such a poor thing.’ Yunho thought silently, pitying the other’s fate.

Yunho made his way out of the house; heading to the stone water well that he had caught yesterday when he was gathering the firewood.

After finished washing himself, Yunho dried himself and put on a pair of new cloth. He felt so refreshing after got into a clean cloth. And as he turned around to head back, he jumped backward in surprised as he found Jaejoong was crouching on the big stone behind him, seemingly had watching him the whole time he took a bath.

“What the...yah, could you stop scaring me like that?!” He scolded the boy and huffed to ebbing his fast heartbeat from aftermath of shocked.

“What are you doing there, seating so silent. Enjoy your peeping time?” He grumbled. But Jaejoong was just showing his innocent face, which made him felt hard to get mad any further. And to thought the other had no feeling, Yunho felt it wasn’t a big deal.

“Aha, why don’t you come here? I’ll bathe you. Look at you…you’re covered in dirt since who knows how long.” Y