When Luhan walked back home from the fields, it was a little later than usual. Since it was the end of harvest season, there was a lot of work to do everyday, and Baekhyun, Tao, Minseok and him had been busy all morning and afternoon picking courgettes, pumpkins and cabbage then bringing them to Yixing, the market gardener.

                In Luhan’s hand, a wicker basket, filled with about ten potatoes, two courgettes, a few turnips and several other vegetables, was swaying gently at each step he took down the bumpy path leading to the village. “Luhan!” he heard a voice call him from a distance. He turned around and recognized Chanyeol, the village’s huntsman. “Hey there,” the tall man said as he came to him. He was holding by their foots four fat birds, apparently partridges. “Caught that today. Want one?” Chanyeol offered.

                Luhan smiled and thanked him. However, he knew that Chanyeol’s generosity wasn’t as deep as it may have seemed, and he held out his basket to him. He was supposed to give him something as a payback. “Would you like a courgette?” he asked casually, and he giggled inwardly as Chanyeol’s face brightened in faked surprise – when the man had actually been waiting for him to ask.

                “Sure, why not? That’s nice Luhan, thank you,” Chanyeol said, taking – of course – the bigger of the two vegetables. Luhan smiled as if it were nothing, then he turned around and kept walking back home. After about ten minutes, he reached the small path that undulated lazily, full of tiny stones, through all the village, then carried on until he could see the gate of his garden. He pushed it open and closed it, thinking about how he was going to cook the partridge. A stew? He could also roast it, it was pretty big. Or pan-fry it with potatoes, which would be nice too.

                The first thing he did when he entered his house was fetch an onion in a cupboard and cut it into pieces before putting them into a small plate with one of his last pieces of bread. If he ate potatoes that night, he wouldn’t need much bread, and anyway the next day was Saturday, so Kyungsoo would surely give him his grain bread for free, which would last until the next week.

                He walked out of his house again, to put the little plate on the doorstep. That was for the fairies. It had now become a habit  for Luhan, just like for the other villagers, to leave food for them. Onions like this, bread of course, and meat when there was some. Pepper too, but only during summer. Luhan was only starting to get used to the idea of fairies existing, actually. When he’d arrived to the village for the first time, it had been a huge shock.

                Smiling, he went back inside and locked the door, knowing he wouldn’t go outside again that evening. In the kitchen, he sorted his vegetables and put them and the basket in a corner, save for four potatoes and another onion, which he kept to prepare them with the partridge. He first plucked the bird, then cleaned it out using a sharp knife. Chanyeol had actually been really nice to give it to him for only a courgette. The animal was really healthy and its meat would be tender. Yeah, Chanyeol had been nice. But he must have killed at least a rabbit or two earlier that day, otherwise he would have kept the birds to himself, Luhan knew that.

                Finally, he would really pan-fry the bird. After cutting it into pieces, he did the same with the onion and the potatoes before plunging said potatoes into boiling water. On his stove, he put a frying pan and poured some oil into it, then added the vegetables and the meat. Instantly, everything started to grill in pretty cracking sounds. Luhan sprinkled it all with salt, as well as spices. That meal would be substantial. Would last at least…three days, if he made sure not to eat too much.

                Luhan put a portion of the pan-fried partridge in a plate, and ate it while flipping the pages of a novel written by a woman in the village, though not really focusing on it, but rather on how deliciously fatty the bird was. After washing his dishes, he put the remaining food in a big bowl, covered it, and put it in a fresher place for it to keep long. Then he closed all the shutters and went to bed, his stomach full, so full he fell asleep twice as fast as usual, thanking Chanyeol mentally and making sure to remember telling Baekhyun and Tao to give the huntsman more potatoes on the next day.

                When Luhan opened his eyelids in the morning, the lazy sun of the beginning of October hadn’t set yet, and everything was still dark. The boy got up and put on some clothes, before leaving his bedroom and going downstairs to the kitchen. Like every Saturday, which was market day in the village, he only ate a piece of bread while fetching the plate on the doorstep (the onion had been fully eaten, as well as the bread), then he put it in a basin to wash it later on.

                About a quarter of an hour later, he grabbed his coat, and walked out into his garden.  It was quite cold outside, and each step he took in the grass made the brown dead leaves crack loudly like natural fireworks. He went to the path to go the centre of the village, which would take him about a quarter, since his house was one of the furthest from it. On his way, he met Baekhyun, then Tao. Minseok would only join them at the market because he lived near there.

                “It would see that Chanyeol shot a deer yesterday,” Baekhyun said slyly to the two other men. Tao nodded silently.

                Baekhyun and Tao were total opposites. Whereas Baekhyun was really short and always had his tongue out of his mouth to whisper little things about everybody’s private life, Tao was tall and slender, and seldom spoke. In fact, he was rather gloomy. Baekhyun’s gossip didn’t particularly annoy Luhan, although he knew the little devil said things behind his back as well, but he liked to bicker with him from time to time playfully, because Baekhyun’s sharp and biting comebacks were a good and amusing training. However, he appreciated Tao’s discretion more, especially because the advice he gave about the fairies was always good.

                Luhan listened in amused silence to Baekhyun talking about how Chanyeol always kept more game to himself, then about Soojin, the fisher’s wife, who had told him they had financial problems when he had asked them to lend him money one month earlier, but he’d seen her wear a new dress just the previous afternoon, made of very expensive silk, and how she was a liar, then about how cloudy the weather was – and about how it was undoubtedly the fairies who were to blame.

                As they got closer to the centre of the village, more people joined them on the path. “Minseok!” Baekhyun shouted when they spotted the chubby-cheeked boy. Minseok turned around and looked at them blankly for several seconds, before a grin spread slowly on his lips. “Okay, has recognized us…” Baekhyun muttered, shaking his head as Minseok skipped towards the three of them.

                “Hello Minseok,” Luhan smiled at the cute man, covering Baekhyun’s remarks with his voice. “How are you?” he asked softly.

                “I’m fine, thank you Luhan,” Minseok replied, beaming at Luhan and Tao. He smiled timidly at Baekhyun, who only nodded dryly. Minseok wasn’t very bright. He was incredibly kind, but not very bright. It wasn’t his fault, of course, but rather his parents’, who’d lost him in the forest in the middle of December, about ten years before. The poor boy had stayed alone for several days, trembling in the snow without other food than frozen berries. When his mother and his father had found him at last, his chubby body was curled up in a cave. After that, it had been as if his mind had stopped growing up.

                Luhan knew Baekhyun hated Minseok, but he was the only one. All the other villagers pampered him like a puppy. Everyone always gave more food to him, no matter who: the baker, the fisher; even Chanyeol would discreetly pass him squirrels when he caught a few.

                Luhan, Tao, Baekhyun and him walked into the market, and first headed to Yixing’s stall, where the vegetables and the fruits they’d gathered were sold. “Hey,” Yixing greeted them. “Apparently, Mrs Hwang’s twins loved the grain she prepared with your courgettes last week,” he said with a smile. Luhan knew the children Yixing was talking about. They were two little girls who lived with their parents and an older brother near the forest. Every time he saw them, they would be eating strawberries they’d have found in a bush.

                “Good, good,” he said.

                “I’m going to see Chanyeol, I bet he’ll give me a little of his doe if I tell him I know about the five partridges he ‘forgot’ to give to the poulterer,” Baekhyun announced, patting Tao and Luhan’s shoulder.

                “I’ll go my way too, then,” Tao replied quietly. Minseok had already started daydreaming. Luhan ruffled the chubby-cheeked man’s hair and walked away, towards the cheese stall. He bought fromage frais, as well as a little goat’s cheese, which was in a bowl with olive oil, pepper and salt, then he headed to the bakery. He entered it, and directly went into the back-shop to see Kyungsoo.

                “Hey,” he waved at the baker.

                Kyungsoo grinned. “I’m taking a break, Seongmin,” he told his co-worker, before opening the door in the back of the room, which opened into the outside. Both Luhan and him walked out, then he closed the door. “How is it going?” he asked Luhan as they wandered around in the market and sat down on a stone low wall.

                “Fine, fine,” Luhan said, looking up at the sky, where a couple of crows were dancing a black ballet. “The harvest season has been great. What about you?”

                “Oh, I manage…” Kyungsoo replied, smiling. He was one of the few people Luhan truly liked in the village. Besides being nice, Kyungsoo was pretty intelligent. “Here, I got that for you,” the baker said, dipping his hand into the pocket of his apron to grab a golden grain bread, just like Luhan had thought the previous night. He took it thankfully. It was still hot.

                “Thanks, Kyungsoo,” Luhan said.

                Kyungsoo shrugged. “I know you put more potatoes than necessary in the basket you send me every week,” he replied with a wink.

                “Kyungsoo!” a voice called him from a distance.

                “Ah, sounds like Seongmin needs help…” the baker sighed.

                Luhan laughed. “I’m leaving, anyway.”

                “See you,” Kyungsoo said. Luhan watched him go. Then he wrapped the bread in a towel he’s brought specially for that purpose to keep it warm, and put it in his basket with the cheese. He went to the butcher to buy beef, then remembered he didn’t have a lot of grain left at home, so he bought some too. Satisfied, he waved at the people he met on his way, and went back home. He was a bit afraid it might start raining, but despite being dully grey, the sky didn’t shed a single raindrop.

                Once he reached his house, Luhan took the bread, that was still warm, and ate two slices of it with half the goat’s cheese on it. At last, a breakfast! He’d been starving. It was so delicious that he ate a third slice. In the beginning of the afternoon, he walked to the fields to work. Minseok was already there, as well as Tao, but Baekhyun was not. “Where’s Baekhyun?” Luhan asked. Tao shook his head with a shrug. Minseok grinned and pointed at something far away.

                Luhan followed his gaze and spotted a short silhouette and a much taller one facing each other. He narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t need to do it to find out who they were. He would have recognized Baekhyun’s crossed arms and Chanyeol’s lanky body everywhere. They seemed to be talking animatedly, even if Luhan couldn’t hear. A little awkwardly, he looked at them for a while, imitated by Minseok then by Tao.

                And after about two minutes, he saw Baekhyun raise his hand and give Chanyeol a violent slap. Even from where they were standing, Luhan heard perfectly the loud noise it produced. It was actually quite surprising. Minseok looked puzzled. Baekhyun had turned around and started walking away from Chanyeol energetically, and the huntsman stood where he was, unmoving. When Baekhyun joined Luhan, Tao and Minseok, Chanyeol had disappeared.

                “Why are you staring at me like that?” he snapped at the poor chubby-cheeked man, who blushed.

                “We were staring at you because you just slapped Chanyeol, Baekhyun,” Tao replied quietly. The shorter man didn’t say anything and just sighed exasperatedly. Under a gradually darkening sky and at a chilly temperature, the four farmers gathered their tools and started to work. When Luhan found himself alone with Tao for a minute, he took the opportunity to ask him whether he knew what was going on between Baekhyun and Chanyeol.

                “I don’t really know,” Tao said. “I heard Chanyeol was being – insistent, though.”

                “Oh,” Luhan nodded. “I see.”

                He couldn’t ask Tao more questions as Baekhyun came back a few seconds later – and anyway he didn’t want to. “Finished plot A,” he said, to which Tao responded with a simple ‘B for us’. Minseok arrived a little later, a dreamy smile on his lips.

                “We could call it a day. If we start on Monday with the pumpkins, it will be okay,” Luhan said. Minseok yawned. “Go back home, all of you. I’m bringing the vegetables to Yixing,” Luhan added. Tao raised his eyebrows, but he and Baekhyun accepted nonetheless. They still helped Luhan loading the courgettes into the olive-green van before leaving. Luhan waved them goodbye and drove slowly to the village – he couldn’t go too fast, first because the path was rough, second because the vehicle couldn’t go faster than 30 kilometres per hour.

                He reached Yixing’s warehouse twenty minutes later. “Yixing!” he called. The man opened the big wooden door after a minute or two and stepped out. Luhan got out of the van and carried the crates full of courgettes inside with him. Despite seeing Yixing almost everyday after work or in the village, Luhan had never got to know him much. He was nice, but they just weren’t friends. Luhan didn’t know his story, unlike most of the villagers’. All he was certain was that Yixing’s family had lived in the country for several decades.

                “Bye,” the market gardener said when Luhan left. He drove to the fields again, where he left the van, before walking back home. An hour and a half had passed since he’d told Baekhyun, Tao and Minseok to leave. When he got back home, Luhan brewed some tea, which gave off a strong fragrance in all the kitchen. He drank the hot cup in his comfortable armchair, with a fountain pen in his other hand and his diary on his knees.

                Luhan was keeping a diary. He had picked up this habit about three years before, during the winter, when he’d had nothing to do. Bit by bit, the simple daily-life-telling notebook had turned into a real encyclopaedia about the village and its surroundings. Let alone his, albeit clumsy, accurate drawings of vegetables, fruits and flowers he found in the fields, he’d taken notes about the villagers.

                It was besides one of the reasons why he didn’t want his diary to be seen by anybody. Long paragraphs of what Baekhyun said about people, lists of all the game Chanyeol kept to himself, summaries of the mayor’s and the fisher’s lives… It was a little incriminating.

                But this diary was precious to Luhan, first because it occupied him and gave him a small centre of interest, a hobby, in a place where there wasn’t much to do, but also because he didn’t have an excellent memory, so stocking information like that was important. He’d also drawn a little map of the country and added red crosses where fairies lived. There was a ‘fairy hall’ in a field, one kilometre from Tao’s house, another one in the middle of the forest…

                Luhan drank all his tea and started writing.

                Baekhyun and Chanyeol seem to have argued today. Baekhyun slapped Chanyeol. I wonder why – maybe it was because of the doe. Tao said Chanyeol was being insistent. I said I understood, but actually I didn’t know what he meant. Did he say inappropriate things to Baekhyun? Still, it was weird. I won’t ask him because I know he would tell me a lie.

                The fairies have been eating a lot, and all the food I’ve been giving them lately. The courgettes are also very big this year. I guess that watering them with water from the Fountain was effective. We should try it with other vegetables.

                Luhan paused to fetch coloured pencils in a drawer and sat down again when he brought them back with him. Carefully, he drew a curvy courgette on the irregular paper; irregular paper that had been made traditionally and had little bumps like dunes in a desert. Green, darker green, little hints of yellow… Luhan bit his lip in concentration. When he finished colouring the vegetable, he looked at his work proudly.

                I want to try planting raspberry canes in the garden. It would

                Luhan stopped writing when he heard three loud knocks on his wooden door. Three determined, strong knocks. Usually, nobody visited him, except Tao on important celebration days, or Kyungsoo when he had unsold cakes to give him. But it was a normal day, so there was no celebration, and it was Saturday, so all the cakes would have been sold. Three knocks again. They were so insistent that the person behind the door couldn’t have mistaken Luhan’s house for another one.

                A little puzzled, Luhan got up and walked to the door. When he opened it, he found himself facing someone he’d never seen. It was a young man, tall and thin, with dark eyes and dark brown hair. Luhan looked at him for a few seconds before saying hello warily. “What are you looking for?”

                “Can I come in? Please,” the man replied. He had a sharp but low voice. Luhan blinked in surprise. That was when he realised the stranger looked exhausted. Silently, he moved aside, and the man entered quickly, throwing him a grateful look. “Do you have anything to eat?”

                “I – ” Luhan said hesitantly. “I have leftover of pan-fried partridge. With potatoes,” he answered. If the hungry expression that painted itself on the man’s face was anything to go by, it was okay. Without a word, Luhan went to the kitchen and his oven to heat the food up. The man followed him. Silence settled again. Luhan watched the man. He was looking around curiously. Then his eyes fell on Luhan’s diary, which had been left open with the pencils on it.

                “What is it?” he asked curiously, sitting down and brushing with his fingertips the page where Luhan had been writing. Luhan frowned and slammed his diary shut before putting it away. “Is it your diary?” the stranger asked.

                “No. It’s not,” Luhan lied. A delicious odour was starting to fill the kitchen. But Luhan wasn’t hungry. However, the young man was, apparently. As soon as Luhan put a plate with hot pan-fried bird in front of him, he quickly did a weird gesture with his fingers, then literally fell on the food and started devouring it hungrily. Luhan watched him for a couple of minutes, slightly disgusted, then he turned around and walked to the window. The night was unusually dark. He narrowed his eyes, then remembered it was a moonless night. He could see his reflection in the window. As well as the man behind, who was looking at him.

                “Can I have some more?” said man asked. Luhan came back to him. He’d eaten everything. Luhan nodded. He didn’t even know why he’d opened the door for him to enter a while before. That man was a complete stranger. But maybe was it something in his eyes, a look of deep weariness and need, which denoted of a long journey, that had made him do it. The man seemed to have travelled for long. Just like Luhan, ten years before – “It’s good,” the stranger cut Luhan’s thoughts.

                Luhan blinked and looked at the table, only to realize, horrified, that the bowl with all the pan-fried food he’d left in front of the man, without thinking, that had been full of partridge and potatoes, was now completely empty. He was about to get angry, when something changed before him. The young man smiled. Luhan closed his mouth. He opened it, closed it, then opened it again, and spoke. “Okay,” he said.

                “Thank you,” the young man said. Luhan shrugged. “Can I stay here for the night?”

                Luhan frowned. He only had a single bed and no sofa, only armchairs. “I only have one bed,” he said, aloud this time. When he met the man’s eyes, for a second, he felt literally terrified that the other might ask him to sleep together. “Only one bed…”

                “I can sleep on the floor,” the man replied. “Please.”

                “Fine,” Luhan sighed. Once again, he wondered why he’d accepted. That man didn’t look bad, he wasn’t even dirty, but he could perfectly be a murderer, who knew? Yet something was telling Luhan that was not the case. He climbed the stairs in heavy silence, with the man, who followed him like a puppy. Then he opened the door of his bedroom, and took a blanket and spare bed sheets in the cupboard. “If you fold the blanket, it’s quite thick,” he explained. The man nodded and did so, before spreading it on the wooden floor, between Luhan’s bed and the wall.

                Luhan almost told him he should sleep in another room and not that close, but when the man lied down on the blanket, not even bothering to take the sheets, and closed his eyes, curled up in a ball, he said no word. He didn’t have the heart to. Looking at him silently for a while, Luhan observed him. He looked younger with his eyes closed. After a minute, the man began to snore gently. Luhan sighed and went to the bathroom to wash himself, then he put on his pyjamas and slipped into his bed.

                Even in the dark, he could distinguish the stranger’s body on the blanket. He suddenly recalled the spare bed sheets weren’t on the man, so he grabbed them and placed them over him. In his sleep, said man moved slightly, and Luhan froze. When he was sure he wasn’t waking up, he went back to his bed, and closed his eyes. However, he was used to living alone, and used to silence. Well, the young man was breathing and even if it wasn’t loud at all, it was audible.

                Luhan found himself listening to it. He started to count the inhales and exhales. He was about to shake this away when an abrupt fright crept up in him. Maybe as soon as he’d have closed his eyes, the man would get up, take a knife and murder him. Luhan swallowed. Suddenly he regretted having accepted. He should have pushed the stranger away and told him to sleep in the woods. His fright turned into pure fear. Luhan buried himself under his covers. He could still hear the man’s breathing.

                When he started to suffocate because of the lack of air, Luhan popped his head out of the covers. With a trembling hand, he d for his bedside lamp, which he . A soft dimmed light filled the bedroom. Luhan quickly put his arm back under the bed sheets. Anxiously, he looked at the man, expecting him to have his eyes wide opened, a sadistic grin on his lips and a sharp blade in his fist. But all he saw was a peaceful-looking young man sleeping soundly, curled up in a tight ball.

                Somehow disappointed but also reassured, Luhan lied down more comfortably; he didn’t turn the light off right away, though. He closed his eyes, and when he started to listen to the stranger’s breathing once again, he found it actually soothing. Bit by bit, he felt himself drift away. But just before falling asleep, he realized something.

                He didn’t even know the stranger’s name.

A/N: So here's the first chapter!

I know it's not really exciting so far, but I promise the story will speed up from the next chapter.

Above all, thank you. Thank you so much. I can't even believe more than 100 of you subscribed just with the foreword... I'm so grateful... Thank you to all of you, notably the ones who came from Harmony ♥

I think there isn't a lot of suspense concerning the stranger but oh well ^^'

What do you think about it? Please tell me in the comments, it would make me really happy!

P.S.: Haha, by the way: the chapters of this story will be a bit longer than my usual ones - about 4000 words every time :D