"The stares that are seeking you who’s vividly shining in the blurry space
The sound of the alarm is ringing in me"

C H A P T E R 1: GROWL

When Kyungsoo first found out about the supernatural it wasn’t a grand event in his young life, there where no owls outside his window nor any vampires falling in love with him, he was six and most definitely not surprised.

His father is an average salary man who goes to work in the morning and returns home in the afternoon with a fatter wallet and an empty stomach. He wears glasses to read and likes to watch tv at night. There is nothing extraordinary about him.

His mother however, is much much more interesting.

She’s a beautiful woman for her age and although a bit on the short side she has charm that stretches for miles. She cooks well and has a vast garden full of fruit and vegetables that Kyungsoo can’t pronounce half of them. She sings her flowers songs in the mornings and lullabies at night, they’re her children apart from Kyungsoo and he’s never understood quite why. Never understood the way the flowers would lift at her touch or start dancing at her music. Never understood why she would lift a finger to her lips when she caught him looking.

His friends, amidst swinging on the monkey bars on the playground, would laugh at him when he told them his mother could talk to plants and after a particular harsh laughing session that involved Yoonjae choking on his own saliva and having to call his parents to take him home. Let’s just say Kyungsoo kept his heart lips shut about the matter from then on.

So he did what any curious 6 year old would do, he asked his mother bluntly.

“Umma, are you a fairy?”

His mother, startled from the sudden question almost broke the plate she was washing when it slipped from her fingers. Luckily her fast reflexes caught it before it crashed into a million pieces on her new wood floors and she gently set it down on the drying rack. Turning to look at her son she gave him a curious gaze mixed with something Kyungsoo would later understand as mirth.

“A fairy? Now what makes you think such a thing Soo?

The laughter in her voice was clear as she kneeled down and patted her sons head, flattening his hair with the palms of her hands until the black strands were a neat little bowl around his forehead.

Feeling a bit embarrassed Kyungsoo blushed and looked away, finding those wooden floors his mother loved so much ten times more interesting. “I don’t know, I told my friends you could talk to plants and they made fun of me for it. Yoonjae said only fairies can do that.”

Conveniently little Kyungsoo left out the part about Yoonjae choking because he really didn’t need to relive that.

“Is that so?” His mother replied as she scooped him up into her arms, walking them both towards her garden. “Well, Kyungsoo I’ll have you know, I’m no fairy.”

A sigh escaped the young boy’s mouth as he finally calmed his suspicions, part of him was satisfied he put an end to his curiosity but another smaller part was a bit disappointed, a fairy mother did sound pretty cool after all.

His mother brought him in front of her favorite pink hibiscus plant, grazing its petal softly with her finger. “What I am Soo-ie is something entirely different. I’m a Nymph.”

Kyungsoo eyes widened more than he thought where possible as his mouth fell open. “A Nymph?! What’s that?”

His mother put a calming hand on his cheek and shut his mouth gently. “We’re creatures born from nature Soo, nothing scary about us.” With a smile she began to twirl them gently around the garden, dancing her own version of a waltz around the peonies.

“We? Does that mean I’m one too?” Kyungsoo was dazed and confused beyond belief, he couldn’t grasp his small head around the change in his reality.

His mother stopped spinning them and gently brought him down in front of a tulip.

“Well that depends baby; can you hear what this lovely Tulip is saying?”

The boy brought his attention to the flower and tried his best to listen. There was the slight rustle of leaves due to wind, a bird chirping in the distance, a faint whisper, wait, whisper?

But before he could listen any closer his mother took him away from the flower and began walking into the house. “It’s ok if you couldn’t; male Nyphms are quite rare so you don’t have to worry about any of this.” With a smile she bent down to his level, coming face to face with him.

“Also one more thing.” She stuck out her pinky finger and looked at Kyungsoo in the eyes. “Your father doesn’t understand these things so don’t tell him about what we talked about ok?”

With a tiny nod Kyungsoo took her pinky in his and promised, too speechless to argue back. She gave him one of her dazzling smiles and ushered him into the kitchen.

“C’mon on then, I’ll make you your favorite kimchi spaghetti “

Kyungsoo is 18 and in his senior year of high school when he realizes exactly what his mother had talked about all those years ago.

As he aged and matured so did his logic and reasoning. He stopped playing in sandboxes and began to study more, spent less time at home and more at school. His mother’s whimsicalness he simply wrote off as her just being weird. There were no such things as nymphs or fairies the only things that were real were getting into a good university and then getting a good job.

Simple and to the point, much how Kyungsoo prefers life.

Its past 8 and he’s caught up in the library studying for his final exam at school. The exam that will decide on his entire future, what college he will get into and what kind of education will be on his resume. He’s aiming for Seoul University and his study group has left long ago.

With a sigh he rubs his swollen eyes and forces himself to turn the page. He hears a small shuffle in the distance and looks up curiously expecting to see the librarian ushering him out as usual. There’s a white blur moving past one of the bookshelves at such a quick pace that Kyungsoo drops his pencil. He rubs his eyes again except this time for a different reason.

Did he imagine that?

Before he knew it his legs were lifting themselves off the table and began to walk in the direction of the blur. He slowed down right before the bookshelf and paused for a second. He’s crazy, there’s nothing behind the bookshelf he just imagined that blur due to his lack of sleep. He swallowed the ball in his throat and quickly peered past the bookshelf and into the isle.

It was empty.

With a sigh he took a step back and walked towards his seat, gathering his things into his bag. He really needed sleep.

_____

When the day of the exam arrives Kyungsoo makes sure to get up five hours earlier than he needs too and spends three of those hours going over his study notes. His mother and father both assure him he will do fine but Kyungsoo is determined to do more than fine, he wants to ace it.

With a small bump in his step he walks determinedly towards the testing grounds. He could already hear the groups of people who’ve gathered to show support to their seniors taking the exams. Kyungsoo smiles and imagines the looks on his friends faces when he shows them his perfect score.

The short boy is brought back to reality when a familiar white blur passes through the corner of his eye. As he is more alert this time around, he manages to turn his head quick enough and catch a glimpse of a white coyote like creature escaping into a bush. There’s something like a book in its mouth.

All the air in Kyungsoo’s body leaves his breath as he gapes at where the creature was. He looks around wildly to see if anybody witnessed what he just saw but is only met with empty streets and even emptier cars.

He checks his watch; he was an hour before the exam starts. There’s saliva building up in his mouth and Kyungsoo swallows it down before speeding off the sidewalk and towards where the creature was headed.

The 18 year old boy finds himself turning through various streets and almost ran into a pole in an effort to keep up with the white blur. He has no idea what the hell it is but one thing was for sure. There was no way he could be imagining it. He picks up his pace a bit and slowly starts to catch up to the creature more and more.

They’re in the forest now and Kyungsoo knows he’s going to lose the creature soon, there’s no way he could go through the terrain as well as it can. So with the hopes of catching up to it once and for all he begins to sprint. He definitely didn’t count on his foot getting caught in a tree root or face planting directly into the ground below him and he especially hopes the girlish scream that sounded from the forest didn’t come from him.

With a groan he buries his face into the leaves underneath him, completely forgetting about the exam or the mysterious white creature. He’s completely absorbed into his own mortification and self-pity. Part of him is a bit glad that there was nobody around to see his epic faceplant that would’ve made his embarrassment double.

“Hey, uhh, are you ok?”

With a yelp Kyungsoo is scrambling to his feet, face as red as his mother’s prized tomatoes his body bent into a bow ready to apologize for a crime never committed.

Instead of seeing a man to match the masculine voice he is greeted with a white dog/fox thing staring at him curiously. Kyungsoo freezes. He’s dreaming he has to be. With slow movements all while keeping eye contact with the creature he lifts his fingers towards his arm and pinches himself harshly.  However he unfortunately does not wake up from whatever sugar induced dream he’s in and instead rubs at the red mark forming on his bicep letting out a slight hiss as his fingers graze the sensitive skin.

The creature turns its head curiously.

“Uhh….well, if you’re alright I’ll be taking my leave then. I’m already late as it is.” Craning his neck down the creature reaches for a book near its paws dropped in order for him to communicate with the boy. As he almost clamps his jaws around it a scream leaves the boy’s body and the creature lets out one of his own, completely startled he takes a step back.

Kyungsoo stares at the dogfox with his mouth hanging open, his mind is swirling out of control. “You can talk!? Oh my god, you’re a talking dog?!”

The creature begins to look annoyed and Kyungsoo didn’t know that was even possible. “Of course I can talk you idiot, haven’t you seen me at school? I mean, you wouldn’t even be able to see me if you didn’t go there in the first place and I’m a coyote not a dog.”

The dog coyote gages the others reaction for any hint of recognition but finds none, panic swells in his gut. “Oh my god, you don’t go there. Oh , listen. You never saw me okay, pretend this never happened I can get in some serious trouble if they found out I exposed myself to someone.”

The coyote looks more panicked than Kyungsoo and the boy can only give it a speechless nod before the white creature scampers off into the woods.

There’s a text book on the floor abandoned and Kyungsoo picks it up with one hand looking at the cover.

It’s an Algebra book.

Kyungsoo faints.

___

He wakes up to a squirrel trying to dig into his nose and with a quick flick of his wrist he shoos it off. For a blinding moment Kyungsoo has no idea how in the world he got to be in the middle of the forest or what the hell happened to him but his eyes land on the Algebra book and everything comes rushing back.

Staggering onto his feet he shakily picks up the book and follows the trail out of the forest. He checks his watch and finds that he missed the exam start date by 10 minutes. Kyungsoo doesn’t know whether he wants to laugh, cry or throw up so he settles on none of them and just walks home.

There’s so many things running through his head and so many questions he needs answers too but one thing he is certain of, he knows exactly who he can ask them too.

As he reaches his house he cautiously opens the front door, nervous about the response he would get about being in such a state. Even more nervous on how he would explain all this too his mother. Should he even bother? Maybe she wouldn’t have the slightest clue either, maybe she’d send him to therapy like his uncle Jaebum had to go through.

He shook his head and cleared his thoughts before coughing to clear his throat and to prepare to call for his mother. She beats him to the punch by stepping into the room as he barely voiced the first syllable. She immediatley noticed his current state of being and instead of yelling at him for his dirty clothes or for missing his exam she took his hand in her soft one like she had done so many years ago an lead him towards the couch. Sitting next to him and folding her hands on her lap. She hadn't said a word yet.

Kyungsoo sighed prepared himself for a rollecoaster of emotions as he began to tell her his experience in the past few hours.

A U T H O R S N O T E

twitter / tumblr

Hope you guys enjoyed the first chapter! I'll introduce the others later on as this one just covered the backstory mostly~

Un-beta'd so I apologize for any mistakes u.u

Stay tuned!