“Buzz off, you little rugrats! Get away from my flowers!”

Minseok had decided, years ago, that watching Luhan safeguard his blossoms had got to be one of the rare sources of amusement in his life.

The other boy was decked out in a thick apron, waving one of his unfinished projects in the air as he glowered at the latest group of miscreants that had wrecked havoc upon his treasures. It was a comical sight, as the other had an unkempt air to his appearance; his hair was sticking out all over the place, pushed back by a pair of plastic goggles that rested perfectly over his head. His hands were cased in a pair of thick work gloves, and to add to the appearance he also had a saw in his other hand, which he was waving madly over his head.

“Insubordinate hooligans!” he hissed, whirling around with a deep scowl over his features. “I’ve been in the service of their families for ages and this is how they –”

He trailed off when he caught sight of Minseok, arms crossed as he leaned against Luhan’s fence. His eyes brightened and the scowl disappeared.

“Oh, hello Minseok!”

“Trouble with the flowers again, I see,” Minseok observed, eyeing the vibrant blooms Luhan had teeming in his garden.

“My flowers are no trouble,” the other huffed, offended. “It’s the ruffians that insist on ruining them that I have issues with.”

“Have you ever thought about locking your gate?” Minseok offered gently.

Luhan looked appalled. “People will think I’m closed! Who would come and ask me to fix their cabinets and mend their broken chairs then?”

“You could always put a sign saying ‘open’.”

Luhan shook his head stubbornly. “Closing your gate implies that you don’t want visitors. It would be offensive to my customers, and very uncivil of me.”

Minseok sighed. Luhan was so incredibly polite that Minseok was convinced that it would someday be his demise.

He gestured towards the carved strip of wood that Luhan was holding. “What’s that?”

Luhan immediately brightened at the mention of his work, swinging said stick enthusiastically forwards to show it to Minseok and almost knocking him on the stomach in the process. “It’s Mrs Kwon’s new walking stick! I’ve decided to make her a new one as a birthday gift, given that the present one she owns looks like it had seen better days.”

Besides being immensely polite, Luhan was also incredibly kind and generous, which was why he was the only person in this godforsaken village that Minseok liked.

“It looks good,” Minseok said sincerely, all the while trying to keep a safe distance from both the stick and the saw.

Luhan beamed, and attempted to scratch the back of his neck with his hand, the one that had the saw.

“Could you please put that down, Luhan?” Minseok said, partly amused but mostly worried. “I know we have Mrs Jung as a town healer, but I doubt she’d be able to do much if you’d somehow sawed through your skin and bone.”

Luhan stared at the saw as if he’d just realised it was there. He fumbled to pull it off his hand, trying to balance it on his left instead along with the stick.

“Why not you go on in,” he said cheerfully, looking somewhat like a very jolly mad scientist. “I’ll just have these stored and we can have some tea. Or coffee. Whichever you prefer.”

Minseok nodded and watched as Luhan tripped his way to his shop and home, smiling despite himself. The odd carpenter was his best friend, and also his only. After letting the other have a few second’s worth of a head start, he followed.

Luhan’s workshop was far from tidy, packed almost entirely with odds and ends. Minseok never really had an eye for woodwork, and even after years of being in Luhan’s acquaintance he still remained remarkably obtuse over the names and uses of Luhan’s various tools. He recognised some though, the simple ones that even he sometimes used to mend the roof and fix broken doors –like that hammer hanging precariously from a slab of wood. Minseok shuffled forwards and discreetly pushed it into a less dangerous position.

Luhan moved like a whirlwind in summer, all gangly limbs and soft smiles as he set about returning his tools to their rightful places. He hummed as he worked, his voice working its way between the clinks of metal and the grinds of shifting wood. Minseok had decided long ago that Luhan had a very nice voice, all cheerfulness and optimism, as opposed to his, which dripped raw sorrow and wintry despair.

“So,” Luhan declared as he stepped through the door that connected his living quarters and workshop, brushing sawdust out of his clothes and hair. “Coffee or tea?”

Minseok chose the more bitter of the two.

“Why do I even bother to ask? It’s always coffee for you,” Luhan remarked, rolling his eyes and setting about to find mugs in his tiny cabinets.

Luhan’s home was small, given that an adequate amount of space had been devoted to his family’s trade, but it was space efficiently used. Luhan’s kitchen was just big enough to fit in two, but it had all the necessities, with a stove and counters and coolers for storing his meat. Minseok always found it a bit cramped, but the fact that it was so cluttered made it more welcoming really; his own kitchen always felt so empty.

“So, not hunting today?” Luhan asked cheerfully as he set Minseok’s mug in front of him, holding his own between hooked fingers.

“Later,” Minseok replied, and then slid the small container he’d been holding at Luhan’s direction.

“Rabbit,” he said as-a-matter-of-factly. “Mother won’t eat more than two forkfuls.”

Luhan’s gaze flitted upwards to look at Minseok, but they dropped quickly towards Minseok’s offering afterwards. He nodded solemnly, and carefully set it aside for dinner.

“Do you have anything for me to mend?”

“No. I’m just here for company.”

“What about a broken heart?”

Minseok glanced up then. Luhan was looking at him with a grim look in his eyes as he cradled his mug. “I don’t have to tools to fix it I’m afraid, but I think a listening ear and kind words would aid the healing.”

Minseok sighed. “My mother’s heart is beyond healing.”

“I’m not talking about your mother, Minseok,” Luhan said steadily. “I’m talking about you.”

Minseok bowed his head and stared at the murky blackness of his coffee, as bitter as life itself.

“You’ve lost so much,” Luhan said gently. “Your father, your brother, your stepmother even, given her mental state. Minseok, you hardly have any friends.”

“You’re my friend.”

“I’m your only,” Luhan said with a smile. “Now tell me, Minseok. What has upset you so much that you come knocking on my door when you should have been out hunting.”

“She cried last night, Luhan,” Minseok said, voice thick with emotion. “She kept calling out Jongin’s name, even long after midnight. I think she was doing it in her sleep.” He rubbed a tired hand over his face, tracing lines that didn’t belong to a man of such youth. “She blames me so much.”

“It doesn’t do good to dwell on the past,” Luhan said sagely.

“Jongin was her only son. I call her my mother, treat her as one, but I don’t count.”

“That’s not true!” Luhan exclaimed, scandalised. “Your stepmother loves you, Minseok.”

Minseok shook his head. “I’m not so sure about that, Luhan.”

“Love doesn’t fade that easily.”

“It fades to resentment.”

Luhan shook his head, disbelieving, but his wide eyes implicated that he was at a loss for words. Even he couldn’t convince me otherwise, Minseok thought glumly.

He set his mug on the table with a hard thump and slowly stood up. “I think I’ve darkened your doorway long enough. I better get going, and besides, you have a walking stick to finish.”

“You’re welcomed anytime,” Luhan said sincerely. “And Minseok, don’t dwell too much on this.”

Minseok offered a tight smile that bore no promises, and made his way to the door.

“Make sure you don’t go into the forest,” Minseok called over his shoulder.

“Oh, Minseok,” Luhan sighed, but Minseok was already out of the door, striding out of Luhan’s garden and into the hazy morning light.

His hunt that day yielded more fruitful results in comparison to what he had managed to scrounge up in the past week.

The buck he’d taken down was in good shape: healthy and fat, part of a small herd of deer that had wandered too near to human settlement. He could tell its velvet antlers would sell for a good price –for it was a potent ingredient for medicine –and its fur would make excellent lining for coats to wrap around shoulders to fend off chilly winters. The old butcher also wouldn’t be able to reject Minseok’s offer for its meat; venison was a luxury, and the people who craved for it paid a good price.

The twigs groaned and cracked in protest as he dragged the dead buck over the underbrush. The specks of light that dappled its skin rippled with the shift of every leaf, glossing its fur a lovely shade of honey. The dirt that parted in its path left a conspicuous trail of blood, staining every leaf, every rock it touched.

Minseok knew it was an unwise thing to do: dragging a carcass through the hums and shadows of the forest. But it was the only thing he could manage. The buck was too big for him bear its weight on his shoulders, and his hunt hadn’t taken him too far, close enough to the treeline that soon unfurled into the soft greenery surrounding the village’s perimeter.  He could afford the noise, the fuss –especially when the rewards included enough gold coins to get his family through the first half of winter.

He knew he couldn’t carry it all the way into the village on his own though so he left it just behind the border, draping fallen branches and dead leaves all over the carcass in hopes that it would draw less attention. He then went off to seek a few extra pairs of hands to aid him in transporting his quarry to the butcher’s.

Help came in the form of three young boys, all barely into their teens, with unkempt, choppy locks and brash, if not entirely impudent, mannerisms. They agreed to Minseok’s offer for a gold piece each if they helped him carry the buck, though much haggling was involved before both parties achieved a concord.

There was still something wily about the looks in their eyes though, which Minseok felt, even though it was he who led. He had kept a pokerfaced countenance throughout their dealings, keeping it from straying from the problem at hand. At first, he was surprised that the boys deigned to bargain with him at all; Minseok wasn’t the village favourite. The only that kept them from dragging him to the gallows was his gift with the rifle; if it wasn’t for him, they’d have no meat.

To Minseok’s surprise, the boys managed to heave the whole buck onto their shoulders without his help. He uttered a series of quick orders, curled one of his hands over the antlers to lead and make sure that they wouldn’t slink away, and took them to the butcher’s.

“Here,” Minseok said once they were at the butcher’s door, flicking a coin into their each of their waiting palms with the buck lying next to their feet. “And thank you.”

The boys snickered as the coins landed on their palms and Minseok was compelled to wonder what they planned to spend it on. He shook the thought out of his head; he wasn’t in position to give advice, given his reputation. Ever since that day, no one listened to him anymore.

“What are you waiting for?” Minseok asked coldly, hand already on the knob to push open the butcher’s door. “Go.”

“Is it true then,” one of the boys suddenly blurted out, his eyes gleaming with extreme malice, “what my mother told me about you sending your brother to his death by taking him to the wolves in the forest?”

“It would do good,” Minseok spat as he struggled to contain his temper, “for you and your mother mind your own businesses. I have had enough of old hags who have nothing to do but discuss other people’s affairs.”

The boy’s face was turning red. “My mother is not a hag –”

“Hell if I care!” Minseok roared, before shoving the door open and slamming at their faces.

Send your brother to his death…

Minseok jolted awake that night, his shirt sticky and wet. His chest was heaving, contracting and relaxing, drawing lungful after lungful of much needed air. Each drawn breath was a relief to his senses, dulling the white noise in his ears, the solid ache in his chest. He rubbed a tired hand over his eyes, drew it over his forehead and inspected the streak of liquid that came off it. Almost his entire body had been layered with a thin film of sweat, and Minseok could feel it soaking into his clothes, even through his sheets.

He sat in the darkness, wondering what had woken him up.

It came to him in fragments, in soft words and distorted images. Every slide that flitted across his head racked his body with a new set, if not stronger, tremors. Minseok’s hands were shivering so badly that he had to clasp them together, wringing them as tightly as he could as everything came to him in almost painful clarity.

The witch had yellow and black teeth and in her hands were a fork and a knife. Minseok saw himself staring at her from below, frozen by her hungry eyes, her wicked relish as she ran her tongue over her lips. He was sitting on a plate, bound into place by ropes and metal cuffs.  Then, the wolves jumped in, one after another, black blurs that leapt onto the witch’s shoulders and slid down her arms, over her knobbly hands.

They were advancing on him, teeth bared, but when one of them pounced, Minseok realised that he wasn’t the one that they wanted. Jongin was behind him, eyes glassy and petrified as he fought to free himself from the confines of the bread sandwiching him in.

Send your brother to his death…

The boy’s words from this morning rang in his head as he watched the pack swarm Jongin. He could do nothing, absolutely helpless as he fought against his bonds. He resulted to screaming Jongin’s name, begging him to run, to leave and let him take his place.

He felt a headache pound its way into his head and groaned, burying his face into his hands. He’d had the same nightmare for years now, though it did come in various renditions. The characters involved were always the same though: him, Jongin, the witch and her wolves.

The most common nightmare was the enactment of the events that transpired in that fateful night. Against his better judgement, he kept seeing himself lead Jongin into the forest, allowing the witch’s cottage tempt them both into its crooked arms. Then everything fast-forwarded into a blur and he saw the grey wolf and its ivory teeth again, bared at his direction as the forest echoed the deformed cackle of the witch’s laugh.

Minseok was sitting in his bed, still trying to get into the pattern of breathing with his sheets all bunched up underneath him, when he heard a high-pitched scream –a woman’s scream.

Minseok fought against his tangled sheets in his race to get out of bed, kicking and shoving it away from his legs and then stumbling, disoriented, towards his door. His hands were still clammy and they slipped off the knob; it took a couple of tries before he could get a firm grip. He thundered down the hallway, driven by fear alone as his legs propelled him to the door of his stepmother’s room.

Minseok was about to call her, throw open the door even, should the circumstances demand it, but his hand fell limp at his sides when he made out her words.

“Jongin! No, don’t go! Don’t leave mommy –Jongin!”

He felt knives in his heart and it wall all he could do to keep his emotions at bay. His bottom lip trembled from the effort and Minseok had to wedge it between his teeth, gnawing at it until he could feel blood trickle into his mouth. He closed his eyes and tried to block out all the noise, all those ear-shattering screams calling a name that he knew was lost forever.