Seryung clicked her tongue, her thoughts were brought to an abrupt halt as an owl flew in front of her vision, she gasped and screamed, stumbling backwards, she tripped and landed on her rear. Her heart beat frantically as her thoughts veered back to that time.
-
 

They had decided to play hide and seek and although Sehun had won Seryung had cried and insisted she didn’t want to be ‘on.’ Therefore Sehun had disgruntledly chosen to be ‘on,’ much to Seryung’s content. She giggled to herself, the camping forest was large enough to never get caught. Their parent’s had warned them not to go too far but Seryung had dismissed the idea, it would be much more fun if she ventured deeper and that is exactly what she did. She made sure to be far enough as to be unable to hear her brother count, far enough so she was no longer near anyone’s camping tent, far enough so she was alone and no one could cheat by helping her brother catch her and far enough from the lit camp fires.
 

Seryung knew she was far enough when she heard only the sounds of her own footsteps against the ground and over the crunch of the leaves, she was careful not to be too loud, she didn’t want Sehun to hear her!
 

Time passed and with every footstep Seryung soon grew bored, she waited for Sehun but he just wasn’t able to find her. At first she’d thought she would win the game if he couldn’t find her at all but the hooting and shuffling of the creatures of the forest told her otherwise. She was surprised to come across a deer with its doe eyes, the deer had looked at her cautiously and wondered what a child was doing somewhere she shouldn’t be but alas the deer was headed elsewhere and hence couldn’t accompany the child back to the campers spot, instead the deer nudged her in warning and stomped it hoofs to scare her but the little girl chose to pat him instead. The deer nudged her once again but even threatening to the little girl didn’t scare her, the little girl continued to pat him in a way that illustrated her naivety and irked the deer. The deer soon chose to dash off but not before giving the little girl one last look of warning, letting her choose whether to heed it or not.
 

“Bye Bambi!” Seryung called and waved with both hands overhead. The little girl wandered further unknowingly until something called out, she gaped at the creature that flew towards her, her hands tightened around the marshmallow doll in her hand. The creature with beady amber eyes lunged for the doll in her hands, Seryung tried to swat it, angering it, it raised its ears and made a sound that rang in Seryung’s ears. Her eyes watered as it lunged for the doll, scratching her in the process. Seryung screamed as the doll was torn from her fingers, “No! Oppa made that for me!”
 

She’d tripped but rather than pain all she saw where those eyes and all she heard was that call, she stayed in that position until erratic beams of light found her. There was much fussing over her fingers and her ankle that had swollen but she felt nor heard nothing else except that call and those eyes.
 

-

“Hey, are you okay?” The Chinese man called waving a hand in front of her face, she was trembling and crying while staring at something only she could see.

MAMA hopped closer towards his new owner but this new owner was unlike his old one, the new one was peculiar and MAMA suspected that she was afraid, of him. It was a strange things altogether!

Seryung flinched sharply as the owl came closer, its eyes were the same, she took a deep breath and brought her knees closer towards her, her hands dropped to her thighs and she rested her head on her knees.

The foreigner crouched beside her, perplexed by the whole fiasco, he clicked his fingers and motioned for the owl to return to its cage, MAMA was less than pleased but followed his previous owners command.

“Hey, it’s okay now, the owls gone,” Seryung placed a hand over as the stranger patted her shoulders in an effort to comfort her, her shoulders relaxed eventually and she leaned against him, subconsciously mistaking him for someone else.

The Chinese man stiffened as she leaned her head against him, he could sense her trembling but the tremors were slowly decreasing, so although he didn’t like it, he let her lean against his chest.

Seryung wiped her eyes and exhaled deeply, “Oppa, let’s go home,” she whispered and ran a hand over her head.

“Erm… I don’t know about that one,” the stranger replied mystified. ‘Did she ask, what I think she asked? Seriously?’

Seryung blinked, ‘What happened to oppa’s voice?’ She tilted her head to ask, she froze as she tried to deduce what was going on. Seryung jumped back to her feet and stared at him in shock, she opened to speak but words failed her, as did her hands, that tried to explain the situation to the stranger, who seemed as shocked as she.

“I thought you were my brother!” Came an outburst in one breath, Seryung flushed and apologized for her inappropriate behavior, bowing more than she should have just so she could hide her tomato red face, which was fueled by thoughts of how secure and comfortable his chest seemed.

The foreigner laughed as he rose to his feet, “Enough of that, I know I’m handsome enough to make girls fluster but we’ve got work to do, besides, I don’t want to be taking under-aged girls ‘home.’”

Seryung huffed and prayed her face would return to its original much paler self, his words had just brought a deeper wave of crimson to her cheeks, she cleared to ease the embarrassment.

“N-no,” Seryung paused to collect her breath, “You’re not that handsome and I told you already, it was a mistake! It’s your fault for bringing that dumb owl out!”

The foreigner shrugged nonchalantly and stepped closer towards her, making her shuffle backwards. He laughed at her reaction and his eyes glinted with mischief as he took a larger step forward making her stumble and loose her footing, enabling him to catch her midway.

“You’re already falling for me.”

Seryung blushed once again as he hoisted her up in his strong hands. She brushed her arms and pretended to be aggravated by the stranger who was teasing her.

“Can we please get to work?!” She demanded clearing and stalking past him, she hurried towards the playhouse and pretended to busy herself with work.

The stranger shrugged once again and tilted her head towards the owl, “She’s afraid of you,” he told MAMA, “Don’t scare your new owner too much, she might get a heart attack.”

Seryung was reading instructions when she felt a presence behind her, “Are you ready to work?” She asked him, her shoulders stiffened, as he decided to read the instruction manual from over her shoulder.

“You’re afraid of owls.” He stated plainly and crossed his arms, as expected she whirled around to face him with defiance written over her petite features.

“That’s none of your business.” She replied crossing her arms to match him and stare at him angrily.

“Why did you buy one if you’re afraid?”

“That’s also none of your business.”

“It is, I want to know if you’re capable of caring for MAMA. He’s an owlet, he’s going to get bigger, if you’re afraid of him now, you’re going to be terrified when he gets older. Why did you buy one? What were you thinking?”

‘I wasn’t thinking, you idiot! Why else would I buy something like that?’

“I want to get over my fear.”

‘Where did that come from? Oh Seryung, I think this could work… You’re a genius!’

“I don’t want to be afraid of them anymore, so I bought one. Are you happy now? Can we get to work?”

Tao wasn’t convinced, he turned to where MAMA played innocently inside his cage and then to the girl who’d cried when the owl had flown past her. The foreigner pressed his lips together and searched her eyes, she averted them shortly afterwards towards the manual. ‘She’s not going to tell you, Tao. Is she doing this out of spite? Can she even care for an owl?’

The answer to Tao’s questions were unknown to the both of them as they both worked on the house while their thoughts of caring for the owl mirrored each others.

Seryung absentmindedly worked on the playhouse and made a mental note never to buy this sort of thing because it was impractical and took a lot of time to assemble.

“Wait!” Seryung blinked as a strong hand came over hers and pulled it back. She looked at him confused and absorbed his angry expression.

“Just what are you trying to do?!” Tao thundered pointing at her work. Seryung furrowed her brows and turned to where he was pointing. She gasped and dropped the nail she was hoping to hammer.

“You’re going to break your fingers!”

Seryung allowed him to wrench the hammer out of her hands and throw it back into the toolbox, she started at the house and wondered how she’d managed to achieve what she had, thus far when she was clearly out of it. Her complexion paled as she took it the almost complete house, “Wait!” She called and hurriedly retraced her work.

Tao followed her out of curiosity and grimaced as he saw what she feared. “You’re not just trying to hurt yourself but you want to hurt others too.”

Seryung shook her head, “I have to do all of this again!” She pointed and reached for the toolbox. Tao stopped her, “No, you go sit somewhere, get a glass of water, calm down. Let me do this, this is clearly a man’s job.”

Seryung swallowed the sugarcoated insult and clicked her tongue. “Alright,” she agreed not wanting to start an argument. “I’ll go…”

Seryung massaged her temples as she walked away from the project, ‘He’s a chauvinist and you’re almost crushing on him. Seriously Seryung, get a grip, he’s one of those ‘women belong in the kitchen’ folk.

‘He wouldn’t be if I did my job properly… Didn’t you see it? I didn’t do anything properly because I was thinking about a million other things. If anyone gots hurt, it would be my fault! He’s just worried I’ll mess up again.’

Seryung argued with herself all the way to the vending machine, where she argued whether or not to get her companion a bottle of water.

Her better half won the argument and she headed back with two bottles of water. However she stopped once she realized the owl was out of his cage. Seryung froze in her spot as she watched her companion and the owl interact as the foreigner built the house. She decided to watch them from a save distance instead and forgot about her own thirst.

Tao had almost finished the extra work the Korean girl had given him. MAMA flew at his side, happy to be rid of the cage, Tao marveled at how close the two of them had become in such a short span of time.

He’d passed the shelter on his way home and out of spite decided to enter it. There and then, he’d been mistaken for a volunteer, had his name butchered in more ways than he liked and been sent to hunt for owl eggs. The day was long and Tao had been at it since morning, he’d had MAMA by his side ever since the old lady had introduced the owl to him. Tao had known that MAMA was the perfect pet for him, especially when the owl bounded over to Tao himself and perched on his finger.

Tao was too busy to notice the frightened girl who stood her ground not daring to move any further in case those eyes tried to make their way to her.

A/N: These kids are fighting from the get go. Well, at least they're kind of getting on lol. Let's have a vote, who's on better terms: SeHana vs TaoRyung? Tao asked Seryung why she bought an owl. Does anyone remember? Would you buy an owl after going through an experience like Seryung's?