In the middle of the night, Sungmin was awakened by noises in the inner garden. It was the sound of something big and heavy falling on the ground. Then it was followed by a pitiful, pained groan from an animal. Sungmin's hair stood up. He was filled with worry at recognizing that that was Youngwoon's groan. Was the werewolf hurt? Sungmin ran through the corridors until he got to the veranda, but the moment he got there he heard a stronger growl, a reprimanding one.

Looking up ahead Sungmin saw Youngwoon in his beastly form laying over the fountain border. He was using one of his arms to get some of the water and let it fall over his other arm. Sungmin heard another groan of pain. Youngwoon was not moving one of his arms. Worried Sungmin took a step towards the garden, but immediately Youngwoon looked at him and growled again. "Don't! Get back inside the house! It's dangerous!" Youngwoon's guttural voice reached him. Sungmin felt himself growing cold. Youngwoon was hurt, he could bring more problems to him by disobeying. Conflicted, Sungmin took hesitant steps back into the house. He stood a few centimeters away from the door frame, intently looking at Youngwoon.

It had taken about an hour or so of Youngwoon cleaning his hurt arm before he took careful steps towards the house. When he was halfway towards Sungmin, three distinct howls were heard. Sungmin felt all his hairs stand up. What was that? Were they friend or foe? In reply to the howls Youngwoon howled back, a loud and somewhat terrifying sound. There was no reply back to him, but Youngwoon resumed walking back into the house. The moment he set foot into the veranda Youngwoon changed from his beastly form to his human form. In the dim light, Sungmin could see very deep gashes on Youngwoon's left arm.

"This looks bad..." Sungmin commented as he picked the injured werewolf in his arms, helping the older male walk inside.

"It just looks bad. It will heal before you know it." Youngwoon replied, wincing in pain.

"We need to bandage it," Sungmin retorted. "Where is the first aid kit?" the human questioned.

"It's in the kitchen, lower cupboards beside the fridge." Youngwoon said as he leaned on Sungmin. Silently they made their way to the kitchen. After turning on the lights, Sungmin helped Youngwoon sit on a chair. He felt his heart constrict. In the light three deep claw-like gashes seemed even uglier. They were deeper than he thought. Quickly, Sungmin searched for the first aid kit. With it in hand, he placed the metallic box on the table and opened up the cover. He picked up the antiseptic first, but Youngwoon took hold of his hand.

"There is no need for that. Just bandage it." Youngwoon said, his tone laced with pain.

Sungmin looked at him ready to protest, but when his eyes landed on the wounds, he frowned. He could swear there was something different. Sungmin placed a finger right beside the edge of a wound and kept watching. He stayed like that for a minute, his eyes widened. The wound was closing very slowly.

"This is impossible..." Sungmin mumbled.

"It's healing faster because I cleaned it with the fountain water. But I indeed heal much faster than humans. That's why you only need to bandage it," Youngwoon explained slowly, his hand closing around Sungmin's in a tight grip. "In three days there won't even be a scar."

Hearing that Sungmin's eyes moved to meet Youngwoon's, then it traveled over the werewolf's chest. He expected it to be immaculate, but there were scars. There were many very thin lines.

"What are those then?" Sungmin challenged. He felt a lump in his throat, Youngwoon carried many scars.

The werewolf sighed. "Silver poisons my blood. Those wounds are from silver weapons, they leave scars."

Sungmin felt himself growing cold. How many times had Youngwoon been badly hurt while defending his territory? Who would dare use silver weapons against such a kind creature? Sungmin bit the insides of his cheek. Why did Youngwoon live alone? If there were other wolves, why did he lived there alone?

Sungmin bandaged the arm as best as he could, but while he was at it something piqued his interest. On Youngwoon's back, close to his left shoulder, was a different scar. It was uglier than the others. It was a small line about three centimeters long, a few millimeters thin, but the skin had not healed smoothly. It was not like the others that just seemed to have a different color from Youngwoon's tanned skin. The line made the skin uneven. "Why is this one like this?" Sungmin asked, feeling the line with the tip of his fingers.

Youngwoon shivered, he maneuvered away from Sungmin, once again taking a firm hold of the human's hand. The movement was so fast, Sungmin didn’t even had time to blink. "I almost died because of it." Youngwoon replied with a distant tone. Without saying anything else he stood up and walked out of the kitchen.

Sungmin followed instinctively. "Where do you think you're going?" Sungmin asked, with a firm grip he held Youngwoon by his unhurt arm.

"To the fountain. The closer I am to the fissure the faster I will heal. Go back to sleep, Sungmin-ssi. Other werewolves are protecting the territory on my behalf, so just go back to sleep." Youngwoon replied, but his tone was still distant, for a moment Youngwoon seemed resentful. Sungmin let Youngwoon go, but he was still worried for the werewolf.

Sungmin went back to his room, but falling asleep again had been hard. He kept listening. Now and then he would hear howls, but as they were not Youngwoon's he found himself unable to fall asleep. It had taken hours before exhaustion took over him. When Sungmin woke up again he found Youngwoon sleeping in the inner garden, laying over the fountain border. After breakfast, when Sungmin once again changed the bandage, he could see that the gashes were smaller. Through the next three days, he witnessed the accelerated healing process, always wondering about that one scar that was different, that one wound that had almost killed Youngwoon. There was a dreadful feeling constricting his heart every time he looked at it.

When Sungmin opened his eyes he found himself in Youngwoon's arms. He was lying down, Youngwoon was on his knees. They stared in each other's eyes for a moment before Youngwoon leaned in. Sungmin closed his eyes mere seconds before their lips met. It was a kiss without haste, kind but breathtaking. Unconsciously, Sungmin reached up and caressed Youngwoon's cheek with his hand. They kissed until the taste became salty. Sungmin pulled himself away wondering why Youngwoon was crying. When he opened his eyes again, Youngwoon was pale, he was crying profusely, his cheek was stained by blood. Sungmin looked at the red stain, noticing with horror that there was also blood in the hand he had used to caress Youngwoon. Sungmin looked at the werewolf again. They were both bleeding to death.

Sungmin woke up abruptly. That dream had been too vivid. His heart was racing and his lips were tingly. With nervous steps, Sungmin rushed to the kitchen where he found Youngwoon preparing breakfast for a battalion. "Sungmin-ssi?" Youngwoon asked, worried about the human's accelerated heartbeat so early in the morning. Part of Sungmin relaxed when he saw Youngwoon was perfectly fine. The wound had been healed for days already. Youngwoon was no longer hurt. Sungmin berated himself inside his head. The relief made him think about the pleasant part of the kiss. Sungmin's heart accelerated again.

"It's nothing. Just a weird dream." Sungmin replied, abruptly turning back and rushing to the bathroom. While locked inside, Sungmin kept looking at himself in the mirror. "It was just a weird dream, Lee Sungmin. Stop blushing, damn it." Sungmin mumbled under his breath. Sungmin tried to deny the feelings he knew were blooming.

Since it was Saturday, Sungmin picked up his belongings and went to hide in the library, he was not in the mood to go to the woods again. With the windows closed and another set of blocks placed on the rotating doors, Sungmin was once again feeling bored out of his wits. He had looked at those books for too long. Hoping Youngwoon had not uninstalled the game he had installed without permission, Sungmin rummaged through the desk. He found the laptop, but he also found a secret compartment in the desk.

A compartment that was filled with thin books that looked a lot like they had been published centuries back. Sungmin picked up the first of them and indeed, on the cover there was written ‘Accounting 1609’. Sungmin flipped through the pages and discerned that the book was a balance sheet of cultivation and selling of flowers. He was about to put it back in place and go back to the laptop when he found something else written at the back pages.

|It’s confirmed. Youngwoon can’t go past the river.| he read randomly at a page.

His curiosity was once again sparked. He flipped back to the very first page. Sungmin read through it with some difficulty because of the old writing style, but he was not illiterate in old Korean, his mentor had made him learn it, in case he was requested to steal things that old. He was taught how to make sure an old book was truly an old book and not a falsification. He spent a second praising himself for his falsifications to have never been contested.

The scribings were a travel diary, whoever was writing it seemed to want to record every detail of the path. Somehow Sungmin felt like he could picture perfectly how the road was back then and he felt something heavy in his stomach when he understood the reason why that diary was written. Small comments like |Youngwoon knows this rock formation.| made Sungmin certain. Whoever was writing that knew what Youngwoon was and that he had a territory, the person was trying to map the boundaries of that territory.

With a cold feeling, Sungmin reached for another book. There were more scribings, those were talking about the cities he had visited, the people he had met, the food he had eaten. There were more comments on things the writer believed Youngwoon would like to eat or see, comments on whether the werewolf would have liked that place or not. The more Sungmin read, the more he felt his hands growing cold because there was something in the tone that made Sungmin feel bitter.

After he read from the fifth book he knew why he was feeling like that. The tone was not that of a friend like the Legend had implied. Well, whoever had come up with the legends didn’t know the wolf was not your average wolf. That tone was that of someone in love. Someone in love that knew Youngwoon inside out. By reading those notes, Sungmin learned more about Youngwoon’s history than with the days he had lived with the werewolf. Part of him was glad to know those details, but a bigger part of him felt rejected and heartbroken because he had wanted to hear those tales from Youngwoon. He wanted Youngwoon to tell him that his pack had been killed by spirits before he suffered his first change. That Youngwoon had lived in solitude for months, trying to understand alone what had changed in his life. That another werewolf pack had tried to steal his territory before they reached an agreement to somehow share it. That the writer had been the first human that had not treated him like a monster. If only Youngwoon had told him, he would have been allowed to cradle him, to share his pain, he could have tried to heal him.

Sungmin put those books aside and stared at the main direction where he thought Youngwoon was. Sungmin felt like something was twisting his heart because of another realization. Youngwoon had not stayed there, at that house, just because it was part of his territory. It was because that was where he had lived. Sungmin was sure the love the writer felt for Youngwoon was mutual. The werewolf kept things as they were because it was his way of chaining himself to the memory of the other. Youngwoon was most probably still in love with that man from four hundred years ago.

Sungmin picked up the last book to read through it, but he was taken aback by the dread upon seeing the cover stained with blood. With even colder hands, Sungmin opened it. The balance sheets didn’t cover the full month as the others, there was not much scribing as well. Sungmin read through it and he felt like crying. That stupid man had written all that without acknowledging the extent of his feelings and when he finally understood, when he finally came to terms with himself that he truly loved the werewolf, writing it over and over again, was at the time he died.

The writer had written down how he had met a ‘hunter’, a guy that could tell there was a werewolf around him and that had warned him about a danger. The writer had seen in that guy a possibility of soothing Youngwoon’s worry of his long travels. He had told the hunter that he knew everything about werewolves, that the one he knew was kind, the one he knew protected humans and had countless times helped and protected the town where he lived. The hunter at first did not believe him but had accepted to travel with him to meet the beast. The writer said three had traveled with him.

Sungmin connected that last entry with what the guide had said. One day the wolf suddenly sprinted through the road, disappearing for decades after. Youngwoon had probably believed the writer was in danger. He had probably fought with the hunters and the accident the older brother had died in was probably an unwanted consequence of that fight.

Either Youngwoon had accidentally killed the one he loved, or he had watched him die through the hunters' hands. Sungmin had not noticed when a tear rolled from his eyes, but when he felt the salty taste on his mouth, he dried it off. Quickly, he put the diaries back where Youngwoon had kept them and with a confused heart, he started to pace around the library. For some reason, the dream he had was going around in his head.

At one point, he heard the tourists leaving. Quickly he looked through the window and heaved a sigh of relief as the sun was still high up. With a strange resolve, Sungmin left the library before Youngwoon could finish locking the front gate again. The werewolf had felt the movement, had smelled Sungmin’s move. He held the human back when Sungmin was half way through the rose field.

"Where are you going?" Youngwoon asked with a worried tone.

Sungmin looked at the taller male with determination.

"It’s still day. I can go wherever I want." He said, pulling away. Sungmin didn't know why his tone was so harsh, he still didn't know why his heart was in so much agony.

Youngwoon offered no reluctance in letting him go, but Sungmin saw the conflict on his face, some kind of worry. Sungmin pushed that aside, though, with firm steps he continued to walk to the mausoleum. The gate was still open. Sungmin got in easily, yet the moment he did so his whole world came crumbling down on him.

I’m glad you didn’t know because I got to meet you.

Sungmin remembered Youngwoon saying that. The line was going round and round in his head while he walked to the statue that marked the older brother’s grave. He saw himself there, with Joseon attire, but that face was undoubtedly his. He looked down at the marble under his feet and read clearly.

|Lee Sungmin. 1588 -1609|

The reason why Youngwoon had let him stay. Sungmin finally knew.

"Sungmin-ssi." Youngwoon called from the mausoleum gate. His tone was small and hesitant.

Abruptly Sungmin turned around and pointed at the statue.

"I am not him." He declared firmly, but he felt his heart dropping to his stomach at the sight of Youngwoon’s forlorned expression. There was so much pain and sorrow in his eyes it made Sungmin feel awful.

"I know." Youngwoon replied.

Two words and Sungmin knew, Youngwoon knew. He knew the werewolf had never mistaken the two of them. That was why Youngwoon had always kept a distance though he was always kind and attentive. Sungmin reminded him of a Sungmin that had lived four hundred years ago. A Sungmin Youngwoon was still in love with. He was sure.

Youngwoon frowned worriedly at the increase of Sungmin’s heartbeat, but before he could question it Sungmin was already moving, already forcefully bypassing him and walking away from the mausoleum.

"Where are you going?" Youngwoon questioned, walking after Sungmin in a hurry.

The human looked back in an abrupt stop. Youngwoon stopped as well.

"It’s getting dark." Sungmin replied simply before he resumed walking. Youngwoon didn’t follow anymore. He simply watched him go, listening from afar as Sungmin got back into the house, as he made his way to his room and locked the door.

In bed, Sungmin reminded himself how much he hated attachment.