Chapter Text
Summer 2004
There’s a secluded camp deep in the heart of Jirisan National Park.
It’s not a summer escape. There’s no tent here. This is a living space. Comfortable. Tidy. Laundry hangs on a line, and Choi Donghyun sits in the open, scraping a hide. He’s golden from the sun, with his earth-worn jeans and buckskins.
Beside him, Soobin, a toddler, plays in the dust. With his dark hair and brown eyes, he can fade into the forest completely. Hide-and-seek is the most terrifying game Soobin can play. He’s small enough to fit inside stumps or inside the belly of a bear.
His chubby fingers grip his clay animals. They’re artlessly made, suggestions of a bear, a cat, a cow. Their owner doesn’t care. He marches them up his mother’s leg, then down it again. When he looks at her, he laughs. She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
Choi Bohee is ever aware. Ever watching. Ever listening. Even as she braids reeds into a basket, her eyes dart. They linger on shadows, on shapes. It’s summer, when the shade beneath the canopy turns the forest to perpetual twilight.
Interrupting his wife’s thoughts, Dongyun says, “I thought we might hike to the falls tomorrow.”
“That’ll be nice,” Bohee says. “We’ll check the hives on the way back.”
In high summer, the bee hollow flows with honey. The Choi’s feast on rabbit and wild parsnips, cattail roots and dandelion greens, and for dessert, blackberries and mulberries, and honey. Honey raw on fingers. Honey thinned in ginger water, honey drizzled on the creamy, custardy insides of a ripe pawpaw.
Fall brings big game, but less honey. Winter is hunger season, and spring, near starvation. So the Choi’s visit the bee hollow as often as they can in the summer. They have to be careful. If they damage the hives, the queens will fly away. They’ll be left with nothing but sagging, empty honeycomb and the memory of sweet days lost.
When a crack rends the air, Bohee jumps to her feet. She plucks Soobin from the dust. As unfamiliar voices ring out, she stuffs Soobin into a recess in the cliff. It’s not quite a cave, just big enough to hide in.
A man says, “South by southwest.”
“Quadrant clear,” a woman replies.
Hands on Soobin’s shoulders, Bohee leans over to whisper, “Stay here, baby.”
Then she rushes outside. Moving as a team, she and Donghyun dismantle their camp. The laundry comes down. They haul blankets made of leaves and vines from the underbrush. A hollowed rock rolls over their fire pit. They can do nothing about the smoke. Its sweet scent hangs in the air, but there will be no more white, wispy fingers curling toward the sky.
They don’t stop to admire their work. Once the camp is erased, Donghyun and Bohee duck into the hiding place with Soobin. Picking him up, Bohee smooths his head against her shoulder.
Outside, two rangers tramp by. Their olive-and-khaki uniforms don’t blend into the forest. They’re highlighted against it. A streak of light glitters on their badges.
Murmuring, rocking, Bohee tells Soobin, “Don’t ever let them see you, baby. They’ll hurt you. They’ll infect you.”
Bohee presses herself close to the mouth of the cave. The rangers hike on. She listens until she hears nothing but the forest. When the birds start to sing again, when the frogs join in, that’s when it’s safe to come outside again. Pushing aside the leafy camouflage that hides them, she turns back.
“We can’t ever go back. They’re all dying. We’re the only ones who are safe. Remember that, Soobin.”
Soobin’s eyes are wide and frightened. He’s four years old, and he understands that their forest is the only world that’s left. When outsiders come through, and they almost never do, they’re dangerous. They’ll make him sick. Sick means he’ll die. Soobin’s not sure he understands dead, but he knows it’s bad.
Past the park rangers, who only hiked in to check on the big-eared bats living among the caves, past hikers trying to orient themselves to find the next trailhead; out of the woods and onto a highway, past cars on the road, and down a long highway—beyond a sign that says Namwon Town Limits, down the main street, into the heart of a town green.
Hundreds of people mill the square. Laughing. Eating fair food. Going from booth to booth, ducking helium balloons and stuffed animals tied in plastic. A little boy Soobin’s age throws a Ping-Pong ball and wins a goldfish. His parents curse under their breath; their neighbors smile and turn toward the bandstand.
Older boys cruise the festival. Their gangly gaits take them past clutches of girls who either watch them or pretend to eat their funnel cakes. Everyone is happy—young and old, diverse and energetic. They bask in the sun and share treats, and walk arm in arm, around and around.
What they are not is sick. They’re not dying.
Spring 2021
Watching two outsiders build a camp, Soobin felt a particular hum run through him. It was a sting from the inside. It warmed him, conquering the cold that rose from the ground.
Below, a boy hammered stakes into the ground. His cotton candy hair bounced over his forehead. His clothes were simple but bright, and when he laughed, he threw his head back. His front teeth were flat and straight.
Soobin wanted to touch his pink lips. Even though the cliff soared above the alien camp, he scented him. Sweetness, and flowers, but not the kind that grew near there. Mint, too, and something else he couldn’t place. It was sharp. It burned his nose.
Quiet, Soobin pressed his fingers into the cold, damp earth. Spring had come early—the timid, budding part of it. Just warm enough that the trees had knobs on them. Soon, they’d become buds, then tendrils, then leaves. The queen bees were waking their hives. Bears stumbled into the sunlight to break their fast.
And now, these outsiders. With their glowing skin and quick smiles, their strange clothes and music, they were alien. No uniforms like the rangers. No sickness that Soobin could see. They weren’t starving or desperate.
A hollow ache throbbed behind Soobin’s temple. He was supposed to be the last. The rest were dead. Or dangerous.
It was too big a thought to wrestle with. So Soobin kept watching, noting the things that did make sense. The other boy that was with cotton candy boy had his own scent. Sweat and more of the sharpness. Juniper and meat; it was overpowering. Soobin wondered if they realized that everything in the forest could smell them.
“No, put the cooler in the little one,” the other boy said.
The boy pulled a box from his pocket, then tapped it until it chirped. It was too small to hold a bird, and that didn’t make sense anyway. Why would he need a bird in a box? Why would he just stand there poking it?
Cotton candy boy dragged a red-and-white cooler into a tent. Soobin had a cooler hanging outside his cave. It was old, but the same color, the same shape. He kept fresh meat in it so he didn’t have to eat pemmican and jerky and dried fish all the time.
Something cracked inside the tent, and Soobin lifted his head.
When cotton candy boy came out again, he carried a silver can. Drinking from it, he wandered to the other boy and leaned against his arm. Looking at the bird box in his hand, he frowned. “I was afraid of that.”
“It’s the cliffs,” the other boy said. “It’ll be fine, we just have to climb or something.”
Cotton candy boy turned to look. He raised his face to the sky, then pointed at Soobin. “Maybe there?”
Exhaling, Soobin melted against the ground. He made himself flat and still. He watched sweat boy sweep his gaze all along the ridge.
His jaw was broad, his shoulders, too. Solid and confident, but the boy saw nothing at all. He was unaware of all his surroundings. Then he slipped his arm around cotton candy boy and leaned down to kiss his neck.
Soobin’s sting turned to fire. There weren’t supposed to be people left. Rangers . . . a few survivors maybe. He hadn’t seen many, but now there were two, a half day’s walk from his camp. One of them was beautiful.
The other one touched cotton candy boy, and Soobin fought the urge to throw a rock at him. Instead, he pushed onto his hands and started a careful slide down the hill. Distracted by too-big thoughts, and red-hot emotions, he carelessly broke a branch on the way down.
“Did you hear something?” Cotton candy boy asked.
Sweat boy was quiet, then hummed. “Probably just a squirrel, Yeonjun. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Soobin slipped into the trees, invisible on his light feet and in his warm, tanned furs. Cold seeped through his deerskin boots, though. Time to grease and cure them on the fire again.
A chore for later, when darkness fell. There was nothing in his cooler for dinner, so it would be jerky and roots if he didn’t get back to hunting. Besides, he’d learned exactly enough about them.
Cotton candy haired boy was called Yeonjun.
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There were cornflakes everywhere. Yeonjun let his hiking bag slip from his shoulder and stared at the chaos in camp.
The zippered doors on their food tent flapped. A river of half-melted ice and Diet Coke cans flowed out, mingling with empty cookie boxes. Rice dotted the ground, and a bottle of ketchup leaked from a mortal wound in its side.
“What happened?” Yeonjun asked.
He answered his own question when he picked up the ketchup. A white haze of tooth marks surrounded the gaping hole. It wasn’t broken open—it was bitten.
“I didn’t know raccoons could work a zipper,” Taehyun said. He knelt down to save their eggs. Then he groaned when they collapsed in his hand. Something had gnawed the end from each shell and sucked out its contents. It was fine, meticulous work. More complicated than opening a nylon tent, for sure.
Yeonjun grabbed the latrine shovel. They didn’t have a rake, so he scraped the grocery garbage toward their fire pit. “See how much is left. You’re cute, but I’m not going to starve for you.”
They could have been in Yongin. That’s where the rest of the senior class was for spring break. Hanging out with their friends, riding the rides of Everland, and eating food on sticks . . .
It wasn’t hard for Yeonjun to imagine his best friend, Beomgyu, wearing souvenir ears and soaking up the sun. He’d probably come back with one of those photo key chains. Everybody smiling in it, wearing shorts and sandals instead of coats and boots.
But Taehyun had offered Yeonjun an adventure. A place he’d never seen and probably never would again. Time alone, together, before senior year ended and they headed to different colleges.
The plan was simple. A real forest, untamed and unmonitored. Past the paths, into places found only on survey maps. He could take his beloved camera. Get pictures of mysterious, wondrous places.
When Yeonjun was little, he camped with his parents. Though his memories were faint, they were fond. Wood smoke and hot dogs roasted on a fire. It didn’t matter that his parents’ tent stood twenty feet from the next one, pitched on grass. Or that he swam in an over-chlorinated pool instead of a lake. It was the wilderness to him.
So when Taehyun busted out the plan, he pulled his arm around his and said yes. They’d fought a lot lately. But the arguments were safe. About things and places, instead of feelings. The actual words flew over college plans that didn’t match up. Yeonjun wasn’t interested in following Taehyun, and Taehyun didn’t understand why his top pick wasn’t good enough for Yeonjun. Neither of them wanted to admit they’d changed since freshman year.
Back then, photography was a hobby for Yeonjun, and Taehyun was still planning on saving the world. Now, Yeonjun wanted to shoot the world and make great art. Taehyun wanted to get a business degree and specialize in finance.
Yeonjun said yes to the trip because he wanted things to be okay. He said yes because thinking about the future was just too hard. It was hard to be happy on an expiration date. Running away was exactly what he wanted. What they needed. Their parents thought they’d be in Yongin, their friends would cover for them.
The weather agreed with them: go, be on the land. Be free, be outside. They left Namwon at dawn, stripping their jackets off first thing. It was unseasonably warm, and they didn’t feel like sweating for the whole two-hour drive to the protected wilderness area.
They left Taehyun’s truck in a parking lot near the easiest trailhead. Hefting bags and duffels, they stepped off the pavement and into an otherworldly paradise. Waterfalls cast mist and rainbows into the air. A few early flowers teased with color.
The trails grew steeper, and they had to strip their top layers to cool off.
According to the maps they’d downloaded, there was a good place to leave the trail just ahead. Yeonjun hesitated, looking back at the dirt worn smooth, the way it wound through the forest. It wasn’t an easy path, but it was visible.
“Come on,” Taehyun said, tugging his pack straps. “Almost there.”
With one last look at the known world, Yeonjun followed him into the woods. There was less room to marvel as they struggled through underbrush and downed trees, unexpected sinkholes and cliffs that came out of nowhere. They pressed on, though, and around noon, they found their perfect campsite.
A high, mossy wall of sandstone shielded them to the north. A sloping expanse of forest surrounded them on the other three sides. They even had a foundation for their tents, smooth plats of rock revealed by eroded earth.
Though spring had only started, they had green-filtered shade during the day. Thin leaves and buds stretched for the sky above them. The river was a close walk, the clearing big enough to settle in.
But it was colder than they expected. They’d shivered through the last two nights. And the wildlife was more cunning. Yeonjun plucked a pudding cup out of the mess. Some clever creature had peeled the lid from it. There wasn’t a scrap of foil left on the edges.
Tossing that into a bag, Yeonjun called to Taehyun, “How do they even know what’s in a pudding cup?”
“They can smell it?”
“Through the plastic?”
Emerging from the tent, Taehyun presented him with a leaking honey bear. “Yep.”
Yeonjun rolled his eyes. “Put it in a bag and save it. Next time we go camping, we’re getting a lock for the cooler.”
“Next time?”
They both laughed. With a long step over the pile of trash Yeonjun had collected, Taehyun slipped behind him. Binding him in his arms, he rubbed his face against Yeonjun’s hair. A little possessive, he curled around him. His warm breath skated along skin, and Yeonjun softened, leaning into him.
With a shrug, Yeonjun let the shovel go. Tangling arms in Taehyun’s, he tipped his head against his shoulder and smiled. “I think we’re really bad at this.”
All their friends were having fun in Everland, but Yeonjun decided he and Taehyun were having a much better time.
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His throat was smooth as a doe’s. He was golden, his own light in the forest. That’s what Soobin thought as he trailed Yeonjun to the river. And he was loud. That made him easy to follow.
Climbing from tree to tree, Soobin stopped when Yeonjun stopped.
It was as quiet as he had ever been in his woods. All day long, he sang or talked to the other one. They banged pans together. Music jangled inside the tent. At night, the other one drummed on empty pans, and Yeonjun sang. When they were surprised, scared, delighted—anything, they filled the forest with sound.
Now, everything was quiet. Even the birds had settled pensively, and it seemed to put Yeonjun on edge. Proof, Soobin thought, that he wasn’t oblivious. He could see Yeonjun’s keen eyes dart along the tree line.
When Soobin moved, Yeonjun stilled—there was intelligence there. Sharp. Innate. The boy with him was blind to it all. But Yeonjun knew something was in the woods. Soobin knew Yeonjun was smart, because Yeonjun realized something was following him. And Soobin had been for a couple of days now.
Soobin was fascinated by the way he moved over the land. He carried a box around his neck. It clicked when he held it to his face. Most of the time, he let it hang. But when a flash of color or shadow caught his eye, he followed it. Down ravines, into creek beds, beneath the old mill road that looked like nothing but stone arches from below now.
Fearless, curious, Yeonjun had found the pond where the spring frogs had spawned. Hundreds of tadpoles squirmed in the water. He sank onto his side to watch them at play. It was a well-hidden watering hole, shielded by mossy rocks and overgrowth. Somehow—by listening? By looking?—Yeonjun found it effortlessly.
Then Yeonjun basked in it before he made his black box click. It was like he was filling himself with every long look. Drinking up details and secrets.
So Soobin wasn’t surprised when Yeonjun stopped in the silence now, turning slowly within it. His eyes keen, he searched all around him. Arms held wide to keep his balance, he breathed in relief when he finally made it all the way around. He hadn’t seen anything on the ground, so he kept going.
That was a good way to get hurt or killed.
It was too early for snakes in the trees, but just the right time of year for bears. Coyotes, too, though they were more likely to spring between the trees than out of them. Soobin might have been dangerous too, up in the canopy. He wasn’t though; all he wanted to do was study Yeonjun.
The last man Soobin had seen was his father. Yeonjun was nothing like him. His father had kept his long hair in a low ponytail. His skin was brown, baked and freckled from the sun. And his father’s eyes—he always looked up first when he heard an unfamiliar sound. Aware. That was the best way to describe his father.
Yeonjun wasn’t aware like his father was, but he wasn’t oblivious either. He didn’t hear Soobin twist a hand in the thick bittersweet vines that clung to the oaks. He had no idea he even ran above his head, anticipating his path. He never heard Soobin’s feet, silent, running along thick branches as easily as he did the earth.
When Yeonjun reached the river, he didn’t know Soobin watched the pale expanse of his neck as he bowed his head.
“Getting some water,” Yeonjun sang.
He pulled a huge water bladder off his shoulder, dumping it on the bank. Then, he walked back and forth, leaning down to look at the shore. He twisted the cap from the bladder. Tipping its mouth into the water, he frowned.
Puzzled, Soobin slipped from his perch to a lower branch. His animal skins camouflaged him against the tree’s trunk. If Yeonjun looked up with the right eyes, he’d see him. But Soobin was black hair and deerskin against a dark and barely budding forest. He was hidden from people.
And it was better that way. Yeonjun fascinated Soobin, but he frightened him, too. His mother had told him few of their kind remained. The ones that did were poison.
“Avoid them as if your life depends on it,” she’d told him. “Because it does, my little bunny.”
Yeonjun didn’t look like poison. He fascinated him; his lips were pretty. His hands flashed like swimming fish when he talked.
But as Soobin watched him gathering water, he confused him.
“Come on, come on,” Yeonjun muttered.
His distress made no sense at first. His lips moved. He talked to himself, just loud enough to for Soobin to hear. Bending, he splashed water at the mouth of his bottle, then sighed. It took Soobin a moment to realize the bladder wasn’t filling fast enough for him.
If Yeonjun had followed the silty riverbank a ways upstream, he would have found a deeper pool. Animals had trampled this bank smooth, creating shallows. It was obvious. Or it should have been.
More proof Yeonjun didn’t belong there. Soobin should have known. Would have seen, if he did.
Unexpectedly, Yeonjun stood. Peeling off his shoes, he stepped into the water. As soon as he did, he spun around, yelping. “Cold, cold, cold. Oh my god, so cold.”
Soobin couldn’t help it. He laughed.
“Tae?” Yeonjun called as he froze on the spot. His eyes were sharp again. The wind carried his scent away. It made his hair wave away from his forehead, sunlight freckling him like a fawn. And this time, after he’d looked around, he looked up. “Where are you?”
Drawing a thin breath, Soobin melted against the tree. He wore its nearly bare twigs for hair. Made his fingers knots, his back just a strange turn of trunk.
When Yeonjun’s gaze burned across him, it lingered. Soobin thought he might see him. Part of him wanted him to. To see that he was tall and strong. Smarter than that Taehyun crashing around at their camp.
But sadly, Yeonjun’s gaze drifted by, and then he stopped playing. He waded deep enough to gather his water. Instead of singing or splashing, he stood. Throwing looks over his shoulders, he watched the underbrush. Even when he put his shoes back on, he peered east then west before hiking back to his tent and fire.
Yeonjun had become aware.
Soobin was disappointed. If he’d really belonged, Yeonjun would have seen him.
Soobin followed him through trees and treetops, all the way back to the clearing. Their tents huddled beneath the ridge, small and obvious in the open. Soobin sat in an oak’s forked arms, peeling spring green buds from the branches to chew.
“There’s somebody else out here,” Yeonjun told Taehyun, the other one. He hung the bladder on a hooked branch, only a few feet below Soobin.
“Where?”
Jerking a thumb over his shoulder, Yeonjun said, “By the river. I heard someone laughing.”
Crouched by the fire, Taehyun barely looked up from the embers. He pushed them with a stick. Little flames licked up, then sank into the glowing coals. He fed it no kindling, no air. He just stirred it like a raccoon.
“It was probably a bird,” Taehyun said.
“I know the difference.”
Taehyun gave up on his fire. He tipped back to sit on the ground and shook his head. “Maybe you imagined it. There’s nobody out here for miles. That’s the whole reason we came.”
When he reached up to hook a finger in his, Yeonjun brushed his hand away. “It’s a wilderness area, not the moon.”
Soobin leaned his head against the tree trunk and sighed. Yeonjun was smart. Too smart for the other one. He couldn’t even start a fire. When strange sounds crackled around him, he never looked up. Soobin thought if a wolf walked into their camp, Taehyun would probably try to convince Yeonjun it was a dog. Maybe he would try to feed it.
Smiling wryly, Soobin melted into the shadows again. He listened. From below, Yeonjun and Taehyun sounded perfectly normal. Not even a little sick. But, Soobin reminded himself, he couldn’t tell just by looking.
“It feels like the moon,” Taehyun said. “I’m dying for a burger.”
Yeonjun hummed a neutral sound. Soobin had heard his father do the same a hundred times. When Mom rambled too much about the outside world. When she got too vehement about the death and destruction that lay outside the forest. As far as Soobin could tell, it was a sound that meant, “I hear you, but I’m not happy about it.”
“You mad?”
Turning his head, Soobin peered down from his perch. Yeonjun sat across from Taehyun, the fire between them. Holding his clicking box between both hands, Yeonjun touched something that made it flash. Curious, Soobin measured the forest around him, trying to decide if there was a way to get a better look at the light without being seen himself.
With a sigh, Taehyun hauled himself to his feet. “I’ll get some more wood.”
“You go do that,” Yeonjun replied.
Now alone in the camp, Yeonjun put the box aside. He didn’t watch Taehyun walk into the coming dark. Instead, he stretched his legs, then his arms. He dragged himself closer to the fire. Its light gleamed in his hair. It gleamed on his skin, too, when he reached out to hold a hand above it.
Passing his fingers through the flame, he turned them, curled them. It was like he was daring it to burn him. Soobin shifted his weight, and the branch groaned. Like that, Yeonjun stiffened. This time, he did look up. His gaze passed right over Soobin and stopped.
A shadow lit on Yeonjun’s brow. Leaning forward, he narrowed his eyes. Just when Soobin was sure he’d spotted him, Taehyun crashed back into camp. He dumped a meager armful of wood on the ground. The logs drummed the dirt, silencing the forest around them once more.
“That’ll do us for tonight, you think?”
Giving up his contemplation, Yeonjun nodded. “I think so.”
“Hey, c’mere,” Taehyun coaxed. Brushing wood chips off his hands, he trailed his touch up Yeonjun’s arms. Watching him touch Yeonjun lit a different fire in Soobin’s skin. This one was swift and furious. His teeth felt molten and his stomach, too. For some reason, Yeonjun pressed closer instead of pushing away.
Soobin didn’t understand it, but he knew he didn’t like it. He liked it even less when Taehyun put his mouth on Yeonjun’s and clasped the back of his neck. Yeonjun twisted his hands in Taehyun’s shirt; to Soobin, it looked like he wanted to put space between them.
When Taehyun’s hands slipped lower, Soobin couldn’t help himself. Cupping hands around his mouth, he keened like a hawk. The cry echoed, was answered. The forest rose up, other birds arguing. Squirrels rushed to safe perches. The owls would question soon. Their low, booming calls would go on and on.
Scrambling away, Soobin didn’t try to go quietly. He just went. Back to his home; back to the last safe place in the world. With nimble steps, he bounded through the narrow valley. A maze of grape vines hung like a wood curtain.
His path was nothing but a trace in the brush. Soobin saw his own ghostly footsteps. Hints of him left behind in broken twigs and soft earth, leading to the cave he called home.
The red cooler swayed in the wind, the only evidence anyone lived there at all. Trees, full of beehives, hummed when he slipped past. They gave off heat, the faintest bit, because they were alive.
Soobin found the mouth of his cave unerringly. The cool vault greeted him, sharp with just a hint of still-smoldering moss. Picking up the box that held his kindling, he breathed it back to life. It glowed as he started a new fire, illuminating the place where he lived. That fast. That easy. Taehyun was an idiot.
A rough-hewn table and chair stood nearby. There were boxes, some with peg-locks, and a shelf to keep his few books dry. In the back, a carved bed frame held a thin mattress off the ground.
Fir branches sweetened the mattress from below. Tanned deerskin and beaver pelts covered it. It was stuffed with goose down. Soobin needed to get more to fill it out. Once this season’s goslings were hatched and grown, he’d do just that.
But for the moment, he satisfied himself with dinner and pride. Pulling two thick fish from his pack, he wrapped them in wet hide and laid them on the fire. He stepped over the pit, trailing his fingers through the shell chime he’d made. It was a little bit of music, and if he got it started, the heat from the fire would keep it going.
Sprawling in the light, he reached for his clay animals. He’d lost the giraffe years ago, but he still had a cat and a bear. Holding them over his head, he turned them until they cast giant shadows on the wall behind him. With just a trick of the light, they came to life.
First, he made the cat chase the bear. He swirled it in lazy circles, its shadow growing and shrinking by turn. Then the bear fought back, chasing the cat until it was tiny and disappeared. Tucking the cat into his shirt, Soobin savored its stone coolness against his skin.
The bear, he held over his head, studying it by the light of the fire. Pressed into one side was a faint fingerprint. Its whorls had smoothed over time, now barely visible. But Soobin knew it was there. Fitting his finger into the impression, he discovered that it fit now. His hands were as big as his father’s.
His gaze trailed back to the little cairn by the wall. It was just smooth stones, stacked together. Behind it, he’d scraped figures into the wall. A woman, a man, a boy. He’d drawn it right after Dad died, on his first night completely alone. Handprints surrounded the figures, painted with wet ashes that same night.
That was such a long time ago. Twelve seasons, at least. All those days and months and years alone. His own company was starting to drive him crazy. Tucking the bear figure into his shirt, Soobin turned back to his fire. The fish crackled; they would be delicious.
While he waited for his dinner, the stone animals weighed on his heart. They cooled his skin and turned his thoughts deliberate.
He made a deal with himself. If Yeonjun and Taehyun were fine by the full moon. If their eyes were still clear, their skin smooth. No coughs or sneezes or spots—maybe then, he’d walk into their camp and say hello.
His parents wouldn’t like it. But his parents hadn’t been there for a while. Maybe it was time to make some decisions of his own.