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“Still alive, I see,” the blacksmith smiles at Seonghwa, but he doesn’t find the warmth he has seen when he first arrived to the village in the man’s eyes.
“I am,” he says, softly. Despite the look of suspense, the other man is giving him. “Thankfully.”
“Hmph,” the man grunts, snatching the few coins from Seonghwa’s hands as he carelessly throws the sharpened knife of his back to him. That’s his cue to leave. So he does.
Seonghwa has arrived at this village a few months prior after his mother’s passing. It’s smaller than what he was born into, further to the west of their kingdom and most of it surrounded by a forest. A forest that no one dares to go into. Because no one has come out of it alive. Except Seonghwa that is.
When he moves into the new house he had purchased-the only house that was available due to no one willing to live so close to the forest-he had received many a warning. All due to the villagers being scared and concerned for his health and safety.
But Seonghwa is a healer. An art that he has learnt from his mother, one that she has proudly passed onto him. So going into the forest to gather herbs is inevitable. That is also the sole reason he chose this village.
The first time he steps into the forest, it has felt wrong. As if he has stepped onto another realm, a place that is touched by something other than human. The trees too tall, the leaves whispering to each other, the wind unusually harsh as it breezes through a plethora of sky high trees. And… there has been no sound of creatures that dwell in forests. No bird that chirps, no rabbits that hop around ad certainly no deer for the villagers to hunt. Explains why they bought meat from the neighboring village. Yet, when Seonghwa put his hands together and offered aa prayer to gods above for granting him the herbs he has found, something changed.
When he steps out of the forest unscathed, unharmed… he feels eyes on his back.
And ever since then, when he has been in the vicinity of the forest, and even inside his own house, he started to feel them on him. For a little while, the stare unnerves him. Its deep, weighed and bears into his soul, rattles his bones. But harm has never fallen upon him, there is no hostility that he feels.
Eventually, he gets used to it. To the point that he becomes jittery if he doesn’t feel it for a moment.
The next time he visits the forest, trees looking over, dark and shadowy even at the noon of the day, Seonghwa feels wrong again…but also right. A huff of laugh slips out of his lips, in incredulity. His body quivers as he feels something unknown, knowing that he is being watched. He goes deeper this time, offering prayers and plucking herbs, cutting out medicinal flowers, and the eyes follow him. When he leaves that evening, he looks back, seeing nothing but the shadows of the trees.
It becomes a routine after that. Twice a week, he will go into the forest, gather what he needs and come back out. Then, he will look back…into the forest…into the darkness…hoping to catch a glimpse of the being that watches him. He finds nothing but the weight of its stare. As time passes by, the villagers notice how every touch of his, every medicinal recipe of his brings health back to their lives, how he remains unscathed after repeated visits to the woods. And they dare to go in, thinking that they will be fine too.
A couple of farmers, armed with daggers and bows. Something of makeshift hunters.
They never come back.
And the village deems Seonghwa… a witch. One that deals with the devil. One that bows to inhuman.
He finds his home, burning to crisps one evening as he comes out of the forest. Flames soar high, taking everything he has owned with the furious flickering of it. Seonghwa doesn’t cry. He has seen the telltale signs of it happening. His banishment, his exile, being chased out of the village he has indiscriminately brought back to good health. Their beliefs, their assumptions, twisted rumors have shaped into something black and ugly that consumed their hearts.
Thus, there he is, homeless, penniless. With nothing that to his name other than his knowledge of healing. Seonghwa turns back to the forest. The only place he can be, until he finds a new home.
If he finds a new home.
So he walks in, again, into the shadows that flicker as furiously as the flames behind him.
The sky hangs low and heavy as if mourning his sentence. Still, Seonghwa doesn’t cry. He walks with his head held high, hands hugging himself and his shadow stretching long across the dirt path inside the forest. The echoing silence greets him, reminding him of the whispers of the villagers saying that the forest is cursed. That it breathes. That it devours.
Seonghwa cares less. He has nothing to lose.
He steps past the tree line and feels it instantly. The shift. The air becomes damp with something ancient, the barest hint of light that was there dimmed to a deep green gloom, the trees curving overhead as if bowing. But nothing else meets his eyes. Though he feels its presence…lurking….waiting.
Days blur. Hunger claws at his belly most of the time, but he finds wild berries and edible herbs that keeps him alive. Every day he walks deeper and deeper into the forest that seems like there is no end to it. The silence of it keeps him from sleep. And he knows he’s not alone. Something follows him. Something that he has only caught a glimpse of once. Of its eyes-golden, that flickers like dying stars.
One would run, in a situation like this.
But he doesn’t. and he knows not why.
And on the seventh night, it comes.
He is crouched by a creek, water cupped in his hands when he feels the air change. Like heat behind him, breath on his neck, a heartbeat that isn’t his. He turns slowly.
It towers above Seonghwa. In the form of a wolf, thickly furred, black as midnight, like obsidian shadows, eyes gold and sharp, glowing gold in the dusk. Paws twice the size of his own hands, long, pointy claws that digs into the dirt, holding its otherworldly presence. Jaws open and tongue lolling out, breathing like it’s tasting him.
Seonghwa doesn’t move. He can’t.
“You’re not afraid,” the creature says, voice like cracking wood and silk all at once.
Seonghwa swallows. “Should I be?”
A pause.
“You should be many things,” it murmurs, in a way only a beast can, stepping closer. “But afraid is not one of them.”
The monster peers down at him. Its snout, slightly wet and warm, nudges a strand of his white hair away from his cheek. The touch almost gentle. Reverent.
“I have watched you,” it says. “You did not run… you spoke to the trees… you wept where others screamed.”
“You have seen me cry?”
The wolf’s lips curled, not quite a smile or a grin. “I have seen you feel. That is rare. That is…precious.”
Seonghwa’s breath hitch at the way the wolf is staring at him. It weighs down on him, trembling his core as blood rushes through him. “What are you?”
“Once a man,” the wolf closes its eye, for a fleeting second. Then reopens them. The gold glows brighter, sharper. “Now, I am what remains.”
Seonghwa eases from his crouched position, kneeling in front of the wolf. “Are you going to kill me?”
The wolf tilts its head. “No,” he says, simply. “You are mine now.”
The words shouldn’t have sent warmth spiraling low in Seonghwa’s belly. But they do.
“Yours?”
A low growl, soft, almost possessive. The forest shakes at its sound. “Mine.”
…
Despite the words, it’s the monster that follows him. Like a shadow, like the fleeting wind brushing past his body. Most of the time he trails Seonghwa, sometimes he disappears. Sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for days. Eventually it leads Seonghwa to a cave, not as wide-spaced as his house, but habitable. Livable. It becomes his new home.
“Do you have a name?” Seonghwa asks, curious. the beast lies on his lap, today in the form of a hare, different from its usual wolf or deer. Still, the black fur and gold eyes is unmistakable.
“Name…?” it wonders too, closing its eyes, as if dreaming of something. When it falls silent, and when Seonghwa thinks it has fallen asleep, his hand gently brushes at the coarse fur.
....
Seonghwa should have known that having an inhuman companion means that privacy becomes just a word. As he cleans himself up by the river, naked as the day he was born with his clothes still drying on a tree branch, the wolf appears with the sound of twigs breaking under its paws making the presence known. It patiently waits, eyes roaming over Seonghwa’s slender figure, reaching every nook and corner of it. Seonghwa is already used to it, the stares that bears into him, the need wafting off of it, the feeling of being devoured. He has felt it in the way its snout breath against his inner thigh as it slept over his lap, felt it in the way it licks the sweat off of his smooth stomach when he sunbathes by the river. He feels the impending claim… which has become just a matter of time.
“I…” For once, the beast hesitates. And it makes Seonghwa look at him. “I was called Hongjoong.”
“Hong…joong?” Seonghwa tests it on his lips, wide-eyed. Then he rushes over to the wolf, barely aware of his own nakedness and throws his arm around its neck. He hugs him in happiness that strangely floods through him, because now he has something to call the wolf by. “Hello, Hongjoong! I’m Seonghwa!”
The wolf watches the softest smile curve on the human’s lips as he bears his mortal name to an ancient being. It rouses something dark in it, and it isn’t because someone called him by his name after a millennia. It’s because of this human. It needs. It craves.
The next second, Seonghwa finds himself on his back, bare skin flush against the mossy ground, chest heaving in the aftermath. The forest around them has stilled-like it, too, has been sated. But the scorching heat of the monster remained, curled around him like barrier. A claim.
It takes a moment before Seonghwa notices the shift. The body pinning him down isn’t quite the same anymore. He blinks, slowly, then jolts as the wolf-no, Hongjoong trembles, shifting, stretching, bones cracking underneath and skin until Seonghwa watches with wide eyes as the shape twists once more. The massive beast becomes a man-somehow ending up the slightest bit smaller than Seonghwa, but broad and scarred. His hair is long and tangled like midnight, with teeth just a little too sharp and eyes that still burned like flame.
He is hovering over Seonghwa, but something in his posture is softer now. Hesitant. His hand-clawed, still-brushes Seonghwa’s cheek like he cannot believe he is real.
“You didn’t run.”
“I said I wouldn’t.”
“Most would have screamed when they saw what I really was.”
Seonghwa reaches up, fingers trailing through dark strands of hair. “You think I haven’t met monsters before?” he says, voice soft. “Yours just look better.”
The creature laughs, low and hoarse, like it has been centuries since he last made the sound. Then his smile drops.
“You don’t understand what you have awakened,” he says. “I have been alone too long. Touched no one. Craved no one. But now that I have had you-“ his voice breaks into a growl, “-I can’t let you go.”
Seonghwa’s breath catches.
“I wasn’t planning to leave.”
The growl turns into s purr that rumbles deep, making Seonghwa quiver. “Say it again.”
“I want to stay. With you.”
The forest seems to breathe around them. Like the trees themselves blessed.
In one motion, the creature pushes Seonghwa back down, lips crashing against his in a desperate kiss. But this time, his hands trembled. Like he cannot believe he is allowed to have this. Have Seonghwa.
The shift comes mid-kiss. Seonghwa feels the prickle of the fur, the claws digging into the moss beside his head, the roughness of a snarl curling in the back of Hongjoong’s throat.
Still humanoid-but less restrained.
“Then let me show you,” the monster growls against his lips. “What it means to belong to a beast.”
The growl that leave’s Hongjoong’s throat is no longer words-it’s pure instinct, lust, and possession. His body shifts again, not fully wolf, not fully man. Fur creeps along his arms and back, claws sharpen, fangs bear. His chest expands with ragged heavy breaths like he is barely leashed.
And then the leash snaps.
He grabs Seonghwa’s hips and flips him with terrifying ease, pressing him down into the moss, spine arching, thighs trembling. Seonghwa gasps-more in shock than fear-as Hongjoong buries his nose in the curve of his neck, scenting him, tasting him, moaning deep in his chest like he is drunk on him.
“Mine,” he growls. “You said it. You meant it. Mine.”
Seonghwa whimpers, eyes fluttering as teeth grazes his skin again, not gentle this time. It’s rough, possessive, claiming. Messy. The beast licks a stripe down his spine and sinks his claws into the ground on either side of Seonghwa’s body, caging him. His nose press against the cheeks of Seonghwa’s ass, tongue lolling out. Seonghwa’s toes curl in anticipation. Then, he feels it. The wet, long tongue of Hongjoong probing his entrance, and slowly slipping in. Seonghwa moans at the stretch, the soft, warm tongue wriggling inside of him making a strange pleasure course through him. It stretches him out, making him soft and loose for whatever is to come. Seonghwa keens, pushing his hips back gently to take more of the tongue in, and Hongjoong gladly obliges.
He teases the sensitive bundle of nerves inside Seonghwa, drinking in his desperate moans, broken whispers of his name. he tastes Seonghwa with the thirst of only an ancient can have, pushing in the tongue in a thrusting motion. Seonghwa rocks back into him so sensitive and teetering on the edge of completely losing himself on carnal pleasure.
Then, Hongjoong pulls out his tongue. Seonghwa’s keen echoes through the silence of forest, high pitched and needy.
Then-heat. Blazing, desperate heat as Hongjoong hovers over Seonghwa again, pushing his cock into him. He swallows Seonghwa’s pained whimpers, hips only a gentle motion till Seonghwa’s cries turn more desperate, and his hips push back into Hongjoong’s in a maddening need. His cock stretches Seonghwa out more than his tongue, and it comes with pain, but Hongjoong knows the pleasure has overridden any remnant pain by now, with the way Seonghwa needily cries out for him. Hongjoong’s no better. His hips rollsforward, rutting against Seonghwa like he cannot stop himself. There is no teasing, no hesitation.
Just raw, animal need.
His voice is barely human now, thick and snarled with desperation. “You smell like you want it. You want me. You called me-“
“I didn’t-“
“You came into my forest. You bared your throat. You didn’t run. That’s a call.”
Seonghwa moans as sharp teeth finds his shoulder again, biting harder this time. Not enough to break skin. But enough to bruise. To mark.
To claim.
Hongjoong ruts harder, hips snapping punishingly, cock grinding deep, dragging groans out of Seonghwa’s throat that resonates through the trees. Sweat drip’s down the human’s spine, knees scraping against moss and bark and dirt but he doesn’t care. He pushes back against every thrust like he cannot get enough.
“Take me,” he gasps. “Take all of me-“
A vicious snarl cuts him off as Hongjoong fully mounted him-posessive, rough, relentless.
The forest shakes.
Trusts become brutal, wild, no rhythm-just feral need, like centuries of solitudehas finally broken. Like his mind is gone and only instinct remains. He bends over Seonghwa’s back, panting, growling, licking and biting and owning every inch of him.
“Mine mine mine-mine.”
Seonghwa’s body gives in, trembling, shaking with release as he cums while his cry echoes into the trees. The cum that spurts from his cock taints the green moss bed, leaving a mark of fulfilled carnal needs. But the beast doesn’t stop. He cannot. Not until he empties everything into Seonghwa. As Seonghwa cries in oversensitivity, hands clutching dirt and toes digging into the ground, pinpricks of pain blended with pleasure bursting through him, Hongjoong gives a harsh, finl thrust with an inhuman growl as he comes undone-grinding, snarling, burying himself as deep as nature will allow.
The sound he makes then-low, broken, worshipful-echoed like a song.
When he finally stills, his body collapses over Seonghwa’s quivering form, heat wrapping him from behind like second skin.his breath is hot and heavy in Seoghwa’s ear.
“You’re not leaving,” he whispers. “You’re mine now. You belong to the forest. To me.”
Seonghwa, dazed and wrecked, only manages a breathless smile.
“Yes, Hongjoong. Yours.”