Chapter Text
The problem with feeling better was that eventually boredom returned.
Wooyoung discovered this entirely by accident.
For nearly a week, the enclosure had been enough.
Not because he liked it, or because he wanted to stay.
Because sadness made everything smaller.
Smaller thoughts.
Smaller days.
Smaller worlds.
When he had first been shut inside, all he had wanted was for the hurt to stop. After that, all he had wanted was for Seonghwa and Yeosang to stop worrying. Then, when neither of those things happened, he had settled for existing.
Just existing.
Eating when Seonghwa bullied him into it.
Sleeping when exhaustion won.
Watching the farm through the open gate without actually participating in it.
It had been enough.
Until suddenly it wasn't.
The realization arrived on a Tuesday.
Wooyoung hated Tuesdays, not that he could tell which day was Tuesday, but it sounds bad so he hated them.
Nothing ever happened on Tuesdays anyway.
The weather was warm. The chickens were annoying. The clouds were boring. Yeosang had spent most of the morning watching Jongho repair a fence from a distance that was absolutely not suspicious, and Seonghwa had spent nearly an hour staring toward the herb garden where Hongjoong sat reading beneath the fig tree.
Everyone was occupied.
Everyone except him.
Wooyoung lay stretched across a patch of sunlight near the shed and sighed dramatically.
Nobody reacted.
He sighed again.
Still nothing.
The injustice of it all was unbelievable.
The real problem was curiosity.
Curiosity had finally started winning.
Not completely. Not enough to drag him out of the enclosure, but enough to make him notice things again.
Little things.
Annoying things.
Things that absolutely weren't any of his business.
For example, why did Yunho keep laughing at things Mingi said?
Most of the things Mingi said weren't funny.
Wooyoung had been observing him carefully.
Mingi mostly looked annoyed. Sometimes he looked sleepy. Occasionally, he looked like he wanted to bite someone.
None of those things seemed particularly entertaining, and yet Yunho laughed constantly.
Wooyoung didn't understand it.
Another mystery:
Why did Jongho suddenly start carrying flowers into the farmhouse?
Not bouquets, just random flowers.
One day it was lavender. Another day it was rosemary. Yesterday it had been tiny white flowers growing near the vineyard fence.
Jongho had walked inside carrying them.
Then come back out empty-handed.
Why?
Nobody knew.
Well.
Maybe somebody knew. But nobody was telling Wooyoung.
Which was rude. Very rude.
Then there was San. San was the biggest mystery of all. Because San still sat in the same chair every afternoon.
Every single afternoon.
The folded towel was still hanging over the chair beside him.
The thing had been there for over a week. At this point, it practically lived there.
Wooyoung tried not to look at it.
Unfortunately, the towel was impossible not to notice.
That afternoon, Mingi and Yunho settled beneath one of the olive trees.
Yunho had a book.
Mingi also had a book.
Only one of them was reading. Wooyoung had become fairly confident about that.
Mingi's eyes spent approximately twenty percent of the time looking at pages and eighty percent of the time looking at everyone else.
It was honestly impressive.
The white hybrid sat with his back against the trunk, one leg stretched across the grass. Yunho leaned against his shoulder while reading.
Neither of them spoke much.
They didn't need to.
That was another thing Wooyoung didn't understand.
How could those two sit together for hours and not get bored?
A sudden gust of wind swept through the courtyard.
Yunho's bookmark slipped free.
The small rectangle of paper tumbled across the grass.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then stopped. Halfway between the olive tree and the enclosure.
Nobody moved.
Yunho looked down, then toward the bookmark, and sighed. "It escaped."
Mingi didn't even glance up. "Tragic."
"I'll never recover it; I’m not going downhill and especially uphill for a piece of paper."
"You need to stop lazing around actually."
Yunho nudged him with one foot. “Can’t you get it? It’s a piece of cake for you.”
Mingi finally laughed. “No. I dislike that one anyway; we can just buy a new matching one when we get back.”
The sound was quiet, unexpected, and warm.
Wooyoung stared.
The bookmark remained where it was. Forgotten; waiting.
Without thinking, Wooyoung stood.
The movement startled even him. For a second, he froze. One paw lifted. Body angled toward the gate.
The bookmark sat a few meters away. Not far, not close, just... there.
Behind him, Seonghwa lifted his head, and Yeosang looked over from his position near the fence. Neither said anything nor moved. The choice belonged to Wooyoung.
His heart began beating faster. The open gate suddenly looked enormous.
That’s ridiculous because it was a gate.
Not a mountain, not a cliff, nothing dangerous; Yet crossing it felt impossible.
For a long moment, he simply stood there. Then, before he could think too hard about it, he darted forward.
Across the threshold.
Outside.
The world didn't end.
Nobody gasped, nobody stared, nobody rushed toward him. The courtyard remained exactly the same. Warm sunlight, grass, olive trees, the distant sounds of chickens.
Nothing had changed.
Except him.
Wooyoung reached the bookmark, snatched it up, then froze.
Because now he was standing outside the enclosure. Actually outside.
Not looking through the gate. Not thinking about leaving.
His pulse hammered beneath his skin. For one terrible second, he expected everyone to react. To notice. To make it important.
Nobody did.
Yunho smiled when he saw the bookmark. That was all.
No excitement, no celebration, no praise, just a smile. Like this was normal.
Like Wooyoung belonged there.
The realization hit unexpectedly hard.
Yunho held out one hand, patiently waiting.
Wooyoung hesitated, then approached. Only close enough to drop the bookmark into his palm.
Nothing more, nothing less.
The moment the paper left his mouth, he spun around and bolted.
Straight back through the gate.
Straight back into the enclosure.
Straight back into safety.
Mortifying.
Absolutely mortifying.
Mingi watched him disappear.
Then looked toward the enclosure, then toward Yunho.
Neither spoke.
Eventually, Yunho tucked the bookmark back inside his book. "That was nice."
Mingi nodded. "Don't say anything."
"I wasn't going to."
Mingi rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched.
The next day, Wooyoung did it again.
Not the bookmark, of course; instead, he left the enclosure to investigate a butterfly.
A very important butterfly. An extremely interesting butterfly. One that definitely required his full attention.
The fact that the butterfly happened to be outside the enclosure was completely irrelevant.
After all, someone had to inspect it, and Wooyoung considered himself uniquely qualified.
The butterfly escaped.
Wooyoung remained outside.
Only for five minutes.
Then ten, then twenty. By the end of the afternoon, he was lying in the grass a few meters beyond the gate.
Just existing.
Nobody mentioned it. That was perhaps the most important part.
Nobody celebrated, nobody called attention to it, nobody ruined it.
Hongjoong continued reading beneath the fig tree.
Jongho repaired fences.
Yunho and Mingi argued about something ridiculous.
San sat beneath the umbrella with his book.
The place simply adjusted around Wooyoung's presence as though he had always been there.
As though there was nothing unusual about it at all.
By evening, the grass beneath the fig tree looked particularly comfortable.
Wooyoung discovered this accidentally.
He had been investigating a fallen olive branch. Then the shade looked inviting. Then the grass felt soft. Then suddenly he was lying beneath the tree.
Far from the enclosure. Far from the gate. Closer to the house than he had been in weeks.
The realization should have alarmed him; instead, it made him sleepy.
The warmth of the day settled around him. The sounds of the farm drifted lazily through the air.
Someone laughed. Someone closed a door.
The wind moved through the branches overhead.
Safe sounds.
Home sounds.
His eyes slowly drifted shut.
When Wooyoung woke up, the sky had turned orange. For a moment he didn't know where he was.
Then memory returned.
The fig tree.
The courtyard.
The farm.
Panic flickered briefly.
He sat up in attention.
Looked around.
And stopped.
Hongjoong was still reading.
Jongho sat on the porch steps.
Yunho and Mingi were still talking quietly beneath the olive tree.
San remained in his chair.
Nobody had left. Nobody had disappeared. Nobody had gotten tired of waiting.
The realization settled slowly inside his chest.
Warm.
Careful.
Fragile.
Like something that could still break if he touched it too quickly.
Wooyoung stared at the scene for a long moment. Then lowered himself back onto the grass.
This time, when the evening deepened around him, he didn't hurry back to the enclosure.
And for the first time since everything had fallen apart, that felt important.