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Everyone thought differently about the White Forest. For some, it was a cursed place, where you only entered if you wished for certain death. For others, it was the center of the most popular stories about the kingdom, the place that attracted people from other kingdoms to visit. To Hangyul, it meant beauty. Plain and simple beauty.
And, in the life of Hangyul, finding beauty was not an everyday thing. Accustomed as he was to blood, to animals snarling for their lives while he hunted them, finding beauty was not something that happened so often. Perhaps that was why he always took care to finish his duties before sunset, with the exact time to go home and sit in the doorway. From where he had a magnificent view of the forest at sunset. The sun falling, being absorbed by the forest...
It was in those moments that the world seemed to whisper Hangyul that maybe, just maybe, that was not the way his life was supposed to be. That there was something missing.
A feeling Hangyul had grown used to. Sometimes it was almost undetectable, so much Hangyul would think it wasn’t there anymore. At other times, the buzzing sensation on his head was so loud he felt himself exploding.
Still, it was not like Hangyul was going to change something. He had always been a practical person. He changed what could be changed, fought what he could fight, did what he could do. And no matter how many sunsets he had seen, each one of them mocking his lacking abilities to seek what life had in store for him, Hangyul knew better than to do anything.
Life was simpler, his mother had taught him, when he lived his days the same way, fulfilling everything that was expected from him, being the good citizen he had been taught to be.
Sometimes, he was even able to pretend he was happy.
Hangyul had never expected something to change. Still, when he woke up one day before his usual time, he felt something in the air. Something he didn’t know he was supposed to be afraid of, or to expect.
Someone knocked on his door, Hangyul jumping on his seat before running to open the door. It was strange for someone to be this close to the White Forest, people didn’t come to this part of the Kingdom if they could avoid it.
“You are Hangyul, right?” Someone told him as soon as he opened the door. Hangyul lifted one brow in response, but still nodded.
“Good. I have been looking for you. I was told you could help me find something.”
Hangyul was even more confused when the stranger left his house. He had said he wanted Hangyul to hunt a deer, a white one. All he needed to do to find it, according to him, was to go into the White Forest.
It was supposed to be easy. Extremely easy, so much that Hangyul didn’t understand why that person was offering him a lot of money in return. Still, he didn’t ask. He didn’t need to know that.
Hangyul had never been into the forest before, and that day, the sunset felt different. Maybe it was because he would finally go into the forest, or because he was looking for something a part of him though didn’t exist.
He remembered his mother asking him not to step into the White Forest, her being another one of the thousands of people in there who believed it was haunted by bad spirits. It wasn’t that Hangyul didn’t believe in that, it was just that he didn’t think he would have to face any of it. After all, he was just a human. And humans were not worthy of something supernatural.
And the next day, Hangyul finally found himself face to face with the forest. He allowed himself a moment to see the sunrise, something entirely different than the sunrise he stared at every day. If the sunrise was the forest eating the sun, the sunrise was the sun complementing itself with the forest. It shone in a way that made Hangyul’s heart flutter.
There was a part of him that, as he finally stepped into the forest, wondered if his mother had always been right about keeping his life simple. Somehow, he knew that going to the White Forest meant breaking that spell.
Hangyul blinked three times. The Forest was everything he had wished for when he was a child, all full of colors and birds and light.
He also realized that, surprisingly, the annoying buzzing sensation on his head was gone.
Hangyul heard something that was extremely similar to a song, but he didn’t know where it came from. It was beauty, he thought. It was all the beauty Hangyul had always looked out for.
If there was something he wanted to do, was to lose himself in the woods, yet he knew he couldn’t do that. He was there to hunt something, and he always did what was expected from him.
Smiling to himself, Hangyul started walking on the grass. He had a deer to find.
He did not find the deer.
However, he did find something a little more interesting, and way more intriguing, than that.
First, he thought he was imagining something. It looked like a human, something hidden behind a tree. Far, but not enough. Hangyul could still see it. It was… something, something he hadn’t expected to see, being just a simple human. Something he didn’t even know how to name. Something beautiful, even from afar.
He felt the need to walk to it, to see it clearly. And, for once, he allowed himself to do just that. It was like magnetism, he thought. He knew he needed to go find the white deer, yet his body was only moving towards the creature, Hangyul’s heart beating faster than ever.
He walked as slowly as he could, hoping not to make too much noise for the creature to be upset at him. Two steps later, it moved a little, which meant that Hangyul needed to do the same. The creature was moving, but it didn’t run away. Which Hangyul took as permission to follow from a safe distance.
Hangyul smiled to himself. That was a nice game to play.
Suddenly, the creature stopped moving. Hangyul felt a shiver run through him. He was finally able to see it completely—
The creature turned to see him, looking somehow amused when Hangyul almost jumped on his place.
Hangyul didn’t have a word to describe the beauty in the creature in front of him.
“Seems to me that you always get lost, human,” It said, its eyes reflecting something Hangyul couldn’t exactly pinpoint. “You’re safe now.”
Hangyul tilted his head, not understanding what that was supposed to mean. That was, until he finally took a look at his surroundings. They weren’t in the forest anymore, they were at the edge of it, close to Hangyul’s home.
Hangyul realized he had been so mesmerized just by the god —he assumed it was a god, there was no other explanation— that he hadn’t seen anything besides it. It was embarrassing, taking into consideration that he was a hunter. The only rule on his line of work was to never get so mesmerized by something that you can’t see anything past it.
“I have to go now. Please don’t get in trouble again, okay?”
Hangyul wasn’t going to let it go away just like that.
“W-wait!” Hangyul screamed before it was too late. The god stared back at him, its eyes tinted with surprise. Hangyul gulped.”What are you?”
“A nymph.”
Maybe Hangyul’s confusion was painted on his face, because the nymph giggled— could nymphs even do that? “We are deities linked to nature. We protect.”
“What do you protect?”
The nymph grinned. “I can’t tell you that. But I can tell you this— my name is Wooseok.”
Wooseok. Even the name sounded pretty, Hangyul thought.
“I must go.”
“My name is Hangyul.”
Wooseok smiled at him again, turning to the forest before responding in a whisper. “I know.”
Before Hangyul was able to ask Wooseok how he knew, he disappeared.
A whole day went by before Hangyul remembered the reason he went into the Forest in the first place. He had to promise the stranger he would catch the deer this time, letting himself revel in the fact that he needed to go there again.
He tried not to think about the fact that he wanted to see Wooseok again. Hangyul was just a mere mortal after all.
“Again?”
His heart almost jumped out of his chest when he heard Wooseok’s voice.
“I am looking for a deer,” Hangyul tried excusing himself. “I am a hunter, and I promised someone I would get them a particular deer they wanted.”
“Mh,” Wooseok said absently, thinking for a few seconds before nodding to himself. “Let’s go, I’m curious. We don’t usually have visitors.”
“You want to come with me?”
“Am I not allowed to?” Wooseok laughed when Hangyul blushed. “It’s been a while since I saw I human coming in voluntarily. Let’s go.”
“Why don’t you just tell me? I could help you find your deer faster.”
Hangyul didn’t know how to explain that that was the exact reason he didn’t want him to know. He liked being next to Wooseok.
Wooseok, he learned, was easy to talk to. Even when Hangyul was making questions non-stop, Wooseok was patient. He was kind.
Suddenly, Hangyul stopped on his track, asking Wooseok to be quiet with a gesture from his hand.
The stranger hadn’t lied when he talked about the white deer.
“There,” he pointed to Wooseok. “That is the deer.”
When he turned around to see Wooseok, he was surprised to find the other in shock. “You should go.”
“What? But—”
“Just go, Hangyul. Go before they realize you want to hurt them.”
As Hangyul didn’t make any sound, Wooseok took his hand, running with him until they were by the end of the forest, just like the first time.
“I don’t want to see you here again, do you hear me?”
“B—”
“That deer is the spirit of the White Forest, Hangyul! The Spirit I oath to protect!”
Hangyul opened his eyes wide, finally understanding why Wooseok had seemed so serious when realized that was the deer Hangyul wanted.
“I didn’t know, I swear,” Hangyul blurted out. “They just offered me a lot of money, and I thought it was okay to try, but I swear I didn’t know.”
Wooseok stared at him for an even longer time, almost as if he was trying to read his mind. Hangyul wondered if nymphs could do that, too.
“Ok, I believe you,” Wooseok finally said. “But you can’t come here unless you are with me, understood?”
Hangyul didn’t need to be told twice.
They became friends— sort of. Wooseok would call him often, Hangyul almost dropping everything to go into the forest and see him.
His life became happier as well. Whether he was in the forest with Wooseok, or in the town buying food, he felt lighter, more alive than he ever was.
And, to his delight, the buzzing didn’t come back.
“You came in here as a child, you know?”
Hangyul blinked twice in surprise, just staring at Wooseok as he waited for him to say something.
However, he didn’t need to. His mind remembered something he thought he had long forgotten.
“Seems to me that you always get lost, human,” he repeated what Wooseok told him the first time. “Did you find me that time, too?” he asked, his hands burning in desire to touch the nymph’s hair. It was not the first time he wanted to do something like that, but he knew better. Wooseok could be his friend, but he was still bigger than him. Bigger, better, greater. Hangyul was still human. And humans were not supposed to have any sort of interactions with deities like Wooseok.
“I did,” Wooseok finally said, turning to stare at the lake in the center of the forest. “We sort of played hide and seek. I wanted to do something to bring you back to your house, your mother was crying her lungs out.”
“Thank you.”
“Anything for you, Hangyul.”
Hangyul tried his best to avoid thinking about what implications that phrase could have.
“You said that day that I was safe,” he suddenly remembered another thing. “What did you mean? Is there something bad here?”
This time, Wooseok didn’t respond instantly. He seemed to be collecting his thoughts, and Hangyul assumed he was deciding how much he could tell him.
Another reminder that he wasn’t like Wooseok. That he would never be.
“There is a reason why people choose not to come inside the Forest unless they have to,” he said, his voice deeper than before. “There is good, and there is bad. For balance to exist, bad things have to exist as well. Just as we can’t be happy every time, and we can’t be sad every time. We try to keep everyone safe, but we can only do so much.”
Hangyul sat down on his bed that day, thinking about Wooseok’s words. He decided he didn’t like that there was something that could even hurt Wooseok given the chance.
Hangyul wished that day would never come.
Hangyul was good at being alone. It wasn’t his choice to get used to that, but ever since he lost his mother and brother, he knew he didn’t want to get easily involved again. He didn’t want to love, then lose. And so, he got used to being alone.
Of course, that was until Wooseok placed himself in his life, with his little laughs and giggles and screams, like he always belonged there.
The only problem was that it was incredibly easy to get used to Wooseok.
Wooseok, who would run with him until Hangyul wasn’t able to walk anymore, laughing at him in a way that made him feel things he had long forgotten.
Wooseok, who would make him truly happy just by being there for him.
Wooseok, who was a nymph.
Hangyul hated to remember that Wooseok was a nymph.
“Hangyul.”
“Yes?”
“What happened with the person that wanted you to hunt the deer? Did you ever see him again?”
“Actually,” Hangyul looked down. It still made him feel guilty. “I did, but only to tell him that I couldn’t find the deer and that I was scared to death to come back here. I don’t know if he believed me, but he didn’t come back, so it worked.”
Wooseok smiled softly at him. “I’m glad. I was hoping he would try to mess with you. Although I have my ways to stop that.”
“Oh, you do?” Hangyul looked up at that, a grin making its way to his face because it was hard to think about Wooseok, the angelical Wooseok, hurting someone. “I thought you nymphs were all good magic and stuff.”
“We are,” Wooseok seemed pleased to hear that. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t use what we have to if something is trying to harm the things we protect. And I’ll protect you.”
Once again, Hangyul tried to avoid thinking about the implications the phrase could have. It was hard, though, with Wooseok staring at him and his hands burning to touch the deity, but he was able to manage. Barely.
Sometimes, Hangyul wondered what that was all for. Why did he even hang out with Wooseok, if he couldn’t do what he actually wanted? Why was it that he wasn’t supposed to be enchanted by Wooseok, just as many other humans were enchanted by nymphs before him? Why was it that he wasn’t deserving of him?
Hangyul knew that he was running out of excuses for the actual truth.
The truth being that he wasn’t scared of not being good enough for Wooseok, no. He was scared of loving, then losing again.
He was also scared of Wooseok loving him back, because then that would mean Wooseok would eventually lose him.
“I can protect you, too.”
“What?”
It was something Hangyul didn’t plan to say out loud. First he was walking by Wooseok, the latter telling him a story about all the things that lived in the forest; then he couldn’t stop himself.
And, judging by Wooseok’s shocked face, he had gone out of line.
Hangyul thought about ways to make up a lie good enough to excuse himself out of that situation, but his mind was blank. It didn’t help that Wooseok was pretty beyond words. It made Hangyul lose his ability to be coherent around him.
“Took you long enough,” Wooseok suddenly said, turning his head to look at the path in front of them instead of Hangyul. “I thought you’d never say it.”
Hangyul stopped. This was probably Wooseok making fun of him, but still—
“What do you mean?”
Wooseok finally turned to see him, that annoying, cute, and beautiful grin on his face.
“I said, took you long enough to tell me that.”
“You… you know?”
“How couldn’t I know? You literally light up when you see me, Hangyul.”
Just as when he found out about the deer, Hangyul felt the embarrassment cover him up completely. There he was, making a fool out of himself when he swore to never care about something again.
“You, I thought it was obvious I love you too. But, judging by the look on your face, I guess it was not.”
Hangyul opened his eyes wide, gulping as Wooseok became insanely closer to him. He guessed his face voiced all the concerns and questions he had, because suddenly Wooseok's smile softened.
“We’ll figure it out, Hangyul.”
As time went by, the world changing over and over again, the house remained intact, as if it wasn’t affected by time at all. It became a symbol of love, an unspoken reminder of the love that a nymph decided to profess to a human, of the love that the human decided to profess to a nymph.
It became a reminder, for anyone who wanted to know, that there was life beyond death; that no matter what world, no matter how far away, the nymph and the human would finally live together forever.
It was a reminder that love always figured it out.