Chapter Text
There once was a small village situated in a valley far up north where approximately five hundred people lived in peace with the nature surrounding them. The community had a sense of give and take with the forest, always respecting the fauna and flora around them. So, when outsiders arrived with an excuse of getting to know their culture, suspicious looks were given in the community. They've seen this play out before. However, there were always clueless people who took them in thinking, this time, it would be different.
A little boy played with his wooden cars on the back of his house after helping his mother with cleaning their chicken coup when he heard his father, a carpenter, talk with the two outsiders who'd arrived that day. They talked wonders about the forest and made big promises to the carpenter in exchange for a place to stay.
In the young boy's twelve year old head, it all felt too suspicious, but his father had too much of a big heart to say no.
They should've seen it coming, really, but, in their minds, doing any kind of irreparable harm to the nature that provided so much to them was such an unknown thought that they couldn't have imagined what these strangers could do.
The boy was smart, though, and, sensing the men were up to something, decided to follow them a week after their arrival, once they started exploring a bit too into the forest, walking towards the hills and river source. It was a place that the boy's mom claimed to be "magical" and "pure", where even the villagers didn't dare go too often.
He tried his hardest to act as stealthy as possible and not draw any attention to himself as he followed them, walking with light steps.
On their way, the men kept having a weird conversation about source material and their future plans for the area, which the boy didn't understand, but kept following them until they reached a spot they were quite interested in, next to the waterfall.
The boy hid behind a bush and watched with a deep frown on his forehead as the men opened their backpacks and took axes to take down some branches.
With a gasp and falling down on his butt, the boy widened his eyes as he saw them take a lighter and set fire to the ground, bushes and trees.
"We'll start on this today and the others can come in a few days to get the job done and start planning for construction." One of the men told the other while they watched the fire spread rapidly in front of them. "We'll text them the pictures we took and tell them it's the perfect spot once we get a phone signal in this god forsaken place."
"What about the villagers?" The other guy asked, causing the first man to scoff in disdain.
"What about them? This is public land, it doesn't belong to them, we can do whatever we want."
The other man went quiet, accepting it. They stuck around for a few minutes more until they were satisfied and walked away.
As soon as the men were far enough, the little boy ran like he'd never ran before, desperately moving to the riverside to try and extinguish the fire by splashing water with his hands. It was quickly spreading, though, and some trees were already severely burned, so he had to think fast.
Through a coughing fit due to all the smoke, he took his shirt and pants off to cover the flames on the ground, little to no help to the wildfire spreading in front of him. Looking around, he quickly ran to the rocks by the river, gathering all of his strength to pick up the biggest ones he could carry or roll them on the ground to form a line of rocks a few meters in front of where the fire was headed. His unprotected limbs got scraped and bled in the process, but he was focused on his task, doing the back and forth movement for about fifteen minutes, until the fire nearly burned his skin by the proximity.
Tired and hurting all over, once he was done, the boy walked backwards to the river, immersing himself in water to his neck, ignoring all of the stinging pain on his bruises. His eyes were staring deep in front of him, filling up with tears once he realized the line of rocks were slowly stopping the fire from spreading any further.
In a fit of immense relief, a deep sob went up his throat and he cried loudly, his tears mixing with the river. He held his body tight with his own arms and sank into the water, staying down as long as his lungs could take, trying to calm himself down after all of his despair.
When the boy finally emerged, however, the first thing he saw in front of him was a sparkle hovering up in the air.
It was something like he'd never seen before, the size of a penny, and the boy stared at it in awe for a while, a deep frown between his eyebrows. It gleamed so bright it could blind you if you looked closely at it, but he couldn't take his eyes away from it.
Suddenly, the little thing began to fly in a circle around his head, almost like it was trying to communicate with him.
A wave of happiness filled the boy and he couldn't contain the smile on his lips as he followed it with his eyes, turning his body once it went behind his head, almost like the sparkle was playing with him. The boy laughed loudly, turning and turning on a circle, his mind completely forgetting everything that had just happened before.
He put out his finger in the air, in an attempt to make it land on it, mesmerized as it slowly made its way towards it.
"Yeonjun! Where are you?"
The loud noise from the shouts startled them both and, when the boy turned around, the sparkle was gone.