Chapter Text
It’s sunny when they arrive.
The group of four is led by the tallest of them. He’s a slender, gracefully moving man who carries himself in the self-assured way of an adult, but his face is boyish. His hair is a medium brown, strands falling into his eyes and it stretches down his neck. The white tank top he’s wearing shows off his athletic arms, flexing when he adjusts the large duffel hanging over his shoulder.
Beside him is a much younger boy, his years shown in his soft cheeks. He’s dragging his feet slightly, exhausted. Sweat has plastered his light hair and bangs to his skin and his backpack straps are digging into his shoulders.
“Kei-hyung, are we almost there?”
The tall man laughs, a fond one, and ruffles the boy’s hair. “Yes, Taki, we’re almost there.” His eyes crinkle as the boy huffs tiredly.
There are two more boys lagging behind them. Both the same age, only a few months apart, but wildly different.
Where one is all soft lines, round eyes and natural brown hair, the other is sharp lines, narrowed eyes and stark red hair. They’re silent now, conversation having withered away with their energy.
They’d arrived back in Japan almost a year ago, after travelling around Korea until the older boys graduated high school and the eldest worked up enough money to get them flights back.
Now, they’re on their way to the house they’ve finally scored, in a nice country-side town.
“This is our street!” The eldest exclaims excitedly, pace quickening slightly. “Aren’t you guys looking forward to having your own rooms?”
Their previous arrangement had been a dingy apartment that barely fit them. Two to each bedroom, bumping shoulders in the kitchen, clothes taking up the living room.
No one replies, but they all know the answer.
The house had been bought through pure luck. A six-bedroom house that, realistically, was unnecessary— but Kei loves to take in strays, so who knows how many bedrooms they’d need?
When he’d asked about how this large house was on sale for so cheap, the real estate agent had muttered something about superstition. The type of thing that’s common in towns like these.
He’d been wary to take it. They had enough superstition being whispered about them in their previous towns, but they needed this.
Once they reach the house, Kei hears Taki suck in a breath.
“Big right?”
“Jesus, Kei-hyung.” The red-haired boy breathes out, dropping his bag and putting his hands on his head in disbelief. “How big is it even?”
Bashfully, Kei chuckles while digging around in his bag for the key.
“Six bedrooms…”
“Euijoo-yah, did you hear that?!”
The boy in question, Euijoo, just stares, slack-jawed, up at the house. His impossibly round eyes somehow widen.
The door unlocks with a loud click and the door opens with a loud creak. Fittingly dramatic for the situation.
“Okay, uhm, the guy said he was gonna send cleaners round or something a few days before but just in case…” Kei presses his lips into a thin line. “Keep your shoes on for now.”
If he hears Taki gulp, he ignores it.
Kei picks up his duffel bag and pushes open the door, stepping inside. He’s visited the house already, but he still gasps when he looks around.
The door opens into a large entryway, with large stairs on the left-hand side and an archway at the end of the room that leads to the kitchen. Even from the doorway, he can see the vast garden stretching out towards the woods.
His skin itches at the sight of it.
He steps inside properly and drops his bag in the entryway. There’s a door to his left that leads to a corridor leading to the living room and what he imagines will become his bedroom.
To the right is a door leading to the kitchen. All four decide to investigate there first.
“I’ll run by the grocery store tomorrow, we can just order food tonight. Sound good?”
Euijoo opens the fridge and hums affirmatively.
“This table is a bit big…”
Kei looks over and sees Taki standing by the dining table, drumming his fingers on the dark wood. It fits ten, which is more than double their small pack.
“You never know.” Kei replies, shrugging with a smile.
It had been a bit of an argument back in one of their old towns. After Kei found Taki, and then Nicholas and Euijoo back in Korea, he’s been desperate to try and help any other strays who are uncared for. He and Euijoo had gotten into an argument about Kei being careless and seeking out danger.
At his comment, Euijoo’s jaw tightens.
“Are the bedrooms all upstairs?” Nicholas asks, the clear sentiment that he just wants to go and lie on his bed for a while clear. “I wanna go pick mine.”
“There’s one down here, you can have it if you want but I kinda thought that one would be mine.”
“That’s fine with me.” Nicholas responds, “makes sense for you to be down here.”
The point is unspoken but they all hear it. As the protector of their pack, Kei would be on the ground floor. If anyone tried to harm them, he’d be there as a barricade.
The three boys all head upstairs, so Kei ventures to the bedroom on the left side of the house.
It’s a beautiful bedroom, as are all of the ones in the house, with a view out onto the woods and a large double bed that Kei immediately flops down onto when he sees it.
A deep tiredness echoes through his bones as he sighs, limbs aching and skin itching. He’ll go and run tonight, if he doesn’t fall asleep beforehand.
He hears the footsteps of his brothers above him and a sense of calm floods through his veins. Taki’s laughter slips through the cracks of the floorboards and reaches his ears.
This will be good for them. Euijoo and Nicholas will enroll in the local college, Taki will enroll in the high school and Kei will apply for a job at the elementary school. Half of the reason it has taken them so long to get here is because of his teaching degree.
“Kei-hyung!”
He jolts awake, having not even realised he was falling asleep.
“Kei-hyung!”
The door slams open and Taki runs inside. He leaps onto the bed with Kei and swallows him in a hug. It’s warm and comforting, and Kei feels himself smiling larger than he has in a while.
“My bedroom is so cool.” Taki grins, sitting upright. Kei pulls him back down into the hug again and he laughs. “Have you enrolled me in high school?”
“Not yet…” Kei hums, “we’ll go the day after tomorrow.”
Tonight they’ll unpack and eat, then finally get a long night's sleep. Tomorrow, they’ll go to the grocery store and get some much needed things and Kei will speak to the elementary school principal.
They lay for a while, in peaceful quiet, the only sounds filling the room being their soft breathing.
“Do Euijoo and Nico like their rooms?”
“Yeah,” Taki says, “you know we have two whole rooms left over.”
Kei exhales slowly. “You know, Taki. Can I tell you this?” The younger boy hums. “I know Euijoo doesn’t like it when I talk about it, but there really could be other kids like you out there who need a home.”
Taki nods and his hair tickles Kei’s chin.
“I know why you do it, Kei-hyung.” He replies. Kei truly thinks Taki is so wise beyond his years. “Just don’t go searching for them. Like how we just found each other. Don’t go sniffing them out.”
“Okay.” Kei whispers.
He doesn’t get much time to ponder what Taki’s said, because a moment later, the other two boys come barrelling in asking when they can order food.
Kei laughs and the tightness he’s been carrying in his chest for years starts to unwind.
&
They end up sprawled out on the sofas by the time midnight rolls around. Kei on one with his long legs hanging over the arm, Euijoo on another, and Nicholas and Taki bundled up on the third.
They were lucky enough to land a TV, so it’s currently mumbling out a random nature documentary.
A fish appears and Nicholas comments that it looks like Euijoo.
When a wolf appears on screen, Kei immediately sits up. He’s restless and he won’t be able to sleep at this rate, so he needs to run.
“I’m going out.” He announces. “I think I should go by myself tonight to scout out the area.”
Euijoo is half asleep, so hums dozily.
“Don’t sleep too late.” He says it to Nicholas, mostly, because he’s the worst morning person and they have things to do tomorrow. “I’ll try not to be too long.”
This, he says to Taki mostly. He’s not sure if the boy will even sleep if he’s not home. Taki is a worrier, and he’d managed to get past it back at their old place (the few times Kei would go without him), but this is an entirely new area.
“Are you sure I can’t come with you?”
Kei ruffles his hair affectionately. “I just need to scout out the woods first. Then we can all go together.”
Taki pulls a face but nods.
The rest of the house is dark when he leaves the living room. He’s not exactly a scaredy-cat, but he still shivers all the same when he glances down the hallway.
He’s still in his tank top and jeans, though now only in socks, which he pulls off at the door.
The grass is soft on his feet as he walks to the edge of the garden. They don’t have close neighbours, at least ones that can see into the garden, but he still creeps further into the shrubbery anyway.
There shouldn’t be anyone in the woods at this time of night. He lifts his head and sniffs the air, allowing his sensitive senses to awaken. Nothing. Just the crisp smell of woodland.
He strips to his underwear and lays his clothes close by a tree with a weirdly shaped trunk. It’s not cold, thankfully, so he revels in the calm breeze.
Kei doesn’t allow the boys to see him shift. He doesn’t know if it’s grotesque, or scary, or even graceful, he just knows it’s hard. He’s seen Taki shift more times than he can remember and it’s only started getting easier this past year.
When he shifts, he feels his limbs twist and shudder with the power of it. All he smells is the earth beneath him and the leaves on the trees and water in the soil. He doesn’t know what he sees during the process because he always screws his eyes shut.
Then he’s lying on the floor, panting.
The itching beneath his skin is burning raw. Like he’s peeled back the layers concealing the itch and is letting the air cool it directly.
A second later, he’s running.
Koga Yudai has always been a runner. Back in high school, he ran and ran. Won awards for his running, made a name for himself. Then when the attack happened, he couldn’t run. Not anymore. Not in the same way, at least. He ran away from things. Not towards finish lines and trophies, but away from whispers and widened eyes.
He ran all the way to Korea and collided with a boy named Takayama Riki.
Ever since, he’s been running towards something. Not like how he did when he was a teenager, but towards a family, a pack. It’s how they found Euijoo and Nicholas.
As Kei howls up into the night sky, he can feel it in his bones. His pack is incomplete but they’re out there.
So he runs, and runs, and runs.
By the time he’s finished running, shifted back, crept back inside the house, tip-toed to his bedroom, it’s been three hours.
He showers and dresses into something comfortable. The itch is gone now. He feels refreshed, like someone has cracked all the joints in his body and washed his head out with cold water.
When the clock on his phone says four am, Taki sneaks into his bed with him.
“How was it?” He whispers, tucking the covers up by his shoulders. “You smell different.”
Kei sighs, rolling onto his back and staring up at the ceiling.
“It was good, Taki.” He smiles, “I feel better now.”
“Okay, good.” The boy yawns. “Go to sleep now.”
Tired from the running, Kei does just that.