You won't be alone, we're unstoppable.

The anxious smell of spearmint clung to Chan's nostrils as he inhaled sharply. He sat up with a start, wincing as the movement jarred his still healing body. Glancing around fervently, he searched for the Boarus, certain that he would find the beast looming over him, ready to devour him while stealing Jisung's voice. His racing heart calmed when he realised that he was in a bedroom and not the basement, that the Boarus was nowhere in sight.

He exhaled a sigh of relief noisily through his nostrils. He was safe. The scent of spearmint disappeared, and his brows furrowed for a moment before he shook it off as his imagination. His eyes roamed over the room and he frowned. This wasn't his room. This wasn't even Jisung's room. He looked down and saw that the covers and bed weren't familiar either. His head moved left and right as his muscles tensed. Where was he?

Before he could contemplate how he could have gotten into the room, the door opened. The person entering the room froze as their eyes met Chan's dark gaze. In their hands was a tray with two identical plates of food.

"You're awake?" The voice was hoarse and it cracked painfully over the words. Chan frowned at the surprise in the question, his eyes dropping to the food as his stomach rumbled excitedly. He was starving. He dragged his eyes back up to meet the hunter's uncertain gaze. Woojin hadn't moved a muscle since he entered the room, his free hand still resting atop the doorknob awkwardly, his movements paused mid step.

"I brought you some food. I didn't think you would be awake, but I brought you some just in case," Chan smiled slightly at Woojin's nervous rambling. It was almost endearing and a small blossom of fondness warmed Chan's chest. The hunter finally moved and shut the door, turning the handle with a wide-eyed stare locked on the door after the action was complete.

Tangy lemon scented the air with sorrow before the spearmint punched through it. Chan threw the covers off of himself as an instinctive realisation struck him. Woojin was thinking about the Boarus. The scent of spearmint the exact same as the one that had lingered in the room when Chan woke up. He paused for a second, his eyes widening slightly. The nightmare of the Boarus must have trapped Chan so far into his memories that he had vividly remembered the distinct scent of Woojin's fear.

"Hey," he whispered softly so as not to startle the boy. No response. Woojin's eyes remained glued to the door, his anxiety spiking as he began to lose himself to the memory of the Boarus. Chan stood silently, wincing and sucking in a sharp breath as pain shot up his right leg. He limped cautiously towards Woojin who was now trembling, his bottom lip wobbling as lemon once again swamped Chan's senses. He was curious as to what happened before Woojin ran into the basement. How had he even come across a Boarus? What had happened to leave him so traumatised and upset? What memories had closing the door triggered?

"Hey," he whispered again. "Hey, Woojin," he spoke slowly, keeping his voice soft and quiet as he reached out a gentle hand to touch Woojin's shoulder. While Chan was expecting Woojin to flinch, he didn't expect the hunter to practically jump out his skin and whirl away from him as if he had been burned.

The reaction stung Chan's heart, and he frowned. He didn't understand why him being the reason Woojin's anxiety intensified was distressing but he didn't have time to contemplate it. The food tray teetered precariously in Woojin's hands and Chan leapt forward, snatching the tray from the hunter's hands before it could fall and spill everywhere. With a heavy sigh, Chan limped towards the bedside table and placed the tray delicately on the wooden surface. He paused as his knuckles dragged against the polished surface. It reminded him of his table at home.

Home. Heartache twanged in his chest. He missed Jisung. He stared at the pancakes in front of him silently. Jisung's favourite breakfast meal was pancakes with ice cream and strawberries. Chan loved waking up early and making Jisung breakfast. He loved the way Jisung's eyes would always light up in pleasant surprise, as if he never expected Chan to make him breakfast even though Chan had been doing it for almost an entire year.

"Do you not like pancakes?" Chan startled, his head snapping in the hunters direction, eyes wide with surprise. Woojin's expression was tense and held an anxious uncertainty. Chan's brow furrowed and guilt tingled through his veins for a reason he could not comprehend.

"No, no, I love pancakes," he whispered, dragging his gaze back to the pancakes almost despairingly. "It's just-" he cut himself off with a sigh. A deeply rooted despair flared up inside of his stomach, making him feel nauseous. He swallowed slowly as he fought the dizziness that made the world spin. He squeezed his eyes shut in hopes that it would stop the merry-go-round like feeling. Fatigue crashed through him suddenly and he stumbled to the bed before collapsing heavily onto the edge, barely managing to keep himself sitting up as overwhelming exhaustion pressed down on him.

"Are you okay?" Woojin's worried voice echoed in Chan's ears, he vaguely registered that there were hands on his forehead, arms, cheeks. Chan opened his eyes and sent Woojin a weak smile, his head tilting upwards to meet the concerned eyes of the boy who he couldn't help but allow his body relax against as he lost the strength to hold himself up.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Woojin frowned, his hands reaching out to smooth Chan's hair in what could be considered a soothing way. Chan absently leaned into the touch, seeking comfort as he closed his tired eyes. He wondered if this exhaustion was from all the healing he had been doing to fix his broken bones. He must have been hurt more than he realised to be this tired.

"You don't seem like it," Woojin muttered reproachfully.

The fingers dragging through his hair were gentle and calming. Apparently the action also helped calm Woojin who had chosen to sit beside Chan without halting his actions and his anxious scent dispersed into the air to be replaced by Woojin's more neutral scent. Chan's brow creased as his mind wandered back to the pancakes before traversing into the memories he had tried to push away.

He thought about Jisung. He thought about how gentle and caring the boy was. He thought about how enchanting his smile was as his face lit up with happiness and his eyes gleemed with excitement. A small smile played at the edges of his lips as he remembered Jisung's buoyant laughter from the other day - was it even the other day? How long had he been here now? - when Chan had told him some stupid (and ridiculously horrible) dad joke.

"Hey, don't fall asleep. You need to eat, otherwise you won't be able to heal," Woojin's voice jarred him from his thoughts. He almost whimpered as the vivid memory of Jisung's carefree laughter faded away and was replaced by the imprisoning despair of reality. Chan would never see Jisung again. He would never be able to hear him laugh again. He would never be able to hold him as he became overwhelmed by his anxiety. He would never be able to see his face light up when he saw Chan had made breakfast. He would never be able to say goodbye. He would just be gone from Jisung's life without warning.

A desperate sadness clung to him and the room was flooded by a strange bitter scent that exposed his sorrow. "I'm not hungry," he muttered dejectedly while pulling away from Woojin- the hunter, he reminded himself. In the back of his mind, his wolf whimpered weakly at the loss of contact, but Chan ignored it, attributing the clinginess of his wolf to being the need for a pack while injured for safety and healing. He shifted away from the hunter before allowing his body to fall sideways so his cheek hit the pillow with a soft thump sound. He spared a brief glance at Woojin and instantly regretted it. His expression portrayed his hurt at the sudden rejection. Chan glanced away and focused his stare on the door. In the fog of his receding mind, Chan found the expression odd. This man had hunted and tortured him and yet had the audacity to look hurt by Chan not wanting to indulge his sudden kindness.

A burning fury scorched his lungs as the hunter's voice sounded once again. He swallowed a growl.

"Chan," Woojin began, his tone reprimanding, his eyes portraying a tired confusion and annoyance. "You have to eat. It is the only way to get better," Chan almost scoffed at the hunter's seemingly sincere words of care. What was the point of Chan healing if the hunter would just injure him again while torturing him for information he wouldn't and couldn't give. Chan closed his eyes as a thought flashed into his mind. He didn't want to live if he couldn't see Jisung again. The world was too dark without the sun or moon, and Jisung was both for Chan. The boy always illuminated the world for him, always stopped the darkness from consuming him. Chan couldn't live without his light.

"I don't want to eat," he growled at the hunter, the aggressive, rumbling sound finally escaping his throat. His eyes snapped open in surprise when the weight on the bed suddenly disappeared as Woojin practically leapt off of it and stormed over to the tray of food. A new scent pulsed off of Woojin in jagged waves.

"Well, I don't care what you want. You are going to eat so that you have the strength to finish healing yourself," the older boy snapped as he slammed the tray down onto the bottom of the bed before storming out of the room. The echoing slam of the door was punctuated by the angry scent of burnt cinnamon.

Chan blinked at the closed door silently. What the hell was that? The question rebounded around his mind, pulsing with the violent pounding in his head that threatened to crack open his skull. The heavy hood of sleep dragged over his mind, brushing away his questions and replacing them with a dark void that beckoned him with the enticing offer of freedom from the shooting agony of his pounding head. Squeezing his eyes shut, Chan welcomed the tug of sleep, ignoring the itching nagging in the back of his mind shouting that he was missing something. The dark claws of sleep swiftly flicked away the bothersome thoughts before sinking into Chans consciousness and ripping it away from him before replacing it with a merciless dreamland.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chan slipped into a fitful sleep riddled with feverish dreams, his body burning up several degrees higher than was considered healthy. His whines and whimpers went unheard by him, but Woojin, who had already been heading to the room to make sure Chan had eaten, heard them.

He hurried his steps and stumbled over his own feet as he opened the door too quickly. Guilt crashed through him as he beheld the sight before him. Chan's skin was covered in a shiny sheen of sweat causing his clothes to stick to his body and his hair to stick to his face. Woojin's nose wrinkled at the faint tingly scent of hibiscus flower mixing with a gluggy tar like scent.

Ignoring the strange scent, he rushed forward and swiftly relocated the untouched food back to the bedside table before yanking the blankets off of the overheated Myst. Without hesitation, Woojin scooped up the unconscious creature into his arms and carried him out of the room and towards the bathroom. After gently lowering Chan into the bathtub and adjusting the water to a lukewarm temperature, he ran out to the kitchen to grab his thermometer.

It took a few seconds of searching as the object had been accidentally deposited into the wrong drawer, but the moment Woojin retrieved the thermometer, he raced back to the bathroom. Noting that the bathtub was half full and that in his fitful restlessness Chan had slipped down and almost submerged himself in the water, Woojin turned the taps off and repositioned Chan into a sitting position. The creature whimpered at the movement and guilt tickled up Woojin's spine before digging its claws into his chest. If only he had just stayed in the room and forced Chan to eat, maybe the boy wouldn't be in so much pain. He scowled, a darkness flickering in his eyes. He shouldn't have let his stress turn to anger so quickly. And he should have checked Chan's temperature properly the moment he woke up.

When Woojin had felt Chan's forehead when he slumped onto the bed, he had felt hotter than he had when he was sleeping, but Woojin had no idea how hot a wolf's skin was supposed to feel and figured it was fine. It was not fine.

After brushing Chan's slick hair out of the way, he held the digital thermometer that resembled the one doctors used up to Chan's ear. The temperature reading was immediate and the guilty claws sunk even deeper into his chest, the sharp tips threatening to pierce his lungs. It really wasn't fine. Chan's temperature was way too high, he was sure of it. Woojin raced out of the bathroom, nearly collided with the wall and snatched up his mother's journal from his bed before sprinting back to the bathroom.

Thankfully, Chan hadn't unconsciously tried to drown himself again and remained in the same position Woojin had left him in. With trembling hands, Woojin frantically flicked through the journal. Thumbing swiftly through the pages, he almost missed the page he needed. Flicking back to the correct page, he exhaled in relief at having found it so quickly. His relief was short lived as he read his mother's delicately scrawled words.

For some odd reason, his mother had taken the time to note down extra information that hunters did not learn during their Awakening. In fact, as far as Woojin knew, no hunter bothered learning anything on Mysts besides how to identify and kill them. So, Woojin had wondered for many nights now, why his mother had taken the time to learn and write down extra information that was irrelevant to their inherited job. Although, this wasn't the first time he was grateful for his mother's seemingly studious nature in regards to Mysts. It had helped him contain Chan and attempt to pressure him into telling him where he could find the Bang pack without killing the boy or torturing him in the usual way. And now, it would hopefully help him with whatever was wrong with Chan now.

He skimmed past the unnecessary information about the other two variants and stopped when he saw what he was looking for. He knew for certain that Chan was a wolf as his mother's notes had briefly explained the difference between the three. Werewolves displayed traits of both lycans and wolves but their wolf forms were almost half the size of the wolf variant but despite having this wolf form, they could only transform during a full moon. Lycanthropes were bipedal, monstrous wolf-human hybrids who were cursed to lose control on the full moon. Wolves were the opposite. They had a human and a wolf form and they could change into either form at will - as Woojin had witnessed when Chan transformed into his giant wolf form to escape his handcuffs and attack the Boarus.

The guilt pressed further into his lungs. The creature he had been torturing had risked his own life to defend Woojin, a hunter. It was something that was unheard of. Mysts and hunters had been killing each other for decades. It baffled Woojin that one of the creatures, one of the beasts he was supposed to hunt and kill had saved him. It went against everything he knew. His brows furrowed as he read his mother's notes.

Wolves naturally have a higher body temperature than humans. It sits comfortably at 56 degrees Celsius. Unlike humans, their temperature can raise by almost 20 degrees before they are at risk. Their temperature generally raises an extra 17-19 degrees during a heat or rut. However, even a mere two degrees higher and the wolves are in serious danger. An ill wolf with a fever can lead to death if left untreated for longer than half an hour.

Woojin glanced at the thermometer and his eyes widened in terror. Chan was well above the a safe temperature. He had a raging fever at 102.7 degrees Celsius. Woojin continued to read in the hopes that his mother had written down what he needed to do to help Chan. However, as he flicked through several pages without luck, he began to lose hope, but just as he went to close the journal, a line of words caught his attention and he opened the book up onto that page.

The wolf died. I tried to save him, but his temperature was just too high, his injuries too severe, his strength too depleted.

Woojin stared at the page in surprised confusion. His mother had tried to save a wolf? She had never showed any inclination of being cruel, but Woojin had not expected her to try to help a Myst.

The bath seemed to help lower his temperature the most. I made the water tepid before slowly adding ice cubes to slowly drop the temperature of the water while making sure most of his body was submerged. I left a wet washer on his forehead like my mother had done for me during my own fevers. I think it helped. His temperature dropped by almost 30 degrees. But, it wasn't enough.

Woojin leapt up from his squatting position and ran to the freezer to retrieve the 5kg bag of ice his mother had always insisted on keeping in the freezer, much to his father's and his own confusion. Now, it made sense. She was prepared for the worst. For the 'just in case' that would never have been possible with his father around...

Returning to the bathroom, he tore the bag open before dumping a handful of ice cubes into the tub. Casting aside the bag of ice, he began pushing Chan into the water. He faced no resistance. It was scary how still the wolf's body was considering how restless he had been moments before. Woojin wondered if that meant that the water was working. He held the unconscious boy up slightly so that he wouldn't slip under the water and drown. After determining that he would be able to catch Chan before that did happen, he carefully released him after repositioning him so slipping under was less likely. He crawled towards the cabinet and rummaged through it for a face washer. He hummed in relief as he pulled one out before returning to kneeling beside the bath. He dunked and wrung out the washer before placing it against the blond's forehead carefully.

He sat there for a few minutes, just observing before he noticed that the ice in the bath had melted. Grabbing another handful, he allowed the cold cubes to fall into the water. He tested the water and noticed that it was still surprisingly tepid. Picking up the thermometer he checked the boy's temperature. It had only dropped by two degrees.

Panicking, Woojin pulled out two extra handfuls of ice cubes and dumped them swiftly into the water. The previous handful had only half melted but Woojin was concerned that it wasn't going to cool the water enough to break Chan's fever. He redid the washer on Chan's forehead, dunking and wringing out the soft fabric before holding it to Chan's forehead once more.

Suddenly, Chan began to thrash around, his body convulsing violently. The washer slid into the tub while water and melting ice cubes splashed everywhere. Ignoring the spray of water and ice cubes pelting his skin, Woojin struggled to get Chan out of the bath before he injured or drowned himself. His anxiety skyrocketed as he basically had to drag the squirming body out of the tub. He deposited him on the ground, rolling him onto his side and into recovery position as he tried to recall what he was supposed to do when someone was having a seizure. However, his mind was clouded by fear and he was unable to remember anything his father had taught him about first aid.

To Woojin, his father had simply been a history and psychology teacher who had a hobby as a first aid instructor. Now, Woojin knew that there was more behind his father's career options than he had first believed.

Chan continued to convulse violent and Woojin's thoughts slipped further and further into panic. Unbeknownst to Woojin, his anxious scent flooded the room, drowning the increasing stench of boiling tar and seeping into Chan's lungs as he inhaled, sharp and uneven before exhaling shakily. The hunter moved jerkily with shallow breaths as he tried to rein in his out of control fear. His parents had taught him better than this. They had taught him how to remain calm even in situations that terrified him to the core, so why couldn't he do it now?

A moment of clarity sliced through the dense cloud of panic in Woojin's mind and he scrambled towards the bath to retrieve the face washer. His fingers grazed the soaked fabric as they ensnared the washer. The cold fabric made his fingers tingle and cleared the remaining fog from his mind. His scent began to settle into its calming neutral scent of a vaguely familiar spice. He pressed the washer to Chan's forehead, holding it there to ensure it didn't slip off while he was laying on his side. The Myst's thrashing eventually ceased, the violent movements gradually decreasing until the pained scrunch of Chan's face disappeared and a calm expression took over. Woojin exhaled in relief, his hand was numb from the ice cold water he had been repeatedly dunking the cloth into and pressing against the boy's forehead.

With a groan, Woojin sat up slightly. He had been hunched over for hours, barely moving except to redunk the washer, and his lower back, knees and ankles all felt it. Pins and needles shot up and down his legs while his knees clicked uncomfortably as his weight shifted. His ankles threatened to crack at the new placement of weight against them but he ignored the discomfort in favour for placing the cloth beside him and picking up the thermometer.

Hearing the beep of the device turning on, Woojin held it to Chan's ear. The reading flashed several different numbers, each new numerical value displaying a decreasing trend that had a relieved exhale drawn out of Woojin. Chan's staggeringly high temperature had dropped to a safer 76 degrees Celsius. It was still 20 degrees higher than a wolf's usual temperature, but it was safe.

Heya! How are you? I hope you are healthy and safe. I finally worked out how to complete this chapter. I decided to exclude the parts that were leaving me stuck. So, this chapter is shorter than originally planned, but I hope you still enjoy it. It's a bit angsty but it does have some important hints for future chapters XD

Let's see if you can work out what's going to happen next.

Also, do you want a 'Glossary of Scents'? It will be a chapter dedicated to everyone's scents and what they indicate the person or Myst is feeling. It would be updated each time a new scent is mentioned- almost as if you are logging the scent into the glossary as you read. I will always indicate what the Myst or person is feeling each time a new scent is mentioned (unless it can't be mentioned for plot reasons...), however, after mentioning that scent in conjunction with the attributed emotion/s a few times, I may just mention the scent alone to express how a character is feeling (Basically, I really want to do a 'Glossary of Scents' because even I forget what each scent means xD)