ETY | MW [✔]

05.

Taehyun was waiting for him in the woods.

"Mark thinks you broke him."

Wonwoo slowed to a stop and leaned against a tree, struggling to catch his breath. He could feel his hands shaking, his heart thumping.

"I'm not sure Mark is far wrong. Saying his name aloud... it did something to him. I just don't know what."

"Will you go back in there?"

From the way Taehyun's arms were folded, Wonwoo could tell the alpha wasn't happy with how this was playing out.

"Not right now," he said. "Later. I left my bag behind. And I... I need to make sure he's okay. The look in his eyes, the sounds he was making, I've never seen that before."

Taehyun looked at the ground. "We may still need to face the reality that he's not salvageable. I know you feel he's made progress, but if something as simple as a name sets him off like that..."

"Not a name," Wonwoo said. "His name."

It had been clear that the alpha recognized it but also very strongly rejected it.

"Can you imagine trying to come back after becoming so lost inside your own mind?"

Taehyun shrugged, still not making eye contact.

"I saw it once, at the training school. A guy gone feral. He was just eighteen, he'd been on the fighting circuit less than a year. Something happened, and he just... snapped. I saw what he was like, Wonwoo. There was no coming back from that."

"Knowing what I know about those training schools, I'd wonder if they gave him a fair chance at recovery."

Taehyun rubbed a hand across his eyes.

"No, you're right. They were probably more worried about their own liability, about the next fight, and the next set of trainees. Expending too much time on a feral was probably seen as a waste of resources."

"Well then, I intend to make sure Mingyu gets every chance that young man didn't."

"And if he can't be rehabilitated?" Taehyun pressed. "You know this is no life for man or shifter, chained to a wall and fed scraps."

Wonwoo didn't call Taehyun out on the picture he painted.

"You know me well enough to know that I keep my word. If it comes to that, I'll deal with it."

He didn't want to contemplate having to kill the alpha, but it was at the end of a long list of choices. He hoped, against hope, that they wouldn't get there.

*****

Wonwoo went back in the early evening with more supplies but paused at the door to the cottage, finding the alpha curled up asleep inside. He didn't stir as Wonwoo moved around the room, as silently as he could, grabbing his discarded bag and setting out the extra food he'd brought. The water had been spilled at some point, so he replaced the empty bottle with the new one he'd brought, packing the empty away in his bag to take back to the house. At any moment, he expected Mingyu to wake and come at him, but the alpha slept, his breathing unnaturally deep. Wonwoo grew almost certain he wouldn't wake even if he were to shake his shoulder, but he wasn't brave enough to try.

He returned to the house, enduring a restless night of tossing and turning. Rising early, he went to the kitchen, eating a quick breakfast while preparing food for Mingyu. It was earlier than he usually visited him, but after what had happened the previous day, he couldn't stay away for long.