The days and nights had all blended together. Sometimes he woke and it was light out, and sometimes he didn’t see the sun for days. Or what felt like days. He didn’t know, really. He could have woken multiple times in one night and thought more time had passed. There was no reason to track time anymore.

For the first while, he’d stayed inside the cave. At some point, his grief induced haze had made him wandering around the forest numbly. As much as he tried to get lost, he couldn’t. The cave had become a recognizable scent on the wind, and anytime an owl had arrived, the smell of food would draw him back. The letters went unopened, lying wherever the owl had dropped them upon delivery.

He’d crossed paths with tigers and wild boars. They must have smelled his disease (it wasn’t as if animals cared when the last time you’d bathed was), because they left him alone and after a few days, he never saw them again. Giving him a wide berth, most likely.

And then, during his endless wandering, he’d caught the scent of charred pine and honey. Jin. His mind was too numb to fully register that he had followed his nose to the source. Not another letter or parcel. Jin-a himself, in the forest with him. Ahn-Bo assumed his mind had finally gone, that the vampire was a hallucination. So he’d watched quietly and carefully from a distance, hidden inside a thick cluster of brush and trees.

The hallucination was rather convincing, it even sounded like Jin, cursing as he fought through the wilderness. But it was not. It couldn’t be. No matter which direction the Jin went, his path was just making a wide circle around the area where Ahn-Bo stood. The young wolf wasn’t able to tear himself away. He knew it wasn’t real. Knew he had intentionally ignored the letters from guilt, and anger, and dread. What would he have even said? How would he have even explained?

As night began to fall and the other predators started their hunts for their next meal, he still stood and watched his vision of his friend tromp around the mud and streams. It wasn’t until he noticed a large male tiger begin stalking through the brush in Jin’s wake that his mind sharpened - just enough to pay closer attention.

Without realizing it, he’d shoved his way through the brush to get closer to the imaginary Jin. The tiger had as well, the tip of its tail twitched slightly as it prepared to pounce. Jin took off running (the opposite of what he should have done, clearly he hadn’t grown up in the mountains) and the tiger gave chase. It was the tangy scent of Jin’s fear that snapped his attention tight as a drawn bowstring. This was real. Jin was real. He was here and he was frightened and a tiger was after him.

He’d stopped carrying his wand with him, so his only option was to get to Jin before the tiger did. In the end, he managed it, even in his weakened state - simply because the tiger had recognized Ahn-Bo’s scent and ran off.

His eyes numbly met Jin’s for the first time in months. ”Annyeong.” His voice was raspy after having gone unused for so long.