Doubler || NCT || Completed

69

"Reindeer."

Yujin glanced towards the living room that was separated from the spacious kitchen with a short corridor. "Huh?"

She had spent the last ten minutes or so trying to figure out how to use a box of instant mashed potato but was still no wiser than when she had started. She had thought that she was quite good at understanding English but clearly that wasn't the case. The Norwegian texts were even more confusing.

"Reindeer", Jisung's voice repeated. "There's one outside the house."

His comment piqued Yujin's curiosity and she left the kitchen to see what was going on.

In the living room, Jisung was on his knees on the couch, leaning against the backrest of the couch, and staring out from the window behind it. Yujin climbed next to him, copying his position by leaning her stomach against the backrest.

What greeted her behind the window was the impressive and very foreign scenery filled with moss, steep rocks, curvy hills and sky that seemed to be very close to the beautiful yet barren landscape. It was an odd mixture of colours from the dark green moss with a hint of yellow to the almost black rocks and the thousand shades of light grey of the clouds covering the endless sky.

In the middle of the majestic scenery, perhaps 15 meters from the house, stood a huge, dark brown animal with antlers and long, gangly legs. It looked enormous standing among the weather-beaten bushes, and Yujin was sure that it could poke her eyes out with its antlers.

"Isn't that a moose?" she asked, remembering she had seen pictures of reindeer and moose back in school. Besides, Chenle hadn't said anything about reindeer but he had mentioned that there were a lot of moose in the area they were staying in. Yujin had no idea what the place was called.

Jisung shrugged. "You're talking to a person who didn't finish high school. How could I know the difference between a moose and a reindeer?"

Yujin eyed him. It was difficult to keep in mind that despite everything that had happened during the past few days, she knew essentially nothing about Jisung and his past.

"Do you think Chenle will be back soon?" Jisung changed the topic, ignoring Yujin's pensive stare.

"He should", she answered, turning to look outside the window again. It was a very cloudy day but she could still see quite far up the rocky hill behind the house. Had they looked out from the kitchen window, they would've seen the fjord in all of its beauty. "He's been gone for four hours."

They had arrived in Norway four days ago. The first day they had spent in train and rental car, driving up from Oslo to reach Chenle's family's holiday home number 5, which was located in northern Norway (the other ones were in Indonesia, New Zealand, Brazil and the US).

The second and third day they had spent in the black house - for some reason many Norwegian houses were dark in colour - trying to sleep and not think about what they had left behind in Korea. Yujin hadn't been very successful at either of the tasks.

In the morning of the fourth day, Chenle had announced that he was going to the closest bigger city to buy groceries and receive a phone and laptop from a trusted contact since they had been obligated to leave all of their contact devices back home.

That meant, that for the past days, they had been unable to contact the pack.

Yujin's grip on the instant mashed potato box tightened.

That also meant that she hadn't heard any news about Jeno.

She didn't know whether he had woken up or not. She didn't even know if he was alive.