Danger Zone

Daime wakes up cold as he looks over to his phone to see what time it is in Russia. His phone says four thirty in the early morning. He groans as he looks up to the ceiling of the small house and frowns.

Yesterday is eventful for Daime. Yesterday is also his first day of seeing Khabarovsk and having a trip from that place to where the old lady lives. 

He inhales a heavy sigh as he sits down from the small bed and stretches both of his arms, legs and his back. Crackles from overused bones are being heard all throughout the room. 

He even stretches his lower back and tries to hear if he it will have cracks, too. Nonetheless, after what Daime did, he yawns at the freezing morning in the mountains peak. 

He looks at the window seal but it is covered with heavy snow and moistening glass that it is hard to see what does it looks outside of the small house.

He knows that it is too early to come down to the first floor of the small house so he decides to sit on the floor and measures the length of his body to know how much reconstructing he needs to do to fit on the bed. 

His legs are tired from dangling over the edge of the bed because he is too tall. 

"Okay. I should just lay down and puts some books on the top of my head up to my feet to see how long I should make my bed to fit in."

Daime also knows that it won't take long to stay here. He needs to go back to Switzerland, too. Or at least contact his family there, especially his sister, to tell them that he is still alive. 

Daime has always been the type of guy to call on his family whenever he is away. Even if his sister knows that he will arrive safely at his destination, he always do that gesture to keep her calm as well. 

But since his phone is nowhere to be found, there is nothing he can do but go back to the city and finds a way on how to get back to Switzerland. 

He just hopes that the old lady knows the way back. 

Daime shakes the thought off of his mind and lays down flat on the wooden floor and puts some books at the length that he wants. After doing that, he moves away from the position and stares at the length of the bed. 

"Did I grew taller or I am just that tall?"

Daime is still looking at the books laying flat on the floor when he hears some footsteps coming his way. He looks behind him and he sees the old lady, carrying an ax and a hunting rifle.

She smiles upon seeing Daime looking at her. Her sweet smile that can almost kill anyone. That innocent smile that doesn't fades even if she dies and move along his family to the after life.

A smile that needs to be protected at all times. Daime looks at her and smiles back as he stares at the hunting rifle. Thinking of what will she do with that before looking at the ax as well.

"Are you going to kill me now because you caught me lying to you?"

The old lady only chuckles at him and moves her head towards the door.

"Join me outside, child. Let's hunt some animals from breakfast and do some lumberjacks. Winter is nearing the mountains. We need more woods for the fire."

Daime nods at her and follows her out of the small house. As he goes out of the house, his eyes wonders at the nightly sky of Vladivostok. 

"Wow. What the actual fuck?"

The old lady looks back to where Daime is and smile. Her little Aster still likes the look of the sky at night.

"He never changes. My cute little Aster is still the same."

She whistles to call Daime's attention and when Daime looks at her that's when she knows that this man, no matter how many times he says no and tells her that he is not her Aster, she will thinks otherwise.

This man right here is Aster. And no one can change her decision of what she will believe. 

"Let's go, child. Or we might not catch any breakfast."

Daime nods at her and follows her from behind. That is his initial plan but upon seeing that the old lady is having a hard time carrying two big weapons in between hands, Daime grabs the ax from her left hand and carries it for her.

"Stop treating me like a child, Auntie. I am too big to be that person anymore."

The old lady chuckles and smiles at his gesture. She pinches her muscular arm and walks past by him. 

"If you keep up with that pace of yours, you will get eaten by a bear instead of you eating him."

Daime uses long strides to catch up with her shorter strides until he realizes that they are now laughing and having a great time. When they reach the camping site where the old lady does her daily lumberjacks, she tasks Daime to do it instead. 

"You need logs for your new bed, right? Do it instead then. Make some for the fireplace as well."

Savage.

What a savage old lady. She takes out a woven basket and places it behind her back. She takes the hunting rifle and carries it around her arm before waving good bye to Daime.

"I will teach you how to hunt next time. You need to get used to this life first before moving onto the second part."

Daime only stares at her before nodding slowly. Whatever lessons these are, he hopes that it will give him some advice on how he shall live his life after knowing that the one he loves will only be given to Primo just because he is the heir of this wealthy family with a big company. 

Daime sighs as he stares at the logs that are scattered along side the chopped redwood tree. The young man knows that it is a redwood because he studies them when he was still a kid.

He remembers that he loves talking about redwoods up until the age of seven. And that changes when he meets Primo, who looks like a redwood to him.

Primo is tall, standing in a whopping five feet nine inches at only fifteen years old. He is the tallest among the third generation Santoros and Daime is the second. 

He has always been there hiding behind Primo's shadow, waiting for that light to come and find him. And that changes when he met Aiden. 

Meeting Aiden is the best thing that had happened to Daime. Finding that exact light that he has been wanting to have and he knows that it is Aiden.

But then, Primo enters the picture. Leaving Daime in the amidst of wanting to have a light and pushed in towards the darkness of being a shadow. It is like a slap right on Daime's face. 

Especially when Aiden looks like he favors Primo more than him. Their memories together are all limited and Aiden seems to only care about Primo instead of him.

Daime sighs at this thought and immediately grabs one of the wood blocks and places it in the middle of the wood chopper. He positions the ax in the middle of the wood and lifts it slowly before dropping it at the center of the wood.

From afar, the old lady is looking what Daime is doing. Truthfully, she invites Daime here so she can observe what he is doing while she is away. Hunting for breakfast is just an excuse for her to have a great time with Daime.

It has been years since she has seen Aster. After his sister died of fatigue and overwork, her brother-in-law is forced to sell his child to a much bigger and wealthier family to have a great future.

When she heard about this, she was devastated and almost killed her brother-in-law for selling his kid to someone else. 

When she finds out that he was threatened for it, she even got mad to the family. She knows that Aster is in Switzerland and this child in front of her is not her Aster. 

But after so many years of waiting and begging for the military to find Aster, leaving her home in Moscow and living here in the mountains of Vladivostok, she is met with desperation to meet and be with Aster even more.

She is old and wrinkled but her memory is still fresh in her mind. The only memory she has of Aster before he was taken away by the Santoro family. 

The desperation is plastered all over her face so when she finds out about the news of the plane crash from the military, she immediately went to the hospital and looks for her Aster. 

Finding Daime out of this made her decide to take revenge to the Santoro family through him. So they will feel how much pain they inflicted in her family.

"I will change you, my child. Just they wait."