“Yoon Yi-hyeon? Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me. More importantly—are you hurt?”
“Ah…… I think I twisted my ankle a bit.”
“Your ankle? For real? Shouldn’t you go to the hospital?”
Yi-hyeon asked while keeping his distance, unable to approach him easily.
“A hospital, my ass. What if you just run off again after that?”
“I’m sorry, but how bad is it? Can you walk?”
When Yi-hyeon hurriedly pulled out his phone, saying they should call their homeroom teacher, Han Jun snatched it away.
“Wait, Yoon Yi-hyeon.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? You can’t call the homeroom teacher right now, can you?”
“What are you talking about? You’re hurt, so of course—”
In that instant, Yi-hyeon couldn’t shake the creeping sense of dread and began to slowly put more distance between them. Even in the darkness, Han Jun must’ve noticed Yi-hyeon’s attempt to flee, because he immediately grabbed his wrist.
“Trying to hide again?”
“M-me? Why would I hide?”
“Well……”
Han Jun fell silent. It didn’t take long for him to speak again, but to Yi-hyeon, that brief pause felt like wandering lost through hell itself.
After hesitating for a moment, Han Jun pulled Yi-hyeon closer. Soon, warm breath brushed against Yi-hyeon’s ear. Lowering his voice to a whisper so quiet it seemed like trouble would erupt if anyone overheard, Han Jun murmured,
“You’ve got ears growing on your head right now.”
Yi-hyeon felt his breath catch in his throat.
Even getting smacked hard on the head wouldn’t have made him feel this dizzy. He stood frozen, unable to speak—or even breathe properly—before finally knocking Han Jun’s hand away. Then he began backing away in a panic.
He heard Han Jun pushing himself up by grabbing onto a structure, limping as he came closer. Then, with a cry, Han Jun collapsed back down. Yi-hyeon’s retreating steps halted. In that brief moment, Han Jun reached out and yanked Yi-hyeon’s arm, using the tilt of his body to grope around Yi-hyeon’s head.
Startled out of his mind, Yi-hyeon slapped at his hand, telling him to stop—but Han Jun’s hand stubbornly returned to his head again. And in the end, atop Yi-hyeon’s hunched head, he found them: soft, plush ears.
Holding down Yi-hyeon’s struggling arm, Han Jun carefully traced the soft curve of his pliable ear with delicate fingertips.
“Just as I thought.”
Yi-hyeon was overwhelmed with confusion.
Since when? Exactly when had he known?
So flustered that he couldn’t even think to run from the person who’d uncovered his true nature, Yi-hyeon only listened as Han Jun suggested they move somewhere quieter and darker, since this spot wasn’t ideal.
After returning to the place where Yi-hyeon had been hiding, the two of them stood there for a while, breathing in silence amid the awkwardness. It was Yi-hyeon—who felt like he might shrivel up and die from anxiety that Han Jun would tell someone—who finally spoke first.
“When did you find out?”
“The day I carried you to the infirmary.”
Why was he saying it so calmly? Wasn’t he scared? Wasn’t it gross?
Don’t I look like a monster?
Han Jun’s composed attitude was impossible for Yi-hyeon to understand from his position. Steadying his breath as if trying to organize the mess in his head, Yi-hyeon asked again.
“Then why didn’t you say anything?”
“Say what? Ask why you have ears?”
“Yeah.”
Yi-hyeon replied evenly.
“Well, it looked like you didn’t really want people knowing. So I left it alone. What was I supposed to say?”
At Han Jun’s words, Yi-hyeon suddenly remembered the image of him waiting with an umbrella that day. If Han Jun—who knew nothing about how ears appeared or whether they could disappear—had been acting out of consideration for him…
There was no way.
Han Jun had no reason to be that considerate of him. And yet, Yi-hyeon still wanted to know the reason behind Han Jun’s actions that day, so he asked again.
“Back then, when you waited for me with the umbrella—was that related to how I looked?”
“Waiting with the umbrella wasn’t really related, but me skipping class and standing there probably was.”
“You skipped class? Why?”
“So no one would go in and see.”
“Don’t tell me… you were worried about me?”
“Why do you have to say ‘don’t tell me’? I was worried about you.”
Han Jun smiled.
Was this really something to smile about? Did Han Jun truly not find it strange—that Yi-hyeon had animal ears and a tail? A sharp shiver crawled up from his jaw, tightening the back of his neck.
Come to think of it, the day after Yi-hyeon had been taken to the infirmary, their homeroom teacher had called Han Jun to the faculty office. Han Jun hadn’t said why, so Yi-hyeon never knew the reason—but now it seemed likely he’d been scolded for skipping class to protect Yi-hyeon’s secret.
Realizing this only now, Yi-hyeon felt both grateful and guilty toward Han Jun, while also being unable to understand why he was being treated with such kindness.
“Why go that far……?”
“There’s no big reason. I just didn’t want the one friend I finally got to be dragged off to some weird lab. Then I’d have no friends again.”
Han Jun said it lightly, as if it were nothing, smiling. Yi-hyeon had thought he was unusual—but not that he’d be this remarkable.
“Don’t you think I’m weird?”
“Weird how?”
“A human body growing animal ears and a tail. Isn’t that weird?”
“Really? You’ve got a tail too? Can I see it? Does it move like your ears?”
“That’s not the point.”
At Yi-hyeon’s heavy voice, Han Jun immediately shut his mouth. Then, after letting out a short sigh, he spoke again in a casual tone.
“There’re plenty of weird things in this world. Even unidentified objects turned out to be real.”
Besides, Han Jun said, after Louis, he’d already experienced firsthand that things science couldn’t explain could happen—so it didn’t shock him that much.
“Oh, and just in case you’re wondering—I haven’t told anyone about you. There’s no one to tell, anyway.”
“You…… why are you this nice to me?”
For no reason, it made things confusing.
Picking at the hangnail on his interlocked fingers, Yi-hyeon asked, then clamped his mouth shut.
“It’s not that I’m being nice. It’s that I don’t have a reason to treat you badly. You didn’t judge me right off the bat. And you saved Louis—the one I love most.”
Yeah. That must be it. It’s not like he has special feelings for me—just because I didn’t think badly of him. That’s why Han Jun also…… Yeah. That has to be it.
And yet, for some reason, his mood sank anyway. Staring blankly into the darkness where he couldn’t tell what was ground and what was empty air, Yi-hyeon heard Han Jun’s voice echo through the cramped space once more.
“You took my side, too. So this time, I’m taking yours. That’s all.”
“Your side?”
“The old gym storage room.”
“Huh?”
Just as Yi-hyeon had suspected, the person in the old gym storage room that day had been Han Jun. Which meant he’d definitely overheard the students talking.
“You’ve got one important secret of mine now, so I’ll tell you one of mine, too.”
Han Jun confided in Yi-hyeon that there was a secret surrounding his birth—one he was supposed to take to his grave. He didn’t want to bring it up himself, so he’d never gone around spreading it, but Se-hyeon—who resented how close Han Jun was becoming with their father—had used a friend’s older brother to spread the fact that Han Jun was the son of an Assembly member throughout the school.
At first, it had been hard to pinpoint a suspect. The story of Han Jun’s birth was known only within the family, and even they didn’t know all the details. On top of that, it wasn’t easy to connect it to Se-hyeon—who was quiet, timid, and trembled whenever he saw his father—being the one who’d gone around exposing his own father’s disgrace.
