The call ended limply. Eunho’s dazed face was reflected in the dark screen.
Dating advice……
Eunho muttered to himself. Yeah. Maybe instead of just lying around like this, it’d be better to go out and talk to someone, like Chanwoo said.
Pushing himself up from his seat, Eunho got dressed. Wearing a white T-shirt and shorts, he tucked his protruding ears back in at the last moment.
“It should be fine if I come back early, right?”
After taking one last look at the empty living room, Eunho turned around. Ahjussi went to work without me anyway. Completely forgetting that he was supposed to call Yi-beom, Eunho hurried toward the meeting place.
***
Outside looked no different than usual. Maybe because it was lunchtime, the streets were full of people with ears and tails.
I guess what they said on the news was true.
From puppies to sloths. The animals people had turned into varied widely, but 97% of them were said to be herbivores. That was precisely why society had been able to return to normal so quickly. Aside from the occasional person absentmindedly grazing on grass, there was a limit to the trouble herbivores could cause.
Our Ahjussi really is special……..
Three percent of the population. For no particular reason, Yi-beom suddenly seemed like an incredible person.
Just then, Eunho stopped walking. Something was posted on the door of the café he often visited with Yi-beom.
“Carnivorous Beastmen…… prohibited?”
Why is this stuck here? As he tilted his head toward the café, someone suddenly grabbed his shoulder.
A water deer Beastman—Kim Chanwoo.
“Jung Eunho!”
Like a water deer shrieking kkieeek, Chanwoo ran toward him, loudly calling his name. Eunho burst out laughing. The discomfort he’d felt from reading the notice seemed to blow away.
“You laughing? You’re laughing?”
Chanwoo rubbed his head against Eunho.
“A rabbit? You’re a rabbit?”
“Ah, what are you doing?”
“Let me see. Wait, even your hair color changed, didn’t it?”
Circling Eunho restlessly, Chanwoo looked him over from every angle. His neatly styled hair became messy in the process, but Eunho only laughed weakly.
“Hey, stop touching!”
His friend was always lively and scatterbrained. He’d been that way since the first day they met. So cheerful and refreshing it made you wonder how someone could be that bright.
Eunho still remembered the day he first met Kim Chanwoo.
It was the first day of high school orientation. They were sitting side by side in the auditorium listening to the principal’s speech when he started hearing whispers from nearby students. The whispers were about Eunho, who was sitting there alone without his parents.
“That’s him, right? The one whose parents died in that accident……?”
“I think so? He’s sitting alone, isn’t he?”
“Then does he live alone? Lucky.”
From strange sidelong glances to gazes tinged with envy, all kinds of attention poured toward Eunho. He tried his best not to turn his head their way.
The more you reacted, the more the rumors spread. Having lived inside rumors from a young age, Eunho had learned that far too early.
“So is he an orphan?”
But when that last comment flew at him, he couldn’t endure it anymore. Don’t cry. Biting his lip hard, Eunho desperately lowered his head.
That was when a shadow stretched long over him.
When he looked up, he saw a boy with light brown hair. On his chest was a name tag that read Kim Chanwoo.
“Hey.”
“H-huh?”
Eunho answered reflexively, meeting his eyes. At that moment, Chanwoo broke into a bright smile and held out his hand.
“I’m an orphan too. Let’s get along, orphan buddies?”
Before he knew it, Eunho had taken his hand. He was a strange kid. While everyone else whispered about losing parents, Kim Chanwoo acted like it was nothing.
“Parents should be an odd number anyway. Right?”
“……Zero isn’t an odd number.”
When Eunho added that, Chanwoo burst into loud laughter. His laugh was so big it drowned out the classmates’ whispers.
“You’re crazy smart. If I stick with you, my grades might go up.”
Clapping, Chanwoo shoved the friend sitting next to him aside and took the seat. Whether orphan buddies really did share some kind of wavelength, or whether the oddball Chanwoo simply matched well with the even odder Eunho—either way, the two had stayed close until now.
If his older brother Eunchan was like a father to him, Chanwoo was like a mother. Because of that, even Yi-beom had to pass Chanwoo’s inspection.
After looking Eunho over from head to toe, Chanwoo suddenly glanced around behind him.
“Ahjussi didn’t come, right?”
“No. He went to work.”
“Phew, that’s a relief.”
Clearly showing his relief, Chanwoo placed a hand over his chest.
“Every time I see that man, I feel like my heart’s about to jump out of my chest.”
“Why would you?”
Eunho’s eyes narrowed.
“Why are you getting butterflies over Ahjussi?”
“Are you insane?”
“You just said your heart was pounding.”
“Not pounding—I said it feels like it’s about to split in half!”
“Whatever. You might be aiming for Ahjussi.”
“Are you crazy, Jung Eunho?”
Chanwoo protested wildly. Just because he made one little mistake, how could Eunho link him with Yi-beom? For a second, Chanwoo pictured Yi-beom’s face and shuddered from head to toe.
“Even if it was just me and that man left in this world, there’s no way we’d ever hit it off! If our eyes met, sparks would fly!”
“……Are you declaring to me that you’re going to have a fiery love?”
Eunho glared at him.
“No matter how close we are, that’s not allowed.”
“I don’t want that either!”
