Gentle Giant 27

Gentle Giant Chapter 27

Chapter 3

It had already been over a week since Juho came to Korea. In the meantime, Dain had quit his convenience store part-time job that he had worked throughout summer vacation.

On the day Dain quit his part-time job, Juho was happy enough to throw a chicken party. This was because there had been quite a few bastards he had to secretly deal with while following Dain to the convenience store. He had never known there were so many hopeless pieces of trash in the world.

There was also a small change for Juho. Just two days ago, he had moved to a house that the company found for him.

When Juho recalled Dain’s tearful expression from that time, his heart still tingled even now.

In between all this, the two met every day to eat together and spend time.

And tomorrow was the day second semester classes would begin.

From this morning, the day before, Dain was already feeling nervous with his heart rate rising. Because of this, he turned on his phone to check his class schedule, then checked his alarms again according to it, and then checked if any new posts had been uploaded to the community. He had already repeated this countless times.

Juho, who was stretched out long on Dain’s bed, observed Dain’s behavior and gradually raised the corners of his mouth. It felt like watching a cat that spent all day going up and down a cat tower repeatedly.

However, when Dain repeated that exact behavior for the 17th time, Juho got off the bed and snatched Dain’s phone.

“If you’ve checked that much, I think you’d memorize not just tomorrow’s but a whole week’s schedule.”

“Uh… I’m so nervous. I feel like I’ve forgotten to prepare something…”

“You don’t need to do that. The first lecture is just orientation anyway, right?”

“Yeah. That’s true, but…”

Even as Dain nodded at Juho’s words, he kept chewing his lips. Juho, who was going to pass it off thinking he must be quite nervous, also tilted his head at that excessive reaction.

“Hyung, is something wrong? Why are you so nervous?”

At Juho’s gentle question, Dain stopped chewing and raised his head. Seeing that Dain’s lips were slightly bleeding, Juho clicked his tongue briefly and carefully stroked his lips with his finger.

“Doesn’t it hurt? Why are you biting your lips? You’re about to bleed.”

“Ah… r-right. It’s okay. It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. It doesn’t seem like you’re just nervous?”

Juho’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. It wasn’t just a casual question, but an expression that seemed genuinely worried about him.

After confirming Juho’s worried face again, Dain hesitated several times inwardly before carefully bringing up the topic.

“Um. Juho, do you remember when we first talked on the phone?”

“Ah, yes.”

Juho’s eyebrows furrowed more severely. It seemed like he could vividly hear Dain’s crying voice wailing over the phone in his ears. How angry he had been that he was in America at that time.

Come to think of it, even after that incident passed, he had never heard the detailed story about why he had cried like that.

“That day, I said I had something unfair happen to me… At that time, um… actually, in the lecture hall, other kids misunderstood that I was meeting people through chat for se-, sexual relations. Uh, uh… But, I, I really didn’t! I never did that! It’s really a misunderstanding!”

Dain desperately waved his hands in case Juho might misunderstand him. Since he had first met Juho through chatting too, he was worried that Juho might be disappointed and angry after hearing this story.

I should have explained it more tactfully! What’s with saying “sexual relations” so directly! Even at times like this, Dain blamed himself for not being eloquent and anxiously watched Juho’s reaction.

Listening to the words coming from Dain’s mouth, Juho put all his strength into his hands that were in his pockets. He was desperate just to prevent the curses he was saying inwardly from bursting out of his mouth.

The reason Dain had cried like that was… Ha, there probably isn’t another beast-man in the world who’s this innocent and naive.

Jung Dain, who doesn’t listen to or speak dirty jokes, has no interest in other women or beast-men passing by (if he had been interested, he wouldn’t have let it slide, though of course it would be that object of interest, not Dain), and gets flustered and turns his ears bright red whenever kissing scenes appear on TV or in movies (it’s kissing, not just pecking)…?

Jung Dain, who builds walls against everything like someone practicing asceticism in the mountains for a beast-man…?

If those trash-like misunderstandings saw Juho, who had been drooling while looking at Dain who was pure to the point of being like blank white paper since coming to Korea, such garbage misunderstandings would disappear in the blink of an eye.

Moisture was gradually filling Dain’s eyes, however he interpreted that silence. Seeing that change, Juho swallowed his curses along with a short breath and quickly spoke.

“No, hyung. I don’t misunderstand. What is there to misunderstand? I know so well what kind of person hyung is. I was just upset that I couldn’t be by hyung’s side at that time, that’s all.”

“Juho…”

Moved by Juho’s words, Dain sniffled instead of shedding tears.

“sniff. Hmm, hmph!”

At the sight of him scrunching up and sniffling, Juho, who couldn’t hold back his laughter, made a sound that was unclear whether it was a cough or laughter while squinting his eyes. Then Dain’s face turned red and the heavy atmosphere quickly ended.

Although snot came out instead of tears, Dain, moved by Juho’s unchanged attitude, released the tension from his stiff shoulders and sat down on the bed.

Juho, who sat on the bed following Dain, began to genuinely comfort him while gently massaging Dain’s shoulders.

“So hyung doesn’t want to go to school?”

“Mm, no. It’s not that I don’t want to go to school… When I looked at the community that afternoon, the kids in my department already knew about that incident. Even if it’s a misunderstanding, everyone only remembers that such a thing happened. I’m worried that when the semester starts, people will only talk about that when they see me… I’m just worried about it.”

“Don’t worry. Probably 90% of the kids who talk about such things won’t even remember what happened. The words of people who like gossiping about others aren’t worth listening to or worrying about. Besides, it’s not even true. And hyung, I said I could do the job of 100 friends! You can just hang out with me, so don’t worry about such things and rest a bit now, okay? You’ll get tired even before going to school.”

At Juho’s gentle words filled with worry, Dain finally nodded.

Like Juho said, he only hoped that everyone would forget about that incident during summer vacation.

“Oh my, our hyung. Look how ugly you’ve become with that runny nose. Who could have spread such mean words?”

“sniff, my nose isn’t running anymore… Am I still ugly?”

“Pffft.”

When Juho made that deflating laugh sound again, Dain glanced at him sideways. Then he grabbed Juho’s hand that was touching his shoulder with his fingers and fidgeted with it while continuing to speak.

“When I called you, actually… my ears and whiskers came out too? It was the first time they came out after turning 20, so I was really surprised. I was worried about what people would say if they saw. I really cried tears and broke out in cold sweat…!”

“Really? You must have been really flustered.”

Juho’s hand that was stroking Dain stopped for a moment. Shit, to miss that scene. It’s not like he could force them to come out… Juho anxiously stomped his foot on the floor while imagining the ears sprouting from Dain’s head.

“Yeah yeah. It took over 30 minutes just to get them to go back in. I was crouched alone in the bathroom all that time.”

Thinking about it again, Dain found himself from that time both funny and pitiful. To think he was sniffling in a corner of a bathroom stall with his over 180cm build. When it wasn’t even enough to show only good sides to Juho, he didn’t like that he was only bringing up such stories.

However, contrary to Dain’s thoughts, Juho’s eyes were sparkling as he heard those words.

So once the ears come out, they can be maintained for 30 minutes…?

Juho thought his life was boring to the extent that he had rarely experienced anything called emotional ups and downs. Because of that, he had never even transformed into his animal form once since turning double digits in age.

He had never been curious about other beast-men’s true forms either, and when he saw other beast-men’s true forms, he would even look at them with contemptuous eyes, calling them beast bastards who couldn’t even control their emotions.

However, Jung Dain was different. No matter what, he absolutely wanted to see Jung Dain’s cat ears. No, he had to see them. If not him, who would see Jung Dain’s cute ears and tail?

“Hmm…”

Juho thought he should learn more about when beast-men’s ears or tails come out.

Since he couldn’t make Dain anxious with general conditions like being under extreme stress or being suddenly greatly surprised…

He became tremendously curious about something he had never thought about in his 20 years of life.

Crazy. If he whines with his ears out, fuck… Imagining an appearance he had never seen, Juho grabbed his stiffening nose. And he slowly stroked Dain’s head, which would someday sprout ears.

Unaware of Juho’s inner thoughts, Dain’s anxious feelings disappeared and he gradually became comfortable at the soft and warm sensation.

Dain rubbed his hair more against Juho’s hand, meaning to show gratitude. At Dain’s small aegyo that was hard to notice, Juho slightly raised the corners of his mouth even higher and also exhaled with a deeply languid expression.