Gentle Giant 9

Gentle Giant Chapter 9

#side

Juho was bored. Juho was bored again today.

His older brothers growling and keeping each other in check as always. The servants who couldn’t say anything and froze up from watching those brothers’ moods. And even his mother’s gaze looking at him, hoping he would resolve things.

The daily repeating patterns and same conclusions didn’t even make him yawn anymore.

“Juho! Where are you going, your brothers…”

“Tell them to handle it themselves. If one of them dies, it’ll be over.”

“Hey!”

At the sharp words he spat out, the two brothers who had been confronting each other ready to tear each other apart from behind also flinched. Even that movement was exactly as he had expected.

He had already been in poor condition for several months due to growth spurts hitting him all at once. Every time he woke up, his eye level was different.

The worse Juho’s mood became, the stronger aura flowed out from him. At that menacing atmosphere, the people around him who already found him difficult were increasingly avoiding making eye contact with him.

“Fuck. Only calling me at times like this.”

Despite being in the middle of New York, the property was so vast that it took quite a while to walk back and forth between the main building and the annex.

Knowing that Juho disliked bumping into people, his family had long ago let him stay in the annex alone.

Then they shouldn’t call him for such useless matters either.

Juho cursed inwardly as he returned to the annex.

Juho’s mood had already hit rock bottom after waking up at dawn with aching knees.

Just as the sun was beginning to rise. His already insufficient sleep had completely disappeared without a trace after getting caught up in his brothers’ shameless power struggle.

Since he was already up, he thought he might as well do some preview studying and was about to access the school site to open a lecture when it happened.

‘AniTalk’ appeared as a short popup ad.

Along with an introduction as a friend-making app for beast-men, a cute gray cat character and pink rabbit character were smiling together.

“Hmm, making friends…?”

Juho moved his mouse to close the popup with an indifferent expression.

There were already overflowing numbers of people around him. The problem was that he had no interest in all those overflowing people.

If he had any intention of making friends, he could easily get along with anyone among the people overflowing around him.

However, he extremely disliked getting along with other people. It was his nature. Whether when he was young or now, he felt no interest whatsoever in relationships with others.

But for some reason, just as he was about to press the X, his eyes met with the cat character. The next moment, he found himself unconsciously turning the mouse pointer and clicking the link, and before he knew it, the internet window had switched from the department site to a chat site.

Just as he was entranced again, entering information and clicking ‘Find Friends.’ Curses burst from his mouth.

“Fuck, what is this, did they only gather horny ones? They should at least say hello first.”

As soon as they matched, before he could even type anything on the keyboard, chats quickly came up. Only words related to sex starting with F and ending with K, or starting with S and ending with X.

Juho, who was sick of the open Americans’ way of making friends, tried changing the setting to Korea. Thinking that conservative Korea might be different.

If he hated it so much, he could just not chat, but he was being stubborn for reasons he couldn’t understand himself.

[Matched with JDI7979! Start an enjoyable conversation with your friend!]

[Other person: Hello?]

[Me: Hello. Are you Korean by any chance?]

[Other person: Yes, I’m Korean.]

It was the first Korean he met in chat. And polite greetings befitting the nickname “Land of Eastern Courtesy.”

Juho’s tightly shut lips loosened slightly.

[Me: Oh, that’s a relief! Maybe because I’m in America right now, I keep getting matched only with Americans. So I changed the setting just in case, and now I finally got matched with a Korean.]

He also continued the conversation as politely as possible to match the other person.

[Other person: Ah, I see! You must be living in America!]

[Me: Yes, I’ve been living in America for a long time, but lately I want to talk with Korean people… I tried this for the first time today, but as expected, it’s nice to use Korean^^]

Where did such kindness come from? Juho’s hands were automatically writing down good-natured words before his brain could even give commands.

[Other person: This is my first time today too, honestly there were only weird people here so I was about to delete it ㅠㅠㅠ]

The other person also said this was their first time chatting. Hmm. Did first-timers meet each other? Juho carefully examined the other person’s chat.

[Me: Weird people?]

[Other person: They kept asking to meet and do that thing…]

[Me: That thing?? What’s that?]

[Other person: With, with the body… that…]

[Me: Ah, that thing. They really were weird perverts. You must have had a hard time ㅜㅜ]

[Other person: Right ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ]

[Me: If it’s like that, since I live in America, you can feel a bit relieved. That’s fortunate.]

“Filthy bastards.”

Fuck. Whether Korea or America, they were all the same damn things.

While cursing with his mouth, Juho’s hands were comforting the other person who must have been shocked by their first intense chatting experience. And from that moved other person, a chat asking for his messenger ID came up shortly after.

“What should I do…”

[Me: LJHO1130]

[Me: This is my messenger ID^^]

After briefly contemplating, Juho entered his messenger ID. Somehow he felt like it would be okay to tell that person. If he didn’t like it later, he could just block them. That’s how online meetings work, he thought.

* * *

At first, how should he put it. He thought this was a refreshingly pathetic person he’d never seen around him before.

The chat partner who introduced themselves as ‘Jung Dain’ was conducting what was disguised as self-introduction but was actually reconnaissance for suckers, something Juho hadn’t done even in elementary school. And quite earnestly at that. Including questions he’d never even thought of.

For Dain, it could have been pleasant that Juho was also a feline beast-man. Although he himself was one of the few tiger beast-men among felines, felines were felines anyway.

But why did he ask about blood type and zodiac sign and like them? They didn’t even have the same blood type or zodiac sign.

The twenty questions with Dain that he couldn’t understand the meaning of at first became surprisingly fun as time passed. 90% of that fun was Dain’s reactions.

How should he put it… He was mysteriously old-fashioned, like a time traveler who only appeared in novels. Anyway, he was different from peers who were commonly scattered around.

While exchanging messages with Dain quite enjoyably like that.

“Youngest.”

“Don’t come in.”

“No… hey, you have to go to the clinic today. Mother said to come…”

“Got it.”

“But…”

“If you’re done with what you had to say, it smells, so close the door?”

Juho, whose nerves were on edge even at the slightly open door, glared at his brother.

The brother, who had been curious about what Juho was doing in the annex lately since he never came out, quickly left the annex with hunched shoulders while reading his menacing younger brother’s mood.

Lately, Juho had become sensitive to the smell of males. The distinctive unpleasant body scent of males grated on his nerves.

Juho’s family consisted of tiger beast-men. Especially his family was a case where a Korean tiger beast-man father and American tiger beast-man mother met to form a household.

Being a union of two bloodlines, even though they were the same tiger beast-men, there were some differences between family members.

Juho’s two brothers resembled their mother, while Juho resembled their father, so despite being brothers from the same womb, their appearances were different enough to be mistaken for strangers at first glance.

The two brothers with reddish hair and eyes growled and fought whenever they met. However, among ordinary people, they were surprisingly sociable and gentle.

In contrast, Juho, who looked completely different from his two brothers in appearance, was not gentle to his brothers or anyone else, and was equally prickly to everyone.

Moreover, Juho was born as a Siberian tiger, said to be the largest on Earth, so even as a student whose physique hadn’t fully developed, he had superior physical conditions compared to most adults.

As he passed 20 and his height grew, his muscles also noticeably bulked up, and now there was no one in the family who could surpass Juho in either physique or personality.

‘World of survival of the fittest.’

If you said this to ordinary people, they would think it was something that only happened in African savannas. Even other beast-men, having lived mixed with ordinary people for so long, believed it was an old story.

However, the small number of rulers who had everything at the very top were different.

They could feel the logic of power most intensely, directly on their skin, and they were the ones who followed the logic of power most thoroughly.

And among his family made up of those predators, the one at the very top, in the past, present, and future, was only ‘Lee Juho.’

* * *

A few weeks after finding fun in the small conversations he exchanged with Dain. Now Juho felt not just emptiness but even restlessness if he didn’t exchange messages with Dain for even a day.

Waking up at dawn to match Dain’s life pattern was nothing.

Pretending to be the most affectionate younger brother in the world in messages sent to Dain was also surprisingly not difficult. Strangely, most of the messages he sent were sincere feelings from his heart.

In contrast, reality was still like thin ice. His body growing day by day, and his personality becoming proportionally more prickly.

Now he got annoyed just by someone hovering around. Juho just wanted to stay alone all day exchanging messages with Dain.

Even now, all his nerves were focused on Dain, who had read his message but hadn’t replied. He had to be satisfied with sending just one message, barely restraining himself from persistently asking why there was no reply.

Still, to shake off his endless thoughts of Dain, he ran a lap around the park. But his phone remained silent.

“Tsk.”

With a short tongue click, he headed home without hiding his naturally scrunched face.

Even while concentrating all his senses on the phone in his pocket, there was a noticeable sign. Whether it was a salmon dish specialty restaurant, the store had photos of salmon jumping vigorously displayed along with models of various dishes made with salmon.

He remembered what Dain had said a few days ago about liking salmon dishes.

As expected of a cat beast-man, how excited he had gotten when talking about salmon. Thinking of those messages that poured out all at once in praise of salmon, Juho, who had unconsciously relaxed his scrunched face, opened the store door and went in.

Being thoroughly carnivorous, Juho could count on his fingers the times he had sought out vegetable or fish dishes first. However, his messages to Dain were crafted as if he had great interest in salmon dishes.

[8:47 PM│(Photo)]

[8:48 PM│Came to eat the salmon you like, hyung! It’s perfect for my taste too! It would be great to eat together next time ㅋㅋㅋ]

After pushing the untouched salmon dish to the side of the table and sending a blatant lie, Juho waited for a reply from Dain.

If he sent several like this in a row, given Dain’s personality, he would definitely reply during break time in the middle of lecture.

And as he expected, Dain’s message appeared on his phone screen shortly after.

[Jung Dain: Juho, can’t you let me hear your voice just once?│8:54 PM]

Momentarily flustered by the sudden message, Juho immediately left the store and called Dain without delay. There was no way he would refuse an opportunity to hear Dain’s voice.