The sudden turn of events short-circuited his thoughts. Go Hoon stiffly turned his head and checked again—Bae Jung-yoon lay collapsed on the floor.
His forehead appeared to have split open from the impact with the heavy, metal candlestick. Blood was seeping from the torn skin. Fuck, that must hurt. The pain felt almost contagious; Hoon’s brows furrowed in sympathy.
“…Mrowr?”
‘Bae Jung-yoon, are you okay?’ His voice carried concern and guilt. But his housemate remained unresponsive.
‘Why the hell isn’t he moving?’ Watching the unmoving body made his anxiety surge. Go Hoon swallowed hard, his face tight with tension, and cautiously stepped closer to Jung-yoon.
“Nyaaaooo?”
‘Hey, wake up. You didn’t pass out, did you?’ He eyed him with suspicion.
A thought crossed his mind—what if Bae Jung-yoon was pretending? What if he was faking this whole scene just to lure him in and catch him, using his own body as bait to trap him after all that dodging and running?
But then he noticed that blood was also trickling from the part of Jung-yoon’s head touching the floor—not just his forehead. That single detail shattered all doubt. Only now did the gravity of the situation truly hit.
“Myaaang!”
Blood pooled beneath the back of Jung-yoon’s head, forming a small puddle. The metallic tang grew stronger, stabbing at Hoon’s nose. His heart pounded violently. Choi Joo-won’s face overlapped in his vision—flashing over Bae Jung-yoon’s limp figure.
“YAAANG!”
Hoon rushed to his side, shouting his name. Still no response. He tugged at his sleeve with his teeth, even tapped his cheek gently, but the tall man lay completely motionless.
“Waong…”
Now Hoon pleaded with him. ‘Bae Jung-yoon, please. You have to wake up. You can’t just die like this. If you go so pointlessly… what the hell am I supposed to do now?!’
Overflowing with desperation, he began licking his face, sweeping his rough tongue across the soft skin. It made a sound like sandpaper grating on glass.
If this were any other day, Bae Jung-yoon would’ve laughed, flinching at the sting. But now—nothing. No reaction at all. His eyes, calmly shut, showed no sign of those dark pupils ever opening again.
Panic crept in faster and deeper. Go Hoon tried another tactic—biting at his fingers and forearm hard enough to hurt—but Jung-yoon didn’t so much as twitch. ‘No way… he’s not actually dead, is he?’
His mind spiraled into chaos. Like when he’d first woken up alone in the animal hospital’s inpatient room—except this was worse. Far worse.
‘If Bae Jung-yoon really dies like this…?’
No one would feed him. Maybe he could get by for a while, but not long. If he were left alone for too long, there’d be no coming back. He could easily end up trapped and dead in this very house.
A news article he’d skimmed months ago suddenly came to mind. An elderly man had died alone, and the cat he’d raised was found starved to death beside him.
Now, they could be that story.
No—none of that mattered right now. What mattered was that Go Hoon couldn’t just stand here and watch Bae Jung-yoon die. Even if he’d sometimes found him annoying, even terrifying—this one truth remained unchanged.
Bae Jung-yoon was the first person to ever offer him unconditional affection. The one who’d filled him—who’d always lacked—with more than he even knew he needed.
If he were to die so pathetically like this… Go Hoon knew the shock would crush him. Yeah. Losing someone… that kind of thing leaves behind a nightmare you can never escape. So think. Think clearly. How could he save Bae Jung-yoon?
Go Hoon shook his head violently and snapped himself into focus. He couldn’t lift or carry him in this body, so he had to contact the outside world somehow.
He dashed toward the front door. Targeting the lock mechanism on the inner door, he wiggled his butt for momentum and then launched himself upward.
Pain shot up his hind leg as he landed. Gritting his teeth, Hoon reached his front paws toward the lock midair. Just as expected, it wasn’t easy. He tried several more times, but there was no way he could unlock it on his own.
‘This won’t work. Try something else. Anything else.’
Scanning the area in frantic urgency, Go Hoon’s eyes landed on Jung-yoon’s jacket.
‘Right! His phone! Call 119!’
He hurried back and sniffed his way to the jacket pocket. Wedging a paw inside, he managed to pull the phone out—somehow.
But then—face recognition lock. No way to get past it. He tried holding the phone up to Jung-yoon’s face with his mouth, but it was too heavy.
“Nyaaaaaaang!”
FUCK! Slamming both paws on the phone screen in frustration, Go Hoon took a few deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down. ‘Think clearly, Go Hoon. Be rational. Losing your shit won’t solve anything.’
His body didn’t have the strength to drag the phone. There was only one option left.
He had to transform back into a human. Even if he didn’t know how, he had to figure it out.
More desperate than ever, Go Hoon began to spin in frantic circles before abruptly stopping.
His face set in grim determination, he planted strength into his hind legs and brought his front paws together in midair—assuming the closest posture to prayer he could manage. His body wobbled, balance shaky, but he didn’t care.
This was, without question, his last-ditch effort.
‘Please, please! Jesus, Buddha, God, Virgin Mary, Allah, spirits, and every other deity in existence—please let me return to my human body! I’m begging you like this!’
Go Hoon pressed his soft, fluffy paws together in desperate prayer, invoking every god he knew.
‘I can’t become a murderer—or rather, a murder-cat—like this! Aren’t you even a little sympathetic to this lost and wandering lamb?! Why does it always have to be my life that gets fucked up like this? What did I do so wrong? All I’ve ever done is try my best to live! Are you seriously going to keep treating me like this?!’
The injustice burned through him, bubbling in his chest like a pot about to boil over. But he swallowed it down. Go Hoon continued his heartfelt plea.
‘If you help me just this once, I swear I’ll live my life the right way. I’ll live kindly. I’ll be grateful for every single day. Even if life is a total shitshow, I’ll look after the people around me and live to help them. I won’t blame my parents anymore. I won’t resent God. So please, I beg you. Let me go back to being human. This is the first and last time I’ll ever pray so desperately in my life.’
Honestly, he didn’t have high hopes that this would work. He was just throwing everything out there because he had no other options.
But then something strange happened. Had his desperate prayer actually been heard? Or was it just his brain short-circuiting from overload? All of a sudden, his vision began to spin.
“Uuuurgh…”
Nausea swept over him, and it felt like his skull was cracking open from the inside. Grimacing, Go Hoon rubbed at his forehead with a paw. His blinking, flickering sight gradually grew dim. ‘No… I can’t pass out now. I have to save Bae Jung-yoon…’
He squeezed his eyes shut and curled up into himself. A bizarre sensation engulfed his whole body—like the entire universe was spinning around him, with him at the center.
“Kkyaaaong…”
A strained whimper slipped out between his teeth. And just as suddenly as it had arrived, the dizzy spell vanished. In an instant.
Go Hoon’s eyes snapped open. ‘What the hell was that?’ Blinking in confusion, he glanced around—and something felt different. ‘…Wait. This…’
With a flicker of hope, he looked down.
“…A human hand.”
The sight of his tanned hand, veined and muscular, filled his vision.
“My voice!”
Clutching his throat, Go Hoon cried out with joy. It was so good to hear his own voice again. It felt like that moment in the movie he’d seen as a kid—when the little mermaid finally got her voice back. A weird comparison, yeah, but that’s how happy he was.
He ran his hands all over himself, touching his long limbs, stroking the smooth skin—and laughter burst from his lips. Everything had returned to normal. And more than anything else, he could clearly see his healthy, intact lower half.
“I almost lost this precious thing.”
Go Hoon’s vision blurred as he clutched his groin with both hands. Yeah. Forget everything else—this is the one thing I absolutely cannot lose. A life without this isn’t worth living.
Didn’t the old saying go, “One’s body is a gift from one’s parents—never damage it lightly”? No matter how shitty his parents had been to him, this was still the body they gave him.
Wait. Hadn’t he just promised not to resent his parents anymore?
‘Thank you,’ he thought, eyes misting as he raised his arms toward the heavens. ‘Thank you for giving me the chance to make things right.’
But that moment of gratitude didn’t last long.
Shit, this isn’t the time for this! He couldn’t just stand around basking in the miracle of turning human again.
