How uncomfortable must it be to live with a tumbler hanging between your legs? His heart was still pounding wildly. For that reason, Yi-hyeon had gone over an hour without relieving himself and was on the verge of bursting.
At this rate, I’m really going to piss myself!
Stomping his feet in place, Yi-hyeon had no choice but to dash over to the bathroom door and scratch at it furiously while calling for Han Jun.
“Kyiiing, kyiiing.”
The falling rush of water—shaaa—seemed to drown out the sound, because there was no response. Turning around, Yi-hyeon began kicking the door with his hind legs, thump thump. Only then did the door crack open slightly, and a thoroughly soaked Han Jun peeked his head out.
“Louis?”
Water streamed down from his hair, tracing along his sharp-featured face, pooling at the tip of his chin before dripping onto the marble bathroom floor.
“Kyiiing.”
Finding Yi-hyeon’s obsession with the closed door strange, Han Jun said he’d finish up quickly and disappeared back into the bathroom.
After rinsing off and hastily changing clothes, Han Jun scooped Yi-hyeon into his arms. Then, with long strides, he headed down the steel staircase. Yi-hyeon squeezed out every last bit of strength, stiffening all four legs and stubbornly holding in his urge like an act of defiance.
“Did he learn how to go outside without me even teaching him?”
Muttering to himself, Han Jun opened the front door and set Yi-hyeon down on the ground. With a National Assembly member for a father, Yi-hyeon had vaguely assumed the family must be well-off—but reality far exceeded his imagination.
Didn’t matter either way. To Yi-hyeon, the neatly maintained, vast green garden was nothing more than one enormous restroom. The moment his paws hit the ground, he shot off like a water rocket, sprinting straight toward a distant pine tree.
“Was it really outdoor potty?”
Han Jun let out an exclamation of admiration as he watched him.
Hiding himself behind the majestic pine tree that clearly looked expensive at a glance, Yi-hyeon relieved himself with overwhelming relief. A faint trickling sound echoed between his two hind legs. As he felt himself drifting further and further away from being human, Yi-hyeon nearly burst into tears along with it.
This can’t be how I’m supposed to live forever… right?
He had just finished his business and was performing a couple of sharp, decisive kicks with his hind legs—pak! pak!—when—
“Louis.”
Han Jun’s voice sounded right behind him.
Startled, Yi-hyeon spun around to see Han Jun holding a pack of wet wipes in his hand. Thinking of the immaculate marble floors polished enough to reflect faces, Yi-hyeon obediently plopped his dirt-smudged front paw onto the hand Han Jun extended while crouching in front of him. Gently cupping the tiny cotton-puff paw, Han Jun smiled warmly.
“Our Louis, since you went pee-pee, shall we wipe your bum now?”
Bum…… The word somehow sounded awful to Yi-hyeon. Slipping his captured paw free, he immediately bolted for his life.
***
Back in the room, Yi-hyeon immediately crawled under the bed and buried his shame-flushed face deep into the corner. Never in his entire life had he felt this humiliated.
“Louis, what’s wrong? What happened?”
Yi-hyeon shot an accusatory glare at Han Jun, who had bent down and peered into the narrow gap under the bed. At nineteen years old, being the same age—and even the same class—as the person wiping that place… he never wanted to know what that felt like for as long as he lived.
The image of Han Jun laughing as he casually chased after Yi-hyeon with his long strides, no matter how desperately Yi-hyeon tried to escape, was still painfully vivid. Yi-hyeon didn’t want to remember today even in his dreams. If he did, it would surely become a nightmare.
“Louis, look at this. Your favorite animal friends.”
Han Jun turned on a video on his phone and held it into the narrow gap. It was pet-only content with cute, cartoonized animals.
[I’ll brush my teeth well, kko-ya. Healthy fangs are cool!]
[I’ll groom myself properly, kko-ya. Aren’t my furs tempting?]
[Kko-ya, kko-ya, I’ll eat well. We’re healthy animal friends!]
……Please, stop.
It was the perfect signal song to push Yi-hyeon even deeper into his self-dug cave.
***
After dozing off and waking up, Yi-hyeon crawled forward and cautiously poked his head out from under the bed. Han Jun was sitting at his desk, studying. He was the kind of guy who never read a single line at school, yet he was so focused that he didn’t even turn around at the sound of Yi-hyeon’s claws.
So he does study. And he’s got good concentration, too. No wonder his grades are good.
Seen from the front, Han Jun was all about his face—he was that kind of rare, strikingly handsome guy. But from behind, he was different. A straight back, proper posture. His shoulders were broad and sharply defined, wide enough to make you feel steady just looking at them.
Lower down, his slightly narrow hips flowed into thighs that looked thick and solid.
This is the first time shorts have ever looked obscene to me.
Even though the chair was clearly tailored to his build, his legs were so long that below his slightly bent knees, well-defined calf muscles were visible. Watching Han Jun’s back as he sat there, focused, on a round, plush cushion, Yi-hyeon suddenly became painfully aware of his own situation and felt a wave of sadness wash over him.
Ha… I’m the one who should be studying. I don’t have time to be doing this.
At this rate, he’d end up crossing the threshold of college still as a puppy. As Yi-hyeon lay there gloomily stretched out, his stomach let out a loud gurgle.
Come to think of it, he hadn’t eaten a single meal on the day of the accident.
Maybe because hunger made his skin feel thinner, he felt cold, too. Curling himself up as tightly as he could, Yi-hyeon forced his drooping eyes open again and again. Just as he was about to drift into a shallow sleep—
Knock, knock.
Startled by the sound, Yi-hyeon perked both ears.
Han Jun didn’t respond at first, apparently not hearing it, but when Yi-hyeon let out a series of kyiiing kyiiing noises to alert him, he finally caught the second knock and spoke.
“If it’s Han Se-hyeon, get lost. I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
The name Han Se-hyeon wasn’t unfamiliar to Yi-hyeon.
What he hadn’t expected was that Han Jun would be living in the same house as his half-brother. Still, given the nature of their relationship, Yi-hyeon had already guessed they wouldn’t be close.
“Jun, it’s Auntie.”
And that deep, rich scent seeping in through the crack in the door—no way.
Meat smell?
The door opened, and a middle-aged woman entered the room. As a savory, oily aroma wafted richly from the bowl she was holding, Yi-hyeon sprang to his feet, his fluffy tail starting to whirl like a propeller without anyone telling it to.
It’s really meat!
“Louis, let’s eat.”
Inside the bowl she set down were beautifully grilled pieces of beef along with assorted vegetables. It looked like something you’d see at a high-end buffet salad bar.
Oh my god. Pets in rich households really eat differently. But… is it okay for me to eat Louis’s food?
Licking around his mouth, Yi-hyeon looked up at the woman with sparkling eyes.
“Oh my, you like it? You see it? You see the Korean beef? Our Louis sees the Korean beef?”
After speaking familiarly to Yi-hyeon, the woman suddenly whipped around to Han Jun, as if she’d just seen something she shouldn’t have.
“Jun, didn’t you have tutoring on Saturdays?”
“I’m worried about Louis, so I’m going to study at home for a while.”
“If the Assemblyman finds out you skipped your academy or tutoring, he won’t like it.”
“That man hates whatever I do anyway, so it’s fine.”
Han Jun spoke in a cold voice, idly spinning the pen in his hand—exactly the same icy expression he wore at school. Perhaps feeling awkward at his chilliness, the woman let out an uneasy laugh and patted Yi-hyeon’s head.
“Louis, you know what two-plus beef is? Two-plus? Your hyung bought you the good stuff so you’ll eat well and grow big, okay? So hurry up, eat, and get better.”
To show that he wasn’t sick, Yi-hyeon jumped up and down energetically. The woman clapped her hands together, beaming.
“Oh my, our Louis is practically a person now—a person! He understands everything Auntie says! Still, it’s a relief the car swerved away. Why did Se-hyeon do something like that, of all things…”
What does that mean? The car swerved away?
At the woman’s words, Yi-hyeon’s little body, which had been spinning like a top, froze. Yi-hyeon was certain—he had been hit by a car. He’d felt his bones nearly shatter, his body lifted into the air, then slammed down onto the asphalt with a dull thud. He’d felt every bit of that pain before losing consciousness—so how could the car have swerved away?
The woman’s incomprehensible words made his head spin, but separately from that, the rich aroma of the perfectly grilled Korean beef made his head spin just as much.
