By Zephyria 
Dressed in expensive silk clothes and wearing braided hair with a hair tie, the Young Master was the only son of this household. As such, he had been raised as precious as gold or jade, and indeed, nobility practically oozed from him from head to toe.
“Hello.”
Tae-muk bowed his waist deeply in greeting. The Young Master entered the stable without even acknowledging the greeting. His clean shoes, without a single speck of dust, strode boldly and relentlessly across the dirty stable floor.
Tae-muk stared intently at his feet with narrow eyes. If even a bit of horse manure happened to get on them, Tae-muk would be the one to get scolded. He didn’t know why he had to be scolded for manure the Young Master stepped in while walking alone, but that was simply how the life of a lowborn was.
“Were you stealing the horses’ feed again?”
The Young Master asked, thrusting his pale face forward. Unlike his eyebrows, which were sparse because he was still young, his eyes shone piercingly. They were eyes exactly like those of a ‘Devouring Ghoul.’
In truth, Tae-muk had never seen a Devouring Ghoul. Having been born and raised in a town with thick, high walls, he had no reason to encounter such things.
Even so, he could imagine what their eyeballs looked like. They surely looked exactly like the Young Master’s eyes. For a Devouring Ghoul devoured people, and the Young Master devoured him.
“No, I wasn’t.”
Tae-muk slowly shook his head. He had once envied the horses for eating beans and barley, but he had never stolen them. After all, it was food meant for the horses. Stealing was theft. His father had taught him that he must never steal.
However, the Young Master’s eyebrows shot up, and he let out a shriek.
“You were stealing it! Why are you lying!”
The beautiful, youthful voice was torn apart to a point that was sickening to hear. Tae-muk’s shoulders flinched. Though they were the same age and differed only in status, there was something else in the Young Master’s shout. Perhaps it should be called a pitch-black power. It was a sound that made one wonder if that was why their statuses were different.
“I didn’t lie,” Tae-muk said in a crushed voice. As he spoke, he stared intently at the Young Master. It was a look that was somewhat delinquent and rebellious. At this, the Young Master flinched and took half a step back before abruptly pointing a finger at him.
“You brat, how dare you look me straight in the eye!”
Thinking back on it now, it seemed the Young Master had been intimidated by Tae-muk. Despite being the same age, Tae-muk was taller and had a heavier frame. The Young Master was meant to be the best in everything—he was born for that purpose—and perhaps he felt a sense of inferiority because he couldn’t achieve that in front of Tae-muk.
“……I’m sorry.”
Tae-muk obediently lowered his gaze. He folded his hands neatly. He knew well from the short experience of his life that there was no winning by acting precocious.
The Young Master huffed, glaring at Tae-muk’s cheeks, which were red from the cold, and his grimy clothes, before suddenly wearing a coy, cute smile.
“You’re hungry, aren’t you?”
“…….”
Tae-muk agonized. He didn’t know what answer would allow him to avoid the Young Master’s harassment. As he hesitated, the Young Master pressed him.
“You’re hungry.”
“……Yes. I am.”
Tae-muk gave a small nod. Since he hadn’t eaten anything all day, he truly was hungry. Likely, every servant working in this house was feeling the same hunger. There was much to do on days when it snowed heavily. His father and mother were surely working somewhere in this household, breathing out white puffs of air in the cold.
“Then eat that.”
The Young Master pointed somewhere. Tae-muk turned his head following the finger. There was the fodder. The fodder that the horses ate.
“That is for the horses,” Tae-muk said with an expressionless face. He pretended to be unfazed, but in reality, his heart was thumping. It was because he had already anticipated the misfortune about to strike.
“You eat it too. My father said lowborns are all beasts. That horse is a beast, and you are a beast, so it’s only natural for you to eat that.”
“…….”
“I’ll keep it a secret from Father. So don’t worry.”
Bullshit, Tae-muk thought. However, he didn’t say it aloud. Instead, he pondered. He wondered how he could avoid eating the fodder. But how many diverse thoughts could an eight-year-old possibly have?
“……I don’t think I’m hungry anymore.”
Tae-muk corrected himself. It was the best he could do. But the Young Master’s eyes turned like those of a Devouring Ghoul again, and he shrieked.
“Liar!”
His voice was so loud that the stable echoed. Startled, the horses neighed or stomped their hooves in place. As expected, there was certainly some kind of power in his voice. A very, very pitch-black and hideous power. Just as Tae-muk faintly frowned at the stinging sensation in his ears—
The Young Master, fluttering his silk sleeves like a chicken, rushed over and grabbed Tae-muk by the hair. He then dragged him by the hair to the fodder trough and shoved him into it. Despite being only eight, his grip was extraordinary. If you eat meat with every meal, you can become this strong, Tae-muk thought even in that moment.
“Eat!”
“……I don’t want to.”
Tae-muk didn’t let out a single groan even though his hair was being pulled. Of course, it hurt, and it was distressing. But he didn’t want to show pain. It was a pathetic sort of pride. Yet, that pride seemed to anger the Young Master even more.
“If you don’t eat, I’ll tell Father! That you’re ill-mannered, that your mother and father raised you wrong! Do you want to see them get whipped?”
“…….”
He wondered how someone could beat parents for such a reason, but that was the privilege of the nobility. The privilege to beat, kick, and kill lowborns for no reason at all. He knew this well, as it had happened countless times already.
The Young Master, who had been reading difficult books since he was young, was not just smart but cunning; he often drove Tae-muk into corners with plausible lies and had his mother or father whipped as punishment. So, he would likely do the same this time.
Tae-muk took a deep breath of the cold air and let it out.
“I’ll eat it.”
If he didn’t eat, his parents would suffer. They were people who spent their nights groaning in pain from the day’s grueling labor; he couldn’t let them be whipped because of his pride.
What did it matter if he ate a bit of fodder?
And as the Young Master said, wasn’t he a beast after all?
Tae-muk grabbed a handful of fodder and brought it to his mouth. Then, as if he had truly become a beast, he chewed it vigorously. Hay, beans, and barley rolled around in his mouth like stones. It tasted sour and musty. There was also a fishy smell and the taste of earth.
“It tastes good, right?”
The Young Master asked, his eyes wide and gleaming. When Tae-muk didn’t answer, he urged him by shaking his hair violently.
“Say it tastes good!”
“…….”
Tae-muk couldn’t answer easily. It was because the fodder filling his mouth wouldn’t diminish. Since it wasn’t cooked and had even frozen solid due to the winter, eating it without it being chewed was no easy task. Tae-muk chewed the fodder as if his teeth would break, and finally managed to swallow it. Then, he answered calmly.
“It tastes good.”
Fortunately, the Young Master seemed quite pleased with this answer. Letting go of Tae-muk’s hair, he placed his hands primly behind his back and tilted his chin high. Then, he looked down at Tae-muk, who was half a hand-span taller, and smirked.
“You’re truly lucky. Where else could you find a master as generous as me?”
“…….”
“Aren’t you grateful?”
“……Yes. Thank you, Young Master.”
“Aren’t you thirsty? Drink some water too.”
This time, he pointed to a water bucket. Tae-muk looked into the bucket. The ice he had managed to break before the Young Master arrived had already frozen over again due to the cold.
“It’s frozen.”
At Tae-muk’s words, the Young Master shrieked again.
“You idiot! You can just lick it!”
“…….”
Tae-muk realized he could not escape the other’s malice. He didn’t know why the boy was acting out, but it seemed he would have to be toyed with until the malice subsided.
Resigned, Tae-muk trudged toward the water bucket. He bent his waist and looked inside.
“…….”
Hay and dirt were tangled between the ice. He could see small stones and things like leaves settled at the bottom. Along with the characteristic fishiness of water, there was the smell of horses. It was the smell of a beast. He felt like he would get an upset stomach if he drank it. No, he’d probably already have one from the fodder, so perhaps it didn’t matter.
Tae-muk leaned his body in as if he were about to fall into the bucket. His heels lifted, and the edge of the bucket poked his stomach as if it would slice him in half. And just as his lips were about to touch the ice—
Kieeeeeek!
A bizarre sound tore through the sky.
It was the first time in his life he had heard such a sound. In an instant, his body froze as if turned to ice, goosebumps rose along his spine, and the hairs on his head stood on end. It was an unsettling sound.
Startled, Tae-muk snapped his waist upright. The Young Master seemed to have heard the sound as well, as he turned his head toward the outside of the stable. Soon, his pale ears seemed to perk up. He was smiling.
“Father must have bought another horse! He promised he’d buy me my own horse next time! He said it was a magnificent white horse!”
Speaking as if boasting to Tae-muk, the Young Master ran outside. The silk hair tie tied at the end of his hair fluttered like a butterfly.
Tae-muk stared blankly at his retreating figure. Whether a new horse had arrived or not, he was just glad that the Young Master had left.