By Zephyria “Aren’t you hungry? Come over here. I prepared this in a hurry because Yumin was coming, but I don’t know if it will suit your taste.”
As I stood awkwardly, Mother guided Yumin to the kitchen.
“Wow, it looks delicious!”
The dining table was on the verge of collapsing. Huge plates filled with all sorts of dishes were packed tightly on the table. It was full of ridiculously luxurious food like braised short ribs, gujeolpan, and sinseollo. It looked so delicious. Yumin swallowed hard right there.
“It looks so delicious. I’ll eat well!”
“Yes, I’d be grateful if you eat it deliciously.”
Tae-jun’s mother said with a smile.
“Come in quickly.”
“Yes, then I’ll go wash my hands. Where is the bathroom?”
“It’s that way.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
While Yumin was away for a moment, the family exchanged glances without a word. They were all thinking the same thing, but no one said anything.
Father spoke first.
“The child is alright, isn’t she?”
“Right?”
Tae-jun said with a proud smile.
“But how far have you progressed?”
“It’s going well.”
“Really? That’s good.”
This time, Tae-jun’s mother said with delight. Tae-jun’s father cleared his throat with a “Hmm,” and joined the conversation.
“But if they’re a normal human, the shock won’t be insignificant. Can they handle it?”
“I told you on the phone last time. I have a plan.”
“I respect your intentions, but isn’t a normal human a bit much?”
“Yumin will eventually follow my lead. I’m proceeding because I’m confident.”
“Hmm, the results will appear quickly. Will that be alright?”
“Of course. Can’t I handle that one thing?”
Meanwhile, Yumin stopped at the corner of the hallway, ears perked. The house was so large and complex that even though he went in the direction Tae-jun’s mother pointed, he couldn’t find the bathroom and had to turn back. As he walked back to the living room, thinking he’d have to ask again, he froze involuntarily at the voices he heard.
‘What is it? It sounds like they’re talking about me….’
He held his breath and listened to the family’s conversation. The three family members had serious expressions, and their voices were subdued. They were whispering so quietly that a normal person wouldn’t be able to hear them. However, Yumin, whose hearing was superior to that of a normal human, could barely make out their voices.
‘What are they talking about so seriously?’
Yumin became curious.
‘They’re not looking down on me, are they?’
‘No. They seemed to look at me positively earlier. So, let’s not worry too much.’
Just then, Yumin heard an unusual sentence.
“I will handle it smoothly. Please wait.”
“I’m counting on you. You’re a person of strong drive, so I trust you’ll do well on your own.”
“Yes. Yumin will be happy too. In the end, that is.”
Yumin was startled.
‘I’ll be happy? What does that mean?’
Yumin pressed himself against the wall, waiting for the next words. He held his breath perfectly, just in case. This was a characteristic of Beastmen, different from normal humans. Yumin’s ancestors, who survived by hunting in the African grasslands for a long time, were all skilled at erasing their presence. That gene was passed down to later generations, and Yumin, too, could hide himself perfectly if he set his mind to it.
Unfortunately, Yumin’s name was not mentioned again after that. The conversation naturally shifted to Tae-jun’s school life. Tae-jun’s parents only asked about his studies and his classmates.
‘What’s going on? Do they know I’m here?’
Yumin poked his head out slightly to peek into the living room. Tae-jun’s family was sitting on the sofa, having a pleasant conversation. There was no sign of them hiding any secrets from Yumin.
‘Is it just my imagination….’
He felt a nagging sense of unease. But he couldn’t just burst out and demand an explanation. With no other choice, Yumin quietly walked away and headed towards the bathroom again.
This time, he found it. He opened the antique wooden door and entered a dry bathroom. Yumin stood in front of the sink and looked in the mirror. He felt his face looked a little more gaunt than ten minutes ago.
“Sigh…”
Yumin sighed and turned on the water. He washed his hands in the cool water, and on impulse, splashed some on his face too. After rinsing his face a couple of times, he felt a little more clear-headed.
A basket next to the sink held a few fluffy towels. He took one out, dried his face and hands, and felt slightly refreshed.
Yumin looked into the bathroom mirror again. Wiping the water droplets from his bangs, Yumin thought to himself.
‘Nothing will happen. It’s just me having a meal with Tae-jun and his parents. And my great-uncle always said, even if you’re in a tiger’s den, you can survive if you keep your wits about you.’
Yumin had no idea that his words were being applied literally. He was simply being overly sensitive, ignoring the warning his beastly instincts were giving him.
As he walked back down the hallway after leaving the bathroom, Yumin suddenly felt a chill down his spine and stopped short.
‘What is it? I feel like someone is watching me….’
Trembling with fear, he slowly turned his head to look behind him.
“Hick!”
In the darkness, a pair of piercing eyes stared intently at Yumin. It looked like a will-o’-the-wisp one might see in the mountains.
Yumin almost fell over in surprise, but he recalled the adults’ words about surviving even in a tiger’s den if one kept their wits about them, and managed to compose himself. Upon closer inspection, the eyes were none other than those of a large tiger painting hanging on the wall.
“You scared me! It was just a painting.”
Yumin let out a sigh of relief and approached the frame. Though rendered only in black ink, the bold brushstrokes conveyed a magnificent beauty in this East Asian painting. The enormous frame, nearly 2 meters wide and tall, gave an overwhelming impression.
The composition, as if the tiger were pouncing on the viewer, was even frightening.
“Ah, that’s creepy. But why is a painting like this hanging here…? Do they like art?”
Yumin disliked tigers. More precisely, he was extremely afraid of them. Among the feline family, tigers were undoubtedly the strongest. Wildcats, being small in size, were at the lower end of the hierarchy. Below wildcats were only tiny house cats.
Therefore, Yumin avoided tigers as much as possible, as they evoked an instinctive fear in him. He rarely watched movies or content featuring tigers, or even their paintings.
“Hoo, that’s unsettling.”
Yumin shivered and patted his shoulders. Whether it was his imagination or not, he felt the gaze persistently following him from behind. Thinking it couldn’t be, Yumin suddenly turned his head.
“Huh?!”
The tiger’s gaze had shifted. The tiger that had been looking straight ahead was now looking this way. It made no sense logically, but that’s how Yumin felt. The tiger seemed to be observing him like a living creature. His heart pounded with anxiety.
“N-no way.”
I’m just too tense. It’s nothing.
Yumin wanted to escape the ominous feeling. He forced himself to maintain his composure and looked away from the tiger.
For a moment, his appetite waned, but once he sat at the table, the glistening braised short ribs and steaming rice whetted his appetite.
“I’ll eat well.”
“Yes. Yumin, eat a lot.”
“Wow! This braised short rib is really delicious.”
“Eat slowly. There’s plenty.”
Yumin devoured all the meat and ate his rice.
“Tae-jun mentioned you like raw fish, so I prepared some. Shall I bring it out?”
“Really? Thank you.”
When the freshly prepared raw fish appeared, Yumin was mesmerized. He forgot it was someone else’s house and quickly ate the sashimi. It was incomparably more delicious and chewy than canned food.
“It’s so delicious. Thank you very much for the meal.”
“I’m grateful you enjoyed it. You should go up and rest now.”
“Yes.”
After finishing the meal, Yumin bowed to his parents and stood up, patting his stomach. He had eaten so much that it was difficult to walk properly, but since Tae-jun’s room was on the second floor, he had no choice but to climb the stairs with difficulty.
“Come in.”
Tae-jun opened the door. The interior was very neat, with an entirely Eastern-style decor. It felt like a time slip to the Joseon Dynasty. The antique paulownia desk and the modern reinterpretation of the folding screen were impressive.
The bed was incredibly wide, with flowing fabric descending from the ceiling to cover it, like a Joseon Dynasty king’s sleeping quarters. Yumin’s eyes widened at the sight, which was quite astonishing.
“Wow, your room is so cool…”
“Make yourself comfortable.”
“It’s really clean. There’s not a speck of dust.”
“It’s just average, really.”
“Huh? What’s this?”
Yumin picked up a framed photo from the bookshelf. It contained a much younger Tae-jun.
“Oh my gosh! So cute. When was this?”
“Uh… I think it was around the first year of middle school.”
“Wow, you had chubby cheeks too.”
“I have even younger photos. Should I show you?”
“Yes! Show me.”
Tae-jun took out a photo from an album and showed it to him. He looked about one year old. The baby Tae-jun was an incredible young beauty. His skin was pale, almost translucent, with jet-black eyes and handsome features. His expression of indifference, combined with his chubby cheeks, was very charming.
“Tae-jun, you were really pretty. When you have a baby later… they’ll be really pretty.”
Yumin subtly blew some air. The thought of offspring resembling Tae-jun made his mouth water.
“Hmm, is that so? Yumin, what were you like as a baby?”
At Tae-jun’s question, Yumin tried to recall the past. In truth, Yumin didn’t remember his childhood clearly. It was because he couldn’t humanize back then and spent a long time in the form of a baby wildcat.
As a nursing infant, Yumin was a baby wildcat who slept all day, played, and then took another leisurely nap.
A few photos from that time remained, but to others, they were just pictures of tiny wildcats that could be mistaken for kittens.
“Me… I was similar to how I am now as a baby. Just a bit chubbier.”
“Hmm, then Yumin, you’d be very cute if you had a baby too.”
“Probably. Everyone in my family is good-looking. Especially when we were young, we were all incredibly cute.”
“Then Yumin. Can you show me pictures from when you were a baby later? I’m so curious.”
“Th-that’s… I don’t have any photos!”
“None at all?”
“Ah, no! I left them at my parents’ house. So I don’t have them now.”
“When are you going to your parents’ house?”
“Well… I don’t have any reason to go…”
As Yumin hesitated, trying to change the subject,
“Tae-jun! Here’s a snack.”
Mother’s voice called from downstairs.
“I’ll be right back. Make yourself comfortable.”
“Okay. Got it.”
Left alone, Yumin got up and wandered around the room. The space was very large, but it was well-divided by function, and no area felt cluttered. It was so like Tae-jun.
Admiring a beautiful mother-of-pearl inlaid cabinet, like one found in a national museum, and a lamp shaped like a traditional oil lamp, Yumin eventually reached the wall. A gorgeously decorated door caught his eye. The doorknob was round and traditional, and the door frame was painted with dancheong patterns. It was as beautiful as a handcrafted item sewn by a master artisan.
“Wow… what is this?”
The door was so small that only one person could barely fit through. Logically, there shouldn’t be a room beyond this door. It was too narrow in width and too short in height.
Furthermore, the door’s design was excessively ornate for everyday use in a home. It didn’t seem practical at all.
“It looks like something you’d see at a historical site… What is it for?”
Yumin felt curious and took a step closer, gently gripping the doorknob. But strangely, the doorknob didn’t budge.
“Is it locked from the inside?”
Even if it were locked, could it be this unresponsive? It felt somewhat unnatural. He didn’t want to meddle in someone else’s room, but the feeling was too strange and unsettling.
He walked back and forth in front of the door and pulled the doorknob a few more times. Again, the doorknob didn’t move.
“…This whole house is so peculiar. Living in a house decorated like this in the middle of Seoul… And that tiger painting I saw on the first floor.”
Something powerful in the house seemed to be stimulating Yumin. It was hard to explain precisely, but this didn’t seem like an ordinary space. A living, pulsating energy dominated this area.
Just then, the door burst open.
“Yumin, I brought snacks.”
“Oh… oh. Tae-jun.”
“…Why are you standing there?”
“What do you mean?”
“That door. Did you open it?”
Tae-jun stared intently at Yumin. His expression was cold, mixed with a slight wariness.
“No, I didn’t open it. What is this…?”
“Oh, it’s just a closet. Nothing important.”
Tae-jun naturally stepped in front of Yumin and blocked the door with his body.
A moment of silence passed. Yumin swallowed hard. A strange sense of unease enveloped his entire body.
Meanwhile, Tae-jun looked down at Yumin, observing him, while also trying to sense the energy emanating from behind him.
Fortunately, the Tiger God did not seem to have awakened.
Behind Tae-jun, in a secret space, an altar was set up. It was an altar for the Tiger God, revered as a guardian deity in Tae-jun’s family.
‘That’s a relief. It seems to be deeply asleep.’
Tae-jun relaxed the corners of his tight lips and led Yumin towards the bed.
Long ago, the Tiger God appeared in human form and married a woman from Tae-jun’s family. The child born between them was half human and half Tiger God.
Unlike ordinary Beastmen, he was the child of a god, so he possessed extraordinary abilities. He could impregnate both humans and Beastmen, regardless of gender. Furthermore, as a noble bloodline, his appearance, intellect, and aura were all incomparably superior. In short, he was on a different level from ordinary Beastmen.
That trait was passed down through generations to the present day.
One of his famous abilities was fertility. Since he could have children with any partner with 100% certainty, families with weak fertility rushed to marry into the Beom family. This was why the Beom family was much more popular than ordinary Tiger Beastman families.
However, Tae-jun did not want to give his precious seed to just anyone. He was too exceptional, and it felt like a waste to pair him with anyone. His confidence, composure, and sense of superiority were already determined from birth.
Moreover, his overwhelming sexual charm had caused several incidents and accidents within the family. From a very young age, Tae-jun grew up witnessing relatives crying and fighting constantly.
What was sex, what was love, that they would die for it? At the time, they seemed so foolish.
So, he had decided early on not to get married.
But now, he could somewhat understand why they acted so irrationally. It was after experiencing Yumin’s body.
Even now, just looking at the collarbone visible beneath Yumin’s loose t-shirt made his throat dry and his body heat up.
‘Looks delicious.’
He almost muttered it aloud. Tae-jun took a deep breath, trying to cool the heat rising in his lower body.
‘A human man can be this alluring. It’s driving me crazy.’
He licked his lips.
The origin of all these misunderstandings was the difference in their constitutions. Due to a physical structure inherently different from typical Beastmen, Tae-jun could not properly read the Beastman aura from Yumin, and Yumin did not realize Tae-jun was a type of Beastman.
Normally, he should have read the strong aura emanating from the other person the moment they met, but he couldn’t. That was Yumin’s mistake.
Both of them were unaware of the other’s true identity. In that state, they were both dreaming of impregnating each other with conflicting desires. However, Tae-jun already held the advantage.
While Yumin was being clueless, he had not only sown his seed in his womb but had also formally introduced him to his parents.
He was already far behind, yet the person concerned, Yumin, had no idea.