“What the hell is this little brat.”
The voice dropped from above like a stone, and Yeonwoo hunched his shoulders before forcing them back open. He remembered his hyung’s voice — warning him not to act like a pathetic idiot and ruin everything. He couldn’t afford to do that.
The declining Cluster was already barely holding on, and he couldn’t afford to make things worse. So Yeonwoo steadied himself once more, and with great effort, lifted his head that kept wanting to sink back down toward the floor.
The man with the long, outstretched legs had silver hair — a rare color. It was the exact moment Yeonwoo’s eyes met those of the man standing with his back to the sun, whose features were strikingly clear even so. A straight brow, the kind a master craftsman might have drawn, creased sharply over a clean forehead.
It was a situation Yeonwoo was, in a way, familiar with. That look of disapproval. That gaze of contempt.
Everyone who met his eyes seemed to scrunch their faces, as though they’d come across something unpleasant. But here — of all places — this couldn’t be happening already. Yeonwoo’s face, which on any ordinary day would have simply curled inward and gone quiet, drained of color instantly.
What do I do. I can’t let them find out.
The reason someone like him — blessed by no one even before he was born — had managed to survive this long was because of Cluster 9, his home. It was a grace he had no right to take for granted, and it was only natural that he offer his body in return for everything he’d been given.
But even after scrubbing himself raw, pulling on clean clothes, and making himself as presentable as he could on the outside, it still showed. The anxiety that had been lurking inside him the entire journey here began to gnaw at him all at once — and just as it did, a different voice reached him from close by.
“Kang Sihyeon.”
Low, but firm. Yeonwoo’s gaze shifted naturally, and another man filled his vision entirely. Unlike Kang Sihyeon, who wore nothing but a shirt, the man who had stopped him was dressed in a perfectly tailored three-piece suit.
Not a single hair out of place from his neatly groomed head, not a single wrinkle from collar to trouser hem. He looked like a man who would not permit even a speck of dust on his person. Yeonwoo met the pair of golden irises set against dark hair — and couldn’t hold the gaze, his eyes sliding away.
Which one of them is going to give me their seed?
He’d only been told he would receive someone’s seed. He’d never been given the details, and he certainly hadn’t dared to ask, and now here he was — arrived at Cluster 1 with nothing more than that. All Yeonwoo knew amounted to two things: that he was to receive seed, and that in exchange, the faltering Cluster 9 would be able to live a little more comfortably.
As Yeonwoo tried to guess which of the two men might become his, his eyes caught on their hands. Both of them. Large hands.
Is this normal for beastmen of the predator type?
Both men were tall enough to fill his entire field of vision, with an imposing build to match. And it wasn’t just that. Their hands were as large as their frames — a size he’d never once seen in all his time in Cluster 9.
Which meant that if he were ever struck by one of those hands, it would hurt far worse than anything before. How long could I last? If hit by a hand that size — maybe three blows. No — I don’t think I could hold out past two.
“No, but — they brought someone who doesn’t even look fully grown, so what on earth is…… Hey, do you actually have a womb? A proper one?”
The voice was saturated with disbelief, with suspicion. Yeonwoo’s mouth flew open on pure reflex, almost convulsively.
“I — I have a womb. I’m a rabbit beastman, so I actually have t-two…… I can receive seed j-just fine……”
The moment Yeonwoo spoke, two pairs of eyes locked onto him. His voice trailed off and nearly died entirely — but the meaning he’d been trying to convey reached both men with perfect clarity.
He’d been blinking there like a doll, to the point that one might have wondered if he could speak at all — and the first words he produced were a declaration that his body was fit to fulfill the terms of the contract.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he’d offered that he was ready to conceive — and then Yeonwoo sealed his lips shut again. His face was impossibly small, features packed in so neatly it was almost remarkable, and it was filled with an anxiety he couldn’t conceal.
The moment everyone fell silent, stillness crashed down all at once.
Yeonwoo had deduced that the man called Kang Sihyeon must be the one who had purchased him. He dipped his head in Kang Sihyeon’s direction and pried his lips open — lips that had looked like they might never part again — into a small, careful smile.
“When I was little, I had a r-really bad fever, so I ended up sm-small. But my womb is healthy. I even brought the t-test results……”
The two men looking down at him each had different thoughts passing through their minds. And yet the conclusion they ultimately arrived at was the same.
“We should eat first.”
To the little rabbit before him, who looked like he might fit in the palm of a hand — he needed to be fed.
“Pardon?”
Yeonwoo asked back without thinking, and then — hup — snapped his mouth shut like a clam. He’d made a mistake, reacting with surprise at the last moment, when he’d been about to prove his ability to conceive. He braced himself — surely he’d get slapped across the cheek for it — squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his teeth. But no pain came.
“What are you doing?”
Before long, a question came in a loose, offhand tone. There was a note of bewilderment in it, and Yeonwoo cautiously opened his eyes. Contrary to what he’d expected, neither man had locked their face into a frightening expression, nor did either seem to have any intention of raising their hand.
Still — just in case — Yeonwoo kept his guard up and answered Kang Sihyeon’s question.
“I w-was waiting.”
“For what?”
Kang Sihyeon asked back immediately, a flicker of confusion crossing his face — before his brow furrowed sharply.
“You don’t mean……”
Whatever he was thinking, he let the end of the sentence die. His expression turned complicated.
“You weren’t waiting for a kiss or something, were you?”
As soon as the words left his own mouth, Kang Sihyeon startled at himself and jumped.
“What the — this tiny thing is already playing coy! First you say all that weird stuff, and now this!”
“I — I’m sorry……”
Yeonwoo apologized on instinct. He didn’t even realize that the “weird stuff” Kang Sihyeon was referring to was his earlier vow that he could receive seed just fine. But Kang Sihyeon, having no way of knowing that, only blazed hotter — as though fuel had been poured onto an open flame.
“And he’s not even denying it!”
Kang Sihyeon took a step forward, exasperated — and Yeonwoo’s shoulder shot sharply upward. In that instant, Kang Sihyeon’s movement stopped dead. The man who’d looked ready to lay into him at any second went still, his mouth flattening into a hard line.
He was genuinely angry.
Of course he was. When you made a mistake, you were supposed to ask for your punishment first and beg forgiveness. But instead, Yeonwoo had let it show that he didn’t want to be hit — which would obviously come across as insolent.
W-what do I do……
He knew perfectly well that this would get him badly scolded, but his body reacted on its own to the threatening frame. He needed to beg forgiveness right now and ask to be struck — but today of all days, even his mouth wouldn’t listen to him.
“S-sorry……”
The voice that barely made it out trembled wretchedly.
[Stop making it obvious you’re a stuttering idiot, and do your best while you still have the chance. If you get thrown out there, that’s when I personally make sure you end up a complete wreck. Understood?]
Just as that fleeting memory sent Yeonwoo’s lips trembling violently — and then clamping shut again — Kang Sihyeon’s head snapped sideways. The arrow of fire aimed at Yeonwoo was redirected somewhere else entirely.
“Muksirok, have you lost your mind? I don’t care how coy the kid acts — this is still, what the — how young is this kid! Let alone conceiving, this is just…… I mean, come on, you absolute animal!”
It was rich, coming from the one who had started things by asking whether the boy even had a proper womb. And Muksirok was not the type to let that slide.
“Watching you fail to tell which side of your own bloodline you take after more — I can see why the Cluster Head must be burning with frustration. And besides, the one who was rude to that child just now wasn’t me. It was you.”
“I — I’m f-fine.”
Yeonwoo had just registered that the man nearby was named Muksirok, and quickly jumped in. And the moment he did, Kang Sihyeon’s head whipped back around to glare at him.
“You, just——!”
Kang Sihyeon cut himself off and let out a long breath — haah. The sight of Yeonwoo trembling like a leaf seemed to knock the fight right out of him.
“Good grief, you look like a shriveled little rice cake. Ha…… Forget it. Never mind.”
Thwack!
The sliding door burst open with a rough bang. Kang Sihyeon walked out through it, and then — slam! — another loud crack rang out behind him. As though proving just how thoroughly put out he was, the successive crashes made Yeonwoo’s shoulders jump in sequence — needless to say.
Muksirok, on the other hand, paid no attention whatsoever to whether Kang Sihyeon came or went. It was true that today had been worse than usual, but Kang Sihyeon acting like a fool with no filter on him was nothing new.
What Muksirok had been watching the entire time was Yeonwoo — kneeling on the floor.
