Not wanting to show any weakness, I forced myself upright on trembling legs. Trapped as I was, all I could do was bare my teeth and make my wariness known.
But I didn’t have the same energy as before. I wanted to glare, but my spirit had naturally deflated, and my gaze wavered uneasily. Without meaning to, I took a step back.
“Yeongho, what are you doing?”
“Yes…? But, hyung, this little beast—”
My ears shot straight up. The man who’d been tormenting me had let out a voice that sounded almost frightened. And the man who led them — the one at the top — was glaring at his subordinate.
Huh? What’s this? Are those two fighting?
He clicked his tongue and lazily gestured with his fingers. The subordinate, who’d been carefully reading the room, quietly placed the cage into his hands.
“The baby got scared. Are you hurt anywhere?”
The way he peered through the narrow gaps in the bars to check on me from every angle was suffocating, and I backed away further. But my backside knocked right into the bars behind me.
Even as I hissed and bared my teeth, the man didn’t budge. He finished looking me over thoroughly, then gave a small smile.
The problem was that, to me, that smile looked nothing but ominous.
“Mm. Looks fine. Babies are supposed to run and play. Let’s go to my place.”
“Ka-ong, u-ung!”
Nobody asked you! What do you think you’re doing? And don’t call me baby! I’m fully grown!
“Hyung, isn’t that one full-grown? Earlier, that thing also—”
“How am I supposed to believe that? You can tell just by looking. Small.”
The subordinate — the one who’d rattled the cage earlier and had that sin to answer for — was the only one in the whole group who recognized that I was an adult. But the man at the top just clicked his tongue and scolded him.
“Babies need to eat well and sleep well. Let’s go get something delicious.”
I wasn’t a baby, so I refused to react. But the man called me baby over and over until my ears ached.
“Baby, look over here.”
S-surely that’s not going to be my name, is it?
I turned my head slowly, horrified, and the man met my eyes as he spoke.
“It suits you well, don’t you think?”
I spat and hissed. The sadness was one thing, but being furious at the man who’d given me such a ridiculous name was a separate matter entirely.
I arched my back like a bow and raised my front paws. My attack hadn’t landed before, but this time I was going to give him a real taste of something terrifying.
“Eo-k! Ka-oong!”
I’m not a baby! I’m fully grown! And you’re giving me a laughable name like that? I’m a predator — aren’t you even a little scared? Call me something else, right now!
The man took one look at my furious expression and simply burst out laughing.
You’re laughing at me, aren’t you? You’re definitely laughing at me.
“Looks like I’ll have to build our baby a little hill to run around on. As it happens, my place is exactly like that. Come on, let’s go.”
“Ah…”
Whether the man’s subordinate looked disgruntled or not was none of my concern.
The one with that brazen face, lifting the corner of his mouth as he looked at me — I wanted to land a good punch right on him. I’d forgotten all about the dangerous air and pheromones he gave off.
Get over here! Come here, I said! You think you can keep making fun of me? I’m going to show you just what a magnificent predator I am!
I frantically swiped my stubby legs through the gaps in the bars, trying to catch even a corner of his clothes — legs that couldn’t reach him no matter how hard I tried. And just like that, I ended up in the hands of a stranger I didn’t even know.
***
The inside of the narrow cage was dark and cold, and I still couldn’t get out. Whether it was to keep me from seeing where we were going, or to calm me down after I’d been thrashing wildly, the cage had been wrapped in a black cloth.
I couldn’t see anything, but my ears were open. The man kept talking to me from beside me, but I gave no response whatsoever.
For hours on end I kept my eyes wide open without sleeping, staring straight ahead. Time passed like that, and only after quite a while did the car finally stop somewhere. The cage was lifted by someone’s hands and moved. It was carried with careful steadiness so that it wouldn’t sway, so my body didn’t lurch.
Click.
We’d finally gotten out of the car. I pricked my ears up and sniffed the air. The scent of grass drifted from all around. It felt as though I were right in the middle of a forest. Shortly after came the soft crunch of footsteps on what sounded like a lawn, followed by a beep and the sound of a door opening.
A little while later, the cage was set down on the floor. Someone pulled away the cloth that had been covering it, and an unfamiliar scene came into view.
I opened my mouth blankly. It was no ordinary house. It was so lavishly luxurious it made my eyes go wide enough to leap out of my head. The enormous living room with its magnificent paintings and the expensive furniture were striking.
“This is where baby will live from now on. Do you like it?”
I knew this was the man’s house — the place I would need to escape from — but I couldn’t hide the way my eyes lit up. I liked the house very much.
Of course, only the house! Living in a place like this, of course he’d throw around that kind of money without blinking. Was it spare change to him, then, the amount he handed over to my father?
The man looked at me and extended his hand as if to touch me. But I pressed myself deeper into the cage to avoid his reach.
“Kaak—!”
I hissed at him, and the man paused to think for a moment before withdrawing his hand and moving off somewhere.
I watched his movements carefully through the gaps in the bars. The man who was called hyung, or Executive Director, was without question both the owner of this house and the leader of that group.
He had clearly said it earlier. This was the place where I would live from now on. But I was still uneasy. Exactly how long was the “from now on” he’d spoken of? A day, two days, or a month? There was no way of knowing whether my time here would be long or short. And the most important thing of all —
Did he intend to sell me…?
Not knowing that meant I couldn’t let my guard down. And being this close, the dangerous predator scent coming off him was even stronger.
From the scent, he seems like Feline Suin. Being the same feline, maybe that’s why he knows my value so well? Having been handed over as collateral more than once before, I knew well enough that my true form was rare.
There was demand for me not just in Korea but in other countries too. Because of that, when I was young, I had been a target for brokers. So if he planned to sell me in the near future, I had to escape before that happened. Spacing out and getting sold off to some country I didn’t even know the name of — that would be a disaster.
The subordinates who had come with the man had long since disappeared. Only the man at the top and one of his subordinates remained in the house. But they wouldn’t leave me alone for even a moment. On top of that, the dangerous man was continuously within my line of sight.
“Baby, aren’t you going to look around the house?”
Look around, he says.
He had thrown the cage door wide open and told me I could roam as I pleased, but I had no intention of going out. The man seemed genuinely disappointed by that. His gaze kept landing on me, whether he meant it to or not. Several times while I peeked at him through the bars, I ended up meeting his eyes.
Once you step away, I’ll go out. I’ll hide somewhere you’ll never find me.
But he sat on the sofa with no intention of moving. Didn’t he even want to go change out of that stuffy black suit?
I studied the man carefully. He was the one I needed to be the most wary of, the most careful around.
The man sitting on the living room sofa, looking at something, was enormous. It wasn’t simply because I was currently in my true form that I felt that way. Even back in that group earlier, he had stood out unmistakably as a man of imposing stature.
His black hair, neatly swept back, made his dark brows and the clean, straight line of his eyes appear all the sharper. The deep-set hollows of his eyes held a keen, cutting energy — the kind that could only belong to someone who had spent a long time watching his surroundings with vigilance. The solid muscle beneath the black suit couldn’t be concealed, standing out as if to prove the overwhelming force that lay beneath.
It was unavoidable, the way tension crept into me. I rationalized it to myself that way, and licked my nose.
Today is the first day. You can’t expect too much all at once.
I had to wait for a moment when his attention slipped, when he stepped away. I spent a long while grooming myself, then curled up in a round ball and tucked my head into my body.
If they knew that cats need time to adjust to new environments and that it’s better to leave them alone, they would eventually leave.
That would be my chance.
“Are you not going to come out from in there?”
Don’t talk to me. Go on, do whatever you need to do. Or rest. When you come home, you should lie down in bed. What are you doing sitting on the sofa.
“Don’t you like the house?”
How could I not like it. The house was nice, but it wasn’t my house. Did he think I’d be bouncing around exploring the place with excitement just because it was spacious?
When I was little, I probably would have. Back then, even an ordinary house had seemed wondrous to me, having lived in a single room. But this was a place I’d have to leave anyway. Getting used to it would only make it bitter later. And I hadn’t forgotten the humiliation from a little while ago.
Not only did he hit me and dismiss me, he’s still calling me baby even now!
Don’t look at the man, don’t look at the house. I squirmed and turned my back on it all entirely. But I kept my ears pricked.
The moment that man lets his guard down or steps away, I’m going to escape. Just you wait.
Then I heard a beeping sound. My head snapped up before I even realized it.
The subordinate — who I hadn’t even noticed had left — stepped back into the house. In his hands was a large bag with a drawing of a dog and a cat on it. Before I could even take in the picture, my nose was twitching on pure instinct.
“Hyung, I’ve got it.”
“Give it to baby.”
Sniff, sniff. This was a delicious smell I’d caught somewhere before. Unable to overcome instinct, I pushed myself up and moved toward the entrance of the cage.
