But my last shred of pride stopped me from letting my paw cross through the bars. I was hesitating, my front paw twitching back and forth, when the man’s subordinate made a sharp click — popping open a can of cat food — and set it down in front of the cage door.
His intentions were painfully obvious. He was luring me into coming out of the cage on my own. He was clearly trying to lower my guard with food.
“Hrraaak!”
I won’t fall for it! I’m absolutely not coming out!
I stubbornly ignored the can wafting its rich, savory smell at me like a temptation.
But having caught the delicious scent, my hunger only grew worse. I tried to swallow down my saliva and keep my empty stomach in check, but it was no use.
Grrrrowl—!
I dropped my head and stared down at my hollow belly. I hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday evening. It felt like a full day had passed. On top of that, I’d done day labor before all this, so I was desperately hungry.
I had even been moved when my father had set the dinner table himself — but all of it had been a scheme to lock me in a cage and sell me off as collateral. After I’d drunk the coffee and drifted off to sleep, he had transformed me into my Suin form and trapped me in the cage. He hadn’t fed me a single thing after that.
The reality I had tried to deny hit me to the bone, and a deep sigh escaped me.
I’m collateral. To my father, I was something that could be exchanged in place of money. When it came to money, he didn’t even hesitate to deceive his own child. The hollow feeling growing inside me was just as heavy as my hunger.
This time, I’m really cutting ties with him. I’m not lending him money anymore. He’s not family anymore. I won’t call it love when attention only comes when his pockets are full and his mood is good. From now on, I have to live on my own.
Just like my mother did.
“Reow. Mng, euwng….”
It’s okay. I can do this. I’m not hurt. He was the one who threw away his last chance.
I held back my tears — but only for a moment, because the rumbling from my stomach grew louder. Even in a situation like this, the fact that my body was making such a fuss over being hungry felt almost cruel.
Hmph. It’s not like I’ve never gone a day without eating before. It was agonizing to ignore the can sitting right in front of me smelling that good, but I didn’t want to be seen mindlessly scarfing it down like an ordinary cat with no self-control.
Especially not in front of them.
“You’re drooling. If you’re hungry, eat.”
But my body seemed to have different ideas — my front paws alone held the line, but I had been stretching myself out, inching closer and closer toward the can. Without realizing it, I had been staring fixedly at it with drool running down my chin. My last scrap of pride was the only thing keeping me from shoving my face into it.
The man was watching me. I startled and hissed, scrambling backward.
A predator has pride. I can’t be bought with a bit of food. Who knows what they mixed into it. My father put sleeping pills in my food too….
I had only heard the sound of the can being opened — I had no idea what they might have done to what was inside.
“Come on, eat.”
I was already trapped in this cage, and if they intended to do something to me, they could do it anytime they wanted — but I couldn’t let my guard down. I was sold here as collateral. If I eat that and pass out again, they might move me somewhere even worse.
I couldn’t make sense of why someone like him would lend money to my father in the first place. He couldn’t have just encountered people like my father once or twice. One look was enough to tell that he was someone who had no means of repaying.
And yet he wasn’t openly showing any intention to sell me off either. Maybe he actually knows I’m a Suin and is just pretending not to, to put me off guard? If so, I need to be even more careful. Being within Korea is one thing, but being taken out of the country would be a nightmare.
My mother had said she’d been kidnapped by a broker and brought to Korea. I had actually experienced something similar as a child — nearly being caught and sold by a broker — so the memory made me all the more tense.
No. He probably doesn’t know…. The ones who’ve recognized me as a Suin have always been few.
Telling Suin apart from regular animals was surprisingly straightforward, in fact. Suin gave off their own distinct pheromones. That was how I had been able to identify them as Suin immediately.
But my own pheromones were faint. Perhaps because I was mixed blood — born between a human father and a Suin mother — or perhaps because I hadn’t eaten well as a child, my pheromones were almost nonexistent.
On top of that, I had spent long stretches of my life living in my true form, so I was well-practiced at behaving exactly like an ordinary animal. And the reason for that was none other than my father.
Back then, my father was still drifting between gambling dens, and my mother had to head out to work at the crack of dawn to make enough to raise me.
Every day, I would be left alone in a cramped single room.
Back then, I’d wanted to be even a small help to my mother, so I’d go up into the mountains to hunt. There was so much money couldn’t cover, and the one thing I could actually cut down on was food expenses. There was plenty of prey in the wild, and if I caught it myself I could fill my belly.
But as a child who hadn’t even fully grown, I almost never managed a successful hunt. Instead I’d get lost in the mountains or come back injured, and only ended up worrying my mother.
Was that why? My mother, who had been through nothing but hardship, broke her promise to stay by my side and left me.
No matter how hard I tried, everyone left in the end, and I was always the only one who remained — and now all those past memories come rising back up. All those times I struggled and flailed uselessly alone.
Forget it. I don’t need my mother or my father. I managed fine on my own even after I moved out. From now on, I really won’t be fooled again. I’m going to cut ties completely.
“Euwng, uwng….”
“What is the little one mumbling about, I wonder?”
“…I’m Canine Suin. Not Feline, so I….”
“Is there anyone here who can understand it?”
“Should I call Changgyu? He’s a Tiger Suin, isn’t he?”
Hm…? What?
I startled and leapt to my feet.
There’s a — a Tiger Suin here? Don’t tell me they’re all Tiger Suin? When Suin travel in a pack, the odds of them being the same species were far higher.
I had seen a tiger once, when I was little. It was dozens — no, hundreds of times my size. The eyes gleaming in the darkness were full of an overwhelming dignity. If you stared into those eyes for long enough, it felt as though you’d be swallowed whole into the dark. So I ran.
No matter how fierce a predator I was, no matter that I was a wildcat — I was no match for a tiger. We weren’t even in the same weight class to begin with! It wasn’t for nothing that the tiger was considered the lord of Korea’s mountains!
I trembled from head to tail.
“You said something careless and now the little one’s scared. And if Changgyu coming over would let me understand it, I’d have been able to understand it already.”
A dull thud followed, then a pained groan.
I turned my head. I met the eyes of the subordinate hopping on one foot while clutching his shin — and right next to him, the eyes of the man looking straight at me. Those gleaming eyes startled me and I snapped my head back the other way.
We made eye contact! He looked right at me! That look in his eyes — it’s the look of someone planning to fatten me up and sell me off for a fortune! I’m sure of it! Even giving me something tasty to eat is to make me plump and round….
Suddenly, the contents of a fairy tale came to mind. A witch kept giving sweets to a thin, starving child. It was all part of her plan to fatten the child up and eat it.
“Hmm, it seems frightened. Little one, there’s no need to be scared.”
“Mrao!”
How could I not be scared! A — no. I’m not scared!
The man paid no mind to me baring my teeth.
“I want to feed it, but I don’t know what’s making it refuse to eat. That said, forcing it seems….”
“Should I bring in a cat? That might put it at ease.”
“No.”
The subordinate was briefly thrown off by the firm refusal, but quickly pressed on.
“In that case, should I ask the men if any of them know a Feline Suin nearby?”
“Does anyone here actually know one?”
“If there isn’t one, I could always have someone bring one in quietly….”
What…? Bring one in? You’d bring in a Feline Suin? Just because you want to understand what I’m saying? This really is a terrifying organization!
As I recoiled in horror, the man’s eyebrow twitched. He shot the subordinate beside him a sharp look.
“Yeongho, think before you speak.”
“S-Sorry.”
I didn’t know why, but the subordinate seemed to have said the wrong thing again. So that man’s expression shifts in an instant whenever something rubs him the wrong way. I was stealing glances back at him, and when I met those fiercely gleaming eyes, I shrank back.
Every time he looks at me his eyes light up — am I annoying him? And yet he still wants to feed me. I knew it. He’s planning to fatten me up nice and plump and then sell me off!
“The problem right now is that the little one won’t eat. You did buy something good, right?”
“I asked the staff and got the one they said was most popular! Should I get a different flavor instead?”
“Give it here.”
The subordinate quickly held out a bag printed with pictures of dogs and cats. The man took it and immediately flipped it over, shaking it out.
A can of cat food fell out. It landed on its side and rolled and rolled, passing through the gap at the cage door until it came to a stop right in front of my eyes.
I quickly caught the can with both front paws. The man was right — I had only been holding myself back this whole time; I was starving. There was no way I could refuse a delicious meal that had practically rolled its way to me.
Yes! Something tasty!
Even though it was something humans made for their pet cats, I knew full well it was a treat. When I was little, a human had once seen my scruffy little true form and opened a can of cat food for me.
If I open it myself, it should be safe to eat, right?
