Sign in
Quick and easy – connect with your social account and get started in one click.
I was a predator and beastman known as a black-footed cat, but with my nothing-but-cute looks, I was forever getting rehomed as some family's house cat, or — on the grounds that I was a rare beast — put up as collateral for my father's debts. Even now, grown up, holding my own, and cut off from my father, nothing had changed. My father fooled me with one of his fake little performances and then sold me off as debt collateral all over again. Except this time the loan sharks were no ordinary lot. They were tiger beastmen. The native predator said to be the most dangerous in all of Korea. And the man at their head was rude past all belief. He'd take one look at me and call me bean-sized, call me a runt — and then he'd swat me and call me "baby," brushing me off completely.
"There you go. Good boy. I'll open the can for you."
"I'll be home late tonight. Be good and play nice."
"That's because our baby's so clever."
And yet the man's manner was stranger than that of any human, any beastman, I'd ever met. Rough but tender, dangerous but warm. Bit by bit I grew guilty, and scared. Because I was the one deceiving him.
"Mrrrow…."
Master…. The truth is…. I'm a beastman. Not an ordinary cat. Even so — am I still your baby? Do you… like me? Will you keep on liking me?
✶✶✶
"That's because our baby's so clever."
"Mrk?"
Clever? At the man's words, my ears pricked up.
"You can't go scampering off after anyone just because they promise you something tasty. The world's full of dangerous people. Isn't it?"
Tucked into the sofa, I only blinked and watched him. The only one who'd ever said things like that to me had been my mom. My father, by contrast, had told me not to sit around the house eating up the food, but to play cute and scrounge whatever crumbs fell from other people.
"Besides — I'm not dangerous."
You're the most dangerous one of all!
Expand
Expand
