PHUW 131

Haeri was startled and was briefly stunned. He regained his senses in 1.5 seconds and tried to step back, but his foot caught on the corner of the drawer behind him. Small snags like that usually broke balance easily. With two unexpected collisions in a row, Haeri’s upper body staggered backward.

“Ugh!”

Jeong Mok caught the flailing Haeri who looked ridiculous.

“My heart almost dropped.”

“Be careful. You might get hurt again.”

“Why… are you still holding me like this?”

“Because I want to.”

“……”

He lost his words. Just because he wanted to. Wasn’t that too shameless? But that was probably the reason people kept pets. Considering the cost of food, lessons, all the gifts filling the dressing room, and so on, he decided to endure it for now. Besides, it smelled nice too. It wasn’t like he was asking for anything right away. A brief hug wouldn’t hurt.

…That thought disappeared when Jeong Mok suddenly pulled Haeri into a suffocating embrace and rubbed his chin against Haeri’s head as if he would die from how cute he was. Even if no one else was watching, the time dragged on long enough to make it awkward. Even a song of flowers had to be sung in moderation to be a song of flowers. The nice smell lost its effect after too long, and since Jeong Mok was so big and broad, Haeri began to suffocate.

‘How long am I supposed to stay like this?’

He was hesitating whether to push him away.

The oversized crybaby, upset at being left out of the hugging, raised his massive front paws and pounced on them. When he stood on his hind legs he was about as big as Haeri, and his full-body attack made even Jeong Mok stagger.

“Wait. Don’t press with your claws. It hurts.”

Ah. So he wasn’t overpowered. It was the claw attack.

Because the giant dog’s claws pressed into his shoulder blade, Jeong Mok’s upper body tilted down, loosening the arms that held Haeri. This time Haeri had to steady Jeong Mok.

“Ouch. Gom-i, that really hurts. Move your paw.”

At being pushed away, the giant black dog’s hurt feelings exploded, and he hopped on his hind legs toward Jeong Mok. As Jeong Mok staggered backward, he tripped on the bed and fell. Since Haeri hadn’t let go of him in time, he tumbled down with him.

Woof!

The excited mutt leapt onto the bed.

“Ah!”

“Ugh!”

The massive ball of fur, heavier than a grown man, trampled the two of them while panting. This was a disaster. Haeri wheezed, his breath cut off when his side was stomped on, and Jeong Mok, usually gentle, must have decided this was too much, because he lowered his voice.

“Gom, stop!”

The rampaging beast froze at the terrifying baritone. Jeong Mok got up and pointed at the floor, giving the order again.

“Get down.”

Woof. Though he calmed down a little, the black dog refused to leave the bed and resisted Jeong Mok.

“Haeri is hurt. Do you want Haeri-hyung to end up in the hospital again? If you keep this up, you’ll be separated from him.”

“I don’t like the hospital either. So get down.”

Haeri groaned and pushed the black dog down. The dog, not understanding what he had done wrong, whined in protest and shoved his snout against Haeri’s cheek. “Don’t be mad,” he seemed to say. But when Haeri didn’t respond, he transformed into the world’s saddest puppy and climbed down. But, he still didn’t go far, lying on the floor with his triangular eyes tilted up at them.

“You get to see Haeri-hyung all day. I can only see and touch him in the evening. So you give way.”

Watching Jeong Mok spout such silly nonsense with a straight face, Haeri thought he probably meant “let me in too,” but he didn’t bother to say anything. Something else caught his attention instead.

Even though he thought it was ridiculous for someone of Jeong Mok’s size and presence to act like it hurt so much just because of a dog’s claws, it turned out he really was bleeding from the shoulder.

“Huh?”

He pointed instinctively, and Jeong Mok, who had been scolding the troublemaker, turned to him.

“You’re bleeding here.”

Jeong Mok turned his head to check above his shoulder blade and sighed. A red circle was spreading on his thin indoor T-shirt.

“No wonder it hurt so much.”

With a weary sigh, Jeong Mok pulled off his T-shirt on the spot. Revealing a broad, muscular torso like a charity calendar model, he rolled up the shirt and pressed it to his shoulder blade. Why did he look like someone who’d been taken down by a sniper, when it was just his dog’s claws? And after work hours, no less. Was his face and build working overtime without pay? Or maybe his big company paid extra overtime allowance. But did the owner’s family even get overtime pay?

“I’d better get the first-aid kit.”

Jeong Mok left the room. Of course Haeri followed, and behind Haeri trotted the black dog. Like a duckling, though it was natural since being in someone else’s room was strange.

Jeong Mok took out the first-aid kit and spread it on the dining table. He pulled out powdered disinfectant that doubled as a coagulant and sprinkled it on his shoulder, but his aim was off and some scattered on the floor.

“I’ll do it.”

Haeri naturally took the disinfectant. He sprinkled it to stop the bleeding and put a large, thick bandage over it.

“But don’t you have to get a shot if you’re scratched by a dog?”

“He had his rabies shots, so it’s fine. I just need to take an anti-inflammatory.”

While he searched the kit for a suitable anti-inflammatory, Haeri brought him water.

“Thanks.”

There was a scar on his sculpted, muscular forearm. Still reddish, so it didn’t look that old.

“What happened here?”

“From when Gom-i bit me once when he was mad.”

“What?”

Wait, the black dog bit him? Wasn’t he supposed to be scared of Jeong Mok? Even now he was watching him nervously.

“He bites?”

“I told you before, didn’t I?”

Of course, he remembered hearing it. That was why he had been so intimidated when he first saw the black dog.

“You said he bites other people, not his owner.”

Biting other people was already a big problem, but biting his owner was an even bigger one. That meant there would be no one to stop him. Especially when the dog itself was a creature on the level of a lethal weapon.

“I’m not his owner.”

Jeong Mok answered while putting the first-aid kit away.

“What?”

He couldn’t understand.

“Then who’s his owner?”

“I told you before, did you forget? You said you wanted to raise him.”

He remembered hearing it in the hospital. But just because he had insisted on raising him, did that really mean he was the owner…? Or maybe it did.

“I didn’t know that’s what it meant.”

“You were sick so I’m the one taking care of him, but strictly speaking, his owner is you. That’s why he only doesn’t bite you.”

Which meant that since Jeong Mok had decided to take care of Haeri, it also came with the situation of raising the black dog, who was Haeri’s dependent. In other words, it was an absurd situation where a dependent’s dependent had hurt the master of the master.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

“I should have stopped him.”

“Haha. If you had tried, you’d be the one hurt worse.”

“Even so.”

“Back when you and I lived in a different house, we argued once. At the time I raised my voice at you and that agitated Gom-i. It was entirely my fault. So don’t worry about it.”

Jeong Mok spoke like it was nothing.

But from Haeri’s point of view, it was not nothing. How much must he have shouted at him for the black dog, who usually obeyed Jeong Mok so well, to rush in and bite? It wasn’t just raising his voice, he must have completely lost his temper.

A man who lived so easily with a fierce dog that had bitten him had lost his cool enough to shout like that. That meant someone had really pressed his button. If Haeri hadn’t known before, fine, but now that he knew such a button existed, he had to make sure it never happened again.

“You got angry at me? Why?”

“Because you didn’t listen to me.”

“So I must have caused a lot of trouble, huh?”

“I was the one causing trouble. You were living fine, and then I suddenly told you to leave the house.”

Haeri’s heart sank. So Jeong Mok had tried to kick him out? Shouting enough for the black dog to bite? That was the worst possible outcome. Anything else was fine, but he couldn’t be thrown out. Surely he wouldn’t pack up all the things in the dressing room for him while kicking him out. He hadn’t even smuggled anything away yet! He had to figure this out and deal with it.

“What did you dislike about me so much…?”

He asked cautiously.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. It was all my fault.”

Still bare-chested, Jeong Mok gave an embarrassed smile.

“At the time, how should I put it, I guess I was confused. I wasn’t ready to take in someone new. So I just unilaterally told you to leave. I shouldn’t have done that without explaining to you. Now I regret it and reflect on it.”

So, in short, he had told him to leave because of a change in feelings, and he hadn’t even given a reason.

“Didn’t you say you were the one who brought me in when I lost my memory?”

“That’s right. You were uncomfortable, but I said we should live together.”

“I thought you were really good to me from the start… Is that right?”

“That’s true too.”

“And then you suddenly told me to leave?”

His tone had naturally turned more cynical and accusatory. Jeong Mok seemed to notice it too, unable to hide his troubled look. Instead of offering some flimsy excuse, he eventually admitted it with a heavy sigh.

“You’re right.”

“I didn’t think you were, but you’re trash.”

The words left his mouth before he realized.

“……”

The other man couldn’t say anything.

“Even if you picked up a stray dog, people would curse you for that. But you picked up an injured person, and how could you do that? Adopt someone on a whim, then abandon them because of a mood swing? Declaring it to their face, no less? You knew I was an orphan even if I’d lost my memory, right? How could you do that to an orphan of all people? I see you differently now.”