PUPPY 2

“Class President?”

Seowoo tried to pretend he didn’t hear and turn his head away, but Juwon was looking straight at Seowoo and called him Class President.

“Ye…?”

Seowoo answered in formal language without realizing it. His grip loosened, and the dumpling that had been dangling from his chopsticks fell with a thud.

“Your name.”

“……”

“…Is it Ryu Seowoo?”

When Cha Juwon asked with a slight frown, Seowoo, completely intimidated, answered.

“Yes.”

“Weren’t we in the same class last year? Why are you using formal speech?”

He had tried to answer naturally, but formal speech slipped out of Seowoo’s mouth without him realizing it. Juwon let out a low chuckle at Seowoo’s reaction.

“Right… we were in the same class last year.”

“Just speak casually.”

“…Okayes.”

A strange answer, a mix of ‘ne’ (formal yes) and ‘eung’ (informal yes), slipped out.

“……”

“……”

A silence fell between Seowoo, who was fidgeting internally, and Juwon, who had an interested expression. He heard the sound of Juwon slowly closing and opening his eyes, taking a long breath in.

It was a trivial action, but perhaps because of the piercing glint in Cha Juwon’s eyes, he felt a little scared. Seowoo, already cowed, mentally calculated how much money he had left. There’s a part-timer here, so surely… he wouldn’t hit him, right? Seowoo tried his best to hide his anxious expression.

“You.”

At Cha Juwon’s call, Seowoo swallowed hard.

“Huh?”

“You smell nice.”

Cha Juwon’s lips curved up slightly as he said it.

“Uh…? Thanks.”

“Did you shower before coming out?”

“Not right before, but I did after coming back from the academy. About an hour ago?”

At Juwon’s unexpected question, Seowoo nodded his head politely and answered as sincerely as possible.

“Eat your dumpling. It’s going to fall apart.”

Juwon said, naturally sitting down next to Seowoo and gesturing with his chin toward the dumpling soup.

“Oh, right. I’ll eat.”

“……”

As Seowoo carefully put the dumpling in his mouth, Juwon propped up his chin and began to stare at him openly. Seowoo did his best to ignore that ardent gaze.

“…Do you want some too?”

“No, we have a fuckton of dumplings at my house.”

“Ah, I see.”

I said something unnecessary… Seowoo nodded and mechanically chewed his dumpling. It was the instant food he had been craving so much, but right now, he couldn’t taste anything.

“Do you live around here?”

“…Yeah.”

Seowoo answered shortly, swallowing a dumpling. Unlike Seowoo, who felt awkward, Juwon was continuing the conversation comfortably.

“I moved here.”

“Ah… I see. Do you live in the Haetae Apartments?”

Across one crosswalk from the convenience store where Seowoo and Juwon were, there was a large apartment complex. Most of the students at Seowoo’s high school lived there.

“No. The tile-roofed house you get to if you walk down that alley.”

“…Huh?”

“Where do you live?”

At Juwon’s question, Seowoo felt as if the dumpling he was eating had gotten stuck in his throat. And he hesitated to answer.

If Cha Juwon had moved into the tile-roofed house, they would run into each other often from now on. It would be ridiculous to make up an excuse that he lived somewhere else when he hadn’t done anything wrong.

“My house is also in that alley…, around there.”

Seowoo answered as vaguely as possible. But Juwon, seemingly not noticing Seowoo’s hesitant expression, asked back in a casual tone.

“Which house in the alley?”

Seowoo put down his chopsticks, lowered his head slightly, and answered in a small voice. His clumsy attempt to not reveal his address instantly went up in smoke.

“…Right across from your tile-roofed house.”

“Really?”

Cha Juwon took off the hoodie he had been wearing. Then he shook his head from side to side to tousle his hair. A nice shampoo scent wafted from his silky hair.

“That’s great. I don’t have any friends in this neighborhood.”

“I guess so. Since you just moved…”

“Yeah. I transferred a few times after getting into trouble, and here I am.”

There was a reason he had reacted so sensitively to Kang Jihyeok’s question about being expelled.

“I see. Trouble…”

“Ah, I’m planning to be careful this time until graduation.”

It might be a leap, but he looked just like a gangster vowing to turn over a new leaf. A tense Seowoo straightened his posture. In contrast, Juwon, sitting in a relaxed posture with his chin propped on his hand, now began to observe Seowoo openly.

Seowoo, who had a personality that couldn’t stand silence, poked at his finished dumpling soup and spoke.

“You know… I really enjoyed the rice cakes today.”

Seowoo appealed with a rather earnest expression that he wasn’t saying this to suck up, but because he had genuinely enjoyed them.

“Rice cakes?”

“Yeah. The siru-tteok with pumpkin in it. It was delicious.”

“Ah… the moving-in rice cakes.”

At Seowoo’s words, Juwon slowly nodded his head. He seemed to recall vaguely hearing that his parents, who valued tradition, had handed out moving-in rice cakes.

“Do you like rice cakes?”

He had no interest whatsoever in the taste of the rice cakes, but Juwon asked the question as a courtesy to continue the conversation with Seowoo. The problem was that his listless tone sounded like an interrogation to Seowoo.

“Yeah. I’ve always liked rice cakes. But the ones from your house were even more delicious.”

“……”

“They were chewy.”

“……”

“And seemed fresh…”

It was hard to read any emotion on Cha Juwon’s expressionless face. But that was only for a moment before Cha Juwon broke into a wide—playful grin.

“Do you like dumplings too?”

“This? It’s not that I love dumplings, it’s just that out of what was here, it was the most…”

“This is from my family’s company.”

Mr. Cha’s, he added in a low voice.

“Wow, to think that Mr. Cha’s Dumpling Soup, which I found so delicious even though I’m not a huge fan of dumplings, was made by your family. Mr. Cha’s… Cha Juwon.”

Seowoo clumsily recovered from what was about to be a verbal blunder. The things his grandmother had told him and the pieces of information Cha Juwon was casually dropping were fitting together perfectly.

“Where are you going now?”

Juwon asked, watching Seowoo gather the trash into the empty dumpling soup container.

“I have to go home.”

“Let’s go together.”

Juwon said, getting up from his seat.

“Don’t you have plans?”

“No. I came out to buy trash bags.”

“So that’s why you’re dressed so lightly.”

Juwon’s gaze fell on Seowoo, who was whispering softly as if he’d had a realization. Juwon took another breath in. It wasn’t his imagination. Seowoo’s scent, mixed with the cold evening air, was…

It was so good it was instantly refreshing.

The school Juwon and Seowoo attended was co-ed, but the classes were separated by gender. So when he had entered the classroom teeming with only boys, a terrible smell had hit Juwon’s nose. Since Juwon had a very developed sense of smell, that foul odor was even more torturous. He had almost thrown up right after introducing himself and sitting down.

In that classroom, the scent that had allowed him to breathe was Ryu Seowoo’s. His eyesight wasn’t good, so he couldn’t see Seowoo’s features clearly from a distance, but up close, he was delicate and cute.

Juwon needed a friend. Perhaps it was because he inherited the instincts of his pack-living ancestors, but living a solitary life alone wasn’t his thing at all. At his previous school, he had known a wide circle of people.

Since he was a senior now, there was no need to hang out in a boisterous group like before, but Juwon’s thought was that he should at least have one friend.

However, due to his special identity, he couldn’t just become friends with ‘anyone’. A good heart was more important than a nice scent. As a result of observing him discreetly for the past week, Ryu Seowoo was, surprisingly, even kind. In an age like this where adults and kids alike had completely lost their sense of decency, he was a rare, well-mannered student.

“What time are you going to school tomorrow?”

At Juwon’s question, Seowoo asked back, startled.

“…Me?”

“Is there anyone else here?”

Cha Juwon turned his head and looked around. Seowoo’s eyes caught sight of Juwon’s particularly sharp canine teeth.

“I just, wake up in the morning, get ready, and go…”

The two began to walk down the alley together. He knew Cha Juwon was tall, but walking side-by-side, he could feel the overwhelming difference in their height and build.

What did he eat to get so tall? Seowoo thought to himself, struggling to keep up with Cha Juwon’s long strides. The short alley felt exceptionally long today.

“Want to go to school together tomorrow?”

“……”

At Juwon’s words, Seowoo pressed his lips together with a hesitant expression. Juwon, who was watching his pursed lips, casually explained his unfortunate situation with the intention of testing Seowoo’s character.

“I don’t really know the way to school.”

“…Ah.”

“What if I get lost?”

At Juwon’s words, Seowoo, who had been walking while looking straight ahead, turned his head. When their eyes met, Seowoo made up his mind with grim determination.

“The map apps these days are really good, so if you look at one of those and follow it…”

However, the words that came out of his mouth were closer to a mumbled excuse. Juwon, treating Seowoo’s suggestion to use modern technology as something of a joke, stopped walking.

“Um…”

Before they knew it, Juwon and Seowoo had arrived in front of their houses. Juwon gestured toward Seowoo’s house as if telling him to go in first.

“I’ll come to the front of your house tomorrow.”

“…Okay. Bye.”

“See you tomorrow.”

At Juwon’s smiling face, Seowoo, trembling slightly with fear, headed home.