PUPPY 22

The next day, even though it was Saturday morning, Seowoo’s eyes flew open. It was still before dawn. Seowoo, still in his pajamas, went out into the yard, bent down, and looked inside the cat house.

“Still sleeping?”

As he said this and tilted his head, he saw the puppy that had been lying down abruptly lift its face. When his eyes met its round, black eyes, an exclamation escaped Seowoo’s lips on its own.

“Wow…”

Seowoo’s house was already so well-known as a hotspot for cats that, besides the gray cat that had practically settled in, quite a few other cats came and went.

The cats Seowoo had witnessed so far had varied in fur color and size, but he had never seen a kitten. It seemed the mother cats that stopped by Seowoo’s house hid their kittens in a shelter and only carried food back to them.

A cat that had come by recently had looked a little young, but it wasn’t a baby. However, the brown-furred puppy now in front of Seowoo’s eyes was a complete baby puppy.

“Are you awake?”

The puppy, which had been still after their eyes met, finally made a small sound at Seowoo’s question.

“Whine…”

A pink tongue popped out from the baby puppy’s mouth as it made a tearful face. Seeing that, he was suddenly reminded of Juju, the dog Juwon was raising.

The puppy curled up inside the cat house had a round face and, although it was a baby, its front paws were thick, suggesting it was a large breed.

“I want to hold you.”

As Seowoo whispered this quietly, the puppy lying in the box slightly raised its body. Then, it wagged its tail and slowly walked over.

“Yap.”

“Huh…? You want me to hold you?”

“Yap!”

At Seowoo’s question, the small puppy barked as if giving a short answer.

Do puppies normally answer like this?

To Seowoo, who had only seen cats that barely acknowledged him and just brushed their tails against his legs even after he’d diligently fed them for months, the sight of a puppy responding so earnestly was unfamiliar.

“Is it really okay if I hold you?”

“Yap!”

When Seowoo asked once more, the puppy replied as if giving a firm confirmation. Its tail was moving even faster than before. The puppy, having gotten up, waddled on its short legs and came out of the cat house.

Lifting its leg as if asking to be held, Seowoo lifted the puppy into his arms.

“Cute.”

“Whine…”

While holding the puppy, he peered inside the box. Inside were a hot water pack and a fluffy blanket that his grandfather seemed to have provided. But it looked like the cold of the previous night had been too much for the little puppy.

“Were you cold last night?”

“Whimper…”

The puppy, which shivered, had an expression that looked somewhat wronged. Watching the puppy, a cooing voice, as if soothing a child, escaped Seowoo’s lips without him realizing it.

“How did you end up here? Did you get lost?”

“Whine…”

The puppy was so small that he worried it might be in pain if he held it too tightly. The little puppy kept burrowing inward, as if it found the warmth of Seowoo’s arms comforting.

“I have to wash up and go to the study room.”

I don’t want to go….

Seowoo swallowed the rest of his words. His midterm exam scores weren’t bad. Even though the scores were low due to the overall high difficulty of the exams, his grade level and ranking came out high. If he could maintain this pace for the final exams and the CSAT, getting into his first-choice, Hanguk University, wouldn’t be a major problem.

There were times when studying felt physically hard or overwhelming, but he had never thought that he crazily didn’t want to do it or that he wanted to quit everything. The only problem Seowoo was facing now, and a difficult one to solve at that, was his awkward relationship with Juwon.

“Whine…”

“You’re cold. I’ll go get my padded jacket for you.”

When Seowoo stroked the puppy’s head, the puppy nodded its head as if it understood. The whimpering puppy was so cute that he hugged it tightly before putting it back down.

🦴

After changing the water for the puppy, cats, and birds to drink, Seowoo boiled some sweet potatoes and carrots until they were soft and gave them to the puppy. Since he only had cat food, he had offered that in a pinch, but it had kept its mouth tightly shut and refused.

‘Why won’t it eat?’

When Seowoo muttered this and stroked its head, it would smile again and open its mouth goofily. When he took that chance to put the kibble in its mouth, it would spit out the soggy kibble, and it would drop to the ground.

“You’re eating well. Hyung is going to go study and come back.”

He said, watching it break apart the boiled sweet potato with its small mouth with chomp-chomp sounds.

“Yap.”

“I should take a picture… Ah.”

Seowoo’s expression, who had taken out his cell phone to capture the cute puppy’s image, darkened in an instant. His cell phone screen, which had only been slightly cracked near the corner until yesterday, had turned more than halfway black.

When he touched various parts of the screen, the functions were working normally, but the screen was not visible. He had considered just leaving it because it was a hassle, but it seemed he would have to get it repaired after all. Seowoo sent a message to the contact number he had saved last time.

「Hello.」

「This is the person you bumped into the other day. I think I need to get my phone fixed.」

As soon as Seowoo sent the message, a call came from the man. Although he hadn’t done anything wrong, he felt a little nervous at the immediate call. Seowoo answered the phone while standing in front of the main gate.

“Hello.”

— Hello. I’m driving right now so I can’t read the message, can you talk?

“Ah… yes.”

For a fleeting moment, his worry that the man might feign ignorance and refuse to pay the repair costs was rendered meaningless. The man he had bumped into had looked to be in his early to mid-thirties. The age difference wasn’t huge, but still, talking on the phone with an adult felt a little awkward and uncomfortable for Seowoo.

“Yes.”

— For some reason, the sound when the phone dropped seemed serious. Is it broken?

“It’s not a new phone, so I was just going to use it, but the screen is getting progressively darker.”

— It’s getting darker, but you can still make calls?

“The touch screen still works.”

— You answered the phone with just the touch screen even though the screen was off? That’s amazing.

The man who said that laughed with a voice that sounded like he was in a good mood.

“Yes…”

— I think I saw a service center nearby, are you going to get it fixed there?

“Yes. Should I fix it and send you the receipt?”

— I’m heading that way now, can we meet for a bit after you drop off your phone for repair?

“Yes… that’s fine.”

Seowoo, who had hesitated at the man’s suggestion to meet for a bit, agreed. It was possible that he wanted to check for himself, suspicious about whether the cell phone was actually broken and needed fixing.

— See you in a bit. Oh, and if there’s anything you want to eat, think about it.

“Okay, then I’ll contact you again later.”

Seowoo’s brow narrowed slightly as he replied to the man’s enigmatic words about thinking of something to eat. Perhaps because he was an adult, unlike himself who felt awkward throughout the call, the man was adept at leading a conversation even with someone he wasn’t close to. After the call ended, he was about to turn his steps toward the study room.

“Seowoo.”

Juwon, who must have come out at some point, was standing next to Seowoo. Seowoo, who hadn’t sensed his presence at all, looked at Juwon with surprised eyes.

“Uh… Juwon.”

“Where are you going?”

“Ah, I’m going to the study room and then heading somewhere for a bit.”

Seowoo answered Juwon’s question awkwardly. On weekends, Juwon usually did his morning workout and headed to the study room late, so they didn’t specifically make plans to go to the study room together.

Still, they used to exchange messages the day before about what time they would go to the cram school or study room, but they hadn’t done that yesterday. He could have let Juwon know if he wanted to, but he didn’t want to be the first to contact Juwon, who was overtly avoiding his gaze.

But right now, the atmosphere around Juwon, who was standing in front of Seowoo, was unusual.

“…Who are you meeting? The person you were just on the phone with?”

“Yeah.”

“You were using formal language.”

Juwon, his brow slightly furrowed, scanned Seowoo from head to toe with a sticky gaze. It was an unfamiliar and somewhat threatening look.

“Uh… a mister, no, should I say hyung. I bumped into him in front of here yesterday, and my phone fell and broke. He said he’d pay for the screen repair, so I’m going to meet him.”

Hearing what Seowoo said, Juwon took a step closer. Then, with a frown on his face, he asked Seowoo.

“You… what is that smell?”

Juwon, who always said he smelled nice, spoke to Seowoo as if interrogating him. His low voice sounded as if he were trying his best to be patient.

“Do I smell?”

He had woken up in the morning and showered just like any other day. At Juwon’s question, asked with his face still creased in a deep frown, Seowoo also grew flustered, wondering, ‘Do I really smell?’

If any of his other friends had said this, he would have brushed it off without believing them, but the one who said he smelled was Juwon. Cha Juwon, who praised him every day, saying he smelled nice even with his unremarkable shampoo scent, saying his body scent was special.

“I was holding a puppy, does it smell like that?”

At Seowoo’s words, Juwon’s head shot up. Then, he reached out his hand and picked up a single strand of fur that was on Seowoo’s torso.

“…A dog?”

The fur Juwon was holding in his hand was a strand of brown, fluffy dog fur.

‘You get insanely jealous? Then you have to see it as 100% liking him.’

“Yeah. A puppy came into the house yesterday.”

“You held… another… dog…”

“It was cold.”

Juwon’s hand, holding the dog fur, was trembling noticeably.

“Are you okay?”

Seowoo asked in a worried voice, sensing Juwon’s unusual atmosphere.

He felt like he was going to lose his mind because his girlfriend was with another guy?

Junseok hyung was wrong.

This feeling right now was the feeling of the sky falling down.