PUPPY 43

Ding-dong, ding-dong.

Juwon stood leaning against the front door with a relaxed expression, while Seowoo pressed the doorbell with a blank face. And he did it at a very persistent and steady pace.

It was around the time that even Juwon’s ears, who had confidently declared they would wait and had expected to keep hearing the doorbell, were starting to hurt. A rustling sound came from the tightly closed front door.

And the door opened.

The couple’s faces were visible through the very small gap opened by the security chain. They had expressions of clear annoyance.

“Don’t come out, just wait inside.”

Because the gap was so small, he couldn’t see inside the house, but along with the sound of a child’s footsteps, he heard the tap, tap of a puppy’s claws hitting the floor.

‘They have another puppy.’

Juwon’s ears, which were focused, twitched for a moment. When he lowered his gaze, he could see a white puppy at his feet.

“Please don’t do this here and just go. It’s not our dog.”

The words that came back to Gureumi, who was wagging his tail and expressing his joy at seeing his owners again with his whole body, were nothing but cold.

Juwon let out a low laugh. Just because the situation was as he had expected didn’t mean it wasn’t bitter.

“Please check the puppy one more time. His fur is a bit shorter because he was groomed, but he is a Pomeranian…”

Seowoo bent down, lifted the puppy into his arms, and showed it through the small gap in the door. One of the couple, after checking the puppy, turned and disappeared. Then, the voice of the child, who had been whining, ‘Ah, why. I want to see too,’ faded into the distance.

The person standing at the entrance turned their head to confirm the child was no longer there. Then they let out a deep sigh toward Seowoo and said.

“We got two puppies at the same time, this one and the one we’re raising now, but that one is a defective one. He was sick from the very beginning.”

“……”

At the words spoken while gesturing at the puppy with his chin, Seowoo’s mouth fell shut. ‘Defective’ was a word he had never even imagined.

“We bought them for 350,000 won each, but he kept getting sick. We went to the vet and they said he seemed to have been sick even before we got him, so we got a refund. We said we’d return him to the shop, but they refused, saying he was a sick one.”

It was such a typical situation that a low sneer escaped Juwon’s lips.

“Whine— whine!”

Seeing the puppy, who couldn’t even understand the words of the owner who abandoned him and was just happily greeting him, Juwon felt an even greater bitterness.

“Then… what were you planning to do with him?”

They got a refund for the cost of the puppy, and they tried to return him to the shop but were refused. He could understand the situation literally, but the words like purchase and refund sounded so alien.

So Seowoo asked once again what they had intended to do with the rejected puppy.

“We were in a situation where we couldn’t raise him, and there was no one around us who could handle it either. We felt sorry for him, so we let him go so he could live freely. That was the best we could do.”

To Seowoo’s difficult question, a smooth excuse flowed out, as if it had been prepared. Juwon, standing next to him, no longer had the will to even sneer. He was just… disgusted.

“…That’s just abandoning him, what freedom is that.”

Seowoo, who had been listening quietly, looked at the half-face visible through the gap in the door. It wasn’t the face of a typical villain, but the face of an ordinary person you might find anywhere.

“Student, why are you talking like that?”

“You did abandon him on the street.”

Seowoo said, calming his rapidly beating heart. It took a lot of courage to say such things to another person, an adult who seemed older than him at that. Yet, the reason Seowoo didn’t hold back and threw out words of accusation was because of the puppy.

“You’re talking as if we wanted Gureumi to die or something.”

He felt so sorry for this puppy, who was happily wagging its tail just because its owner called its name even after being abandoned, that he couldn’t just let it go with nice words.

“So… you’re not going to take him back?”

“I don’t know if you saw, but we’re already responsible for another dog.”

“The one that isn’t defective?”

Seowoo said in a sharp tone, listening to the words that continued like an excuse. At Seowoo’s words, the person standing beyond the door gap made an overtly offended expression. Then, they spoke to Seowoo in a lecturing tone.

“We did as much as we could. We even took him to the vet and got him a check-up once…”

“…Ha.”

At the self-defense that continued once more, Juwon let out a deep sigh that seemed to be pulled up from his lungs. Unlike the young-faced Seowoo, Juwon, who was tall and well-built, took control of the mood, and the atmosphere instantly turned hostile.

“……”

“Listening to this bullshit… Does saying that make you feel a little better?”

Juwon’s sigh-filled question was laced with sarcasm.

“Student. Did you just swear?”

“Does saying that make your conscience feel a little better?”

Juwon, who had been standing at a distance, took a step forward and brought his face close to the gap in the door.

“Student. You said you go to Haesung High School? If I report what you’re doing right now to the school…”

“You didn’t intend to kill him, you say?”

Tsk, Juwon sneered lowly and once again spoke sarcastically. It seemed they had taken the child back to his room, as now both husband and wife stood side-by-side at the door. But the security chain on the door was not unlatched.

“If someone else hadn’t picked him up that day, he would have died.”

At Juwon’s words, the couple wore expressions as if they had been gravely insulted. Juwon’s voice, which had initially been calm and dry, was now gradually filling with emotion.

“You’re taking it too far. Talking about death.”

“How many months old was he when you got him?”

In Juwon’s wavering gaze, the small puppy came into view. A very small puppy, who knows how young it was when it was separated from its mother and sold.

“What does that have to do with…”

“He was young and small, so he was cute like a doll, but not enough to spend over 1 million won on?”

“The breeder who sold a sick puppy from the start is the one at fault… We have nothing more to say. Please leave now.”

Just then, Juwon unhesitatingly stuck his hand in and grabbed the edge of the door. The force pulling on the doorknob and the force trying to block it were in a tense standoff. At that moment, the child and the other puppy, who seemed to have opened the room door by themselves, came running from a distance. Tap, tap. Hearing the sound of the puppy’s footsteps, Juwon ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek.

“Why didn’t you tell him?”

Juwon asked, his gaze fixed on the child standing behind them.

“Student, don’t you know how rude and senseless what you’re doing right now is?”

“Mister. Why are you speaking like that.”

Seowoo, who had been listening to the conversation between Juwon and the couple while holding the puppy, flared up at the accusation of being rude and senseless and spoke out. The ones who deserved to hear such words were the couple who had abandoned a sick puppy on the street, not Juwon, who took it to the vet for treatment and cared for it.

“Why, are you too ashamed to say it?”

As Juwon’s voice grew louder, the tightly shut door of the next-door apartment also opened slightly with a creak—. By now, the child had come all the way to the front door and was squeezing into the gap between his parents.

“Please leave now.”

“Stop it and go, students. Before we call the police.”

Juwon swallowed as if suppressing his anger, composed his voice, and then shouted loudly.

“That Mom and Dad!”

“Student!”

“Can’t you tell him that you threw the sick Gureumi away?”

Perhaps Juwon’s voice had flowed sufficiently through the small door gap. The young child began to cry, asking, ‘Is Gureumi sick? Where is Gureumi?’. The next-door neighbor, who had been watching the commotion, now understood the situation and began to watch openly.

“What are you doing right now! It’s not like that, you go inside.”

At the same time, the sound of the young child wailing—waaah—could be heard. A crack appeared in the expressions of the couple, who until now had looked confident, as if they had done nothing wrong. When Juwon let go of the door edge he was holding, the front door slammed shut with a loud bang.

“……”

Juwon stood there blankly. Seowoo, who was watching Juwon just standing there silently without any major change in expression, reached out a hand and pulled on Juwon.

“Juwon, let’s just go.”

“…Yeah, let’s go.”

The firmly shut door showed no sign of opening. It was a complete blockade.

As he turned to leave, Seowoo looked at Gureumi, who was still in his arms. The tail that had been wagging happily since they entered the apartment building was no longer wagging.

His eyes met the small puppy’s. It was then that Seowoo realized that even animals who cannot speak can be hurt.