Predator Alert chapter 13

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Jeongseo was convinced that Pyo Yoontae would definitely go over to those kids.

After all, they were calling out to him as a group, while he was alone.

Jeongseo’s brown eyes wavered.

“They’re calling you over there…”

‘Shouldn’t you go?’

The rest of the sentence didn’t make it out of his mouth.

Pyo Yoontae looked down at him for a moment, then shifted his gaze to the side.

“Well, there’s no real need to go.”

Pyo Yoontae muttered dryly and looked at him again.

It felt like his face was starting to sting again, just like when it got hit by the ball.

“Right now, I want to be with you.”

Jeongseo’s heart pounded fast and hard, just like it did when they were playing dodgeball.

Feeling a strange tickle in his chest, Jeongseo awkwardly rubbed the area around his sternum and mumbled.

“Then… suit yourself!”

Jeongseo spun around as if in anger, but he held onto Pyo Yoontae’s hand tightly, worried that he might let go of his wrist.

As Jeongseo strode out of the gymnasium, his cheeks were pleasantly puffed up.

Seeing those puffed cheeks even from behind, Pyo Yoontae couldn’t help but smile silently.

°❀•°❀°•❀°

The two of them sat side by side on a bench near the gymnasium.

Jeongseo stretched his legs out in front of him and lifted his head.

Overhead, wisteria vines were tangled haphazardly, with only small rays of sunlight managing to squeeze through.

They didn’t exchange many words, but Jeongseo found it amazing just to have someone sitting next to him.

“I used to sit here alone all the time because the shade is nice and the breeze is just right.”

Jeongseo’s toes wiggled in sync with the light swaying of his brown tail.

“But it seems even better now that we’re together.”

As Pyo Yoontae stared at the sports field in front of him, he rested his chin on his hand and turned to look at him.

The still cool spring breeze made his brown hair flutter slightly.

“Then you can stay with me from now on.”

It wasn’t until Pyo Yoontae’s low voice reached his ears that Jeongseo turned his face toward him.

“With you?”

“Yeah, with me.”

Pyo Yoontae pointed to himself with his index finger, smiling with his eyes.

Jeongseo, who saw this, found his lips twitching as he struggled to suppress a smile.

It was clear to anyone that he was so happy he didn’t know what to do, but suddenly Jeongseo turned his head sharply.

“No way.”

“…What?”

This was an unexpected response.

Pyo Yoontae furrowed his brows slightly, unnoticed by Jeongseo.

“You’re too mean to me. And didn’t you say you don’t talk to wild beasts? Well, I’m a wild beast too, you know?”

Wondering if he was serious, Pyo Yoontae leaned closer to him.

The closer he got, the more Jeongseo turned his head to avoid showing his face.

“So, take back what you said about not talking to wild beasts.”

He’s still hung up on that, huh?

Pyo Yoontae held back a laugh and answered.

“Fine, I’ll take it back.”

Jeongseo’s brown ears perked up immediately.

He glanced sideways at him and slowly turned his head.

“…Really?”

His narrowed eyes were full of suspicion.

Overturning his previous expression of surprise, Pyo Yoontae kindly nodded.

“Really.”

In truth, Pyo Yoontae didn’t like talking to most creatures that could speak, not just wild beasts.

The only reason he singled out wild beasts was because their characteristic arrogance annoyed him the most; there wasn’t any special reason.

‘But, this one… I don’t know if I can even call him a wild beast.’

Pyo Yoontae glanced at Jeongseo, who was much smaller than him, and thought back to dodgeball.

Seeing how he handled ten kids all by himself, he was definitely a wild beast.

But he was completely different from the ones Pyo Yoontae disliked. Resisting the urge to provoke him, Pyo Yoontae instead lightly tapped his ears, which were twitching in response to his words.

The fluffy ears flinched slightly.

Compared to other animals, Jeongseo’s ears were less active and more limited in their movements, but still, Jeongseo expressed a lot through his ears.

As Pyo Yoontae kept poking them, Jeongseo eventually shook his head vigorously.

“That tickles, stop it!”

Jeongseo couldn’t understand why Pyo Yoontae was so fixated on his ears.

Still, it was better than having his tail yanked.

Jeongseo pressed his triangular ears down with both hands and glared at him.

Pyo Yoontae simply smiled mischievously.

‘I wonder if he has ears hidden in that black hair too?’

Having grown up among humans, Jeongseo had hardly ever met other beastfolk, and he had almost never seen their true forms.

Even though he spent a lot of time in Seoul due to hospital visits, it was hard to tell whether someone was human or beastfolk when they kept their tails and ears hidden.

It wasn’t until high school that he met many beastfolk, but since he wasn’t close to any of them, he had rarely seen even a single ear pop out.

He knew that his grandmother, mother, brother, and even his father, whom he didn’t see often, all cherished him.

Jeongseo also considered them his true family, but sometimes the differences between beastfolk and humans felt overwhelmingly large.

“What are you thinking about so deeply? Is there something on my head?”

Pyo Yoontae brushed through his black hair with his hand.

“I want to try something.”

“Try something?”

Jeongseo’s brown eyes sparkled with curiosity.

He hesitated for a moment, then leaned slightly toward Pyo Yoontae and asked in a shy but hopeful voice.

“Can I touch your ears just once?”

Pyo Yoontae’s black eyebrows twitched.

He closed his mouth with an uncertain expression, Seo Jeongseo hurried to continue.

“Yoontae, you’ve touched my ears already a lot! Just let me hold it once”

Pyo Yoontae knew exactly what ears he meant.

He hesitated for a moment.

Even with his family, he never let anyone see any part of his true form.

Normally, he would have ignored such a request, but he leaned toward Jeongseo.

Soon, two triangular ears poked out from his black hair.

Jeongseo’s eyes widened at the sight of the black, triangular ears that didn’t match his cold-looking face.

“Your ears… they’re cute!”

Jeongseo whispered in awe and gently touched the black ears with his fingers.

They twitched much more noticeably than his own.

Fascinated, Jeongseo poked at them lightly a few more times before fully turning his body to grab both ears.

He carefully pinched the tips between his thumb and index finger, making sure not to hurt them.

The fur at the tips, where his fingers touched, was short and a little coarse yet soft, while the skin underneath felt smooth and pleasant to the touch.

Although Jeongseo’s ears felt similar, this was his first time touching someone else’s ears, and it felt different.

As Jeongseo fiddled with them this way and that, the ears flapped vigorously.

He couldn’t believe they could move so freely, and little tufts of black fur stuck out at the tips as the ears folded back.

“How long are you going to keep touching them?”

Pyo Yoontae, who had bent over to make it easier for Jeongseo, raised his face slightly.

Because of this, Jeongseo’s arms were lifted up, and Pyo Yoontae’s hidden eyes stared directly at him.

As soon as Jeongseo’s brown eyes met his bright yellow ones, he felt a strange sense of déjà vu.

A fleeting image of a black cat he had seen briefly as a child crossed his mind, just as Pyo Yoontae’s ears suddenly disappeared.

Jeongseo instinctively craned his neck to check Pyo Yoontae’s backside.

But nothing came out.

At that moment, a classmate suddenly called out to them from the gym entrance steps.

“Hey, the class leader says you guys need to come back into the gym now! PE class is about to start!”

“When’s PE class?”

“I don’t know, like in 10 or 15 minutes?”

“Go back in before then.”

With that, the classmate repeated that they needed to come in and disappeared back into the gym. Jeongseo suddenly realized how much time had passed.

Since he was always alone, even in the first year, he would head back to the gym when it seemed like the right time.

When you’re alone, time always passes slowly.

Jeongseo stared at the top of Pyo Yoontae’s head. His big eyes were filled with regret.

“Want me to bring them out again?”

To his surprise, Jeongseo shook his head.

“No, I’ll touch them again next time.”

Even though no one had promised to bring them out again, Jeongseo was already certain that they would.

Pyo Yoontae didn’t bother to challenge that assumption.

“But why are your ears still out, Jeongseo? What happened to what I taught you before?”

Having just seen Pyo Yoontae skillfully hide his ears, Jeongseo suddenly felt a sense of embarrassment.

The fact that they were the same age, yet he couldn’t do the same, made him feel self-conscious.

“I tried, but it’s not working…”

“It’s hard; I don’t really get it,” Jeongseo mumbled, his pronunciation slurring as he spoke, almost like he was whining.

He tapped his foot on the pavement block out of frustration, and his tail, which had slipped behind the chair, swayed discontentedly from side to side.

Pyo Yoontae looked down at Jeongseo quietly.

Hiding one’s ears and tail was a natural instinct that would usually be learned as one grew up.

However, having been raised by humans from a young age, Jeongseo seemed to lack that instinct.

Learning something through observation and experience was vastly different from being taught it verbally.

“First, try hiding your ears.”

Jeongseo nodded, and soon, his brown ears disappeared.

“Now, try hiding your tail too.”

Jeongseo nodded again, squeezed his eyes shut, and his tail vanished into his pants as if it were being sucked in.

But at the same time, his ears popped back out with a ‘boing.’

For a moment, Pyo Yoontae was at a loss for words.

How could the mechanism work in such a way that he couldn’t hide them both at once?

If he couldn’t hide either, that would at least make sense.