The Cat hides its Claws

Some days passed without Sajun showing up in front of Myohan. Those days were peaceful.

Myohan sighed while looking out the window. The weather forecast had gone crazy and it said it was about to snow, even though it was April.

He was wearing a hoodie over his school jacket, but still he sneezed. He was about to catch a cold, although he hadn’t gotten a cold even after diving into water the other day.

This wasn’t good. He sighed again.

“Well, then.”

The man’s voice filled the quiet library. Jagyeom put down his book and looked at Myohan. His ankle was wrapped in bandages, and he slowly moved between the bookshelves.

“Let us begin.”

“Be quiet in the library.”

Oh, déjà vu. Jagyeom muttered to himself. But the man went on, looking at the piece of paper on the table.

“First, we must decide on the kitten’s name.”

Myohan had taken it to a vet’s a day after he saved it. The vet ran some tests, and the kitten was fine, although it was a bit underweight.

Myohan didn’t hesitate to buy cat food and other necessities as soon as he heard it. He couldn’t leave it on the streets after saving it.

Both him and Jagyeom showed interest the moment O Shin talked about the kitten’s name, which they hadn’t done when they were talking about how to capture the snake.

“Potential names are Tuna, Hati, Noah, and Monggu, but what I recommend is Myomyo.”

Jagyeom took a peek at his paper. There were names like Myoyeong, Myoah, Sinbi, Kim Hyeonsik, and Park Suncheol on it. He couldn’t help but laugh when he saw the name Suncheol.

Such a tough name for such little and cute cat? He wondered what to say about it, but then Myohan added, “It’ll be Qin Shi Huang.”

“What?”

The man looked at him in surprise. Myohan smiled and took out a book.

“I picked a random book.”

‘Qin Shi Huang and His Unification of China.’ That was the book’s name. It disappointed the man for a second, but when Myohan looked at him again after blinking slowly, he was as emotionless as usual. Jagyeom frowned and shook his head.

“That’s just wrong. A cat named Qin Shi Huang?”

“It’s much better than a rat named Lee Jagyeom.”

Myohan countered coldly. Jagyeom yelled angrily.

“Hey, there’s a Myo Cheong in this school as well!”

“Then maybe you two should get together.”

Myohan laughed, put the book back, and sat down at the table. The man looked away. It somewhat hurt Myohan’s feelings and he hit the table, making Jagyeom flinch.

“But shouldn’t we be talking about how to catch the snake first?”

“We’ve already got him.”

Before Myohan could ask what he meant by that, O Shin hit the table, just like he just had. Jagyeom flinched again and muttered about how the two were so easily pissed off.

“He’s been caught already.”

“By who?”

“By you, O Myohan.”

Myohan couldn’t understand. He still didn’t know what made Sajun turn into a snake, nor had he seen his transformation. He had no evidence to prove Sajun was the snake. But still, O Shin was telling him he had gotten the snake.

“And it’s March.”

“It’s already April. What are you talking about?”

Myohan ruffled his hair. However, he realized something and stood up, half in doubt. He went to the window, forcing his still sore ankle to walk. When he opened the broken window, cold wind hit his face. He looked at the window on the other side, the window at the end of the hallway of the old building.

“Hi.”

Sajun waved his hand. He still resembled a snake a lot, but his previous hunger had disappeared. Myohan blinked slowly. Something fell onto his eyes.

“I knew you would look.”

He felt something cold. He didn’t like the drops of water on his face, so he rubbed it with his hand. Sajun put his head on a hand and smiled softly.

“I told you I’d help find the twelve zodiac animals.”

“Are you…”

“I will help you, unconditionally.”

And I’m supposed to believe that? Myohan frowned. Sajun was still smiling. He shrugged. And then he stretched a hand out.

“I,”

It felt so strange. Sajun was right in front of him, but it didn’t feel as dangerous as before. Was it because his sly attitude was gone? Or was it because of the soft gaze he gave Myohan?

“Turn into a snake when I touch snow.”

A snowflake fell on his hand. Myohan watched with wide eyes.

Snow started to fall. Cherry blossom flowers were already in full bloom, but it was snowing.

So the weather forecast wasn’t crazy after all. Myohan thought so. O Shin was now behind him and put a hand on his shoulder.

He felt like laughing. No way…. He muttered so.

“They say it’s a snake in a pit.”

Myohan didn’t know what he meant by that. Of course, he was too bewildered to say anything. O Shin glanced at him and whispered, “A snake’s mind is hard to understand.”

See?

“I told you, we already have him.”

O Shin gritted his teeth to think how Sajun had looked, crouching and blushing. Myohan had caught the snake. So it would never be able to escape. Now, the snake was in the cat’s hands.

“The answer to question No.14 is choice 5.”

“Aagh!”

“I thought it was choice three!”

Circle.

“The answer to question No.15 is choice 3.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t have changed it.”

“I was right to change to it!”

Circle.

“Write-out question No.1: converge to 0.”

“Will there be partial points?”

“As if it’ll make any difference for you.”

“Hey!”

X…

“There will be partial points, just wait.”

No, a triangle, for undecided.

“Write-out question No.2: 1806.”

“And does that have partial points?”

“You’ll get 1 point if your answer is right, but there’ll be no partial points for the solving process.”

“What the, how was I supposed to get the answer right without the solving process?”

Circle.

“As for question No. 3, x is 1 or 1/…”

“Hey, Yuja! Please tell me the answer to question 2 again!”

“Hey, Byeon Sinsul, don’t stop him!”

“….1/2.”

Circle.

“I’ll put the key here, so take a look at them and give your wrong answer notes to Chookjae.”

“What? We have to make wrong answer notes?”

The classroom was in chaos. Myohan, who had been half-heartedly grading his test papers, turned at the eyes looking at him.

“What?”

It was O Shin. He had been looking at Myohan for some time without looking at his own test papers. He smiled to see Myohan’s test papers full of circles. He had felt it for some time, but Myohan was surprisingly diligent.

“You’re better than studying at I thought.”

“Of course.”

The day he captured the snake, when Myohan went to his homeroom teacher, he was told he could stop cleaning the library. He was excited to hear that, thinking all of his hard work was being recognized, but then his teacher ruined his good mood with just one sentence.

‘The midterm exams start tomorrow. You should study.’

Myohan had forgotten that cherry blossoms always came with midterm exams.

As O Shin said, he was a surprisingly hard-working student, so he started to study, although he didn’t have much time.

He didn’t even have time to rejoice about catching the snake. Thankfully, he had been born smart. Or else he would have failed the tests and been scolded hard by his teacher.

“Let’s play soccer!”

In any case, the three-day long midterm exams were over now. When Sinsul finished grading his last test paper, which was math, he jumped up and down with a soccer ball in his arm.

He kept wailing about how he hadn’t been able to play soccer during the midterm exams. (Not because he studied, but because there had been no one to play the team sport with.) A few of his classmates pitied him and decided to play with him, but then Yuja, the class president, hit the teacher’s table hard.

“Stay where you are, and focus.”

Sinsul yelled, “Why are you stopping? We are going to play soccer!”

“It’s important.”

But Yuja took care of his protest, easily and firmly. He put his glasses up as he saw Sinsul sit down without saying anything more.

His charisma was enough to make the excited boys calm down. When they were all seated, he showed them a piece of paper. It was a guideline about the school festival.

“The school festival is in two weeks. Each class must put up a play. I know none of you will raise your hand, but I’ll ask out of courtesy. Who wants to be in the play?”

No one said anything, of course. Why would any of them be made a laughingstock in front of the whole school? Myohan looked out the window, completely uninterested. O Shin also looked at them.

But Yuja had expected such a reaction, so he started to write on the blackboard.