The Cat hides its Claws

“Since it will be unfair for some of us to do the play while others don’t, I am going to choose a play in which each and every one of us will be able to participate.”

“Oh, come on. Why don’t we pick, like, five and make them…”

“If you keep interrupting, I’ll make you be the princess.”

The protesting student immediately shut up to see Yuja write the word ‘princess.’ Anything but the princess. Everyone thought so. Yuja finished writing the roles. The prince, the princess, dwarf 1, dwarf 2, dwarf 3… He was probably thinking of Snow White.

Myohan laid his head on a hand and closed his eyes. He wished he could be ‘tree’ or ‘passerby 1.’ Both memorizing the lines and practicing were too much work to him. He yawned, rubbed his eyes, and then narrowed his eyes.

May sunlight was warm, and it was hard to imagine that it had snowed only a few days ago.

Myohan looked outside, enjoying the view of falling cherry blossoms.

“None of us wants to be the princess, so let’s pick the prince first.”

White petals fell like snowflakes. There were still afternoon classes, but Myohan could see a student standing in front of the school gate, probably leaving early because of sickness.

The janitor had left for lunch, so the gate was closed. Myohan would have easily jumped over it, but it was impossible for ordinary people…

“I’m asking again out of courtesy. Who wants to be the prince?”

“…..O Myohan?”

Yuja blinked in surprise. Myohan jumped to his feet, making his chair fall with a huge crash. Everyone looked at him.

Myohan looked out the window with wide eyes, and then he grabbed his bag and pulled O Shin’s arm to make him stand up as well.

“I have to go, bye?”

Then he was gone.

Blink, blink. Yuja could say nothing, even after Myohan left. Others were no different.

Chookjae, who was standing next to Yuja, poked him. Yuja came back to his senses and wrote two names on the blackboard.

“Well, let us decide on the rest of the roles.”

Prince: O Myohan.

Princess: O Shin.

Just like that, their destiny was sealed.

Shit. Myohan muttered. He looked around, looking for someone, but there was no one there.

“Rabbit?” O Shin asked unconcernedly while Myohan panted and nodded.

“He jumped over the school gate.”

Myohan had just seen a student look around and jump over the school gate lightly and neatly. Any ordinary person wouldn’t have been able to do so.

He should have jumped down from the window the second he witnessed it, but he hadn’t been able to do so as there had been too many eyes watching.

So he dragged the man out and ran to where the student had gone, but they couldn’t find him.

Myohan looked around again, disappointed. He should have at least seen his face, but all he saw was the back of his head, so he had no clue where to start.

“No, you said you can identify which animal it is when you see….”

Myohan stopped catching his breath and talked. O Shin frowned. But when Myohan asked if he could recognize other animals when they first met, he had most certainly nodded.

However, now he looked into Myohan’s eyes and said otherwise, without even blinking an eye.

“I lied.”

“What?”

“I lied to drag you into this.”

Myohan’s lips curled up. O Shin looked away, thinking he was about to get angry, but he didn’t.

“You’re lying.”

O Shin’s dark eyes showed surprise. Myohan undid couple of his shirt buttons and turned back. O Shin took a step toward him.

“You’ve lied to me about one thing.”

“O Myohan.”

“Let’s just go home.”

The day Myohan found out Jagyeom was the rat, O Shin promised to capture him.

Myohan splashed water on Jagyeom only because O Shin made him do so. While Myohan was surprised to see Jagyeom turn into a rat, he was just smiling. It couldn’t have been impossible if he hadn’t known that water was what made Jagyeom turn into a rat.

“I wish we knew what makes him transform.”

Myohan couldn’t know why, but O Shin didn’t seem like he wanted to cooperate. Well, he did make Myohan handle Sajun on his own. Myohan concluded that he should start trying tomorrow so and started to head home. But then—

“The experience of…”

The man slowly spoke. When Myohan turned to look at him, he was right in front of his face.

“The spirit leaving the body.”

Wind blew, making his hair flutter softly. His black eyes were full of mysterious feelings.

Myohan frowned, feeling déjà vu at the way he piercingly looked at him. He removed the hair in Myohan’s eyes and spoke tenderly again.

“Trust your guts, cat.”

It all felt so familiar. Familiar scene, familiar face, familiar voice, familiar hand. But he didn’t know what that feeling was. The man just smiled.

On the next day at school, Myohan felt like jumping out of the window. The man right next to him. I must still be dreaming. Myohan muttered so and tried to leave the room, but Yuja stopped him.

“Hey, Your Highness, you can’t just leave like that.”

What Yuja was showing them was a script for a play calld ‘Snow White and the Lazy Prince.’ It had many characters in it and was extremely childish, mixed up with all kinds of existing plays, but that wasn’t what that mattered.

“You should take your princess with you.”

Myohan and O Shin frowned hard at once, but Yuja didn’t care. He just took Myohan’s arm and made him sit down again.

“Well, I hope both of you learn your lines fast. I don’t expect you to be great actors, but at least learn all of your lines, okay? Myohan, you’re smart, so it shouldn’t be hard for you.”

“Hey.”

Myohan called out to Yuja coldly. Yuja nodded, inviting him to speak.

“Why am I the prince?”

Yuja smiled kindly. Then he banged on the desk with the most generous expression. He looked back and forth between Myohan and O Shin. His charisma made even Myohan flinch.

“It’s because you two boys ran from the class meeting yesterday.”

“But…”

“It took the rest of us to distribute the roles and write the script, you know that?”

He sounded deadly, but his face was still smiling. Myohan had committed the sin of running away during the class meeting, so of course he had nothing to say.

O Shin had given up and was already reading the script. Yes, I’m the prince, but he’s the princess. I didn’t get the worst role. Myohan tried to console himself like that and sighed deeply.

On the other hand, O Shin’s face turned darker and darker as he read on. Then he showed a part to Yuja and asked.

“What’s this?”

“Oh, about that…”

Myohan took a peek at it. After childish lines and lines of the dwarfs, the prince was supposed to do a thing after the silence. Yuja smirked.

“The kiss will be the perk of the play, of course.”

Myohan looked at the script, and at Yuja, and then out the window. Yuja added mercilessly, “Make it look real.”

Yes, it would be much better to jump down.

***

Once upon a time, there lived a lovely girl. Her skin was as white as snow, so she was called Snow White.

One day, she gave a hundred won to a merchant and bought an apple. Then she cleaned it and sold it at two hundred won. The next day, she bought two apples with her two hundred won and sold them for four hundred won.

“Get the number of apples Snow White had to sell to earn ten million won.”

“Her business was successful and she earned ten million…. No, no, that’s not it!”

Yuja, who had been adding the narration, hit the table with his script. Myohan, who had muttered next to him, shrugged. I guess you heard me.

His schoolmates were a lot more serious about the play than he had thought. They kept practicing during lunchtime and after classes, so he could spare no time to go after the rabbit. He protested silently as he read the script again that he had already learned completely. So pathetic.

“You know the play that gets the most votes will win the cash prize. So let’s try harder.”

What motivated them was the cash prize the school was promising. It wasn’t big, but enough for a class to have a pizza party or something similar to it. Yuja’s eyes sharply glowed and he hit the table again to get everyone’s attention.

“Well, let’s start again, from the princess’s line.”