The Cat hides its Claws

“Sis?”

“Miho!”

Miho’s sister had gotten even thinner. With sunken cheeks, she almost looked like a skeleton. Myohan pretended to be a nice boy and said hello.

“I ran into him downstairs.”

“Wow, Miho, you have a friend?”

“Sis!”

“Okay, okay. I was just joking.”

She smiled brightly. It was so different from how Miho looked only a minute ago. That smile was too bright for a patient with an IV. Miho took up a jar and said he would go and get water. He asked Myohan if he wanted to go with him, but he said he wanted to stay there. He didn’t know why, but he just felt like he should.

“So, what’s your name?”

“Myohan, O Myohan.”

“Oh, really? I didn’t know Miho had such a handsome friend.”

Once Miho left the room, her smile faded. So sick of everything. Myohan read that on her face in an instant and narrowed his eyes.

“Thank you for being friends with my Miho.”

Well, Myohan didn’t even know if Miho knew his name, but he decided not to point that out. It was silly that he was now visiting Miho’s sister when they weren’t even that close, but he swallowed that too.

“He’s never brought a friend here before. He’s always alone, so I thought he didn’t have any friends. He’s not all kind and the friendly type, you know.”

Miho’s sister went on, trying to sound unconcerned. Myohan looked away to hear how she thought her brother didn’t have any friends, and he bit his lips to hear what came after that.

“I even thought Miho was being bullied for having no parents.”

Myohan’s heart hurt again. A little brother coming to visit his sick sister? In a way, it was only natural. Miho came to the hospital every day to take care of her, but he just thought it could happen if the siblings were close. But, Miho had looked so fragile and painful at the reception, and it gave Myohan some questions.

“He might look strong, but he isn’t. So I was worried. He couldn’t cry even when we lost our parents. But he must have cried more than anyone in his heart.”

Miho’s sister then realized she had gotten too personal, so she changed the topic with a smile. She asked things about school, Miho’s friends, and studying. Myohan answered all of them, and he could get up only when Miho came back.

“Sorry, I had to go downstairs.”

Miho’s sister made the two boys leave, telling them to go and have some fun. She seemed to be a lot happier to see a friend of Miho’s for the first time. Miho lost all the expression he had the second they left the room. Myohan let out a small sigh.

“Before, you said you promised to repay the favor.”

“I know.”

Why did he have to be one of the twelve zodiac animals? Myohan was supposed to make him transform in front of him, but he just couldn’t. So he ended up saying what came to his mind first. It would have been funny to demand him to reveal his weakness for saving him from a ball once.

“If you really meant that, start coming to school every day.”

He wasn’t nagging him to be a good student. It was just that if he didn’t come to school, he would have to come to the hospital every time to meet him, and that was going to be a problem for his plan of making him turn into a sheep.

Miho looked a little confused, but then he saw Myohan’s quiet eyes, he nodded. Myohan smiled and patted his head. Miho was taller than him, but it wasn’t that hard to do.

“And,”

It was just a simple whim. It was strange, but he couldn’t help being soft to the animal boys. Looking at Miho, Myohan added,

“I don’t have parents, either.”

O Shin was most certainly going to call him soft. He was going to scold him with that expressionless face, calling him a soft cat. But Myohan could say with confidence that he wasn’t pitying the boy and wasn’t being controlled by empathy.

“Wow, how could he come to school after what he did?”

“He always gets his way, didn’t you know that?”

“If I were him, I would have transferred days ago.”

As Myohan had demanded, Miho started coming to school every day for more than a week. He had promised to repay the favor, but Myohan hadn’t known he would really do as he said. Anyway, that wasn’t what mattered. Miho was back at school, and now he could be watched closely. Although Jagyeom had to do it instead of Myohan as he and Miho were in same class, that was still enough.

“Hey, he’s an orphan. Maybe that’s why home discipline is important.”

But then, there were those ugly insults.

‘Oh, please.’

Jagyeom was about to go mad, quite literally. He didn’t know what Myohan had done, but Miho was now coming to school without missing a day. But it was only making other boys hate him even more.

Jagyeom knew Miho hadn’t done anything wrong. But he also knew another fact. If he spoke for him, he was going to be the next victim of those bullies.

Miho’s hair was as black as how Jagyeom was feeling. Jagyeom didn’t have many friends. No, he had almost no friends. He had been wounded after he started becoming a rat, and that was enough to make him put a wall around him. As he was always studying, no one bothered to approach him. But at the same time, he was a good student who got good grades, so no one bothered to bully him.

But Miho was different. He bit when provoked, and he wasn’t sad even when ignored. Jagyeom missed the time he had been another bystander, scolding him in his mind from time to time. But the problem was that he was the sheep.

The moment he learned about it, he started to see Miho’s every action as his. Maybe he was doing that because of the wounds he was still carrying. Maybe that was why he was always alone.

Jagyeom had the same wound, so was it really right for him to pretend to be ignorant when he was being bullied.

“Hey, Miho, can you even remember your mama’s face?”

After another round of insults, the boy who had been beaten up by Miho spoke again. Miho got to his feet, ready to jump on him any moment. His face looked calm, but his eyes were not. But if he used violence again, he was going to get much worse than suspension. That was probably what the boy wanted. Jagyeom remembered how Myohan had run out without hesitation to hear Myo Cheong was being bullied. But he was not Myohan, and he knew there was no way he would show up now.

“…What the—”

That was why he thought he was hallucinating when he saw Myohan coming in. He was hoping to see him so earnestly and now he was seeing something that wasn’t there. Yes, it was a mirage.

“Hey, Miho.”

“Myohan?”

But Myohan was real. Jagyeom saw O Shin looking amused, leaning against the back door. He jumped to his feet in surprise. Myohan wasn’t looking at Jagyeom. He glanced at him and spoke to Miho.

“Let’s go get lunch.”

The boys murmured among themselves. Jagyeom couldn’t know what to think of with his unshaking eyes. Miho, who had raised up a fist, looked at him. And then he went to him, almost in a .

Then, Myohan looked back. This time, he was looking at Jagyeom.

What was he about to say? Was he thinking he was pathetic? Was he about to ask him why he had done nothing? Myohan seemed to be wondering something with a frown. And what he said to Jagyeom was nothing like he had been waiting for.

“What, you’re about to skip lunch? Come on.”

***

“So cu…”

“Please, shut up. I’m begging you.”

They met not by the taps but at the vegetable gardens. It had been like the place of bullies, but now it was a no-go zone, thanks to what Myo Cheong did there the other day. Jino looked at Miho with twinkling eyes. O Shin frowned, but Miho couldn’t notice it. He just grabbed Myohan’s sleeve.

“Wow! So you’re the shee… Ahh!”

Sinsul came to Miho with his innocent smile, but Myohan put a foot in front of him to make him trip. He fell with a huge sound and started to wail, but Myohan didn’t care. He just sat on the boy’s back and said something they had heard more than once before.