SAFBIAN Ch 2

Chapter 2

 

Several days passed like that.

Dori flinched every time he heard a small sound from outside, and he would sometimes stick his head out to check the surroundings, worried that someone might have come to capture him.

It was all unnecessary trouble. He hid thinking it would be problematic if someone ran into him, but he didn’t expect that truly no one would come…

Dori leaned weakly against the wall and looked around the narrow den.

‘Whether in reality or in the novel, my circumstances are the same.’

The bowl that held water was cracked, and the food he had painstakingly gathered looked like it would run out by tomorrow. His bed was just a pile of dry leaves he had scraped together.

The den was in a pitiful state, just like Dori’s situation.

‘How long do I have to stay like this? Will I be able to return at all?’

If it had been a game he possessed, there would at least be a goal called “clearing” it. But novels—what conditions did you need to fulfill? It was all so vague.

‘Judging by the location, it seems like the beginning of the original. Maybe… I have to reach the ending? But Dori… he just suffers through everything and then dies!’

Ugh.

That can’t be it. It shouldn’t be. This is a romance novel, after all! And not just any romance—it’s a brutal BL novel!

‘And on top of that, it ends in a bad ending!’

His chest thudded heavily.

Several scenes flashed rapidly through his mind, sending a chill crawling down the back of his neck.

[Haban grabbed the ankle of his fox as he struggled to escape.

Dori trembled pitifully, but he coldly pressed down on his neck. Gagging, choking, as he was losing breath, powerful thighs forced his legs apart.

And then…]

…Oh God. This is insane.

A tense gulp slid down his throat.

[Every time Haban pulled out the deeply buried member between the pale, round mounds, the slick insides made wet, squelching noises. When he pushed back in, the tight hole clamped tightly around the shaft as always.

Haban, who had been thrusting slowly, slammed in all at once.

“Hnn!”

At the moment the thick shaft reached the deepest part, Dori let out a muffled moan and curled his toes tightly. The inner thighs, drawn to a dry climax, trembled in tiny spasms of pleasure.

Haban, who had thrust his hips upward, stopped momentarily and yanked the reins hard. As the weakly swaying head tilted back, saliva that Dori hadn’t fully swallowed dripped thickly down the cloth between his teeth.

Haban untied the cloth he had forced into his mouth, grabbed his chin, and shoved his tongue inside. Tears fell heavily from his wet eyes.]

‘Ugh, ugh!’

He couldn’t take it anymore and forced the thoughts to stop. His whole body trembled slightly.

‘Haban, that inhuman bastard!’

How could he do that to such a small fox!

In the novel, Dori was treated almost like a doll. And as if that weren’t enough, he was ravaged every night to the point his flesh broke down—by something that was far from average in size, but… huge. Ugh.

Anyway, his heart swelled with waves of sympathy, and curse after curse poured out at Haban, the main “gong” of the original work.

“……”

It wasn’t because he felt inferior due to the size comparison. Absolutely not.

Dori, with a gloomy expression, looked down. Still unable to transform into a human, his beastly part dangled helplessly.

‘This can’t go on.’

Sure, he had possessed the novel now, but he never knew when he might return to reality. If that happened, the “original Dori,” who wouldn’t know anything about what had happened, would end up suffering through everything exactly as written in the novel.

‘How dare you mess with my cute! Adorable! Dori!’

At that moment, a flash of realization struck like lightning.

Maybe… this was the reason he had possessed the book?

‘Be happy, please be happy.’

That desperate wish he had made right before falling asleep.

This must be the first time a god had listened to his prayer.

Yes, if he had possessed the novel because he wished for Dori’s happiness, then he would lay down the grandest, most luxurious path of flowers for his beloved!

‘Who cares about the novel’s ending?’

As long as his baby was happy, that’s all that mattered.

To him, Dori wasn’t just a character in a story. In many ways, the “original Dori” resembled his real-life self.

He didn’t know how to return anyway, so there was no choice. In order to pave a flowery path for Dori’s life—or fox life—the first step was to reassess the situation.

Once he reached that conclusion, he began to act boldly.

Low stone walls and round rooftops.

Through the wide-open wooden gate, young red foxes came hopping out in beast form, laughing joyfully as they forgot the cold and dashed back inside.

The wide road was clean, and the village was peaceful.

But once the white fox Dori appeared, the atmosphere changed drastically. The adults, who had been chatting in human form, each took their child into their arms and narrowed their eyes into slits.

After observing for a moment, Dori headed straight for the elder’s house.

‘It was that one, right?’

A white cloth with a large peony painted on it. That cloth had been used to reinforce the lattice door of the elder’s room, visible at the end.

‘Well, he is my father, so maybe he’ll be easier to approach than the other foxes.’

Of course, that’s only if he felt even the slightest bit of guilt deep down.

Dori hid at the corner of the hallway and peeked out just a little with his eyes. There were clearly shadows flickering about—two of them, not just one.

Was it because he was nervous? The tip of the fox’s nose twitched without his realizing it. Dori licked his nose.

Even though he had come up with it hastily, his goal was simple: even if he couldn’t win favor, he at least wanted to establish neutral relationships with the village foxes, including the elder and Hori.

‘If I don’t get kicked out of the village to begin with, then everything changes, right?’

That way, he wouldn’t run into Haban, and he definitely wouldn’t be dragged away.

For a desperate plan, it wasn’t bad, even he had to admit. Meanwhile, he could slowly think through how to live beyond the original plot, what to do, and maybe—just maybe—achieve the rural life he once dreamed of.

Soft, fluffy dreams began to swell up like balloons.

At that moment, the door Dori had been staring at opened soundlessly.

“There’s no need to delay the decision. Everyone already knows that I intend to pass on the elder position to you.”

A deep, low voice.

Dori stopped thinking and perked up his ears. He subtly stretched his neck to peek, and there stood two men with red hair in front of the elder’s room.

‘That must be the elder.’

Silver robes and a crown upon his head.

In the novel, he had been an exceptionally heartless father, but seeing him in person, he looked rather ordinary. He even gave off a kind impression.

‘Father…’

A word that had never once been allowed to someone like him, who had been abandoned at birth. Dori stared at the elder without blinking.

“I appreciate your words, but for the time being, I plan to help with the family’s merchant business. Since you personally check every item brought into the village from outside, it’s hard for you to handle alone. And besides, I’m still very lacking when it comes to learning the duties of an elder.”

“…Tsk. You’re just wasting time. There’s no need to be so humble. Where in this village is there a fox who can compare to you? That’s why my child kept pestering me to marry you as soon as he became an adult fox.”

The two walked down the corridor, gradually moving further away. They were so focused on their conversation that they didn’t even notice the gaze directed toward them.

Dori followed them as if drawn by a spell.

“I also think Hori is the only one who could be my mate.”

He froze. Dori’s white paw hung in the air.

“Hori?”

It was a name he couldn’t ignore.

His full sibling, who had grown up the complete opposite of Dori since the moment they were born. In the original story, Hori was a perfect red fox without a single flaw.

If that’s the case, then the man beside him must be…

“Wonwoo.”

“Yes, Elder.”

‘Yeah, it’s you! You bastard with a tiger’s snout and a horse’s mouth! A piece of trash who dared to test the waters everywhere and then cruelly abandoned Dori without a second thought!’

A gleam sparked in Dori’s eyes as he sank deep into thought.

Wonwoo was a minor supporting character who appeared briefly in the beginning of the original story. He had once secretly promised to become Dori’s mate.

He had lived among humans, following his father who ran a merchant business outside the village. When he was a young fox, his shape-shifting skills were poor, so he had been confined indoors, which made him empathize with the isolated Dori.

But when the elder proposed a marriage with Hori, Wonwoo chose Hori without hesitation, abandoning Dori in an instant.

Because of that, he didn’t appear after the wedding scene, and his appearance was hardly described in the original.

With a tall height that surpassed even the elder’s shoulders and a seemingly lean yet firm build, the handsome man with a gentle look came to a stop, following the elder’s pace.

“Let me ask you plainly. Is there another reason you’re trying to stay away from the village?”

His eyes, which curved kindly, suddenly turned sharp. His cold gaze seemed to be probing for the truth.

“I don’t quite understand what you mean.”

Wonwoo gave a faint smile.

“That child is off-limits.”

“……”

However, when the elder directly mentioned it as if telling him not to play dumb, the smile slowly faded from Wonwoo’s face.

“I’m only giving you this warning because I think well of you. It’d be better for you to keep your distance before the other foxes start getting suspicious.”

“I have no other intentions. I just feel sympathy for him. He’s pitiful.”

It was Hori, the red fox, that the elder called “my child” so warmly like a spring breeze, and Dori, the white fox, that he referred to as “that child” with a grimace as if covered in filth.

It felt like his heart sank.

He wasn’t even his real parent. And yet, just being denied once—just once—felt like the ground was falling away beneath him. The original Dori must have felt this kind of shock over and over again.

His throat tightened, as if something might spill out at any moment. Dori opened his mouth just slightly and exhaled, shuddering breaths.

“Then that’s enough. I meant for this to be a brief chat, but it seems I kept you too long. You may go.”

The stern expression completely dissolved.

The elder pressed down on his sleeve with one hand and waved the other before opening the thick-paper sliding door. Judging from the books crammed inside, it seemed to be a study.

Watching from a distance, Dori slowly lifted a hind paw.

‘Let’s just not run into him.’

There was nothing good to come from meeting Wonwoo right now.

That would have worked—if only Wonwoo hadn’t approached him first.

“What are you doing here like this?”

Dori couldn’t even move; only his eyes blinked. His nostrils flared as he tried to calm his startled heart.