He’s a Fox Ch 108

Chapter 108 Side Story 3

No matter how exhausted he was, Hohyun showed no sign of waking even as he was being carried along. After bringing him—sleeping so deeply he wouldn’t have noticed if he were hauled on someone’s back—into the bedroom, Kangwoon stepped back out. Given the hour, he was a bit drowsy, but there was still work left to do before he could sleep.

As he sipped a glass of cold water to shake off the sleep, small footsteps sounded from the corridor. Perhaps awakened by movement in the house, Yuri was walking out. Kangwoon approached his little sister, who was rubbing her eyes repeatedly, still half-asleep. The tiger cub, who nestled docilely into her brother’s arms, suddenly widened her eyes. She had caught a familiar scent on Kangwoon. Her eyes, instantly alert, sparkled.

“Is Moongmoo Oppa back?”

At the urgent question, Kangwoon lifted an index finger to his lips and nodded. Shh—understanding that she should be quiet, Yuri clapped both hands over her mouth. Slipping out of his arms at once, the child darted toward the bedroom in a hurry. Working the stiffness from his neck, Kangwoon followed her brisk, pattering steps at a leisurely pace.

After changing in the dressing room into something comfortable and coming out, he saw two shapes, one big and one small, tucked into the bed. One was Hohyun, whom he had personally laid down and covered with a blanket earlier, and the other, who had wormed herself in beside him during his absence, was Yuri.

The child, pressed close to Hohyun and diligently licking his forearm, cast uneasy glances toward where Kangwoon stood. Since she was usually not allowed to sleep together, she seemed worried she’d be sent back to her own room.

There was no need for that tonight. Without a word, for the sake of his little sister—who must have been frightened these past days by the unexplained absence of her Moongmoo Oppa—Kangwoon simply lay down beside them.

Reassured by his silent permission, Yuri gave a small yawn and burrowed into Hohyun’s arms. As the room filled with soft, uneven breaths, Kangwoon couldn’t close his eyes. Watching the pale face in silence, his hand gradually drifted lower.

His fingers trailed down from neck to shoulder and carefully traced along the wrist. At the boundary between hand and arm, there was a patch where the texture of the skin differed conspicuously from the rest. The roughness suggested the outer layer had peeled.

Perhaps he should have inflicted a little physical harm on his way out. At the time, he had prioritized getting home quickly and avoided confrontation as much as possible, but if he’d known, he would at least have had a proper scuffle. Sighing inwardly and promising himself not-so-distant retribution, Kangwoon held back.

He wanted to treat the wounds immediately, but Yuri, plastered to Hohyun’s side, made that difficult. Hohyun was sleeping so soundly he wouldn’t wake no matter what, but the baby predator fused to him like a second skin certainly would.

Knowing full well how this little one would react upon realizing her Moongmoo Oppa had not only disappeared for days without a word but come back injured, he deferred treatment to the next day and instead focused on checking for other injuries. After a long look, he detected issues at the ankles and the tips of the nails.

As if his hands and feet had been bound together, the ankles bore raw marks similar to those on the wrists. His touch, gentle over the wounds, moved to the nails. Seeing the tips worn down to blunt ends—shorter than they should be—he could picture how hard his little fox had fought amid the predators.

There was no blood, no missing flesh—at worst, the nail tips were somewhat abraded. Normally, with bodies as sturdy as theirs, such injuries elicited little reaction from Kangwoon. Wounds heal eventually, after all. And yet, to a degree that made his usual attitude seem absurd, a corner of his heart was ill at ease—because the injured party was Hohyun. Anyone who saw him now would have grounds to call it severe.

He never could have imagined this is where they would end up when they first met. When Yuri, sent to fetch a puppy, unexpectedly returned with a fox beastman in tow, he had simply been baffled. Kangwoon gave a soft, wry chuckle, recalling the scruffy ball of black fur.

Suspicion that Beom Taeryeong’s side might have set them up lasted only briefly. Watching the fox up close, it hadn’t taken long to realize he was simply unlucky. A gentle fox, pitiable and a bit hard to understand. He had thought that was all—but perhaps others saw it a little differently.

“Are you sure you two aren’t actually dating?”

Hyunseok—who had been close to Kangwoon for years—voiced his suspicions the moment he met Hohyun. At the time, Kangwoon had denied it, thinking of Hohyun as a young and clumsy fox. Hyunseok himself seemed unconvinced despite the denial. He hadn’t been the only one to disagree. Kangwoon thought back to a recent visit to the family home.

Just before he returned home, the first words out of his mother’s mouth when she called him aside were striking.

“I don’t mind if your partner isn’t a tiger.”

Waiting to hear what she would say, Kangwoon had pressed a hand to his brow. She had been bringing up matchmaking rather often lately… Leaving aside that he and the fox weren’t in that kind of relationship—saying it didn’t matter if the partner wasn’t a tiger might sound like an obvious, modern sentiment, but considering her background, it made perfect sense.

Unlike the Eastern tigers, who generally didn’t fuss about a spouse’s species, Western tigers tended to obsess over pure bloodlines. On his mother’s side, the Lunti family’s direct line scrutinized not only whether the spouse was a tiger but whether their ancestors had been tigers too; up until only a few generations ago, they had even practiced consanguineous marriages. For someone raised in that environment to say such a thing—she must have taken quite a liking to Hohyun.

At the time, he’d written it off as dissatisfaction with a son who, over thirty, hadn’t married and only had a younger sibling in his life. But when Beom Taeryeong’s tenacious stare followed soon after, even Kangwoon couldn’t help some introspection.

He should have recognized it when the brief meeting with Taeryeong left him oddly ticklish at the worry for his own injuries reflected in Hohyun’s eyes. Even then, he had thought, absolutely not. Romance, with someone ten years younger? But not long after, that illusion shattered spectacularly.

“It’s just that I really, really like you, boss, so you don’t have to worry about it.”

Whether it was the alcohol or something else, the way he sniffled and poured out his heart remained vivid in Kangwoon’s mind. That the person who said it remembered nothing the next day had been unexpected—but then, when had any of this been predictable?

A life that had been simple and peaceful changed in many ways as the little fox bounced around like a ball. That he didn’t find any of it unpleasant meant he’d been well and truly snagged.

Lost in idle thoughts, he found morning had come. The heat seeping through the curtains told of a sun rising beyond the horizon. Even Hohyun, sleeping like the dead, began to stir as his usual waking time approached. Sensing he would wake soon, Kangwoon closed his eyes as if asleep.

As expected, a rustle sounded from beside him before long. He sat up and took a moment to steady his breathing; he still wasn’t fully awake. The first thing the dazed Hohyun did was straighten Yuri’s blanket. He pulled it back up where it had slid down during the baby tiger’s sleep-talk and wriggling, and then chose his second task: the big tiger projecting presence a breath away.

“At this rate, you’ll burn a hole through my face.”

A gaze weighed on his features. Instead of opening his eyes or speaking, Kangwoon remained silent. Perhaps reassured by his steady, even breaths, Hohyun carefully reached out.

A feather-light touch settled at his eye. Tracing over it as if confirming the form, his movements laid bare anxiety and relief alike. While Kangwoon debated whether to drop the pretense of sleeping and catch that hand, the eased tension suggested Hohyun felt safe; he withdrew to his place. Then, following the obvious next step, he fell asleep again—only to toss a bit, perhaps sleep-talking, and drift a little further away.

The sliver of space—less than half a hand’s span—was strangely irritating. Quietly, Kangwoon extended an arm and drew Hohyun close. Yuri, in the middle of a grand tour of dreamland, blinked open irritated eyes at the sudden shift in position, but aside from that, a peaceful time unfolded.

Footnotes:

1. Moongmoo Oppa: A child’s affectionate nickname for Hohyun, who is a fox beastman; the term mirrors how Korean children might use playful kinship titles combined with animal references.