Don’t Mess with the Puppy! - Vol.2 Chapter 5 Part 2
Yoon Chi-young drove himself for some reason. Accordingly, Heeseong also sat in the passenger seat in human form, not in his comfortable puppy form. It couldn’t be helped since there was no puppy car seat.
Heeseong even insisted on driving himself instead of the injured Yoon Chi-young, but Yoon Chi-young said something incomprehensible about Heeseong not knowing the way and the situation constantly changing.
‘Is it such a dangerous job?’
During the drive to the destination, Heeseong sat in the passenger seat with a stiff face. On days like this, someone’s life could be lost at the whim or decision of Yoon Chi-young.
The car drove on the road for nearly an hour.
‘We’re going far…’
Heeseong dozed off the entire time. Yoon Chi-young would occasionally call out to him, “Puppy, baby,” and caress his thighs, putting his hand under his T-shirt, saying he was cold, but Heeseong could only react as if shooing away a fly. Like Yoon Chi-young, Heeseong was also sensitive to sleep and couldn’t stay awake at all.
After some time, the car stopped at a remote place with only two or three containers at the foot of a mountain. The only thing visible in the dark was a large, crude-looking building that seemed to be a warehouse in the distance.
Two black cars followed and stopped far behind.
Heeseong looked at the cars with a tense expression. It was so dark that he couldn’t tell what kind of cars they were or who was inside. If they were dangerous guys, he was going to step up instead of the injured Yoon Chi-young.
“Wait here for a bit.”
Meanwhile, Yoon Chi-young kissed Heeseong’s cheek and got out of the car. He didn’t even turn off the engine.
As always, Heeseong was a little disappointed by Yoon Chi-young’s nonchalant attitude. Still, he watched Yoon Chi-young with a sense of vigilance until the end. He was going to run out if something happened.
Then, wolf beastmen also hurriedly got out of the other cars.
‘What…? Why are thehyungshere?’
Fortunately, the ones who got out of the cars were not dangerous wolf beastmen, but members of Yoon Chi-young’s organization. Among them was Ji Young-bae, who looked somewhat anxious.
Relieved, Heeseong sat comfortably in his seat and observed them. Yoon Chi-young and the organization members exchanged a few words, and then Ji Young-bae handed something wrapped in a cloth to Yoon Chi-young. They had a short conversation as if it was an urgent situation, and the organization members got back into their cars and quickly reversed out of the place.
‘Did they hand over some smuggled goods…?’
Otherwise, they wouldn’t have handed it over in such a hurry. Heeseong couldn’t shake off his worried expression because Ji Young-bae looked uncharacteristically serious.
Meanwhile, Yoon Chi-young returned with his usual languid expression.
“Ah, it’s cold. Baby.”
“Eek… Get your hands off!”
Yoon Chi-young buried his face in Heeseong’s neck and put his hands under his T-shirt. When the cold fingertips touched his defenseless chest, Heeseong cursed and tried to pull out the rock-solid arm. However, Yoon Chi-young suddenly bit Heeseong’s white earlobe, exhaling roughly, and laughed.
‘He’s doing this again…’
Heeseong’s body stiffened, but he didn’t push him away anymore. He knew that Yoon Chi-young was sensitive to pheromones and equally struggled with it. Whenever he smelled the pheromones of other wolf beastmen, he would become violent, so Heeseong had to give him time to settle himself.
After a while, Yoon Chi-young buried his nose in Heeseong’s neck for a long time, and then spoke affectionately with a noticeably calmer sigh.
“Keep this well.”
He placed the thick cloth bundle he had brought in his arms onto Heeseong’s lap. It was a rather careful gesture. Heeseong looked down at his lap, hiding his flushed face from the warning and embarrassment. No matter what, Yoon Chi-young’s unchanged playfulness was hateful.
“Got it, so let’s go home quickly.”
“Why? In a hurry? …Then shall we do it once here?”
“…Drive.”
Heeseong muttered in a low voice, baring his canines. He really was a skinship-crazed bastard. Heeseong wondered how he could make such jokes when they had done it several times before going to bed.
Still, with Yoon Chi-young’s usual banter, Heeseong’s tension eased. The car also started driving towards home, and drowsiness was creeping up on him again.
Heeseong let out a comfortable sigh and looked down at the bundle in his arms. The bundle was the size of his two hands clasped together.
“But what is this…?”
Heeseong looked at the bundle with a puzzled expression. He was curious about what kind of precious item the organization members had handed over in such a hurry. Yoon Chi-young spoke languidly with one hand on the wheel.
“Open it and see.”
“…?”
Was it really okay to open it so easily? Heeseong held his pounding heart and carefully touched the bundle. Inside, there must be drugs, precious jewels, or something that could be used as leverage against someone.
However, what was inside the bundle was completely different from Heeseong’s expectations.
“…A puppy…?”
Inside the bundle was a chubby puppy with golden fur, sound asleep. Its yellow fur was fluffy, as if it had been doused in rice cake powder.
Although the puppy seemed young, it was a large breed puppy that appeared to be larger than Heeseong’s original body. However, as it was still young, its snout and tail were short. The yellow puppy curled up into a ball, wriggling when Heeseong’s hand touched it.
Even after seeing that adorable sight, Heeseong only looked down at the puppy, frozen in a daze. In the peaceful and quiet car, Heeseong’s black eyes began to tremble fragilely.
Unaware of that reaction, Yoon Chi-young spoke as if he was simply excited.
“How is it? Cute, right?”
“……”
“What should we name it… Its brown paws are like walnuts, so how about Hodu[1]?”
“……”
No matter how affectionately Yoon Chi-young spoke, Heeseong couldn’t bring himself to answer.
He was just lost in a confusion he couldn’t understand.
‘Was I not enough as a puppy…?’
Heeseong didn’t even know why he was shocked, and his eyes began to tremble as his fingertips shook.
“……”
In the end, Heeseong maintained a heavy silence all the way home.
He just kept watching the sleeping puppy in his arms to avoid looking at the brazen Yoon Chi-young. Otherwise, he felt like he would beat Yoon Chi-young to death due to the inexplicable anger boiling in his chest.
‘…Let’s stay calm.’
For now, Heeseong exercised the patience he had developed while living with Yoon Chi-young.
He couldn’t just beat Yoon Chi-young in front of the young puppy without even knowing why he was angry. First, Heeseong decided to eliminate the worst-case scenarios.
Heeseong, taking a trembling breath, called out to him in a low voice.
“…Hey, Yoon Chi-young.”
“Yeah, you’re not asleep?”
Yoon Chi-young, who was driving with one hand, asked nonchalantly. Heeseong wanted to argue how he could sleep now, but he was so choked up that no words came out. He realized for the first time that when a beastman is too shocked, they can’t even speak.
Heeseong, trying to ignore his own burning insides, asked what he feared most.
“Is this… your puppy by any chance?”
“Pfft….”
Yoon Chi-young burst out laughing as if he couldn’t hold it in. Heeseong, who had mustered up the courage to ask, glared at him as if he would kill him. At least for Heeseong, this was not a joke right now.
Seeing that fierce look, Yoon Chi-young barely contained his laughter and said,
“If it were my puppy, wouldn’t its fur be gray?”
“Why? You’re black.”
“You’re white.”
“Do you… think breeding puppies is like mixing paint!?”
How could this bastard make such jokes in this situation? Heeseong gritted his teeth and argued, sounding like a barking dog.
“And how can you and I give birth to a puppy!”
“We could. Medical technology is advanced these days….”
Yoon Chi-young, smiling furtively, slyly pulled Heeseong’s hand and rubbed it gently against his firm stomach. Startled Heeseong immediately removed his hand. This crazy bastard seemed to be serious, not just empty words, making his skin crawl.
In beastman society, there was indeed technology that allowed lovers of different species to have children together. Gender didn’t matter either. However, even with such technology, Heeseong was not prepared at all. Just the fact that Yoon Chi-young had brought a puppy home was shocking enough.
To put it bluntly, it felt like his lover had revealed that he was actually a married man and brought home a child he had hidden away with his partner. Naturally, Heeseong couldn’t help but be angry.
“You… think before you speak! What the hell is this puppy? Don’t tell me you’re even taking hostages?”
“A hostage… I don’t do such cowardly things.”
Yoon Chi-young spoke with an unusually serious face. As he asserted, Yoon Chi-young may have been cunning, but he never did cowardly things.
However, Heeseong could no longer trust him. Just bringing another puppy without even discussing it with him was cowardly, vicious, crafty, and shocking enough.
Of course, Heeseong also knew that bringing a puppy was not a serious matter. There could be a reason. However, deep in Heeseong’s heart, a familiar anxiety kept rising. It was his innermost fear of being abandoned, which he had been ignoring the most.
Meanwhile, the car entered the house’s parking lot. Yoon Chi-young parked the silver sports car they had been riding in next to his own parking spot, which had three of his cars. Heeseong was still gritting his teeth, trembling with anger and melancholy. He wanted to leave the puppy right there, get out of the car, and drive away. If the puppy hadn’t been asleep, he would have shouted at the yellow puppy to live well and left.
Just then, Yoon Chi-young, who had unbuckled his seatbelt, gently took Heeseong’s hand and asked affectionately,
“Baby, are you perhaps angry…?”
“…Angry?”
Heeseong, who had been glaring ahead, muttered with a fierce expression.
If asked if he was angry, of course he was. But when Yoon Chi-young asked, it felt terribly trivial and annoying. It was as if he knew Heeseong was already angry and deliberately asked to see his reaction. Heeseong turned to look at the driver’s seat, and Yoon Chi-young was indeed looking at him as if gauging his reaction. To Heeseong, even that seemed hateful, and he almost raised his fist as he did when he was a puppy.
However, he couldn’t just get angry. It wasn’t a situation to be angry about, and in fact, Heeseong himself didn’t even know exactly why he was angry.
‘Am I… perhaps jealous of a puppy?’
It was nonsense. Heeseong bit his teeth hard.
‘I’m not a puppy, so why would I?’
Heeseong was a proper adult dog. It didn’t make sense to be jealous of a young beastman. However, he couldn’t help but want to curse and beat Yoon Chi-young. If it weren’t for the sleeping puppy in his arms, he would have beaten Yoon Chi-young to death long ago.
For now, Heeseong forcibly found the most common reason for being angry and rambled incoherently.
“I’m… I’m angry because you brought a puppy without even telling me.”
“I had to bring it urgently too….”
Yoon Chi-young gently covered the back of Heeseong’s hand. He began to coax his puppy, looking pitiful and gauging his reaction.
“It’s just taking care of a homeless baby for a while, can’t we do that?”
“…Whose baby is it? Is it a beastman you know?”
“Yes. A beastman caught up in a dangerous situation.”
Yoon Chi-young whispered the following words while covering the ears of the sleeping Hodu. That action alone made Heeseong’s heart surge with an inexplicable sense of disappointment.
‘Son of a bitch.’
Heeseong thought Yoon Chi-young was only affectionate to him. Turned out he was like that to all puppies. Gradually, tears welled up in Heeseong’s pitch-black eyes. Feeling overwhelmed, Heeseong clenched his teeth and stared out somewhere.
Unaware of that, Yoon Chi-young spoke as if coaxing him.
“We only need to keep it for five days… If our puppy doesn’t like it, I’ll leave it somewhere else.”
“……”
Heeseong stared out the car window without answering. If he opened his mouth now, his voice would likely tremble with sorrow. Moreover, he didn’t even like the fact that he had become the decision-maker now. It was also ambiguous to leave a homeless puppy somewhere else in this cold winter.
Eventually, Heeseong spoke in a low voice as if giving up.
“…You said five days.”
“Yes, five days.”
Yoon Chi-young held out his pinky finger to Heeseong without being told. Heeseong looked down at that hand and muttered fiercely.
“If you don’t keep your word, your finger will be cut off.”
“Since it’s yours, do whatever you want with the puppy.”
Even with the threat, Yoon Chi-young just answered as if he liked it. Leaning on the passenger seat, he softly kissed Heeseong with a gentle smile on his face. However, Heeseong wasn’t appeased at all, and he only found him detestable for not being afraid of the warning.
“Let’s go inside.”
Yoon Chi-young, leaving a kiss, got out of the car first. Heeseong was about to follow him out, but before unfastening his seatbelt, he looked down at his arms.
The yellow puppy, wrapped in a cloth bundle due to the cold weather, was curling up and wriggling its nose. As expected of a large breed puppy, even though it was still a puppy, it was as big as a water bottle, and its body temperature was warm. Still, perhaps because it was also a puppy, the more he watched it, the more he felt a certain affection.
Indeed, as an adult, it would be right to act mature. Heeseong, who had been staring intently at the puppy, wrapped the cloth bundle again carefully and muttered in a low voice.
“…I’ll let it slide because you’re young.”
“……”
“I’m not good with kids.”
His words were stern, but his gesture of gently lifting the puppy was cautious. Heeseong got out of the car, holding the puppy gently in his arms so as not to wake it up. Yoon Chi-young, who held the door open next to him, watched with a smile on his face as if he found the sight adorable.
“A puppy taking care of a puppy.”
“You, be quiet.”
The two entered the elevator carefully, lowering their voices. Then they looked down at the yellow puppy together. They exchanged many whispers.
“It’s cute… But you’re cuter.”
“Shut up, be quiet.”
“Are you not cursing because there’s a kid here?”
Yoon Chi-young laughed annoyingly and opened his coat to hug Heeseong from behind. It was no use even when Heeseong hit his solar plexus with his elbow. Perhaps awakened a little by the noise, Hodu smacked his lips and flailed his front paws. But he didn’t wake up. He seemed to be having such a wonderful dream that he was even sleep talking. Unaware that he had fallen into the arms of a man-eating wolf and a small fighting dog.
***
