← The Guide Who Hides Their Power is an Otter
“It has an injured spot, so I’ll look after it and send it back.”
“Where is it hurt? Let me see. I used to be a veterinarian.”
No. Why was a veterinarian popping up here, of all places!
“Its hind leg. It’s limping.”
Park Gang-u explained the sore spot in advance, smoothly, and forcibly pulled Heisha out. Heisha twitched his round nose and looked at each of them in turn. With all their gazes gathered on him, he felt a little awkward, so he crinkled his eyes and made a smiling face.
“Cute.”
“Oh no, what do we do.”
While the people exclaimed and fell for Heisha, the man who’d said he was a veterinarian touched Heisha’s hind foot.
“Oo-ing!”
Don’t touch me! Startled, he yanked his leg away, and the veterinarian nodded.
“It seems to have sprained its leg.”
Quack.
“It’ll heal soon, so I’ll take care of sending it back myself.”
Ding. Just then, with a chime announcing they’d reached their destination, Park Gang-u stuffed Heisha back inside his shirt again, crumpling him in, and picked him up.
“As you said, it is illegal, so I’d be grateful if you would all pretend you didn’t see anything today.”
Seeing Park Gang-u, rumored to be a total piece of work, actually smiling while shielding the sea otter as he went, the people hesitated and then nodded. The heavy man even let his eyes shine, as if he’d been moved.
The elevator doors slid shut. The dormitory floor was quite a way up, so Heisha had no choice but to poke his head out of the shirt.
‘Where is this!?’
Seeing his bewildered expression, Park Gang-u grinned broadly.
“I think you’ll have to sleep at my place tonight.”
“……..”
“A text came earlier, too.”
Park Gang-u kindly showed him the text.
[I had something come up today, so I’ll head back first. Please take good care of Hei.]
That ‘take good care’ was supposed to mean take him safely home! Unable to bring himself to say that, Heisha bared his upper teeth and twitched his nose. Really, from the short sea drive that had begun in the blink of an eye to Park Gang-u’s home, everything had been lightning-fast.
Heisha entered Park Gang-u’s home and looked around the dormitory room, which had the same layout but a different atmosphere. Since he was in a sea otter’s body, the homeowner said nothing no matter how much he scampered here and there. He explored freely, and then his body was lifted up.
“Shall we wash up first?”
That was a bit—
“How about washing together?”
That was a bit, too.
Watching Heisha crinkle his eyes awkwardly and smile, Park Gang-u crinkled his eyes and smiled the same way. Just as Heisha, dangling in midair, was about to prepare his escape, Park Gang-u walked to the bathroom first and flung the door open.
“Hei.”
He had been dragged into the bathroom with him, like it or not, and then Park Gang-u suddenly took off his shirt.
This was the first scream Heisha had ever let out as a sea otter.
“You cry strangely.”
He took off his shirt and showed off his rippling muscles without any mosaic. Heisha had plenty of friends like that, but none of them had scars or wounds like Park Gang-u. After the scream, Heisha took in his body carefully, bit by bit.
‘His chest is huge.’
His ribcage must have been well developed, because his chest muscles were no joke. Under his thick forearms, he was washing his shirt in the sink. When he put strength into it, the veins stood out.
‘Oh.’
His muscles looked so firm he wanted to touch them. His hand crept forward on its own, then faltered and stopped. There were many scars on his back. From old scars to fairly recent faint scars left after wounds, there wasn’t a sound spot on his body. It was like a lethal weapon.
How many deployments had he gone on? He must have been thrown into countless battles since before Heisha had even arrived.
‘But that’s that, and this is this.’
Heisha quickly backed away and plastered himself flat against the bathroom wall. But showering together naked? They weren’t even close yet. This was moving way too fast.
“Shall I turn the water on for you?”
Very fortunately, Park Gang-u’s dormitory had a bathtub. Heisha was about to nod, then got into the tub while watching Park Gang-u turn on the tap and scrub at his shirt again with a buk-buk sound. Swoosh. He braced his arms on the tub and let the stream of water hit him, and Park Gang-u snickered.
To end up doing a shower scene out of a Korean gangster film in a bathtub, it was the end of the world.
“Hei.”
He was about to take off his pants, too.
‘Stop!’
Heisha clenched his teeth hard, got out of the tub, grabbed a container he could see, and smacked Park Gang-u’s shin with it as hard as he could.
Clang!
A clear, fine sound rang out so loudly it echoed through the enclosed bathroom. Even after being hit, Park Gang-u gazed at Heisha in silence, then scratched his chin with his index finger.
“Are you angry because you’re hungry?”
Suddenly he confronted the reality that he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten anything at all so far. Was that why he was on edge? Lost in thought alone, he was lifted up as Park Gang-u grabbed him under the sides.
“Still, the seawater is a bit—”
‘Goo-ik!’
Just as he shrieked that it was not allowed, the showerhead touched his face. Seeing his eyes go hazy under the water streaming down over his head, Park Gang-u pressed his lips together. A large hand rubbed through his fur. He was washed with a buk-buk, bak-bak scrubbing sound, just like the shirt that had been washed in the sink a moment ago.
It was humiliating. It felt like being washed by someone while naked. If he’d been in a human body, he would have slapped a cheek by now, but as a sea otter his hand couldn’t even reach. He strained and stretched out his arms, but they reached neither a face nor even a chest.
Buk-buk, buk-buk.
At the sound of his fur being rubbed, Heisha finally smacked Park Gang-u’s hand up and away.
Smack!
A sharp sound rang out, but Park Gang-u, unfazed, caught his hand, made him stand at attention, and began doing his own task again. Who would have known he’d end up being laundered by another person?
“Keung…?”
Having given up, Heisha let out a strange groan, went limp, and was showered for a long while.
“All done.”
Rubbed again with a towel, Heisha shook his body, then tearfully raised a hand toward him. He wanted to raise his middle finger, but his hand wouldn’t obey. Park Gang-u lowered his chin and carefully wiped the rest of his face with the towel.
“I’ll give you something delicious.”
Did he think that would make him feel better? He didn’t know how much of a feast of delicacies he’d lay out, but it was all things you couldn’t get here. He’d be lucky if he brought something edible at all.
He doesn’t even know what I eat.
Heisha looked at Park Gang-u resentfully, left the bathroom, and began grooming. His fur, which he hadn’t been able to tend to, seemed even stiffer. He’d only just gone into the sea and come back covered in its smell, and now the sea smell was all gone. He wanted to cry.
“Do you like squid?”
He did like it, but it didn’t seem like there’d be any. When he’d gone into the sea there hadn’t been a single living thing, and since none was caught in Korea, it was obvious he couldn’t eat any. No wonder everything served in the dormitory cafeteria was meat. Why hadn’t he noticed?
‘The Center Director said the meals were planned around meat because protein is important, right? So it was because they couldn’t get any that I couldn’t eat it. Center Director, Con Man!’
Ah. Con man or not, he should have torn off some seaweed to wrap around his body at least. Suddenly regret washed over him belatedly.
‘Isn’t there anything you like?’
Clams. Squid. Clams. Squid. He was dying to make a sound. If he’d lost his reason like when they first met, he could have chattered away, but his mouth itched.
Ding-dong.
At the doorbell, Heisha pricked up his ears reflexively. Seeing his round ears rise, Park Gang-u showed him a palm.
“What I ordered is here. Stay there.”
No matter how he thought about it, it wasn’t welcome. Heisha recorded the date inwardly.
‘The day I suffered every humiliation.’
Plus Esper Park Gang-u. Once he’d engraved it on his heart, he felt a good deal more venomous. When they paired, he was really, really going to tease him mercilessly.
Park Gang-u brought in the white plastic box that had been left in front of the door and tore the packaging open on the dining table. He glanced once at the contents, then naturally lifted Heisha up and showed him the inside of the box.
“Do you like it?”
His eyes went round at the box lined with all kinds of seafood.
“Want to eat?”
It seemed he really had met a good partner to pair with after all.
It was supposed to take time to thaw, but Heisha didn’t care, he pulled a squid out of the box and gobbled it down ravenously. He stuffed his mouth full and munched away, while Park Gang-u got water from the fridge, drank it, and stared at him intently.
“Ah, hoo.”
It was so delicious a sigh of admiration slipped out on its own. Park Gang-u watched Heisha, who was eating so heartily, and his foolish smile and his eyes, and then showed a faint smile of his own. Heisha, who had been eating ravenously, put a squid in his mouth, munched, and turned his body. As expected, Park Gang-u was looking at him.
‘What are you looking at?’
He barely stopped the voice that was about to come out on its own and straightened out his crooked mood. As his stomach began to fill, peace arrived. Feeling that he’d been on edge all the way from the sea until now, he stared at him with a slightly relaxed face.
‘Right. It’s your first time seeing a sea otter eat squid, isn’t it?’
Still, it was hard to get here, so it must have been quite expensive. Why was he being this good to him?
“Hei.”
As if he’d peered into his head, Park Gang-u laid a hand on Heisha’s head.
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