Chapter 4 (2/2)

“Only if you stop chittering. It’s too noisy.”

Jagyeom looked like he wanted to protest, but then he saw Myohan narrow his eyes, he decided not to say anything. A cat was also a predator to a rat. Of course those feline eyes made him shudder.

“You’re Lee JagyeoM, right? I’m O Myohan. Junior, Class One.”

“I know. You clean the hallway every day.”

“Only for this week. And this is—”

But Myohan had to stop there and look up at the man. Now that he thought about it, he knew nothing about the man. How old was he? Where did he live? What was his name?

Then the man felt the gaze and slowly talked.

“….O Shin.”

“Osin?”

“O, Shin.”

“So your family name is O and your name is Shin?”

He nodded, slowly but surely. Myohan snorted angrily and muttered.

“What an arrogant name.”

Jagyeom rolled his eyes. He was small, but now that he was cringing in fear, he looked even smaller.

“You said something about finding me or something earlier. What did you mean by that?”

“Oh,” Myohan exclaimed. He had forgotten all about it because of Jagyeom’s annoying protests. But he found explaining himself too bothersome, so he just looked at O Shin, demanding him to talk.

“He is looking for the twelve zodiac animals.”

“I told you, it’s ‘us’, not ‘me’ alone.”

Jagyeom’s eyes widened. He looked like a surprised baby animal.

“The twelve zodiac animals?”

“Yes. There are twelve people who turn into animals like you, and they are the twelve zodiac animals?”

“There are others who turn into animals like me?”

“Yes, there are. I…”

But O Shin lightly hit his shoulder before Myohan could finish the sentence. He looked at him, and O Shin’s calmly voice spoke instead.

“There are eleven others. I must find them, and you must help me.”

It was the method he had used with Myohan. Myohan thought, ‘That’s not going to work’, and at the same time, Jagyeom angrily protested he wasn’t obliged to help. But then O Shin smiled and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Do you want to turn into a rat in front of a huge crowd?”

“Hup!!”

“They won’t leave you alone once they find out you’re a rat.”

Wow, he’s a really evil bastard. Myohan couldn’t help but be impressed. He wondered for a second if he had been blackmailed like that as well. Luckily, he couldn’t recall it.

“You’re going to help, right?”

Jagyeom seemed to think it was totally unfair, but he couldn’t find anything to say. There was no way to escape O Shin and Myohan. Turning into a rat when touching water was a great weakness. A lot of bad things had happened to him because of it. Moving, transferring, and eventually taking a middle school qualification test to enter the high school he was currently attending.

He had survived a year there, and life had never been happy, but now he had been caught as soon as he became a junior. He looked like wanted to cry, much like Myohan only a few days ago. Of course, O Shin had mercy on neither of them.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Wait, wait!”

“What?”

“Are there really eleven others?”

O Shin just nodded.

“And what are you going to do to us when you find us all?”

It was similar to the question Myohan had asked, but while Myohan asked about his own future, Jagyeom was talking about ‘us’. Myohan wished O Shin would use the word.

“I’ll tell you when we find them all.”

“But how can I trust you two?”

“You two?” Myohan frowned, not glad to be grouped with O Shin. It made Jagyeom quickly lose his courage.

“…You’re not going to sell us or something, right?”

“I’m not.”

That answer came without any hesitation. O Shin sounded confident, which seemed to make Jagyeom relax a little. If this wasn’t about a physical experiment or being sold off to the media, he had no reason to be too afraid. He let out a sigh and then asked again in his usual shrill voice.

“So where are they?”

That was a foolish question. O Shin had said, ‘You must help to find them’, so asking where they were wasn’t going to get them anywhere. O Shin just smiled.

“That’s what we have to find out.”

Myohan could feel deja-vu. He was saying the same thing he had said to Myohan.

“But how?”

“Oh, about that…”

Myohan knew what O Shin was about to say. He turned aside and mouthed what O Shin said simultaneously.

“You are going to find out how.”

Passing of responsibility. That was what O Shin was really good at.