Chapter 8 (1/2)

“What if we pour water on him? Wouldn’t it work on him as well?”

“I don’t know…”

Myohan had the same thought, but as O Shin had said before, the twelve turned into animals when certain phenomena occurred. Whether the thing that transformed them was all the same or not, they didn’t know. Even Myohan was…

“I think he’ll really eat me next time.”

That was what Myohan worried about the most. Yes, Sajun was rude to him first, but Myohan had kicked his most important organ. It was highly likely that Sajun would really eat up Myohan for revenge if they ever met again.

Myohan got the chills just imagining the scene and shuddered. Then O Shin quietly spoke.

“I can’t let him eat you of course.”

“What?”

“That snake has dared to mess up with the animal that god presented to humankind.”

Myohan wondered what he was talking about, but he couldn’t ask more. O Shin sounded more serious than ever.

“Maybe he’ll regret it if I throw him in a fire.”

His eyes were furious enough to scare even Jagyeom who didn’t know what was going on.

“You said he looks like a snake, right?”

I must see his face. O Shin stood up as he said so. But Myohan thought he just said that. O Shin never came to Myohan’s home again during the weekend, and he had no method to see Sajun’s face.

Well, at least Myohan thought so.

“I’m O Shin.”

On Monday, he came to Myohan’s classroom as an exchange student.

“Nice to meet you all.”

Looking so natural.

As always, the moment Myohan arrived at school, he fell on his desk and went to sleep. He had to capture that snake, but he was sleepy, so he slept. He had an extremely simple way of thinking.

“We don’t have any extra desks, so someone must bring it…”

“Teacher! O Myohan is sleeping again!”

And Sinsul told off Myohan with a smile. Actually, Myohan wasn’t asleep. If he had been asleep, he would have woken up the moment he heard his name. But he couldn’t look up. The transfer student’s voice sounded way too familiar. No, it couldn’t be. He tried to deny reality and closed his eyes.

“Myohan, you need to wake up. Go and get a desk from the study room.”

Byeon Sinsul, I’m going to kill you someday.

Myohan reluctantly got up and glanced at the front. Why were his senses never wrong? The student next to the teacher was the man who hadn’t come to Myohan during the weekend. It was O Shin, the man who called Myohan a cat and enjoyed ordering him around.

Now he was standing in the same classroom with Myohan, wearing the same school uniform.

“I will go with him.”

“Good, then bring a desk and a chair and sit next to Myohan. Well, as for the rest of you, do independent study. And Yuja and Chookjae, come with me.”

Myohan and O Shin left the room quietly. Myohan walked first toward the study room at the end of the hallway, but then he stopped at turned back.

He was frowning really hard, and he looked somewhat irritated. His closed lips were also twitched to show his irritation. O Shin nodded slightly to invite him to talk.

“You…”

Myohan had many questions to ask, like what he was doing at school, and how he had managed to come to Myohan’s homeroom among so many classrooms. But what he wanted to know the most was…

“Are you 16?”

“Hah!”

Myohan frowned even harder. The man laughed and looked away.

“Why are you laughing?”

He had asked seriously. Since the moment they first met and while he stayed at Myohan’s home, Myohan had never thought them to be of same age. It wasn’t about O Shin’s appearance. Every matured gesture he made, his serious eyes, his way of talking… He couldn’t have been a teenager.

“I was wondering what you would ask…”

The man laughed for some time with his mouth covered with a hand, and then he muttered. Myohan had frowned like he was ready to blow up, and what he said was so…trivial.

“I think my age matters.”