Living with the Dangerous Beast-Chapter 20: No Other Choice

Dohwi’s eyes, which turned sharply towards the door, made it seem as though he was ready to kill the intruder.

Cack-cack!

Dohwi stood up abruptly, his sudden movement causing Sohwa to grab his legs with her entire body.

“Dohwi, you must not!”

Just as he seemed ready to rush out, he looked down at Sohwa, who was clinging to his legs.

The violent, murderous aura had completely disappeared in an instant.

“Won’t he leave if we just let him be?”

At Sohwa’s desperate plea, Dohwi stared at her intensely, as if trying to peer into her soul.

Finally, he slowly curved his lips into a smile and leaned down.

Holding Sohwa’s face like a precious object, he brushed her lips with his thumb. They were close enough to kiss.

“My sweet, lovely fox.” fɾēewebnσveℓ.com

His eyes glinted gold as he offered a cruel smile, his breath cold against her cheek.

“But I need to have dinner too. I’m starving.”

Dohwi’s soft voice and careful touch were as gentle as always.

But his eyes, like those of a predator before the hunt, were no longer gentle.

“I’ve never eaten a fox before because I thought you’d find it gruesome... But I think I can enjoy this one.”

He no longer hid his true nature. His golden eyes thoroughly scanned Sohwa’s face, as if he were caressing her soul.

“Wait for me here. I’ll tell you exactly how he tastes when I return.”

* * *

Sohwa was on the verge of fainting.

She hardly remembered what she was thinking as she sat in the main hall until Dohwi left through the front door.

‘I need to leave. I need to get out of here.’

She barely managed to stand on her shaky legs but didn’t dare to run.

Would it be difficult for Dohwi to catch her if he chased after her?

She knew better than anyone how fast his sturdy legs were, even in his human form.

And besides, what if he was in his original tiger form?

He was already so fast in his human form, but what would happen if he chased her on four tiger legs?

Even if she transformed into a fox and ran all night, it would be impossible to escape the reach of a tiger that could move as swiftly as the wind.

‘Still, I have no other choice...’

Tears streamed down her face.

After finishing off the male fox, Dohwi would undoubtedly come after her next.

If he tried fox meat once, trying it a second time wouldn’t be difficult.

Sohwa transformed into a fox and left the only home she had ever known, glancing back wistfully at the gate.

A little black cat that had been abandoned and left on the streets, just like her.

She took him in because he seemed pitiful and quite cute.

She never imagined that the small, pitiful, and cute little cat she took in would eventually bring her such a terrible fate.

Though everyone had warned her—Myojin, Hoyoung, and even the monk—why hadn’t she listened?

She had been arrogantly confident that nothing bad would happen because Dohwi had always been so kind and gentle.

As if mocking her naivete, large footprints trailed from her house to the hillside.

They were similar in shape to her own but significantly larger.

Especially the claws, which dug deep into the ground as if someone had used a pickaxe, were truly terrifying just to look at.

She could easily imagine how sharp and large those claws must be.

The footprints started right at the gate of her own house.

Though he hadn’t transformed into his tiger form in front of her out of some last bit of kindness, they were clear evidence that Dohwi was a tiger.

Sohwa could no longer deny the truth.

Rather than being frightened, she felt a strange sense of relief, as if she had finally pulled back the heavy bowstring she had been holding all this time.

Raindrops began to wet the ground. Looking up, she saw dark clouds gathering, ready to unleash a downpour.

‘I knew it all along... I was just pretending desperately that I didn’t.’

She had worked hard to convince herself it wasn’t true, but deep down, she had always known that a day like this would come and had been preparing to leave.

‘Even if he were a tiger who would eventually eat me up, it would still be better than being alone.’

But now, the time had truly come to stand on her own feet.

Like the raindrops falling from the sky and blending into the earth, it was finally time for her to leave without fearing the pain of being lonely.

As Sohwa pushed off the ground and ran, rainwater began to fill the tiger footprints left behind her.