Just Take the Beating
"Chuyeon, what is all this?"
Na Wangrang's pupils shook as if the ground under them had split.
Until that afternoon the garden had been beautiful. Now it was torn to pieces, wrecked from end to end, and the suspects who had clearly done it were waiting farther in.
"What are you doing here at this hour? Shouldn't you be home?"
It was past midnight. Na Wangrang ought to have been with his family, well on his way to dreamland.
"......I had a bad feeling, so I came."
That alone seemed to leave him short of an explanation, and he hurried to add more.
"You know my instincts are good. On a night like this, with the full moon up, they get even sharper. So I came."
Those instincts, unfortunately, had not been wrong.
"Wangrang, you......"
Dan Chuyeon pressed a hand to his head.
"Let's go inside first."
"Yeah."
Na Wangrang dragged his feet up off the ground as if they had rooted there. I tried to keep him away, and he came anyway. Better if he had never come at all. Even if he did, it should have ended quietly. The secret had been caught by the one person who was never supposed to catch it.
Bitter, Na Wangrang watched his friend's back as Chuyeon floated the three wolves in the air and headed for the front door.
"How much did you see?"
Dan Chuyeon flung the three of them onto the living-room floor, rinsed clean by a surge of water-energy. Lashed head to toe in living branches, they rolled across the boards like luggage.
Na Wangrang's eyes had gone complicated.
"From the part where you were tearing your hair out in the garden?"
"So you basically saw nothing."
Dan Chuyeon swept a hand down his chest, relieved. Thank goodness his friend had not been dragged into the fight.
"But what are these people to you?"
He tapped the head of the wolf who was conspicuously larger than the others. Na Wangrang flinched.
"Nothing. No relation."
"Wipe the sweat off and then say that. You are related."
"......"
Na Wangrang rubbed at his arm.
"It's going to be a long story. Will you listen?"
"Talk. I'll listen."
So Na Wangrang told him the secret he had been hiding.
"First of all, I'm not human."
"Uh-huh."
"......You're not surprised?"
"Our next-door neighbor is the god of a volcano. This isn't exactly shocking."
"......"
"Keep going. Don't stop."
"......I'm a werewolf. Same as the people lying over there. Dad's a werewolf. Mom's an ordinary human."
"Your little siblings too?"
"Yeah. They all know what they are."
"Huh. So how did your parents even meet?"
"Dad came to Korea on a mission. He was supposed to find someone special. While he was looking, he and Mom fell for each other and got married."
"......And nobody had a problem with that?"
"Nobody. Werewolves with the same mission were scattered all over the world, and plenty of them settled where they'd been posted and started families. The rule was just that once a child came of age, they had to join the pack."
"But you're still here, which means......"
"After I was born, Dad ran with Mom. As far as the clan knew, he was dead."
"Why?"
"Because I was the someone he'd been sent to find."
"You? So up till then he was searching for a person who didn't exist?"
"Pretty much."
"Don't tell me you're somebody's reincarnation. Like you were some great benefactor of the werewolves in a past life."
"Not that. But I am tied to them. Deeply."
He let out a long breath.
"I'm the king fated to lead the werewolves. The Moses they've been looking for. Their messiah."
"......For real?"
"Yeah."
"A king?"
"King of a whole species."
"Whew. Okay. I understand even less than I did a minute ago, but moving on. So who are these three?"
"People who know I'm the king, and who've been hounding me for it."
Na Wangrang looked at the three of them with open contempt.
"They hang around my family and keep pressing me to carry out a king's duty. If I don't, they say, life will get hard."
"......So that's why you looked so worn out the other day."
"......Yeah."
Dan Chuyeon stroked his hair.
"......You've had it rough, carrying that alone."
"It's fine...... Mom's here."
"Your siblings don't know?"
"They're about to start middle school. How much would they even understand? They think those three are Dad's relatives."
"Right......"
Dan Chuyeon patted his back. Na Wangrang buried his face against Dan Chuyeon's chest and smiled, bitter at the edges.
"I'm sorry. I think you got pulled into this because of me."
"It wasn't even dangerous. People at that level can't catch me. Not unless they're something out of myth."
"Caught you."
"...?"
Na Wangrang smiled, bright and shameless.
"I'm something out of myth, aren't I? The werewolf king who only exists in legend. So I caught you."
"Ugh. That's disgusting. Get your face off me."
"Come on. You won't even let me have that one."
Na Wangrang stuck his lip out.
"Your turn."
"My turn for what."
"You really have to ask?"
He jerked his chin at the werewolves.
"An ordinary high school kid puts down three grown men without leaving a scratch. You want to tell me how that works?"
"Ah......"
"I told you what I am. Now you tell me."
What are you?
Caught by a blow he had not seen coming, Dan Chuyeon scratched his cheek.
"......All right. I'll tell you."
He sighed, and then he told his story.
"......And I'm supposed to believe that?"
"Werewolves exist. Why shouldn't gods?"
"Somehow my secret feels like nothing at all......"
Na Wangrang was at a loss. The world his friend had walked through was too wide for the narrow knowledge he had. Gods, the Phantom Thief, nature, immortal arts, Heaven, the Heavenly Punishment, Terra, Captain Earth, Hawaii, Ilshikgyo, death and resurrection......
"Didn't you tell me way too much?"
"You're fine. You're the mama of our house, aren't you?"
The bridge of Na Wangrang's nose stung. He could feel, clear as a hand on his shoulder, how deeply his friend trusted him.
"I'll take it to the grave."
"Just watch your mouth."
"Right."
"Heartfelt reconciliation with my dear friend: complete. Now we shake these thugs down for everything they've got, yeah?"
"I can't wait."
Na Wangrang's eyes changed. They were a wolf's eyes now.
"I've got quite a lot saved up, you know."
Crackle—zzzt!
"Ggghhk—!"
"Kyaaaah!"
"Gaaaaah!"
An electric massage snapped all three pairs of unconscious eyes wide open.
"Nngh. Where......?"
"Awake?"
Dan Chuyeon dusted his palms.
"You......"
"Nice to meet you. Wolves, you've been kidnapped."
Peril looked down and found a body lashed tight in branches. Strength went into arms and legs, and the branches did not so much as creak.
"So we've been taken."
Caught clean, with nowhere to move.
"I'll skip the introduction and get to the point. Who are you?"
Why Korea, why him, and what did they want?
"......"
Peril chose silence. Yamaga and Sharl, having taken in the situation, clamped their mouths shut as well.
"Not talking?"
Nothing else for it, then.
"Wangrang. Get your subjects in line."
"Wangrang......?"
Peril's gaze followed Dan Chuyeon's. Na Wangrang was standing behind them.
"......!"
Peril swallowed a breath that did nothing. Why is His Majesty here......?! Had his dear friend called him?! Disaster.
"We meet again. Auntie. Uncle."
Na Wangrang's gaze came down on them, cold. The three wolves trembled under a pressure that did not feel like his.
He's different from usual......
He stood with the full moon in the window at his back. From that slight, delicate body there rose a majesty that left no room to resist. Like dogs before a tiger, the wolves' tails curled tight between their legs.
Peril clenched down and forced a clear head.
"......"
"I have a lot to say. I'll ask one thing."
Na Wangrang looked straight into Peril's eyes.
The Wolf King closed a hand around a subject's throat.
"Why did you go after my friend?"
"Kh—!"
Peril bit down on a tongue and resisted.
The Wolf King's brow twitched.
"Not this one. Either of the other two. Talk."
"Don't—!"
The Wolf King's hand sealed Peril's mouth. Yamaga fought it. Sharl, shaking, confessed exactly as it was.
"W-we meant to kidnap your d-dear friend and throw Your Majesty into a crisis."
"......And?"
"We meant to awaken you in the middle of that crisis. To secure the king's safety against an impure faction."
"What is that supposed to mean? My safety?"
"The truth is that the three of us have played the villains all this time for the sake of protecting you. We judged that you, still so young, would find it difficult to withstand the society of the clan. Until you awakened as the true king, your safety had to come first."
"All of it was an act? Every last bit?"
"......Yes."
"Ha!"
Na Wangrang laughed through his nose.
Now that the truth was out, Peril could only groan.
"They're out of their minds."
To Dan Chuyeon the whole dizzy fact sounded like a joke. A nuisance that insisted, with a straight face, that it was not a nuisance at all.
"Is that actually true?"
"......"
"I asked if it's true."
"Everything was for the king."
Peril bowed low.
"For me? Give me a damn break."
Putting Mom through hell, hurting the people around him—that was supposed to be for his sake?
Na Wangrang hauled Peril's head up.
"I am sorry."
"Sorry?"
Smack!
"......I am sorry."
"Why are you apologizing?"
They did not need to apologize.
Until he was good and satisfied. Not a moment sooner.
"Wangrang."
"Don't stop me."
"That's not it. If we trash the living room, we're the ones who have to clean it. Beat them in the backyard."
"Good."
Na Wangrang rolled his wrists loose.
Dan Chuyeon cracked his neck.
The three of them accepted the fate coming for them without so much as a change of expression.
Out in the backyard, the sound of a merciless beating went on, and on, and did not stop.