Living as Lee Yura
"Yura, just a moment."
Class had ended, and someone caught Eunha as she was about to slip out of the training room. A middle-aged woman with a short bob—one of the students in the same course.
"Here. Take this."
She held out a paper bag.
Inside, plastic containers were stacked in layers. Through the translucent lids, kimchi, soy-pickled vegetables, and other tempting little side dishes had been packed in tight.
Ever since she had learned that Eunha lived alone, the woman had been bringing her food like this every two or three days. Even so, Eunha could not bring herself to take the bag at once.
"You already gave me side dishes last time."
"Oh, come on. It's only what was left after I sent some to my kids. You don't need to feel burdened."
With that, she pressed the bag into Eunha's hands anyway.
"Oh—and how were the stir-fried anchovies from before? My daughter threw a fit, said I'd put in too much chili and they were too spicy."
"No. I thought they were delicious."
"Aigoo! I knew it. You're better than my own daughter."
She laughed, bright and unrestrained, and gave Eunha's back a light pat. The touch was sudden, but it didn't feel unpleasant.
"...I'll enjoy them."
Eunha looked at her with a faint smile.
A hat pulled low, white sneakers.
In the elevator mirror, Eunha looked like nothing more than an ordinary college student.
Someone had once said that people were creatures of adaptation. At first the look had seemed, even to her, deeply strange, but by now it had grown quite familiar. It felt as if she had been living exactly this way since long, long ago. She gazed quietly at the paper bag in her hand while a good smell drifted, thin and warm, through the elevator.
Seventeenth floor.
Eunha stepped out and stood before her front door. A soft beep from the lock, and the door opened.
Jehwi's shoes were gone from the cabinet. He must have left in time with her return.
"I'm home."
At the sound of her voice, Tissue jerked his head up from nearby and came trotting over. She crouched where she was, shoes still on, and stroked him gently. His tail swayed in a slow swish.
"Are you greeting me?"
Eunha smiled faintly.
Tissue wasn't exactly asking whether she'd had a good day, but this was enough. The feeling of someone there to welcome her home. She had forgotten this warm, easy feeling for a very long time.
Meeting his eyes, she tilted her head and lifted the corner of her mouth. Her eyes folded neatly into crescents as she said, quietly,
"With you here, the house feels full."
Her hand was traveling the length of his back when it reached his haunches.
"...!"
The swishing tail went rigid.
Tissue, who had been sitting with his rump planted on the floor, hiked it up all at once and scurried off into the living room. In the same instant, message windows surged into her vision with frightening force.
The divine beast Cat Wandering the Darkness plants her hands on her hips, dumbfounded. Just look at that insolent dog! How dare he refuse our unni's touch!
Unni, she says, there is no need to keep looking after an ungrateful dog like that. She proposes they send him to a shelter this very moment.
Eunha drew back the hand left floating in empty air, with nothing left to pet, and got to her feet.
Poor thing.
They had been putting up flyers without pause, searching for Tissue's original owner, but not a single real call had come. Jehwi said he was looking into a suitable shelter, so the days she had left with Tissue would not be long in any case. At least while he was here, she wanted to be good to him. She had even started to think they'd grown quite close.
"Tissue, let's take a bath."
"...!"
...Even if, from time to time, he still watched her with wary eyes.
And that night.
"Tissue, come here."
Eunha sat on the carpet spread across the bedroom floor and patted the spot beside her. A faint suspicion lingered in the blue eyes fixed on her. He would not come easily; he must have noticed the brush hidden behind her back.
"It's all right. I'll be gentle, so it won't hurt at all."
"......"
"Come on. Be good?"
"......"
Only then did Tissue sidle toward her. He still hadn't dropped that suspicious look, but the way he came quietly and lowered his tail in front of her was truly docile. The moment he had seen her drawing a bath, he had refused with his whole body, and she could hardly force him into the water. Brushing would have to do.
"Good boy."
Murmuring, she stroked his head softly before she ever touched him with the brush. His face pretended at indifference, but the slow wag of his tail was so cute that a laugh kept threatening to escape.
"It doesn't hurt, does it?"
As she carefully worked the brush down through his fur, her lips moved, slow.
"They praised me at the academy. Said I was good at brushing. That I had a talent for it."
Was that really true? She added it quietly, never stopping the brush.
Of course no answer came back from Tissue. Even so, the line of her mouth gone soft, Eunha spoke again.
"I hope so."
A sidelong glance—those blue eyes turned toward her.
It was a strange thing. Whenever she met them, the feelings she had packed away deep inside slipped out of her mouth before she knew it. It felt as if Tissue would listen no matter what she said. He would not scorn her, and he would not pity her. He would simply stay, silent, exactly as she was. Maybe that was why.
Junhwan's offer surfaced without warning. Now that she thought of it, he had promised to be in touch again, and she had forgotten it completely.
Then the instructor's words from class that day came back as well.
"The application period for the written exam is open right now. Why not give it a try? The written test is much easier than the practical, so take it without any pressure."
"Have some confidence. You're going to be a fine dog groomer, Yura."
The hand brushing Tissue's fur gradually slowed.
The faces of the people at the academy, grown close to her now, rose in her mind. She pictured herself among them, her brushing turned quite skilled. At last she stopped the brush dead and murmured, as if to herself,
"...I thought there was nothing I could do except kill monsters."
The scarlet stand lamp, lighting the bedroom only dimly, cast their shadows on the wall. All at once Tissue's blue eyes turned toward her. It felt as if their gazes met.
Night air slid in through the cracked window. Where the curtain, swollen full and round, drifted past, Eunha lifted her head.
A jet-black dress hung from the closet door handle, as if it had appeared there of its own accord. When she had last worn it was growing hazy now, little by little.
"I..."
Was that why? For the first time, she let herself think it.
"Would it be all right to just go on living as Lee Yura?"
Deep night, with even the moon gone into hiding.
A soft hiss of carpet, and the white dog rose. Jewel-blue eyes turned toward the bed. The room held nothing but the occasional whisper of blankets and the faint sound of breath. A pale shadow fell across the face of Eunha, fast asleep.
Thin at first, the shadow swelled in silence until it was vast. Then, wearing a human shape, it leaned quietly over her pillow.
"......"
The moon slipped free of the clouds, and the darkened room brightened by degrees. What stood revealed was no longer the pure-white dog, but Siwoo, his hair a deep blue-black.
Bent slightly at the waist, he gazed in silence at her sleeping face.
Tissue was a little too much, senior.
Siwoo only twisted his mouth, as if the thought displeased him. He did not dare say it aloud, in case she woke.
Moonlight washed bright again over the face that had lain in shadow. Looking at her as she slept, he smiled faintly.
It was the first time he had seen her sleeping since she had been in the hospital. He had had no leisure to look closely then, but seeing her now, that face was nothing like the Eunha he had known.
No... no, that wasn't it. Thinking on it, her gentle sleeping face was not the only thing Siwoo had failed to imagine.
While he stayed in her house in the shape of Tissue, he had lived through things he never could have pictured. Eunha, who had no way of knowing the dog was Siwoo, had done the unbelievable—setting kibble down in front of him, tossing him a chew and ordering him to fetch it. The most shocking of all was when she meant to put him in the bathtub herself and wash him with her own hands.
That was dangerous.
The instant her hand touched his belly, he had very nearly let the avatar slip—nearly shed his divine-beast form. It was, without question, the worst corner he had been driven into since becoming an Incarnation. Even now, the memory was dizzying enough to snap him wide awake.
Siwoo clapped a large hand over his eyes and, in the dark room, scrubbed at his face again and again with nothing but his dry palm.