UR Chapter 139

Chapter 139

“Oh, a cat pudding. They did a great job with this.”

Somi lifted her camera and gave a thumbs-up, snapping away while adding filters over the image of the cat pudding. Smiling at the sight on her screen, she spoke again.

“Oh, but looking at this cat reminds me of that one that used to follow you around. What’s that cat been up to lately?”

She set her phone down and drizzled syrup over the pudding.

“…Weoong?”

“Yeah. That one. He really liked you.”

I-bom paused, spoon in hand, staring at her.

“But I haven’t seen him lately—not even in front of Happy Bunny. The customers have been asking about him.”

“Really? He’s not even in front of Happy Bunny?”

A trace of worry crossed I-bom’s face. Weoong was the first cat he’d ever truly opened his heart to. His big size meant smaller predators probably wouldn’t bother him, but danger didn’t only come from other animals. People could always be a threat to a cat.

“That’s not good. I haven’t seen him at the convenience store either.”

Somi seemed to think for a moment before tapping the table.

“Ah, you should make a post on Dongne Market.”

“Dongne Market…?”

She nodded.

“Yeah, there are actually a lot of people on there. When my friend lost her dog, I posted on the board, and we got a ton of tips.”

Following her advice, I-bom installed and opened the Dongne Market app. Somi explained that it was a community where people searched for missing persons, sold secondhand goods, and so on. He clicked the “Seoul / Manwol-gu” search menu. Sure enough, the board was full of recent posts asking about lost pets or recommending local restaurants. After thinking it over, he wrote his own post.

Hello! I’m looking for a cat that used to hang around the entrance to the Manwol Mountain hiking trail. I often saw him near the convenience store and nearby restaurant. He has yellow fur with stripes, is huge in size, and very affectionate. I used to feed him, but I haven’t seen him lately, and I’m worried. If anyone’s seen him recently, please let me know…!

“Manwol-gu’s pretty active since Korea University’s here and lots of students live nearby. You’ll probably get a lot of comments.”

Somi sipped her iced Americano through a straw.

“…You think so? This is my first time posting something like this.”

“If you don’t get any comments, I’ll post on my school board for you, so don’t worry.”

Biting his lower lip, I-bom refreshed the page. After chatting for a while, he checked again—five comments had already appeared. With a cat that big, it was no wonder. He was probably famous in the neighborhood.

“Wow, already five comments.”

“Ooh, open them.”

With a flutter of anticipation, I-bom clicked—but the first few replies were unexpected.

└ Haven’t seen him lately. Maybe someone took him.
└ Wait, is he still a street cat? He looked like he had an owner. He wears a Samho necklace.
└ What’s a Samho necklace?
└ It’s got the Samho chaebol family crest. I used to work at Samho Department Store, and a cat there wore the same thing. That one’s owner was the Samho chairman’s grandson. So this one’s probably a chaebol family’s free-roaming cat.
└ Oh, you mean Eun Ji-ho?

“…Samho?”

I-bom blinked, murmuring to himself, and met Somi’s wide-eyed gaze.

“…Samho—that’s your fiancé’s company, right? I think I know what necklace they’re talking about.”

He remembered seeing a necklace around Weoong’s neck. He had thought it meant the cat had an owner, but now that familiar triangular pattern made sense—it was the Samho crest.

“…Eun Ji-ho?”

Eun Beom-ho, Eun Ji-ho. The names were similar. He’d never heard of a younger brother, but Beom-ho had once mentioned having a cousin with the same generational name. And if that cousin’s cat wore the same necklace, then maybe Weoong belonged to Samho too.

“I just looked up Eun Ji-ho. His granduncle is Samho Chairman Eun Kang, and he’s cousins with your fiancé. Whoa, so Weoong was a rich family’s cat all along? No wonder his fur was so shiny.”

“Yeah. Then it should be easy to find him.”

I-bom nodded, a hint of excitement in his expression. He didn’t know where Weoong lived, but if he belonged to Samho, he should be safe—and that meant they could meet again soon. He picked up his phone to reply with thanks.

[new!]

The five comments became six, then seven, then eight. Frowning in curiosity, I-bom checked the latest ones.

└ ^^; That’s not a cat—it’s a beastman in animal form. Pureblood beastmen can be hard to tell apart from normal animals, so they wear identifying markers. This one’s probably not a Samho cat but a member of the family. You got tricked. Odds are he’s a pureblood beastman.
└ Huh? Why would a beastman do that lol
└ Guess you didn’t know—this is something vets and firefighters learn in training. I majored in veterinary science, and the professors bring it up every semester. Sometimes people bring beastmen to clinics thinking they’re animals. It’s rarer now since most families make their own identifying accessories.

“…What?”

“A beastman? Seriously?”

Somi’s voice rose as she stared at the screen with him. It was just a comment—they didn’t know if it was true—but I-bom couldn’t laugh it off. The moment he read it, something clicked in his mind.

‘Didn’t you propose to me?’

‘Marry Weoong.’

No way.

He’d dismissed it at the time, thinking Beom-ho was joking or that he’d imagined it.

The image of that crumpled Churu treat flashed through his mind—the one he’d definitely given to Weoong, not Beom-ho.

At first, he’d thought it was all a misunderstanding, but now the pieces were falling into place. And those fine hairs drifting in the warm air, visible when Beom-ho sat with his back to the window… they hadn’t belonged to a tiger. Which meant—

‘Weoong—’

‘If you’re going to court me properly… well, I like roses. A bouquet of roses would be nice.’

He remembered their first meeting: the orange-and-yellow striped fur, the golden eyes with their fierce light, staring straight at him…

“K-Kang I-bom!”

Tap-tap!

The urgent voice came from behind him and Somi.

Looking up, they saw Kang Soo-hyun, hair a mess as if he’d rolled on the ground, his face pale.

“…Soo-hyun hyung?”

I-bom frowned. Somi leaned in, whispering with a wary look, “Is he crazy? Should we call the cops?”

“What happened to you?”

“I-I-bom. I was wrong. I… damn, I really said terrible things to you.”

In the crowded café, Soo-hyun suddenly dropped to his knees in front of I-bom, bowing low and begging for forgiveness. The quiet space filled with classic jazz froze as every customer stared wide-eyed. Flustered, I-bom grabbed his arm.

“…What’s going on? Why are you—like this all of a sudden?”

His lips parted in confusion.

* * *

I’m going to lose my mind.

Meow.

Meow, meow.

Meeeoooowww.

Cat cries rang endlessly in Soo-hyun’s ears. Whenever he tried to fall asleep, a cat would appear and wail without stopping. And it wasn’t just a cat—sometimes it turned into a tiger. All day, it cried and cried, never letting him rest, ending only to whisper one last word: “Apologize.”

At first, he’d laughed it off, but as the days went by, his expression grew darker. The constant, unending cries left his ears ringing and his nerves frayed. He became so sensitive he couldn’t sleep at all. The sleepless nights hollowed the skin beneath his eyes and brought on pounding headaches.

It had all started that day.

The day he fainted after locking eyes with a tiger’s gaze drifting above the darkness. The tiger that was said to be Eun Beom-ho’s true form. After seeing it and collapsing, the nightmares had begun.

He went to the hospital for bloodwork and every other test they could run, but nothing improved. Only at a beastman-specialty clinic, after countless inquiries and searches, did he get an answer: “Your brain shows no abnormalities. It seems the excessive exposure to a pureblood beastman’s aura has disrupted your beastman pheromone secretion system.”

“So… what do I do?”

Soo-hyun had clutched at the doctor’s coat, pleading. The doctor only shook his head. Pheromone disruption syndrome was such a newly recognized condition that, unless it resolved naturally, all he could do was endure it.

Writhing in misery, Soo-hyun suddenly realized—the cat that cried by his ear every night looked exactly like the one I-bom used to care for outside the convenience store. And that cat’s appearance also resembled the tiger he’d seen in the dark.

He bit his fingertip, lost in thought. Even if cats and tigers were broadly of the same family, their details were different. It was strange that seeing the cat would make him think of the tiger. His sunken eyes blinked rapidly.

“You’ll realize that a lawsuit was the kindest thing I could have done for you.”

It was definitely his influence. The pureblood beastman. His fury had clearly reached him. And those two were probably…

“…Kang I-bom. I—I have to go to Kang I-bom.”