SHC Chapter 5

5. A Human Faced Beast

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My vision spun.

I couldn’t breathe. At this rate, I was worried I might suffocate, because it felt like he was stealing every bit of oxygen from me. Logicall,y it should’ve been carbon dioxide, but… wait, that wasn’t the problem here.

“Mmph, mmph!”

When I genuinely thought I was going to die, I grabbed his arm with all my strength. Even then, the ringmaster kept sucking the breath from me.

I couldn’t endure anymore….

Thinking I had no escape left, I clenched my eyes shut tight enough to wrinkle the skin and drove my knee upward. A direct, intentional strike to his groin.

Thud!

It landed perfectly.

“!”

Finally, he stopped sucking.

I let go of his arm to catch my own balance and twisted my head to the side, wiping my mouth against my shoulder.

“Haa…!”

I gasped, pulling in air again, but suddenly pain tingled across the back of my scalp.

“Urgh!”

“You think this is funny?”

He yanked my hair, bending my head backward. Shocked by the pain, I opened my eyes, but the buildup of tears blurred my vision.

“I asked if you think this is funny.”

Even through the fear, the low, chilling tone made my shoulders jump.

His grip tightened, as if he planned to rip out my hair entirely. My breath started to shorten, and my whole body froze from fear.

Was he mad because I hit him in the groin? But I had my reasons too.

“You started it… You were the one messing with me first.”

I forced the words out through gritted teeth. Tears formed again and slid down my temples in shaky streaks.

“Messing with you?”

The ringmaster repeated the words, rolling them around in his mouth, and with his free hand, he reached as if to crush my throat. He applied a slight pressure. It wasn’t much, but to me, it felt like a threat to my life.

“……”

Terrified, I couldn’t say anything else. I only trembled. At least he let go of my hair.

“Everything I did looked like a joke to you?”

His face was close again. His lips were right in front of mine.

He was so close it was suffocating, so I shut my eyes. More tears flowed. This time from both eyes.

“……”

“……”

The inside of the tent grew quiet.

Humiliated at crying in front of him, I bit my lip, but then something pressed my chin, forcing my mouth open again.

No.

I raised my hands, blocking his face, and grabbed the thumb that was pushing on my chin.

“Why are you crying?”

What a ridiculous question. But I couldn’t answer. I didn’t even know why I was crying. I should’ve just punched him and reported him, but everything felt humiliating, and honestly, I was scared.

I had signed a weird contract, I didn’t understand anything, and I had no phone signal here.

“Because you think I meant to hurt you?”

Somehow, his voice softened a little, and that only made the tears flow more.

Then I heard a familiar yet unsettling sound near my ear.

Sniff, sniff.

It was the sound of someone smelling something.

“……?”

Even while crying, curiosity made me open my eyes, and I frowned.

The ringmaster had leaned in so close he was practically pressing his nose against my face, sniffing.

Like a dog.

“Stop crying. I still have to do more.”

After all that sniffing, he said that as he kept gripping my neck, practically barking it right into my right ear.

I turned my head left to avoid him, but the ringmaster squeezed tighter, as if annoyed.

“Ghk!”

The moment I opened my mouth with a choking noise, he followed the movement of my turned face and sealed his lips over mine again.

And of course, he sucked again.

I bent backward, trying to get away, my spine arching further and further. This time, he didn’t support my head, but instead an arm locked firmly around my waist.

Then, with a wet pop, he finally pulled away.

“Haah…”

I inhaled sharply, gulping in the air he’d stolen. My chest and shoulders rose and fell with the force of my breathing. The ringmaster held me in a position like a ballroom dance posture, watching me as if observing something interesting. Then he buried his nose at the base of my neck, my collarbone, my chest… sniffing.

Now that I had some clarity back, the feel of his black hair brushing my face made me recoil. I pushed at his shoulder again.

“It’s gone now.”

He was probably talking about that human smell or whatever nonsense again.

My back hurt from being bent awkwardly, and I grabbed onto his jacket near his shoulder. The black coat draped over his white shirt wrinkled in my grip.

“Let me… let me fix my posture…”

I clung to him to keep myself from falling backward, but the closeness between our bodies, the feel of his abdomen, his hips against mine, started to get to me.

It wasn’t just uncomfortable or awkward. He was someone who kissed me without hesitation. That made everything feel even more uncomfortable, even threatening.

A strange anxiety crept in. What if this contact made him think something dangerous?

‘Is this part of the circus act too?’

No way. No one would do this unless they were insane.

Was he insane? Or was this seriously some kind of concept? What?

But thinking of the bizarre show earlier, I could almost believe it.

Just as my thoughts spiraled deeper, he adjusted his hold on me, helping me steady my balance.

‘…What?’

Giving me the illness and the cure all at once?

And now he stared straight at me. With only one eye visible, his gaze was even more intense. I awkwardly turned my head away from the blue eye, and right then, he spoke.

“Wipe your tears.”

Ah. So that’s why he kept staring.

I hurried to wipe my tears and glanced at him again. Now I noticed a faint red smear staining his lips.

‘Stage makeup?’

Maybe it had rubbed off during the kissing. I rubbed my own lips with the back of my hand, and sure enough, a red mark smudged onto my skin.

“What about your neck?”

Is he really asking about the neck he squeezed earlier?

I sighed heavily and pressed my forehead with my palm.

“Look, I get that this circus has a weird concept, or… no, that’s not it… Why did you kiss me again?”

It was a messy, rambling question, so maybe that’s why he didn’t answer.

“Hey?”

When I frowned and looked at him, he stood with his arms crossed, staring down at me diagonally.

Why is he making that face at me, of all people?

With an expression full of annoyance, the ringmaster threw the question back at me.

“Why did you ignore what I told you and cause all this?”

“…What?”

He hooked his index finger under my chin and lifted it.

I reflexively dodged because of all the times our lips had touched, but I couldn’t avoid the words that followed.

“I clearly told you the way back. So why are you here?”

“That… that’s…”

“And the contract?”

Ah.

I really had nothing to say to that.

And he was the ringmaster… meaning he was the Employer in my contract. Basically, the boss.

“Are you out of your mind?”

Even so, the last thing I wanted was to be told I was crazy by someone who randomly kissed me first.

“How did you even think about working here? Did you not see the show?”

“I-I did watch it, but…”

“And yet you think you can work here? As someone still alive?”

“No…”

I hadn’t wanted this, either. I came on an MT trip, got lost, watched a circus, got kissed out of nowhere, got thrown into a cage, and was forced to sign an employment contract. And now the boss who kissed me was lecturing me again.

This was so unfair.

“I didn’t want to do any of this!”

My voice burst out louder than I intended.

The more I thought about it, the more unfair it felt.

“I was trapped in a cage!”

“Cage?”

“That one. A girl with a flower on her head told me she was stuck and asked me to unlock it, so I opened it, and she shoved me in and disappeared. Then that white-haired guy came and said he wouldn’t let me out unless I signed that contract, so that’s why!”

The ringmaster’s expression grew complicated.

“And then you… You suddenly sucked on my lips, too.”

‘You’ sounded rude, so I changed it to ‘you sir,’ but he looked too young for that. And calling him hyung felt strange, and calling him ringmaster right away was also awkward.

“So, sir…”

“Ringmaster.”

“……”

“Call me ringmaster.”

“Yes. I know it was wrong not to follow the path you told me, but someone called me, so I came here instead. I’m sorry for opening the cage without permission and taking a wrong turn, and signing that contract. But you honestly didn’t do a good job either, ringmaster.”

I paused, and he tilted his chin as if telling me to keep talking.

“Why did you kiss me?”

I asked again, determined to hear a proper answer.

“Well…”

Just as his mouth began to open…

“Ringmaster! Ringmaster!”

A frantic voice called from outside the tent. The ringmaster turned, and a short man poked his head through the fabric acting as a door.

“You need to come quickly!”

The man was so short that his face appeared around the height of my knees and thighs.

‘A dwarf?’

Staring too long seemed rude, so I looked toward the ringmaster instead. He glanced at me before turning away.

“What is it?”

“We’ve identified the man!”

“Good. Let’s go to the scene. And you…”

The ringmaster walked quickly to the entrance, then looked back at me.

“Follow him. He’ll show you to your room.”

“You’re really going to use me? You’re not firing me?”

“…I can’t fire you.”

I admit, I had the tiniest thread of hope. Maybe he would cancel my employment.

“…I really have to work?”

“You signed.”

Then he swept out of the tent. The cloth door flapped wildly, giving me a glimpse of the man who came to get him.

It was blurred, but it looked like he was on all fours.

‘Why is he like that?’

Not knowing what to do, I stood there awkwardly. Then the man suddenly opened his mouth wide and laughed.

“Haha, hello! Nice to meet you! You’re the newbie, right? I heard from Kiss!”

“Ah… yes. Hello. I’ll be working as an assistant for a month, yes, I’m Choi…”

“Shut it!”

The ringmaster’s shout exploded from outside.

“?”

Startled, I clamped my mouth shut. A section of the tent was yanked aside, and the ringmaster’s fierce eye glared in through the gap. His eye was such a bright, neon blue that it almost looked fluorescent.

“Do not reveal your real name here.”

“…Sorry?”

“Nicknames only. If you don’t have one, just call yourself Helper.”

“……”

The ringmaster irritably shut the tent flap and disappeared with hurried footsteps.

“…Right. I’m Assistant Choi.”

“Good. I’m Balbari. Bal, as in foot, then ba without a final consonant, then ri. Balbari, not Balbali.”

“Yes…”

The man grinned pleasantly and shook his head. The hair on his head was so sparse only the sides remained; it was close to bald and gleamed under the light.

“Alright, follow me.”

I was momentarily distracted by the shine, so I didn’t immediately register the hand he extended toward me.

No… could I even call that a hand?

“Yes…”

The moment I stepped outside, I felt a worse suffocation than when the ringmaster had sucked the breath out of me earlier.

“Ghh…”

“What’s wrong?”

“…Hh.”

“Oh, my appearance? I guess a newbie would still be shocked? Hahaha.”

Laughing as he looked at his own body, the man had the lower half of a dog. The body of a yellow mongrel you’d often see in the countryside, just thicker and sturdier.

“Hahahaha!”

With a dog’s body shaking its head as it laughed, the sight felt so unreal I squeezed my eyes shut without meaning to.

But opening them again didn’t change anything.

Through my unsettled, trembling gaze, I watched him walk ahead. And yes, he had a tail swaying behind him, a dog’s backside.

“If you don’t follow, you’ll be sleeping on the floor tonight.”

For a second, that actually sounded like a better idea.

Because I didn’t know what I’d end up seeing if I followed him inside.