TBML 28

Ja-oh gave a small flap of his wings and fluttered over to the travel pouch the black tiger had tossed aside. From within it, he pulled out something wrapped in white cloth. Once he unraveled the tightly knotted fabric, two large, smashed lumps of rice were revealed—likely the dinner of a traveling merchant about to set off on a long journey.

—Eat this kind of stuff!

Though now crushed into a sticky mess, it had originally been a well-cooked mix of barley and other grains, fluffy and steaming.

It wasn’t like the raw meat they devoured, dripping blood and fur still clinging to it. This had been cooked—something Ja-oh wanted to convey.

But he had no confidence in explaining the process, much less the reason, in a way the black tiger would understand.

“So I just need to pull him out of the pit and feed him things like this?”

The black tiger asked as if it were no big deal, arms folded and one brow arching smugly. This much wasn’t difficult.

His air of confidence made Ja-oh shriek in frustration.

—You have to treat him, too!!

“Just lick it and sleep. It’ll get better.”

—*That works for you—for this human, he’ll die!”

Did tigers even have a concept of proper treatment? Such a thing simply didn’t exist in their world.

If time and the mountain couldn’t heal a wound or illness, then it was nature’s way of returning them to earth.

Otherwise, with enough rest, they’d get back up and move on.

The little human lying motionless in the pit, not eating or stirring, did bother him…

But could someone really die just from falling into a hole?

The black tiger was more concerned Yeon might starve to death than perish from injuries or illness.

“Then what am I supposed to do!?”

He had thought pulling the human out of the pit and giving him food and water would be enough.

But Ja-oh kept insisting otherwise, and the tiger snapped.

Humans were so needlessly complicated. He’d thought he’d come to understand them fairly well by now, but the more he learned, the murkier it became.

—You have to take him back to the other humans…

When Ja-oh finally offered a solution, the black tiger puffed his cheeks in and out before giving a reluctant nod.

Compared to him, Ja-oh probably knew better.

The crow actually did know about doctors—humans who could treat illnesses—but saw no need to explain that much to the tiger.

He merely told him that if they returned the human to his kind, they would help him.

It was an explanation pitched to the tiger’s level—and it worked. He nodded.

Now that he had a clear goal, the black tiger shifted from standing on two legs to four.

Well—more like he simply placed his hands on the ground.

But just as he was about to return to his beastly form, Ja-oh stopped him.

The tiger, still large but mentally undercooked, had a habit of always asking “Why?” before doing anything.

Instead of answering, Ja-oh fetched something from the pile of disheveled clothing in the corner of the room.

It was the pale jade robe the black tiger had worn during a past encounter with Yeon.

Ja-oh pushed the garment at him, and the black tiger took it in a daze and put it on.

That rainy day—it clung to his memory.

The way Yeon had gently dusted off the fabric, smoothing it out with his hands.

He hadn’t made any effort to memorize it, but the black tiger was always sensitive to movement, and he remembered every detail.

The knot he tied was loose, sloppy. But fast.

It didn’t look great, but at least this time, one could say he was wearing the robe.

Ja-oh hadn’t said why, but the tiger remembered something the crow had once told him:

Humans always wear clothes.

So Ja-oh meant for him to take human form and pull Yeon out that way.

It wasn’t a bad suggestion, and the black tiger shrugged in agreement.

He could have just thrown the human over his back and leapt out of the pit as a tiger.

But if that “Yeon-ah” happened to catch sight of him and panic—

He was already weak from hunger. Wasting what little strength he had left might kill him.

So the black tiger, deciding to be generous, opted for the roundabout way instead.

Of course, even with clothes on, he still looked like a mess.

Hair wild, robe crumpled, his appearance was ragged and pitiful.

But when he kicked open the door and marched off to save Yeon, he carried himself like a young scholar returning home in triumph after passing the exams.

As the black tiger—no, Kim Hyeon-hak, the name written on his identity tag—ran off in haste, Ja-oh let out a long, cawing cry.

The tiger had thrown a fit over the human not eating—yet had completely forgotten to bring the food with him, leaving it sitting on the floor.

—You idiotic tiger!!

…

His fever spiked.

He didn’t need to press a hand to his forehead to know it—his eyes throbbed like they’d burst from their sockets, and his mouth was parched as if he hadn’t had water in days.

The entire left side of his body was numb, but he could still feel the heat rising from his shoulder.

At least he wasn’t shivering—that was something.

Had he lost the will to survive?

Yeon’s condition had deteriorated rapidly.

Perhaps it was just that his injuries were too severe, but to him, it felt like he was dying.

Flickering shapes began to appear in the corners of his vision.

He was alone in the pit—yet, in the shadows, he started to see something like a person.

A reaper, maybe?

As the dark figure steadily approached, Yeon found himself wondering, in a detached sort of way, what kind of ghost he’d become when he died.

They said those killed by tigers became chang-gwi, vengeful spirits.

But in truth, he hadn’t been mauled by a tiger. He’d fallen prey to his own cunning, so that didn’t apply.

Was this a kind of live burial?

Then perhaps he’d become a grave ghost.

But no—no dirt had covered him. Disqualified.

He had no idea how long he’d been down here.

Maybe he’d starve to death and become a hungry ghost?

But then again… his mouth was dry, yes.

But strangely enough, he wasn’t hungry.

It was a truly useless train of thought—but Yeon couldn’t stop thinking.

Even as the black shadow came to a halt before his curled-up body, he neither raised his head to see what it was nor turned away.

He lay there motionless, as though he had turned to stone.

Like someone paralyzed in a nightmare, he simply stared blankly at the feet of the figure looming over him.

Oddly enough, the figure was barefoot.

Its feet were covered in mud, with decaying leaves clinging to the wet earth.

Are reapers usually barefoot?

How strange. Then again, there were those who kicked off their straw shoes before leaping to their deaths.

Shoes hardly mattered.

He stared at those filthy feet until the fever, burning hot, made his eyelids sink shut.

For a moment, he felt as if his body was floating—or was the ground falling away beneath him?

In that final moment, caught in an incomprehensible, chaotic sensation, Yeon thought vaguely, Perhaps I’ve killed too many. I must be falling into hell, and then lost consciousness.

…

“Yeon-ah, come now, time to eat. Wake up.”

A gentle, weary voice brushed against his ear, but Yeon didn’t open his eyes.

His eyelids were too heavy, draped in darkness—he could see nothing.

Still, he knew exactly whose voice that was.

Had it really been so long since he’d heard it?

Yeon found himself wondering: Was her voice always this soft?

Despite her nagging—nagging that wasn’t really nagging—Yeon didn’t stir.

It wasn’t resistance. It just didn’t feel like his body anymore. He couldn’t muster the strength to move.

But he could still smell.

There it was—freshly cooked rice.

Not the scent of slow-simmered porridge, but honest-to-goodness steamed rice.

Just from the smell alone, Yeon, whose nose had grown sharp from running the household kitchen, could tell it was pure white rice—not a grain of barley, millet, or oats mixed in.

The scent alone sent hunger clawing through him like someone who hadn’t eaten in days.

His stomach felt like it had shrunken to cling to his spine, and saliva pooled in his mouth.

He wanted to obey that voice—sit up and take a spoonful of the rice laid out before him.

But still, not a finger would move.

“You’re still not up? Not gonna eat? Yeon-ah, my Yeon-ah. Are you sick?”

A voice thick with worry came alongside the gentle press of a palm to his forehead.

The hand was so soft it reminded him of the silken hems worn by pampered children in noble households.

“You seem fine to me. Come now—I made it for you. Eat plenty, Yeon.”

And just like that, from those simple words—Yeon realized this was a dream.

Not from the feel of that tender hand, untouched by a day of hard labor.

It was that one phrase—“Eat plenty”—that made it clear.

Before his father fell into debt, before his mother took to bed—

Even in those short-lived, happy days of his childhood, no one had ever said that to him.

Not once.

“Eat plenty.” It wasn’t much, was it? And yet in Yeon’s family, not a single person had ever uttered those words.

Nor had Yeon ever said, “Eat well, Mother. Eat up, Father,” even out of courtesy.

Of course not. There had never been food enough on the table to say such things.

Others, when faced with scarcity, would pile their bowls high with mixed grains and eat heartily.

But until Yeon took up hunting, his family had rarely even managed to put rice on the table.

More often than not, their meals consisted of bark boiled until it softened.

It wasn’t that his life had been completely unhappy just because it had been full of hardship.

But small, simple comforts like this—such ordinary abundance—had never once existed for him.

It felt unnatural.

If this is going to be a dream, he thought, why not something I actually wanted to hear—like “You’ve worked so hard.”

That one line—“Eat plenty”—had ruined the illusion, made his awareness crawl back.

Still, regretfully or not, it didn’t matter much.

He let himself savor the fleeting warmth of it anyway.

But from somewhere far off, unfamiliar voices began to pierce the peace.

So faint they were like the whisper of rabbit feet crunching through snow, requiring deep concentration to make out.

“You idiot bird!”

“Yoooou idiotic—!”

The first was a man’s voice, furious.

The second sounded like someone squawking, stretching the syllables unnaturally.

Then, the sound of something crashing—furniture or crockery, it wasn’t clear—

And finally, a roar so loud it obliterated the need for concentration entirely.

Yeon’s ears, which had been straining to catch the quiet, now rang from the sudden blast of noise.

“Ja-oh!”

He didn’t know what it meant, but something about it struck him as a name.

Like a mother calling a child by the riverbank—angry, firm, and urgent, yet without a shred of hatred in it.

The ruckus was too much to ignore.

Yeon frowned, his brow creasing in annoyance.

Maybe now… he thought, Maybe I can open my eyes.

Under his lids, he rolled his gaze in a circle—once, carefully.

And then, just like that, with surprising ease—snap—his eyes opened wide.