TBML 6

The tension was so thick it felt like it would explode at any moment. Yeon felt dizzy. If he closed his eyes now, he feared he’d drift far away from the world and collapse right then and there—so he forced his eyes to stay open.

Sweat trickled down his spine despite the midwinter cold as he inched backward. The black tiger, standing firm in front of him, growled once more, a low sound vibrating from its throat, then gave a rough shake of its head like it was clearing its throat. The way it moved felt almost like it was mocking Yeon.

The black tiger stared at him with those bright yellow eyes, blinked slowly, and then turned its head. Its thick, fur-covered paw stepped onto a patch of snow in the shade. Pawprints, unlike any a human could make, were left in the untouched snow, one after another. As if it had seen something trivial and not worth the trouble, the tiger turned away and disappeared into the snow-covered mountain.

Yeon followed the tiger’s retreating form with his eyes until it completely vanished from view. Only then did he collapse onto the frozen ground. His legs trembled so badly his knees knocked together, and his fingers were clenched so tight around the spear shaft they wouldn’t straighten.

“…I lived.”

Was it the tiger he’d survived? Or the magistrate’s second son? Both.

His rear end was freezing from sitting directly on the cold earth, but his legs had lost all strength. Drained, as if his soul had fled his body, he sat there, dazed, for a long time.

Only belatedly did the pain come rushing in—his whole body ached, and his face and hands throbbed. Groaning, Yeon came to his senses, gathered his scattered carrier and bundles, and with great effort, made his way down the mountain path. Drops of blood marked the trail behind his staggering steps.

The place Yeon had just left—the spot where he had collapsed, with bloodstains still fresh on the snow—was once again visited by the black tiger. It sat right in the middle of the path like a stone statue, its thick tail smacking the ground with sharp thuds. Though the beast’s face showed no expression, the twitch of its tail betrayed its irritation.

High above its head, a crow flew past.

The crow deliberately fluttered from branch to branch, knocking snow off twigs as it moved, before finally perching right on the tiger’s head. The moment it did, the tiger shook its head violently and bared its teeth, clearly annoyed.

Knocked off, the crow squawked, flapping its wings, and grabbed hold of the tiger’s flicking tail with its claws. Its grating voice, that tendency to drag out the first syllable of its words, rang in the air:

― Yooou shouldn’t have come down this far.

As the crow kept circling, flapping and cawing around him, the black tiger hunched down. A moment later, its pitch-black fur began to ripple, like barley swaying in the wind.

The fur covering the beast’s body gradually shortened, revealing skin like that of a human. The thick, blunt forepaws split open, lengthening into fingers.

In a transformation strange enough to call unnatural, the tiger vanished, leaving not a trace behind on the snowy path.

In its place stood a young boy—still round with baby fat. His long, jet-black hair draped over his shoulders and chest, covering his form, but he was unmistakably naked.

Barefoot and unclothed in the dead of winter, on a path frozen solid, the boy didn’t seem to feel the cold at all. His face remained calm, his sharp yellow eyes gleaming beneath thick eyebrows.

The crow flapped around him, wings rustling.

“…Annoying,” the boy muttered, brushing the bird away with the back of his hand.

The crow, smacked by the boy, retaliated by pecking furiously at his head, squawking louder than ever.

The crow had never come near while his mother was around, but ever since she disappeared, it hovered constantly—meddling in everything. Maybe it thought little of him, just a half-grown cub, but the moment he ignored its interference, it would start pecking at him like this.

― Go back to the mountain.

“I would’ve done it even if you hadn’t said anything.”

— That human is dangerous.

“I know that too.”

His dark, thick eyebrows twisted slightly, like they had been drawn with a master’s brushstroke by a calligrapher putting all their strength into one stroke. The tiger in a human’s skin looked like a porcelain piece crafted with noble grace by a divine artisan. Not a single flaw—eyes, nose, mouth—every feature was in perfect place.

His skin was as pure as if he’d just been born, but beneath his eyebrows, sharp eyes and fearsome golden irises burned with a flicker of anger. His plump cheeks still gave him the look of a child, but it was clear that, once grown, he would leave many women in tears.

The young boy—or rather, what had moments ago been a black tiger—stared hard in the direction Yeon had gone. Though Yeon’s figure was long gone, the boy’s eyes twitched slightly, as if he could still see something others could not.

After a long, silent gaze toward the village, the boy lowered his eyes to the ground Yeon had crawled over. Footprints and handprints, pressed into the snow, had been left behind clearly.

The boy bent down and placed his own foot over one of Yeon’s footprints, as if measuring the size of his prey. Then he fully crouched and pressed his hand against the handprint Yeon had left behind.

Yeon was small in frame—his feet and hands were small as well. The boy, though still with a childish face, already had hands and feet as large as a grown man’s. Even in his tiger form, his paws had been especially large. And as he grew, his body would grow even more.

By contrast, the handprint Yeon left behind was tiny, like that of a child. It was even smaller than the boy’s own hand—barely half a span across.

“Small.”

— Daaangerous! Daaangerous!

“Yes. But not yet.”

The crow shrieked a loud warning. But the tiger, now in the shape of a boy, didn’t need the crow’s cries to know that he shouldn’t underestimate a human just because they were small. That little human had killed his mother, whose body had been so much larger than his own. The boy narrowed his eyes, the golden color of his irises deepening and darkening.

He thought of the long object the small human always carried—the one that spat fire. Today it hadn’t spat fire, but the human had still held a long thing in his hand when they confronted each other. It hadn’t looked quite as dangerous, but it had felt similar.

He didn’t fully understand how human objects worked, but one thing was certain:

Humans were dangerous.

The crow, no longer cawing, landed on the ground nearby. Its black eyes blinked, full of questioning. Why, if you knew all that, did you show yourself and save the humans here today?

Under that gaze, the boy slowly stood and looked toward the distant mountains.

Still in his childish, impulsive years, the young black tiger had chased a roe deer down to the mountain’s edge today. The moment the scent of humans filled his nose, he realized his mistake and was about to give up on the chase and turn back.

But then he saw a familiar human figure.

He didn’t spot the fire-spitting thing strapped to the man’s back today, and so—seizing the chance for revenge—the tiger began to trail the little human on instinct.

That small human, with fur as black as his own, was his mother’s killer.

Animals that lived in the mountains always lived close to death. Even the roe deer he’d lost today had stood at the threshold of death until it had narrowly leapt across it at the last second.

So in that sense, his mother’s death was inevitable too. But to the still-young black tiger, it had come far too suddenly and too fast. Following the small human wasn’t so much about revenge, but about eliminating the seed of threat that might one day come for him just as it had for his mother.

Wipe out the threat before it could bloom—

Just like a hunter, the black tiger had lowered his body and hidden in the bushes. As he quietly tailed the little human, he realized he wasn’t the only one following him. There were others—larger humans, with stronger, stinkier smells—targeting the little one.

Startled by the sudden increase in their numbers, the tiger pulled back.

If a single small human had killed his massive mother, what could a group of big humans do? Forget revenge—he might not make it out alive. Watching them, the tiger had thought, They hunt like a pack.

And he was right. The group of humans soon caught the little one.

Just like he had once cried in the lingering warmth of his mother’s body, the little human now whined as he was captured. But when they all piled on him, he stopped making noise, as if he’d given up.

The tiger had kept watching—circling them.

‘…Please, sir, spare me. Please…’

The little human had begged in a small voice. And in that moment, the image of that same human—throwing boar guts at the tiger that had been stalking him—flashed in his mind. Just for a second. But in that instant, the black tiger had leapt from the bushes and landed right in the humans’ path.

He hadn’t meant to do it. It was pure instinct. But as he stood, blocking their way, he hurried to scan the humans.

Luckily, there was no acrid, stinging scent of fire in the air. It seemed that none of them, not even the small one, carried the fire-spitting thing today.

Looking at the limp body of the small human slung over a man’s shoulder, the tiger felt his fury rise.

That prey was his.

No one else had the right to take it. No one could interfere with the prey he had marked. The black tiger growled low, eyes fixed on the humans who had captured the little one.

— Boy!

The tiger, still in the form of a boy, snapped back to the present as the crow let out a shrill cry. He could sense someone approaching in the distance. Obeying the crow’s warning, the boy dropped to all fours and dove into the underbrush.

By the time he leapt over the snow-covered bushes, he no longer looked human.