Chapter 42

The next night, a little past 10:30 p.m., Beomjin arrived at the place where he had agreed to meet Sanmu.

It was the back gate of an apartment complex in Gangnam, Seoul. Standing on the narrow sidewalk beside the road, he looked toward the opposite side — a small hill, swallowed in darkness and cloaked in shadow. The bright glow from the apartment buildings only made that darkness feel colder.

Soon, a familiar figure appeared under the orange halo of a streetlamp — Sanmu, wrapped in a tattered coat like a blanket.

“You came faster than I expected.”

That was his greeting, calm and quiet. He didn’t seem out of breath.

“…I just wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.”

With that brief exchange, they started walking without another word.

They crossed the road beside the back gate and followed the narrow path leading to the foot of the hill. After a short walk beneath the dim streetlights, they reached the start of a hiking trail.

“Is this the place?”

“Not yet. We need to go where no one can see.”

They passed the entrance and continued until the light no longer reached them.

Silence settled in. The wind rustled through the trees, weaving a soft, whispering song.

Sanmu stopped to inspect an old wire fence along the mountainside, then called out.

“Here, this way.”

They squeezed through a hole in the fence and found a faint trail — not an official path, but one shaped by people coming and going. The slope was steep, the ground uneven, littered with roots and stones.

“This direction.”

Sanmu led the way uphill, guided only by the faint silver of moonlight filtering through the trees.

After about five minutes, Beomjin realized they were close. Beneath the crisp scent of forest air was something else — faint, but unmistakable. The smell of blood.

“This area.”

The ground leveled slightly. He didn’t need Sanmu’s explanation — the stench rising from the soil was enough. Thick, metallic, and foul. Not from one spot, but several.

Beomjin knelt and dug at the place where the smell was strongest. He hadn’t even cleared much earth before something surfaced — a dissected cat, caked in dirt.

Its limbs were splayed apart, joints unnaturally bent, skin torn thin as paper.

With a grimace, Beomjin covered it back up.

“All the ones buried around here… that’s his work,” Sanmu said quietly.

He raised his head and gazed toward the dark ridges above, his eyes reflecting something cold and distant.

“He’s dangerous. Too dangerous.”

“Are you sure he’ll come tonight?”

“Most likely. He hasn’t shown up for four days — he usually comes every three or four. If he hasn’t moved to another area, he’ll come.”

“Then we wait.”

Beomjin pulled a small perfume bottle from his pocket and sprayed both himself and Sanmu.

“Amnunbiat. It masks scent.”

With their own trails erased, the two climbed slightly higher and hid among the trees and rocks overlooking the clearing.

The blood-soaked earth, the animal remains — they were bait now, waiting to lure him in.

Beomjin’s mind drifted back to when he’d met the man before. The last time he cornered him, it was inside an abandoned factory.

The reek of rot and blood, the darkness of the walls, the glare of a beast’s eyes fixed on him. Seo Jungpyo.

That day, he was a serial killer — his fifth victim lying dead. On their third pursuit, Beomjin finally caught him.

The fight was brutal, raw. Blades tore flesh. Fists broke bone. Gasping, Jungpyo had collapsed at Beomjin’s feet — lifeless.

The sting of that memory, the sensation of striking him, the sound of tearing flesh — all came flooding back, like the carcass he had just unearthed.

Then, Sanmu’s hand tightened on his shoulder.

“He’s coming.”

His whisper sliced through the night air.

In the stillness, footsteps.

Beomjin crouched lower.

Through the trees emerged a boy in a school uniform. Deep shadows hung under his eyes. His shoulders drooped, his posture weary. At first glance, he looked like any exhausted high schooler.

But in his arms was a stray cat — trembling, gagged with a rubber muzzle, its legs tied together.

Beomjin froze. It wasn’t the cat that shocked him. It was the boy.

Seo Jungpyo.

Of course. Back then, Jungpyo had been twenty-one. Now that Beomjin was back in the past, it made sense — he was still a teenager.

He should’ve remembered that.

Jungpyo placed the cat down on a patch of ground free of stones. The poor creature squirmed pitifully but couldn’t move.

Jungpyo set his backpack down on a flat rock, moving like someone who knew this place by heart — as if it were his own room. From inside, he pulled out a large box cutter and began to hum softly to himself.

“Let’s see… where should I start cutting today?”

There wasn’t the slightest tremor in his hand. His voice was calm, almost casual. He adjusted his grip, testing the angle of the blade, then suddenly froze. His head jerked up, eyes sweeping the darkness.

He couldn’t hear or smell anything, but some instinct — raw and animal — made his muscles tense.

“…Who’s there?”

He muttered it under his breath and snatched up his bag. His eyes glinted, sharp and feral. His stance dropped low, weight balanced on the balls of his feet — the posture of a predator. Then, without hesitation, he bolted.

The boy leapt over branches, tore through the brush, and vanished into the dark.

“How did he—?”

Startled, Sanmu straightened in alarm. Beomjin, who had already risen reflexively, stopped himself from chasing after Jungpyo.

The abandoned cat lay on its side, still breathing faintly. Beomjin knelt and loosened the muzzle from its mouth. A weak, rasping mewl slipped out — the sound of something still alive.

That fragile warmth — it reminded him what life felt like.

He let out a slow breath of relief.

Then, as Sanmu came down from the slope, Beomjin spoke — his voice cold but conflicted.

“He’s doing something wrong, yes… but are you sure killing him is the only way? He’s still just a kid.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

There was no hesitation in Sanmu’s tone. No emotion, either.

“You and I both know what happens if we let him grow. There’s only one way to stop it.”

Beomjin said nothing. He knew better than anyone — because he had already seen what that boy would become.

“If he keeps going like this, it won’t end with cats next time.”

Beomjin looked down at the cat squirming weakly in his palm. It scratched at him, uncomfortable with his touch, so he let it go. The tiny creature darted off down the mountain, free again.

The scratches it left on his hand were shallow.

“You never know how large small claws can grow,” Sanmu murmured.

Beomjin traced the red welts across his skin, his thoughts drifting back to the image of Jungpyo lying dead in the abandoned factory — the boy who had seemed trapped somewhere between man and beast.

Maybe, just maybe, there was another chance for him. Like there had been for Beomjin himself.

He was dangerous — that much was true. But Beomjin wasn’t ready to follow Sanmu’s order.

“Give me some time. If I can’t stop him… then I’ll finish it myself.”

“…Fine. But I won’t wait long. Don’t forget — I’m watching too.”

The next morning was overcast, the city heavy with humidity and mist.

At a high school in Gangnam, Beomjin stood quietly across from the main gate, an umbrella in one hand and a half-finished coffee in the other. His eyes searched through the crowd of students until they landed on one boy.

Navy vest, white shirt — Jungpyo, blending in perfectly with the others. He looked exhausted, probably from last night, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, gaze fixed on the ground as he trudged forward.

He looked nothing like a killer. In fact, he looked like a boy who couldn’t even hurt a chick.

The memory of what he would become — the blood, the bodies — all of it clashed violently with what Beomjin saw now.

Where did it all go wrong?

Beomjin sipped his coffee, eyes following Jungpyo as the boy disappeared through the school gates.

By dismissal time, the gloomy sky had opened up. Rain fell steadily, and the streets lit up early against the dim afternoon.

Students with umbrellas streamed out of the gate in pairs and groups.

Beomjin waited a little further down the street, watching.

Eventually, Jungpyo appeared — no umbrella, walking slowly through the rain.

Beomjin followed at a distance. The boy moved through alleys and side streets until he stopped in front of a half-built studio apartment.

Even when he stopped, Jungpyo didn’t raise his head. Beomjin’s eyes dropped to his clenched hands. They were trembling, ever so slightly.
But it wasn’t fear in that grip — it was something older, deeper. A pressure that had been building too long.

Not rage. Not terror. Something born long before either of those. The instinct of someone who attacked first — just to keep from being hurt.

Beomjin recognized that look all too well.

“Why are you following me?”

Jungpyo’s voice was low, directed at no one in particular.

Beomjin froze at the corner, holding his breath. He considered stepping back, widening the distance—

Then Jungpyo spoke again, without turning.

“The tiger man following me… why do you keep chasing people?”

He’d noticed.

Beomjin’s heart sank. He’d been too careless.

Had he underestimated Jungpyo just because he was young? The boy’s instincts were far sharper than Beomjin had anticipated. Considering how Jungpyo had escaped the previous night, he should’ve been more careful.

Beomjin stepped out from around the corner and faced him directly.

“You’ve been watching me since this morning, haven’t you?”

“Yeah. You noticed?”

“When a tiger walks around that openly, it’s kind of hard not to.”

A high schooler. Far too young to have awakened as a Beast-Blooded, and yet—his senses were overwhelming. It was that heightened perception that had allowed him to detect Beomjin and Sanmu’s presence in the bloody clearing and flee before they could act.

“Why are you following me? Did my mom send you?”

Beomjin didn’t answer. His silence only confirmed Jungpyo’s suspicion.

“I told you, I’m not doing it anymore! That cat yesterday—it was just curiosity! Just curiosity!”

He was quick to ignite, anger bubbling up as if long suppressed.

Beomjin could tell he was lying. The same lie as before, the same one from last night. But this time, he asked something else.

“Why do you do it? You know that’s not right.”

His tone was steady—like an adult, like a teacher.

“I know! I know, okay?!”

Jungpyo’s shout tore through the rain. The boy who’d seemed so quiet, so withdrawn, suddenly bared his claws like a wild animal. It was as if something inside him had snapped.

“But so what?! You, my mom—everyone says the same damn thing! ‘It’s wrong.’ ‘Don’t do it.’ You think I don’t know that?!”

He hurled his backpack to the ground and glared down at his own hands. His teeth clenched. The gesture looked less like anger and more like someone trying to strangle the life out of the thing growing inside them.

“I don’t even know what’s happening to me! Why I keep thinking like this! No one explains anything—they just say ‘study,’ ‘grades,’ over and over! No one even tries to understand me!”

His eyes were sharp, but not emotional. There was no rage or sorrow in them—just absence.
Not suppressed emotion, but a void where emotion should’ve been.

Beomjin could see what was happening.

The boy had awakened as a Beast-Blooded—his identity fractured, his body and instincts shifting faster than his mind could keep up.

Beomjin remembered that same disorientation himself: when his own power had first awakened during a boxing match, when the world suddenly smelled of blood and rot, when every breath felt like fire. Until he’d met Jinyoung and Uwan, he’d been lost too.

Jungpyo needed a guide.

“I understand. You’re struggling right now, confused—but if you just—”

“Understand? You?”

Jungpyo let out a laugh that was anything but amused. He glanced around, then picked up a fallen brick.

“Understand my ass… You’re just like them. My parents, you, everyone—saying the same shit!”

He tightened his grip, breath growing ragged. Each word was a thorn—not meant to stab others, but to keep himself from collapsing.

A child who never learned how to handle emotion could only speak through anger. And when that anger was tied to power he couldn’t control, it could destroy anything in reach.

Jungpyo stood now on that very edge. The moment before instinct became violence.