I Tamed the First Rank Chapter 35
- HoshiMiya
- Jul 26, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: Aug 7
In Yoo-shin’s eyes widened as he settled down on the bed.
“Is your bed really this large?”
It felt like a level above king size. I didn’t understand why a man who lived alone bought such a large bed.
“We’ll sleep in this big bed without doing anything—just holding hands.”
“……”
“You don’t trust your pet rat?”
“……”
When he met his gaze, filled with surprise and longing, all the trust he had in them vanished. Yet, with the persistent separation anxiety displayed as his status, I couldn’t bring myself to say no.
‘He must’ve been really upset today, so I’ll just humor him for a day or so……’
The nagging feeling that I was always the one making concessions was likely just my imagination.
“Are we really just holding hands and sleeping?”
“I may have hidden things from Master, but I have never told a harmful lie.”
Alright then. At this point, it’s like he’d preemptively announce, “I’m going to lie to you now,” before actually telling the lie.
As In Yoo-shin fluffed up his pillow and lay down, Hyeon Gyu-ha quickly lay down next to him. The blanket automatically slid up to cover the two people’s bodies, and the lights suddenly turned off. Looking relieved, Gyu-ha stretched out his arm that was squirming under the blanket and grabbed In Yoo-shin’s hand.
“That meddlesome couple kept saying a bigger bed would be better, and it was really annoying, but now I’m so glad that I got a big one.”
“Is this the same bed that Seong-gil-hyung and Hye-yeon-noona chose?”
“Yes. All of the interior is a joint effort between Yoo Byeon and his wife.”
Hyeon Gyu-ha, who had been fiddling with the hand he was holding, clasped their hands together. In Yoo-shin inadvertently squeezed the hand that was not being held. In order to divert his attention from Hyeon Gyu-ha’s thumb, which was loosely stroking the skin of his palm, In Yoo-shin brought up another topic.
“This is the first time I’ve shared a bed with someone else since I left the orphanage. It was an orphanage at a temple, so we all slept together on the floor with mats and mattresses. Sometimes, we would be woken up in the middle of the night because someone was snoring loudly or grinding their teeth. One of the boys there had bad sleep habits, and I once got hit by his arm when I was sleeping.
As In Yoo-shin continued talking and became engrossed, Hyeon Gyu-ha, who had been quietly listening to his voice chattering away, smiled and whispered softly.
“I guess you had fun.”
In Yoo-shin took a breath and then answered.
“…… Yes. It was nice.”
At that time, I was annoyed, but looking back now, even that was a good memory. Maybe the reason I could fall asleep listening to 6-se turning the hamster wheel or playing alone was because I needed those noisy nights from the past.
Hyeon Gyu-ha tapped their intertwined fingers as if responding to his words.
“Did I tell you that I was in an orphanage when I was young? I don’t have any good memories like Yoo-shin-ssi. Even though we were in similar situations, you made memories there.”
“…… May I ask how you ended up at the orphanage?”
“Sure, ask me anything. I’ll tell you anything I can answer. I like it when Yoo-shin-ssi takes interest in me.”
Hyeon Gyu-ha’s face was blurred through his vision, which had become accustomed to the dark. The sensation of their clasped hands, the soft voice he heard, and his five senses wrapped in darkness become more concentrated in Hyeon Gyu-ha again.
“My mother was a person with a strong wanderlust. If she had been born in the Joseon Dynasty, she probably would have become a peddler and traveled all over the country. Anyway, whenever she left home for months at a time, she would leave me at an orphanage. She had completely cut off ties with my grandmother, so there was no one else in the family who could take care of me.”
“……”
“But somehow, my grandmother found out. She immediately came to take me out of the orphanage, and then she had a huge fight with my mother when she came home.”
“They say that the biggest pain for children is when their parents fight……”
“Well, I was so young that I don’t remember it well. Maybe I just resigned myself to the fact that my mother was that kind of person from an early age. She was someone who never stood still, always running full speed towards her goals—whether it was her goal as a hunter or as a lover.”
Or as a lover.
For some reason, the tone of the voice that said those words sounded self-mocking.
In Yoo-shin hesitated and then asked cautiously.
“If it’s love… then what about Gyu-ha-ssi’s father?”
Suddenly, Hyeon Gyu-ha let out a quiet laugh. The laugh that crawled up his throat and resonated deeply fell from his lips and dissipated with a cynical feeling.
“It seems she loved him so much that she even abandoned her child at an orphanage and blindly chased after him.”
“……”
“So, anyway.”
He continued his words in a light tone as if he doesn’t care about his mother’s blind love for his father.
His words and actions seemed to paradoxically indicate emotional shackles, so In Yoo-shin kept his mouth shut.
“For me, the orphanage was a place where my mother left me. It was also a place she would pick me up from after a few months. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t open up to the people I met at the orphanage. Looking back, I think I always had this underlying thought that I would be leaving in a few months anyway.”
“……”
“Then I went to live with my grandmother, and not long after that, my mother went missing and my grandmother passed away in an accident. That’s when I was permanently sent to the orphanage. I was 9 years old then.”
“If that happened when Gyu-ha was 9 years old……”
“That’s right. The gate then opened at the orphanage.”
The fact that Hyeon Gyu-ha was the youngest person to clear a dungeon and go to a training center at the age of 9 was an incident that was so famous that even In Yoo-shin, who had not been very interested in him in the past, knew about it.
“Even after leaving the training center, I moved around here and there, but I always stayed in solitary confinement. So, Yoo-shin-ssi, this is my first time lying next to someone since I was 9 years old.”
Hyeon Gyu-ha laughed softly as if he were satisfied with that.
This man was, after all, a person who had lived a life of burden incomparable to my own.
In Yoo-shin gazed at the depth of the life he had endured and slightly gave strength to his clasped hand.
“If you’re bored sleeping alone, call me. I’ll just hold your hand and sleep.”
A soft laugh ran out quietly in the darkness.
“I’ll certainly do so, Master.”
*
Yoo-shin-ssi.
Hyeon Gyu-ha was worried that he might wake up In Yoo-shin, so he didn’t dare to call out his name and instead just rolled it on his tongue. While Yoo-shin slept soundly, Gyu-ha caressed the hand clasped in his own, then lay down on his side and carefully embraced Yoo-shin. He would often leave a kiss on the back of his hand, but because Yoo-shin had fallen asleep, it was difficult to even hold him in his arms.
To keep him from waking up, Hyeon Gyu-ha gently ran his fingers through the hair on the top of his head and lightly pressed their lips together. The small warmth of the person tossing and turning in his arms gently spread to his heart.
〈Master is not ordinary either.〉
Hyeon Gyu-ha remembered the look on his face when he heard those words. Those puzzled black eyes were wondering if he was an ordinary person.
He couldn’t be an ordinary person.
〈You can keep thinking about wanting to kill me, and you can say it to me too. I think that it would be better than not thinking about anything at all.〉
There’s no way that a person who said that calmly and sincerely to someone who could kill him would be normal.
Hyeon Gyu-ha knew his own reputation. Since he found no meaning in this world, he acted without impulse, feeling unburdened by consequences. Despite being repeatedly swayed, immobilized, and strung along by Hyeon Gyu-ha, the firm resolve built within In Yoo-shin's heart had never once wavered.
Yoo-shin-ssi.
I was suddenly curious about what his strong heart was made of. Hyeon Gyu-ha felt unfamiliar with the desire to thoroughly understand the essence of others, and he deeply embraced In Yoo-shin.
Was it because all this unfamiliarity was tied to the relationship of taming? He contemplated as he felt the gentle breathing of In Yoo-shin, who was defenseless and sleeping soundly in his arms. What if I met him normally without being involved in any kind of relationship with him?
Nevertheless, Hyeon Gyu-ha found himself ultimately chasing him in the end.
I didn’t know what the name of this feeling was.
*
During the summer vacation after high school, In Yoo-shin started working part-time without the monks’ knowledge. He went out every day under the pretext of studying at the library and visited the pharmaceutical company’s research center. He mainly assisted in the office work and also cleaned the laboratory when it was busy. Then, after the experiment was over, he saw three white rats.
〈Director-nim, can I take care of them in a corner of the lab? I won’t interfere with your work.〉
〈If you leave them alone, they’ll die before long……〉
The researcher was worried, but eventually gave permission.
It had been almost ten years, but taming them wasn’t difficult. He named them 3-se, 4-se, and 5-se in turn. He blushed when he had given the name 5-se, but he wanted to keep the name he remembered from that time so that these memories could be remembered.
As they interacted with their owner and received healing, the white rats that seemed to be dying appeared to regain their energy.
[Current Status: Joy. Stable.]
〈Somehow, their fur seems to be more shiny than before.〉
Researchers who did not know that he had a taming ability were curious, so they came to see them.
〈No matter how necessary clinical trials were, I felt uneasy since they kept sacrificing rats, but I’m glad that they seem to be healthy.〉
I was content.
Maybe I could explain the situation to the monks and continue to raise them at the orphanage. He even had such a simple dream.
It was a futile dream.
***
HM: It feels a bit cruel TwT… I often hear about animals like rats or pigs being used like this….
Editor M: [Spoiler] Fqnw Phd-qj anvjatb cqjc qn mxnbw'c twxf cqn wjvn xo cqn yjacrlduja nvxcrxw qn rb onnurwp, R fjwcnm cx bjh, "Rc'b uxen!" jb j sxtn, kdc uxxtrwp jc cqn wngc onf lqjycnab, R knpjw cx fxwmna ro rc anjuuh rb uxen.
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Credits:
Translator: Hoshi Miya
Editor/Proofreader: Editor M
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