Jian stopped. Young looked straight into those eyes and said,

“You just have to come. Just... come.”

Jian’s expression softened. He gave a very slight smile.

“Yeah. I’ll come.”

When Jian opened the front door and went out, the smell of rain spread into the room once more. Young stood there without moving until the footsteps grew distant, and the sound of going down the stone steps faded. After the door closed completely, Young slowly looked down at his fingertips. The heat was still there. Young rubbed the back of his hand once. Something was not right. In the end, he called the wet nurse and had his temperature taken.

“Oh my... your fever is very high. It’s close to 39 degrees. I’ll call the doctor right away.”

The wet nurse said, touching Young’s forehead and the back of his neck in turn.

“You must be in a lot of pain, right? This is my fault. I’m sorry, young master.”

“Rather than pain...”

Young hesitated, then answered.

“...it’s just, a little noisy.”

The wet nurse tilted her head.

“Where?”

“All of it. My ears, my body... it feels like it’s echoing inside.”

The wet nurse looked at Young for a moment, then led him to the bed.

“Please lie down first. I’ll call the doctor quickly.”

The wet nurse tucked the blanket in carefully and left the room. Young obediently closed his eyes. When he lowered his eyelids, the sounds inside his ears became even clearer. The footsteps in the main building that should not have been heard from far away, the sound of water flowing, even the raindrops striking between the trees, it felt like he could hear each one separately.

‘Too... many.’

It felt as if the world had suddenly pressed too close. Even when he took a deep breath, the air in his chest did not fill refreshingly.

Not long after, Young fell into a deep sleep. No, it was closer to his consciousness slowly being pushed inward than sleep. Young turned over once, twice. Inside the blanket, his body felt as if it were turning into a lump of fire. Sweat ran down his forehead and the back of his neck.

In the space between dream and reality, a sensation came over him, as if his bones were being pushed outward little by little from the inside. The feeling of his fingers shortening, the feeling of his toes trying to grip the ground, the feeling of what had been curving along his spine straightening into another shape. It was not that his bones and flesh were changing all at once, but that the very “frame” was changing.

At some point, a very brief sound of breaking.

He felt as if he had heard it inside his body. At the same time, Young let out one deep breath.

And after that, he could not remember much. Only that with every breath, there were too many smells. The smell of the blanket, the smell of the wooden floor, the smell of the wet nurse’s soap, the smell of wet earth drifting in from outside the window, even a very faint smell of blood.

‘What is this...’

He tried to open his eyes, but it felt as if the structure of his eyelids had changed. With difficulty, he opened them a little, and the world looked higher, wider. And only very late did Young realize that he was curled up in a body smaller than the one he was used to.

“Young master?...”

The sound of the door opening carefully, the rain and grass scent that immediately followed, and between them, the sound of two sets of footsteps approaching. The wet nurse, who had come into the room with the doctor, drew in a short breath.

“Oh my goodness...”

On the bed, instead of a ten-year-old child, a small black fox lay curled up. The fur all over its body was the color of midnight darkness, but a very faint silver spread dimly around the tips of its tail and ears. Its eyes were closed. With each light breath in and out, its ribs rose and fell faintly.

The wet nurse approached with trembling hands.

“Young master...”

Carefully, she placed a hand on its back. Heat, hotter than warm, pierced into her palm. The sound of the fox’s heart pounded inside its body, thud, thud, thud. It was not an ordinary beastman’s manifestation fever.

“It’s a second awakening.”

The doctor, who had been quietly watching Young and the wet nurse, said softly. The silver that clung to the tips of the fur was proof of it. A sign of the second awakening of ancestral rebirth. It was usually known to come during adolescence in the mid-teens, but Young was far too early. It did not seem like a good sign.

* * *

The sound of the front gate opening rang out loudly. It was still early to be leaving work. But Jae had no choice but to hurry home.

Young second awakening. Silver appeared.

At Sooryun’s short text, Jae felt fear and despair. Too early. Han still had not properly established his foundation.

“Honey.”

Sooryun met Jae at the entrance hall. Her face was pale. Before Jae could even take off his coat, he asked in a low voice,

“Are you sure?”

“They say silver was visible. The doctor confirmed it personally.”

Sooryun clenched her hands tightly.

“...I never imagined it would come this soon. What are we going to do about our Han?”

There was not a trace of concern or pity for Young in her weakly trembling voice. Only worry about Han’s position. Seeing Sooryun’s hardened face, Jae could not continue speaking for a moment. Between the two of them there was an understanding built over many years. Jae knew too well what Sooryun was afraid of right now, not Young’s awakening itself, but the result that awakening would create.

“Let’s not tell Han.”

Jae said quietly.

“If he finds out now, he’ll waver. Everything we prepared will collapse for nothing.”

Sooryun nodded deeply.

The two of them slowly walked toward the hallway. But as their steps slowed, the rain hidden inside them grew more and more hurried.

“Then... Jian will...”

Sooryun could not bring herself to finish speaking.

“The elders won’t stay quiet.”

Jae said coldly.

“…Then Han… really now….”

The sentence that could not be finished was even clearer.

‘Han is nothing now.’

At that moment, murmuring came from the end of the hallway. The reception room door was half open, and voices were spilling out from inside.

“If it’s the ancestral rebirth, the marking should be done quickly.”

“Seo Jian is not prepared.”

“If we leave the child unstable, it will be more dangerous.”

“We have to carry out the ritual tonight, even if it’s only tonight.”

The elders were each hurriedly voicing their opinions. Only after Jae stepped inside did the murmuring die down.

“Has the family head arrived?”

A man who looked fairly old addressed Jae familiarly. Wrinkles were etched between his brows. Everyone’s expressions were serious. And rightly so, if the ancestral rebirth became unstable and ran wild, it would put not only the fox clan but even the nearby beastmen in danger. The air inside the reception room was heavy. They were always the first to gather in times of crisis for the fox clan, but today none of them looked calm.

Jae slowly moved forward and stood in the middle of the room.

“Everyone... please do not be too hasty.”

At Jae’s low, calm tone, several elders frowned.

“Do not be hasty in this situation?”

“Family head, you must have heard the news that the silver light appeared.”

“He is still young, so it is even more urgent. If he runs wild...”

“I know.”

Jae cut off the elders’ words. He kept his expression neatly composed, but cautious, cold calculations flickered in his eyes.

“We still have not clearly determined Young’s condition. The marking is too urgent. He is still young, so we do not know whether marking is even possible, or whether he can endure it easily. At the very least, we should keep a doctor with him tonight and watch over him, so that...”

“What will change if we let the night pass?”

Another elder cut off Jae’s words with an incredulous expression.

“Family head, you know this as well. The ancestral rebirth needs stability as soon as possible, the sooner the better. Besides, this is an age never before seen. Isn’t time of the essence?”

“Jian is still young too...”

Sooryun quickly moved beside Jae and said.

“Still young? If it were Han, it would have been normal for the marking to happen around now. The Seo family must already have prepared everything.”

Jian, the heir of the wolf clan Seo family. They had tried so hard to keep him by Han’s side, but the wolf clan’s position may have been different. Even letting Young meet him once a week had been a demand from that side.

Jae closed his mouth. If he opposed more strongly here, they might instead suspect that he had “an intention.” In this family, suspicion meant downfall.

“Family head.”

The elder with the lowest, heaviest voice continued.

“If not tonight, then at dawn tomorrow... before the progenitor awakens, we must at least prepare the marking procedure.”

The tips of Sooryun’s fingers trembled. Even Jae felt as if he could not breathe.

And at that moment, at the end of the hallway, in a dark and quiet place, Han was listening to the voices leaking through the crack in the reception room door.

‘Jian,’ ‘marking,’ ‘necessary,’ ‘tonight,’ ‘progenitor.’

The words came out in a disorderly mix, but to Han they sounded like one sentence.

‘Jian is... being taken away from me.’

His chest sank heavily. The face of Jian, who had always been beside him since childhood, came to mind. The child who followed him without needing to be told why. The child who always watched over him from just behind. The child who noticed his mood before he did.

That child, after today, would be bound to someone else. For the first time, he resented his own birth.

Han could not listen to the voices coming through the crack in the door any longer. He slowly turned his body. His steps wavered. It was neither anger, nor sorrow, nor jealousy. It felt as if something formless was emptying him out from within. Han lightly pressed the hot skin around his eyes with his palm. Then he walked toward the end of the hallway leading to his room.