I washed my foot but was left limping because of my injuries. And on my way to ask Saehee for a bandage, I met Rangii.
“I heard that you were hurt!”
Correction: Rangii found me. She looked up at me her two round eyes full of worry and her two hands clasped together, making me feel as if I were a terminally ill patient. When all that happened was I was poked in the heel by thumbtacks.
“It’s nothing.”
I told her the honest truth, but I didn’t know if that would change how Rangii felt.
“I have to see it with my own eyes!”
“There’s nothing to see.”
“I have to see it!!”
It’s impossible to win against a kid’s stubbornness. I sat down and extended my foot for her to see.
“There’s just a few holes.”
By now, it had almost stopped bleeding. Rangii grabbed my ankle without saying a word. It was a pain keeping my foot up, but this was good. Look as much as you want. But it got to the point where I couldn’t just let her do as she pleased. Rangii suddenly brought her face right up to my foot, her nose almost touching it. It was kind of embarrassing. How many times stronger is a tiger’s sense of smell than a human’s? I just washed it so it shouldn’t smell, right?
What’re you getting all serious about? Just put it down. There’s nothing to see.
“Satisfied? It’s really nothing so don’t worry about it. It’ll heal after I rub some spit on it.”
After I said that, Rangii’s eyes lit up and her ears pricked up.
“Ah! That’s also possible!”
Rangii smiled as if she suddenly had a brilliant idea and stuck out her tongue. That was when I noticed what she was planning on doing.
“W-Wait!! Rangii! Don’t…ack?!”
Rangii licked my wound with her ever so slightly rough, and wet yet warm tongue. I could feel the stinging pain of my injury and even the stickiness of Rangii’s saliva. Even the feeling of her warm tongue tickling my foot. But above all, the fact that Rangii was licking my foot so earnestly made this all feel immoral. All of these feelings crawled up my spine directly to my brain. This was all making me feel seriously good…no it’s not!!
What do I think that Rangii’s doing to me?! What am I saying feels good?!!
“S-Stop!!”
I desperately tried to pull my foot away from her, but Rangii, with inexplicable strength, didn’t even move an inch. It was the strength she usually kept hidden when playing with me. The strength of a phantom.
“It’s okay. This will make you better right away.”
She was saying something ridiculous. Rangii licked her lips once and licked my heel starting with the back of her tongue like a snake. Her tongue collided against my heel, and Rangii’s saliva crawled down my foot. Maybe my wound opened up a little, because there was a slight red tinge in Rangii’s saliva.
“Unya…to someone who doesn’t have spiritual power like you, this isn’t very effecive. In that case, I’ll do it like this.”
As Rangii spoke, unsatisfied with the results, she suddenly opened her mouth. I could only think of one reason for why she’d open her mouth so wide.
She’d only do that when she’s eating. In other words, only when she was about to put something in her mouth.
“Hey! Don’t do that!!”
“What’s wrong? This’ll make you better right away.”
“Do you really think saliva will make it better?!”
I was contradicting something I said just three minutes ago.
“Why are you messing with a wound that’ll heal if it’s just left alone?!”
“Sunghoon is the one who needs to stop messing around! Didn’t I tell you that my body is like a miracle drug? I can heal such a tiny wound in an instant, even a human’s!”
Hearing her say that so confidently, I couldn’t say anything back. But still. If my finger or my wrist had been the place that was hurt, I wouldn’t be trying so hard to stop her. It would’ve been a little embarrassing, but it was Rangii. Rangii, who was basically a tiger. But even so, I shouldn’t let her lick my foot, right? Would a human really let that happen?
“E-Even so, hey! It’s dirty! It’s dirty, so don’t!”
After I said that, Rangii tilted her head to the side and made a question mark with her hair.
“What do you mean?”
I intentionally tried to confuse her by telling her that even if I did just wash it, a foot is inherently going to be dirtier than the rest of the body. But before I could even open my mouth to tell her that, Rangii said something that forced me to keep my mouth shut.
“But there isn’t anywhere dirty on Sunghoon’s body?”
After she said that, I forgot that the one who said that to me was Rangii and I blushed. Y-You! Don’t say stuff like that like it’s only natural! Do you want to see me die of shame?!
While my mind was frazzled by what Rangii said, oh, my God. She must have taken my silence as consent, because Rangii put my heel inside her mouth.
“Nyam.”
“…?!”
I was about to shout, but held it in. The truth was, Rangii’s warm mouth…felt good. I could truly feel that Rangii was doing this for my sake by the way her tongue was rolling around and by her sucking on it. Without even a hint of duplicity, her actions showing her heart and mind to be utterly pure, I could feel something within me…
“…So you were planning on ordering me to do those kinds of things to you.”
“Uheewaaaa?!”
I immediately came back to my senses when Chii suddenly appeared.
Wh-What was I doing? It felt like I almost passed the bridge of no return!
“Ra-Rangii! Stop! Stop!!”
I desperately shouted at Rangii to stop. Though it seemed like even heaven couldn’t stop her, Rangii thankfully removed her mouth from my foot. Rangii swallowed her saliva, wiped her mouth with her wrist, and spoke.
“It was tasty.”
“What kind of nonsense is thaaaaat!!”
I moved my foot back and immediately stood up.
…Huh?
It hurt to even have my foot touch the ground just a moment ago, but now there was nothing. Were you serious when you said it’d get all better with some saliva? Puzzled at this phenomenon, I silently stood there while Chii held onto Rangii’s waist and pulled her back. Chii clearly wanted Rangii to distance herself from me.
“You mustn’t, Tiger-nim. If you eat something like that, you’ll get sick.”
“There is no reason for me to hear those things from you!”
I wish that instead, you’d said I wasn’t something to eat.
“Sunghoon wouldn’t have been hurt in the first place if you hand’t played those pranks, right?! If it weren’t for Sunghoon, you’d going owie right now!!”
Way to break the serious mood, saying “owie.”
The problem was that Chii noticed that as well. Even though Chii was flapping her hair in fear after Rangii’s loud scolding, she refused to be intimidated as she spoke.
“I was punished by big brother, and he forgave me. The Tiger-nim shouldn’t be getting angry at me. Or are you going against big brother’s judgement?”
“Unyaa!”
Rangii was unable to reply to Chii’s logical question. And even when Rangii bent forward slightly, bared her teeth, and stuck her tail straight out in irritation, she looked adorable. Because she was getting mad for my sake.
“E-Even so, that much isn’t enough for me to forgive you!”
“Big Brother hit me, an unmarried young maiden, on the butt hard enough to leave a hand print. It is not to the extent of what the Tiger-nim said. After all, hasn’t the Tiger-nim never been hit on the butt by big brother?”
Rangii looked at me once, thought about it, then nodded her head.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
There was one time I almost hit her, but I did something bad as well, so all I did was hit her on the head.
Chii snorted after hearing Rangii’s answer.
“I was. The Tiger-nim may not know about this, but I was hit by big brother. It truly hurt. It hurt beyond anything I could imagine. I was so ashamed I almost bit my tongue and died. The Tiger-nim is only able to say those things because you haven’t been hit by big brother on the butt.”
After that, Rangii suddenly turned to look at me. She looked both hurt and angry as she looked up at me, grabbed the front of my shirt, and dangled off me.
“H-Hit me on the butt, too!”
She said something that I couldn’t, no, that I didn’t want to understand.
“…What?”
“Just like Chii said, you’ve never hit me on the butt! That’s why I need to be hit! And after that, I’ll humiliate her!”
It looks like hitting Rangii on the butt is necessary to humiliate Chii. No, that’s not right. Even if they are phantoms, that doesn’t make any sense.
I couldn’t even hazard a guess about what I should say to Rangii, but Chii said something to make Rangii even angrier.
“It was excruciatingly painful. Rangii-nim, even you would cry your eyes out and wet yourself while begging for the pain to stop. Even with underwear on, it hurt so much that I nearly cried.”
Would you shut your mouth already!
“But Tiger-nim, you mustn’t. You clearly wouldn’t be able to endure it. After all, the Tiger-nim has never gone through such hardship before, no?”
That drove her off the edge.
“Unyaaaa!!”
Rangii took a step back and put her hands on her hips. I was nervous about what she’d do. And as if not wanting to betray my expectations, Rangii unbuttoned her pants. I realized, as I saw Rangii lower her pants, that my head was just too dumb to follow what was going on. But my body knew what to do where my mind didn’t, and I jumped superhumanly fast to stop Rangii as she was taking off her panties. I was proud. Proud of my body. As a reward, I’ll give myself twelve hours of sleep later.
“What are you doing?!” exclaimed Rangii.
“Right back at you; what are you doing!!”
“Didn’t that thing say it had underwear on when you did that?! In that case, I’ll get hit without my clothes on! Thus, I will prove my superiority!!”
First of all, I’m going to hit you because of your stupidity.
Bonk!
Normally, she’d be crying after getting hit like that, but this time, she kept looking up at me while clutching her head.
“Why did you hit my head? Instead, hit my…”
“Shut up, you brat! I hit her butt as punishment because she did something bad! But why should you be punished when you haven’t done anything wrong?! Hurry up and put on your clothes properly!”
I raised my voice thinking she wouldn’t listen to me otherwise, but that was a mistake. She began to shake, her head cradled by her arms, and her eyes began to fill with tears.
“U-Uuu, I-I was j-just jealous of Kkachi so I w-wanted you to…”
“What the heck’s there to be jealous of? Is there anything you get from having your butt hit besides pain? Quit saying stupid things!”
In the end, Rangii burst into tears.
“S-Sunghoon’s the stupid one! Uwaaaah!! Saeheeee!!”
Rangii was crying as she ran into the master bedroom. All I could do was watch blankly at her retreating figure, and I crouched down due to a terrible headache. The cause of this mess, Chii, bent forward to be at eye level with me and smiled happily.
“What is the matter, big brother?”
“You little brat.”
“Kyawooo! A weak phantom like me can only shiver after being looked at by such scary eyes. What is it? Are you going to hit me again?”
I was gritting my teeth. I knew that she was goading me into doing what she wanted. So I held it in.
You brat. Say thanks to Saehee. Before I met Saehee, I would’ve hit you mercilessly even while knowing your plan.
“If you’re going to prank someone, do it only to me. Don’t bother Rangii.”
In place of a response, Chii stood up straight and stuck her tongue at me.