Cherry Cake Chapter 0 - Prologue

A fleshy mass, weighted at its tip, slowly extended backward. Soon after, a sharply pointed tongue pressed languidly against the innermost mucous membrane, touching a tooth.

This hurts. Seo Soohyun thought idly, his eyes, heavy with drowsiness, gazing out the frosted window. Watching the softly swirling snowflakes, he felt his eyelids drooping despite the winter wind rattling the door. Perhaps it was the radiator beside his chair and the blanket draped over it. The shared warmth from the radiator and the blanket heated his thighs.

“Pooh….”

Boksil, lying between the radiator and his slippers, let out a small sigh and shifted, the tapping of her paws echoing softly.

Thud.

Seo Soohyun sniffled as he heard the sound of the old dog, weighing less than 3kg, settling onto the bare floor. Though not exactly cold, the chill of the bare metal table against his cheek made his nose tingle in the drafty supermarket.

Too lazy to sit up, he merely wrinkled his nose. A musty smell of dust wafted over him. Though not a large supermarket, the sheer number of miscellaneous items meant dust accumulated easily. Among them were surely expired or nearly expired food items.

‘I should clean….’

If his grandmother were still alive, he would have been nagged to the point of bleeding ears, but it had already been a month since she had passed and gone to her daughter’s side. This also meant that Seo Soohyun had no family left.

Seo Soohyun, ruminating on the honorific that felt awkward due to disuse, curled his fingers hidden within the blanket. The thick, soft texture tickled the back of his hand, and a deeper drowsiness washed over him.

“Tomorrow….”

Mumbled words slipped between his lips. Perhaps because he had been leaning on it for so long, his body heat had transferred to the metal table, and even as he moved his jaw, the sensation against his cheek remained lukewarm. Before his parted lips could fully close, his heavy eyelids fluttered shut.

Just as he was about to drift off completely, lulled by the fading sound of the wind, he felt Boksil stir. The sound of her paws, surprisingly quick for her age, tapping across the floor was followed by a hoarse barking in his ears.

“Kang! Kang! Kang!”

Blinking without lifting his face, he saw Boksil’s hindquarters, tensed with effort, within his upside-down field of vision. Behind her, a dark shape contrasted sharply against her white fur. The color was vivid even through the fogged-up glass window.

The door opened, letting in a gust of early winter wind. Before he could hunch his shoulders against the chill, sleek black shoes crossed his line of sight.

“….”

Seo Soohyun instinctively moved his numb cheek.

Those shoes are huge.

The shoes entering through the doorway were larger than Boksil. Even though Boksil was quite small compared to other country dogs, she wasn’t a newborn puppy. She was larger than the average adult male’s foot, yet these shoes dwarfed even her. Soohyun belatedly straightened, as if preparing to greet a customer. As his tilted vision corrected itself, he took in the person who had just entered.

Past the long, black-trousered legs, he saw a purple dress shirt, worn alone despite the snowy weather. Startled by the physique that seemed solid and imposing, he blinked, his eyes meeting the newcomer’s.

Seo Soohyun didn’t even realize he had instinctively held his breath.

“….”

They say you can spot a dominant alpha at a glance, and this is exactly it.

As their eyes met, the man casually raised an eyebrow. Snake-like eyes swept over the interior before the sound of his shoes, neither slow nor fast, echoed through the empty space.

“Little one.”

Approaching the counter, the man pulled up the corners of his mouth. The loose smile seemed somehow sly.

“Where’s your grandmother?”

The fingers that lightly touched the metal table were as long and large as his shoes.

Seo Soohyun stared at his index finger, which seemed twice the size of his own, before slowly raising his head. A calm question slipped between his parted lips.

“Who are you to ask about my grandmother?”

“Who are you?”

The man tilted his head, as if surprised by the question, and narrowed his eyes slightly.

Was that too disrespectful a way to address a stranger, especially an older one? He thought that the man, who had called a grown man “little one”, was the more impolite one, but he was older than him, so he felt he should correct himself. Seo Soohyun belatedly chose a more appropriate word.

“…Mister?”