BWLHF 06

Chapter 6

“……”

The rabbit’s belly, round and swollen from eating so much, rose and fell with every breath. Young-in watched it quietly for a while before slowly bending down and resting his cheek against the rabbit’s tiny chest.

Thump, thump, thump.

The heart beating inside that tiny chest, barely the size of his thumbnail, was racing with vitality, announcing to the whole world that it was alive.

It’s warm.

Young-in carefully pulled the little ball of white fur into his arms and closed his eyes. It might have sounded ridiculous, but the vitality of this tiny creature seemed to quietly comfort his own sickly, feeble body, gradually melting away the sorrow weighing on his heart.

For some reason, I think I’ll be able to sleep without feeling lonely tonight.

Early the next morning, Young-in turned away after firmly attaching an envelope of money for Mr. Lee to the front door and carefully opened the window.

“Refreshing, huh?”

“Eek.”

After the commotion on the first day, the baby rabbit spent nearly two weeks eating and sleeping in Young-in’s cabin.

Mr. Lee had said the ointment he left behind was remarkably effective for healing wounds, and apparently it was safe to use on animals as well.

Thanks to it, the little creature, which had been suffering from a high fever, made a miraculous recovery starting on the second day. It lifted its head and followed Young-in’s movements with its eyes, and by the following day, it was already eating quite a lot of steamed vegetables.

Young-in spent many days and nights with the baby rabbit, reading books throughout the day while occasionally feeding it and sharing roasted sweet potatoes—the snacks he made for himself—with it.

“Is it good? You really eat a lot. I’m jealous.”

The rabbit’s mouth, even smaller than Young-in’s pinky fingernail, busily chewed through the mountain of food in front of it.

Whenever it was awake, it spent almost all its time eating, wandering around, and eating again, moving about with remarkable energy. At night, it would crawl into Young-in’s arms and sleep soundly without waking even once.

“Hehe. Good boy. So cute.”

Young-in’s one and only temporary pet rabbit ate that much during the day, and apparently it didn’t stop eating even in its dreams, because its little mouth kept chewing away.

Then, whenever Young-in patted its rear a few times, it would immediately open its tiny mouth and sink into deep sleep.

Perhaps it was because his cabin life, which he had thought would be spent entirely alone, now had a friend.

Or perhaps his original personality—one he could no longer remember—had been more cheerful than he was now.

Whatever the reason, Young-in found himself humming songs far more often than before.

“Hmmm, hmm.”

Young-in’s singing voice was almost childlike in its sweetness.

Perhaps because of that, even the little animal didn’t seem to mind listening. Whenever he sang, the baby rabbit would circle around his feet, rubbing its fur against his ankles until the song ended.

There was, however, one song it particularly hated.

“By the little house in the forest, a little child stood by the window. A rabbit came running up, knocked on the door, and said—”

Please save me, please save me. The hunter is chasing me.

On the third day after bringing the rabbit home, Young-in had been singing the song while gently tapping its front paws, assuming there was no way it could understand.

But the moment the song ended, the baby rabbit bared its teeth and chomped down on his finger.

“Ah!”

It hurt so sharply that it felt as though he had been struck by a razor-sharp axe, without even the slightest exaggeration.

After that day, whenever the song came out unconsciously, Young-in would either settle for humming it or deliberately change the lyrics as though he were singing them for the rabbit to hear.

“Please open the door, please open the door. I came with Daddy Rabbit and Big Brother Rabbit. Let’s go home together, let’s live together, and then we’ll live happily ever after~. Okay?”

The lyrics were an absolute mess, but once he changed them like that, the baby rabbit stopped biting his fingers.

Did it like the new version? Could it really understand what I was saying?

Young-in had no way of knowing.

Regardless, living together with that tiny rabbit made him happier than he had expected.

He was having such a good time that he felt he could gladly live like this for the rest of his life if someone told him he had to.

“Hmm. At least that weird guy hasn’t come back, right?”

“Eek.”

Thinking about it now, Young-in had spent almost the entire night awake after the so-called rabbit hunter came and went.

Their confrontation had lasted only a short while outside the door, but Young-in had been able to tell for certain.

That man possessed such terrifying strength that, if he really wanted to, he could tear the entire cabin door off its hinges, pick Young-in up, and throw him down the stairs.

The only reason he hadn’t done so was probably because this baby rabbit wasn’t important enough to him to be worth the trouble—or because he had given up after believing Young-in’s claim that he hadn’t taken the rabbit.

—A young man? You mean there’s someone else besides you and me crazy enough to go that deep into the mountains? Hahahahaha!

The cabin owner, Mr. Lee, had burst into hearty laughter and teased Young-in, laughing for quite a while over the radio.

Mr. Lee guessed that the man was either someone illegally hunting in the area or some crazy person who had briefly approached Young-in out of curiosity because he was staying alone in the cabin.

“Could another cabin or campground have opened somewhere nearby?”

—No. There’s only one cabin in that forest, and it’s mine. I don’t know about campgrounds, but I doubt they’d get a permit. At some point, stray dogs as big as bears started roaming the area in packs, so people are told never to enter the mountains at night, even if it’s probably fine during the day.

“Stray dogs…?”

During all his time at the cabin, Young-in had never seen a stray dog—or anything resembling one.

A young man, perhaps.

But nothing else.

When Young-in fell silent and merely blinked, Mr. Lee’s voice over the radio quickly took on a bewildered tone.

—Ah, wait… Didn’t I tell you?

“…You absolutely did not.”

—Hmm. Well, that’s troublesome. I was sure I had mentioned it.

Mr. Lee muttered awkwardly as though he were talking about someone else, then cleared his throat and quickly changed the subject.

He added that he was surprised Young-in, whom he had expected to give up and come back down after a day or two, had managed to stay perfectly well in the remote mountain cabin for more than two weeks.

Then he emphasized his warning once again.

—Anyway, now you know, so be more careful. You can’t trust just anyone in the forest. Who knows? What if what you saw that day wasn’t even a person?

“Haha… That’s very reassuring. I’ll be careful. Whether it’s a ghost or a stray dog.”

After ending the radio call, Young-in scratched his forehead with an uneasy expression.

He had come here to die, but dying of natural causes and being attacked and killed by stray dogs were somewhat different things.

And being murdered by a stranger wasn’t exactly the ending he wanted, either.

“Going peacefully really is the best. Right?”

Khk.

Young-in coughed, drawing in a ragged breath.

The rabbit’s pitch-black eyes quietly looked up at him.

Young-in wiped away the blood that had seeped through the white cloth and replaced his soiled mask with a fresh one, giving the rabbit a bitter smile.

Are you worried about me because I’m so sick? How sweet.

“It’s okay, bunny.”

Young-in smiled as he gently rubbed the tiny forehead of the rabbit nestled in his arms.

“I won’t be sick for much longer anyway.”

Outside the window, the sun began to sink.

The leaves that had sparkled pale green throughout the day took on the evening glow and turned golden.

The long shadows of the trees crept all the way to the cabin steps, swaying softly as though dancing.

Every now and then, a small bird would land on a branch before flying away again, making the whole scene look like a shadow puppet show. Young-in couldn’t take his eyes away.

He watched for a long while before pulling the rabbit closer into his arms.

Whenever its ticklish breath brushed against his skin, an inexplicable ache stirred somewhere deep in his chest.

So this is what being alive looks like.

The rabbit’s heart beat rapidly beneath his palm.

As Young-in counted those beats, he suddenly placed his fingers against his own wrist.

Slow and weak, but his pulse was still there.

“…Do you think I can stay long enough to see you completely recover?”

At Young-in’s murmur, the rabbit’s ears perked up.

He had gained a reason to live for only a few more days, yet the forest sinking into darkness looked a little less lonely than it had yesterday.

Two months and ten days left.

The emergency medicine in the drawer had to be saved for when he truly needed to cling desperately to life, so he would keep it carefully stored away.

Of course, he hoped that before then, he would simply disappear without experiencing too much pain.

But Young-in did not know.

He did not know that in this mountain cabin he had entered with such a firm resolve, someone—or rather, some precious hare—was about to appear who would completely change the course of his remaining life.