I resolved to endure it for just a week.

The moment I made that decision, Levinas burst out of the bathroom door.

Her hair was still damp, as if she hadn’t dried off properly after showering.

“King!”

Grinning mischievously, Levinas threw herself into my arms and rubbed her head against me.

She rotated her head in my embrace as if trying to wipe all the moisture onto me.

Levinas was playing a prank.

“Uh, umm…”

My tail started wagging.

I was happy, but hugs were forbidden for the next week.

“Hehe.”

“Levinas, no hugs for a week.”

I pushed away Levinas, who was laughing innocently.

Surprised by my unexpected attitude, Levinas’s eyes widened like a startled rabbit’s.

“Why are hugs banned? Is King mad because Levinas rubbed her head on you…?”

“I’m not mad. I’m just training right now.”

“Training?”

“Yeah. Tail control training. Hugs make my tail uncontrollable, so no hugs for a week.”

“!”

Thud-!

Levinas’s face crumpled as if her world had collapsed.

The shock was so great she wasn’t even breathing.

“Sorry, please bear with it for just a week.”

“No! A week is too long! That’s half of King’s age!”

“I’m not that young…”

“Then a quarter!”

Levinas’s eyes narrowed fiercely.

She even booed at me.

“Hmm…”

How could I persuade her when she was so discontent?

As I pondered, Yeoreum poked my cheek.

“Gyeoul, wouldn’t hugging be the right approach for tail control training? The point is to stop the wagging, right?”

“Yes, that’s true, but stopping my tail during hugs is impossible.”

“Ah… The difficulty is too high?”

I see.

Yeoreum flashed a mischievous smile.

It was similar to Levinas’s smile before she played her prank.

An inexplicable chill ran down my spine.

“Why are you smiling like that?”

“Just wondering if anything less intense than hugging would work.”

“Hmm… Yes. I need to try controlling the wagging first. Everything else is fine.”

“…I see, everything else is okay.”

Hehehehe.

Yeoreum let out a strange laugh.

I wanted to ask why she was acting like that, but Levinas came running with a sketchbook faster than I could speak.

She had attached a torn sketchbook page to a wooden stick from who knows where.

Levinas waved the stick in front of me.

“King is…!”

Levinas, about to say something, turned to look at Saebyeok beside her.

Saebyeok whispered in Levinas’s ear.

“The slogan is ‘Guarantee the right to hug.'”

It was meant to be a whisper, but I heard it clearly.

Given that they spoke like this knowing my good hearing, it seemed Saebyeok didn’t intend to hide it.

“King should guarantee the right to hug…?”

“Yeah. If it’s too hard, you can say what you want.”

“…King should hug Levinas!”

Levinas and Saebyeok waved their sketchbook pickets like angry protesters.

There were drawings on the sketchbooks, done by the children themselves.

The pictures were crooked, as if drawn in a hurry.

“Th-that…”

I rolled my eyes, examining the drawings the children had made.

Levinas’s picture was of a crying horned rabbit.

The horned rabbit was saying “Hug me ㅠㅠ”.

Saebyeok’s picture was in comic strip format.

It was a two-panel comic showing an angry black cat destroying a building, then becoming docile after receiving a hug.

“King, if you don’t give hugs, Dark King might become a scary darkness King?”

“Really?”

“…Is it very scary?”

“Yeah. I’d prefer if we didn’t do scary things as a family…”

At my response, Levinas’s eyes narrowed fiercely.

She probably expected me to say I’d give hugs if it was scary, but our Levinas was a child who didn’t know how to make threats.

“We don’t do scary things to family, so don’t worry!”

“That’s a relief.”

“Yeah!”

As Levinas giggled, Saebyeok pressed down on her shoulder.

Startled, Levinas narrowed her eyes fiercely once again.

“But there’s another scary thing!”

“There’s more?”

“Yeah! It’s super duper scary!”

Rawr!

Levinas showed her claws.

They were smooth and blunt claws, not sharp at all since Yeoreum had trimmed them yesterday.

“Is it very scary?”

“W-well…”

“Well?”

“Actually, there’s nothing… Levinas has nothing…”

Thud-

Levinas slumped to the floor, dejected.

The fallen picket slid to my feet.

It was the picture of the crying horned rabbit.

“Ah.”

I thought controlling my tail would save energy.

But before we even started, Levinas’s despair was only growing.

I should just give up on this.

Levinas’s happiness was more important than conserving my energy.

“Levinas is the saddest horned rabbit in the world…”

“Levinas, let’s just…”

Just as I was about to hug Levinas, Yeoreum dashed from the sofa and scooped up the children.

“Strategy time!”

Yeoreum carried the children into her room.

She moved so fast it created a breeze inside the house.

“Uh…”

I stared blankly at the room the family had entered.

I was just going to give her a hug.

Feeling awkward, I could only scratch my cheek.

—

—

Yeoreum activated a mana stone after entering the room.

It was a mana stone that blocked sound.

“Kids, your sister has a plan!”

“You have a plan…?”

“Yep! It’s a plan to make Gyeoul want to hug us!”

“Oh!”

Life returned to Levinas’s eyes.

A hug plan sounded cool.

She also had faith that if it was Yeoreum, it would definitely work.

“I’ll explain the plan, if we do this it’ll definitely work.”

“Got it!”

“Okay.”

Yeoreum’s proposed plan was simple.

It was a plan to shower Gyeoul with love.

“Earlier, Levinas and Saebyeok protested in a scary way, right? Violent methods tend to create resistance.”

“Right! Scary things make you want to avoid them! It pushes hugs away!”

“Exactly. So this time, let’s just say lots of nice things. Nice things make you want to hug, don’t they?”

“Wow!”

It really was an amazing plan.

An impressed Levinas clapped enthusiastically.

“I’ll demonstrate first, so follow along, okay?”

“Yeah!”

“Okay.”

To get hugs, we need to make her happy rather than scared.

The realization came late, but Levinas was confident.

Confident she could say hundreds of nice things to King.

“Ahem.”

Levinas’s shoulders rose.

It was time to execute the plan.

—

—

They left me alone and went into the room, just the three of them.

It was an inherently worrying situation.

I sat near the door with my legs stretched out.

My limp tail thumped weakly against the floor.

As I stared blankly at the door, Sophia called out from behind me.

“Why don’t you just give them a hug?”

“I was about to, but they suddenly ran off.”

“Bad timing, huh.”

“Yeah…”

I’ll make sure to hug them when they come out.

I kept waiting for the children.

After about ten minutes, the three of them finally opened the door and came out.

Seeing me sitting right in front of the door, Yeoreum gave me an apologetic look.

“I made sister feel lonely.”

“It’s okay.”

Just seeing their faces made my tail wag.

Grinning, Yeoreum reached out her hand but stopped midway.

“Gyeoul.”

“Yes?”

“Why are you so kind and pretty, Gyeoul?”

“…?”

It was such an out-of-the-blue question.

I don’t know why she suddenly said this, but it didn’t feel bad.

My tail wagged faster as I tilted my head in confusion.

“King! If King was a horned rabbit, your horns would be a hundred meters long!”

“A-a hundred meters?”

“Yeah! Longer than the horns of a hundred horned rabbits!”

I’m not sure what that means, but I guess Levinas was trying to compliment me in her own way?

I decided to respond to her kindness.

“Thanks, but Levinas’s horns are cooler.”

“…!”

Levinas’s ears shot straight up.

Taking advantage of Levinas’s stunned state, Saebyeok chimed in.

“Gyeoul is pretty.”

“Thanks… Saebyeok is pretty too.”

“Gyeoul is the best.”

“Yeah…”

My face flushed with embarrassment.

Still, it felt good and my tail started wagging uncontrollably.

I knew why the three of them were acting this way.

They clearly wanted a hug.

They even called it a “plan” earlier.

“Um…”

I reached out towards Yeoreum.

She flinched and stepped back.

“Ah, that was close.”

“It’s okay, I was actually going to stop the training.”

“Really?!”

“Yeah. You don’t have to keep complimenting me like this.”

“…Did we get found out?”

Found out?

It would have been hard not to notice.

“But it still made me feel good.”

“It was all sincere.”

“Hmm…”

So it was all sincere.

I lowered my head, my face burning with shyness.

Levinas rushed towards me.

“King!”

Levinas threw herself at me.

As if to vent her frustration from the missed hugs, she started rubbing her cheeks all over my body.

Levinas’s scent was rubbing off all over me.

“Oh.”

Could this be what I think it is?

Just in case, I turned to look at Sophia.

“It seems Levinas has learned how to mark.”

“Mark?”

“Yes, it’s an ability only certain beast-kin possess…”

Marking, huh.

Is it like leaving a scent to mark territory?

I immediately rubbed my ear against Levinas’s cheek.

I chose to rub my ear instinctively.

Swish-

Each time I rubbed my ear, a scent infused with mana transferred onto Levinas’s body.

It felt like I’d be able to track her location with this mana-infused scent, even from far away.

“Whoa.”

So it was a tracking ability.

It was an incredible power.

For emergencies, I should probably mark everyone I know at least once.

—

2/6 Enjoy the chappy!

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