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“Run boy run! This world is not made for you.”
The voice wasn't real.
It was never real.
But it was always there—thin as breath in winter, sharp as cracked glass beneath soft paws.
It slithered through the smoke of burning homes, curling around his ears in the aftermath of ruin.
It crouched in the fog that always followed him, not just the kind he could summon, but the kind that came from within—chilling, cloying, blinding.
It waited in the quiet hours when On finally slept, her heartbeat slow, her tiny body pressed against him.
When Raon, vast and warm and unknowingly kind, curled around them like a sky made of scale and starlight.
When the night was too still, and stillness was a sound louder than screaming.
The voice always found him then.
It whispered from the damp stone walls of the cave where they had once hidden—barely more than shadows, hoping no one would smell the blood or hear their breath.
From the slums they limped through afterward, where even the rats were kinder than the people, and meals were stolen or earned with bruises. Where silence meant safety, and trust meant pain.
It echoed in alleys and gutters, in whispered slurs and sidelong looks.
In every “stay back,” every “watch your sister,” every time someone chose On over him because she was brighter, cleverer, better.
It coiled inside his ribs—low and slow—like a sickness he was born with.
Not enough to kill him.
Just enough to rot him quietly from the inside out.
Just enough to remind him:
This world is not made for you.
Not for fog.
Not for runts.
Not for boys who cry instead of bite.
“Run boy run! They're trying to catch you.”
And they were.
Even when they weren’t.
Footsteps didn’t need to echo down alleys anymore—he heard them anyway.
Shouts didn’t need to rise behind him—he still flinched.
Every glance over a shoulder, every flick of an ear, every twitch of muscle under fur was instinct carved by fear.
Because someone was always chasing.
Even if they hadn’t moved.
Even if they were smiling.
He didn’t trust smiles.
He had seen what came after them—chains, cages, glass needles.
The kind of touch that wasn’t touch at all, just claiming.
The kind that left no bruise but filled his lungs with smoke until he couldn’t remember what breathing without fear felt like.
They were trying to catch him.
Not just with nets, or threats, or cold hard hands.
But with kindness too.
With beds. With bowls of food. With people who said “rest” and “you’re safe now” like they meant it.
That was the worst kind of trap.
Because he wanted to believe them.
But the voice hissed—
"Don't slow down."
"Don't trust that warmth."
"They're only pretending."
So he kept his claws tucked in and his ears low, always ready to bolt.
Even when On held his tail in her sleep.
Even when Raon hummed lullabies he didn’t know he remembered.
Even when Cale looked at him with eyes that didn’t ask for anything.
Even love, he thought, could be a cage.
So he ran.
Even when he stood still.
Even when they begged him to stay.
Because if they caught him—
They’d see what he really was.
And what if they didn’t want him anymore?
“Run boy run! Running is a victory.”
They said running meant fear.
Weakness.
Cowardice.
But what did they know of survival?
They didn’t know what it meant to press yourself into the mud and pretend you were nothing.
To bury your heartbeat beneath the soil, to still your breath until the world passed over you like a storm too cruel to name.
They didn’t know that running was the reason he was still alive.
That every time he fled, he chose life.
Every sprint through darkened streets, every leap across rooftops slick with rain, every desperate scramble with On’s paw in his—
That was resistance.
That was war.
Running wasn’t surrender.
It was refusing to die where they left him.
They told him real strength was standing your ground.
But no one ever stood for him.
Not until Cale.
Not until Raon.
And even then—he still ran.
But now, he didn’t run away.
He ran through.
Through the memories that bit like frost.
Through the echoes that tried to make him flinch.
Through the voice that whispered he’d never be enough.
Each step was a cut through the fog.
Each breath a promise.
He was still here.
Still running.
And that—
That was his victory.
“Run boy run! Beauty lays behind the hills.”
He didn’t believe in beauty, not at first.
Not when the world he knew smelled like blood-soaked stone and tasted like ash.
Not when the stars were things to hide from, not wish upon.
Not when every hill was a border, and every horizon a maybe.
But On said it once—half-asleep, curled beside him, her breath warm against his fur.
“There’s something better past all this. I know it. Something soft.”
He wanted to believe her.
So he kept moving.
Sometimes crawling.
Sometimes carried.
They said the hills were far.
That he had to earn what lay beyond them.
But he didn’t want gold. Or glory.
He wanted sunlight that didn’t burn.
He wanted a place where no one whispered “monster.”
Where no one measured his worth in claws or killing.
He wanted beauty.
Not the kind in paintings.
But the kind in quiet.
In bowls of warm food. In bandaged paws. In books read aloud in voices that never yelled.
In the weight of Raon’s tail wrapped around him.
In Cale’s rough voice saying, “You’re not a burden.”
In On humming lullabies that didn’t exist.
He didn’t know what lay behind the hills.
But he was willing to run until he found it.
And if beauty waited for him—
Then he would meet it breathless, scarred, and trembling.
But alive.
And not alone.
“Run boy run! They're dying to stop you.”
And they were.
Not just the men in armor, with blades and commands that reeked of cruelty dressed as order.
Not just the nobles who saw beastkin as tools or trophies.
Not just the guards who looked the other way.
But the world itself.
It wanted him still. Quiet. Grateful for scraps.
It wanted him obedient. Nameless.
It wanted him dead, or worse—forgetting what it meant to want.
Because wanting was dangerous.
Wanting meant hope.
And hope made you run.
And so they tried to strip it from him—
With collars. With cages. With words like “freak” and “pet” and “beast.”
They tried to turn him into something too scared to move.
Something that would stop running.
But he didn’t.
Because for every hand that tried to grab his tail, there was On’s paw pulling him forward.
Because Raon believed in dreams, and Cale didn’t ask him to earn love.
Because if they were dying to stop him—
Then maybe that meant he was winning.
And if he had to run until his paws bled, if he had to crawl through shadows and doubt and the ache of never feeling safe—
So be it.
Let them try to stop him.
He had already survived what was meant to break him.
Now?
He was running toward something.
And they would not catch him.
“Run boy run! This race is a prophecy.”
He never asked to be chosen.
No one ever said, “It will be you.”
Not like they did with Raon, or Choi Han, or even On—clever, composed, better at everything.
He was just the small one. The quiet one. The one who didn’t shift.
But still… he ran.
And the world watched.
And maybe, just maybe, the running meant something.
A prophecy doesn’t always start with thunder or stars.
Sometimes it starts with a boy no one sees, slipping through cracks.
A boy who should’ve broken—but didn’t.
A boy who runs because standing still feels like drowning.
He didn’t know what the race was for.
Freedom?
Family?
A future he was afraid to imagine?
But the road pulled him forward.
Not because he was strong.
But because he refused to stop.
Maybe this was the prophecy:
That someone like him—small, scared, half-feral and full of doubt—
Could still change something.
Could still matter.
That running wasn’t escaping.
It was becoming.
And every step was a defiance of every chain they ever tried to wrap around him.
Every breath a spell cast against the voice that told him he was nothing.
This wasn’t just survival anymore.
This was the story.
And he was still running.
“Run boy run! Break out from society.”
Society never had a place for him.
Not in the way it had for Raon, who could be called a mighty dragon.
Not like Cale, who could move through noble halls with blood-red hair and unreadable eyes and make the world listen.
For Hong, society meant alleys that reeked of rot.
Meant dirty hands snatching food he didn’t want to steal.
Meant being told, again and again, that he was lesser.
Uncivilized. Wild. Disposable.
“Control yourself.”
“Act proper.”
“Don’t show your ears.”
“Hide your tail.”
They tried to shame him into shape.
Into something smaller, neater, easier to look at.
But his body knew how to run.
His soul knew how to flee—
Not from fear, but from the mold they tried to crush him into.
Because if society meant sitting still, quiet, grateful—
Then he wanted no part of it.
Let them keep their polished shoes and heavy crowns.
Let them sneer behind velvet curtains.
He was not made for marble floors and scripted speeches.
He was made of mist and muscle and memory.
Of dirt under his claws and wind in his lungs.
He would run until their walls fell behind him.
Because breaking out wasn’t failure.
It was freedom.
And maybe, someday, he wouldn’t just break out.
Maybe he’d build something new.
Somewhere soft. Somewhere safe.
Where boys like him didn’t have to run anymore.
“Tomorrow is another day
And you won’t have to hide away.”
He didn’t believe it, not right away.
Hope had always been a trick word—
A thing people dangled just before they took everything else.
So he’d learned to expect the silence after a promise,
the crack after the kindness,
the loss after the lullaby.
But sometimes…
Tomorrow came anyway.
And it was gentler than he remembered.
No chains. No shouted orders. No metal floors that smelled like blood.
Just sunlight, leaking through windows no one locked.
Just On, snoring softly beside him.
Just Raon humming in the hallways, badly but proudly.
Just Cale, sitting nearby with his tired eyes and quiet hands, pretending not to watch him too closely.
Tomorrow didn’t need him to be perfect.
He could blink awake and not flinch.
He could stretch and yawn and forget, for just a moment, that he ever had to hide.
He could shift into his cat form just because he wasted to.
No disguise. No defense.
Just soft fur warmed by morning.
He wasn’t sure how long it would last.
He wasn’t sure he deserved it.
But maybe that didn’t matter.
Because tomorrow would come again.
And again.
And again.
And if he woke up afraid, he would be held.
If he woke up running, they would catch up.
And one day, without noticing,
he’d stop running not because he gave up—
but because he finally understood:
He was allowed to stay.
He was allowed to rest.
He was allowed to be.
No more hiding.
Just him.
Hong.
Found, not hunted.
Loved, not leashed.
Tomorrow’s child.
“You’ll be a man, boy!”
He heard that one a lot.
In the gutter’s edge of slums.
In the muttered curses of strangers who thought kindness was weakness.
In the brittle tone of adults who survived by being cruel first.
“You’ll be a man, boy,” they spat—
As if manhood was the prize for learning how to stop crying.
As if it was a wound you had to earn.
As if to be a man meant to stop being a boy.
But Hong never got to be a boy.
He never had wooden swords or warm dinners or lullabies without fear coiled beneath them.
He had smoke and screaming.
He had On’s trembling hand in his.
He had running. Always running.
So when they said,
“You’ll be a man,”
He didn’t know what it meant.
Was it when he stopped flinching?
Was it when he killed?
No.
He didn’t want to be a man like them.
He wanted to be something else.
Someone who could cry and still be strong.
Who could protect without needing to destroy.
Who could grow into something wild and kind at the same time.
Someone who could choose softness without apology.
If that made him less of a man in their eyes—
Let them choke on it.
He would be Hong.
Not their broken prophecy.
Not their beast.
Not their version of what growing up should look like.
And maybe, someday, if someone looked at him and whispered,
“You’re enough just like this,”—
He’d believe it.
And smile.
And stay.
“But for now it’s time to run, it’s time to run!”
And he did.
Not because he was being chased.
Not because the voice was hissing in his ear or the world was on fire behind him.
He ran because Cale was waiting.
Because Cale had said it—
Quietly. Without ceremony. Without expecting anything back.
“You’re enough, Hong.”
Not strong enough. Not useful enough.
Just… enough. As he was. Scared. Scrappy. Soft.
Hong hadn’t believed it at first. Couldn’t.
He’d stood frozen like the words were a trap.
But they hadn’t bitten.
So now he ran.
Through the fog he’d once summoned to hide.
Through fields that used to look like escape routes.
Through air that tasted like morning, not mourning.
His heart thundered in his chest,
not from panic—
but from the dizzy, terrifying hope that maybe
this time
he could run toward, not away.
And there—across the hill, by the old stone path, stood Cale.
Arms open. Expression unreadable, but not cold.
Hong didn’t slow.
Didn’t hesitate.
He threw himself forward—
all limbs and speed and breathless need—
and collided into that chest like he’d been made to fit there.
Cale didn’t stumble.
Just wrapped his arms around him, steady and warm,
like he’d always meant to catch him.
No one shouted. No one tore him away.
The voice was quiet now.
The world, for once, was still.
And pressed against that red cloak,
curled into safety he didn’t have to earn,
Hong thought—
maybe he didn’t have to run anymore.
But even if he did—
He knew where he’d run next time.
Always toward this.
Always toward Cale.
Always toward home.
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