Chapter 3

He stepped past me without expression and carried his belongings inside.

I stood there dumbfounded.

Then I hurried online to find out what was going on.

I wasn’t a human native to this world, after all. What its humans took for granted might be completely new to me.

What I found felt like the sky falling on my head.

[In this world, if a beastperson employed by a public institution causes injury or loss to a human through negligence,]

[their employer must select outstanding beastfolk from various professions and allow the human to choose a companion as compensation!]

[During this period, the chosen beastperson’s income belongs to the human.]

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Plenty of beastfolk treated this punishment as a reward. A little lost salary meant nothing compared with the chance to nuzzle a human.

But that didn’t mean everyone liked doing it. Marine beastfolk, for example.

They naturally preferred cool, dark places, so of course they didn’t like warm humans.

Zhang Fu… an octopus… Definitely not a human lover.

Zhang Fu was a perfectly good roommate.

Clean, a good cook, regular hours, excellent boundaries.

Because of our jobs, we hardly ever saw each other during the day.

Most importantly, he didn’t like humans.

I had the sense to keep my distance.

God only knew how safe his dislike of humans made me feel in this world.

More than once, I’d seen videos of beastfolk reduced to twitching bundles of adoration by some perfectly ordinary human gesture, lurking nearby with all the subtlety of a thief.

Like humans spotting a pitiful stray calico by the roadside.

The difference was that beastfolk regarded humans as creatures capable of shifting form and thinking for themselves.

After finding another job, I quietly accepted the breakfast he left me each morning. Getting out of bed was hard enough.

In return, I saved him dinner and put it in the fridge at night.

That delicate balance between roommates was broken on a day of torrential rain.

I hurried home under my umbrella, failing to notice something on the wet ground outside the door.

By the time I realized, the translucent pink-and-white little octopus had already made a pitiful splat beneath my foot.

The two prominent “ears” on its head drooped backward. It wriggled its tentacles miserably over its face.

I paused, then prodded it with the handle of my umbrella.

It tilted its head and blinked its tiny, distinctive eyes. “Squeak.”

“…An octopus? Still alive.”

“No, wait. Its head looks like a cuttlefish’s, but those ears belong on a dumbo octopus. And its arms are separate, without webbing between them. They’re really long, too.”

I could have sworn the little octopus rolled its lovely eyes at me.

Excellent.

This rebellious little creature had officially caught my attention.

Now I had to keep it!