– A Beast with a Heart More Human Than Most –

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Deep in the mountains of old Korea, there once lived a poor woodcutter.
He had not eaten in days, and his belly ached with hunger.
As he climbed the forest paths with nothing but a bundle of rope and a dull axe, he muttered bitterly:

“Might as well become tiger food and be done with it.”

But fate, it seems, has sharp ears.

From the bushes, a real tiger leapt into view—
its fangs gleaming, breath steaming, and eyes like burning coals.
The woodcutter’s knees buckled. He was certain his time had come.

But in that instant—driven not by courage but by desperation—he blurted out:

“Brother! Is that you?
My mother always said my eldest brother, who died long ago,
came back as a tiger!”

The tiger paused.
Its claws tensed in the dirt. Its nostrils flared.

“You dare try to deceive me, little man?” it growled.

But the woodcutter, eyes brimming with tears, fell to his knees and begged:

“I swear it’s true! Every year on your birthday,
my mother places a bowl of red bean porridge on the stone by the jar stand—your favorite.
She whispers,
‘May my gentle son be safe in those cold, wild mountains.’
She prays for you every single night.”

The tiger’s breath grew heavy.
Its massive chest rose and fell with strange emotion.

“My mother… still waits for me?”

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From that night on, the woodcutter found a wild boar laid at his doorstep each morning.
No note, no tracks—just meat. A silent gift.

But one night, he spotted the tiger from afar, leaving quietly into the mist.
Before disappearing, the tiger looked back and simply said:

“Give this to Mother.”

The woodcutter and his mother no longer went hungry.
Each day they cooked and ate, and the mother always set aside a bowl for her eldest son.

Sometimes, the tiger spoke again.

“What did I like… when I was human?”

The woodcutter thought a moment.

“Red bean porridge. On winter solstice.
You always sat closest to the fire.”

The tiger lowered its gaze and nodded.
It said nothing, but something inside it trembled—
a feeling, maybe… a memory.

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Years passed. One bitter winter, the old mother passed away.
And after that, the tiger stopped coming.

The woodcutter waited. A week. Then two. Then snow began to fall.
He packed some rice cakes and hiked deep into the woods—
to the cave where he believed the tiger had lived.

There, he found something that stole the breath from his chest.

Tiger cubs, no larger than dogs, sat quietly at the cave’s mouth.
Each of their striped tails was tied with a small, white ribbon.

He asked gently, “Where is your father?”

One cub looked up and said:

“Our grandmother… she was human.
When she died, our father stopped eating.
He just… curled up and went still.
He missed her too much.”

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The woodcutter bowed his head.
He said nothing.

Days later, beside his mother’s resting place,
he built another small mound—this one unmarked,
but wrapped with a white cloth.

And standing there, under the winter sky, he whispered:

“It began as a lie.
But in the end… you truly were my brother.”

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🌿 Moral of the Tale

Not all beasts are born of fur and fang.
And not all men are born of truth.
But sometimes, a lie told in desperation
can awaken a love more real than blood.