…Only, a problem had come up.
Setting out boldly had been the easy part. Excited at the thought of finally going home, and fully intending to throw a punch at my father the moment I saw him, I walked with purpose.
The problem was that with every step, sweat began pouring out of me more and more. The path just kept going and going, and there wasn’t even a single signpost to tell me where I was.
I have absolutely no idea where this is….
“This is literally a forest!”
A bird startled at my loud outburst and flapped away with a flurry of wings.
I had been a little uneasy, now that I thought about it. The scenery visible beyond the veranda wasn’t the kind you’d commonly see in the middle of a city. The trees had been dense and thick, with plenty of butterflies and birds — like the inside of a forest. Still, I’d assumed that if I walked far enough, a road would eventually show up.
I huffed and looked around in every direction. Trees. Trees wherever I looked. I was genuinely starting to wonder how anyone had managed to drive a car out to a place like this.
I followed the tire tracks for a long while, but all there was to see was trees and a dirt path.
“This is insane….”
My legs ached and my body was exhausted. Well over an hour had passed and still no end in sight. There were no other cars, no sign of another living soul — it seemed like somewhere outsiders simply couldn’t get into.
If I were wandering around a place like this and ran into someone, it’s pretty obvious how they’d react!
Whether it was because I’d been eating well lately, I was somehow even getting hungry after just a short walk. The forest itself didn’t frighten me, but the problem was that it wasn’t safe. Whether in human form or true form, a forest was a dangerous place.
I looked back the way I’d come. The trees blocked any view of the house, but the direction I needed to go back was clear.
I hesitated — and in the end, turned around.
***
“Found him!”
“Hey, hey! Text the Executive Director and tell him we found it!”
“Phew, that took ten years off my life.”
“I never knew finding a cat could be this hard….”
Ugh, so noisy….
I curled up tighter in my sleep and covered my ears. My mood was already rotten from all that struggle and a failed escape attempt on top of it — the last thing I needed was men making a fuss and making it worse.
It had been a lucky thing that the kitchen window wasn’t locked. I’d confidently slammed the front door behind me on the way out, but then I couldn’t get back in because I didn’t know the passcode. By the time I finally found the window, my eyes had nearly watered with relief. I’d opened it right away and brought my clothes back in with me to destroy the evidence.
I’d shaken the dirt out thoroughly and picked off every leaf, but the stains were still visible. I was puzzling over what to do with the clothes when I ended up in the dressing room. I threw them on the floor right there, shifted back to my true form, and shredded them to pieces with my claws.
A cat can tear up one piece of clothing. It’s completely normal. I shoved down the twinge of guilt as best I could.
Deciding I might as well get caught right there and then, I rolled around on the spot. The fabric was soft and the tight space was perfect for rolling around in.
Have those men come back…?
I must have been too exhausted and worn out from waiting — I’d fallen asleep. How much time had passed? They said they’d come back quickly, and they really did come quickly? But these weren’t voices I recognized. Who was making all this fuss over nothing—
I dragged my eyes open to find humans I had never seen before standing right in front of me.
I stared at the men with wide eyes. Men I’d never seen before were peering down at me with rough, intimidating faces.
I blinked, still dazed, and tilted my head — and then the moment someone reached a hand toward me, I bared my fangs on reflex. I worked my slow, sleep-muddled brain as hard as I could to try to make sense of the situation.
From the look of things, they were all frantically trying to find me…? Wait! Could it be that they’re going to sell me off? Was everything just an act to put me at ease! I should have pushed through with the escape even if I ended up lost in the forest!
But contrary to what I’d imagined, the men didn’t grab me. Instead they caught my attention — and then suddenly shoved a phone in my face.
“Here, look over here. Right here.”
“Nya?”
A rapid series of clicks and a burst of light. I froze in place, startled. The men grew busy.
“Hurry up and text the Executive Director!”
“I’m already texting him.”
As they all breathed sighs of relief, a phone chimed. The expression on the face of the man looking at the phone twisted in a strange way.
“…He says to take a proper photo.”
“How badly did you take it that the Executive Director is telling you to retake it?”
“That’s my phone—!”
The man pestering him from the side snatched the phone and held it back up to me. He must have dealt with a cat before, because from out of nowhere he produced something that looked like foxtail grass and waved it in front of my face.
“Here, look this way, won’t you? That’s a good boy.”
The tone was grating, but there was no stopping my eyes from following that nameless little plant. On pure instinct, I batted at it with my front paw, trying to catch it.
Click! Click!
Whether the man was taking photos or not, right now there was more important prey right in front of my eyes. The man happily surrendered the grass to me. By the time all my attention had been poured into that one thing, it was all over. I dropped what I’d been holding in my mouth.
Using a moment of distraction to trigger my hunting instinct — how dare they!
I know from experience. They’d photographed my adorable self, and they’d sit around giggling over it afterward.
“Let’s see how well you take one.”
“Better than you, for sure. You took it so blurry the Executive Director couldn’t even tell what he was looking at. One cat looks like any other cat.”
Having my portrait taken without consent was already annoying enough — being treated like an ordinary cat on top of that, and then being told I had a generic face — the fury was building.
On top of everything, I am distinctly not a cat — I am a predator! Anyone looking closely could see there are plenty of obvious differences!
But no matter how much I fumed, the men just laughed. And they kept snapping photos without getting tired of it. Why so many? Wait — could it be they were planning to show off my cute photos to potential buyers?
“Hrraaak!”
Stop taking pictures of me!
I leapt up and struck the phone right out of the man’s hand with perfect precision. It clattered to the floor.
“Ow! My phone! You little—!”
“Hrraaak!”
So what!
“Hey, hey. Did you not hear what the Executive Director said?”
The men who’d been taking photos tucked their phones away. My warning had worked. I smiled with pride and gave a little shrug.
Hmph. It just so happens that only those two don’t take me seriously. I’m a predator, after all. Plenty of people are afraid of me.
I licked my hard-working front paws with a satisfied smile.
“They said to never take your eyes off a cat, but who would’ve thought it’d end up in here.”
“We’d never have found it if we hadn’t heard the purring.”
Just then, one of the men reached a hand in. Still not scared enough? I was about to unsheathe my claws — but his target wasn’t me at all. It was the inside of the wardrobe drawer.
When the shredded wreck of a garment was lifted out in the man’s hand and came into view, I clamped my mouth firmly shut.
The truth was, those clothes were only the opening act of the carnage I had committed inside that wardrobe. There were clothes I’d slashed to ribbons, and on top of that, I’d rolled around in there and slept, leaving fur stuck all over everything, with neatly folded clothes now in complete disarray. The fact that half of them happened to be black made it all the more obvious. I broke into a sweat, turned my head away, and licked my paw with an air of knowing nothing about it.
“We’d better tell the Executive Director about this, right? The clothes are just….”
W-Well, it was part of my original plan. I’d been caught by the leader’s men rather than the leader himself, but now that I’d been found, I decided to brazen it out.
I strolled smoothly out of the scene on my own.
But these people kept trailing after me. I climbed the cat tower and hid in the little hideaway house, and they fussed about why I was doing that and made a big deal of telling me to eat. When I paid them no attention, they started waving around more ridiculous toys.
They don’t seem to be the same people who were with the leader that day….
For one thing, these ones weren’t Suin at all. Their faces were tough-looking, but they didn’t seem dangerous. They were more like your run-of-the-mill loan sharks you’d find anywhere…? Not that being a loan shark wasn’t its own problem. I’d more or less gotten used to that level of rough face by now.
Those other men — the ones from before — it wasn’t just their looks that were threatening. Their pheromones were threatening too, which was why my instincts had reacted with fear.
“Here, kitty, come on out.”
I’d been ignoring them the whole time, but watching them keep trying to coax me out while calling me “kitty” was getting on my nerves.
“Hryowk!”
Who are you calling kitty! I am clearly a wildcat! Have you never seen a wildcat before? They exist in Korea too! I am a predator!
Sure, they weren’t Suin — but they were still the leader’s men. The fact that they were treating me like an ordinary cat and insulting me was exactly the same as that man who’d treated me like a baby. Exactly the same!
The man tried to tempt me by shaking a toy in my face, but I snapped my head to the side. Of course, there was one among them who made no effort to hide how unenthusiastic he was.
“You think this is funny? We went through all this trouble because of that tiny little thing?”
“It’s the Executive Director’s orders. What do you want me to do?”
“Is it actually true he called us all the way out to this forest in the middle of nowhere just to look after that cat? Do you know how complicated the road is — I got lost for an hour. Why is there even a house in a place like this?”
“We just do what we’re told.”
“Right. Take good care of it, they said.”
“Not a dog’s life but a cat’s life — now that’s the real good life.”
I cracked one eye open and sized up the men.
So these people actually came here to look after me? He was worried about leaving me alone or something, and went so far as to call people? And if even coming by car was enough to get them lost, then walking out of the forest on foot is out of the question.
But then… the escape plan….
Just then, I spotted a car parked beyond the veranda. My ears perked up straight and something flashed in my head. A brilliant idea had just come to me.
Right — if I don’t know the way, all I have to do is follow someone who does!
