The organization member thought Seo Haegil was just a little pitiful. But that was all it was. If Han Jinseung ordered him to dispose of Seo Haegil right now, he could kill him without a single shred of sympathy.
Han Jinseung focused on one line.
An address that kept changing, never with a formal residency registration.
A single room that could barely even be called a place to live.
Every two years at the longest, every three weeks at the shortest — he moved. And now he was living in something that looked like a condemned building on the verge of collapse. Since injuring his arm, the only thing he was doing was working at the gay bar, but before that, he’d had as many as five part-time jobs in a single day. And that was after cutting down from seven. He must have slept an hour or two a day, at best.
Brutal.
He had lived with truly brutal relentlessness.
There was no other way to read it — either he was desperate to die, or he simply didn’t know how to die and so just kept grinding his body down instead.
Seo Haegil had fractured a bone and even undergone surgery, and yet he hadn’t been admitted to the hospital. Beyond the surgery cost, no compensation had been given at all. Even though that was the reason he’d been cut from every part-time job he’d had.
Han Jinseung opened his mouth.
“Look into exactly how he injured his arm.”
The organization member answered immediately.
“I’ll report back as soon as I have confirmation.”
Han Jinseung felt strangely unsettled. It felt like a heavy stone had settled in his chest. He was about to toss aside the documents he’d been holding and lean back —
Han Jinseung saw something and spoke.
“Stop.”
He was looking at something outside the window. But they were in the middle of a six-lane road — being told to stop without warning left the organization member rattled.
“Pardon? What’s happened?”
The moment he asked —
Han Jinseung’s fist came down on the headrest of the driver’s seat.
Thud.
With a dull sound, the metal frame bent and the seat lurched hard. If he had struck the neck itself, it would have snapped clean and that would have been the end of it. The driver didn’t panic — he quickly steered to the shoulder and slammed on the brakes.
Screech —
The tires screamed to a stop, and before the organization member could even get out and open the door, Han Jinseung had already launched himself out of the car.
In the early morning, the sun not yet fully risen, under the still-lit streetlamps at the edge of a narrow alley — someone in poorly-fitted shoes was running out, clutching something to their chest. He watched that person catch their foot and nearly go down, and Han Jinseung sprinted toward them and caught them in his arms.
It was Seo Haegil, his face drained completely white.
And cradled in his arms was a limp, dirty, matted clump of fur.
* * *
After eating the canned food I’d tipped out on the floor a few times, the dog stopped eating.
Maybe it didn’t suit its taste.
I looked at the can that had barely gone down by even a quarter, then shifted my gaze to the dog. The gaunt, shrunken dog was still curled up, and for some reason its body was trembling faintly.
Must be cold.
I got up. The single room barely gets any sunlight — it’s suffocatingly hot in summer and achingly cold in winter. Even in the in-between seasons there’s no warmth at all, so the temperature inside and outside was probably about the same. No — it might actually be colder inside, where no sunlight ever reaches.
I went to the kitchen and checked the coal briquette boiler. I opened the lid of the old, blackened stove, and inside, the cylindrical briquette that had burned through completely was doing nothing but scattering ash.
I pulled out the spent briquette and went through the cupboard. I needed fire starters to light a new one. One fire starter left.
“…….”
I held the single fire starter and turned to look toward the briquettes.
Four briquettes total, counting the cracked ones. The two that had split in half were useless, so realistically there were only two I could actually use.
No fire starters left after this one, and only two briquettes. I quickly swapped in a new briquette and burned the fire starter to get it going. It would take time for the room to warm up.
I’ll have to go buy a few more.
The old general store that sold briquettes and fire starters didn’t open until after nine in the morning, but the owner sometimes came out early, so it was probably worth going to check.
I went back to the single room and put on my outer layers. Just before heading out, I turned to look at the dog. Our eyes met. The dog, which had been curled up and trembling until just a moment ago, got to its feet and came toward me.
“…Stay. I’ll be right back.”
The dog, as if it didn’t know how to bark, just stared at me fixedly — then sat down on the floor. It felt almost like an illusion that it had understood exactly what I’d said.
I turned around.
I shoved my feet into the worn-out sneakers by the door and stepped outside.
I could still feel the dog’s eyes on my back. It seemed to want me to turn around and look — but I kept my gaze deliberately forward. For some reason, meeting the dog’s eyes straight on felt difficult. The only thought in my mind was to get back as quickly as I could.
Today I was lucky.
The old man who ran the general store had come out early and already had the shop open.
I grabbed two briquettes and two fire starters. Before ringing me up, the old man pressed me on why I was buying these. I told him I needed to heat the room, but he still looked at me with a suspicious eye.
“There’s a dog.”
Only after that answer did the old man split the fire starters and briquettes into separate black bags and say:
“You know how to light one? You have to ventilate it properly. Back in the day, plenty of people died from that. Even if it costs a bit more, switch to an oil boiler soon.”
“…….”
Since it was a rental, it wasn’t something I could just change on my own — so I couldn’t answer right away. The old man clicked his tongue at my reaction and went to get something. Another black bag, this one coated with a slick sheen of grease on the outside.
“Unsalted liver. Give it to the dog.”
“Liver?”
“Dogs go crazy for this stuff.”
I thought of the dog that had barely touched the can and gave a small nod.
“…Thank you.”
I left the store and headed back.
The full feeling in my chest made me think — today was a lucky day.
I opened the old green gate and stepped back inside.
In that instant, an unpleasant smell hit the tip of my nose — and I dropped everything I was holding and sprinted inside. I grabbed the sliding door that was left slightly open and yanked it roughly open — and a dense, nauseating wave of gas came rushing out at me.
“……!!”
And on the side, something that looked like a heap of collapsed ash.
I threw myself inside.
The dog’s entire body was shaking, and its mouth was trailing a slow drool of mucus-laced foam. Its tongue half-out, its pupils unfocused.
My mind went completely blank.
I scooped up the dog and got to my feet. I ran for the door in a panic, caught my foot on something and went down, tearing open my knee — but I didn’t even feel the pain. I’d been gone twenty minutes at the most. Only twenty minutes.
I clutched the dog that could barely breathe and ran like something possessed. One of my shoes must have flown off while I was running — I’d lost it somewhere — but I didn’t care.
Is there an animal hospital nearby? Is there one nearby?
I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember. I had always thought places like that had nothing to do with my life.
My heart was slamming wild in my chest. My own breath felt cut off and everything ahead of me was blurring.
Where — where do I go?
I was stumbling in all directions when the dog flailed its four legs in the air and let out a rattling, strangled sound like it was about to be gone. The urgency twisted tighter in me. Without thinking, I turned toward the road.
Get a taxi first.
I had to flag a taxi. Then ask them to take me to the nearest animal hospital as fast as they could.
Thinking that, I bolted toward the six-lane road — and my foot caught again on something. My body lurched hard, and I went down face-first like I was being driven into the ground.
“……!”
Someone snatched me up in an instant.
A large hand, gripping me firm and pulling me into their arms.
I’d been certain my face was about to be scraped across the asphalt — instead I stared down at it with an empty mind.
Then I felt warmth closer than breath, and I looked up, and saw a familiar face.
I grabbed onto him.
“Ho — hospital… hospital, please….”
My voice was cracking and barely coming out.
The man said nothing. He just glanced briefly at me and at the dog in my arms, then pulled me somewhere. I stumbled along, led by his hand.
The man opened the door of a car pulled over on the shoulder. Then he pushed me inside. I climbed in without quite knowing what was happening, and as if it had been arranged, the car pulled away.
The moment we arrived at the animal hospital, the dog was taken into emergency care.
They asked what had happened, and I told them it looked like carbon monoxide poisoning from the coal briquettes. The dog lay motionless inside a clear oxygen cage, an IV needle threaded through its matted fur.
With a deep sigh, the veterinarian came out.
“It’s fortunate the gas exposure wasn’t too severe and that you got here quickly — but it’s severely dehydrated and in poor nutritional condition. It appears to be a stray, and in that case it’s difficult to predict underlying health issues, so even if we start treatment immediately, survival chances are very low.”
“…….”
“In the current situation, the most we can do is focus on minimizing its suffering….”
“…If it has an owner, would that change things?”
“Pardon?”
“Would it be able to live, then?”
“We’d need to admit it and run further tests to say anything definitive, but we can’t guarantee recovery, and there’s no way to know how long it would take. And since animals aren’t covered by insurance, the costs will likely be far beyond what you’d expect.”
“Please proceed with treatment. I’ll pay whatever it costs.”
When I said it plainly, a look of relief crossed the veterinarian’s face.
“We’ll do what we can — but as I mentioned, recovery is difficult to hope for. And given how often people bring in an animal and then go silent, especially with stray dog cases where the costs tend to run high, our hospital procedure requires an upfront deposit before we begin treatment — is that alright?”
It didn’t matter.
