After that, the child kept following along right behind me. I didn’t push them away. I never got angry the way the other puppies did over so much as a brush of contact. I didn’t avoid them either, calling them smelly or scary — I just let them be.
Then, one day.
Something suddenly touched the back of my neck, and I spun around, startled.
“…What?”
I had no idea why they’d suddenly touched my neck, and I found myself eyeing the child warily. They just stood there blankly, staring back at me. They’d always just followed along quietly before, but today felt off. They’d never tried to touch me like that before now.
No matter how curious I was, the child made no move to explain.
Was it a meaningless gesture? Or maybe, in their own way, they thought we’d grown close enough that they could come a little closer.
It makes me queasy.
For some reason, it bothered me.
The child looked at me and spoke for the first time.
“I’ll protect you.”
“…!”
“I’ll… protect you.”
I was a little shocked, hearing the voice of a child I’d thought couldn’t even speak properly.
A child a full head shorter than me said they’d protect me.
What’s more, their words weren’t clumsy at all — they were quite clear.
My stomach turned even more, and without thinking I clapped a hand over my mouth. As the child pressed closer toward me, I took two steps back, and when they reached out trying to catch hold of me, I said,
“I don’t need it.”
Worry about yourself.
Getting beaten nearly every day — who’s protecting who.
I walked right past the child.
From that day on, I shut the child out. I stopped eating meals with them, stopped sleeping near them. I treated them as if they didn’t exist, ignoring them completely — but they kept talking to me anyway. Following along behind me, repeating it like a habit.
“I’ll protect you.”
“…….”
“I’ll protect you.”
I didn’t believe it.
Not because I thought the child was lying — I just simply didn’t believe it.
After telling them I didn’t need it, I stopped speaking to the child altogether. If anything, I ignored them more than I did the other puppies. I don’t know why. I just didn’t like that they were suddenly acting this way.
Even though I wasn’t being friendly toward them, the child showed no sign of falling away from me.
When the child first arrived, they’d been smaller than other kids their age, but before I knew it, they’d grown taller than me. They no longer fumbled with the work, and had grown sharp and quick to read the room. The child grew enough that even the men who used to hit them on sight just for being unlucky to look at no longer did.
Then, another day came.
That day, as disgusting as always, the man suddenly called together every puppy who was working.
That included me and the child. I’d been packing powder and assembling a chair, then came out and stood there blankly, like the other kids already gathered.
“Everyone’s here, right?”
“Yes, hyung. We scraped together every last puppy.”
A voice dripping with irritation came from somewhere, and a man I’d never seen before appeared. But no one was surprised. Sewer puppies were swapped out often, and so were the men who came and went here.
Still, this one was different from the other men, starting with how he dressed.
He had things dangling all over his neck and arms, and to put it simply, he looked like he was a different level entirely.
When he put a cigarette to his mouth, the man beside him lit it for him with a lighter. That alone told you which of the two held the upper hand.
A hazy, acrid smoke puffed out of his mouth. The new man dragged a chair over and sat down, then tilted his head and said,
“Start.”
The moment the words left his mouth, two of the men began going down the line, pricking each puppy’s hand with a needle in turn. They dripped the blood onto a small white piece of plastic, checked something, then brought over the next puppy and repeated the same thing.
Not one puppy cried out in pain through any of it.
The man sitting in the chair, having apparently finished his cigarette, spat phlegm and said,
“These fucking bastards, always acting up right when we’re busy. Damn it, RH-negative is such a—”
“Got it!”
“Hm?”
When my turn came, the man who’d pricked my finger and checked the result shouted loudly. At that, the seated man shot up, came over, and snatched the small piece of plastic to check it himself.
That was the moment his irritated expression brightened.
“Ha! Look at this — even dog shit turns out to be medicine sometimes.”
He rubbed my head roughly, then gripped my shoulder hard. As if making sure I couldn’t run.
Then he made a phone call.
“Ah, Chairman. We finally — and I mean finally — found one. Yes, no mistake. Right age, healthy too. What? No, why would you put a needle in a puppy like that? We’ll run the tests, guarantee its safety, the whole package — don’t worry. We’ll get started the moment the payment clears.”
He hung up and laughed heartily. He looked thrilled. Then he lowered his head and looked at me. He tapped my cheek, which had gone blank from the long hours of work.
“His old man wasn’t worth a damn even cut open, and here’s the jackpot, right here.”
His eyes looked just like a snake’s.
I froze under that chilling gaze, and he grabbed me and tossed me, practically threw me, at the other man.
“Wash him up clean and bring him.”
“…Hyung.”
“Hm?”
“That’s… isn’t he too young?”
“…….”
At the man’s words, he gave a faint smile and stepped closer, asking,
“You want me to take yours off instead?”
“…….”
“Don’t ruin my mood on Bok-nal. Gotta restore the body’s strength, right? Hm?”
“…Yes.”
The man took me away, washed me thoroughly, and dressed me in good clothes. The kind I only ever wore when going out to hand something off to someone.
Clothes I’d worn exactly once before, and never again until now.
The man looked at me, all clean and soft now, and let out a long sigh. Then he pressed something into my hand. A rustling wrapper — red ginseng-flavored candy.
While I was washing up, the child must have been waiting, because the moment I came out, led by the man’s hand, our eyes met.
See, I don’t believe it.
I had no idea what I was about to go through, but I felt certain that my connection with the child ended here. I walked right past the child, and was pulled along by the man’s hand toward the Red Room.
The Red Room was a name I’d given it myself.
None of the other puppies knew what the room actually looked like inside. But I had once glimpsed inside, through a small gap left open by chance. A small human shape lying on the outer one of two steel beds, and red blood dripping steadily down from it. It had pooled enough on the floor to look almost black at a glance.
No puppy who went into that room was ever seen again.
And I was about to be the same.
The man pushed me through the door.
Bang.
I turned to look back at the door closing with a heavy thud, and thought there was nothing I could do about something so massive and heavy with my own strength.
“He’s too young.”
Inside the room wasn’t just me — the new man from before was there, along with another man. A doctor, in a white coat.
The doctor checked my eyes and inside my mouth, then frowned and said to him,
“Why’s the kid’s condition like this?”
“Probably just took him for a walk. Keep a dog chained up too long and it goes crazy.”
“So you stuck a needle in merchandise over that? Are you out of your mind?”
At the doctor’s sharp tone, the man’s brow furrowed, clearly displeased. The air went tense, like a punch could fly any second. He approached slowly and jabbed his index finger into the doctor’s chest, poke, poke, saying,
“You showed up, so you do what you’re told — open, take it out, close it up. You fucking bastard, that’s your job.”
“…….”
“Quack like you, how many times have you even opened one up, acting like this.”
At the man’s words, the doctor said nothing more. Once again, it was immediately clear which of the two held the upper hand.
The man walked out. I knew it from the heavy thud of the door closing behind him.
The doctor let out a sigh, then gripped me under both arms and laid me down flat on the steel table. I stared blankly up at the ceiling. Something was inserted into my arm, and I could feel it flowing into my body. Without thinking, I clutched the red ginseng candy still in my hand.
I heard the doctor muttering.
“If there’s drugs in his system we can’t use him even cut open — honestly, that head case, shot full of meth.”
He hooked an IV line into my arm and kept injecting something.
“Kid, how many’s this?”
He asked me, holding up two fingers. I said nothing. He clicked his tongue again.
“Brought in completely pickled.”
I heard the clink of metal striking metal. My mind grew hazier and hazier. In front of me, I saw the doctor holding something like a small knife in his hand. I sensed this was the end, and slowly closed my eyes.
I wasn’t afraid. I’d never learned how to live properly, so I didn’t know how to die, either.
My ears grew muffled, and once I could no longer hear anything at all, even though I was still breathing, I thought: now it’s finally over. This place would become another Red Room.
Something unpleasant pushed its way into my body. All I did was faintly wince at the strange pain. And then I lost consciousness, certain I would never wake up again.
