“Someone’s been feeding the stray cat. I’m going to get him.”
Kim Nam-woo gritted his teeth and removed the bowl from the floor. He wrote a warning sign on the wall, “Do not feed the cat,” but it didn’t work. He didn’t know what kind of people they were, but he wasn’t going to leave them alone. “Fucking cats!”
If someone said something casual like “stray cats are cute,” he would have a fit. “Mr. Cute, have you ever been woken up at three in the morning by a cat in heat crying? Have you ever cleaned up the cat poop they leave everywhere? Have you ever cleaned up all the burst garbage bags they leave behind? I know stray cats can be cute, but for the people who live there, I feel like tearing them apart!”
Everyone in Kim’s family hated cats. They sprayed water out the window to scare them away, applied lemon juice (which cats hate), and tried ultrasonic repellers they bought online. None of them worked. One weekend morning, while walking to the watering hole, Kim saw the back of the suspect in the distance. “Huh? That, that!”
He saw a man placing a bowl of rice in an alleyway, and he jumped in excitement. The other man also ran. The man had already turned the corner and disappeared from view by the time Nam-woo, who had been slowed down by his water bottle, threw it away. With his eyes darting around, Nam-woo’s head locked on a spot. A black Mercedes-Benz parked in a small building was just leaving, and he stared at it for a while before turning away.
“I could have caught it!” “Catch what?” Kim Nam-woo explained to his mother, who was watching TV in the living room, how he missed the man. “I didn’t see his face, but he wasn’t a kid, and he was wearing a suit, so maybe he was driving a Benz.” “He’s driving a Benz?” “I saw a car leave the Bogeun building while I was chasing him, but it was kind of cheap.”
Kim Nam-woo suddenly wished he had gotten the license plate number. It was a ginja neighborhood, and if you’re wearing a suit and feeding stray cats, a foreign car is a good match. That evening, Nam-woo got a call from his father. “It’s Nam-woo! Mom told me. I think I know who you are. There’s a big hagwon in the Bogeun building. He’s the director! I’m sure it’s him! Take the feed bowl and go check it out!”
Kim Nam-woo’s eyes widened and he immediately ran to the Bo Geun building. The staff blocked him from entering, but he barged into the director’s office. Out of the director’s office came a dignified-looking man in his forties, with a very calm voice. “You need to see me? Please come in.” Kim Nam-woo spoke straightforwardly. “Why do you keep feeding stray cats in other people’s alleys?” “Me?” Seeing the innocent look on the man’s face, Kim Nam-woo cringed, but then his expression turned stern. “You’re wearing the same clothes I saw you wearing earlier in the day!” The man smirked.
“Oh, I was just paraphrasing, not saying it wasn’t me. Yes, I’ve been feeding stray cats lately.” “What, are you kidding me?” Kim Nam-woo jumped to his feet, and the man waved both palms. “Mr. Ayu, I know you’re under a lot of stress because of the stray cats, but I’m not your enemy, we all have a story.”
The man began to tell his childhood story, which was rather bizarre. “I once cut off a rabbit’s head out of curiosity, and my mother was very worried. I think she thought I was a psychopath, and I followed her to all the temples in the country. In the temples, I was able to study many things, and I had one realization. I realized that death is not the end, and that was important to me. If death is not the end, then it’s okay to kill someone, right?
“Instead, there are rules you must follow before you kill. You have to feed them for a while, and then you can kill them.” When Nam Woo Kim got angry, wondering what the hell this was all about, the man lowered his voice to a whisper. “Would you like to see this?” The man held up his smartphone screen. The screen showed several pictures of dead cats in horrible conditions. “How about this, do you understand that I am not an enemy? We are comrades.” Kim’s eyes fluttered at the man’s smile. No, this is clearly a crime of animal cruelty. “So I can feed the stray cats from now on,” the man said with a satisfied smile, “and maybe one day I can exterminate all the stray cats around your house.”
Kim was torn. Should he report the man to the police? Should he be reported because he’s a horrible animal abuser, or should he be turned a blind eye because he’s offering to exterminate stray cats for him…. After pondering for a while, Kim nodded heavily and stood up스포츠토토. “Okay, just be careful about feeding them near my house.”
Kim Nam-woo decided to ignore the man’s crime. Creepy human being, but if it helps me, then so be it. As he left the building and headed home, his father greeted him. “Hey, you’re back, what did he say? Isn’t that him?” Kim Nam-woo was flustered, but he decided to play it cool. “Oh, no, it wasn’t him, he wasn’t the same person I saw during the day.”
At his father’s confused look, Nam-woo deliberately avoided eye contact and headed for the kitchen. “No, it wasn’t. Why did you think it was him?” he asked as he took out a cup and poured himself a glass of water. “Uh, he seemed like a nice guy. He feeds the homeless every week with his own money.” Kim felt goosebumps all over his body. That meant….