Ch. 31 The World Against The Cat (2)

Tae-il got ready to leave.

Si-yul looked sad to see me go, but I had no pity for him. I would be far, far away from him with only my beloved Tae-il.

Last night, I had scratched Si-yul’s face and threatened to jump out the window if he didn’t call Tae-il immediately. No matter if I was a cat or human or mythical creature, I would die if I leapt out of the 17th floor. Eventually, Si-yul was forced to call him.

Si-yul stopped Tae-il before he went out the door. “Tae-il, there’s one thing I’m worried about. Bow Meow doesn’t seem to like the pet hotel, and you’ve been travelling a lot.”

However, it seemed like Si-yul was determined not to give me up.

“Yes…I’m worried about that, too,” Tae-il said.

“She seems to become very stressed when around other animals.”

“Ah, that’s why she ran away after I left her at the pet hotel.”

Tae-il looked down at me guiltily, but I desperately tried to communicate that it wasn’t true. However, the message could not be conveyed. Not unless I spoke. The one who could take advantage of speech was Si-yul.

“I gave it some thought. When you go on business trips in the future, why don’t you leave Bow Meow here at my home?”

“Really? No, I couldn’t possibly…”

“It’s alright, I like Bow Meow too. Wouldn’t it be more convenient? Besides, you can’t let her starve.”

“Meumyaaaang!” (This guy is nuts!)

The words scared me so much that I abruptly stood up in Tae-il’s arms. The way Si-yul had cunningly turned the tables in his favor was villain-level genius.

“…What, you don’t like it?” Tae-il said as he gave me a gentle squeeze in his arms. My dislike was obvious, but Si-yul had an explanation for everything. To Tae-il, Si-yul was a trustworthy and professional expert on animal behavior.

“Haha, how can a cat understand a person? She’s just feeling anxiety because of all the hardship she had on the streets.”

Don’t be fooled! I wanted to scream, but Tae-il wouldn’t understand.

“I see,” he said with a nod. “I do live alone, and while I’d love to care for a pet, I don’t always have the time.” Tae-il had nothing to lose with Si-yul’s offer. “Thank you. I’ll accept it.”

“Umya! Umyamyamya!” (No! Nononono!)

Si-yul smiled. “Wow. Bow Meow agrees too. How old are you, Tae-il, thirty? I’m thirty-three. Let’s meet very often, Dongsaeng. Feel free to call me hyeong. ”

(TN: Dongsaeng is used to refer to a younger brother/male friend. Hyeong is a name for an older brother/friend.)

“…Ah? Yes, ah…yes, Hyeong…”

I knew that there was no justice in the world, but Si-yul had the unfair advantage of wearing a mask of a veterinarian. One would hardly doubt a person who traditionally liked animals.

Si-yul continued. “I’d like to get more acquainted. She’ll become more settled when we’ve known each other for a while.”

“You mean Bow Meow? Yeah, it’s strange…she’s usually so friendly.”

I didn’t want Tae-il to give me to Si-yul. I didn’t want to fall back into the clutches of the devil.

I prayed to God, please. I wasn’t even religious.

***

No matter how hard one pleaded, if the one that the plea was meant for did not listen, it would be nothing more than an empty wish.

For example, I pleaded to God.

Tae-il was pleading to me.

What I wanted was to never see that bastard again, and what Tae-il wanted was for me to be examined by that very same bastard. Our wants were so contradictory that it was not even worth compromising.

“Bow Meow? Come down for a second, okay? We have to go for your check-up.”

I had climbed right to the very top of a bookcase where he couldn’t reach me. I blinked slowly and ignored his calls. I knew how much he worried about me and I always tried to be behaved, but this called for a full-fledged rebellion. While Tae-il was admittedly a good guardian to me, he was friends with Si-yul now.

“I’m worried about you. Let’s just go, okay?”

“…”

“We just need to look at your wounds, alright?”

He held out both his arms to me, but I crawled a little further away from him and pressed myself against the wall of the bookcase. I lay there like a loaf of bread and defiantly turned away my head.

“Bow Meow!” Tae-il shouted in a stern voice, but I continued to feign deafness.

I shivered like a cat. My body was protesting to everything. I hated the name Bow Meow in the first place, and I didn’t want to be examined for scars or any diseases that I might have picked up outside. There was absolutely no need. After only a couple of days home, my wounds started to heal rapidly, and I had no fear of getting sick because I was not an ordinary cat. For me, the clinic was the last place I needed.

However, it was not the clinic itself that I was avoiding. It was Si-yul. As long as he was there, that place was not a clinic, but a den for demons. Whenever I thought of him, I imagined two red horns on his head, black wings on his back, a pointed tail, and a shining silver scalpel in his hand as he prepared to dissect me.

That was the image Si-yul seared in my brain. His smile belonged to that of a wicked and frightening devil.

“Euo…” (Ugh…)

I trembled in horror at my own imagination. Just thinking of being in the captive in the hands my natural enemy was enough to make me nervous. After that was dissection. I licked my paw to calm myself down.

Tae-il seemed to think that the problem was the carrier, and he pushed it to the corner of the room with his feet.

“Here, I put the carrier away. We’re not going to the hospital, so come down.”

“…Myaong.” (…Never.)

I lifted my nose and even shook my head.

Tae-il realized that having a smart pet wasn’t always a good thing. It was harder to deceive them that way.

“Huuu.” He gave a defeated sigh, shrugged his shoulders, then went into the bedroom.

My eyes glistened. The tall and narrow bookcase I had chosen as my fortress was in the living room, and from there I could also survey the kitchen and just a bit of the bedroom. As I watched Tae-il move away, I gave a rumbling purr in celebration. I even felt like singing, and before I knew it, sounds of joy came from my throat.

“Myung myung, myang myang.”

I stopped crying and started humming a song to myself instead. I had won. I didn’t have to see Si-yul again. My eyes closed, my ears twitched, and my tail waved in contentment. Tae-il could just leave me alone, and he didn’t have to pay that perverted vet either.

From experience, I knew why animals disliked vets now. Of course, I better understood my anger because of my high intelligence, while real animals were instinctively hostile to anyone who caused them pain or humiliation.

I had a clear list of grudges towards Si-yul, and it wasn’t just because he inspected my mouth.

1. He treated me like an animal.

2. He wanted to have me in his clutches.

3. I was sure his final goal was to dissect me.

4. The most dangerous people were the ones who pretended to be good.

5. I could never believe him.

“Bow Meow! You should be happy now.”

“Yaong?” (What?)

I had been mentally listing out the reasons why I hated Si-yul—and the list had a good chance of going on now—when my eyes ran into Tae-il’s, who had come back into the living room. He looked up happily from his cellphone.

“I just got off the phone and Hyeong said he’d come here himself.”

“…Mya?” (…What?)

“He says he’s busy today, but he’ll come by tomorrow evening. He seems to really like you.”

Tae-il smirked, and I froze with my mouth open.