Chapter 11: From Neighbors to Friends

Letting out a short, sharp breath, Mu-yun immediately opened his front door.

Tae-i, who had quietly followed him in, tilted his head here and there, examining the interior.

“I thought it would be strange because the layout is opposite to mine, but surprisingly, it feels familiar.”

“Is that so?”

Mu-yun, who had rarely been home even after moving in, looked around the still unfamiliar house.

“You haven’t finished unpacking yet?”

“Yeah.”

Tae-i smiled, looking at the boxes occupying the entrance.

“But don’t the police provide dorm-style housing?”

“Some do, some don’t.

I heard our police box provides a place to stay if you can’t find lodging.

A room-share type.”

“Then you’d usually go with that, but you found your own place instead?”

Mu-yun placed the fried chicken on the kitchen table and laughed.

“I can’t sleep with other people.

But don’t you guys have places that provide dorms too?”

Tae-i stretched his lips out long.

“Hyung can’t sleep unless it’s a mattress he’s used to.”

“Hyung?”

Mu-yun’s eyebrows rose as his eyes met Tae-i’s.

“Officer So, when’s your birthday?”

At Tae-i’s question, Mu-yun tilted his head.

“October 31st.

And Captain Won?”

Tae-i quietly averted his gaze.

Seeing that, Mu-yun lifted the corners of his mouth.

“I’m from Seoheung Police Box.

I’ll need to see some identification.”

He held out his open palm, and Tae-i giggled.

“Isn’t a field interrogation illegal?”

“Asking isn’t illegal.”

Only forcing other actions without clearly stating your affiliation was illegal.

Mu-yun narrowed his eyes.

“So, Captain Won, your birthday?”

“It’s November 30th.”

Tae-i frowned.

Mu-yun let out a snort.

“I’m your hyung.”

It was only a month, but still, he was born first.

“What’s that between friends?”

Tae-i changed his attitude as if flipping his palm, forgetting he had just brought up ‘hyung.’

“Fine.

Hyung will cut you some slack.

Go get some beer from the fridge, little bro.”

With a tone that generously offered to stay friends, Mu-yun pointed to the refrigerator.

Tae-i looked at Mu-yun, chuckled, and did as told, bringing out the beer.

Using a can of beer as an accompaniment, the two quickly returned to their earlier conversation.

They were both curious about when the investigation into the bones found in the incinerator that day would end, and whether the wildfire would truly be ruled arson.

“A lot of evidence would have been damaged at the fire scene.

We have to assume most of it was destroyed.

Plus, they blasted it with such high water pressure, there’s probably nothing intact.

And they tilled up all the ground to deal with the remaining embers.”

“But we couldn’t just not put out the fire.”

At Tae-i’s sullen tone, Mu-yun sighed and grumbled.

The fact that a potential crime scene had been damaged sounded similar to saying the chances of catching the culprit had decreased, but he had seen with his own eyes the flames rising higher than a person, crashing in like waves, and the firefighters holding the line like a wall.

He didn’t want to blame them.

Tae-i laughed quietly.

He thought for a moment, then put down his chopsticks and opened the calendar on his phone.

“By the way, about those bones from the incinerator.”

“Why?”

“I just remembered something I almost mentioned earlier.

If the Supervisor said that, we should probably also consider the possibility that someone was trying to incinerate a cat carcass after it had died, and that caused the accidental wildfire.

About three months ago?

I heard a similar report came in from the area near the back of the Seoheung 3-dong Welfare Center, going up toward the theme arboretum.

It didn’t spread as widely as this time, though.”

Mu-yun sighed.

“I’m not the one doing the arson investigation.”

What a patrol officer could do was more limited than one might think.

Unless it was a flagrant offender, even requesting accompaniment was difficult.

He thought briefly, then spoke.

“Would it be hard to find Rambo?”

He didn’t know about the dead cat, but trying to find the whereabouts of the one still alive didn’t seem like it would be a problem.

Somehow, that cat whose name he only knew was weighing on his mind.

The territory where it lived had caught fire.

He wanted to know if it had managed to escape, and if it was alive, where it had gone, so he could feel at ease.

Maybe he wanted to confirm that the cat dead in the pit wasn’t really Rambo.

Or perhaps he was ashamed of how eager he had been to solve a ‘case’ in that moment, and just wanted to catch the culprit quickly.

Tae-i shrugged.

“Their territory is usually within about 2 kilometers.

But since it felt threatened in its territory, it might have moved somewhere else.

The difficulty would probably depend on where we center our search.”

In the case of Seoheung 3-dong, it was an area that had developed near a factory, so it had an unusually high number of apartments, and since many areas were carved out of mountains, going anywhere nearby led to mountains.

Plus, cats didn’t just move within human-drawn administrative districts.

In short, it was going to be hard work.

“The last place I saw him was at Goyeomgol Sports Park.”

At his words, Tae-i tilted his head.

“If he was spotted that far, even drawing a large circle, the range would cover all of Seoheung 3-dong excluding the mountain and the factory.

Even if you exclude the middle school and high school below Geumjin-ro, just the apartment complexes alone…”
“Eleven.

Plus a restaurant alley, a studio apartment area.

Combined with other spots, even more.”

Even while talking, the tteokbokki and sundae were rapidly disappearing from the plate.

Tae-i brought new beers and opened them.

“You’re on night shift tomorrow, right?”

Mu-yun nodded, mouth full of kimbap.

“Then let’s take a look around at dawn.

You should get some sleep during the day because of your night shift anyway.

Cats are usually nocturnal, so they’ll only be moving around late at night.”

At Tae-i’s suggestion, Mu-yun handed over the last piece of kimbap with his chopsticks as praise.

He had agreed to look for Rambo because he had a stake in it, but Tae-i, who had no connection to it at all, was offering to help.

Of course, Tae-i was closer to Rambo anyway.

The guy who had seemed prickly when they first greeted each other was gone, leaving only a very kind neighbor who tilted his beer can.

‘From now on, we’re real friends.’

Having shouted loudly in his heart, Mu-yun opened the cold can Tae-i had brought him.

The refreshing fizz sounded cool.

“By the way, Officer So.

Did you play sports?”

He took a sip of the beer, cold enough to make his head ache, and looked where Tae-i was gazing.

Trophies were visible, haphazardly placed on the display shelf around the television in the living room.

And there were a hogu (chest protector) and a jukdo (bamboo sword), no longer used but hung up for decoration.

He had meant to throw them away, but for some reason, they were hard to discard.

“I was an athlete for about ten years.”

Mu-yun answered in a prim tone.

Thanks to that, all he remembered from his school days was running, training, and getting hit.

“Did you quit because of an injury?”

Mu-yun’s eyes widened as he looked at Tae-i.

“How did you know?”

“Because there’s a scar around your patella.”

Only then did Mu-yun glance at his leg revealed beneath his shorts.

An old scar, so familiar he had forgotten about it, came into view.

“It’s all healed now.”

He had recovered successfully not long after the injury.

Still, he didn’t think about resuming his athletic career and changed his path instead.

At his words, Tae-i smiled and crushed his beer can.

The empty can crumpled with a crack.

Watching him open yet another new beer, Mu-yun just laughed.

“You’re drinking that pretty hard for something that’s only 1% alcohol.”

“Because opportunities to drink beer aren’t common?”

Tae-i swallowed his beer heartily and smiled.

Mu-yun thought of Kkammi, who might be alone next door with its ears pricked up.

“Is Kkammi sleeping?

It’s quiet.”

He had heard that dogs, with their highly developed senses of smell and hearing, could recognize their owner’s footsteps from far away and bark, but he hadn’t heard a single woof.

“It’s not quite bedtime yet, but he’s probably sleeping.

That guy was tired too.”

“Huh?

Why Kkammi?”

“Because he commutes to the fire station with me.

Since he’s awake for relatively long periods during work hours, on his days off, after one walk, he sleeps early.”

At the mention of commuting with a dog, Mu-yun’s eyes sparkled.

“That’s allowed for you guys?”

Tae-i shrugged.

“Not everyone.

Only Kkammi got permission.

He was a rescue from a dispatch.

He’s an adult dog, so maybe that’s why he wasn’t getting adopted.

I’m temporarily keeping him.

The local shelter was full too, and if I sent him there, one of the dogs already there would be euthanized.

And even if I did that, there’s no guarantee he’d get adopted.

I tried to find him a home for about two weeks, but no one contacted us.

That meant Kkammi would be euthanized too, so I brought him home.”

Mu-yun swallowed a sip of beer without much reaction.

It tasted more bitter than before.

“…He couldn’t find a place to go, huh.”

“Big dogs aren’t popular.

And black fur is even less popular.”

Mu-yun’s eyebrows twitched.

“What’s wrong with black fur?

Besides, Kkammi has a really pretty, handsome face.”

Even though he was big, he had a gentle-looking face.

“Our Kkammi is pretty, isn’t he.”

Tae-i boasted as if he had received the compliment himself.

Mu-yun snorted at that.

After chatting enough to make the dog’s ears itch, wherever he was in the house, Tae-i cleared the table and stood up.

Moderately full and slightly buzzed, Mu-yun flopped down on the sofa.

His eyelids were heavy.

Moreover, for some reason, the tinnitus that had been sounding like a warning signal was gone.

“Falling asleep?”

“No…”

“I might have believed you if you were just holding the remote.”

Tae-i’s laughter resonated along Mu-yun’s ears.

“I’m going back now.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s cold, so go sleep in your bed.”

“…Yeah.”

Crinkling sounds continued, then a light breath saying ‘see you tomorrow,’ a ‘good night,’ and the front door light that brightened then dimmed flickered before Mu-yun’s eyes and faded away.

He closed his eyes tightly and smiled.

The image of Tae-i’s back standing before the flames, which had constantly risen in his mind whenever he was blankly staring, was erased, replaced by Tae-i sitting in front of him, bragging about his dog and then leaving.

His heart, which had been pounding heavily since seeing the cat in the pit, calmly returned to its normal rhythm.

The tension in his body, which had barely relaxed since yesterday, released.

Drowsiness washed over him, as if he had spent a day much like any other.

After blinking a few times, Mu-yun let out a very even breath and fell into a deep sleep.

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