Chapter 5: Officer vs. Stray Cats

Beeeeeeep—!

Mu-yun winced at the long tinnitus ringing in his head.

He heard rough breathing.

Panting, he finally opened his eyes after a long moment.

His arms ached as if they were being torn apart.

Sweat that had spread across his skin in an instant trickled down.

He barely came to his senses in the cold wind and looked down.

“…….”

He couldn’t say anything.

The woman whose entire body weight hung from his arms burst into tears.

Overwhelmed by the flood of emotions in her eyes, Mu-yun squeezed his own shut.

“Don’t let go.”

Mu-yun nodded at the voice coming from behind him, not from below.

Warm body heat pressed against him as the voice spoke.

With his upper body leaned out the window up to his waist and nothing to support him, his feet kicked helplessly in the air.

If not for the person holding onto him, Mu-yun would have tumbled right out.

“Hold on just a little longer.”

He felt a large, warm hand grabbing and pulling him back from leaning out the window.

Mu-yun forced his eyes open again and looked down.

The harder he gripped, the more his hands sweated.

Holding firmly onto the dry hand within his grasp, he tried not to meet the woman’s eyes.

Even as his collar got caught on the window frame and scratched by buttons, falling into disarray, Mu-yun relied more on the body heat covering him than on the weight in his hands.

Below the building, an air mattress was being set up.

It would be fortunate if it was ready in time, but depending on the type, it took several minutes to inflate.

“Just a little.

Just hold on a little longer.

It’s almost done.”

At the voice cheering him on, Mu-yun nodded and slowly counted silently in his head.

Just as it felt like his body was being jolted along with the woman’s choking sobs as she hung in midair, the weight suddenly slipped from his hands as if sliding away.

And then Mu-yun’s body was pulled backward.

It was such a strong force that he tumbled backward onto the floor.

But thanks to the firefighter holding him, he rolled safely without falling on his rear.

“What happened!”

A thunderous shout was heard.

“It’s okay!”

The firefighter who had been standing behind leaned out toward the window ledge where Mu-yun had been sprawled moments ago and shouted, and someone from below answered.

Only then did Mu-yun relax his stiff body and go limp.

“You did well.”

He barely managed to tilt his head up toward the firefighter who had been holding onto him the whole time.

The young man from next door met his gaze with his usual stoic expression.

Of all people!

That thought crossed his mind, but Mu-yun forced his trembling fingers to clench, pulled himself up, and then gave a vague nod toward the person he had been endlessly grateful to just moments ago.

“Officer So!

Good job!

Good job!”

Sergeant Park, having checked the situation outside, approached and slapped his back vigorously.

A mournful wail came from somewhere outside the window.

Mu-yun let out a long breath.

He had saved a life, yet strangely, his stomach ached.

***

March 9th

“I’m going to die, seriously.”

His consciousness felt like it might fade at any moment.

Mu-yun slapped his cheeks with both hands, making a sharp sound.

It was the walk home after finishing the night shift, which he felt he would never get used to.

He walked, loosening the muscles in his arms and neck that he had overworked the previous night.

Leaving the police box, crossing the road, and walking straight up the side road next to the fire station brought him to Chowon Villa.

If he stopped by the convenience store or the mart next to the tenement building on his way home, he felt like he would just fall asleep and not get back up.

He was really, really tired, but somehow, he felt like time was precious.

It was a day he could rest without worrying about being called back out, and the sky was even exceptionally clear.

“Should I buy some coffee and take a lap?”

Maybe that would be better than having his days and nights awkwardly reversed and suffering through tomorrow as well.

Mu-yun smoothed his unruly hair back with his hand.

Even though it hadn’t been long since his last cut, his hair was so thick that a lot of it caught in his hand.

“I need to go to the hair salon too.”

Thinking about what he needed to do on his day off, he crossed the road and turned his steps not toward the alley leading home but in a different direction.

Seoheung 3-dong wasn’t a large neighborhood, but walking around still took quite a while.

Today, he thought he would walk all the way to the more secluded corners of the neighborhood.

After just a few steps, the fire station came into view.

Passing by the empty garage with no one around, he glanced inside the office.

Everyone must have been dispatched, as there was no one left.

He frowned slightly, then shook his head and looked forward again.

It wasn’t that he was walking with a specific destination in mind, but his steps naturally continued straight along the main road.

Arriving at a small park with sports facilities at the northwestern edge of Seoheung 3-dong, Mu-yun took a deep breath in and out.

Perhaps because there was a mountain right behind it, the air felt fresher and less dusty than on the main road.

Having walked at a pace that made him break a light sweat, the heat rose in his muscles that had been stiff all night, and paradoxically, his tired body felt lighter.

Seeing the sign that read ‘Goyeomgol Small Sports Park,’ he went inside.

Behind a large public parking lot nestled between apartment complexes, a futsal court and a foot volleyball court were visible from the entrance.

Tilting his head to look further inside, he saw a small, colorful slide that looked suitable for children to play on.

“I guess there’s no soccer field.”

Even though it was still early, the lack of people confirmed it.

If there were a soccer field, it would be bustling with members of an early morning soccer club at this hour.

In fact, he preferred it quiet.

“I wonder how many minutes it would take to run here.”

Thinking he might come back to run if there was a good place for it, Mu-yun slowly looked around and strode in with light steps.

He checked the time it had taken him to walk there.

Even starting from home instead of the police box, it seemed he could get here in under ten minutes by walking at a leisurely pace.

A nice track came into view, good enough to warm up on before running in earnest.

He had been worried about finding a gym to exercise at after moving and unpacking, but for the time being, it seemed fine to just change his route here and there and visit this place.

Mu-yun pressed the track with his sneaker-clad foot.

The cushioning was good too.

“This is nice.”

He was happy to be discovering good points one by one in a place that still felt like someone else’s neighborhood.

Carefully loosening his leg muscles, Mu-yun walked along the track beneath his feet with a bouncy step.

Instead of the dry dust smell of asphalt and concrete buildings, the scent of soil and grass rode the wind.

Mu-yun, swinging his arms as he walked, suddenly flinched and turned his head.

A sharp cry came from somewhere.

From the fierce, highly pitched caterwauling and growling, it sounded like cats in this area were fighting.

Quieting his footsteps, he approached the commotion and saw three cats with their fur puffed up some distance away.

Yaaowww!

Mu-yun tilted his head at the familiar appearance of the one with black stripes all over its body.

“Rambo?”

As if his voice were a signal, the cats that had been hissing at each other lunged.

The one with brown and black fur forming an intricate pattern, and the one opposite, a tuxedo cat with striking black fur and white front paws, swung their paws wildly thump-thump.

With a feeling that somehow sounded like whap-whap, the cat with the mackerel tabby pattern and the utterly fearless name got beaten up.

Though you’re not supposed to take sides just because you know someone when breaking up a fight, seeing a cat he knew getting beaten 2-on-1 made Mu-yun clear his throat and deliberately shout out.

“You can’t do this here, folks!

Why are you acting like this, people who should know better?”

The words he had been shouting all night at bars popped out as if pressing a button on a vending machine.

At the sound of a human voice, the cats that had been baring their teeth and growling abruptly turned tail and fled with a scamper.

Mu-yun scratched his head as he looked at the now-empty spot.

‘You should have run separately, you idiot.

What happens if the victim runs off with the perpetrator?’

Bemoaning internally, he wrinkled the bridge of his nose.

Staring blankly in the direction they fled, a thought entered his hazy mind and he let out a short, hollow laugh.

“Come to think of it, I should have compared them with the missing list.

But I couldn’t even talk to them.”

He also thought that if he could talk to stray cats, he could ask where all the missing cats and dogs had gone.

Resolving to bring some tempting treats next time to get a closer look, Mu-yun shrugged his shoulders.

“Anyway, folks!

Next time, fight one-on-one.

Two-on-one is aggravated assault!”

Meaning, please stop getting drunk and picking fights with the person next to you, Mu-yun muttered.

Having repeated the relevant laws so much in just a few days of work that they were stuck to his lips, his mouth naturally grumbled.

“Heh!”

Mu-yun, his mouth pursed, whipped around.

Too startled to even scream, he clutched at his chest and froze solid.

He had clearly heard a laugh, but the young man from next door stood there with the driest expression imaginable, as if he had never made such a sound.

‘Did he see?’

Since their eyes had even met, Mu-yun, unable to quickly look away, did his best to lift the corners of his mouth.

“Hello.”

He had no intention of being friendly, but anyway, if not for the young man from next door at dawn, he would have been pulled out and fallen, so he greeted him.

They kept running into each other so often outside their houses that it was also awkward to keep pretending not to know him.

“Well, I’ll be—”

“Are you busy?”

“Huh?”

His feet, poised to say goodbye and quickly escape, were stopped.

Mu-yun raised his eyebrows and asked back, wondering if he had misheard.

“I asked if you’re busy.”

The warm, kind voice from dawn was gone, replaced by the low, blunt voice again.

Mu-yun ran through his to-do list for the day in his head.

He had to go home and clean, eat, lie on the floor and roll around a bit until he got sleepy, then sleep, and if he woke up early, he planned to watch some weekend variety shows.

He was busy.

So he nodded toward the firefighter from next door, as if to say ‘of course.’

“I am busy.”

“Then have just one banana milk before you go.”

The ill-mannered young man from next door shook the bag in his hand.

“Woof!”

And beside him, the dog—looking even blacker and shinier under the bright sun—wagged its tail vigorously with a smiling face.

The bark that had sounded so threatening in the darkness now sounded like a joyful greeting.

Mu-yun narrowed his eyes.

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