#Hidden track: Yoon Bbosong

People call creatures like me cats.

Among them, my name is ‘Go Away’.

Other nicknames include ‘Thief Cat’, ‘Butterfly’, ‘Kitten’, ‘Dirty One’, and so on.

I quite like the name ‘Go Away’. My mother, who looked just like me, was often called by the same name. I chose my name myself from among many names.

Mom said that cats’ names are given by humans. I didn’t understand why humans arbitrarily name us, but anyway, I got the name ‘Go Away’.

‘Go Away’…

I wonder what it means? I don’t know the meaning, but I really like it. Seeing that mom was called that too, it seems to be a name given only to the coolest, most handsome, and best hunting cats in the world.

On the day I first inherited my mother’s name, I was left alone.

***

The gang of bully cats living under the blue roof are really nasty. Especially the leader among them, ‘Pig,’ has never had a good relationship with my mother. Maybe that’s why ‘Pig’ always puffs up and threatens me whenever he sees me. He must be jealous of my noble and elegant appearance and my youthful vigor. If I were another cat, I would have stomped my paws wanting to have fur that shines like mine.

Perhaps ‘Pig’ envies my name ‘Go Away’. ‘Pig’ hates his own name. He insists he doesn’t have a name, but well… From what I heard from the yellow grandma at the playground, he is indeed ‘Pig’. How can a grown cat not know his own name?

But in this neighborhood, there are many more cats without names. It seems most of them actually have names but can’t remember them. I guess smart cats like me are rare.

***

An old human lives in the house with the blue roof. That human says nothing when other cats approach, but whenever he sees me, he comes running out with a broom, calling my name. Why only me? Is it because I’m too young to qualify to go in there yet?

‘Spotty’ said in response to my question, ‘It’s all because you young one resemble your mother.’ Because my fur is black like my mother’s. He said humans often don’t think well of black cats…

But why? What’s wrong with my fur? If you look closely, it’s not completely black, my paws are a little white, can’t you see that? You old, ugly, smelly, balding human with only three strands of hair. Why are you making a fuss about me for something your blind eyes can’t see?

I am a lonely and cool cat, ‘Go Away’.

I don’t particularly want to look good to humans, but being the only one hated makes me feel upset for no reason.

***

I took a long walk and found a place beyond the influence of the blue-roofed cat gang. Until now, I couldn’t even dare to approach the feeding spots because those gangs were fiercely guarding them…

The human who set up the new supply station doesn’t try to touch me like other humans do. They don’t shout at me or call me by name. Although I felt uneasy about the eyes watching me from afar, I didn’t feel bad after finally filling my stomach. That human knows their place. Appreciating that, I decided to come back tomorrow to eat again.

***

I met the human with black fur again. That human makes strange expressions whenever they see me from a distance. Still, for a human, their hunting skills aren’t bad, and I like that they don’t make a fuss over me like other humans do.

Today, I appointed that human as my subordinate.

***

The subordinate always appears when the sun is at the top of the blue roof. They leave food and some water at the supply station and then wait for me for a while before leaving. Sometimes, when I feel like it, I raid the supply station in front of the subordinate, but most of the time, I hide and wait for them to leave.

***

I know I shouldn’t trust humans carelessly… but it seems my subordinate is not the type of human who hurts cats.

***

For the first time, the subordinate raised their front paw and stroked my fur. It was annoying, but I let it be. The subordinate, who stroked me with their inadequate front paw and wiped their eyes with their fingers, watched me from a distance when I got irritated. The subordinate’s skill in procuring food is quite useful.

***

Today, while the subordinate was watching me, another human surprised them from behind. The subordinate screamed, “Aaah!” Their angry face looked similar to the humans who used to tell me to “go away.”

I-I’m definitely not scared of a mere subordinate. I just didn’t want to see them being bullied… The subordinate probably wouldn’t want to show me such a pathetic sight either.

As a very loyal cat, I left the scene, promising to return tomorrow.

***

In the evening, the subordinate brings a new food bowl to the supply station and brings water too. But… lately, it seems a strange human has been sticking to my subordinate. It’s that weird human from before. A few days ago, I even witnessed the subordinate screaming and running away from that human.

The human with brown fur seems stronger than my subordinate despite being smaller. How is that possible? I want to be that strong too! Could it be that my subordinate is being bullied among humans like I am? Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve seen the subordinate hanging out with other humans.

Poor thing…. I decided to treat them better starting tomorrow.

***

I think the blue-roofed cat gang has discovered the location of the supply station. ‘Pig’ ate all the food that my subordinate hunted for me. That was mine! I’ll have to be careful to avoid overlapping times.

By the way, I haven’t seen the playground grandma for a few days now. He was the only cat who still treated me like a kitten… Because of that, the playground without her seems empty and awkward. According to ‘Spotty,’ humans carried away the limp grandma somewhere.

It seems similar to what happened with mom. Is grandma in a deep sleep too? Will she not wake up? I probably won’t see that grandma ever again.

***

I got hit by the ‘pig.’ I’m frustrated that I couldn’t even properly fight back and was one-sidedly beaten by that thug cat. That gang is truly nothing but a group of thugs. Maybe I should join them….

To be honest, I want to be a thug cat too. I want to beat up any cat I want. I want to be strong. I want to be a cool cat who can hunt for my own food… But in reality, I’m in a situation where I’d starve all day if it weren’t for my human subordinate and the supply station. Today, more than ever, I miss my mom.

My subordinate caught me today and mumbled something in human language. Stupid subordinate. He still doesn’t seem to understand that I can only understand cat language. Honestly, I couldn’t understand a word he was saying, but it seemed like he was asking about why I was hurt.

I am a quite taciturn and loyal cat. Even though I don’t get along with ‘Pig’, I’m not the kind of petty cat who tattles on other cats’ faults to humans. My subordinate isn’t a human who harms cats, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful. I’ve heard there are many bad humans who kidnap cats and take them somewhere.

I kept the secret to the end. ‘Pig’ should be grateful to me for this.

***

I trusted you! I trusted you! You too, in the end, were just a human. I shouldn’t have trusted humans!

I’ve been kidnapped by the human who used to be my subordinate and am trapped in a box that smells awful. The smell of other animals is unpleasantly strong. It feels like I just fell asleep for a moment and woke up, but the area between my legs hurts. There’s also a strange circle attached to my neck, so I can’t even groom myself. How did I end up like this? It’s too miserable. There’s white paper wrapped around my front paw that ‘Pig’ scratched. I’m getting sleepy again. My whole body feels weak… This place is too dark and lonely.

***

It seems the human has brought me to his house. I’ve really been kidnapped. As soon as I was put down in this unfamiliar space, I hid in a corner without looking back and observed all day to see if there was anything dangerous. But strangely, there are no other cats here, water doesn’t suddenly pour from the sky, and most importantly, there’s no ‘Pig’ gang.

And the human keeps hanging around persistently as if he has something to say to me. But too bad. I’ve already closed my heart to you. I will never again call that trash human who hurt me my subordinate.

***

Wow! My subordinate gave me really delicious food! It’s the best! If you had this, why didn’t you give it to me earlier?

I’ve decided to graciously accept my subordinate’s peace offering!

***

My subordinate has been calling me ‘Yoon Bbosong’ for some time now. My name is ‘Go Away’… He seems to be mistaken about something, so I tried to tell him my cool name, but whenever I speak to him, he just goes ‘Bbosong’. I’m not sure if he can’t understand me or if he’s pretending not to.

Mom said that cats’ names are given by humans. My subordinate is human, and since the human subordinate calls me ‘Yoon Bbosong’, from today on, my name has become ‘Yoon Bbosong’.

I’m not thrilled about it, but this is really unavoidable. Because my subordinate is the only human here.

But what does ‘Yoon Bbosong’ mean? Is it better than ‘Go Away’?

***

My subordinate put me in slippery water with a strange smell. And he pulled on my front paws and messed up my fur by rubbing it all over. Furious to the tips of my whiskers, I threw a power punch at my subordinate. When I came to my senses, I saw traces of my attack left on my subordinate’s legs.

I felt sorry for my subordinate who was helplessly attacked by a strong cat like me. As a human, he’s too weak to even protect his own body properly. Even after being hit like that, he still seems to like me, not getting angry but rather petting me and giving me delicious food.

Sigh, how would you live without me? When I pretended to lick the wounds I made, my subordinate smiled. He’s so happy even though I only licked once or twice because I was lazy. My subordinate is an easy guy.

***

My subordinate goes out once a day to hunt for food, and when he comes home and can’t see me, he keeps calling “Bbosong-ah”. Then when I, who was hiding, suddenly jump out to surprise him, he gets startled and is really happy.

‘Yoon Bbosong’.

My new name seems just a tiny bit cooler than the one I used before. And the human who gave me this new name… well, he’s the best among humans.

***

I had to re-plan my significantly changed daily routine. I climb to the top to look at the sky, and when it’s time, I get on my subordinate’s belly to wake him up. My subordinate gives me more food than when I lived outside. And sometimes when I demand more food, he calls me ‘Pig’. ‘Pig’ is the one who made me like this! Every time that happens, I throw a warning punch at my subordinate.

***

The brown fur human who used to bully my subordinate when I lived on the streets appeared at my subordinate’s house. Maybe because it’s a human my subordinate really dislikes, I’m not too fond of him either. I wish he’d leave my territory right away. I glared at that offensive fellow from the dark house for a long time. Even if the sky falls, I will never get close to that human.

***

Wow! The brown fur human is quite skilled at grooming. My subordinate’s front paws are so inadequate that I always end up having to groom myself again… After much consideration, I decided to appoint the brown fur human as my exclusive beautician today. The human seemed very pleased when he heard my words.

It must be an honor to become the beautician of such a magnificent cat.

***

It seems my subordinate and the beautician have made up. I’m sure at first, whenever the beautician came, my subordinate would run away just like I did when I saw ‘Pig’. Now, on days when the beautician is coming, he wakes up early, grooms himself, and keeps staring at the clock.

Come to think of it, I don’t dislike the beautician either. That human has nimble front paws and, most importantly, is someone my subordinate likes. Above all, my subordinate might be a human I’ll never meet again in my cat life, and if such a subordinate doesn’t dislike him, I don’t need to be wary of that human either.

My subordinate sometimes does incomprehensible things. He does this pointless act of putting his mouth on me and then pulling away, and he sometimes does the same thing to the beautician. It seems the beautician is as important to my subordinate as I am.

Could the relationship between those humans be like the one between me and ‘Spotty’? Spotty was my only friend. Sometimes my subordinate comes back smelling of other cats, but being mature, I don’t get angry over such trivial things. I hope my subordinate now takes care of ‘Spotty’ instead of me, who has become successful.

***

“Mr. Yoon Bbosong. What have you been chattering about by yourself?”

Meow~

“Do you like it when I pet your head?”

Woaang.

“You talk a lot like your owner…”

Meow?

“…Hyung.”

“Bbosong-ah, look at him. He’s sulking again.”

“What are you doing there alone?”

“Are you leaving? Your owner is calling.”

Meow.

“Yeah, why did you call?”

“…You knew I’ve been staring at you all this time, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why do you keep playing with Bbosong only?”

“Why are you jealous of Bbosong? Are you a cat?”

“No, what jealousy…? This is really ridiculous. It’s not that, it’s just that we’re together after a long time, but you keep paying attention only to my cat. It’s like I’m invisible or something.”

That’s when it happened. When the beautician raised their head and briefly bumped their mouth against my subordinate’s before pulling away, my subordinate froze in place with their mouth wide open.

Is that… anger? No. It’s similar to an angry human’s expression, but somehow different. In contrast, the beautician was smiling with crinkled eyes. Seeing their face that looked like they were having the time of their life, it was obvious. They must be tormenting my subordinate.

Should I go and scold them? …Hmm, it’s bothersome…. Let’s just leave them be.

“Ji-gu, no matter how jealous you are of Bbosong, how could you knead the dough like this?”

“Seriously, stop changing the subject like this. How many times has this been? You promised to focus only on me on weekends. Did you forget? Are you a goldfish?”

“Should I stay over tonight?”

“…”

“Is that okay?”

“…F-fine. Do whatever you want, ahem, it’s okay. Stay… stay over.”

What’s this, have they already made up? Sometimes, it seems their relationship is good yet not good. I can’t understand how they share each other’s territory while acting like this. Humans seem to be such strange creatures.

“No! I’ll just go home without staying over.”

“What? Why again?!”

“I forgot because I’m a goldfish.”

“…”

“Why are you sulking again? What did I do right?”

Again. The hairdresser teases my subordinate with a smile. Only my subordinate’s eye muscles are twitching, and their expression is really weird. It seems like they heard something extremely insulting. What on earth are they always talking about, excluding me? It would be nice if they could speak in a way that cats could understand too.

“Ji-gu, is Bbosong looking down on us again?”

“…That’s not the issue. You’re staying over, right?”

“If you give me a kiss.”

“…?”

Suddenly, my subordinate pounced on the hairdresser as if to devour them, starting their revenge. Always being on the receiving end, now they know how to counterattack… They’ve grown up.

Leaving the two humans giggling and pressing their muzzles together, I climbed up to the high tower in the living room and looked out the window. As the sunlight shone down, my ears naturally flapped, and my eyes slowly closed. From a distance, I could hear the voices of the two humans whispering and laughing.

Today was another utterly ordinary day with nothing special.