Let’s think about this calmly.
To the ordinary and special entities inside an anomaly, I’m a cockroach that came in from outside. When people see a cockroach, they usually freak out and do their best to exterminate it. That’s the natural reaction. Even normal people put up part-time job listings on Karrot for someone to come kill cockroaches when they think they can’t catch one themselves.
But in my case, I’m a talking cockroach. I mean I’m in the same situation as Gregor from Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. If Mr. Gregor showed up in your house? Even I’d treat him like a guest. When you can communicate with something, killing it on sight feels a little off.
{I always wanted? to have a fa mily.}
“Oh. I see.”
{I tried to raise? a pu ppy, but every time, it died.}
“It’s not easy to keep a dog in an apartment in the first place.”
{Are you a breed that can be raised?}
Asking about “the caretaker” had been my mistake. I’d tried to escape the anomaly a little more comfortably, and apparently I’d touched something I shouldn’t have in the resident of Unit 201.
Honestly, this was Dore’s fault. The rules sheet only said to run no matter what if I encountered the resident of Unit 201, so there was nothing in there about whether this thing wanted to keep a dog, or whether it snapped the second someone said they wanted to meet “the caretaker.”
Did they scout me just so they could update the rules sheet?
{Can I raise you?}
While I was thinking about Dore’s real objective, the resident of Unit 201’s face changed from a triangle back into a circle. Judging from how lopsided the circle looked, there was no telling when it might turn back into a triangle again.
Even if I made a run for it here, the resident of Unit 201, with all those arms, would catch me immediately. Each arm was at least twice as long as a normal human arm, so the moment I showed any sign of trying to bolt, it would definitely grab me by the scruff.
“Well, to answer your question first. I’m not a breed that can be raised.”
{Why? Why? Why?}
“Because I’m a fucking rare species.”
{Fuc—king rare?}
“Think about it. You’ve never seen anything like me before, right?”
{.......}
“That’s proof I’m a fucking rare species.”
I didn’t know the details, but considering both Dore and the Anomaly Control Department had gone insane trying to recruit me, I probably really was some fucking rare existence. I just had no idea why.
“So if you want to raise me, first you need permission from the state, and it takes an incredible amount of money. And there’s something else you need to know. If you want to keep a companion animal, you need training first, right? Adopting one just because you feel like you want one? That’s abuse. Abuse.”
{A buse? That can’t be....}
As I rambled on, the resident of Unit 201’s face turned back into a triangle. Judging from the way that triangular face trembled, it seemed to be recalling how all the puppies it had brought home had died. Though whether the things the resident of Unit 201 had brought in were actually puppies or not, I couldn’t say....
“And if you forcibly detain and keep something that can express its own will, like me? That’s illegal. Sure, you’d be happy at first, thinking you finally had a family! You wouldn’t be lonely! But what happens when you get attached and then get caught keeping me illegally? I’d be confiscated immediately. Is that what you want?”
{N-no....}
“That’s why you can’t raise me. Got it?”
Amazingly enough, the resident of Unit 201 seemed to accept what I said.
If you keep a rare animal without a permit, do animal organizations actually come confiscate it? I had no idea about the specifics either. My family had never kept even an ordinary dog or cat, let alone a rare animal. According to my father, you never knew what might cross over by borrowing an animal’s body, so we had to stay as far away from animals as possible.
“Anyway, thanks for the tea.”
{Are you lea ving already?}
“You shouldn’t impose on someone else’s home for too long.”
{Are you leaving already? Are you leaving already? Are you leaving already?}
“If fate permits it and the opportunity comes, I’ll visit again.”
{You’re lea ving already... really?}
“If fate permits it and the opportunity comes.”
I decide my own fate. Which means I’m never visiting Unit 201 of Baekju Apartments again. Fate didn’t permit it.
But the resident of Unit 201, not knowing that, was fooled by my talk of meeting again and obediently opened the front door for me. Other people were risking their lives trying to escape Unit 201, and I was strolling out gracefully under the owner’s escort.
{Please come a gain next time.}
“Sure. If fate permits it, let’s definitely meet again.”
{This is a gift for your visit.}
Maybe it had once been deeply moved by The Giving Tree as a child, because with its face turned oval, the resident of Unit 201 held out a black plastic bag to me.
{It’s nothing much, but eat it when you’re hungry!}
The black plastic bag I accepted was heavy.
Instead of checking inside it right away, I thanked the resident of Unit 201 first. I hadn’t looked closely yet, but I was certain that the moment I did, I wouldn’t be able to keep my composure.
My instincts were unexpectedly accurate. Inside the black plastic bag were no less than thirteen human teeth. There was also a human hand with about two fingers missing.
I turned my head away immediately so I wouldn’t throw up. Remembering Lee Jaeyoung, who had written that with no teeth left they hadn’t been able to chew up and swallow the rules sheet, I couldn’t bring myself to just throw the black plastic bag away.
***
Baekju Apartments, which had been demolished in 1991, hadn’t really been demolished so much as collapsed.
Back then, it had been common for apartment buildings to be slapped together in a rush just to meet their scheduled move-in dates, and even those sloppy construction jobs were often subcontracted, then subcontracted again, then subcontracted again.
The complex had gone up in a matter of months, and more than several dozen households had moved into apartments that had never even undergone a building safety inspection. Seoul had already been overcrowded relative to its land area in 1991, and Baekju Apartments, which was cheap despite being close to a station, had been unbelievably popular.
Construction experts had clicked their tongues and called Baekju Apartments dangerous, but even so, the place had held out for a surprisingly long time. That was because residents who had nowhere else to go kept doing their own repairs, even as the walls cracked and the ground shifted.
But as a result of all those self-repairs meant to keep living there just a little longer, one whole building in the complex collapsed completely. Naturally, the shoddy construction born of that parade of subcontracting finally came to light, and after paying the remaining residents a set amount in compensation, the state tore down the entire Baekju Apartments complex.
That was everything I knew about Baekju Apartments.
Unlike Dowon High School, I’d actually picked up a few things about Baekju Apartments here and there. For one thing, the name of the apartment complex newly built on the site—Tricent Ityllazium—had once been a subject of public mockery. And there had also been a widely reported case where an apartment caretaker working there killed himself after failing to endure the outrageous behavior of the residents.
With the black plastic bag in one hand, I stepped outside the apartment building. Thankfully, there was nothing unusual on the stairs leading from the second floor down to the first. I didn’t see any sign of the ordinary entities the rules sheet had warned about, either.
The moment I stepped outside the building, a thick fog spread out before me and blocked my view. I’d been planning to look for the management office to find “the caretaker,” but I couldn’t see a thing, so I had no choice but to go back inside the building.
Walking around through that fog is basically suicide, right? The rules sheet hadn’t properly said anything about the fog outside the apartment building, either. Just like the cafeteria or the school store at Dowon High School, it was obvious no one had ever gone there, or they had and then died, so there was nothing written down.
I was standing there, trying to figure out where on earth I was supposed to find “the caretaker,” when something large and black came squirming toward me through the fog.
I spun around to run immediately, but as if it had noticed I was about to bolt, the black thing suddenly barked loudly.
{It’s me!}
The black thing that rushed up to me in an instant was a large dog with pitch-black fur. For a dog, its bark sounded oddly like human speech, but after everything I’d been through inside anomalies, a dog talking like a person wasn’t all that surprising. They say even a dog at a village school can learn to recite poetry after three years, so a dog here being able to talk a little like a human was nothing special.
I narrowed my eyes, wondering if this was the dog the resident of Unit 201 had wanted to keep. It had said every dog it tried to keep had died, but this black dog was sleek and glossy all over.
{I’m “Minsu.”}
“Huh?”
It really was good at barking nonsense like a dog....
{Did you come to see me?}
“Why are you a dog?”
{I’m busy, so I couldn’t come in my main body. I’m in the middle of teacher recruitment right now.}
“Oh. I see.”
{I’m trying to hire a new cafeteria cook too.}
“You can’t force people who say they don’t want the job.”
{They all said they were fine with it.}
“You probably just kept asking until they said they were fine....”
The black dog lunged at me all at once. I couldn’t handle the weight and fell flat onto the ground, and as a bonus, it climbed on top of me and started licking me all over with its wet tongue.
{Did you come to see me?}
Pinned under a black dog that had to weigh God knew how many kilos, my whole face was soaked. If he’d come in human form, I could’ve at least shoved him away, but now that he’d shown up as a dog, it was hard to be too harsh.
{Did you come to see me? Did you come to see me? Did you come to see me?}
“Ah, stop! Stop licking me! I got it!”
{I’m so happy!}
“I said I get it, so get off me for a second. Why is a dog this heavy? I feel like I’m getting crushed to death....”
I wanted to drag “Minsu” straight to the resident of Unit 201 and show off the dog immediately, but I only had one life, so I decided not to get carried away.