"Heading out now?"
Just as Hae Dam was about to slip through the terrace door, which was always left open a few inches, a voice came from behind him. He turned to find the apartment owner, whom he'd thought was asleep, standing there watching him.
"Squeak."
"You're leaving awfully early. You'll be back tonight, right?"
"Squeak."
"Be careful out there. Watch out for cats."
Some stray cats did have nasty tempers. But unlike a domesticated ferret, a weasel—and a wild northern weasel from Siberia, at that—could easily make short work of a stray cat. Not that there was any reason to fight one in the first place.
"Squeak!"
Hae Dam raised a front paw in a reassuring gesture and headed out onto the terrace.
He climbed onto the back of a crow waiting on the railing and rode it to a quiet park some distance from the apartment building. After landing, he checked that no one was around before transforming into a human. The crow promptly nudged his crossbody bag with its beak.
"All right, all right. I'll give you some."
It hadn't been long since he'd revealed his true identity to the crow.
A week earlier, the bird had been astonished to discover that the weasel who regularly used its back for transportation was also a human. But as long as Hae Dam kept supplying high-quality mealworms, the crow apparently didn't care. It had continued giving him rides ever since.
"Here are your mealworms. Thanks, as always."
"Caw!"
The crow flew off with the mealworms in its beak. With his payment settled, Hae Dam took out his phone.
"Oh! Detective Hae Dam!"
"Long time no talk, Aeng Tam."
Aeng Tam, the parrot detective with a hundred thousand subscribers.
Naturally, Hae Dam was calling him about the missing parrot the apartment owner's brother had mentioned the previous night.
"I never thought I'd get a call from you, Detective Hae Dam. What's going on?"
"I heard a parrot went missing at some hotel. Are you handling that case, by any chance?"
"Oh my goodness, yes! I've actually been wanting to contact you, but I couldn't because of the confidentiality agreement. They threatened to charge us hundreds of millions of won in penalties if word got out. We gave them your contact information and kept pushing them to call you. I guess they finally did!"
"No, nobody contacted me. I found out by chance. I'll head straight to the hotel. Send me the location."
He hung up, and the location arrived almost immediately.
The hotel was in Yeouido.
Hae Dam passed his new requests along to other detectives and set off for Yeouido.
This is my chance to repay the apartment owner!
Throughout their month of living together, the apartment owner had behaved admirably.
At first, he'd only watched Hae Dam through the pet camera, never venturing out of his bedroom. Once Hae Dam saw the message reassuring him that he wouldn't be forced to go to the veterinary clinic, he began coming and going from the apartment whenever he pleased.
Every time he visited, there was plenty of cultivated ginseng and red ginseng waiting for him, along with another ferret toy or book about ferrets.
Lately, whenever he returned from making his rounds across the country, he would simply park his car in the garage of his own studio apartment building and head straight over to this apartment as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
At this point, calling it a visit hardly seemed accurate. He was coming home.
About ten days into their arrangement, the apartment owner, who had previously greeted him only through the pet camera, quietly emerged from his bedroom and sat beside him.
Hae Dam gazed up at him for a moment, then edged closer, pressed his rump against the man's thigh, and settled down to finish chewing his ginseng.
The apartment owner had a slender build and looked rather thin, but his thighs were surprisingly firm.
By the time two weeks had passed, Hae Dam had progressed to sitting on the man's lap, leisurely chewing his ginseng while the apartment owner cautiously stroked his back, head, and belly. Read the latest chapters at g.com.
One night, Hae Dam arrived on the terrace aboard his crow and found the apartment owner in the living room.
The man, who was always so calm and composed, took one look at Hae Dam hopping off the crow's back and strolling through the terrace door as though nothing were unusual—and spat out the water he'd been drinking.
Another incident occurred one morning as Hae Dam was leaving for work.
He gave a sharp whistle from the terrace, summoning his crow.
The bird hurried over and obligingly flattened its back for him.
Just as Hae Dam was about to climb aboard, he locked eyes with the apartment owner, who had emerged from the bathroom after a shower.
The man froze with his towel still raised to his damp hair, blinking in disbelief.
The apartment owner was always composed, calm, and quiet, but whenever he witnessed Hae Dam commuting by crow, he looked as though he simply couldn't believe his eyes.
Hae Dam found his reactions so entertaining that he made a point of whistling for the crow even though he had other ways of getting up to the apartment.
On another occasion, he'd dragged his exhausted body home only to find the apartment completely empty.
Usually, when that happened, the apartment owner would spot him through the pet camera and tilt it up and down or speak to him.
But that day, even the camera remained motionless.
Hae Dam prowled around in front of it, climbed up and down, and even attacked it with a flurry of kicks.
It took more than ten minutes before the apartment owner finally noticed him.
Whirrr.
The camera tilted to a different angle, and the man's voice came through the speaker.
"I'm going to be late today. Go to sleep without me.... Why am I even telling you this? It's not like you can understand me...."
The last part sounded more like he was talking to himself.
A few days ago, Hae Dam had even taken advantage of the apartment owner's absence to invade his bedroom.
He was sprawled on his back in the middle of the king-size bed, belly exposed, happily eating red-ginseng jelly when he heard the electronic door lock opening.
He considered hiding, but it seemed like too much trouble, so he stayed exactly where he was.
When the apartment owner discovered the tiny animal occupying his enormous bed, he didn't chase him away. Instead, he stood watching him for a moment before quietly approaching.
He sat beside Hae Dam and began petting him with great care.
Hae Dam would have preferred some vigorous rubbing and scratching, but the man's touch was so gentle and deliberate that anyone would think he was handling a weasel carved out of silken tofu.
Even after an entire month, that cautious touch hadn't changed.
Hae Dam pressed his rump against the man's palm, demanding more enthusiastic attention.
"Have you finally let your guard down?"
Finally? That's what I should be asking you.
A low chuckle reached his ears, and only then did the man's touch grow a little bolder.
He scratched vigorously beneath Hae Dam's chin and rubbed his head in little circles. He smoothed his fur in the direction it grew, gave his rump a few affectionate pats, and even kneaded his round little belly, which had grown plump from the ginseng he'd just eaten.
It reminded Hae Dam of the ginseng-gathering couple.
Our little Dam is pushing his head at us again, asking to be petted.
Looks like your hands haven't done enough, dear. It'll take a whole hour of petting to satisfy our Dam. You and I had better work on our stamina....
The weasel enjoyed being stroked for a long while before eventually falling asleep in the apartment owner's arms.
As their peculiar life together continued, Hae Dam found himself thinking:
I have to repay his kindness.
The man gave him expensive ginseng for free, bought him new toys every single day, and even provided custom-made tunnels and luxurious little hideaways. New chapters come out on novelping(.)com first.
Hae Dam was someone who always repaid both kindness and grudges.
Thoroughly.
Almost excessively so.
While he was wondering how he could possibly repay such generosity, the apartment owner's brother had told him about the missing parrot the previous night.
This was his opportunity.
Helping the apartment owner's own brother is the same as repaying the apartment owner. Because they're family!
That was how Hae Dam saw it.
Suppose he was walking down the street one day and noticed someone who was hungry, so he bought that person a roasted sweet potato.
Later, that person bought roasted sweet potatoes for the ginseng-gathering couple and declared, "There. I've repaid your kindness."
Hae Dam would have no choice but to respond, "Yep! You sure have!"
After all, seeing the ginseng-gathering couple enjoy roasted sweet potatoes would make him far happier than eating one himself.
Besides, finding missing animals happened to be his specialty.
It was fate.
And there was something else.
That parrot won't survive long in this weather.
He wasn't responsible for finding every missing pet in the world, nor was he capable of it.
But once he heard about an animal in trouble, he wanted to make sure it found its way back to its owner.
When he arrived at the hotel, he found two other animal detectives and their assistants there alongside Aeng Tam.
Hae Dam didn't recognize any of them, but they clearly knew who he was. Their expressions practically said, So that's the famous...
All of them wore hotel-issued passes bearing the hotel's logo around their necks. Their cameras were switched off, apparently because they hadn't received permission to film inside the hotel.
"Detective Hae Dam! You're here! Oh, thank goodness. We're saved. Maybe we'll finally make some progress. But how did you hear about this case?"
"I happened to hear about a sighting. How far have you gotten?"
"A sighting? Where on earth did you hear about one? Nobody's seen a thing since the first day. We haven't had a single witness since then, so how could you possibly... Well, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You really are something else, Detective Hae Dam."
Aeng Tam shook his head in amazement before continuing.
"To be honest, there hasn't been any progress to speak of. Apart from the parrot showing up on the security footage in the suite corridor on the first day, we haven't found a single trace. We were basically instructed to make sure the client sees us searching diligently, so all we've been doing is putting on a show."
Aeng Tam sighed.
"If that bird was so precious to him, he never should've brought it here in the first place. Why drag it all the way to a country so far from home?"
"Exactly. Didn't anyone around him try to stop him?"
"He probably insisted on it. He's a prince, after all. Who around him would have the nerve to give him advice?"
The other detectives nodded in agreement.
"Anyway, you'll need authorization if you want to search the hotel grounds. I'll contact the client. Secretary Yoon is always on standby at the hotel, so he should be here soon."
Aeng Tam asked him to wait a moment and picked up his phone.
While he contacted the client, the other animal detectives cautiously approached Hae Dam with a question.
"Um... Detective Hae Dam, what happens with the case fee, then...?"
"We heard you always take eighty percent... Is that going to be the case this time too...? It's just that we weren't the ones who contacted you...."