He reached the thirtieth floor and landed on the terrace connected to the living room. The terrace door was closed, but it wasn't locked.
This guy has no idea how dangerous the world is!
The large-billed crow flew off, and Hae Dam broke into the empty apartment.
The moment he spotted the liquor display cabinet, all reason deserted him. Hunger was an instinct, a desperate will to survive. Only after feeding his screaming stomach half a packet of red-ginseng jelly and three cultivated ginseng roots did he finally regain his senses.
Hae Dam transformed into a human. As he carefully cleaned up every trace of his meal, he tried to justify what he'd done.
It's not like anyone eats the ginseng roots from old infused liquor anyway.... They were just going to throw them out eventually. I only saved them the trouble....
But that didn't change the fact that he'd stolen and eaten the owner's property twice now.
"I need to repay him."
He went into the kitchen, but it was spotless, without a single dirty dish. He ran a finger along the gap in the terrace window and found not a speck of dust. The clothes in the dressing room were arranged neatly.
The bedroom, larger than Hae Dam's entire home, contained nothing more than a king-size bed, a small bedside table, a phone charger, a lamp, and a single abstract painting to fill the otherwise bare wall.
Even the painting was strangely desolate, consisting of nothing but a single black diagonal line.
There were two other rooms. One was a study containing a laptop, a desktop computer, and shelves packed with university textbooks. The other was completely empty.
Literally nothing was in it.
The apartment owner was preparing to emigrate. His determination to leave was so firm that he hadn't bothered filling his home with furniture or possessions.
But Hae Dam couldn't help thinking something else.
Even if he weren't planning to emigrate, I think this place would still feel just as lonely.
Even if he'd decided to spend the rest of his life here, I think it would still be this empty.
They had met only once, yet the loneliness dwelling in those cool, distant eyes had left an indelible impression.
And now Hae Dam was curious.
He had more than enough reasons to be lonely.
But what reasons did the apartment owner have...?
"Why... didn't he throw this away?"
He spotted his temporary home on the sofa.
When he slipped a hand through a hole in the cardboard box, he was astonished to feel a warm heat pack inside. Four days had passed, so there was no way the original could still be giving off heat. The owner must have put a fresh one in that morning.
He must think the ferret ran away. So why would he go this far...?
Orange light shimmered across the top of the box.
Hae Dam suddenly raised his head.
Outside, the sun was setting.
The glow spreading across the sky bathed everything in shades of vermilion. Orange light settled over the glittering ripples of the Han River, the cars crossing the bridge, the branches trembling in the bitter winter cold, and the black feathers of the yawning crow waiting outside.
Sunsets always made Hae Dam feel warm.
It was strange, considering that sunset marked the end of the day, when the world lost its gentle sunlight and gave way to a night ruled by the cold moon.
Perhaps it was because everyone was equal beneath a sunset.
Watching one made him unbearably wistful, and once the colors faded, the night seemed lonelier than before.
But at least for those fleeting moments, no one could escape being painted the same shade of vermilion.
Even someone as different as me, someone unlike anyone else in the world, takes on the same color as everyone else beneath the setting sun.
The apartment owner must sometimes sit in this desolate living room and watch the sunset, too.
What does he think about when he does?
Could he be thinking the same things I do?
That for this one moment, it's all right not to feel lonely....
Things like that.
Hae Dam thought the owner of this apartment ought to live with a little discomfort. His surroundings ought to feel unfamiliar, even awkward.
Because finding comfort in loneliness...
That was an unbearably lonely way to live.
Hae Dam returned to his daily routine.
He checked the emails that poured in several times a day, traveled across the country rescuing missing animals, and curled up to sleep on an old pillow in the back seat of his car.
But one thing had changed.
Whenever hunger struck, he visited that apartment.
It was a weekday afternoon. The terrace door stood slightly ajar, and no one was home. He ate a packet of red-ginseng jelly and three cultivated ginseng roots before leaving.
His next visit came four days later.
Once again, it was a weekday afternoon. This time, he ate a packet of red-ginseng jelly and two cultivated ginseng roots. He also found some ginseng confections that hadn't been there before, so he took five pieces with him.
Five days after that, he returned to discover no fewer than five boxes of sliced ginseng confections.
They were from a premium brand he particularly liked, so he emptied an entire box.
The high-quality ginseng kept him full for so long that a whole week passed before his next visit.
This time, there was ginseng scattered all over the table!
He hadn't had the energy to do much of anything, but the sight sent him bouncing with excitement.
The roots were perfectly fresh, as though they'd just been dug up. They still had soil clinging to them, promising plenty of saponins, and they looked absolutely delicious.
He wanted to take every last one, but his conscience prevailed, and he stole only a single root.
He would have liked to repay the owner by secretly doing some housework, but the apartment was still so clean and empty that there was nothing for him to do.
The ferret's temporary home was still on the sofa.
Hae Dam took the heat pack out of the box, flipped the cushion over, and made a few other little changes to create the impression that the ferret had been coming and going.
Then he left.
Between racing around the country, sneaking into the apartment to steal ginseng, and racing around the country again, an entire month slipped by.
He welcomed the New Year while wandering the streets at night in search of a missing animal.
He didn't particularly feel as though he'd turned twenty-three. All he could think about was finding the cat wandering outside in the freezing cold and returning it to its owner's arms as quickly as possible.
The following day, hunger drove him back to Seoul.
The apartment was always empty on weekday afternoons, but he had the crow check once more just to be safe. Then he climbed onto its back and entered through the terrace.
That was how things had gone for the entire month.
Nothing had happened. He'd never encountered anyone, and every visit had ended with him stealing some ginseng and making a clean escape.
Squeak!
Wow... Oh my goodness!
His eyes widened at the sight of the ginseng spread across the living room table like a buffet.
The table had been lavishly stocked the previous week, so he'd entered with high expectations, but this exceeded even those.
There were roots still covered in soil, as though freshly harvested, roots with numerous branching offshoots, roots shaped almost perfectly like human figures, and roots with wonderfully plump bodies.
He put all this out for me to eat, didn't he?
By this point, it was impossible not to realize what was going on.
The owner clearly believed that a ginseng-stealing ferret was secretly living somewhere inside his apartment.
He was half right.
Hae Dam wasn't living there in secret. He was simply breaking in whenever he pleased.
He saw no reason to refuse a buffet laid out especially for him.
He plopped down, grasped a root in each of his front paws, and began munching away.
Ah, that's better. I feel alive again.
Vitality spread through his entire body. His pulse throbbed, and the blood that had seemed to pool at the crown of his head began circulating through every limb.
Just as someone who had gone hungry all day might feel a tingling rush from a single piece of candy, Hae Dam experienced a similar thrill whenever he finally ate ginseng after a day of starvation.
It's so delicious.
And yet...
It tastes awful.
The truth was, ginseng didn't taste good.
He ate it because it was the only thing he could eat, not because he enjoyed the flavor.
Of course, processed treats like jelly and candied ginseng were delicious.
He was still chewing his way through a fresh root and filling his stomach when—
He heard the electronic door lock's keypad.
The weasel sprang into the air.
Why is someone opening the door in the middle of a weekday?!
The apartment was so well soundproofed that he hadn't sensed anyone approaching from outside.
The owner appeared, removing his winter coat.
"......"
He had entered quietly, only to discover a white weasel sprawled across his living room table, enthusiastically chewing on ginseng.
A root protruded from the creature's mouth, then promptly disappeared inside.
The owner slowly finished removing his coat and placed it in the garment-care cabinet.
He calmly slipped off his backpack and put it in the dressing room.
Then he went into the bathroom, washed his hands thoroughly, and walked quietly toward the table.
"Were you eating? Go ahead. Eat as much as you want."
The owner was so composed that Hae Dam almost felt as though they'd arranged to meet here at this exact time.
The young man sat down on the floor in front of the table.
A sudden draft of cold air swept over Hae Dam.
"Where on earth have you been hiding? It's not like there are any places to hide in this apartment...."
Squeak....
Normally, Hae Dam made loud, shrill chattering noises, but whenever he needed to be charming, he could produce the sweetest little squeaks.
"If the ginseng hadn't kept disappearing, I wouldn't even have known you were still here."
Squeeeak.
Hae Dam watched quietly as the owner raised his large hand and slowly reached toward him.
Then the hand closed firmly around his body.
"You're cold. Almost like you've just come in from outside."
The low voice sent a shiver down Hae Dam's spine.
He pretended not to understand and continued chewing the ginseng in his mouth.
But the owner suddenly stood up, still holding the weasel.
"Time to go to the clinic."
He strode straight into the dressing room.
When he opened a wardrobe, there sat a pet carrier that was unmistakably brand-new.
The owner tried to put Hae Dam inside.
Skree! Hiss!
Realizing he'd been tricked, Hae Dam began struggling desperately.
"Hold still.... You're going to hurt yourself."
Hiss!
"You're really skinny. I can feel your bones."
Skree!
"I just want to make sure you're not sick. I asked the vet, and he said he'd never heard of a ferret eating something like ginseng before...."
HISSS!
If he drags me to the veterinary clinic like this, word will spread about a mysterious ferret that eats ginseng! Then I'll end up on GemTube and television, and experts will discover that I'm actually a northern weasel!
They'll send me to an animal shelter, and then I'll be forcibly relocated to Siberia, the homeland of northern weasels!
Fine, let's say I manage to survive over there. How am I supposed to get back to South Korea?!
I'd have to transform into a human to get past animal quarantine, but what about my passport? My money?!
And even if they don't send me to Siberia, I'll still be in trouble!
What if someone catches me transforming into a human at an animal shelter with surveillance cameras running twenty-four hours a day?!
If the world finds out there's a creature that can switch between a weasel and a human, NASA or the FBI will immediately start hunting me down! Or some evil organization that controls the criminal underworld will capture me and drag me off to a shady research laboratory, where they'll torture me and experiment on me until I die!
And they won't even leave my corpse alone!
My flesh, my cerebrospinal fluid, my bones... They'll collect and experiment on every last part of me! They won't leave behind so much as a single drop of blood...!