A Dragon That My Cat Brought Home - Chapter 1

Bringing a kitten or a homeless cat from the street is often called ‘Nyang-Jub.’ In other words, I ‘Nyang-Jub’ed my Baek-Ho, the cat I have adored.

I have an older sister above me, and she also likes animals, and I can’t just walk by when I see something pitiful. Ever since I was little, I would pick up stray dogs ​​or kittens that had lost their mother, and I would often get scolded by my parents. Even if my parents scolded me, they couldn’t drive out a life that had entered the house, so there were always a few pets in the house.

Baek-Ho is a cute cat that I brought with me right after graduating high school when I became independent from my parents. He is now 7 years old, so he has reached middle age for a cat, and he is an intelligent guy who understands people well.

Because we live together like this, we reached a point where we can understand each other just by looking at each other’s faces because we are family rather than pets. Like how my father fills in most of the words with ‘that’ and says, ‘there’s that, that’s what I did then, and my mother still understands perfectly.

It was the day after last year’s Korean Lunar New Year when an untimely thunderstorm accompanied by heavy rain came all night. The rain was getting lighter, but it was still raining in autumn all day long, and from about evening onwards, Baek-Ho was hanging around in front of the front door, feeling uneasy.

Baek-Ho is very gentle, polite, and has no wild side at all, so even friends who come to play say that he is like an esteemed daughter of a respectable family, but his attitude was strange that day.

Baek-Ho, who usually never goes out even if the door is open, kept meowing in front of the door that day, so I opened the door for a moment to see what was outside.

As soon as the door opened, Baek-Ho jumped out in the rain instantly. Our house has a palm-sized yard outside the door, a villa that connects directly to the alley, and it’s also on the first floor. In the blink of an eye, Baek-Ho turned the corner and disappeared.

I couldn’t even bring an umbrella because I was so frightened, and I ran out into the rain, but there was no trace of Baek-Ho. I ran around in the rain for a while, calling his name, but I couldn’t find him. I returned home, blaming myself for the carelessness of opening the door.

‘I’m sure we won’t be able to find him, but our Baek-Ho is smart, so he’ll come back home. Why did a homebody who never went out before, and a neat cat who hates even a drop of water on his body, go out when it was raining like this?’

It was strange no matter how much I thought about it, but first I changed my clothes and prepared a raincoat, boots, a long umbrella, and a flashlight. I was about to start looking for him. If I can’t find him today, I must make a flyer and post it. Occasionally, when I saw the flyers looking for dogs or cats posted on bulletin boards at veterinary clinics, I blamed the careless owners and clicked my tongue at them, but the day came when I had to post them.

The moment I left the house with a resolute determination and stepped into the rain, I ran into Baek-Ho, who was returning home drenched in the rain. Baek-Ho had something like a mouse in his mouth.

“Hey, what is that? Is it a rat? Throw it away quickly. Drop-in and come in. You’re going to have a talk with your big brother today. It almost gave me a heart attack. Where did you run out to when it’s raining?”

Instead of throwing away the mouse, Baek-Ho crept into the house with it in his mouth, put the mouse on his cushion, and started licking it.

“Hey, hey, don’t lick that. Dirty dirty, don’t touch it!”

When I got closer to take away the mouse, I saw…

It wasn’t a mouse. It was a kitten that appeared to have been newly born. It hasn’t even opened its eyes yet; it’s just a little bigger than a finger. Seeing it moving slightly, I knew it was still alive.

I hurriedly turned on the electric blanket, wrapped the kitten in a towel, tucked it into the warm side, and picked up the phone.

– Hello, is this Myung-Hoon?

“Noona! Baek-Ho went somewhere and brought back a baby cat? I don’t think it’s been long since it was born. What should I do? Are you off work right now?”

TN: Noona is the word a younger brother would call his older sister.

– I was just about to leave work. Did Baek-Ho go outside? What do you mean by a kitten? Did you not see its mother?

“Baek-Ho suddenly ran out alone and brought it from somewhere? I’m a baby that can’t even open its eyes. I didn’t see its mother.”

– Umm······. I’ll go take a look sometime soon. Keep the cat warm and wait. I’ll be going soon.

My dear older sister is the director of a veterinary hospital. She does not earn money because there are more abandoned dogs and cats without guardians than hospitalized animals in the vet, and although the hospital is small, her love for animals is as big as the sky and the earth.

I put my mind at ease when an older sister who has a lot of experience in artificially feeding dogs and cats is coming. After wiping Baek-Ho from the rain, I questioned him until my sister came, but Baek-Ho remained ignorant of my interrogation, pretending to be sleeping next to the kitten.

Less than an hour later, my sister arrived with a package of liquid colostrum, powdered milk, syringes, and artificial feeding bottles. When the older sister took the kitten out of the blanket, the cat groaned, making a sound like a chick’s cry, ‘Piii-,’ and Baek-Ho, pretending to sleep with his eyes closed, jumped up and stuck to my sister’s side.

The older sister skillfully fed the kitten with liquid colostrum in a needleless syringe. The cat seemed so small that a syringe was better than a bottle. I was afraid to touch it because it looked so small and weak, it was barely the size of a finger, but my sister handled it well.

The kitten licked its little pink tongue, like the tip of a fingernail, took quite a few drops, and ate it. Seeing as you’re eating fine, it seems you will survive.

After feeding a little colostrum, the older sister’s face as she looked at the kitten became strange. She turned her cat around and turned her face into something puzzling.

“Why, sister? Is there anything strange?”

“Myung-Hoon, get some glasses from my bag over there.”

The older sister put on her glasses and looked closely at the kitten again, and with a ghostly face, she put the cat down on the towel.

“Why are you so anxious? What’s wrong with him?”

“No, that’s not it….”

The older sister hesitated for a moment and spoke as if in disbelief.

“This kitten … doesn’t have an umbilical cord. It doesn’t have a belly button.”