Because I Received One Too
I opened my eyes.
Ceiling. White ceiling. Sunlight slanted in through the gap in the curtains. It was morning.
My right arm felt heavy. Kong-i was holding it. Two of my fingers, apparently refusing to let go even in her sleep.
My legs were heavy too. Heukgu. As usual.
Yesterday came back to me. The pre-dawn hours. Kong-i standing by the window. Her trembling voice. Don't go.
"Kong-i."
I called her name softly.
Kong-i flinched. Her eyes fluttered open. She rubbed at them sleepily. Still half-asleep.
She looked up at me.
"Ha Yujin."
"Yeah."
"Food."
...Same as always.
"You okay?"
Kong-i tilted her head. What do you mean? Like she had no idea. Did she not remember? Or was she really fine?
Kong-i sat up. She kicked the blanket half off and looked toward the kitchen from beside me.
"Ha Yujin, food."
She said it again. Emphasizing.
"...Got it, got it."
She's fine, then.
I got up. Heukgu hopped down from my legs. He cracked one eye open, then closed it again like he couldn't care less. Just his tail wagged once.
I opened the fridge. Four eggs. A bit of rice. Half an onion.
I whipped up some simple omelet rice. Two plates.
Set them on the floor and sat. Kong-i picked up a spoon. Just one these days. Impressive progress.
Heukgu buried his face in his kibble bowl and demolished it in ten seconds flat. No growth there at all.
As we ate, I asked casually.
"Kong-i, what do you wanna do today?"
Kong-i paused mid-chew and looked up at me. Over her sunglasses. She seemed to be thinking.
"Nothing."
"For real? Nothing at all? Wanna go for a walk?"
"Nothing."
Then back to her food. Interest over.
Simple kid. Was she always like this? Well, not all children are greedy.
Heukgu was licking his empty plate. It skidded all the way to the wall. Then he looked up at my plate. Tail wagging.
"No."
It wagged harder.
Kong-i scooped a spoonful from her plate and fed it to Heukgu. He scarfed it down, tail going berserk.
That was breakfast. Just like always. Completely. Without a single gap.
So much so that I wondered if the pre-dawn thing had been a dream.
Time passed.
I did the dishes, bathed Kong-i, wiped Heukgu's paws. Morning slipped by. By lunchtime, the fridge was empty. I'd used all the eggs at breakfast.
"Let's head out."
Heukgu sprang up. Tail like a propeller. Did he understand the words, or just recognize me standing?
Kong-i grabbed my pant leg. Left hand. Right hand pushed up her sunglasses.
We stepped outside. Nice weather. A breeze blowing. Heukgu sniffed the air from my arms.
Two blocks to the convenience store. This route was familiar. I knew which house had the flowerpot out front, which shop closed on Mondays, which alley had the stray cat.
We reached the convenience store.
A guy was sitting on the bench. Short-sleeved shirt, jeans. Sunglasses. Eating triangle kimbap.
He'd been around lately. This guy. At first I thought he was a local, but every day, same time, same bench, same kimbap? That's a routine. Hobby: convenience store bench? Whatever, everyone's got their thing.
I set Heukgu down outside. He flopped onto the sidewalk blocks. Front paws stretched out, chin down. I'll wait. Pose.
"Be right back."
Tail swish once.
I took Kong-i inside. Two tuna mayo kimbap, one bulgogi lunchbox, one sausage bread. Pack of milk. Checkout.
Back outside.
Kong-i stopped.
Her hand slipped from my pant leg.
"Kong-i?"
Kong-i was staring at the bench. Her head angled right at the guy.
She's doing it again. She did this last time too. Shared her kimbap with him. Asked me to unwrap it, then took the tip and gave it back.
Kong-i walked toward the bench.
"Hey, Kong-i."
No response. Or she heard but didn't stop.
Kong-i pulled something from the convenience store bag. Triangle kimbap. Tuna mayo. Again?
Kong-i stood in front of the bench. Looked up at the guy.
Held out the kimbap.
Park Doyoung looked down at the triangle kimbap.
Again.
The danger-grade anomaly had brought him triangle kimbap again.
Still wrapped. Plastic triangle. Tuna mayo. Same as last time. Preference? Or Ha Yujin's taste, since that's all she buys. Maybe that's all it knows.
"...For me?"
He asked. Same question as last time.
Last time, it shook its head. Meant unwrap it. This time was different.
Kong-i nodded.
Just giving it. Straight up.
Park Doyoung took the kimbap. No reason not to. Well, there were about fifteen reasons, but he couldn't picture himself arguing with a kid on a convenience store bench about refusing her kimbap.
Instead, he probed gently.
"Why give it to me?"
Kong-i looked up. Her mouth moved slightly under the sunglasses. Thinking. Piecing together a sentence. Taking time.
Brief silence. Then her lips parted.
"Because Kong-i got one too."
"What?"
"Triangle kimbap."
"From who?"
"Ha Yujin!!"
Her voice had two exclamation points, easy to hear.
Park Doyoung's hand froze. Still holding the kimbap.
Kong-i was already turning back. Toward Ha Yujin. Little legs pattering. Grabbed her pant leg. Like nothing happened.
He overheard their chatter.
"Kong-i, you sure you don't know him?"
"Kong-i doesn't know!"
"...Okay, okay."
Kong-i held up the sausage bread bag.
Ha Yujin sighed and ruffled Kong-i's hair. Soon the three vanished around the corner, out of sight.
Park Doyoung looked down at the kimbap.
Tuna mayo.
The reason she gave it to him.
Because Kong-i got one too.
A predator-type anomaly sharing food because someone shared with her first.
"..."
This didn't fit any hypothesis.
Not threat or scouting. No.
Not independent action or directed contact either.
Just gave it? Not quite.
Conclusion: She received, so she gave. From the earlier report. Ha Yujin giving kimbap to the crying anomaly in the alley.
Maybe that's what she learned. This kid.
Kid.
Park Doyoung peeled the plastic off the kimbap. Quick unwrap. Took a bite. Tuna mayo.
Tasty. Was yesterday, is today. Convenience store kimbap always tastes the same, but today it felt... different.
He didn't want to analyze why, not here.
Park Doyoung returned to the office after ages.
He'd dusted four months' worth of dust, but the strata of paperwork on his desk was still mid-excavation. When last year's performance review surfaced from the bottom, he wondered if this was how archaeologists felt.
Park Doyoung shoved the papers aside and booted up the monitor.
Management Bureau integrated database. Anomaly appearance records.
Search criteria: Rank, danger-grade or higher. Type, humanoid.
Results: 107 cases. Every recorded humanoid anomaly danger-grade or above since the Bureau's founding.
Park Doyoung skimmed them. Once was enough. Perk of S-rank info processing speed.
Of 107, predator-types: 11. Not as few as he'd thought.
He opened the 11 appearance records. Location, time, surroundings, response outcome. Lengths varied. Some detailed, some just "Two A-ranks deployed, termination confirmed."
Termination.
When they kill anomalies, reports say "terminated." No "killed." Anomalies aren't creatures. Officially.
But outcomes weren't his focus now. He wanted "appearance locations."
He checked the 11 addresses one by one.
Gyeonggi Ansan, near Banwol Industrial Complex residential area. 2019.
Seoul Guro, Garibong-dong multi-family housing cluster. 2015.
Busan Saha, lower alleys of Gamcheon Culture Village. 2021.
Daegu Seo-gu, scheduled demolition single-family home zone. 2017.
Addresses alone showed no pattern. Scattered nationwide, no regional links, times all over.
Of course, Park Doyoung didn't stop there.
Searched each address. Not Bureau DB—general portals. News, local communities, real estate history.
First: Gyeonggi Ansan. Site made news in 2018 for child abuse. Kid to hospital, parents jailed. Anomaly next year.
Second: Seoul Guro. 2014, lone elderly found dead in the multi-family building. Est. two weeks postmortem. No one knew. Anomaly six months later.
Third: Busan Saha. Alley-end abandoned house, multiple stray dog corpses found. Animal rights group reported, perp not prosecuted. Anomaly that winter.
Fourth.
Fifth.
Sixth.
Park Doyoung's hands slowed.
From the seventh, he could guess. But he had to check. Analyst. No gut conclusions.
Confirmed all eleven.
9 of 11.
Pre-anomaly at appearance sites: significant incidents. Abuse. Neglect. Abandonment. Accidents. Solitary death. Forms varied, but one common thread.
Someone suffered.
There. Right there.
And soon after the suffering ended, the anomaly appeared.
Park Doyoung leaned back in his chair.
Could be coincidence. 11 isn't statistically significant. 9 correlations don't prove causation. Those areas are rundown housing—high incident rates, so overlaps natural.
Could interpret that way.
A normal analyst would.
Park Doyoung paused over the keyboard, thinking.
Pre-dawn sensation resurfaced. The chill, loneliness brushing from the danger-grade's mana. Didn't want to name it, but his body remembered.
And today, convenience store front.
Because Kong-i got one too.
Ha Yujin!!
Predator sharing prey. Because she received. Returning what someone gave her. Can anomalies learn that? Precedents in DB?
None.
Of 11 danger-grade+ humanoid predators, only Kong-i showed non-hostile interaction with humans.
Only.
Park Doyoung disliked "only." No comparisons, no analysis.
Still, something surfaced.
New DB search: "emotional residue hypothesis."
One result.
Academic report. 16 years ago. Author: Yoon Seok-hwan. Then: Bureau Research-Analysis Dept. Now: retired.
16 years back—Bureau early days. Anomalies ramping up. Grading system shaky, response over research.
Opened the report.
Not long. Twelve A4 pages. Short for academic. Rejected draft. Status: "Returned." Reason: unprovable.
Gist:
Analysis of appearance points: statistically significant prior intense negative emotion events. Anomalies may not be external invaders—could be real-world emotions condensing via mana into form.
Emotion condensation.
Yoon called it "emotional crystallization." Like supersaturated solution forming crystals: negative emotions accumulate at a spot, hit threshold, bind with mana, take physical form.
Beautiful theory. Minus proof.
Last page: Yoon's handwritten memo. Scanned fuzzy, but legible.
If anomalies aren't monsters, what are we killing?
Park Doyoung's gaze stuck there.
Lingered.
One line. Written 16 years ago by someone, unread. Buried under rejection stamp.
Park Doyoung shut off the monitor.
Leaned back, stared at the ceiling.
Kong-i.
Danger-grade predator. Humanoid. Elementary-school-girl appearance. Absorbs life force from approaching lifeforms.
Mana read: cold, lonely.
Appearance point: Seoul suburbs, one-room alley.
What happened there before?
Who cried there?
Who was abandoned there?
Park Doyoung reached for his phone, then stopped. Could search. Alley incident history. Police records. News.
Didn't.
Whatever it was, knowing would ruin how he saw anomalies before.
Before.
Yeah, the last 13 years.
Anomalies to terminate. One line in report, done.
Easier that way. Right that way. Had to be.