Kaboom!
No matter how tightly the windows were shut against the winter cold, no matter how soundly he slept, there was no sleeping through a noise like that.
Gkamnyangi's eyes snapped open. Wh-what was that?
He sprang to the window like a released coil and peered outside. In that instant, another thunderous roar drove itself into his ears.
Kaboom-boom-boom!
Kaboom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!
Terror hammered at his eardrums. On pure instinct, Gkamnyangi bolted — scrambling, skidding — and fled into Lee Jun's room.
Even there he crawled under the bed, squeezed his eyes shut, clamped his front paws over his ears, and shook.
How long did he stay like that?
Suddenly a sound wormed its way into his ears.
Aeoohong!
Uaaah-uaaah-ohong!
An unfamiliar voice, and yet he knew it. It's Hoesaegi.
Urgent. Irritated.
Gkamnyangi unclamped his ears. Did some stranger break in?
That was possible. He settled on it from the strangeness of Hoesaegi's yowl — and then another thought landed. Hoesaegi's out there fighting, and I'm hiding in here!
That would not do. Even with that terrifying noise, he was out there facing the thing down.
Thinking that, Gkamnyangi crept out from under the bed, rump lifted, back-stepping, wriggling his way into the open — and Hoesaegi's cry came again.
Uaaah-uaaah-ohong!
A cry of pure desperation. It was the first time Gkamnyangi had ever heard Hoesaegi sound so frantic, so panicked, and urgency seized him.
He burst out of the room.
Sapsaree came thundering down the stairs, shouting as he ran.
"Hyungnim-ayo! This is bad, ayo! H-Hoesaegi hyungnim!"
He was gone as soon as he'd said it, tearing through the kitchen and straight out their own little door into the yard. Gkamnyangi ran after him. This is dangerous. The feeling packed into Hoesaegi's howls was all wrong.
Gkamnyangi ran with everything he had. Once outside, Sapsaree stopped in the yard and barked and barked, but Gkamnyangi leapt straight up onto the wall.
And he saw it.
Hoesaegi, writhing in a net, being stuffed into a kennel.
"H-Hoesaegi!"
He dropped from the wall — and then he heard it. Hoesaegi's scream, calling for the whole family, begging to be saved.
"H-Hoesaegi!"
Gkamnyangi ran with all his might, and as the car door was swinging shut he launched himself inside.
The man closing the door jumped.
"Wha—! Wh-what's this black thing?"
The shock lasted only a moment.
"W-wait. Isn't this Gkamnyangi?"
Anyone listening would have known he recognized the name. The man burst out laughing.
"Bwahaha! Jackpot today. I already nabbed that Hoesaegi bastard easy enough, and now this one walks right in on his own two feet."
As he spoke, he flung the same net he'd used on Hoesaegi. It wrapped around Gkamnyangi, and Gkamnyangi bared every tooth he had.
"Kyaaak!"
He thrashed. Th-this. What is this? I-I'm getting out of here!
As Gkamnyangi raged, Hoesaegi cried out sharply from the kennel.
"G-Gkamnyangi, ong! Run, ong!"
"Nngh, nngh— th-this, why won't it—?!"
Gkamnyangi kept writhing in the net, and Hoesaegi shouted again.
"J-just roll, ong. Get outside, ong! Th-this is too scary, ong. You mustn't go far, ong!"
Yap-yap-yap. Gkamnyangi jerked and twisted, trying to fight free — then his ears pricked, and the words spilled out.
"Y-you come too. We go together."
Together.
Hoesaegi was moved. So he shouted even harder.
"Th-that's why you have to go, ong. Just roll, ong. You have to get off this Moving Stone no matter what, ong."
The net wasn't the problem. If the Moving Stone — this car — started moving, something irreversible could happen.
I'm already trapped here. You at least have to run.
Hoesaegi looked at Gkamnyangi through the kennel's air holes with desperate eyes. That was the moment their gazes met.
"W-we go together."
How could I leave you and go alone!
He was still stammering the thought when a sharp tak cut the air, and the cold wind stopped. The car door had shut.
"Kyaaak!"
"Aeoook!"
Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi howled as one.
And a moment later — vroom. The car moved. As Golmokjib receded behind them, panic took them both.
"Th-this is bad, ong."
"This is bad."
Hoesaegi stamped his feet inside the kennel. Gkamnyangi paddled his paws, still wrapped in the net. Two cats in chaos.
But only for a moment. Hoesaegi recovered first.
Was he not the leader of their pack? A legendary Territory Leader, no less!
His golden eyes gleamed. He replayed the situation as it stood. I'm trapped, ong. Gkamnyangi is right here, ong. So they were both trapped in this Moving Stone. That bastard was targeting me, ong. A fact he only now understood: the one up front had been hunting them for days. That's why there were those sounds, ong, that smell, ong. The same sounds. The same smell. They belonged to that bastard.
He had been laying a trap for days, waiting for Hoesaegi to walk into it. And in the end — I fell into the trap he dug, ong. And that wasn't all. His own rashness had dragged Gkamnyangi, now suffering beside him, into the trap as well. If I hadn't cried out, Gkamnyangi wouldn't have come, ong. He'd still be rolling around at home, asleep.
Through the kennel's air holes, regret gathered in Hoesaegi's eyes as he looked at Gkamnyangi.
If he was sorry, then he just had to make it so there was nothing to be sorry for.
He clenched his jaw and thought. Moving Stones stop, ong. They might stop right away, or after a very long time, but they always stopped. He'd been riding around in cars for two years now. That was the conclusion of experience.
So when it stopped, they just had to run. But running wasn't enough. They had to go back to where Hyungnim was, where little brother Sapsaree was. We have to go home, ong. And for that, the most important thing was— We have to know the way home, ong. They must not forget the way home. Not ever.
Hoesaegi's clenched mouth opened.
"Gkamnyangi, ong."
"Y-yeah!"
Still dazed, Gkamnyangi answered.
"Let's escape, ong."
"Y-yeah. But how?"
"Listen, ong. Moving Stones stop, ong."
"R-right."
"And this will open too, ong."
Kennels opened eventually. Hoesaegi had been moved in kennels more than once or twice; he was sure of it.
"R-right."
"Then we can run, ong."
"R-right."
Gkamnyangi, still rattled, kept saying the same thing.
"Gkamnyangi, ong. We have a job, ong."
"Wh-what? Should I scratch that bastard?"
"Kyaaak!"
Gkamnyangi unsheathed his claws, and Hoesaegi gave a small shake of his head.
"No use, ong. Getting out from there is impossible, ong."
"I-is that so?"
Gkamnyangi shot him a look that was about twenty percent despair.
"We have to remember the way, ong."
"Th-the way?"
"That's right, ong. We have to go home, ong."
"H-home?"
"That's right, ong. Our house, where Hyungnim and Strong Hyungnim and Sapsaree are, ong."
Hoesaegi's words seemed to snap Gkamnyangi awake.
"R-right. We have to go h-home. Our house!"
Going home. The thought made him want it so badly he could hardly stand it. He had to.
"Gkamnyangi, ong. You're good at smelling, ong."
"Y-yeah. I'm good at smelling. So from now on, I'll remember the smells."
The rattled, flustered Gkamnyangi from a moment ago was gone. His eyes gleamed as he recited his task.
"That's right, ong. Gkamnyangi, ong, you take the smells, ong. I'll watch the road, ong."
Fortunately, the kennel Hoesaegi was in sat on the seat, so he could see outside. The driver who'd kidnapped them surely had no idea — that Hoesaegi was packing every turn of the road into his head, or that Gkamnyangi was a champion sniffer.
About thirty minutes after leaving Golmokjib, the car finally stopped.
The whole time, Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi had been wholly absorbed in their mission. They didn't cry for help. They didn't get angry. The two cats simply, silently, focused on their work.
The Kidnapper glanced back at them and smirked.
"Nice and quiet. Smart little bastards, just like I thought."
He chuckled to himself.
"Not one, but two! Jackpot. Jackpot. I can make a killing off these."
Still giggling, he threw something over the net.
"Kyaaak!"
Gkamnyangi bared his teeth and struck with his claws. But all he hit was net. Then his vision went black.
The Kidnapper had thrown a large towel over the mesh. He scooped the whole bundle up and squeezed — so tight Gkamnyangi couldn't so much as twitch. Net, towel on top, all four legs clamped so he couldn't move: Gkamnyangi was lifted dangling, unable even to resist. Hoesaegi in the kennel fared no better.
The plan — run when the car stops — burst like a soap bubble as they were hauled into a building.
Dragged inside, Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi found themselves imprisoned all over again.
"You two, stay in here!"
A space a little bigger than the kennel. A square iron cage — chrome-plated silver, a medium cage some twenty-three inches across, sixteen inches deep, and twenty inches high. The floor was white wire mesh full of holes, with a litter pan underneath, and the cage had doors on both the top and the side.
They weren't put in through the side door. They were dumped through the hole on top.
The reason was simple. To keep them from running, and to keep from getting hurt grabbing them by hand, the Kidnapper had opened the top lid and upended the kennel. Naturally Hoesaegi spilled out, and Gkamnyangi too. The man shook the net the way you'd shake something empty. Gkamnyangi hooked his claws in the mesh and thrashed, trying not to fall.
It was no use. With thick animal-handling gloves, the man flicked the paws gripping the net and dumped him through the hole.
Gkamnyangi hit the floor with a thump and glared at the Kidnapper.
"Kyaaak!"
"Aeok!"
Hoesaegi, who'd fallen first, and Gkamnyangi both hissed — but the Kidnapper strolled out as if he hadn't a care in the world.
A dim place, the only light leaking through curtains over a window. Hoesaegi let out a long sigh and lay down. His flesh pressed through the holes in the wire floor.
Gkamnyangi, still standing, sighed too and lay down right beside him. Flesh sagged through the mesh, and his right front leg and flank touched Hoesaegi's.
Oddly, his heart eased. The anxiety seemed to fade. It was the same for Hoesaegi. The moment their bodies touched, courage welled up — a vague faith that they could escape. Perhaps that was why Hoesaegi pressed closer. Gkamnyangi did the same.
They sat a little more tightly together. No — they settled into the Sikppang Position, paws tucked under like loaves of bread.
Hoesaegi spoke first.
"Gkamnyangi, ong. I'm sorry, ong."
"Sorry? For what?"
"I called for help, so you came, ong. That's why you got caught, ong."
He confessed the regret he'd felt the instant Gkamnyangi was caught.
"If I hadn't cried out, you'd be home right now, ong."
"Come on, what are you talking about? Of course you had to cry out."
Hoesaegi's eyes went round. As he stared, Gkamnyangi went on.
"If you'd just vanished without a word..."
Gkamnyangi's body shuddered. Lying in the cage, the tremor passed straight into Hoesaegi — well, they were pressed together, so of course it did. Gkamnyangi shook, and so did the cage.
Feeling the vibration together, Hoesaegi felt a warmth in his chest. It felt as if Gkamnyangi were saying he would have been so, so worried if Hoesaegi had vanished without a trace.
"Anyway, it's a good thing I came with you. Once we get out, we can go home."
"Gkamnyangi, ong. Do you have all the smells, ong?"
"Yeah. Tucked them all in here."
Gkamnyangi pointed at his own head.
"I remembered the road too, ong."
"Good. Then we just have to get out."
"That's right, ong. But Gkamnyangi, ong, Hyungnim's going to worry, ong."
"He will. Hyungnim worried a lot when he was looking for Tan."
Gkamnyangi brought up the time Tan had run away right after they moved in.
"That's right, ong. When One-eye said Jjaek had disappeared, Hyungnim worried a lot then too, ong."
"He did."
So if Hyungnim found out the two of them were gone, he would worry enormously. They dropped their eyes and pouted.
"But why did that bastard grab us?"
"I don't know, ong. Gkamnyangi, ong, do you, ong?"
"I don't kno— ah!"
Gkamnyangi's eyes sparkled as he went on.
"Maybe it's that?"
"What, ong?"
"Remember when Sapsaree looked at us all suspicious?"
"I remember, ong. When we'd eaten a lot and gotten big, ong."
The harsh diet days. Back then Sapsaree had stared at them with very strange eyes.
"That's when Sapsaree said we'd been swapped. That we weren't us — that we were some other guys. He even said Hyungnim might get swapped too."
"He did, ong. Ah!"
This time Hoesaegi's eyes sparkled.
"So that was real, ong?"
"Seems like it. He's planning to swap us out."
Hoesaegi's and Gkamnyangi's faces darkened in an instant. For a moment neither spoke — then they cried out together, urgent.