The Dopamine Threshold

It was one of those days that made me realize, yet again, just how exhausting the simple act of leaving work could be. I set the shopping bag of clothes and my bag down on the floor of my room and flopped onto my back right then and there.

What a day.

No trip down memory lane required — everything I'd been through today had been one unbroken string of insane moments. Getting tangled up in an underground dungeon with a wanted criminal was bad enough, but to think I'd even had my brush with the celebrity life, of all things. And the sight of me covering my face on the way home so nobody would recognize me... even I found it embarrassing. Then again, I could only afford such reflections because I was still alive.

I closed my eyes and let out a long, slow breath, and little by little I felt the tension that had locked up my entire body begin to unwind.

Is working life supposed to be this hard?

None of it mattered — I wanted to keep marinating in these idle thoughts and drift straight off to sleep. But my modest little wish burst like a bubble when an uninvited someone made their entrance.

"Hewwo?"

Every hair on my body stood on end. Forgetting my exhaustion entirely, I shot upright at reflex speed.

"Sleepy?"

Hell no.

I swallowed past the dryness in my throat. Only after turning the words over several times could I bring myself to speak.

"No. Sleep is the very last thing on my mind right now."

Sleeping was a lost cause, full stop. The moment this thing had appeared, that much was as good as decided. I did my best to maintain the calmest demeanor I could manage; thanks to the comfort my own home afforded, at least, I didn't spiral into panic the way I had in the cave.

"Then let's play. You said you'd play with me."

Mmm. As I focused on the voice humming in my ear and weighed my answer, a thought suddenly struck me.

Wait... why can't I see the hand?

I scanned the room, but the form I'd seen in the cave was nowhere to be found. Just in case, I checked the puppy doll hanging from my bag, but nothing about it seemed any different...

What the...?

"It appears I can't see you."

I could only hope it would take that as a polite way of saying, I can't see you, so how exactly am I supposed to play with you?

"Oh? You want to see me?"

That was absolutely not it. I was merely curious.

But the thing apparently didn't see it that way, because it sprang into action at once.

"Don't turn around."

No sooner had the words landed than a rustling sound rose from the bag I'd set down behind me. Sunlight slanting in through the window threw the shadowy figure onto the wall.

Rrrip. I heard stitching tear, and a moment later a black mass came crawling out of the puppy's shadow. It might have been a snake gliding leisurely across the floor, or flowing water.

Only when a chill slid across the small of my back did I realize the thing had attached itself to me.

That gives me the creeps.

As I fought not to be swallowed by that unknowable sensation, a tug at my hair made me tilt my head back slightly.

"Hah..."

There it was at last, above my head. Or, to be exact, the black hand playing with my hair.

...It's shrunk quite a bit, hasn't it?

It was nothing like the intimidating size I'd seen in the cave. If I had to force an analogy, it felt like something that had once registered as house-sized had shrunk down to a single door. Gauging it against the tablet lying nearby, it looked to be roughly palm-sized.

"What would you like to play?"

"But, why..."

"'Would that be agreeable?' 'No. Sleep is the very last thing on my mind right now.' 'What would you like to play?'"

"You don't seem like a friend."

At the thing's flawless imitation of my own voice, goosebumps raced up both arms in an instant. But for all the way it had startled me, the intent behind the question was utterly innocent.

So I hadn't imagined it. This thing is on exactly the same level as our kids.

Feeling that truth sink into my skin once more, my brain — unlike my rebellious body — entered a calmer lull. I nodded and gave it the answer it was looking for.

"...Then, how about this?"

Its phrasing was awkward, but the intent was unmistakable: why did I keep using such stiff, over-the-top honorifics? I'd blurted out the word friend and it had saved my very life, hadn't it? So fear aside, if I wanted to go on living, I had to drop the formalities with this thing.

But I decided not to stop there. I would go one step further.

"Nabi."

Haha. Truly not something I could have done in my right mind.

"Now we're like friends."

Is that so. ...Well, if it kept the thing happy, then all's well that ended well. Please, do hold on to that feeling for a long, long time — and forgive me the occasional slip-up.

"Bored. Play with me."

With the matter of forms of address settled, we seemed to be back to the business at hand. I regarded with some displeasure the hand still twirling my hair this way and that — no... at Nabi.

I'd better start thinking of it as Nabi, too. Who knew what it would do if I slipped up out loud.

"'Then I'm more fun. There's a lot I can do. I can sing children's songs, tell stories, and I even know a few funny jokes.'"

Talk about a merciless rush job.

Determined to live up to its expectations, I chose to put my brain diligently to work.

How exactly was I supposed to entertain our friend Nabi — some unidentified thing that was neither human nor monster?

Needless to say, I had zero intention of revealing this friend's identity to anyone and asking them to help entertain it or pry it off me. ...And for good reason: the thing hadn't exactly been hiding its existence since the emergency center. That was the very reason I'd hurried home.

Our friend Nabi had been chattering away at me steadily ever since my conversation with the two team leaders. Like so:

"Wow. What's that?"

"Cleared? What's 'cleared'?"

"Why? Why?"

"Going home now?"

"Bored. I'm bored."

It kept piping up in that curiosity-soaked voice, and I'd sweated buckets pretending not to hear. Wondering if I was wrong, I'd even asked Lee Gyeon and Moon Chaeyoung whether they could hear anything.

"It seems there is some commotion outside."

"What noise?"

...Those were the perfectly normal responses I got. At last, I reached my conclusion right then and there.

This truth goes with me to the grave.

I could hardly point at the puppy keyring on my bag and announce, "You can't hear that? An insane monster keeps telling me it's bored!" like some delusional patient. I had no desire to fan the flames of my already overgrown reputation — and above all, I was terrified of what this thing might do next, chattering at me in real time as it was. Quietly figuring out how to shake it off on my own simply felt more realistic.

Which meant, in the end, that I had to deal with this thing alone... Judging by Nabi's speech patterns, its mental age sat somewhere around four to seven. But could an unknown entity like this really find the same things interesting and fun as ordinary children did?

So in truth, my approach had been decided from the very start: the only method that could both steadily feed the thing's curiosity and buy me time to be rid of it.

...And that was to raise its dopamine threshold very, very slowly.

Play with it too entertainingly right out of the gate? It would get bored at a frightening speed — and then next time, and the time after that, it was bound to demand something ever more extreme.

What if it eventually asked to play Russian roulette with random passersby?

Let's not forget: that thing's alias was "aka. Eternal Rest Means Death and Nothing Else!" ...So I resolved to handle the creature by managing that dopamine threshold with great care.

Right. Let's give it a try.

For today, then... that one should do the trick.

"Alright, Nabi. Shall we play a little guessing game with these?" I hoisted the bag brimming with Manager Lee Wonwoo's gifts and called out with gusto. Ah, it felt like clocking out only to clock right back in.

From the bag, I fished out a cylindrical spray can my hand had happened on. Aluminum-built, apparently, because it was light enough to hold comfortably in one hand.

Reading the disposal reason on the tag beneath the product name, I could feel the fury radiating off the page.

Then again, the very idea of extracting a plant-type Awakener's wavelength to build a hair tonic was impressive in its own right.

I let it slide with a flat, unimpressed look and held the can up toward our friend Nabi.

"Now, what do you suppose this is for?"

The hand twirling my hair slowed its pace. It seemed to be deliberating in earnest.

"Dunno."

"And what did you see along the roadside on my way home today?"

"Humans, buildings, cars, cats, flowers."

Oh? Decent powers of observation. And conveniently, every answer was an easy one to build on.

"Right — this is mainly used on creatures with fur. Humans, cats, that sort of thing."

"Why?"

"Figuring that out is your job, Nabi." By now it was thoroughly mussing up my hair.

"On the way home, what were people's heads like? Were they all the same?" There — a hint, as promised.

"No — some long, some short, some pink, some yellow."

"Exactly. Nabi, your observation skills are amazing~" One compliment to stoke its motivation.

"Which head did you like best, Nabi?" One more question, chained to the answer.

"I liked the long, swishy pink hair."

"Oh, you liked that hair too? There's something called dyeing — a treatment that colors your hair. Do that, and it's easy to get."

"Dye? Wow. You do it too."

"Hmm, well, dyeing's easy enough, but growing hair takes time. And you said you liked long, swishy pink hair, remember?"

"Really? Why? Can't hair grow fast?"

"Yeah, it takes a long, long time for hair to get as long as you want it. And... sometimes when humans get older, their body hair and head hair stop growing altogether."

"...Why? Really? Then what do I do?" The chattering voice sank several degrees.

"You... you're not growing anymore either?" No? I was hardly at that age yet.

"What do I do? The hair has to grow." The hand that had been ruffling my hair settled down gently and began stroking the crown of my head — an exceedingly tender touch, like planting a seed in the earth and covering it with soil.

I decided to cut the scene there. Timing is everything in a guessing game: drag it out, and children get bored fast and drop out. Stimulation and pace are essential for capturing those short attention spans.

This one's attention span didn't look great either, and it was already starting to look bored.

And yet Nabi showed no sign of stumbling onto the answer. By this point, you might think a bored-and-annoyed Nabi could simply send me off to eternal rest... The scary part was that the idea wasn't entirely implausible.

But in fact, I needn't have worried at all.

I never expected it to guess right in the first place.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

So what did I do? Simple. I just told it myself.

"But spray this, and even fur and hair that seemed done growing forever will grow again!" The game was guessing, not guessing right, so it didn't matter a bit if my opponent got it wrong. Right or wrong, either way ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was fine — as long as the process delivered a little discovery and a little fun, the game had done its job. Just like this.

I rolled up the newspaper sitting on top of the wardrobe, wedged it into the tonic's nozzle, and spritzed it over the plant hanging by the window.

Psshhhhhh.

My brother bought that and hung it up, I believe. A tillandsia, was it?

"We ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠call this a hair tonic. And this tonic is special — unlike other hair tonics, it can make plants grow too, not just fur or hair." I just needed to get across the general sense of it grows and it makes things grow.

After five quiet seconds, the plant changed. The leaves that had been wiggling lazily began growing toward the floor at a mad pace.

Hold on — this is growing way too much.

"Wow." It blanketed the entire floor and made a beeline for the gap under my bed; I blocked it in a hurry, but to little effect. Delighted laughter rang beside my ear.

Dramatic displays really are just kids' taste. But what was I going to do about the cleanup?

Regardless, watching Nabi gleefully hoisting my hair up and down... a very small satisfaction bloomed in me. To think the day would come when making a monster laugh would leave me satisfied. Live long enough, you truly see everything.

"See? Just like the plant grew in an instant, it works the same on human fur or hair."

"Spray you too! Let's grow your hair!" Uh, no. That was going too far. I'd gone so far as to sacrifice the plant my brother had bought as a gift just for the demonstration.

I eyed the stems that had claimed my floor with distaste... then snatched the bag back up and shook its contents out onto the floor. Left to its own devices, that thing looked ready to spray me directly on the head.

"I'll grow mine the natural way! Shall we guess the next one?"

As the items spilled across the floor, the scrapped prototypes I'd stashed away without a proper look — given the circumstances — revealed themselves one by one under the bright fluorescent light. There were things like this? Mixed in with the products I'd seen sketched in the meeting room were a few I'd never laid eyes on. I crouched down and ran my eyes quickly over ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the tag names on each.

This was the one Kang Sagwa had taken a shine to.

If it had no side effects, it would earn its keep nicely on field trips and the like.

And what was this one? Shaped like an MP3 player. Cute as it looked, its tag was the longest of any scrapped product there.

The faded light-blue walkie-talkie looked like a toy at first glance; above the speaker on the handle sat four yellow dial buttons. I'd have to read the usage instructions properly when I had time.

Which made this the last one, then... and of everything so far, the most unsettling.

The name sounded cartoonish enough to lower your guard, but its looks were anything but. It looks exactly like a real revolver. A gun. An actual gun.

I swung open the cylinder to check the rounds. Oh — six of them. The shape, the structure, the round count — everything said real. And yet it was no real gun. For good reason: the rounds in the cylinder looked nothing like any I knew. This wasn't a case of easy confusion.

...Cherry tomatoes.

I fished out one of the cherry-tomato-shaped rounds and squeezed it — plastic, by the feel. Held up under the fluorescent light, I could see liquid sloshing inside. Man, whose idea was this?

"Yeah, I can see why they scrapped this one."

Every last one of them looked utterly unhinged. I sighed, grabbed the least alarming of the lot — the S-class Luminous Lightsaber — and called out.

"Nabi?"

But here's the thing... why no answer? No — wait. When had it gone quiet? Nabi's presence had vanished from my room-turned-jungle. Not that that was any cause for celebration.

The door's open?

I scrambled through the half-open door and out into the living room. On the TV, an ad was playing to a familiar melody.

"......"

I approached the living room sofa slowly. Sitting on it, facing the TV, was a small dog with soft, fluffy white fur — or, to be precise, the white puppy doll with Nabi inside, whenever it had slipped out of my bag.

Rrrip. The seam running across the doll's back tore open, and the black hand emerged from within with a wave of its arm. Then it pointed one thin, elongated index finger — at the TV, still broadcasting the Neverland ad.

"Let's go there!"

...And so, step one of keeping our friend Nabi's dopamine threshold low was smoothly falling apart.