The YouTube Plan
I had completely mastered the method of transforming into a cat—and, beyond that, into a beast-person perched on the boundary between human and feline.
It felt as though an entirely new nervous system were waking deep inside me. Unfamiliar circuits in my brain snapped on all at once, and in that instant I became vividly aware of another sense I had possessed since birth yet never once used. Just as some people can freely twitch their ears without touching them, I could now slip between cat form and beast-person form without the slightest resistance.
That solved Yuyeon's problem nicely. At mealtimes I no longer needed those cumbersome human utensils; I simply turned into a cat and happily crunched through kibble and treats.
"Nabi."
"Meow."
Still, ever since my identity had been revealed, an unmistakable change had settled over our daily lives—one that could never be bridged. Once Yuyeon realized I was not a mere animal but a person with intelligence, her behavior shifted in ways I could not ignore.
The biggest change of all was that she abruptly stopped those secret little acts of self-comfort she used to perform right in front of me without a shred of shame. At first my face had burned and I had nowhere to put my eyes, but humans are adaptable creatures, or so they say. As time passed and the sight grew familiar, I eventually stopped thinking much of it at all. Of course, now that she knew I was human, Yuyeon would never show me that side of herself again. A quiet regret welled up inside me, but I could hardly let it show.
"Nabi, you seem different today. Your fur is shinier than before… and you've gotten so much cuter!"
"Mewp."
I already knew I ranked among the top 0.1 percent of cats when it came to looks. One glance in the mirror left me no choice but to admit it. After all, I had once been a hardcore cat lover myself, spending every night in bed scouring YouTube for every feline video I could find. I had watched countless cat videos from around the world, and not a single one featured a cat as adorable and charming as the one staring back at me from the glass.
With looks like these…
The moment I stared into my reflection, a brilliant business idea flashed through my mind like lightning.
Without hesitation I attempted the beast-person transformation. My spine stretched smoothly, the fur all over my body receded with a soft rustle, and my skeleton reconfigured itself. Like some giant mecha from a classic robot anime rumbling through its transformation sequence, I shifted in an instant from cat to a human-shaped beast-person complete with ears and a tail.
"Yuyeon! Yuyeon!"
"Wha—! You startled me! Give me some warning when you transform, Nabi!"
She had been so absorbed in her computer game that she hadn't noticed me changing at all. I looked at her and spoke.
"Yuyeon, I thought of a way we can make money!"
"Huh?"
She tore her eyes from the game screen and gazed up at me with a puzzled look.
"Here's how…!"
I swallowed, then began laying out the perfect business model I had assembled in my head—calmly, yet with an unmistakable undercurrent of excitement.
My cat appearance, the strongest in the universe, combined with a miracle cat who could communicate and act exactly like a human while wearing that cute face? That was a cheat-code combination that could never fail in the content market. There might be people who hated or disliked stray cats, but not a single soul on earth would dislike a clever, adorable house cat raised with love—especially one that behaved like a person.
As she listened, Yuyeon's eyes gradually grew wider.
The world was changing fast.
In the old days, people had been brainwashed until their ears grew calluses: study yourself half to death, get into a big-name corporation, and your whole life would be secured. And in those days, that really had been the correct and perfectly natural order of things.
Not anymore. Plenty of people now carved out completely different paths and made a living without ever gritting their teeth at a desk. Studying was no longer the sole road to survival. Of course, statistically speaking, academics were still the safest route. If you clawed your way into the top 10 percent through sheer effort, you could still snag a business card from a prestigious company.
But the arts, sports, and creative fields were different. In those arenas you needed not the top 1 percent but the top 0.1 percent just to scrape by. And your competitors were not dropouts who had given up studying to loaf around. You had to wage bloody war against genuine geniuses who oozed artistic sense and talent from head to toe.
In that terrifying ecosystem, Yuyeon already stood far ahead of the pack. Saying so felt a bit self-congratulatory, but she had me—a cat whose looks placed her in the top 0.1 percent of all felines. And our most powerful weapon, the essential cheat key, was something else entirely: when I was a cat, I understood human speech perfectly.
I was almost certainly the first and only cat on Earth who could fully comprehend and communicate in human language. No matter how thoroughly I searched the internet, no living creature could match my awareness and intelligence.
Leveraging that overwhelming advantage to introduce myself to the world through YouTube broadcasts was our first plan.
In truth, the easiest and fastest way to rake in worldwide popularity would have been for me to appear on camera as my real beast-person self, complete with tail and ears. But that would never end with a mere explosion of fame. It could easily become a matter of national security serious enough for the Korean National Intelligence Service or some shadowy secret agency to come hunting me down. Cats that looked somewhat like me were everywhere, but a beast-person with genuine cat ears and a tail who flaunted human-level intellect existed only once—me.
Of course I had not the slightest intention of doing anything so reckless. The moment my beast-person form hit the screen, my face and personal details would plaster every news headline as a global hot topic. I had no desire to have my peaceful daily life ripped away so I could be strapped to a laboratory bed.
"So basically, Yuyeon, you just need to film me properly in my cat form!"
"Really? Nabi… is that all I have to do?"
"Yeah. Cat YouTube content always goes over well with people."
"Okay, Nabi. I'll give it a try."
Yuyeon nodded as she listened to my plan. From her perspective, filming me in the room and editing videos was far better—physically and mentally—than grinding herself to the bone every day at a logistics warehouse, breathing dust and scanning packages.
My bones gently shrank, and I transformed once more into a cat so adorable it could stop a heart at a glance. Then, following the script Yuyeon and I had carefully drafted together before the shoot, I began moving with flawless, clever precision. We managed to film the video perfectly.
"Should I upload it like this, Nabi?"
"Yeah. Upload it as is. People will come looking for our videos!"
"It's amazing that we can make money doing this…"
As we checked the footage together, I spoke up. I double-checked that my beast-person form never appeared. Of course, even if it had, I had plenty of excuses ready. I was wearing cat-ear headbands… the tail was just a toy wrapped around me… Cosplay like that was trendy these days, so those toys were everywhere. For some reason, people always said cat cosplay was the costume men preferred most. Coming home from work to find your wife waiting by the front door in cat cosplay was supposed to be a classic male fantasy. Not that any of that applied to us now.
"There!"
I uploaded the video. Our YouTube channel name was simply Yuyeon and Nabi—nothing fancy.
"Ooooh!"
Yuyeon's eyes sparkled as she watched the upload go through. I grinned.
Our epic was only just beginning! I could already picture the day we would be rolling in money.
Still smiling, I said, "Yuyeon! To celebrate, let's get chicken tonight!"
"Shall we, Nabi?"
On a day this good, you had to eat something delicious! And so we got to enjoy the chicken Yuyeon ordered.
Except…
The view count on the video we uploaded stopped dead at ten.