Nightmare
"Huh...?"
Yuyeon's eyes went wide. Standing right where her gaze landed was unmistakably Nabi.
But he wasn't in his cat form. He was in his hybrid form.
And worse—Nabi was holding hands, fingers laced tight, with I-sol unni. The hand that should have belonged to Yuyeon alone.
"Take care, Yuyeon. I found myself a new owner, so I'm leaving."
"Nabi...!"
I-sol unni kept her grip on Nabi's hand and let out a soft laugh, wearing a smile of pure victory. Right under Yuyeon's nose, as cleanly as if someone had snipped it off while she watched, Nabi had been stolen from her. Yuyeon's face crumpled with raw injustice, tears already threatening to spill.
"Na... Nabi! Unni will do better! Please don't go!"
Hearing her desperate plea, Nabi let out a long, cold sigh and muttered without a shred of feeling.
"Clingy owners really aren't my type..."
"Nabiiiiii!"
"Yuyeon. You're not good enough. You could never be a proper owner for Nabi."
Even I-sol unni drove the final nail in with the coldest voice in the world. The two of them drifted farther and farther away, Nabi still holding I-sol's hand, until they vanished completely beyond the edge of Yuyeon's sight.
In that dark, barren space, Yuyeon was left alone once more.
Despair surged up her throat, and she screamed until her voice tore.
"I... I don't want this! I don't want to live alone again!!!"
With that cry, the ground beneath her feet gave way. The vivid sensation of plunging into empty air yanked a gasp from her lungs—and Yuyeon's eyes snapped open.
"Hah... hah..."
Now that she thought about it calmly, there had been more than a few things that didn't add up. Nabi had never shown anyone but her that he was a hybrid, or what that form looked like. It was a form permitted to Yuyeon alone—shown to one person in the entire world.
The moment that thought settled, the anxiety wrapping her body and the hammering of her heart began to ease. Knowing Nabi's true form was a secret that belonged only to her—intimate, and sweetly private.
Beside her, Nabi slept on, breathing soft and even. Yuyeon reached out and carefully stroked the soft hair on his head. She remembered how, when they'd first met, she'd treated him like some kind of alien—wary and half-convinced he wasn't real.
Which had been fair enough.
In this real world, hybrids as a species simply did not exist. They were the kind of unreal creatures that only showed up in movies full of magic or in fantasy novels.
And then one of those unknown, unidentifiable beings had appeared right in front of her without warning! Honestly, the fact that she hadn't immediately reported him to the National Intelligence Service and had taken him home instead was nothing short of a miracle for Nabi—pure, dumb luck.
But spending time together, growing close, getting attached—maybe that was why she no longer wanted to send him anywhere at all.
Nabi was hers. Hers alone! Whether Nabi felt the same way about it was another matter entirely.
Yuyeon pulled the sleeping Nabi snugly into her arms and quietly closed her eyes again. The nightmare had woken her halfway through the night, but once his warmth seeped into her, relief finally washed over her.
"Nnngh..."
I cracked my eyes open. Filling my entire field of vision was Yuyeon's face—and she had me locked in a death grip. She was holding me so tightly I could barely breathe. Under normal circumstances I would have flailed my arms and legs, sweating bullets as I tried to wriggle free.
But not this time.
Ssslip—!
In an instant I shifted from a smooth human body into a small, soft cat.
Which meant, of course, that a nice wide gap had just opened up in the space Yuyeon had been clutching.
I slipped right out through it.
"Meow."
Cat form had its uses.
Whenever I stayed in hybrid form, a vague tightness would settle in my chest. Maybe that was why I didn't spend most of the day that way. Call it a rough split—half the time as a hybrid, half as an adorable little cat.
There was also the matter of being ready for sudden emergencies.
If someone dropped by Yuyeon's place unannounced and caught me looking half-human, half-beast, that would be a disaster of the highest order.
I looked down at Yuyeon, sprawled out starfished across the bed, dead to the world. Then I checked the wall clock. It was just about time for her to get up and head to work. I neatly gathered my front paws and started firing off a barrage of kitty punches at her body.
"Ugh... nnngh...!"
I'd kept my claws carefully sheathed, but even so, there was a solid weight behind every punch.
Thud. Thud!
Dull impacts echoed through the room. Yuyeon was not the kind of easygoing, thick-skinned person who could sleep through that kind of merciless assault.
Sure enough, her face twisted and her eyes flew open.
"Na... Nabi, what is it?"
"Mrrrow."
I pointed both front paws firmly at the wall clock. I couldn't actually say the words—Get up, it's time for work!—but I put every ounce of effort into expressing it with the cutest body language I had. Yuyeon rubbed her eyes, checked the clock, and immediately let out a shriek.
"I'm late!"
She bounced off the bed like a spring and scrambled into her work clothes.
She only worked four hours a day, but watching her panic, you'd think it was an eight- or nine-hour shift.
"Nabi! Call me if anything comes up!"
"Mrrrow."
"Okay, Unni's heading out!"
"Meow!"
Yuyeon waved hard as she disappeared through the front door. With another soft ssslip—!, I shifted back into my proper hybrid form.
Then I picked up the phone Yuyeon had bought just for me. It was a used handset from who-knows-where, loaded with a bare-bones budget plan—less than ten thousand won a month.
Not that it mattered.
Yuyeon's place had rock-solid Wi-Fi, and I never needed much mobile data when I went out anyway.
Through the window, I watched her disappear down the street.
Without wasting a second, I hurried back to the house I'd originally been staying in. Today was the day to give Yuyeon a special gift—for everything she'd done for me.
Looking back, she had done so much. And I had given her almost nothing in return.
Well—she'd put me on her YouTube channel and let me star in her videos, so maybe I could claim I'd contributed something. Still, compared to the overwhelming kindness I'd received, what she'd gotten out of me was tiny.
"Bank account registration... donation settings..."
I opened the banking app to send a donation to Yuyeon's channel.
Luckily, having a phone meant they didn't demand anything extra. Just identity verification and the usual steps.
And all of that could be handled through the phone—no in-person visit required.
I wrestled with the amount.
Too much would feel weird. Too little would feel weird too.
If I followed my heart, I'd spill every secret about who I was and hand over the full hundred million won. That would change Yuyeon's life overnight, no question.
But that money was my last safety net. What if Yuyeon changed her mind and threw me out? I'd be a stray cat by sundown.
Sure, I could find another owner...
Lately I'd been catching a lot of looks from I-sol that said she had her eye on me. Not that I had any intention of going to her. Unlike Yuyeon, I-sol had full-blown cat-obsessive energy. And Yumi already lived in that house.
Even if Yumi's misunderstanding had been cleared up, the more affection I-sol poured onto me, the worse Yumi's jealousy would get.
I settled on a donation of about two million won.
Click!
A few taps of a mouse, and several million won just... vanished. When you thought about it, donations were kind of incredible.
When Yuyeon came home from work, she washed up and, as naturally as breathing, sat down in front of her computer.
Her daily life used to be almost entirely games.
But ever since she'd started her YouTube channel—whether she'd discovered a hidden talent or not—she'd been throwing herself into editing.
If the old version of her had gamed for more than twelve hours a day, now it was roughly six hours of editing and six hours of games.
You could call that productive.
Though "productive" and "six hours of gaming a day" still sat a little far apart...
"Kyaaaaaah!"
"Hm?"
Yuyeon screamed.
"Nabi! A viewer just donated two million won!"
"Ah..."
That would be the donation I'd sent earlier. I stayed completely deadpan. It was my own money, after all.
"It's all thanks to you, Nabi~"
"Uegh..."
I had no choice but to get trapped in Yuyeon's arms.
Still—her chest was soft. If paying two million won got you locked against a college girl's... no, a twenty-year-old woman's chest like this, maybe that counted as a reward.
Or so the ridiculous thought went.