Beep Beep Beep, Click—The Familiar Sound of a Password
The door swung open with a series of familiar beeps followed by a mechanical click. Only then did I slap my palm against the floor and bolt upright, checking to see who had just come in.
“...What the hell? Why are you on the floor like that?”
“Ugh.”
The moment I saw Hyeonseo, a disappointed sigh slipped out of my mouth. Of all the people who could’ve come home, it had to be her. There was no way I wanted to ask that kid to brush my tail.
In the end, I buried my face back into the floor. Hyeonseo, who had been staring at me intently, spoke up with a puzzled tone.
“Why aren’t you wearing the tail cover?”
“Huh? Oh…”
At her words, I twisted around to look behind me. Sure enough, my uncovered tail lay limp on the floor. I had taken the tail cover off on the veranda and completely forgotten about it. It was just so much more comfortable without it that it had slipped my mind.
While cleaning up the loose fur scattered around, I still couldn’t shake my bad mood. So I slipped the tail cover back on, headed into my room, and said,
“Hey, brush my tail for me.”
“Ugh, why should I? No way.”
Even at my most pathetic level of begging, Hyeonseo shot me down without hesitation. I had expected that much. There was no chance she’d obediently listen to me.
In that case, I just had to offer the right incentive.
“I’ll give you twenty thousand won if you do it right now.”
“Deal.”
The moment money entered the conversation, she accepted the offer instantly. Hyeonseo was always complaining to Mom that her allowance wasn’t enough because she hung out with her friends every day. No matter how much they split the bill N ways, if you went out that often, you were bound to run short.
She quickly grabbed a brush and ushered me out to the veranda.
“Just like last time, right?”
“Yeah.”
After answering her question, I took off the tail cover and clutched it in my hand. The inside was absolutely coated with tail fur. Without thinking, I started gently scraping at it with my fingernail.
At that exact moment, the brush began stroking the outside of my tail. The touch lacked any delicacy, so I flinched and said,
“Ah, a little gentler…”
“Got it.”
Now that money was involved, Hyeonseo had become surprisingly compliant. I let her work on my tail in silence for a while. Then, as if a question had suddenly occurred to her, she asked,
“Does this feel good?”
“Hm? Uh… it’s alright, I guess?”
I answered a bit awkwardly. She probably couldn’t understand why I would pay money just to have my tail brushed.
“What does it feel like?”
Even after my answer, her curiosity clearly hadn’t been satisfied. She kept brushing my tail gently while continuing to ask questions.
How was I supposed to explain this to someone who didn’t even have a tail? After letting out a long “Umm,” I finally managed to say,
“It’s kind of like when someone cleans your ears? But way better than that.”
“Hmm…”
Hyeonseo let out a thoughtful hum, as if my mediocre analogy had somehow made sense. Unfortunately, that was the best my vocabulary could manage.
For a long time afterward, the soft scratching sound of the brush tickled my ears. If possible, I wished she would keep going for another ten minutes.
“How long do I have to do this?”
As soon as that thought crossed my mind, Hyeonseo’s voice came from behind, sounding like she was starting to get tired. It seemed like this was as far as we were going to get. I couldn’t expect too much from a middle school girl.
Still, it was a shame to stop. Just a little more.
“Just twenty more strokes.”
“...Okay.”
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
At my short request, Hyeonseo continued brushing without complaint. She counted exactly twenty strokes in her head—neither more nor less—then stopped. Even though it was a paid service, the stifling feeling had eased quite a bit thanks to her.
“Bro, the fur.”
I was about to put the tail cover back on and head inside when Hyeonseo called out to me and pointed at the veranda floor. There, in a neat oval shape from the brush bristles, sat a massive clump of fur piled up like a stone cairn on a hiking trail.
“Whoa, that’s a crazy amount…”
Even I was shocked by the sheer volume of the fur army. No wonder she had kept pausing in the middle. She had been trying to peel that giant clump off the brush.
“Money money money money money money.”
“I know, just wait a second…”
While I cleaned up the veranda, Hyeonseo followed right behind me, chanting the word “money” like a broken record and urging me to hurry. I told her I understood, unable to stand her impatience any longer. It’s not like I had ever stiffed her on payment before.
A little while later, after I had cleaned up all the fur on the veranda,
“Here.”
“Mmm-hmm~”
When I pulled out twenty thousand won from my wallet and held it out, she let out a weird, creepy hum as she took the money. I couldn’t understand why she looked so overjoyed over just twenty thousand won.
Sure, getting money feels good. What I didn’t understand was why she was so obsessed with it.
“But don’t you get a hundred thousand won a month?”
Our family’s allowance system started at a hundred thousand won per month once you reached middle school. There was no real reason for her to be this desperate for cash. I had felt like fifty thousand won wasn’t enough back in my own middle school days, but after they raised it to a hundred thousand to match rising prices, I never felt short. So why was she always fighting with Mom about not having enough allowance? What was her deal?
“Yeah, don’t you have any left over, bro?”
Instead of answering, she just stared at me with wide, innocent eyes and asked right back. The look on her face—like she was observing some bizarre creature—was ridiculous. Even though neither of us could understand the other, I answered her question honestly.
“I still have some left.”
No, why wouldn’t I? Even if I bought one snack from the school store every single day, that was only about forty-five thousand won a month. And even if I went to the PC bang, I’d only stay two or three hours at most. It’s not like I went every day, so I barely had any reason to spend money. A hundred thousand won was more than enough.
With my questions still unresolved, I decided to ask the important part.
“Why are you short? What are you spending it on?”
“I have to go to karaoke. I have to eat out with my friends. I have to buy photo cards. It’s seriously not enough, okay?”
Hyeonseo rattled off a long list in response to my question. Karaoke, restaurants, collecting photo cards. Listening to her, I could see why she was broke. Why was a middle schooler running around everywhere like that? And some of it wasn’t even necessary. If she just stopped buying those photo cards or whatever, maybe her allowance situation would improve.
With that thought in mind, I lowered my voice seriously and gave her some advice.
“Just give up on the photo cards.”
“No.”
She shot down my perfectly reasonable suggestion without a second thought. She already fought with Mom like crazy over it. I still couldn’t understand what was so great about collecting little pieces of male celebrities’ faces. Even now that I had become a girl, it made no sense to me.
“You wouldn’t stop playing games if I told you to, would you?”
“I don’t spend real money on them.”
Suddenly she brought up gaming. I immediately shot back at my little sister’s cheeky attitude.
“You think I dump all my leftover allowance into games like you do? And don’t even compare games to collecting photo scraps.”
“Oh right, I heard you’re getting money from the hospital now.”
Just as our conversation was about to end like usual, Hyeonseo suddenly brought up the hospital and mentioned my new source of funds. It was like a starving kid had just heard that her friend won the lottery.
“Where did you hear that?”
“Mom told me?”
When I pressed her on how she knew, she immediately spilled that Mom had told her. Why would Mom tell her that? Especially when she was already complaining about not having enough allowance. Of course she was going to ask for some now.
“Must be nice. Can’t you give me a little of what you get?”
Just as expected. She shamelessly demanded a cut right away. No matter how much money I had, I wasn’t generous enough to hand out tens of thousands of won to my ugly, greedy sibling. This kid really had no shame.
But there was no way I was going to become her personal ATM.
“Then you should catch the Beast Disease too.”
“How do you catch it? I wish I would actually get it.”
When I half-heartedly told her to get sick too, Hyeonseo replied with what sounded like half-genuine longing. Whether it was the kids at school or my own little sister at home, why did they all talk about it so casually just because they hadn’t caught it themselves?
“If you’re going to catch it, at least turn into a gorilla guy.”
“Just give me thirty thousand more. I’ll pay you back when I get my allowance.”
Even while I was cursing her out, Hyeonseo kept pestering me for a loan. Didn’t she just get twenty thousand won?
“You’re still short?”
“Yeah. I promised my friends we’d go to an escape room café.”
When I asked if she was still short, she casually mentioned the escape room café plans. I was honestly speechless. There was still almost a week left until she got her allowance. This girl really took it to another level.
“You’d better pay me back.”
“Hehe, thanks~”
I pulled another thirty thousand won out of my wallet and handed it over. She let out a sly laugh and thanked me. Just then, I heard the familiar beeping sound from the front door. Dad always came home late on weekdays, so the only person it could be was Mom.
I went out to greet her as usual. Mom was taking off her shoes with both hands full of grocery bags.
After taking the bags from her and setting them on the dining table, I asked,
“What did you buy?”
“I got some meat.”
The moment Mom answered, my ears perked up. At the word “meat,” my tail immediately started wagging back and forth. It wasn’t like I was doing it on purpose.
“Oh my, your body’s already excited.”
“Ah, um… that’s…”
Mom commented on my wildly wagging tail. No matter how hard I tried, my happy tail refused to calm down. While Mom put the vegetables in the fridge, my eyes stayed glued to the meat visible through the white plastic bags.
That was when it happened.
“Mom! I think oppa’s gone crazy!”
“Munch…!?”
My dazed mind snapped back to reality at Hyeonseo’s shout. When I came to my senses, I realized why she had yelled.
A piece of raw meat was hanging from my mouth.