The Actress and the Cat Tower
"Ugh, it's gotten even colder."
I pulled my clothes tighter around me, double-checked every window to make sure none had been left open, and switched on the heater.
A moment later, warm air began to spill from the vents.
Whew... that's more like it.
Before starting work, I checked the commission list on the whiteboard one more time.
Oh Dae-seong — Japanese knife × 1
Min Tae-yong — Golf club set × 1 (excluding 7-iron)
Oh Dae-seong was the chef of Haeyeon, a Michelin one-star Japanese restaurant, and Min Tae-yong was the chief director of a prominent spine specialty hospital in Seoul. For both of them, this was a second commission.
Oh Dae-seong had come through Chef Lee Jin-seong's introduction; Director Min Tae-yong, through Jae-hak's.
The first time each of them walked in, their faces had said it all. The shabby interior of the workshop, my young-looking face, and on top of that, the steep prices — none of it had sat well with them.
So both men had commissioned only a single piece.
But once they received those pieces and actually put them to use, their attitudes turned on a dime.
"Master Kang! What on earth is this knife? I've never held a blade this perfect in my life! I happen to need a Japanese knife this time — could I commission that as well?"
"Wow, Master Kang! I really owe you one! Did you stick an actual motor in this club or what? How does it even fly like that? Thanks to you, I completely flattened a buddy I'd never beaten once! Next time your back hurts, you come straight to my hospital. I'll never charge you a dime! Ah, and I'm really sorry to ask, but could you make the other clubs too?"
Neither of them raised so much as a single question about the price. All they wanted was for me to make more.
And because word of mouth kept spreading like this, the work just kept coming in. I was starting to wonder whether it might be time to leave the company.
The income wasn't even in the same conversation as a company paycheck.
Well, I can still juggle both for now...
Still, the thought lingered that I ought to give Boss Han a heads-up — that I might be quitting before long.
"Well. That's a matter for later."
The miscellaneous thoughts could wait. What mattered most right now was handling the two commissions written on that whiteboard.
I set my phone well out of reach, fired up the small electric furnace, and was just about to get to work when the workshop door suddenly opened and someone walked in.
Who is it. I was just about to get in the zone.
I shut off the furnace I'd just started and stood up.
"How can I help you?"
The person who had come in was a woman who looked to be in her twenties, wearing sunglasses.
A woman? That's unusual.
As far as I could tell, she was the first woman to set foot in this workshop besides my mother since the place had opened.
She took off the sunglasses and asked,
"Excuse me — are you Kang Cheolwoo?"
"Yes, that's me."
She's pretty...?
Without the sunglasses, she was genuinely beautiful. Not merely pretty — this was not ordinary-person pretty. She couldn't hold a candle to Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, of course, but she was easily in the same league as most celebrities.
She looked my face over this way and that, then suddenly exclaimed,
"Wow, you really are young...? Wait, how old are you?"
"......?"
What?
Something about it sat wrong. She confirmed my name the moment she walked in, then asked my age without so much as a preamble.
Pretty or not, I had been right on the verge of starting work, and having my flow broken already had me in a sour mood. On top of that, it felt rude.
I let my expression cool a little and asked her back.
"I asked how I could help you. Is my age relevant to that question?"
The moment I answered a little more firmly, she apologized at once, looking genuinely sorry.
"Ah... I'm sorry. You just looked so young, I think I slipped up a bit. I, um, I was referred by Jae-hak. I'm Choi Seo-ah."
The instant Jae-hak's name came out of her mouth, I let my guard down a little.
"Ah. So you were introduced by Pro Jeong."
"Yes. Jae-hak isn't usually like that, but he wouldn't stop going on about 'Master Kang this, Master Kang that,' so I got curious."
"I see..."
She was an unusual person, but she had come on Pro Jeong's introduction, and that made it hard to treat her carelessly.
He's the person who's spent the most money at our workshop so far.
Then she pointed at her own face and asked,
"By the way — you don't recognize me?"
What's this now?
"...I'm not sure I do. Are you a golfer, perhaps?"
"Hmm... I see... so you don't know who I am."
What an unusual person.
At first I had taken her for someone rude, but watching her now, she just seemed like the lively type.
"If you came on Pro Jeong's introduction, did you come to commission golf clubs?"
She didn't answer right away, trailing off.
"Ah, well... it's not golf clubs..."
In truth, Seo-ah had not come today to commission anything at all. She had come out of pure curiosity, wondering who on earth this person was that Jeong Jae-hak and Lee Jin-seong praised so extravagantly.
He really is unusual, though.
At first she had taken him for nothing more than a young-looking man, but after a few exchanges there was something seasoned about him — a weight that didn't match his face.
And while Seo-ah was still scrambling for a plausible reason to be standing in his workshop, Cheolwoo noticed something about her and asked a question.
Hm? That... is that what I think it is?
"Excuse me... do you happen to keep cats?"
Seo-ah started and asked back,
"Huh...? How did you know?"
"Those scratches on the back of your hand and the side of your neck are both cat scratches. I keep cats myself, you see."
She answered with an embarrassed little laugh.
"Ahaha... yes, that's right. Aigoo, they're such troublemakers..."
That's a little odd...
Getting scratched by a cat was something every cat parent in the world had been through. The location, though, was strange. The back of the hand, fine — that happened. But getting clawed near the neck was not a typical situation. And more than anything, the wound near her neck had not been made by a single cat.
The two scratches differed, ever so slightly, in thickness.
They had clearly been made by two different cats.
"Do you happen to keep two or more cats? And have the cats not been getting along lately — or is there some other problem?"
"Huh......?"
Her pupils wavered. Then she spoke in a trembling voice.
"Th-this is it...! This is how Jae-hak and Chef Lee Jin-seong got hooked. It really is a cult...!"
"Pardon...?"
"N-no... how did you know I have two cats, and even that they have problems...! Did you install CCTV in my house or something!?"
Her voice was shaking. She looked genuinely stunned.
"Please calm down first... I don't even know who you are. How would I install CCTV?"
I slowly explained why I had said what I said.
And after she had heard the whole of it, she looked at me.
"So... you deduced all of that from the different thicknesses of the scratches on my neck...?"
"Yes."
"Does that even make sense?"
"There's no reason it shouldn't."
"......"
She let out a long breath, then spilled the whole story.
"Honestly, this isn't something I can talk about just anywhere... you absolutely cannot tell anyone."
"Don't worry. I'm not so low-class that I'd go around blabbing a client's personal affairs."
"You're right... actually, just like you said, I have two cats... I originally had one, then adopted another a few months ago. But..."
"They're not getting along."
Seo-ah nodded.
"That's right. At first they seemed to be doing okay, but for some reason they started fighting like crazy. It's gotten worse and worse lately, and I got scratched like this trying to break up their fights."
"Hmm..."
She hung her head.
"The thing is, I'm an actress. So it's a real problem if I keep getting injuries on my body... the stress from this lately has been insane..."
Well, an actress with wounds all over her would have a hard time in all sorts of ways...
"I see... have you taken them to a vet?"
"Yes... but the veterinarian said they weren't sure of the reason either. There are so many reasons cats might not get along that it's hard to pin it down to one."
She finished her story and laughed, looking embarrassed.
"Ahaha... I don't even know why I'm telling you all this... I'm sorry."
"Not at all. This might sound a little strange, but if you don't mind, could I see some photos of the room you live in, and of the cats?"
"Pardon...?"
If it had been anyone else, it would have been an absurd request. Seo-ah was, after all, a rising rookie actress with real momentum behind her.
Asking to see her home was a ridiculous thing to ask. And yet, strangely, she had the feeling that it would be all right if it was this person.
"Just a moment..."
She rummaged through her phone and showed me photos of her home that she had taken recently.
It's spacious.
An ordinary three-bedroom apartment. The one thing that set it apart from any other home was a large cat tower standing in the living room, as you'd expect from a household with cats.
A moment later, she showed me photos of the cats.
One was an ordinary Korean Shorthair calico. The other was a Munchkin, a short-legged breed.
And the moment I saw those photographs, I had a pretty good idea why.
No wonder they fight every day.
"By the way — when did you buy this cat tower?"
"The cat tower? I bought it when I brought home Byeol-i, my first one. It was natural wood, so it was pretty expensive. I think it ran close to a thousand dollars."
"I see... do you have any other cat towers besides that one?"
She shook her head.
"No. Just that one."
I studied the room photos she had shown me once more.
A cat tower with fairly high clearance between levels, a bed a bit higher than a typical one, and relatively little furniture in the house besides...
I handed the phone back to her and said,
"I think I know why they're fighting."
"What...? Wait, really? Even the animal hospital said it would be hard to figure out..."
"The biggest reason the two of them are fighting, as I see it, is probably that one of them is under stress."
"W-well, that would be it...?"
The statement was so obvious that Seo-ah was momentarily flustered.
"And the reason is probably the cat tower."
"The cat tower...? I paid a fortune for that cat tower. All the reviews were amazing... and Byeol-i is always on the cat tower..."
I cut in gently and asked her,
"Does only Byeol-i use that cat tower, by any chance?"
"What...? Wait......"
She thought for a moment, then nodded.
"Yes... I think that's right. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever really seen Woong-i climb the cat tower. But what does that have to do with..."
"As I mentioned earlier, I keep cats myself. And these little guys fundamentally need vertical space. It's essential."
"Vertical space...?"
"Yes. That's why something like a cat tower — somewhere they can climb up high — is more important than anything for a cat."
This wasn't knowledge I had as a blacksmith. It was knowledge I had because I, too, was a cat parent.
Seo-ah thought hard for a moment, then carefully opened her mouth.
"Don't tell me... so the reason they're fighting is..."
I smiled and gave her the answer.
"Yes. I think Woong-i needs a cat tower of his own."
Munchkins, by nature, have much shorter legs than other cats. As a result, they have a hard time climbing towers with relatively high clearance between levels. That particular tower had slightly wider gaps between platforms than a typical cat tower besides. It probably wasn't easy for a Munchkin to use.
If there were other vertical spaces it might have been different — but the bed is fairly high too, so the stress just kept building up.
She looked at me with a gaze that had done a complete one-eighty from when she first walked in, and said,
"Um, Master... if it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you make a cat tower as well?"
I answered with a gentle smile.
"Why not? All right. Shall I make a cat tower for Woong-i, then?"
"Yes...! Please, I'm counting on you! This is a really important issue — for the cats and for me!"
The look in Seo-ah's eyes was that of a woman who had just joined a cult. It was, in fact, scarcely different from the look on Jae-hak's face — the very look she herself had found so bewildering only a few days before.