Steam was rising from the pot of ramen.
The clock read 2:47 a.m. A code review window was still open on the laptop screen, and the last Slack notification he'd checked had been around midnight. As Doyoon Kim took the pot off the gas stove, he thought, I still have to prepare the meeting materials for tomorrow morning.
When he picked up his chopsticks, a dull ache spread through the left side of his chest. It had been happening often lately. He'd thought, I need to see a doctor, three months ago. In those three months, the only place he'd gone instead of a hospital was the company.
As he lifted a bite of noodles, his vision wavered.
Oh. This is kind of weird.
The floor tilted. No, not the floor. He was tilting. The chopsticks slipped from his hand. His knees hit the kitchen floor first, then his shoulder, and finally his cheek met the cold tile.
He could see the ceiling. The fluorescent light was buzzing and flickering. Its glow slowly drifted farther away.
His last thought was this:
Did I turn off the stove?
It was warm.
Something surrounded his entire body. It was soft, damp, and wriggling. He tried to open his eyes, but they wouldn't open. All he could hear was a low hum. It sounded a little like a heartbeat and a little like an engine.
What is this? A hospital? Am I alive?
He tried to move his body. His arms were short. His legs were short, too. No, it wasn't just that they were short. Something was fundamentally different. He had no fingers. Instead, something soft and squishy was attached to the ends of his limbs.
He had no idea how many days passed. His eyes finally opened much later.
The world looked blurry. A huge figure was staring down at him. It had fur. It had whiskers. The figure licked his head. A rough, warm tongue brushed across his forehead.
Beside him, creatures about his size were wriggling around. Three. No, four. All of them had their eyes closed, and all of them were as small as he was.
Doyoon Kim—or rather, the creature who had once been Doyoon Kim—slowly began to understand what was happening.
I'm a cat.
I was born as a cat?
By the time he was three months old, Doyoon had accepted most of the situation.
More than acceptance, it was resignation. After all, the most powerful skill he'd acquired over thirty-two years in his past life was resignation. Just as he accepted working late when it became part of the daily routine, he accepted being a cat once he'd become one.
There were still a few things he couldn't get used to.
First, washing your face with your tongue. No matter how tired he'd been in his past life, he'd always washed his face with water.
Second, using litter as a bathroom. No explanation necessary.
Third, the fact that his littermates were all actual cats. They couldn't talk. He hadn't been able to talk to his coworkers in his past life either, but at least they'd spoken the same language.
He had been at the pet shop for two months. He sat side by side with his littermates inside a glass enclosure, watching the people pass by. Whenever someone approached, his littermates pressed their front paws against the glass and meowed. Doyoon sat in the corner and thought,
So that's sales. I did that in my past life, too. Smiling in front of clients.
He didn't try to sell himself. He sat in the corner. One by one, his littermates were adopted. Doyoon remained.
The pet shop owner sighed. "Why does that one sit so still? Is he sick?"
He wasn't sick. He just had no social skills. He'd been like that in his past life, too.
The family came in on Saturday afternoon.
The man entered first. He looked to be in his mid-thirties. His tie was loosened, and he had the tired face of someone worn down by work, even on the weekend. Doyoon recognized him at a glance. That guy's one of my kind. He had the eyes of someone worn down by work.
A woman followed behind him. She looked about the same age. She wore sneakers and comfortable clothes, but the dark circles under her eyes were heavy. The distinctive exhaustion of a shift worker.
And between them, a small creature came running in.
"A kitty!"
It was a little girl who looked about five. Her hair was tied into two pigtails, and she wore a pink dress. She ran up to the glass enclosure and pressed both hands flat against the glass.
"Dad, this kitty! This kitty is so pretty!"
The cat she was pointing at was Doyoon.
Doyoon looked up at the girl from his spot in the corner. Her eyes were shining. There was no calculation in them. No conditions. She simply liked him.
Had anyone ever looked at him that way in his past life? Doyoon searched his memory. No.
The man asked the pet shop owner, "Why is that cat by himself?"
"Oh, him? He's a quiet one. It's not that he's afraid of people. He just likes being alone."
The woman smiled. "He's a lot like my husband."
The man cleared his throat.
The girl tapped on the glass. "Kitty, come home with me. Come to our house."
Doyoon looked at the girl.
What were the last words he'd heard in his past life? His team lead had sent them over Slack: "Please prepare the meeting materials for tomorrow." Those were the last words the human named Doyoon Kim had received.
What the girl was saying now was different.
Come home with me.
Before he knew it, Doyoon stood up. He came out of the corner and walked toward the glass. Then he sat down in front of the spot where the girl's hand rested against it.
The girl broke into a bright smile.
"Mom! The kitty came to me!"
Inside the car, the girl placed Doyoon on her lap and didn't stay still for even a moment.
"What's your name? You don't have a name? Should I give you one?"
I do. I'm Doyoon Kim. I graduated from Seoul National University's Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and I'm Doyoon Kim, a backend developer with seven years of experience.
The girl was stroking Doyoon's back when she suddenly stopped. A dark brown marking stood out clearly among his cream-colored fur.
"Mom, look here! It's a heart! There's a heart on his back!"
She traced the marking with her finger. Her little finger poked at the brown fur.
"Heart! Your name is Heart!"
...Heart.
"Heart, Heart, Heart! Our Heart!"
The girl stroked Doyoon's—or rather, Heart's—head. Her hand was small and warm. Her fingernails were painted unevenly with pink nail polish. She probably did it herself.
Heart closed his eyes on the girl's lap.
Heart, huh? The most ridiculous name of his thirty-two-year life.
And yet, strangely, he didn't hate it.
Trees passed by beyond the car window. The afternoon sunlight slanted into the car. The girl's hand was patting his back, right over the heart-shaped marking.
Had there ever been an afternoon like this in his past life? An afternoon with nothing to do, spent on someone's lap while they patted his back.
No.
Not once.
Heart thought with his eyes closed.
This life might be a little different.