Essence material

 

    Hye Won, who was busy adapting to a high school that she haven't gone for a year, was surprised when housemaster called her name to remind her that she didn't take her parcel. Thinking that her parents might have sent her a parcel, she went down to a lobby to take it. However, parcel was too small to say that her parents sent it since parents told her that they would send a lot of snacks in a big box. Plus, the sender's name on the box was weird - 'dung u ri deul (덩어리들)'. Since everything about the parcel was saying that it was not for her, she suspected that housemaster called a wrong name for an instant, but the recipient name on the box was definitely hers - the only name in the school. Therefore, she just decided to take it and check what it is. Maybe, she would be able to remember the parcel that she ordered a long time ago but cannot remember. 

    'Hello, master! It's nice to meet you :) ' 

A small note with this message was the first thing that she saw when she opened the box. 

    "What is it..?"

The curiosity towards this parcel was multiplied the moment she saw the message, which made her immediately get rid of a wrapping paper covering up the mysterious item in the box. 

Cat. A small ceramics shaped into a cat was covered in the wrapping paper. At first, she was bewildered since she didn't have any memory that she ordered it and either could not think of anyone who would send such a present to her, but soon, the complex emotion, instead of curiosity, has overwhelmed her. 

The cat looked exactly same as a stray cat named 'baby(애기/aegi)' that HyeWon has taken care of for six months, but went to a cat star not long ago. Color of eye and fur, pattern on a back and forehead... Everything on the small ceramics was exactly pointing out that it was made after 애기, her beloved cat that she can't see anymore.

Hye Won's first encounter with Aegi was not that special. Aegi was merely one of numerous stray cats living near her house that she took care of every day. The only thing that made it different from other cats was that it was particularly afraid of humans; though it seemed starving, it never started eating tuna until it confirmed that there is no one around it. Actually, Hye Won was glad that it was avoiding humans a lot. She did not want stray cats to be familiar with humans and lose their wildness since it would make them difficult to forage without humans. However, a few weeks after she started giving it food, Aegi started to recognize her. Because it tried to follow everywhere she goes, even beyond its scope of movement, she had to literally run away from it. When Aegi found her missing from its sight, it cried so hard that she had to go back and turn its attention from her to snacks. Her strategy to keep a distance from it, however, completely failed when it started to jump on her back whenever she squat down to give cats food. Of course, she tried to put it back to streets, but it always failed as it cried sharply and scratch her when she tried to do so. She just had to wait, carrying a cat on her back, until passengers come near her and Aegi runs away, being afraid of humans. 

Though Hye Won was the only human whom Aegi was not afraid of so far, she was worried that it would lose wildness later. Moreover, Aegi seemed too foolish to survive among wild cats. Because it did not know how to get off the roof, it kept crying until she rescued it. Full of worry toward it, she uploaded its information on stray cat adoption sites, but people who showed an interest toward Aegi eventually gave up adopting it after they found out that it had deformed leg and was difficult to move properly. Because she could not adopt her as well because of her mother, allergic to animal's fur, the best she could do for it was keep taking care of it like she did before. She kept feeding it, changing frozen, dirty water to fresh water, giving hot pack in its winter house, and giving medication, if necessary. Hye Won was sure that she did everything she did for it, but she could not stop its death. When she found out that she left to cat's star in cold wave, she cried so hard that her parents bagged her to forget about it. 

Considering her story with Aegi, it wasn't so surprising that she felt complex emotions of sadness, gladness, and sorriness at the moment she saw the little ceramics that looked exactly same as Aegi.  

After she calmed her emotion, she tried to think of a person who might have sent her the present, but she couldn't. There was literally no one who was likely to have sent it because she has never shown a photo of Aegi to anyone, including her family who hated her taking care of stray cats, thinking they are dirty. Though she had uploaded its picture a long time ago, those photos did not show an exact pattern of it.

Still, who sent the present remains mystery to her; maybe, someone is intentionally not telling her a truth, willing to present a fairy tale moment to her.