Chapter 01
A Cat That Speaks Like a Person?
Miyu had only opened the refrigerator to get a drink of water.
Nothing strange about that.
Except… it was strange.
Inside sat a miniature village of thatched cottages and tiled-roof houses, a dirt road with a zelkova tree and a waterwheel.
Tiny people bustled about, alive and moving.
An ox cart and a hand-pulled wagon. Merchants in front of straw-roofed shops. Women selling produce on mats. Gentlemen in black horsehair hats, peasants with topknots, guards with spears, barefoot beggars…
It was unmistakably the Joseon era.
Her breath nearly stopped from shock.
Like someone who had opened the wrong door, Miyu quietly closed the fridge.
Then, unable to accept what she’d seen, she opened it again—and—
“Waaah!”
She screamed, and when she came to her senses, she was in an unfamiliar room.
A small room from the Joseon period: a brazier in the corner, a tiger painting on the wall.
“Where am I?!”
Twenty-two-year-old Miyu was drinking beer with artist Jung Sol on the rooftop deck of her building.
From the city below, a hundred different sounds surged upward like waves in a storm.
Above them the sunset spread like silk.
“You know,” Sol said, “listening to the city from your rooftop somehow calms me.”
“As expected of an artist—you’re so sentimental,” Miyu replied.
She, too, tilted an ear to the noises rising from the ground: hurried footsteps of passers-by, dogs barking in courtyards, the food-laden whine of delivery scooters, cars roaring and coughing out exhaust, trot music spilling from a grocery, shop doors clattering open and shut…
Beer in hand, Miyu walked to the roof’s edge.
Life down there was a fierce struggle, yet from above it looked like a playful genre painting.
That old saying came to mind: from afar life is a comedy, up close a tragedy.
After high school, Miyu had spent two years buying and selling art.
Her early career choice had been forced when her family went bankrupt in middle school.
Since then she had done every part-time job imaginable: handing out flyers, working fast food and clothing stores, modeling for fittings, even catching rare bugs on request.
In high school she ran an online shop.
With the money she saved, she earned an art-dealer license and started a small art-distribution business—essentially buying and selling paintings.
She sometimes wondered: if someone looked at her own life from a distance, would it seem comedic too?
How far away would they have to stand?
Just then Sol’s hesitant voice came from behind her.
“Miyu, I signed an exclusive contract with Yeongam Gallery.”
The words hit her like a slap. She spun around. Sol gave an embarrassed smile.
Her heart sank with a thud.
“…Oh. That’s great. Congratulations,” she said, forcing a smile and words she didn’t mean.
“I knew you’d understand.”
Understand? After all the dinners, drinks, and effort she’d invested?
No apology—just “understand”? Shameless.
Two weeks ago you promised to sign with me…
He had vanished for days, then suddenly reappeared to say he’d signed elsewhere.
She regretted not thrusting a contract at him right away.
Losing an artist she’d nurtured for a year to a major gallery burned.
If only she could go back exactly two weeks—not months, just two weeks.
Their youthful, mellow evening ended there.
“Ugh, so unfair!”
Under her blanket, Miyu trembled with frustration.
Just wait. You’ll regret not signing with me.
Yeongam Gallery was every artist’s dream.
Compared to them, her finances were a corner store’s.
But her eye for art was second to none—hadn’t she discovered Sol first?
Thinking it all came down to money stung even more.
She clenched her fist on the narrow single bed.
Miyu had a gift for recognizing good art: an “absolute sense of color,” able to infer hues from black-and-white photos.
Her mother, an art major, had nurtured that talent.
From the age of four she spent weekends in museums and galleries.
While other kids groaned, she found it fun.
Over ten years she viewed more than five hundred high-quality works, sharpening her judgment.
After her mother died, becoming an art dealer felt almost like a final wish.
She visited major exhibitions and tiny galleries alike, even tracked down young artists’ studios.
She bought twenty paintings from two newcomers, investing ten million won from endless part-time jobs.
A year later, one artist’s prices had multiplied eightfold.
Ten million became forty-five million in a year.
A year ago she met Jung Sol at a free exhibition sponsored by the Jongno District Office for emerging artists.
Fresh out of Korea University of the Arts, he immediately caught her eye.
This one is it.
She talked with him, eavesdropped on visitors, checked the gallery director’s opinion, even his school record and habits.
Convinced, she bought three of his works.
Sol, anxious about the future, thanked her repeatedly, and they quickly grew close.
Miyu’s lifelong gallery stories fascinated him and won his trust.
“How could he do this? He said my buying his work would help because prices would rise—what nonsense!”
The more she thought, the angrier she got, kicking the blanket.
Her phone rang. Dad.
“Sweetheart, how was your day? Eat yet?”
She snapped back to herself.
“I made kimchi fried rice—so good! Home-cooked meals are the best,” she chirped like a little bird in morning sun.
But…
“…Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
Despite her bright voice, her father saw through her instantly.
“Wow, Dad, you’re a mind-reader.”
“What happened?”
“You know Jung Sol?”
“Sure. The goose that lays golden eggs, you said.”
“He’s still a goose, but he’s laying his eggs somewhere else.”
She tried to sound casual, not wanting him to worry, though the thought of that sly Sol made her grind her teeth.
“That rascal! Give me his address.”
“He already moved. Dodged me completely.”
“Should I call the National Intelligence Service and send agents?”
Her throat tightened. She was grateful he was angry for her.
“Oh, right—tomorrow’s Mom’s memorial.”
Miyu changed the subject before she cried.
“I miss her.”
Her father’s gentle voice pierced her heart like a needle.
Miyu fingered the pearl pendant necklace her mother always wore.
Tonight her absence felt heavier.
“Dad, when are you leaving Gangneung?”
“Tomorrow’s 9 a.m. KTX. Let’s have a good lunch.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow.”
“And you—have some fun. Maybe date someone.”
As they were about to hang up, he added that out of nowhere.
When it came to dating, he always pressed a little harder.
Since their ruin he never nagged, maybe out of guilt, but near her mother’s memorial he’d hint at love.
“Dating? No way.”
“Trust me: in your twenties, love matters more than money.”
“Love doesn’t pay rent.”
“It fills you up even when you skip meals.”
“That just makes you fat.”
“You don’t gain weight, but you feel full. Believe in love, daughter.”
“I’d sooner believe in the devil.”
“You’ll know once you fall head over heels.”
“And what happens then?”
“You hear that person’s voice everywhere—”
“Everywhere?”
“In the air, the clouds, the walls, even in cats, dogs, stones.”
He said such corny things so easily.
A cat that speaks with a human voice?
“That’s one dangerous fellow,” he teased.
“The scariest of all. Maybe your true love is closer than you think.”
“Not a chance,” she said, glancing around her cozy vintage studio apartment of wood and green accents.
“When you meet him, don’t you dare hide it from me,” he said, his voice warm as summer shade.
“Still, I can’t stop thinking—should’ve bought all of Sol’s work. Prices will skyrocket.”
Only with her dad could she whine like this.
“It’s fine. Better opportunities will come.”
“I put in so much effort. We were really close…”
The thought that she’d lost a friend as well dried her throat.
“If I could just go back two weeks, I’d have signed the contract right away…”
She rose from bed and walked to the kitchen.
“Time… stone… good… all… back…”
Suddenly her father’s voice kept cutting in and out.
Maybe he was in an elevator?
It almost sounded like he was telling her to turn back time.
“Yeah. Just two weeks would be enough.”
“Huh? You… two… days… back… what?”
“I said I wish I could go back two weeks. Dad, can you hear me?”
“Sound… off…”
Bzzz. Crackle.
As static hissed through the line, she opened the refrigerator—and froze.
Inside were those same thatched and tiled miniatures: the dirt road, the zelkova, the waterwheel.
Ox carts and wagons, merchants at straw-roofed shops, women selling produce, nobles in hats, peasants with topknots, guards with spears, barefoot beggars…
It was clearly the Joseon era.
“My god! The f-fridge is… weird!”
She shouted into her phone, but the call had dropped.
Again she closed the door like someone who’d peeked into a stranger’s room.
She stared at the refrigerator.
One minute. Two. Three. Four…
Taking a deep breath, she gripped the handle and opened it again.
Boats loaded with cargo docking at a riverside pier, porters carrying goods, an old man puffing on a long pipe at a tavern, a merchant in a cotton-tufted hat…
Her jaw dropped like a cave mouth, though no scream came out.
A Joseon world inside my fridge? Impossible.
Slowly she reached in.
Her fingertip brushed the cotton tuft on the merchant’s hat.
A blinding flash—like lightning—filled her vision.
A light brighter than anything she’d known.
In the next instant, her body was sucked in like a tissue into a vacuum.
“Waaah!”
“Waaah!”
Miyu’s eyes flew open.
A tiny room where, if she stretched her limbs, she could almost touch all four walls.
Where am I?
Sunlight streamed through the window, laying patchwork stripes across the floor.
