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Black Cat Boss (up)

“I’ve been asked to take down the application”

..

The sun rose again. A glaring sun rose, bright to the point of sickness, bright to the point of pain. Every time I see it, I hate that brightness that keeps standing in such stark contrast to my life, so much it makes my teeth ache.

“How many part-time jobs today. One café one night shift.., ah, and I’ve got a Carrot transaction today too, I’m seriously going crazy..”

I’m 21. It’s the age to have fun and enjoy youth, but for someone like me, youth is a luxury. While other people get support from their parents, go out and have fun, and work several part-time jobs, leaving behind memories they call experiences, I spend every day thinking of it as a living hell.

The reason I call it hell. When I was 19. That winter, when I was just getting ready to become an adult and feeling excited. A man called my father dumped debt on me and disappeared. And that money was, of all things, more than the interest from borrowing recklessly from a bank.

It was money borrowed from somewhere worse. Worse.

One day, a handsome man with a flashy face like a cat came to our house dressed neatly. At the time, I was living dazedly after my dad disappeared. Then the man smiled and said to me.

That man called my father He’d borrowed money from some underworld organization called HS, the kind you’ve never heard of or seen. At first I thought it was bullshit, so I pinched my cheek. Damn. It hurt so much I almost cried. And just like that, my youth became a hellish contract with that man, turning into a power imbalance

in an instant.

A machine-like life, working steadily and on time from morning to night without ever falling behind, always made me feel powerless, and my body rapidly fell apart. While everyone else had time to get dressed up, I was packing food to make money for my living, and while everyone else laughed with their friends, I had to put on a commercial smile in front of customers.

By the time night came, I could at least breathe a little. In the morning I’d sweat and feel gross because of the heat, but at night the cool night breeze would pass over me. If I hadn’t lived this kind of life. I wonder if I would have looked back at the night like this.

So today, too, I work. To pay back the money.

To live the life I lost.

To get away from that cat-like boss.