Thick and warm meat. Juice bursting in the mouth. Sweet and soft sauce.

What kind of person would make such food?

Curiosity grew into admiration, admiration into a dream.

‘I want to make it too.’

Affordable and delicious food with my name on it. Something that hungry orphanage children could eat to their heart’s content.

Because no one had told her she could have hope, Kim Ye Rin didn’t even know that such things were called dreams.

She just desperately wanted it.

‘How do you make delicious things?’

In the small world of a nine-year-old gumiho, there was only one way to learn cooking.

Kim Ye Rin pattered on her short legs to the orphanage kitchen.

“Please teach me how to make hamburger steak!”

There was a moment of silence.

“You think we don’t know you’re planning to steal and eat it? Get out now!”

One red-faced staff member at the stove pulled out a ladle from the pot and waved it around, driving Kim Ye Rin out.

Kim Ye Rin did not back down.

Every day she went to the kitchen, sticking close to the doorway and watching the staff cook with eagle eyes.

Then one day, an onion rolled to her feet.

Kim Ye Rin picked up the onion, peeled it as she had seen over shoulders, and left it in the kitchen.

The next day. This time a garlic rolled over.

Kim Ye Rin peeled that too and put it in the kitchen colander.

On her way out, she heard the pressure cooker’s weight rattling. She stood on tiptoe and turned off the heat.

Turning her head, she saw a mountain of carrots. Kim Ye Rin turned on the hose and started washing the carrots with her small hands.

Everyone thought it would be just for a moment.

But Kim Ye Rin came to the kitchen every day to help with chores.

Several months passed like that.

The kitchen staff, who were initially wary of Kim Ye Rin, soon began hiding her from the director’s eyes.

“It’s a secret that you work here. If they find out food was made by a monster, no one will want to eat it.”

“You won’t be able to come into the kitchen again.”

“If the director finds out, he’ll surely rage about how we could let a monster’s hands touch food for humans. So let’s keep this between us.”

Every time the staff cautioned her, Kim Ye Rin nodded her head vigorously.

Fortunately or unfortunately, no one cared if this little gumiho child was holed up in the kitchen out of sight.

The kitchen was warm, and there was endless things to learn. Above all, there was no one to bully her.

Kim Ye Rin spent almost all her time in the kitchen.

Thus, this little gumiho’s share steadily grew like a game of territory, soon becoming an indispensable presence in the kitchen.

Eventually, she came to sit squeezed like a bean among the large-bodied staff, eating rice mixed in a large bowl together.

Thanks to eating her fill at every meal, flesh began to fill out her once skinny, stick-like body.

Her cheeks, which had been white with only dry rashes, gradually gained a peach color, and she grew so tall that her sleeves and pants hems became short.

Her once dull tail gained a glossy sheen. When she unwrapped the bandages before bed, it spread out luxuriously like a bouquet of silver willows plucked from the moon.

New flesh began to grow on her damaged face. Her distorted features gradually regained their original places.

One day, as she grew prettier and prettier with each passing day.

Kim Ye Rin received a hat and mask as gifts from the kitchen staff.

“Cover up. Nothing good comes from showing a pretty face.”

“That’s right. You’re a fox. Always be careful.”

“Especially don’t catch the director’s eye. He seems to have forgotten all about you now, but if he realizes your face has returned, he’ll surely have bad intentions again.”

Kim Ye Rin herself had been feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the gazes on her face.

Gratefully accepting the hat and mask, she felt much more at ease when she put them on.

“You said you wanted to learn cooking, right? Come here. Let’s start with holding a knife.”

The head chef, known for his gruff appearance and even gruffer personality, began teaching cooking to this pretty and diligent gumiho child.

Kim Ye Rin absorbed it all like a sponge.

Soon, when there was nothing left to teach, the head chef and staff pooled their personal money to send Kim Ye Rin to a cooking academy.

“Keep your tail hidden like now when you go. If they find out you’re a monster, you’ll be kicked out of the academy. For now, we’ve registered you under someone else’s name.”

“Isn’t there an academy that monsters can attend too?”

“There isn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because the country dislikes monsters.”

“Why?”

“If I knew that, would I be here making food like this instead of doing politics?”

Kim Ye Rin stared up at the head chef.

The head chef sighed and said.

“Before you were born, there were some very bad monsters. They incited other monsters to try to oppress humans and rise above them. When humans resisted, the war dragged on quite long. Many died. Many humans died, and even more monsters died. In the old days, there were far more monsters than now.”

“What does that have to do with me not being able to go to academy?”

“Because humans won the war and monsters lost. Humans wanted to tightly bind even the few remaining monsters by law so they would never be oppressed by monsters again. Live only in designated areas, don’t drink alcohol after 10 PM, pay to attend school… The academy isn’t the only place you can’t go.”

“But I have no intention of harming humans…”

“It’s karma. Descendants paying for their ancestors’ sins.”

“But I don’t even know who my ancestors are?”

“Do you think I know?”

It was her first day visiting the academy with her tail hidden.

There was a red sign on the entrance door.

NO PET

NO SMOKING

NO MONSTER

Next to it, on a notice, Kim Ye Rin saw Choi Yoon’s face.

He was smiling brightly, arm in arm with other child models.

Our Child Safety Facility

Monster-Free Certified Educational Institution

Dad, there are no monsters in our academy!

Kim Ye Rin kept her mouth tightly shut and pretended to be human, diligently attending the academy even when spoken to.

Kim Ye Rin stood out at the academy too. She was truly a genius. She learned quickly and often surpassed her teachers. Soon there was nothing left to learn.

So Kim Ye Rin stayed alone in the kitchen after work was done, spending time making various things with leftover ingredients.

Time passed like that.

Kim Ye Rin had now become a master of hamburger steak.

Not just hamburger steak, but she could also make boiled pork, pasta, and cold noodles with vegetables. And all very deliciously.

But there was a problem.

“Why are you learning to cook?”

“I want to make processed foods under my own name.”

“Products made by monsters are banned from distribution. Haven’t you seen the guide posters with Choi Yoon as the spokesperson? The one they keep having to put up new ones because people keep taking them down because he’s so handsome.”

“Then I’ll open a restaurant.”

“Monsters can’t run food businesses, you know? Lately Choi Yoon’s been doing public service announcements on TV. He says even monsters who’ve already opened restaurants should apply for closure subsidies.”

“Then what can I do?”

“There’s a list of jobs the country allows for monsters. The one Choi Yoon promoted. Look at that.”

But that list didn’t contain a single cooking-related job that Kim Ye Rin wanted.

“But I really want to open a franchise under my name. I want to open many branches nationwide. I want to supply to supermarkets too.”

“I’m telling you, it’s illegal for monsters to do that. Go to Choi Yoon’s SNS. He’s the public relations ambassador for the Monster Management Department, so it’s all well organized there.”

Monsters are thoroughly controlled by humans.

Kim Ye Rin realized this basic fact quite late. Unlike the outside world that oppressed monsters, the kitchen staff had treated Kim Ye Rin really well.

But she couldn’t stay in the kitchen forever.

At eighteen, she had to leave the orphanage.

Kim Ye Rin, suddenly at a loss for where to go, decided to work as a domestic helper in a private home.

As she was leaving the orphanage gates with just one bag of luggage, it happened.

“Kim Ye Rin!”

Turning around, she saw the head chef running up breathlessly. He held out something.

“Take it.”

It was a bundle of old bankbooks.

“Hurry and take it! Before I change my mind!”

She took it reflexively and opened it.

There were regular deposits on the 20th of every month.

Some bankbooks had 50,000 won each, some 880,000 won each, some 1,240,000 won each, some 1,790,000 won each. The last bankbook had quite a large amount.

Sometimes large sums were withdrawn, but without fail, the same amount would be refilled.

The head chef cleared his throat.

“I took some out to use when I was short on money. But I put it all back.”

“What is this?”

“Your pay for all the work you’ve done. At first, we staff pooled a little bit, and later we lied to the director that we hired a new employee.”

Kim Ye Rin looked back and forth between the head chef and the bankbooks.

“The password is our kitchen password.”

The head chef strangely squinted one eye. Kim Ye Rin only realized after some time that it was meant to be a wink.

“Can I really take this? You never said you’d pay me.”

“You never said you wouldn’t take it either.”

Kim Ye Rin opened the last page of the bankbook and counted the zeros again and again. She spoke in a nasally voice.

“I really don’t know what to say…”

“I’m dying of regret so put it away quickly. I’m starting to want to take it back.”

Kim Ye Rin put the bankbooks in her coat’s inner pocket. Even though she could feel the corners of the bankbooks at her chest, it didn’t feel real.

“Now that you have money, don’t go to that house.”

The head chef made a scary face. He continued in a low growl.

“They didn’t want a housekeeper. They chose based on your photo. You can’t go there. You know how much commission that employee who introduced you took? It doesn’t make sense to receive that much for just connecting one housekeeper. Shameless bastard.”

Then he pressed his lips tightly and blurted out.

“I’m a dokkaebi monster.”

Kim Ye Rin didn’t understand right away.

But the next moment she gasped.

It was a bigger shock than the bankbooks with amounts she’d never had in her life, or the true nature of the job she was about to unknowingly enter.

“Your horns?”

“I cut them off.”

Kim Ye Rin shuddered.

“I cut them off when I was twenty. Even now, I go once a year to cut them off. They stubbornly grow back, as if they’re my bloodline. Who would know I’m a monster? Stupid humans.”

The head chef’s face contorted. He laughed hoarsely, as if holding back tears.

Then he grabbed Kim Ye Rin’s hand and pressed something else into it.

It was a worn business card for a plastic surgery clinic.

“Nine out of ten die. I was lucky. I can’t guarantee how it’ll be for you. But you should be able to make a choice. It’s better than not knowing at all, right?”

“I-illegal…”

“What illegal! What’s the big deal about pulling out one horn to live like a human with my own money. If you don’t like it, give it back!”

The head chef put his hands on his hips and bent down to bare his yellow teeth right in front of Kim Ye Rin’s nose.

“There’s a reward of a thousand or so for reporting the hospital. They don’t give it to just anyone. Either cut your tail or cut the business card. If you report to the police…”

Instead of finishing his sentence, the head chef rolled his large eyes.

“I won’t tell anyone!”

“You need to know you’re pretty!”

“I’ll keep it in mind!”

“Gumiho are supposed to be pretty, but you’re especially, especially pretty so life will be really, really hard. Always be careful!”

“Yes!”

“Do you know why gumiho went extinct? Because humans secretly captured pretty gumiho and exploited them! It was so painful that gumiho chose not to have offspring at all. That’s why the lineage dried up! You must never live such a miserable life! And…”

The head chef said with emphasis.

“Your hamburger steak is the best.”

Kim Ye Rin gathered courage and asked.

“Can I contact you?”

The head chef snorted.

“Don’t contact me. Don’t come looking either. What good would come from monsters getting entangled? Forget this squalid orphanage, pull out that uselessly pretty tail, and now live doing what you want to do. Live more freely than humans!”

In her hand was the plastic surgery clinic’s business card, in her bosom were bankbooks with considerable sums.

For the first time in her life, she was given a choice.

Kim Ye Rin decided to cut off her tail.