Prologue

Prologue

At dawn, when the dimness of the night settled, the tingling winter air pricked my lungs.

“Heok, heok, heok.”

A mountain trail devoid of people at 4 a.m.

Climbing the mountain at such an early hour and taking deep breaths brought about refreshing feelings.

“I wanted to do this, but do I really have to?”

-Brush, brush.

I took out the neatly collected white and angular lump from the plastic bag. I illuminated it with the light of my cellphone.

Premium tofu, costing over 5000 won per block.

I stood blankly for a while, admiring the sight of the tofu.The inaugural upload of this chapter took place via N0v3l-B1n.

“Um...”

Thinking about what I was about to do, guilt flooded from the depths of my heart.

I closed my eyes and retraced the steps I took to come here.

―It was beyond imagination. Since it was with hot tofu...

“Puh. Keukkeukkeuk. Ah, damn it.”

Just recalling that picture I saw on the Internet made me burst into laughter. At the age of twenty-seven, to be doing something like this.

I slowly caressed the hollow of the tree I had been researching for a long time.

‘Proper height, depth, length, and appearance. Undoubtedly, this tree is the most lascivious.’

Upon closer inspection, its shape even resembled female genitalia.

‘Am I really doing it here?’

Initially, I had no such thoughts, but since childhood, I had been a boy with an unusually intense curiosity.

Finding out in kindergarten that girls didn’t have a penis shocked me. Recalling how I stripped the underwear of a girl next to me shows I was a lunatic possessed by madness since childhood.

The act I was about to commit was also a part of satisfying that curiosity.

Not lust but curiosity. Just a question.

It was definitely crazy, but what could be done after it was already committed?

-Jalgeurak.

I put my cooled-down penis back into my pants and zipped up.

And scooped out the tofu filling the tree.

-Jjilgeok!

“Eh?”

At that moment, something excessively hot touched my hand as I made contact with the hole.

Startled, when I pulled out, something like a thread was stretched to the tip of my finger.

“What is this? Is there a spider web inside?”

Looking closely, it wasn’t a spider web but a sticky liquid.

Was there something inside the hole from the beginning? It was too sticky to be just water from the tofu.

After scooping out the tofu and stepping back, the sense of strangeness crept in again.

“Why is the tree this red?”

I had doubts, but I thought it might be the rising sun making me see the original color of the tree incorrectly.

What would I gain from suspecting a tree?

Let’s go back.

I started hurrying down the mountain.

From now on, the sweet first day of the end of the semester, my head was filled with thoughts of enjoying the extraordinary campus life of an outsider.

The next morning.

I blankly stared down at the door of my one-room apartment.

“......Take responsibility.”

There, a girl with unusually bright lime-colored hair was scolding me.

“Take responsibility for our mom!”