Let's Walk Together

"ALT over a thousand, AST at 518, ALP still north of thirty-five hundred..."

The ALT he had already been worried about at 542 had now soared well past a thousand. AST and ALP were just as dire. The jaundice index, it went without saying, was sky-high.

And that was not all. The pancreatic values had come back extremely ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠elevated, and CRP — the inflammation marker, normally between 1 and 10 — was sitting at 90.

Jun scanned down the sheet at speed. He had already expected as much. What he needed to know were the kidney values.

"BUN, Cre..."

That was why he had drawn blood from Haennim-i's foreleg — even now, when she was so profoundly anemic that every last drop mattered.

And then, at last, the numbers he had been searching for slid into view.

"BUN at 143.5, creatinine at 8."

A BUN regarded as normal up to 30 had blown far past the reference range. Creatinine, normal up to 1.5, was sitting at 8.

"The kidneys are starting to overload too."

Kang Han-ul, reading the sheet over Jun's shoulder, let out a long breath.

"...Yeah."

Jun sighed with him. For a while, neither of them spoke. Silence settled over the office and sat there, heavy, for several minutes before Jun opened his mouth first. Even these few minutes of staring at the results in despair felt like time they could not afford to waste.

"Sunbae, let's do everything we can. You don't have anything like Kremezin, Renal Advance, Azodyl? Even ViniBac..."

He asked whether they had any of the renal support supplements he used on dogs and cats. He had not asked because he thought they would. What kind of place like this would keep those on hand? He only wanted to hear it confirmed.

"You think we'd have those?"

"Didn't think so. Then we start with fluids, and I'll have the rest sent over express."

Jun went straight to the medicine cabinet and gathered an IV set. Even in the moment he stood there sighing, Haennim-i's remaining time was slipping away.

He headed out with the fluids in hand, already calling the sales representative who had been supplying the facility with medication. The call connected at once, and Jun put in the order. By the time he hung up, he had reached Haennim-i's cage.

She was sitting up, breathing in short, labored gasps, leaning back against the bars. Not against the hard iron itself — she had said she wanted to watch the birds in the trees, so Jun had rolled a plush blanket into something like a beanbag for her. Propped against that makeshift backrest, Haennim-i was watching the birds.

On any ordinary day she would have noticed him coming from a mile off. Today she only stared at the trees. A fierce longing for freedom radiated from her, and Jun's brow furrowed as he looked at her.

A creature who wants to roam that freely...

And that creature had spent a dozen-plus years locked in this cramped little box. Looking at her, he felt pity, and heartache, and a guilt he did not know where to put. He let out a short breath and sent all of that out with it. What Haennim-i needed was not a pitying gaze. What she needed was someone to share the hopeful tomorrow she was already picturing.

He cleared his throat and called to her in a bright voice.

"Haennim-i! What are you looking at?"

She turned. On a face left dry and worn by illness, a radiant smile bloomed.

"Hehe, Banana Oppa! That one walked and walked so, so far. Walked all the way over there."

The place her forepaw pointed was the blue sky. A little songbird was flying across it. She had surely watched it pick its way along the branch first, then seen it open its wings and go. And she had decided, in her own mind, that it was still walking — just walking on and on.

"You're right. It's going a long way."

Jun nodded along, carefully leaving out the word fly.

"Heehee, I wanna go all the way over there too. I'm gonna walk far, far away just like that one! Hehe, I wish Oppa would walk with me."

"Yeah. Let's do that. Let's walk together."

At that, Haennim-i smiled even more brightly than before.

"Wow, wow! I get to walk with Oppa! Me and Oppa... hehehe."

She looked up at him with clear, innocent eyes. Over those glittering black pupils, a deep yellow had laid itself down — the whites of her eyes, turned a vivid saffron by jaundice.

Jun stepped quickly into the cage.

"Haennim-i, if you let me give you a little poke, you'll get your strength back. Food starts tasting good too. It'll sting, but let's be brave and do it anyway."

"Mhm, mhm! It doesn't hurt even a little. I'm gonna eat and get strong. I wanna walk with Banana Oppa. Like those ones."

The place she was watching, her whole face alight, was the ground, where two sparrows had landed and were hopping along.

"Yeah. Let's walk together. We have to walk together, Haennim-i."

He hung the fluids and spoke it like a prayer, like an incantation.

"Mhm, mhm. Together with Banana Oppa!"

She enunciated, carefully, a word she had learned from him. Together. It was a word she loved.

Haennim-i's wish to walk far, far away was a remarkably effective medicine. More effective, in truth, than anything else they had.

Her liver failure was deepening, her kidneys were giving out, and she was worsening by the day. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠fluids were keeping her going, but they were not running a hemodialysis machine, and so the decline was brutally fast. They were giving her medications and supplements too, but those were exactly what they sounded like — supplements. Nothing with any real force behind it.

Time ran on, and then it was two days before Haennim-i was to leave for the Animal Sanctuary.

Jun had hoped her condition would at least hold until then. Instead, it kept getting worse. On top of everything else, she had stopped eating.

She looked weakly at the bowl of Renaliquid and blinked her round eyes.

"...Banana Oppa...! I want to eat. But I don't wanna eat."

Only the day before she had been singing it in a bouncy little voice — I wanna walk with Oppa — and now she was close to tears.

"I-I have to eat... I have to eat and get strong so I can walk far, far away..."

As she spoke, she looked past the bars at the sky, where a single bird was drifting, unhurried, on the wind.

"That's right, Haennim-i. Let's walk far, far away. Starting tomorrow, we'll be able to."

Jun stroked her head as he answered her.

"Our Haennim-i is so much bigger than those little ones, so you'll be able to walk even farther than they can."

"Even farther?"

She heaved herself up from the blanket backrest. She had no strength left, and she swayed. Jun caught her at once.

"Hae— Haennim-i..."

"O-Oppa. I'll e-eat and get strong."

She said it, then took a mouthful of the nutritional porridge and swallowed.

Her liver had all but stopped listening, her kidneys were failing, and her body had almost no ability left to detoxify anything. Eating was probably agony. And still she swallowed.

"That's my girl. So brave. Our Haennim-i is so, so brave."

The will to eat had come back. That alone was a green light. Watching her, Jun thought, By tomorrow her condition will be worse. Motion sickness... will she be all right?

Haennim-i had never once in her life ridden in a car. Could she endure a rattling transport truck?

He asked Kang Han-ul.

"Sunbae — the Somang-is. What will they be riding in?"

"What do you mean, what will they be riding in?"

"You know. We'll be moving them to the airport in containers, right?"

"Yeah, that's the plan."

"The trucks pulling those containers — they won't be dedicated animal transport trucks, will they?"

"Of course not. Do you have any idea what a dedicated animal transport truck costs?"

"Expensive... I'm guessing? I think it was the LA Zoo — I read an article about them moving animals with a system like that..."

Kang looked at him and let out a long, heavy sigh.

"They say it runs over a hundred thousand dollars."

"What? That's over a hundred million won?"

"Yeah, that's what I heard. I looked into it, just in case. Climate control, no rattling, the whole package. Then our team heard the price and dropped it clean."

"Whew. Yeah. That really is expensive."

Jun asked one more thing, just in case.

"There aren't any of those trucks in this country, are there?"

"Of course not. Even if we borrowed one, it'd take forever just to get it here by ship."

Meaning that even having the money would not have helped.

"I suppose not."

So that was a lost cause.

"Then how do we cut down on the shaking?"

"Hard to say. If we pack in some extra padding and give them a decent bed, it should be all right, don't you think? They've gotten pretty good about holding their business now, so I was thinking we'd lay mats down on the floor for the trip..."

"I suppose that's the best we can do."

Even if it was only the floor, Jun thought, they ought to put down something decent.

That was when his phone rang.

"Oh — it's President Namgung."

"Hmm? The gentleman who built the sunshades for our kids?"

Jun nodded and took the call.

And just like that, out of nowhere, they had a vibration-free truck.

The moment Jun hung up, Kang Han-ul seized him in a fierce hug.

"Jun, in your past life you must've been— no, never mind. You're really something. How do you even get support like that? Thank you, Jun. Thank you!"

Overcome, Kang squeezed him hard enough that Jun's breath stopped in his throat.

"Ghk!"

The day before Haennim-i was to leave for the airport, Go Gi-jin arrived in Donghae.

"I'll be carryin' Haennim-i in my arms, I will."

"You're going to carry her?"

"That's right. Better she goes in my arms than gettin' loaded on a stretcher."

For Gi-jin, a bear Haennim-i's size was nothing to hold. Jun knew exactly what kind of heart had brought him here, and he looked at him with quiet gratitude. That tenderhearted kid. He wanted her to feel as much warmth as possible before she left for the Bear Star. Being held close would be better than being laid on a cold stretcher. Anyone could see that.

"Thank you."

And then it was the day of departure.

Clank. The cage door opened, and Haennim-i came out of it at last — held in Go Gi-jin's arms.

Nestled against his chest, she rolled her eyes this way and that, taking everything in. Then she tilted her round head from side to side and said,

"Banana Oppa!"

"Yeah, Haennim-i."

"It's weird, Banana Oppa. This isn't here."

She lifted a feeble forepaw and drew long lines down through the air. She meant the vertical bars. They were gone.

Only in the world where she had lived had there been a world of vertical lines. As he told her so, Jun's eyes suddenly grew wet. He looked up at the sky to blink the moisture away — and Haennim-i smiled, bright as anything.

"Hehe, it's so, so pretty. Pretty as Banana Oppa."

As if Jun could ever be as beautiful as the blue sky and the green trees. It only meant that, to her, he was that precious, that dear.

Her eyes shone as she looked at a sky and trees and earth that no longer had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bars running through them. This from a creature who, mere moments ago, had been too weak to even keep her eyes open.

"Haennim-i is the prettiest of all."

At that, she grinned, wide and blissful.

"Hehehe, Oppa~!"

As she laughed her little bear-laugh, Go Gi-jin spoke to her.

"That's it, you keep smilin'. Haennim-i, we're headed somewhere real wonderful."

He started walking toward the container — and Haennim-i stretched out a foreleg.

"Oppa, Strong Oppa. My friends..."

She wanted to go see them.

"Hmm? You wanna go see your friends?"

Gi-jin looked down at her as he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠asked, and Jun said,

"You can understand everything they're saying, can't you."

"Well, anyone with eyes could tell, couldn't they? The way she's wavin' her paw at 'em so desperately like that."

He turned to the staff standing nearby.

"Think y'all could wait about ten minutes?"

Permission granted, Gi-jin strode toward the Somang-is.

Groo-ung, groo-ung.

Grweh-eng, grweh-eng.

Krr-huff-huff-groooang.

Haennim-i and the Somang-is promised they would meet again.

She kept waving her forepaw at her friends until she was inside the container.

"Friends~ I'll be waiting for you first!"

Groo-woong!

The Somang-is waved their forepaws back. Go on ahead.

Carrying her friends' farewell with her, Haennim-i climbed into the container, and she arrived at the airport safely.

Lee Jun, Go Gi-jin, and Kwak Suho — who had been documenting Haennim-i and the rest of the Somang-is on video all this time — boarded the animal hold with her. Everyone was surprised, but Jun's position was firm. It was, he said, the best way to get Haennim-i to her new home in one piece.

And at last, the plane carrying them lifted into the air.