Hello, Seorak
Lee Jun was in the middle of talking through a zoo visit with Choi Woo-jin, checking their calendars for a date that might work, when his phone began to ring.
"Huh? Why's Park I-chan calling?"
"Park I-chan? The one at the zoo?"
"Yeah. That Park I-chan."
Lee Jun answered Choi Woo-jin and picked up.
"Hey, I-chan! Long time no see. Happy New Year."
"You too. Anyway, Lee Jun — you got a minute?"
The voice on the other end sounded urgent. Lee Jun had a pretty good idea why Park I-chan was calling.
"Even if I don't, I'll make one. You wouldn't be calling unless you needed me."
"Whew. Thanks."
"What happened that's got you thanking me before you've even said a word?"
"We've got a problem in the carnivore house."
"Carnivores?"
The word landed so abruptly that Lee Jun faltered for a beat. Only a beat, though. His expression settled again just as quickly. Still. I didn't expect a lion or a tiger. Well — we'll be putting it under and doing the procedure anyway.
He assumed Park I-chan was calling about another endoscopy, the way he had last time. Lee Jun's name had gotten around for endoscopic work, after all.
"Alright, what did it eat? Chewed up a stick of wood? Swallow a rock?"
"Ah — no. Not that."
"Then what? You haven't found the cause yet? Ah, so you want an endoscopy just to check."
"Not that either. The thing is — we've got a tiger named Seorak with uveitis."
The moment the diagnosis left his classmate's mouth — uveitis — Lee Jun knew exactly what the problem was. Ah. They can't get the eye drops in.
The Hopes' journey to the Animal Sanctuary had been featured on terrestrial television through Animal Praise. It had gone up on Kwak Suho's Myeotube channel as well. In the footage, the bears had walked into the special transport cages on their own, without a drop of anesthesia. One of them had even lifted a front paw and waved goodbye as it went in.
People had called it a miracle — something Lee Jun had pulled off by training the bears in so short a time. Park I-chan had remembered that, and that was why he had picked up the phone.
"I-chan. I know why you called. But honestly, I don't know how a tiger's going to go."
"So you figured it out. Think you can do it? Honestly, you're our only hope. You know how painful that eye condition is. How much it hurts."
"I know."
Lee Jun agreed, and then he went quiet, thinking. How much pain a tiger named Seorak must be in. And why the uveitis had started in the first place — he began lining up every diagnosis that could fit.
A corneal ulcer, maybe? That could have progressed to uveitis. They wouldn't have been able to treat it. Or a cataract coming on? A mature cataract could drive uveitis as well. Diabetes, arthritis, a parasitic infection — any of those could do it. Could even be a tumor. Don't tell me it's FIP.
Uveitis could rise out of underlying disease, out of trauma, out of an autoimmune condition. Lee Jun was so busy turning over every possibility that he stopped speaking entirely, and a stretch of silence filled the line.
After that brief gap, a voice spilled from the phone again.
"Even you — as good as you are with animals — a tiger's a different story, right?"
"What is?"
"You know. Asking someone to put eye drops in a tiger without anesthesia? I'd turn it down myself."
"What are you talking about? Turn it down? You said his name was Seorak, right? Do you have any idea how much that guy must be hurting?"
"What? So you're saying you'll help?"
"Yeah. I'll come take a look, at least."
Lee Jun said it, then added, without missing a beat, "Honestly, I'm not confident."
"Th-thanks anyway. Calling you was worth it, Lee Jun."
"Don't say that. We just need to actually help him. So — when should I come? No. The sooner those drops go in, the better. While we're on the subject, can I come right now? Oh — wait. Are you off work already?"
"N-no. If you're coming, I'm grateful. Really grateful."
"Then I'm heading out now."
Lee Jun stood, and Choi Woo-jin stared at him with a look of pure disbelief.
"Makes a mockery of me telling you to get some rest. A complete mockery."
"Same here. That's just how he is."
"Then why are you two coming along?"
"Me? I'm worried about Seorak."
"I'm going to find Dr. Yeo and have him pack the eye drops while you change."
Lee Jun looked at his two friends and huffed a quiet laugh. They were the nagging sort, both of them — but when it came to caring about animals, their hearts were not one bit smaller than his own.
"I'll drive. Lee Jun, you rest."
Kwak Suho said it, and Lee Jun shot back, "You're the only one with a car here anyway."
"That so? I'll be in the car, then. Come on out when you're ready."
The two of them gave a loose wave of the hand and headed off in opposite directions — Lee Jun to change, Choi Woo-jin to find Yeo Un-hyeok.
Before long both of them were in Kwak Suho's car, and the car was flying toward Gwacheon.
Choi Woo-jin, watching the scenery slide past the window, opened his mouth.
"So this is how we end up going to the zoo."
"Tell me about it. This is not how I wanted to get there."
"Right? Doesn't this feel exactly like one of those things?"
"What things?"
"You know. The day it's pouring rain and somebody says the clinic's quiet — and then an emergency walks in. Today feels exactly like that."
"It does. The second you say it's slow, an emergency shows up."
"The second you think you're getting off early, an emergency shows up."
"That's what I'm saying. Anyway — this Seorak, or whatever his name is — I hope he actually listens to you, Lee Jun."
"I hope so too. Otherwise how are we supposed to pull off a treatment that needs drops six or seven times a day?"
Lee Jun let out a thin sigh as he answered, and Kwak Suho, at the wheel, startled and asked, "You have to put the drops in that many times?"
"Honestly, you can count it as even more than that. There are about four different drops, and at the start we instill them as often as once an hour."
"Aigoo. Just hearing it sounds complicated and miserable. What kind of drops need that many rounds?"
"There's inflammation, so first you need antibiotic drops and anti-inflammatory drops to knock that down. Serum eye drops help too. And you have to put in a mydriatic. That's why."
"I'd get them all mixed up."
"That's why we number them when we send the prescription out. You get used to it as you go. We start frequent and then gradually stretch the intervals."
"Whew. Even a dog or a cat that actually listens would have a hard time with that. A person would have a hard time putting in that many eye drops."
"It's hard."
As he answered Kwak Suho, Lee Jun found himself thinking of Gkamnyangi, who had endured drop after drop, day after day, without a fuss. And of the place those drops had gone in. Manager Jang really went through it back then. He himself had lost sleep putting drops in Gkamnyangi's eyes, but that particular fact had slipped his mind completely. He went on.
"You're right, Suho. It's hard. Even with cats and dogs that listen, uveitis treatment is never easy."
"So how long does it take to get better?"
"If you treat it properly? Three weeks, maybe a month. Sometimes it takes forever and still doesn't clear."
At that, Kwak Suho let out a long breath and said, as if the tiger were sitting right in front of him, "Seorak! You listen real well to the director, okay?"
Listening to Kwak Suho lay down the law like that, Lee Jun found himself hoping the same thing. Yeah, Seorak. Let's get those drops in. Really. If they didn't, the tiger could go blind. Lee Jun did not want that — not ever.
How did you even care for a blind tiger? He could lose his footing. Even eating would become a struggle. Everything would get harder.
Seorak still had so many years ahead of him. Lee Jun did not want an eye disease cutting that life short. With something like a prayer in his chest, he made up his mind: he was going to treat Seorak's eyes. He would.
He had wished it that clearly. And yet Lee Jun's wish — Lee Jun's prayer — did not seem to have reached the sky just yet.
The moment Lee Jun and Park I-chan stepped into Seorak's enclosure, the tiger let out a savage cry.
RRAAAGH!
The roar of a predator in a towering rage. The hair on Lee Jun's scalp stood on end. Aigoo. He is furious.
He did not let it show. With every animal, the first meeting was what mattered. If you gave ground at the first meeting, it was over. That was true of dogs and cats. For a tiger — king of the predators — it would be truer still.
Small to begin with, and frightened on top of it? You'd just be lunch.
Lee Jun squared his shoulders and stepped up to the front of Seorak's cage.
Seorak had been waiting. He bared his teeth and snarled.
RRAAAGH! RRRAAAAGHHH!
Honestly, Lee Jun had never seen a tiger this close. This close, with nothing but a set of iron bars between them.
The tiger was far bigger than he had expected. The face, especially, was enormous. The teeth, of course, were enormous too.
Looking at those long, needle-sharp canines, Lee Jun thought, If he got ahold of me and shook, that would be it. If he had thought that in the old days, he might have turned and run from this very spot — thick iron bars or no.
But he had a weapon now. The weapon called communication. And that weapon poured courage into him.
So Lee Jun used the word that made animals most willing to yield. He called the tiger by name.
"Hello, Seorak."
A voice that was soft. A voice that carried no threat at all.
Seorak's eyes met his. He understood his name. I knew it. Then maybe they could talk. Barely a minute inside the enclosure, and Lee Jun felt hope take root. He let out a breath of relief, and as he did, he studied the tiger's hurting eyes.
That was when it happened.
Seorak's eye flashed — the one that did not hurt. At the same time the flesh of his cheek twitched, and the long whiskers moved with it. Every time his upper lip shifted, those long, pointed canines bared themselves even further.
And then—
Grr. Grrrrrrrnh!
Seorak snarled, and then, with a rushing whoosh, closed the distance in a flash, like a leap. He thrust a foreleg through the bars, sank his claws into the iron, and threatened them.
Grrngh. Grrrrrrngh!
Clangclangclangclang! Clangclangclangclang!
Every time Seorak shook the bars, the key hanging from the iron door slammed against the cage and rang.
The key should have been silver. Instead it was stained a deep red, the color of blood.
It looked, to Lee Jun, as if Seorak himself had left that blood there — as if the tiger, in too much pain to bear, had hurt himself and smeared it across the key like an SOS. Please. Save me.
You poor guy. How much must it hurt, to…
The thought landed, and the snarling tiger in front of him was no longer frightening. Even as Seorak went on snarling without a pause, the fear was simply gone.
Park I-chan, standing beside him, was another story. He was terrified. Aigoo. The hissing got even worse. My knees have gone completely to jelly. Did I make a mistake asking him to come?
This was nothing like the hissing Park I-chan had heard in all his years at the zoo. Seorak's hiss — that raw, spitting hiss — was the most blood-freezing he had ever heard in his life. And the thought followed, unbidden: If this goes wrong, Lee Jun could get hurt. I should just tell the team leader and ask to put him under.
Anesthetize him, and treat whatever they could treat. That was as far as it could go. He was already mapping out the rest of the treatment in his head when Lee Jun spoke.
"I-chan. You got a chair or a table around?"
"What for?"
"I'm going to try putting the drops in."
"What? Eye drops?"
In this situation?
Park I-chan's eyes went wide. So did the eyes of Ji Hyun-woo, the zookeeper standing beside him — as wide as they could possibly go.