A Short, Sweet Homecoming
Chomp, chomp, chomp.
Lap, lap, lap, lap.
Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi tore into the food in a mindless frenzy, shoveling it down as if they were gulping water. Watching the two of them, Lee Jun felt a rush of emotions too tangled to name.
He stopped cursing the kidnapper, at least for now. He did not want to spend another scrap of time or thought on that man. For the moment, every last shred of resentment, every curse, every vivid fantasy of what he would do once he caught the bastard and wrung him out, he flung far into the distance.
And he focused on the two in front of him.
They were here. Nothing in the world could matter more than that.
Hoesaegi, Gkamnyangi. Thank you so much for coming back. Thank you.
As Lee Jun gazed at them without end, Go Gi-jin's voice reached his ears.
"Aigoo, you poor things! How hungry and thirsty must you have been to be gobbling like that! Easy now, kids, chew it slow and proper. You'll be in a world of trouble if you choke."
Lee Jun was thinking the same thing.
Anyone eating like that had clearly gone the two days since leaving home without a single bite. And it wouldn't have been just the food. They probably couldn't drink, either. It was the dead of winter. The guess was only natural. Once we get to work, I'll need to put them on fluids. I just hope their kidneys haven't taken a strain...
From the outside, nothing about them looked injured. But they did say that knowing too much was its own disease. Whenever Lee Jun saw kids who had gone hungry like this, the first things that rose in his mind were liver damage and kidney trouble. Fatty liver from starvation. Urinary disease from going without water. I should take them in and run some simple tests.
Of course, they had already eaten, so that would have to be taken into account. Even so, there was no way he was going to starve two clearly famished kids all over again just for the sake of a blood draw. We'll check the liver and kidneys once we're at the hospital. And then...
Here and there across their ears, their faces, their bodies, he could see little scabs of dried blood. Those don't look like wounds that man made. Still, you never knew.
All at once, Aji the Cocker Spaniel flashed through his mind—the sick, painful past of a dog abused by a previous owner—and Lee Jun's eyes flew open. Gkamnyangi's limp could be from that guy hitting him.
Gkamnyangi was favoring one leg, just slightly. The moment Lee Jun saw it, he wanted to ask how the leg had been hurt. Go Gi-jin was thinking the same thing.
But the two of them reached the same conclusion: food and water first.
If Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi had been unconscious, or writhing in pain, the men would not have been sitting here feeding them. They would have scooped them up and gone straight to the hospital. In the state they were in, though, getting food into them came first. Let's ask after they've eaten their fill. Asked then, calmly, they would tell him what had happened.
Judging by their wretched, bedraggled appearance, they had been through hell. How badly must they have suffered to collapse like they fainted right in front of the house? The relief of arriving home had surely been what let them finally let go.
Lee Jun watched Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi, still gobbling in a mindless rush, with a gaze full of pity.
The homecoming was short and intense, and when it was over, Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi dropped into sleep as if they had fainted where they sat.
Sapsaree fell asleep right beside them.
Grrrk, grrrk, grrrk~!
Hnnn, hnnn, hnnn!
Grrr~!
Listening to the three of them snore, Lee Jun laughed.
"Sounds like they're singing in chorus."
At the remark that the snoring was a warm, homey sound, Go Gi-jin laughed and picked it up.
"That's right. That's a mighty fine sound, that is."
He looked at the three of them and added,
"That's it, that's it. Sleep deep now. Bet you didn't get a wink!"
It was not something said for the sleeping ones to hear. It was just that the kids snoring away beside him were so dear he could not help himself.
"I'm so glad. I'm so, so glad."
Lee Jun had no other words. What else was there to say? That they had come home was blessing enough. That they had come home without being badly hurt was a blessing and a stroke of luck besides.
He had been planning to take them to the hospital the moment they finished eating. He changed his mind. We'll take them when they wake up.
Neither Lee Jun nor Go Gi-jin had slept a wink. Lee Jun checked the clock. Seven-thirty. The first surgery was at ten-thirty. They could sleep for about an hour and a half.
"Gi-jin, let's get some sleep too."
"Reckon we should. Aigoo, now that my heart's at ease, my eyes are just drifting shut."
Before anyone knew it, Go Gi-jin had stretched out beside the three animals, and he answered with his eyes already closed. Sleep was thick in his voice as he added,
"Let's sleep about thirty minutes and get up."
"I'll text that we're skipping the morning meeting, so let's sleep till nine. What time's your clinic start today?"
"Today? From ten."
"That's plenty, then. I'll text Dr. Yoo. You go on and sleep."
At Lee Jun's word that he would let Yoo Mu-hwan, who was on duty, know the situation, Go Gi-jin answered with a snore.
Hrronk!
Already dead asleep and snoring, Go Gi-jin drew a smile from Lee Jun.
"You've been through a lot."
Lee Jun said it, and closed his eyes. And just like Go Gi-jin, he slipped under almost at once.
Time raced by, and an alarm shattered the quiet of the living room.
Lee Jun woke to it feeling clear and light. The three animals had woken too, and their faces said the same thing his did.
Hehehe. Giggling, the three of them leaned into him. Lee Jun gathered them into his arms with a brighter smile than he had worn in a long time.
Go Gi-jin did the same.
The two of them got ready for work in a hurry. Lee Jun asked the three,
"Kids, want to come with hyung to Mongmong Animal Hospital? Or would you rather sleep at home?"
At that, two of them bounced up and answered.
"I-I'm going, ong."
"I'm going with Hyungnim too!"
If the hyungnims were going, then so was he!
"I'm going too! I'm going with our hyungnims, I am!"
"Alright. We'll all go together."
The two who still wore every mark of what they had been through, and Sapsaree, who had suffered just as hard in his heart waiting at home. Lee Jun decided they would drive in.
A little later, the two men on the road had faces brighter than they had been at any other time. The three in the back seat wore the same expression.
On the way to Mongmong Animal Hospital, Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi poured out the adventure of the past two days.
"That's what happened, ong! We went whoosh, leapt down, and ran for it, ong."
"And we ran super fast."
Meow meow, nya-nya-nya-nya.
Lee Jun and Go Gi-jin fed them all the right noises as Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi told it.
"Is that so? That's amazing."
Lee Jun slipped in a murmur of wonder as he listened.
"That's right, you had it real rough. Well done, you two."
Go Gi-jin, for his part, was simply so proud of them for coming home safe and meowing away right in front of him that he praised them without stint. And somehow he had a miraculous knack for sliding those little praises in at exactly the right moment.
Either way, Lee Jun and Go Gi-jin's praise lifted Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi right up. The two who had been hanging their heads over breaking their promise were gone. And so they poured out everything they had been through, without adding a thing and without leaving a thing out.
The story cut off the moment they arrived at Mongmong Animal Hospital.
"Kids, let's pick this up later."
"Got it, ong. Hyungnim-ong! Don't let the friends hurt, ong!"
"Hyungnim. Give the friends their treats."
Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi went inside wearing the happiest faces they had, and the family at Mongmong Animal Hospital gave them a welcome big enough to fill the building. The Brave Ones greeted them with a passion all their own, and the hospital's old-timers were overjoyed beyond measure that the two of them were safe.
Jjaek and One-eye took one look at Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi and wept so hard the tears poured down.
Before long, Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi were ringed in on the 2nd Floor Cat Playground. In front of more than twenty friends, they told the adventure of those two days.
The moment the story reached Hoesaegi coming face to face with Neopdede's pack, Jamong, who had been sitting and listening with his whole body, bounced his hips and asked,
"So? Hoesaegi hyung, so what happened then?"
"That's when Hoesaegi said it."
"So? Did they run away?"
"Of course they ran."
The answer came from a little ways off. Jjaek had spoken with a face that said, why would you even ask something so obvious. He looked at Hoesaegi with that same face, and Hoesaegi shook his head.
"They didn't run, ong."
"Whaaat?! E-even after they heard the name Silver Rain?"
Jjaek's eyes went round as saucers.
"Is that truly so?"
One-eye asked it back, looking as if he could not quite believe it.
"That's right, ong. They were guys who'd never heard of me, ong."
"I didn't know them either."
Gkamnyangi added it with a disappointed look, but his words did not land with much force. That was how enormous the name Silver Rain was in the world of cats.
"Oppa! So what did you do?"
Donggeuli, who had climbed up onto Kkotnimi's back to listen, asked it with her eyes round as coins.
"We fought, ong!"
"We fought, yeah."
The twenty animals hanging on their every word let out a collective Ooooh! of awe, every face saying the same thing: that's our Hoesaegi, that's our Gkamnyangi.
"It wasn't just one of them, ong. A whole bunch of them came at us, ong."
At the word that a crowd of them had piled on together, a hush of tension swept the playground in an instant. Murmurs of so that's why they have so many wounds rose here and there, and in the middle of them Hoesaegi let the corner of his mouth lift, just slightly, and went on.
"Hmph. It was nothing, ong. They were all weak, ong. Went down whoosh, whoosh, ong."
"That's right! They all went down from our attacks."
Gkamnyangi's face said the same thing: a bunch of jokes, the lot of them.
Thump-thump-thump-thump!
Everyone gave a Paw Clap without holding anything back.
Thump-thump-thump-thump. Tap-tap-tap-tap.
The dogs who found paw-clapping difficult cheered by rolling their front paws and their hind paws together.
"Wow! That's our Hoesaegi oppa. And Gkamnyangi oppa. You're amazing! Oppas are the best!"
"Whoaaa! That's our Hoesaegi hyungnim. What a cool hyungnim!"
"Hoesaegi hyung, Gkamnyangi hyung, you did great! Yap yap yap, you crushed them!"
While Jamong was still delighting in it, a little farther off, Jjaek and One-eye were murmuring to each other in awe.
"As expected of the King Boss."
"Kkam Boss must have done his part too."
"He would have."
They were impressed. And at the same time, a chill ran down both their spines. Jjaek especially. Aigoo! Those guys must be beaten to a pulp.
He was remembering the time Hoesaegi had thrashed him, and the days afterward he had spent groaning over it. The four legs and the flank that Hoesaegi had worked over back then seemed to throb all over again, and he was licking a perfectly fine leg when Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi's story rolled on.
"We told them to take care, said our goodbyes, and turned to leave, and that's when those guys said this, ong."
"They called after us and said thank you so much. Said they'd never forget this kindness. Kekeke! The guys were grateful we didn't hit them harder."
"That must've been it, ong. They were grateful we let them off that easy, ong."
The two of them bragged that they could have hit harder, and that they had chosen not to.
"Hyungnim said not to fight, ong."
"That's right. If we'd hit them with everything we had, those guys wouldn't even have gotten back up."
"That's how it would've been, ong."
Kakaka!
Ohohohong!
Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi laughed, thoroughly pleased with themselves.
Meanwhile Jjaek, still licking a leg and a flank that did not hurt at all, thought he understood exactly how Neopdede's pack—whom he had never even met—had felt, being grateful. Aigoo, those guys must have been so grateful. They got to keep from becoming wanderers.
If Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi had driven Neopdede's pack out, those guys would have had to leave the territory on the spot and find a new home. Or else bow their heads all the way to the ground and go in as underlings. Either way, life from then on would have gotten a lot harder. They must have been so grateful in this cold. And those hyungnims went all the way out there and raised their names even higher.
Anyway. They were something else.
He was still turning that over when Lee Jun stepped into the playground where they were gathered.
"So this is where everyone is?"
"Hehe, Meongmeong Teacher! The oppas are so cool! They're amazing!"
"Right? Teacher thinks so too. But kids, would it be alright if I borrowed the amazing Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi for a bit? I want to treat their injuries!"
Watching Lee Jun gather Hoesaegi and Gkamnyangi into his arms as he said it, Jjaek sank into thought. Thanks to Meongmeong Teacher, my underlings are getting through a warm winter. He's someone to be truly grateful for.
And hadn't he said they would meet the underlings soon and eat something delicious?
Getting beaten by Hoesaegi back then had been miserable and painful. But looked at another way, because that day had happened, his underlings were spending the winter warm now.
Jjaek gazed up at Lee Jun with reverence. Hoesaegi, held in Lee Jun's arms, looked up with the same expression. The look of one gazing at a benefactor. We've received a kindness. He replayed the words Neopdede's pack had spoken.
And another thought rose with it. Hrm. I wonder if our territory is alright, though.
Hearing about Neopdede's pack and their territorial fight had brought Song-i Park to mind. A small park with no water to drink in winter, and not a single den to spend the cold in. That was why all his underlings were currently boarding at the warm Cat Town in Neulpureun Park.
But Song-i Park was the territory where Jjaek had spent his entire cat-life. I should go take a look around soon.
Jjaek thought it as he watched Lee Jun, Hoesaegi, and Gkamnyangi leave the playground.