Chapter 114: Old House, New House

"Come on, come on. Hop in."

I loaded the animals into the vehicle waiting out front of the gate.

"And where are we off to? Not the cafe today?"

"Right-sha! Where are we going today-sha?"

"Master. Are we going to see the Young Mistress, sir?"

It was the hour they would normally have been on their way to the cafe, and heading anywhere else had the animals plainly baffled.

"We're moving to a new house. From now on you won't be at the cafe. You'll be living there."

"Ooh...!"

At that, they perked up as if it sounded like fun. They'd spent a long stretch of time living in the very same place themselves, and they seemed hungry for something new.

"Well... some of you ought to know the place already."

I shot a grin at the ones still looking puzzled, then drove straight for the zoo.

The sign had already been changed, and nearly all the work for the opening was finished. When we arrived, someone was there to greet me.

"Bwahaha! If it ain't our boss!"

"Aigoo, if it isn't our elephant keeper. I'll head on up first."

"Sure. I'll just square this away and come up."

The man greeting me was the elephant keeper. I'd called ahead to say I was bringing the animals, and he'd come out to wait.

I gave him a quick hello and drove on up into the zoo.

"All right, we're here. Out you get."

Once I reached the heart of the zoo, I threw open every last door on the vehicle.

"The hell is this? Ain't this the old place?"

"It's the old house-sha!"

"Heh heh heh... ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠now there's a place I've missed."

"The old house! Charge!"

The animals piling out of the vehicle split into exactly two kinds of reaction... no. Three. There were the ones seeing the zoo for the first time, like Namcat and Cheongho; the ones who had come from the zoo to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠begin with, like the Tokkiz and the raccoons; and the geese, who realized this was the home they used to live in and went tearing toward it like mad things.

"Honk!"

At my shout, the geese that had been sprinting full tilt tangled into one another and went down in a heap. I let out a small sigh and walked over to them.

"I know you used to live here and the place is familiar, but a lot has changed. Other animals are living where you used to, so you can't just go charging off like that."

I herded the geese back to where we'd started.

"...Where did those guys go?"

The ones who needed watching had vanished. The Pudgies — the raccoons — were gone, and so were Namcat and Maru.

"The Pudgies said they were off to see their friends and left, sir. Namcat said he was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠going to find someone around here worth a fight and took off, sir. Maru... she said it was wide and good for running, and just bolted, sir."

"Haa..."

A sigh burst out of me at Cheongho's report. I decided to at least lay down the rules for the ones still here, and opened my mouth.

"First off, from now on you're going to live here. I'm moving over too, of course, so you don't have to worry about being split up. So-eun loves all of you. I could hardly separate you."

"Then we're permitted to roam as we please here, sir? It does look quite spacious, sir."

"Yeah. In here, you can go wherever you like. But you can't leave this whole area inside the green wire fence, and you can't go into the enclosures where the predators are. Understood?"

"Got it-sha!"

"Since those are your orders, I'll go have a look around myself, sir!"

"Wander however you like. Just don't pick fights. There are other animals who were already living here."

At my words, the animals drifted off one by one. The Tokkiz in particular — they knew this place, but they had never once wandered beyond it — set off with more energy than anyone. I watched them go for a moment, then went looking for the troublemakers who had run off, and I hadn't walked far before I found one group of them: the raccoons.

"Aigoo, Prez! How long's it been!"

"Well, if it ain't the Pudgies! Been a while, hasn't it!"

The raccoons had run into the prairie dogs ambling slowly along the zoo paths and were pouring out a long-overdue reunion. Among the animals that had originally lived at the zoo, every one unlikely to harm a person had been turned loose, which was why the two groups were meeting right out on the walkway.

"Got you. You little brats."

"Eek! When'd you show up!"

Caught by the scruffs of their necks, the Pudgies thrashed for a moment, then gave up and went limp. I gave them the same warnings I'd given the others and let them go again. I'd meant to turn them loose anyway, so it wasn't a problem.

The Pudgies went straight back to catching up with the prairie dogs. I watched them sniffing one another and rubbing cheeks, then moved on to find the other two. Maru I could let slide. Namcat — that one, I had to find fast.

Taptaptaptaptap!

Far off, something brilliant yellow was blasting along at a tremendous speed. In this zoo, there was exactly one creature that moved like that.

"Maru! Come here!"

She must have heard me. Maru stopped so short I could practically hear brakes screech, then came charging straight at me. True to a dog who prided herself on incredible speed, she closed a good stretch of ground in only a few seconds.

"You little punk. Who said you could wander off on your own?"

"Sowwy!"

I grabbed the cheeks around her jet-black lips and gave them a shake, and Maru whined and owned up to it. Only then did I let her go and explain things the way I had for the others.

"All right. Go on and run."

"Yay!"

The moment she was free, Maru took off like a lunatic. Good thing the place was huge. At the cafe she'd already have been forced into a corner by now.

I was wandering around watching her run when my phone rang.

"The tiger keeper?"

The call was from the keeper in charge of the tigers.

The second I hung up, I broke into a dead sprint. And this wasn't even like sending So-eun off to kindergarten on Bboni's back!

If I'd ridden Bboni — small, but a strong little horse — I was sure I'd have gotten there absurdly fast, and I ran with that thought until, right as I started to lose my breath, the tiger enclosure came into view.

"GRAAAAHHH!"

The moment the enclosure entered my sight, a tiger's enormous roar rolled out all around me.

A very bad picture drew itself in my head. No! Whether it was that awful imagining or not, my feet only got faster, and I reached the tiger enclosure in no time.

"Sto—!"

To head off a disaster however I could, I'd meant to pull out the magic word the instant I arrived. If only the scene in front of my eyes had been any different.

"The hell. You're weak."

"Kkh-heung..."

Namcat, having stormed the tiger enclosure, was grinding one tiny forepaw down on an enormous tiger — the leader of the pride. A tiger whimpering under a paw that small was unreal enough, and Namcat himself, not cowed in the slightest and standing proud among tigers a good ten times his size, was just as impossible to make sense of.

I turned to the tiger keepers beside me. There were three of them, and they were staring at the tigers with the life gone out of their faces.

"...What happened?"

"Well, we can hardly believe it ourselves, but... Namcat ran straight into the tiger enclosure and just started fighting Hodori. And that's how it ended up."

The keeper answered without managing to shake the stunned look off his face. Fair enough. Nobody stays right in the head after watching a single cat charge a tiger enclosure and smash the boss.

"Eating something good, huh? Hand it over."

Namcat was even confiscating the chicken set out in the enclosure. The other tigers, having watched their leader Hodori get pounded flat in a blink, didn't dare come close, so nothing got in the way of Namcat taking the meat.

"Have some ready next time, too."

Smacking his lips as he finished off the chicken, Namcat retraced the exact route he'd used to get in and slipped back out.

"...Oh."

Once he was outside the tiger enclosure, he caught sight of me and locked up. Then, as if there wasn't a single thing he needed to answer for, he came toward me again in a walk dripping with confidence.

"What're you lookin' at?"

"A cat's a cat, I swear... Hey. Why are you bullying a tiger that was just sitting there?"

"Sitting there, my ass. It was glaring at me."

"...It glared at you, so you left it like that?"

I pointed at Hodori, curled on the ground with his face hidden behind his forepaws. At the sight, Namcat quietly turned his head away.

"You little punk. Quit going around picking on the other animals for no reason."

"Hmph."

Instead of an answer, Namcat snorted and sauntered off, proud as you please.

"Hey!"

I hurried after him and gave him the rules too — though all I told him was that he couldn't leave the zoo grounds. Telling him to stay out of the predator enclosures... didn't seem like it would mean anything.

He's already gone in there and laid a tiger out flat. Warning him now would be a waste of breath.

It was only a hunch, but I had a feeling ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that even if it were the elephant enclosure and not the tigers, Namcat would stroll back out without a single hair out of place.

And that hunch became reality.

"Bwahaha! A new friend!"

"Shut up, trunk-face. Still... you're tall. I like it."

When I saw Namcat perched smugly atop the elephant's head, loafed up warm as a loaf of bread fresh from the oven, I decided to look the other way.

Turning my back on Namcat, I called the keepers together at once. With the opening so close, there were still things that had to be ready ahead of time.

"All right, everyone. Opening day isn't far off. Most of the preparations are finished, yes?"

"Yes. We've opened up the areas that used to house the herbivores and the small animals and converted them into hands-on spaces, and we've expanded the enclosures for the large animals and the predators. The animals seem to like the extra room."

I'd already decided to simply turn loose any animal that, like the small ones, could approach people easily and posed no real threat. I hadn't forgotten, of course, to forbid them from attacking anyone beforehand, and to teach them what to do when people pestered them or became a nuisance.

The empty ground left by letting them out, I'd turned into a kind of hands-on space, and used the rest to expand the enclosures of dangerous animals like the predators and the elephants.

Hearing that all of it had been finished without a hitch, I nodded and looked to the elephant keeper. He was the longest-serving keeper at the zoo, and for that reason I'd left the rest of the work in his hands as well.

"The additional hiring — keepers and general staff — that's all done, right?"

"That's finished as well. The staff are wrapping up their basic training in the hands-on areas. The people who already worked at your cafe were a tremendous help. And the keepers have already been sent into the field and are on the job."

Maybe because the other keepers and staff were standing around us, the elephant keeper was graver than usual.

"That's a relief. So there wouldn't be a problem even if we opened right away?"

"No, sir. You've said you handled the animals' training yourself, so opening immediately wouldn't be an issue."

At his words I nodded, and decided to move the opening up.

And on opening day, Children's Grand Park drew a great crowd for the first time in a long while.