Nureongi
I was sitting in a chair I'd left out in the yard, idly watching the bees bumble back and forth, when a sound began to drift in from far away.
Clip-clop. Clip-clop. The rap of hooves against hard ground.
"That'll be So-eun."
There was only one reason for a sound like that to be coming from so near the house. So-eun, who had ridden Bboni off to kindergarten, was on her way home. When Bboni traveled alone, she never kicked up a racket like that, and never at such a pace.
"Appa! I'm hooome!"
So-eun came tearing up in front of me, slid down off Bboni, and bobbed a little bow — the greeting they'd taught her at kindergarten.
I gathered her into my arms. Sunk tight against my chest, she launched straight into a babble.
"Appa, today at kindergarten I drawed a picture!"
"A picture? And what did our So-eun draw?"
At that, she started rummaging through the bag she was carrying.
"Nngh, Podongie came out."
Sopodong, who had been stuffed inside the bag, was fished out first, and after him a single sheet of paper. It had gotten a little crumpled from being shoved around by Sopodong in there, but it wasn't torn.
When I took the paper, I found a drawing that was remarkably well done. It seemed to be our family — So-eun standing between me and Noona, with animals crowded in all around them.
"Whoa. Our So-eun's really good at this."
It was hard to believe a kindergartener had drawn it; it belonged, at the very least, among the better ones. It didn't reach the level of someone aiming for art school, of course, but it looked about like what a child might manage after two or three years of lessons.
"Hehe!"
Praised for her drawing, So-eun laughed in delight and burrowed deeper into my arms.
I scooped her up at once and went looking for Noona. A picture like this simply had to be shown off.
"So-eun really drew this herself?"
"Uh-huh! I drawed it really, really hard!"
"Our So-eun is incredible. We could make a painter out of her!"
Under Noona's fervent praise, So-eun broke into a bright, open smile. The more we went on about framing the drawing and preserving it for good, the happier she beamed.
Then, laughing there in our arms, she suddenly looked at me and tipped her face sharply up. Her little lips were working, as if she had something she wanted to say.
"So-eun, what is it?"
"Appa, I wanna raise a snake!"
"...A snake?"
"Uh-huh! Sssk, sssk! Snake!"
Mimicking one, she rippled her whole body and flicked her tongue in and out. It was cute beyond words — and I couldn't begin to guess why she suddenly wanted a snake.
"And why does So-eun want to raise a snake?"
"Jaemin said our zoo doesn't got any snakes, so his house is better 'cause he has one! Our zoo is way better! He doesn't even have a Bboni or a Cheongho!"
Pouting, So-eun made it perfectly plain that she did not care for this child named Jaemin one bit.
And at the name of a certain kid — one I'd heard yet again — my eyebrow twitched. When his class came on their field trip, I should have found that brat and set him straight ahead of time.
"Don't go getting any strange ideas. The boy was probably just jealous."
"And what ideas am I supposed to have been getting?"
"Oh, please. You were thinking you ought to have given that Jaemin child a good sharp scolding. I can see it without even looking."
"..."
I quietly turned my head aside. I only thought it. How does she know?
Noona gave my cheek a gentle pinch, then turned her gaze to So-eun.
"So-eun. When you say you want to raise a snake — do you want one at home? Or would you rather we kept one at the zoo?"
"Ummm... Both!"
She puzzled over Noona's question for a moment, then answered with a sunny smile. To my eye, even that brief hesitation had been her weighing the difference between the house and the zoo.
Noona seemed to have caught at least that much; an awkward smile sat on her face. But she soon nodded and looked at me.
"Suhwan, you haven't been checking the reviews lately, have you?"
"Reviews? Yeah, I haven't really looked at them recently. Why?"
"There are quite a few people saying it's a shame we don't have many reptiles."
"Reptiles? Ah..."
I nodded. Honestly, with mammals and birds overflowing the place, the reptiles had never come close to matching either of those two in number.
Thinking over what we actually kept, there really weren't many. A few crocodiles that had been here since before I took the place over lay sprawled in their enclosure, lazily soaking up the sun, and beyond them there was Hanmu and a handful of other turtles. That was the extent of it.
"This might be a good chance to bring a few in. So-eun, do you really want to raise a snake?"
"Uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh!"
She nodded so hard her hair flew, and Noona and I had no choice but to burst out laughing.
At the sight of her, I went and fetched my laptop at once. It wasn't often that So-eun asked for something she wanted, and I meant to give it to her.
"What kind of snake does So-eun like?"
"A big snake! Waaaaay bigger than the snake Jaemin has!"
"All right. I don't know what he's keeping, but let's go with a big one. No — how about a snake that's bigger, and prettier, and smarter?"
"Uh-huh!"
"Good grief."
While So-eun and I laughed our way through one snake after another, Noona shook her head. She joined the hunt for which animals to bring in soon enough, though.
"No venomous ones, for a start. Even if the animals never hurt So-eun, if she happened to get scratched, it'd be a serious accident."
"That's true. Hmm... in that case..."
I pulled up information on snakes at once, and one species stood out.
"A Burmese python. What about this one?"
"A python? Isn't that a dangerous snake? I remember them being enormous..."
"Doesn't seem so, from what I'm reading. Pythons don't have venom, for one thing. And apparently they recognize their owners well. Every case of one attacking a person was because it was hungry."
Noona nodded at that. So-eun, meanwhile, was staring hard at the laptop screen.
"Appa! I like this one!"
Eyes still fixed on the screen, she jabbed it with a finger. What she pointed to was a python flaunting a yellow pattern — the very Burmese python I'd been looking at, and among them a striking one, yellow markings on a white ground.
"Yellow! I like it!"
Since it was what So-eun liked, I decided on the spot to bring in the yellow Burmese python. We were acquiring the reptile at her request to begin with; there was nothing left to discuss.
Not that I intended to stop at a single reptile. I went on searching out several more after that, already thinking of building a Reptile Pavilion to match the aviary.
After digging through the laptop for a while, I had a list of animals to bring newly into the zoo. It began with the Burmese python So-eun had chosen and went on to several kinds of chameleon, iguanas, lizards, and the like.
"Scarf lizaard~!"
The moment she saw that one on the list, So-eun flung her hands out wide around her neck and went hopping all over the place.
I let out a short laugh and passed the list to the team lead who handled day-to-day operations. The animals would have to come through exchanges with various countries and with zoos all across Korea.
And because the staff were professionals to a person, bringing them in was settled in no time. The longest part of the whole affair was simply how long it took the animals to travel into the country from overseas.
Then a problem came up.
"The transport vehicle broke down?"
"Yes. They say it just died the moment it pulled out of the port. It's in such bad shape they can't repair it on the spot, and there's nothing they can do..."
The sudden news started an ache behind my eyes.
"Isn't there another way? Line up a different vehicle, something like that."
"I don't think so, not as things stand. Busan never had a zoo to begin with, so there are hardly any animal transport vehicles around. Even if we tried to arrange one right now, it'd take hours at the very least."
"Ngh..."
With no other choice, I decided to go myself. A vehicle that could carry the animals in comfort couldn't move, and a new one couldn't be had, so I would have to make the trip in person. There was no one who could transport animals as comfortably as I could, after all.
Grumbling that anyone who made a living with a vehicle ought to have the sense to maintain it beforehand, I headed straight for the spot.
When I got there, a truck sat stopped on the shoulder with its hazard lights flashing.
"This is the animal transport, right?"
"Ah, yes. Are you with the Nest of the Shinsoo?"
A brief hello, and I signed the handover papers on the spot and moved the animals into my car. The back seat, folded flat, and the trunk filled up with carriers of iguanas, lizards, chameleons, and the rest.
Looking over that piled seat and trunk, I threw open the last carrier remaining — the one that held the Burmese python So-eun had wanted.
"Hello?"
"Ack!"
At my greeting, the Burmese python — laying eyes for the first time on a human he could actually talk to — flinched in surprise. But the moment I let him know we'd be living together from here on, he wound himself around my arm as if being affectionate.
He wasn't fully grown yet, but he was already on the large side, and I could feel a solid weight to him.
"We're heading home, so just bear with it a little."
Set down in the passenger seat, he quietly coiled himself and looked at me. A little burdened by the stare I could feel at my side, I drove straight for the zoo.
When I arrived, So-eun was the first thing I saw. Knowing I'd gone to fetch the animals, she had been waiting all the way out at the entrance.
The moment I climbed out of the car, she came trotting over and started peeking inside. Her eyes went perfectly round the instant she spotted the bright yellow snake coiled up in there.
"A snake!"
"That's right. A snake. Big, isn't he?"
"Uh-huh! Super big!"
She clambered up into the car and went right over to the Burmese python. Still coiled, he looked at So-eun, then lifted just his head a little, the way a cobra might.
"Whoa, pretty!"
Gazing at him — white all over, covered in deep yellow patterning — So-eun stroked him in soft little scritches.
"Appa, does he have a name too?"
"Want to try giving him one?"
"Um... Nureongi! He's Nureongi!"
"..."
I couldn't say a single word about So-eun's gift for names. Whether she took after me, or after Noona...
I felt a little sorry for the fellow who had just been christened Nureongi — the sort of name people hang on a yellow cow — for no better reason than his deep yellow markings. He wasn't a cow. He was a snake.
Fortunately, though, whether or not it was thanks to So-eun's superpower of being loved by every animal, he looked reasonably content in his own way.
She didn't stop there, of course. So-eun set about bestowing a name on every single animal we'd brought home that day.
The iguana, with skin like sharp spines, became Pointy. The chameleon, so blended into the colors around him that he was nearly impossible to find, became Hidey. Every name was cobbled together from whatever word seemed to fit, at least from So-eun's point of view.
Struck by a peculiar sense of guilt, I had no choice but to give the newly arrived reptiles a generous meal.
"Heeheehee, it's cooool!"
And Nureongi, the one So-eun had waited for so long, had become an excellent ice pack for her, the weather having turned hot under the unseasonable temperatures. The sight of her strolling about in high spirits with Nureongi wound all over her body was a truly strange one.
On top of that, watching her put him to work snagging things set up high, I got the distinct feeling she was using Nureongi as something like a third hand.
Even so, the fellow himself seemed satisfied with his name and with his station — if you could call it that — so I supposed it counted as a relief.
"Appa! Jaemin said he's going to a different kindergarten! Hehe!"
And since she'd even come out ahead of the friend she hadn't liked, I could be satisfied in my own way, too.