Lunch in Academia (1)

"Oh, right, Suhwan. I hear your mother's coming this afternoon?"

"Huh? Mom?"

I'd just dropped Soeun off at kindergarten and was having lunch with Noona when she spoke up, as if the thought had only now returned to her.

"Mm. I think she has something she wants to say to you."

"About what?"

I was a grown man, married, with a child old enough for kindergarten, and still the news that Mom had something to say left me oddly uneasy. The feeling whispered that I must have done something wrong.

"Is it because I haven't been calling much lately?"

"You should call more often."

"We go see her almost every weekend."

"Even so, a phone call is different."

At Noona's words I let out a small groan and shook my head. Another lecture, then. Lectures were lectures, though, and the spicy ramen in front of me came first, so I slurped up the noodles caught between my chopsticks.

Thanks to that ramen I forgot all about Mom almost at once, only to come face to face with her while Noona and I were taking our time over tea.

"Oh? Mom!"

"Your child's in kindergarten, and you're still going to call me Mom? Let me hear my son say Mother at least once."

"Wouldn't it be faster to just give up?"

"I don't know who you take after, talking nonsense like that."

"If it isn't Dad, it's you."

"Oh, you're earning a beating. Earning a beating, you are."

"Aaaah! Wait, waiiit!"

After that brief bit of banter, I ended up with my ear in her grip, tasting no small amount of pain.

I pressed and rubbed at an ear so sore I half wondered if it might come off, and looked at Mom with a gaze that asked, very clearly, why she had shown up out of nowhere just to scold me.

"You started saying strange things, and I forgot what I meant to tell you."

"I really don't think that's my fault."

"If you'd just kept quiet and called me Mother, none of this would have happened. Anyway, one of the relatives says they have a favor to ask of you."

"A relative?"

I tilted my head. The relatives I knew would simply have contacted me themselves. There was no reason for any of them to go through Mom.

"You've probably never even seen him. No, wait. He came to the wedding, so you have."

"Who on earth is he?"

"The son of my cousin's cousin."

"……So he's a stranger."

"We call him a relative, but to you he's a stranger. Even to me he's only a somewhat close acquaintance."

The breezy way she said it left me dumbfounded.

"So what does this person want to ask me?"

"He said he does biology or something, and that he needs your help writing a paper."

"Ah."

That was enough for me to see how it had happened. The connection ran through several people, but it was still a connection, and he had clearly decided to try his luck.

While I was working that out, Mom drew a few neatly folded sheets from her bag and held them out.

"He said this is a list of what he'd like to ask you. Oh, and just because he's my relative doesn't mean you have to do it, so look it over however you like. It isn't the sort of relationship where things turning awkward would matter."

"……It is the sort of thing worth asking me."

I looked at the paper and had no choice but to nod. With contents like these, it would have been stranger if he hadn't come to me. I'd already had similar requests more than once.

Put simply, he wanted help establishing the reasons behind strange animal behaviors that still had no clear explanation, by means of Animal Communicating. I held the superpower of a Druid, not an Animal Communicator, but Animal Communicating was hardly beyond me, and that was why he had come asking.

"Let's see……. Oh, this one's not bad."

A light skim left me better disposed toward it than toward the similar requests I'd received before. Setting aside the fact that he was someone Mom knew, the most important part appealed to me. Nearly every request until now had wanted me to seek out wild animals in person and uncover the reason on the spot. This one, by contrast, proposed making the rounds of zoos in Korea and in nearby China and Japan to get to the bottom of the animals' behavior.

"So, are you going to do it?"

"Well, no reason not to."

"Then I'll tell him that? I'll have him contact you later."

"Yeah."

I nodded, and Mom was on the phone at once. After a few words back and forth she slipped the phone into her bag and glanced around.

"Where's Soeun?"

"Why does everyone only ever come looking for Soeun?"

"You're asking because you don't know?"

"……The small animal house."

"I'm just going to see Soeun and head off, so don't bother coming out."

With that, she swept away.

"Hehe, Daddy! Gramma gave me candy!"

When Soeun returned quite a while later, she was blissfully sucking on a tiny lollipop, proud of the present she had received.

Through Mom, I finally met the person who had asked for my help writing his paper. After a few calls to settle the schedule, we met at Gimhae Airport.

"Hello, Hyungnim! I'm Na Muk-hwi!"

Na Muk-hwi—the son of Mom's cousin's cousin, and the one who had asked me to help with his paper—folded into a ninety-degree bow the instant he saw me. No. He hammered the greeting into the floor.

The sight of it gave me the feeling I really had seen him at the wedding, just as Mom had said. I remembered someone who had bowed at me in exactly that way.

"Ah, I think I saw you at the wedding."

"You remember me!"

Muk-hwi looked delighted that I had claimed to know him, and then, ever so casually, he held out a sheet of paper.

"Hyungnim, I'm a genuine fan, so would it be all right if I asked for just one autograph?"

I signed it as he wished, and he eased it into his bag as though it were something precious beyond words.

"Ahem. Ahem. Muk-hwi."

"Ah, Professor, I'm sorry! I got too excited, didn't I? Hyungnim, this is the professor who's agreed to help me with my thesis."

Muk-hwi introduced the older gentleman who had been standing behind him.

"To meet in person a man so widely discussed even in our field is truly remarkable. I am Lee Il-saeng, the professor advising Muk-hwi."

I greeted Professor Lee Il-saeng, and the several others who had come along as well, and then the real conversation began.

"To start, we plan to visit a zoo in Hokkaido, Japan. Quite a number of the animals on the list are there."

We had already settled that much, but I boarded the plane all the same, following Muk-hwi as he went over our first destination once more. We passed the flight trading one story and another, and before long it was time to land.

A short ride in the car arranged for us brought a zoo of considerable scale into view. It was better kept than I had expected, and enormous from the very first glance.

"We'll start with the snow leopard."

"Is there something snow leopards do that still hasn't been explained?"

"You might call it a charming point, the kind people in the know recognize. Snow leopards sometimes hold their own tails in their mouths. The guesses are that circulation is poor out at the tip, or that they're warming a mouth short on fur, or that they're simply playing."

At Muk-hwi's words, I looked snow leopards up on my phone.

For a great cat, a large feline predator, they were remarkably cute, and there were photos upon photos of them biting their tails. Just as he had said, it was a look you could fairly treat as a charming point. And for all that they were bold enough to go bounding over cliffs in pursuit of prey, there were also stories that they were surprisingly timid. There were even videos of one startling when its own cub popped into view, and of a zoo animal flinching at the sight of tourists and trembling all over.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"But this one's a cat, too?"

"Yes. Is there a problem?"

"……Cat-types do exactly as they please. They might not be doing this for any particular reason at all."

The felines at our zoo were the same, every one of them living however they liked. Constantly on the fritz, suddenly acting strange—that was simply an ordinary day.

"Oh, surely not. There still has to be some reason, doesn't there?"

"Well……. We'll know once we ask them ourselves."

I jammed the phone back into my pocket and went with the others toward the snow leopards' enclosure.

Perhaps because they had secured the zoo's cooperation in advance, we were allowed inside the enclosure itself, unlike ordinary visitors. A few snow leopards were tangled together in there, playing, and the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠moment they saw me they came charging.

Naturally, the first thing I did was shout the magic word. Unlike Soeun, who was so safe from animal attacks that you could put "absolutely" in front of it, I stood a real chance of taking a hit from creatures piling onto me just to play.

I told the animals, frozen in an instant, not to attack, and then I let them move again. They didn't come as fast as before, but they still closed in at a good clip, pressed up against me, and rubbed their bodies along mine.

"A human I haven't seen before? Something about him feels nice?"

"Hello."

"Hwaaaaaak!"

They had been stuck to me, murmuring that I felt nice, and the moment I offered a hello they screamed and sprang into the air.

"First human I've ever been able to talk to. Startled me."

"You guys look a little timid."

"Hmph, us, timid? We may be like this in here now, but I used to be the lord of the snow mountains!"

"Uwak!"

"Hyukyaaaaak!"

"See? Timid."

I threw my arms up and shouted out of nowhere, and the snow leopards sprang again, screaming. I broke into a snicker at the sight and teased them for a moment, and they turned their backs on me as if offended.

"Sorry, sorry. You were just too cute."

Only after I caught the ones who had turned away, stroked their fur, and apologized could I settle the sulking creatures.

The zoo had asked to check the snow leopards' health while ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠we had the chance. I agreed, and as the examination got underway I took hold of them and spoke.

"You bite your tails now and then, right? Mind telling me why? Your tail gets cold, or you're trying to warm your mouth. There's got to be a reason like that."

"Like this?"

At my words, one of the snow leopards chomped down on the tip of its own tail.

"Right. Could you tell me why you're doing that?"

"When I'm like this……."

"When you're like that?"

"Becaushe it feelsh sho goohood."

"……."

Tail still caught in its mouth, the creature answered in that bizarre mumble, and for a moment I had nothing at all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to say.