Temporary Closure (1)
"Tch. 'Abnormal weather,' sure."
I shook my head at the morning news.
What was happening right outside was the particular privilege of living in Busan: getting to feel that abnormal weather in person.
"Wow. How long has it been since it snowed in Busan?"
Snow was falling on Busan. Not the miserable sleet that can't decide whether it's rain or snow and never sticks to anything — this was coming down hard enough to pile up on the ground. The whole world beyond the window had gone white. Even the windowsill held a good inch of it, and the trees that crowded the yard looked lush and full under the soft heaps settled on their branches.
I was clicking away at a sight you almost never get in Busan when a text came in.
"Oh. They're closed."
I nodded at the kindergarten's message.
Anywhere else, people would scoff — closing over a little snow? — but I was from Busan, and I understood perfectly. It went back to my middle-school days. On one of those truly rare mornings when the snow came down heavy, school was canceled out of nowhere. Busan is a city of mountains, and plenty of schools sit halfway up a slope, so neither the teachers' commute nor the students' walk to class was realistic. Teachers coming in from any distance couldn't make it, and even if a teacher did, the kids who were supposed to learn from them couldn't either. A temporary closure was the only thing left.
"...I'm getting mad all over again. Back then the text saying school was canceled showed up when I was right in front of the building."
The front gate had just come into view when my phone buzzed: school was closed.
I shook the sudden flare of irritation off against all that white and opened the group chat where every employee of the zoo was gathered.
The moment I sent it, replies started stacking up one after another. It was the hour when people begin getting ready for work, so every last one of them was already awake.
The replies that shot back left my mouth hanging open.
Someone had slipped on the icy road and gotten hurt. Someone's house had been hit by a skidding car. There was even a person caught in a seven-car pileup the snow had caused.
One look was enough to tell me we were in no shape to open, and I started tapping at my phone.
However I looked at it, the snow wasn't about to let up anytime soon, and Busan — wholly unprepared for weather like this — was bound to have miserable roads. It wasn't only our staff. Hardly anyone would be coming to the zoo either, so there was no reason to stay open. Reaching our place meant climbing a hill as if you were out on a hike, and both the employees and the visitors could easily get hurt on the way up.
"Noona. I'm stepping out for a bit. We're closing today, so I've got to put a notice up down at the bottom."
"We're closing today?"
Noona, in the middle of getting breakfast ready, tilted her head. She'd been busy with the morning and hadn't looked at her phone, so she hadn't seen the group chat.
"Take a look at the group chat. You'll get it."
Shaking my head at the state of things, I headed straight out of the house.
And I stopped as I neared the zoo entrance.
"...If I go down, I'm not getting back up."
Even the trip down didn't look like something my own two feet could manage in any ordinary way. I shook my head at the snow piled thick the whole length of the slope and turned around. I wasn't heading home, though.
Where I went was the enclosure where the tigers stayed.
"Morning. Sleep well?"
"I did. Those thieves don't come around much in cold like this."
With both Namcat and the raccoons refusing to set foot outside on account of the cold — which suited him just fine — Hodori swished his tail.
"I've got something to do. Mind helping?"
"What kind of something?"
"Think you can give me a ride down to the bottom there?"
"That's not hard."
With a remarkably light step, Hodori sprang up the bars of the enclosure and came over to me.
"Jumping pretty well for somebody who's packed on the pounds."
"Ahem. Hm."
Apparently being told you've gotten fat lands the same whether you've got two legs or four. He cleared his throat and offered his back, as if to say hurry up and get on. Once I climbed up, the flesh he'd put on — plump enough that you could fairly call him chubby — made a fine soft cushion.
"Let's head that way."
I took a light hold of the scruff of his neck, and he started moving slowly at my direction. Maybe it was because he was a tiger who'd lived in Siberia to begin with. Either way, he never once slipped on the snow, picking his way forward at an easy pace. In no time at all we'd passed the zoo entrance and come down the long descent.
"AAAAH! A tiger's escaped!"
"He hasn't!"
"H-huh? Mr. Shinsoo?"
"The snow looked like it'd make getting around hard, so I rode Hodori down. He hasn't escaped, so please don't worry."
"Ah... Thank goodness. A few days ago, during the Monster's Nest, a tiger licked me..."
"Ha, haha..."
They'd taken one look at the Hodori I was riding and startled hard, and all I could manage was an awkward laugh. I'm going to have to tell him to quit licking people.
"Were you on your way to the zoo?"
"Yes. I wanted to see what the place looks like in the snow."
"Ah... What do I do about this. I was planning a temporary closure today."
"Really?"
He looked startled, so I nodded and laid it out for him. The staff were having trouble getting in, and the entrance was a fairly steep hill, which meant a real chance of someone getting hurt on the way up. He was plainly disappointed, but a photo with me took the edge off it, and he turned to go.
I walked a little farther with him, toward the foot of the hill. There was a spot there where we posted the zoo's days off, and I marked today as one of them. I deployed the entry barrier nearby and blocked the entrance itself, so there was no missing that we were closed.
Then I rode Hodori back up to the zoo.
"Hodori, that was an easy trip thanks to you. Good work."
I gave him a good rough pat, watched him head back into the enclosure, and started for home.
"Appa! Heeheehee, it's snow!"
On the way, though, I found Soeun in a puffer as white as the snow itself, playing in it. She'd seen snow before, what with all the places we'd taken her, and still she was marveling at it as if for the first time.
"You like the snow that much? Aigoo, you've even piled a whole heap of it on your head."
Hands, feet, knees, head, shoulders — snow clung to every inch of her. From the look of it, she'd been rolling around on top of everything the yard had collected.
"Kyuek!"
"Wh-what?"
"Whitey!"
Soeun snatched up whatever my hand had shaken loose along with the snow and held out a bird about the size of her tiny palm.
"...?"
"Hello!"
What I'd taken for a pile of snow on Soeun's head was a bird, white down to the last feather. And not just any bird — if you were ranking them by cuteness, this one would be fighting for first or second. A long-tailed tit.
"Soeun. This one... I mean, where'd Whitey come from?"
"Just now! It flew down from the sky!"
Watching Soeun — who these days had animals flying in and sticking to her even when she held still — I couldn't get a hold of what I was supposed to say.
"Hweeeek!"
I was looking at the Whitey in her hand when the little thing suddenly started shivering all over. Wondering why, I glanced around, and there was Yubu, coming in fast from overhead, straight for where we stood.
"Why?"
"Receive this. It seemed the madam wished me to deliver it."
I took the yellow slip of paper he held out. The writing on it was unmistakably Noona's.
Come eat breakfast. Hurry.
Bring Soeun with you on the way.
"Ah. Right. Want to head back first?"
"Then I shall see you in a little while."
Handing me the note had been his whole purpose, and Yubu lifted into the air again.
"Pheeew."
Once Whitey was sure Yubu was gone, the little bird looked plainly relieved. I only had a second to wonder why before it came back to me: out in the wild, owls eat small birds.
"You won't get eaten by any of the other animals here, so you don't have to be that scared."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
At that, Whitey — happy, from the look of it — started hopping up and down on Soeun's palm. Soeun watched, then hopped up and down on the ground herself, as if she meant to join in.
"Soeun, enough. You're going to fall."
"Mm."
"For now, Mom says to come in. Let's go eat."
"Fooood!"
At the word food, Soeun broke into a bright, clear smile and went toddling off — pat-pat-pat. And in the same instant I started to worry — she's going to fall — her feet shot out from under her and her body pitched forward.
"The little one must not get hurt-sha!"
"Whew..."
I'd been about to sprint and catch her when I could breathe again instead, thanks to the Tokkiz, who'd burst out of who knows where. Whether it was my superpower or not, they'd grown bigger and their fur had gone soft as down, and they'd just performed exactly according to the nickname they'd earned way back. Airbag rabbits.
"Heehee, hi, Tokkiz!"
Whether she had any idea she'd nearly fallen or not, Soeun rubbed herself all over the Tokkiz who'd come to her, utterly delighted.
"We're happy too-sha!"
"I want to be held a little more-sha!"
I watched her start getting thoroughly tangled up with them, then scooped Soeun and every one of the rabbits up at once and headed home.
Noona, who'd already finished getting everything ready and was waiting for us, greeted us at the door. She brushed the snow from my shoulder, then turned to Soeun, who had it stuck all over her.
"Were you rolling around in the snow? How is there this much?"
"Kyueek!"
"Whitey!"
And Whitey, settled on top of Soeun's head again at some point, was shaken loose all over again — snow and all.