Episode 22: The Night Visitor
Scolding him—Troublemaker... no, Mungchi—the middle-aged man grabbed the fur around the dog's face and gave it a light shake. Then he rose, looked at us, and cleared his throat with ridiculous vigor. Ahem! A-hemmm!
Finding the dog he'd lost had sent him rolling across the ground in joy, and only now did he seem embarrassed by it. Even so, gratitude appeared to outweigh the shame, and he came toward us.
"Thank you. Truly. I searched everywhere for this guy, and... thanks to you, I found him."
The man bent nearly double, close to a full ninety degrees, to show his thanks—though his eyes did slide, doubtful, toward the cameras catching every bit of it.
At that, the producer, who could himself have passed for a middle-aged man, strode right up.
"Sir. We're the production crew for Animal Farm. We're filming a segment about your dog, Mungchi, and if it's at all possible, would you be willing to appear on the broadcast?"
Maybe he called him sir simply because the man was a potential guest. Either way, the producer launched into this and that and offered him a spot on the show.
The man thought it over for a moment, then named his condition. If they could hide his identity with a little face-blurring and the like, he would appear as much as they liked.
The stars of this shoot, obviously, were Mungchi and me—the one who could talk to animals. Concealing the identity of Mungchi's owner was a condition they could accept without a second thought.
"Very well!"
Once Mungchi's owner agreed to go on air, the filming rolled on.
Supposedly in the name of a reenactment, the first order of business was going back to where Mungchi had parted from his owner and acting the whole thing out again. They wanted the two of them setting off on a casual walk, Mungchi panting with joy, and then—the instant the leash came off—Mungchi rocketing away.
There was just one problem. Mungchi very nearly became a lost dog all over again.
"Troublemaker, you little brat... Just so you know, I am never taking that leash off outside again."
Caught after bolting a second time, Mungchi was pinned in his owner's grip and subjected to a lecture. He couldn't understand anyone's words but mine, but he could read the mood well enough to know he'd messed up, and he tucked his tail and put on a pitiful face.
Unlike Mungchi or his owner, the producer looked positively radiant. They'd caught Mungchi fleeing and the owner sprinting after him in earnest—the shot had real life in it, and he was delighted.
After getting a few more scenes on camera, we began wrapping the shoot. The recording ended on the man and Mungchi dashing about together, as if to show the joy of finding each other again.
"Producer."
"Yes? Was there something you wanted to ask?"
"You're putting that in at the end, right?"
"That... what?"
"The narration. Mungchi, from now on, don't you ever part from your owner. Live happily!"
"..."
The producer turned his head away as if I'd struck a nerve, then shouted at the staff—who had been packing up their gear at a perfectly leisurely pace—to hurry it up.
I was snickering at the sight when Mungchi's owner came over.
"I heard that thanks to you, sir, Mungchi was able to reach me instead of ending up at a shelter. Thank you. Truly."
"Ah, no, it was nothing. We just had a little chat, that's all."
"Not at all. If it hadn't been for you, Animal Farm or no Animal Farm, he would have ended up at a shelter in the end."
He took my hand, said he was truly grateful and would repay me somehow, and held out a business card.
"If there's anything I can help with, I'll do it gladly. Please get in touch."
"Whoa..."
For the first time in my life, I had a lawyer in my corner. A solid, reassuring feeling settled over me, so I slipped his card straight into my wallet and handed him mine. He'd already been told who I was, so he didn't look surprised—he just tucked the card away with care.
"Shall we head out?"
As if he'd been waiting for our exchange to finish, the producer came over and hurried us along. The longing to clock out was written all over his face. I gave a small laugh, said goodbye to the man and to Mungchi, and headed home.
"...And that's how it went."
"I heard he'd held the same spot for three weeks, so I thought he was a stray... He was just so full of energy that he got lost?"
Back home, I ate dinner and talked it over with Noona. It started with her going on about the interior, but once that short conversation ended, we moved on to everything I'd been through that day.
From meeting the producer and Mungchi all the way to meeting Mungchi's owner, she listened with obvious delight. When I told her that during the so-called reenactment Mungchi had made another break for it, she laughed so hard she nearly fell over—hard enough that I started to worry.
"Still, I'm glad he found his owner. Otherwise he would've ended up at a shelter, right? If he got lucky he might've met a new one, but if not, he could've died."
"Yeah. The man said the same thing. That it was thanks to me."
"Our Suhwan is such a good boy."
Noona stroked my hair the way you'd praise a child, smiling that soft, dopey smile.
This wouldn't do. Today, too, I was going to wake the real man slumbering inside me and show Noona who was boss.
"Kyaa!"
"Noona. I'll make sure you can't treat me like a kid anymore."
I declared it as I swept her up in a princess carry, and Noona answered with a gentle, eye-crinkling smile.
"Think you can? To Noona, Suhwan will always be a child."
"Ha. Guess I'll have to show you properly just how scary I am. I'll have you begging forgiveness, same as last time."
"I did that? I don't remember any such thing."
I smirked at the brazen denial and carried her up to the second floor—the only part of the house the animals weren't allowed to enter.
We hadn't quite stepped into the territory of husband and wife, so it was a couple's bedroom rather than a marital one that I walked into, and I chucked Noona onto the enormous king-size bed.
She drifted lightly through the air and landed with a soft thump, but thanks to that scientifically engineered mattress, she wore a provocative look rather than a startled one.
"Doing this won't change how Noona sees you."
I laughed at the sight of her practically asking for it and came closer, slowly. Only then did she seem to tense, just a little, and draw in on herself.
And then, in the very moment I meant to meet her in single combat—
Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.
An interruption. Someone was knocking on the window behind the curtain.
"...Hold on. This isn't the first floor."
"Eek!"
Something in my words struck her as wrong. A trace of fear crossed her face, and she darted behind me in a flash. And a minute ago she was treating me like a kid? But that wasn't what mattered. I seized the electric fly swatter I'd left by the head of the bed and advanced on the curtain.
First I beat the living shit out of them and knock them clean off the house. Then I round up the animals and we jump whoever's left. And hey, that guy's a lawyer, so excessive force or whatever—I can just get a little help.
Plan in place, I yanked the curtain wide open.
"Hoo?"
What I found was an owl with its head cocked at ninety degrees. An owl bigger than both my hands spread wide.
"...And what are you supposed to be?"
The tension drained out of me for nothing. I dropped the fly swatter I'd been gripping and dragged a dry hand down my face. The idiot was me, for getting worked up.
Tap. Tap-tap.
Whether I'd relaxed or not, the owl couldn't have cared less, and kept knocking. That hard beak struck the glass again and again with a sharp sound, and I couldn't stand it, so I opened the window. Noona looked worried behind me, but I waved a hand to tell her not to be.
The moment the window opened, the owl strode inside on legs tipped with sharp talons.
"Spare me, I beg of you!"
"...What are you talking about? Spare you?"
I let my confusion show, and the owl's answer came right back. It was more than enough to leave me dumbfounded. No—it overflowed.
"I was hungry, so I attacked a yellow cat, and I nearly perished! What manner of cat is so strong... I cannot go on with an empty belly. I must fill it before I take my revenge upon that creature, so pray share with me a little of whatever is fit to eat! I shall repay you a hundredfold!"
Did I leave food in your care? No—before that, the way you talk... Did you crawl out of the Joseon dynasty? The words nearly leapt out of my throat.
Wait. Hold on... A yellow cat?
What the owl had said nagged at me. If it was a yellow cat, we had one of those at home. Chicken's name suggested something bright yellow, but her coat was a mix of yellow and gray—hardly what you'd call yellow. Namcat, though, with the cream fur people often called a cheese tabby, could fairly be called yellow.
"This yellow cat. Was it the one in our yard?"
"Oh! Indeed it was. How is it you know so well?"
"Ha..."
At the owl's words, worry for Namcat sent me looking straight out the window.
Thank goodness.
There wasn't a mark on him. Namcat was in the middle of the yard, grooming at his leisure, idly sorting through his fur. Relieved, I told the owl at once that it was not to fight him—starting with the fact that the cat was mine, and making it clear that no killing was ever to take place inside my house.
Of course, that wasn't the sort of thing a creature who'd lived wild would simply swallow. The owl objected fiercely. Its whole mindset was that it only needed to fill its belly, then fight again and win.
I couldn't lose Namcat, not after I'd grown fond of him, so I had no choice but to win the owl over. Owls were raptors. They hunted cats.
"Instead, I'll get you food. How about that?"
"...You will? How much do you mean to give?"
"Enough that you won't be hungry."
"Splendid! I shall forget that yellow, monstrous cat!"
Simple creature. The owl folded for a single meal. I got its promise that it would never kill—not inside our house, and not anywhere around it. And not only killing: I also took its word that it would not attack any human or animal near this house.
"The pledge between us, I shall keep without fail. So give me something to eat. I was hungry as it was, and fighting that monstrous creature has left me hungrier still."
Since it had made the promise and was asking to be fed, I asked Noona for something we could give it right away.
Her surprise at the owl lasted only a moment. Before long she was watching me talk to it with shining eyes, and in a flash she brought raw chicken breast—the same chicken breast we often cooked for the animals at home. For a meat-eating owl, it was the only thing on hand that would do.
"Can I be the one to give it?"
"Yeah. It promised not to attack humans or animals."
That last bit of worry gone, Noona held out the raw chicken breast, cut into long strips.
"Ah!"
The owl thrust out a foot, snatched the meat from her hand, and began tearing into it with that hard beak. The beak struck hard enough to make a sharp tak, tak, and the chicken breast ripped apart. Having demolished the whole piece in an instant, the owl finally settled down as if its belly were full.
"Hoo... Edible enough, in its way. You have my thanks. I shall keep the pledge I made with you, so worry not!"
Perhaps because it was full, the owl flapped toward the still-open window and flew off. Like a typhoon that had blown in from nowhere, raised a commotion, and vanished—I let out a small sigh at the creature, tidied the scattered feathers, and climbed into bed with Noona.
There had been the sudden intrusion of an owl, yes. But that alone could not quench the burning indignation of being treated like a child. That indignation only subsided once the words I was wrong left Noona's mouth.
But not even then did I see it coming.
That it would not take long at all before that typhoon of an owl appeared again.