The New Troublemakers

"Kid, the café doing all right?"

"Yeah, well enough. People are actually coming in. We even had folks lining up from the morning on opening day, can you believe it?"

"Man... Count me out. An old guy like me would drop dead waiting in a line. The only waiting I can handle is waiting for meat to come off the grill."

I let out a snort at that.

"I mean right at opening. It's not like there was a line all day."

"Right. I'll drop by sometime. I'm sending these guys over, so I ought to come see the place at least once."

"You're welcome whenever you like, Uncle. So long as it's during business hours."

Uncle burst out laughing, loud and unrestrained.

"You do know your hours line up with my shift, right? You telling me not to come?"

"Come on, you've got to get a break sometime. You don't work all seven days, do you?"

Muttering that a man ought to rest on his day off, Uncle eased down on the accelerator, and the car rolled smoothly forward.

"Whoa. Traffic's a damn nightmare."

But we crawled to a stop almost at once. The morning rush had barely let up, and we'd hit one of those stretches that jammed like it was a habit.

Then, the moment we entered the intersection, a small problem arose.

Hoooonk!

"You son of a bitch! What the hell! Why isn't that crazy bastard following the guide lines! What is he, a guided missile?!"

Uncle laid on the horn at the car ahead, which had drifted out of its lane and was cutting straight through the intersection. We were a breath away from smashing into each other. He didn't have a choice.

Lucky, if you could call it that—the horn at least startled the other car back into its own lane.

"Haa..."

"What's the point of painting guide lines through this damn intersection? People don't even look at them! You'd think they didn't have eyes!"

He shouted, furious, like this was nowhere near the first time.

"Still, thank god there wasn't a crash. If these guys had gotten hurt..."

He checked the rearview, scanning for any of the animals that might have been hurt or frightened. I looked too. None of them seemed injured, or even particularly rattled. If anything, most of them were snoring away as if they couldn't have been more comfortable. At most, one goose had gotten a scare and was pecking at the tortoise's shell.

And what did the tortoise ever do to deserve that? Keep it up and you're going to snap your beak clean off, you idiot.

I stared, dumbfounded, then shook my head and faced forward—only to be forced, at that very same moment, to turn to the side.

Honk! Hooooooonk!

"Hey! Roll your window down! You fucker! Pull over!"

It was none other than the driver from a moment ago, the one who'd cut us off and eaten our horn for it, now pulled up alongside and screaming at the top of his lungs.

"Ha... Stepped in it."

Uncle's face crumpled into a scowl, and he looked ready to shake the other car. I stopped him. Men like that would chase you just to cause a wreck. Better, as a rule, to give them what they wanted.

The window whirred down, and the cursing came through even more plainly.

"Pull the car ov—!"

"How about you learn to dri—"

The other driver had been winding up to say more when his eyes landed on the raccoon cradled in my arms, and he faltered. I was about to say something myself when what the raccoon did next left me stunned.

"Rip that tongue out and go wash it in the creek! Who the hell are you to be running your mouth!"

It shoved its face toward the other driver as if it might leap out any second, paws flailing, and every time it spoke those sharp teeth flashed in a way that felt genuinely dangerous. I grabbed it before it could launch itself. Whether from too little exercise or too much feed, its belly was soft and plump, and one good handful killed its resistance on the spot. What I'd pinned, though, was the body—not the snarling muzzle, and not the front paws.

"I—I'm sorry!"

Khak! Khak! Faced with a raccoon shrieking and brandishing teeth and claws with nothing short of pure savagery, the other driver rolled his window up and fled. Uncle, watching him go, exploded into laughter as if it were the funniest thing he'd ever seen.

"Whoa, he means business! Maybe I ought to keep a raccoon in the car myself. Straight-up Raccoon Man, that one. Reckless drivers, rest easy—this Raccoon Man has taken care of it!"

"Want to hang on to him?"

"Nope. You take him. I'll stick to safe driving."

"...You are absolutely dumping him on me."

I sighed and shook my head. Sigh or no sigh, the car picked up speed and headed for our café.

"All right, we're here!"

"Thanks, Uncle."

He'd stopped somewhere closer to our house than to the café. I opened the door and went straight to unlatch the front gate. Better to drill at least the basics into them before hauling them off to the café.

"All right, everybody out."

I flung the gate wide, popped the doors and the trunk, and hustled the animals into the yard. Two raccoons first, then five rabbits and eight geese—and one enormous tortoise, so big it was only a little smaller than my upper body.

"Nnngh...! Why is this thing so heavy!"

"Hey, hey, don't take a tortoise lightly. They're heavy. That one's, what, two hundred pounds...? Plenty to wreck a newlywed's back."

I went pale. Two hundred pounds? No wonder it hadn't budged when I tried to lift it.

"Hhk... How did you even get it into the car?"

"How do you think? What else are arms and legs for?"

He told me to watch, sucked in a breath—hup!—and heaved the giant tortoise up. Beneath the short sleeves of his T-shirt his forearms corded with veins, making it painfully obvious just how much strength he was using. Then, having shown it off, he set the huge tortoise down. Thud. Its shell met the ground.

Is that a man, or an elephant...?

For a second I genuinely wondered whether Uncle was human at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all. If he wasn't, though, then what was he—so I went inside.

"AAAAAH!"

The instant I stepped into the yard, I screamed at the sight that greeted me. Not because something had happened to the animals I'd just taken in. Nothing like that.

"NOOOOOOO! My Korean melons!"

The Korean melons Noona and I had fussed over ever since we bought the seedlings and planted them were being annihilated by the rabbits. I rushed over and found half of what we'd planted already stripped of its stems—and those stems were being munched, chew by chew, right there in the rabbits' mouths. How were creatures that small such incredible eaters?

"St—Stop!"

I'd shouted it to save whatever melons were left. Sure enough, Stop! was a word no animal could defy, and the rabbits chewing on melon stems froze solid where they stood.

"Whew..."

Relieved the melons would take no further damage, I let out a breath.

"Kid, you sure about that over there?"

"About wh—AAAAAH! You too, Stop! Every last one of you, just Stop!"

At Ko Gil-hwi's question I'd glanced back without thinking, and what I saw made me howl. The two raccoons, apparently dreaming of escape, were wedging their front paws under the gate. Nearby, all eight geese were pecking without mercy at the flower bed Noona had been tending. I couldn't even remember the names of those flowers, and they were vanishing straight into the geese's bellies. Last of all, the tortoise that had been so proud of its size was diligently cropping the grass dead center in the yard.

Even so, true to the tremendous effect of that inescapable binding art, Stop!, they couldn't move a muscle, locked in those very poses.

"I'm out of here!"

"Where do you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠think you're going!"

"If I stick around, you're gonna make me take them back!"

"You knew full well these guys were troublemakers!"

"You think I didn't!"

Uncle was doing everything he could to escape. He was so strong that when I grabbed him and pulled, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I was the one getting dragged. Click, clack, click, clack—but muscle wasn't the only thing that could stop him. The moment he undid the gate latch, I snapped it shut again, and all that strength got him nowhere.

"I'm not going to tell you to take them back, so quit trying to run."

"You mean it?"

"Haa. Yes."

I'd never planned on sending them back in the first place. If anything, the stronger their personalities, the better they suited the café. I'd have been sorry to let them go.

"Just tell me how to take care of them."

"You got it!"

Worried I might change my mind even now, Uncle launched straight into everything he knew about our new housemates. The rabbits, he said, were Rex rabbits—the very picture people imagined the moment they thought of a rabbit. For food, just buy some rabbit hay and they'd be fine. So that wouldn't be much of a problem.

"Oh, and for the record. They're all females. Not a male among them."

"Why?"

"Because they breed like you wouldn't believe. And the males get a little... questionable when they're in season. Think you could handle that?"

For a brief moment a café buried under rabbits flashed through my mind. Their reputation for multiplying wasn't exactly a secret.

"From now on, male rabbits are banned from the premises."

"Well, that's your call... The geese are just geese. Omnivores, so they'll eat pretty much whatever you give them. You know better than to feed them anything too salty, though, right?"

I nodded.

"Raccoons, well... you know. They're famous. They're omnivores too, but feed them kibble if you can. They sell it online. I'll give you some of what I brought in a minute, along with the rabbit hay."

"Then what about that one?"

I pointed at the last animal left—the single giant tortoise. It had stopped when I told it to, but its eyes were still glued to the lawn. The moment I let it move, it looked ready to strip the yard down to bare dirt.

"That one's an Aldabra giant tortoise... Eats a lot, so you'll have to stay on top of it. Give it things like napa cabbage, and grass or hay is fine too. Just don't feed it fish, or anything with protein."

Uncle said he'd text me the details, then pulled food fit for the animals out of a compartment hidden in the trunk floor. Sacks of hay and feed soon occupied a corner of the yard. Having unloaded both the animals and their meals, he climbed into the car and vanished, as if this time he truly meant to escape.

I smiled faintly at the sight and called for Noona at once. With so many staff on hand, her stepping away wouldn't be a problem.

"Suhwan, you're back alrea—!"

Noona came through the gate, took one look at the wreck of the yard, and screamed.

"What is this!"

Half the Korean melons gone, the flowers reduced to bare stems without a single bud, the lawn pocked with bald patches. Anyone who saw it would have been shocked.

"I told you to call me before you brought them!"

Oh. I'd forgotten.

"Well, Uncle Ko Gil-hwi was giving me a ride, and we got to talking, and the timing just... didn't quite work ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠out..."

"Hoo..."

Noona looked back and forth between me and the yard. She seemed to be swallowing her anger, and then she sighed and let it go.

"Fine. What good would getting mad do? It's not like they knew any better. And if that uncle drove you over, you probably didn't have time to call."

Having cooled off in no time, she walked over to the prime suspects in the destruction of the Korean melons we'd cherished most. She gently stroked the rabbits, who had drawn in on themselves a little, then looked at me.

"Teach them properly from now on. They can't just go around eating things like this."

"Don't worry. Aside from what we give them, I won't let them graze on whatever they please."

Noona nodded, as if she believed me.