Quite the Mess, This Is
Namcat slipped in between the two raccoons and immediately unloaded a Nyangnyang Punch.
A sharp pap-pap-pap-pak rang out as his front paws lashed both of them without a shred of mercy. Their plump bellies rippled and swayed, putting the force of every blow on full display.
"Aaaagh!"
"Aigoo, I'm dying!"
Beaten down in a flash, the two raccoons clutched their heads in their front paws and curled in on themselves. It was the exact pose people strike in movies and dramas when they're taking a beating.
"You raccoon bastards are asking to die. Quit acting tough."
Having half-knocked both of them senseless in the blink of an eye, Namcat lost interest just as abruptly. His tail flicked as he strolled off into the cafe.
I watched him go for a moment, then looked down at the two raccoons sprawled on the ground.
You really ought to size up your opponent before you pick a fight.
They were groaning and grumbling about how much it hurt, and I shook my head.
"Those two aside, let's start with introductions. Oh—do any of you happen to have names already?"
It was a question I'd set aside while I was busy training them, and only now did I get around to asking it. At my words the rabbits fell into a crisp line, click-click-click, and opened their mouths.
"Il-gito-sha!"
"I-gito-sha!"
"Sam-gito-sha!"
"Sa-gito-sha!"
"O-gito-sha!"
"And together, we are the Tokkiz-sha!"
They introduced themselves one after another, exactly like some dime-a-store sentai squad from the country next door, and for a moment I was too dumbstruck to close my mouth.
Lined up in a neat little row, each of them raising a front paw as their turn came to call out a name—it was a transforming-hero roll call if I'd ever seen one. They even informed me that, taken all together, they already went by Tokkiz.
I found myself wondering what human possessed a naming sense even stranger than Yeongji's.
At any rate, the rabbits who had introduced themselves as the Tokkiz promptly swarmed the dogs. They latched on especially tight to Maru, the cream-colored golden retriever, whose coat was close to their own pale orange fur.
"We like you-sha!"
Hopping and bouncing all around her, the rabbits made their fondness perfectly plain. Maru didn't seem to mind them either; she sniffed away, nose working.
In no time they looked like the best of friends, rabbits and dog rubbing up against one another. I watched for a moment, then turned my attention to the geese.
"And you?"
At my question the geese suddenly wilted. The reason was simple enough: they had no names. All eight of them looked so perfectly identical that the keepers had never bothered to give them anything you could really call a name. Give one a name and turn around, and you'd catch yourself wondering whether that one over there was the one you'd just named—that's how alike they were.
"Want me to name you, then?"
"Yes!"
"Yesss!"
"Names!"
"Breakout from namelessness!"
Chatty as only geese can be, they shouted almost before the words were out of my mouth, thrilled at the mere prospect of getting names. I turned over what I ought to call them.
"Would you rather have matching names, like the Tokkiz?"
"Anything's fine!"
"Give us names!"
"Names, or death!"
"We are the Geowiz!"
The geese erupted into wild cheers. So long as they received a name, it seemed, any name at all would do. Reassured by the sight of them, I spoke the ones that had popped into my head.
"Gugeo-il, Gugeo-i, Gugeo-sam, Gugeo-sa, Gugeo-o, Gugeo-yuk, Gugeo-chil, Gugeo-pal."
Pointing to the geese lined up in front of me one by one, I bestowed the names upon them. Gu, from goose, and geo, from geowi, the Korean for the very same bird, with the numbers one through eight tacked on in order.
Even I thought it was a cursed sense for names, but the geese themselves—the ones who actually had to live with them—were overjoyed. They honked and honked, circling me in dizzy loops.
"Heh. You like them?"
At that they honked even harder, spinning in circles as if to say of course they did. Wings flapping on top of it all, they were noise incarnate.
"Shut up, birdbrains."
The Geowiz only went quiet once Namcat—back again, furious at the noise—had beaten them halfway to unconsciousness.
I'd been on the verge of getting sick of the racket myself, so I left the ones who'd passed out where they lay. Ignoring them, I turned my gaze to the tortoise.
"I go by Hanmu."
The tortoise let me know his name was Hanmu. It carried a strangely familiar ring, though it was far too vague for me to say why. Having confirmed that he had a name as well, I turned my eyes on the two raccoons, the only ones whose names I still didn't know.
"Nnngh..."
"Aigoo...!"
Whether from the beating Namcat had handed them or not, the pair groaned and whimpered. Dozens of blows in a flash—there was no way it didn't hurt. The promise between us kept them from actually being injured, but that was not the same thing as sparing them the pain.
"You two all right?"
I was a little worried about the groaning raccoons. Curled on the ground and complaining of the pain, they were hard not to fret over.
"That even a cat? How's he so damn strong?"
"Thought I was a goner! Saw my grandma for a second there, I did."
The worry had been wasted. They gave their plump bellies a few rubs and got right back up.
"You'd be smart not to mess with that one."
"Don't mess with him? Don't make me laugh! Maybe we ain't got the strength, but we can take a hit, can't we!"
"Right! We just dropped our guard a little, is all. That cat ain't nothing!"
At my words the raccoons flared up, looking ready to go hunt Namcat down on the spot. They never got the chance.
"Unbelievable."
"Gyaaaah!"
"Spare the raccoons!"
Namcat—no one could have said when he'd come up—had heard them, and walloped the pair all over again.
Even on the second go, unlike the geese, the two of them didn't pass out. They only curled up and went back to groaning. That was the whole of it.
"Th-this was us dropping our guard again, is all."
Are these two just thick, or do they have no fear at all...
I shook my head at the sight of them still putting on a front after Namcat had wrecked them twice in a row. I decided I'd hear their names later, and led the animals toward a corner of the lawn. Waking the knocked-out geese took a little while, but I brought every last one of them along.
In that corner of the lawn there was a restroom the animals could use. I'd taught them how to use the toilets meant for people, but the truth was those were inconvenient for animals. There'd even been a time when Jjamong, settling into position, nearly fell in on account of her stubby little legs.
At any rate, once we'd reached the restroom I showed them how to use it. You made a small hole in the floor and did your business there, and the system took care of the rest on its own, so the lesson itself wasn't difficult.
I can still see the contractor staring at me like I'd lost my mind when I asked him to build the thing.
I remembered him searching up mental hospitals in Busan, as if he fully intended to recommend one. I'd managed to smooth it over somehow thanks to my Superpower, but the memory was still lodged hard in my head.
I'd been turning that thought over when Hanmu—who'd grasped the simple explanation perfectly and was already using the restroom—snapped me back to the present. I shook my head hard to fling the thoughts off, told him well done, and gently stroked the tortoise's neck and head.
"Huu-hehh..."
Hanmu liked the touch so much he drew his neck out even longer.
After petting him for a while and taking in the texture of tortoise hide, I had each of the other animals try the restroom once. The rabbits and the geese, of course, and even the raccoons who'd been groaning about how much they hurt, all used it without a hitch.
Good.
I nodded, satisfied. Most of the time, that peculiar smell animals carried came down to how they handled their business. Handle it this cleanly, and you could fairly say there was almost no chance of an unpleasant smell coming off them.
Once I'd taught them everything you could call the basics, I turned to the two raccoons, recovered by now without my noticing. At last it was time to hear their names.
"Name's Daepodong."
"Name's Sopodong, it is."
These names aren't normal either.
The moment I learned them, I shook my head. But as I looked the two of them over, I started to think the names were pretty well chosen, in their own way. Daepodong was a little bigger than Sopodong, and his belly looked even plumper. Read them as big-plump and little-plump—dae for large, so for small—and you could say they'd been named rather well.
"Suhwan. You done training the kids?"
And while I was busy staring at the two Podongs' bellies, Noona came looking for me.
"Yeah. The basics are all done. Why?"
"I was about to start closing up the cafe, but the customers still here asked if they could get a look at these guys before they go."
"The kids? Well... no reason they can't."
I gave a light nod. Closing time was drawing near, so there weren't many customers left. Bumping into a smaller crowd rather than a big one seemed like the less stressful way for them to get used to people.
"Folks want to play with you a little. Want to go play with them for a bit?"
The animals took me up on it readily and began trotting toward the inside of the cafe, where the people had gathered.
The rabbits went first—the ones who'd grown used to people back at the zoo by taking little bits of carrot and the like. They hopped and bounded over in a hurry and tangled themselves up with the customers. We weren't selling treats made for them yet, though, so the guests couldn't offer any snacks. All they could do was stamp their feet and make a fuss over how cute they were.
Behind the rabbits, the geese and the raccoons came on more slowly. Meeting humans face to face, after only ever watching them from inside an enclosure, was clearly awkward, but they seemed to adapt quickly enough. The geese crowded in and thrust their heads forward, as if demanding to be petted.
The problem, if there was one, was the raccoons, who used their front paws so freely you could almost call them hands.
"Hey! You can't take that!"
"Agh! Cat-treat thieves!"
"Heh-hah-ha! It's plunderin' time!"
They'd climbed up onto the chairs and tables and started stealing the cat treats people had left sitting out. The customers chased after them, and the raccoons dodged the customers, tearing all over the inside of the cafe.
"Heh heh. Quite the mess, this is."
Hanmu, taking it all in from a good distance off, simply watched. As if he'd known from the very start that it would turn out this way.