Fencing Stolen Goods
"You sure it's all right to just leave them like that? They're going after the customers' things, too..."
Unlike Hanmu, who hadn't so much as twitched, as if he'd seen the whole thing coming, Noona watched the two raccoons tear back and forth through the cafe and looked plainly worried. In an animal cafe where the guests' opinion mattered, anything that drew complaints usually ended badly.
I gave a small shake of my head.
"It'll be fine. Look over there."
I pointed at a customer who had somehow managed to catch one of the fleeing raccoons.
"Whoa..."
Noona, taking in the same sight, let her mouth fall open.
The raccoon pinned in the customer's arms had both paws raised over its head, begging as if it knew perfectly well it had done wrong. It was closer to wild flailing than an actual apology, but to human eyes, that was exactly how it looked.
"Ah!"
"These little punks are seriously shameless, though..."
The instant it wriggled free of the customer's arms, the raccoon went right back to looting, and I shook my head as I watched. Beg forgiveness, then pillage the second you're let go — the creature was rotten through and through.
What kept me from worrying was the face of the so-called victim. Bewildered, yes, but clearly having a wonderful time. Seeing that, I couldn't bring myself to fret, and once they started chasing the raccoon with a phone camera raised, worrying became impossible even if I'd wanted to.
"Ah... I ought to stop that one."
There was one problem. While the bigger of the two, Daepodong, drew every eye as he looted, Sopodong had climbed onto a table and started raiding the customers' belongings.
"Hey. You can't go stealing the customers' stuff like that."
"Lemme go! Put me down!"
"Not a chance."
I hoisted the thrashing Sopodong and set him back on the floor.
"Everyone! I'm sorry, but please keep hold of your belongings! A raider's shown up and there's nothing I can do about it. My apologies!"
At that, the remaining customers gathered their things. Phones and other small items went into pockets, and anything awkward to carry was shifted somewhere the animals couldn't reach.
"Nooooo!"
The raccoons wailed at the sight.
Oh. So they weren't after food. They were after people's belongings.
I stared at them, dumbfounded. Daepodong drawing the eyes while Sopodong handled the actual theft — that had clearly been the plan. Even now, both raccoons were gazing longingly up at a woman's handbag as she lifted it high.
That was what they'd been after...
Watching them, I decided it was time for drastic measures.
An area where bandits appear and carry out their raids.
Please keep a close watch on your personal belongings.
The third floor, set aside as a studio though I hadn't finished decorating it, had what I needed. I hurried up, printed the warnings, and stuck them all over the cafe.
Whether because of the signs or not, not a single customer lost their belongings to the raccoons after that. Maybe because the notices came right out and called them bandits, some people clamped a hand over their pockets the moment a raccoon so much as approached.
Cut off at the source, the raccoons wailed all over again. I just filmed them and enjoyed myself.
The views on this are gonna be sweet.
Picturing the view count those raccoon videos would pull, I smiled without meaning to. Filming footage that was guaranteed to perform, the time flew by.
Darkness settled in. The customers all left, the staff finished closing up, and it was time to head home. I helped Noona tally the day's sales, then went straight back with the animals in tow.
While Noona showered, I gave today's footage the barest edit and uploaded it. I didn't stay to watch the reactions. There was still work left to do.
"Raccoon treats... these ought to do if I order them. The rabbits and geese can get a reasonable share of vegetables... and that Hanmu — should I stock some cabbage for him?"
What I had to do was buy food and snacks the newly arrived animals could actually eat. Ko Gil-hwi had left enough behind that a few days would be no trouble, but anything beyond that was pushing it. Delivery took a day at the very least, so I needed to get ahead of it.
Once I'd ordered food and treats for the newcomers, I moved straight on to the next job: portioning the animal snacks that went into the cafe's treat vending machine. So that plenty of people could try the feeding, and so no animal ate too much at once, everything in the machine was sold in small, pre-measured amounts.
Stock was plenty for the others, but Yubu's raw meat, and treats for the new arrivals, all had to be prepared fresh. After watching the raccoons loot, I felt an urgent need to stock theirs too. Everyone else getting snacks while they alone got none? They'd start raiding on the spot. That much was obvious.
I found out just how naive that thinking was the very next day.
Word must have gotten out that new animals had joined the cafe — rabbits, geese, raccoons, even a tortoise — because people were lined up waiting again from morning on. Unlike yesterday, I walked in leading a much larger troop.
The doors opened, the staff finished their prep, and the moment we started business the crowd poured in. Naturally, everyone who had rushed through was after the new arrivals. Some headed for the rabbits, others for the geese. People found their way to Hanmu, the enormous tortoise, and to the raccoons as well.
"Whassat? For me? I ain't the type to turn this kinda thing down, no sir!"
Of the raccoons soaking up the attention, Sopodong brightened at the little treat held out to him. I'd told them they could take snacks from the humans, but actually receiving one seemed to delight him.
"Gah! How's this so dang good?!"
The treat left Sopodong thoroughly shocked, and for good reason. With omnivorous raccoons in mind, I'd allowed a wide range — what the dogs ate, what the cats ate, even the raw meat Yubu lived on. Of course he was stunned. He'd just tasted something a strictly managed zoo diet had never given him.
"More! I know ya got more! Hurry up and gimme!"
Having tasted a whole new world, Sopodong seized the pant leg of the customer who'd fed him and shook it furiously.
"I-I don't! I don't have any!"
The customer had apparently bought only the one, and held out both empty hands to prove it. Sopodong, despairing at the thought of never tasting that new world again, clung to the leg and slid dramatically to the floor.
A snort of laughter escaped me. What came next shattered it.
"Natae, let's eat this. Just move this far—aah!"
A customer had been dangling a treat at the mouth of Natae, who lay sprawled and refusing to move, close enough that it nearly touched. They jerked back in shock. The snack, bait meant to get Natae moving, had been snatched in an instant by a raccoon that appeared out of nowhere. Some lump scurries in, swipes only the treat, and vanishes — of course you'd jump.
"This one's crazy good too!"
Startled guest or not, Sopodong bounced in place, declaring his loot incredibly delicious.
"It really that good?"
"Shoot, ain't no need for words! Just try it once!"
Curiosity piqued by the display, Daepodong ambushed another customer.
"Eek! Y-you can't just steal that!"
"My snack! Waaah!"
This time the target was Jjamong, who had been laying on the charm and earning kibble one piece at a time. She had worked so hard for those treats, and she broke into a pitiful wail as they were snatched from right in front of her.
"Hot damn! This is seriously good!"
"See? Told ya so!"
Whether Jjamong cried or the customers stared in disbelief, the two raccoons didn't care in the slightest. They launched into full-scale looting. Snatching treats from people who had just bought them at the vending machine was the baseline, and they even made off with the cabbage leaves set out for Hanmu. They went so far as to eye Namcat's and Yubu's. Those attempts ended in a thorough beating, but the fact that they had tried didn't disappear.
And so, after looting every kind of animal treat and sampling each one, the raccoons found the single snack that suited them best. Dog treats. They liked them even more than the raccoon food Ko Gil-hwi had brought, and the ones paying for it were the customers who favored the dogs, and the dogs themselves.
"Ah, no! That's not for you!"
In the end, the customers who had been robbed again and again started fighting back. Bandits or not, the raccoons couldn't overpower human strength, and raid after raid began to fail.
They didn't give up. They found another way.
"...You want to trade?"
What the raccoons had come up with was barter. Loot the treats given to the cats — Namcat excepted — and the other animals, then trade those for the snacks meant for the dogs.
At first the customers wouldn't take the deal. Then, one by one, people started accepting. Take another animal's treat off the raccoons and feed them the one you already held, and you could double the feeding experience. You still got to feed the raccoons and hand snacks to the rabbits, the geese, and the tortoise. It didn't feel like a loss.
"This is straight-up fencing, isn't it? They're trading what they stole."
And so a brisk trade in stolen goods got underway inside the cafe. If anything, more and more people seemed to be hoping for it. Some even bought the treats the raccoons liked and flashed them on the sly, angling for a deal.
"...Is this really all right?"
Noona looked worried watching it. Jjamong's mournful crying seemed to be weighing on her.
"I should stop them. The others, maybe not, but Jjamong and Sulppang are getting every last treat stolen."
Unlike Maru, who was running whether there were snacks or not, Jjamong, Sulppang, and Natae weren't receiving a single one, thanks to the raccoons. With so many people eager to fence stolen goods, the treats never actually reached them. The raccoons and the customers might have been enjoying themselves, but for Jjamong, Sulppang, and Natae, it was nothing but stress.
Resolved to put a stop to it, I strode boldly toward the raccoons eyeing the cabbage set out in front of Hanmu.