Chapter 39: I Sentence the Prisoners to Cafe Community Service
Perhaps because he had already been robbed once, Hanmu was on his guard against the raccoons closing in on him.
"Heh-hah-hat! Hand over the cabbage!"
They scurried right up to him and reached for the cabbage set out in front of his face. I eased closer myself, ready to cut them off the instant the pair snatched it and bolted.
Contrary to what I'd expected, they never got the chance to run.
"Kweeeek! Raccoon's dyin'!"
"Save us!"
Hanmu had simply flattened both of them beneath that enormous bulk of his. Faster than anyone would ever believe of a tortoise, the two raccoons vanished under his plastron. Even so, he seemed to know his own weight; he pressed down only just hard enough that they couldn't move, and so the pair lay pinned beneath him, thrashing.
"Got you, you little punks."
I hurried over and hauled the two of them out from under him. Seeing them caught in my hands, Hanmu lifted himself, and they came free with hardly any effort at all.
"See that those young'uns are looked after, will you."
He spared the raccoons in my grip a brief glance, then buried his face in the cabbage. Crunch—the leaves tore apart ever so lightly between his jaws and slid down into his belly.
"Leggo of us!"
"Let go! Let go!"
Maybe they thought the cabbage ripping apart every time that mouth moved was their own bodies, because the raccoons caught in my hands started struggling to flee. I had no intention of letting them. I seized both by the scruffs of their necks and marched the culprits, caught red-handed, straight into the cafe.
Inside, I perched on a chair and set the two of them down in front of me.
Stop!(Meomchwo!)
The pair had been about to bolt the instant their feet touched the floor, but at my shout their bodies locked stiff. I dragged the frozen two over and planted them in front of me, then told Noona to film and launched into a little skit.
"The trial in the case of the raccoon bandits will now commence. Defendants Daepodong and Sopodong, be seated!"
At my words, the two of them plopped their bottoms neatly onto the floor.
"Defendants Daepodong and Sopodong, you disturbed the order of this cafe and committed theft. Do you admit the charges?"
"We ain't never done nothin' like that!"
"How come we're thieves!"
Daepodong objected at the top of his lungs, smacking the floor as he protested.
"Your Honor! I don't see a shred of remorse! They ought to be punished severely!"
Watching the raccoons, one of the customers called out in a voice thick with mischief. It was the perfect assist for the video, and I nearly burst out laughing, but I swallowed it and slapped my own thigh with a sharp smack instead.
"Never happened, you say! When the victims aren't just one or two! Witnesses—no, wit-dogs! Come forward!"
I called the two dogs glaring at the raccoons from the corner. Jjamong and Sulppang.
"Wit-dogs, have you in fact suffered harm at the hands of the defendants?"
"We have! Those guys stole my snacks!"
"They took every last snack I got by acting cute, they did!"
Sulppang and Jjamong poured themselves into making their grievances known. The little things drumming the floor with their front paws as they talked were adorable beyond words, and the customers who had crowded around to watch were cooing over them just as loudly. I, however, turned my eyes from all that cuteness back to the raccoons.
"Defendants. Have you anything to say in rebuttal to the wit-dogs?"
"Don't you make me laugh! How's that stealin'! We just took what was offered, I'm tellin' ya."
I shook my head. These two weren't reflecting in the slightest. I should have known the moment their names turned out to be Daepodong and Sopodong. They showed no remorse at all, nor even a hint that they might, so I decided to hand down the sentence without mercy.
"Defendants Daepodong and Sopodong disturbed the order of this cafe and broke its rules, and yet they display not the slightest will to repent. In light of the defendants' refusal to reflect despite there being animals who were harmed, this judge hereby sentences them to the highest penalty this cafe can impose: one month of restricted snacks!"
I had nothing like a gavel, so I struck my thigh three times loud enough to ring—smack, smack, smack!—and snatched the two of them up.
"You two are banned from snacks for the next month."
"W-what! No! That just won't do, I tell ya!"
"Gimme my snacks back!"
They wailed at my words. I had no intention of going easy on them for it. This wasn't only for the people and animals they had already wronged. It was to lay down rules the animals themselves would have to keep from here on out. They needed to understand that doing wrong meant getting scolded.
"Don't expect any leniency, so give it up. For the next month, no snacks. You eat only the meals you're given."
"Uwaaaaah!"
The two of them shrieked, pounding the floor. Those long raccoon muzzles gaped wide, and the sound of pure despair came pouring out.
"They look... a little pitiful, don't they?"
Watching them, Noona seemed to feel a bit sorry. They were screaming with such genuine desperation that even her heart had softened. I felt a pang of pity myself. They had lived this way from the start, and here I was restricting them for my own convenience. It couldn't help but weigh on me.
So I decided to offer Daepodong and Sopodong a carrot along with the stick.
"You two want snacks, don't you?"
"You even gotta ask! Course we wanna eat 'em!"
"I can't forget that taste! Allow the snacks!"
They sprang up and clung to me, begging. If they had never tasted the things, it might have been different—but they had glimpsed a whole new world, and giving it up was clearly out of the question.
"Then you can listen to me from now on, can't you? Do what you're told, and don't do what you're told not to."
"Long as there's snacks in it, what couldn't we do!"
"Just order us to do whatever!"
Faced with raccoons who looked ready to sell their very souls for a treat, I shook my head even as a grin spread across my face.
"Then I'll tell you how you can still earn snacks over the next month."
I explained it to them. It wasn't anything difficult. I had simply promised them a snack whenever they did something good—picking up the plastic bags and boxes customers dropped on the floor after finishing their treats, or bringing back things people had left behind. That sort of thing.
"Understand?"
"Keh... Don't sit right with me, but for snacks, what couldn't we do!"
They growled at the demand, but they nodded all the same, swearing they would do anything if it meant snacks. To give them a bit of practice, I crumpled a small scrap of paper and tossed it out in front of us.
"Mine!"
"Agh! Too late!"
The instant the paper left my hand, Sopodong shot forward—smaller than the other, and quicker for it, unless I was imagining things. He snatched the paper ahead of Daepodong and trotted back to me.
"Good. That's how you do it from now on. Got it? And don't steal what belongs to the others."
"Got it, I do."
Sopodong said he understood, then immediately pestered me for his reward. I laughed and held out the snack he had always reacted to best. He crunched away and inhaled the thing, literally. Beside him, Daepodong stared with naked envy.
"For the record, if you steal the other kids' snacks, the ban gets longer."
"Krrrng..."
At the warning, the raccoons abandoned every last lingering thought of the others' treats. They weren't foolish enough to throw away their future for a moment's happiness.
And so they became famous as the raccoons who cleaned our cafe. Rooting along the floor for trash people had thrown away, all for the sake of a snack, they turned into one of the place's signature attractions. I wouldn't exactly call their circumstances pitiful, and yet customers took to deliberately dropping little boxes and the like on the floor for them anyway.
Watching what they brought back, I noticed quite a few things you rarely saw in our cafe. There was even a receipt from another big franchise. Noona took it from Daepodong, fed him a snack, and stared at the slip as if she couldn't quite believe it.
"Suhwan. This was paid for thirty minutes ago...? They must have stopped in there and come straight over."
"...Well. Good for us, then."
I shook my head at that. Considering it took about thirty minutes to get from there to here, they really had stopped in and come right over. Still, the fact that they had come to our cafe meant they had ordered and drunk something on the pricier side, so it was actually to our benefit.
"True enough. The highest sales in this place come from the snack machine anyway."
"Right. Drinks are drinks, but nobody comes to our cafe and skips the snack machine."
Just as Noona said, the pride of our sales was the snack machine. Given a cafe teeming with animals who would butter you up for a single piece of kibble in your hand, there wasn't one customer who walked in and failed to use it.
"It's a relief the cafe's doing well, isn't it?"
"Yeah. I was worried, so I'm glad it's working out."
The Noona who had fretted over opening a cafe even after taking out a loan was gone. All that remained was a Noona convinced the place would keep running without a single problem from here on out.
"It's going so well I almost wonder if it ought to be. Not one difficult customer, business booming... I honestly can't even understand why I was worried."
"See? Keep trusting me from now on. I told you it would work out. There's even a saying—listen well to your husband, and rice cakes turn up even in your sleep."
"...It's listen well to your elders, you know."
She stared at me as if she couldn't believe what she'd heard, then let out a short laugh.
"Now that I think about it, you're not even denying it anymore. You said husband."
"Mmm, well... it's the truth, isn't it? We decided to get married."
"Tch. There goes one of my favorite ways to tease you."
"You, honestly."
I had been hoping for a flustered Noona, but she looked as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It was a little disappointing. Still, it didn't feel bad.
"Huuueeeeng! Unnieee!"
And then, right in the middle of all that sweetness, Yeongji came running up to us with a face on the verge of tears. Something was clearly wrong. Noona and I shot to our feet and turned to her.