Training (1)
"Suhwan. Did you get it sorted?"
I had barely stepped into the cafe when Noona came hurrying over to greet me, as if she'd been waiting the whole time.
"Yeah. It's fine now. This gentleman here helped me take care of it. Oh — you two haven't met, have you? He's Mungchi's owner. He was on Animal Farm a while back."
"Hello. I've heard about you from Suhwan."
Noona offered him a light greeting, though the look she shot me asked, plain as day, what this man was doing here.
"A pleasure to meet you. Suhwan asked for my help, so I've dropped by rather suddenly. I'd been wanting to visit, and this turned out to be the chance."
He was the one who answered the question she'd put to me with her eyes. But the man who had smiled so gently while greeting her soon began to sway on his feet.
"Let me play! I wanna play! I wanna play!"
The cause, of course, was Mungchi, whose leash was still caught in the man's hand. The wide lawn and the animals romping across it were more than he could bear. He thrashed with everything he had, the very picture of a dog who would have bolted that instant if the leash weren't holding him.
"Mungchi!"
"Let go! Let me gooo!"
"Guh—!"
The man lurched this way and that under Mungchi's frenzy, and still he never let go of the leash. He'd lost the dog once after setting him loose, and he couldn't bring himself to relax just because they were inside a cafe.
"You can go ahead and let him off. There's no gap he could slip out through."
Only then did the man release the leash he'd been clutching.
"Hah—hah—hah—hah—hah!"
The second he was free, Mungchi shot toward the lawn like he'd lost his mind. He nearly slammed straight into the glass, but somehow found the door and burst out onto the grass.
"Haa... What am I supposed to do with that dog..."
The man let out a sigh, watching Mungchi tear across the lawn in a frenzy.
"Even so, he's on the gentle side. He stayed put when you held on, didn't he?"
It was true. As these things went, Mungchi was well behaved.
"What do you mean, well-behav—"
He started to object, then shut his mouth. Maru had just blurred past Mungchi, faster still.
One glance at that speed was enough to know no person could hold against it. Even the staff who'd come through college athletics — strong, and with stamina to match — got hauled around like mad the moment they took Maru's leash. Set beside her, Mungchi really was the gentle one.
"Sir, I feel awful saying this after you've helped me, but I've got a little work to do. Would you mind looking around at your ease?"
"Mm. Don't worry about me. Go on and see to your work. I ought to meet the other animals besides Mungchi, at least once."
He waved me off, telling me not to fret, then began peering into every corner of the cafe as if he truly needed no guide, already making friends with the animals.
"What are you up to?"
Noona gave me a puzzled look once she heard I meant to leave the man who'd helped me and go do something else. Fair enough. Practically the only thing I ever did at the cafe was fool around with the animals — or a little editing, up on the third floor.
"The birds did me a favor. I promised them something to eat."
"Birds...? Don't tell me you wrecked the car."
"I wouldn't say wrecked. A car plastered in bird droppings can still be driven, can't it?"
"Aigoo..."
Noona shook her head at that, though her face said that if it had been handled without any real disaster, then that was enough.
"You know those nut assortments and the fruit we bought the other day?"
"Yeah. They're in the storeroom. You giving them those?"
"They worked pretty hard. I ought to pay them properly. That's how I get to use them again next time."
Noona told me to do as I liked, then turned to take orders from the customers who had just come in. I watched her for a moment before heading for the storeroom with a few of the brawnier-looking staff in tow. Birds or not, feeding more than a hundred of them was no small amount of food.
I put them to work and came out carrying several boxes of fruit and sacks of nuts. I stacked everything near the entrance that led out to the lawn, took my place, and immediately set about drawing a crowd.
"Everyone! Starting right now, we're holding a free feeding event for the magpies and crows! You can feed the magpies and crows yourselves!"
The instant my shout ended, people who had been sitting around or snapping photos of the animals came flooding over. Nobody was charging them for it — a free chance to hand-feed the birds — so of course they piled in. I had the staff start portioning out nuts and fruit.
Thanks to that, I didn't have to wear myself out feeding well over a hundred birds, and the guests were delighted to try something a little out of the ordinary. Some of them perched magpies on their shoulders and fed them nuts. Others were running a shell game on the crows with the paper cups we'd used to hand out the food.
Why on earth are you playing a shell game against a crow?
I genuinely could not understand the guest who tucked nuts and fruit under one of two paper cups, shuffled them around, and then made a crow choose. Still, the crow found the right cup and ate just fine, so I had to admit it made for a decent show. I let out a short laugh and held out what I'd set aside for Yubu.
"Good heavens! This is—!"
The moment Yubu saw what I was offering, he startled and puffed himself up. A heartbeat later he lunged, frantic, and snatched it from my hand.
He knows the expensive stuff when he sees it.
A thick cut of rib cap — one of the priciest pieces of beef there is — vanished straight down Yubu's throat. He gobbled it in a rush, shuddering all over, the very picture of a bird who found it delicious beyond words.
"Ahem. I have dined well. Should you have need of me again, you have but to say the word!"
Thoroughly satisfied with a single cut of rib cap, Yubu flapped his wings as if to say I need only place my trust in him. I nodded, already planning to make full use of him the next time something similar came up, and headed for the edge of the lawn.
I had a reason. Out on the grass just then were some extremely dangerous creatures.
"Hah—hah—hah—hah!"
"Heh—heh—heh—heh—heh!"
Namely Mungchi and Maru, sprinting like lunatics.
The two of them were tracing a circle along the rim of the lawn, and their speed had already left the category of ordinary dogs behind. Dogs can run at dozens of miles an hour, but that's a short burst. These two had been going at that pace for minutes now, without a single rest. A person on a bicycle, no matter how hard they hammered the pedals, couldn't have caught them.
"...I can't catch them."
I thought about stepping into their path to grab them, but the impact would have been about the same as being hit by a moving car, and I couldn't quite find the nerve. Even so, I couldn't leave the two of them tearing around like this. A few guests trying to cross to the middle of the lawn were already stuck, waiting for a gap in the charge.
In the end, I brought out the freeze command to stop them.
Stop!
The target freezes in place.
"Waaaagh!"
"Aaaah!"
The instant they heard me tell them to stop, both of them screamed. Their bodies had locked in the exact posture of a full run, and they couldn't beat their own speed — they went tumbling across the ground. No. Not tumbling. They slid over the lawn just as they'd been running, as if they were sledding.
The yelps hit me — yipe, yipe! — and I rushed over in a panic. Fortunately, they were only swinging their heads and complaining of dizziness. Neither of them looked hurt.
"One more time?"
"One more time!"
"One more time, he says. Both of you, get over here."
Far from injured, they still sounded full of energy to spare. I grabbed both leashes then and there. Only once they'd registered me did their tails curl quietly out of sight.
"Who told you to run like maniacs? You see the state of that grass?"
I pointed at the broad circular track worn into the lawn along its edge. They had run it so fast, and so many times over, that it stood out starkly from the grass they hadn't touched.
"Hehe!"
Maru only beamed at me, bright and innocent, so I caught her by the jowls and gave them a light shake.
"You two are getting a little training."
I led them to a corner of the lawn — right up against the wall that enclosed the cafe.
"Sit."
They had barely heard the word before both hindquarters hit the ground.
"What were you thinking, running that fast? Crash into someone and you'll get hurt. So will they."
"I'm sowwy..."
"I messed up!"
Both of them drooped. Come on — how was I supposed to scold them like this? Not a single excuse. They just owned up and apologized outright, and I found myself at a loss for how to keep at it.
What am I supposed to do with these two...
I stared at the pair of them, heads hung, looking thoroughly miserable. Then an idea came to me. They were sprinting like mad because they couldn't contain all that overflowing stamina. If I gave them a way to burn it off, wouldn't that be enough? And for spending energy, darting every which way had to beat simply running like crazed dogs.
What was that competition called again... There was one with obstacles.
There was a contest where dogs ran a course of obstacles. A quick search gave me the name: agility.
"If you want to run that badly, I'll let you."
"You mean it?!"
At that, both heads shot up, faces alight with delight. Seeing them, I wondered whether I'd thought this through. Even so, nothing would drain their stamina as cleanly as agility — that conviction was the stronger one — so I told them to wait and went to fetch things from the storeroom.
What I hauled out was nothing special. A few stakes, some boxes, and a long plank. Leftover materials from the cafe's interior work, kept around on the chance they might prove useful.
Anyway, I gathered a few of the staff and immediately set about building agility obstacles in a corner of the lawn. I'd promised them overtime pay on the side, and they threw themselves into it so eagerly that we had a respectable course in ten minutes. Stakes driven at even intervals, for weaving left and right through a slalom. Boxes twenty inches high and a full yard high, meant to be jumped. A plank ramp in an A-frame, up one side and down the other.
"This'll be more fun than just running."
The moment the obstacles were finished, I started teaching the two of them how to run the course. Whether it was the stamina or simply how much they loved to run, they picked it up at an astonishing pace — fast enough that when the man finished his leisurely look around the cafe and wandered back out, the sight of Mungchi ripping between the stakes startled the words right out of him.
"M-Mungchi?"
"Hah, hah! This is the best!"
Mungchi shot through a sixteen-foot slalom in the blink of an eye, cried out how much he loved it, and sailed lightly over the yard-high box waiting beyond. The plank ramp after that, he took in three strides.
He was slower than Maru in a straight sprint, but on the obstacles he left her completely behind. The course had only been a toy, something for two dogs who couldn't hold all that energy. What I'd found instead was a talent I never expected.