The Military Dog (2)
The road to Chuncheon. I set out early that morning and flew down the highway. The car was new, a domestic full-size SUV from the premium line, the best-performing of the lot, and it made for an exceptionally comfortable ride.
"Ah."
I was still marveling at how it handled when Noona, in the passenger seat, took one of the baby potatoes she'd bought at the rest stop a little earlier, blew on it until it cooled, and held it up to my mouth. I eyed the potato, opened right up, and chewed.
"Good?"
"Not bad. You salted it just right."
"You like potatoes that much?"
"Potatoes are love. Honestly, though, I'd take a cheese-dusted tornado potato — one of those spiral-cut ones on a stick — or salted fries over plain baby potatoes."
"You've got a little kid's palate, I swear."
Noona shook her head and popped a baby potato into her mouth with a soft crunch.
"Our baby isn't going to lose their mind over potatoes the way you do someday, right?"
"Lose their mind? Could we please call it a preference?"
"At your level, 'lose their mind' is exactly right."
Noona and I bantered on like that, trading one bit of nonsense for another. All the while the car kept faithfully at it, and before long we were closing in on our destination.
We left the highway, took a few curves, and the view opened into something like a country road. People were scarce. A vehicle passed now and then, and along the main road stood restaurants with tall signs planted out front.
"Isn't that it?"
Noona had been staring blankly ahead the way you gaze at a distant mountain when she suddenly tapped my hand and pointed. I followed the gesture. The building that came into view felt a little like a military base and, somehow, not like one at all.
"Ah. Yeah, I think that's the place."
It was a military facility, so it didn't even show up on the navigation, but I'd been given detailed directions, and I drove us toward it. As we pulled up to the entrance, a soldier stopped the car.
"What brings you here, sir?"
"Uh, we're here about adopting a military dog. And we have an appointment with Lieutenant Kim Deok-gu."
"Yes, confirmed. One moment, please."
We waited as he'd asked, and before long another soldier came running toward us from a distance. It was the lieutenant who had called me, Kim Deok-gu, two diamonds glinting on his shoulders. He led Noona and me inside the military dog training center.
"When I first saw the application you sent, sir, I was completely thrown. Where there are usually photos of the vehicle and the transport crate, there was a person's face. Gave me quite a shock."
"Ahaha..."
All I could do was laugh awkwardly. Filling out the form, it had seemed perfectly reasonable. Looking back now, it was nothing short of insane.
"Still, thanks to that, I knew right away the applicant was you. I subscribe to your Mutube, so I recognized you at a glance."
He mentioned he was a fan himself and slipped in a favor that wasn't quite a favor — a signature before we left — and before I knew it he had guided us to a building. It was where the training center's battalion commander kept his office. The lieutenant observed every courtesy, secured permission to enter, and led us in.
"Loyalty!"
"Loyalty. So. This is the Animal Communicator you told me about?"
"Yes, sir!"
At the lieutenant's answer, the man called the battalion commander stepped toward me and held out his hand.
"Good to meet you. I'm Jindo — yes, the dog. I run this military dog training center. Well... I got shoved aside on seniority, and the name did the rest. That's how I ended up here."
He offered the handshake with a face full of mischief. It had never once crossed my mind that a man of battalion-commander rank would turn his own name into a joke.
"Lieutenant Kim tells me you'll be promoting our civilian adoption program on your Mutube."
"Ah, yes. It ought to help the training center, but I figured it'd help me too."
"Haha! That's how it should be, isn't it — people looking out for each other. Then please, do put together a good video for us. Lieutenant Kim, show them around. And see to their convenience as far as you can."
"Yes, sir!"
The lieutenant snapped a razor-sharp salute and led Noona and me off somewhere else.
"First, I'll show you our training facilities. You're free to film whatever you like in there."
Noona and I toured the center the way you sightsee with a guide in tow, filming this and that as we went. We watched prospective military dogs growing up beside their parents, and dogs that looked as if they were heading out on walks with the soldiers. After that we sat in, briefly, on the training itself.
They seemed to have arranged the sessions just for me to see. Everywhere we went, a drill was timed to start the moment we arrived. Focus drills. Stamina drills. Drills for finding things like explosives. We watched quite a lot of them, and got them on camera.
"Suhwan. The dog we're taking home will have passed all of that too, right?"
"Should have. I didn't ask for a dog that failed qualification. I asked for a retiree."
Noona had watched every bit of the training beside me, and she looked quietly expectant. From everything we'd seen so far, a military dog seemed thoroughly reliable. Whether he had overheard us or not, the lieutenant wore a proud face and nodded.
"That's correct. The dog you'll be adopting has completed every one of those courses. You will absolutely not be disappointed!"
He answered in a voice packed with certainty that disappointment was impossible.
"Then, last of all, would you care to observe what you might call the highlight of our training — the controlled attack drill?"
He led us to a place like a parade ground. Whether it had been set up ahead of time, a person stood there in a full-body protective suit, along with one military dog and one handler.
"Depending on the situation, a military dog does attack. The usual purpose is subduing a fleeing enemy. Of course, that means the dog must strike only the designated target, so we train them rigorously to attack no one but whoever they've been ordered to attack."
After a brief explanation of the exercise, the lieutenant told them to begin and signaled the soldier holding the dog. The soldier gave the dog some command.
"Hrah!"
The dog that had received the order accelerated to a tremendous speed in the space of a blink and charged the person in the suit.
"Aaaagh!"
It seized the suited man and started shaking him. The thick padding protected his body, but the force of a military dog biting down and thrashing doesn't simply vanish, and a scream tore out of him. The dog's strength was no joke. In the end the man in the suit hit the ground with a thud.
"Grrrr!"
Even that wasn't enough. The dog kept hold of him and shook him wildly. He was clearly resisting, and still his arm whipped back and forth. Watching it, you didn't think dog so much as bear. That was the kind of strength on display.
"Cheongho!"
But the moment that dog, which had been flaunting such brutal power, heard the word I took to be its name, it broke off the attack and returned to its handler's side.
"Wow... That training is seriously good."
"It is. That dog, Cheongho, is the finest military dog in the history of this training center. He has less than a year left before retirement, and there still isn't a dog here who can surpass him."
"Wow..."
Admiration was all that came out of me. Which was why a little greed began to stir. If I took that one home, thieves or otherwise, nobody would even dare think of laying a hand on anything around me. But it was such a shame. Such a shame that the retiree I was allowed to take wasn't this dog.
"Do you like him?"
"I'd be lying if I said no. Strength like that, he follows commands, and he looks loyal on top of it..."
"Then I'll see to it that you can take Cheongho."
"Really?"
"Yes. There is one condition."
Of course. There was no way they would hand over a military dog that impressive with no strings attached.
"No need to worry too much. What we're asking is simple. When you upload the video to Mutube, we'd like our public affairs office to handle the editing."
"...What?"
"Forgive me for saying so, but... the quality of your Mutube videos is a little... Th-that is, don't worry! We'll edit it, and then submit it for your review!"
"Ah..."
At the sight of the lieutenant laughing awkwardly, I scratched my head, sheepish. I'd kept putting it off — hire an editor, I really should hire an editor — and I never thought the delay would come back to me like this. But there was nothing in the offer that would do me any harm, so I nodded and accepted.
They were giving me an outstanding military dog, editing the video, and letting me do the final check. There was no reason to refuse. At that rate, it was no different from them handing things over with both hands wide open. I took the lieutenant's offer, and the military dog named Cheongho became mine.
"New master! Good to meet you, sir! Cheongho, reporting, sir! I'll be in your care, sir!"
As if he knew he was meant to come with me, Cheongho trotted over and rubbed his face against mine. Then he went to Noona beside me as well, nuzzling her and laying on the charm.
"I'll contact you once the edit is finished!"
Leaving behind the lieutenant and his assurance that we could trust him with it, Noona and I headed home with Cheongho.
The road back down to Busan with Cheongho, after going all the way to Chuncheon to fetch him, was very long, and it took a very long time. We had left early in the morning, and by the time we got home again the sun had not merely set. A deep darkness lay thick over everything.
"Uuugh! God, I'm wiped."
"Driving wore you out, didn't it?"
I smiled a little at Noona patting my lower back and opened the rear door.
"Is this the master's house, sir?"
"Yeah. It's the house you'll be living in too, from now on."
Cheongho hopped down from the car, stretched his back long the way you do after sitting too long, and followed Noona and me through the front gate into the house.
"Master. What is this, sir? A welcome, sir?"
"...Beats me."
The moment I stepped into the yard, the sight stopped me: a hundred-odd magpies and crows sprawled belly-up across the ground. I let out a sigh. And there at the center of the wreckage stood Namcat, brazen as anything, one paw planted on Yubu. Just looking at him made my head ache. I called to the Tokkiz, huddled in a corner and trembling.
"What happened here?"
"Mister Namcat knocked every last one of them flat, sha...!"
"He said Master's not here, so let's settle it once and for all, sha!"
"It rained magpies and crows, sha!"
From what the Tokkiz told me, I could piece it together. With Noona and me gone, Yubu and Namcat had fought a duel. If Yeongji had been around she would have grabbed Namcat and stopped it, but she had looked after the animals and gone back to her own house, and there had been no one anywhere to hold him back.
"Master. That veteran tiger's got some presence, sir."
"Hey. The hell did you just say."
While I was still nursing the headache Namcat's handiwork had given me, a standoff flared up out of nowhere between Cheongho and Namcat. The two of them, each looking a heartbeat away from lunging, glared at one another for a moment — and then they crashed together.