Cheongho
They came at each other in a rush of pattering paws, leapt, and collided in midair.
Cheongho's jaws gaped wide and lunged for Namcat, clearly meaning to take a bite out of him—but those teeth never found their mark. Even hanging in the air, Namcat twisted with impossible freedom, slipped past the muzzle, and drove a Nyangnyang Punch straight into the bridge of Cheongho's nose. And yet, just as Namcat had dodged him, Cheongho dodged right back. A slight dip of the head, and Namcat's forepaw only grazed the bridge of his nose on the way past.
"Oho. The old tiger's got some real bite to him."
"You ain't half bad yourself."
Having traded a blow apiece, the two of them circled through a brief, wary probe—then crashed together again. Namcat's forepaw lashed out, and Cheongho's muzzle shoved in to meet it, and from there the same give-and-take raged on for a good long while, neither of them yielding an inch.
"Whoa... Suhwan, these two could be in an action movie."
"Right? You don't think somebody's actually gonna come scout them?"
The fight between Cheongho and Namcat was more than enough to drag a gasp out of anyone watching. Noona and I stood there with our mouths hanging open, unable to look away. Shut your eyes and listen to the relentless tat, tadat ringing through the yard, and you could almost believe you were sitting through a Chinese martial-arts film. Open them, and it was Cheongho and Namcat locked in a furious brawl.
"Ah!"
But as we watched, something began to shift. The even exchange—blow for blow, neither landing anything that truly mattered—started to break, and little by little Namcat was being pushed back.
I couldn't help being stunned. This was the same cat who dropped his natural predator, an eagle-owl, in a heartbeat, and who could lay out even Maru, a big dog, without breaking a sweat. For him to start losing ground to Cheongho, it would have been stranger not to be surprised.
And once he began to give way, his chances of winning grew thinner and thinner. Where he had been blocking Cheongho's attacks and snapping straight back with counters, he was gradually reduced to desperate defense alone, with no counterattack in sight. Worse, there were moments he failed to block at all and simply ate a hit.
The result, if you could call it that, was that Namcat himself began to look different. He tumbled across the ground this way and that until his whole body was a mess—dirt caked into his coat, blades of grass caught between the hairs. Cheongho, by contrast, was immaculate. The only change in him was that a few patches of fur looked as if they'd been sheared, raked by Namcat's claws. The gap in their fighting strength was starting to show on the outside.
The gap widened and widened, until at last Namcat had the scruff of his neck pinned beneath Cheongho's forepaw.
"Impressive. A worthy opponent."
"Kh—!"
Crushed under Cheongho, Namcat wore a face thick with frustration and gave the bridge of his own nose a furtive lick. Even so, he seemed to accept the loss cleanly enough. The tension drained out of him, and he went limp all over and lay flat against the ground, as if to say he would resist no further.
Seeing that, Cheongho judged the fight to be over and lifted the paw that had been holding him down.
He's not coming back for more?
I'd been sure that the moment the weight came off him, Namcat would lunge again. Instead he sat back on his haunches and started grooming his filthy coat—though his eyes never stopped glaring at Cheongho.
"What is your name?"
"Namcat."
"Mm. A fine name. I am Cheongho. I was a military working dog, guardian of the nation, but as of today I have received orders to transfer into this household. I'll be in your care."
As if the fight of a moment ago didn't concern him in the slightest, Cheongho stepped up to Namcat and gave his head a light bump. Namcat looked thoroughly thrown by the gesture, but he didn't say a word to the dog who had beaten him.
"More to the point, Mr. Namcat, your skill is remarkable. Might I request a sparring match now and then? My comrades back at the unit were far too frail. There was no satisfaction in fighting them, I'll tell you that."
...Is he saying Namcat is stronger than the other military dogs?
Cheongho's words left me dumbfounded. Noona, hearing my translation, was no different.
"Next time, I ain't losing. Not a chance."
"On the contrary. That is exactly what I want."
Cheongho said it was what he'd been hoping for and slowly extended a forepaw. Namcat blinked at it, bewildered—but perhaps because he'd spent his life rubbing shoulders with people, he raised his own forepaw and set it against the one Cheongho had offered.
The CCTV! Oh, it's actually running!
The sight sent my eyes up to the security camera mounted under the eaves. The red recording lamp was blinking, slow and steady.
"I've gotta upload this to MeTube."
"The views on that are gonna be insane. How is it that every animal that shows up around you is perfectly optimized for MeTube?"
Noona stared at me as if I were some kind of marvel.
I gave a light shrug and set about tidying the magpies and crows sprawled across the ground. Once I'd herded them into a reasonable pile in the corner, they came to on their own and fluttered up onto the wall. With the birds sorted, I went and gathered up Yubu, who had been shoved off to the side and left lying there.
The moment I lifted him, Yubu stirred his wings and settled himself properly in my hands.
"Oh? You weren't knocked out after all."
"...I never imagined there would be one capable of defeating that monstrous cat."
"Yeah. I was thinking the same thing."
"I suppose I shall simply live quietly from now on... I cannot conceive of any means by which to overcome monsters such as those. It would be far better to dwell at ease in your café, merely playing cute for the humans."
Whether he'd been measuring himself against the fight between Namcat and Cheongho, Yubu looked thoroughly dejected. I scratched him lightly all over, pouring every bit of encouragement I had into it. True to a bird who loved having the spaces between his feathers worked over, he swiveled his head in slow circles, looking thoroughly pleased.
Yeah. If you can't win in the first place, giving up is a valid strategy. Honestly, even I couldn't see a way you'd come out on top.
It was a thought I couldn't bring myself to say to his face, so I tossed him gently into the air instead. He flapped with nimble skill and glided over to where his subordinates waited.
"Commander! You're the greatest, Commander!"
"That's right! Please don't take it too hard!"
"You'll always be the best to us, Commander!"
Comforted by his magpies and crows, Yubu soothed his bitter heart... no. His bruised and bitter body.
"Cheongho."
"Master! You called, sir?"
At the sound of my voice he was at my side in an instant. There was loyalty in the way he came, and I stroked his head as I spoke.
"I'll introduce you to the other animals too. Get along with them from now on."
"No need to worry, sir!"
Something about him looked dependable, so I immediately called every animal in the house. They'd already been hearing my voice from the yard, along with the racket of Cheongho and Namcat fighting, so they gathered quickly. All but one.
"Suhwan. Natae's not here."
"...I wasn't expecting him anyway."
I hadn't expected Natae to show up in the first place. He wasn't the sort who came when you called. If you actually wanted to summon that one, you'd have to park him on a robot vacuum with voice recognition and name the vacuum Natae. Then, when you called the vacuum, he'd come along with it.
Anyway, I set about introducing Cheongho to the others right away. Namcat had already exchanged greetings on his own after the two of them had gone at each other, but the rest hadn't, so introductions were in order. Starting with the dogs, who could be called Cheongho's own kind, I worked through everyone—the cats, the raccoons, the goose, the rabbits, the turtle, and the birds.
"Cheongho, reporting! I'll be in your care from here on!"
Even though I hadn't taught him a thing, he dipped his head in a crisp little bow and greeted them. He looked so sociable that each of the animals answered in their own way, returning the greeting. Along the way the raccoons got cocky and ended up thrashed by Cheongho, who was even stronger than Namcat—but aside from that, he settled in among them without any real trouble.
Then, on the evening of the day after Cheongho came to live with us, Lieutenant Deokgu got in touch. The edit was finished, he said.
How many people did they burn through to get this done?
We'd filmed for quite a long stretch, and yet he was already telling me the edit was completely finished. I pulled up the final cut he'd sent.
"..."
"You need to hire an editor. Soon."
The quality of what the lieutenant had sent was several times better than the videos I made myself—no, dozens of times better. Enough that Noona was urging me to find someone. I made up my mind that I really did need an editor, and uploaded his video to MeTube. There was nothing in it that could cause a problem, and all I could see was a perfectly sincere desire to promote their Army Dog Training Center.
And right after posting the video about the training center, I uploaded the footage of Namcat and Cheongho's duel.
The response, of course, exploded. Cheongho had beaten Namcat, who was stronger than an eagle-owl—there was no way people wouldn't pay attention. The early back-and-forth in particular was an action movie in every sense of the word, and that only fanned the blaze.
The video of Namcat and Cheongho's fight racked up a staggering number of views, and thanks to that, the promotional video for the Army Dog Training Center—Cheongho's home base, you could say—drew enormous attention as well. Lieutenant Deokgu even called me personally to offer his thanks. Something about already fielding more than a hundred related inquiries.
But I couldn't spare much attention for that. There was a more important matter I had to focus on: finding an editor, just as the comments kept telling me to.
I'd already been feeling, lately, that the climb in my subscriber count was starting to plateau, and an editor might well be the fix. I immediately put up a job posting across my social media and the MeTube community.