Buzz, Buzz, Buzz, Buzz, Buzz
"So-eun, did you have fun with Daddy?"
"Uuwaah!"
Noona lifted So-eun out of the bouncer, and the baby squirmed as if to announce that Mom was best of all, breaking into a bright, innocent smile. Noona wore the very same smile, as if she simply could not get enough of her. The two of them looked so alike that just watching them felt like medicine.
I took the sight in for a moment, then caught the animals staring at me, blank and expectant, and handed over the treats I had promised.
"Thank you kindly!"
"For a child so precious—what would I not do?"
"Just give the order, anytime!"
Treats in hand, they fell on the snacks in a joyful scramble.
I turned straight back to Noona and So-eun. I needed even one more second of that pure, undiluted cuteness. The way she windmilled her little arms, trying to catch Noona's finger as it swayed gently in front of her—there was no word for it but cute. Looking at her was its own kind of healing. I felt the stress buried deep inside me come loose all at once, and I walked slowly over to Noona.
"Noona. Have a good time?"
"Yeah. It's been ages since I saw my friends, and it really blew the stress off. You should take a day and go out too. I'll watch So-eun and the little ones."
"Hmm... sure, why not. They've been messaging me to meet up anyway."
I nodded. The guys had been asking to see my face, so I only needed to pick a day before long. Even so, there was no reason to set anything up right away. Seeing friends who treated me like some kind of circus ringleader could wait. Looking at So-eun, cuteness itself, mattered more.
A small child grows astonishingly fast. Fast enough that even parents who live beside them every day and hardly look away for a moment can see the change the instant it arrives.
Before I knew it, So-eun—born in the middle of March—had passed a full four months.
The heat, already heavy, had only deepened. Heat-wave advisories were running on the news, and cicadas were screaming from one end of the country to the other. And once that season arrived, a big change came for So-eun as well.
"Suhwan! So-eun's got a tooth!"
I rushed over at Noona's shout and found So-eun with her mouth stretched wide around Noona's finger.
"Already? Didn't the doctor say it would take about half a year?"
"He also said it varies from baby to baby. Some get them months early, and some still don't have any by their first birthday."
Right—that made sense. I nodded and peered into the little mouth Noona was holding open. A tooth had only just begun to push up through the gum, a small white bud cresting the pink.
"How is even teething cute on our So-eun?"
"I know."
Noona and I both found it unbearably adorable. A white tooth peeking out of that soft pink gum, as if it were timidly lifting its head—there was no way it wasn't cute.
"So-eun's going to be cute later, too, when her baby teeth fall out."
"Well. Whose daughter do you think she is."
The words were barely out before Noona and I were squabbling, each of us insisting she was my daughter, both of us wearing the same pleased smile.
"Euuuuh!"
"Hm? Our girl, what's wrong?"
"I think she wants her diaper changed."
"So-eun, Mommy'll change you right away!"
Noona had the diaper swapped in a flash. She was as practiced as a person could get, and So-eun looked perfectly at ease.
"Does our So-eun feel all fresh and clean?"
"Kyaaah!"
Diaper changed, So-eun broke into a giggle again, sunny as ever. We played with her for a little while, and then she started to nod off. Her eyelids kept sinking shut, and her lips twitched as if she meant to babble something, but not a sound came out.
"I'll put her down."
I gathered So-eun up and rocked her for a moment, and she slipped under almost at once, breathing in soft, even little sounds. Even when I laid her gently on the bed, she didn't stir.
"Sleeping well."
"Yeah. Honestly, she's cute when she's awake, too, but... I think she might be cuter like this. Fast asleep."
"Isn't that a bit much, coming from her dad? Cutest when she's sleeping?"
"Oh, so you like her better awake?"
"...Wh-when did I say that."
I had said it as if I might wake So-eun that very second, and Noona flustered. So-eun really was incredibly cute, but she was still a little baby, and the house was more peaceful when she slept. Thanks to my ability, which reached a baby at least a little, she almost never worked herself into a full-blown wailing fit—but tired was still tired. I had to watch her closely in case something came up out of nowhere, and I was constantly checking whether she was hungry or needed a change. There was no way not to be exhausted.
"But seriously... I think So-eun got a lot of your genes. How can a sleeping face match this exactly?"
I could tell she was trying to change the subject. Looking at So-eun, though, I had to admit she was right. It was me, asleep, copied to the last detail—left arm lifted just a little, left foot tucked against her right calf. The very position I fell into when I was sleeping comfortably.
We were right in the middle of talking about how her sleeping habit matched mine when a tremendous noise came crashing into the house.
"Reeeeeeeeeeeeeee—!"
"...!"
Stuck to the window screen or not, the cicada's cry punched straight through the soundproofing of a well-sealed house and rang through every room. It was so loud I honestly couldn't tell cicada from siren.
The moment we heard it, we both startled and looked at the bed where So-eun lay.
"We're done for."
And So-eun, lying in her crib, had both eyes flung wide, as if her having just fallen asleep had been a bald-faced lie.
"Hhh... hnnn...!"
Eyes perfectly round, So-eun began a brief warm-up. A moment later, as if to announce the warm-up was finished, moisture slowly beaded at the corners of her eyes. Her mouth—where a baby tooth had only just started to show—opened, and a thunderous sound burst out.
"Waaaaaaaah!"
Startled by the sudden crying, Noona still scooped So-eun up at once. She rocked her this way and that, soothing a baby who had been jolted out of sleep by the noise.
Once I saw that, I hurried to the window, meaning to send off the cicada clinging to the screen and producing something close to a roar. It must have been a cicada worthy of that volume, though, because shaking the screen didn't make it so much as consider letting go. Even a finger-flick against the mesh failed to knock it loose.
"No choice!"
This was no moment to be precious about touching a bug. I cracked the screen open, intending to peel the cicada off and fling it outside. As if to laugh at me, it slipped right through the gap I had made—and struck up an even louder drone. I lunged to catch it, and it fluttered off to stick somewhere else and started screaming again. I chased it there, and it fled once more. Heat rising, I brought out the last resort.
"Damn it...! Magpies, assemble!"
I threw the window all the way open and shouted toward the café. The magpies heard me, launched into the sky, and came streaking for the window. I let the first few inside and ordered them to deal with the cicada.
"Chee—!"
They were well on their way to becoming pet magpies, worthy underlings of Yubu, who insisted on styling himself a pet owl—but that didn't mean their thuggish hunting instincts had gone anywhere. The cicada I couldn't catch no matter how I tried ended up clamped in a magpie's beak within seconds.
"Handle it outside."
"Yesshir!"
I pointed out the window, and the magpie with the cicada vanished even faster than it had come in.
"Whew..."
With the noise gone, a sigh of relief broke from both me and Noona. The instant the racket stopped, So-eun's crying began to slow and fade. Once she had quieted, Noona held her and rocked her gently, and she drifted back toward sleep. It was a sight I couldn't help but be relieved by. I let out another sigh and stepped outside for a moment—not forgetting, of course, to send the magpies out and shut the window tight.
Outside, countless magpies and crows were still perched along the top of the wall.
"You guys—the cicadas... actually, no. Can you just keep insects from getting in at all? Every last one?"
"Boss. Insects? You mean creatures like that cicada just now?"
"The little ones are a bit difficult, but it's nothing we can't manage."
"Shall we simply keep the likes of that cicada from earlier from coming near?"
"It will be hard, but if it is your order, Boss, we will follow it gladly."
At my question, the magpies and crows each answered in much the same way. I had no desire to live through this a second time because of a cicada, so I set them to keeping cicadas—and insects of every kind—from coming anywhere near the house. I piled nuts and the like in one corner of the yard, payment in advance for their trouble, and the magpies and crows took to the sky to guard the place.
They circled the house and the café, wiping out cicadas and every other insect they found. Bugs were already part of an omnivore's menu, so they seemed to be enjoying the work quite a bit. Thanks to them, it became hard to hear a cicada anywhere in the house after that—or even near the café.
"Hah. Should've done this ages ago."
"...Yeah. Not a single bug in the house is really nice."
Noona, who had been about to scold me for giving the magpies and crows busywork, ended up quite pleased once not only the cicadas but every sort of bug had vanished. She no longer had to worry about the noise waking So-eun, and she no longer had to worry about bugs biting her. Of course she was happy.
We were in the middle of a quiet, peaceful summer, courtesy of the magpies and crows, when a proposal came in through Outsta.
"Noona. Want to go get So-eun's picture taken?"
"So-eun's picture? Don't we already have a ton?"
"Sure, a ton. I mean something like a real photo spread. A request came in by DM on Outsta. It's a parenting magazine—they want to use So-eun and the animals as models."
Noona's eyes lit up, and she reacted as if she might sprint out the door that very moment. I was sure of it. She wanted to show So-eun off to the entire country in a magazine.
"Then we're doing it."
Of course, I was thinking the exact same thing. I contacted the magazine at once and locked in a shoot date. We would close the café for it and take the animals along.