No, You Can't!
"Hngh..."
The sea lion's sheer nerve dragged a bizarre noise out of me before I even knew I was making it.
"Suhwan, what's the sea lion saying?"
"No... it's, well..."
Noona had a way of asking what an animal was saying the moment she heard one make a sound, and she wanted the sea lion translated too. I hesitated for a second, but there was nothing to gain by hiding it, so I decided to interpret.
"What're you looking at?"
"...What?"
"No—that's what that one said. 'What're you looking at?'"
Noona's eyes had gone sharp at my words, and a moment later she reacted almost exactly the way I had.
"What should we do? If we don't take this road, the lodging we arranged is more than three times as far the long way around..."
"Three times?"
This was no little detour. The moment the guide said we'd have to go that far out of our way, I made up my mind. I was going to clear out these professional roadblocks—not that I had any intention of doing it myself.
"Hanmu. Do me a favor. Shove the whole lot of them out of the way."
"Heh heh."
At my request, Hanmu gave a small chuckle and slowly began to walk.
"A-are you sure that's all right? I know the sea lions aren't afraid of people, but there's no telling how they'll treat a tortoise..."
"Ah, it's fine."
The guide watched Hanmu with open worry. A sea lion was as good as a beast of prey—there was a reason they had lion right there in the name. I wasn't worried in the slightest. Like every other outsized personality in our house, Hanmu was no ordinary tortoise.
He didn't spare a thought for the guide's fretting. Working those slow legs for all they were worth, he made his way toward the sea lions.
The one sprawled at the very front, blankly claiming the road, reacted when something pressed down hard on its middle.
"Hwuh? Wh-what the—!"
It lifted its head a fraction, saw what was pressing on it, and thrashed in a startled fit. But the instant it realized the thing trying to shove it was a tortoise, it looked at Hanmu as if the very idea were laughable.
"A tortoise thinks it can push me? Hah. You'll be the one who gets— guhhhhhh!"
Scoffing at the sight of Hanmu trying to move it, the sea lion tried to shove him back instead. Sea lion or not, it couldn't budge him. If anything, it was whimpering and straining with everything it had.
"Heh heh heh."
Hanmu let out a chuckle at the struggling sea lion and went on with his unhurried walk.
"Uh... uhhh?"
And under that advance, the sea lion—so proud of its enormous bulk—began to give way. One was pushed aside, then two, until they started tangling into one another.
"E-eeeeek!"
"Heh heh heh heh!"
Watching them slide before him, Hanmu planted each step with even more spirit. Every time he took one, the round-bodied sea lions rolled this way and that and piled into each other.
"Sea lions are anything but light..."
The guide stared, aghast, at the animals being shoved along. The bodyguards who would be protecting us in the Galápagos were no different, whispering among themselves with stunned faces.
"What are those people saying?" Noona asked.
"They're saying that tortoise might actually be a robot," the guide said.
"A robot? Ah, well. Looking at that, I suppose it would seem pretty unbelievable."
It wasn't one or two of them. More than ten sea lions were being pushed back by Hanmu, and there was no way a sight like that wouldn't seem miraculous. I still hadn't forgotten the time he'd shoved aside dozens of feed sacks stacked across a café entrance just so he could walk in.
Anyway, as Hanmu kept at it, a path slowly began to open. The round sea lions tumbled and rolled, clearing out a space wider than I'd expected.
"Gyaaah! I'm rolling!"
One of them was especially round. Unable to get control of its own body, it went tumbling all the way down to the distant beach.
"All right, let's go. You said the lodging's up ahead?"
"...Huh? Oh—yes! Yes, yes!"
Ignoring the sea lion rolling off into the distance, I followed behind Hanmu. Thanks to all his hard work, a path had opened through the animals that had been plugging the road so thoroughly. Tangled and tumbling among themselves, they'd left more than enough room to pass.
I took the lead, and Noona—with So-eun in her arms—and the other animals came after me. The sea lions, still in a heap, had gone right back to soaking up the sun, so we crossed without a bit of trouble.
"Good work. Thanks to you, that was easy."
"Heh heh. Ask me anytime you like."
I stroked Hanmu's head in praise, and he blinked those great eyes of his, slow and pleased.
"There. That's the place."
After I'd petted him and we'd walked a little farther, the guide showed us to our lodging. It wasn't the sort of place that came to mind at the word hotel, but the pure-white building looked clean and tidy, and the inside was nicely kept. It really did feel as if we'd arrived somewhere meant for a trip.
"This is where you'll be staying while you're here. We've rented the entire place, so aside from all of you, it'll just be the bodyguards and myself. In particular, no one will be coming up to the upper floor where you'll be staying, so please make yourselves comfortable."
He seemed to be looking out for a pair of newlyweds. I let out a short laugh and went upstairs with Noona.
We could even choose whichever room we liked, so the two of us picked a suitable one and stepped inside. Through the terrace, a little ways off, the blue sea came into view.
"Whoa, you can see the ocean? Great view."
Noona set So-eun down on the bed and immediately pulled out her phone, snapping away. Watching her, I quietly slipped my arms around her from behind.
"Heh heh. So. About time we started on a second?"
"What are you even saying."
Noona smacked my forearm—smack—as if to tell me to quit the nonsense. It didn't hurt, so she probably wasn't actually annoyed. And whether she'd been watching the two of us from the bed or not, So-eun started to fuss.
"Euuung!"
"She wants to be held too. I think she doesn't like us hugging without her."
"So much for So-eun getting a little sibling."
Noona laughed lightly and picked her up. So-eun wanted me in on it as well—even nestled in Noona's arms, she reached toward me. Only when the two of us held her together did she break into a bright, sunny smile.
"Want to sit out on the terrace for a bit? There's a table. Let's just have something to drink. The breeze looks nice and cool."
"Let's. Take So-eun out. I'll grab snacks and drinks."
"So-eun, want to go look outside?"
"Pwah!"
When I took her from Noona, So-eun reached for my face and started squishing it. Her little hands rubbed under my chin until it tickled, and I headed for the terrace, where a breeze came in—hot, but cool enough to dry the sweat.
There was no baby chair, so I sat with So-eun in my arms. The chair, made of what looked like finely split bamboo, was harder and less comfortable than I'd expected. Even so, the view made that much easy to bear.
"Here. Orange juice. They didn't have cola."
"No? That's a shame."
It was a letdown. Cola was the one drink you could hardly go wrong with anywhere. Still, orange juice wasn't bad.
"Papa, juice!"
Spotting the orange juice Noona held out to me, So-eun reached for it, demanding her share.
"From what I saw, it should be fine for her."
Since So-eun could have some, I popped the glass bottle open—pop—and let a little trickle into her mouth.
"Yummy!"
She gulped the sweet juice down, so delighted she flailed her arms and legs. I smiled faintly at the sight and tore open one of the snack bags Noona had brought.
"So-eun. Ah."
"Ah!"
I held out a snack meant just for her, and she opened her little mouth and bit down—chomp. Those tiny lips worked away as she munched with obvious delight, and before I knew it I was feeding her one piece after another. So this is why parents are always telling you to eat.
"Snack!"
I'd paused for a moment just to look at how cute she was, and So-eun fussed for more. I took one of the two snacks left in the bag and brought it to her mouth.
Fwip-fwip-fwip!
"Gotcha!"
"Waaaaaah!"
The snack I'd picked up wasn't in So-eun's mouth. It was clamped in the beak of some bird. Something had whipped past right in front of her, and on top of that her snack was gone. Naturally, she burst into a full-throated wail.
"Son of a—!"
"Who dares make the Princess cry!"
"Young Mistress! I'll kill every last one of them, sir!"
"Which fool's wantin' a beatin' with this rattle!"
I moved to grab the bird that had appeared out of nowhere and stolen So-eun's snack. But there were others faster than I was. Yubu shot out first, Cheongho racing after him, and Daepodong came waddling at a run with a rattle in his paws.
"Hey—hey! This is the second floor!"
The problem was that the ones who'd charged out seemed to have forgotten we were on the second floor. They'd leapt clean over the terrace railing.
By a stroke of tremendous luck, not one of them was hurt. Yubu was an owl, so he could fly, and a drop from the second floor was nothing Cheongho couldn't simply jump. Daepodong, on the other hand...
"S-save meee!"
He was clinging to the railing, very much alive.
I hauled him up and looked down at the three of them tumbling around below—the bird that had stolen So-eun's snack, caught between Yubu and Cheongho.
"Thy fate shall be decided by the Princess!"
Yubu snatched up the suspect Cheongho had pinned and took to the air, while Cheongho came back with the rattle Daepodong had dropped clamped in his mouth.
The bodyguards and the guide, who had been watching from outside, came as well.
"W-what's going on?!"
Startled by the animals leaping from the window and then leaping back up, and by So-eun's crying, the guide rushed over and took the scene in with alarm. So-eun had been moved into Noona's arms and was sniffling there, the animals crowded around her. Yubu had some unidentified bird clenched tight in his talons, and Daepodong was raising the rattle to bring it down on that bird.
"Ah—no! You can't!"
Misunderstanding what Daepodong was about to do, the guide had shouted in a panic.
"Die!"
Ah. So it wasn't a misunderstanding.