Baby Cat
Baby Cat
"I've got the food ready... the pee pads are set too... and the fence arrived yesterday..."
"Here's the water bowl and the food bowl too."
A-ra held out the stainless steel bowls she was carrying.
I took them from her, set them down on the floor, and checked it off the list.
"Bowls are all ready... what about the leash?"
"Cats don't go on walks, so we don't need a leash."
"Oh right... we probably don't need litter box sand just yet..."
Since cats are territorial animals, a leash wasn't necessary.
In that case, all we needed was one large carrier from the big pet supply center for bringing her outside.
Today was the day we were going to pick up the cat.
Worried we might have missed something, I laid out all the supplies and went through them one by one.
Meanwhile, our puppies were lying flat in front of me, watching curiously as if wondering whether any of these things were for them.
These are for your little sibling, you two.
"Lil' One and Pipsqueak, you'll be nice to your new little sibling when she gets here, right?"
"Woof! Woof woof!"
"Woof."
They probably didn't understand.
Even though I called her a sibling, she's a completely different species — a cat — so I wasn't sure how well they'd get along.
Still, seeing how they never growled at the cats we met on the street, I had a feeling they'd manage just fine somehow.
Plus, Lil' One and Pipsqueak were so gentle.
I'd never once seen them fight.
Whenever they were doing something together, it was always Pipsqueak trailing behind Lil' One's tail, sniffing her butt,
or Lil' One grooming Pipsqueak...
Just thinking about it was adorable.
"I told you, it'll be fine."
"Hmm... I still can't help worrying."
"If they were fully grown adults or something, maybe, but they're still babies, you know?"
That was true enough.
They were Tinies that hadn't even turned a year old yet.
And Pipsqueak was only about three months old on top of that.
"Then let's get going soon."
A-ra, who had been kneeling on the floor, stood up and dusted off her knees with a pat-pat.
When transporting an animal, you naturally needed a back seat, so we couldn't take A-ra's Bungbungi.
So she was gripping my car keys tightly in her hand.
"Where did you say we're going?"
"We just need to head toward Yongsan."
'Dragon Mountain, was it?'
'Come to think of it, the place where we did the home adoption for Pipsqueak was in Yongsan too, wasn't it?'
'And the shelter where we went to pick up Lil' One was also in Yongsan... It seemed like we had some kind of deep connection with Dragon Mountain-ha.'
***
We'd come out early, but since it wasn't yet the appointed time, we decided to take a walk in a quiet park.
If I'd known this was going to happen, I would've brought Lil' One and Pipsqueak along to let them run around.
"But isn't it nice, just the two of us like this?"
"Of course it is. Look who I'm with."
"Hehe, our Seong-hwan really does say the cutest things when he talks."
"Noona is way cuter."
A-ra puffed out her cheeks and protested again about how you shouldn't call a woman cute, but if she was cute, what was I supposed to call her?
If she didn't like it, she shouldn't have been born so cute.
"It's really been a long time since we came out to a park for a walk, hasn't it?"
"We have the one in the apartment complex, don't we?"
"Eh, the one in the complex is closed in on all sides, so it doesn't feel like a real park."
A real park was like this place — a large artificial lake in the center, water fountains spraying up, somewhere you could spend a cool summer day.
No matter how much money they spend making one in an apartment complex, the feel is just completely different from a proper park.
"But inside the complex, we don't have to wear sunglasses or a mask."
"That is convenient, I'll admit..."
"Right?"
When I nodded in agreement, A-ra smiled brightly.
She seemed happy that I agreed with her opinion.
"I'll go grab us some drinks, Noona. What do you want?"
"I'll have a Pocari~"
"Okay, wait just a moment."
This was about when she'd usually start sending me to do these things, but A-ra headed toward the nearby vending machine, insisting it was a woman's job.
Left alone in this quiet park, the only sound breaking the stillness was the lonely whistle of the late autumn wind.
"Woof."
"Huh?"
I heard a puppy's cry from somewhere and looked around in every direction.
But there was no puppy — I couldn't even see a single person nearby.
'I did find and take care of an abandoned puppy once before...'
I was suddenly reminded of the time I adopted a dog.
Coincidentally, that had been at a park too.
In the end, the puppy's cry did not sound again, and it never appeared.
The only thing that appeared was A-ra, returning with a drink in each hand.
"Noona, did you happen to see a puppy on your way?"
"Huh? I think I did see a big Jindo dog earlier."
A dog like a Jindo would bark with a loud 'Woof!' so I didn't think it was that.
What on earth had it been?
"I'm not sure about a puppy, but there were tons of stray cats. Did you see them?"
"Don't tell me the reason you're late is because you were off petting cats?"
"Hehe, busted."
A-ra scratched the back of her head and sat down on the bench.
I raised my hand slightly and gently stroked her hair.
"I wonder if the baby cat we're going to pick up will find us unfamiliar."
"I hadn't thought of that."
'Still, pulling out perfume from my pocket and spraying it on seemed... questionable.'
'If anything, I felt like that would make her not want to come near us.'
***
"If Lil' One and Pipsqueak think they're wolves..."
"Then does this baby think she's something like a lion?"
We had brought home a baby cat that anyone could see was gentle.
As soon as we arrived, we set up the fence to separate her from Lil' One and Pipsqueak, and placed the stuffed toys the two of them used inside the enclosure so she could get used to their scent.
The cat played with those toys and the personal toys we'd bought separately, sometimes staring our way, sometimes curling up deep into a sleeping position —
she was diligently going about her own business.
But the funny thing was, Lil' One kept approaching the fence, and upon seeing the baby cat, tried to groom her.
The cat stayed perfectly still for a long moment, then smacked Lil' One away with a nyang-nyang punch, retreated back to the corner, and began thoroughly grooming her own body with lavish licks.
"We worried so much, but she seems to be settling in just fine...?"
"She's completely carefree, isn't she? Maybe it's because of the fence?"
Normally, when animals come to an unfamiliar place, don't they spend some time looking around and assessing the situation?
Lil' One and Pipsqueak had done the same, and as a human, so had I.
But this baby, without a care in the world for her surroundings, had flopped onto her back the moment she was let out of the carrier and started doing her own thing.
'Were cats just like this naturally?'
"Shall we try giving her some food?"
"I'll soak it in a little hot water and bring it over."
She had been weaned, but she was still a baby only a month old.
It was probably too early to give her kibble that went crunch-crunch.
*
"Mya."
She couldn't cry with a proper 'meow' yet and was just going 'mya-mya'.
It was cute, but compared to the puppies, the frequency bandwidth was a little different — it was slightly high-pitched.
I gently stroked the baby cat's head and held out the softened food in front of her.
I'd considered giving it to her in a stainless steel food bowl, but since this was just a quick little snack to whet her appetite, I'd brought it on a small plate.
"Oh, she's eating it. She's eating."
"She's eating well. Were they starving her...?"
Even though she was still a baby, the way she sat there going 'mya-mya', asking to be petted first, was unbelievably cute.
People always said that dog owners should try raising a cat at least once, and...
cats did have their own kind of charm, surprisingly.
And she was eating better than I'd expected, too.
I had been worried about Pipsqueak because he was a slow eater, after all.
"Is it because she's a female, I wonder?"
"She's still so young — does that even make a difference?"
"Hmm..."
In everything, females lead males — so I thought it was a reasonable deduction.
With that thought in mind, I diligently stroked the cat's head.
But then, not long after she started eating, the cat pulled her face away from the bowl she'd had her head buried in.
And then, didn't she start grooming her own body?
For a moment, I wondered if she was already full and looked down at the plate.
On that plate, which had been decently full of food just moments ago, not a single piece remained.
"Wow... she finished it all already."
"Awww, is our Tiny full?"
"Mya."
She cried cutely, then lifted a front paw slightly to scratch at her head area.
Every single little action was so cute, it made me want to give her a gentle nibble.
'But wait, hadn't A-ra just called her Tiny?'
'Surely she hadn't already come up with a name for her.'
"Tiny?"
"I tried coming up with a name. What do you think?"
"Tiny... it is pretty cute."
It would suit a black cat perfectly, I thought.
The only problem was that this cat was slightly on the white side.
"Lil' One, Pipsqueak, Tiny?"
"Next, is it going to be Itty-Bitty?"
"Wouldn't adding any more be a bit much?"
"But Noona likes all animals, doesn't she?"
"Oh, really?"
'In that case, should we bring home a chinchilla next time?'
'A cat and a chinchilla... I didn't exactly get the feeling they'd get along, though.'
***
"Oppa!"
"Oh my... Ji-ye, did you eat?"
"I ate!"
Lee Min-ho had said he ordered meat and told me to come pick it up, and the moment I arrived, Ji-ye came hopping out to the front door.
She rushed right into my arms — how could I possibly refuse?
So I just gave her a soft, squishy hug.
"Ji-ye. It doesn't matter if there aren't any cars around, you never know what might happen, so you can't just dash out like that, okay?"
"Okay! I got it!"
"Good, good..."
She was only five years old, but if you told her something once, she understood it well.
It was hard to find a kid this smart, after all.
"Oh, you're here?"
"Oh-ho... 'you're here,' he says..."
'Wasn't I the benefactor who found his little sister for him?'
'I might not expect it from other people, but from Lee Min-ho, I deserved to be treated with some respect.'
"You have arrived, Elder Statesman."
"You've leveled up from 'My Lord,' have you? You do know 'Elder Statesman' is a title used for Senior Rank 2 down to Senior Rank 3 officials, right?"
"Who do you take me for..."
'I told him thinking he wouldn't know, but it seemed he already did.'
'They probably don't teach this in Korean history class.'