The Clock and the Cat Lady
“Haha. There you are. What? Are you going to handle the bill for me?”
“Yes!”
The price of a lunchbox was ten thousand won.
The customer had both a card and cash. Which should she use?
After a brief moment of thought, the customer pulled a card from her wallet and handed it to Seia.
“Here, I’ll let you take care of it.”
“…Yes!”
Was the card unexpected? Seia’s eyes didn’t show confusion or anything of that sort. Instead, they gleamed with a spark of determination. She confidently opened the cash drawer at the counter.
She hadn’t watched closely, but whenever her dad took payments, he did one of two things. He either operated some kind of machine, or he put the money inside this drawer.
“Umm…”
Seia opened the drawer and hesitated for a moment. The card looked different from the things her dad usually put inside the drawer, so she wasn’t sure whether to place it there.
“Like this?”
She looked up at the customer with a slightly embarrassed smile, as if asking for guidance, and made a motion like she was about to drop the card into the drawer.
“Hehe. Big sis will show you how.”
The customer knew how to pay with a card, of course. But she hadn’t taught Seia because she wasn’t sure the little girl could do it properly, and the restaurant owner might not want her touching the register.
The customer completed the card payment smoothly, even if she wasn’t exactly an expert.
“Big sis is heading out now.”
“Will you come again?”
“Maybe I will?”
“Yes! Kitty big sis.”
The customer had just earned herself a brand-new title: Kitty Big Sis.
She smiled, looking thoroughly pleased.
The fact that Seia had given her a nickname meant the little girl would remember her.
“Next time, let’s bring snacks for the cats too. Got it?”
“Yeees!”
Just thinking about the cats was enough to make Seia smile.
Since their owner hadn’t left yet, the cats were still waiting outside the restaurant, grooming each other.
“Well then, goodbye.”
“Goodbye, take care!”
The customer stepped outside, smiling at Seia’s cheerful farewell. She kept that smile all the way out the door, but the moment she left the restaurant and looked at the cats, it vanished completely.
“You guys… isn’t this a bit much?”
“Meow.”
The only reply was a meow, but she understood every bit of it.
“Good grief.”
All the cats wore the exact same expression.
So what?
“If you hadn’t washed today, you wouldn’t have been allowed in here. You know that, right?”
Maybe they hated the word “wash,” because the cats immediately turned their heads away.
“Sigh… You all ate plenty of food and snacks today, so behave yourselves on the way home, okay?”
When she tried to head back, the cats didn’t follow.
They always got extra cranky on the day they were bathed, but they had never outright refused to listen like this.
“…What? You want to stay here?”
That was exactly it.
They didn’t want to go home. They wanted to stay at the restaurant.
“…Who am I to stop you? Just make sure you come back before it gets too late.”
It had been a long time—maybe the first time ever—that someone showed this much affection toward her. She supposed she could overlook a little rebellion like this.
“Oh, right. I didn’t even come here to eat…”
The customers who had been here before her were probably Seong Ye-eun and Park Geon-su.
“Well, I’ll run into them when the time is right.”
Coming to the restaurant like this had been an impulsive decision anyway. It wasn’t like she absolutely had to see them.
“Huh? Where did she go?”
Jungwoo appeared holding a lint roller and noticed the customer had already left.
Seia was busy trying to clean up the now-empty seat.
“Seia, did the customer leave?”
“Yeees. Seia took the money!”
“What? You handled the payment too?”
“Yes! I did it like this, and like that…”
Seia explained with enthusiastic gestures, hands and feet flying everywhere. In the end, the story was simply that the customer had paid and left, but the process itself was incredibly entertaining. In reality, the customer had done the card payment herself, but that didn’t matter.
“Haha. Our Seia did a great job.”
“Hehe, I did gooood!”
Jungwoo wanted to let her keep that proud feeling.
“Anyway, come here, Seia.”
He called over the little girl who was still tidying the table and used the lint roller to remove the cat hair stuck to her clothes.
The cats must have been incredibly affectionate, because Seia was covered in fur of every color from head to toe.
Seia raised both arms straight into the air and let the roller do its work, even spinning her whole body around to help get every last hair off. After changing the roller sheet several times, she had finally removed all the fur and immediately went back to cleaning the table.
It was a little surprising.
This kind of cleanup probably didn’t feel like playtime to her.
“Oh, right. I need to prepare the tteokbokki too.”
Last time, the daily special at Seona’s Restaurant had been tteokbokki, and Jungwoo hadn’t planned to sell it for just one day. The two students who ordered it had reacted positively, so the flavor must have been decent.
There’s still a little tteokbokki left, though.
The only concern was that there was still some left over. He hadn’t made that much to begin with, so there wasn’t a huge amount remaining. Still, Jungwoo had ended up eating the leftovers as a late-night snack last time.
But this time, it seems like those two students are spreading the word…
Maybe he could make a bit more than last time?
If there was a moderate amount left, Jungwoo could finish it himself. If there was too much, he could share it with the people at the market. He could also give some to the building owner who lived upstairs.
“Daddy!”
“Hmm?”
“What time did you say it was earlier?”
“What? Oh, the circus?”
“Yes!”
“Eight o’clock. Are you going to try drawing it?”
“Yeees. Seia is going to draw eight o’clock.”
Seia had already nearly finished cleaning up.
There was only one large plate that had held the lunchboxes and one water glass to wash, so there wasn’t much left to do.
Having made up her mind to draw eight o’clock herself, Seia carefully carried the large plate into the kitchen.
“Eight o’clock is eight, and the short hand points to the hour…”
These were things he had taught her before customers arrived, so it wouldn’t have been strange if she had forgotten. But Seia remembered them clearly. She murmured to herself, afraid she might forget, repeating the lesson over and over.
“Then the long hand goes…”
Where should the long hand go?
While pondering this and recalling everything Jungwoo had told her, Seia unconsciously wiped down the table.
Had she already reached that level of skill? Wiping the table expertly with her hands while her mind worked through her studies?
It didn’t take long for Seia to finish cleaning the table. She sat down in her usual seat and picked up the pen again.
She had already figured out exactly what eight o’clock looked like while wiping the table.
The short one goes on the eight!
She was certain. Earlier, when it had been on the two, he had said it was two o’clock.
Then what about the one long hand, and the even thinner one?
“Umm…”
She drew the short hand precisely on the eight, then fell into deep thought. With her arms crossed and eyes locked on the paper, Seia looked so serious that one might mistake her for a spy who had just obtained national secrets.
Jungwoo watched her with a gentle smile and decided to give her a hint.
He had told her it was half past six earlier, so explaining other cases might help. And right now, the actual time was three o’clock. The short hand was on the three, and the long hand was on the twelve.
“It’s already three. I should start preparing the tteokbokki so it’s ready in time for the kids getting out of school.”
He glanced at Seia instead of the clock as he spoke. She flinched as if she had heard him clearly.
Then she looked at him with the expression of someone who had just realized something.
Just as I thought. I knew our Seia would catch on right away.
Because our Seia is a genius.
“Tteokbokki?!”
“…Huh?”
“Tteokbokki!”
He had wondered what she realized, but it turned out to be the realization of how delicious the tteokbokki was, not a hint about the time.
Jungwoo let out a small chuckle and subtly tried giving her another hint.
“Yeah, tteokbokki! Since it’s al-rea-dy three o’clock, I thought I should start preparing.”
“Tteokbokki… three o’clock?!”
She hadn’t forgotten her realization about how good the tteokbokki tasted, but it looked like she had also gained a new understanding about the time three o’clock. The proof was that her gaze, which had been fixed on him, had now shifted to the clock.
“Three o’clock…”
Murmuring the words, Seia quickly turned her realization into action.
She gripped the pen tightly in her tiny hand, which was no bigger than a small pebble, and began to draw the clock. With her lips pressed tightly together, she finished the drawing, then proudly held the paper out to Jungwoo as if asking him to check it.
“I’m done!”
“Already? Let me see. How well did you do?”
Even though Seia had looked confident, tension began to creep into her expression.
She must be nervous. After all, this was her first time drawing a clock.
Jungwoo took the paper and looked at Seia’s clock. He couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
The short hand was on the eight. The long hand was on the twelve. That part was perfectly accurate. No one could deny that it clearly showed eight o’clock.
But perhaps because she had been muttering “three o’clock” earlier, she had drawn an extra short hand on the three.
“Hmm. Seia, what time would you say this is?”
When he showed her the clock she had drawn, Seia immediately realized what was wrong.
“Ah! Hehe. That one’s wrong.”
She took the paper back, drew an X over the short hand on the three, and handed it to him again.
“Eight o’clock!”
“Haha. That’s right. You’re really smart. How did you figure it out so quickly?”
Seia beamed and answered with a bright smile.
“Because Seia is Daddy’s daughter!”
How did she always manage to say the sweetest things?
“Hehe. But that doesn’t mean the test is over. Next, draw eleven forty-five.”
“Huh…? Forty-five minutes…?”
The difficulty had suddenly jumped.
Seia now understood that for eleven o’clock, the short hand should point to the eleven. But forty-five minutes was completely unknown territory.
Still, Seia was a clever child. Teach her one thing, and she would understand ten. Her little head began to spin rapidly, and reasonable deductions started forming in her mind.
When it had been eight o’clock, the long hand had pointed to the twelve. And when it had been two thirty earlier, the long hand had pointed to the six.
Daddy said one hour is sixty minutes!
When looking at a clock, the other hands didn’t move quickly, but that thin, long hand moved fast. And it always moved in one direction.
Seia didn’t know exactly how big the difference was between thirty and sixty, but she knew that sixty was a bigger number than thirty. She also knew that forty-five was bigger than thirty.
So, wouldn’t forty-five be somewhere between thirty and sixty?
Here it is!
She wasn’t completely certain, but Seia didn’t lose her confidence. Somewhere between twelve and six. She roughly picked a spot and drew the long hand there. Naturally, that spot was the nine, right in the middle.
“I drew it!”
It hadn’t taken long at all from the moment the question was asked until she finished.
Jungwoo took the paper with a genuinely surprised expression and looked at his daughter.
“Wait, how did you know that, our Seia?”
“Hehe.”
Seia smiled, unable to contain her joy.
In truth, he had set it up on purpose. Still, he hadn’t expected her to reason that far.
Is our daughter… really a genius?
She’s pretty, cute, kind, and smart too.
Well, that last part has nothing to do with her being his daughter.
Definitely not.