Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Episode 6: The Second Guest Is a Raccoon Dog (3)

“Waaaaah! You tricked me! You said we were going to eat pork cutlet, but you tricked me!”

“I’m sorry. But you are still going to eat pork cutlet.”

“Waaaaah! I haven’t eaten it yet!”

“You will soon, soon. I’ll make it for you right away.”

I had no idea how I had managed to drive back while trying to console the raccoon dog, who cried pitifully the entire way.

To make matters worse, there were no pork cutlet restaurants open in the morning, so I had even rushed into the supermarket to buy refrigerated pork cutlets and cooking oil.

If anyone should have been crying, it was me, who had not slept a wink since last night and now had to fry pork cutlets first thing in the morning.

“Here, sit down and watch this while I make it.”

I sat the sniffling raccoon dog in the window seat and played a video for it.

Sitting in my favorite seat beneath the sunlight streaming in at just the right moment, the raccoon dog soon forgot the tears brimming in its eyes and became completely absorbed in the video.

-Rustle rustle.

The pork cutlet ingredients I had hurriedly picked out of their packaging went one by one onto the kitchen counter.

One pack of fresh pork loin cutlets that had not even had time to receive a morning discount sticker,

cabbage, dressing, and cooking oil,

and, because I felt sorry, a premium pork cutlet sauce that I had splurged on.

Considering I had run around the supermarket grabbing whatever I could, it was a pretty decent haul.

For a moment, I had considered waiting until lunchtime, when pork cutlet restaurants opened, and ordering delivery.

But that was never going to work in the first place. The only restaurant that delivered all the way out here was a jokbal place. It was enough to make the fact that this area was administratively classified as a city feel ridiculous.

Besides, after it had cried so miserably, I did not have the courage to tell it to wait again until lunchtime.

In the end, I even took a day off and wound up cooking first thing in the morning, despite never having had any such fate in my life.

Of course, I was a very exemplary bachelor living alone, so I had little interest in cooking. At most, I used the gas stove to make ramen or fry ham, and even then, because washing dishes was bothersome, I stubbornly preferred to eat outside whenever possible.

But it was fine.

The world had become convenient enough that even something like pork cutlet could be made quickly by watching a MeTube video... Ah!

(Today, we’re jumping straight into a super-jumbo king-size pork cutlet mukbang~ Let’s get started right away~)

I forgot.

The phone I needed to watch a MeTube cooking video was already being used to calm the raccoon dog’s mind and body.

“Is it done?”

“No. It’ll be faster if we make it together, so why don’t you help me? What do you think?”

“But I’ve never made food before...”

“It’s fine because we’re doing it together.”

The words that I was in pretty much the same situation as it was came out of my mouth wrapped in a much nicer package.

“Then I’ll help!”

-Tap.

The raccoon dog’s dangling legs touched the floor with a light ‘tap’ as it climbed down from the chair.

The claws on its fluffy paws were rounded down just as much, making an excessively cute sound every time it walked.

“We’re going to follow what they do on the screen. So all you have to do is hold it where I can see it clearly. You can do that, right?”

“Leave it to me!”

I naturally switched the MeTube video to one about cooking pork cutlet and handed the phone back to it.

(First, I’ll introduce the ingredients for pork cutlet! To begin with, cooking oil and pork loin for cutlets...)

“This way you can see it well!”

“Yeah.”

The sight of it stretching both forepaws high above its head as though being punished was so cute that I unconsciously patted its head a few times before we finally began preparing our somewhat late breakfast.

“It said to use lots of cooking oil!”

“Then shall we pour it in without being stingy?”

I had wronged it, and it was proving rather helpful, so my assistant’s advice was absolute.

While I handled little tasks such as taking out a pot and removing the plastic wrapping from the pork cutlets, it repeated anything I missed like a parrot, preventing me from making several major mistakes.

I could not just think, ‘It’s only pork cutlet,’ drizzle a little oil in a pan, and cook it casually. I had tricked it and even gotten it injected, so an ordinary pork cutlet would hardly balance the scales.

Oil that would probably never be used again after today filled the pot to the brim. Then, once I could feel a suitable heat against the back of my hand, I carefully lowered a cutlet into the pot.

-Sizzle.

“Ooooooh! That’s the scene we were watching earlier!”

“It’s dangerous, so don’t get too close.”

Intoxicated by the savory smell of cooking meat, the raccoon dog kept edging toward the pot, so I blocked it with one hand while repeatedly turning the cutlet over.

Before long, a golden-brown pork cutlet was taking shape.

_____________

“Elder, we’ll be arriving soon.”

“I know.”

Baek Mahyeon had casually spoken up in case the Elder, who had his eyes closed, might fall asleep, but the nine-tailed fox answered indifferently.

“Do you really think the coffeehouse owner will surrender? He might get so annoyed that he sells the building again.”

“Would he really do that with a building he practically got for free?”

“He bought it so far below market price that even I’m not certain. Even if he sold it immediately and left, he could make a hundred or two hundred million won.”

‘If that happens, we’re right back where we started.’

Director Baek Mahyeon was one of only a handful of high-ranking officials in the National Intelligence Service. Yet this nine-tailed fox, whom even someone like him respectfully addressed as Elder, was a divine being who had lived through an unfathomable span of time stretching back beyond even the Three Kingdoms period.

He was also a benevolent deity who had lent his mystical power several times to keep nations destined for ruin from collapsing.

Baek Mahyeon could not dare voice his concern that a plan devised by such an Elder might fail.

If, just as he feared, the coffeehouse owner really did sell the house, then it was obvious that he would be subjected to endless harassment over complaints that the coffee no longer tasted right.

Not only him, who rarely bowed his head to any official below ministerial or vice-ministerial rank, but his subordinates as well.

Unfortunately, however, the situation inside the coffeehouse, which they observed after parking some distance away, appeared to be unfolding in a completely different direction from what they had expected.

Because the old coffeehouse had something resembling an open kitchen, they could see through the window as the coffeehouse owner and the raccoon dog cheerfully made something together.

It did not resemble the scenario the nine-tailed fox had confidently predicted in the slightest.

“The coffeehouse owner doesn’t seem particularly troubled. I think your plan has failed, Elder.”

“What? Let me see!”

“Can’t you see perfectly well without something like this, Elder?”

“Do you think a place where someone with divine eyes lives is so easy to deal with? If I carelessly use divine power in front of him, he may notice me instead.”

The nine-tailed fox quickly snatched the binoculars Baek Mahyeon had taken from his coat and adjusted the focus this way and that while watching the inside of the coffeehouse, before slowly lowering them.

Was it because of the binoculars, which had pulled the view so close before his eyes?

Or because he had kept his eyes closed for so long on the way here?

The nine-tailed fox’s vision blurred.

And within that blurred vision, a memory from the distant past suddenly emerged.

______________

A mountain village beneath the dim light of dawn.

Even amid these rugged mountains, where it seemed unlikely anyone would live, there stood a small thatched cottage.

Smoke from a cooking fire rose like a heat haze through the loosely woven thatched roof, signaling that mealtime had come.

-Creak.

With the groan of old hinges, a young woman opened the door and emerged from the kitchen where the smoke was rising.

She looked around repeatedly as though searching for someone, then cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted loudly.

“Geum! Geum! Goodness, where did you go first thing in the morning when it’s time to eat? Geum!”

How far into the mountain valley did the woman’s call echo?

Before long, a childish voice with somewhat clumsy pronunciation answered from deep within the forest.

“Mother!”

Apparently, it was the child called Geum.

But there was something strange about calling it a child.

Perhaps because the household was poor, the child wore loose clothing that merely covered its body, but where the ill-fitting clothes exposed its arms and legs, and across its face, thick golden fur grew densely.

It looked like something nonhuman awkwardly dressed in human clothes.

Yet the child called Geum deliberately walked on two legs rather than four, unsteadily making its way along the mountainside.

On its head, it carried a water jar nearly as large as its own body.

“You’ll hurt yourself, you little rascal! Put the water jar down and come here!”

“I’m all right. I’m almost... ngh, there.”

-Crash.

With only a few steps left to go, the child finally fell.

“Oh dear, I told you that you’d get hurt. You’re completely soaked.”

“Waaah! I was almost there!”

Devastated that all the water it had painstakingly fetched from the stream had spilled onto the ground, the child began sobbing loudly, and the woman forcibly pulled it back to its feet.

Its already ragged clothes were now covered in wet dirt, making them look even more pitiful.

But the child did not even think to brush off its clothes and only cried miserably as it stared at the spilled water jar.

“Stop!”

“Stop...”

“What did Mother tell you?”

“A man... sniff... mustn’t cry.”

“That’s right. Now, shall we go inside? It’s still cold, so wrap yourself tightly in a blanket on the heated floor.”

After roughly wiping the child’s body with the hem of her skirt, the woman spoke, but the child vigorously shook its head.

It had meant the gesture as a stubborn refusal, but it looked more like a wet puppy shaking off water, causing droplets like morning dew to bead across the woman’s clothes and face.

“Are you going to fetch water again, then? Don’t. Your father will bring some when he comes back from gathering firewood. Now, Mother has to cook, so hurry inside.”

The woman patted the child’s bottom and sent it toward the room.

But even with its body soaked and snot running down its nose, the child clung to the hem of the woman’s skirt and refused to let go.

“Then I want to help too! I’ll make barley rice, and season the greens, and also...”

“All right, all right. Goodness, who did you take after to become this stubborn?”

“Mother! Hehehe.”

It did not resemble her.

The ordinary woman, the sort one might see dozens of at the washing place in any village, and the child covered in golden fur with pointed ears atop its head and a long protruding snout did not look related by blood in the slightest.

Beyond blood ties, the difference in their species was obvious.

And yet the smiles they exchanged were so alike that they looked as though reflected in a mirror.

The woman stroked the child’s head, then returned to the kitchen with the child pressed close beside her, clutching an armful of ladles and fire pokers it would never actually use.

_____________

“Elder?”

“Hm?”

At Baek Mahyeon’s repeated call, the nine-tailed fox opened his half-closed eyes.

“Tsk. When you live this long, you ought to die, but old memories just insist on coming back like this.”

Apparently, a memory buried beneath an unfathomably long span of years had suddenly returned, leaving traces as vivid as though it had happened yesterday.

“What will you do?”

Baek Mahyeon skipped the question he would normally have asked: ‘What are you referring to?’

Because he had seen the unmistakable trail of tears at the corner of the Elder’s eyes after receiving no answer no matter how many times he called.

They were tears he had never once seen in all the years he had served the Elder.

An awkward silence.

Perhaps worried that sniffling his stinging nose would reveal his emotions, the nine-tailed fox opened the door first and got out of the car.

“Let’s go inside. If he is making food for that raccoon dog, surely he’ll make me a cup of coffee too. You come along as well. I intend to stay a little longer today.”

“I have something scheduled this afternoon, so I need to go.”

“You rascal! Weren’t you the one who said everything can be done by phone and internet these days, and you barely even go to the office? Yet you become busy only at times like this? Stop talking nonsense and follow me.”

“It’s not only at times like this. I’m always busy, Elder.”

The two bickered as they made their way toward the coffeehouse, from which the rich aroma of frying oil was now drifting.

For some reason, the nine-tailed fox’s steps toward the coffeehouse filled with nostalgic memories seemed lighter than usual, but Baek Mahyeon soon decided it must simply be his imagination and followed behind.