“No, hyung. If you don’t want to eat what I make, you can just buy something to eat. I didn’t buy the ingredients to make you cook, so eat whatever’s comfortable for you.”
Yoon hyung looked at my sullen face, then stared intently at the ingredients I had bought as if he was about to burn them. But soon he sighed and gave me permission to use the kitchen.
“Then. Let’s try Cha Hohyeon-style kimchi fried rice this time.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Just be careful not to hurt your hands… No. I’ll prepare the carrots, paprika, and onions.”
“I can do it.”
However, this time he didn’t seem like he would back down even if I threw a tantrum. Hyung firmly said how could a kid who hasn’t even held a knife properly do the preparation, and that he would only do the prep work and step back, so I should do the rest myself, energizing my cooking activities.
And so, I made kimchi fried rice with the ingredients hyung had prepared.
“Should I mix doenjang and gochujang? It would be delicious if I add some lemon juice, right?”
Actually, I was going to do what the internet said, but I felt it would be a waste of the ingredients I brought, so I somehow forced them all in.
After struggling alone like that for a while, I eventually made ‘something,’ and although its form was very far from the typical kimchi fried rice seen on the internet, I was proud.
“Hyung, it’s done!”
Since I had earnestly asked him to only prepare the ingredients and absolutely not come in, Yoon hyung, who had been in the living room, finally entered the kitchen at my call. And when I placed the kimchi fried rice on the kitchen table, he looked at my cooking as if entranced.
“This is kimchi fried rice…”
“Even though it looks like this, it should taste good.”
The kimchi fried rice was a bit burnt, so the bottom was black. But the top was fine, so it should be okay. By the way, why did the kimchi shrivel up like that? Since the appearance and smell were a bit strange, I decorated it with lemon and added paprika.
“Where’s the rice?”
“Here’s the rice!”
“…Even if the rice is a bit burnt, it should be delicious.”
“It smelled burnt, so I turned off the heat right away.”
Yoon hyung muttered, “You turned it off as soon as it smelled burnt, and it’s this burnt?” then picked up a spoon and slowly extended it toward the kimchi fried rice. He said the bottom was a bit burnt but the middle should be edible, so Yoon hyung made an awkward smile that was neither laughing nor crying.
But before that, there was something to do. I stopped Yoon hyung.
“Wait a moment. Let me take a picture.”
“Where are you going to post this?”
“On our SNS account.”
“Wouldn’t it be better not to post it?”
Hyung carefully suggested that maybe I shouldn’t post it.
“It’s my first kimchi fried rice. Now eat it.”
I looked at hyung taking a spoonful with an expectant face, eyes sparkling. Under that burdensome gaze, Yoon hyung, who was bringing a bite to his mouth, stopped his action and asked me.
“Aren’t you eating?”
“I already ate at the dorm. Just eat, hyung… Huh? Hyung, your expression doesn’t look good.”
Since his complexion didn’t look better than before, I asked that, and Yoon hyung muttered lowly.
“I’m thinking it’s kind of like premeditated murder.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I’ll eat well.”
He smelled the kimchi fried rice and hesitated, but then diligently moved his hands again and brought it to his mouth. I watched that, then urged him to quickly give his review of the taste since I wanted him to hurry up and comment.
“Does it taste bad? Say something!”
But hyung just put it in his mouth and chewed thoroughly. Then, after chewing everything in his mouth and drinking water, he looked alternately at the kimchi fried rice and me and said.
“It’s so… surprising.”
“Is it that delicious?”
Since hyung, the elder, ate first, I should try a bite too.
I scooped up the kimchi fried rice with a spoon to take a bite of the kimchi fried rice I made and was about to bring it to my mouth, when suddenly the spoon heading toward me changed direction and slipped right into Yoon hyung’s mouth.
“Huh?”
Hyung had grabbed my wrist and guided it toward himself. Yoon hyung nonchalantly chewed and ate even my spoonful and looked at my dazed face.
“You made it for me. So why are you eating it?”
“Is it that delicious?”
“Yeah.”
“Then just tell me what it tastes like.”
When I said that to him, who was acting as if he didn’t want to give me even a single grain, hyung laughed.
“It has a somewhat unique taste, but it’s delicious. I haven’t been eating home-cooked meals well lately.”
In fact, Yoon hyung has been continuously immersed in practice and work these days, so he must have kept ordering food because it was bothersome to make anything.
“So come often and cook for me.”
He shifted his gaze from the kimchi fried rice to me. Then, propping his chin, he quietly looked at me and said.
“If it’s not you, I’ll just buy everything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m serious.”
Then he muttered, “Don’t believe me if you don’t want to,” shrugged his shoulders, and started eating the rest of the kimchi fried rice. I quietly watched Yoon hyung like that.
Was the kimchi fried rice a bit salty? Since hyung kept drinking water along with the kimchi fried rice, I poured him more water.
“Thanks.”
“Is it salty?”
“No. I originally drink a lot of water when I eat.”
I think he used to say he didn’t like drinking water while eating because it would only fill his stomach, but I guess his eating habits have changed in the meantime. Hyung continued his meal.
“Hyung, actually I have something to ask you.”
And as the meal was almost finishing, I opened my mouth to ask what I had wanted to ask since earlier.
“What is it?”
It was true that I came to spend time with Yoon hyung, whom I hadn’t seen in a while, since today I was resting without an Abyss schedule for the first time in a long time. But it was also because I had a question that only people who knew Cha Hohyeon of Fort, not Ka Jerim of Abyss, could answer, so I deliberately came to visit Yoon hyung. After hesitating briefly, I opened my mouth.
“How should I treat my parents?”
At my out-of-the-blue words, he raised his head and gave me a look asking why I was suddenly asking that.
“Well… tomorrow I’m going to meet Ka Jerim’s parents for the first time.”
“You’ve never met them even once until now?”
“No. It seems like we’re a bit distant or don’t get along well, so somehow I ended up deciding to meet them for the first time tomorrow.”
While I hesitated briefly, hyung put down the spoon he was eating with, perhaps to properly listen to my story.
“I’ve never properly had something called family, so I don’t know how to treat them.”
In fact, I had never properly grown up under my parents because of my parents who divorced when I was young.
They divorced not long after giving birth to me and started their own families, and all I received from them was barely enough living expenses to keep my mouth fed. In the end, I moved between my grandmother’s house and my aunt’s house, and never properly settled in one place until I became a trainee.
“What should I say first when I usually meet parents? How should I please them, and what should I do to make them happy? I only lived with my aunt’s family and grandmother, so I don’t really know.”
So I didn’t know how to treat biological parents, and I had no sense of it.
It was easy to please the aunt’s family or grandmother I lived with. I just had to leave early in the morning and come back late at night when everyone was asleep, and also, when I tried to make something to eat, they disliked it saying the food expenses went up a lot because of me, so I just had to roughly solve it with convenience store food and come back.
“As you know, I haven’t spent much time with my parents…”
I had never once had a proper conversation with my own biological parents. So I didn’t know what attitude to take or what to say when I see Ka Jerim’s parents.
Should I act friendly, should I use formal speech, should I call them Dad, Mom, or should I call them Father, Mother like the previous Cha Hohyeon?
“Cha Hohyeon. Speak properly.”
Then, hyung pulled me out from being lost in thought for a moment. Hyung was quietly looking at me, and that gaze didn’t contain pity.
“Who says those bastards are parents? We raised you.”
“Hyung.”
“We told you over and over, didn’t we? Those people don’t deserve to be parents, so don’t even think about them.”
“But.”
“Stop talking. Just thinking about those bastards who don’t deserve to be parents but carry the name of parents, along with those old hags and crazy aunts all gathered in that shithole house makes my blood boil backwards.”
What was in his eyes was clear anger.
The members who had seen how I was raised almost neglected when I was a trainee, and then after debuting and shining, how the attitude of those people wearing the guise of parents and their families toward me changed, really disliked my family.
“After you died… no.”
Hyung, who was about to say something, closed his mouth.
“Just go and observe what kind of people they are and come back. You don’t need to look good or please them. That’s what parents are supposed to be like. Whether you do well or not, they’re people who see you for yourself, not targets you need to try to look good to.”
“……”
“So if you don’t like it, just leave. You don’t need to gently please them like before and act cute asking them to look at you a little.”
Yoon hyung, who was angry enough that his eyes became red from rising anger, looked at me just hanging my head sullenly without an answer and soon softened his expression.
Yoon hyung is right. Real parents are people who see me wholly as me, so I don’t need to try to look good.
“But I haven’t lived like that until now. It’s too difficult.”
But I still don’t really understand that feeling. To me, parents were only beings I needed to look good to.
So when I saw my parents’ faces briefly about once a month, even though no one told me to, I would find clean clothes I prepared in advance from the day before, wear them, greet them with a bright smile, and say things like ‘The aunts are so good to me,’ ‘Grandmother makes me delicious food every day.’
Because only then would they make faces showing they felt less burdened.
“Ka Jerim might have grown up loved. If Ka Jerim is a child from that kind of family, what should I say as soon as I see his parents?”
But Ka Jerim has both parents alive, and his mother said she wants to see Ka Jerim. Then doesn’t that mean they might like Ka Jerim?
