His life of peacefully living without any threats to his life while sharing Seo-yoon’s meal was utterly joyful. The joy of sitting between well cultivated bonsai and drowsing off! With his belly full and his back warm, there was nothing more to wish for in his daily life. As Seo-yoon stroked him affectionately, he even rubbed himself against her.
He was living as happily as a chicken can live.
However, Seo-yoon was always sorry for him.
‘I’m sorry I can’t be here with you.’
That was because Half Sauce Half Fried was alone when she was in the capsule or at school.
Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck.
Half Sauce Half Fried shook his head back and forth as he walked around in the hospital’s yard.
Seo-yoon thought, ‘I will bring… a friend for you.’
* * *
Midterms, the festival, and the sports meet had ended, and now there were just a little over 2 weeks until summer vacation.
Lee Hyun grumbled endless complaints. “What kind of university is like this. Can’t university be shortened to 3 years, or 2 years, like with military service time?”
Seeing as he had to keep paying the expensive tuition for another three and a half years, his future was dark. A convict’s feelings about reducing jail time in a concentration camp or prison would be like this.
“Even if I graduate university, it’s not like I get graduation pension, it won’t guarantee me employment by a foreign company, and it won’t provide me with free lifetime medical insurance either…”
An endless reflection on the impracticalities of university was unfolding.
As he looked at the bars, capsule rooms, and the restaurants on the main street in front of the university, he became worried about the education world and the even the nation’s future.
“There should only be farmland or a tidal flat in front of a school. When you’re hungry, you can help with the elders’ rice planting and get a snack to eat, and in the fall you can help with the harvesting as well. A tidal flat… is always valuable food storage. You can hitch a ride on a boat and go pull up the net, too.”
On a tidal flat, a single shovel would secure food. You could catch things like fresh oyster and octopus and eat them dipped in chili paste. Since you could also catch fish by casting a net utilizing the ebb and flow, it was killing two birds with one stone!
“There would be no need to build a separate cafeteria…”
It could be called a symbol of rural education. College students enjoying fishing while reading, and friendships that blossomed while boiling spicy fish stew. In front of the university, instead of bars, salons, clothing stores, and nail art stores, a fishing discount mart would do.
As usual, Lee Hyun went to the grass plaza during lunch time and ate the lunch lying on his seat. Seo-yoon was sitting next to him, eating lunch together.
Lee Hyun picked up a side dish with chopsticks and put it in his mouth.
‘Yep, it’s delicious.’
The lunch that had started from kimbap had extended into sushi, and today it was grilled short rib patties.
‘It’s warm. It hasn’t even cooled yet.’
Lee Hyun didn’t even know about the lunchbox being installed with heat rays for keeping the food warm. He was just happy that he could try eating ribs without expense.
‘So this is the taste of short rib patties.’
In his middle school and high school days, he couldn’t use the school cafeteria because he didn’t pay the lunch fee. Even so, of course he couldn’t go without eating, so he secretly snuck in and took in a lunch tray. He had passed his school days surreptitiously eating the stealth food that didn’t go down comfortably.
How envious he was when his classmates were tearing into lunches that their parents had made with their utmost.
“…”
Seo-yoon slightly bit her lips as she was watched Lee Hyun eating happily. It seemed like she would briefly smile. Her smiling face could make a person happy, but the chance to see it was truly rare. Still, Seo-yoon’s cold and frozen expression, like when he had made the first Goddess Freya statue, had almost vanished.
Seo-yoon had even brought barley tea; she poured it into a cup and handed it to Lee Hyun.
“Mm, thanks.”
After taking one sip of the barley tea, Lee Hyun spoke begrudgingly, “Don’t just eat vegetables; do you want to eat 1 patty too?”
Nothing is given for free. She wickedly calculated to pretend kindness by pouring him barley tea because she wanted to eat the patties too!
‘Though it seems she’s become a little nicer recently…’
Unaware that the person secretly leaving the lunches was Seo-yoon, Lee Hyun acted like a person given an enormous power.
Seo-yoon shook her head to and fro. She was full just watching him eat.
Lee Hyun asked once again. “Then two patties…?”
“…”
“Should I give you th-three?”
Just how much was she aiming to squeeze out of him with a single cup of barley tea, she was frowning!
There was once a time when he had shared lunch with Seo-yoon and she had eaten his kimbap at random.
Memories of that time kept popping into his head.
Lee Hyun sighed. ‘I’m not a petty person. I should give sometimes too.’
When he was a kid, he had once gone to his friends holding just a spoon and had gotten a meal. As he recalled that plaintive feeling, he was able to understand Seo-yoon’s perspective.
“Just eat comfortably. Since I’ve never eaten much meat… I mean, because I don’t like it that much. Eat as much as you want.”
Lee Hyun picked up one of the patties and put it in on top of Seo-yoon’s rice box.
Seo-yoon carefully opened her mouth and ate it.
It was such a lovely sight that it could snatch one’s senses away.
After staring at that sight for a moment, Lee Hyun ate the patties too.
Munch munch.
He couldn’t give her much of a side dish as tasty as these patties.
“Why is this so delicious? What kind of meat melts in the mouth, it melts.”
The sight of him holding the ribs in both hands and tearing into them after telling her to eat as she wished!
Lee hyun emptied the lunch box cleanly, leaving not even a single grain of rice behind. Of course, he even left behind Seo-yoon’s share of one patty at the end. He had finished it off so cleanly that he was pleased with himself.
‘She’ll have no complaints if she eats three patties.’
Then, as usual, he pulled out the note that had come with the lunch to read it.
“Will she tell me thanks for eating happily today too? Even if I don’t know who it is, she is a truly warmhearted lady.”
But the were words written on the note Lee Hyun pulled out were different from the usual ones.
I have a request.
Do you have time today after class?
It was the summons of the veiled mystery angel who made him lunch.