“I’ll be in the study most of the time. If anyone calls asking for the chairman, put them straight through to me.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be staying in the guest room I used last time. You don’t need to clean it, so don’t come in.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t eat breakfast, I’ll have something simple for lunch, and I skip dinner.”
“……”
“Just empty the ashtrays regularly.”
Having delivered his instructions in rapid succession, Choi Eunhyung headed toward the study.
His light, graceful steps made no sound on the wooden floorboards of the hallway. Seen from behind, dressed in a black shirt, black trousers, and black socks, he somehow brought to mind something associated with death. It was eerie.
Hyungnam stared blankly after his retreating figure, then thrust out her lower lip in a pout.
I was going to buy myself a sweet red bean bun for lunch.
Of his three meals, lunch was apparently the only one he bothered to eat, so she could hardly neglect it. Besides, he was standing in for Park Shineok. He would have to be treated accordingly.
Hyungnam hurried after Choi Eunhyung. Tap-tap-tap. Her own hurried footsteps sounded exactly like a puppy scrambling across a wooden floor, which was somehow embarrassing, but she couldn't afford to hesitate. He already had his hand on the doorknob of the study at the far end of the hallway.
“Excuse me.”
Hearing her approaching footsteps, Choi Eunhyung glanced back over his shoulder. Hyungnam briefly wondered what she ought to call him, then decided to behave as though she were a member of the organization herself.
“Manager… Choi.”
“……”
“What would you like me to make for lunch?”
Even she thought the question sounded pitifully foolish as she stumbled over it. Her head dropped of its own accord.
Now it looks like I went out of my way to make up an excuse just to talk to him. I could've simply served him some stew and rice.
She had stuck her nose where it didn't belong. In her defense, she had been unable to forget how feverish and delirious he had looked the last time.
Hyungnam tightened her cheeks, composing her expression, and was just about to withdraw her offer.
“If I tell you, will you make it?”
The question drifted down from above her head, almost as though he were talking to himself. Hyungnam slowly raised her head and looked up at Eunhyung.
He stood at an angle with one hand resting on his hip, looking utterly indifferent. And yet she thought she detected the faintest trace of amusement in his voice as he asked the question. At least, that was how it sounded to her.
So she ventured another rather cheeky reply.
“…If it's something I know how to make.”
Choi Eunhyung's expression was difficult to read. Judging by his slightly narrowed eyes, he looked ready to give her a thorough dressing-down for imagining he had come here just to eat. Yet the corners of his mouth were twitching ever so slightly.
“What can you make?”
“Well, I can make just about anything.”
“What does the chairman like best?”
“Spicy kimchi rice soup.”
“Spicy kimchi rice soup?”
Choi Eunhyung's dark eyebrows twitched. Apparently, he had never heard of it. Then again, even Hyungnam, who had been born and raised in Seoul, had only learned to make the regional dish after coming to this house and being scolded by Park Shineok several times in the process.
He doesn't know what it is.
The discovery that they had even such a trivial thing in common made her a little excited, and she launched into an explanation.
“It's kimchi soup with all sorts of things added. Bean sprouts, sliced rice cakes, sweet potatoes, leftover rice—whatever you've got in the house. You boil it all together until it gets nice and hot and thick.”
After hearing this brief explanation, Choi Eunhyung promptly wrinkled his nose without even asking how it tasted. He was probably imagining rice grains and sweet potatoes floating about haphazardly in a sticky red liquid thickened by dissolved starch.
Hyungnam understood his reaction perfectly. For someone like Eunhyung, who spoke such crisp, polished Seoul Korean, it probably wasn't an especially appealing image. So she offered him the closest alternative she could think of.
“How about kimchi soup with hand-torn dumplings?”
“Sure.”
They reached an agreement with surprising ease. Eunhyung strode into the study on his long legs, leaving the door wide open, perhaps because he was conscious of being in someone else's house.
Hyungnam blinked a few times where she stood, then hurried back to where she belonged.
She filled a large pot with fresh water and carefully set it on the gas stove.
Click-click-click-click-click.
The clicking ignition made her heart tighten as though tiny firecrackers were going off.
She turned the burner to its highest setting, opened the freezer, and took out the ingredients for the stock. She added a generous handful of dried anchovies, a large sheet of kelp, the onion skins and green onion roots she had diligently saved, and even the stems of shiitake mushrooms.
After covering the pot and leaving the stock to simmer, she opened a lower cupboard and took out the flour. She poured a suitable amount into an orange plastic bowl, then carefully added a trickle of tap water.
She stirred gently with her index finger held straight. When the flour began gathering into clumps and developing a grainy texture, she started kneading it with the heels of her hands.
The dough turned out beautifully. Hyungnam couldn't resist pressing her fingertips into its plump, smooth surface, which reminded her of a baby's bottom.
The stock was boiling furiously, filling the kitchen with a rich, faintly fishy aroma. She ladled some into a smaller pot, then took half a portion of aged kimchi and snipped it into rough pieces with scissors.
After a moment's consideration, she took a handful of bean sprouts from the refrigerator, washed them, and added them as well.
Watching the sprouts slowly sink into the red broth, Hyungnam thought:
Surely he won't make a fuss just because I put in a few bean sprouts. Though, come to think of it, he certainly looks like the sort of person who would.
As she tore pieces from the dough and dropped them into the boiling kimchi soup, she muttered,
“There must've been some kind of mistake that made him a gangster……”
Judging by his looks alone, he could easily pass for a playboy at the very least, perhaps even an actor. He certainly didn't look suited to the terrifying business of stabbing people or slicing them to pieces.
Yet everyone told the same story.
Choi Eunhyung had grown more forgiving with age. These days, people called him Manager Choi, and he had even been entrusted with acting as chairman, so he no longer went out into the field, behaving more like a man who worked behind a desk. But back in his Buamdong days, he had been utterly merciless.
And apparently, just the other day at Taereung, Choi Eunhyung had led the charge.
It struck Hyungnam as rather pathetic that Chilgu, who was so much older than Eunhyung, would praise him by declaring that their manager hadn't lost his touch.
Then again, she couldn't help wondering just how good he must have been at his work.
Which meant……
How skilled must he have been at hurting people to earn that kind of praise?
Suddenly reminded that she had just been alone with a truly frightening man, Hyungnam was caught by a burst of hot steam as she dropped another piece of dough into the pot.
She flinched in surprise, and her gaze fell upon her forearm, exposed by her rolled-up sleeve.
“A girl who gets scars where people can see them won't find a husband.”
Standing before the bubbling red soup, Hyungnam felt strangely dazed.
She remembered his sturdy neck, his shoulders and back stretching his T-shirt taut.
That long body lying on its side, radiating heat mingled with the pleasant scent of shampoo, yet with an air of someone who had no particular attachment to life. Those long, pale scars would probably feel raised beneath her fingertips if she touched them.
Growing dejected for reasons she couldn't quite explain, Hyungnam threw the last piece of dough into the pot and muttered,
“…Look who's talking.”
Those horrible knife scars of his. Even if they're somewhere nobody can see, it's not as though he'll have an easier time finding a wife.
Hyungnam took the ladle and began angrily pressing down the pieces of dough as they bobbed to the surface.
Of course, they floated when they were cooked. She knew that perfectly well. Yet the thin pieces fluttering in the broth seemed to be teasing her.
She knew that picking a fight with a pot of boiling soup would only hurt her, but all she could do was release a long, helpless sigh.
There was a persistent, restless itching somewhere in her chest.
It was an unfamiliar sensation.
As she poured the water, she stole a glance at Eunhyung to gauge his mood.
Choi Eunhyung was sitting there with a sullen expression, not even bothering to pick up his spoon.
Her heart sank.
Why? What's wrong?
She had told him in advance that she was making kimchi soup with hand-torn dumplings for lunch, and he had agreed. There was no reason for him to complain about the meal itself.
Hyungnam cautiously pushed the glass of water toward Eunhyung, watching his expression.
“Aren't you going to eat……?”
“Bean sprouts.”
“Pardon?”
Surely not.
A flash of irritation crossed her delicate face.
No. He's a grown man. He couldn't possibly……
But Choi Eunhyung proceeded to fulfill her expectations exactly as she had feared. He pointed haughtily into the bowl with one long finger.
“I don't like beans.”
“…Would you like me to make it again?”
“Hmm.”
She had only asked out of politeness, but Eunhyung was seriously considering it.
Surely he won't actually tell me to make it again.
No, he might.
Judging by the sharp look he was directing at the bowl, he seemed perfectly capable of doing just that.
But even if he was the acting chairman, he wasn't actually Park Shineok, and Hyungnam had no desire to go to the trouble of making the same meal all over again.
Before he could give his answer, she hurried to defend the soup.
“You've had kimchi and bean sprout soup before, haven't you? This is just that with pieces of dough added.”
“I told you I don't like beans.”
“You can't even smell the bean sprouts because of the kimchi. Try smelling it.”
“……”
There was no reply.
He's not a child. Imagine someone over twenty fussing about his food like this.
If it had been two years earlier, he might have been dragged off to a military reeducation camp and forced to wear signs proclaiming “THRIFT” and “FRUGALITY” on his chest and back.
But with the owner of the Pyeongchangdong mansion away, there was hardly any way to discipline the man standing in for him.
Swallowing a sigh, Hyungnam turned and returned to the kitchen. She picked up her own bowl, which she had left on the counter, and brought it back.
“Give it here.”
She hooked her chopsticks over the rim of Eunhyung's bowl and slid it toward herself.
Without asking permission, she began rummaging through the man's soup, transferring every bean sprout she could catch between her chopsticks into her own bowl.
She didn't leave behind so much as a single yellow bean head.
“There. Is that better?”
Hyungnam carefully pushed the bowl back in front of Eunhyung.
Then she stared blankly at her own portion of soup, which had unexpectedly acquired a mountain of bean sprouts.
She tugged at her sleeves and picked up her bowl with both hands.
“What about you?”