After that, Caesar texted Jeheon Han to ask about his schedule. Caesar had an international flight coming up.
Aside from the fact that he’d have to send it to the department store because work kept Jeheon busy, their schedules lined up well enough.
That evening, the moment he got home, Caesar took a bath and headed straight for the kitchen.
His house was so bare it felt desolate. No framed photos, no potted plants, nothing decorative—just the basics like a sofa and a table. There wasn’t even a simple bookcase in the living room; it looked like a place no one actually lived in.
In that house, the only space that felt remotely human was the kitchen.
The knives… no rust.
Unlike the living room that was dressed just to pass muster, the kitchen was packed tight with cookware.
On top of the dishwasher and oven, he had specialty gear too: cast-iron pans, a Chinese cleaver, even a wok.
As he pulled out a sheet pan, Caesar thought,
How many portions will be enough?
You dredge the eggplant in flour or starch and pan-fry it in olive oil until it’s almost like a shallow fry, then layer it with sauce and cheese and finish it in the oven. It’s basically using eggplant in place of lasagna sheets.
The eggplant goes tender, so it’s easy to scoop. And the savoriness that comes off the tomato sauce and Parmigiano on top is great.
But there’s one big drawback: since eggplant is so soft, it doesn’t keep well.
No matter how hard you bake it, the eggplant will start releasing moisture as time passes. It won’t store long, so I should make enough for a couple of meals at most.
He glanced at the stack of silicone bags. He’d gotten them back by courier from Jeheon not long ago.
It feels stingy to send too little.
Maybe he should cook more to match the number of bags. Anything extra could be something that freezes well.
A pastina soup you can eat like porridge? Or mushroom gnocchi?
He hesitated over the menu, then a thought made his brow crease.
Confirm that nothing’s wrong with Jeheon first—then cook.
Everything in the recent future sight had been ominous.
No harm in preparing ahead.
He braced both hands on the counter and closed his eyes. Right away, a stream of images skimmed past.
After a moment he opened his eyes with a sigh.
“I didn’t expect a spoiler in the deck.”
He wiped his hands on the hanging towel, abandoned the tools, and headed for his study.
“What year was it… seven, eight years ago…?”
He unlocked the door. Inside, a study the size of a decent living room was walled on three sides with bookshelves. Thousands of notebooks and books were jammed in tight.
Each shelf had a year label. Judging by the height—almost to the ceiling—each case held roughly three years of material.
It should be around here.
He went to the section holding records from nine years back.
He pulled a journal and skimmed it fast, then nodded.
“As I thought, this period.”
Only, the tightly written entries weren’t about Caesar’s own affairs.
They were a year-bundled record of Jeheon Han’s every move.
The year he got close with Macaulay McQueen, he had a huge blowup with Joshua Martin and they fell out.
After Jeheon lost the quarterback spot to those two, Joshua started taking it out on him.
Did he think the Asian would just sit there and take it?
Contrary to Joshua’s prejudice, Jeheon… was not gentle at all.
With his buttons pushed, he hounded Joshua like a mad dog for three days and nights, spewing curses no one had ever heard the likes of, until Joshua raised both hands and feet in surrender.
The next semester, Joshua transferred out in a hurry, claiming his interests had changed.
I thought that was the end of it. Who knew he’d come back. If things had gone as before, they wouldn’t have crossed paths again. My presence must have become the variable.
Only someone with future sight can alter the future.
So this time, the variable was Caesar himself.
“If I’d known, I would’ve finished him back then. Popping up now, of all times,” he muttered, checking the journal’s inside corner.
A USB stick was taped there.
“I’m not letting him crawl back twice. I’ll settle it this time.”
He plugged the USB into his laptop. Thousands of photos began copying over.
The food Caesar sent arrived at the department store right at lunchtime.
Wow, he sent a lot again.
The insulated bag was satisfyingly heavy.
I couldn’t hold back my curiosity and cracked it open on the way to the staff lounge. On top was a round silicone container.
Pastina soup.
Pastina is pasta shaped like tiny grains of rice.
In Italy they usually make a thin tomato soup with it; people eat it as a kind of restorative when they’re sick.
Grandma used to make it every time I was ill!
I walked into the lounge, secretly pleased, and McQueen—who’d gotten there first—asked,
“What’s that? Delivery?”
“Ah, yeah.”
A peculiar smile tugged at his mouth.
“Don’t tell me…”
His eyes sparkled with hopeful excitement. The second I saw them, the words he was swallowing played back in my head:
Did you get the recipe from Caesar? Did I help? My surprise landed perfectly, right?!
He didn’t say it, but the pride was overflowing from his face.
I thought, Yep, born for surprises, and smiled back.
But when you look this innocent, it makes me want to tease you.
I couldn’t help myself and decided to play dumb.
“I asked one of my grandma’s students. I’ve been missing her recipes.”
“Teresa?”
He clapped once.
“Oh, that makes sense. She really did Italian home cooking so well. Right.”
For a split second, McQueen looked sheepish.
But he shook it off fast—he’s good at bouncing back—and came to my side to peek into the bag. His eyes went wide.
“She even made pasticciotto.”
“Where?”
“Right here next to it.”
Pasticciotto is a custard pie baked in little rectangular molds. It looks a bit like a financier, but the center’s stuffed with custard cream—crisp outside, soft and moist inside, and fantastic.
Crisp outside, custardy-soft inside—the kind of pastry that burns the roof of your mouth every time, and I’d still snatch one the second they came out of the oven.
McQueen had shared those memories too, so I could feel his nostalgia.
“Teresa used to bake them by the dozens in financier molds.”
His voice got that reminiscing lilt.
“Then you’d split them into bags and hand them around to the football guys. You said Grandma made so many you couldn’t finish them alone.”
“Oh, I remember.”
“Everybody got fat off those and Coach tore into us.”
He grinned and added,
“We all ate the same, but you were the only one told to bulk up.”
“Yeah. I was the smallest… and I ate the most.”
“While the other guys were chewing chicken breast to keep the fat down, you were the only one roaming around with a burger.”
A sigh slipped out of me on reflex.
“The double cheeseburger still shows up in my nightmares…”
East Asians are inefficient on fuel. Even among them, I was especially inefficient.
The slightest activity and I ran hot. If I ate the same as the others, the weight just melted off.
Football is full of monsters—about six foot three and over two hundred pounds everywhere you look. At six feet flat, if I wanted to survive, the only option was to move up a weight class.
And I still took the quarterback spot, so I had to eat to the edge of throwing up every day.
While everyone else got their snacks restricted for agility’s sake, I lived on food.
To keep the fat up, I had to treat burgers and doughnuts like water…
With Teresa’s influence, I hated salty, greasy food—so that diet was less tough and more torture.
Which is why fast food is a hard no for me now.
Right after graduation I dropped almost thirty-five pounds. My activity level halved and my calorie intake got cut in half too.
I took one of the custard pies from the corner of the insulated bag and handed it to McQueen.
“Want one? You don’t need to cut anymore weight.”
“Says who. I’ve gotta keep it tight to stay in this job.”
Even as he said it, he reached out and took the pie.
He laughed, thumped my back with his free hand, and said,
“I’ll gladly accept the memories with Ms. Teresa!”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He rolled the pie in his dinner-plate-sized palm and said,
“Wanna eat in the lounge today?”
“You brought a lunch too?”
“Dad made Bolognese.”
“Mm, okay.”
I agreed easily, and he chuckled.
“Packing lunches makes me feel like I’m back in high school.”
“You didn’t know me in high school.”
“Figure of speech. Be right back.”
“I—”
I was about to say “Okay” when a faint image flickered across my vision.
Like a single frame spliced into the reel.
What was that?
It was so brief I couldn’t pin it down. I tilted my head, and McQueen doubled back to ask,
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
I rubbed the corner of my eye and muttered,
“Guess I’m sleepy.”
“Go to bed earlier. You look like a wilted weed because you never sleep.”
“Funny, I don’t remember giving wild boars speaking rights.”
“…Tsk.”
…Probably just fatigue playing tricks.
Maybe the light breakfast didn’t help. I’ve had low blood sugar since I was a kid…
“Just go already.”
“…I’ll be right back.”
I waved him off, deciding it was nothing.