Chapter 12

That guy. No, that man.

The unwelcome guest who had suddenly appeared a week ago and stirred up a storm inside Ja-yeong.

“Why are you here again…?”
“Were you in the middle of a meal? Perfect.”

Han Eden opened the door of his flashy car, which gleamed even more brightly than the county chief’s, and took out a cooler. Then he headed toward the pavilion as if the kiln yard belonged to him.

“Who’s this handsome young man? Our Ja-yeong’s boyfriend?”

Grandma Geum-ryong asked, her eyes sparkling.

Of course, her sparkling gaze wasn’t fixed on Ja-yeong. It was drawn to the forearm muscles of the young man who had finally appeared after so long. They happened to be flexed and sharply defined as he lifted the cooler.

“G-Grandma! It’s not like that. How could you even think he’s…!”
“That’s not it. He’s the young chef who came all the way from Seoul hoping to get some pottery from our Ja-yeong!”
“Grandpa!”

Where had the Hwang Deok-ho gone who used to grab a sickle and chase off anyone who tried to find an unmarried young man in town to pair with his granddaughter?

The old man’s face was wreathed in smiles, and instead of brandishing a sickle, he gently stroked his white beard.

“Good afternoon, sir.”
“Well, well! Good afternoon to you, too, Chef. Have you eaten?”
“I was just about to.”

He opened the cooler and began taking out plates.

Between the bowls of rustic but deeply flavorful soybean noodles made with freshly ground beans and the plates of cucumber kimchi, one by one, Han Eden’s dishes were laid out like flowers in bloom.

Flounder ceviche on a bed of raspberry cream, garnished with fennel and mint. Tenderly cooked octopus atop cannellini bean purée. Mussels nestled in crisp endive leaves shaped like little boats.

The country folk had never seen food like this in their lives, let alone tasted it. Faced with such a feast, they were left speechless.

“What is all this?”

Still, Ja-yeong, being the youngest, was the first to recover.

“Food.”
“That’s obvious. I mean, why did you bring food here?”
“I’m a chef, after all. Surely I can’t just keep eating everyone else’s food.”

His expression was perfectly composed. He took a pair of tweezers from a leather pouch and used them to place paper-thin slices of radish and borage flowers on the endive.

“Dear, my eyesight’s not what it used to be… Is that young man holding a pair of eyebrow tweezers?”

At Grandpa Geum-ryong’s question, Grandma Geum-ryong answered dreamily.

“They look like tweezers to me, too… Why would anyone use tweezers on food meant for people to eat?”

“Grandma, they’re not eyebrow tweezers. They’re culinary tweezers. Chefs use them.”

Honestly, Ja-yeong didn’t want to help him in the slightest, but she was the only person here who could translate the man’s words and actions for everyone else.

“I must be the only person in the whole wide world who gets to eat this flowery food just for making a pot of kimchi stew! Chef, how about some makgeolli?”

Who knew when he’d managed to fetch them? Hwang Deok-ho was holding four small bowls and a bottle of makgeolli, traditional Korean rice wine.

“Grandpa…!”

Ja-yeong couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She couldn’t understand either the man who had barged in and laid out a feast without warning or her grandfather, who was welcoming the unwelcome guest with rice wine instead of kicking him out.

“I do drink.”

“Hahaha! Then let’s all have a glass! Geum-ryong’s family, you take a cup, too.”

Of course, what Ja-yeong found most baffling of all was the heat rising inside her, just like a week ago when she’d peered through the gaps in the wooden lattice.

The breeze around the kiln yard was much cooler now that the fire had died down. Much cooler than in town.

Really.

The trees surrounding the kiln yard, which had endured the scorching heat radiating from the kiln throughout the seasons, swayed their green leaves as if to say summer was nothing to worry about. The tap water drawn straight up from underground was so cold that her teeth would have chattered if she drank it.

‘So the warmth spreading around my solar plexus… must be because I’m annoyed.’

Ja-yeong deliberately chose a seat as far away from the man as possible.

The elderly villagers, whose long lives had made them quick to adapt, got along just fine with Eden despite having only just met him. They clinked their makgeolli cups together and readily shared bites of his unfamiliar dishes.

“W-What did you call this again? C-cee… bee…?”
“It’s ceviche, Grandpa. Kind of like raw flounder sashimi.”
“Well, well! It’s tangy and sweet, and absolutely delicious. Goes perfectly with makgeolli! Just perfect!”

Since Ja-yeong couldn’t drink alcohol, the soybean noodles and cucumber kimchi were her only allies. She didn’t want to touch any of the man’s colorful dishes. You could call it her last shred of pride.

“Sweetie, try putting some of that octopus on your plate. You like octopus, don’t you, Ja-yeong?”
“N-No, I don’t… I’m fine, Grandpa. You eat it.”

That only made her more determined to wolf down her noodles.

Ja-yeong lifted the bowl of soybean noodles, which had been largely overlooked in favor of the other dishes, and drank straight from it. Her stomach felt ready to burst, but she kept eating Grandma Geum-ryong’s food as if to make a point. Just as she tilted her head back, lips pressed to the rim of the bowl, and gulped down the last of the soybean broth, her gaze, which had been wandering aimlessly, met that of the man as he drained his cup of makgeolli.

“Khk!”
“Oh, goodness, sweetie!”

A cough mixed with soybean broth burst from Ja-yeong’s throat so violently it felt as though it might tear right through it. Hwang Deok-ho, who had been drinking makgeolli, rushed to her side in an instant.

“Cough! Cough!”
“Geum-ryong, get her some water! Sweetie, if you need to throw up, do it in your grandpa’s hands!”
“Our Ja-yeong must have been awfully hungry. Drink some water, and it’ll go down.”

Grandma Geum-ryong poured some lukewarm barley tea into a cup and handed it over, while Grandpa patted Ja-yeong’s back with his wrinkled hands. After drinking the entire cup, Ja-yeong wiped the tears clinging to the corners of her eyes and spoke.

“…I-I’m okay now.”
“Are you sure? You don’t need another cup of water?”
“Yes. So please… don’t worry about me. Just go ahead and finish what you were eating…”

With her head bowed, Ja-yeong fetched a dishcloth and wiped up the soybean broth she’d spilled in front of her.

There was no way she was okay.

First, she was mortified. Second, the unwelcome guest had witnessed the whole embarrassing scene.

On top of that, her face had turned bright red after just a few coughs, looking no different from when she’d been standing under the blazing sun two days ago.

“Looks like she’s all right now. Deok-ho, let’s get back to our meal.”

Grandpa Geum-ryong’s indifference was actually a relief for once. He’d been chewing through endive leaves as casually as if they were cabbage.

Ja-yeong kept scrubbing the floor as though she’d wear the dishcloth down to nothing. Once the adults’ attention returned to the food and drinks, she cautiously rose from her seat. After all, when someone made you uncomfortable, the sensible thing was to leave.

She couldn’t keep hiding her face behind a bowl of soybean noodles, and she couldn’t go on wiping the same patch of floor forever, either…

“Where are you going?”
“Huh? Oh… I was going to get some Korean melon.”
“All right. Just bring it as it is. Don’t bother peeling it. You need to keep your hands free, understand?”
“Yeees. I will.”

She fled toward the front yard of the house. Behind her, she could hear everyone laughing and chatting happily.

“…What a pain in the neck.”

Rubbing her burning cheeks, Ja-yeong headed for the outdoor tap.

She scrubbed her face vigorously until the gritty feeling of soybean broth that had run down her chin disappeared. Even that wasn’t enough. She rinsed out her mouth, too, as if she were brushing her teeth.

After a long struggle with the cold water, the strange anger pooled in her chest finally began to subside, and her flushed cheeks returned to their normal color.

Feeling refreshed, Ja-yeong wiped away the water streaming down her face and went to get the Korean melon from the refrigerator.

A little mirror hanging from a veranda post caught the sunlight and greeted her with a gleam. As if it, too, wanted to experience the feeling of being the stepmother who fawned over Snow White’s beauty, it reflected Ja-yeong’s radiant appearance beneath the midday sun, one detail at a time.

Her forehead and cheeks, pale and luminous from the water; the back of her neck, still damp; and, on her white T-shirt, a splash of gorgeous coral-red cucumber kimchi seasoning that was almost as fair as her face…

“……!”

Startled, she bit down on the back of her hand. If she screamed, the happy group on the other side of the wooden fence would come rushing over as though a war had broken out.

“Ah, oh no…!”

Ja-yeong hurriedly tried scraping the cucumber kimchi seasoning off her shirt. When that didn’t work, she tried rubbing it with a saliva-moistened finger. That didn’t help, either, so she dashed back to the outdoor tap.