The Little Customer (1)
The child who had come when I first opened Ramenkase.
For some reason, she was a kid who pulled at my heart.
She would hesitate from a distance and then vanish, so I had never managed to bring her over. Now she was squatting right there.
At my call she turned her head and looked up at me, still wavering.
"Are you really leaving?"
"Huh?"
Leaving? What was she talking about?
Ah. I got it.
"Yeah. We're moving. Up there, actually."
"You are?"
"Mm-hm. It's going to be bigger than before, so we can take a lot more customers. Little customers are welcome anytime. Come whenever you like."
"Umm……"
I had expected a bright little okay.
Instead her face stayed stiff.
"So why haven't you been coming to eat lately?"
"……"
I already knew, of course.
A kid's pocket money situation is never complicated.
I'd learned later that even Jinwoo had hesitated over five thousand won like it was a fortune.
"You can come quietly. You don't have to pay—just come eat and go."
"Why?"
"Service for my little customer."
"……Not because I'm poor?"
……So that was the problem after all.
I never thought words that hard would come out of a child's mouth.
It left a bitter taste, but I deliberately put on a smile.
"Not even a little. That's not why. I'm grateful you came from the very beginning, you know? You know Jinwoo, the kid who works here?"
"Yes. I've seen him."
"He freeloads every single day, doesn't he? Keeps asking for free coffee too."
Technically he was staff, so the free part was true.
If Jinwoo knew the situation, he would understand me saying it this way.
If I were Jinwoo, I would have said the same thing.
"Umm…… My aunt said I shouldn't trouble people over things like that."
Odd that she said aunt. Why was that?
"It's not trouble. Really."
"Umm…… Still, thank you."
"I haven't even given you anything yet."
"Just because."
There was no way to learn more of her circumstances.
The child bowed her head politely and turned straight around.
The way she went patter-patter as she ran was pure kid her age.
A thought flashed through me—that the night road could be dangerous for a child still so young.
There was that thing with the thugs before, too.
I followed quietly behind her.
Good. She got in safely.
Once I saw her enter a small, shabby villa, I withdrew without a sound.
And so a day passed, then two.
After that I kept waiting for the small, cute child to come back.
"Hmm…… Why isn't she coming?"
But she simply never did.
Then one day it happened.
Late in the evening, the child came carefully to find me.
She stood fidgeting with her head bowed.
"It's raining. Why are you standing out there like that?"
"Just because."
Late evening.
The weather was foul enough as it was.
How much must she have hesitated before coming?
I told the child who had walked in damp and bedraggled from the rain to come right in.
"Get under the parasol here. I've got a towel set aside—dry yourself with that. Or you'll catch a cold."
"……Yes. Thank you."
"Just wait a second."
I had already cleaned everything up for closing.
But for today, I could specially open again.
I opened the shop I had been about to shut and prepared ramen just for the child.
This is why ramen is great.
Cooking didn't take long.
What mattered was matching a kid's palate.
Leave out the garlic and green onions. Should I put in sausage? Ah—I've got fish cakes too!
Sausage and fish cakes!
I made ramen with both of those in it.
Oh right. She came in soaked, so she might catch a cold—I should add a stamina boost too.
Dish complete: Special Ramen for a Child
You have selected Immune Enhancement via the dish's Healing ability.
On consumption, Stamina increases for 1 hour.
On consumption, natural healing ability is strengthened.
A great success, of all things.
Even I, the one who made it, was startled by the dish that came out.
"Whoa……!"
Just the smell alone sent a delicious fragrance rolling out.
The child let out a cheer.
At last I could see a bright, childlike expression.
"Here. Try it."
"Yes!"
Slurp—
She stuffed noodles in until her cheeks puffed out and chewed away, and it was so cute I couldn't stand it!
Ah, so this is why there are so many daughter-obsessed dads?
Cute. That cuteness alone more than covered the cost of the ramen!
"Is it good?"
"Yes! It's so delicious!"
I was happy.
It felt like a whole day's fatigue had been washed clean away.
"If you want more, you can come tomorrow too. Quietly get in line and I'll give you some."
"Is that really okay?"
"Of course. I'm the boss—who's going to say anything?"
"Hehe. But I still shouldn't do that too much. It makes trouble for people. She said no matter what, I must never cause trouble. I even brought money for today, you know?"
"I'll take half. But where did you learn that phrase about causing trouble?"
"Well, my favorite aunt in the whole world……"
That was when it happened.
"Yeon-hee! I told you not to do this!"
"Auntie!"
Yikes……!
Of all the days.
The first time I learned the child's name, I also came face to face with the aunt.
From where I sat, looking at her, it was clear she had been rushing around in the rain searching for Yeon-hee—she was still wet even under her umbrella.
Sweat poured down her face as she flushed red and looked our way……
Huh……?
The moment I saw her, I could only go blank.
Because a question rose up.
Why did that aunt look so much like a face I already knew?
"We're going."
"Auntie, today's meal……"
"We're going."
"O-okay……"
"We've caused you trouble. I'm sorry."
Without waiting for any answer, the aunt took Yeon-hee and left as if the wind had carried them away.
I could only watch them go, still dazed.
I stared blankly for a long time after the two of them disappeared into the distance.
My soul still hadn't returned by the next day.
What the hell was that?
That aunt. I had never met her before—and yet she was not someone I was meeting for the first time.
Call it a contradiction if you like.
"I went to study in Hong Kong once and ended up crossing all of China, you know?"
"Aigoo. That's not how you do this!"
"Kh…… Even a knife-hand knows a good taste when he tastes it."
"Shut up. Don't die. Stay alive."
"I…… ah, I want to eat something delicious. Stay alive. Stay alive and eat a mountain of good food…… and tell me you were happy. Promise me. Okay? Promise…… Okay? You have to."
That person from back then.
The one who taught me the Hong Kong dishes I was going to give Boss Jang as a gift at the celebration party in the new hideout the next day.
The one who stayed by my side in my previous life.
The one who worried about me right to the end.
Why on earth was that person here? No—why in this form?
Is that why Yeon-hee never felt strange to me……?
I had wondered why my eyes kept being drawn to her.
Now I understood the reason.
She resembled that person. The one who sacrificed for me right up to the day of death.
What was I supposed to do?
I still didn't know.
Coincidence? Or have I gone insane?
To me, neither option mattered.
Either way, the direction my heart was pulling me was the same.
I had to go.
"Can you wrap up for me today?"
"Huh? I can, but…… is something wrong?"
"Yeah. It's urgent. Sorry."
Whatever patience I had left had long since burned away while I ran the shop that day.
"If hyungnim says so…… go on! Don't worry about this place!"
"Thanks."
I left the entire shop cleanup to Jinwoo.
I tossed my apron into the truck as if throwing it away and moved.
The direction: the villa where Yeon-hee lived.
To think the place I had checked out of worry would lead to this.
I must have run without breathing.
I didn't care about other people's stares as I picked up speed, and I reached the destination in no time.
Found them!
There they were. The two of them just about to step into the villa.
Arms full of grocery bags, as if they had been shopping, and with the other hand holding Yeon-hee's—my old comrade.
What do I do?
I had simply come.
What to say once I found them—I had no idea at all.
It would not have been a lie to say that, since awakening my memories, this was the most confusing moment of all.
"Huh!? Mister!"
Yeon-hee spotted me and came running patter-patter.
Then she realized her aunt was behind her and her face said uh-oh.
That what do I do now expression.
While I was looking at Yeon-hee, who so closely resembled her aunt—
that person came toward me too.
"Hello."
"Yes. Hello."
I returned the greeting on reflex and thought desperately.
What story should I tell? What was I supposed to do?
Then, out of nowhere, I saw Yeon-hee looking up at me from below with expectant eyes.
Ahh……
To Yeon-hee I must have been Superman.
One of the few adults who treated her warmly. Maybe that was why.
I closed my eyes for a beat and spoke.
"About the kid—I was the one who said it."
"Excuse me?"
"I was the one who told her to come. I said I'd feed her, so she should come and eat as much as she wanted. I said it several times. Even when she hated the idea of causing trouble, I forced her and said it was fine—come on over."
It poured out like a machine gun.
It was the first time I realized I could talk that well.
What came back was resistance.
"Why! We……"
"It's nothing like what you're thinking. I'm grateful."
"What?"
"Because she ate the first things I made so happily. That's why I'm grateful."
"From what I saw, the other customers ate happily too."
"I know. But Yeon-hee spent every last bit of money she had and put her whole heart into eating it well, didn't she?"
This was nonsense. I knew that. Complete nonsense.
But still.
"Having someone eat the food I made so happily—that was honestly moving for me. That's why."
"!!!!"
"Being happy through food is the happiest kind of happy, right?"
"Ah……!"
This part, at least, was not nonsense.
Because that person—Yeon-hee's aunt, standing right in front of me with a startled face—had said it to me so many times my ears had grown calluses.
Maybe that had been their values.
Whether it still was in this world, I didn't know.
But one thing was certain.
That's right. Even in this world, you love cooking.
In those eyes, grown huge with surprise, the hostility from before had eased a great deal.
That person staring blankly at me.
Or maybe they were no longer that person at all.
Even if the face was the same, the life lived and the environment were different, and in this life there was even a niece who hadn't existed before—so the you of now might be completely different.
Maybe this meeting was just me forcing a connection all by myself.
Still, I said the last thing I meant to say.
"And someone who knows that happiness is even happier when they're the one cooking. Right?"
"!!!!"
I could see both hands, still clutching the bags tightly, begin to tremble.