Not Bad
The next morning.
I sat there in a groggy haze and fed Luca his breakfast. He beamed up at me, mouth opening wide for every spoonful of purée I offered. I waited with the spoon poised while he swallowed, then asked,
“……Is it good?”
Instead of answering, his tiny hands closed around mine and pulled the spoon straight back to his mouth. So yes. Good.
“It’s good, huh. Our Luca slept well, so of course breakfast tastes better, right?”
He grinned and locked eyes with me. There was no point staying mad at a face like that—I’d only be punishing myself.
“Being cute is everything, isn’t it, Luca?”
“Hee……”
I wiped his mouth and carried him, as usual, to the chair that faced the terrace. For a moment we simply sat there. The sunlight was warm and perfect.
“……”
Perfect for a nap, really……
“……Mmm.”
“……Yeah, Luca, Daddy’s not sleeping.”
“Aaa!”
“Aigoo.”
I set the wriggling baby down on the play mat. On ordinary days he was content to stay in my arms; today, I guessed, he was restless because I hadn’t talked to him or rubbed his back.
“But this is your fault, you know……” I muttered, climbing inside the playpen myself and curling onto my side in the corner, nursing a sense of pure injustice.
……It was a good thing I’d made one side of the fence so large. If I’d had to fold myself up like a shrimp right now, the whole picture would have been far too pathetic.
I buried my face in my arm and yawned, then simply stayed like that, unmoving. I felt as if I could fall asleep on the spot. I wasn’t asking for a full half-hour—just twenty minutes would do……
The night before, it had been nearly two in the morning before I finally washed up and collapsed into bed. I must have closed my eyes for only a second, because the next thing I knew it was morning and a baby was smacking my cheek. I jolted awake so hard my heart nearly leapt out of my chest; for a split second I was sure something terrible had happened.
Five or six hours of sleep shouldn’t have left me this drained, and yet my mind refused to clear.
“……”
The desserts only needed to be delivered by tomorrow afternoon, so there was no real rush. I also needed to start coordinating with the staff about the recipes that would go into the cookbook, but there was still time for that too.
So maybe I could just do nothing today……
……As if.
I cracked an eye open toward the suspiciously quiet baby—and for a second Luca looked exactly like a tiny lion cub. Far across the mat, he was watching me with his little rear end twitching. I sat up at once. If I stayed sprawled out like that, I was definitely going to get another cheek-slap demanding I get up.
Sure enough, Luca came barreling toward me on his belly, beamed up at my face, then spun around and scooted right back the way he’d come.
Terrifying kid……
He had no intention of actually playing with me, yet he couldn’t stand the sight of me sleeping. His spite was impressive. Still, I wasn’t much of a nap person to begin with, so I forced myself to my feet and stretched. Back when I’d had an office job, I’d gone to work whether I was sleepy or sick; just because I had a little breathing room now didn’t mean I could sprawl around and go soft.
Right. A freelancer who slacks off is just unemployed. Get to work, me.
“……”
But I stood there with my eyes closed a moment longer.
I’m sleepy.
Move.
I don’t want to work.
Move.
“Aaa!”
My eyes snapped open.
“Yeah. Daddy’s not sleeping.”
I carried my laptop to the island table and opened the email from the publishing-house staffer. Her name was Kelly. Evan seemed to handle overall management, while his subordinates handled day-to-day communication with each author.
Kelly had laid out the upcoming process with impressive clarity. First, every time I designed a recipe that fit the concept I wanted, I would send her the recipe along with photos of the finished dish, and we would trade feedback. That feedback would focus on whether the dish overlapped with anyone else’s menu, whether something similar was already on the market, and any other potential problems. Once a recipe was locked in, we would meet in person for a tasting and an interview that would shape the story printed alongside it.
The fact that they only interviewed people about why they’d created a dish after the recipe was already written suggested that the “honest” personal stories readers loved probably benefited from a light touch of fiction. Develop a plausible recipe first, then retrofit your life around it…… or take something that actually happened and inflate it to twice its size?
Anyway. Once three recipes had been prepared that way, the final step was a story review, a mutual discussion of the specific visual direction the author wanted, and a photo shoot with a photographer.
And then……
“Huh?”
A dumb sound slipped out of me before I could stop it.
Kelly wrote that if we worked at that pace, the cookbook would probably come out sometime between late spring and early summer of next year.
It was the end of June now. How could one book take that long?
As if she’d anticipated exactly that reaction, the last line of the email assured me that this was already a very tight schedule, and that she looked forward to working with me.
“……”
Well. If the people who actually published books said so, who was I to argue? Not knowing that books took this long was my own ignorance.
And Cassandra—who’d once declared, “Just wait a few months and you’ll see how big our channel’s going to be!”—probably hadn’t known the timeline would stretch this far either.
Hmm. Another lesson learned.
“……”
In that case, I’d better grow the channel hard in the meantime, so I could pull in views even without wearing an apron. Or, even if the channel didn’t grow, maybe if I developed an absolutely extraordinary recipe people would buy the book as if under a spell.
A cake the world had never seen—something magnificent, something earth-shattering……!
Thud.
The sudden mental image of a flaming gochujang cake made me close the laptop and cool my head for a moment. Today was clearly not a day suited to thinking hard.
Besides, they said we still had a whole year. Take it slow.
I shook my head and pushed aside the mental picture of Kevin, who would have leapt out of his seat if he’d heard me say that. Any idea I had today might land in the trash tomorrow anyway, so for the sake of efficiency it was better to do something physical.
“Luca, what should Daddy do today?”
At the question, Luca looked at me, then suddenly went still, staring hard at some fixed point with a look of intense concentration.
……Right. Diaper first, then.
I changed his diaper, played with him, fed him again when mealtime rolled around, helped him digest, and put him down for a nap. By then it was midday.
Beep.
I started a load of laundry, did the dishes, and shoved whatever my hand found in the fridge into my mouth. I chewed and swallowed in a dull haze, and even though my body was still exhausted, sleep had fled completely.
I felt a low-grade stress building up. Had going out and meeting people yesterday really been that much of a strain? Or was this the childcare stress everyone always talked about?
“……”
Looking at the baby sleeping so peacefully, all I felt was love. I could have put him in my eye and it wouldn’t have hurt.
……But every parent felt that way, didn’t they?
Separate from how lovable the baby was, raising one meant your own basic needs got shoved to the back of the line. Eating, sleeping, using the bathroom, washing—everything had to be done in a rush while watching the baby’s face, and those days didn’t end after a day or two. If the baby so much as ran a mild fever, the lurch of dread in your chest could last two days straight.
Luca hadn’t been seriously sick yet, and the doctors always said he was a very healthy child, so the stress I was feeling was probably nothing compared to what parents of fragile kids went through.
……So maybe I should stop whining now?
Bzzzt!
Just as a surge of irritation at myself rose up, my phone—set to vibrate—buzzed hard.
“What now.”
I snatched it up in a foul mood and checked the notification.
Please check your deposit history — SVE Inc.
The company had deposited my final week’s pay.
“……”
I stared for a long time at a company name that already felt unfamiliar. I’d worked there for years. I hadn’t even been gone that long.
Whatever anger had been rising in me cooled and sank. What was this strange feeling of being hit dead-center?
I was a completely different person from the one who’d worked at that company. So what exactly was I complaining about?
“Ah……”
A realization struck me, and I looked around the house, then down at the clothes I was wearing.
Was I stressed precisely because I had changed one hundred and eighty degrees?
It had been six months since I’d met Luca. I’d gone from a life with no stimulation at all to raising a baby, running a real household, moving, quitting my job—and yesterday I’d signed a brand-new contract. Even with the Manito App helping me out financially through its point system and enabling all kinds of work through a master’s level of skill, the past six months had been nothing but change and challenge.
I tried to see everything positively, but there was no guarantee any of it would succeed, and the responsibility for all of it rested entirely on me. Not just mine—Luca’s life, too, was wholly my responsibility.
It was only natural that the inevitable pressure and fear would surge up the moment my body got tired.
Only now did I understand my own state.
I’d been having a hard time.
I’d been living hard, and I was a little worn out.
As much as I welcomed a changing life, I’d also been afraid of it.
“……”
Once I looked at my condition objectively and simply accepted it, strangely enough my heart felt lighter.
I remembered what Maria and Cassandra had said: a child’s life couldn’t become your entire life. If I truly wanted what was best for the baby, I needed to take better care of myself now.
And yes, I’d run hard for Luca—but it wasn’t as if none of my own desires had been mixed into every choice I’d made. I’d wanted more than I’d realized, and I’d come as far as that greed had carried me. A backlash like this was only natural.
Still……
Still, if that was why today felt a little heavy, that was all right.
It was all right.
Every time, I’d worked hard enough not to be ashamed of myself, and even if I could go back, I would make the same choices. From the moment I’d told the child, “Let’s go together,” my life had started breathing again.
Getting tired was a natural part of living. Because it was natural, it would be okay. If I rested when I was worn out today, tomorrow the strength would come back.
“Ahem.”
In that case, today I wouldn’t try to do anything more. I’d just make something delicious and eat it. I’d already chewed and swallowed something a minute ago, but that was beside the point—I needed to make something good. Something that could actually burn off stress……
……And if I was going to do that, maybe something spicy?
Remembering an old friend who always cooked something fiery whenever the stress piled up, I opened the fridge at random.
“Hmm……”
I scanned every shelf. The only spicy thing that jumped out was a bright-red bag of jalapeños.
Then an idea flashed.
Tomorrow I was planning to bring James some sablés. Sablés were a kind of French biscuit, famous for a sand-like, crumbly crispness and a rich butter flavor. They were good plain, but people often mixed in chocolate, vanilla, coconut, and the like……
It was a little insane, but what if I sliced the jalapeños thin and folded them in?
The baby woke up in the middle of cookie-making and chaos ensued, but by the time I sat Luca down for dinner I managed to pull a tray of hot, fragrant sablés safely from the oven.
I cooled them quickly and bit into the one with the heaviest load of jalapeño.
Crunch.
“……Hoo.”
The cookie was so spicy my lips flushed red; I huffed out a hot breath. The intensity shot straight through my whole body until my head swam. I poured a glass of cold milk and gulped it down, and that helped a little.
Watching me thrash around by myself, Luca tilted his head to one side. Adorable.
Adorable or not, it was still so hot I went up on my toes, down again, up again—until I finally washed my face and stuck an ice cube in my mouth.
What even was this unbearable spice of life.
……Still, it wasn’t half bad?
Once I’d settled a little, I fed the baby another spoonful of baby food, then picked up a sablé of a milder color. Surely this one would be better than the last.
I carefully bit off just the corner.
“……Hmm?”
Wait. This one was actually pretty good.
Crunch.
I took a braver, bigger bite, and the real flavor filled my mouth—sweet, spicy, with a faint salty echo lingering behind…… A little like junk food, that aggressive kind of taste. In other words, pretty addictive.
……Really not bad at all?
Crunch.