91. Long and Thick Tteokbokki
91.
A date.
If I had to pick a meal for a date, most people would go with pasta. It's the safe choice.
Pasta doesn't divide people by age or gender, and restaurants that serve it usually have a nice atmosphere.
So if I wanted to play it safe, pasta was the right call.
But Na Yu-na was different.
She'd been eating high-end food her whole life.
All kinds of fancy cuisine from abroad.
Steak, lobster, caviar, foie gras — that sort of thing.
And I was supposed to suggest pasta to Na Yu-na?
If we walked into a restaurant without a reservation, the food wouldn't suit her palate, and the bill would definitely crush me.
That left only one option.
Something Na Yu-na had never tried.
And among those, something women generally like.
Tteokbokki is a dish with wide appeal — loved by all ages and genders — and its spicy-sweet kick wakes up your tongue.
Couldn't ask for a better choice.
That's how Na Yu-na ended up following me into a tteokbokki joint.
"Han Si-jun. This place is actually open for business?"
"Yeah, you saw the sign before we came in. It's open."
Na Yu-na looked bewildered.
She seemed unable to accept that the tiny snack shop in the alley was a real restaurant.
She glanced at me and asked cautiously.
"There's a hotel over there with a good chef. Want to go there instead?"
"Why bother? Let's just eat here."
"..."
She clearly wasn't thrilled.
What's wrong with a little snack shop in an alley?
Na Yu-na had never experienced a place like this, so she seemed a bit resistant.
"If we go all the way over there, we'll run out of time. Right?"
"...Fine."
With a resigned sigh, Na Yu-na sat down on a rickety chair.
I smiled at the sight of her in such an unfamiliar place.
"...Why are you smiling."
"Just because. You look relaxed."
Na Yu-na blinked at that.
There were dark circles under her eyes, but maybe because we'd come somewhere the city noise couldn't reach — she almost looked refreshed.
"...What's that supposed to mean."
Maybe because there were no mirrors, Na Yu-na didn't seem to realize it herself.
I glanced at the menu and spoke to the grandmother running the place.
"Ma'am, we'll have two tteokbokki, plus some fried food and blood sausage."
"Sure thing, wait just a bit."
The grandmother answered coolly.
You could feel the decades of experience just looking at her workspace.
Didn't the reviews say she'd been at it for about thirty years?
I'd looked it up online — a hidden gem of a snack shop tucked away in an alley.
A grandmother in her seventies running a business alone in a backstreet where foot traffic was dead.
It was introduced online as a secret hotspot, but maybe because of the location, it was empty.
"..."
After about five minutes, the grandmother returned carrying tteokbokki and blood sausage. She set them on the table.
"Enjoy, you two. Just holler if you need more."
"Yes, ma'am."
The grandmother went back for the rest of the fried food.
Na Yu-na stared intently at the tteokbokki on the table.
She tilted her head and asked me,
"...What kind of food is this?"
"Tteokbokki and blood sausage. You've never tried them?"
"...No."
She shook her head from side to side.
Na Yu-na had never eaten tteokbokki in her life.
Is she even Korean...?
Any Korean has to have tried tteokbokki at least once.
And she hasn't.
While thinking that, I showed Na Yu-na how it's done.
"You eat tteokbokki like this."
I picked up a rice cake with my chopsticks and dunked it in the red sauce.
So the flavor would soak in properly.
I put the sauce-laden rice cake into my mouth and chewed.
Chewy, chewy.
Judging by the bouncy texture, the shop used rice cakes made from rice flour.
A sticky, chewy texture that clung to your teeth as you bit down.
But despite the happy situation in my mouth, my heart sank a little.
...I can't taste a thing.
Was using my sense of taste as a penalty really worth it?
A moment of slight regret.
"Anyway, that's how you eat it. Got it?"
"..."
No answer from Na Yu-na.
She sat still for a moment, then picked up her chopsticks as if she'd made a decision.
"...I'll try."
It was just picking up a piece of rice cake. Why did she look so serious?
Na Yu-na was unusually determined.
Her chopsticks moved toward the red-stained rice cake.
"...!"
The red rice cake caught between her chopsticks.
She dipped it in plenty of sauce, just like I'd done.
Then she carefully brought it to her lips.
Brushing aside a strand of yellow hair with her hand.
She slid the rice cake into her mouth with great care.
"Mmm..."
...Something's weird.
Why does it look so suggestive?
She's just eating a piece of tteokbokki, but Na Yu-na was giving off this strange suggestive aura.
Is that how you're supposed to eat tteokbokki...?
Just as my common sense was about to be rewritten, the grandmother arrived with the fried food and set it down, saying,
"Goodness, young lady, what's with the vulgar eating? My word..."
"...Excuse me?"
I can't laugh. I must not laugh.
I covered my mouth with my hand, fighting the urge desperately.
The grandmother's remark was brutally spicy.
I felt like I was going to burst out laughing any second.
The grandmother kept talking to Na Yu-na.
"No! You just put it in your mouth! Why are you eating it that way!"
"...Is this not how you eat it?"
"Who eats tteokbokki like that! If it were something else, maybe..."
"...!"
At the grandmother's fiery jab, Na Yu-na's face turned as red as the tteokbokki sauce.
She must have realized how embarrassing her own actions looked.
"It's... it's good..."
She hurriedly changed the subject, saying the tteokbokki was good.
Na Yu-na was normally hard to read, but right now even she seemed mortified.
The grandmother, maybe finding Na Yu-na's reaction amusing, kept prodding her.
"Is the young man your boyfriend?"
"No, he isn't."
"Then you're on the way to becoming a couple?"
"No, that's not it either..."
"Then why did the two of you come here?"
"..."
Na Yu-na couldn't easily answer the grandmother's rapid-fire questions.
Partly because the questions were spicy, and partly because Na Yu-na was never much of a talker to begin with.
After about five minutes of this, Na Yu-na — still chewing her food — started tapping my foot under the table.
I mouthed back at her:
—What?
A simple question.
What, did she need the bathroom?
That wasn't it. Na Yu-na averted her eyes.
Then, chewing slowly, she mouthed back:
—Get me out of here...
Na Yu-na, asking to be saved?
Didn't think I'd hear those words from someone as proud as her.
Maybe because she was raised by her grandmother, Na Yu-na couldn't bring herself to cut off the snack-shop grandmother's endless chatter.
...Should I tease her a little?
I turned my head and ignored Na Yu-na's distress signal.
"...!"
A genuinely flustered Na Yu-na.
She must not have expected this betrayal — her eyes went wide.
Watching her, I thought to myself:
...Well, it's for the best.
It'll ease the grandmother's loneliness, and Na Yu-na can work on her social skills.
Soon enough, Na Yu-na would be forced out of her company.
So I decided not to rescue her from the conversation.
"Ho ho, you're just like my own granddaughter!"
"Y-yes..."
Na Yu-na was more polite to the elderly grandmother than she was to anyone else.
Did the grandmother realize the girl in front of her was the granddaughter of NAVI, the global corporation?
With that thought, I dipped a piece of blood sausage in salt and ate it.
"..."
Still no taste at all.
***
We emptied the plates of tteokbokki, blood sausage, and fried food, then got up from our seats looking satisfied.
Scrape.
Na Yu-na stood and spoke to me.
"...The tteokbokki was decent."
"Yeah? Glad to hear it."
Decent, good.
But had it really only been decent?
There was tteokbokki sauce around Na Yu-na's mouth.
Looks like she'd enjoyed it enough that she didn't even notice it got messy.
I couldn't let her go outside like this — plenty of people might recognize her.
I stopped her before she could leave.
"Hold on, Na Yu-na."
"...!?"
Na Yu-na turned around.
I wiped the sauce off the corner of her lips.
Na Yu-na looked startled and pushed me away, shouting.
"Wh-what do you think you're doing...!"
"What? You had sauce on your face..."
"I... I have hands too..."
"Sorry. I won't do it again."
It had been a move to charm her, but Na Yu-na apparently didn't like that sort of thing.
She seemed a bit ruffled — her cheeks were faintly flushed.
"Ho ho... springtime of youth..."
The snack-shop grandmother watched us with a warm smile.
I walked over to her and said,
"Thank you for the meal, ma'am. I'll pay."
The guy pays — that was the plan, but more than that, I'd simply decided to.
Because Na Yu-na's grasp on money was...
"Han Si-jun. I'll pay. This should cover it, right?"
Na Yu-na tried to hand over a check for a million won to pay for two people at a snack shop.
Her sense of money was seriously warped.
"Oh my, what in the world?"
"Ma'am, no. I'll pay..."
"...?"
Na Yu-na looked at me like I was the weird one.
I put the check back into her wallet and took care of the bill.
Maybe because it was a little snack shop in an alley, it didn't cost much.
After paying, I stepped outside.
Na Yu-na stretched, maybe feeling a bit stiff.
"Aaah..."
Was it because she was a working adult? She looked physically tired.
Maybe I'd offer to give her a massage later.
While I was scheming inwardly, I noticed a group of grim-looking people passing by on the other side of the road.
I've seen them before...
A group that looked familiar.
The black clothes they wore — I'd seen them before.
I dug through my memory and pieced together who they were.
There's only one group that dresses and moves like that around here.
The Back Alley Hounds.
So they're on the move.
I could feel it in my bones — Episode 3 had begun.
"Na Yu-na."
"Hmm?"
"If things get hard, tell me."
"...?"
I said that, then started walking toward our next stop.
So that when the incident erupted, Na Yu-na's heart would be a little lighter.
That was the whole point of today's date.
Enjoying the time that's left.
That was the only assignment she had.