A Pretty Name
The girl hesitated for a moment.
Her white eyes turned to Lee Kang. The gaze that had been checking the mark on the back of her hand a moment earlier now lingered on his face for a long time.
"Why... Lee Seol-ah?"
"Because it's pretty."
Lee Kang answered as if it meant nothing.
The girl looked caught off guard by the reply. Her brows twitched almost imperceptibly.
Lee Kang gave a needless cough.
"And it'll be easier later. If you have the same surname, it’s easy to pass yourself off as family, or as someone from a clan or sect. Or I can just tell them your real name."
"Family...."
The girl murmured it under her breath.
As though the word were unfamiliar.
Or as though she had lost it too long ago to remember.
Silence settled for a while. The girl seemed to be thinking about something, but in the end she shook her head.
"I don't know."
It was not a refusal. But it was not quite acceptance, either.
At that moment, translucent letters appeared before Lee Kang’s eyes.
Lee Seol-ah’s affection has increased.
Lee Kang laughed inwardly.
So she doesn't hate it. And if the status window changed too, that settles it.
He said it on purpose, as if it were nothing.
"Then I'll call you Lee Seol-ah from now on."
"I haven't answered yet."
"I don't have all day to sit around thinking about a name. You're Lee Seol-ah from now on."
"...."
Seol-ah made an unhappy face.
Her lips pressed together just a little, and she stared at Lee Kang with those white eyes. But Lee Kang thought that was less real displeasure than a mask.
"I'll make something to eat, so sit down. I don't know what you usually ate, but...."
Lee Kang cut himself off and looked at Seol-ah.
She was far too thin.
It showed even more now that she had been washed. Covered in mud, she had looked like a small, filthy slave, but now she was different. A slender neck, narrow shoulders, thin wrists. Before beauty, what struck him first was the fact that she had not been eating properly.
She must have been half-starved.
If that was the case, feeding her something greasy all at once could make her sick. Lee Kang took a can of tuna from the Gon-Gon Pouch.
Tuna porridge should do.
He had plenty of tuna cans, and there was still a little rice left. If he added enough water and let it simmer, it would go down easily. He didn't know what Seol-ah had been eating before, but right now she looked like she should conserve even the strength it took to chew.
When Lee Kang took out the pot, Seol-ah's eyes followed it.
They were fixed on him.
Truly fixed.
Lee Kang found the stare vaguely oppressive.
It was unquestionably the gaze of an impossible beauty. And yet, rather than feeling flustered, he felt as if a blade were resting against the back of his neck.
I want to get her affection to fifty as soon as possible.
Once affection reached fifty, he could see her inner thoughts. Then he'd know what Seol-ah was thinking, how much he could trust her, and what she was afraid of.
After a brief moment of thought, he walked to the shelf and dug through a stack of old papers and a few notebooks. From among them he pulled out a thin martial arts text and a worn notebook covered in hand marks.
"Here. Take these."
Lee Kang held them out to Seol-ah.
"A Tonaebop martial manual, and my notes on the Yawol Killing Sword formula."
Seol-ah’s eyes widened slightly.
"Martial arts...."
"I'm making food, so read those while you wait. I'm not telling you to learn them right this second. You can read, can't you?"
Seol-ah cautiously reached out.
This time, her eyes were different from when she had looked at the tuna. Not the eyes of someone hungry looking at food, but the eyes of someone who had gone hungry for too long and now stood before something precious.
She took the martial manual and the notebook in both hands.
Lee Seol-ah’s affection has increased.
Lee Kang wasn't surprised.
When affection was low, or close to negative, even small gestures caused large increases. And giving a child from a slave market a martial arts manual meant something very different from simply feeding her.
Seol-ah gently stroked the notebook cover.
"Really... I can look at it?"
"I gave it to you to look at."
"I can learn it?"
"Did you think I gave it to you as decoration?"
"Really?"
"...."
A small smile began to form on Seol-ah's face. It was the first precious smile she had shown.
"Thank you."
Her voice was still small and cautious. But it was sincere. She must not have believed he would truly give it to her.
Lee Kang nodded.
"Read it. I'll call you when the food's ready."
He returned to the corner that was too pathetic to call a kitchen.
He poured water into a small pot and rinsed the remaining rice before putting it in. When he lit the burner, the old stove spat out a blue flame. While the water heated, he opened the tuna can.
Click.
As the metal lid came off, a greasy smell rose up.
Lee Kang flaked the tuna apart and dropped it into the pot. He added a little of the leftover seasoning salt and stirred slowly so it wouldn't stick to the bottom.
Before long, warmth began to spread through the room.
The smell of tuna and rice dissolving into water as they simmered gently.
For the first time, the room that had long carried nothing but the smells of blood, mud, and old dust was filled with the scent of food.
Seol-ah raised her head with the manual still open in her hands. Her white eyes turned toward the pot.
Lee Kang noticed and snorted softly.
"Just wait a little, Lee Seol-ah."
At the sound of the name, Seol-ah's fingertips stopped moving for a moment.
But this time, she didn't correct him.
Lee Kang added a little more water so the porridge wouldn't get too thick. As he slowly scraped the bottom of the pot with a wooden spatula, the broken grains of rice mixed with shreds of tuna.
"That should do it."
He lowered the heat and carried the pot to the table.
On the tabletop sat the Tonaebop manual and the Yawol Killing Sword notebook Seol-ah had opened. Lee Kang carefully nudged them aside.
It would be troublesome if food splashed onto them and soaked the pages.
Once the pot was set on the table, warm steam began to rise.
Seol-ah's eyes followed it.
She quietly peered into the pot as if what lay before her were not ordinary porridge, but some unbelievable treasure.
Tuna and rice, softened and boiled into a gentle porridge.
To Lee Kang, it was little more than a temporary meal made from leftovers. But Seol-ah looked different. Her white eyes wavered through the steam. The way she smelled it, the way she stared at it, was strangely like someone half-drunk.
Then she murmured very softly,
"In times of chaos, even a bowl of porridge is worth a fortune...."
Lee Kang froze.
Seol-ah kept her eyes on the pot and continued,
"A person with nowhere to return to beneath a cold lamp can dream of home just from the warmth of rising steam...."
"...What?"
Lee Kang blinked.
Only then did Seol-ah lift her head in a daze, as if realizing belatedly what she had just said.
"Ah...."
She looked at Lee Kang for a moment, then said very quietly,
"It just feels like a dream. This smell, this warm food, and someone telling me to sit here and eat...."
Seol-ah couldn't finish the sentence.
Lee Kang stared at her for a moment, then coughed awkwardly.
"It's not a dream. So eat carefully. It's hot."
He took out a small side bowl and served the porridge into it. Tuna bits floated on the surface of the steam. He set a spoon on top and slid it in front of Seol-ah, then served his own bowl separately.
More dishes to wash.
That was what Lee Kang thought.
But there was no helping it. He couldn't exactly tell her to eat straight from the pot. Besides, after giving her a name and all, handing over her first meal in the cooking pot would have looked too stingy.
Seol-ah looked down at the bowl. Then she carefully picked up the spoon.
At first she only took a little. She brought the steaming porridge to her lips, hesitated, and then put it in her mouth.
"Be careful. It's hot."
Lee Kang said it because he truly was worried.
Seol-ah only widened her eyes in response.
After swallowing the first spoonful, her hand quickened a little. A second spoonful. A third. Her initial caution vanished almost at once, and before long she was shoveling the porridge into her mouth in earnest.
"Hey, eat slowly. You'll make yourself sick."
Lee Kang worried she might upset her stomach if she went on like that.
Someone who had gone hungry for a long time shouldn't suddenly eat too much. And Seol-ah's body was obviously in poor shape at a glance. Even so, she didn't stop. She winced faintly at the heat, but took up the spoon again.
It was oddly funny.
Just a little while ago, she had been holding a thorn sword and stabbing people with it. A dangerous existence from the Sun Moon Holy Cult, with Transcendence talent and some strange, impossible-to-read tendency labeled as chaotic neutral.
And yet now she couldn't take her eyes off a single bowl of porridge.
Lee Kang found himself smiling before he realized it.
He picked up his own spoon. A mouthful of porridge spread warmth and saltiness over his tongue. The rice was still a little firm, and the seasoning wasn't perfect. The smell of tuna oil was strong, too.
And yet, strangely, it wasn't bad.
No, it was good.
For Lee Kang, too, something soft and easy to eat had been rare for a long time.
Until now, he had eaten only what he could chew without fuss: stale military crackers, rice hardened like stone, grains soaked in water, canned food if he was lucky. The goal had been to fill his stomach, not to enjoy something that was easy to eat.
But now he was eating warm porridge.
The second floor of a shabby private detective office building.
A dead signboard.
Outside, the turmoil of Sadoryeon had not yet fully settled, and an enemy named Mak Daehan had appeared.
Still, warm steam was rising inside the room.
Lee Kang took another spoonful of porridge.
Not bad.
Seol-ah had already nearly emptied her bowl.
Lee Kang looked at the pot, then back at her.
"Want more?"
Seol-ah hesitated. Then she gave a very small nod.
Lee Kang took the bowl back.
"I said eat slowly."
Even as he said it, he filled her bowl with another serving of porridge.
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