Food She'd Never Eaten, Drinks She'd Never Tried
After a quick run to the market, we headed home, and by the time we got back the sun was already starting to sink.
Apparently we'd spent more time clothes shopping than I'd realized.
"Hup…."
I set the bag of groceries down on the table and stretched my back out long and slow. I rolled my shoulders once for good measure. It wasn't anything serious, but my arms were a little tired.
"Mmm…."
I bent back down and started pulling the ingredients out of the paper bag one by one.
"This, and this, and…. But is this going to be okay…?"
"Where should I put this?"
"Ah, just set it down somewhere around there. We'll put it away together later."
Cecilia nodded at my words and set the bag of clothes she'd been carrying down in front of the wardrobe. I'd originally meant to carry that one myself too, but somewhere along the way she'd decided it looked heavy and snatched it out of my hands.
"Can I watch you cook?"
She gave the hand that had been holding the bag a light squeeze, then let go and came over to my side. I washed my hands at the sink and nodded, a little awkwardly.
"I don't mind, but…."
"Hm?"
"Are you sure you'll be okay?"
And carefully, I asked her again the same question I'd already put to her a few times on the way home.
The food she'd hoped for on the way back had been "whatever Eunhyuk is most used to." More specifically, she'd strongly wanted to try the kind of everyday food people in this country ate all the time. That eagerness to adapt to a different culture struck me as genuinely admirable.
Admirable, yes—but it also made me worry.
Because when you said "everyday food people in this country eat a lot of," well….
"It's going to be a bit spicy."
Spicy, that was the thing.
Factoring in that we'd be drinking as well, today's menu had been decided: pork kimchi-jjjim. I could dial the heat down while I cooked, sure, but that didn't mean I wasn't worried. There was that whole saying about how food Koreans didn't find spicy at all could hit foreigners like a wall of fire. Fried udon, for example.
And Cecilia wasn't just from another country—she was from an entirely different world. There was no telling how she'd react.
"I think… I'll be fine? It depends on how spicy it is, but."
"…Really?"
Still, if she was saying so herself, there wasn't much more I could add. Sensing her presence beside me as she watched, I slowly got started on the cooking.
"It's red."
"It is. Kind of has to be."
Cecilia peered into the big pot of finished kimchi-jjjim, wrinkling her nose with a look of pure curiosity. For side dishes I'd put out steamed egg to cut the heat, danmuji, and plain white rice. I'd prepped everything I had on hand, but whether it would be enough was another question.
"Thank you for the meal."
In that slightly tense atmosphere, Cecilia picked up her chopsticks. With a still somewhat clumsy grip, she lifted a piece of the well-braised pork.
"…Aum."
I could see her cheeks working. After a brief moment of chewing and tasting, she swallowed what was in her mouth. A very short silence, and then she spoke.
"Mm…! It's good."
"…It's not spicy?"
"Not really? It's not that spicy. It's good!"
Not the reaction I'd expected. With a brightened expression, she licked her lips and went on.
"I've had spices themselves a few times before, so. Mmm, this is nice…. It's a flavor that soaks right into you…."
"That much?"
"Yeah. The kick is just right. …Mm~…."
Nodding as if genuinely moved, Cecilia started working her chopsticks in a hurry. A cat eating spicy food. Pretty unexpected. Maybe her tongue was closer to a human's than a cat's?
Come to think of it, that time she'd licked me before, it hadn't felt rough either….
I glanced at her while thinking that, but then—
"Hoo—, hoo—…."
—watching her carefully blow on a piece of meat to cool it down, I changed my mind. A cat was still a cat after all.
"Nyam. …♪"
"You eat like you're really enjoying it."
Cecilia sat there beaming, looking for all the world like the happiest person alive as she savored the food. Just watching her was enough to make me smile. Never mind the spice—it was just ordinary home cooking. Did it really make her that happy?
"Aum. …Mm♪"
"Nyam."
Watching her with quiet fondness, I put a bite in my own mouth. That familiar, homey flavor came through. Spicy-salty, with just the right amount of kick—the kind of taste that made you crave a drink.
"…Almost forgot."
"Ung? Ah, the alcohol?"
I nodded at Cecilia's question. Then I pulled a few bottles out of the grocery bag I'd brought earlier and set them down beside the table.
"Oh, there's a lot."
"Cocktails didn't really seem right for drinking with a meal. Figured we'd just try a little of this and that."
The familiar beer and soju. And on top of those, the wine and vodka I'd picked up as extras. The amounts varied, but all told there were four kinds.
"I know these two, but I don't know those two…."
"We bought them together when we were shopping earlier. You didn't see?"
"Yeah. There were a lot of people there too…."
"Fair enough."
She'd been pretty withdrawn at the mart, same as at the café. No wonder she hadn't noticed.
"They look different somehow…. …Are they expensive?"
"Compared to beer or soju? We got them at the mart, so they're relatively cheap, but."
"Mmm…."
She mumbled in a slightly lower voice, chopsticks still in her mouth. Then I saw her glance sideways. At the end of that glance was the bag of clothes we'd bought earlier.
"What's wrong?"
"Eung, nothing."
She shook her head left and right like it was nothing. Feeling a little puzzled, I went to the kitchen, brought back a few glasses, and sat back down.
"Alright, let's drink. Which one do you want?"
"Then that one. The glass bottle."
"Wine, then. Let's see, the cork…. Ah, it's the twist-off kind."
Wine without a cork. Definitely cheap mart wine. We didn't even have a corkscrew at home, so it was lucky in a way.
With a soft click, I opened the lid. I brought it to my nose and took a sniff.
"…Mmm."
"How is it?"
"Just… wine smell, I guess…."
Honestly, I wasn't much of a wine drinker myself… so smelling it didn't really tell me anything useful. I poured a stream of wine into two glasses. Regular glass tumblers, for the record. Same as with the corkscrew—we didn't have wine glasses at home either. I regretted a little too late that I should've bought some.
"Cheers."
"Yeah."
We lightly clinked our glasses, and a clear ching rang through the room. I held a little in my mouth and tasted it. A bit sour, a bit bitter, with the alcohol coming through. Decent enough, by my reckoning.
"How is it?"
At my question, Cecilia swallowed the wine she'd been holding and answered with a puzzled look.
"Sour… and bitter? Mmm, …hm? Kind of… dry, maybe?"
"Not good?"
"It's not bad. Just a strange taste."
Saying so, she tipped her glass and took another mouthful. On the second sip, the puzzlement on her face gave way to curiosity.
"So this is what wine tastes like."
She murmured it softly to herself.
We went on with the meal, using that subtle liquor as a side dish of sorts. I'd wondered whether wine would go with Eastern food at all, but surprisingly it wasn't bad. We drank more for the alcohol than for the flavor, pouring it down steadily. The proof was low enough for that, after all. Naturally, it didn't take long for the glasses to empty.
"So, what next? Another glass? Or something else?"
"Mmm, something else."
"Okay."
We set the wine aside for now and I picked up the next bottle. Beer and soju were flavors she already knew, so next up was probably the vodka. I grabbed the bottle that was a little smaller than the others and opened the cap. Then I poured a little into each of two clean glasses.
"This one's strong. Take it slow."
"Okay. What's the name of this one?"
"Vodka."
"Vodka…. It's clear."
Cecilia turned the glass this way and that, looking fascinated. Then she carefully took a sip, and—
"……Kuek—?!"
—with a sound like a dying alpaca, she flinched hard and gave a full-body shudder. Her ears twitched; her tail shot straight up. I could see the muscles in her face trembling.
"…You okay?"
I asked carefully, but there was no answer. She just covered her mouth with one hand and held the glass back out to me.
"S-something else, please…."
Definitely not to her taste. I took the glass with a wry smile. Then I took a little sip of the clear liquid in my own glass.
"Mm…. …Ugh."
I barely ever drank vodka either, but. Yeah. I was glad I'd only poured a little. This one was probably going to get sealed away in a corner of the house….
"So which one, cough."
I started to speak and a cough burst out. I wiped the corner of my mouth and continued.
"…Which one should I pour you, Cecilia? Beer, soju? Wine?"
"Wine…."
I nodded at her small answer. I picked up the wine bottle, poured the reddish-brown contents into her glass, and quietly held it out.
"Thank you."
She took the glass and drained it in one long pull. Then she let out a puha—… of breath and set the glass down. Well drunk. I quietly topped her glass off with more wine.
"…Eunhyuk, are you okay with that?"
"For now, yeah. Might as well finish what I poured."
I answered, and even as I flinched a little, I tipped my own glass too. Less a taste than a fierce sensation stroking down my throat. Roughly hot, bitter alcohol. As I got a little more used to it, it seemed to get easier—and also like it didn't….
So this was just what vodka was like.
"Aum…."
"…Mmm."
With a soft tak, we set our glasses down side by side and picked up our chopsticks. There was still plenty of drink and food left, and plenty of time. It was still early for an evening. The night had a long way to go.
We hadn't even opened the soju or the beer yet.
Taking our ease as part of the pleasure, we quietly enjoyed the drinks and the food in that unhurried evening.