Say Ahh
"Ahh, this is what's known as a kiosk."
Kiosk. A word I'd never so much as heard of.
Well, the idea that you didn't have to walk up to the counter and place your order with a part-timer wasn't entirely foreign. It was a little hazy, but places like internet cafés used to have something like that, didn't they? You just ordered food from your own seat. And they'd gone and made it so you could use the same thing in a café. Not a bad idea, honestly. When had that even become a thing?
At this point, the world was starting to feel completely new to me—one where only the language happened to be familiar.
I mean, come on. Right up until they'd hauled us in here, there hadn't been a single strangely shaped person in sight. And the moment we stepped out of the building, these bizarre creatures were just wandering around? Honestly, I was starting to wonder if these people were playing some kind of prank on Helena and me. Like, people came over from another world, so let's mess with them a little. The way you'd put on a show of your country's finest culture when some important foreign dignitary came to visit. Soldiers being the easiest to round up, so they'd throw a military parade, or stage a traditional performance, that sort of thing.
But we weren't important people. If we'd been the first ones to ever cross over from another world, I could understand them rolling out this kind of welcome. I'd caught a glimpse of them interrogating us and filling out our profiles, though. Our numbers weren't even in the double digits—they'd already climbed past the ten-thousand mark. At that volume, people like us coming over to this world were common, weren't they? Just ordinary tourists who happened to drop by. No—we'd crossed over for good, so that made us refugees. Or, to put it more nicely, Naturalized Immigrants.
Which meant we were just run-of-the-mill foreigners. No—aliens, basically. There was no reason to put on a performance for people like that.
So I made my peace with reality in short order and, following the instructions of the agent who'd been turned into a beautiful girl, decided to try placing an order through the kiosk. The best way to experience a culture was to do it yourself, after all. And if we were going to live here from now on, this was something we'd have to get used to.
"Hello? Could you show me the menu?"
The instant I asked the kiosk that, I realized I'd made a mistake. I could hear our pretty agent, and everyone else in the café, letting out little snorts of laughter. Well. They probably weren't laughing just to mock me. It wasn't outright guffawing—more like they were holding it in. Still, that meant it had been that ridiculous.
It wasn't a situation I could even get angry about, so I just pouted and glared at our pretty agent. Only then did she start explaining.
"I'm sorry. This world isn't advanced enough for voice recognition. If you touch the menu with your finger like this, you can choose the size and quantity. You probably can't read the text yet, so I'll help you for now. This section is noodle mains, this is desserts, and this is drinks."
Ah. Right. It was a touch screen.
It wasn't as if I didn't know you could operate a screen by touching it. Right up until I died, phones had been the kind you operated by tapping the display. Who knew what they were like these days, though. Maybe they projected holograms into midair and you manipulated those? Or implanted something in your body, like in sci-fi novels, so only you could see it? I'd ask about that later. For now, I needed to pick a menu.
They'd designed it so even people who couldn't read could figure it out at a glance. Next to photos of the dishes, icons of the main ingredients were lined up. Spicy pork stir-fry: a pig, chili peppers, onion, green onion. Something that looked like a noodle dish with a milky broth: a cow, wheat flour, and… bones? Probably made by boiling beef bones. Besides those, there were eggs, soup, bread—things that looked good for lunch.
Before we'd come in, they'd called it a café, and everyone here was eating nothing but coffee and desserts, so I'd figured they'd just order us cake and coffee. Apparently they intended to treat us to a proper meal. Good. I liked that. Koreans got their strength from a real meal, after all. She seemed to be taking care of her own lunch in the bargain, but I could look kindly on that much. If your workplace gave you a meal allowance, it'd be stupid not to use it.
So I let that slide, and casually rested my head against Helena's shoulder, looking up at her profile from an angle.
"My hands are tied, so it'd be nice if you pressed it for me, Helena."
Leaning on her like this, I realized Helena was taller than I'd thought. I hadn't considered my own body all that short, but she'd grown this well even through that barren life. I was so, so proud of her.
"…All right. Yeonmin, what would you like to eat?"
Helena answered after a brief fluster, as if she'd never imagined I'd lean on her. Her body had grown that large, but maybe she hadn't grown quite as much on the inside?
…Well, that would make sense. At an age when she should have been growing up wrapped in her parents' love, she'd been running around shooting people with her life on the line. How barren must her sensibilities have become. What I'd meant as a playful gesture might have felt like a threat to Helena. The humans here had tied me up because they didn't know what I might do. Helena was the same. No matter that I'd saved her—she might still think I could change my mind at any moment and hurt her.
This might be something like the relationship between a hamster and a human. The human who gave you tasty food and a home was probably a being to be grateful for—but one wrong move and you'd get snatched up with a squeeeak, and if they stepped on you without even noticing, you might just die.
That made me feel a little sorry, so I lifted my head off Helena's shoulder and spoke.
"What I'd… like to eat is that red meat. It looks spicy, and like it might be fun, don't you think? Why don't we each order something different and share? Aren't you curious what food from another world tastes like?"
"Hmm… All right. Then I'll order something that isn't too intense. The white noodle dish."
She wouldn't have understood "spicy pork stir-fry." She couldn't even read, and she had no idea what kind of dish it was. So I described the food, and our clever Helena caught on right away. She'd even picked her own dish without hesitation. Was she trying to neutralize it because the spicy pork looked hot? Hehe. So Helena was afraid of spicy food. But once she tasted how good spicy pork stir-fry was, she'd change her mind!
The flavor was a little hazy in my memory, but I at least remembered that spicy pork stir-fry was a hard menu to get wrong. Even in the blandest cafeteria food, everyone always ate the spicy pork with gusto.
"Very well. I'll order a pork cutlet, so please try some of mine as well. We'll go with that for the food, and for drinks I'll get one cola and one milk. Milk exists in most worlds, so it won't be anything new, but… cola is a unique beverage that only exists in ours. I'd recommend trying it at least once."
"Hehe. I'll look forward to it. Ah, come to think of it, what is your name? I heard the junior agent's name, but I never heard yours."
"You may call me Agent Park."
Meanwhile, Agent Park pulled out a card and slotted it into the kiosk to pay. The fact that she wouldn't give us her full name suggested she was drawing a line. Kindness aside, we were people she'd met for work. A little disappointing. Well, maybe she still thought of me as a dangerous individual. Once we got closer, we might end up on big-sister, little-sister terms. Ah, of course I'd be the older sister. How long could she possibly have lived, anyway?
…Should I have her call me grandma? That felt a bit much.
The card Agent Park had inserted was spat back out of the kiosk along with a receipt. I'd expected a number ticket to come with the receipt, but apparently not. So we weren't supposed to take a number and pick up our food from the kitchen?
I found out that wasn't the case the moment the three of us sat down at a table. The instant we took our seats, a maid who'd followed right behind us laid out the table. As if she'd been watching us place the order, each of our dishes appeared in front of us.
"Wow… In this world, the food comes out the moment you order. You don't even need time to cook? Or does the kitchen use some kind of time acceleration?"
"Ahaha. It's not like that everywhere—just here. The menu comes out without any waiting, so it's convenient for busy people grabbing lunch."
"Ahh, I see."
And here I'd thought the world had advanced so far you didn't even need to cook anymore. Like meals stored in capsules that became food through some method or other. Or everything pre-cooked and preserved, then restored to a finished state the moment an order came in. I'd thought that kind of thing had been commercialized. Apparently they still had a ways to go before catching up to those sci-fi movies.
Hmph. At this level, we'd adapt in no time.
That aside. The food was out, so it was time to taste and consume it with a reverent heart. I wasn't entirely sure whether this newly acquired body of mine would be all right eating food, but if something went wrong, I could deal with it then, couldn't I? Sitting in front of food and just sucking your fingers would be terribly sad. Ah—I was tied up, so I couldn't even suck my fingers.
So I simply closed my eyes, turned toward Helena, and opened my mouth.
"Ahh—."
"…Ah."
Agent Park and Helena both held still for a moment. Then, with a delayed sound of realization, Helena rattled the utensils. And then a warm heat approaching my mouth. The spicy fragrance reaching my nose told me Helena had understood my meaning perfectly.
Ohhh, this smell. Breathing it in, I remembered how desperately I'd missed this. After I'd crossed over to that other world and started to settle in, I'd longed so badly for kimchi stew, soybean-paste stew, spicy pork stir-fry—all of it. And I couldn't eat a thing, because I didn't have a body. And now, at last, that wish was being granted. Ah—had I granted my own wish? Maybe that was why I'd ended up coming back here. Well, it had worked out, anyway.
Thanks to Helena's help, I was able to get spicy pork stir-fry into my mouth without using my hands. The warmth of freshly cooked meat, the savory-sweet seasoning. And then, filling my mouth right after—a searing flame…?
"Hah, ha, ahhh, haaah…?"
It was definitely the taste I remembered. And yet my tongue, my body, couldn't endure it. The pain flooding my mouth, this agony. This was… that sensation I'd forgotten! The feeling of spicy!
"Ye-Yeonmin?"
"Miss Yeonmin, are you all right? Don't tell me it's an allergy…?"
"Haa, haa, haaagh, i-it's spiiicyyyy…!"
I couldn't spit out the meat I'd already put in my mouth, so I chewed it roughly and swallowed. Even then the heat clinging to my tongue wouldn't fade, so I panted and stuck my tongue out. It hadn't even been this bad eating extra-hot chilies. To think living in another world had turned me into this much of a spice wimp!
"…Ah, if it's the heat, please, the milk."
"Yeonmin, you can't die. Please…!"
Agent Park hurriedly grabbed the pure-white drink, and Helena snatched the glass from her and held it out to me. Like feeding water to a child, she wrapped one arm around my head and tipped the glass to my lips. I held back the burn as best I could and gulped down the milk Helena was feeding me. The misery of the spice didn't fade that easily, but thanks to how cool Helena's milk was, I felt a little better.
Ah. I mean cow's milk.
And spicy compounds rinse off better with fat than with water, besides.
"I-if it's too difficult, would you like to switch menus with me? Spicy pork stir-fry isn't spicy at all to us, but… I forgot it can be overwhelming for people who don't handle heat well."
"Just how spicy is it…?"
Seeing me suffer like that, Agent Park nudged her own bowl forward, and Helena picked up a piece of the spicy pork and put it in her own mouth. Helena wouldn't have any immunity to spice either—I needed to stop her…! But I'd only just gotten my wits back, and I couldn't even work my numb tongue properly. I had no choice but to watch Helena suffer, tears in my eyes.
…Or so I thought.
"Mm… It's good. A little spicy, but not enough to be in that much pain over."
"…"
Helena ate the spicy pork just fine. It should have been spicy for Helena too! This world's spicy pork stir-fry should have been especially hot! Did this mean I'd ended up with a body that was extremely weak to spice? Why was this happening to me…