On the Road to Sokcho
Not long after, two neatly dressed middle-aged men in suits showed up at our door.
They were our precious ride all the way to Sokcho — civil servants under the Minister who already knew we were Magical Girls.
"You're the Kim Mari and Lee Siyeon heading to Sokcho, right?"
The two of them tilted their heads as they asked, clearly a little unsure.
Hard to blame them. No matter how you looked at it, we were a pair of single-digit elementary schoolers with school bags strapped on — the picture of kids heading out to play, not two Magical Girls shipping off to fill a temporary vacancy.
"Yes!"
"Yes, that's us. You're the ones the Minister sent, right?"
Siyeon bolted straight out to the front door the second she heard the word Sokcho, answering with a crisp, confident reply that wiped the confusion off their faces. Once she calmly named the person who'd sent them, the two men looked convinced and broke into easy smiles.
"Alright then. We're parked outside — let's go."
"Ah, just a second…."
I asked them to wait and ducked back inside for one last check that nothing had been left behind.
Breaker switched off: check.
Doors not left open: check.
Toiletries and Siyeon's homework packed: check.
And finally — Mascot not left behind: check.
Only when every last thing was confirmed did I step out of the house and shut the front door behind me.
"Okay, ready."
Waiting for us outside was a white sedan with the engine already running under the blazing sun.
The two adults naturally took the driver's and passenger seats, and we shoved our small bodies into the back.
It had been a very long time since I'd ridden in anything that wasn't public transportation. Usually it was the bus, a taxi, or the occasional subway. Magical Girls tended to stay locked inside a single region, so that was the norm. Ships and planes were pure fantasy.
Maybe that was why Siyeon's legs were fluttering with excitement today, her whole mood lifted.
We left the apartment complex behind, and streets I'd never seen before slid past the window. I propped my elbows on the little ledge under the rear door handle and rested my chin in my hands.
The bottom of the window still sat a little high for my line of sight. Once we hit the highway, the scenery started to look the same no matter how far we went.
"Do you two like being Magical Girls?"
Out of nowhere, a question drifted our way — the driver must have gotten bored just holding the wheel. It was a simple, clear question pitched at a child's level.
"Yeah!"
Siyeon was still pure enough that she answered without a second of hesitation. The diagonal seatbelt was riding all the way up against her neck.
Unlike her, I crossed my arms and actually thought it over.
Do I like being a Magical Girl?
On the plus side, getting to contribute to society as an elementary schooler was a real advantage. On the minus side, living with five-minute-response-team tension every single day starting from elementary school was absolutely a drawback.
The conclusion, like most things in life, was that it was neither particularly good nor particularly bad.
"Hmm… it's okay, I guess."
"Whoa. Never expected to hear 'it's okay, I guess' come out of a little kid's mouth."
"Doesn't this feel exactly like talking to the new hire in our department?"
"You're right — kind of similar, actually."
I'd only said what I honestly felt, and now the two of them were trading impressions of me like I wasn't even there. Should I have gone full Siyeon and said something like I love it so so much I could die? The second I used even slightly sophisticated language, it created that weird atmosphere of a kid who didn't quite match her age.
The two uncles in the front seats had already shrugged it off, though, and launched into conversation like they were the only ones in the car.
"What was there to eat in Sokcho again?"
The talk started with Sokcho food. Two middle-aged-looking guys — of course, wherever they went, eating came first.
"Hmm… well, it's the coast, so seafood? Mulhoe, for one. Squid sundae, too."
"I've never actually tried squid sundae."
The uncle in the driver's seat kept his eyes on the road ahead as he chatted at an easy pace, looking so comfortable and familiar it was almost impressive. That kind of relaxed driving conversation is harder than it looks.
"Nothing special about it. Just sundae, except the casing is squid, and they stuff it with a bunch of things and pan-fry it like a meat patty."
"Oh right — isn't dakgangjeong famous there too?"
"Ah, dakgangjeong? I never really got the hype. You deep-fry chicken and toss it in sauce — if that doesn't taste good, that takes talent."
"I heard the pine mushrooms are famous, too."
"What kind of taste are you even getting out of just mushrooms? Meat's the main event."
With the two of them up front talking about nothing but food, my own stomach started growling in sympathy. Apparently the two in the front seats weren't immune either.
As if on cue, a rest stop sign came into view through the windshield — and the conversation veered in a new direction.
"I'm getting a little hungry. Let's hit a rest stop."
"Sounds good. What are you getting?"
"Walnut pastries?"
The wheel turned smoothly, peeling the car off the highway and into a rest stop parking lot laid out in neat rectangular rows.
A rest stop — the one place you absolutely have to stop when traveling between regions.
The moment the car rolled into a parking space, I unbuckled my seatbelt and got ready to step out into the steamy sunlight. First, though, I had to wake Siyeon, who had somehow fallen asleep.
"Siyeon. Siyeon."
"Mmh…?"
I gave her tiny shoulders a gentle shake, and her eyelids fluttered as she squirmed.
"We're at a rest stop. Let's go to the bathroom."
"Mmmmh…."
Just like when I woke her up in the morning, she twisted her whole body away with a reluctant little groan. Even when I asked if she needed the bathroom, she shook her head no and refused to open her eyes.
No choice. I dragged myself out into the blazing sun with the two uncles.
Being short didn't help — the sun beat down from above, and heat soaked up by the asphalt came flooding up from below, wrapping my whole body in an instant. It was the kind of midday heat that felt like pouring hot air straight into your lungs, a heat that stopped your breath short.
I hurried after the uncles with my short strides, pushing myself toward the shade of the shops as fast as I could.
"This weather is insane…."
"High of thirty-four degrees, apparently."
Rest stop food is surprisingly hard to find anywhere else. Fried chicken skewer stalls have all but disappeared, and delimanjoo only shows up at a handful of subway stations. Baby potatoes are almost never sold outside rest stops, and while you used to see walnut and peanut pastries around in the winter, these days only a few famous shops still carry them.
So I stocked up on those rest-stop-only foods until even this small stomach of mine was satisfied.
Sauce-drenched chicken skewers were a disaster waiting to happen if they spilled in the car, so I regretfully passed those over. Peanut pastries, walnut pastries, and an armful of breads like delimanjoo came back with me instead. I returned to the car and shook Siyeon awake — she was bound to be getting hungry by now.
"Siyeon? Let's have some walnut pastries and peanut pastries. There's delimanjoo too."
"Uuunh…."
The girl who wouldn't get up for a bathroom trip sat up and rubbed her eyes the second she heard pastries and delimanjoo. I should have just held the snacks hostage and dragged her to the bathroom.
"Make sure your seatbelt's on properly."
A few warm words to keep the seatbelts fastened, the rumble of the engine, and the sedan pulled out of the rest stop.
Inside the car, Siyeon started working her little mouth like a squirrel, going after walnut pastries, peanut pastries, and delimanjoo without discrimination. Hard to believe this was the same kid who'd been sound asleep just moments ago.
Well then….
Watching her eat with such pure delight, I reached into a bag and pulled one out for myself.
In that brief moment of reaching in, moisture clung to my fingers — clear proof they'd been made fresh.
Delimanjoo, for the first time in years. Past the soft, fluffy, springy bread, thick yellowish cream oozed out.
Smell: a hundred points. Taste: sixty.
That faint disappointment was just part of the delimanjoo experience, so there was nothing to be done about it — but every single time I ate one, I still found myself wishing the cream were a little sweeter.
A demonic food that makes you buy it the second you catch the smell, even when you know exactly how it tastes.
By the time the navigation on the front dash showed about forty minutes remaining, the walnut pastries, peanut pastries, and delimanjoo bag were all empty. Siyeon, who still hadn't gone to the bathroom, was chugging water, and all I could do was worry.
We'd barely left the highway for regular roads when the thing I'd been dreading finally happened.
"I need to pee…."
"Huh?"
"Hey, hey, hey — just hold it a little longer."
The panicked noises came from the two civil servants in the front seats. Their voices, sounding even more urgent than Siyeon's, filled the car.
"This is a government vehicle, you know! This is bad!"
"Ah, crap — is there a bathroom nearby…? Or at least a convenience store…."
"Ah! Over there, over there!"
Thankfully, we were near a busy stretch of coastline, and public restrooms dotted the area. Before the car had even finished parking, one of the men unlocked the doors, hopped out of the passenger seat, opened Siyeon's rear door, and even kindly unbuckled her seatbelt.
Siyeon twisted around in a rush and headed outside, guided by the man toward the women's restroom.
I told you to go when we were at the rest stop….