Chicken and Tteokbokki
There's a saying that even a Gundam figure would taste good if you deep-fried it.
Maybe it's because fat itself packs so many calories, or maybe the body just instinctively registers anything oily as delicious—I couldn't say which. Add the crisp of the batter on top of that, and you've got something hard to beat. Leave it sitting too long, though, and it goes limp and tough until chewing it becomes a chore.
That was why ordering fried chicken alone always felt a little burdensome… but the moment you have people to share it with, that problem vanishes. Just finish the whole thing before it can turn into that sad state, right?
That was part of why I'd called Jaemin and Gabi over. Of course, I also wanted to treat the two people I was usually grateful to, as a little celebration for hitting Grandmaster. Kancho was someone I appreciated too, in his way—but for him, a meal didn't feel like the right kind of thanks. A gift of red ginseng extract might suit him better.
Anyway, the three of us spread the delivered chicken and tteokbokki across the table. Maybe it was because I'd gotten so used to eating in my room in front of the computer, but sitting down at the dining table to eat felt oddly unfamiliar. If we'd been downstairs at the neighbors' place, or out somewhere, that would have been the expected culture—and the space itself would have been strange enough that I wouldn't have noticed the awkwardness. Sitting back down at a familiar table in a familiar home somehow made the feeling even stranger. Still, it was a good kind of strange. I could dress it up as something like a fresh wave of emotion.
"Do you guys drink the pickled radish brine, or should I toss it?"
"I don't."
"Ah, why would you throw away something that precious? I'll drink all of it."
"Ugh. Jaemin, you're seriously going to drink all that sour stuff? Is your stomach going to be okay?"
"Sour things are good for you, you know. Sure, if it's too sharp it'll wreck your tongue, but this isn't that bad."
The two of them, helping me set up, had split cleanly on the issue. It wasn't the kind of disagreement anyone needed to dig in over, though. Some people drink the radish brine; some people don't. So the one who likes it can just finish it off, right? As long as nobody forces it on anyone else.
In the meantime I brought out small plates and cups and set one in front of each of us. Into those cups—where cola ought to have been pouring in a cheerful rush—Jaemin poured the soju he'd brought instead.
"Oh, I was just about to grab the shot glasses."
"Come on, straight soju tastes awful. Wait—anyone here planning to drink it neat?"
"Ooh, is Jaemin making cocktails? I like that better too. Plain alcohol is just bitter and nasty. Mixing in fruit juice tastes way better! Give me a drink, bartender!"
"Right? Gabi gets it. Time to mix some drinks and change some lives!"
I was a little thrown to realize he hadn't just dumped it into the cups because we were short on glasses—he'd poured it that way on purpose to make cocktails. We didn't exactly have cocktail ingredients lying around the house. Didn't cocktails need lemon juice, food coloring, flavorings, that kind of thing?
My doubt didn't last long. Jaemin simply upended the cola that had come with the chicken straight into the soju. My eyes went round watching him; Gabi, on the other hand, looked completely unfazed. Seeing that made me not want to make a fuss either. If that was how cocktails were supposed to be made and I acted shocked, I'd just look like some clueless country bumpkin. Not knowing something was fine if you learned it as you went—but it was still a little embarrassing to realize everyone else already knew.
Once he'd mixed a glass for each of us, Jaemin lifted his with a bright grin.
"Let's start light with a cola-soju. After that I'll whip up all kinds of things with the fruit."
So the fruit he'd brought hadn't been meant for dessert after all. No—dessert or cocktail, looking at the sheer amount of it, there was enough to last several days. A week, even. He couldn't seriously be planning to put all of it into cocktails… right?
Whether or not that faint sense of wrongness registered with me, we clinked our glasses and each took a first sip. The distinctive bitter edge of soju was almost gone; only the sweet taste of cola remained. Calling something a cocktail just because you'd mixed two drinks together might have been a stretch—but enough of the alcohol's scent lingered that it still felt like we were drinking.
"Mm. Cola and soju really is the classic."
"Whoa, you're drinking that much?"
"What, Noel didn't know? It's fine. Your unnies will teach you properly."
We were the same age, and they were calling themselves unnies… but I couldn't exactly argue. In League of Champions, anyone who played well got called hyung, noona, oppa, or unnie anyway. Apparently drinking culture worked the same way.
I'd invited them for a drink, sure, but the real reason I'd called the two of them over had been to treat them to a meal. So I was the first to pick up my chopsticks, and the two of them followed, reaching for the chicken.
Boneless fried chicken so golden it deserved the word. No need to pick meat off bones—just pop a piece straight into your mouth and crunch away. A revolutionary food. Eating it plain still felt like a waste, though, with the tteokbokki sitting right there. Without anyone needing to suggest it, we all dunked our chicken into the tteokbokki sauce.
People say the first bite of anything should be taken plain, so you can taste the food itself. But when there's a delicious sauce right there that makes everything better, why force yourself through a naked first bite?
"Ehehe. You guys really know what's good. Chicken only tastes right dunked in tteokbokki sauce."
"Mm. This place does tteokbokki well. Some spots just make it cloyingly sweet, and some make it unpleasantly spicy for no reason. This one's nicely sweet-and-spicy, and the sauce isn't too sticky."
Gabi and Jaemin were full of praise too. Of course they were. Even for someone with as small an appetite as me, this was a flavor that made me want to keep eating past my limit. The batter stayed crisp, but it also soaked up moisture the second you left it sitting out—and tteokbokki sauce got absorbed just as fast. Season it and it went soggy in no time. Dip it in sauce with just the right viscosity, though, and you got the full flavor of the sauce while the crunch held on. Just like Jaemin said: the sweet heat was good, the crisp was good, and when your teeth pushed deeper you got that distinctive chicken chew—springy and yielding all at once.
"What part even is boneless chicken, that it's this chewy? I figured they just ground up whatever and stuffed it in, but that doesn't seem right."
"Ah—the ground-up scrap bits are nuggets. Boneless chicken usually uses thigh or breast. This one feels like thigh, though?"
"Wow, you can tell just by eating it?"
"Ehehe. Honestly I only know because it says so on the packaging."
"Ah."
While I was off in my own world savoring the harmony of chicken and tteokbokki, the two of them were filming a whole comedy sketch about the food. Come to think of it, we were streaming. I was fine just eating happily, but I still couldn't completely ignore the viewers. I needed to fill some audio if I wanted to help Jaemin's numbers. So a joke I could make right then… yeah. I had one.
"So this is all leg meat?"
"Yeah. That's what this brand claims, anyway."
"This chicken sure has a lot of legs. I've only got the one."
I'd thought it was a pretty solid gag. The reaction was… not great. Both Jaemin and Gabi stopped mid-chew and just stared at me blankly. To break the suffocating silence, I awkwardly finished off the piece of chicken I'd only taken one bite of and said,
"It was just a joke… Was it not funny?"
"I-it was a joke, right? Ahahaha, you seriously scared me."
"What kind of joke is that brutal? Geez, I thought we were about to freefall straight into the abyss."
Technically it was a foot, not a leg. But I'd been taught you don't talk about feet at the dinner table. Anyway—I'd have to be careful labeling body-related wordplay as "just a joke" from now on.
There had been that brief chill in the air, but maybe it was the good food and the drinks. Little by little the meal—the drinking party—with the two of them started getting lively. I'd always been taught to keep my mouth shut while eating, and even breakfast downstairs at the neighbors' was quiet and peaceful. But a noisy table with friends wasn't so bad either. I liked it. The alcohol creeping in made my mood even better. The rice cakes that had come in the tteokbokki, eaten together with the chicken, added a different kind of chew that somehow made everything more harmonious.
Ah. From now on I didn't think I could eat plain tteokbokki anymore. Plain chicken would feel too boring too. I'd have to order both together every time—and enjoying that flavor alone would be hard. Next time I craved chicken, I'd just have to call these two again.
But as the pleasant stretch of time went on, something snagged in a corner of my heart. With a light buzz going, the thought slipped straight out of my mouth.
"Hey, guys. I'm sitting here eating something this good, and it made me think of my mom."
"Missing her home cooking?"
"Mm… that too, a little. But mostly… my mom's in prison. I used to think she never even cared whether Dad hit me or not, but Auntie came by a little while ago and told me something. She said Mom stabbed Dad because if he kept beating me I might die—that she did it to save me…"
"Ah…"
"So I guess that's why she came to mind. Ah, sorry. I said something weird. I killed the mood."
Had I gotten drunk already? I should have known bringing that up would freeze the atmosphere. I just hadn't thought that far. But Gabi and Jaemin were the kind of positive friends who could brighten even a story like this.
"Kill the mood? If anything, it's a relief your mom never hated you either."
"Exactly. If you miss her, why not go visit her once? While we're at it, let's apply right now!"
"R-right now?"
"Stuff like this just keeps getting pushed back day after day if you put it off. If you want to go, I'll come with you!"
The thought that maybe we shouldn't, and the thought that I ought to go see her at least once someday, both moved slowly under the alcohol. While I was still sitting there dazed, we ended up submitting a visitation request for my mother. The date was a week out—apparently that was how long it took to get approval. Coincidentally, that meant I'd be going after my health checkup.
"Perfect. You can show your mom you're healthy."
"True. Wait—does that mean we shouldn't be drinking right now?"
"Nah… a little tonight isn't going to mess with a checkup next week."
I was really going to go see Mom. Something I'd only vaguely thought I should do someday was suddenly in motion, and my head was spinning a little—but if these two hadn't been here, I would have dithered alone for ages again. Maybe it was lucky the drinks had pushed things forward like this.