Oatmeal Instead of Kimchi Stew for Hangover Relief

"Ah, that's a shame. I heard this place was famous — I really wanted to eat here."

As we stepped out of the gukbap restaurant we'd gone out of our way to find, Celesty looked genuinely disappointed.

Hard to blame her. She'd carved out the time to look the place up, and the moment we arrived we couldn't even place an order before having to leave.

I felt pretty awful about it myself. I hated putting people out because of me — and on top of that, we'd lost our shot at gukbap entirely.

As if the weight of gratitude pressing down on me weren't already heavy enough.

Until now, I'd told myself that small kindnesses weren't much of a burden. Converted to money, maybe under ten thousand won.

Looking at the donor list Celesty had shown me when we bought the wheelchair, "many hands make light work" didn't even cover it — more like a hundred hands. So many people had chipped in toward the cost that, averaged out, maybe it really was an amount that wouldn't weigh on anyone.

Of course, some people had donated far more than that. Those folks had the means to give, so I could simply be grateful without the guilt. If a billionaire handed you a million won, you could just say thanks and put it to good use.

But when all those separate hearts added up to enough money to buy a wheelchair and still have some left over — that was a sum that sat heavy on the chest.

Maybe the viewers had known that, too. Maybe that was why they'd gone to Celesty's stream to raise the funds instead of mine. Because I'd said it made me uncomfortable, they'd deliberately framed it as a mission so Celesty would be the one to buy me the wheelchair.

They were good people. Barely thirty of them watched my stream, but more than a hundred had pooled their goodwill.

Which was why the apology came out of me first.

"I'm sorry. It's because I'm in a wheelchair... Should I leave it at home and come back? I can manage on crutches."

"No! That would be way too hard on you. Let's just go somewhere else. I'll tell your friend we're picking a different place, too... Hmm, is there anything good around here? Noel needs something that works as a hangover cure. What should we eat so people say we ate well?"

"It has to make the rounds? Ah — is that just how it is when you stream...?"

"No, I was just talking! How can you be this earnest?"

Thankfully, Celesty didn't seem all that bothered about missing out on the gukbap. If anything, she almost looked a little more cheerful.

Right — women tended to prefer other foods over gukbap. Maybe that was why she was reacting like this. I'd looked up a gukbap place because hangover food meant gukbap, but it hadn't been Celesty's taste at all. She'd only gone along with the gukbap talk while pretending to be a guy.

If that was the case, maybe things had actually worked out. Now we could go somewhere that suited Celesty's preferences.

"Ah, Noeul!" A bright voice rang out. Gabi came toward us, waving. "Hi, I'm Gabi."

"Hello. I'm Hwang Jaemin."

"Oh... Noeul's friend?"

"Ahaha, I'm a streamer."

"A streamer? Like, broadcasting?"

"Yeah. Game streams."

"Ah, League of Champions?"

"That's right."

"Noeul plays that too!"

"Yep. We met in-game."

"Wow. Then you must be crazy good!"

"Mmm... I wouldn't say I'm bad?"

Gabi didn't even play League of Champions, and yet she was cracking open a conversation with Celesty on that exact topic. Was that just how women became friends so fast?

We'd more or less introduced ourselves. Now I wanted to pick a lunch menu.

"So my heart just dropped, you know? Finding out Noeul ended up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like this..."

"Ugh, seriously. I still can't understand how anyone could do that to their own daughter."

At some point the topic had slid over to me, and the two of them were deep in conversation. They were talking right in front of me, but it wasn't like they were badmouthing me, so I couldn't exactly stop them either.

I was fine sitting in the wheelchair — but didn't it tire them out, standing there like that?

The silver lining was that after trading a round of heavy sighs, Gabi's and Celesty's faces brightened again.

"Is there anything you'd like to eat, Gabi? We couldn't go to the gukbap place because they wouldn't take the wheelchair."

"Ah. Then how about tteokbokki?"

"Oh — for tteokbokki... I'd love that, but Noel had drinks yesterday, so she really needs a hangover cure..."

"What? You drank? What were you thinking?!"

"Ah — no... I like tteokbokki too."

I hadn't expected it to snag on my drinking of all things. Still, tteokbokki could work as hangover food, couldn't it? Spicy, a little sweet, and if there was fish-cake broth on the side, it would settle the stomach just fine.

And tteokbokki always brought back memories of Gabi and me splitting a bag from the shop in front of school. I had no reason to turn it down.

The only question was whether it counted as a real meal. My appetite was small enough that it'd be fine for me — but what about the two of them?

That worry only earned me puzzled looks from both of them.

"Tteokbokki is a meal, though...?"

"You can eat it as a snack, sure, but it's not like you only get the rice cakes. There's fried stuff, and sundae too. Perfect for lunch."

"Wow, Gabi knows what's up. Oh — you're the same age as Noel, right? Then you're my age too. Want to be friends?"

"Oh, should we? I feel like we'd get along so well. Ah, then drop the formal speech with Noeul too. We can't leave her out."

"Oh — is that okay, though?"

"Ah... ah..."

With me stuck in the middle while the two of them hit it off first, I was getting lightheaded. So this was how women talked among themselves...?

I could barely keep up.