Soft Tofu Stew
When Na-bi stepped out of the room, she was covered from head to toe.
Top to bottom—every inch of her.
Unlike the clothes she'd worn yesterday, not a single scar showed through. She was probably hiding them with everything she had.
She didn't have to. Was it because of other people's eyes? Or because of me?
"Alright, let's go. I want that soft tofu stew you promised me. …You said you'd cook for me, remember?"
"You… remember that?"
"Yeah. I remember that."
Why only that, Na-bi? You used to remember so much more.
Did she only remember things if I told her about them? Or was she just pretending not to remember?
"Mm… but it might not taste good. You're prepared for that, right? No throwing it out and saying it's bad, okay?"
But I couldn't ask her about any of it.
If I did, I was afraid I'd see that episode all over again.
So I just quietly made the soft tofu stew.
I chopped the green onions.
"You don't mind spicy food, do you, Na-bi?"
"Mm. Spicy is just pain receptors, so I don't really mind. Actually, the only food I can't handle is anything that has to do with pain."
"What do you mean?"
I put the water on to boil.
"I can't taste anything."
I nearly dropped the knife.
"…Right. So when you said it was good earlier—"
"You bought it for me. I couldn't exactly say it was bad."
"But when you ate that triangle kimbap, you said it was greasy…"
"Tuna mayo isn't even that greasy. Saying something's greasy is weird to begin with, isn't it? Right?"
It wasn't weird at all.
People have their own tastes.
So I figured she must have been lying. But why? There was no reason for her to.
I kept thinking as I added the seasoning, measuring it out by feel.
"Why… did you lie? No—I'm not saying the lie itself is the problem. You just didn't have to."
"I couldn't tell you something you bought me tasted bad. Saying I can't taste anything so I could eat garbage and call it delicious would be rude, wouldn't it?"
If she knew that, she shouldn't have done it.
The whole reason I cooked for her was because I wanted her to taste it.
It wasn't that my effort felt wasted.
If she couldn't taste anything, then handing her a bowl of hot, spicy stew was no different from just giving her heat and pain.
I thought about switching the dish even now—but when I glanced back, just in case, a shadow had fallen across her face.
It was the same feeling I'd gotten once, photographing a discarded doll.
Something that had lost what it was always seemed to be waiting for someone to hold it again. That was how it felt every time I took those pictures.
A doll that had lost its owner—that was the phrase that described her now.
But she wasn't a doll. She was a person.
Please don't make that face.
Don't let go of yourself.
Na-bi—you aren't someone who should look like that.
Nobody should. But especially not you.
"Then… how spicy do you want it?"
I still couldn't say any of it out loud.
If I did, I was afraid she'd just walk away somewhere and never come back.
I couldn't untangle the tightness in my chest.
So I was making this stew somehow, trying to work it out—but I didn't really believe cooking would fix anything.
Which meant I had to think about what came after.
I had to keep her from going down some other path. That was all I could do.
I didn't know why I'd taken on this kind of responsibility.
Right now, the only thought that came was that I had to. Nothing else.
No—I didn't even feel the need to find a reason for it.
I just didn't want to lose her.
Someone might ask why. Someone might ask whether I even owed her that kind of duty.
It wasn't simply because of what I'd done that night.
The guilt was still there—but I wasn't boiling soft tofu stew because of that guilt.
So if someone asked me why, the only answer I had was that I didn't know.
Honestly, I didn't understand myself either.
But something in my chest kept shouting that this was right.
The thought that if I left her alone like this, something terrible might happen—that one thought felt so true that every word, every movement, became careful.
I didn't touch the wounds that didn't need touching. I didn't poke at things that didn't need poking.
What good could come from brushing a butterfly's wings with your fingertips?
And so—
"Just mild. Not too spicy."
"Got it."
I poured that much care into the cooking, too.
I understood what I had to do.
So I did the best I could.
When you take a photograph, the important thing isn't locking the subject in place, and it isn't stopping them from moving however they move. It all comes down to how well you shoot.
In the end, everything depends on you.
"It should be ready in a little bit."
So, the way you do with a camera, I had to keep finding the composition I wanted, moment by moment.
I had to keep thinking about what scene would come next.
I couldn't help thinking human relationships worked the same way.
The Na-bi I used to know and the Na-bi standing here now were too different.
If I faced her with the truth, I was afraid of how she'd treat me—of how she'd look at me—and so I couldn't bring any of it up.
Wondering what to say, we just looked at each other.
Call me a coward if you want.
Right now, that was all I was capable of.
"Hey."
"Huh? Yeah."
"Why aren't you saying anything? Do you not want me here?"
"No, it's not that…"
What was I supposed to say?
Nothing that fit this situation came to mind.
I was so afraid of that silence that the only words I managed to dig up were these:
"Um, Na-bi. When we first ran into each other—you'd come all the way to the university. Why? The convenience store was pretty far from here."
Why that, of all things?
No matter how I turned it over, it didn't feel like the right thing to ask.
Why had that come out first?
I already regretted opening my mouth—but she answered me.
"I… wanted to try going to university again. People can say whatever they want. I still wanted to come. Hankuk University… after the incident, I couldn't go back. But I got the tuition refunded, came back here, bought a place, managed to live on my own somehow. Even so—I still want to go. To university. One more time."
"But we're in different years. It'd be hard for us to even run into each other."
"You're already thinking about meeting up? Hoping we'll get rumored as a campus couple? I didn't know you thought about things like that. You're dirtier than I expected, Kang-to."
"Agh—no! I wasn't thinking that far!"
Still—she laughed for me.
That was enough. I was grateful.
I hadn't dug any deeper. So the next topic…
"If you did come back, what major would you want?"
"I haven't thought about it. I figured I couldn't go anyway. I poured everything I'd saved for Hankuk into the apartment. What else was I supposed to do?"
"There's the national scholarship, you know. You could use that and go back…"
"Ah—I forgot about that. The national scholarship. Can I even still apply?"
"It's still March, so you should be able to."
Ordinary conversation.
I never would have guessed that something this ordinary could feel this good.
Talking with her like this—just normally—loosened something in my chest.
But I couldn't let go completely.
One wrong word, and she could walk out at any moment.
"Then… would it be okay if I showed you around campus sometime? It's a local school, but the facilities are decent."
"Y-you sure?"
"Yeah. It's not like it's a bad thing. So come take a look if you want. Or—do you remember Na-yeon?"
"Yeah. How's she doing? Is she well?"
"She's doing fine."
More than fine—she was the reason I'd ended up meeting Na-bi again.
If it hadn't been for her, I'd still be hesitating.
Of course I couldn't say that to Na-bi either.
Still—someday, I hoped I'd be able to give her a real answer.
"Ah—the stew's done. Just a second."
"I can't handle things that are too hot, so let it cool first!"
The Youth Literature Club.
That was the name of the club Kang-to and the others had been in back in high school.
I never would have guessed it was still running.
But if the Youth Literature Club was still going—did that mean there was room for me, too?
Could I go to university the way Kang-to did?
If I could—what would I want to do first?
The thought came to me out of nowhere.
I was twenty-four. By now, I should have already graduated.
If I got to go to school one more time, the thing I'd want most was still—
"I called you dirty earlier, didn't I."
Honestly, the dirty one was—
"I think I'm the dirtiest one here."
"Out of nowhere?"
"Yeah. Out of nowhere. If I came in as a freshman and you were my upperclassman… the first thing I'd want is for you to hold my hand. Walk me around like that so people would stare and go, are those two dating? and call us an eyesore—and then, what was it—anyway. Getting posted online. That's my dream."
A dream like that.
Was I not allowed to have it?
It wasn't like that, was it?
I wanted to dream it.
"And then I'd want us to do all kinds of things and accidentally tank our grades—of course we shouldn't, but still."
I wanted to do everything with you.
Even if someone said I was just romanticizing university life, I still wanted to try all of it with you.
"I want to be in that kind of relationship with you—the kind where we mess up together. I want to exist as a person again."
So I smiled.
I didn't know how you'd take it.
I didn't know how I looked at myself.
But I—Ho Na-bi—was smiling like that.
I wanted a relationship that started slow, full of little mistakes, and then sped up into something real.
I wanted to be the couple people pointed at on campus and said, those two are dating.
I wanted to hear someone in the club yell at us to stop being so sickeningly sweet.
That was what I wanted.
"Am I not allowed to dream about that?"
Kang-to—I don't know what you think.
That's why you're just setting the stew down right now without a word.
But I want to be happy with you.
I want us to be a foolish couple.
Is that really not allowed?
For the two of us?