Urges and Appetites
After chopping up all the peppers to stir-fry them later, we decided to wash up, rest, and eat, since we had just finished our grueling morning training. Hyeong-uk was chained to the iron frame of my bed. Jihye took a bottle of mineral water and went into the bathroom in Minji's room to wash up first, while Jeong-ah washed up first in my room. The rest of us—myself, Minji, Ye-jeong, Ji-hun, and Ju-ho—stayed behind to clean up.
As we were cleaning, I noticed Ju-ho was missing. I wondered if the bastard was slacking off somewhere—he certainly wasn't in any position to be doing that yet—when suddenly, a scream echoed from my room.
“Kyaaaah!”
“What the hell? What's going on?”
Startled by the woman's scream, I headed toward my unit, but Ji-hun was already sprinting ahead of me. When I arrived, Ju-ho was holding a pair of chick-yellow panties stained with a white fluid. In front of him, Jeong-ah was crouching on the floor, sobbing.
“Honey, are you okay? You son of a bitch, what the fuck do you think you're doing?!”
Ji-hun, instantly realizing what had happened, grabbed the handcuffed Ju-ho by the collar. Since she was wearing pink princess-style panties this morning, those yellow ones must have been left out for the laundry.
“Ju-ho, what the hell is this pathetic display?”
Ju-ho bristled at my scolding and opened his mouth to argue, but Minji, her face pale, quickly whispered something in his ear. Ju-ho calmed down slightly and apologized to Jeong-ah and Ji-hun.
“I'm sorry. My youthful urges got the better of me, and I did something unforgivable. I am truly sorry to Jihye's mother and father.”
Tsk, tsk. Look at Ji-hun, unable to even protect his own woman, letting another man eye-rape her. If it were me, I would have gouged his eyes out. Or castrated him.
“Ju-ho, keep it in your pants for now. Once I find a decent woman later, I'll let you have your way with her.”
Ju-ho looked ready to flare up again at my words, but with Minji holding him back, he quickly suppressed his anger.
“I apologize. I've shown you a pathetic side of myself. Thank you for the offer, but I'm really fine.”
Fine, my ass. He's so horny he can't control his urges, disrupting the harmony of the group. If I'm not going to castrate him, I'll have to find some ugly fucktoy for him somewhere. If he were useless, I'd just kill him, but the bastard is still too valuable. Besides, if I kill him, Minji and Ye-jeong will just cry about it.
“Mom, are you okay?”
Jihye, who had just finished her shower, comforted Jeong-ah while glaring at Ju-ho as if she wanted to murder him. Once I explained that he had apologized and we settled it, Jihye seemed to decide against beating him to a pulp.
It was a waste of drinking water, but I couldn't let Jeong-ah sleep in a room reeking of male sweat, so I even handed over the bottled water meant for Hyeong-uk's shower. Once everyone was clean, I called Minji and Jihye over, deciding to let Jeong-ah rest for the day.
“You two are making lunch today. No instant ramen.”
The two of them looked utterly lost at my command. They immediately scurried over to Ye-jeong and whispered to her. Ye-jeong frowned slightly when she looked at Jihye, but when she saw her petite daughter Minji snuggling into her arms, she smiled warmly and gave them some instructions. Was she sharing some secret mother-in-law recipe?
Beep, beep, beep, beep—click.
While the women were preparing lunch, the front door to Minji's apartment opened, and Ju-ho walked in.
When did Minji give Ju-ho her passcode? Well, he is her older brother, so I guess it's normal.
As an only child, I wouldn't know, but I suppose that's the default setting for siblings. But why was he here?
“Do you mind if I help with lunch? I lived on my own for a year, so I know how to whip up some basic dishes. Before we moved into the camper van, I used to cook for Minji and me when our parents were out working.”
So that's why Minji turned out to be such a useless, incompetent bitch in the kitchen! This coddling bastard was the culprit! Anyway, after that little incident earlier, he probably found the atmosphere in the room with Jeong-ah and Ji-hun too suffocating. Unlike Hyeong-uk, I didn't keep as close an eye on Ju-ho, so after Hyeong-uk finished his shower, I must have forgotten to lock Ju-ho back up before leaving. Well, it's not like I stole Ju-ho's wife or girlfriend. And his mother and sister were never his to begin with, right? A mother belongs to the father, and a sister is just someone who'll eventually get married and leave anyway.
Ju-ho walked over to the refrigerator and opened it. He spotted the kimchi container and popped the lid.
“The power's been out for over ten days, so the kimchi has gone completely sour. Well, every bachelor has a trick for this.”
I lived alone too, Ju-ho. I know.
“Since the kimchi is sour, I'll make stir-fried kimchi.”
Oh, I was thinking of kimchi stew. Come to think of it, I had never actually made stir-fried kimchi myself. Ju-ho finely chopped the kimchi, sliced some onions, drizzled cooking oil into a pan, and began stir-frying. Once the onions softened, he tossed in the kimchi. Finally, he added a spoonful of sugar and tossed it a bit more, sending a mouthwatering aroma of stir-fried kimchi wafting through the room.
If I knew it was that easy, I would've stir-fried my sour kimchi back when I lived alone. I always just made kimchi stew or kimchi fried rice.
Next to him, Jihye seemed to be preparing soybean paste stew.
“Our chief was kind of a loser, so he was too henpecked to even go home to his wife. But thanks to that, the old man's cooking skills were top-notch, and he used to make us food all the time during night shifts at the substation. We had a bit of an unpleasant incident, so things got awkward between us, and I usually just cooked my own ramen. But I watched him enough to know how to make soybean paste stew.”
Jihye poured water into a pot, set it on the stove, and tossed in chopped potatoes and onions. Once the water came to a rolling boil, she dissolved the soybean paste into it. Then, she threw in minced garlic, peppers, and red pepper powder! Bubble, bubble. As the soup simmered, a savory aroma filled the air.
I was going to call it soybean paste stew, but since there are barely any ingredients in it, I guess it's more of a soybean paste soup.
Meanwhile, Minji began cooking based on whatever her mother had whispered to her. I watched to see if she was making something grand, but she was literally just pan-frying spam. Mother-in-law Ye-jeong had already prepared the rice.
I told the two of them to make it, but they ended up summoning the mother-in-law anyway.
Minji pulled out eight decently sized bowls and scooped the rice Ye-jeong had made into them. She topped the rice with the fried spam, cracked open some canned tuna to add to the bowls, and grabbed red pepper paste and sesame oil from the fridge. Even without electricity, the refrigerator made for an excellent pantry, so we kept using it to store dry goods.
“Minji, you need to add seaweed too.”
“Ah, right!”
Has this girl never even made bibimbap before? Well, her place was stocked with nothing but instant ramen, so I shouldn't be surprised. Even if my mother-in-law was just a school cafeteria lady and not a gourmet chef, she knew how to cook dishes far more complex than bibimbap. But teaching that to Minji on the spot was a different story.
While Minji was assembling the bibimbap, I noticed Ju-ho had finished stir-frying the kimchi. He plated some of it and packed the rest into a Tupperware container. My brother-in-law was surprisingly domestic.
“Ju-ho, fry up exactly four eggs.”
“Yes, sir.”
In the past, he would have asked why only four, but Ju-ho had learned to read the room and didn't question me. Minji glared at me from the side, but I ignored her. We had plenty of canned spam, but our egg supply was strictly limited, so only I and my fucktoys would be eating them. If Jeong-ah wanted one, she could offer up her pussy. Whether she was crying earlier or in a bad mood was none of my business.
“Jihye, go to the next room and bring everyone over.”
I called out to Jihye, who was resting after ladling the finished soybean paste soup into eight bowls.
The eight of us gathered to eat lunch. Ju-ho, whose handcuffs had been removed so he could cook, looked delighted to eat with free hands for the first time in a while. Jeong-ah looked thoroughly depressed. Ji-hun glared at Ju-ho throughout the meal, but Ju-ho played dumb. Hyeong-uk silently stared down at his bowl, shoveling food into his mouth. Look at this useless parasite, doing nothing but stuffing his face. Well, he did participate in the training today, so I guess he isn't a complete parasite. Ye-jeong, Minji, and Jihye happily enjoyed their meal, looking like members of a privileged elite just because their bibimbap bowls had fried eggs on top.
After lunch, I handcuffed Ju-ho and Hyeong-uk again, dragged them back to my room, and chained them to the iron bed frame.
Returning to Minji's room, I played chess with her since she looked bored. I had drawn the board and pieces on paper myself. I used to play with Jihye, but she completely destroyed me, so I stopped playing with her. Minji and Ye-jeong were worse than me since I was the one who taught them, but Minji was highly reactive, making her the perfect plaything to pass the time.
After having dinner in Minji's room, Jeong-ah threw a tantrum, refusing to go back to my room.
“Mr. Doyoung, can't I sleep here tonight too?”
“Honey! What are you talking about? If you're staying, then I'm staying too!”
When Jeong-ah insisted on sleeping in Minji's room, a panicked Ji-hun declared he would stay as well. No fucking way. The only dicks allowed in my harem are mine and any sons my fucktoys squeeze out for me—and even then, only until they're old enough to get an erection.
“The mother-in-law is fine, but the father-in-law is a no-go.”
Jeong-ah glanced at Ji-hun before finally giving up and heading back with him.
“Honey, you're not targeting my mom too, are you?”
Jihye threatened me outright. I wondered where 'honey' ranked on her scale. Was it higher than 'Mr. Doyoung' but lower than 'husband'?
“What kind of guy do you take me for? If I were that kind of bastard, I would've pounced on her a long time ago. It's not like the old days where we had laws and police, you know?”
Of course, there was a terrifying cop standing right in front of me. A cop who would have slaughtered me by now if not for the 'emotional bonding' effect of my Brand.
“I trust my honey, too. You won't disappoint me, right?”
“Of course! Just trust me!”
Fucking bitch. Just a fucktoy, yet she keeps nagging and yapping. Maybe I should re-educate her with a baseball bat like I did on the day we met.