The Crepe Tasting
"Over here, over here!"
Jiyu called out, bouncing around with boundless energy. The shop she had planted herself in front of was a crepe place, and a sign caught my eye at once—crepes so good that if two people were eating and one of them dropped dead, the other wouldn't even notice. How delicious did something have to be before you could hang an ad that shameless?
"The line's pretty long..."
I said it while eyeing the people stretched out in front of the shop. Even so, twenty or thirty minutes looked like it would do it. Truly famous places sometimes made you wait over an hour, and next to that, this much time would pass in the blink of an eye.
"If you want really good snacks, waiting in line is mandatory!"
Yumi declared, swinging her arms. Jiyu jumped in beside her.
"Hana, I had crepes with Yumi last time and they were so good! These are gonna be amazing!"
She looked anxious, as if she were fretting that I'd get sick of waiting and drag us somewhere else. I wasn't some little kid. Was I really going to fail at a wait of barely twenty minutes? I smiled and told Jiyu and Yumi to relax. This much I could handle without breaking a sweat.
And so our little party took its place at the very back of the line. Eyes seemed to gather on us, but it wasn't a problem. In some country with poor public safety, elementary schoolers wandering around on their own like this would be dangerous—but this was South Korea. A safe country. So long as we didn't roam around too late at night, we'd be fine.
"Hana. What flavor crepe are you getting?"
Jiyu asked. I stared blankly at the menu, turning it over in my head. Nutella? Whipped cream? Having both at once sounded wonderful, but sadly, I had no talent for eating shows. I could put away a lot if I had to. Two at the same time, though, was beyond me.
"Between Nutella and whipped cream, which are you two getting?"
"Nutella for me!"
"Same as Jiyu!"
Jiyu and Yumi answered from either side of me. That settled my choice.
"Then I'll get whipped cream!"
It was a chance to taste both crepes at once. I'd give Jiyu and Yumi a bite of mine, and take a bite of theirs in return. That way I could try both flavors.
We kept talking, and before I knew it our turn had come. I'd meant to order for the group. The moment I tried, though, I had to tip my head all the way back. The clerk stood impossibly high above me. Lamenting my newly lowered line of sight, I looked at the menu.
Fortunately it was written in large letters, easy to read even if you were short. Or maybe this child's eyes were simply that good. It could have been both.
The woman behind the counter was smiling brightly down at me, and under that smile I started to order. It wasn't nearly as complicated as ordering at some sandwich shop.
"Two Nutella strawberry-banana, and one whipped cream strawberry-banana, for takeout, please!"
With that, I held out my card so she could take payment. I'd heard this card had no limit, and that spending it on a little snack like this was perfectly fine.
They'd told me that even if I piled up every bit of money I spent on ordinary life, it still wouldn't amount to a speck of what I earned. Bora had said it was like a single grain of sand on a beach. So I used the card without hesitation.
"Ah, yes! Two Nutella and one whipped cream, got it. Just a moment, please, little miss?"
"Okay!"
For a dessert this sweet and delicious, I could have waited a whole hour. Of course, making crepes was never going to take anywhere near that long.
The woman set to work with dazzling hands. She poured batter onto the griddle to form the crepe's thin shell, then reached into the bins beside her for strawberries and bananas and sliced the fruit with a practiced knife.
Jiyu, Yumi, and I watched the whole process with glazed eyes. Being short, all I could really see was the clerk's hands. Jiyu and Yumi were taller than me, so they could probably watch the ingredients going in as well. A pointless sulk welled up in me. There was nothing good about being short. Height, I decided, was something you truly needed if you wanted to see anything properly.
"Here you go! Little ladies!"
A few minutes later, three mouthwatering crepes were in our hands. I accepted the one the clerk held out with both hands, careful as could be. Dropping a crepe by accident was absolutely not allowed.
Crepes in hand, we claimed a bench in a spot where there weren't many people. A good place was essential if you wanted to enjoy a delicious crepe, and luckily there was a park nearby.
We sat down in the fresh breeze, breathing in the clean air, and started in on the crepes we'd carried over.
"Nom!"
I took a huge bite of the whipped-cream crepe.
!!!!
Eyes flying wide, I chewed the sweet, delicious thing slowly. With every bite, banana and strawberry flooded my mouth, and then the sweet whipped cream came in at the end, swirling round and round.
"It's so good!"
I couldn't help but exclaim. A crepe this delicious! There was a reason people lined up for it. Crepes like these, I felt, I could eat every single day and never get tired of them.
Jiyu and Yumi were taking bites of their own as well. Mine was whipped cream, but theirs were Nutella, and a sweet chocolate smell spread thick through the air. Maybe my nose was just sensitive, but even with a bit of distance between us the chocolate scent was overwhelming.
I stared blankly at those crepes and drifted closer. The moment I did, Jiyu and Yumi stopped eating and looked at me.
"What's wrong, Hana...? Your eyes look like some creepy old guy's!"
Jiyu stared at me as if I were frightening. And a creepy old guy? That was far too harsh. Right now I was a perfect ten-year-old elementary schooler. Of course, if you added in my past life I was in my mid-twenties—but being called an old man at that age hurt far too much.
You had to be past thirty, at the very least, before anyone had the right to call you an old man.
Anyway, I fixed a hard stare on the crepe in Jiyu's hands. Yumi was quick on the uptake. Noticing me eyeing Jiyu's crepe, she turned the one she was holding toward me.
"Hana, want a bite?"
"Thanks!"
Yes! Exactly the question I'd been hoping for. I nodded, ducked my head, and took a big bite of the crepe Yumi held out. Of course, the crepe was large and my mouth was small, so even though it felt like an enormous bite, the crepe barely shrank.
Nom, nom.
The whipped-cream crepe had been good, but the one spread with Nutella was good too. The sweet chocolate aroma teased my taste buds until it felt like my salivary glands might explode. I talked around the huge bite I was chewing.
"It's really good!"
I shot Yumi a thumbs-up. She looked at me, smiled, and reached out. I thought she was taking my crepe, but she wasn't. It was Jiyu who reached over and picked off the crumbs stuck around my mouth.
"Hana, you've got some right here."
And then Yumi brought the crumbs from the corner of my mouth to her own lips and ate them. The look in Jiyu's eyes as she watched us from the side was anything but ordinary, but I let it pass.
"Yumi, want a bite of mine too?"
Life was give and take, and I was the sort of person who returned what she received, so I offered Yumi the crepe I'd been eating. She must have wanted to try my whipped-cream one as well; she nodded and took a bite.
Unlike the huge bite I'd taken earlier, Yumi didn't open her mouth wide. She only tore off a little of the crepe. Somehow I felt as if I'd been acting far too much like a little kid. I should have eaten with some dignity... What with the crumbs stuck around my mouth and all the rest of it, I made a firm private vow to eat more elegantly from now on.
Sharing the crepes, we passed a happy stretch of time. A delicious dessert put me in a wonderful mood.
"Hana, see you tomorrow!"
"Bye!"
I climbed into Maru's car and left a place already crowded with happy memories. Jiyu and Yumi would probably take the bus.
I waved out the window and saw my friends off. The heart of school life really was your friends. Plenty of things mattered at school, but if I had to choose the most important, I would choose them. As the old saying goes, draw near ink and you turn black—spend enough time with your friends, and you end up colored by them.
"Hana, did you have fun?"
Maru asked from beside me.
I nodded.
"Yeah!"
Come to think of it, next time I ought to buy one more crepe so Maru could have some too. Delicious things only tasted better the more you shared them.