An Incredible Recipe
The moment the test ended and the teacher's last words were out, the kids poured from the classroom in a clamoring rush, like a tide going out. I stayed in my seat, too afraid of getting swept up and knocked flat. Streaming out in a pack like that was bound to be dangerous...
Even so, the room soon fell quiet, simply because everyone else had gone. Jiyu and Yumi came walking over at an easy pace. With their bags on their backs, they looked exactly right. Students really did need to wear their backpacks. That was what made them look like students.
I slung my own bag on like a proper student and stuck myself snug against the two of them.
"Hana, what are you gonna do when you get home?"
Now that I thought about it, getting out early after a test left me with nothing but loafing—playing games on the computer, or else watching TV. And if neither of those was any fun, I'd wander over to the office and hang around with the employees. I was startled by how stripped-down my routine had become. This wasn't a little kid's life at all. It was the daily pattern of an unemployed bum.
"Um... I'm gonna watch anime!"
Watching Little Magician Rumi was simply common sense, so I said it to Yumi. She leaned in and murmured back.
"That doesn't come on till evening, does it?"
"Nope! If I watch it after dinner, the timing's perfect!"
"Then wanna grab something yummy at the convenience store with us first?"
My stomach let out a loud grumble, wailing that it was hungry. It was lunchtime, after all, and they hadn't given us lunch because of the test. They'd just sent us home early instead. I snuck a glance at my phone. There was still no text from Maru saying she'd left, which meant I probably had more than an hour to spare.
Maru had told me to message her once the test was over, so I sent her a quick text to say it was done.
It would take Maru a while to get all the way here, so doing as Yumi said—filling our stomachs with something simple at the convenience store before we left—looked like the smart move.
"Okay!"
I nodded, agreeing with Yumi, and Jiyu followed along as a matter of course. That was how we ended up in the convenience store in front of the school. It was fairly quiet inside. The other kids, it seemed, were eating at home.
These days, people said, only the well-off were having children. If that was true, eating at home made more sense. When you had money, the house was full of good food!
"What are you getting, Jiyu?"
"I want cup ramen! And a triangle kimbap."
The two of them were chattering away, cozy as anything. This was my chance to show these kids the seasoned wisdom of an adult. I made up my mind to use a piece of knowledge I'd picked up in an unknown land—knowledge so dangerous that merely dragging it into the real world and putting it into practice would unleash tremendous consequences.
"Huh? Hana, you're not getting a triangle kimbap? You're eating two cup ramens?"
Yumi sounded curious as I stood there with two cups in my hands. Thinking of a little kid's stomach, two cup ramens was probably too much. Jiyu and Yumi were only buying one cup ramen and a single triangle kimbap each, and my own belly wasn't all that big.
I couldn't inhale food the way those mukbang YouTubers did. I seemed to have an ordinary child's stomach.
"Just watch! I'll show you some magic!"
I thumped my chest as if to say they only had to trust me. Once I revealed this ramen combination, Jiyu and Yumi would surely worship me.
"O...kay?"
Yumi looked at me with uneasy eyes.
"If there's any left, I'll eat it with you!"
Jiyu didn't seem to be thinking about it at all.
Once we'd paid, we shuffled over to the water dispenser that poured out hot water. The older girl working the counter watched us with a worried look, as if we might burn ourselves filling the cups—the sort of look that said she'd come running the instant anything went wrong.
"Careful with the hot water!"
I warned them, just in case. I was an adult, so I wasn't about to scald my hands on hot water like a little kid, but Jiyu and Yumi were another story. The moment I said it, though, the two of them turned around.
"You're the one we're most worried about!"
"Yeah! Want us to fill yours for you, Hana?"
Unbelievable. The kids were acting as if it were already a settled fact that I was a scatterbrain. I made the occasional mistake, sure, but to be treated like this! It felt as if the world were collapsing.
Anyway, that was that. Jiyu and Yumi had filled their cups and settled at a table. I took out a cup of Buldak—the fiery stir-fried noodles—and a cup of Gonghwachun, the jjajang-style ramen, and filled them with water. Mix the two and they tasted better than any cup ramen in existence. Leaving Jiyu and Yumi behind me, watching my cooking with wonder in their eyes, I poured every last ounce of myself into completing the combination of Gonghwachun and Buldak: the legendary Gongbul.
"Whoa. You can eat ramen like this, too."
Jiyu stared at me, startled. It was the look people get when a kid who couldn't do anything is suddenly, impossibly good at whatever you just asked of them.
Don't look at me like that!
Yumi, though, was watching me with a more uncertain expression, the way you look at some exotic foreign dish.
"Hana... is it actually good mixed together like that? It looks kind of weird..."
Well, of course. This was an age when the idea of mixing two perfectly good cup ramens together wouldn't even occur to you. Jiyu and Yumi were young, and they hadn't lived through much yet. The two of them still had more days ahead of them than behind. So did I, for that matter.
"Try it, try it!"
I urged the ramen on them without a shred of hesitation. There was twice as much as usual, far too much for me to finish alone. Jiyu picked up her chopsticks, turned the ramen lid into a little plate, piled some noodles onto it, and slurped them up. The moment she did, her eyes sparkled bright as stars—the look of someone tasting a whole new world, like Columbus sighting a new continent.
"Whoa, Hana. This is actually really good?"
Watching Jiyu's reaction, Yumi hesitated, her hand trembling as she picked up a bite of my Gongbul noodles. Then she closed her eyes and slurped. And Yumi's eyes changed, like a detective who had just learned the truth.
"Whoa!"
Yumi let out a gasp of admiration, and then she all but snatched my cup ramen away. It was the exact same reaction I'd had the first time I ate Gongbul after my seniors told me about it.
"Hana, where did you ever try ramen like this?"
Yumi asked between slurps of my noodles. Looking into eyes that shone like that, I found myself hesitating to answer. Had I just led an innocent little lamb somewhere she shouldn't go...?
I hemmed and hawed. If I said I'd learned it in the army, there was no way they'd believe me, so a small revision was in order.
"I just... saw it on the internet!"
I mumbled my way through it and let the moment pass. In the end, Jiyu and Yumi never got to eat the cup ramen and triangle kimbap they'd bought themselves, because they were too busy devouring the Gongbul I'd made. Which meant, as it turned out, that I was the one who had to eat the cup ramen the two of them had bought.
I was a little afraid I'd taught the kids far too great a secret. I'd never imagined it would get a reaction this explosive.
The engine hummed as I rode home in Maru's car, telling her about playing with my friends that day. When things got dull, chatting back and forth made the ride fly by.
All of a sudden I remembered the ramen, and I turned to Maru.
"Maru, Maru!"
"Hm? What's up?"
"I know a way to make cup ramen super tasty, and I'm gonna teach you!"
"Oh yeah? It must be amazing, if you're making that big a fuss!"
I had a story ready that was sure to shock her. Mixing Gonghwachun and Buldak was something Maru could never even imagine!
But Maru gave me an answer I hadn't expected at all. I'd been explaining with everything I had, and before I'd even finished, she spoke as if she already knew.
"Oh, that? I already know, Hana! There's a way to eat them mixed together like that!"
My eyes wavered at her words. This is a recipe women aren't supposed to know!
"How did you know, Maru?"
"My older brother taught me. After he got back from the army he said he'd learned this incredible recipe, so I wondered what it was—and then I saw him mixing them just like that."
Unbelievable! All I could do was lament that my secret recipe had already spread. It was a completely different reaction from when I'd taught Jiyu and Yumi a little while ago.
"But how did you know, Hana? There's nobody around you who's been in the army."
If I said I'd been there myself, they'd obviously treat me like someone with a few screws loose. So I had no choice but to cover for myself the same way I had with Jiyu and Yumi.
"I... I just saw it on the internet!"
"Really? How funny~"
Fortunately, Maru didn't seem interested in digging any deeper. I stared out the window with the air gone right out of me. I'd brought it up planning to surprise her, and the person in question already knew. There was no story more disappointing than that.
I'd been grinning, ready to share all sorts of cup ramen combinations, but once she said she already knew, there was nothing left to say.