4
4. Emma
I had gotten my laptop back, but there wasn’t really anything to do.
I simply entered the Wi-Fi password Jeongmin had given me and leisurely watched MuseTube.
“......There’s nothing to watch.”
There were no videos I liked and no MuseTubers I followed.
There wasn’t anything that particularly interested me either, so I simply kept scrolling through Shorts and spent my time meaninglessly.
‘It’s peaceful.....’
Once I took a shower and came back, all I had to do was close my eyes and the day would be over.
It was nice to enjoy this free time for a while, but I was gradually getting bored.
“Should I just go to sleep.....?”
I had only used the laptop for a little while because I was happy to have gotten it back after several hours.
I could watch MuseTube Shorts on my phone anyway, so I moved the mouse over the power button to shut down the laptop.
“.....A mukbang?”
A Shorts video had popped up just before I shut down the laptop.
I didn’t know what country they were from, but it showed a group of children huddled together and eating ramen.
“What country are those kids from? They don’t look Asian.”
The sight of Western children using forks to blow on and eat hot ramen made me chuckle without realizing it.
‘Even if Korean pride is good for getting views, isn’t this a little too fake?’
I had a preconceived notion that foreigners couldn’t handle spicy food.
More importantly, they were children.
‘Even Korean children don’t exactly love spicy food from a young age.’
Of course, the children in the video weren’t quite young enough to be in kindergarten.
Even so, they looked too young to be eating ramen that enthusiastically.
“Let’s just go to sleep.”
A Shorts video was only a minute long at most, so I quickly closed the laptop.
‘A lot happened today.....’
Thinking about how much had happened in a single day, I pulled the blanket all the way over my head.
---
The next day dawned, and I got up from the bed.
“Ughhh......”
Crack!
I stretched while sitting on the bed, and a terrible sound came from my joints.
If someone else had heard it, they might have thought I had broken a bone.
“That feels good.”
How long had it been since I had woken up in the morning and actually felt refreshed?
I twisted my body this way and that before getting up.
Click.
I had been stretching even after getting up because my body hurt, when Jeongmin suddenly opened the door.
“Hey. You up?”
“.....Knock before coming in.”
“Why would I knock between us? More importantly, you woke up at just the right time.”
“Why?”
“Wash up and come downstairs. Let’s eat. The kids are here, so at least wash up properly.”
I couldn’t help tilting my head when he said the kids he had mentioned yesterday were already here.
“You said they were coming after school.”
“What are you talking about? It’s afternoon right now.”
“.....It’s afternoon?”
I was confused because I hadn’t thought I went to bed particularly late yesterday.
I hurriedly looked at my phone, only to find that it was already well past two in the afternoon.
“Really?”
“Would I lie about that? Anyway, wash up and come downstairs.”
After Jeongmin left, I remained in the room blankly, scratching the back of my head.
I hadn’t thought I was that tired yesterday, but apparently, I had accumulated a lot of hidden fatigue.
‘The kids are already here.....’
Even if I wanted to dress up before going out, I hadn’t brought many clothes.
I simply put on the clothes I had worn yesterday, quickly washed myself in the bathroom he had shown me yesterday, and went downstairs.
The laughter of the children grew louder and louder as I descended.
‘What’s this smell.....?’
Strangely, the farther down the stairs I went, the more a familiar smell tickled the tip of my nose.
When I reached the living room, I saw around five children sitting at the table with Jeongmin, eating ramen.
“.....Ramen?”
“You’re up? Hurry and sit down. I made plenty.”
I couldn’t hide my bewilderment at the sight of the children happily eating ramen.
“Are the kids eating ramen?”
“Why wouldn’t they? This is a place where people live too, you know.”
“.....That’s true.”
I felt a little awkward eating right next to the children, so I sat beside Jeongmin instead.
“Here.”
“Thanks.”
I took the bowl and chopsticks and carefully ladled some ramen broth with the ladle.
“.....I like my noodles firm.”
“The kids like them cooked soft. If you don’t like it, make your own later.”
“Who said I didn’t like it? I’m just saying I prefer them firm. Anyway, thanks for the food.”
I quietly ate my ramen while occasionally sneaking glances at the children.
The children also seemed curious about me since I was someone they had never seen before, and they glanced at me from time to time. But soon, they seemed to lose interest and focused on eating their ramen.
‘It’s not that spicy for a Korean..... But even the kids are enjoying it.’
I had heard that ramen sold overseas contained more ingredients and had a stronger, more savory flavor.
But after actually tasting it, it just tasted like ordinary ramen sold in Korea.
“We’re taking care of the horses today. Are you..... coming?”
“I’ll go. I just want to watch.”
“Just watch? You’re not going to touch the horses?”
“I’m a little uncomfortable around them.”
I was still uncomfortable around horses, so I decided to just watch today.
“You went straight to sleep yesterday without working, right?”
“Yeah. I just watched MuseTube and went to sleep.”
“Good. I was going to kill you if you worked while you were here on vacation.”
“.....”
“Anyway, if you’re finished eating, let’s get up.”
Looking at the ramen pot, not a single drop of broth remained.
Even Western kids liked ramen.
---
I hadn’t realized it yesterday because it was already evening, but now that I saw it properly, Jeongmin’s house was incredibly spacious.
No, “spacious” didn’t even begin to describe it.
‘This is crazy.’
I had heard that land was cheap, but I had no idea how much land his family actually owned.
Behind the house, horses were running across the grassland, and apparently, that entire grassland belonged to Jeongmin’s family.
That said it all.
“......”
I stood there blankly watching the children ride horses, feeling the breeze blowing against me.
The weather was still chilly, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the children as they took care of the horses.
‘It smells, but..... this is still nice.’
The faint smell of horse manure drifting through the wind was unpleasant, but I still loved this moment.
‘This is nice.....’
How long had it been since I had heard children laughing happily?
In Korea, the laughter of children had sounded like noise to me, but somehow, in Canada, it even felt free.
‘It’s not that my thoughts are changing..... It’s probably because of the environment.’
Children in Korea couldn’t play outside because of all the fine dust, and with apartments surrounding them in every direction, they couldn’t even properly see the sky.
‘They’re all the same children, no matter where they are.’
Children in every country were the same when it came to being happy after eating something delicious or running around in a wide-open space.
I was simply unfamiliar with seeing children running around happily with horses across such a vast grassland.
Children were the same everywhere.
“......”
“......”
And no matter what country you were in, there were always children who couldn’t fit in with the group.
‘.....This is awkward.’
I wasn’t the only one standing there blankly watching the horses running around.
There was a child who had been left in my care because she was born with a weak body and couldn’t run around with the others.
“Uh..... um. H, hello?”
“......I can speak Korean. Please speak Korean.”
“......”
I never expected fluent Korean to come out of the mouth of a little white girl.
“You..... can speak Korean?”
“I learned because I was bored. I got frustrated when I couldn’t communicate with Jeongmin Lee whenever his English was awkward.”
“......You can’t just learn a language instantly because you want to.”
Even Koreans studied English for twelve years, and there were still many who couldn’t use it properly.
Learning another country’s language couldn’t have been easy, yet this little girl spoke as though it were nothing special.
“More importantly, what’s your name?”
“.....Kwon Shinyong.”
“Then you’re Shinyong Kwon.”
“You can just call me Shinyong.”
Since I was in a foreign country and she was just a little kid, I didn’t particularly care whether we spoke formally or casually.
“What about you?”
“I’m Emma.”
“Nice to meet you, Emma.”
“I’m not particularly happy to meet you.”
“......”
At her sudden blunt remark, I looked at Emma.
Emma spoke as though she were annoyed.
“Today was supposed to be a day when I stayed home and read books. But I came out here and I’m having a miserable time.”
“......You even know the phrase ‘miserable time’?”
“I studied while watching K-dramas. They use lots of interesting expressions.”
“......”
So the Korean Wave didn’t always spread in a positive direction.
‘Well, I’ve heard Koreans studying English through American dramas and movies sometimes accidentally blurt out strange expressions too.’
Thinking about it, it wasn’t particularly strange, so I simply let it go.
“Still, since you’re here anyway, I’ll listen to your story.”
“.....Okay, thanks.”
“But if it’s not an interesting enough story to relieve my boredom, you’d better be prepared.”
“......”
Emma’s strangely mature attitude had already become somewhat familiar to me.
“What should I talk about first.....?”
“Start with your occupation. You’re not a bum, are you?”
“.....I’m a writer.”
At those words, the uninterested look in Emma’s eyes changed dramatically.
“A writer? A novel writer? A drama writer? A movie writer?”
“I write web novels.”
“Web novels?”
Emma tilted her head.
Although the web novel market was gradually expanding in the United States, it still wasn’t particularly popular in Canada.
‘And the internet here is incredibly slow too.’
It wasn’t that there was no internet at all, but even so, it was far too slow.
Apparently, Jeongmin’s parents had eventually installed their own internet because the slow connection was so frustrating after immigrating from Korea.
Because of that, I had heard that many people came to their restaurant just to use the internet.
“Fantasy? Something like that.”
“......Can I read it?”
“You can, right? You can read Hangul, can’t you?”
“I can read it to some extent.”
“Want to read it?”
“I’ll give you a review.”
“.....Sure. Thanks.”
It was a child’s perspective, after all.
I assumed she was simply interested in the occupation of being a writer rather than actually having an eye for evaluating a work, so I didn’t think much of it.
I brought up the story I had written on my phone and held it out to Emma.
“.....There are a lot of difficult words.”
“Can you read it?”
“Somehow..... I’ll give it a try.”
I thought she would quickly lose interest, but Emma didn’t take her eyes off the phone for quite some time.
‘It’s a discontinued work anyway.’
Most of the works I had written after burning out had ended up being discontinued.
I had already written more than ten works, and most of them had failed to achieve any meaningful results.
After reading for a long while, Emma finally handed the phone back to me.
“How was it?”
“It was boring.”
Perhaps because it was the reaction I had expected, I wanted to think that I wasn’t bothered by it.
But I wasn’t.
‘.....It does hurt a little.’
I had always been mentally weak, so even though I had prepared myself for it, I couldn’t help feeling hurt.
“Shinyong. Are you burned out?”
“.....How did you know that?”
“I read the announcement.”
“Ah......”
Come to think of it, I had completely forgotten about the announcement.
“My dad suffered from burnout before too.”
“Your father did?”
“Yes. He said he got burned out because I was born with a weak body and my mom ran away.”
“.....Really?”
“Yes.”
Emma calmly talked about what was actually a rather serious family situation, as though it were nothing special.
“At that time, Dad kept a diary.”
“A diary?”
“Yes. He said you need consistency to overcome burnout. Try uploading diary entries to MuseTube, a blog, or Instagram.”