A Father's Sweet Remedy
Seona sat by the window, leaning against the frame, her mind momentarily lost to the shocking bitterness of the dark chocolate.
She stared blankly out the window.
Was it really that shocking?
In truth, Jungwoo hadn't expected Seia to finish so much of the dark chocolate.
He'd made the promise, but this was a flavor even he struggled to eat in large amounts.
It wasn't that it tasted bad. The bitterness simply wasn't the kind of flavor one enjoyed for pleasure.
It felt more like taking medicine—something good for the body, but not exactly a treat.
That was why Jungwoo had decided to repurpose the dark chocolate.
He planned to melt it down and remake it. That way, couldn't it technically be called homemade?
First, he melted the chocolate using a double boiler.
He didn't need much. Just melting it gently over simmering water was enough.
After that, he simply added sugar and a pinch of salt.
At that point, it wouldn't be much different from the commercial chocolate available in stores—same taste, same basic ingredients.
So Jungwoo made one key substitution: he replaced the sugar with stevia.
Having cooked for Seia, he had come to understand the importance of managing sugar intake all too well.
He used stevia to provide sweetness without spiking blood sugar, added just a little salt, and that was it.
Once it set, the job would be done.
He left the chocolate in the refrigerator for a short while and turned his attention to his still-pouting daughter.
Even from behind, her chubby cheeks looked adorably puffed out.
Jungwoo couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of Seia's back as she stared fixedly out the window.
“Hey, sweetheart—”
She flinched slightly, but offered no reply.
She had just made a promise with him, yet here she was, sulking with such determination.
“Seia, what are you doing—?”
“Hmph!”
At the indignant huff, her little body gave a tiny bounce.
From the direction of her gaze, it really did look like she was simply watching the world outside.
“Want to go out?”
As expected, no answer came. But from behind, he could see the volume of those puffed cheeks shrink just a little.
One of the telltale signs of how deep her sulk ran was those very cheeks.
Since they had deflated a bit, it meant her mood had eased slightly from a few moments ago.
There wasn't anything specific to do even if they went outside, but sitting in the breeze and watching the street wasn't a bad idea.
That seemingly insignificant barrier called a window was, in reality, a wall that separated them from everything out there.
Besides, it would take some time for the chocolate to fully set, so Jungwoo quickly headed upstairs to their home.
Seia stole a glance at her father's retreating back as he disappeared. Not long after, the loud thud from the slide made her whip her head around again.
“Oof… I just can't seem to land on the cushion properly.”
Last time, he'd landed squarely on it. Had something changed?
The slide he took this time had built up more speed, so he ended up settling just past the cushion.
He had brought down an outer layer Seia could wear.
It was the thick pink windbreaker the previous building owners had given her as a birthday gift.
It would do a fine job blocking the chilly breeze blowing at the moment.
Though it had a strong outdoorsy, hiking vibe, it would surely look completely different once Seia put it on.
Before giving it to her, he first checked on the chocolate.
The outside had fully hardened, though the inside was probably still soft.
Still, he decided to take it with them. It should finish setting while they sat outside.
“Shall we go?”
“…Yes.”
The answer came in a very small voice.
Only then did Seia turn around to look at her father. That's when she spotted the chocolate in his hand.
“Dark… chocolet?”
“That's right. But Daddy made it even tastier. Try it later and see if you like it.”
At the mention that he'd made it tastier, Seia's mood seemed to brighten a little more.
“It's cold, so wear this. You remember this, right?”
“Yes. Seia got it as a birthday present.”
She remembered it so well. How commendable.
A gift's true value depended on how much joy it brought the recipient and how usefully they used it. That, in turn, determined the giver's sense of fulfillment.
It would be nice if the previous owners could see her wearing it someday.
He helped dress Seia, whose sulk had now softened into a mild pout.
They had bought it in a larger size anticipating her growth, but it was so big that her arms practically disappeared inside the sleeves.
The sleeves hung far past her hands, and the hem reached nearly to her thighs.
They really had gone with an oversized one.
“Wow—it looks great on you.”
“Hmmm…”
Her eyes clearly sparkled with delight, yet she turned her head away as if pretending otherwise.
When he zipped it all the way up, it covered nearly half her face.
It felt less like clothing and more like a sleeping bag.
The moment they opened the door, the crisp, chilly air rushed in.
It was nearly ten o'clock, and the surroundings had already fallen into complete darkness.
The only things illuminating the night streets were the lights from the massive buildings whose occupants hadn't yet gone home and the streetlamps lining the road.
There was no moon tonight.
Bringing Seia out here just to sit together might seem trivial, but it wasn't without meaning.
“Alright then, my little princess—what time is it right now?”
As Seia had wished earlier, Jungwoo asked her to tell the time.
Her cheeks were still round, though slightly less puffed. Her sharp eyes, which still signaled her lingering pout, turned toward the clock inside the shop.
“Nine… thirty!”
“Oh, correct! Seia is getting really good at reading the clock now.”
“Hehe…”
Seia's mood lifted a little at her father's praise, but she stubbornly held back the smile trying to creep across her lips.
Not yet.
“There aren't any stars.”
“Stars?”
Father and daughter both looked up at the sky at the same time.
Unfortunately, there was nothing sparkling up there.
When Jungwoo was young, the night sky had been filled with countless stars.
The sky he saw now shared not a single similarity with the one from his childhood.
Still, it was a night that stirred up old memories.
Back when he was about the same age as Seia.
When that sky had been embroidered with twinkling lights.
'Want to try one of these, son?'
Jungwoo's mother had been a truly beautiful woman.
So much so that one could say he had inherited nearly all of his current appearance from her.
When Jungwoo was seven, he lost his father.
His father, who worked at a shipyard, had died when the worn-out safety strap supporting him snapped.
After that, his mother raised him alone.
She had never been in good health, and raising Jungwoo by herself made her condition even worse.
Ten years passed like that.
Exactly ten years after losing his father, Jungwoo lost his mother as well.
He had lost her right as he entered high school. From then on, he had to survive on his own.
In this world where hunters existed, there weren't many things a powerless, ordinary person like Jungwoo could do.
Some people awakened abilities even during their school years and earned money easily.
The jobs available to someone like him were the ones even capable people tended to avoid.
Things like waiting tables at restaurants.
Roles that didn't require deep expertise but demanded people skills and good instincts.
Hunters didn't usually take those kinds of jobs.
He would go to school, then work part-time afterward.
The house he lived in was used to pay off debts.
One small mercy, perhaps, was that in this world where gates opened endlessly, graduating high school wasn't considered absolutely essential.
So he focused on work and earned his diploma through the qualification exam.
It wasn't really that special a story.
In this vast world, how many people had lost their parents and graduated through the qualification exam? He couldn't have been the only one.
Jungwoo simply believed there was such a thing as a total sum of luck. The more misfortune he faced now, the more good fortune the future would hold.
That belief led him to his wife.
She had been bright and lively.
Just like Seia was now.
She had graduated from university and had been incredibly popular there.
Their first meeting had been as customer and employee.
From morning until night, Jungwoo had poured every hour into work.
He pushed his body so hard that people worried about overwork. His wife became both his first and last mistake.
'You're… Kim Seona, right?'
'Yes, that's me.'
She had been sitting by the window on a blind date.
He still remembered the expression on her face—a classic look of someone who had been dragged out against her will.
It wasn't some romantic, fated moment of love at first sight.
To the extremely exhausted Jungwoo, she had simply been one of the more attractive customers.
While serving the ordered food, he had collapsed right in front of her table.
The dishes he carried had, unfortunately, spilled entirely onto her.
According to the owner, Seona hadn't made much of a fuss.
She had even said it was good that the awkward date had been cut short.
Still, a mistake was a mistake. He offered to pay for the dry cleaning, and somehow that led to arranging another meal together.
After that, the two grew close very quickly.
One had never done any part-time work in her life. The other had done every kind of part-time job imaginable to survive.
They had grown up in completely different environments, yet like opposite poles of a magnet, those differences drew them together so strongly it felt like destiny.
It was only then that Jungwoo truly understood.
All the misfortune that had come his way had been preparation for this moment.
His entire sum of luck had taken the form of one person—Kim Seona—and had finally arrived.
What came after was a story everyone knew.
His wife left behind Seia and departed from this world.
There had been a time when he thought this:
If only he had been a little less happy.
If so, wouldn't some of that total sum of luck he believed in have remained?
But it was all meaningless.
It was the kind of thought that only made the present more miserable, like carving away at his own flesh.
So he would live in the now.
For Seia, another piece of luck that had come to him in devotion.
The trip down memory lane had felt long, yet it seemed to have passed much faster than expected.
The breeze against his nose still felt refreshingly cool.
In that time, the chocolate had completely set.
And Seia had been staring at it with unwavering eyes.
As if she had known her father had been lost in thought, she hesitated again and again before finally asking carefully.
“When can I eat it…?”
“Haha. It should be ready now. Want to try it?”
Just how had that bitterly bitter dark chocolate transformed?
Seia remembered all too clearly how it had made tears well up in her eyes from the intensity.
Yet she could eat it without hesitation now because she knew better than anyone that anything that passed through her father's hands became delicious.
The chocolate broke with a clean snap.
When he held out a piece broken to a perfect bite-sized portion, Seia opened her mouth wide just like before.
“Aaaah—”
The chilly breeze had cleared the air.
When the dark chocolate that had gone through Jungwoo's hands touched her tongue, a sweetness as rich as the earlier chocolate spread throughout her body.
“How is it? Tasty, right?”
“Hehe… chocolet is the besht…”
Seia looked more satisfied than anyone could be.
Jungwoo, seeing her expression, felt satisfied as well.
The brief chocolate party, along with the rest of the day, drew to a gentle close.
Tomorrow would be the second holiday since opening Seona's Restaurant.
He hoped it would be a happy day, just as much as they had prepared for it.