A Familiar Yet Distant Scent
“Oh, sweetheart.”
The grandmother looked utterly flustered, at a complete loss for what to do.
How on earth was she supposed to explain this?
“S-sowwy… I’m sowwy, Gwandma.”
Seia rubbed at the sparkling tears with her hands, insisting she had done something wrong. Just watching her made Jungwoo’s heart ache—how much more must the grandmother be hurting?
“Sweetie, look at this. It’s perfectly fine.”
In the end, the grandmother even peeled off the bandage that had been stuck there.
Just as she said, the wound wasn’t that big at all. It was so small that you wouldn’t notice it unless you looked closely. It was just a tiny prick from a knitting needle that had drawn a bit of blood. The injury had been so minor that it was already hard to find now.
Still, because she sold food, she had put on the bandage just in case anything got on it. That was simply basic hygiene.
Soon Seia began examining the grandmother’s hand in detail too. Thanks to her blurred vision, she could confirm there really was no problem.
“See? There’s nothing wrong at all.”
“Weally…?”
“Of course. So stop crying now. Daddy will worry.”
“Okay. Seia isn’t cwying anymore!”
Even as she said that, the corners of her eyes were still glistening, and so were the hands she had used to rub them.
“…Gwandma.”
Suddenly Seia’s expression turned solemn.
Wondering what it could be this time, the grandmother answered.
“Yes, dear?”
“It’s a secwet fwom Santa Gwandpa.”
“…Alright. I’ll keep it a secret.”
So that was why she looked so serious. She was already preparing for Christmas, which was coming soon.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“I’m sowwy.”
“…Sorry for what?”
Jungwoo’s apology was for not having comforted Seia when she burst into tears.
His gaze toward Seia had been full of affection from the very beginning, but the emotionless look he had once given the grandmother had now mostly disappeared.
After buying everything they needed for the day and leaving the grandmother’s shop, Seia waved with a bright smile on her face.
The grandmother, who had been staring at her without moving for a moment, eventually waved back lightly.
Behind Seia, the rabbit doll’s ears bobbed along. The grandmother gazed blankly at that small back for a while.
Today had also been the first time she made tteokbokki for Seia, so she planned to use it as today’s special too.
Once they bought all the ingredients for tteokbokki and returned to the restaurant, today’s preparations would finally be complete.
As always, they needed to write out today’s menu before opening for business.
Seia now skillfully picked up the pen, and in the meantime Jungwoo brought in the A-frame sign that had been placed out front.
“Today’s menyu…”
Seia opened the first line on her own.
“Tteokbokki.”
“Tteok-bok-ki.”
When Jungwoo didn’t continue after that, Seia lifted her head and stared at him intently.
Normally there would have been all sorts of words attached—chewy, sweet, and so on, describing the taste or texture—but today there were none.
“Is it ovew?”
“Hehe, not yet. Should we add parentheses?”
“Pawen…theses?”
“Yeah. These are called parentheses.”
He took the pen from Seia and wrote ‘()’. When he showed her the two parentheses, Seia smiled brightly.
“Why?”
“It’s cute. Chubby.”
Parentheses were cute?
When you put the two () together, it did somehow remind one of something plump.
“Like Garlic Stone Cat.”
“Ah, you thought of that cat?”
The name had changed from ‘Garlic’ to ‘Garlic Stone’ and from ‘Field’ to ‘Stone,’ but what did it matter? Just like how kids memorize English words by combining them in easy ways, this must be Seia’s own way of remembering.
“Yes! The cat is chubby, and the pawentheses are chubby too!”
It seemed Seia liked things that were a bit plump and fluffy.
She enjoyed hugging her rabbit doll, but what she loved most was rubbing her cheek against it.
They placed today’s A-frame sign outside and began the day’s business.
The moment the door of Seona’s Restaurant, where Jungwoo and Seia lived, swung wide open—
At that time, a strange atmosphere drifted along the surrounding streets.
Even though it wasn’t a particularly busy time of day, or perhaps precisely because of that, there was one person drawing everyone’s attention.
People couldn’t even whisper in case their words might be heard; they could only steal quick glances. The street was filled with that kind of tense silence.
The man’s clothes were shabby and worn-out.
Calling them shabby didn’t quite capture it. They simply looked like they didn’t belong to this era at all.
His beard and hair were unkempt. The heavily frayed garments gave off an oddly alien feeling.
“……”
Every time the man’s gaze shifted, the eyes of the people at the end of that gaze quickly darted elsewhere.
The man in ragged clothes walked for a while before suddenly collapsing onto the ground with a thud.
“Haa…”
Whether it was a labored breath or a sigh mixed with lament and despair, only he knew. That single sound filled the nearly empty street.
He didn’t know exactly how long it had been, but he could tell it had not been a short time.
The last subjugation he had gone on.
The man who had lost everyone inside that gate had even lost himself.
The appearance of a boss he had never seen before, and that boss’s ability.
Even after the gate subjugation was over, the exit never opened. He had no choice but to spend endless time there.
Until every last trace of the mana the boss had left behind completely disappeared.
“…There’s probably no one left.”
The cellphone that had become completely outdated.
He searched through the few remaining contacts and tried calling, but no one answered.
The man was no different from back then.
Except that he had aged.
Ah, and the only other change was that he had become a little stronger after devoting himself endlessly to training while trapped inside with nothing else to do.
But everything around the man had changed.
In the end, the man who had remained unchanged now found himself in a world where only he was different.
The house he used to live in had piles of unpaid bills. In his pocket were only the magic stone from the boss he had defeated and a few pieces of equipment—keepsakes—from the guild members who had gone on the subjugation with him.
The man who had been sitting on the ground letting out a sigh slowly stood up.
Then he began walking somewhere.
He had no destination, but the emptiness he felt right now was something that grew larger the more he did nothing.
He walked. And walked.
Speed didn’t matter.
The act of walking itself was what mattered.
Before long he found himself in an area lined with tall buildings. One structure caught his eye.
Was it because it was the tallest? Or the most glamorous?
No, it wasn’t for those reasons.
Rather, it was because it was almost the only low building in this area full of towering structures.
A modest building that looked about four or five stories tall.
The man’s gaze naturally drifted toward the building that felt so out of place with its surroundings.
He knew very well that the word “out of place” applied to both that building and himself. That was probably why his eyes kept returning to it.
“Seona’s Restaurant?”
A restaurant in a place like this.
He couldn’t exactly say the location was bad, but from what he remembered, this area frequently saw gates appear.
He focused his mind for a moment and circulated his mana. He could sense how many gates had been created here recently.
“Hmm?”
There were quite a few things that felt a little strange, though.
And those strange things seemed somehow connected to Seona’s Restaurant.
From the outside, Seona’s Restaurant looked exactly like an ordinary diner.
So ordinary that it felt strange his gaze would even be drawn to it…
Suddenly the man’s body flinched.
The fact that it didn’t feel special to him.
Wasn’t that itself already special?
His gaze, which had drifted away, returned once more to Seona’s Restaurant.
Because he himself was an alien existence, the restaurant that felt equally out of place instead gave him a strange sense of kinship.
The small building, the sign that carried the scent of old times—everything about it.
Drawn by that sense of kinship with something from the past, the man’s steps slowly turned toward the restaurant.
What exactly did this place sell?
As the distance closed and his view grew clearer, he saw the small A-frame sign in front of the shop. It had today’s menu written in uniquely creative spelling, along with a description.
“Tteok…bokki?”
A sudden wave of cognitive dissonance hit him.
Both before and after that word, the spelling was slightly off in one way or another. It brought the man great confusion.
“Did things like this change while I was gone?”
Well, after that much time, it wouldn’t be strange if something had changed.
So he turned to leave—
“Daddy! Do you think the cat will come today?”
A child’s voice rang out from inside the restaurant.
The moment he heard that voice, he understood.
This writing must have been done by that child.
The letters on the A-frame sign that had only seemed confusing before now brought a light smile to his face.
“The cat? I think he might. Our Seia wants to see the cat again, huh?”
“Yes! I like both the chubby cat and the wegular cat!”
Seia.
Upon hearing the name Seia, the man lifted his head and looked at the sign again.
Seona’s Restaurant, written in warm, friendly handwriting.
It was easy to guess.
It must be the mother’s name.
It looked like an ordinary, warm little family.
Running a restaurant together with their child.
It was something from so long ago that he could barely remember it now, but it was exactly the kind of life the man had once dreamed of.
A father preparing for the start of another day by cleaning the kitchen, and a daughter smiling with pure happiness just from watching him.
When the things he had only dreamed of for a moment appeared right before his eyes, an indescribable emotion welled up inside him.
“Tteokbokki, huh.”
He had eaten it a long time ago. He could only faintly recall its shape and taste; everything else was gone from memory.
Was it because he had spent too long inside that gate?
The name was so familiar, yet he couldn’t remember the proper taste. He felt like he had to try it.
This wasn’t simply about filling his stomach.
It was about filling one small piece of the long-empty void inside him.
It was a signal flare announcing the beginning of what came next.
“Seia, let’s eat.”
“Whoa! Food!”
Just then, the father and daughter were beginning their meal.
Through the slightly open door, the aromas that had been trapped inside began to leak out little by little. The identity of the smell was perfectly grilled fish, browned beautifully.
He couldn’t quite remember the taste of grilled fish either.
But when he smelled it, the flavor seemed to come back to him.
Even when he had first come out after so long, he hadn’t felt much appetite. Yet now that he smelled it directly, his hunger surged as if everything that had been suppressed was bursting out at once.
Did he have money?
He rummaged through his clothes and found a wallet containing several cards and a bit of cash.
The cards were useless now anyway; they couldn’t be used.
“Thirty thousand won.”
That should be enough, right?
He wasn’t sure how much prices had risen, though.
And at that moment, the child who had just started eating turned her gaze toward the man.
The man felt her eyes on him too.
The little girl, who had been staring at him with eyes full of curiosity, soon broke into a bright smile and said,
“Welcome! To Seona’s Westauwant!”