Summer Vacation.
Su-ho was in the middle of rapidly getting the hang of the water scooter on the surface so he could play with me underwater when—
Apparently seeing me dive for the first time, he stared down at me with a horrified expression.
Leaving Su-ho like that, I swam with Da-yeon over to where we'd set the fish trap.
It had only been a few minutes, but fish were already packed tight inside the trap.
Da-yeon, wanting to show me just how many there were, spread both arms wide as she looked at me.
Leaving the trap much longer didn't seem likely to net us any more, so we surfaced.
"Tae-oh, we can pull up the traps now."
Tae-oh and Ji-hoon listened and hauled the trap out, then dumped the fish inside into a rubber tub full of water.
"Oh, we caught our own grub."
"We my ass. You're gonna shovel most of it into your own trap, aren't you?"
"Nope. The spicy chicken stew here is good. Gotta eat that."
Right then, Min-ji called out to us at the top of her lungs.
"Everyone! Food's ready, she says!"
Da-yeon and I wrung out our hair roughly with our hands and moved beneath the canopy set up over the wooden platform next to the stream.
Grandfather had given us our rice in the whole pot again, and this time he looked squarely at Park Ji-hoon as he spoke.
"Big fella, wasn't enough for you last time, was it?"
"Keu-heu-heu! Thank you!"
Grandfather looked at Ji-hoon's hair length.
"Already a proper soldier. Your parents must be proud."
"Of course!"
Smiling, Grandfather handed us a huge whole watermelon, same as last time.
"Brought this from the field this time. Give it a try."
""Thank you!""
We stashed the watermelon in the cooler for a moment, then started eating in earnest.
Park Ji-hoon, who had insisted we needed at least one chicken per person and ordered four spicy chicken stews and four whole boiled chickens—eight chickens in total...
I say eight chickens, but out here in the countryside, one bird comes out for every four servings you order.
Su-ho ate more than I expected, and after tasting the spicy chicken stew, his eyes lit up.
And next to him, Tae-oh was getting meat hand-fed to him by Yeon-woo.
'Well, well, well?'
Watching her act like some bride who'd come to her in-laws' place and was fussing over her groom was ridiculous.
Of course, Da-yeon was fussing over me, too.
The spicy chicken stew here was a little on the hot side, but it was good, so after eating a piece of potato, some onion, and one drumstick, I stuck to the boiled chicken.
All the side dishes were grown by Grandfather and Grandmother themselves.
I mixed the last of my rice into the thick seasoned soybean paste, finished my meal, and moved to start clearing up. Park Ji-hoon made a face like he still hadn't eaten his fill.
We set aside only the food Park Ji-hoon was still going to eat, cleaned up the rest, and looked around.
Su-ho, who had helped with most of the work, must have wanted a breather. He was sitting on a swinging bench under a tree, the kind that's like a porch swing.
I walked over to Su-ho, who was staring vacantly in our direction.
"What're you doing?"
"You've changed a lot while I wasn't around."
"Who, me?"
Su-ho nodded, a bittersweet smile on his face.
"I think I get why you didn't need me anymore."
I caught on to his reasoning, snorted a quiet laugh, and plopped down beside him.
"How exactly do I seem different?"
"I guess I'd say the sadness is gone from your face? You always looked worn down before."
I ruffled Su-ho's hair while he was fidgeting his feet.
"...?"
"So, you'd rather I stayed sad all the time?"
"No."
"We had something in common."
"?"
"Both of us lost someone we loved for no reason at all, because of someone else."
"Ah..."
"And after losing them, we both built up our strength for revenge, and we both had the talent for it. When you put it that way, doesn't that make us a pretty good match?"
I met the eyes of Su-ho, who was looking at me without a word, and kept talking.
"We ran way too hard looking only straight ahead. Our whole lives... even though if you just look around, there's stuff worth enjoying all over the place."
"You kept running like that even after you reincarnated, didn't you? Just staring straight ahead out of habit."
Su-ho nodded, and I gave him a smile.
"Better than anyone, I know exactly how rough you've had it. So, same as me—stop for a second and look around you."
"......"
"Ji-hoon and Tae-oh. They're total dumbasses, so aren't they funny?"
"Ah-ha... I do know that much."
"You and me, we were both born with silver spoons in our mouths. Shouldn't we enjoy the hell out of it?"
"Yeah."
Seeing Su-ho's expression turn a little more at ease, I teased him.
"So, I hear you go around with an extra arm now?"
Suddenly Su-ho smiled a greasy smile...
"Want me to show you? Or do you want to touch it?"
"You crazy..."
Su-ho started inching closer, trying to wrap his arm—his arm—around my waist.
I made a mental note never to joke with Su-ho in that direction again.
We stopped by the shop Grandfather ran, bought three butterfly nets, then Da-yeon and I claimed a spot and started cleaning the fish.
Chak-chak-chak.
Normally, cleaning small fish like these calls for kitchen shears, but Cho-a and I don't need that kind of thing.
We just got to work cleaning them neatly using only a kitchen knife.
Beside us, Yeon-woo watched us work.
"Whoa... you're really good at that."
"Tae-oh's probably pretty good, too, isn't he?"
Well, Ji-hoon's good at it, too, I guess, but he's not exactly reliable.
When it comes to cleaning small fish like these, I'm sure his yield is at least ten percent worse than mine or Su-ho's.
Chak-chak-chak.
Once we finished cleaning them, Da-yeon, Min-ji, and Jun-su laid them out on the disposable drying rack we'd made from the butterfly nets.
Just as we were about done cleaning them all, the amount looked a little light, so we dunked the trap again, pulled it back out, and rounded out the catch.
And then, the ones who'd digested enough started up the water play again.
Da-yeon and I put on our fins.
I originally never wore fins because they looked stuffy, but after trying them out once, I got a taste for them and ended up using them often.
When you swim underwater as long as I do, the difference in speed feels massive, I guess you could say.
No matter how fast a water scooter is, it's still slower than Da-yeon and me swimming in fins.
While I was enjoying the cold stream water, Su-ho, who must have finally mastered the scooter, came up next to me.
Most people who can't swim are usually afraid of the water, but Su-ho seemed to feel safe with the water scooter in his hands.
He clearly had confidence in holding his breath; his mouth was packed full of air.
The sensation of gliding through this cold, emerald-tinted water is pretty immense healing, so Su-ho looked like he was having more fun than he'd expected, too.
The fact that we all played in the water until our lips turned blue tells you everything.
Jun-su, Min-ji, and Yeon-woo, who tired out fast, drifted a little downstream and started enjoying some fly fishing.
After I got out of the water, I used the restroom at the same time, then came out and got ready to make the fruit punch.
I diced the watermelon into cubes, put it in a pot, poured in cider and milk, then opened the cans of fruit and tipped those in too.
Da-yeon and I carefully poured the mixture into the disposable cups we'd brought, then put them back in the cooler.
While I was in the restroom, Min-ji had grabbed Da-yeon by the hand and dragged her back out to play.
I sat in the restroom a while, looking through the photos we'd taken today on my phone.
The phone was packed full of shots of Tae-oh and Ji-hoon trying to look after Su-ho.
Thinking how lucky it was we at least had those two, I finished up, and as I stepped outside, Park Ji-hoon walked in.
"Agh! The stench!"
"...?"
"You drop a deuce?"
For a countryside restroom, it was pretty well maintained and didn't actually smell, but I could tell Park Ji-hoon had only said it to give me a hard time.
"Shut it before I beat the shit out of you?"
"Wow~ polluting the bathroom and still acting all proud, you b—"
Thwack.
Using the stun gun in my right hand, I put Ji-hoon down for a quick nap on the cold tile floor, then headed outside.
The others were swimming around gripping shoulder-width water scooters. Da-yeon was having fun with it, too.
In the distance, I could see Yeon-woo was still busy fussing over her boyfriend...
Honestly, she'd been trailing Tae-oh around all day like that.
Just then, Park Ji-hoon emerged from the restroom looking bright and refreshed, came sprinting like a madman, and dove clean into the water.
His form alone was almost at the level of a harbor seal.
Kersplash!!
I pulled my bucket hat down low, and from under the canopy, I called out to Su-ho, who was basking in the sunlight and looking around.
"Hm? What?"
"Let's go for a walk."
"Got it~"
Su-ho and I each grabbed one of the fruit punches we'd made and walked along the country road.
The clouds, which had been scattered thin, were slowly starting to bulk up, but even so, the vivid blue sky was still flaunting its presence through the gaps between them.
In that sky, countless dragonflies were hunting something small.
I fished out a chunk of watermelon with a long toothpick, bit into it, and looked at Su-ho.
"How is it?"
"It's seriously fun. I'm really glad I came."
A caterpillar landed on Su-ho's shoulder.
If I'd been expecting a shriek, both Su-ho's nerves and mine are way too big for that.
Reading my gaze, Su-ho flicked the bug off his shoulder with a finger.
"Good to hear."
"My dad really likes Da-yeon's dad and your dad."
"People who live buried in work usually have colleagues, but not many real friends."
On the path we were taking, there was a snake. Cho-a lightly kicked it, sending it flying into the rice paddy.
Su-ho stopped for a moment when he spotted a giant golden orb-weaver spider eating a meal.
After watching it closely, he reached out his hand and caught a dragonfly passing by.
Ta-at.
After adjusting his grip on the dragonfly's wings, Su-ho tossed it onto the spiderweb.
The spider, pausing its meal, used its silk to neatly package up the dragonfly Su-ho had thrown it.
Maybe it wasn't hungry; the spider hung the dragonfly off to one side.
Eyes sparkling, Su-ho plucked up the neatly wrapped, still-squirming dragonfly.
"...?"
"It's pretty."
"Is it?"
"Yeah."
Like I always say, Su-ho is not normal.
I guess you could call him a case of someone who was originally a psychopath, but awakened further after taking some damage?
Park Ji-hoon doesn't call him a born psycho-bitch for nothing—there's a reason he says it.
I don't know about the rest, but Su-ho is severely lacking in the emotion called guilt compared to a normal person.
And after he lost the person he loved, it feels like his defense mechanisms kicked in or something and that got even more extreme.
Su-ho looked at the dragonfly squirming inside its little silk pouch.
"Would a normal person let it go?"
"Discussing normal with me is kind of pointless, don't you think? Even if you crushed it right now, I'd just be like, 'Oh, guess so.'"
"You would?"
"You already know you're not the only weird one."
"Yeah..."
Still smiling faintly, Su-ho eventually tore the web open and freed the dragonfly.
Clouds gathered and then, finally, raindrops started falling one by one.
On one side, I deep-fried the fish we'd cleaned; on the other, I brushed them with sauce and grilled them.
Then I boiled up some ramyeon in a big pot.
Everyone's eyes lit up when they ate the grilled and fried fish, and I wrapped some of the fried fish in ramyeon and ate it together, too.
Yeon-woo stared vacantly at me eating that way.
"What is it?"
"Hm? No, it's nothing... I just thought it was fascinating."
"What is?"
"I thought rich people ate differently."
I chuckled at Yeon-woo when she said that.
"There's a friend I know who got pretty lucky with his parents and is rich, right?"
"Huh?"
"Anyway, he's the kid of a family with so much money that even spending in the millions of won a day wouldn't show. Not the absolute top, but still."
Looking at Yeon-woo listening to me, I launched into the story about Jong-su.
"But that guy, the only meal he eats in a day is one pack of ramyeon, and he earns his money washing dishes in a cheese factory until his fingernails practically melt off."
"Come on... no way."
Da-yeon's eyes sparkled at the mention of Jong-su.
"Jong-su?"
"Yeah."
"Ohh... I miss Jong-su~"
Tae-oh nodded as if he'd just recently gone to see Jong-su.
That's Tae-oh for you—the type who never does breakups easily.
"He was... having a seriously rough time."
I ate my ramyeon and watched Yeon-woo ask Tae-oh whether any of that was true.
"And ramyeon is delicious, isn't it?"
Tae-oh, Ji-hoon, and I had all once been possessed by the ghosts of people who died because they couldn't eat ramyeon.
We used to do nothing but sit around and shovel ramyeon into our faces, and honestly, back in those days, ramyeon was kind of expensive food.
Plink. Plunk.
They'd said it was going to rain until tomorrow night, but I hadn't expected it to start already.
And I hadn't even gotten ready to make loach soup...
For tomorrow morning's breakfast, we needed to move fast before it got any darker.
Thanks to our group being the type who like doing things together, we left only Tae-oh and Yeon-woo behind and headed off to set up the fish traps.
The reason we left them was so they could get the lookout shelter underneath ready, just like old times.
We walked along the irrigation channel, which was thick with mud.
When we reached a spot we'd had our eye on before and shined a flashlight on it, we saw two loaches.
"Ooh, yep, leaving one trap here oughta do it."
Before the sky was completely dyed black, we wandered the country roads shining our flashlights on the ground. Once we'd set all the traps, we came back to the lodging.
The pair had finished all the prep work at the lookout shelter.
They looked soft and fluffy—must have already showered and come out.
We each went to our own rooms to shower.
Without a stitch of clothing on, the sight of Da-yeon's bouncy figure was once again impossible to resist.
Da-yeon was so overwhelming that if I squeezed for stimulation rather than a massage, the flesh spilled out between my fingers.
"Si-yoon!"
Da-yeon must've made up her mind, too; she whipped around and grabbed my chest with a firm squeeze.
Min-ji, spotting her chance, also lunged at me.
"Hoo-hoo-hoo... you dare lay a hand on me...?"
"S... sorry."
"I'm sorry!"
"Heh-heh."
Only after messing around for a long while did we finish showering, dry each other's hair, and change clothes.
Then we headed quickly for the lookout shelter.