A Peaceful Day (2)
A Peaceful Day (2)
Dad had been bustling around since early morning.
The reason was that we'd decided to stay at Grandpa's house today.
Once I'd sorted out the light luggage and picked it up in both hands, a satisfied Dad finally came carrying the rest.
"Let's get going."
"Why are you more excited about this than I am?"
"There's tons to do around Grandpa's place."
"Really?"
"Hike the mountain and pick wild greens, toss out a fish trap and make some loach soup."
"Pfft. So it was all about food after all."
For an honest living, the city's better, but I've got a real soft spot for the countryside—it reminds me of the past.
For instance, lately I've been watching a lot of rural vlogs on Neotube.
I pressed the elevator button and waited for Dad, but the luggage was... a lot, so he didn't come out right away.
So I went back inside, grabbed more bags, and came back out.
We reached the underground parking garage, loaded the bags into the car, and I got into the passenger seat first.
I was humming to myself when Dad finished organizing the luggage and got into the driver's seat.
"Looking forward to it?"
"Yeah."
Grandma and Grandpa were in their early sixties now.
Even compared to my past self, they were only about fifteen years older, and in terms of the years we'd actually lived, we were about the same.
Since they'd lived through similar eras, Grandma and Grandpa got along great.
Dad pressed the button to start the engine, and we were off.
We headed toward Grandpa's house, roughly halfway between Gyeonggi-do and Gangwon-do.
The scenery gradually shifted from city to countryside, unfolding into a natural landscape dotted with mountains, rice paddies, fields, and the occasional rural home.
I was trying my best to ignore it, but what really floored me was that all the land around here was under Dad's name.
As we drove along the mountain road, a house resembling a palace came into view.
After parking in the yard, Dad and I got out and started carrying the luggage.
The fluttery skirt I'd grown so used to now wrapped around my calves.
I'm not exactly fond of dressing like this,
but whenever we visit Grandpa, if I don't dress modestly, he gets really flustered.
Two dogs greeted us at the entrance: Roy and Rosa, both Golden Retrievers.
"Mom!"
Hearing Dad's voice, Grandma came running out in her stocking feet.
And then she walked right past Dad, who was standing there smiling, and pulled me into a tight hug.
"Wow... what about your son?"
"I see you all the time."
"Hello, Grandma."
"Yes, hello, my precious. Wasn't the trip too hard on you?"
I nodded and looked around for Grandpa.
"Where's Grandpa?"
"He went out to pick wild greens..."
"I wanna go too!"
Grandma immediately called Grandpa, and I grabbed my clothes bag and headed to my room.
Inside the room, which was packed with my own paintings, I quickly changed and looked in the mirror.
Baggy work pants, a gray boxy t-shirt, arm sleeves and a neck gaiter, and a straw hat.
The outfit was a perfect country-girl look, but my face didn't match it at all, which created an odd dissonance that made me look even more striking.
After heading outside, I greeted Grandpa, who'd arrived back home by then.
"Hello~"
"Oh my, look at our little pup! You've grown up so pretty~!"
Grandpa and I chatted naturally as we started hiking up the mountain.
He was born in the city, but Grandpa's the type who enjoys a healing retirement life deep in the hills.
I was at least four times faster than Grandpa at spotting and picking wild greens and medicinal herbs.
Then again, you can't really compare me to him—I used to live exclusively in the mountains...
Maybe because this was all Dad's private mountain land, a lot of it hadn't been touched by human hands for at least a few decades, so the proportion of medicinal herbs growing everywhere was seriously high.
"Pine mushroom!!! Grandpa!!! Pine mushrooms!"
"What?! Where?!!!"
Rummaging around the mountain, I felt a rush of pride so strong I almost wanted to shout, "Eureka!"
It was like a treasure hunt—like I was slipping back into childhood wonder just a little.
And once I found one, my eyes got even sharper, and the surroundings stood out more.
I turned my head... and spotted more pine mushrooms...
"Hurk! Grandpa..."
"Your grandpa's busy. Got to pick 'em carefully."
Without even looking at Grandpa, I tapped him on the arm.
"Over there!"
"What's the... Good heavens!"
What I'd found was a whole cluster of pine mushrooms.
Originally, today's main event was supposed to be wild aralia shoots, but the huge mushroom haul meant Dad immediately went out and bought beef.
Feeling deeply satisfied, I carefully brushed the dirt off the pine mushrooms we'd picked.
Dad and Grandpa wanted to rinse them in water because they hated the grit, but I helped clean them my own way.
I brought out a brush I normally use for painting—shwip, shwap, shwoop—and whisked the dirt off spotlessly.
In my past life, I'd see these pine mushrooms just walking along; guess they're considered a delicacy these days.
When Dad saw how much I loved pine mushrooms, he tried to buy me some,
but no way... pine mushrooms only taste right when you pick 'em yourself.
Once the ingredients were prepped and brought over, Dad grilled them together with the beef he'd bought on a stone hot plate.
When you grill pine mushrooms and beef together, the rich, fatty aroma that seeps into the mushrooms is awe-inspiring.
I was squatting there and eating with wooden chopsticks when Dad snapped a picture of me.
Roy and Rosa were at my side, wagging their tails.
When I tossed them each a piece of meat, they scarfed it down in the blink of an eye and came right back.
"Think you've had enough?"
""Whine...""
Roy and Rosa normally acted like they understood every word, but the way they'd play dumb around food was masterful acting.
Night fell, and under Dad's attentive hands, I got bundled into layer after layer of clothes.
Wrapped up finally in a long padded coat, I followed Dad and Grandpa out.
Coming to the countryside is great for the mountain air and rest, but what I really love—enough to stir up nostalgia—is walking along the unpaved roads.
Especially at night, the brilliant stars hanging in the sky are as bright and numerous as stage lights.
Our destination was a wide riverside, about ten minutes away.
On the way, we tossed out a fish trap for loaches to use in tomorrow's breakfast, then relocated to a fishing spot and started casting.
I watched Neotube while I fished for quite a while, but no fish with that satisfying bite came along.
Every time I caught a carp, I'd simply release it back into the water, over and over.
Only after we'd caught a fish actually worth eating did we head back home and fry up our catch.
""Ahhh...""
Everyone except me was laughing and drinking, and honestly...
It felt like a perfect day was being ruined, and the world sank back into gloom.
'Ha... I'm dying for a drink...'
The next morning broke over the countryside, and when we checked the fish trap, it had caught quite a few loaches.
As expected, Grandpa and Grandma, city folk originally, hated the texture of bones,
so they boiled the fish, ground them up, and strained out the bones.
Maybe Dad took after Grandma in having a knack for the kitchen, because Grandma was an incredible cook.
Into the bubbling loach soup, she roughly tore some hand-torn dough and tossed it in... heh...
The loach soup ought to have been the main dish, but the table was already packed, starting with boiled pork slices in the morning and all sorts of cucumber kimchi.
As I was wolfing it all down, everyone was watching me and laughing.
"Is it good?"
"Yeah."
The attention's a bit uncomfortable, but what can I do—the happiness they feel looking at me is more than worth putting up with it.
After spending two nights and three days in the countryside, on our way out, Grandma, who'd been closely watching me eat, packed up heaps of side dishes for us.
So many that, back home, we had to leave the bags by the elevator and make three trips to carry them all inside...
The first day of school after becoming a second-grader...
Whether because word had spread about Kim Tae-oh and Park Ji-hoon's fighting skills, whenever we walked by, the crowds parted like the Red Sea, embarrassingly so.
I was already mortified, but Da-yeon's face had gone full-on strawberry red, and she ducked into my arms.
"Si-yoon... I'm so embarrassed..."
"Me too..."
Park Ji-hoon and Kim Tae-oh, meanwhile, were soaking up the attention as if they didn't even notice us behind them.
Their personalities are really... uncannily similar.
When we arrived at our new classroom, the stares locked onto me right on cue.
A bunch of little kids catching my eye and then blushing—it was blindingly obvious this year was going to be just as exhausting.
Now that we were second-graders, Da-yeon and I were paired as seatmates.
And Kim Tae-oh and Park Ji-hoon sat right behind us.
The moment class started, Ji-hoon fell straight asleep.
I was so floored that I turned around and jabbed him in the head with my pen.
"Gah!"
"Aren't you gonna study?"
"Ahem... uh... well... let's just say I was having a moment of meditation?"
"Right. Weren't you the one running your mouth about how you'd follow me to whatever school I got into? So you're all talk?"
"I can get in through athletics!"
"Sure, you do that... Sleep tight."
"....."
I turned to Da-yeon and spoke.
"Should we try for a foreign language high school?"
"...Tae-oh might not be able to get in...?"
Kim Tae-oh was visibly staggered by Da-yeon's sudden verbal assault.
Realizing her slip, Da-yeon quickly spoke to Tae-oh.
"Oh! No, I didn't mean it like that—the school isn't what matters, yeah!"
"...You shouldn't give up your goals because of me..."
Watching Da-yeon and Tae-oh like that, I turned my head and stared at Park Ji-hoon.
"...What're you looking at... It's only a 7-point... difference, okay?"
"Pfft, you absolutely pathetic little shit. Do you not get that forty people are packed into that 7-point gap?"
Park Ji-hoon got up and, without another word, finally opened his book.
Park Ji-hoon, who'd been focusing on studying, eventually fell asleep.
I glanced at Park Ji-hoon with pure disdain, then looked at the teacher giving the lesson.
Pbbbt!
Maybe this bastard's fart reflex kicks in the second he falls asleep, because the fart he ripped was thunderous.
Prrrrrrt! Pbbbt!
"".....""
'Ah... this dumbass motherfucker, seriously...'
I was honestly so embarrassed and mortified...
He always let one rip whenever he fell asleep, but this time the bastard had clearly shit himself.
The smell was so severe that everyone went stone-faced and stared, and I opened the window, pinched my nose, and said,
"Wow... holy fuck... Durian would probably taste like a flat peach right now... I'd rather stuff down a tasting menu of natto, fermented skate, surströmming, and scorpion skewers than smell this one more time."
In the now-icy atmosphere, Park Ji-hoon flinched, sat up, and looked around.
I fixed Park Ji-hoon with a look of pure revulsion and spoke.
"What'd you give birth to this time?"
The kids who remembered what Park Ji-hoon had said after waking up back in our first year burst out laughing.
Still half-asleep, Ji-hoon answered me.
"I dreamed I was flying."
This moron came out with fresh moronic nonsense every single time.
"Yeah, you dipshit. With propulsion like that, I bet you did fly."
""Pfft.""
The bell rang marking the end of first period, and the room got noisy.
The reason: the chatter of kids catching up with friends they hadn't seen in a while.
Of course, the same went for Ji-hoon and Tae-oh.
Da-yeon held out her hand toward me.
I held my hand out too and placed it against Da-yeon's—my palm was a bit smaller than hers.
"Si-yoon's hands are so small... so cute..."
"Da-yeon? You're not making fun of me, are you?"
"Huh? Of course not!"
The palms of both our hands had that soft, never-done-a-hard-day's-work feel, and Da-yeon was smiling.
"Isn't Si-yoon's skin too pale?"
"Hm... Da-yeon's is super pale too, though?"
Da-yeon and I had similar skin tones—when we stood next to Park Ji-hoon, whose complexion was on the darker side, we looked insanely bright.
When we took selfies and raised the brightness filter, the two of us just kept getting whiter and Park Ji-hoon stayed exactly the same.
Da-yeon and I fiddled with our matching friendship rings.
Friendship rings set with sharp little gemstones.
Da-yeon said they were pretty, so I bought them with my own card, not the black card.
"Oh, right. Grandpa said to come over and play this weekend."
"Out of the blue?"
"Yeah, he says it's been too long since he saw you, so come visit?"
"Got it."
Da-yeon's grandfather, Lee Gi-seok.
To explain why the current ruler of Hanseong would be looking for me, I'd have to go back in time a bit.
Sometime ago, while I was hanging out at Da-yeon's house, Lee Gi-seok came by and I met him for the first time.
Lee Gi-seok, who'd been younger than my past self, now stood before me an old man covered in wrinkles, and I'd given him a casual bow from the waist.
At first, he only saw me as a pretty kid, but after catching me tutoring Da-yeon, Lee Gi-seok started asking this and that.
He kept pestering me, so I gave him half-assed answers—and he figured out I was half-assing them and started watching me with intrigued eyes.
He even said I reminded him of his own grandfather, making this fascinated expression.
After that, he just kept getting more and more annoyingly interested in me.
All the other kids in Da-yeon's family, except Da-yeon, were scared of Lee Gi-seok, but honestly, what reason did I have to be scared of him...?
If anything... when it came to him and me, I was the one who ought to feel sorry.
As for why Da-yeon was the exception among the kids scared of Lee Gi-seok: partly because Lee Gi-seok doted on the sharp and formidable Kim Seon-hwa,
but above all, compared to a grandson who'd one day have to inherit the seat, he preferred a granddaughter who had no interest in the company.
Maybe that was why, as time passed, Lee Gi-seok gradually began marking me in his heart as the wife for Jeong-yeon.
Chatting with Da-yeon, the conversation eventually drifted to Maple Leaf Game.
"I made 20 billion gold."
"Oh? Really? From cubes?"
"Nope. The cosmetic items I bought up a while ago went up in price, so I sold 'em all—ta-da~"
"Ooh... 20 billion... there's a useful item you could use, Da-yeon... lemme think..."
"You! You're trying to scam me again! So mean!"
"Heh."
I had scammed Da-yeon out of her gold before.
Think of it as... an education in the real world. Like parents teaching their kids Go-Stop, you know?
Da-yeon had good instincts.
Of course, the merchants in Maple Leaf aren't easy to game with instincts alone, but the more knowledge Da-yeon accumulated, the more gold she earned.
We grinned like a pair of little gremlins, deep in animated talk, when before long the teacher walked in.
"Hello, everyone~"
""Hello.""
With the room abruptly gone quiet, the same everyday atmosphere settled in—but the thought that this was peace itself brought a smile to my face.