Chapter 7. [ P A U S E ]
"Honey! Left! There’s an obstacle on the left!"
"I saw it! Okay!"
As the car on the TV lurched and swerved, Seong-jun and Min-a twitched left and right in unison on the sofa.
The game was in the middle of a frantic chase.
Seong-jun’s eyes and hands were locked in absolute concentration as he gripped the controller.
Min-a, sitting beside him, watched the screen with both hands clenched tight, tense enough to snap.
"Ahh—are we halfway there yet? Have we reached half?"
"No, there’s not much left. You can do it, honey!"
When he glanced at her, Min-a’s expression was so serious she looked like she’d become the game character herself.
Seong-jun nearly burst out laughing at the determined set of her face.
"Good. Then from here on out..."
Just as he was about to focus on the second round that was coming up, he heard a rattle from the kitchen.
Dunk, dunk. Brrr...
"Huh? The water’s boiling!"
Recognizing the sound, Seong-jun sprang up from the sofa. The pot he’d put on to make tteokbokki was boiling over, the lid clattering noisily as it bounced.
"Min-a! Wait a second, keep playing for me!"
He hurriedly shoved the game controller into Min-a’s hands, where she’d been sitting beside him and watching the screen.
"Huh? Whaaat? I can’t do this! I’ve never played this before!"
Min-a accepted the controller in confusion, her eyes wide. Onscreen, the car staggered along without a driver.
"I don’t even have a license—how am I supposed to drive this thing?"
"Come on, haha, a license has nothing to do with it. It’s easy. This is the accelerator, this is the steering. Just press things. You’ll figure it out as you go!"
"No, honey! We’re gonna crash! Aaaah!"
"You can die for all I care, just try it!"
Leaving Min-a’s shriek behind him, Seong-jun ran to the kitchen.
Luckily, the pot was just shy of boiling over.
The pale broth, steeped from fish cakes and scallions, gave off a rich, mouthwatering smell that made his stomach stir.
"Aaaaaah~~ I’m dying~~"
From the living room, he could hear Min-a’s cry become a near-actual sob.
"It’s okay—just try again~~"
Seong-jun called back toward the living room with a laugh in his voice.
"Ehh. Can’t you do it for me?"
"I’m cooking, aren’t I~"
A smile spread across Seong-jun’s lips.
They said they were playing together, but the one actually playing was always Seong-jun.
Min-a usually just watched from the side, saying it was more fun to see him play, and every time, he felt both sorry and vaguely disappointed.
Next time, I should hand her the controller again and make her try. He gave a little nod to himself before returning to the food.
A little later, Seong-jun carried the pot, its broth glossy with a red sheen, into the living room where Min-a was waiting.
"Tteokbokki, at your service~"
"Aaaah! The smell is insane~ Thank you, honey. You boiled eggs too? I’m seriously touched~"
Seong-jun set the pot down on the low table and watched with a satisfied smile as Min-a pulled out her phone.
"You eat this all the time. What are you taking pictures for now?"
Min-a turned the pot this way and that, snapping photos from every angle.
"Just because I eat it all the time doesn’t mean it isn’t delicious every time. Honey, should we open a tteokbokki place someday?"
Was there really another woman who could smile that happily over nothing more than a pot of tteokbokki?
Watching Min-a laugh just as she had fifteen years ago, Seong-jun felt his own happiness swelling quietly in his chest.
"All right, stop taking pictures and eat already."
He ladled eggs and a generous heap of the big fish cakes Min-a liked onto the small plate he’d already set in front of her.
"Thanks for the meal~"
Like an excited child, Min-a took the plate, and Seong-jun reached for his own. Beside it sat the forgotten controller.
That was when he finally looked up at the TV and noticed the screen had been paused.
On the dim display, the car he’d handed over earlier had frozen exactly where it was.
[ P A U S E ]
For a moment, Seong-jun’s mind stopped just like the screen.
"This..."
When he pointed at the TV, Min-a gave it a quick glance and answered in a casual voice.
"Hmm? I couldn’t clear it... Wah, this fish cake is huge. Good thing I bought the big ones like you said."
Something inside Seong-jun snapped with an audible click.
His blood went cold.
Anger and disappointment, impossible to explain, seized him all at once.
A sharp, electric pain thudded through him, numbing his reason.
And then words came out of his mouth in a voice that was dry and razor-thin, nothing like the one he’d used a moment ago.
"You didn’t... do anything?"
At the strange tone, Min-a’s face stiffened as she lifted her chopsticks.
"I... I did... try to... It was just too hard..."
She trailed off, watching Seong-jun carefully.
With the expression of a dog that knew it was being scolded, Min-a carefully set her small plate of tteokbokki back down.
"I was worried I’d mess it up if I touched it too much..."
At her answer, her voice small with distress, Seong-jun snapped back to himself, and the frozen mess in his head started moving again.
He was so stunned by the absurd, irrational surge of feeling that he could hardly understand himself.
He couldn’t even imagine what expression he was wearing right now, or what kind of voice.
Why am I like this? Get a grip.
You knew Min-a would be like this!
He forced himself immediately back into the role of the kind, considerate husband.
His mouth tried to lift into a smile, but the corners trembled.
"Ah... well, I guess that can happen... heh..."
But Min-a only looked away from his eyes and fidgeted with her clasped hands.
"Still, you should’ve tried a little. If you don’t try, you won’t know."
He pushed the words *I’m sorry* down inside him, but his mouth refused to open properly, as if it had gone rigid.
At last he forced his jaw to move and filled the suffocating silence with noise.
"You can die for all I care, just press things and try it, okay? There, see? Eat already. The fish cakes’ll get soggy."
Seong-jun placed the plate he’d set down earlier back into Min-a’s hands, then buried his own face in his food.
He couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eye.
Hurry up. Fix this. Im Seong-jun.
He stuffed a mouthful of tteokbokki into his mouth and hurried to change the subject.
"Ahem... this game is kind of difficult. I was stuck here too."
Trying to sound as cheerful as possible, his voice came out bizarrely high-pitched, higher than usual.
But fortunately, it seemed to work. Min-a’s expression loosened, and she began bringing the tteokbokki to her mouth in small bites.
"The controls are just kind of awkward. The handling is terrible."
"You’re... good at driving, though..."
"No, I’m telling you, this has nothing to do with a license, haha."
The mood gradually softened.
Seong-jun kept the conversation going by tossing out whatever came to mind.
If the two of them fell silent even for a moment, he felt like that earlier feeling would seize him again.
"It’s because this is Game Station 4, so there’s some frame drop. You know, the screen kind of stutters? That’s why the response feels slow."
"Really? Then maybe we need an upgrade?"
By now, Min-a was shoveling in fish cakes with a kind of warlike focus as she asked.
"No, it’s not an upgrade. You’d have to buy a whole new machine. The 5."
"A whole new one? Then what about this one?"
Min-a sucked on the end of her chopstick once and pointed at the console.
"That one... sell it secondhand or something. Use the money from that to help buy the new one."
"Ohhh... then how much is the 5?"
As he talked with Min-a, Seong-jun naturally slipped back into his usual tone.
The stinging throb had already vanished, and with it, the incomprehensible emotion from moments ago.
"About... six hundred thousand won? The high-end ones are probably over a million."
"Whoa... that’s expensive."
Min-a’s eyes went wide again.
Her expression, stunned with a piece of rice cake in her mouth, was so familiar, so entirely Min-a, that Seong-jun felt relieved to see it again.
"Yeah, we don’t need it. There aren’t many games made only for the 5 anyway, so this is enough."
"You said something about frame drops."
"I was just making excuses because I’m bad at it. Haha."
"What? So that’s what it was? See? Even you think it’s hard, so how am I supposed to do it!"
Min-a giggled and bumped her shoulder against his.
Once again, the living room was filled with the laughter of a perfectly ordinary, happy married couple.
Before they knew it, only streaks of red broth remained at the bottom of the pot.
"Thanks for the meal~ I’ll do the dishes."
As Min-a rose, holding the pot, Seong-jun hurriedly snatched it away.
"Give it here. I’ll do it."
"Eh? You cooked, though. Then I should wash up."
Min-a did not let go of the handle, wearing an expression that said it was only natural.
But Seong-jun couldn’t let go either.
The guilt from what he’d just shown her still hadn’t faded.
"Then you can clear that game while I wash up. Go ahead and finish the mission."
He gestured toward the controller with his chin, seized the pot, and darted back to the kitchen.
"Ah! He took it!"
Leaving Min-a’s startled voice behind, Seong-jun stopped in front of the sink.
Whoosh!
He turned the tap on full blast.
The fierce spray hammered the bottom of the pot, filling the kitchen with a noisy splatter.
A scrap of tteokbokki stuck to the bottom stubbornly refused to wash away even under the torrent.
As if trying to scrub away the memory itself, Seong-jun rubbed at it hard with a scouring pad.
"Aaaah! I’m not doing this!"
From the living room came Min-a’s tearful shriek again, full of panic and complaint.
It pulled Seong-jun back into the same cruelly ordinary life.
Reminding himself again that, for now, that was his only refuge, Seong-jun lowered his head and worked his hands faster.
With the repeated scrubbing, the stuck-on stain gradually faded.
But one mark still refused to come off to the very end, and that only seemed to provoke him.
"Dammit..."
Seong-jun frowned and peered into the pot.
On closer inspection, it wasn’t a stain from seasoning at all, but a patch where the coating had worn away.
It was an old pot they’d been using since before the wedding.
Guess it really is time to replace it.
Seong-jun shook the water from the pot and stood for a moment in front of the recycling bin.
"......"
But with a short sigh, he set the pot back on the dish rack.
Clang.
The old pot, carelessly dropped, wobbled precariously before finally settling still.