Chapter 8
Episode 8. Hello
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A middle-aged woman holding a basket of peppers approached Taeseo from the vegetable garden next to the restaurant.
"It doesn't come in suddenly, what the tongue.""She was too old to be called an aunt but too young to be called a grandmother."
"Hurry up and come in?""Under the restaurant owner's urging, Taeseon pretended to be unable to resist and moved his steps."
Inside the restaurant, there were five old dining tables. As we sat down at one of the places, the owner served us chilled barley tea from the refrigerator.
"Did you come alone?" The rice is just about ready, so I'll set the table, so please wait.The owner entered the kitchen and quickly prepared the food. In the shabby kitchen, the smell of rice stirred my stomach. It seemed that he was hungry.
With a little exaggeration, the restaurant owner quickly brought out a large silver tray with rice, soup, and six side dishes.
It was a modest side dish compared to what I usually eat, but wasn't it said that the market is the side dish? My hand naturally reached for the food.
The restaurant owner's pleased gaze followed Taesul, who was hurriedly shoveling food into his mouth, but he was oblivious to it as he scooped rice and stuffed it into his mouth.
The soybean paste soup made only with dried radish greens, clams, and tofu was surprisingly delicious. The rice was not chewy and just the right amount of soft, to the point where I thought it would have been a pity if I had turned back in front of the restaurant.
Given this level of flavor, I thought the other side dishes would be worth trying, so I stopped exploring the side dishes and picked up my chopsticks for the kimchi.
I picked up the piece of layered kimchi that was on top with my chopsticks and put it in my mouth. The moderately fermented kimchi had a refreshing aftertaste.
As I thought that perhaps the owner of this house might have a better touch than the main house's lyric assistant, I picked up another piece of kimchi, and I noticed something white that was bundled up like a wrap between the napa cabbage kimchi.
It was a grain of rice.
“……?”
배춧잎 사이사이에 박힌 건 누가 먹다가 장난을 친 것처럼 동그랗게 뭉쳐 놓은 It was a grain of rice.
Suddenly, the things I hastily ate came rushing back up from my stomach.
"Ugh."Taeseo hurriedly covered his mouth and stood up from his seat.
The restaurant owner, who was picking the stems off the peppers at an empty table, was glancing at the man who had come to eat at the restaurant.
The restaurant owner, who had been thinking that the son of someone was incredibly handsome, comparable to a celebrity, stopped picking the chili stems and stood up following Taeseo.
"Why?" Can you give me more water?Then the man shook his head while covering his mouth. His handsome face crumpled as if he found it unsatisfactory.
"So is it because there are not enough side dishes?"Taeseo took a ten-thousand-won bill out of his wallet, placed it on the table, and quickly left the place.
"You need to take the change!""There was no time to get change at the counter, so I picked up a ten-thousand-won bill and followed, but by then, Tae-seo had already jumped into the car and sped away."
"Did something happen..." By the way, it seems like they are not from our neighborhood.It was a neighborhood where everyone knew even the number of spoons in the next house. The restaurant owner immediately recognized that the car the young man arrived in was an out-of-town vehicle.
Since he has to go out of the neighborhood anyway, he thought there would be a way to return the change eventually, so the owner put the ten thousand won that the man left behind into the safe at the counter.
She went to the table where the man had been sitting, holding a round silver tray like a full moon, and placed the remaining food one by one on the tray.
"Oh dear, I haven't eaten anything." What a waste..."It was when she was clearing away the plate with the kimchi that her hand stopped."
“?The owner's gaze fell upon the clump of rice stuck between the pieces of kimchi.
"No, what is this?""She picked up her chopsticks and stirred through the sliced kimchi with them." Rice grains fell scattered among the kimchi.
"Oh dear!"My heart sank. Every day, I told my husband, who was always out drinking like a bum, to clear the table, and it seemed he just took the side dishes that others had eaten and poured them back into the container.
"This bastard of a gentleman." I told you so many times not to recycle the side dishes, but you recycled them..."Seeing the way rice was scooped in half a spoonful between the kimchi, it looked like someone had deliberately played a prank."
The owner clicked his tongue and moved the dishes from the table onto the tray.
"No, what the hell kind of idiots are wrapping rice in kimchi?" Oh my, those bastards...I felt sorry for the man who had run out of the restaurant pale with fear, so I looked at the entrance of the restaurant several times.
A black sedan parked in the open space in front of the convenience store. Taeseo jumped out of the car, which had come to a sudden stop, leaving skid marks.
Taeseon ran straight to the convenience store, took a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and threw his card down in front of the cashier.
"Pay for it yourself.""No, you have to pay before you eat!""There were murmurs behind him questioning whether the payment wouldn't go through again, but Taeseo ran out of the convenience store without listening to the comments."
The rice grains piled up in front of me, resembling wrapped kimchi, made my stomach turn.
Although I heard that the second child grows up easily, it was not a house where children were let loose and raised freely.
With thorough hygiene management, I raised my children, and when it came to hygiene, Taeseon was particularly picky; he would never use a cup that someone else had used, even if it was perfectly clean.
That Tae-seo, driven by hunger, entered a restaurant and grabbed some kimchi that was covered in rice grains left by someone else.
Taeseo ran to the field next to the convenience store and rinsed his mouth with water. Every time I thought of the red rice grains soaked in kimchi seasoning, I felt nauseous.
I spilled what I had eaten while bending over. Having starved all day, the only thing that came out was water, but even that seemed ready to be thrown up.
"Excuse me, I brought the card..."A woman holding a credit card ran out behind him. Taeseo waved his hand behind him, gesturing for them not to come closer. Then the woman ran to the convenience store, grabbed a few tissues, and came out.
"Are you okay?" Why did the person who said they were going to have a meal come back so quickly and throw up...?Taeseon, with his back straight, received a tissue from the woman's hand and roughly wiped his mouth.
"Did you really recommend a place like that as a restaurant?""What?"The woman looked up at him with wide eyes as if to ask what the problem was.
Food recycling.A woman who was one head shorter than me was looking up at me with innocent and pure eyes. I couldn't bear to lash out at that face according to my temperament.
"Ha, let's not talk.""The lady at the restaurant wouldn't do that...""Taeseo, having received the card, headed towards the building, leaving the woman who seemed to apologize behind."
"That's really not the kind of place." I didn't recommend a strange place..."The woman followed him with a voice that crawled in, but Taeseo closed the glass door in front of her face as if he had no business with her."
I brushed my teeth with such anger that my gums were all sore, and then I lay down on the bed. In the meantime, the secretary prepared the essentials and filled the room with them.
The blanket brought by the secretary clung unpleasantly to my skin, heated by the summer sun.
"Such cheap stuff.""Not only the blankets but everything that the secretary brought was so cheap compared to what was used in Seoul that it naturally did not catch Taeseo's eye."
Taeseo turned on the air conditioner with the remote control. Setting the temperature to the lowest, a cold breeze flowed out and touched my skin. Nevertheless, the feeling of being dirty did not improve.
"Ha, this is ridiculous, really."Everything that filled this small room, which caught Tae-seo's gaze, was equally trivial and pathetic.
Earlier, the room seemed okay because it was relatively bright, but now I see it as a scene of loss that reminds me of what he has lost.
My environment, which has fallen to a level that can no longer be trivial, seemed to show my situation that my family could overturn if they just set their minds to it.
If this is the scheme aimed at the second son who is not living up to the name of Nanjing, then it has worked effectively.
"Kwon Tae-jin, son of a bitch.""The anger has turned into a lost rage."
"What is there to hit a person with?""The moment Tae-seo, who had been glaring so intensely that the white ceiling seemed to ripple, came to his senses was when he heard the sound of knocking on the door."
-Excuse me. Hello.
The owner of the voice coming from outside was a woman at the convenience store counter, the granddaughter of the building's owner, and the one who informed about a terrible restaurant that recycles food.
"What is that again?""I thought about ignoring it, but I couldn't because of the persistent knocking at the door."
"Why?"When Taeseo opened the front door, the woman presented him with a square flat lunchbox and a cup of ramen filled with water.
It seemed that the persistent knocking on the door was because of instant noodles, as they even held up a bowl of noodles that was slightly larger than a paper cup.
"Wasn't there a lunch box at the stand earlier?"If there had been a lunch box, the act of putting food to waste in that restaurant would not have happened.
"Yes, the delivery vehicle hasn't arrived yet today.""Then what is this?""Taeseo gestured towards the lunchbox that the woman was holding." The woman replied with a calm expression.
"Disposal.""Disposal, that is to say, garbage."
"This... damn.""What do these things think of people?"
Tae-seo's forehead creased with deeper lines, but the woman, undeterred, passed by Tae-seo with her slender body and entered inside.
"Excuse me for a moment." If a new lunch box had come in, I would have brought you a new one, but since there isn't any right now, I brought one that is 30 minutes past its expiration date.She set up discarded lunch boxes and instant noodles on the narrow island table in front of the three-compartment sink, and took out a can of tuna and drinks from the plastic bag she brought along.
"I also had the same thing for a meal earlier and I had no issues.""You eat it yourself.""Words are waste, there are many people trying to take this too." It's okay to eat, so just eat this for now. And if you add tuna to sesame ramen, it's really nutty and delicious, so let's eat it together."I'm telling you I'm not eating."”
