Chapter 10

Chapter 10

This Is Cheap Too, I Say!

In front of the convenience store brightly lit at the entrance of the dark alley.

The back of the unkempt-haired man, Park Gi-bal, peeking beyond the glass window was utterly pitiful.

The place his gaze was fixed was the mouths of the students sitting at the convenience store window seats biting cup ramen and sausages.

“Gulp···”

Seeing his appearance blankly staring and smacking his lips, the students were startled and slowly avoided the seats while glancing.

The young convenience store part-timer watching that scene from inside the counter sharply furrowed his brow and jumped outside.

“Ah shit! Uncle! What are you doing there! Customers are surprised!”

When the part-timer shouted nervously, Park Gi-bal was startled and jumped as if wronged.

“What did I do? Did I snatch and eat what those kids are eating? I just watched from outside, just watched!”

“No, staring piercingly from outside in that pervert-like outfit, does it go down the throat?”

“Pervert?! Why am I a pervert!”

“Ah, anyway. Don’t interfere with business and go over there, go over there!”

The part-timer furrowed his brow greatly and threatened while waving his hands.

“Man...”

Park Gi-bal who was pushed back by that momentum glanced once more at the remaining sausage beyond the window as if regretful and grumbled while smacking his lips.

“No, why are they making a fuss when I’m watching with my eyes, fuss. Is even looking a crime?”

While loitering in front of the convenience store like that, an indifferent voice suddenly entered Park Gi-bal’s ear.

“Hungry?”

“······Huh?”

Startled Park Gi-bal turned back.

Jin Myeong, who had approached at some point, was looking at him with hands stuck in his pockets.

Sunk pupils hard to know the thoughts.

“Uh? You...!”

Just as Park Gi-bal was about to say something, Jin Myeong shortly tilted his chin.

“Follow.”

“...”

Jin Myeong who left those words and turned around.

Park Gi-bal who had been watching Jin Myeong’s back for a moment followed behind him in a daze.

Ding!

Inside the empty restaurant after business ended.

The mother who was finishing hall cleaning raised her head at the door sound and was startled.

“Eh? Jin-myeong···?”

The mother’s two eyes freaked out and headed toward the unkempt-haired man standing behind Jin Myeong.

Wasn’t it Park who was treated as a mental patient in the neighborhood.

The appearance was shabby and a strange smell even came from the body.

Above all, the mother didn’t like that man called Park Gi-bal at all.

From before, that man occasionally approached Jin Myeong and put on airs while spouting incomprehensible nonsense.

The reverse side of the world or something, conspiracy or whatever. The mother had been anxious fearing he might harm the son. She always made excuses and hurriedly got away fearing the son might be stained by that madman’s bizarre actions or suffer absurd harm.

But she was only flustered as to why the son brought that creepy person inside the shop.

“Th, there··· Jin-myeong. Why is Uncle Park···?”

The mother carefully asked while glancing at Park Gi-bal with eyes full of wariness.

But Jin Myeong without any answer tapped the empty chair in the corner of the hall with his finger.

It meant sit.

“...”

Park Gi-bal who had been glancing sat half-perching his butt on the edge of the chair.

Since Jin Myeong’s mother was continuously looking with a strange gaze, he was also uncomfortable.

But Jin Myeong didn’t even care about such atmosphere and immediately entered the kitchen.

In fact, the ingredients prepared today had already run out during the day.

But he scraped the residue stuck to the bottom of the chunjang container, and pulled a few onion scraps and leftover meat pieces onto the cutting board.

Hwareureuk!

With a short roar, the wok danced on the flame.

Soon the father quickly blanched the leftover noodles he had pulled during the day in boiling water and put them in the bowl, and poured black sauce on top.

In just a few minutes, one bowl of jajangmyeon was completed.

Tak.

He placed the jajangmyeon bowl with a tak on the table where Park Gi-bal was.

“······!”

In an instant, at the explosive smell piercing Park Gi-bal’s nose, his shoulder flinched.

Then he said with wary eyes.

“For me to eat?”

“...”

“I don’t have money.”

“Free.”

“...!”

He narrowed both eyes and let out a strange smile toward Jin Myeong.

Then glancing at the mother still narrowing her eyes and looking nearby, he quietly said.

“Indeed··· to shut my mouth? Since I saw through your identity, trying to silence me by putting poison in this food or something···”

“Stop talking and eat.”

“...”

“If you don’t eat...”

“I’ll eat!”

Park Gi-bal quickly picked up the noodles largely with chopsticks and shoved them into his mouth.

And...

“Eup···?!”

The moment he chewed, Park Gi-bal’s eyes opened wide.

“...”

The crazy sweet taste toying with the tongue and the savory flavor of chunjang, and the strongest fire taste striking the sense of smell.

It was enough to completely paralyze Park Gi-bal’s reason.

“Ugeok! Hururururuk! Keueok!”

He began slurping the noodles in a hurry.

Park Gi-bal completely emptied even the bottom of the bowl with just a few chopstick movements.

“Tsk···”

Park Gi-bal who had been breathing hard with lots of jet-black chunjang smeared around his mouth alternately looked at the empty bowl and Jin Myeong with eyes stained with regret.

“Used all the ingredients.”

Jin Myeong answered indifferently.

“No more?”

“None.”

“Not even a little?”

“...”

Park Gi-bal smacked his lips again in regret.

But soon his brow narrowed.

Looking at Jin Myeong there, he said.

“Why, this kind of favor to me...?”

“...”

“Indeed because it’s a secret...”

“...”

But Jin Myeong only quietly looked at him with his chin propped and didn’t bother to answer.

At that appearance, Park Gi-bal giggled in a small voice.

“Keuk keuk. Indeed there’s definitely something hidden. A chef from another dimension? Don’t worry, my mouth is heavy.”

“Doesn’t seem so.”

When Jin Myeong said dryly, Park Gi-bal sharply frowned.

“What are you saying? How heavy my mouth is!”

“...”

“No, well, I do enjoy conversation because I like communication.”

“...”

“Chet, yeah. It’s not that heavy. But it’s really not light enough to say even unnecessary words.”

“...”

“Weird guy...”

Muttering like that, he suddenly began talking about something else.

“There are too many thieves in this damn country! There were basic livelihood support funds and allowances I was steadily receiving from the community center and district office, right? But the civil servant bastards cut them all saying some documents whatever and review whatever!”

Park Gi-bal who burst his anger while hitting the table continued his heated speech while roughly wiping the chunjang stuck around his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Cut the rice support too, and sharply reduced the winter heating cost! It’s not that the country has no money, there are many thieves! Why take away what they were properly giving and make a fuss, fuss!”

The reason he had been loitering in front of the convenience store also seemed ultimately because that support fund was cut.

“...”

Jin Myeong was listening with an indifferent face propped on his chin.

Unfamiliar words like ‘basic support fund’ or ‘civil servant’ weren’t perfectly understood.

But he roughly interpreted it as the complaint of a commoner angry at the exploitation of corrupt officials and passed it without sense of alienation.

At that time.

The father who finished the cleanup and came out to the hall paused upon discovering that bizarre scene.

“...Eh?”

He was a son who always built walls with the world.

That son who never even met eyes with anyone or had a proper conversation was now sitting facing someone and having a conversation.

No, accurately it was closer to just the listening side than conversation.

Nevertheless, the fact itself that he was showing interest in someone’s words like that was an amazing thing.

In such a situation, it wasn’t important that the counterpart was Park who was called a madman in the neighborhood.

Just with the fact itself that the son was interacting with another person, the father was moved.

“Our Jin-myeong···”

But right at that time.

“Huh?”

Park Gi-bal who had been continuously chattering curses at civil servants toward Jin Myeong turned his head.

The place his gaze headed was the restaurant wall.

[Jajangmyeon – 7,000 won]

Confirming that number, Park Gi-bal’s brow crumpled sharply.

He suddenly stood up from his seat.

“Ajumoni! Give me some paper and pen here!”

“Yes?”

“Paper and pen!”

“Ah, yes.”

The surprised mother in a daze brought the magic pen and scrap paper that were beside the counter.

Park Gi-bal received the paper and lay face down on the old table and began writing something down without hesitation.

After scratching his chin and seriously pondering for a long while, he suddenly held out his hand toward the mother again.

“There, give me just a few rice grains!”

“Yes? Rice grains?”

“Man, there’s somewhere to stick something so give it quickly!”

When the mother dumbfounded yet put a few cold rice grains in a small bowl and brought it, Park Gi-bal scooped the rice grains and crushed them tightly on the back of the scrap paper he had just written on.

Then he approached the old menu board hanging on the wall with large strides.

And he stuck the paper he wrote on top so the existing price tag wouldn’t be visible with a tak.

[Jajangmyeon – 13,000 won]

[Double portion – 18,000 won]

“Jajangmyeon with this kind of taste only 7,000 won? Unbelievable. And honestly this price is also unbelievable... tsk.”

At Park Gi-bal’s words, the parents freaked out and ran over.

“Ah, no! Uncle Park! It’s neighborhood business, if you charge 13,000 won for jajangmyeon, who would come to eat! Are you crazy?!”

“This level is just right and fair!”

“What kind of...!”

The father hurriedly tried to peel off the paper.

No matter how amazing the taste, if he sold the commoner food jajangmyeon at that price, he would only get cursed by neighborhood people and customers would completely drop.

But Park Gi-bal blocked such father’s action.

“Eheo! This is cheap too, I say!”

“What are you saying, we’re just trying to settle now, trying to ruin someone!”

“Ho, honey!”

But, Jin Myeong who had been quietly watching the changed price tag opened his mouth.

“13,000 won... good.”

“...Huh?”

“...What?!

The father’s hand trying to peel the paper stopped in the air.

Jin Myeong continued looking at the price tag stuck on the wall.

“...”

If it were the Central Plains of his previous life, one plate of his cooking couldn’t even be valued at ten nyang of gold.

To the extent that countless masters of the unorthodox and orthodox made such a fuss to taste his cooking.

Though he didn’t yet accurately know the currency value of this era, according to this man’s words, his cooking being sold at that cheap price was something his pride didn’t allow.

Above all, with this price, even frying a much smaller amount would be enough to pay the parents’ debt.

He could also reduce the strain on the wrist.

Jin Myeong slowly nodded his heavy head.

“Do it at that price.”

“Ji, Jin-myeong······?!”

At the son’s unbelievable agreement, the parents opened their mouths as if their jaws would drop and froze right there in dumbfoundedness.

Watching that appearance, Park Gi-bal giggled.

“See, this fellow also agrees with my opinion!”

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