“Son~ what’s got into you. Volunteering on a Saturday.”

“It’s because I take after you, Mom. My mom’s heart is woven out of silk.”

“That’s true~.”

I was riding in Mom’s car to Sarangwon on a Saturday.

Ten minutes from the town center by car.

The apartment boom had blown through where I lived too, and apartment blocks were going up as far as the outskirts.

There’s a smell here. A bad one.

I wasn’t going to Sarangwon for no reason.

The Assembly member for our district is that son of a bitch Oh Dong-seong’s uncle.

A Hanguk Freedom Party member by the name of Oh Ju-hyeok.

I’d seen his face at Ye-rin sunbae‘s graduation.

In my last life there’d been nothing at all to tangle me up with him.

His local reputation was so-so.

In the district where I live, the opposition and the governing party had taken turns wearing the Assembly member’s badge.

This has to be the site for the public agency relocation, the one for balanced regional development. They mean to build an apartment complex next to it. They’ve already smelled the money!

Ten minutes from the center of town, a site for apartment construction had been marked out in front of a small spur of mountain.

Word hadn’t got out yet, so land prices hadn’t started moving.

It’s the classic method of a big company taking ground early and making money on it.

It’s the state doing it, so I had no thought of stopping it.

But one corner of my mind kept nagging at me.

So I brought Mom along.

Kind, good-hearted Mom said okay right away when I suggested we visit Sarangwon.

“Here we are.”

Mom parked in the Sarangwon lot.

It’s old. Seriously old.

Seen from the car, Sarangwon sat on a fairly wide piece of land.

A small playing field too.

Tall trees surrounded Sarangwon like a folding screen.

But the place felt exactly like a closed-down school.

The old roof must have been leaking; tarpaulin was thrown over it in patches.

The paint on the buildings was peeling off nearly everywhere.

The play equipment in the yard had been junk for a long time.

“It’s gotten so old…”

The moment Mom got out of the car, her voice ached for them.

Her voice had turned damp already.

“Let’s go in.”

“Mm… all right.”

Volunteering, we called it, but today was a visit to find out how things stood.

“Waaaaaaaah!”

Just then a door opened in one of the buildings and little kids came pouring out.

They had balls and toys in their hands, as if Saturday were their free time.

“They’re lovely~.”

Mom’s face opened right up.

The bright look of children and the sound of their laughter is healing music.

But…

Whooooa! Wh-who are all these people?

About forty children had run out into the wide yard.

And with them had come men and women and grandmothers and grandfathers—twenty of them.

And not one of them was living.

They watched over their own flesh and blood with eyes full of worry that they’d fall, that they’d get hurt.

The look in their eyes as they watched the children was no different from Mom’s when she looks at me.

Why now, all of a sudden!

Normally I couldn’t see the dead at all.

The day I dealt with the gang boss, the graduation, and today—this was the third time.

Something was behind it that I didn’t know.

“What’s wrong? Are you unwell? You look pale.”

“It’s nothing. Let’s go in.”

I turned my face away from the ghosts and headed for the director’s office with Mom.

More children than I’d expected.

The weekend meant kids who looked like middle and high schoolers were around here and there too.

Spirits stood beside them too.

The word orphan landed on me for real.

These are children whose parents, and even grandmothers and grandfathers, are dead and can’t look after them.

A bitterness spread through my chest.

I felt all over again how precious it was to have Mom beside me.

I took Mom’s hand as we walked.

“Can I ask where you’ve come from?”

As we walked toward the place called the director’s office, a woman in her mid-twenties with a gentle face appeared.

Neat, without a trace of makeup.

“Hello. We came to see whether there’s anything we can help Sarangwon with. Is the director here?”

Mom smiled and stated what we’d come for.

“The director is getting the children’s lunch ready just now. Please wait a moment.”

“Is she? Could we go through to the kitchen and see her?”

“The smell will get into your clothes.”

“We came here to help, so if clothes are the problem, then the clothes are the problem~.”

My mom’s sense is the best.

She’d dressed plainly today, but even so, to anyone else she looked expensive.

My mother is herself a luxury item.

“Then… please follow me.”

It could easily have been rude, but Mom didn’t care.

With Mom’s nature, seeing the children would have left her unsettled.

I could feel she wanted to do something for them with her own hands, if nothing else.

I followed Mom to the dining hall.

The tables are old too… everything here is old.

The big steel table that could seat dozens had rotted away under the years.

The kitchen end of it was clean, but no different from the building.

Not one thing had been invested in the place.

Tssssss. Tsssssss.

The smell of good rice and steam blew out of several big gas pressure cookers.

Tap tap tap tap.

The sound of vegetables being chopped on a board rang out crisp.

Fwooooosh.

A huge Chinese-restaurant frying pan moved over a big gas flame.

“That’s the director over there.”

In the kitchen three middle-aged women were deep in the lunch preparations.

Among them, a kind-looking woman in her late fifties was trimming onions.

“Could I have a spare apron?”

“What? Yes…”

Mom is a force of nature at moments like this.

She threw an apron on and made her entrance into the kitchen.

“One for me too, please.”

“You too, young man?”

“Yes~. I’m a cook.”

“???”

The young woman looked at me with doubt in her eyes.

You don’t believe it? Heh heh. I don’t believe it myself.

I took an apron and went over beside the trimmed vegetables.

“Should I cut these for jjajang?”

“Oh~ yes. Just chop those to a decent size. But do you know how to handle a knife?”

The plump auntie who looked like the head cook asked.

“Of course.”

At times like this you show it with your hands instead of your mouth.

Tak takatak tak tak tak tak tak.

I went through the potatoes and onions at tremendous speed.

I wrecked them with the crisp movements of a Shaolin Temple kitchen master.

The vegetables were trimmed in an instant.

“My word! Where does a young man learn to cut like that?”

The head cook auntie was astonished.

“I’ll do the sauce frying too.”

“You can do that too?”

“Of course~ I can cook anything!”

I don’t understand it myself, but the moment I think of a dish, an incredible recipe comes to me.

Madam Dae Jang-geum, who runs a trade with the gods, cooks with no human limits on her.

“The sauce is all about fire flavor.”

I turned the gas up higher.

The pan came up searing hot.

And then I ran a stripe of oil around the big Chinese pan.

Fwoooooosh.

Fire flavor coated the blazing pan.

First I fried the vegetables.

Then in went the soaked jjajang paste and the corn syrup, and the real flavor-making started.

Tak. Tak. Tak.

I snapped the pan and tossed it until it was glossy.

“…”

Mom and the aunties in the kitchen watched me with startled eyes.

The jjajang was nothing but squash, potato and onion, but the smell that came off it was incredible.

One panful, two panfuls, three panfuls straight through, into a huge pot.

“Done~.”

The vat of jjajang sauce came together fast.

“Waaaah! That big brother is so cool!”

“It smells different!”

Drawn in by the sweet, savory smell, the children who had crowded up to the dining hall sniffed at the air.

“You’re all hungry, aren’t you?”

“Yeeeees!”

Somewhere along the way I’d taken over the kitchen.

“Director, would you serve the rice?”

From the look of things, today’s menu wasn’t jjajangmyeon but jjajang rice.

Pickled radish and kimchi went onto the tables.

“Kids first, over here and eat~. Bring it in.”

“Thank you for the food, Mom!!!”

The children called the director Mom.

I got the feeling they were growing up loved.

“Tae-san. Since when have you been able to cook like that?”

Mom asked as she handed me a bowl of rice.

“I picked it up off the internet now and then. I live on my own, don’t I.”

I winked at Mom.

“Good heavens…”

Mom couldn’t get another word out.

Not believing it is the normal way to think.

Apart from making my sisters a late-night snack now and then, I’d never cooked for Mom.

However well I cook, I’ll never catch up to Mom’s own hand, not if I die trying.

Mom’s food is love itself.

“More, please!!!”

“Yes, eat plenty.”

“More for me too!”

The children ate the jjajang rice like they really were possessed by a hunger ghost. (TL Note: 걸신들리다 — to be possessed by 걸신, the begging ghost, who is never full; said of someone eating as though they can’t stop.)

Hot rice under a jjajang sauce full of flavor, and their eyes rolled back.

If only there’d been meat in it, it would have been perfect!

A jjajang sauce misses its chunks of meat, and so did I.

And so the storm of a lunchtime at Sarangwon went by.

The students gave me the thumbs-up and emptied several bowls each.

— Karma points have been paid out.

— Karma points have been paid out.

I got paid plenty for it myself, of course.

“Thank you so much. It’s been a long time since I saw the children look that happy.”

I drank the instant coffee the director made for us.

The washing up was done quickly, with the older children helping.

“The children are pure and bright, and that makes them beautiful.”

Mom answered, looking out the window.

The children, with a solid meal in them, were running around kicking a ball.

There wasn’t a crease on any of them. (TL Note: 구김살이 없다 — to have no creases, as in cloth; said of a person whose spirit has not been folded up by what they’ve been through.)

“We raise them as best we can, but there’s a lot we fall short on.”

“Not at all. You’re truly remarkable.”

Mom took the director’s hand and didn’t hold back her praise.

“Director, is there anything you’re short of? Are your winter preparations done?”

I eased my way into the real subject.

“Winter preparations—is there any such thing for us.”

The director’s face looked bitter as she said it.

“The rice and the side dishes looked short to me…”

“It’s a time when fruit is plentiful, and it hurts me that I can’t even feed them an apple properly. Unlike before, the patrons hardly come around.”

“Doesn’t support come from city hall?”

“…The thing is, they say we haven’t secured a site to relocate Sarangwon to, so we’re to disband. They say to send the children to children’s homes in other areas… haa.”

Tears welled in the director’s eyes as she spoke.

What mother alive could throw away her own child?

“By when?”

“They say if we can’t secure a replacement site by the end of the year, an order will come down to move the children by force. I’m a mother with nothing, so I can’t even argue…”

The tears the director had been holding back ran down her face.

Hmm, the Assembly member is behind this for certain.

The mayor and a good number of the city councilors belong to the Hanguk Freedom Party.

If they set it up together with the Assembly member, wiping out a children’s home with no power of its own is nothing at all.

“Mom, you’ll help, won’t you?”

“Hm?”

My words came out of nowhere and threw Mom.

“Director, don’t worry. My mother is rich.”

“What???”

The director looked at Mom and me with her eyes wide open.

“I saw the refrigerator, and the side dishes have all run out… how about a pork belly party for dinner tonight?”

“Pork belly?”

“Would the children not like it?”

“They would! The children have been going on about meat for a while now…”

“Then I’ll arrange it.”

I took my phone and went outside.

And I rang the biggest supermarket in our city.

“Is this Jangju Supermarket?”

“Yes, sir. How can I help you?”

A woman on the staff answered politely.

“I’d like to place an order. You can deliver today, can’t you?”

“Of course. What items shall we deliver for you?”

“Take this down, please. To start with, thirty bags of rice at twenty kilos, fifty kilos of pork belly, ten boxes each of cola and cider, and a mix of snacks for children, whatever kinds, enough to come to about a million won. And thirty boxes of jjajang ramyeon, thirty boxes of Samyong ramyeon…”

“H-hello?”

“Yes? What is it?”

“You aren’t making a prank call, are you?”

The store clerk asked, flustered.

“When the order’s done I’ll send the money straight over by phone banking. And lettuce, and vegetables…”

The order poured out of my mouth.

Ordering like a man speaking in tongues, I looked up at the sky. (TL Note: 방언 터지다 — for the gift of tongues to break out; Korean uses the church image for a mouth that suddenly won’t stop.)

The autumn sky was a particularly deep blue today.

It looked down at me, dazzling, and smiled.

(End of Chapter 66)