Suddenly experiencing the jump scare of a horror game out of nowhere.
With a loud bang, I tried to calm my racing heart.
Seeing the monster’s body, shattered like fried rice ingredients, disintegrate into tiny bits, I pressed my right hand against my left chest and stared wide-eyed.
My face felt like it was burning with each beat of my heart.
The shock had heightened my senses.
‘What the hell….’
It was already a shocking situation just by its appearance, but on top of it all, Gomteng next to me screamed in surprise, echoing my own terrified shout.
The monster quickly turned into meat chunks and scattered, so at least dinner plans for today were over.
On the snow-covered rooftop were just Gomteng, me, and a familiar metal plate.
As my breathing started to stabilize, I fell into deep thought about how to deal with this hopeless situation.
Amidst the stillness, Gomteng was the first to voice a question.
“What do we do with this?”
He pointed at the shallow-sloped metal plate slowly gathering snow.
It was an object inscribed with the monsters’ desire for dialogue.
It seemed like it had something it wanted to say, but the outcome turned out to be regretful.
In response to his vague question, I scratched the back of my head and furrowed one eyebrow, replying.
“What can we do? We can’t carry it… We have to leave it behind.”
“Is that okay?”
“Who cares? It can’t be helped.”
Sure, it was eye-catching, but no middle school girl could carry something heavy like that with her pre-transformation strength.
Not to mention, wandering around transformed, shouting, “Magical girl lives here~” while hauling that thing home was out of the question.
In the end, we left the metal plate abandoned on the rooftop, feeling unsettled as we took off into the sky.
On the way home through the sky.
“Maybe it wanted to ask for that device back?”
“I don’t think so; if those guys ran away the moment they saw it, there’s no way they’d be waiting around with that plate…”
Suddenly, Gomteng and I speculated why the monster had brought the dialogue-meaning metal plate down to Earth.
The most likely candidate was a proposal to return the device.
We hadn’t pressed the button ourselves and only guessed it was a “device to return the monster to its ship,” but until we tried, we didn’t really know.
Since I couldn’t fully believe the monster’s words, I had to think a little about whether that device was really a return device or a trap.
“Right? It doesn’t seem to be completely useless.”
Just as we were weighing the importance of the device…
Gomteng, as if stating the obvious, moved his mouth nonchalantly.
“Well, it’s not good to be in a situation where something can be stolen, regardless of its usefulness.”
“That’s true.”
I offered a brief agreement to Gomteng’s valid point.
Even if that device wasn’t that important, wouldn’t anyone welcome the idea of something being taken from them?
To compare it to daily life….
It’s like someone borrowing a pen from your pencil case or having one mysteriously vanish without you knowing.
Even if the pen itself isn’t all that important, who in their right mind would think, “Awesome, it’s gone again!” if it kept disappearing one by one?
So, um… today, the monster is here to ask for those stolen pens back.
And I was the one who punched it till its face caved in.
‘Looking at it like this, it’s pretty trashy.’
Thinking it over, it was an awful thing done from person to person, magical girl to monster, life to life.
Upon reflecting on myself, objectively speaking, I had turned into a wicked girl.
A sense of guilt I hadn’t felt from the monster before washed over me, so I hesitated in deciding and sought advice from the pacing Gomteng.
“Should we just return it next time it comes?”
“Then it’ll probably jump scare us like last time, right?”
“Could that be it…?”
After suggesting we should calm down and return it, I found myself pondering again with Gomteng’s valid objections ringing in my head.
After all, the chaos started because we snatched the device, so would it go down like that again?
“Well, but since we already snatched it completely, wouldn’t they avoid starting a fight again?”
Trying to express my pure ideals, Gomteng shook his head, as if my thoughts were nonsense.
“Reverse perspective, I’m in a position to fight with you, Sun. If that device is a return device, I would press it right away.”
Then he even pulled out a four-character idiom, saying something like ‘considering the perspective of others,’ as if to suggest we should think about the monster’s position.
If he were in a hostile position against me, he would immediately press the button, thus organizing my view through the monster’s perspective.
These days, without adhering to the principle of maximizing the happiness of the majority, this orderly approach…
Anyway, today’s negotiation table was overturned due to my mistake, resulting in the negotiation partner meeting an instant death.
I descended into a white alley without any human footprints, adjacent to a deserted road amidst damp clouds, while removing my transformation.
Now, the snow had stacked up entirely, covering my shoe insoles.
As if dropped from the sky, starting from the unconnected footprints, I crunched through the snow as I contemplated.
‘If it’s this bad around New Year’s, there are going to be many accidents….’
A foreboding thought sprang to mind.
Shaking off the snow that clung to the soles of my shoes onto the entrance carpet, I stepped into the elevator and headed home.
Entering the hallway and typing the door lock password.
‘Huh?’
As soon as I walked in, a rising smell tickled my nose, and I focused on it.
The savory scent of defective canned ham exposed to heat and the light fragrance of eggs.
Those were the key ingredients I promised Siyeon to use for the fried rice after going monster hunting.
Could it be that while I was out catching monsters, she attempted to make fried rice on her own?
Click, after closing the door, I casually shrugged off my coat onto the dining chair and headed towards the induction stove.
Sure enough, in the kitchen stood Siyeon awkwardly trying to fry rice in a frying pan.
‘Where….’
She seemed so absorbed in the frying pan that she didn’t even hear me coming in.
I stealthily approached from behind and took a peek towards the induction stove.
Leaning my head slightly over her shoulder, I took a look at the fried rice Siyeon made without any help.
“Ugh, why is this happening?”
However, regardless of how kindly I tried to tell her, on the frying pan…
There was a lump that could only be described as close to a mushy porridge, not fried rice.
It seemed like it wasn’t going well; she was flipping the lump with a plastic spatula while muttering to herself in a sad tone.
If there’s too much moisture in the ingredients or rice, it leads to a culinary disaster.
Ugh, there’s no way this would go well from the start.
While glaring at the soggy fried mush from the back, the Sea Snake, who had been lingering near Siyeon’s shoulder, turned around sharply at the presence behind him and said.
“Hey, Mari’s here.”
“Hmm? Ah! When did you come?”
Did she really not notice, or was she surprised only after it was mentioned?
Even though I already knew what kind of disaster had occurred, I calmly asked when I arrived.
“Did you just make fried rice?”
“…It turned out weird.”
Siyeon’s face dropped at my question about the fried rice, pouting her lips at the disappointing outcome.
On the frying pan, the lump that had become one… no, the fried mush.
“On the fire, the eggs coat the rice grains and….”
That’s a cooking method you only see in restaurants with adequate firepower.
If you awkwardly try to imitate that at home, it ends up like this.
The pieces of canned ham, along with the yellowish rice grains, were stuck together to the point where they seemed manageable with chopsticks.
In any case, it wasn’t inedible, so Siyeon’s failed fried mush ended up as our dinner, portioned into our respective bowls.
“…I’m sorry.”
After making breakfast for me once, Siyeon had been all high and mighty about cooking.
But today… after experiencing the major failure of turning fried rice into mush, she seemed downcast enough to apologize.
Yet, she didn’t need to be that disheartened since not everything was burnt, so I casually pulled out the spoons and ketchup from the fridge and sat down.
“How can a person only live in success? Failure is part of it.”
Sitting on the dining chair, I said nonchalantly that failure is a common occurrence in the world of cooking.
Sprinkling a bright red sauce generously over the sticky fried rice in the wide bowl.
Fire, canned ham, eggs.
Looking at the ingredients, it’s a combination that goes along with ketchup.
Mixing the ketchup in like curry, I popped Siyeon’s fried rice into my mouth casually.
It was literally mushy… a difference in texture.
Regardless, since the ingredients weren’t that different from the fried rice I’d usually make, the taste was about the same.
As we continued our meal for a while…
“Ugh.”
Chomp, I involuntarily let out a sound as I crunched down on something unexpected in the fried rice, recoiling slightly.
This thickness, this texture, this sound…
…Eggshell.
This truly might be a failure.
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