I'll Make You Some Kongguksu
A toppled milk carton and cereal. A two-liter bottle of water. A dried-out slice of bread.
Who puts cereal in the fridge? The kid had zero common sense.
The green bundle Madam Jang had brought earlier showed not even a trace of having been opened. Chan-hee’s tiny goshiwon refrigerator held more food than this.
What on earth was with this boy… I clicked my tongue and shook my head as I untied the cloth I had brought. The moment I saw what was inside, I doubted my own eyes.
Soy milk and fresh knife-cut noodles.
Honestly. She had to know perfectly well how Kwon Hyun-jin was living here. Soy milk, of all things? It wasn’t even some gourmet dish.
“No wonder it felt so heavy…”
Just because the Chairman had praised it, she had carefully wrapped this up and sent it over. As if a kid who didn’t even boil ramen for himself would somehow manage to make proper kongguksu.
That was when a sudden presence stirred behind me.
“What the fuck.”
A husky mid-low voice, thick with irritation and attitude.
It was him.
Still crouched down, I froze solid. Thank god the refrigerator door was shielding me—I nearly fainted on the spot.
To make matters worse, the clueless fridge started beeping insistently, demanding I shut the door already.
I slowly lifted my gaze and found a silhouette even larger than the refrigerator itself.
“What is it.”
The tyrant of the Kwonjin family—Kwon Hyun-jin.
“Why the hell are you barging into someone else’s house without permission.”
I couldn’t even remember how long it had been since we last faced each other. Sitting on the floor like this only made him look even more massive.
“Hey.”
“……”
“Hey. Lee Na-hee.”
I hadn’t expected him to call me noona in the first place. Still, the fact that he even remembered my name caught me off guard.
“Why aren’t you answering? Ears clogged or what?”
Thud.
The refrigerator shuddered. He’d only kicked it lightly, yet it felt like an earthquake had hit.
“…My ears aren’t clogged. I heard you.”
“Then why are you just sitting there with your mouth shut? Why’d you come into my place without permission?”
“I rang the bell several times. You’re the one who didn’t hear it.”
I gathered the bundle and stood. Even face-to-face, Kwon Hyun-jin still towered over me. Was this really the growth of an eighteen-year-old? Madam hadn’t been exaggerating at all.
He’d gotten this big while living on nothing but bread and cereal? The Kwons, including the Chairman, had always been tall, but still…
“Hey. Long time no see?”
Hair with a hint of brown, pale irises, white skin. His full lips were unusually red. Even after running wild outdoors, his skin never seemed to tan. Strange, that.
“Yeah. Long time. Kwon… Young Master.”
“What?”
“She said I should call you that. Madam.”
“Bullshit. Don’t talk crap like that—it’s disgusting.”
I privately agreed. No matter what Madam had ordered, calling him “Young Master” to his face made my stomach turn.
“You came to drop off side dishes?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck. Always bringing shit I don’t even eat.”
His smooth face twisted with irritation. There was no telling what might come out of that mouth next. Frightened, I quickly re-tied the bundle.
“I’m just running an errand… The helper comes often, right? I’ll just leave the whole bundle in the fridge.”
It hurt to think of Mom’s cooking being thrown away, but this house was a lost cause.
I needed to get out of here fast. As my hands moved quickly, a shadow fell over my head. At the same time, a sweet floral scent exploded over me like a bomb.
“What is it?”
It was Kwon Hyun-jin’s fabric softener.
“Hey. What is it.”
He clearly couldn’t stand not knowing what food I’d brought. He prowled behind me.
“Open it.”
“……”
“Open it, Lee Na-hee.”
A hand stretched out from behind and planted itself on the table. Just like that, I was trapped between Kwon Hyun-jin and the dining table.
He hadn’t even opened any of the previous side dishes, so why now…
I forced myself to ignore the cloying softener scent and finally untied the golden cloth again.
Long fingers carelessly flipped open the containers.
“What the hell is all this.”
Every time he moved, his solid chest roughly bumped against my shoulder and the back of my head. There wasn’t a shred of carefulness in the way he carried himself.
It felt strange that I was the only one flinching and hyper-aware of him, so I tried to slip sideways—only for Kwon Hyun-jin to deliberately lift the soy milk for me to see.
His tilted chin revealed a sharp, clean line.
“Is this cement?”
“Wh… what?”
The sudden English attack made me stutter. Studying abroad clearly hadn’t been for nothing; the way he said “cement milk” was almost hard to catch.
“Crazy ajumma must’ve lost it. Sending cement for her nephew to drink.”
“Wh-what are you even talking about? This is soy milk with black sesame!”
Cement? What cement?
…Though, to be fair, the grayish soy milk with black flecks floating in it did look a bit like cement paste.
“What’s soy milk.”
Right. To a kid who didn’t even know what soy milk was, maybe it really did look that way.
“It’s… for making kongguksu.”
“What’s kongguksu.”
“…Something delicious.”
“How do you eat it.”
Sweat beaded on my skin. With no friends in Korea and no family looking after him, Kwon Hyun-jin barely knew the foods of his own hometown.
Was it because I’d just witnessed the pitiful state of his refrigerator?
“…Want me to make it?”
Words I hadn’t meant at all slipped right out of my mouth.
I must have lost my mind. Why on earth had I said I’d make him kongguksu…
Even though the words had come from my own mouth, I immediately regretted them.
I’d felt sorry for such a huge kid surviving on nothing but cereal. Even Chan-hee, stuck in a goshiwon, probably ate better than this—that thought had flickered through my head for just a second.
That single brief slip had created a situation I couldn’t take back.
“You said you’d make it. So how do you do it.”
Kwon Hyun-jin stuck himself right next to me, as if determined not to miss a single second of movement.
“Do it. Hurry.”
“I said it’s noodles. I have to boil the noodles first. Move… a little.”
His heavy gaze felt like it might burn a hole straight through the top of my head.
“Hey. What’ve you been doing for ten years that you never grew?”
“I grew a lot since I was little.”
“You’re really fucking tiny.”
Maybe he’d been bored without anyone to talk to; he kept picking fights without a single pause.
“You’re the one who’s abnormally big.”
Arms crossed, Kwon Hyun-jin leaned his head down toward me and let out a short snort of laughter.
“Wow… To look at Lee Na-hee’s face I’d have to get down on my knees.”
“……”
Just make the kongguksu and get out of here.
But the induction cooktop wouldn’t turn on. No matter how many times I pressed the touch power button, nothing happened.
“Have you ever turned this on before?”
“No.”
First time using it? Then I needed to check whether the electricity was even connected.
I moved the pot aside and tried to lift the cooktop. Or rather, I tried to—
“What are you doing?”
Kwon Hyun-jin immediately stopped my struggling and made me step aside.
“Try lifting the induction.”
“This?”
“Yeah.”
The cooktop that hadn’t budged an inch for me came up in one easy lift.
He hadn’t just ripped the built-in unit free with brute strength, had he? I flinched, but first pulled the power cord. An empty plug dangled free.
“This needs to be plugged in… Check if there’s an outlet over there.”
“Under there?”
“Yeah.”
Kwon Hyun-jin folded his large frame and peered under the sink.
“Oh, there is one.”
“Then plug this in.”
“Fuck, making me do every little thing.”
Even while grumbling, he connected the cord. The space must have been too tight—there was a solid thunk as he smacked his head.
I almost burst out laughing. I clamped down hard on the corners of my mouth, but Kwon Hyun-jin still caught the tiny shift in my expression.
“You laughing at me just now?”
“It works. It’s on.”
“I do exactly what I’m told and you laugh and shit.”
“Now set the heat to nine.”
I barely managed to change the subject. I shot a sidelong glance at Kwon Hyun-jin, who was still standing there with murderous eyes.
“Give me a cup of cold water too.”
Even while glaring at me, he poured a cup of mineral water from the fridge.
“Tap water would’ve been fine…”
“Aren’t you cooking?”
“In Seoul you can drink the tap water.”
“You just drink that straight?”
Of course, every member of the Kwon family had their own preferred brand of bottled water.