The Time for Fishing Has Come

Morning came, and he was back in bed again.

"……."

"Kkureuk?"

"Hmmm."

Ji-oh was lost in shallow contemplation.

It was not the first time he had realized his personality could change.

"There was Giovanni's case, too."

But only now, belatedly, did it strike him that he often drifted away from his usual self. Mostly when he interacted with people outside while in his "portrait" state.

"Come to think of it, praising the staff out of nowhere or handing them gifts on the spot isn't exactly a normal reaction either."

"Kkureuk?"

"There were even people older than me, and for a strapping young man of the East, the land of courtesy, to act like that… honestly, judging by my current self, it wasn't normal at all."

The real problem was that Ji-oh himself had felt no sense of dissonance about those shifts.

"Back then, it just felt natural."

Clearly, the identity of "portrait" was changing him after all.

"Oh heavens above."

"Kkung-kkung…."

"When I stay inside the portrait, everything feels the same as usual, so I never noticed anything strange."

"Kkureuk?"

"No, it's fine."

Personality change or whatever else—Ji-oh was not about to bow to a little mystery like this.

"But I should be careful not to act rudely toward other people."

At this rate, he would soon find himself stroking a complete stranger's head and thinking it perfectly natural.

"Who do I think I am, going around doing something that undignified?"

Stroking someone's head was the sort of thing that only happened in fiction, or when a parent did it to a child. Even between lovers, such a bold touch was usually avoided, so Ji-oh felt the need to keep his bearing more modest.

"Of course, I've never actually had a lover."

"……."

"How dare you look at your heavenly father with those eyes."

A man can be single, can't he?

"Anyway, a change in personality isn't that unfamiliar a situation. Even when I went on that trip to Seoul, there were times when my awareness as Giovanni grew stronger… I think what I'm worrying about now is in a pretty similar vein."

That said, it did not feel as if his "personality" itself was literally changing.

"If it were that extreme, I would have noticed long ago."

If he had to put it into words, it was closer to the feeling of recalling a forgotten memory.

"Not something I could call Seo Ji-oh, exactly, but still me… that kind of feeling."

"…Kkurrreuk?"

"It's not dual personality. Don't get the wrong idea."

In his past life he had lived as Giovanni the priest, whose merciful smile was a masterpiece; in this life he had lived as Seo Ji-oh, who occasionally got asked whether he even knew how to smile. It was similar to those old habits that suddenly popped out once he remembered his previous existence.

"I just never expected the portrait identity would cause problems too," Ji-oh muttered.

"It seems like the same sort of issue as the resolution. Trying to act human while stuck in a portrait body creates some kind of error. My speech gets stiffer, my actions and thoughts get weird…."

He would have to be careful.

"Let's put more effort into self-objectification from now on."

"Kkung."

"You think it's a hassle? Honey, you need to work on your social skills."

At Honey's grumbling, Ji-oh set the round water bird on his palm and rolled it this way and that. Honey tumbled about like a plump water pouch and did not seem particularly displeased.

"Having fun?"

"Kkurrrrrrr."

"I see."

Startled for a moment by the personality shift, Ji-oh was able to settle his mind again at that easygoing sight.

"Anyway, it's fun, so it's fine."

If this ever-changing life weren't fun, that would be the stranger thing.

"Well then, shall we eat first?"

"Kkurrreuk?"

Honey expressed doubt, but Ji-oh paid it no mind and rose from his seat.

"Even if we don't eat it right away, it's good to prepare soup stock and side dishes ahead of time. We've got bones from the deer we butchered, so if I clean them up and make bone broth, we can store it in the ice cellar and take it out whenever we need it."

Bone broth alone could make a solid meal. Ji-oh nodded to himself.

"Whenever I had an upset stomach, Grandmother would tell me to drink bone broth with a little green onion and salt."

He did not know about other people, but when Ji-oh felt bloated, that kind of bone broth sat far better than porridge. With no solids to fill the stomach and yet rich enough that it still felt like eating something.

"Pour a little salt into milky broth, scatter green onions, add a scoop of freshly cooked rice, and you've got gomtang. Properly simmered bone broth has an incredible depth of flavor. That's why even a simple meal like that is so filling."

"Kkurrrrrrr…?"

"It's not spicy."

Honey, who had been deeply traumatized by the spicy sausage last time, seemed worried that gomtang might burn. But as long as no chili powder or fiery seasoning went in, there was no chance of it tasting hot.

"If it feels too plain, you can add meat, or put in somyeon instead of rice. Both together isn't half bad either. Being able to season it or add pepper however you like is one of the charms of gomtang, I think."

There were plenty of other uses for bone broth as well.

"Even if you just use it instead of water when you boil spicy ramyeon, it becomes fantastically good."

"Kkureuk! Kkureuk! Kkureuk!"

"Though the broth itself makes the soup a bit milder… right, let's skip that idea."

Honey, who hated spicy food, voiced absolute opposition, and Papa Ji-oh respected his son's opinion. If somewhere in the world there were humans who ate everything well, somewhere else there was also a fragile water bird that could not handle even a hint of heat.

"Then maybe we could add more vegetables and make a different soup. Mandu-guk comes to mind as a classic."

Ji-oh murmured to himself.

"Tteokguk would be good too. Budae-jjigae with all sorts of vegetables and ham boiled together isn't bad either… even something ordinary like doenjang-guk or miyeok-guk gets much deeper flavor when you use bone broth."

"Kkung?"

"Budae-jjigae might be iffy, but the rest won't be spicy. As long as we don't add cheongyang peppers… and by the way, did you know rice cooked with broth instead of water tastes so much better?"

"Kkurrrr."

"Right, let's go make broth."

Ever since eating the rice balls last time, Honey had become a water bird that loved plain rice more than anything else in the world. It was obvious the little bird was already imagining how delicious grilled rice balls made with bone-broth rice would be.

Heading down to the ice cellar where the bones were stored, Ji-oh suddenly felt uneasy.

"Come to think of it, bone broth is usually made with cow bones, isn't it?"

"…Kkuk?"

"Well, when I cleaned and sorted them last time, they were packed full of marrow. Freshly butchered, so the red boundary on the cut surfaces was clear—condition shouldn't be bad. The deer was huge, so the bones are thick and sturdy; at least it'll be fun to simmer them…."

"……."

"Then again, since when have we only eaten Earth food?"

Bones used for broth were normally from the animal's legs. With a cow it would have been ox feet, but he doubted a deer would be all that different, so he had prepared them anyway. He brought the bones from the ice cellar into the kitchen.

"I rinsed them once back then, but it still feels a bit iffy."

He washed the bones, cut so the marrow showed clearly, then pulled out a large pot and dumped them all in. Lighting the firewood with a bubble flower, the water soon came to a boil.

"We drained all the blood when we first butchered it, so not that much impurity should float up. We let it sit for more than a day, so it should be pretty clean, but there are still foreign bits left inside. Those have to come out for good broth."

"……."

"Just as you're imagining right now, it's a filthy long process."

"Kkung-kkung-kkung…."

"I never expected we'd get to drink the broth today anyway."

Once the bones had been blanched and washed completely clean, it became a battle of time and care. There was a reason "real" bone broth was expensive.

"You can just keep simmering them in the pot, but you can't use high heat. Even if it takes longer, low heat draws out the umami better."

"……."

"The longer it boils, the more fat and random impurities keep rising. Because the marrow comes out as-is, the first batch of broth is usually too oily and thick to eat comfortably. So you can't even drink the first broth that comes out…."

"Kkung."

"You're going to eat it?"

"Kkureuk."

"You pig."

Honey protested fiercely, but protesting did not change reality. That affection—that obsession—that could not give up even the first batch of broth that greasily coated the mouth with every smack of the lips.

"You're already a fine pig."

"Kkurrrrrrrrrreup!!!"

"Accept reality."

If possible, he wished the bird would get a little plumper.

"Plump enough for me to lean on…."

More precisely, plump enough to use as a pillow.

"……."

"……."

Facing a face full of steely resolve, Ji-oh nodded.

"Is this puberty?"

He could feel the fierce conviction to somehow preserve the current cute and adorable appearance.

At least he knows he's cute.

Even if it was a son born of paint, if a child held proper convictions, a parent ought to support them. Ji-oh decided to back down. Fat animals were cute, but force-feeding them was animal abuse.

"Anyway, the bone broth won't be finished right away. Impurities take time to rise; hanging around right next to the pot, there's nothing we can do."

"Kkuruuk?"

"Right, so we need to prepare another dish. Let's give our generously giving bone friends some alone time."

Ji-oh looked at the pot that had just been refilled with fresh water and was not even boiling yet.

"I'm not sure, but I've heard that boiling bones too many times is actually bad for you… I don't know how to treat the legs of a treehorn deer."

"……."

Ji-oh nodded.

"I didn't need to worry."

What realistic fretting had he been doing in this fantasy world?

"Marrow and bone will melt on their own, so we just need to skim impurities now and then and wait. Let's stop fretting over those independent fellows and start worrying about our own lunch."

"Kkurrreuk."

"Then something good would be…."

After a brief moment of thought, Ji-oh made up his mind.

"At last, the day has come."

"Kkureuk?"

"The time for fishing has arrived."

After a stretch of heavy meat, did the stomach not deserve a little refreshment with fish?

"That is only proper respect toward my tongue and stomach."

And Seo Ji-oh was a true gourmand who, at the age of five, had already learned the word Engel's coefficient (the proportion of household expenditure spent on food). He could still hear Grandmother's warm voice laughing, "Looks like we've got a little pig-potato in the house."

Thus Ji-oh plotted how to get fish. There were many methods.

"The stream is narrow but fairly deep; I've seen big and small fish while coming and going. Especially since the water birds' nests are connected to streams or springs so all sorts of creatures can move through… honestly, just going to the nests would get us decent fish."

"……."

Honey, who had been tilting its head at those words, soon fluttered up beside his ear and poked his cheek with its beak. The beak was so tiny and harmless he could not even tell why it was attached; it did not hurt at all.

"What is it, Honey?"

"Kkurrrrreuk."

"…Ah."

Come to think of it, Ji-oh had another source of fish entirely.

"There was the Breathing Sea."

One of the dimensional gates he had created earlier, the Breathing Sea was literally a world submerged beneath the ocean. Last time he looked, it had been overflowing with every kind of creature.

Ji-oh accepted Honey's advice.

"Clever, aren't you."

"Kkureuk."

Honey grew full of itself. It was extremely cute.

"No matter how cute you act, the only one you can conquer is your dad."

"Kkung-kkung-kkung."

"Even if you go elsewhere and play cute, do you think anyone will spoil you as well as I do? Where in the world is there a butler as competent as me? You stay right by Daddy's side."

Another day of a harmonious family.

Ji-oh headed straight to the second floor, specifically the storeroom where finished works were kept. The frame that could transport him to the Breathing Sea hung there.

Standing before the frame filled with blue light, Ji-oh slowly melted into it as if dissolving.

"……."

And then, soon after,

he was underwater.

"It's been a while, Father."

Giovanni had entered the Breathing Sea.

"Has it really been that long?"

" "

"I just took a short look around the outside world."

The one conversing with Ji-oh was none other than the Sun God of a ruined world—the lonely old man to whom "Giovanni" had once made a request.

He asked why the visit today.

"Ah."

And Ji-oh was bold anywhere, anytime.

"I came to do a little fishing."

Hand over the fish.

"If it goes well, I'll share some with you."

" "

"I knew you'd like that."

The Sun God was delighted.

Clearly this place was just a gathering of pigs after all.

(To be continued)