Ch.177IF Side Story: Galactic Love (2)

The next day, I let out a deep sigh as I watched Pang Pang clutching her head while getting up.

In the kitchen, soup was bubbling away. It was yukgaejang that I’d bought just in case. Of course, I hadn’t bought it specifically for this situation, nor had I made it myself. It was a meal kit packaged in individual two-person servings.

The most surprising thing about visiting Pang Pang’s home was discovering that she almost always ate instant three-minute meals.

Granted, I hadn’t cooked anything myself since coming to this world either. I’d mostly eaten at the orphanage cafeteria.

But in my past life, I had lived alone for a period, so I knew how to cook simple meals for survival. Well, most of that was just heating up meal kits.

“Ugh…”

Pang Pang’s voice came out terribly raspy. It was the phlegmy voice of someone who had been soaked in alcohol and just woken up, which made the situation even more ridiculous.

What you drank was caffeine, wasn’t it? How does caffeine have to work in your body to produce a reaction like that?

More importantly, would this hangover soup even help with a caffeine hangover? When drinking coffee, people usually eat cake or something similar. Hangover dishes often make good drinking snacks too, which sometimes leads to people drinking more instead of recovering. But coffee and hangover soup don’t seem like a natural pairing.

Actually, I wasn’t even sure if aliens used yukgaejang for hangovers in the first place.

Well, I’d used yukgaejang as a substitute since I didn’t have proper hangover soup anyway.

Fortunately, Pang Pang ate the hangover soup I prepared without complaint.

“Ahh…”

She even let out a sigh of satisfaction, just like my friend from my past life after drinking bean sprout soup the morning after heavy drinking.

“Ah, this is good.”

After slurping down several spoonfuls of broth, Pang Pang finally spoke with a somewhat recovered voice.

“You don’t eat proper breakfasts very often, do you?”

“It’s a hassle.”

Well, I understand that.

I also wanted to skip breakfast and sleep an extra 30 minutes whenever my mom tried to wake me up for school.

Pang Pang repeatedly exclaimed how good the food was while slurping the broth, and I watched her with an incredulous expression while eating slowly. We had some time left anyway. I had already washed up too.

“I don’t understand why you drink something that’s not even good for your body,” James said, sitting in a corner of the table and nibbling on an almond.

“Well, you wouldn’t understand. Even a small amount of caffeine or alcohol could kill you.”

James nodded at my words.

I’d heard that caffeine is extremely toxic to animals. Or was it something else? I’ve heard you shouldn’t feed chocolate to dogs, anyway.

Even though he belonged to a species capable of speech and possessed incredible technology, a hamster was still a hamster. Being much smaller than humans, he was more sensitive to small amounts of toxins, and like other animals, he couldn’t consume certain substances that humans deliberately seek out.

“Phew.”

After wolfing down her meal, Pang Pang exhaled deeply as if she’d finally survived.

“Wow, I really survived thanks to you.”

“If you ate properly regularly and kept some food stocked, you could manage fine without me.”

“No, no, I’m serious. It’s been so long since I’ve seen someone cook for me in the morning.”

“…Are you saying I’m like a cook? I just heated something that was already prepared.”

When I responded incredulously, Pang Pang shook her head.

“No, that’s not it. Um, how should I put it… Well, yeah.”

Then she grinned at me.

“You’re just like a wife preparing breakfast for her husband.”

James and I looked at Pang Pang with dumbfounded expressions.

Pang Pang shrugged and got up from her seat.

“Well, I’ll go wash up now.”

“Hey, it’s weird to say something like that and then just go wash up. And clean up after yourself.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll clean up when I come back.”

I let out an incredulous laugh and slowly continued with my meal.

True to her word, Pang Pang quickly washed up and came back to clean the table.

…Or rather, if she was going to wash up, she should have done it properly.

Though I suppose I shouldn’t be complaining while freeloading at her place.

*

On the way home after work.

Today, at my insistence, we didn’t buy coffee.

Just as alcohol directly impacts liver health, it was clear that caffeine must be bad for Pang Pang’s health in some way.

Honestly, her claim about not being addicted was a bit ridiculous. Then again, people who love drinking always insist they’re not addicted even as they drink until they black out.

Only after going to the hospital and being diagnosed with addiction do they realize the seriousness of the situation and start cutting back.

But Pang Pang was still a minor. It couldn’t be normal for her to be consuming something like alcohol at this age.

“…”

“What, are you upset?”

When I asked incredulously, Pang Pang shook her head.

“No, it’s more like… I’m feeling a bit strange.”

“Strange?”

“Yeah, well.”

Walking under the night sky after sunset, Pang Pang continued.

“It’s just that, until now, no one really worried about me like this.”

“I’m not worried.”

I said that, but I felt a bit embarrassed.

“Hmm, I really like this Earth, you know? The music is good, and that Voyager story I mentioned before is good too. I love all the movies and dramas.”

“And?”

“But still, people don’t approach me in a friendly way. Well, I guess that makes sense. I have, how should I put it, a very distinctive appearance. From an Earthling’s perspective, I’m from an unfamiliar planet, and they probably think I don’t speak any of Earth’s many languages.”

“…”

Well… that’s true.

Many people assume foreigners can’t speak Korean just by looking at them. Even if someone has Korean nationality, people might not immediately think, “This person must be Korean.”

So, the difficulty level of living in Korea might be even higher for her than for most foreigners.

“When I think about it, I feel pretty lucky. Someone I met at work is looking after me like this. We’ve become real friends.”

“…Strictly speaking, I’m not the one taking care of you; you’re taking care of me. I’m the one secretly living in your house.”

“Yeah, well, I understand that.”

We should have turned here to go to Pang Pang’s house, but we kept walking straight ahead a bit further.

Neither of us suggested it. We just didn’t feel like going home yet.

Walking endlessly along a not-so-prettily decorated stream, Pang Pang continued her rambling story.

“My family is scattered all over.”

“…Really?”

“Yeah, because of business.”

Because of business.

That was a reason I could roughly imagine. I remembered hearing that most aliens also live in capitalist countries. If there’s capitalism, there are people doing business, and there are people who fail.

I decided not to pry further.

“All that fighting and tearing each other down… I got sick of it all.”

Perhaps these words were Pang Pang’s true feelings.

“…I see.”

I exhaled lightly.

Without either of us initiating it, our footsteps came to a halt.

We leaned against the railing overlooking the stream and listened to the sound of flowing water for a while.

Cars passed by frequently behind us. Everyone was probably heading home. It was a little past rush hour.

“So, how has it been since you came here?”

“Hmm, it’s been fun. A bit lonely at times, but generally okay. I’ve made friends, done things I wanted to do, and even found a dream.”

“A dream?”

“I want to become an astronaut.”

Pang Pang said, looking up at the night sky.

In this world where traveling on ships that roam beyond space had become almost routine, Pang Pang dreamed of becoming an astronaut.

And I knew that she wasn’t simply talking about riding those ships.

The astronaut Pang Pang was referring to was the Earth-style astronaut that had now disappeared.

The kind of astronaut who, without using any magic, wears a thick spacesuit and entrusts their body to a cramped spacecraft for days on end, flying to land on the moon.

“That’s an ambitious dream.”

It was the kind of dream an elementary school student might have.

Or is it? Would today’s elementary school students dream of such things? I wasn’t sure.

But still, I didn’t want to mock her.

Because I had a similar dream of my own.

I wanted to defeat a magical girl.

Even knowing how impossible it might be, even knowing it wasn’t necessarily the right thing to do, I wanted to defeat magical girls just once.

Well, I had no intention of mentioning it here.

“…I hope you can achieve it.”

As if speaking to myself, I said that to Pang Pang.

Pang Pang didn’t respond for a moment, then said,

“Yeah, I’ll definitely achieve it. One way or another.”

Ah, I should have bought a can of coffee.

And somehow gotten a can of beer too.

It was the kind of night that made me want to have a drink.

Instead, we quenched our thirst with cola we’d bought from the convenience store and spent a long time looking up at the night sky.

In the sky where fine dust was no longer visible, quite a few stars twinkled.