Ch.70Chapter 70. Aftermath (1)

“There’s no one…”

On a night filled with the chirping of insects, Cuss hugged her pillow and pouted. Jinsoo wasn’t home. Neither was Juliane.

“I am the master of this house!”

She shouted loudly and then looked around cautiously. But even after waiting for a while, there was no sign of Jinsoo bursting in to say something like “What the hell are you saying, you little shit?”

It was clear that Cuss was alone in the house.

“Freedom at last.”

When she woke up, Jinsoo was there.

At school, she was with those tiny humans.

After school, she had to be with Juliane.

For the past few weeks, she hadn’t had any time to herself, no freedom at all.

Cuss’s compensatory psychology kicked in, telling her to make good use of this brief window of opportunity.

“Hmph. He can’t scold me for watching TV right in front of it.”

In the dark living room, Cuss grunted as she dragged a chair right in front of the television and sat down.

A documentary channel was showing one of her favorite programs.

“He can’t complain about my bad posture either.”

She stretched her neck forward and hunched her back.

If Jinsoo saw this, he would approach with an irritated expression and forcibly correct her posture.

But Jinsoo wasn’t here now.

He couldn’t interfere with whether she sat comfortably or not.

This was true freedom.

“It’s… not fun.”

She should be having the time of her life.

But the program she usually enjoyed watching was incredibly boring.

Maybe it was because that strange waddling bird wasn’t on.

Cuss turned off the TV and threw herself onto the sofa.

“Alice…”

She tried calling on her phone.

But no matter how many times she tried, Alice didn’t answer.

“Is she sleeping?”

She had wanted to chat.

When talking with Alice, she usually had so much to say that her hand would hurt from holding the phone.

Right now, she wanted to talk for hours.

Any conversation would do.

She just wanted to break this silence.

“When the body changes, habits change too.”

She used to love dead silence.

To the point where she would make sure any living thing making noise would never make sound again.

And she liked being alone.

That was the kind of animal she was.

She was sure of it.

Even though her mind remained the same and only her body had changed,

Somehow she was now acting and thinking like a human.

“Come back soon, Jinsoo.”

Cuss rubbed her cheek against the armrest of the sofa and drooled.

It was where Jinsoo always rested his arm, but his warmth wasn’t there.

Cuss felt a sudden surge of emotion.

Something was welling up inside her.

It was a feeling she had never experienced before.

No, perhaps she had felt it before, but never this strongly.

“Sigh… huh.”

Feeling her body slump from that unknown emotion, Cuss trudged back to her room.

***

“This. Isn’t this my clothes?”

“Ah, umm… this is…”

“Give it back.”

“Huuuh! Don’t pull, Cuss! My underwear is showing!”

“…”

Cuss seemed particularly irritable today.

Usually, she would just show indifference toward Ms. Juliane, barely giving her a glance.

Today she was quite aggressive.

Well, when was this girl ever not aggressive…

“I’m sorry, Cuss. I don’t have anything suitable to wear right now. Hehe…”

“Then stay naked.”

“Huh? Eh? No, that’s a bit! Huuuuh! Please stop pulling…”

Did she do something while I was away?

She seems quite angry.

Cuss only let go of Juliane’s clothes after pulling on them for quite some time.

Judging by that, it wasn’t just a childish protest about having her clothes taken.

If it were, she would have whined until Juliane took them off.

“Ugh…”

“Let go.”

Even sitting on the sofa, Cuss couldn’t hide her twisted expression.

With Ms. Juliane constantly hugging her and planting kisses on her cheek…

You’re going to wear the kid out, woman.

Still, thanks to Ms. Juliane keeping Cuss occupied, I could prepare breakfast in peace.

I was thinking of making toast, but we were out of bread, so I gave up.

I’ll have to buy bread today and make toast tomorrow morning.

Wondering what else I could make quickly, I suddenly thought of omurice.

We had plenty of leftover rice and eggs.

“Tsk. No vegetables?”

Searching through the refrigerator, I found we were short on vegetables like carrots and onions.

Today’s omurice will have to make do with fewer vegetables.

Anyway, that might suit Ms. Juliane’s American palate better.

First, I chopped the onions and carrots and preheated the pan.

When it was hot enough, I added oil and tossed in the vegetables to sauté them lightly.

Then I added the rice.

I cut off a bit of butter and mixed in some soy sauce and sesame oil, creating a fried rice that existed somewhere between Western and Korean cuisine.

I tasted it occasionally, adding salt and pepper as needed.

“Hmm.”

It was a familiar taste.

This is just butter soy sauce rice.

With the rice ready, I set it aside and beat some eggs in a bowl.

I stirred with chopsticks to break the yolks and mix them, then poured the mixture into the pan.

I stirred it gently over low heat until it was soft and fluffy.

When it was done, I carefully wrapped the egg around the rice in the bowl.

After repeating this twice more, I had three servings of omurice ready.

“Hmm…”

But what about the sauce?

Just adding ketchup seemed inadequate.

It might work with kimchi fried rice, but not with butter soy sauce fried rice.

So I decided to make an improvised sauce.

For omurice sauce… I figured mixing ketchup and soy sauce would work somehow.

I added water, ketchup, and soy sauce to the pan and reduced it a bit.

It seemed to lack viscosity for a proper sauce, so I added some flour.

Thinking it needed to be sweeter, I sprinkled in some sugar.

When it seemed done, I brought the pan over and poured a little sauce on each plate.

It looked decent enough.

To add to the presentation, I sprinkled some parsley on top.

“It’s ready.”

“Wow. What is this?”

“Omurice.”

“Om… what?”

“Omurice.”

“What language is that?”

“Japanese, I think?”

“Really? It sounds a lot like omelet.”

I don’t know much about Japanese, so I couldn’t say for sure.

The only Japanese words I know are “sidabari,” “ohamma,” “ippai,” “shimai,” and “hiroppon.”

“Wow, this is so soft. The rice and eggs go so well together… I feel like I’ve had this before. Ah! This is omelet rice!”

“I wouldn’t know about that.”

Omelet rice?

I’ve never heard of that before.

I figured it must be a similar dish.

Judging by how Cuss was burying her face in her plate and inhaling the food, it seemed to suit her taste.

I ended up making more sauce than expected.

I put it in an empty side dish container and stored it in the refrigerator.

I can use it later for omurice or fried rice.

“That was delicious. I’m full.”

“Thank you.”

“Every time I see you, Jinsoo, I think you’re really good at cooking.”

I suppose so.

From Ms. Juliane’s perspective, anyone would look like a cooking god.

“Could you teach me how to cook?”

“Cook?”

“Yes. You know… after we get married, it wouldn’t be right to leave all the cooking to you.”

Ms. Juliane said, avoiding my gaze.

Just then, there was a clanging sound.

Startled, I turned to see that Cuss had dropped her spoon.

Be more careful, you brat.

“T-teach me too.”

“What?”

“Cooking. I want to learn too.”

“Hmph. Then I’ll learn from Jinsoo and teach you…”

“I don’t want that.”

“Why?!”

“I want to learn from Jinsoo.”

“Later, kid. Later.”

It seemed she wanted to do whatever Ms. Juliane was doing.

Still, judging by Cuss’s mental state, I thought it was too dangerous to let her use fire.

I roughly patted Cuss’s head and cleared the empty dishes.

“There’s something on your face, Jinsoo.”

“Ah. Thank you.”

“Hehe.”

Someone grabbed my cheek and turned my head.

Ms. Juliane wiped the corner of my mouth with a tissue.

Her smile is really pretty.

And the innocent outfit she’s wearing doubles the attraction.

I had to suppress the urge to pounce on her right then and there.

Why don’t they open schools on weekends?

If they did, I could send Cuss off and spend the whole morning doing it.

“Jinsoo.”

“Huh?”

This time, Cuss suddenly grabbed my cheek and brought her face close to mine.

“What? Is there still something on my face?”

“Hmm…”

“I asked if there’s something on my face.”

“I’m looking for it.”

“Why are you looking for…”

Cuss was acting strange today.

“Ah. Found it.”

“Huh? There?”

Cuss tugged at my clothes as she spoke.

That’s my collarbone.

There’s no way anything could be there.

“This thing here.”

“Ah, Cuss. That’s… that’s…”

Across from us, Ms. Juliane looked flustered and waved her hands.

“I… I left that mark to claim Jinsoo…”

“…?”

Then Ms. Juliane covered her face with her hands, apparently embarrassed.

What on earth is it?

***

“There were no casualties?”

“Yes. One person fainted from asphyxiation, but they’ve regained consciousness and been discharged.”

“That’s fortunate.”

In the president’s office at Tactum company.

The section chief was facing the president with a grim expression.

“This project.”

“Yes.”

“We’ve invested a lot in it. You know that, right?”

“I know. But the time and resources given were too limited for such a project.”

“…”

The corner of the president’s eye twitched.

Taking a deep breath, the president clasped his hands on the desk and spoke.

“Yes. I admit it. The support for this major project was insufficient. Right?”

“…”

“But that doesn’t mean we can shift the responsibility to the CEOs. You know that.”

“Yes. I was the project manager.”

“Right. You were the project manager. But wasn’t there a safety verification officer?”

“…?”

The president flipped through some documents and stopped.

“Yes. Jinsoo Kim. This person must have approved everything in the safety verification. The part that caused the problem must have passed safety verification too.”

“That’s true, but… that’s just a figurehead position. You know that, sir. It’s a position created to avoid legal issues, with no real authority…”

“So this person approved everything. Just answer whether I’m right or wrong.”

“You’re wrong.”

“…”

The president’s eyebrow raised once and then lowered.

He took another deep breath and glared at the section chief.

“Wrong? How?”

“The combustion chamber’s internal fuel tank support. The officer clearly pointed out issues with that part. But I dismissed it. I pressured him to approve it. I put pressure on him.”

“And is there any evidence of this fact?”

“Pardon?”

The president asked, spreading his palms sideways.

The section chief frowned in disbelief.

“Is there any recording, video, or anything left?”

“No.”

“Then it never happened. Only the record of safety verification approval remains. Inform that officer. Tell him he needs to resign due to the responsibility for the project failure.”

“Sir.”

“Don’t worry. Whatever he barks, there’s no evidence, right? There’s no problem according to regulations or legally.”

“Still…”

“You just need to keep your mouth shut. Just stay quiet. If it’s not him getting fired, it’s you. You know that, right?”

“…”

The section chief fell silent.

The sound of teeth grinding could be heard.