Almost Lover

Chapter 11 - Night Skies and Mists

"No, that was jell-o."

"Jell-o my ass."

"Okay, it was soy pudding."

"That was clearly monkey brains!" He looked at me with disbelief. "How can you watch this when it's almost dinner?" he asked as he reached for the remote control on the coffee table. Then, without care, he changed the channel.

"Wonhee!!! Youngwoo changed the channel!" I reported, expecting Wonhee to scream wrath at Youngwoo. She always hated it when I changed channels when she specifically asked me not to.

"It's okay! He can change channels!" Wonhee shouted from the kitchen. That was so not the answer I was expecting.

Youngwoo gave me a triumphant smirk and then channel-surfed happily. There was obviously a favorite tenant in the house, and I was beginning to realize it wasn't me.

When dinner was finally ready, Youngwoo and I sat on the same side of the table, the one opposite to where Wonhee was going to sit. While Wonhee was still busy preparing banchan, Youngwoo closely examined the dishes in front of him, especially the curry dish, curiosity written all over his face. "Sunmi-ssi, these must be malnourished chicken legs, don't you think? They're really small," he remarked, pointing at the frog legs.

"Oh, no, they're not malnourished. They're dwarf chickens," I said, trying to trick him into thinking that it was something other than amphibious meat. I wondered how gullible Youngwoo was. He seemed to believe everything I said.

"Dwarf chickens? Do they even exist?" Youngwoo asked, turning his head to me, looking suspicious.

"Uh-huh," I said, nodding, trying to keep a straight face.

"I've never seen dwarf chickens before."

"Have you heard of bonsai plants?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, these are like bonsai chickens," I said with a very convincing certainty. "They're genetically altered."

"Bonsai chickens, huh? Never heard of them before."

"That's because you just lived in your mansion and your luxury apartments. Now that you're here, living in the real world, you will learn a lot of things," I said, patting him on his shoulder.

"How big are bonsai chickens?"

"Oh, they're small. Just like birds."

"But that doesn't make sense. Why would people want to shrink the size of normal chickens? I mean, won't they just eat birds if they wanted smaller chickens?"

The boy had a point, and I didn't think I could go on with the story about bonsai chickens without bursting into laughter, so I just stopped there, giving him a shrug to punctuate the ending of my story.

Midway through dinner, Hyunwoo, our neighbor's kid, entered our house through the kitchen back door behind me and Youngwoo. He was licking his mouth with excitement when he saw what had been prepared on the table. Wonhee had invited him over for dinner, knowing how much the kid loved frog legs. His mouth went agape as he saw the mound of frog leg bones on Youngwoo's plate. He must have been shocked to see that someone else could eat as many frog legs as he. During frog legs nights, before Youngwoo moved in, it was Hyunwoo's plate that got filled with amphibian bones. "Noona, are these the only ones left?" Hyunwoo asked Wonhee, pointing at the last five pieces in the bowl.

"Don't worry. There's still some left in the pot," Wonhee assured him. She stood up to get some more of the curry dish.

"So, how did it go with your girlfriend?" I asked Hyunwoo as he settled on the seat next to Wonhee's. Last week, he'd asked Wonhee and me what to do with a girl he had dated for a while but didn't have feelings for anymore. He was afraid of hurting her, but Wonhee and I told him to just be honest with her because if he waited longer, he would just hurt her even more.