This World is too Cruel to Men

Just as I was reeling from the unexpected ambush, a disgruntled voice erupted from beside me.

“Hey, what the… Are you some kind of neighborhood thug?”

“Just because I said a few words, you’re treating me like a thug? You’re the one acting like a thug!”

“What are you talking about? You just showed up sounding exactly like those thugs who go, ‘Yo, the atmosphere seems nice…'”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Ah, I guess they don’t exist here.”

“No, I’m asking what you mean!”

“That kind of thing exists. It does.”

Right, of course it does.

For a moment, I thought, ‘Could it be…?’ but no, there’s no way.

If I flinched at something like this, I wouldn’t have been through all that emotional turmoil in the first place.

“And say something that makes sense. Married couple? Seriously?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Well, isn’t it obvious? She hasn’t said a word since because she’s so dumbfounded.”

That’s not it at all.

Honestly, why does she always lose her sense of awareness at times like this…?

It happens so often that I start to wonder if she’s playing dumb on purpose.

Well, judging by her expression, it doesn’t seem like it.

“And do you think anyone’s fooled by your attempt to distract us while you sneak snacks into the cart?”

“Busted?”

“Yes, busted. Put them back nicely while I’m still being reasonable.”

“Aw, come on! You can buy me just one snack!”

“Are you a grade-schooler? Take your tantrums elsewhere. Put them back where they belong.”

“Ugh… So stingy.”

“Or should I reduce your barbecue portion?”

“I’ll put them back right away…”

Honestly, Dokgun, giggling at his friend’s dejected retreat, looked just as childish.

‘Sigh…’

There were a few more attempts to deplete our limited budget, but Dokgun successfully defended it.

*****

“It doesn’t seem like we bought that much, but there’s a lot here.”

“This is enough for three days, you know. Of course there’s a lot.”

I brought things from home that would be a hassle to buy new, so that’s why.

If I had just brought clothes, we would have had at least one more bag here.

And of course, that would have cost more money.

“So, how much money is left?”

“Hmm, last time I checked, we had enough for bus fare home and half a chicken each.”

“What? We bought all this and still have that much left?”

“That’s the power of this older brother. Got it? If you get it, treat me with respect.”

“So, are we getting chicken?!”

“Well… We have the money, so it’s not impossible, but… I don’t know if any places deliver to the Campground.”

If this place felt a little more urban, I wouldn’t even be worried.

In this day and age, you can get deliveries to parks if you’re persuasive enough.

‘But this place is a bit…’

The two things you can find anywhere are churches and chicken places, so even in the countryside, chicken places are plentiful… but campgrounds are usually located in remote areas, aren’t they?

That means it’s on the outskirts of the countryside, so there’s a high chance there isn’t even a convenience store or supermarket nearby, let alone a chicken place.

That means, if we order chicken, it’ll be coming from a relatively central area like where we are now.

But would they even deliver?

Well… they probably would.

If we ordered like ten chickens, they’d probably deliver even if they didn’t want to lose the business.

But with the money we had left, three or four chickens were possible, but ten was out of the question.

‘And even if we forced them to deliver like that…’

Who would eat all of it…?

So, I couldn’t easily give a definite answer to these kids, who were now sparkling with excitement at the mention of chicken after asking me to cook for them earlier.

“Or can’t we just go back to the Mart and buy a chicken to fry?”

“Who’s going to fry it?”

I asked out of genuine curiosity, but why are they all looking at me like I’m asking something obvious?

“Me?”

“I, no, we believe you can do it, Dokgun.”

Oh, come on…

“At this point, why don’t you just ask me to bring a whole refrigerator? Huh?”

Seriously?

Fry chicken?

“It’s just chicken. Can’t you just make some batter, dip the chicken in it, and fry it in oil?”

Well, strictly speaking, it’s not entirely wrong…

“Then we just need to buy frying powder and chicken, right?”

No, that’s not right.

“Excuse me, Teachers? If you do it like that… it’ll just be fried chicken with batter, not ‘chicken’.”

“Chicken is fried chicken, isn’t it?”

“No, if you do it that way, it’ll never taste the way you want it to.”

“We won’t know until we try, right?”

“Right, right.”

Why are these kids so adventurous in such unnecessary areas?

I understand wanting to try new things with the excitement of camping, but I wish they wouldn’t unleash that adventurous spirit on cooking.

Like most other fields, but especially with cooking, a beginner’s fresh, new attempts mostly end in failure.

There’s a reason why cooking is called a memorization subject.

It’s so you don’t do anything useless and just follow the recipe.

“Sorry to interrupt, but there’s this thing called chicken powder.”

“Then can’t we just buy that instead of frying powder?”

“Would they even sell it…”

Maybe at a hypermarket, but would a small local Mart like this have something like that?

Anyway, they go blind at the mere mention of chicken and pizza…

As if not being able to buy snacks wasn’t enough, they were now adamant about having chicken, even if it meant making it themselves.

While I was bickering with them, a silver Bongo truck, reminiscent of a Starex from my previous life, stopped in front of us.

The passenger-side window rolled down, and a thick, gravelly dialect washed over us.

“Hey, are you Jinho? My, my… You’ve grown so much since I last saw you.”

“Aunt?”

“That’s right. You must’ve had a hard time coming all the way here in this cold. Ah, never mind that, get in. Your noses are all red from the cold.”

It seemed Jinho’s aunt was the type to enjoy taking care of others.

She glanced at the groceries we bought and immediately offered to bring us some side dishes, saying our meal would be lacking without them.

And that wasn’t all.

There was also an unexpected gift.

That unexpected gift was none other than beef.

‘Wait, if this is the case…’

Barbecue round two is possible?

I didn’t know how much beef she had, but from the way she was talking, it seemed like she had prepared enough for six people.

“Beef? You could have just sent it separately… Why bring it when the kids are here…?”

Of course, I didn’t forget to mentally deliver a ‘Shut your trap’ punch to the traitor who was spouting nonsense.

“Aw, you share good food with your friends. What’s wrong with that?”

“Right, right.”

“By the way, Aunt.”

“Yes?”

“Are there any stores near the Campground?”

“Stores? Ah, convenience stores? There’s one about 20 minutes down the road from the Campground entrance.”

’20 minutes…’

That’s a bit of an awkward distance.

Honestly, it’s not an impossible distance, but it’s just far enough to be a bit bothersome.

“Anything other than convenience stores?”

“Other than convenience stores? Let’s see…”

Fortunately, there was also a chicken place that delivered to the Campground.

Apparently, it wasn’t a modern style, but a classic fried chicken place, and their chicken was supposedly delicious.

“The skin is crispy, and the meat is subtly spicy. It’s amazing with a can of beer…”

Listening to her, I started craving beer myself.

I unknowingly gulped, but…

“Why? Should I order some chicken?”

I politely declined the offer.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have the money, and she even bought us beef… Asking for chicken on top of that felt a bit… much.

As we listened to her talk about the Campground and drove up the winding country road, the scenery outside the window began to change.

Just a moment ago, it was raw, unadulterated countryside, but now it felt refined and polished.

“We’re here.”

And the pension that stood proudly at the end… was far more impressive than I had expected.

Did Jinho call this pension 5-star?

“Oh…”

“Wow…”

“What do you think? Not bad, right?”

Honestly, I thought he was exaggerating to lure us in, but I never thought it would actually be this nice.

Thanks to that, his smug look, as if it were his own house, didn’t seem annoying at all.

No, letting us use a pension like this for free… We should be bowing down to him.

“I call the first-floor room!”

“Then I’ll take the second floor!”

“But hey, choosing rooms and looking around is nice and all… Shouldn’t we go see Jinho’s aunt? She said she’d have the grill and stuff ready for us.”

“Ah…”

Right.

“She said two people would be enough, right?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Since two people were enough, we decided to pick two unlucky souls to go.

We decided to do it with a simple game of rock-paper-scissors…

‘No way…’

I lost?

Did they plan this behind my back?

How could everyone but me throw paper?

As suspicion bloomed in my heart, the second member to go with me was decided.

And that second member was…

“What? You too?”

“…”

“Ugh…”

Yun-Seo trudged towards me, lips pouting and shoulders slumped, as if losing rock-paper-scissors was the most devastating thing in the world.