“Son! It’s time to go to school!”
As usual, Lee Jong-Suk’s mom’s loud voice forced his eyes open.
“Ummm… I’m coming.”
Lee Jong-Suk groaned loudly while getting up. He flexed his shoulders and was surprised when he did that easily. Wow. What was going on? His whole body was as light as a feather, and his movements were quite fluid. He twisted his body back and forth and flexed his arms and legs. Je noticed there was a difference in his legs.
Muscles were evident on his legs. They were not huge like the muscles of a person who frequented the gym, yet, some were there that weren’t there before. While Lee Jong-Suk was still admiring his leg muscles, his mom called him again.
“Are you still sleeping? Wake up already!”
“Okay!”
Lee Jong-Suk left his room and entered the bathroom. Before going into the shower, Lee Jong-Suk stopped in front of the mirror and removed his clothes. He looked at his face and body and was surprised. His torso looked like those of the princes they showed in movies. His whole body looked like it was made of muscles.
“This…. is my body?” he asked himself.
He looked at his reflection in the mirror, and a huge smile bloomed on his face. The muscles were not huge, but they were definitely great muscles. It felt like a dream. The previous day, he dreamed of cooking, and when he woke up, his whole body ached. However, after waking up, he had cooking skills, and his taste changed.
In that morning’s dream, he learned about some skills and was trained by the bachelor. In the dream, there was a kind of ball there. It was tossed around during training, and the ball went along with the flow. During that process, soft muscles had formed.
Did that mean that while he was dreaming about an experience, his body would adapt to it? Did that also mean to get experience, he had to sleep? At that thought, Lee Jong-Suk shook his head. He could get experience by reading the book. But did that mean he had to sleep for his body to be adapted to the experience?
Lee Jong-Suk was deep in thought when his mom’s loud voice brought him to reality.
“Shower quickly and come down,” she said.
Lee Jong-Suk, who was grateful for the body he now had, immediately turned on the shower, washed, and went down.
His mom looked at thoroughly when he came out of the bathroom and exclaimed,
“Oh, my! My son is exercising?”
“What are you saying?” he asked.
“When did my son start building muscles? You even have abs.”
Lee Jong-Suk looked down at his body and let out a small laugh.
“It’s nothing.”
Lee Jong-Suk hurriedly went to his room and put on his school uniform. When he was done, he left his room to eat.
“Come and sit. Eat rice before going,” his father said.
Lee Jong-Suk nodded and went over to where the sauce barrel was. He lifted the lid and tasted the sauce with his finger, and smiled.
“The taste is definitely okay but it still needs to be left alone for a while. There are a lot of things lacking it, though,” he said.
After tasting the sauce again, a few ingredients came to mind.
‘Mushrooms and anchovy. We need mushrooms and anchovy. If whipping cream is added to it, then it might have a soft texture, and the taste might be better.”
Thinking it over, Lee Jong-Suk shook his head.
“No, I don’t think so. One cup is sold for 500 won. If we add all these, we might have to increase the price of a cup to 1000 won. That would be expensive, and people might not buy it. While still considering his choices, Lee Jong-Suk added a little red pepper powder, salt, and mixed everything after adding little water. No matter what, after fermenting, he was sure the taste of the sauce would change. But there was still something lacking in the sauce.
“Is it good, son?” his dad asked.
“Yeah. Seems like it is almost fully fermented. There is no need to boil this separately, boil the sauce until they are added. As I said yesterday, don’t forget to mix the rice cakes in olive oil.”
“Okay. Go and eat your rice,” his mom replied.
Lee Jong-Suk nodded and started eating. When he was done, he sighed. His taste buds had certainly changed, and that was the problem. Today’s issue was curry. Everyone liked curry, and everyone used curry. But, Jong-Suk felt it was too much in that dish. It wasn’t as if the food was bad, but it was a roughly cooked one.
He left the dining room and went to his room. He took his bag and went back to the kitchen. He started to put spices in a plastic bag.
“What are those for?”
“I need them.”
Lee Jong-Suk packed little quantities of salt, red pepper powder, and sugar, put them in his bag, and hurriedly left for school.
He slammed the door and started walking towards his school. He took him an average of thirty minutes to walk from his house to his school. At 8 o’clock in the morning, the studying session started in his school. Students were allowed to enter the school until 8 o’clock. That was why Lee Jong-Suk always left his house by 7:30.
While walking to school, Jong-Suk started thinking about the experience book. He wondered how many writers had written in the experience book so far. There were many things he didn’t know about the experience book. But, the book only answered questions about experiences, not writers.
He thought about the dream he had the previous night about Kun-Gong. He had seen the basics of martial arts. He practiced and fought in his dream. Did that mean he knew martial arts now? Was he as strong as he was in his dream?
While walking, those thoughts kept running around in his head. Lee Jong-Suk saw a can lying on the floor and tried to lift it with his foot. The can shot up and was coming back to the ground when. Jong-Suk caught it with his foot. It was well balanced on his foot. Jong-Suk kicked it up continually, and the can didn’t miss his foot. He then kicked it forward, and it went straight into the trash can.
“Soccer, huh?” he asked no one in particular.
In the dream, the writer whose experience he had read had practiced with a ball. In the training, both hands and legs were to pass the ball effortlessly. The movements were so fluid; it looked like the ball was glued to the body. Now that he thought about it, the movements were similar to that of soccer. Lee Jong-Suk was still walking and thinking when someone hit him from behind.
The body movement of the person who hit him was odd. Lee Jong-Suk’s hands interlinked at his back, and he deftly moved forward. The hand of the person who hit him was slipping, even though he was trying to hold onto him. At the last moment, Lee Jong-Suk caught the person and stopped him from falling.
“Hey! Be careful!” he shouted.
The person laughed out loud and asked,
“Did you know I was coming?”
Lee Jong-Suk also laughed when he realized the person was his friend. They both went to the same school, and his friend’s name was Kim Yong-Woo.
Kim Yong-Woo, after looking at him suspiciously, suddenly asked,
“How did you do that?”
Kim Yong-Woo playfully hit him, and his body responded on impulse. Lee Jong-Suk punched him in the face before he could stop himself. Kim Yong-Woo yelled out in pain and started crying.
Lee Jong-Suk was confused. Did he just defend himself without meaning to?