hiraeth | woosan

matter

San fears he will dye kimchi fried rice in red, not with kimchi but with his blood. Wooyoung insisted he should chop some onions, slice some meat for a better taste, and he wonders if human fingers are supposed to be on the ingredient list of the said dish.

"Sannie, curl your fingers, like a cat. Yes, like that!"

Apparently, the technique used to stabilise the ingredients is called 'the claw grip', as San learns from Wooyoung. There are many things the dead tell you through history, and 'how to cut the vegetables' seems to be on the list too. Only, it's pretty verbal.

Wooyoung gives him precise instructions as to when to add the meat, when to stir, how much gochujang he needs to put and San is a puppet who follows them. He's no Wooyoung though, as it takes him a cut on his finger, unevenly sliced onions, way too crispy meat and a little scorching smell to be done with what Wooyoung called a 'fairly beginner's dish'.

But San is proud of the final product. Even if it took him thrice the amount of time to prepare, it looks like food, and that is an accomplishment. Also, having Wooyoung's 'I'm proud of you' grin across the dinner table is reassuring enough.

"Wooyoung," San murmurs, after a scoop of the dish in his mouth, his tone in disbelief.

"Yes?"

"It tastes like kimchi fried rice."

"Dramatic much?" Wooyoung laughs. "What, you thought it would taste like a strawberry cake?"

Honestly, San wouldn't be surprised if his dish turned out to be something entirely different with fresh ingredients mauled by his cursed hands—only it shouldn't be edible. But Wooyoung seems to think otherwise.

"I knew you could do it San-ah," he cheers. "It's only a matter of trying."

It is a dejavu, San thinks. It isn't the first time San had almost thrown away his dice thinking he hadn't in him to roll it. Trivial or not, whenever San was lost, Wooyoung had been there, believing in him even when San couldn't. He was the hand that picked him up, the light that guided him, the force that pushed his back. He was the one who would see the best in San.

It has always been Wooyoung.

"Ah." Wooyoung opens his mouth wide.

It takes some time for San to realise that he is asking to be fed. Ghosts can't eat, because they are a corpseless soul, San has learnt that. He scoops his fried rice anyways, and takes it close to his mouth. Wooyoung 'bites' on it, the rice of course still present, but he munches and grins ever so brightly. That smile that always lights up San's world.

"The best kind of food in the world—no, in all the realms."

San feels his heart squeeze tightly.