Chapter 2: Ddeokbokki
XOXOXOXO
Chaerin used to be good at immersing herself in her studies, but, ever since she entered high school, she now had trouble getting herself to concentrate. It started from deciding to take a break from geometry and distract herself with reading or doodling; in the end, she had wasted three hours and used up whatever time she had left frantically cramming for her big test.
Being side-tracked came along with pulling all-nighters. She probably imploded a couple hundred brain cells from years of sleepless nights and trying to stuff as much information as she could the last minute. Her parents stopped yelling at her for her bad habit, now reluctantly accustomed to her routines that didn't appear to change anytime soon, especially when they persisted into her first year of university.
At least she still managed to get good marks back in high school, anyway. University, on the other hand, happened to be entirely different, or so Kidd had heard.
"All of the professors do is lecture and handout papers. I mean, I'm seriously going to fail my classes just because I can't keep my eyes open!"
Kidd speared a fishcake with his fork. "Why don't you just sleep at night instead of sleeping during the day like any other regular person?" His question was obviously rhetorical because there was no way that Chaerin could regulate her abnormal sleep schedule (well, she could, but she just didn't really care so much about it…and there was no way that she was going to miss her two A.M show-tunes).
She scowled. "Kidd, this is a serious matter!"
"Alright, then why don't you go to the professors and ask for help?"
"You don't think I've tried that? I go up to them and ask, but then they ask me if I was missing their lessons, then I say no, then they ask me why I need to go over the whole thing again, and then I get nervous because I don't want to tell them that I've been napping during their lecture," she moaned.
"Then lie about being absent."
"But then they're going to know that I've been lying because they check the attendance slips!"
"Gee, I don't know what to tell you, Chaerin," he said dryly. "Tell your professors the truth? Find a friend who studies in the same classes as you—"
"Wait," Chaerin cut in. "That's a good idea."
He did not deign to make a remark because he wanted to leave it at that. "So where's the boiled egg in this ddeokbokki(1)?"
"Didn't bother to boil one."
"Chaerin, you always add a boiled egg in ddeokbokki. It's like Hyo without being his meticulous self."
"Maybe some people just don't like boiled eggs."
Uh oh. There was that testy note in her tone of voice, as though the frown on her face wasn't an indicator enough. Kidd was all up for exchanging blows, but arguing with Chaerin was often a headache if anything. For one, she always lost (due to her unbelievably lack of assertiveness in any topic—she was more of a flyer than a fighter).
Two, she cried. Or sniffled. Same difference. He wouldn't know how to handle emotional women; they were more problematic than figuring out what Doriano did with all those cats that he took aboard every time they left an island (he once asked, but his crewmate told him not to worry about it while chortling sinisterly).
Three, Chaerin always irritably snap back when she was having that time of the month, which he and Hyo had come to dub it as her cranky week. Kidd didn't want to think about it; it always made him feel sick knowing that females had to deal with that sort of thing every friggin' month.
It was strictly why he didn't allow women to join his crew (though Chaerin was a different case because she was his friend, but still).
"Yeah," he tried to amend his previous comment, hoping that the rising tension would just die already. "It's good, anyway, without the boiled egg. Especially the ddeok(2)."
"Kidd, they're store-packaged."
"Yeah, but they're heated so perfectly. It's not too soggy or stiff—just right."
Chaerin didn't say anything. Kidd took this as a good thing; he preferred awkward silences over an irate Chaerin any day. However, the peace didn't last when she sniffled and said, "I don't think I can befriend any of my classmates. I'm one of the few high school graduates attending my school."
He tried to extinguish the flames—or put a dam on the waterworks, whatever analogy worked better. "You could try to—" He didn't get to finish his sentence.
"Kidd, I'm going to flunk my classes, then no one will want to hire me, then I'll be forever jobless and pathetic and be still living in my parents' house," she lamented, rubbing her eyes.
"Hyo—"
"Hyo's currently looking for his own place after saving up."
Kidd didn't know what else to say.
Then she leaned forward and dramatically flopped on the table, her arms sprawled before her to cushion her head, causing the pan to clatter. "I don't know what to do!" she wailed.
Neither did Kidd, but he resorted to finishing the food and patting his friend on the back. Seemed to work well.
XOXOXOXOXOXO
The next day, Kidd unceremoniously barged into her home and dragged Chaerin out of bed, not paying mind to the daggers that she was throwing for a glare. The place was empty save for her since Hyo was occupied with a case and was staying over at a friend's, and her parents were seeing some relatives who lived in the next town over.
Though his visits were erratic at best, Kidd wondered if the rest of the Kim family predicted that he was coming over, hence why they made their timely disappearance in the household. He wouldn't blame them; for some reason, he was the main source of Chaerin's wrath and tears when she was on her cranky week, and not even that jerk-face Reginald, who used to live across from the Kims, could rile her up like he can.
He wasn't even going to muse over the upper hand he got over what he could do better than what that prick could do. Obviously, it sucked. Being responsible for ticking off Chaerin (or any women) was more troublesome than its worth.
Once Kidd gave her food (a bowl of cereal), she was somewhat sedated. "Shouldn't you be, I don't know, running away from marines?" Chaerin asked around a mouthful of cornflakes.
"What? You think that's all that I do?"
She shrugged. Typical Chaerin fashion. Her cranky week was coming to an end, it seemed. (Thank goodness.)
"Anyway, we don't set sail until next week," he informed her. "So, in the meantime, I decided to help you on your predicament. Well, partially."
She wrinkled her forehead. "Help me with what?"
"Math."
"Kidd, you never had an education."
While that was true, that didn't mean that he liked to hear it. It made him sound stupid, and he wasn't stupid. Just because he didn't go for the formal way of obtaining knowledge like going to school didn't make him uneducated. He learned how to read and write; he learned how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Granted, he didn't know whatever nerdy lingo that Chaerin and Hyo occasionally spewed out, but the stuff that he took in was the stuff that he actually utilized in real life. What would knowing the exponent to a fraction or iambic pentameter do for him when he was busy fighting those who opposed him?
"Yes, I know," he huffed, rolling his eyes. "But I'm not referring to myself."
"Then…?"
"Just finish eating your cereal and get ready in fifteen minutes."
After Chaerin got dressed and ready, Kidd returned to the house with company. As he expected, she was bewildered when she saw Heat's zombie-like appearance just as he was when they first met. However, he was impressed by her ability to not scream in terror and silently applauded her for it.
Chaerin, who appeared to have swallowed her yelp, gave a long exhale, and then glanced at Kidd with a narrowed look. "A…friend of yours?" she asked.
He gave her a look that read "suuure." "This is Heat," he said, gesturing to the ugly man next to him. "He's, well, a wizard when it comes to numbers."
There was a moment of silence. Chaerin looked like she was trying to fathom the situation that, apparently, having Heat involved didn't allow her to do so. She gave up after nine seconds (yes, he counted) and said, "He could be a wizard when it comes to algebra, for all I know. Calculus is an entirely different story."
"My expertise is Statistics, but I dabble in Calculus," Heat promptly said in a voice that was comparable to a telephone operator machine.
Silence again.
"Um. Okay." A pause. "I'm sorry, but are those stitches real?"
"Chaerin, you can't just go asking people if their stitches are real," Kidd chided, feeling mortified for some reason. Maybe it was because it was the first time that his crewmate got to meet his childhood friend who was behaving so unmindful right now. Gosh!—Hyo was rubbing off on him again!
Chaerin frowned. "What? You do it all the time! And I apologized."
"Yes," Heat interjected, "they are."
Silence. Again.
"I'll go get my book," Chaerin said, pushing herself from the table. "Be right back."
When she disappeared, Kidd turned to Heat and ordered (pleaded), "Don't talk about your stitches."
His crewmate opened his mouth.
"Don't talk about your origins. Don't talk about your disjointed jaw. Don't talk about that weird flame thrower engine thing that's been wedged somewhere in your intestines. Even if Chaerin asks, don't talk about them."
Heat closed his mouth. And then he opened it again just to say, "My larynx."
The captain blinked. "What?"
"The apparatus used for conflagration purposes is implemented in my larynx."
"And I don't care," he grounded out. "Just—just don't mention those things to her, alright?"
"Master Kidd, why am I not to do so?" Heat inquired curiously. "Is it because she is a civilian?"
"That's not it. I tell her about my adventures all the time, but you're…something else." How can he put this delicately? "You've got a lot of, uh, crappy and complicated history that Chaerin just wouldn't comprehend. I'm not saying that it's because she's sheltered, but…just unrealized?" He scratched his head. "Look, it's not you, but her. She's got her moments where she's smart, but she's pretty stupid at times."
"I would not consider a student studying Calculus to be vacuous."
"Yeah, well, she used to be studious, but now her brain just got up and left. Just trust me when I say that she's an idiot."
Kidd totally did not see the heavy textbook hurtle at him and hit the back of his head. It even caught Heat off guard.
"If I'm such an idiot," he heard Chaerin growl, "then I suppose that you'd be fine directing yourself out of the house since I'm so incompetent."
It seemed that her cranky week wasn't gone yet.
XOXOXOXOXOX
(1): snack food made from soft ricecake, fishcake, sweet chili sauce, and other added ingredients
(2): ricecake