*********
First-person Hoshino Yume
"We arrived."
"....Mm~ hug me~"
".......Sigh..."
As if there was something precious in her bag, she clung to it tightly while waking up groggily from sleep. In the end, I carried her in a princess carry from the car, entered the house still holding her, and kindly tossed her onto the sofa in the living room.
"Puhuh!?"
"I moved you."
Even though I thought to myself that I shouldn't indulge her too much, seeing myself inevitably giving in, I felt like I had become a perfect guardian to this extent.
"Yume!?"
"Why"
"What if a cute kid like me gets hurt on the face!?"
"The sofa is soft, so it should be fine."
"That's too much!"
While letting Ai's complaints go in one ear and out the other, since it was evening time, I had to prepare dinner, and it was always my job to decide the dinner menu.
Of course, I would have prepared Japanese food as always, but today, for some reason, I was craving Korean food, so I opened the refrigerator to check the ingredients.
The most important ingredient for making kimchi stew was lacking, so I needed to go to the market to shop, and fortunately, I was already dressed, so I could go out immediately.
As I was about to leave,
"Ai, I'm going to the market. Do you need anything?"
"Huh? Hagenda..."
Seems like she doesn't need anything.
To appropriately cut off Ai's nonsense, I immediately closed the front door and went outside.
Looking at the wide yard, I thought that it wouldn't be bad to have a well-trained guard dog or something in this yard in case of unexpected situations when I'm not around.
With such trivial thoughts, after finishing shopping at the market and returning home, Ai was still lying on the sofa watching TV.
Ai's appearance: she was wearing my shirt as her top and hot pants as pants....But when did she take my clothes?
Thinking that she probably wore it because loose clothes are comfortable, and as I thought about the kimchi stew we would have for dinner tonight, I unknowingly started salivating.
Anyway, since I was Korean in my past life, I couldn't help but retain a Korean palate.
It had become a daily routine to make kimchi every year and ferment soybean paste. By the way, Ai is quite good at eating the Korean food I make, so as the one making it, I'm quite satisfied.
So, today's dinner menu is pork neck meat kimchi stew using aged kimchi.
First, I took out about 500g of aged kimchi stored in the kimchi refrigerator, and about 400g of pork neck meat for stew bought from the market, along with perilla oil, onion, potato, green onion, and the pre-made anchovy stock and minced garlic, and even brought out soy sauce and pepper.
First, wash the pork with cold water and lightly drain the moisture.
And don't forget to cut the aged kimchi into bite-sized pieces so it's easy to eat. When eating alone, I just put it in, but when eating with Ai, cutting it makes it easier to eat.
And lightly slice the onion that was taken out, then cut the green onion in half first and roughly cut it into about 3cm pieces by eye,
and after peeling the potato, cut it into bite-sized pieces, then the basic ingredient preparation is done.
And in the prepared pot, put in about two tablespoons of kimchi and perilla oil with a spoon, and stir-fry until a sufficiently savory smell comes out.
When it's stir-fried to some extent, now add the neck meat and a little pepper and stir-fry again.
And then add all the remaining prepared ingredients, add the anchovy stock, and boil it, and it's done.
And after boiling on high heat for about 10 minutes, add a little soy sauce for seasoning and minced garlic, then boil on medium heat for about 10 minutes,
"It's done."
The perfect pork neck meat aged kimchi stew is complete.
"Hey, Ai, dinner's ready."
"Yes~"
At the point when it was all done, Ai, who was already sitting at the table, answered the call.....no, rather, since when had she been there....?
"Huhu~! Good smell!! What's for dinner today?"
"Kimchi stew."
"Kimchi?"
"You'll know when you try it."
"Heh~ Well, I like anything Yume makes!"
"That's a relief."
Dinner is always the same: Ai talks about what happened today, and I appropriately respond while having dinner. By the way, our motto is to always eat breakfast and dinner together!
After finishing the meal, Ai poured a drink into a cup and brought it to me.
"A drink?"
"Yeah! Another colleague from the theater gave it to me! They said it's a fatigue recovery drink? They say it's effective!!"
"Hmm.....thank you, I'll drink it."
Coincidentally, I had been a bit tired lately, so I accepted Ai's kindness and drank the drink, and unexpectedly, the drink was mango flavored.
Rather than mango flavor, grape flavor would have been better.....
"Ai will do the dishes, so Yume, rest in the living room~♬"
".....Really? Did something good happen today?"
"Huh? No, it seems like something good will happen soon~"
".........I see."
It seems like something good will happen soon.....what does that mean?
Ai hummed as she left those words and went to do the dishes, and as I was watching TV in the living room, today, unlike other days, I felt much more tired,
Certainly, I've been overdoing it lately...
Normally, at this time, I wouldn't be this tired, but perhaps because work has piled up lately, I started to feel much more tired.
Just for a moment....just a moment, I'll close my eyes.....
The last memory I saw before falling asleep was Ai's back view......it was...d.....