Chapter 54: A Holiday Feast for the Magical Girls

The scene is set in a holiday cafeteria buffet, where the dishes are prepared under the guidance of a strangely skilled minister and civil servants who’ve never been near a kitchen in their lives.

The result, though, isn’t bad at all—quite impressive, in fact.

With so many women present, yet the cooking all done by men, it’s a snapshot of a holiday in an alternate-reality South Korea.

The magical girls, who have gathered without neFeding to transform, are sitting together at a large table. Some are in middle school, others in high school, and even a few adults.

They’re all gathered together, filling their plates and sitting down, each quietly starting their meal.

One thing is clear, though: we’re the youngest ones here.

The crowd is different from the usual meetups, and the conversation is scarce. But with a group of people gathered, there’s always someone who will break the silence.

“Why did everyone come here?” one person asks.

“To escape holiday nagging…”
“Didn’t want to prepare holiday food.”

Everyone has their own reasons, but the common denominator is that they’ve all fled from the notorious holiday nagging. No one is spared from it—students and adults alike, men and women.

The constant questions: Are you going to school? Is your academic performance okay? Have you found a good man or woman to marry?

They hate those nagging questions, but love the holiday food. That simple desire brought these magical girls together in this place.

“Well, this plan isn’t half bad,” one says.

“Who said otherwise? What did we do last Lunar New Year?”

“We did the New Year’s bows and collected our New Year’s money, right?”

Some are familiar faces, and as they eat, the conversation starts flowing. It turns out that this wasn’t the first time these magical girls tried to cut costs on the holidays.

They’ve been through this countless times.

“Oh, right. Why not just take the money and be done with it?”
“Escaping the nagging was fine, but the rest… not so much.”

“Mary, what’s this?”
In the middle of the conversation, Siyeon, who is sitting next to me, asks curiously.

Children have the privilege of asking questions, no matter what others are talking about.

She points at the food—what looks like crabs soaked in soy sauce, possibly crab marinated in soy sauce.

“Crab, crab… why did you pick this up? You’ve never even tried it.”

The crab is soaked in a dark color from the soy sauce, cut in half, with just the body and legs left on the plate. Siyeon looks at it and asks, clearly confused.

“It’s so strange!” she answers proudly.

“You won’t even be able to eat it…”The characteristic of crab marinated in soy sauce is that you need to break it apart and suck out the meat, which is not an easy task for someone like Siyeon.

She hasn’t even tasted it before, so it’s obvious she won’t enjoy it.

“Then, will you give it to me?” she asks.

Looking at Siyeon, who is now awkwardly asking, another person nearby reaches over, takes a crab leg from her plate, and sprinkles it over Siyeon’s rice.

Siyeon quickly scoops up the rice with the soft crab meat and brings it to her mouth.

As she starts chewing, her expression scrunches up a little.

“Salty…” she says, her face showing the unmistakable grimace of distaste.

I can’t yet understand the taste of marinated crab, but it’s no surprise that it’s too salty for someone who hasn’t tried it before.

Among the holiday foods, the kids love jeon (Korean pancakes) and galbijjim (braised short ribs) the most.

“Eat the galbijjim, eat the galbijjim.”

“Ugh…”

As I served some galbijjim onto the plate, Siyeon, eating the ribs with white rice, washed away the strong flavor of the soy sauce.

As our meal was nearing its end, the meal for the civil servant uncles began.

The clinking sound of spoons and the repeated sound of spoons being lifted, followed by the everyday conversations of the uncles who couldn’t be home during the holiday.

“Is there no soju?”

“Should I go out and get some?”

“There are kids here, don’t drink it. Just eat.”

“Oh, my back…”

Big-bellied uncles, one by one, took over several tables, creating a certain sense of intimidation.

The walls of the table stretched out like a barbecue restaurant, and just sitting there brought on a food coma.

Siyeon, too, seemed to be no exception, as she blinked her half-closed eyes and rubbed her hand across her forehead.

Just moments ago, her eyes were sparkling as she cleared her plate, but now she started whining.

“I’m sleepy…”

“Don’t lie down right after eating, wait for 20 minutes.”

I gently returned Siyeon, who was leaning toward the floor, back to her seat.

As a way to help her fight sleepiness, I handed her my smartphone with a cute farm management game on it.

Twenty minutes later, when it was finally time to lie down, the situation reversed.

I ended up lying down while blinking my eyes, and Siyeon, now fully awake, became absorbed in the game.

I kept telling myself, “I shouldn’t sleep now, I shouldn’t sleep now…”

But the comfort of sleep was too good to resist.

By the time I opened my eyes, it was dark, with no light in the building.

As I sat up, the small blanket I had been using fell off and touched the floor.

Noticing that Siyeon wasn’t next to me, I looked around, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw several shapes lying on the floor.

It seemed that while I had been asleep, Siyeon had become closer to others.
Siyeon was sound asleep beside a middle school-aged girl.

‘Is she done sleeping…?

A big yawn escaped me, and though I tried to close my eyes again, I knew I wouldn’t fall asleep.

Reluctantly, I got up, put on my shoes, which were carelessly thrown about, and walked to the food area. I opened the lid that had been closed.

The food wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t completely cold either.

I picked up a piece of dongtae jeon (dried pollack pancake) with my thumb and index finger and put it in my mouth.

Chewing it, the tender white fish meat with its savory and salty egg coating was perfectly cooled, breaking apart along its natural grain.

It’s a flavor I would want to eat with rice every day, even if it weren’t a holiday.

That morning, the voice of the Minister, who had rented the entire employee cafeteria from early in the morning, echoed.

“Take it all and finish it!”

It had only been a day, but under the Minister’s leadership, it was the final day of the holiday planning.

The civil servant uncles, who had cooked all day yesterday, were particularly busy today.

After all, the planned period for the event was coming to an end.

If the leftover ingredients were left behind, they would just turn into food waste, so everything had to be used up.

So, the appropriate response from the Minister regarding the remaining food is to cook it all up and then just divide it among everyone. Of course, only the chefs are the ones working hard, while the magical girls are just sitting and waiting.

“Then, are you working multiple jobs?”

“Yeah, if I show up during class, it’s really tough.”

“That must be hard. Don’t you think you should quit one of them?”

“If I quit being a teacher, I’d appear to be unemployed, but if I quit this job, my income would drop by more than half…”

“Ugh, there’s no answer.”

This conversation, between a student and a teacher outside of school, reveals the depth of the struggle that people with the common theme of being magical girls go through.

“They say we have to keep going until we can’t anymore, so you guys should aim for jobs where you can work from home.”

“How about being a VTuber? It’s pretty popular these days.”

“That industry is probably going to be a red ocean soon. Plus, what if a monster shows up during a live broadcast?”

“Ah, that’s true…”

The student suddenly mentions becoming a VTuber when talking about work-from-home jobs.

While it’s a job you can technically do from home, the possibility of a monster appearing during a live broadcast completely shatters the logic of it.

It’s a job you can’t openly talk about, and the restrictions are so many.
‘Multiple jobs, huh…’

As I silently fiddled with my smartphone nearby, those thoughts crossed my mind.

Even though I’m tired of being a magical girl, what would I do if I quit?

It wasn’t a question that a grade-schooler should be worrying about, but it was something I would have to seriously think about one day.

“Alright, time to eat, everyone!”

Before I could finish my thoughts, the sound of a frying pan being hit echoed.

Japchae, dongtaejeon (fried pollack), skewered beef, and, of course, galbijjim (braised ribs) were all brought out.

We sat down and started eating the festive food.
The magical girls were sharing opinions while eating with their spoons.

“At least we’re eating traditional food during the holiday.”

“I hope we can do this again next year for the Lunar New Year. This event is pretty good, don’t you think?”

A few voices in agreement echoed, building momentum.

Magical girls, who can share their true thoughts with each other, were all gathered together, exchanging recent updates.

It had a different vibe from a usual meeting, but it wasn’t bad at all.

Siyeon and I got to experience the smell of real people during the holidays, not just frozen food.

Though we had to return all the pay for the planned date, it still seemed like a worthwhile plan.
And then…

“Here you go. Take this and eat a lot.”

The uncles kindly packed the leftover holiday food into plastic bags.

Siyeon confidently replied, “Yes-!”

“Thank you!”

We both nodded and expressed our gratitude, then carried the bags of leftover holiday food.

Japchae, dongtaejeon, skewered beef, donggrangttaeng (patties), and galbijjim.

It felt like we were going to our hometown’s family house for the holiday.

For the next few days, I wouldn’t have to worry about meals, so it was nice.

At the end, the public servant uncles drove us home, and the smell of the leftover food in the car was so fragrant.