Chapter 8: A game-addicted girl wants to eat tteokbokki

“Damn, it’s hot…”

The man who got off the bike took off his helmet and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

It was hot and humid. The sunlight was harshly beating down.

It’s already September, but the weather was still intense like summer.

Just riding around on the bike made him feel drained.

‘I’m sick of it. So sick of it.’

Wouldn’t it be nice to win the lottery or something?

The man took out his lottery ticket from his wallet and glanced at it before putting it back.

He didn’t really expect to win. The more you expect, the more disappointment follows.

If you get your hopes up too high, you might end up losing even what you already have. The lottery was just part of his routine, a small hope to get him through the week.

It was like a good luck charm, in a way.

“Let’s see, which floor is it…?”

Another ordinary day.

The delivery man opened the bag on the back of his bike to check where the food was headed.

“Fifth floor… The doorbell is broken. Please knock on the door. And… pay by card on delivery?”

Customers who leave these kinds of notes never come out on the first knock.

Muttering to himself, he headed towards the destination, hoping the person wasn’t a difficult customer who’d get angry after multiple knocks.

He approached a neat row of one-room apartments, heading to a more secluded building where the customer lived.

“Why is the elevator under maintenance again…?”

His first delivery of the day was already going like this. It seemed today wasn’t going to be a good one.

The delivery man, holding the bag of food in one hand, slowly climbed the stairs.

Technically, the fifth floor wasn’t even that high. But because of the weather, even such light activity made him sweat, and he let out a small sigh.

From the bag in his hand, the heat from freshly prepared food was seeping through the cracks. He glanced at the contents, frowning slightly.

“Tteokbokki again…”

It was the kind of food that he encountered at least once a day.

What’s so great about this? He couldn’t help but wonder.

Of course, he’d eaten tteokbokki several times since he was a kid. But he couldn’t understand why people would order such an expensive version through delivery.

It wasn’t like it was so delicious that it turned your world upside down.

‘It’s probably a woman.’

The delivery man was almost certain the customer was a woman.

Most men, sharing a similar mindset to his, rarely ordered tteokbokki through delivery unless there was a huge discount at the restaurant.

But women tended to prefer it. Even his ex-girlfriend would drag him to tteokbokki or mala tang places whenever they met.

As he continued to dwell on pointless thoughts about why people ordered tteokbokki, why the customer was likely a woman, and why women liked tteokbokki so much, he eventually found himself in front of the customer’s door.

“Ahem.”

He paused for a moment to catch his breath. Now, he had to knock and deliver the food.

Embarrassingly, he was quite introverted, so knocking on someone’s door always made him a bit anxious.

Carefully, but loud enough to be heard, he knocked.

Knock knock

Exactly two knocks.

The delivery man, after knocking, waited nervously for a response from inside.

But after 5 seconds, then 10, no sound came from within.

‘Of course.’

As expected, the customer didn’t appear after the first knock.

He took a deep breath and knocked again, this time with a little more force.

Knock knock knock — He even added one extra knock this time.

‘They’ll come out now, right?’

But once again, the delivery man’s expectations were completely ignored.

Ever since the elevator had been out of order, he had a feeling it was going to be a tough day.

‘They’re really testing my patience.’

With a deep sigh, he knocked on the door once more. This time, much harder.

Bang bang bang!

Somewhere between a knock knock knock and a bang bang bang — somewhere in that range.

There was no way they wouldn’t hear this. Whatever the customer was doing inside, they had to have heard it. Unless they had gone out in the meantime.

‘They won’t complain about the loud knocking, will they?’

The delivery man, thinking about past experiences with difficult customers, was staring at the door when suddenly, it swung open and someone appeared.

It was clearly the customer he’d been waiting for. The delivery man, suppressing his mild annoyance, was about to pass the food over with a forced smile when—

“Oh…”

He halted in mid-action, letting out a small sigh.

The person who opened the door was, as he had expected, a woman.

A woman, but…

“Ah, sorry! I couldn’t step away for a moment. Hehe…”

She smiled sweetly and gave a slight bow, her unkempt hair sticking out in the back making her look unexpectedly cute.

And, most importantly, she was stunning. Incredibly beautiful, to the point where he almost couldn’t believe it.

But that wasn’t the only reason the delivery man sighed.

“Uh, could you give me the tteokbokki? No, wait. I need to pay by card, right? Hold on a sec…”

The woman quickly disappeared behind the door again, and the delivery man, as if coming back to his senses, shook his head.

‘…What did I just see?’

Part of his reaction was because the customer looked like a celebrity, but what really made him react that way was her outfit.

She was just wearing a large, white T-shirt. A boxy T-shirt big enough to cover her upper body and reach down to her thighs.

So far, no problem.

But as the delivery man replayed the memory in his mind, he realized that beneath it… she wasn’t wearing anything.

“Oh, sorry for keeping you waiting. Should I insert the card here?”

“Huh? Oh, yes… please.”

She inserted the card into the terminal, took the tteokbokki, and apologized again with a polite bow.

Throughout the entire exchange, the delivery man still hadn’t fully regained his composure.

It wasn’t until he found himself back on the first floor of the apartment building that he finally came to his senses.

“Heh, hehehe…”

The delivery man chuckled foolishly as he headed toward his bike. Instead of riding off to his next stop, he sat down on a nearby bench, feeling that it might be dangerous to drive in his current state.

‘It’s like I’ve been enchanted.’

For some reason, his head felt foggy, and his face was flushed. Now he understood why older folks used to warn him about women.

‘I thought it was going to be a bad day.’

It turned out to be quite the lucky day. He even saw someone so beautiful that he completely forgot about his ex.

The delivery man sat on the bench for a few minutes, reminiscing about the recent memory.

Hsss, ha… hsss, ha…

Tears welled up in his eyes, and he involuntarily made strange sounds.

No, it wasn’t anything weird. Don’t misunderstand.

It was just the sound of him eating tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes).

As the unique, fiery-red sauce played tricks on his palate, it didn’t take long for his head to feel cloudy.

“Why is this so good?”

After a few bites with tears in his eyes, he finally put down his chopsticks.

It wasn’t because the spice was overwhelming, of course. It’s just that eating too fast can cause indigestion. Yeah, that’s what it was—a strategic retreat.

He soothed his burning mouth with a cool drink and began to reflect on his thoughts.

Why did I even order tteokbokki? I can’t usually handle spicy food, and I rarely eat it.

There was only one reason. Because my body has changed.

When I was browsing the delivery app, thinking I needed to eat something, I suddenly craved tteokbokki for some reason.

It sounds strange, even to me, but that’s exactly how it was. Like cats going crazy over catnip, I too was instinctively drawn to it.

Tteokbokki, mala soup, and those oversized macarons… By the time I realized my eyes were constantly drifting to those foods, it was already too late. Before I knew it, I had placed an order for a tteokbokki set that cost 6,000 won.

I had to meet the minimum order requirement, but still, it was a hefty expense. And it didn’t help that my bank account now held less than 1 million won.

1 million won.

A lot if you think about it, but too little when you consider living expenses. Rent, utility bills—it’s hard to deny how tight things will get.

Especially when impulsive spending like this happens, the situation gets even worse. My body’s changed, and now there’s even more money going out. With food expenses alone like this…

But this was an accident, a result of my changed body. How could I have predicted or prevented it?

Humans have always been slaves to their hormones, and now I’m a s*ave to tteokbokki… It’s just how it is.

Nom.

The tteokbokki was delicious. Enough to satisfy Camilla, a warrior from the Abyss.

For someone my size, I ate more than expected. I was happy my appetite hadn’t diminished despite all this change.

Anyway, that’s not the point right now.

After finishing my short but intense meal, I declared with a determined tone:

“I need to make money.”

At this rate, I’m going to run out of money and starve to death.

But how? How do I make money?

“Hmm…”

A lot of ideas came to mind, but there was only one thing I could act on right away, something I wanted to do and could actually pull off.

Making money with the thing I do best.

“There’s only one option: streaming.”

It was time to start streaming.

 


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