Chapter 3: Reading session.

A head half-bald, a belly bulging out, an impression that he’d explode if you poked him.

Now it’s not even worth calling them features. People who are grouped together under the noun “uncle,” no matter how they lived or what they looked like.

That’s me.

If there’s a meaningful characteristic, it’s that I run a small restaurant in Belk?

Though it’s the most famous now.

Because of that kid.

Her name is Kitty. What’s her last name? Oppen…heimer? I’m sure it was a name like that.

I remember when I first saw her. She had an air of nobility about her face, but her behavior was dirty. She was a strange person.

So, I deduced it in my own way and asked her. Was she born into the merchant class Bruneu family, but lost her parents for some reason and wandered around until she came to Belk?

Surprisingly, it was the correct answer.

No, in fact, there was nothing surprising about it. Sadly, Kitty’s story is a cliché so trite that it’s almost unbearable. That’s how chaotic today’s world is.

I later asked her how her parents died, but she never answered. It’s not my style to make the other person uncomfortable, so I didn’t bring up the subject again.

Back to the point, I want to talk about how this shabby and small restaurant became famous.

It started with Kitty’s proposal. She asked to rent a corner of the restaurant between 2 pm and 5 pm, when there were the fewest people.

I was dumbfounded. She suddenly appeared and asked to rent the restaurant.

I accepted the offer.

Why did I do that? I don’t know either. If I had to pick a reason, it might be because I was so impressed by the way he was trying to survive after losing his parents.

And what kind of business would he do at that age? He didn’t seem to have anywhere else to go anyway, so I gladly cut off a corner of the restaurant, thinking that I would just use him as a restaurant employee when he got tired of playing business.

“Really!?”

And I was sitting in the corner of the restaurant, wondering what he would do.

Surprisingly, Kitty’s business was none other than private lessons. The lecture name is Kitty’s Writing Class. I think he named it well.

“It sucks.”
“Tsk tsk.”

The reason he needed a suit was probably to avoid being looked down on even a little.

The day of the grand first lecture. I also joined the glorious occasion. I’m embarrassed, but I’m practically illiterate except for the essential words I need for restaurant work.

But unfortunately, I was the only one on the first day. I think it can’t be helped because it’s a suddenly opened lecture.

Nevertheless, Kitty’s face didn’t show any disappointment or intimidation. He was a stronger person than I thought.

But the lecture was more shocking than I thought. All of a sudden, he wrote swear words and vulgar words on the chalkboard and read them out loud?

Angry that he seemed to be making fun of me, I questioned Kitty.

Kitty looked at me and explained his actions with a bright smile. There’s nothing like swearing to arouse interest.

It may sound stupid, but I fell for that nonsense explanation.

He certainly aroused interest. However, it was just a way to read and write swear words, so I felt a little guilty.

Of course, it’s not just swear words.

He explained the words about concrete objects by bringing real things or pictures, so it was very easy to understand, and he explained abstract things through gestures or associations.

It was very easy to understand because he brought real things or pictures to explain, and it was subtly interesting because it was closely related to real life by using newspapers.

On the third day, one more person joined. They seemed to know each other. He was talking about a letter or something.

Together with the new man, I spat out vulgar words and learned new words by reading the newspaper.

“It was fun.”

On the fourth day, one more person joined. He was a unique old man. He made all sorts of fuss and sat down in the middle of the meal, and then he naturally became part of the class.

Again, we sat together and spat out swear words. Hearing three times as many swear words made my head dizzy and my mind blank.

I asked the new old man what he liked about this strange class.

The old man didn’t spare any praise for Kitty.

He said that Kitty’s method was the vision that education, which was just beginning to be studied in the capital, should pursue.

“Heh heh… I was surprised too.”

On the fifth day, a whopping 10 people joined. Kitty was very happy.

They were all students of the old man, and surprisingly, the old man’s identity was a professor at a famous academy in the capital.

He was very happy, saying that he didn’t know that stopping by Belk for a while on business would be such a great fortune.

About 12 men spat out swear words as loud as they could. My head started to hurt.

“That’s our story, right?”
“I guess so.”

That’s how time passed.

As the old man said, Kitty’s skills were quite amazing. After a month, even I, who was illiterate, was now able to write simple compositions.

As I achieved remarkable growth, and that fact spread far and wide, the number of students also began to increase exponentially.

Besides that, many people came to my restaurant.

People who came after hearing the professor’s word of mouth, people who just came out of curiosity and stayed there, and mothers who came for their children’s education.

The number of people snowballed, and when there was no longer enough space to accommodate the people, I used all the remaining funds to expand the restaurant.

The expanded restaurant was used for lectures.

You may ask how I make a living then? You don’t have to worry about that.

The lecture time is from 2 pm to 5 pm, when there are no people in the restaurant, and when the lecture is over, it’s 5 pm, when people have to have dinner.

Then all those students order food right there to fill their stomachs.

That means all the students turn into restaurant customers after the lecture.

People ate and drank, exchanging what they had learned with each other, and some formed groups to exchange opinions.

Some days, the young students of the professor, who was drunk, argued fiercely with each other, saying that their opinions were right.

The people who were quietly watching it initially joined the argument by subtly saying “I think that young man is right” from their seats, and in the blink of an eye, everyone in the restaurant split in half and started arguing.

Kitty and the professor, who were surprised, barely calmed the people down and gave order and rules to the argument.

As procedures were created, the argument naturally transformed into a large-scale discussion.

As pros and cons arose, and victory and defeat arose, people focused more on the lecture to win the elegant argument, and those who had the leisure studied separately at home.

It would have been great if that effort wasn’t for the purpose of bypassing the rule of banning swear words.

Kitty liked it even more. She said that she had awakened metaphors and similes on her own, even though the direction was a bit off.

Although it only changed from crude insults such as “Your mother is a whore!” to elegant swear words such as “Your mother is very popular because she has no teeth, isn’t she?”

“Hahaha!”

From this point on, Kitty, perhaps judging that it was time to move on to the next stage, abandoned the existing one-way teaching method of unilaterally continuing the class and switched to writing diaries or book reports.

The written book reports were read in front of people. I did it a few times too.

After that, as other people came here and people’s skills developed day by day, my restaurant turned into a kind of forum.

Taking classes from Kitty, eating, and discussing. Based on consensus, we corrected the chronic problems of Belk.

As these days continued, gossipers spread the story of Belk to other cities, and many intellectuals from other cities, who heard the rumors of a suspiciously brilliant professor and a strange restaurant, flocked here.

So, the intellectuals from other cities, who were quietly watching in my restaurant, were surprised to see a woman standing on the pro side.

But since Kitty was a woman from the start, the interest quickly died down. Everyone just went over it, thinking that’s how it is.

Anyway, they were also very happy with us. Although I didn’t really understand because only difficult words came out, such as the soil is good for republicanism and democracy.

But they were soon kicked out by Professor Karmin, who was an academy professor. I don’t know why, but Kitty was also uncomfortable, so I believe that Professor Karmin’s actions were right.

These days, people like me who took the class together in the beginning no longer participate in Kitty’s lectures.

It’s because there’s nothing more to learn.

Instead, we started reading books. Now we can understand the writing, and there are still tons of words we don’t know.

I want to write more, but I think people will get bored, so I’ll end the article here.

Thank you.