Chapter 9: Warmth in a Cold Room

Seon Woo-min, having returned from the mart, was faithfully carrying out his evening routine.

After finishing his preparations for the next day’s work, he washed up refreshingly and mixed coffee concentrate with beer.

Sipping it, he read poetry and watched the Invincible Power Kitty Corps anime.

It was a modest but important post-work routine.

His phone was, of course, on silent.

His own time, his own world, where no one could disturb him and no one could intrude.

“This sword is made of ruby!”

Captain Cherry shouted, shining the red sword this way and that in the sunlight filtering through the treetops.

Seon Woo-min picked up a pillow and leaned his back against the bedside.

He adjusted the tablet stand to match his line of sight.

The tablet, along with the stand, had been bought second-hand specifically to watch the Invincible Power Kitty Corps anime.

The same went for the electric blanket under his mattress.

Woo-min brought the cold coffee beer to his lips.

By the time he had drunk more than half, his mind became clear and his heart beat fast.

His body was tired and limp, but only his vision was sharp.

It was a sensation he disliked but couldn’t let go of.

Even though he had gotten into bed, he had no intention of sleeping.

If he were going to sleep, he wouldn’t have consumed caffeine in the first place.

Because of the unsatisfactory sound of the fan heater, he had to turn up the tablet’s volume.

Even with the window firmly shut, the loud voices of drunkards outside leaked in carelessly.

Woo-min thought that the ability to be free from noise probably wasn’t proportional to one’s assets.

His first major goal was to move to a house with good sunlight, windows with double chassis instead of security bars to block noise, a warm bathroom, a bedroom separate from the kitchen, and a room where he could keep the Invincible Power Kitty Corps comics and goods.

“Then this is your sword?

Who are you?

Where are you from?”

“…I am called Mung Bean.

As for where I’m from…”

At Mung Bean’s first appearance, a faint smile bloomed on Seon Woo-min’s dry face.

The remastered version of the Invincible Power Kitty Corps anime had only been released up to episode 3, so Woo-min repeatedly watched from episode 1 each time.

If that still didn’t satisfy him, he watched the older version or the e-book comics.

Seon Woo-min couldn’t imagine his daily life without the Invincible Power Kitty Corps.

It was content he had loved since he was a child, when his age was still in the single digits.

When his elementary school peers started school with new bags, new pencil cases, and new coats, Seon Woo-min, who started his school life with hand-me-downs from his sister, was a mature, excessively composed child.

However, because his body was weak and he often caught the flu, he was frequently absent from school.

Unable to go to the hospital due to his father, who would borrow money from his middle school sister who was delivering flyers for pocket money just to afford bus fare for his day labor, and the family’s financial situation that couldn’t even pay health insurance premiums, Woo-min would fight alone in his blanket, suffering from high fever whenever he was sick.

The only friend that helped him endure those silent, lonely times was the Invincible Power Kitty Corps.

While watching the cats through the TV’s brown screen, whose video and audio quality were only minimally decent, in his dark, single-room home, he would eventually stop coughing, forget the fact that his mother had left, and enter a dazzling trance of colors.

The hardest moment was coming out of that and returning to reality.

A humble table with only soy sauce and seaweed, placed in a corner of the damp and cold single room.

Sometimes his sister would buy eggs, but that was only possible when she had leftover wages from her part-time jobs paid by the day.

In the room that was equally dark whether the sun rose or set, Woo-min would look at the clock in fear.

Soon, his father would return drunk and grab him like catching a rat, and his sister would cry trying to stop him.

Since his father listened to his sister and wouldn’t hit him when she was around, the key was for Seon Hye-ri to come home as soon as possible.

At school, the Invincible Power Kitty Corps was also hugely popular.

But there was no other child who liked it as much as Seon Woo-min, and his friends couldn’t understand his deep affection.

Seon Woo-min accepted calmly, without emotion, the fact that even though they liked the same thing, he could still be lonely.

And so, Woo-min’s heart, as isolated from his peers as an island, became even more strongly attached to the Invincible Power Kitty Corps.

“……”

Seon Woo-min, who had dozed off, suddenly opened his eyes.

Living on sleep that was cut off like dotted lines every day, sometimes caffeine didn’t work well.

It seemed he had fallen asleep due to accumulated fatigue.

The time was just past 3:30 AM.

Turning his back to the fluorescent light that stung his eyes, Woo-min stared at the tablet screen with vision blurred by sleepiness.

***

Level 2.

Rousing his stiff body, Seon Woo-min first checked his various accounts related to the Invincible Power Kitty Corps on his phone, as usual.

Among them, a red circle was blinking on the message icon of one app.

Crispy!!!MungBeanPancake (find_B12345): [Hello, Nokddoongie Bokddoongie!

Did you happen to get the special edition figure?]

Unless it was regarding official business among executives, it was rare for a member to receive a message.

There was a separate executive in charge of member management, and it was guided to inquire there, so it was safe to say he almost never had to communicate with regular members.

Tilting his head, Woo-min carefully checked the nickname of the sender.

‘Crispy!!!MungBeanPancake’…?

Well, ‘Mung Bean’ was in the nickname, but what?

There’s no way they could be a Mung Bean fan, right?

Touching the ID brought up a list of posts they had written, including their greeting post.

They were a new member who had joined recently.

[Title: Collection of the Highest Dignity Mung Bean Clips

Author: Crispy!!!MungBeanPancake (find_B12345)]

In their post, there were a large number of pictures of Mung Bean looking gallant, cute, and clever.

Slowly swallowing, Seon Woo-min began capturing them one by one.

He decided to at least reply to them as a thank you for providing clips he could enjoy over and over.

Nokddoongie Bokddoongie (nokkdoo1107): [Hello, Crispy!!!MungBeanPancake-nim.

Nice to meet you.]

Because some users were sensitive about their nicknames and disliked others arbitrarily shortening them or addressing them casually, Woo-min meticulously typed out all three exclamation marks.

Nokddoongie Bokddoongie (nokkdoo1107): [By special edition, are you perhaps referring to Mung Bean?]

After sending the message, Seon Woo-min began getting ready for work.

He was happy that they had posted Mung Bean-related content, but it was too early to conclude they were a Mung Bean fan based solely on that.

It could be a trick using Mung Bean or an attempt at attention-seeking.

While waiting for a reply, he checked his phone again and then turned on notifications altogether.

Because he maintained a thorough low profile, he hadn’t allowed notifications to appear on his lock screen.

Then, on the subway heading to the café, Seon Woo-min checked the other person’s message and froze like a paused screen.

Crispy!!!MungBeanPancake (find_B12345): [Ah, of course it’s Mung Bean!]

“……”

Woo-min, gripping his phone as if he might crush it without realizing, raised his head and stared straight ahead.

Through the window across from him, with the passengers opposite, he caught a glimpse of his own slightly flushed, excited face.

‘Ah, of course it’s Mung Bean!’

Getting off the subway, Seon Woo-min immediately switched into his commuting office worker mode.

Arriving at the café, after finishing the indoor cleaning, he poured freshly brewed barley tea into a large thermos.

At the water dispenser for customers, they offered cold barley tea in summer and hot barley tea from late autumn.

It felt like just yesterday he had put up the summer-limited drink poster in the show window, but it was already the end of October.

After Chuseok passed, the temperature had dropped rapidly.

‘Ah, of course it’s Mung Bean!’

Organizing the water dispenser, Seon Woo-min chuckled softly.

“Wow!

The weather’s pretty cold?!

Suddenly wearing long sleeves, I can’t get used to it.”

The door burst open and a loud voice rushed in, making Seon Woo-min flinch, his shoulders jumping in surprise.

The owner of the booming voice was Bae Jun-ho.

The oldest among the café staff, he was on close, brotherly terms with Woo-min.

“Hello, hyung.

Could you maybe announce your presence a little?”

“Right, right.

Our Myeongtae was broken, wasn’t it.

Sorry~”

Myeongtae was a wooden fish for warding off evil, wrapped with silk thread and hung with a bell.

Just the other day, the bell had fallen off, so Woo-min had ordered a new one.

“Are you very cold?”

Glancing at Bae Jun-ho, who was hunching his shoulders, Seon Woo-min immediately raised the temperature of the built-in fan heater with the remote.

“But, Min-mae, did something good happen?

Did you get a girlfriend or something?”

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