The Genius Decided To Live An Ordinary Life [EN]: Chapter 6

On Saturday, after finishing school early and having lunch at home, Jinhyuk rummaged through the storage shed.

“Jinhyuk, what are you doing?”

At his father’s call, Jinhyuk came out with two fishing rods slung over his shoulder.

People who lived by the sea usually had fishing rods at home, even if they didn’t fish. Someone would give them away, they’d pick up discarded ones, or even steal them…

The Jinhyuk’s family was no different. It was a bamboo fishing rod that Mikyung’s father had given them, saying they could use it when they were bored.

“Dad, let’s go catch some mudskippers.”

“Mudskippers? Jinhyuk, do you know how to fish?”

*I’ve done it a lot in my younger days, Father.*

He couldn’t say that.

“It’s supposed to be easy.”

“Oh, is that so?”

If his son wanted to go, he had to go.

Sohn Kwang-yeon grabbed his work gloves first. Like a true city bumpkin, he liked to eat things but was afraid to touch them. Even when they went clamming, Sohn Kwang-yeon’s job was to cheer whenever his wife caught something.

*Mudskippers are really delicious. But they’re scary.*

Compared to the dried mudskippers he had first tasted after moving to the countryside, the dried pollack he had eaten with beer in college was bland garbage.

Whether he knew his father’s worries about how to catch them or not, Jinhyuk walked ahead confidently.

Jinhyuk was sure of himself.

Whenever he visited his parents’ graves, he had spent so much time fishing, sitting like a stone statue, wanting to stay a little longer. Back then, even though the mudskipper population had decreased due to overfishing, tidal flat pollution, and waterway sedimentation from development, he had easily caught double-digit numbers. He would dry them and offer them at the graves each time he visited.

*Now, the population is high, so I’ll catch a lot, right?*

He stopped by a nearby forest just before reaching the sea. He picked a few broad acorn leaves and put them in his bamboo basket. He put some in his father’s basket too.

“Why these?”

“It keeps them fresher. Or, they say it does. The guys who catch webfoot octopus in the summer put a few of these in their styrofoam boxes, too.”

He wanted to say that putting acorn leaves in was just a romantic notion of a native fisherman. That was the truth. Jinhyuk didn’t know what effect it had on freshness. But from the receiving end, it seemed quite convincing.

*Our son is so smart.*

Sohn Kwang-yeon, like a good fool, just nodded.

Jinhyuk led his father to a mudflat without water.

“Jinhyuk, there are no fish here?”

“We need to catch bait. Give me the shovel.”

“Ah…”

Sohn Kwang-yeon, with his mouth agape, nodded.

It was strange. I went to college, but why don’t I know this? It was obvious that you had to prepare bait before fishing, but I never learned that in any of my business administration lectures.

Sohn Kwang-yeon’s realization soon turned into admiration.

*Oh, wow, our son.*

Jinhyuk skillfully used a small shovel to scoop up the mud and catch bright red lugworms one after another. They weren’t the farmed sandworms sold at fishing stores, but native red lugworms. The slender, vermilion lugworms, glistening in the sunlight, were so beautiful that they made you gasp in admiration.

Sohn Kwang-yeon, trusting his gloves, diligently put the worms in a can. Although the color was pretty, he couldn’t help but look away, glancing sideways at the wriggling creatures.

“It’s so much fun catching them with Dad…”

“Hahaha, Dad’s having fun too.”

Did his father know the weight of Jinhyuk’s words? He wouldn’t know that the lonely and scary times he had spent alone had turned into precious, joyful moments of picking up worms with his father.

*But what does it matter if he doesn’t know, when I’m this happy?*

A genuine, beaming smile spread across Jinhyuk’s face.

They arrived at a waterway exposed by the receding tide and unwound their fishing lines.

Jinhyuk first put a worm on his father’s hook.

“Ah, so that’s how you do it. I’ll do it next time.”

*You’re stating the obvious.*

How long was this grown man going to rely on his young son?

“Dad, like this.”

Jinhyuk demonstrated the jigging technique to his father, who was just dipping his line in the water like a novice.

Thud-!

As he was demonstrating, an impatient mudskipper bit and ran.

The tip of the bamboo fishing rod bent sharply, and the fishing line whirred sharply.

“Ugh-!”

Did he pull too hard? Jinhyuk, with his small body, fell flat on the mud.

*Damn it, I should be used to this small body by now.*

The large mudskipper, now out in the open, thrashed wildly. *Ping, ping.* The teleporting of the live fish was more like teleportation.

“Oh, oh! Are you okay? What should I do, what should I do?”

Were his father and the mudskipper destined to be together?

Everywhere his father tried to step, the mudskipper thrashed and took the spot first.

He was relieved that Jinhyuk wasn’t hurt since he had fallen on the mud, but his father was too scared of the mudskipper to approach it easily.

Watching this, Jinhyuk chuckled, his shoulders shaking as he lay there.

“Hehehe-, is Dad scared of fish?”

“No, I’m, I’m not scared at all-”

A blatant lie. He was even stuttering.

His father’s face was paler than usual.

***

In less than two hours, the two bamboo baskets were full.

When they ran out of worms, they used cut-up mudskippers as bait.

When the tide started to come in and there were too many fish, they even put in empty hooks in their haste, and they still caught them. To bite an empty hook, did the mudskippers need iron?

“Wow! It’s heavy. Let’s go home.”

His father’s mouth was stretched from ear to ear.

Jinhyuk, carrying the fishing rod and shovel, followed behind his father, who was carrying two bamboo baskets.

Sohn Kwang-yeon kept looking back, asking if his young son was having a hard time and making sure he was keeping up.

Jinhyuk followed at a distance from his father.

*Oh yeah, this is great.*

He was covered in mud from head to toe, and he wiggled his hips as he walked.

When he used to come home from late-night shifts, there were drunk people dancing and humming songs on the main street. He had always wondered what made them so happy, but now he understood their feelings a little.

His father glanced back.

“Jinhyuk, do you know how to clean these?”

“Just press their bellies, and all the guts will come out of their butts.”

Jinhyuk, quickly composing his mischievous hips, answered in a clear voice.

You don’t need to cut open a mudskipper’s belly. If you clean it that simply, you can eat everything. From head to tail, bones and fins.

His father nodded, recalling the shape of the dried mudskippers Mikyung’s father had given them last winter.

*My wife will clean them.*

He was scared of fish.

*

Jinhyuk did the cleaning too.

He was worried that the child’s body wouldn’t be strong enough, but with one press, all the guts and even the eggs came out. He was surprised at himself for pressing so hard.

“Wow, Jinhyuk is good at this.”

Sohn Kwang-yeon, standing awkwardly, clapped like a seal.

The little guy, with his face covered in mud, sitting by the faucet, looked like a true sea person.

“Eek-, you caught so many? Jinhyuk, Mom will do it.”

“I can do it well too. Mom, you rest.”

His mother also sat next to Jinhyuk and helped with the cleaning. Although she had grown up pampered, she was born in the countryside, and it was something she had naturally learned since she was young.

Sohn Kwang-yeon, who had been hesitant, couldn’t bear to make his wife do the hard work, so he ended up helping.

*That’s how a man becomes a man, Father.*

He needed to become stronger to survive in this harsh world. Jinhyuk clicked his tongue inwardly.

Sohn Kwang-yeon, who had managed to clean one, asked his wife.

“Honey, can we eat these, these eggs?”

“Yes, we can. The eggs are delicious.”

“Dad, while you’re at it, please collect the guts with the eggs.”

He’d have to give them to Janggun.

A bribe to stop him from acting up.

***

Saaah-, the gaunt, dry bush clover made a decent harmony in the late autumn wind. As the sun was about to set, the western sky began to burn. Under the flat stone bench where the zelkova tree cast its branches, there was an autumn soul hugging a dented aluminum pot.

Janggun’s moist nose twitched.

The smell of burning wood, the smell of earth and water rising from the ground, and a strange smell.

*Sniff sniff-* It was an unfamiliar smell.

It was unfamiliar, but it made his heart pound as if he had heartworm. The owner and the child had gone somewhere and brought back a bunch of smelly things.

It must be the smell of those things.

Lost in a happy premonition, Janggun fell into thought.

The people in this house were so kind and caring.

According to his dog friends in the neighborhood, other houses just gave them leftovers. They were too salty, and it was hard to eat without water. He didn’t know the name. They said it was because of a seasoning that tasted like cat.

But this house was different. They didn’t use strange ingredients, so it was easy to eat, and they mixed it with enough water so the food wasn’t salty. Maybe that’s why Janggun was healthier and faster than the bigger dogs in other houses.

*Hmph-* *Grrr-.*

The smell disappeared.

He smelled cool water.

They must have finished cleaning and tidied up. He didn’t even have to look. He had a dog’s nose, after all.

*Heheheh-* The smell changed. They were going to make porridge for him!

They could just give it to him, but the lady never did anything carelessly.

She would boil it until it was thoroughly cooked, then cool it down completely before serving it.

That’s the kind of people they were.

He heard footsteps.

They were light.

It was the child.

The child had been strange lately.

He thought he was being misunderstood for throwing a hard, astringent tree fruit that he couldn’t eat, but he swore it wasn’t because of that. Janggun was a generous dog. How generous was he that he didn’t even wag his tail when a stranger passed by? That day, a dog named Dokku from the next village told him that a thief had broken into their house.

Anyway.

The child was strange, but he didn’t know what was strange about him.

At first, he had barked in surprise when he saw the child’s shadow moving separately when he went home from the flat stone bench. But maybe he had seen it wrong. When there were multiple lights, there were multiple shadows, and there was a big zelkova tree next to the bench, so there were many shadows. Janggun was a smart dog, so he knew that too.

The child had also made a ball of fire when they went to the sea, and then he had turned it into the moon. Was it because his eyes were dog eyes that he had seen it wrong? Maybe, but maybe not. Anyway, seeing that, Janggun thought he should be wary of the child.

But since he had brought something delicious, he would wag his tail.

*Heheheh-.*

“Janggun, enjoy your meal.”

*Chomp chomp-!*

Oh wow- this rich aroma that only fresh seafood can produce.

The soft texture that goes down your throat even before you chew it.

It was warming up his body temperature, which had dropped in the cool breeze.

As expected, when the cold wind blows, it’s best to eat a hearty bowl of warm dog food.

Janggun even shed tears without realizing it.

He was so busy burying his nose in the bowl that he didn’t see the child go back.

He just thought.

*Woof-.*

– Isn’t it too much to name a female dog Janggun?

It was a question he always had.

Even though it was a unisex world, they should have given her a proper name.

*Slurp slurp-.*

Anyway, it was so delicious.

It was the first time he had tasted something like this in his ten months of life.

Janggun licked the bottom of the dog bowl clean.

Oh, where did the acorns go?

He had just left them there because he didn’t want to touch them.

***

Janggun didn’t growl.

Jinhyuk felt that alone was worth the effort of catching and cleaning the mudskippers. He was happy that his relationship with the friend who had protected him most fiercely in his past life seemed to have been restored.

“Jinhyuk, is this how you hang them on the clothesline?”

His father asked, looking at the mudskippers that Jinhyuk had strung together while his mother and father were cleaning them.

You could use thin bamboo, called *shinudae* in the village, to pierce through the gills from side to side. After stringing about ten of them, you would insert the ends of the bamboo into the rope, creating an old-fashioned fish drying rack. [Shinudae is a type of thin bamboo used for various purposes in rural Korea.]

If they were exposed to the cool autumn wind and the warm sunlight for three days, they would be semi-dried, and if they were left for about a week, they would be completely dried. It was fun to take them off the stick one by one like dried persimmons. Semi-dried ones were good for steaming or spicy stews, and fully dried ones were good for grilling and eating whole. Of course, they were also a great winter snack if you ate them without cooking, as they were salty and savory.

Excluding the few that his mother had taken for dinner, more than 200 mudskippers were hanging on the clothesline.

His father swallowed hard, looking at the plentiful winter snacks.

“Jinhyuk, should we go catch mudskippers again tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

What would the tide be like?

It would recede a lot tomorrow too, since it hadn’t been long since the new moon spring tide. [Spring tide refers to the highest tides that occur during the new and full moon.]

Jinhyuk glanced at Janggun as he went into the house.

She wasn’t growling.

*Indeed, the bribe is worth it.*

In his previous life, he had never had to ask anyone for favors or rub his palms together. He could just quit his job, and he was a man who had nothing to fear. Besides, he was a former special forces operative who had mastered taekwondo, hapkido, judo, kendo, and special warfare martial arts in his prime.

That mutt was scary.

Especially, her teeth looked sharp.

When she growled with those teeth, it sent chills down his spine.

Jinhyuk shuddered, aware of the dog’s eyes fixed on the back of his head.