Chapter 49.2

Chapter 49.2

Miran, who had been rubbing her sleepy eyes and head, whipped her head around. He glanced at her with an innocent face.

“Is the window okay? No cracks?”

Still disoriented from just waking up and now being teased, Miran glared at him with her hand on her throbbing head. It wasn’t easy with her bleary eyes. Andre quickly swallowed a burst of laughter that escaped from him.

“Really now. The window is perfectly fine!”

When Miran protested with an indignant expression, Andre chuckled and reached out to cup her cheek. As her lips jutted out in a pout, he leaned sideways with one hand on the wheel and kissed her. Miran lightly pushed him away, hitting his chest with her fist.

“That’s dangerous, watch the road.”

But a smile slowly crept onto her lips too. As she stretched her stiff neck from side to side, Andre held the map in one hand while turning off the local road onto an unpaved path.

Gravel sprayed to both sides with a loud rattling noise. The camper van seemed to bounce especially hard, probably due to its high clearance. Looking around curiously, she asked.

“Where are we? How much longer?”

“Almost there.”

“Already? How long was I asleep?”

She let out a long yawn.

“About three hours?”

“Oh no! I thought I only slept for a little while. You should have woken me up.”

“You were snoring.”

Miran blushed as she protested.

“That’s a lie! I don’t snore!”

“How would you know? You were asleep.”

“That’s…! Anyway, I’m telling you I don’t snore!”

Andre chuckled and pulled her hand to brush his lips against the back of it.

“Okay, you didn’t snore. You drooled instead.”

Miran quickly pulled her hand from his grip to cover her mouth and lowered the passenger sun visor. She checked herself in the small mirror from different angles, but there were no traces of drool around her mouth.

She whipped her head around to glare at him. He laughed loudly and stroked her cheek with his knuckles. When she swatted his hand away fiercely, his laughter grew even louder.

After the bumpy unpaved road following the mountain valley disappeared and they passed through a narrow dirt path barely wide enough for one car, they came to a small clearing. Andre parked the camper van under the shade of tall trees and turned off the engine.

“We’re here.”

—

Across the valley, a blue train slowly ran along the narrow railway tracks carved into the winding mountainside. The loud train noise overwhelmed the sound of the valley stream as it approached, then disappeared like an echo.

The valley had remained largely untouched by humans, its natural beauty preserved.

Miran was used to valleys crowded with people playing in the water, cooking with portable stoves and mess kits, washing dishes in one spot and washing hair in another. But this place had no proper accommodation or restaurants nearby.

‘Must be a place that only those in the know come to.’

Looking at the flat ground suitable for pitching tents beside the valley and traces of old campfires, it wasn’t completely deserted. However, being a weekday afternoon well past vacation season, there wasn’t a soul in sight.

It was almost dinner time. Before starting meal preparations, Miran hesitantly confessed to Andre.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not good at cooking. Just warning you in advance.”

Since Juran always prepared side dishes for her, the only dishes she knew how to make were ramyeon, curry, and kimchi stew. Moreover, she had no idea how to cook with the unfamiliar ingredients Andre had tossed into their cart at the Commissary.

Andre stared at Miran blankly as if he’d heard something strange, then shrugged.

“Who said you were cooking? I’ll do it.”

When Miran looked up at him skeptically, he gently pushed her aside as if her hovering in the kitchen was bothersome and nodded toward the folding table.

“Sit down.”

Andre cooking? She couldn’t miss such an interesting sight. Miran clung to his arm.

“Can’t I watch from the side, please?”

She looked up at Andre with the expression she often used on Juran when she was in trouble or wanted something.

‘Will this kind of thing work on Andre too?’

Miran’s eyebrows drooped, and her large eyes sparkled moistly as if tiny bulbs had been lit inside them. She smiled pitifully and blinked a couple of times. Really, it was such an old-fashioned attempt at aegyo.