pizza
Yoo Joonghyuk orders a pizza. Takes place immediately after the ebook vol. 23 side story “Mia”.
This fic takes place after the ORV volume 23 ebook side story "Mia". You can purchase the ebooks via Naver Series or Munpia.
For reader context: the side story follows Yoo Joonghyuk before the scenarios as a pro-gamer, detailing his life raising Mia as well as his past working in a gold farm as well as various other events like coping with his abusive manager Park Jinsang, Mia going missing, and getting into a car crash. This fic is written under the assumption you've already read the contents of this side story, so apologies if anything is confusing. I wrote this in one sitting immediately after reading the side story LOL
a huge thank you to the lovely Sona for many many things, i would not have been able to write this without your knowledge and perseverance (mwah mwah). special thanks to Van for looking over Mia's speech!
originally published on ao3
Yoo Joonghyuk looked at the sky as he walked with Mia at his side. She tightly held his hand as they walked home together, passing by familiar alleys and supermarkets.
"Wha's fo' dinner?"
There was still salad left over at home from that morning. It would be incredibly wasteful for them to eat something else before finishing it. However...
— The world could suddenly end tomorrow.
Maybe it was because the events of that day had been so absurd. Yoo Joonghyuk mulled it over before looking at the sky and saying,
"Pizza."
Yoo Joonghyuk continues to look up at the starry night sky, holding Mia's small hand as they walk home. Normally, he would keep a careful eye on their surroundings. Some people drive recklessly, and sometimes the pavement is uneven, and he wouldn't want Mia to fall or get hurt. But the street is mostly empty tonight, and... well, for some reason, he simply felt like it.
Maybe his judgement was affected by the events of the last two days.
He feels a tug on his hand and looks down to see his sister's face, staring up at him with questioning eyes.
"Beeza dinner?"
"Yes."
Mia's eyes go even wider, and her hand squeezes his as she makes a cheerful noise.
"I wan' lots'a cheese!"
"Okay. I'll look for a store."
Yoo Joonghyuk pulls Mia away from the middle of the walkway and takes out his phone. With one hand he navigates to the browser portal and types in his search, along with their general location. A few stores pop up, showing their price ranges and hours.
Suddenly, he has a thought. He had lost the match today and—despite Yoo Joonghyuk not being on the list of players involved—the publicity of Park Jinsang's match-fixing meant that the future of the association and his team was now in a state of chaos and uncertainty...
He taps one of the more affordable pizza stores listed, bringing up the directions. He's familiar with the street it was on, so he puts his phone away.
"Let's go."
The last street light came on, signifying that night had truly begun in Seoul. He and Mia continue to walk hand in hand, passing between pockets of bright light and slight darkness. The pizza store closes at 12:00AM, so there's no need to rush.
"Obabohni, 'm hung'y."
"We'll be there soon."
They pass by apartments and specialised convenience stores. Mia occasionally skips or tries to take larger steps than she can, yanking on his hand each time.
"Walk normally."
"Obabohni's boring."
Eventually they stand in front of their destination, the blue and red box sign lit up by its powerful industrial lights. Yoo Joonghyuk looks through the windows into the brightly lit storefront. There are two cashiers and a few people standing inside, but the building seems relatively empty at this hour. A red banner on one of the windows proudly declares: WORLD LEADER IN PIZZA DELIVERY!
"Beeza, beeza."
"Stay close to me while we're inside."
Still holding onto Mia's hand, Yoo Joonghyuk opens the door. The inside of the building is warm, and the air is filled with the smell of dough and cheese.
There's currently someone at the counter placing an order, so Yoo Joonghyuk stands off to the side as he looks over the options on the display board. There are three sections, two of which look incredibly unappetizing to him.
He looks at the section on the board labelled Classic . There's a range of options—New York style, bulgogi, sweet potato, options for a 'stuffed crust' style...
If there was much difference between a New York style pizza and a Deluxe style pizza other than a few ingredients and 1,000 won, it was lost to him. From what he remembered of the few times he'd eaten it when he was younger, pizza tasted like pizza no matter what you put on it.
Then again, he'd only ever had very cheap and plain pizzas, occasionally provided as a rare bonus to the Gold Farm workers to share when Park Jinsang had made a lot of money. Perhaps adding steak and shrimp transformed a pizza into something that was more exciting to eat inside of a dark basement.
Probably not.
A series of tugs on his sleeve pull him from his thoughts. He looks away from the board to see Mia staring expectantly up at him, so he leans down to hear her better.
"Can we get bep'oni?"
"Beponi?"
"Bep'aboni. With the st'etchy cheese."
He looks back up towards the board, looking for the pepperoni pizza options. There's a 2,000 won difference between it and the cheese pizza, with a medium size pepperoni pizza listed as 18,500 won. The price wasn't the best, but it also wasn't horrible... Though it certainly wouldn't be enough to fill Mia's stomach. The extra nutrition provided by the pepperoni would be negligible, but it was less sad looking than a plain cheese pizza was. Maybe he could serve it with salad...
His mind was made up. The cashier at the far counter was finally open, so he takes out his wallet and moves up to the counter.
"Hello, good evening! May I take your order?"
"One medium pepperoni pizza."
The cashier taps on the monitor in front of them. "One medium pepperoni pizza, sure thing. Would you like to add anything else to your order tonight? We currently have—"
"No."
"Okay. Would you like to add extra pepperoni or extra cheese for—"
"No."
The cashier smiles at him while pressing more buttons on their monitor. "Okay. Would you like to purchase any drinks or desserts tonight?"
"No."
"Is your order being placed to-go?"
"Yes."
"Okay, if that's everything tonight then the total will be 20,350 won. Will that be—" Yoo Joonghyuk brandishes his card, and the cashier motions towards the card reader on the counter. "Your pizza should be ready in about 15 minutes. You're welcome to take a seat while you wait, or we can take your name and phone number and call you when it's ready."
"I'll wait."
"Thank you, your order ID is 058. Would you like a copy of your receipt?"
He nods and takes the receipt from the cashier, carefully placing it in his wallet. He'll have to revise the budget for the month tomorrow. He moves to turn away from the counter, but suddenly stops himself.
"Thank you."
The cashier nods. "Thank you, your order will be ready shortly." They turn away from Yoo Joonghyuk, their transaction finished. "May I help who's next?"
He leads Mia towards one of the booths furthest away from everyone else. She sits down with a hup , bouncing on the seat's vinyl cushion. Sitting down on the booth opposite to her, he takes out his phone. He glances over the articles on the pro-gaming news site, though it doesn't look like anything new had been reported since he last checked. He taps the comments section on one of the articles.
— I guess the Ash Empire has come to an end.
— No wonder their matches always felt off. It was all rigged.
— We saw a new side of The Supreme King today!
— Will the Pro GG'er Yoo Joonghyuk finally learn to play like a human? lol
— I wonder where Yoo Joonghyuk will go now...
"Obabohni, can Mia play?"
He looks up from his phone to see his sister pouting with her arms splayed out on top of the table. Glancing at the clock, it's been around 5 minutes since they sat down. That was Mia's upper limit for waiting.
He closes his browser and navigates to the first page of his phone, where he keeps his grocery apps and the games he thinks are safe for her to play. Mia immediately opens a brightly coloured bubble popping game when he sets his phone down for her.
"Keep the volume low."
"Yup yup."
She taps away at the screen, touching shiny balloons to release confetti and coins into a score basket at the bottom of the screen and avoiding the grey coloured balloons that give negative points. It's a stupid, mindless game, but the app doesn't have any ads or micro-transactions.
Yoo Joonghyuk rests his cheek against his hand, looking over the top of Mia's head and out to the streets visible through the windows. The night always looks much darker from the inside of a brightly lit building.
Mia occasionally hits his legs as she kicks her feet, and she either doesn't notice or doesn't care. Normally he would scold her for this, but for some reason, it makes him feel comfortable.
After a while, he lets his eyes slightly close. It had been an eventful past two days. He was threatened multiple times, and he almost lost Mia. Now that he thinks about it, he could have lost Mia twice, since they were in a car crash. Was she okay? She hadn't seemed to be injured at the time. He protected her as best as he could—if he wasn't badly injured, then she must not be. But what about her mental state? He hadn't had time to check on her, and as soon as he entered the stadium he had left her in the waiting room. She seemed fine now, but children were vulnerable to...
...
The more he thought about today, the more exhausted he felt.
He wanted to get home, eat, bathe, and go to sleep as soon as possible.
"Order 058, one medium pepperoni pizza!"
"Hey Obabohni, 're you sleepy?"
Yoo Joonghyuk opens his eyes. Inhaling and exhaling slowly, he brings his mind back to the restaurant. He takes his phone from Mia and stands up, reaching for her hand. "Let's get our food and go home."
"Yay, beeza!"
Once home, Yoo Joonghyuk instructs Mia to wash her hands while he sets the table. Napkins, knives, forks, glasses of water... He portions out the leftover salad between his and Mia's plates, placing one slice of pepperoni pizza on each. The pizza box is left on the counter for now; if Mia wanted to eat another slice, then he would get it and reheat it for her.
Mia comes bounding out of the bathroom, crawling onto her chair as he sets their plates on the table. She kicks her legs as Yoo Joonghyuk tucks a napkin into the neck of her shirt, then carefully folds up her sleeves. He did not feel like treating any pizza stains tonight.
"Time to ea' now?"
"Yes. Don't spill anything."
Mia glances at her plate, then looks up at him in shock. "There's leaves again!"
"It's important to eat balanced meals."
"Again!"
"If you don't eat them I will."
Mia picks up her pizza slice, leaning over the table to keep her mouth above her plate. She seems to mutter something like 'Obabohni is leaves' before taking a huge bite.
While watching Mia eat, Yoo Joonghyuk wonders: what would others think of him if they knew he had a little sister?
— PRO-GAMER YOO JOONGHYUK: Supreme King, or Supreme Babysitter?
— PRO-GAMER YOO JOONGHYUK, secretly a family man!?
— BREAKING: Pro-Gamer Yoo Joonghyuk is leaves!
...He must be sleep-deprived.
Picking up his knife and fork, he takes a few bites of salad before cutting up his pizza slice. The pepperonis fold under the knife and drag sheets of cheese off of the saucy dough. He stares at the sloppy state of the food on his plate before sighing, scooping up the mess onto his fork.
Muffled giggling comes from across the table. He stares at Mia—she's laughing at him around her food, her face scrunched up, the crust of her pizza slice making it look like she has a large dough-y smile.
"What?"
Mia puts her pizza down, revealing a ring of sauce around her mouth. "Silly."
"What's silly?"
"Obabohni's silly."
He considers this for a moment. Yes, he supposes most people do tend to eat pizza and other 'fast foods' like it with their hands. It's simpler, but also much messier.
"The silly one has a messy face and greasy hands."
Mia stares owlishly at his clean face, looks down at her own hands, and then squawks at him. His lips quirk up a little as she hurriedly picks up a napkin to wipe her face.
He brings a forkful of pizza to his mouth, chewing. It doesn't taste as heavily of stale, chewy, vaguely oil and tomato flavoured bread like he remembered it tasting... The cheese is salty but also sweet, and the pepperoni is exceptionally salty, mixing well with the gentle acidity of the sauce and the plush sweetness of the dough.
It's...fine. It's edible. It has flavour, and the texture isn't bad.
The grease, though...
It's been a while since he ate something like this. Ever since he was able to buy more than cup noodles for dinner, he's tried to be mindful of what he puts in his body. He rarely cooks things like beef, preferring eggs or chicken or tofu for his proteins. Beef is expensive. It makes much more sense to purchase and cook more affordable options. Chicken and eggs allow him to provide Mia with nutritious, balanced meals. Baked chicken is a much healthier option than fatty meats.
Mia looks perfectly pleased with the greasy, salty pepperoni pizza, already almost finished with her first slice. She hasn't even touched her salad yet.
It's fine. He can eat pizza once in a while. Eating unhealthy food on rare occasions isn't bad—moderation is one of the key components to a balanced diet.
He takes a few more bites, separating them out with more mouthfuls of salad and careful sips of water.
Eventually, Yoo Joonghyuk sets down his fork. His dinner feels heavy in his stomach.
Maybe he should learn how to cook pizza himself.
yeah, if you didn't catch it YJH specifically goes to a Pizza Hut. it looks like the prices have increased slightly since i wrote this, but all the stuff i listed is/was real. though i've never been to the establishment myself, so the ordering process is made up
thank you for reading! you can find me on twitter @twigwing, if you'd like