The wind blew hard, making the flames tremble.

Ga-eun hugged her knees. The desert cold was different—cruel.

The young man beside her began to shiver and cough weakly.

"Is he sick?" she asked.

"We found him a few hours ago, buried in the sand. We don’t know who he is, or how long he’ll last." The man speaking lowered his voice. "We don’t have enough food. Just a little water and the leftovers from our supplies."

Ga-eun looked at their tired faces, their starving bodies, their hands cracked by the sun. She didn’t understand what situation that Djinn had dragged her into, but what she did know was how to cook, and no matter how confused or upset she was about this place, she wasn’t going to let anyone go hungry—it would be an insult to all her years in the kitchen.

She sighed and stood up.

"Bring me everything you have, ingredients or crumbs, whatever it is." She rolled up her sleeves. "I’m going to cook."

"Cook?" one asked, incredulous. "With what?"

"I told you, bring everything. Quickly."

The men exchanged glances but obeyed. They brought her a sack of wheat, a bit of oil, dried herbs, and something that looked like dried meat.

Ga-eun examined the ingredients. This isn’t Korea… and these definitely aren’t my usual ingredients… but I can work with this.

As she rekindled the fire, she asked two men to search through the things she had brought from her kitchen—a pan, a knife, and a metal lid.

They returned with what they could salvage, and she got to work.

She set the pan over the fire to heat it up. Meanwhile, she took the wheat from the sack, placed it on the metal lid, and after covering a desert stone with her apron, began to grind it, mixing it with a little water until it formed a thick dough.

She cut the dried meat into thin pieces and rehydrated it with a bit of the remaining water, then briefly sautéed it in the pan with crushed herbs.

The aroma that began to rise made the men gather closer to the fire, curious.

"Is that… bread?" one asked.

"Not exactly," she replied without taking her eyes off the fire. "It’s something that, in my land, is made when there isn’t much, but you still want to eat well."

Ga-eun poured a little oil into the pan and waited until it began to smoke lightly. The sound of crackling fire mixed with the scent of hot oil. Then, with precise movements, she poured in the mixture she had improvised from the local ingredients.

The sizzle filled the silence of the desert.

The men leaned forward, watching curiously as the dough turned golden. Ga-eun flipped the pan skillfully, and the smell of toasted bread spread through the air.

When it was ready, she cut it into pieces and began serving it on small cloths one of the men had offered her. It was nothing more than a rough version of a Korean jeon, and definitely a thousand times inferior to any jeon that could be made in an average kitchen, but the smell was warm—almost homey.

The men divided the portions and began to murmur. The first to take a bite frowned… and then, without saying a word, grabbed another piece.

"What the hell…?" muttered the oldest one, licking his fingers. "This… it’s crunchy but… also tasty."

"Tasty? Let me see."

The crunch of the toasted bread mixed with the aroma of meat and herbs inside, blending with the savory oil. One after another, they began to eat—first cautiously, then hungrily.

"By the heavens… could we have made this with the few supplies we had left?" one said, eyes wide.

"And you were saying we should’ve gone hungry tonight," another said with his mouth full.

"It must be witchcraft," joked another, putting his hands together in mock prayer. "A messenger from the gods of hunger! All for helping this young man in the desert!"

Ga-eun barely smiled, watching as the men devoured every piece. She found it amusing to be seen as a divine figure for simply cooking a bit of jeon.

Only one didn’t eat.

That young man still lay down, eyes half open, staring at the portion in front of him as if it were poison.

One of the men snorted when he saw him.

"If he’s not going to eat, that’s more for us," he muttered, reaching out his hand.

Ga-eun stopped him with a gesture.

"Leave it."

She approached the boy and crouched in front of him. If there was one thing she couldn’t stand as a chef, it was someone refusing to taste her food. As she came closer, she noticed the faint tremor in his fingers, the shadows under his eyes, the skin too pale—but above all, his gaze, in which she could see the hunger he was enduring.

"Don’t you like it?" she asked.

He looked away.

"I’m not hungry."

Ga-eun watched him in silence for a moment, then sat down beside him without insisting, sighing.

She took a piece of jeon with her fingers, broke it into smaller bits, and without looking at him, began to eat slowly, pretending to savor it.

"It needs a bit more salt…" she murmured, more to herself than to him, "but if you let it cool, the dough softens and tastes better."

She cut another tiny piece, almost the size of a coin, and blew on it to cool it down. Then she placed it in front of the young man on the metal lid she had used for cooking, near him.

"Sometimes it’s hard to eat," she said as she carefully cut another piece of jeon. "My cousin Seung-ie was like that when he was little. When he got sick, he wouldn’t eat no matter how much I cooked for him."

She smiled faintly at the memory.

"So what I did was cut his food into little pieces and feed him bit by bit… until, without realizing it, he’d eaten even the crumbs."

Mentioning Seung-hyun made her drift back to those days—when she cooked for her cousin and aunt as a little girl. The memories grew stronger with the smell of oil and toasted flour; it was almost as if she could feel the warmth of her aunt’s small kitchen. The laughter of the men celebrating that humble meal brought her back to reality.

"Start with a small bite," she whispered softly. "There’s no rush."

The young man glanced at her sideways, then carefully reached out his trembling hand toward that tiny piece. He took it clumsily, hesitated, and before he could think too much, brought it to his mouth.

He chewed slowly.

His throat moved with effort—but he swallowed.

Ga-eun said nothing. She simply offered him another piece, just as small, without looking directly at him.

He ate again.

When he finished, the young man rested his head on the blanket and closed his eyes.

Ga-eun breathed out in relief and stood. She cleaned the lid and covered the fire with sand to put it out.

The rest of the group was already asleep, satisfied and exhausted.

She took one of the old coats, wrapped herself in it, and looked again at the young man. The reflection of the dying fire lit his face. Beneath the dirt and sand, there was something in his features—a strange fineness, foreign to the desert—that she couldn’t quite describe… though what really caught her attention was that expression: the relief that comes when hunger finally fades.

For a moment, a warm feeling filled her chest. She placed a hand over it, as if to hold onto it… but soon it vanished, leaving behind the same emptiness as always.

She sighed and lowered her gaze as she took the Djinn’s ring from her pocket, which glimmered faintly with the fire’s last spark.

"Zafir…" she muttered irritably. "Are you still not going to talk to me?"

She waited a few seconds. Nothing. No flicker, no vibration. Only the silence of the desert and the murmur of wind moving the sand.

"Fine…" she sighed tiredly. "I guess I can’t expect much from you at this point..."

She lay down on one of the blankets, looking up at the dark sky and the stars that seemed to hang too close. She checked her phone once more—still no signal. She thought about what she’d do once she reached the city; she was clearly in a foreign country, and she doubted she could explain how she got there without a passport.

She was in the worst possible situation. She cursed Zafir again under her breath.

Closing her eyes, she tried to escape her thoughts.

Where the hell am I, really? she thought before sleep overtook her.

The fire crackled softly, and for an instant, the sapphire on the ring gave off a faint blue glow.