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About two months after Song-hwa switches hospital branches, it hits Jun-wan. He’s having lunch with Jeongwon and Ik-Jun when he realizes - he misses his food buddy. His non-judgemental and enthusiastic food fighter. Even if Song-hwa being in Sokcho means double the food, it’s just not worth it. He just wants someone to enjoy food with, someone to sit and chat with when everyone else is eating.
Enter Gyeoul.
Jun-wan’s had a few lunches with Gyeoul here and there, but doesn’t know her very well since she’s not in CS. Since she and Jeongwon started dating, she’s become a regular part of their lunch gatherings. So, of course, he’s starting to get to know her better.
And what does he learn about her?
Boy, can she eat.
He realizes this when they’re eating Egg Drop sandwiches. He has a sudden flashback to when he had lunch with Gyeoul, Ik-Jun, and the twins. What was it that Ik-Jun said to him? “Hurry up and eat before Gyeoul eats it all.”
Watching Gyeoul eating her fourth sandwich while Ik-Jun and Jeongwon are still on their first - there’s just something so familiar about it. But he really should have been watching the sandwiches instead of her because she’s taken that double bacon sandwich he had his eyes on.
To add insult to injury, when Ik-Jun and Gyeoul leave his office, he notices that his stash of chocolate has taken a hit.
. . .
A few weeks later, Gyeoul walks into his office holding two bags of food. They’re waiting for Ik-Jun and Jeongwan when they receive texts from both saying that there were some issues with patients and to start lunch without them. (“Gyeoul will surely save some for me,” Jeongwon thinks. “Gyeoul will save some for Jeongwon and I’ll steal from him,” Ik-Jun thinks.)
It’s a bit awkward since Gyeoul and Jun-wan haven’t really interacted just the two of them. But food is food.
He looks into the bags and sees box after box of grilled meats. That Jeongwon. Gyeoul’s a keeper for sure. No wonder Ik-Jun spent so much time playing Cupid for those two.
He and Gyeoul really only talk about Jeongwon and working at the hospital. It’s a stiff conversation, but the fragrance of grilled meats can fill any awkward silence.
Twenty minutes after they start eating, Ik-Jun and Jeongwon enter the office to find . . . nothing except some rice and a few vegetable leaves. When Ik-Jun and Jeongwon start getting onto them for eating all the food and Gyeoul defends the both of them, it confirms it for Jun-wan.
Gyeoul is a food fighter.
. . .
Whenever she’s waiting around in his office for Jeongwon, he makes an effort to get to know her better. They bond over the fact that they both have reputations for being cold and direct people, which is only their exterior and not the whole truth. He hears the story behind why Jeongwon keeps a stash of Chocopies for her in his desk drawer. She hears the story of how Jun-wan figured out Jeongwon had exchanged his dreams of becoming a priest for something more special. (Both stories involve the same drawer.)
He essentially offers to kick Jeongwon out of his place, so that Jeongwon and Gyeoul can move in together. She laughs, knowing how much Jeongwon mooches off of Jun-wan, but it’s not such a bad idea.
Soon, they go from food friends to just friends.
. . .
When Song-hwa comes back from Sokcho, Jun-wan gets back his old food buddy, and Gyeoul gets a new food friend. For the three of them, this means three times the food possibilities. For the rest of the group, it means even less food.
But at the end of the day, what it really means is that Jun-wan has another person to share a meal with. Someone to sit back and chat with.
No matter if she did take the last double bacon sandwich. Again.