Choi Han being a bad cook is sooooo sad. To be fair the forest of darkness did consist of poisonous and venomous things, and who would think of cooking when you're in a forest and everything in there is trying to kill you ....
I had a thought that he understands how glutton felt. So desperate for something edible that soil is the best choice, because how could a clueless boy know what to and what not to eat. The same clueless boy might have thought to leave it to luck and get poisoned mid-chase. The same thing happens again and again and again it doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't matter if the food taste bad, if the texture is off, if it burned, if it no longer feels like anything.
I think of what if Choi Han had aguesia and anosmia, and it wasn't until later that the family found out. He would always light up when eating food because he's genuinely happy, he ate with such gusto that those who looked at him would smile. But then he ate spoiled food, he ate extremely salty food Raon tried to cook with the same reaction, those soggy apple pies all eaten by him—
What does it matter whether a food is delicious or not? Whether it's warm tea or ice cream? For Choi Han, it's food which easy to chew and swallow, it's a snack which feels like crumbling bricks hidden in colourful dye. It's only hot and cold which he took comfort in. He'd look at Ron when the latter told him with his usual brisk tone how to differentiate poisoned things by taste and smell on one rare occasion, and he would nod along, knowing both things had stopped bothering him for so long he could no longer imagine anything otherwise.
