MELLOW ✦ ( she/they ) 𖦹 nineteen ✦ multi
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There is no drug on earth that can replicate the absolute euphoria of hitting a writing flow state at 2:00 AM. You aren’t even typing anymore. You are a vessel. You are a channel for the gods. The characters are speaking directly into your brain and you’re just the stenographer trying to keep up. You feel like you could fight a bear. You feel like you invented the alphabet
—synopsis: she's come back to seoul from new york, vernon's come from london. they both want a star, neither of them want each other. they're coworkers, they're friends, they're much more to each other than words. in the end, they're there, and so is the pursuit.
—genres: chef! vernon x chef! oc, friends to lovers to enemies to strangers to ??? angst, rated m.
—warnings: one sex scene that is a hr violation, graphic descriptions of mental illness, unprotected sex, suicidal tendencies, smoking, drinking, general other stuff. please be adults when you read this.
—word count: haha who knows (23k)
—author's note: wdym the bear season 5 and v8 vernon brought me back to writing fanfiction? WDYM singasong got me out of writing papers and articles and research pitches and my own novel and made me write fic again????this was supposed to be a silly au, but it's gotten out of hand, and now we have this. shoutout to @sailorsoons, who made this amazing banner for me, and shoutout to everyone who was present during the brainstorming session: @sn4psh00t, @callisrecords, @haologram,and as usual, @mylovesstuffs, we love u all, thank you so much. also thank you to my friends on instagram who were forced to hear about this fic. the people who wanted to get tagged: @noniesgummysmile, and @mellow-wishes, please accept this. i love u all. dont come at me with pitchforks. this is unbetaed.
“Why did you come back?”
“What?”
The air is filled with the steady drip-drip-drip of a water faucet leaking somewhere, and it’s driving her crazy. She’s still looking at the man, though, in front of her, dressed in the same clothes as her, and with the same look in his eyes. Years have passed, but the look remains the same. They aren’t standing outside in a New York alleyway, they’re in Seoul, that’s the only difference. She sighs, looks at him. A beat.
He holds out a cigarette. She ignores it, “why did you come back? Everyone has been talking about it, you know. The world is not as big as you think.”
“The world is big enough for all of us,” she snipes, “look, I didn't like New York. So, I came back. There’s nothing else to it.”
He steps closer to her. They both smell like onions, she thinks, and the air is too thick with smog at this time of day. There’s something about looking into his eyes; just like all those years before, she can't look away. “You were CDC at the best Korean restaurant in the world, and what, you leave all that to come to this place? We don't even have a star.”
“A star is irrelevant.” She finds herself growing more defensive, more angry, more impatient, “Look, I just needed a break, okay? That’s why I'm here.”
He stares at her. She’s been on the receiving end of it far too many times for her to be flinching away from it now, but she does anyway, “That’s a fucking joke if I ever heard one, you know. You’re a liar.” You’re lying to me again, Chef Kim.”
“Am I now?”
“Yes, you are, and you will be a fucking liar unless you tell someone the truth.” He snaps at her, “And you know what? I didn't even expect anything else from you. Fuck you, man.”
“Fuck me? Fuck you,” she replies, equally venomous, “fuck you too, man.”
Vernon opens his mouth to say something, but thinks better of it and leaves. She’s still standing in the middle of the alley, looking at him, and realises that she never really took the cigarette from him.
It’s too late for the metro, which means that she has to walk the half kilometre to the bus stop, hoping that the late-night buses are running that night. Behind her, the lights of Gangnam district are as bright as ever—people move in and out of frame, just going about their lives, but she’s out there, feeling like shit.
And really, Vernon wasn’t wrong. She left because she wanted “different things”. That’s the original statement. “I wanted something different, so I came here,” she had said when Cheol had looked at her and asked, “I wanted something that would stay mine, so I came here.”
The bus comes within fifteen minutes of her standing at the stop, which means that she spends ten minutes of those staring at her concept notes for a new recipe. Sketches stare at her, brilliantly coloured, and she can’t help but think back to the pile of drawing pencils sitting in the middle of her drawer at home.
I need a break, she thinks, dragging herself up the short hill to her apartment building. I need a fucking break, and this is not it.
Unfortunately, this has not been it for a long time. Hasn’t been it, notsince New York, hasn’t been anything really, since she graduated from culinary school and had enough accolades under her belt to go around the fucking world, and she was just—just—she was someone. Someone who spent all their time in a restaurant, trying to figure out the rest of their lives. Someone who tried their best to purge the memories of New York from their minds, like it was a blip in the matrix, like they did not spend most of their lives moving from restaurant to restaurant, trying their hands at everything, before leaving it all behind at the peak of fame to come back to fucking Seoul and go back to the same restaurant where they wanted to become a chef for the first time ever. No, that’s a lie. It’s really not a lie.
When she opens the door to her apartment, the silence that greets her is shitty as usual. She tries not to think about it too much, and instead walks over to the cupboard where she keeps her crappy red wines. She could drink beer, but she’s trying not to fuck up her palate too much. Instead of sitting at her table with a bottle of beer, she sits at the table with a glass of wine, trying (and failing) not to think about New York.
Why was there so much to think about, when it came to New York? she wasn’t really trying to do anything, she just wanted to cook good food and become the best. Well, cooking good food was the goal at first, but by the end, she just wanted to be the best. The best in the game. The first female CDC at the only three-starred Michelin Korean restaurant.
The wine is over, so she moves onto the second worst part of her day: trying to go to sleep. Sleep refuses to come to her on most days, and on the others, she stays awake until the light blinks over the skyline, makes enough coffee to keep her going until the next century, and ignores the growing anxiety in her mind that one day she’s going to wake up with a dysfunctional heart and it will all be over soon, and that someone will find her on the floor of the kitchen, dead.
Almost like—
Shut up.
Sleep refuses to come, which means that she’s going to give into her worst impulses and go back to looking at the news again, staring at pictures of herself until they all start blurring into one and she no longer recognises the person staring at her from the screen.
Jungsikdang, New York, a new era: sitting down with Kim Mi-ran.
Kim Mi-ran, making waves in Korean fine dining.
So many headlines, and all the same; Kim Mi-ran, new chef, Kim Mi-ran, the best CDC at the best Korean fine dining restaurant in the world and the hottest new thing on the culinary scene. Her face, looking back at her from the articles, and everything feels off. Everything feels awkward, like she’s not even looking at the same person, like she’s looking at herself, refracted through an unfamiliar lens.
Let’s look him up.
She doesn’t want to, but her hands move of their own accord, because within thirty seconds, she’s looking at the face of Chwe Vernon, standing in front of the kitchen pass, leaning against the wall. He’s dressed in his chef whites and he annoys the shit out of her.
“Fucking Vernon,” she mutters, scrolling up to see the title of the article, The year’s Best New Chef works at Dovetail in London: Chwe Hansol.
She doesn’t want to think about how his name is now Chwe Hansol, and not Vernon. Not anymore, not like she remembers him to be. It’s all her fault, anyway. The article keeps raving about his career as sous at Dovetail London, about the new dish that he was developing, something similar to lasagna, wide noodles cooked in perilla oil with shiitake mushrooms and soy-braised beef scattered on top of it, glittering like jewels. She’s not jealous. She’s not jealous at all, but she wants to make something like this again.
Fuck Vernon. Fuck him and his perfect cooking.
Irritated, she rolls over on the bed, plugging in her phone, and closes her eyes. She doesn’t want to think about Vernon, not at all. She was fine in New York. She was good.
Well now, now she’s nothing.
—
Chef Kim, refire.
Hands. Hands. Hands.
Pass too slow.
Wake up, Chef. You’re running late.
Her eyes blink open, and the clock on her bedside reads five in the morning. Only three hours, as per usual. Lying in bed, she makes a mental checklist of all the things that she needs to do before she begins work on prep for the day—make breakfast for herself, enough that she doesn’t keel over and die in the middle of service, drink a cup of coffee, text her mother. She needs to text her mother, she needs to text someone. Proof of life, kid. You ned to let us know that you’re here, and not somewhere else.
She needs to go to Gyeonghoeru. She needs to prep mirepoix and she needs to look at the menu for today because there’s a special and there’s always a special but she needs to keep track of everything. She has Vernon as her CDC and she’s fucking terrified that one day people are going to wise up to the fact that she has nothing new to offer anymore. No inspiration. Nothing.
1 unread message from Cheol.
[1:20 am] hey, just checking in. you’ve been offline for a long time. Work still shit, huh? Make sure you hydrate. There’s food at the house when you want to come by.
She hates this feeling. This constant buzzing inside her mind that she’s never going to be good enough, that one day, she’s going to be left aside by people who’ve seen her for so long, and that no one is going to look at her and say shit like ‘Kim Mi-ran, best CDC ever’, that people are going to call her out on her bullshit. Cheol gives that same feeling. Food at the house, when you want to come by. Not if, not an out. When. Like it’s preordained that she’s going to come by, that she’s going to turn up at Cheol’s bustling house full of his family and his friends and all his weird cousins that aren’t really cousins that she never really manages to keep track of, and she’s going to sit down and pull herself a plate. Because that’s what she does. She runs away, then comes back. She always comes back. Like a fucking metronome.
She doesn’t get groceries, doesn’t make herself breakfast. Instead, she stands in front of the coffee machine, contemplates whether to do something about the flickering light, and instead decides against it, before pouring herself a cup. Big cup, black coffee. No cream, no sugar.
The streets of Seoul are still foggy when she steps out of the house, wearing a grey coat with patchwork on it, one that she made or picked up while in Copenhagen, she’s not sure. She misses Copenhagen. Misses London. Misses a lot of things.
Most of all, she misses the feeling of being enthused about something in her life.
There’s a new stage at the kitchen this morning, and he looks fucking terrified, big doe-eyes that blink rapidly as he takes down notes in very cramped handwriting. She peers at him being coached by the front of house staff, and decides not to intervene when someone looks at her. She just shakes her head. There’s no reason for her to do anything about it. The kid’s as terrified as he is, and she’s just going to fuck everything up, so she leaves it.
Coat off, jacket off. Hair slicked back. Pull on your chef whites. Get started on your prep, you’re getting slow.
Her chef whites are actually black, a stark contrast from the rest of the kitchen. She’s not trying to stand out from the crowd, not really. Not in an asshole-like manner. She just likes the black instead of the white.
She’s peeling mushrooms for a light broth when Vernon steps beside her, picking up a knife and a mushroom. It’s annoying, how easily he falls in step with her, like he’s never really had to worry about finding his footing in the middle of a busy kitchen. She doesn’t resist the urge to sneak a peek at his chef whites, the embroidered Chwe Hansol staring back her like a fucking brand. He’s no longer Vernon; he’s no longer the person she knew back at culinary school. She’s no longer the person he knew either. Both of them are posing, standing in the middle of a high-end restaurant, peeling mushrooms in the fucking morning, and trying not to yell at each other. No yelling, chef. That’s another rule. She’s never broken it, not at Madison Park, not at NOMA, not even at Jungsikdang, where she could feel her brains leak out of her ears. Never yell in a kitchen, not in the middle of prep, not in the middle of service. Yelling means you’re losing control. Control. Control. Control. Everything on a plate has to be controlled. Yes, chef.
“Peas back on the menu?” Vernon asks.
She nods, “pre-sear Hanwoo today, chef.”
He nods, and she doesn’t want to imagine it, but his voice sounds more clipped, “heard.”
—
Service begins, and its hands, fire, hands, fire, all over again. Over and over, and by the end of it, she’s struggling to keep her hands under her control. They’re shaking. They didn’t shake before, but now they shake every so often. No one notices. If they do, they're too polite to say anything to her face.
Wiping down her station, she looks at her watch. Midnight again. Vernon is beside her, single-handedly focused on doing the thing that she hates doing the most, but he does it so elegantly, it makes her wonder if she ever looked like that. There’s no one here, and he’s still wiping down the station with her. He’s not doing it with her; he's doing it at the same time as her.
“From tomorrow, you’re on the galbi, chef,” she says, passing him by, and he looks at her, “what?”
Vernon doesn’t mince words, “the galbi is your signature. You formulated it.”
“And I’m asking you to start working on it from tomorrow,” she fires back, “is there any confusion, chef?”
There are no people in the kitchen anymore, and Vernon’s face goes through five distinctly different emotions, before settling on something that is similar to surprise, “you are just asking me to do galbi? Like what is happening here?”
She sighs, placing the towel away and going back into the locker rooms. Vernon follows; there’s no one here, not now. No one to tell him to fuck off. She pulls her chef’s whites off, he looks away. There’s nothing to look at, but still, he looks away.
“Is this charity?”
She blinks, not looking at him. Just sort of in the vicinity of him, she blinks, “where did you get that idea from?”
He takes another step forward, “you always do this, Chef Kim. You always fuck with my head. Me on the galbi? You know you don’t want me to do it, so you’re doing charity.”
She finishes dressing up, pulling her grey wool coat from Copenhagen, “I’m not doing charity, Chef Chwe Hansol.”
“Then what is this,” he scoffs, “you’re finally recognising me? That would never happen, I know you that well.”
“Maybe, Chef Chwe Hansol, you do not know me that well,” she snaps back, “it’s been a long time since culinary school, and Sketch. You cannot think that I’m the same, because I’m not.”
At the mention of London, Vernon flinches, and she wants to smile. There’s a tight thread spooled inside her heart. Sketch. London. Le Cordon Bleu. He looks like he wants to laugh, but he doesn’t. instead, he turns on his heel, and walks out of the locker room. She’s still standing, and all of a sudden, she feels like she’s back at Sketch, back before the whole thing blew up in her face.
—
[London, seven years ago]
Service is brutal.
She knows this. Knows this in her bones, knows this in the way her vision gets slightly blurry after every service ends. Service is brutal, but it is satisfying. She needs the hit of adrenaline to get through every day.
“Good work on the peas, chef,” she doesn’t even need to look at the person to know who’s talking to her, because who else would speak in that voice? In a kitchen, where it tends to get loud as fuck, Vernon is the only person who consistently speaks to people in that particular tone. Like he’s speaking to elementary school children. She likes to think that they’re all elementary school children either way.
“Thank you, chef,” she replies, “good work on shucking the oysters, chef.”
“Likewise, chef.”
She rolls her eyes good-naturedly, following him out of the kitchen and into the locker room, “are you really going to be this way, Vernon?”
“Be what way?” He looks at her, raising an eyebrow, “what happened?”
She grimaces, “seriously? You’re going to NOMA, and you didn’t tell any of us?”
Vernon sighs, “I didn’t go to NOMA, I applied to NOMA. I don’t know if I’m going to get in. it’s a competitive position, you know. They’re not just going to give it to me because I asked for it.”
She sighs, holding her hand out. He says nothing, just reaches and wraps his hand around hers. It’s grounding, holding his hand. Their calluses match.
No. Vernon will go to NOMA, she’s sure of it. He’s also going to be great at it; she is also sure of this one thing. The rest of it—she’s not sure about that.
“What about you?” Vernon nudges her shoulder, looking at her changing out of her chef whites, “going to finally buy clothes that are not grey or black?”
“Don’t judge the clothes, Vernon,” she laughs, “at least I buy something other than t-shirts.”
“Yes, you buy shirts,” he sighs, “Mi-ran, I’m really just stressed about NOMA. I don’t think I’m going to be hired there, but I would love to.”
“I know, Vernon.” The two of them walk out of the building, into the night, and she looks at the sky, but Vernon is looking at her. She can feel it, that he’s looking at her, with his cheekbones and perfect facial structures and the propensity to treat people with kindness despite being in a stressful work environment—Vernon is looking at her.
“Mi-ran, do you, maybe, next week—”
Her phone buzzes in her pocket. She unlocks it, expecting to find—what? What did I expect to find? An email from National Insurance, telling me about my new health plans?
Instead, it’s something she doesn’t expect.
It’s from NOMA. The executive chef at NOMA, that is.
Chef Kim Mi-ran, this is Adrian—
Her heart stops, and from the way she can hear Vernon's breath hitch, it’s clear. He’s read it too. She shoves her phone back inside her pockets, “I’m not going to go to fucking NOMA, Vernon.”
He stares at her for a long time, and then opens his mouth, “heard, Chef Kim.”
He says something, but the sentence that he’s about to say dissipates into the night like it never existed in the first place. She doesn’t want to think about how much that hurts her. The email from NOMA sits in her email inbox, opened, read, but not answered.
Three months later, she’s flying to Copenhagen.
—
[Seoul, present day.]
On Mondays, the restaurant is closed, so she has free time. Free time to go about making the new menu for the upcoming summer months because that’s one of the duties of an Executive Chef, and she needs to finish the roster for whoever is on cleanup duty the next day, and she needs to do so many things. One after the other, things keep piling up for her, and she needs to finish them.
Instead, she wakes up at four in the morning, and walks down to her nearest convenience store to pick up a pack of cigarettes. She’s not even thinking about the transaction when she slides a ten-thousand won bill across the counter to the bored and cleared sleep-deprived clerk, walking outside to the footpath and lighting up a cigarette in the first light. She likes this, likes watching the sun break out from over the horizon because it signals to her that the cycle will still move on. Despite her not being there, despite her being absent from the rest of it, the cycle will move on, the sun will continue to rise, and she doesn’t need to think too much about it.
She thinks too much about it.
The coffee machine has a flickering light, still, and she ignores it again in favour of making herself a big cup of coffee, drinking it slowly as the hands on the clock tick past her. Six am. Seven am. The restaurant remains closed today. There’s no need for me to go in there.
At eight in the morning, her phone rings. It’s Cheol, and she contemplates only for a minute before pressing answer and holding the device up to her ear, “yes, Cheol.”
“Hey, Kim,” he laughs, “morning, Babygirl.”
“Don’t call me that,” she grumbles, “and why the hell are you up so early?”
“What do you mean?”
“You usually wake up at eleven in the morning, Cheol. It’s eight am now. A whole three hours early. I want to know why.”
He pauses for a moment, “why do you think, babe?”
She pinches her brows, because this is what Cheol always does and she’s feeling a headache come on, and Cheol will not let up until she’s guessed something, “I don’t know, you have work?”
“It’s Monday, babe. We took off work.”
“Most people have work.”
Cheol laughs, “not me, though.”
“Yes, yes, tell me all about your perfect ‘I own a business and employ my best friends and it is profitable as fuck’, Choi Seungcheol.”
He laughs again, an obnoxious sound that she hasn’t heard in a long time, “look, I was calling about lunch. We’re planning a barbecue, in the garden.”
“The garden?” She asks, “your big-ass house’s garden? A barbecue there?”
“Yeah, the cousins are coming over, and I think Mingyu is bringing a new friend of his, some cook, so I thought you guys could bond or some shit, I dunno.”
“I can’t bond with someone just because we’re both cooks, Cheol,” she sighs, “and who is it?”
“Mingyu said it was a secret, so I’m keeping it a secret from you too.”
She nods, “so Mingyu hasn’t told you, huh?”
Cheol doesn’t reply for a moment, “not really, but I would like you to be here.”
She thinks about it for a moment, eating lunch with Cheol's weird family and friends situation that she doesn’t want to keep track of. It’s going to be hot, it’s going to be annoying, but she likes the chaos. And if things go well, he’s not going to let her near any sort of open flame, which is a nice thing. She doesn’t want to cook on Mondays. “Who else is coming?”
“All the family, the friends, and you know, Mingyu’s new friend.”
She sighs, “do you want me to bring something?”
“Bulgogi?”
“Fuck no,” she laughs, “I’m not bringing fucking bulgogi to an open lunch, Cheol, I know my foods well enough for that.”
“It’s a picnic, sort of, you know,” he sighs, “listen, if you don’t want to, then you don’t have to.”
“No, no, I want to,” she exhales, going back to her breathing exercises, “I want to make something for you and your friends and family.”
“Make anything you want,” Cheol smiles into the phone, “I’m sure none of those bastards have ever had anything made by a Michelin starred chef before, so it’s going to be a fun thing, no matter how awful you think it is.”
“I do not think it’s awful.”
Cheol stays silent, “well, yes, it’s going to be awkward,” she replies, “but I can handle that much, you know, I can handle it. It’s not going to be a bad thing.”
“I know it, Babygirl, it’s going to be good.”
—
Cheol texts her after she cuts the call, a litany of emojis with the words do u wanna come for lunch yes or no, and she answers after thinking about it for five minutes, yes, Cheol, I will come to the barbecue, but no Korean food. I need something not Korean for once.
Will do, boss, he replies, hamburgers for everyone.
—
Cheol was lying when he said that the barbecue was going to happen at his house, because the address that he has given her goes to a fucking camping ground on the outskirts of town, where people go to have fun for the weekend, and definitely not meant for someone like her, but she musters up the courage either way. The taxi driver looks at her strangely when she tells him the address, but he says nothing more when she presses two bills into his hands. He doesn’t even spare a glance at the assortment of groceries she has in her hands. He’s also lying to her about being able to cook for everyone, because before she leaves the apartment, he texts her, begging for her to bring some groceries. She debates for a second on whether to do it for him or not, but Cheol just sends her a text, I’ll buy you a drink, Mi-ran, at the Shilla.
Drink at the Shilla means an easy million won on the pocket, so she’s not even upset at Cheol, or at buying food and groceries for his stupid friend outing. Drinks and a dinner at the Shilla, Cheol, don’t go back.
The camping ground looms up at her about an hour later, and she has to fight actively to not give into her desires and tell the driver to turn back and go back to her pick-up point. It’s going to be good, Kim Mi-ran, she tells herself, it’s going to be good.
—
Cheol’s carrying about three thousand blocks of firewood in his arms when she walks up to him, arms full of groceries, “Mi-ran!” he yells, “you made it!”
Thankfully, he doesn’t drop everything and come running to her for a hug, but it’s awkward nonetheless, “I’m here, like you requested,” she holds up the bags, “and I brought stuff that we can cook.”
“You’ll need to pick that up by yourself,” he says, grinning, “my hands are full of wood.”
She chooses not to play into the trap of that innuendo.
Stil, they fall into step alongside each other, and it’s nice. Nice to the degree that she forgets about the restaurant, the fact that she’s going to have to ditch them all at eight in the evening to catch the bus back to Seoul. Cheol will probably be angry with her, but she doesn’t know what else to do.
“Change of plans, baby,” he says, smoothly, placing the firewood blocks near the already set-up tent, “my parents aren’t coming.”
She rolls her eyes. This was bound to happen. “So, what, it’s just the friends?”
“Just the friends,” Cheol nods, “Jeonghan and Mingyu and Joshua, along with Mingyu’s new friend.”
“This friend that you’ve neither seen nor managed to have a conversation with,” she sighs, setting the groceries down, “what about the cousins?”
“The cousins aren’t coming either,” Cheol assures, “don’t worry, it’s just going to be us four, and you’re going to take off at eight, so you don’t even have to spend the night with us.”
She blinks, “how did you know that?”
It’s now Cheol’s turn to roll his eyes, “I know enough about restaurants to know that they need to start prepping at the crack of dawn,” he replies, “don’t worry, I’ve got the car, so I’ll drop you and Mingyu’s friend off at the bus stand at eight.”
She wants to ask why Mingyu’s friend is also leaving at eight, along with her, but then remembers that Mingyu’s friend is a cook and most restaurants need start prepping from the morning, in order to be able to serve their guests. And if he’s working at a small-scale restaurant, then he needs to be working throughout the day, so there’s that. Suddenly, she feels a strange sense of solidarity towards this unknown friend of Mingyu’s, someone who knows her struggles, someone who is on the same boat as her. It’s a bracing thought.
“When are the rest of them showing up?” she asks, rolling up the ends of her sleeves, “I could get started on cooking.”
Cheol shrugs, “Jeonghan will be coming soon enough, but Mingyu will be a bit late. Around noon, maybe?”
“Noon, right.” She can do noon. She can do lunch. She can do a lot of things.
“What do you have in that bag?” Cheol comes over, checking his phone, “Jeonghan’s here.”
“Jeonghan’s here?” and on cue, the tall, almost angelic-looking man appears into her field of vision, grinning from ear to ear, “Jeonghan!”
Jeonghan stops for a moment when he sees her, “Mi-ran?” he asks, “you’re really here? Food and Wine’s Best New Chef at twenty-three is here at a picnic?”
She rolls her eyes, but she likes Jeonghan. Maybe it’s the deceptively angelic looks, maybe it’s the way that he greets her with a hug every time he sees her, like he’s preparing for her to leave again. Maybe it’s that one time she made him a scallop dish, with a caper sauce and stuff, for his graduation from college. Jeonghan hated the dish, told her that it tasted strange, and she told him to fuck all the off to fucking Busan. Still, it was probably the most honest review anyone had given her in her life, so she liked it, likes him. Jeonghan is nice. He’s annoying, but nice.
He hugs her, placing a quick kiss to her cheek before looking at the bags she’s been arranging on the edge of the temporary firepit, “really, Cheol’s making you cook again?”
“I thought I’d bring something for him and his family, but he told me it’s just going to be us four,” she shrugs, “I made food, either way.”
“Yeah, food you’re not gonna eat,” Cheol shouts, “what did you even make?”
She points at the refrigerated bag, “there are some flank steaks in there, trying to actually work on a chimichurri-inspired marinade, but made with Asian ingredients, like shiso and more minty things. There are a lot of cognates within South American and Asian cuisine, so we can do that. And on that side, we have some shikhye, that I have been making for a long fucking time, and in the last bag we have something of a quick and easy yeolmu bibimbap, because I found some young radish kimchi, so we have that—”
“Jesus, it’s enough for a group of ten, not four people,” Jeonghan picks up one of the Ziploc bags with the flank steaks, “do you need help with cooking the steaks? I can do that.”
“No, it’s fine,” she sighs, “I think Mingyu’s new friend is a cook, but I can’t just—”
“You’re gonna make Mingyu’s new friend cook? The first time he comes here?” Jeonghan laughs, “come on, Mi-ran, you shouldn’t do that.”
“Well, I was supposed to have help from Cheol’s family, and the rest of our friends, but that’s not happening, so we now have to make do with something like this,” she grumbles, “I don’t want to make the guy cook in his first hangout either, but what can we do?”
“We can just have Mingyu help you with it,” Cheol replies, setting the logs, “he’s a competent cook, you know.”
“He would have been better if he had some formal training instead of just puttering about in a home kitchen,” she grumbles, “he had so much potential for becoming a chef, you know.”
“In your mind, everyone should be a chef,” Cheol laughs, checking his phone, “oh, wait, Mingyu is here.”
“Mingyu is here? Should I get started on the steaks?”
But Cheol is not paying her any attention, and neither is Jeonghan, so she looks up at the two people coming up the field. One of them is Mingyu, his tall frame easily visible even amidst the crowd of people, and on the other side is—fuck, it’s Vernon.
She sighs, standing up, and Mingyu runs up to her, pulling her into a hug again, “Mi-ran! So nice to see you, and this is Vernon—” he makes a gesture towards the man, who’s staring at her, intensely, “I met him in the gym! He’s also a cook, same as you!”
“Yeah, I know him,” she sighs, “he’s my CDC at Gyeonghoeru. He’s excellent.”
That one gets their attention. Cheol stands up straighter, and Jeonghan has a knowing glint in his eye, “really?” Mingyu asks, “you work with him?”
Vernon doesn’t answer at all, just keeps staring and staring at her, not looking away, and she hates her decision to come here again. Instead of running away, she turns to the stove, checking for temperature, “he’s excellent, Mingyu, I’ve told you that.”
—
On Monday mornings, she wakes up earlier than usual. Most days, she doesn’t go to sleep. Instead, she just stays awake, blinking in the darkness of the night, looking at her shitty ceiling and hoping for the morning to come by quicker. On Monday mornings, she gets to the restaurant at five in the morning, hoping for her prep to get done before she has to get wrapped up in the process of making menus and doing other stuff that keeps the restaurant smoothly running, the mundane, day-to-day tasks that she doesn’t really enjoy, but at times like these, they are a welcome reprieve for her.
“Morning chef,” the new stage, a boy whose name begins with Lee and well, she’s never learnt the rest of it, “prep time?”
“Prep time, Lee Jungchan, was it?” She asks, peering discreetly at the apron, “welcome to Gyeonghoeru.”
The boy looks bashful, “it’s just Lee Chan, actually. My parents put an extra syllable on there to make it more symmetrical.”
“Right, Lee Chan, then,” she smiles at him, looking around them at the pristine kitchen, “what else is there at this time of the day?”
He shakes his head, “just thinking about small talk, chef.”
“Small talk is good,” she pulls out her NOMA notebook, we’re doing a ginseng infused broth for the seasonal menu this time around. Have you ever had wild ginseng?”
“Wild ginseng?”
She shakes her head, smiling, “I had it once, and surprisingly enough, it was in Copenhagen. I think about it from time to time.”
“Was it—in a broth, or some sort of other preparation?” he asks, and it’s kind of endearing how he’s hanging on to her every word, and he trips over his words in an attempt to continue the conversation, “I mean, I had your dish at Jungsikdang, and the dol hareubang completely changed my life, I think it’s the best dish I’ve ever had.”
“Thank you, for the compliment,” she smiles, “you went to Le Cordon Bleu, right?”
He nods, “I know you and chef Vernon were both alumni of the same school. And you came to the school, one time, when I was still a student there.”
She frowns, “did I?”
He shakes his head, “I think you just came there to attend another lecture.”
That jogs her memory, “I went there to attend a lecture by Louis Dupont. He was my instructor when I was at Le Cordon, too.”
His eyes grow wide, “you learnt from Louis Dupont?”
“It was really nice,” she sighs, “his recipe for roast chicken is something I still haven’t managed to improve upon.”
“Still?” and in the morning light, she still thinks about the first time she had roast chicken by Louis Dupont, working at Gaspard, nervous as the youngest woman in the entire kitchen. Louis Dupont, who was an old man even when she met him, now positively ancient. Gentle hands teaching her how to truss the chicken, how to prepare a meal with care enough for it to leak out of every element on the meal, so that the people who eat your food will know that someone took the time to care about their meal. About food. She misses that time.
“I liked learning from Louis,” she offers, “he taught me why we should care so much about this.”
He blinks at her, clearly confused, “what?”
She laughs, “wild ginseng, boy. Wild ginseng.”
She’d lied to him when she talked about the wild ginseng. Well, she wasn’t lying, just omitting the truth. It wasn’t NOMA, and it wasn’t even Copenhagen. She had wild ginseng for the first and only time in Sweden, delirious to the point where she imagined that particular root appearing in front of her eyes. NOMA was behind her then; a blur of time that was spent in a small house overlooking the river and where she became convinced that a ghost was haunting her, where her days began at six and ended at midnight. NOMA was a blur of guilt for her, days and nights of attempting to contact Vernon, until she gave it up entirely.
Hey, Mi-ran, I don’t mean to tell you this, but Vernon was there at the reunion dinner last night, and when they asked him about you, he said that he didn’t know what the hell you were doing.
Really?
He was far unkinder than that. Sorry.
I took the NOMA opportunity from him; he should be angry. I don’t mind. It would have been weird if he wasn’t angry.
He also said that the rice and egg broth with the shiitake mushrooms was kind of derivative.
…
Mi-ran?
Okay. He can think that. I don’t mind.
Do you.
I’m telling you the truth. He can think whatever he wants.
If you want my opinion—
Don’t. it’s fine.
I was about to say that the rice and egg broth dish was the best thing I’ve ever had.
Flatterer.
I speak the truth.
Love you.
You don’t really.
I don’t?
You love Vernon.
Lies. Liar.
It’s why you’re forgiving that comment.
I’m not. I’m ignoring it. As I should.
You’re a coward.
That’s why I love you, Millie. You keep me honest.
Both of you are stupid.
—
“Wild ginseng,” she mutters to herself, setting up her station, “wild ginseng.” A close aide of the president was coming to dine with them that night, the front of house had informed them all before, it would be great if the Executive chef made the Hanwoo dish. The not-so-subtle undertone of don’t give this to the CDC and the line cooks remained there, but she really didn’t want to be a part of whatever political game the aide thought he was playing. She was going to be there, as usual, and she would be nice, as usual, and it would be a good service. Like always. She had stages and she had line cooks and she had two sous chefs and a CDC who hated her guts but loved cooking. She could do it; she had the necessary skills. She was skilled, man.
Prep time sulks, but that’s the point. People keep looking at her like she’s an alien, come to earth to figure out the living patterns of human beings. To some of them, she must look that way: the CDC-turned Executive Chef from Jungsikdang, someone who would under no normal circumstances be a part of this kitchen. That’s what Cheol told her too.
“What are you doing here, Mi-ran? You should have gone to another restaurant, someplace better than this one. You know that, right?”
“I do, Cheol,” she’d said, not fully believing herself, “I do. I just needed a change.”
And she did. Fire three Hanwoo. Hands. Refire. Change this, chef. The expo is being held up.
Someone passes a deli container into her hands. She looks up. Vernon just shrugs, “hojicha. Family meal is up next.”
“Right. Family meal.”
The new stage was on the family meal, rice and bulgogi made from the leftover marinated beef they had in the walk-in. She eats it all, because food is fuel, and you need the energy. She wants an energy drink. She wants fried chicken. She wants, desperately, anything other than Korean or Asian food. Her palate is fucked.
After family meal is done, she steps outside the restaurant for a break, stepping away from the gates and into the back alley. A cigarette comes up to her lips even before the doors finish closing behind her, and she walks out to the side of the dumpsters, taking quick puffs to calm herself down. Halfway through the cigarette, she sits down on the curb, hoping that the solidity of the road will do something to her shot nerves.
The prep is over. Now it’s just service that I need to get through.
“Sitting here again?”
She doesn’t even need to look to know it’s Vernon. He takes a seat next to her, their knees touching, and for a moment, she thinks of another time, back in London, back in the timeline before everything went to shit, “you’re still here?”
“What, you thought I’d leave?” he laughs, “I’m not going to, Chef Kim. If you want to, you can leave. I’m not going to.”
“Gyeonghoeru that important to you?” she scoffs, “you said that it doesn’t have a star.”
“Yes, but it could.” Vernon holds his hand out for the cigarette, and she wordlessly hands it over to him, “you know it too. If we all pulled through this one, then we have a chance at getting a star. It’s doable. It’s there.”
“Do you know the process of getting a star?” she turns to look at him, and Vernon is there, with a faraway look on his face, like he’s looking at something beyond her, beyond himself, beyond this restaurant, even. It’s the same look she had seen on his face when he talked about working at NOMA, when he talked about their future, the two of them. It’s the same everything.
She has to look away to not start crying.
“It could be a starred place, you know,” Vernon says, “they genuinely have the potential for that. Everyone here loves cooking; everyone here loves the art of it. They’re hungry for success, and a star would make them even more hungry for it. You know this, Chef Kim, you know they could be better than a restaurant with the potential to get recognition. They could actually have it.”
Chef Kim. All those years of calling me Mi-ran, and now he reverts back to Chef Kim. Fine. Good. “Do you know how hard the process is?” she can’t help the scoff that escapes her, “it’s painful, it’s hellish. Every day is a constant grind in that process, to get a star. People become jaded, people become tired. People start hating each other. It brings out the worst in people.”
“And you think the atmosphere in there isn’t already shot to death?” he stands up, looking down at her, his eyes hard, “everyone is on eggshells around you, everyone is on eggshells around me. People start looking amongst each other the moment we have a conversation, because they know we’re fucked up, and they want us to just stop this mess.”
“I did not start this mess, you did,” she snaps, “you know how many times I called you? How many times I texted, begging for you to listen to my words? I cut myself up daily because I thought I hurt you. That’s what I did. Every day, chef, of course the dynamic is fucked up, because you hate me, and I dislike you just as much!”
He stands very, very still. She knows what she’s just said, she knows the impact of the words, but she doesn’t want to take them back. Not yet. Not now. Vernon knows it’s true. He said your dish was derivative.
Everything comes back to cooking, in the end.
He takes a deep breath, “you wrote all those words to me from NOMA. You wrote them from Copenhagen, Mi-ran. You wrote them from the place where I desperately wanted to be at. You still think I should forgive you?”
She stands up, “then don’t fucking ask me to get you a star!”
“You think it’s just me who’s going to get a star? You’re going to get one too!”
She stares at Vernon for a full ten seconds, before saying “fuck you.” The door slams loudly, in the wake of her leaving. He doesn’t follow her into the kitchen.
“Twenty minutes till the doors open, chef,” the front of house, Minghao, says, loud enough for her to be jolted awake from that fucking daydream. “You feeling good?”
“Never better, chef,” she mumbles, looking away from him, because Minghao unfortunately worked at Ever and is a bitch for getting an accurate read on whatever emotions she’s feeling at any moment, “we’ll be ready this way, chef.”
“Stations need to be prepped, chefs!” she announces, stepping into the kitchen, drawing everyone’s attention, “pre-service meeting, please.”
There’s a murmur of assent, and Minghao follows her to the dining room, bringing the whole front of house along with him. Vernon walks into the kitchen as she follows Minghao out of the kitchen and into the dining, his eyes flicker for a moment before settling onto indifference.
“I’ll oversee pre-service,” he says, and she nods, allowing that bit of lie to fall through. What else was she going to say? That she knows that he didn’t want to talk to her, or that he knew that she was aware of this?
The dining room has approximately ten people in there, split amidst kitchen and front of house. Minghao takes a deep breath, before looking at her, inclining his head just a little. When was the last time that she had seen that particular gesture? Right, at Ever, when Minghao was there along with Vernon, both of them staging, and she had followed Vernon out to Chicago just to try and make amends. She still remembers the look that Minghao had given her across the room. She doesn’t think he recognised her, but at times, Minghao makes her suspicious.
“Chef,” he murmurs, “the pre-service.”
“Right,” she claps her hands, “today, we have some important things on the menu, the new iteration of dol hareubang, served with an orange reduction, so that needs to be mentioned. Also, for the seasonal menu, we have the boiled whole chicken, paired with a shiitake mushroom broth that has been flavoured with ginseng and Chinese whole spices. That’s all.”
She finishes her speech feeling very stupid, and Minghao, thankfully, takes over from her, “okay, guys, listen up! We have a few people of note eating with us today—two public health doctors, who have come here to celebrate their anniversary, and the man has sent a note ahead with his reservation, saying that he will be proposing to his girlfriend. We will be facilitating that, so there will be a special red bean paste dessert for them, and for god’s sake, do not ask them for the check.”
Red bean dessert, with a champagne proposal. She can already think of the multiple ways that she can make this one occasion more special for this couple, to make this one experience an unforgettable one. Red bean parfait, modified slightly from the sorbet that we already are serving for dessert. The tasting menu would have to be changed slightly, but that’s okay. They can do it.
“Pâtissier would be taking point on that one,” she mutters, and Hong Joshua, the pastry chef, looks up from where he’s standing, nodding fervently. Look, he can do it. You’ve got a system now, Kim Mi-ran. You’ve got your own brigade.
“What about the presidential aide?” one of the front of house members pipes up, “shouldn’t we be considering him as a person of note too?”
Minghao looks at her. She sighs, pinching her nose, “if we consider every politician who walks in through those doors as a person of note, we are going to inundated with red tickets like that every day. Politicians are not people of note, the people are. Let’s keep that in mind, everyone.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself, chef,” Minghao smiles, checking his watch, “ten minutes till doors open, chefs. I’m going to be on expo, so please make sure that everything is running smoothly. Seokmin, I’m counting on you for that.”
Seokmin nods, smiling brightly, ‘you can count on me, chef!”
“I can never get used to that,” she sighs, tucking her notepad into her apron pocket, “let’s go back to work, everyone.”
“Yes, chef!” the chorus follows her all through, even into the kitchen, where she looks at the dessert menu, that has been slightly revamped for the season; matcha and hojicha ice cream, along with a caramel sauce that people poured over their dishes. Joshua did a very good job of it, as expected from hi. She’s come to expect a lot of things from people, she does.
Vernon would never say anything bad about me.
He did, you know.
Derivative.
Derivative.
Derivative.
Chef, we need three shrimp within the next two minutes.
Derivative.
“Chef?”
She blinks, the lights suddenly harsh, “am I having a stroke?”
Vernon stares at her, “no, not really. You’re three minutes out from the doors being open, though.”
“That’s right, everyone. Three minutes till the doors open,” she nods, “faster and cleaner on every dish, chefs. Every second counts.”
Every second counts.
“First tickets coming in,” Minghao announces, “we need three striped jack, three arctic char, please, chefs.”
“Heard,” she says. Her hands work fast, sure, confident. This is the one thing in her life that she’s entirely confident on, cooking. Every second counts, chef. She knows her hands are fast and sure; she knows her hands make art and work at it. She’s sure of it.
Mi-ran throws in her towel with slightly more force than absolutely necessary. Everything had gone well. The presidential aide had shown up with their acquaintances in tow and they had had a good time. Everyone who stepped in through those doors tonight had had a good time.
“Thank you, everyone,” she says, looking at Minghao, who’s walking fast towards her, a smile on his face, “yes?”
“The persons of note wish to send their compliments to the chef,” Minghao grins, “they really enjoyed their meal.”
“You refused to take the check, yeah?”
He rolls his eyes, “of course we did, but now they want to meet you.”
“Why? They should be meeting Joshua instead. The dessert was the surprise one.”
Minghao shakes his head, “the dol hareubang.”
“The dol hareubang.” She sighs, “let’s go.”
When she follows Minghao out into the dining area, she can feel the eyes of the diners on her, looking with heightened interest in the executive chef, who’s coming to grace them with her presence. She doesn’t like this part of her job. One thing she didn’t have to deal with at Jungsikdang, were the meetings. She didn’t have to think about meeting people, just had to be satisfied with the knowledge that her food was good and it was received well by the people.
Minghao stops in front of a pair of people in the corner seat, “there you go.”
“I have to do it, right?”
“You’re the executive chef, not me.”
She sighs. He’s not wrong. Minghao rarely is. “Hello, I’m the executive chef, Kim Mi-ran,” she smiles, bowing at the couple, who elbow each other in excitement, “I trust everything went well?”
The woman stands up, smiling, “thank you so much for this incredible meal, chef. The dol hareubang was out of this world.”
“Thank you, we as a team work very hard for everything to be perfect,” she smiles back, “I trust the surprise went well?”
The brilliant smile on their faces rivals the brilliant cut of the diamond ring on the woman’s finger.
—
“Staff drinks, please,” Joshua whines during cleanup, wiping down his counter, “Saturday, please.”
Minghao looks at her, “I’m not the person who can sign off on that.”
Joshua looks at her, “pretty please, Chef Kim?”
She sighs, “we need to go over the vendor contracts on Saturday. I need Minghao and Vernon for that.”
“We can look over the contracts before we leave for drinks,” Minghao says mildly, trying not to annoy her further, “I’m sure we can finish everything in time and then go out for drinks, the whole staff.”
She looks down at the tile that she had been scrubbing for the past three minutes. There’s a particular red stain on there, that she can’t really get out. She’s been staring at it for the past three minutes, and the smell of soap persistently stays on, within her nostrils. They’re all going to go out for dinner and she’s going to have to go with them, because that’s what a good boss does; go out with their employees during the weekend, commiserating with them over general shitty work life and offering them condolences for ending up in the position where they were.
“Right, I don’t think I can join, sorry,” she says, “but the corporate card is there, for discretionary expenses. I think we can use that.”
Minghao’s expression perks up, “that's right! We can take the corporate card with us. And we've been working so hard for the past couple of months, I think we deserve a break.”
“We do,” Vernon replies. She looks at him. He’s scrubbing the floor, same as her, but unlike her, he’s managed to cover a significant area. She wonders if this is a sign from the universe.
“We’re bringing you too, chef,” Joshua points at her, grinning widely, “you cannot escape the company dinner just because you think it’s going to be a bad thing, you need to come with us.”
“I don’t need to do that,” she grumbles, “I shouldn’t go out and get drinks with anyone.”
—
Minghao leaves her in the middle of brainstorming about the seasonal menu, three of whose dishes need to be changed, citing some vague excuse about a wine vendor who had reneged on their promise for a proper Beaujolais, which means that she’s stuck in the small office at nine in the evening, with only a blinking table lamp for company. She has to be here, because there is work to be done. There is always work to be done. The work never ends, it seems. Not for her.
“Minghao?” the door opens, “I thought you were supposed to me here—oh.”
She looks up at Vernon, who’s wearing a plain white shirt and jeans, looking like he’s freshly showered, clearly expecting someone else, “oh, it’s you.”
“Are you upset that it’s me, chef?” she murmurs, going back to her notebooks, “Minghao has gone off in search of a proper Beaujolais. He’s not here right now.”
“Right,” Vernon sighs, ignoring the jab, “he asked me to meet him here.”
“I was talking to him until a few minutes ago, when he said that he had to leave,” she sighs, “I know you said you didn’t want to be a part of the proceedings, but do you want to take a look at the new seasonal menu? Front of House says that three dishes need to be changed out.”
For a moment, Vernon looks like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world, but shakes his head, sitting down on a stool, looking at er scrawled notes and sketches, “which three dishes?”
“The manduguk, which Joongang Daily didn’t like when they did the review, the LA Galbi, which Hankyoreh thought was the least cohesive of all of our dishes, and finally, the salmon roe, which in everyone’s opinion, is exceedingly difficult, has too many elements, and generally, is a bitch to prepare. Also, no one really goes for it in the a la carte menu.”
“Damn,” Vernon whistles, “that’s a lot of things to go through. You sure you need my help?”
She stares at him, “chef, I don’t know what you think about me, but to me, you’re my CDC. That hasn’t changed, and I don’t think it ever will. No matter what happened between us, I still need your opinion on this.”
He looks at her, “I said that I didn’t want to be a part of this.”
“I know, but I wanted you to be a part of this, so that’s why, I’m asking you for your opinion,” she holds her hand out for her notebook, “never mind, if you don’t want to give your opinion, or be a part of this one, then I shouldn’t force you to take part.”
“You always do business like this?”
“What?”
“I’m asking if you always do business like this.”
“I’m not the one running a business here, chef,” she sighs, “I still need to report to my boss and the accounting department, who always have something to say about the dishes that we have planned, and I still need to get everyone on board for this, so chef, if you don’t want to be a part of this, I’m not going to stop you. You are free to leave this office space.” That part of her sentence, you're also free to leave this kitchen and my life goes unsaid. His face looks like he’s gotten the memo, however.
He hands her the notebook, and she goes back to sketching the dishes. They need to scrap the manduguk. If Joongang Daily hates it, then it was truly not up to the mark. The first time that she heard about that review, she had scoffed. What did the fucking Joongang Daily know about haute cuisine? The second time, she read the review, which called the manduguk ‘unbalanced and not up to the mark’. Hankyoreh thought that the La Galbi was not cohesive and did not ‘speak to the overall quality of the atmosphere’, and that it seemed too much like ‘the Gyeonghoeru was trying to at once be an upscale restaurant and a small-time Korean barbecue joint in the Bay area, and it wasn’t working’. She knows. It never works. They need to change it.
“Mi—Kim,” he says, and it’s pathetic, so pathetic, how small his voice sounds, and it’s kind of awful on her part, because that small part inside of her, that mean and angry and bitter part inside of her, that preens at this comment. He can’t even say my name out loud. She realises with horror, that she likes it when Vernon gets that tone in his voice. It means that he’s listening to her. It means that her words are affecting him, that he can no longer remain nonchalant and pretend that she doesn’t exist in his sphere outside of service and prep. Am I a fucking monster?
“Yes?” she looks up, and Vernon looks like he’s been thinking about this for a long time, “what do you need to talk to me about, chef?”
That’s just being cruel, she knows it, but she needs this, also; needs the distance of calling him chef, because she doesn’t want to call him Vernon, only to hear the words Chef Kim being thrown back at her. She doesn’t want to be a part of that. She doesn’t think her heart could take that much.
“I’m sorry.”
She blinks. “What are you sorry about, chef?”
“I shouldn’t have lashed out at you like that.”
“It doesn’t matter now, chef,” she sighs, “we should get back to work. That means I need to get back to work, and you can ask Minghao where he is right now. Probably moved on to a Languedoc sweet wine by now.”
“I’m trying to make amends here, Chef,” Vernon huffs, slightly irritated, and she must be crazy, because she really needs to see him lose it for once in his life. She needs to see Chwe Vernon just go insane. Berserk. She needs to see it. He’s snapped at her and he’s gotten irritated with her, but he’s never been angry. She needs to see it.
A sudden, irrational realisation comes over her, and she stands up, the notebook entirely abandoned on the desk, with its brightly-coloured drawings staring at the two of them, “how badly do you want that star, Chef Chwe Hansol?”
He looks up, eyes wide, “you’re considering it?”
“I still think it’s a bad idea,” she sighs, “but that’s not the point. Do you want it, or not?”
A moment.
Vernon stares at her like they’re back at le cordon, like they're back working side by side at sketch, like the last few years had never really happened, like they're not on other sides of a burning bridge. “Do you want this too?”
She nods, “I think we could get you a star, Chef Hansol. I’m not going to ask why you want that star or why you’re so intent on getting it in fucking Korea, making Korean food, when the process would have probably been a lot easier in the United States. I’m asking you, do you want the star?”
Vernon looks at her for a moment, then nods, “yes, I want it.”
She sighs, “well, let’s see what we can do about it.”
—
Mi-ran, what’s your deal with Vernon?
Vernon? He’s a friend.
He cannot be just a friend.
He is.
Have you seen the way he looks at you? Not a friend. Not by a long shot.
You’re lying hehe
—
On Saturday, she hands a typed-out card to Minghao, with the title ‘Non-negotiables’.
“What’s this?” he asks, without even looking at it, “cannot be the new menu, you just locked it last night. You haven’t even given it to everyone yet.”
“I think we should get a star.” She says, without any preamble. Minghao sputters, then does a double take.
“What?”
“I mean, it’s been long enough with me here, I think we need to work towards getting a star.”
“I’m sorry, chef,” Minghao says slowly, as if he’s trying to get it through in his own head, “you mean a Michelin star, right? This is not some other sort of award that I am not aware of?”
“No, chef, this is a Michelin star that I’m talking about,” she replies, “I want one.”
He blinks at her, “you’ve been talking to Chef Hansol again, I see.”
She turns her head so fast that her neck would have snapped, “no. I want the star.”
“Is this some ego thing?” Minghao looks like he might have a conniption, “it hasn’t even been a year since we opened, and the boss brought you into this ship as a last-ditch attempt to keep this restaurant alive. Chef Hansol joined after you did, so I want to be clear on this one thing.”
“I’m clear, chef,” she pulls on her apron, “we need to get a star if we want more people to come here.”
“Getting a Michelin star is not a publicity stunt, chef,” Minghao sighs, “are you sure about this?”
“One hundred percent sure,” she walks back into the kitchen, “we will get a star.”
Over at pastry, Joshua perks up, “a star?” he walks over, “are we talking about getting a star?”
“Chef Kim here is talking about getting a star,” Minghao sighs, “chef, please. Think about this. We cannot afford to fail if we start. We cannot stop on this trajectory.”
“I know, which is why I wrote those regulations,” she turns back to her finished prep, “we’ll get a star.”
Joshua and Minghao share a look amongst them, “is this about—” Joshua begins, and she holds up a hand, silencing them both.
“This is an ego thing,” she says, blatantly ignoring Vernon, whose looking at the three of them from his position on the pass, “I retained two stars at Jungsikdang, and I got another star for the restaurant the next year. I want Gyeonghoeru to have a star too. I want this for myself, and I want this for everyone else.”
Minghao takes a look at her list, “this is all on par for the course for fine dining, but what is this thing about a ‘chaos menu’?”
“The menu changes once a week,” she shrugs, “similar ingredients, because vendors will refuse to give us a good discount without larger orders, but we shift the dishes. Every week, the menu will change.”
Minghao looks like he might really have a heart attack now, “chef,” Joshua says, “I doubt pastry would be able to pull that off.”
“The dessert menu can be locked,” she concedes, “but the rest of it, I will change that. We are all capable of following through on a challenge, and I think—no, I know that this will do well.”
Footsteps. She knows who this is, because only one person walks like that, even within a kitchen, “chef,” Vernon says, voice clipped, “please, can we talk about this?”
She gives Minghao and Joshua a nod, following Vernon into the office.
As soon as the door closes behind her, he turns around, looking irritated, “a chaos menu? Really?”
“I thought you wanted a star, chef.” She replies, trying her best to be nonchalant, “we need to do this.”
“Doing this would harm us more than it would do us any good,” he snaps, “you know this, chef.”
“I was not the one who wanted a star, chef.”
A moment. One. Two. Vernon looks like he wants to storm out of the office, but finally decides otherwise, standing a bit taller. Doesn’t matter, he’s still the same height as me, she thinks, not a hint of malice in there. He’s still the same. Even if he had changed his name and adopted another person’s skin, he’s still the same.
“You’re going to make everyone suffer,” he bites out eventually, not looking away, “you’re going to make everyone suffer with your rules and this chaos menu that will be changing every three days—”
“Every week.”
“—every week, then, because you have no idea how these people work—”
“I have enough of an idea, thank you very much.”
“—which just means that you’re going to put everyone through the ringer for nothing!”
She doesn’t say anything when he finishes his sentence, just keeps staring at him. Theres a shuffling noise outside the door. About three people, listening in, two of them have to be Minghao and Joshua, and they must have recruited someone from the kitchen, probably to get another witness to this—whatever they were having right now. Was this a lovers’ spat?
“If you want to get a star, chef, you need to follow the rules and regulations. If you don’t wish for that, then you’re free to go. I’m sure London would be very happy to have you back, working in their kitchens,” she says finally, and although it’s bitter and mean and nothing like what she wanted to say to him, it comes out like she’s tired and exhausted, like she’s been holding her exhaustion in for months and weeks and days.
“Are you firing me?”
“I’m telling you to get with the programme that you built, chef, not the other way around,” she groans, “god, I’m so fucking tired.”
“Right, message receives,” he nods, “do let me know about the rules and regulations, I will be following them to the dot.”
“I would really hope that you do, chef, because my kitchen is not a place for idleness,” she replies, “make sure that you are on board with everything.”
Vernon steps aside, and she opens the door, yanking it back with so much force that the three people waiting outside almost fall over, and she glares at Minghao, Joshua, and Chan.
She scoffs, levelling another withering stare at Minghao and Joshua, who have the decency to look slightly abashed, “roping in the stage on their first month?”
Chan blushes almost immediately, “no, no, chef, I just wanted to show you this idea that I had been working on, and Chef Xu said that I could come to the office and show it to you, and Chef Hong said that I could—”
“They filled your heads with bullshit, right?” she rolls her eyes, “really? I did not expect that from the two of you, man.”
“You expected worse from us, be honest,” Minghao looks unashamed, and Joshua just giggles as she makes her way back to the kitchen and picks up her knife again. The fucking knife. She had got it back in NOMA, as a present from a friend in Japan, a beef knife that was half a joke, half serious. Still, she stuck with the utensil, even going so far as to travel to fucking Gifu to repair it one time.
“Hey, chef,” Minghao follows her into the kitchen, whispering low, “do you really think that fighting with him like this is going to help?”
“There is nothing to fight about,” she mutters, chopping up onions for the mirepoix with more anger than necessary, “look, chef, I’m thankful for the support, I really am. But there is nothing to help with, and I need you to focus and follow the regulations.”
Minghao sighs, “I worked at Michelin-starred restaurants too, chef. But this is too—”
“Everyone here is trained formally, yes, but Michelin star is a different ballgame altogether, you know. We need to get together and get our heads in the game.”
“Yes, that’s all well and good for you, chef, but I’m not jeopardising the well-being of the whole team because you wanted to have a Michelin star.”
“I did not want a Michelin star. I’ve got enough of them, and I hate the idea of it,” she snaps, not really understanding the implications of those words. I don’t want a Michelin star. I’ve got enough of them.
Minghao stares at her for a while, then a slow, understanding smile spreads all over his face, “understood, chef.”
She looks at him, hands still methodically chopping onions, “no, do not go there.”
“I knew there was something there when you came to fucking Chicago and waited around at Ever for a lifetime,” he snickers, “there’s so much I want to know about this.”
“There will be nothing that you get to know about this, you fucking asshole,” she rolls her eyes, “go run service. Prep will be over in an hour.”
He snorts, leaving her on the pass. Vernon comes up behind her, eyes red, like he’s been crying in the office, which is not true, because Joshua would know and Joshua cannot keep a secret to save his life, “chef, the prep.”
“Right, the prep, chef,” she mutters, bringing out her notebook, “we have two and a half turns tonight, so, prep accordingly, chef.”
“Two and a half turns,” he mutters, under his breath, going back to his station. She doesn’t want to hurt him, and she doesn’t want to argue with him, but she also doesn’t want to hurt herself.
—
“Coming for drinks?”
She stares at Minghao’s outstretched hand, blinking twice to refocus, after the Saturday service. Why is it that all Saturday services were shitty? They are all wiped out, Joshua almost cried during service, Chan actually cried during service, and Vernon was—Vernon was doing whatever his idea of a cold shoulder was, which was nothing.
And Minghao is looking at him with Seokmin in tow, all hopeful about a dinner, and she doesn’t really have the emotional bandwidth to deal with this anymore.
You have to, you’re executive chef now.
“I’m going to opt out of this one, chef,” she sighs, reaching into the drawer to get the corporate card they save for these occasions, “no expensive wines and shit, please. The discretionary budget has been shot to hell.”
Minghao makes a face, “what, you want me to wreck my palate?”
“Yes, please, chef, wreck your palate on cheap soju and beer, because that is the extent to which the company will be funding our team dinners to.” She rolls her eyes, “I spoke with the boss yesterday about it, and he said there was a discretionary budget in place for this. It’s not much.”
“Yeah, no shit, we’re gonna have to get fucked up on cheap liquor tonight, I guess,” Minghao pockets the card, “you're not coming?”
She stares at him. Is he kidding, or does he actually want me to come with him? “I’m not so stupid as to butt into the affairs of my subordinates, Minghao,” she shakes her head, “I need to work through this couple of vendor contracts before I can even get out of this office.”
Minghao takes a step forward, then takes a look at the giant spreadsheet that she has open on her computer, “I’m not going near that with a ten-foot pole, chef. That looks awful.”
“Yes, well, I have to deal with it, that’s my job,” she sighs, “tomorrow is a state holiday, and on Monday, we’re all off.”
“The restaurant's closed for two days, yes,” Minghao says, narrowing his eyes, “wait, are you planning to come back in here? Why?”
“I’m not, I just had an idea for a dish, we can put it in the menu maybe when we’re a bit more uh—financially solvent,” she wants to wring her hair out, “I’m going to go over the numbers again.”
“Don’t you need to see the accountant for that?”
“I’ve got enough experience at this, I think, chef,” she says, “if there is nothing that I can do, then I’ll talk to the accountant.”
“Yeah,” Minghao takes a seat on a stool, “no drinks, then?”
She shakes her head, “sorry, chef. No drinks tonight.”
When Minghao opens the door to walk outside, she can see Vernon standing outside, staring at her like she’s a problem he cannot really solve. She doesn’t return that look. I don’t care.
When she gets home that night, the clock is striking three in the morning. The spreadsheets were so complicated that she almost bled from her eyes, but she had to get through them. We need a star, she thinks, if not for me, then for the rest of the people in there. Joshua. Minghao. Seokmin. Chan. Vernon.
Vernon.
She reaches for her phone, turning blindly towards the place where she’s sure that she’s kept it. Minghao has added her to his Instagram, and like a fucking masochist, she opens his profile to see the story that he’s uploaded. Fucking idiot. What, you want to see how well they're doing without you?
It’s a photo taken at a cheap roadside bar. Minghao stares into the camera, grinning, and behind him, the rest of the crew. Chan is halfway through his drink, and Joshua is holding up a victory sign. Great. Vernon is there too, on the edge of the picture, smiling, holding his hands up in a gesture that means what—what does it mean? She doesn’t know. She never does.
[on this day seven years ago]
She doesn’t want to click on that notification, but she has to. There’s some sort of magnetic pull towards that notification that brings her to that memory from seven years ago, just when they began working at Sketch, her and Vernon, grinning, a cigarette dangling from her lips, and a can of coke in Vernon’s hand. Is she pathetic if she remembers everything about that one night?
She doesn’t care. She doesn’t care at all. She’s so good at this. She’s thirty and she’s a genius and she’s an executive chef and she misses Vernon and misses cooking in a way that actually mattered to her.
—
I don’t think this is working out.
How so?
I keep thinking about the burner.
The burner?
The burner. In the kitchen. I keep thinking about it. When it’s on, I think that it’s going to be easy. So easy.
To do what?
To just let the fire continue. To just let it burn everything and me along with it.
Have you done anything about it?
I just turn the knob off the moment the voices get too loud.
That’s good, Miss Kim.
That’s nice to hear. Miss Kim.
Why?
I get called ‘chef’ all the time. This is a welcome change.
I see.
—
She blinks awake in the middle of the morning. It’s eight o’ clock, too late, which means that she has one call from her mother, waiting for her.
“Mi-ran,” she hears on the second ring, when she calls her mother, “are you coming to lunch today?”
“I don’t want to, mom,” she sighs, “I just go home and start cooking, and I am taking a break from it for two days.”
Her mom sighs, “and what makes you think that I’m going to ask you to cook when I know that it’s a holiday?”
Shit. “I’m sorry, mom, it’s just that so many other people—”
“I know, honey. I know. Just come home. It’s going to be fine.”
“Okay,” she thinks about it, “I’ll come home in the afternoon, mom.”
“Love you.”
She doesn’t say it back.
She is so fucked. She keeps thinking about it while packing up for a night at her childhood home. Her mother would no doubt pack her with enough side dishes to last a whole month. The only person who’s been excited by the prospect of her returning, have been her parents. Her father would no doubt tell her to buy a car instead of hiring a car every time she made the trip, because getting a taxi costs money. Everything costs money. She’s not even interested.
She doesn’t want to go, but like a good daughter, she does. She opens her fridge and looks at the dismal selection of ingredients and thinks to herself, what can I make for my parents, and comes up with nothing, and still moves. Takes a shower, brushes her teeth. Feels like her insides are going to crawl out of her skin.
She can still see the Instagram story that Minghao had uploaded, with Chan and Joshua and Vernon, and feels like she’s messing everything up.
—
Her parents live in a middle-class area, where they bought their house in the years before the IMF crisis. Most of the people she grew up with were all the same: children of middle tier government workers, who had a set life course ahead of them even before they began to understand what life meant. Lawyer, doctor. Engineer. One became a prosecutor. Teacher. Bank worker.
“Mi-ran!” her mother says, the moment she walks through the front door, “come in! you look so tired, did you drive here? Why did you take so long to come? We’re all done with lunch.”
“Mother,” she replies, extricating herself from her grasp, “I just have two days of vacation. I spent the morning cleaning.”
That satisfies her mother, because cleaning is a good thing, right? Cleaning means that you were thinking about the space where you lived in, took care of the people who shared the same space as you. Cleaning was good. Cleaning was appropriate. Cleaning was what adjusted people did.
She’s a well-adjusted woman.
“You’re here,” her father says, “your sister was supposed to be back, but she’s not here yet.”
Did she mention that she has a sister?
“Yeah, right, I called her, and she said she’s not going to make it this time around.” She replies, looking intently at the floor design, “you called her? She picked up?”
“She didn’t pick up,” her father sounds irritated, but she can ignore that as much as she likes, “she just sent me a text. God knows what she’s doing right now.”
Mi-ran has an idea about what her sister might be doing at the moment, but she says nothing, and instead, she chooses to keep her mouth shut. She’s a wise woman. She’s wise and she’s a genius.
“Right,” she mutters, stepping beside her father, “I’m going to take a nap, mom. Don’t worry.”
—
“Don’t you ever rest?” her sister asks, lounging on her bed, “Copenhagen’s so beautiful. You should go gout sometime.”
She laughs, “eonnie, this is my first day off in—like, months.”
Her sister sits up, “months?”
“Months,” she repeats, “I think my hands are just, sixty percent julienned carrots right now.”
Her sister laughs, easy and relaxed, and Mi-ran allows herself to relax too, bringing the glass of coke up to her mouth. Her sister is here, visiting her at NOMA, and she’s having fun with her sister. She’s having fun with her sister right now. So much fun.
Her sister sits up on the bed, “I’m sure your hands are carrots right now. My hands perpetually smell of that same ink they use for evidence documents. It never goes away, man. I keep thinking, maybe today is the day I can finally scrub it all off me, but no. nothing happens. I still smell of ink.”
She snorts, “like Lady Macbeth?”
“Like Lady Macbeth,” her sister makes a show of scrubbing her hands, “all the perfumes of Arabia would not sweeten this hand.”
“You're always so dramatic.” She laughs, “you didn’t bring your husband along this time.”
Her sister stays silent for a moment, “hey, Mi-ran, you know something?”
Mi-ran sits up. She doesn’t want to admit, but am odd feeling runs all over her skin, because that tone of voice is something that her sister has used only once with her, a long, long time ago.
Mi-ran, tell me the truth. Do you want this for yourself?
“What happened?”
Her sister reaches for Mi-ran’s can of coke, and takes a drink, “your brother-in-law has been cheating on me.”
Mi-ran goes stock still. She knows her brother-in-law, knows the man who seemed sweet to her sister whenever he came over to the house, the man who cried like a baby when her sister appeared in her wedding dress, “he’s been cheating?”
“Yes,” her sister nods, “it’s his secretary. He’s like a walking stereotype, my god.”
Mi-ran takes her coke back, drinking from it. For a moment, she’s back in a side street in Seoul, passing a cigarette back and forth beside a convenience store. Don’t worry, no one’s going to tell on you. Do you want this, Mi-ran?
“Divorce him.” She makes a face, and her sister laughs, “what? I’m right.”
“I already filed the paperwork for it,” her sister shrugs, “I just—well, I’m kind of scared.”
“Scared?” Mi-ran can’t believe her ears. This was her sister, the girl who was her idol for the longest time, the one person who didn’t give a shit about how they were living their lives, and she’s saying this? It doesn’t make sense.
“Scared?”
Her sister shrugs again, “mom and dad told me that I shouldn’t think of getting a divorce so soon after getting married.”
She gives a short, self-mocking laugh, “he was sleeping with his secretary. I’m supposed to let that go, because people will say shit?”
“People always say shit,” Mi-ran sighs, “they kept saying shit about me, and now they're going to say shit about you. You shouldn’t be afraid of what people are going to say, and make ourself unhappy in the process.”
“I know, but it’s still, slightly uncomfortable,” her sister says, which means that it is very uncomfortable for her, “maybe when I have enough of my braincells about me, I’ll think differently, but for now, I’m not really willing to go and face the music. You must think I’m a big coward, right, Mi-ran?”
Mi-ran nods, and then stands up to look outside the window. Copenhagen is a beautiful city, no doubt, but it’s even more beautiful in the night. Everything seems bathed in moonlight, in this corner of the city. Her apartment is silent, “you can hide here. I don’t mind.”
Her sister stands up, “hide?”
Mi-ran nods, “yeah, hide. You can hide here. Running away from problems isn’t a bad thing. You’re nor a coward, sis. You can stay here.”
Her sister laughs, “my little sister is offering me shelter?”
Mi-ran makes a face, “I’m not little anymore. You hid me from the world when I asked you to, so now, even before you're asking me, I’m telling you. Hide in here for as long as you want. Take all your vacation days, and then some. I earn enough from NOMA. I’ll feed you, and we can live here. Get a transfer, to someplace other than Seoul. Run to Busan, sis. I’ll look after you.”
“The parents are not going to be happy about it.”
“They don’t always know everything about our lives, sis,” she laughs, “we’re people. Normal people. Normal people are allowed to run and hide from their problems. That’s what family is for. To give shelter.”
“That’s wat they're teaching you at NOMA?”
“They teach me how to farm, how to create things out of everyday produce,” she smiles, “I can make an haute cuisine puree out of parsnips that I harvest in the gardens, I can make something out of anything, almost. We can make a life in here, for you, for as long as you need.”
Her sister stares at her for a long while, “I think I would like that, Mi-ran.”
—
She wakes up in the middle of the evening, with a headache that threatens to blind her. Am I finally going blind? Swinging her legs out of the bed, Mi-ran goes to find her mother in the kitchen, stirring a pot of soup, “your father likes this, so I made some. You want?”
She takes a look inside the pot. Ground loach soup, with ginger and radish. Pulling a spoon from the dish rack, she tastes it, feeling her mother staring at her while she tries not to think about how much she fucking hates loaches, “needs a bit more salt, but you have to be careful with it, otherwise it’s just going to be a salty mess. Here, let me,” she takes out the container of salt from her mother’s hands, “dad is still on his blood pressure medications, right?”
“Right,” her mother says, eyeing the container like Mi-ran’s about to defuse a bomb, “let me do that, Mi-ran.”
She shakes her head, “no, it’s fine,” she says, but her mother is already gripping it with both hands, and trying to take it from her, “mom, just give it back. Let me salt.”
“No, your dad is going to find it salty, and then he’s going to complain, let me.”
“Mom just—shit!”
The entire container of salt spills into the soup, the crystal granules melting into the soup faster than she can pick it out of the pot, “I was doing it!”
“You always manage to do this,” her mother sighs, “I told you to stay out of the kitchen!”
Mi-ran snaps back, “and you told me to taste it! Of course I’m going to change things! I’m a chef!”
“A chef?”
“Yes, just let me change the—” but it’s too late for that. Her mother, upset, takes the whole pot, and throws it down the garbage chute. Mi-ran just nods her head, stomps back up the stairs, and debates jumping in front of oncoming traffic for the next half hour.
Ground loach soup. Not even samgyeopsal for the kid who is coming home for the first time in months. Not even that.
When she finally comes down for dinner, the table is set for a simple dinner, a miso soup that has no ingredients other than tofu and bean sprouts in it, from what she can see, and rice and kimchi. Her father sits at the head of the tale, surveying everything with a critical eye, “your mother was making loach soup, right?”
“Well, there was an accident,” Mi-ran gives a half-assed explanation, “miso soup is great, mom. Thanks.”
She takes a seat, and even before she can take a first bite, her father says, “how is the restaurant coming along?”
She puts her food down, “it’s fine, dad. We’re running okay.”
“COVID hit a lot of restaurants really badly, you know that, right?”
“Yes, dad,” she says, dutifully, “we have a very affordable menu because of the budget cuts, and we’re thinking of—” he holds a hand up, and she shuts her mouth. Why am I even explaining myself to him? Why am I doing this?
“I just hope you're thinking about the future,” he says, sharing a look with her mother, and immediately, she knows what this is about. Of course.
Her mother, taking a look at her father, begins, “you know, there’s this very nice boy, lives right around the corner, works in the district governmental office. His parents attend the same church as we do, and it would be really nice to—”
“I’m not really looking to get married right now, mom,” she sighs, “I’m thinking of getting a bigger profit from the restaurant. We’re barely making profits as it is, right now.”
Bad thing to say. Her father looks up, “and you're still there?”
Mi-ran blinks, “what?”
Her father sighs, taking a bite of his food, “you refuse to get married. You refuse to even consider the prospect of moving into a proper career.”
“This is a proper career, dad,” she sighs, “I’m not having this conversation with you again.”
“It is not when you are constantly worrying about shutting down!” he shouts at her, and she thought that it was rare, when her father yelled at her, but nowadays, she keeps remembering occasions when he was yelling, shouting, like he is right now, “we kept telling you, to take up a proper career, but your head was filled with crazy nonsense about becoming a chef, and going to some fancy school in another country—”
“I worked my ass off to be in that school!” she shouts back, “I had jobs and I applied for scholarships and I worked day in and day out, just to be there, dad. It was my dream!”
“It was a fool’s errand!”
“Then you shouldn’t have taught me anything like that!”
“Mi-ran,” her mother says, clearly annoyed, “sit down and finish your food.”
But Mi-ran cannot hear anyone. She can’t even see her parents, all that is in front of her eyes is an open flame, flickering, waiting. Enticing. Burn it all down.
She stops yelling, but her voice is no less angry, “you shouldn’t have taught me how to dream, dad. You should have taken and strangled that dream for me when I was a child, but no, you taught me how to dream, and then you refused to let me follow them! Of course I left!”
“Mi-ran!”
She stands up from the table, pushing her miso soup away from her, “I’m going back home. This was a stupid decision.”
At the gate, she turns, “the miso soup has no salt, mom. And I have three Michelin stars, so I think I know what I’m talking about.”
—
The clock reads midnight when she reaches home, utterly exhausted. She doesn't want to fight with her parents, but every time she goes back to that house, she's reminded of her sister, and that one evening in Copenhagen, where she had looked at her and said, I'm scared, Mi-ran.
Every time. This happened every fucking time she went there.
She closes her eyes, and all of a sudden, she’s back in that one moment at Jungsikdang, her hands outstretched over the pass, a large knife in her hands.
Lower it. Lower the knife, cut into skin. You know what to do. You can butcher almost any game within three and a half minutes. You can do this, Mi-ran. You know what to do. You couldn’t burn it down, so you need to do this one thing. One thing, and you’re free of this kitchen. For the first time, and forever.
No.
Do it.
She’s always standing in that kitchen, over the burner. Doing nothing, just standing there. Sometimes, there would be the buzz of the kitchen all around her, moving like a well-oiled machine, not a cog out of place. Everyone in their right place, as it were. Everyone, except for her.
Mi-ran flops down on her bed, thinking about the whole fiasco. Her sister is not going back to their home anymore, not unless their parents actually apologise to her, which they’re not going to. Not at all. Going back home means going without her sister, means going back into the house of people who always meat well, but eventually meant a little too well.
“You know that they’re never going to forgive you for this, right?” her sister says, unloading her luggage from the taxi, “they're here because of a formality. They don’t really want you to go.”
“I bombed the college admission test, I can’t even get into a university if I tried,” she sighs, “I’m sorry, eonnie, I really tried.”
Her sister smiles, then wraps her into a hug, “I know, I know. You really tried. I know that.”
Mi-ran feels like she’s halfway in the middle of heaven and hell. She’s supposed to be happy, she knows, but the faces of her parents keep reminding her that her happiness is coming at the cost of theirs, and that she shouldn’t even think about being happy. She’s breaking her parents’ hearts, by not doing what they wanted for her. Essentially, by being herself.
I’m just seventeen, she thinks, I’m just seventeen.
The departures gate at Incheon airport is crowded, again, but she feels like she’s free. For the first time in a long time, she’s moving towards her dreams, without someone telling her to not follow them. Without someone holding her back. Or maybe she’s walking right off a cliff.
“Be good,” her sister whispers, giving her a hug, “call me from time to time, okay?”
“Okay, I will,” she smiles, “I’ll be successful, eonnie. I’ll be successful.”
—
You have three missed calls.
She doesn’t bother checking who’s called her, because it’s always the same: her parents, Cheol, Mingyu, Minghao, someone from the restaurant, or a spam caller. Hopefully a spam caller.
The last text exchange with her sister is Mi-ran sending her pictures of dishes at Gyeonghoeru and her sister replying to her with pictures of her home and from around her workplace in Busan. Good for you, she replies, I’m trying to keep my eyes open today.
Good day or bad day?
Does it matter? Is it a good day for you?
It is a good day for me. I have a date tonight, so I’m going to get off work an hour early.
Ooh, look at you, going on dates. Proper young lass, I say.
I prefer the term ‘normal woman’, thank you very much.
I’m just saying, it would be nice if I could permanently move to Busan. Hang out there all the time.
You have a proper high cuisine restaurant to run, Mi-ran. You're an executive chef, and I keep telling all my colleagues about you.
About your sister who returned to Korea after trying to kill herself in the middle of her house? Very nice.
Haha, and have you told mom about that? She would want to know.
No, I haven’t, and mind your own business, sis. Going around talking shit about me, huh?
I tell them about my sister who was CDC at Jungsikdang, and got three Michelin stars for that restaurant.
Technically, I just got one. The restaurant already had two to begin with.
I’m going to hit you so hard.
Lol you should join the line.
Of?
The people who want to kill me.
You’re very morbid, Mi-ran.
I prefer ‘pragmatic’. Most line cooks want to kill their executive chef.
Did you?
Every day.
You’re very insane. Also, how the tables have turned, eh?
How the turntables, indeed.
When are you letting me come to Gyeonghoeru
I never came to Jungsikdang, so I want to come and eat at your place
When we have a star
So next week?
Fuck off, man.
Mi-ran sighs, drops her phone to the bed beside her, and rolls over to look for a pack. I’ve run out, she realises, sighing, I’ll have to go out and get some today.
Minghao send her a text, you need to talk to Vernon about the new menu if you really want a star.
Irritated, she calls the man, who picks up within a couple rings, “really, dude? I'm not going to call Vernon. I'm not going to call him at all.”
“Are you just being combative or annoying?” Minghao laughs, “you really need to call Vernon. He feels very bummed out that you didn't include him in the planning.”
Mi-ran rolls her eyes, “he’s not a child, Minghao, Vernon can come and join the process of planning the menu, it’s just that he doesn’t really want to. Ive asked him multiple times to come and join, and he hasn’t replied to any of my requests. That’s wild.”
“No, that’s just Vernon,” Minghao laughs, “just give him a call next time you need to workshop a new dish, because he was crying about it on Saturday.”
Mi-ran doesn’t respond for a moment, and then says, “he should have come to me, instead of telling you all about it.”
Minghao sighs on the other end, “look, Mi-ran, I’m not going to tell you how to deal with your issues, but you need to communicate better with Vernon. He’s the only person you have these issues with, and he’s the CDC. It’s hurting the restaurant, and if we want a star, we need to have better communication between you and him.”
“You think I don’t know that?” she scoffs, “fine, I’ll give him a call, but if he doesn’t respond, then I can’t do anything about it, and I tried my best.”
“Was that so hard?” Minghao laughs.
Yes, she wants to say, but instead, just replies with, “see you tomorrow, chef.”
—
[three years earlier.]
Ever in Chicago, had just gotten its first Michelin star. The restaurant was fully booked out for the following three months, but she knows the executive chef, Kim Seokjin, and he’s kept a one-top reserved for her tonight. No one else, just her, and their expensive tasting menu for company. Seokjin had offered to comp the bill for her too, but she’s put her foot down and refused.
“Sorry, chef,” she had held up her hand, shaking her head, “I’m refusing your offer. I can pay for my own meal, you know. They pay me enough.”
Seokjin had made a face, pushing a cup of tea towards her. They were sitting around his very expensive looking kitchen table, eating breakfast. Seokjin has a sandwich in his hands, and a cup of coffee on the table in front of him. He looks very pleased with himself, and with his stupid idea of treating her to a meal at his restaurant, just because he can.
“I don't care how much money you make in Kyoto, but I can treat you to a meal, chef.” Seokjin laughs, “besides, I remember all my juniors at Sketch, and I try my best to—”
“To treat them to meals, yeah, I know,” she laughs, “you're the meal fairy, chef. Of course, I know.”
“Not only meals, chef,” Seokjin rolls his eyes, good-natured, “I try my best to help them in any way I can.”
Mi-ran frowns at him, but Seokjin doesn’t budge. In fact, he smiles placidly at her, his eyes twinkling, “yes, Mi-ran, as your senior from Sketch, I do think I have a sort of responsibility towards you guys. After all, you were some of the best chefs to come out of that kitchen.”
“Sketch is a Michelin-starred restaurant, chef,” she rolls her eyes, laughing, “far greater chefs than me and Vernon have walked in and out of that restaurant.”
Seokjin shakes his head, “nope. Individually? Maybe. Chef Dubois walked out of that kitchen, and he’s possibly better than you two individually.”
“So are you,” she nods, “you keep forgetting that you're’ executive chef at Sketch. The youngest ever from Le Cordon, as far as I know.”
Seokjin preens, “I am the youngest, but this is not about me. You and Vernon are great not because you’re individually the greatest chefs of all time, but the two of you, when you're in the kitchen together—there’s something wonderful about it, Mi-ran. There’s no other duo in the kitchen who work as well as you do, because somehow, by some miracle, or an accident of nature, you’ve managed to get the level of synergy in the fucking kitchen which people beg for their entire lives.”
“So, that’s all I’m good for? My synergy with Vernon?” she mutters, trying not to sound upset, “I’m not even working with him right now. I’m just working at—well, you know.”
“Yes, you’re working with Gordon Ramsey now,” Seokjin laughs, looking like he’s about to be sick, “does he call you an idiot sandwich?”
Mi-ran rolls her eyes, “no, he doesn’t, he would catch a case so fast if he did that,” she laughs, “he’s pretty chill when he’s working with qualified people who know the limits of their own talents.”
“Fair enough, he always did seem very high-strung to me,” Seokjin laughs, “so, Sketch, tomorrow. Vernon will be there; I will be not.”
Mi-ran looks up, “what? You’re not going to be there?”
Seokjin just shakes his head. She tries not to wince.
—
The restaurant had been beautiful, but she hadn’t been able to enjoy anything. The mood lighting just served to make her mood worse, if anything. Minghao had taken one look at hr from across the room and brought out a surprise just because she looked like shit warmed twice over. Vernon had been working in the restaurant just ten feet away from her and she hadn’t even been able to apologise.
When she walks into Gyeonghoeru, it’s six in the morning, and predictably, no one else is there. The day begins with a thorough check of every available surface, and since she’s a paranoid little monster who doesn’t know how to delegate tasks, Mi-ran does everything herself, even cleaning the grease trap. No one else knows that she does this, because she hasn’t told anyone. She’s great. It’s all going very, very well.
“Mi-ran?”
Fuck. She stands up from her position, kneeling in the middle of the kitchen floor, only to look straight at Vernon, who stares at her like he’s been seeing things, and going insane, “yes?”
“Are you checking everything?”
“No, I was participating in a complicated satanic ritual to summon some deities to give us a better shot at the Michelin star, chef,” she snipes, “of course I was checking everything. I do this every day.”
“I know you do,” Vernon sighs, “you used to do that in school.”
Mi-ran chooses not to respond to that statement, because what does he mean why does he remember everything I said and did at culinary school, and decides not to think about that idea and how it made her feel. No. I am grown enough, I don’t want to do this.
“Minghao told me that—” she begins, then clamps her mouth shut halfway through her sentence, then recalibrates her words, “do you have any ideas for the new menu we are going to serve?” she adds in a smile, for good measure, “the Michelin guide people start coming in around six or seven months from now, so we need to uh, figure out a plan that works.”
Vernon blinks at her, “why are you smiling?”
“I smile, chef, of course I do,” she rolls her eyes, “why wouldn’t I smile? I’m a normal person and normal people smile all the time.”
“You haven’t smiled a single time since you came to Seoul,” Vernon points out, “I don’t think this place has ever seen you smiling, chef.”
That hurts. She doesn’t like being handed out physical reminders of her mental illnesses, much less from someone like Vernon, but Mi-ran supposes that she’s earned it anyway; by virtue of being the biggest asshole known to mankind, so she arranges her mouth in a non-smiling position, “is this better, chef?”
“That is less scary,” Vernon concedes, setting his knife roll down, “and yes, I did have some ideas for this, but I don’t think you’re gonna like them.”
Mi-ran has to physically stop herself from jumping at Vernon, “what are they?”
Vernon sighs, smoothing out the roll of cloth, “are you going to listen, or are you going to ignore whatever I say, and move forward with your own ideas again?”
Mi-ran raises an eyebrow, “last I checked, chef, I was still the executive chef in here.”
Vernon’s expression immediately hardens, “right, of course. Sorry, chef.”
“Now, tell me about your ideas, chef,” she says, smoothing down her jacket, “what do you want to do?”
“Maybe a course in a royal-cuisine style,” Vernon begins, looking like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, “provide every diner with the feeling of being in a royal palace.”
Mi-ran doesn’t budge. Vernon continues, “and we could make something like a rainbow-style jeon, with—”
She raises a hand to stop him, “chef,” Mi-ran sighs, “how many people do you think dined at royal halls?”
Mi-ran walks out towards the office, and he follows, still talking. The door closes behind them with a thud, and Vernon is still talking. “Not many, which is why it would be marketed as a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Vernon shrugs, “you can’t really go wrong with marketing to people about royal cuisine that they can just pay money to eat. It’s like we’re erasing the markers of class and caste, and making it easier for people to come and taste what the royals had.”
Mi-ran sighs, “again, I don’t want to argue with you on this, Vernon, but you kind of make it impossible for me not to do it.”
Vernon raises an eyebrow, “you’ve got a problem with this too?”
She doesn’t speak for a minute. Vernon is still staring at her, so Mi-ran opens her big mouth, “look, I don’t mean to rain on your parade or anything, but I also don’t think we should be putting out food for royalty when for years—”
Vernon bristles, visibly, “what?”
Mi-ran sighs again, “when for centuries, only the most privileged of all people got to try the food for royalty. It feels like we’re democratising something that wasn’t meant to be made democratic in the first place.”
Vernon nods, “okay, so what do you have in mind?”
“Something egalitarian. Something to remind people that high quality dining and haute cuisine is not just confined to royal cuisine.”
“Right, so, do you have ideas?”
She just pushes her notebook towards him, “there you go.”
He goes through the pages. Mi-ran knows what he’s going to find. Gukbap, with a milder fish instead of strong flavours. Rice, made three ways. Three different kinds of boiled vegetables and chicken.
Vernon stops in the middle of perusing, and just stares at the pages. Mi-ran stares at him. He stares at her.
“What is this?”
She takes the notebook out of his hands, and looks at the page he’s on. Fuck. Braised duck with an orange reduction, served on rice. “Did you eat this?”
“I went to Seokjin’s restaurant,” she shrugs, “he invited me.”
“No, this is—this is my dish, Mi-ran,” he looks faintly shocked, “you had my dish?”
“You cooked it, you made it, so yes, I had it,” she sighs, “can we not talk about this right now?”
Vernon nods, which just means we’ll talk about this later.
Mi-ran doesn’t want to talk.
—
“End of service, good work today!” Minghao announces, holding up the last ticket, “congratulations everyone, on surviving another day.”
“Good work, chef,” she murmurs, already beginning to clean up her station. Vernon is still staring at her, knife in hand. Does he want to kill me or something?
He hasn’t talked to her during prep, he hasn’t talked to her during service. Hasn’t really talked. Sure, he’s told her about dishes and he’s responded to her “hands, please, chefs,” all throughout, but Vernon has not talked to her. He hasn’t talked to her before, either, but this just seems loaded.
Minghao winks at her, and since Mi-ran is also the biggest coward in the history of everything, she hides out in her office for a full half hour, busying herself with backed-up orders of cutlery and vendor contracts until she’s sure everyone has left.
The kitchen is empty, and when she pulls on her jacket and stuffs her knife roll in her bag, she hopes Vernon is not waiting for her outside the restaurant. She hopes he’s not waiting for her at all, because she doesn’t want to talk to him at all.
And what’s she going to say? “Oh, yes, for sure, I spent a fortune flying out to Chicago to eat your food and it made me cry and I still love you, Vernon?” would that be normal? Or is she going to say, “yes, of course, I’m sorry I took that opportunity at NOMA even though I knew you wanted it but they offered it to me, and there was nothing I could do about it, but I still love you?” would she have to tell him, “yeah, I was hoping that you would be here, and I was also dreading that you would be here, because thinking of you fills me with guilt and regret and I want to let you go but I love you still so I cannot?” Mi-ran is not an idiot; she cannot tell him all this.
He’s not going to be here. It’s late, he’s gone back home.
When she steps out into the street, he’s there, waiting. She almost runs back inside.
“You’re still here?” she says, already walking towards the bus station, “its late, chef. Go back home.”
“It’s not working hours anymore, don’t call me chef,” Vernon responds, following her, “you went to Ever and ate my food without even telling me that you were there.”
“As opposed to what? Telling you and then being thrown out of the restaurant because the sous did not want to cook for me?” she scoffs, “don’t tell me that’s what you would have wanted, Vernon.”
“No, it’s not—” Vernon looks irritated, “you should have told me.”
“Told you?” Mi-ran rolls her eyes, “what difference would that have made?”
“This is why I fucking hate you, Mi-ran,” Vernon seethes, “you keep lying to everyone around you, including yourself.”
“I don’t!” she needs to get out of this fucking alley or she will break down in tears, “we have enough bitterness and hatred between us both to ruin everything good that might come out of our history, Chwe Vernon. Let us not ruin ourselves further.”
“I don’t get it,” Vernon shakes his head, “you went to NOMA even though you knew I wanted that position, and then you stopped talking to me entirely. And now, what? You went to Chicago to eat my dish?”
“It was offered to me!” she snaps, voice cracking and oh god, oh fuck, I’m crying right now, “I went to NOMA because the position was offered to me, and I spent the better part of a decade being guilty over having even a single good thing in my life, because I thought I would be stealing it from you!”
“So, are you saying that I ruined your life?”
There you go, “no, you didn’t ruin anything, Vernon,” she smiles, “I ruined my life by my own hands. This is reparations for everything that I have done.”
She walks away from him. The bus stand is on the opposite side of the road. Mi-ran just needs to cross this, “one course, sinseollo. Make it. I don’t care. Do your fucking royal cuisine.”
—
The following week, Mi-ran spends it like a ghost. She wakes up at four in the morning, and goes on a run. She doesn’t run because she wants to, she runs because there is nothing better for her to do. The voices in her mind get louder, progressively. In moments, she wants to drink.
“You look like shit, chef,” Minghao tells her on Sunday night, standing beside her at the bus stop, “you know, you should get drunk with us sometime.”
“I don’t drink, chef,” she rolls her eyes, “my bus will be here in a minute.”
“You know, when you came to Ever, I thought you would be much more stuck-up and annoying you know.”
“Good to know that you had such a sparkling opinion about me,” she laughs, but Minghao doesn’t.
“Chefs all have big egos, Mi-ran,” he simply says, “it’s how they survive in the kitchen. They all have big egos. And when I saw you sitting by yourself, I thought, youngest CDC at Jungsikdang, must have a massive ego.”
Mi-ran raises an eyebrow, “and?”
“And nothing,” Minghao shrugs, “you just looked very defeated.”
“I looked like a wet cat.” Mi-ran shakes her head, “the bus is here.”
She stands up, and Minghao follows suit, looking at her, “no, Mi-ran, you just looked like you were waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
The bus comes, and she gets on it, swipes her card and gets settled into a seat beside a softly snoring old woman. She doesn’t think about what Minghao has said earlier. She does not.
Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Minghao’s annoying; the read that he has on her is annoying. He knows who she was there for that night. It's a minor miracle that he's not told anyone yet. Not even Vernon, by the looks of it.
And its true. For all her life, she's been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something worse to happen. Every moment, she was waiting for the moment where she would inevitably hit rock bottom again.
When she gets down from the bus and makes her way to her home, Vernon is standing in front of the front door, still in his work clothes. She knows that jacket. He looks pale and washed out under the lights, and she wants to turn around and go back to the restaurant.
“You’re late,” Vernon says, when she steps aside him to climb the stairs to her home, “this neighbourhood isn’t the safest for you.”
Mi-ran sighs, “I don’t care, Vernon. What do you want to talk to me about?”
He pauses for a moment, “you never told me you came to Ever.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“Why?”
Mi-ran throws up her hands, “what, and make my feelings even more clearer than they already are?”
Vernon steps closer, “what feelings?”
She stares at him, “don't pretend that you don't know—”
Vernon is kissing her, she realises, his hands are on her face and he's kissing her, his lips soft against hers. She thinks of Sketch and culinary school, kisses just like this one, stolen in the middle of busy days, after shifts and classes. Vernon smells like the kitchen still, and she thinks she might go insane. Hands, chef. Right, hands. Hands please, chef, right?
No, I don’t want to think about that right now.
Vernon’s lips are warm against her own, and for a moment, she thinks about the smell of garlic and onions, stuck perpetually to her skin, and for one, stupid, irrational moment, wants to scrub her skin raw because she doesn’t want to let him smell the dirt and the grime on her skin. But this is the same as it was in their Sketch days, with perhaps less explosive feelings than this one. His tongue is in her mouth, and for a floaty, strange, second, she is reminded of a particularly brutal shift, after which they had gone back to her flat, Vernon kissing down her jawline like they both didn’t have four hours to recharge themselves and go back to work again. He’s still the same; single-mindedly focused on her, his left hand now on her waist. Mi-ran needs to stop this. She needs to stop this madness right now, because otherwise, they're going to do something stupid in fucking public and she does not have the wherewithal to fix a case like that.
Her hands are still on her side, when Vernon pulls away, to look at her, “I still hate you, Mi-ran. I still hate you.”
That makes two of us, Vernon. She nods, then turns around to leave.
—
“You locked the menu?” Minghao looks at the sheet of paper that she’s just handed to him, “this is actually good, chef.”
“I don’t do things halfway,” she shakes her head, “make sure everyone is on board for this.”
Minghao looks at her, “isn’t that supposed to be your job?”
Mi-ran doesn’t say anything. It is supposed to be her job, but for the whole of the previous week, she’s been feeling like it doesn’t matter. Vernon could do it just as well as I do, she thinks from time to time, and it doesn’t help.
“Do you think it’s a good idea?”
“What is a good idea?”
“That I am still somewhat running this restaurant, you know,” she shrugs, “I mean, I’m probably the worst person to work for, there are so many things to keep track of, and the profit margin is fucking razor-thin right now, so I can’t really—”
“Mi-ran, chef,” Minghao sighs, “you’re probably the best thing to happen in this restaurant by a long shot.”
She looks up from her desk. “What?”
Minghao doesn’t even bother with changing his stance, he just barrels on, “you have three Michelin stars, and you’re working here. You're the best chef in the world when it comes to Korean cuisine. You’re the best thing that could have happened to Gyeonghoeru, and I don’t know if you know it, but I know it. Vernon knows it, Joshua knows it. Hell, even Chan knows it, I think.”
“Stop glazing me, my god,” she rolls her eyes, “also, we’re not doing royal cuisine, like people wanted us to do.”
“How did the boss take it?”
“Like he doesn’t care very much,” she sighs, “I just don’t want people to come here and be reminded of the fact that their ancestors were being forbidden from eating the food that they can now eat in a restaurant.”
“But you still have one course of sinseollo,” Minghao looks at the sheet, “that’s Vernon’s idea, right?”
Mi-ran nods, “that’s Vernon’s idea, yes.”
“Vernon is the best at royal cuisine in here, no doubt,” Minghao remarks, “but even for him, sinseollo in a restaurant that focuses on elevating normal, day-to-day cuisine, is too much.”
“Let him work with this one dish,” she sighs, “leave Vernon out of it. He’s doing great work as CDC.”
Minghao sets the paper down, and takes a seat, “have you both gotten together yet?”
Mi-ran rolls her eyes, “we are not going to.”
“Pity, it would have been great,” Minghao sighs, “I’ll inform the crew of the updated menu.”
Mi-ran leans back in her rickety chair, and takes a deep breath. She hasn’t talked to Vernon about the kiss, and he doesn’t look like he's willing to have that conversation with her, either. So far, all they have managed to do, is run awkwardly around each other, talking only about the service and the prep. Nothing else. Safe conversations, nothing more. Nothing that could expose their feelings about each other.
I’m not even sure how Vernon feels about me. Wait, no, I am. He kissed me last week, and told me he hated me afterwards.
That’s where they stand, the two of them; on opposite sides of the emotional battlefield, and arm-in-arm, like comrades, when it comes to the kitchen. It gives her whiplash, almost.
She decides to let it go. After all, she has a kitchen to run.
When she walks outside and into the kitchen, Minghao is telling the crew about the new menu, which is different from the chaos menu that they have been practicing for the past month and half, and the relief is palpable. Joshua looks like he hasn’t heard better news in decades, Chan looks like he is about to cry, and Vernon—Vernon looks fairly murderous.
What?
Mi-ran walks outside, and when Joshua spots her, he gives her a smile, “congratulations on locking the menu, chef.”
“It was getting to be a problem with vendors and it wasn’t fair on everyone,” she replies, “sorry, guys, for making you put up with that for so long.” She apologises, moving on to her station. Vernon follows.
“Yes?”
“Sinseollo? After all that spiel about making food that people would identify with, and not royal cuisine?” Vernon scoffs.
“Again, I don’t want to argue with you about this right now, but yes, I did say that, and then I changed my mind, and I told you to put it on there,” she argues back, “I’m not fucking you over, chef.”
“You absolutely are, my god,” he groans, “one sinseollo in the middle of a menu centred around easily accessible food items, and we have a dish that featured heavily in royal cuisines?”
Mi-ran shrugs. She’s not being petty, not at all (slightly) but the sinseollo doesn’t work, will never work in this case, and, “look, chef, if you have a problem with the menu, please come and talk to me personally—”
“I am talking to you right now!”
“When you're a little less hysterical, I mean.”
“Oh my god, stop fighting!” Minghao yells, and Mi-ran suddenly realises that she is standing and arguing with Vernon in the middle of the pass, “stop arguing, you’re scaring the children.”
“Whose children?” they say in unison, and immediately, Mi-ran shuts up.
“You’re the parents, and these are the children,” Minghao makes a sweeping gesture of some sorts, “don’t scare them. Sort this out amongst yourselves.”
“Fine,” she grumbles, turning back to Vernon, “we’ll talk after service, chef.”
—
[three years earlier].
“Reservation for one,” she says to the woman manning the front of house, smoothing down her shirt. The woman looks at her, eyebrows raised, and Mi-ran realises that she needs to provide a name for her reservation, “oh, uh, Chef Kim Seokjin made the reservation, so I don’t know what name he’s put me under.”
“Chef Kim,” the woman types rapidly into her tablet, and thirty seconds later, a young man is next to her, having materialised out of thin air, apparently. His footsteps have been measured and unhurried, but Mi-ran can hear the rapid rise and fall of his breath, “this is Chef Kim’s guest, Kim—Yuna, yes. This way, please.”
Mi-ran wants to throttle Seokjin. Sure, she had asked him to make a reservation under a false name, because if Vernon knew she was there, he would point-blank refuse to even talk to her, much less make her dishes, but Yuna Kim? Of all the names that Seokjin could have picked out, he picked the name of the most recognisable Korean celebrity in the world. What sort of joke was this? At least he didn’t pick the name of a girl group member.
The young man leads her to her table, gesturing to the one-top in a secluded corner of the restaurant, clearly meant for privacy, “we’re very happy to have you tonight, Chef Kim.”
Mi-ran blinks, then takes a seat, “could you keep this between us, please?”
The server smiles, bowing deeply, “of course, chef.”
He’s gone before she can tell him that the bowing can get a bit too much too soon and I don’t want to freak people out.
Mi-ran takes out her phone, texting Seokjin, Yuna Kim? Really?
You asked me to make the reservation under a false name.
Not Yuna Kim, oh my god.
Do you want to make amends, yes or no?
Mi-ran puts her phone away. Seokjin was right. In an annoying, insufferable way, Seokjin was right. She needs to make amends. She needs to make everything right with Vernon, even if it is for a little while, because it’s been six months since she’s had a proper night’s sleep, and she doubts she ever will be able to. Not without talking to Vernon. That’s why she’s here, in Ever, and putting herself through this. She can do it, this is nothing. She’s been through worse.
And then the first course comes to her plate, and it’s just—hell.
She can't eat it. She can't look at the plate because Vernon has made this and it is just a mockery of all their experiences at Sketch. This is them on a plate, the memories of their times together, and she can't fucking swallow anything. This is awful.
The front of house, a tall man, with a name tag on his chest that says Xu Minghao, has been looking at her for the past ten minutes, Mi-ran realises. He disappears into the kitchen somewhere after she’s served her third course, and comes out, holding a plate of something, and says, “this is the main course of the tasting menu.”
Mi-ran peers at him, and Minghao continues, “this is a braised duck leg, served with an orange reduction and on a bed of rice. Enjoy.”
She doesn’t want to, but she takes a bite anyway. Might as well do it.
—
Vernon comes into her office, after a month. A month of nothing but staring at her across the pass, working alongside her without a single word of camaraderie, and she’s trying to keep herself from not going insane. She has been trying her best to not just walk out and drag him by the collar into the office, and demand answers.
“Mi-ran,” Vernon says, and she looks up. It’s after hours, and Mi-ran has been balancing the books for the past hour, “we need to talk.”
She checks her watch, “it’s after midnight, Vernon. What do you have to tell me?”
He shrugs, “look, it’s nothing important, so if you want to talk to me later, I can understand.”
“No, it’s fine,” she sighs, “it’s been a long day, and an even longer month.”
The last sentence was a subtle dig at him, but it’s not as though Vernon is solely responsible for this situation. Still, he takes the dig, with a grimace on his face, “I just thought we should talk about this.”
“This?” Mi-ran raises an eyebrow, “what do you mean by that?”
Vernon sighs, sitting down heavily on the sole unoccupied chair, “you went to Ever. You didn’t even tell me, and you went to the restaurant where I was sous.”
“Seokjin-sunbae invited me, so I went,” she shrugs, “you made the duck breast, and I ate it.”
“That’s what I don’t get!” he stands up, irritated, “you keep talking about eating my food, and you keep telling me that it was the best thing you have ever eaten, and what am I supposed to make out of it?”
Mi-ran sighs. Might as well get it over with. “It means that our undefined relationship back when we were in Sketch was enough for me to spend more than a thousand dollars on round flight tickets to Chicago, and that I ate your food. It means nothing more than that.”
Vernon pauses, eyes terrifyingly still. Mi-ran sighs, standing up, “you want me to be gone? Fine. I’ll give the boss my resignation, and I’ll be out of your hair. You're more than capable of getting a Michelin star by yourself, and I don’t think I need to be in a kitchen where people are constantly on edge regarding our relationship, so I’ll go.”
Vernon scoffs, “go?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the best thing that you can do, right? Just leave?” he snaps, and Mi-ran raises an eyebrow, because Vernon is, for the first time in her life, truly angry, “you can't even stay here and face the consequences for your own actions, all you can do is run away!”
“I’m not running away because I want to, Vernon,” she sighs, “look, you don’t want me here, and I think I have spent enough years feeling guilty about going to Copenhagen, and I can't do it anymore. Fighting with you is pointless.”
“No, it’s not, because I need to have it out with you one time before I go insane,” Vernon seethes, “you come here, come back after years spent in the best kitchens in the world, and you tell me that you want to get a star, which is fine, but then you also make a menu that pisses me off, because it’s the best thing you can do, and then you put my dish in there? What does that mean?”
“It means that I still have feelings for you, you absolute asshole!” she yells, “I shouldn’t have put the sinseollo in the menu, but I did. Why? Because I love you. I came back, even though I shouldn’t have. Why? Because I love you. I went to Chicago to eat your food. Why? Because I love you. Half the things I’ve done so far is because I love you, you giant fucking—”
Vernon crosses the small room in three steps, pressing her to the wall, and she’s back in the London kitchens again, kissing him after a shift, because it’s the same Vernon, the boy who always made her laugh. He’s kissing her like they're both dying, and they need to kiss one last time before they draw their last breath.
Mi-ran pulls at Vernon’s shirt, inhaling the smell of garlic that seems to cling to them both after a gruelling shift, and unbuttons the first two buttons of his shirt. Vernon stops, “you want to do this here?”
Mi-ran makes a faint embarrassing sound in the back of her throat, “I’m going to fire you if you stop right now.”
Vernon raises his eyebrows, but says nothing, just nods, his own hands coming up to unbutton her shirt. She’s about to go insane, but she needs this. She needs to have Vernon inside her, needs to turn him inside out in order to keep him for himself.
Vernon lifts her onto the table, and papers flutter to the floor, but they're both too far gone to care about it, “I don’t have anything on me.”
“I don’t care,” Mi-ran grumbles, “I still have a couple years on my IUD.”
Vernon nods, and kisses her again. She can feel his erection against her core, already leaking, straining against his pants, “I need to eat you out.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she grumbles, hands going to his pants and unbuckling the belt, “just fuck me right now, Vernon, I swear to god I’m going to kill you if you don’t.”
Vernon nods, kissing along her jaw, and she takes a moment to run her fingers through his hair. Vernon is doing the same things that he did all those years ago; biting her neck, sucking on the skin hard enough to leave a bruise, and it’s embarrassing for her how she still has the same reactions to all of it.
He unclips her bra, kissing down to her breasts, and the moan that comes out of her mouth when he lightly bites down on a nipple is truly unholy. Mi-ran wonders for a split second that they are technically in their office, and finds out that she doesn’t really care who finds out.
His hands are keeping her legs apart, and two of his fingers lightly scrape along the outside of her cunt. Mi-ran grabs hold of his hair, and Vernon moans, his lips still around her left nipple. She wants to die. She wants to consume him. She wants to crawl inside his skin and live inside it for the foreseeable future.
“You're fucking insane, Mi-ran,” Vernon mumble, reaching up to kiss her again, “I still love you, Mi-ran.”
His tongue is in her mouth, and Mi-ran has her hands around his throat. Vernon reaches for her underwear, and she has the insane thought about not being so fucking wet right now, because the squelching sound that fills the air when he presses two fingers into her is unholy.
“Fuck, you're so fucking tight,” he groans into her mouth, “how the fuck are you the same even after seven years?”
“You’re the same too,” she gasps, “just fuck me, faster.”
Vernon obliges, his fingers snapping faster, “I love you, you know that, right? Don’t leave me again.”
Mi-ran wants to cry, but instead of crying, she waves his hands out of her, pulling down his boxers, “just fuck me, please.”
Vernon looks like he wants to cry, but he just nods, pushing inside of her with a groan, and Mi-ran feels an odd sense of fullness. His lips are back on hers in a moment, and her hands are on his back, urging him to go faster, faster, faster. Vernon nods; he’s never once failed to give her anything when it came to this. His hips push forward with an increased sense of urgency, and she just gasps and moans and takes and takes and takes.
“I’m close,” she mumbles, tears forming at the edge of her eyes, “please.”
“You're so fucking beautiful like this, falling apart,” Vernon mumbles, “please don’t leave me again, Mi-ran. Please.”
His thumb swipes across her clit once, twice, and she falls apart with a short cry, stiffening in his arms, desperately grabbing at him to kiss him again. Vernon lasts about five seconds before he follows suit, spilling inside of her.
She still panting when he wipes at her face, pushing errant strands of her hair out of her eyes, “I still love you, you know.”
She’s openly crying now, big fat tears falling down one after the other. Neither of them have to say anything anymore.
“Come home with me tonight,” Vernon whispers, still inside of her, “please, Mi-ran. I need you.”
She nods, holding on to his hands.
—
“Did you two make up?” Minghao peers at her while she’s prepping for service, and his eyes catch onto a rather large bruise on her neck, blooming purple, “ooh, looks like it.”
Mi-ran rolls her eyes at him, “just prepare for the service tonight, Minghao.”
—
The Newest Addition to the K-Michelin guide, Seoul’s Gyeonghoeru, headed by Chefs Kim Mi-ran and Chwe Vernon: elevating the food of the masses to fine dining.
After being stood up and leaving you heartbroken, Hansol spirals with guilt while you shut down into silence. Desperate to fix what he ruined, he confronts the damage he caused and fights to earn back your trust and love.
❧ PAIRING; hansol x reader
❧ GENRE; angst, hurt/comfort
❧ TAGS/WARNINGS; established relationship, arguments, tears, reader is kind of stubborn, Hansol in an idiot, swearing, happy ending, lots of tears and kisses, maybe quite dramatic (LOL)
❧ WORDCOUNT; 12.1k
[ part of the Silent Treatment series ]
𐚁₊⊹
▎27 NOVEMBER 2021
You were known to have the patience of a saint. It was an almost uncanny ability you had to stay calm in situations that would push most people past their limits. Some admired you for it, even envied you.
“I could never hold my tongue like that,” or “I’d have snapped ages ago” they’d say.
But others didn’t see it as a strength though. They said you were too lenient, or too soft. They’d say how it allowed people to walk all over you and mistake your tolerance for weakness.
And maybe, sometimes, they were right.
There were moments when you looked back on situations and questioned your silence. You would wonder if your refusal to speak out had cost you something. Respect, peace of mind or justice. You would pride yourself on not reacting impulsively and staying level-headed when emotions ran high. You told yourself that staying silent was strength and not cowardice.
But deep down, there were times you wished you had the confidence to just say what you were thinking. Perhaps not out of anger, but out of self-respect. You weren’t looking to lash out, you just wanted to be heard.
There was never really a middle ground in how people saw you. But the truth is, you lived in that gray area. You tried to be kind without being small, and tolerant without being invisible.
And today was your breaking point.
Angry tears welled in your eyes as you stared at your phone for what felt like the hundredth time. Still nothing from your boyfriend. There were no messages or any missed calls, let alone an excuse as to why he still didn’t show up yet. Just the same empty lock screen that mocked your patience.
Hansol promised to take you out for a fancy dinner at the Lotte Tower, a proper date you were both too busy to have for weeks. You even made the effort of dressing up for it. You did your hair just right, applied light make-up and sprayed the perfume he once said he liked. But now, an hour passed, and you were still sitting alone at the table he claimed to have reserved.
You felt so ridiculous.
The waiters approached your table several times and each gentle interruption only deepened the pit in your stomach. They asked politely if you’d like something to drink, perhaps a small starter while you waited. But you would smile tightly each time and shake your head while repeating the same line, “I’ll wait until my boyfriend arrives.”
That was only if he came.
It felt more like a lie each time you said it. A part of you held on to the hope that he’d walk in, flustered and apologetic. But with every minute that passed by, that hope thinned into bitterness.
The staff tried to hide their sympathy, but you saw it anyway. The last thing you wanted was anyone’s pity.
Not only were you overwhelmed with embarrassment, but the sting hurt deeper knowing it was your own boyfriend who left you hanging. While other couples around you enjoyed their meals together and how happily they laughed amongst themselves, you couldn’t help but feel like a complete fool who still waited for someone that wasn’t even going to come.
And if the night didn’t humiliate you enough, you opened Instagram. Just to distract yourself. And that was when you clicked on Hailey’s story, Hansol’s best friend. It was posted five minutes ago.
It was a photo of your boyfriend who was fast asleep on Hailey’s unmistakable pink sofa, body curled slightly and one arm wrapped around a purple whale plushie. His hair was a mess and his mouth was slightly open, completely at peace.
But what really hit you wasn’t the image itself. It was the caption. “Supposed to be looking after me but I’m looking after him instead,” followed by a deadpan, unamused emoji. Like it was some kind of joke. Like you weren’t sitting in a restaurant across town, checking the door every five minutes, still half-believing he might walk in with an excuse.
Instead, he was passed out at her house. It wasn’t even the lack of decency from him to let you know he couldn’t make it that stung the most. It was how casual it all seemed to them.
To say you were absolutely livid would be a gross understatement.
You weren’t just angry, you were shaking with it. It was a white-hot rage bubbling just beneath your skin that was ready to explode within you.
Your jaw was clenched so tightly it hurt, and your heart pounded against your ribs like it was trying to escape. Every breath you took felt shallow, that made your chest tight with disbelief. You were boiling down to the core, like a volcano seconds from erupting.
It blurred your vision and made your ears ring.
Your hand gripped your phone with so much force, it was a miracle the screen didn’t shatter right there in your palm. You swore you heard a small crack, but perhaps it was the plastic or glass protesting under the pressure of your clenched fingers. But you didn’t loosen your grip. You couldn’t. Because letting go felt too much like surrender, and right now, you were clinging to any scrap of control you had left.
The tears that were brimming in your eyes finally came flooding down. You tried to blink them away, but it was no use. They kept spilling over, trailing down your cheeks in silence. And you didn’t even bother wiping them. You didn’t care at this point. You just let them fall. You just let the whole damn restaurant see. What did it matter now?
Your eyes were still stuck on the photo. And her caption…the smug nonchalance of it was enough to make your blood run colder than the North Pole. She knew. She had to know. And if she didn’t, then maybe that made it worse.
Your body was trembling. Every limb of yours was buzzing with energy that had nowhere to go. You felt like you could scream, throw the table across the room, or smash your phone right into the tiled floor.
But you didn’t. You just sat there, paralysed, like a statue made of nothing but anger and heartbreak.
Everything around you became a blur. It all faded into background noise, meaningless against the storm inside you. You were breaking, right there in public, and yet the world just kept turning.
You were furious. But more than that, you were hurt. Deeply and irreparably hurt.
So what do you do now? Honestly, you had no idea.
Your brain was still catching up to everything your heart had just been dragged through. But your body moved on its own, like it was acting on instinct. There was no plan, no thought. Just motion.
You reached into your purse with shaky fingers, pulled out a few bills, and placed them on the table beside your untouched mocktail.
It wasn’t much, but it felt like the least you could do. It was a silent gesture to thank and apologise to the staff for the time you’d taken up sitting there alone waiting for someone who never came.
Without a word, you pushed the chair back and stood. Your legs felt numb and heavy, but you forced them to move. You didn’t look at anyone. You didn’t owe anyone an explanation. All you could do was storm out, heart thudding in your chest like a war drum.
The atmosphere in the elevator felt suffocating as it descended, and the mirrors reflected the tear-streaked version of you that you didn’t want to see. You simply stared straight ahead, refusing to blink.
Then, as the doors slid open and you stepped into the lobby, your phone buzzed with a notification. The sound shot through you like a jolt. Part of you hoped that it was Hansol, but it wasn’t, it was your older brother Joshua.
[JOSH]:
Are you done with your little date? Mum’s bugging me to get her tangerines but I’m too lazy to go out now😴
The message lit up your screen as you walked through the quiet lobby. You stared at the notification for a few seconds, and the absurdity of it made your lips twitch. Despite the ache sitting heavy in your chest, you broke into a small, crooked smile through the tears still clinging to your lashes.
Your mother and her eternal obsession with tangerines. No matter the season, no matter the day, she somehow always needed more. It was ridiculous. But comforting in her sense.
[YOU]:
Got stood up. But I’ll pick some up on my way👍tell mum to tolerate her cravings for a bit lol.
You hit send before you could think twice about how blunt it sounded. And the reply from your brother came almost instantly.
[Josh]:
???
[Josh]:
What do you mean you got stood up?
You stared at the screen. The question felt like salt in a raw wound. Reading his name again hurt more than you expected. You could practically hear the disbelief in Joshua’s voice, like he couldn’t even begin to process the idea.
And honestly? You couldn’t either.
Your thumb hovered over the keyboard. You thought about explaining. But it all was too much. You didn’t want to relive it, not right now. You didn’t want to see the pity, or the anger, or the judgment — not even from your brother.
So instead, you just turned off your phone and shoved it deep into your coat pocket. Maybe silence felt easier than trying to explain heartbreak.
╴╴╴╴╴
You regretted not bringing your car. Deeply. At the time, it seemed like the better option. You thought you’d have Hansol to drop you home. But now, walking alone in the cold with swollen eyes and a heart that felt like it had been wrung out, it was painfully clear that you miscalculated.
It wasn’t that you didn’t have options. You could’ve taken the bus, hopped on the subway, or even called a taxi. But the idea of crying in a crowded space full of strangers while your eyes burned and your chest ached? You couldn't do it. You didn’t want sympathetic looks or awkward glances. You didn’t want to be seen at all.
You didn’t trust yourself to hold it together. Not when every second of silence from Hansol felt like another shove deeper into the hollow pit growing in your stomach.
There was still not a single message. Not one missed call. Not even a lame excuse.
You stood outside a brightly lit convenience store as you held the weight of a full bag of tangerines which was dragging at your arm. Your fingers were freezing around the plastic handles, but you didn’t care.
With a sigh, you fumbled for your phone again and dialed Joshua’s number. You knew he didn’t want to come out.
He’d said as much earlier, “too lazy” and too comfortable, typical Joshua. But you were going to make him come anyway. He didn’t get a choice. Not tonight.
After a few rings, he finally answered.
“Can you pick me up?” you asked tiredly and almost bluntly, not even giving him a chance to greet you first.
There was a beat of silence on the other end before your brother spoke up.
“Hey, are you okay?”
You could hear the worry in his voice, and it cracked something in you.
You bit down on your lip, hard, before answering. “Yeah, I just…I don’t know Joshua,” you said, your voice starting to waver despite your efforts to stay composed.
There was another pause. You could practically hear the gears turning in his head, and him grabbing his keys already.
“Can you please come and get me?” you whispered, softer this time. Less demand, more desperation.
“I’m coming,” he said firmly. “Where are you right now?” he then asked.
You shared your live location with him and he muttered a hum before ending the call. And for the first time that night, you let out a breath you hadn’t realised you were holding.
You knew he didn’t want to come out, and on normal days you wouldn’t have bothered him. But right now, there was no one else in the world you needed more than your brother.
Growing up, you and Joshua had always been close. Closer than most siblings, even. Even as kids, you stuck to each other like glue. While other siblings grew apart or bickered over everything all the time, the two of you built your own little world. He was your best friend, and above all, he was your safe place.
Joshua always knew how sensitive you were. He knew despite how tolerant you were, you’d easily get hurt and how deeply you felt things. And while some people might have dismissed that as weakness, he never did. If anything, it made him more protective of you. He knew the world wasn’t kind to people with soft hearts. So he became your shield.
He became some sort of your silent, stubborn bodyguard who would take on the world if it meant keeping you from crying.
You used to tease him about it. Told him he was too overbearing, that he needed to chill out and stop treating you like you were five. He’d just smirk and say, “You’ll thank me one day.” And truthfully, you always did.
Even when he annoyed you, when he pushed your buttons just for fun or gave you dumb nicknames you swore you hated, you never once doubted that he’d be there when it mattered. No matter how big or small the problem was, you could always run to him. He never made you feel like a burden.
And in this moment, with your heart aching and your hands full of tangerines, you were more grateful than ever to have a brother like him in your life.
╴╴╴╴╴
You hadn’t even realised Joshua had arrived until he was suddenly in front of you, gently shaking your shoulder. Not only had the cold numbed your senses, but your mind was too fogged to register anything clearly. You jolted slightly at the contact, eyes wide with confusion until they finally focused and landed on your brother.
“Hi,” he said softly, a little breathless. But the small smile he attempted didn’t last as his face fell. He took in the sight of you and his brows knitted together.
Your eyes were red-rimmed and glossy, cheeks streaked with dried tears, but what stood out the most too him was the lack of spark that usually lived in your eyes. They were simply hollow.
Joshua’s chest tightened as panic crept in. Your breathing was shallow and too quick. Your eyes were wide and glassy, brimming with fresh tears that threatened to spill over.
You looked like a balloon stretched too tight and ready to burst.
“Bubba, what’s wrong?” he asked as his hands moved up to cradle your face gently. His thumbs hovered under your eyes like he could stop the tears before they fell, but it was already too late.
Just the sound of that nickname that only he called you hit you like a wrecking ball. And it was just enough to break you completely.
A choked sob tore from your throat as you collapsed into his chest. His arms were open before you even reached him, wrapping around you and catching everything you couldn’t hold together anymore.
Joshua’s heart pounded hard beneath your cheek as he pulled you close, his hand rubbing circles on your back. You gripped his hoodie like your life depended on it as tears soaked into the fabric almost instantly.
“Hey, hey hey,” he murmured, rocking you gently.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you, okay?”
But your cries only grew louder and heavier.
“Is this about Hansol?” he asked. Though his voice was still soft, the way his jaw was tightening ever so slightly spoke another story.
You didn’t answer him. You just cried harder as your sobs violently shook your whole body.
“I just want to go home,” you choked out between sobs.
Joshua pulled you into a tighter hug and held you like he could somehow absorb the pain radiating from your body. He rested his chin lightly on top of your head and gently rocked you side to side.
“Shh, it’s okay. We’re going home now,” he murmured into your hair low and soothingly, almost fatherly. His hand rubbed slow circles on your back, like he used to do when you were a kid waking up from the nightmares you had.
Though he didn’t need the full story, at least not yet, he knew enough.
The past few days didn’t feel right. You hadn’t been yourself. You smiled less and conversations were shorter. Joshua noticed how you started spacing out more often, zoning out during family dinners or giving half-hearted responses when he cracked jokes.
You were still there, but the dimmed version of yourself, like a light on low battery.
He had a gut feeling Hansol had something to do with it, but he didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Now, standing here with you crying your eyes out in his arms, he wished he had trusted that instinct sooner.
He felt guilty. He wished he had asked more questions, pressed you harder when you told him everything was “fine.” He should’ve protected you before you reached this point. Because seeing you like this right now lit something violent inside him.
╴╴╴╴╴
When Joshua finally pulled into the driveway, the sky had long since darkened. He looked to his right and found you fast asleep in the passenger seat with your head tilted awkwardly against the window. The position looked anything but comfortable, yet you didn’t stir.
Joshua’s heart ached as he took in the dried streaks of tears on your cheeks, clear that you cried yourself to sleep in silence.
He didn’t miss the way you’d shut down during the drive home and how you gave no responses, not even small nods or mumbled agreements. He tried to talk, or at least distract you with light conversation with jokes that usually earned at least a small smile. But you gave him nothing this time.
He knew you didn’t mean it. You just wanted to be left alone, and so he did. But not really, because he was still there, watching every tremble in your breath and every clench of your fingers. He was still there as he silently stayed present even when you needed distance.
With a soft sigh, Joshua parked the car and turned off the engine. The sudden quiet that followed was too loud. He sat there for a moment, just looking at you. Then, without a word, he unbuckled his seatbelt before stepping out and walking around to your side.
He opened the door and carefully unbuckled your seatbelt before sliding his arms under your knees and back. Unironically, he felt like his seven-year-old self again holding you in his arms for the first time when you were born. He lifted you and held you gently as if you were made of glass. Your body relaxed into his hold, head resting against his shoulder.
He shut the car door with a soft kick before heading to the house. And as if timed perfectly, the front door opened.
Your mother stood there with her expression instantly shifting to concern at the sight of you in Joshua’s arms. “Is she okay?” she asked, eyes locked on your sleeping face.
Joshua let out another sigh. “I don’t think so. She had a long night” he answered tiredly.
He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t want to dump everything on her, especially when you weren’t awake to speak for yourself. All she needed to know was that you were safe, and he had you.
“I’m just going to let her rest for now,” he added, stepping past her and making his way upstairs.
He brought you into your room and gently lowered you onto the bed, careful not to jostle you. But barely moved regardless. He took off your shoes, then your coat which he folded neatly to the side.
He crouched down beside the bed and reached out, brushing your hair from your face. His thumb lingered at your temple for a moment. Then, with a tenderness that said more than words ever could, he leaned forward and placed a light kiss on your forehead.
As he straightened up, he looked at you for a long moment. You looked peaceful, but the mark that was left by the pain you carried was still there.
“If Hansol did something,” he thought, jaw tightening, “I swear I’m going to rip his head off” he silently promised.
After making sure you were tucked in comfortably, Joshua gently pulled your blanket up to your shoulders. He stood there for a second longer, just watching you sleep.
With a quiet exhale, he turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him with care. As it clicked softly, he sighed, again.
Heading back downstairs, he slipped his shoes back on and stripped outside again. The cold outside nipped at his skin, but he ignored it as he made his way back to the car. He opened the door and grabbed your small shoulder bag, along with the now slightly squashed plastic bag filled with tangerines you got for your mother.
There were a series of vibrations coming from your bag that made Joshua freeze, then frown. One vibration. Then another. And another. The sharp buzzing continued almost nonstop.
He unzipped the bag and pulled the phone out. Joshua cursed under his breath for remembering your phone’s password to unlock it, but he promised himself it wasn’t snooping. He had to make sure nothing was wrong.
The screen lit up with message after message from one name only.
Hansol.
His frown deepened. There were fifteen missed calls and tons of messages, some that were still coming through as he watched.
[Hansol]:
Baby!
[Hansol]:
Please answer me
[Hansol]:
Fuck, I’m so sorry I completely forgot. I know how bad that sounds, but please let me explain
[Hansol]:
Hailey sprained her ankle at work. She called me crying, saying she couldn’t walk or get a ride, and she didn’t know who else to call. So I left to go get her
[Hansol]:
She was in a lot of pain, and I couldn’t just leave her there so I took her to the doctors. I had to get her meds and ice packs and whatnot before helping her get back to her apartment
[Hansol]:
I know I should’ve messaged you. I should’ve called you right away. I just got caught up making sure she was okay and I didn’t check the time until it was already too late
[Hansol]:
Baby, I know what this looks like. I know how it feels. And I know I’ve let you down before, but I didn’t do this on purpose. I didn’t forget about you because I didn’t care. I was just trying to help my best friend in pain
[Hansol]:
But I swear to you, I wasn’t ignoring you
[Hansol]:
I know I told you this time would be different. That I would make more time for. And I wanted to, I swear I did
Joshua saw another incoming call flash across the screen with Hansol’s name lighting up yet again. He stared at it for a moment with his jaw clenched as his thumb hovering over the answer button. He really fought to answer it and curse him out, but he didn’t want to act out of instinct. So, instead, he pressed decline.
But that only led to more messages to flood in. One after another. Clearly Hansol wasn’t letting up. He was frantic at this point.
[Hansol]:
Shit, baby, listen. I know you saw Hailey’s Instagram story, but I promise it’s not what you think
[Hansol]:
It’s nothing like what you’re probably imagining right now. Please don’t overthink it
[Hansol]:
I swear
Joshua’s frown deepened. A low breath escaped his nose. What the hell is he talking about now? He hadn’t seen any story. But the way Hansol rushed to mention it, defend it even, somehow made him rile up even more.
Curious, and now increasingly irritated, Joshua unlocked your phone again and opened your Instagram. And a few taps later, he clicked on Hailey’s story.
Joshua stared at the screen as he tried to process what he was seeing. His lips curled into a slow, humorless scoff. He shook his head in absolute disbelief.
The audacity.
You were sitting in a restaurant, alone, trying not to cry in front of strangers. Meanwhile, your boyfriend was passed out at another woman’s place like he couldn’t be bothered to show up for you.
Before he could even react further, more messages came in.
[Hansol]:
I don’t know when I fell asleep. I didn’t mean to forget, I swear
[Hansol]:
Are you still at the restaurant? Just tell me and I’ll come right now. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Five if I speed. Please
[Hansol]:
Or if you already went home, just text me so I know you’re safe. I’m begging you baby
[Hansol]:
I’m so fucking sorry
[Hansol]:
Please pick up the phone baby. Just talk to me
Joshua watched as the screen lit up again with another incoming call. But he didn’t answer. He just stared at it with a dark expression. His thumb hovered for half a second before he declined it once more, and put the phone back in your bag.
The sheer nerve. The desperation wasn’t what got to him, it was the timing. The panic only came after the damage was done. After you’d already shut down. After your brother had to come find you and carry you home.
Joshua slammed his car door shut and made his way back inside the house. With his jaw locked so tight, he could feel his pulse thumping in his neck.
Joshua knew, deep down, that this was a personal matter between you and your boyfriend. Something that should be handled between the two of you. He didn’t want to cross boundaries or get too involved in something he didn’t fully understand. That simply wasn’t his style, and he certainly wasn’t overbearing. He respected your independence.
But after today, especially after the way you completely broke down in his arms, Joshua couldn’t keep pretending like everything was fine when it wasn’t.
It was damn near impossible to hold himself back. He didn’t want to sit on the sidelines anymore. He needed answers. He needed to know what the hell was happening to you and why the sister he knew was suddenly closing herself up.
╴╴╴╴╴
The moment Hansol blinked awake from what he thought would be a ‘short nap’, his eyes drifted lazily to the clock. Until the time hit him like a punch to the chest. His eyes widened in shock, practically bulging from their sockets as the time sank in.
It was the realisation that it was two hours past the time he was supposed to meet you which made his heart stop.
His body reacted before his brain could even catch up. He bolted upright so fast that the plushie in his arms fell to the floor. His mind scrambled in complete chaos as he reached for his phone, which he nearly dropped in his haste.
The screen lit up with five unread messages and two missed calls, all from you, two hours ago.
“Fuck,” he cursed, as guilt hit him like a truck.
He remembered. Of course he did. He remembered every word of the argument, the conversation afterwards where he promised he wouldn’t mess this one up this time.
But somehow he had.
And now he didn’t know how to fix it this time.
▎25 NOVEMBER 2021 — two days ago
“What could have been so important this time that you had to cancel on me again, Hansol?” you snapped.
You weren’t usually the one to raise your voice or start fights. You were patient and understanding. Maybe a little too understanding.
This was the fifth broken promise in two weeks. The times you got ready for something he planned, you’d sit and wait until your phone lit up with another last-minute excuse.
And this time, you were done pretending it didn’t rile you up.
Hansol blinked, already on the defensive. “Babe, you know I’m not doing this on purpose. It’s just that Hailey—”
You cut him off instantly with a scoff, head shaking like you couldn’t believe what you were hearing. But deep down, you did. You expected it. Of course it was Hailey.
“Hailey this, Hailey that,” you snarled as your eyes narrowed. “It’s always her.”
Hansol flinched a little at your tone, but you kept going. The anger that had been simmering under the surface was breaking through.
“When does she ever not need you? It’s comical how she always seems to need something when you’re with me. Does she not have any other fucking friends besides you? Huh?”
You took a breath, but it didn’t cool the fire.
“Why do you always jump to her side over every little thing? Is she really that helpless? Is she that dumb and incapable of doing anything on her own, Hansol?”
You couldn’t believe the words coming out of your mouth. This wasn’t you, because you weren’t the type to talk about people like that.
You didn’t even realise how harsh the words were until they already came out. They sounded bitter and personal. And maybe they were. Because you weren’t just angry at Hailey. You were angry at your own boyfriend for putting her before you. Again.
Hansol didn’t respond right away, but when he did, his voice was just as sharp as yours.
“She’s my best friend, Y/n,” he snapped back. “I’ve known her for years. Of course I’m going to be there for her if she needs me.”
“I know that!” you couldn’t help but raise your voice as the frustration boiled over.
“And I’ve always respected the fact that you guys are close. I know you’ve known her longer than me. I know she’s important to you.”
Hansol opened his mouth to speak, but you kept going.
“And trust me, the last thing I’ve ever wanted to do is come between you and your friendship with her” you said.
“But what about me?” The question itself was small, but held so much weight.
“What about me, Hansol?” you repeated, quieter this time as your voice trembled. The sting behind your eyes was impossible to ignore now as tears threatened to fall.
You hated arguing with him, but it had been weeks since you were being sidelined or brushed off. All over someone who you could guarantee could take care of herself without needing your boyfriend all the time.
“What if I need you just as much as she does?” you asked, your voice cracking as the tears finally escaped.
“Why is it that her needs always come before mine? Why can’t you choose me just once instead of her?”
Hansol stood there, frozen. He looked at you with a mix of confusion and worry, but he didn’t speak. His silence only hurt more.
You took a shaky breath and tried to compose yourself even as everything inside you wanted to scream. He looked at you like he didn’t understand, and that made your heart sink.
“Y/n…” he finally said, hesitantly stepping towards you.
“Where is this coming from?” he asked with a calm but cautious tone, like he was trying not to set you off further.
You broke eye contact and looked down. You didn’t even know where to begin. How do you explain the slow burn of feeling like a second choice? How do you measure all the little moments where you smiled and swallowed your disappointment just to keep the peace?
“I just…” you trailed off.
“I just want to feel like I matter to you the way she does.”
“But you do matter to me baby” he tried to assure you.
You looked back up at him, with a mocking smile. The ache in your chest was too big to hide.
“I know I do. But I’m getting tired Hansol” you whispered. “I’m tired of being treated like I’m always second place.”
“Call me jealous. Call me insecure. I don’t care anymore,” you continued, blinking back the rest of your tears.
“But I’m your girlfriend for god’s sake. I should feel like your girlfriend” your voice broke completely then.
“I get that she’s your best friend. I get it. And I get that you care about her. But there’s a line, Hansol. There has to be a line, right?”
You then let out a shaky breath.
“And when I have to fight for your attention, when I have to constantly wonder if I’m even a priority to you, that’s not a relationship. That’s loneliness with a title.”
Hansol’s heart dropped. It was like the floor beneath him gave way and he was free-falling. Your words replayed in his head on a loop, and the more they sank in, the heavier the guilt became.
He realised that he didn’t just hurt you by accident, he neglected you without even thinking. And that realisation alone made his stomach turn.
He couldn’t believe this was all brewing inside you. That you felt so alone and pushed aside for so long. And he didn’t notice. Or worse, he already noticed little things but brushed them off thinking you’d be fine.
He thought your love was unshakable enough to withstand being constantly sidelined. But how stupidly and utterly wrong he was.
He exhaled a shaky breath, his chest rising and falling too fast as he took a step forward and gently took your hands in his. Your fingers were cold and shaking slightly in his grasp.
He hated that. He hated that he made you feel this way.
He pulled you closer until your chest rested lightly against his. You didn’t resist, but you didn’t lean in either. You just stood there quietly sniffling while your eyes cast to the floor.
His hands moved slowly, almost hesitantly, up to cup your face. His thumbs brushed along your cheeks, catching the fresh tears rolling down your skin. Your lips were quivering and your jaw was tight, like you were still trying to hold back everything that wanted to break free.
“Baby,” he whispered, voice cracking. “Please look at me.”
You sniffled again, and your eyes flickered up to meet his.
“I didn’t know,” he said softly, barely above a whisper.
“I didn’t know you felt this way. And I hate that I had to hear it like this, for it to reach this point and for me to finally listen.”
He paused and drew in a breath to steady himself, but it didn’t help. “I thought I was being good to you. I thought you knew how much I loved you. But love isn’t just words, is it? It’s what I do. And I haven’t been showing it. Not in the way you deserve.”
You closed your eyes, biting down hard on your lip.
“I kept running to Hailey because I told myself she needed help. Because I thought you’d understand. And every time I did, I told myself you were okay and that you’d wait. That you knew how important you were to me. But I wasn’t showing you. I was showing you the opposite.”
His voice wavered. “I made you feel second. And that’s the last thing you ever should’ve felt.”
You opened your mouth to say something, but no words came out. Your throat felt constricted.
“I’m so sorry baby” Hansol whispered as his forehead lowered until it touched yours.
“I’m sorry I made you feel small. I’m sorry I made you feel like your feelings didn’t matter. I’m sorry I made you feel like you weren’t my priority. Because trust me baby, you are. You always have been, and I was just too blind to prove it.”
A tear rolled down his cheek now, but he didn’t care.
“I’ll do better, I promise” he said, and pulled you just a little closer.
“I love you.”
Hansol stared at his phone and the endless row of his unanswered messages and ignored calls. He stared down at it like it might suddenly light up with your name. The dozen attempts to reach out to you were simply left up in the air.
There was not a single read receipt. Not even the little “typing…” bubble that always gave him a sliver of hope when you both argued in the past.
And that was what scared him the most.
He ran a hand through his hair, tugging it back in frustration before gripping the back of his neck. His skin was clammy and his heartbeat was a deafening thud in his ears. The anxiety gripping his chest was unlike anything he ever felt before. It wasn’t stress. It wasn’t him being overdramatic.
This was fear. Total, haunting fear.
Because this wasn’t like you. You weren’t the type to shut him out. Sure, you’d argue and get upset. But you were never the type to just disappear into silence without at least letting him know you needed time.
You’d always give him some sort of a signal or reassurance that as angry or hurt as you might be, you hadn't walked away completely.
But this time, there was nothing. Not a single word.
And this complete void scared the hell out of him.
What if something had happened? What if you were too hurt to want anything to do with him anymore?
He couldn’t sit still as these thoughts ran wild in his head.
Hansol shot up from the couch and grabbed his jacket off the back of a chair with more force than necessary. His movements were quick and clumsy as he tried to hurry. He barely even noticed Hailey watching him from the living room with confusion written all over her face.
She furrowed her brows. “Hansol? Where are you going? Why are you so— what’s going on?”
“I don’t have time to explain. I have to go,” he said firmly, not even sparing her a glance as he shoved his feet into his shoes.
“Is this about—” she started again, but he cut her off.
“Just— take care, okay?” he said over his shoulder while already halfway to the front door.
He grabbed his car keys off the counter and flung the door open before dashing out.
He didn’t mean to be cold or dismissive, really, but at that moment, there was only one thing, one person, on his mind.
You.
Everything else blurred into background noise. Because if there was even the slightest chance that you were hurting alone, especially because of him, he wasn’t going to waste another second standing still.
He just hoped he wasn’t already too late.
╴╴╴╴╴
Hansol didn’t know if he parked the car straight, if it was even on the driveway, or if he left the engine running. He didn’t care. None of it mattered compared to the mess in his head. What mattered was finding you and fixing things somehow.
He already knew you wouldn’t be at your shared apartment. That would’ve been too easy, because you never stayed there when you were upset, especially not after a blow-up. He knew your patterns too well, when things went south, you always ran to your brother. Joshua was your safe place. Hansol had banked on that instinct.
He slammed the car door shut hard enough to rattle the windows and jogged across the dark, quiet street to your house. All the lights were off, but it didn’t stop him. His fingers hovered over his phone, itching to text you again, but instead, he rang the doorbell.
Once. Nothing.
Twice. Still nothing.
On the third ring, a hallway light turned on. Hansol felt his stomach tighten. The front door swung open with force, revealing Joshua, shirt rumpled, hair a mess and eyes blazing with fury.
“What the fuck do you want Hansol?” he growled. Hansol’s mouth went dry, and swallowed the thick lump in his throat.
“Is Y/n here? I need to see her,” he said quickly, his voice cracking at the end.
Joshua’s expression didn’t change. If anything, it grew colder. His body stiffened like he was preparing for a fight, but instead of throwing a punch out of instinct, he let out a humorless laugh.
“If she is, what makes you think I’ll let you meet her?” he said, every word laced with venom.
Hansol opened his mouth but nothing came out. If Joshua knew even half of what happened, he was screwed. Completely screwed. Seeing you would be next to impossible with your brother standing in the way like a wall of fire.
“Go home Hansol,” Joshua snapped, stepping forward.
“Before I break your fucking nose. After the shit you pulled? You think I’ll let you anywhere near my sister? You’re not even gonna breathe in her direction.”
Hansol stood frozen. His heart was thundering, while guilt ate him alive. He had no plan nor backup. Only one truth, that he needed to see you. But Joshua already made it clear.
He wasn’t getting through that door.
At this point, all Hansol could do was beg. He looked like a mess with his hair disheveled, eyes red and guilt sitting heavy in his chest like bricks. He dropped his head, fists clenched at his sides and jaw tight with frustration. Whatever pride he had shattered the moment he saw Joshua’s face.
He wasn’t here to win a fight, he was here to fight for you.
“I didn’t do it on purpose, okay?” he said almost urgently, finally lifting his eyes to meet Joshua’s glare.
“I’m already beating myself up over this. I know I couldn’t keep my promise to her, and yeah, that wrecks me. But I didn’t flake on her just to hurt her. I was helping my friend out. And I…I lost track of the time. That’s it,” Hansol explained while his voice cracked slightly.
He then paused with his chest heaving.
He took a shaky breath and added, “you know how much I love her—”
Joshua didn’t let him finish. “Yeah, clearly,” he snapped, voice dripping with sarcasm.
The words stung more than they should have, but Hansol bit down his anger and cursed under his breath. Getting defensive wouldn’t help now. Not when he was already on thin ice.
“I just…I just want her to know I didn’t mean to keep her waiting,” he said, his voice growing smaller with every word.
“I want to apologise. She deserves that. She deserves the truth, not this tension and silence between us. I hate that I hurt her, even by accident.”
He looked at Joshua again, but this time there was no fire in his eyes. Just defeat.
“I won’t be able to sleep tonight knowing she probably hates me. I need to explain, even if she doesn’t forgive me,” he whispered. “I need to talk to her. I need her to know she still means everything to me.”
His voice cracked as he finished, barely able to breathe through the tight knot in his throat. “I don’t want to lose her, Joshua. Please. I don’t want to lose her.”
Joshua stood in silence. His anger wasn’t completely gone, but it was slowly simmering down into something else. He stared at Hansol, who looked like he was unraveling at the seams.
Joshua hated how familiar it felt. He hated that he could see the sincerity in Hansol’s misery. The guy looked wrecked. And as much as Joshua wanted to keep holding on to the fury, to slam the door in his face and make him pay, something in him hesitated. Because it was clear now, Hansol wasn’t here to make excuses. He was here to bleed if that’s what it took to make things right.
Joshua let out a long breath. His hand gripped the edge of the door tighter as he stared at the ground. And when he finally looked up again, his eyes met Hansol’s, and for a moment neither of them spoke.
Then Joshua huffed, eyes narrowing. “She’s sleeping right now, come back tomorrow” he said firmly.
Hansol opened his mouth, but Joshua held up his hand. “Don’t push it,” he warned.
He took a step back to leave just enough space to breathe. The tension didn’t disappear, just changed shape.
“But I’m telling you this now. I can’t promise anything, Hansol,” Joshua said. “You showing up, saying sorry, hoping to fix things, that’s not up to me. Whatever happens next, it’s Y/n’s call. Hundred percent. If she tells me she never wants to see you again, then that’s it. You’ll have to live with that.”
He paused as his voice dropped lower.
“And I’ll stand by her no matter what she decides. Because she has every right to be upset. Every right to not forgive you. You hurt her.”
Joshua took one last glance at Hansol, at the guilt and desperation, before gently closing the door between them.
▎28 NOVEMBER 2021
It was nine in the morning, and Hansol barely managed three hours of restless and broken sleep. The rest of the night was a torture as he tossed and turned in his bed that he normally shared with you, mind plagued with guilt.
He tried to come up with something, anything, that might fix the damage he caused. But every option felt futile. He knew words alone weren’t going to cut it this time. There was no perfect apology, and no grand gesture could undo what he did.
Hansol knew he fucked up badly, and there was no right way to fix things other than to fall at your feet and cry for forgiveness. Because losing you would be the end of his world, and didn’t want that.
Reaching over to check his phone again, Hansol stared at the screen for the millionth time, hoping that somehow this time he’d see a new notification, or at least a sign that you read his messages.
But every single text he sent sat unopened.
He let out a sharp breath and tossed the phone onto the mattress beside him, before burying his face in his hands. His palms dragged down over his face, then up into his hair, gripping the roots in frustration. His jaw clenched as he cursed under his breath. He didn’t know what to do. He never felt this lost before.
Suddenly, his phone lit up and began ringing. His heart leapt into his throat as he scrambled to get it thinking you had finally responded.
But to his disappointment, the screen read Hailey’s name instead. And he deflated instantly.
Nevertheless, he swiped to answer as he exhaled a long sigh while dragging a tired hand across his face.
“Hey,” he croaked out, voice rough from the lack of sleep. He pressed two fingers to his temple as he tried to ease the tension building in his skull.
“Hey, are you okay? You didn’t seem alright last night when you left,” Hailey’s worried voice came through the line.
Even though Hailey had been his best friend for years, Hansol wasn’t in the right headspace to talk to her about his relationship issues. Not when his thoughts were consumed by you. Maybe he was embarrassed to tell her that he messed up again. Maybe he didn’t want to tell her that she was part of the reason why this was happening. Or maybe he just didn’t want her to know every detail of his relationship with you.
He knew she meant well, and that she was only calling because she cared. But her voice, her questions, even her concern, it all just felt like noise to him. All he could focus on was the silence from your end. It was too loud. And the longer the silence stretched, the more it chipped away at him.
All Hansol needed was a sign from you. Even a simple “okay” would’ve been enough to give some sort of relief.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Something urgent came up. Sorry I left you like that,” Hansol apologised as he rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t mean to be so abrupt last night, but his heart was pounding too hard, and his thoughts were spiraling too fast to explain anything clearly.
“Is your ankle okay now?” he asked.
“It’s swollen and bruised pretty badly now compared to yesterday. But I’ve been keeping it elevated and putting on an ice pack,” Hailey replied with a subtle tinge of frustration in her voice.
“I see,” he mumbled. His mind was clearly elsewhere with the way his tone sounded so distant. There was a beat of silence before Hailey hummed in response, perhaps she sensed that his attention wasn’t fully with her.
“You think you can come over later on or when you’re free? I still need a bit of help getting around. Plus I’m really bored,” she added.
Hansol paused. Any other time, he might’ve said yes without hesitation. But not right now. He just wasn’t in the mood to meet anyone besides you. “I can’t today Hailey,” he told her, which caught her a little off guard.
“Oh. Do you have plans with Y/n or something?” she asked, sounding curious, but not surprised.
Hansol hesitated.
How could he explain that it wasn’t exactly “plans” he had with you, but rather a desperate and half-formed mission to salvage what was left of your relationship? That he was losing sleep trying to figure out how to fix what he broke? That your silence was driving him insane?
“Well…kind of,” he finally said.
There was another pause. Hailey didn’t press any further because maybe she sensed the shift in his tone, or maybe she understood more than he realised.
“I’m sorry,” Hansol muttered quietly, almost ashamed to say it out loud.
He swallowed hard before continuing. “Your parents are in town, right? I’m sure they can help out if you really need them. I just…” he trailed off.
He clenched his eyes shut as he inhaled deeply. “I messed up really badly, Hailey. And I’m trying to fix it.”
Hansol didn’t offer more. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to lie, but he also didn’t have the strength to dig through the mess he made just to explain it all over again. This was all he could manage, and he hoped it would be enough.
Hailey, thankfully, seemed to understand. “It’s okay,” she said, not pressing further. “I hope it works out.”
“I hope so too” he whispered to himself.
They both exchanged brief goodbyes, and Hansol ended the call before letting out a shaky breath. He tossed the phone onto the bed and sat there in silence.
His eyes lifted towards the mirror across the room, and grimaced at the sight of himself. His hair was disheveled, eyes were sunken from the lack of sleep, and he was still in the same wrinkled clothes from yesterday. He looked as wrecked as he felt.
A bitter laugh escaped him.
And no matter how pathetic he looked, he was going to make it right.
Somehow.
▎2 DECEMBER 2021
The first day or two without hearing from you, Hansol tried to stay calm. He told himself you just needed space and time to breathe. And he wanted to respect that, he truly did, but silence didn’t mean his heart wasn’t screaming in regret. It didn’t mean he wasn’t fighting the urge to show up at your door and fall to his knees.
So, instead, he did what he could from the distance. He texted. He called. Even knowing full well you were likely with your family, he still desperately hoped that you would answer.
But every time he tried to call, his calls would go straight to voicemail. Every time he texted, his messages remained unread. It was killing him. Every time his phone buzzed from notifications that weren't from you, it added another brick to the weight on his chest.
Still, Hansol held onto hope that you were seeing them. Maybe you were reading them from your notification center. Unless, of course, you had muted him. And the thought itself made him nauseous.
By the third day, he was falling apart.
The apartment was a mess. Takeaway boxes were littered on the counter, his clothes were still in a heap from three nights ago, and the lights stayed dim because he couldn’t find the energy to turn them on. He hadn’t left the apartment since. He barely ate and barely slept. His eyes were puffy from crying. It was something he hadn’t done in years, but now did in quiet gasps as he stared blankly at his phone screen, waiting and hoping.
Joshua wasn’t being much of a good help either. He couldn’t even offer him a sliver of peace. Every time Hansol asked about you, whether it was how you were doing or even something as simple as “Did she eat today?”, Joshua would deflect.
“She’s fine.” “She’s resting.” “I don’t know, man.” Every vague excuse was like a slap in the face. Hansol knew Joshua was doing it on purpose and that he was trying to shield you from more hurt. And to be fair, part of him didn’t blame him. But it didn’t make it any less painful.
The longer he went without hearing your voice, seeing your face, or knowing whether or not you were okay, the more it drove him toward the edge. His sanity felt like it was hanging by a single fraying thread. And that thread was you.
He couldn’t keep doing this. Not another day. Not another hour. He was going to see you one way or another.
He didn’t care if he had to wait outside your house for hours, in the rain or during the night. He didn’t care if your brother tried to shut the door in his face or if you refused to say a word. He just needed to see you. He needed to know you were still there and that you hadn’t walked away from him forever.
Because if you had, he didn’t know what he’d do.
All Hansol knew was that he wasn’t going to spend another night pacing around his apartment like a ghost and haunted by what-ifs and regrets. He was going to find you, and he wasn’t leaving until he did.
╴╴╴╴╴
“Y/n, you can’t keep silent and lock yourself away like this forever. It’s getting ridiculous now,” Joshua said with a firm voice as he stormed into your bedroom without knocking. His frustration was evident in the way his footsteps seemed heavy.
“Get your ass up and talk it out with him. I’m getting tired of all this.”
You flinched under the blanket at his tone, not because it was harsh, but because it awakened the very thing you were trying to avoid, and that was facing Hansol. Joshua stood at the foot of your bed with his arms crossed and eyes narrowed. He wasn’t angry at you, he was exhausted from watching his baby sister spiral day after day.
Joshua wasn’t just irritated. He was heartbroken for you. For Hansol, too, though he never said it aloud. He was pissed at Hansol for making you cry, rightfully, but the truth was, the silence stretched on too long. You and Hansol were both barely functioning, and Joshua had enough.
He saw how Hansol had been trying, really trying. He could see the effort he was putting to get a hold of you though he physically kept his distance to give you space. And every time Joshua gave him a vague answer, he could somehow sense Hansol’s anguish from the other. It was almost too much to bear.
Joshua let out a sigh and ran a hand through his hair.
“I get that you’re hurt. But you can’t stay like this, Y/n. This zombie version of you? It’s not you. And it’s not helping at all, and you know it” he said.
“I’m not ready to,” you whispered, voice muffled as you tugged your blanket up to your eyes.
Joshua had no patience left for that. He strode over and yanked the blanket clean off you, forcing you to curl up tighter into yourself. You didn’t look at him, you couldn’t. The tears were already pricking the corners of your eyes.
“Then when?” he asked with a voice much sharper this time. “Seriously, when? Next week? Next month? Never?”
You stayed quiet.
His voice softened, but his next words hit you harder. “You know, if you’re this affected by what happened that night, why don’t you just spare yourself and break up with him?”
Your breath hitched as you shot your head up, shocked. The suggestion felt like a smack in the face. “What?”
“I’m serious,” Joshua continued.
“You love him, right? But this silence and shutting down, it’s hurting both of you. You’re not healing. You’re just avoiding it which doesn’t help with anything.”
You stared at him as pain swirled in your chest. “It’s not that simple,” you looked away from him.
“I know,” he said much gentler now. “But neither is loving someone. Neither is fighting for a relationship that clearly means everything to you.”
He sat down on the edge of your bed and looked at you with soft eyes. “I’m not saying forgive him right now, nor to forget what happened. But you need to face it. Talk to him. Scream at him if you need to. Just stop letting this eat you alive.”
Silence settled between you both for a long moment. You inhaled shakily, finally allowing your tears to trail silently down your cheeks.
“I don’t know what to say to him,” you admitted.
“Then start with that,” Joshua said simply. “Start with ‘I don’t know what to say.’ That’s something.”
And maybe it was.
Just then, a series of loud, abrupt knocks pounded against the front door, sharp and jarring enough to make you flinch. You shot up from your bed as your heart began to race, eyes wide as they darted toward your bedroom door. Nobody ever knocked like that, not even your angry mother when you wouldn’t open the door while having your headphones in. Given the door bell, people would’ve pressed it.
But this sounded urgent and desperate. And there was only one person you could think of who’d knock like that.
The thought of alone made your pulse quicken. Your stomach twisted as conflicting emotions battled inside you. No matter how hurt and furious you were, your heart still ached for him. Even now, after everything, it still yearned to hear his voice.
“I’ll see who that is,” Joshua said. You barely nodded as he was already moving toward the hallway.
Joshua hadn’t even fully opened the door when Hansol barged past him without a word. The younger’s breathing was heavy. His eyes were red and swollen, the bags under them were visibly dark with exhaustion. His lips were chapped, and he looked like he didn’t sleep in days. Because he didn’t.
Joshua blinked. He was stunned for half a second, before he sighed and stepped aside. He didn’t ask questions, nor did he try to stop him. It wasn’t his place anymore. He already tried everything, from comforting you to yelling at you. Even playing messenger between two people who were clearly miserable without each other. But this was out of his hands now.
With a quiet grunt, Joshua shut the door and walked away, heading to the living room and flipping on the television. He didn’t even check what channel was playing. He just needed the noise as a distraction.
This was something the two of you needed to deal with alone like grown adults. Face to face with no interruptions, and no more hiding.
And so, Joshua left the hallway silent behind him, leaving Hansol standing just a few steps away from your door with heart in his throat.
When he finally reached your bedroom, the door was wide open, thanks to Joshua who didn’t even bother closing it behind him. But either way, it left nothing between you and the person you’d been avoiding for days.
When he was suddenly in front of you, you froze completely. Your heart slammed hard against your ribs as your eyes landed on him. You didn’t know what to expect when this moment came, but it sure wasn’t this.
He stood there, his breathing ragged, fists clenched by his side and jaw locked in a way that made the muscles ripple beneath his skin. His shoulders were stiff, like he was struggling holding himself together.
Hansol looked absolutely beaten. His clothes were the same ones from that night, wrinkled and worn. His lips were trembling despite how hard he was trying to stay strong.
And you? You could barely breathe.
Seeing him like that shattered something in you. Because this wasn’t the Hansol you knew. The Hansol you knew never shattered, he was the anchor when storms hit. But now, he looked like he was barely hanging on. He looked like he was seconds away from falling apart.
Your throat constricted as the tears welling up in your eyes blurred your vision. You wanted to say something, but your lips parted and nothing came out.
“Hansol” you finally whispered as you slowly rose to your feet.
But you didn’t get to say more. In an instant, Hansol leaped forward, catching you off guard. He cupped your face roughly and before you could process it, his lips crashed into yours.
The kiss was intense that left you breathless. It wasn’t soft like how he’d always kiss you, but rather blunt and frantic. It was like he had been drowning and you were the air he needed to breathe again. He kissed you like he was starving of your touch and love. It was messy and heated, but so full of love.
You stumbled backward, but his arm shot out and wrapped around your waist to steady you. He didn’t let go, not even for a second. You stood frozen for a moment, feeling overwhelmed.
And then, your eyes fluttered shut as you kissed him back. Hard.
Your hands grasped his shirt tightly. You could feel his tears trailing down his cheeks, mixing with your own. His soft whimper against your lips shattered your heart all over again. He was crying.
Choi Hansol was actually crying.
You never saw him like this, not once. And now that you did, you wished you never pushed him to the edge like this. But more than that, you hated that he was suffering alone without you hearing him out.
You felt the way he poured everything into that kiss. The fear, the guilt, the longing, the love. It was all there, right between the quivering of his lips and the way his body pressed desperately against yours.
Without a word, you reached up to cradle his face in your hands and brushed his tear-streaked cheeks with your thumbs. He broke the kiss for a split second, and rested his forehead against yours as he tried to catch his breath.
“I’m sorry,” Hansol whimpered.
“I’m so sorry baby” he kissed you again, but this time it was slower and more fragile. You felt the kiss grow more saltier the more tears streamed down his face, and your heart couldn’t take much more.
“I’m such a fucking idiot, I know,” he mumbled breathlessly against your lips.
“I don’t even know what the hell I was thinking all those times I left you hanging. I don’t know what was going through my head when I chose to be there for someone else, when you were the one who needed me the most.”
He let out a sob that vibrated against your chest as he buried his face against your shoulder. You didn’t speak. All you could do was hold him closer with your fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt as his guilt poured out of him.
Hansol pulled away slightly, just enough to cup your face again. His thumbs gently stroked the apples of your cheeks as his red and glossy eyes locked with yours.
“You’re right,” he said. “You’re my girlfriend, for fuck’s sake. And you should feel like you are. You shouldn’t ever have to fight for my attention, or feel like you’re competing with anyone else.”
You watched the torment ripple through his expression. Every word looked like it cost him to say, but he meant them all. He needed you to know he was owning it.
“You didn’t deserve to feel like you were second,” he continued with his shaky voice. “You didn’t deserve to sit there wondering why I couldn’t show up for you the way I always did for someone else. And I hate that I made you feel that way. I hate that I didn’t see it sooner.”
You slowly brought your hands to his face, brushing your thumbs over the trails of tears on his cheeks. He leaned into your touch like it was the only thing keeping him from falling apart completely.
“I— I know I try to be a good friend to Hailey,” he admitted, “but I should’ve set boundaries. Because you were right. She does have other people around her, people she can turn to besides me. I just— I guess I kept telling myself I was helping, not realising how much I was hurting you in the process.”
He shook his head. “Maybe that’s a talk I need to have with her too.”
He took another breath, but it got caught in his throat. “I just—” he paused, swallowing hard.
“I’m so sorry I made you feel like this. Even though it was never my intention, I still made you feel like a second choice. And I fucking hate myself for it.”
He dropped his hands from your face, only to wrap them around yours, the ones still resting on his cheeks. He squeezed them tightly.
“You know I love you, right?” he whispered, his voice breaking again. “That I never, ever meant to hurt you? Not on purpose. I love you more than I know how to say. So please, please give me a chance to make it right. I can’t keep going through this silence. It’s killing me baby. I swear it’s fucking killing me.”
And this time, his knees buckled as he sank to the floor, pulling you down with him.
You felt like your heart had been ripped out of your chest and crushed right in front of you. The sight of Hansol sobbing this much into your embrace was something you never thought you would witness.
You instinctively held onto him tightly like a mother cradling a child through a nightmare as the two of you slowly sank to the floor. In all the years you had known Hansol, this raw display of vulnerability was something completely foreign to you. He was always the strong one, and the rock for everyone else. Especially for you.
So to see him fall apart like this scared you.
“H-Hey, shhh,” you whispered, gently rubbing his back in slow and soothing circles. You pressed a kiss to the top of his head, another, then another.
“It’s okay, I forgive you, honey. Please stop crying,” you murmured as you were desperate to calm him down.
You tried to gently pull back to coax him into lifting his head and looking at you, but he only buried himself deeper into your chest. He kept his face hidden like he was ashamed to even be seen by you.
“Can you look at me?” you whispered, your voice cracking. But Hansol shook his head against you.
“Hansol-ie, baby, please look at me,” you said again more tenderly as you pulled out the name only his mother and you ever called him so endearingly.
And that finally did it. His body shifted as he slowly pulled himself up. He looked at you, tiredly yet with so much love and intensity.
Without a word, your hands found their way to his face. You cupped his cheeks as you brushed your thumbs gently over the wet trails. He leaned into your palms, closing his eyes and letting out a long, shaky breath.
“I’m sorry too,” you said.
Hansol opened his eyes slowly, brows furrowing in confusion. “Why are you sorry?” he asked, reaching out to hold your hands in his.
You offered him a small, halfhearted smile. “I guess I was being childish with how I acted. I shut down instead of talking to you. I pushed you away instead of letting you in.”
Hansol immediately shook his head. “No. You had every right to be upset. I was the one who broke my promise,” he said firmly, his thumb gently rubbing the back of your hand.
“It was all on me, not on you my love.”
He reached up to tuck a few stray strands of hair behind your ear. “Don’t blame yourself for reacting to the pain I caused.”
You swallowed hard, leaning into his touch. “But I should’ve at least told you I needed time. I shouldn’t have left you guessing like that.”
“Maybe,” he replied softly. “But I should’ve never put you in a position where you had to choose between silence or feeling like a second choice. You deserve so much better than that.”
Your eyes welled again, but this time from the overwhelming tenderness between you both.
But then you giggled softly. “I guess we’re both childish in our own ways,” you said, brushing a tear from your cheek with the back of your hand.
“Me, a stubborn and sensitive girl who shuts down instead of talking. And you, a loser, lovesick boy who’ll chase his girl no matter what.”
Hansol let out a soft laugh and he tilted his head. “And I love that beautiful, stubborn, and sensitive girl so much,” he whispered, “that I promised myself I’d chase her for her in every lifetime. No matter where, no matter when.”
Then, leaning in, he placed a gentle peck on your lips. Your smile paused, lips quivering as you tried to fight off another wave of tears. You stared into his eyes, “God, I really don’t deserve you” you whispered.
The words tumbled out of your mouth from the guilt and ache that still lingered in your chest. You pressed your lips against his again, hoping he could feel everything you didn’t know how to say.
But Hansol shook his head gently, pulling back just far enough to look you in the eyes. “No,” he said with conviction.
“It’s me who doesn’t deserve you.”
He reached up to cradle your face in both hands, his thumbs brushing away the tears that slipped free. “If it were anyone else, they would’ve kicked my ass to the curb already and never looked back. But you?” he paused, his voice cracking, “You still gave me a chance. Even after everything. And I swear, I’m never taking that for granted again.”
“I promise, and I truly mean it this time,” he whispered, resting his forehead against yours, “I will never make you feel like that again.”
You let out a shaky breath. You’d never been so vulnerable like this with each other. It was so messy and so emotional.
“I hate that we hurt each other,” you whispered.
“I do too,” he said. “But if we’re going to hurt, I’d rather hurt with you than be without you.”
You rested your forehead against his, eyes closed and hands tangled in the fabric of his shirt. “We’re such a mess, aren’t we?” you chuckled through your tears.
“Yeah,” Hansol breathed, “but we’re our mess.”
You smiled softly and slowly wrapped your arms around his neck. The moment your body met his, a deep sigh left your lips as you buried your face in the crook of his neck.
Your voice came out muffled, “I love you,” you whispered against his hot skin, your lips brushing his collarbone.
Hansol let out a shaky exhale. He immediately snaked his arms around your waist and pulled you closer. He closed his eyes as you breathed you in.
“I love you too baby. More than I can ever express,” he murmured into your ear, before tenderly kissing the top of your head.
“I’ll never hurt you again,” he whispered as he pressed his forehead against yours. “God, I’d rather die before I ever do.”
“I don’t care what it takes. I’ll spend every day proving to you.”
a/n; it’s finally here!! please reblog if you like it🫶🏽
