Mina lifted the spoon to her lips once more to taste. She had to make sure the broth was seasoned perfectly. She couldn’t afford to mess up again, not after the last fifteen attempts.

The taste was still bland, causing her to shake her head and dump more seasoning into the pot. Her hand hesitated when it hovered over the bottle of MSG, knowing it would ensure Momo could enjoy the taste no matter what, but decided against it thinking about their health. They had a special stage coming up and the whole reason she was cooking instead of ordering takeout was to find a healthier alternative after all…

She covered the pot once more and dragged her feet back to the couch. The television was on in front of her, but her eyes were fixed to the clock on the wall, her mind stuck worrying about the food on the stove.

Every week she would attempt to satisfy her girlfriend’s craving for her favorite food. Yet every week they would find themselves leaving the table disappointed with the lack of taste or even huddled around the toilet bowl holding each other’s hair up in the worst case.

But this time would be different. Or at least that’s what she would tell herself each time. And she wasn’t exactly wrong… The food did turn out different each time, but never in a good way.

Mina sighed, shaking her head and trying to get the negative thoughts out of her mind. She decided to do it the way she knew best, to put on her headphones to tune out the world around her. A perfect plan. Perfect enough that she didn’t seem to notice, even when her head lulled backwards and her eyelids slowly began to droop down…

She awoke to a pair of hands violently shaking her cheeks. Her eyes opened to a terrified Momo, mouth wide open but with no sound coming from it. She pried off her headphones to the sound of blaring alarms and profanities coming out the older girl’s mouth. The smell of burning clearly hit her nose now.

“What happened?!” Momo screamed at the top of her lungs, shaking the wits out of Mina.

“I don’t know! I was making jokbal and… and…”

The shaking stopped, Momo’s mouth forming into a sappy smile at Mina’s stammering.

“Aww, you were cooking for me again?”

“Momo! Now’s not the time! Do we have a fire extinguisher?!”

“I think there’s one in the hallway…”

Momo walked up to her girlfriend, draping a warm blanket around the latter. They stood in silent awe on the pavement next to their building with the rest of their neighbors, illuminated by the flashing blue and red lights as they watched the professionals putting out the last of the flames. The fire extinguisher had proved inadequate for what they had gotten themselves into.

Mina thanked the girl for the blanket, snuggling up into a back hug with her girlfriend as they continued to watch helplessly, but together.

“How did you extra practice session go with Dahyun?” Mina asked.

“She’s getting the hang of it.” Momo smiled as she met the younger’s eyes. “Almost as good as you.”

“You work so hard…” Mina pouted as she traced Momo’s eyebags, wiping off the soot and stains on her face.

“Is that why you were cooking for me?” Momo grinned her stupid grin. She already knew the answer she just loved hearing her girlfriend say it.

Mina nodded, tears forming in her eyes as she turned around to nuzzle herself fully into Momo’s embrace. They remained that way until the firefighters finally got all the smoke and fumes out and the couple were allowed back into their home. Besides the gaping hole in the wall next to their stove and the charred stains on almost every square inch of their kitchen, their apartment was still the same. They were home.

Once the shock of the whole situation had finally dissipated, they sat down at their dining table, having found extremely charred and blackened pig’s trotters lined neatly on a plate in front of them. Mina eyed the jokbal from a distance, poking it with a fork to check if it was okay, but Momo eyed the food with lust and hunger, holding up her utensils in a ready position.

Mina seemed hesitant. “Momo, I don’t think we should eat this…”

But seeing as everything in their fridge had either been melted or burnt to the point of being unrecognizable, Momo began to dig right in.

“Thank you for the meal!” she announced, before her face contorted in the most extreme ways in an attempt to chew through the tough outer layer and endure the horrifying taste that followed.

“It’s not… the worst…” she managed to squeak out between attacks from her gag reflex. “At least it’s not undercooked this time…”

“Really?!” Mina’s eyes lit up at Momo’s half-compliment, immediately beginning to cut herself a piece of the burnt meat.

The couple dug into their meal, tasting only the love that had been poured into it from Mina to Momo, making sure not to leave a single piece on their plate.

They even ended up carrying that love to the toilet bowl as it helplessly poured out of them all over again.

"You give me a place to call home."