“Listen Fany, I don’t think letting you touch a hot pan is a good idea. You could burn yourself.”

“Silly, Yuri! I won’t touch the hot pan. Who in their right mind would do that? I’ll touch the handle of the frying pan like a normal person would. How about that?” she said jokingly.

“Do you even know what ‘sauté’ means?”

“It’s a fancy way of saying ‘stir fry’?” she answered with a giggle.

“Not quite.”

“Just teach me how to cook something. I’m a fast learner and I really think I need to learn how to cook. What if I get stranded on a desert? I’ll die because I don’t know how to cook,” Tiffany said in a very dramatic way.

“You’ll die REGARDLESS. If you get stuck on a desert, where would you get food? Where would you cook the food if you miraculously found one? Huh?”

Tiffany paused and thought about it. Her roommate’s right. “Aish! Don’t go all technical on me. You know what I mean! Just teach me please.”

Yuri agreed after a few more minutes of arguing. Yuri let Tiffany chop the vegetables and prepare the rice cakes. The latter admitted that she refused to eat those when she was still a little kid for she thought it was clay. She remembered her pre-school teacher telling them not to eat the clay. It may be non-toxic but that doesn’t mean you could snack on it, their teacher would always say.

While Yuri was preparing the things she needed to sauté the mushrooms, she saw Tiffany sniffing the anchovies and fish cakes. 

“It’s smells weird,” Tiffany said and continued to smell it.

“Why would you continue smelling it if it smells weird… Why did you smell it in the first place?”

“I got that idea from Jessie.” There was this one time when she saw her sister smelling the bowl before filling it with cereal and milk. Her sister told her that if a food smells weird, she shouldn’t put it in . Same goes with the utensils that you use for eating. If it smells, don’t use it. I will never let anything that smells funny have contact with my mouth. 

“Your sister and her weird habit. Stop sniffing it,” Yuri snatched the fish cakes away from her and put it in the pan with boiling water along with the anchovies.

“You’ll put mushrooms in there?”

“Some of it.”

Tiffany nodded, “Do you know how to flip the food on the pan? Like what chefs do on TV? It looks cool.”

“Yeah, it’s actually really easy. You just need to practice it.” Yuri held onto the handle of the pan and started flipping the food on the pan. “You just have to toss the pan forward, make sure the front edge of the pan goes upward and then pull it back.” She continuously did it to the pan where she’s sautéing the mushrooms until she’s sure that it’s cooked well. She put the sautéed mushrooms on a plate. 

“Whoa! That is so cool,” Tiffany said still in awe. 

After a few minutes she asked Tiffany to remove the anchovies and fish cakes. Tiffany obeyed her and let Yuri do the rest. She leaned on the kitchen counter and looked at Yuri, studying her every move. Yuri put in the red pepper paste and powder, corn syrup, sugar, soy sauce and minced garlic. She then put the rice cakes in it and stirred. After a few minutes, she added the rest of the ingredients and stirred until the sauce was thick and the rice cakes were soft. 

She was moving with such finesse and when she started plating, Tiffany became more impressed. She placed the dish on the plate and put much effort to make it look good that if you see it, you might have second thoughts on eating it because it will ruin the whole thing.

Yuri caught Tiffany staring at her and she smiled. “It’s rude to stare.”

“I know but how the heck could I look away and not watch what you’re doing. Do you know how to speak French or do impressions like Taeyeon?” she asked randomly.

“Impressions? You vant me…” Yuri said and realized how silly she sounded, “Okay that’s weird. I didn’t sound French, I sounded Russian.”

Tiffany giggled, “Yeah, you did. Do you at least know some French or Italian words or any other languages? I mean, you must know how to pronounce the food you’re making, right? I’m going to assume that not all the dishes you know are Korean cuisines.”

Yuri nodded, “Si, bella.”

“That’s Italian, right?” Tiffany asked and Yuri nodded. “You just called me beautiful,” she said smiling.

“I don’t know how to say ‘ugly’ in Italian so I had no choice,” teased Yuri.

“Jerk,” Tiffany mumbled while staring at the plate. “I thought you were going to cook dinner. Why are we making ddukboki? You’re going to feed us asnackfor dinner?”

“I changed my mind and I’ll let Taeyeon cook our dinner. I made a snack so we could eat while waiting for Taeyeon and the others.”

Tiffany nodded and grabbed two pairs of chopsticks and handed Yuri a pair. The two shared the ddukbokki and the sautéed mushrooms. 

“This is really good. When you graduate I’ll hire you as my personal chef to cook for me day and night.”

“I’ll flat-out decline that offer,” she said jokingly which made Tiffany pout. 

Sooyoung entered the dining area and saw Tiffany glaring at Yuri while the latter was smirking. “Hi, Fany. Hi, Yuri. Food!” she exclaimed. She cleared when she remembered Tiffany was there. 

“Hi, Soo, Yuri and I made ddukbokki with pink mushroom. It’s not pink anymore though but it was so cute. She also sautéed the rest of the pink mushrooms. You should try it. It tastes awesome ‘coz I helped.”

“Really?”

Tiffany nodded and stood up to get her a bowl and a pair of chopsticks. The three of them ate merrily and left some for their other housemates.


---


After dinner, everyone went to their respective rooms and did their homework. It was a very long day for everyone since their professors have started giving them heaps of homework. 

Yoona and Jessica were working on their homework on Algebra when Taeyeon got out of the bathroom. She saw how Jessica was looking at Yoona. Why can’t she look at me like that?

She sat on her bed and tried not to pay attention to her two roommates but she couldn’t help but to listen to their conversation.

“Done. I won. Tell me why you broke it off with Seohyun.”

Yoona closed her book ad looked at Jessica, “Why are you so interested?”

“I just want to know,” Jessica said as she smiled like a kid.

Yoona sighed, “It’s not really interesting. I bet you’ll get bored while listening to it.”

Trust me, Yoona, she will never get bored as long as you’re the one who’s talking, Taeyeon thought while pretending to be focused on the homework.

Jessica pleaded until Yoona gave in.

“Alright, so once upon a time—“

“Yah!” Jessica hit her in her forearm lightly.

“We were going out for almost a year when she got introduced to some guy named Jung Yonghwa,” she paused for a second and then looked at Jessica, “You’re not related to a Jung Yonghwa, right?”

Jessica shook her head, “I don’t think so.”

Yoona nodded and continued with her story, “Normally, I’m not the jealous type. I wouldn’t get insecure just because of some guy but this guy was like perfect for Seohyun. I, on the other hand, was sort of a bad influence for her.”

“You? A bad influence?” Jessica asked. She couldn’t fathom that this sweet girl in front of her would do bad things.

Yoona nodded “But I don’t do drugs or smoke or anything like that. My dad would kill me. I used to skip classes all the time though. I’d even ask Seohyun to come with me sometimes but I still get good grades.” She showed her a smug smile. “When she met that guy everything changed. It wasn’t Seohyun who changed, it was me. It wasn’t actually a bad thing. I stopped skipping classes. I would go with her during her piano classes. I would always be there during her recitals. The thing is… it’s kind of too late.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her parents have already imprinted in their minds that I’m not good enough for their daughter. They think I’m just a brat who doesn’t have a care in the world. Typical drama stuff, huh?”

“So you broke up with her because of that?”

Yoona shook her head vigorously and pouted, “No, of course not. I would love it if her parents would approve of me but if they don’t then I just have to deal with that.”

“Then why’d you break up with her?”

Taeyeon was listening carefully now. She was also curious as to why the youngest girls in the house broke up.

“Sica, you weren’t listening, it’s because of that oh so perfect guy Yonghwa!” She made a face when she mentioned the name she learned to despise over the past month.

“What about him?”

“He was too perfect. Seohyun’s parents think so, too,” she answered with a frown. “He knows how to play the guitar, he knows how to sing and I only know how to design clothes, totally irrelevant. They even own a huge sweet potato farm. Seohyun loves that musical fruit.” She smiled at the thought of Seohyun eating sweet potatoes.

“A few weeks before our graduation, I noticed that she was hanging out more and more with that guy. I can see that she was really happy with him. There were times when she would ditch me because of him. I thought I could put up with it. Jealousy got the best of me.”

“So you broke up with her? I’m sorry but that’s stupid of you. You broke up with her just because you thought she was happy when she’s with him? Did you even ask her if she was happy with the guy? You gave her away. You made a decision for her and that’s idiotic. Taengoo-ah,” she looked at Taeyeon who was busy “reading”, “Back me up. Tell Yoong that what she did was stupid. Don’t even pretend that you’re not listening.”

“Yes, Jessica’s right. You shouldn’t have been so rash.” Don’t get Taeyeon wrong. She wasn’t just agreeing because Jessica said so. She agreed because she really thinks that what Yoona did was idiotic.

“Sure why don’t you two gang up on me,” Yoona said sarcastically.

“Do you still love her?”Jessica asked. It made Taeyeon think twice about Jessica liking Yoona. How could she just ask her that? Well, Tiffany did say it was just a little crush.

Yoona nodded. “Do you think we should get back together?”

“I don’t think you should be asking me that.”

“Because you like me?” A smug smile appeared on her face yet again.

“How’d you know? My sister told you, didn’t she?” she asked while planning on how to get back at her sister for telling Yoona.

“She didn’t. I can tell. You snarl at everyone when you’re in a bad mood but I’m an exception.”

She’s right. I was that obvious?

“If you still have feelings for Seohyun then you two should get back together. That is if she still feels the same way for you,” Jessica said.

“I thought you liked me and now you’re giving me away,” Yoona said cutely.

Jessica just laughed it off and said, “Karma’s a bleep.” She censored herself.

Taeyeon was smiling on the inside while listening. Yoona’s out of the way. Now I can focus on getting Jessica to like me.