D D U K B O K K I - 02

April 19th, 2014

JaeJin and I arrived at the ddukbokki stall at around ten past midnight.
 
The ahjumma greeted us with a friendly smile. "Hello there. How are you? How is uncle Jang?"
 
I smiled at the friendly welcome. "We're all good. And you?"
 
"I'm fine. Two servings of ddubokki, as always? And two beers?"
 
We nodded in unison, already making our way to the plastic chairs at our usual table in the corner of the street tent. 
 
A group of three business men was seated at the far end of the tent, seemingly getting drunk after a hard day of work. They were laughing about something one of them just said. A couple about our age was two tables away from the business men, hastily sharing a serving of Ahjumma Park's delicious ddukbokki. Other than that, the place was empty. 
 
It merely took her two minutes to have our order ready at our table, and finally I could satisfy my grumbling stomach. We could easily have eaten some leftover food from my uncle’s shop, but going to eat ddukbokki was our ritual reward for hard days of work.
 
"So good," JaeJin raved, munching happily, and took a big gulp of beer.
 
I nodded. It was. Park's ddukbokki was the best one in the entire metropolitan area of Seoul, hands down. Only she could perfect the balance of spicyness, sweetness, stickyness and warmth to this extend.
 
"Do you remember my brother, JinHwan?" JaeJin asked, after finishing off half of his serving in less than two minutes.
 
"Your youngest brother?" I faintly remembered a cute boy, about ten years old, with spiky hair and a bright smile, just like JaeJin.
 
JaeJin nodded, laying his chopsticks on the table. "Yep. He has finally been accepted to WM entertainment last month," He said, sounding anything but happy about the news.
 
"Uhm, isn't that good for him?" I recalled JaeJin mentioning something about his brother wanting to become an idol. Oh, if only JinHwan knew what being an idol really meant.
 
"It's what he wants, but, honestly speaking, I hoped he wouldn't get accepted anywhere. I don't feel it's a good thing." JaeJin sighed. "But JinHwan never listened to me. He says I'm just jealous of him getting all the girls."
 
I almost choked on a ddukbokki, hearing that. "He's - what? Ten?! Already such a ladies-boy?"
 
JaeJin grinned mischievously. "Well, he got that from his hyung. Besides, he's already twelve."
 
I raised an eyebrow. Instead of commenting on JaeJin's obvious lack of judgement, I decided on eating another ddukbokki. All JaeJin ever got were one-sided crushes on the girls in his classes, but I had already made fun of him too many times. Funny thing was, usually the younger girls would be swooning all over him; but JaeJin once told me he had a thing for older girls. And those clearly didn't have a thing for him.
 
"Don't you agree? Besides, I heard I'm popular among the female business students...give me some details, please?" JaeJin rumbled on, picking up his bottle of beer.
 
My inner alarm bell rang loudly, as I realized where this conversation was heading. If JaeJin started talking girls, there was no holding him back, and I would most probably end up being stuck with him until dawn. Therefore, I quickly changed topic: "Actually, I've never heard of WM enterntainment. Is it good? Did he tell you about the trainee contract details?"
 
"Yah, how insensitive can one change the topic of converation, MinAe?" JaeJin pouted, trying to sound hurt, but the amused tone in his voice gave him away. "That's pretty weak, even for your conversation skill level."
 
I grinned. "As long as it works. So? How is it?"
 
JaeJin shook his head, and ran his fingers through his hair, messing up what was left of his spikey hairdo. "It's a small, relatively new entertainment. Do you know B1A4?"
 
I remembered SungGyu mentioning them some time ago, telling me they were getting quite famous. "Uh...that song, 'Lonely'? Five uber-cute boys?"
 
"Yeah they did a music video featuring an american style cowboy setting..."
 
"Ah," I finally had a clear picture of them in my head. "The country-idols?"
 
"Exactly," JaeJin said, "It's the same entertainment. I think it's an okay one, since it's quite small...but as I said, I'd rather have him go to university and study something useful..."
 
I nodded. He had a point. Knowing SungGyu, I'd rather not have my siblings going for an idol carreer. But then again, I didn't have any, which took that worry away from me. I had my fair share of boygroup problems every time I got to deliver to SungGyu; good thing JaeJin didn't know anything about me knowing him because then he would most probably have kept bugging me to introduce him to SungGyu in order to ask for advice for JinHwan.
 
JaeJin sighed. "At least the guys are decent."
 
"Guys?" I asked, still caught up in my absurd thoughts of SungGyu lecturing JinHwan on how to be an idol.
 
"My brother's idol hyungs, B1A4," JaeJin explained, nudging my head, "I went to pick him up the other day, and he introduced me to them, since they were just finished practising for their comeback. They promised they would order jjajangmyun at your uncle's place sometime."
 
I gave him an incredulous look. "They promised?"
 
JaeJin shrugged. "They asked what I was doing for a living, so I said i was still studying Law and working part time..."
 
"Did you give them the shop's contact info?"
 
"Sure..."
 
Awesome. At this rate, we would turn into an idol exclusive jjajamgmyun delivery. Let's hope their leader didn't need personal judgment assistance, like someone I knew. But then again, I recalled SungGyu whining about B1A4's leader being, like, really handsome...(which wouldn't be of any use anyways, because idols aren't technically allowed to date... how many times did I spend with a helpless SungGyu whining about MyungSoo getting their image all messed up, dating that ulzzang girl last autumn. Poor hormonal boys. Actually, putting it like this, SungGyu whined a lot).
 
JaeJin didn't seem to notice my lack of enthusiasm, as he went on: "Their rapper, SungWoo, even gave me his mobile number, in case something comes up."
 
I nodded, acknowledging his excitement over having an idol's phone number, and took a sip of beer. SungGyu might get possessive over his personal jjajangmyun delivery if he found out his competition was also ordering at my uncle's...
 
We finished our ddukbokki in silence, and I then proceed to pay. Some JaeJin-oppa he was, leaving me to pay, lost bet or not.
 
After wishing each other good night, we then both walked in different directions, trying to get home as fast as possible. Tomorrow had already arrived, and university wasn’t too fond of the forever-late students we were.
 
Luckily, I only had to walk for about ten minutes until I reached my small apartment. It was part of the deal my parents had made with my aunt and uncle - that my parents would get me my own appartment as soon as I turned 18. Didn’t quite work out that way because I ended up sharing it with a girl named SeRi, who took some classes at university with me. She was mostly out clubbing or sitting in the library, so she was an easy flatmate. We shared the occassional cup of tea and got along quite well at university, but besides that, we didn't really get involved too much in each other’s personal lives.
 
As I made my way home through the maze of streets that Seoul was made up of, I realized how lucky I was, to have a loving and hard-working family, a sometimes un-oppa-ish JaeJin who always thought about others first nonetheless; and SungGyu, my strange idol-best-friend-extraordinaire.
 

-JaeRin out