As soon as Youngjae clicked the 'play' button of the youtube video, the familiar tune of his favourite cooking channel started to play. It was a part of his routine just before the weekend started, coming back home from University and watching the newest upload from the cooking channel 'Puggilicious Kitchen'. On the following Saturday, Youngjae would always cook the meal presented on Friday and upload a picture of it on his Instagram account.

The piano tune stopped and and the picture changed from the intro to the set of a large, white kitchen, the young chef smiling into the camera and his pug sitting obediently on a high chair behind him. Mandu, the brown and black pug was the mascot of the show and it was him who made the show so joyful to watch.

“Hello, this is Daehyun from Puggilicious Kitchen. Today we are going to make Mapo Tofu,” the young male said.

“Mapo Tofu is a Chinese dish which is also very popular in Japan and Korea. I received a lot of requests for this dish and today I'm going to show you how to make it.”

A couple of ingredients were set out in front of Daehyun and he pointed at them one after another as he told his viewers the amount that would be needed. He then picked up the plastic box that contained the tofu and ripped it open.

“Rinse the tofu, wrap it in a kitchen towel and set it aside while you're cutting the vegetables,” he instructed as he removed the white block from the package and wrapped it tightly.

“Chop the garlic and ginger into fine pieces,” he said. Daehyun's knife went through the vegetables as if they were softened butter, making it look so easy. But Youngjae knew that in reality, it wasn't as easy as it looked. Youngjae had had several cases of garlic cloves flying around the kitchen as he tried to cut them and about the other accidents that had occurred, he didn't even want to think.

Daehyun put the very small pieces onto a small plate and set it to the side, making space on his wooden chopping board.

“Now prepare the Chinese style chicken stock.” Daehyun spooned brown powder into a measuring cup and poured steaming water over it. He stirred until everything was dissolved and the water had absorbed all the flavour.

“You can use any kind of chicken stock but I highly recommend you a Chinese one. This is the key to a delicious sauce,” he said, smiling.

In the background, Mandu started to get impatient and looked to the left and right, his big and round eyes almost bulging as he searched for something delicious. Youngjae chuckled quietly, the dog was too cute. Daehyun set the cup to his right side and reached out for a small glass bowl.

“Dissolve the starch in water,” he said and poured water from the same kettle he had used for the stock and stirred the condiments carefully with a small spoon. “This will help to thicken the sauce. You can skip this part if you prefer your sauce more runny but a thick sauce will coat the tofu and give it a rich flavour.”

The starch found its place next to the stock and the young chef placed the wrapped tofu back onto the chopping board.

“Let's get back to the tofu. As you can see, the paper towel has absorbed the excess liquid. Cut the tofu into cubes and make sure they are equal in size. Be gentle with the tofu because it can easily break.”

Daehyun handled the tofu with so much care, this was one of the things that Youngjae admired about the chef so much. Every meal he cooked was prepared with so much love that Youngjae was sure, the person who would be eating them would devour a portion of happiness with every meal.

“The last thing we need to cut are the green onions. Cut them into half an inch slices and set them aside, we will be adding them last to not overcook them.”

Daehyun's knife cut effortlessly through the green onions, it was obvious that he'd had a lot of experience. All pieces were equal in size and he worked through the whole length of the onion so quickly and without taking his hand off even once.

Now that everything was prepared, Daehyun put the chopping board onto the counter behind him and took a large frying pan and put them onto the portable stove. He the burner and poured a small amount of oil into the pan.

“Heat a table spoon of sesame oil in the pan and stir fry the ground pork until it's not pink anymore. Once the colour of the meat has changed, add the garlic and the ginger and reduce the heat. Garlic gets bitter when it's burned so we don't want to overcook it,” Daehyun explained as he broke the meat into little pieces with a wooden spatula.

Motivated by the smell of the cooking meat, Mandu was now on his paws, sniffing rapidly. He whined quietly in the background and Daehyun turned around for a moment, chuckling. After a quick petting of his dog's head, he concentrated back on the pan and continued to stir the meat.

“When the meat is cooked, add the chilli paste and the sweet bean paste and stir it thoroughly until all the meat it coated.”

The pan steamed and the condiments started sizzling immediately. With a few skilled swirls though, the meat was completely covered and had taken an appetizing colour. Daehyun allowed the ingredients to cook for a few seconds before he lifted the measuring cup with the chicken broth.

“Add all the chicken broth at once,” he said and poured the liquid into the pan carefully.

“Now add the tofu and stir until the tofu is covered with the sauce. Be careful not to break the tofu,” Daehyun showed exactly how to move the spatula so the tofu would mix with the other ingredients without breaking.

“Put the heat down to low and allow the tofu to cook and absorb the sauce for ten minutes,” he said and turned the heat of his portable stove down until only a faint hint of a blue flame was seen.

There was a cut and the camera zoomed into the pan again. By now, the sauce had already thickened and the dish looked about ready to eat.

“If you want, you can add the starch at this point. If you do, turn the heat on high for two minutes so the sauce can reach the consistency that you want,” Daehyun explained.

He did add the starch and big bubbles rose to the surface. The dish had a beautiful red colour and the thick sauce bubbling over the flame looked almost like lava.

“The last step is adding the green onions. You can turn the heat off now, the heat in the sauce is enough to cook the onions,” the chef said as he turned off the flame. He stirred the green onions carefully into the sauce and then poured the whole content of the pan into a large oval bowl.

“Serve the Mapo Tofu with a bowl of rice!” Daehyun then said cheerfully as he turned around and opened the rice cooker that stood beside him. Steam rose from the cooker and Daehyun spooned a generous amount of rice into a bowl. He covered the rice with the delicious looking sauce and started to dig in.

Daehyun's mouth was too full and the food was too hot, but he gave a satisfied thumbs up into the camera anyway. The dish looked really good and Youngjae couldn't wait to cook it the next day. He had eaten Mapo Tofu before in a restaurant but he had never cooked it. But it looked easy enough, Daehyun's instructions were always easy to follow. Youngjae was just about to stop the video when the scene changed, showing Daehyun standing on a balcony, his back facing the beautiful view of the blue sea.

“Hello, everyone! The summer is approaching and to celebrate my 2 year anniversary on youtube, I want to invite 5 of you to my home town, Busan for a cooking workshop. All you have to do is to cook one of my meals and post a picture on Instagram and tag me. You can find the deadline and more information about this event on my blog. Good luck,” Daehyun smiled into the camera and gave two thumbs up. Finally, the ending melody started playing and Youngjae knew it was safe to quit the video.

Youngjae sat there for a moment, thinking. Daehyun was not a fully trained chef yet, he would be in the summer but receiving a personal cooking lesson sounded very appealing to him. He opened the page of Daehyun's blog, a link that Youngjae knew by heart.

The workshop would be a whole weekend and to Youngjae's luck, would take place in the middle of his summer break. All costs would be covered as well so Youngjae decided to try to participate. He would upload pictures of his cooking anyway and Daehyun already knew who he was, maybe this would be an advantage to him.

*

Youngjae was nervous when the robotic voice in the train announced that they would be arriving in Busan shortly. Even though he had hoped to win this trip he had actually never expected to really win, so when he received Daehyun's email, congratulating him on his win, Youngjae had been more than joyful. The whole week he had been thinking about nothing else but what would wait for him, what the other contestants would be like and what they would cook. But the biggest part of him was excited to meet Daehyun in person.

It was late in the afternoon and Daehyun had told him, that someone would come and pick him up from the train station. How Youngjae would know who was there to pick him up, he didn't know yet. Youngjae took his suitcase and made his way towards the door. The train was slowing down and he didn't want to rush to the door and possibly even miss his stop.

When he stepped out, he waited for the crowd to disperse and then walked around the platform, trying to find someone who was still standing around. At the other end of the platform he spotted him. Black hair, golden skin, it was undeniably that this young man was Daehyun.

Youngjae's heart skipped a beat as he approached the other male, he had clearly not expected Daehyun to pick him up personally but it was a rather pleasant surprise. If there was one word to describe Daehyun, it would be summer. Everything about him looked warm and welcoming, he was wearing shorts and a simple white t-shirt, his hair was tousled by the wind. Daehyun looked like a typical beach boy with his dark tan that the camera had never been able to capture. Youngjae liked it.

“Hey,” Youngjae said awkwardly. The other turned around to look at him. There was a moment of silence that made Youngjae feel even more awkward than he already did but then Daehyun's warm brown eyes crinkled when he started smiling. Daehyun's smile was breathtaking.

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