Rented Apartment
Victoria, Hong Kong
 
Eggs and engagements. Though slightly odd, they were a harmless pairing on most days, even with a generous helping of mashed potatoes on the side. But today was not like most days, because in less than an hour, they would make Kang Seulgi a twenty-four-year-old widow.

Seulgi did not know this yet, so for now she was happy to listen to Namjoon’s seventh retelling of how Hoseok had proposed to him. This was, after all, why she and Yoongi had driven down from Seoul for a holiday with their friends. The last time all four of them had been together was two years earlier, when they had met on a budget Asian tour. Toasting the engagement was a good excuse for a reunion and excessive amounts of soju.
 
The trip was also Yoongi’s chance to continue his long-time pursuit of the perfect egg roll. His passion for eggs almost rivaled his devotion to chickens, though generally he preferred the latter off a plate than on it. Yoongi staunchly believed you could get through anything if you had a chicken, and the clucking kind, in his expert opinion, had far more uses than the ones nesting on warm mashed potatoes and gravy.

Seulgi never fully understood her husband’s ethos on poultry and chalked it up just another item on his long list of quirks. His rabid love for hip-hop topped that list, while his two-year reign as Long Song champion fell somewhere in the middle. (Seulgi was, by default, first runner-up, being the only other contestant in their Saturday-night tournaments.) Still, she loved all of Yoongi’s quirks equally, and the sum of them even more.

Accompanying Yoongi on his egg excursion was to have been the first thing on Sueilgi’s morning agenda, but a rogue prawn from the previous night’s fried noodles had other plans. Seulgi insisted that Yoongi go on his egg hunt without her, and Hoseok decided to tag along. She didn’t have a hard time guessing why Namjoon had opted to stay behind and play nurse to his captive, albeit slightly green, audience.

Seulgi flushed the toilet and drowned the last lines of Namjoon’s latest blow-by-blow account from the other side of the bathroom door. She squirted bright pink soap onto her palm during the interlude of her gastric flamenco. The scent of strawberries, or rather what strawberries might smell like if they were made from plastic and disinfectant, filled the white-tiled room. She turned off the tap and stepped into the bedroom. “Hoseok certainly outdid himself. I will never look at cheesecake in