Waking up

First Winter at Fire Lodge
Please Subscribe to read the full chapter
Chaeyoung woke up to find Jisoo in her arms, snoring lightly. "Oh yeah," she thought, "I could get used to this." She leaned over and planted a kiss on the tip of Jisoo's nose. "Wake up, sweetie! We've got to go make French toast."   Jisoo rolled over, smacking her lips, and seemed surprised to find Chaeyoung there. "Well hello," she said with a smile. "This is all right!"   Chaeyoung gave her a hug and kissed her on the forehead. "Much as I'd love to stay here all day, we've got to go down and get to work on breakfast."   In just a matter of minutes they were both dressed, teeth and hair brushed, and padding down the stairs to the kitchen.   "You're on bacon this morning," Chaeyoung said. "Warm up the griddle, fill it with bacon. When the bacon's done, put it all on a warmed plate, refill the griddle, and start the whole process over. By the time you finish that, I should have the French toast ready to go on the griddle."   "There are two secrets to French toast," Chaeyoung said as she started mixing eggs and milk in a baking pan. "The first one is to use good bread - if it's not a bread you'd enjoy eating plain, it's not worth making into French toast. I like to use a challah or a brioche. The second secret is instead of using cinnamon, using pie spice. It's got a mix of cinnamon with nutmeg and some other spices, so your French toast will have a more complicated flavor profile. The diner's won't be able to tell what's different, but they'll know the difference between this and any French toast they've had before."   Chaeyoung looked up and was pleased to see that Jisoo was paying attention to her instructions while also keeping her eyes on the bacon. She decided to give her apprentice a challenge. As Jisoo was taking the last of the bacon off the griddle, clearing the way for Chaeyoung to cook the French toast, Chaeyoung called out to her. "Jisoo, peel, core, and wedge 3 apples. Put them in a saucepan with a quarter cup of sugar and 2 teaspoons of pie spice. Cook it, stirring frequently, until the apples are softened and the sugar's all melted."   "Yes, Chef!" Jisoo responded with a wink and a saucy grin. She took some apples and a paring knife over to the prep table and got to work. After a few minutes of relative silence, broken only by the sounds of Chaeyoung flipping the French toast and Jisoo cutting the apples, the peace was broken by a yell from Jisoo. "OW! DAMMIT!" Chaeyoung looked over just in time to see Jisoo bleeding profusely from a cut in her hand.   "Get to the sink and rinse your hand," Chaeyoung said, running for the first aid kit. She cleaned Jisoo's hand with an antiseptic scrub, rinsed it again, and took a look at the wound. "You got lucky - it's long but not deep, and you don't appear to have hit any major structures. Wiggle your fingers for me." Jisoo did, and found she still had full function of all her fingers. Chaeyoung taped a gauze bandage in place over Jisoo's wound and was just finishing putting a nitrile glove on her hand when they both smelled burning French toast.   Chaeyoung sprinted for the stove, scooped the French toast off the griddle into the trash, and immediately laid out a new set of slices. "How are you feeling? Do you need to sit down?" She turned around and saw that Jisoo was already cleaning up the apples and getting ready to sanitize the prep table.   "I was stupid," Jisoo said. "I kept telling myself to be careful and not to go too fast, but I wanted you to be proud of me, so I kept trying to work faster and I cut myself and ruined the compote." Chaeyoung could see tears welling up in her eyes.   "Hey, come here," Chaeyoung said, putting one arm around Jisoo's shoulders as she flipped French toast with the other hand. "If that was anyone's fault, it was mine. I was trying to push you to help you develop your skills, and I pushed you too far."   "That's sweet of you to say," Jisoo said, resting her head on Chaeyoung's shoulder, "but I know my skills - especially my knife skills - aren't up to what to what someone in this job would normally have, and I know you're having to work extra hard to make up for me, and I feel bad about it."   Jisoo looked over at the prep table. "Let me go sanitize the prep table so I can get some fresh apples and try again."   ^^^^^   Jennie got up and showered. Afterward, she took wrapped in a towel in front of her closet trying to decide what to wear. She wanted to dress nicer than usual, but not so much nicer that it was obvious she was trying to dress nice. She finally settled on a black turtleneck, jeans, and her black boots.   The butterflies continued swarming in her stomach as she dried her hair. Her mother had always said that how a guest felt at check-out was far more important than how they felt at check-in. When they were checking in, they had the excitement and anticipation buoying them up, but when they were checking out, all they had were their memories of their time spent with you. That's what they'd take with them, and that's what they'd share with others during the off-season.   Putting on her best "customer service smil
Please Subscribe to read the full chapter
Like this story? Give it an Upvote!
Thank you!
brithistorian
After reading the first comments to come in and doing some serious thinking, I've decided to mark this one complete. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you stick around to see what I write next. ^_^

Comments

You must be logged in to comment
Astraea21 #1
Chapter 19: Can't wait for the sequel. :) Awesome!
Astraea21 #2
Chapter 1: Looking forward to finishing this in no time. :)
IROSEI #3
Chapter 19: Wooooooooo!!! I'm so happy n.n
Daddy_Lisa
#4
Chapter 18: This is the ending? Seemed very empty but I'll take it
oeschinen
#5
Chapter 18: I am actually quite satisfied with the ending. If you, the author, feels that it has come to an end then this is the end :)
Personally, I ended one fic I wrote too because I thought the characters were happy enough and they are right where they need to be, even if there were a few more subplots and scenes I wanted to put in; in this case, the two main couples (Chaesoo and Jenlisa) already have a little bit of something going on when they all started as barely knowing each other.

Of course, then again, I'd like to point out that you tagged this as "slice of life". The genre came from anime which I think you're familiar with. SOL are known to revolve around a few characters just living their life working in their professions as they deal with normal life situations; marriage, break-ups, crushes, new/losing jobs etc. It's known to not have a plot and just revolve around well "life" which was what I felt for "First Winter at Fire Lodge" and I think it did stay true to the genre indeed :)

I enjoyed this. I'm on board and eager to see new fics that you'll come up with ^^
mitsii_chickin
#6
Chapter 18: Ahhhhh this is the end?
Casti1004
#7
Chapter 18: Awww this was cute
LALISAKIM #8
Chapter 18: Yay~ Jenlisa *i’m screaming*
ps. HAPPY ROSIE POSIE DAY
mangoshu
#9
Chapter 18: Oh~so we get to choose what we wanted?!
Ok~~then I'll choose "THE END" for <Fire Lodge>? Don't get me wrong though. Honestly, I like this story as it's slightly different. More real life in a way? But I dunno~~from the moment Lisa asked Jennie for a coffee date to Lisa's plan for a 2nd fire ceremony, I already felt that it's coming close to an end? And when I saw the title for this chapter, I'm quite sure it's the end already. But then again cos I couldn't see the word "completed" under its status, so yeah....I was actually confused in a way???
So yup, an end to this and a beginning to a NEW story, haha!