But all of those plans had been horribly derailed when her dad and brother Nate died in a car crash in Florida at the beginning of her junior year in college. Over two years had passed since the accident, but the same sadness tightened Soojung's throat. Missing them had become part of her being the same way Sehun's friendship had taken on a whole new dimension after the crash. 

Her dad had been a surrogate father for him. And since she and Sehun had both grown up without mothers, losing her dad and brother left them both feeling like orphans. Besides her cousin Keera, he was the only family she had left. 

Sehun's easy laughter and soothing voice, amplified in the cavernous studio, pulled Soojung back from her melancholy memories. Blinking, she focused on the last portion of the taping.

"Now," Sehun said, aiming a perfect smile at the cameras, "this is where a lot of you at home might run into trouble, but I'm going to show you a little trick." He was making his famous Chocolate Kiss muffins, the ones that constantly sold-out at Sugar, the dessert shop he co-owned with Sam Wyatt, a fellow Culinary Institute graduate.

Even though she'd seen Sehun make these same muffins dozens of times, Soojung couldn't take her eyes away from him. He rarely did anything on a basic level, and those muffins were a perfect example of that. Rather than a simple batch of chocolate baked goods, he upped the ante by combining them with a hand-made chocolate mousse filling and a warm vanilla sauce. He'd already baked the muffins and removed them from the oven, filling the studio with the homey aromas of chocolate and vanilla bean.

While effortlessly whisking a mixture of gourmet chocolate, ground espresso, butter and dark rum in a double boiler, he spoke into the cameras. "We're just about done with the chocolate here, so let me show you my secret weapon for creating the perfect, knee-buckling mousse." 

Removing the chocolate from the heat, he grabbed a carton of heavy cream and a small, cardboard box. "This, my friends," he said, holding up the box, "is plain gelatin. Now, I know, you're wondering, 'Sehun, what're you going to do with that?' And I'll tell you if you give me a second.'" 

He chuckled to himself and ripped the box open. "Adding just a bit of gelatin to your mousse keeps it from getting so moist that it turns into a wet pudding. It'd be a nice pudding," he pointed out, sprinkling some gelatin into a small portion of the cream, which he'd set aside, "but it'd still be pudding." 

The cream then went over the gas range for a few moments. "We're not boiling the cream, guys, we're just heating things up a little, incorporating the gelatin." The mixing cup received a few expert swirls from his wrist. 

"Okay, now set that aside for a second because we're about to take out some aggression on the rest of this cream." A handheld mixer went into the cream for several minutes, all the while, Sehun chatted with the camera like an old friend. 

"...and the first time I made this recipe, I had to have been about fourteen," he shook his head. "I was working through summer in a bakery owned by the father of a good friend," Soojung smiled at that, "and I ended up with a football-sized wad of chocolate mush. Let's just say that was the last time I got to make a mousse for the next few years." 

Pausing, he checked the stiffness of the cream and declared it, "Ready to rumble."

He folded the fluffy, white-peaked cream into the melted chocolate bit by bit, until only a few streaks of white remained. "In this case, streaking is absolutely acceptable," Sehun joked, then, grinning, cocked an eyebrow at the camera. "I'll give you a second to think about that one. You'll get it."

From below the counter, he pulled out a chilled batch of mousse he'd brought from home, peeling back the layer of plastic wrap. 

"Now, for the fun part." Spilling six of the jumbo-size muffins onto a platter, he held up a finger to the camera. "Give me two seconds to make the vanilla sauce and I'll show you how to create a bit of heaven in your kitchen." Heavy cream, sugar and real vanilla, flavored with a dash of espresso, quickly melted in a copper-bottom saucepan. "All right, magic time," Sehun announced.

The showboating ended, his entire attention focused on the final creation. "Let's just...make a little room for our mousse here," he pressed into the top of three muffins with a small ice cream scoop. 

A thin, wispy puff of chocolate-scented steam escaped. With the precision of a surgeon, Sehun dropped a heaping scoop of chilled mousse into the warm, moist muffin centers. And when he topped the already decadent confection with the hot vanilla sauce, audible sighs issued up from around the studio. 

Soojung grinned. Sehun's desserts tended to have that effect on people.

Laughing, Sehun turned his attention back to the cameras. "You have no idea how many groans of pleasure I just heard here in the studio." A playful smile spread across his handsome face. "Lucky for them, I'm willing to share. But you'll have to make these on your own to find out how fabulous they are." A muffin and mousse laden fork found its way to his mouth and he rolled his eyes as he chewed. "Believe me, they're awesome. Thanks for watching, guys, and for letting me sweeten your day."

"Cut," the producer, Stan, called out. "Sehun, you were great," he proclaimed. "Let's take a five minute break and we'll come back and do a few promos and sound-bites." 

The studio lights went on, making Soojung blink at the sudden brightness. She'd taken maybe one step toward Sehun before she saw the absolute stampede of women headed his way. Two she recognized as hair and make-up, but the others, she was certain, were simply there to meet Sehun Oh, celebrity chef.

She'd need a stun gun to get anywhere near him in the next few minutes. She rolled her eyes and turned toward the studio door. Maybe she'd be able to find a nearby bathroom without getting lost in the studio's maze-like hallways.

"Soojung!" Sehun's voice stopped her. She turned, but didn't make a move toward him. Those women looked downright frenzied. Keeping a safe distance, she raised her eyebrows, silently asking what he wanted. "Water," he half-shouted. "They've only got mineral water." Which, she knew, he hated. "I think I saw a vending machine downstairs..." he trailed off, giving her puppy-dog eyes. 

An exasperated sigh escaped her, but she waved her hand at him. "I'll get it, don't worry." She might as well have been talking to herself, though, because he'd already turned his attention back to his little fan club.

Typical Sehun, Soojung thought, as she walked into the hallway. She got stuck running errands while he basked in the limelight with no idea how much time and effort she put into making his career smooth sailing. Yeah, that was part of her job description, but he didn't really make it easy on her, either. 

She grimaced. Just today, when they'd shown up late, Sehun had been whisked away to hair and make-up while she'd been stuck practically being chewed out by Stan, the producer.

The same producer who'd just gushed about how great a job Sehun had done, an hour earlier had been ranting about how they were on a time-crunch and didn't have the luxury of waiting around for people. Five minutes later, Sehun swept in, wiped away any lingering irritation and set about creating his insanely rich, but utterly addictive, muffins.

As she visualized them, she realized that she really, really wanted one. A chocolate fix was the best way to boost one of her darker moods and the longer she thought about her role as Sehun's personal assistant, the more depressed she became.

It had all started out as a temporary position; she'd come to work for him a few months after the car accident. Part-way through her junior year, she'd just fallen apart and, when she told Sehun she wanted to quit school, he'd insisted that she only take a leave of absence and work for him for a month or two, six tops.

But that had been right around the time he'd moved back from Boston and opened Sugar with Sam. Almost overnight, the place became a huge success and so did Sehun. By then, things were much too busy for Soojung to go back to school, so she decided to stick around over the summer. Then that turned into 'just until spring semester starts.' And, before she knew it, here