“I can’t believe I’m stuck with you two satans for Homeroom the entire year.”

“Aaw Seulgi..” Joy brought a hand to her chest, feigning hurt. “You can’t possibly mean that.”

“I really do,” Seulgi sighed, earning herself a shove in the shoulder from the latter. She looked at her friends and chuckled. To be honest, she was actually very happy with the arrangements. They had heard enough horror stories from older friends and relatives about how the first year of high school was usually brutal, so she was relieved to see her best friends in her class. Seulgi quickly realized, however, that most of their classmates had transferred to this high school from the same middle school they had all attended together.

Starting high school was both exciting and nerve-wracking for all of them. Seulgi had spent most of her time during their break worrying about their upcoming classes and if she would be able to keep up. Everything sounded scary somehow, like subjects with the word ‘advanced’ in them. Except Advanced Mathematics - Seulgi was very much looking forward to that.

Joy and Yeri, on the other hand, were not nearly as concerned and were going to, in their own words, ‘just wing it’.

They can start their very own sports brand with that tagline, Seulgi thought to herself.

She was about to continue daydreaming when she recalled the forms on their table. Their homeroom teacher, Ms Kim, had handed them out earlier and instructed the class to fill them out and hand it back to her by the end of the day. Seulgi had hers almost finished, except for the ‘Electives’ section.

Physical Education...hmm...Music? Hmm...do I need another science class? Ugh my head hurts...

“Why are you making a face?”

“Can’t decide which elective to take,” Seulgi sighed before looking up at her friends. “So what classes did you guys pick- who’s that?” Seulgi interrupted herself, motioning with her chin at a girl seated a few seats from behind them.

“Who’s who?” Yeri turned to the direction Seulgi was nudging at and saw one of their classmates who was very much focused on the piece of paper on their desk. “Oh, that girl? Wait. She’s been sitting there all morning. You only just noticed her?”

“Uhm… yes? Who is she? New transfer student?”

Having a new transfer student at the start of the new year wasn’t something that was odd, per se, but considering that they were in a small town where hardly anything interesting ever happened, it was rather novel. Besides, that girl was really pretty. Seulgi forgot her own question as she continued to watch the ‘new’ girl scribbling away.

“You’re staring...” Seulgi snapped out of her thoughts when Joy nudged her with her shoulder. “It’s rude to stare.”

“Oh...” said a bit absently as her gaze slid back to the girl.

“You’re doing it again...”

“Sorry, sorry.” Seulgi gave herself a shake and brought herself back to the present. “Who is she again?”

Yeri and Joy both rolled their eyes at their oblivious friend. That girl, they explained, was Irene Bae. She had apparently gone to the same middle school as the three of them, but Seulgi swore she had never seen her before and her friends rolled their eyes again.

“She was in the elite class, so that’s probably why you never noticed her before.”

“Yeah, the school’s ‘royalty’,” Joy added blithely, and Seulgi repeated the word ‘royalty’ questioningly.

“I heard she’s nice, though, always helping out anybody with their homework, always smiley and polite.”

“Her table was always crowded whenever we walked passed her class, and there would be kids from other classes hanging around outside, trying to get a peek at her.”

It was all brand new information for Seulgi and she was trying to think of any instances where they may have met, but ultimately came up with nothing. “I swear I’ve never seen her before.”

“It’s alright, Seulgi. We understand you’re not the brightest bulb around.”

“Yah!” Seulgi cried, then froze when she felt all eyes were on her after that tiny outburst. She smiled nervously at the room while mouthing a ‘sorry’.

“The baby tiger roared,” Yeri snickered and Seulgi shot her a look. The three of them fell back into discussing the possible electives when Irene got up from her seat and made her way towards where Ms. Kim was seated in the front of the class.

As she passed their table, Seulgi squinted at her form to try and read what Irene had picked for her elective class. It wasn’t a very good plan since Seulgi’s eyesight was terrible and she didn’t wear her glasses very often. But it did help that Irene’s handwriting was big and blocky so Seulgi could just make out the words: ‘Home Economics’.

When Irene had returned to her seat, Seulgi turned to Joy and Yeri. “Hey guys, what’s Home Economics?”

“Something the Patriarchy forces girls to take so that they can keep women in the kitchen-” Joy began, until Yeri cut her off.

“It’s like science, but with cupcakes!” Yeri enthused.

“Oh! I like cupcakes!”

“We are not taking Home Ec!” Joy protested. “Come on, there are so many other cool things to learn! We can make cupcakes at home.”

“Yes, but do you know how to make cupcakes?” Seulgi challenged, wiggling her eyebrows comically.

Sensing her two friends weren’t going to back down from anytime soon, Yeri suggested a little contest to decide if they were going to sign up for Home Ec or something else. “Let’s arm wrestle for it! If Seulgi wins, we’ll take Home Ec. If you win, we’ll take whatever you want. I’m fine with whichever.” Yeri looked at her two friends who nodded in agreement.

They took their positions and Yeri started the countdown. Seulgi knew she didn’t have any chance against Joy, of all people, because even though Joy looked dainty, she could easily put somebody in an inescapable headlock. She would have to use her wits.

Once Yeri said ‘Go!’, everything happened so fast. Seulgi pointed towards the hallways and yelled “Puppy!!”

“Where???!!”

And with Joy distracted, Seulgi easily pinned down her arm and put an end to the match.

“I can’t believe you cheated,” Joy whined. “Yeri, she cheated! Do over!”

“As the referee, I say Seulgi won fair and square because there were no rules to this match.”

Seulgi beamed and grabbed a pen to finish filling in her form before passing it to a pouting Joy.

“It won’t be that bad. At least we get to snack on whatever we make, right?”

And as the whole arm wrestling spectacle unfolded, Ms. Kim could only shake her head as she watched them. It’s gonna be an interesting year, she thought.

***

The first week of classes felt like an endless series of orientations and assemblies, welcoming the new students, and those who were returning. The following week, they finally got down to business and classes formally began. Seulgi found it wasn’t as hellish as she was led to believe, save for the occasional hustle to write down everything their teacher was telling them. They raced through material at a pace that left Seulgi hustling to take notes, and Seulgi was really impressed, both at their teachers’ mastery of their subjects, and her ability to keep up with school work so far.

Seulgi shook her head and decided that it was still too early in the school year to say that. She might accidentally jinx herself. Though with her luck, she may already have.

When the bell rang that morning, signaling the end of their 2nd period, Seulgi beamed and quickly packed her things. Getting up from her seat, she hurried both Joy and Yeri out the classroom door to go to their next class - the much-awaited Home Economics.

“Why are you in such a hurry? We have ten minutes.”

“She wants to meet Irene,” Yeri commented off-handedly, causing Seulgi to stop in her tracks.

“W-what are you talking about?”

“You’re being kinda obvious.” Yeri gave her a sympathetic look and patted her shoulder. “I sit behind you and see you turning back to take a look every now and then.”

“Do you like her, Seulgi?”

“S-she seems nice.”

“Nice, she says.”

“Look, can we talk about this later? Like, after class?”

“Thou hast raised a good point! Can’t keep the cupcakes waiting!” Yeri cheered and skipped towards the Home Ec room.

Their class was a relatively small one they found out when they entered the kitchen-like classroom near the cafeteria - not more than ten students. Seulgi was happy to see Irene already seated at one of the workstations with another girl beside her. Seulgi recognised the other girl - she was from the same middle school they were all from. Wendy, if she recalled correctly. They had been in a few classes together, but hadn’t spoken much.

“Let’s sit here,” Seulgi said, pulling up a stool right next to Wendy at the workstation. Joy and Yeri rolled their eyes, but had the grace to keep their comments to themselves as Irene and Wendy turned to greet them.

Seulgi was about to introduce herself to Irene when somebody burst into the room.

“Hey, guys. Sorry I’m...” she took a look at her wrist watch before continuing, “two minutes late. Not a very first good impression, I know. Just let me settle down for a bit and we can get things going.”

Seulgi leaned over to Joy and whispered, “Who’s that?”

“Our teacher. She’s pretty new apparently.”

It took their teacher a while to set everything to her preference up at the front of the room, and once she was satisfied with the arrangements, she turned to greet the small class properly. “Good morning. I’m Yoona.” she turned to write her name on the blackboard.

Yeri barely caught herself from making a comment, but it didn’t go unnoticed by Yoona. “Yes, I know what you’re thinking.” Yoona paused and smiled to herself. “I get that a lot. So, you may call me Yoona, or Ms. Im if you insist but I’d rather you didn’t. Now, I know what this looks like,” she continued, gesturing around at all of the aging appliances set up around the classroom into different workstations, “but this class isn’t going to be based entirely around cooking. We have a lot of different life skills to cover before the year is through, so let’s go around the room for a quick self-introductory session. Would you like to start us off?” Yoona pointed at Irene, who nodded shyly before introducing herself in the tiniest voice.

“Hello, my name is Irene. Nice to meet all of you.”

“How are you in the kitchen, Irene?”

“Uhm..I can manage myself quite well. I’ve cooked meals for my family before.”

“Excellent, because today we’re going to skip right to the good stuff. We can worry about taxes later. Next please.” Yoona nodded at Wendy.

“Taxes?” Joy hissed at Seulgi who gave her a questioning shrug.

“Hi, I’m Wendy and I’m into baking! I usually bake on weekends with my mom.”

“Impressive!” Yoona was relieved to have at least a couple of students who were competent in the kitchen, after the semi-disaster of a class she’d had the year before.

Seulgi introduced herself and gave some generic excuse about wanting to learn how to cook something for her mom and Joy snorted. Raising her hand, Joy interrupted Seulgi. “Ms. Yoona, I think you should know that there was this one time Seulgi threw a whole uncut orange into the blender and almost broke it when she turned it on-”

“IT WAS THAT ONE TIME!”

“One time too many for that poor, unsuspecting blender.”

***

Yoona split them into groups of three for their first class activity. Seulgi tried not to be too disappointed when she saw that Irene was on different team with Wendy and another girl, who was on the taller side, with a very unique and awfully familiar haircut…

Was I not paying attention during introductions?

Seulgi quickly realized it was Amber, an acquaintance she had gone head to head with during middle school physical education. Irene’s team seemed so solid, while Seulgi was stuck with Joy and Yeri.

Dear Lord, please let us create something edible. It doesn’t have to be pretty, just edible.

The instructions seemed simple enough, Seulgi thought: a single layer chocolate cake. They just needed to mix everything up and pop the tray into the oven. Of course there were measurements that needed to be followed but that was what kitchen scales are for. What could go wrong?

Joy and Yeri gave the responsibility of creaming to Seulgi, after seeing how it would involve holding onto to the hand mixer for a prolonged amount of time, something that didn’t sound appealing to either of them. They were there for a good time, not a long time. Seulgi didn’t mind; all she had to do was mix the butter and sugar together until it became light and fluffy. Yeri volunteered to crack the eggs they would need to add into the batter when it was ready.

“Don’t forget to add the eggs in one by one later.” Joy reminded, but her voice was drowned by the sound of all the hand mixers in the class.

“What did you say??” Seulgi asked, her voice slightly raised.

“ADD EGGS IN ONE BY ONE LATER.”

“WHHHAAT??”

“ADD.” Joy pointed at the bowl eggs Yeri had cracked earlier and then pointed at the batter. “TO THIS.”

“MMM WHATCHA SSAAY???”

Joy rolled her eyes and grabbed her notepad. Scribbling the instructions, she held it up in front of Seulgi and the latter finally nodded.

Had the hand mixers been a little quieter, Seulgi would’ve heard a tiny giggle coming from across the classroom.

***

Seulgi glanced over to Irene’s workstation and saw that her group was already sifting all the flour into a mixing bowl. They were working efficiently and things seemed to be going well. Then she looked back at her own workstation, where Joy and Yeri were both hunched over the digital scale, scooping flour into the bowl one teaspoon at a time as they analyzed the weight. Seulgi, having observed how Wendy just poured the flour out of the bag and into the bowl, suggested that they try to do the same.

Joy nodded because it sounded like a faster process and lifted the small bag of flour. But before Yeri could tell her to take it easy, Joy had already accidentally emptied half the bag, and a cloud of flour settled all over the bowl, the scale and the table top. Yoona was watching as it happened and went over to their workstation.

“I’m sorry about the mess, Ms. Yoona.”

“It’s alright, accidents happen.” Yoona patted Joy’s head and told her where the table cloth was so they could clean it up. “Don’t worry about it, okay?”

Pouring flour into the bowl was one thing, sifting it was another. Joy and Yeri were trying their best to minimise the potential of spilling more flour by playing it safe and transferring the flour one spoonful at a time - the thought of having to do extra clean up work was enough to keep the two satans from being their usual reckless selves. It was when they were half way through that they realised they were missing a pair of hands.

Yeri looked up from the sift to see Seulgi examining the portion of cocoa powder Yoona had prepared for them earlier.

“Hey, what are you looking at? The cocoa isn’t gonna talk to you.”

Seulgi looked at Yeri with an odd expression before asking “Have you ever tasted cocoa powder before?”

A gleam appeared in Yeri’s eyes and she dropped whatever she was doing to reach for the bag of cocoa powder Seulgi was offering her. Seulgi’s finger was already covered in cocoa, having dipped it in slightly before passing it to Yeri. Joy got curious, too and soon the three of them were counting down from 3 and gave the powder a taste.

“Ewwwwwww!!!”

“Yuck!! What even is this taste? Yuck yuck!”

Irene, who was concentrating on adding eggs into her butter and sugar, looked up from the mixing bowl when she heard weird noises coming from the workstation opposite theirs. A tiny giggle bubbled free when she saw her three classmates’ faces contorted with disgust from what she assumed to be from trying the cocoa powder. Such dumb dumbs, she thought.

“Oh, I forgot to mention. Please don’t try the cocoa powder raw. It’s very bitter.” Yoona chuckled and told the three to wash the bitterness down with water.

“Ms. Yoona, there’s something wrong with this cocoa powder.” Joy insisted. “It doesn’t taste like chocolate at all!”

Shaking her head, Yoona told everybody to pause their work while she explained the difference between chocolate as candies and cocoa powder. Irene, Wendy and Amber listened intently to the explanation, being the perfect example of good students while Seulgi was trying her best to understand the terms their teacher was using. Joy and Yeri… were doing their best, too.

“I’m still not convinced,” Joy whispered after Yoona finished.

“Don’t worry, I have a plan.” Yeri winked and quietly slipped away from their workstation.

She reappeared a few seconds later with a new bag of cocoa powder and Seulgi’s eyes widened. “Yah, where did you get that?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered.”

“Did you steal that?!” Seulgi hissed in a high-pitched voice.

“Me? Steal?” Yeri feigned offence. “Such petty acts are beneath me.”

Seulgi gave Yeri a pointed look. “Okay, fine. I swapped it with theirs,” Yeri confessed, glancing briefly at Irene’s table. “But if the teacher says it’s not spoiled, then it shouldn’t even matter, right? It’s all good.”

***

But despite Yeri’s declaration, it should be noted that things were in fact not ‘all good’. When the ovens dinged and the cakes were cool enough to be removed from their trays, there was already an obvious difference in the groups’ cakes that were baked that morning. Yoona had expected as much. From what she saw, Seulgi’s team’s cake went into the oven a lumpy mess and it was not at all surprising when it came out looking dry and crumbly. As for its taste, the faces they made after taking a tiny bite told Yoona that it was probably too sweet.

Irene’s team’s cake, on the other hand, came out perfectly. The texture was firm and smooth and it tasted exactly what a chocolate cake should taste like.

“Well done, you guys! That wasn’t so hard, was it?” She looked at Seulgi’s team and saw that they were hesitant to nod. “Now it’s time to feast! Why don’t you guys try each others’ cake?”

“No thanks, Ms. Yoona. I want to see tomorrow’s sunrise.” Amber turned down the suggestion almost immediately, but Yeri was not having it.

“Excuse you, this is a masterpiece! Take a bite and you’ll understand!” she insisted, plating a piece of cake for Amber.

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

“I’ll try it,” Wendy said, the angel that she is. Joy opened in warning, but it was too late. Wendy took a huge bite and bless her heart, smiled through the pain. “It’s… good…”

Irene and Amber cackled loudly, unable to help themselves at Wendy’s telling expression.

Yoona eventually took a bite of the semi-disaster of a cake once she managed to compose herself after seeing Wendy’s reaction. She was able to mask her reaction better than Wendy and gave them tips on how to improve when it was time to bake their next cake. Seulgi listened attentively and mentally made a note to watch some baking videos when she had the time. She looked at her teammates, noticing that Joy and Yeri seemed a little down and disappointed with their first Home Ec class.

“So much for an easy A,” Joy grumbled slightly.

“I’m so tired.”

Seulgi wanted to cheer them up but didn’t know how. Perhaps they would all come to like Home Economics after a few more classes. Or perhaps things would stay the same till the end of the year. Seulgi didn’t know what was going to happen, but she was pretty excited to find out. Besides, tomorrow was another day and if the other teams could continue to make good food, then all hope was not lost.