“Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.” Yoona paused and looked at Yeri who understood her reference. “Yesterday was both amusing and educational. But let’s take it easy today and go back to the basics.” She turned around and wrote ‘Home Ec 101’ on the board. “We’re going to go through some of the basics first and-” Yoona paused when she saw Wendy raise her hand. “Yes, Wendy?”

“Ms. Yoona, do we need textbooks for this class? I noticed there weren’t any books listed for this so I went to the library yesterday and borrowed some of these..” Wendy pointed at the stack of books in front of her.

A soft ‘nerd’ could be heard and Yoona raised a brow at Joy, who noticed and seemed to have shrunk in her seat. Yoona shook her head and smiled before turning her attention back to Wendy. “Thank you for noticing! Well done, you! No, there will not be any textbooks or reading materials for this class. There are books that you guys can use as sources of reference.” Yoona briefly scanned the books Wendy had brought along with her and pronounced them adequate for their class, should the need arise.

Beaming, Wendy opened her notebook to start taking notes for the day.

Seulgi was pleasantly surprised during the class when Yoona started talking about other things besides cooking. It somehow never crossed her mind that Home Ec was more than just learning how to be more useful in the kitchen - it was also teaching them how to competently manage their homes in the future.

Well, I guess taking this class wasn’t such a bad idea after all, Seulgi thought as she recalled instances where her mother would grumble at her, wishing that she could be more of a help at home.

“Seulgi? Hello hello? Moshi moshi?”

Seulgi snapped out of her thoughts when Joy shook her. “Huh?”

“Stop daydreaming. Class is over, we gotta go. It’s lunch time!”

Seeing how everybody was already half way through the door, Seulgi scrambled to pack her things and was the last to leave, apologising to Yoona for making her wait to lock up.

“It’s alright. Run along! See you kids tomorrow!”

“See you tomorrow, Ms. Yoona!” They waved before disappearing into the crowd, headed towards the cafeteria.

They managed to get their lunches and seats relatively quickly, an amazing feat considering they had to sit at separate tables sometimes during their first week because they weren’t fast enough. Seulgi took a look at her food and sighed before picking up her cutlery.

“Yah, what’s wrong with you? The food is actually quite decent here.”

“I know… it’s not the food…” Seulgi picked at her greens before scooping them up and transferring them to Joy’s plate. “Today is already Thursday and Irene is only in one of my classes.”

“That is so sad,” Yeri deadpanned. “Alexa, play Des-” before Joy shoved a spoonful of noodles into .

“Who do you have classes with the most?” Joy asked, unconcerned when Yeri smacked the table, choking.

Seulgi took a bite of her own noodles and seemingly went into deep thought before mumbling Wendy and Amber’s names.

“So you’re friendly with them now?” Joy asked, rolling her eyes when Seulgi placed another piece of green onto her plate.

“I don’t think so? We didn’t get to talk much in class except for Home Ec. The other classes aren’t as easy going as Ms. Yoona’s.”

Yeri, having recovered, joined in Joy’s sigh of agreement as they took stock of the teachers they had seen so far. From the looks of it, though they were more strict, they seemed like rational individuals and hopefully weren’t the type of teachers who would pick on students just because they could. Seulgi shook off the terrifying thought and tried to focus on her lunch but was once again distracted when she spotted Irene, Wendy, and Amber walking towards their table.

“Yo! Mind if we sit here, too?” Amber asked with a toothy grin. “Everywhere else is full.”

Yeri and Joy looked at Seulgi, who looked like her brain was rebooting, and sighed. If that was going to happen every time Irene was near, Seulgi was going to be a new kind of trouble for the satan twins.

“Sure! Grab a chair,” Joy welcomed.

“You must really like vegetables,” Amber said, motioning to Joy’s plate with her fork after getting situated.

“They’re actually Seul-”

“She sure does!” Seulgi spoke up quickly. “How do you think she got so tall?” She reached up and patted Joy on the head.

“Hey!”

“Uh, huh,” Amber said, eyeing the two of them suspiciously, while Irene just snorted into her milk.

Success, Seulgi thought, unable to help a smile at making Irene laugh.

“What other classes are you guys taking?” Wendy asked, the only one of them who seemed to have brought her lunch from home. She began taking the items out one by one and arranging them in front of herself.

“Math,” Yeri groaned. She rested her head on her arm and was scrolling away on her phone, having long since finished both with lunch and the conversation.

“The usual stuff, I guess,” Seulgi amended. “Are any of you thinking of joining the clubs?”

Amber chewed on her sandwich thoughtfully while the rest of the table fell silent. Seulgi risked a glance over to Irene to see if she would answer, but unfortunately for Seulgi, Irene caught her look and pointed at herself. “Me? No way. I like going straight home after class.”

Seulgi couldn’t help being a little disappointed at that. If Irene was only going to be in one of her classes, Seulgi had hoped she might at least be able to spend time with her in a club.

“Thinking about track,” Amber offered around another mouthful. “What about you?” she asked Seulgi with a mischievous look, wondering if they might rekindle their middle school rivalry.

“Art club,” she answered simply, and Amber’s face screwed up in disappointment.

“Art?”

Seulgi looked a little embarrassed at that. She didn’t expect to have her decision questioned in such an incredulous tone. “What’s wrong with art?” she asked with a bit of a pout.

“Nothing’s wrong with art,” Wendy defended quickly, and Irene nodded emphatically, though she too thought someone with Seulgi’s athletic aptitude would have been more inclined to join a sport.

“Ol’ Slug here spent all summer taking pictures,” Yeri volunteered, though her eyes never left her phone.

“Of you,” Seulgi reminded her, frowning at the epithet. Yeri made a kissing noise from behind her screen.

“So you’re into photography?” Wendy asked, slowly unwrapping her sandwich. Joy watched her careful movements wondering how she was going to finish before the bell rang. Wendy caught her gaze and motioned to her sandwich, as if offering for Joy to try it. Joy shook her head with a little laugh, though she did help herself to one of Wendy’s sliced apples.

Seulgi looked a little sheepish, not daring to risk a glance at Irene as she answered Wendy. “A little. I’m still learning about it, which is why I wanted to join the club.”

“Do they only do photography?” Irene asked, forcing Seulgi’s gaze to focus on her.

“No, I think it’s all kinds of art, but they do have a dark room!”

Irene quirked an eyebrow, her interest piqued. “You develop your own pictures?”

Seulgi shook her head vigorously. “No, no, but I want to learn!”

“Instead of focusing so much on taking pictures, maybe we should have practiced helping out around the kitchen a little more,” Yeri bemoaned. She was watching Joy pilfer another slice of Wendy’s apples and was reminded of their home economics class. She still couldn’t believe Seulgi had basically tricked them into dooming their GPA for the whole year.

“No time like the present!” Wendy said brightly, pretending to ignore her dwindling pile of apple slices.

Amber made a derisive noise. “Or maybe Ms. Yoona will give up and we’ll do personal budgets for the rest of the year.”

“At least your cake tasted like it was supposed to.”

“And looked like it was supposed to.”

Wendy frowned as she regarded the dejected team. Baking was one of her personal specialties, and she had been so excited for their first assignment, but seeing the abject misery displayed in front of her, she couldn’t help worrying about their morale, especially if the assignments continued to get more challenging as the year wore on.

“Why did you sign up for Home Ec, then?” Irene asked curiously. It seemed like the others had all but given up already, which was a little sad, considering they were barely into their second week.

“Well!” Yeri began, finally looking up from her phone with a mischievous expression. “You see, Seulgi-”

Seulgi leapt out of her seat and nearly knocked Joy over in an attempt to get to Yeri, but thankfully the bell rang before the little miscreant could say anything more. Seulgi sighed with relief as Yeri cackled and stood up from the table, leaving a rather confused Irene to contemplate the exchange.

***

If Seulgi thought she was free from further embarrassment, however, she was sorely mistaken as Irene had followed her out to her locker from the lunch room.

After opening it, Seulgi set her bag on the floor, rifling through it as she tried to decide which books to leave behind, and which she’d need for the rest of the day. Did she just want to carry everything so she wouldn’t have to stop by again on her way home? Or did she want to have some mercy on her back?

“Is that your camera?” a small voice asked, and Seulgi yelped in surprise, only just missing the bottom of the door of her locker as she quickly stood.

Irene laughed and clapped her hands in glee. She made a mental note to direct her mischievous attentions Seulgi’s way more often. Seulgi grinned at Irene’s delight - she knew it was at her own expense, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

She carefully lifted the small camera off the top of the stack of textbooks in her locker and held it out for Irene to take. Irene held out her hands to receive it, surprised that Seulgi seemed to trust her with it so easily. Seulgi used that as an excuse to crouch again and finish sorting through her things.

“Yup, that’s it. I’m hoping to save up for something a little bigger… I want one of those old fashioned-looking ones,” she said, looking up at Irene and making a rectangle with her fingers, capturing Irene’s face in her ‘frame’. She paused, watching Irene scroll through the pictures on the digital display, wondering what she thought about the pictures she had taken.

Irene caught her looking and gave her a V with her fingers. Seulgi made a clicking noise with her tongue and then quickly dropped her gaze to hide her embarrassment.

“Take a real one,” Irene insisted, holding the camera down to her.

Seulgi carefully accepted it and stood up. “You want me to take your picture? Right now?”

Irene nodded with an expression that left no room for argument.

Seulgi felt like she was moving within a dream as she held the camera up, watching Irene appear in the digital display. But before she could get the angle right, the bell rang once again and the illusion was broken.

Irene pouted as she looked up and down the quickly emptying hallway, and Seulgi shrugged with a wane smile. “Maybe later?”

“Bring it to Home Economics tomorrow,” Irene suggested as she started to walk backwards towards her class, away from Seulgi. “Hopefully we’ll get to make something and you can ‘document’ it!”

Food photography wasn’t exactly high on Seulgi’s list of potential subjects, but what was she supposed to say when Irene flashed her that uneven grin? All Seulgi could do was smile in response, barely managing a “You bet!” and a small wave.

***

The final bell of the day had gone off and teachers were packing up to go home after a long, hard day of facing teenagers. Yoona sagged into her seat, having returned from her class, and sighed. She still needed to plan for the home ec class the next day. She had initially written everything down in her notebook - a temporary teaching plan that she might have to axe almost entirely because she overestimated the competency of the students in her class.

“Why the serious face, Yoong? Isn’t it a bit too early? It’s only the second week of classes.”

Yoona looked up from her notebook to see Taeyeon walking towards her own seat across from hers. “The kids’ first cooking class didn’t go very smoothly so I’m trying to restructure my lesson plan. I had them go back to the basics today and half of them looked a bit bored.”

“Aah...” Taeyeon understood what her troubles were because Yoona brought back a few slices of cake to the teachers’ lounge yesterday and some pieces did not look very appetising. “How about something simple? So that they don’t lose their confidence. So that you don’t lose your confidence. Like an omelette, maybe?”

Yoona’s eyes lit up at the mention of omelettes. They were easy enough to make and had only a handful of steps. Ingredients were also minimal. The kids should be able to handle it, or at least she would only have to worry about one particular team, the rest should be able to handle themselves. It was only eggs and perhaps cheese or ham and bacon. “You are a genius, Taeyeon! Thank you!”

Taeyeon gave a hearty laugh at how gracious Yoona looked and leaned over to pat her head. “Good luck tomorrow, Yoong! Bring back some good omelettes for us to snack on.”

“You got it!”

“Taengoo! Let’s go!” a voice called out from the hallway and Taeyeon’s eyes widened.

“Oops! Gotta run, Yoong. It’s date night tonight!”

Yoona’s right eye disappeared into a crescent line as she laughed at Taeyeon hastily packing her things. “Have fun, Taeyeon! Don’t stay out too late. It’s a weeknight, ya know...” Yoona teased and Taeyeon made a face at her.

“Thanks for the reminder. See you tomorrow!” and Taeyeon jetted to the nearest exit, leaving Yoona alone in the teachers’ lounge to think of her lesson plan.

She stared at her notebook for a little while longer before fishing out her phone from her bag to set a reminder to look up simple omelette recipes later when she got home. Yoona decided to call it a day and hoped for the best.

***

Seulgi sighed when the bell went off at the end of her Advanced Maths class - she was only just starting to understand what their teacher had spent the entire lesson trying to explain. She had struggled with it at first but things suddenly clicked in her brain and she almost cheered out loud at her little epiphany. Would it have been embarrassing? Absolutely. Would she have regretted doing it? Probably not. One did not get an epiphany like that every dynasty, and she hoped she would remember her little breakthrough when she started on her homework later.

Her annoyance about her Maths class ending quickly dissipated when she remembered that Home Ec was next. Packing up her things happily, she almost skipped to class, nearly bumping into Yoona along the way.

“Whoa! Seulgi! Slow down, you still have time.”

“I’m so sorry, Ms. Yoona! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, don’t worry. Excited about Home Ec?”

“Yes!!” Seulgi answered a little too enthusiastically and Yoona laughed.

“It’s going to be fun today. Let’s get to class.”

“Okay!”

Yoona had instructed them get into their cooking teams and head to their respective workstations the moment she stepped into class. Seulgi, who was trailing behind Yoona, scurried passed her and settled herself between Joy and Yeri at the workstation where their disaster cake was made.

“What do you think we’re going to make today?” Joy whispered to her team members.

“I don’t know but can we at least make it edible this time? I’m hungry,” Yeri whined.

“Alright, class!” Yoona said as she wrote their dish of the day on the board and turned around. “Today we will be cooking again and the dish we will be making is an omelette.”

Seulgi sighed in relief. Thank god, something simple, she thought to herself. We should be fine.

Yoona had listed the steps on the board together with the possible combinations of ingredients they could mix for their omelettes. She allowed the team 10 minutes to decide for themselves which type of omelette they were to make and to send a representative to collect the ingredients from her.

Seulgi saw that another team had already gone up to collect their ingredients - three eggs, some mushrooms, cheese and ham. Seulgi’s mouth started to water at the thought of a ham cheese omelette.

“Hello? Earth to Seulgi? Do you copy?” Joy snapped her fingers a few times to bring Seulgi back to the present. “What do you think of a cheese omelette?”

“Can we add bacon?” Yeri piped up.

“How are you with bacon?” Seulgi asked, eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“I can manage. It’s just bacon. What can go wro-” Joy flailed her arms at Yeri, effectively silencing her.

“Don’t finish that sentence. That’s one of the ‘famous last words’.”

“Fine. But trust me, guys. I can handle bacon.”

“Well, that settles it then. Get mushrooms, too,” Seulgi added, patting Joy on the back.

Joy got up from her seat and went to collect the ingredients from Yoona, noticing that they were the last team to get started. She hustled back to their workstation and quickly handed Seulgi and Yeri the ingredients. They spent a little while reading the instructions on the board before they got cracking, literally and figuratively.

Seulgi was surprised at how well things were going: Joy was in charged of chopping up the mushrooms while Yeri was cutting up the bacon into tiny bits. Nothing seemed to be going wrong… yet. Seulgi was about to crack the second egg into the bowl when she absentmindedly hit it too hard against the edge and the entire eggshell shattered, some of the bits dropping into the bowl.

“Seulgi, we were doing so well!” Joy whined when she saw the mess.

“No worries! I can pick them out!” Seulgi struggled to only pick out the egg shells from the bowl but found it impossible to without removing some of the egg. Pouting, she told her friends that it would be alright. “Happens all the time at home.” Joy and Yeri shook their heads before turning their attention back to their own tasks.

Seulgi managed to crack the remaining egg without any problems and grabbed a pair of chopsticks to mix the yolks and whites. She glanced at her team members to see how they were doing and saw that the food they had chopped up were uneven in size - some of the mushrooms were entirely too big or too small. The bacon, on the other hand, actually looked decent and Yeri was very smug about it when their eyes met.

Rolling her eyes, Seulgi shifted her attention elsewhere. The first team had already finished their omelette - Yoona had tasted it and given them a thumbs up - while Irene’s team was in the process of cooking, and from the looks of it, they were almost done, too. Amber was stir frying like a pro while Wendy occasionally took a look and added the necessary seasonings. Irene was in charge of the eggs, like Seulgi.

“We’re ready for the eggs, Irene.” Amber gave Irene a nod and she poured the eggs into the pan. Amber then expertly lifted the pan from the stove and tilted it so that the eggs covered the entire surface. Yoona, who was passing by their workstation, gave Amber a thumbs up.

“Irene, how much cheese do we need?” Wendy brought out the bag of shredded cheese from the refrigerator.

“Just start pouring, I’ll let you know when it’s enough.”

Wendy nodded and opened the bag, proceeding to scoop the cheese into pan one small handful at a time. After about two or three pinches, Wendy glanced at Irene.

“What? I didn’t say stop. Keep going.”

“But-”

“More.”

“Alright, but-”

“MORE.”

And with a small ‘eep’, Wendy continued piling handful after handful of shredded cheese into the pan.

“Perfect,” Irene declared with dark glee when Wendy had almost emptied the entire bag of cheese into the pan. Granted, it wasn’t a very large bag of cheese but it was obviously a bit too much for an omelette of that size.

Yoona walked over and her eyes widened at the sight. There was more cheese in the pan than omelette. She looked at the team and Wendy and Amber shrugged while Irene was giving her the most innocent, angelic smile. Sighing, Yoona told them to flip it soon before it burnt and went to check on the only other team that had not yet finished.

Joy had just managed to successfully transfer their omelette from the pan to the plate when Yoona came over to their table. Taking a quick look at the food, she nodded approvingly. The omelette looked impressive for their skill level, though some of the pieces inside looked like they could’ve been cut a little more properly. Other than that, the omelette was good, visually. It smelled good, too.

Yoona shifted her attention away from the food to her students and was a little surprised when she saw all three of them looking at her expectantly. Taking the fork Yeri offered, Yoona took a deep breath and went in for that first bite. Seulgi held her breath as Yoona tasted their omelette, praying for a good review. She was very proud of themselves for making something edible after their first class. Seulgi glanced at her friends and saw that they were nervous, too.

“This is actually not bad! Well done, you guys!” Yoona exclaimed once she had finished eating.

“YESSSSSS!!” Seulgi and Yeri jumped with Joy.

“Alright, now that everybody has finished, let’s wash up and taste each other’s creations!”

The class hustled to clean their workstations and gathered at Yoona’s table with their own forks. Yoona had carefully helped cut the omelette into little bite size pieces while they were cleaning so they dug in right away. While they were complimenting each others’ food, Seulgi noticed Irene alone at the end of the table with her team’s omelette. She moved a little closer and saw that it was quite the gooey, cheesy mess but Irene seemed perfectly happy with how it turned out.

“Seulgi! Would you like to try some?” Irene beamed at her and pushed the plate towards Seulgi.

Mentally patting herself on the back for not fainting at that smile, Seulgi popped a piece into and chewed slowly. The cheese had overpowered the other flavours but Seulgi could still pick out what had went into the omelette. Seulgi now understood why one of their friends had commented “It’s not bad, but two pieces is the limit. It’s so cheesy.” Swallowing thickly, she gave Irene a thumbs up and was rewarded with another smile.

Seulgi remembered what Irene had said the day before and went over to Yoona to ask if it was okay for her to bring out her camera and take a few pictures.

“Of course! As long as your friends are okay with it, you can take as many pictures as you want.” Yoona patted Seulgi’s head.

Her classmates and friends were more than happy to let Seulgi take pictures of them.

“My sister’s friend is always telling us to take more pictures. ‘How will you remember 27?!!’ was what she said to my sister and her girlfriend.”

“Wow, that makes sense but it’s also kinda dark...” Amber commented offhandedly at their friend’s story.

After a few candid solo shots, the class quickly huddled around Yoona for a group picture while Seulgi tried to balance her camera on a makeshift tripod, which was really just a stack of pasta boxes. Setting the timer and pressing the shutter button, Seulgi quickly dashed to an empty spot Joy had saved for her and posed just in time.

Click.

A perfectly captured memory of their first successful Home Economics assignment.

***

Seulgi was sprawled one corner of the couch while her mother was sitting on the other end with a pile of laundry in between them. It was a little while after dinner and Seulgi was at her laziest, a side effect from eating too much or a ‘food coma’, as Yeri would put it. Letting out a satisfied burp, she fished out her phone and started aimlessly tapping on the three applications that she frequently used. Before she started scrolling on one of them, she saw that her mother was about to start folding the laundry and decided to help out for once.

“Oh? Aren’t you usually a bum after dinner?” Her mother raised a brow when Seulgi reached to grab a shirt. “Are you alright?”

“Huh? I’m okay.” Seulgi folded the shirt with ease and placed it on the stack her mother had started. “I think it’s Home Ec, it’s making me think about home stuff a lot, even though we’ve only had a few classes so far...” She paused to grab another shirt to fold, missing how her mother was giving her a very amused look.

“I see...” Mrs. Kang mused. “Remind me to thank your teacher if we meet.”

With two pairs of hands working, the pile of laundry disappeared quickly and was arranged into neat stacks. Seulgi carried the stacks of clothes to their respective owners’ rooms and returned to the couch in record time. Grabbing her phone, she decided to watch some videos before getting started on homework. She tapped on several videos disinterestedly until she came across a channel that uploaded videos about basic cooking tips and tutorials.

Eyes widening with interest, she went to the channel and found dozens of playlists available, from simple cooking tips, to one-pot recipes, to cooking challenges done by the channel’s contributors. She watched the videos for quite some time before her mom reminded her that it was time for homework. Sulking, she got up from her comfy seat and made her way to the dining table and brought out her books.

She glanced back at her phone and stared longingly for a moment before deciding that it was best to finish homework first before watching anymore videos. It was their first real week of classes so her workload was thankfully still minimal. She finished quickly and happily made her way to her room to wash up and finally continue watching.

She was about half way through a video tutorial on how to dice vegetables when Seulgi received a text from Joy in their group chat.

“Yah, Seulgi are you watching cooking videos? You’re flooding my timeline with tweets that you ‘liked’ the videos.”

“Ooops! Sorry I didn’t notice lol i’ll unlink my accounts hang on.”

“Just let her be she wants to impress a girl she can like all the cooking videos she want!” Yeri chimed in.

“I am now taking applications for new friends.” Seulgi rolled her eyes and the three talked until it was time for bed.

***