I hummed along with Adam’s voice as he sings ‘Sugar’ by Maroon 5. Holding out my knife properly, I planned to practice my knife skills with the different chopping techniques our professor taught us awhile ago. We would be having a practical test on this before our start of class the next day so it’s not bad to have a head start.

My phone is placed on the top of the kitchen table alongside the chopping board that I’m using with the loudspeaker on for music. I’m currently at our college’s kitchen alone, spending my free time developing my knife skills as I waited for Jongin-oppa’s class to finished.

Our professor told us that we are free to us this kitchen whenever we want for practicing as this is available for our college to use. We just need to make sure that we would use it properly and we clean everything we use before leaving.

It was really nice for the university to have this kind of facility available for students to be use. Though honestly thinking, I can say that we can use this freely together with the ingredients available inside was because it was already included in the miscellaneous fee we paid upon enrollment. So it was not actually considered as free in that sense. Though I have nothing against it, it was nice to fully use what you have actually paid right.

Sugar, yes please.

Won’t you come and put it down on me.

I sang along as I picked up the carrots that I got from our fridge to peel. I’m fine with the other techniques but I find it quite hard to control my hand when it comes to julienne cut.

As for our practical tomorrow, we are informed that one technique that we would be using is julienne but with different thickness so I need to practice on that. And surely an exam without being under pressure is no exam at all so obviously we would be put to a test with a ticking bomb. I need to make sure I would not be spending too much time on perfecting the thickness of one slice just to compromise the others.

Holding my knife firmly but comfortably, I put my focus on the carrots and started chopping the it into 3mm sticks having a thickness of 1/8 mm. I was slow at first since I was careful to measure at least exactly each sticks that I am cutting. Once I finally found my pace, I comfortably cut the whole carrots I’ve peeled into sticks with different kind of thickness – ½ mm, ¼ mm, 1/8 mm and the thinnest 1/16 mm.

I’m right here, cause I need,

Little love and little sympathy.

I’ve put my knife down once I’ve finished my little exercise. Wiping the sweat that were starting to form on my forehead using the back of my arm, I smiled as I see the results of my practice. I got what I’ve wanted and I have done it in at least less than the time I expected myself to finish. I think that would be enough for the day though I still want to do some more chopping and slicing.

Baby, my broken pieces, you pick them up

Don’t leave me hanging

Hanging come and give me some.

Feeling satisfied, I continued to sang along with Adam, tapping my finger on the top of the kitchen table, staring at the bowls of carrots in front of me. Right now I have used around 6 large size carrots for this exercise. It would be a waste if I would throw them to garbage right, so I might as well cook it to take home. With a recipe on my mind, I turned around to get some more ingredients at the pantry and fridge at the back of the kitchen when I spotted Kyungsoo-oppa behind me.

“W-what are you doing here?” I said in surprise with my hand over my left chest. He was standing behind me with an amused smile on his face. He was wearing his casual brown overcoat over his black nike hoodie and dark blue jeans. His black bag was worn on both of his shoulders with his black storage tube on his left shoulder that contains blueprints that he is currently working on. He shifted up his black storage tube and adjusted his eyeglasses before answering.

“I saw Minhee-sshi on my way to the cafeteria after my last class for today. I asked her if she saw you since you’re not answering my texts. Turns out you are hiding here inside the kitchen to practice.” He said as he chuckled. My cheeks were quick to burn as I immediately turned around to pick up my phone to check on it, turning off the music that was playing.

“Sorry, I got busy practicing. Hm, what’s up? How long have you been here by the way?” I said as I checked the text messages I have for the past hour – 1 from Jongin-oppa, 1 from Minhee, 1 from Sehun and 2 from Kyungsoo-oppa. There was no urgent text message to replied to so I placed my phone back to where I picked it up. I’ll read and reply to them later.

“Just a few minutes ago.” He answered and I heard him moving his things. As I turned around to look at him, I saw Kyungsoo-oppa placing his bag and storage tube down on the table next to him. He had now remove his overcoat and the sleeves of his black hoodie were pushed up to his elbow. He was currently putting on the apron that has been hanging near the fridge, ready to be use by students.

“What are you doing Kyungsoo-oppa?” I asked him once again, confused on what’s currently happening in front of me. He turned to me, pushing up his eyeglasses to adjust it before answering my question.

“I’m going to help you with those?” he answered which made me confused even more. He went over the sink to wash his hands and dry them off with the towel beside the sink before he walk towards me.

“Aren’t you going to cook those carrots?” he asked as he went near me. I nodded my head slowly, still not grasping what is happening. Does he know how to cook?

“You know how to cook?” I finally asked when he was already standing beside me, inspecting the carrots in front of us. He nodded his head, still looking at the carrots, before turning his head to look at me through his glasses.

“Got my interest when I was a kid so my parents enrolled me to cooking school in my earlier years to at least keep me distracted from you know. Thanks to that, now I know my ways around it.” He said, smiling a little before turning his attention back to the bowls of carrots in front of us. I nodded my head at his answer. That’s actually nice. I have never thought he knows how to cook, though I never got a chance to ask him if he does.

“What are you planning on making?” he asked, inspecting the carrots that I’ve sliced, picking up some sticks and clo