T W O

Word of the Day – “Flambé”

After such a long eventful day, Kyungsoo finally arrived home. He kicked his shoes off to the corner by the rack before walking into the living room, wandering his eyes around his spacious yet very bare bachelor’s pad. It will have been a year since he moved in but he still hadn’t found the time, let alone inspiration, to fill up the entire place. All he had were basic furniture. A dining set. A three-seater couch with a coffee table. A large flat-screen TV mounted on the wall and a queen-sized bed—all in one big area, altogether.

The most finished part of his place would probably be the kitchen—it had to be. It was required of him to have a nice, fully-equipped kitchen for when he’s coming up with new dishes, either for fun or for the menu.

 “Chef? I’m home, buddy. Where are you? You never say hi to me, I’m hurt.” He finally spotted the cat lying on the chair that was tucked under the dining table. The cat meowed a long one and jumped off the chair.

“Oh, now you care about me because you want food? I’m going to feed you—just wait for a second, can you move out of the way—hey, don’t you bite me if I step on your tail. It’s on you, buddy.”

He laughed when he stumbled around trying to avoid the cat who was circling around and rubbing up against him continually, begging to be fed. “I know, I know—yes, you’re losing weight already, I can see it. Oh my god, Chef is losing weight. It’s two minutes past his dinner time. This cannot be happening. I need to feed him quickly!” The cat meowed even louder the more that he talked as if they were really communicating and understanding each other.

Chef had only been living with him for half a year but they both got attached to each other rather quickly. Kyungsoo found the poor stray cat in the alley at SCORCH’s back door and as funny as it sounds, it reminded him of himself many years ago.

So, he began feeding the cat in the same spot over the course of two weeks until he ultimately decided to keep him and take him home.

He set the bowl of wet food on the cat’s feeding station and watched him sniff it with reservations. “No? You don’t like that one?” Chef looked up at him and meowed in a very whiny way. “Oh, well, guess what? You don’t have a choice. You’re eating that, buddy. I already opened it.”

The thing was, he knew very well that Chef would eventually eat it once he figures out that he had no choice.

Kyungsoo made his way to his couch and plopped down, sitting perfectly still for a matter of seconds before he eventually gave up. Working the way that he does every single day, including the weekends, he got to that point in which doing nothing just felt weird. His body could be all kinds of exhausted and worn out but his mind would still be running a marathon. There was only one thing to do—a long, warm shower.

He stood up and shuffled his way to the bathroom.

Before he could shut the door closed, his phone began ringing. He quickly removed his top before throwing a towel over his shoulders. Who would be calling him at this time of the night? Stepping out of the bathroom again, he went on to grab his phone from the coffee table. It was a call from an unknown number.

He mentally prayed that this wasn’t another one of those producers who kept on persuading him to join a cooking competition or guest in a food show. “Hello, Doh Kyungsoo speaking.”

“Email me a PDF of all the sales reports from January to this month. Month by month, separately. I need to study it.”

He didn’t even have to think for a second who the owner of the voice was. It’s Mi mothering Young. Kyungsoo tugged on his earlobe as he laughed in disbelief. This was so classic of her, he almost forgot. “Okay, Sweetheart. It’s your first night here and the first thing you could think of was to call me? You might have misunderstood earlier; I wasn’t actually hitting on you, okay? Now, why don’t you have a good night's sleep? It’s past your bedtime.” He let his body ease down the couch, resting the back of his neck against the soft suede surface. “Ew, keep dreaming, you . Just email me the sales reports. Now.” She insisted with authority in her tone. “And please, don’t call me sweetheart, it’s disgusting coming out of your mouth.”

He was still shocked, to say the least. The fact that she was already worrying about work-related things during her first night here was on another level of overthinking. “Hell, no. First of all, it’s almost eleven in the evening, Miyoung. And second—” He threw his hand up in the air to show frustration to no one. "—don’t you have jetlag? You’re really worried about this right now? Cool your jets and go to bed. It’s so late. I know your brain is still probably messed up from the time difference, but you need to try and—”

“Stop making me go to bed, I’m not a ing child!”

“Jeez. Watch the language, Sweetheart.”

A shrill groan from the other line made him jolt. “Okay, look. I’m sorry but I’m not doing that tonight. All the records are on the computer in my office, in the restaurant and unfortunately, I rarely bring my work at home unless it’s absolutely necessary. And right now, Sweetheart, it’s not necessary. Okay?” He attempted to explain it in a calmer way this time only to get the same amount of whining and groaning from the lady. “Do you understand me? You can go bother me all day tomorrow when I’m at work but—actually, no, don’t do that. Just … come tomorrow and you can play with my computer as much as you want. Do we have a deal here?”  

“Do you have a death wish? I know you have it at home too. You’re lying to me. Give it to me now or else.”

Kyungsoo stood up abruptly, “Jeez, dominant, are we?” He couldn’t help but laugh. “But unfortunately … I’m dominant too, Sweetheart. What are you going to do about it, hm?”

Finally, only her writhed breathing was heard from the other end. “You’re annoying.” She quietly said making him laugh. “And you’re still not hanging up, surprisingly.” He walked back into the bathroom to continue with what he was about to do. He put the call on speaker before setting the phone by the sink. He unbuckled his belt and ped his pants. “What the hell are you doing?” She interrogated with a sharp tone.

“Uhm, getting ? I was about to go take a shower when you called me.”

“Ew! Why’d you have to put that disgusting image in my head?”

He scoffed loudly while glowering down at the phone. “Again, you’re still not hanging up.” He slid the glass door of the walk-in shower and turned the water on. “Hear that?” He briefly turned to the phone. “I mean, if you want to listen to me take a shower, I wouldn’t stop you although it’s kind of weird, I get that you missed me. Anyway, I’m going to go right ahead in and do my—”

The phone beeped once indicating that the phone call has finally ended.

“Ay yay yay, she’s so easy.” He muttered under his breath before hopping in the shower.

The next day, Miyoung did not hesitate to go straight to the restaurant. She wanted to get herself involved in the busi