In the blink of an eye, winter painted the orange-yellow color of autumn with its achromatic whiteness.

Minjeong's friend group normally went home as a group of four after school, for they all lived in the same neighborhood. But today, Jimin had to leave early with Aeri. For what reason, Minjeong didn't know, but she knew better than to probe. With Jimin and Aeri dating, she might as well have gotten an answer that would probably traumatize her. Besides, she knew that the two would arrive home without any issues anyway. Aeri would accompany Jimin home first and would later go home by herself with Cooper, her pet dog, awaiting her by the gate, barking enthusiastically at the sight of his beloved owner returning.

With the two older girls' absences, Minjeong decided to walk home with Yizhuo, which pretty much explained why she was walking with Yizhuo in comfortable silence, balled fists in her coat's pockets as she tried to keep herself warm. Letting out a breath that produced a wisp of fog in front of her face, her eyes darted around, taking note of the warm lights illuminating past the windows of shops lined up that rivalled the cold hue of winter.

Mumbling about wanting a warm cup of hot chocolate when she gets back home, Minjeong pulled her blue beanie even further down, hoping that it would provide warmth of some sort. Glancing at Yizhuo, who's been silent the entire time, she blinked in awed disbelief when she looked at the girl beside her.

Despite the fact that it was already early December, when snow began to torment them with its iciness, Yizhuo hardly seemed bothered by the chilly weather. Even that was an understatement, Minjeong thought to herself in incredulity, because Yizhuo was wearing nothing but a simple white t-shirt, black jeans and her favorite pair of white Nikes. But, then again, Yizhuo was a resident of Harbin back in China, where the weather was probably colder than the ice cubes Minjeong liked to have in her favorite iced americano, before flying to Seoul to study. Still, it amazed Minjeong, the way Yizhuo hardly seemed cold. Apparently, people walking past them on the streets thought so too, stealing glances at the pair (mainly at Yizhuo) as if they too were awestruck by how well the Chinese girl handled the weather.

Minjeong sighed softly, returning her gaze in front of her.

"Cold, isn't it?" asked Minjeong, blowing warm air into her hands to prove her point, cheeks dusted pink by the chilly air she was bathed in.

"Not really," replied Yizhuo casually. It was kind of scary how calm Yizhuo looked in the middle of winter and how she did not show a single sign of freezing.

"I still don't understand how you're able to walk in cold weather with minimal clothing and still look okay."

"I'm from Harbin," Yizhuo quipped sassily, throwing her hair back, making Minjeong snort.

"The cold never bothered you anyway," Minjeong boredly added, lips twitching as she struggled to stop herself from grinning.

"Minjeong-unnie?"

"Oh?"

"Can we go to the convenience store a bit?" asked Yizhuo, nodding towards the convenience store just a few shops away from them. 

"Why?" asked Minjeong, eyes narrowing. Yizhuo rolled her eyes as if Minjeong was the dumbest person she knew.

"Well duh, I ran out of food supplies and I need to eat in order to survive?"

Minjeong shrugged, trailing behind the younger girl.

But wait, why the convenience store and not a supermarket instead , where the supplies of food were practically unlimited?

And that was when Minjeong realized something. A reality where Yizhuo came home to warm home-cooked meals and ate them with a feeling of satisfaction didn't exist.

When Yizhuo noticed that Minjeong had stopped walking, she turned around worriedly.

"Minjeong-unnie?"

"Ning-ah…" Minjeong began, hesitating, before continuing. "Do you cook meals for yourself?"

"'Course I do!" Yizhuo exclaimed indignantly, crossing her arms. "I can cook fried eggs even if they look and taste weird sometimes!"

"You don't know how to cook anything else other than that?" asked Minjeong loudly. The snow wasn't helping her either, preventing her brain from forming a proper thought. 

"Well… no," Yizhuo admitted meekly, scratching her nape.

"Have you tried cooking anything other than eggs?"

"Uhm… I tried making… I think it was kimchi fried rice because Jimin-unnie made kimchi fried rice for me once too, but I kinda… messed it up? I don't know how mine tasted really salty and gross, it just did," she added exasperatedly. 

Minjeong pinched the bridge of her nose. She knew that Yizhuo wasn't exactly a skilled chef who can whip up a Michelin star worthy dish, but she didn't know that she was gonna be this bad.

"When was the last time you've had a home-cooked meal that's actually edible?"

Yizhuo blinked.

"Uhm… well… when my mom cooked for me back in China…"

Just as Minjeong had suspected. Letting out a resigned sigh, she takes Yizhuo's hand, firmly grasping it in hers.

"Alright, enough. Come with me, we're going to the supermarket."

"Why?" asked Yizhuo dumbly, making Minjeong groan in exasperation. 

"We're feeding you with something edible and delicious."

"How?"

It was taking all of Minjeong to not bang her head against a frozen lamppost. 

" I will be cooking you something that will make you think that my dish came straight out of a Marco Pierre White restaurant."

"I have no idea whoever that is but I'll trust your words, Minjeong-unnie."

It wasn't exactly Yizhuo's fault that she practically lives on convenience store food. 

In Yizhuo's defense, convenience store food was almost as good as home-cooked meals.

As a young high-schooler who lived alone in a country away from home, had enough money to live by herself, lived pretty near the convenience store, didn't know how to cook meals at all, it only made sense for her to buy herself food from the convenience store everyday. There were many options, ranging from instant rice, to instant noodles, to sausages that were her personal favorite. She doesn't necessarily love the food items she purchases from the convenience store, but she supposes that they're more than enough to help her survive. Or maybe they're secretly killing her since they're not exactly very healthy either. Yizhuo scoffed mentally. We're all gonna die in the end anyways.

That didn't mean Yizhuo did not have any knowledge about cooking at all. Of course Yizhuo can cook fried eggs, it's just that they always either looked really weird or tasted very bland, so she gave up on cooking eggs for herself.

Call her crazy, but even with this rather destructive cycle of consuming the same unhealthy food over and over again, Yizhuo doesn't really care.

And maybe that's why Minjeong cared so much. Yizhuo knew that Minjeong didn't like it whenever she thought that her friends were doing something that she deemed inadvisable. Even with Yizhuo's numerous attempts to direct Minjeong's worries elsewhere, they never worked simply because Minjeong cared too much .

But then again, Minjeong was a very stubborn individual. If there's one thing Yizhuo both hated and loved about Minjeong, it's the fact that Minjeong wouldn't take no for an answer if it meant doing something for the sake of her friends. She always had people's best interests at heart.

So when they stepped into the local supermarket, with Minjeong instructing Yizhuo to grab a shopping cart, it hit Yizhuo that Minjeong was not kidding at all. She really was gonna cook dinner for Yizhuo. Yizhuo sighed, pushing the cart across the bulky imperfections of the tiled floors of the supermarket. Typical Kim Minjeong. 

"So what do you want to have for dinner?" asked Minjeong, eyes quickly but carefully taking in the sight of the many food products lined on their sides. Yizhuo reckoned Minjeong was used (and particularly skilled ) to scanning the place for necessary ingredients. 

"I figured that you would want something close to home." Minjeong continued, stepping into the spices and seasonings section, looking around. "Chinese-style fried chicken or something that’ll remind you of your hometown? You must miss the food there, am I right?"

Yizhuo's heart felt warm at the older girl's words. Another thing Yizhuo loved about Minjeong was how easily the girl picked up on minor details that Yizhuo herself might overlook and remind her of them. In this particular situation, Yizhuo was reminded of how homesick she was and how much she missed her father's home-cooked meals for her back home.

"That would be nice…" Yizhuo replied quietly, though she's not quite sure why she had spoken in a soft voice she wouldn't normally associate herself with. She wasn't also quite sure what she was referring to, the fact that she would be eating food that felt like home and not cheap, repetitive food products from the convenience store? Or was it the way Minjeong's kindness made her heart feel, for lack of better words (Yizhuo supposed that her vocabulary wasn't very vast)… nice?

She wondered how best to repay the action for Minjeong. Attempt to cook a dish for Minjeong? Oh, who was she kidding? She could barely even cook eggs and pancakes without somehow messing them up all the damn time, what more if she tried making a proper meal for her?

What food did Minjeong like again?

Suddenly, she was struck by a thought.

"Unnie!" Yizhuo said suddenly, making Minjeong look at her with her eyebrows raised.

"Yes?"

"You like guo bao rou , don't you?" asked Yizhuo excitedly. Minjeong looked at her blankly and Yizhuo could practically see the gears working in Minjeong's head through those brown eyes. But when Minjeong realized what she was trying to say, the sight of gears behind them was replaced by an excited glint.

"Oh… Oh, I get where you're going with this," said Minjeong with a wide grin on her lips, urging Yizhuo to smile too.

"My request for our dinner tonight will be… guo bao rou!" declared Yizhuo, practically leaping out of pure excitement.

Minjeong's lips twitched as she resisted the urge to smile. So she settled with pushing the shopping cart away from Yizhuo under the guise of looking around for ingredients when, really, she's just trying to hide the not-too subtle redness growing on her cheeks.

After a little over an hour of shopping for food items at the supermarket. They stayed a bit longer though, because Minjeong kept on scolding Yizhuo for almost sneaking two soju bottles into the shopping cart, reprimanding her for wanting to drink alcoholic beverages despite being underage (Yizhuo argued that she’s turning 18 soon in October anyway). With two tote bags in her hands, Minjeong waited for Yizhuo to pull out her key from her backpack, teasing her about losing her house key due to her disorderliness.

Letting Yizhuo take the tote bags for her as she left her shoes by the shoe rack, her gaze settled on the sight in front of her.

It felt as if Minjeong had just walked through a spacious hallway of an art museum, with the number of paintings adorning the beige walls. Minjeong concluded that Yizhuo was the artist of the paintings, spotting her signature on each and every one of them. There were several unpacked cardboard boxes just lying around on the polished wooden floor, pretty much ruining the whole aesthetic of the apartment and was an obvious display of Yizhuo’s unwillingness to organize her belongings even after months of staying in Korea.

Now that Minjeong thought about it, their friend group never really hung out at Yizhuo’s place due to Yizhuo’s insistence to just hang out at Aeri or Jimin’s place. They rarely ever went to Minjeon