A little of an introduction to our little girl and how she was thrown (decided on her own to run away) out into the streets. I hope you guys enjoy the concept as much as I enjoyed thinking about it. I also apologize if my writing is not as smooth as before, I had to rack a lot of brain power LOL.

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My name is Kim Bunny, and I am going to fight for my dreams.

I don’t understand why I always have to live under the shadow of my older brother.

I am Kim Bunny, and I am not going to cry.

“I want to cook.” My voice quivered, and it was the only thing I wanted to say for a long time.

My brother, Kim Doyoung, the heir of the Gongmyung Foods stood before me. He used to be supportive for the most of my life, but now all I see is disapproval. He was given the position of CEO to overlook my family’s legacy. We’ve always been in the food business. Microwavable food, farms to supply to restaurants, and so much more.

But we’ve never done much cooking. Real cooking.

“Cook?” My father asked, his eyes flickering over to me and then to my brother. “We dominate the whole food industry, Dahyun. Why would you choose to become a cook instead of helping your brother?”

I coughed at my real name thrown at me. My throat tightened up, a hand going up to grip one of my pigtails before I nodded. I knew. It wasn’t like I did not know that our family was one of the top tier companies in Korea.

“Doyoung, talk to your sister.” My father sounded distraught and I wanted to scream. I didn’t want to be sitting behind a desk all day. I wanted to be in the kitchen!

“Bunny—”

“I want to cook!” I wailed, blinking away the tears that were beginning to pool at the corners of my eyes. “I’ve tried! I’ve tried to go to business classes. I tried to be a doctor. I tried to be a vet…”

“Bunny,” Doyoung started. “You burn water. There are people out there who are meant to cook. You are not one of them.”

“Grandma did not think so,” I mumbled. My grandma was one of the people who taught me to cook.

“Grandma is gone.” Doyoung said it without hesitation. He said it like it was so easy to say and I blinked before I looked away. “Give it up, Bunny. We need you to cooperate.”

There was a certain kind of silence that made the room heavy, but there was a push of courage that made me shake my head in confirmation.

“No,” I repeated to my brother and my father. “I want to cook.”

It’s funny how words can change you from being one of the richest to one of the poorest. The support system that I knew my whole life was ripped away, and I was thrown out of the house with just a bag filled with my clothes and one toothbrush.

I turned around to see my brother looking out of the study room window.

Despite the sadness I was feeling, I waved at Doyoung. I would probably be back in a few days. They would never allow me to be out of the house for that long…

Right?

I was wrong.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

One year after

Gongmyung Food banners were nowhere to be seen in a place like Asian Street. The multiple food trucks and street foods filled the place with authentic scents of aunties and grandma’s serving their pride and joy to those who would choose them for the day.

It has been a year since I was kicked out of the house. I expected it to be a three-day adventure. How it had become a little over a year was beyond me. I groaned when the smell of newly made broth wafted to my nostrils.

“Xiao Bunny,” a voice called out from outside my dingy small room. It was Mr. Lao, an old man who had picked me off the streets exactly one year ago. He was a walking Confucius book and despite his many years here in South Korea, he still kept true to his roots. “Xiao Bunny, time to—”

“Time to awake le,” I mumbled, cracking open an eye. I have picked up their half way of speaking while being with them. Upon hearing my voice, in an indication that I had already risen, he knocked on the door. “Kai men!”

My chirpy voice made him chuckle. I told him to open the door and he did, peeking through the gap before his eyes turned into crescent moons.

“Good morning,” he greeted me and I sat up, blinking slowly. “Time to rise, little bunny. Early birds get the worm.”

“It’s so early, I kinda wanna be a worm.”

One year ago, with the necessities I was left with, I had boarded on a train with no particular destination in mind. I thought to myself that maybe I should go back and apologize to my family. To tell them that I wanted to be included in the family business and to sleep in a proper bed and eat proper food.

My heart broke into a million pieces as my thoughts became my enemy when I finally got off the last stop. I’ve never been there before, but it smelled different. It smelled divine.

Stalls of food vendors and people yelling over smoke that rose from panels of grills made my nose move. I sniffed the air when I felt my stomach rumble, my eyes going to my bag to realize that I had zero money. None at all. I was on my own.

“Woah….” I breathed in awe at how it looked.

I had never paid for my own food before and I was in new territory. A small traditional Japanese stall was on my right and I hopped over to it to see that a middle aged man in his mid-thirties was selling ramen. He gave me a curious stare, the male cocking his head to the side.

“One bowl for five thousand won.”

I gulped, my hand instinctively going to my back pocket when I remembered I was penniless. He must have noticed my gesture.

“We’re the cheapest stall on the street.” He paused. “And the best– Mr. Lao!”

A shadow fell over me, and the smell of herbal medicine made me crunch my nose up. I looked back to see an old man, his white hair and beard speaking volumes about his age. The man who was selling ramen bowed deeply to him, when the old man spoke.

“Mind if I treat you to the best ramen stall on the street?” He was talking to me, and when I looked at him, he smiled. “Hoya. Your best-seller, please.”

“Can I also have a dumpling?” I blurted out, the old man giving me a nod.

In five minutes, I was seated in front of the old man, slurping down flavourful ramen noodles as he watched me. I took in one bite at a time, chewing and drinking the broth in a systematic way. One bite of noodles, one slurp of soup.

“Are you not hungry, little one?”

I nodded, swallowing. I my lips, looking at how the bowl was almost empty. “Would you like some?” I was shy, about to push the bowl to him when he shook his head.

“My gramma told me when I eat, I must eat with an appreciative heart.” I told him, giving him a mini-heart to the bowl of food.

“Appreciate the food?” He repeated after me, a thoughtful look crossing his features. “It’s been awhile since I’ve heard someone say they like to appreciate food. It seems now that food is simply not given much thought to… We eat to survive, and we make food to earn a living. No one ever cooks the traditional way anymore.”

“Unlike us,” Hoya, the Japanese ramen owner said, pulling himself a chair and sitting with us. “I make my noodles from scratch. None of those cold packed ones where you can heat up or microwave.”

“I know of those,” I said softly, pressing my lips together. My family sells those, I thought.

“Mhm,” Mr. Lao murmured. “My father always said that hard work can always be tasted.”

Hoya chuckled, turning his full attention to me. “What about you? Why are you here with no money even for a bowl of ramen?”

“I have loads of money!”

“Lies,” he snickered, and my face fell.

“Now, now, Hoya.” Mr. Lao’s voice sounded like he was about to reprimand the younger male. “She must have run out of her house. We all have done that before. I am curious, however, as to why.”

I told Mr. Lao the truth (well, the partial truth), that I wanted to cook. I told him my family had a small company in Seoul, and they wanted me to stay and keep it running. I did not tell him that my family’s small company was actually the top company in the food industry in all of Korea. My answer seemed to intrigue him, and like a master finding an apprentice, Mr. Lao offered me a spot in his restaurant.

“I can’t give you money as of yet,” he told me. “But I can offer you a place to stay and food. When you start cooking, only then shall you earn.”

I didn’t have a problem with that. I was eager to learn – I started off washing dishes, cleaning the tables, scrubbing the floors on my knees. Then I slowly began to learn how to season the broth, how long I had to allow it to simmer, how to create a noodle soup base…

Then it was the knives, the chopping, the meal preps.

Here I was, helping Mr. Lao (Who I now called Lao Yeye) run his small noodle restaurant.

“How’s your back, Lao Yeye?” Yeye meant grandfather in chinese, and Mr. Lao definitely earned that title from everyone of the vendors on Asian Street. He grunted in response, the old man slamming his fist against his lower back.

I hopped off the bed as he settled on an armchair near the door, and I brought him a herbal medicine stick-on pack. “Gotcha.”

“Thank you, little one.” He smiled. “What would I do without you?”

“Uhm, you’d be bored.” I grinned, Lao Yeye telling me that he’d be more than bored.

I winked at him two times. Once from the left eye, another from the right eye. He chuckled, tapping my nose twice. Whenever he did that, it meant it was time to get on to working. People thought he favored me, and as nice as Mr. Lao was to me, he had his strict moments.

He never allowed me to slack off. ‘If you want to cook, you must put the effort in each and everything you make. Consistency is key,’ he once said.

The restaurant was going to be busier than usual since it was a Saturday. People traveled to Asian Street on weekends to eat with