Korean

French

Your POV

I know that I don’t have the greatest job especially in the winter and yearly I walk around smelling like fried chicken.

People avoid me cause of the smell well most people will or they will just complain.

The only good part of my day is when I deliver to the SM building even if it’s to EXO’s dorm. I always get a chance to stop by my sister’s dorm and she even lets me borrow her new face products at least when I visited her since I came back from the spa.

I mean I haven’t delivered chicken for the last month since I went to a spa the 1st week and the next last 2 weeks I’ve been studying for final exams.

I was forced to go to the spa since my mom I quote, “tired of having a daughter that looks like a boy,” end quote.

So now I do a few skin care routines every day, my hair is a little longer than shoulder length and looks healthy for once, my eyebrows are waxed, my face is clear and looks bright and healthy instead of sickly, and an entirely new girl like wardrobe.

Like today I’m stuck with a pair of skinny jeans and an overly designed tank top.

Yet I have to pull my new t-shirt with my family’s chicken shop logo on it. We are a family that owns an entire chain of restaurants such as our chicken shop. We still live and work at this one cause it’s a big part of us.

My brother works in the company that we kind of run the other chains through. He keeps track of the books and we keep track of everything else.

He also is who gives me my pay check since I work in our original shop that was started by my great grandfather, but I also work for him in the company checking over a few of the stores that are close by.

My brother is just keeping the seat warm for our younger brother or maybe even our cousin from our mom’s side.

My big brother simply wants to be more of the lawyer for the company.

He even has helped set aside money and work for me for any school that I want to go to.

I want to the world’s best culinary school even if I’m supposed to stay here in Korea. I’m supposed to meet with the school though to test if I’m at their wanted level to even enter the school of my dreams.

I look at the time and notice that our shop should be getting a call from Kai should be calling right about now.

As if on cue our phone goes off.

I hear my mother talk on the phone for a little while then hang up right away she calls for me, “Hoyin, Jongin-ah wants the regular with a side of extra sauce.”

“Okay mom,” I shout back as I exit my room.

I race into the kitchen and whip up some batter and quickly make some chicken in under 15 minutes. Luckily our shop isn’t that far from the SM building which we can be happy about since we get pretty good business from there.

I look at the chicken shirt that’s sitting on my chest. I take it off of me and toss it into my school bag since everyone knows who I am.

Then I look on a chair to see my new sweatshirt that I slip on. I grab my jacket and slip it on over it. Throwing on my gloves, hats, a scarf, and my facial fashion mask on. All simple black and white. The only color that’s on me is my light denim jeans and red tank top. I look at my shoes and decide to wear my green pair of wedge tennis shoes that I love so much.

“Bye mom I’ll be back after classes. Call me if you need anything.”

“Alright sweetie,” mom shouts back to me.

I run over to the SM dorms mostly cause I like being more on a time limit to deliver things. It helps me think of ways for school and even hanging out with my friends. It’s always fun finding short cuts such.

I get to the SM dorms I pull down my hood and my mask off glad fans is not outside of it at the moment. I hate it when they are saesang fans can be scary and so can other fans. It’s really hard some days to even put a foot inside the door.

I wave to the guy manning the front desk, “Hi, Jungsik how are you feeling today?”

“I’m good. Here to see your sister or delivery again today?”

“Here for a delivery. Jungsik-ah you know he works like clockwork most days.”

“True though since you’ve been gone for a month he hasn’t been really ordering much chicken or he’ll leave the money with me.”

“Really that’s kind of odd even for him.”

He nods his head, “Well you know the way. Oh do you have your pass?”

I nod my head as I pull it out of my bag.

“Well then you can probably head up now don’t want to keep him waiting now do we. He’s probably sitting in the dorm room waiting for you.”

“Well I hope so or else he’s getting still really warm chicken on his head.”

Jungsik-ah laughs as he waves me past him so I can get to the elevators.

I make it to the EXO dorm glad that I remember from my few actual visits to the dorm to deliver the chicken.

I smile as I pull out my phone to call Kai to seem lock screen of my baby sister and I.

As I unlock my phone to show picture of Kai and me after I first met him after about 2-3 months of delivering chicken to him.

I quickly pull my phone to my chest when the door opens to show the 3 who are doing the Korean Miracles in December Promotions.

“Hello,” Chen says to me with his stupid but cute grin.

I look over to see Kyungsoo standing by a brat’s side.

“Hello, I’m Hoyin and I’m here to deliver Kai his chicken special.”

“You’re not the girl who usually delivers. I think she was that cute trainee that I was talking to the other day.”

I give him a look and Kyungsoo simply silently laughs to the side.

“That is my baby sister so if I were you I’d keep your mouth shut. I usually deliver for the last year or so, but I kind of had other things to do for the last month so my mother recruited my sister to do some of the deliveries in her spare time.”

Kyungsoo finally speaks up, “What have you been doing?”

“I’ve was sent to a spa for a week by my mother. Then I had weeks of studying to do for finals. Can you call for Kai so I can get paid and get to where I’m supposed to be?”

“Ahhhh… Yeah. Kai come pay for your chicken!”

Kai doesn’t even rush to the door like he would when he wouldn’t be waiting at it for me. When he sees the chicken or me he doesn’t even pick up speed.

When he reaches the door he asks, “How much to I owe you?”

“Oh, Puppy doesn’t remember the price of his special chicken.” I coo at him and he seems to remember when he was given this nickname.

I had met him by chance when he was out walking one of his dogs or was it all 3 of them. I ended up calling hi puppy for his love for his ‘kids.’

He shouts my name loudly.

“The one and only naturally,” I answer with a sweetish smile on my face, “Do you remember the price now?”

He nods his head as he pulls out his wallet and hands me the correct amount that he owes.

“Hoyin, you look completely different then you did a month ago. You grew out your hair as well.”

I reach up and run my fingers through my hair.

“Yeah, my mom was trying to talk me into getting extensions as well, but I think my hair is long enough.”

“Ahh... Do you want to come in and eat a bit with me?”

“I’m not sure if I should or I even have the time.”

Kyungsoo-ah looks at me, “Hoyin-ah, maybe you should if you don’t have that test today.”

“Ahh… I do have that test in today with a school from Europe I believe.”

Kai looks between us surprised, “You two know each other?”

“We went to the same school. The two of us were known to be the best cooks even though I’m a year younger than him.”

“You’re my age?”

I nod my head as I pull my phone from my chest to see my lock screen and curse, “I’m sorry, but I really have to go. I have to make that test/interview. I’m supposed to be taking spring classes there.”

“Really?”

“Yes, so I might not be delivering your chicken for a while if I do make it.”

“Oh… Can we go out to eat after then? It’ll be my treat.”

“Ahh… If it’ll be okay with you then yeah, I’ll go out to eat with you. Ummm… I have your # from delivers so if you want just message me that when and where.”

I watch as Kai jump around acting all excited that I agreed to go out to eat with him.

I race out of the SM building to the cooking school close by since that’s where they are holding the testing.

“Chang Mei,” they call my name and I walk up to the table where they have a medium sized tray with food on it.

“Yes, I am Miss. Chang.” I answer in flawless French they don’t’ act surprised as they seem relieved a bit since most of them probably speak more French than Korean.

“Miss. Chang you have an hour to come up with as many entrees as possible just using these ingredients.”

I nod my head and quickly look over what they gave me.

“Get ready. Get set. Start!”

I quickly get to work being as careful as I can be to make sure that nothing goes wrong.

As I cook my way through all the entrees that I can think of.

I decide that I’m going to experiment since I have enough time to spare.

I start to cut up what’s left over and barely glance at the herbs as I grab a few and start to slice them.

When I finish I have enough time to check to make sure that everything looks presentable and nothing is out of place.

“Times up.”

I look at my 7 entrees and sigh in relief that there are 7 judges.

They come up to see how it’s all panning out.

They look at everything and nod, "We’ve never seen anyone use that small amount of materials and make so much with it.”

I smile at them, “Thank you. Please try them.”

The judges look at one another and slowly decide which ones they want to try.

All I get is compliments from them.

“How did you get the spices to turns out like this?”

“A few of them I lessened the amount of water used to make sure that it didn’t diffuse the herbs too much. Also you had picked the stronger tasting ones.”

“Wow, you know your stuff.”

“I’d hope I do my grandfather and my father had spent my entire childhood teaching me how to cook perfectly even when there are fewer materials.”

“Your family owns a fried chicken shop here in Seoul?”

I nod my head, “We own a franchise.”

“Then why go to France?”

“I want to cook more than fried chicken and other Korean favorites.”

“Really now?”

“Yes, I want to broaden my horizon. I want to make foods from all over the world. Broaden the horizon of my family’s chicken to just fried chicken.”

The timer chimes for my time in this room is up.

“Don’t’ worry about your acceptance. I’m sure that you’re going to make it into our school. You’ll be hearing from us.”

I nod my head as I ask the woman who’s walking me out, “When should I expect a call or letter?”

“It’ll be a letter and you should have it within a week since everyone is impressed by your skills.”

“Thank you. Please have a nice day.” I switch back to Korean so I don’t end up speaking like this to Kai.

“You’re welcome and I can’t wait to see how far you can go.”

I nod my head as I smile as her and shake her hand again.

“I can’t wait to hear for you again. I hope you enjoy the holidays. I’m sorry but I have a date I need to make it to.”

I walk away from her not to be rude, but I wasn’t exactly lying when I said I have a date.

---

So what do you think of the first part. I think I did a pretty good job. What do you think?