The Reason? - Yoon Jeonghan

Chapter 14

     Upon arriving back from the hours long afternoon trek up the mountain and down again with one staff member, the members of Seventeen all sunk down in the soft couches in the living room, pushing the younger members out of the way comically. The boys who hadn't gone outside Seoul had just played games for the entire time, filming themselves for any future vlogs.

      Ophely took her time to get out of her snow-soaked shoes and pants, gently removing her wet gloves and scarf and laying them on the radiator to dry out. She observed the boys as they bickered by themselves in the living room before slipping from the entrance to the kitchen. Dinner had not been prepared, the boys who were home had done nothing, prepared nothing for them all. She chuckled to herself as she took out ingredients to prepare a copious meal, warm and filling for the spent men in the apartment.

      The heat from the gastops warmed her as she cooked, her nose still pink and runny, but Ophely didn't care as she was just greatly happy by the fact that she had seen snow after many years of not seeing any, the south of France wasn't know for its cold winter, more so for its wind and strong floods pre-winter. Not for the snow. The walk, the nature, and the cold had brought her out of the idol bubble she had been living in. It had brought her far from Jeonghan's duties as a working man, closer to herself.

      So she wanted to make a warm meal to warm all of the boys up but also to thank those who had thought about the nice walk outside to make her feel more welcome. Ophely received some helping hands, some that went and came, all very enthusiastic to help and know what she was making, but also very bad at cooking and disastrous with a knife or a simple spoon. Wonwoo and Mingyu helped her with the name of the ingredients, making sure she used what she wanted to use (for example not to misidentify pepper as paprika), some had just been written in Korean and easy to understand, but others had been hard to imagine. They had been the helping hands to stay throughout the whole preparation. Ophely wasn't an ace at cooking Asian meals, less so Korean meals, but she still tried, learned and discovered new dishes that interested her. The best Asian meal she could make was instant noodles. Nowhere to go wrong with that. But she wanted to thank them with a good meal that was more developed than a cheap last-minute meal. She had talked to Joshua to ask about certain things to take in mind while cooking, like the eatability with chopsticks or other utensils. Asians didn't have the fork, spoon and knife combo. Just chopsticks and a spoon on the table.

      What Ophely had managed to make for the boys was a good surprise, she didn't have a recipe but the whole meal was delicious. With what she found in the kitchen, she had made rice with chicken curry for thirteen hungry young male adults. They devoured the meal in less than an hour and a half. No left overs and no scrapes at the bottom of the bowls. It made her happy to have shared a meal with them. The boys were very nice, hyper and open to giving her compliments on her cooking every five minutes as, one by one, they refilled their bowl with more rice, meat and sauce.

     Ophely slept soundly that night, curled up in her blanket and sheets, dreaming of a day her friends and all of Seventeen would have a meal together, prepared by her fantastic cooking friends, Flora was a real chef in that category. It was possible that that dream was a possibility that could possibly happen in all of the possible possibilities of the possible future. But it was still a dream, and she knew it. However, she still lulled to sleep with those fantasy images in her mind, a small smile gracing her lips.

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     It had only been one week since she had seen her family, but Ophely was slowly going insane by herself. The boys had helped, and letting her worries out loud in the middle of the night did too, but it wasn't the same as being with the ones who understood you. Well, now she was starting to question her own sanity. She wasn't going crazy, she knew that, but she wasn't in the same bubble of perpetually replenished happiness she used to live in. Being in another's body did that to you, living in a brand new environment did that too. It was a good thing that Jeonghan's body was in good health and could be more free without any problems, the only thing that Ophely wished he didn't have was that uncomfortable thing between his legs, that thing every other man had. It was uncomfortable. That's what having a male's body was, simple things like these were little things you get used to.