🏆 THE AMBY AWARDS 2023 TOP PICK - DIVERSE LIT 🏆
It's Rin and Hye-jin against the world. Or so it should have been.
Nagara Rin and Joon Hye-jin, college sweethearts and passionate gamers, have lived a fairytale marriage. Not even a decade after did...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Rin's knife thudded against the chopping board. The gurgle of water boiling was loud in his ears. Beside him, Hye-jin stuck her pinky into the sauce, sneaking a bite when she stuck it into her mouth.
"You'll finish that before your parents can eat," he nudged her with his shoulder with both of his hands occupied with the knife and the carrot. "How's the broth?"
Hye-jin pouted but washed her hands on the sink. "Good. Needs a few more minutes," she jerked her chin to the chopping board. "Hurry up with the vegetables. I need to stir fry them soon."
If he could roll his eyes at his girlfriend while visiting her house, maybe he would have considered it. "Hai, hai," he gave her a mock salute before moving on to chop the carrots into thin strips. Jangmonim liked them that way. "The clams?"
She bobbed her head and tucked the strands of hair that escaped her low ponytail behind her ear. "You don't have to travel all the way and bring those crabs," she said, glancing at Rin. Maybe she thought he couldn't see her gaze wander in his area for a thousandth time since they entered the kitchen, but he did. He's been doing the same when he thought she wasn't looking too. "Must have been hell to carry in the bus."
"None of the cabs would take me," Rin answered, grabbing the next carrot in the bunch and began skinning it. The little skrch-skrch-skrch the knife made against the root crop's orange skin and insides calmed some sort of whirlwind inside him. "You love crabs. I saw a bunch on the market this morning before I left home. It's a no-brainer."
She stuck her lip out. "You really like that," she said.
Rin's knife paused before it made the next groove to lengthen the strip of skin building up in his hands. "Like what?"
"Making things sound so simple," she glanced at him. "When they're really not."
He rolled his shoulders, resuming the skinning once more. "I like it when things are simple," he said. "You don't?"
Hye-jin grabbed the ladle and opened the lid to the pot. Huge plumes of smoke exploded from the boiling surface. Green rings bobbed on the surface, the once-clear water had now turned a rich golden brown.
"I prefer a little complexity," she replied, replacing the lid and twisting the knob to kill off the specific burner. "It's boring if things are too simple."
"Everything in moderation, you mean," Rin summarized—again, proving Hye-jin right, that he simplified things too much. "You don't want to have something too complicated."
Hye-jin snorted. "Can't have that, yeah," she said. "In case you think of me as an elitist killjoy, there are things I wish were simple too. Like, truly simple."
Rin arched an eyebrow. "Such as?"
He discarded the carrot skins and moved to switch gears. Now, he's cutting this new one into the strips. He had to make sure they're even. Those tapered ends weren't helping the least bit, though.
