Lets Be Boys ｜j.hoseok

IX. Jjangmyeon

"You need to join a club."

"Huh? What- why?"

I stand there slightly annoyed, in front of my home room teacher, "All students here need to do an extracurricular activity. So it can either be sports, or a club. You're choice." He taps the butt of his pen on the paper in front of him. I bite the bottom of my lip and nod. "Okay then, you got until the end of the day to sign up for something."

Looks like I'm joining a club.

-

It's English now, and since I'm already pretty good at it, I always doze of in this class. I lay there with my head on the table and stare at Hoseok as he struggles with saying certain words.

"Hey, are you in a club?"

He nodded, his face becoming less tense as he doesn't have to focus so hard for a second, "Dance club."

I furrow my brows, turning my head towards the window. I'm not very good at dancing... maybe something else.

-

"Me? I'm in the dance club too." Jimin responds, playing with Yoongi's hair. Yoongi looks at me next, "I'm in the literature club."

"Ah. I see." I say, stuffing the last piece of bread in my mouth.

Not very interested in either of those.

-

On my journey back to the cafeteria, I smell something extremely pleasant and instinctively follow it. It smells like jjangmyeon...

I spot one of the rooms open and peek inside. It's the culinary room. I see a couple ovens, 4 sets of stoves and counters, and a tall boy with extremely broad shoulders, cooking something on the far back stove. I open the door slightly more and it lets out a loud squeak noise. The boy turns around and makes eye contact, he sends me a very kind smile.

"Hello."

I slightly bow and smile back, "Hi."

The pin on his shirt showed that he was a senior.

"Interested in joining the Cooking Club?"

My eyebrows raise in interest. Cooking? I love food, and I always had to cook back at home too. "That's a club? What do we do?"

"Yea, it is, there isn't many people in it though. Pubescent teens are too good for cooking now a days because they think they'll just find a wife to cook for them whenever they want. Or so it seems." He shrugs and turns back to the stove, continuing his stirring. "And, in cooking club... we cook."

"Right.." I walk towards him, the smell getting stronger, and my mouth clearly watering. I see the black bean noodles and sauce, sizzling hot in the pan, covered in onions, squash, and meat.

He turns the stove off, and faces me, "Want to eat?"

I nod my head without hesitation.

He sets down two plate on the table and puts the pan of noodles in the center. We both sit down, and he hands me a pair of metal chopsticks.

"Thank you for the food." I say, and reach in to grab a hefty chunk of noodles and eat it. Still piping hot, I cough and begin blowing out of my mouth to cool it down. He laughs and hands me a napkin as I was visibly tearing up.

"Are you okay?"

I nod and quickly swallow the food.

"I haven't introduced myself yet, I'm Seokjin. People call me Jin."

"I'm Jaehoon, People call me Jae... also, I'd like to join this club."

He smiles widely and dashes away without saying anything. I sit there, noodles hanging from my mouth in confusion as to where he went. He comes back seconds later with a pen and paper in his hand.

"Sign this, and you're officially part of the cooking club!"

-

And that's how I joined my first extracurricular.