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Chef questioned why Minseok wasn't the one to drop her off. In fact, she questioned the same thing. More than that. Her head spinning from lack of sleep. His missing presence burned an even bigger hole in her heart. This was certainly unhealthy. How could she stay focus on cooking now? What about school? Most of the time, she didn't even care for what school had to offer her, but now since the man had gotten all of her attention he decided to leave and made her this hollow. Unfair would be an understatement.
It was Saturday again. Days passed by quickly, but the suffering she had to go through was as if it never caught up – eternally in vain. In a week, she would be officially 18 or still 19 in her Korean age. She wished the year could come by and she could be 20 a legal adult; then, she could drink all of this nonsense into oblivion, burying it deep in most of her painful memories.
She never liked this forced marriage, but Minseok made it tolerable – actually more than tolerable.
"Look after the place. I'm going to pick up some ingredient." Chef hollered from the front. He was so sure this restaurant was in good hands. Well, he was right. At the moment, the fire was burning in front of her just as intense as the fire she had burning in her heart. Anything that tried to infiltrate this place, she swore she was going to had it scorched under her torch. "Be right back in a few."
The old chef muffled something in Chinese before finally leaving her alone to her frying pan.
She turned the stove off, shoulders slumped. That knife suddenly seemed to attract her in a weird way. The urge to stab something was too strong. Why had Minseok turned her from an innocent girl to a murderous teenager so easily? She had always been so good at tuning her anger and tantrums. For a hormonal teen like her, it was a magnificent feat. This man just had to come into her life and turn the dial on her emotion, cranking it way up high.
Chicken. Right.
Today, she had to continue practicing on cutting the poor animal open. Being a chef required the individual to get down to it – no complaints. It felt like forever once she finished chopping the meat all the right. The pieces she cut off were still so jagged. She kept a mental note to herself – I have to start doing push-ups or pull-ups, anything to keep my hands steady.
The strength she gained throughout this whole journey with Chef was unsurmountable to what she had expected, but she still needed so much more just to cut a chicken open properly. She had been marveling at her own arms. Veins were a lot greener. The size popped in her small arms and she could trace the lines from her wrist to her elbow. They weren't very big compared to normal standards, but to her, they were certainly gigantic. Months ago, her arms were like a straight pole – no bumps, weak and frail. Now, veins were slowly sticking out. Wrinkles were forming. Scars were taking place. She had slipped and cut herself. She even had sustained some burns from the flying cooking oil.
