To make an omelette
Who: Jun-he and Mazie When: Evening Where: Kitchen
It had been a long, awful day with those skies so dark and looming. Jun-he rather enjoyed storms and the rain but something about where he was made it all a little different. He had managed to make a somewhat friend at least. The rest of his day just seemed wasted away in his room, poking through the available movies in the network of their computers. There were a couple of movies that had peaked his interest but after keeping himself bored by switching them every twenty or so minutes, he decided to venture out for some sustenance.
His stomach growled. It was almost audible to anyone that could have been around him as he entered the kitchen. He made a strange face at the sound, looking down at his stomach before walking over to the fridge. “Ahhh shibal,” he swore under his breath, head poked into the depths of the enormous appliance. His distaste for American food was really starting to irk him.
This day was long, strange, and tiring. And she was still starving. It seemed like every time she was here, she got pulled away from the kitchen. Heading into the room, she spotted Jun-he at the fridge and lifted her eyebrows at the sight. “Guessing that’s a cuss word then, huh?” She asked, coming over to lean against the counter near the fridge. “Did someone eat your food or something?”
The footsteps he heard gave away the person entering the kitchen. It would have been no surprise to him if they had said something to him but the sound of Mazie’s voice definitely took him by surprise. Jumping from his bent position, Jun-he quickly withdrew his head, smacking it hard on the top shelf. He cried out softly from the unpredicted collision, feeling a little foolish.
Rubbing the top of his head, he grimaced before turning to face the blonde nearby. He laughed nervously, “Ah it never fails, even without the sun present there’s still some sun shining near me.” There was no way he was letting go of that blonde hair and sun comparison. “Ah, yes shibal,” he laughed again, only a little less nervously, “it is like when you say shit. But no, no one ate my food.”
He closed the door of the fridge, feeling a little disappointed, though he wasn’t entirely sure by what exactly. “I guess I am missing my home and its food. It’s not the same here.”
Mazie was never going to get used to him calling her that. She tucked her hands into her pockets and winced when he smacked his, frowning a little more at that. "Sorry, didn't mean to sneak up on you or anything…"
Listening, she nodded, putting the word away in her mind for later use sometime. But when he mentioned him missing his food, Mazie felt a little pang for her own. "Yeah, I can understand that. I bet it's a lot harder for you to get yours here though than it would be for me to get mine. There's nothing here at all, no even..kinda-Korean foods?"
Jun-he forcibly took a once over look over her as she spoke, looking for something he just couldn’t find in her. Feeling very slightly annoyed at that, he shrugged and went back into the fridge. “Mmm, maybe...” he pulled out a carton of eggs, followed by a myriad of different vegetables and onions, “It won’t be the same but I like omelettes, you want one?” It wasn’t like he was annoyed with Mazie in the least, but after the way he had felt himself get flustered meeting Jason, things were just starting to seemingly prick him in his side. He kind of wished that whole conversation in the basement had never happened.
Mazie watched Jun-he for a moment then moved over to the counter, hands out to take some ingredients from him. “Yeah, I like omelettes. I’m horrible at cooking but I can chop stuff, if you want some help.” Maybe the strange day they were all experiencing was wearing down on Jun-he too. He didn’t seem quite like the guy she’d come to know now, definitely not as happy as he had been when they drank together a few nights before. “So, how’s your day been?” She asked, thinking she needed to in case he wanted to talk about Caroline or anything, really.
Jun-he made a little shrug, “Not so bad,” he said. Which was partly a lie. It had been a rather awkward day and that made him somewhat cranky. Though he wasn’t about to admit that. Anyway he was with Mazie now, which was supposed to be a better part of his day. He was finding it difficult to adjust to the brighter side of the day.
Shifting over to the stove, Jun-he took the clean pan sitting on top of it and turned on the heat of the closest element after placing down the different food upon the counter. He let out a small sigh and then stretched his back out in an attempt to shed the gloomy mood he was in. It felt like it was seemingly working. He smiled gently, turning to face her. “Ahh, it’s just been too much of a lazy day, I think,” he half admitted. “What about you? I have not seen you for some time.”
Mazie wound up pulling herself up onto the counter near the stove, watching Jun-he for a moment. It was strange, the awkwardness she felt that hadn’t been there before. And yes, she understood that maybe in the back of her mind it was partially because of Autumn’s concerns, but she also wasn’t thinking that today was the day to really think about that. There’d been enough death here, why bring in concerns of more? “Yeah, It’s been a rough couple of days, I’ve been around but trying to stay busy. Next time we drink soju, I might have to pass on chasing it with beer though. Might need something else like a soda,” She joked, smiling a little bit back at Jun-he in hopes of lightening the mood. “So, what can I do to help? Chop up some stuff? What do you put in your omelettes?”
Jun-he couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle. He felt a lot less cranky about everything and that in turn made him a little off in its own. Beneath everything, he wanted to stay cranky but he just couldn’t now. “I think needing to pace ourselves is important for next time,” he stated, smiling still about the thought of more soju and not really getting any teaching across.
Pressing his lips together after she asked him about helping, he searched through the nearest cupboard to pull out a rather large cutting board. “Sure,” he said, “you can just chop up anything. I’m not hard to please with it.” A little dab of cooking oil came next, straight on to the centre of the pan. It hissed as the heat began to rise. He swirled it around and after letting out another escaped little sigh he set the pan down. “Gibuni johji anh a yo,” he said softly with a sullen look. Sure, he knew Mazie wouldn’t understand it now, but maybe that was the point. He could admit to the unhappy mood without having to give her the understanding of it. Eventually she would understand it but by then she would have forgotten all about this instance. “You know, I spent some time looking at movies but it is difficult to feel satisfied with any of them here,” he said to change the subject of his own doing, “I did try some video games though. Do you play?”
Obviously something was up with Jun-he but he was talking in Korean and not exactly looking like he wanted to explain it, so she didn’t press him. Maybe he just was having an off day. People got to have off days. She was in the middle of one right now, though hers had been more strange than angering. Parts of it angering, yes, but altogether strange.
Taking the cutting board, she scooted over and sat it down between herself and Jun-he, reaching for a knife nearby and a scallion that she began, precariously, cutting. “Yeah, I haven’t really checked the movies out here yet. But hell yeah, I play video games. What kind of nerd would I be if I didn’t? What’s your favorite?”
Pulling out a small mixing bowl, Jun-he forced a smile then laughed again. Nerd, he’d heard that word before. He shook his head slightly finding the use of it rather amusing. “Favorite?” he echoed back, stopping before cracking one of those eggs for the bowl. He paused and looked to his side where she was, considering the question carefully. “Ummm,” he had never really thought about that before, “I don’t know. I had a lot of them in Korea, but I never played one for very long. Sometimes I could sit and play Call of Duty for a while because it does not take much thinking.” Which was probably the point. Not having to think about your video games meant you could do something while thinking of other things. That was exactly what happened to him before that awful run in with the proper she-bitch of painting. His eyes narrowed, choosing to forget that thought all together. He followed by fixing his attention to the bowl and began cracking open two eggs one after the other. “If you enjoy them so much maybe we will play together sometime.”
“Yeah, we should definitely play sometime! Autumn requested something really cool for me, the big Space Invaders machine outside? Because I love that game,” She said, lifting up the pant leg of her jeans to show him the little tattoo on her ankle of the Space Invaders crab alien. “But I play some modern stuff too. I’m ok at Call of Duty but I prefer Halo. Did you ever play Starcraft? I know that’s pretty big in Korea. I’ve never played it, but watching some of those casts are pretty intense.” She managed to cut the scallion up and not slice into her fingers any and Mazie was calling that a pretty successful part of the day. “What else do you want in it? I always smother my omelettes with cheese, but that might be a Southern thing...”
Tossing a glance over to her as she mentioned Autumn, Jun-he gave her a slightly puzzled look. He didn’t quite understand using the word for a name and it took him a long pause to really work through that sentence. “Autumn?” he said, concluding that it was in fact a name, but he didn’t stick on that subject very long. He laughed rather hearty at her questioning about Starcraft. His childlike grin finally emerging, he tended to the pan a tad and then gathered his thoughts on the matter.
“Of course I played Starcraft,” he began, “You might find it funny to know that in Korea, a lot of elderly say Starcraft in place of the word videogame. I don’t think they understand sometimes that not all games are Starcraft.” Not that anyone had ever used it in talking to him, but it was a wildly popular known fact back in his home. “Mmm, but I noticed the Space Invaders just today. I will try it sometime.”
“Autumn, yeah, she’s...great. Really great. She requested it from The Administration a few days ago.” Now was the first time Mazie had really had to explain Autumn to someone and maybe try to find a label that worked. Were they girlfriends? They’d not bridged that gap and neither of them had seemed to mind if it remained label-less, as long as they got to be around each other. Maybe she’d bring it up another time with Autumn, on a day when less crap had happened.
“Well, I’m working on trying to get the wiring right so that we could play it without needing quarters. It’s an old arcade version of the game so they want some sort of currency, but I just need to get into the wiring. It’s locked off, though, but I’m working on it.” She listened to him talk about Starcraft and smiled back, laughing a little as well. “Sounds about right. My grandparents do that too, but they stick mostly with calling everything ‘Tetris.’ And also ‘That game.’”
Jun-he cocked an eyebrow. He couldn’t have expected to be her only friend, but the way she talked about her drew up an odd feeling. Ignoring it, he wondered about that game she talked so fondly about, much like she did Autumn. “Do you need me to just break it open? Can’t be so hard.”
He finally poured in the first two eggs into the pan, taking some of the onion Mazie had cut up. He followed each item of food by placing it in the pan as well then let it sit a while.
“You can try if you want to. I went and got bolt cutters but I had to put them back because the day just got...busy.” Busy, but weird. Really weird. So she didn’t want to worry about bolt cutters and trying to open the little metal lock. “We can give it a shot though, if you don’t mind. All the help I can get with this thing, I’ll take. Just trying to make it so that we can play it in general, because I don’t have a plethora of quarters hanging around and I damn sure wouldn’t want to hand them over to The Administration if I did.” She watched him sprinkle in the scallion and then looked back at Jun-he. “So what’s your favorite food? Saying ‘Korean food’ is a little bit like saying ‘Southern food’, there’s got to be way more to it than just one kind of food.”
Jun-he scoffed lightly. He pushed up the short sleeve of his purple v-neck shirt and then tightened his arm into puffing up his muscles. “You see these guns?” he said, drawing up on some term he had heard a long time ago back in prison, though he couldn’t keep much of a straight face, “Can break through anything.”
He laughed again, feeling all the difficulties of his last couple of days slip away. Lowering the arm, he smiled still, thinking back on the foods he loved so dearly. “Ahh it used to be ddukbokkie,” he said, “In Korea you can easily buy it on the streets. There are many little shops selling food of this kind. When my mother had a little extra money she would buy us this as a treat.” His smile wavered a bit. “Now I think I would still love it the same but the common food in Korea is Kimchi, a side dish with everything. You don’t think of these foods much until you have been away from it so long. So I think it is my favorite now.”
With a softer tone, he returned the question. “What about you? I think you would like ddukbokkie. It is like rice cake in a spicy sauce. Very delicious.”
She smiled a little, laughing at his ‘guns’ phrase because it was something she knew well and it certainly helped lighten the mood, which she’d been kind of hoping for all day. Putting up her hands, she shook her head. “Far be it from me to disrespect the guns,” She said with a grin.
“It sounds delicious,” Mazie agreed, smiling more as she thought on it. “I’ve never had Korean food. I’ve heard of kimchii but there’s not a ton of places to find it in West Virginia so I’ve never had it. But for food that reminds me of home? Probably biscuits and gravy. It’s heavy and dense and buttery, carbed-up biscuits with this thick, peppery sawmill gravy.” It took her a moment before she realized that maybe he wouldn’t know what sawmill gravy was. “It’s uh..white gravy. Have you ever had gravy?”
A corner of his lip twitched at the thought. “Ahh, I’m not much of a fan of American food,” he said with a hint of awkwardness, “But for you I would try anything, I guess.” At least he was willing to someday try it. Gravy was something he especially hated being served in jail. For some reason it felt like everything came with gravy during meals.
“Could you grab me some plates?” he asked, finishing up with the cracking of two more eggs. “And maybe ketchup? If you like it.” That was something he was glad to have an abundance of in this country. Ketchup was one of his favorite things to put on eggs especially.
That had Mazie smiling. “Won’t force you to try anything, but if you want to, maybe I can find someone here who makes it the way they do at home. It’s also possible you had some crappy gravy, because everyone thinks they can make it when really only a small handful of people actually can. But if you’re only going to try one food for American food, it’d probably have to be a really good burger. Or some barbeque...” Hopping down off the counter, Mazie reached up and rummaged around in the cabinets until she found the plates, bringing out two before heading to the fridge. “Ketchup on eggs is the only way to eat eggs. My mom loves to make over-easy eggs and smother them in mustard but that just looks disgusting...”
Mustard was one of those other things Jun-he was not very fond of. He made a disgusted face at the sentiment then maneuvered the pan to place the egg in one plate. “I’ll trade you some Korean barbeque for American barbeque some time then,” he said, starting on the second omelette. “This one is yours.” He really hoped the myriad of different things in the egg wasn’t off putting for her. After getting off the streets of Busan, Jun-he became a rather health conscious person. There was no way he would feel comfortable with eating eggs without some other kind of nutrition. Not that eggs weren’t healthy but... his mother had definitely ingrained a rather specific way of eating things. For all their differences, they were still close all those years he had her in his life. Besides he had already corrupted his stay with some ramen. At least it was satisfying.
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Mazie smiled, taking the omelette but then moving to put it in the counter. She wanted to dive in, but it was bad manners to do that and that was maybe one of the only social norms her mother had managed to instill in her. She needed to at least wait for Jun-he to finish cooking before she started eating. Instead she grabbed the chopping board and went to give it a quick wash, thinking she’d forget if she didn’t do it now. “Looks great.I don’t know how you do it, I always get way too impatient to cook anything, especially omelettes. That and I’m a horrible cook.”
“I used to cook with my mother,” Jun-he informed with a bit of a chuckle, “Honestly, I really like to cook.” Which was true. It was one of the things he really liked to do but never really did it for anyone other than himself. When he noticed her place the plate down and tend to the cutting board, he smiled a little more. He didn’t expect her to wait. Not that he wouldn’t have, but he didn’t want it to get cold. “I hope you won't get too impatient with the kimchi if we get those supplies,” he added,his grin widening. That was at least a two day process to make.. then another to just let it sit.
“Can’t promise anything, I get impatient over a lot of stuff,” She said, grinning back at him as she dried off the cutting board and knife and then placed them back in their spots. “But I hear it takes a while for kimchi, so I’ll go into it knowing that it takes a while and that’ll make it easier.” She shrugged a little, reaching to pour some ketchup on her plate and then do the same for Jun-he’s plate. “They’ll probably give you those ingredients, though. I haven’t heard of anything that someone’s requested and they didn’t end up getting.”
Nodding, Jun-he finished up with his omelette and dished it out. “I will do the preparations. Just soaking in salted water for a long time,” he explained, feeling like it would have been wrong of him not to explain a missing step from their procedure later. Moving around her, he ran the water into the pan and settled it in the sink. He would have to deal with it after his stomach stopped growling.
“Sounds good. Explain to me the steps of it over food?” She suggested, grabbing the plate and thinking it might actually be nice to have a real meal in the cafeteria, somewhere Mazie hadn’t actually sat down and eaten at before.
After squirting a bit of ketchup on his omelette, Jun-he nodded. “Okay,” he simply said, feeling a lot less weird than he was earlier.