Eunjung was minding her own business, working on perfecting her art of whisking meringues, when she was suddenly accosted by an unwelcome hurricane by the name of D.O.. Bursting into the side kitchen, D.O. immediately grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a good hard shake, nearly causing her to drop her entire bowl of sugary goodness onto the floor.
"Is that custard really made from tofu?" he asked urgently. The way D.O. was staring straight in her eyes made Eunjung feel strangely uncomfortable, like he was peering into her soul and trying to dig out her secrets.
She shifted her gaze away and replied, "What custard?" His grip on her shoulders was hurting her slightly and she had no clue what he was on about.
"The custard from the fruit tart!"
"Oh..." Everything suddenly made sense. She hadn't really thought much of it when she had baked the fruit tarts with tofu custard, but the chief pattisiere seemed to think it was a fabulous idea and went around showing it to everyone else. She nodded her head. "Yes, it's made from tofu."
"How did you do it?" D.O.'s eyes were glinting with curiosity.
"Uhh I--" she hadn't even managed to get two words out before D.O. simply grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her over to an empty table space.
"Forget the talking. Make it now," he said abruptly.
"Now?" Eunjung looked at him incredulously, still trying to get her head around what was going on. "But my meringues..." She looked down sadly at her half-whisked bowl of meringue mix. D.O. simply took the bowl from her hands and emptied the contents into the rubbish bin, before chucking the entire bowl into the sink.
"Meringues can wait. I need you to make one of those tofu fruit tarts now." He didn't believe Dok when he told him Eunjung was the one who made the tart. It seemed too good to be true, and she was only a trainee. If either of them were lying to him and she couldn't make the tart, he would probably flip a switch and fly into a volcanic rage.
"Ok..." Eunjung had no choice but to do as she was told. She could tell from the piercing look in his eyes that D.O. wouldn't let her go until she had placed a satisfactory tart in front of his face. Although she had no idea why he was so interested in a fruit tart, the only thing she could do now was keep quiet and be obedient, lest he give her another strike and kick her out of the kitchen altogether.
D.O. watched carefully as Eunjung went about making her tart, his eagle eyes making it a point to let nothing go unnoticed. As he watched, he could not help but agree with Dok's assessment of Eunjung's talent. The girl had a flair for baking and the way she went about measuring the relevant ingredients and carefully mixing them together showed him that much. He watched as she took out the tofu from the fridge and began transforming it from something savoury to something sweet.
An hour later, a freshly baked fruit tart was sitting in front of him.
D.O. eyed the fruit tart suspiciously. It looked exactly the same as the one that Dok brought earlier... but was it really the same? He picked it up gingerly and took a bite. The flavours were exactly identical to the previous one. He looked up at Eunjung in surprise, as though genuinely taken aback that she was the one who had baked it. Since he had watched her every move as she made the tart, he had no choice but to believe that she was the one responsible for this tart, and that the custard was truly made of tofu. His eyes couldn't have lied to him.
"Where did you learn to make this?" he asked incredulously.
Eunjung felt a slight sense of pride just looking at the way his eyes were almost popping out of their sockets. As much as D.O. didn't want to admit it, she knew that he was impressed by what she had just done. "There's a really good bakery near my place that make vegan pastries. I learnt it from the woman who runs the place - I swear she's a better baker than half the people in those upper class bakeries."
D.O. had his solution right there and then. He grabbed Eunjung by the arm and dragged her towards the exit.
"Where are you taking me!" she yelped in surprise.
"We're going to that bakery of yours. Now."
Eunjung barely had time to throw off her apron before she was yanked out of the kitchen altogether.
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The tiny doorbell made a soft jingling sound as Eunjung pushed open the door and stepped into the quaint bakery round the street corner. The smell of freshly baked bread overwhelmed her senses the minute she walked in.
"Eunjung! What a surprise! Aren't you supposed to be at work now?" An elderly lady with greying hair smiled at her from behind the counter, the corners of her eyes crinkling as she did so.
"Mrs Ok!" Eunjung returned her greeting with a bright smile. Her smile quickly faded when she spied D.O.'s stern expression out of the corner of her eye.
Throughout the entire car ride, D.O. had not so much as said a single word to her besides asking for directions. His eyes were glued to the road, his hands on the wheel, and that had been the status quo for the past forty-five minutes. Eunjung had no idea how a person could be so stiff, it was as though he was a block of petrified wood.
"This is my boss... We're here to take a look at some of your pastries," Eunjung said as she walked over to the counter.
"But why would you do that? It's just a small bakery. Our Eunjung's baking skills have long surpassed this old lady's!" Mrs Ok, the owner of the bakery, said with a fond smile. Eunjung's family had been living here for the past twenty years and she had pretty much watched as Eunjung grew up from a tiny toddler to the beautiful young lady standing in front of her today. Eunjung had a penchant for pastries and sweets ever since she was a child, so she spent a rather lot of time in Mrs Ok's bakery.
D.O. was now bent over the display counter, his brows furrowed in all seriousness as he analysed the cupcakes and muffins that were on display.
"Excuse me, what are these made of?" he waved at the row of cupcakes with their pink and cream frosting.
"These?" Mrs Ok walked over to where he was. "These are made from sunflower seeds and granola."
"Eggs? Milk?" D.O. peered up at her expectantly.
Mrs Ok shook her head and smiled. "All our products are vegan, so there aren't any dairy products that go into them. I use vegetable oil in place of butter and eggs, you'll find that it still tastes the same though!" She picked up one of the cupcakes and handed it over to him.
D.O. thanked her and took a small bite out of the cupcake, not quite knowing what to expect. The freshness of flavour from the vanilla, blended with the texture from the sunflower seeds and granola made it quite an unexpected surprise in a mouthful. Eunjung watched with interest as D.O.'s eyes bulged slightly with surprise as he chewed on his mouthful of cupcake, thinking that he looked slightly like a goldfish at that instance.
"How is it?" Mrs Ok asked politely.
"It's... great," D.O. mumbled between bites. He was being honest about it. Never in his life had he imagined that anything vegan could taste this good. It was as though it was made with the standard run of butter and eggs and milk, yet it was made from none of those things.
After he swallowed the last of his cupcake, he cleared his throat and asked, "Ma'am, would it be possible for you to teach me how to make these?" Fruit tarts were too mainstream, and quaintly decorated cupcakes were all the rage these days. It would be perfect for the princess from Monaco.
Mrs Ok looked surprised at his request and looked towards Eunjung questioningly. The latter simply shrugged in response, since she too had no idea what D.O. was up to. He still hadn't told her a single thing about what was going on.
"Of course... since you are Eunjung's friend, that's not a problem," the elderly lady replied with a smile.
D.O. heaved a sigh of relief. He had been worried that she would say no, since some chefs and bakers were rather private with their recipes and guarded them with their lives. If she had rejected him, then he would be back at square one with no solution to his mountain of a problem. He smiled back. "Thank you so much, you don't know how much this means to me."
Watching him smile and speak so formally, Eunjung couldn't help but be a little surprised.
I wonder what he's up to... He actually looks normal when he smiles... if only he didn't frown so often.
But he wouldn't be D.O. the Great if he didn't constantly wear a frown on his forehead, would he?
#
The time was 11PM, and Eunjung and D.O. were back in the Global Hotel kitchen after their exploratory trip to Mrs Ok's bakery. Eunjung was seated on a stool in one corner, watching unhappily as D.O. went about trying out his newly learnt cupcake recipe.
They had reached the hotel at 7PM and he had been at it till now. She was certain that by now (the third batch of cupcakes later) he would have already memorised the recipe at the back of his head, but he refused to let her leave just in case he forgot something and needed her assistance. The feeling of being alone with D.O. in the kitchen late at night was giving her the feeling of deja vu, and the previous instance had not been the best of memories.
Should I be happy that he's not making me chop tomatoes? she wondered to herself.
Bored out of her wits, Eunjung stood up and walked over to her own workstation. If she had to stay here all night, the least she could do was work on her own skills. She was still trying to perfect her meringue tarts, so she might as well work on it now.
She had already brought out all the necessary ingredients and was about to start cracking the eggs when D.O. suddenly called out to her.
"Jin Eunjung."
Eunjung turned around and looked at him. "Yes?"
"We're out of vegetable oil, go fetch some from the storeroom." He waved the empty bottle of vegetable oil at her.
Eunjung rolled her eyes. It was as though D.O. was picking on her on purpose. All this while she had been sitting there doing nothing and he hadn't opened his mouth to ask her to do anything. Now that she had two eggs in her hands and was about to actually do some work, he had to pick this particular moment to get her to fetch more oil. It was annoying.
She put down her eggs grudgingly and trundled off towards the storeroom. She knew better than to complain in front of D.O., especially when she was already one strike down with two to go. If he wanted her to clean the entire kitchen now and mop the floor with a rag, she would have to suck it up and do it.
The kitchen storerooms were located down the corridor from the main kitchen, and there were four in total, including a cold room for meat and seafood. The room where the oil and other dried goods were kept was the smallest of them all, and the furthest from the main kitchen.
Eunjung popped open the door and walked in. The automatic lights didn't even switch on, since the system was shut down by 10PM every night. She propped the door open with a tin that was lying around and went about looking for the vegetable oil.
"Where on earth is it..." she grumbled to herself. Although the store wasn't big, there were still a hundred and one things in there. As a pattisiere, this was not a room that she came into very often. "Aha!" she exclaimed as she spotted a row of bottles of cooking oil on the bottom shelf in the right corner of the room. She had just about bent over to pick up the vegetable oil when the door suddenly slammed shut with a loud bang.
"What the!" Eunjung jumped at the sound of the door slamming, dropping her bottle of oil onto the ground. The room was suddenly enveloped in darkness, with only a tiny beam of light shining in from the small overhead window that overlooked the street outside. Eunjung stood up and ran over to the door, trying to push it open.
The door wouldn't budge.
"Crap..." she cursed as she continued pushing and pulling at the door handle, but the door was stuck fast.
"Hello!" she shouted loudly, banging at the door. It was a bit of a stretch to hope for someone to walk past and rescue her, considering the only other person in the area right now was probably D.O. and there was no way he was going to look away from his cupcakes anytime soon. "Hello! Is anybody out there!" she continued shouting.
Five minutes later, still no one.
Eunjung sank to the floor and looked around at the darkness that surrounded her. She could feel her heartbeat starting to race in her chest as the memories of a time long past came inching back into her mind. Three years ago she was locked in a confined space not too different from this, and it had become a nightmare that was forever etched into her mind.
It's not the same... It's not the same... She tried to reassure herself, shutting her eyes tightly to block out suffocating darkness.
It was too late.
Nothing she did could stop the memories from coming back, memories that she thought she had long buried and forgotten. The helpless feeling of being locked in a small, dark room, the thought of being abandoned with no one to rescue her, the despair she had felt at the realisation that she was now forever alone. All of it came rushing back like a bad dream.
Before she knew it, the tears were flowing down from her eyes like a faulty tap and her breathing was becoming more and more laboured.
It's not the same...
Jongin... Where are you... Where are you?
All around her, it was as though the walls were caving in on her and the darkness was about to swallow her whole. The exact same feeling she had three years ago.
"Jongin... save me..."
Everything went black.
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