Kitchen & Co

i. of flying suitcases and hot chefs

"eating is a necessity. but cooking is an art. "

c h a p t e r v o n .

Nadine is fucking pissed. In fact, that is an understatement. All she wants to be is home, where her familiar half-working TV with the worn-out white cupboard next to it, a find she'd picked up from a yard-sale(it currently houses all twenty-two DVDs in BluRay, cased carefully in plastic wrap and out of reach from any meandlering toddler's chubby hands). And all she wants to do is make herself a stack of kimchi crepes, drizzle it with honey (because her tongue enjoys orgasms with sweet and sour) and stick a huge, three-pronged fork into it. Afterwhich she'll bring the whole damn, godforsaken delicious thing up to her room, and lounge in her messy bed sheets until 5 p.m.

That is the life.

Correction, was. Now, she's stuck dragging a suitcase full of things--metal things, that cling and clang around as she drags her navy-blue suitcase up the platform of the train, cursing whenever the dratted thing's wheels somehow managed to get caught in the gap between the platform. It didn't help that a calm, insanely British woman's voice flowed through the subway's speakers, her buttery voice filling up every carriage.

"Stupid Brit and her stupid calmness", Nadine spits, sweat beading on her forehead and completely unaware of the gaggle of Brits, tourists, actually. She finds herself offering a menacing scowl in their direction instead of giving them a serene, "welcome to our nation" smile. She doesn't understand particularly why, but she's always been less friendly to British people as compared to other races and ethnics. And when she promptly knocks her head against the pole of the subway carriage, meant to help her stand, she understands why. Everything about the British accent, to her, embodies grace and elegance and whatnot(which, by the way, is so British), which is completely what she's...not. For God's sakes, she's managed to bang herself against a pole.

Against. A. Supporting. Device. Implemented. In. Subways.

How lovely.

"Hey", one of the tourtists says in his own quaint accent, his smoldering eyes holding hers defiantly, so whenever she tries to break out of his gaze, all she can see are the blue of his irises. He adjusts his haversack further up on his shoulders and Nadine can see how his shirt clings to his defined chest. Nadine snorts and shuffles her suitcase to the side, and unfortunately, he misreads this signal and moves closer to her in the already crowded train. Why is the train so crowded at THIS time of the day? She thinks darkly, before sliding her suitcase even further away from impeding danger.

Impeding danger equals her using her frying pan from within the suitcase to whack this nutter on the head. Because yes, Ms Blossom whatever had requested for her to bring all her regular cooking materials, from wooden spatula to grating block.

To a very conveniently heavy frying pan that her arms are itching to grip.

Nadine's brain is busy retaining a visual of Mildly-Attractive-British-Boy being whacked over the head by a frying pan that she almost misses her stop.

Key word is almost. Nadine is the type of girl to almost always almost-miss her stop. For example, she'll hear her stop being said over the intercom-thingy by a British woman, and keep day-dreaming until the light flashes brightly, signalling that the doors are about to close. So this time she darts out the door just in time...but half of her suitcase, doesn't.

"What the clusterfuck!" She nearly shrieks, and it takes all of her energy not to launch herself at the subway door and leave her mucky footprints all over it. "Get my bag out!" She screams at the helpless door, which is unable to do anything, for it is, after all, just a door.