Getting a second chance at life isn't exactly as enchanting as it seems.
Sohee Young, who lived life like the callous person she was, dies. She gets another chance to live life correctly though, and that is by swapping lives with Lina Park, who die...
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"LINA, CAN YOU stir this for me?" I felt like a bumbling idiot in the kitchen. Pots and pans clinked together, and Andrew and the other girl's voice of "Table 8 ordered..." blended together.
"Lina!" Said girl's mother snapped.
I stumbled over the pot, stirring the meat and the kimchi together as her mother added various spices. Behind me, Andrew carried the side dishes to the tables. Of course, I had to sniff the food the wrong way. My eyes watered and a sting went up my nose as I bent over and coughed.
"Lina," a hand on my back rubbed in circles, and Andrew supplied water for me.
"I'm fine," I managed to get out, pushing his hand away, but the sounds of samgyeopsal sizzling drowned my voice out. To make my point, I avoided his gaze.
"Here, I'll help you Imo. I think Hanna can handle it by herself."
Head snapping up, I shot out, "Excuse me?" Just because I wasn't adjusting as fast as they wanted me to didn't mean I was helpless. Besides, the scene outside looked worse than here, with customers pouring in. And it was only lunch. I caught the eye of the lady that Andrew helped a day ago and froze.
"No, you really don't need to!" Lina's mother shook her hands in the air and steered Andrew out of the kitchen, declaring, "We'll just have Lina on cleaning duty."
"Cleaning duty?"
"Yes," she nodded. "You can wash the dishes."
"Wash the dishes?" I parroted, and my eyes widened as I stared at the pile of clattered dishes and stone pots for the jigaes in the sink. Next to a perfectly functioning dishwasher. Right. There. Even the maids in our house didn't wash the dishes unless it was a small amount. "Why not use a dishwasher?"
"A dishwasher?" Lina's father asked in an incredulous tone from his station. "Why would we use a dishwasher?"
I fought the urge to throw my hands up in the air. "Why would we not? It's right there for us to use." Besides, why waste time when machines could do the work? This was the 21st century.
"It doesn't even wash the dishes properly!" he exclaimed.
"Maybe you don't know how to operate it!" I yanked open the dishwasher and pulled the first column out.
"What's going on?" Andrew popped in, and both of us froze.
"Andrew! She's trying to poison us!" My father exclaimed, taking on the whiny tone my mother had. Unbelievable.
"Excuse me? Poison? More like trying to lessen your workload!" I snapped back. My anger tempted to flare. He should be grateful that I was even here. The fact that I was about to get my hands dirty doing chores was a big enough progress in itself, something the Sohee Young in New York would never do.
Wiping away a fake tear dramatically, Lina's father sighed. "I work so hard to teach my kid these authentic Korean traditions, but she keeps denying them."
