The Light of Dead Stars | KSJ

06

You slice the ravioli in half and munch on a piece, your eyes furrowed, hoping that you finally get the pasta right. You huff and aggressively eat the remaining half, scowling as you do.

"Aish, how do I get this right?" You wail to no one.

"You know that's not your job anymore, right?" Seokjin's voice echoes in the kitchen, your pouty face making him laugh. "You didn't get promoted for you to still be doing product developer tasks," he reminds you. "Get your people to do this. You're sacrificing your weekends to perfect this recipe."

"Says the man who does just that," you arch an eyebrow. "You were literally mixing around with the packet broth recipe that your people should be doing. And that was just last week."

"I was making us dinner," he defends.

"You made 4 batches of the broth, Jin; 5 if I hadn't stepped in and complained that I was starving."

"Fine, you caught me," he says, taking your fork and eating the other piece of ravioli, muttering that it's good. "Your point is?"

"My point is that I have as much right to do this as you do. Also, it's good but the pasta's too thick."

"Wasn't this a project from last year? I thought one of your teams was working on it already," he asks, opening cupboards and drawers and taking out ingredients and a pan.

"They were; research had begun but the other team working on the samgak kimbap were down some people and the ravioli team had to help, so this took a backseat. It picked up again but there are still issues with the ingredients and pricing so I decided to help, otherwise we'd be behind schedule."

You watch Jin heat up the pan, take the remaining white kimchi from the jar, put it in a bowl, and cut it into smaller pieces. He slices bacon, canned spam, and sausages and boils some eggs.

"So the filling is okay, it's just the pasta you need to figure out?" he asks, as he starts to fry the meat; the sizzling sound is music to your ears.

You hum, getting lost in how he works, as he now adds the white kimchi - with some chili paste and flakes - then the rice, mixing everything until they're ready to go. He puts it in a serving plate then adds soft boiled eggs on top with some garnish.

When he's stressed or wants to take his mind off things, he cooks. It's one of the first things you learned about him after you got married.

You grew up in a humble home and watched your mother make stews from the vegetables in the garden - humble cooking for a family like yours. But you know Jin grew up traveling the world, being exposed to various cuisines and shopping for expensive ingredients like it's a normal thing.

You've seen him make pasta from scratch, cook steak to perfection, and whip up interesting and complicated dishes, and it always astounds you. He works in the kitchen with so much grace and confidence, and he'd mentioned once that if he wasn't the eldest who's expected to run the company, he would've made a career as a chef or a food critic.

But of all the times that he's made meals out of the fanciest ingredients, some of which you've never heard of before, it's when he's making food like this that you're most impressed. Somehow it tells you that at the end of the day, this is still his comfort food, and this is his way of comforting and encouraging you. You've mentioned quite a few times that aside from pancakes, all-meat kimchi fried rice is something you also like to gorge on when you're stressed.

He passes you bowls and spoons and motions for the living room. "Turn on any food channel, let's have dinner."

You follow, and soon after, he's plopping down next to you on the floor with the plate and 2 bottles of beer.