chasing girl wonder

misfire

While eating, Roseanne shared her South of France adventures with Lisa. She would laugh in between, recalling how Felix and Yeri pretended to be a couple to get upgraded to a suite in the hotel, bought into the idea themselves that they actually slept on the same bed but ended up bickering when Yeri kicked Felix off the bed on their third night, complaining about his snoring. So, Jennie switched rooms with Felix after they played some games. On that first night with Felix, Roseanne had a heart-to-heart talk with him until the wee hours that they had to miss a tour the next day, which led them to explore the town on their own and that was how Roseanne ended up seeing the Thai restaurant.

Roseanne asked what Lisa had been up to and the latter shared there was nothing fun on her side of the world because no restaurant would take her in Jukdo, and she let her crew get the job instead of her. Lisa swerved to another topic, "Does your mom work in that hospital?"

"We, uhm, kind of own it," Roseanne said timidly. "It's independent of SNU, but we do get support from the government because we didn't want it to be some expensive private hospital so... I won't bore you with the deets."

"How about your dad? What does he do?" Lisa was well aware that it was no longer her taking control of her tongue. She never initiated such conversation with any girls she slept with. That was an unspoken rule for the non-committals, yet she was utterly curious about Roseanne. Committed to know her all her life.

"A lawyer. Alice is one too," Roseanne said, starting with the dessert.

A forkful of the green tea pound cake was being offered to Lisa and it should no longer surprise her that Roseanne would always just casually feed her—or anyone else for that matter—but her heart reacted just like the first time. "Hmm, that's good. Really good."

"It's the best seller here. Rowoon uses this really good brand from Japan—Ippodo Tea Ummon Matcha—very expensive too!" Roseanne chortled. "We went there together with other friends to find sources before. We learned the grade between ceremonial and culinary matcha, the taste, and texture, you know it. But Rowoon was sold to that brand right away. He didn't care if it was expensive and had to be used within a month."

Humming, Lisa savored the cake. "I don't taste any milk though, but it's creamy."

"That's right. That matcha's creamy and earthy already, it's good as it is. Want more?" Roseanne asked, already forking another bite for Lisa.

"Yes, please," Lisa said. Of course, she wanted to be fed more. Easy one. Ha. Roseanne fed her another bite and then herself after. The thought of sharing a fork was making her apeshit and Love looked up at her from drinking his water. "Young lad," she pointed at Love, "finish that. We're good, okay?"

Roseanne chuckled. "He's adorably overprotective of you. You okay?"

"Uhuh." Lisa grimaced. "He can be annoying."

"That's the same thing you say about the people who care about you." Roseanne glanced at Lisa upon saying that, seeing a slight astonishment in the way the latter met her gaze briefly with an arched eyebrow.

Not wanting to elaborate on that catch, Lisa cleared her throat and segued back to the matcha topic. A little less intimate. A bit more high-graded. "Uhm, what about you? What matcha do you use in your café?"

"I use two types. One that I use as the base for coffee. It's versatile and works with any type of milk. Then I source this single origin one that's ground to order from Shizuoka," Roseanne said.

They talked about sourcing ingredients and exploring different foods, how it was not always fun like how some docuseries showed on TV, and how it was physically draining and frustrating because someone else had come up with the same ideas already or that there was never enough time, money, and vigor to discover every potential ingredient. There would be days when their palates would be blown out trying out different foods and cleansing them with citrus water would not work.