young & wild | chaeyu

twelve ; recipe

 "Chocolate or vanilla?" asked Chaeyoung, holding two recipes, one in each hand. She waggled them in the air dramatically as she waited for an answer from Tzuyu.

"Hmm. Are we making the small ones or large one?"

"What do you mean?"

Tzuyu hesitated. "Like... Small cakes. Or one big cake. I don't know what the small ones are called, though."

"Cupcakes? They're basically just small cakes." Chaeyoung hoped she knew what Tzuyu was asking. She was supposed to be helping her with the language, anyways.

"Yes. Cupcakes," she said, trying out the unfamiliar word. "Are we making cake or... or cupcakes?"

"I don't know," confessed Chaeyoung. "I haven't ever baked any kind of cake before. It's a weird food anyways. I just thought it would be fun."

Tzuyu laughed softly. "So neither of us know what we are doing."

The shorter girl shrugged in response. "It shouldn't be hard. We just read the instructions, right?" Chaeyoung paused, smiling with uncertainty. "Right?" she asked again, and Tzuyu laughed at the increasingly nervous look on her face.

"Right," confirmed Tzuyu. "But I won't be good for that either. Reading is easier than talking, but baking words aren't what I normally study."

"Oh no," said Chaeyoung in alarm.

Tzuyu started laughing again. "You can read, right?"

Chaeyoung paused. "Well... Yeah... I was actually worried for a moment that we wouldn't be able to read the instructions." Again, Tzuyu laughed. Chaeyoung felt a bit stupid for feeling so concerned just seconds ago, but hearing Tzuyu laugh and seeing her smile made Chaeyoung's stupid mistake worth the brief rush of embarrassment. "But then what will you do?"

Tzuyu tilted her head to the side. "What do you mean? We're making cake. And I still haven't figured out whether we're making a big cake or cupcakes. I just want to eat the cake."

"Me too!" Chaeyoung declared. "But first we gotta figure out how. And what job we're going to do. Like, do you want to read the instructions, or get and mix the ingredients?"

Tzuyu paused. "How could I do either? I am bad at Korean and don't know your kitchen at all."

Chaeyoung paused. "Oh. Yeah. I didn't think this through. And you aren't bad at Korean, just learning." She nervously swept back the hair from around her face.

"We should tie our hair back," Tzuyu mentioned quietly. "So it doesn't get in our faces while we cook."

"Bake," corrected Chaeyoung nonchalantly. Tzuyu felt a pang of appreciation for the subtle and polite correction. "And okay. That would be good."

Chaeyoung turned away from Tzuyu and took a step forward, ready to grab hair ties from a different room, but before she could, a soft hand on her shoulder stopped her. From behind the small girl, Tzuyu's hands brushed against Chaeyoung cheeks and neck as she gently gathered her hair together and quickly wrapped an elastic band so Chaeyoung's hair was kept out of her face.

"There," whispered Tzuyu, pulling away so lightly that Chaeyoung could still feel the feathery memories of her hands against her skin.

Chaeyoung turned back to face her, grinning almost uncontrollably. "Thank you. Now, I'll grab the supplies, and you can practice reading the ingredients. Okay?" Now that she had the idea in her head, she figured that letting Tzuyu read out the ingredients would be good to practice sounding out and pronouncing the Hangul that Tzuyu was still familiarizing herself with.