11 Cake, Cake and More Cake

"Are you a pig reincarnated?"

Eunjung's spoon stopped moving in mid-air.

She looked across the table at the man who was sitting opposite and shot him a glare, before putting the spoonful of cake into her mouth where it belonged. "So what if I am?" she retorted, though her words came out garbled.

D.O. snorted in response. Their market survey of the Hongdae restaurants was going fairly well so far and this was the third restaurant that they were at. At every restaurant, Eunjung had made it a point to order something to eat, citing it as being part of the survey, and D.O. had to pick up the bill. Right now he was amazed that she still had room in her stomach to put any more food in.

"Correction, you must have been a cow in your previous life, because cows have four stomachs," he added, taking a sip of his apple juice.

Eunjung shook her head. "I only have two, one for the main course and another for desserts. I have separate stomach for desserts and sweets."

D.O. didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Typically the girls he knew tried ways and means to avoid eating desserts and sweets because it made them grow fat, but here he was with a girl who was already onto her second slice of cake and was showing no signs of stopping. But then again, Eunjung wasn't your average girl, she was a cow reincarnated.

He ignored her and looked around.

The restaurant they were at had a vintage theme, with decor and furniture that had obviously been carefully curated and arranged by the owner. There was nothing special about the quality of their food, as could be told from the supermarket-tasting apple juice he was currently drinking, but the restaurant was packed to the brim even though it was only 5PM, with a queue of people still waiting to come in.

"What does this restaurant have that we don't..." he mumbled to himself thoughtfully. There was no question that the food served at the hotel was tons better, and the service was also tip-top, yet the place was barely half full even during peak hours.

"Character," Eunjung suddenly piped up.

"Huh? Did you say something?"

Eunjung placed her spoon back down on her empty plate and said, "Our restaurant lacks character. Look around here - every piece of furnishing in this restaurant speaks of the owner's character, and it shows through the way the place is put together. Our restaurant serves fantastic food, but the place itself lacks character. It's just your generic hotel restaurant. No one wants to pay through their nose to eat food in a 'nice' place. They want to queue to eat in a place that is different from the rest."

D.O. pondered over her words for a second. Eunjung made some sense (for once) - there was nothing lacking at their restaurant except character. D.O. hadn't picked it up before because he was used to working at restaurants which were already long-established brand names which didn't require any extra embellishments in order to draw in the crowd. Global Hotel's restaurant however, was as Eunjung had described - it lacked character. It was 'nice' but boring.

He was knocked out of his train of thought by an eager waitress in a vintage western-style frilly apron. "Excuse me, are you a couple?"

D.O. looked up at her, stunned into silence.

"Right now we're having a special promotion! We're currently launching a whole series of new cakes for White Day and any couple who can finish all ten different flavours of cake within ten minutes will walk away with a pair of limited edition watches from Solvil et Titus!" the waitress continued excitedly, pointing at the array of cakes in the display.

"Uhh we're not--"

"Yes! We'll do it!" Eunjung cut off D.O. before he could finish his sentence. "Come on, it's just ten slices of cake in exchange for two expensive watches," she kicked D.O. in the shin and hissed. The waitress smiled and nodded, heading off to prepare the ten slices of cake.

"Why did you kick me for!" D.O. yelped. "And why did you agree to that? Ten slices of cake in ten minutes is no joke! That's like... one slice per minute! Did you even look at the size of those slices?!" Within two minutes the waitress had brought four slices of cake to their table and headed back to get the rest. Just looking at the cakes sitting in front of him was enough to make D.O. feel slightly sick in the stomach. He was always more of a savoury foods type of person, and cake wasn't really his thing.

"Just eat whatever you can, and I'll do the rest, ok?" Eunjung waved her hand casually. To her, the challenge was far too easy. The prize was already in the bag.

When the waitress came back with the remaining cake, she whipped out a stopwatch and said, "Are you ready?"

Eunjung nodded eagerly. D.O. just had his usual stone-face on.

"Ready, get set, GO!"

The minute the waitress said "go", Eunjung's hand started flying. Fork in one hand, spoon in the other, she was scooping two mouthfuls at a time and shovelling them non-stop into her mouth like a machine. For a good thirty seconds, all D.O. could do was stare.

Was this girl for real?

"What are you waiting for? Hurry up and eat!" Eunjung frowned at D.O.. She shoved her own spoon of black forest cake straight into his gaping mouth.

"You're doing well! Eight minutes left!" the waitress announced. Eunjung picked up speed. Out of the corner of his eye, D.O. could see the stopwatch counting down the seconds, and reluctantly he began to put cake into his mouth. By the fifth mouthful he felt as though he was contracting diabetes but seeing Eunjung continue relentlessly made him feel obliged to continue as well. He couldn't possibly lose in a cake-eating contest to a girl - it would be too great a blow to his ego.

"Almost done! You have a final thirty seconds!"

By now a sizeable crowd had gathered round Eunjung and D.O.'s table, all eagerly watching to see whether or not they would be able to complete the challenge.

"Come on! Eat faster!" Eunjung shot a death glare at D.O., whose eating speed had slowed down considerably.

"You eat faster!" D.O. glared back angrily.

"Five! Four! Three! Two! One!" With one deep breath, D.O. picked up his final spoonful of cake and shoved it entirely into his mouth, gulping it down in a single second. He swallowed it down so quickly that he thought the piece of cake was stuck halfway down his throat.

"Yes! We did it!" Eunjung jumped out of her seat and bounced around joyfully. She reached over and grabbed D.O. by the shoulders, shaking him in excitement, making him choke even more. "Oh my I think you better drink some water. Are you alright?" she said when she realised he was going slightly green in the face. She quickly filled up a glass of water and placed it in his hand.

D.O. couldn't respond because he felt as though the minute he opened his mouth, all the cake he just gobbled down would immediately come out again. He downed the entire glass of water and collapsed back in his chair in disbelief at what he had just done.

"Congratulations! You've managed to complete our couple cake challenge!" the waitress declared. Another waiter came up to them and placed two boxes on the table. "These are your prizes for completing the challenge. Congratulations once again and we wish you a lifetime of happiness together! Do come back and visit our restaurant again soon."

Are you kidding? I'm never coming back here again. Never! D.O. thought to himself in horror.

Eunjung opened the boxes on the table, revealing a beautiful female watch with a white leather strap and diamond-lined watch face and a matching male watch with a similar strap but a larger watch face. "Excellent! I was just thinking of getting a new watch because mine stopped working a couple of weeks ago. Do you want the other one? Because if you don't, I'll give it to--"

"Who said I don't want it!" D.O. snapped, reaching his hand out and grabbing the men's watch quickly. "I earned this."

"Alright alright... no need to get so snappy. I was just thinking since you were so reluctant to participate, maybe you didn't care for the prize."

"Did you honestly think I would go through so much torture for nothing?" D.O. stuffed the box into his bag and stood up in a huff, pushing his chair away abruptly and storming out. He had probably eaten enough cake to last him a lifetime.

#

An hour later, Eunjung was camped outside a public toilet waiting for D.O. to be done. He had already been in there for a good twenty minutes.

"Hello?" she picked up her phone when the ringtone started going off.

"Where are you? I thought we were supposed to go for dinner tonight?" It was Chanyeol.

"Oh! I completely forgot! I'm so sorry Chanyeol, are you waiting for me at the hotel?" Eunjung clapped her hand over her mouth in horror when she realised that she had forgotten the appointment with her best friend. Chanyeol had suggested treating her to dinner tonight in celebration of having cleared her name in the food poisoning fiasco.

"Yeah... I take it you're not here?"

"I am so, so sorry." She took a quick glance at her watch. Considering the distance between the hotel and her current location, it would be well past dinnertime by the time she managed to rush back. "I had to go out on a work assignment, and I don't think I'll be able to rush back in time... Sorry Chanyeol, can we do this another time?"

"Where are you? Do you want me to come pick you up?"

"No, no it's fine, I'll be able to get home by myself. Don't worry about me! Go get some food, you must be hungry after an entire day's work."

"Nonsense, it's no trouble at all. Where are you?"

"Uhh... I'm at Hongdae doing a market survey of restaurants. I'm not sure when I'll be done though. It kind of depends on what time my idiot boss gets out of the toilet..." Eunjung grumbled. This was the first time she had seen someone get a stomach upset from eating cake. For someone who was a Michelin star chef, D.O.'s stomach was unbelievably weak.

"Your boss? You're with Kyung-- D.O.?"

"Yep!" Eunjung nodded. "We were trying out some cakes at this restaurant and he's having abit of stomach trouble now. It's really annoying I've been waiting here for twenty minutes."

"I see... I'll be over in half an hour. Wait for me at the Family Mart next to the Hongdae subway station."

With a click, the phone call was over.

"Well that was abrupt..." Eunjung murmured to herself.

"Hello? Is anybody out there?" a familiar voice came shouting from inside the men's toilet. "Hello!"

"D.O.? Is that you?" Eunjung glued her ear to the toilet door and shouted back.

"Yes! There's no more toilet roll..." came D.O.'s desperate voice.

Eunjung looked around. There wasn't anyone in sight. She pushed open the toilet door a crack and peeked in. No one in sight either. She quickly pushed open the door and dashed in, running into the first cubicle and grabbing the toilet roll. "I'm throwing it over!" she shouted, before tossing the roll over the toilet dividers to D.O..

Just for good measure, she decided to check out the other cubicles before leaving. Every single one of them was stocked with toilet roll. She sighed. Of all the toilet cubicles he had to pick, he had to pick the only one without toilet roll...

"Not even a single thank you?" she shouted back at D.O. as she walked back towards the exit.

"Shut up and get out before anyone sees you!"

Eunjung rolled her eyes.

"Ingrate."

#

"I think I may need the toilet again soon," D.O. muttered as they walked towards Family Mart. Right now all he wanted were some charcoal pills to cure his indigestion.

"Quit whining, we're almost there," Eunjung said, picking up her pace as they approached the store.

Once they were in, D.O. headed straight for the pharmacy section. He quickly bought his charcoal tablets and a bottle of mineral water, bringing them to the tables by the window. He was about to pop two tablets into his mouth and swallow them down in a hurry when someone grabbed his hand.

"Hey what are you doing? Let go!" he turned to look at Eunjung in surprise. She seemed determined to prolong his suffering, when she was the one who put him into this misery in the first place.

Eunjung put a bottle of milk on the table in front of him. "Drink this first before you take those tablets, they'll help the medicine take effect faster."

"Are you sure about this?" D.O. looked at her skeptically.

She nodded quickly. "When I was younger my mum would always give me a glass of milk before charcoal tablets. It helps soothe the stomach too."

D.O. wasn't altogether convinced, but he opened the bottle of milk and took two mouthfuls anyway. He was about to move the bottle away from his mouth and attempt to swallow his charcoal tablets once more when Eunjung grabbed his hand yet again.

"That's not enough! You need to finish the whole bottle!" With her other hand, she grabbed the bottle of milk and pushed it back towards his mouth, causing a stream of milk to go tumbling down his throat. D.O. quickly pushed her hand away, choking from the sudden dosage of milk. Milk spilt everywhere.

"Are you crazy?! Are you trying to make me choke to death?" he shouted.

Eunjung immediately put her hands out, worried that D.O. might suddenly give her one tight slap. "I'm sorry! I was just trying to help!"

D.O. glared at her angrily before finally swallowing his charcoal tablets, washing it down with some water. "You've got milk everywhere. Clear up the mess!" Today was getting more and more ridiculous by the minute and D.O. was totally regretting agreeing to let Eunjung come along with him for the market survey trip. If she hadn't come along, he wouldn't have forced himself to eat ten slices of cake, landed himself with a stomach upset and ended up with milk splattered over his new shirt.

He was even more certain now that they were born to make each other miserable.

#

Chanyeol was sitting in the driver's seat of his car, parked across the road from the Family Mart by Hongdae subway station.

He didn't know how long he had been there, but he had been there long enough to see Eunjung try to make Kyungsoo finish a bottle of milk while he was trying to take his stomach medicines. Anyone who didn't know better would have assumed that they were a couple making a casual trip to the convenience store. Chanyeol knew better. He knew that Eunjung and Kyungsoo could hardly stand the sight of one another.

There was something that disturbed him slightly though.

He saw Kyungsoo almost choke on his milk, and him glaring angrily at Eunjung after that. The Kyungsoo he knew would have long stormed out of the store and left Eunjung to clear up the mess, but the Kyungsoo he was looking at now did nothing like that.

Kyungsoo walked over to the store assistant and borrowed some napkins, before proceeding to giving half of them to Eunjung, helping her clean up the mess together.

When they were younger, whenever the boys made a mess, Kyungsoo always left Chanyeol to do the cleaning up. This was the first time Chanyeol had seen Kyungsoo clean up on his own accord instead of leaving it entirely to the other person.

Maybe all those years abroad has changed him, he thought to himself.

He hoped that that was the reason why Kyungsoo's behaviour was different now.

He hoped that was the reason, because the other possibility was one that he would be unable to accept...