Chapter Text
He didn’t work a lot of the early morning shifts even on the weekends; they started at the ungodly hour of three a.m., which his aunt and uncle – together with his parents piping in from Busan – had deemed too hazardous for his studies for the way they made him miss sleep. He could’ve told them there had been more than one occasion when he’d only snuck back to his aunt and uncle’s apartment so late he’d been awake to hear his auntie getting up and having her breakfast before heading to work. He’d tried to convince them he’d be fine with it, that a few sleepless nights were nothing to someone his age and that he was happy to give his aunt and uncle a break, especially since he was often up studying that late anyway, but he still averaged only a night or two every couple of months, and that was only if he didn’t have exams or papers due.
Jimin liked the early morning shift. At three in the morning, most of the drunkards heading out after their nights of heavy partying had already gone home, and the ones that hadn’t knew to avoid their stall, because no food was ready to be served for them yet. At three in the morning there was usually a slight chill or coolness in the air, no matter the season, and even in summer it created a balance with the scorching hot days they all had to suffer through manning the various cookers and hotplates their stall was equipped with. At three in the morning there were few people around except for other vendors setting up their food stands, and he enjoyed the silent camaraderie they had for each other while letting everyone get on with their work.
And there was plenty of it.
The early morning shift started with him physically setting up the stand, unfolding its steel exterior and lining the counters with aluminium foil, pulling apart the piles of stools and positioning them around the few tables they had by their stand. He unfurled the canopies and tarps that provided some shade and wind cover for their customers – though in truth in the heart of the city there was barely any need for it, the tall buildings hiding the sun much better than they did. Finally he swept the street around their humble little eatery from the trash that had piled up during the few hours they’d been closed; not everyone did it, and in truth it felt like a useless and thankless task most of the time, but he and his auntie thought it gave a better impression and made eating there more pleasant; his uncle didn’t dare have an opinion on it.
After he’d finished setting up the stand, he needed to get everything ready for cooking the food. He switched on the gas canisters and lit a fire underneath the big vats of water that would keep their tteokbokki steaming hot throughout the day, as well as under the large pots that housed the broth they’d be using for their cooking that day. He took one of the larger sharp knives and chopped radish, onions, green onions and garlic into water, adding dried anchovies and dried kelp into broth strainers and submerging them fully in the same pots as the vegetables. He added soy sauce before getting to work skewering the fishcakes, large, thick rice cakes and slices of konjac. These too he submerged in the hot broth, making sure every type of skewer occupied its own little square of space in the cooker.
The next step was taking out some broth for the large, shallow rectangular cooking dishes he had set up over the hot water to keep them warm. He tore open the knot around a bag full of chopped up spring onions before adding them into the broth, then pried open the lid of an enormous tub of gochuchang, from which he scooped out several large portions. At the food stand they served three different kinds of tteokbokki: a standard one, not too mild but not too spicy; one with memil tteok instead of the standard variety made with rice; and one extra spicy one, which was his recipe. All of their tteokbokki was made in the Busan style, with rice cakes that were thicker and chewier than the ones usually used in the capital. Emigrants from the city gave them good business for it, glad for the fact they could get a taste of home so far away from it. Once he’d added the gochuchang, he poured in syrup in thick glossy swirls and tore apart the tteok from lines where they were stuck together, dropping them into the sauce and mixing gently not to break them apart. As the final touch, he upended a bag of flat fishcakes over the wide dishes, knowing he’d gotten the sauce right not by tasting it but by observing its consistency.
He left the tteokbokki to heat up and thicken further, turning his attention on the tempura batter he now needed to mix, and the bags of different things he needed to get ready for deep frying. He poured out oil into a large, deep pan set over a medium flame so it could heat up while he finished setting everything up. He placed seasoned glass noodles into a bowl, quickly rolling and cutting up some simple kimbap with noodles, pickled radish and carrots. He dipped each cut up slice into the tempura batter he’d mixed and dropped them into the hot oil, letting them swirl around when he mixed it with a large sieve with a long wooden handle. When he’d first arrived in Seoul at the age of twenty, manning the deep fryer had been a little frightening, but anyone who saw him do it now laughed and said he looked as though he’d been doing it for thirty years.
Once the kimbap was crispy, he lifted it onto racks to get rid of the excess oil, then moved onto the next things to deep fry: slices of sweet potato, prawns, squid, stuffed peppers and vegetables cut into matchsticks and rolled around in flour. They were all set up vertically to drip over wide pans while he unpacked the sundae and offal, putting them in the steamer. By then it was time to return to mix the tteokbokki. The thick, red sauce glistened on the rice cakes as he swirled it in the dishes, nodding at a few passers-by and smiling behind his mask – air quality was bad that day. It was still quiet though getting everything ready had taken him nearly an hour and a half.
He didn’t expect to be disturbed when it was still so early, and it took him a moment to notice the man who’d stopped in front of the food stand, swaying gently as he stared up at the menus they displayed overhead, his eyes barely visible beyond his mask and the beanie he’d pulled on his head. Jimin crossed the space inside the stand quickly, greeting the man loudly enough to make him flinch.
“Good morning. Would you like to order?”
The man stared at him for a moment, then turned slowly to the plastic bag of takeaway containers he was holding which Jimin only noticed then. They both kept looking at each other, at a loss for words with the usual customer service script thus interrupted.
“It says your tteokbokki is Busan style?” the man asked, his words lisping a little, and Jimin hurried to nod.
“Yes. For both the regular and spicy ones, we use Busan style rice cakes” he explained, making his words loud and simple; this guy was obviously drunk. “Everyone says it tastes just like back home.”
“Ah, really?” he asked, sounding and looking disappointed when he glanced again at the bag he was carrying; Jimin made an effort to hear his hometown in the guy’s speech, but caught none of it. “Must be delicious.”
“Would you like to take some home with you?” Jimin tried, though the disappointment in the guy’s words spoke against his chances; he wasn’t surprised to see him shake his head.
“I’ve already–”
His words were cut off by someone further down the street calling out his name, and he waved his hand in a large arch at his friends Jimin could spot in the distance.
“Come back and eat here later then,” he said, already directing his attention back on the food and mixing the tteokbokki in lazy swirls. “We’re open until late so come whenever it suits you.”
“Maybe I will,” the guy said, impressing Jimin when he managed to think clearly enough to pull out his phone and snap a picture of their sign – but even so, he didn’t expect to see him again after he wandered off to join his friends, and didn't expect to recognise him if he happened to come by when he was on shift either.
His morning continued like any other, with the usual breakfast crowd filing in to be served, and by the time his auntie joined him to help with lunch service, he’d forgotten all about his first almost-customer of the day.