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Yoshiko’s mother barged into her room. “What is it?” Yoshiko asked, slightly angry at being interrupted.
“Yoshiko, you need to get your ass out of that chair and get some volunteer hours. Your high school requires it.”
“What the heck? You know it’s summer; I’m supposed to be having fun, not laboring for no pay,” Yoshiko replied, annoyed that her mother insisted she go and volunteer.
“If you don’t have enough volunteer hours by the end of the summer, the school said that it was going to expel you. It’s already been decided; I’ve signed you up to volunteer at the local soup kitchen for the next week. Since today’s Sunday, your work begins tomorrow.” Yoshiko’s mother slammed her hand on the table, causing Yoshiko to jump out of her chair in terror. On the table, she saw a form titled “Soup Kitchen Volunteer Applications.” On the form, she saw a few boxes and lines filled with her information; then, she saw her mother’s signature on the bottom line, used for signatures.
She slumped back in her chair, her posture degrading, put her headphones down on the table, and then, lifting her head, sighed, resigning in defeat. “Fine, you win. I’ll volunteer at the soup kitchen.”
Her mother temporarily cheered but then realized that she had another thing to say. She adjusted her sleeves and began walking out of Yoshiko’s room. Her daughter started focusing on her game. Before Yoshiko could return to her land of daydreams, she stopped. Winking at Yoshiko, she delivered one last message. “Oh yeah, I heard there’s going to be a cutie volunteering at the soup kitchen this week too.”
Yoshiko stood up, heat rushing to her face, as she watched her mother dart down the stairs, her speed inversely proportional to a tortoise. She jumped out of her room, shouting at her escaping mother. “What the hell, mother! Stop teasing me like that!”
Her mother hollered back from downstairs. “Oh come on Yoshiko, I know you’re gay. I mean, you keep looking at pretty girls whenever you aren’t playing video games, sleeping, doing school work, or eating. You keep looking at a group of nine girls; what was their name, TWICE? Oh yeah, you seem to focus on one particular girl in that group more than the others. What was her name, Jeongyeon?” Her mother cackled, reveling in delight as Yoshiko took another defeat and retreated back to her reclusive life in her room.
“My bias is Nayeon, mother!” Yoshiko shouted, trying to spite her mother. As she looked around her room, she noticed that the walls were mostly blank; she had many shelves full of strange gadgets. However, as she scanned her internet search history, she found a high number of searches for a certain Im Nayeon.
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Yoshiko was slumped in the car, watching as it slowly approached the soup kitchen. From the outside, the soup kitchen looked extremely large; it was at least the size of Yoshiko’s house squared. It was a brown building shaped in the shape of a rectangular prism, not a particularly interesting shape, though it was practical. The building had its windows scattered across the wall in an orderly fashion, with each window spaced equally from the ones adjacent to it. All of the windows had four panes. The parking lot was relatively large, with enough space for the number of people who hadn’t applied to the local high school that only received 98 applications. Yoshiko’s attention was diverted when her mother shouted at her. “Yoshiko! We’re here! Get out of the car, and go start your first day.”
Yoshiko groaned. “Please, mother?”
“Out.” Her mother sternly faced her, forcing her hand. Yoshiko reluctantly exited, finally facing the grand front side of the soup kitchen. It wasn’t grand at all. It was practically identical to the walls, though it was absent of the neat and orderly arrangement of the windows. The doors marking the entrance to the building were plain and decorated with patches of dirty food. Yoshiko already knew that this would be a shitshow. Here goes nothing, she thought, rolling her eyes. She counted every step made towards the building as one step closer to hell. By her fifth step, the building completely dominated her, blocking her view of the skies. By her fourteenth step, she could make out the outlines of the doorknobs on the doors, making her ever closer to the building. By her twenty-ninth step, she could hear some of the clankings of utensils from inside the building. By her thirty-fifth step, she could reach the door handle with her arms. She opened the door, hoping that whatever lay behind there would present her with a pleasant surprise.
When the door opened with a large creak, making Yoshiko cringe, a person standing in the kitchen walked out and greeted her. “Ah, is this Tsushima-san? You’re on time; come on in!”
Yoshiko stared at the angelic figure in front of her. Her hair was long and elegant, flowing in a way that resembled traditional royalty. Is that pink or dark red? Yoshiko thought. Her smile was warming, showing the compassion of a bear for her children. It was like a doorway to dreams; it invited her to revel in splendorous parties or sulk in solitude, whichever she desired at any given moment. It was almost alluring. Her eyes were gold, shining in the morning sun’s light, only increasing their beauty. Yoshiko thought they were a portal to paradise. Yoshiko was most attracted by the new girl’s voice. Yoshiko was a sailor in a distant land, and she was a silent singing on the rocks, trying to lead Yoshiko to her demise. The smoothness with which the girl spoke led Yoshiko to believe she could’ve pursued a career in professional singing or voice acting. If she didn’t make it to any of those, she could always try being a politician; even idiots could be that. Entranced, Yoshiko didn’t notice that she was standing there, seemingly motionless. “Tsushima-san? Are you alright? You’ve been standing there without moving for over a minute now?”
Yoshiko snapped out of her gay thoughts, realizing her blunder. “I’m sorry, what was it? I blanked out.” She hoped that the other girl wouldn’t question her too much.
“Don’t worry; follow me to the back room; we’ll be meeting the rest of the team for this week.” The other girl extended her hand. “I’m Sakurauchi Riko, by the way.”
“Thank you, Sakurauchi-san.” Yoshiko took her hand and shook it. Yoshiko’s face turned different shades of red as she touched the other girl’s hand. She felt the gentle texture of the skin and its smoothness, and she wondered how such a perfect person could exist. Her fantasies were terminated when the girl physically dragged her to the back room, laughing the whole way.
In the back room, Riko’s face clearly soured. What is it? Did I do something wrong? Yoshiko thought, panicking. “Don’t worry, Tsushima-san, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
Can she read minds?
“It’s just that every single other volunteer canceled last minute, leaving only you and me; I’m the leader of this operation, so this is very frustrating. Hopefully, we’ll be able to manage this huge place by ourselves.”
And I thought I wasn’t reliable, Yoshiko thought to herself.
“Well, I’ll post this on our website to say that we’re understaffed. Anyway, I hope you know how to use a ladle quickly; you’re going to need it.”
Yoshiko gulped. I’ve never cooked before in my life. What the hell was my mom thinking?
“Come on. Let’s put on our uniforms,” Riko said, motioning that work was about to begin.
When work began, it was almost an instant disaster. When a batch of ten people entered the kitchen, Riko was merciful. “Tsushima-san, I can serve eight of them; you can have the other two.”
“Alright, Sakurauchi-san.”
Riko served her eight with excellence and grace, deserving a reward of merit. She expertly handled the ladle with elegant motions, taking soup out of the large pot and putting it in the bowls, not spilling a single drop. She was also extremely fast. On the other hand, Yoshiko was the opposite of her boss. She gripped the ladle with both hands, steadily balancing the liquid on it to make sure none of it spilled out. She grimaced when some of the soup swished out on the table. For a beginner, her preservation rate was superb. Her speed, however, would have earned a grade that would have elicited death from an Asian parent and even a slight yelling from a western one. By the time she had served one person, she saw that Riko had already filled five bowls and was dumping soup in her sixth. Yoshiko had to stifle a noise of shock. “Tsushima-san, you’re going to have to pick up the pace,” Riko said, with a tone of both friendliness and warning.
Yoshiko gulped. “Yes, Sakurauchi-san.” On her next bowl, she attempted to serve it like Riko had, using only one hand and bringing the ladle to the bowl in one quick motion. However, severely overestimated her own ability. Just one second after taking the ladle out of the soup, it rocked, spilling all of its contents onto Yoshiko’s uniform. Some of it touched her bare skin, not reacting well to the hot soup that was assailing it. “Ouch!” Yoshiko shouted, catching Riko’s attention.
“Tsushima-san, you can go back and clean yourself up. Hopefully, you know how to wash your uniform. I’ll let you recover from your burn for the rest of the day; the soup is pretty hot. No complaints; I’ll just use both hands.” Yoshiko meekly nodded, facing the consequences of her failure.
Luckily, she had done the laundry many times before. She adeptly took the stains off of her uniform and applied some medicine and bandages to her burned area. Wincing in pain from her burn, she turned around to see Riko using both of her hands to serve the people. Is this girl a god? Yoshiko asked herself, unsure of whether Riko was superhuman or not. Sometimes, Riko would ask Yoshiko to bring out another heavy pot of soup, but other than that, Yoshiko remained in the back room, recovering from her burn.
When the end of the day came, and the last person walked out of the soup kitchen, Riko approached Yoshiko. “Tsushima-san, you’re so clumsy. Have you had bad luck all of your life?”
“Yes …” Yoshiko replied, hoping Riko wouldn’t reprimand her.
“I saw how well you cleaned your uniform. Tomorrow, I won’t make you serve anyone.” Yoshiko’s face brightened at being relieved of duty. “However, you will have to clean this place up tomorrow. I’ll do the serving, and you do the cleaning. This place is dirty as fuck, but I think it’ll be clean if you apply yourself for only one day. How does that sound?”
Yoshiko pondered her options for a quick second, weighing cleaning against serving. Having clear bad memories from serving, she opted for cleaning.
“That’s good, Tsushima-san. However, you will be staying late tomorrow, or whenever you finish cleaning, to learn how to use the ladle properly and quickly. It seemed that you are an absolute beginner at using it, but we’ll learn.”
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On Tuesday, Yoshiko arrived, and Riko greeted her. “Yoshiko-san, the cleaning supplies are back there,” Riko said, pointing to an obscure room that looked like it housed a colony of rats.
“Thank you … Riko-san.” Both of them went their separate ways, thinking about the fact that they had dropped their last names and called each other by their first names. As Yoshiko went on cleaning the facility, she began leering over Riko even more. Every time she found a dark patch of filth, she would clean it and then admire Riko’s beauty. Every time she found a piece of litter on the floor, she would throw it in the trash and then admire Riko. Every time she found a wet spot, she would mop it up and go straight to looking at Riko, skillfully serving bowl after bowl of soup. By the end of the day, Yoshiko had polished the place, and it looked spotless. “Good work, Yoshiko-san. You blew my expectations out of the roof; this place looks like a palace compared its previous state.”
Yoshiko felt embarrassed at the sudden compliment. “T-thank you, Riko-san.”
“I don’t presume you forgot about my ladle lessons, did you, Yoshiko-san?” Riko said, a shadow darkening across her face.
“I remembered, R-Riko-san.” Okay, this Riko girl is very scary. She’s scarier than the monsters under the bed.
“Alright, let’s get started.” Riko moved two pots in their direction. When Yoshiko looked inside them, she only saw water.
“Riko-san, why are the pots only filled with water? Why isn’t there soup in them?”
“Do you remember the last time you tried to ladle soup?” That instantly shut Yoshiko up. “The first thing you want to do is have the correct grip on the handle,” Riko said, “grip it like this.” Riko adjusted her hand accordingly, waving the ladle around to show off the arrangement. Yoshiko attempted to hold it in Riko’s manner, though she failed, unable to hold it. Riko walked over and moved Yoshiko’s hand; neither of them noticed the slight red tint on each other’s faces. She TOUCHED my hand. I repeat, she TOUCHED my hand, Yoshiko thought, her head spinning with thoughts.
“That’s good. Yoshiko-san, please watch carefully and repeat after me.” Riko took the ladle and, in one swift motion, took the water out and cleanly dumped it into the bowl. Yoshiko tried to repeat, but her coordination failed her; over half of the water spilled on the counter, resulting in a mess. “Don’t worry, Yoshiko-san, it’s just water.” Riko repeated her motion, and Yoshiko copied it. This time, slightly less water spilled onto the counter, and more of it landed in the bowl. They did this for over fifty iterations until Yoshiko was able to get practically all of the water in the bowl relatively quickly. “Good job, Yoshiko-san. I expect that work will be much smoother from now on.”
“Thank you, Riko-san.”
On Wednesday, Yoshiko arrived at the soup kitchen a lot happier than she was on Monday. “Something happen with that cutie?” her mother said.
“Stop teasing, mother,” Yoshiko said, burying her face in her hands.
When Yoshiko entered the building, Riko greeted her with the same smile and message that she had on Monday. “Hello, Yoshiko-chan. Welcome; you’re just in time.”
“Thank you … Riko-chan.” Yoshiko was pleased with their rapid familiarizing, given that only two days ago, they addressed each other as complete strangers.
By the time people were entering the kitchen for its services, the two girls were already exchanging playful banter while serving soup; Yoshiko was surprised at her sudden transformation. Before coming to the soup kitchen, she had lived as a hermit, isolated from the rest of the world with little social isolation. She was also complete crap at serving soup, though she was much better now. The day went on, both of them enjoying it. They had a lot of fun together, interacting with each other and seeing who could serve more soup; Riko won with a clear margin of over one hundred bowls. Yoshiko sighed in defeat, though she was just a beginner. “Don’t worry, you’ll get better at this, Yoshiko-chan.”
“Thanks, Riko-chan.”
“By the way, stay a bit longer after work tomorrow. I have something important to discuss with you.”
“Alright, I’ll stay longer if that’s what you want, Riko-chan.”
Yoshiko’s mother smiled. “That girl is so fucking whipped,” she whispered to herself.
Thursday went about the same as Wednesday; Yoshiko and Riko served the people quickly, earning many thanks. The only thing that was different was Riko’s margin of victory; it had slipped to seventy. “You’re getting better at this, Yoshiko-chan.”
“Thanks, Riko-chan; I never thought I’d be so good at ladleing soup.” They exchanged a small laugh.
When the end of the work day came, Yoshiko stayed around slightly longer than usual, as per their agreement. “Riko-chan, where are you?”
“Sorry, Yoshiko-chan, I was in the bathroom,” Riko said, emerging from another room. This place has a lot of rooms in odd locations, Yoshiko thought.
“What was it you wanted to talk about?”
“Ah, I was wondering treating you to some ice cream after work on Friday; you’ve been a great and reliable helper. Plus, you were the only one to show up. How does that sound?”
“That sounds lovely! I’ll my parents,” Yoshiko said, filled to the brim with excitement.
“Great! Be there. Thanks, Yoshiko.”
Yoshiko paused, heat rushing to her face for a few quick seconds. The “chan” honorific had been dropped, signaling another bridge in their relationship had been crossed.
“Thank you, Riko.”
After their work had finished on Friday, Yoshiko went to meet Riko, and they drove off to the ice cream that Riko wanted to bring her. As they exchanged conversations, they learned something about each other that they had never known before. Yoshiko learned that Riko knew how to play many instruments, though she was practically a prodigy at the piano. She laughed when Riko mentioned her fear of dogs. Riko learned that Yoshiko was a relatively asocial person, preferring to stay in her room and play games instead of socializing with other people. This caused Riko to feel a little more confident in herself since an introverted person had decided to give time she could’ve spent playing games to spend time with her. They went in with high spirits and left even higher.
As Yoshiko walked down the street to leave, Riko ran up to her and stopped her. “Wait! Yoshiko!”
Yoshiko turned around, wondering what the matter was. “What’s the matter, Riko?”
“Oh it’s just that … we never exchanged phone numbers.” They both paused at their sudden mistake.
“Well, my phone number’s here,” Yoshiko said, giving Riko a slip of paper with a string of digits on it. Riko entered it on her phone and squealed in delight when she sent her first text message to Yoshiko.
“One more thing,” Riko said.
“Yes?” Yoshiko asked, wondering whether she should confess to Riko at this moment or forever remain quiet.
“Would you be my girlfriend … Yocchan?”
“Of course I would … Riri.” At that moment, they both embraced each other in a state of bliss.
A strange figure lunged at them, engulfing them both. “Congratulations, Yoshiko! You finally did it!”
“WHAT THE ABOSLUTE FUCK, MOTHER!”