Page 39 of Caught in a Bad Fauxmance
The bite is deceptively spicy, the heat hidden beneath thefirst sour notes of cabbage and ginger. Tears well in the corner of my eyes as the spice pricks my tongue and trickles slowly down my throat. Julian quickly passes me a glass of water, laughing while he slaps me on the back when I can’t fight the urge to cough anymore.
“Too spicy?” he asks, rubbing circles between my shoulder blades until I finish my water.
I’m not the type to bow down to spice. I welcome all heat levels eagerly, but Julian’s kimchi packed a punch I definitely wasn’t ready for. “A little bit.”
He takes a bite of his own. After a few seconds, he nods in agreement, wincing before putting the lid onto the jar. “Yeah, a little.”
He pulls out a notebook from a nearby drawer, flipping to a heavily color-coded page. He scribbles something down and adds notes in the margins before returning his recipe jar to the fridge.
We slice and chop in comfortable silence, pausing long enough for me to sample Julian’s grandma’s and mom’s recipes. Theirs are definitely much milder, more focused on highlighting individual ingredients than the heat behind each bite. Unsurprisingly, his grandma’s is my favorite.
The rumblings of Stella and Henry’s second argument are loud enough for me to almost make out what they’re saying this time. I crane my neck to listen in, but their voices are drowned out by the sizzle of potatoes. “Are they okay?” I ask once Julian and I are safely out of range of the pops of oil.
He looks up from his phone at where the two of themhave gone red in the face, pointing at a stack of ten-pound bags of rice on the ground. “Yeah, they’re fine. Probably arguing about the Winter Games.”
My heart rockets into my throat. “O-oh…” Every part of me starts to sweat, my hands trembling at my sides. God, I’m so bad at lying—why did I agree to do so much of it?
“If that makes you uncomfortable, you can go sit in the living room.” Julian nods toward the room we came from. “I can finish up here and bring it over to you.”
“No!” I shout so loudly it startles him, my voice echoing off the pots and pans hanging above us.Way to make it obvious that you’re trying to eavesdrop, Devin.Maybe I should try to create a diversion and escape before Julian catches on. Or I could try to hit him over the head with one of the pots. “I…uh. They’re just so…intense. It caught me off guard.”
Being generous, I have about a .0002 percent chance that he’ll believe me. But, mercifully, he either does or he doesn’t care. “Yeah, we can get pretty intense about it sometimes. No thanks to you guys.” He knocks a fist against my shoulder, as if this is all some fun little game we play to pass the time. Like we don’t have our entire home to lose.
Outside, Henry hoists three of the bags of rice onto his shoulder with ease, tossing them halfway across the yard like they weigh nothing. “Shouldn’t you be out there too?” I ask while watching Stella lift and toss a bag of her own.
Julian brushes them off, pulling the curtain closed after he catches me staring. “They always leave me out of prep stuff.”
Now that’s good to know. Not useful information per se, but definitely worth noting. “Really?”
He yelps when a drop of oil splashes onto his hand. “Dad’s pretty competitive.” A massive understatement. “Usually he and Stella are in charge of coming up with stuff to help us get ready.” He pauses, sucking the pad of his thumb into his mouth. “Dad says I don’t have the right kind of attitude for winning a competition. Apparently I’m ‘too nice.’ So, better to leave me out of it.”
Julian wasn’t “too nice” when he helped his siblings lock me in a Porta Potty, or put a beetle down my shirt, or replace my shampoo with mayonnaise, but sure, whatever he needs to tell himself. Still, that doesn’t help me figure out what the others are planning this year. He’s got to know that they’ve been cheating. He may not knowwhatthey have in store, but he can’t be that oblivious.
Behind the curtain, Stella and Henry get into yet another screaming match. It’s hard to make out what they’re saying through the window, but it’s obvious that she’s not happy. If it’s games related, it’s worth trying to listen in.
I pry my attention away from the window. “Do you have a bathroom?”
“Down the hall, make a left, up the stairs, make a right, third door on your left,” he says in one breath.
“Sorry, can you repeat that again…but slower?”
Julian rips a page out of his recipe book and scribbles down a rough floor plan of the first and second floors. “In case you get lost,” he explains when he hands me the map. “Which still happens to me.”
“No promises I won’t get lost anyway.” I scramble out of my seat, slowing to a more normal pace when I realize howsketchy running away would seem. I cut through the sitting room to grab my bag and make a dash for the stairs.
I don’t breathe until I’ve safely made it to the second floor. A quick glance out the window confirms that Stella and Henry are still outside, and Mr. Cooke evidently isn’t home today, based on the eerie silence. My chest heaves as I brace myself against the top of the landing.
Day one in the beast’s den and I’m already falling apart.
I duck into the first room at the end of the hall once I’m sure the coast is clear. It’s an unassuming room, mostly storage from a quick scan. Cardboard and plastic boxes of toys and vinyl records are stacked in the corners. Another box on the folding table in the middle of the room is packed to the brim with all the framed photos Mrs. Seo is in.Theresais scrawled on the side of the box in angry red Sharpie.
As much as I’d like to dig into Mr. Cooke’s scandalous estrangement, I’m on a different kind of mission. Two, in fact. Carefully hiding myself from view, I look out the window at the far end of the room. Stella and Henry are in plain sight, still bickering over an abandoned sack of rice. I crack the window open, getting onto my knees to stay out of sight.
Opening my phone’s camera, I start recording them in case my microphone can pick up something I can’t hear. It’s tough to make out what they’re saying. Something about focus and needing to try harder. All the same things Maya shouts at me at our morning training sessions. I keep the camera rolling even when they get going again. It can’t hurt to know what techniques they’re using to train. Maya’s training schedule is airtight, but we could take a leaf out of the enemy’s handbook.
After two minutes, I stop recording. No use wasting my storage on Stella and Henry grunting over bags of rice. I send the video to Maya, waiting until the text is marked as delivered to close the window. Her response comes through exactly ten seconds later.
That’s it?
