Clumsy Couple (Yang Jungwon)

Another lovely day brought about the beautiful blue sky with specks of white clouds here and

there, the breeze was warm and perfect for spending the day outside, even the

birds seemed to enjoy the day as they went about singing their melodic tunes.

People were taking walks, some were posing beside the beautiful flowers that bloomed on the

roadsides, and groups of friends were walking about chattering and laughing. The world seemed to be in a really good mood.

Amidst of these, a boy with a big white backpack was holding his phone, typing away. He seemed to be

in a rush from his rigid posture.

“Always late, always. I should have lied about the timing,” He mumbled to himself, he kept on looking

up from his phone repeatedly and scanned his surrounding. He would glare at his phone again as if it was going to make the person get there faster.

He sighed and sat down on the bench near him, he checked his bag to make sure he brought everything.

His wallet, camera, cookie, and hair tie. He wore his backpack again, satisfied.

A hurried step flattered beside him followed by a harsh panting. He tried his best not to smile as he looked up and appeared annoyed, but the person in front of him was flailing their arms around while trying to come up with a sentence. It was a regular but adorable sight for him.

“I’m so sorry, please forgive me. I swear I tried my best to make it on time,” He didn’t reply, he knew he can’t remain like this for long.

And it’s true, he was already fighting a smile as his girlfriend sat behind him and linked his arm with hers. He refused to look her in the eyes, a dangerous move. Call him a simp or so, he was fighting a battle of his own.

“Jungwonie… You can smile now, I’m here,” Minjung cooed as she rested her chin on his shoulder. He tried to glare, but ended up blushing, making Minjung giggle.

He stared at her for a while, “You look beautiful,” It was time for Minjung to blush, Jungwon never held back when complimenting her. And she indeed looked beautiful that day, she dressed up more than usual and applied makeup to enhance her already pretty face. Her lateness had reasons.

“You don’t look bad yourself,” She complimented, well she tried, but it just didn’t come out as it did in her head.

Jungwon chuckled at her cute, “We should go, we are super late,” He took her hand and helped her up.

They crossed the road hand in hand, walked a bit to the left, and reached a building with big writing, ‘Bake and Go’. It was a bakery where you can bake your goods, the couple booked it for their weekend date.

Jungwon opened the door, letting Minjung in first. They were greeted by the owner, put their names in, and were guided towards the kitchen.

“You can choose the recipe from here,” The owner pointed towards the big bookshelves on the side of the room, each shelf had a label, cake, cupcake, cookies, etc.

“I’ll leave you guys to it, you still have two hours and I’ll let you know when it ended. I hope you have a great time,” They thanked the owner and proceeded to look through the recipes.

“I think it’s best if we bake a cake,” Minjung suggested, she picked out a big book from the cake shelves.

 “Okay, we better wash our hands first then,” Jungwon said, taking the book from her and putting it on the island. He took out the hair tie he brought and tied Minjung’s hair carefully, he had learned from their past dates that she always forgot to bring her hair ties. Minjung felt butterflies in her belly from his caring gesture.

They washed their hands and put on their aprons and hats, both giggling at the appearance of each

other. The couple looked as if they’ll be happy even if they just stood there and do nothing.

 “Chocolate cake?” Jungwon asked as he skimmed through the recipe book.

“Yupp,” Minjung excitedly said and stood beside him. She looked worried as she read the steps,

“Are you sure we are going to do well by ourselves?” She asked her boyfriend,

who just like her, had no experience in baking.

“If we don’t burn anything, we’ll be fine,” Minjung nodded in agreement.

“Okay… first we need 55g cocoa powder, do you see it?” They looked around the shelf behind the island, there were lots of things on the shelves and it seemed impossible to find such ingredients.

“Ah… here it is ~,” Minjung said and picked out a container from the middle shelves.

“But how do we measure 55g?” She asked, Jungwon pulled out a weighing scale from a drawer. They measured the powder and put it in a bowl, they finished their first step.

They rules out the steps one by one and when they finally finished, almost twenty minutes had passed. They decided to split roles, one taking care of wet ingredients and the other with dry ingredients.

A clashing of metals already rang across the kitchen, Jungwon looked to his side to see his girlfriend dropping the bowls. He shook his head and helped her pick them up.

“I think you’re going to feed the floor more than baking,” He teased while Minjung stuck her tongue out at him.

They got back to their own roles, one was struggling to pick out eggshells from the mixture while the other had a hard time remembering whether he had put the baking powder in or not.

There were times when the owner had to peek at the couple from all the bowls they dropped, low-key glad that she decided to use metal. They were doing them no justice.

“We have to mix them,” Minjung said as she carried her bowl to Jungwon’s side. She poured her mixture into the other, her grip must have been weak she dropped the bowl, and Jungwon knocked over the other while trying to catch it.

“Hey! you knock it over!”

“You dropped it!” The two started bickering. A laughing fit could be heard amidst their fighting.

They had to add the ingredients more by their intuition, the batter looked like it had been through some rough times and it did, its makers were not really sure what they were doing.

“How do we make this round paper?” Jungwon looked at the round parchment paper image they needed for the baking pan.

“We can use this,” Minjung pointed at the pencil on the side, she took it from the box. They laid the baking pans on parchment paper, one would trace the edge of the pan while the other held it steady.

Even though this seemed to be tedious for the two, they would bump each other heads and burst into giggles. The simple work took a lot more time than it had to, at least they had fun.

“We forgot to preheat!,” Minjung exclaimed after revising the steps, slapping her forehead, she turned around and tried to set the oven.

“Do you know how to convert Fahrenheit to celsius?” She asked Jungwon, who was busy tapping the pan on the island.

“Hm?” He looked up confused.

“Nevermind forgot we both suck with math,” She pulled out her phone from her pocket and browsed the Internet.

After waiting for a bit, they popped their batter into the oven.

“It will be edible, right?” Jungwon questioned, while the other shrugged.

“What if we get a cold from eating it?” He asked again, Minjung laughed at his ridiculous thought, though she did find it possible considering how they prepared them.

“We should clean up fast, we still need to make the frosting,”

They got to work again, their muscle will be sore from all the work they had put into the cake. After they briefly cleaned their mess, they decided to make a cream cheese frosting.

“We need sugar, where did we put it?” Jungwon asked, Minjung handed him a jar.

“Put lots of it, at least the frosting will have a taste,” Minjung told him seriously, listening to her, he scooped out a large amount of sugar and dumped it in the bowl.

The oven tinged while they focused on mixing the cheese and cream. They took their cakes out from the oven and burst out laughing as they saw their visuals.

One of them looked like someone used them to wash clothes, all wrinkled up and bumpy, the other had a big dip on the middle and the most normal looking was burnt a bit on the side.

“Let’s never bake again,”

“Agreed,”

They decided to take photos while waiting for the cakes to cool down, “Let’s take a selfie with the cakes,” Minjung said and pulled Jungwon down to the cake level.

“They don’t really smell good,” Jungwon mumbled as they posed.

“Just… don’t breathe for a bit,” A couple taking selfies while holding their breath, they should be glad they didn’t have an audience.

“They have cooled enough right?” Minjung poked the cakes with her finger.

“You’ll contaminate them, stop poking,” Jungwon said, taking her hand away.

“They already look contaminated,” She said to herself.

They started applying their frosting to the cake, Jungwon wanted it to be neat while Minjung wanted to decorate it in random.

“We are going to put things on the top, stop scraping it,” She told her hard-headed boyfriend who pay no heed to her words.

“Jungwon stop… I want to decorate now,” She tried pulling his arm away but ended up making the frosting messy, she smiled sheepishly as she earned a glare.

“You know the visuals won’t make them taste better,” Minjung mumbled, giving up she rested her head on Jungwon’s shoulder, more like the side of his arm, she was a bit short.

They tried their best cutting off the inedible parts which didn’t really help. You know how they said, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover?’ Yes, they didn’t look so good on the inside too.

“And… I’m finished,” Jungwon nudged his girlfriend who was dozing off on his shoulders, he smiled as Minjung excitedly put the toppings on the cake, a very generous topping.

“You are only going to eat that aren’t you?” Minjung ignored the obvious question and put more marshmallows. It was her initial plan to only eat the toppings with the frosting, but the frosting also did not live up to her expectation, now her plan was to get full with the toppings.

While she was busy trying to make the cake picture-worthy, arms snaked around her waist followed by Jungwon’s head resting on her shoulders.

“Should we catch a movie in a drive-in theatre after dinner?” Minjung shivered from the warm breath hitting her neck.

“We don’t have a car,” She replied.

“A taxi?” Jungwon suggested, making them both laugh. He had been planning for the day, since they will be joining college soon, it would be hard to go on dates, he wanted to make the best use of the time they had.

“Finished~” Minjung held out the cake proudly, Jungwon chuckled at the number of toppings she put. It looked more like Halloween treats than a cake.

“We can eat after dinner, we should let them pack,” Jungwon said, they spent a long time making the cake, the sun was about to set. They packed their things and cleaned up their mess once again, as tired as they were, they were still smiling as they worked, satisfied with the time they spent.

“You finished just in time ~ You baked a lovely cake,” The owner complimented, her glance kept on going to the generous toppings, hiding her smile.

“Thank you, we had a really great time,”

The couple went out of the bakery and walked to the park Jungwon was waiting at, “Where do you want to eat?” Jungwon asked.

“Should we order some chicken and eat here?” Minjung suggested, Jungwon nodded in agreement, the sun was setting and the tinge of its colors left on the sky made it perfect to eat out.

“Okay... You find a spot, I’ll go buy some things,” Jungwon said and parted ways with her. Minjung walked around a bit and find a spot a bit far from the other. Jungwon didn’t take long, he came back with a picnic mat, blanket, and drinks. She took a photo of him searching for her while carrying all the stuff, his backpack made him look even cuter.

She quickly helped him with the stuff, they laid out the mat and finally sat down after a long day. They ordered their chicken and decided to take photos before the sun fully set while they waited.

A small rumbling sound can be heard as they were posing for the photos, Minjung looked away embarrassed by the traitorous action of her stomach. Jungwon hid his laughter, trying not to embarrass her more.

He took out the cookie he brought with him, removed the wrappers, and gave it to his girlfriend who still won’t look at him.

“You won’t be able to eat a lot if you’re too hungry,” He said, trying to convince her. He tried not to laugh as Minjung slowly took the cookie from him. Her mood visibly getting better as she munched on her cookie.

Their chicken arrived, they finished it as quickly as it came. They opened the cake box and cut it, it didn’t look half as bad as it was in the bakery.

“We both take a bite together, no pretending,” Jungwon warned, he cut two slices and handed one to Minjung.

They took a bite, both faces scrunch up with the weird smell, they could hear a crunching sound from each other as they chewed.

“We didn’t use powdered sugar,” Minjung said putting down the cake, visibly bothered by the texture and taste of the cake. She chugged down the water to wash away the aftertaste.

“I think the toppings are the safest,” Jungwon popped one cherry in his mouth.

The couple sat side by side after they finished eating, “Did you have fun today?” Jungwon asked, nudging her a bit.

“It was the most fun I had these days… but let's never do it again,”

“Nope, won’t happen again,” Jungwon said laughing.

“We will have time for each other once class starts, won’t we?” He asked again, Minjung looked up at him and smiled.

“Of course, I am sure we will find a way,” Jungwon smiled and nodded, they won’t be going to the same college so it will hard to spend time together, they didn’t say it in words but they both knew how much they dreaded for the future.

They locked eyes for a bit, Jungwon remembered the time they had their first date, they were so awkward. Now, they had been dating for two years and he wished to be with her for many years to come.

Jungwon leaned down slowly and moved his position a bit as he neared her face. “Ah..” Jungwon raised his hand, he smashed the cake. He wiped his hands while glaring at the cake for ruining the mood, Minjung was having fits of laughter watching his reaction.

It was a day filled with small things that brought along happiness. They might worry but they will be alright.

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