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Tim’s tired, barely ate today, and just wants a Zesti for a pick me up to start pulling the wires apart on the front gate of this boring all-boys boarding school. It’s pathetic, even by an eight year old's standards. They don’t even bother to have the hall monitors check in with the kids, Jess from the Sterling family is able to run an entire illegal trading card empire out of his second story dorm window because of it. One would think with how strict the teachers are with confiscation, that at least one of them would figure the art kid with the thing for glittery holographic washi tape is the one behind it.
Or maybe they are starting to catch on to it, if the dim light from the tiny communal kitchen is anything.
Tim slowly creeps toward the open archway, where a dim warm light is coming from. No one should be up and about at this hour, it's right after lights out and sun down. Tim didn’t expect anyone to be in her way on her way out, is she going to have to change her route? Again?
Or maybe not, if the supposed hall monitor is actually a child. At least he isn’t blocking the fridge, so Tim can sneak up as close as she wants. Now how to get around the fridge light tipping him off. Maybe when he turns. No, turns the other way-
The guy jumps in surprise, "Oh shit! Jesus, fuck... Uhhhh, hi?" His hair practically bounced with him from its faulty pony tail. His hair is long enough to pull it back.
"...hi" Tim responds, trying to catalog his features.
In the dim light of the bottom microwave bulb for the stove, he has brown hair, and brown eyes. Similar eye shape to her actually, but moles around the left. This guy’s in her dance class with the Madame. Sung-min, Sung-min Kang.
Tim did not need to be waylaid by this tonight, she just wanted a damn blue raspberry Zesti from the back of the fridge and to get her wire cutters out from the storm drain she stuffed them into. Now, she has to account for a snitch, even if this guy hasn’t snitched on his roommate's rival card trading thieving operation. Could she use that as blackmail? The only reason she hasn’t been caught is because she’s been blackmailing Jess. It’s actually kind of surprising he was able to hide that from her as roommates. For a month and a half, that is. Unless she wants to make this guy a fall guy when the whole thing blows open and causes a civil war between the left building dorms and right building dorms.
"You're the young one, right?" Sung-min interrupts her train of thought, shifting foot-to-foot, checking for anyone out in the hall that may have followed her.
Unlikely, she’s too sneaky for that, but, "Young one?"
He looks at her, down at her and her height, of only four inches down, "The kid who's two years younger than everyone and in my Dance Protocol class with Madame Marilynn."
So perhaps she’s not as unnoticed as she thought, "Um. Yeah. You know I'm in your class?" Surely she’s not that recognizable?
"Obvi. Your bowl cut can be spotted from a mile away."
Okay maybe she is recognizable, but that's still a little rude. Maybe she can try that Robin spin kick Dick did that got captured by the newspaper. That guy got completely laid out, it could work. Probably not though, not at this time. She doesn’t have that kind of energy right now, running on empty with no Zesti in sight. Shifting to the side, it looks like he’s making something to eat, maybe that would be enough blackmail material to keep his mouth shut. Just a little threat or something. Plus, physical violence is a big no-go at this place, surprisingly enough.
Sung-min’s not entirely sure why this kid is here, but maybe he’s just hungry. If he feeds him, maybe he won’t snitch on his nightly routine to notorious hall snitch Barda. Man, that guy sucks, always telling the teachers every inch of gossip. This little guy won’t do that, right?
"Hey. You hungry?" He might as well try to see if this will work.
Should she? She’s not that hungry, nothing that can’t be fixed by a Zesti, at least for tonight.
But. Well, she only had a lettuce sandwich at lunch. Completely plain, no tomatoes or condiments. Tim doesn’t think lunch guy Henri is that big of a fan of hers. Not after trying to talk to him about phenolics. She agreed with him about eating more vegetables because it can reduce diabetes, but why give her a plain lettuce sandwich?
The microwave light is lighting up some of the ingredients, not that she can see them from this height very well. The lighting doesn’t help either, but the flame is on under the pan, and she can smell the gas from this close.
"I'm Sung-min by the way. Kang, Sung-min" he introduces himself, turning back to his black pan with his eyes still on her. He wonders why Tim’s out this late, aren’t kids younger than him supposed to have better sleeping schedules? His cousin griped about it way too much for it to be a one off line about his own shit sleep habits.
"I know."
Sung-min blinks, and decides not to question that, so he prods instead, "... and you are?"
Success, he doesn’t actually know her, "Oh, I'm Tim."
"Nice to meet you Tim."
Noticing her watching him step back up to the stove, he explains what he is cooking. Pointing at the heating water slowly becoming broth, "I usually just do about an inch of water in a cast iron skillet on high with a beef cube and thyme sprinkled in, it's a kind of starting base i guess," he’s pretty sure it's called a starting base, but he doesn’t think Tim’s going to call him out on it.
"Beef cube?" She tilts her head.
He’s a bit confused, the baby genius doesn’t know what this is, "A bouillon cube? It's like instant broth. French."
Sung-min guesses this guy really is a kid. Especially with that height. Such height that is now making him stand on his toes to see what’s going on on the stove. Well, it’d be rude not to help, even if Tim looks cute with his oversized black child sized Balmain hoodie. There should be a box or something nearby for him to stand on.
Bingo, he thinks, "Here, there's a stepstool under the sink."
He kicks it over, nudging it around so it’s centered for Tim to stand on so he can see everything on the counter. Maybe even reach the pan from his corner of the stove. He steps, maybe a little poutily if Sung-min’s observations are correct from his louder footsteps. He’s very small, and very quiet. A little disconcerting, honestly. His parents should be feeding him right, right?
"What do you do for weekends?"
"Hm?" Why is he asking her that? Does he know about her sneaking out past the fence walls?
He extrapolates, "For weekends, do you go off with your parents or stay here?" Which explains his question. He’s just wondering what Tim’s parents are up to, which means he doesn’t know her last name or anything more about her then.
"I just go home, then come back by bus."
"Ah," Sung-min’s sadly not surprised by that.
Well, if they aren’t home, that explains the stature. Probably complete and utter bird bones under there, but Sung-min isn’t about to tell him that to his face. Too many kids here have that for him to poke fun.
Tim’s trying to place the ingredients on the counter. There are two bottles of liquid, a ramen pack, cabbage, and the sugar container. The container in which she’s pretty sure Barda hid Jess’s first attempt at a fake trading card at the bottom of. The red tub is hard to read for her though, it’s not English, but it’s also not Chinese. It’s more bubbly but still character based, she’s pretty sure it’s Korean. The ingredients on that thing are going to be a complete mystery to her, aren’t they?
"What's on the counter is soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, the gochujang tub, a ramen noodle pack and cabbage, and the big container of sugar," very helpfully he points them out, so now she knows the name of the things and the shiny plastic red tub.
The sugar however, is almost seven pounds when filled to the top, "I thought we weren't allowed to touch that," pretty sure almost every teacher would get on to him about safety violations.
"We're not," Sung-min winks, the playful guy.
Not a snitch, good for her to know, "There's bubbles, it's heating up."
Tim points it out and Sung-min uses the metal chopsticks off to the side of the cabbage to break the powdery bouillon cube down some more. Swirling the thyme around as he waits for the broth to disperse more into the water. And for it to boil just a bit more before continuing.
"Yep, now we're going to add soy sauce and the vinegar."
He picks them up, stretching across Tim, soy sauce first and unscrews it quickly, pours, puts it down. The apple cider vinegar, unscrews, pours slightly slower, then puts it down on the counter. Smooth motions, all of it. Like a force of habit to place them in their correct places above where the rest of the ingredients sit.
"You just eyeball it?" Is the pour rate different because of the internal pouring cap for the soy? And how the vinegar is straight from the bottle?
Sung-min didn’t expect Tim to question this, thinking he would just sit back and watch in his usual silent way, "I mean yeah, it's kind of easy that way. It's just how I learned to make it from my cousin. I'd say it's about like a second and a half for the soy sauce, but a second and a quarter for the apple cider vinegar. You don't want to put too much of that in otherwise it tastes too vinegar-y, so it has to be a slow pour. Too much soy sauce also makes it too soy sauce-y."
"So you balance it?"
"Yeah! You have to have the two balanced out to not overpower the other and the rest of the taste," he almost forgot, he’s cooking food for a baby genius two grades ahead of kids his own age, of course he’d know about balancing flavors. This kid's height makes him think he’s five at times.
But this is still a kid, so.. Maybe he wants a little more stimulation with this. Rather than standing back while Sung-min cooks.
"Do you want to put in the gochujang?"
"...really?" Wait, he’s going to let Tim actually help? Not even Mrs. Mac lets her in the kitchen near the stove when she stops by on Saturdays, something about job longevity. Then again, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.
Maybe this kid is cute, if you look past his big blue bird eyes. Kind of stares like an owl, "Yeah, go get a spoon."
Tim gets off the stool and hops along off to get the spoon, returning surprisingly quick with very little sound.
"Open the lid, yeah and slowly pull back the film and get like a little more than half a spoonful."
Tim follows directions, the silver film pulling back to show a deep red colored paste inside the tub, probably spicy if she had to guess, "Like that?"
"Perfect. Now, you know how to hold chopsticks?” Sung-min gets a nod in response, “Good, you're going to swirl the spoon around in the broth face-up ‘til it's kind of unglued and floating around, then use the chopsticks to stir it in the spoon bowl to disperse the paste quicker."
She does so, hopefully doing it right. The gochujang paste doesn’t dissolve immediately, but kind of clumps together once it's floated off the concave of the spoon. The heat isn’t very fun on her left hand with the spoon so near to the bubbling liquid, but using the metal chopsticks speeds up how quickly the paste breaks down, becoming one with the rest of the broth.
Looking back, Sung-min gives her a thumbs up, "Nice!"
Sung-min comes in, Tim passes the utensils back to him, and he ‘cleans’ the bottom of the spoon by scraping it against the skillet trying to remove any of the gochujang from the underside. After that, he quickly takes the spoon over to the sink, rinsing it off so none of the smaller paste particles harden later and becoming a pain in the as-, neck to clean off. And then he drops it in the dishwasher before getting back and stirring the base again with the now cooled off stainless steel chopsticks. Also easy cleaning for later.
"You're not too bad at cooking, ya know. Ever make anything for yourself?" If his parents are rarely home, he should have at least some recipes under his belt, Sung-min’s pretty sure his cousin made it such a big deal back home because of that.
He starts adding a heap load of sugar to the pan, probably more than necessary, not measuring it out but if guessed it’s about under a quarter cup, by Tim’s standards. Maybe to sweeten it against the spicy flavor the gochujang has.
"The sugar’s going to counteract the bitterness and umami from the liquids, also tame the spice a bit."
So she was right but, has she really cooked much of anything? Can she say for certain she knows by practice that amount of sugar would sweeten it? Or is it barely enough?
"I don't really make anything, Mrs. Mac, the housekeeper, usually drops microwaveable food off for me at home," of which are easy to heat up, but does that really count as cooking for Tim? Has she ever really made anything?
Ah, shit. This kid is a classic case of absentee parents, Sung-min didn’t want to breach this topic. He knew it was coming, but now it looks like he’s folding in on himself. A change of subject might work to get his mind off of it.
Tim’s in Sung-min’s dance class and passes with flying colors so, "Well, at least you're good at dancing, I've rarely ever seen your shins get busted by Marilynn's yardstick. Having to stick around to clean the red out of that yellow wood sucks."
Tim doesn’t seem like a teacher's pet if he’s sneaking around after lights out, so maybe his grades are just good because he’s actually good, he thinks to himself as he picks up the cabbage, tearing off two large leaves and handing Tim one. "Here, break up the cabbage leaf into palm sized pieces. We're going to let them sit for five minutes on the timer, after two minutes we add the noodles for the last three. But we leave the chicken sodium packet out, we're not going to use it."
They let that sit for about two minutes, then add the noodles.
Right after the noodles are put in, Tim asks, "Are you from Gotham too?"
"Nah," Sung-min responds, looking Tim up and down a little bit closer now. Noticing the actual bird bones at Tim’s wrist as his sleeve has ridden up his arm from where he’s rubbing his eye and brushing his black hair back, and wondering.
"I'm from New York. Parents wanted city life with skyscrapers, they just didn't account for superpowered villains I guess." His parents are leaving their kid alone in Gotham?
Wrong guess on Tim's part she supposes. She really thought he might have been, he adapted pretty quick when she snuck up on him, but maybe he really did hear her and that's why he turned around. The turn wasn’t bad either, so he’s better at dancing than he thinks, Tim’s pretty sure he just has a bad habit of focusing too much on the partners placement in the dance rather than his own steps. He’s not overestimating himself, just maybe underestimating and suffering for it. Tim’s also only succeeding in this class because it makes her mom crack a smile every once in a while at a gala when she has to dance with one of the Tyler girls. A kind of sad smile, but a smile just for Tim.
"You just seemed used to blood."
He looks like he’s used to the sight of blood? How would someone even have that look about them? "Uh.. sure, I guess. But that's just ‘cause of dance class?"
The kid’s staring Sung-min down now, with his bright blue eyes. He’s pretty sure he’s right on the nose with that bird eyes thought, his eyes are wide and round enough they might as well belong to an owl. Could probably turn his head around 360 degrees. Plus those eyebags. Is this what Su-Jin meant about his own circles? Because Sung-min’s pretty sure this kid could poke his eyes out with his own sharp little bird bones. But with his height he’d probably have to find a way to grow feathers to fly up to his cousin's 6 '0 frame. Or sneak up on him, with how quiet Tim is.
The timer beeps.
Shit, he got lost in thought, "I'll take care of this, you put an oven mitt on the table then get another pair of chopsticks.”
He stirs the noodles up, making sure to keep the cabbage to one side while mixing the rest together. Tim puts the oven Mitt in the middle of the round small kitchen table, going off to get another pair of metal chopsticks from the silverware drawer. Sung-min, chopsticks in his mouth like a walrus, puts the black cast iron skillet on the pseudo placemat oven mitt, leaving one of the pot holders over the pan handle then goes to get the plates. Does the kid know the proper etiquette for this, or is he going to need some guidance?
Sitting down, Tim also brings two water bottles from the fridge. Surely, this won’t be too hard, right? Just follow his lead. Sung-min parses out his portion of noodles, picking out some cabbage for himself from the pan handle side. Tim copies him, and the noodles fall from her chopsticks anti-slip grip.
Damn.
She tries again and it works, if a bit wobbly, but none of the broth lands on the table from where she has the plate almost against the pan. Sung-min puts cabbage on her plate, which she could have gotten herself, but it's still appreciated. They’re all speckled with thyme though. Tim didn’t actually think all this through, not knowing if she’s actually going to like this. Mrs. Mac usually only brings over meatloaf's or meat pies or that potato soup she honestly can’t stand.
It’s just a bite. Of something new, Tim comforts herself. It’s just like going to that Jamaican restaurant, with the curried goat. Just spicy. And cabbage. And noodles.
She takes a bite.
The noodles, are good? They’re not bad, and they’re thoroughly cooked? Is this what noodles are supposed to chew like? The spice is good too, lingers on the tongue and lips specifically, but it's not debilitating. And they break down in the mouth easily, easy to slurp but a little messy around the mouth. But it's hard to stop, the spice isn’t too spicy and the sweet peeks through. Tim doesn’t think she can even taste any of the soy sauce or cider vinegar. The cabbage is crunchy too! It’s not incredibly limp, but it’s not like trying to eat it raw, it has a heat and warmth to it, plus she can actually taste the thyme on it! There’s actual flavor to the vegetable!
Sung-min just watches Tim plow down the noodles, going back for seconds while an odd sense of pride starts to grow in his chest. That’s pride, right? Watching this kid eat his food like its the best Tim has ever tasted. Hell, it probably is if the name Mrs. Mac means an old white bitty who cooks plain English meals. Shit, he shouldn’t get attached, should he.
"I'll be transferring out soon. It usually happens for kids when they turn ten, going out to public or more nearby private schools. Some kids live out their tenure here though."
Tim barely looks up from how she’s eating when she questions him, "At ten?"
"Yeah. You going at ten? Or eight?" The kid could probably make it out sooner than that, Sung-min muses.
"Probably... I could make that work," she could convince her parents of that, probably. Maybe Gotham Academy, they’ll definitely want to send me there once I bring it up. If nothing else, I could just enroll myself, they’re rarely home enough to notice anyways. A little gaslighting wouldn’t be that bad would it? Mom would probably figure it out pretty quick once it reaches the gala adults run around children's academics, trying to one up each other. Tim could convince her first and then figure it out if dad says no. Which he probably wouldn’t, right? He says he went there his senior year while mom was enrolled there for, like, her entire education.
Make that work? The hell does that mean? Sung-min's a little freaked out, but this is just a kid. And kind of endearing that Tim seems to be treating it like a masterplan. Cute, he thinks before starting to clean up.
10 years later
Reclining on the couch, the rare sunlight beams stream in from the floor to ceiling windows that reveal the cityscape of Gotham’s diamond district. If Tim didn’t have to keep up appearances of being a rich girl CEO, she almost might have chosen this apartment for the view alone. Tim knows Cass enjoys it, even if she intermittently taps the back of Tim's laptop with her toe, trying to get her to stop working from where they have their legs entangled, laying on opposite ends of the couch. Cass is far more invested in the crappy romance movie to be distracting her though, which is a relief, but does present the issue of how all these spreadsheets are giving her a migraine. Not to mention the lobbying issue on the back burner from one of the main investors of Wayne Enterprise, Leo Roberts, against the Neon Knights initiative, which means some of the international efforts might start to be impacted and stifled. Maybe at the next gala, she’ll make him talk to John Everett, the loosest lipped gossip monger in the upper echelons of Gotham, raise his temper with something about his ex-wife’s new proclivities over in Metropolis, have Emma Stanley accidentally spill red wine on his Burberry suit, and really make him bust his top in the middle of a crowded ballroom with a few well placed couples who don’t like his business tactics to kick him while he’s down.
Cass hasn’t been able to sleep for the past week or so. But last night, finally able to see her sister, she dropped like a sack of cinderblocks off the Padma Bridge. She was able to see Stephanie, get some ice cream, but Cass has been chasing underground traffickers' tails that she hasn’t been focusing on much else. Luckily Tim is always there, but she still thinks that she needs to give herself a rest every once in a while. Cass dropped to sleep by choice, at Tim’s rate she’s going to pass out on a roof.
Unguarded.
Not that Cass would let that happen, but that fear, that terrible emotion she can’t stand, can’t fight, can’t run from, creeps up on her sometimes when Tim won’t listen to her.
Everyone else would listen to her. Tim just goes around her, or somehow lies to her face. Rude. Very rude. And should be impossible by now. Incredibly rude. At least the TV isn’t rude to her, with the actors trying to pretend they aren’t madly in love and fake acting to play it down.
Or it would be, playing an ad for Lex Luthor. That guy. She doesn’t like him. He doesn’t listen to her either. Unless she threatens him. But she doesn’t have to threaten Bruce to get him to stop working. He listens to her. Or Duke, who is on the day-shift as everyone is calling it. He listens when she tells him to rest his head from his migraines giving his neck and back muscles undue stress tenseness. Damian listens to her, and indulges hobbies instead of working constantly with repetitive clacks of keyboard keys. Or Jason, him, who will listen when she says stop. Even if he likely is planning to shoot someone by dock B4 again by Tim’s estimates. Maybe if the ads didn’t show villains she wouldn’t be staring at Lex Luthor's temptingly slappable bald he-
Oh, an ad for Red Robin. The restaurant.
Well, Cass is hungry. She untangles easily from her relaxed form. Passing by Tim and shutting the laptop with a single finger as she walks by without looking at her.
"Hungry."
"Hungry?" Tim asks with a smile to her behind her, Cass walking to the marble top kitchen Tim had put in with self sanitizing measures on almost every inch of it.
"Hungry," Cass beelines past her straight to the decorated two door fridge.
It’s colorful. A sketch from Damian he ‘accidentally’ left in Tim’s reach in the Batcave. There’s also a flyer for a school event, cameras and photography, a yellow sticky note attached with Duke asking Tim to play chaperone. Tim has gotten up from where she was sitting, making her way over. Another sticky note, red and Halloween edition with fangs on the top, a death threat written out by someone named ‘Anarky.’ Fun name, Cass will admit. And a pinned postcard from Malaysia from an L.S. that she ignores completely, opening the fridge to the terrible neon colored sight of a Zesti kingdom taking up half of the fridge space.
Perhaps she might pray for something other than old takeout if she tried to believe in some mystical higher power. Quite a sadness she doesn’t.
Tim comes up next to her, putting her chin on her shoulder, looking into the fridge, "I can cook something, if you want."
What? She, "Can cook?"
"Yeah,” Tim points at the one vegetable in her fridge, before reaching past to grab the soy sauce on the top shelf, and a red tub from a drawer, “grab the cabbage please."
Cass places the cabbage down by the ingredients Tim pulled out and stands by as she hops around the kitchen, grabbing a giant sugar container, a Top Ramen pack and apple cider vinegar from the pantry. She steps past Cass to get to the spice cabinet to the right of the stove, pulling down a spice cup labeled ‘زعتر’ in Arabic and a red wrapped up cube? The spice cabinet is also different from three days ago, Cass notices, everything that was in a ‘Costco,’ ‘McCormick’ is what they were titled, plastic containers with red lids now all in small glazed clay pots in varying forms of structure and culture? Tim also ignores the letter with a green wax seal sitting on the bottom shelf right in front of her face, shutting the cabinet door.
Cass is still curious about this, however, "Didn't know."
"Hm?" Tim hums, questioning what she means as she sets up the ingredients in a certain order, liquids grouped together, the sugar to the far right side, the spice and cube to the left, with the red Korean labeled tub next to the ramen in the middle below the liquids.
"You can cook," Cass clarifies for her.
Tim looks up from where she’s pulling a black cast iron skillet, a fun weapon but too brittle, off the top of a countertop oven, stainless steel chopsticks in her offhand, right, from the drawer near the sink, "Oh...uh, yeah. Not much, I mean. Or very often."
"Not much?" Cass pointedly eyes the countertop oven, the Breville coffee machine, the spice cabinet, the cast iron skillet, then Tim, standing there as she recognizes Cass’s point.
Tim rolls her eyes, it's really not that big of a deal to her, she just likes to have these things at her disposal and in reach instead of having to search for a better kitchen, "Okay, I know what this looks like, but I don't actually have that many recipes under my belt. Jason's like way better at this. I just know easy stuff. With ramen packs and making easy broth bases for soups and stuff," Tim’s not making excuses, she’s not, as she fills the black skillet with about an inch of water.
Setting the skillet on the stove, she turns the heat to high. Expertly ignoring Cass, she puts the genuine Tunisian thyme from the new, and oh so kindly donated by someone, spice cup into the water, about three generous pinches. Unwrapping the bouillon cube, Tim right-handedly tosses it in the water, Cass pointing to it, putting her chin on Tim's right shoulder, tilting her head as a question.
"That's the beef cube," Tim says, looking almost eye to eye with the Cass on her shoulder.
"Beef cube?" She questions directly, sounding as confused as she looks, furrowed eyebrows as she watches it slowly, very slowly from the rising heat, disperse. Stepping away slightly to Tim's left to get a better sight.
"Yeah, it's a bouillon cube. It's like instant broth. French."
Cass is noticing everything, every little thing Tim is doing. The timing, the waiting for the water to boil. Where once it does, Tim habitually reaches for the soy sauce and pours it, a second and a half, and the vinegar for a second and a quarter. The consistent habit of twisting the cap perfectly and setting it directly in its place without looking. The knowing of everything in reach.
Cass points to the red tub as Tim reaches for it, “That.”
Tim looks at it, “Gochujang. Red chili powder called gochugaru, glutinous rice, fermented soybeans grounded up to be mejupowder, and salt for fermenting. It's a spicy Korean pepper paste.” And she pauses. She thinks. Just for a moment, where Cass doesn’t know what goes through her mind.
Tim looks up at her, looking Cass in the eye. Something dangerous for just about anyone else but her.
"Do you want to put in the gochujang?"
Cass lights up: a small quick blink, straightening with a quick pump of her heart as Tim smiles at her like Cass just gave her something special, a gift of some kind.
"Go get a spoon."