Title: A Taste of Compulsion

Pairing: Kaisoo
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Romance, Horror
Length: One-shot (5,787)
Summary: By the second bite, just about everything tastes like pain.
On clear days, the sun crushes slowly into the banner of a glass and steel dome on the west end of Chungmuro, bleeding an ocean
of colors over the pedestrian walks. Combined with the iridescent glow of neighboring boutiques and pulsing mobs of tourists, the
transparent cafaptly named something Italian that no one can quite pronounceis dazzling at day and ethereal at night. A
large teardrop perhaps, in a eld of concrete and cement, lined with jaw-dropping sweet marvels and equally jaw-dropping price
marks. Perfect social venue for the lthily idle and rotten rich.
But it is not for the remarkable architecture that so many reservations are made despite the exorbitant prices. It is for master
chocolatier Kais creations: pieces of the human soul sculpted with an artists eye, unforgettably sweet and unapologetically bitter
not a little unlike broken relationships.
However at this hour there is no sun or buzzing audiences trying to sneak glances at the glass kitchen. All of the lights and staff are
gone; what remains is an exercise in barren monochromaticity. Inside Kai sits across from a guest in torn jeans and a casual tee
that seems comically adolescent sandwiched between plush velvet cushions and massive chandeliers.
So, The guest starts pointedly, looking over the rack of what must be a few hundred trufes and pralines, of every imaginable
color and pattern.
Have you ever heard of the perfect trufe, Junmyun-sshi? Kai asks quietly, dark eyes glinting as he picks a piece up with knobby,
thin ngers, and sets it down on the plate before Junmyun, Because see, Im in the line of making the perfect chocolate. Its a
tough business, though, because the problem stems from the couvertureno couverture, no ganache, no coating, no trufeits
nearly impossible to nd one without vice.
Um
But all of these, Kai sweeps his arm over the meter-long rack, are made from the perfect couverture. And Id like to share them
with you. Try one.
--
Kai shows up to work three hours and two minutes late, not one second more or less, and with remarkable consistency week after
week, for no particular reason other than that he can. He also refuses to do orders; people get what he is in the mood to make and
if he is not in the mood to make anything, then he sits back and surveys how Sehun deals with public outrage.
Its Friday night this time that Kai has decided somethings not quite in place.
Come on Kai, please, Sehun moans, as soon as he storms into the kitchen practically bawling, This is the Russian ambassador
who has waited two days for a trufe and you cant just
Im not in the mood today. Tell him to try again tomorrow, Kai shrugs, leaning back on his stool to ip through an arts
magazine.
Luhan, one of the baristas, sends Sehun a wry grimace, but no one says a word because thats just how things are. Kai has liberty
to pull anything, even burn the entire kitchen down, and the management wouldnt raise a nger against him because he is the
shop. No matter the number of star confectionary chefs they hire, Kai is irreplaceable.
He is irreplaceable because in the nights that everything is in place, pieces of legendary art bloom easily from his palms. Cacao
beans, cocoa butter, milk, sugar, lecithin. Singular practices in the apex of human creativity, shaped in everything from surrealist
white-chocolate amingos too beautiful to devour to simple champagne mousse adorned in delicate saffron ribbons. Pieces which
redene the palate with a mix of the most common couvertures and a touch of something beyond genius.
A crowd often gathers behind the glass walls to watch Kai whisk the ganache or temper viscosity, sculpt beauty into chocolate.
There is something mesmerizing perhaps about the way he whips his spatula to produce striking and unyielding lines, breaking
identity into each batch. Fluidity blends into sharp contours; mercury molds steel, smoke emancipates sand, romance dissolves
horror.
But frequently, as dust storms of pulverized piedmont hazelnuts blow across layers of lukewarm praline over bourbon over mango
puree, Kais movements freeze.
And rupture.
Its a breathtaking sight when metal tongs y across the room, creating a smattering of brown over the glass walls and immediate
spider webs under. And its equally breathtaking to see the almost-perfect creation, radiating with luxury, tossed carelessly into the
trash.
But what takes the cake is Kais blank frowneven if its a pretty common sight on the face of someone addicted to an elusive
concept. One that is forever just a little out of reach.
--
The food critic, Kim Heechul, has something crossed between ecstasy and shock as he savors the way Kais chocolate simply slides
away on his tongue, leaving traces of something coyly sweet albeit scathingly spicy. A remarkably delicate balance of spices that
would only be tasted in the nal round of an international competition, and Kai treats it like just another batch heading for the
garbage.
Milled sugar, dutched cocoa, vanilla, cinnamon, cayenne pepper andis this?
Ginger, Kai provides, barely looking up from his notebook, even if Heechuls probably the most inuential critic on the
continent. He continues chewing on his thumb, a habit born of something between anxiety and frustration probably, gaze
skittering across the rows of cryptic shorthand scribbles.
Ginger, the critic parrots eagerly, Thats it, ginger. Of course. Gives off just the right sting but subtle, subtly done for an oriental
touch. Great texture and presentation, Kai you are a genius
I know.
Christ this tastes perfect, Heechul repeats, already reaching for another piece when nally Kai peels his eyes off the fraying pages
and stops him midair with a dark glower.
All of the other kitchen hands catch their breath in sadistic glee as Kai slaps shut his notebook, and shoves the box of sweets
Heechul had been fawning over into its original destinationthe garbage, muttering, Perfect? You ought to get your tongue
checked.
Almost everyone hears the critic sneering loudly about why are the best chocolatiers such fucking assholes on his way out, though no one is
surprised to see a ten out of ten in next mornings papers. After all, if Kai isnt perfect, then nobody is.
--
No one knows who the new customer, dressed in department store accessories and a stupidly bewildered stare, is. No one cares. For
all they know its probably just another tourist, too poor to afford anything, too unprotable to be served. Sehun doesnt even
bother looking up from his phone as the boy works his way up slowly from the glass displays of all of Kais sculptures. Ships, trains,
tsunamis in shades of brown, black, white. His ngers swirl along the glass cases and every once in a while his whole face lights up.
And no one notices that there is someone studying the boy just as intently as he studies the works of art, somewhere from the midst
of chaos in the kitchen. One straight line of lethal tension from one pair of eyes to another.
Why dont you use any colors? The boy asks, as soon as he reaches the front desk.
Sehun takes an extra second to roll his eyes before looking up with scarcely veiled exasperation, Its our master chocolatiers
artistic statement. Simplicity for elegance. Adding unnecessary decorations may corrupt the taste.
But they look kind of lifeless like that.
Do they, Sehun nods, arched disbelieving brows for the sarcastic bite. Even the pickiest of chefs and cruelest of critics have never
found a single thing lacking in Kais work. Its almost too cruel to see a poorly dressed commoner make an idiot out of himself.
So what can I help you with?
Id like a box of the boy seems to suddenly realize that he hasnt actually seen the menu yet.
Sehun jerks his thumb in the direction of the white names chalked over the glass walls, without bothering to add anything because
its not as if the boy can afford any of their products.
What is in your the boy starts, and trails off when a still-liquid rack of chocolate trufes is slammed down over the counter.
Sehun nearly ips out of his chair, phone clattering across the fountain oors, while Kai smiles for what must be the rst time in
ever. Its the most natural and genuine smile, not a hint of the usual mockery, but Sehun still cant help feeling a little disturbed by
the way Kais mouth stretches upwards.
I wouldnt recommend the boxes, as they are, Kai mutters, for an embarrassing majority, leftovers.
Oh, the boy stammers, blinking rapidly though it doesnt seem to make him any less dazed. Its quite a sight, his blatant
perplexity up against Kais crushing, inexplicably breathless excitement. And its just as amazing how he still manages to nd his
words, despite Kais smoldering and unmoving stare, Ah. Okay. Thank you. But my boyfriend doesnt like caramel.
Wrap up one of each.
Each what? Sehun blinks, and cringes when Kai turns his impatient stare on him.
One of every single batch we have.
So Sehun ransacks more than ve dozen boxes, and per Kais orders, rings the package in for an eye-popping sumwhich for
some reason Kai pays out of his own wallet.
What follows after that, as Sehun recalls to Luhan with babbling mystication, is really history.
--
Seoul in the summer is bustling full of life, colorful language and street-side music mixing between bright colors and LED screens
on skyscrapers. Busy trafc at all hours and endless bodies scattering in all directions. But none of it matters because as Kai rips
down the street in his black convertible, looking to either crush or run over the boy carrying a box of luxuriously wrapped
confections over his rusty bicycle worth maybe half as much, all that seems to exist in the world is just the two of them. No colors,
no music, no sky or air or the nasty chorus of disgruntled drivers who are more or less shoved out of the way by the speeding
convertible.
Hey, Kai calls out, as soon as he catches up to the boy who seems to be perpetually shocked one way or another. Wide eyes and
parted lips, deer in the headlights.
He switches to the other lane to close the distance, elbow jaunting out of windowpane and inappropriately bright beam over his
cheeks, Lifeless Chocolate-sshi!
Oh
My name is Kai, he declares, almost ramming into an incoming bus because hes driving on the wrong side of the street.
Ignoring the shrill honk and a blaze of vulgarities, he continues, Whats your name?
Um, the boy stammers, Um, umshitI dont and runs into a tree, bike and chocolate and laughter falling all over the
place.
Well no, I usually remember my nameits not a memory problem, Kyungsoo explains later as they sit cross-legged and barefoot
on the oor of Kais tremendously oversized penthouse apartment, an endless expanse of white marble tiles and a black dot of
leather furniture here or there. Colorless and spotless. Its supposed to be a awless snapshot of modern art and human loneliness,
which seems to warm with Kyungsoos ushed cheeks and nervous chuckles.
Kai presses his hand onto Kyungsoos, and explains Your ice pack is falling, when Kyungsoo almost jumps out of his own skin in
surprise. Kais ngers are colder than the ice pack, and sharp as chiseled diamonds.
Its just when I get nervous, I kind of go blank. You know.
Are you insinuating that I make you nervous? Kai frowns, though his grip over Kyungsoos hand doesnt loosen.
You were kind of driving against incoming trafc, Kyungsoo explains, a lame mutter. Kai almost doesnt respond, but when he
does its a surprisingly adolescent snort. The night sneaks away between ringlets of laughter, and friendship between Kyungsoo the
nervous grad student and Kai the genius chocolatier crystallizes before dawn strikes.
Except maybe its not really a friendship. Its more of an intrigue.
--
One day Kai drags Kyungsoo, stammering and protesting, into the kitchen. Luhan almost drops his egg beater at the sight of a
foreigner in the kitchen and Chanyeol, the clumsy intern, does drop his egg beater. And a whole box of toffee bricks when Kai
doesnt even react to the loud chattering around him.
But none of it seems to matter, as Kai ings out all of the jars and boxes, bangs open old barrels and tears the labels off of new
deliveries, makes sandstorms out of milk powder and nets out of caramelized sugar, pots of bubbling syrup, and probably some
four, ve dozen batches of everything the kitchen has seen and hasnt seen. He doesnt stop until his nail beds are painted in spices
and the fridge has been emptied of a whole months worth of stock ingredients.
Try it, is the rst thing he says after six and a half hours of blind xation, a little breathless but low and steady per usual.
Perhaps a hinge of anticipation by the edges.
The kitchen ceases to breathe. All attention migrate to Kyungsoo as he reaches out with a shaking hand to pick up the rst of a
whole russet battalion, still bleeding caramel and sputtering bourbon and vodka fruit puree.
Its um, Kyungsoo doesnt close his eyes or tilt his head back like Heechul or their normal customers. He doesnt swoon and he
doesnt utter. He simply bites his lips, endearing and awkward, The lling thing is um, its sweet but not really?
Okay, Kai nods, and pushes the rest of the endless brown ocean a little closer.
Glancing at the sheer number left, Chanyeol almost feels sorry for Kyungsoo. But then again, theres nothing bad about tasting
through an afternoon of priceless paradise.
--
Sehun told me that this is the rst time youve? Kyungsoo struggles to nd the right expression, ngering the tip of Kais
unused apron absentmindedly. His knuckles crack. Kai doesnt move. The pungent scent of coddled liquor and warm cocoa lls
their lungs to the brim, thick as smoke and clear as the night.
Invited anyone into my kitchen, Kai lls in, drizzling caramel off the ends of an open-ended whisk into neat patchworks.
Dribbling art and re and gunpowder from the ngertips.
Why me?
Theres something about you, he looks up from the rows of little chocolate pebbles, picking a still-wet one up carefully, Its very
right, and places it between Kyungsoos lips, pulling his ngers away to suck off the liquid lingering, and very, very addictive.
Kyungsoo forgets to swallow. A weak sigh escapes his lips, one that he can easily blame on the decadent scent of cloying sweetness
in the air. Kai reaches forward and covers his eyes with a little whisper, That look is going to drive me insane one day.
Everything combusts with the spark of dawn.
Riding on a wave of impulsivity and bravado, Kyungsoo tears Kais hand from his face and pulls away. Throws Kais hand away
as far as possible.
IIm in a relationship. I have a boyfriend. Were not going to break up.
The emptiness clouding over Kais features as he nibbles on his thumbnail is so frightening that Kyungsoo doesnt realize hes
gasped in relief when a smile cracks. All teeth and easy kindness, Dont worry yourself, Kyungsoo-sshi; it is nothing of that sort. I
do not want or need to be your boyfriend. I do not deviate towards you. I deviate towards perfection.
--
With time Kyungsoo becomes a regular member of the kitchen, the rst and probably only person not thoroughly scrutinized,
torn apart, and lynched with Kais harrowing criticism. Not to anyones surprise he is also the only one who the chocolatier solicits
advice from, even if its strange that someone with almost no professional culinary training is allowed to be anywhere near Kais
compulsive habits.
When Luhan brings up how strange it is that Kai even puts extra hours in lately, working well into the night, Sehun simply shrugs
and explains that Kai has probably always wanted to put in the extra hours.
Knowing Kai, he probably just didnt know what to work on, since all anyone ever tells him is that hes awless. And now he
does.
Still weird, Luhan quips.
Sehun cant really help but agree. Then again, its not like Kai would be hitting on Kyungsoo, since its clear that Kyungsoo has a
boyfriend. After all, every time Kai tells him to bring a batch home, he always comments on how much Junmyun would enjoy them.
Plus, Kyungsoo knows Kai well enough. You can worship or hate him, but you cant really love him. Cant love someone who
doesnt differentiate want and need.
--
Amongst the many things Kyungsoo lends Kaihis abby t-shirts when Kai comes to sleep over on his couch and dig through
piles and piles of his old pictures; words of advice about getting along with the kitchen staff; bits and pieces of himself when they
come in with the winter breathing down their necksof utmost importance is companionship, probably. Its remarkable what
companionship does to a person; away with the winter frost thaws Kais blank stares and sudden outbursts. Hes almost
approachable now. The caf displays are lled with obscenely vibrant chocolate sculptures and the critics call it a new era in
confectionary design.
I would like to think that I really like you. Youre nice, and neat, and your eyes are really something, Kai confesses one night,
shouting over the loud roar of re and crackling oil as Kyungsoo dumps a multitude of things from the fridge into a wok. A recipe
for disaster, probably.
Im probably the only person youve ever tried to like, Kai, Kyungsoo hollers back. His voice booms a little too loudly within the
tiny bachelors studio. Though small, with creaking oorboards and thick windows that cant compare to Kais penthouse of white
tiles and glass walls, its neat and organized by a neurotic hand that Kai nds hilarious.
Kai chews on his thumb a little, unwinding into the armchair that Kyungsoo always takes up and picks up a little of the scent of
Kyungsoos fabric softener, My name isnt Kai. It is Kim Jongin.
Why do they call you Kai then?
It has an artistic air, a combination of the simplicity and the hard consonants, Kai says, and its only half a lie because Kai isnt
about the artistic air, the simplicity or the hard consonants; its about plastic distortions and distractions. An exercise in hiding his
soul because underneath all the frenzy there is nothing. Chocolate not so much an art but an illusion for the empty ganache center.
I think Jongin sounds better though. It sounds natural, Kyungsoo shrugs as he brings a plate of soggy-looking noodles and
vegetables out of the kitchen, sets it by Kais foot with two pairs of chopsticks and ips on the television almost on instinct.
What is this? Kai demands, gaze ickering uncertainly over the food as if assessing for toxicity.
Kyungsoo notes his hesitation and scoffs half-heartedly, attention mostly on the new sitcom episode, Kimchi spaghetti.
I will order pizza, Kai dubs without sparing another second, and Kyungsoo immediately drags him back into the chair with a
hand on his wrist. If he werent staring so intently at the television, he would have noticed the startled ush over Kais cheeks.
Try it, he mutters.
Kai does, and when he remarks how surprisingly okay it tastes, Kyungsoo merely chuckles and ips off the television, I cook with
care and joy.
I do too.
No, you cook with pride and expectations.
--
You should ask your customers for opinions, Kyungsoo proffers, a few weeks later on a Thursday night. The caf has become a
distillation of transparent emptiness on nights like these, inated occasionally by the bangs of cookware, The other cafes do that,
like they have customer favorites and stuff, and weekly promotions
The lights are off and Kai works hastily through the moonlight, soft acapella that Kyungsoo brought him streaming through the
speakers behind, coursing in and out of the silver rays. Occasionally Kai has a lethargic swing, as if slowing down to savor the
moment, such as now, Because they dont have any idea what tastes good until you show them. Additionally, you cannot do
promotions on art; what a sweeping insensitivity.
I see, but why do you talk like that? Kyungsoo crops up, rather abruptly, and mocks Kais deeper voice to make a point, what
sweeping in-sen-si-ti-vi-ty. Like a book. You talk like a textbook narrator.
Kai pulls his hands out of oven mittens and leans back on the glass wall, almost pensive, I dont know, I suppose I dont talk to
people a lot.
I can tell. You talk to chocolate, dont you? Kyungsoo mutters, and if it isnt for that grin on his lips and the glitter in his eye, Kai
would have probably tossed a mitten at his face.
Instead Kai holds back and produces a small, corner-store chocolate bar from his pocket. The wrapper is wrinkled and opens to a
half-melted, soppy mess, which Kai thrusts into Kyungsoos face, Have a bite of this.
Hmm, Kyungsoo nods, swallowing back with a sip of water.
Well? What do you believe it tastes like?
After a cough, Kyungsoo says, Tastes like love to me, though the words are clipped off as soon as his smile bursts into an open-
mouthed laugh that breaks across the silence under the glass dome, as easily as it had that night in Kais apartment.
Kai doesnt share his joy, however, only squinting and returning back to his work with a small, Youre a freak.
And youre speaking normally, Kyungsoo adds. To his delight Kai turns back to glare at him with a twinkle of a beam, and
maybe Kyungsoo heart skips a few beats, But you are in love with chocolate.
What about you?
The silence is uncomfortable. Kyungsoos answer only makes it worse, Junmyun.
--
I dont think youre there yet, Kyungsoo mumbles with bitter spring breeze snapping in his hair and slamming into his face. Kai
offered to take him out for a spin on his convertible, but it feels something more like car race. Peeling down the high ways reckless
and angry. Striving to prove that there is no dead-end in this path by sailing off of cliffs. I think youre missing a lot of things. I
think youre brilliant but youyou needyou need feelings.
Feelings, Kai echoes vaguely. Bob Dylan tunes curls up between them, but a temporary existence whipped away instantly by the
wind.
Like a passion for somethingother than chocolate, I meanlike love, maybe. Loving someone, maybe?
I love perfection, Kai responds pensively, swerving around a corner and Kyungsoo hisses when his neck cracks from the sharp
turn. He thinks that Kai is a little like this. All pointed turns and impulses, blunt thoughts. Hes as much a creator as a destroyer of
perfection, and when the day comes that he runs out of things to destroy, he may as well destroy himself. Feed his limbs and heart
and soul to a suicidal concept because no matter his brilliance, at the end of the day Kai is not perfect. At the end of the day there
will always be a dead end.
No thats not quite
Thats the only way, Kai decides, and his eyes latch onto Kyungsoos.
But Kyungsoo says nothing. Kai has always been like this: searching for an inexistent entity and falling, apart.
--
Doesnt loving something that wont love you backsomething that you cant even grasphurt?
Isnt that the denition of love? By the second bite, everything tastes like pain.
--
As the year passes, Kai begins spending nights in the kitchen, waking up to work through another day and experiment through
another night. Fraying notebooks are thrown away because there is never enough time for all his ideas. He pulls proportions and
new spices out of thin air and sheer brilliance, back-wheeling for an end that no one can quite understand and dening,
redening, scratching, perfecting, reprefecting perfection.
Sometimes Kyungsoo comes in to visit him during the nights, ghosting along the glass walls to surprise him with a home-cooked
meal or a new music album. After spending so many hours with Kai, the kitchen has become something of a second home and
hes tasted so many confections that it wouldnt be a surprise if what runs through his veins is chocolate instead of blood.
What are you trying to make? Kyungsoo asks, when Kai is stooped over the counter once again, going on his toes to tip over
Kais shoulders even if it doesnt work.
The Kyungsoo trufe, Kai says, jotting a series of numbers down in his notebook.
Very funny, Jongin.
Close your eyes and open your mouth, Kai orders. Kyungsoo obeys, not without a little hesitation at rst.
A pregnant pause, before something smooth and cold meets Kyungsoos tongue. He chokes back a startled cackle, Thiskimchi
spaghetti
Kai clips him off, No, care and joy.
Kyungsoo almost opens his eyes, but Kai cups one hand over them and shoos him back into the darkness. Something softer and
warmer touch his tongue this time, overpoweringly saccharine and a little greasier, Isnt this from
It tastes like love. Cornerstore chocolate, cornerstore lights, cornerstore romance by the cigarette counters, Kai reminds him.
Kyungsoo remembers melted chocolate bars and Kai with oversized mittens and Thursday lethargy. He begins to comment and
that is when Kai feeds him the last piece. Supple, cool, wet, a hint of cigarette smoke and cocoa powder and lithium and
compulsion, a whole lot of bitter and a veil of sugar and Kai. Kai. Its Kai.
Hes tasting Kai.
What about this one? Kai asks, when he removes his hands from Kyungsoos face and neck and traps him instead with his legs.
Knees bumping. Air heavy. Dark eyes.
Kyungsoo is a beat too slow, so Kai answers for him, Like an addiction. You taste like an addiction.
He may have turned around, said something about the need to go home and the fact that this is wrong, but it may have been
swayed by a few moans, the shufing of feet and glances through lashes, hands grasping waists and lips to the back of necks.
Something sharp slices into his palm. Papercut from the notebook.
No, Jongin listen, this wont work, Kyungsoo mutters, a little squeamish with Kais breath running down his neck and chest tight
against his back.
Kai traces a curling line from his elbow to the cut on his palm, with something of an artistic whimsy, before picking up his hand
and pressing the plane of his tongue to it, It will. It will. Youre perfect, Kyungsoo.
And maybe the thick sensuality in Kais eyes is contagious, because when he looks into them, everything slows down just enough
for Kai to remove his mouth from Kyungsoos hand and replace it over his lips. Kais hand molds his hips and he doesnt
remember turning back around but maybe he did. Noses bumping, ngers grasping, loosening, catching, falling. Palms clamping
throats and teeth breaking esh, blood smearing down the line of Kais arm and thumbs probing moans and gasps, ickering
august gazes molding loud quivers and silent pleas.
Its not quite a kiss, by Kyungsoos denition, because its too rough and urgent and Kai is eating him alive with his hands and
mouth and unfaltering gaze, leaving not enough in tact for him to refuse what follows.
Then again, no one refuses an artist when its sculpting you like this. Not into a romance, but into a masterpiece. Thoroughly
deconstructed and inspected. The texture of his voice. The avor of his skin, glistening with sweat and spittle and streaks of white
and the way he breaks, the snap and the nish on the palate. Rebuilt and reconstructed. Displayed in the great glass dome.
--
The problem with Kai is that unlike typical addicts, he doesnt let obsession drag him through the dust. Instead he jumps to the
wheel and drives the motherfucker to pieces, even if it costs him an arm or legor with Kyungsoo, his sanity.
Muttering loudly about, maybe it was too much, maybe too soon, he paces up and down, in and out of the glass kitchen. Tries
to focus on the recipe on hand. Melt unsalted butter and bitter Guayaquil. Add egg yolk. Make merengue by egg white and sugar.
Mix. Freeze. Bake. Doesnt fucking work. Once again. Melt, whisk, freeze, bake, repeat. Something is not quite in place. Kyungsoo.
Its been two weeks since hes last seen Kyungsoo and things have never been like this. Kyungsoo has always picked up his calls.
Opened his door. Joined Kai when he asked. What changed?
The world is all lucid but Kyungsoo makes no sense. Kyungsoos silence makes no sense. To Kai who only registers personalities as
ingredientsgood or bad, Kyungsoo comes up as a blank. A whole lot of emotions and no conclusion. Only frustration. Maybe
the bad kind. Kai makes comparisons to chocolate because, after all, that is the only thing he understands. Maybe Kyungsoo
wasnt properly melted, maybe he rushed the tempering. Maybe he was molding sand. Was Kyungsoo defective?
So when Kyungsoo nally calls back, Kai drops everythingeven a handful of sliced almondsand frightens himself doing it
because how can anything outweigh chocolatebut the thought doesnt last because as soon as he hears Kyungsoos voice everything
ends and everything else starts.
Hello?
Kyungsoo
Jongin. I, um, Kyungsoo stammers, and bile surges to the back of Kais throat. The nausea of an imminent screw-up coming in
slow-motion. He feels awfully like stabbing something with a tong, I um, you know thatits justIve been meaning to tell
you for a while Junmyun and I
Beat. Kai grasps at the corners of his soul but nothing is left other than overturned skin and blood in nails.
Were engaged. Were going to be engaged. The party is next weekend.
What Kai hears next are not distinct words or specic requests. He understands everything that Kyungsoo has said about Junmyun
really likes your trufes and I know its terrible of mebut it would be really specialhe thought if we could ask for ayou know, um, something like
an engagement assortment to distribute at the party andhonestly you dont have toI understand, I understand, Ill just tell Junmyun that youre busy,
this is just ridiculous ofIm sorry because, I just, you just, are we okay? Are you okay? But theyre only shadows of something greater.
Beyond Kyungsoos little concerns and quivering voices, Kai feels the sparks of hope on his tongue. When the dust settles what
remains is no longer a mirage. He hasnt been this excited in a long time. His knees crack as he stands up, ngertips gliding across
the recipe book. Cryptic lines of numbers and notations. Kyungsoo has never been decient.
Kai just hasnt been looking the right way.
No, were okay. We havent been better. Ill make you the perfect trufe.
Are you sure?
Ill need your participation.
Because Kyungsoo is an ingredient. The most essential ingredient.
--
People dene perfection as a eeting concept. It is something which simultaneously attracts and repels its suitors. Perfection is the
only unrealizable dream, because how can the lacking create something unlacking?
Kai decides, as he showers Kyungsoo in vodka and rum, pumps him full of bourbon and champagne, that its not about creation.
Hunting perfection does not involve making incompletes out of a handful of nothings. Its about using the right ingredient. The
problem with chocolate isnt the mind or the method, but the basic material.
So he solves it by lighting a match and sparking Kyungsoos lifeless eyes. In the depth of the night, everything combusts with the
glow of dawn. From a little further down the street, its almost as if the glass dome has swallowed the sun.
And his chocolate comes to life, with a whisper of humanity.
--
90g pure de kalamansi, 110g 35% liquid cream, 40g glucose, 155g couverture madirofolo, Tahiti vanilla berries, 150g couverture
Ghana, 30g trimoline, 10g orange zest, 3 g lemon zest, and a pinch of Kyungsoo make the ideal praline.
A pinch of Kyungsoo to make the ideal everything.
With the morning comes a crowd, gathered behind the glass walls to watch Kai whisk the ganache and temper viscosity, sculpt
beauty into chocolate. There is something mesmerizing, perhaps the way he whips his spatula to produce striking and unyielding
lines, breaking identity into each batch. Fluidity blends into sharp contours; mercury molds steel, smoke emancipates sand,
romance dissolves horror.
And as dust storms of pulverized piedmont hazelnuts blow across layers of lukewarm praline over bourbon over mango puree,
Kais movements only become faster, more reckless, stunning and furious. So stunning and furious that no one notes the thick scent
of something, not quite cinnamon or chaimaybe a little like meat, in the air.
--
Have you ever heard of the perfect trufe, Junmyun-sshi? Kai asks quietly, dark eyes glinting as he picks a piece up with knobby,
thin ngers, and sets it down on the plate before Junmyun, Because see, Im in the line of making the perfect chocolate. Its a
tough business, though, because the problem stems from the couvertureno couverture, no ganache, no coating, no trufeits
nearly impossible to nd one without vice.
Um
But all of these, Kai sweeps his arm over the meter-long rack, are made from the perfect couverture. And Id like to share them
with you. Try one.
Junmyun nods and says a hasty thank you before taking a bite. Immediately something between a frown and a confused smile
surfaces on his lips, Um this
Is the taste of compulsion, Kai grins back, all soft lips and hard eyes as he takes a piece for himself. Chews. Swallows. Another.
Another.
Go on, help yourself.
Even though he tries his best to hold his smile up, Junmyun is trying not to gag and Kai can tell by the pallor of his cheeks. His
voice trembles as he says, No thats okay, its, thank you, but I justI have another appointment?
Long after Junmyun has left, perplexity scribbled all over his countenance, Kai can still be seen sitting in the exact same spot,
savoring his ultimate masterpiece with all of the time in the world, because he has nally captured awlessness.
Closing his eyes, Kai thinks of the texture of Kyungsoos voice. The avor of his skin, glistening with sweat and spittle and streaks
of white and the way he breaks, the snap and the nish on the palate.
Perfect.