The Daily Life Of A Foodie In The Office - Volume 1 Chapter 81 Ch81

“If food is poetry

Is not poetry also food?”

– Joyce Carol Oates

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Delilah was inside her cubicle, where she was reviewing some reports that had been sent to her a couple of days ago. She had just returned from Japan last week and already, her table was filled with stacks of papers. She was shocked when she saw the piles of papers stacked neatly on her table.

She immediately called Bella and according to her, it was sent by Sheila. Apparently, she forgot that she was on leave, nevertheless, she still sent her some work.

What irritated Delilah was the fact that some of the works were not what she usually does. Sometimes she wonders whether Sheila understands exactly the job description of a human resource officer. Then again, she probably answered something like one needed to work out of the box, to understand the whole thing and etc.

Thankfully, Fawkes had seen her piles of work and took a pity on her by helping her with some of the work. He was surprised as well when he saw the work as it was not something the Human Resource department usually deals with. Rather, it was more of an admin job.

Without any ill intentions, Fawkes even asked Delilah whether she got demoted or something. To which, she replied with a smack on his arm.

Just then Aubree had walked past them and being curious, she peeked in and asked what was going on. Fawkes then told her and Aubree had a good laugh after that. She then answered for Delilah, saying that Sheila had liked her previous works on the itinerary and whatnot, hence why she had been given those kinds of works.

Delilah just rolled her eyes when she heard Aubree’s answer.

After he had listened, he tried to return back the work he volunteered but Delilah pushed them back to him, saying that he can’t take back what he had said before. And that he must help her with this. With regret on his face, he could only take the work back and returned to his cubicle.

Delilah smirked. ‘Haha! It’s too late!’ she thought wickedly.

She continued reviewing the paper in her hand when there was an email notification from her computer. She looked over and saw it was an email from the other branch. Apparently, they had sent an email stating that Howard would be changing his schedule. He used to work in the evening but it seems that he requested to change his schedule to normal office hours.

Although she did not have any problem with it, Delilah was curious as to why so sudden that she immediately texted Amy, who was at the other branch.

Knowing that she would not receive Amy’s reply straight away since she would probably be working and her phone might not be in hand’s reach, Delilah continued to review her work. She even managed to type a few pages of her report when a text message finally came.

‘He said he would be busy during the evening,’ came the reply.

Delilah frowned. The message sounds very ambiguous that one could not help but feel suspicious. If she had any bad thoughts about it, she would think that he was busy with well, let’s leave that to one’s imagination.

‘Evening huh?’ Delilah replied back.

There hasn’t been any reply after that so she went back to doing her work.

Just as she was about to get up to go to the restroom, there was another text message from Amy.

She grabbed her phone and read the text. ‘Want to know what he has been busy with?’ Amy replied with a smirking sticker.

Before Delilah could reply, there were a bunch of links in the text message. She frowned, wondering what these were. She replied to Amy in a playful manner, ‘What is this? Virus?’

Amy immediately sent a ‘Haha!’ sticker and told Delilah to just click on the links.

So, she did. Apparently, it was a video. And after a few seconds of watching the video, Delilah regretted it so much. The fact that she had enough seeing Howard’s clothes, now she was tortured by his shrieks. Yes, if you can call his singing, ‘shrieks’.

She could not even finish the whole video before she closed it. And instead of berating Amy, she forwarded the links to Aubree, who was in her cubicle.

Once she had sent the links, she leaned against her seat, her arms behind her head as if she was waiting for something.

A few minutes later, there was a sudden loud hacking cough from Aubree’s direction.

Delilah immediately covered her mouth as if to cover up her laughter.

Soon after, she heard someone getting up and heading towards her cubicle. She then quickly got up and was about to hide, she meant, go to the restroom.

Before she could get away, Aubree saw her and called out her name.

Delilah stopped and turned around. With a weak smile, she watched as Aubree was getting closer and closer. And before she could say a word, Aubree had pinced her arm.

“Ouch!” Delilah exclaimed, rubbing her arm from the pain.

“What the heck with the videos?” Aubree scolded, her hands on her h.i.p.s.

Looking around to see whether there was anyone listening to them and found none, Delilah grabbed Aubree’s arm and pulled her along, heading downstairs. Aubree just let her pull her along, curious to know where she was bringing her to.

Soon after, they found themselves at the visitor’s lounge. It was fortunate that there weren’t anyone around so they had the whole room to themselves and could converse freely.

The two women sat next to each other. Aubree took out her phone and resumed playing the video that was paused before she confronted Delilah.

While they were watching the video, many expressions passed by the two women’s faces; cringe, shock and weirded out. Even though they did watch until the end, Aubree kept skipping and fast-forward.

Once they were done watching, the two of them kept quiet. But there were looks of disbelief and surprise on their faces, as if they could not believe that they had watched that video.

After a while, Delilah broke the silence by saying how her ears now hurt and how she was baffled as to how he got the courage or guts to be able to teach people how to sing, when she knows that he has no qualification. And from the way he sang, she did not want to be mean but she heard a better singing voice than him.

Aubree had laughed so hard after she heard Delilah’s comments. And laughed even more when Delilah criticized his clothes, saying who wore a batik dark purple with a huge silver diamond brooch on it? She further commented, asking Aubree whether the event was a wedding ceremony or a singing competition.

Aubree made Delilah more heated up when she pointed out his hair where he had styled it with a bushy on the side, similar like elvis hair but on the side. Delilah groaned as she covered her eyes with her hands.

The two women had a laugh together as they talked about the video and they finally found out why Howard requested to change his working schedule. He was probably busy judging and teaching people to sing during the evening. Though it does not really affect much, Delilah still finds it funny.

Seeing that lunchtime was about to arrive, the two women decided to relax. By relaxing, meaning that they do not want to work so they went to grab their purse and phone from their office before returning back to the visitor’s lounge where they waited until lunchtime.

While they were playing with their own phone, out of the blue, Delilah asked Aubree what was her plan for lunch.

Aubree shrugged, saying that she was probably going to the office cafeteria for lunch. Then Delilah asked her whether she wanted to go to a Korean restaurant. Aubree turned to her, who still has her eyes on her phone and answered yes.

The moment Aubree said yes, Delilah stood up and said, “Alright, let’s go.”

Aubree laughed and followed her out. Although there was another five minutes until lunchtime, she guessed that being early for a few minutes should be fine.

Since the Korean restaurant was a couple of minutes drive away, they had to use the car to get there. So, they went straight for Delilah’s car and she drove them there. It was not lunchtime yet but there were already many cars on the road. Fortunately, not enough for a traffic jam to occur.

Few minutes later, they reached the restaurant. Delilah parked her car at a nearby parking spot and after that, the two stepped down from the car and headed for the restaurant.

The restaurant only took one unit of the building so it wasn’t big nor was it small either. It has a couple of red pillars at the entrance of the restaurant with a huge signboard of the name of the restaurant. The huge windows covered the entrance with folding curtains, giving a glimpse of the insides. And when they entered the restaurant, they could smell the strong scent of kimchi [1] and they were welcomed by the waitresses.

They picked an empty table and sat down. One of the waitresses handed them each a menu. And it took them several minutes to decide on their meals. They decided to share one large dish of tteokbokki [2] while Delilah ordered japchae [3] and Aubree ordered kimchi stew.

Soon after, the waitress placed a portable stove in front of them with a flat bowl on top of it. Apparently, the tteokbokki was already inside, together with the other ingredients, such as spring onion, sausages, cabbages and more. It seems like the two women would need to cook the tteokbokki themselves, which shouldn’t be hard since they would only need to stir it occasionally.

With a huge smile on her face, Delilah stirred the tteokbokki, mixing it well with the sauce. She then left it for it to fully cook.

The two then talked with one another while they waited for their other dishes to arrive.

Before their other dishes arrive, it seems like the tteokbokki was done cooking so they decided to eat that first. Delilah scooped some into her bowl and began to eat. It was still hot so she had to blow to cool it down.

She ate the tteokbokki first and found it chewy and soft. The sauce was a bit spicy but not to the extent that it would burn her insides. It also has that sweetness in the sauce, making it delicious together with the tteokbokki. The chewy texture probably made it a bit addictive as she could not help chewing on the tteokbokki and eating more. The sauce left red stains around her lips but she did not really mind as she continued eating it.

Soon after, their other dishes arrived and when they saw how big of a portion their dishes were, Delilah and Aubree winced, wondering whether they could finish them all. Then Delilah just shrugged, saying that they probably can just takeaway them all.

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[1] pickled and fermented vegetables. Staple food of Korea.

[2] rice cake

[3] Korean glass noodle stir fry