Bon Appetit

Chapter One

Pangjie's Pov

If there was one undeniable lesson I carried out of my childhood, it was that an empty home didn't necessarily mean a heartless one; it simply demanded a great deal of active imagination to bridge the silence.

My parents were brilliant, relentless professionals whose work in international logistics kept them moving across time zones like migratory birds.

They were never malicious, nor did they intend to leave behind an echoing house, but their absence was the central pillar of my youth.

Week-long business trips easily stretched into months, until the moments I spent looking at their faces in person could be counted on two hands within a given year.

The routine never varied brief, crackling phone calls filled with distant airport background noise, rehearsed reassurances that they would be home soon, and the mandatory reminder to be good for my sister. Over time, those promises stopped carrying any real emotional weight, settling into a familiar background hum.

What saved my world from feeling completely abandoned was Bonnie. She was only two years my senior, but when our parents were away, she stepped seamlessly into the immense, crushing role of running our household without a single complaint.

Bonnie made sure I woke up for school on time, checked that my homework was neatly packed, tracked our household bills, bought the groceries, handled the endless loads of laundry, and scrubbed every room.

She even spent a frantic Tuesday afternoon wrestling with a rusted wrench beneath the kitchen sink when the old washing machine malfunctioned and threatened to submerge our entire ground floor.

Watching her shoulder that staggering responsibility forged a deep, fiercely protective love in me, alongside a burning desire to relieve even a fraction of her burden. The problem, of course, was that common sense dictated a ten-year-old child had very little of practical value to offer.

The turning point arrived on a humid afternoon when Bonnie stumbled through the front door looking utterly drained, her school uniform rumpled and dark purple crescents bruised beneath her eyes.

She walked into the kitchen, pulled open the refrigerator door, and stood frozen before the cold fluorescent light with a heavy, defeated sigh.

"We're completely out of food," she whispered, leaning her head against the cool metal door frame.

I peeked around her shoulder, scanning the near-empty shelves. "We have eggs."

"Eggs aren't a proper dinner, Pangjie."

"We have leftover white rice from yesterday."

"Rice isn't dinner either."

I tugged lightly on her sleeve, looking up with a hopeful grin. "What about egg fried rice?"

The silence in the kitchen was heavy until Bonnie slowly turned her head to stare down at me.

She caught the overly confident, beaming expression on my face, held her breath for a beat, and then burst into an exhausted, affectionate laugh.

"You want to cook?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. I nodded eagerly, puffing out my chest.

"How hard can it be?"