Coming down to a feast during Thanksgiving Day wasn’t new to me. It had been a tradition we grew up with from year to year. The only first time I had that day was that I was no longer celebrating it with dad and my grandparents. Instead, I was celebrating it with a new set of people starting from then on.

Of course, there was still mom who smiled at me when I came down. She said I was beautiful in the hanbok she handpicked for me and I couldn’t help but inwardly feel happy.

There was also Mr. Oh who complimented me. “You look pretty like your mom.” Of course, the comparison with my mother wouldn’t be missed. That made me all the more suspect how much he liked her.

And there were also those annoying kids, besides Sehun, who dropped by due to invitation—Chanyeol, Baekhyun, Joonmyeon, Jongin and Joohyun, that had said many things that were out of line and had earned them a nagging from my caring ‘cousin’.

Joohyun had been on his side as Sehun pulled me away from the horde of boys trying to pretend to woo me, but even she was no match to his determination to separate me from them.

“I told you guys to stop confusing her. Mijoo’s off limits.”

Jongin had laughed off, saying that Sehun was being too serious about the little jokes they were throwing at him. I couldn’t agree any less with what he said because Sehun was basically overreacting. And he was insensibly doing it in front of his girlfriend just because of me.

I looked at Joohyun and felt a little sorry. Sehun was seriously failing at being a good boyfriend right at the start. I just hoped that Joohyun didn’t mind. I hoped and prayed for it. Really.

Speaking of those two, the gang had actually already found out the secret about their relationship before they were even able to reveal it. It seemed that Jongin tattled from the day we had arrived back from Seoul about his suspicions about them. And Sehun was terribly embarrassed when they began to about, saying how he was finally not a failure after seven years.

He had gotten himself his first girlfriend and she was in fact the girl he had crushed on for seven years—Joohyun. At last.

They were a perfect match, I always thought whenever I looked at them.

“You’ve been staring at those two since forever.” I snapped out upon hearing Jongin whisper in my ear.

I blushed, seeing that he had caught me at doing something that was probably weird enough for someone they knew as Sehun’s cousin. But I covered up the embarrassment with slipping a forkful of cake in his mouth. He was surprised, seeing that it was too random and sudden.

I didn’t know what I was doing, truthfully. “Isn’t this cake delicious?” I ate a forkful of cake myself and pretended to like the taste of it. “Mmmm!” I mumbled, trying to sound enthusiastic. It didn’t live up to my expectations, though.

He unsurely nodded, gesturing for me to turn to him. I stilled, seeing him raise his hand to wipe at something on my mouth. “You have icing on your lips,” he said, smiling and then dabbing some tissue on my lips before cleaning his fingers too.

I stared, dumbfounded. Jongin was making my heart race.

“T-thank you,” I stammered, standing up and excusing myself to go back to the kitchen to place my dirty plate in the sink.

He spoke something from behind me, but it had been drowned out by Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s voices who were merrily singing to a tune that was being played on the radio we had to create the merry mood.

I sighed as I finally got some peace as I reached the kitchen. My heart was still pounding erratically that I tried to ease it with a hand massaging the spot where I know my heart was.

“Please stop now, heart. You’re making things really difficult.” I sighed as I thought of Jongin. I knew there was nothing wrong with him. He had been, really, really affectionate towards me right from the start that I suppose those little things he did for me were normal. I was the one with the problem.

These past few days, every time someone did something really generous and touching for me, I could feel my heart exploding to smithereens. Like it wanted to beat more than it could do and it was overwhelming me.

I shook my head, trying to erase all those hundreds of feelings inside me. There was already a mountain of dishes piling in the sink that I decided to be a good daughter and started to go over them. It would be a perfect distraction from my previous thoughts.

I pulled up my sleeves as I the tap, cold water easily flowing as soon as it had been opened. With a sponge full of soapy bubbles in one hand and then a dirty plate on the other, I started the task while softly humming to a song that I just recently heard on tv. The silence in the kitchen was truly perfect, only the clink of glasses and plates against marble was heard aside from my own humming.

Halfway through, I was a bit elated to finish, proud of the work I had accomplished to at least help mom a bit. She had been preparing for Thanksgiving since the other day and I thought it was time to do her a little favour as her daughter since she must be tired after this. We had been in better terms anyway and this was my way of trying to show I wanted to reconcile with her since I was her daughter. No matter what she did in the past, I could forgive it because we were one family.

A real family would always be stuck together forever no matter what—in happiness or trouble, in sickness and in health, through thick and thin.

From time to time I could hear the cheers in the living room. The kids must be playing a game and just at the thought of them having fun I really felt happy since my house had never been this raucous. I didn’t think I would get used to the noise before, but it seemed to me now that I was truly enjoying their company a lot despite that I was always just watching on the side and never joining them. Just hearing them laugh and knowing they were happy was already equivalent to my own happiness.

“So you’re just hiding here?”

I flinched, surprised at the voice that spoke from behind me. The plate I was washing slipped from my hold and smashed to the floor. It broke into tiny pieces, creating a loud crashing sound that made me wince in panic. Mom would kill me for breaking a plate! Having that in mind, I quickly crouched down, trying my best to stay balanced since my hanbok was getting on the way. It was so big around me when I sat down that I could not see properly when I tried to pick up the pieces of the broken plate from the ground.

“Move away!” Sehun approached me from the kitchen entrance with a hiss on his lips. “Don’t touch anything. Just let me—“

“Ow!”

I was not truly a good listener at times when I was in full panic mode that I cried in pain when a sharp broken piece I picked up accidentally cut through my fingers. I quickly retracted my hand away from the mess and attempted to stand up, but my dress got me off balance and I stumbled down on my . I was close to tears when Sehun got to me with a broom in hand while nagging at how careless I was.

“Stupid,” he cursed under his breath, that familiar furrow on his eyebrows again. I bit my lip in embarrassment. “I told you not to pick anything up but you did it anyway. Now, look at you crying in pain.”

“I was panicking that I could not listen to—“

“I told you loud and clear,” he said with a stern voice, interrupting me. “You just never listen to me.”

I bit my lip harder, feeling quite unfair and annoyed that he was venting at me like this, making me feel like a little kid in his presence. Making me feel like a total idiot.

“Mian…”

“Don’t say anything,” he told me. “I’m totally pissed right now.”

I curled my fists on the cold marble under me, totally trying my best to stay still and not cry before him. He had a hard expression as he collected all the scattered shards into a dustpan and walked towards the trash to throw it all away. He sighed deeply as he placed the broom and everything he used at a corner, his hands on his hips as he tried to compose himself.

What did I do to him now?

He turned around, his hard expression suddenly melting when he noticed me still helplessly sitting on the ground. I looked away from him and tried to stand up on my own to tend to the cut on my fingers by myself, but he pulled me up by my elbow and dragged me out of the kitchen to his room upstairs.

“What are you doing?” I asked, annoyed.

“Sit down,” he commanded when he finally let me go and went to rummage inside his closet for something.

“I don’t want to. I’m going back to my room.” I stubbornly said, trying to get back at him for reprimanding me and commanding me however he liked.

I was by the door, about to pull the knob, but Sehun quickly got a hold of my wrist and pushed me onto his bed. I whined in protest, asking him what was wrong with him this time that he was being so rough with me. 

But then, though, I was already lashing out at him, he just calmly sat down beside me and placed a first aid kit box next to him. “Calm down and let me look at your cut.”

“No way,” I said, still protesting, and turned around to avoid facing him. The blood on my fingers was still trickling down and I was already feeling nauseous seeing that it hadn’t stopped yet and was probably already staining his sheets.

I could hear him sigh from behind me as he ped the box and got some things out. I heard packages being torn from behind me and I was patiently waiting what he was going to do to make me obey him even though I was sure I was going to make it really hard for him today. I was quite vengeful that he was such a jerk towards his friends, Joohyun and me that I—

“Stay still,” he said to my ear as he reached out for my injured finger from behind. I stiffened before him. Sehun was crowding himself around me, his chest pressed against my back, his legs spread on either of my sides as I watched his fingers do their work in letting the bleeding stop with some cotton and alcohol. I heard myself hiss a little at the sudden prickling sensation to my cut.

“This will hurt a little,” said he.

I gulped, trying my best to make my heart remain its normal rhythm. Keep your freaking calm, Han Mijoo. That’s just Sehun the jerk trying to make it up to you.

There were these random times when Sehun wouldn’t act himself around me and I would definitely find myself absolutely flustered for some reason. It already happened to me a couple of time and it was only now that it became clear to me that he could really make my heart race at an irregular pace, that he could fluster me even for the most trivial things. That I thought, Sehun was even more dangerous.

He always gave me a totally different feeling than the others did.

And I was afraid he would be my source of fear.

“Done.” His voice distracted me from my internal conversation with myself. “All wrapped up perfectly.”

I looked down at my hands and noticed his’ constantly drawing irregular patterns at the three fingers he had placed band aid on. I couldn’t help but watch his calloused ones. They were long and pretty that I thought my hands would probably fit inside them perfectly if he held my hand. I blushed at the thought. It was total nonsense and yet I was thinking of funny things.

Sehun? Like seriously. Ha Ha Ha. Nevermind—

There was this sudden tigh