CHAPTER TWELVE.

Let’s watch a movie” Yesung suggested.

“Okay,” I said only to get my mind off this horrible situation, “What movie should we watch?”

Yesung went over to the movie box and pulled out a DVD, “How about Hangover?”

I stared at the movie, then at him.

Yesung nervously stuttered, “Okay...we-well…maybe not this …one…”

“Definitely not.”

“But maybe it might help us…”

“No Yesung. I am definitely not watching that movie.” That movie hit way too close to home.

“Okay, fine. How about this one?” He randomly pulled out a DVD.

“NO! That’s Hangover 2! What’s wrong with you?!”

“Okay, okay. I am sorry. Maybe, we shouldn’t watch a movie.”

“Yeah, let’s not.” I sat down with a huff on the sofa. I was so exhausted from doing absolutely nothing. Seriously, I should get an award because that is a serious talent.  I looked around the room and noticed something. It had been awhile since any of us did any cleaning and needless to say, Yesung and I might have left a tiny bit of a mess.

“Hey, we should hire a cook and a maid. You know someone to do the household chores like cooking and cleaning, making meals, taking out the garbage, laundry. Y’know the basics.” I nodded, grateful to myself for coming up with such a great idea.

“Err. What does that leave you to do?” Yesung turned to me.

“Babysitting you.” I nodded at him, being serious.

“Seriously?” He stared at me.

“Oh, well and getting the mail as well. I forgot to mention that.”

“You can’t be serious?” He stared at me incredulously.

“I am. 100% in fact. Besides, I am not that great of a cook, and this house is way too big to clean. I mean,” I looked at him up and down, “unless you want to be the maid and do those duties. I mean I was trying to be kind and everything, by suggesting we hire somebody.”

“If I do all the duties, what does that leave you? And don’t say babysitting,” He put his hand out to stop me from speaking, “because you don’t babysit the live-in maid.”

I tapped my foot. “Okay fine. I would lead you. And tell you what to do. Like this needs washing, kind of thing. Trust me, I am good at finding dust.”

“And not very good at cleaning them.” He stressed out. “I mean, I have never seen someone so lazy. I bet you are already tired from doing absolutely nothing all day. And since when do you lead? I mean I am the leader of this relationship.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, “Excuse me?”

“Oh and not because I am a male, although that’s a bonus. It’s just that I am better at everything than you, plus I have leadership qualities. I mean I was captain of our high school’s basketball team.”

“Co-captain.”

“See! I was something important and in a leadership role.”

“Okay, first of all,” I began, ticking off on the points using my fingers, “That was eons ago. And you only got the position because nobody else really wanted the responsibility. And the real, actual captain was a foreigner and wasn’t very articulate in the language, so to avoid communication mishap, you were chosen because you were the only other guy vying for that position, and that was only because you nominated yourself. Like, who does that? It’s like liking your own comment you leave on Facebook. So shameless, really.”

“Yes. But because of my leadership skills—”

“Co-leadership skills.” I interrupted him.

He waved me off, “—we were able to win the championships.”

“Uh, dude, we won third place. You were benched half the time. And when you weren’t, you bit off the opponents shoulder resulting in you getting a warning for being too aggressive. And Donghae and the captain were the reason why our school won. Plus it was like the regional high school championships. Not a big deal.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, “If I wasn’t on that team, we wouldn’t have won. Admit it.”

“Nah,” It was now my turn to wave him off, “We won because of captain. I wonder what happened to him.”

“You mean Kris? Last I heard he was studying in China.”

“Hmm. Makes sense he would head back to his homeland, after all the pranks you played on him.”

“I did no such thing,” He said with an innocent look, that I knew was fooling nobody.

“Whatever,” I said rolling my eyes, “Anyways, I am going to go and freshen up.”

“Okay, I will go write out what we need from the store.”

I left him downstairs to do whatever it was that he was doing and headed to the master bedroom. Hey, that bathroom there had a Jacuzzi to envy.

After my bath, I decided to rummage through my things and the kitchen for a list of things that we would need. It seems that I would have to write it down, being the true leader (in this relationship) that I am.

After a while, I headed downstairs to find Yesung watching the Hangover after all. That little B.

I turned off the T.V. and turned to him.

“Hey, I was watching that. How could you? It was getting to the best part too!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I waved off his complaints, because let’s face it: when was he not complaining?

I shoved a long piece of paper towards him, “Hey, here is the grocery list. You know, because we need groceries. As well as some other stuff.”

“Why?” He gave me the look, clearly not over the fact that I turned off the movie.

“Because we are out of groceries,” I gave him the “, how could you forget” look.

“Really? I thought a maid comes and stocks up the fridge once every week?  Gosh, we are supposed to be affluent, but we can’t even afford to hire a maid to come do so once a week”.

I rolled my eyes, “That’s not the case. I had her fired.”

He looked at me incredulously, “What? Why would you do something like that? She was hot too!”

“Like, you have even seen her, .” I stressed out, “How would you know what she would even look like?”

“Well, I figured she would be like the ones back at your parents’ house. You know that was one of the reasons that I used to visit your house, aside from your sister, of course.”

I rolled my eyes again, “Of course. I wouldn’t expect otherwise from you.”

“You’re father sure had an eye for woman. I can see why he would hire them.” He said without thinking.

Remembering my father’s treachery, to that I frowned.

Noticing the change in atmosphere, Yesung replied, “Err…sorry. My bad. Anyways, why would you fire her? She made a living that way. Now what is she to do?”

“Well, for starters, I didn’t fire her. It was Greta.” Greta was my old maid from my parents’ house who emigrated from the Philippines. Apparently, she would come to this house and help out at least once a week, stocking the fridge and cleaning around, or at least that’s what she and my mom said. “And the reason why I thought it best not to have her,” I continued, “is because she will start to suspect something and then likely tell my mom—meaning the whole world will know—and plus I don’t know if we can even trust her yet, although she has been in the family for a long time.”

“Okay, makes sense. So does that mean we have to do everything on our own? Like the dust? Vacuum? And how did you even convince her and your mom? Although, I’m sure she will be happy from the reprieve of having to clean up after your mess.” Yesung looked me up and down giving me a disgusted look.

I hit him on the head, “Says the slob. And I just told her, we were thinking of having the baby that she so desperately wants so we need a lot of time alone, because you know whenever, wherever…” I trailed off letting him get the meaning.

“Ewwwww!” He continued giving me that disgusted look.

“Oh please,” I rolled my eyes. “Don’t give me that look. It’s my body that’s being violated.”

Yesung sighed, “Okay, so this is the grocery list. I can’t even understand half of what you’ve written here. I mean, what is this? Why do you write in chicken scratch?”

“Yah!” I said snatching the list from his hands. He just has to make a big deal out of everything, doesn’t he?

He snatched it back from my hands, “I mean, what even is TMP. Are you sure I speak this language?”

“I don’t know, do you? You aren’t very smart.”

“Tsch. So what even is TMP? Temporary?”

“Tampons.” I said nonchalantly.

“Yah!” He jumped out from his seat. “I am not getting you those.”

“Who said you even had to? There is no way I am trusting you with that. This is my privates we are talking about here.”

Yesung scrunched up his nose, “Sometimes, you could really use a filter.”

---------

“Let’s get this one,” I exclaimed.

“No, I hate that color.” He denied.

“But its soo pretty,” I tried to persuade him.

Yesung and I were currently browsing through stuff in the store, and needless to say, just as usual we couldn’t agree on buying the same thing. Big surprise there. Currently we were deciding on what towels to get. Sure we had a lot, but we wanted something with a little personality in it.

“I think this color will match your skin tone better.”

I gave him a weird look, “We are not going to wear them as clothes, y’know.”

“Yes, but right when you come out of the shower, you want to be smelling fresh and looking great.” He said motioning with his hands.

I stared at him, giving him the “you’re weird and erted” look. I walked away from him leaving him behind with the cart.

“Hey, where are you going?” He shouted at me.

“Bathroom!” I yelled back, over my shoulder.

“Wait! Let me come too!” I rolled my eyes as I waited for him to catch up to me.

As soon as we both finished using the bathroom, we both decided to head towards the toiletries section to buy new toothbrushes (because we didn’t trust ours), only to realize that that was where we had been already (arguing over the color of towels for 30 minutes) before we headed towards the bathroom.

We were about to start arguing again over the fact that we had wasted so much time (and whose fault that was exactly), when two elderly ladies passed us by and talked in voices loud enough that we could hear.

“Oh! Don’t they make such an adorable couple?”

“Ooch! I bet they are newlyweds!”

“Aww, look at that. They are even arguing over the smallest stuff.”

Yesung and I scoffed as their conversation filtered to our hearing range.

We stared at them as they passed by. “We are not a cute couple,” We huffed at them, but they just smiled at us.

“I bet they are on meds,” I grumbled.

“I bet they have old-timers,” He grumbled out.

“Old people,” I said shaking my head, “They think they know everything.”

“I know right.”

And with that, Yesung and I finally came to an agreement on something throughout this shopping trip.

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[The Next Day]

“Oyy! Vayy! Wake up! Rise and Shine!” Some demon from hell nudged me, and if you didn’t already guess, that demon was Yesung.

I grumbled and shifted my position on the bed.

“C’mon, it’s time to wake up!”

“Don’t want to. Let me sleep” I grumbled wrestling with the covers as Yesung tried to tug them away from me.

“It’s late! It’s 2 Pm!”

I instantly got up. “Where?! Where? I don’t see them.”

Yesung rolled his eyes, “I meant the time.”

“Oh.” I grumbled, sitting back on the bed, “I knew it was too good to be true.”

I glared at him. There was no use in going back to bed. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to wake you up. In case you didn’t realize, half the day is already gone.”

I groaned. “Uggh. I needed my beauty sleep okay. Something you wouldn’t understand.”

He grinned, “You’re right. I wouldn’t understand. I was born beautiful and don’t need nothing like that to maintain my beauty. As for you,” He said looking me up and down, “No amount of sleep could help you in your state.”

I took the pillow and started hitting him with it. “Would you like to say that again?”

“Oww. Okay. Oww. I am sorry.” He tried to shield himself.

“You little.”

“Oww.”

“Take that. And that.”

“Oww. Okay. I said I was sorry.”

“Oww, stop it.”

After a moment, I calmed down, but by then he had managed to get himself to the door.

He opened the door before turning around and grinning at me, “I still think you are ugly.”

I threw the pillow at him just as he closed the door. I could hear him laughing as he walked away. That little ingrate. Just wait till I get him later.

But for now, I had to get ready.

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I went downstairs and heard Yesung say in an exaggerated voice, “Wow. Does it really take you that long to wash up? Man, I feel sorry for your brothers.”

I glared at him before sitting on the kitchen stool. Yesung was wearing an apron (wow, what a surprise) and was apparently cooking something (again surprise there).

“What are you doing?” I asked him a little confused. Was he trying to kill us early? I mean it was bad enough we already had someone else hot on our trail (if we even had one to begin with), he didn’t need to poison us with his culinary skills.

“I am cooking.” He said smugly, with a sense of pride.

“Oh. Are you trying to poison us with your skills?”

He narrowed his eyes at me, “It’s called cooking. I am not adding poison in here. Just try it.”

I got up, “Yeah, it’s called food poisoning. And there is now way I am trying anything that you are cooking. Besides, when did you start cooking?”

He scoffed, “If you had paid any attention, you would know that I have been cooking for a long time. And since we have been here, you have been eating my food. How else did you think the food got here?”

I stared at him shocked, “No way. I thought that was Greta bringing in those meals. That was you? How come I never saw you cooking?”

He gave me an impatient look, “That’s because you are always sleeping in and waking up late. Plus you are kind of dumb to your surroundings.” He was waving his cooking utensil at me, so I smacked him on the head. Simply, because he was irritating and deserved it.

“Whatever, I am still not trying your food. I don’t trust you.”

“Trust is the core of every relationship.” He said sarcastically.

“Still not trying.”

“Just a little bite.”

“No.”

“Oh c’mon. It won’t hurt to try. Just try it.”

“I said N-.” He shoved a spoonful in my mouth. I glared at him then chewed. Suddenly my eyes went wide, “Mmm. This is so good. What is this?” I said as he gave me another spoonful. I didn’t care that he was feeding me. This thing was good. I sat back down on the stool.

He nodded proudly, “It’s chicken casserole and beef stew.” He placed a bowl of stew and a bowl of rice down in front of me, as well as a plate of the casserole. I dug in. Man was I hungry.

“Y’know. I actually have to give you pointers. You do know how to cook.” I said with my mouthful. Don’t blame me. This was actually some good food.

He gave me a disgusted look, “Manners. Manners.” But I ignored him.

He gave me a look, and changed the subject, “Why are you dressed up?”

“Oh,” I said swallowing down some of the rice. I coughed. “Water,” I croaked. He quickly handed me a glass of water, and I gulped it down.

“Slow down. You’ll choke yourself with the water.” He said soothingly.

I put down the glass. “I forgot to mention I am going on a date,” I said answering his question.

He gave me an incredulous look, “Date? With who?”

“Oh this guy I met at the store yesterday.” I said dreamily.

“Store? When? I was there with you the whole time?”

“Yeah, and you followed me like a lapdog.”

“I had to. You might have gotten lost.”

“Okay, that was one time! And it was at the Zoo when I was 10!” I said exasperatedly. It happened so long ago, and he would never let me live it down.

“Anyways,” I shrugged, “He is going to pick me up here, and so I am going to need you to Vamoosh!” I made some gesture with my hands, telling him that he needed to get lost when my date comes over.

He shook his head at me in disbelief and continued his cooking.

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I came downstairs and sat on the sofa. I saw Yesung just lounging around. I gave him the look, which I am pretty sure he purposely ignored.

 “Yesung, get lost. My date is going to be here any second and the last thing I want is for him to see you. I mean you will just end up ruining our date.”

He turned his head towards me and scoffed, “Please, I wouldn’t even have to do anything. He’ll run the moment he sees you.”

“Har. Har. Very funny. Now scram. Don’t you have anything to do?”

He grinned at me, “Like watching you make a fool of yourself.”

I was about to retort but just then the doorbell rang.

“Oh that’s my date! Gots to go.” I exclaimed as I got up to open the door.

“Desperate much,” he called out. I ignored him and opened the door.

“Hey,” I leaned against the door and purred in a sweet and y voice.

My date smiled at me. Hwanhee, I think that’s what his name was, “Hey, you.” He said in a deep and y voice. Gosh! Could he get any hotter?

He gave me a bouquet, “I got you some flowers. You ready?”

I stared dreamily up at him, “Mm-hmm. Let me just grab my purse.” He could get anyone into his bed with that gaze of his.

As I went to grab my purse from the coffee table, Yesung walked up to the door (more like sauntered up), “Careful, she might hit you with that.”

“What?” My date looked a bit confused.

 “Okay, let’s go.” I said as I came back and gave Yesung the glare telling him to back off.

Yesung just smiled, enjoying making fun of me, “Don’t forget to come back before midnight else you’ll turn from an ugly duckling into a frog.

My date turned to me and asked, “Who is that?”

“Nobody.” I quickly said, and linked my arm with his while pushing Yesung away. I glared at him again. “Leave,” I ordered him then turned my attention back to my date, “Found him in the dumpster one day.”

My date looked impressed, “Really?”

“If only. That way I can throw him back out.” I sighed at my loss.

“Hey!” Yesung glared at the both of us.

I ignored him, “Come on let’s go.” I tugged at my date’s arm pulling him out the door.

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 It was around 2am in the morning and I couldn’t believe I was doing this. I was sneaking inside my house, and there were no parents around.

Just then the lights flicked on. I squinted against the sudden bright glare.

Yesung stood at the threshold with arms crossed, “Lady, do you have any idea what time it is right now? I am pretty sure when your father offered me your hand he didn’t expect this. I have full responsibility you know.”

I put my hands up and argued, “Okay, you don’t even remember him doing that, even if he did. And he is not my father. And since when were you so responsible? You are like the least responsible person I know.”

He glared at me.

“You’re late.” He said in a stern voice.

“Or really early.” I smiled at him. “Depends on how you see it?” I then changed the subject. “Anyways, what are you doing up in the middle of night. Oh my gosh, don’t tell me you were waiting up for me?”

He ignored my question. “Ha! At least you know it’s in the middle of the night. I mean have some shame lady.”

I rolled my eyes, “You’re one to talk. I mean how many girls have you rendezvoused with and came back at an inappropriate time?”

“Clearly less times than you have.” He looked me up and down, silently judging me with his eyes, which clearly annoyed me. He was one to judge.

“Oh and your parents must be oh so proud of you.” My voice was dripping with sarcasm.

He scoffed at me, “Better than some girl who loses her v-card to some stranger in college.”

Oh, so he was still upset about that. “Okay, ‘v-card’,” I quoted with my fingers, “really? And he was my boyfriend. And you’re one to talk. When did you lose yours?”

The boy actually had enough shame to look away, “Ahem.”

I scowled at him. “Seriously, you’re ignoring the subject now.”

“Uggh. Just go to bed. I can’t deal with you.” He scowled right back.

“Nuh-uh.” I said not budging. “Since we are on the topic. Tell me.”

He threw his hands up in the air and sat on the couch clearly giving up avoiding the topic. “9^th grade.” He mumbled out.

I pointed my finger at him and rejoiced in victory, “Ha! I knew it. With Jessica? Wasn’t it?”

Instantly, he sat up straight. “Wait. How’d you know?”

“So it’s true.” I smirked in glee. “Everybody knew about that. Especially when it happened.”

He furrowed his eyebrows, “Really?”

“Mm-hmm” I nodded my head enjoying making him uncomfortable.

“Wait. I don’t like that they all knew.”

“Tsch.” I scoffed and sat next to him. “It was an open secret. And it’s not like you and Jessica didn’t boast about it.”

“Well…,”He paused. “..I only ever told the guys.”

“And Jessica only ever told the girls. And they were such trustworthy sources; the guys and the girls.”

 “Wait.” He asked in confusion. “She told you too?”

“Well not me per say. Just word got around. Of course, I wasn’t sure whether or not to confirm it with you. But I guess no need, huh?” I smirked at him.

He flicked me on the forehead. “Just got to bed.”

I rubbed my forehead that I could feel turn a light shade of red. “Ouch.”

Giving him my millionth glare today, I got up and headed to my room. After all, it was 2am.

(And no. Not the boy group.)
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