"I've fallen for your eyes,

but they don't know me yet,"

- Ed Sheeran, Kiss Me

Soundtrack: (x)

“Ah, so this is the Mina I keep hearing about!”

Chanyeol really loves his family- he really does. But at times (or most of the time honestly) they took a knack in embarrassing him in front of others and he often questioned what did he do in his past life to deserve such a punishment.

He laughed nervously before pulling a face at his mother, making weird hand signs behind Mina’s back.

“Hello, it’s nice to finally meet you,” Mina politely bowed even though he could feel that she too was blushing just as hard as he was.

“Are you alright, Mina yah? Do you need anything? Are you hungry? Are you tired? Do you need any rest?”

Chanyeol giggled to himself when Mina shook her head profusely. It was obvious that Chanyeol’s mother tapped into her motherly instincts whenever his or his sister’s friends paid a visit, and would sometimes intimidate or scare her guests away.

“Chanyeol told me that you really love the lunch boxes he brought you. It’s nice to know that someone still appreciates my lunch boxes,” His mother continued, Mina’s bony back.

“Umma, what do you mean? I always appreciate your lunch boxes, more than noona in fact,” Chanyeol pointed out, scowling lightly.

“Now you, my son, appreciate every single dish I make,” His mother teased back, pinching his cheeks. “There’s something you should know about Chanyeol. He eats a lot, too much in fact. It’s a wonder how his stomach doesn’t explode from all the food he eats,”

Chanyeol was already blushing, pulling Mina away. “There there umma, you’re only going to embarrass me before the day ends,” He scowled. “Now I’ll be with Mina in my room for a while. We’ll use the kitchen in a bit,”

Mina was about to check off the third item off her bucket list, which was to cook a full course meal. She insisted on doing that on her own in the expense of her own kitchen, but Chanyeol insisted that he accompanied her instead at his mother’s kitchen.

“Firstly, you’ll be troubling your parents, and secondly… you’re going to waste unnecessary energy cleaning this up,” His reasons made little to no reason but Mina just let him be- he probably took a lot of effort just to get her to his house.

“Your room is surprisingly neat for a full grown man,” Mina commented, plopping herself on his bed. Chanyeol’s room was just like any other single men’s room- there was a bed in the middle and a guitar propped on a stand next to it. There was a laptop and a couple of speakers placed on top of a sturdy study table as well as a gaming console stowed away neatly next to it, and that was it. She anticipated dirty laundry and maybe an array of inappropriate adult magazines, but there was none to be found.

“Hmm like how surprisingly messy your room is for a full grown woman?” Chanyeol remarked in a teasing tone only to earn a playful shove as he sat next to her. “You know, your hits are actually really painful. I actually got a bruise from the other day,” He reached for her forearm and lifted it above her head.

“Yah, Chanyeol! What are you doing?!” Mina exclaimed, struggling to pull her arm away. Chanyeol had a gentle but firm grip, and she wasn’t able to shrug away. “Let me go!”

“I won’t unless you promise me you’re not going to hit me like that again,”

“I won’t. I promise I’ll stop. It’s just… you need to stop teasing me so much too. It’s only fair that way,”

“… Deal. Now come on, we need to cook for five hungry mouths now,”

“Now this is sesame oil… and not soy sauce,” Chanyeol teased, holding the bottle in his hand.

Mina blushed hard as she let him laugh in glee. She recalled back to when she prepared lunch boxes for the boy, and she deliberately used soy sauce in her cooking, thinking that it was sesame oil.

“Haha, how funny,” She rolled her eyes, hands busy with the raw chicken in her hands. They would be having chicken for dinner thanks to Chanyeol jotting down his mother’s recipe the night before.

Being the son of an Italian restaurant owner and a live band café, he was very much exposed to various types of food growing up. He grew up loving food, and naturally became quite a decent cook himself.

“Anyway, Chanyeol… I… how do you do this…?”

Mina openly admitted that she was terrible in the kitchen. She tried cooking several dishes, and despite several attempts, her cooking would never be as satisfactory as she hoped for. It was destined- she just wasn’t a great cook.

Chanyeol chuckled as he moved over to her, hands grabbing at the chicken pieces. “The trick is to use the scissors and cut at the sides of the skin,” His hands expertly trimmed the excess chicken skin away with a pair of kitchen scissors. “I would usually eat this, but my mother insists that it would only make you forgetful. It’s a shame though- fried chicken skin is really, really good,”

Mina watched as he gave her a ginger smile before placing the scissors in her hands and moved on to the pan. He, on the other hand was cooking the sauce- a sweet aroma filled the kitchen as he stirred the contents intently, humming a tune under his breath.

“Mina, can you do me a favour and give this a taste?” Chanyeol held a spoon with his hand and held it out, urging her for an impromptu taste test. He watched with earnest eyes as she let him feed her, before releasing the spoon from in between her lips.

She smacked her lips together, letting the sauce simmer in her tongue before chucking her head to the side. “I think it’s a little bland. You’re short of… short of salt. Just a pinch perhaps?”

Chanyeol turned and added a bit of salt, stirring the sauce in the pan before he urged for another taste. “How about now?”

He stared, in a similar state as he was when he sent Mina in front of her house the other day. She was distracting, enthralling, and Chanyeol felt his urges once more. He was just asking her to taste his sauce, but there was something about the way she did that made his heart skip a few beats.

“I think it tastes perfect,” Mina replied with a smile, a smile that made Chanyeol blink several times. “Is something wrong? Is there something on my face?” She enquired with a raised eyebrow.

He didn’t know what was in his mind but Chanyeol leaned forward wit