She drags me into her house and I can’t find the words or the voice to protest. We go through the white gate, the doors and she’s taking me there so fast I can’t even grasp the fact that I am being dragged back in. I stop my tracks when I realize that her brother might be around and I am not getting dragged inside without his permission. What would he think of me if he sees Haerin pulling me in the house? First impressions matter. Well, at least to me they do.

Haerin gives me a quizzical look when I stop, “What’s the matter?”

“Does your brother know I’m here?” I ask her and she just chuckles at me, “I don’t want him to be jumping into conclusions,” I tell her as I fix myself, wondering if I still look presentable after the hectic four meetings I just had.

“Yes. He knows. I called him earlier,” She tells me and then grabs my hand. She envelops her hand around mine and I swear I had just been electrocuted. Her skin seems to be a magnet and mine is a metal. She tugs me along with her and when we go further inside, she leads me to the kitchen, revealing her brother chopping onions on the counter.

“Hi oppa,” She greets him and lets go of my hand, much to my dismay. Haerin walks to her brother and gives him a light hug and a kiss on the cheek. He eyes at me, inquisitively. There’s a glare somewhere in there and I stiffen. I try to take my mind off of the fact that this person probably does not like me already and instead see his resemblance with Haerin. They share a few features, I notice. Haerin gets back to me and tugs my hand again, “By the way, this is Sehun,” She tells him and I give her a look. I like hearing her say my name. I’m feeling that thing on my stomach again.

Her brother gives me a look and then eyes at our hands. I gulp nervously, wondering if he’s thinking that I’m involved with his sister in a way that I’m not really. He stretches out a hand, “Nice to finally meet you, Sehun. I’m Jaejoong,”

“Nice to finally meet you, too, sir,” I tell him and shake his hand. He presses them firmly and I think I might have popped a nerve in there somewhere.

Haerin places a hand on my shoulder and leans forward to my ears to say something, “Hyung. Call him hyung. Sir makes him feel older,” She whispers.

“So…Sehun, Haerin might have already told you that I’m a chef,” He speaks up and I nod at him. I can’t help but feel intimidated, probably because of the way he looks at me. He’s eyeing at me like I’m a criminal, “I’m really good with knives,” He says threateningly, chopping the carrots but his eyes are still on me and I gulp.

“Oppa!” Haerin scolds and turns to me, “Don’t mind him,” She tells me sheepishly with a small smile on her face. I nod at her. She takes my hand, pulls me with her and out of the kitchen area. When we’re in the living room, she lets go of my hand again and then eyes at me, “I’m really sorry about that,”

“It’s alright. But why are we here?”

“I told you we’re here to eat dinner, duh?” She gives me a matter-of-factly look and I curse at myself for not paying attention to her earlier. If only I had, I could have prepared myself to meet her brother. I don’t want to look like just some guy his sister took home.

I give her a look, “Why are we eating dinner?”

“Hmm, I don’t know. Probably because normal people usually eat dinner,” She says sardonically and I roll my eyes at her. Haerin cracks into a light laugh, “I was kind of worried you wouldn’t get to eat a proper meal so I called my brother and asked him if he could cook dinner for three tonight. I figured home cooked dinner would be nice because you did mention yesterday that you usually eat take outs,” She gives me a smile and I can’t help but feel this thing inside my stomach again. Seriously, what is this? I think to myself as I feel myself wanting to smile at her, so I do. I give her a smile that I don’t normally give people. She remembered what I told her yesterday. I’ve got to admit, I am touched.

“You were worried I wouldn’t get to eat a proper meal?” I arch a brow at her with a smirk on my face. She immediately widens her eyes at me and I see her cheeks turn from pink to red. I’d be lying if I say I don’t find this damn cute of her. She gives me a wry smile and I want to laugh at her for being like this.

“D- do you want a tour around the house?” She asks me, obviously desperate to get off the topic, “Come,” She tugs my hand again as she leads us both upstairs.

I follow behind her and she’s already speaking up facts about the house and how his brother bought this with his own money because of his successful restaurants. She tells me about the pictures hanging on the wall and there are many of them. I take in the short stories of each photo and how it came about. I don’t say anything and let her do the talking. I occasionally nod and look around. She points over the door leading to the balcony and there are orchids around because her mother likes them even though she isn’t physically there to take care of it. Haerin says it helps her not miss her mom too much and helps her forget the distance they’re in. She looks a little sad just mentioning her mother. She really does miss her parents. She walks away from the balcony door and we pass by another small living room. We walk to the first room, which is the guest room and she opens the door for me to see it. The yellow lights on the four corners of the ceiling lights it up and it smells nice inside. After she tells me how one of his brother’s friend destroyed the guest room that one time he was drunk, we go to the next door across it which is her brothers. She opens it but instinctively we don’t enter the room to respect his privacy. His room is very clean and the black furniture makes it look all manly. Haerin tells me about how she attempted to rearrange his room and he didn’t talk to her for three days and she cried because she wasn’t used to it. I found it damn cute of her. In fact, I find her relationship with her brother cute. Just from all the stories from earlier tells me that she’s really pretty close to him. She closes the door and we walk towards the last door at the end of the hall.

She grabs the doorknob and looks at me. And from the way that she’s look a little nervous and less confident than she has been from a few minutes ago, something tells me this is it—this is her room, “I’m going to be honest with you,” She speaks up and I can’t help but hold my laughter because she looks nervous as hell, “I didn’t clean my room this morning but it doesn’t mean I’m an irresponsible girl. I was running late so I didn’t get the chance to do some cleaning,”

“And you’re telling me this because?”

“Because I don’t want you to think I’m irresponsible enough for you to fire me,” The smile on my face falls and she’s looking at me like she’s frightened of losing her internship. This is the same look she had during that night she was sick and she begged me not to let her go. She lowers her head although I’m pretty sure she has a frown on her face. I want to cheer her up.

“Hey,” I call her softly and she looks up at me, her eyes are filled of worry and so I smile small at her to put her at ease, “You didn’t take me here as your boss. You took me here as your friend,”

Her lips stretches into a smile and so do mine, “So Mr. Oh is nowhere around?”

“Sehun says the coast is clear,” I tell her and she cracks into a laugh. I chuckle upon hearing her laughter and can’t help but feel that endless fuzz and tying in my stomach. What exactly is this girl doing to me? Haerin twists the knob and pushes the door gently, revealing her room. It’s not a girly girl room as I thought it would be. Her room is painted of sky blue and white. She has a huge bed covered of white sheets and a yellow comforter sitting at the end. I walk in further and see more of her room. There’s a towel hanging over the chair placed across a mirror and a chest of drawers. Her closet door on one corner of the room is lightly open. I turn to look at the other side and see a bookshelf attached on the wall of her room. There’s a guitar and a skateboard at the side and an easel and a bunch of canvases across it. This girl can do it all, can’t she?

“So you read, you skate, you play and you paint?” I ask her and she just gives me a light nod like she doesn’t even know how to respond to my question, “Wow, you are something,” I say as I make my way towards the easel, curious of how good she is at painting. When I look at the canvas sitting on the easel, I see an unfinished portrait of a…guy. I couldn’t tell who he is. I get this weird taste in my mouth just knowing that this portrait is of a guy. Or it could be a girl with manly features, who knows. I look at the group of canvasses leaning on the bookshelf and I scan them. She’s good. I find myself in awe of her artworks. She is creative.

“Yup. You definitely are something,” I tell her.

“Okay, can you stop that?” I turn to her and she just gives me a sigh.

“Stop what?”

“Telling me that I’m something,” She says, air-quoting ‘something’ and crosses her arms.

“But…you are.” I mutter, “It bothers you that you’re something?”

“Yes. It does,” She glares at me and I should be worried right now but instead I’m just standing across her finding her actions adorable, “I don’t know what being something actually means so I can’t figure out if it’s a bad thing or a good thing,” Her honest mouth tells me.

I put back all her canvasses to place and make my way towards her with my hands in my pocket, “Oh, stop sulking. You’re such a baby,” I and she just gives me a look, “Being something is…a good thing. You shouldn’t be bothered because it’s a compliment,” Her face softens upon my statement.

“If it’s a compliment why do you have to be so vague about it? Damn,” She says and I lightly laugh at her, “You really need to work on your complimenting skills because otherwise people might take your words misleading,”

“I’ll work on it after I polished my ‘please and thank you skills’,” I say.

She reaches up to pat my head with a proud smile on her face, “Good boy,”

I give her an unbelievable look and a gasp, “I’m not a dog!”

When we’re on our way down, Haerin’s brother is on the phone and is pacing in the living room. He’s talking to someone on the other line frantically, which leaves Haerin and I at the bottom of the stairs looking at him worriedly. He honestly looks a little stressed as he’s telling his friend, I suppose, to calm down. When the call ends, he looks at Haerin and I.

“What happened?” Haerin asks as we walk towards him, “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah. Your Yoochun oppa just had some encounter at the bar,” He tells her and she nods like this is nothing new to her. Jaejoong picks up his car keys from the small coffee table and grabs the jacket on the coat rack, “I’m sorry I have to bail tonight, sweetie,” He tells Haerin and kisses the top of her head and whispers to her that he’ll make it up to her some other time.

Jaejoong hyung eyes at me and I stiffen again, “Sorry, I know my sister promised you dinner. But you can stay around if you want to. Just…no funny business. Remind yourself I’m good with knives if you ever think of anything,”

“Don’t worry, hyung. You can trust me.”

“Just make sure I can,” He adds and then he’s out the door. Haerin drops her shoulders and releases an exasperated sigh. I follow her to the kitchen and we find the ingredients all prepared and all the pans are out and there’s even a cookbook sitting on the counter top. I feel bad that he’s got everything prepared already but couldn’t stay around to finish the dish.

“I’m so sorry about this,” She tells me, dejected and embarrassed. She fishes her phone out of her pocket and then eyes at me, “I’ll order Chinese food,” She starts dialing on her phone but I snatch it away from her. She eyes at me, obviously nonplussed with my actions. I tuck her phone inside my pocket and she just gasps at me.

“We’re not eating delivered Chinese food,” I tell her as I take off my coat and push up the sleeves of my sweater. I place myself behind the counter and next to the stove while she’s looking at me like a confused kid.

“What are you doing?”

“You promised me home cooked dinner. So I am having home cooked dinner,” I say as I wash my hands and start moving around the kitchen. I look at the cookbook and scan the recipe. It’s nothing that I haven’t done before. I do some cooking on my downtime but I don’t get a lot of that so I don’t really get to always cook. Haerin sinks on the sit across the counter and she’s watching me do everything at once. I glance at her as I chop the pork. She’s looking at me intently, “Babe your eyes are going to fall off,” I chuckle at her and she just clears . I eye at her for a moment.

“Eyes on the knife!” She reprimands me. I chuckle as I shake my head and do as told. God, she’s adorable. Once I’ve finished cutting the pork into smaller portions I coat them with salt and pepper, “Are you going to fry that?” She asks, standing up a little to peek on the pan that I’ve just poured oil into.

“Yes,” I answer and look up at her, “Help me fry them,” I say.

“What?” She looks flushed. I know she doesn’t cook. Just the fact that she was about to order Chinese food instead of trying to cook tells me so. But I’d like to see her try. She can do anything, can’t she? She’ll survive frying pork cubes.

“Come on,” I urge but she doesn’t move on her seat. I walk to her and grab her out of her chair myself. She forcibly walks with me as I guide her towards the stove. I start the fire and wait for the oil to heat up. I take the plate containing the chopped pork with one hand while I hold the frying spoon on the other. I keep Haerin in front of me, locking her in when I put the pork on the pan. I can hear her almost whining. Oil starts to pop and she yelps as she immediately turns around to face me. I can’t help but laugh at her. I can feel her whine at the crook of my neck every time she hears something pop, “It’s not going to kill you,” I laugh.

“Why are you doing this to me!” She cries.

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