There were pizza toppings everywhere on the kitchen floor, and it hadn’t even been an hour since Hyunsoo and Baekhyun had decided to attempt at making their first own homemade pizza. She didn’t even know how the food ended up on the floor. One minute, she would be taking a handful of cheddar cheese, a minute later, she would look down and see stepped-on cheese on the floor.

“What’s going on here?” said an amused voice behind them.

Hyunsoo turned around and saw a tall boy with brown wavy short hair standing at the entrance of the kitchen. “Hi Chanyeol,” she said, putting on a cheerful expression.

She had been most nervous about meeting her housemates last month, since she would be living with them for nearly a year. So far it had been going well for Hyunsoo. Most people seemed nice, though there were a few out of the six tenants who were reluctant to join in conversations in the house or be nice to everyone.

“Hey,” he said, giving her a kind smile, then turning his attention on Baekhyun, who had also turned around by then but was still concentrated on his pizza. “And you are?”

Hyunsoo realised quickly that no one in the house had ever met her boyfriend, or might not even have been aware that she had one. Hyunsoo wasn’t the type to go around bragging about being in a relationship.

“Baekhyun. Hyunsoo’s boyfriend,” answered Baekhyun, nodding in Chanyeol’s direction as a way of greeting.

Hyunsoo looked slightly apologetic as she watched Baekhyun answer Chanyeol. She was hoping that he wasn’t mad at her. What if he wanted her to brag about him? Or just let people know that she wasn’t single? These thoughts had never even hit her until now.

“Oh, so I guess we’ll be seeing each other more often then,” said Chanyeol.

In an attempt to change the topic, Hyunsoo looked at the kitchen counter, and then said to Chanyeol, “We’ve got too much pizza dough for just me and Baekhyun, so I was actually thinking about making extra for everyone in the house too. Would you like one?”

“Of course! I’ll help you both make it for everyone. I just have to go feed my fish first,” said Chanyeol nodding. He walked towards the table and grabbed the shopping bag that had been left on the chair. “I asked a friend to drop off some fish food earlier, but completely forgot to take it up to my room. Anyway, give me about ten minutes and I’ll come down to help.”

Hyunsoo gave Chanyeol a quick nod, watching him as he left. As soon as the kitchen door closed behind him, she turned to Baekhyun and said, “You don’t mind, do you? Making pizza for everyone else I mean. I should have asked you first… It’s a lot of work as well.”

“No, it’s fine Hyunsoo, really,” he said, “Chanyeol said he would help, so we’ll finish even quicker.” He was looking at Hyunsoo. He was just a bit taller than her, but there was barely any difference. “Don’t worry about it. In fact, I love how you’re so caring. I need to learn from you.” He was chuckling.

Hyunsoo tried to control herself from blushing. She wasn’t sure if it was just her vision, but she could see Baekhyun’s eyes glinting brightly under the kitchen lights. She didn’t realise she was staring so intently at his eyes, until he pointed it out to her jokingly.

“Hey,” Baekhyun said suddenly, “The friend who got the fish food for Chanyeol… wasn’t that…”

Hyunsoo was about to put the first pizza in the oven, though when she realised who he was talking about, her eyes widened. “Yoongi?”

Baekhyun nodded. “Yoongi did say he was visiting someone in this house.”

“It must have been Chanyeol he was talking about outside. Should we ask Chanyeol when he comes back down? Or is that a little weird?”

Hyunsoo never got to find out if it was weird or not, because at that exact same moment the kitchen door opened again. This time, it was someone else. Someone who never looked pleased to see anyone in the kitchen, besides himself.

“Oh, I didn’t realise there were… people in here,” said Darcy, “I’ll come back later.”

“Wait!” Hyunsoo called, stopping Darcy in his tracks, “Uh, we were making pizza and, well, I was wondering if you’d like some as well?”

“No,” he replied, “Is that all?”

Hyunsoo was at a loss of words. She usually always was whenever she came face to face with Darcy. He was a rich guy, a foreigner, studying here. Anyone would have expected someone like him to get his own house completely, rather than share it with five other people.

After a moment of silence, Darcy sighed and turned to leave saying, “Farewell then.”

“Wow.” Baekhyun started laughing as soon as the door shut again. “That guy was actually…” He stopped and looked at Hyunsoo with an expression of realisation. “He doesn’t know about you, does he?”

Hyunsoo was surprised Baekhyun brought this question up, but she shook her head anyway. They never talked about Hyunsoo’s family background. It was a sensitive topic for her. Baekhyun must have noticed this, as Hyunsoo became quiet after that and there was little conversation. She didn’t know why she became like that, but she couldn’t bring herself to talk about her family with anyone, not even her boyfriend.

It wasn’t long until Chanyeol came down, lifting the mood back up as they started speeding up on preparing all the pizzas for the oven. Soon, the three were sitting at the table, waiting for the timer on the oven to go off, and searching for movies they could watch while having their dinner.

The original plan went down the drain unexpectedly. Hyunsoo hadn’t realised that inviting Chanyeol to have some pizza would end up in him crashing her and Baekhyun’s night together completely. Not that they minded too much. Hyunsoo just secretly wanted to spend some time with Baekhyun before he left again for a while. He had told her that his parents needed his help for something, and he wanted to go back home to help.

Still, it was a good night overall. They watched a comedy movie and enjoyed the pizza they worked so hard on. It hadn’t hit Hyunsoo then that she had a 9am class to go to the next day. When Baekhyun and Hyunsoo hugged, and said their goodbyes at the front door, it was already 3am.

“Oh my god!” A girl just behind Hyunsoo was whispering fiercely. “He’s here!”

“I can’t believe I’m in a class with him!” said another girl, in the same tone.

“I know! So glad he moved into this class!”

They were both acting as excited as if there was a celebrity sitting in this very class. To be honest, Hyunsoo herself had no idea who it was they were talking about. She was in too much of a bad mood from having to wake up after only a few hours of sleep. When Baekhyun had left, she couldn’t get to sleep right away, so still not having realised that she had a class, she started watching random videos on her phone until she felt her eyelids begin to close. If only she had checked the alarms on her phone.

“Jungkook just looked me right in the eyes!”

“No, he was looking at me!”

Hyunsoo groaned. Hearing the girls behind her talk so excitedly must have sparked something in Hyunsoo, because at that moment she turned around without thinking and glared at the girls. However, what she saw instead was the rude douche from badminton smirking back at her.