Jaehyun’s parents’ bedroom smells so good Lisa hopes it can be a distraction to herself from the fact that she’s in his parents’ bedroom.

‘They’re probably out for lunch or doing some business stuff,’ was his explanation for why they weren’t at home when they arrived.

Lisa tugs the bottom of her shirt, lifting the moist fabric from her skin that feels slightly sticky.

“Come over here,” Jaehyun looks at her quizzically from the closet. She’s leaning on the doorway, not sure how far she should intrude. “Before I pick out something totally ahjumma and you yell at me.”

“Ahjumma?” Lisa tentatively walks over, feeling the uncomfortableness of being in someone else’s house wearing socks on their carpet.

“It means elder woman.” Jaehyun takes out a baby blue shirt with beads embroidered at the neckline. “Something like this?”

Lisa laughs realizing what he means. Oh, she knows those Old Navy shirts well. They remind her of some aunties.

“What are you talking about? This is y,” she playfully grabs the shirt and turns to leave but Jaehyun snatches it back.

“Absolutely not this!” he shoves the shirt into the corner of the closet, not even bothering to put it on its hanger, before moving to the opposite corner.

“Here, how about this black shirt,”

He lifts it up.

Lisa takes it in examination.

“Looks a little small.”

Not surprising, Jaehyun’s mom is a rather small woman.

Jaehyun tugs on a sleeve and watches the fabric jump back.

“There’s some stretch.”

Lisa glances over to the rest of the closet. A lot of delicate blouses and sweaters, a couple of dining dresses. She doesn’t want to borrow anything too noticeable. It’s best to go with something that for the time being can’t be missed.

She nods, heading out the room to the bathroom before she remembers she doesn’t know where the bathroom is.

Jaehyun’s smirking with his arms crossed when she turns around.

He doesn’t say anything, just points to the left, knowing her question.

“I’ll bring that denim jacket up here too to wash when you’re done. Who knows the last time it was washed.”

Lisa hears him say from the hallway before shutting the bathroom door and sighing.

Was this another thing she’d have to tell Amanda and Sue about… Or would they twist it into something more.

She looks at the wide mirror, eyeing the large tub in the back, that could probably fit two people.

There are more flower arrangements on the counter. There are flower arrangements all around the house it seems.

She throws her shirt off, slipping the black short sleeve on.

.

It’s tight.

Not tight enough that she can’t breathe, but tight enough to show a sliver of midriff and accentuate her chest in a way that brings her back to middle school, when she first started growing there and the stupid boys thought it was their job to point it out.

She breathes slowly a few times, grabbing the bottom hem and pulling to stretch more but the stretch only holds for a few seconds before crawling back up.

Whatever.

There was only an hour left of work anyway. She could deal.

She washes her hands with the vanilla soap and turns the light off, holding her dirty shirt in one hand.

Jaehyun looks over from the hallway closet that holds the family's washer and dryer.

She watches his ears grow pink before he shakes his head, seemingly unsure what to say.

“Uh, I’ll be right back. You can throw your shirt in. The water’s ready.”

Lisa nods, walking over to watch the denim jacket drown.

“I think that might’ve needed to be hand washed.”

She wonders if Jaehyun can hear her wherever he went, but he’s back in the next second, holding a long sleeved, red and black plaid shirt.

“You can wear this too. It’s mine. And clean. And it’s kind of cold in here,”

It’s Lisa’s turn to go red. She looks at her chest instinctively.

What are my s hard or something?

But she can’t see anything from the black fabric. She takes Jaehyun’s shirt gratefully anyway, slipping it on and being cocooned in soft cotton. The sleeves so long, they almost cover her fingertips.

Jaehyun closes the washer.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. Whoever sewed those patches was clearly an expert. One hard wash won’t kill it.”

“Guess we should go back to the retail world and find more wonders.”

“Oooorr,” Jaehyun offers a silent second option.

“Yes? I’m listening,” Lisa follows him down the stairs to the first floor, entering the kitchen again.

“We can make cookies.”

“Now that sounds completely on task.”

“What? We bought cookie cutters. This is company-adjacent work.” Jaehyun defends himself.

She watches his stupid dimples come out and his smile with the tiniest front teeth gap.

“You’re such a kid,” she signs, resigning. “Where’s the cookie dough?”

…

“Okay, it says preheat at 350.”

“Shouldn’t we have had preheat set this whole time?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why do I feel like this was unnecessarily messy.”

“Being messy is part of the cooking experience.”

“This isn’t cooking! This is baking!”

“You know what I mean,” Jaehyun pushes some oven buttons a little too forcibly.

It’s been an hour and all they have to show are sloppy, somewhat shaped, blobs of cookie dough on a silver cookie sheet.

“Please tell me you have milk or I’m going to riot.” Lisa whines, bouncing on her tippy-toes. “I’m so hungry.”

“And still wired from that coffee, I see.” Jaehyun wipes the kitchen counter, picking up flour spills and egg yolk.

“This will be the longest 25 minutes of my life. Should we turn the oven temperature up? Then won’t it only take 20 minutes?”

“And rush baking perfection? And you said I was the kid for wanting to make them. You’re the kid for being impatient.”

“Hey!” Lisa points at him, rubbing her itchy flour covered nose with her other hand. “You respect me! I’m your elder. I’m your ah-joo-ma,” she recites from memory, clearly proud of her broken Korean.

Jaehyun shakes his head.

“No, you’re too young to be an ahjumma. Anyway, you’re more like a “noona”. A female older than a male they’re close to.”

“Noona?” she repeats back to make sure she heard correctly.

“Lisa-noona,” Jaehyun nods, tossing the rag next to to the sink.

“Why do your ears do that?” Lisa snickers.

“Do what?”

And they do it even more in that moment.

She reaches over and tugs one earlobe, inciting a whine from him.

“Turn pink,”

Jaehyun groans.

“I’m probably just cold.”

Lisa puts her hands together and rubs them fast like she’s going to start a fire with her flesh alone and then she places a palm on each side of his head, forcing him to look straight at her.

“There. Is that better?”

Jaehyun blinks, looking down into her brown eyes before shifting over her small afro, held back with a silver headband.

It’s the type of moment Lisa doesn’t realize is a mistake until it’s too late.

She’s far too close to him, noticing things like the curve of his bottom lip and the curl of his eyelashes. And how warm his skin is, how he’s not cold at all.

The oven beeps, announcing it’s preheated.

“I… I got it,” Lisa pulls away, but Jaehyun follows her step.

She turns back to him.

He avoids eye contact.

“The, uh. The oven mitts are in the drawer. On the right.” is all he says before falling back and letting her go.