“Unnie, I’m done!”

Iseul peeks to the bathroom and sees Yiseo has already taking a shower. She smiles as she enters the bathroom and helps her to change her clothes.

“Unnie, are you going somewhere?” Yiseo points at Iseul’s clothes, she gets ready to leave to do her group projects. “Yes, unnie will go to a friend’s house and do some projects.” Iseul answers while making sure her sister’s t-shirt is tucked into her shorts. “Can I go with you?” Yiseo purses her lips but Iseul can only laughs at her, “No, honey. My friends don’t live around here so you have to stay at home, okay?” she slightly nuzzles her sister’s forehead.

But Yiseo still throwing her pleading face at her and Iseul can’t help but laughs, “I can get you a tub of ice cream on the way home if you’re being a good girl for Dad.” Iseul offers her some peace treaty and the girl claps her hand in excitement.

“You really love ice cream, huh?” Iseul shakes her head as they get out of the bathroom, the little girl doesn’t answer her question and quickly runs to their dad who’s watching the television in the living room. “Morning, sweetheart.” Mr. Jung catches Yiseo who quickly gets on to his lap, “Unnie says she’ll buy me a tub of ice cream!” Yiseo declares to her dad and the old man throws look at his older daughter.

“I need to do some projects at Baekhyun’s house, it’s a peace treaty, dad.” Iseul shrugs as she walks to make herself and her sister a sandwich, “Oh, you’re going to the city then?” Iseul nods at her dad’s question.

“I’ll be home before dinner, don’t worry.” she adds while opening the strawberry jam can, “I’m not complaining, can you get me some mushrooms and onions on your way home? I’ll make some japchae for dinner,” her dad asks her again. “And my ice cream!” Yiseo says and Iseul can only laugh, “Sure, I’ll get it for you. Cookies and cream?” Iseul asks Yiseo while giving the younger girl her sandwich. Yiseo nods excitedly and Iseul chuckles at her.

“Be safe,” her dad says as she takes her bag from the sofa, “Bye, dad. Bye-bye princess,” Iseul waves at Yiseo who waves back at her with her sandwich.

Iseul walks to a nearby subway station while checking Baekhyun’s address again on her phone. The trip takes about half an hour, the train is quite packed as almost everyone is spending the weekend in the city. She doesn’t get a seat so she stands while holding to the handle to keep herself steady. As the train moves, she starts listening to the music with her earphone while scrolling her Instagram and come across’ Soyeon’s photo with Sehun on top of Namsan Tower with the caption

‘A year ago today, this moron dragged me to Namsan. Ew, get a life cousin’

She chuckles as she read’s Sehun comment ‘Shut up, shortie’ on the post. Iseul then clicks on Soyeon’s account and sees a couple photos with Eunji.

She takes a look at Eunji’s account that mostly filled with monochrome pictures and a couple pictures with Kai. There’s a picture of her having a dinner with flowers all around, probably around valentine’s day last year. Their friends leave a lot of comments and Iseul comes across Baekhyun’s account, he prefers sharing random structures or designs on his Instagram. Scrolling down a little further, she founds a video with his hands on the piano and singing Mine by Bazzi. She turns off the song she’s listening to and decides to listen to Baekhyun’s singing.

Iseul walks up the stairs from the subway station and turns to where Baekhyun’s neighborhood is. She looks at the maps in her phone while looking around, the maps then lead her to walk up the hill and reaches a house with white bricks and a wooden door. She finds the bell and rings it, a couple seconds later someone answered the bell.

‘Yes?’

“Hello, my name is Iseul. I’m Baekhyun’s friend, uhm…. We’re about to do some projects together,”

‘Ah, yes yes. Please come in,’

Not long after that, the front door is unlocked and Iseul pushes it to enter the house. A huge garden is seen right after she enters. There’s a lot of beautiful plants, nicely trimmed trees all around the garden. She looks at the roses in a corner, there are various colors of the roses and they all look really healthy. She crouches down to see the flowers because she definitely not good with taking care of flowers, her mom used to plant a lot of sunflowers but after she passed away, she can’t take care of them properly and her father is the only person who can take care of it.

“You’re early,” Baekhyun says while walking up to her, she looks up at him. “Yeah, I was afraid I’ll get lost around the neighborhood so I went earlier.” she stands up. “Well, you’re earlier than the lovebirds. Come on in,” he signals her to follow him to the house.

“Your garden is really pretty,” Iseul says as they walk to the house, Baekhyun looks to their surrounding and then laughs. “Yeah, my mom only has two sons so she doesn’t really have anything to worry about and decides that worrying about other things might be more useful.” he says while keep walking.

“Well, boys don’t like to be dotted. I’ve heard about it,” Iseul comments as he lets her in first, “That and my mom prefers baking and gardening more than anything else.” he adds as he closes the door.

“Watch your mouth Byun Baekhyun or you won’t be getting any snacks today,” Mrs. Byun says from another room that Iseul thinks could be a kitchen, “Well, you won’t do that, ma’am.” Baekhyun playfully replies to his mother. The woman softly chuckles at her son’s rebuttal but then smiles at Iseul, “Oh, you bring a friend. I do believe we’ve met last week, right?” Iseul nods and she replies her politely. “Wait, I do remember your name…… Jung Iseul?” Mrs. Byun guesses and Iseul nods again. “Yes, Mrs. Byun. Really nice to see you again,” Iseul says to her.

The older woman chuckles, “Call me auntie, everyone call me auntie. No need to be so formal to me, take it easy. Besides, having two grown up sons made me forget about all the politeness that exist.” they laugh together. “Kai and Eunji are coming too,” Baekhyun adds and his mother nod. “Alright, then I’ll get back to the kitchen. You can expect me to be back with lots of cookies, sweety.” Mrs. Byun smiles at Iseul before going back to the kitchen.

“Your mom’s fun,” Baekhyun laughs at Iseuls remark, he leads her to the second floor. “She is, before she finds out that you didn’t clean up your room, yes she is fun.” Iseul shakes her head at his reply. “You can sit here, I’ll go get some stuff.” Baekhyun says before going to his room. Iseul takes a seat on one of the couches and then decides to check her phone to see if Eunji or Kai says anything.

“No word from Kai and Eunji?” Baekhyun asks as he brings his laptop and camera and put them on the table, “She said they’ll be late for half an hour because Kai’s not awake yet,” Iseul raises her brows as she reads the text from Eunji in the group chat. Baekhyun chuckles as he turns on her laptop and settles on the sofa right beside her.

“Anyway, what kind of video are we going to make?” Iseul asks and he hums as he looks at her, trying to remember what he pitched in the day before.

“Ah, yeah. I think rather than explaining it, we can make a montage type of video. So, we do one of our hobby and then we can voice over the video to introduce ourselves. That’s what we talked about yesterday, right?” Baekhyun furrows his brows as he tries to remember what they talked about yesterday. Iseul nods along as she remembers the concept that they talked about yesterday at the den and in their group chatroom.

“Are you going to swim?” Iseul asks as she realizes there’s a huge pool in the backyard as seen through the living room window where they’re sitting right now. “Nah, I’ll do something simpler than that. Probably the piano,” Baekhyun answers and she nods along, realizing the grand piano downstairs that she sees earlier.

“What about you? Have you decided on anything?” he asks her back while plugging his phone to be charged, “Honestly, I don’t know. I was going to sing but I don’t think my singing is better than yours,” Iseul blurts out the last words but then realizes she just exposes herself.

“Singing, huh? Someone’s been doing her research,” Baekhyun teases her but Iseul can’t deny it, she just laughs in defeat. “Well, one can’t help the feeling of curiosity.” she shrugs to play it cool but Baekhyun won’t stop teasing her, “That video was posted a couple months ago, thank you for the compliment. So, I think it’s my time to confess that I stalked all the way down your Instagram page.” Baekhyun leans his back on the sofa.

Iseul laughs at his forward words, “Make it even?” they both laugh together. Baekhyun looks at her who’s scrolling something in her phone, he usually doesn’t flirt but he’s friendly to anyone. Probably that’s why Jiyoung and others thought he’s flirting with them or something. He’s always friendly to anyone but for the media, he’s always the hardest to be asked around because he rarely speaks to them. The media favors Eunji, Kai, and Chanyeol also sometimes Soyeon who definitely loves taking with them while shoving her success to her sisters. Sehun and Baekhyun only talk to them when they feel they need to, they’re quite private and keep a lot to themselves. Although sometimes, Sehun would be pictured with yet another girl from another business mogul parents, no words ever said whether he’s seeing them while none about Baekhyun ever let out to the media. His older brother is way more open to the media, it’s easier to find more info about the older of the Byun siblings. Aloof, is the word that the media use to describe Baekhyun.

“Maybe you can show me how you sing and we can just do that.” Baekhyun suggests suddenly, Iseul who’s on her phone quickly looks up from her phone screen to look at him. She quirks her brows at the idea, “You really don’t want to hear me sing,” she shakes her head but Baekhyun laughs. “Oh, come on. You can’t be that bad, let’s go.” he stands up and offer his hand to her. Iseul looks at him to make sure he’s actually serious, the male doesn’t seem to back down so she takes his hand and follows him downstairs. Baekhyun lead them to a room adjoined to the living room where a grand piano and a guitar is placed. The room overlook the back garden with a double white French patio door connecting them, Iseul looks around and there are several photos of Baekhyun’s parents and probably her brother around the room. Baekhyun pulls the chair and then takes his position, stretching his fingers while looking at Iseul who’s still looking around.

“Any particular request?” Iseul turns to him, “Oh God, you’re really serious.” he chuckles at her response but then turns around to face the piano again. He begins to play a random tune and Iseul quickly recognizes the song he’s playing, Baekhyun turns to look at her briefly as if signing her to just sing along. Iseul laughs before starts to sing long to the tune he’s playing, across the universe from Baek Yerin. He keeps playing until the end of the first chorus. He turns to her as soon as they’re finish.

“Yet you said you can’t sing, anything else you want to tell me about?” Baekhyun folds his arms together but the female standing beside him just shakes her head at the question, “Nah, nothing else. I mean, I said I can sing but not that good. You know, keep the bar low.” he chuckles.

“Your family seems like a musical family,” Iseul looks around and Baekhyun nods along, “Yeah, my parents enjoy singing and dancing in the middle of night as they’re still in high school, I think me and my brother got all of these from them.”

“What do you mean with these? An ability to perfectly play a musical instrument you mean?” Mrs. Byun came in with a plate full of cookies, she puts left arm on her hip. “Bonus with that temper,” Baekhyun teases his mother but the lady of the house just shakes her head at her youngest son, “Here you go, all freshly baked cookies. Go ahead and have some,” Mrs. Byun gives the plate to Baekhyun but keeping an eye contact with Iseul who politely smiles at her.

“Kai and Eunji are coming mom,” Baekhyun reminds his mother that it might not be enough for the four of them while giving Iseul a cookie to try, “Already have another plate ready, don’t worry. So, how is it?” Mrs. Byun seems so excited to hear from Iseul. A little awkward with the attention focused on her, Iseul quickly try to swallow the cookie and think about the taste.

“Wow, it’s really good Mrs.—I mean, auntie.” Mrs. Byun smiles at the answer, “Baekhyun said you have a sister, so there’s the two of you?” she asks Iseul who nods along while trying to answer as she swallows her cookies. “Yes, I have a younger sister who’s five now.” Iseul answers, “Omo, she must be cute. Oh, I’ve always wanted a daughter but I guess two sons are more than enough. Your mom must love having daughters.”

Iseul smiles but Baekhyun throws look at his mom, “Mom, I told you her mother passed away.” he says to his mother who quickly wants to apologize to the girl.

“Yes, she did love having daughters actually.”

Mrs. Byun’s worry face turns quickly into a smile, Baekhyun looks quite surprise but then smiles at her respond. Suddenly the doorbell ring, signing Kai and Eunji already arrived.

“Well, you guys can enjoy that plate. I’ll get some from the kitchen,” Mrs. Byun says while patting Iseul’s arm with a smile before leaving.

Iseul nods along and helps Baekhyun to carry the plate upstairs while he closes the piano lid. “Sorry about earlier, I guess my mom forgot.” Baekhyun apologizes on behalf of his mother but Iseul just chuckles, “That’s okay, I just want people to talk about her like normal, you know. No apology or anything because she’s not a bad person. She’s just passed away but she still very much lives among me, my father, and my sister.” she shrugs as she puts down the plate on the table in the second floor’s living room. Baekhyun looks at her and smile.

“Sorry for being late,” Kai’s voice heard as he and Eunji walks up the stairs, “Yeah, you should be the one who say sorry.” Eunji says while casually taking a seat beside Iseul. Kai sighs as he put down another plate of cookies on the table and take a bite, “Internal issues, so, what should we work on first?” they start to do the project with the shooting and a little bit of editing. Eunji talks a lot and give directions on how they should shoot the project, she sometimes laughs at Kai’s cheesy jokes but not without rolling her eyes after that. Iseul still can’t understand how different Eunji is with them and in the public but she definitely enjoys hanging out with them.

“You sure it’s okay?”

Iseul asks both Eunji and Kai as she gets her bag from the couch, Kai nods at her question as he puts his laptop back to his bag. “I don’t want to go home knowing that my friend is going home alone using the public transportation. I know it’s safe but I don’t want you to be alone,” Eunji shrugs as she leans on the wall, waiting for Kai to finish talking with Baekhyun. Iseul smile, “Thank you,” Eunji just nods.

“So, I’ll email you guys the video after I finished editing it. It shouldn’t take long because we’ve done almost half of them here.” Kai tells them all, “Just hit me up if you need help with anything,” Kai nods to Baekhyun’s word as they walk down the stairs. Baekhyun looks at his mother who’s talking to someone, probably one of her friends, on the phone in the back yard. He waves his hand to get her attention, she looks at him and sees that Iseul and the others are leaving. She points at her phone, apologizing not be able to them out but still waves and smiles brightly at them, the guests slightly bow at her. Iseul then catch Mrs. Byun saying something inaudibly to them while pointing at the group, “She said come and visit again,” Baekhyun interprets.

“Auntie’s pointing at Iseul so it means she wants you to visit again,” Eunji says as Baekhyun leads them to the front gate, Iseul chuckles at her interpretation but Baekhyun just laughs. “Yeah yeah, ignore that lady.” he jokes as he opens the front gate, “So, see you guys on Monday?” the three nods. Baekhyun waves at them and wait until they all get into the black Audi SUV. After the car leaves, he closes the front gate and walks back to the house, his mother waits for him while leaning on the staircase’s rail. He knows the look on her face, “Mom, you should wipe your smile, it’s getting scary.” he shakes his head as he closes the door behind him.

“I like her,”

“Iseul?”

“I’ve known Eunji since she’s still in her mother’s womb, so of course I’m talking about Iseul.”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes at his mother’s enthusiastic tone, “She’s a friend mom, we’re working on a group project together.” he doesn’t want his mother to creating scenarios in her head. “Well, you rarely play piano unless I ask you to. That was one smooth move, son.” Mrs. Byun winks at him before walking to the back yard in a good mood.

Baekhyun can only shakes his head at his mother’s antiques. He walks back to his room upstairs and then lays down on his bed. He’s remembering how Iseul quickly singing along to his piano earlier, he puts his arms over his own face and then smiles contently at the thought of her.

"Do you need anything before going home? Buy some foods or anything?”

Kai asks as the driver get them out of Baekhyun’s neighborhood, Iseul then remembers about what her father asked her to buy. “Ah, is it okay though?” she asks, looking at Eunji who’s scrolling her phone, “Supermarket stop?” Eunji turns to her and the girl nods at the question. Kai then tells the driver so they can stop by the nearby supermarket.

“So, do you guys live together?” Iseul starts asking the question she’s been meaning to ask, although Baekhyun already tells her a few things about the couple, she definitely wants to hear it from them. Eunji nods to the question as she looks up from her phone, “Usually only in the weekends but he’s been staying over a lot nowadays.” she raises her chin to point at Kai the boy laughs, “But you like it,” he turns to Eunji who just chuckles.

“He’s been avoiding family dinner while I’m not really fond of being alone at my grandparents’ house. They’re out quite a lot,” Eunji explains to Iseul who’s nodding along, she wants to ask more but her phone suddenly rings. Her father’s calling her, probably asking where is she.

“Are you on your way home? Should I pick you up, dear?”

“Yes, I’m on my way to pick up your mushrooms and onions also Yiseo’s ice cream. Do you need anything else?”

“Alright, nope. That’s all, be careful, okay?”

“I’m not seven dad, see you soon. Byee….”

Iseul chuckles at her dad’s worry tone, she might be a high schooler now but to her dad, she’s still her little daughter. Even though Iseul’s very capable at doing the house chores and taking care of Yiseo by herself. She ends the call and starts to replying some messages she missed before.

“You said your mother passed away, right?”

Eunji’s the one asking question now, Iseul nods as a response. “Yeah, two years ago. Her leukemia got worst so fast, she passed away 8 months after being diagnosed.” she turns her attention to Eunji, “Was it really hard?” Eunji asks again with more concerned tone. Iseul quite surprised at the question, guess she never thought Eunji would actually get personal with her.

“At first, yeah. I didn’t get to apprehend what happened, suddenly me and my sisters are left with my father. Suddenly, there’s only the three of us. But I guess you’d had it harder than me.” Iseul turns the question to Eunji, the girl puckers her lips. “It was…. I suddenly become an orphan in a span of fifteen minutes. I talked to them right before the plane took off and suddenly, they’re just gone.” she shrugs.

“But I have my friends, I even think that they know me better than my own parents. Wait, actually, they do because my parents only spent 11 years with me. So, yeah, my friends know me better than them.”

“Oh God, that again.”

Kai groans at Eunji’s dark jokes that seems to have been used a couple times, Iseul doesn’t know whether she needs to laugh along or just keep looking confused. Eunji raises her leg and kick Kai’s seat so the boy almost drops his phone.

“Yah!”

Eunji sticks out her tongue at Kai who can’t retaliate because they don’t sit together, in the end Kai just shaking his head at his girlfriend. Iseul laughs at the scene happening in front of her, being with someone you love definitely makes you act different than in the public.

“She uses those jokes a lot, so get used to it.” Kai warns Iseul as he fixes his sitting position “That’s normal, coping mechanism does exist.” Eunji raises her arms slightly as if showing she’s not wrong after Iseul says that.

The car pulls up to a supermarket and they all get off the car. As Iseul picks up the things she needs, Kai and Eunji are just following behind while randomly stops before putting something in their basket although they say they don’t really need anything. By the time Iseul finishes choosing the ice cream flavor that she’ll buy for her sister, the couple somehow managed to taste all the sample food around the freshly cooked food with a basket full of snacks. Kai says he rarely shops but sometimes his sisters ask him to buy something when he’s visiting their houses so he knows her way around better than Eunji who rarely ever shops by herself. Eunji says she hates the attention that people give when she’s around especially when she’s alone. She says her family used to be very private but the day her parents died, somehow every single details of her life is exposed. She’s not really fond of it and would rather keep things private. Spending a couple of hours with them, Iseul knows that Kai’s the only person who can tame Eunji because she’d listen to him whatever the situation is.

“Thanks for the ride, I really appreciate it.”

Iseul says as she gets off the car with Kai holding the door so he can sit at her seat, “No problem,” Kai says while Eunji just shrugs. “If you need any help with the project, just tag me in the group chat. I’ll help,” Iseul says to Kai who nods at the offer, “He’d probably finished it by the time you finished your dinner, don’t worry.” Eunji adds in. Iseul laughs and they bid their goodbye before she gets into her house.

“UNNIE!!”

Iseul gets ready for a hug attack from her sister as soon as she closes the door, Yiseo doesn’t even let her to change her shoes as she hugging her waist tightly as if she’s holding on her life.

“Honey, you should let me change my shoes first.” Iseul chuckles at her sister’s cute act, she knows her sister is waiting for the ice cream.

“She can’t stop talking about ice cream after her nap time,” her dad comes with an apron from the kitchen, “Well, no one can separate her from ice cream. Here you go dad,” Iseul gives him the plastic bag containing the ingredients he needs while taking the smaller bag with the ice cream in it by herself. Yiseo keep glancing at the smaller plastic bag, knowing that her ice cream is there. Iseul looks down as she puts on her slipper, “Will you wait for unnie to take a shower or….?” Iseul sighs as she looks at Yiseo’s pleading look. The little girl put out the cutest look on her and the older sister can’t help but give in, “Alright, you can eat the ice cream with dad now.” Yiseo jumping a little at the announcement as she gladly takes the plastic bag from Iseul to the breakfast counter.

“Go take a shower, dinner will be ready soon.”

Iseul’s father says while helping Yiseo to open the ice cream’s tub, Iseul nods and walks to her bedroom.  She puts her bag on her desk and opening her closet to take a new set of change clothes before heading to the bathroom. As she takes a shower, her mind wanders off to what happened in Baekhyun’s house. She remembers how natural it was for her to sing along to Baekhyun’s piano play and how easy the conversation goes on between them. It’s only been a month but she feels like she has great friends already. Contrary to what she’s afraid of, Baekhyun and the others are nice. They’re just like any other kids with a little Gossip Girl-ish storyline. She gets out of the bathroom and then puts some of her clothes in the hamper, her father has already done the laundry earlier in the day so her job would be ironing the clothes tomorrow.

“Dinner’s ready!”

Her father says while putting the hot pot on the dining table, Yiseo looks at all the foods happily. Iseul settles on a chair right in front of her sister as her father starts to share the soup on each bowl. Just like any other day, they share stories although because it's the weekend, mostly filled with what Yiseo did and didn’t do especially during Iseul’s away from home. Having dinner together at home is something that Iseul always appreciates, her father always tries hard to cook and talk with his daughters. Iseul then tells him about what she’s doing in Baekhyun, how pretty and nice his mother is, and how she can comfortably talk with the other three. She’s telling the story while helping Yiseo to eat, wiping some spills from the corner of . Her father would throw some random comments and fills her in with several facts such as how Mrs. Byun is quite famous for her baking skills ever since her children in elementary school or how Kai and Eunji really have been together for as long as everyone remembers and he’s literally the only one who can talk out of a sense of Eunji. Yiseo would quip in randomly and the conversation would shift towards the little girl, she really has been the center of Iseul and her father’s life.

“So, it’s been almost a month. I think you’re adjusting really well.” her father quips after they half-finished with the dinner, Iseul nods to the statement. She also feels she’s adjusting really well with the school. She used to be scared to move, scared that she might not make friends or even worse, making enemies with someone else. But her father reminded her that it’s a part of growing, adjusting in a new environment is hard but she’d do it in the future too so she should be ready. Even with her mother’s death, they all are adjusting to a new environment.

The dinner goes on and ended with Iseul washing the dishes and Yiseo helping (more like playing with water than helping but Iseul can’t help it). Then, the three of them sit in the living room while eating the ice cream that hasn’t finished earlier. Iseul checks her phone and sees several messages in the group chat for the project. Kai already sent the finished video and Eunji’s right, the boy finished editing the video by the time she finished her dinner. The editing is great too, she didn’t think Kai has skill in editing. The captions, effects, transition, and background music are blending really well.

She texts to say thank you to the group, closing the group chatroom, she sees a message from Baekhyun asking her whereabouts. She doesn’t check her phone because it's kind of an unspoken rule to put down her phone during dinner. Besides, there’s no reason to keep occupied with her phone when she has her father and sister to talk to.

‘Sorry, didn’t check my phone:( and yes, I’ve safely arrived at home. Just finished dinner’

Iseul presses send and then pays attention to the television show again. Her phone buzzes and she should have known Baekhyun would directly replies to her message.

‘Glad to hear that, see you tomorrow! Oh, my mom went crazy because she forgot to give you a bag of cookies for your sister lol’

Iseul replies back, chuckling at the mention of Mrs. Byun. She can totally picture the lady’s expression in her head.

‘I should come visit again then hahaha….’

After she send the message, she mentally facepalms herself. She doesn’t sound like herself but she does in some way because this is her normal exchanges with Baekhyun. Some flirting here and there.

‘You should, she wouldn’t mind and I’d love it'

A/N:

HELLOOOWWW ALLL!!!!! Sorry for the super late and kind of lame update:( had writer's block for the past few weeks and me busy with my thesis isn't helping too. Thank you for the love and kind words you left, absolutely grateful!! I hope you enjoy this chapter and don't forget to subscribe and leave a comment down bellow^^ I hope everyone doing okay and stay safe!!