F O U R T E E N

Word of the Day – “Caramelize”

What. On. Earth. Was. That. Day.

Kyungsoo tossed his sweater on the floor before collapsing on his couch. He was officially losing his mind. Ra Miyoung. That woman would be the death of him.

He had spent all day trying to purposely dodge her because every time she had the chance, she’d do something weird and uncalled for. Something … provocative, at least in his opinion. That or he had really gone nuts to assume that a rolling pin that she was washing while staring right at him was deemed ual.

There was another instance where he was busy plating a dish and she brushed by him from behind, he swore to God he wasn’t imagining when he felt hot air blowing in his ear—her hot ing breath.

She was doing all of these things so subtly that nobody even seemed to have taken notice. They were all so exclusive only to him that he would have sounded completely mad if he were to tell somebody about it.

But the action that really gave him the hardest time was that little moment they had in that small storage room which technically was his fault. They were all alone. So close. Dark. Warm. Her scent all over the place so quickly. The way she ran her fingertips across his uniform, so gently yet so electrifying. He had suffered enough from the previous day and now this? He couldn’t be swinging all-nighters two days in a row or he might start serving shoes and other inedible to guests.

He felt his cat jump up the couch beside him. “Chef, you ever had blue balls?” He asked the poor innocent cat who quickly brushed up against him before hopping on his lap. “Oh wait, you’re neutered. Should I get neutered too or do I still get blue balls after that?” He the cat’s fur as he proceeded to talk—as if Chef was ever going to respond.

Yup, he had gone mad, that was for sure.

The cat continued to headbutt his chest while meowing and purring like a motorcycle. “Okay okay, I will feed you. You’re so persistent, you’re like Mi—ugh, . Stop brain, stop. Just stop.” He tapped his temple as he stood up, carrying the cat in one arm.

There should be a way to fix this dilemma in his head. He was going to figure it out, one way or another.

He walked into the kitchen to prepare Chef’s food. “Chef, you see, I knew her as a kid. I shouldn’t be—this is wrong, this is so wrong, right? I should go to jail.” He squinted down at the cat who obviously only cared about the food that it was waiting for. “But … she’s not a kid anymore. She’s so—” Kyungsoo heaved out a struggled sigh, realizing the defeat that was consuming him as he went on with his self-rant. “—she’s so … adult now.”

Memories of that early-morning make-out session in the restaurant kitchen started surfacing again and heat instantly rushed through him.

He propped his hands on the counter for support as emotions overwhelmed his consciousness. This wasn’t just any woman. This was a woman whom he’d known for so many years, someone whom he’d basically grown up with. Woman. The term still terrified him every time he’d address her with it. She was a woman now. She wasn’t the same little girl he used to easily piss off with silly pranks.

His daze was interrupted when Chef started biting on his foot. “Ouch—okay, it’s ready! Jeez.” He gave in and walked to the corner and placed the bowl of cat food down. He chuckled in delight as the cat abruptly started eating like a wild beast. He gave Chef some space to enjoy his dinner and made his way towards his bed. “My God, I’m a mess.” He stared at the pile of clean clothes stacked on one corner of his bed that he hadn’t had the time to fold.

He was always too busy for his own good, he could barely keep up with maintaining his own place. But instead of finally doing the right thing, he only pushed the pile of clothes all the way to the very edge until some of them have fallen to the floor. “Laters.” He grunted before collapsing on the mattress. With his eyes glued up to the ceiling, he started ing his uniform suit and spreading the fabric open exposing his plain white tank top.

He fished his phone out of his pocket and skimmed for any important emails. He usually did it every morning but he wanted to find something to do to distract himself for a moment.

Contrary to his goal, however, a call came in around just in time. Ra Miyoung on the Caller I.D., the last person he’d want to talk to right now. He had barely gotten over all the happenings today, he had no time for this.

But he knew the woman like the back of his hand. If she was calling and had something to say, she wasn’t going to stop anyway.

With a hardened expression, he pressed the answer button and quickly put it on speaker. “Yup.” He coldly replied, hoping for her to get the signal that he wasn’t in the mood right now—not that she’d care at all, but it was worth the shot to him. “Hi. Can I get Kim Sungjin’s number? I forgot to ask for it before we parted ways earlier.” The woman spoke in a calm manner, surprisingly, on the other line but the controversial question was enough to pull every muscle in his body until he was up.

“And wh—why do you need his number?” He felt a heavy tension in his forehead as his eyebrows wrinkled sharply.

The next thing he knew, gentle splashes of water and soft hums coming from her filled the other end of the call. He felt his throat tighten as he swallowed hard. “Are yo—what ar—whe—okay, seriously, why do you need his number again?” He managed to repeat his question after a few failed attempts to speak human words. The humming continued in between echoed moans. ing moans. She sounded like she was in the bathroom.

Good Lord, was she taking a bath? Like a bath-bath?

Finally, after some time, she responded. “Why not? I have your number, I have Soobin’s number. Just this afternoon, I also got Baekhyun’s number—”

“Woah, wait—when did you get Baekhyun’s number? And why would you get his number? The bar area will not be a part of my training or whatever you want to call this. You don’t need to be learning mixology and flairs and .” Kyungsoo burst, his heart rate rising with every sentence. “Yeah, I know, you’re not an expert in that area so I won’t even bother. But he is. If I’m going to take this seriously, I might as well get to know all of the areas of SCORCH, not only the food but our bar service too.” She replied before proceeding to hum once again.

“Yeah, but—” He paused when the mild water splashing continues as if she was moving around. The thought of it triggered a part of him that he so badly wanted to ignore for the rest of the night, for his own sanity … and sleep schedule.

“Gosh, my tub is so spacious, I could move around so easily. One more person could fit in here.” Miyoung sensually chuckled on the other end and Kyungsoo quickly found himself holding his own breath and clamping his mouth in a tight straight line.

She was doing it again. She was ing with his brain again. Just when he thought this was all over.

“I need to—” He swallowed hard while rubbing his throat. “I need to wash my raincoat. Bye!” He blurted out the most random thing he’d ever said in his entire life before quickly ending the call. “What the . Son of a —what raincoat motherer— nuggetty piece of —” He leaned down to himself, pinning his face into his palms as he released all of his frustration through profanity.

He’d never felt so dumb before. Well, he had but not this much. Definitely not a wash-a-raincoat level of dumbness. It didn’t even rain. He didn’t even own a raincoat, for ’s sake!

He weakly rolled over to the other side of the bed and picked up the few pieces of clothing that were on the floor. He lifted himself on the bed in a kneeling position and flung off his uniform and tossed it to the hamper at the corner. Shoot! “Okay, just fold your clothes and pretend that never ing happened.” He muttered to himself as he nodded in determination.

Erase. Erase. Erase.

At least, he got something good out of his little three-second raincoat-washing panic attack. God knew how much longer these clothes could have remained unfolded if it never happened.

Except … it did happen and he was already dreading for tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and the day after the day after tomorrow and so on and so forth.

Blue balls and sleepless nights, coming right up.

When he finished folding up his clothes, he made his way to the bathroom. What he needed was a hot and steamy shower to selectively clear off his mind. He had hoped for it to work like always but he couldn’t be more wrong. The moment the warm water scattered down his body, a painful amount of weight overcame his gut riddling all the way up to his chest. He lifted his chin, letting the water hit his face and he closed his eyes shut.

Treating and seeing Miyoung as a sister would have probably solved all of his problems. , none of this would even have happened if that was the case. But nothing had ever been this hard to digest in his mind, the thought felt weird … it felt really wrong. The warmth that she’d provided throughout the years, excluding the time when she was away, had always been … something that he was never able to explain, not even to himself.

She had always hated him but for some reason, all that hatred, all those senseless arguments and silly fights they’d gone through together had ironically brought the most warmth in his life and he had never felt that growing up in an orphanage filled with children who seek and craved for love all their lives.

Those emotions that he