"We'll call you in a couple days if you have the job, okay?" the friendly interviwer says to me.

"Okay," I answer with a nod and a final handshake. "Thank you so much."

I leave the restaurant, wrapping my long dress coat tighter around myself as the cold, winter air whips around me. I really need this job and the money. Due to...circumstances...I was fired from my last job and has been living off my last paycheck for the last two weeks. I  finished culinary school a few months ago and the last thing I want is my parents to think they wasted a lot of money on me. While sometimes I think they may be right, I'll never admit it to their faces because everybody hates the words "I told you so".

The apartment smells of wine when I get home and I know my boyfriend of one year, Lee Joonho, is somewhere in the apartment. He was an aspiring soccer player until he was sidelind by a knee injury that turned out to be career ending. Joonho has spent the last three months wallowing in pity and alcohol. I never knew someone could be an alcolholic at twenty three years old, but he's proving that theory wrong. I set my purse down on the kitchen counter as I take in the dirty appearance of the small one bedrooom-one bathroom apartment. I open the refrigerator to see if I have to go grocery shopping. There's enough meat and vegetables left to at least make up some stew and a enough milk to have for a drink on the side. I'm pulling stuff out when I hear the faint padding of feet enter the kitchen. I turn around to see Joonho coming into the kitchen in nothing but plaid pajama pants. He's tall and muscled with jet black hair and almond shaped eyes.

"Hey," I greet politely, placing a pot of water on the stove to start boiling so I can start cuttting up vegetables.

"Hey," he murmurs, rubbing his eyes. "Is dinner ready yet?"

"No," I answer simply. "I just got back a few minutes ago." He's quiet.

"It's five o'clock. What the hell have you been doing all day?" I quietly sigh as I start cutiing up some of the spring onions that were in the refrigerator. Joonho, for reasons probably due to alcohol influence, always gets suspicious of where I go when I leave the house. He wouldn't have anywhere to live and anything to eat if I wasn't working. Since he was the reason for me losing my last job, I've been running around trying to find one just so I can have a roof over my head for the winter.

"I had an interview," I tell him, trying to sound as casual as possible.

"Why didn't you tell me about it?" he asks, suddenly closer to me. As soon as I turn to face him there's a stinging sensation across my cheek as his hand swipes across it at the speed of light. "What makes you think that you can just go parading around town without telling me, huh?"

"You were asleep when I left and I hade errands to run. You were hungover anyway so I just let you sleep." Obviously it didn't help because he just ended up nursing the bottle again anyway. "I'll have dinner done in half an hour and then I'm going to the gorcery store." He grumbles something before opening the refrigerator.

"We're out of food?" I nod. He gives an aggravated sigh before slamming the refrigerator door shut and walking down the hallway to the bedroom. "Pick up some soju while you're out. I've been having a taste for it lately." It's another half hour when the stew is done and Joonho has made his way into the livingroom, parking himself on the couch. I go into the bedroom to change out of this dress and heels and into jeans, a shirt and boots, telling him dinner's ready before leaving.

"My balance is what?" I ask the cashier. The teenage girl rolls her eyes and gives an aggravated sigh.

"21,600 won," the girl says cooly. That's only enough to buy food for the next few days. I end up putting away half the food and only spend a little under half of that. Having this food survive until next week with Joonho's appeptite will definitley be a challenge. When I get back, there's only enough stew left for me to fill a bowl...and I didn't even have breakfast this morning. I leave the groceries on the counter and go back into the bedroom, exhausted from the day. I really need this job...

 

I get a call a couple days later and I got the job at the restaurant as a waiter. Being a waiter isn't the most glamourous job when you come right out of culinary school, but they think that I can eventually work my way up to a cook. I hit it off with a friendly waiter with big eyes and short, dark hair named Amber right away.

"You have to meet the chef," she tells me happily when we're on a lunch break early afternoon. "He's a super cool guy and a sweetheart." I let her drag me into the room past the kitchen. She's introducing me as I look around the office. My heart stops when I finally land eyes on the man in front of me. He's my height with shiny, soft looking black hair and has on a white chef's jacket and black dress pants. I look into the big, brown eyes and the full, heart shaped lips.

"...Do Kyungsoo," I say aloud. He nods, eyes widened as we awkwardly shake hands. It's been nearly a two years since I've seen him. He's still as handsome as he back then, if not more now.

"Do you two know each other?" Amber asks and that's when I realize that we've been staring at each other for the last sixty seconds.

"Uh yeah," Kyungsoo answers, shaking himself from our trance. "We went to high school together." I nod in agreement.

"Oh..." Amber says slowly. "Well....we still have to eat-"

"Right!" I laugh, covering up the anxiety I feel slowly being built up inside me. "And I'm starving. So, it was nice seeing you again!" I'm pulling Amber out the office and closing the door behind us. She raises an eyebrow at me and I shake my head. "I'll explain it later."

 

Do Kyungsoo and I dated from our third year of high school through the first semester of our first year in college. He was my first boyfriend, my first love, the one that got away. However, he wouldn't have gotten away if I hadn't let him go in the first place. Being the star pupil in the cooking program after only the first semester, Kyungsoo's culinary instructor convinced him to apply for a semester long program at some prestigious culinary school in Europe, France to be exact.

He got in.

Which was to be expected because Kyungsoo is an amazing cook. He obviously had bigger things in store for him than I did. Even if he didn't get into the culinary program in France, he'd already been offered a deal at a record company when a scout heard him singing at his friends' barista during Open Mike Night one Friday evening. Kyungsoo was moving up in the world...and he didn't need me to slow him down. Breaking up with him was one of the hardest things I had to do. There were tears and broken hearts on both sides and I wallowed in my room for two weeks after he left. A year later, I finally moved on and that's when I started dating Joonho. I like Joonho, I really do...but he's no Kyungsoo.

The next few days at the restaurant, I stick close to Amber and her nice, chatty friend Luna. Luna is short with past the shoulder length, dark hair and has one of the prettiest singing voices I've ever heard. It's when I'm practically scarfing down lunch one day that I tell the two of them about Kyungsoo and I's history.

"You broke up with that?" Amber asks me. I nod and jump when she smacks me in the arm.

"Ow!" I exclaim, nearly choking on the stew I'm eating.

"What's wrong with you?!" she scoldss at me with widened eyes. "He's a great guy!" I roll my eyes because, trust me, I know how great of a guy he is.

"It was for the best," I answer quiety, stirring my spoon around in the stew I'm eating. "Can we talk about something else?"

"How about this huge bruise on you have here," Luna suggests, rolling up the sleeve on my left arm to show a black and blue bruise on my forearm. Joonho got a little upset with me last night when we ran out of food. I don't know why he's complaining he's been eating all of it. I've barely been eating the last few days because he's devouring it all when he's sitting on his lazy, drunken at home. My neighbor, bless her heart, dropped off a basket of bread and muffins she'd made for us after I helped her with her groceries one evening. However, even those are starting to run low, coutesy of Joonho, and I had to spend some of the money I had left in my account to get more food. The worst of it is that I don't get paid until next week.

"It's nothing," I answer quickly, rolling my sleeve down. Luna raises an eyebrow at me and Amber has a worried expression on her face.

"You have a boyfriend, right?" Amber asks me. I nod. "Did he...did he do this to you?" Right as I'm about to dogde the question a guy comes into the restaurant and I go to take his order to avoid the question. As I approach the tall, brown haired, fashionable, and dare I say very handsome, customer I conclude that the less people that know about my home life, the better.

Joonho has eaten the last of the muffin basket and there's barely anymore food left by Friday morning. I haven't eaten in the last two days. I try not to let it show at work because the last thing I need is people losing sleep over something they really don't have buisness losing sleep over.

"Hey," a husky voice says from behind me as I stay behind to close the restaurant Friday night. I turn around to see Kyungsoo standing in the doorway, slipping on a wool, winter coat. We haven't talked since Amber dragged me into his office earlier that week. "How'd the first week go?"

"Uh, good," I answer finishing wiping off the counter that they set finished orders on. I curse myself when my stomach growls loudly. He chuckles from behind me.

"Someone's hungry," he states. I hear shuffling behind me followed by the sounds of pots and pans being set on the counter. I look to see Kyungsoo has taken off his jacket and getting some vegetables and meat from the refrigerator. I raise an eyebrow at him as he gets out knives to chop up the vegetables and fires up the grill.

"What are you doing?" I ask him, pausing in my cleaning.

"I've known you long enough to know when you haven't been eating well." I open my mouth to argue. "And you've known me long enough to know that I never lose an argument." I narrow my eyes at him as I sit down at the counter and watch him cut up the vegetables.

"I let you win, just for the record." He laughs.

"All the time?" I roll my eyes as he continues to laugh and make dinner. We end up catching up as he makes dinner, a simple stew with pork, about what we've been up to the last couple years. It's not awkward at all between us, it almost feels like no time has passed since we last saw each other. He tells me about the model that he's seeing and I tell him a little bit about Joonho because come on...he's dating a model and I'm dating a drunken ex-football player.

The dinner Kyungsoo made me is the best I've eaten in the last couple weeks and the best I eat all weekend. Due to some mints in my purse and sheer will power, I'm able to make it until I go shopping Sunday afternoon.

"You've been slacking on the cooking," Joonho tells me as I'm home that evening and putting the groceries away.

"I have a job," I say with a slight edge in my voice. "I've been tired lately. Why don't you cook?" He takes a swig out of a beer that's materialized out of nowhere and shrugs.

"It's the woman's duty to feed the man," he states simply. I roll my eyes, happy he's not facing me.

"It's also the man's duty to have the job, in a stereotypical world," I mutter to myself. "But look where that's landed us."

"Excuse me?" I sigh and turn around to finally face him. He's starting to go soft since he's not working out anymore. His hard muscles are softened to a slightly toned build that still gives him a lean appearance; but he doesn't look like the athlete I met almost over a year ago.

"It'd really help me out if you got a job. You're hear all day and I can only support us by myself for so long-" Smack! And I'm on the floor, trying not to let the tears that prickle at the corner of my eyes spill over.

"You think just because you work you can start mouthing off?!" He grabs me roughly by my arm and pulls me to my feet.

"I'm just saying you can help," I argue, slightly louder than I possibly should have. He throws me to the kitchen floor, my head connecting painfully with the kitchen counter on the way down. He stomps away as I feel something trickle down the side of my cheek.

I can barely afford the ER visit I have to make that night and I have to get a couple stiches because of the gash that the sharp kitchen corner left me. I go into work with a hat to cover up my black eye and the stitches near my hairline. I don't need any questions from anyone today and I'm not in the mood to answer them. I sit at the back of the restaurant while there's a lull in business and keep to myself. Out of nowehere somone pulls my hat off my head, giggling. Amber's eyes widen when I suddenly turn on her and before I know it I'm being pulled into Kyungsoo's office.

"Explain," she demands as Kyungsoo's eyes widen as he sees my face. I didn't eat breakfast this morning and the break neck speed she pulled me to his office is a little more than dizzying. I guess it's very dizzying because soon Kyungsoo is catching me from falling to the ground.

"Amber, grab my keys," he tells her as he holds me up. "And tell Yixing to that I'm taking the rest of the day off."

Kyungsoo now lives in a penthouse apartment in the busy, downtown part of the city. He lays me on the couch and is fluttering around the apartment as I curl up in a ball. He's back ten minutes later with pain killers and after that I drift to sleep...

"Soo, I'm really-achoo!- not sick," I tell him as he lays me down on the couch after carrying me inside. He kisses the top of my forehead and gives me a warm smile.

"I told you to use an umbrella when it's raining so you don't get sick," he scolds with a grin. "And not to wear flip flops."

"It was warm out!" Kyungsoo laughs and just shakes his head. I grab his hand as he gets up to leave. "Stay here with me."

"I'm just going to get you some medicine-" I shake my head. "Okay." He grabs a blanket before laying down on the couch with me, wrapping us up in the thick, flannel. I bury my head in his chest, breathing in the scent that is uniquely Kyungsoo. Cinnamon shampoo, freshly brewed coffee from working at Xiumin's coffeehouse and the cologne I got him for his birthday this year. I muffle a cough into his chest and I hear, more like feel, Kyungsoo sigh.

"You need some medicine," he tells me and I snuggle in closer to him.

"You're too caring sometimes," I laugh. "But that's one of the things I love about you."

"Oddly one of the things I love about you is your stubbornness," he chuckles, but nonetheless pulls me closer to him. "Even if I know that it's going to get you in trouble one day." I smile as he tightens his arms around me and the warmth of his embrace and the smell of the cinnamon, coffee and cologne is almost enough to lull me to sleep.

"Soo?"

"Hm?"

"Sing me something." He's quiet, thinking of something to sing. Honestly, he could sing the alphabet and I'll fall asleep because his low, smooth voice is incredibly soothing to listen to.

"Boiji anneun neol chajeuryeogo aesseuda," he begins to sing. "Deulliji annneun neol deureuryeo aesseuda..."

 

I wake with a dull pain in my chest as all the memories of Kyungsoo and I cuddling together on this very couch, that I'm surprised he didn't get rid of when he moved, come flooding back to me. Joonho has never been one for lots of affection, even when it's just the two of us at home. I sit up when I smell food being cooked in the kitchen, causing my stomach to grumble and that's when I remember that I've barely eaten the last couple days. On shaky legs, I walk over to the kitchen table and sit down.

"Feeling better?" he asks me, setting down a full breakfast of pancakes, eggs and sausage right in front of me. "Breakfast was the fastet thing to cook while you napped." I nod.

"Uh, yeah I feel fine I guess," I answer as he takes a seat across from me at the table. I eat in silence as he sips some coffee. I feel my phone vibrate and I bit my lip when I see it's Joonho that's calling me. What would he be calling me about in the middle of the day?

"Hey," I greet into the phone.

"I need some money," he tells me without a greeting.

"I used the last of my money on groceries," I tell him, setting down my fork as I feel my head start throbbing.

"Don't you have a job?"

"I don't get paid until Friday-"

"What good will that do me?!" He sighs. "You're so useless, why do I keep you around?" The phone clicks and he's gone. I put my phone down on the table and stab at my food with more force then necessary. I eat in silence and dump my plate in the sink.

"Thanks for breakfast," I tell Kyungsoo. "Or brunch. I have to go-"

"Wait!" he exclaims as I'm heading towards the door. I turn around to see him walking towards me with that concerned look in his eyes that always made my heart break slightly for making him worry so much. "You should stay here." I shake my head. "Just for a few days, until your injuries clear up."

"You're my ex, Kyungsoo," I point out. "He'd kill me if he found out." His eyes widen and I realize just how bad a choice of words that is in my situation. "Not literally-just-he-it's a bad idea!"

"Then I'll call Amber! Just...don't go back there." I sigh, running a frustrated hand through my hair. This is why I tried to hide this so then I didn't have a whole bunch of people involved like there's going to be now. "Promise me."

"I promise," I sigh. Before I know what's happening, he's pulling me into a hug. Kyungsoo's warm and has a tighter hold on me than I remember. He must be working out. I rest my chin on his shoulder and revel in the feeling of being held for the first time in a while and even somewhat....safe.