Housewife

Before I knew it, I was sitting down in front of Luhan’s friends with a rather exaggerated smile on my face while I wore a frilly pink apron (that for some reason, Luhan had) because apparently Luhan pictured that housewives wore aprons all the time. Wearing home slippers and completing my look, I was all set by the time they filed into the room. I expected maybe three friends of his to come, but not ten. Ten. The kid with the parrot hair named Oh Sehun was the first one who came through the door after pounding on Luhan’s door screaming, “Hyung, hyung!”

“So she’s your fiancée?” Kris (AKA mad-eyebrows) questioned.

“Yes.” Luhan awkwardly readjusted his position next to me on the loveseat. “Yes, she is.”

“Ha. For a second I thought you were lying, to be honest,” Baekhyun confessed, sipping on the orange juice that I had to personally hand out to them in glasses that were mismatched. One of them had to drink out of a sippy cup from Luhan’s low supply of glassware, except the lid was taken off the sippy cup to disguise that fact.

Luhan laughed. “Of course not!”

“But dude, Sora and I would make a better couple— OW!”

“Shut up Jongdae, she’s getting married.”

“Anyway,” Luhan dusted something off of his shirt, “Sora.” He turned to me with a sugar-coated smile. “I mean... Honey, you should start on making lunch. You said you were going to make the soup, remember?”

I panicked as everyone waited for my reply with several stares directed to me. Leaning against Luhan, I whispered, “I don’t know how to cook.”

He gave me a strange look discreetly. “What kind of housewife can’t cook?”

“I’m not a real housewife, idiot,” I hissed.

Luhan cleared his throat, conscious that everyone that was gathered in his living room was watching us. “Just go, please. Make something up. You’re a woman so it’s probably in your blood to cook good things, right?” he whispered.

Getting up to my feet reluctantly and flashing everyone a smile, I chose to ignore his ist comment as I scurried away to the kitchen. Not like I had much of a choice without causing a scene and blurting the secret. I stood next to his marble island table for a while without having a clue of what to do next before I spotted a cookbook on top of old newspapers. Dusting the thing off to find the soup section, I figured that Luhan hadn’t touched the book in ages and it was probably an old gift to him that he just obviously put to waste judging from all the frozen pizza living in his freezer.

Running a finger down the contents, I wondered why there were so many different kinds of soup. Carrot and dill, celery root with parsnip chips, cheddar chilli... Picking the chunky vegetable barley soup, I managed to find all of the ingredients lying around and followed the instructions to my best effort. Foods class from all the way in high school just had to come in handy now.

I was stuck in the kitchen for what seemed like forever while the only sound I could hear from the living room was Luhan and his friends’ rowdy laughs while they caught up with each other. Once I heard that Tao had his slapped in the locker rooms while he was showering during his high school days and still had yet to find the culprit, I decided to tune out of their conversation with a shake of my head. I was partially glad about being stuck in the kitchen because it meant I didn’t have to sit in front of them and lie about some engagement and hear Luhan call me “honey” or “sweetie” because it gave me shivers.

“Sora!” I heard Chanyeol’s still-surprisingly deep voice call from the living room. Seriously, that guy’s face didn’t ratio out to his voice properly. “What are you doing? Why don’t you sit with us here?”

I’d been staring at the pot’s lid for ten minutes. “Umm, I’m letting this thing simmer.”

“Soup takes a while to simmer. Come sit with us,” Kyungsoo offered.

Deciding for a second, I took a deep breath and left the kitchen. I made my way to my seat beside Luhan on the loveseat. I felt like everyone’s attention was shifted to the both of us again as Luhan leaned on the armrest while I leaned on the other, completely opposite from each other.

“You two met in Jeju?” Tao asked.

We both nodded in sync.

Minseok was suddenly giggling to himself despite the atmosphere which had tensed a bit. “Are either one of you sick? I thought Luhan was the kind of guy that liked skinship.” He noticed the twenty inches of space between us.

He scratched his neck. “We’re not sick, so...” Luhan gave me what looked like an apologetic smile before scooting closer beside me and carefully slinging an arm around my shoulders. Afraid of looking too stiff, I leaned unto him. The sudden warmth from Luhan made me self-aware of everything he was doing. I could feel his body shake every time he laughed and his every intake of breath that made his chest rise and fall.

“Well anyway, how’s it going at work?” Junmyeon asked, pushing Tao’s legs off of him when he tried to lie horizontally on the couch across from us.

Chanyeol grinned. “Do you still have that aggressive boss? Bro, how are you not murdered by now?”

My left eye twitched. Aggressive... boss...

Luhan stiffened beside me, feeling his safety decrease by a significant amount by sitting so close to me—the apparently aggressive boss. He forced a laugh. “Very funny guys. When did I ever say that?”

“You said last week on the phone—”

Luhan cut him off. “Wow, I can smell the soup already. Good job.” He hugged me sideways.

“No problem at all, hun.” Keeping a straight face, I managed to hide a hand between us and then pinched the skin on his waist. It caused Luhan to yelp suddenly.

The boys stared at him oddly. “Are you okay?”

He kept his jaw locked to avoid having a scream escape his mouth. “Mm-hm.”

Sehun abruptly stood up from the couch. “I need to pee,” he announced. “Where’s your bathroom?”

“Upstairs on the left.”

“Thanks.” Stepping over sets of feet, Sehun hurried up the staircase.

Minseok launched into a story. “There’s always this freaking cat that does its business on my front lawn, and I swear I’ve never wanted to strangle an animal more in the life—”

“Hyung!” Sehun’s voice came from upstairs. He leaned over the banister to look down on us. “I opened the wrong room because I thought it was the bathroom, and I think it’s your bedroom... But how the heck do you and Sora share that small b