Work Text:
She was singing in the kitchen, pushing food around on the oil-covered pan. Jumin watched her from the bar in the kitchen, propped up on one of the stools, pretending to work. He had his laptop open, a pen in his hand as he idly signed some paperwork. But his eyes never left her, watching as she added something new to the pan, her off-key melody sliding seamlessly into another.
She hissed in annoyance as she looked at the recipe propped open on the counter next to her, charcoal smoke curling up from the pan.
What perhaps amused him most was how she wasn’t good at cooking. Nearly everything she’d tried making in the years since he’d known her, since he’d married her, always ended up a little bit wrong. A little too crunchy and hard. The cakes she made would be a little too sweet, the vegetables she cooked a little too stringy. Coffee she brewed would be too sharp, the tea she steeped too bitter.
She hated it too, often griping as she pulled out their measuring cups and the cutting boards.
And yet she kept trying, every day returning to the kitchen with a new recipe in her hands.
Jumin set his pen aside, watching her carefully measure something out into a spoon and dump it into the pan, coughing as steam billowed into her face.
“Love,” he said, drawing her gaze towards him.
She tipped her head to the side, pushing back her unbound hair. “What is it?”
“Why do you keep trying to cook?” He asked. “You don’t like it, and we have a chef that can easily prepare anything you want.”
She hummed, setting her spoon aside and making her way towards him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding his gaze as she responded.
“Because I like making things for you. I want to make your favourite meals and your favourite teas. I want to see you smile when I make something for you.”
“Even though you hate doing it?”
She pressed her lips to his brow. “Your smile is worth the turmoil.”
Complex. She was a little complex. To be willing to do something she so disliked, if only for him.
He smiled as he felt her lips brush against his, even as the smell of smoke and burning food filled the apartment.
And he was utterly enchanted by her.