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“A… personal chef?”
Sanha is utterly confused. It shouldn’t be such a surprise, because he’s confused about most things on a daily basis, but his roommate was standing in front of him with a guy wearing an apron that said “kiss the cook” and Sanha isn’t quite sure how to process the situation.
He’s not sure why Jinwoo hired him a personal chef when Eunwoo came over every other day to make them food and flirt with Jinwoo. He thought they had a good thing going with that. Why did he suddenly need a personal chef?
“Is this because you’re asking Eunwoo on a date and he’s not going to be able to cook me food anymore because you guys are just going to be busy with each other?” Sanha asks. The guy snorts, and Jinwoo’s face flushes.
“It’s for your birthday, Sanha. You know, that thing that’s on Wednesday?” Sanha squints at him for a second. He doesn’t want to seem stupid that he forgot his own birthday, but there’s no way out of it. Jinwoo caught him and the guy that was apparently supposed to be his personal chef was already seeing how dumb Sanha could be.
It was embarrassing, but hopefully he could make up for it later with aegyo. Everyone forgot how stupid he could be when they saw how cute he was.
“Okay, maybe I did forget, but why a personal chef? Why not like, a new oven? You know ever since Myungjun was over and tried cooking-
“You mean since you and Myungjun tried cooking.” Sanha is this close to yelling at Jinwoo, but they have a guest. He has to look mildly presentable. He ignores Jinwoo’s correction and continues.
“Why a personal chef? How long will he be my personal chef? Is he even good at cooking?”
“I hope so.” Sanha’s eyes drift over to the guy who just spoke up. He’s awfully quiet compared to Sanha, which makes Sanha sort of nervous because if the guy was supposed to be his personal chef, that meant they’d have to talk at every meal (plus snack; Sanha couldn’t just not go without snack) and this guy didn’t seem like much of a talker.
“…how long is he going to be my personal chef?” Sanha asks, placing his eyes back on Jinwoo. Jinwoo smiles at him.
“The whole week.”
-
Day one is too quiet. Sanha wakes up to the smell of something cooking, and it’s nice because he’s never woken up to the smell of food, but the moment he sits down to eat after his shower, everything is awkward.
Minhyuk (Sanha learned his name after asking him seven times that morning) stares at him the entire time he eats, and his answers to Sanha’s questions are always one word. Sanha can’t take the silence. He’s a naturally loud and boisterous person, even in the mornings, but it felt like he was alone talking to a rock while he ate delicious food.
At lunch, when Minhyuk comes around, Sanha contemplates firing him. He’s not sure if he can fire a guy he didn’t hire, but he’s ready to try.
Of course though, when Minhyuk places a bag of snacks in front of Sanha’s face telling him that “here’s something to hold you over while I make lunch” Sanha can’t find it in his heart to say anything because the snacks smell really good.
Sanha decides that tomorrow he’ll fire Minhyuk. Definitely.
-
Day two passes with zero talking but Minhyuk makes a meal for lunch that reminds Sanha of his mom’s cooking and once again Sanha can’t find it in himself to tell Minhyuk to leave. Jinwoo hasn’t come home for almost two days, which should worry Sanha but he really can’t find it in himself to care about anything else besides Minhyuk and his cooking. Minhyuk makes Sanha’s favorite thing in the world, food, so caring about anything else really isn’t on his priority list.
So, that’s what he focuses on. Minhyuk and the way his hands work in the kitchen, the way they serve him food and the way they tap on the table as Minhyuk eats with him for once.
It feels weirdly domestic, besides the part where Minhyuk doesn’t talk.
Sanha finally decides he won’t fire Minhyuk, he’ll just work with him. He’ll work on his conversational skills and they’ll become best friends.
It’s a solid plan.
-
Day three Sanha wakes up to food but no Minhyuk. He can’t help but feel a little disappointed, because he wanted to start talking as soon as possible and start off this friendship.
He sits down at the kitchen table and stares at the food before beginning to eat. He doesn’t have class today, so he decides after this he’ll go back to sleep. And then he could start off the day right by becoming friends with Minhyuk.
When Sanha finishes his food, he picks up his plates so he can put them in the sink, and underneath he finds a note. The smile that spreads across his face is absolutely unnecessary, but there it is as he picks up the note.
Running late so couldn’t stick around. See you at lunch! -Minhyuk
Sanha practically bounces around as he puts his dishes in the sink, turns off the lights and climbs back into bed. He was excited to see Minhyuk again, because then they’ll become friends and not only that maybe Minhyuk could come around even after their week together was up and continue to cook for Sanha.
It’d be the best.
Sanha falls asleep thinking about what Minhyuk will make him for lunch. He hopes it’s as good as yesterday’s lunch.
He wakes up to Minhyuk shaking him awake, telling him that his lunch was ready. Sanha doesn’t want to admit it’s a nice voice to wake up to.
Sanha drags himself out of bed for the second time that day and heads to the kitchen, surprised when he sees someone else sitting at his kitchen table that isn’t Jinwoo or himself. He squints at this new guy as he makes his way to his seat.
Minhyuk seems to notice the look because he laughs a little (a laugh that makes Sanha’s chest hurt) and hits the guy in the shoulder.
“Sanha, this is Moon Bin. We have to go back to practice right after this so I figured he could hang out for a little bit while I made you food. Is that okay?” Sanha takes his seat and stares at Moon Bin. He’s putting a dent into his plans of making friends with Minhyuk, so he kind of hates him right now. But for Minhyuk, he’ll pretend it’s okay.
“Yeah, that’s fine. Practice for what?”
“Our dance team. That’s why I couldn’t stick around this morning we’ve been practicing all day,” Minhyuk answers. Sanha taps the table as he waits patiently for the food Minhyuk is serving today. He wonders if Minhyuk is on break right now, and if he is, he feels bad for having him prepare food for Sanha when he could be eating his own food.
“You should eat too. You’re probably on lunch break, right?”
“It’s fine. Bin and I are going to get food after this.”
“…That sounds dumb. You should just make eat your own food and save yourself the money,” Sanha says. Bin laughs at him.
“I like this kid. He says it how it is.” He turns to Sanha with a bright smile on his face, one that would probably take anyone’s breath away. Not Sanha’s though. He’d rather have someone else take his breath away. “I told him that same thing, but he was all “no, Bin. The food is for Sanha only.” I’m his best friend and he never feeds me like he does you.”
“I get paid for this. I’d be losing money if I made you food.”
Sanha snorts at that. Moon Bin must be a big eater if that was the case. Sanha was too, but he’s pretty sure Jinwoo is footing the bill for the groceries and Minhyuk’s services, so he can eat all the food he wants.
“Oh, speaking of food, in my bag there’s a thing of cookies for you. Make sure you don’t give any to Bin he’ll eat them all.”
Sanha happily promises he won’t give any to Bin and gets up to get the container of cookies from Minhyuk’s bag. He pulls it out and sees another note on top.
Don’t eat them all in one sitting. -Minhyuk
Sanha smiles at the note, but he makes no promises to it or Minhyuk. He couldn’t just not eat them all in one sitting. He was going to have a movie marathon later, which means those cookies were going to be goners.
In the meantime, though, he takes his seat back at the kitchen table and starts eating the food that Minhyuk has finally placed in front of him.
Later, when Minhyuk came back to make him dinner, he’d continue talking with Minhyuk.
Best friends. They were going to be best friends.
-
Day four Sanha doesn’t have the time to eat breakfast. He expects to be able to eat lunch, but that doesn’t happen either. He’s being pulled left and right by school and he has Jinwoo text Minhyuk that he won’t make it for lunch. He wants to because all he’s eaten today is a granola bar one of his friends gave him and he knows eating Minhyuk’s food would make his day more than anything.
Maybe even being able to text him himself would also make his day, but he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself. They barely had a friendship as it was.
Sanha gets a text back from Jinwoo that Minhyuk needs him to be there for dinner, so Sanha does his best to make it back when dinner time comes around. Dinner time was always the best meal Minhyuk made anyways.
He arrives back at his apartment, opening his door and quickly taking off his shoes. He yells into the apartment, hoping that Minhyuk will respond. When he doesn’t get anything, he ventures further until he finds himself in the kitchen.
Minhyuk is standing there, a soft smile on his face and a cake in his hands.
Sanha is pretty sure his birthday isn’t today (he didn’t forget again, he knows that much) so he’s very confused why Minhyuk is standing there.
“…Cake for dinner?” Sanha asks. “I’m not eleven, Minhyuk hyung.”
“No, there’s more food in the living room but, I won’t be able to cook for you tomorrow so I made a cake today. I figured we could celebrate together.”
Sanha is touched at the gesture, but quickly forgets about it because Minhyuk won’t be coming around tomorrow.
“You won’t be here tomorrow?”
“Our dance team is going to a competition all day tomorrow.” Minhyuk walks around the counter to where Sanha is standing and starts singing him happy birthday. Sanha smiles as he joins in, but he can’t help but feel sad that he won’t get to see Minhyuk tomorrow. It would’ve been nice to have one of his meals on his birthday.
“Make a wish, Sanha.”
Sanha wishes that by the end of this, Minhyuk won’t leave like he’s expected to.
-
Day five Sanha spends in a terrible mood. He wakes up to Eunwoo and Jinwoo making breakfast together in the kitchen. They look like an actual couple finally, and even though Sanha is happy for them, he’s still annoyed because he wanted to wake up to Minhyuk.
Lunch isn’t any better. He spends it with his school friends and even though they give him cake, it isn’t as good as the cake Minhyuk made the night before.
Dinner is the worst. He goes to his parent’s house and his mom makes him a feast fit only for her “little prince” but all it does is remind him of Minhyuk’s food.
Sanha hates his birthday, because all he can think about is Minhyuk this and Minhyuk that. It reminds him of when he had a crush on Eunwoo when they first met.
Sanha also hates that he realizes he has a crush on Minhyuk because Minhyuk isn’t here to wish him happy birthday or to make him food or to smile at Sanha like he did the night before while they ate Sanha’s “birthday dinner” together.
He hates it and he hates that he knows at the end of the week, his crush is going to leave.
They were supposed to be best friends, and now Sanha isn’t even going to get that.
-
Day six Sanha wakes up to Minhyuk shaking him awake again. Sanha feels his heart swell at the sight of him, because he has this cute smile on his face and Sanha wants to wake up to that smile every morning.
“Hey, I made breakfast.” Sanha nods his head and follows Minhyuk to the kitchen, taking his usual place at the kitchen table. Minhyuk places a few plates in front of his face, but Sanha isn’t focusing on them. He stares at Minhyuk, wondering how long he can get away with staring at him until it gets weird.
Minhyuk is cute. Minhyuk hums to himself while he serves Sanha, and it’s cute. He explains every piece of food he’s made, and it’s cute. Minhyuk is just so ridiculously cute.
Sanha thinks they’d be a good match, because Sanha is told often he’s really cute too. They could be cute together.
“Oh, by the way...” Sanha blinks a few time as he continues to stare at Minhyuk. Minhyuk smiles nervously and sits down next to Sanha, tapping his fingers on the tabletop.
“This is probably dumb to ask but, I’m free all day today if… uh. Maybe you wanted to hang out.”
Sanha isn’t sure he’s heard correctly. Minhyuk was free? He wanted to hang out? With Sanha?
Did Minhyuk wants to be friends too? Was that what it was?
Not that Sanha wanted to be friends anymore really, but, he could work his way up to being more than friends. He could totally do that.
“I’m free too. We can hang out.” Sanha is lying. He has a class at two, but if Minhyuk wanted to hang out, they were going to hang out.
“Okay.”
“I have video games if you want to play. Or board games. Or we could just watch T.V all day or even go outside. My mom says going outside is good for you. I don’t usually listen though-
“Anything is fine with me, Sanha,” Minhyuk interrupts. He has that soft smile on his face, and Sanha smiles back. Anything was fine with him, too.
-
Sanha is sitting in the living room when Minhyuk is serving him lunch. They’ve had a good day together so far. They caught up on a drama they were both into, Sanha kicked his butt in Mario Kart once (Minhyuk kicked his butt the other nineteen times) and Sanha swears he’s gotten Minhyuk to open up more.
He still speaks in one word replies a lot, but instead of the conversation ending it continues on and Sanha is happy.
Compared to yesterday, at least.
At the moment, they’re watching the news to see if anything big has happened while they’ve stayed inside. Minhyuk said it was good to watch the news when you were preparing food, because then you wouldn’t get as distracted if something else was playing.
Sanha is completely bored, but it’s for Minhyuk so he lets it play.
Minhyuk comes in with a tray of food and a few bowls, and he starts to portion out the food to Sanha, leaving the rest to himself. Sanha happily waits.
“Jail is no fun, I’ll tell you that.” Minhyuk looks serious as he stares down at the rice he’s putting into Sanha’s bowl, and Sanha looks worried. He doesn’t look like he’d ever been to jail. He hopes he’s never been to jail either. Sanha doesn’t want Minhyuk to turn out to be dangerous or something.
“Oh. You’ve been?” Sanha asks.
“Once,” Minhyuk pauses, setting the bowl on the table. “In Monopoly.”
Sanha wants to roll his eyes, but instead he just takes the bowl of rice, thanks Minhyuk and tries not to feel stupid. Minhyuk was like a really well behaved dog, quiet and only got excited when he was Sanha was yelling at him during Mario Kart; no way he’d go to jail.
“It’s a tough world out in Monopoly.”
“Oh my god, Minhyuk.”
“Have you ever been?”
“Of course not. I’m good at Monopoly,” Sanha says. He’s lying. He’s only played once and that was with Jinwoo when he was twelve. All he remembers is Jinwoo won and Sanha ended up tossing the board onto the floor.
“I’d like to take you up on that challenge,” Minhyuk says. Sanha shoves some rice into his mouth and agrees. Sanha never backed out of a challenge.
The only problem is that Sanha is pretty sure they don’t have Monopoly in their apartment. Which means they can’t exactly play.
He tells Minhyuk this, and Minhyuk frowns.
“…okay. Another time. Back to Mario Kart instead. Uh. After you eat though.”
“You eat too,” Sanha tells him. Minhyuk smiles and begins to eat.
-
At three in the morning, Sanha wakes up. He rubs at his eyes and tries moving but there’s a weight on his shoulder. He looks at whatever it is only to see Minhyuk, peacefully sleeping next to Sanha.
Sanha forgets moving and focuses on remembering how they ended up there on the couch together. He remembers getting his butt kicked again in Mario Kart seven more times after lunch, and then he remembers they started another drama. He remembers stopping it when dinner came around, and then afterwards they started it up again.
He remembers getting sleepy, but he doesn’t remember getting blankets or shutting the T.V off. He also doesn’t remember Minhyuk sitting this close to him, but at the same time he doesn’t care.
It’s nice being this close to Minhyuk. Minhyuk has an arm draped over Sanha’s middle and Sanha can’t be bothered to move it. He can’t be bothered to wake Minhyuk and send him away either.
So, he closes his eyes and shifts his head a little until it’s rested against Minhyuk’s. He mumbles out a “goodnight, Minhyuk” before drifting off to sleep again.
He hopes he dreams of Minhyuk.
-
Day seven starts off at noon when Sanha wakes up again. He’s alone this time, but he can smell food which means Minhyuk is still there.
He stands up, stretches for a second and then makes his way to the kitchen, dragging the blanket he was using last night with him.
Minhyuk is there, moving around the kitchen quickly. He looks like he’s in a rush, so Sanha sits at the kitchen table in his usual seat and watches Minhyuk work his magic.
“Oh, Sanha, hey.” Minhyuk smiles when he finally notices Sanha and he smiles back sleepily. “I have class in twenty minutes. I have to leave right after this. I’ll be back for dinner though.”
“That’s okay. I have class in a couple hours too.”
Minhyuk turns back to the food, and it’s quiet. Sanha shifts in his seat, messing with the hem of the blanket. The silence is awkward if he’s honest, and Sanha is pretty sure he knows why.
It’s the last day that Minhyuk has to stick around for, last day he has to come to Sanha’s place to make him food, last day until their friendship ends and Sanha’s heart breaks a little.
He doesn’t want Minhyuk to stop coming around, because even if Minhyuk was quiet in the beginning, he’s opening it up more and he talks more and he smiles more and Sanha doesn’t want to miss his smile. He wants to be able to see it every day.
But, now that he thinks about it, Minhyuk was just here because he was being paid for the week. He probably didn’t even want to come back after today was over. He could move on with his life and stop having to interrupt it just so he could make Sanha food.
Sanha blinks up to see Minhyuk placing food in front of him, and then he’s saying that he hopes Sanha enjoys the food, and then he’s saying goodbye. Sanha watches him walk out of the kitchen, and a few seconds later he hears the door open and then close.
Sanha figures he should eat, but he doesn’t have much of an appetite knowing that Minhyuk is going to come back through that door only one more time. He knows the food is going to be good, but, it’d be better if Minhyuk was eating with him.
He stands up from the table and walks out of the kitchen, figuring maybe if he takes his mind off of it for a few minutes he can come back to the food.
However, he hears the door being opened again and he turns around to see Minhyuk standing there, out of breath and sweating. Sanha thinks he might’ve sprinted back here. Maybe he forgot his phone.
“Minhyuk? Did you forget something?” Minhyuk shakes his head and Sanha tilts his own in confusion.
“This is probably stupid to ask but, can I keep coming back after today is over?”
“Huh?”
“Today is… It’s the last day but I… I want to keep coming back.”
Sanha opens his mouth to say something, but he’s kind of speechless. Minhyuk wants to keep coming back. Minhyuk wants to come back even though today is supposed to be their last day together.
“You want to come back?” Minhyuk nods. Sanha smiles and walks forward to him, bouncing a little because he’s unbelievingly happy about it.
“Why’s that?” Sanha asks. Minhyuk’s face flushes, and Sanha hopes that’s a good sign.
“I like you and you make me happy. I don’t think I should let that slip out of my life.”
Sanha wants to kiss him. He wants to grab his hand and swing it back and forth in happiness, so he reaches for his hand so he can do just that.
But, Minhyuk steps back and laughs a little.
“After class, though. I don’t think I’m going to be able to leave if I stay now.”
“Then stay.” Sanha reaches again, but Minhyuk keeps stepping backwards until his hand is on the handle and he’s opening the door. He quickly steps out of it and peeks in to smile at Sanha.
“I will stay the second class is over. I promise.”
Sanha crosses his arms and pouts cutely, hoping maybe he can make Minhyuk stay. Minhyuk laughs again.
“I promise I’ll be back.”
“Promise, promise?”
“Promise, promise.”