Stray Kids Comfort Collection

3. Felix: Surprise!!

"Okay, I'll be over in about an hour." Felix's voice chirped excitedly from the other side of the phone call. "See you soon!"

I hung up the phone after saying goodbye and flopped back onto my bed, a happy grin painted across my face. Within a few seconds, the pure joy of being on the receiving end of Felix's affections and attentions overwhelmed my whole being, and I dissolved into incoherent squeals while kicking my legs and thrashing about on top my bed. Once I felt the surge of happy chemicals begin to wane, I relaxed again and giggled to myself.

"He's coming to spend the evening with me." I smiled widely. "Felix is coming here to spend time with me." I got up and looked at myself in the vanity mirror near my closet door and pointed at my reflection. "He wants to be here with you." With a few hops and skips, once I scooted myself off the bed, I made my way out of the master bedroom of my apartment and into the kitchen to make some sweet tea like I had it when I worked in the United States.

Transferring to South Korea and then specifically into Seoul had been the best life change I'd ever made. I loved being able to relocate countries with my job. Otherwise, I would have never met Felix. He was making everything about this relocation worth it.

I kept moving around my apartment to kill time by picking up any clutter and putting away things that I had been procrastinating on. Eventually, Felix showed up bearing gifts in the form of my favorite gimbap, snacks, some face masks, and a plastic container with something dark inside.

He leaned over to plant a quick kiss on my lips, "I brought snacks... and..." He brought the container around to thrust it into my hands with a toothy grin. "These!"

My eyes got big as my hands hurriedly popped the lid off. The decadent scent of brownies wafted up from the container. I inhaled deeply and looked closely at the contents.

"Are these salted caramel brownies?" My jaw hung open in surprise.

He nodded vigorously. "Yes! I remembered you saying how much you love salted caramel things, so I tweaked my recipe to make these for you."

I tried to control my energy even though it was itching to explode out of me in chaotic dancing or some equally sporadic movement. "I can't wait to try them! Thank you, Felix. You're the sweetest!" With my free hand, I reached around him and hugged him.

He hugged me back and then let go to bring the food to the kitchen. I followed behind him, pointing to the fridge and letting him know I made sweet tea for us. His face lit up. I had made it for him the last time he was here, which was weeks ago before he had a profusion of events on his schedule, and he absolutely fell in love with it. He made a giddy sound and dropped everything to go fix himself a glass. I couldn't help but laugh.

"So, what do you have on your mind? A movie, board game, cards, video games?" I asked, unwrapping the gimbap and shoving a piece in my mouth. My hands and shoulders rose and began to move in my happy food dance. His throaty chuckle from near the fridge made me turn around and smile at him, then I opened my mouth and showed him the food I was chewing.

"You're so gross!!" He yelled and shielded his eyes. "Aaah!"

I grinned back at him while I finished chewing my food—mouth closed, of course. "Well?"

"Video games first?"

I nodded vigorously and grabbed a plate for the gimbap. Once we moved all the food and our drinks to the coffee table, we got situated on the coach and signed in to our current favorite team game to play together. We laughed and talked smack to each other, tried to sabotage each other occasionally in the game, snacked and finished off the gimbap and tea.

After quite a few rousing rounds, where I swear my neighbors were going to knock on my door at any point when we got rowdy, we turned the game off and switched on a movie we'd both seen already. I'd grabbed a bottle of wine I thought would go really well with the brownies. I poured us each a glass while he opened the container again. The luscious smell coated the entire room in seconds, and my mouth was immediately watering. I couldn't wait to try this new recipe. Sitting down on the couch next to him, I handed him his glass of wine. He in turn broke off a chunk of one of the brownies and fed it to me. It was gooey and buttery from the caramel, and chocolatey sweet, crowned with that crunchy, flaky Korean salt. My eyes almost rolled into the back of my head, and I let out the most inappropriate moan between us.