Sweetheart (J.HS)

Chapter 5

Y/N reached her apartment and threw her shoes on the floor of her living room. She busied herself with her usual evening routine of writing essays and reading books for college. Her desk would be piled up of dictionaries and thesauruses while her eyes would be stuck on the screen of her laptop for hours and hours. Her mind never drifted off work once she started it. After editing one of her many essays, Y/N finally closed her laptop and plugged it in for charging. Just like the laptop, her battery had drained because of the excessive usage of her mind. But somehow, she still felt like she could do more of it. Literature was hard, but maybe she liked the fact that it was hard.

Her dinner consisted of spicy ramen and not soon after that her eyelids started clutching shut. She rubbed her eyes filled with salty tears of sleep and yawned. Y/N went inside her bedroom and buried herself inside the while blankets, welcoming the sleep that was taking over her.

Five minutes. Five minutes of sleep was all she got when a sudden yell made her eyes snap open and forced her to focus on her blurry vision, another yell startling her. She got up from her bed looked around, and went to her kitchen to press her ear against the wall. A yelp that sounded a lot like a crow's echoed through the thin wall of the kitchen, causing Y/N to snatch her ear back.

What the -?

Then the sound of intense sizzling reached Y/N's ears, followed by a higher pitched yelp.

Oh god no! It's a fire!

Y/N put on her pink home slippers, ran out her apartment and banged on Hoseok's door. "OPEN UP!" she yelled, "PUT WATER, THAT SHOU –" Y/N finished typing the pass code to Hoseok's apartment and the door opened with a jingle. She crashed into the apartment and hurried into the kitchen, just to see her neighbor struggling to cook an omelet.

Her panting state couldn't even fathom on how someone could be so scared of flipping an egg on a pan. Hoseok held the pan and was situated the length of his arm away from the gas, reaching out his free arm that held a spatula to flip it over. The metal spatula hit the white bubbling egg and sizzled because of the contact, earning another crow-like yelp from Hoseok. His face was read and sweating, and crumpled up eyes only opened for half a second, then shut at the sound of sizzling. Hoseok whined.

Y/N's anger was reaching the surface and she was so ready to leave him struggling to flip the egg over. But she realized that their apartments were so close to each other that if she didn't help him out, the sound of sizzling and the idiotic noises emitting from Hoseok's mouth would be haunting her for the rest of the night. She cursed the thin walls of the building.

Y/N sighed frustratingly and snatched the spatula from Hoseok's hand, earning a surprised yelp. She flipped the omelet over to find that back surface of it had turned into black ash. "You've burned it," she said, so ready to get over with this situation. She turned the gas off and stared at Hoseok, only now realizing his state:

His hair was dry and fringing his forehead, his face still holding a half-mortified look. His feet and torso were bare, and the only item of clothing on him was a pair of blue sweatpants.

Does he never wear a shirt?

She tried not to let her gaze linger on his torso for more than a second. Hoseok seemed to be surprised by her presence.

"Where did you come from, sweetheart?"

"Hoseok I –"

"Call me Hobi!"

"Hoseok, I heard all the racket you were making so I came to check. I thought there was fire. You seriously telling me you cannot make an omelet?"

Hoseok awkwardly giggled: "was I making that much noise?"

"Yes, you sounded like a choking seal."

"Ouch!" Hoseok gripped his chest with a dramatic expression on his face, as though someone had shot him straight in the heart. "That was harsh sweetheart!"

Even though Y/N was annoyed at him, her stomach slightly flipped at his reaction, and she realized that she found it adorable. She cleared her throat to get rid of the tiny butterflies tickling her stomach. "What now?"

"Can you help me make another omelet? I haven't had dinner so . . ." Hoseok was a bit embarrassed, holding then pan in one arm and ruffling the back of his head with the other.

Y/N knew it was going to come to this. She was tired but she felt kind of bad for leaving Hoseok to starve, and making an omelet doesn't take much time either. She knew that if she left him alone he would try and make an omelet again and be the cause of those horrible yelps. She sighed.

"OK, I'll help you," she agreed, "but you have to wear a shirt first." Y/N looked away and was thankful that her hair shifted and covered her red cheeks.

Hoseok just giggled childishly and ruffled her hair. "Alright, if that's what you want."

He went inside his bedroom and Y/N couldn't believe she asked him that. Firstly, it was his house, and he could wear whatever he wanted. Secondly, he was now going to think that him shirtless was bothering her (which it was), but when Hoseok came outside of his bedroom wearing a shirt, she secretly preferred him with it off.

Her cheeks heated with the thought and Y/N turned around, digging through drawers to find a bowl.

The rest of the cooking session went smoothly: Y/N showed Hoseok how to beat the egg properly and how much salt to add in the yellow liquid, while he stared at as though she was fricking Gordon Ramsay. She turned the gas on lightly.

"You only need a bit of the flames when you're making an omelet, don't set it to the max, alright," she instructed and stared pouring the beaten egg onto the pan. The slimy liquid hit the black surface and emitted an intense sizzling noise. Hoseok flinched at the noise and whined.

"It scares me!"

"Then put headphones on," Y/N laughed.

She patted the egg lightly with the spatula. "After about half a minute, flip it over so that the other side also get cooked." Y/N flipped the omelet over, to reveal the cooked, golden surface of the egg. "See? Do the next flip, alright?"

Hoseok nodded excitedly like a child and about half a minute later Y/N nodded to him. She was about to leave the pan and the spatula for him to do it when Hoseok suddenly came up behind her and grabbed her hands. He flipped the omelet through her hands, and patted at surface of the egg, but Y/N wasn't paying attention to his success: she was all too aware of his warm breath washing over her ear, his chest squelched on her small back, his fingers that were brushing hers, his lips that was caressing her temple.

So close!

Y/N's breath hitched slightly and her face turned the deepest shade of red, but thankfully, Hoseok went back, preventing from Y/N's body to inflame the reactions.

"So, it's done cooking?" he smiled.

"Ye- yeah," Y/N turned off the gas and placed the pan of egg on the kitchen counter.

"Thanks for helping me make dinner sweetheart!" Hoseok smiled and ruffled her hair.

"Make your own dinner next time," she attempted to scoff but it just sounded like a shy scolding. She left his apartment, afraid of what might happen if she stayed with him longer.