lessons in love | minsung

04

Later that day, Minho stepped inside his apartment after a long day of boring classes. Just like every other day, his brain was completely cooked and he was bored out of his mind. Okay, maybe today a little less than usual. Felix Lee proved himself to be a good company during their shared classes. Even with Minho's short replies, the boy kept rambling on and on once he got more comfortable around the older –which happened pretty quickly. It was pretty entertaining and Minho found himself almost chuckling more than once.

Until it almost got them in detention.

Minho shook his head as he locked the door behind him, before he took off his coat and shoes and stepped inside the living room. Maybe he should allow himself to loosen up a little bit. Surely, not everyone was like his old friends, right?

It would only be fair to Hyunjin, and now maybe Felix too, if Minho would give them the appreciation they deserved. What was the point of his act, anyway? He let Hyunjin close and it wasn't as if refusing to call him friend would actually protect him. The older knew very well that a friendship had already formed between him and the younger and him being in denial wouldn't change anything.

And yet, despite his awareness, Minho was still too scared to admit it to himself.

Sighing deeply, the chestnut-haired tossed his bag into a lone corner of the living room. Hyunjin was nowhere to be found, even though he should be home already since his classes ended two hours before Minho's. Another worry settled into Minho's mind as he ventured into the kitchen, hoping that his suspicions were wrong.

Much to his horror, he found Hyunjin behind the stove, humming a happy tune as he tried to cook. A blue checkered apron was tied around his waist, probably to protect his precious t-shirts from any more burns and eternal damage caused by other unfortunate events.

Believe it or not, every time the Minho's younger housemate tried to cook, at least something would go up in flames. It was either the food –which happened most of the time, the pan he used, the spatula or the boy's clothes. The number of times the smoke detector went screeching was insane and Minho lost count long ago.

The boy was a terrible cook, even worse than Minho's sims when he used to play the game back in the days.

Already worried about his kitchen equipment, Minho silently approached his as-good-as housemate and glanced over his shoulder –now that took a little effort, since Hyunjin was definitely taller than him.

"Hwang Hyunjin, what are you doing in my kitchen?"

Hyunjin jumped in surprise, his shoulder nearly smashing into Minho's jaw. The older quickly took a step back, not expecting the other to be so jumpy. It must've been the guilty conscience that comes with using the kitchen while having a half-serious kitchen ban.

"O-Oh, hi hyung," the raven-haired greeted Minho, turning down the flame a little bit. "Don't worry about your kitchen, I'm just boiling water for some instant ramen since I was hungry. Do you want some?"

"Yeah, sure," Minho replied, his worries quickly melting away. Boiling water in a pan was fairly harmless and not much could go wrong in the process. He decided to leave Hyunjin to do his business and sunk down onto one of the wooden chairs that surrounded the small dining table.

Without really paying attention, he watched how Hyunjin dashed back and forth between the cabinets and drawers, grabbing another package of noodles and a set of chopsticks. With a splash, the other clumb of noodles landed in the boiling water and soon, the raven-haired continued to hum his melody.

Condensation crept up the kitchen windows as the boiling water slowly evaporated and Hyunjin decided it was time to turn the stove off completely. That was when Minho zoned out again, plugging his phone charger in the wall plug next to the dining table before resting his head on his arms.