Chapter 7

Yuri's POV

After getting the medication, Jessica and I went to a small restaurant nearby to fill our stomachs. It wasn't a fancy restaurant, but the quiet ambiance was pleasing. The only sound that can be heard above the soft music was the owner's voice coming from the kitchen. He was apparently arguing with his wife about the new color of her hair.

"In 3 more years and you'll be half a century old! Why didn't you just dye it black, like the rest of the normal population?" he said loudly.

"Elle Girl says that the new color this season is Chocolate Cherry!" his wife retorted.

More screaming can be heard by the man. "Woman! Have you not noticed that you're not a girl anymore? How would you like it if I dyed my hair blond?"

Noticing our presence, the young man behind the cash register gave me and Jessica an embarrassed look before opening the kitchen doors and yelled out, "Mom, Dad! We have customers!"

He gave us another uneasy smile before coming around to the front to seat us down. "Sorry about that Yuri. Would you like to sit by your usual table?"

I returned his smile to dispel the awkwardness that he was feeling. "Sure. By the way, Oppa, this is my friend, Jessica." I introduced the two as we were walking to my usual table by the fireplace.

"Nice to meet you, Jessica. My name is Jae Won. You can call me Jae."

Jessica looked at him blankly like as if she had spaced out. I gave her a slight nudge to bring her out of her zone. "Nice to meet you too, Jae," she said without a hint of interest. Sigh, how could somebody with such a beautiful singing voice speak with such monotone.

We took our seats across from one another and Jae went back to wiping the glasses. Shortly after, the owner's wife exited the kitchen doors. As she was walking to our table, she kept touching the bottom of her hair, pushing it up.

"My Yuri! You're back and you brought a friend this time." Her eyes scanned me from the top of my head all the way to my feet before giving me a disapproving look. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. So skinny now. Are the other 8 girls that you're living with not cooking well for you? You should come down more often and just let me take good care of you."

Afraid that she might have indirectly offended Jessica, I quickly replied, "The other 8 girls give me the best care. I've just been working really hard lately." I flashed her a wide smile and before she could say anymore negative things about the other members in Jessica's presence, I gave her my order which she carefully took down. Since Jessica was with me this time, I had to emphasize on leaving out cucumbers in our food.

Having taken down our complicated order, she turned around to where Jae was and brought Jessica a glass of orange juice and me, a glass of fresh Ma juice. "The shy boy over there made these for you girls."

I looked over to where Jae was hiding behind the counter. His face was slightly flushed upon hearing what his mother had just said and continued to wipe the glasses nervously. "Thank you, Oppa!" I yelled over.

"Oh! No problem! Hope it's to your liking," he replied back with a shy smile. Whenever I see him smile like that, it always reminded me of Son Ho Young's bashful smiles.

"Ahjumma, Sica's really hungry. Do you think you can start preparing our food now?" I asked since I saw that Jessica was zoning out again.

"Aish, my Yuri ordering Ahjumma around like that. But I will forgive you this time--only because you girls are so skinny," she said with a frown and shook the bottom of my chin between her thumb and index fingers.

"Thank you Ahjumma! You're the best! And there's something different about you today. You look very pretty and very young too today," I complimented her without making it obvious that her hair color was the change.

"I know," she simply said before returning to the kitchen. But along the way, I heard her giggling like a little girl.

My attention was back to Jessica, who was playing with her straw. Her drink was already half empty while mine was still untouched. With a disinterested tone, she asked me, "You sure are friendly with these people. How do you know them?"

Thinking back to it, the first time that I met the owner of this place was when I was grocery shopping. Since the 9 of us moved in together to debut as SNSD, we haven't really had proper meals. So one day, I decided to prepare a real dinner as a way to congratulate ourselves for winning first place on many of the music charts. Unfortunately, I did not know at the time that cooking for nine girls would require so much preparation. I remembered that my shopping cart had all sorts of random ingredients and processed food since I didn't know exactly how to prepare the dishes. I just had an idea of what ingredients was needed for each dish.

The toughest part during this shopping escapade of mine was choosing the vegetables. I must have been standing and staring at beans for a good half hour before finally deciding on how to choose them. Small so that they cook faster and it's already in bite size format.

I was diligently picking out the small beans when this man started talking to me. "So you finally decided on how to decorate the plates."

"Huh?"

"The beans. It's just for decoration, right?" the chubby gray-haired man asked me.

I explained to him the real purpose of the beans, as well as half the other items in my cart that he was eyeing. After listening to my cooking ideas, he merely chuckled before giving me tips on how to prepare each dish. We spent a good hour just chatting at the grocery store before he told me that he owned a restaurant and judging from my constant questions, said that it would be easier to just show me how to cook the food. From the day that I followed him back to his restaurant to learn, I've been going back as often as I can to help out in the kitchen and pick up some new tricks while I was at it.

My first time preparing SNSD's celebratory meal was a success and since then, all the girls thought I was a natural born cook. I didn't want to ruin this perception of theirs so I told Jessica, "I really missed my family one day and on the way back to the dorm, I smelled something really delicious that reminded me of my mom's cooking. And that's how I ended up here.â? I wasn't lying. I did pass by here one day -- to help out that is. And I also did smell something that reminded me of my mom's cooking. But that delicious smell was coming from the bag of food that my mom made me and not from the restaurant.

You could tell that this place was family operated by the choice of d?cor. There were family pictures along the wall and cash counter. A fireplace was situated in the middle of the restaurant with a vase of flowers over it.

As we were waiting for the food to arrive, I took her injured hand and started to massage it as per doctor's orders. Jessica was surprised at first and had even tensed up during the silence.

"Let me know if I'm applying too much pressure," I told her in case I hurt her again.

"It's fine like this..."

I continued to massage her hand in silence while glancing up at her every now and then. Her eyes started to droop indicating that she was about to fall asleep. As much as I would like her to get some rest, I wanted to take this rare opportunity to talk to her alone --especially about what she said at the doctor's office.

"Sica, that morning when I first woke you up, why didn't you tell me that I was hurting you? Better yet, why didn't you tell me that you injured your hand?" I asked with a hint of frustration.

Jessica's eyes popped wide open upon hearing my question.

"I ... Uhm.. It wasn't anything important."

I wanted to yell at her for thinking that her injury wasn't important, for not taking care of herself. But when I remembered that I was the cause of it, guilt replaced my anger. "Why were you angry? Did I do something wrong that night?" I asked her curiously.

At that moment, Jae arrived with our food. Although it wasn't anything fancy or similar to this morning's breakfast that I made, the food looked delicious.

"Oh, the food's here. I'm really hungry, so let's just not talk about it," Jessica replied coolly.

Despite wanting to know why she was angry with me, I decided not to probe. Especially since she's no longer upset. Before she was able to start eating her food, I grabbed her plate onto my side.

"Hey! You can't bribe me to talk with my own food!"

I laughed at her thought. "Silly, I promised you that I would be your right hand, didn't I? Now how are you supposed to cut this with that hand of yours?"

I started to cut everything bite size while she continued to stare at me. When I was done, I placed her plate back in front of her. "There. Now you can start eating," I said with a smile.

"Thank you, Yuri."

"No problem! Now eat before everything gets cold."

The first bite of my food reminded me of how hungry I was. I was almost halfway done when I noticed Jessica still hasn't touched hers. "Oh, does yours taste bad? Here, try some of mine." I picked up a piece of meat and placed it in her mouth.

After she finished chewing, she looked at me with a puppy face. "Yul ah, how am I supposed to eat when my hand is wrapped like this?" She showed me her bandaged hand and then tried to pick up her chopsticks.

"Why didn't you say so earlier? I won't wrap it like that next time then. But for now..." I trailed off while picking up my plate and utensils. I pulled the chair out that was across from me, to sit beside Jessica.

"For now, I'll do this." I started feeding her like as if she was a kid again.

---

We returned to the dorm, full from our private breakfast. In one hand, I was carrying Jessica's medication and in the other, I was holding onto her hand.

"Yuri!! You're back! Omo.. Is that more food for me?" Sooyoung said as she ran to greet me at the door. She snatched the bag out of my hand but was disappointed once she saw its contents.

"Oh, well, this you can't really eat." She placed the bottle back into the bag and asked Jessica, "How's your hand by the way?"

"It's fine," Jessica said while staring back.

"That's good to hear because our performance is coming up." Sooyoung threw the bag that she was holding at Jessica before pulling me away.

"Oh Yuuuuul.... I know your secret...."Sooyoung taunted me. She gave me a sly smile and a mischievous look as she pulled me to the other side of the room.

My back was against the wall, blocked by Sooyoung's body. She leaned into the wall, resting her arm against it. Her other hand was playing with my loose hair, twirling it in her fingers.

"So, if I help you, what will you give me back in return?"Sooyoung asked me.

I was beyond lost at what she was talking about. But I decided to play along. "Anything you want,"I told her while caressing her cheek.

"Anything?"

"Anything."

"Ahhh... I want you to--"she gave a brief pause while giving me a coy smile.

"make me a big meal once a day for the rest of this month " which just started by the way."

Shocked at her request, my playful expression turned serious. With the hand that I was just using to stroke her cheek, I wanted to slap her awake from dreaming about food again. But I didn't. "What are you talking about? Why do I have to cook you a meal everyday for a whole month?}

She continued playing with my hair and replied in her mischievous tone, "Well, because while you were gone, Yoona told us why she got such a special breakfast today."

"But you guys all got special breakfasts. Didn't you like your pancakes?" I asked her quizzically.

"Cakes are better. So how long have you been trying to get Jessica to be nice to you?"

It finally dawned on me what this 'secret' of mine was that she was talking about. I looked over to where Jessica was standing with Yoona eating the chocolate cake.

Shhh I don't want her to hear. "Geez... does everybody know about this now?" I asked Sooyoung.

Nodding her head, she moved her head close to my ear. "So do we have a deal?"

I could not believe that I was being manipulated like this. Furthermore, I could not believe that Sooyoung thought she could use this as leverage against me since I didn't really consider it a secret. So I firmly told her, "No. We don't."

Sooyoung quickly turned around and started walking towards Jessica. "Sica! Yuri wants-" I quickly covered her mouth when I realized that this might damage our improving relationship. I didn't want Jessica to be hurt by my thoughts of her as being a cold and stand-offish person when in reality she's a fragile little girl that just needs to be cared for.

I pulled Sooyoung back towards me and whispered in her ear. "Alright, you have a deal. But I will cook for you only if you're able to help and not everyday," I hissed. My hand was still clamped tightly over her mouth as she nodded her head up and down.

Jessica looked at the two of us and asked us coldly, "What? What do you want, Yuri?"

"Ahh... nothing. I just... want... some of that cake that you're eating," I told her as I watched her stuff her mouth with chocolate and strawberries.

She put the last bite in her already full mouth before sputtering, "All gone. Going to take a nap now." We all watched her walk off, still chewing on the cake in her mouth.

"Jess! That's my room!!" Tiffany screamed out only to have the door slammed by Jessica.

I was amazed by the amount of food that she was still able to eat after our breakfast. At the same time, the sight of her chipmunk cheeks chewing on food amused me. Once I released Sooyoung, Tiffany rushed to my side.

"Youree! I want my Minnie doll too," she whined to me.

"Not you too,"I said while rolling my eyes.

"I don't know what Yoong did to help you, but I could help you too. I'll go talk to her and find out some things for you. Oh! And I will also kick her out of my room so she'll have no choice but to sleep with you and Sunny again. And I also told Taetae not to call the repairman yet," Tiffany said excitedly and gave me a wink when she mentioned the repairman.

I couldn't deal with this madness anymore and just wanted to go back to my room. I'll think about it"was all I said to her. Exhausted, I returned to my room and closed the door behind me. Why is it so hard to become friends with Sica? I really do not like the idea of anybody not liking me.