太鉉洙 [태현수] ; tae hyunsoo (ex_simulacra515) wrote in amlogs, @ 2010-08-27 22:50:00 |
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Entry tags: | hyunsoo, mateo |
HYUNSOO + MATEO // new brothers
Characters involved: Mateo & Hyunsoo
Location: Apartment de la Hobo.
Time: Roughly before Jae and Mateo got engaged.
Jae was out of town for the weekend, dealing with a mission or an ex (and sometimes, those were a two-for-one deal...), which left him and the boyfriend home alone. It wasn't so bad. Well, the dogs were unused to only seeing one twin around, so they pounced on Hyun twice as much and almost tripped him over the coffeetable, and he was pretty sure that Jae was going to have a conniption fit when he spotted crumbs and hair on the carpet, but... Mateo wasn't as bad as he tried to make him out to be. He'd at least stopped referring to him as 'stranger bitch' in his head.
It was late Sunday evening and Hyun was in full-form. Socks, wife-beater, boxers, balancing a bowl of organic granola on his stomach as he watched muted local television. It was hard being away from his twin. Whenever he felt some foreign sensation, a clue as to what was going on with his brother, he reached for his cell. He couldn't keep calling, asking what was going on. ('My foot itched, Hyun. Are you eating enough?' 'I nicked myself on the iron. Are the girls sleeping in my bed?' 'I'm working. Go to the gym or something.') So there he was, vegitating in the blue light of the TV, a forgotten spoonful of cereal perpetually raised halfway to his mouth.
"A bear stole someone's car?" he said in a quiet monotone. "No way..."
Mateo was at a loss. Since he'd come to Victory, Jae had been his one grounding factor, his only constant. When he'd left before, it'd been easier. They hadn't lived together, still hadn't seen each other every day. Now... Half of Jae's bed was empty. Half of their bed was empty. Mateo still had to remind himself (Jae usually did it for him) that the apartment was now as much his as it was the twins', but it still didn't feel right. With Jae gone, he felt like an intruder.
And Hyunsoo... Mateo liked him, but he knew he was too nervous, too cautious around him. Hyunsoo was like the test that, if he failed, would drop him out of the relationship entirely. He knew it was important to Jae that his boyfriend and his brother got along. So he sidestepped, forced nervous smiles, was overly and stutteringly polite whenever they were alone together. It didn't help that his dogs seemed determined to ignore any kind of consideration for Hyunsoo altogether, and Mateo winced when he came home from work to see Adora in the hallway, gnawing on a sneaker he knew to be Hyun's.
Stop that, he thought hard at her, and the dane looked up at him resentfully before she spit out the shoe and rolled over. The shoe was dimpled with tooth marks and wet with spit, but it- it didn't look like there were any holes... Rubbing at the back of his neck, Mateo kicked off his own shoes and looked over towards the couch. "Aa, hey."
He looked up at Mateo, some milk spilling from his spoon onto his chest. Crap. Hyunsoo frowned at it a moment, then set his spoon back in the bowl. "Hey," he called flatly, wondering if he'd be judged for not wiping a paper towel across the (almost invisible) stain. How nitpicky could a guy who'd lived with dogs be, right? But, to be on the safe side, Hyun shuffled into the kitchen to get a napkin.
"Sup?"
He never knew how to answer that question. His life was undoubtedly strange, but he still felt that very little of interest happened to him. Go to work, come home, spend time with Jae, repeat. He was happy with it, but it wasn't a good answer. "Nothing," he replied truthfully, scratching at the side of his nose. Belle trotted out of the bedroom when she heard him, collar jingling, and half-jumped at his legs. He stumbled, one hand gripping the counter.
"You, aa--..." It was more than a little strange to see his boyfriend's buff doppleganger wandering around the apartment in only boxers. "How, how are you?" And were those shoes expensive?
Snorting as he ground the napkin against his shirt, Hyun nodded. Nothing. He knew how nothing went. Unless you had an itchy trigger finger, there wasn't much for agents to do between assignments. He and Jae were even keeping tabs on everyone and still, they were bored.
Hyun spun when he saw a dog leap up in his peripheral vision, hands raised to catch her should she try to brain him against the kitchen cabinets. When whoever it was (Adora?) went for Mateo instead, he relaxed slightly, tossed the napkin in the trash and scooted back over to the couch.
"Fine," Hyun said, Mateo's awkwardness escaping him. Mostly, he just chalked it up to the man being dull. That was okay with him, though. Hyun considered himself dull, and after some of the weirdos his brother, and on occasion, Hyun, brought by, the dog whisperer was a welcome change. "I'm not on assignment until week after next, so..." He slurped up a spoonful of cereal and didn't flinch when it was soggy as all hell. "Let me know if you want me to do dishes or anything." His eyes were back on the TV.
"No, it--" Mateo winced as Belle pawed at his chest. Her claws weren't sharp, but they stung even through his shirt. "Hey, down," he mumbled, and the dane reluctantly dropped back to all fours. Mateo glanced down at his shirt briefly, chin tucked against his neck, to try to see any holes. "It is fine..." His clothes were already smeared with stains from grass and food spilled when his dogs got too excited. He didn't mind it, but Jae did. Stains on his clothes, stains on the carpet, dog hair... Mateo wondered what the point of even trying to keep up with the rate his dogs shed at was, but saying so to Jaesun was never a wise idea.
He took a beer from the fridge and popped it open against the counter, watching the television blankly. The news? Something about a bear... Mateo squinted, then blinked. "A car?" he said in surprise.
Stains were fine in Hyun's book. As soon as something got cleaned, five minutes later it was dirty again. A life with Jae and his mothering had taught Hyun that much.
Glancing from the beer to Mateo, then back to the TV, he snickered. "Yeah. There was a sandwich in the glove box and the bear, it went and broke the window, then got caught inside. Crashed the car into a tree because it stepped on the gearbox..." The agent took another bite of cereal. "Bet it shows up on Fark tomorrow."
He could imagine his dogs doing the same thing. Food could make an animal do anything. Scratching at his hair, he made a few hesitant steps towards the couch. "Aa, do you mind if... I can join you?"
It was a little intimidating, but what else could he do? If he hid in his room it would be rude... For Jae, he told himself. It was stupid to be scared of his boyfriend's twin...
He twitched his eyes to look back to Mateo when he asked the question. Could he join him? It was his house, his TV, too, for the time being. "Sure," Hyun said tonelessly before scooting over. For good measure, he kept scooting to the far side of the couch. If Mateo was sitting down, that meant his trained lions were going to want to join him, too...
"They're doing a special on some guy trying to poison the reservoir next."
"The reservoir?" he repeated blankly, sitting on the opposite end. As predicted, Belle and Adora took this as joint permission and hopped up onto the couch, wagging tails and limbs all up in the two men's business. Mateo barely noticed, too used to simply holding a hand out when they got too close to smacking him in the face. Belle settled half atop his lap; Adora took up the rest of the couch, propped against Hyunsoo.
"Sorry, what-" Belle butted her head against his hand, and Mateo dutifully set to scratching behind her ears. "What does that mean?" Poisoning the reservoir? A reservoir was... it was something to do with water, but he didn't know what. It wasn't a word that came up much.
"Uh-" Hyunsoo braced himself when he saw the girls march over. Still, he wasn't prepared to be headbutted by a great dane who also seemed to like using him as a body pillow. Frowning up at the ceiling, he wondered where his cat had gotten to. They were shit-scared of her, for some reason. She'd come in handy...
"It's the local water supply. Where tap and toilet water comes from." He played a game with himself. If he couldn't translate into Korean the word Mateo didn't know, he wasn't allowed to seem annoyed. 'Reservoir' was not in his Korean vocabulary, so Hyun smiled over at his brother's boyfriend. "No problem."
Encouraged by the smile, Mateo smiled back, only to have it drop off when he noticed Adora. "Hey," he mumbled, tapping at her back. "Sorry... they do no realize how big they are, some times..."
They'd learned quickly not to use Jae as their personal pillow, but Hyunsoo didn't threaten or scold them like he did. Pushover, they figured. "Hey," he repeated pointedly, and Adora gave a long, lazy yawn before she got up and shifted her bulk onto Mateo's legs. He winced.
Now he had to think of something to say... and he'd always been terrible at that. "Aa... you are watching the news for," he wet his lips with a frown, "for leads? For strange things?"
Oh, good, he could breathe again. In general, it was hard for Hyun to be anything more than perturbed at an animal. He liked them. They were simple and so honest... Giving Adora a pat on the flank, he strained forward to grab his cereal before someone else decided to finish it off.
"It's okay," he mumbled, mouth scrunched to the side. At the second part, he nodded. "Yeah, sometimes. But mostly..." Mostly he watched the news because you could fade in and out. If he was going to watch a show, he needed to watch it for hours, pay good attention to it. And most of the time after work, he was too exhausted. Sometimes, he marathoned something, but it was just easier to play a mindless video game or listen to music instead. "Mostly it's nice to just... tune out. You know?" He figured Mateo did. As comforting as it was to be connected so closely with other people or living things, sometimes... It just got to be too draining.
He didn't. He had no way to tune out and no desire to. Being too far away from his dogs made him agitated; when they were asleep, restless. He'd grown too used to having their overlay on his thoughts to live comfortably without it. But, for the sake of agreeing, he nodded. "Yeah..."
He took a drink of his beer, then nestled it beside him. Belle sniffed the lip, licked it once, and settled her head back onto the armrest. "Aa- If you are tuning out," Mateo started suddenly, frowning when the thought occurred to him, "Am I bothering? I can, aa, I can go..."
Hyun gave a rumpled frown and nodded. He figured that was something they could bond about. He wouldn't trade his connection to Jae for anything in the world, but even though he felt that way, the constant fixation and agitation... Like right now, he was wondering, 'what does my leg falling asleep mean? Was he in a car accident? Has he gnawed his own leg off after falling down a ravine?' It'd be nice to just... not worry. And TV helped that. Still, Mateo wasn't exactly forthcoming and so he let the topic drop.
"No... It's fine..." he said slowly, narrowing his eyes. Briefly, Hyun made a face like he'd bitten into a lemon, then turned towards his roommate. "I don't get a lot of opportunities to say this to people that aren't me, but... You need to chill out."
Mateo stared in surprise. Had he done something? What had he done? The point of the comment bypassed him entirely, and his eyebrows knit. "Sorry..." Was he being too polite?
He looked down at his dogs, scratching at a spot between Adora's shoulderblades that itched. "I am just..." He took a deep breath and shrugged, still frowning down at the dogs while he spoke. "I don't want to be annoying." I want you to like me. "It is your apartment first, so..." Another shrug, and he rubbed at the back of his neck. When he tried to be courteous, he was too courteous. It figured... He would never be good with people.
"You're not." He shook his head, going back to distantly staring at the TV a second later. "It's more annoying when you do this. Feels like there's always a guest in the house." Guests made him uncomfortable.
Patting the dog once more, Hyun nodded. "My brother wants you around, so... I want you around. Just not as much as my brother does." He smiled at the weatherman instead of Mateo, but... It was directed at him.
It was... mostly the truth.
"O-kay," he mumbled, nodding and frowning down at his lap. Annoying, he scolded himself. "I will, aa, I will stop."
Hyun wanted him around. Unexpected. Mateo rubbed beneath an eyebrow and nodded again, half to himself. "Thanks. I am... no used to living with other people. Outside of family. So, I am getting used to it... aa, trying to," he laughed weakly, then curled his lip and looked up at the ceiling. "I will stop."
Without moving his head, Hyunsoo clapped Mateo on the shoulder, smiling again. "Don't worry. We'll teach you how." If there was one thing the Taes were good at, it was invading other people's lives...
He watched the news for a minute more, then switched it off. "Are the beers yours?"
That he could believe, and agree to. He wasn't terribly smart; Jae taught him new things all the time, whether he intended to or not. Teaching him how to live with people... well, he'd already started.
"Yeah," he replied blankly, glancing back towards the fridge. "But there's lots, you can have some." Jae rarely drank any. Just ice. He would never understand that fixation, but he was still careful to keep the trays full. "It is no the, aa, the low calorie kind though..."
He got to his feet with a nod and snagged one. "Light beer tastes really bad, anyway..." he mumbled. Hyun didn't drink all that often, but... right now it felt appropriate. Returning to the couch after flipping the tab and sucking up the foam that threatened to drip on the carpet, he nodded to Mateo. "Thanks."
So... this was what normal guys did together, right? Drank beers and shot the breeze? A guy could do that with his twin's boyfriend who happened to read dogs' minds, too... But what to talk about? "Bookman's is getting new comics in a couple days... We should go together. You know, so we don't buy repeats..."
"No problem." The combined warmth from both dogs lying on or against him was beginning to make him uncomfortably hot, and he took a long swig of his beer between nods.
"Yeah, o-kay." Something together? He smiled, proud. "There is the new Brightest Day soon, yeah? Aa... the fifth? Sixth?" Scratching at his hair, Mateo looked down blankly when Belle gave a short, tinny snore. Of course they would leave him alone now that he actually had to do talking... Mateo's mouth scrunched to the side and he took another sip. "It is maybe silly but reading all the comics, it helps a lot with my English." Even if a lot of them had words he'd never need to use...
"Brightest Day?" He was halfway through a swig when he perked up. A comic he didn't know? Setting his can down on the coffee table, Hyun rolled his shoulders, smiling down at the snoring dogs. One of them had stretched out into his sitting space and briefly he thought about getting revenge by sitting on them for a change. Instead, Hyun sat on the armrest and flicked Adora/Belle's ears inside-out.
"I've never read that one."
He knew something Hyun didn't? Surprised, Mateo scratched at his hair and frowned. Maybe he'd said the title wrong? "Aa, it is, it is the sequel to Blackest Night? I have them..."
He glanced towards his and Jae's room. It was a bad habit of his to look towards whatever it was he was talking about, even if - like now - it was in the opposite direction as the person he was speaking to. "I think, the first three? I had four, but..." Mateo looked back down at his lap and smiled wryly, rubbing a thumb along the crown of Belle's head, "Someone was hungry."
The comic had been a mess of soggy paper and tooth marks after Belle had gotten done with it. She'd whined and laid low for a few days afterward, but it hadn't taken Mateo long to forgive her. Short of biting him or either of the twins, there wasn't much his dogs could do wrong, in his eyes. "I can," he started, then glanced over to Hyunsoo, "You can borrow, if you want. What I have."
He shook his head at the explanation. Brightest Day? Blackest Night? Hyun didn't know either of them and, like a true nerd, he figured that if he hadn't heard of them they had to be good.
"They..." Hyun stared in horror at the dog Mateo had just petted. "Ate it?" Dogs ate comic books when they were hungry? Hyun reached for his beer, already fearing for what might happen to his collection when one Dane or another got peckish.
After slurping down a quarter of the can, Hyun leaned back and took a deep breath. "Really? Thanks..." Looking unsure of himself, he nodded. "You can borrow my comics, too. There's... some in Japanese, but I can't read those, either. They're good to look at, though." Everyone he ever told his manga collection in Japanese about thought they were porn. He trusted Mateo to draw no conclusions, then discover they were about vampires killing Nazis. Badass.
"Well..." Mateo shrugged, eyebrows raised down at the dogs. "They tried to. Mostly they just ripped it up." 'Ate' was what they did to things like remotes, couches...
He took another drink, eyebrows knitting as Hyunsoo spoke. Hesitantly, he asked, "Aa, the porn stuff?" He hadn't spent much time on the internet, but his sole exposure to Japanese comics and cartoons involved a lot of strange banner ads with ridiculously well-endowed girls with big eyes. If that's what Hyun looked at, well, he didn't care, but he didn't particularly want to look at it either... Smiling nervously, he shook and ducked his head. "That is o-kay..."
"Damn..." Another reason not to like dogs! Hyun started chugging another quarter of the can as Mateo asked his question. Gagging painfully, he turned towards the wall as he forced the liquid down, then sputtered. Dammit! It wasn't porn!
"No, it's-" he coughed again- "Stuff they haven't translated. Shit..."
Did he have 'pervert' tattooed across his forehead in invisible ink or something?
He started when Hyunsoo coughed, eyes widening. Please don't choke, please don't choke, he thought earnestly; Jae would kill him if he came back to find his brother dead. And Mateo didn't know mouth-to-mouth. Or was it CPR? Were those the same?
Staring at Hyunsoo in horror until the boy spoke again, Mateo nodded dumbly. "Aa, o-kay..." Not choking. Not dead. O-kay. And not porn? Probably, he was just embarrassed. Normal guys... they talked about things like porn with each other, didn't they? He had with his friends, even if that was in high school. It wasn't so long ago. Probably, it was still true. "If it is porn," he started, sounding slightly unsure of himself even as he leaned in conspiratorially, "It is o-kay. I won't tell any one." He wondered if modest, gentlemanly Hyunsoo knew half the things that came out of his brother's mouth...
He wasn't going to die, especially not with Mateo looking at him like that. Eyebrows drawn together, he stared down at his knees as he got his shit together. Just another, soothing sip of beer...
Was it Mateo's goal to get this stuff to shoot out of his nose? Hyun shook his head quickly. "It isn't porn," he muttered. He kept his porn on his computer, like a normal person. Also, like a normal person, he didn't feel comfortable discussing porn with someone who regularly fucked someone that looked exactly like him. And he had caught bits and pieces of their dirty talk through the wall. Hunching his knees to his chest, Hyun shook his head again.
"If I did have porn, it would be about girls. And that wouldn't interest you." It wasn't judgmental, just Hyun was very aware that this man he was on the sofa with had sex with his twin and he wasn't exactly fully clothed at the moment.
Mateo blinked and leaned back against the couch again, puzzled. "I know..." O-kay, that was a miss. One day he would learn how to hold a conversation without making the other side think he was crazy. Or creepy. Or whatever it was that made Hyunsoo fold up and stare at him.
He took a few quiet sips of his beer in the meantime, sifting through Adora's thoughts (she'd been watching the exchange sleepily from between the two) for a new topic. Warm, beer-smell, and itch-on-leg weren't exactly viable, but Mateo dutifully scratched the spot that bothered her and she gave a soft whine, tilted her head back, and kicked Hyunsoo in the thigh. Dammit.
"Sorry. Aa..." New thing, new thing- "Are you hungry?" he suggested weakly.
Chin propped up on one knee, Hyunsoo glanced over to Mateo, then quickly looked away. So they were done talking about his imaginary porn collection, right? Setting his legs down, he nodded. "Yeah. Little bit." Any mention of food reminded him that he was perpetually hungry.
"Are you gonna make something?" His voice went up at the end, hopeful. Mateo was weird, but... he could definitely whip up some delicious dishes.
That was all he was good for, really. He was so generous with his food because he felt it was really the best thing he had to offer; personality wise, he was unstable, weird. Mateo scratched at the nape of his neck and nodded, and Belle sleepily disentangled herself from his legs and hopped off.
"Yeah, aa... what do you want? It is, it is no good, only cooking for one..." At least offering to make food wasn't too polite, it seemed.
"Don't know what we have ingredients for." And he'd never been very creative at thinking up meals. Anything in the kitchen could probably go into a sandwich, Hyun thought, but no one ever seemed to like his recipes... He shuffled into the kitchen and hopped up on the far counter. From her hiding place near the coffeepot, Acoustic lifted her head to sneeze on his back.
"There you are..." he mumbled, pulling the limp cat into his lap. Shrugging at Mateo, mood improved suddenly, he said, "Anything you want to make. It's always good."
They had ingredients for a lot of things, thanks to his extensive trips to the store on the Tae's behalf. Jae paid for most of it, Mateo cooked it. But what to cook late at night for two people?
He set his beer down on the coffee table and followed Hyun into the kitchen, shuffling his feet against the tile. "French toast?" he suggested blankly, opening the fridge to look around. They had enough eggs, it wasn't complicated, and he could make a lot... something cooking for either of the twins necessitated. Mateo glanced back to Hyun, then the cat. It hated him, he was sure, and right now it looked back at him imperiously from Hyunsoo's lap. Bitch, he thought at it.
"Yeah!" he nearly cheered. French toast... you had to be inhuman to turn down French toast. Giving Acoustic's neck an enthusiastic scratch, which she leaned her chin up for, Hyunsoo grinned.
It'd be... what? His second early morning breakfast? His third maybe? Shit. If he ever stopped working out, he was going to get fat as hell...
"You want some help? I at least know how to make French toast..."
Mateo smiled and glanced over his shoulder at Hyun. "Sure." That would be better than only him cooking, and Hyunsoo watching. He didn't mind it when Jaesun watched him cook - it was comfortable - but Hyun... Maybe he could make up for whatever he'd done wrong before by bribing the agent's stomach.
He took out the eggs, then looked around for a moment, blank-faced. They just needed- aha! "Do you know how to, aa, to zest a orange?" It wasn't necessary, but it did taste good... Mateo plucked an orange from their fruit bowl and tossed it gently towards Hyunsoo.
Zest? An orange? He pulled a face, then mentally reviewed all the episodes of Top Chef he'd seen. "Zesting is like peeling, right?" Picking up Acoustic and depositing her next to the toaster, Hyun nodded. "Yeah, I can do that..."
He set to work, totally unaware of why he was doing what he was doing. French toast didn't need oranges...
"Aa, yeah." Sort of. "Very small," he instructed Hyun over his shoulder, already pulling out a mixing bowl. Eggs, cinnamon, milk...
"How many pieces do you want? Four? Five?" 'The whole loaf' wouldn't have been an entirely surprising answer, but he hoped that wasn't the case. Mateo paused long enough to peer over Hyunsoo's shoulder, then frowned and touched his elbow. "Why don't you, aa, you do the eggs? I will do this..." O-kay, less like peeling than Hyunsoo apparently thought it was...
This was hard. You'd think making tiny slivers of orange skin would be simple, but the knife keeps slipping against the round surface. Hissing when he nearly scrapes the blade against his finger, Hyun frowned down at Mateo and handed the knife over without putting up a fight. "Yeah, I can do that..." Beating eggs was a no-brainer. Not that zesting was rocket science...
"Four's probably good." He shouldn't eat too much before he tried to go to sleep. "But... make extra. Maybe Simon's up..."
This was why they had a zester. Discreetly, Mateo set the knife in the sink and pulled the zester from the drawer.
Four for Hyun, two for himself, two for Simon? Hypothetically, anyway. Mateo suspected the 'two for Simon' would be 'two more for Hyunsoo', but he nodded. "O-kay. Four eggs." Adora wandered over, sniffing around the agent to see what it was he was making. At the smell of eggs, she pressed her chin up against the counter and looked at him hopefully.
Four eggs... "Aa, two- two-thirds a cup milk, after the eggs." He'd finished with the orange and was now fumbling through his pockets for a lighter, a cigarette already propped between his lips.
"Oooooh-kay," he repeated, grinning. Mateo had one of those voices you could just pick up, impersonate so easily. He'd cracked Rhea's shit up one night, but... That was probably not a story he should share.
Beating the milk into the eggs, Hyun snapped his head to the side at the tick of the lighter. "Are you allowed to smoke inside?" He didn't have a problem with it, but he didn't want to get yelled at when Jae came home to smell tobacco vapors on their sofa.
He glanced over his shoulder at Hyun, puzzled. Why did he say it like that?
At the question, he hesitated. He'd seen Jae smoke inside, hadn't he? Yeah. Pretty sure... "Aa-- yeah, I, I think so? I have seen Jae do it..." Was it okay for Jae, but not for him? Frowning, he lowered his lighter. "Does it bother you?"
"No, it's cool..." Just cause Jae did it, though, that didn't mean it was okay. Still, Hyun went with it, patting one of the Danes on the nose before handing over the batter to Mateo. "I think it's all mixed in... Might've fucked it up, though."
Adora lapped at Hyun's hand, looking for traces of food. "It is eggs and milk, you can no really..." Mateo replied with a nervous smile, and he took the bowl and glanced into it. No egg shells, that was all that mattered.
He took a bottle of cinnamon from the spice rack (a present from Jae, though he suspected it was more to keep his spices from overwhelming the counter than to be a real gift) and shook it over the mix. With his other hand he lit up, careful to keep his head to one side. He was used enough to cooking while smoking that he didn't get ash in his food, but it still happened sometimes... "Aa, Jae said, you guys, you cooked all the time before me, yeah?"
He laughed as Adora tickled his hand, wiping off her drool on her coat as an alternative to washing his hand. It was an apartment inhabited by three guys, two guy-sized dog, a cat and a host of crazy neighbors. It would never be clean, so why fight it?
"Yeah... He did mostly. I used to be okay, but," 'I got lazy when I realized I could exploit you.' "I haven't cooked in a while. Even then, it was like... cheese sandwiches." Hyun snorted.
Mateo grinned. "Cheese sandwiches are good... If you ever, aa, if you want me to write simple things like this down for you, I can. If I am no around..." Hyunsoo was no Rhea. He could manage something like french toast. Most breakfast foods like this were beginner recipes anyway.
"O-kay." Cinnamon in. "Whisk this, I will get the pan..." Butter... He opened the fridge door and half-hunched, rooting through tinfoil-covered dishes and takeout boxes until he found a stick of butter. Sure there were healthier alternatives, but... did the Taes care? Probably not. Mateo switched on the nearest burner and set a pan on it, already rubbing it down with a stub of butter. "If, aa," This would be o-kay to say, right? "If you make this for Rhea," Mateo suggested innocently, "I know she would like it..."
Hyun snorted again, then reached for a whisk. "Yeah, that'd be good. But..." Was it okay to joke like this yet? "When are you not around?"
As he watched the swirl of cinnamon turn the eggs and milk a light brown, Hyun nodded, trying to keep any reaction he might have off his face. He liked her... a lot... but all the matchmaking and telling looks from Jae and Mateo, it probably wasn't helping... "She'd probably eat a sneaker if I put some salt on it, but..." He turned to see what Mateo was doing, French Toast-wise. "You think?"
"Yeah," he agreed, more pleased by Hyun's answer than offended. He liked being around. It gave him a sense of purpose, a home. With the way his life had gone for the last eight years, that was more important than potentially intruding on Hyunsoo's brother-time. Even if he did feel guilty about the latter...
Rhea, eat a sneaker? He gave a short, barking laugh. "Probably. Maybe, I will just teach you to make fat things for her. Then she will stop looking like a stick." It was worrying. She was his best friend, his little sister in spirit if not actually... And no matter how much food he shoved on her, she was still a toothpick. Frustrating. "But, yeah, try it. It will be romantic."
"Fat things..." he snickered. Hyun sucked his lower lip in and watched Mateo cook.
It wasn't fair. There was Jae and Mateo, and they were perfect for one another. Then there was Jae and Hyun, and they could never be separated. Then there was Mateo and Rhea, childhood friends... Hyun and Rhea, they should have matched perfectly, too, but... it wasn't that easy. He doubted that it ever would be.
Setting Acoustic down, Hyun hopped off the counter. "Thanks. I'll try, anyway..." Striking out with her would just be like striking out with any other girl, right?
He'd made a joke? He didn't understand it, but he forced a slightly puzzled smile in response. Fat things?
"She does like you," he said after a minute, frowning down at the half loaf of bread in front of him. Oh well... someone would get stuck with the heel. Probably him. "So..." He looked over his shoulder with a small, encouraging smile. "Don't get discouraged." Rhea had never told him anything specific, of course, but... she disliked very few people... it was a safe enough tip to give Hyun.
She liked him? Staring down at the counter, Hyun absently touched his knuckles to a drawer handle. Rhea liked him? He probably should have been more scrutinizing of the words of a man who said phrases like 'fat things' with a straight face, but... Hyun smiled and crossed his arms, turning around to face Mateo.
"So," he jerked his chin up, eyes on the pan, "Any secret techniques? If I make it bad, I'm going to tell her it was your fault."
"My-...?" Mateo stared, then let out a short, nervous laugh. "Aa, I don't know... I have never dated her." His parents - hers too, probably - had certainly expected him to. When he'd been more interested in letting her paint his nails than stealing kisses, they'd moved on.
He started dipping pieces of bread into the egg mixture, eyes on them and the pan as he spoke. It was a little intimidating to have both attention and pressure from Hyunsoo. "I guess... just be very, aa... honest? Do no worry about being embarrassed, or..." The first slice went onto the pan and sizzled, and Mateo's stomach growled at the sudden smell. "Or about looking, aa, silly. She is very silly too."
What? He'd never dated french t- Oh. Shaking his head, Hyun's eyes widened. Sure, maybe she liked him, but... There wasn't a bigger coward than him when it came to women. He could just... be happy with the fact that maybe she liked him.
But that was stupid, right?
Instead of correcting Mateo about the tips he was asking for, he nodded along. "Yeah... I'm supposed to make her a mix CD. Do you know what music she likes?" Mateo didn't seem very perceptive of those kinds of things, but... worth a shot.
It was hard not to bury his face in his hands. But hey, maybe he wouldn't be a coward anymore...
The second piece hit the pan with a hiss, and Mateo spared only a brief, curious glance over his shoulder. "A mix CD? No." That was a flirting thing now, wasn't it? Boys making girls mixed tapes. Were they supposed to be romantic songs about the girl in question, or just good ones? He wondered if Jae would like one, then reminded himself he knew next to nothing about most rap music...
"Aa, I don't know the names," he continued, wetting a third slice. "They are... soft?" It wasn't the word he wanted, but he couldn't think of a better one. "Probably-" He winced. "No what you listen to."
Were they to the point where he could punch Mateo for insulting his (wonderful) taste in music yet? Nope, probably not. Instead, Hyun just set a dumb smile on his face and nodded. "Right..."
Soft. He could do soft.
When the toast got to smelling too delicious, he started mindlessly inching closer to the pan. With a snort, grinning, Hyun suggested, "You should make Jae one." Because nothing said romance like gangsta rap.
The dogs were noticing the smell too, both pacing around him at the stove in hopes of a scrap or a fumble. Belle bumped against his side, and Mateo glanced down in between taking a clean plate from the cabinet. "No," he mumbled, setting it to the side. "I don't know his music enough. And the words, aa... They are all about killing or fucking. It is not very romantic." He smiled, sheepishly, and went back to dipping more slices into the bowl.
After a pause, he looked over his shoulder and squinted thoughtfully at Hyunsoo. "You think he would like one?"
"Maybe..." he mumbled. Knowing Jae, he'd just want a CD full of songs you heard in strip clubs, but... That wasn't exactly a romantic gesture. Crouching down, Hyun ruffled Belle's jowls and ears, smiling when she didn't immediately start growling at him. If you're going to be denied food, attention is the next best thing, right?
"Maybe you should just work on finding one song. For the both of you." Jae really seemed to care for Mateo. Even if it wasn't as powerful as the bond he shared with his brother, their relationship was still something that deserved respect. "All couples should have a song, right?"
"A song?" A couples song? Did they have something like that? There were songs they both liked on the radio sometimes, but they were hardly romantic. This seemed to distress him, and Mateo scowled down at the pan, flipping the bread once it browned enough. All couples had a song, but they didn't...?
"I guess, I will ask..."
God, that smelled amazing... Hyun was getting pleasanter and pleasanter as the meal came along. Patting Mateo on the shoulder, he advised (though he didn't have much experience with women and zilch with men), "You don't ask. You suggest. You need to show that you've thought about it, right?"
But what did you suggest to Jae? It was hard to predict his opinions, even for Hyun. Somedays, he just got moody... "There's this Korean song, 'Breathe', by G-Dragon. It's..." and he was pretty sure he'd just scowled without meaning to, "Sexy. Jae might like that."
Breathe. O-kay. Mateo didn't doubt Hyun's advice for a second; if anyone would know what Jae liked, it would be his brother, right? They practically shared a head...
He nodded, eyebrows knit. "O-kay. Suggest. Breathe." Mateo forced a weak, slightly unsure smile. "Got it." It sounded right. Jae liked nothing if not sexy things. Sometimes Mateo wondered if the other man's mind ever left the gutter, but he didn't mind it. Jae was just blunt.
The first few pieces were done by now, and Mateo transferred them to a clean plate. "Aa..." A glance over his shoulder, and he gave Hyun a smile. "Thanks. For the help. I, aa, I appreciate it."
"O-kay." That was all the teasing he could manage, though it sounded like Mateo was reminding himself to breathe... There was food on a plate and though Hyun was no stranger to picking something half-cooked out of the pan, he figured Mateo didn't need to see him do that trick yet. Looking like another one of the dogs begging for food, eyes huge and watery, Hyun mumbled, "Yeah. No problem.
Can I eat now?"