+ twenty one

On the first morning after their arrival, she was required to wake up at six in the morning in order to have breakfast ready for everyone at seven. Since Narda didn't know many Korean meals, she made them something from her own country's cuisine. She ended up preparing eggs, Spanish rice, and beans topped with shredded cheese. 

The boys all went down to the kitchen for breakfast one by one and Narda set a plate down in front of them. "What is this?" Sehun asked her, looking from Narda to the plate of colorfully set up food on his plate.

Offering a nervous smile, she replied, "I don't know how to cook any Korean meals, so I thought you would all enjoy a typical Mexican breakfast."

Sehun lowered his head close to the plate and took a whiff. "It smells really good."

The EXO maknae thanked her as she handed him a fork and a pair of disposable chop sticks. The rest of the boys didn't question her meal choice, and she was relieved. Baekhyun was the last of them to make his way out to breakfast and once she served his food, she excused herself to go make their beds. It only took her minutes to make the eleven beds and pick up the dirty clothes from the hamper that had been left in each of their rooms. The most difficult had been Junmyeon's room, which he was sharing with Chanyeol because his clothes had been discarded onto the floor and there was so much of it thrown around that she wasn't sure which was the one that needed washing.

The group set out after breakfast to some schedules that they needed to tend to. Some of them would be attending dance practices at the SM Town building in Hong Kong, while the others--the members of EXO M--would be appearing in an interview where they would promote their tour. The managers had gone with them, and the stylists were out of the house as well, leaving Narda alone to do the chores. 

When she saw a stereo in the living room, she took it as her chance to pass her time cleaning while listening to music. She connected her iPod to it and put on her favorite playlist. The sound of her favorite music immediately filled up the empty house.

She had washed all of the dirty clothes, put it in the dryer, and then folded it afterwards. Then she prepared dinner for them, since she had been told they wouldn't be back until that afternoon. With the time that she had left over she began sweeping the living room with her music blaring a song in Spanish.

"Al oír la cumbia pienso en mi najayita." She sang along to the lyrics in the empty house. When I listen to cumbia, I think of my najayita, the lyrics said in Spanish.

The music had been so loud that she didn't even notice the front door open. Baekhyun had been the first to return and he arrived to see Narda dancing and singing at the top of her lungs while she swept. Her hips swayed to the beat of the music. He only stood in the doorway watching her little private moment until she spun around and bumped right into him. She screamed and jumped back in surprise, eyes wide open as the broom fell from her hands, falling to the floor with a loud thud.

"Byun!" She gasped, surprised to see him there. She hurried to the stereo and clicked on the button to power off, then she disconnected her cellphone from it and stuffed it into her pocket for safe keeping.

"What were you doing?" He eyed her suspiciously, but he had seen all of it. 

"I was just cleaning." She replied nervously, and she wasn't entirely lying.

He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself when they heard the front door open once again. This time, two more people entered the living room. They were Chanyeol and Junmyeon who were just getting back from their practices. 

Chanyeol looked from Baekhyun to Narda, standing so close to each other. But Baekhyun took a few steps back and ran a hand through his dark hair. "I'm going to my room. Let me know when dinner is ready." He said, and then turned to walk down the hallway towards the bedrooms. Narda found herself pouting as he walked away from her, once again putting distance between them that felt more like miles.

-

The next day, the boys were scheduled to take English lessons with her. There was an office in the house, which she was allowed to use and she met with the boys two at a time. The first to have their lesson in English were Lu Han and Tao.

Lu Han was already better at grasping the language and was able to catch on rather quickly, Tao was a bit slower but had also been able to grasp her lesson after a couple of minutes. 

The second pair were Kyungsoo and Jongin. Kyungsoo had easily been able to pronounce the words she gave them, even if he didn't exactly know their meaning, while Jongin was having trouble the entire time and Narda had to slow the lesson down for him. 

She had decided that after evaluating all of them, she would pair them up based on their level of understanding. 

Next were Yixing and Jongdae. Like the pair that preceded them, one was much better than the other. Yixing's prnunciation wasn't perfect, but it was much better than Jongdae's.

Then it was time for Minseok's first lesson. Since he wasn't sharing a room with anyone, he also got to have a lesson all on his own. His English was average compared to the rest of his group members. He was neither exceptionally good nor was he terrible at it.

Soon it was time for Sehun and Baekhyun to join her for their lesson. Narda sat on one side of the desk and the two of them at the other. She had them take a little speaking and writing test to evaluate their level of fluency, and Sehun had been just like Jongin. The two maknaes were the ones who needed the most help. Baekhyun was about at the same level as Minseok or Tao.

For the time of their lesson, Narda put more of her attention on Sehun, praising him each time he said or did something right in order to boost his confidence. It was a matter of time before Baekhyun started feeling jealous at all the attention she was giving Sehun, needy for her attention, and left out that she wasn't giving it to him.

He had been pushed to his limit when she spent most of the lesson going over basic sentences with Sehun. When she asked him to pronounce one of them, and he did it correctly, she reached over and pinched his cheek with a grin. She had moved from sitting across from them to sitting on the desk, closest to the EXO maknae. "So cute, Sehunnie. Good job. You're learning very quickly." She praised him and on his face was a smile of his own. 

Baekhyun grabbed a hold of her wrist and pulled her away from his group mate. While she complained and protested, he pulled her out of the room, leaving Sehun by himself. He stopped when they were out in the hallway. Narda leaned up against the wall and he stood only inches away from her, watching her with dark and brooding eyes. His hand pressed up against the wall to keep himself from closing the small gap between them. 

"What are you trying to do, Guti?" He asked her, a dark tone underlining his words.

"What are you talking about? I'm just doing my job." She replied innocently. She had been doing her job when he caught her cleaning and listening to music, and she had been doing her job when she was giving the boys their English lesson. Her eyes darkened as she rubbed the skin on her wrist that was already starting to become sore and she warned him, "And another thing. Don't you dare fucking grab me like that again, unless you want to lose that beautiful hand of yours. You can't just drag people around whenever you want because you're famous. There's such a thing as manners."

He sighed in frustration, shaking his head, momentarily disregarding her warning. "That's not what I meant. I was talking about you always watching me and trying to get my attention. And now suddenly you're all over Sehun." He said the last part bitterly. "And you want to talk about manners?" He accused, his voice rising in both tone and volume. "You were the one who pretended I ran her over just to get my attention."

"We agreed to forget that." She argued.

"Well you being all over Sehun happened today. Let's talk about that then." He eyed her, his eyebrows raising as an ironic smile formed on his lips.

Narda gave a sarcastic laugh. "All over Sehun? You must be joking." Her voice softening down an octave, she told him, "Why are you acting like this when you know damn well that you're my favorite? I'm your biggest fan, Byun. You're the one ignoring me and running from me." She tilted her head to the side slightly in a gesture of cute innocence and bit down on her lower lip. Her expressions had gone from confused to angry, to sarcastic, to understanding, and finally cute. She was always a mixture of emotions because of him. His eyes glanced at her lips for a millisecond before he looked away from her.

"You need to stop." He huffed, sucking in a deep breath.

In the next second, Chanyeol appeared in the hallway and pushed Baekhyun away from Narda, standing in front of her protectively. "Geez Baek, why are you so hell bent on bothering Guti? She's done nothing to you." He hissed at his former room mate in Korean. Narda could only watch and try to gather what he was saying based on her limited vocabulary in Korean. But she could barely understand a thing.

"She's the one messing with me." Baekhyun accused, continuing the argument in the language which was easiest for the two. "She won't leave me alone--she won't get out of my head."

"She hardly pays you any attention!" Chanyeol told him.

Baekhyun stormed off down the hall, leaving Narda with Chanyeol and Suho who had only arrived seconds prior. The three entered the room together to find Sehun playing a video game on his phone and she informed him that his lesson had ended for the day.

-

EXO gave two concerts in Hong Kong before moving onto mainland China, after spending one week back in Korea. The group then continued to China, where they would be performing in Wuhan, Chongqing, and Chengdu. They took a flight to Beijing, from where they had most of their practices and only took the two hour flights out of Beijing to each of the towns on concert night. After their first concert in Wuhan, they returned to Korea for two weeks.

Baekhyun had commitments of his own, as did most of the other members. Including an appearance on Inkigayo where he would be a guest MC with Junmyeon. It was set to film live on the day in which South Korea was debuting at the world cup in Brazil.

While they were in Korea, Narda wasn't needed as the group's house cleaner and she returned to her apartment to rest for the week, along with Nari. On the night of Friday the thirteenth, she was laid down on her bed, listening to music and waiting for the football game in which Mexico would go up against Cameroon in their debut at the world cup in Brazil. In the host country, the game would start at one in the afternoon. But since she was on the other side of the world, she would need to wait until one in the morning, which was still four hours from then.

Her cellphone beeped with a notification of a text message from the person in her her contacts labeled as Usted--the respectful word for you in Spanish.

usted ^.^: little liar, wanna go out for
some coffee or something?

narda: its nine at night boi :p

narda: & its summer time...

usted ^.^: u viciously wounded
my pride D: kekeke

usted ^.^: frappes exist u know :$

narda: i cant channie

narda: mexico debuts at the wc tonight.

i have to watch it. its my obligation as 

a mexican lol

usted ^.^: ...can i watch it with u??

usted ^.^: wait...what's "the wc"?

narda: WORLD CUP, usted.

narda: & i was just about to suggest that

narda: besides, i have a present for u ;)

usted ^.^: really?  \^o^/ what is it? <3

narda: its a surprise boi

narda: get over here & i'll show u

He arrived at the apartment that Narda and Nari shared together and knocked on the door. Muffled and at a distance, from the inside he heard Narda's familiar voice yelling. "Its unlocked, Channie! I'm making popcorn!" He smiled to himself at her behavior and let himself into the apartment. 

From the living room he could see her, dressed in her green Mexican national team jersey and black fuzzy pajama bottoms with doughnut patterns on them. He had arrived in jeans and a t-shirt, since he didn't know how to dress to watch a football game with a girl he liked. A cap covered his messy hair, ruffled by the arduous dance practicing he had done with Jongin for the tour. He trained and gave his best, but he still felt like he needed more practice. Jongin had been nice enough to practice after hours with his hyung.

"I brought stuff too." He informed her, raising two grocery bags full of snacks for her to see. 

One was filled with icecream treats which Junmyeon had purchases for all the members and Chanyeol made himself promise he would buy more later. The other was a bag full of cookies and bags of chips which he had stolen from a cupboard that Baekhyun and Kyungsoo shared, since the two were the most frugal with their snacks.

She grinned, but assured them he didn't have to go out of his way for her. "My parents sent me this huge box filled with Mexican snacks. You'll like them, Channie. You can take some back to the dorms to share with the boys if you want."

Chanyeol set the bags on the coffee table and that was when he saw it.

There was a gift box. It was bright green flat box with red and white ribbon tied into a bow. As he got closer, he saw there was a card on top. 

For Usted (Channie), from Guti.

"That's my present?" He gestured to the box, walking closer to the couch with a grin on his face.

She nodded and he soon heard the microwave ding, signalling that her popcorn was ready. She got the bag out and poured them into the large bowl before saying to him, "Go ahead and open it."

He picked the box up and pulled it open almost too eagerly after removing the bows. There was a neatly folded shirt inside that was identical to the one she was wearing. On top was a folded note with his name on it. 

When he opened it, he found written by her hand, "Green is the color of good luck and hope! Please accept this present so that we can watch the World Cup games together--and lets hope Mexico wins. -Narda" He placed the note on the couch along with the box and got the jersey out. He observed the front of it, with the national team logo sewn onto the center of the chest area. As he turned it over, he saw she had even gotten it personalized for him. Chanyeol, 61, was written out in white lettering.

She walked over with the bowl of popcorn in her hands and commented to him, "I had one for Byun too, but he doesn't deserve it after the way he's been treating me lately. So I don't feel like giving it to him yet."

He ignored those words and pulled her in for a hug, making her nearly drop the popcorn and taking her by surprise. "Thank you, Guti."

"Thank you for watching the games with me." She told him with a smile, her words slightly muffled by his shirt in the tightness of his embrace. "It makes me feel less lonely being in a foreign country without my family. I always used to watch the games with my dad and my brother."

"I know you're far from home." He told her. "But you'll never be alone."

-

i was gonna add an instagram post segment to this chapter, but it's already gotten way too long. so i'll just cut it off here and just post it next time. now we are also beginning to see some drama with baek, lol. and some nice moments with chanyeol.

i hope you're all liking this story.

thank you for the support. have a wonderful week!

-clary xx