Always Been You (Ryeji Converted)

Chapter 15

Back at the sublet, Yeji packed a change of clothes; she didn't want to freak Ryujin out, but if last night was an indication of the way things were gonna go, she'd need that stuff tomorrow morning.

"Okay, I'm off. I have a family recipe to conquer before Ryujin gets home from work."

"God speed, young squire! I'll see you soon... hopefully before the year is out." Yuna pretended to wipe a tear from her eye.

Yeji blew a raspberry and gave her friend a hug, "We'll have you over for dinner. Ryujin turned out to be rather handy in the kitchen..."

***
Yeji took the subway downtown and let herself into Ryujin's apartment. She laid out the ingredients on the tiny kitchen counter. "No wonder everyone orders in in New York, I can barely chop a green bean in this space..."

Getting the print out of Debbie's email, she looked around for a place to put it. "I'll just have to tack it on to the fridge..." she laughed, using one of Ryujin's fridge magnets to attach the piece of paper to the door.

"Purge clams. Okay." She read through the email again. "What else... boil water, chop parsley. Ugh. I hate this stuff."

Yeji dutifully chopped up the parsley and set it aside. She looked at her watch... Almost 6. Ryujin had texted that she'd be back around 6:30.

Realizing that she doesn't have much more time, Yeji turned up the heat for the pot of water and started moving through the recipe. She was grateful for Debbie's additional notes, which always seemed to anticipate her questions.

With all but the last step done, and the dish looking pretty decent, she worked on the last flourish: taking all her clothes off.

Folding them in a neat pile on Ryujin's bed, she put on the "Keep Calm and Kiss the Chef" apron she had found at a store in the Village earlier that day. She smiled, feeling little lurches of arousal between her legs as she moved about the apartment.

She took one last look at the print-out: "Final step... drizzle olive oil.. stir in parsley, however... 'however?' However what? Oh shit." The email must have been two pages long, but she remembered only grabbing one page off the printer.

Worried that she had made some monumental mistake, she quickly pulled up the email on her phone and scrolled manically through it. "Here it is. '...however, I always think of the parsley as optional, because some people (like Ryujin) really don't like it, and it ruins the dish for them. Have fun making this!'"

"Oh good. I hate parsley too." Yeji put the phone down and plated the pasta. Waaaaaait. Wait-wait-wait-wait. Yeji read that sentence again. And again. She totally fricking knows.

And that is what Ryujin walked into when she got home. Yeji, naked except for an apron, looking at her phone, horrified, with her hand on her mouth. Ryujin shut the door behind her, and dropped her backpack onto the floor.

Yeji looked up, "Ryujin!"

"Yeddeooong, you've got some 'splaining to do!" The blonde raised an eyebrow, surveying the scene.

"I made you dinner," Yeji smiled shyly.

"I can see that," Ryujin kicked off her shoes.

"And I took my clothes off..."

"Uh-huh, that is also a statement I agree with."

"... and I might have accidentally tipped off your mother that something happened between us." Yeji said the last bit very, very quickly.

"You are three for three, Yeji Hwang. My mother called me twice today. Once this morning, and once again before I came home. She was incredibly curious about whether we had plans to get together any time soon."

"Sorry, Pezza. I called to ask her what your favorite dish was. And it wasn't until she asked why, did I realise I should have been a little less obvious."

Ryujin wrapped her arms around the brunette and gave her a kiss, "Mom was bound to find out, so I just copped to it. She was so happy she broke into Italian. Hey -- look at that!" The blonde spotted the plates.

"This looks delicious," Ryujin pinched a noodle and tasted it, "Oh wow!" She picked up a clam and popped the meat into her mouth, "Hmmm. Good. Is this my grandmother's recipe?"

Yeji nodded. Then, to her surprise, the blonde grabbed grabbed some tinfoil from a drawer and wrapped up the dishes.

"Not good?" Yeji's stomach fell.

Ryujin grinned and slid the dishes into the oven and set the temperature, "It's very good. But it's not as good as you -- in nothing but an apron."

"Oh!" Yeji felt a bolt of desire shoot from the tips of her toes to the back of her scalp.

The blonde read the words on the apron and chuckled, "C'mere." Ryujin leaned forward, and then picked the girl up in a fireman's carry.

Yeji screeched, "Ryujin, you're going to drop me. I'm too heavy!"

Ryujin gently let the brunette down on the bed, "You were the one who dropped me in 10th grade... and look, you're now perfectly safe."

The brunette reached behind her back to undo the apron's ties, "You said 'give me a minute,' so I looked away. You chose to move before the minute was over."

"Yeji, it was a fucking ropes course trust fall." Ryujin snorted.

The brunette blushed, remembering Ryujin's look of stunned surprise when she found herself flat on her back in a muddy field.

"How about you let me make it up to you?" Yeji dropped her voice to a lower timbre, and slowly pulled the apron off herself.

The blonde stopped laughing immediately and crawled over so she was right over Yeji's body. "It was incredibly painful," she said with mock agony.

Yeji reached up and started undoing the buttons of Ryujin's shirt, "Where did it hurt? Here?"

The blonde shook her head.

Yeji unbuckled the girl's belt, "Here?"

"Lower," Ryujin rasped.

Yeji's hand snaked into the blonde's panties. "Here?"

"Hmmm... getting closer..."

Yeji's phone, which was still sitting on the kitchen counter, started ringing.

"Probably my mother..." whispered Yeji. Her hand reaching its destination.

"News travels fast, I guess." Ryujin sucked in a breath as the girl slid two fingers into her.

"Then I don't need to talk to her, do I?" Yeji grinned wickedly as her fingers teased the blonde's inside walls.

Ryujin shuddered, "Nope...."