#will continue

"Gil, you're killing it, yet again," Kingo strolls in, taking his scarf off with quite a flourish. He whips it out behind him, nearly smacking Druig right in the face with it. "I blew off some pretty A-list parties to come here, y'know."

"Thanks for remindin' us," Druig mutters, pushing right past him to get Makkari inside.

Thena grabs the back of her red hoodie before she can trot right over to the food table. She points at her feet. Shoes.

Makkari gives her a grin that definitely works on Druig every time. Sorry Mom.

Thena doesn't even roll her eyes, just releases her friend to kick off her running shoes (the only kind of shoes she owns). She kicks them aside faintly to remove her low heels as well. Very adorably, Gil keeps extra house slippers and sandals for each of them.

"I'm just glad you guys are here! Can't eat all this myself."

Thena pads into the kitchen while everyone else heads right for the food spread, already chatting and catching up about the last few weeks spent without each other. Work and life simply keep them too busy, but Gil's place is always a safe spot for them to reconvene.

"Hey," he murmurs as he stirs his tteokguk. He takes a taste and then salts the broth.

"Hey," she says gently to him. He's watching the broth as he stirs his rice cakes, but he doesn't look up at her even as she hovers. "Gil."

He finally does, and her suspicions are confirmed. He didn't seem himself when he welcomed them in. It wasn't that it was less enthusiastic than usual, or that he seemed in poor spirits. He was just...off.

Thena takes a seat at his kitchen island. "Tell me."

He sighs, ready to give it up now that she's asked him directly. He glances over to their friends, gleefully conversing and stuffing their faces. But when he looks at her, she can see right through him. "Sorry--I didn't wanna be a buzzkill right when you showed up."

"What happened?" she prompts him. It's not like Gil to keep anything to himself, which tells her that this is a rather delicate subject. And for Gil, that can only be so many things.

"My aunt called," he concedes, setting aside his ladle and leaning against the edge of his fancy induction stove. He got this apartment almost entirely because of its fancy kitchen.

"Imo?" Thena asks, not that he has another aunt. But what she knows of the woman, is that she doesn't call often, unless it's to bug Gil about either visiting home, coming home to get married, or a combination of both.

He nods. "I told her I was going to call tonight, which she didn't believe, of course."

"Hm," Thena agrees faintly. She hopes she never has to meet this woman, in a way. In another way, she does hope to meet her, only to tell her to stop making Gil feels so bad about just living his life.

"Then she started right in with the visiting, and I'm getting too old to live alone, and shouldn't I get married, and-"

Thena just listens as Gil launches into a rant, half laden with Korean tinged profanity simply because he needs a word English just doesn't have. Or sometimes it does, but he says they don't always have the same feel as, for example, shibal (his favourite).

"Sorry," he sighs again, deflating completely.

Thena shakes her head. She knows how heavily his aunt weighs on his mind. Gil is too sweet for his own good, so when his aunt burdens him with her old fashioned views of how he should be living his life, he feels guilt over it. No matter how much Thena wishes he would say that he doesn't have to do whatever Imo wants him to.

"It's nothing new from her," he laments, finally pulling off his apron now that he seems to be done with preparing new dishes. "I dunno why it really got under my skin so much this time."

"Hm," Thena muses as he tosses his apron on the counter and comes around to sit next to her. "You were quite worried about what to send her as a gift this year."

"Well," he fidgets on his kitchen stool. He looks towards their friends, who have graciously excused their absence. It's not like it's unusual for them to be off chatting between the two of them. He leans closer to whisper, "she keeps bringing up me being single."

Thena raises her eyebrows fractionally. Imo is old fashioned, as she understands, so she's not entirely surprised that she wants her nephew to settle down and get married in a proper house. No matter how much Gil is liking his life as a chef in a city high-rise.

"Like, it's not just her telling me to get married, I know I'm overdue for that in her eyes," he mutters. He doesn't detect her quietly sliding over a dish of nuts he left out for snacking, but he grabs a healthy handful nonetheless. "But she's brought up how I don't even have a girlfriend at least the last three times she's called."

Thena takes just one walnut for herself while Gil scarfs them down. "You need to eat more while you're cooking."

He shrugs, telling her with a full mouth, "I graze."

She shakes her head at him, swiping away some crumbs as if he's a child, or Druig. "You make all this wonderful food, and do you even get any for yourself? Or do you let the monsters eat you out of house and home just to eat your own leftovers?"

He doesn't even keep the leftovers, he sends as much as he can with them when they leave. No matter how politely they might try to refuse, Makkari and Druig always end up walking out with containers upon containers of stuff.

Gil leans his cheek against his fist as she stands to serve some of his soup. "Bowls are-"

She does not need the instruction. It is a gesture of honour, she thinks of it. Gil is particular about his kitchen. He doesn't invite them over to help because he hates cooking with others. He doesn't even let them help serve things. So when he has no complaints about her dishing out bowls for them both, she doesn't take it lightly.

"I guess I realised...she's kind of right."

"You being single?" Thena feels the need to ask as she sets down their bowls. At least Gil can get some of his delicious food before Makkari challenges him to a drinking contest. Ikaris sometimes challenges him to arm wrestling if he has enough beers, but it always ends the same way.

"Yeah," Gil sighs, seeming genuinely bummed about it. "I mean, I don't even remember when my last date was."

Thena does. Sersi set it up, with a coworker of hers. When asked about it, Gil said she was nice, but there just wasn't any spark there. When asking Sersi, Thena learned that Gil hadn't been able to talk about much except how bad the restaurant had been. Which didn't surprise her, as someone who knew Gil, but she supposed wouldn't have been fun for Sersi's colleague.

"Maybe she's right, maybe I do need to start thinking about it more."

Thena raises a brow at him. She puts her spoon down, while Gil tips his bowl up to inhale his serving. He's famished. "About getting married?"

"I dunno," he all but whines, and she lets him. "I'm not getting any younger. And I did always think I would get married--I dunno, someday."

Of course he would. Gil is nothing if not loyal and devoted as a person. He's sweet at heart, loves love, is pretty positive as a person. He would make a great partner/husband.

"Imo really got to you," Thena remarks, trying to get more of a feel for just how depressed Gil is. He's never been this bothered about such things before. Even that year Imo told him that his cousin had gotten married and was the new pride of the family.

"I guess." He pushes his bowl away, although he doesn't get up to get more until he looks at her bowl just starting to get low. "I don't know why it got to me this time. It doesn't really matter, right?"

Thena doesn't comment on that, just watches as he dishes them up more soup. He gives her more rice cakes because he knows she likes how chewy they are. "Does it?"

"Does it?" he asks her, and she can feel him pleading with her. He gives her those big, warm, sad eyes. Like a dog being denied a treat. "Is it...sad?"

"That you're single?"

"Not that," he at least smiles a little. And he uses a spoon this time instead of drinking his soup like a pint. "Or maybe--I mean, I did always think I'd get married. But I guess I have to date for that to happen, right?"

Thena watches his frown return. "And what's the problem?"

He makes a face. It's not usually Gil at a loss for words and her prompting him to continue. But he scrunches his mouth, "what if I'm un-dateable?"

"Gil."

He squeezes his eyes shut and scrubs his face. "I don't really like going out to eat, unless it's a place I know I like. And new places I can, uh, be a little hard on, I guess."

The only time Thena had ever heard Gil be negative or harsh in any way was when it was about a restaurant with lacklustre offerings.

"I don't really have a normal schedule," he continues to narrate the 'negatives' of his dating life. "And I don't even really wanna meet someone new right now."

"So don't."

He laughs, and at least he thinks she's funny. He's always saying she's funny, but Thena really doesn't know if anyone else could say that. "That's easy to say, I guess. I'm pretty good at it, it seems."

Thena isn't sure about that. She knows at least a few friends of Sersi's and Makkari's have asked about their 'hot chef friend'. They had told her, and Thena in turn had told Gil, which only ever made him laugh.

He looks at her point blank. "Do you think I'm unmarriable?"

"No, Gil, I don't think that."

He sighs, still forlorn, but with a faint smile. "That makes someone, at least."

"Gil, I'm serious."

"Tell that to Imo," he leans back in his stool, almost so far back she's worried he'll fall. But he leans forward just to down the rest of his second bowl.

"I will."

Finally, he looks at her. And Gil isn't the only one who needs some resolution tonight. But Thena makes herself hold his gaze. "Huh?"

"I would," she corrects, but stands her ground. "I'll happily tell your aunt that there's nothing wrong with your current track in life, married or not."

Gil's smile is so soft it always melts something inside of her without even trying. He puts an arm around her shoulder, giving her as much of a hug as she can usually tolerate from even her nearest and dearest. "Thanks, Thena."

Her eyes flutter as he presses his lips to her temple.

"I know you would, 'cause you're the best," he chuckles as he finally pulls out a plate for himself.

"And you're far from unmarriable."

He looks at her, curious as to what is prompting her to continue. It's still defiant of their usual dynamic, him curious as to what's causing her to trip over her words.

"You're more eligible than you think, Gil," Thena sighs, this time. Every year Imo gets Gil down about his relationship status, and for the last two years at least, Thena has wondered what would happen if she offered to rectify that, if only Gil could see the option in front of him.

"Huh?" he just blinks at her.

She puts her bowl down, too frustrated to just drop it this time. "Anyone would be lucky to have you. You're sweet, you're funny, you're such a good cook I can't go out to eat anymore because of you."

"Uh," he blinks as she clenches her fists, looking up at him more than usual in her bare feet. "S-Sorry-"

"And if she's going to give you a hard time about being single you're just going to have to tell her it's by choice," Thena huffs as she feels her face grow warmer and warmer. "Because I don't know how much more obvious I can be."

Gil is just staring at her with a totally open jaw.

Thena could roll her eyes if she didn't want to yell at him so much. But she grabs him by the t-shirt and yanks him down to her level. It's not exactly counting down to midnight yet, but she's been waiting for years now, she can't let this go on another year.

Gil leans into the kiss immediately, folding around her. For all his shock, he holds her like they've always been doing this, his arm at her waist and his hand finding its way into her hair.

The man is far too good a kisser to be whining about being single. Thena pushes against his chest to extract herself. She touches her lips to make sure she doesn't look like she's jumped him when she goes to get some food for herself.

"Call her back."