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Five minutes, he thought to himself, pulling the blanket higher to his chin and curling even more. He wanted to sleep a little bit longer. Five more minutes.
His alarm didn’t ring. His head and body were both complaining. He might have forgotten to cool down after the long hours of dance practice. He went straight to the studio and lost track of time. He doesn’t remember when he arrived back in the dorm. He doesn’t even know when he left.
But goddamnit, he wanted just five goddamn minutes!
The loud clangs and thuds outside his room were too loud to ignore. He very nearly wanted to cry. Just one day. One fucking day where he could sleep peacefully.
Alas, having twelve other members and one or two managers living together was quite a hurdle to reach a peaceful, quiet, late morning.
It was the smell that got him to rise.
Instincts reacted first. His eyes snapped open, his body was tense, and his brain was alert. The drowsiness was gone in an instant as he smelled something burning in the main hall.
He moved like lightning, jumping on one foot as he tried to get the other foot out of the tangled blanket. The others might be running to the smell too but it wasn’t like Mingyu to burn something. It wasn’t much like Mingyu to cook something on their day off after long hours of dance practice either.
So someone was cooking and that someone was nearly going to burn their dorm down.
He bumped into the wall as his momentum reached is peak. His socked feet slipped at the newly waxed floor but his mind was only focused on remembering where the goddamn fire extinguisher was.
When he reached the kitchen, he saw it. His hand held tightly on the door frame as he was catching his breath. His heart pounded loudly from the adrenaline and he could still smell smoke.
“What the hell are you doing?” He yelled, startling the person cooking. The cook turned around, surprised and shocked, almost a little embarrassed. The kitchen counters were covered with flour, broken egg shells, and there was a carton of milk toppled over. There were bowls and spoons all over. Luckily, there were no broken plates or else they would be getting an earful from their manager.
“Jihoon-ah,” the cook said weakly, “why are you awake?”
Jihoon glared, waving his arms in the air to clear out the smoke. It hadn’t set off the smoke alarm and Jihoon was thankful for that too.
“I smelled smoke.” Jihoon said, walking towards the stove where the cook was, still holding a pan and a spatula, careful not to step on anything wet but it was unavoidable. “Kwon Soonyoung, what the hell?”
Soonyoung, at the very least, looked sheepish and guilty. He scanned the room apologetically. HIs face was also covered in flour, his hands were blanched in dripping yellow, and there was something in his arm that Jihoon would very much rather not think about.
Well, the stove was off. Jihoon silently said thanks for small miracles. He turned to look at the pan and spatula Soonyoung was holding. It looked like a wet lump of… something. If it was food or if it was vomit, Jihoon couldn’t tell the difference.
“I wanted to make you pancakes,” Soonyoung said defeatedly, looking down at the wet lump on the pan before he placed it down on the counter near the sink, his face dejected and making Jihoon feel like an asshole for thinking that it looked like vomit, “you stayed up late again last night and I know you forgot to cool down so your body’s probably in pain so I wanted to make you food and the guys went out for their schedules and for their free time and we were the only ones here and I thought it was nice since you made me food before so--”
“Okay, okay, I get it, Soonyoung-ah,” Jihoon said, cutting off Soonyoung’s rant, “Why didn’t you just make ramyeon?”
Soonyoung reached to scratch the back of his head when Jihoon reacted through sheer adrenaline and grabbed Soonyoung’s wrist, his face panicked. Soonyoung blinked, confused when Jihoon waved his own arm in front of him. It was covered with the batter, lumpy yet wet. Soonyoung chuckled weakly before putting it down.
“I wanted you to eat healthy,” Soonyoung shrugged instead.
Jihoon tip-toed, making his way to the batter though stepping on an eggshell anyway. It was too early, he was running low on sleep and caffeine. The buttery smell was not complimenting the smokey smell. He stared at the batter that was left in the bowl and the pan that was beside the sink. He reached for it and the spatula that Soonyoung placed on it. Jihoon scraped the batter but it was harder than it looked. It was stuck as it was burnt underneath that Jihoon exerted more effort than he thought he should have.
It flew right up to the ceiling with a loud splat. Oh god.
Jihoon stood on his toes for a lame effort to try to reach the batter stuck up high. It didn’t drip on his face, but realizing that the entire thing might fall on top of him made him give up instead. He couldn’t reach it anyway.
When he moved to the side, he missed the open bag of flour right at the edge of the counter. Jihoon’s elbow hit it and it fell on the floor. The flour dust reaching his nose and lungs, causing him to cough and step back. His palm hit the small bottle of vanilla extract that was also near the sink. It tipped over, the concentrated liquid flowing down the pipes. The smell was strong.
At least, Jihoon thought, it covered the smell of the smoke.
Jihoon turned around, checking to see if there was something else he could accidentally topple over. As he took a step back, he stepped on butter. He slipped. Jihoon tried to reach for the counter but took the egg carton, falling back and bracing himself for the impact but Soonyoung caught him by the underarms. Soonyoung’s elbows hooking themselves underneath his biceps. The batter then decided it didn’t want to hold onto the ceiling anymore and fell with another loud splat.
Jihoon was irritated. He was covered in flour and eggs, he stepped on butter, the room stunk of vanilla, and Soonyoung still had batter on his arms and it was getting everywhere. Jihoon had every intention of glaring at Soonyoung until the end of time and he already moved his head to glare at Soonyoung upside down but then…
Soonyoung leaned down to kiss Jihoon’s forehead, his lips also covered in white because of the flour. There was a smile on his face and joy in his eyes. Soonyoung laughed heartily, that high pitched laughter that had the power to ease Jihoon’s irritation for some goddamn reason.
“Take away?” Soonyoung suggested with glee, helping Jihoon stand straight before he stepped over the fallen batter from the ceiling and then he washed his hands.
Jihoon sighed deeply, placing the now-empty carton of eggs on the pan to be cleaned after.
“I want mandu.”
Soonyoung turned to him, kissing him again but this time on the corner of Jihoon’s lips. “Give me five minutes.”