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Maybe Jeno shouldn’t have skipped all his dorm floor meetings. Sure, they were always overly long and the information was hardly anything that couldn’t just be said in an email, but if he’d showed up, then at least his Resident Advisor would know his face. That would’ve made the current situation much less awkward.
“Hi, um, I’m Jeno, I live in 402. I’m one of your residents, I think, and I just accidentally...set my oven on fire while cooking dinner? It’s out now! I got the fire extinguisher and— yeah, but there’s, like, a ton of smoke in the apartment and I’m not really sure what to do now…”
His RA, Donghyuck, stands still throughout his rambling, one hand resting on the door handle, but his eyes keep widening the longer Jeno speaks. Finally, he runs a hand over his face and sighs. “Wow, alright, are you okay? You didn’t get hurt? Where’s your roommate?”
He’s asking him if he got hurt, oh my god, what a great first impression on the cute RA, Jeno. Damn, he really should’ve reconsidered forgoing the cafeteria meal plan this year.
“No, I’m fine and he’s still in class,” is his sheepish reply.
Jeno listens as Donghyuck says something about opening all the windows (already done) and letting his roommate know (Jaemin’s number is already pulled up on his phone screen). He nods along dutifully anyways.
“I think the maintenance team already went home for the night so,” Donghyuck glances back into his own apartment, “you guys can crash at mine tonight while your place airs out. Go get the things you need and come back, yeah?”
This entire situation is mortifying but it’s late, and he’s not about to sleep under all that smoke. So, Jeno nods again and leaves with a promise to be back soon. He’s dialing Jaemin as soon as he rounds the corner, who, thankfully, picks up on the second ring. “Hey, did you just get out of class?”
“Oh, it let out early tonight. I’m at the front desk now, I’ll be up soon. What’s up?”
“Um, I tried cooking dinner...” Jaemin makes a noise for him to continue on, “and I almost burned down the kitchen?”
“You what.”
“I didn’t, though,” Jeno hurries to add on, “like, there was a small fire, but I put it out! Just...just come upstairs and see for yourself.”
Jaemin is charging down the hall at him before he knows it. Jeno points towards their apartment door, “it’s unlocked.”
He twists the handle, opens the door, takes one look at the layer of smoke hanging around the ceiling, and shuts it again. “Dude.”
“It’s not as bad as you think!”
“What did you do? ”
Oh, boy. Time to make a clown out of himself for the second time in ten minutes. “I was reheating the leftover pizza in the oven and one second it was good and the next, it was on fire.”
“How did you manage to set the pizza on fire?”
“I don’t know, I only threw the box in there for a couple minutes and—”
“Wait, you threw the whole box in there?”
“I’ve seen you do it before!”
“Well, yeah, but...how high did you have the oven on?”
“450?”
The exasperated look Jaemin gives him has his shoulders hunching. “That’s way too hot for just reheating, Jeno!” Somehow, Jaemin’s disappointed stare is even worse than Donghyuck’s surprise.
“Sorry, I really didn’t know. I closed all the doors, though, and the windows are all opened. Let’s just get our stuff? Donghyuck said we could stay with him tonight.”
“Who’s Donghyuck?”
“Our RA?”
“We have an RA?” Jaemin jokes.
Jeno squats down to hide his face in his knees in embarrassment. Why did they both brush off going to the floor meetings? Why did he let Jaemin convince him to apply for the apartment-style dorms this year? Come on, Jeno, if you do the dishes then I’ll cook for you every night. Let’s just split groceries, don’t waste your money on the meal plan.
Oh, Jeno has many regrets. Their arrangement worked out well enough last semester. For lunch every day, Jeno would eat leftovers from the night before or get something from the food court, maybe make himself a sandwich if he woke up early enough before class. He could do that much at least.
This semester, though? Jaemin enrolled in a three-hour class, who knows why, and it took place on Thursday nights. Just when Jeno thought his best friend couldn’t get more chaotic. This meant that for the past few Thursdays, Jeno had settled into a steady pattern of instant ramen and frozen potstickers from Yangyang’s mom. They were delicious, even if the water frothed up and spilled over the side of the pot every time he tried to boil them.
Have confidence in yourself, Jaemin had told him as he wiped down the stovetop. You’ll master it one day! Now, Jeno is a fully grown adult man, does his homework and chores on time (for the most part), has an 85% success rate of grocery shopping by himself without panicking. Maybe 80%. He really thought he could cook for himself once a week, no problem. Clearly, the incident tonight showed otherwise.
He remembers applauding himself last week for the potstickers, even if the skin stuck to the bottom of the pot a little. Well, that was fine. They're called potstickers, after all! If it’s edible, it’s a success. Hip hip hurrah, three cheers for Jeno Lee and his cooking mastery. Where is his badge for not burning down the kitchen? Well, clearly nowhere to be seen now.
He should’ve just microwaved the pizza and called it a night. Mark Lee and his habit of bringing too much food to video game nights, bless his generous soul. Sorry for wasting it, Mark, Jeno thinks as he stares at the oven through the smoky haze. The numbers on the temperature dial are all rubbed off by now, the remnant of past apartment occupants, but the tick marks are still just visible enough that he could estimate. This should’ve been easy. This should’ve been familiar territory.
Jeno veers just on the side of being able to fend for himself in terms of cooking but baking is another story. Ask him for a cherry pie and he’ll not only deliver, but he’ll also change your life.
“It logically makes no sense,” Jaemin had mumbled the first time he’d tried Jeno’s white chocolate cranberry cookies, “how can you give me pure ambrosia but you can’t even fry an egg?”
Jeno doesn’t know either, it’s just how he is. In his defense, there’s so much more pressure around cooking. Cooking is about whole meals, a balanced diet. Baking is just self-indulgent fun. Who’s unhappy to see a plate of cookies? He and his oven had a loving relationship. This betrayal hurt him, just a little bit.
The oven is still open from when he’d grabbed a dishrag and impulsively yanked it open after seeing orange flames licking at the glass door. That probably wasn’t the safest move but it had seemed better than leaving it shut. He’d run out in his socks to grab the fire extinguisher from the emergency case down the hall and had panicked briefly because how do you use a fire extinguisher? His head was nearly blanking when he grabbed the nozzle, pulled some tab, and finally figured it out. He’d sprayed it at the flames and all over the oven until the fire died down, until even the embers were buried.
The smoke is stinging at his eyes now and he turns away from the oven, ducks his head down, and rushes to grab chargers and books and whatever else he can spot.
They find themselves back at Donghyuck’s door a while later. He lets them enter wordlessly and takes their appearances in, miserable visages and arms overflowing with their things.
Donghyuck points towards pillows and blankets piled up on the couch in his tiny living room. “I brought those out but I think one of you will have to take the floor, sorry.” Jeno immediately sets his things down on the ground, not even listening to Jaemin’s protests.
“You said you were making dinner when this happened, right? So I have some rice cooking right now, I’ll make you guys a late meal. You should still eat tonight.” The smell of ginger and garlic fills the air and Jeno doesn’t cry often but he almost feels like he could right then. After all that happened tonight, he still gets a nice home-cooked meal out of it.
Donghyuck gets bombarded with gratitude from Jeno and Jaemin throughout the whole meal, and it tastes so good that Jeno doesn’t even mind the hard floor digging into his back the whole night.
Five hours of classes and Jeno doesn’t focus on any of it. He’s too strung up thinking about what awaited him back at the dorms. He and Jaemin had popped in that morning before class to grab a change of clothes and some mouthwash. The smoke was essentially gone and their closets seem to have escaped unscathed. The kitchen was another story.
Donghyuck had followed them to assess the aftermath, sagging in relief when he realized the damage was essentially surface level. Nothing in the kitchen had been destroyed. It was just in dire need of a good scrubbing down.
Thinking about the cleanup was daunting, to say the least. A layer of ash had settled over every corner of the apartment, even seeping into their bedrooms somehow. Even worse, a call to building maintenance had confirmed that they were on their own: their mess, their problem.
“Don’t worry,” Jaemin had said, patting him on the shoulder. “I’ll pick up some cleaning supplies after class. You check out a vacuum from housing. It’ll be alright, bro.”
Jaemin is too good to him, Jeno thinks as he trudges back home from Main Campus. The ten-minute walk down the street back to the dorms helps him clear his mind, the clean spring air settling into his lungs with every deep inhale.
At the stoplight, he makes an impulse decision to stop by the boba shop and get something for himself and Jaemin, a little treat for not burning down the building last night. He exits the store with a lighter wallet and hands clutched around ice-cold drinks, but his heart feels a little lighter too.
It takes some maneuvering to get his ID card out to swipe into the dorms but he manages, shoving the second door open with his back. He whirls around and faces the front desk to see Donghyuck Lee, feet propped up on the table behind the counter as he laughs with some coworker.
He freezes in his steps for a beat before walking up to the counter. Well, this is kinda awkward. Okay, no, he could talk to him. Jeno even woke up on his floor just this morning and ate pancakes made by him. He could ask him for a simple vacuum.
Donghyuck peers up at him mid-conversation and a grin works itself onto his face. “Well, well, fancy seeing you here.”
“Hi, Donghyuck,” he mumbles back. He sets one drink down onto the counter to pull out his ID again. “Can I check out a vacuum?” He feels a blush rising up his cheeks, acutely aware that Donghyuck knows exactly what he needs it for.
“Sure thing, hot stuff, swipe your card on the reader, please.” Hot stuff. Oh my god, he’s making puns out of his disaster. Jeno fumbles, swipes his card once, oops, wrong way, flips it around, and swipes it again.
The computer pings and Donghyuck clicks around the screen before standing up abruptly. “You’re good, meet me at the office door,” flipping a switch to open the entrance as he disappears into the back. The other desk worker beams at him as he nods to her and slips through the entranceway.
Donghyuck comes out a couple moments later with a clunky vacuum in hand, and it’s then that Jeno realizes he messed up. He has no free hands to lug it upstairs. Why does he get himself into these predicaments?
“Um. Here, trade.” He holds out his drink to Donghyuck, who takes it out of surprise.
“What?”
Wow, Jeno’s impulsive tendencies are really showing out today. “Have it. It’s, uh, a thank you for letting us stay over last night.” Not really, but it’s Jeno’s best way to salvage the situation before Donghyuck realizes how goofy he is.
“Oh, Jeno, you don’t have to—”
“No, really! It was nice of you. You’re a good RA, dude, just take it, I have no hands anyways.” He grabs the vacuum and heaves it up with one arm, backing away towards the stairs. “I’ll see you around, Donghyuck.”
He leaves the other boy nodding a little confusedly, but not in a bad way as far as he could tell. Whew, he made it past that conversation. Jeno’s proud of himself for approximately the time it takes to climb up one floor before he remembers that he lives on the fourth floor and there are elevators and he chose to take the stairs with a heavy vacuum rather than wait for the lift. No wonder Donghyuck was confused, good God.
It’s okay, everything is fine. Well, even if it isn’t, Jeno has bigger fish to fry now. He pushes the door to the fourth floor open and comes face to face with his apartment a couple steps later. It’s go time, he thinks to himself as he twists the key in the lock. Jaemin is rubbing down the table with wet wipes when he walks in.
“Hey, for you,” he holds out the remaining drink to him and watches as Jaemin’s eyes light up.
“No, you didn’t!” Wipes abandoned on the table, colored brown from the ash, Jaemin grabs at the drink and takes a large sip, humming contentedly. “You’re the best. Start in the kitchen, yeah? That’s the worst of it.”
Jeno toes off his shoes, slipping into his slides and padding over to the wall to plug the vacuum in. It turns on with a loud whir and immediately, the ash disappearing and leaving the patch of tile white once more makes him feel better. They work in silence for a while, only the buzzing of the vacuum to be heard.
It takes them ages to clean up the apartment and they don’t even end up finishing. They only get the kitchen and the bathroom done, and not without difficulty.
Jeno and Jaemin spend a good, long moment just staring into the oven in despair. There’s ash in every crevice, tiny mountains of it on the bottom, and it’s smeared onto the back walls. Jaemin gives him a solemn salute. “Good luck, soldier,” he says, and promptly turns his back to focus on deep-cleaning the dishes in the sink. Jeno sighs and detaches the vacuum nozzle.
By the end of it all, he’s ready to pass out on the kitchen floor. It’s clean enough by now, has to be from all that scrubbing he did to make sure the ash is gone. Jaemin places the tube of Clorox wipes into his hands and disappears out the door to grab some takeout for them from down the road.
Neither of them feel up to the challenge of using the kitchen tonight. Maybe tomorrow, once they’ve had time to build up trust in their stove again.
Jeno rises from the ground and pushes his bedroom door open. It’s cold, really cold in here, because he’d forgotten to turn the heat on and the nighttime breeze is flying straight through the wide-open window.
From his closet, he pulls out some fresh bed sheets and gets to work stripping down his bed, throwing everything into a pile on the floor. A cursory wipedown of the bare mattress, a two-minute struggle with the fitted sheet, a shove of his pillows into new pillowcases, and he’s done. Or as done as he can be for the night.
He moves his pile out into the living room just as Jaemin walks back in with bags of burgers. “Hey, bring your bedsheets out and I’ll throw them in the wash for you.”
Jaemin complies but not without a, “Don’t beat yourself up for all this, Jeno, it’s my apartment too so I’m just doing my share of the chores. You’d do the same if it were me that started a fire.”
Jeno laughs and settles into a chair at the dining table. “Donghyuck was pretty cool to let us stay over and give us food, though,” he tries, casually.
Jaemin eyes him as he munches on his burger, quiet but contemplative. “Pretty cute, too.”
Jeno’s head whips up. “Um, yeah.”
“I think you should be treating him instead of me. Borrow his kitchen, make him some cookies, get to know him better. I know you think he’s hot.”
It’s the truth, but Jeno has never mentioned that even once, so how did Jaemin know— actually, he won’t even question it. “Well, I kinda already gave him...my drink?”
Jaemin bursts out into peals of laughter. “I was wondering why you only had a drink for me! I was like, wow, the self-control he has to get me a drink without getting himself one..but now I see you don’t have self-control at all, you just gave it away as soon as you saw a cute guy.”
Jeno throws out a, “shut up,” but he’s also laughing now because, yeah, not wrong. The cookies are a good idea, though. Not using Donghyuck’s oven, of course, he doesn’t think he could handle whatever look would cross his face at the request. Once he forgives his own oven for betraying him, however...he looks over at it, recipes already crossing his mind. Chocolate chip is a classic...yeah, alright. That’s tomorrow’s plans settled, then.
He stands up, gathering their garbage to toss out then popping into the bathroom for some laundry detergent pods. “Wanna watch something after I throw our stuff into the wash?”
Jaemin is already standing in front of the TV, remote in hand. “Duh. Hurry back!”
The warm tupperware of cookies rests in one hand, and he uses his other to knock on the door. It flies open rather quickly and suddenly, he’s face to face with Donghyuck once again.
“Hey, hot stuff. What brings you to my door this time?”
Jeno clears his throat and offers up the tupperware. “I made cookies as a proper thanks for letting us stay over.”
Donghyuck looks down in awe and opens the door further to let him in. “No way, for real? You already gave me a drink, man, nonexistent debt repaid. It was good too, you’ve got good taste in boba.”
Jeno sets the cookies down on the small table and takes a seat at Donghyuck’s gesture. “Well...you fed me twice so I feed you twice?”
Donghyuck smiles and pops the lid open, grabbing a cookie off the top. “Dude,” he says, two bites in. “This is incredible. You made these?”
“I can’t cook, like, at all, but baking is another thing. Don’t ask me how that works, I don’t know either.”
Donghyuck hums and falls silent for the next few minutes, absorbed in one cookie, then another. Finally, he speaks up. “What if I made you a deal?” He makes eye contact with Jeno, earnest. “You come over and I’ll make you food anytime if you bring more of this or whatever else you can make.”
Jeno’s eyes widen. Well, huh. Now there’s an unconventional solution to his problem, falling right into his lap. “Deal!” He says with no hesitation. It’s baking for a cause. Bartering systems are back in style.
They shake on it and he leaves with a smile and a, “bring the tupperware back whenever or I’ll pick it up from you on Thursday!”
Thursday couldn’t come soon enough. Jeno brainstormed that whole week on what to make for Donghyuck and had settled on flan.
Donghyuck exclaims in delight at the sight and reveals that he’s made chicken parmesan in return. It’s just him and Donghyuck this time, but laughter fills the air as they lightly banter with each other and share stories. Somehow, Jeno has managed to find himself good food and good company. At the end of the night, he forgets to bring his tupperware back home.
Six weeks into their meal deal, Jeno walks into the dorm lobby and his eyes are immediately drawn to the table set up by the entrance. There’s a small line formed in front of it and Donghyuck sits behind it with a fellow RA.
Jeno watches him lean back in his chair to bellow out, “Get a free face mask! Answer a trivia question about stress management and get yourself a face mask!” Oh, these mini housing programs are so gimmicky but screw it, it’s free stuff.
Donghyuck makes eye contact with him before he can even step forward and grins, beckoning him over. “You there, in the leather jacket! Jeno, get over here, come support.”
What’s Jeno gonna do? Say no? He steps forwards as a girl turns away from the table, face mask clutched in hand. His lips twitch upwards as he realizes that it’s the cheap ones that look like an animal face.
“Couldn’t find a better brand?” He quips in greeting, smiling briefly at the other RA.
“Housing is on a budget,” Donghyuck volleys back, smoothly. “If you want the good stuff, though, stop by my room,” he ends with a smirk. So flirty, this boy. Jeno wrinkles his nose at that. RA Renjun, sitting next to him, also wrinkles his nose at that.
“Okay, mysterious boy Donghyuck flirts with—” he gets cut off by Donghyuck leaning in to whisper in his ear. “oh. Oh! Okay, hot stuff,” he continues without missing a beat.
Jeno’s heart palpitates. Has everyone heard about his incident? Hell.
“Your question is, ‘The hormone known as cortisol helps the body manage stress.’ True or false?”
“True?”
“Ding, ding, ding! Here’s your reward, Jeno, use it well. If you want to learn more about stress management, you can visit the website listed here on this brochure. We hope you stay healthy and take care of yourself for the rest of this semester, you can do it!” Their hands brush as Donghyuck hands the package over.
Jeno looks down and sees two masks. “Um,” he starts to speak up, but Donghyuck shushes him.
“For Jaemin,” he mouths, before shooing him away from the table. “Have a good night, hot stuff,” he calls out and turns away to greet the next person in line. Well. Alright then.
Jeno makes his way upstairs in a daze, absentmindedly pushing the stairwell door open on the fourth floor and digging his keys out of his pocket. Jaemin is standing at the kitchen counter when he walks in, a bag of marshmallows open in front of him and one hand stirring a spoon in his mug. He raises his eyebrows at Jeno’s stance, bag hanging off one shoulder and shoelaces loose after a long day.
“Can we watch a movie and not think about anything?” Jeno holds the masks up, helplessly. “I have face masks.”
Jaemin simply points at the bathroom. “Go wash up, then sit. I’ll bring you a drink.”
Soon enough, they’re sitting face to face, cross-legged on the sofa, a dog and a rabbit plastered sticky on their face.
“These masks are so shitty, dude.”
“Don’t even talk about it. What do you think about Donghyuck?”
“Cool guy, good cook, even better RA. What do you think about Donghyuck?”
“Cool guy, good cook, even better RA, cute.”
“Well then.” Jaemin the rabbit takes a careful sip from his mug. “You should do something about that.” Jeno can only nod along, head overflowing with thoughts.
“For what it’s worth,” a hand comes to rest soothingly on Jeno’s knee, “I think you’re a cool guy, terrible cook but great baker, and an even better friend. He probably thinks the same. Add ‘cute’.”
It’s nice to hear from a secondary perspective that he’s not just imagining that something’s going on, that Donghyuck might see him as more than that resident who almost caused the accident of the year or some guy he eats with once a week.
Still, the next time he goes over, custard tart in hand, he stops Donghyuck before he can get the plates out.
“Donghyuck, I have to ask...are you just feeding me out of, like, some pity thing? Like, I appreciate your generosity if you are but you also don’t have to go out of your way to help me or whatever just because I’m your resident. I can just make ramen or something.”
Donghyuck stands in his small kitchen, hand resting on the counter as he twists to face Jeno with furrowed brows. “Did I do something to make you think this? I actually enjoy your company a lot, I thought we were, like, friends now and stuff.”
“Oh,” Jeno blinks. “That’s good that you think that. I also...think that. It’s just that Renjun seemed to know a lot about me and...the fire thing.” His gaze drops down to the floor.
Donghyuck’s voice drifts into his ear, tone honeyed like the baklava he was going to try making for next week. “RAs are required to write up incident reports and Renjun’s my best friend so he knows a bit more about what happened than most of my other coworkers. I’m sorry, Jeno, I should’ve considered your feelings before talking about it.”
Wow, Donghyuck just accurately pinpointed the source of his discomfort and comforted him, simultaneously. How does he manage to do it, every single time? “Thanks, that really does make me feel better.”
“That’s what I’m here for, both as your RA and your friend. Does it,” Donghyuck hesitates for a moment, “make you uncomfortable that I call you ‘hot stuff?’ I’ll stop bringing it up, I’m sorry.”
Jeno’s hands come up and he waves them at Donghyuck. “No! No. That’s fine.” Even if his cheeks turn cherry red every time, he doesn’t hate it. Quite the opposite, actually. “I’d have told you if it did, don’t worry.” It’s silent as they take each other in, stares charged with some emotion that Jeno can’t put a name to right then.
Donghyuck turns away to grab plates. “Good. Let’s eat, then? I made veggie stew.”
Jeno gets an email in his inbox the next week about some housing event. A bubble night?
Come blow bubbles, pop bubble wrap, and drink bubble tea with your RAs to destress before finals! This Thursday at 7pm in the 1st floor lounge!
His cursor is halfway to the delete button before his eyes really focus on the horrible graphic design of the promotional flyer and he realizes that the half-assed cropped silhouette of the event host in the bubble clipart is Donghyuck. Hosted by RAs Donghyuck and Yerim!
Jeno frowns because he hadn’t heard anything from Donghyuck in a couple days but their weekly dinner is basically set in stone at this point, something they’d stopped bothering to confirm. Jeno simply shows up every week with a plate or a pot or a pan of something and Donghyuck would lead him to the kitchen to show him what he made in return.
Jeno’s reverie is broken by the chime of his phone.
RA Donghyuck 2:25PM
hey forgot to text you abt it til I saw the email just now but I have to cancel thurs :( renjun asked me to cover his program then I rly have to study for this history exam :/
Jeno 2:27PM
Hey, nah you’re good!! Don’t stretch yourself out too thin and remember to drink water. You got this!! Good luck :-)
He throws himself back on his bed with a pout and tosses his phone to the side, sighing. At least there should be a ramen packet or two left in the cabinets. It’s no spaghetti aglio e olio like the one Donghyuck made a couple weeks ago but it’s something to eat.
Donghyuck, though, he doesn’t hear from for the rest of the week. When Jeno spots him around the building, Donghyuck is always rushing somewhere, either with his backpack on or boxes in his arms.
Jeno makes sure to send an encouraging text to him on Thursday, the day of the program. He can’t make it because he has to study for his own exams but Donghyuck sends back a heart emoji.
A couple hours later, he gets a picture of the first floor lounge. Destroyed bubble wrap is strewn all over the couches, and is that a bottle of bubbles knocked over onto the floor?
RA Donghyuck 8:13PM
the aftermath of war, 2020 (colorized). leaving this to cleanup duty RAs n going to the lib //cry
Jeno only has seconds to respond before Jaemin sees that he’s on his phone again while studying and potentially confiscates it.
Jeno 8:16PM
You’ve worked hard!! Good luck studying lmk when you get home ><
A throw pillow hits his head a moment later. “You better be texting Gregor Mendel himself, Jeno Lee! That doesn’t look like biology notes to me!”
Thankfully, Donghyuck doesn’t text him again until hours later, nearing midnight.
RA Donghyuck 11:34PM
just got home. did u know that ur laptop can’t automatically write ur paper for u?? who woulda thought
Jeno immediately gets up from the floor, leaving his study materials on the coffee table. Jaemin looks up but Jeno waves him back down. He grabs the pan on the counter and slips into his slides. “I’m going to Donghyuck’s for a bit, don’t wait up.”
He’s out the door in a matter of seconds, in front of Donghyuck’s door all too soon. When Donghyuck appears, he looks weary but he perks up a little at the sight of Jeno.
“Hey, what are you doing here?”
Jeno offers up the pan in his hand. “Post-studying reward?” He’s quickly ushered in but Donghyuck also lightly pulls at Jeno’s ear as he kicks off his slides.
“Silly boy. I don’t have anything to give you in return.”
That makes Jeno think back on the baking process of this particular piece, how he’d rolled up his sleeves and got to work as soon as he got home from class earlier, chopping up bell peppers and sprigs of herbs. Kneading the dough as if he was kneading out the tension in his own shoulders, that unshakeable stress. School has been hitting him hard this semester.
Making this was therapeutic, and more than that, it was meaningful. Donghyuck has helped him out in more ways than he could count these past months, so much more than a simple meal every week.
“To be honest, Hyuckie, I stopped doing it for the food a long time ago.” He decides to let his creation speak for itself and whips the foil off the pan to reveal focaccia bread, decorated in detail with toppings on the surface. It’s a floral scene, sliced bell peppers arranged to look like the petals of sunflowers, olives for seeds, chives for stems. Cherry tomatoes were cut to make bright red poppies and dark green roasted sage leaves surround the yellow. It’s his ode to Donghyuck. It’s what the other feels like to him.
Donghyuck looks awed. “Jeno...this is beautiful.”
Jeno smiles as he walks over to Donghyuck’s drawers, where he knows the kitchen tools are. He pulls out a serrated knife and holds it out to Donghyuck, handle first. “Will you do the honors?”
Donghyuck hesitates. “I almost don’t want to cut into it.” He pulls out his phone and swipes to the camera, starts snapping away at the bread.
“Hey, no, I can always make you more! Honestly, it’s therapeutic.”
“This must’ve taken you forever,” Donghyuck tries to protest.
Jeno waves him away immediately. “A couple hours, max. Most of that was just waiting for the dough to rise. It was chill. I played PUBG.”
That spurs him into action, laughing as he takes the knife from Jeno and holds it over the bread. He pauses for a moment, seems to drink the image in with his eyes. “You’ve outdone yourself. I don’t even have to taste it, this is incredible. You’re so talented, dude.” He places two pieces onto a plate and brings it over to the dining table.
Jeno watches him carefully as he takes a bite. He almost feels more nervous now than during that first meal together after striking the deal. That was when he made, what was it, the flan? It feels like forever ago.
Donghyuck makes a noise. “Jeno. This one...this one is it.” He quickly takes another bite. Another. He’s cutting another slice for himself before Jeno even finishes his own and that makes him glow with pride on the inside. “I can’t believe you brought me exactly what I needed after today. I didn’t even know I needed this. Jeno, you,” he takes an enthusiastic bite, “you are so special,” he says around a mouthful of focaccia.
Jeno is so helplessly endeared. He hides a smile behind a bite of his own slice. His very own sunflower, soft and warm.
It’s ten minutes of sitting on the couch in silence on a Wednesday night, clearly not doing his schoolwork, that Jeno decides is the last straw. If Donghyuck is going to be the only thing on his mind, he might as well do something about that. The boy was cutting into his education, might as well try and get some kisses out of it too.
He’s out of his apartment before he can even process it. Thankfully, his keys are still in his pocket from going to class, because it would be awkward to confess without an escape route.
He makes his way down the hall and turns the corner. No going back now. Though, he still dawdles in front of Donghyuck’s door for a bit, staring at all the different nametags pasted on it.
There’s a lava lamp, a vinyl record, a cactus, and a sun among many others, all bearing the name Donghyuck in thick black sharpie. Donghyuck, Donghyuck Donghyuck, that’s how Jeno’s mind runs as well. Just his name on various 2D images floating around his brain.
He takes a chance and knocks.
Donghyuck opens the door and Jeno thinks it’s kind of funny, how many times he’s been in this exact position but Donghyuck manages to look surprised every time, as if he still isn’t used to it.
“Hi neighbor,” wow, smooth start, Jeno, “um.” He wasn’t expecting to get this far. “Can I borrow some butter?” What? That isn’t what he meant to say. Maybe he isn’t ready after all.
Donghyuck raises an eyebrow and leans against the doorway. “You came here to borrow some butter?”
“Um, yeah, I’m baking something...and I’m out, so I thought you might have some?”
Donghyuck’s resounding silence makes him nervous and he rambles on some more. “I mean, if you don’t want to share it with me, that’s okay, it’s just, haha, you’re my RA so I thought I would come and ask you before I have to put on my jacket and brave the cold to go to the store, it’s kinda late already and—”
“No, it’s fine, I have butter. It’s salted, though, does that work?”
“Um. Yeah, that works.”
Another pause and Donghyuck invites him in. He walks in nervously as if he hasn’t been acquainting himself with this apartment for almost the entire semester already. The Michael Jackson poster in the living room stares into his soul as he waits for Donghyuck to rummage through his fridge. He stands by the dining table, not even daring to sit.
Donghyuck soon comes into view again, a bright yellow box in his hand, but he doesn’t move to hand it over to Jeno. “You know, I just remembered something you told me a while ago, back when we first started this whole thing.”
“Hm?” He’s a little distracted by Donghyuck’s hands, tapping against the box. Can he please just get it and go and hole up in his room to agonize over this failed attempt already? Then, he could return to the couch and actually get some work done.
“You complained that Jaemin brought home two boxes of salted butter from the store because for baking, you use unsalted.” Oh, shit. He caught him slipping.
“You know, Jeno,” Donghyuck sets the box down on the counter and moves towards him, “if you wanted to hang out with me outside of our meals, you could’ve just asked.”
Wait, was this really happening to him right now? Donghyuck stops in front of him. “Maybe for our first date, you can teach me how to bake something?” He smiles sweetly.
Jeno thinks he perishes right then and there. He can’t remember much of the next fifteen minutes but in the end, he’s back in his apartment with a stick of salted butter (he’ll give it to Jaemin, he guesses) and a set date with Donghyuck for tomorrow night. Well, this is another win for him, right after meeting Donghyuck in the first place. Jeno: 2, Semester: 1.
Donghyuck isn’t much help with brownies. He’s a menace and a distraction in the kitchen when he’s not taking the lead, but Jeno wasn’t expecting anything less. The way he’s happily browsing online for cookie cutters and asking him questions is so cute, too.
“Crème Brûlée?”
“Hm, tried it a couple times with varying success. Could try it again.”
“Chocolate?”
“Simple and fun, especially when you get shape molds.”
Donghyuck immediately opens a new tab to browse that too. “Maybe for our next date, I’ll teach you how to cook something.”
He says it so nonchalantly but Jeno’s heart pounds in his chest. He grins down into the measuring cup. Donghyuck stands up and returns to his side as he dumps flour into the bowl.
Jeno leans in close to him to grab a whisk from the drawer next to Donghyuck’s hip, and in a moment of pure boldness, drops a kiss on his forehead.
Donghyuck’s hands reflexively fly up to rest on Jeno’s waist, hearts beating close. He’s recoiling back in the next instant with a smile, tongue sticking out playfully.
It’s cute. He’s so cute. Jeno reaches out to pinch his chin without thinking, and it’s only too late that he realizes that his fingers are covered in flour. Oops. It leaves a powdery streak behind and Donghyuck’s face morphs into indignation.
“Jeno Lee!”
The brownies come out perfect, a bit of crispiness in the crust but the insides a little gooey. Donghyuck seems to have a good time sprinkling the top with a layer of powdered sugar and smearing the excess onto Jeno’s cheek, anyway.
After the cleanup, they settle down in front of the couch to help each other study for finals, the Great British Bake-Off playing softly on the TV as background noise. It’s late when they decide to wrap things up for the night, sometime past 3AM. Donghyuck is just about dead on his feet.
He whispers, “Walk me home?” and Jeno is hit with a wave of insurmountable fondness. Home is just a few doors down the hall but Donghyuck holds onto his hand the whole time and makes his cheeks bloom in red when he pulls Jeno down for a proper kiss, slow and sweet, right in the middle of the hallway.
Jeno is grinning uncontrollably after they break apart, handing over Donghyuck’s backpack with a small laugh. “Get some sleep, Hyuckie. I’ll bring over some more brownies tomorrow, yeah?”
He gets pulled into a hug immediately after, arms circling warm around his waist. “Thanks for tonight. I’m really glad we got close, sugar.”
Jeno smiles against his soft, brown hair. “Oh, have I finally graduated from ‘hot stuff’?”
Donghyuck digs his chin further into Jeno’s shoulder. “You’re mishearing things, must be the sugar rush.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works—”
“Shhh,” and suddenly Donghyuck is pinching his cheek and disappearing behind the door with a soft goodnight, hidden in a yawn.
Jeno is startled awake only a couple hours later by Jaemin shoving his blaring phone in his face. “Dude, this has been ringing on and off for the past half-hour. It’s only 7, isn’t your final at 10?”
Jeno murmurs something that even he can’t comprehend, eyes still closed. He swipes a hand through the air until it hits his phone, taps the screen until the alarm stops.
He speaks through a yawn as he stretches his arms out, “Yeah, but Donghyuck’s final is at 8 and I was gonna go make sure he got up on time.”
With that, Jeno hops out of bed and gets ready in record time. He shrugs his backpack on and grabs the brownie pan from the table, Jaemin trailing after him as he makes his way to Donghyuck’s apartment.
Thankfully, Donghyuck opens the door after a few knocks, up already but clearly still in the process of preparing for the day. His toothbrush sticks out of his mouth as he moves around the apartment, popping bread into the toaster and zipping up his backpack.
When Donghyuck finally stills for longer than a few seconds, dropping down onto a chair, Jeno pushes the brownie pan across the table towards him. “May I offer you a morning sugar rush?”
Donghyuck lifts the aluminum foil and stares blankly into the pan, not as enthused to see it as he was last night. “Um, Jeno, what happened to it all?” What? Jeno stretches over the table to peer down and sees that half the pan is gone, definitely not his doing.
Jeno whips his head up to look at Jaemin who, to his credit, looks guilty for a second before he schools his face into an indignant expression. “It’s my right as his best friend! You’ve been hogging his baking for months!”
Donghyuck shoots some witty retort back and Jeno simply sits there, confusion turning to amusement by the light banter. Jaemin steadily increases his speaking pace, adamant that he’s done nothing wrong, but later he’s shoving Donghyuck out the door offering to buy him coffee on the way to their finals to make up for it. Jeno follows after them both, heart full.