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The first thing Euijoo says to Daniel on that fateful day is, “I swear to god, I’m going to drop out of this damn school and become a stripper or something.”
Daniel stops in the middle of the hall to look him up and down and then wrinkles his nose. “Please don’t.”
“Ouch.”
Yoonwon appears on Euijoo’s other side, having miraculously survived after wading through a whole crowd of kids. “I’m gonna have to second that, but what the hell are we supposed do?”
Daniel pointedly avoids asking what is going on.
Euijoo notices.
There are a few things Byun Euijoo knows about his smarter friend.
Kim Daniel is the boy people go to for help.
He happens to be taking classes across all four grade levels, and is relatively approachable.
Relatively.
If you happen to need emotional help, he’ll send you straight off to Sunoo or Kyungmin.
Nevertheless, he is indeed extremely intelligent.
(“Not a genius.” Daniel had taken care to tell him a short while after they’d first met. “The Merriam-Webster definition of genius is, and I quote, ‘extraordinary intellectual power especially as manifested in creative activity.’ I am still yet to manifest my power in any sort of creative activity, and have no plans to do so on the near future.”
Euijoo had raised an eyebrow and replied, “You could have just said you’re lazy as fuck, I would have understood that just as easily.”
Daniel flipped him off.)
The only problem, Euijoo knows, is that Daniel does not like people, generally.
Or maybe he just doesn’t like him and Yoonwon. That’s understandable, and honestly far more believable.
Well, Yoonwon is nice enough and really responsible and other shit like that. There’s really no reason for anyone to dislike him.
Correction: The only problem is that Daniel does not seem to like Euijoo.
Rather, helping Euijoo.
They’re friends, sure they are, and do stupid friend things together, but Euijoo tends to insist on being his annoying self and begs Daniel for help with literally everything that he can’t easily manage just because he knows how much it irritates him.
Euijoo’s reasoning is simple: Everything is more fun when Daniel gets involved.
(Mostly because Daniel doesn’t particularly enjoy getting involved.)
“Remind me again why we decided to take French again?” Euijoo addresses Yoonwon, knowing Daniel is still listening.
“Language of love or some shit.” Yoonwon deadpans.
“Ugh, my transcript said ‘bye, bitch’. Should have chosen to take English or Chinese or something.”
“Freshmen are dumb, what can I say?”
“Well,” Daniel says, wholly uninterested, “French extends far beyond my areas of expertise.”
“Nah, here’s the thing, though—“ Yoonwon pipes up, “This doesn’t even involve the French language.”
The bell rings, and Daniel ducks out of there as fast as humanly possible.
Euijoo smiles.
Like most things that people want to bitch and moan about, the conversation comes back up at lunch time.
“You have to cook?” Heeseung squints. “You, the one with the life skills of a four year old?”
“You’re not wrong, but that still hurt.”
“Oh, come on.” Geonu rolls his eyes. “How hard can it be?”
“We all know Euijoo’s dramatic as hell.” Yoonwon says with a sweet smile.
Taeyong snorts. “Where’s the lie?”
Euijoo feels personally threatened. “I didn’t come here to be attacked like this.”
“Don’t stress too much, man.” Jungwon shrugs. “You just need to avoid burning your kitchen down, which shouldn’t be all that hard.”
“You don’t know what Euijoo’s capable of, mate.”
“Shut up, Jaebeom.”
“Shut up, Kyungmin.”
“Moving on.” Jaeho grimaces.
“One of us can help, if you’d like.” Sunoo offers innocently. “Uh... Can any of us cook?”
Niki and Taki both look like they’re having flashbacks. “Nope.” They reply, in unison.
“That’s terrifying.” Nicholas remarks, receiving a slap on the arm from Hanbin.
“Thank you.” The two of them say again, wearing matching grins.
Sungcheol looks away. “Anyways—“
Sunghoon, on the other side of the table, furrows his brow. “I can make... uh... Ramen?”
“Yeah, that helps a shit ton. Thanks, bro.” Euijoo says.
“Bravo, my dude.” Jimin calls from the other end.
A short pause. Everyone seems to be seriously considering this.
“Hey, what are you guys looking at me for?” Jay pulls that damn baseball cap over his face. “Get Daniel to help you or something.”
There it is.
“Ah, Daniel!” Euijoo says, like the idea’s just crossing his mind. “What do you say?”
Daniel can’t say no, of course he can’t. Instead, he sighs and stoically replies, “I’ll murder you in your sleep.”
Inevitably, Daniel does end up at Euijoo’s house that night.
Yoonwon’s scrolling through his phone when he walks in. “Macarons, macarons—what’s a Buzzfeed?”
“We trust Buzzfeed in this household.” Euijoo states from where he’s sitting on the counter.
“Why do I feel like I just walked into my own execution?”
“Hello to you too, Daniel.”
Euijoo leans over Yoonwon’s shoulder. “Do we have almond flour?” He wonders aloud.
“Man, who the fuck just has almond flour sitting around?” Daniel asks, stepping into the kitchen and still looking like he’d rather be anywhere than here.
“There’s a chance some of the psychopaths we’re friends with do.” Euijoo replies.
“Should we check?” Yoonwon suggests.
Daniel blinks. “Y’all never heard of a grocery store, or..?”
“Mneh, this is a better way to waste time.” Euijoo shrugs. “Hey, give me your phone.”
“Why..?”
“You know, like, everyone.”
Daniel cannot argue with that.
(They don’t truly succeed. Youngbin doesn’t pick up, and Jake tells them to go to a grocery store like normal people. Daniel looks victorious.)
“Why the hell do you have Seon’s number?”
“He’s my brother’s friend.” Daniel narrows his eyes. “We harass each other on occasion.”
“Man, why do you talk like that?” Yoonwon whispers.
Daniel pretends not to hear.
Euijoo presses the call button, and throws the phone to Yoonwon.
“I’m not talking to him!” He tosses the phone back to Euijoo, who throws it at Daniel.
It hits Daniel square in the face before falling to the ground.
Seon picks up.
Euijoo’s laugh is choked off.
Slowly, they all crouch down to the floor around the phone like it’ll explode if they pick it up. Daniel presses the speaker button.
There are scuffling sounds, and a, “What do you want?”
Yoonwon cackles but in ᵗ ⁱⁿ ʸ .
“Yeah, uh, hyung, do you happen to have almond flour?”
There is extended silence on the other end. “You can make flour out of almonds?”
The three of them sigh, almost in unison.
“I’m going to take that as a no.” Daniel says.
“Okay,” Seon responds, “Why do you ask?”
Daniel deflects like a pro. “Uh... It’s kind of complicated.”
“... Alright. Is that all? I’m just kind of busy right now, so—“
“It’s a Friday night, what could you possibly be busy with?”
Euijoo smacks Daniel across his head.
Another period of extended hesitation on Seon’s end. “What does it matter to you?”
“I dunno, just— wait a minute.” Daniel grins maniacally. “Is you-know-who there?”
“Ooh, tea.” Yoonwon says, again in ᵗ ⁱⁿ ʸ and Euijoo leans over to smack him once too.
“I do not, in fact, know who.” Seon says, the tiredness evident in his voice.
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Mate, you have a fat crush on this kid don’t even try denying it—“
“This ‘kid’ is, like, 8 years older than you.”
“So you do know who I’m talking about!”
Euijoo whistles.
Yoonwon claps a a hand over Euijoo’s mouth, hissing “Are we talking about Kei?” in Daniel’s direction.
Daniel only smirks. It is an expression that is nothing less than terrifying on a 14 year old.
Seon sighs on the other end. “Fine. But why are we implying that my co-worker is at my house at 10 o’clock at night?”
Daniel’s maniacal grin only intensifies. Euijoo is adequately scared by it. “You tell me, hyung.”
More silence.
“I’m hanging up now.”
Daniel’s phone beeps and he stands immediately, grin vanishing. “Sorry, I got off track.”
“Bro,” Euijoo laughs shortly, “Who gives a singular shit about macarons anymore?”
Euijoo does, in fact, give more than a singular shit about those damn macarons after a good 20 minutes.
Grades and all that.
Fuck school.
Yoonwon, evidently a little scared of Daniel at this point, said he was going to get almond flour and fucking blasted out of there.
Which leaves Euijoo and Daniel alone, both trying to figure out how to make the buttercream-y shit without powdered sugar.
They use granulated sugar instead. High IQ and all.
After that mess is over, Daniel takes a copious amount of the stuff in a spoon and puts the whole thing in his mouth.
Euijoo cringes.
“Ooh,” he says, chewing vigorously, “crunchy.”
“I really don’t think buttercream is supposed to be crunchy.” He takes a small amount of the cream on his pointer finger, squinting to see what the texture’s like.
“Yeah, me neither. I mean, it just tastes like butter and sugar, so it’s not... Bad?”
“I was under the impression that you knew how to cook.”
“I do, but not whatever the hell this is.”
Euijoo shoots him one of his signature emotionless smiles, a clear message of “Well, fuck” conveyed through his blank, unmoving eyes.
Daniel returns it. There’s an eyelash on his cheek.
Euijoo reflexively brushes it away with his finger, only to realize a second too late that he still has the cursed buttercream on it.
Daniel’s smile drops. “And what exactly was that for?”
“Th—there was an eyelash.”
“Yeah, sure there was.” Daniel runs his finger around the inside rim of the bowl and tries to wipe it against Euijoo’s cheek, but Euijoo tries to push him away and he ends up with buttercream on his neck.
“Really?”
Euijoo takes the spoon and holds it over Daniel’s head until it falls in an unceremonious blob in his hair.
Daniel picks up the whole bowl and drops it, upside down, on Euijoo’s head.
Euijoo just stands there in shock for a second.
“I’m going to murder you.” He pushes the bowl off, but the buttercream is already distributed into his hair.
Pleasant.
He wordlessly opens his fridge, grabs a can of whipped cream, and sprays it into Daniel’s face.
Daniel wipes the stuff out of his eyes and smiles innocently. “Give me that.”
“Nope.”
“Give.”
“No—“
Daniel reaches for the can, but slips on a bit of buttercream that had fallen out of the bowl and face-plants into Euijoo’s shirt.
Euijoo falls backwards against the fridge and slowly slides down until he’s on the floor, still holding the whipped cream out of Daniel’s reach.
“I’m never helping you with anything ever again.” Daniel says into Euijoo’s chest.
“Yeah, okay, get off me.”
There’s whipped cream on Euijoo’s shirt now, of course there is.
The front door opens and Yoonwon steps into the kitchen with a bag of almond flour in his hand.
He stops short a safe distance away from the two of them.
Euijoo smiles up at him.
Yoonwon sighs.
“We are so gonna fail French.”