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Zhao Yunlan has never been afraid of a bad idea. This, in itself, is a bad thing. Usually Shen Wei is there to stop him from testing out any of them and can sense when an especially terrible one is encroaching. Unfortunately for everyone, he can’t always get there in time to prevent Zhao Yunlan’s reckless impulses from happening.
Because it’s a Thursday night, Shen Wei is working late at the university, like usual. Zhao Yunlan would pout more about it if he didn’t know that Shen Wei dislikes his weekly department meetings as much as he does, though he’d never openly complain about it. Since he’ll be home late, Shen Wei always makes sure that there are leftovers in the fridge before he leaves. He’s determined not to let Zhao Yunlan resort to eating instant noodles boiled in hot coffee again or, in the more likely and more worrying case, not eating at all.
So—sure, Zhao Yunlan could just eat the dinner Shen Wei prepared in advance because he knew he wouldn’t be there to make something fresh, but that’s what they always do.
And where’s the fun in that?
Besides, married life is supposed to be sprinkled with spontaneity and fun every now and then, anyway.
(“Is it? I think you made that up.”
“Well, you’re not the one who’s married, you stupid cat. Now stop eating and get your ass out of my kitchen!”
“I wouldn’t want to stick around anyway. You’ll probably burn the whole house down. You can’t cook for shit.”
“What was that, you little—”)
Just because Zhao Yunlan has never really cooked before doesn’t mean that he can’t. He can’t imagine it being so difficult that he’s unable to make a simple noodle dish. Also, he watches Shen Wei cook all the time; he knows how it works! (And yes, watching Shen Wei cook naturally includes him clinging onto him from behind—and okay, maybe he doesn’t actually pay that much attention to what Shen Wei is doing because he’s too busy pressing kisses against his neck and whispering teasingly in his ear, but that doesn’t mean Zhao Yunlan doesn’t know what he’s doing.)
He feels perfectly capable of being in the kitchen alone for just one night. He’s an adult. Adults can cook.
It only takes an hour to stir fry some noodles. What could possibly happen?
A lot of things, apparently, when you’re as bad of a cook as Zhao Yunlan is.
It starts off well enough. He’s able to successfully slice up the beef into medium-sized strips, using the biggest knife he can find, though this has less to do with practical use and more to do with wanting to wave a large and dangerous object around. He has no recipe (who needs one when you’re a prodigy chef like Zhao Yunlan?), so he calls his mother to ask her about the marinade.
(“Don’t take your eyes off the stove.”
“Nothing’s going to happen, Ma.”
“Why are you trying to cook anyway? Wouldn’t it be better for that professor of yours to do it?”
“Why does no one have any faith in me? I can cook if I want to!”
“I’d honestly be surprised if you’re able to make anything even remotely edible. Don’t forget the baking powder. And don’t take your eyes off the stove.”)
While the meat marinates, he chops up the ginger and a few scallions, only accidentally cutting himself four times in the process. (He considers this a win, if that isn’t clear.) Then he rummages around in the cupboard for a while and eventually finds a package of rice noodles that are luckily already pre-cut.
Zhao Yunlan spends a long time rummaging around trying to find where the pans are kept and eventually pulls out a wok. He thinks Shen Wei once told him it was of very high quality and vaguely something about not touching it, but he takes it out and sets it on top of the stove anyway.
He stares at it for a long while, finally feeling the tiniest bit daunted by the task. But Zhao Yunlan is never deterred for long, and so he dumps the meat in first and hopes for the best.
It’s here that things start to go wrong. First, the meat burns. Badly. So much so that it’s hard to tell that it’s even meat by the time he saves it from the wok. Zhao Yunlan feels better once he adds in the scallions and the ginger, which cook fine, if not drenched in too much oil. He doesn’t know to blanch the noodles, so they just end up sticking together in big, hard blocks and don’t cook through all the way. There’s no recipe to guide him, so he pours in unmeasured amounts of soy sauce and skips the sugar and Shaoxing wine entirely. Woks aren’t easy to use, and Zhao Yunlan has zero skills with it, so he just awkwardly tilts it to try and mix the ingredients together, which works about as well as it sounds.
Frustrated by the slow pace and the food's ability to somehow both burn and not cook, Zhao Yunlan turns the burner up even higher. With the thought that perhaps more oil will make it cook faster, he throws some more of that in there too. Then he pours in even more soy sauce, just because he feels like it.
The giant mass of something in his wok sizzles, and he nods in satisfaction.
Zhao Yunlan doesn’t know why it happens. He swears. But one moment he’s thinking that things are going pretty well all things considered, and the next thing he knows a giant burst of flame has erupted in front of his face.
Instinctively, he holds out an arm to cover his face and immediately feels a bright pain searing his skin. He stumbles back, biting down a cry of pain and a string of curses as he clutches at his burning arm. His eyes close; fuck, that hurts.
Still, he has to deal with the fire first. By the time he forces his eyes open, he sees that the fire has already spread from the stove to the rest of the kitchen area. The flames burn bright and fast, licking at the clutter and trash Zhao Yunlan has left on the countertops in the midst of his chaotic cooking.
He’s so stunned by the entire situation that he doesn’t even feel at all panicked by the threat of a giant fire swallowing up his entire home. Rather than worry about how he’s going to put it out, he thinks about how Shen Wei just remodeled that kitchen.
His heart plummets. Oh, Shen Wei is going to kill him.
As if on cue, the front door opens, and Shen Wei enters the house. “Yunlan?” he calls, likely puzzled by the fact that Zhao Yunlan hasn’t already run over and flung himself at him.
When he walks into the room a moment later, looking as pristine as always—if not a little more haggard than usual—he stops. His eyes travel from Zhao Yunlan to the flaming kitchen and back to Zhao Yunlan, looking like he’s having a hard time comprehending what he’s seeing.
Zhao Yunlan smiles at him. “Welcome home, babe.”
Without saying anything, Shen Wei grabs the fire extinguisher on the wall and hurries over to the stove in quick strides. He pulls out the pin with ease and points it at the base of the fire. In a few seconds, the fire has completely gone out.
Zhao Yunlan sighs in relief, glad that he didn’t actually burn the entire house down like Daqing had predicted.
Still standing there with the now empty fire extinguisher in hand, Shen Wei watches as the gray fog dissipates. “...What happened?” he finally asks, quiet.
Zhao Yunlan can’t see his face, so he’s unable to gauge how angry Shen Wei is, but quiet is never good. He laughs awkwardly, reaching up to scratch the back of his head with his uninjured arm and says, “Uh...I was cooking?”
The sigh Shen Wei lets out is the worst thing Zhao Yunlan has ever heard.
He turns around and looks at Zhao Yunlan with a concerned gaze. “Are you hurt?”
By this time, the bright pain has already ebbed away from his arm, leaving behind a numb ache. As wounds go, Zhao Yunlan has had worse. The burn doesn’t even hurt that much anymore. He briefly considers hiding his injury from Shen Wei before he realizes he could perhaps use getting burned by the fire to his advantage. Maybe Shen Wei will take pity on him for getting injured and won’t be so mad about the charred remains of his nice kitchen.
“Ah, I’m okay...” Zhao Yunlan makes his voice sound a little dazed on purpose. “I think I got a bit of a burn though…damn, that hurts.” He looks down at his arm and winces dramatically before turning his gaze up towards Shen Wei.
That’s Zhao Yunlan’s second mistake of the night.
Shen Wei’s expression turns dark, and Zhao Yunlan immediately knows that he’s messed up big time—if he wasn’t before, he’s really furious now. He grabs Zhao Yunlan’s wrist and roughly pulls on it so the burn is visible. Upon seeing it, his jaw tightens and his face pinches up, creating wrinkles between his brows. The hand holding his wrist shakes a little.
“Shen Wei, ah,” Zhao Yunlan murmurs, trying to think of how to calm him, but Shen Wei’s gaze lands on the cuts on Zhao Yunlan’s fingers, and the look on his face could kill a field of flowers.
Before Zhao Yunlan can say anything else, he’s being dragged into the bathroom, pale fingers wrapped tightly around his wrist. Once at the sink, Shen Wei turns on the tap, waits until the water is lukewarm, and then shoves Zhao Yunlan’s hand under the stream of water. Zhao Yunlan involuntarily jerks back a little when Shen Wei starts to wash the cuts with soap, but Shen Wei firmly holds him there until it’s been washed clean. He quickly dries his hand with a clean towel, and then pulls him into the living room, tossing him ungracefully onto the couch.
Zhao Yunlan doesn’t try to get up, staying sprawled out on the couch in the position he landed in. He watches as Shen Wei disappears into the bathroom again. A few moments later, he emerges with an assortment of bottles and bandages in his hands. He sets them on the table, sits down next to him, and then yanks him up into an upright position.
Zhao Yunlan lets himself be pulled, finding no reason to resist. He doesn’t understand why Shen Wei is so upset, but he hates it when he is and would do anything to soothe him, even if he doesn’t understand. “Shen Wei,” he tries again, but a cold voice interrupts him.
“Don’t talk to me. Let me do this.”
At first, Zhao Yunlan doesn’t want to back down, but then he thinks it just might make it worse. With great effort, he sits there nicely and quietly while Shen Wei applies petroleum jelly onto the cuts and carefully covers each one with a small bandage.
As he watches Shen Wei unfold the wet hand towel, he starts to feel very guilty about the whole thing and says, “It’s not that bad, you don’t have to—”
At that moment, Shen Wei presses the cold compress against the burn, and Zhao Yunlan lets out a hiss of pain and surprise.
Shen Wei looks at him, eyebrows slightly raised as if to say, it’s not that bad?
Zhao Yunlan frowns and can’t help himself from complaining. “You should’ve warned me.”
There’s an icy sharpness in Shen Wei’s gaze. He purses his lips and says, “You should’ve been more careful.”
There’s really nothing he can say to that.
Shen Wei removes the towel and begins rubbing in the lotion, his face still carrying a stony expression. Zhao Yunlan tries not to wince as the lotion is applied, but he knows Shen Wei can tell that it hurts, because his hands start moving more gently. After a while, the stinging goes away; the combination of the towel and the cool lotion help to relieve him of the discomfort.
Carefully, Shen Wei wraps the sterile gauze bandage loosely around Zhao Yunlan’s arm. As he does, he finally says, “What you did was very stupid.”
“It wasn’t at the time,” he responds, sullen.
Shen Wei gives him a withering glare as he finishes bandaging his arm.
“Are you still mad at me? Don’t be mad, don’t be mad,” Zhao Yunlan says, leaning forward and tugging at his arm. “I don’t like seeing you mad.”
“Then don’t make me mad.”
“Shen Wei, ah, I’m sorry, it’s my fault, I’m sorry…listen, I’ll take full responsibility for the kitchen. I’ll fix it, I promise.”
He avoids his gaze. “I’m not mad about the kitchen.”
Zhao Yunlan blinks and looks down at his bandaged arm. Realization dawns on him in that moment. He looks up again when he hears Shen Wei sigh.
“Why do you care so little about yourself?”
His words manage to stop Zhao Yunlan. For a long while, he just looks at Shen Wei, whose head is lowered. He thinks about his words, and then says, “It’s not that I don’t care, I just—” He sighs and smiles a little crookedly. “I know I wasn’t really thinking. I’ll be better about that. I just wanted to do something nice for you. You’re always taking care of me and cooking for me, so I wanted to cook for you for once.”
Shen Wei turns his gaze on Zhao Yunlan, eyebrows furrowing in endearing puzzlement as he asks, “For me?”
It’s a well-known fact that Zhao Yunlan is a shameless bastard, so admitting something like this is easy for him, if only he hadn’t failed miserably in his attempt. Still, he hates it when Shen Wei is mad at him, and he’ll say anything to change that. “You’re always tired on these days, so I thought making you something might cheer you up. Like how eating your food does that for me.” His smile turns sheepish. “It, ah, obviously didn’t turn out the way I wanted to though. I guess I really can’t cook.”
Shen Wei stares at him, though it’s more gentle and less piercing now. His eyes flicker down, confliction rippling through them, and then he takes Zhao Yunlan’s injured hand in his. “I’m happy to have you think of me,” he says softly, brushing over the bandages with his thumb, “but I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Hearing that, Zhao Yunlan’s heart squeezes tightly in his chest. They may just be talking about the incident today, but he knows it’s not just that anymore.
“I can’t promise not to get hurt,” he says, and when Shen Wei looks at him, he amends it, “okay, yeah, I could avoid some stupid things—like this—but inevitably, for a stupid reason or not, I’m going to get hurt.” Zhao Yunlan leans forward to bump his forehead against Shen Wei’s and rest it there. “But that’s okay. I’m okay. I’ll always be okay with you here. And I won’t try cooking anymore, that’s for sure.”
Shen Wei inhales and squeezes Zhao Yunlan’s hand a little.
“I’m sorry for scaring you,” he continues. “I won’t do it again. Okay?”
“Okay,” Shen Wei answers, and now he finally seems relaxed. The tension has left his shoulders, and the look in his eyes is soft.
Zhao Yunlan brightens. He leans away and asks, “Does that mean you’re not mad anymore?”
Shen Wei blinks and then his eyebrows furrow again, like he’s just remembered he’s supposed to be furious at him. “No,” he says. “I still don’t think you’ve repented enough.”
But the heaviness is gone from his expression, and Zhao Yunlan beams at him. He climbs into his lap and wraps his arms around his neck. “Xiao Wei,” he coos, “your husband repents, he repents very much. Forgive him, alright?” He lightly peppers kisses all over his face and neck. “I’m sorry. I mean it. I’m reflecting seriously on my actions, and I promise I’ll make it up to you. I don’t know what else to do. Please, Xiao Wei, don’t stay mad at me, your dear husband can’t stand it.”
When Shen Wei eventually lets out a soft sigh, he knows he’s won.
“As long as you never set foot into the kitchen if I’m not there too.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Zhao Yunlan hastily agrees, placing a final kiss on Shen Wei’s nose before leaning back and grinning.
Shen Wei’s eyes flicker up to meet his, and now he seems hesitant and a little pensive. “Yunlan, I’m...sorry for getting upset. When you get hurt, I just...I’ll reflect on the way I reacted too.”
The grin on Zhao Yunlan’s face softens. “Ah, baby, your apology is accepted,” he says, his tone still bright. “I know you were just worried. Also, you’re not wrong, I was being stupid. Also, also—” He lifts his arm up and waves it around. “—you bandaged me up nicely. So I really do have the best husband, who forgives me for lighting his very nice kitchen on fire and looks after me well even when he’s mad. He should also kiss me right now because I’ve spent the whole day missing him, and honestly, I think it would make both of us feel better.”
Shen Wei finally smiles back at him, and it’s a smile full of loving, gentle fondness. He leans in and kisses him properly, and Zhao Yunlan happily sinks into the kiss.
(“I can’t believe you actually set fire to our kitchen.”
“Must be one of my many gifts. Hm, I wonder what else I can set on fire…Ahh! Baby, don’t glare at me, I was kidding, I was kidding—”)
Later, after they have dinner, they stand in front of the stove and stare at the product of Zhao Yunlan's disastrous cooking.
It’s as Zhao Yunlan is looking at it that he realizes even if he hadn’t started a fire (on accident, on accident), he would not have been able to serve this...thing to Shen Wei. It looks utterly disgusting and must taste even worse. It’s clear to him now that he’d been quite delusional about his own talents. So much for being a prodigy chef.
“That’s my wok,” Shen Wei remarks.
“Hey, you’re not allowed to get mad again!” Zhao Yunlan reminds him. “I already kissed you enough to make up for it. What, do you need more?” He pauses and smirks. “On second thought, I’d be happy to deliver.”
Zhao Yunlan gleefully watches as Shen Wei’s ears turn a little pink. Instead of responding to that, he asks, “What were you even making?”
“Beef noodle stir fry.” Zhao Yunlan's smile grows, and he lifts his eyebrows. “Can’t you tell?”
Shen Wei’s lips quirk. “I have no idea how you did this, Zhao Yunlan.”
“Thank you,” he replies, taking it in stride, but then frowns a little. “It’s such a shame though. I really wanted you to eat something I made.”
A beat, and then Zhao Yunlan sees a hand reach into the wok with a pair of chopsticks. He grabs Shen Wei’s arm to stop him, alarm and disbelief in his gaze as he says, “What are you doing? Don’t eat it!”
Shen Wei blinks. “But you wanted me to.”
“When I thought I could make something good. There’s no way that’s edible.”
“It probably isn’t.”
“Then why are you eating it?!”
His husband looks at him for a while, and then he smiles softly.
Zhao Yunlan is so stunned by his smile that he forgets to stop Shen Wei from picking up a disgusting mass of burnt, uncooked noodle and guiding it into his mouth. Very horrified, Zhao Yunlan watches Shen Wei’s face, which remains neutral, excluding the brief twitch of his eyebrow.
Somehow, Shen Wei manages to swallow it down, with an ease Zhao Yunlan doesn’t think he himself could do. Then they stand there in silence, waiting for Shen Wei’s evaluation.
Shen Wei looks over at him and frowns slightly.
“I think you used too much soy sauce.”
Zhao Yunlan laughs, light and warm, and kisses him.