Chapter Text
Cat Dad [21:04:33]: remember when i said a couple of days ago that the sound of the mixer was driving me insane?
Chan! [21:04:38]: yes, vividly
Cat Dad [21:05:02]: i have come to the horrifying realisation that i barely notice it anymore
Chan! [21:05:23]: if it’s any consolation, i’ve been finding paint on the walls here
Cat Dad [21:05:34]: at least paint doesn’t make noise
Chan! [21:05:41]: you’d be surprised
As if on cue, a loud thud sounds from the direction of Hyunjin’s room and Chan winces. Should he go check on him? Would Hyunjin bite his head off if he does? But what if he’s actually injured and needs his help?
He ends up dithering by Hyunjin’s closed door for a long time until Changbin comes to save the day. With a judging look tossed in Chan’s direction, Changbin raps his knuckles on Hyunjin’s door and doesn’t wait for Hyunjin to answer before walking in.
“We heard a noise,” Changbin declares. “Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?”
Hyunjin’s voice is pitched and thin – he sounds like a boiling kettle.
“Are you okay physically?”
A pause, in which Changbin and Chan watch as Hyunjin slowly glances down at himself. He’s covered in a mixture of paint and charcoal, but otherwise seems unharmed.
“Yes,” Hyunjin says eventually. “I think so.”
Then he looks to his right, and Chan follows his gaze until he sees the haphazard pile of canvases on the floor. With a mighty groan, Hyunjin slumps over his desk, face buried in the cradle of his arms.
“I’m screwed,” he mumbles, and it’s only thanks to years of experience that Chan manages to make out what he’s saying.
Changbin pats him on the arm and jerks his thumb over his shoulder. It is also thanks to years of experience that Chan is able to decipher what Changbin’s saying: good luck buddy, I’m outta here.
Left alone with Hyunjin, Chan draws upon his prowess as a big brother figure and carefully picks his way through the art supplies strewn across the floor.
“Hyunjin-ah,” he begins tentatively. Setting a gentle hand on Hyunjin’s back, he strokes down the length of his spine and continues, “You know Felix will like whatever you give him, right?”
Upon hearing Felix’s name, Hyunjin lets out a dry sob.
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve the best. He’s the best, so he deserves the best.” He kicks his legs petulantly and Chan is reminded for the umpteenth time that week just how precious his members are.
“How many pieces have you painted, exactly?”
Hyunjin sighs. “I dunno, ten? Twelve? A lot, and none of them are good enough.”
“How about I clear these away and you can work in a less cluttered space? Maybe inspiration will come easier!”
Hyunjin’s shoulders sag further. “Okay. Can’t get any worse, right?”
Moments later, Chan lugs a dozen canvases out of Hyunjin’s room and promptly stubs his toe when he turns a corner. He whimpers in pain and hopes that Minho is having a better time with his half of the couple.
“You want my honest opinion?”
Felix stands across the table, eyes wide as he watches Minho swallow a mouthful of cake. There’s flour streaked across his cheeks and a bit of egg in his hair, but Felix couldn’t care less about what he looks like right now.
“Of course, be as honest as you can.”
Minho takes a breath. He’s going to regret this, but Felix wants honesty.
“It’s…a little dry. And I can’t really taste the coffee.”
He counts a total of two and a half seconds before the regret hits. Felix’s face crumples in despair and he flops down onto one of the chairs, fingers curling into tiny fists.
“I give up. I can’t do this.”
“The buttercream is nice,” Minho offers, but the damage has been done.
“I don’t understand,” Felix groans. “I’ve made so many cakes in the past and they’ve all turned out well, so why am I messing up now? Valentine’s is in two days, Minho, what if –”
Minho scoops up a spoonful of whipped cream from the bowl near his elbow and shoves it into Felix’s mouth.
“You could bake Hyunjin a rock and he’d eat it.”
Felix stares at him, unblinking.
“I must try again.”
Those four words chill Minho to the bone. He’s tried enough cakes over the last week to last three lifetimes, any more and he might actually ascend to the heavens.
“No, you don’t.”
Felix frowns.
“I must. I can’t feed him a rock, Minho.”
You could, Minho thinks miserably.
Cat Dad [19:33:01]: tomorrow is valentines
Chan! [19:33:29]: oh i am very aware of that, trust me
Chan! [19:33:34]: image attached
Cat Dad [19:33:48]: why are u collecting all of those canvases
Chan! [19:33:57]: gut feeling
Cat Dad [19:34:10]: my gut is in jeopardy
Cat Dad [19:34:21]: i should get a blood test to check my glucose levels
Seungmin [19:34:22]: chan i think felix blew up the kitchen
Chan! [19:34:26]: what
Seungmin [19:34:37]: yeah i smell smoke
Chan! [19:34:48]: did felix blow up the kitchen
Cat Dad [19:35:07]: idk man, i’m not home
Cat Dad [19:35:20]: i escaped for safety and it paid off!
Chan flings the door open and comes face to face with the two vocalists on their way out of the dorm. With a great shove, Seungmin pushes Jeongin through the doorway and follows on his heels.
“The fire is out, but I think Felix is close to exploding,” Seungmin informs him while Jeongin jabs manically at the Down button.
The elevator dings and Seungmin waves goodbye to him before the pair disappear inside.
Chan sucks in a lungful of air and immediately regrets it when the scent of burnt cake kicks in. Trying his best not to cough, Chan toes off his shoes at the door and bolts inside.
In the kitchen, he finds Felix on the floor slumped against the cupboards, batter-covered spatula in hand. The kitchen itself looks like a hurricane swept through it – there are mixing bowls everywhere, spilt batter on the countertops, a gigantic bag of flour perched precariously on the edge of the table…
Chan hurries to straighten the bag. He can only handle one disaster at a time, thank you very much. In the corner of his eye, he sees a thin tendril of smoke unfurling from the oven.
“I did it,” Felix says, hollow. “Somehow I managed to burn a cake.”
The sight of his friend despondent on the floor mixed with the scent of burnt cake has Chan blurting out, “This is absolutely ridiculous.”
Felix doesn’t answer, but Chan didn’t expect him to.
“Look. We all know how much you love him. He knows even better than we do exactly how much you love him. So just keep doing what you’ve been doing, Felix. Hyunjin loves you for you, not for your cakes.”
Once again, it’s thanks to years of experience that he’s able to tell how Felix starts to soak up his words.
“The brownies he likes,” Chan suggests. “Why don’t you just make those instead?”
Felix chews on the inside of his cheek. “You think that’s enough?”
“It’s enough for Hyunjin.”
Blessedly, Felix nods. He still looks a little unsure, but with Valentine’s just around the corner, he doesn’t have the time to argue.
“Okay. I'll do that.”
After an hour spent helping Felix clean up, Chan trudges back to his dorm with his entire body aching. His joints hurt – good lord, is this what aging entails?
He’s entertaining the idea of a chilled can of beer when he hears what is unmistakably Jisung’s voice bouncing down the hallway.
“What the fuck do you mean, strip,” Jisung yells. “I’m not doing that! No, nothing you say will – NO.”
Now, Chan doesn’t care about the beer anymore. He’s entertaining the new idea of escaping much like Minho did, except before he’s able to step back into his shoes, Jisung appears around the corner and beelines for him.
“Chan, please talk some sense in Hyunjin. He wants me to pose naked for him –”
“As a reference,” Hyunjin shouts as he skids into view. “I was thinking of painting –”
Chan moves into action before his mind catches up, and he finds himself standing in front of Hyunjin with a hand clapped over his mouth. Hyunjin blinks at him, astonished.
“No,” Chan says, drawing on the rest of his patience. “No painting anybody nude.”
Hyunjin replies, but all that comes out is a jumble of unintelligible sounds. Chan narrows his eye and slowly lowers his hand.
“…But nude paintings are romantic,” Hyunjin answers, voice small.
“Do you really think Felix will look at a painting of Jisung naked and find it romantic?”
“Hey,” Jisung interrupts. “My naked body is totally romantic!”
Chan ignores him.
“Go back into your room and paint the first thing that pops into your mind when you think of Felix. I don’t care if it’s a walking strawberry, just do it.”
It’s clear that Hyunjin wants to argue, but he withers under Chan’s faux-glare and obediently shuffles back into his room. Chan waits until Hyunjin’s door shuts behind him before he exhales and lets his shoulders sag.
“That bad, huh?”
Chan reaches over and pinches Jisung’s arm.
Cat Dad [08:52:15]: happy valentines day
Chan! [08:52:22]: happy vday :)
Cat Dad [08:52:36]: shall we see what those two have managed to accomplish
Chan! [08:52:48]: idk, a part of me doesn’t really want to
Cat Dad [08:53:11]: well too bad, bc felix is going over now
Cat Dad [08:53:21]: the rest of us are coming too
Now?!
Chan goes through his morning routine in record speed, pulling on a shirt just as he hears the front door open. He exits his room in time to see the members of the other dorm entering, Felix carefully cradling a box in his hands. Catching Minho’s eye, Chan fights back a laugh and goes to greet them.
“Happy Valentine’s!” He swoops in to kiss Jeongin on the cheek, but the youngest swerves with extraordinary skill and dodges it completely. “Aw, Jeongin, come on!”
“Nope,” Jeongin sing-songs. “You know the deal, only for your birthday.”
Chan goes for Seungmin next, but that kid has already long disappeared somewhere. This leaves him with Minho, who very graciously accepts a kiss on his cheek.
“So what did Felix end up making?”
They walk into the kitchen, where Chan spots the box sitting on the table. Felix must have gone to wake Hyunjin up, which means at least another thirty minutes before they emerge from Hyunjin’s room.
“He stacked two sheets of brownies together and shaped them into a heart. It actually looks kinda cute,” Minho says. “He covered it with blue frosting, and it’s got their initials on it. I hope for Felix’s sake it tastes good.”
The rest of the apartment slowly rouses, and Chan spends a good amount of time brewing coffee for those who want some. Minho stays by his side, nursing his own steaming mug as he does everything he can to get in Changbin’s way.
Changbin is seconds away from throwing an egg in Minho’s face when Hyunjin and Felix float into the kitchen, exuding so much love that Minho audibly gags. Even Changmin wrinkles his nose and turns back to his six-egg omelette.
“Sit,” Felix says, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Hyunjin slides onto a chair and gazes up at him, hearts in his eyes.
With a tug, the bow wrapped around the box unravels and pools at the base.
“I struggled a little,” Felix confesses.
“Just a little?”
Chan steps on Minho’s toes.
“I wanted to make you something really cool and grand and fancy, but it just wouldn’t work out.”
“That’s an understatement.”
Chan steps on Minho’s toes again.
“So I ended up making what I know you already like.”
Hyunjin opens the box and takes out a blue heart. On top, just like Minho said, are their initials in white frosting. It really is cute, Chan thinks. It looks like a gigantic version of a candy heart.
Felix produces a fork out of nowhere and passes it to Hyunjin, who scoops out a forkful of brownie and pops it into his mouth.
He closes his eyes in bliss and Chan can see the relief radiating off Felix’s frame.
“Thank fuck,” Minho says emphatically.
Then Hyunjin jumps up and squishes Felix’s cheeks between his palms.
“Wait here.” He turns to leave the kitchen, only to stop and fix the rest of the members with a look. “Don’t touch my brownie. My brownie!”
He disappears, and Seungmin slinks over to Felix.
“We don’t get brownies?”
“I kept some for home, don’t worry.”
Hyunjin reappears with a canvas in his hands. When he passes it over to Felix, Chan gets a good look at what’s painted across the surface. It’s a landscape, a wash of light colours depicting a field of flowers, topped off with a blue sky. In the corner and amongst the flowers are two silhouettes, painted vaguely enough that they could be anyone.
But they’re not just anyone, and Felix knows that.
Felix traces the silhouettes with a fingertip and steps into Hyunjin’s space, and Chan feels a sudden, overwhelming surge of warmth at the sight of Hyunjin pressing a kiss to Felix’s temple in return.
Sure, the last week or two have been an absolute nightmare for everyone involved, but it all comes from love. All they wanted to do was find a way to show the magnitude of their love, and in Chan’s opinion, that’s impossible. It’s impossible to even put into words just how important they are to each other.
“I’m gonna go before I throw up,” Minho proclaims, and all but shoves Chan out of the kitchen. Changbin hurries to follow, juggling a plate of eggs and a gigantic cup of coffee.
Yeah, Hyunjin and Felix may be cute, but there’s a limit to the amount of cuteness the rest of the members can stomach.