“Hae, I want to eat cinnamon buns,” Hyukjae whined from the couch, his skinny calves encased in festive red and white striped woolly socks draped over the edge of one end of the plush sofa.

“Go make them yourself,” Donghae retorted from the matching couch opposite the one Hyukjae was reclining on.

Donghae’s nose was buried in another recipe book, his own actually. Donghae was an accomplished baker at the renowned St. Lucienne French patisserie bakery in town, and he was busy researching for a new recipe to impress customers for the Christmas season. So far, he had come up with zilch. The Christmas menu had been due the week before, but Donghae was really lacking inspiration, so he requested some extra time from the head patissier, and he was granted the weekend.

Donghae had really tried experimenting with new styles and adding different sorts of ingredients to give the pastry an extra oomph, such as the cinnamon custard macaron, white chocolate and strawberry mille-feuille, strawberry tiramisu, and mint chocolate puffs. All of these were really good in Hyukjae’s opinion, since he was the resident guinea pig (actually, the only guinea pig) for Donghae’s bakexperiments, but all of those just weren’t special in Donghae’s opinion. Similar pastries were being sold elsewhere, and Donghae wanted something that was new and exciting. Also, Donghae realised that the strawberry tiramisu just didn’t go well. The tart taste of the wild strawberries and bitter expresso just didn’t seem to be the best combination. Even so, Hyukjae finished every single crumb and declared it to be the most delicious just because it had strawberries in it. Sometimes, Donghae wasn’t sure if Hyukjae was really an authentic food critic or not, because if you place any dish containing strawberries in front of him, it would be elevated to the same status as ambrosia.

“Both of us know who stays in the kitchen in this house,” Hyukjae teased. “Besides, would you really let me bake by myself?” Hyukjae fake-pouted. “I might cut myself.”

Donghae rolled his eyes. Sharp knives weren’t used that often in baking, and to his knowledge, one did not need a knife to make cinnamon rolls. “What? Cut yourself with an egg shell?” Then, Donghae became kind of concerned that Hyukjae would really cut himself with an eggshell, because Hyukjae was more or less the winner of the award for most clumsy accidents of the year. “Don’t worry, I’ll be prepared with a first-aid kit if you do.”

“I might spoil your new oven. I mean, like if I turn the oven knobs here and there…” Hyukjae tried.

“Okay, okay.” Donghae’s limit was at his new oven. He had just gotten it installed last month. It was the newest state of the art oven, and he did not want the winner of most clumsy accidents of the year to accidentally start a fire with it and damage it. Donghae got up from his comfortable position on the sofa and hit Hyukjae’s head lightly with the recipe book. “You are not touching my oven, you little fire hazard and harbinger of all clumsy accidents.”

Hyukjae gripped Donghae’s sweater, the new one he purchased for him just for Christmas. It was dark blue, with a little adorable reindeer knitted in the centre and adorned with white puffy yarn balls that was supposed to symbolize falling snow. Hyukjae pulled Donghae’s face close to his and pecked him on the cheek. Then he patted his clothed buns.

“Now go to the kitchen and make me my cinnamon buns.”

“Not with just that.” Donghae tapped at his lips impatiently.

Hyukjae grinned and planted a loud, wet kiss on the place Donghae’s fingers last touched, earning a goofy smile from the patissier, who then headed to the kitchen to prepare the cinnamon buns.