Key’s POV

                I jumped slightly as the lead of my mechanical pencil snapped, spraying a miniscule shower of graphite across my notebook paper. I hastily brushed it away and clicked the eraser until a new piece pressed against the paper. The teacher was talking so quickly, I didn’t have a second to spare. I had probably missed half the lecture in the 5 seconds it took to fix the lead. I turned the page and continued taking neat, detailed notes on the sources and function of carbohydrates.

                After an agonizingly boring half an hour, the projector whirred to a stop and the lights flickered back on. I dropped my pencil and desperately tried to massage the cramp from my hand. Who knew a Foods class could be so dull?

                “Okay, class,” the teacher began, running her finger along a sheaf of papers clutched in her left hand. “I have your grades for the food pyramid project right here. I have to say, I’m quite impressed with most of them. You guys did very well.”

                I watched the other students as they received their grades. Many of them smiled and happily tucked the results into their folders, but a few of them glowered at the paper and frantically scanned it to find what they had done wrong.

                I watched Taemin’s expression as the teacher set our results on his desk. He smiled slightly and nodded as he passed it to me. Scrawled across the top in bright purple pen were the words “Amazing job” next to a neatly circled score of 150/150.

                “We did so well!” Taemin exclaimed with a grin. I smiled at his enthusiasm.

                “Ne, Minnie, we did. Do you think Jonghyun will want to hear about this?”

                Taemin reached for the paper and slipped it into his backpack. “He doesn’t care about this class,” he mumbled. “I can’t believe he’s skipping again… He’s going to fail anyway. A good grade on this project isn’t going to change that.”

                I shrugged. That was definitely true. A pained look passed over Taemin’s features for the briefest of instants before he glanced down at his desk and fiddled with his notebook.

                Before I could ask him what was wrong, the teacher began passing out worksheets and explaining the details for their completion. I sighed as I wrote my name neatly across the top and began working. My friendships were becoming more and more complicated, and it pained me to know that it was all my fault.

                I walked beside Taemin with my hands in my pockets and my head bent against the freezing wind. The walk to his house wasn’t a long one, but the wind had picked up throughout the day, and ominous gray clouds hung low in the sky, making me claustrophobic and anxious.

                I wiped my feet carefully on the doormat before entering the house. I breathed a sigh of relief as warm air enveloped me, along with the faint scent of baking cookies. Was Taemin’s mom really baking cookies? Now all this scene needed was a barking dog and Taemin’s mom to come out in an apron and hug everyone. I laughed bitterly at the overly happy, drama-like scene and tried to ignore the fact that my life had once been that way.

                “Umma!” Taemin called, pulling the project results from his bag and waving them happily. Taemin’s mother came in from the kitchen, and I made a face when I saw that she was indeed wearing an apron. It was frilly, too. With a teddy bear on the front. She wrapped her arms around him and ruffled his hair. I looked away. Aish~ it was too much.

                “How was school today?” She asked happily, plucking the paper from his hands.

                “Look how good we did on our project!” Taemin exclaimed. His mother smiled and handed the paper back to him.

                “That’s great, dear! I’m so proud of you!” She looked over at me and grinned. “I’m proud of you, too,” she said wholeheartedly. “You guys work very well together.”

                I opened my mouth to thank her, but no sound came out. This woman, this sweet, kind person who had known me for less than a month, praised me more than my own mother. The scene brought back a rush of memories that I had tried desperately to bury in the recesses of my mind.

                I opened the door and slowly kicked off my shoes. The heat in the room was absolutely stifling. Why did my parents have the heater on in the middle of August? Were they really so completely wasted that they couldn’t notice the temperature?

                My eyes widened when I saw my father crouched in front of the blazing fireplace. They had started a fire? Why? I took a few steps closer, and my father turned when he heard my approaching footsteps. A disgusting smile of pure malice curled the edges of his lips as he looked at me.

                “Have a good day at school, boy?” He sneered, crumpling a piece of paper into a ball. The living room floor was littered with multicolored sheets of paper. I ignored him and picked one up, recognizing my own handwriting scrawled across the page. It was a spelling test from the second grade that I had done extremely well on. I threw it to the floor and picked up another. A math test from fifth grade. A book report from seventh grade. A history paper from third grade. My eyebrows lowered in confusion. What the hell was he doing?

                I watched warily as he snatched up another piece of schoolwork and threw it into the fire. His eyes gleamed maliciously as the flames around the edges of the paper. The assignment began to curl in on itself as if in pain, and I saw my name, written in lopsided, six-year-old handwriting. The charred edges slowly moved in until my name was the only thing left untouched. Then it was gone, consumed by the raging fire that perfectly mirrored my dad’s soul. I saw the flames reflected in his eyes as he gave another paper to the greedy demon. The burning work served two purposes: one was to feed the fire, and the other was to feed his burning, raging hatred. His hatred for me.

                I felt tears of anger well up in my eyes as I watched him. My mother had saved that schoolwork for years. Every time I came home with an assignment I was proud of, she would stick it on the fridge for a few days and then file it away in a special folder dedicated to the great things I had done. Every time she opened that folder, she would smile and tell me how proud she was of me. She would tell me I was great, a hard worker, really, truly exceptional. And I believed it.

                Every bit of hope I felt at that moment was dashed when I saw my mother coming down the stairs with the folder in her hand. She ignored me as she walked to my father and dumped the contents onto the floor.

                “Don’t you see?” My father hissed. “We don’t need you. We’ve never needed you, and we never will. We’d throw you out on the street right now if we wouldn’t get the government breaking down our door for child abuse. But this way, it’s like you never existed. And trust me, you miserable little , we wish you never did.”

                “Hyung… Are you okay?”

                Taemin’s voice pulled me back to the present, and I saw him looking at me with a concerned expression. His mother had returned to the kitchen.

                I shook my head. “Ne, Minnie. I’m fine.”

                “Are…are you sure?”

                I nodded. “Of course! Now come on, I came over to hang out with you, so what should we do?”

                My heart contracted painfully as I saw the sadness on his face. I knew he was trying to hide it, but he was like an open book. I could always read him, no matter what. “Your umma is making cookies, right?”

                He nodded mutely.

                “Well. We should eat them, right? Oh! If they’re sugar cookies, we should frost them! And use sprinkles, too…”

                I felt a weight lift itself from my shoulders as he laughed and grabbed my hand. “Ne! That sounds like fun! We have all different kinds of sprinkles! Even pink ones for you~!”

                I smiled and ruffled his hair as we made our way into the kitchen. He gathered all the icing and sprinkles his mother had purchased, which would have been enough to fuel a small bakery for several years, and scattered them across the counter. He handed me an apron and I tied it on with a smile. He placed a large jar of bright pink frosting in front of me and proceeded to frost his cookies with an electric shade of blue. He stuck his tongue out as he concentrated on spreading the icing evenly, and I laughed at the expression. I frosted my cookies carefully and pushed every other thought from my mind. I couldn’t let myself say or do anything that would make Taemin upset.

Jonghyun’s POV

                I cheered as the basketball bounced off the backboard and swished through the net.

                “Awww, come on!” Minho groaned. “That was totally a lucky shot. I’m just having an off day!”

                I expertly caught the basketball and stuck my tongue out at him. “You keep thinking that.”

                “Yah! I’m the one on the basketball team!”

                “I could have made it! I just don’t like basketball enough to try out.”

                “Yeah, right,” Minho spun the ball on the tip of his finger. “The other players would use you as a stepping stool. Actually, that might work. If we stood on your head, we’d be a few inches closer to the hoop.” He shrugged and dribbled the ball down the court.

                “Yah!” I shouted, stealing the ball from him and making an excellent three-pointer before he had a chance to blink. “One more short joke and I’ll -”

                Minho opened his mouth to cut me off with some smart retort just as his phone began to ring. He picked it up from the grass at the edge of the court where he had left his jacket and brought it to his ear.

                “Ne, Taemin-ah?”

                I smiled. His entire face softened at the mere sound of Taemin’s voice. His affection was impossible to miss.

                “Ne, if you want. Of course, we’ll be right over.” He pressed the end button and glanced over at me. “Taemin says he wants us to come over for a while. Apparently Key is over there and he wants us all to hang out together.”

                Key? Great. Just another chance for me to lose focus and ruin everything a bit more.

                “Well… I know you want to go. I couldn’t possibly keep you from your love…”

                Minho’s eyes widened slightly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

                I snickered. He was in for a big surprise if he thought we didn’t know. “Yahh, Valentine’s Day is in less than a month. What are you going to do?”

                He turned away and grabbed his jacket. “If you’re going to speak in riddles, I’m not listening.”

                I ran after him. “Sorry, sorry. I’m really serious, though. Have you at least thought about it?”

                “Thought about what?” He was definitely exasperated now.

                “What you’re going to do for Valentine’s Day. I don’t know how much longer Taemin is going to wait. Unless he does it first… Nah, that’s not going to happen.”

                He stopped and turned slowly. “What…?”

                I folded my arms. “It gets really annoying having to sit here and watch you two fall more in love with each other every single day without acknowledging it. Don’t you think it’s time to confess?”

                Minho’s mouth fell open into a little “o” of surprise.

                I decided to keep pressing the subject until he said something. He couldn’t deny it forever. “Unless you can’t really find the words… At that point you should just shut up and kiss him. I don’t think he would have any objections.” I shrugged.

                Minho’s face flushed pink. “I…”

                “Want to?” I said with a laugh.

                He shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

                “God, Minho, how dense are you? We all know you’re in love with Taemin. You can’t exactly hide it. Don’t try denying it, either. It’s not going to work.”

                Minho scoffed. “How dense am I? Have you seen yourself lately, Jonghyun? I could say the exact same things to you! You might think you’re good at hiding it, but you aren’t!”

                It was my turn to be surprised. “What are you talking about?”

                “See? That’s exactly what I mean! Don’t you know how frustrating that is? And how do you think Key feels? We don’t like having to sit back and watch you two, either! I can admit it, at least. Yes, Jonghyun, I am madly, desperately, hopelessly in love with Taemin. All I want is to be by his side forever and have him love me back. Are you happy now?”

                I blinked in surprise at his sudden outburst. This wasn’t how I had planned this conversation. “Don’t… don’t tell me… Tell Taemin that…”

                “You know what? I will! At least I can admit my feelings, which is more than I can say for you. The longer you sit there wallowing in denial, the harder it’s going to be to make things right! Don’t you see that, Jonghyun? Don’t you see what you’re doing?”

                I pressed my fingers against my temples. I really had no idea what was going on. “Minho… I really have no idea what you mean. I think you’re the one speaking in riddles now. What the hell are you talking about?”

                Minho sighed in exasperation and shook his head. “You know what? I’m not going to be the one to tell you. You’ll figure it out yourself. At least… I hope you will.” With that, he pulled his jacket on and began to walk away.

                As we walked to Taemin’s house, Minho’s words ran through my head. Everyone seemed to be speaking in riddles around me lately. Onew thought Key and I were lovers. Minho thought…whatever it was that he thought. I knew that it was all connected to the way I acted around Key. I was sending mixed signals, I was confusing everyone. If I toned it down, if I focused, everything would go back to normal. It was as simple as that.

                Taemin grinned broadly as he opened the door. Minho chuckled at his appearance. He had blue frosting smeared across his nose and cheeks, and his green apron was covered with flour.

                “You came!” He yelled happily, wrapping his arms around Minho’s neck. Minho grinned and hugged him back.

                “You’ve made a mess, Taemin-ah,” he whispered in Taemin’s ear. Taemin blushed and pulled away, but not before Minho reached over and playfully wiped a bit of frosting from his nose.

                “Are they here?”

                I reflexively glanced up at the sound of Key’s voice. He ran in from the kitchen with a spatula in one hand. He was sporting a purple apron covered in smudges of pink icing, and there was flour in his hair. I glanced away quickly.

                “Yah, come in!” He called. “Come make cookies with us!”

                We obediently stepped inside and Taemin immediately dragged Minho to the kitchen. I followed slowly behind. Key shoved a pink apron into my hands and demanded that I wear it. Taemin helped Minho tie on a blue apron. Why the hell did his mother own so many aprons?

                We gathered around the counter and began frosting the dozens of cookies strewn around the kitchen. My apron was soon covered with purple icing, and I was sure that some of it had ended up on my face and in my hair. Taemin and Minho were working on baking the last batch, but the flour seemed to be coating their hands and faces more than it was mixing with the dough.

                “Minho hyung, you’ve got flour in your hair,” Taemin said with a grin. He reached up and tried to brush it away, but the flour covering his fingers only made it worse. He pulled his hand back and stared at Minho’s messy hair sadly. “That didn’t really work…”

                Minho reached over and took Taemin’s hand in his. “It’s okay, Taemin-ah. I’ll just do this…” He reached into the bag of flour and dumped a whole handful onto Taemin’s head. Taemin laughed and brushed at his hair frantically. He wrapped his arms around Minho’s waist and rested his head on his shoulder.

                “Hyung~ you’re so mean to me…”

                Minho ruffled Taemin’s hair, causing flour to fly in all directions. “Aniyo, I just like teasing you,” he said with a smirk.

                Taemin pouted. “Yah. I can tease, too.”

                 Minho chuckled. “Oh really?”

                “Ne. Hyung, you have frosting on your face.”

                Minho reached up to wipe away the invisible frosting. “That’s not as good as my teasing, Taemin-ah,” he said with a smile. “I know there’s nothing there.”

                Taemin nodded. “Ne, there is, hyung. Right here.” He stood up on his tiptoes and brushed his lips against Minho’s cheek. Minho’s eyes widened and his face immediately flushed a bright shade of red. Taemin smirked.

                “I think that was actually better than your teasing, hyung,” he whispered in Minho’s ear. “I win.”

                “Yah, get a room, you two,” Key called, sticking his tongue out as he spread pink frosting over another cookie. I noticed him smiling as he looked away.

                Taemin and Minho were both blushing now. I could tell Taemin was shocked at what he had just done, but I knew it was a good thing. Minho would be one step closer to confessing after something like that. I finished frosting the last cookie and rested my chin on my hand. I would convince him to confess to Taemin on Valentine’s Day if he didn’t do it before then. Those two really needed to see what was so obvious to the rest of us, and I was going to make sure it would happen.

        Gahh! I'm sorry it's been so long... really really sorry! I've just had a lot of things going on... -_-  But everything is better now and I should be able to get back to updating a little more frequently... I hope so anyway. >.<  I'll try my best, I promise!  I'm going to try to get another chapter up soon because I have too many ideas... And I hope you guys like 2Min because there's definitely going to be more of it. ^;^  <3 

Comments make me smile and stuff~  ^;^  <3 <3

I really want to know what you think! Really... I do... and pleaseeeee let me know if there's anything I need to work on! <3 

P.S. All the 2Min in this chapter is dedicated to my lovely Maknae Son and MeanHo. ^;^  <3 <3 (so appreciate it, you guys) ke ke ke

I LOVE YOU ALLLLL~  <3 <3