Step 1: Gently open the package

                Yoseob stares down at him, one hand in his pocket, the other hand holding a bottle of lemonade to his lips. Doojoon puts down the scissors for a moment to look up at the younger boy expectantly, waiting for a few moments to see if the goalie is going to say anything. When about a minute passes and Yoseob merely continues to stare at him, confused, Doojoon asks, “Aren’t you going to help me?”

                The younger boy blinks, frowning. “You need help with opening a box?”

                Doojoon picks up the scissors again and starts stabbing the corner. “It’s a taped box,” he says since Yoseob clearly doesn’t understand how serious furniture stores are about packaging because Doojoon has been at this for the past hour and all Yoseob’s done is drink lemonade.

                “You came over here with that box at like two,” Yoseob says, glancing at the clock, “and now it’s three and we haven’t even started yet.”

                “It’s half open,” Doojoon defends himself. “And it’s not like you have anything else to do today.” He stabs the opposing corner and puts the scissors down, readying himself to try and pry the sides open again.

                Yoseob sits down next to him, shoving him to the side so Doojoon’s precarious squatting balance is ruined and the captain falls onto his side. “How do you know?” the goalie says, amused, as he takes the scissors and stabs at the corners deeper, “maybe I have a hot date at four.” He puts the scissors down.

                Doojoon rolls his eyes. “The movie plays at five, Yoseob-ah, and we’re not—”

                The goalie stands up, kicks the box a few times, hard enough so that the cardboard starts to curl and cave in, before kneeling back down and easily opening the two sides that Doojoon has been going at for the past forty-five minutes.

                He meets the goalie’s gaze. “I’m still not taking you to see that movie,” Doojoon says, folding his arms stubbornly because Yoseob opening the box in less than a minute doesn’t mean that they’re going to finish this anywhere before five—

                “Okay, captain, okay,” Yoseob pats Doojoon’s chest. “Untwist your and come on.” The goalie tugs Doojoon closer by the hem of the older boy’s t-shirt. “We have to at least finish this before next year.”

Step 2: Carefully read the instructions            

                “This is retarded,” Doojoon says and fights the urge to roll up the booklet in his hands and stuff it into Yoseob’s lemonade bottle. He looks down at the various pieces of wood scattered around them, along with the small plastic packages of nails and screws. Yoseob walks in, right then, with a box of tools from the shed and puts it down on the carpet next to the pile of what is supposed to be Doori’s new three-tiered, specially-imported-French shelf.

                Yoseob grabs the manual out of Doojoon’s hands and flips through it. “At least there’re pictures,” he says. “And I can read French—sort of.”

                “No, you can’t,” Doojoon snorts, “because cake labels don’t count.” He sighs. “I wish she’d just settle for one of the shelves that didn’t have to be ing manually assembled. Or at least she could assemble it herself.”

                The goalie grins at him, handing the instruction manual back. “You’re the one who bought if for her.”

                “Because she made me,” Doojoon snaps.

                Yoseob laughs. “No, she didn’t. She said it was fine if you got her something else, but you got this for her anyway.”

                The captain blinks for a moment, and then looks quickly down at the booklet, furiously immersing himself in a step-by-step pictorial of how to screw nails into the sixth drawer. He hears the younger boy laugh again before Doojoon feels Yoseob’s arm around his waist, one hand lightly on the older boy’s arm. “So—what do we do first, hyung?”

Step 3: Follow the simple step-by-step process

                 Doojoon hates his life.

                “I hate my life,” he says, as he hammers in a nail with unnecessary force—he doesn’t even know if it’s the right nail or the right place, but it vaguely matches up to the instruction manual’s pictorial and he’s too tired and sweaty and hot to care right now, so whether that nail is supposed to be there or not is just too bad.

                Doojoon throws the hammer to the side and plops down on the floor, kicking away some of the pieces that they haven’t used yet (which is most of them) to make room for himself to lie down on his back. He throws an arm over his eyes just as he hears Yoseob start shuffling through the instructions again. “Hyung, I don’t think that nail’s supposed to go there.”

                The captain doesn’t open his eyes, just uses his free hand to reach blindly to the side until he finds Yoseob’s arm and pulls the younger boy over. “Yoseob-ah,” he mumbles, tugging the goalie’s arm. “Yoseob-ah, it’s hot.”

                A short pause, and then, “Do you want some lemonade?” Yoseob sounds amused. Doojoon wants to stab himself in the eye as he hears Yoseob standing up and padding away, most likely to get the lemonade that Doojoon neither wants nor needs because lemonade isn’t going to make this situation any better. The only thing that would make this situation better is if Doojoon could somehow call the executives of this furniture company and kick them all in the shins.

                He hears Yoseob’s footsteps approaching again and sighs. “Yoseob-ah, I’m really not thirsty—I think I’ll just turn—”

                But—

                Well then.

                Oh—okay. Okay.

                Doojoon feels lips, first of all—that’s already unexpected. He feels Yoseob’s lips on his, and that’s unexpected enough for the moment, but then he feels the tip of a tongue prying his own mouth open softly before a cool rush of lemonade spills into Doojoon’s mouth and he reflexively swallows, before his arm slides off his face and he stares up at Yoseob.

                “Better?” the younger boy asks with raised eyebrows.

                Doojoon reaches up, and curls one hand against the nape of Yoseob’s neck. “Not quite,” he grins, right before he pulls Yoseob back down.

Step 3 (Retry): Follow the simple step-by-step process 

                “Okay,” Doojoon says, wrapping the condoms in a few paper towels before he throws them away in the trash can near the kitchen. “Okay, we seriously need to at least get half of this done before dinner.” He runs a hand through his hair, wiping off some of the sweat on his forehead as Yoseob finally pulls on his shirt and finishes zipping up his shorts. The older boy tries not to think about how he still has three condoms left in his back pocket and how his parents and Doori aren’t going to be back for another two hours.

                Yoseob wipes off his own sweat on the back of his arm and comes back to stand next to Doojoon, assessing the number of pieces they have left and the parts of the shelf that’d come undone when Doojoon had knocked them over (supposedly the nails hadn’t been secure enough) tossing Yoseob down on his stomach. “We didn’t get anything on them, right?”

                Doojoon pushes the inside of his cheek with the tip of his tongue. “Probably not, and if there is, we’ll just clean it later. She probably won’t even notice.”

Step 4: Cautiously move the finished product

                Doojoon fights back a decidedly unmanly scream when the shelf almost goes traipsing back down the staircase, despite how tightly he’s gripping the edges and has one knee hooked underneath it. Yoseob grunts and manages to catch a corner, hoisting it safely to the side so they can stop for a breather even though they’ve only gone up half the first level (Doori’s room is on the third level).

                “Hyung, why am I always on the bottom?” Yoseob pants, forehead against the side of the shelf.

                “Because I can pull better than I can push,” Doojoon says, standing up again after he’s regained some breath. “And don’t you think it’s better to think about why we didn’t just put this together in her room instead?”

                Yoseob glances at him, eyebrows raised. “Obviously,” he snorts, “because if we were in her room, I wouldn’t have been able to get it up and neither could you.”

                Doojoon stares.

                “It’s bad enough that we just had on your living room floor,” the goalie goes on. He stands up again too. “Hurry up—my back’s starting to hurt and we have another level to go.”

Step 5: Embellish the finished product with a personal touch

                Yoseob hands Doojoon the wet paper towels, a box of wipes balanced in his other arm. He puts the roll of dry paper towel next to the older boy’s foot and sighs, shaking his head as Doojoon turns around to get more wipes. “I can’t believe you, hyung,” the goalie says in a mockingly disappointed voice that Doojoon knows is about to burst out into laughter at any moment now.

                Doojoon looks at him in disbelief. “Me?” he says faintly. “Me? This is yours—what the are you talking about?” He brandishes one of the used paper towels in Yoseob’s face and the goalie bites his lip—bites back the laugh that’s visibly bubbling up. “Mine’s in the —I took care of mine,” he adds waspishly. “This is all you, Yang Yoseob, so I don’t know why I’m the one cleaning it.” He finishes drying away the water and soap and crumples the paper towel in his hands before throwing it away in Doori’s wastebasket.

                He turns around and faces Yoseob, who—at the sight of Doojoon’s face—promptly dissolves into uncontrollable laughter, slamming himself face first into Doori’s wall and muffling his laughter against the blue and green wallpaper. “It’s not funny,” Doojoon says, kicking the back of Yoseob’s leg.

                It’s a few minutes before Yoseob calms down enough to stop convulsing and spin around to meet Doojoon’s gaze. “Your face?,” the goalie says as he slips his hands into Doojoon’s and starts pulling him backward out of Doori’s bedroom, “Yeah, it’s hilarious, hyung.” Yoseob continues to tug Doojoon down the hall and since Yoseob is walking backwards, Doojoon can see where they’re going and now it’s his turn to bite the smile away. “Lucky for you,” Yoseob grins as the younger boy’s back collides with Doojoon’s bedroom door, “I get by funny.”

                “Lucky for us,” Doojoon says, one hand on the doorknob, while the other slips down the back of Yoseob’s waistband, “my room’s right next to noona’s.”