“Hyung,” Taemin says, tugging on Key’s sleeve, “teach me to cook.”

Key looks up from his laptop, surprised, and looks at Taemin suspiciously. “You want to learn to cook?”

“Um, yeah.”

“You. Learn. To cook.”

Taemin falters under Key’s steely gaze. “Yes?”

Key just looks at him for a moment. “But why?” he says, finally.

“Can’t you just teach me?” Taemin says, pouting.

“You’ve never expressed an interest in cooking before. There has to be a reason.”

“Well, you see,” Taemin says nervously, directing his gaze towards some stain in the carpet he’s never noticed before, “I kind of like someone.”

“And…?”

“I wanted to bake them a birthday cake.”

“Minho’s birthday isn’t for another two months and a half, you know.” Taemin blinks for a second, then shakes his head quickly.

“Hyung!” he protests. “I’m not talking about Minho!”

Key examines him closely. “Well, that’s a disappointment. Who, then?”

“She’s a girl, you know. I’m not gay.”

“Sulli? But you told me you weren’t interested in her two months ago. Taeminnie! Have you started lying to me?” Key says, giving Taemin a stern look.

“Will you please stop jumping to conclusions, hyung?”

“Then who?”

Taemin blushes. “She’s in my dance class.”

“Wait. So I don’t know her? Pfft. That’s boring.” Key says, turning back to his laptop.

“Kibum hyung!” Taemin whines.

“Fine, fine. I’ll teach you. But I’m not taking responsibility if our kitchen catches on fire.”

“So,” Key begins, “these round white things are eggs.”

“I know, hyung,” Taemin says, as he facepalms mentally, “and this is flour, and that’s oil. I know what everything’s called.”

“Right,” says Key, unfazed, “so first, you have to combine all of the dry ingredients. Or, in this case, the sugar, flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder.” Taemin carefully locates the correct ingredients, then pauses.

“What do you mean by ‘combine’?”

 Key sighs. “Like, mix together.”

Taemin nods, picks up the sugar, then sets it back down. “…Mix together where?”

Key seriously considers smashing his face into the wall.

Once Taemin has successfully measured out the appropriate ingredients and mixed them together in a large metal mixing bowl, Key moves on to the next step.

“Okay, now you have to add the eggs, vegetable oil, milk, and vanilla.” he says, pulling out a half-used carton of eggs from their refrigerator.

“Oh, hyung! You have to crack the eggs first, correct?” Taemin says, feeling extremely proud of himself for remembering such a detail.

“Correct,” Key confirms. He takes one of the eggs and cracks it, then holds it above the metal bowl to let the yolk escape. “Like so.”

Taemin picks up the remaining egg and copies Key’s movements, adding the egg to the rest of the ingredients. When he checks the bowl, however, he frowns.

“Kibum hyung?”

“Hmm?”

“I think some of the shell got into the mix.”

Key glances into the bowl and sees four or five white slivers of eggshell floating in the cake mix.

He thinks he wants to strangle something.

Fifteen minutes later, Key finally succeeds in painstakingly removing the last of the eggshell from the cake mix.

“So. Now.” Key stiffly jabs a finger at the vegetable oil. “Oil.” He shoves a measuring cup towards Taemin, who looks slightly scared. Taemin measures the oil especially carefully, and after he manages to add the vegetable oil without making a single mistake, Key relaxes a little.

Key figures everything else will probably go smoothly when he sees the milk and vanilla go in without a hitch.

“You’re finally getting the hang of it.” Key says, ruffling Taemin’s hair affectionately as Taemin pours the mixture into a glass pan.

Taemin smiles brightly. “Thanks!”

“175 degrees for 25 minutes.” Key calls out, and Taemin slips the pan into the oven and punches in the right buttons.

They wait.

When the cake comes out, it’s puffy and smooth and, as Taemin gushes, “yummy smelling”. Key sighs with relief when he realizes the cake has turned out fine, and stands up to retreat to his room. He’s three feet away from his door when Taemin asks,

“What about the frosting?”

Key shows Taemin how to use an electric mixer to cream butter. When it comes time to add in the powdered sugar, they make a mess, but as Key says,

“I’m beyond caring at this point,”

so they ignore the white blankets of powder covering the table and continue with the frosting making instead.

When they’ve finally finished, Key feels ready to take a nap. He s the bowl of frosting in front of Taemin and asks tonelessly, “How is it.”

Taemin dips a finger into the bowl and .

“I think it needs more sugar.” he says, bunching his eyebrows. They use up the rest of their powdered sugar, but it’s “still not sweet enough” according to Taemin, and Key feels like dying.

Key tries to force the other members to go buy more powdered sugar for them, but Jonghyun has “stuff to do”, Jinki isn’t at home, and Minho just laughs, so Key and Taemin end up taking a trip to the convenience store together. There, they spend a quarter of an hour deciding which powdered sugar to buy.

“This one says ‘pure’ on it, though.” Taemin says, gesturing to the bold block lettering on the bag. “And it’s made in Cuba. That’s all the way on the other side of the world!”

“Yeah, but this one is cheaper.” Key argues, pointing at a slightly smaller but significantly less expensive bag. “And since it’s made in South Korea, we’d be supporting our own country by buying it. Who cares about Cuba?”

Five minutes later, they walk out of the store, Taemin triumphantly cradling his Cuba-imported sugar and Key grumbling about “an extra 5000 won” and “stupid puppy dog eyes”.

As Key watches Taemin happily dump large amounts of their newly-purchased powdered sugar into the frosting, he can’t help but feel slightly sorry for the recipient of Taemin’s cake.

“She’s going to get diabetes just from the frosting, you know.” Key deadpans. “Then, she won’t be able to dance as well, and she’ll hate you forever.”

Taemin shrugs. “Whatever you say, hyung.”

He then proceeds to add more sugar.

 “She’ll hate me forever,” Taemin bawls as soon as he arrives home from school the next day. Key, lounging on the couch, puts down his magazine and gathers Taemin into his arms.

“There, there.” he says, handing Taemin a tissue. “It’s fine. She probably doesn’t hate you.” He lets Taemin sit, hiccupping, for a few minutes before asking, “What happened, though? You gave her the cake and?”

“Well, she ate it.” Taemin says, sniffing.

“Wait, did she really get diabetes from that? No way. You can’t have put in that much—”

“Then rashes broke out on her skin,” Taemin says with a sob. “It turns out she’s allergic to wheat.”

“That makes no sense. If she’s allergic to wheat, then why would she eat something that obviously has flour—”

“And she had to go to the nurse, and now she’ll hate me forever!” Taemin ignores Key’s question and bursts into tears again. Key sighs, grabs a handful of tissues, and lets Taemin cry it all out.

“You know, you can always find a new crush,” Key says later, after Taemin has calmed down. “I mean, Minho, for instance, would be—”

Taemin cuts Key off by smacking him with a couch cushion. “I’m not gay, hyung.”

“Pity,” says Key, sighing. “2min fics are the cutest, you kn— stop hitting me, will you?”

“Not. Gay.”

a/n: Comments are always loved! <3