The sun is barely beginning to rise, the sky a technicolor of light pinks and blues. A soft music of chirping birds can be heard through the windows. Youngjae slowly crawls out through Himchan and Yongguk’s door, Himchan’s cellphone clamped between his teeth. It is daddy Himchan’s birthday and Youngjae wants to bake him a cake. He enlisted Kyungsoo’s help during kindergarten on Friday and the two had made plans to pilfer their parents’ phones so they could call each other and figure out the mystery that is a cookbook. His parents normally sleep in on the weekends, so Youngjae takes this opportunity to bake the cake as a surprise for his daddy.

Youngjae very carefully closes the door and removes the cellphone from his mouth. He quietly tiptoes down the stairs and heads for the kitchen while searching through the contact list for Uncle Junmyeon’s number. Upon finding Junmyeon’s name, Youngjae hits the call button and heads for the dining table to drag one of the chairs over to the counter. Youngjae nibbles on his lower lip, hoping he had given Kyungsoo enough time to obtain the cellular device. When it is Kyungsoo’s voice, and not an irritated and sleepy Uncle Junmyeon, that greets through the phone, Youngjae lets out a sigh of relief.

“Okay,” Youngjae says, climbing up onto the chair, “let’s do this.”

“All hands on deck,” comes Kyungsoo’s reply. “Wait a sec,” Youngjae responds, “let me just.”

Youngjae tiptoes to lean over the counter to grab one of daddy Yongguk’s cookbooks. He pulls one out that seems promising enough and searches through the pages for the dessert section. Upon finding a cake recipe that doesn’t seem too difficult, Youngjae reads through the ingredients out loud to Kyungsoo.

“What’s a tartar?” comes Kyungsoo’s voice, questioningly. Youngjae frowns and replies, “I dunno. Isn’t that the thing you eat with fish sticks?” “Ew, that’s gross,” whines Kyungsoo’s voice through the receiver.

Youngjae is also not sure what kosher means but tries as best he can to gather the ingredients called for by the recipe.

“Okie dokie,” Youngjae says finally, “got everything I need. Let’s get started!”

Youngjae places a finger at the first direction and reads out loud “Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.” He quickly glances at the oven. This one is easy. Daddy Himchan had bought one of those super high-tech fancy ovens where all you need to do is punch in numbers and push go, even a kid could do it. Youngjae sets the oven to 350 and presses heat. When he hears a satisfying beep and the sound of gas being released inside the oven, Youngjae smiles and returns to the counter and climbs back on top of the chair.

“Okay step one down. Next! Combine one two cup of the sugar with the flour and sift them together four times. Set aside.”

“What do you mean one two cuppa sugar?” questions Kyungsoo from the other line. Youngjae furrows his eyebrows and replies, “that’s what it says in the book! It says one and a line goes like this,” with that Youngjae makes a slashing gesture with his pointer finger, “and then two.”

“Maybe it means three?” Kyungsoo suggests, “just put three cups.”

“Okays,” Youngjae puts the phone on speaker and places it on the counter, using his now free hands to pick up a coffee mug. He digs the cup into the opened pack of sugar and scoops out first one cup and dumps it into a huge mixing bowl, “one.” Then he scoops out two cups and counts, “one, two.”

Youngjae then reads the next instruction and it says something about electric mixers and egg whites and folding things in. Youngjae is thoroughly confused by the directions and questions Kyungsoo with a frown, “aren’t all eggs white anyways?”

“Well,” comes Kyungsoo’s voice, “there’s yellow stuff on the inside so maybe it means you gotta put the whole egg inside so you can’t see the yellow stuff.” Youngjae nods, saying “aha I get it.”

“But you get to use the eclectrix beater! How cool!” comes Kyungsoo’s voice, thoroughly excited by the idea of using adult appliances like a big kid.

Youngjae climbs on top of the counter crawls over to daddy Yongguk’s pretty red KitchenAid Artisan and drags it back over to his chair, plugging the mixer in, before climbing back down. Youngjae pushes up the beater with both hands, then removes the bowl from the stand. Youngjae dumps four cups of flour Into the bowl, seven spoons of salt, one spoon of vanilla ice cream, and then squeezes in a condiment packet of tartar sauce he had dug out of the refrigerator. He takes four eggs and places them whole on top of the flour and pauses, hands hovering above the ingredients, and tells Kyungsoo, ”I don’t think this is right.”

“What’s not right?” Kyungsoo asks. Youngjae hears someone shout and a loud thump through the other line, “ow.” “What are you doing?” Youngjae questions with a raised eyebrow, hands still floating above the eggs, not entirely sure what to do. “Trynna draw whiskers on Jongdae hyung but he woke up and pushed me off the bed," huffs Kyungsoo, “anyways, what’s not right?”

“I dunno, the egg?”

“Just do it,” Kyungsoo says confidently, “It’s gotta be right. If you put the whole thing in, it’s white right? Egg. Whites. See?”

Youngjae is convinced by Kyungsoo's logic and begins to dig flour over the eggs, “fold.”

Next, Youngjae places the bowl back onto the mixer stand and lowers the beater. He looks at the speed setting on the side and asks Kyungsoo for his opinion, “what number should I put it on? It says 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.” Kyunsoo hums for a second, then responds, “I dunno, 10? Make sure it’s mixed real good?”

“Okay~,” sings Youngjae, then slams the setting to the last. What happens next is to the effect of an atomic bomb dropping into the kitchen and a white mushroom cloud spouts overhead, coating Youngjae and everything within a ten foot radius with flour and bits of egg shells and other unidentifiable ingredients. Youngjae coughs and rubs his eyes with his fists to clear away some of the flour when he hears, “baby, what are you doing?” Youngjae snaps his head back to the kitchen doorway where Himshan is rooted to the floor, Junhong in his arms.

"Surprise!"

a/n: this is the recipe i was using as reference (http://www.barefootcontessa.com/recipes.aspx?RecipeID=330&S=0)