~Chapter 33 – Confections~

            “Is it done yeeeeet?” whined Luhan as he sat on the countertop swinging his legs slightly, right beside where Sehun was working on the dessert.

            It was barely afternoon as the two occupied their usual kitchen classroom since Luhan was too eager to continue waiting and Sehun was just dragged along.

            “You’ve been asking that same question for the past ten minutes,” replied Sehun monotonously as he continued working on his task.

            Luhan pouted “Yeah because you won’t tell me what you’re making and I want to eat it.”

            “You’ll see eventually just watch,” said Sehun as he began mixing baking powder and flour in a bowl and then setting it to the side in order to grab a second bowl and mix alum, baking soda, salt, and water until all the dry ingredients were dissolved.

            When Sehun reached for the first bowl that had the flour and baking powder in it to pour into the second bowl filled with dissolved ingredients, Luhan gasped as he finally realized what Sehun was making “Are you making my favorite!?”

            Sehun smiled as he said “What do you think?”

            “Really!?” asked Luhan smiling widely, watching what Sehun was doing with more focus.

            Sehun didn’t answer as he continued with making the dessert, once the soft dough formed Sehun coated his hands in flour in order to prevent any of the dough to stick to his hands as he worked on kneading it.

            As Luhan watched Sehun move his hands quickly in a circular motion on the dough rather than the usual kneading method most baker’s used which was pushing the dough upwards and then pulling back, Luhan asked with curiosity “How do you do that?”

            Stopping for a moment Sehun looked up at Luhan “Do what?”

            “Kneading the dough in that circular way, I haven’t seen anyone do that before and you’re moving your hands so quickly too,” replied Luhan.

            “Oh, this is how I usually knead the dough though, well this is the way my parents did it and I sort of just picked up on it,” explained Sehun.

            “It seems a lot quicker than the method I use,” said Luhan completely intrigued with Sehun’s technique.

            “It might be because you have to gradually increase the speed, its sort of similar to rolling the dough back and forth between your hands,” said Sehun as he showed Luhan by continuing to knead the dough again.

            It was clear that Luhan was really interested in how Sehun was able to knead the dough in this new way that he hasn’t seen before and he wanted to learn it too. “Can you… teach me it?” asked Luhan shyly.

            Sehun paused “Right now?”

            “Only if you want to,” said Luhan quickly, biting his bottom lip.

            “Sure,” replied Sehun stepping aside a bit indicating for Luhan to come closer.

            Luhan’s face lit up almost instantly as he slipped off of the countertop and went to stand next to Sehun, with a grin Luhan looked at Sehun and said “Okay, so what’s the first lesson?”

            Sehun gave a scoff “Just place your hands on both sides of the dough.”

            “Okay,” replied Luhan as he did what Sehun told him after flouring his hands.

            “Next you start with either your left or right hand and begin rolling the dough in the direction that you choose but only use one hand and then after rolling you pull it back and begin switching back and forth increasing the speed gradually, almost similar to a circular motion,” instructed Sehun as he watched Luhan from beside him.

            Luhan nodded “Okay,” and began doing as Sehun instructed but the dough just seemed to only squish in his hands and flatten on the countertop rather than roll like Sehun had done before, giving it another try and struggling for a few more moments with it Luhan stopped and looked at Sehun “I don’t think I’m doing this correctly…”

            “You’re doing fine,” replied Sehun encouragingly.

            “But it keeps squishing and not holding it’s circular shape,” said Luhan a bit frustrated that he wasn’t able to pick it up as quickly as he had hoped.

            “You just need to increase your speed, while you are working with the dough,” said Sehun.

            “I was increasing my speed but then when I do half of the dough seems to just flatten itself against the countertop,” replied Luhan.

            Sehun nodded and moved so that he was standing right behind Luhan and said almost directly in his ear “Do you want me to help you?”

            Sehun’s words tickled Luhan’s ear as Luhan’s heartbeat increased ‘Ah, so close…’ Luhan suddenly felt nervous but still managed to squeak out “Yes, please.”

            “Okay,” Sehun closed the distance between himself and Luhan so that Luhan’s back was now pressed softly against Sehun’s chest. Sehun reached his arms forward and grabbed on to Luhan’s hands while leaning his head forward so that it was right above Luhan’s right shoulder “You were doing fine but to stop the dough from squishing you need to have a firmer grip on it.”

            Sehun’s low voice right beside Luhan’s ear was clearly driving the shorter crazy as he shivered a bit but still proceeded to nod showing Sehun he understood what the younger was telling him. Luhan felt as though his heart might just jump out of his chest if it kept beating so fast.

            “Alright so place your hands on the sides of the dough like before,” as Sehun talked he was also guiding Luhan’s hands that were still in his gentle grasp “We’ll just start with the left hand, so you need to push the dough starting from the bottom edge while your right hand stays where it is to help guide where the dough is being pushed and then pull it back, now as you pull the dough back you are also alternating your hands so that your right hand is now the one pushing the dough forward as the left pulls it back.”

            Sehun continued guiding Luhan’s hands with his own for a few more moments “Do you get it now?”

            “Y-yeah,” stuttered Luhan as he tried staying focus on what Sehun was telling him rather than how big Sehun’s hands were compared to his own and how broad Sehun’s chest was pressed against his back.

            Sehun seemed to have not paid attention to the stutter as he continued on with helping Luhan “Now for the speed, you were a bit slow when you needed to alternate hands and that’s okay but when you try to go faster you seem to forget to come back to the back of the dough which is why it seems to just flatten out on the countertop.”

            “Oh,” replied Luhan as he began getting the hang of the kneading technique with Sehun’s hands still atop his to guide him.

            “Yeah, you seem to be able to do it now,” said Sehun as he let Luhan do more and more of the kneading himself “I think you should be able to do it by yourself.”

             “Um…” Luhan began unsurely as he felt Sehun release his hands but Sehun didn’t leave back to his original spot beside Luhan instead he stayed right behind Luhan looking over his shoulder.

            Luhan’s movements were a bit clumsy and nervous with Sehun still in such close proximity to him but he was still able to do what he was taught.

            “Ah, I think I’m getting it,” smiled Luhan as he got used to his surroundings and the movement of the dough.

             “Good,” replied Sehun happy that Luhan was able to pick up on the technique so well.

             Luhan turned his head “Thanks for teaching… me… Sehun.”

            When Luhan turned to face Sehun he didn’t factor in where Sehun was standing causing the two to now awkwardly stare at each other with their faces almost two inches apart. Luhan’s eyes suddenly darted down at Sehun’s lips ‘I wonder what it would be like to kiss Sehun again… His lips were so soft and he looks so cute right now while he’s trying to teach me…’

            Without really giving in much thought Luhan began leaning towards the stoic younger.

            “Um, Luhan…” began Sehun quietly eyeing the older with a bit of concern in his eyes.

            “Hmm,” Luhan was still leaning in slowly only an inch of space was left between their faces ‘Just a little more...’

            “You’re um… squishing the dough… with your hands…” said Sehun eyeing the dough that was being wrung between Luhan’s fingers.

             Luhan’s eyes widened as he snapped his head back around to look at the dough “What!?”

            Seeing that Sehun was telling the truth, Luhan quickly released his hands from the now deformed dough ball “Sorry! I was… um…” Luhan blushed unexpectedly ‘I was distracted with trying to kiss you, Sehun.’

            “It’s fine,” said Sehun in a calm voice in order to reassure the clearly flustered older “I can fix it.”

            “Sorry,” repeated Luhan again feeling guilty at suddenly losing his focus and then taking it out on the dough.

             “Don’t worry about it, I’ll finish up so you can just wash your hands in the sink,” said Sehun as he reached for the squished dough ball and began kneading it a bit more and reshaping it so that it was back to normal, “See?”

            Luhan nodded sheepishly “Okay,” and went to wash his hands.

            When he came back he saw that Sehun had already wrapped up the dough ball and was just waiting for it to set and was now just filling the deep fryer with peanut oil to heat up.

            Luhan took a seat back on the countertop and watched as Sehun checked the temperature for the oil and then walked back towards him, Luhan’s heart began speeding up once more as he continued observing ‘Sehun… Should I tell him now? I want to confess… But will he reject me?’ Luhan bit his bottom lip nervously ‘But he told me that I was important to him and he even saved me from that creep…  Sehun helped me out a lot especially during that spectacle with my parents… And Sehun was the one to kiss me on the Incheon tower, it couldn’t have just meant nothing… Sehun is kind, helpful, dependable, and so reliable despite how indifferent his personality is…’

            “Hey are you okay?” asked Sehun as he peered at Luhan’s slightly dazed face with concern.

            Snapping out of his thoughts Luhan nodded “Yeah, just eager to eat my favorite dessert!”

            “Hnn, okay,” replied Sehun as he began unwrapping the dough ball and flattening it, when the dough was flat enough Sehun began cutting it out into rectangles.

            Sehun took the rectangles of dough and carefully placed them into the hot oil in order to fry them up. Luhan watched on from where he was sitting, waiting for Sehun to finish.

            As Sehun took the last of the dough sticks out of the deep fryer and placed it on the rack to drain it of any excess oil Sehun said “Well the fried dough sticks are finished, now they just have to cool off and we can eat them.”

            “Awww, but I want to taste them now,” whined Luhan impatiently.

            Sehun laughed “I can see that but you don’t want to burn your tongue off.”

            Luhan gave a joking exaggerated sigh “Fine, I guess I can wait,” as he flashed a smile at Sehun.

            Sehun gave Luhan a light smirk amused at his response and turned around to begin cleaning up the kitc