~Chapter 36 – Friendly(?) Class Competition~

            “You think those jerks are still going to show up?” grumbled Chen as he sat at the back of the classroom with the others, the class hadn’t started yet.

            “From what you described them as they seemed like the over confident type so they’re definitely not going to be running from this competition after making such a big deal out of it,” said Suho.

            “That’s true and it gives us even more reason to beat their class for this competition,” added Chanyeol.

            The door to the classroom opened as Ms.Jae made her way towards the front of the class, “Alright class today is the day of the class competition, we will win no matter what and keep our booth spot!”

            The classroom door opened again although in a harsher manner as Mr.Hyun walked in briskly followed by his students “Please don’t even kid yourself! We’ll be winning this.”

            Ms.Jae turned around and shot Mr.Hyun a glare “Don’t talk big when you know you’ll be losing.”

            “Just keep thinking that,” scoffed Mr.Hyun before glancing towards the rest of the classroom “Let’s get this competition started so we can begin setting up our booth spot.”

            “You mean let’s get this competition started so we can set up our booth, all my students will win no matter what happens,” retorted Ms.Jae.

            Mr.Hyun and Ms.Jae were now glaring at each other but before either of them could fling another comment at the other, two of Mr.Hyun’s very familiar, students stepped forward between the teachers.

            Chen and Sehun both had darkened expressions on their faces as Chen muttered “They showed up after all.”

            Minsoo and Taegyu both gave the class a once over before making eye contact with Sehun and Chen, giving the two an overconfident smirk.

            Minsoo spoke up first as he turned toward his teacher “Mr.Hyun, I think it would make the competition more… exciting if it was against the top students in the class.”

            “Yeah it could show the best of the best that the class has to offer, that way the competition would be easier to manage,” added Taegyu.

            “After all we don’t have much time and the quicker we get started on the booths the better right?” reasoned Minsoo.

            Mr.Hyun looked at his two students as he contemplated what they suggested “That’s not… a bad idea…”

            Ms.Jae nodded “I agree not with you of course but with the idea, we need to spend the majority of our time to prepare for the Treats Festival.”

             Mr.Hyun shot Ms.Jae a glare which was returned with full intensity.

            “Alright then, Minsoo and Taegyu you two are my top students! Since you both also came up with this idea, you’ll both represent our class,” declared Mr.Hyun.

            Minsoo and Taegyu grinned, and turned to face the class again as they locked gazes with Sehun and Chen, “It would be our great honor.”

            The two didn’t stop there though as they glanced over towards Luhan and Lay sending the two a flirty wink causing Luhan and Lay to glare in return as the others sent Minsoo and Taegyu cold warning looks although that didn’t seem to deter the two as they continued grinning.

            Sehun gritted his teeth while Chen clenched his fist.

            “Tch, my two students will be-” Ms.Jae was cut off from finishing her sentence by the loud noise of chairs scraping against the floor of the classroom as both Chen and Sehun stood up from their seats.

            “We’ll be the two students!” called out Chen with determination.

            Ms.Jae was surprised by the intensity of Chen’s and Sehun’s expression, seeing her students so determined she allowed it “I guess so then… Sehun and Chen it is.”

            Minsoo and Taegyu only grinned wider “Great this friendly competition will be exciting…”

            Sehun and Chen didn’t reply as they only narrowed their eyes at the two.

            “Alright let’s all head towards the kitchen classroom down the hall then so we can ensure nothing has been tampered with in the classrooms, it’ll be a fair competition,” said Ms.Jae as the students began making their way outside.

            “We also need to call Ms.Kim and Mr.Lee up here too, so they can judge the competition fairly. They should be downstairs, can you students go get them?” asked Mr.Hyun as the students nodded and ran off to do as they were instructed.

            Before Sehun and Chen were about to exit out of the door, they were stopped when they heard a deep voice say “Make sure you show them what skill really is.”

            Turning around they saw that it was Kris who said that with a confident smile on his face.

            Chen grinned “Yeah, definitely.”

            Lay was the next to step forward and he reached out to grasp on Chen’s hand “Don’t let what they say or do get to you okay?”

            Chen seemed a bit surprised at first but looked at Lay with a smile “Don’t worry, they won’t get to us.”

            “They better not!” shouted out Baekhyun “Because we all know you’re both better!”

            “Yeah, so you better show them!” added Tao.

            “You got that?! Especially you prodigy boy!” said Kai jokingly as he high-fived Chen and ruffled Sehun’s hair.

            “We all know that your skills are top notch,” said Xiumin confidently.

            “Yeah, so there will be no way that you’ll lose,” added DO.

            Luhan smiled at Chen and Sehun “I’m not going to tell you two good luck because you both won’t need it, so I’m just going to say go for it!”

            Chen and Sehun gave the group a smile “Yeah.”

            As everyone made their way to the kitchen classroom, Sehun and Chen stood in the station on the left while Minsoo and Taegyu stood in the station next to theirs on the right.

            Ms.Kim and Mr.Lee entered the room and stood before the two stations. “Alright! For this competition both Ms.Kim and I have agreed that both teams will make one panna cotta dessert for us to taste and evaluate, you will have two hours.”

            Ms.Kim turned around and walked towards the other kitchen station behind her and flipped on the count down clock that Ms.Jae had brought in “Begin!”

            Sehun and Chen got to work immediately as they grabbed out the necessary utensils and ingredients.

            “Okay, we can split the jobs, I’ll make the panna cotta itself and you can work on making the sauce that goes with it, let’s do a citrus type of panna cotta that way it’ll stand out more than the usual berry type of panna cotta,” advised Chen quickly and quietly enough so that only Sehun heard.

            Sehun nodded “Got it, orange should be a good choice then if you want a citrus sauce.”

            “That’s fine,” replied Chen as he grabbed a bowl and poured in buttermilk and slowly sprinkled in unflavored gelatin powder to thicken the buttermilk, leaving that aside for a bit he took a sauce pan and poured in heavy cream and sugar stirring the ingredients together occasionally.

            Meanwhile Sehun was working on the citrus sauce by grabbing a few oranges and peeling the outside of them off so that all that he had in his hand would be the golden fruit itself. Quickly but with caution Sehun began cutting out the orange segments one by one avoiding the membrane of the fruit and placed them into a bowl.

             When Sehun had enough orange segments in the small bowl, he moved on to cutting a few oranges in half in order to squeeze the juice out into a different saucepan next to the one Chen was working on, on the stove.

            As Chen’s mixture of cream and sugar began to boil, Chen picked up his gelatin mixture and began to stir it in, when everything was blended together well enough and the mixture was boiling once again he turned off the heat and took out a short cylinder bowl.

            Lifting the still extremely hot sauce pan filled with the boiling liquid, Chen began to cautiously pour the mixture into the cylinder bowl staying as focused as possible so that none of it could accidentally spill either on himself or outside of the bowl.

            “Hey! Pretty one and cute one too, you both look good today! When we win this why don’t we go somewhere together?”

            Sehun noticeably stiffened at hearing the aggravating comment, feeling anger beginning to fill his senses, and narrowly avoided cutting his fingers as the blade in his hand got caught in the orange instead.

            But Chen wasn’t as lucky as he was so startled by the sudden outburst Chen’s hand slipped from the saucepan’s handle, sloshing the hot liquid violently causing it to splash out on his shirt and then on reflex as he tried to steady the pan again his hand came too close to the metal part of the handle that was still boiling hot.

            “AHH!” Chen hissed as he felt a searing pain on the front of his shirt all the way through to his chest and on his now clearly burned hand.

            Many of the students and teachers that were watching yelled out in surprise at the injury Chen had gotten although there were a pair that were heard snickering among themselves.

            Sehun immediately dropped what he was doing and came over to Chen, grabbing his wrist and pulling him to the sink where Sehun the water to the coldest temperature possible and shoved Chen’s hand under it.

            Chen hissed again in pain as the cool water came in contact with his aching and inflamed skin.

            “Are you going to be okay? I can handle the rest, the burns must hurt a lot so you probably can’t use your hand right?” said Sehun quietly as he kept Chen’s hand under the running water.

            “It’s nothing, I’m fine, it’s only my left hand, I’m right handed anyways,” gritted out Chen.

            The others who were watching were still calling out to Chen in concern. Ms.Jae stood up “Chen! Your injury needs immediate medical attention.”

            “I’m fine!” repeated Chen even louder so everyone could hear him.

            “But you have injured yourself,” argued Ms.Jae.

            “Yeah, you should go get that treated,” sneered Minsoo.

            “And next time, why don’t you stay focused on your work instead of being so careless,” smirked Taegyu.

            Sehun opened his mouth, ready to throw a comeback at the jerks but was stopped when Chen turned the water off.

            “Like you two are the ones to talk, instead of flirting with people who obviously have no interest in you jerks why not focus on your own mediocre dessert. This injury is nothing, I’m continuing this!” replied Chen stubbornly.

            Ms.Jae tried to intervene “But-!”

            Lay stepped forward from the crowd and patted Ms.Jae’s arm getting her attention “Ms.Jae, let Chen continue, he’s going to be stubborn about this and won’t give in, I know him.”

            “That may be so but an injury-”

            “Like that won’t stop Chen, and Sehun’s there to look out for him too,” added Luhan.

            “They’re our closest friends so of course we want Chen to stop and get his injury fixed but we know they can do this, it may look reckless and stupid but they’ll be fine,” said Kris confidently as the others nodded in agreement.

            “I’m not happy with Chen continuing like this either but right now he’s determined to win this,” said Lay as he refocused his attention on the competition.

            Ms.Jae sighed giving in to her student’s request “Alright, but when this is done Chen is getting treated immediately.”

            Lay smiled and nodded “Of course, I’ll treat him myself.”

            “Go for it Chen and Sehun!” cheered Chanyeol giving them a thumbs up to which the pair replied with a thumbs up of their own.

            “Tch,” Minsoo and Taegyu clicked their tongues in distaste.

            Chen of course felt the irritated itching and burning of his skin where it was swollen and red, he clearly knew that he couldn’t drag this out for much longer before the pain started to comeback in full intensity and Sehun knew the same.

            “Chen,” called out Sehun as he evaluated the situation quickly “Let’s switch roles you handle the citrus sauce and I’ll do the panna cotta that way you won’t have to use your hand too much.”

            “Yeah,” Chen went over to Sehun’s work area and began squeezing the already cut oranges into the sauce pan while Sehun picked up the sauce pan with the left over panna cotta mixture in it carefully. There was barely enough to fill up the three-fourths of the cylinder bowl but Sehun continued with it since there wouldn’t be enough time to make more, taking the filled cylinder bowl Sehun placed it into the quick chiller to set.

            While Chen just finished juicing the oranges into the saucepan, Sehun came over to pour in sugar and syrup into the orange juice in order to thicken the sauce a bit.

            Chen nodded his thanks to Sehun as he took out a spoon and began stirring the mi