~Chapter 37 – Treats Festival~

            “What time were we supposed to come to the booth to help set up?” asked Chen as he sat on the Tea house dorm’s sofa with the others.

            “What time is it?” asked Luhan lazily.

            “It’s noon,” answered Lay looking toward the clock above their TV.

            “So…” drawled Chen boredly.

            “We’re late,” stated Sehun nonchalantly as he walked down the stairs, past the sofa and out the dorm door without hesitation.

            “Oh…” replied the three who were on the couch until what Sehun said finally hit them and they realized that the maknae was already out the door leaving them behind.

            “WAIT! WHAT!? WE’RE LATE!?” screamed Chen as he quickly jumped off the sofa with Luhan and Lay as they all scrambled quickly out the door after Sehun.

            It’s been about two weeks since the entire class began their preparations and today was finally the opening of the Treats Festival. Sehun was the first to approach the class booth as he lifted the back curtain to get inside followed by the scrambling three.

            “Oh you guys! You’re just on time,” said Baekhyun pleasantly as he turned around from his task of setting up the wires for the cooking equipment.

            “Wait on time?” questioned Chen clearly confused.

            “Yeah, I told you to get here at 12:15pm,” replied Baekhyun.

            Chen, Lay and Luhan shot a look at Sehun who had a blank expression on his face as he shrugged “If I told you all we had fifteen minutes to get to the booth you would have taken you’re sweet time, then get distracted by something and then we’d all really be late.”

            Lay was the only one who bothered to look sheepish while Chen and Luhan looked ready to protest but were cut off when Chanyeol came up to the group cooing “Our maknae Sehun knows us so well.”

            “I know right? Wow never thought you’d adjust so well to us Sehun but then again you adjusted quite well to Luhan huh? Ah, I got that blooming romance I was looking for after all,” grinned Baekhyun teasingly.

            Chen laughed while Luhan’s ears turned red out of embarrassment as he remembered the lunch the three had shared at the beginning of the school year.

            “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” grumbled Luhan as he sneaked a glance at Sehun and Lay who was already beginning to get out the ingredients that they would need for their shift.

            Baekhyun gave Luhan a cheeky grin “Nope unless you four want to do all the set up yourself.”

            “No thanks,” answered Luhan quickly knowing that they would take forever if it was only the four of them to set up.

            “Alright- Oh you guys are finally here and on time, surprising,” noted Kris as he came through the curtained back way followed by Suho.

            “It was Sehun that got you here on time wasn’t it?” asked Suho with a laugh.

            Luhan, Chen and Lay didn’t respond while Sehun gave Suho a nod.

            Suho laughed again “I thought so, ah so glad to have a responsible maknae in our group now.”

            Kris patted Suho’s head to indicate he was going to say something “Anyways we set up our things first since it would take forever with our bigger equipment for the cupcakes we’re making and there would be no time for us to do so while we’re exchanging shifts especially if our shift is right after yours.”

            Suho nodded “Yup so you just need to set up your things and then you all should be set for the very first shift.”

            “And we’ll be helping you out with your set up before we head off to play in the festival before our shift starts free of charge since we’re amazing friends,” smiled Chanyeol as he held up a plug “So where you guys want this electronic skillet thingy for your crepes?”

            Baekhyun giggled at Chanyeol’s choice of words “Chanyeol place it here, there’s a socket open for the plug. We’ll handle the equipment stuff so no worries there.”

            Luhan smiled “Thanks guys, now let’s get this set up over with. Sehun and I will do the batter, Lay and Chen will do the filling.”

            “Yeah,” replied the others as they quickly got to work.

            It took about thirty minutes but the set up was done and the booth was up and running, ready for the start of the festival.

            “Finally all done, okay so we’ll drop by around fifteen minutes before our shift starts so we can transition smoothly,” said Kris.

            Suho nodded “Yeah, and then you guys can go enjoy the festival while we work the booth.”

            “Alright first shifters good luck! Get a lot of customers,” cheered Chanyeol enthusiastically.

            “Oh and don’t forget to save us the best crepes okay? Cause we’ll definitely drop by to have some and Xiumin, Tao, Kai, and D.O. will probably drop by too,” added Baekhyun with a wink.

            Lay smiled “Of course, you’ll all have the top quality crepes.”

            Bakhyun grinned “Great! Ah the perks of knowing the patissier!”

            An announcement suddenly rang out from the school’s intercom “All booths in the Treats Festival please check over your stations and make sure that your preparations are finished. The Festival will begin momentarily.”

            “Oh, I guess that’s our cue to go then,” said Suho as he grabbed on to Kris’ hand “Have fun! You’ll do great!”

            “Yeah! And don’t forget to save us crepes, I like mine with powdered sugar!” called out Baekhyun as he pulled Chanyeol out the back way with Suho and Kris following.

            “Someone seriously better remember that,” said Chen checked over his filling area.

            “There’s four of us so one of us is bound to remember, right Sehun?” replied Luhan.

            Sehun only gave Luhan a look “I’ll remember.”

            Grinning sheepishly Luhan nodded “See? Sehun will remember!”

            “Thanks dependable maknae,” responded Chen with a laugh.

            Sehun remained expressionless as he gave a hum of acknowledgment.

            “Okay so everyone ready?” asked Luhan cheerily.

            Chen and Sehun nodded.

            “Wait what about Lay?” asked Luhan as he looked over towards the other who was still standing in front of a pot filled with melted chocolate “Lay are you not ready yet? Do you want help?”

            Lay looked over towards the group “No, I think I’m okay for now, I think the chocolate is a bit too thick for sauce though maybe I’ll add some cream to it…”

            “Oh, I’ll get it for you,” volunteered Chen as he handed Lay the carton of cream.

            “Thank you,” replied Lay as he began mixing in some of the cream to his chocolate sauce.

            “No problem, how’s it looking so far?” asked Chen curiously as he looked into the pot.

            “Actually… Chen can you taste this really quick? I think I added too much cream and it might have made the chocolate less sweet,” Lay was holding up a spoon that had a scoop of the light brown melted chocolate.

            Chen automatically opened his mouth as Lay neared the spoon to his lips.

            “Oh wait! It’s hot,” said Lay quickly pulling the spoon back to carefully blow on it, cooling down the melted chocolate. “Sorry!”

            “It’s fine,” reassured Chen finding a flustered Lay to be adorable.

            Chen reached forward and grabbed Lay’s hand that was still holding on to the spoon and placed it into his mouth tasting the velvety smooth sweet chocolate coat his tongue.

            “It’s good, really good,” said Chen as he took the spoon out.

            Lay spluttered a bit “Ah, okay that’s um great,” and rushed off to place the spoon in the wash area.

            Luhan was now looking at Sehun with big eyes and clasped hands.

            “Don’t even think about it,” said Sehun before Luhan could even voice his thoughts.

            Luhan puffed his cheeks up and narrowed his eyes at Sehun.

            “No,” Sehun paused “I don’t care how cute you think it’ll be either.”

            Luhan frowned as he stared at Sehun quietly.

            Sehun took a glance at his sulking boyfriend and then quickly looked away.

            Luhan kept frowning. ‘Sehunnie you’ll give in eventually.’

            As if Sehun could read Luhan’s mind, Sehun sighed (which was usually a good sign for Luhan since it usually meant Sehun was giving in to what he wanted) “Fine, just stop making the sulky face.”

            Luhan instantly brightened as he hugged Sehun tightly “Yay, I get to feed you chocolate later.”

            Sehun automatically returned the hug muttering “Yeah, yeah.”

            The school’s intercom again “The Treats Festival will now begin; guests please enjoy yourselves to your fullest at any of the open booths.”

            “Okay, time to start! I'll take the orders and handle the front of the booth,” said Luhan while the others went to their own thing.

            Since their booth was very close to the opening gates making it a very good spot to catch people’s eyes it was without surprise that a line formed quite quickly.

            Luhan, Sehun, Chen, and Lay were immediately swamped in orders from varying guests that ranged from young and old, very well known and just average, and just people in general who wanted to visit to enjoy sweets.

            Although it was a lot of work, it was pretty fun being able to gain this type of experience especially if any students were planning on running their own shops in the upcoming future, handling customers, managing their supplies, and making the sweet to the customers preference were all important experience that would without a doubt be needed in the patissier world.

            After about an hour and a half at the booth the lines eventually began to thin themselves out as the guests went to explore more of the festival although there were still customers it wasn’t as overwhelming as it had been when they first began.

            “Ah, I’m tired now,” sighed Chen lazily as he slumped his head on the table they were working on.

            “Well this is what we get for getting the best location for our booth,” reminded Lay.

            “Ugh, right,” groaned Chen.

            “How much time do we still have left before we switch out with Kris, Suho, Chanyeol, and Baekhyun?” asked Luhan as he joined the others in the back since he saw there weren’t any customers at the moment.

            “About thirty more minutes officially but they said they were going to come here a little bit earlier to start up their things too,” answered Sehun.

            Luhan nodded “Right and then after we clean up and change we can go enjoy the festival too!”

            “Oh, we got to make the crepes for them too,” added Sehun.

            “Yeah, thanks for the reminder Sehun,” said Lay.

            Sehun nodded, reaching out to pick up the ladle he was using to scoop the batter but Luhan beat him to it.

            “I’ll do this one; you were making crepes the entire time for the past hour and a half, I’ll give you a break,” smiled Luhan.

            “Are you sure?” asked Sehun a bit surprised.

            “Yup, so take a break,” answered Luhan cheerily.

            “Mmm okay,” relented Sehun as he let Luhan make the base of the crepe.

            “Heeeeey what about us we want a break too,” wh