Seungri POV

I lay on the ground unmoving, my face stuffed into a cushion.

“I knew something like this would happen, it’s been 5 years after all! You can’t expect him to suddenly turn around and want to be with you after seeing you once.” Hyeri shrugged, nibbling on a choco-pie.

“Right? It’s been so long and you didn’t even bother checking his ring finger when you met?” this voice belonged to Dara noona, who is a patissiere working in dad’s bakery. The shop and our house are close by, so she would come have dinner and hang out with us after work since she is single and lives alone. She’d known my crush on Jiyong hyung since day one, in fact she was the one who taste tested my rejection Valentines chocolates, she was only a trainee at our shop back then, and now she’s the one in charge after my dad.

Dara noona scoffed “What a nerve though, asking an ex to make his engagement cake.”

“He probably doesn’t even view oppa as his ex, or he’s got too many he lost count.” Hyeri joked “Who is he getting engaged to anyway.”

“Baek Hee, also known as Becky- half Korean, a quarter Japanese and a quarter Dutch, she’s a model.” Daesung explained as he held up a magazine, gracing the cover was a beautiful model who looked half Asian, she posed confidently, her hair falling around her perfectly “Interestingly she is also the only daughter of the chairman of V&C whom, I might add- is the largest food processing commodity in Asia right now.” Daesung raised his eyebrow and lowered he magazine “The son of a hotel chain and daughter of a food processing company, smells like a merger to me.”

“Wow!” Hyeri snatched the magazine from Daesung and started flipping through it “I’m surprised it’s not all over the news yet! This is like, the royal wedding of Korea!”

“Jiyong hyung doesn’t like dealing with the press.” I mumbled as I rose from the ground, dumping a sketchbook on the coffee table and surprising everyone.

“What’s this?” Dara noona asked, pointed at my sketch of a grand looking layered cake.

“The engagement cake?” I scoffed like it wasn’t obvious enough already “There are only going to be around 30 to 40 guests,- family, friends and important business partners. Jiyong hyung said he didn’t want to announce it to the press and public until the official wedding, since he didn’t like the press being all over him.” I explained, flipping the page to show some other sketches of  smaller cakes and desserts.

Everyone went quiet,“eh?” Dara noona widened her eyes as I continued talking.

“For the snacks and desserts I was thinking petit fours…”

“Wait wait wait!” Dara noona interrupted me “Don’t tell me you agreed to make his engagement cake for him?”

I blinked at her “Yes?”

She stood up, exasperated “What? Are you an idiot?”

---Normal POV---

The air was tense as Hyeri and Daesung eyes flicked between Dara to Seungri, not daring to make any input at the building tension.

“Why? I’m not really doing anything until “Choco Vita” officially opens and that’s in the middle of July, a week after Jiyong hyung’s engagement.” Seungri explained, obviously not getting the point of why he was called an ‘idiot’.

Dara scoffed “Where are you going to make it then? You don’t even have anyone to help you.”

Seungri shrugged “In the shop kitchen after hours? Or Bo Ah-ssi said I can use the “Choco Vita” kitchen anytime I want since I’m supposed to be preparing for the opening anyway, Daesung will help me!” Daesung nodded hesitantly

“And Dara noona, you will too…right?” He glanced at her carefully.

Dara threw the sketchbook back on the table and sat back down in frustration

“What is wrong with this world?! As if a man who has enough nerve and shame to ask someone who he’d two-timed on to make his engagement cake for him is not ridiculous enough, but more than that, someone who is dumb enough to actually agree to make it?”

“I’ll make it.” Seungri replied calmly, Dara, Hyeri and Daesung all stared at him.

“Because it’s his engagement cake…” Seungri looked down on the ground, smiling bitterly “It's a cake he’ll only eat once in his life, a cake he’ll remember for the rest of his life. I have to make it, I won’t give that chance to someone else.” He suddenly looked up and shrugged, grinning widely “Besides, a lot of rich and famous people will be there, it will certainly build my reputation higher up as the ‘chocolate prince’, right?”

Dara sighed and shook her head “Idiot…” and Seungri knew she would help him. Hyeri gave him a small smile  and Daesung gave him a thumbs up, letting him know he has his full support.

Seungri smiled gratefully.

---

“Say, Seungri..” Daesung said as he lay on his back on Seungri’s bed, flipping through a volume of Doraemon.

“Mhmmm?” Seungri was at his desk, sketching away designs for various desserts for Jiyong’s engagement.

“What do you hope to become with Jiyong?” Daesung asked, rolling onto his stomach to look up at Seungri’s back.

“What is that supposed to mean? Nothing really specific.” He chuckled.

“Well…Think about it seriously, he’s going to be someone’s fiancée soon right? And then soon enough he’ll be married. Are you going to continue liking him? Continuing to hope for something even when he’ll be a husband to another woman? When he’s sleeping every night with someone else?”

Seungri stopped sketching and swiveled around on his chair to face his best friend thoughtfully “Ever since I’ve known him, Jiyong hyung had already always been sleeping with other women…he’s always belonged to someone else.” He shrugged, smiling bitterly “So it’s not like anything is changing anyway.” He turned back to his sketching.

“So what is Jiyong to you? A God? An idol?” Daesung pressed on, Seungri shrugged,

“Ah! I know! Why don’t you invite Jiyong home to taste test the desserts? Then make a move on him! Seduce him!” Daesung suggested enthusiastically.

Seungri nearly choked on himself “What are you talking about Daesung! I can’t make a move on a man that’s going to be someone’s finacee soon!” He argued, confused that someone like Daesung will come up with such an absurd idea.

Daesung sighed, “Well Seungri, aren’t you idolizing him a bit too much now?…You’ve always viewed him as your sun, someone so unobtainable yet you orbit your whole life around him…isn’t it better if you start treating him like a real person? As a man not an idol?”

Seungri was speechless for a moment before turning around again to smile at Daesung, shaking his head while smiling “It’s hard to imagine something like this came out from your mouth, someone so obsessed with manhwa like Doraemon.”

Daesung laughed, turning back to the said book “Manhwa is art isn’t it? And my maman always said ‘Art is beautiful paints that color life.”

“Life? La vie?”

Daesung nodded “Yet love is not art, love is an essence of life….”

Seungri looked as his friend thoughtfully as Daesung continued speaking, still reading his manhwa as if he was talking about something as nonchalant as the weather

“But life is something that gets dirtied in the mud, over and over again.”

--

Seungri opened the door to a smiling Jiyong.

“Sorry for disturbing.” Jiyong bowed slightly before entering the door and taking his shoes off.

“No no, sorry for making you come all the way here just to taste test. I made them in the shop kitchen so I thought it’d be easier...” Seungri explained as he lead Jiyong to the empty living room. Hyeri was at school, Daesung had gone ‘sight-seeing’ and his father was at the shop, which despite being right beside his house, gave them enough privacy.

Seungri gulped as Daesung’s words replayed in his head “Make a move on him! Seduce him!”

“Jiyong hyung…try this, it’s reeeeeally gooood.” Seungri wrapped his tongue around his fork and at it, his lips. Jiyong swallowed, nodding nervously and taking a bite of his own.

“What do you think of it?” Seungri whispered in his ear, sending shivers down his spine. Jiyong suddenly grabbed Seungri and pushed him down on the couch “I think, it’ll taste better like this…” He smirked and swooped down to claim Seungri’s lips, the chocolate on their lips melting between their heated kisses.

“…Wow! Seungri, this looks amazing!” Jiyong’s exclamation as he saw the various petit fours layed out on the table snapped Seungri out of his imaginations.

“O-oh, y-yea…haha” Seungri laughed dryly, blushing a bright red at his dirty thoughts, Jiyong frowned at him in confusion “Are you okay Seungri? You look really red.”

“N-no, I mean yes! Yes I am fine! Uh…would you like some tea?” Seungri rushed around the kitchen, trying to locate the tea pot and nearly knocking down a few plates, “Ah! Here it is!” He reached up on his tip toes to reach the tea bags, only to lose his balance and nearly fall to his embarrassing shameful death.

Until Jiyong caught him in his arms, steadying him on his feet as he chuckled at the younger man “Be careful, Seungri-ah.” His breath was hot on Seungri’s face, making his cheeks flare up again “T-thanks.”

Jiyong sat down as Seungri brewed the tea quietly, making appreciative noises as he sank his teeth into a chocolate macaron "Mmm...wow! These are really amazing Seungri!” He grinned widely, giving Seungri a thumbs up to which Seungri only returned with a small smile.

--

“What? So that’s all? He tasted everything and just left?” Daesung exclaimed in frustration “I even left the house just for you too and you couldn’t even bring youself to make a move!” He sighed in disappointment, him, Seungri and Dara were currently in the shop kitchen, working on the engagement party cake and desserts.

Seungri shrugged, whisking away on a bowl of egg whites that will soon become macaron shells “I guess it’s just not the time yet for me and Jiyong hyung.”

“Then when is the time going to come?!” Dara rolled her eyes, clanking her own whisk into her bowl extra hard “He’s going to be married sooner or later! You won’t get a chance with him! Throwing all your hard work into making a cake for someone like that, it’s just stupid-“

“I know it’s stupid.” Seungri spat, cutting her off, making Dara stop in her tracks at his harsh tone. Seungri sighed “Noona, I know I’m stupid…” He repeated, softly this time.

“Then why…?” Dara asked, swallowing the lump in the back of .

Seungri stopped whisking, his face dropping a little.

 “I want him to be happy, I want to see his smiling face… But I can’t do anything, I can’t be the one he’s going to smile for...” He shook his head softly “But chocolates that make Jiyong happy, chocolates that make him smile…I can be the one who makes them, I can do that.”

Seungri POV

When I was a child, I learnt to make meringues out of egg whites, I will always remember that feeling.

Back then, I looked at the liquid in the bowl and wondered if it is really possible to turn it into the white, fluffy mixture that my dad pipes out onto the baking sheets.

I whisked away at the liquid hopelessly- turning the whisk over and over again, then just as I was about to give up, I see it happening. It slowly gathered into the magical fluffy white mixture in my hands. And I thought “Ah, so all my hard work is worth it after all!”

But of course, I know that egg whites and Jiyong are different, that he is nothing but my fantasy and dream.

But still, I don’t mind.

I don't mind, really....

So then with this, let us dirty it in the mud, over and over again.