Episode 3:

Without Pretense

JiYong swore that the gentle piano music playing softly over the speakers was taunting him.

He couldn’t help but be jealous honestly. HakYeon and Leo had been together since before they had converted that little shopping strip next to Heenim’s into a dance school and studio four years ago. They came in every afternoon holding hands. The taller, quieter man would break off at the lobby and step down into the calming atmosphere of the mint green room, settle himself cross legged in the fluffy blue chair and pull out his phone while N pranced up to the counter with a goofy grin plastered all across his features. It was like they had just started dating every single day.

“Do you think he’s okay?” N whispered as Daesung disappeared up the stairs.

“I think he will be eventually,” Ji sighed, letting the weight of implications settle in his heart, “He usually is.”

He was offered a sad, sympathetic smile and an equally heavy sigh in response. As good as it felt for fall to leave heaviness in the air, he wished that something would lift the deep sorrow and petrifying anxiety from his soul just then. “Enjoy your coffee,” JiYong managed with a fake sort of brightness that made his already aching heart bleed a little.

The younger, but much taller man nodded, taking his huge bowl of a cup in hand and slinking away with an unusual lack of enthusiasm. His demeanor didn’t change until he reached the table, smiled genuinely as his long fingers ran across Leo’s broad shoulders and sat down. Leo’s sharp eyes softened and a smile jerked at the corner of his lips as he asked a very quiet question that JiYong couldn’t hear.

Sometimes Ji just sat and watched them exchange glances and smiles with each other. N made Taekwoon light up in a way that no one else could. There had been a time in his life with Seungri when they would have walked into a bakery smiling like Leo and N never failed to. JiYong sorely missed that part of his relationship.

Maybe he was just in a bad mood. Seungri was going on four hours late getting back from lunch by then and it had screwed the whole day up. Not only had poor Dae been forced to go to the hospital alone but Seunghyun had also been made to go without adequate sleep because Ji had to watch the counter and make the coffee when customers were in. His inability to be in two places at once put a ton of lag on the monstrosity of a wedding cake that they had been working on for three days.

Just as he was about to turn and head back into the kitchen the door rang out loud. He spun around to find Lee Jinki tripping over his own feet as he stumbled through the door and rounded the corner. His honey blond hair was a wreck and he looked confused as he composed himself, “JiYong?” he asked, “Doesn’t Seungri usually work the counter at this hour?”

To which JiYong snorted, “He’s on the third hour of his lunch break and is not answering any of my calls.” He lamented. Adding, “I swear he’s such a teenager sometimes. It’s like he’s running away from home,” before he could filter himself.

“Ah,” Onew acknowledged.

“Sometimes I’m more his mother than his lover,” the baker continued, “his real mother would probably kick his if I called her.” He sighed deeply and ran a hand through his shaggy orange locks. He melted even further into the pastry case he had been leaning on, “Sorry, you don’t want to hear this.”

“Oh no,” the cupcake master fretted, “It’s fine. If you need to vent I will listen. I’m off for the day; I just came to see if Seungri wanted to hang out later. He wasn’t answering my texts.”

“I didn’t know you were close,” Ji huffed under his breath, but he didn’t know a lot about Seungri these days. “Dae had to go to the hospital alone and Seunghyun didn’t get to sleep so he’s being a terrible perfectionist about the cake and we have to finish it by tonight. I was counting on YougBae’s help but now he’s going to have to watch the counter when he gets back…”

“I’ll do it,” Jinki interrupted.

“Do what?” JiYong laughed.

“I’ll watch the counter,” his younger counterpart offered.

JiYong was so flabbergasted by the other’s generosity that he was stunned speechless for a moment, “seriously?”

“Of course.”

In that moment, Lee Jinki was a godsend. No person could be more kind, or more generous, or more wonderful that Onew. If he hadn’t been so tired Ji might have jumped the counter and hugged him, maybe even kissed him. He thanked his lucky stars, and whatever gods he could think of for Lee Jinki. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he rushed, practically throwing open the counter bar next to him to let Onew in, “come on back.” He smiled a broad, white, genuine smile. “You can leave whenever you want,” Ji said, “I’ll pay you, I swear.”

“Please,” the man jumped throwing his arms up, “Please don’t worry about it, it’s the least I can do.”

“Hold on a sec,” JiYong blurted enthusiastically as an idea struck him clear in between the eyes, “You need an apron. Wait right here.” He managed to jump over the counter rather than opening it, or going under it and jogged gently to the hallway where his apron hook greeted him. Ji flicked through its bright offerings in silence; contemplating the personality of the person he was attempting to dress. Eventually he settled on the on the one that was made to look like a tuxedo that he most often wore to wedding deliveries. It even had a little silk bowtie and pleats sewn into it. Like many of his more fashionable aprons, he couldn’t actually wear it in the kitchen much.

The orange haired baker draped it over his arm after he finagled it out from the middle of the packed selection and walked back. Onew was waiting exactly where he had been left. His brown eyes glinted of absolute bewilderment as Ji passed under the counter partition. He had managed to loop the neck strap and adjust it, and was in the middle of tying the back as Onew attempted to protest when footfalls creaked along the floor.

HakYeon and Taekwoon came strolling up. The taller set their stacked green mugs (with matching saucers) down next to the register, where the counter was much shorter. N wrinkled his nose in a way that Ji didn’t recognize, “Onew?” he asked, “What’re you doing here?”

“I came looking for Seungri,” the man younger man managed.

“He offered to watch the counter so I could work on that wedding cake.” Ji interjected.

“Oh,” HakYeon seemed genuinely surprised but then he moved on, “can you have Dae call me if he’s feeling up to it? I miss his visits.”

“Sure thing,” Seunghyun surprised everyone by popping out of the kitchen with his big, ear covering headphones hanging around his shoulders and bright red edible glitter smeared across his face in all kinds of funny patterns, “have fun at evening classes.” He leaned on the frame of the archway and shoved his hands in his pockets.

JiYong couldn’t help but smile at him, smeared in icing and glitter like a sugar sweet pop star getting ready to go on stage. Even his hair had flecks of glitter or pieces of exploded chocolate pearls stuck in it. In fact, it was probably icing and batter holding his hair up rather than gel.

Leo gave a nod and N waved brightly. “Enjoy that beast of a cake, show me pictures when you’re done,” N said as they headed for the door. Leo skipped ahead and opened the old iron and glass door for his lover, catching Hakyeon’s slender arm in his muscular one as the door closed with a rattle behind him.

The frosting master let out a long breath he hadn’t realized he was holding in. His blue haired companion jerked his head back to gesture over his shoulder with a knowing frown slipping across his lips. The ten millionth sigh of the day passed through Ji’s lips and patted Onew’s back, “You can come get us if you need something. YoungBae should be back in a few minutes. He’ll show you how to work the register and get you a pricing list.”

Jinki nodded in recognition, “Do good work,” he said.

“Did my glitter tub explode on you?” Ji asked, running his fingers gently across his best friend’s apron and shirt covered stomach as he passed by.

“Only moderately,” Seunghyun shared wiping his hand a little harder than was necessary along Ji’s back. He turned and followed Ji in with an airy breath. The clack of his headphones snapping together as he pulled them off his head and rested them on the table

Upon the table, in all its various shades of pink, frilly, glittered glory was ‘the monster’, as they had so affectionately named it. It was four feet tall, with six layers varying shades of pink fondant, each of them covered in either delicate pearlescent lattice piping and drop strings or steamed fondant with individually placed sugared rhinestones and chocolate pearls. It would also soon be home to nearly eight hundred sugar flowers. It was wonderful and gaudy and everything that JiYong lived for.

The sugar flowers in question, had been taking up residence in the narrow hallway between DaeSung’s office and the walk in cooling units, right next to where Seunghyun kept his cot for napping. They were strung up on pasta drying racks like glittering chandeliers. Ji couldn’t remember the last time he had burnt his hands so much on one task. It had so been worth it. They had turned out beautifully. For the first time in years he wanted to skip the glitter and go straight for the sugar flowers, but he still had at least an hour and a half worth of piping and sparkle blowing left to do before he would be close to placing flowers.

When Seunghyun put his reading glasses on and pulled out the tweezers, that’s when it got serious. The piping bags came out and the music and the world drifted far far away to the tune of some old school hip hop. With the weight of icing draped over his shoulder the baker named GDragon went to work drawing perfect loops and swirls with a tip no larger than the end of a ballpoint pen. Three hot pink frosting streaks later he finally had the presence of mind to clip his intrusive hair back.

He was midway through a truly spectacular run of teardrop shaped drop strings and couldn’t look up or wave for fear of having to redo the entire tier when YoungBae poked his head in.

“Jinki says he’s filling in for Seungri?” the shorter man asked rather than stating.

“Jink is right,” Ji offered with frighteningly intense focus on the task before him rather than the banter, “Did you teach him the register and give him a price list?”

“He did,” Onew shouted back.

“Do you want me to teach him coffee too?” YoungBae asked.

“No,” Ji muttered, “He can come get you when he needs that.”

“If you knock this table I will shave your head while you sleep,” SeungHyun seethed as YoungBae made his way slyly past in the tight space between where the blue haired man was kneeling and the second stainless steel table.

“Where are you going?” Ji asked. “I need you to throw glitter on things.”

As it turned out, he was retrieving the glitter. JiYong knew this because he felt a small breeze on the back of his neck and knew that said sparkles had just been puffed into his hair. He gritted his teeth but didn’t respond. There was far too much work to do in the next three hours. No time to get into a silly argument now.

YoungBae was in and out for the better part of the afternoon, but in and out was decidedly better than only out. SeungHyun even picked up speed around hour two of piping and chocolate pearl placing. The sugar flowers came out twenty minutes later and Ji set to work placing them, filling the holes with piped leaves and frosting roses. There were roses, three assortments of lily, daisies, baby’s breath and bright purple flora’s bells. JiYong had spent more hours than he cared to recount carefully sculpting and painting them and now he finally got to place them. It became a sweaty, mad dash to the finish line even though they were actually on track to finish a few minutes early.

Poor sleepy SeungHyun was so wound up from the baking and the decorating and all of the ins and outs of living that he forgot to have fun a lot of the time. His backwards sleep schedule didn’t help much. Ji could appreciate that. Sunday was really the only sort of normal day that they had. They opened at eight and closed noon on Sundays. Saturday was six to noon, the rest of the week was five thirty to six. It was an exhausting life. Usually SeungHyun was off by noon, slept and got up at eleven to bake the pastries for the next day, but because of Seungri he had only gotten a nap and had been cake decorating all day on top of not sleeping. Ji sighed and patted the bright blue hair on his best friends head as he placed the last necessary sugar flower.

In the end there were eight unused flowers. Three roses, two day lilies, one calla lily, one little string of daisies and one flora’s bell. While SeungHyun agonized about how far the apparent left (on a circular cake) one particular rhinestone was sitting, and YoungBae fretted about the ten minute drive he would have to endure slowly with that monstrosity in the back, JiYong took the time to make a crown out of the remaining, unused sugar flowers. He tied them together slowly, stopped to smiled at his creation and plopped it right on SeungHyun’s head It was glorious with a little purple bell dangling above the center rose. Truly. Nothing brightened Ji’s day more than seeing his tough, perfectionist of a business partner turn to him completely bewildered whilst wearing a mostly pink fake flower crown.

In a moment of complete absurdity, the orange haired baker took out his phone. The protests began with “Don’t you dare Ji,” and continued with a very empty threat to tear the flowers off his head, which YoungBae diffused by pointing out that Ji had spent a ‘literal century’ making those.

“Ji, we have so much work to do,” he harrumphed, pushing the thick black frames of his reading glasses back up his nose. It didn’t matter really, JiYong already had six pictures that varied in degrees of blur.

“Come on, take a picture for instagram,” Ji insisted, “HeeChul will love it.”

SeungHyun rolled his puppy dog eyes.

“Don’t you look pretty,” YoungBae called with a laugh as he opened the door to the box truck in the bay straight behind Ji a couple of feet.

SeungHyun snorted.

Ji batted his eye lashes and said, “YoungBae, smear some of the hot pink frosting on your face, I want to take a picture for the company instagram.”

He complied with a shrug and a goofy smile, because (not so) secretly he loved this stuff. “You get in here too JiYong,” he said, “You’re hair has enough glitter and frosting in it to put the cake to shame.”

A smile spread across SeungHyun’s face. Eventually they did settle on “If you’re going to up that on instagram, you and your glittery self have to be in the picture too,” and all crammed into the frame.

“Here, you take it,” Ji offered it to his blue haired counterpart, “You have long arms.” A very warm arm wrapped around his shoulder, the other one reached around YoungBae with the phone in hand and with a click it was done.

They looked absurd. Covered in frosting and glitter and sugar. This was the good life. It would be better if Seungri hadn’t dipped out, but it was still good.

They argued over the caption for a good solid minute before Seunghyun took the phone and typed out “Baking is serious business. #literalflowerboy #FBB #GlitterDragon #hotpinksunshine.” Before handing the phone back

Onew knocked on the opening to the kitchen, “Sorry,” he flushed, folding the borrowed apron over his arm, “I don’t have the key to lock the door. It’s six,” he cleared his throat.

The orange haired baker spun around and snapped a quick picture and posted it too with the caption “Saint Onew saves the day! Thank you for all of the help!”

“I’ll get it,” SeungHyun offered. JiYong hadn’t even realized that SeungHyun’s arm had still been around his shoulder until its absence left a little bit of a cold spot across his back. 

“Thanks for all of the help Jinki,” YoungBae offered, “Tell Minho he still owes me a cupcake for that delivery we made last week.”

“Have a good evening,” the honey blond shouted from the door. SeungHyun took the apron from him and locked him out with a smile and a wave.

“Right,” YoungBae sighed, “Time to deliver a cake.”

There was a very quick, very valid conversation about needing to clean out the pastry cases, and mop the floors, and all of the things that were usually done by Seungri, and Ji remembered how his mother used to tell him that speaking of demons summoned them. He thought of this because just as they finished the conversation demon lord Seungri’s keys were jingling in the lock.

He chanced a glance at Ji as the other two sulked back into the kitchen to start loading the cake and said “Sorry,” as he walked through the door smelling like cigarette smoke and alcohol. Who smells like alcohol at six in the evening?

“Are you going to clean?” was all that Ji asked, having been suddenly sapped of all of his energy. “We have to deliver a cake.”

“That’s why I’m here,” he said.

Of course it was. Why would he be here out of love rather than guilty obligation?

“Ji?” YoungBae called out.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Ji sighed, “You’re lucky Onew was here to cover you.”

“Onew?” Seungri asked, but Ji was already gone. Things were far too busy in that moment to chance an exhausted conversation about his day. The day wasn’t even close to over yet. 

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This fic is so much fun to write you guys. So much.  I hope you enjoy it; because I had a blast writing this chapter. Flower crown SeungHyun and Glitter Ji are my new favorite thing.