The 12 members of EXO stood, once again, on the stage of Happy Camp. This time, however, they would be playing a game slightly different than in the past.

The challenge was simple; six teams of two members would make a stromboli together. Any sane person would be wondering: “Why a stromboli?” Why would a K-Pop group on a Chinese television show be making an American dish inspired by an Italian delicacy?

 Simple. Because the hosts thought it would be funny to watch the imminent failures.

At least, that’s the only reason the boys could think of. The members divided amongst themselves into teams of two. The hosts would rotate and monitor the teams as they cooked until the timer ran out.

When gestured to pair up, Luhan immediately sought out Xiumin who was farther on the right, currently chatting with Chen. Not wanting to risk losing him, he scurried over to the two, put an arm around Xiumin’s waist, and dragged him forward, who, upon noticing Luhan, started laughing. Chen tried to follow and pull Xiumin back with him, but Luhan came in-between and shot Chen a perfectly non-jealous and totally non-threatening glare, with a non-evil smile on his face. Chen, caring for his life much more than wanting to mess with Luhan, slid back towards the others.

Xiumin finally turned around to Luhan, asking, “I guess you want to be partners, then?” Luhan didn’t say anything, instead choosing to rest his head on Xiumin’s shoulder, looking away with a shy smile. Xiumin laughed to himself, wondering how Luhan could go from clingy one moment to shy the next, but there was something about it he found cute, he had to admit.

Meanwhile, Tao, at the end of the line, eyed Kris at the other end, but suddenly felt something ram into his chest. He looked down and laughed at Baekhyun hugging him around his waist.

“Want to be my partner, Taozi?” Baekhyun looked up at him, grinning as Tao hugged him back. Tao bent down to whisper in his ear amongst the chaos of the other members and audience’s noise.

“The two of us together probably wouldn’t do very well at this.” He laughed. Baekhyun giggled in agreement, though remained hugged up all the same.

Unbeknownst to Tao, he’d finally gotten the attention of Kris, though not in the way he would have meant for it as the latter watched the two from afar with a look that anyone other than Kris would have labeled as minor annoyance (or mad jealousy depending on who you were asking). That latter would have particularly been accurate at the moment as he noted Baekhyun’s cheeky-not-cheeky glance at him out of the corner of his eye as he snuggled closer to his panda.

Chanyeol must have picked up on this, as Kris heard him laughing next to him. He glared at him for a second (or just looked normally, no one really knew the difference) before Kris decided to grab him by the arm and drag him with him.

“Are you picking me?” Chanyeol asked, starting to get excited.

“I would, but I kinda want to win.” Kris stated. Chanyeol pouted behind him as the two stopped by the cuddle buddies.

“Ge?” Tao asked, seeing the two. Baekhyun had an evil glimmer in his eyes as he hid behind Tao like a (man)child and pulled back.

“I refuse to give up my Taozi!” Baekhyun said. “Are you trying to take him? He’s a million dollars!”

“Better idea, how about we trade?” Kris said, ing Chanyeol toward Baekhyun.

“Deal!” Baekhyun said, pushing Tao towards Kris while joining his partner in crime. “You ready for this?”

“Debauchery!” Chanyeol replied, high-fiving him.

“Nice to know you care about me so much, hyung!” Tao complained. Baekhyun blew him a kiss before hurrying off with Chanyeol. Tao semi-pouted before turning back to Kris, remembering that he was who he’d sought out in the first place.

“So we’re partners, then?” he asked.

“Only because I’m pretty sure partnering up with Thing 1 or Thing 2 will be a guaranteed loss and I don’t really want to find out what the punishment for losing is.” Kris reasoned. Tao smirked.

Chen, having just been robbed of his partner, went back to the few who were left to see if he could snag someone good before it was too late. He saw D.O. didn’t have anyone yet and mentally scolded himself for not trying to get him first. Just as he went to approach him, Suho grabbed his arm.

“Hey, do you have a partner yet?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Chen replied. Suho looked confused.

“Who?” he asked.

“One of those guys.” Chen pointed to the remaining members. Suho started to question how one of them could be his partner since they weren’t with the others who’d already paired up, but didn’t bother once he saw Chen had already run off.

“I should have figured as much.” Suho said to himself. “Why does no one ever pick me?”

Chen hurried over and grabbed D.O. while he was still by himself.

“Hey, D.O., wanna be my partner?” he asked. D.O. gave him a wide-eyed look in return.

“Hmm, me? Well, I guess-”

“No!” Chen and D.O. turned around to see Kai coming towards them.

“What?” the two shorter members said in unison.

“I want D.O.” Kai said, putting his hand on the other’s shoulder.

“But I had him first!” Chen argued.

“Did not! He hasn’t agreed yet.” Kai retorted.

“Well, D.O., you have to pick one of us.” Chen said. “And by one of us, I mean me.”

“In that case, I pick Kai.” D.O. said

“What, but?!” Chen started as Suho slid behind him and put his hands on his shoulders.

“WAIT! What about your wife?!” Chen said, gesturing to Suho.

“He’s no fun.” D.O. deadpanned, going with Kai to the rest of the paired off members.

“Soooo….” Suho started, before Chen responded with a “NO!” and hurried over to Lay and Sehun in hopes of securing either of them.

The two usually spaced out looking members seemed too occupied with laughing at everyone else’s antics than worrying about themselves, giving Chen the minor hope that at he could snag either one of them.

“Please tell me you two aren’t a team yet?!” Chen begged.

“Us be a team? That’s a great idea!” Lay said immediately.

“Sure.” Sehun shrugged.

“WHAT THE-”

Suho appeared behind Chen, grinning.

“Guess that means…”

“You can’t be serious.” Chen groaned.

“Come on! It’ll be fun!” Suho said, pulling him along. “Why does everyone think I’m no fun?”

“Fine.” Chen grinned to himself. “But don’t worry, I’ll make sure it’s fun.”

Taking their positions at the long table set out for them, at the very far left were Xiumin and Luhan. Next to them were Lay and Sehun. They were followed by the team of D.O. and Kai. In the middle was the team of Chanyeol and Baekhyun, who were followed by Suho and Chen. Lastly, at the far right of the stage were Tao and Kris.

Lay and D.O., being the best chefs of the group, were the least worried. Likewise, their partners felt the same. Kris was only worried about the bottomless pit known as Tao eating all of their ingredients before they even finished making a single dish. Chanyeol and Baekhyun were full of confidence, focusing mainly on beating everyone else - as if anything else really mattered. Now the two of them hadn’t actually made a stromboli before, as one would expect, but Chanyeol did like and could make pizza, which he reasoned was pretty much the same thing. Suho wanted to focus only on making sure he had an organized plan, while also proving he was not, in fact, “no fun”. Unfortunately, Chen was stuck on having as much fun as possible and being with Suho didn’t do much to stop his troll senses from tingling. Xiumin felt slightly nervous, and it only got worse as Luhan kept distracting him by playing with his hair and jacket, which was already falling off of his shoulders every few minutes.

Once it was time to start, everyone had their ingredients and materials ready. Forty-five minutes were on the clock.

Let the disaster commence.

~~~

D.O. started moving first. The first step was to cut the ingredients he wanted to use to fill the stromboli. Kai leaned over his shoulder, watching, not really sure where to start.

“Hyung, what should I do?” he asked.

“Hmm…why don’t you roll out the dough?” D.O. replied, concentrating on his work.

“Uh, sure.” Kai didn’t really know exactly how to properly roll dough, but he knew D.O. would help him if he messed up. Probably. So he just grabbed a huge lump of dough and began fiercely kneading it.

Lay had been staring blankly at the ingredients for about a minute now and Sehun just stared along with him, mainly because he had no idea of what to do. Eventually, Lay finally began slicing tomatoes both as a sauce for the main meal and as a dipping sauce. Sehun decided to do what he thought was the easiest thing and roll out the dough.

“Lay hyung?” Sehun began.

“Yeah, Sehunnie?” Lay replied.

“You have a plan right?” Sehun asked, as Lay mindlessly continued slicing tomatoes for a few minutes before finally responding.

 “Uh huh.”  He said finally. Sehun, after waiting for a response and not getting one, continued.

“And it would be…?” Lay took another dramatic pause.

“Cook.” he answered plainly. Sehun decided he never really wanted to win, anyway.

Xiumin and Luhan were both pretty lost and decided to work together to flatten the dough, yet at the same time arguing that one of them probably should have been doing something else to speed up the cooking process.

“Luhan, do something else.” Xiumin said, slightly annoyed.

“What?” Luhan asked, innocently.

“Work on something else while I do this part.” He…sort of explained.

“Why?” Luhan continued with the game of 50 questions.

“So we can get more done faster.” Xiumin said, trying to sound convincing.

“We can get more stuff done faster this way, too. If we both do the dough we’ll be finished in no time! Then, we both work on the toppings finish everything super duper fast.” Luhan reasoned, sparkling. Xiumin still wanted to divide the work, but figured it would be pointless to argue with Luhan when he was sparkling, so he just kept working. Meanwhile, Luhan rolled a small ball of dough and showed it to Xiumin.

“Baozi~” He said with a chuckle. Xiumin laughed quietly and shoved him in the arm.

Chen held a tomato in each of his hands, gently squeezing them and grinning as he watched Suho lay out the dough and begin to roll it.

“Chen, get moving!” Suho said, slightly annoyed by Chen’s goofing off.

“What do I do?” Chen asked with a smile.

“Anything. Just do something.” A smirk forms on Chen’s lips.

“Ok.” Chen grabs his nearby microphone and began chanting Suho’s name waving his hands in the air as he influenced the audience to join in.

“I meant start cooking. You know, so we can try to win.” Suho’s voice was clearly irritated, yet he was smiling, not wanting to seem uncool.

“Oooohhhh, cook.” Chen acted as if he was completely oblivious to what was going on. “Sure, I’ll make the thing or something.” And with that he began slicing a random assortment of vegetables while Suho just started in confusion wondering what a ‘thing’ was.

The audience and judges wondered what Chanyeol and Baekhyun were doing, as they were just laughing and tossing food around. Baekhyun had been beating up dough for the past five minutes as Chanyeol had probably severed a few servings of every topping they had available to them.

“Hey, Yeol?” Baekhyun started, making My Little Ponies out of the dough.

“Yeah?” Chanyeol responded, mouth full as he stuffed some random toppings in his mouth.

“Do you know how to do this?” Baekhyun asked. Chanyeol nodded and answered with his mouth still full of food.

“Yuh, ish luk muking a pizzshoo.” He managed.

“Can you make pizza?” Baekhyun tiled his head to the side, somehow understanding him.

“Sure.” Chanyeol said after swallowing, despite it not being the truth, as he wipes his hands off. “C’mon let’s make the sauce. And that’s a nice Fluttershy, but the way”

Elsewhere, Tao rotated between cutting slices of pepperoni and stuffing a couple into his mouth every few minutes. Therefore, Kris had to stop what he was doing (which varied between rolling dough, shredding cheese, and sneaking a peek at the other teams) every five seconds just to monitor Tao. Kris wasn’t really even sure what cheese he would want to use, so he just shredded a bit of everything into a bowl because why not?

 “Tao, would you stop eating all of our food?”  Kris complained. Tao looked back at Kris.

 “I’m hungry.” Tao whined, snuggling up to Kris and hugging his arm. The girls in the audience began squealing and Kris turned his head so Tao couldn’t see his blush.

“What’s going on over here?” one of the Happy Camp hosts, Xie Na, who was currently monitoring their team, asked.

“He keeps eating.” Kris said, laughing despite his annoyance.

“Tao, stop eating. Cook.” Xie Na said, patting Tao’s arm. Tao nodded approvingly. He reached for some spinach before Kris grabbed his hand. This time, Tao started blushing.

“No vegetables. I hate vegetables” Kris says with his signature half-smile, half-permanent constipation look. Tao smiled and nodded and reached for some ham instead, but not before eating some of the spinach himself. Kris just sighed.

Meanwhile Lay had begun cutting the meats; from pepperoni to salami to ham. Sehun sliced some random vegetables, not even sure if they’d even be putting them on the stromboli.

“So what’s next, Lay?” Sehun asked, not looking up from his work. Lay stopped cutting the meat and stared at it as he formulated a response.

“Hmm.” Sehun looked at him crookedly, not really gaining anything from this grand and riveting response. So he tried again.

“Do you know what else we need to do?” he asked.

“Hmm.”

Understanding the fact that the dictionary referred to doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result as insanity, Sehun tried a different approach.

“Laaay hyuuuunnng~…” he sang, poking at him.

“I’ll keep cutting the meat and you keep cutting the vegetables.” Lay said as he resumed cutting the meat. Sehun, having no better ideas and not really in the mood to stop for another five minutes, continued from where he left off.

“Thanks for the help.” He mumbled, highly annoyed.

“No problem, Sehunnie.” Lay responded immediately, smiling at Sehun, his bias wrecking dimple showing. At least, according to what he’d seen some online fans say.

Xiumin had moved onto cutting tomatoes. Luhan, finished with the dough, and not sure what he should be doing, grabbed a tomato and followed Xiumin’s lead. Xiumin glanced over at him.

“Luhaaaan…” Xiumin dragged out the second syllable on purpose.

“Yeah, Baozi?” Luhan giggles. Xiumin flushed slightly, but gave Luhan an annoyed glare.

“Can’t you do something else?” he asked.

“Why?” Luhan tilted his head to the side, as if he was genuinely confused.

“So we can get more done like everyone else.” Xiumin said gesturing to the other members who had all divided their work.

“I want to do what you’re doing.” Luhan said, sparkling again. Xiumin began to wonder how he kept doing that. Then he wondered if Luhan did it all the time and began questioning if he was so used to it he never noticed.

Then he noticed he was staring and decided that he’d asked Luhan about being on his Twilight Sparkle grind later.

“Can you at least cut something else, like the meat?” Xiumin asked, pointing to the pepperoni. Luhan smiled and patted Xiumin’s shoulder in an understanding manner.

“Nope.” He replied. Xiumin rolled his eyes.

D.O. and Kai were the furthest along, and had already finished laying out their dough and making a sauce. Now they just had to decide on the toppings.

“So what are we gonna put on it?” Kai asked.

“What do you want on it?” D.O. asked, usual wide eyes looking up at Kai.

“Uhh…do we have any chicken?”

“I don’t think so.” D.O. said. Kai started pouting, the lack of chicken breaking his heart. He laid his head on top of D.O.’s.

“Awwww.” He whined.

“We can use the other meat, though.” D.O. tried to reassure. “We have pepperoni, ham, sausage; we can use any of those instead.”

“Fine.” Kai agreed.

“Ok.” D.O. set back off to work, once again leaving Kai pretty unsure of what to do.

“Need any help, hyung?” he asked, a bit timidly.

D.O. grabbed Kai’s hand and used his finger to point. “You cut the sausage and I’ll cut the ham.”

Chen had finally began contributing to the team by cutting about ten different types of meats, cheeses, and vegetables that he set aside for when they planned to add them to the Stromboli (if they’d even add half of them). Suho would have preferred he work on the sauce which, at the moment, was more important, but he figured it would have been deemed “un-fun” by the resident troll. So Suho just decided to make the sauce himself.

“How’s it going, Hyung?” Chen asked smiling, despite clearly not really caring.

“Great.” Suho responded, clearly irritated. “How are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m just dandy over here.” Chen said with an evil grin.

“Well, I could use some help with the sauce.” Suho pointed out.

“You’d better work faster then.” Chen said laughing, tickling Suho’s chin.

“Chen!”

“Alright, alright. Geez. You’re so boring.”

“I’d like to get this done quickly.” Suho sighed.

“We’re going to lose regardless.” Chen nonchalantly said with shrug. “We may as well have some fun. Have some ham.” He extends his hand, full of ham, over to Suho who promptly rejects it.

“I don’t want ham. I want you to work.”

“Okay, leader. Whatever you say.”

Tao was still munching on their ingredients every three minutes, making Kris have to grab Tao’s hand constantly to make sure he would leave them enough to actually make the meal.

“Make sure you use a lot of dough so we have bigger strombolis.” Tao said, his mouth full of pepperoni.

“Why?” Kris asked, pulling the bowl of cheese away from Tao.

“So we have more to eat.” He laughed. Kris couldn’t help but chuckle at Tao’s gluttony. It was kind of cute if not disturbing.

“Of course.” Kris added extra dough one of the turnovers; the one that would go to Tao of course. “But you need to stop eating our toppings so we’ll have something to put on the stromboli.” Kris says grabbing Tao’s hand again. At this point, you would have thought there was a magnet in both of their hands.

“I will.” he said, quickly swallowing some small bits of ham.

Chanyeol and Baekhyun were still goofing around; this time they mixed a crapton of vegetables, seasonings, and spices for a sauce. To be honest, they didn’t really know what the sauce was for. But Chanyeol saw D.O.’s team making a sauce, and since D.O. knew how to cook and his team was the farthest along, obviously they should do what he’s doing.

“So why are we making a sauce again?” Baekhyun asked.

 “Because D.O.’s team is.” Chanyeol replied.

“What if they’re wrong?” Baekhyun asked, eyes slowing widening at the minor hilarity of the answer.

“Then we’re all wrong.” Chanyeol said with a laugh, gesturing to the other teams who were pretty much doing the same. Baekhyun chuckles and softly punches Chanyeol in the arm.

“How’s it going over here?” Host He Jiong asked.

“He doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Baekhyun said, pointing to Chanyeol.

“What are you doing now?”

“We’re making a sauce, but only because he saw D.O.’s team making sauce.” Baekhyun explained.

“So you’re just coping D.O.?” Jiong asked laughing.

“Yep!” The boys replied in unison.

~~~

It was approaching halftime and, so far, D.O. and Kai were the closest to finishing, while Baekhyun and Chanyeol were the farthest. Kris and Tao were just narrowly ahead of them, thanks mainly to Kris keeping Tao in check. Even though Tao had gotten to the point where he was taking small amounts of shredded cheese to munch on.  Xiumin and Luhan were next. They could have been further if they had split up the work better, but alas, Luhan had to do what Xiumin was doing and Xiumin wasn’t one to tell the Sparkling Deer what to do. Chen and Suho had managed to pass Luhan and Xiumin once they finished their sauce and immediately proceeded to throw all of their toppings on top for what they hoped would be a quick finish. Finally, Lay and Sehun were in 2^nd place. Judge Haitao made the next announcement.      

 “Ok, boys, 30 minutes left until time is up” he informed them.

“Tao, lay out the dough so we can put the toppings on.” Kris said gathering the meats and cheeses he’d awkwardly cut up.

“Mmmhmm” Tao nodded, not wanting to speak due to the fact that he was still sneaking ingredients. He quickly laid out the two portions of dough for their stombolis, his being quite a bit larger than Kris’. Kris once again smiled at Tao’s passion for food. Eating food, that is.

“Are you still eating?” The leader asked, despite already knowing the answer. Tao shook his head.

“Uh uh.” He mumbled, shaking his head.

“Yes you are. Tao, how do you expect us to put anything on these things when you’re eating all of the ingredients?” Kris said spinning Tao towards him.

“Oh, Kris-ge, I’m sorry.” Tao smiles and rubs his head against Kris’s arm, knowing his aegyo was Kris’s weakness. Kris turned his head to hide his blush and pushed Tao away.

“Just…get the toppings.” Kris said, struggling to retain his cool leader image.

As their sauce cooked, Xiumin and Luhan began quickly grating the cheese they wanted to put in the turnover. Xiumin also wanted to be sure that they had a decent amount of vegetables and meat to add as well. He would have liked for Luhan to handle those, but of course, he instead joined him in shredding cheese.

“Luhannie?~” Xiumin sang, using some aegyo of his own. Luhan smiled, but kept his head down so Xiumin couldn’t see him blushing like mad; his face almost as red as his hair.

“Yes, dear?” Luhan teased, shyly.

“Perhaps you want to move on to something else?”

“Not at all. I want to do whatever Xiuminnie does.” Luhan says with a gentle tug of Xiumin’s cheeks. Xiumin pushed Luhan’s hand away and did his signature baozi face before speaking again.

“Why do you always have to do whatever I’m doing all the time?”

“Because I want to.” He replies with a smile before shooting Xiumin a sparkling baozi face of his own. Xiumin couldn’t help but chuckle.

“We’re going to lose.” He said, laughing slightly.

Meanwhile, Chanyeol and Baekyhun had nearly stopped production due to the lack of direction. They had been staring blankly at their sauce for about 5 minutes, which attracted a lot of laughs and comments from the judges and audience.

“So, what do you think with we should do, Chanyeollie?” Baekhyun asks, his head resting on Chanyeol’s arm. Chanyeol patted Baekyhun’s head.

“Hmmmm.” Chanyeol stared hard into the pot of sauce, as if he expected it to send them the answer.  When it didn’t, he looked over at D.O. and Kai’s area and saw D.O. whisking an egg. He decided he’d do the same, even though he wasn’t too sure what the egg would be used for. Baekhyun meanwhile was still watching their sauce heat up seeing as he wasn’t too sure what else he needed to do.

“Well, when in doubt, copy D.O.” Chanyeol said with a smile as he grabbed an egg. Baekyhun gave him a thumbs up.

Meanwhile, on Lay’s team, he and Sehun were nearly ready to cook their dishes. They’d added most of their toppings and were now adding cheese as Lay simply shredded it directly on top of the strombolis.

“I think we’re almost done.” Lay says patting Sehun’s back.

“Great.” He responds, his mouth full of unused pieces of salami. “How long does it take to cook?” Lay zoned out once again, mindlessly shredding the cheese as if Sehun hadn’t asked anything at all.

“Hmm…”

“Hyung!” Sehun’s call was enough to make some of the judges look over questioningly.

“Huh?” Lay looked around frantically.

“What’s going on over here?” Judge Weijia asks.

“I’m not sure.” Lay responds. Sehun face palmed.  “Sehunnie, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He sighed, waving his hand.

“You seemed upset. Wanna talk about it?” Lay asks reaching out to pat Sehun on the back.

“I would, but you’d probably take forever.”

“Don’t pick on my friend Lay.” Weijia laughed, patting Lay’s shoulder. Lay responded by hugging his favorite host. Sehun sighed and sat on the floor.  

Kai and D.O’s stombolis were in the oven and the two were simply cleaning up their cooking station.

“Well, we did it.” D.O. said as he wiped off the counter. Kai back hugged D.O., hoping it would get him out of helping with the cleaning. For now, all he revived was a roar from the fangirls in the crowd that, oddly enough, neither seemed to really notice.

“You did great.” Kai whispered into D.O.’s ear.

“We did great.” D.O. responded.

“You did almost everything, though, hyung.” He says as he nuzzled his head into D.O.’s neck, earning yet more shrieks from the fans.

“You did a lot too.” He says patting Kai’s hair.

“Not as much as you.”

“It doesn’t matter. Now help me clean up.” D.O. said, as he saw right through Kai’s flattery.

Kai decided to activate plan two; the pout.

“Do I have to?” he asked, sticking out his bottom lip.

“Hmm. I guess not. I’ll handle it.” And with that, D.O. continued to clean awkwardly with Kai still attached to his back, his reasoning being that letting go for even a second could potentially cause D.O. to make him help.

Chen and Suho were now sloppily putting their toppings on the sauce-covered dough.   

“We’re almost done.” Chen said as he threw cheese onto the strombolis without even looking.

“Great.” Suho looked over at Chen’s…work. “Uh, could you be a bit neater?” Chen smirked.

“I could. But…” Chen started before Suho grabbed his shoulders and faced his body towards him.

“Chen, can you please help me out and do what I tell you just this once.” Suho said quietly, but sternly. Chen smiled and removed Suho’s arms from his shoulders.

“Sure thing, leader.” He whispered with a wink. He then proceeded to neatly put the ingredients over the sauce.

“Why do I have to scold you for you to do what I ask?” Suho asked, unamused.

“You’re cute when you’re angry.” Chen said, reaching over to play with Suho’s ear.

“So have I been cute throughout this entire competition?” Suho raised an eyebrow.

“Adorable.” Chen said, giggling.

~~~

“Alright! Let’s throw this thing in the oven!” Chanyeol exclaimed, grabbing their tray and lowering it to the oven.

“You should probably let me do it.” Baekhyun said, squatting down next to him.

“Hyung, I think I can handle putting food in an oven.” Chanyeol rolled his eyes. Baekhyun was about to agree that they’d have to be complete morons to mess this up when Chanyeol suddenly yelled and almost dropped the food.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I burned my thumb!” Chanyeol whined.

“I told you to let me do it.” Baekhyun said, chuckling slightly. Chanyeol glared at him.

“Kiss it and make it better.” He said.

“You wot m8?”

“KISS IT!” Chanyeol repeated louder than your average grown man.

“Lol no” Baekhyun said. Chanyeol eyed him strangely.

“Why not?

“I don’t know where your hand has been.” Baekhyun said, scrunching his face. “Go make your Hyung do it.”

“KREASE!!” Chanyeol suddenly exclaimed and ran to the other side of the table.

Kris was in the middle of finally taking somewhat of a break while their food was cooking when he heard a gross mispronunciation of his name. Which could only be one person.

“Kreaaaase…” Chanyeol whined, suddenly standing at Kris’ side. Kris groaned. He wasn’t really prepared to deal with Puppyeol today. But he was still a good hyung.

“What’s wrong?” Kris began before Chanyeol ed his thumb in his face.

“I burned my thumb.” He pouted. Kris wasn’t really about dealing with pouting Puppyeol either.

“You want some cold water for it or-” he started to suggest, hoping it would be satisfying enough.

“Kiss it.”

“What?” Kris was outdone at this point. This was really not his day. Chanyeol’s only response was a pouty nod.

“Why didn’t Baekhyun-” Kris didn’t bother finishing his sentence when Chanyeol just stuck his lip out further. The whine was already starting to surface.

Kris sighed and took Chanyeol’s giant hand. He looked at his reddening thumb and proceeded to kiss both his cool reputation goodbye, as well as Chanyeol’s thumb.

Chanyeol got all red in the face and grinned like an idiot. Kris had a similar look, minus the grinning like an idiot part and a bit more flustered, which he would be sure to deny later.

“There, all better.” He said, giving Chanyeol a light pat on the head and trying to look at anything that wouldn’t look back at him. Chanyeol was still grinning when he thanked Kris and bounced back to his spot.

“What is life?” Kris asked no one in particular, partially due to the only other person really paying attention, Tao, cackling at the entire thing.

“What are they doing over there?” Xiumin asked, watching a giggly Chanyeol return back to Baekhyun. “Did he just get Kris to kiss his finger?”

“What happened?” Luhan asked, putting their strombolis carefully in the oven.

“I don’t know. It sounded like he burned himself or something.” Xiumin explained. “And he got Diuzhang to kiss it. Figures he would; that giant can’t resist the puppy eyes.”

When Luhan didn’t reply, he was about to ask him if everything was okay before being interrupted by his partner elicit a small cry of pain.

“Luhan?” Xiumin asked, looking down at him. “Are you okay?”

“OW!!”

“What’s wrong?” Xiumin looked over in concen.

“I…uh…my…finger…” Luhan stuttered out, not really sure what he was trying to say.

“Wh…did you just…do that…” Xiumin seemed to also be at a loss for words for an obviously different reason.

Luhan fidgeted, suddenly realizing that this was probably a stupid idea. Xiumin sighed, but decided he wouldn’t just let Luhan get away with this and decided to embarrass him a bit by kissing is finger for a long duration. Luhan became flustered and tried to slowly move his hand away, but Xiumin wouldn’t allow it.

“Suddenly shy now, aren’t we?” Xiumin said to mostly himself, but intentionally loud enough for Luhan to hear. “This is your punishment.” He added, now kissing his hand, playfully, earning shrieks from the crowd.

Luhan laughed and was still red with embarrassment and shock that Xiumin actually gave into his pathetic plan, but inwardly enjoyed the care he was receiving, deciding it had been worth it.

It seemed that finally all the strombolis were in the ovens and all they had to do was to wait for them to finish cooking. Tao decided to pass the time by having a pre-lunch snack consisting of the unused pieces of ham and cheese he and Kris sliced earlier. Kris walked over to him and flung his arm around his neck. Tao responded by feeding Kris some ham.

“Tao-ah, why are you always eating?” he asks as while chewing.

“I like food.” He responded, also chewing.

“You couldn’t stop for 30 minutes while we were cooking?” Kris looked Tao directly in the eyes. In an attempt to avoid having to answer the question, Tao once again uses his first class agyeo and cuddled up to Kris; resting his head Kris’s shoulder and rubbing his cheek with his free hand.

“Knock it off, Tao.” Kris laughed trying to push Tao away to no avail.

“Krriiiiissss-geeeee...I’m hungry.” He whined still using his diuzhang’s arm as a pillow. Tao was so comfortable he didn’t even notice the fans going wild in the audience. Kris on the other hand did, and he was getting more embarrassed by the second.

“Get off me.” He said, utterly failing to sound stern in every way possible.

“Krrrrriiiisssssaaalllaaaa” If Tao’s regular aegyo made Kris’s heart flutter, him cutely whining one of Kris’s nicknames was enough to make his knees weak.

“C’mon Tao.” Kris finally managed to get Tao off of him. “Just eat your food.” Tao smirked.

Lay’d begun playing hand games with Kai since Sehun had refused. Kai initially refused, too, but Lay lectured that he wasn’t being a good dongsaeng by not playing and, unlike Sehun, the dimple wouldn’t allow him to just avoid caring about that.

Unfortunately, this left more boredom for Sehun.

 “So Lay…” Sehun began.

“Sehunnie!” Lay exclaimed as if he’d only just noticed Sehun’s presence despite the fact that he never left.

“This is boring.” Sehun complained.

“I asked you to play.” Lay said, trying to concentrate.

“…That’s not what I meant.”

“Well that’s what you get. Stay bored, then.” Kai stuck his tongue out at Sehun. Lay grinned and mirrored his action.

Xiumin kneeled on the ground staring at the strombolis cooking in the oven. He decided that by doing that, he wouldn’t be tempted to snack on their leftover ingredients, like a certain panda. Luhan, on the other hand, didn’t care all too much and gathered a handful of pepperonis to eat. Luhan kneeled down to his friend’s level and wrapped his arm around Xiumin’s neck; his hand still holding the pepperoni. He tried to feed some of them to Xiumin.

“I don’t want any.” He said, staring into the oven.

 “Why not, Baozi?” Luhan asks, poking Xiumin’s cheek.

“I’m trying to diet.” He was half smiling, yet still avoiding eye contact. “The stromboli itself is more than enough.” Luhan moved his head forward so he could look Xiumin closer in the eye.

“You can eat a few.” He said.

“I’m fine Lu-ge.” Xiumin insisted.

“C’mon eat one. Just one.” He held the pepperoni directly in front of Xiumin’s mouth. Xiumin bit off a small piece of the meat offering.

Luhan sighed and leaned over to eat the rest of pepperoni out of his hand; an action that resulted in his and Xiumin’s cheeks touching. He wasn’t that upset though about his failed plan; later he’d give Xiumin an offer he couldn’t refuse.

~~~

Chanyeol and Baekhyun, instead of cleaning, were having a mini food fight with their leftover ingredients. They aimed their food weapons at Kris and Tao; Kris who responded by just staring at them with a look that said, “What the hell are you doing?” and Tao who tried to catch the food to eat. Baekyhun responded to this by leaving his station and feeding his leftover food to Tao by hand, his fringe as if he were feeding and petting a pony. Kris then pushed Baekhyun back to his own area, rather roughly if you asked Baekhyun, which he didn’t. Chanyeol welcomed Baekhyun back with a loving embrace.

“Hey Baek, what happened?” Chanyeol asked, patting Baekhyun’s back.

“That mean old dragon chased me.” Baekhyun pouted.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get him later.” Chanyeol said, leading Baekhyun back. “He’s probably just jealous.” He said loud enough for the nearby teams to hear. Kris rolled his eyes.

“So what are we gonna do, Yeol?” Baekhyun asked.

“Screw with him, obviously. We’ll devise a nice present for our little dragon friend.” Chanyeol says, rubbing hands and grinning evilly.

Chen decided to spend his time by waving at the audience members and posing for pictures. Suho, on the other hand, was cleaning up the mess Chen must have just forgotten about.

“Hyung, come take a picture with me.”

“I’m fine, Chen.” Suho groaned.

“C’mon, just one or three.” Chen said. “Or six or seven.”

“I’m cleaning.” Suho says with just a bit of irritation despite the smile plastered on his face.

“You’re no fun. I wanna hang out with Chanyeol and Baekhyun.” Chen pouted, leaning against Suho, making it nearly impossible for him to clean properly.

“Can you please move?” Suho asked. Chen responded by moving even closer and whining even louder.

“No fun. Bored.”

“Why don’t you watch the food and make sure it doesn’t burn.” Suho says with a shove before adding, “Then we can take a picture.” Chen kneeled down to the two turnovers in the oven.

“Hi strombolis, how’re you guys doing?” Chen asked. “Make sure you keep it down in there. You wouldn’t want to disturb Suho hyung while he’s cleaning.” Suho rolled his eyes while Chen added. “Or maybe you do. He looks mighty cute right now.”

D.O had joined Sehun in watching Kai and Lay’s hand game. And looking heaps more interested, at that.

“I never realized you two were so good at this!” he said in amazement.

“What, you guys practice or something?” Sehun added, slightly sarcastic.

“Maybe we do when you’re not around.” Kai said. “It’s pretty important you know?”

“How, does it help your dancing or something?” Sehun asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Leg strength isn’t all you need to be a good dancer. Your upper body reaction time is important, too.” Lay explained. “Which is what hand games are for.” Kai nodded in agreement.

“Did you just make that up?” Sehun deadpanned while D.O. looked on with wide eyes. Kai laughed, while Lay smirked, glad he’d convinced one of them.

“You two are great at everything, aren’t you?” D.O. grinned. “First cooking, now hand games?”

Kai seemed like he wanted to object, but was interrupted by Sehun trying to rant to his large-eyed hyung about the irrelevances of hand game skills. Lay noticed Kai’s slight change when he’d messed up the hand game.

“Oh, sorry about that. Guess you win, hyung.” Kai said.

“You alright?” Lay asked, a look of concern on his face.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Kai said, the stood up to join D.O. and Sehun. “Don’t listen to him, hyung! I’ll explain how they’re important!”

Lay looked as if he wasn’t so sure but figured it was nothing.

Soon after, the ovens sounded. The meals were ready and it was time to judge the winner.