This chapter includes 50% more Tao!harem, 40% more shenanigans. Enjoy~

~~~

In the end, Lay and Sehun won for the best looking and tasting stromboli. Chanyeol and Baekhyun came out at the bottom, but honestly didn’t care all too much, though they made a hell of a show pretending that they did. They ended up being punished by having to eat their own food without being able to use their hands, which had everyone laughing when it was revealed. Though, of all the members, it would have been them who were the most up for it. At this point they, along with the others, just wanted to eat.

Tao immediately dove into his; smiling non-stop at Kris who couldn’t help but watch his adorable partner looking like a happy 4-year-old eating their food. He tried to only look down at his own food and just glance out the corner of his eyes at the cute, little panda boy.

“You enjoying your meal?” Kris asked.

“Yeah.” Tao replied, mouth full of food.

“Good.” He grinned, slightly.

“Are you gonna eat yours?” Tao already knew Kris’ answer, but asked with a small bit of hope anyway. Kris laughed.

“Yes, I’m going to eat mine.” He intentionally emphasized the last word. Tao pouted, but Kris turned his attention to his food, being the only way to make it easier to reject that face.

Chen chowed down on his food like an animal (you’d have thought it was him who lost with Chanyeol and Baekhyun) while Suho calmly ate his with a knife and fork. He wanted to just enjoy his food but was distracted by the large heaps of sauce all over Chen’s face. So being the good mom that he was, Suho grabbed a napkin and wiped all of the grease and sauce off of Chen’s cheeks. Instead of a “thank you” like any normal person, Chen responded by dipping his finger in the sauce and drawing a heart on Suho’s cheek and with dabbing the last bit on his nose.

“Why do you do this me?” Suho asked, wiping off his face with the napkin in an ingenious, he thought, attempt at also covering his reddening face.

“I told you that you’re cute when you’re upset.” Chen responded, chucking and chewing at the same time.

“Well, I don’t want to be cute.” Suho said, now smiling a bit.

“Why not, you’re so cute!” Chen laughed. “Just accept it”

“You’re so irritating. Accept it.” Suho rolled his eyes. Chen responded to this by hugging him around the neck.

Chanyeol and Baekhyun were bent over the table as they sloppily munched on their turnovers as best they could without hands. Obviously they were making more of a mess than before.

“This is pretty good.” Baekhyun said, sauce covering his face.

“Yuh, shee? Essh like pichaa.” Chanyeol mumbled almost incoherently.

When they both looked at each other, they couldn’t help burst out laughing at how ridiculous they looked.

Kai had his arm slugged around D.O.’s neck as he ate his stromboli with one hand, while D.O. cut his meal into small slices like cheese sticks.

“This is great.” Kai said, his mouth wrapped around the turnover.

“You’re a great cook.” D.O. says smiling, yet not looking at Kai.

“What do you mean?” Kai asked, confused. “You know you did most of the work, hyung.”

“We both did a lot of work.” D.O. stated still smiling, oblivious to what Kai was suggesting.

“But you did the most.” Kai pointed out.

“Why does it matter?” D.O. asked, taking his first bite of his food.

“It doesn’t, I’m just saying you’re a much better cook than I am.” Kai grumbled, pouting.

 “Is something wrong?” D.O. asked, touching Kai’s shoulder.

“No, nothing.” Kai sighed.

Sehun wasn’t sure what Lay was doing. He’d been staring at his turnover for the past five minutes. Rotating it, inspecting it, glaring at it as if he could see straight through it, but he never bit into it. And honestly, Sehun was staring at Lay so much he was barely eating his own.

“Wat’cha doin’?” Sehun asked.

“Hmm? Oh hi, Sehun.” Lay smiled, sporting his signature dimple. “Come closer.” Sehun rolled his eyes, yet inched towards Lay anyway.

“So…what are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m just trying to figure out how to eat this.” Lay replied.

“Just pick it up and eat it like this.” He picked up Lay’s stromboli and held it up for him to take a bite. Lay slowly leaned forward and bit into his dish. Sehun Lay’s hair, mainly because it was messy, but also because he knew the audience would love it. And he wasn’t wrong; he grinned as a bunch of girls started squealing.

“Mmmm, it’s good. Thank you Sehun.”

Xiumin was completely engrossed in his stromboli, slowly savoring each bit. Completely odd to some, yet adorable to Luhan who couldn’t stop staring. He broke off a piece of his own and reached over to feed it to Xiumin to the enjoyment of many of the girls in the audience. Xiumin looked up at the squealing crowd, then over to Luhan.

“What are you doing?” he asked, nodding his head back and forth.

“Eat it.” Luhan laughed, shoving the piece of food in Xiumin’s face.

“I don’t want any of your food.” He pushed the offered food back.

“You have to eat it. The fans are watching.” Luhan said with a straight face, trying to guilt trip him. It wasn’t every day he could get this chance so he sure as hell was going to use it. Xiumin looked over to the crowd of fangirls, all with expectant looks on their faces, cheering something in Chinese that Xiumin couldn’t understand, but he only assumed they were telling him to eat Luhan’s food gift. Xiumin sighed, defeated and reluctantly ate the small piece of stromboli from Luhan’s hand.

“It’s good, isn’t it, Xiuminnie?” Luhan asked, grinning.

“Yup.” Despite having lost, Xiumin gave him a small smile.

~~~

Tao had now finished his food and was pretty much sulking to himself, slightly glancing over at everyone else who still had plenty of food left. The sad sight left even Kris feeling sympathetic. He cut off a piece of his meal and offered a hand to Tao.

“For me?” Tao asked as a smile formed on his lips.

“Yes, take it.” Kris said, chuckling at Tao’s childish grin.

“Thanks.” Tao bit into the stromboli like he hadn’t eaten in days. He was so happy to have more food that he almost didn’t notice the screeching fangirls. At first he thought it was because of Kris’ actions, but he was surprised to see another piece of stromboli being offered to him. It was from Baekhyun, who’d come all the way from his spot by Chanyeol to feed Tao yet another piece of the delectable dish. Even more so, Baekhyun still couldn’t use his hands, so his food offering hung from his mouth. Tao laughed and covered his mouth, seemingly stuck at what to do. He looked back and forth at Kris, the crowd, and Baekhyun before finally setting on taking Baekhyun’s chin and eating as much as he could until he got too close to Baekhyun’s own lips and bit off from there. The room was filled with screaming and laughter and Baekhyun laughed at Tao’s embarrassment. He glanced past him to see Kris looking at him.

“What are you doing?” Kris asked, slightly annoyed that this had interrupted Tao from even finishing the piece he’d given him.

“Feeding my Taozi.” Baekhyun said, nuzzling into Tao’s neck who, was both giggling at the contact and trying to move due to his hyung’s face being covered in sauce. But the fun didn’t stop there, as Baekhyun saw out of the corner of his eye, a neatly cut slice of stromboli being placed onto Tao’s plate.

“Suho hyung!” Tao said, mouth full.

“What are you doing?” Kris asked, in shock.

“Giving my son more food.” Suho said.

“I gave him some food.” Kris retorted.

“So did I!” Baekhyun yelled in mock anger, and still looking ridiculous with his arms tied behind his back.

“I’m his mom. Only I can feed him.” Suho said, smugly.

“I’m his ‘dad’.” Kris mumbled.

“I’m his Beef Brother! I should feed him!” Baekhyun shouted as he took Suho’s stromboli piece in his mouth and tried to feed Tao again.

“Don’t do that, he’ll choke.” Suho said, rising to his feet to prevent Baekhyun from killing Tao. “Wait till he finishes chewing!”

Chen grinned, enjoying the show, while also plotting something of his own.

Kai appeared to be in deep thought as he silently ate his food. D.O. took notice, as it was different than how energetic he had been earlier.

“Enjoying your lunch, Kai-ah?” D.O. asked.  Kai simply nodded, his mouth too full of food to form a coherent response.

“That’s good.” D.O. chuckled slightly. After swallowing, Kai was finally able to speak to D.O.

“It’s really delicious.” He said, giving him a thumbs up.

“That’s because you worked so hard on it.” D.O. said with a smirk. Kai frowned at D.O.

“Aiiishh, you’re just doing that to annoy me.” Kai turned away from D.O. and began to pout again.

“What? What do you mean?” D.O. placed a hand on Kai’s shoulder, sounding confused.

“Just forget about it.” Kai sighed.

~~~

Chanyeol looked over at Kris who still seemed to be just a tad upset. Now Chanyeol wasn’t 100% sure what he was upset at, but he just assumed it had to do with the fangirls in the audience cheering at the guys feeding Tao. So Chanyeol did what he (thought he) needed to do and went over to Kris with a piece of stromboli to feed to him. Like before with Baekhyun, his hands were still tied behind his back, forcing him to carry the food to Kris in his mouth.

“What are you doing?” Kris asked, trying to push Chanyeol’s sauce covered face away as to not mess up his clothes.

“Feeguh you, rike zah guhs feegun Tao.” He said, trying to move closer to Kris’ face and talk with food in his mouth at the same time. “Nhow eeh.”

“I already ate mine.” Kris pulled back from Chanyeol’s face.

“Sho? Ee shom muh.” Chanyeol mumbled.

“Chanyeol I-.” Kris didn’t really want to think about how much saliva was on the food hanging from his mouth right now.

“Shay aaaahhh. Aaaahhhhh…” Chanyeol leaned right by Kris’ mouth. Kris sighed and decided to just allow it to happen and ate the stromboli piece, but only took about two bites before leaving the rest for Chanyeol. Chanyeol laughed as he heard the audience’s squeals before finishing the rest for himself.

“Feeling better?” Chanyeol asked, grinning.

“I’m better, okay.” Kris said, patting Chanyeol’s back just to appease him who clapped behind his back as if congratulating himself. Kris rolled his eyes and took a napkin to clean Chanyeol’s face.

Lay had finally started eating his stromboli. As he ate, he described every single element of the dish; explaining which ingredient caused what taste and how it may have tasted differently if they’d added a different amount of whatever topping. Sehun, in shock that Lay was a low-key food connoisseur, just stared at Lay, nodding in agreement.

“What do you think Sehun?” Lay asked.

“Huh? About what?” Sehun asked.

“The stromboli.” Lay pointed out, not sure if Sehun had been listening to him.

“Oh, it tastes good.” Sehun said.

“You really like it?” Lay asked.

“Mmhmmm.” Sehun nodded.

“Really?”

Sehun nodded again.

“Well then, why don’t you have some of mine?” Lay said offering Sehun a piece of his stromboli. Sehun simply leaned forward and took a large bite of it, not even bothering to question why Lay randomly offered him some of his food when he still had a lot left of his own.

“Was it good, Sehunnie?” Sehun nodded affirmatively. Lay clapped and patted Sehun on the back.

Xiumin continued to eat his meal, stopping every so often as Luhan fed him pieces of his own stromboli; even dipping it in the sauce before giving it to him.

“Umin~” Luhan sang.

“Yes, deer?” Xiumin answered, focusing only on his turnover.

“Open wide.” Luhan said, attempting to feed Xiumin yet another piece of his lunch.

“Why do you keep giving me your food? I told you I don’t want any more.” Xiumin said.

“C’mon, Baozi.” Luhan said, trying to whine.

“No, I need to watch what I eat.” Xiumin said turning away from Luhan. The crowd didn’t know what Xiumin and Luhan were saying; they just knew it looked really cute. So when Xiumin turned away from Luhan, they heard a choir of “aw” and “Luhan”.  Luhan feigned sadness over his “rejection” and scooted closer to Xiumin.

“You’re fine. C’mon just one more piece and then that’s it. It’s…for the…faaaansss.” He said, rather unconvincingly. Xiumin turned his head to the deer.

“Really?” He raised an eyebrow. Luhan nodded like an ecstatic fangirl. Xiumin sighed, influenced by both Luhan and the screaming crowd that was desperate for him to take the food, leaned over and ate the piece of stromboli. Luhan grinned and the sparkling returned.

~~~

Tao was now being fed by Baekhyun, who’d finally gotten his hands untied. To Kris’ slight relief and confusion, Suho had returned to Chen, mumbling something about taking a picture and being hip with the kids. Despite this, Kris continued to look on with annoyance.

“What’s wrong now, Krease?” Chanyeol, who’d returned to eating his own stromboli, questioned.

“Nothing.” Chanyeol pointed by flinging his head to Kris’ half-eaten Stromboli.

“You’re not eating.” He said. Kris slightly chuckled to himself at Chanyeol not using something like his nose to point as one might expect of someone without the use of their hands.

“I was going to share some of it with Tao, but…” Kris was interrupted by Chanyeol slowly leaning in with another piece of food in his mouth.

“W-what are you doing?!” Kris stuttered.

“Sorry, hyung. You were saying.” Chanyeol grinned, after eating the food for himself.

“Well, I was saving it to share with Tao since I knew he would still be hungry, but Baekhyun and Suho came out of nowhere and…”

“And now you feel worthless and rejected.” Chanyeol nodded with a smile. Kris rolled his eyes and put his head in his hands. Such great, helpful friends. He glanced back over at the others.

“Say ‘ah’, Taozi.” Baekhyun squeaked. Tao obeyed and received another piece of Baekhyun’s dish, neither giving enough of a damn to stop the sauce and meat fell all over his clothes.

“Hey, you’re messing up his clothes!” Suho said, returning to the others, reaching for some napkins and cleaning up Tao’s clothes.

“I’m not. He’s fine.” Baekhyun responded, almost completely ignoring Suho as he gave Tao more food.

Despite Chanyeol being Chanyeol, Kris was starting to think he might have had a point in that he was feeling a bit lonely with all the attention Tao was getting. Tao seemed to notice this sudden change in mood and, when he got a minute away from Suho and Baekhyun (when Baekhyun turned his attention to feed Suho with the help of Chen), asked Kris if he was alright, and, despite him saying he was fine, the look on his face said otherwise. He patted him on the arm and while he got a bit of a smile from him, it didn’t really do much else and Tao was slightly confused as to why.

While Tao was in the middle of trying to cheer up his duizhang from…whatever, he felt a hand his knee and didn’t really need to look to know it was Baekhyun, for his shorter hyung seemed to have a strange fascination with his knees. He turned and instantly saw the grin forming on his face.

Tao’s lips started into the cat-like upward curve as he reached an arm around Baekhyun’s shoulder and leaned into the hug, grinning because Baekhyun was one to enjoy a hug as if it was an otherworldly experience.

But after noticing the slightly jealous looks Kris was shooting at him, Baekhyun felt like continuing his plan to be a little sh*t  and decided to lightly brush his lips across Tao on the cheek and the crook of his neck. Partly as payback for Kris pushing him earlier and partly because he wanted to…for the fans, of course; it was a win-win situation.

Tao giggled and leaned his head on top of Baekhyun, mumbling something about being ticklish, who snuggled his head into Tao’s neck, enjoying his giant kitty-panda hybrid. Kris knew what he was trying to do and obviously didn’t let it show how done he was with all of this. Chanyeol decided it was his signal to move and decided to give Kris the attention he obviously oh so desired and went over to cling onto him like a baby koala and his hair, to which Kris could only respond by patting him on the head after seeing his silly grin and unknowingly allowing Chanyeol to bask in the duizhang. If Baekhyun was going to snuggle with his dongsaeng, Kris wouldn’t let his chance to take Baekhyun’s go to waste.

Chen, now bored with the Tao harem and ready to commence with his plot, had moved over to Lay and Sehun; the former having gone back to staring at the little bit of lunch he had left, and the latter who had finished eating and had nearly dozed off.

“So, what are you two doing?” Chen asked. He wasn’t sure if Lay heard him or not, since he didn’t respond.

“Just being bored.” Sehun yawned.

“Is that all you have left, Lay?” Chen asked, referring to Lay’s small turnover.

“Hmm? Ohai, Chen Chen!” He responded gleefully. “What are you doing here?” Chen ignored Lay’s lack of attentiveness to his surroundings, as he had something more interesting on his mind.

“Well, I see you still have some of that stromboli thingy left, while our dear little Sehunnie has eaten all of his.” Chen explained.

“Really? Wow Sehun, you really eat fast don’t you?” Lay said, looking surprised.

“Lay…” Sehun began before being interrupted by Chen.

“Well then, the only thing you as a good friend can do is share your last bit of food with your partner.” Lay took about a minute long pause before finally looking up again.

“Um. Okay sure.” He picked up his stromboli and was about to break it in half before Chen grabbed his arms.

“No, don’t do that. Just eat it together. Like a pepero stick.” He said.

“How come?” Lay asked.

“For the fans in the audience.” Chen said gesturing to the crowd. “They’ll love it. They’ll think you’re both so cute!”

“Ok then. Sehun?” Lay turned to the maknae.

 “Huh?” Sehun groaned.

“Stromboli?” Lay asked, holding up the pizza-like dish.

“Oh, sure.” Sehun took the offered end of stromboli in his mouth while Lay took the other half. Chen moved to the side to point out the spectacle before him and the audience roared.

“What’s with all of them today?” Kai asked D.O.

“Today? Aren’t they always this annoying?” D.O. remarked, glancing at the antics of Baekhyun and Chanyeol.

“It looks like part of it is Chen’s doing.” Kai pointed out, then laughed, adding, “You probably could have stopped it if you’d partnered with him, you know.”

D.O. took a moment before responding. “I think it’s better being partnered with you, though.”

Kai’s face heated slightly. “W-What do you mean by that?”

“Just that Chen would be more stressful to deal with.” He said, blushing a bit himself. “As you can see from our leader’s troubles right now.”

“Oh, so I’m not stressful to deal with?” Kai asked, still a bit flustered.

“Why would you be?” D.O. replied, laughing and poking him in the cheek. Kai shyly covered his face with his hands, laughing now, too.

“Yah! Stop it, hyung!”

Luhan’s stromboli was almost gone; especially on account of the fact that he’d fed about a third of it to Xiumin. He did a quick glace of what was happening on the other side of the stage and decided that he’d give the girls some fanservice as well since he loved entertaining the fans. Though he really knew it was just a great excuse to cuddle with Xiumin, he’d continue to tell himself that he was appealing to his fans. He pulled Xiumin’s chair closer, grabbed his upper body and pulled him onto him so that hewas lying against his chest.

“What are you doing, Luhan?” Xiumin asked, struggling to get out of Luhan’s grip to no avail.

“I’m appealing to our lovely fans.” He giggled.

“Everything is for the fans isn’t it?” Xiumin said, not believing him.

“Yep.” Luhan pulled Xiumin closer so that his was in his lap while Luhan wrapped his arms around his legs and behind his head; essentially, cradling him like a baby.

“Don’t you think you’re overdoing it?” Xiumin asked, holding on to Luhan’s back for balance.

“No way! They love it.” Luhan said, not admitting the fact that he too was enjoying it. As did Chen who was looking over from Sehun and Lay’s area.

“Can’t you just let me eat normally?” Xiumin asked.

“I’ll feed you, Baozi. They’ll love that too.” Luhan said as he took Xiumin’s stromboli without even waiting for a response.

“You’re weird, Hannie.” He said. Luhan just smiled and used his other hand to hold the back of Xiumin’s head.

“Do a Baozi face.” He asked, the sparkles showing again.

“Why? For the fans?” Xiumin asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yeah.” Luhan said, omitting the ‘and for me’ from the rest of his response. Xiumin complied. Luhan laughed and Xiumin really wanted to ask him about the sparkling, but decided not to.

~~~

Had to spilt this into two parts because it was getting a little lengthy~ Next part will be up soon~ :3