Whoever decided that Seungcheol and Seungkwan could be left in charge of decorating the gingerbread men was quite clearly not in their right mind.

    The issue was not, of course, a matter of whether either of the boys were capable in their own rights. It was a simple task, after all, and one that was most frequently completed by children. The boys of twenty and seventeen years old would, in theory, be able to finish their jobs with little to no trouble, if they truly set their minds to it.

    The true problem came in the teasing nature of a certain Choi Seungcheol and the unwillingness to be defeated of Boo Seungkwan.

    The cookies had all been laid out on the kitchen table, arsenal of colorful icings and different candies to dot them with lying just beside. Christmas music was playing in the other room, courtesy of Joshua, English songs to be heard throughout the dorm. The cookies had been prepared by Jeonghan the night before, the band’s ultimate baker. To feed such a large group, the yield had been fifty cookies - fifty, all to be decorated just by Seungcheol and Seungkwan. Seungkwan, of course, the teenager that he was, was not at all thrilled to be tasked with the job. Equally as predictable, Seungcheol was thrilled at the prospect of having twenty five cookies to decorate himself.

    Seungkwan sat down at the table directly across from the leader, disinterested frown upon his face as he pulled half of the cookies over in his direction, grabbing the nearest icing tube to him without paying so much as a thought to the color and beginning to squiggle carelessly over the cookie.

    “Oh, c’mon, Seungkwan!” Seungcheol protested, watching the younger ‘decorate’. “That’s no fun!”

    “We’re just going to eat them anyway,” argued back Seungkwan, “so what does it matter what the icing looks like? It’ll all taste the same in the end.”

    Seungcheol wouldn’t be defeated by such bland reasoning, though. “All the fun is in decorating them, though, like coming up with the different designs.”

    Seungkwan stopped in the mess that he was creating just long enough to give Seungcheol a disbelieving look, the king of side-eyes living up to his title quite well. After that, he set his initial cookie aside, moving on to the second and giving it much the same treatment as the first.

    It was then that Seungcheol’s master plan occurred to him, be it brilliant or utterly foolish.

    It was time for him to begin decorating, he decided as he delicately lifted one of his own cookies from the rack onto the paper towel set before him, carefully selecting the red icing from the sundry provided.

    Seungkwan had to admit, it was quite difficult for him to keep his sights stuck to his own work as Seungcheol began to decorate. The elder had developed a certain air of playfulness about him, the beginnings of a smirk playing across his lips as he worked, never a good thing by Seungkwan’s account.

    “What are you doing?” he couldn’t help but to ask as he eyed the icing nearing the cookie.

    “Decorating,” came Seungcheol’s simple reply, and Seungkwan knew that he was being that vague on purpose, just to get Seungkwan to keep asking. If he hadn’t been afraid that it would knock all the cookies to the floor, Seungkwan might’ve just leaned across the table and hit him on the head for that.

    He watched intently, his own progress entirely ceased as he observed Seungcheol. First came two dots - the cookie’s eyes, it was easy enough to guess. Then were two slashes above those, which must’ve been eyebrows. Why were they angled down, though? The cookie looked quite upset over something with its eyebrows like that. Lastly came the mouth, curved downward to form a frown, confirming Seungkwan’s thought that the cookie was, indeed, angry.

    “Why does it look so mad?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at Seungcheol. By the leader’s philosophy, the cookies were meant to be a happy thing, so why would he make one so blatantly upset?

    Seungcheol broke out into a full on grin - and quite a devious one, at that - looking up to meet Seungkwan’s eyes as he answered plainly, “It’s you.”

    Just as Seungcheol had been hoping, that was enough to get the vocalist riled up, cheeks puffing out as he huffed indignantly. “I do not look like that!” He protested, doing his best to protect his pride. Seungcheol was further pleased as the boy snatched a tube of blue icing for himself, grabbing a fresh cookie as he muttered to himself about disrespect or something along those lines.

    While it was rather haphazardly done, Seungkwan’s desire to fight back was evident with the completion of his cookie. There was a thick squiggle across the top that Seungcheol assumed was meant to be his hair, followed by eyes angled severely downwards and a smile that took up the entirety of the cookie’s head.

    “I guess that’s supposed to be me,” the older deduced, though with a slight questioning tone to his voice - he failed to see any similar traits, or how a smile was meant to be an insult (as that was, of course, Seungkwan’s intention in the decoration of this particular cookie).

    Seungkwan scoffed. “What do you mean, ‘supposed’ to be you? It is you. See, with this big mouth, he looks like an idiot, doesn’t he?”

    Seungkwan didn’t receive quite the reaction that he had been hoping for when Seungcheol laughed in response.

    “What’s so funny?” He challenged, eyeing Seungcheol suspiciously.

    “It’s cute,” answered the rapper simply. “We’ve got cookies of each other. It’s like couple’s items or something.”

    The heat flared up in Seungkwan’s face, a vibrant shade of red blossoming across his cheeks at the word ‘couple’.

    The leader’s feelings for Seungkwan were certainly no secret, not to the boy in question or to any other member of the band, for that matter. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which Seungkwan supposed he had to give him at least some credit for. He openly told Seungkwan that he loved him, constantly hugging him and teasing him despite Seungkwan’s many flustered rejections. Seungkwan did, of course, return said feelings - more so than words could convey, at that. The problem was that when Seungcheol came to him with his many flamboyant, boisterous advances, he couldn’t help himself from getting flustered beyond words and turning him down. He suspected that the elder could tell he felt the same, hence why he continued in his ministrations. The younger just couldn’t bring himself to admit to his feelings for the life of him, no matter how hard that he tried.

    He was snapped from his thoughts at the sound of giggles, quite a peculiar noise to come from Seungcheol. “What are you-”

    Seungkwan’s voice caught in his throat, question going unfinished as his eyes drifted downwards, landing upon the cookie of himself which had a new feature added. While he wasn’t looking, Seungcheol had taken custody of the blue icing used for himself, drawing a heart on the cookie of Seungkwan with the word ‘Seungcheol’ at the center.

    “Y-yah, what is that?” He cried out at the sight, voice raising at least in octave in his embarrassment.

    “It’s because you love me,” answered Seungcheol, disguising the truth of his statement as a joke.

    Seungkwan couldn’t allow himself to be defeated like that, though. He all but lunged across the table, taking the red icing for himself and setting to work. While Seungcheol had only created one heart, Seungkwan all but covered the Seungcheol cookie in sloppily drawn hearts, the syllables ‘Seung’ and ‘kwan’ divided among them as they were too small for his full name.

    “This is you, then,” he proclaimed, pointing to his own creation with an air of proudness that he couldn’t quite explain.

    Again, though, Seungcheol only laughed.

    “Yeah, it really is like me now.”

    Face now redder than the icing he had used, Seungkwan knew that the process of decorating these cookies was going to be even more tiring than he thought.