The rooms, to Jongin’s misery, were not soundproof and after a long night of trying to drown out the traumatizing cries of “Oh Daddy!” by cuddling with Kyungsoo, Jongin woke up to screaming and shouting. Sadly, this was quite a normal routine, and when he heard Yifan’s roar of “JONGDAE!!!!”, all he did was sigh. He ran his fingers through a peacefully sleeping Kyungsoo’s hair. Yup, just a normal morning.

          That is, until Jongdae burst into their room, sporting a pair of what looked like Yifan’s boxers on his head. Jongin watched in horror as Jongdae flung a pair or two of Yifan’s other undergarments onto their bed, yelling “Pay your respects to the flagpole!” before speeding back down the hallway. Seconds later, a Yifan streaked down the hallway after him, both hands holding a panda pillow to his crotch in a poor attempt at decency as he bellowed. “YOU LITTLE MOTHERING SON OF A YOU BETTER HAND THOSE OVER BEFORE I CHOP YOUR ING OFF!”

          Jongin groaned. It was too early for this. Slowly unraveling himself from a somehow still sleeping Kyungsoo, Jongin rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, walking over to the window, hoping that looking out at the expanse of nature outside could possibly trick him into thinking his friends were normal. That plan was immediately shot to pieces as he realized that his window had a perfect view of the flagpole outside, where Yifan’s favorite pair of boxers, the one with dragons all over it, was now gracefully fluttering in the wind at the top of said flagpole.

          Sometimes Jongin wondered if Jongdae was suicidal.

          After brushing his teeth and washing his face, Jongin trudged down the stairs begrudgingly, still grumpy from being forced awake by his loud, dumb friends. It was the crack of dawn, and most of the others were probably somehow still asleep, save for Yifan who was currently chasing down Jongdae.

          Curse his light sleeping habits.

          The sun had already risen, and Jongin soon realized that there were not three, but four people awake in the cabin when the scent of something burning in the kitchen filled his sinuses. He rushed over to the source of the ungodly smell, where Yixing was currently trying to fan away the thick smoke coming from the pot on the stove.

          “Yixing,” he coughed, inhaling a little too much of the smoke at once, “Oh god, Yixing what the hell happened?! Turn the stove off!”

          “I can’t!” Yixing held his arms out to protect his creation, which had burst into flames in the meantime. Jongin was really questioning his safety in this cabin considering no fire alarm had gone off by this point. “The oatmeal isn’t done yet!”

          “Isn’t done- Yixing, for ’s sake, the oatmeal is on fire!”

          Yixing spun around to confirm the statement. “Oh my, how did that happen?”

          “Turn it off!” Jongin cried, rushing to open the nearby windows so as to let the smoke out. “Oh god, where the is the fire alarm?!”

          “Oh, I turned it off earlier this morning,” Yixing decided to completely ignore Jongin’s instructions altogether, choosing instead to search through the kitchen drawers for a longer soup spoon so as to stir his probably burnt oatmeal- which was still on fire, mind you- from a distance so as not to be burned. “It was beeping funny while I was boiling the water and I thought you all might have accidentally set an alarm too early.”

“An alarm on the wall?!” Jongin’s eyes watered as he struggled to so much as see Yixing, who didn’t seem to find the flaming pot on the stove at all intimidating. “Yixing, if you don’t turn the heat off and put that fire out, we could all die! And I haven’t even gotten the chance to take Kyungsoo to Paris!”

“That is so cute,” Minseok gushed as he walked into the smoke filled kitchen, seemingly immune to the carbon monoxide in the air that was making Jongin’s head spin, “I think Kyungsoo would really like that Nini.”

“How the hell-” Jongin wheezed, “Are you able to breathe?”

“Ah,” Minseok strolled up casually to Yixing, who was armed with an unnaturally long soup spoon trying to protect his pot of oatmeal from the elder, and pinched the arsonist in the sides. In the few seconds it took Yixing to flinch and squeal, Minseok had successfully pushed Yixing over to Jongin, before expertly turning off the heat and putting out the fire with a wet dishrag from the sink. “Yixing and I used to be college roommates, so this a lot happened more than you think. I’m used to it now.”

Jongin threw Yixing an incredulous look. “This isn’t the first time?!”

Yixing simply shrugged. “Everything I cook usually ends up this way, I thought it was normal.”

Jongin blanched at the thought of having to wake up to a burning kitchen almost every morning for four years.

“More importantly,” Yixing scuttled over to no longer flaming pot and peered at it over Minseok’s shoulder. “Is my oatmeal ready?”

Minseok looked down into poor, poor pot, where severable unidentifiable charred black lumps sat at the bottom. “Uh… Probably. There’s also like a solid 35% chance you’ll die from eating it.”

Yixing bit his lip in worry. “Should I have cooked it a little longer then?”

“Any longer and we would have been 100% dead,” Jongin said as he took a few more deep breathes, the burnt smell still lingering close to his nose.

“Is that my Yixing’s oatmeal I smell?” Junmyeon’s far-too-chipper-for-the-morning voice sounded as he bounded down the stairs.

“He can still smell?!” Jongin was honestly so ing done with his hyungs, how the hell-

“Junnie!” Yixing scrambled to grab a bowl and somehow managed to scrape some of the burnt oatmeal into the bowl before hurrying over to present the bowl to his boyfriend. “Look! I made it just for you!”

“Thank you,” Junmyeon cupped Yixing’s face before pressing a gentle kiss to his cheek, smiling widely at the pink dusting Yixing’s cheeks. “I love it, honey. Why don’t you get your bowl and we’ll sit on the back deck and watch the baby ducklings play in the pond?”

Yixing’s eyes widened. “Baby ducks! Oh yes! Let me go get my camera first!”

“Wait, Yixing-” But it was too late, he was already scurrying up the stairs. “That’s not even… your… camera.”

“It also has no batteries,” Jongin pointed out, only causing Junmyeon to sigh harder.

“Oh god, why the does it smell like the cabin’s on fire?” Luhan asked, practically glued to Sehun’s side as they made their way into the kitchen.

“Well, you see-” Minseok started, only to be erupted by Yifan’s classic “ you Jongdae” bellow, which echoed all across the cabin. Sure enough, a figure suddenly blew past Jongin’s side to hide behind Minseok as Yifan, still trying to cover his family jewels with a panda pillow trampled over, looking not very happy at all.

“Good… morning?” Luhan craned his neck back a little further to give more access to Sehun, who found hickeys on Luhan’s collarbone to be far more interesting than witnessing an almost Yifan try to beat Jongdae, who was still hiding behind his boyfriend, and keep the panda pillow over his privates.

“Not looking too good so far,” Jongin mumbled under his breath, praying that the next person to come downstairs was Kyungsoo.

“What’s good, es?”

Jongin’s prayers went unanswered.

“Hey Baek,” Junmyeon greeted rather emotionlessly, hoping it had been his own boyfriend to be the one coming down the stairs.

“Wow, sorry I’m not Yixing,” Baekhyun raised an eyebrow as he took in the fight going on in the kitchen and Luhan and Sehun practically ing on the breakfast table. “Where’s Chanyeol?”

Jongin furrowed his brow. “He wasn’t here when I got down here. I thought he was still upstairs with you.”

Almost as though on cue, a resonating thump sounded from outside the cabin, followed by a familiar sounding groan. Baekhyun’s face paled. “Oh god, I guess now we know. I can’t believe he was actually serious about trying to make a snare trap.”

“You’re boyfriend’s an idiot,” Junmyeon snickered.

Baekhyun was quick to counter. “So is yours!”

“Yixing is not!”

“He set the kitchen on fire trying to make oatmeal,” Jongin pinched his nose for emphasis, “I can still feel the smoke in my lungs.”

“That has nothing to do with Yixing’s intelligence!”

“What about my intelligence?” Yixing asked as he finally made his way back to the first floor.

Junmyeon brightened immediately. “I was telling the others just how proud I was to have such a smart man like you to myself.”

Yixing rewarded his boyfriend with a quick peck on the lips. “We better hurry outside! Or else we’ll miss the baby ducks!”

“Stop using your boyfriend as a human shield and get over here!” Yifan shouted as he chased Jongdae around Minseok in circles, now equipped with a spatula.

“Minnie, save me!”

“What’s going on?” Zitao mumbled as he entered the kitchen, rubbing at his eyes. How he managed to get more sleep than the other eleven combined and still have the darkest eye bags was truly a mystery to Jongin.

“Just your average morning,” Jongin sighed in a resigned manner.

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PalmerPie