Six am. 

Precisely on the dot, foghorns sounded, echoing through Jongdae's room loud enough to wake the dead. On the nightstand, his phone vibrated so violently that it skittered across the table, threatening to fall off.

Just as it neared the edge, Jongdae's hand shot out from beneath the covers, catching it before it could fall, and swiping across the screen to turn off the alarm in one practised motion. The blanket pile shifted, and he sat up groggily, yawning so hard he could have sworn his jaw cracked. Had it already been four hours? His head pounded enough that the room spun as he pushed himself off the bed in search of the aspirin in his medicine cabinet.—

"I blame you," he muttered at Baekhyun's door as he passed, kicking it halfheartedly. It had been his roommate and coworker's idea to go drinking ("come on, today was hell, I need to destress! Come over, I'll buy first round!"), and neither of them had remembered until their fifth shots of soju that Jongdae had to open today. By then, they had been too buzzed to care, leading Jongdae with the headache and mild nausea of this morning.

"It's also partially your fault too, you idiot," he adds, looking at his haggard, drawn face in the mirror. Jongdae shoves a hand through his curls, yawning. "You could have chosen a profession that doesn't make you stay late or come early, and then you wouldn't have met Byun Baekhyun, and then you could have avoided the time he gave you smoky eye with permanent marker in your sleep, and the time his cat ate your precious king mushroom and lobster sushi burrito and then puked it back up on the carpet, and the time he came home at four in the morning and forgot his keys, dragging you out of bed two hours early to let his in."

Jongdae grimaces at his reflection before rummaging in the medicine kit for the aspirin and swallowing two dry. He spends the next half hour on autopilot, showering and dressing and taking the five-minute walk down to the train station, where he finds a much more chipper looking Yixing waiting for him.

"You look like hell," the older boy giggles, holding out coffee--Jongdae's usual order, an iced Americano with a tonne of sugar (syrup, easily dissolved; Jongdae isn't wasting time shaking his precious caffeine to dissolve crystals). Jongdae grabs it with a grateful moan, chugging half of it at one go. Yixing laughs again, and Jongdae gives him the finger but only halfheartedly, too busy taking another long sip.

"Didn't you have the last two days off?" Yixing inquires, cupping his hands around his own cup-- tea, Jongdae knows, probably something obscure and calming like passionflower or ashwaganda. Jongdae really doesn't know how Yixing manages to have uncaffeinated tea every morning and mantain the same chipper energy levels. He doesn't even know why Yixing drinks calming tea to begin with-- the bartender is one of the most tranquil people he knows. In fact, Jongdae doubts Yixing would lose his cool even if the Wonder Girls decide to drop by the restaurant.

"I slept through most of it," Jongdae admits, knocking back the last few drops of coffee just as the train rolls into the station. At this hour, many of the seats are still empty, the other commuters also still waking up. "Baekhyun convinced me to come out with him," Jongdae admits mournfully.

Yixing snickers, a knowing glint in his eye. "When did you get home?"

Jongdae slumps lower into his seat, adjusting his knife roll so that it doesn't dig uncomfortably into his side. "…two," he mumbles, closing his eyes. The lights in the subway car are annoyingly bright for seven in the morning, and his headache is returning.

Yixing tsks and takes a sip of tea. "Maybe the new barista hyung will make you more coffee." Jongdae yawns, leaning his head against the wall.

"…new barista hyung?" He mumbles.

Yixing nods. "Kris brought in a few new people two days ago, so we have a barista hyung and a couple of line cooks I think-- oh, and some kid from Royal actually impressed Chef Kyungsoo, so we have a pastry extern too--"

Jongdae should be listening, should be sorting this information so he knows what to expect when he comes into work. But the train is rocking along steadily, and Yixing's voice is so gentle, and his head hurts so much… 
To his everlasting credit, Yixing doesn't so much as murmur in protest when Jongdae falls against him, fast asleep.

When Jongdae walks into the prep kitchen, there's chaos. There’s Jay Chou blasting from Yixing’s station, conflicting with the Taylor Swift coming from Amber’s station and the DBSK blasting all the way from the office, where Lu Han is. Victoria is screeching-- possibly because Luna just put ice down her back of her shirt-- and Boa and Yunho are talking intently, heads together as they make notes on a recipe.

Tao, one of the externs, is yelling at another cook standing at pastry station. Jongdae honestly doesn't recognise him-- maybe another new extern. For many culinary academies, spending a few months externing at various restaurants is part of the curriculum, so they’re always popping in and out. So far, Baekhyun's been training Tao and normally Jongdae would tell him to go sort this out, but Baekhyun isn't due to come in until just before dinner shift. Just his luck, really.

"Tao, what's going on?" he asks, a little impatiently. Tao glares at the new extern, looking about to cry. Or possibly murder someone. Jongdae thinks that it’s hard to tell sometimes. Tao just has one of those faces, you know?

"He won't let me use a whisk and I need it," he complains.

"And I can't give it to you, so sorry."

Jongdae looks at the new extern. The kid's tall-- as tall as Tao or Kris and honestly, what is with this place and all these tall people. He's stony faced, staring down Tao's frustration with rather admirable calmness.

"You're not even using it!" 

"Okay, okay okay," Jongdae sighs. "You-- what's your name?" He must be the kid Yixing had been talking about this morning, the pastry extern who'd impressed Kyungsoo so much.

"Oh Sehun," pastry extern says. "And I'm under strict orders from Chef not to lend out pastry's tools in case you never return it or worse, use it for something weird and awful like curry or garlic."

Sehun can't have been here more than two days, but already Kyungsoo's been training him well if his priorities are in that order, Jongdae thinks wryly. All cooks are meant to have the tools they need in their knife kits, and all stations are meant to be stocked with backups, but often things get lent out so frequently no one really keeps track anymore. Kyungsoo is the only one who doesn't subscribe to this general rule-- he labels his things in bold silver Sharpie, ruthlessly telling off anyone who dares to borrow them. Jongdae sighs inwardly.

"Kyungsoo's not here, and Tao isn't using it for curry or garlic. And he'll wash and return, right?" Tao nods vehemently. Sehun looks distinctly unimpressed. "Tao, what do you need a whisk for?"

"I need to finish my emulsion," Tao sniffles. "For the tartar. I use Baekhyun hyung's but he's not here yet, I didn’t know I’d need one…"

"I still can't lend it to you," Sehun says flatly.  Jongdae eyes the pastry extern's adamant expression and sighs internally. Of course any extern Kyungsoo decided to hire would be as stubborn as Kyungsoo himself. As it is, they're wasting time arguing-- Saranghaja opens in two hours, counting everyone's half-hour break, and there’s still so much work to do.

“Tao, on grill upstairs, there’s a whisk in my kit, it's the dark blue bag,” he says decisively. “Get it and check in with me before family meal. Are you almost done setting up?”

Looking abashed, Tao shakes his head. From his reaction, Jongdae figures he must have spent the better part of ten minutes arguing with the pastry extern. He gives the Tao’s shoulder a little push. “Go go go,” he instructs. “And get yourself a whisk of your own, you can’t always rely on Baek.” Today is Tuesday-- not especially a busy day, but as the junior sous chef, Jongdae feels pressure nonetheless to keep things running smoothly.

With a quick “yes chef” and a final glance at Sehun, Tao trots off. He’s a good kid, Jongdae thinks. A little high strung-- honestly puts more pressure on himself than they put on him-- but bright and quick to carry out orders and to learn. With any luck, spending time around Baekhyun’s flippant attitude will rub off on the kid, mellowing him out.

Not too much, though. Jongdae loves Baekhyun like a brother, but he’s not sure he’d survive having to work with two of him.

“Chef.” Jongdae turns back to pastry extern-- Oh Sehun, he reminds himself-- standing with a large mixing bowl in his arms, giving Jongdae that blank, level stare.

“What time does Chef Kyungsoo come in? Did he leave you a list?” Jongdae moves out of the way, calloused fingertips tapping restlessly against the top of his clipboard. Sehun moves past him and comes back to his station with two trays of eggs, which he begins separating with quick, efficient movements. There’s none of the hesitation or clumsiness Jongdae’s used to seeing from brand new externs. The egg whites go into the mixing bowl, the yolks in a plastic container. Stunningly, none of the yolks seem to even come close to breaking, and shine like little golden gems.

“Chef is in at two,” Sehun replies, keeping his eyes on his work. “Yeah. Meringue, vanilla chantilly, pate a choux... Stuff.” A quick flick of his head indicates the list on pastry’s clipboard. Jongdae recognises Kyungsoo’s writing in bold slashes of black pen across the back of a folded paper towel.

“Chef said that garde mange could manage pastry on the line until he gets here,” Sehun adds after a moment, looking up. Jongdae wrinkles his nose. Kyungsoo frequently pulls things like this in order to annoy Baekhyun, who’s nearly OCD in his attention to detail and likes to take more time on his dishes when he can. Normally, Jongdae doesn’t get in the middle of their weird rivalry or whatever, but Baekhyun’s not here yet. Tao is doing excellently on garde mange, but he hasn’t been trained to handle two stations. Besides, he’s here to get experience in culinary -- he didn’t sign up for pastry.

Sehun is still watching him, stare piercing through Jongdae.

Jongdae ignores the dark eyes and focuses on his clipboard, scanning the work schedule for today and quickly rearranging his lineup for the morning.

“Finish separating out your egg whites, and then I need you to set up your station,” he says after a moment. He can put Yixing on the line in Kyungsoo’s place; they’re not busy this morning, with only twenty reservations. Yixing may look absentminded all the time, but he has an excellent sense of timing. “Kyungsoo’s taught you how?”

The pastry extern drops his eyes back to his work. “...Yeah.”

“Finish before family meal. I’ll be doing a line check.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Jongdae fights down the wave of irritation. He’s acknowledging orders, he tells himself. It’s good enough, especially since as a part of the pastry team Oh Sehun isn’t strictly his responsibility—pastry has their own hierarchy, even if Kyungsoo hasn’t appointed a new pastry sous in nearly a year and a half. The kid only becomes his problem if he doesn’t do his work in an appropriately quick manner.

Still, the flippant answer rankles; as a sous chef; Jongdae is used to ‘yes, chef’ from the other line cooks, expecially the externs. After a moment of pretending to study the supply order from yesterday, Jongdae bites the inside of his cheek, tasting iron, and walks away. 

--

Saranghaja lucked out this year. Sometimes, they get a batch of externs who seem to have slept through their classes, with flaws ranging from bad knife cuts, slow work, quick tempers, unnecessary whinging ,and unwillingness to follow orders. This year, their externs are exceptional-- all quick to learn and eager to pull their own weight. For the most part, Jongdae is almost sorry to have to pay them minimum wage, when they clearly do as much work as any line or prep cook.

(In particular, Tao’s knife cuts make him want to march up to Le Cordon Bleu Seoul and make a donation, because no matter what Kris says, those carrot tournes are honestly among the most beautiful things that Jongdae’s ever seen in his life.)

Sehun, who has remained a thorn in the junior sous chef’s side, is no exception. The best indicator of this is actually Chef Kyungsoo, who has yet to dismiss his lanky extern or even get angry. Instead, Jongdae walks by pastry and even sees the pastry chef nodding (or, even more shockingly, smiling) as he watches Sehun pipe beautifully even swirls of meringue or measure out precise amounts of tapioca cornstarch, one eyebrow furrowed in concentration.

Really, Saranghaja is doing amazingly well. Jongdae’s blood pressure should not be going up.

Except it is, and Chanyeol laughing at him as he pokes irritatedly at the condensation on their bottle of soju isn’t helping.

“I don’t get it, none of them even need major improvement, like that kid from two years ago who took two hours to cut four pears into brunoise and complained about having to clean the walk-in. What was his name? Sunghwan? Sungyeol?”

Jongdae shrugs and knocks back another shot. “Lee Sunghyun, I think.” Chanyeol nods.

“Yeah, none of them are as bad as that. Tao got an entire pint of small dice out of the smallest ing pear I’ve ever seen in my life, did you know? Kid’s a genius. So what’s wrong?”

“They keep steal bits of prep?” It’s a weak argument, and he knows it. Even the line cooks take little bits-- Luna had been sharing a bowl of wild mushroom noodles with Amber a few days ago. Jongdae had told them to get back to work, but hadn’t reprimanded them otherwise.

Chanyeol raises an eyebrow. Jongdae sighs.

“They keep stealing bits of my prep,” he clarifies. “Not even scraps, like, they dip spoons into my sauces and walk away.”

“Don’t they just want to taste everything they can? We tell all the externs they can taste things.”

“Within reason,” Jongdae points out. For being the senior sous chef, Chanyeol is really too relaxed about these things, he thinks. But then, Chanyeol has never gotten angry in the three years Jongdae has known him. Maybe it’s his ridiculous height. For a morose moment, Jongdae considers wearing insoles in the kitchen. “Sehun walks by every three minutes and takes spoonfuls of the exact same thing. It wasn’t even on the menu; I was recipe testing. Besides, he’s not even in culinary.”

Chanyeol laughs loudly. Glaring balefully, Jongdae goes to his shotglass, only to find it sadly empty. “You sound like a little kid whose pencil got stolen on the first day of class, and now you’re just angry. Dude, just let it go.”

“It’s ing annoying,” Jongdae mutters.

“Kim Jongdae,” he says decisively. Jongdae looks up to see Chanyeol pouring him another shot of soju, making the glass so full the liquid bulges over the top, held there through sheer force of surface tension. “You are going to get ing drunk, you are going to go home, and you are going to think very hard about your life. And then you are going to get your up at six the next morning, get to work, and get along with the harmless little pastry extern.”

Jongdae rolls his eyes and knocks back the shot, soju spilling over and arcing down the back of his hand. It’s cold where the trails of liquid have traced their way over his skin.

“...Yes, chef,” he mutters sardonically. Ignoring Jongdae’s sarcasm, Chanyeol beams at him, his teeth flashing brightly even in the darkness of the bar, and pours him another shot.

---

A/N: lending out your stuff is no joke, man. *__* I still don't know where my paring knife is, and it's been over a year LOL

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