Sunggyu looked worriedly over at his husband who was sitting beside him in the passenger seat while he drove the two of them back from the hospital.

    “Woohyun, we can always just buy a cake from a nice bakery! Oh! Or even an ice-cream cake, I bet Sungjong would like an ice-cream cake!” Sunggyu offered helpfully to the other man who was pouting angrily, right arm wrapped in a white cast.

    “NO,” Woohyun exclaimed, and Sunggyu flinched in his seat (luckily they were stopped at a red light). “Birthday cakes have to be handmade okay? Buying a cake from the store is what untalented and lazy people do.”

    “You mean people like me?”

    “Nope, because you’re gonna be making Sungjongie’s birthday cake!” Woohyun exclaimed with a bright smile.

    “Me? Do you not remember when I almost burned down our kitchen?” Sunggyu turned to give Woohyun a look of disbelief.

    “Nah you’re exaggerating.”

    “Not what you said when you saw the fire, Woohyun.”

    “Anyway, don’t worry, you’ll have me to help you!”

    “How can you help when your… arm is like that?”

    “I’ll just talk you through it. Easy peasy.”

    What Woohyun didn’t know, was that it was going to anything but easy peasy.

——

    “Okay so, time to get out all the ingredients! First things first, we need eggs! Three of them!” Woohyun was sitting at the kitchen table, barking out orders at Sunggyu.

    “Eggs, eggs…” Sunggyu opened the fridge and just stared. “Where are the eggs again?”

    “Fridge door, second shelf,” Woohyun answered without hesitation, not even surprised that the other didn’t know where the eggs were. It was always him that cooked breakfast anyway. It was always Woohyun that cooked, period. Sunggyu took three eggs out of the carton and set them on the counter, but he didn’t notice that one had started rolling dangerously towards the edge.

    “SUNGGYU—“ Unfortunately, Woohyun wasn’t quick enough to warn the other.

    Splat.

    “… Oops.” Sunggyu said sheepishly, then proceeded to clean up the mess he made, a mess that was going to be the first of many. Woohyun only sighed in response. He didn’t know if he was starting to regret this decision.

    “Next, we need sugar.”

    “Here it is!”

    “Sunggyu, that’s salt.”

    “Salt, sugar, they both look the same, how am I even supposed to tell the difference?” Sunggyu mumbled as he took another container (actually sugar this time) down from the shelf.

    And from then on, Woohyun knew that even getting together the ingredients was going to be a nightmare…

——

    20 minutes later:

    “We’re finally done gathering the ingredients!” Sunggyu exclaimed with a bright smile. “Now what?”

    “We have to preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.”

    Beep beep beep.

    “Done!”

    “… That was the timer.”

    “AISH why don’t you do it? I’m sure your left hand is capable of pushing some buttons.” Woohyun just rolled his eyes at that, and got his lazy off the chair to nudge Sunggyu out of the way and punched in the right temperature for the oven.

    “Okay, so next, we put together the wet ingredients along with the sugar. First, the eggs.”

    Sunggyu picked up all three and just tossed them as is into the glass bowl that was sitting on the counter.

    “… Sunggyu, you know you have to crack them right?”

    “Oh. Um, right.” Sunggyu took the eggs back out and picked one up, attempting to crack it by squeezing it. It did work, but the egg just got all over his hands and apron (which thankfully, Woohyun reminded him to put on). Woohyun face-palmed at that. 

    “Just crack it on the counter first!” He got up yet again and grabbed another egg from the fridge for Sunggyu.

    “Oh. Okay.” Sunggyu grabbed another egg and banged it against the counter, resulting in an egg explosion all over the counter.

    “…”

    “So how do I get all this egg back into the bowl?”

    “Sunggyu— just—“ Woohyun was exasperated, but he wasn’t about to give up. “LIGHTLY! You tap the egg against the counter lightly.”

——

    “Okay so now that we’ve got all our wet ingredients together, we mix the dry ingredients in that other bowl. So, that’s the flour and the baking powder.” Woohyun pointed to the two ingredients before getting up. “I’m just gonna take a bathroom break, but don’t do anything stupid.” Sunggyu only nodded in response.

    When Woohyun got back he realized that he should have never let Sunggyu out of his sight, because he strolled back into the kitchen to the sight of a flour-covered Kim Sunggyu.

    “What… did you do.”

    Sunggyu just shrugged with a sheepish smile, “Something stupid I guess? Sorry.”

    “Did you— did you use the electric mixer to mix the flour and baking powder together?”

    “… Maybe.” 

    “…Just measure the right amount of flour and baking powder again, but this time, mix it gently with a spatula okay? How were you even able to operate the electric mixer if you can’t even set the temperature to the oven?”

    “Yeah, yeah. Why is baking a simple cake so hard anyway?” Sunggyu mumbled more to himself as he measured out the flour and baking powder into a bowl again. “You always make it look so easy.” 

    Woohyun gave Sunggyu a peck on his pout at that, “It’s okay, Gyu, you’ll get the hang of it if you practice more!”

——

    About an hour later the two of them (finally) had the cake batter ready, although it kind of looked lumpy.

    “Are you sure this is going to turn out okay?” Sunggyu asked worriedly as he poured the batter into a greased cake pan.

    “Um. To be honest I am totally not sure.”

    “You’re supposed to be more optimistic!” Sunggyu gave Woohyun a nudge before placing the cake pan into the oven (Woohyun had to remind him to wear oven mitts).

    “Yeah, well, you really are hopeless in the kitchen. I take back everything about needing to practice more. I don’t think any amount of practice is gonna help you here.”

    “That’s what I said from the beginning!” Sunggyu exclaimed as he shut the oven door with a slam and stomped over to the living room and sitting down on the couch with his arms crossed. Woohyun just chuckled amusedly and went over to join the other, snuggling up to his side.

    “Yeah, but it’s cute to see you try so hard.” Woohyun shifted to accommodate Sunggyu as the other wrapped his arms around his torso and buried his face in Woohyun’s chest with a indignant muffled “hmph!”. Woohyun started running his hands through Sunggyu’s hair soothingly and soon the other was asleep, the baking fiasco having tired him out. Woohyun also felt his eyes drifting closed…

——

    “W-what is that smell?” Sunggyu got up sleepily, head knocking into Woohyun’s chin and effectively waking the other up as well.

    “, the cake!” Woohyun got up so fast that Sunggyu tumbled unceremoniously onto the floor, head missing the coffee table by a few centimetres. Sunggyu turned his head towards the kitchen and noticed smoke coming through the doorway. Concerned, he quickly got up and jogged towards the kitchen but he couldn’t see a thing with all the smoke filling the room. As the smoke cleared, Sunggyu could make out a black… thing in the oven.

    “Oops.”

——

    “Happy Birthday Sungjong!”

    “Oh! An ice-cream cake! I love ice-cream cakes! Thanks, hyung~”

    “See? We should have just bought one in the first place,” Sunggyu whispered harshly to Woohyun next to him.

    “Shut up. I grossly overly estimated your baking skills.”

    “You’re so mean! Next time I’m making you do something you’re horrible at!”

    “Like what?”

    “… I don’t know! Damn it why do you have to be so good at everything?”