30. Once, he asked Kyuhyun to buy him some bananas while Kyuhyun was out at the supermarket. And, like a good roommate, Kyuhyun bought him the bananas. But, when he brought them home, Ryeowook didn’t eat a single one, not one.

THE END.

(That’s it. That’s the entire story.)

At rush hour on Friday, the supermarket was packed with restless, irritated shoppers whose moods were not being improved by the guy who was holding up the whole line because he had to run back and fetch a forgotten grocery item.

Yes, Kyuhyun was that guy.

As the lanky man ducked and weaved his way through the aisles with a bundle of curved yellow fruit in his hands, Ryeowook’s nagging echoed in the back of his mind: ‘Take the grocery list, Kyu. Take a picture of the grocery list, Kyu. You’re not going to remember all 20 items on the list, Kyu.’ Well, delayed remembering or not, he now did have all 20 items. Take that, Ryeong!

 He made it back to the cashier moments before a riot started.

“Five bananas. Add it to the tab,” he huffed, “please.”

The cashier stared at him with the blankest glare he’d ever received as she punched in his final tally and handed him the receipt which Kyuhyun tossed into the bags before hurrying home.

Ryeowook was cooking up a storm in the kitchen when he returned.

“Alright Kyu, thank you for picking up the groceries, and I don’t mean to demean your hard work, but what the hell took you so long?!”

“Lots of groceries, lots of people, lots of cars: you know the drill.”

Ryeowook did, and certainly better than Kyuhyun. Normally, his boyfriend did the shopping, but tonight with their parents arriving in less than 87 minutes for a family dinner they hadn’t yet cooked, the burden fell on Kyuhyun’s shoulders.

“Okay, I got your marshmallow fluff, caramel sauce, extra pecans, and bananas.” Kyuhyun listed off each item as he unloaded the bags onto the tables. “Basil, little cheese-stuffed sausages, sesame, baking powder—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Ryeowook turned from the stove, hands raised in a stopping gesture. “Why did you get baking powder?”

“Because it was on the list.” Even as the words left his mouth, Kyuhyun knew they had to be false, not because he remembered the list, but from the look of potential murder in Ryeowook’s eyes.

“Kyuhyun, please tell me you bought baking soda and not just completely useless baking powder.” His voice was deadly quiet.

“I would…but then I’d be lying.”

“You didn’t bring the grocery list!” Ryeowook exploded.

“I did! I swear I did!”

“No, you didn’t!”

“Okay, fine, I didn’t!”

“Kyuhyun, I can’t believe you! How many times have I told you—?”

“A lot of times!”

“—you can’t remember everything! Now we won’t have any biscuits. Your mom loves my biscuits.”

“I’m sorry! But look! Look at everything I did remember.” Kyuhyun gestured towards the table of groceries. “The half a dozen different spices and herbs. The exact brand of butter you requested. I even got five bananas, the exact number you asked for. See?” He held up his boyfriend’s favorite fruit.

Ryeowook stared at him and slowly reached out and took the banana. He looked at it for a moment, then pointed it Kyuhyun like a gun. “Get out of my kitchen.”

When the smaller’s voice dropped that low, Kyuhyun knew better than to keep arguing.

Despite the lack of biscuits, dinner that night was miraculously not awkward. Ryeowook knew how to plaster on a fake smile when needed and Kyuhyun could keep his mouth shut as demanded. Plus, Ryeowook’s dad was a total chatterbox and could keep the room filled with conversation, even if it was completely one-sided. Which it was. The Chos weren’t exactly a talkative family.

Kyuhyun did the dishes afterwards, and by the time he came to bed, Ryeowook was already pretending to be asleep with his back to Kyuhyun’s side.

“Listen, Ryeong, I’m really sorry,” Kyuhyun muttered, settling on the edge of the bed. “I shouldn’t have ignored you or your grocery list.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Ryeowook said with eyes still closed.

“From now on, I promise to bring your lists with me every time I go shopping, which will be way more often.”

“How often?”

“All the time. Every time. You already do all the cooking; you shouldn’t have to do all the shopping too.” Kyuhyun leaned over and pressed his lips against Ryeowook’s soft cheek. “I love you and all that you do for me. And I promise, tomorrow morning, I’m going to wake up early and buy you that baking soda.”

Ryeowook turned around and pulled Kyuhyun into another kiss, this time, on the lips. “You’d better. And I love you too.” They lay like that, gently kissing, nibbling, touching each other, until Kyuhyun yanked away the sheets encasing his boyfriend to find that the latter had forgone his pajamas again.

Some habits never changed.

The next morning, Kyuhyun returned from the store with a box baking soda and roll of biscuit dough.

“I know it’s not as good as yours, but this way, we can have biscuits for breakfast and you don’t have to do any cooking.”

Ryeowook grinned at him from behind his cup of morning tea. “That’s sweet, Kyukyu, but actually, Wooyoung called me in for an emergency rehearsal in twenty minutes. One of our altos dropped and we need to catch up the replacement fast.”

“Oh, okay.” Kyuhyun set down the groceries. “You should probably still have breakfast though, renew your energy a bit after last night?”

“Kyu…”

“Hey, how about you take a banana for now, and afterwards, I’ll pick you up, treat you to a nice brunch?” He held out one of the curved fruits from last night.

Ryeowook’s eyes widened a bit at those words. “Actually bananas aren’t great to have right before rehearsal, too starchy. I think I’ll have an apple instead. That brunch sounds great though.” Going up on his tiptoes, his boyfriend gave Kyuhyun a quick kiss before leaving to go the studio. The taller didn’t think much more about the conversation, and had forgotten about it completely after brunch.

Three days later, however, Kyuhyun realized that the bananas still had not moved from their place atop the microwave.

“Ryeowook? It’s been three days and not all the bananas are eaten yet. Are you feeling okay?”

“Oh, yeah.” Ryeowook said with a slight lilt to his voice. “I just don’t think they’re quite ripe yet. We might have to wait another few days.”

“Well, don’t wait too long. I got these out of the overripe section.” Kyuhyun was already noticing black spots on the yellow fruits.

“Sometimes the produce stockers lie.”

By the end of the next week, it was time for a grocery restocking. Following up on his promise, Kyuhyun took the list Ryeowook left for him to work and on the way home, detoured at the nearest supermarket.

As much as he hated to admit it, shopping did go a lot faster when he had a list, since he could plan out the ideal route to take. It was far more efficient than his old way of looping around the store three times. Or at least it was, until he hit number five on the grocery list.

“Why are bananas on the list? We still have the five from last week.” Kyuhyun sent the text to his boyfriend. He received a reply quickly.

“oh? you have the list with you this time?”

“Haha, very funny. And yes, obviously.”

“just checking ;)”

When Kyuhyun got home, all five bananas were still on the freaking microwave.

Saturday morning, Kyuhyun woke up to the sound of weekend, daytime soap operas blaring from the living room. Ryeowook never missed those. When he came out of the bedroom, he was greeted by the sight of his petite boyfriend munching on Cheerios on the couch. And while normally Kyuhyun would have been completely charmed by his boyfriend’s messy bedhead or his comically round glasses that he only wore on days off, all Kyuhyun could see at the moment were the Cheerios. The Cheerios in skim milk which for seven years had consistently been adorned with banana slices were now dotted with strawberries. That’s right: strawberries.

And yet Ryeowook still had the audacity to greet him with a “Good morning, Kyukyu!” as if nothing were wrong.

What. The. .

When the exact same thing happened the next day (albeit with a different soap opera in the background), Kyuhyun had had enough.

“Are you still made at me for the baking soda thing?” He asked, standing directly in front of the TV.

“What? No. Of course, not,” Ryeowook said, angling his head to see around his boyfriend.

“Then what? What are trying to do?”

“I’m trying to see who killed Dr. Tribbiani.”

“Ryeowook, those bananas have been sitting on the microwave for a week. Normally, you go through a banana a day. You are not acting normal.”

Finally, Ryeowook met Kyuhyun’s eyes with his own steady gaze. “I told you, they’re not ripe.”

“Not ripe? They’re half black. How much riper do you want them?”

“Pretty darn ripe,” Ryeowook said. “I’m saving them for a new recipe I found and the fruit has to be really ripened for it to work.”

“What recipe would ask for this? Any riper and those things are going to be rotten.”

“No, they’re not. Who’s the cook here?”

“Who’s the scientist?” Kyuhyun retorted. Their eyes were locked in a steely impasse. The taller kneeled directly in front his boyfriend who was on the couch so their eyes were level. “Ryeowook, look at me and tell me you aren’t not eating those bananas just to screw with me.”

Ryeowook’s gaze was unwavering. “I can…not say those words exactly.”

Kyuhyun’s jaw clenched. In a blink, he’d stormed out of the living room and slammed his office door behind him. Ryeowook didn’t go after him.

Kyuhyun probably would have spent the rest of the weekend cooped up in there had his stomach not gotten the best of him. Skipping breakfast and lunch did not leave him much defense against the sweet, scrumptious scent which began seeping into his office around four o’ clock.

Slipping quietly out of the room, Kyuhyun tiptoed over to the over to the kitchen. Ryeowook was at the stove again, one hand propped on the hood as he stirred the sizzling contents of the wok. Kyuhyun could practically see the glorious smell wafting off whatever he was sautéing.

Before his saliva glands got the better of him though, Kyuhyun’s eyes caught sight of the clump of bananas still sitting on that microwave, and suddenly, he remembered why he was pissed all over again.

“You couldn’t even take a bite,” Kyuhyun muttered darkly.

Ryeowook must have heard him as he glanced over his shoulder to where the taller was standing. “Kyuhyun, you’re out. Are you hungry?”

“Starved actually.” It was the truth. Kyuhyun went in and grabbed himself a black, slightly soft banana off the microwave. “I just came out for a banana.”

“Oh? Okay, then.” Ryeowook turned back to his wok, apparently unconcerned that his boyfriend could potentially poison himself with fermented banana.

More aggravated than ever, Kyuhyun harshly peeled the curved fruit and shoved it into his mouth. The first thing he noticed was the sweetness. It was overwhelming, like he’d chewed down on a block of cane sugar. Second, it was pretty starchy. Like, sticky, wood-like starchy. But the third thing he noticed was ultimately the most important, because while the fruit he half looked like a banana, and blackened like a banana, it lacked any sort of banana flavoring.

To his side, Ryeowook turned off the stove and poured the contents of the wok onto a nice dinner plate. Using chopsticks, he picked up a piece of the sliced fruit and held it out to his boyfriend who was still busy trying to swallow the raw chunk he’d bit into.

“Some fried ripe plantain, Kyukyu?”

SOURCE VIDEO

A/N: Chronologically, this chapter comes after the drabble set in the next chapter, but as you can see, I got rather carried away with this one and had to update