the first hyung he sought advice from was jaehyun.  

“make her something to eat,”  jaehyun said as he flipped through a magazine. he went on to tell jaemin the way to someone’s heart was through their stomach. “bake her some cookies. they’re easy to make, and they taste good. you’ll look so handsome and cool.”

when all the members went grocery shopping, jaemin insisted on staying home with the renjun and the maknaes who wanted to play on the gaming console. the members looked at each other with confused looks but just shrugged their shoulders. jaehyun gave jaemin a knowing look as he smiled sheepishly.

once the last foot steps could be heard exiting the dorm, jaemin ran to jisung and chenle's room to enlist their help. they hesitated at first, debating whether or not helping jaemin would be more fun than a game of mario kart. jaemin bribed them with candy, and they agreed.

the maknaes were put in charge of reading his mom’s recipe for her infamous peanut butter cookies, while he actually baked the cookies. shortly before they begun, renjun found his way into the kitchen and stood there for moral support.

the first batch of cookies sure looked fine and smelled fine. they were a pretty shade of golden brown and wafted a sweet aroma, yet when renjun took a bite, he gagged and begged for water. jisung had misread the recipe for two tablespoons of salt as opposed to 2 teaspoons of salt. needless to say, the batch winded up in the garbage.

the second batch was nearly perfect. the boys had followed the directions and measurements exactly. the only problem was that it looked like burnt coal. what was supposed to be a fifteen minute wait time became a thirty minute impromptu dance party. the only reason the dance party stopped was that when jisung went for a glass of water, he sniffed the air and turned to look at the oven. his eyes widening, he screamed out to the other three. the four of them spent the next hour airing out the kitchen.

donghyuck came home to the group of four boys looking dejected. scanning the kitchen and the garbage bin, he sighed and rolled up his sleeves. he pulled mark and jeno with him to the kitchen and then called the others. sitting around the counter, the four watched as the trio made the cookies.

given the task of trying the cookies, renjun had six pairs of eyes on him as he bit into them. he chewed for a moment and stopped. his eyes formed crescents when he said how delicious they were. jaemin was all smiles as he thanked donghyuck, mark and jeno.

“aren’t you going to bed?”

“i’m coming. i was just thinking about something,” donghyuck said as he climbed into mark’s bed. “say, wasn’t there something weird with that recipe we used?”

“it seemed like a regular peanut butter cookie recipe,” mark spoke into donghyuck’s neck as he wrapped his arms around his body.

“right. i probably just don’t like peanut butter that much,” donghyuck said, closing his eyes.

when donghyuck woke late the next afternoon and entered their kitchen, he was greeted by the sight of jaemin sitting at the kitchen table with his head down.

“you’ve got to be kidding me. hina is allergic to peanuts?” donghyuck exclaimed after jaemin recounted the events of the morning.

that morning jaemin had ran to the girls dorm, but was met with lami, the first warning sign something was going to go wrong. the first thing out of was a cold “what do you want?”

“i came to give hina something,” he said, peeking his head through the door as he looked for her. groaning, lami let jaemin in. she pointed at a table and ordered him to sit. from their room, hina, koeun and herin entered.

jaemin jumped to his feet. “hina, i wanted to tell you something, but first, i baked some peanut butter cookies.”

“oh is that so? how nice of you to bake the girls something sweet. since i'm allergic to peanuts, the more for our lami right?” hina said as she reached over to squeeze lami’s cheeks.

and that’s the story of how jaemin spent his morning at the girl’s dorm squeezed between koeun and herin as he watched hina feed lami and herin his cookies. after twenty minutes into his stay, his confession was long forgotten as he was too busy thinking of an excuse to leave.

with the excuse of having to take care of a sick donghyuck, jaemin bid the girls goodbye. putting on his shoes outside, he peered in and saw lami smirking at him. she had her head on hina’s lap as hina her hair. lami stood up and went toward the door.

slam.

she had shut it on his face.