Two months into the semester and Taekwoon was in one of the studios downstairs trying to record his new song but was getting no where with it as he just couldn’t get things quite right. There just seemed to be something off about the way the chorus ended.

Fed up with all the stressing, he packed up his gear and went back upstairs to his room. He decided to get some study done instead as the song wasn’t due for another week and he was mostly done anyway. 

Half an hour into his study and he hadn’t even completed one page of content. His mind was full of thoughts about his song chasing each other around. He could feel the stress squeezing his brain ’til it hurt and he couldn’t focus on anything else. He sat with his head in his hands for the rest of the hour. Eventually he gave up trying to will away his headache and went down to the kitchen with a pained frown on his face.

In the kitchen he found some ingredients here and there. Some flour, sugar, eggs, cornflakes, butter and chocolate chips. The only thing missing was vanilla essence. Taekwoon didn’t remember if he had packed a bottle for emergency use in class or not so he ran up stairs, careful not to make too much noise as it was around 10:30pm on a Thursday night. 

Digging in his cooking bag, he made a mental note to never do that again as he had forgotten that there was a peeler in there from yesterday. He felt the sting of the cut as he dabbed it with a tissue and put a band-aid on it, then resumed searching for the vanilla essence. Bottle after bottle of food colourings he pulled out before he finally found the vanilla essence and shoved everything back into his bag. On his way out, he almost all but ran into Hakyeon who’d just come back from dance practise and just blinked blankly at Taekwoon as he said a quick “Hey” and was back down the stairs in record time. 

During his time in the dorm house, he had come to find hidden treasures such as the Kitchen Aid in the storeroom and its basic accessories. Pulling it out and carrying it all the way to the kitchen made him wonder which bright spark decided to keep the kitchen ware on the opposite side of the house. Placing it onto the bench, he preheated the oven and started measuring the ingredients to make choc chip cookies. 

As Taekwoon put the first batch of cookies into the oven, he heard someone walk in and sit at the table. 

“What’s bothering you Taekwoon hyung?” He turned to see Kihyun in long sleeved bear pyjamas accentuating his kid-like features.

“Nothing much. Just the song that I wrote sounds incomplete and I don’t know how to fix it.” He had opened up to Kihyun even more since that first Sunday and apart from Hakyeon, Kihyun was the person he was the most comfortable with. They spend Sundays together re-establishing Kihyun’s little dorm café which had gained popularity and now even some of the students from other dorms came to get their coffee fix. “How about you? What are you doing up so late?” He asked while rolling out the next batch.

Kihyun sighed. “Minhyukkie had a fight with Jooheon and came back crying. I only just got him to fall asleep. Hyung, I really feel like a mum. About 5 minutes ago Jooheon came and asked if he could wait in our room until Minhyuk woke up and I told him he could just sleep over. Now I don’t know what to do with myself.” He pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. It must have been serious if Minhyuk, of all people, was crying.

“Well, I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding and that they will work things out by tomorrow. For now, why don’t you just go to bed? It’s late and there’s still classes tomorrow.” He could tell that the shorter one was really worried about their friends. Eventually he agreed. 

“You’re probably right. It will be fine by tomorrow. I should go to bed. Oh. What about you hyung? Don’t you have classes tomorrow? Your cookies are going to take at least another 40 minutes, plus clean up time.”

“Nah I’ll be fine. It’s only a practical lesson tomorrow and they don’t start ’til 2:30pm anyway.” 

“Oh okay. Good night then hyung.” With that, Taekwoon was left alone to finish off the last batch of his cookies and clean up. 

Five minutes later Kihyun had come back down.

“I forgot that I gave my bed to Jooheon…” He stared blankly at the floor. He must have been really tired. Something stirred inside Taekwoon.

“Aw. Why don’t you go to Jooheon’s room?”

“But that’s all the way on the top floor! There’s too many stairs.” Kihyun pouted and he looked absolutely adorable that Taekwoon squealed internally wondering how someone can go from being a naggy mother to an adorable child when he was tired.

“Hmm, you can sleep in my room if you want? It’s only on the second floor.” Taekwoon suggested.

“Okay. Then where will you sleep?” Kihyun rubbed his eye with his fist.

“In Jooheon’s room with Hongbin.”

“Okay. Thanks hyung.” 

Once Kihyun had left, Taekwoon realised that his heart was beating quite fast and he saw in the reflection of the toaster that his face was flushed. He reasoned that it must have been the oven and that there was not much ventilation in the kitchen. He opened the window and welcomed the light breeze until the timer went off and he took out the last batch of cookies and placed them on a tray with the others. Quickly cleaning up, he couldn’t stop thinking about how cute Kihyun looked tonight and that the pink in his hair was fading away while his darker hair was growing out. Having seen him only with pink hair, Taekwoon was suddenly curious as to what he would look like with dark hair.

He was about to turn off the lights and head up stairs when he remembered Hakyeon’s words about labelling things. Taekwoon tore of a page from the notepad on the fridge and quickly scribbled the ingredients with a ‘Help yourselves’ on the top and an ‘Enjoy!’ at the bottom. Tucking the top of the page under the edge of the tray, he made sure everything was in order before he went up to Hongbin’s room and slept for the night feeling more relaxed and ready to work on his song tomorrow.

A/N: Here's chapter 4! 

I know that no one will read this but it's just for my pleasure so if you are reading this THANK YOU SO MUCH and I hope you are enjoying the story. 

Anyways comments will all be appreciated and replied to so please don't be shy :) 

<33 Beartastic