Baekyhun yawns and shifts on the sofa, letting his legs fall apart to look down his body at the TV. He's seen this movie three times and still doesn't understand it, but the lead actor is hot and wears a lot of tight tactical gear, so he suffers dutifully through the convoluted plot.

His mind's a blurry void when fingers comb the hair from his forehead. It falls back over his eyes, and he recognizes an idol commercial for chocolate.

"Don't put your hands down, please."

Sighing, Baekhyun lifts his hands again, angling them towards his concentrating boyfriend. Joonmyun scowls a little as he picks up his yarn again to wrap into a ball, taking from the untangled yarn around Baekhyun's hands. He looks ridiculous upside-down, and Baekhyun makes a face at him before dropping his chin to his chest and looking back to the TV.

Joonmyun notices and mumbles, "What's that for?"

"I'm bored."

"I'm almost done." He'd said that earlier.

"You said that earlier."

"And it was true. I'm almost done until I'm done."

It is true. Eventually, Baekhyun's hands are free, and he drops them to his chest. "Hey." He watches Joonmyun stand and add the new ball of yarn to the pile on the table. It's the last one, a labor of love and boredom worked out over many hours. "Pay me, jerk. I may work for cheap, but I'm not free."

Joonmyun laughs and bends over to kiss him. "Thank you for your help."

"Aren't there machines or something that would wind yarn faster?"

"Sort of, but I don't mind doing it by hand. It's not hard." It's not, but it is boring.

"But it's boring." His boyfriend just smiles. He's heard it all before and will hear it all again. Knitting is nothing like chasing down a soccer ball or throwing opponents to the mat. It's stationary work that requires consciousness. The times he's found himself mindlessly automatic, he dropped stitches and added others and had to redo it all.

It's pretty much the exact opposite of anything Baekhyun would ever think or want to do. He's the restless sort.

Baekhyun has sat up and is trying to juggle three balls of yarn, but he keeps his hands too close together and drops them. "Could you teach me?"

Joonmyun blinks stupidly. "To juggle?" He may be a man of many talents, but juggling is not one of them.

"No!" Baekhyun throws a ball at him. "To knit."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, I mean..." Baekhyun scowls at the TV, although it has nothing to do with his mood and is showing an excellent rear shot of tactical pants. "There's nothing else to do in quarantine. At least making something would be productive.

"Plus," he continues, brightening to a cheeky smile, "someone lost their scarf on a bus and couldn't be arsed to buy a new one. Maybe if I make one, they'll remember it and not whine about how cold they are all winter."

"I did not whine all winter..." Joonmyun mutters. It was an honest mistake, and he's meant to buy a new one, or even make one, but it just never happened. He was fine. He has other scarves. They're not nearly as comfortable or warm, but he has others.

"I didn't say you, just someone." He pokes his boyfriend with a wooden knitting needle. "You gonna teach me or not?" The teasing note drops from his voice. "I can ask Yixing hyung, if you don't want to..."

"Of course I'll teach you. I just... I don't know that you'll enjoy it."

"If I don't, I don't. Oh well." He shrugs. It wouldn't be the first time he tried something new and didn't like it. Live and learn.

With that sound logic, Joonmyun picks up one of the newly wound balls and take the needle Baekhyun's trying to tickle him with and sits on the sofa. Baekhyun leans against his side, chin on his shoulder to watch what Joonmyun does.

"Okay, watch this. To begin any project, you need a foundation, so you cast on however many stitches, and that determines the width of the project. Needle in my right hand, yarn in my left." He lifts either in turn, brandishing his weapons of creation. "Make a finger gun, holding the yarn under those three fingers, and bring it towards yourself, bringing the yarn around the needle. Gun back again, and there is one cast on stitch." Joonmyun slowly casts on a few more, then passes yarn and needle to Baekhyun.

"Looks simple enough." They're uneven and lopsided, but Baekhyun manages a full needle of cast-on stitches within a few minutes.

"How's that?"

"Pretty good for your first try! Just do a little tugging..." Joonmyun reaches over to pull at a few strategic stitches, "and they're ready to work. I would suggest keeping at casting on before doing actual stitches, though," he adds.

Baekhyun whines. "Whaaaat? Why?"

"Just to grow confidence and get used to the yarn and needle. A solid foundation is important. You've seen me frog," meaning take apart, but he's also been known to try various and interesting yoga poses, "a few things; most times it's because my beginning was no good."

"Can't I just cheat it?"

"If you want to do poor work, sure."

Baekhyun lifts his lip in a petulant grimace and slouches more heavily against Joonmyun. He lets the yarn slide off the needle, pulls it straight, and casts on again but only gets halfway before tossing it aside. "Yeah, I'm done."

He lasted about as long as Joonmyun expected. "What now?" It's a silly question, he thinks, when Baekhyun hooks an arm behind his neck and kisses him. "You give up?"

"No." Baekhyun nuzzles his jaw. "Just taking a break."

The break lasted a couple days, and Joonymun thought Baekhyun really had forgotten and moved on when he feels a presence over his shoulder. Turning his head, Baekhyun kisses his cheek and leans against his back. "Show me how to do that."

"Do what?" He looks where his boyfriend points and picks up his needles again. The yarn rolls off his lap and stops against his dog, who picks up his head and puts it down again. The novelty has ong since worn off.

"You remember how to cast on?"

"Sure."

"Then I'll show you the standard knit and purl stitches. With them, you can make just about anything. If you can do one, you can do the other." He recites a poem as he slowly demonstrates, and Baekhyun leaves wordlessly.

Joonmyun continues on his own and finishes a sweater sleeve. It'll need to be seamed shut, but judging by how it drapes over his arm, it should fit fine. If not, he'll just never make a sweater again and stick to flat things. One can never have enough blankets.

Eventually, Baekhyun returns. There's a crease between his eyebrows, and he perches on Joonmyun's back again to watch his hands work. "What am I doing wrong?" He holds up his own lopsided swatch. The cast on stitches aren't even, and it curls up in a roll. "It looks like a sweater for a snake."

"Are you alternating stitches? Knit, purl, knit purl?"

"Yeah..."

"That'll do it. Varying the number of each stitch between rows keeps it flat. Try what you've been doing for a row, then three knits, three purls, et cetera with an uneven number of cast on stitches."

"What about the beginning?"

"Just pull them straight. It looks good!" He's rather proud of Baekhyun. Knitting isn't the easiest task and not considered the most masculine hobby, even with its long history.

Baekhyun slinks away again with a mumble of thanks, and Joonmyun doesn't see him knitting again for another few days. He sets up his own knitting camp on their balcony and jumps when the door slides open. Instinctively, he pulls his project into the blanket he's bundled in like a naughty child hiding a sneaked snack.

"How's it going? Having fun yet?"

"Oh, yeah," Baekhyun drawls. "I'm just having a ball!" He leans forward, hunkering over the needles and squinting. "Stab it...strangle it...scoop out the guts...toss it off the cliff."

"Where did you learn that?" Joonmyun laughs. "You don't like the rabbit one?"

"The rabbit one is fine and dandy, but this one really expresses my frustration towards this awful and hellish hobby."

"Well, knitters only gain entrance into heaven if they can pass through the purly gates." Joonmyun laughs at his joke until he's wheezing breathlessly. Baekhyun lets him choke.

He finally groans and tosses the yarn and needles onto the sofa beside him. "I do not know how people do this for fun. I'm ready to stab myself with the needles."

"Please don't. I like you too much, and you'll bleed on my needles."

"I feel real loved at that." Baekhyun drops the needles onto his lap with a heavy, drawn out sigh. "I'm hungry."

"Come inside, and we'll order dinner." They each wait, but Baekhyun doesn't move. Joonmyun finally rolls his eyes with a smile and leaves. His boyfriend is now determined to not ask for help or show off his progress. That's fine; Joonmyun is the same way when making something new. Among people he doesn't know well, there's often comments about the craft and the inevitable question of making them something, which Joonmyun always declines. Even if the material is provided, he's not about to spend his time and effort on something for someone he frankly doesn't care about.

Baekhyun shuffles inside with his blanket slung over a shoulder, project apparently held inside. "I don't care what you want to eat, but I need a beer."

"You'll fall asleep before the food gets here." Joonmyun pulls up the app of the restaurant they particularly like on his phone.

The beer can opens with a hiss, and Baekhyun quickly downs half its contents. Pink-cheeked, he sticks his tongue out and flops onto the sofa. "So wake me when it gets here." He keeps the blanket tucked securely, and it makes Joonmyun curious.

He's so curious he almost takes a peek when Baekhyun is asleep, but he tells himself that's not fair, and he'll see it when Baekhyun wants him to see it.

But it's a rather long time until then.

In the meantime, Joonmyun worries the novice knitter has given up. One weekend afternoon, he comes home from a jog around the neighborhood to Baekhyun again on the balcony, cocooned in his blanket. On the other chair is a mound of loose yarn, kinked like ramen noodles, and needles.

Joonmyun knows the feeling all too well. Getting so far just to find it's not shaping right or the count is wrong or he just can't stand the sight of it... Sometimes it's better to start over. Seeing all the yarn unraveled casts a lot of emotional damage, though.

He takes the yarn and sets it in the sink to soak in warm water for a couple hours. Baekhyun wakes up from his frustrated nap and goes to the bathroom to be faced with his frogged project hanging wetly over a bucket.

His boyfriend accepts the wordless hug with an affectionate pat on the arm. The dogs nudge their legs for attention, too, and accept the lazy rub of a foot against their bellies.

"If I can offer a purl of wisdom..."

"Please don't, hyung. I can only stand so much right now."

Joonmyun tickles his cheek until he looks up from being buried his elbow. "It's not easy learning something new, but I'm proud you're even trying." He grins at the pink tinging Baekhyun's ears. "I'll help wind the yarn once it's dry, and you can pick it up again when you feel like it."

The pep talk works, he likes to think, but Baekhyun can also be rather stubborn. He returns to his balcony blanket studio and drinks more than he probably should but eventually presents Joonmyun with a scarf as long as he is tall made with beautiful navy and gray yarn.

Joonmyun accepts it with wonder and awe. It's a simple construction but very striking. "It's beautiful; thank you! Not only nice and long but with color changes even!" He immediately winds it around his neck and gets uncomfortably warm but doesn't want to take it off.

"You like it?" He watched a lot of tutorials and called Yixing more times than he called his own mother, but he thinks it turned out pretty okay. His eyes can spy the wonky stitches and little knots attaching yarn together, but he hopes it's because he spent so much time on it and not because they're super obvious.

"I love it. You're officially a knitter, Baek." Joonmyun kisses his cheek.

With great gravity, Baekhyun declares, "I don't think I'm ever going to make anything else." He gently knocks their foreheads together. "I love a knitwit more than knitting, and that's fine by me."

"How sweet." Joonmyun loosens the scarf to let it hang from his neck and loops an end around Baekhyun. "You know, I've got you under my skein."

His boyfriend surprises him, as he occasionally does, and replies airily, "What a tight knit pair we are." They laugh between kisses.

a/n: Written for Kpop Ficmix. Remix of shape a scarf by VOlympianlove. I crochet more than anything else, but I do know basic knitting and would like to get better at it; however I still find it a tedious and laborious craft that makes no sense when working on things that are not a single, even shape.