~Chapter 41 – Strong Bonds~

            After spending a few more moments on the bench in each other’s embrace, the sun eventually set leaving the two in semi darkness under the campus lights as they walked a comfortable silence to their dorm, fingers interlocked once more.

            Entering the dorm was quite strange though as the two opened the door to a completely silent and dark living room. Usually there would be lights on everywhere and shouts and screams all over the place in the dorm especially if it was only barely night time.

            “Why are the lights off? Where is everyone?” muttered Luhan as he released Sehun’s hand and felt along the side wall for the light switch.

            “Oh,” Luhan’s hand touched the switch he was looking for “Found it,” and flicked the lights on.

            The second that the lights were on, ten other people jumped out from varying spots around room, simultaneously yelling out “SURPRISE!”

            Sehun blinked.

            Luhan shrieked “WHAT THE HECK!?”

            “Dang that was a loud shriek,” noted Tao holding on to his ears.

            “What were you guys doing, you guys scared the frosting out of me!” retorted Luhan.

            Sehun slightly raised his eyebrow at Luhan’s choice in words but chose not to comment.

            The others laughed.

            “It’s just a surprise!” grinned Chanyeol.

            “Yeah clearly but what’s the occasion?” asked Luhan eyeing the living room table covered in different sweets.

            Sehun took notice of the table too.

            “No occasion… it’s just…” Suho looked at Sehun “We made this for you so you’d cheer up Sehun.”

            Sehun blinked again. ‘What?’

            Luhan even looked at Suho with awe and confusion “When did you guys decide all of this?”

            “This morning actually we were serious when we said we were going to do something even if you didn’t want to be wrapped up and given to Sehun,” answered Kai with a cheeky smile.

            Luhan made a face as he remembered the conversation “Right.”

            “We weren’t really sure what you liked Sehun but we figured you had to like sweets since after all you are going to SMACSE which is a patissier school,” stated Xiumin.

            “Yeah so in the end we decided to just create all of our best desserts for you,” said Lay gesturing to the table.

            “That way you were bound to at least like one of them,” said Baekhyun.

            “And we can just spend the rest of the night having fun and forget your troubles even if it’s just for a little while,” added DO.

            “You’ve been acting weird for an entire week now especially after the second day of the Treats Festival and seeing your parents, so we want to at least give you some time where you don’t have to worry about anything but just the present time,” said Chen.

            “We were concerned that maybe they were putting you under some high expectations and you were feeling overwhelmed with the pressure of all that but we are only assuming that’s the case so we thought relieving you of the pressure even for just a night could be the stress reliever that you needed,” explained Suho.

            Luhan shot Sehun a worried glance but as he took in the younger's still in a somewhat dazed state his worry fell away ‘Maybe things really are looking up for Sehun now.’

            “We may not know what’s causing you to be so troubled but that’s okay because it’s your business and if you want to ever tell us you can because we’ll be here to hear you out and help you in any way,” reassured Kris.

            Luhan smiled as he turned to face Sehun “See? Everyone here was worried about you Sehun, you have nothing to fear because we’re all your friends no matter what, and we’ll stick to you stronger than glue.”

            “It’s okay right?” asked Suho referring to the whole surprise they set up for him.

            Sehun continued to blink, mostly stunned that they had went through all this trouble for him.

            Unknowingly a tiny smile spread across Sehun’s lips “Yeah, thanks everyone.”

            Everyone seemed to freeze at the sight of a smiling Sehun.

            “Dude Sehun’s smiling, either the world is going to end or I’m dreaming,” said Kai with a serious expression “Someone slap me.”

            Tao snapped his head over at Kai “I’ll do it!”

            Xiumin grabbed on to the back of Tao’s shirt stopping him from coming any closer to Kai “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

            Tao pouted and sighed “But Kai was asking for it.”

            Meanwhile DO shot Kai a look to which the younger replied with a sheepish smile and a nervous laugh “Haha just kidding.”

            This caused everyone in the room to start laughing as well; Sehun finally stepped into the living room and closed the door behind him.

            “Let’s get this started!” cheered Baekhyun as he the stereo to some pop song.

            While Chanyeol pulled Sehun towards the table that had varying sweets all over it, “Come on Sehun! Come here and have some, we made this for you!” Chanyeol held up a bowl of colorful crystallized candies towards Sehun and grinned “Try it!”

            Seeing Chanyeol grin so brightly at him, Sehun reached up and took a few of the colorful crystallized candies and placed them into his mouth. The sudden burst of varying fruit flavors instantly hit Sehun as he rolled the candy around his mouth, tasting the sweetness and fruityness of the candy. It tasted as if Chanyeol had somehow infused all the tropical fruits into just these few pieces of candy, no wonder candy was Chanyeol’s specialty.

            “So? What do you think!?” asked Chanyeol excitedly.

            “It’s like you put a tropical forest into the candy,” replied Sehun “It’s good, really good.”

            Although Sehun had said this with a stoic face, Chanyeol still beamed at him “Yeah! These are the best candies that I make, it’s a hard recipe because of all the different flavorings I have to add into the candy but candies after all are my forte so of course I can do it flawlessly.”

            “Sehun you have to try mine too!” called out Tao as he raced towards their dorm’s refrigerator and then coming back with a bowl of rainbow ice cream “This is my best sorbet recipe, you’ll definitely like this!”

            Tao promptly shoved the bowl and spoon into Sehun’s hands, eagerly watching for Sehun’s reaction once he took a taste of it.

            Sehun scooped up a spoonful of the rainbow sorbet and placed it into his mouth, immediately feeling the creamy texture of the dessert as the tart flavor covered his tongue. Multiple flavors began covering Sehun’s taste buds ranging from cherry, lime, grape, blue raspberry, watermelon, and orange but what made it really surprising was that the flavors actually complemented each other as the sorbet melted.

            “Well!?” asked Tao a bit impatiently.

            Sehun nodded at him “It’s really good, despite all the different flavors in this it went well together as if they all belonged in there.”

            “Yes! You got that right!” clapped Tao happily.

            “Hey! My turn now, Sehun you definitely need to eat this,” called out Chen as he took the rainbow sorbet out of Sehun’s hands and gave it back to Tao replacing it with a bowl of pale green pudding.

            Sehun eyed it questioningly.

            “Don’t judge it before trying it!” grinned Chen “Everyone at the dorm has eaten this before and they all lived and as an added bonus they also loved it!”

            With a bit of hesitation, Sehun picked up a spoonful of the green pudding and placed it into his mouth. With a bit of surprise the first thing that Sehun tasted was green tea, it was a green tea pudding and it was very soft as the pudding’s taste filled Sehun’s mouth. No wonder everyone in the dorm loved this, it had a nice flavor and density to it.

            “It’s good isn’t it?” asked Chen teasingly.

            “Yeah,” Sehun nodded “It is, it’s really good it’s like eating green tea that’s been freshly brewed.”

            “See? I knew you’d like it,” smiled Chen.

            “Me next! Sehun, eat this!” exclaimed Kai as he took the pudding out of Sehun’s hands and replaced it with what looked like a cream puff.

            Sehun blinked at the sudden switch in desserts as Kai gave him a thumbs up. Sehun lifted the dessert to his lips and took a bite being sure to get the cream along with the pastry outside as well. The first thing that Sehun tasted was coconut, it was a coconut cream puff and the cream was so fluffy it was as if Sehun was biting into a cloud.

            “It’s tasty isn’t it?” asked Kai proudly.

            Sehun gave a hum “It’s really good, it’s like eating a fluffy version of an actual coconut.”

            “Well fillings are my specialty so of course it’d be fluffy like that,” replied Kai cheekily.

            The next person to hand a dessert to Sehun was Xiumin “Sehun you definitely need to eat this!”

            Sehun looked at the cookie that Xiumin handed him, it looked to be half vanilla and half chocolate giving the cookie an interesting appearance. Without much more thought Sehun took a bite at the part where the vanilla part of the cookie was meeting the chocolate part, effectively tasting both sides of the cookie. The flavors of vanilla and chocolate entered Sehun’s taste buds as the cookie practically crumbled nicely into his mouth.

            “The best of two great cookie flavors right?” asked Xiumin with a slight laugh.

            Sehun nodded “This is really good too; it’s almost like eating two cookies at once.”

            “Yep, that was what I was trying to aim for when I made this recipe and it turned out to be one of my best cookies,” grinned Xiumin.

            “Now it’s my turn!” cheered Baekhyun as he stood before Sehun with a plate of small intricately done blue fondant flowers that had detailed flower petals carved out on it making it seem almost realistic “Try this, Sehun!”

            Being careful, Sehun managed to pick up one of the blue flowers without having it fall apart in his hands because it had looked so fragile. The fondant flower itself looked so amazingly done that it was almost a shame to eat it but seeing how eager Baekhyun looked Sehun placed it in his mouth and he could instantly taste the sugary sweetness and the smooth texture of the fondant.

            “Tastes as good as it looks right?” asked Baekhyun giddily.

            “Yes it’s really good, the sweetness wasn’t overbearing either and there was so much detail in the flower,” answered Sehun.

            “Of course, it took me a long time to learn how to make flowers look that realistic in fondant but it paid off,” replied Baekhyun happily.

            DO was the next to step up as he handed Sehun a small danish that had golden jam on the top of it “Now it’s time to try mine Sehun.”

            Sehun bit into the pastry without a second thought as DO watched his reaction with big eyes. The danish itself was perfectly flaky, the jam that was on the top of the danish was a peach preserve and it tasted so fresh as if the peaches were just picked.

            “How do you like it?” asked DO curiously.

            “It’s really good, the danish is very crisp and the peach preserve on top tastes as if the peaches were picked at just the right time,” said Sehun.

            “I’m glad that you like it,” replied DO smiling brightly.

            “You have to try mine too Sehun,” said Lay as he held up a plate of round chocolate balls.

            Reaching out, Sehun picked up one of the chocolate balls and slipped it into his mouth. It was clear from the smooth texture and heavy flavor that this was a type of truffle that had been dusted in cocoa powder and as it began to melt in Sehun’s mouth the sudden flavor of hazelnut filled his taste buds.

            “What do you think of it?” asked Lay.

            “It practically melts in your mouth because it’s so creamy and despite the little bitterness from the truffle and cocoa powder the hazelnut filling manages to chase it away with sweetness, it’s really good,” answered Sehun.

            Lay beamed at Sehun “Good, I was hoping you’d say that.”

            “Alright Sehun now it’s our turn, Suho and I decided to do ours together for you,” said Kris as he began cutting a piece of the cake that was on the table and placing the piece on to a plate for Sehun.

            “I made the cake and Kris made the frosting and decorated it,” added Suho as he handed Sehun the plate with a fork.

            From the slice it looked like a six layer sponge cake with cream, strawberries and kiwis in between the layers of the cake and a light yellow frosting on the outside. Sehun took the fork and took a piece of the cake, making sure to get the cream, fruit, and frosting outside of it. The sponge cake itself was soft as it mixed with the cream and fruit, all Sehun could taste was kiwi and strawberry; then the flavor of the frosting began to make it’s appearance as Sehun tasted the hint of lemon in the creamy and light frosting which worked very well with the cake as it also brought out the flavors of the sweet strawberry and tart kiwi.

            “How’s it taste?” asked Kris and Suho.

            “The strawberry and kiwi cake itself is moist and soft making it go well with the cream and fruit while the lemon frosting isn’t heavy and makes the fruit stand out more and boosts the flavors, this is-,” Sehun was cut off.

            “Really good?” asked Kris and Suho as they grinned at Sehun.

            Sehun let another small smile