I left the Happy Hours anniversary party right after I finished cooking the food. My absence was probably noticed, but if I had stayed I would have broken down in front of all those people, and that would have been more noticeable.

I cried all night in the safety of my own bed. My bed smelt faintly of Minho from him sleeping on it the previous night. His comforting scent stopped me from doing something I would have regretted.

I was tempted never to leave my apartment again, but morning came, and it was bright outside again. And Junggi was expecting me.

After three cups of coffee, I left the apartment in my ty car, and prayed that Minho would still be sleeping as I got to Happy Hours’.

As I arrived I spotted Junggi sitting on one of the outside tables. She was dressed in a pair of leggings and a baggy tshirt. Her long black hair was tied up in a ponytail. Her legs were swinging back and fourth in a perfectly content way.

She sat straight up as she noticed my car driving in to the car park, and waved enthusiastically.

As soon as my car stopped she ran over, and pulled the door open for me.

‘Am I late?’ I asked her, laughing at the pure enthusiasm on her froggie Minho-esque face.

She shook her head frantically. ‘No, I was just here early. I was hoping my cousin would be around so I could say thank you to him for letting me come to the party yesterday, but I think he’s still sleeping.’

I bit down on my lip, attempting to allow all my Minho based feelings to drift away through the pressure.

‘Yeah, he never gets up early on Sundays. It’s the one day of the week he lets himself sleep in.’

‘Oh,’ Junggi nodded thoughtfully. ‘Hey, I didn’t see you at the party yesterday.’

I took a sharp breath in. ‘I was in the kitchen,’ I unlocked the door to Happy Hours and the two of us walked in. I glanced about to be certain Minho wasn’t lurking. But I couldn’t see him.

As predicted he was probably still sleeping in his apartment upstairs.

‘But I went in to the kitchen at just a little bit past nine and you weren’t there,’ Junggi said with a soft tone of confusion. I sent her a fake smile.

‘I left early.’

She frowned. I could feel her hot gaze on the back of my head. It seemed Junggi was the only person on the face of the Earth who could see straight through my fake smile; something even my mother, father and Minho had failed to do. To my relief Jung Junggi didn’t push the point.

We walked through into the kitchen, and I grabbed the cloth to wipe down the surfaces before we started. Junggi watched me carefully.

‘What are we going to make?’ She asked in a cheerful tone. It seemed even my fake smile could not bring Junggi down.

‘Hmm,’ I paused, smiling as my mind wandered over cake ideas. ‘Do you have all day? Because I have a lot of different things I’d like to make if we have all day.’

Junggi grinned widely, her froggie eyes bursting with a twinkle so much like Minho’s. Whatever genes made Minho so adorably froggie obviously came through his mother’s side of the family, and they were obviously strong.

‘I really really have all day! I’ll work until 6am if needed… after that I need to get ready for school,’ she laughed. I laughed too at the idea of Junggi turning up to school on Monday morning, covered in flour and shaking with exhaustion and caffeine.

‘Okay then… hmm, how many people go to your school?’

‘Like 1400,’ she said. I nodded, unable to keep the smile off my face. Baking was what I loved, and it was what I had hidden from everyone so I could keep my job at Happy Hours and be close to Minho.

‘Okay so, we’ll whip up ten or eleven Victoria Sponges with strawberry jam filling, those are really easy so we’ll whip them out quickly.  Then while those are in the oven we’ll start on around 400 lemon drizzle cupcakes, those are super easy too, I could make them in my sleep. Then once those are in the oven we’ll start on something harder, like profiteroles, we’ll make a bit tower of them, maybe 100 in a tower? Yeah, 100. So I guess we’ll make two of those towers, and they can go on either side of the table and look great and fancy… then we should make something really hard to go right in the middle of the table... ‘ I paused to think.

I had tried just about every recipe as a teenager in my parent’s kitchen. I would always make them while they were out, and then tell them the cake had been brought at a shop. I didn’t want them to know I liked baking. At that time I had been trying to hard to make myself seem masculine, I didn’t want to admit to myself that I liked Minho, and I always linked liking a girl with femininity, and baking, to me, was feminine. Now I know that baking isn’t feminine, and neither is liking a guy. But it doesn’t matter now because I can’t like that guy, and I can’t bake because then I wouldn’t get to be around that guy.

‘Ohh!’ I exclaimed, ‘in the middle of the table we’ll place a croquembouche! Yes!’ I squealed in glee, croquembouche is renowned to be one of the hardest desserts to make, and I knew how to make it and yet had never gotten to show it off to anyone. That to me was like knowing how to fly, and having to walk all your life. ‘Then we’ll make some other stuff like cake pops, more cupcakes, napoleons, tarts, those kinda things.’

Junggi looked worried. ‘Are you sure you can make all those things? Because I have no clue how to make any of those things...’

I laughed, ‘don’t worry, I’ll tell you exactly what you need to do, so as long as you can follow instructions, we’ll be fine.’

Junggi beamed, ‘then lets go!’

I nodded, ‘if you can go grab the flour, sugar, butter, milk and eggs from the store room. Be careful, the flour is very heavy, it’s a big bag.’ I passed her the keys to the store room. She took them and bounced off to retrieve the ingredients.

I took the chance to get out all the mixing bowls, whisks and other baking tools I had brought from home. I had way too much baking stuff at home. It was one of the only boxes I had bothered to unpack because I needed to hide all the stuff. I keep it in a locked cupboard.

… I do a lot of sneaking around, don’t I?

‘Oppa,’ a small whimpering sound came from the store room. I left the cooking equipment to go see what was the matter.

Junggi was on her front, on the floor with a massive bag of flour on top of her, keeping her from moving. I didn’t know whether to laugh, or to jump in to action to help her. Luckily for me, Junggi started laughing loudly, allowing me to both rescue her, and laugh at her at the same time without feeling any guilt.

‘Sorry, Oppa, I was just trying to carry it on my back… and it was heavier than I thought...’

I smiled. Junggi, it seemed, was quickly becoming one of my favorite people. I didn’t even mind she called me “Oppa”, even though I hated it when anyone else said it, and hated it even more when Subin used it.

‘I guess I’ll get the flour then and you can get the rest,’ I laughed, and staggered back into the kitchen with the industrial sized bag I had picked up at CostCo whilst shopping with drunk Jjong the day before.

Junggi returned into the kitchen with the butter, sugar, milk and eggs piled up in her arms. I helped her place them all down, and we got down to work.

=^--^=

Five hours of baking later, and it was only 1pm. Even though we had worked for hours, the energy in the kitchen was still high, and Junggi’s bouncing had become infectious. So far we had made eleven double layer Victoria Sponges, 400 lemon drizzle cupcakes, baked and assembled the croquembouche; the profitaroles and napoleons were baking.

We both jumped as we heard the kitchen door open. Minho was wearing a pair of jogging bottoms and no shirt, showing fully his six pack which I had spent oh-so-much time fantasizing about. Just looking at him sent shivers down my spine. And as if that wasn’t attractive enough, he was sleepily rubbing his eyes and giving both Junggi and I a dazed look. He was the cutest froggie I had ever seen (sorry Junggi (I’m not really sorry Junggi)).

‘Am I hallucinating? This must be a dream,’ he mumbled to himself, ‘why else would my cousin and my best friend be standing in my kitchen first thing in the morning with so much cake?’

My heart dropped. The cake. The secret I had spent so long keeping from him was about to come out. Admittedly it wasn’t the biggest secret he would have found out (aka me fancying the pants off him and fancying the pants off him even more), but it was still up there! But then again, I had known in the back of my mind Minho would find out if I helped Junggi in the kitchen of his pub. Maybe, just maybe I had sabotaged myself a little because I couldn’t cope with it all.

Maybe.

‘It’s not really first thing in the morning...’ Junggi said softly. She looked a little confused. Maybe she assumed I would have asked Minho before using his kitchen. That probably would have been the logical thing to do if I was capable of thinking logically with a broken heart.

‘It’s like 1pm! That’s early for a Sunday, you should know that Junggi, you’re like 13 right? So a teenager. Aren’t you meant to sleep in until dinner time?’ He groaned rubbing his sleepy eyes again. His forehead crinkled, as he strained his ears to hear a response.

‘She’s fourteen,’ I said simply.

‘And I never get up later than 9am.’

‘Oh, sorry Junggi,’ Minho yawned, ‘it’s hard to keep track of all the family’s ages.’

‘Yeah I know,’ Junggi smiled, ‘it’s no biggie,’ she walked up to Minho and gave him a big hug. I didn’t even feel a pang of jealousy that she was getting to hug the topless Minho. I guess it’s because they’re cousins, and because she’s fast becoming my little sister.

Minho nodded. Junggi stepped back out of the hug, and looked towards the oven for a long moment.

‘Oppa, I think the profiteroles are ready.’

‘Oh really?’ I peeped into the oven. ‘Oh, you’re right,’ I laughed, putting on some oven gloves, Junggi opened the oven door for me, ‘we’ll make a cook out of you yet, Jung Junggi.’

She beamed.

‘I hate to break this moment up, but what exactly are you two doing in my kitchen?’ Minho asked loudly. I knew before I even faced him he was going to be pouting. He hates being ignored.

‘Oh, I told Junggi I would help her because she was told she needed to put on her school’s bake sale.’

Minho rubbed his eyes for a third time.

‘Since when were you two in contact with each other?’

‘We hung out at your wedding, and then Oppa saw me on my way home from school the other day and asked if I wanted to go shopping with him, so I did. It was fun!’

Minho looked at me for confirmation. I nodded. ‘Her parents were too busy to help her with the baking so I volunteered as her adopted big brother.’

Minho relaxed as he heard the word “brother”. It seemed like he was worried I had been hitting on his 14 year old cousin…. ew.

Minho looked around himself and blinked a few times. ‘Wait,’ he blinked again, ‘are you two seriously telling me you baked all this? It’s so fancy looking, especially that,’ he demanded pointing at the croquembouche.

‘Oppa made everything! He’s so good at it, isn’t he? All I did was mix what he told me to, and weigh what he told me to.’

Minho’s eyes widened, ‘since when could you bake Jin?’

I blushed, staring into a golden sponge cake to avoid his gaze. ‘Since always,’ was the only thing I could think to say.

‘Minho-Oppa, what are you doing down here though if you just woke up?’ Junggi suddenly asked. I looked up from the cake to see Minho’s reaction. It was weird he was down here. ‘Don’t you have a kitchen upstairs in your apartment?’

He did have one upstairs. I had cooked for him in it many times.

Minho looked uneasy. ‘Um… I was going for a walk,’ he said. My eyes flicked down to his abs.

‘With no shirt on?’

‘Um...’ was his lame response.

Junggi and I exchanged a look. We both knew he was lying, but the only conclusion I could draw was that Junggi was mentally much older than her years.

My brain sprang into motion. Where could be be going in his pyjamas? His car was always parked around the back of the building, so logically he must have been walking through the kitchen to get to it. But there wasn’t many places he could be going. He couldn’t have been going shopping or anything, he couldn’t have been going to his parent’s house (my many sleepovers at the Choi’s had taught me there was nothing Mrs Choi hated more than the boys not wearing their shirts, she thought it looked cheap, and was convinced they would freeze to death without them). He wouldn’t have turned up at any of his extended family’s houses in this state… he wouldn’t have turned up at my parent’s house like this. Or Gwiboon’s, or Sunny’s, or Jonghyun’s, which only lead one option…

He was coming to see me.

He had come to my house in his pyjamas before. Since my apartment block had an underground car park there was no reason for him to see anyone he knew when he got out of the car.

But why?

Why would be be coming to my house early on a Sunday morning, without Subin who he had seemingly snook away from to leave without her knowing. And more importantly why was he lying about it now.

Suddenly a tiny flame of hope light in my heart.

And it burned.

It burned more than thinking I had zero percent chance. Thinking I had even 0.00001% of a chance hurt.

Because it made me think if I had told him before he met Subin, something good might have happened.

I tried to crush the flame.

‘Uhh… I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be back to taste some of this cake in a bit, I’m sure the bake sale can afford to spare some,’ he laughed shakily before quickly turning and leaving.

I tried to put it out.

But it wouldn’t go out. It was there, burning me from the inside, and Minho’s uneasy expression was pouring petrol on it.

Heyyyyyyyy

I stayed up late last night to write this for you guys because I knew I wouldn't have time today because MY TOWN'S FAIR IS ON!!

I currently have confetti on my face and I'm ready to par-tay... after I do my homework!

Please review!

p.s, I planned the end of the story yesterday! 

p.p.s, we're still very far away from it