One day, at the dorms, after a less tiring day of schedules than usual...

Donghae is bored. Very, very bored. And if you know Donghae at all, you also know that a bored Donghae is basically synonymous with disaster. Therefore, as Leeteuk would reason out later, nursing his pounding headache, everything that occurred beyond this point could be blamed on whichever idiot failed to entertain him sufficiently.

Well, or Donghae himself. But it was much easier to blame someone else; Donghae made the most heartbreaking kicked-puppy faces when he was being yelled at.

Donghae is sprawled on the couch, lazily flipping through channels on the TV in an attempt to find something good to watch. He makes frustrated noises every time the screen flashes in a promising way, only to display some boring news story or old drama he really has no interest in rewatching.

Where have all the good cartoons gone? he complained internally. I've seen this drama at least four times. As he flips past an ad for a vegetable chopper or something equally domestic, a long forgotten memory zooms to the front of his brain, making him jump up in excitement. Siwon had mentioned something the other day about having a DVD of some kid's show involving talking vegetables from America. He had offered to share it with Donghae, so they could both improve their English skills. Plus, he had figured (correctly) that talking produce would be the kind of thing Donghae would enjoy.

Grinning, Donghae ran over to Heechul's room, where Siwon was currently sitting on a bed, re-reading the bible for the fifth time. He burst into the room rather dramatically and told Siwon of his brilliant idea.

"Hyung, remember that cartoon you told me about- the one with the talking food?"

Siwon lowers his bible a bit and eyes Donghae over the top.

"I do...." he says slowly.

"I think we should go watch it now," Donghae says with a happy bounce.

They have an hour before dinner, which is plenty of time to watch a half-an-hour cartoon. Siwon is delighted at his proposal, and hurries off to find the DVD. Donghae bounces around impatiently waiting for him to return, which Heechul does his best to ignore as he browses his fansites. A few minutes later, Siwon comes back with a dejected look on his face.

"Bad news," he sighs. "Apparently, one of the managers took it. The company was interested in the concept of dancing vegetables, and wanted to review the DVD for some ideas for one of our next music videos."

Shindong happened to overhear this conversation as he was passing by, and poked his head through the doorway, appalled at what he was hearing. 

"No way," he told them confidently. "There is no way that would ever happen. No one could ever pull off a vegetable costume, not even us."

Heechul thought about it for a while. "I don't know. Maybe you guys couldn't, but I bet I would be ridiculously hot in a red pepper costume."

Their manager in the next room had heard everything, and quickly sent a text to his boss:

The boys don't like the idea of vegetable costumes. Let's come up with something else.

The only problem was, the manager was using an iPhone, which auto-corrected everything. So what the man in charge of Super Junior's concepts actually read was this:

The boys do like the idea of vegetable costumes. Leeteuk came up with something each.

The man smiled. How cute. Leeteuk already had ideas for everyone's costumes. He made a few calls, then sat back in his chair happily. If everything went smoothly, the boys would have their vegetable costumes in no time.

A year later, when they were all dancing around in vegetable costumes for SS3, everyone blamed Siwon. He was punished by doing everyone's laundry for two months. It was only two months because the first week of the third month, Eunhyuk had gone to the gym, and thrown some particularly smelly socks in the laundry basket. Siwon, oblivious guy that he was, picked it up with his bare hands. And ended up unconcious on the linoleum floor. 

Eunhyuk did his own laundry from then on.

But of course, that wasn't the end of things...

"You have got to be kidding me," Shindong gasps.

Heechul looks torn between wanting to laugh at the obvious pain on everyone else's face and wanting to march straight to Lee Sooman himself and demand contract termination.

"It was bad enough that we looked like complete idiots on stage," Leeteuk says in a strangled tone. "But now you want us...on TV?!" He gasps. Kangin gives him a sidelong glance and hopes that their leader isn't about to pop a blood vessel.

Their manager his best to encourage them, "It's for the children of Seoul- you'll be teaching them important values that they'll need for later in life. Think of it as the ultimate display of nationalism!"

Kyuhyun raises his hand. "Isn't SHINee better suited for this kind of thing? I mean, no offense to them, but they are a lot closer to the age group that you're aiming for."

The other members don't even try suppressing their giggles, making the manager hyung roll his eyes. "Ha ha, Kyuhyun," he says sarcastically. "SHINee doesn't have enough people to do this kind of thing- this is a show about all kinds of vegetables. Besides, you already have the costumes!"

Siwon looks around. "Am I the only one who's excited about this?" He asks in a pouty voice.

Apparently not, because Donghae is jumping up and down in his seat grinning like he was just promised a three-day trip to Disneyworld. "If you like to talk to tomatoes~" he sings in badly accented English.

"If a squash can make you smile~" Siwon sings along.

Heechul thows a pair of shoes at the two of them. He misses Donghae, but gets Siwon square in the face.