[fic] shinee; let them eat cake
let them eat cake; gen, slight jonghyun/onew, mentioned jonghyun/kyuhyun
1556 words. rated g.
♦ shinee ventures into the cake building process; jinki has many regrets.
♦ for subtleslide’s replay4japan bid. sorry this is so late.
“You’re building,” Jinki starts, voice somewhat wary because he is positive he heard incorrectly, “a cake?”
Jonghyun checks off his shopping list as he goes about the store with Minho pushing the cart beside him. He stops only to nod his head, so vigorously Jinki fears he’ll snap his neck; which he doesn’t, thankfully, because Jinki would rather not have to explain such situations to the managers. He does, however, knock his chin to his chest. The subsequent grimace paired alongside the pout clues them all in on who will get his way.
Kibum takes the list from Jonghyun’s hands, eyeing the contents of the list with what Jinki can only guess is a scrutinizing and judgmental eye. “Any reason as to why…?”
“Kyuhyun’s birthday, of course,” Jonghyun states, and the almost incredulous tone he takes on seems to signify they should all have known. Jinki attempts a good-natured grin to play off the fact he hadn’t really thought about it.
Taemin swings around from his place near the dairy section of the market and sidles beside Jonghyun. “You do know his birthday is in,” he glances up to the ceiling as he counts aloud the days, weeks, months, “like, three months, right?”
A sheepish expression graces Jonghyun’s face, and Minho accidentally rolls the shopping cart’s wheels over Kibum’s left foot.
“Well, yeah, but,” he rubs the back of his head, and then continues, “I wanted to be prepared.”
Taemin nods along with what he says. “It would be tragic if you killed him before you got around to professing your undying love or whatever.”
Jonghyun sinks into himself, and Jinki tries to not coo at the sight while maintaining his leader-like dignity. He opts for the stern, leader face he picked up from Jungsu; if all else fails, he pull out his modified boss face he learned from Seohyun. It’s more effective anyway.
Taemin shrugs his shoulders to his attempts and wanders back to the dairy section in search of banana milk.
Jinki sighs, and upon seeing Jonghyun’s forlorn expression, slings his arm around his shoulder. “We’ll help you, Jonghyunnie. Right?” He prompts the others with his boss face, and Kibum groans his acquiescence. Minho smiles in, what Jinki hopes is, encouragement.
An hour into the process, Jinki begins to regret his hasty agreement. He has icing on his fingers, flour in places he’d rather not think about, and there is more cake on the floor than in the pan.
“You. Owe. Me,” Kibum says sometime between slipping over the mess in the floor and glaring at Jinki. He emphasizes his words by beating the eggs just a bit harder in the mixing bowl after he straightens himself up. Jinki takes a few steps backward to check on the others.
Jonghyun is singing while he attempts to create the “perfect icing”-whatever that is. So far it’s a mess of white cream and a colorful arrangement of dye. But he’s cute with his tongue sticking out of the right corner of his mouth, lips parted just so; Jinki lets him be. Minho is meticulous where the others are not, and even if whatever he makes is inedible, at least it will look nice. Taemin says he’s being moral support from the living room, and even though Jinki would’ve liked to protest, Taemin being far away from the kitchen is for the best.
Jinki wipes the flour from his cheek with his clean hand and decides that it could be worse.
Four hours later, and the cake is at last removed from the oven. Kibum only reached for the fire extinguisher twice, so that was a miraculous feat in an of itself. Jinki applauds them mentally for their efforts because at least they didn’t burn down the kitchen this time.
“Do you think it’s edible…?” Jinki isn’t sure who says it, too engrossed with the way the cake seems to indent in the middle, almost wetly. But, judging from the horrified look Kibum is wearing across his face, he’s assuming it had been Kibum.
Minho pokes it with a fork and a loud hiss erupts along with a burst of steam. He frowns. “Is that supposed to happen?”
Jonghyun, though, retains his default expression and claps Minho’s shoulder. “Of course. Who wants the first bite?”
Minho pushes Taemin forward in what Jinki assumes a heroic manner. They all watch in varying degrees of excitement (Jonghyun) and horror (Kibum) as Taemin forks a small piece of the cake.
“It’s not bad,” he says, chewing slowly. He shrugs his shoulders and takes another bite.
The room collectively releases a breath.
Sometime during their group bonding time of popcorn and B-grade horror films, Taemin makes a sound similar to a kicked puppy and then a puppy who just was hit by a car. He hops up from his seat beside Minho, knocks over the popcorn kernels, and barely shuts the door before everyone else hears the retching.
Jonghyun releases his handful of popcorn. “Wow, never knew popcorn had that effect on someone. We should stop buying this brand.”
Jinki bites his bottom lip and remains focused on the television screen. Minho, like the good and polite band mate he is, dutifully turns the volume up over Taemin’s bathroom woes.
“I think I’m dying,” Taemin wails above the noise of a girl having her head blown up, and Jinki jumps at the sound.
Jonghyun pauses the film, says, “Can you wait a minute? The movie’s just getting good.”
Everything is quiet as they await a response, and Jinki is two seconds away from retrieving Taemin’s dead body and coming up with an excuse for the fans as to why he’s no longer in the band. Eloped with an older Japanese lady? Joined the circus? Died because of a Jonghyun cake-building attempt?
“I hate you all,” Taemin says flintily when he returns, still a sickly pallor and clutching his stomach. He turns to Jonghyun and points a shaking finger his way. “Especially you.”
“What did I do?”
Taemin appears to be hysterical by this point, and Jinki is no less of a man or leader for taking cover behind Minho. “What did you do? You made the cake!”
“There was nothing wrong with the cake.” Jonghyun stands up and walks to the kitchen where the cake lies in the center of their table. He takes a forkful and places it in his mouth to demonstrate. “See? It’s absolutely-” He spits the cake back out. “This is worse than our explosive dumplings, Minho! I could have killed Kyuhyun with this cake…monster!”
Now that both Taemin and Jonghyun are involved in their hysterics, Jinki squeezes between and behind Kibum and Minho.
Later, with Kibum on clean-up duty (“I mean it. You. Owe. Me. Big. Time.”) and Minho watching over Taemin to make sure he doesn’t dehydrate or die, Jinki sits beside Jonghyun who looks at his cake with sad eyes and pouty lips. He places a comforting hand on Jonghyun’s shoulder, and he thinks what would Yunho do in a situation like this-he’d call forth a group hug, and Jinki’d rather avoid Taemin and Kibum for the time being.
“What am I going to do now?”
“Um, try again?”
Jonghyun snorts. Jinki laughs and pulls him closer.
“Well, you still have three months!” Jinki says this in his most positive voice; it flattens when Jonghyun frowns at him. “You’ll think of something, and we’ll… support you,” and he hopes he doesn’t regret saying it either. “Get some sleep.”
“I’ll destroy this first,” Jonghyun says and gestures toward the lumpy cake.
Jinki scratches the back of his neck, and then nods. “That’s probably a good idea. I’ll be in bed, with one eye open, so. See you tomorrow, Jonghyun.” He walks toward his room only to pause, look back, and say, “And don’t feed it to Jinho.”
(What happens to the cake is this: Jonghyun takes the stairs because the elevator could become polluted with the cake’s malevolent odors. He is almost to the bottom when he passes Kyuhyun.
“Oh, hey, Kyuhyun,” he says in what he hopes is his smooth voice, equipped with his lady killer smile.
“Hey.” Kyuhyun glances down to the cake in Jonghyun’s hands. “What’s that?”
Jonghyun shuffles a bit. He should’ve worn shoes. “It’s a cake. It almost killed Taemin.”
Kyuhyun’s eyes widen and eyebrows disappear behind his fringe. “If it did, you could have Henry.”
“No, thanks,” Jonghyun says and shakes his head. He readjusts the cake in his hands, covered with a plastic bag to keep if from contaminating anyone who comes in contact with it. “I guess I should throw this away now.” He bobs his head in way of saying goodbye and makes his way toward the back exit.
Kyuhyun calling his name out stops him.
“I have an idea,” Kyuhyun says, and he has this certain gleam in his eyes. Jonghyun knows that gleam; what Kyuhyun is about to say, Jonghyun knows he’ll agree to. “Let’s feed it to Jinho.”)
extra notes oh, shinee, how i've missed you so ;w; ♥
half written over the summer, partly written in august, finished/editted in november. to subtleslide: if it’s not what you want anymore, just let me know and i’ll write you something else :’(! i swear i'll write you something better ;_;
special thanks to nautisch who is amazing to talk to on twitter. a thank you will never be enough ♥
1556 words. rated g.
♦ shinee ventures into the cake building process; jinki has many regrets.
♦ for subtleslide’s replay4japan bid. sorry this is so late.
“You’re building,” Jinki starts, voice somewhat wary because he is positive he heard incorrectly, “a cake?”
Jonghyun checks off his shopping list as he goes about the store with Minho pushing the cart beside him. He stops only to nod his head, so vigorously Jinki fears he’ll snap his neck; which he doesn’t, thankfully, because Jinki would rather not have to explain such situations to the managers. He does, however, knock his chin to his chest. The subsequent grimace paired alongside the pout clues them all in on who will get his way.
Kibum takes the list from Jonghyun’s hands, eyeing the contents of the list with what Jinki can only guess is a scrutinizing and judgmental eye. “Any reason as to why…?”
“Kyuhyun’s birthday, of course,” Jonghyun states, and the almost incredulous tone he takes on seems to signify they should all have known. Jinki attempts a good-natured grin to play off the fact he hadn’t really thought about it.
Taemin swings around from his place near the dairy section of the market and sidles beside Jonghyun. “You do know his birthday is in,” he glances up to the ceiling as he counts aloud the days, weeks, months, “like, three months, right?”
A sheepish expression graces Jonghyun’s face, and Minho accidentally rolls the shopping cart’s wheels over Kibum’s left foot.
“Well, yeah, but,” he rubs the back of his head, and then continues, “I wanted to be prepared.”
Taemin nods along with what he says. “It would be tragic if you killed him before you got around to professing your undying love or whatever.”
Jonghyun sinks into himself, and Jinki tries to not coo at the sight while maintaining his leader-like dignity. He opts for the stern, leader face he picked up from Jungsu; if all else fails, he pull out his modified boss face he learned from Seohyun. It’s more effective anyway.
Taemin shrugs his shoulders to his attempts and wanders back to the dairy section in search of banana milk.
Jinki sighs, and upon seeing Jonghyun’s forlorn expression, slings his arm around his shoulder. “We’ll help you, Jonghyunnie. Right?” He prompts the others with his boss face, and Kibum groans his acquiescence. Minho smiles in, what Jinki hopes is, encouragement.
An hour into the process, Jinki begins to regret his hasty agreement. He has icing on his fingers, flour in places he’d rather not think about, and there is more cake on the floor than in the pan.
“You. Owe. Me,” Kibum says sometime between slipping over the mess in the floor and glaring at Jinki. He emphasizes his words by beating the eggs just a bit harder in the mixing bowl after he straightens himself up. Jinki takes a few steps backward to check on the others.
Jonghyun is singing while he attempts to create the “perfect icing”-whatever that is. So far it’s a mess of white cream and a colorful arrangement of dye. But he’s cute with his tongue sticking out of the right corner of his mouth, lips parted just so; Jinki lets him be. Minho is meticulous where the others are not, and even if whatever he makes is inedible, at least it will look nice. Taemin says he’s being moral support from the living room, and even though Jinki would’ve liked to protest, Taemin being far away from the kitchen is for the best.
Jinki wipes the flour from his cheek with his clean hand and decides that it could be worse.
Four hours later, and the cake is at last removed from the oven. Kibum only reached for the fire extinguisher twice, so that was a miraculous feat in an of itself. Jinki applauds them mentally for their efforts because at least they didn’t burn down the kitchen this time.
“Do you think it’s edible…?” Jinki isn’t sure who says it, too engrossed with the way the cake seems to indent in the middle, almost wetly. But, judging from the horrified look Kibum is wearing across his face, he’s assuming it had been Kibum.
Minho pokes it with a fork and a loud hiss erupts along with a burst of steam. He frowns. “Is that supposed to happen?”
Jonghyun, though, retains his default expression and claps Minho’s shoulder. “Of course. Who wants the first bite?”
Minho pushes Taemin forward in what Jinki assumes a heroic manner. They all watch in varying degrees of excitement (Jonghyun) and horror (Kibum) as Taemin forks a small piece of the cake.
“It’s not bad,” he says, chewing slowly. He shrugs his shoulders and takes another bite.
The room collectively releases a breath.
Sometime during their group bonding time of popcorn and B-grade horror films, Taemin makes a sound similar to a kicked puppy and then a puppy who just was hit by a car. He hops up from his seat beside Minho, knocks over the popcorn kernels, and barely shuts the door before everyone else hears the retching.
Jonghyun releases his handful of popcorn. “Wow, never knew popcorn had that effect on someone. We should stop buying this brand.”
Jinki bites his bottom lip and remains focused on the television screen. Minho, like the good and polite band mate he is, dutifully turns the volume up over Taemin’s bathroom woes.
“I think I’m dying,” Taemin wails above the noise of a girl having her head blown up, and Jinki jumps at the sound.
Jonghyun pauses the film, says, “Can you wait a minute? The movie’s just getting good.”
Everything is quiet as they await a response, and Jinki is two seconds away from retrieving Taemin’s dead body and coming up with an excuse for the fans as to why he’s no longer in the band. Eloped with an older Japanese lady? Joined the circus? Died because of a Jonghyun cake-building attempt?
“I hate you all,” Taemin says flintily when he returns, still a sickly pallor and clutching his stomach. He turns to Jonghyun and points a shaking finger his way. “Especially you.”
“What did I do?”
Taemin appears to be hysterical by this point, and Jinki is no less of a man or leader for taking cover behind Minho. “What did you do? You made the cake!”
“There was nothing wrong with the cake.” Jonghyun stands up and walks to the kitchen where the cake lies in the center of their table. He takes a forkful and places it in his mouth to demonstrate. “See? It’s absolutely-” He spits the cake back out. “This is worse than our explosive dumplings, Minho! I could have killed Kyuhyun with this cake…monster!”
Now that both Taemin and Jonghyun are involved in their hysterics, Jinki squeezes between and behind Kibum and Minho.
Later, with Kibum on clean-up duty (“I mean it. You. Owe. Me. Big. Time.”) and Minho watching over Taemin to make sure he doesn’t dehydrate or die, Jinki sits beside Jonghyun who looks at his cake with sad eyes and pouty lips. He places a comforting hand on Jonghyun’s shoulder, and he thinks what would Yunho do in a situation like this-he’d call forth a group hug, and Jinki’d rather avoid Taemin and Kibum for the time being.
“What am I going to do now?”
“Um, try again?”
Jonghyun snorts. Jinki laughs and pulls him closer.
“Well, you still have three months!” Jinki says this in his most positive voice; it flattens when Jonghyun frowns at him. “You’ll think of something, and we’ll… support you,” and he hopes he doesn’t regret saying it either. “Get some sleep.”
“I’ll destroy this first,” Jonghyun says and gestures toward the lumpy cake.
Jinki scratches the back of his neck, and then nods. “That’s probably a good idea. I’ll be in bed, with one eye open, so. See you tomorrow, Jonghyun.” He walks toward his room only to pause, look back, and say, “And don’t feed it to Jinho.”
(What happens to the cake is this: Jonghyun takes the stairs because the elevator could become polluted with the cake’s malevolent odors. He is almost to the bottom when he passes Kyuhyun.
“Oh, hey, Kyuhyun,” he says in what he hopes is his smooth voice, equipped with his lady killer smile.
“Hey.” Kyuhyun glances down to the cake in Jonghyun’s hands. “What’s that?”
Jonghyun shuffles a bit. He should’ve worn shoes. “It’s a cake. It almost killed Taemin.”
Kyuhyun’s eyes widen and eyebrows disappear behind his fringe. “If it did, you could have Henry.”
“No, thanks,” Jonghyun says and shakes his head. He readjusts the cake in his hands, covered with a plastic bag to keep if from contaminating anyone who comes in contact with it. “I guess I should throw this away now.” He bobs his head in way of saying goodbye and makes his way toward the back exit.
Kyuhyun calling his name out stops him.
“I have an idea,” Kyuhyun says, and he has this certain gleam in his eyes. Jonghyun knows that gleam; what Kyuhyun is about to say, Jonghyun knows he’ll agree to. “Let’s feed it to Jinho.”)
extra notes oh, shinee, how i've missed you so ;w; ♥
half written over the summer, partly written in august, finished/editted in november. to subtleslide: if it’s not what you want anymore, just let me know and i’ll write you something else :’(! i swear i'll write you something better ;_;
special thanks to nautisch who is amazing to talk to on twitter. a thank you will never be enough ♥