fic: To Make My Bread
Title: To Make My Bread
Author: dria1029
Pairing: Jongtae
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Sexual content. But other than that, for sake of plot, I’m not going to say. Only know that if you have a weak stomach this is not the fic for you. And if you’ve seen Hannibal, you already know what you’re in for.
Summary: Aspiring student Lee Taemin is accepted into a special culinary program ran by the nation’s chef genius- a man with an acquired taste for more than what meets the eye…
Word Count: 4,400+
a/n: Halloween is over, I know, lemme lone.
Taemin no less expected the sprawling, luxurious estate to be overrun with white clothed workers tending to the vegetation. Once he was buzzed in through the high gates, no doubt he was impressed and amazed and probably a little in disbelief that he’d be working in a place like this, but he couldn’t say he was surprised. The myths had all been true. In fact, even the myths did no justice to what lay before him, vibrant, aristocratic, green and dazzling in the late afternoon sun. He could almost gawk at the fountain he passed with the large, marble sculpture of a pair of chopsticks.
Yet when one of the great doors to the mansion swings open, and Taemin nearly sails back from the sight of the electrified blond man with the blood-splattered apron, he has to admit, he is surprised at the stark contrast of the fancy front yard to the blond’s crude appearance. No, he wasn’t expecting that.
Avoiding eye contact with the staring older man, Taemin coughs briefly into his fist and goes to bow in greeting. He isn’t able to lean back up from his 90 degrees before he hears a huffy, bored, “New guy?”
“Yes sir, I was chosen at the audition-
“Then follow me please. And leave your bags by the door, the maids will take them to your room.” Stepping aside, eyes with heavy mascara regard Taemin in unnecessary contempt. “Quickly now!”
“Oh-ah! Sorry, coming sir!” The young chef bows again as he scurries in, and the impatient blond rolls his eyes. Once Taemin leaves his shoes and bags at the door, he finds himself swept up in a flurry, trying to keep up to the fast walking guy Who talked just as fast as he walked.
“God you don’t look like you could lift a thing.” He tosses his perfectly made up head back at the boy struggling to keep up. “I’m Kim Kibum, The Kitchen God’s favorite and only cousin. But you, like the rest of the underling peasants who work here, will only know me as Sunbaenim and second in command in TKG’s kitchen. Understand?”
“Yes Su-
“Not Kibum-ssi, not Kim-sunbae, and especially not Key. Only TKG calls me Key and I suggest you don’t listen to those uncouth dishwashers who will tell you that calling me Key is okay because let me tell you now, there’s that infantile tradition still going around-to fuck with the new guy and all that initiation bullshit but I’ll say it again, I suggest you stuff your little ears and worry about your future here. Be it as brief or as long as you like, depending on your attitude.” Key sniffs back at the boy, his purple crocs halting on the long Oriental rug. “How slow are you, huh? Wanna work in my kitchen and you’re dragging your fucking toes, oh you have another thing coming! Chop chop, I need this orientation over with so I can get back to my soufflé.”
“Coming sunbaenim. Sorry sunbaenim.” Taemin takes a few breaths once he’s side by side with the older-who takes off again without warning. Making Taemin frown a tad, resisting the urge to say something smart about how someone so important was stuck showing someone like him the ropes.
But his excitement to be one of The Kitchen God’s students blankets his sass, so he follows the stuck up blond down the never ending halls of the mansion eagerly, too focused on what Key instructs and bewares and brags about to really take in the wealth whizzing by him. That fresh mind of his is in for a dose of wonder when the last stop is the kitchen-a quarter that is about half the size of a football field, glittering with the finest of cookery and bustling with the bees of the hive, the men and women currently stirring pots, shaking pans, and chopping vegetables. Eyes wide, Taemin slides past all the hard workers, inhaling the raw spices and herbs. His mouth watering for both what he can see and smell, and to, very soon, be a part of the apprentice network going on before him.
After nodding back to some of the bakers, the humbly dressed boy has smiles that are a mile wide. As he waits for Key to finish his impromptu scolding at one of the garnish-girls, he sponges up the environment-something occurring to him a second later, what seems to be missing.
“Sunbaenim,” he cuts into Key’s disapproving tirade. “Where’s TKG-sunbaenim?”
“First of all, you’re excused,” the blond bites as he faces him, jolting Taemin fully back to reality. “And to answer your useless question, Master TKG is wherever he wants to be, which is never none of your concern.” He waves away the short girl in disgust, snapping in the dark-haired’s boy’s face to get his attention. “Hey! Stop daydreaming and wipe that frown off your mouth. Listen.”
Doe eyes blink back at him in disappointment anyway.
“Speaking of questions, I forgot to mention the most important rule. You’ll do best not to ever direct a question to the Master. Never question him. And if you do have questions, lay them on me. Even then, keep them to a minimum or figure things out for yourself. This isn’t a daycare and don’t expect anyone to hold your hand. Understand?” That slender, knobby finger wags.
“Yes Sunbaenim.”
“That’ll do. Now I’ll have one of maids see to it that you are shown to your room and given your uniform.”
“Yes Sunbae-
“Ugh, don’t wear it out.” Key rolls his eyes and leads them out the kitchen, oblivious to the sea of bowing chef hats. In the hall outside, he calls a name and an ajumma with a bonnet clicks over from out of the blue. She bows deeply, takes instructions from the pompous character and in a matter of a minute, Taemin is finding himself ushered off into the wing where the students are housed, holey socks slipping on the waxed wooden floors.
On the way to his new keep does Taemin finally have the time to muse of the grand architecture, artifacts and whimsical dining theme of the mansion. Gazing into the brilliance of one of the chandeliers once he’s on the third floor, Taemin still can’t believe he was chosen out of hundreds of people to work under Korea’s most prestigious chef. Still can’t fathom that this Charlie and Chocolate Factory-type place was going to be his home for the next year.
Yet Taemin is pulled back into the thoughts of his mysterious boss as he and the maid pass a wall length, oil painting of a familiar, handsome man. His face just as stoic and proud and poetic and regal under the minimal spotlight as Taemin remembered from the magazines.
He locks eyes with the portrait-with Kim Jonghyun’s dark eyes, not his pseudonym’s- and on some odd whim, Taemin distinctively picks up a faint scent of death.
One in which he shrugs off as if it didn’t exist, berates his imagination for and buries as he continues to follow the tiny woman.
****
There are so many rules. Of course rules not as important as the one Key told him on the first day, but still.
Don’t go wandering around the mansion freely. Stay out of this room, don’t even get within five feet of that room. The dining room is off limits to everyone except by TKG’s permission.
I don’t care about how much skill you have, Twiggy, you’re still not allowed to cut the potatoes into farm animals. Cooking is a fine art, not a lowly craft for simpletons!
Stop eating lunch in the east garden, don’t you know that’s Master’s private reading spot?
No, you can’t wear that. Why?-Because it’s ugly, that’s why? Don’t you know where you are?
Have you no home training? That’s unsanitary, don’t put that there! Are you daft?
It was as if they were the mutual bane of the other’s existence, Taemin and Mr. Second-in-command. Key to nag Taemin into an early grave, singling him out for every little mishap and making up rules on the spot just to torture him. Taemin to annoy Key incessantly, sometimes purposely messing up to rile him, sometimes doing so well that he rivaled Key’s cooking abilities. When he wasn’t working, Taemin sat back with the same dishwashers Almightly Key told him to be wary of, snickering about how much of a tool box the blond was. Jinki, the senior baker, who was Taemin’s favorite peer so far despite their age gap, joined in their antics now and then. Well, his favorite peer whenever the elder didn’t tease him about being Key’s “baby” or “sweetheart”, since Key was thought to be sweet on the people he nagged the most.
Naturally, however, it was the mansion’s owner, the staff’s superior, that Taemin was most fascinated with. Of all the splendors and perks of living there, Taemin couldn’t forget the reason he was there, and that reason outranked everything else just as assumed.
Though…Taemin would have never guessed the gradual turn of his fascination.
For while in the first two months of studying under Jonghyun, eagerly absorbing what precious, culinary knowledge the man taught three days out the week, in the kitchen, classroom and gardens, Taemin was all ears, eyes, hands-you name it. Senses attuned to that melodic voice that was neither too pitched nor too growl-like. He was happy to be there, delighting under the occasional, praising hand of Jonghyun’s on his shoulder, beaming under the envious stares of the others. For the most part, humbly retaining his spot as top student.
Then as he came to really get adjusted to his teacher’s presence, Taemin began to notice more than just what met the surface. Or rather, he made it his business to notice, considering his high adulation and respect of the man.
Jonghyun was like most of the well-off bachelors Taemin had seen in dramas. Kept to himself a lot, wasn’t a man of many words if he wasn’t in front of his students. He wasn’t much in the height department, but he made up for it with a charisma that was as intimidating or as inviting as he wanted it to be. Unlike his cousin’s, his hair was of a more subtle blond intertwined with blacks and browns; a tiny goatee on his chin. On days he was most comfortable, he wore sweater vests. The days he wouldn’t be teaching, he wore what Taemin liked most-er, thought fit him best-creased pants with a thin belt, dark dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, and a thoughtful expression. Usually dressed like this, he roamed his own halls, kindly greeting everyone in his path. Taemin admired how reserved he was, how he seldom saw him get upset-no, scratch that, Taemin had yet to see him angry. Even with the many mistakes in the kitchen, as where mistakes are prone to happen.
His smile, more lip and less teeth, seemed to catch the sun-day or night- every time he told his students to do well before any assignment or challenge-which was, very pleasantly, often. Taemin couldn’t blame the female staff for fawning over Jonghyun because hell, he was just about to that point as well, even with his own little entourage of student fan girls.
In the world of culinary arts, it was rare to find a teacher so fair, so fortunate, so gifted and so god awfully attractive as Kim Jonghyun.
So again, why should he care that he was obsessed? Why did he have to heed-an unusually sincere-Key about being meddlesome?
It wouldn’t hurt to dig a little deeper into his interesting idol, so Taemin went with his instincts to approach the man every chance he got.
And little by little, he got what he wanted.
He learned just how interesting of a man Jonghyun was by the man’s own favoritism of him, Lee Taemin, the top student in his unorthodox school.
Kim Jonghyun had a strange…hobby, as it turned out.
His personal life was a normal one as far as famous lives go, but Taemin had to seriously wonder of the tasks he was given and told to keep confidential. In Jonghyun’s chambers was a secret, tiny room , the kind only accessed by a pulled book, and within the secret room was a bound girl Taemin was to prepare specific meals for and feed every day. The room was modestly and comfortably furnished but the metal cuffs on the girl’s wrists and ankles told a more involuntary story.
Creepier than that, the girl wouldn’t ever try to scream or get away. Like something invisible was holding her there-though it was painfully obvious she was terrified, that she wanted to fly away. She didn’t object when Jonghyun unbound her, picked her up and took her into his bathroom to bathe her in the wee hours of morning. All she did was sit in room all day in the dark, eat what Taemin fed her (which was several times throughout the day), and cry herself to sleep. Just like Jonghyun, she didn’t speak unless necessary.
But as much as he wondered these things, Taemin had no right or desire to refuse his master’s peculiar request. More importantly, he had to follow the number rule:
Don’t question Jonghyun.
Don’t ever question him.
Don’t ever question her. Which would be the same as indirectly questioning him.
Don’t be an investigating fool, either.
Don’t be a hero and just mind your business.
“I’m trusting you Taemin,” Jonghyun told him gently-the first time Taemin came in to feed the girl, numbered tape wound around his arm to measure her after she ate; it was three months into his stay. Jonghyun gestured toward the trembling girl in the corner, an unnatural amount of extra weight clinging to her, body scantly clothed, hair in a simple bun. She had to be a little younger than Taemin. “I’m trusting you with my girl.”
His girl.
But who was she?
Why did he have her here?
And why, when her wrists and ankles became too big for the cuffs, did she disappear a week later?
And why would Jonghyun, who cared so much for this young girl, act as if nothing had happened by preparing a feast of his signature sample dishes-like he did for the months prior? Sure, it was customary for the culinary deity to solely prepare that feast every month, but how, Taemin mused, was he even in a mindset to create such dishes when his pampered pet was missing?
*****
He never forgot the girl, but Taemin thought that surely this wouldn’t happen again. The affair had run its course. Presumably, Jonghyun was on the hunt for a new play thing, a new co-star in this…strange S&M roleplay.
Yet when it did again, a bitter taste started to cultivate on Taemin’s tongue. Ironic, as he lived in a place where only the most gourmet of cuisines were prepared.
It was a hunt warranted for judgment. Jonghyun found another girl for Taemin to feed and measure, with no reference to the last girl as he whispered in Taemin’s ear what he wanted her to eat; so close to the younger boy that Taemin couldn’t help heating up. He didn’t talk much, yet Jonghyun had a way with skin ship Taemin fantasized about when he wasn’t too busy worrying about Jonghyun’s motives. The elder would cup the young chef’s cheek, run that same hand down his chest.
And whenever he pulled back harboring a soft smile, Taemin was reminded of other secrets he doubted anyone else knew of, even Key. The abnormally sharp incisors Jonghyun didn’t reveal because he didn’t smile too widely in public. They kept their edge with the sharpening stones Taemin would present him every other night from a jewelry box.
That scent of death hanging in his breath, right on the heels of strong mints and candies…
That girl disappeared, and with her, some of Taemin’s sanity. Days later, Jonghyun, in his own private kitchen, specially labored over a meal and had the dishes spread over the dining table that was usually forbidden to the staff. Traditionally, he and the head chefs sampled the meats, soups, roasts, and all else that was available, with everyone in the party nodding and humming in great approval. Outstanding, they said. Impeccable, savory, filling! So flavorful.
The success always shone in those dark eyes. Jonghyun was pleased. His tugging, uncharacteristic smirks let Taemin know he was pleased, felt so accomplished to uphold his title.
Such macabre smiles remained long after the meal was over, where the smartly dressed boy would leave his post nearby to help clean the table, carefully watching his teacher pick his teeth with a small bone. Sickened to his stomach, he watched as Jonghyun watched back, the 35-year-old man studying him in a manner that promised calamity should he screw up by saying the wrong thing.
Taemin thought that would be the last of it. He shouldn’t be proven so naïve, it wasn’t a good look nor a good feeling.
Alas, it turns into a pattern he’s sure is only new to him and as old as time for The Kitchen God.
For reasons akin to why the girls didn’t scream or tear away, Taemin stayed past his apprenticeship. Where all of his peers graduated with their official-looking certificates and congrats, Taemin was stuck in the prison of Jonghyun’s rooms. It was rare to see him, and in that Jinki kept pressuring Key for answers, Key, for all that he never shut up about, couldn’t tell him because he had no earthly clue. Only that the boy looked worse for wear. Skittish, grey-skinned, lifeless unless he was trailing Jonghyun’s coattails. He wasn’t the same, bright-eyed brat Key was used to.
Unfortunately for Taemin, Mr. Second-in-command wasn’t about to risk his skin trying to figure out why either. Just like he’d never go near the buffet table held every month by his dear cousin.
Taemin’s wish was to go deeper.
And that’s what he got.
His was a true loyalty. A trust and a bond Jonghyun cherished so much, he couldn’t have the boy out of his sight. Secrets were meant to be shared with hallow fools like the young chef. He’d humor him down to every last little detail of his secrets.
So it came to past that Jonghyun would ignore and somehow, at the same time, welcome the voyeur-ing eyes that watched him from his bedroom door. He took pleasure in fucking the girl limp, making sure that with every swig of the herb tonic he took, he came nice and hard in her and tipped her lower half back by her legs so that the seasoned, tainted cum didn’t leak. Then, in his exhaustion, he’d summon the voyeur in to stroke him off to ecstasy again, fill the poultry baster on the nightstand, and gently, verbally guide Taemin so that the silent boy squeezed the cum into the girl the proper way as Jonghyun pinned her thighs back hungrily.
Jonghyun loved the private lessons he gave to the beautiful boy. He loved the boy’s confusion and he thrived on the girl’s misplaced arousal when he gave her rub downs. Taemin’s keen sense of smell picked up the apples and pears in the thick, blackened substance those skilled hands massaged into his unsuspecting lover. It keyed in on the spices and herbs, and reminded Taemin of his mother’s marinade for bulgogi.
Yet he wouldn’t dare say so.
Not even with Jonghyun’s bribing the tongue, the way it tasted and validated her skin as he gazed at Taemin in multiple lusts.
The lesson he most loved to teach however, was the last one. The exciting part where the cuffs around her ankles and wrists left indents, and he made Taemin do the honors of unbinding her and leading out onto one of the paths to his favorite garden. There, nestled all the way in the back of the flowery shrubs, would be a small shed. A shed covered in vines, wood absorbing the stink of rose and hibiscus from the outside. And from the inside…
Jonghyun licks his lips, vision hazy as he eyes the back of the girl’s head, watches Taemin prod her forward with a stick and shushes her whines of what was going on. Up until now she was the favorably treated mistreated, she was the perfect little lamb, and she was the stupid, hormone-riddled street girl he’d fattened as the recipe called for. In the elder chef’s back pockets are his friends, a cleaver and a straight edge. In one of the hands tied behind his back, an electric razor.
This lesson, just like the leading rule of his mansion, was of the utmost importance, and Taemin’s eyes gobbled up each and every horrifying objective.
Make sure the door is shut all the way.
Kiss her, gut her. Bleed her a little. Cut her screams short by carving into the neck first. Rip out her vocal chords with your teeth and slurp them as you would pasta.
Clean cuts only.
When you are done, slash slivers of meat from the abdomen to eat fresh. Eat them ravenously, swallow hastily and whole so the warmth and flavor don’t go to waste.
Shave off all hair and butcher into pieces. Salt and hang. Wipe your mouth with the back of your hand.
The wood from the inside carried that stench of death that Taemin was steadily starting to enjoy. After each precious lesson from Jonghyun, he would be left licking the spattered blood from around his mouth, contently watching his master moan and suck his fingers dry. That perfectly veined hand stained with the fruits of his passion…
It would lead to the rough sex Taemin thoroughly enjoyed, right there on the bloody, hairy floor of the shed. Jonghyun would always be careful not to bruise the girl too much with his bites, to not make wounds that would infect his livestock. But with Taemin he could bite just as freely as he wished. The boy’s young blood washed down his appetizer quite splendidly as he latched on and clapped his hips up into a slick asshole, Taemin’s smaller body shaking and clinging and hemorrhaging from the morbid completeness his master bestowed upon him. He could live on those chest swelling kisses. He could model those marks with pride.
It would lead to Taemin sharpening his own incisors, and making his own place amongst the brick ovens and clay pots of Jonghyun’s private kitchen so that he too may prepare and serve blood sausages, rib soups and tender chops for the sample, carnivorous feast. An event Jonghyun was now thinking of extending to Korea’s most elite, like himself. There was none other like him, and no other could make dishes like his nor think to use the ingredients he favored. He’d take off in the world of food once more…
But where was success without continuous experimentation?
Well…perhaps it is in the last lesson Taemin has to learn, the very crucial lesson he needs to teach as the boy’s highly revered master.
And it lies in the night of summer’s eve, where he summons Taemin from his bed.
He doesn’t tell the boy what he wants, neither does the boy ask. He only quietly asks for Taemin come into the candle lit bedroom, and to enter the tiny, secret room.
There, much to Taemin’s uncertain dread, he cuffs his thin wrists and ankles. Jonghyun, wearing what Taemin liked him in best, hums a lulling tune as he strips away freedom from his favorite pupil, his collogue filling Taemin’s sensitive senses like a toxic, erotic gas. Humming as he evolves from a squat to a stand and strides away from the slowly hyperventilating 22-year-old.
“Taemin, its been lovely,” Jonghyun smiles, fangs glistening. Then by the ear, he violently pulls a student out from the closet. A new student who’s much taller than Jonghyun, with big floppy eyes, a bowl haircut and full, pink lips. A student Taemin vaguely knows as Minho…
…who has a tray in his hands and a measuring tape around his arm.
Its as if Jonghyun knows he’s going to scream: he lifts his palm sternly, making the cry balk in Taemin’s throat. The force of it makes the boy’s chest thicken even more, his heart speed up to cruel numbers.
“You have been a lovely boy. And I trust you will help me until the end.”
Taemin doesn’t move.
“Can I trust you?” The whispered tone is like needles stabbed in velvet, and because he hasn’t nor doesn’t want to ever see Jonghyun angry, he nods quickly, despite the apocalypse going on inside.
Jonghyun sighs, a gleam in his eye. “Very good,” he hisses darkly.
Then much to Taemin’s heartache, Jonghyun spins Minho around to purr in his ear, all the while staring his caged baby down in a villainous smirk that lets Taemin know he was always, after all, so expendable. Jonghyun had a slew of others and a magnetic charm that literally put bread on the table…
Closing his eyes, Taemin imagines the menu, the vegetarian diet Jonghyun discloses to Minho. He feels the hot, sensual breath washing over him, his master’s hard body pushing into him through the silky dress shirt. He feels the same hand that now slides down Minho’s chest. Whimpers to himself as the tears silently roll down his red cheeks.
He’ll never have any of that again but…he was lucky all the same.
“Final exam, Taemin-ah,” The Kitchen God grins and coos as a nervous Minho spoon feeds Taemin, serving hand pulling back quickly every time as if the other boy would bite him. “Then you will pass.”
Yeah…he’d been so lucky. And he’d pass.
Once the quiet meal is over, Taemin faces Jonghyun with a thin, grim, scrap of a smile. The last light in his eyes sparks out when he sobs, “I still love you.”
Yet he knows he’s lost everything of value and his infatuation has been for naught in that Jonghyun only stares at him with starved, dilated pupils, runs his tongue under the top row of his dangerous teeth and simply replies, “I know.”
Taemin’s delayed, anguished cries are sealed and muffled as the door to the tiny room is closed.
I'll grind your bones to make my bread
Author: dria1029
Pairing: Jongtae
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Sexual content. But other than that, for sake of plot, I’m not going to say. Only know that if you have a weak stomach this is not the fic for you. And if you’ve seen Hannibal, you already know what you’re in for.
Summary: Aspiring student Lee Taemin is accepted into a special culinary program ran by the nation’s chef genius- a man with an acquired taste for more than what meets the eye…
Word Count: 4,400+
a/n: Halloween is over, I know, lemme lone.
Taemin no less expected the sprawling, luxurious estate to be overrun with white clothed workers tending to the vegetation. Once he was buzzed in through the high gates, no doubt he was impressed and amazed and probably a little in disbelief that he’d be working in a place like this, but he couldn’t say he was surprised. The myths had all been true. In fact, even the myths did no justice to what lay before him, vibrant, aristocratic, green and dazzling in the late afternoon sun. He could almost gawk at the fountain he passed with the large, marble sculpture of a pair of chopsticks.
Yet when one of the great doors to the mansion swings open, and Taemin nearly sails back from the sight of the electrified blond man with the blood-splattered apron, he has to admit, he is surprised at the stark contrast of the fancy front yard to the blond’s crude appearance. No, he wasn’t expecting that.
Avoiding eye contact with the staring older man, Taemin coughs briefly into his fist and goes to bow in greeting. He isn’t able to lean back up from his 90 degrees before he hears a huffy, bored, “New guy?”
“Yes sir, I was chosen at the audition-
“Then follow me please. And leave your bags by the door, the maids will take them to your room.” Stepping aside, eyes with heavy mascara regard Taemin in unnecessary contempt. “Quickly now!”
“Oh-ah! Sorry, coming sir!” The young chef bows again as he scurries in, and the impatient blond rolls his eyes. Once Taemin leaves his shoes and bags at the door, he finds himself swept up in a flurry, trying to keep up to the fast walking guy Who talked just as fast as he walked.
“God you don’t look like you could lift a thing.” He tosses his perfectly made up head back at the boy struggling to keep up. “I’m Kim Kibum, The Kitchen God’s favorite and only cousin. But you, like the rest of the underling peasants who work here, will only know me as Sunbaenim and second in command in TKG’s kitchen. Understand?”
“Yes Su-
“Not Kibum-ssi, not Kim-sunbae, and especially not Key. Only TKG calls me Key and I suggest you don’t listen to those uncouth dishwashers who will tell you that calling me Key is okay because let me tell you now, there’s that infantile tradition still going around-to fuck with the new guy and all that initiation bullshit but I’ll say it again, I suggest you stuff your little ears and worry about your future here. Be it as brief or as long as you like, depending on your attitude.” Key sniffs back at the boy, his purple crocs halting on the long Oriental rug. “How slow are you, huh? Wanna work in my kitchen and you’re dragging your fucking toes, oh you have another thing coming! Chop chop, I need this orientation over with so I can get back to my soufflé.”
“Coming sunbaenim. Sorry sunbaenim.” Taemin takes a few breaths once he’s side by side with the older-who takes off again without warning. Making Taemin frown a tad, resisting the urge to say something smart about how someone so important was stuck showing someone like him the ropes.
But his excitement to be one of The Kitchen God’s students blankets his sass, so he follows the stuck up blond down the never ending halls of the mansion eagerly, too focused on what Key instructs and bewares and brags about to really take in the wealth whizzing by him. That fresh mind of his is in for a dose of wonder when the last stop is the kitchen-a quarter that is about half the size of a football field, glittering with the finest of cookery and bustling with the bees of the hive, the men and women currently stirring pots, shaking pans, and chopping vegetables. Eyes wide, Taemin slides past all the hard workers, inhaling the raw spices and herbs. His mouth watering for both what he can see and smell, and to, very soon, be a part of the apprentice network going on before him.
After nodding back to some of the bakers, the humbly dressed boy has smiles that are a mile wide. As he waits for Key to finish his impromptu scolding at one of the garnish-girls, he sponges up the environment-something occurring to him a second later, what seems to be missing.
“Sunbaenim,” he cuts into Key’s disapproving tirade. “Where’s TKG-sunbaenim?”
“First of all, you’re excused,” the blond bites as he faces him, jolting Taemin fully back to reality. “And to answer your useless question, Master TKG is wherever he wants to be, which is never none of your concern.” He waves away the short girl in disgust, snapping in the dark-haired’s boy’s face to get his attention. “Hey! Stop daydreaming and wipe that frown off your mouth. Listen.”
Doe eyes blink back at him in disappointment anyway.
“Speaking of questions, I forgot to mention the most important rule. You’ll do best not to ever direct a question to the Master. Never question him. And if you do have questions, lay them on me. Even then, keep them to a minimum or figure things out for yourself. This isn’t a daycare and don’t expect anyone to hold your hand. Understand?” That slender, knobby finger wags.
“Yes Sunbaenim.”
“That’ll do. Now I’ll have one of maids see to it that you are shown to your room and given your uniform.”
“Yes Sunbae-
“Ugh, don’t wear it out.” Key rolls his eyes and leads them out the kitchen, oblivious to the sea of bowing chef hats. In the hall outside, he calls a name and an ajumma with a bonnet clicks over from out of the blue. She bows deeply, takes instructions from the pompous character and in a matter of a minute, Taemin is finding himself ushered off into the wing where the students are housed, holey socks slipping on the waxed wooden floors.
On the way to his new keep does Taemin finally have the time to muse of the grand architecture, artifacts and whimsical dining theme of the mansion. Gazing into the brilliance of one of the chandeliers once he’s on the third floor, Taemin still can’t believe he was chosen out of hundreds of people to work under Korea’s most prestigious chef. Still can’t fathom that this Charlie and Chocolate Factory-type place was going to be his home for the next year.
Yet Taemin is pulled back into the thoughts of his mysterious boss as he and the maid pass a wall length, oil painting of a familiar, handsome man. His face just as stoic and proud and poetic and regal under the minimal spotlight as Taemin remembered from the magazines.
He locks eyes with the portrait-with Kim Jonghyun’s dark eyes, not his pseudonym’s- and on some odd whim, Taemin distinctively picks up a faint scent of death.
One in which he shrugs off as if it didn’t exist, berates his imagination for and buries as he continues to follow the tiny woman.
****
There are so many rules. Of course rules not as important as the one Key told him on the first day, but still.
Don’t go wandering around the mansion freely. Stay out of this room, don’t even get within five feet of that room. The dining room is off limits to everyone except by TKG’s permission.
I don’t care about how much skill you have, Twiggy, you’re still not allowed to cut the potatoes into farm animals. Cooking is a fine art, not a lowly craft for simpletons!
Stop eating lunch in the east garden, don’t you know that’s Master’s private reading spot?
No, you can’t wear that. Why?-Because it’s ugly, that’s why? Don’t you know where you are?
Have you no home training? That’s unsanitary, don’t put that there! Are you daft?
It was as if they were the mutual bane of the other’s existence, Taemin and Mr. Second-in-command. Key to nag Taemin into an early grave, singling him out for every little mishap and making up rules on the spot just to torture him. Taemin to annoy Key incessantly, sometimes purposely messing up to rile him, sometimes doing so well that he rivaled Key’s cooking abilities. When he wasn’t working, Taemin sat back with the same dishwashers Almightly Key told him to be wary of, snickering about how much of a tool box the blond was. Jinki, the senior baker, who was Taemin’s favorite peer so far despite their age gap, joined in their antics now and then. Well, his favorite peer whenever the elder didn’t tease him about being Key’s “baby” or “sweetheart”, since Key was thought to be sweet on the people he nagged the most.
Naturally, however, it was the mansion’s owner, the staff’s superior, that Taemin was most fascinated with. Of all the splendors and perks of living there, Taemin couldn’t forget the reason he was there, and that reason outranked everything else just as assumed.
Though…Taemin would have never guessed the gradual turn of his fascination.
For while in the first two months of studying under Jonghyun, eagerly absorbing what precious, culinary knowledge the man taught three days out the week, in the kitchen, classroom and gardens, Taemin was all ears, eyes, hands-you name it. Senses attuned to that melodic voice that was neither too pitched nor too growl-like. He was happy to be there, delighting under the occasional, praising hand of Jonghyun’s on his shoulder, beaming under the envious stares of the others. For the most part, humbly retaining his spot as top student.
Then as he came to really get adjusted to his teacher’s presence, Taemin began to notice more than just what met the surface. Or rather, he made it his business to notice, considering his high adulation and respect of the man.
Jonghyun was like most of the well-off bachelors Taemin had seen in dramas. Kept to himself a lot, wasn’t a man of many words if he wasn’t in front of his students. He wasn’t much in the height department, but he made up for it with a charisma that was as intimidating or as inviting as he wanted it to be. Unlike his cousin’s, his hair was of a more subtle blond intertwined with blacks and browns; a tiny goatee on his chin. On days he was most comfortable, he wore sweater vests. The days he wouldn’t be teaching, he wore what Taemin liked most-er, thought fit him best-creased pants with a thin belt, dark dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, and a thoughtful expression. Usually dressed like this, he roamed his own halls, kindly greeting everyone in his path. Taemin admired how reserved he was, how he seldom saw him get upset-no, scratch that, Taemin had yet to see him angry. Even with the many mistakes in the kitchen, as where mistakes are prone to happen.
His smile, more lip and less teeth, seemed to catch the sun-day or night- every time he told his students to do well before any assignment or challenge-which was, very pleasantly, often. Taemin couldn’t blame the female staff for fawning over Jonghyun because hell, he was just about to that point as well, even with his own little entourage of student fan girls.
In the world of culinary arts, it was rare to find a teacher so fair, so fortunate, so gifted and so god awfully attractive as Kim Jonghyun.
So again, why should he care that he was obsessed? Why did he have to heed-an unusually sincere-Key about being meddlesome?
It wouldn’t hurt to dig a little deeper into his interesting idol, so Taemin went with his instincts to approach the man every chance he got.
And little by little, he got what he wanted.
He learned just how interesting of a man Jonghyun was by the man’s own favoritism of him, Lee Taemin, the top student in his unorthodox school.
Kim Jonghyun had a strange…hobby, as it turned out.
His personal life was a normal one as far as famous lives go, but Taemin had to seriously wonder of the tasks he was given and told to keep confidential. In Jonghyun’s chambers was a secret, tiny room , the kind only accessed by a pulled book, and within the secret room was a bound girl Taemin was to prepare specific meals for and feed every day. The room was modestly and comfortably furnished but the metal cuffs on the girl’s wrists and ankles told a more involuntary story.
Creepier than that, the girl wouldn’t ever try to scream or get away. Like something invisible was holding her there-though it was painfully obvious she was terrified, that she wanted to fly away. She didn’t object when Jonghyun unbound her, picked her up and took her into his bathroom to bathe her in the wee hours of morning. All she did was sit in room all day in the dark, eat what Taemin fed her (which was several times throughout the day), and cry herself to sleep. Just like Jonghyun, she didn’t speak unless necessary.
But as much as he wondered these things, Taemin had no right or desire to refuse his master’s peculiar request. More importantly, he had to follow the number rule:
Don’t question Jonghyun.
Don’t ever question him.
Don’t ever question her. Which would be the same as indirectly questioning him.
Don’t be an investigating fool, either.
Don’t be a hero and just mind your business.
“I’m trusting you Taemin,” Jonghyun told him gently-the first time Taemin came in to feed the girl, numbered tape wound around his arm to measure her after she ate; it was three months into his stay. Jonghyun gestured toward the trembling girl in the corner, an unnatural amount of extra weight clinging to her, body scantly clothed, hair in a simple bun. She had to be a little younger than Taemin. “I’m trusting you with my girl.”
His girl.
But who was she?
Why did he have her here?
And why, when her wrists and ankles became too big for the cuffs, did she disappear a week later?
And why would Jonghyun, who cared so much for this young girl, act as if nothing had happened by preparing a feast of his signature sample dishes-like he did for the months prior? Sure, it was customary for the culinary deity to solely prepare that feast every month, but how, Taemin mused, was he even in a mindset to create such dishes when his pampered pet was missing?
*****
He never forgot the girl, but Taemin thought that surely this wouldn’t happen again. The affair had run its course. Presumably, Jonghyun was on the hunt for a new play thing, a new co-star in this…strange S&M roleplay.
Yet when it did again, a bitter taste started to cultivate on Taemin’s tongue. Ironic, as he lived in a place where only the most gourmet of cuisines were prepared.
It was a hunt warranted for judgment. Jonghyun found another girl for Taemin to feed and measure, with no reference to the last girl as he whispered in Taemin’s ear what he wanted her to eat; so close to the younger boy that Taemin couldn’t help heating up. He didn’t talk much, yet Jonghyun had a way with skin ship Taemin fantasized about when he wasn’t too busy worrying about Jonghyun’s motives. The elder would cup the young chef’s cheek, run that same hand down his chest.
And whenever he pulled back harboring a soft smile, Taemin was reminded of other secrets he doubted anyone else knew of, even Key. The abnormally sharp incisors Jonghyun didn’t reveal because he didn’t smile too widely in public. They kept their edge with the sharpening stones Taemin would present him every other night from a jewelry box.
That scent of death hanging in his breath, right on the heels of strong mints and candies…
That girl disappeared, and with her, some of Taemin’s sanity. Days later, Jonghyun, in his own private kitchen, specially labored over a meal and had the dishes spread over the dining table that was usually forbidden to the staff. Traditionally, he and the head chefs sampled the meats, soups, roasts, and all else that was available, with everyone in the party nodding and humming in great approval. Outstanding, they said. Impeccable, savory, filling! So flavorful.
The success always shone in those dark eyes. Jonghyun was pleased. His tugging, uncharacteristic smirks let Taemin know he was pleased, felt so accomplished to uphold his title.
Such macabre smiles remained long after the meal was over, where the smartly dressed boy would leave his post nearby to help clean the table, carefully watching his teacher pick his teeth with a small bone. Sickened to his stomach, he watched as Jonghyun watched back, the 35-year-old man studying him in a manner that promised calamity should he screw up by saying the wrong thing.
Taemin thought that would be the last of it. He shouldn’t be proven so naïve, it wasn’t a good look nor a good feeling.
Alas, it turns into a pattern he’s sure is only new to him and as old as time for The Kitchen God.
For reasons akin to why the girls didn’t scream or tear away, Taemin stayed past his apprenticeship. Where all of his peers graduated with their official-looking certificates and congrats, Taemin was stuck in the prison of Jonghyun’s rooms. It was rare to see him, and in that Jinki kept pressuring Key for answers, Key, for all that he never shut up about, couldn’t tell him because he had no earthly clue. Only that the boy looked worse for wear. Skittish, grey-skinned, lifeless unless he was trailing Jonghyun’s coattails. He wasn’t the same, bright-eyed brat Key was used to.
Unfortunately for Taemin, Mr. Second-in-command wasn’t about to risk his skin trying to figure out why either. Just like he’d never go near the buffet table held every month by his dear cousin.
Taemin’s wish was to go deeper.
And that’s what he got.
His was a true loyalty. A trust and a bond Jonghyun cherished so much, he couldn’t have the boy out of his sight. Secrets were meant to be shared with hallow fools like the young chef. He’d humor him down to every last little detail of his secrets.
So it came to past that Jonghyun would ignore and somehow, at the same time, welcome the voyeur-ing eyes that watched him from his bedroom door. He took pleasure in fucking the girl limp, making sure that with every swig of the herb tonic he took, he came nice and hard in her and tipped her lower half back by her legs so that the seasoned, tainted cum didn’t leak. Then, in his exhaustion, he’d summon the voyeur in to stroke him off to ecstasy again, fill the poultry baster on the nightstand, and gently, verbally guide Taemin so that the silent boy squeezed the cum into the girl the proper way as Jonghyun pinned her thighs back hungrily.
Jonghyun loved the private lessons he gave to the beautiful boy. He loved the boy’s confusion and he thrived on the girl’s misplaced arousal when he gave her rub downs. Taemin’s keen sense of smell picked up the apples and pears in the thick, blackened substance those skilled hands massaged into his unsuspecting lover. It keyed in on the spices and herbs, and reminded Taemin of his mother’s marinade for bulgogi.
Yet he wouldn’t dare say so.
Not even with Jonghyun’s bribing the tongue, the way it tasted and validated her skin as he gazed at Taemin in multiple lusts.
The lesson he most loved to teach however, was the last one. The exciting part where the cuffs around her ankles and wrists left indents, and he made Taemin do the honors of unbinding her and leading out onto one of the paths to his favorite garden. There, nestled all the way in the back of the flowery shrubs, would be a small shed. A shed covered in vines, wood absorbing the stink of rose and hibiscus from the outside. And from the inside…
Jonghyun licks his lips, vision hazy as he eyes the back of the girl’s head, watches Taemin prod her forward with a stick and shushes her whines of what was going on. Up until now she was the favorably treated mistreated, she was the perfect little lamb, and she was the stupid, hormone-riddled street girl he’d fattened as the recipe called for. In the elder chef’s back pockets are his friends, a cleaver and a straight edge. In one of the hands tied behind his back, an electric razor.
This lesson, just like the leading rule of his mansion, was of the utmost importance, and Taemin’s eyes gobbled up each and every horrifying objective.
Make sure the door is shut all the way.
Kiss her, gut her. Bleed her a little. Cut her screams short by carving into the neck first. Rip out her vocal chords with your teeth and slurp them as you would pasta.
Clean cuts only.
When you are done, slash slivers of meat from the abdomen to eat fresh. Eat them ravenously, swallow hastily and whole so the warmth and flavor don’t go to waste.
Shave off all hair and butcher into pieces. Salt and hang. Wipe your mouth with the back of your hand.
The wood from the inside carried that stench of death that Taemin was steadily starting to enjoy. After each precious lesson from Jonghyun, he would be left licking the spattered blood from around his mouth, contently watching his master moan and suck his fingers dry. That perfectly veined hand stained with the fruits of his passion…
It would lead to the rough sex Taemin thoroughly enjoyed, right there on the bloody, hairy floor of the shed. Jonghyun would always be careful not to bruise the girl too much with his bites, to not make wounds that would infect his livestock. But with Taemin he could bite just as freely as he wished. The boy’s young blood washed down his appetizer quite splendidly as he latched on and clapped his hips up into a slick asshole, Taemin’s smaller body shaking and clinging and hemorrhaging from the morbid completeness his master bestowed upon him. He could live on those chest swelling kisses. He could model those marks with pride.
It would lead to Taemin sharpening his own incisors, and making his own place amongst the brick ovens and clay pots of Jonghyun’s private kitchen so that he too may prepare and serve blood sausages, rib soups and tender chops for the sample, carnivorous feast. An event Jonghyun was now thinking of extending to Korea’s most elite, like himself. There was none other like him, and no other could make dishes like his nor think to use the ingredients he favored. He’d take off in the world of food once more…
But where was success without continuous experimentation?
Well…perhaps it is in the last lesson Taemin has to learn, the very crucial lesson he needs to teach as the boy’s highly revered master.
And it lies in the night of summer’s eve, where he summons Taemin from his bed.
He doesn’t tell the boy what he wants, neither does the boy ask. He only quietly asks for Taemin come into the candle lit bedroom, and to enter the tiny, secret room.
There, much to Taemin’s uncertain dread, he cuffs his thin wrists and ankles. Jonghyun, wearing what Taemin liked him in best, hums a lulling tune as he strips away freedom from his favorite pupil, his collogue filling Taemin’s sensitive senses like a toxic, erotic gas. Humming as he evolves from a squat to a stand and strides away from the slowly hyperventilating 22-year-old.
“Taemin, its been lovely,” Jonghyun smiles, fangs glistening. Then by the ear, he violently pulls a student out from the closet. A new student who’s much taller than Jonghyun, with big floppy eyes, a bowl haircut and full, pink lips. A student Taemin vaguely knows as Minho…
…who has a tray in his hands and a measuring tape around his arm.
Its as if Jonghyun knows he’s going to scream: he lifts his palm sternly, making the cry balk in Taemin’s throat. The force of it makes the boy’s chest thicken even more, his heart speed up to cruel numbers.
“You have been a lovely boy. And I trust you will help me until the end.”
Taemin doesn’t move.
“Can I trust you?” The whispered tone is like needles stabbed in velvet, and because he hasn’t nor doesn’t want to ever see Jonghyun angry, he nods quickly, despite the apocalypse going on inside.
Jonghyun sighs, a gleam in his eye. “Very good,” he hisses darkly.
Then much to Taemin’s heartache, Jonghyun spins Minho around to purr in his ear, all the while staring his caged baby down in a villainous smirk that lets Taemin know he was always, after all, so expendable. Jonghyun had a slew of others and a magnetic charm that literally put bread on the table…
Closing his eyes, Taemin imagines the menu, the vegetarian diet Jonghyun discloses to Minho. He feels the hot, sensual breath washing over him, his master’s hard body pushing into him through the silky dress shirt. He feels the same hand that now slides down Minho’s chest. Whimpers to himself as the tears silently roll down his red cheeks.
He’ll never have any of that again but…he was lucky all the same.
“Final exam, Taemin-ah,” The Kitchen God grins and coos as a nervous Minho spoon feeds Taemin, serving hand pulling back quickly every time as if the other boy would bite him. “Then you will pass.”
Yeah…he’d been so lucky. And he’d pass.
Once the quiet meal is over, Taemin faces Jonghyun with a thin, grim, scrap of a smile. The last light in his eyes sparks out when he sobs, “I still love you.”
Yet he knows he’s lost everything of value and his infatuation has been for naught in that Jonghyun only stares at him with starved, dilated pupils, runs his tongue under the top row of his dangerous teeth and simply replies, “I know.”
Taemin’s delayed, anguished cries are sealed and muffled as the door to the tiny room is closed.
I'll grind your bones to make my bread