Artichoke Hearts
ʚ Title: Artichoke Hearts for everyone ♡
ʚ Pairing(s): Kyungsoo/Baekhyun
ʚ Rating: PG-13
ʚ Warnings: slight bad language
ʚ Word count: 8000 words
ʚ Summary: Recipe No Oujisama AU! All Kyungsoo wants is to graduate culinary school and open his own restaurant. He moves into a new house for convenience, but what he gets is three weird housemates including the noisy, boisterous and generally infuriating Byun Baekhyun.
ʚ Author’s notes/Messages for the recipient: dear recipient, I had fun writing this and I hope you enjoy it! Also I hadn't read the manga before this and I loved it so thank you for that too!
They say a way to someone’s heart is through their stomach. Kyungsoo, despite what some of his friends might have to say on the matter, actually has no interest in collecting people’s hearts (he really doesn’t understand why they’d think he’d keep them in jars either that’s just weird) but he supposes the principle might be somewhat similar.
Because Do Kyungsoo has a dream, a dream to one day open up his own restaurant and fill the hearts of its patrons with joy from eating his cooking. Not that he would say that last bit out loud, because his friends are arseholes and would probably ridicule him to the sun and back. As far as they know, Kyungsoo just wants to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps. That is the way it will stay, too.
However at this very moment Do Kyungsoo’s dream seems just that, and very farfetched indeed - all because of one boy by the name of-
“BYUN BAEKHYUN!!” Kyungsoo shrieks. “GET YOUR FAT ARSE OUT OF MY BED!”
The house echoes with screams. (And not the good kind).
……
The facts are these:
1. Kyungsoo’s family home was approximately three hours from his culinary school on a good day, and he was starting to look and feel like a zombie…
2. So his now ex-friend Joonmyeon kindly got him in contact with a cousin of his who was trying to rent out a house close to the university and at more than reasonable rent…
3. Which turns out to have been a terrible idea because while at first glance the house may have seemed clean and homely, what actually greeted him was a living room that looked like a bomb had gone off and three very strange flatmates.
4. Kyungsoo was not amused.
It wasn’t the best first impression. Kyungsoo had been torn between glaring at the piles of takeaway packets and towers of empty ramyun packets and the first two of his flatmates. The first, Park Chanyeol, seemed not to even notice the waves of fury rolling off his tiny new flatmate and swept him up in a huge hug. He was tall, really tall, like, easily twenty centimetres taller than Kyungsoo and sporting a nest of ginger dreadlocks tied neatly back in a ponytail. Kyungsoo had a close-up view from where he’d been picked up and almost slung over Chanyeol’s shoulder. He could see the line of piercings that trailed down Chanyeol’s ears and the tattoo that started curling under his t-shirt at the base of his neck. He also smelt faintly of apples, Kyungsoo had observed, but that’s neither here nor there.
“Put me down!” Kyungsoo had squeaked, somewhat strangled by the oaf’s bear-grip.
“Hyung, I think you’re squashing him!” A voice had come from behind Chanyeol. A voice sent from heaven. Kyungsoo had thought. My saviour.
“Oops. Sorry.” Chanyeol had then promptly dropped Kyungsoo on his arse in the debris and smiled sheepishly. Kyungsoo just glared even harder. “I’m Chanyeol.” He said, stretching out his hand to help Kyungsoo back up again.
“Do Kyungsoo.” Kyungsoo had huffed (even as he took the giant’s hand).
“Kim Jongin.” The voice of reason said from somewhere behind Chanyeol. Kyungsoo had peered round the giant blocking his vision to see an angel. A tall, handsome young man stood in the doorway, a nervous shy smile playing on his lips and playing with the fringe that hung low over his eyes. Kyungsoo had to smother the urge to hug him and coo nonsense and feed him cake like a baby.
Weird.
“Well, I’m off out.” Chanyeol said, using how stunned Kyungsoo had been by Jongin’s appearance to make a quick getaway.
“But wait…!” Kyungsoo had called after him. “What about the living room…?”
Jongin chuckles nervously and Kyungsoo resists the urge to pinch his cheeks. Seriously, who gave the kid the right to be so adorable.
“Sorry, Kyungsoo-sshi. None of us are really good at cleaning…”
“That’s okay, Jongin-ah. And call me hyung, please.”
“Okay.” Jongin smiles happily again. Kyungsoo wants to feed him chocolate and rainbows. Seriously, this is getting freaky.
“Will you stay and help me clean up?” He asks kindly.
A burst of nervous laughter escapes from Jongin’s lips. “You know, I would hyung but I have dance practice soon and I really should get going if I want to get there in time so I’ll see you later, bye!”
The last part is yelled from somewhere down the hall as Jongin makes his hasty retreat out of the living room, leaving Kyungsoo alone once again in the skyscrapers of semi-eaten crisp packets and empty bottles.
Well, shit.
….
It takes Kyungsoo hours to get the living room to the point where he can even consider getting out the vacuum cleaner and he’s feeling rather proud of the transformation his hard work has wrought. He’s just about to go and retrieve it when he hears the door closing and footsteps coming down the hallway to the lounge.
A boy appears, about Kyungsoo’s own height, with bleached hair and several piercings. Nothing as extreme as what Chanyeol has got going on, but it’s noticeable nonetheless.
“Oh.” The boy says. “You must be the new roommate.” He shrugs off his coat and bag and dumps them unceremoniously by the wall. “I’m Byun Baekhyun.” He slips off his shoes and tosses them to the same place. “Nice to meet you…”
Wait a cotton picking minute here.
“Hey!” Kyungsoo yells. “I’ve just spent hours cleaning the place of your mess so would it kill you to pick up after yourself?”
The boy looks faintly shocked for all of two seconds before a wide grin plays across his face. “That’s an awfully long name you got there, Hey-sshi. I’m just going to call you Clean-Freak, okay?” Byun leans over to take off his socks.
Pause
“My name is Do Kyungsoo.” Kyungsoo breathes out heavily through his nostrils. “And I would appreciate it if you would STOP TAKING YOUR CLOTHES OFF!”
…
And that is how, on the first day of meeting his roommate Byun Baekhyun, one Do Kyungsoo learnt what it meant to cook in anger.
He’d never hate-baked before - never in his life had he been so furious, and that says a lot seeing as Kyungsoo has the shortest fuse of anyone he knows - but the living room had driven Kyungsoo to the edge of the cliff of insanity and then Byun Baekhyun had pushed him off it.
Once Kyungsoo had managed to glare Baekhyun into ceasing to strip in their living room he had been struck rather for a loss. What exactly did you say to a man you’d asked to stop taking their clothes off not ten minutes before? Kyungsoo wasn’t good at this socialising thing at the best of times let alone when he was frazzled, exhausted and possibly high off cleaner fumes. Luckily at this point Chanyeol and Jongin seemed to have decided it was safe to reappear - if Baekhyun wasn’t being roped into cleaning it was safe enough to assume that they wouldn’t be either, apparently - and it saved Kyungsoo from having to attempt to make awkward small talk.
“Ah, I see you’ve met Baekhyun?” Chanyeol grins widely. “I’m sure you’re getting on well - you’re about on the same level after all.”
Kyungsoo gets the distinct impression that Chanyeol may be making fun of their heights. He is not impressed.
“If god had made me any larger the world wouldn’t have been big enough for me - unlike some people I could name who just sit around wasting space.” Baekhyun sasses back. Chanyeol just tuts under his breath and rolls his eyes.
“Jealousy is not a good look on you, Byun.”
“Neither are those rat-tails on your head you call dreads. And who said I was jealous?”
As Kyungsoo watches them bicker he can feel a headache coming on. This was obviously a common occurrence, judging by how Jongin isn’t even watching them anymore and has sidled up to Kyungsoo instead.
“What do you want for dinner hyung?” He says. “They won’t be done until there’s something to make them shut up and I’m kinda hungry.”
Jongin tells him this like it’s some kind of secret - he’s so adorable and bashful that Kyungsoo has to resist the urge to pinch his cheeks. He shakes his head to clear his head of these strange thoughts. He did not move into this house to essentially become someone’s mother, no matter how cute they were.
“I was planning on making something dinner but I haven’t had time to go shopping yet.” He replies, gesturing pointedly to the now-clean living room. “I wouldn’t mind cooking for everyone though if they let me use their ingredients?”
Three sets of eyes immediately swivel towards him. After the loudness of Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s bickering the silence seems deafening and Kyungsoo starts to wonder if he said something wrong.
“You can cook?” Baekhyun says. Kyungsoo bristles instinctively.
“I’m only at culinary school,” He snaps back.
Baekhyun holds his hands up in a symbol of surrender. “Hey, no offense man. Just thought you were one of those nerdy types, you know. Science at uni, that kind of thing.”
“If you’d asked, you would know.” Kyungsoo replies coldly.
“Well I don’t think there’s really anything in the fridge,” Chanyeol cuts in, “But you’re more than welcome to try. None of us can really cook-” No kidding,Kyungsoo mutters under his breath, thinking back to the mountains of fast food containers that used to litter the living room -“It’d be nice to have a home cooked meal for once.”
Kyungsoo smiles with grim determination. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Xxx
There is literally nothing in the fridge. When Chanyeol had said he didn’t really think there was anything in the fridge clearly what he meant was ‘there’s nothing in the fridge’ because currently Kyungsoo is looking at two eggs, a jar of mayonnaise, a clove of garlic, and a pineapple.
Deep breathes, Do Kyungsoo. Just think of it as a challenge like on one of those cookery programs on the telly - look in the cupboards for staples and make it up as you go along. You can do this. You can.
Kyungsoo slides the blades of the knives he found in the kitchen draw together, relishing the keen sound as they glide across each other. Time to show these punks who they’re messing with.
Xxx
Baekhyun releases a moan that sounds positively orgasmic. His eyes are shut and his face is screwed up in pleasure and Kyungsoo’s first thought is: He’s got to be faking. His cooking is good, but it’s not that good. He still has a long way to go before he’s anywhere good enough to open his own restaurant.
When he looks around though he realises maybe it’s not that the food is so delicious (although it is quite delicious, especially considering what he had to work with) but that these guys have been so long without real, home-cooked food they’ve forgotten how good it can taste. Chanyeol is wolfing his down with no care for common courtesy or manners and half of it seems to be on his face. Jongin is eating slower but there’s a look of wonderment on his face that makes him almost glow.
“This is amazing, Kyungsoo.” Baekhyun says. “Tastes just like home.”
All at once Kyungsoo feels a curl of guilt in his gut. These people are honestly happy from eating his cooking but he hadn’t made it with that intention in mind at all. He’d made in spite. He’d made it to show off. He picks up some noodles with his chopsticks and lets it slosh noisily back into the bowl. He’s lost his appetite.
“You’re at culinary school, Kyungsoo hyung?” Jongin asks between mouthfuls. “That’s so cool!”
Kyungsoo nods. “What about you, Jongin-ah? You said you dance?”
“He’s amazing. He’s a full time back-up dancer for an entertainment company, you know.” Chanyeol cuts in. His voice is bursting with pride and Kyungsoo can see Jongin blush out of the corner of his eye. Interesting.
“Shut up, hyung! I’m not that great, honestly.” Jongin smiles sheepishly. “Chanyeollie-hyung’s the talented one - he’s in a band.”
Kyungsoo tries very hard not to let his eyebrow raise for that one. A band. Of course. He should have guessed really.
“And what about me?” Baekhyun says, scandalised. “What am I, chopped liver?”
Jongin laughs sweetly and hurries to assure Baekhyun of his talent. Baekhyun preens under the attention. Kyungsoo has to smother the urge to stab him with his chopsticks. Seriously? This guy is so shameless, fishing for compliments. He seems the kind of guy Kyungsoo hates the most - self-centred, vain and lazy. He’s so busy ranting inside his mind that he’s kind of forgotten to tune in to what Jongin and Baekhyun are saying so he completely misses what it is Baekhyun actually does.
“I’m sorry, what is it you do?” Kyungsoo tries very hard (not that hard) to look interested.
Baekhyun springs up from his seat and makes a rather ridiculous and over-the-top bow that involves taking off his imaginary hat with a flourish and pretending to hit Kyungsoo with it.
“Professional idiot.” Kyungsoo surmises. “Either that or a very bad mime artist.”
Chanyeol bursts out laughing. “He’s got you pegged, Baka-Byun.”
Baekhyun sweeps his imaginary hat back to his chest in (probably) outrage and stands up tall. Jongin is trying not to laugh. Chanyeol has given up and is just guffawing in earnest now.
“I am an actor, you unappreciative peasants! A very fine one I’ll have you know!”
“I’m so sorry,” Kyungsoo says eyes widening. “I should have guessed right from the start - with a face like that, of course you’d be an actor! I mean…”
Kyungsoo breaks off shyly, as if he’s embarrassed to say anymore. He watches smugly as Baekhyun drinks it up - stupid vain idiot that he is - while Chanyeol and Jongin’s jaws seem to have fallen to the floor in disbelief.
Then Kyungsoo turns, a wicked gleam in his eyes, and whispers conspiratorially to Chanyeol and Jongin, “Now that is called acting.”
It takes a split second for what he’s said to register and then Chanyeol and Jongin burst into howling laughter. Chanyeol is laughing so hard he’s almost crying - Kyungsoo wouldn’t be surprised if he started rolling around on the floor soon. Baekhyun, on the other hand, looks like he’s been slapped in the face with a particularly large and unpleasant-smelling fish. Kyungsoo smirks internally. Good. That should take him down a few pegs.
Baekhyun splutters unattractively. “Acti- What?”
“I like this one.” Chanyeol says after he’s finished nearly wetting himself with laughter. “We should keep him. Cooks, and can render Byun Baekhyun silent for nearly five minutes - he’ll come in handy!”
Kyungsoo allows himself a small smile. He’s not entirely sure what winning over this bunch will get him but it’s got to be better than being on their bad side. He has to live with them, after all.
“To our new housemate?” Jongin raises his can of fanta shyly.
“To our new housemate!” Baekhyun says. Kyungsoo shoots him a look of surprise but Baekhyun just shrugs and gives him a small smile. “You’ll make things interesting around here for sure.”
Kyungsoo narrows his eyes suspiciously. He doesn’t particularly like the sound of that - he’s here for convenience, not interest thank you very much - but Baekhyun doesn’t seem to hate him so he supposes he can’t complain. He raises his beer can and chinks it to Baekhyun’s.
“To new housemates.” He agrees solemnly. May God give me strength.
Xxx
It isn’t until he’s wrapped up warm and safe in his bed that the guilt from earlier returns. He shouldn’t have made that food the way he did - full of anger and pride, spitefully. His grandfather always said that whatever emotions you cook with would infuse the dish and he's ashamed to have made a dish so sour and acid.
Never again. He promises himself. Never again.
If he's going to fulfil his dream and open a restaurant his grandfather would be proud of he's got to start cooking in a way he would be proud of too. No more anger.
(No more anger. Well, at least not when he's cooking anyway.)
Xxx
Over the next couple of weeks Kyungsoo falls into a comfortable routine. He gets up early, usually woken up by Jongin’s alarm because it goes off at decibels previously unheard by man, and makes breakfast for them both. He’s not entirely sure how that happened to be honest (a combination of Jongin’s longing stares at Kyungsoo’s eggs benedict and his bizarre need to smoosh the child’s cheeks probably) but it does mean he gets to see a genuine smile from someone eating his cooking. It’s a good way to start the day. Then he’s in culinary school ‘til late, maybe ten, and then he’s back home to make dinner and watch films for the rest of the evening until it’s bedtime and he can start working off his massive sleep debt.
Actually apart from Jongin he doesn’t really see his flatmates all that often which really isn’t all that bad. Kyungsoo’s not so good at the social thing, honestly. He’s learnt a bit more about them from his morning chats with Jongin though.
Chanyeol is in a band, as he had mentioned. Said band usually plays gigs at pubs and bars and things in the evenings so Chanyeol has essentially become nocturnal - he never wakes up before two in the afternoon and doesn’t usually make it home until three, four in the morning when the bars close. As to what music the band actually played, Kyungsoo hadn’t really gleaned much beyond that they were ‘the coolest thing ever’ (Jongin’s words) and he should really go see them sometime. Kyungsoo politely waved that off. Loud music and clubs are not really his thing.
Baekhyun, on the other hand, is a little harder to figure out. Jongin doesn’t seem to have as much information on him as he does on Chanyeol (not that Kyungsoo asked or anything) and the only thing that’s new is that he works three jobs. (Three jobs? Kyungsoo had exclaimed, I thought he was an actor!) Jongin had looked awfully sheepish at that point.
(“Don’t tell him I said this, hyung.” Jongin said in a manner of a man sharing another man’s secrets, “But I think he wanted to impress you. Besides, he is an actor, just slightly out of work at the moment!
Kyungsoo scoffed. ”I think keeping three jobs is far more impressive - especially with the mouth on him.”)
What those jobs are, however, is a complete mystery. Kyungsoo has no idea what Bsaekhyun’s work schedule is either because despite being a very light sleeper Baekhyun coming home has not once woken him up. (Unlike Chanyeol, that clumsy oaf.) Byun Baekhyun is a mystery and he’s one Kyungsoo is starting to think he wants to solve.
Not that it looks like he’s going to get a chance to because as it is, he never gets to see the guy.
Oh well. He thinks. It’s probably for the best - if I started to spend time with him I’d probably remember why he annoyed me so much in the first place.
xxx
That night he’s suddenly awoken by the sound of the door creaking open and the next thing he knows there's a warm body burrowing under the covers with him.
"Kyungsooooo~" An almost certainly drunk Byun Baekhyun croons into his ear.
Kyungsoo stiffens. Why is a drunken Baekhyun crawling into his bed at - he looks over to his clock - 3.15 am? He can feel Baekhyun’s hot breath against his neck. He smells like vodka and peach snapps. Kyungsoo snorts. He would be drunk on sex on the beach, wouldn’t he?
“Baekhyun.” Kyungsoo says sternly. “Baekhyun you are drunk and in my bed.”
“Sounds like a proposition,” Baekhyun slurs, “if I were that kind of boy! But I am not, no sirree, so you can take your bun and keep it out of my oven, thank you very much mister chef man!”
Kyungsoo feels the vein in his head pulse with constrained anger. He counts to ten very slowly in his head, trying very hard to ignore the feeling of Baekhyun nuzzling his nose into his neck and basically squirming against Kyungsoo’s side.
“If anyone is taking advantage here Byun, it would be you.” He says slowly, calmly. “Now I am only going to say this once. Get. Out. Of. My. Bed.”
“So we can go to mine?” The hope in Baekyun’s voice is palpable. Kyungsoo sighs. This is why he hates dealing with drunk people.
“So you can go yours. I am staying here. In my bed.”
“Then I will too!” Bakehyun decides happily. He squeezes Kyungsoo harder and it’s very hard to breathe all of a sudden. (And it’s got everything to do with the way Baekhyun’s arms are crushing his lungs and nothing to do with how they are now so close Kyungsoo can feel Baekhyun’s heartbeat against his chest. Nothing.)
Kyungsoo considers his options.
Option 1: Put his years of watching WWF into use, headlock the bastard and forcibly remove him from Kyungsoo’s bed
(The downside to this option is that he’s not sure how drunk Baekhyun is. As such he’s not sure whether this would result in projectile vomiting and them then having to share Baekhyun’s bed instead… leaving him exactly where he started.)
Option 2: Wait til he’s asleep then kick him out of the bed and let him sleep on the floor
(Except it’s November and it seems a little cruel even for Kyungsoo to make Baekhyun sleep without a blanket. He wants to get him off, not get him ill. Wait, the first part of that sounded a little... )
Option 3: Give up
(Kyungsoo is not normally a quitter but it’s half three in the morning, he’s tired, and while he’s not overly happy about his new leech he really can’t be bothered right now. Besides, Baekhyun is warm. Kyungsoo likes warm.)
He chooses option three. He’ll deal with the consequences in the morning. Later in the morning. Whatever.
xxx
He will admit he’s not especially proud of the way he reacts in the morning. In his defense, it’s seven am and he’s not used to waking up to strange men in his bed trying to nuzzle their way into his neck.
He screams.
Instinctively he tries to push the offending body out of the bed but because Baekhyun has wrapped himself around Kyungsoo like a vine they both go toppling off the bed and onto the floor. Kyungsoo groans in pain as his back hits the floor. The person lying on him is heavy and it hurts.
“Ow!” A voice above him proclaims. “And I was having such a nice dream too…”
Wait a second. Kyungsoo stops trying to escape and looks up. “Baekhyun?”
Baekhyun’s face hovers above him, mouth stretched into a grin. He’s leaning over Kyungsoo on his forearms and it’s making Kyungsoo very aware of how close their faces are. Weird, his eyes look even smaller up close. He thinks idly.
“Your eyes look even bigger up close.” Baekhyun breathes.
“Of course they do, you’ve got closer to them!” Kyungsoo spits. “More importantly, what were you doing in my bed?”
“I was drunk.” Baekhyun says simply, as if that explains everything. Kyungsoo snorts. He crosses his arms over his chest.
“Yes, I could see that. And smell it too. What did you do, bathe in cocktails?”
“Cheaper than cologne and twice as delicious.” Baekhyun singsongs in Kyungsoo’s face. Kyungsoo grimaces. Baekhyun’s morning breath is really, really gross.
At that very moment Chanyeol and Jongin come bursting through the door, both wielding lightsabers. Kyungsoo is both touched and confused. What exactly would plastic swords do if he were being attacked?
“We, um, came to help…” Jongin starts.
“But I don’t think the help we’re offering is the kind of help you want.” Chanyeol grins. He looks down their bodies pointedly and it’s then Kyungsoo realises the position they’re in. Baekhyun’s leg is wedged between Kyungsoo’s thighs dangerously close to his crotch. He’s hovering above Kyungsoo still, braced on his forearms, and his face scant inches from Kyungsoo’s - it’s like something out of a manhwa. Baekhyun’s grinning. His teeth are very white. Kyungsoo’s not sure how he feels about that.
So Kyungsoo punches him. In the groin. Baekhyun rolls off him pretty quickly after that.
“Okaaaaay, so maybe you didn’t need our help even if you were being attacked…” Chanyeol says. “I’m just going to take my lightsaber back to my room now and go back to sleep. My eyes have been scarred enough.”
He grabs Jongin and pulls him forcibly out of the room mumbling something about ‘worst best friend ever’ and ‘too early for this’. Kyungsoo sighs. It definitely is too early for all this. He gets up and dusts himself off while Baekhyun rolls around on the floor clutching his groin. Kyungsoo almost feels sorry for him.
Oh well. Maybe that’ll teach him to go sneaking into other people’s beds uninvited.
He wanders off to the kitchen to start fixing himself and Jongin their breakfast, feeling substantially more chipper than he had been fifteen minutes ago. Nothing like a bit of violence to start the day off right, he thinks.
Xxx
Kyungsoo had been incorrect when he had assumed Byun Baekhyun would learn his lesson from sneaking into Kyungsoo’s bed the first time and would stay away. It did not seem Baekhyun was the lesson-learning type. Or the catch-an-extremely-unsubtle-hint type. Or the listen-to-your-flatmate-when-he-tells-you-this-probably-counts-as-sexual-harrassment type. It had got to the point where Kyungsoo was genuinely removing Baekhyun back to his own bed by force and still he would find himself woken up the next evening/early morning by the bastard attempting to spoon with him.
Kyungsoo does not spoon. And if he did he definitely would not be the little spoon, thank you very much.
As it is, he’s getting rather tired of it all. He’s busy with his culinary school work and while he lives a lot closer he’s also taken on the added responsibility of trying to keep his flatmates healthy and takeaway free which means making dinner - he even places leftovers in the fridge for Baekhyun and Chanyeol to have whenever they get in from whatever it is they do. It also means doing the grocery shopping to get the ingredients for dinner. (He makes them all pay though and they have to do the dishes. It’s only fair.) All in all it feels a bit like he’s become his mother and while he will admit that yes, this is not something he needs to do it’s something he wants to do it does take up a fair bit of his time and energy. Energy he therefore does not have to deal with drunken flatmates invading his bed at stupid o’ clock in the morning.
It’s not that he hates Baekhyun. Kyungsoo doesn’t think he hates anybody really. Baekhyun is just really, really, really annoying.
Xxx
One night Kyungsoo wakes up early. Three hours too early, to be exact. The red numbers 4.15 blaze out at him from his alarm clock and he groans. To his surprise, his bed is empty. Usually by now he’d at least have the first attempt to enter his bed - it’s usually around half three Baekhyun sneaks in. (He refuses to accept that possibly he’s got into a routine now and his body is used to the interruption to his sleep.)
Sighing heavily he pads his way down the hall to the kitchen for a glass of water. The light is still on when he gets there but he doesn’t really think anything of it - Chanyeol’s always forgetting to turn the lights off when he leaves rooms - so he doesn’t expect there to be a Baekhyun fast asleep with his head on the table.
His first instinct when he sees the tousled blonde head resting on the table is worry. Has Baekhyun passed out while eating or something? Is he okay? Soft snoring soon assures him that Baekhyun is merely sleeping and he breathes a sigh of relief. Kyungsoo isn’t good at high stress situations.
He debates waking him. On one hand, he’s sleeping pretty peacefully. His face, which is usually lively and full of mischief, is smooth and calm. His eyeliner has smudged at some point and is wiped across his cheek making him look a little bit comical. He looks cute though. Human somehow. On the other hand Baekhyun is going to have an awful crick in his neck tomorrow if Kyungsoo leaves him to sleep like that. He sighs again. It’s difficult being such a nice person like Kyungsoo is sometimes.
“Baekhyun.” He calls softly. “C’mon, wake up.”
He shakes him gently for good measure. Baekhyun shoots up, hair mussed and eyes half open.
“Huh? Is it time to go?” He mumbles.
Kyungsoo laughs. “No. It’s still morning. You were sleeping at the table.”
Baekhyun looks down at the table. There’s a slight drool mark where his head has been pressed against the wood. He blushes.
“Ah.” He says.
“Have you had dinner? I’ll heat you up some.” Kyungsoo offers. He doesn’t really know why he’s asking, just that it feels right. He doesn’t need to have his defences up at the moment - not when Baekhyun has his down too.
Baekhyun shakes his head sleepily. “I must have been just about to get it when I nodded off.”
“Right.” Kyungsoo goes to the fridge and takes out the chicken and chickpea paprika risotto he’d made earlier and busies himself searching for a bowl and putting it in the microwave. It’s slightly awkward. He can feel Baekhyun’s eyes on his back throughout the whole thing but he never says anything. Kyungsoo waits for a witty remark but it doesn’t come.
The microwave pings and Kyungsoo gets it out and places it before Baekhyun. He wastes no time in digging in, spoon in hand, and the noise he makes at the first bite is so sinful it makes Kyungsoo cringe.
“Why do you do that?” He asks grumpily. “It’s just risotto, no need to break out the pornstar impression.”
“Iss juss so good!” Baekhyun says with his mouth full.
“It’s just risotto.” Kyungsoo repeats stubbornly, arms crossed and looking away from Baekhyun. Damn this bastard for making him blush.
Baekhyun fixes him with a look Kyungsoo can’t interpret.
“It isn’t though. You make it because you care for all of us - no matter how hard you deny it Soo I know it’s true - and it shows in your cooking you know? It tastes delicious not because of what it is but because you made it for us and you want us to eat it and be happy and healthy.” He stops and looks up at Kyungsoo with a huge grin on his face. “That’s what I think anyway.”
Kyungsoo is stunned. Here it is, exactly what Grandfather had been trying to show him all along, and he’s been doing it without even realising? Even more amazing, Baekhyun, possibly the most insensitive man on the planet, is telling him he can feel Kyungsoo’s emotion through his cooking. Kyungsoo feels almost… touched.
“Hey!” Baekhyun is looking at him with a worried smile. “Don’t cry Soo. I know I’m a great speaker but it wasn’t that great. Wait ‘til you see me in Macbeth. I’m Lady M.” He winks cheesily and Kyungsoo laughs despite himself. Stupid Byun Baekhyun and his contagious happiness.
“I’m not crying, moron.” He says, still smiling.
Baekhyun gives him a look that clearly reads of course not. Kyungsoo sticks his tongue out at him. Kyungsoo doesn’t cry. (Except at really good anime.)
“What were you doing having dinner this late anyway?” Kyungsoo asks, trying to deflect attention away from his completely non-existent tears.
Baekhyun pauses from trying to shovel risotto into his gob. “Working.”
“’Til two in the morning?”
Baekhyun nods. “I’m a bartender Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at a bar downtown. Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Wednesday I work double shifts at a restaurant.”
“Oh.” He hadn’t known that.
Baekhyun laughs at his reaction and Kyungsoo realises his eyes have probably got really wide again. He scowls.
“I thought you were an actor.” He says the last word with implied questions marks. Does the stupid gesture and everything. Baekhyun grins and scratches the back of his head.
“The acting work is pretty scarce at the moment. I’ve got a couple of castings in the next month but until I’ve got something solid…” He trails off.
“Something’ll come up.” Kyungsoo blurts out. Inside he’s kicking himself. What the hell is he saying??
Baekhyun’s answering smile is like the sun (if the sun were square). Blinding and bright and warm. “Thanks Soo.” He says.
Kyungsoo grunts.
(“Does that mean you like me enough to let me sleep in your bed tonight?” Baekhyun says innocently.
Kyungsoo punches him and storms out of the kitchen.
But he still wakes up the next morning in Baekhyun’s arms.)
Xxx
To say that from that point on Baekhyun and Kyungsoo were civil is not quite right. They still fight and tease and needle each other but now there’s an undercurrent of - something - that Kyungsoo can’t quite identify. Warmth? Affection?
“Unresolved Sexual Tension.” Jongin suggests over breakfast. Kyungsoo nearly chokes on his scrambled eggs.
“Who’s been teaching you those kind of words?” He exclaims as Jongin pats him on the back.
“I’ve lived with Chanyeol-hyung and Baekhyun-hyung a lot longer than you, hyung.” Jongin points out, amused. “I was bound to pick some things up.”
Kyungsoo rages internally at the corruption of his baby and starts plotting Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s demise. Maybe only making enough dinner for him and his Jongbaby this evening would be a good start.
“Seriously though, hyung. You like him, right?”
Kyungsoo has nothing to say to that. He’s not even thought about that being a possibility because - hello - this is Byun Baekhyun we’re talking about. Annoying. Infuriating. Definitely not boyfriend material.
No, whatever this new shift in their dynamic is, it has absolutely nothing to do with Kyungsoo possibly warming up to him. Nothing at all.
Xxx
Kyungsoo is not very good at lying, not even to himself. He likes Baekhyun. He likes his stupid square grin and his teasing and his dumb laugh. This is not good. Kyungsoo had not moved into this house to get himself caught up in some kind of manwha-worthy romance.
It’s gotten so bad he’s only putting up a token protest at Baekhyun sneaking into his bed. Literally a well-timed barb and then that’s it - he rolls over like a prissy cat that really wants to be petted and lets Baekhyun drape himself all over Kyungsoo. It’s humiliating.
A prime example is this:
It’s three thirty am. Kyungsoo, so accustomed to his nightly visitor by now what he automatically wakes up slightly before Baekhyun is due to sneak in, is lying very still in his bed. He focusses very hard on making his breathing seem even. He feels the cover lift up.
“Good evening Byun. It seems you’ve gotten lost again. Loserville is the second door to the right just down the hall if you want to return to your rightful place.” He says without opening his eyes.
The weight on Kyungsoo’s bed freezes and Kyungsoo has to bite down on his lip to keep from smiling.
“I like getting lost.” Baekhyun replies. “Didn’t you know you always find the best things when you get lost?”
“Well you can get lost then.” Kyungsoo grumps. Did that mean he was one of Baekhyun’s best things?
“In your bed? Is that an invitation?” Baekhyun says wickedly. He dives under the covers and wraps his arms around Kyungsoo in some strange and slightly uncomfortable bear hug. He manhandles Kyungsoo around until he has him properly in his arms, no longer facing away from Baekhyun but towards him. “Or did you mean in your eyes?”
Their faces are very close to each other. Baekhyun is so, so close. His stupid small eyes are looking straight into Kyungsoo’s and Kyungsoo feels his breath catch in his throat.
“Because they’re big enough to get lost in.”
And that was the moment ruined. Not that they were having a moment. No moments there.
Kyungsoo can’t exactly punch him what with the way he’s trapped inside Baekhyun’s arms, so he settles for kneeing him in the crotch instead. Baekhyun lets out a little squeal of pain. Kyungsoo smiles.
“Keep quiet, Byun. I’m trying to sleep here.” He says. He hides his grin in Baekhyun’s collarbone, but he’s sure Baekhyun can feel it anyway.
“As a mouse.” Baekhyun whispers. Loudly. Arsehole.
Kyungsoo falls asleep smiling, warm and comfortable inside Baekhyun’s embrace.
He doesn’t even push Baek out of bed the next morning.
xxx
It gets worse. As if happily allowing Baekhyun to spoon him every night wasn’t enough Baekhyun has now started talking to him just before they go to sleep in a warm, sleep-tinged voice. Sometimes it’s just stupid stuff about his day or his coworkers (there was a massive scandal at the gay bar he worked at apparently when they found out of the other barmen, Yixing, was sleeping with the bar’s owner’s barely-of-legal-age son, Sehun) and other times it’s snatches of lines from audition scripts (“What light through yolanda’s window breaks?” A sigh. “It’s yonder window, Baekhyun.”) And then other times it’s snatches of Baekhyun’s life before he came here. Stuff that Kyungsoo’s sure Baekhyun wouldn’t have told him if they weren’t both about to fall into the embrace of slumber.
“I ran away from home at sixteen.” He tells Kyungsoo, but he doesn’t say why. Kyungsoo doesn’t ask.
“My dad doesn’t - didn’t - like faggots.” He says another night.
He tells Kyungsoo about the kind old man that gave him a meal in the second week after he ran away and how he moved in with Chanyeol after meeting him at a jamming session and that he still writes his mum letters but never gets round to posting them.
Kyungsoo wants to ask what happened in the year between moving in with Chanyeol and when Baekhyun ran away but he doesn’t. He wants to tell Baekhyun to post those letters, but he doesn’t. He never says a word when Baekhyun tells him these things. He has no idea whether Baekhyun thinks he’s awake or not but each of these snippets of Baekhyun’s life before are precious to him, like tiny gifts. He doesn’t want to speak and ruin whatever spell has made Baekhyun feel like he can tell Kyungsoo these things. Kyungsoo feels gross and stupid and infatuated. He hates it. It all feels so one-sided.
He hates that he can’t say anything about Baekhyun telling him these things because everything is done in the dark. The words whispered in the dead of night don’t get to see the light of day. When they wake up in the morning the routine is the same - bicker, fight, flirt.
It’s confusing. It’s like there’re two Baekhyuns - the loud, infuriating day Byun and the quiet, serious Baek.
The worst bit is Kyungsoo thinks he likes them both and he has no idea how to tell Baekhyun that.
Xxx
Are you listening Byun? Good, because I am only going to say this once and then we are never speaking of it again or else someone will be in a great deal of pain and it won’t be me.
So.
When I was little I wanted to be a hedgehog. Then a postman, then a doctor. I hadn’t always wanted to be a chef. I think it was probably when I was sixteen that I started to think about becoming a chef seriously.
I had always helped out in my grandfather’s restaurant - he lived in Busan so I didn’t get to see him often but I used to go over summer to stay and I’d get roped in. Honestly I didn’t mind. Cooking with Grandfather was always lots of fun - he always had these stories to tell about dragons and heroes and love. Crazy stories. Good food. They were the best summers of my life.
He’d always tell me that cooking is something that could touch people’s hearts - could bring them joy and warmth and make their day better just with a simple meal. I used to tell him I understood but I didn’t. Not really. Not until that summer - the summer after I turned sixteen.
It had been a busy day at the restaurant. People had been coming in one after the other since it had opened and everybody had been run off their feet. By the end of the shift we were all tired and exhausted and more than ready to call it a night, head home and go to sleep.
I was cleaning up the kitchen with Grandfather when he stepped outside to take out the bins because he always insisted on doing it even though I told him every time it wasn’t any good for his back. He came back in with a strange look on his face. He asked me to cook something for him and I said “Grandfather, don’t you think it’s a bit late? Let’s just go home.” but he insisted that I should make something so I did.
“Make it with all the love and strength you can.” He told me. I had no idea what he meant, but I went along with it. I thought maybe he was ill and needed something to make him feel better so I made some soup. As I did I thought about how much I loved Grandfather and his restaurant and his funny stories and coming to Busan for the summer and how much I wanted him to be happy and well.
It wasn’t a fancy soup. I don’t even remember what I put in it now, but it wasn’t anything special. I offered it to him. Instead of eating it though, he’d taken it outside. I was confused. Was there something wrong with my soup? Upset I had followed him out the back, partly terrified I was going to see him throw it into the rubbish or something - but that’s not what happened.
He gave it to a boy that was crouched in the alley.
His clothes were dirty and there was a hood pulled up over his eyes but by the way he snatched that soup bowl out of my grandfather’s hands I knew he was hungry. I didn’t know what to think so I just stood there behind my grandfather watching this boy eat - pretty creepy but he didn’t seem to care. He must have finished that bowl in five minutes he ate so fast.
He looked up at my grandfather and smiled so big and wide you could see happiness gushing from every pore. He thanked him. And then he left with a new shine in his eyes and a warmth in his heart.
“That,” my grandfather told me as we watched him leave, “is the power of a good meal made by a kind heart. Don’t you ever forget it, Kyungsoo.”
And that was the moment I decided I wanted to be a chef.
Then my grandfather died and the restaurant closed down and my plan of becoming my grandfather’s apprentice after I’d finished school went up in smoke. So I researched culinary schools in Seoul and fought tooth and nail against my parents to let me go. I worked so hard to get in. Then, once I was there, I think I lost touch with why I wanted to be a chef in the first place. It was always assignments and innovation and competition. There was nothing personal about it.
Then I moved in here and I met you.
I was so angry the first time we met, you know that? You’re so infuriating, Byun Baekhyun. I was so mad that the dinner I made you, had feelings really made into the food you would all have been dead. But do you know what you told me? “Tastes like home.” God, that made me so ashamed. I had done the exact opposite of what Grandfather had told me to do, but here you were praising me.
It was you that made me realise what emotions I’d been putting into my cooking. It was you who made me remember why I wanted to be a chef back in my grandfather’s restaurant in Busan.
I’ll admit I didn’t like you at first. In fact I still don’t like you some days now. But I… I think I need you with me, Byun Baekhyun. I want you to be my reminder forever, okay?
Please don’t make me say more than that.
Xxx
By the end of his speech Kyungsoo is shaking in Baekhyun’s hold. He hasn’t left, which Kyungsoo is taking as a good sign. He also isn’t saying anything.
“So you were listening when I told you all that stuff.” Baekhyun says finally.
Kyungsoo can’t read his tone at all. It’s dark and he can’t see Baekhyun’s face either so he has absolutely no clue as to Baekhyun is feeling. It’s unsettling. He says nothing.
“I’m sorry.” He hears Baekhyun say. “I’m just a little shocked, I mean - that’s more words than I’ve ever heard you say without some kind of hidden snark.”
Kyungsoo’s heart sinks. Trust Baekhyun to turn the whole thing into a joke.
“I’m sorry.” Kyungsoo sneers. “Next time I’m bearing my soul I’ll be sure to make it sassi-”
“I want to stay with you too.” Baekhyun cuts in.
Kyungsoo blinks, startled. He hadn’t been expecting that. And apparently Baekhyun is not finished because he takes the hand that was around Kyungsoo’s shoulder and places it over his mouth.
“I want to stay with you, and kiss you, and find a legal way that we can procure babies so that we can have babies together okay?” Baekhyun continues. “And I know I’m the one who has to say all this stuff because you are useless when it comes to expressing your feelings. Seriously, Soo. You confessed by telling me about your grandfather and a homeless boy.”
Kyungsoo bites Baekhyun’s hand. Baekhyun hisses and pulls it quickly away from Kyungsoo’s mouth.
“What the hell was that for?” He shrieks.
“Shut up and kiss me.” Kyungsoo demands, incredibly glad that the gloom covers the blush he can feel burning on his cheeks.
Baekhyun doesn’t need telling twice.
Xxx
Omake:
“Soo, using the speech you used to confess to me as your acceptance speech for your Michelin man award is just tacky.” Baekhyun informs him once they arrive at their hotel room after the ceremony.
“It’s Michelin star you imbecile and for your information my PR guru told me it would be an excellent choice.” Kyungsoo throws his suit jacket over the chair uncaringly.
“Hey! Are you listening to some jumped up know it all instead of your husband now?”
“There is literally no difference between the two things you just said.” Kyungsoo informs him.
Baekhyun catches Kyungsoo by the waist and spins him round. They stare into one another’s eyes.
“I hate you.” Baekhyun pouts. Kyungsoo smiles and leans up for a kiss.
“Hate you too.”
And they lived happily ever after.
ʚ Pairing(s): Kyungsoo/Baekhyun
ʚ Rating: PG-13
ʚ Warnings: slight bad language
ʚ Word count: 8000 words
ʚ Summary: Recipe No Oujisama AU! All Kyungsoo wants is to graduate culinary school and open his own restaurant. He moves into a new house for convenience, but what he gets is three weird housemates including the noisy, boisterous and generally infuriating Byun Baekhyun.
ʚ Author’s notes/Messages for the recipient: dear recipient, I had fun writing this and I hope you enjoy it! Also I hadn't read the manga before this and I loved it so thank you for that too!
They say a way to someone’s heart is through their stomach. Kyungsoo, despite what some of his friends might have to say on the matter, actually has no interest in collecting people’s hearts (he really doesn’t understand why they’d think he’d keep them in jars either that’s just weird) but he supposes the principle might be somewhat similar.
Because Do Kyungsoo has a dream, a dream to one day open up his own restaurant and fill the hearts of its patrons with joy from eating his cooking. Not that he would say that last bit out loud, because his friends are arseholes and would probably ridicule him to the sun and back. As far as they know, Kyungsoo just wants to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps. That is the way it will stay, too.
However at this very moment Do Kyungsoo’s dream seems just that, and very farfetched indeed - all because of one boy by the name of-
“BYUN BAEKHYUN!!” Kyungsoo shrieks. “GET YOUR FAT ARSE OUT OF MY BED!”
The house echoes with screams. (And not the good kind).
……
The facts are these:
1. Kyungsoo’s family home was approximately three hours from his culinary school on a good day, and he was starting to look and feel like a zombie…
2. So his now ex-friend Joonmyeon kindly got him in contact with a cousin of his who was trying to rent out a house close to the university and at more than reasonable rent…
3. Which turns out to have been a terrible idea because while at first glance the house may have seemed clean and homely, what actually greeted him was a living room that looked like a bomb had gone off and three very strange flatmates.
4. Kyungsoo was not amused.
It wasn’t the best first impression. Kyungsoo had been torn between glaring at the piles of takeaway packets and towers of empty ramyun packets and the first two of his flatmates. The first, Park Chanyeol, seemed not to even notice the waves of fury rolling off his tiny new flatmate and swept him up in a huge hug. He was tall, really tall, like, easily twenty centimetres taller than Kyungsoo and sporting a nest of ginger dreadlocks tied neatly back in a ponytail. Kyungsoo had a close-up view from where he’d been picked up and almost slung over Chanyeol’s shoulder. He could see the line of piercings that trailed down Chanyeol’s ears and the tattoo that started curling under his t-shirt at the base of his neck. He also smelt faintly of apples, Kyungsoo had observed, but that’s neither here nor there.
“Put me down!” Kyungsoo had squeaked, somewhat strangled by the oaf’s bear-grip.
“Hyung, I think you’re squashing him!” A voice had come from behind Chanyeol. A voice sent from heaven. Kyungsoo had thought. My saviour.
“Oops. Sorry.” Chanyeol had then promptly dropped Kyungsoo on his arse in the debris and smiled sheepishly. Kyungsoo just glared even harder. “I’m Chanyeol.” He said, stretching out his hand to help Kyungsoo back up again.
“Do Kyungsoo.” Kyungsoo had huffed (even as he took the giant’s hand).
“Kim Jongin.” The voice of reason said from somewhere behind Chanyeol. Kyungsoo had peered round the giant blocking his vision to see an angel. A tall, handsome young man stood in the doorway, a nervous shy smile playing on his lips and playing with the fringe that hung low over his eyes. Kyungsoo had to smother the urge to hug him and coo nonsense and feed him cake like a baby.
Weird.
“Well, I’m off out.” Chanyeol said, using how stunned Kyungsoo had been by Jongin’s appearance to make a quick getaway.
“But wait…!” Kyungsoo had called after him. “What about the living room…?”
Jongin chuckles nervously and Kyungsoo resists the urge to pinch his cheeks. Seriously, who gave the kid the right to be so adorable.
“Sorry, Kyungsoo-sshi. None of us are really good at cleaning…”
“That’s okay, Jongin-ah. And call me hyung, please.”
“Okay.” Jongin smiles happily again. Kyungsoo wants to feed him chocolate and rainbows. Seriously, this is getting freaky.
“Will you stay and help me clean up?” He asks kindly.
A burst of nervous laughter escapes from Jongin’s lips. “You know, I would hyung but I have dance practice soon and I really should get going if I want to get there in time so I’ll see you later, bye!”
The last part is yelled from somewhere down the hall as Jongin makes his hasty retreat out of the living room, leaving Kyungsoo alone once again in the skyscrapers of semi-eaten crisp packets and empty bottles.
Well, shit.
….
It takes Kyungsoo hours to get the living room to the point where he can even consider getting out the vacuum cleaner and he’s feeling rather proud of the transformation his hard work has wrought. He’s just about to go and retrieve it when he hears the door closing and footsteps coming down the hallway to the lounge.
A boy appears, about Kyungsoo’s own height, with bleached hair and several piercings. Nothing as extreme as what Chanyeol has got going on, but it’s noticeable nonetheless.
“Oh.” The boy says. “You must be the new roommate.” He shrugs off his coat and bag and dumps them unceremoniously by the wall. “I’m Byun Baekhyun.” He slips off his shoes and tosses them to the same place. “Nice to meet you…”
Wait a cotton picking minute here.
“Hey!” Kyungsoo yells. “I’ve just spent hours cleaning the place of your mess so would it kill you to pick up after yourself?”
The boy looks faintly shocked for all of two seconds before a wide grin plays across his face. “That’s an awfully long name you got there, Hey-sshi. I’m just going to call you Clean-Freak, okay?” Byun leans over to take off his socks.
Pause
“My name is Do Kyungsoo.” Kyungsoo breathes out heavily through his nostrils. “And I would appreciate it if you would STOP TAKING YOUR CLOTHES OFF!”
…
And that is how, on the first day of meeting his roommate Byun Baekhyun, one Do Kyungsoo learnt what it meant to cook in anger.
He’d never hate-baked before - never in his life had he been so furious, and that says a lot seeing as Kyungsoo has the shortest fuse of anyone he knows - but the living room had driven Kyungsoo to the edge of the cliff of insanity and then Byun Baekhyun had pushed him off it.
Once Kyungsoo had managed to glare Baekhyun into ceasing to strip in their living room he had been struck rather for a loss. What exactly did you say to a man you’d asked to stop taking their clothes off not ten minutes before? Kyungsoo wasn’t good at this socialising thing at the best of times let alone when he was frazzled, exhausted and possibly high off cleaner fumes. Luckily at this point Chanyeol and Jongin seemed to have decided it was safe to reappear - if Baekhyun wasn’t being roped into cleaning it was safe enough to assume that they wouldn’t be either, apparently - and it saved Kyungsoo from having to attempt to make awkward small talk.
“Ah, I see you’ve met Baekhyun?” Chanyeol grins widely. “I’m sure you’re getting on well - you’re about on the same level after all.”
Kyungsoo gets the distinct impression that Chanyeol may be making fun of their heights. He is not impressed.
“If god had made me any larger the world wouldn’t have been big enough for me - unlike some people I could name who just sit around wasting space.” Baekhyun sasses back. Chanyeol just tuts under his breath and rolls his eyes.
“Jealousy is not a good look on you, Byun.”
“Neither are those rat-tails on your head you call dreads. And who said I was jealous?”
As Kyungsoo watches them bicker he can feel a headache coming on. This was obviously a common occurrence, judging by how Jongin isn’t even watching them anymore and has sidled up to Kyungsoo instead.
“What do you want for dinner hyung?” He says. “They won’t be done until there’s something to make them shut up and I’m kinda hungry.”
Jongin tells him this like it’s some kind of secret - he’s so adorable and bashful that Kyungsoo has to resist the urge to pinch his cheeks. He shakes his head to clear his head of these strange thoughts. He did not move into this house to essentially become someone’s mother, no matter how cute they were.
“I was planning on making something dinner but I haven’t had time to go shopping yet.” He replies, gesturing pointedly to the now-clean living room. “I wouldn’t mind cooking for everyone though if they let me use their ingredients?”
Three sets of eyes immediately swivel towards him. After the loudness of Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s bickering the silence seems deafening and Kyungsoo starts to wonder if he said something wrong.
“You can cook?” Baekhyun says. Kyungsoo bristles instinctively.
“I’m only at culinary school,” He snaps back.
Baekhyun holds his hands up in a symbol of surrender. “Hey, no offense man. Just thought you were one of those nerdy types, you know. Science at uni, that kind of thing.”
“If you’d asked, you would know.” Kyungsoo replies coldly.
“Well I don’t think there’s really anything in the fridge,” Chanyeol cuts in, “But you’re more than welcome to try. None of us can really cook-” No kidding,Kyungsoo mutters under his breath, thinking back to the mountains of fast food containers that used to litter the living room -“It’d be nice to have a home cooked meal for once.”
Kyungsoo smiles with grim determination. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Xxx
There is literally nothing in the fridge. When Chanyeol had said he didn’t really think there was anything in the fridge clearly what he meant was ‘there’s nothing in the fridge’ because currently Kyungsoo is looking at two eggs, a jar of mayonnaise, a clove of garlic, and a pineapple.
Deep breathes, Do Kyungsoo. Just think of it as a challenge like on one of those cookery programs on the telly - look in the cupboards for staples and make it up as you go along. You can do this. You can.
Kyungsoo slides the blades of the knives he found in the kitchen draw together, relishing the keen sound as they glide across each other. Time to show these punks who they’re messing with.
Xxx
Baekhyun releases a moan that sounds positively orgasmic. His eyes are shut and his face is screwed up in pleasure and Kyungsoo’s first thought is: He’s got to be faking. His cooking is good, but it’s not that good. He still has a long way to go before he’s anywhere good enough to open his own restaurant.
When he looks around though he realises maybe it’s not that the food is so delicious (although it is quite delicious, especially considering what he had to work with) but that these guys have been so long without real, home-cooked food they’ve forgotten how good it can taste. Chanyeol is wolfing his down with no care for common courtesy or manners and half of it seems to be on his face. Jongin is eating slower but there’s a look of wonderment on his face that makes him almost glow.
“This is amazing, Kyungsoo.” Baekhyun says. “Tastes just like home.”
All at once Kyungsoo feels a curl of guilt in his gut. These people are honestly happy from eating his cooking but he hadn’t made it with that intention in mind at all. He’d made in spite. He’d made it to show off. He picks up some noodles with his chopsticks and lets it slosh noisily back into the bowl. He’s lost his appetite.
“You’re at culinary school, Kyungsoo hyung?” Jongin asks between mouthfuls. “That’s so cool!”
Kyungsoo nods. “What about you, Jongin-ah? You said you dance?”
“He’s amazing. He’s a full time back-up dancer for an entertainment company, you know.” Chanyeol cuts in. His voice is bursting with pride and Kyungsoo can see Jongin blush out of the corner of his eye. Interesting.
“Shut up, hyung! I’m not that great, honestly.” Jongin smiles sheepishly. “Chanyeollie-hyung’s the talented one - he’s in a band.”
Kyungsoo tries very hard not to let his eyebrow raise for that one. A band. Of course. He should have guessed really.
“And what about me?” Baekhyun says, scandalised. “What am I, chopped liver?”
Jongin laughs sweetly and hurries to assure Baekhyun of his talent. Baekhyun preens under the attention. Kyungsoo has to smother the urge to stab him with his chopsticks. Seriously? This guy is so shameless, fishing for compliments. He seems the kind of guy Kyungsoo hates the most - self-centred, vain and lazy. He’s so busy ranting inside his mind that he’s kind of forgotten to tune in to what Jongin and Baekhyun are saying so he completely misses what it is Baekhyun actually does.
“I’m sorry, what is it you do?” Kyungsoo tries very hard (not that hard) to look interested.
Baekhyun springs up from his seat and makes a rather ridiculous and over-the-top bow that involves taking off his imaginary hat with a flourish and pretending to hit Kyungsoo with it.
“Professional idiot.” Kyungsoo surmises. “Either that or a very bad mime artist.”
Chanyeol bursts out laughing. “He’s got you pegged, Baka-Byun.”
Baekhyun sweeps his imaginary hat back to his chest in (probably) outrage and stands up tall. Jongin is trying not to laugh. Chanyeol has given up and is just guffawing in earnest now.
“I am an actor, you unappreciative peasants! A very fine one I’ll have you know!”
“I’m so sorry,” Kyungsoo says eyes widening. “I should have guessed right from the start - with a face like that, of course you’d be an actor! I mean…”
Kyungsoo breaks off shyly, as if he’s embarrassed to say anymore. He watches smugly as Baekhyun drinks it up - stupid vain idiot that he is - while Chanyeol and Jongin’s jaws seem to have fallen to the floor in disbelief.
Then Kyungsoo turns, a wicked gleam in his eyes, and whispers conspiratorially to Chanyeol and Jongin, “Now that is called acting.”
It takes a split second for what he’s said to register and then Chanyeol and Jongin burst into howling laughter. Chanyeol is laughing so hard he’s almost crying - Kyungsoo wouldn’t be surprised if he started rolling around on the floor soon. Baekhyun, on the other hand, looks like he’s been slapped in the face with a particularly large and unpleasant-smelling fish. Kyungsoo smirks internally. Good. That should take him down a few pegs.
Baekhyun splutters unattractively. “Acti- What?”
“I like this one.” Chanyeol says after he’s finished nearly wetting himself with laughter. “We should keep him. Cooks, and can render Byun Baekhyun silent for nearly five minutes - he’ll come in handy!”
Kyungsoo allows himself a small smile. He’s not entirely sure what winning over this bunch will get him but it’s got to be better than being on their bad side. He has to live with them, after all.
“To our new housemate?” Jongin raises his can of fanta shyly.
“To our new housemate!” Baekhyun says. Kyungsoo shoots him a look of surprise but Baekhyun just shrugs and gives him a small smile. “You’ll make things interesting around here for sure.”
Kyungsoo narrows his eyes suspiciously. He doesn’t particularly like the sound of that - he’s here for convenience, not interest thank you very much - but Baekhyun doesn’t seem to hate him so he supposes he can’t complain. He raises his beer can and chinks it to Baekhyun’s.
“To new housemates.” He agrees solemnly. May God give me strength.
Xxx
It isn’t until he’s wrapped up warm and safe in his bed that the guilt from earlier returns. He shouldn’t have made that food the way he did - full of anger and pride, spitefully. His grandfather always said that whatever emotions you cook with would infuse the dish and he's ashamed to have made a dish so sour and acid.
Never again. He promises himself. Never again.
If he's going to fulfil his dream and open a restaurant his grandfather would be proud of he's got to start cooking in a way he would be proud of too. No more anger.
(No more anger. Well, at least not when he's cooking anyway.)
Xxx
Over the next couple of weeks Kyungsoo falls into a comfortable routine. He gets up early, usually woken up by Jongin’s alarm because it goes off at decibels previously unheard by man, and makes breakfast for them both. He’s not entirely sure how that happened to be honest (a combination of Jongin’s longing stares at Kyungsoo’s eggs benedict and his bizarre need to smoosh the child’s cheeks probably) but it does mean he gets to see a genuine smile from someone eating his cooking. It’s a good way to start the day. Then he’s in culinary school ‘til late, maybe ten, and then he’s back home to make dinner and watch films for the rest of the evening until it’s bedtime and he can start working off his massive sleep debt.
Actually apart from Jongin he doesn’t really see his flatmates all that often which really isn’t all that bad. Kyungsoo’s not so good at the social thing, honestly. He’s learnt a bit more about them from his morning chats with Jongin though.
Chanyeol is in a band, as he had mentioned. Said band usually plays gigs at pubs and bars and things in the evenings so Chanyeol has essentially become nocturnal - he never wakes up before two in the afternoon and doesn’t usually make it home until three, four in the morning when the bars close. As to what music the band actually played, Kyungsoo hadn’t really gleaned much beyond that they were ‘the coolest thing ever’ (Jongin’s words) and he should really go see them sometime. Kyungsoo politely waved that off. Loud music and clubs are not really his thing.
Baekhyun, on the other hand, is a little harder to figure out. Jongin doesn’t seem to have as much information on him as he does on Chanyeol (not that Kyungsoo asked or anything) and the only thing that’s new is that he works three jobs. (Three jobs? Kyungsoo had exclaimed, I thought he was an actor!) Jongin had looked awfully sheepish at that point.
(“Don’t tell him I said this, hyung.” Jongin said in a manner of a man sharing another man’s secrets, “But I think he wanted to impress you. Besides, he is an actor, just slightly out of work at the moment!
Kyungsoo scoffed. ”I think keeping three jobs is far more impressive - especially with the mouth on him.”)
What those jobs are, however, is a complete mystery. Kyungsoo has no idea what Bsaekhyun’s work schedule is either because despite being a very light sleeper Baekhyun coming home has not once woken him up. (Unlike Chanyeol, that clumsy oaf.) Byun Baekhyun is a mystery and he’s one Kyungsoo is starting to think he wants to solve.
Not that it looks like he’s going to get a chance to because as it is, he never gets to see the guy.
Oh well. He thinks. It’s probably for the best - if I started to spend time with him I’d probably remember why he annoyed me so much in the first place.
xxx
That night he’s suddenly awoken by the sound of the door creaking open and the next thing he knows there's a warm body burrowing under the covers with him.
"Kyungsooooo~" An almost certainly drunk Byun Baekhyun croons into his ear.
Kyungsoo stiffens. Why is a drunken Baekhyun crawling into his bed at - he looks over to his clock - 3.15 am? He can feel Baekhyun’s hot breath against his neck. He smells like vodka and peach snapps. Kyungsoo snorts. He would be drunk on sex on the beach, wouldn’t he?
“Baekhyun.” Kyungsoo says sternly. “Baekhyun you are drunk and in my bed.”
“Sounds like a proposition,” Baekhyun slurs, “if I were that kind of boy! But I am not, no sirree, so you can take your bun and keep it out of my oven, thank you very much mister chef man!”
Kyungsoo feels the vein in his head pulse with constrained anger. He counts to ten very slowly in his head, trying very hard to ignore the feeling of Baekhyun nuzzling his nose into his neck and basically squirming against Kyungsoo’s side.
“If anyone is taking advantage here Byun, it would be you.” He says slowly, calmly. “Now I am only going to say this once. Get. Out. Of. My. Bed.”
“So we can go to mine?” The hope in Baekyun’s voice is palpable. Kyungsoo sighs. This is why he hates dealing with drunk people.
“So you can go yours. I am staying here. In my bed.”
“Then I will too!” Bakehyun decides happily. He squeezes Kyungsoo harder and it’s very hard to breathe all of a sudden. (And it’s got everything to do with the way Baekhyun’s arms are crushing his lungs and nothing to do with how they are now so close Kyungsoo can feel Baekhyun’s heartbeat against his chest. Nothing.)
Kyungsoo considers his options.
Option 1: Put his years of watching WWF into use, headlock the bastard and forcibly remove him from Kyungsoo’s bed
(The downside to this option is that he’s not sure how drunk Baekhyun is. As such he’s not sure whether this would result in projectile vomiting and them then having to share Baekhyun’s bed instead… leaving him exactly where he started.)
Option 2: Wait til he’s asleep then kick him out of the bed and let him sleep on the floor
(Except it’s November and it seems a little cruel even for Kyungsoo to make Baekhyun sleep without a blanket. He wants to get him off, not get him ill. Wait, the first part of that sounded a little... )
Option 3: Give up
(Kyungsoo is not normally a quitter but it’s half three in the morning, he’s tired, and while he’s not overly happy about his new leech he really can’t be bothered right now. Besides, Baekhyun is warm. Kyungsoo likes warm.)
He chooses option three. He’ll deal with the consequences in the morning. Later in the morning. Whatever.
xxx
He will admit he’s not especially proud of the way he reacts in the morning. In his defense, it’s seven am and he’s not used to waking up to strange men in his bed trying to nuzzle their way into his neck.
He screams.
Instinctively he tries to push the offending body out of the bed but because Baekhyun has wrapped himself around Kyungsoo like a vine they both go toppling off the bed and onto the floor. Kyungsoo groans in pain as his back hits the floor. The person lying on him is heavy and it hurts.
“Ow!” A voice above him proclaims. “And I was having such a nice dream too…”
Wait a second. Kyungsoo stops trying to escape and looks up. “Baekhyun?”
Baekhyun’s face hovers above him, mouth stretched into a grin. He’s leaning over Kyungsoo on his forearms and it’s making Kyungsoo very aware of how close their faces are. Weird, his eyes look even smaller up close. He thinks idly.
“Your eyes look even bigger up close.” Baekhyun breathes.
“Of course they do, you’ve got closer to them!” Kyungsoo spits. “More importantly, what were you doing in my bed?”
“I was drunk.” Baekhyun says simply, as if that explains everything. Kyungsoo snorts. He crosses his arms over his chest.
“Yes, I could see that. And smell it too. What did you do, bathe in cocktails?”
“Cheaper than cologne and twice as delicious.” Baekhyun singsongs in Kyungsoo’s face. Kyungsoo grimaces. Baekhyun’s morning breath is really, really gross.
At that very moment Chanyeol and Jongin come bursting through the door, both wielding lightsabers. Kyungsoo is both touched and confused. What exactly would plastic swords do if he were being attacked?
“We, um, came to help…” Jongin starts.
“But I don’t think the help we’re offering is the kind of help you want.” Chanyeol grins. He looks down their bodies pointedly and it’s then Kyungsoo realises the position they’re in. Baekhyun’s leg is wedged between Kyungsoo’s thighs dangerously close to his crotch. He’s hovering above Kyungsoo still, braced on his forearms, and his face scant inches from Kyungsoo’s - it’s like something out of a manhwa. Baekhyun’s grinning. His teeth are very white. Kyungsoo’s not sure how he feels about that.
So Kyungsoo punches him. In the groin. Baekhyun rolls off him pretty quickly after that.
“Okaaaaay, so maybe you didn’t need our help even if you were being attacked…” Chanyeol says. “I’m just going to take my lightsaber back to my room now and go back to sleep. My eyes have been scarred enough.”
He grabs Jongin and pulls him forcibly out of the room mumbling something about ‘worst best friend ever’ and ‘too early for this’. Kyungsoo sighs. It definitely is too early for all this. He gets up and dusts himself off while Baekhyun rolls around on the floor clutching his groin. Kyungsoo almost feels sorry for him.
Oh well. Maybe that’ll teach him to go sneaking into other people’s beds uninvited.
He wanders off to the kitchen to start fixing himself and Jongin their breakfast, feeling substantially more chipper than he had been fifteen minutes ago. Nothing like a bit of violence to start the day off right, he thinks.
Xxx
Kyungsoo had been incorrect when he had assumed Byun Baekhyun would learn his lesson from sneaking into Kyungsoo’s bed the first time and would stay away. It did not seem Baekhyun was the lesson-learning type. Or the catch-an-extremely-unsubtle-hint type. Or the listen-to-your-flatmate-when-he-tells-you-this-probably-counts-as-sexual-harrassment type. It had got to the point where Kyungsoo was genuinely removing Baekhyun back to his own bed by force and still he would find himself woken up the next evening/early morning by the bastard attempting to spoon with him.
Kyungsoo does not spoon. And if he did he definitely would not be the little spoon, thank you very much.
As it is, he’s getting rather tired of it all. He’s busy with his culinary school work and while he lives a lot closer he’s also taken on the added responsibility of trying to keep his flatmates healthy and takeaway free which means making dinner - he even places leftovers in the fridge for Baekhyun and Chanyeol to have whenever they get in from whatever it is they do. It also means doing the grocery shopping to get the ingredients for dinner. (He makes them all pay though and they have to do the dishes. It’s only fair.) All in all it feels a bit like he’s become his mother and while he will admit that yes, this is not something he needs to do it’s something he wants to do it does take up a fair bit of his time and energy. Energy he therefore does not have to deal with drunken flatmates invading his bed at stupid o’ clock in the morning.
It’s not that he hates Baekhyun. Kyungsoo doesn’t think he hates anybody really. Baekhyun is just really, really, really annoying.
Xxx
One night Kyungsoo wakes up early. Three hours too early, to be exact. The red numbers 4.15 blaze out at him from his alarm clock and he groans. To his surprise, his bed is empty. Usually by now he’d at least have the first attempt to enter his bed - it’s usually around half three Baekhyun sneaks in. (He refuses to accept that possibly he’s got into a routine now and his body is used to the interruption to his sleep.)
Sighing heavily he pads his way down the hall to the kitchen for a glass of water. The light is still on when he gets there but he doesn’t really think anything of it - Chanyeol’s always forgetting to turn the lights off when he leaves rooms - so he doesn’t expect there to be a Baekhyun fast asleep with his head on the table.
His first instinct when he sees the tousled blonde head resting on the table is worry. Has Baekhyun passed out while eating or something? Is he okay? Soft snoring soon assures him that Baekhyun is merely sleeping and he breathes a sigh of relief. Kyungsoo isn’t good at high stress situations.
He debates waking him. On one hand, he’s sleeping pretty peacefully. His face, which is usually lively and full of mischief, is smooth and calm. His eyeliner has smudged at some point and is wiped across his cheek making him look a little bit comical. He looks cute though. Human somehow. On the other hand Baekhyun is going to have an awful crick in his neck tomorrow if Kyungsoo leaves him to sleep like that. He sighs again. It’s difficult being such a nice person like Kyungsoo is sometimes.
“Baekhyun.” He calls softly. “C’mon, wake up.”
He shakes him gently for good measure. Baekhyun shoots up, hair mussed and eyes half open.
“Huh? Is it time to go?” He mumbles.
Kyungsoo laughs. “No. It’s still morning. You were sleeping at the table.”
Baekhyun looks down at the table. There’s a slight drool mark where his head has been pressed against the wood. He blushes.
“Ah.” He says.
“Have you had dinner? I’ll heat you up some.” Kyungsoo offers. He doesn’t really know why he’s asking, just that it feels right. He doesn’t need to have his defences up at the moment - not when Baekhyun has his down too.
Baekhyun shakes his head sleepily. “I must have been just about to get it when I nodded off.”
“Right.” Kyungsoo goes to the fridge and takes out the chicken and chickpea paprika risotto he’d made earlier and busies himself searching for a bowl and putting it in the microwave. It’s slightly awkward. He can feel Baekhyun’s eyes on his back throughout the whole thing but he never says anything. Kyungsoo waits for a witty remark but it doesn’t come.
The microwave pings and Kyungsoo gets it out and places it before Baekhyun. He wastes no time in digging in, spoon in hand, and the noise he makes at the first bite is so sinful it makes Kyungsoo cringe.
“Why do you do that?” He asks grumpily. “It’s just risotto, no need to break out the pornstar impression.”
“Iss juss so good!” Baekhyun says with his mouth full.
“It’s just risotto.” Kyungsoo repeats stubbornly, arms crossed and looking away from Baekhyun. Damn this bastard for making him blush.
Baekhyun fixes him with a look Kyungsoo can’t interpret.
“It isn’t though. You make it because you care for all of us - no matter how hard you deny it Soo I know it’s true - and it shows in your cooking you know? It tastes delicious not because of what it is but because you made it for us and you want us to eat it and be happy and healthy.” He stops and looks up at Kyungsoo with a huge grin on his face. “That’s what I think anyway.”
Kyungsoo is stunned. Here it is, exactly what Grandfather had been trying to show him all along, and he’s been doing it without even realising? Even more amazing, Baekhyun, possibly the most insensitive man on the planet, is telling him he can feel Kyungsoo’s emotion through his cooking. Kyungsoo feels almost… touched.
“Hey!” Baekhyun is looking at him with a worried smile. “Don’t cry Soo. I know I’m a great speaker but it wasn’t that great. Wait ‘til you see me in Macbeth. I’m Lady M.” He winks cheesily and Kyungsoo laughs despite himself. Stupid Byun Baekhyun and his contagious happiness.
“I’m not crying, moron.” He says, still smiling.
Baekhyun gives him a look that clearly reads of course not. Kyungsoo sticks his tongue out at him. Kyungsoo doesn’t cry. (Except at really good anime.)
“What were you doing having dinner this late anyway?” Kyungsoo asks, trying to deflect attention away from his completely non-existent tears.
Baekhyun pauses from trying to shovel risotto into his gob. “Working.”
“’Til two in the morning?”
Baekhyun nods. “I’m a bartender Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at a bar downtown. Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Wednesday I work double shifts at a restaurant.”
“Oh.” He hadn’t known that.
Baekhyun laughs at his reaction and Kyungsoo realises his eyes have probably got really wide again. He scowls.
“I thought you were an actor.” He says the last word with implied questions marks. Does the stupid gesture and everything. Baekhyun grins and scratches the back of his head.
“The acting work is pretty scarce at the moment. I’ve got a couple of castings in the next month but until I’ve got something solid…” He trails off.
“Something’ll come up.” Kyungsoo blurts out. Inside he’s kicking himself. What the hell is he saying??
Baekhyun’s answering smile is like the sun (if the sun were square). Blinding and bright and warm. “Thanks Soo.” He says.
Kyungsoo grunts.
(“Does that mean you like me enough to let me sleep in your bed tonight?” Baekhyun says innocently.
Kyungsoo punches him and storms out of the kitchen.
But he still wakes up the next morning in Baekhyun’s arms.)
Xxx
To say that from that point on Baekhyun and Kyungsoo were civil is not quite right. They still fight and tease and needle each other but now there’s an undercurrent of - something - that Kyungsoo can’t quite identify. Warmth? Affection?
“Unresolved Sexual Tension.” Jongin suggests over breakfast. Kyungsoo nearly chokes on his scrambled eggs.
“Who’s been teaching you those kind of words?” He exclaims as Jongin pats him on the back.
“I’ve lived with Chanyeol-hyung and Baekhyun-hyung a lot longer than you, hyung.” Jongin points out, amused. “I was bound to pick some things up.”
Kyungsoo rages internally at the corruption of his baby and starts plotting Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s demise. Maybe only making enough dinner for him and his Jongbaby this evening would be a good start.
“Seriously though, hyung. You like him, right?”
Kyungsoo has nothing to say to that. He’s not even thought about that being a possibility because - hello - this is Byun Baekhyun we’re talking about. Annoying. Infuriating. Definitely not boyfriend material.
No, whatever this new shift in their dynamic is, it has absolutely nothing to do with Kyungsoo possibly warming up to him. Nothing at all.
Xxx
Kyungsoo is not very good at lying, not even to himself. He likes Baekhyun. He likes his stupid square grin and his teasing and his dumb laugh. This is not good. Kyungsoo had not moved into this house to get himself caught up in some kind of manwha-worthy romance.
It’s gotten so bad he’s only putting up a token protest at Baekhyun sneaking into his bed. Literally a well-timed barb and then that’s it - he rolls over like a prissy cat that really wants to be petted and lets Baekhyun drape himself all over Kyungsoo. It’s humiliating.
A prime example is this:
It’s three thirty am. Kyungsoo, so accustomed to his nightly visitor by now what he automatically wakes up slightly before Baekhyun is due to sneak in, is lying very still in his bed. He focusses very hard on making his breathing seem even. He feels the cover lift up.
“Good evening Byun. It seems you’ve gotten lost again. Loserville is the second door to the right just down the hall if you want to return to your rightful place.” He says without opening his eyes.
The weight on Kyungsoo’s bed freezes and Kyungsoo has to bite down on his lip to keep from smiling.
“I like getting lost.” Baekhyun replies. “Didn’t you know you always find the best things when you get lost?”
“Well you can get lost then.” Kyungsoo grumps. Did that mean he was one of Baekhyun’s best things?
“In your bed? Is that an invitation?” Baekhyun says wickedly. He dives under the covers and wraps his arms around Kyungsoo in some strange and slightly uncomfortable bear hug. He manhandles Kyungsoo around until he has him properly in his arms, no longer facing away from Baekhyun but towards him. “Or did you mean in your eyes?”
Their faces are very close to each other. Baekhyun is so, so close. His stupid small eyes are looking straight into Kyungsoo’s and Kyungsoo feels his breath catch in his throat.
“Because they’re big enough to get lost in.”
And that was the moment ruined. Not that they were having a moment. No moments there.
Kyungsoo can’t exactly punch him what with the way he’s trapped inside Baekhyun’s arms, so he settles for kneeing him in the crotch instead. Baekhyun lets out a little squeal of pain. Kyungsoo smiles.
“Keep quiet, Byun. I’m trying to sleep here.” He says. He hides his grin in Baekhyun’s collarbone, but he’s sure Baekhyun can feel it anyway.
“As a mouse.” Baekhyun whispers. Loudly. Arsehole.
Kyungsoo falls asleep smiling, warm and comfortable inside Baekhyun’s embrace.
He doesn’t even push Baek out of bed the next morning.
xxx
It gets worse. As if happily allowing Baekhyun to spoon him every night wasn’t enough Baekhyun has now started talking to him just before they go to sleep in a warm, sleep-tinged voice. Sometimes it’s just stupid stuff about his day or his coworkers (there was a massive scandal at the gay bar he worked at apparently when they found out of the other barmen, Yixing, was sleeping with the bar’s owner’s barely-of-legal-age son, Sehun) and other times it’s snatches of lines from audition scripts (“What light through yolanda’s window breaks?” A sigh. “It’s yonder window, Baekhyun.”) And then other times it’s snatches of Baekhyun’s life before he came here. Stuff that Kyungsoo’s sure Baekhyun wouldn’t have told him if they weren’t both about to fall into the embrace of slumber.
“I ran away from home at sixteen.” He tells Kyungsoo, but he doesn’t say why. Kyungsoo doesn’t ask.
“My dad doesn’t - didn’t - like faggots.” He says another night.
He tells Kyungsoo about the kind old man that gave him a meal in the second week after he ran away and how he moved in with Chanyeol after meeting him at a jamming session and that he still writes his mum letters but never gets round to posting them.
Kyungsoo wants to ask what happened in the year between moving in with Chanyeol and when Baekhyun ran away but he doesn’t. He wants to tell Baekhyun to post those letters, but he doesn’t. He never says a word when Baekhyun tells him these things. He has no idea whether Baekhyun thinks he’s awake or not but each of these snippets of Baekhyun’s life before are precious to him, like tiny gifts. He doesn’t want to speak and ruin whatever spell has made Baekhyun feel like he can tell Kyungsoo these things. Kyungsoo feels gross and stupid and infatuated. He hates it. It all feels so one-sided.
He hates that he can’t say anything about Baekhyun telling him these things because everything is done in the dark. The words whispered in the dead of night don’t get to see the light of day. When they wake up in the morning the routine is the same - bicker, fight, flirt.
It’s confusing. It’s like there’re two Baekhyuns - the loud, infuriating day Byun and the quiet, serious Baek.
The worst bit is Kyungsoo thinks he likes them both and he has no idea how to tell Baekhyun that.
Xxx
Are you listening Byun? Good, because I am only going to say this once and then we are never speaking of it again or else someone will be in a great deal of pain and it won’t be me.
So.
When I was little I wanted to be a hedgehog. Then a postman, then a doctor. I hadn’t always wanted to be a chef. I think it was probably when I was sixteen that I started to think about becoming a chef seriously.
I had always helped out in my grandfather’s restaurant - he lived in Busan so I didn’t get to see him often but I used to go over summer to stay and I’d get roped in. Honestly I didn’t mind. Cooking with Grandfather was always lots of fun - he always had these stories to tell about dragons and heroes and love. Crazy stories. Good food. They were the best summers of my life.
He’d always tell me that cooking is something that could touch people’s hearts - could bring them joy and warmth and make their day better just with a simple meal. I used to tell him I understood but I didn’t. Not really. Not until that summer - the summer after I turned sixteen.
It had been a busy day at the restaurant. People had been coming in one after the other since it had opened and everybody had been run off their feet. By the end of the shift we were all tired and exhausted and more than ready to call it a night, head home and go to sleep.
I was cleaning up the kitchen with Grandfather when he stepped outside to take out the bins because he always insisted on doing it even though I told him every time it wasn’t any good for his back. He came back in with a strange look on his face. He asked me to cook something for him and I said “Grandfather, don’t you think it’s a bit late? Let’s just go home.” but he insisted that I should make something so I did.
“Make it with all the love and strength you can.” He told me. I had no idea what he meant, but I went along with it. I thought maybe he was ill and needed something to make him feel better so I made some soup. As I did I thought about how much I loved Grandfather and his restaurant and his funny stories and coming to Busan for the summer and how much I wanted him to be happy and well.
It wasn’t a fancy soup. I don’t even remember what I put in it now, but it wasn’t anything special. I offered it to him. Instead of eating it though, he’d taken it outside. I was confused. Was there something wrong with my soup? Upset I had followed him out the back, partly terrified I was going to see him throw it into the rubbish or something - but that’s not what happened.
He gave it to a boy that was crouched in the alley.
His clothes were dirty and there was a hood pulled up over his eyes but by the way he snatched that soup bowl out of my grandfather’s hands I knew he was hungry. I didn’t know what to think so I just stood there behind my grandfather watching this boy eat - pretty creepy but he didn’t seem to care. He must have finished that bowl in five minutes he ate so fast.
He looked up at my grandfather and smiled so big and wide you could see happiness gushing from every pore. He thanked him. And then he left with a new shine in his eyes and a warmth in his heart.
“That,” my grandfather told me as we watched him leave, “is the power of a good meal made by a kind heart. Don’t you ever forget it, Kyungsoo.”
And that was the moment I decided I wanted to be a chef.
Then my grandfather died and the restaurant closed down and my plan of becoming my grandfather’s apprentice after I’d finished school went up in smoke. So I researched culinary schools in Seoul and fought tooth and nail against my parents to let me go. I worked so hard to get in. Then, once I was there, I think I lost touch with why I wanted to be a chef in the first place. It was always assignments and innovation and competition. There was nothing personal about it.
Then I moved in here and I met you.
I was so angry the first time we met, you know that? You’re so infuriating, Byun Baekhyun. I was so mad that the dinner I made you, had feelings really made into the food you would all have been dead. But do you know what you told me? “Tastes like home.” God, that made me so ashamed. I had done the exact opposite of what Grandfather had told me to do, but here you were praising me.
It was you that made me realise what emotions I’d been putting into my cooking. It was you who made me remember why I wanted to be a chef back in my grandfather’s restaurant in Busan.
I’ll admit I didn’t like you at first. In fact I still don’t like you some days now. But I… I think I need you with me, Byun Baekhyun. I want you to be my reminder forever, okay?
Please don’t make me say more than that.
Xxx
By the end of his speech Kyungsoo is shaking in Baekhyun’s hold. He hasn’t left, which Kyungsoo is taking as a good sign. He also isn’t saying anything.
“So you were listening when I told you all that stuff.” Baekhyun says finally.
Kyungsoo can’t read his tone at all. It’s dark and he can’t see Baekhyun’s face either so he has absolutely no clue as to Baekhyun is feeling. It’s unsettling. He says nothing.
“I’m sorry.” He hears Baekhyun say. “I’m just a little shocked, I mean - that’s more words than I’ve ever heard you say without some kind of hidden snark.”
Kyungsoo’s heart sinks. Trust Baekhyun to turn the whole thing into a joke.
“I’m sorry.” Kyungsoo sneers. “Next time I’m bearing my soul I’ll be sure to make it sassi-”
“I want to stay with you too.” Baekhyun cuts in.
Kyungsoo blinks, startled. He hadn’t been expecting that. And apparently Baekhyun is not finished because he takes the hand that was around Kyungsoo’s shoulder and places it over his mouth.
“I want to stay with you, and kiss you, and find a legal way that we can procure babies so that we can have babies together okay?” Baekhyun continues. “And I know I’m the one who has to say all this stuff because you are useless when it comes to expressing your feelings. Seriously, Soo. You confessed by telling me about your grandfather and a homeless boy.”
Kyungsoo bites Baekhyun’s hand. Baekhyun hisses and pulls it quickly away from Kyungsoo’s mouth.
“What the hell was that for?” He shrieks.
“Shut up and kiss me.” Kyungsoo demands, incredibly glad that the gloom covers the blush he can feel burning on his cheeks.
Baekhyun doesn’t need telling twice.
Xxx
Omake:
“Soo, using the speech you used to confess to me as your acceptance speech for your Michelin man award is just tacky.” Baekhyun informs him once they arrive at their hotel room after the ceremony.
“It’s Michelin star you imbecile and for your information my PR guru told me it would be an excellent choice.” Kyungsoo throws his suit jacket over the chair uncaringly.
“Hey! Are you listening to some jumped up know it all instead of your husband now?”
“There is literally no difference between the two things you just said.” Kyungsoo informs him.
Baekhyun catches Kyungsoo by the waist and spins him round. They stare into one another’s eyes.
“I hate you.” Baekhyun pouts. Kyungsoo smiles and leans up for a kiss.
“Hate you too.”
And they lived happily ever after.