SHINee, Minho/Key, PG, Cream Puffs (Oneshot)
Title: Cream Puffs
Rating: PG
Pairing: Minho/Key
Length: ~3500 words
Summary: Two bakers are forced to partner together in order to save their jobs.
A/N: Originally posted on AFF
“I hope you know why you’re here today. Why don’t I start while we’re waiting on someone?”
Kibum listened intently to the manager, absorbing every single detail that was discussed. He set his hand on the edge of the table and rolled his fingers up and down in anticipation. Being ordered into this cramped room held a similar feeling to when a child was called down to the principal’s office, or when someone was shoved onto a stage against their will. It was sort of a nervous fear.
However, after minutes of endless instructing and talking there was not any fear present; Kibum actually found himself calloused to the other’s words. A calmer sense of relaxation set inside him, so he decided to maintain composure and continue showing response to the manager through nodding. In reality, he was growing annoyed and distracted at the simplest details. Kibum even noticed the way his boss fidgeted with his pencil while explaining, twirling and bouncing it on the table.
Sunlight flooded in from the nearby window and beamed across the table, so that brightness flashed off of the metal band on the pencil. The employee was enthralled by the shiny light and used it to take more attention from some of the boss’ redundant words, but he just kept droning on. Kibum heard something about customer satisfaction, something about teamwork, and something about meeting “proper bakery” standards. It was all too repetitive and irritating.
His misery finally ended at the sound of a knock on the door. The boss looked up. “You can come in,” he called out to the visitor. Following the response, the door then opened and revealed a tiredly dressed Minho. His normally ruffled hair was sticking in odd directions and his clothes were wrinkled and out of place. Kibum uncomfortably shifted in his seat at the entrance, and he aimed his eyes back at the table.
Minho examined the people in the room with an air of displeasure. Heaving with sighs, he took a few steps forward and sat down with the two. "Can I ask why you called us here?" Minho questioned the manager. He also snuck another look at Kibum, who remained with a blank expression on his face.
The manager glanced at Kibum for a few seconds, then turned his attention back to Minho. "Did you not tell him anything at all?" he directed at Kibum.
"No, not really. I must've forgotten to..." the man sheepishly trailed off.
"Ah, whatever," the manager cut him off. "Let's just get right to the point, since you’re both here.”
“Sure,” Minho replied.
“Your cooking as of now, sort of stinks," he bluntly stated.
"What?" Minho said out of surprise, expecting a different sort of news instead.
"It's bad. Especially the cakes."
"But I thought they were good," Minho silently muttered.
"Your sense of taste must be bland then, which is exactly why our customers have been reporting these terrible creations of yours. Anyways, I want you chefs to create me something new and trendy. The new dessert that will blow everyone's minds away!" the manager described, eyes sparkling with aspirations.
"Then…” Minho trailed off, trying to organize his thoughts. “How about we make those M&M cookies?" he suggested. The manager merely huffed and shook his head in response.
“Red velvet cake?”
“We already have that and it’s been doing fine.”
"Lemon bars?" Pinching the bridge of his nose, the boss sighed again and repeated a 'no.' At this point, Minho began to grow desperate and started listing desserts that have passed their time.
"Or we could make sugar cookies with sprinkles on top -"
"How about you guys think of something on your own," the manager interjected, not prepared to listen to countless suggestions. He glanced at his watch. "I have another meeting to attend to at the other bakery, so just find a recipe for something that you can make well for sure, then come and show me. We can't let our profits fall like this," he urged. The man stood up, two pairs of eyes following him. Grabbing his briefcase, he hulled open the door and strolled out. There was an even more suffocating atmosphere left behind.
Since the manager had left, the conference room was enveloped in deafening silence. Kibum sat in his seat examining his nails while Minho pulled out a scrap of paper, cataloging every pastry he knew to mankind. "How should we do this?" he wondered out loud.
Kibum discreetly glanced over at the paper Minho was writing on. He scanned the list, noting that every dessert Minho written down had already failed or turned out to be the least of favorites. He read on. Of all the sweets Minho could list, he could only think of ones that almost got us fired? Kibum annoyingly whipped his head back into the opposite direction before Minho noticed that he was looking.
Minho was still busying himself, remembering all the creations they made. The list grew larger and larger, but the little pot of ideas began dwindling down. The man felt lost. He wanted to make his boss proud, but he wouldn't be able to if Kibum wouldn't help. He shot a glance at his partner. Won’t he say anything? he thought to himself.
The other sat in silence, eyes closed, thinking of nothing in particular to help them out. In fact, he was actually more compelled to relax and let the ideas come to him. But then his boss’ words echoed in his mind, ‘We can’t let our profits fall like this,’ and Kibum’s eyes snapped open in realization. If the profits were to completely fail, they would have to lay employees off. By logic, he was an employee, and he did not plan on getting laid off. He had to think of something new.
Tapping his chin, Kibum thought of the homemade goods his grandma would always bake for him. Or actually, any dessert he had ever encountered in his entire life. For example, he recalled the time he ate buttery croissants. Imagining, the man remembered the way the flakes would stick to his lips and melt in his mouth.
Then, his memories jumped to the fancy macaroons his auntie made for his birthday. The way he felt the cookie crackle when he bit into it, and the gooey feeling of mango flavored ganache rolling on his tongue. They were bliss.
His mind floated forward in search of an even larger success food. And so, the idea of the macaroons with their fillings lead him to think of… cream puffs. The way that someone could bite into a puff and the cream would ooze out to fill their mouth with flavor. No one would forget that taste.
A taste you would never forget. Cream puffs. The new, trendy dessert that would blow everyone’s minds away.
“That’s it! I know what to bake!” Kibum exclaimed. Minho peered up at him, and confusingly moved his seat back; he had been left out of the other’s thinking process completely.
“Okay... So what’s your big idea?”
“Cream puffs,” he answered with pride.
“Seriously? All you can think of is cream puffs?” The older shot him an annoyed look.
“I am serious. They’re cream puffs. Who could hate such a lovable food? We can make them special too. Just top them off with chocolate or powdered sugar and people will surely fall in love with them.”
Minho shrugged, thinking of the possibilities they had with Kibum’s idea. It didn’t have a large number of prospects, but they could make do. However, he still felt unsure. There was always that small chance this big concept could ruin the entire existence of improving, but what plan was better? Besides, his own creativity in desserts was clearly limited to a tiny bubble.
~~~
After the work day terminated, Kibum made a direct path for the door. Although he felt a bit more confident with his planned dessert, there was a reasonable amount of stress that constricted him throughout the day. He felt that he needed to relax. Working a shift and accumulating knowledge for the perfect cream puff was quite draining enough. And along with that, he just felt that the stress had transgressed into an aching pain all over his body.
Kibum decided to keep his head down as his feet pattered along the sidewalk. The streets seemed to carry the same stress as he did somehow; it was not somber or depressing, but just irritated somehow. In the corner of his eye, he saw one dark drop make contact with the ground. Soon enough, a group of drops began to scatter everywhere, and he was now in the middle of a rainstorm. He pulled his hood over his head and continued on his way.
Kibum didn’t get quite far, as an arm clasped over his shoulder and prevented him from moving forward. In a swift motion, Kibum turned around and peered at the outline of the figure. “Oh, it’s you, Minho. Did you want something?” he said out of relief.
“Yeah, considering we’re kind of in a bad spot right now. Were you just going to leave without consulting anything with your partner?” Minho huffed.
“Sorry, I forgot,” he weakly lied.
Minho narrowed his eyes. “Our boss just told us what we need to do this morning. It’s not exactly forgettable.” He sincerely wondered if Kibum cared about their jobs as much as he did.
“I’m sorry,” Kibum repeated, this time without giving an excuse. “But at least we already have an idea of what we’re going to make. What do you suggest we do about this situation?” he tried to peacefully ask.
“I was just thinking that we should practice making these cream puffs as much as possible. You know, so we can get a perfect product made. Sounds simple enough, right?”
Kibum shook his head in agreement, but was internally trying to avoid discussion of the topic in general. Thankfully, Minho only nodded and was satisfied enough with what Kibum responded with. He then took hold of Kibum’s arms.
“Now let’s get out of this rain,” he said with an air of cheerfulness. He pointed the other towards the protection of the tall buildings, an area that was sadly in a longer route to both of their homes. Even so, Kibum did not want to go home completely drenched. So with no other reason to be denying of the gesture, Kibum tightened his hood over his head and obediently moved with the gentle force of Minho’s guidance. The warmth of the man’s hands actually soothed his upset thoughts, and he felt that he was reaching a personal state of peace.
As the attack of the rain relentlessly continued, Minho started sneezing, to which Kibum responded by pulling tissues out of his pocket. “Thank you,” Minho had said, and he temporarily removed himself from Kibum to clean his nose. “You come prepared,” he lightly joked. Kibum happily laughed in reply.
By the time they reached a completely dry area, Minho found it also practical to put his hood on as well - he had somehow forgotten to this whole time. Still, he comforted his forgetfulness by reminding himself that they were bound to head back out into the rain later. He removed his hands from Kibum and naturally placed them back into his jacket pockets.
Underneath the tall, looming buildings, Minho had a larger urge to converse. He decided to make the rest of the trip filled with small chatter, in which Kibum gave more cheerful answers than before. The two men were both silently thankful for each other’s company on such a cold and gloomy day. The walk home was pleasant enough to reassure that they would now have a strong partner relationship but nothing past that. After all, they had labeled themselves as plain co-workers from the first day they met at the workplace. Most affairs were better off being kept separate, anyways.
~~~
The following day, Kibum walked into the bakery with his normal morning attitude. However, he naturally greeted Minho with a smile before doing anything else, as if they had performed that sort of routine every day. It was a slight change from the usual silence and awkwardness, but it was somehow relaxing. He decided not to think too much about the irregularity and moved on with his work.
At one point in the afternoon, Minho approached Kibum about the topic of their baking project. The place had reached the time where it was temporarily empty of customers, so the two decided to sit down and take a small break. Kibum stretched his legs out onto an adjacent chair while Minho held his head in his hands, and the two stiffly sat in each other’s presence.
“So... about the cream puffs,” Minho tentatively spoke.
Kibum turned to face Minho. “What about them? Aren’t we working on them later, when we have more time?”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too. But, where are we going to work on it? I don’t think he’ll particularly like it if we use the bakery as a testing space.”
“I don’t know. We can bake them at my place if you want,” Kibum offered.
“Tonight?”
“Sure, why not?” he smiled. After that, Kibum and Minho exchanged phone numbers and planned on making something extraordinary in order to protect their jobs.
~~~
Kibum anxiously paced in his living room around the time Minho was due to come over. He was not used to guests visiting his small apartment, so his home had undergone a huge cleaning frenzy in preparation. It was an oddly nervous feeling he had, anticipating something that was so trivial. Yet he walked in and out of doorways, laid down and got up, and roamed around while staring at the TV in the background.
The ring of the door bell was what finally snapped Kibum out of his aimless walking. He immediately turned the TV off and sped over to quickly open the door for his guest. “Hey, Minho!” Kibum exclaimed in excitement. “You can just come in and take your shoes off there,” he pointed.
With a kind nod, Minho followed Kibum’s directions and joined the other in the kitchen. “So this is where we’ll get this finally done,” Minho enthusiastically said, glancing around at his surroundings. He pulled out his phone to see that the time was currently 5:00.
“Well, one can only hope,” Kibum responded. He laid out some of the cream puff recipes that he had been looking at along with the traditional recipes he already had. While analyzing them all for another time, Minho started to dig through the cupboards and the refrigerator for their cooking supplies. With hopeful enthusiasm, the two were ready to tackle their mission.
~~~
“What batch has that been already? I felt like we’ve been cooking the whole day,” Kibum questioned. Minho simply looked over his shoulder and scowled. He appeared to be in such a bad mood that it was as if the pastries had personally beaten him up. Looking at the clock on the stove, it was already 9:00 - four hours since he came.
“Maybe we should switch desserts,” he coldly remarked.
“Oh, don’t say that. The ones that we already made were pretty decent.”
“Yeah, but are we going to get something amazing yet? Or are we going to keep on producing just decent desserts?”
The other let out a distraught sigh. “We still got to keep trying for something at least. Why don’t you cheer up a bit?” Kibum turned away from Minho and put his focus back on making another batch of cream puffs. It was clear that their previous morale had been diminished.
“I’m not angry,” Minho weakly defended. “I just have a lot of doubts about this being our savior dessert.”
“Whether it saves us or not, you need to take your negativity and put it somewhere else. The kitchen is no place to be irritated or angry, you know,” Kibum advised.
“Yeah…” he softly replied.
Kibum peered over at the man’s disheartened face and frowned a bit. Had he been doing this job by himself, he would feel less motivated to drive this food to perfection. This many trials would not even be necessary in the first place. But because there was someone else’s job on his hands, Kibum felt more pressured.
With that in mind, he stepped toward Minho and bent down to rest his arm on the counter. He gazed up to the other in anticipation for some sort of answer. However, Minho still remained silent and continued filling up the most recent batch with the custard. He pretended to not notice Kibum’s presence.
“Cheer up,” Kibum encouraged the other, softly patting his back. “We can do this. Maybe this batch will be the one,” he gestured. Minho turned to look directly into Kibum’s eyes, then glanced away and went back to his current job. Although it hurt him as well to make the other worker upset, he simply did not have any hope that they could satisfy their boss anymore.
Kibum pushed himself off the counter and slid in between Minho and the pan of cream puffs. “Just stop for one moment,” he said, fed up with his partner’s depressing attitude. He grabbed Minho’s hands away from the bag of filling, placed it aside on the counter, and lifted his head to meet Minho’s eyes. What happened next was completely a surprise to both of them.
Whether it was to calm Minho’s mind, or to ease the tension in the room, Kibum decided to just wrap his hand around Minho’s neck and pull him in. Their noses brushed and the latter quickly backed away, surprised by the sudden action. It was an action that was foreign to Minho, and it felt slightly odd in a sense. Regardless, Minho somehow also felt a sense of attraction towards the other, and it was enough to dominate his doubts. He went back on his unintended rejection, taking one step forward.
He wasn’t sure if he wanted to start something, but Kibum took the next move in giving him an idea. Kibum decided to take it slowly and meet Minho halfway, returning them to their face-to-face position. With a gentle smile playing at his lips, he leaned in a second time; this time, Minho had no intention of budging.
Their lips met, and the world around them seemed to have stopped. The two moved in rhythm to a melody they created together, despite the fact that Kibum slightly stumbled backwards at first. Minho felt that he was falling into something deeper than just this moment, and he took that with every second of the kiss. They were both truly content with the mere presence of each other - Kibum even opened his eyes for a moment to clarify that he wasn’t in a fantasy.
Minho raised his hand that was resting on Kibum’s waist. Delicately, he stroked Kibum’s cheek and slowly broke the kiss apart. He leaned to the side and planted a soft kiss on Kibum’s cheek, and took the other into a tight hug. They had unknowingly crossed a solid boundary in their relationship that night, but it was worth the risk if would all feel as loving as this moment for a long time.
Eventually, the two unwrapped themselves from each other’s embrace, ending the soft intimacy. In some manner, the atmosphere felt suddenly cool and refreshing in Kibum’s warm kitchen. The negativity was wiped out of their minds, and a sense of sweetness permeated the air. Everything just seemed calm. As naturally as possible, Minho went back to the counter with this newfound attitude, feeling completely grateful for what just happened.
“Look at this terribly misshapen cream puff that you ruined,” Minho giggled, picking up a cream puff that got squashed by Kibum’s butt.
“It kind of looks like a heart if you rotate it a bit,” Kibum laughed.
“No it doesn’t.”
Kibum raised his eyebrows and grasped the piece from Minho’s hand. Looking carefully at the cream puff, he bit off the dough at the edges and used his hands to shape the rest. He aimed for one shape at first, but then changed his mind and went into a different direction with his image. Eventually, he also grabbed the bag of custard and inflated the puff to complete the creation. The messy dessert had actually turned into something presentable.
Kibum triumphantly remarked, “Now this is something that can save us.”
“But I saved that one so I could eat it,” Minho argued. “Give it back and let me finish it,” he cheerfully beckoned the other.
“Fine, fine,” Kibum gave in. He held out the cream puff for Minho to take.
Minho furrowed his eyebrows and stepped closer to Kibum. “Why don’t you just feed it to me,” he politely demanded, opening his mouth open for the treat. For some reason, Minho instantly found himself to have a lot more confidence in front of Kibum now.
“Okay, if you insist,” the other remarked. He affirmed his grip around the pastry and slightly wound his arm back behind his head. Minho’s eyes opened wide then immediately closed shut, as he quickly noticed what was being aimed right at him.
Kibum had never laughed so hard.