[FIC] Apple Cake

Title: Apple Cake
Characters: Super Junior
Rating: G
Chaptercount: Parts 7 of 7
Summary: Making something to eat has never before been such an adventure.
A/N: A story that I wrote for my wifey on her birthday this year (over a year ago) and that has been one of my first longer non-romantic stories. It's crack and fun and wtf and omg, but it is here and you'll find wannabe pairings all around. xD Posting it in one go because I can.

- - - - -

“Hyukkie.. I want something to eat.” the youngest of the two boys whined, grabbing the hand of the other and pulling it a few times to get some attention.

Hyukjae looked away from the television, to eye his friend with a little frown on his face.

“So get something to eat, Fishy.” he replied a little bored, before turning back to the screen.

Donghae realized he was not going to get anything else out of his friend, so he got up and walked to the kitchen to ‘get something’ like Hyukjae had so kindly advised him. He mumbled a few complaints, but they of course didn’t change anything. Once arrived in the kitchen, however, he noticed that there was no food to be found that he felt like eating. When noticing the package of eggs, he suddenly got an idea. Overly happy, the eternal child bounced back into the living room, only to pounce right on top of his best friend.

“Hyukkie, I want to bake cake!” he called out happily. His friend, however, simply pushed him out of the couch with a sigh and swapped the TV channel. Donghae wasn’t just going to let that happen, so he crawled back and pulled Hyukjae out of the couch as well.

“Hey! I don’t feel like playing with you.” the eldest of the two exclaimed annoyed, pushing his friend off of him. “Just leave me alone.” The words hurt, but Donghae still did not give up.

“Hyukkie.. I want to bake a cake.. We can make apple cake.. It’s your favourite, isn’t it? Please come bake a cake with me.. I don’t know how to do it by myself. I will never ask you anything anymore today if you come bake a cake with me.” he went on pleading. His friend sighed.

“Never anymore today, huh? Well, that’s a relief.” he said sarcastically, but he did turn off the TV and got up to walk to the kitchen. Donghae let out a happy cry as he followed his hyung into the kitchen. “Apple cake you say? Do you know what we need for it?” Hyukjae continued as he walked towards the fridge.

“Err.. Apples?” Donghae guessed. “And cake?”

Hyukjae burst out laughing. He turned to his younger friend and ruffled Donghae’s hair. His annoyance about having to leave his precious television seemed to have disappeared completely, which was proven by the still present smile on his face.

“Apples and cake, huh?” he asked his younger friend amusedly. “And how do we make that cake?” Donghae shrugged.

“I have no idea.” he said, grinning sheepishly.

“So you go look it up and I’ll find some apples, sugar, flour and milk.. I think you need milk to make cake.. Anyway, deal?” Donghae nodded excitedly and walked back to the living room to get the computer. He was already happy that Hyukjae was giving him attention, so he wasn’t going to complain about being ordered around.

While Donghae searched for an available laptop, the elder boy grabbed a package of milk out of the fridge, put it next to the milk and the eggs and then searched every cupboard he saw for the flour. Once he found it, in the last cupboard he searched of course, he put it next to the other two ingredients. He then went to fetch some apples. Right when he put them down next to the rest, Donghae suddenly entered the kitchen again.

“Hyukkie..” he mumbled, looking very guilty and even a little scared. Hyukjae turned to look at his friend, with a questioning expression. “I think I broke the laptop.” the younger boy continued, keeping his eyes averted to the ground and starting to talk at a rapid speed so that he wouldn’t be interrupted. “I really didn’t mean to! I was trying to find the recipe for apple cake, but when I clicked on a link, it suddenly started to freak out and then the screen went black.” The terrified boy was trembling noticeably when he said it all.

“Again?” Hyukjae asked surprised. “Aw, seriously, Donghae! That’s the third thing this year!”

Donghae nodded guiltily, but his trembling became worse.

Hyukjae noticed his obvious fright and raised an eyebrow. “What are you so scared about?” he asked surprised. There was a short silence, before a sudden idea struck him. “Wait.. Who’s laptop was it?”

Donghae finally averted his eyes from the ground to look up at his hyung. He was obviously gathering courage to speak the words he had to say.

“Heechul hyung’s.”

Before Hyukjae could voice his shock about that news, they heard the door of the dorm open and the voice the two boys dreaded most called out happily: “Yah, you children! We’re home!”

Immediately, Hyukjae stormed out of the kitchen, followed closely by Donghae. The two friends ran to the place where Heechul’s laptop was standing very dead and black-screened. As Hyukjae snatched the laptop from the living room table, Donghae was quick to get the wire.

“Hello, Heechul hyung, Hangeng hyung!” Hyukjae called out with a smile, moving towards his room at the fastest pace he could manage without looking like he was fleeing from something. Or someone in this case.

“Welcome back. How was the recording?” Donghae added, not even bothering to make it look like he wasn’t fleeing.

The both of them disappeared into Hyukjae’s bedroom, leaving the two who just entered staring at the closed door in surprise.

- - - - -

There was a moment of silence in which Heechul and Hangeng kept staring, dazed by the sudden explosion of activity from the two younger ones. At about the same time, both shook their heads, and turned to look at each other, eyebrows raised in wonder.

“What was that about?” Heechul asked, but Hangeng only shrugged in reply. The eldest’s gaze wandered from his friend to the kitchen door, which was left open by the two younger boys when they burst out of the kitchen. After a moment, his face suddenly lit up with some kind of understanding and he mumbled: “I wonder what they were doing in there that our arrival made them flee..”

He set off to the kitchen after saying those words and Hangeng was more than eager to follow. It was not often that they could catch two of the younger members in the middle of one of their mischievous acts. Of course the two had fled already, but they might have left a sign of what they were doing in the kitchen.

Once the two entered the kitchen, however, they found that there was nothing suspicious to see. It was the same as it always was. The fridge being the only thing nicely closed, the table full of stuff that did not at all relate to a kitchen and a pile of dishes that showed someone had to start cleaning them really soon. After looking around for anything out of the ordinary for a while, Heechul finally turned his head to Hangeng again. He quirked an eyebrow.

“Maybe they were making out on the kitchen floor..” he then mused. Hangeng sighed in annoyance.

“Chul-ah, you read too many fanfictions I believe.” he said to his friend, walking to the neatly placed out ingredients next to the fridge. He studied them for a bit, before smiling. “I think they were going to make cake. Judging from the ingredients here.”

“Then what are the apples doing there?” Heechul very dumbly pointed out. Hangeng turned to give his best friend a disbelieving look.

“It probably was to make apple cake.” he slowly said, pronouncing each word with much care in an attempt to make his hyung understand the utter stupidity of his own question. Heechul stared blankly at Hangeng for a few moments, before suddenly snapping out of it.

“Of course. I knew that.” he muttered, stepping closer towards the ingredients. “Actually, I do feel like eating apple cake now. Do you know how to make it, Hannie?”

Heechul had already taken out his best puppy eyes, so Hangeng couldn’t resist the obvious request of his friend. He slowly nodded, already starting to try and remember if and where there was a cake mould in the Super Junior dorms. His expression brightened when he remembered seeing one somewhere in the very kitchen he was in and he immediately set off to find it.

Meanwhile, Heechul had already left the kitchen again. After convincing Hangeng to make him something nice to eat, he had no other business there. Over the years, Heechul had come to learn that if he stayed in the kitchen for too long, he’d soon be cleaning plates or scrubbing the sink and he didn’t really feel like doing something to the likes of that for the rest of the evening. Therefore, he went to sit on the couch and turned on the television. He was soon joined by Yesung and Ryeowook, who had come to find their previous activities too boring.

“What’s on, hyung?” Yesung asked, scanning the television screen with his eyes to find out what program exactly was playing.

“Dunno. There must be something interesting to find, right?” the elder replied, absentmindedly changing channels every other ten seconds.

“You want something to eat, hyung?” Ryeowook then asked, already preparing to get up in case his hyung did feel a little hungry. Normally Heechul was hungry when they ended schedules and would gladly accept Ryeowook’s offer, but this time it was different.

“Very nice of you to ask, Wookie, but Hannie’s making me an apple cake, so it’s okay.” Heechul found the time to look up from the television and smile at Ryeowook. The younger boy, however, was distracted by something else, or someone else.

Out of the room where Donghae and Eunhyuk had disappeared into, a bunch of load noises came, followed by a desperate cry that made the three boys turn their heads towards it. Heechul was sure he recognized the words ‘Why isn’t this working?’ and ‘Eunhyuk, you have to try harder!’ He raised his eyebrows in surprise, turning back to Yesung and Ryeowook.

“What’s going on in there?” he asked, a little suspicious. Donghae’s plea had sounded very desperate, which meant he was genuinely scared of something.

“Not quite sure..” Ryeowook mumbled, obviously just as puzzled as Heechul. Yesung, however, showed no interest whatsoever when he replied.

“I believe I saw Donghae and Eunhyuk taking your laptop when running into that room.” Of course Yesung would know it all, as he had been sitting in the living room as long as Hyukjae had been watching TV. “Donghae looked something up before on your computer, then he went back to the kitchen and when you arrived, they stormed to that respective room with your computer in their arms.”

It took Heechul a few moments to grasp the true meaning of Yesung’s words. When he did, however, he immediately jumped up from the couch.

“Say what!?” he yelled, his head snapping back to glare at the door of Hyukjae’s room. If looks could kill, Heechul’s eyes would be burning holes in the wood already. “Donghae touched my computer?” he hissed. And then, a lot less controlled: “Donghae RUINED MY COMPUTER?”

As the evil Heechul monster set off towards the door, Yesung mumbled something to the likes of “I hope he doesn’t break my stuff again.. And he better doesn’t wake Ddangkoma!”

Meanwhile, a bewildered Hangeng stuck his head out from the kitchen and took in the situation for a brief second. He then let his eyes rest on Ryeowook, while pointing a finger at him.

“You. Ryeowook. Come finish this cake. I have to stop Heechul before he wrecks that door.” he said, worriedly eyeing Heechul who was banging on Hyukjae’s bedroom door with all his might, crying something to the likes of "Lee Donghae, you better not have ruined my computer or I will make sure Bada doesn’t get out of this in one piece!"

Upon hearing those words, Donghae let out a loud shriek, but the door remained closed. Apparently Donghae was more worried about his own safety than that of his dog. Not that anyone blamed him for that when there was a furious Heechul standing at his door.

Without even waiting for a reply from Ryeowook, Hangeng strutted out of the kitchen, putting his arms around his dearest hyung and carefully prying him away from the door. Heechul kept on shouting insults at the Eunhae brothers, trying his best to stay put, but finally succumbed when Hangeng suggested playing AION together in the company of lots of beer.

- - - - -

Ryeowook had immediately jumped up at his hyung’s request to take care of the apple cake. While Hangeng went to Donghae’s rescue, he entered the kitchen and eyed the current situation. There was a large bowl standing on the kitchen sink, two apples next to it, an empty package of eggs and a package of milk that hadn’t been put away yet. Seeing how it was placed, Ryeowook figured Hangeng was just about to do that when some ridiculously loud and angry Heechul had interrupted.

Without any second thoughts about it, the eternal maknae walked up to the bowl and looked at its content. Hangeng had nicely weighed out the right amount of sugar and flour and poured it into the bowl already. He had also added the three eggs in a little hole in the middle. All that remained was the butter, that was gradually melting in a little pot on the fireplace, and the apples. Showing a little smile to no one in particular, Ryeowook got to work.

He calmly waited for the butter to have fully melted, before adding it to the mixture of flour, sugar and eggs. As he took a spoon and starts mixing it all, he realised there is no cake mould ready for him to do the dough in. Apart from that, the apples aren’t peeled yet either. Nor had Hangeng put on the oven yet. Heechul must really have disturbed him before he could get very far. Because he didn’t feel like doing all that by himself, he decided to call for help.

“Yesung hyung?” he asked, picking up the bowl and walking to the door to keep on mixing while talking to his hyung. “Can you please come help me with making the cake?” His hyung slowly averted his eyes from the television and looked up at him.

Yesung just stared for a few moments, not saying anything, watching Ryeowook bungle with the bowl of cake dough and the spoon. It wasn’t really working out that well, but that wasn’t much of Yesung’s concern. He just looked at his dongsaeng and wondered why Ryeowook was still wearing his make-up from their performance that morning. Finally, after getting a desperately pleading look from the younger one, he turned off the TV and got up to go help out. Not that he was such a kitchen miracle.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked, eyeing the messy kitchen with very little interest. If it was not for the fact that Hyukjae had locked Donghae and himself up in their room, Yesung would be playing with Ddangkoma rather than wasting time trying to please his younger friend.

“Can you put the oven on..” Ryeowook started, but he suddenly started shaking his head. “No, I’ll do that myself. Can you keep on mixing this until it’s a nice dough paste?” He reached out the bowl with the spoon in it to Yesung, who absentmindedly accepted, walking back to the worktop with it to continue the utterly boring job of mixing.

The younger one happily skipped to the oven, putting it on the right temperature to let it preheat. He then turned around to walk back to Yesung and peel the apples, but was stopped dead in his tracks by what he saw. As he raised a trembling hand, he let out a soft wail that sounded pathetic even to his ears. It was enough to get Yesung’s attention, though.

The elder looked up upon hearing the weird noise coming from Ryeowook and eyed his friend in wonder when he saw the other’s pale face, wide eyes and raised, trembling hand.

“What?” he asked surprised, trying to figure out what had suddenly gotten into his friend. Maybe he was possessed by a ghost. Maybe he was.. His theories were interrupted by a whole new realization. Ryeowook’s face had a certain charm, being deadly pale from his sudden shock. There was a strange attraction to it, as if it was calling out for Yesung to touch it..

“A Sp.. Spider!” Ryeowook’s frail voice broke through his streaming flow of thoughts. He turned to follow the direction in which the other one’s finger was pointing and his eyes widened as he saw the beast. It was about 2 centimetres long and one centimetre wide, excluding the legs, and had found itself a place in the upper corner, right above the kitchen door. Now, Yesung was quite the reptile person, unafraid of holding a snake, but spiders weren’t exactly his cup of tea.

As he put down the bowl of cake dough on the worktop, he turned back to Ryeowook. What came next, however, was unexpected. Ryeowook launched himself at his hyung, wrapping his arms around Yesung’s neck and his legs around his middle. The elder who did not see that coming, staggered back a few steps and fell down on his butt. By doing so, however, they got nearer to the spider, which freaked Ryeowook out.

“AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” he finally let out his true inner thoughts in a very high-ptiched scream, crawling up and running to the other side of the kitchen as fast as he could. Yesung followed, although a little more composed, trying his best to calm down his dongsaeng.

“Ryeowook, it’s okay. It’s just a spider. Maybe it’s dead already. Besides, it’s sitting on the top of the wall, it can’t reach you.” he tried persuading his friend, but even hugging Ryeowook tightly did not calm him down. Even worse; he kept on screaming.

“WHADDAYAMEANIT’SOKAY?THERE’SASPIDERONTHEWALLOFOURKITCHENANDITISTHESIZEOFMYHANDHOWCANANYTHINGBEOKAY!?”

Well, if there had been a chance of solving the spider problem without bothering the others, it was now officially gone.. Doors burst open and every member who had heard the screams (except for Hyukjae and Donghae, who still seemed to think it safer to keep themselves locked up) swarmed into the living room, wondering where the loud noise had come from. As they made their way towards the kitchen, however they were stopped by Ryeowook’s voice again.

“Don’t come in! It’s sitting right above the door!” he cried out in obvious panic to his members, who all stopped right on the doorstep. Yesung found that Ryeowook’s voice was kind of hurting his ears, but he tried his best not to feel too annoyed by his younger friend, since the spider did look kind of scary. Taking a more careful look at the animal, it seemed to have hairs all over its body and some kind of red drawing on its back. Yesung mused about the possibilities of it being a newborn tarantula, but was disturbed when Kangin and Leeteuk burst into the dorm.

“What’s going on?” Leeteuk called out, pushing right through everyone and entering the kitchen before Ryeowook could warn him not to. When he saw his two friends standing in the corner of the room, the youngest holding on tightly to the eldest, who seemed mesmerized by something on the wall, he slowly turned to look at whatever had caught Yesung’s attention. A shock went through him when he saw the black monster.

“AAAAHHHHH! THERE’S A FRIGGIN’ TARANTULA IN OUR KITCHEN!”

- - - - -

Kangin pushed people aside and entered the kitchen without caring about anything. He had rushed downstairs together with Leeteuk upon hearing a very high-pitched, terrified scream, only to find a bunch of the members standing at the kitchen door, looking inside, but not going in. Leeteuk had pushed through the members to see what was going on, but now that he was yelling as well, Kangin thought it high time for him to get to action, so he had made his way through the members as well.

“Tarantula? Leeteuk hyung, what the hell are you talking about?” he grumbled as he eyed the contents of the room. Leeteuk was standing a meter or two away from him, staring at something behind him. A few meters further away, in the opposite corner of the room, Ryeowook was clinging onto Yesung, who was still comfortingly rubbing his dongsaeng’s back. His eyes were pointed in the same direction Leeteuk appeared to be looking in.

“Right. Above. You.” Leeteuk managed to get out, giving a swift pull at Kangin’s arm without moving a foot closer to the door. He then pointed back at the same thing he had been staring at. With a sigh, Kangin turned around and looked up at whatever Leeteuk was pointing at. An innocent, hairy black spider was sitting on the wall above the door. It didn’t move at all, might even be dead.

“Oi, is this what all the commotion’s about?” he asked surprised. Shaking his head in disbelief he muttered some more words: “I can’t believe they got me sprinting down the stairs for this. I had expected something to the likes of a bear at the very least..”

When he looked back at the other members, his gaze went from Yesung and Ryeowook, to Leeteuk, to the remaining members at the kitchen door. He noticed there was only one more left now; Sungmin. Somewhere in the distance, he saw Heechul banging on someone’s door and Hangeng desperately trying to get his hyung away from there. Shindong had already moved back to his room, probably to devour the rest of his stack of chocolate.

“Sungmin, get me a broom, please.” Kangin asked with a smile when his attention returned to the current situation. The boy immediately did what he was asked to and Kangin suddenly remembered how nice it was to have someone around who would actually listen to you. Things like this didn’t happen in his dorm. If one didn’t do things himself, those things simply would not be done. Maybe he should ask manager hyung if he could move to this dorm.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when Sungmin came back with the broom. When he stepped forward to take it from his dongsaeng, he noticed that Leeteuk was meanwhile hiding behind him. Ryeowook and Yesung were still standing in their corner, keeping an eye on the spider to make sure it didn’t move somewhere without their knowledge of it.

“Cowards.” he muttered, as he raised the broom and used it to try and squeeze the spider against the wall to kill it. He knew from experience that killing it was the best way to avoid his members from screaming even more. Sadly, the spider was too high up to be decently killed and it dropped down from the wall, crawling away over the ground. Immediately, the commotion in the kitchen was at a maximum again.

Ryeowook let out another one of his high-pitched screams the moment the spider started crawling over the floor. Without thinking about it, he again leaped into his hyung’s arms. This time, Yesung managed to catch him, but immediately made his way out of the kitchen with his dongsaeng, not stopping until he sat down on the couch. Ryeowook clung onto his hyung’s T-shirt the whole time, repeating over and over that he wouldn’t enter that kitchen anymore for the next two months at the very least.

Leeteuk, on the other hand, grabbed Kangin’s sweater from the back and dragged him to turn along with the movement of the spider, so that the less fearful one of the two would remain as a shield in between him and the beast. He did glance over Kangin’s shoulder to be able to see where the little animal was crawling to. As long as it stayed at a certain distance, Leeteuk would be able to hold back his screams.

Sungmin watched it all from the doorstep, chuckling a little over the silliness of his friends and wondering how Kyuhyun managed to still play his games, totally undisturbed by all of this. That maknae sure did miss out on a lot of good stuff. With the idea of going back to tell his younger friend about it, Sungmin turned away from the scene in the kitchen, only to see Eunhyuk and Donghae sneak out of the room they had been hiding in and into his and Kyuhyun’s room. He wondered where Hangeng and Heechul had disappeared off to again as he turned back around.

Kangin was now chasing the spider around the kitchen floor with the broom, constantly failing his attempt at murdering the spider with the thing. Finally he had enough of the fruitless chase. He put down his cleaning tool to grab one of the two apples and throw it at the black, crawling monster. It took him only one try to kill it. He triumphantly walked up to the unmoving spider, picking up the apple and calmly going to rinse it in the sink.

After putting the apple back in place, he took a piece of paper and went to clean up the spider’s dead body. As all that was done, he finally looked up at the other two. Leeteuk had followed him around the whole time until the spider was safely dead and cleaned away, whereas Sungmin was eyeing the two of them from the doorway, an amused smile on his face.

“Tell Ryeowook he can finish making his cake.” Kangin told the younger one, but before Sungmin could obey, Ryeowook already called something back.

“No way! I’m not going back in there! There might be more monsters where that one came from. It’s Hangeng’s cake anyway! Tell him to finish it.”

So, Sungmin set off to find Hangeng, without being asked to. Meanwhile, Kangin once again silently praised the obedience of his dongsaeng as he turned to look at Leeteuk. The eldest simply stared blankly ahead. Kangin’s eyes wandered from Leeteuk to the cake and back. When the elder noticed that, he immediately started shaking his head.

“I don’t know how to make cake.” he then said, eyeing the door as if to calculate a possible escape route.

“Neither do I.” Kangin replied grinning. This revelation of Kangin’s unwillingness to work made Leeteuk grin as well. “TV?” the Spider-Slayer then asked, a suggestion Leeteuk gladly agreed with. They set off to the comfortable couch in the living room, neither of them willing to leave the dorm before the cake was finished and buried nicely in their stomachs.

- - - - -

Meanwhile, Sungmin had found both Hangeng and Heechul in Ryeowook’s room, playing a game on the computer. Heechul was occupying Ryeowook’s computer, whereas Hangeng had apparently magically transported his own laptop to the room. They had both been totally caught up in the game, so it had already taken Sungmin a while to get their attention, but sadly enough, that wasn’t sufficient either.

While Kangin and Leeteuk took their places behind the television, he was trying to convince Hangeng to get back to making the cake, but was boycotted by Heechul, who threatened to kill every living pet he could find in the dorm if Hangeng left him. When that didn’t work out and Hangeng got up to leave, as they all knew Heechul wouldn’t be able to kill the cats, the latter suddenly remembered Donghae who still had his BROKEN laptop in his possession. Immediately the game was forgotten and Heechul stormed off to the Yehyuk room.

Hangeng could do nothing but give Sungmin an apologetic look before chasing after his hyung once again. If no one taught Heechul a bit of anger management someday soon, people were really going to get hurt. Although he wasn’t sure if Heechul would be one of those people as well.

“Leeteuk.” Sungmin called to the lazy leader as he walked past the couch. “Heechul’s going to kill Donghae if you don’t stop him. And don’t tell me to do it, I’m already going to finish that cake, since no one else seems to be willing.”

“I would like to..” Yesung started to say, trying to get up, but Ryeowook kept him down.

“You have to stay here and protect me in case any more spiders decide to come out and scare me.” he said, pouting. Of course his real reason for holding Yesung hostage on the couch was that he didn’t want to give up his nice pillow. “Why don’t you ask Kyuhyun to help you?” That idea seemed to please all of them.

“KYUHYUN!” Sungmin therefore called out at the top of his voice, making Leeteuk nearly fall out of the couch and Kangin throwing the remote control into the air, both surprised because of the sudden shout. The leader did seem to wake up from his laziness, however, and he got up after all to go help Hangeng with containing Heechul’s anger. Kangin stubbornly stayed put behind the television. Who could blame him? Certainly not Yesung and Ryeowook, who had made themselves comfortable on the couch, looking like a bunch of limbs all huddled together.

Sungmin meanwhile calmly entered his room, closing and locking the door behind him. Upon hearing the sound, Kyuhyun looked up from the laptop he was working on. He gave Sungmin a slight smile, before turning back to his work. It surprised the pink boy that the maknae was actually fixing the computer for the Eunhae brothers. They must have had some great blackmailing material hidden up their sleeves. He made a mental note to ask them about it some time, so that he could for once stop Kyuhyun from gaming until he fell asleep on his keyboard. Because whenever Kyu did that, there was one very nice and sweet hyung who could go pick him up and put him to bed every time again. Guess who?

“Where are they?” Sungmin asked, leaving the thoughts about blackmailing behind him for a bit. Kyuhyun nodded at the wardrobe standing at the wall furthest away from the door, without even looking up once. Sungmin immediately set for the huge, wooden thing and opened it. The two boys looked up at him with angelic smiles on their faces, blinking at the bright light that suddenly filled their hiding spot again.

“Why are you hiding, Hyukjae? You didn’t do anything wrong..” Sungmin said puzzled.

“I protected the culprit.” Hyukjae replied. “To Heechul hyung, that’s the same as committing the crime.”

Sungmin chuckled, but he did realize his friend was right.

“Come finish the apple cake with me and then offer it to Heechul-ssi as a gift to restore peace. By the time it’s finished, Kyu will probably have fixed the laptop and then hyung has no reason to be mad anymore.”

Donghae’s eyes grew wide and Hyukjae stared up at him like an idiot. Actually, they both looked like they had just seen a dinosaur prancing through the room. Sungmin kept that notice to himself, however, and gave the two boys an encouraging smile.

“Are you talking about the same Heechul hyung I know?” Hyukjae asked, after which Donghae added: “We can’t go out. The moment hyung sees us, he will catch us and then torture us. He might even make me watch how he tortures Bada first!”

Apparently the thought of watching Bada being tortured was more scary to Donghae than being tortured himself and he started trembling all over again. Hyukjae, being the good hyung he was, immediately put his arms around his best friend, to calm him down and talk the strange ideas out of his head. He did seem to realize the truth of Sungmin’s words, though, because he looked up at the elder again as he spoke.

“Where’s hyung now?”

“In your room. I’m guessing he’s moving every brick to see if you’re hiding behind it. If we go now, you’ll be able to run into the kitchen without him noticing you. And you know how Heechul avoids the kitchen at all times, so you’re safest there.” Sungmin calmly explained.

He quite easily convinced the Eunhae brothers to run off to the kitchen with him, where they could still hide themselves if they really deemed it necessary. They followed him to the door of the room, which he opened again to look outside and see if it was safe. There were noises coming from the Yehyuk room that sounded a lot like someone throwing stuff around in rage. Apparently, Yesung didn’t really trust that noise, because he jumped up from the couch and set for his room as well, shouting something in the likes of “Ddangkoma, I’m coming to save you!” Ryeowook was left behind as a dazed pile of human on a couch.

- - - - -

Sungmin motioned the two boys to run for the kitchen, which they did, as fast as their feet could carry them. Before he could follow them out, however, a little cough from Kyuhyun caught his attention and he turned his head to look at his dongsaeng.

“What’s all that talk about apple cake?” the latter asked. His fingers still rattled over the keyboard and his eyes were still pinned to the screen, but Sungmin knew almost all Kyuhyun’s attention was on him now. He shrugged a little before replying.

“I believe Eunhyuk and Donghae.. Or was it Hangeng hyung? Or Heechul-ssi.. No not Heechul-ssi, he wouldn’t even know how to do that. Maybe Yesung hyung was involved in the m-” Sungmin was successfully silenced by Kyu’s short but effective deadly glare. He cleared his throat, before restarting the explanation. “I’m going to finish making an apple cake. Do you think you’ll manage fixing this thing in less than fifty minutes?”

The lack of response in combination with another deadly glare made it clear to Sungmin that Kyuhyun was insulted about the fact that his hyung had even thought there was a chance he couldn’t fix the laptop. Being the wise, life-loving young man he is, Sungmin therefore quickly left the room, leaving the maknae to finish his work without bothering him any longer.

Once he arrived in the kitchen and closed the door behind him, he noticed the Eunhae brothers sitting under the table, as if the amounts of junk on top of it would pull the attention away from them. He wisely decided to ignore them and make fast work of peeling the apples. He cut out the core and professionally chopped them into smaller pieces that he added to the dough. When everything was finished, he pulled the cake mould out of the cupboard he had seen it stand in before and started to grease it with butter. He was about halfway when suddenly realization struck him.

His eyes went from the cake mould to the cake dough to the pieces of apple and ended up at the apple peel. He replayed the scene in his head where Kangin threw one of the two apples at the spider to kill it, only to then put it back next to the other one again as if nothing happened. He glanced down in the bowl of dough, making sure that there were no spider legs blended in. He sighed relieved when he did not see anything black-ish in the dough.

“Is something wrong?” Hyukjae asked from his spot under the table. The words pulled Sungmin out of his trance and he immediately continued greasing the cake mould.

“No.. No, everything’s fine.” Perfectly fine. And there was no way in the world that he was going to eat a piece of that apple cake.

When he finally finished the greasing, he poured the dough into the mould, nicely cleaning out the bowl until he got the most of the substance into the iron form. In a normal situation, he would have probably eaten the rests of dough off the spoon, but this was hardly to be called a normal situation. Feeling a little indecisive about what to do with the thing, he glanced around him. That’s when he remembered two annoying little brats sitting under the table. A grin spread on his face as he turned around and walked towards them.

“Hyukkie.. Hae.. You want to clean the spoon?” he asked with a sugar-coated voice, crouching in front of the table to be able to look at them. The two boys eyed him in surprise. When they saw the spoon being reached out to them, however, they immediately grabbed it out of his hand and voiced their delight over the cake dough spoon with happy squeals.

Sungmin shook his head with a smile as he got up and walked back to the finished cake. He checked the time first, before taking the mould and carefully placing it in the middle of the oven. Forty minutes would normally be okay, but he made a mental note to come check after thirty minutes already, just to be sure. After checking if the oven was really closed, he turned away and walked out of the kitchen, leaving the Eunhae brothers behind, who were now poking each other with the cake dough spoon.

Sungmin passed through the living room, where he saw Leeteuk seated next to Kangin again and Ryeowook using Shindong as pillow since Yesung was still worrying over Ddangkoma. Hangeng and Heechul were nowhere to be seen, but since the worrying noises had gone as well, he figured Hangeng had convinced his friend to go back to their game-playing. Well, at least they wouldn’t disturb the Eunhae brothers in the kitchen either, then. With a satisfied feeling, he pushed open the door to his and Kyuhyun’s room and walked inside.

The maknae didn’t even turn around this time. His eyes were pinned on his own computer screen again, the headphones successfully covering his ears, his hand on the mouse. Heechul’s computer was carefully put on the desk next to Kyuhyun’s own computer. Sungmin assumed it worked again, since the maknae would never abandon it without having fixed it. Especially not since it was Heechul’s computer.

A sudden happy feeling took over Sungmin and he skipped towards Kyuhyun, to pull the headphones away from his right ear. The maknae didn’t even flinch because of the sudden touch, so Sungmin suspected him from having heard him enter. Kyu could at least have given a sign of that.. With a sigh, Sungmin brushed those thoughts from his mind and then leaned forward until he could hug the maknae’s neck.

“Kyuhyun-ah..” he whined next to Kyuhyun’s ear. The only response was a tiny little ‘Hmm?’ He squeezed a little harder and nuzzled his cheek against Kyuhyun’s. “Come watch TV with us?” he then asked with a very cute, hopeful voice. This time, the reply came in the form of an annoyed grunt. Sungmin sighed and closed his eyes. This maknae was really terrible. He decided to use his most effective way of persuasion and leaned a little closer to whisper something in the other one’s ear.

“I’ll give you the biggest piece of apple cake..”

- - - - -

Forty minutes later, the living room of the eleventh dorm was crowded with people. Leeteuk and Kangin hadn’t even once moved away from their spots in the couch right across from the television. Yesung had also jealously taken back his job of pillow from Shindong, thereby banning the latter to sit on the floor, because of course he ‘was much more of an amazing pillow than Shindong could ever be.’ The other members were scattered over the remaining spots on the couches and the floor. Hangeng and Heechul, for example, had claimed the last available couch, forcing the Eunhae brothers, Sungmin and Kyuhyun to sit on the ground.

Heechul had still been a bit angry at first, but when the two younger boys voiced their bad feelings and offered him his fixed computer and a piece of apple cake, that irritation had vanished into thin air. The peace in the dorms had been restored. Mostly thanks to Kyuhyun, who had skilfully fixed the laptop. Everyone was now happily eating a piece of apple cake, while watching television.

Everyone, except for one person.

“Why are you not eating cake, Minnie?” Hangeng asked, when he spotted the younger boy who was eyeing the cake in the maknae’s hand next to him with a slightly disgusted expression. His head snapped up upon hearing his name and he blushed a little.

“I’m not really hungry. After baking the cake I lost my appetite.” he replied, remaining quite truthful even though he wasn’t speaking the whole truth. The others nodded in understanding, although they did not understand at all. How could anyone ever not feel like eating apple cake?

The room was covered in a relaxing silence after that as everyone simply watched TV while eating. It was a very rare moment for all of them to sit together like that without being stressed out over an upcoming recording or concert and with none of the members nagging about something. All in all, it was a nice ending of the day. Until..

“Hyukkie.. I want something to drink.” Donghae whined, grabbing the hand of his friend and pulling it a few times to get some attention.

Hyukjae looked away from the television, to eye Donghae with a little frown on his face.

“So get something to drink, Fishy.” he replied a little annoyed, before turning back to the screen.

Donghae glanced at Hyukjae once more, but realized that was all the reply he was going to get, so he got up and walked to the kitchen to ‘get something to drink’ like his hyung had so kindly advised him. Once arrived, he pulled open the fridge, accidentally opening the freezer part as well. He wanted to quickly close it again, when he noticed a box of vanilla ice cream and suddenly got an idea. Overly happy, the eternal child bounced back into the living room, only to pounce right on top of his best friend.

“Hyukkie, I want to make a milkshake!” he called out happily.

Yesung tore his eyes away from the television screen to look at the two boys with a frown on his face. He eyed them for a second, before mumbling something and looking back at the television.

“Déjà vu.”