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thingwithfeathers2012-02-15 10:28 am
outstretched) wrote in thingwithfeathers2012-02-15 10:28 am
Entry tags:
Epicureanism (Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, one-shot)
Title: Epicureanism
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4,040
Genre: Romance, Humor
Fandom: Super Junior
Pairings: Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi
Warnings: Food porn, kind of...
Summary: Modern AU. Zhou Mi teaches Kyuhyun about the finer things in life.
Author's Notes: SAIC is the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It also happens to be the abbreviation of the Science Applications International Corporation (an engineering company). It's...something like a pun. For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
evaporate for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
qmidayeveryday, originally posted here. My prompt was "Slice of life domesticity AU. Kyuhyun does not get to do the grocery shopping." Many thanks to koyuki, who helped me untangle plot points and grammar hiccups with equal ease, and Brave, who cheered me on.
Cross-posts: AO3.
Epicureanism
"Excuse me," someone says to his right.
Zhou Mi looks up and sees a young man standing beside him, staring morosely at some tomatoes. "Do you know how to find good ones? They all look the same." His gaze flicks to Zhou Mi's face before it drops back to the box of produce.
The stranger's arms hang at his sides, limp, everything about his posture radiating a sense of bewildered helplessness. Zhou Mi resists the impulse to tuck in his shirt label and pat him on the head.
"Did you just start college?" Zhou Mi guesses.
"What? No." He scratches the back of his neck, right above the wayward tag. "I graduated a few months ago."
Zhou Mi looks at him for another second before he chuckles. "Move over," he says, nudging the stranger aside. Zhou Mi feels his way through the tomatoes with expert speed and turns to hand over one that is satisfactory, only to find that he's being watched with something akin to awe. "Well? Take it," Zhou Mi says, gesturing. The tomato is lifted from his open hand. "Feel it with your fingers, like this," Zhou Mi picks up another tomato to demonstrate, "that's the kind of texture you—it's not going to bite you, you know."
The young man jumps a little and gingerly places the tomato back into the box, then laces his fingers behind his back. "Maybe I'll just...make something else," he says, turning away in feigned disinterest.
"What were you trying to make?"
"Food."
Zhou Mi cocks his head, smiling at the slightly-dejected slump of the stranger's shoulders. "Do you want me to show you around the store?"
He finally turns and meets Zhou Mi's eyes. "Don't you have anything better to do?"
Zhou Mi just smiles at him. "I like shopping."
--
"My roommate said he would move out unless I learned how to take care of myself," the man says. He seems relieved to be relegated to cart-pushing duty.
"Well, what are you good at?"
"Eating."
Zhou Mi scoffs and pushes his shoulder, lightly. "Well, you should probably start with cookies. They're easy. Baking aisle's over here."
--
Zhou Mi sends the young man to the cash register with a few coupons he had left over and his cell number. "The recipe's pretty easy, but call if you need any help."
"Let me give you my cell number, too," the other man says and punches it into Zhou Mi’s iPhone 4S (in a Mario case) before handing it back. The address book entry in his cell phone reads Cho Kyuhyun.
Seeing his adopted stranger—Kyuhyun, Zhou Mi reminds himself—standing in line makes him feel vaguely like he's sending a child off to his first day of school.
"Excuse me," Zhou Mi says, and tucks the shirt tag back down, fingers brushing against Kyuhyun's neck. "Your collar."
Kyuhyun gives him a searching look, but Zhou Mi just smiles and vanishes into the frozen food aisle.
--
Zhou Mi groans and fumbles blindly for his cell phone. "Hello?" he croaks, forcing his sleep-fogged eyes to focus. 5:30 PM, his clock reads.
"I burned them," the voice on the other end says.
Zhou Mi scrubs at his face—"Is this Kyuhyun?—" before the call's background noise makes him sit up in bed. "Is that—is that a siren?"
"So I can't go home for a bit," Kyuhyun continues. "Do you live nearby?"
--
Zhou Mi has enough time to flatten his hair and get dressed before Kyuhyun shows up, but it still takes one glance for Kyuhyun to ask, "Were you sleeping?"
"I had to wake up now, anyway," Zhou Mi says, leading Kyuhyun into the elevator and punching 7. "I work nights."
They slide into awkward silence. Kyuhyun smells strongly of smoke. Eventually Zhou Mi ventures, "Did...did you set your house on fire?"
"Just the stove," he says. "When I told Sungmin I was going to make cookies, he went out and bought a fire extinguisher."
--
Zhou Mi's apartment is a tiny one-bedroom. "Sorry," he says, moving a pile of books off the couch. "I wasn't expecting—do you want something to drink?"
"Yeah."
A few minutes later, he hands Kyuhyun a glass of water and sits next to him on the sofa, staring at the book on his coffee table.
"How long do you think you'll need to say?" Zhou Mi asks.
"It's—okay if I stay?"
"I sort of feel responsible," Zhou Mi says with a little laugh. "I mean, it was my idea."
Kyuhyun's giving him that searching look again, before a slight smile pulls at his lips. He ducks his head; "Just tonight," he says. "I won't bother you much."
"Your roommate's okay too, right?" Zhou Mi asks.
"Yeah, he's fine. He's staying with a friend of his."
Zhou Mi offers him sleeping supplies—an oversized t-shirt, blankets and a pillow for the couch, and directions to the laundromat. "My shift starts at eight, so I have to go," he says. "If you're hungry, you can raid the fridge. You should...probably take a shower."
Kyuhyun's hands are folded on top of the heap of blankets in his lap. "Thank you," he says quietly.
Zhou Mi pats his shoulder. "I'll see you tomorrow, all right?"
When Zhou Mi gets home the next morning, he finds the blankets in a heap on the floor and his shampoo bottles left uncapped.
On the kitchen table, he also finds a sketch of himself in three-quarter profile: a few quick lines in pen that imply a nose, kind eyes, and the hint of a smile, a shirt collar framing the dip of his collarbone.
Underneath it, it reads, Thank you.
--
"Kyuhyun? Is that you?"
Kyuhyun is keeling in front of a Soul Calibur V machine, wearing an incredibly unflattering maintenance uniform. He turns and blinks up at Zhou Mi, who's standing over him. "Zhou Mi? What are you doing here?"
"I go to school here," he says. "You...fix arcade machines?" Kyuhyun nods, sitting back on his heels. A screwdriver is held loosely in his hand. "What's wrong with it?" Zhou Mi asks.
"Coin jam," he says. "Do you want to see?"
Zhou Mi crouches next to him as Kyuhyun pries the side of the coin mech off and is rewarded by the sound of jangling, freed coins. "It's that easy?" he asks, incredulous.
Kyuhyun chuckles, taking a few coins from the machine before he puts everything back together. "Only when I'm lucky."
When he drops a coin back into the slot, the game screen changes with a trill of sound. He casts a sly smile at Zhou Mi. "Do you want to play?"
"Um, I'm not very good at—"
He presses the rest of the coins into Zhou Mi's hand, openly grinning now. "Come on, it'll be fun."
Zhou Mi rolls his eyes, but obligingly puts the coins into the machine. "You owe me coffee for this," he says.
Kyuhyun's left hand cradles the joystick from underneath, and Zhou Mi immediately knows that he's in trouble. "Sure."
Zhou Mi loses terribly and nearly misses his afternoon class. Despite this, the look of delight on Kyuhyun’s face every time K.O.!! appears on the screen makes it almost worthwhile.
--
"What are you studying at the Art institute of Chicago?" Kyuhyun asks. As Zhou Mi sits down with his coffee, Kyuhyun slides a pastry to him from across the table.
"I'm doing my master's in creative writing," Zhou Mi replies. "You finished college recently, didn't you? Are you a mechanic?"
"Computer engineer." His fingers are taking his cookie to pieces. "I'm in-between jobs right now."
"It looks like you have a job," Zhou Mi says gently.
Kyuhyun gives a little huff of laughter. "I guess. I fix arcade machines and enter gaming competitions sometimes."
Zhou Mi watches the growing pyramid of cookie crumbs on Kyuhyun's napkin. "Did you ever try baking cookies again?" he asks.
"With what oven," he says, deadpan.
"Well," Zhou Mi says, "you could always use mine."
--
"But you don't have cookie mix," Kyuhyun says, and Zhou Mi laughs at him.
Careful hands show Kyuhyun how to pour flour without spilling and heat the butter in the microwave just enough. "Accuracy's important," he says. "You should be a good baker—you've got an eye for detail."
"You seem like you bake a lot."
"I really like to cook!" Zhou Mi is wearing an apron and digging through his cupboards, looking for the baking soda.
"I found it," Kyuhyun says.
"That's baking powder," he replies without turning.
"But they're—"
"They're different, trust me." Zhou Mi pulls back with the can of baking soda in his hand, and sees a look of dawning realization on Kyuhyun's face. "Did you use baking powder last time?"
"I also forgot the oven was on," he admits.
"I figured as much." He fishes the measuring spoons out of the dirty measuring cup and hands them to Kyuhyun. "Wash this?" When the spoons are dry again, he measures out a teaspoonful of baking soda and drops it into the dry mix. "Do you know how to crack eggs?"
Kyuhyun blinks at him. "Sort of?"
"Try it," Zhou Mi says, reaching for the vanilla. Kyuhyun starts by timidly tapping the egg against the lip of the bowl and works his way up to a nice, firm crack. "Now get your fingers in the break and split it open," he says. Kyuhyun makes a face at him, and he waves the measuring spoon in admonishment. "Just do it," he says with exasperated fondness.
There are bits of shell remaining when Zhou Mi folds the eggs into the butter and sugar. He doesn't say anything, and Kyuhyun seems to relax slightly.
"It's edible," Zhou Mi says. "Congratulations! Maybe if you give some to Sungmin, he'll forgive you."
Kyuhyun bites into one. There's a brittle, crunching sound.
"…Maybe the next batch," he amends.
--
Kyuhyun starts coming over a few days a week for cooking lessons: how to boil water, how to make rice, how to heat a skillet before adding the oil, how to take the skin off chicken without cutting any fingers off.
Zhou Mi's sitting on the sofa, writing, as they wait for the chicken thighs to finish baking. "Braque?" Kyuhyun asks from beside him, picking the book up off of the coffee table.
"I really like modern art," Zhou Mi says. "Especially cubism. Did you know that there are cubist writers, too? There are more poets, though."
"Oh," Kyuhyun says. "I don't know a lot about art."
"You don't? You draw, though."
"It's just a hobby," he says, flipping through the pages. He stares at a picture, squints at it, holds it at arm's length, and then starts to turn it upside-down.
"Stop it," Zhou Mi says with a laugh, and after a brief tussling match, the book is back in his possession. Kyuhyun rests his chin on Zhou Mi's shoulder. "Cubism is supposed to show something from many angles at once," Zhou Mi explains, pointing to a page. "This is supposed to be a violin and a candlestick. The curves are the violin."
Kyuhyun watches Zhou Mi's finger tracing the arching lines. "I guess," he says. "It still looks like a mess."
"If you really want to see a mess, you should see my bedroom," Zhou Mi says.
Kyuhyun pulls away and looks at him. "...Can I?"
Zhou Mi's smile fades, but Kyuhyun drops his chin back on Zhou Mi's shoulder, insistent. Zhou Mi leans forward, dislodging him, and sets the book down on the coffee table. "It really is messy," he hedges. "There's not really anything..."
Kyuhyun has the most deadpan puppy-eyed look Zhou Mi has ever seen. "Oh, fine." He sighs. "But promise not to be mean."
Kyuhyun stands in the center of the bedroom and turns slowly, taking it in.
The walls are covered in paper and string—large squares with names written on them, many of which are covered in smaller multicolored post-it notes. Red and blue strings connect the pages together, like a haphazard spider's web.
"Seoul," he reads on one larger paper. "Paris. New York?"
"I'm writing a novel," Zhou Mi explains from the doorway. "The pages are locations, and the post-its are characters, so I can track them as they move around."
Kyuhyun wanders over to Tokyo and places his finger on a post-it, tracing the line that connects it to Los Angeles. "The blue thread shows the plot that I've already decided on," Zhou Mi continues. "Red is stuff that I'm not sure about."
"Have you started writing anything yet?"
"Not much. Just some warm-up pieces for class."
Kyuhyun is silent as he traces the threads on the walls. Zhou Mi waits for Kyuhyun to ask, What's your novel about?, but the question never comes.
"I think the chicken's done," Zhou Mi says eventually. Kyuhyun follows him out of the room and Zhou Mi closes the door behind them.
Kyuhyun grabs Zhou Mi's hand when he's being seen out of the apartment. "Thank you," he says.
"You're welcome," Zhou Mi says, oddly touched. Kyuhyun's fingers linger for a moment before they slip free.
--
Zhou Mi hears a tap on the glass doors. When he looks up, Kyuhyun gives him an awkward little wave.
"What are you doing here?" Zhou Mi asks after he gets up and lets Kyuhyun in. "Is everything okay?"
Kyuhyun gives him a quizzical look. "You're at my job," Zhou Mi reminds him.
"Oh. No, everything's fine." He dumps a plastic bag onto the doorman's desk. "I brought you something."
Zhou Mi watches as Kyuhyun pulls out a plastic container filled with boiled eggs. "That could feed a small army," he points out. The tips of Kyuhyun's ears turn faintly pink.
Kyuhyun ends up sitting beside the guard desk as Zhou Mi writes, propping his elbows on the table and breaking off pieces of the egg held in Zhou Mi's free hand.
"You can get your own, you know," Zhou Mi says, not looking up from the paper.
Kyuhyun tilts his head back and drops the yolk into his mouth. "Yours tastes better."
"So really," Zhou Mi says after a few hours have passed, "why are you here?"
Kyuhyun's doodling something, but it's hard to see what it is upside-down. "I got accepted to SAIC," he says. "I wanted to tell you."
"The engineering company you were applying to? That's great!" Kyuhyun smiles down at his drawing. "...But you couldn't have just called me?"
"I wanted to celebrate," he says.
"Oh." Zhou Mi blinks. "Are we celebrating?"
"I made eggs," Kyuhyun says, as if it's obvious.
--
"So what's your novel about?" Kyuhyun asks. He's sprawled across the sofa beside Zhou Mi, reading another art book.
Zhou Mi leans back into the pillows. "It's a detective story."
"Oh, a murder mystery?"
"Not...exactly."
Kyuhyun squirms until his head is resting on Zhou Mi's thigh. "Tell me about it," he says, and slowly, Zhou Mi does.
"So you're writing a detective story where they spend most of their time eating," Kyuhyun comments after he’s done explaining.
"It's not—they solve art thefts and travel the world!"
"And visit every fancy donut shop they can find, while they're at it," Kyuhyun retorts. "You should just write a cookbook."
Zhou Mi swats at him.
--
"You're good at cooking, right?" Kyuhyun says. His eyes are shining with something Zhou Mi's come to associate with trouble.
"I guess?" he says cautiously. "I'm not bad."
"I wanted to try something," Kyuhyun says. "Do you trust me?"
"Should I?" Zhou Mi says with a nervous laugh.
"It's not bad," Kyuhyun says. His fingers fiddle with his pen, a half-finished drawing on the paper beneath his hand.
"Kyuhyun," Zhou Mi says, "this is my best tie."
"I could use a towel," Kyuhyun offers, and Zhou Mi glares at him. "Close your eyes, then," he says, placing the tie across his eyes. "It's not too tight?"
"It's fine," Zhou Mi sighs. "What are you even doing, Kyuhyun?"
"I heard that master chefs have a good sense of taste," he says. Zhou Mi can hear the laughter in his voice. "I wanted to see how you compared."
"I'm flattered, but—" he stops when he feels a small glass bowl put into his palm.
"Just try it." Kyuhyun's voice is low and persuasive. "What's the harm?"
Zhou Mi frowns and starts to lean in—but then he stops. "You're going to give me chili paste," he says, smiling. There's an awkward silence. "Oh my God," he says, "is this actually chili paste?"
The glass is quickly taken from his hand. "Try this one," Kyuhyun says.
"Kyuhyun—"
"It's not, it's—it's something sweet, okay?"
Kyuhyun's hands are over his, pushing the bowl towards him. As Zhou Mi continues to hesitate, they squeeze once, briefly. With a sigh, Zhou Mi takes a slight sniff. "Cinnamon," he says at once.
"Two for two so far," Kyuhyun says as the bowl is pulled from his fingers, and Zhou Mi knows he's smiling.
The third bowl contains what feels like pine needles. The smell is warm and faintly spicy. He licks his lips. "Rosemary?"
Without a word, the next one is placed in his hand.
This one doesn't have a smell. The nut he puts in his mouth feels smooth and small on his tongue, and he chews slowly. "Cashew?"
"Pine nut." Zhou Mi jumps at the sound of Kyuhyun's voice so close to his ear. A flat square lands in his palm, and Kyuhyun's hand comes to rest on his shoulder. "Two more."
The taste is bitter and rich, spreading throughout his mouth before he swallows. He takes a long minute before he answers, savoring it. "Chocolate," he whispers.
"Mm-hmm."
Zhou Mi waits for the last one, but his hands remains empty. He opens his mouth to say something when he feels warm fingers press against his mouth. His breath ghosts across Kyuhyun's fingers in short puffs as they slowly smear honey across his bottom lip, then dip into the corner of his mouth, finding his tongue. Zhou Mi's head tilts up to meet it, tongue curling around Kyuhyun's thumb and licking it clean with slow, languid swipes.
Kyuhyun lets out a soft, choked sound as his thumb slips free of Zhou Mi's mouth. In the next moment, Kyuhyun is kissing him, hands streaking honey through Zhou Mi's hair as he licks the sweetness from his mouth.
Zhou Mi slips the tie from his eyes and drags Kyuhyun into his lap.
--
The next morning, Zhou Mi wakes to the smell of burning.
He bolts out of bed and skids into the kitchen to see Kyuhyun clicking the vent on. Then, the fire alarm goes off.
"I'll get it," he shouts over the beeping and runs for the hallway armed with a towel. A few ear-splitting, towel-flapping seconds later, he returns to the kitchen to find Kyuhyun scraping at what appears to be a pile of burned shavings in the middle of a pan.
He hands Kyuhyun the towel and turns the stove off. "What happened?" he asks, not really awake.
"I was trying to make pancakes," Kyuhyun mumbles.
Zhou Mi squints at the pan. Its contents are unrecognizable as any sort of food. "Did you use oil?"
"I thought it was Teflon."
"I don't use Teflon. It's carcinogenic."
Kyuhyun opens the windows, then runs for the fire alarm again as Zhou Mi fetches the trash can and dumps the whole mess into it. By the time he comes back, Zhou Mi is setting the pan into the sink to soak.
He turns back and sees Kyuhyun staring at the floor. "It's not that bad," he says. When there's no response, Zhou Mi walks over and squishes Kyuhyun's cheeks with his hands until a fish-face is looking up at him. He laughs at Kyuhyun's nonplussed expression and kisses his forehead. "At least you didn't make a mess of the counters or anything."
"I can try again," Kyuhyun says, the words coming out garbled.
Zhou Mi lets his face go with a sigh. "Let's go out, for once," he says. "There's a good breakfast place right around the—" but Kyuhyun's reaching for him, pulling him down for a kiss. It's going well, until Kyuhyun's hand gets stuck in Zhou Mi's hair.
"Honey was a terrible idea," Kyuhyun says critically.
Zhou Mi laughs. "Maybe a shower, first," he says, "and then we can go out to eat."
--
"I thought you told me you got a job at SAIC," Zhou Mi says, watching Kyuhyun mow his way through Time Crisis 4.
"I do work at SAIC," Kyuhyun says, flashing him a grin. Zhou Mi rolls his eyes and kicks his foot off the cover pedal. "Hey—damnit!"
Zhou Mi fishes through his bag to join in, glad that he's started to carry change.
"I was waiting for you, actually," Kyuhyun says half an hour later as they walk down the hall. Zhou Mi's shaking his fingers out from where they've gripped the fake gun too tightly.
"Hmm? What is it?"
Kyuhyun takes a breath. "Sungmin wants his boyfriend to move in with him since our apartment's bigger, and..."
Zhou Mi glances at Kyuhyun, amused. "And?" he prompts.
"And I was wondering if you'd mind a roommate," Kyuhyun says in a rush.
Zhou Mi comes to a stop. "I don't need a roommate. Where would I put him?"
Kyuhyun turns to face him. "Oh. Wait, what?"
Zhou Mi shakes his head before he wraps Kyuhyun in a hug. "You're my boyfriend!" he says, laughing. "Of course you can live with me."
"You are so confusing sometimes," Kyuhyun says, muffled, into his shoulder.
--
"Don't help," Kyuhyun says.
"I won't help," Zhou Mi agrees and sits down at the table to watch.
Kyuhyun moves through the kitchen easily after months of working in the space. He pulls out knives and bowls, organizes the vegetables into a row on the counter, and drops the chicken into the hot water to soak.
"What are you making?"
"It's a surprise," he says, centering the onion on the chopping board.
Zhou Mi eyes the wok on the stove. "Is it stir-fry?"
Kyuhyun just frowns at him.
The vegetables are chopped unevenly and the chicken's a little greasy, but it's not bad for a first try, and the wine is delicious. Zhou Mi pops an experimental piece of chicken into his mouth and chews, then beams at Kyuhyun. "It's good! It's not too salty and it's cooked all the way through."
"Well, I'm a quick learner," Kyuhyun says, smirking.
"And I'm a good teacher," Zhou Mi replies.
"Hey," Kyuhyun says, thoughtfully, "do you think next time I cook, we could invite Sungmin and his boyfriend over?"
Zhou Mi swallows more wine than he means to and ends up coughing. "Um, maybe that sounds like a two person job, don't you think?"
Kyuhyun's eyes narrow.
"I just mean, that's a lot of people. You could probably use some help! You could take all the credit, if you want," he offers.
"I"m not going to burn down your kitchen."
"Who said anything about burning down my kitchen?" Zhou Mi says, then hurriedly adds, "But, please don't burn down my kitchen."
"You already have my safety deposit—"
"Do you know how hard it is to get smoke out of clothes?"
Kyuhyun doesn't say anything.
"It is very hard," Zhou Mi tells him sadly.
--
Kyuhyun wakes alone in the apartment for the first time since moving in. It's one of his days off, so he takes the morning slowly, lazing in bed, taking a long hot shower, watching the sun rise from the sofa. It's nearly one P.M. by the time he meanders to the kitchen and finds a piece of paper on the table.
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
I'll make dinner when I get home.
When Zhou Mi gets home from class, there's a sketch of two wet plums on the same piece of paper, and a note:
Even I know william carlos williams.
I'm at the grocery store buying supplies. Don't start without me.
—In case you're one of those people who doesn't read these, the pun (or play on...abbreviations?) is SAIC (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) vs. SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation).
—Violin and a Candlestick by Georges Braque.
—How to play Time Crisis.
—Rosemary, chocolate, pine nuts, and honey are considered to be aphrodisiacs. :)
—If you like Super Junior fanfiction, check outsujufics and kyumi! Come one come all, fellow DW SuJu fans!
// written 25 Jan 2012 to 30 Jan 2012
Like what you see? Consider watchingthingwithfeathers!
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4,040
Genre: Romance, Humor
Fandom: Super Junior
Pairings: Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi
Warnings: Food porn, kind of...
Summary: Modern AU. Zhou Mi teaches Kyuhyun about the finer things in life.
Author's Notes: SAIC is the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It also happens to be the abbreviation of the Science Applications International Corporation (an engineering company). It's...something like a pun. For
evaporate for qmidayeveryday, originally posted here. My prompt was "Slice of life domesticity AU. Kyuhyun does not get to do the grocery shopping." Many thanks to koyuki, who helped me untangle plot points and grammar hiccups with equal ease, and Brave, who cheered me on.Cross-posts: AO3.
Epicureanism
"Excuse me," someone says to his right.
Zhou Mi looks up and sees a young man standing beside him, staring morosely at some tomatoes. "Do you know how to find good ones? They all look the same." His gaze flicks to Zhou Mi's face before it drops back to the box of produce.
The stranger's arms hang at his sides, limp, everything about his posture radiating a sense of bewildered helplessness. Zhou Mi resists the impulse to tuck in his shirt label and pat him on the head.
"Did you just start college?" Zhou Mi guesses.
"What? No." He scratches the back of his neck, right above the wayward tag. "I graduated a few months ago."
Zhou Mi looks at him for another second before he chuckles. "Move over," he says, nudging the stranger aside. Zhou Mi feels his way through the tomatoes with expert speed and turns to hand over one that is satisfactory, only to find that he's being watched with something akin to awe. "Well? Take it," Zhou Mi says, gesturing. The tomato is lifted from his open hand. "Feel it with your fingers, like this," Zhou Mi picks up another tomato to demonstrate, "that's the kind of texture you—it's not going to bite you, you know."
The young man jumps a little and gingerly places the tomato back into the box, then laces his fingers behind his back. "Maybe I'll just...make something else," he says, turning away in feigned disinterest.
"What were you trying to make?"
"Food."
Zhou Mi cocks his head, smiling at the slightly-dejected slump of the stranger's shoulders. "Do you want me to show you around the store?"
He finally turns and meets Zhou Mi's eyes. "Don't you have anything better to do?"
Zhou Mi just smiles at him. "I like shopping."
--
"My roommate said he would move out unless I learned how to take care of myself," the man says. He seems relieved to be relegated to cart-pushing duty.
"Well, what are you good at?"
"Eating."
Zhou Mi scoffs and pushes his shoulder, lightly. "Well, you should probably start with cookies. They're easy. Baking aisle's over here."
--
Zhou Mi sends the young man to the cash register with a few coupons he had left over and his cell number. "The recipe's pretty easy, but call if you need any help."
"Let me give you my cell number, too," the other man says and punches it into Zhou Mi’s iPhone 4S (in a Mario case) before handing it back. The address book entry in his cell phone reads Cho Kyuhyun.
Seeing his adopted stranger—Kyuhyun, Zhou Mi reminds himself—standing in line makes him feel vaguely like he's sending a child off to his first day of school.
"Excuse me," Zhou Mi says, and tucks the shirt tag back down, fingers brushing against Kyuhyun's neck. "Your collar."
Kyuhyun gives him a searching look, but Zhou Mi just smiles and vanishes into the frozen food aisle.
--
Zhou Mi groans and fumbles blindly for his cell phone. "Hello?" he croaks, forcing his sleep-fogged eyes to focus. 5:30 PM, his clock reads.
"I burned them," the voice on the other end says.
Zhou Mi scrubs at his face—"Is this Kyuhyun?—" before the call's background noise makes him sit up in bed. "Is that—is that a siren?"
"So I can't go home for a bit," Kyuhyun continues. "Do you live nearby?"
--
Zhou Mi has enough time to flatten his hair and get dressed before Kyuhyun shows up, but it still takes one glance for Kyuhyun to ask, "Were you sleeping?"
"I had to wake up now, anyway," Zhou Mi says, leading Kyuhyun into the elevator and punching 7. "I work nights."
They slide into awkward silence. Kyuhyun smells strongly of smoke. Eventually Zhou Mi ventures, "Did...did you set your house on fire?"
"Just the stove," he says. "When I told Sungmin I was going to make cookies, he went out and bought a fire extinguisher."
--
Zhou Mi's apartment is a tiny one-bedroom. "Sorry," he says, moving a pile of books off the couch. "I wasn't expecting—do you want something to drink?"
"Yeah."
A few minutes later, he hands Kyuhyun a glass of water and sits next to him on the sofa, staring at the book on his coffee table.
"How long do you think you'll need to say?" Zhou Mi asks.
"It's—okay if I stay?"
"I sort of feel responsible," Zhou Mi says with a little laugh. "I mean, it was my idea."
Kyuhyun's giving him that searching look again, before a slight smile pulls at his lips. He ducks his head; "Just tonight," he says. "I won't bother you much."
"Your roommate's okay too, right?" Zhou Mi asks.
"Yeah, he's fine. He's staying with a friend of his."
Zhou Mi offers him sleeping supplies—an oversized t-shirt, blankets and a pillow for the couch, and directions to the laundromat. "My shift starts at eight, so I have to go," he says. "If you're hungry, you can raid the fridge. You should...probably take a shower."
Kyuhyun's hands are folded on top of the heap of blankets in his lap. "Thank you," he says quietly.
Zhou Mi pats his shoulder. "I'll see you tomorrow, all right?"
When Zhou Mi gets home the next morning, he finds the blankets in a heap on the floor and his shampoo bottles left uncapped.
On the kitchen table, he also finds a sketch of himself in three-quarter profile: a few quick lines in pen that imply a nose, kind eyes, and the hint of a smile, a shirt collar framing the dip of his collarbone.
Underneath it, it reads, Thank you.
--
"Kyuhyun? Is that you?"
Kyuhyun is keeling in front of a Soul Calibur V machine, wearing an incredibly unflattering maintenance uniform. He turns and blinks up at Zhou Mi, who's standing over him. "Zhou Mi? What are you doing here?"
"I go to school here," he says. "You...fix arcade machines?" Kyuhyun nods, sitting back on his heels. A screwdriver is held loosely in his hand. "What's wrong with it?" Zhou Mi asks.
"Coin jam," he says. "Do you want to see?"
Zhou Mi crouches next to him as Kyuhyun pries the side of the coin mech off and is rewarded by the sound of jangling, freed coins. "It's that easy?" he asks, incredulous.
Kyuhyun chuckles, taking a few coins from the machine before he puts everything back together. "Only when I'm lucky."
When he drops a coin back into the slot, the game screen changes with a trill of sound. He casts a sly smile at Zhou Mi. "Do you want to play?"
"Um, I'm not very good at—"
He presses the rest of the coins into Zhou Mi's hand, openly grinning now. "Come on, it'll be fun."
Zhou Mi rolls his eyes, but obligingly puts the coins into the machine. "You owe me coffee for this," he says.
Kyuhyun's left hand cradles the joystick from underneath, and Zhou Mi immediately knows that he's in trouble. "Sure."
Zhou Mi loses terribly and nearly misses his afternoon class. Despite this, the look of delight on Kyuhyun’s face every time K.O.!! appears on the screen makes it almost worthwhile.
--
"What are you studying at the Art institute of Chicago?" Kyuhyun asks. As Zhou Mi sits down with his coffee, Kyuhyun slides a pastry to him from across the table.
"I'm doing my master's in creative writing," Zhou Mi replies. "You finished college recently, didn't you? Are you a mechanic?"
"Computer engineer." His fingers are taking his cookie to pieces. "I'm in-between jobs right now."
"It looks like you have a job," Zhou Mi says gently.
Kyuhyun gives a little huff of laughter. "I guess. I fix arcade machines and enter gaming competitions sometimes."
Zhou Mi watches the growing pyramid of cookie crumbs on Kyuhyun's napkin. "Did you ever try baking cookies again?" he asks.
"With what oven," he says, deadpan.
"Well," Zhou Mi says, "you could always use mine."
--
"But you don't have cookie mix," Kyuhyun says, and Zhou Mi laughs at him.
Careful hands show Kyuhyun how to pour flour without spilling and heat the butter in the microwave just enough. "Accuracy's important," he says. "You should be a good baker—you've got an eye for detail."
"You seem like you bake a lot."
"I really like to cook!" Zhou Mi is wearing an apron and digging through his cupboards, looking for the baking soda.
"I found it," Kyuhyun says.
"That's baking powder," he replies without turning.
"But they're—"
"They're different, trust me." Zhou Mi pulls back with the can of baking soda in his hand, and sees a look of dawning realization on Kyuhyun's face. "Did you use baking powder last time?"
"I also forgot the oven was on," he admits.
"I figured as much." He fishes the measuring spoons out of the dirty measuring cup and hands them to Kyuhyun. "Wash this?" When the spoons are dry again, he measures out a teaspoonful of baking soda and drops it into the dry mix. "Do you know how to crack eggs?"
Kyuhyun blinks at him. "Sort of?"
"Try it," Zhou Mi says, reaching for the vanilla. Kyuhyun starts by timidly tapping the egg against the lip of the bowl and works his way up to a nice, firm crack. "Now get your fingers in the break and split it open," he says. Kyuhyun makes a face at him, and he waves the measuring spoon in admonishment. "Just do it," he says with exasperated fondness.
There are bits of shell remaining when Zhou Mi folds the eggs into the butter and sugar. He doesn't say anything, and Kyuhyun seems to relax slightly.
"It's edible," Zhou Mi says. "Congratulations! Maybe if you give some to Sungmin, he'll forgive you."
Kyuhyun bites into one. There's a brittle, crunching sound.
"…Maybe the next batch," he amends.
--
Kyuhyun starts coming over a few days a week for cooking lessons: how to boil water, how to make rice, how to heat a skillet before adding the oil, how to take the skin off chicken without cutting any fingers off.
Zhou Mi's sitting on the sofa, writing, as they wait for the chicken thighs to finish baking. "Braque?" Kyuhyun asks from beside him, picking the book up off of the coffee table.
"I really like modern art," Zhou Mi says. "Especially cubism. Did you know that there are cubist writers, too? There are more poets, though."
"Oh," Kyuhyun says. "I don't know a lot about art."
"You don't? You draw, though."
"It's just a hobby," he says, flipping through the pages. He stares at a picture, squints at it, holds it at arm's length, and then starts to turn it upside-down.
"Stop it," Zhou Mi says with a laugh, and after a brief tussling match, the book is back in his possession. Kyuhyun rests his chin on Zhou Mi's shoulder. "Cubism is supposed to show something from many angles at once," Zhou Mi explains, pointing to a page. "This is supposed to be a violin and a candlestick. The curves are the violin."
Kyuhyun watches Zhou Mi's finger tracing the arching lines. "I guess," he says. "It still looks like a mess."
"If you really want to see a mess, you should see my bedroom," Zhou Mi says.
Kyuhyun pulls away and looks at him. "...Can I?"
Zhou Mi's smile fades, but Kyuhyun drops his chin back on Zhou Mi's shoulder, insistent. Zhou Mi leans forward, dislodging him, and sets the book down on the coffee table. "It really is messy," he hedges. "There's not really anything..."
Kyuhyun has the most deadpan puppy-eyed look Zhou Mi has ever seen. "Oh, fine." He sighs. "But promise not to be mean."
Kyuhyun stands in the center of the bedroom and turns slowly, taking it in.
The walls are covered in paper and string—large squares with names written on them, many of which are covered in smaller multicolored post-it notes. Red and blue strings connect the pages together, like a haphazard spider's web.
"Seoul," he reads on one larger paper. "Paris. New York?"
"I'm writing a novel," Zhou Mi explains from the doorway. "The pages are locations, and the post-its are characters, so I can track them as they move around."
Kyuhyun wanders over to Tokyo and places his finger on a post-it, tracing the line that connects it to Los Angeles. "The blue thread shows the plot that I've already decided on," Zhou Mi continues. "Red is stuff that I'm not sure about."
"Have you started writing anything yet?"
"Not much. Just some warm-up pieces for class."
Kyuhyun is silent as he traces the threads on the walls. Zhou Mi waits for Kyuhyun to ask, What's your novel about?, but the question never comes.
"I think the chicken's done," Zhou Mi says eventually. Kyuhyun follows him out of the room and Zhou Mi closes the door behind them.
Kyuhyun grabs Zhou Mi's hand when he's being seen out of the apartment. "Thank you," he says.
"You're welcome," Zhou Mi says, oddly touched. Kyuhyun's fingers linger for a moment before they slip free.
--
Zhou Mi hears a tap on the glass doors. When he looks up, Kyuhyun gives him an awkward little wave.
"What are you doing here?" Zhou Mi asks after he gets up and lets Kyuhyun in. "Is everything okay?"
Kyuhyun gives him a quizzical look. "You're at my job," Zhou Mi reminds him.
"Oh. No, everything's fine." He dumps a plastic bag onto the doorman's desk. "I brought you something."
Zhou Mi watches as Kyuhyun pulls out a plastic container filled with boiled eggs. "That could feed a small army," he points out. The tips of Kyuhyun's ears turn faintly pink.
Kyuhyun ends up sitting beside the guard desk as Zhou Mi writes, propping his elbows on the table and breaking off pieces of the egg held in Zhou Mi's free hand.
"You can get your own, you know," Zhou Mi says, not looking up from the paper.
Kyuhyun tilts his head back and drops the yolk into his mouth. "Yours tastes better."
"So really," Zhou Mi says after a few hours have passed, "why are you here?"
Kyuhyun's doodling something, but it's hard to see what it is upside-down. "I got accepted to SAIC," he says. "I wanted to tell you."
"The engineering company you were applying to? That's great!" Kyuhyun smiles down at his drawing. "...But you couldn't have just called me?"
"I wanted to celebrate," he says.
"Oh." Zhou Mi blinks. "Are we celebrating?"
"I made eggs," Kyuhyun says, as if it's obvious.
--
"So what's your novel about?" Kyuhyun asks. He's sprawled across the sofa beside Zhou Mi, reading another art book.
Zhou Mi leans back into the pillows. "It's a detective story."
"Oh, a murder mystery?"
"Not...exactly."
Kyuhyun squirms until his head is resting on Zhou Mi's thigh. "Tell me about it," he says, and slowly, Zhou Mi does.
"So you're writing a detective story where they spend most of their time eating," Kyuhyun comments after he’s done explaining.
"It's not—they solve art thefts and travel the world!"
"And visit every fancy donut shop they can find, while they're at it," Kyuhyun retorts. "You should just write a cookbook."
Zhou Mi swats at him.
--
"You're good at cooking, right?" Kyuhyun says. His eyes are shining with something Zhou Mi's come to associate with trouble.
"I guess?" he says cautiously. "I'm not bad."
"I wanted to try something," Kyuhyun says. "Do you trust me?"
"Should I?" Zhou Mi says with a nervous laugh.
"It's not bad," Kyuhyun says. His fingers fiddle with his pen, a half-finished drawing on the paper beneath his hand.
"Kyuhyun," Zhou Mi says, "this is my best tie."
"I could use a towel," Kyuhyun offers, and Zhou Mi glares at him. "Close your eyes, then," he says, placing the tie across his eyes. "It's not too tight?"
"It's fine," Zhou Mi sighs. "What are you even doing, Kyuhyun?"
"I heard that master chefs have a good sense of taste," he says. Zhou Mi can hear the laughter in his voice. "I wanted to see how you compared."
"I'm flattered, but—" he stops when he feels a small glass bowl put into his palm.
"Just try it." Kyuhyun's voice is low and persuasive. "What's the harm?"
Zhou Mi frowns and starts to lean in—but then he stops. "You're going to give me chili paste," he says, smiling. There's an awkward silence. "Oh my God," he says, "is this actually chili paste?"
The glass is quickly taken from his hand. "Try this one," Kyuhyun says.
"Kyuhyun—"
"It's not, it's—it's something sweet, okay?"
Kyuhyun's hands are over his, pushing the bowl towards him. As Zhou Mi continues to hesitate, they squeeze once, briefly. With a sigh, Zhou Mi takes a slight sniff. "Cinnamon," he says at once.
"Two for two so far," Kyuhyun says as the bowl is pulled from his fingers, and Zhou Mi knows he's smiling.
The third bowl contains what feels like pine needles. The smell is warm and faintly spicy. He licks his lips. "Rosemary?"
Without a word, the next one is placed in his hand.
This one doesn't have a smell. The nut he puts in his mouth feels smooth and small on his tongue, and he chews slowly. "Cashew?"
"Pine nut." Zhou Mi jumps at the sound of Kyuhyun's voice so close to his ear. A flat square lands in his palm, and Kyuhyun's hand comes to rest on his shoulder. "Two more."
The taste is bitter and rich, spreading throughout his mouth before he swallows. He takes a long minute before he answers, savoring it. "Chocolate," he whispers.
"Mm-hmm."
Zhou Mi waits for the last one, but his hands remains empty. He opens his mouth to say something when he feels warm fingers press against his mouth. His breath ghosts across Kyuhyun's fingers in short puffs as they slowly smear honey across his bottom lip, then dip into the corner of his mouth, finding his tongue. Zhou Mi's head tilts up to meet it, tongue curling around Kyuhyun's thumb and licking it clean with slow, languid swipes.
Kyuhyun lets out a soft, choked sound as his thumb slips free of Zhou Mi's mouth. In the next moment, Kyuhyun is kissing him, hands streaking honey through Zhou Mi's hair as he licks the sweetness from his mouth.
Zhou Mi slips the tie from his eyes and drags Kyuhyun into his lap.
--
The next morning, Zhou Mi wakes to the smell of burning.
He bolts out of bed and skids into the kitchen to see Kyuhyun clicking the vent on. Then, the fire alarm goes off.
"I'll get it," he shouts over the beeping and runs for the hallway armed with a towel. A few ear-splitting, towel-flapping seconds later, he returns to the kitchen to find Kyuhyun scraping at what appears to be a pile of burned shavings in the middle of a pan.
He hands Kyuhyun the towel and turns the stove off. "What happened?" he asks, not really awake.
"I was trying to make pancakes," Kyuhyun mumbles.
Zhou Mi squints at the pan. Its contents are unrecognizable as any sort of food. "Did you use oil?"
"I thought it was Teflon."
"I don't use Teflon. It's carcinogenic."
Kyuhyun opens the windows, then runs for the fire alarm again as Zhou Mi fetches the trash can and dumps the whole mess into it. By the time he comes back, Zhou Mi is setting the pan into the sink to soak.
He turns back and sees Kyuhyun staring at the floor. "It's not that bad," he says. When there's no response, Zhou Mi walks over and squishes Kyuhyun's cheeks with his hands until a fish-face is looking up at him. He laughs at Kyuhyun's nonplussed expression and kisses his forehead. "At least you didn't make a mess of the counters or anything."
"I can try again," Kyuhyun says, the words coming out garbled.
Zhou Mi lets his face go with a sigh. "Let's go out, for once," he says. "There's a good breakfast place right around the—" but Kyuhyun's reaching for him, pulling him down for a kiss. It's going well, until Kyuhyun's hand gets stuck in Zhou Mi's hair.
"Honey was a terrible idea," Kyuhyun says critically.
Zhou Mi laughs. "Maybe a shower, first," he says, "and then we can go out to eat."
--
"I thought you told me you got a job at SAIC," Zhou Mi says, watching Kyuhyun mow his way through Time Crisis 4.
"I do work at SAIC," Kyuhyun says, flashing him a grin. Zhou Mi rolls his eyes and kicks his foot off the cover pedal. "Hey—damnit!"
Zhou Mi fishes through his bag to join in, glad that he's started to carry change.
"I was waiting for you, actually," Kyuhyun says half an hour later as they walk down the hall. Zhou Mi's shaking his fingers out from where they've gripped the fake gun too tightly.
"Hmm? What is it?"
Kyuhyun takes a breath. "Sungmin wants his boyfriend to move in with him since our apartment's bigger, and..."
Zhou Mi glances at Kyuhyun, amused. "And?" he prompts.
"And I was wondering if you'd mind a roommate," Kyuhyun says in a rush.
Zhou Mi comes to a stop. "I don't need a roommate. Where would I put him?"
Kyuhyun turns to face him. "Oh. Wait, what?"
Zhou Mi shakes his head before he wraps Kyuhyun in a hug. "You're my boyfriend!" he says, laughing. "Of course you can live with me."
"You are so confusing sometimes," Kyuhyun says, muffled, into his shoulder.
--
"Don't help," Kyuhyun says.
"I won't help," Zhou Mi agrees and sits down at the table to watch.
Kyuhyun moves through the kitchen easily after months of working in the space. He pulls out knives and bowls, organizes the vegetables into a row on the counter, and drops the chicken into the hot water to soak.
"What are you making?"
"It's a surprise," he says, centering the onion on the chopping board.
Zhou Mi eyes the wok on the stove. "Is it stir-fry?"
Kyuhyun just frowns at him.
The vegetables are chopped unevenly and the chicken's a little greasy, but it's not bad for a first try, and the wine is delicious. Zhou Mi pops an experimental piece of chicken into his mouth and chews, then beams at Kyuhyun. "It's good! It's not too salty and it's cooked all the way through."
"Well, I'm a quick learner," Kyuhyun says, smirking.
"And I'm a good teacher," Zhou Mi replies.
"Hey," Kyuhyun says, thoughtfully, "do you think next time I cook, we could invite Sungmin and his boyfriend over?"
Zhou Mi swallows more wine than he means to and ends up coughing. "Um, maybe that sounds like a two person job, don't you think?"
Kyuhyun's eyes narrow.
"I just mean, that's a lot of people. You could probably use some help! You could take all the credit, if you want," he offers.
"I"m not going to burn down your kitchen."
"Who said anything about burning down my kitchen?" Zhou Mi says, then hurriedly adds, "But, please don't burn down my kitchen."
"You already have my safety deposit—"
"Do you know how hard it is to get smoke out of clothes?"
Kyuhyun doesn't say anything.
"It is very hard," Zhou Mi tells him sadly.
--
Kyuhyun wakes alone in the apartment for the first time since moving in. It's one of his days off, so he takes the morning slowly, lazing in bed, taking a long hot shower, watching the sun rise from the sofa. It's nearly one P.M. by the time he meanders to the kitchen and finds a piece of paper on the table.
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
I'll make dinner when I get home.
When Zhou Mi gets home from class, there's a sketch of two wet plums on the same piece of paper, and a note:
Even I know william carlos williams.
I'm at the grocery store buying supplies. Don't start without me.
—In case you're one of those people who doesn't read these, the pun (or play on...abbreviations?) is SAIC (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) vs. SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation).
—Violin and a Candlestick by Georges Braque.
—How to play Time Crisis.
—Rosemary, chocolate, pine nuts, and honey are considered to be aphrodisiacs. :)
—If you like Super Junior fanfiction, check out
sujufics and kyumi! Come one come all, fellow DW SuJu fans!// written 25 Jan 2012 to 30 Jan 2012
Like what you see? Consider watching
thingwithfeathers!