"I just want to try cooking for once," Baekhyun insists.
"Baekhyun," Joonmyun says kindly, "You're a sleep-deprived, procrastinating college student. Being unable to cook is expected."
"Please don't. No one wants to have food poisoning," Tao adds. When Joonmyun fixes a glare on him, Tao lifts his palms in surrender. "Hey, you were thinking it too."
"Why don't you ask Chanyeol instead?" Joonmyun suggests. "He's the one cooking tonight. Maybe he'll let you help?"
Baekhyun brightens immediately. "Thanks, Joonmyun!" he says cheerfully before heading off to the kitchen.
Minseok looks up from his phone then to address the rest of the employees sitting around the table. "You know that there's no way Chanyeol's going to say no, right?"
Luhan snorts. "Of course. He's so whipped."
Joonmyun nudges him. "Like you should be talking."
"Okay," Luhan allows, "But at least I'm not dancing around my feelings like some mating ritual of sexual tension like those two are." As if to prove a point, he stands up to peck Minseok on the cheek and Minseok responds by automatically slipping an arm around his waist.
"There should be a new sign in this restaurant that says 'No PDA allowed,'" Jongdae says with a scrunch of his nose.
Inside the kitchen, Chanyeol's putting up a decent fight against Baekhyun's pout. He feels himself slipping little by little as Baekhyun continues pleading with him.
"Please, Chanyeol," Baekhyun's saying. "You'll get to help me and I promise I'll try not to burn anything."
"What a deal," Chanyeol deadpans. He's focusing on the draining the boiled pasta instead because he knows he'll get soft if Baekhyun does the thing with his eyes where he looks like a kicked puppy. When Baekhyun fiddles with the knobs on the stove and watches the blue flames under the pot with fascination, Chanyeol tries to shoo him away.
"Baekhyun, you'll hurt yourself," he says, but it seems more like Chanyeol's the one pleading with Baekhyun now.
"Protect me then, my chef in shining armor."
As Chanyeol sighs in defeat, Baekhyun bounces excitedly. "Knew you'd come around."
A moment later, Baekhyun appears in Chanyeol's view, much closer than before and peering up, eyes crinkled into crescents as he smiles. "Thanks, Yeol," he says sincerely before pursing his lips and sending Chanyeol an air kiss.
Embarrassed, Chanyeol looks away. "Don't mention it. Like actually, don't mention it. Jongdae will never let me hear the end of it if he hears that I gave in to you."
"Why?" Baekhyun sounds suddenly keen.
"No reason," Chanyeol says a little too quickly and his ears go a little pink. It sounds very suspiciously like he has lots of reasons, but Baekhyun doesn't press further. Chanyeol dumps the pasta (which is farfalle, since they never actually managed to find the angel hair) unceremoniously into a saucepan.
Chanyeol clears his throat to break the silence. "There's tomato sauce heating over here," he points to a second pan beside him, "and you can add the spices, if you want? That's the fun part. For me, anyway."
Baekhyun zeroes in on the entire row of spices on the counter and gathers almost all the little bottles in front of him. He manages to unscrew the shaker top from the chili pepper flakes and dump in an inhumane amount before Chanyeol snatches the bottle from him and holds it protectively to his chest.
"Kyungsoo would kill you," Chanyeol says, scandalized. "Do you have any experience with cooking at all?"
"Not really," Baekhyun admits, looking only slightly abashed. "Help me?"
"Just hold the spatula and stir-"
Baekhyun interrupts. "Can you show me instead?"
Chanyeol starts toward the stove and looks confusedly at Baekhyun when he doesn't move aside. "I can't show you if you're standing there, Baek."
"I meant for you to hold my hand through it. Literally," Baekhyun says playfully. "Unless you mind." There's a question in his tone and Chanyeol doesn't know how to answer.
Chanyeol fits his own much larger hand over Baekhyun's on the spatula handle instead of speaking. Baekhyun's surprised. Chanyeol can tell from the way he jolts at his touch, but Chanyeol likes to think it's a good kind of surprised and that Baekhyun just might be pressing his hand slightly back against his.
Belatedly, Chanyeol realizes that their position might be a bit compromising. In order to help Baekhyun like this, his chest is brushing Baekhyun's back, warm breath dancing across the slope of his neck (and Chanyeol doesn't miss the little shiver Baekhyun gives). Most of all, Baekhyun's hip is already fitted snugly against him, either by accident or by design. Either way, a sharp spark of something warm starts down Chanyeol's spine.
He swallows thickly. "Here. You can add some spices-just one shake of each," he clarifies quickly, just in case Baekhyun dumps in a whole container of basil or something similarly disastrous but Baekhyun seems distracted for once. "I'll help you stir."
Chanyeol feels a little silly if he's honest, like they're re-enacting a scene from one of those dramas Jongdae denies watching. All thought of that goes out the window when Baekhyun leans back almost imperceptibly to rest against his chest.
Chanyeol's heart thuds wildly and he hopes Baekhyun can't feel the nervous fluttering through his shirt. If he does notice, Baekhyun doesn't mention it. He doesn't tease or laugh, and there's just Baekhyun's seeping warmth and strands of his dark hair tickling Chanyeol's chin until Chanyeol's heart rate slows to normal again. It's natural, almost too natural. They say nothing, just standing together and stirring for a while.
When the cooking timer beeps, loud and grating, Chanyeol detaches himself to move back and Baekhyun lets him.
"I'll pour it on," Baekhyun announces over Chanyeol's protests, and suddenly everything is back to normal.
Baekhyun tosses the farfalle efficiently, tipping the saucepan and turning over the pasta with the spatula. Within minutes, he's finished.
"Want a taste?" Baekhyun blows carefully on a forkful of pasta before lifting it to Chanyeol's mouth.
The second Chanyeol swallows, suddenly everything seems to make sense.
Farfalle. Even with Chanyeol's extremely limited Italian (and he means extremely limited, considering that he only knows the names of pasta and the word Ciao, which he reserves for times when he gets tired of saying hello in Korean), he knows that farfalle means butterflies.
And now he has farfalle in his stomach. Literally. It shouldn't be as funny as it is, but Chanyeol nearly chokes on his pasta as he laughs out loud at how stupid everything is and how definitely not cute Baekhyun looks even when he's confused.
It takes another second for Chanyeol to consider that maybe Baekhyun's got farfalle in his stomach too, and maybe not just the literal kind.
It's not until after they serve the food to everyone else that Chanyeol suspects Baekhyun isn't nearly as bad of a cook as he says he is. He doesn't want to get ahead of himself on what that might mean, but he can't stop grinning stupidly to himself anyway.
