[Neo Zone] Population: 23 Kids

Sugar and Spice

Kun was reviewing the study guide he had made for himself for his physics test when he was interrupted by the 00 line. This was exactly why he knew he should've gone to his Granny's for a quiet study space, but it was a little too late for that.

Setting down his notebook, he looked up at the innocent acting group of thirteen year olds gathered in front of him. If there was one more of them they would've been able to spell out 'trouble' with letters on t-shirts.

"What's up?"

YangYang nudged Haechan to say something, a gesture Haechan returned right back at him. The two continued nudging each other until Jeno sighed and decided to take over.

"We have to make brownies tomorrow in home ec. and we're all hopeless at baking."

"Can you please help us so we don't look like fools in front of the class?" Renjun added in, causing Kun to snicker.

"I'm pretty sure you've already done that. Can't someone else help you? I'm kind of busy." He motioned to the notebook he had set down, but that didn't seem to make a difference to them.

"Taeil, Johnny, and Jaehyun are working in the cafe with the parents, Doyoung, Taeyong and Yuta went out to get groceries and Ten and WinWin are Ten and WinWin." Jeno explained.

"I was just going to say they're busy." Haechan mumbled.

"Jaemin, I thought you were good at baking. And Shotaro, you're not even in their class." Kun pointed out, YangYang gasping and putting an arm around Shotaro.

"We're a package deal. You get one 00 liner, you get us all."

"Yeah, the other day they stole me from my math class so I could join their dodgeball team." Shotaro shared, the 00 liners now glaring at him for telling Kun as he raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

"We did no such thing because we are responsible children. It was probably a dream he had." Haechan piped up, followed by Shotaro nodding.

"That still doesn't explain why Jaemin can't help you guys. Actually, that doesn't explain why you can't do it. You just follow the directions on the box."

"I'm too tired to teach them. They dragged me from my nap to be here." Jaemin explained, the sleepiness still evident in his voice.

At this point Kun knew he wasn't going to get anywhere by reasoning with them. There was just no way. Setting aside all thoughts of further studying, Kun got up and led them to the kitchen not attached to the cafe, the six of them trailing behind him like ducklings.

Reaching up into the cupboard, Kun pulled down the first brownie mix he found. Mrs. Suh had a habit of stacking up on them, so there were quite a few different flavors to choose from. This one happened to be one that involved peanut butter cookie dough to drop into the brownie batter.

"I'm just going to supervise. Read the directions and go from there." Kun motioned that it was all theirs, leaning back against the wall to watch.

"Suddenly I can't read."

"Me neither."

Haechan and YangYang commented, so Renjun grabbed the box and started reading off the directions for them. Jaemin stood back by Kun and watched them struggle to even find the mixing bowl and pan they would need as if they had never been in the kitchen before. At this point they were lucky they knew where the fridge was.

Jeno and Shotaro were put in charge of measuring things out like water, oil and butter (for the cookie dough mix that was separate), and YangYang and Haechan were in charge of mixing. The brownie mix was a bit all over the counter, but somehow they managed to get that together.

If it hadn't been for Kun, they would've forgotten to grease the pan, chosen the wrong size pan, and didn't start the oven for pre-heating. It was a good thing Jaemin was half asleep on his shoulder or else he would've stepped in by now and taken over the whole thing.

"It says to drop the cookie dough in rounded balls into the brownie mix." Renjun read off, tilting his head when he started to think about it. "Won't we end up with giant balls of cookie dough then?"

"We could layer it on top." Shotaro suggested, and Renjun shook his head.

"If we were going to layer it we would've had to do that before we poured the brownie mix in."

"Ah cool, cookie dough." Sungchan stole a bit from the unguarded bowl, having appeared from seemingly no where.

"I'm going to pretend you didn't just do that." Haechan warned, so Sungchan took that as the perfect opportunity to go back to the basement.

"Well what does the box look like?" Jeno asked, and when Renjun showed them they all groaned.

"There's no way they put balls of cookie dough in there." Shotaro half whined, and YangYang just started dropping pieces of cookie dough into the brownie mix.

"What are you doing?!" Renjun looked over his shoulder to see if he had ruined it, but he paused. "Oh. They just sorta sit there."

Despite only having a small workspace to work with, the five of them broke apart the cookie dough and plopped it in. There was for some reason a lot of cookie dough and they wanted it to be more brownie than cookie, so they were eating a lot of it. Despite the box telling them not to.

Haechan was nice enough to run some down to Sungchan because he had scolded him not to, and now the 00 liners were just staring at the pan in front of them.

"What do we do now?" YangYang asked.

"Well I think we have to put them in the oven." Jeno commented, the four of them turning to Kun.

"This is all you. Just don't get burnt."

They sighed and all held out their fists to play rock paper scissors. After a few rounds of tying they decided to just make Haechan do it when he came back up.

At the idea of Haechan dealing with an oven, Kun removed Jaemin from his shoulder despite his whining and took over, making sure they all watched how he did it so they would know for tomorrow. 

Once the timer was set, the 00 liners (now rejoined by Haechan) all sat in front of the stove to watch them bake. Jaemin joined them on the floor with his head resting in Jeno's lap, listening to them talk with his eyes closed.

Kun took the twenty minute opportunity to return to studying, coming back up when the timer went off so they wouldn't burn themselves or try to eat them right away.

When it came time for the 00 liners to make brownies in class, it was pretty safe to say the only reason they succeeded was because they had learned the day before how to. And yes, Shotaro was kidnapped from him class to help.