Cookies and Milk (1/2)

Taemin was in big trouble.

As the maknae of SHINee paced around the currently empty dorm, he had to stop himself from pulling at his hair, otherwise the cordi-noonas would kill him.

But they would probably find him dead first.

“Eottoke eottoke?!” Taemin mumbled to himself. He couldn’t believe he would forget! How on earth could be forget that Christmas was only days away?!

The SHINee boys had been swamped with schedules, performances, and flying back and forth from Japan, to Taiwan, to Korea, and back. Taemin could only blame the jetlag.

But as the dorm was set up with pretty glittering lights (courtesy of the ahjummas who cleaned their dorms regularly), the fact that December 25th was about to approach hit Taemin like a freight train.

The boys were home (the first in a while) before jetting off to Japan once more for the first showcase for their first Japanese album, and the boys were determined to make the most out of their short time back at home.

Minho had immediately sought out his parents, and came with hands filled with wrapped presents and side dishes.

Onew came home from schedules with a hand filled with…fried chicken. (“My gift is to share it with you all!” said the eldest)

Jonghyun had come back after a visit with his umma and noona with mini gifts for everyone.

And Key, like the almighty umma that he was, came home, not with gifts, but with hands filled with groceries.

m class="bbc">(“Where are the presents?!” Jonghyun had exclaimed

“YAH these are my presents I’m cooking spaghetti for you, be happy!”

“…Key you do that anyway.” Minho dead panned.

“Shut up alien.”)

And Taemin? Well Taemin had just got home from his parents, with a replacement for the mp3 he had unfortunately lost (again) on the plane, and currently at a lost as to what to get his hyungs.

“Maybe I can go out now and get something! Aigo but what am I supposed to get?! Everywhere is going to be full! What do the hyungs want?!” Taemin muttered frantically to himself. He looked around, the scattered presents littered the ground, and Key’s grocery bags were in the kitchen.

A light bulb lit up in Taemin’s head.

“If Key can do it so can I!” and he whipped out his phone, “Manager hyung can you come pick me up please? … Ne to the grocery store!! … Ne I know it’ll be busy but pleeeaaasseeee ~…”

…

“Komawo hyung!”

*****

30 minutes later, and rushing to print out recipes online, Taemin stood confused in front of the grocery store, with a hoodie over his head and sunglasses to hide his face.

“Taemin ah…do you know what you’re doing?” his manager asked. Taemin gulped.

“Ne hyung! I’ll call you when I’m done!” the youngest said brightly as he strode, clutching the stack of papers in his hand. The manager could only watch his youngest charge walk into a crowded grocery store…and the older man found himself hoping he wouldn’t have to drive his other four charges to the hospital later.

“Key hyung does this all the time, I can do it too!” Taemin said to himself. He looked at the recipes for various types of cookies he had found online. He figured if he couldn’t buy his gifts, he would just have to make them, after all, handmade gifts were always the nicest!

He decided that he would make chicken shaped cookies for Onew, Soccer ball shaped for Minho, Dinosaur shaped for Jonghyun, and a star shape for Key.

It shouldn’t be too hard, Taemin figured, the recipe listed everything he needed to get, and he would need to get cookie cutters to get the shape, but other than that, cookies were the easiest (and yummiest) things to make for Christmas.

“Ok…flour…” and so started Taemin’s mission at the grocery store. His cart started to fill with various ingredients, flour, sugar, chocolate chips. He got to an aisle where he saw chicken powder,

“That should work right…” he mumbled, and grabbed a pack. He could just imagine his eldest hyung’s face when he bit into a chicken flavoured cookie.

He continued to grab some marshmallows, and some fruit for Key’s sake. He stopped at the refrigerator section, and loaded his cart with banana milk…you know because his hyungs love banana milk too!

It took a short 45 minutes for Taemin to fill his cart with more milk, and various cooking ingredients that ranged from fruit, to marshmallows, to chocolate chips and meat pieces. He called his manager hyung and asked for his help as the cashier rang him through at the cash, and he quickly bowed and bid the ajumma a merry Christmas before walking out with hands filled with bags.

“Hyung, when are the other members finished their schedule.” Taemin asked as they made their way back.

“Everyone has late schedules, you should be fine…Taemin ah do you need help making these…” The manager asked.

Taemin beamed,

“Aniyo hyung! I can do this! It’s a piece of cake!” Taemin said brightly. The manager could only nod weakly, no the older man wasn’t doubting it would be easy…he was more worried about the cooking process, having remembered Taemin’s infamous honey and milk ramen incident.

Grabbing one of Key’s aprons, Taemin got started on his mission. Grabbing flour, eggs, milk, chocolate chips and all the ingredients he had bought. If he worked fast, the cookies would be done before his hyungs got back, and they would forever be worshipping on the ground he walked on for his amazing cookies (Ok, so maybe it was a bit exaggerated, but Taemin enjoyed thinking somewhere along that line!)

“Hm. It says Baking powder…omo I bought the wrong one!” He squeaked. He picked up the baking soda he had bought instead, “It shouldn’t be that different…it’s only one word.” He had seen Key improvising when he had missed an ingredient, and the maknae shrugged, adding in the required amount of baking soda in replacement of the powder.

It was only one thing, what difference could it make?

Half way through, Taemin realized that he had run out of milk. And he was so close to being done too! He opened his fridge, realizing it was empty save for the obscene amount of banana milk he had gotten instead.

…

Banana milk? That should work too! After all, banana milk tasted ten times better than normal milk anyway! It shouldn’t make that big of a difference! His hyungs likes banana milk too right? Taemin couldn’t remember, he only remembered how much he liked them, but they were members, and they had banana milk in the dorm all the time, so they must like it too!

And so, in went the banana milk in replacement of normal milk. Taemin was beginning feel prouder by the minute, the dough looked almost exactly like the picture on the internet. All he had to do was add the right toppings, and cut it with the cookie cutter and he would be done!

The rest after that was simple. Taemin placed small portions of the dough on separate cooking pans, and started cutting them with the store bought cookie cutters.