[identity profile] catskilt.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] jewelledhours
twelve cupcakes by [livejournal.com profile] catskilt
eunhyuk/donghae
pg-13; 2,235 words; multi-chapter [completed; 14,672 words total]
this is the fic where donghae is a baker and hyukjae is a prostitute, and together they make something out of the city of romance that is paris.



Part Six-

But despite how much they might want to put it off, morning has to come.

Donghae wakes first, rubbing his forehead wearily against the nape of Hyukjae's neck. He hadn't, actually, managed to fall asleep until long after Hyukjae was dead to the world, and right now he feels like he has slept for a grand total of fifteen minutes. His body clock tells him it should be approximately three a.m. The sky outside tells him different.

It's five minutes to six, and Paris is slowly waking up to morning marketing, talkative birds, rush hour traffic, email inboxes, shutters being raised. Inside Hyukjae's apartment, everything is cool and dim and quiet, shimmery in the early morning light, far removed from the world of routine and mundane tasks. It's a fantasy, Donghae thinks. A carefully manufactured fantasy for men weary of reality. This is Hyukjae's world. What's better after all – a world of alarm clocks and dirty toilets and dog shit on the streets and nine to six and burn out, or this world of lush, bright, around-the-clock, surreal pleasures?

Hyukjae stirs and half-opens an eye. He looks dazed and sleepy, less like Paris' most desired man and more like an innocent Korean boy just out of school. Donghae, looking at him, suddenly sees what he must have been at sixteen; awkward, gawky, hair falling unfashionably over his eyes, smiling a smile that could light up an entire room. "Hyukjae," he says. "Wake up, it's morning."

Hyukjae struggles to lift his eyelids. "It is?"

"It's morning," Donghae repeats.

He forces himself to leave the warmth of Hyukjae's body in favour of getting to the bathroom. There, too, he sees signs of careful planning – a new toothbrush, a fat tube of toothpaste, all sorts of expensive colognes lined up on a shelf for customers to disguise the scent of ill-gotten pleasure from their families. Plush, hotel-like towels rolled up on a higher shelf, brand name shampoo and conditioner, a shaver and styling mousse – it's a completely self-contained bathroom in fact, one that many men must have used before to prepare themselves for re-entry into the real world.

Donghae reaches out to pour the cologne into the bathroom sink in a childish attempt to spoil the studied perfection of everything around him, but stops. The cologne removes Hyukjae's scent from the hair and bodies of his male visitors; and the very thought of walking past a man who smells of Hyukjae's body makes Donghae's skin crawl. No, the cologne has a good use. Leave it there. He opts for scraping the styling mousse into the toilet bowl instead.

When he exits the bathroom, washed and dried, buttoning his shirt up to his chest, he finds Hyukjae sitting up in bed examining his mobile phone. He smiles when Donghae comes in, puts away the phone to hold out his arms.

They kiss lazily, yearningly, until Donghae pulls away mid-kiss. "It's almost seven. I was only supposed to stay till six."

"So?" Hyukjae shrugs. "It's my apartment. I get to choose who I want to stay."

"Well…" Donghae says. "There's the bakery to open. Henry doesn't come in on Sundays, so I have to take care of everything."

Hyukjae bites his lip at that prosaic reminder. "Oh."

Donghae steels himself against the really, really hard lump forming in his throat. "Guess life still goes on, huh?"

"Yeah," says Hyukjae, and just sits there watching as Donghae fastens his pants and feels his pockets to ensure that he has all his possessions. It feels sadder than it should be. They are whore and client taking leave of each other after a good night's work. They are friends temporarily parting to meet each other again sometime in the near future. It shouldn't feel so much like a farewell.

Donghae clears his throat and tries to lighten the atmosphere. "Not going to see me out?"

Hyukjae gets out of bed silently and reaches into his closet to pull on a pair of slacks. Donghae averts his eyes from the muscles on his perfectly defined stomach, his long thighs and turn of his beautiful neck; he isn't sure how he can handle such desire to push Hyukjae back onto the bed and crawl inside him, remain under his skin forever. What he is sure of is that if he doesn't look, he'll somehow manage to make his way across the living room and out of the front door, and the world outside will remind him that there's more to life than love and heartbreak. Like earning a living, for example.

"Well," he hesitates at the doorway, fumbling over the pesky farewell words. "I'll see you in a few months, I guess."

"What?" Hyukjae blinks at him in confusion.

"I can't afford another night with you for at least another three months," Donghae says. "You bankrupted me, you know. I had no idea how expensive you are when I approached Pierre, and when he told me your price I didn't want to lose face by backing out so I had to pay up and now I don't know how I'm going to pay my rent for next month! You owe me now, so you'd better come clean my kitchen floor to make up for the money that I've spent on you."

"I, er…" Hyukjae looks lost. Perhaps he's still sleepy and thus slower than usual, but he genuinely looks upset and baffled, and Donghae suddenly can't bear it anymore.

"Hyukjae," he says, "It's too early for this, isn't it? I'm sorry, I was kidding, I didn't mean it…last night was worth every cent."

"Donghae," Hyukjae starts, leaning forward as though to kiss him, but Donghae's had enough. He steps away and opens the door. "Goodbye," he says, and flees before he's unable to refrain from throwing himself at Hyukjae's feet and screaming, DON'T LET ME GO!

… …

He's crying after all, dropping tears into the flour. He can't help it. A great sadness welled up in his chest the moment he stepped away from Hyukjae's apartment and he couldn't prevent it from creeping painfully at the back of his eyes, squeezing out the tears as he sat in the cab watching the roads going by. He was crying in the cab, and he's still crying now, and it's been over an hour since he left Hyukjae's place but there doesn't seem an end to this reservoir of tears.

If someone is to ask him now, what exactly are you crying about?, he isn't sure that he can find the right answer. He's crying for the kitchen, which he used to love working in before but now seems too big and lonely for existence; for having been silly enough to fall in love when he'd never intended to; for not being man enough to drag Hyukjae out of his ornamented prison, for the Thursdays which had meant so much and now only bring on another suffocating flood of sadness, for the empty milk cartons, for – everything, basically. But most of all for Hyukjae.

Hyukjae, who will never really know how much he has touched Donghae's life, how he has turned Paris from a city of strangers and difficult-to-pronounce words into a home of comfort and delight. Hyukjae, who kept his bakery going and encouraged him so much and sort of stomped into his world, filling it up so headily that Donghae doesn't know how to re-fill the empty corners now that he isn't in them anymore. There's too much space without Hyukjae, too many inanimate objects that seem to wink sadly at him, too many quiet afternoons and lonely evenings, and Donghae doesn't quite know how anything is ever going to be happy for him again.

He turns to the fridge for some milk and yelps in shock when a figure materialises at the back gate. His first thought is ROBBER and WHERE'S MY KNIFE, but within seconds realises that it's Hyukjae – dressed as casually as Donghae has ever seen him, simple black tee and jeans with a light jacket, dragging a suitcase.

"What," Donghae begins.

"Why is your back door open?" Hyukjae asks, then, as he opens the clasp on the gate, adds, "Why isn't your gate locked?"

"Hyukjae," gapes Donghae. "Have you…you've come to clean my kitchen floor? I didn't mean it, you know, and I can't pay you, at least not for the next few months…"

"You are a ridiculous human being," says Hyukjae. He drags in his suitcase and stands at the door for a moment, looking around at the familiar and beloved surroundings, everything that says Donghae to him; the brightly coloured plates and cutlery, the whimsical cups proclaiming all sorts of cute taglines and graphics, the plump mop, the clean washcloths hanging in an organised disarray on the counter, the multitude of baking trays and measuring cups, the stack of CDs lying in a corner because Donghae can't master how to connect his iPod to the stereo. And the tips jar on the shelf that now carries a tag labelled 'HYUKJAE' instead of 'TIPS'.

"What's this?" he asks, pointing.

Donghae looks a little embarrassed. "It's nothing."

"You," says Hyukjae, "are the most adorable person alive in this world and I would be a fool to let you go anywhere within a mile away from me."

"Does that mean…"

"I brought my luggage," says Hyukjae.

"But…Pierre and…your home, and everything?"

"Pierre will survive. I've made him into a millionaire – I think that's sufficient. As for my home, I have another apartment that's entirely my own…I'll bring you there to see it. You'll like it. No one has ever slept in it but me."

"I'll like that," Donghae acknowledges.

Hyukjae looks at him with so much tenderness that all the black clouds suddenly roll away from Donghae's world, leaving colour and vibrancy and freshness, and French love songs. And birds chirping. And romance books, and cupcakes with colourful icing, and a whole world filled with undiscovered delights and adventures that he'll be able to explore with Hyukjae.

"You have my heart," says Hyukjae. "All of it. I couldn't let you take it away with you."

They're holding hands now, smiling at each other, and Donghae thinks, so this, this, this is what joy feels like, and he wants to say, there's so much I want to do with you, so much I want to see, palaces and minarets and castles and rivers and mountains and little snow-clad villages, I want to feed you and hold you in my arms and sit beside you on a bumboat, I want to walk down crowded market streets and watch scandalous sex shows and drink wine with you in a revolving restaurant, but all he says, in the end, is "You're never leaving me now."

"No," says Hyukjae.

"I changed my signboard for you," says Donghae. "All for you. It's in French now."

"That's only the beginning," says Hyukjae.

… …

It wasn't smooth-sailing by any means, but it's still a voyage. Hyukjae has pumped much-needed cash into Donghae's business, expanded the bakery into a little lovable café with books and tea in addition to Donghae's baked goods, and so far the money has been rolling in. Henry has become a bit of a local attraction for the schoolgirls in the area; he has different dates almost every other night.

They've travelled around France together, learned the basics of wine-making in Provence and frolicked in the sand at Nice. Donghae says that Italy is next; he's dying to go to Tuscany and visit this famous bakery that he hears makes heavenly bread. Hyukjae wants to see the Bavarian Alps.

At night they lie curled together even in the hot days of summer. Donghae can't sleep alone anymore, fidgets and sweats and flails around until Hyukjae joins him in bed, and when Hyukjae leaves on a short business trip to Normandy to check out the possibility of opening another café there, Donghae leaves him so many mournful text and voice messages that Hyukjae calls to tell him to buy a bolster. Such dependence is not healthy, he says. But to make up for his lack of sympathy, he induces Donghae into an orgasmic haze through his admirable skills in phone sex.

Monogamy suits them. Hyukjae says it's wonderful making love to only one person night after night; he loves the familiarity, the comfort of knowing Donghae's body inside out, of finding moles in the exact same spots that they'd been in a week ago. Sometimes they drink each other in with so much need that Donghae thinks they won't be able to survive such passion, they'll give out with the amount of white hot desire between them, but Hyukjae tells him to stop being so melodramatic; they're just having mind-blowing sex, is all. Donghae says that Hyukjae lost all his romance once he left his previous life to settle into an old married routine. Hyukjae knows that it isn't entirely accurate; he's simply moved from one method of love to another; from manufactured fantasy into lasting reality; from falsity to something truer and sweeter beyond compare.

They still sit on the back steps on cool evenings, drinking cartons of strawberry milk. The bookstore owner still makes out with her boyfriend; the clothes designer still takes extended smoking breaks. Hyukjae tells a joke, and Donghae laughs, and it feels as though the entire world is at peace.

end.


It's over! Thank you to all for your support and thoughtful comments ♥
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Date: 2012-06-26 08:49 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] esme-92.livejournal.com
Awww this was one of the most cute and adorable fics i've ever read!!! Everything was just great!! i've loved every single part even the angsty part was just perfect!!!

I thought that this was going to be a sad story but i'm truly glad that it isn't is one of the best i've read so far ^^

I hope you keep writing and make many more stories!!!
Let me know if you're doing a new one specially if it's Eunhae
Take care ^^

Date: 2012-07-01 07:45 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
i'm late, but omg omg omg ! it's so gorgeous ! <3 i honestly had goosebumps reading parts of this~ <3

Date: 2012-07-02 05:59 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eunhaekyuminftw.livejournal.com
THIS IS HEAVENNNN . SUPER AWESOME . I ESPECIALLY LOVEEEE THE ENDING . I cant imagine any better ending than this gahhhh u're just awesome rite ? AND AWWW IT HAS OFFICIALLY ENDED . definitely gonna miss this story :')

Date: 2012-07-06 12:53 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] panda0hero.livejournal.com
This was like, the most cute, sad and again cute fic I've ever read. I wish you could do more of them like this, it was just so sweet.

Date: 2012-07-07 10:55 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] do-nx.livejournal.com
And the lived happily ever after ( sorry just HAD to put it there, won't have it any other way xD)
Thanks for sharing ~ *stalks around for more* <3

Date: 2012-07-14 01:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] leunah23.livejournal.com
im glad that i found the ending of this fic! memming this!!!
i think this is the only eunhae fic that i looooooooooooooooooooooove so much... thanks for sharing
it's a very beautiful story! i'm still shedding tears *sniff sniff*

Date: 2012-07-21 08:47 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fishiemon.livejournal.com
OMG this was far one of the best stories I have ever read ;____; <3
The ending was simply beautiful. I NEVER like endings, never. but this one was so omfg, it was the better one by far.
I love every phrase, every word in this chapter ;___;

everything was so lovely ;^;
you made an awesome story, thank you ;___;
I cried a lot, even in the end, but gosh, it was from joy and happiness ;A; I felt like Hae there!
adsgha omg. really, I'm in love with twelve cupcakes (L)
dodici pasticcini ?

Im allucinating at this time *A*
but really, you adagshdk I LOVE IT.
THANK YOU ;__;

whore hyuk is always sexy kkk xD

Date: 2012-08-13 11:00 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] amalious.livejournal.com
"You," says Hyukjae, "are the most adorable person alive in this world and I would be a fool to let you go anywhere within a mile away from me."



The most beautiful eunhae fic I've read for a while, this is.

Thank you for sharing :)

Date: 2012-08-13 07:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ailaling1017.livejournal.com
OMGOMGOMG I AM CRYING ~ NGL. REAL TEARS LIKE YOU WON'T BELIEVE.

I was even crying through the smut in the last chapter.

Reading this after reading 200 something pages of constitutional provisions is a life saver. I swear I was about to go crazy an hour ago but when I read this... Ahhh the feelings. Just, I'm head over heels in love with this fic.

I... I'm blabbering at 4 AM but... Srsly, this was wonderful!!!;AAA;

Let me love you down!;;

Date: 2012-09-05 11:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lilkraftykat.livejournal.com
I just discovered you, and this is the first fic of yours that I've read...and I can already say I've fallen completely for your writing. It's so well done, it kind of makes me want to get back to writing myself. ;^;
As for the story itself, overall it was really...cute isn't the right word, and neither is sweet, but I'm not sure how to put it into words. They had a bumpy ride, but it all turned out okay in the end. The end was beautiful. ;___; And I don't think the ending paragraph could have been any more perfect than that.
And now I want cupcakes.

Date: 2012-12-05 06:40 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dalankar.livejournal.com
Wow! That was so lovely :)
I'm steadily making my way through all your stories, so happy to have found a writer who writes these two as well as you do!!

Date: 2012-12-26 03:13 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dune-ashes.livejournal.com
You are a fantastic writer (and it's so rare in SuJu fandom, oh so rare). That story was a pure, bittersweet at times, pleasure. I loved it, thank you:)

Date: 2013-01-07 10:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] neonflowers91.livejournal.com
This was very different from most stories I read but I really liked the concept and you did a very good job at writing it. I have no idea where you get your inspiration from but keep it up. I have not disliked anything you have written. I loved the ending. It was so sweet. I'm so happy that they were finally able to be together after such heartbreak. Love will conquer ALL!!! :) I am going to miss reading this story.

Date: 2013-02-23 04:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lamppy.livejournal.com
So here it is.. My comment about Twelve Cupcakes.. Well, I don't even when to start. It's gonna be long. And messy.. I'm already sorry..
I found it somewhere on tumblr recommendations, but first I couldn't bring myself to read it. I was pretty new to eunhae fics at the time and pretty confused about them too. And when I finally started to read I couldn't bring myself to continue.. I don't know, somehow I was disappointed at the beginning that they already know each other and I think I was expecting something else.. I don't honestly know what I was thinking. Then one Saturday came and I finally started reading for good... That was it. This fic just swallowed me! I lost myself so much in it that it was 9pm and my boyfriend came and I told him to go to my brother and entertain himself because I had to finish it! I was sobbing a little bit and there was nothing that could stop me from finishing it... I finished, I was heartbroken and happy and confused and I spent the rest of the evening with my boyfriend, but whet he went to sleep I came back to my laptop and it was 2am and I started to translate it... Till 6am and for the rest of following week.
One word of explanation. I'm from Poland and English is definitely not my first language and that's the reason why my comments are so.. well, bad, as you can see. I'm sorry I translated it without asking about your permission, but I made it out of pure love and only for myself (I even have no intentions to publish it, I don't even know where) because, seriously, this fic changed something in me and left me in mess and in love and it was the only way I could think of to get over this freaking fanfiction!
I honestly don't know why it hit me so much... Maybe I was just in such mood or maybe that is what happens when you find something you love.. Well..

This story is just freaking good! I love it from very beginning till the last word! I told about it my friends, my boyfriend and even my parents and I made my friend and my father to read my translated version! I just wanted to share it so badly.

I think it was your writing what made this story so good, because the way you described everything, characters and Paris and their little moments.. I don't know, I could feel everything; colours, and sounds, and those cupcakes, and those french love songs, and their feelings, and differences between them, and loneliness, and love, and fear, and heartbreak, and confusion, and well... everything.

I love how how you made their characters in here. I love how they are so much real and completed in the story. I love how they are different from each other but none of them is perfect; there is no bad and good guy, which was pretty easy to assume first that Hyukjae gonna be the beautiful and cold and Donghae - the sweet and innocent one. But no, this didn't happen and it is great how Hyukjae turns to be sensitive and carrying and Donghae the stubborn and bit of cold.

I also really appreciate (oh, irony!) how you didn't made it quite chronological and so you have to read the whole story to know how they met and what happened before and even their life stories. I'm not a good writer myself, so my stories are always loooong and chronological and you pretty much wrote everything in nearly 40 pages (my translated version is 36 pages long) even their life stories and nothing is made carelessly, like Henry's character which isn't very necessary for the whole plot but you can quite see him clearly, because you wrote him so good..

I can't give you my favourites parts because I don't know how long this comment would be... Like 100 pages or something. But maybe I will try to..?

I actually just wrote the whole big paragraph about my favourite moments but I have no time right now, and I have to go somewhere so please let me know if you want to read the rest of it because I have a lot more to say about this freaking life-changing story but my comment is already long enough to take a nap during reading...

Date: 2013-05-19 03:53 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] haetheist.livejournal.com
so I think this was one of my first fics that I've read from you, and I've honestly got to say I fell in love with eunhae right then. It's been a while since I last read it but I finally got the chance to comment and praise your almightiness with poor word choice (I can't, man, I can't)


okay, first, prostitute Hyukjae=thumbs up from me. second, the plot was an intriguing son of a bitch that also deserves a thumbs up. third, I love how Hyukjae became Donghae's daily customer and how Donghae pushes for Hyukjae because he was the one who kept his bakery going, and in the process falls in love, and I love that because I'm a sucker for da love.


and then you put in some angst and here I was, banging my head against the laptop as a way to get these mothefuckers to leave trouble and fuck each other senseless where they can't be bothered. But Hyukjae comes back for Donghae and it's da love all over again, with the lovely baker and the lovely prostitute's story continuing in the city of Paris. Has anyone ever told you the whole baker-and-prostitute romance thing is awesome because it totally works, I'm just saying


oh, and thumbs up for making this one of my favorites of all time.


now it's time to spam your other pieces of perfection with crap comments yay
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