The King Learns to Knead

The next morning, Jungkook woke before Y/N did.

He had discovered, over the past two days, that his body still rose with the sun, no matter what century it landed in. He lay on the couch a while, staring at the ceiling, listening to the hum of the refrigerator, and then he rose, left the blanket exactly where it had fallen, and went to stand outside Y/N's door.

A king did not fold blankets. Kings did not perform chores. That was what servants, ministers, and, apparently, girlfriends who owned bakeries were for.

He did not knock. He simply waited, arms crossed, the way he used to wait outside his war council's chambers, until she opened the door on her own and nearly walked into his chest.

"*Ah!* You scared me."

"I was merely present."

"You've been standing there?"

"For some time."

"Why didn't you just knock?"

"A king does not knock," said Jungkook , as though this settled the matter. "He arrives, and others adjust."

Y/N rubbed her eyes and looked at him for a long moment. "You're going to be insufferable for the rest of your life, aren't you."

"I intend to be."

---

At the bakery, jungkook selected the tall stool at the end of the counter and sat upon it as though it were carved from marble and gold, back straight, hands folded on one knee, watching the whole shop the way a king surveys a hall from his throne.

Y/N tied on her apron and pulled a tray of pale dough from the fridge. She set it on the floured table, glanced at him, and had an idea she would later regret.

"Jungkook. Come knead this."

He turned his head slowly, as though she had suggested something anatomically impossible.

"I beg your pardon."

"The dough. Come knead it. Push it, fold it, turn it. It's not hard."

He did not move. He simply looked at her, unblinking, with the particular, bottomless stillness of a man who has just been asked to commit a crime against nature. It was the look he might have given a minister who suggested the king carry his own sword.

"I am a king," he said, very slowly, as if she might not have understood the first six times he'd mentioned it.

"I'm aware."

"Kings do not knead."

"This king's kingdom is three thousand years away. This king is currently unemployed."

"I am never unemployed. I am between thrones."

"Then help me while you wait for the next one."

He looked at the dough as if it might be diseased. "In my hall, I do not so much as pour my own wine. I do not lace my own boots. I have never in my life touched raw food with my bare hands, and I am not prepared to begin today, in this apron-wearing century, for bread."

"It's not beneath you to eat it."

"Eating is a privilege I extend to the bread. Making it is labor, and labor belongs to others."

Min-ji, arriving just in time to catch the last of this, leaned on the doorframe and whispered to Y/N, "Is he for real?"

"Every single day," Y/N muttered.

She wiped her hands on her apron, walked around the table, and — because three years of running a bakery alone had made her immune to royal intimidation — took his hand, pressed it flat against the dough, and held it there.

Jungkook went rigid.

"There," she said. "Now you've touched it. The crime is already committed. You may as well finish."

He stared down at his own hand, sitting on top of a lump of dough, as if it belonged to a stranger. Something crossed his face, not quite defeat, not quite curiosity, somewhere dangerously in between.

"I am doing this," he said stiffly, "under protest."

"Noted."

"And it changes nothing. I remain the sovereign of this kitchen."

"Sure."

He pressed down.

It was not a gentle press. It was the press of a man who had once put a battering ram through a city gate, and the dough answered accordingly: it burst sideways in a soft white splat that caught Y/N directly across the cheek.

Silence.

Y/N blinked, flour dripping from her eyelashes.

"...I believe," said Jungkook , examining his powdered palm with something close to satisfaction, "that the dough has surrendered."

"It exploded on me!"

"An unfortunate casualty of war."

"There is no war, jungkook, it's bread!"

"Bread," he said gravely, "that clearly required a firm hand. You should be grateful I intervened."

Y/N stared at him. Then she reached into the flour bin, took a fistful, and threw it directly at his chest.

For one full second, Jungkook looked down at the white powder on his shirt with the expression of a man who had just been formally declared war upon.

"You," he said, low and dangerous, "have made a grave mistake."

"You started it."

"I ended the dough. This is an entirely new offense."

He seized the flour bin.

By the time the timer went off on the ovens, both of them were coated head to toe in white powder, breathless with laughter, and the back kitchen looked as though it had hosted a small and highly localized blizzard.

Min-ji stood in the doorway, keys in hand, staring at the wreckage.

"Unnie," she said slowly. "Did the king just declare war on the bakery?"

"The bakery started it," said JK, with total conviction.

"There is flour in your hair."

"It suits a crown."

"You don't have a crown."

"It suits the idea of one."

---

They reopened forty minutes late, freshly changed, the kitchen swept, and one entire batch of dough lost to the cause. Jungkook was permanently banned from the kneading table and reassigned, at his own insistence, to a post he considered far more appropriate to his station: standing near the register with his arms crossed, saying nothing, and radiating the unmistakable authority of a man who did not take orders.

It worked. A thin young man who had twice lingered too long near the tip jar took one look at Jung kook’s expression and left without a word.

"You didn't even do anything," Y/N said.

"I did not need to," said Jungkook . "In my court they called it the weight of the crown. Here, apparently, it also frightens petty thieves. I consider that a promotion."

An old woman at the counter peered at him over her glasses. "Young man, you look very regal. Are you filming something?"

"I do not act," said Jungkook . "I command."

"He's very committed to the bit," Y/N said quickly, before the old woman could ask anything further, and hurried her along with an extra bun on the house.

By closing time, Jungkook had eaten one more custard tart than he'd been promised, obtained by standing beside the display case in total silence until Y/N gave in out of sheer nerves, and had declared the flour sacks in the storeroom "loyal foot soldiers" for reasons he refused to explain.

"You're going to bankrupt this bakery," she told him, locking the door behind them.

"Then I will conquer another," said Jungkook , "and give it to you as tribute."

Y/N looked at him under the streetlight, flour still dusting his collar, arms crossed like a king dismissing his court, and did not know whether to laugh or to worry about the strange, warm ache spreading through her chest.

She laughed. It was easier.