SixTONES, Cake It or Leave It

Title: Cake It or Leave It [Jesse/Juri]
Rating/Warnings: R
Summary: Jesse and Juri have to design a dessert that represents their unit for a Shounen Club cooking segment. It would probably be going a lot better if Juri wasn’t such a cute distraction.
AN: Written for Eri for JE United 2017. It’s a little bit silly, but I thought you would enjoy SixTONES baking and being dweebs together.

Cake It or Leave It

Juri was so cute in his apron that Jesse could barely concentrate on what he was saying. It wasn’t even his mom’s apron, which Jesse was borrowing at the moment, it was Juri’s own apron, light blue and white stripes with a baby chick sewn over the pocket. Somehow that made it cuter.

“Focus, man,” Juri demanded, hands on his hips, one eyebrow raised. He might have looked threatening except for the palm tree tying his hair out of his eyes.

“Can’t help it, you’re so cute in that apron,” Jesse said, grinning shamelessly. He leaned in for a kiss, which Juri indulged him for a few seconds before pushing him back again.

“You’re the worst,” Juri informed him. Jesse’s grin only got wider and Juri rolled his eyes. “Seriously, we have to come up with an idea. You’re the one who wanted this cooking segment so badly, and if we don’t create a dessert that magically represents our unit, Yasui is never gonna let us live it down.”

“Yeah, blame it all on me.” Jesse stuck his tongue out. “Like you weren’t at the staff meeting buttering everybody up with your cute little cookies, shortbread.”

“Your mom’s a shortbread,” Juri informed him. “Come on, a dessert that goes with our group image. Our image is like…uhh…”

“Loud,” Jesse supplied. Juri gave him a dirty look. “What? It is! Loud and wild and all individual talents.” Jesse tilted his head. “Honestly, we’re like the opposite of a dessert. Maybe we should just give this concept to Prince and let Genki and Jinguji bake a strawberry cake roll.”

“Why did I think you would be helpful at all?” Juri wanted to know, turning back to his laptop where it had fallen asleep on the kitchen counter. He tapped the touchpad to wake it back up. “Maybe a traditional Japanese dessert? To represent Japonica Style?”

“That’s only one song,” Jesse pointed out, casually wrapping an arm around Juri’s waist and hooking his chin over Juri’s shoulder to watch the laptop screen. “Can we make homemade rock candy? That looks like stones.”

“Let’s see…” Juri ran a search, scrolled through some images, and ended up on YouTube. They clicked through a few videos of various types of rock candy made out of boiling and coloring sugar. “The geodes definitely look cool, but these take ages to cool and set.”

“Probably no good for…” Jesse paused suddenly, reaching for Juri’s trackpad to click on a video several down in the sidebar. “This! This one.”

“Eh?” Juri tilted his head through the introduction, but once the baking vlogger cut into the cake and took out a slice, Juri straightened up. “Oh! Wow, ok, that’s cool.”

“We could use our member colors,” Jesse nodded. His hand still on the trackpad, he skipped ahead a few times through the instructions, until Juri slapped his hand away. “Except for Hokuto.”

“He can be the chocolate on the outside,” Juri suggested, dragging the slider back to where the instructions started, skimming the list of ingredients. “We’ll make it super dark or something.”

“Yeah, he can be on the outside, all right,” Jesse snickered, making Juri snort. “We’re gonna be aaaall up inside him.”

“Dude,” Juri scolded, even though he was laughing too. “Be useful and write these ingredients down, we’ll have to convert them. I think I have a heart cookie cutter someplace.” Juri pushed the laptop towards Jesse and went to dig through his kitchen cabinets.

“We don’t have to do a heart, right?” Jesse called over his shoulder. “i wouldn’t say that’s our group image either.” Juri answered, his voice muffled because his head was in a cabinet. “Whatever, bring over whatever you got.”

Juri returned with a deep baking pan, a bundt pan, a box of food coloring bottles, and a jumble of cookie cutters. “Your options are heart, circle, bigger circle, tree, or dinosaur.”

“Dinos—”

“NO,” Juri cut him off, laughing when Jesse bellowed a T-rex roar. “This is a practice one anyway, we’ll worry about it when we get there.”

Making the first batch of cake batter went smoothly enough, although things got a bit messy when they had to split the batter into five bowls and color them all differently. Jesse was concentrating intensely on making the gayest shade of pink possible for Taiga, when Juri startled him by leaning into him and licking his cheek.

“Icing,” Juri explained when Jesse glared at him. “You’re pretty cute too, sometimes.”

“ALL the time!” Jesse protested. He gave the bowl a last stir, nodding in approval. “What order are we striping these in? Rainbow or standing order?”

“Rainbow, definitely. Red and pink together in the middle would look silly.” Juri dropped a fistful of plastic bags on the counter. “And Hokuto’s never on the outside in stage order anyway. Is there any way for us to fill these bags without rainbow striping my mom’s whole kitchen?”

They stared at the sea of bowls and plastic bags.

“Nope,” they both agreed. They got most of the batter into the bags by Juri holding them open and Jesse pouring or spatulaing the batter into them. They cut the corners off the bags to make makeshift pastry bags, and Jesse only exploded one of the bags (green) with overenthusiastic striping.

“Done!” Jesse heaved a sigh of relief when they were done piping down the second layer of rainbow batter down. The second layer had gone faster than the first one, at least, since they could already see the color order from the first layer. Both of them were smudged all over with various colors of batter, and Jesse’s neck was sore from hunching over the tray for so long, but hopefully it would be worth it. “How long?”

“Fifteen minutes to start,” Juri said, sliding the tray into the oven. Jesse reached for his phone to set the timer, but had too much half-dried icing on his fingertips to get it unlocked and ended up having to tap the code with his knuckle. He was just setting it down when Juri appeared in front of him, leaning heavily into his space.

“Hey now,” Jesse said, Juri’s weight pressing him back into the counter. He looped his arms around Juri’s waist, squishing him closer. “What’s that about?”

“You’re cute in my mom’s apron,” Juri said, pushing up on his tiptoes to kiss Jesse. Jesse laughed, but relaxed into the kiss easily enough. Juri tasted like sugar and vanilla when Jesse ran his tongue along his lower lip, and Jesse didn’t care even a little that Juri’s one hand was working into his hair and leaving who knew what colors streaked through it. Jesse got his revenge by untying Juri’s apron in the back and working his hands down into the back pockets of Juri’s jeans, squeezing his cute little butt and pulling him into a slow roll of their hips together.

Things were just getting really good when Jesse’s phone timer shrilled, making Jesse groan into Juri’s mouth.

“Leggo,” Juri muttered against Jesse’s lips when Jesse didn’t right away, struggling to pull himself free of Jesse’s long arms and clinging hands. Jesse didn’t make it easy, much more interested in making out than in cake, even rainbow cake, but Juri ducked under his arm to go retrieve the start of their masterpiece.

“It does look cool,” Jesse admitted. The cake had baked perfectly, all the stripes of batter melting flat together without losing the sharp definition between colors. “Can’t we just ice this and call it a day?”

“I should film you being such a whiner, Mr. Strawberry Daifuku,” Juri chuckled, waving his pot holder to try and cool the cake faster. “Let your fangirls see the real you.”

“Shut up, you,” Jesse chuckled. “Chocolate cake next?”

The second batch of cake batter was a lot simpler, and soon enough they were back to staring at the rainbow cake and the cookie cutters. Unfortunately the big circle and the heart were the only cutters big enough to show all the striped cake colors, and both of them vetoed the circle as way too boring.

“What if we use the heart and just cut the top flat?” Jesse finally asked, tilting the cutter this way and that, trying to figure out how they could get the most shapes cut out of the rectangular cake. “It would look kind of like a jewel then, right?”

“Do it,” Juri agreed. “Fans would totally get it, I think.”

Rainbow stripes hearts cut out and trimmed, it took another ten minutes to nestle all the shapes in the bundt pan, trying not to domino them all over as they fit in as many of them as they could. The very last step was pouring the rest of the chocolate batter over the entire thing to fill the bundt pant, without either knocking the rainbow pieces over or getting too much chocolate in between the colors.

“Do you think this is gonna work?” Juri asked as both of them watched the cake through the oven window, crouched down with their hands on their knees.

“Hope so,” Jesse laughed, straightening up and groaning as his lower back popped. “This was a lot of work for a chocolate cake.” Juri was still staring at the cake, chewing his lower lip. Jesse grabbed for his hand. “Come on, staring won’t make it better. And I’m pretty sure something got interrupted before.”

“We’ll just get interrupted again,” Juri pointed out, but he didn’t argue as Jesse tugged him far enough away from the oven to push him against the counter this time.

“Guess I’ll have to be fast, won’t I?” Jesse said. He gave Juri a firm kiss just long to make sure he’d stay where Jesse put him, and then dropped to his knees, hands under Juri’s apron to find the button of his jeans. “Apron up, unless you want a couple non-rainbow stains on it.”

“Gross, man,” Juri laughed, tugging his apron up over his hand and dropping it on the counter in a heap. Jesse was focused on undoing Juri’s zipper, but he looked up when fingers buried themselves in his hair and tugged his face up. “Hey. I’ll make it up to you after.”

“Sure,” Jesse agreed, honestly not caring whether Juri did or not. The truth was that he liked sucking off Juri for its own sake. He liked the weight and heat of Juri’s dick against his palm when he pulled it free and stroked it firmly a few times. He liked the salty, sharp flavor when he slid his mouth over Juri’s dick, and the velvety softness of Juri’s tip against his tongue. But most of all he liked glancing up and seeing Juri’s attention 100% focused on him, Juri’s eyes fluttering half shut and cheeks flushed pink.

“Looks so good,” Juri praised, voice low, and Jesse loved that too, how Juri wasn’t shy about talking during sex, and how doing it this way meant there was nothing keeping him from talking or muffling his voice. “Mm, you can take me deeper than that, right?”

Jesse definitely could, and he made sure to hold Juri’s gaze as he swallowed even more of him, until Juri bumped the back of his throat. Juri’s whine was music to his ears, the way his fingers twisted tighter in Jesse’s hair made Jesse’s own dick twitch with interest. Jesse drew back, dragging his tongue along the underside of Juri’s shaft, sucking gently until Juri whined at him, obviously telling him to hurry it up. Jesse ignored him; he loved getting Juri all worked up way too much to rush through it.

“Nngh, come on,” Juri pled, trying to push his hips up into it. Jesse’s grip was too strong, though, pushing him back against the counter with a thump. “Jesse.”

Humming an ok, Jesse wrapped one hand around the base of Juri’s shaft to stroke him off tightly while he licked at the head. He could feel how close Juri was, his thighs trembling, his noises going low and quiet. Juri gasped a warning and that was the end, Juri shuddering hard enough to bang his hip into the counter’s edge as he spilled over Jesse’s tongue. Jesse sucked him through it, not pulling away until Juri was shoving at him from overstimulation. Jesse gave his tip one last lick and struggled back to his feet, knee cracking. Juri slumped against him gratefully, cheek rubbing against Jesse’s shoulder.

“You ok?” Jesse asked. He slid his hands down to rub at the warm skin where Juri’s waist met the top of his ass. “Heard you bang that.”

“Gonna tell people you abuse me,” Juri teased. He was a shameless cuddler after sex and Jesse didn’t mind indulging him in the least, bending his head for a lazy kiss and rubbing warm palms up and down the back of Juri’s T-shirt. This time when the timer went off, it was Juri who groaned and clung, trying to keep Jesse right where he was.

“Burnt cake,” Jesse warned, and finally Juri pulled away with an exaggerated groan.

They saved the cake, and both of them held their breath for the moment of truth, but when they flipped the bundt pan over, it slid right out, looking every inch like a normal chocolate cake, plain as could be.

“Let it cool?” Jesse asked, but Juri was already reaching for a knife.

“No way, dude, the suspense is killing me.” Juri slid the knife through the warm cake twice and then slid it underneath the slice, taking a deep breath. “Ready?”

“Hit me,” Jesse said. Both of them watched as Juri slid the slice of cake out and then broke into identical grins. “Perfect. Yeah, this is definitely gonna work.” He pinched a piece of the cake off with his fingers and popped it in his mouth, hissing a little at the heat of it.

“How’s it taste?” Juri asked. He pulled off a chunk himself and chewed thoughtfully.

“Pretty good,” Jesse muttered, mouth full. He swallowed. “Maybe drizzle some chocolate over the top since there’s no icing. And it’s still not loud enough.”

Juri snapped his fingers. “I know exactly what it’s missing.”

Two weeks later at the Shounen Club filming for the Member Love Lunch segment, Snow Man were looking awfully smug after presenting their Hot Snow Bentou.

“You guys think you can top that?” Yasui asked, his raised eyebrow saying he clearly didn’t think so. Juri and Jesse exchanged a glance. Cutting carrots out in snowflake shapes was cute, but they weren’t worried. “Your group members are looking a little nervous behind you.”

“We definitely can,” Jesse said, putting a hand on the lid to their cake plate. Nobody else besides him and Juri knew the surprise, so he had to bite down hard on a smile when he lifted the lid with a flourish and there was dead silence at the sight of their entirely plain chocolate bundt cake.

Yasui burst out laughing. “That’s supposed to represent your group?”

“You can’t judge everything from the outside,” Juri said, ignoring the low what the hell, you losers that Shintarou hissed behind them. “SixTONES has hidden depths.”

“Uh-huh,” Yasui said. But he and the Snowmen weren’t laughing so hard a second later when Juri cut a neat slice and pulled it out to reveal a perfectly rainbow-striped gem shape right in the middle of the dark chocolate cake. “WHOA!”

“WHAT?!” Shintarou demanded behind them, making both Juri and Jesse crack up too hard to keep cutting the cake.

There was a lot of fuss and ruckus as everybody exclaimed and leaned in, trying to figure out the trick, and the camera zoomed in to show a clean look at the hidden figure. When Juri cut slice after slice with the same shape, everybody got more and more impressed, until even Yasui had to admit just maybe the cake was as surprising as its group members.

“Ok, ok,” Yasui said, trying to calm everybody down enough to finish the segment, the camera staff having to muffle their own laughter. “But just looks isn’t good enough, right? So let’s taste it.”

He stuck a forkful of chocolate cake in his mouth, and was halfway through the entirely expected, “Delicious!” when suddenly his face contorted in surprise. “What is THAT?”

“Pop rocks,” Juri explained, grinning. Yasui had one hand over his mouth to keep half-chewed cake from falling out while he was laughing. “Because we’re loud!”

“ZUDON,” Jesse intoned, giving the camera a manly pose and a wink.

Of course the edited version of the segment didn’t include them slapping Yasui hard on the back to keep him from choking to death while laughing, but all things considered, Jesse and Juri agreed that the whole thing had come out well in the end.

“Plus you still owe me one,” Jesse murmured to Juri, hopefully off-camera.

“Yeah, yeah,” Juri said, but he didn’t protest when Jesse wrapped an arm around his waist and squeezed.

“Hey,” Shintarou said suddenly, looking at his cake. “If Hokuto’s member color is the chocolate, then we’re all inside of him!”

————

AN: Here is the Rainbow Hidden Heart cake that Jesse and Juri make. I’m definitely going to try it!