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Love In A Jar | Lee Jeno

love in a jar | lee jeno

synopsis: jeno loves you so much, it is hard for him not to find you in the smallest of things that surround him. he never thought he could taste love, until he fell in love with you.

pairing: bf!jeno x female!reader

genre: established relationship, fluff, a bit suggestive??? depends on your boundaries

word count: 1.7k

contains: honestly just fluff, jeno is very much in love with reader so this is focused more on his pov, food, jeno wears cute hair clips because that's my love language.

author's note: (a little) clueless jeno is so dear to me i need to write and talk and ramble about him all the time. this was supposed to be a very very small series with some nct members, but since they are actually drabbles and not full fics i decided to scratch that. when i first wrote this series it was based on senses so this is going to be about taste. also i love jeno very much and you can tell once you'll read this. not proofread. thank you for reading! other members are coming soon <3

©️ kongjjen 2024. do not copy, translate or repost any of my works.

Jeno looks at the little jar sitting on the kitchen island. It’s small, it fits in his hand just perfectly, his fingers touching the back of his palm around the jar. He counts the sides of the jar. Eight. An octagon. Pistachio Cream, the label reads. Your favourite filling.

He opens the jar, scooping a little of its contents with a teaspoon, tasting the sweetness. The sweetness melts on his tongue, his tastebuds alerted by the deliciousness of the treat and, once he swallows, he’s left with an aftertaste of roasted pistachios and other nuts he can’t quiet pinpoint right now, but he can taste it all, and it reminds him of you. You, with all your little secrets and insights about how real pistachio cream filling should look and taste like. He thinks he’s got the gist of it, but he’s not that sure. He bought your favourite brand, and he knows it because not only did you mention its perks multiple times, but he’s also seen it around the kitchen of your shared apartment.

He takes another scoop into his mouth and he understands what you meant when you had told him that there are two different types of pistachio flavours. There’s the artificial-tasting one, which can also be spotted from its colour, and then there’s the sweet one that tastes just as if he’s chewing pistachios with a teaspoon worth of sugar. He looks at the colour, and he thinks it matches the real taste of the cream filling.

Jeno knows you hate green. Dark, light, pine, whatever shade it is, you hate its guts. Not the pistachio shade though, it’s the only one you like, but Jeno thinks you’re biased since it’s your favourite dessert. He wonders what would have happened if you liked the shade just a little notch more. He thinks he’d see the shade everywhere in your apartment. Cushions, blankets, wall decorations, table cloths. He hates the colour, but he loves you. And he would do anything for you. If it meant subjecting his personal taste just to make you happy, he’d do it in a heartbeat. You would just need to ask him.

He twirls his tongue inside his mouth, on his gums and on his teeth, enjoying the aftertaste. He looks at the bowls and ingredients aligned in front of him, whisk in hand, apron fitting his lean figure as he carelessly tied a knot behind his back. He wants to bake you muffins, because every time he thinks of muffins, or sees them somewhere, he thinks of you. You have your own little recipe and he didn’t ask you for it before you left for work in the morning, but he thought he might surprise you in the evening using his mother’s special recipe. He’s never mentioned it before, because he loves your muffins, but this time he wants to be the one to surprise you. Turning his PC off after a boring work meeting online, he unlocked his phone to find a few texts and pictures from you. You had sent him a picture of a huge mochi dessert, the size of his fist he thinks, and you had let him know that it had milk and pieces of strawberries as a filling. Its taste reminds me of you, you had also let him know. And it endeared him so, so much, he felt his chest swell with pride and joy, and more importantly, it made his chest fill with an unimaginable feeling of pure and unconditioned love.

He then thought about what he could do to make you as happy as you had just made him, and he thought of what it was it reminded him of you. What taste reminded him, the moment his taste buds danced with the taste, of you?

He left to go grocery shopping the moment he figured it out, knowing for sure you were out of your favourite cream filling because he distinctively remembers you whining about it after licking the jar clean.

And now with his ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron, that you had gifted him in an humorous gesture a few years back for your Secret Santa exchange, when you were still just friends, he thinks about all the times he’s used it to get free smooches on the lips from you. It makes him giddy. The memory of you laughing or giggling every time you see him wear that apron fills his chest with warmness.

His hair is a bit longer now, compared to the last time he’s cooked for you. Lately it had become second nature for the two of you to order take-out every other night, or eating easy and uncomplicated meals as you both came home exhausted from work, which had ultimately lead him to make some changes and transfer to working a whole month from home. He picks two of your small butterfly hair clips, one pink and the other blue, which he knows you use when you do your skincare routine in order not to get your hair wet, pulling his fringe back so he can see properly what he’s doing.

He whisks the egg whites with a little sugar, and he thinks of your delicious muffins. He’s never eaten anything quiet as tasty as those muffins, and you hadn’t made them in so long. Instead, you opted for pancakes or supermarket-bought biscuits with the same pistachio cream, and he realises that instead of associating you with the muffin itself, he thought of you as soon as he tasted anything with pistachio flavour, be it artificial or the sweet one that you loved. He hopes you won’t mind too much if he screws the recipe up a little, as long as you can taste the pistachio filling enough.

He thinks of the moment you’ll eat his muffins later in the evening, when you’ll kick your heels off and you’ll let a yelp out as soon as your swollen feet will make contact with the cold floor, before you’ll put your house slippers on. You’ll make a beeline towards the open space kitchen when you’ll smell something sweet in the air. He plans on adding vanilla extract to the batter, knowing you don’t add any additional flavours when you follow your own recipe, but he wants your tastebuds to be kicked as soon as you take a bite out of his dessert, the vanilla and pistachio dancing together hand in hand to tickle your sense of taste.

He wants you to kiss him. Give him a kiss as soon as you swallow what he has created. Hell, he wants you to kiss him as soon as you take a bite out of it, kiss him with your mouth full, so he can taste it himself off your lips and tongue. Kiss him always, because he can always taste the after taste of the pistachio cream off your tongue. You’re so obsessed with taking at least one teaspoon worth of cream into your mouth, the sweetness lingering on your tongue. And then you approach him, at the desk where he works from, and put your arms around his shoulders and neck from behind, twirling his chair so you can give him little pecks. Pecks that turn into smooches, smooches that turn into passionate, loving kisses.

He suddenly misses you, having you in his arms, resting your head in the crook of his neck as you whine about how much you hate and love your job. He misses the taste of pistachio that he’s never thought he’d love this much. It reminds him of you, and he loves you.

Missing you, he eats another scoop of cream, just to make up for the fact that you’re not around right now. And one scoop turns into two, and then three.

And when you come back home, several hours later, he feels so guilty. Missing you, he ate the whole jar. Missing you, he needed to taste something that reminded him of you. You are surprised by the tray of muffins resting on the kitchen island. Jeno still has the apron hanging around his body, a bit of flour staining the fabric. Kiss the cook, and so you do. You give him a tender kiss while half laughing at the message of the apron, it never fails to make you giggle. He melts into the kiss, grabbing your body to keep you close to him. Because he missed you and he loves you, he doesn’t need any other reasons. You can taste the sweetness on his lips, his tongue, so familiar to you already, and you wonder why the man you love tastes just like the dessert you adore so much.

Breaking the kiss, you giggle at the image of Jeno. A sparkle in his eyes, from the kiss — you are sure, that is soon replaced by a guilty look. Glancing over to his hair, you see your butterfly clips holding his fringe in place, albeit messily, a few strands of hair falling on his forehead. He looks like a little boy who knows he’s done something wrong behind his mom’s back, ready to admit his actions with embarrassment.

Explaining the situation with mortification, how he wanted to make a nice gesture for you, how much he missed you, declaring once again how much he loves you, he lets you know he ate the whole jar of pistachio cream because he needed to feel you in some way. That was the most convenient way at hand in that moment.

He sees you retracting yourself from his grasp, and he wonders why you’re quiet, not even a giggle let past your lips. You run towards the entrance hallway, and come back with not one, but two jars of the same cream he’s spent all day savouring. Your cream, because the specific brand and taste will always be reminding him of you.

He smiles, picking up the sac à poche, and leans into you, pointing at his apron as soon as he sees you take a little bit of cream onto your finger, sucking it off gently.

He pouts, pointing cutely at his apron. Kiss the Cook. And so you do.

Love In A Jar | Lee Jeno

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