"I'm telling you, this thing is dead. There's no coming back from this."

It was early on a Sunday morning, and Robaire and T had discovered that the toaster was busted. The inside was all rusty, and it was refusing to turn on.

"Well, what are we gonna do? If Jesse finds the toaster like this, he's gonna think we broke it." T looked around the room, as if looking for a sign.

The door opened. "What's going on?"

The two looked up at Z. "The toaster's broken, and we can't let Jesse know."

"Here, I'll go out and get a replacement toaster," said Robaire, picking up the broken one to get rid of. "You guys come up with a distraction to keep Jesse out of the kitchen until I get back."

Once Robaire was gone, the Aarons huddled together to make a plan. "One of us should pretend to be sick. That would keep Jesse busy."

"He's not going to fall for that," said Z. "You have too much energy and talk too much for him to fall for it, and he knows that I don't leave my room unless dragged if I'm sick."

"Right." T's eyes darted towards the stairs. "We can't fake it, but I bet someone else can."

"Tae. Tae-young. Blondie. Goober. Wake up!"

Tae-young groaned and pulled the blanket over his head. "It's too early."

Z elbowed T to get him to knock it off, then took on a more gentle form of persuasion. "Come on, we need your help with something."

"At 7:30 in the morning?" Tae-young poked his head back out. "What?"

"We need to replace the toaster without Jesse knowing, so we need you to pretend to be sick to keep him distracted."

Tae-young rubbed his eyes. "I don't know. Jesse would probably be more upset if he knew we lied about this than if we just told him the toaster's busted."

"Look, we've already sent Rob to get a lookalike. As long as we keep Jesse distracted until he comes back and we get rid of the evidence, Jesse won't. ever. know."

Tae-young was still hesitant, so T cupped his face in his hands. "Come on, Chipmunk. If Jesse thinks you're sick, you get snuggles."

That got the wheels turning in Tae-young's head. He liked the sound of that.

"So, you gonna do it? Huh, Tae-bear? Tater-Tot?" T leaned in. "You want it?"

Tae-young pursed his lips and furrowed his brow, conflicted. But he still locked eyes with T. "I want it."

"Alright, come on." Z took Tae-young to the bathroom to prepare for their con, while T kept watching outside Jesse's door.

"Okay, hold still." Z patted some blush onto Tae-young's face, and put some dark eyeshadow under his eyes, to make him look tired and sickly.

"How do I look?"

"I'm not done yet." Z messed up Tae-young's hair, and bundled him into his fuzzy robe.

"Now how do I look?"

"Like you've been stuck outside all night," said Z. "But I'm still not done." Z picked up a hair dryer, and blew it on Tae-young's face to make him feel hot to the touch.

"Guys! He's waking up!" T made the head-chopping motion to shut them up.

"Okay!" Z shooed Tae-young back into his room to get into position, and handed T the hair dryer. "If he asks, tell him you just showered."

T entered the bathroom, and Z opened the window before going to his position. He picked Tae-young up and cradled him in his arms. "Try not to smush your face against anything," he whispered, "you'll smudge your makeup."

A few minutes later, Jesse emerged from his room with a yawn. When he started towards the stairs, Z gestured for Tae-young to start the act. Tae-young weakly coughed; just hard enough to sound real. That caught Jesse's attention, so he pushed the door to his room open and found him curled up in Z's arms, flushed and looking exhausted. "Oh my god, are you okay?"

Jesse felt Tae-young's forehead; he was burning up. Z shook his head. "I found him like this. Poor little fella was shaking like jello."

"Oh, baby…" Jesse cupped Tae-young's face in one of his hands.

Tae-young, weaponizing his cuteness, acted all limp and pathetic. "Cold."

A cold breeze blew into the room. "Well, no wonder, with this open window," said Jesse, going over to close it. "You can't be leaving windows open overnight in January, you're gonna freeze to death."

Trying to deflect questions, Tae-young faked a sneeze; a pathetic "kishoo" that sounded like a toddler's sneeze. Jesse shook his head. "Poor thing must have been cold as ice when he woke up." He came back over and ruffled Tae-young's hair. "I'm going to shower. You make sure he keeps warm."

Jesse left the room, and around then, T exited the bathroom. "Uh, just showered," he said when he saw Jesse. "Bathroom's all yours."

Once the three heard the shower running, they all sighed with relief. "That was great," said Z, "you really sold it."

"Jesse's not going to stay upstairs all day," said T. "We just need to keep him out of the kitchen."

"How are we gonna do that?"

"I'll get a box of cereal and keep it in the living room." T started towards the staircase. "No need to go to the kitchen for breakfast when I've got it already set up."

Z nodded, then turned to Tae-young. "Once Jesse's downstairs, we can use the heater to keep your forehead hot."

The three of them all nodded, and set the second part of the con into action.

When Jesse came downstairs, he found T sitting on the couch, eating cereal. "Hey, man, I got you breakfast."

A bit surprised, Jesse accepted the nice gesture. "Thanks," he said, and sat down. "Whatcha watching?"

"AFV," said T through a mouthful of cereal.

While Jesse was distracted, Z had Tae-young hold his head over the heater to keep up the illusion that he had a fever.

"I know Z likes this show," said Jesse, "I'll see if he wants to bring Tae down and we'll all watch it together."

Crap. The two of them hustled back into place, and Z picked up a book to act as if he'd been reading it to Tae-young. Jesse was none the wiser when he came back upstairs. "Hey. Do you guys wanna come downstairs and watch a show with us?"

Z nudged Tae-young. "You feel up for it, li'l bro?"

Tae-young rubbed his eyes. "Okay," he said, trying to make his voice sound hoarse. Once Jesse left the room, he whispered to Z. "What are you doing? We're gonna get caught!"

"I have a plan," said Z softly. "Jesse only needs to feel your forehead. As long as you keep the rest of your skin bundled up, he won't notice." Z picked up the blanket off the bed and draped it over Tae-young's shoulders. The two of them came downstairs to the living room, and Tae-young curled up in Z's lap, wrapped in the blanket like a little burrito.

About an hour later, Robaire came back with the replacement toaster. He tensed up when he saw Jesse sitting on the couch, and speedwalked by.

"Took you long enough," said T, starting up the script they set that morning. "Was there traffic?"

"Yeah," said Robaire.

"Where did you go?" Jesse looked over.

"To get groceries," said Robaire. Which was partly true; he had picked up a few other things to deflect suspicion. Once he made it past Jesse, he plugged the new toaster in, broke down the box, and hid it at the bottom of the paper recyclables bin. He heaved a sigh of relief; their plan was a success.

When he came back out into the living room, he noticed Tae-young's flushed face and tired eyes. "Hey, what happened, p'tit gars?"

Jesse shook his head. "Poor li'l fella's caught something nasty."

"Can I hold him?" T asked.

Z handed Tae-young off to T. Tae-young kept up his cute act; he swabbed at his nose and put a hand over the middle area between his throat and chest. "Mfroat hurts."

"Yeah, I know, goob." As T cooed over the little bundle, Z went into the kitchen to make him a cup of tea.

A few minutes later, Jesse got up and went upstairs to the bathroom. Once Jesse was out of earshot, Z sat up a bit to explain. "Look, he's fine, okay? We told Jesse he was sick to keep him out of the kitchen."

"And that worked?"

"Yeah. We've kept him out all day. Just gotta keep this con up until tomorrow, and we're golden."

"Psst." The kitchen door creaked open, and Z showed the guys that he had an ulterior motive behind the cup of tea; to heat up a thermometer and create a false reading.

When they heard Jesse about to come back downstairs, Z handed T the thermometer and hid back in the kitchen. T stuck the thermometer in Tae-young's mouth, as if they had actually been using it.

"Let me see it." Jesse plucked the thermometer out of Tae-young's mouth and sharply inhaled. "Jesus, you're burning up some bad."

"What?" T took the thermometer back, and found that Z had warmed it up to 41.7 degrees; way warmer than what they needed!

Speaking of, Z then came into the living room with the tea. "Here you go, Tae-bear."

"It's gonna take a lot more than tea," said Jesse. "If we don't bring this fever down, we're gonna have to take him to a doctor."

That sent a chill down all four of the other boys' spines. They really didn't want that to happen. Tae-young whimpered and clung to T. T held him and rubbed his back. "Don't you worry, Tater-Tot, we're not gonna let that happen. Come on, have your tea."

Tae-young looked up, and Z handed him the cup. The warm blend of ginger and honey put him at ease.

As the evening droned on, the boys made their best effort to keep Tae-young cool. T pressed a cold cloth to his forehead, and when Jesse was distracted, Z wiped up some of the makeup on his face. And when dinnertime rolled around, Robaire rustled him up to come eat at the table.

"You look a lot better," said Jesse, noticing that Tae-young was no longer flushed in the face.

"Yeah, he's been getting better," said Robaire, petting Tae-young's hair.

"Yeah." T agreed through mouthfuls of soup. "It's like, this morning he was a sick little puppy, but now he's a big tough dog."

They kept up this "getting better" act until it was bedtime. Jesse took his temperature one last time before bed, and found that it had returned to normal. "Man, that fever's just gone." He ruffled Tae-young's hair. "We must have caught you in a hot flash earlier."

"I do feel better," said Tae-young softly, rubbing his eyes.

Jesse tucked him in and patted his shoulder. "We'll check back in the morning." He clicked the light off and left the younger boy to sleep.

The next morning, when the boys were all eating breakfast, Jesse noticed something was a little different. "Hey, did you guys fix this toaster?"

Oh, crap. The other four boys all froze and looked at each other.

"Cause this thing was full of rust last time I looked at it." Jesse turned back and saw the terrified looks on the other boys' faces. "What, why are you all acting like you did something wrong?"

Nope, no way out of this one. Robaire sighed and shook his head. "Alright, fine. We realized the toaster was busted yesterday."

"And we thought you would be mad at us if you knew," said Z.

"So we pretended Tater-Tot was sick to keep you busy while we replaced it," admitted T, looking guilty.

"All that over the toaster?" Jesse chuckled; he was simply dumbfounded. "Guys, our old toaster was a piece of crap that needed to be replaced anyway."

The boys all looked at each other. They had pulled off that complicated, day-long con for nothing? "So you wouldn't have been mad at us if you knew the toaster was broken?"

"No, I would have said 'hell yeah, let's go get a new one right now'." Jesse went over to the table. "If something's busted, you can tell me about it. I don't even care if you broke it, stuff happens. But I don't want you faking sick on me again, okay? I was really worried about you."

Tae-young shrunk into himself and hid his face. "Sorry," he near-whispered.

Jesse ruffled his hair. "It's fine. I'm just glad you're okay."

Tae-young looked back up at Jesse, and seeing his assuring smile, reached in to nuzzle noses. "Besides," said Jesse, "I know it wasn't your idea."

Knowing exactly what that tone meant, T abandoned his breakfast and made a break for it. The other guys watched him run, then all burst out laughing.