Work Text:
❄
“I don’t quite understand the narrator’s intention in this carol.”
Jongin looks down from where he’s in the middle of precariously balancing on a barstool. He’s been trying (in vain) to mount the star on their very shabby, very shameful, Christmas tree. The star itself is actually cut out from a cardboard box and wrapped in tinfoil. Sehun constructed it earlier this afternoon before shuffling off for a “study group”. The quotations are to imply that it’s basically going to be him and Baekhyun in one of the back corners of the school library doing their best not to set off fire alarms with their hand-rolled joints.
“Whaddya mean? What carol?” His sweater is charged with static electricity and he shakes a stray garland tentacle off of his sleeve. He flaps his elbow, giving into a brief ‘funky chicken’ dance move, but corrects his balance before he can crash land.
Kyungsoo hasn’t even looked up from where he’s purposely positioning popcorn onto a string by sticking them through with a needle.
Chanyeol had charged him with that task before abandoning them both to hunt down a tree skirt. God knows why they needed a tree skirt…Jongin suspects Chanyeol is actually gone doing some last minute Christmas shopping. He had suddenly become very squirrel-y once Jongin had asked him what he’d gotten their newest fish-tailed roommate. His reply had been squeaky and inconclusive.
“The carol currently playing on your portable music devise—”
“The iPod,” Jongin mindlessly corrects, turning back to the tree.
“The iPod, yes.”
Jongin cocks his head and tunes his ear to the song that’s presently serving as background music.
So be good for goodness sake!
You better watch out!
You better not cry
“What’s the problem exactly?” Jongin steadies himself with a limp branch. The tree shakes and a couple ornaments fall from their ledge and drop to the carpet.
“Why is this…’Santa Claus’ watching people as they sleep? Why is he stalking them and judging their behaviors?” Kyungsoo’s voice reaches a whisper and he sets down his popcorn string to fix Jongin with a serious and earnest look, “Is this what Christmas is about?”
“What? God—god no!” Jongin gives up on the star, tossing it lightly to the floor as to not bend one of its points (Sehun would have his ass). He hops off the barstool and approaches Kyungsoo, pulling along his laptop from its spot on the shitty recliner.
“Here, put that down,” Jongin pulls the string from Kyungsoo’s hands and throws it behind them. He cracks open his laptop and pulls up Google Images. He types “baby jesus” into the search bar and shifts the screen so that Kyungsoo can get a good look at the results.
“This is Jesus. Christmas was kind of his thing originally. It’s his birthday or something. Anyway, he was born to save mankind and after he did a bunch of good stuff all written down in a book called the Bible, people decided to start celebrating his birthday—worldwide, because he was such a great guy. Are you tracking?”
Kyungsoo bobs his head up and down. He stretches out a finger and gently touches one of the many glowing, white baby Jesuses. “Was he extraterrestrial? There are many images of him depicting him as something supernatural.”
“Uhhh, sure. Sure, he was an alien.” Jongin supposes a statement like that isn’t enough to damn him to hell. “Moving on…later Christmas started kind of getting mixed up with pagan holidays. Like winter solstice and stuff and uhh,” Jongin types in “santa clause”, “eventually more myths and fairytales got involved until BAM!” Jongin presses the enter button and the page loads instantaneously. “Kris Kringle! Aka, Santa Clause. He’s basically this dude who makes toys all year to bring to good kids on Christmas Eve.”
Kyungsoo leans forward and squints at all the jolly fat men in red suits and white beards covering Jongin’s computer screen. “Is that even possible?”
“Definitely not—” Jongin catches himself. His eyes drift down to Kyungsoo’s currently fleshy legs, covered from waist to mid thigh in a pair of Jongin’s old beach shorts. The normality of seeing legs only adds to the surrealism that Kyungsoo’s legs aren’t a part of his natural state. Even though Jongin has only seen Kyungsoo’s tail a handful of times he can’t help but feel a certain wrongness when he looks at Kyungsoo’s lower limbs.
“You know what?…I’m not gonna put it past the universe to be harboring a magical old man with an affinity to red who’s main mode of transportation is arctic deer.” Jongin concludes magnanimously, he folds his laptop and tosses it to the other end of the couch before full body turning to Kyungsoo.
“I’m not quite sure I understand what you’re trying to say…” Kyungsoo admits without a trace of timidity, but with a tone that suggests perhaps Jongin should be getting a bit more sleep. Which, fair.
“Basically, Soo, what these two stories have in common is that people were given gifts. Jesus was a gift to mankind and Santa gave gifts to kids. So on Christmas, it’s all about giving. We give gifts to our loved ones, our friends, our coworkers. People give to charities and benefits. It’s been coined ‘The Season of Giving’. So that’s what Christmas is about. Sorta.”
Kyungsoo smiles a very small, very charming smile. One that speaks nearly as loud as the fondness and adoration in his eyes. “You don’t seem entirely convinced,” he teases and Jongin bites back a breathless laugh and holds in a nervous hair sweep.
Instead, he tries to add to the distance between him and Kyungsoo that he wasn’t aware of having shrunk extraordinarily in the time he was educating his fine fish friend.
“Thank you for the stories Jongin-ah,” Kyungsoo says earnestly. His voice is low, husky almost, and his eyelashes are heavy over his cheeks. And Jongin doesn’t know if this is his mind playing tricks on him or if the atmosphere really did just take a 180 and go from Cheesy Hallmark Movie Moment to These Pants Are Suddenly Too Tight Around A Certain Area.
“So should I get you a gift?” Kyungsoo asks, he leans back to rest against the arm of the couch.
Suddenly Jongin can breathe. “Huh?”
“You said that people give gifts to their friends and loved ones. Should I be getting you a gift?”
Jongin feels his entire face heating up and he hopes in vain that Kyungsoo can’t see how red he’s gotten. Just a regular ol’ Rudolph over here.
“Y-you don’t have to—I mean, I don’t need anyt—” Jongin stampers, raising his hands in an almost defensive manner, as if he were trying to ward of Kyungsoo’s good intentions.
“I would like to,” Kyungsoo interrupts. “It is my first Christmas. I would like to join in the…festivities,” Kyungsoo tries the new word out on his tongue and Jongin gets distracted watching him sound out the ‘v’. “You have been very generous to me Jongin-ah. I would like to pay you back for all your kindness.”
“Dude, it’s nothing. I was happy to do it. You don’t have to get me anything.” Jongin squeaks this all out, all the while, doing his best to scoot back on the couch. Kyungsoo has taken to leaning forward to get across his earnestness to Jongin.
“How does one go about giving a gift?” Kyungsoo ignores Jongin’s attempts to dispel the conversation entirely.
“Uhh some people buy gifts at stores, or online. My oldest sister bought me a custom made trophy last year off of amazon that said, ‘world’s biggest complainer’.” Kyungsoo wrinkles his nose in confusion, but doesn’t comment. “My dad exclusively shops at Sears for our Christmas presents for some reason. But I got our crockpot from him, so it’s not all bad.”
“That requires currency, correct?” Kyungsoo huffs. He pulls his legs up to rest his knees under his chin and hooks his arms around his shins. He must’ve seen Sehun or Chanyeol sitting like that before.
“Uh, yeah. You’d need money. But some people do homemade gifts! Like my other sister knitted me a scarf once. I mean it’s shit, but I appreciate it. One year Chanyeol was so broke he cleaned our rooms for us as a Christmas present. My niece draws me pictures—I mean, she’ll do that anyways, but for Christmas she’ll have me riding a reindeer or something.”
“Home…made?” Kyungsoo rubs his chin against his knee and it’s so childish and fucking adorable Jongin’s mind goes white for a second.
“Mmhmmm. Made…at home? Like you don’t buy it. You make it yourself.” Jongin’s laptop digs into his tailbone and he realizes he’s scooted as far away as he can if he still wants to remain on this couch.
“I can do that.” And then he smiles and Jongin’s lucky he doesn’t black out. Maybe Jongin should've asked his mom for sunglasses for Christmas.
The front door slams open and Jongin cringes when he hears the impact of the doorknob hitting the wall. They’re never getting the deposit back on their apartment (well, they weren’t going to anyway after what Chanyeol did to the microwave).
It’s Chanyeol who comes in first, arms packed full of plastic bags and a little bow legged in his gait. Sehun follows him, much more subdued in his manner, but that’s probably the weed’s doing more so than his own.
“Whatcha two doing?” Chanyeol calls over the mountain in his arms. He dumps his load on the kitchen counter and Jongin hears the unmistakable sound of glass hitting granite and cracking.
“Jongin-ah was teaching me about Christmas,” Kyungsoo replies neatly, pointedly moving himself a bit further from Jongin. Jongin isn’t sure if he should feel relieved or disappointed. He feels both and calls it a win.
Sehun smirks, all slow and self-satisfied. “Was he now?”
Jongin glares at him. “Your shirt is inside out. How was the library with Baekhyun?”
The smile drops from Sehun’s face. “Oh shit.” He looks down at his flannel that is, indeed, inside out. Jongin briefly wonders how Baekhyun looks, but quickly shuts down that train of thought.
“Did he teach you about mistletoe?” Chanyeol shouts from the kitchen as he riffles through the bags he bought.
Jongin’s blood absolutely freezes over and he forgets how to breathe for one, two, three…eleven seconds. Or however long until he remembers how to put together the words, “Chanyeol, I swear to go—”
“What’s mistletoe?” And…honestly God bless Kyungsoo. He doesn’t mean anything by it, and Jongin knows it, but it’d be really helpful if he would just shut up.
“It’s—” Jongin’s brain works double time to think of a diversion or at the very least, a lie. But there’s a reason he’s a 3.0 student because he can’t get another word out before Chanyeol goes:
“A blessing.”
Then, because he’s an absolute ass and the Christmas gods hate Jongin, Chanyeol pulls out a clump of mistletoe and starts giraffe stomping over the couch.
“I don’t understand.” Kyungsoo looks to Jongin for a better explanation. But Jongin is too busy trying to get his tongue un-glued from the roof of his mouth to answer him.
“It’s the only way Chanyeol can get girls to kiss him,” Sehun remarks unkindly from over where he’s been checking himself out in the reflection of the microwave.
“Up yours noodle boy,” Chanyeol fires back without missing a beat or wiping that horrible, no good, rotten smile off his face. “Soo, it’s a plant or a fungus or something that people hang up places to get kisses.”
“Oh…is it an aphrodisiac?” Kyungsoo’s eyes are all naivety and curious innocence.
“A what?” Chanyeol asks, face all scrunched up in confusion. Jongin starts choking and can’t give him a decent reply other than waving his hands rapidly back and forth in a kind of “abort” motion.
“A sexy time food!” Sehun shouts from the hallway, now moving deeper into the apartment.
“Oh. Nah man, it’s just some weird thing people do. They hang up mistletoe and if two people are caught underneath it, they gotta kiss. It’s a Christmas tradition. Capiche?” Then, because he is an ass, as stated earlier, Chanyeol holds the mistletoe up, right over the spot between Jongin's and Kyungsoo’s heads.
Even though Sehun isn’t even in the room (he’s probably looting Jongin’s underwear drawer) he shouts down the hall, “Kiss you fucks!”
“Oh my go—Soo you don’t have to do that, they’re just being dicks.” Jongin is already starting to lean away when Kyungsoo grabs him by the arm and halts him in his tracks.
“It’s a Christmas tradition,” Kyungsoo states, very, very seriously.
“Uhhh, yeah, but like, it doesn’t have to be—” Oh geez, Jongin is going to have a hell of a time worming his way out of this one.
“If you don’t wish to—” And Jongin swears he sees Kyungsoo’s shoulders droop.
“No! No dude, it’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that, I—I just don’t want to pressure you…” Jongin is rambling. He knows he’s rambling. Chanyeol knows he’s rambling cuz he just fake yawned. Sehun knows he’s rambling cuz Jongin just heard him shout “Pussy!” through three insulated walls.
“I want to.”
And he says it so easily. So matter-a-fact that the words take a minute to soak into Jongin’s head. He forgets to panic for a few seconds. Enough seconds in fact for Kyungsoo to lean forward and bump his nose against Jongin’s.
“Sorry,” and he sounds so adorably grumpy about it that Jongin’s brain gives up rationalizing and he lifts a hand to put on that place between Kyungsoo’s neck and shoulder.
“Here,” Jongin tilts his head and stabilizes Kyungsoo so that when he comes in at an angle, their noses just barely brush.
The kiss is nothing. It doesn’t even last for a full second. It’s so modest, the chaperons for Jongin’s middle school Snow Ball woulda teased him for being a prude. But it heats up Jongin’s face just the same. It takes his breath away and he pulls away panting as if he’d just backed away from the heaviest make-out session of his life. Which isn’t a thought he should be having this close to Kyungsoo’s lips.
Lips that he just kissed. Holy shit. Holy shit.
“Holy shit!” Chanyeol backs away cackling, taking his goddamned mistletoe with him.
Kyungsoo ignores him like he always does. “Happy Christmas Jongin-ah.”
Jongin’s heart picks up again (had it been stopped this entire time?) and he returns Kyungsoo’s smile timidly. He runs his thumb along the side of Kyungsoo’s neck before dropping his hand altogether.
“Merry Christmas Soo.”
❄