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Ye Xiu likes to pride himself on preparedness, but admittedly the sight of Wang Jiexi sitting at the meeting room table at midnight, wearing, of all things, a Santa hat, is not something he was prepared for.
“Wow, Big-Eye,” says Ye Xiu, leaning against the doorway, “you really go all-out for Christmas, huh?”
Wang Jiexi doesn’t even bother to look at him. “Anytime you feel like helping,” he says, nodding toward the wrapping paper, tape, scissors, and presents laid out before him, “please, feel free.”
Ye Xiu takes a seat, but he merely rests his chin on his hand and gazes at Wang Jiexi thoughtfully, as Tiny Herb’s ever-responsible captain continues to wrap presents for his team.
“So whose idea is the hat, then?” Ye Xiu asks, reaching forward and flicking the white pom-pom dangling from his head.
“Fang Shiqian made me wear it, back in the day. He said that if I was going to do this every year, I ‘had to commit to the spirit.’”
Ye Xiu nods. “He has a good eye, I must say. The look suits your dad persona quite well. Say, has the rest of your team seen you like this?”
“They have curfew.”
“Even on a holiday night? You won’t let the kids stay up and wait for Santa? How strict.”
Wang Jiexi pauses, looks at him, and sighs. “Your Team Happy is just a mess,” he says, choosing only to comment on Happy’s infamous lack of rule-following both on and off the stage.
“A championship mess, excuse you.”
Wang Jiexi can’t argue with that, even if Tiny Herb does still have more championships, so he simply resumes wrapping, fingers deftly folding the green-and-white patterned paper, taping down the edges, attaching the label.
“You don’t sign the ‘from:’ section on these labels?” Ye Xiu comments, examining the present that Wang Jiexi has just finished. It’s an extremely neat job, which doesn’t surprise him at all. “You could put ‘from: Santa,’ you know, if you’re too tired of signing autographs.”
“No thanks,” Wang Jiexi says flatly. Having finished the last one, he begins to gather the various packages. “Help me carry these over to the tree, won’t you?”
This time, Ye Xiu does in fact oblige, and so together they lay out the gifts beneath the festively-decorated Christmas tree in the lounge, so that they are nice and evenly-spaced.
“And what about yourself?” Ye Xiu asks, eyeing the colorful assortment. “You’re doing all this for your team…”
“I’m the captain,” says Wang Jiexi, with half a shrug. “I’m only doing what I should.” He highly doubts Ye Xiu did anything to this extent during either of his captaincies, but, well, alas.
“Still, I think you deserve to celebrate the holiday just as much. See, just look at that up there. It’s a sign, I tell you.”
Wang Jiexi follows Ye Xiu’s pointed finger up, to the sprig of mistletoe dangling innocently from the ceiling right above them. “...When did you even put that there?”
Ye Xiu’s grin is positively wicked. “Well?”
Well, Wang Jiexi thinks, closing the distance between them, maybe it isn’t so bad to treat himself once in a while. It is the holidays, after all.