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“Remind me again, why do we need all these Christmas decorations? We’re not even Christian!” Jiang Cheng groaned as he and Wei Ying carried in the last of the bags from their trip into town.
“Because,” his brother said cheerfully, “you don’t have to be Christian to appreciate the Christmas spirit! I can get behind a holiday celebrating love and family and giving to others, wether it’s religious or not”
Jiang Cheng snorted at that. “Yeah right, you just want to get drunk on as much Glühwein as possible and to kiss Lan Zhan underneath the mistletoe.”
“A-Cheng, don’t be such a grinch”
“If you don’t shut up, I’m going to strangle you with the fairy lights, how’s that for Christmas spirit?”
A few hours later they sat on the floor, a light up Santa hat perched atop Wei Ying’s head, in the middle of a veritable explosion of Christmas ornaments, none of them put up yet, bickering, and it was this picture their house mates came home to.
“Why, pray tell, does our living room look like Buddy the elf threw up in it?” Nie Huaisang asked.
“Well, you see, it’s like this: Jiang Cheng and I can’t quite agree on the Christmas decorations. He wants to follow a certain colour scheme and I just want everything to be as colourful as possible.” Wei Ying said.
“Wei Ying, please,” Huaisang said gravely, “it looks like you robbed the novelty of a Christmas shop. There’s, oh, Christmas spiders, Christmas pickles and....are those sexy Santas??? As the resident meme lord I can tolerate a lot, but those offend my artist’s sensibilities.”
Wei Ying pouted.
“Lan Zhaaan,” he whined, “do you at least like my decorations?”
“......Mn”
“No,” Jiang Cheng interrupted, “you like that they make him happy, not the decorations themselves. Which makes you a great boyfriend but please consider this: we have to look at these,,,monstrosities day in, day out for like a month.”
Lan Zhan just glared at the other, Jiang Cheng glaring right back.
“Look, I don’t want to interrupt your very manly pissing contest,” Huaisang said, “but can we please focus back at the problem at hand?”
“Your brother isn’t entirely wrong, sweetheart.” Lan Zhan reluctantly admitted. “Maybe you could compromise? Some of your less,,,,,unique decorations and some of his?” he suggested, nudging his boyfriend gently.
But Wei Ying refused to budge and so they sat, staring at his glaringly ugly decorations with varying degrees of despair.
“You know,” Lan Zhan interrupted the silence, “I think Brother left some Christmas decorations with all the stuff he gave me when he moved recently. Would that be ok for you, Wei Ying?”
“I guess so.”
Wait, wait, wait, hold on a second. You’re ok with his brother’s decorations but not your own brother’s? And you!”, Jiang Cheng said and pointed at Lan Zhan, “why are you only asking for his approval? Me and Huaisang live here too!”
“It’s the principle of the matter A-Cheng, don’t be cross.” Wei Ying said. “And he doesn’t need to ask you, we all know Huan-ge has fantastic taste. Besides, you and Huaisang, traitors that you are, are gonna like anything that’s not my decor.” he pouted.
Jiang Cheng made to strangle his brother with nearby wrapping ribbon but ultimately had to concede that Wei Ying was right. And so they got the decorations and set to putting them up. At Wei Ying insistence they also put on some Christmas songs and it only took three “no Wei Ying, you are not allowed to add ‘Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer’”s before they settled on a music selection everyone was happy with.
Huaisang procures some mince pies and hot chocolate for everyone and they all set to work.
They strung up strings upon strings of fairy lights all around the living room and the kitchen and set up a small Christmas tree with Lan Huan’s very tasteful ornaments. Wei Ying produced a spring of mistletoe that Jiang Chang didn’t even see him buy and promptly proceeded to very thoroughly snog Lan Zhan underneath it until his ears glowed bright red enough to rival Rudolph’s nose.
Once they were done even Jiang Cheng could admit that it looked pretty nice actually.
Wei Ying laughed at his brother’s admission and ruffled his hair.
“Well make a Who out of you yet, Mr. Grinch!”