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Before the door to the party even opened, Chan knew this wasn’t going to be good.
He’s heard plenty of stories— warnings— about Soonyoung’s Christmas parties. It was mostly about how wild they get and how at least 10 people end up in the hospital the day after.
Even though the claims sounded ridiculous, it didn’t stop Chan from feeling just a little bit nervous about the fact that he was actually going to this ‘dangerous party’. The boy even made a little pros and cons chart. He quickly scrapped it though, because who even makes a pros and cons chart to debate whether or not they should go to a party?
Besides, his mother always told him not to believe something unless he has seen it with his own two eyes. Tonight, Chan was going to find out the truth.
Chan dressed himself in a nice red hoodie and black jeans. Simple, but he hoped people could see the effort he put in (like come on. Red hoodie? Christmas colours? Chan should be awarded and sent to Paris fashion week).
He walked to the place and after what felt like the longest moment in his life, the door to Soonyoung’s apartment swung open. Immediately, Chan could smell the fresh scent of gingerbread cookies from the inside of the apartment. If he thought hard enough, he could even smell the sweet scent of candy canes. But that wasn’t the point. Soonyoung was literally standing right in front of him with the biggest smile Chan’s ever seen on a human being.
“Channie!” Soonyoung opened the door larger so Chan could squeeze in. “I’m so glad you could make it. Come in, we’re just getting started.”
The elder male lead Chan into his place. Surprisingly, Chan isn’t bombarded with a ton of screaming people dancing to EDM music that has the bass boosted too high like the other parties he’s been too. Just a couple of familiar faces hovering over and screaming bloody murder by a stack of square shaped gingerbread cookies in the kitchen.
“Why does Jeonghan get to participate? He cheated last year and punched my gingerbread house.”
“No I didn’t! I just lightly touched your broken-ass house and it fell apart on its own. Stop blaming me for your incapability of building gingerbread houses.”
Some guy with glasses and another cat looking guy had to combine forces to hold Mingyu (Chan met him when he tried to join the cooking club) back from lunging onto the blonde man, who he assumed is Jeonghan.
Loud laughter suddenly filled Chan’s ears, and his eyes drifted to the owner of the addicting laugh.
Ah yes. There the reason why Chan was at the party stood, laughing his ass off about Mingyu struggling against the two boys to attempt to get his hands onto Jeonghan.
Lee Seokmin.
Chan vividly remembered the day Seokmin bounced up to him (quite literally. The theatre students were in the middle of an improv session and Seokmin had to do his scene in moon shoes) and invited him to the party he was at now. Chan being secretly whipped for the elder, he said yes.
It was kind of worth it though. If he didn’t say yes, Chan would have never got to witness his crush (yes, he got over the denial phase) smiling and laughing as bright as he was now. It was like the sun was literally beaming at him.
Chan’s gazing was interrupted when he saw Hansol walk up to him with a red solo cup in hand. The boy passed it to Chan with a small smile. “Didn’t think I was going to see you here. I’m guessing the pros outweighed the cons on your chart?”
Chan huffed in annoyance and his cheeks turned a little pink. “I didn’t make a chart.” He lied to his roommate trying to save face. “And of course I was going to come. Too expensive to go home for Christmas, and this party seemed,” Chan paused to think of the right adjective to describe the party and saw the gingerbread house Soonyoung was making get knocked down by glasses boy causing another fight to commence. “Interesting.” He finished.
Hansol laughed at Chan’s word choice and nodded in agreement. “Yeah. Every year, Soon tries to think of something new to do at his Christmas party, but it ends up being gingerbread house making competitions and eggnog drinking races every time.” Hansol said with another tiny laugh. Chan couldn’t help but laugh too.
Looking around the apartment, Chan thought he was stupid for believing in the rumours. It was half decorated (He learnt later that it was because glasses boy, Wonwoo, got lazy and went to nap) with christmas lights and green and red party streamers. No one had to go to the hospital, and the only wild thing about the party was how much someone could scream about cookie frosting in an hour (cough, Mingyu- cough).
“Oh Chan! You arrived!”
In the middle of his admiring, Chan lost balance out of fear and the boy had to hold onto the other person’s shoulder to stabilize himself from the scare.
Until he realized that other person was Seokmin himself.
Chan yelped way louder than he should have and recoiled his hands from Seokmin’s shoulders, causing him to lose balance again. He shut his eyes tight and braced his body for the impact of the floor, but he felt himself hovering in mid air, and a strong arm holding his waist tightly to prevent Chan’s body from hitting the cold kitchen tiles.
Hesitantly, the dancer opened his eyes and saw Seokmin’s face close to his face. He could feel his breath on the tip of his nose, and could name the exact colour of his irises. Seokmin wore a slightly concerned and confused expression, but before either of them could say anything, Seungkwan spoke up.
“Ew. Are you guys trying to french kiss while we’re in the middle of serious business?” Seungkwan asked, referring to the gingerbread house making competition. “Absolutely disgusting. Please leave the kitchen if you’re going to continue.” Seungkwan grumbled.
Seokmin immediately removed his hands from Chan’s waist and Chan regained balance on his own. He took a step away from Seokmin and dusted off his sweater with a faint red blush on his cheeks He could see Seokmin shared the same embarrassed expression when he took a little peek too.
Chan looked up at Seokmin about to ask about what happened, but Seokmin opened his mouth first.
“Sorry about that. I thought you were going to fall so,” Seokmin trailed off, laughing a little to get rid of the awkwardness. “Reflexes I guess.”
Chan laughed with the elder to make him feel less bad about the situation (because honestly? Chan thought that it was kinda hot). “No, it’s okay. I get that.” Chan replied with a small smile.
Seokmin returned the smile and Chan felt his heart jump out of his chest and let itself get run over. Crazy how crushes made him feel. With Seokmin around, it’s like his face muscles never wanted to stop smiling and the butterflies in his stomach are physically unable to stop fluttering.
“Seokmin, we’re going to start the eggnog drinking race. You ready?” Chan and Seokmin broke eye contact and saw Soonyoung gesturing to his arsenal of eggnog cartons in his fridge. Chan could already hear threats being thrown around in the living room where he assumed the race was going to take place.
Beside him, Seokmin laughed almost devilishly and unnecessarily cracked his knuckles (must be a theatre kid thing, Chan thought).
“You bet I am.” The boy walked toward Soonyoung, not before looking back and gesturing Chan to follow him into the living room. Chan’s heart lurched again.
“Are you ready to lose, Hong?” Chan heard Seungcheol’s voice coming from the living room.
Oh, this was going to be really interesting.
Chan had a lot more fun in the last hour than he expected he would before he entered Soonyoung’s apartment.
Not surprisingly, it was hilarious to watch Seungcheol and Jisoo compete over how fast they could drink a glass of eggnog. Chan still feels the pain of laughing too hard pressing in his stomach. And he almost forgets the fact that there is alcohol in eggnog, until Minghao lied over his lap with his face flushed and told him how much he loved frogs, obviously very tipsy.
Chan even had a few sips of eggnog himself, but it wasn’t enough to make him tipsy. He drank just enough to make him feel warm inside.
While the rest of the group talked about university things and something philosophical about how time was a government concept, Chan listened with a small smile upon his face. It was nice to just sit there, enjoy the holiday spirit and relax even if Chan only knew about half of the 13 people, including him, in the room.
As Soonyoung rambled about how he met Wonwoo in sixth grade (for what he heard was the nth time he shared the same exact story), Chan’s eyes roamed around the apartment. His eyes caught the back of someone’s head in the kitchen, but he couldn’t name who it belonged to. He kept staring trying to figure out who it was, but suddenly, the head was covered with a large silver object.
It took a few seconds for Chan to piece it together. First, he realized the boy in the kitchen was Seokmin after he recognized the nice beige cardigan. Second, he couldn’t have wrapped tin foil around his head. Was it the trash can he threw his solo cup into earlier? There was no way.
Can eggnog get you drunk?, Chan thought to himself as got up from his seat. Thankfully, everyone was occupied with debating whether or not aliens were real so no one questioned Chan’s sudden walk to the kitchen.
True to his suspicions, there stood the best theatre major at Pledis U, pacing around with a metal trash can over his head. Chan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Seokmin? You doing good under there?” Seokmin flinched at the sudden voice, but whipped his head around and waved to where he thought the voice was coming from.
“Doing great! It’s quite cozy under here.” Chan heard Seokmin say, or at least what he thought he said. Chan wasn’t too sure due to the trash can blocking Seokmin’s voice projection.
Hesitantly, Chan put his hands on Seokmin’s shoulders to stop him from moving (bold move for someone who lost balance earlier for doing the same thing) and slowly took the trash can off Seokmin’s face, careful not to create any scratches to his face. Seokmin’s flushed face stared right back at Chan, and it took Chan all his mental strength to not sob when Seokmin flashed a grin at him.
“How did you even get under there?” Chan couldn’t help but laugh just a little. Seokmin, intoxicated, laughed with him not knowing why Chan was laughing in the first place.
“Thanks for doing that. I think I prefer this view much more than the inside of that trash can.” Seokmin hummed with a teasing glint in his eyes. He wrapped his arms around Chan’s waist and swung him around as if they were ballroom dancing.
Poor Chan. At this point, he was almost as flushed as Seokmin was. His heart didn’t know if it should stop working or beat faster than normal. Should he play along with the elder? Should he stop Seokmin? And how does one even be so smooth and ballroom dance while drunk?
“Maybe we should get you some water.” Chan said after Seokmin’s moves started to calm down.
Seokmin pouted (Chan almost screamed) and shook his head.
“I want to stay like this with you.”
“Who even let you drink this much eggnog?” Chan removed Seokmin’s hands from his waist and tried to walk off to get a glass of water for Seokmin.
“You’re really pretty, you know?” Seokmin reached out to grab Chan’s wrist and Chan almost thought he was in an anime for 2 seconds.
“Everyone says that.” Chan snorted, but his ears still turned red at Seokmin’s words (if it was even possible to become more flushed than he already was)
“I like you.”
Chan froze in place. He would be lying if he said he didn’t feel his heart flutter a little (a lot) when Seokmin said those three words. Did Chan like Seokmin back? One hundred percent yes, but the dancer just couldn’t find the words coming out of his mouth.
Chan sighed. People don’t think about what they say when they’re drunk. Maybe Seokmin was just blabbering. But a small part of Chan wanted to believe that Seokmin was confessing his true feelings. So Chan tucked a piece of hair behind Seokmin’s ear and smiled at the confused face Seokmin had on.
“We can talk about this when you’re sober, okay?” Chan said while cupping Seokmin’s face with the hand he used to reach for Seokmin’s hair.
It could have been an illusion to Chan’s eyes, but there was the slightest bit of disappointment hidden his Seokmin’s eyes. Seokmin brought his hand up from his sides and put it on the other hand on his face. “Okay. Promise?”
“Promise.” Chan grinned, and Seokmin returned the smile.
Chan removed his hand and switched to grabbing Seokmin's arm to drag him out of the kitchen. “Now let’s go listen to Soonyoung talk about his tiger obsession.”
When they were both on the couch later, just maybe Chan put his hand on Seokmin’s, and just maybe Seokmin held Chan’s hand back, but that’s something only they will know.
EPILOGUE
shakespeare: chan
im 20 not 2: yeah?
shakespeare: i meant everything i said
shakespeare: at soonyoung’s party
shakespeare: you said we should talk about this when im sober and i promise im sober now shakespeare: i genuinely like you
shakespeare: im kinda sad that you had to know that from drunk me before sober me
shakespeare: but still!! i really really want to take you out on dates and stuff
shakespeare: if you let me of course :]
im 20 not 2: oh
shakespeare: oh?
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From: 420 haha quirky
seokmin i think you broke chan he won’t stop screaming and crying hrlp