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3 Weeks Until Christmas, 5:43pm 🐱🐿️🐶🧙🦊---
“Seung, aren’t you going to at least dress up a little? This is our first Christmas with Jisung and Felix, don’t you want to make a bit of an effort, at least?” Minho asked dryly, leaning against the staircase railing, with his phone at the ready. Seungmin was in his regular attire, a little knitted navy sweater and jeans, with a matching navy beret.
“Dad, I’m not wearing that stupid reindeer hat, it’s dumb. There might be people I know, there…” Seungmin moaned, traipsing down the stairs lethargically, careful not to ruin the spattering of Christmas lights and the garland spiralled around the hand rest of the banister.
“Seungmin, we’re picking out a Christmas tree, not going to a fashion parade...”
“That’s such a you thing to say, Dad…” He sighed, snatching his little satchel from Minho’s other hand, throwing the cross-body over his head.
Minho shrugged, only internally offended, before Jeongin toddled down shortly after, wearing his little elf costume, the bell on top of his little hat jingling at every step. He’d even worn the striped red and white tights, and Minho felt his lip quiver just a little…
Minho snapped a few pictures of Jeongin, smiling so brightly that his eyes disappeared into his dimples. Something to cry about in ten years’ time whilst he sipped from a wine box on the couch, he thought. Jeongin was never particularly concerned about playing dress up, but he did it whenever Felix insisted.
Speaking of Felix, suddenly, he heard the sound of someone banging on the wall continuously from upstairs.
“Drumroll, please!” a little voice shouted from the stop of the stairs. When Minho looked up, he saw Felix nodding at him frantically, a wide smile across his face before he ducked his head back behind Jeongin’s door. Jisung immediately pulled his own smartphone out of his pocket, switching it to video mode.
“Do the thing, Dad!” Felix shouted, and Jisung responded by placing his phone down on the window ledge next to the front door, and tapping the record button, before hammering at the railings with his hands as a makeshift drumroll, for him.
“Presenting…!”
Felix descended the stairs proudly, his head held high adorning a silver crown made of tinsel. He had a little white shawl across him, over top of a long white tunic flowing down around his ankles that seemed to be stapled together, rather than stitched.
He had a sparkly belt fastened around his middle, along with Wanda 2.0, his pink, sparkly twig that he liked to wave around, scattering specs of glitter all over the carpet… The highlight of the look was a set of makeshift wings, made from coat hanger wire and clear plastic wrap, bouncing off of his back from two pieces of elastic wrapped around his shoulders.
“It is I.” He said stopping at a step around the middle of the staircase, and bowing slightly, “The Christmas Angel.”
“Wow, Felix, that’s… Lovely.” Minho said, trying to hide his own grimace at the flurry of staples dropping off of him every step he took. “But you’re going to have to wear a coat to get the tree… Okay? It’s cold out.”
“Fine, but I want to wear the wings on the outside of the coat…” He responded, balling his little fists up, squeezing his wand to his chest.
“Felix… They might hurt someone.” Jisung warned, wandering over to pat the top of the freckled-boys blonde locks under his tinsel crown. “They’re made out of wire—"
“—But I wanna wear them…!” He whined, pushing Jisung’s hand away and stamping his little feet against the steps. “Minho…?” He said, looking over to him with his saddest puppy dog eyes as he toddled down the last few steps, clutching on to the bottom of Minho’s white cardigan and tugging at it a few times. “Please?”
“Hey, don’t go asking Minho when I’ve told you no!” Jisung said, his mouth falling open at the sheer audacity of this kid.
Felix pouted, crumpling up his brow before dropping down to sit on the bottom step, turning his feet in and crossing his arms across his tiny chest. He took a deep inhale in, sucking all the air into his lungs…
“Don’t…” Jisung warned, cocking his eyebrow.
Felix just huffed, and Minho couldn’t help but find it at least a little funny, it was Christmas, after all.
“You’re not wearing them, Felix,” Jisung said, “you might hurt someone. I’m not going to budge, and that’s final.”
6:37pm 🐱🐿️🐶🧙🦊---
“That one!” Felix said, running out in front of them, his coat-hanger wire and cellophane-wrapped wings fluttering in the wind and crashing into unsuspecting members of the public. He immediately ran to the largest tree on the lot, a 12-foot one, covered in lights and clapped his hands together in excitement.
“Lix, that’s a little out of our price—” Jisung stuttered, throwing his hand out in front of him to reach for the boy by the arm, but he was already long-gone, dashing ahead through a little crowd of other people.
“Oh, just let him look at it, he’s excited.” Minho cooed, pulling him backwards, interlocking their arms together and squeezing him tightly. “He really is hyper tonight, what did you feed the boys whilst I was out?”
“Definitely not jellies, and definitely not cake.”
Minho just rolled his eyes.
They wandered through the Christmas trees up for sale for a while, weaving between the other excited families that had gathered there. Jeongin was holding on to Minho’s hand at one side, looking around in amazement, and Seungmin trundling along behind, tapping away at his little pink smartphone, playing some kind of puzzle game, totally uninterested.
Jeongin stopped at a tree, staring blankly at it for a moment before gently touching the pine needles with his fingertip.
“Careful, Jeongie.” Minho said, gripping his hand a little tighter.
“I want this one.” He said, looking back up at him with affirmation.
It was modest; for lack of a better word… Only around five foot. Minho thought it was honestly a little ugly; sparce on one side, some of the branches bending at an unusual angle downward and some areas had even gone a little brown already. Minho cocked his head to the side.
“Are you sure, Jeongin? There’s plenty of other bigger trees over there?”
“No, I want this one.” He replied, smiling. “I’m sure.”
Jisung heard them and headed back over from the other side of the lot, where he’d been looking at a larger, seven-foot tree that Felix had his eye on. The freckled boy rushed back over to Jeongin’s side in delight, wiggling his hand free from his coat sleeve and clutching Jeongin’s hand softly in to his own, turning to face him.
“Have you found one that you like, Jeongie?” He asked, shaking his hand a little.
“Yes. I like this one. No one else looked at this one, I think it’s lonely.”
So, that night, they took home a slightly crunchy, smaller-than-average Christmas tree that Jisung endearingly kept referring to as ‘the runt of the litter, in tree form’…
Seungmin had decided on the theme of the decorations, deciding which baubles went where, and how many trinkets of a certain color had to be on each branch for it to have the desired effect. He stood back, framing it with his fingers, as acting ‘Artistic Director’, whilst the rest of them hung the ornaments.
Changbin had gifted them all little decorations with their name on it and had even given Felix one too. A sign of his and Jisung’s ever-budding friendship after their rocky start… It made Minho cringe a little, to see how close they’d become after Changbin and Hyunjin had become ‘a thing’, but it made life easier, in the long run.
They all carefully placed their little glass baubles on their spot on the tree, and Jisung lifted Jeongin up above his head to perch him on his shoulder, allowing him the height to place Felix’s home-made toilet paper-tube angel on top of the tree. The tree was so bent and wilted that it barely stood up under the weight of all the plastic diamante’s Felix had glued to it, but Jeongin was happy with the result, regardless.
It wouldn’t matter, anyway, Minho thought. In a few hours, Soonie, Doongie and Dori would have likely decimated the entire tree.
Christmas Eve, 8:42pm 🐱🐿️ 🐶🧙🦊---
Minho gently twisted the key in the door, making sure not to make too much noise by pushing it slowly open with his palms. He’d headed out after work to buy some last-minute presents for the boys, and collect a few that he’d ordered earlier in the week. Jisung had promised to get them to bed by 8:30pm, so he hoped he wouldn’t be seen.
Though he assumed at least Seungmin would probably be awake, anyway... Spying on him out of the window.
He pushed the door open, peeking his head through, pssst’ing at the younger man from where he was sprawled out in his Christmas jumper and grey sweats, lounging across Minho’s couch watching The Nightmare Before Christmas.
“Hey!” He repeated, waving his hand to get his attention. Jisung turned around at the sudden gust of cold air sweeping in through the open door, a mouth full of what he could assume was assorted chocolates, judging by the sheer amount of colorful, metallic wrappers covering his coffee table.
“What's This? What's This? There's color everywhere!?” Jisung dramatically sang out in Minho’s direction from his spot on the couch.
“Stop singing at me and help me get this inside!” He stage whispered, keeping his volume down as best he could. He gestured to a rather large Karaoke machine that he’d bought for Seungmin, perched next to another bag containing a Death Star Lego set for Jeongin and a whole box of Officially Licensed Harry Potter Confectionery and books that were sitting on the veranda…
Jisung hopped up to his feet, pausing the film to help him lug them in, pulling them across the laminate through the hall space and into the living room. He peered up the stairs as he did, checking for any signs of tiny lifeforms.
“So, what did you get them from Santa?” Jisung asked, dropping down to the floor across the area rug and pulling the gifts out of the bags to arrange them in to separate piles.
“Jisung… Seungmin and Jeongin don’t really do ‘Santa’ anymore.” Minho scoffed, throwing himself down on the couch in exhaustion from a full day of work and Christmas shopping. He pulled at his tie to loosen it, freeing his neck from it’s collared confines, breathing a sigh of relief.
“What?! They’re only eight! Who’s going to eat all the milk and cookies and the carrot!?” Jisung whined, looking to him in confusion.
“You’re not serious…” Minho said, watching Jisung’s cheeks puff up. “Oh my God, you are serious...”
“And who’s going to read Felix’s note to Santa?!”
“You?! Like you would anyway even if you weren’t pushing the ‘Santa’ agenda?”
“Well, I just like to keep the magic of Christmas alive! It’s no big deal, to keep it going, right? He’ll work it out for himself eventually...” Jisung grumbled.
“Yeah, when you stop encouraging it…” Minho scoffed. He pulled himself back up off of the couch with an almighty strain, and wandered to the kitchenette, pulling the refrigerator open and scanning over the contents.
He glanced at the assortments of holiday-edition drinks he’d been gifted over the Christmas period, settling on a bottle of red, pouring himself a glass. He’d stopped offering them to Jisung, as the younger man would grimace at literally just the smell; too many ‘bad past experiences’, in his words…
“You know, Seungmin stopped believing in Santa aged five, once he discovered, in his words, ‘it would be impossible for one man to travel 122 million miles in a night’. He also pointed out that Santa would likely get imprisoned for animal cruelty if he rode eight reindeer for 12 hours straight without a break.”
“I—… Wow.” Jisung said, popping his head up to look at him through the serving window. “That’s…”
“Yeah, it was a wild night…” He said, taking a comedically large swig of his wine. “I actually don’t think Jeongin ever believed, he just once found Changbin in a Santa costume, in a cookie and ale-induced coma at two in the morning when he was three and just shrugged it off.” He laughed, making his way back across to the living room and perching back down on the couch again.
Jisung instinctively moved closer until his back was settled in between Minho’s shins as he sat on the floor, rummaging through the gifts.
“Oh. Look what I got.” Minho scoffed, pulling open a smaller bag to present him with a set of four coasters; obnoxiously bright yellow to match Jisung’s living room décor. “Kind of an in-joke, right…?”
“Jeez…” Jisung jeered, shaking his head. “Well, I was going to say that I don’t really need anything this year, as I already have everything I could possibly want right here in front of me… But I guess I was wrong… Thank you for your precious gift.” He mocked, clasping his hands together and beaming at the older man brightly.
“You’re welcome. Treasure it.” Minho replied smugly, grinning at him raising his glass above his head with a little nod.
Jisung turned back around to face him, gently pulling his slackened tie towards him to bring him down into a chaste kiss, just gently for a few seconds. Minho pulled forward just a little to allow it, before having to place his hand over the top of his wine glass as not to spill anything, as Jisung insisted on pulling him in a little closer…
“If you make me spill anything on this couch I swear—" Minho warned.
The younger man just laughed, and turned himself fully around to settle between his legs against the couch, snaking his hand around the older man’s neck, threading his hand through his hair on either side of his face. He kissed him again, angling them closer together until Minho tried to speak,
“We have— like, thirty— presents to wr—” Minho tried to say, before Jisung was pushing him back, rising to his feet and lurching over the top of him, mouth still attached to his. He pulled back, looking at him with his big usually-doe-esque eyes, but today, there was a little glint of something else in them…
“We have all night…” He responded, an audacious grin appearing across his face.
“This isn’t the part where you ask me if I’ve been naughty or nice, or something like that, is it?” Minho said, pulling back with a grimace, “Sounds like the kind of corny shit you’d say…”
Jisung looked at him for a few moments, blinking slowly in amazement, before bursting out into laughter against him, dropping his head to meet the other man’s forehead.
Suddenly, they heard a loud clatter of excited feet, bounding down the stairs, interrupting them. All three kids in their matching onesies; Jeongin’s light-blue, Felix’s light-pink, and Seungmin’s newly acquired green one that he’d only agreed to wear if Minho let him ‘hang out’ after school last week... Seungmin was 9, going on 15…
“Guys, what are yo—! Get to bed!” Minho shouted, pushing Jisung’s chest back and jumping up off of the couch defensively, to create a block with his body in front of the gifts.
“But! Look at Dori cat!” Felix exclaimed, putting his hands out to present Seungmin, like some prized foreign car on a glittery game show. In his arms, Dori was wrapped up in a red, fair isle-patterned Christmas sweater, with glitter-covered reindeer ears perched up on his head that Jeongin was holding up with a smile across his face.
“It’s late!” Minho repeated, throwing his hands on his hips.
“But, Dad… Look at Dori wearing a Christmas sweater..!” Jeongin responded, totally perplexed that Minho wasn’t finding this as impressive as they clearly were…
“Doesn’t she look cute?!” Seungmin added.
“Yes, of course. That’s… Great, guys, but we still have pres—
“—Santa, needs to sort out your presents!” Jisung interrupted protectively, looking to Minho with wide eyes, still sporting a subtle blush from the couch.
Both Jeongin and Seungmin stared at each other, cocking an eyebrow, and Minho just sighed, looking at Felix who looked a little bewildered. Minho didn’t want to be the one who killed the magic of Christmas...
It’s no big deal, to keep it going, right? He’ll work it out for himself eventually, Minho thought.
“Yep, that’s true. And if you guys don’t get to bed, then Santa can’t deliver your presents…” He said, winking at Seungmin, who shook his head subtly as he re-arranged Dori in his arms before he clawed his way out.
“I wanna watch Nightmare Before Christmas, too!” Felix exclaimed, noticing the paused TV screen.
“Me too!” Seungmin added, pointing to it.
All three of them bounced up and down on their tippy toes, and Jisung gave him that ‘come on, it’s Christmas!’ look, that Minho couldn’t deny in a thousand lifetimes...
“Well, so much for wrapping presents.” Minho sighed, under his breath.
