Work Text:
“Venti!”
“Yes?”
“Surprise!”
“What…is this? In-vi-ta-tion card?”
“Yup. You can invite Neme over to our Christmas party for you and Carmen.”
“Yay! Thank you, papa!”
***
“You’re telling me,” Venti closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them and stared at Xiao in the eyes. “That you have never, ever, celebrated Christmas before?”
“...No.” Xiao didn’t understand why Venti was treating it like it was a huge problem. “We don’t celebrate it in Liyue. At least, the Liyue Qixing spy department didn’t. We knew about it, but it wasn’t a holiday really worth celebrating and preparing for as opposed to New Year’s.”
“Crime,” Venti made a face, and Xiao just shot him an unamused expression.
“Says the one who—”
“Okay, okay, yes, says the one who has the blood of many on their hands, I know,” Venti winced. “But living twenty-two years without ever celebrating Christmas is a greater sin.”
Xiao shrugged as he reached for the remote control. “I don’t remember the first eight years.”
“Getting specific, are we? Fine, fourteen years,” Venti snatched the remote control out of Xiao’s hands and shifted closer to him, automatically leaning into his chest, feeling the other’s heart pound, alive against his head, his warmth encapsulating his entire being. He could feel that very same warmth flow into his heart too.
Xiao wrapped his arms around his waist ever so naturally, and Venti couldn’t help but recall the first time Xiao hugged him like this. It was a little over a year ago, yet it felt like it had been centuries.
It was hilarious, just remembering it. A giggle slipped out at the thought. The instinctive way he threw himself on the other’s lap, and how Xiao cooperated just right, even though he had no idea what he was doing.
If you told Venti last year that he would trust another person this much once more in his life — a government-affiliated man whose mission was to take his life no less — he would have laughed his head off at the prospect of this impossible idea.
“What are you laughing about?” Xiao asked, resting his head on top of Venti’s own.
“Just thinking about how you haven’t celebrated Christmas,” Venti lied, grinning.
“So no gift exchanges? No Christmas feasts or shopping? We can’t have that now that you’re with me,” Venti continued as the television played. “Tell you what, we’re going Christmas shopping on the 22nd, decorating our house on the 23rd, praying for Santa on the 24th, then crashing Aether’s party on the 25th.”
“Santa? Seriously?” Xiao suspected that he won’t bother coming due to their less than great deeds the past year. He’s pretty sure inciting violence alone had already landed them on the “naughty” list.
But it seemed as though Venti didn’t quite get it. “He exists, okay? I’ll prove it to you!”
Xiao could feel a helpless smile break through the corners of his lips. “You do you. Then what about the party crashing?” He tilted his head slightly to the side in question. “You do know that it’s risky, right? They are going to have a heart attack.”
In order to protect themselves from the government and criminal organisations who are all after them, they had wiped themselves from the face of earth — or at least, that was what their friends and enemies all thought so.
They had a rule between them: Before meeting up with their past acquaintances, they had to discuss it through with each other and evaluate the risk first. After all, they don’t want to get caught.
“Mm…but we know our friends will not do anything or report us. And if we’re careful, we won’t get spotted by the Knights of Favonius! It’s been a year after all, the security shouldn’t be as tight.” Venti hummed, but he seemed even more excited after hearing what Xiao said. “And there’s nothing like a surprise as a Christmas gift, is there?”
***
“Carmen~! What do you think about this?”
“Hmm… Would Neme like this?”
“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you!”
“Boys, quickly choose, there’s still quite a lot we haven’t bought.”
“Okay, mama!” “Yes, mama!”
***
“Venti, we are not getting that,” Xiao emphasised heavily on the “not”, but it was obvious that Venti did not hear it with the way he was grabbing the mug and ready to dump it into their shopping cart.
“Why not? It serves as a great present!” Venti pouted, turning the porcelain cup around in his hands, examining its quality.
“That’s what you said for the last ten ‘presents’ we got,” Xiao deadpanned, pointing at the already full cart, stacked with presents and decorations for their house. “I don’t think there’s even going to be ten people at Aether’s party.”
Xiao was starting to regret agreeing on the Christmas shopping part. Not that he regretted going out with his partner, but he was starting to wonder if he got himself a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend.
He didn’t know how he never noticed this, especially back when they “fake”-dated for the first time. Maybe he was too consumed with his ulterior agenda to even think about it, but how can one be so interested to be out and about just for shopping, especially in this cold season?
Mondstadt at this time felt like he was in Snezhnaya everyday, for archons’ sake. If he had forgotten to bring that extra scarf out earlier, he would have died from the cold by now.
“There are going to be ten people!” Venti insisted, then stuck a hand out to count. “Based on my educated guess, there will be Aether, Lumine, Amber, Paimon, Albedo, Klee, Kazuha, Jean, Lisa and Barbara.”
“But this is the eleventh gift,” Xiao directed his finger to the mug.
“In case we break one during the uninvited break-in. And who knows if he has another guest?” Venti shrugged with a light smile on his face, dropping the mug into the cart as he did so. “Plus, intel says, Kazuha has a new boyfriend.”
“Intel?” Xiao frowned. “I thought we cut off all connections.”
Venti, quickly realising his mistake, coughed. “Um, I coincidentally met Beidou when I went out drinking. Had a friendly—” he emphasised. “—talk, and she told me that our dear friend Agent Ronin, Kazuha, met someone back in Inazuma. Don’t worry, I made sure that nothing was following my tracks when I left.”
“And why haven’t I heard about this before?”
Venti gulped. Narrowed yellow eyes were now glaring at him, and the supposedly warm colour of stars in those irises suddenly dropped down to the freezing temperature of this year’s winter.
Ah… he was definitely in for it.
***
Five minutes later, they were out of the shop, eleven gifts in hand — or rather in heavy bags that Xiao was burdened to carry. He thanked the archons that his physical training made it easy unlike for the struggling shoppers stumbling down the street.[1]
“Alright, what’s next on the agenda…” Venti fished out his phone from his pocket and scanned their shopping list. “Christmas tree! Hmm…it’s a little late to get the real ones, the farms must be working overtime to get all their orders out, so it looks like we have to get the synthetic version.”
“And the ornaments?” Xiao glanced at his watch, where it read “21:30”. They only had 30 minutes left before the shopping mall had to close. “We don’t have much time left.”
Venti hummed, scrolling through his list, then his eyes slightly widened, almost as if in realisation. Xiao raised his eyebrows. “Venti?”
“Okay, wait. Why don’t we split up? You get the ornaments, and I’ll try to find a fake Christmas tree. Then we meet back here?” Venti looked up at him with a rather odd, sheepish smile. All Xiao did was shoot him a confused look, but then he nodded, and they both quickly went off on their own way.
Venti cursed himself out as he left Xiao’s side and dashed through the mall.
He had ordered a custom made gift a few days ago for Xiao, and he was supposed to collect it today, but…of course he had forgotten until the last minute. Thank archons he found a good excuse to split up with him temporarily.
The collection of the gift went rather smoothly, but it was finding a Christmas tree that was proving to be a little difficult.
Venti went from shop to shop to search for a fake Christmas tree, but mostly all they had were ornaments and other decorations. He knew he could order online, but that meant that he had to cross his fingers and hope it arrived on time, and he knew that would be close to impossible.
Just as he was about to give up, he spotted a white box bobbing up and down within the crowd of late night shoppers, with a picture of a Christmas tree on it. He quickly ran over to the particular shopper who was hefting the box in front of their face, planning to ask them where they got it from.
“Hi, excuse me! Sorry for disturbing you, but where did you get this from?” Venti called out to them.
“Oh, it’s from the store two shops down the corridor—” Ash-blonde hair and blue eyes emerged from behind the box as the man moved it away from his face, and he paused upon seeing Venti.
Venti blinked.
Oh archons.
“Venti?” Albedo’s eyes were wide in shock, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “You’re still in Mondstadt? I thought—”
“Aha…two shops down the corridor right?” Venti quickly cut him off, backing away with an awkward smile. He couldn’t believe he met another acquaintance of theirs right after getting scolded by Xiao for not being careful. “I gotta run! Bye~!”
He left Albedo staring after him in confusion.
(In the end, he did manage to buy a Christmas tree and did tell Xiao about the accidental Albedo meeting. All Xiao did was sigh and ruffle his head.)
***
For Xiao, finding ornaments to hang onto their tree was not difficult — almost every supply shop in the mall had them. There were shelves stacked full of golden, silver and colourful little balls, along with fake candy canes and present boxes. He quickly picked the nicer-looking ones up and proceeded to the counter.
After buying a bag full of ornaments, he headed back to the spot where they agreed to meet up at, but halfway there, he wondered if he should get a gift for Venti while he wasn’t here.
It would be a nice surprise, wouldn’t it?
But what would Venti want?
He supposed that he could buy something similar to the presents they already bought for the party, but Venti was the one who picked them out, and he wanted something special for Venti…
Xiao slipped his phone out of his pocket as he walked, and started to search through websites and recommendations for Christmas gifts. The screen advised books, sweaters, gloves, alarm clocks and lights…but after thinking it through, it didn’t really feel like “Venti”.
There was other advice, like buying something they like, but Xiao was not about to buy his boyfriend alcohol on Christmas.
He decided that searching online was a lost cause, so he looked up from his phone and slowed down his footsteps instead, peering through shop windows to figure out what Venti might want as a present. There were clothes, but it wouldn’t be really special. There were teddy bears and figurines on display in the gift shops, but Venti wouldn’t be interested in either of them…
Xiao sighed, and walked on, in hopes of finding a suitable shop before the entire mall had to close.
Not long after, he found a tiny pop-up store in the middle of the corridor, selling all sorts of little trinkets. He was about to ignore it and move on when something caught his eye.
And there it was, the perfect gift for Venti.
***
“Neme~!”
“Hm?”
“Here!”
“...Invitation…Christmas party?!”
“Yup, ehe! Do you want to come? Our house is made up very prettily and—”
What the little boy in braids got in response was a hug.
***
Venti had sworn that their house would look amazing after the decoration stage, but it has been an hour since they started and their house…was not really going in the direction Venti had promised.
With all the plastic bags of ornaments and festive decorations scattered across the originally clean floor, and the fake leaves that have fallen off the poorly made synthetic Christmas tree, Xiao knew that he was in for a long cleaning session after this.
“You sure you don’t need help?” Xiao asked Venti, who was busy cursing under his breath as he fiddled with the tree. The boy had been trying to figure out how to fix it up from its folded state for about an hour now, and he seemed to be getting nowhere.
“How does this thing fucking—” Venti muttered as he struggled to fix the bark together. Then, as if just realising that Xiao has been standing there for the past ten seconds, he nodded vigorously. “I can figure it out. Maybe you can finish wrapping the presents first?”
“Done,” Xiao gestured to the pile of eleven perfectly wrapped presents stacked in a corner.
“...oh.”
Xiao sighed and shook his head, then spotted a tiny booklet lying among the mess. He walked over and picked it up. “Why don’t you use the instruction manual?”
Upon looking at it, he immediately understood why.
It was all written in Liyuen. Apparently this was “Made in Liyue”.
“Ehe…” Venti gave him a sheepish smile. Xiao just gave him an unassuming look, a look that asked why-didn’t-you-ask-me-for-help, then proceeded to bend down and help him finish building up the tree.
A minute later, it was up and standing tall in all its leafy glory.
“Isn’t it great to have a bilingual boyfriend?” Venti sighed, grinning.
“Poly-lingual,” Xiao corrected, poking Venti softly at the side of his head. “I know all the main eight languages of Teyvat because it’s required for work.”
“Yes, yes, you spies are amazing,” Venti chuckled, fishing a bag of ornaments from the floor. He then casually swung it into the air, letting it fly towards Xiao, and Xiao snatched it off its course before it could drop to the ground with ease. “Then may my amazing poly-lingual spy boyfriend help me with the ornaments?”
.
.
.
“This…was not what I was expecting,” Venti frowned, staring at the tree. It started out quite alright, but they ended up hanging everything they bought onto the tree (which was quite tiny compared to the real one because it was fake) and now it looked overpopulated with baubles and candy canes.
“This is why they say, less is more.” Xiao had tried convincing Venti at one point that it was enough, but he had insisted that they put everything onto the tree because he didn’t want it to go to waste.
Venti groaned. “Alright, alright, you’re right. I think we should remove some of the green balls. It looks redundant against the leaves. The green and red candy canes look weird too.”
“And the miniature gingerbread houses. Something about it just doesn’t sit right with the rest of the decoration. It kind of crashes…” Xiao added on, but stopped when he saw Venti’s horrified expression. “What?”
“What do you mean, what? Those are the cutest ones on the tree, we are not removing them!” Venti gasped, pretending to be offended. Then he paused, as if he was thinking, then grinned. “You know what, let’s play rock paper scissors to decide. Whoever wins a round can remove one ornament.”
Xiao shrugged. “Sure.”
A few minutes later, all the green baubles and christmas-coloured candy canes were removed from the tree while the gingerbread houses still remained amongst the other decorations.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Xiao stared at Venti’s hand, then looked at his own. How did Venti win every single round? That was near to impossible. He should have known not to agree to this when he saw that mischievous grin…
***
“Is this okay?” Venti called out as he tried to adjust the tinsel on the wall. This was the last decoration that they had to put up.
Since Venti was just a little tiny bit taller than Xiao — but a few centimetres doesn’t make a difference at all, Xiao had protested — he volunteered to be the one who had to climb on top of the fireplace and try to paste the tinsel onto the wall. Xiao stayed behind on the ground to help Venti check the placing.
“A little higher. Be careful though,” Xiao prompted, and Venti groaned, and tried to get a little higher on already tipped-toes, grasping desperately at the smooth wall. He should have let Xiao do it, but he had insisted just to assert his height’s dominance…
“Like this?” His voice was a little strained from the exertion.
Xiao squinted at the positioning of the shiny shredded line of paper. It still felt a little off to him. “Um…maybe a little more right?”
Venti didn’t even have the energy to complain anymore, and tried to move the tinsel to wherever Xiao had suggested him to.
Just a little bit more, Venti struggled to extend his arm towards the right, so he ended up having to tilt slightly in that direction.
But just as he reached what he thought was the perfect point, he could hear Xiao scream, “Wait, Venti! Don’t tilt too far—”
Before he knew it, the “slightly” had become…not so slight.
Venti’s stomach dropped as a warning — one that came too late — before he completely tripped off the fireplace, hurling down to the cold, hard floor. He didn’t even have enough time to yelp.
His irregular training over the years had him extending an arm out on instinct, ready to break his fall, but he still shut his eyes and gritted his teeth in preparation for a painful, jarring landing.
But instead, he fell into soft arms (if Venti was to be completely honest, it was still painful, but not as much as it would have been if he crashed into the ground), and found his landing being cushioned by Xiao, who had dashed in faster than he had expected. Talk about spy reaction timing.
It would have been like a drama scene if Venti didn’t knock him over until they both fell onto the floor, rolling and groaning in pain.
“I am never doing that again,” Venti complained, burying his face into Xiao’s shoulder. “Well, at least I pasted that thing on before I fell…”
But like a horrible punchline to a joke, they both heard the soft sound of tinsel falling onto the ground.
***
After putting the tinsel back up — or rather, after Xiao scaled the fireplace and somehow managed to put the tinsel back up — their day of painfully decorating the house was finally over. They decided to celebrate this little achievement by having a well-deserved break with hot chocolate and movies.
Xiao was the one who went to make the drinks, for Venti wasn’t allowed into the kitchen unless Xiao was giving him cooking lessons.
He couldn’t count the number of times that boy almost set their whole house on fire even when he was around. If there was one thing to know about Venti, it was that the only thing he could cook was two Mondstadt specialties and absolutely nothing else. He could never figure out why he couldn’t master other dishes.
But to Venti, not being able to cook more than two dishes wasn’t so bad. At least he had movie-choosing privileges while Xiao was making the hot chocolate. But when Xiao didn’t return after six minutes, he was starting to worry that his boyfriend had no idea how to make them at all.
“Xiao? You okay there?” Venti called from the living room, turning around on the sofa so he could glance into the kitchen. But there wasn’t much to see from his angle.
“Yup, give me a minute,” was the reply that came back.
True to his word, Xiao emerged from the kitchen exactly a minute later, holding two cups of piping hot chocolate filled with fluffy marshmallows. Venti thought he was going to sit down right after, but instead Xiao turned back to the kitchen to get something else.
When he returned, both his hands held a bowl each.
“What’s that?” Venti peeked into the two bowls after he had set them down, and all he saw was a few colourful round mochi-like balls floating in clear water. This was rather unfamiliar to him, but curiosity made him pick up the spoon and take a bite.
It was soft, and chewy, and the fragrant smell of sesame flooded his mouth the moment he bit into it. It was foreign, yes, but undeniably tasty. “Mm! —Archons, this is good.”
“It’s a traditional Liyuen food, tangyuan[2]. I forgot to tell you, but while we don’t really celebrate Christmas, we celebrate the winter solstice. And that’s today,” Xiao explained, picking up his own spoon. “Back in Liyue, we call winter solstice dongzhi[3]. Everyone in our headquarters used to all gather around on this day to eat tangyuan at night.”
Venti was genuinely curious now. “Why?”
Xiao shrugged. “I’m no Zhongli, but I have heard enough about dongzhi from him. From what I know, it represents reunion and familial harmony. You eat this with your loved ones to celebrate being together, and it closes the year on a perfect note.
“I ate it with my Liyuen family then. Now I want to eat it with you,” Xiao’s words were soft and light, yet heavy with meaning. Upon his sincere words, Venti smiled, his heart aching with love.
Venti lost his family a long time ago. Xiao never had one as far as he could remember counting his team and his friends in the spy industry out.
But now they have each other.
***
“Santa dropped by our house last night and told us to give this to you, Neme!”
“No, didn’t we buy this—” “Hey!”
“...Thank you. I never got a present before. But I didn’t bring a gift…”
“No need! Dad says that being with people you love is a present itself, so you being with us is a gift already!”
“Mhm!”
***
Xiao woke up to a phone alarm.
He was a little reluctant to get up at first, but then thinking about Venti’s conviction about Santa made him sit all the way up instead of sinking back into the sheets.
Yup, he had set an alarm so that he could get up at midnight to plant a present below the Christmas tree for Venti. Cliche, yes, but he figured it was something nice to do for his boyfriend. Plus, it would be cute to see his reaction the next morning.
He reached for his phone to turn the alarm off, but then after he unlocked it he realised that it was still an hour before the planned timing, and the alarm wasn’t coming from his phone at all.
Is it…?
Xiao leaned over to take a glance at Venti’s phone.
Ah…he was right. Across the screen was the notification to shut off the alarm, along with the blaring words of the reminder to “PLANT THE PRESENT!!!” Xiao couldn’t help but snicker. He should have known. Venti’s determination could make him do anything — in this case, convince him that Santa was real — once he set his mind on it.
Too bad waking up to an alarm wasn’t in that list of “anything”.
Despite Venti’s now occasional trauma-induced nightmares, he usually sleeps like a dead log for most of the time until eight hours were up.
Well, Xiao was glad that at least Venti trusts him and his environment enough to sleep peacefully now.
Shutting off the alarm, he dropped a soft peck on Venti’s forehead before carefully sliding out of bed, then tiptoeing his way out to grab the present and place it under the tree. He had hidden it deep in the kitchen cupboard, where Venti could never access.
The present was a glass kalimba, the one that he found back in the pop-up store when they split up to shop for the ornaments. He hoped that Venti would like it, despite the endless collection of instruments he had. It wasn’t quite the typical Christmas gift as the websites had advised, but he figured that this was the one that suited him the best. After all, it was either that, or Dandelion Wine.
Once he finished planting the presents, he proceeded to Stage 2 of his plan: Make it convincing. He had already written “From: Santa | To: Venti” on the wrapping paper, so he didn’t have to deal with that, but then there was the uneaten milk and cookies Venti left at the fireplace.
He was planning to simply consume some and return to bed, but decided against it when he saw the state of the food.
…Ants had already long attacked the plate of cookies before “Santa” arrived.
Xiao sighed and threw the food away, but left the empty plate and cup on the fireplace and quickly returned to his bedroom.
Luckily for him, Venti had not registered the lack of his presence and was still sleeping soundly, eyes tightly shut and snoring away, limbs thrown across the bed to cling onto a bolster that he must have thought was his boyfriend. A smile hiked up the corner of his lips, just barely, but it was still there.
One of his rare dreams, then.
Xiao wondered what it could be.
***
Xiao woke up to a scream.
“HOLY FUCKING SHIT!” It seemed to come from the living room, and it was a shout that was distinctly recognisable as Venti’s.
Xiao immediately vaulted out of bed and rushed to the living room, despite his brain being still a little foggy and his eyelids drooping every other second. “What’s going on?” Half his working mind had suspected that another spider invaded the house again and made the mistake of scurrying out into the open and into Venti’s line of sight.
“Xiaoooo! Look, present!” Venti was pointing excitedly to the Christmas tree, and Xiao followed his finger to find the wrapped gift resting under the leaves. Or rather, Xiao’s gift for him. “You know, I was going to fake Santa’s present by planting one last night, but I forgot…then I saw this when I woke up! Even the cookies and milk are gone! Told you Santa’s real!”
Xiao watched as the boy smirked at him in triumph, the excitement in the green of his eyes shining brighter than the sunlight that was sneaking its way in on this Christmas morning. He looked so happy, even his dimples were showing as little smiley crescents pressed into his cheeks, grinning along with his lips and eyes.
Xiao could feel his heart squeeze in on itself, not in pain, no, but in helplessness — for he couldn’t even begin to express the overwhelming love and affection he had for that man in that one moment. It was as if his heart couldn’t contain it anymore and was letting it overflow.
It was worth it, to force himself to wake up so late last night just to see him smile right now.
Xiao let a smile touch the edge of his lips, and pulled Venti in, lightly pecking his cheek. “Okay, I believe you now, Santa is real. You want to open the present and see what he gave you?”
Venti quickly tore it open at his prompt, finding a black box beneath the decorated wrapping paper. He carefully lifted the lid, revealing a pristine glass kalimba resting in the middle of colourful shredded confetti, his name etched on the front of the kalimba.
“Woah,” Venti breathed, running a finger along the side of the kalimba as if caressing it, then pressed down on a metal tines. The sound of an echoing, resounding note played right from his fingertip. “This is beautiful.”
The wonder on his face struck another lovely sounding note in Xiao’s heart.
“Do you like it?”
“Like it? I love it!” Venti grinned, hugging the instrument to his chest. He rummaged through the confetti, and fished out a note. “Oh, there’s a note.”
Xiao looked over his shoulder to read the note, to admire his handiwork despite knowing its contents. He didn’t write much on the note, for all he wrote was “Merry Christmas, Venti. May your next year be as exciting as this year. From, Santa”.
But a second later, Venti turned around with an eyebrow raised, his eyes meeting up with Xiao’s. He was sporting a serious look, which scared Xiao for a second, until he noticed that the corner of Venti’s lips were slightly twitching up, like he was trying not to smile.
“Xiao,” Venti said slowly, trying to keep his tone as even as possible, yet failing to hide the hidden laugh in his voice. “Why is this in your handwriting?”
.
.
.
In the end, after Venti teased Xiao to no end for being careless enough to write in his own handwriting, he finally let Xiao go and presented his own gift to Xiao.
It was also wrapped in a box, but this time it was a white one. Xiao opened it, and in it rested a block of wood. At first glance, it looked like there was nothing, and Xiao was a little confused, but then he realised that his portrait was carved intricately onto the block.
Upon closer inspection, he found a short poem carved behind, and with the way the words fit together, filled with gentle intent, he knew immediately it was penned by Venti himself.
“How do you like it?” Venti was the one who asked the question this time, smiling brightly in anticipation.
Xiao answered with a kiss to his lips.
***
“So you take the snow in your hands like this, then you slowly press down to make a ball…”
“Okay…”
“Hey! Don’t throw at me, I’m teaching Neme here!”
“Hehe!”
***
After the whole gift incident in the morning, they both packed up the eleven presents they bought a few days ago and got ready to go to Aether’s party. Or rather, crash it.
“We should go soon,” Venti glanced at the wall clock where the hour hand was stuck in between 3 and 4, and the middle hand approaching the 8 mark, showing 3.40p.m. “Aether usually starts the party around 5.”
“I think we are pretty much ready,” Xiao said as he held up the bags of gifts in his hand. “Let’s go?”
Getting to the venue wasn’t difficult. After all, Xiao had stayed in Aether’s neighbourhood for quite some time back when he was still working for the government. And they also had checked the blind security spots around the area the day before, so they managed to enter the vicinity undetected.
They ended up around the back of Aether’s house where there was a plot of empty land, a small clearing between the other houses that lined the streets and the tiny forest that stretched out behind the neighbourhood.
“Ready?” Venti shot Xiao a mischievous grin as they made their way to the back door.
Xiao was about to nod, but before he could give Venti his approval, the door swung open — and it was not by Venti’s own accord.
Standing right behind the wide open door was Aether, one hand resting on the door handle, frozen in his movements as he tried to register the sight before him.
As much as he had hoped for them to visit, these two were still the last thing Aether was expecting to see on this day.
“Xiao and Venti?!”
.
.
.
“Look what I found,” Aether deadpanned, pointing over to the couple who were now standing in Aether’s living room and being gawked at by ten or so guests as if they were on display.
Some of their stares were curious, like the ones from Barbara, Klee, and the unknown man with burgundy hair and green eyes standing beside Kazuha — Venti was right about him getting a new partner — while others were shuffling in between shock and pleasant surprise.
“…aha, hi?” Venti greeted the rest of the guests with an awkward laugh after being forcefully dragged into the house by Aether. “Long time no see?”
All that answered him was silence, despite the many mouths that were gaping open, along with eyes frozen wide in bewilderment.
Finally, a voice spoke up, breaking up the delicate tension in the room. “And that’s all you have to say?”
It was Lumine, arms crossed over her chest, quirking up an unamused eyebrow as her initial surprise morphed into mock seriousness.
Both Venti and Xiao relaxed, and this time the laugh that came out of Venti was much lighter. “I definitely have more to say! Uh…Please, please, please don’t report us to KoF?” He eyed the room full of Knights of Favonius employees, and a round of dry laughter across the room completely broke whatever tension that was left.
“You know we won’t. And we meant an explanation for why the two of you disappeared for an entire year,” Lumine shook her head and sighed, but there was a smile that hung at the edge of her lips. “Welcome back, Venti, Xiao.”
***
No matter how hard they tried to avoid the topic of their sudden disappearance a year ago, both Venti and Xiao couldn’t run away from it.
After a quick round of greetings and hugs around the room, they were sat down and forced — convinced, Aether had corrected when Venti jokingly accused him — to give a very delayed explanation of what happened in the past year.
The explanation they gave in the end wasn’t too detailed, but everyone still readily accepted it and moved on to continue with the party. After all, their arrival had pushed back some of the events that Albedo and Aether had meticulously planned.
Apparently, the reason why Aether had been heading out of the back door in the first place was because the first event was to be held right outside — a snowball fight.
“It’s a tradition for Aether’s household to do that on Christmas apparently,” Venti told Xiao as they all followed Aether out. “I can’t tell you how many times I got trashed by him in previous years…”
After splitting everyone into groups, the game started without a hitch.
…At least, that was true for everyone except for Xiao.
Once the race to build up their own snow wall was over, soft snowballs were already starting to get launched into the air. Xiao, however, was still stuck behind the snow wall, trying and failing to make a proper snowball. Everything he tried to roll up ended up crumbling and falling between his fingers.
“Um, Venti, a little help here,” Xiao finally gave up and called out to his boyfriend after a while, who was busy attacking the other teams.
“Yea?” Venti squatted down, and watched as Xiao tried to shape a snowball yet again to no avail. He couldn’t help but burst into laughter when he saw the man frown down at the snow that fell apart in his hands.
“Like this.” After Venti had his share of laughter, he finally taught Xiao how to create a snowball by wrapping his own hands around his, scooping up the soft, wet snow on the ground. “Don’t roll it between your palms, just slowly apply pressure to each side…”
Venti’s teaching was immediately effective. With a few presses here and there, a snowball finally took shape in Xiao’s hands and lay in his palm quietly. A look of child-like wonder had taken over Xiao’s face, his mouth hanging open in a small “O”.
He couldn’t resist giving him a quick peck to the cheeks and teasing him. “Aren’t I an amazing teacher?”
But before Xiao could reply, a snowball landed perfectly onto Venti’s head, exploding into a flurry of snow.
They both looked up to see Paimon looking over the snow wall, giggling and wearing a wide grin. “Pay attention, lovebirds—“
A snowball landed right in her face before she could finish. The snowball that was originally in Xiao’s hand was gone.
“Hey!”
***
“So, Neme, did you have fun today?”
“Mhm…”
“Why do you look so sad then?”
“...I didn’t want it to end…I still want to celebrate, Venti.”
“Don’t worry Neme! You can always come over next year! After all, we’re only seven, and we have many Christmases ahead of us!”
“Mm…okay!”
***
“Oh archons, it’s late,” Venti commented softly as the two of them made their way out of Aether’s house. Xiao hummed in agreement and yawned slightly. The snowball fight and the rest of the party really took a lot out of him, huh?
Since the entire party was filled with agents that were equipped with amazing speed, accuracy and reaction time, the innocent, childhood game quickly became competitive, and Aether’s backyard turned into a snowball battleground.
Both Xiao and Venti ended up having to make a lot of effort in order to hit someone, as everyone was easily dodging the slow snowballs. Having been trained to avoid bullets made snowballs seem like nothing.
After the exhausting snowball fight, they were finally allowed back into the house to eat and exchange gifts. Somehow, even with Venti and Xiao’s impromptu arrival, there were extra gifts that ended up in their hands, which included a scarf and for some reason, a green beret.
Venti ended up falling in love with it and wore it for the rest of the day.
As the night progressed, guests trickled out of the house one by one. Xiao and Venti were the only few left behind that sat down for a drink or two to talk. By the time the party was over and after they waved their goodbyes to the friends that they would probably not meet for another year, the hour hand was already close to striking midnight.
They slowly made their way to where their car was parked, immersed in the quiet winter night, and lighting their path were the lonely street lights hanging overhead, colouring the dark night with a soft, golden glow.
It was lightly snowing, white flakes softly wandering from the sky down to the ground. Fresh snow paved the street, the pure, fine particles filling in the regular cracks of cobblestone, crunching with every step they took.
The only thing that was keeping them warm in the cold was the intertwined fingers between their bodies as they walked, wrapping around one another to trap each other’s warmth in their palms.
“So…Xiao, did you have fun? Celebrating Christmas for the first time?” Venti asked after a while, looking towards Xiao expectantly.
Xiao met his gaze, aureate eyes shining even more brighter under the yellow lights above. Somehow, he seemed to be stunned — no, he didn't seem to be surprised by his question, but by something else.
“Xiao?” Venti raised an eyebrow when he stopped in his tracks to fully turn around and look at him in the eye.
“This is not my first time celebrating,” he said all of the sudden, and Venti could see the realisation and wonder that the light reflected in his eyes. “I…can barely remember…but this feels familiar. Walking down an empty street to go home after a party with you like this.”
“Really?” Venti’s eyes widened. The only fully celebrated Christmas he ever had as a child was the year before everything went down to hell — before that, his parents were usually too busy to hold a party. Then—
Xiao cut off his train of thought by pulling him in, wrapping him gently into a hug. “But the first time or not, at least it’s always with you,” He could hear Xiao quietly whisper in his ear. Then came the answer to his question, “Thank you, Venti. I had fun.”
Venti relaxed into his embrace, and in reply to his answer, he grinned, landing a little peck onto his ear.
“Merry Christmas, Xiao.”
