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Seungkwan can hear a commotion outside his bedroom right after waking up.
While not necessarily uncommon in a 13-person apartment, the ruckus is never exactly welcome by him. He likes knowing that his members are alive, and the idea of all of them spending the days prior to Christmas and then the holiday itself with them made an immeasurable amount of warmth spread from his heart, but he definitely did not miss all the noise that came with it.
Sighing, and after scrolling through his phone for a little while, Seungkwan decides to bite the bullet and venture outside his very own four walls. He opts to change his clothes after doing his morning routine, so he warily opens the door and pokes his head out. Judging by the noise, and especially Seokmin’s voice booming about, the, well, whatever it is that is happening, is taking place at the end of the hallway that leads from the living room to all the rooms. Luckily for him, one of the bathrooms is opposite the living room, and so Seungkwan begins tiptoeing to his safe haven.
“Seungkwan-ah, come here!” a mischievous voice cuts through his inner peace. Of course, his lovely flatmate would not let him be without some recreational torture. Seungkwan swears he hears the grin plastered on Jeonghan’s face, and he is also aware that there is no escaping whatever is in the living room, so he swallows and turns towards them.
Maybe it’s him paying attention to detail on the daily, maybe it’s the confirmation that Jeonghan has that specific expression, or maybe it’s the fact that it is quite literally hanging from God knows where, perhaps floating on the ceiling out of sheer will, but as soon as Seungkwan realizes what is going on, he stops in his tracks.
“Don’t you wanna give hyung a kiss?” Jeonghan asks, deceptively sweet.
It’s a mistletoe. An actual, real-life mistletoe, existing with him and his twelve idiot members.
Seungkwan tenses up and Jeonghan, for all the mischief he likes causing, quickly drops it and lets him go to the toilet.
Some minutes, and a meticulous session of brushing his teeth later, Seungkwan reemerges and reluctantly goes to the living room. Luckily for him, he doesn’t bump into anyone and the members who remain in the room greet him normally. From the corner of his eye he sees Jeonghan donning a more apologetic smile, Seungkwan suspects he is the reason why no one is pestering him.
“By the way, who put that there?” He tries to be casual about it, cool, even.
“No one admits to doing it, so we don’t really know,” Wonwoo, bless his soul, answers calmly while watching a muted stream on his phone.
Seungkwan clearly has a prime suspect in mind, though, especially judging by the enthusiasm whenever any two members collide by the mistletoe.
“Hoshi-yah, you gotta kiss Myungho!” Jeonghan snickers like an excited schoolgirl. Hansol kicks his feet while grinning widely, enhancing the effect.
It’s a sweet peck on the cheek from Minghao, with a bit of nonchalance thrown into the mix, that leaves Soonyoung a little shocked. The tip of Minghao’s ears are ever so slightly red, too.
Seungkwan gulps. It’s lovely, truly lovely, and he isn’t disgusted by any of the people staying at the dorm. But there’s a feeling of dread sitting comfortably in his stomach, its space carved within him, because there’s one person he does not want to kiss.
The day goes by, with a few more kisses peppered throughout the hours and the members. Seungcheol and Jihoon have quite an awkward encounter, with the leader kissing his forehead after neither moved for 2 minutes. Chan complains about Mingyu leaving drool all over his nose, and the older man sports a sheepish expression as he apologizes and promises that next time he’ll be more careful.
And Seungkwan has stayed in the same spot on the sofa ever since he entered the room. He’s tense, he doesn’t want to be, but he can’t help it. However, he also needs to go to the toilet urgently. He swallows, analyses the situation and everyone’s locations, and power walks to the toilet down the corridor, past the mistletoe. No one meets him under it, his shoulders lightening up ever so slightly.
Afterwards, Seungkwan stays in his room for some time. He texts some friends, scrolls through his phone, muffles a scream with his pillow, the usual. He eventually gets a message saying that dinner is ready, which means that he either returns to the living room or dies from hunger.
What he doesn’t expect is for Jun to go get him just as he arrives, which means…
“Seungkwan-ah and Jun, what a match!” Jisoo teases, feather-light. “Not everyone gets to kiss their favorite hyung.”
With a scoff and standing on his tiptoes, he stares right at Jun, who has an amused smile. Someone whistles, and Seungkwan realizes that it looks like he’s going for the lips, so he quickly dives in for both his hyung’s cheeks. That gets an endearing laugh out of Jun, who does the same for Seungkwan.
Fine. It is fine. Actually, it feels more than fine, it feels a bit thrilling, even. Maybe he can survive the remaining days, and have some fun in the meantime.
As long as nothing that shouldn’t happen happens, he can relax.
-
Dinner is noisy, of course, with retellings of all the mistletoe happenings. Soonyoung fills in the details that Seungkwan missed while in his room, exaggerating and mimicking the members as if he was doing stand-up.
“And then, I swear they looked at each other’s lips! I didn’t know what to do,” Soonyoung gasps for dramatic effect, “except stare.”
Seokmin groans indignantly. “Ah, hyung! Stop lying, please,” he begs, standing up to help clear the table.
“Dokyeom-ah, it’s okay to want to kiss hyung,” Jeonghan comments, as if the hyung in question isn’t him.
“Hyung, stop feeding into his delusions!” Seokmin complains, brows furrowed and looking just like a wet puppy.
“Can you do me a favor, Kyeom-ah?” Jeonghan suddenly changes topics and stands up, too. Without a word, Seokmin follows him until the older stops, turns around and points up with the most deceptive of smiles. “Kiss?”
“Hyung!” Seokmin whines again, face fully red now. He squeezes his eyes shut and puckers his lips shyly.
Jeonghan lets out a choppy string of giggles and gives him a short-lived peck with a “Mwah” for emphasis. His toothy grin as Seokmin covers his face with his hands and screeches a little, many of the members audibly excited that lips are on the table now.
Seungkwan shrinks in his seat.
-
The following days, there is less and less focus on the mistletoe. Some members do make sure that everyone respects “the law”, but when they are absent for whatever reason, the others simply ignore it. To put it shortly, the novelty quickly wears off.
And Seungkwan feels more and more at ease.
He did have to kiss a couple more members. None of them on the mouth, though.
Chan’s was the most fun, even if it kills him to admit it, because they were arguing and ended up under the damned thing. Soonyoung went “Ohh!” while Seokmin pretended to cover his face with his hands. Seungkwan had grabbed Chan by the collar of his sweater and pulled him in, which made Chan promptly shut up. Seungkwan blew on his face and kissed his forehead with a bit of pulling around. Chan left with a trail of subdued grumbling, mumbling something about him being stupid.
An interesting encounter Seungkwan has the honor of witnessing is between Hansol and Jisoo. They don’t notice that they are talking right where the mistletoe is, and honestly Seungkwan could have chosen to ignore it, but the idea of the pair amuses him, so he points it out.
“Vernon, are you ready?” Jisoo teases with, in Seungkwan’s opinion, a smile a little too full of love.
Now, if Seungkan didn’t know Hansol like the back of his hands, he would think he didn’t care that much about the whole ordeal. However, he sees the subtle eyebrow raise, the widening of Hansol’s eyes and, most importantly, how his hand twitches when Jisoo barely brushes his lips with the younger. Seungkwan flees, feeling like he is intruding.
By the seventh day, it is Christmas’ Eve. All the members count how many kisses they’ve shared while helping with the preparations for the evening. Unsurprisingly, Seokmin is the champion, even though it was never a competition. Seungkwan and Jihoon are tied for the least amount. While the latter just makes a dismissive noise, not that interested in the whole ordeal, Seungkwan once again tenses up.
What if someone gets suspicious of him? What if they call him out? What then?
Seokmin pats him on the back, seeing how rigid the younger’s shoulders look. Seungkwan, however, makes an excuse and leaves for his room, leaving Seokmin quite crestfallen, even if he is able to hide it quite well.
It isn’t until before dawn that Seungkwan reemerges from his room. He skipped dinner with everyone in favor of attempting to overthink himself to death, so now he is positively starving. Of course, his members were worried, but after so many years of knowing each other, they knew well enough when to stop pushing.
With cautious movements, Seungkwan reaches the kitchen, using his phone’s flashlight to navigate due to the darkness of early winter mornings with only some moonlight to aid him, or rather, 4 a.m. on the 25th. He knows everyone else plans to open their presents at 10, so he should be able to eat in peace. When he opens the fridge, he notices, in between all the leftovers, a couple containers labeled with his name. A smile makes itself known on his face, and he pops one in the microwave.
Maybe it’s the buzzing of the spinning food, maybe it’s the fact that it’s so peaceful that it’s easy to space out, but something makes him hear footsteps only when they are quite close already. Having no time to run, Seungkwan simply ducks and prays that the island of the open-plan kitchen will do enough to hide him.
He holds his breath. The footsteps stop. He squeezes his eyes shut. Maybe he’ll get away with it, maybe-
“Seungkwan-ah,” Seokmin calls, oh so softly, as he peeks over the counter to see him crouching for his life, phone flashlight pointed at him.
“Hyung,” Seungkwan answers defeatedly. And if it isn’t enough to have been discovered, the microwave starts beeping embarrassingly loud for the quietness that has been present so far. “Sorry, did I wake you up? I was feeling hungry.”
“Seungkwan-ah,” the taller man starts, placing his phone on the counter so that the light from his phone lets them see a bit more.
“I, uh, I wasn’t feeling that well earlier, but I think the holiday spirit got to my stomach, haha.”
“Seungkwan.”
“Did everyone eat well? It’s hard to hold back with all of this in front of you, right?”
“Boo Seungkwan,” Seokmin’s voice is now stern. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, hyung,” Seungkwan swallows, rising up from his poor hiding place to have a proper conversation.
Seokmin’s eyebrows furrow. “You’ve been weird for a week. All tense and jumpy, especially when Soonyoung-hyung was around, did he do something?”
“What? No, no. Nothing happened, I just…” Seungkwan trails off, unsure of how to proceed.
“You just…?” Seokmin echoes, waiting patiently for Seungkwan to untie the knots in his throat.
The younger sighs, runs his hand along his hair one, two, three times until it’s a complete mess. He can’t just hide everything forever, not when his Seokmin-hyung is so visibly concerned.
“The mistletoe, that’s my problem,” he admits.
Seokmin’s gaze turns even gentler now. “Oh, Seungkwan. You know no one would’ve had a problem if you didn’t want to take part, but I thought you were also having some fun.”
“I was, I did!” Seungkwan quickly clarifies, not wanting Seokmin to think he felt forced to do anything. “It was fine until, uh, it started escalating, I guess.”
“Escalating?” Seokmin wonders out loud, but understands when he notices Seungkwan glances at his lips. “Oh, escalating! But I think everyone has kissed each other at least once during all these years, no?”
At that, Seungkwan averts his eyes, feeling a little embarrassed at their group’s kiss history. “We were younger back then, it’s not the same anymore!”
“Is that why you didn’t kiss me?” Seokmin pouts. “You’re the only one I missed.”
“Wha- were you keeping count?!” Seungkwan asks in disbelief, grateful that there isn’t enough light to make the color on his cheeks apparent.
“Seungkwan-ah, can you answer me?” Seokmin is unwavering. The low whisper, the prolonged eye contact, the lack of a smile on his face, it all makes the hair on the back of Seungkwan’s neck stand up.
And Seungkwan can’t lie.
“Yes, hyung,” he admits. “It’s not the same anymore if we kiss.” His eyes avoid Seokmin’s, scared of what they hold.
The silence stretches for a beat too long, Seungkwan getting increasingly nervous.
“You’re staring at my lips,” Seokmin finally says. Seungkwan’s gaze shoots up as quickly as he can, wholly flustered. He doesn’t even realize when it happens, but Seokmin has gotten closer to him.
“Hyung,” Seungkwan mutters weakly, faintly, terrified that either of them will flee if so much as a pin drops.
“You’re right, it’s not the same anymore if we kiss,” the older agrees. Seungkwan tries not to feel disheartened by the admission. “But that’s good, I didn’t want it to be.”
Before Seungkwan can even fully comprehend the words, Seokmin closes the distance between them. It’s a gentle, comforting kiss, with a large hand cupping his face. An unknown yet familiar feeling envelops all of Seungkwan, and he does his best to make his everything reach Seokmin. The kiss doesn’t last as long as either of them would have liked, Seokmin unsure of how many boundaries he has overstepped. Once they are a not so tempting distance apart, Seokmin’s thumb caresses Seungkwan’s cheek.
“You’re crying,” he observes with a tender smile adorning his features.
“You, too,” Seungkwan retorts wetly. They press their foreheads together and start giggling softly, partly from both of them getting emotional at the kiss and also due to the underlying disbelief. Seungkwan’s tension dissipates, his shoulders lighter than ever.
-
Once 10 a.m. rolls around, and most members gear up to open their presents, Seungcheol hushes them so as to prevent the two men sleeping soundly on the couch from waking up.