---

It's finally the day before Christmas and Baekhyun feels like his life has taken a turn for the unusual.

He's right in the middle of getting it on with some y man with a blurry face when the man's grunts turn into murmurs of his family's nickname for him. Confused, Baekhyun stops grinding his hips upwards and says Uh... but the man continues murmuring his nickname over and over again, and Baekhyun pales when the voice starts sounding like his older brother.

His arousal quickly turns to negative one hundred at that and the man continues saying his nickname, now in a louder tone--startling Baekhyun right off of the bed.

But instead of landing on the soft apartment carpet, he finds himself falling and screaming in a black void. He somehow manages to flip his body around at one point and screams even more when he sees a small white hat on a stage appear at the bottom. Then, a split second before his body hits the floor, he jolts awake with wide eyes.

"Hey, lil bro~"

His eyes flit towards the sound of his older brother's voice as he stands next to his bed, and Baekhyun closes his eyes in exasperation. Lo and behold, his bro's actually here with a wide grin on his face (as if he didn't just give him a nightmare to end all nightmares).

His bro then laughs and asks, "Bad dream?"

Baekhyun opens back his eyes and groans. "Yeah, 'cause of you!"

"Ha, missed you too, lil bro."

---

Later after chatting with each other about how've they've been and such, Baekhyun and his bro walk towards the living-room of their grandma's house and Baekhyun grins when he sees his grandma and his sister-in-law sitting together--his grandma in her wheelchair and his sister-in-law on the living-room couch.

"Sis~" he sings in Korean with his arms wide open.

They turn to look at him as he and his bro walk towards them and his smile widens when his sister-in-law gets up and goes to give him a hug. He hugs her right back and she coos over how different he looks since the last time she's seen him. Though besides dying his hair back to black recently and losing his barely-there abs over the summer, he doesn't really think he's physically changed that much since last year.

Still, he repeats the same sentiment back to her in an exaggerated manner--getting her to playfully swat at him with a smile. And his grin stays at the attention she's giving him and he jokes around with her for a bit while his grandma and brother watch them in amusement. Then, his bro suddenly asks their grandma if she wants anything to eat and Baekhyun watches him and his sis-in-law head to the kitchen before plopping down next to his grandma and wishing her a Good Morning.

---

After eating some brunch that his bro made for them, Baekhyun goes back to his room and lies down on his beanbag chair while checking his phone. When he unlocks the screen, he sees that he's got a text from Kyungsoo and smiles a bit.

Bit: Killll me
Baekhyun lets out a laugh and texts, What for?
Bit: I'm in the death trap...
Bit: And my dad's driving.
LOL

The 'death trap' is what he, Kyungsoo, and Chanyeol always called Kyungsoo's family van when they were younger kids. Baekhyun had always loved riding in it since Kyungsoo's dad would always drive so fast that it felt like they were trying to go to warp speed. But, being an adult now...Baekhyun realizes how that's not necessarily a good thing.

Bit: Seriously, I'm 1 sec away from chucking myself out of this window--and the light's green ehy diss hhbrivi s unf fast!

Baekhyun laughs after interpreting what Kyungsoo probably meant. Why does he drive so ing fast!

A few minutes pass by before Kyungsoo texts back something else and Baekhyun, who got up to check out his face in his bedroom mirror, moves to get his phone again.

Bit: Hah. Now he's asking where to turn and
Bit: Seriously.
Bit: We're lost now. Lost! There's a GPS right there and he still got lost!

LMAO, Baekhyun texts back, laughing aloud too. Kyungsoo's dad is a treasure, really.

Kyungsoo takes a few minutes to respond back and Baekhyun imagines the latter wringing his hands repeatedly while sitting in the death trap's backseat. After a few more seconds of waiting for a response, he decides to text Jongdae a long paragraph about the night before Christmas just to mess with him and laughs when Jongdae instantly responds back.

The Illustrious Mr. Jongdae: srsly, Baek?
The Illustrious Mr. Jongdae: I ing hate you, this 's breaking up into 12 parts. 12!

With his lips in, Baekhyun's shoulders shake in amusement as he continues spamming Jongdae with lyrics from Christmas songs now. Kyungsoo soon texts him back a picture of a white horse on a farm that seems to be looking into his phone's camera and Jongdae texts him back saying that he's gonna block his number.

He's still laughing as he responds to Kyungsoo with a few question marks and texts Jongdae a pic of a smiling meme. Some more time passes by before he hears a knock on his door and he pauses mid-thought after reading their replies and sets his phone down to open the door. As soon as he opens it and lowers his gaze (since his bro doesn't even know the meaning of the word 'knock'), his grandma asks for him to get her some sponge cake with cream from the store before wheeling herself away.

With furrowed eyebrows and parted lips, he asks What? Why me? and why not his bro and she turns to give him a look that shuts him right up. With a thin-lipped frown, he groans internally and heads back to his room to put on some warmer clothes.

---

After having everything he needs and putting on his warmest clothes, he announces his departu