Of all the days of the year, Luhan had to leave on Christmas Eve.

Now, looking at his empty bunk and hearing Tao crying in the other room, it all felt real to Xiumin in a way that it just hasn’t ten days before.

Luhan was gone.

Luhan had left EXO.

Luhan had left him.

On the fourteenth of December, they had been scheduled to perform on Show! Music Core. That had excited Xiumin to his bones. Even if he wasn’t one of the boys performing, he loved that show. Just getting to be backstage was an honor and he spent the entire day in a naïve bubble of hyper, electric energy.

He was a happy guy. It was just his nature to smile, to look on the bright side, to chock up every single daily detail to a beautiful, wonderful world. That was just Xiumin. He found the good in everyone, saw beauty in everything. He was healthy, he was strong, he was living his dream and he just couldn’t turn it off.

Kim Minseok was a happy man.

Maybe that was why tabloids and online gossip never got to him. They’d been dealing with so many rumors since Kris left that they hardly even blinked anymore.

Tao was leaving. Yixing was leaving. Hell, even Junmyeon was leaving. Kyungsoo was, of course, leaving to go solo and Baekhyun, apparently, was leaving the band to form a duo with girlfriend Taeyeon of Girls’ Generation.

It was a juicy story, one of the leaders of the biggest K-Pop group in the world calling it quits and abandoning the band in a hail of animosity and lawsuits. It had taken the whole band by surprise, knocking the wind out of their sails and the breath from their lungs. But Kris’ resignation had made them stronger. It brought them closer together. They were tighter and more solid than ever and nothing short of an act of God could shake that.

Still, it was the kind of entertainment drama that people ate up like chocolate chip pancakes and everywhere they went, the boys of EXO seemed to be faced with the backlash of Yifan’s decision.

So when two wannabe journalists stormed the dressing room, dressed like and pretending to be crew members, no one was very surprised when they started talking about Kris.

It wasn’t until they addressed Luhan that the atmosphere in the room seemed to thicken.

“Luhan, why are you leaving EXO?” demanded a man with hair plugs that weren’t fooling anyone. “Do you hate your bandmates? How long have you been planning this?”

“Will someone get this clown out of here?” Junmyeon barked. He’d been on the couch with Sehun and his dark eyes flared with uncharacteristic rage. Ever since Kris had left, Junmyeon had stepped up, acting as even more of a leader and mentor than he had before. It had aged him, hardening his heart and his features and stealing some of his laughter. He’d had to work twice as hard now that Kris was hard, both onstage and off. Everything he did was to help keep the team together and afloat and he especially didn’t like to hear Kris Wu’s name in the media.

“Luhan, have you told them yet?” asked the other reporter, a woman with hair the color of rust and a very loud pantsuit.

“Tell us what?” Baekhyun asked dumbly.

“Luhan filed a lawsuit against SM last week to terminate his contract,” Hair Plugs said smugly.

Realistically, the dressing room was spacious and comfortable, almost luxurious in its style and convenience but with just twelve words from a phony reporter in an ill-fitting suit, it felt like the walls were caving in, crushing them all and turning them to dust.

“No, he didn’t!” roared Sehun. It wasn’t like him to raise his voice, especially to his elders. He was a brat, sure, but he knew when to quit. He knew when he was on thin ice. “How dare you say that about him!” Sehun looked up at Luhan who was standing by one of the vanities, his hands gripping tightly at the edge of the counter.

Luhan, like Jongdae, Kyungsoo, Baekhyun and Yixing, was donning an oversized sweater. Part of Xiumin, a very small part in the dark corner of his being, resented the vocal line for getting to perform and promote ‘Miracles In December’ without him. But Luhan looked so soft and so small in all of the holiday outfits that the wardrobe team had been providing that he couldn’t imagine ever being mad at him. He was too gentle, too ethereal to ever begrudge.

No wonder Xiumin had fallen in love with him.

Luhan was handsome and talented, smart and quick. He told the best jokes and his voice had a way of melting Xiumin, reducing him to nothing more than a puddle of warm affection.

Xiumin had blurted it one night after too many beers. They’d been watching football in their underwear, everyone else fast asleep after a long, hard day of touring. Someone had scored – Xiumin couldn’t remember who – and Luhan started ranting in Chinese.

Xiumin had only understood every third or fourth word but somehow, it ended in them both laughing hysterically, grabbing and slapping at each other as they collapsed in a fit of giggles.

“I love you,” Xiumin had said. He’d said it in Mandarin without even realizing he’d switched languages and it had left his lips before he’d fully processed it.

No, it just slipped out.

No.

No way.

He hadn’t meant it.

Before he could apologize, Luhan had kissed him.

He meant it.

They’d been together ever since. They did everything together, sneaking away from rehearsals and fan signs to make out and staying up late to admire fan art on Tumblr. They went on top secret dates after shows, always sure to be back by curfew and keep their PDA to a minimum. They were about as careful as they could be without sacrificing any parts of themselves and they were happy.

A few people knew. Jongdae, Junmyeon, Kyungsoo, Jongin.

Others had their suspicions. Baekhyun, for example, always seemed to be shooting them knowing glances when they shared a seat on the couch or laughed at each other’s jokes.

Management had no idea.

Fans suspected it but fans always suspected things, even when there was nothing to suspect. EXO-Ls also thought that Kyungsoo and Jongin were involved and Xiumin knew that to be false. Jongdae said it was called “shipping” and from what Xiumin could tell, it was harmless fun.

No one outside of their circle knew about them and so they were safe – safe to laugh, safe to cuddle, safe to just be in love.

Days before, they’d been in Seoul, looking at the Christmas lights and taking pictures for Instagram. Luhan tried singing Christmas carols in English and Xiumin laughed himself to tears over his boyfriend’s bad pronunciation.

And now Luhan was… leaving?

“Hyung, tell him it’s not true.” That voice had been Kyungsoo’s, someone so calm and so reserved that Xiumin thought it was only a matter of time until he snapped and murdered a few of them. Kyungsoo had really looked up to Kris and his departure had hit him rather hard.

The air in the room felt too heavy and Xiumin, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, felt like he was overheating. He looked at his friends, at his one true love, in their thick sweaters and wondered if they were sweating, too.

“Tell them,” said Hair Plugs, his smile reminding Xiumin of a sewer rat. “Tell your friends you’re leaving the band.”

Security picked that moment to finally arrive, leading both of them away with, what Xiumin thought, was too little force.

They’d rode into Xiumin’s world and planted a bomb. They’d destroyed it, obliterated it, blown it to bits, and they’d done it with smiles on their ugly faces. They’d taken everything he’d known and ruined it, turning it to nothing but dust and ashes and rubble. His skin, and that of all his friends, was covered in grime and pierced with shrapnel.

Xiumin wished that security had thrown them out on their asses, hurting them as much as they had just hurt EXO.

“Luhan-hyung,” begged Tao. “Tell us they’re lying.”

Every pair of eyes was locked onto Luhan like a laser and Xiumin couldn’t find his voice, or his courage, to ask the love of his life if he was really leaving.

Their manager had arrived seconds after the reporters were bounced and from the dazed look on his face, he was just as confused as the lot of them.

“Is it true?” Xiumin asked finally, his voice unfamiliar to his ears. He was being rude, abrasive, forgetting the proper way to address someone older than, forgetting all of his manners. Luhan was standing absolutely still, his eyes on the ground, his knuckles white. It was not the look of someone wrongfully accused that he wore on his face. It was the look of guilt “Did Luhan file a lawsuit against SM? Is he leaving?”

Their manager, an emotional man in his mid-thirties, looked to Luhan, almost like he was asking his permission. He studied Luhan’s face for clues and when he found none, he simply said, “It’s true. Luhan is leaving.”

Xiumin expected a rush of noise. Screaming, cursing, crying – something.

But the room was dead silent, no one willing, or perhaps no one able, to say a single word.

Everything was crashing down around him and Xiumin couldn’t breathe.

He looked around, checking the faces of his friends and searching desperate for some guidance on how to feel, on how to react.

Kyungsoo, Junmyeon and Jongdae hadn’t reacted.

Baekhyun and Sehun looked hurt, betrayed.

Yixing, Jongin and Chanyeol just looked shocked.

Tao had his head in his hands.

“It’s true,” Luhan said, the first words he’d spoken. His voice sent ice straight to Xiumin’s heart and he felt his chest splinter and crack open like a frozen lake. When he looked up, Luhan’s eyes were full of tears. Just what the hell did he have to cry about, anyway? “I’m sorry.”

The stage manager couldn’t have picked a worse time to join them. He was a thin man with feathered hair and a green headset. He seemed to notice something was off and Xiumin noticed the slightest furrow of his brow before the man said, “Boys, we need you onstage.”

Luhan nodded and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater. Almost robotically, the other three members of the vocal line, and Yixing who would be accompanying them on the piano, headed towards the door, sticking together in a four-man cluster as they avoided Luhan like the plague.

When they were gone, a second stage manager ushered the remaining six boys, and their manager, to the green room where they could pick on snacks while they watched the other five perform.

Xiumin had been looking forward to this moment for weeks and now he just wanted to die.

It had been the worst and longest ten minutes of his life and Xiumin sat on the green room couch knowing that he was an entirely different person than he’d been an hour ago.

His life had just changed forever and so had he.

The first fifteen seconds of the performance was just Yixing’s instrumental. The camera panned to show all the boys before locking onto Kyungsoo for his solo. The fans were cheering, oblivious to what was happening, and Xiumin felt his heart ripping itself to shreds, a self-destructive measure to prevent himself from feeling any further pain when the really hit the fan.

Just before Kyungsoo started singing, Jongin asked, very softly, “Why do people keep leaving us?”

There was something extra to Kyungsoo’s voice that night, some additional realism that made the emotions of the song seem even stronger. Xiumin knew Kyungsoo like the back of his hand and the younger boy’s pain was clear as day in his round, dark eyes.

The body language was off, all four members of the vocal line too rigid and still. Their arms were at their sides, their breath being drawn too harshly. Yixing was overcompensating, looking even more professional and mature than ever as he forced his feelings away to focus on playing the chords.

Luhan’s first solo felt like a spear through Xiumin’s torso. It was sharp and piercing and seemed to pin him to the couch. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see or hear anything that wasn’t Luhan and he couldn’t shake the feeling that his entire life was slipping through his fingers.

“I’m sorry, kid,” said their manager, a clammy hand suddenly on Xiumin’s shoulder. “I know he’s your best friend.”

No.

He wasn’t.

As Jongdae begin to sing, Xiumin had to actively fight back tears.

Jongdae was his best friend. Jongdae was his go-to. He and Jongdae had been dropped in a foreign country, the only two Korean boys in an otherwise Chinese band. For so long, Jongdae was literally the only person Xiumin could talk to and they grew so close so quickly that Xiumin considered Jongdae his little brother. For a while, they felt like two kids who’d made up their own secret language in an attempt to shut out the world. And, for a while, it worked.

He needed Jongdae. He needed his best friend to be there, to listen, to tell him it was going to be okay. But Jongdae was needed elsewhere. He had the best poker face of anyone onstage and in his head, Xiumin praised him for his professionalism. Jongdae had always been cool as a cucumber and he knew how to shut out the world when he was singing.

His voice was always flawless and powerful and that awful night was no exception. He was the liveliest one of the bunch, his movements appropriate for the song and the setting but more lifelike than that of his fellow performers.

Luhan’s voice cracked slightly at the end of the first chorus and Xiumin knew that Luhan had always had trouble hiding his emotions. Apparently, though, he was great at hiding everything else. His face at the end of the bridge was pained, full of regret and sorrow and misery and in spite of it all, Xiumin longed to comfort him. He wanted to hold his hand and play with his hair and tell him that everything was okay, that he was okay.

But Xiumin saw the looks on his friend’s faces. He saw the usually bubbly Baekhyun looking angry and defeated. He saw Jongdae, his best friend in the world, with his hand placed over his breaking heat, trying his best to hold it together for everyone else. He saw Kyungsoo, that beautiful, talented, stoic boy he cared for so deeply, holding back so much emotion that his hands were shaking. And he saw his friends with him in the green room. He shock and betrayal and helplessness and worry and he felt each emotion like it was his own.

And by the time Baekhyun was belting his solo of the last chorus, Xiumin couldn’t take it anymore. He burst into tears, sobbing like the world was ending because to him, it was. And as Jongdae took over, singing with more energy and emotion than any of them had ever heard, Xiumin decided that while he would always love him, he would never, ever forgive Luhan.

Kyungsoo’s final solo was beautiful and haunting and raw but Xiumin couldn’t hear it through his sobs or the soothing, soft words of comfort from the rest of his band. Junmyeon had moved to sit next to him on the couch, his arm wrapped around Xiumin’s shoulders as he rubbed circles into his arm. Chanyeol held his other hand and told him that everything was going to work out and that they would always make it work. Jongin rushed to get him a water bottle and barked at a crew member to bring them a box of tissues. Sehun, with his arm around Tao’s waist in another act of fruitless comfort, just mumbled something about always being there if he needed to talk.

But Xiumin didn’t need to talk.

And Xiumin didn’t need to hear that it would be okay.

Because nothing was going to be okay ever again – not for EXO and not for Kim Minseok.

The next ten days had been hell on earth.

They’d had a team meeting on the sixteenth of December, one without Luhan, and the managers and staff tried to explain what was happening and answer any questions the band had. Yixing asked something about EXO-M but Xiumin couldn’t hear a word anyone was saying. He was in a daze, his head clouded by swirling darkness and confusion.

Since that night at Show! Music Core, he hadn’t been able to be alone with Luhan. They were busy with everything that went along with losing yet another member, a process they remembered vividly from Yifan’s exodus months before. They remembered being briefed on what not to say to the press, they remembered being told to stay off social media. They remembered how weird it felt sitting down for dinner and seeing an empty chair.

Now two chairs were empty but neither could match the barrenness Xiumin felt in his chest. It was like someone had broken him open, scooped out all the important bits that sat just inside his ribs, and sewed him back up. He was hollow, a shell of who he’d been just a few days before, and it wasn’t fair.

He hadn’t done anything wrong. He was a good idol, a good boyfriend, a good man. Why was this happening? Why was this happening right before Christmas? This was Xiumin’s favorite time of year and if Santa was real, he would’ve been on the nice list, so why the  was this happening to him? Why now? Why Luhan? Why any of this?

It all reached a head on Christmas Eve.

It was hard to believe that it took ten whole days for Xiumin to be alone with Luhan but maybe management had known more than they were letting on. Maybe they’d known about the relationship all along and they didn’t want things to be unnecessarily messy before Luhan officially went home to China. Maybe they were trying to keep the peace and keeping Xiumin and Luhan apart was just part of their plan.

But by Christmas Eve, it was inevitable. Luhan was kneeling in his closet, packing his bags and Xiumin was leaning in the doorway of his dorm, unable to believe what he was seeing.

“You’re really doing this?” Xiumin asked, his voice weaker than he’d rehearsed. “You’re really leaving us? Now? After everything?” Luhan ignored him, his lips sinking into his bottom lip so hard he nearly drew blood. “You’re not even going to say anything?”

“You don’t understand,” Luhan said finally, miserably. He looked over his shoulder, his eyes watery and unsure. “You don’t understand, Minseok.”

“You’re goddamn right I don’t understand! Jesus Christ, why are you doing this? Is it because of me? Is it something I did?”

“Xiu, stop!” Luhan begged, jumping to his feet. “It has nothing to do with you!”

That had felt like a punch in the face.

“Nothing, huh?” Xiumin asked, broken. “Nothing at all? Did you even think about me when you made this decision? Did you even care what it would mean for us? Did you ever even care about me at all?”

“That’s not fair,” Luhan said softly. Everything about him looked so soft in that moment, so small and fragile. Xiumin didn’t care how much of a masculine man Luhan thought he was. To Xiumin, he’d always be delicate and ethereal. He would always be the boy with the sweet eyes and the cotton candy hair and the slight build. And now, that small boy he loved so much seemed to be shrinking in the spotlight of Xiumin’s rage, and the older boy just didn’t care.

“None of this is fair,” Xiumin spat harshly. “None of it.” He looked Luhan up and down, not allowing the gentler parts of his heart to take over and cause him to relent and break. “It’s like I don’t know you at all.”

“This is bigger than both of us!” Luhan snapped, his intensity startling Xiumin. “This is bigger than all of us. Why do you think Kris left? How are you not getting this? How can you possibly think so small?”

Xiumin swallowed hard, his hated burning his throat and falling deep into the pit of his stomach.

“Forgive me,” he said, “for not thinking of what we had as small.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Luhan exhaled roughly, his hand moving to his forehead.

“I know what you ing meant, Lu.” Without waiting for another cutting comment, Xiumin his heel and marched towards the room he shared with Jongdae. There was a small box on his nightstand, one wrapped with red paper and topped with a gold bow. In seconds, he was back with Luhan and he chucked the box at the smaller boy’s chest. “Merry ing Christmas,” he said. “It’s a watch. I got it engraved with a line from your favorite poem.”

“Xiumin!” Luhan called when he’d turned away again.

“ off, Luhan,” Xiumin said.

They fought for another hour and a half. The rest of the boys had retreated to their dorms or gone out for coffee, anything to make themselves scarce and give Xiumin and Luhan their privacy. Things were hard enough without watching their friends air their dirty laundry.

By that point, Xiumin didn’t give a damn who heard. He didn’t care if Sehun knew about him and Luhan. He didn’t care if screaming about the time they’d ed backstage at the MAMA Awards was enough to make homophobic Yixing never speak to him again. All of the secrets, all of the pain was eating away at him like a deadly disease and he needed to get it out. If he didn’t, he would have to feel it for the rest of his life. And if Luhan could just cut everyone from his life and move forward with no inhibitions, so the could Xiumin.

Luhan left at 11:27 PM.

Xiumin watched from the window of Luhan’s dorm as the love of his life got into a cab and rode away. Luhan didn’t look back, he didn’t wave, he didn’t even hesitate. He opened the door to the car, got inside, and left. He left the band, and he left Xiumin, with less than an hour until Christmas, and Xiumin was sure that he didn’t even give it a second thought.

He was gone.

And Xiumin just couldn’t cry anymore. He was out of tears and his body was beginning to toe the line of mild dehydration. He didn’t have the physical or emotional strength to sob or weep or even whimper. All he could do was sit in common room, sinking into his favorite chair, and stare at the ceiling. His hands were folded on his stomach, his feet planted flat on the floor, and his head tilted back.

Nothing mattered, Christmas , everything was awful and he was getting kind of hungry.

He didn’t feel like cooking and even if he did, there wasn’t much in the fridge. Grocery shopping was done on Sundays and now, on Thursday evening, all the good food had been consumed. He considered ordering something but what was even open at nearly midnight on Christmas Eve?

He had just closed his eyes, content enough to fall asleep hungry and, hopefully, never wake up when the sound of soft footsteps caused him to jump.

“How’s my favorite hyung?” Kim Jongdae asked, taking a seat on the couch and kicking his feet up on the coffee table. Even in the midst of all this pain and agony, Jongdae was in good spirits. Normally, it was something Xiumin loved about him but at that moment, he kind of hated it. He wished the whole, wide world was as miserable as he was.

“I’m beginning to understand why suicide rates spike at Christmas,” Xiumin said.

Jongdae blinked.

“So… not great,” Jongdae said. “Tell me your woes, bud.”

“My chest feels like it’s caving in,” Xiumin said. “And I’ve already thrown up twice today from the stress.”

Jongdae held up one finger.

“Give me one moment,” he said and fished his phone from the pocket of his sweatshirt.

Jongdae barely texted in general but when he was hanging out with someone? His phone never left his pants. He considered it rude and often voiced it as one of his biggest pet peeves.

“Who are you texting?”

“Kyungsoo-yah,” he said, his tongue sticking out the way it did when he was really focusing on something. “I sent him to get beer but if you’re puking, you need ginger ale, not booze.”

Xiumin couldn’t help but smile. Jongdae was a loud, obnoxious dongsaeng but he was always looking out for his hyung. The world saw the jovial, charismatic Chen on EXO’s stages but Xiumin knew him as kind, generous, reliable Jongdae. And there was no one else in the world he’d rather be with when he was feeling so low.

“So everyone knows now, huh?” Xiumin asked as he played with the ends of his sleeves. “About me and Luhan?”

Jongdae bit his lip.

“Not everyone, everyone,” he said. “Not everyone in the world or even in the country. But everyone in the band? Yeah, they know.” Xiumin groaned and mumbled and covered his face with his hands to hide his blushing cheeks. In the moment, he hadn’t given a . But now? With a clear head and a cool heart? He gave a . He gave so many s. “Don’t sweat it, man. It’s nothing that they weren’t already suspecting, except for maybe Tao. That kid is one noodle short of a casserole sometimes.”

Jongdae paused for a laugh but none came.

“I can’t believe he left,” Xiumin said after the silence started to make his ears ring.

“What does this mean for EXO-M?” Jongdae asked. “I know they said we’re going to continue but how will we? We’re down to two Chinese members. And honestly, if I had to guess who’s leaving next, my money is on Tao. He’s very skittish.” Xiumin glared hard at Jongdae who just bit the inside of his cheek. “But we’ll focus on your thing first.”

"What do I do, Dae?” Xiumin asked so softly that Jongdae barely heard. “How do I deal with this?”

“You take it one day at a time,” Jongdae said seriously. “You go to sleep, you wake up and you tell yourself that the only goal is to make it to tomorrow. Eventually, the sharp, stabbing pain will dull and you’ll find yourself focusing on more than just survival. But for now? Make it to tomorrow. Every day, tell yourself that you’re just making it to tomorrow.”

“Have you ever gotten your heart broken?”

“Of course,” said Jongdae. “It’s not just guys that can be cruel, selfish s, Xiu. Girls are pretty brutal, too. And it hurt and I cried and I wrote songs and I got through tons of tomorrows and now I’m okay.” He pointed at Xiumin and clicked his tongue. “And you’re going to be okay, too, hyung.”

“Why did he leave?” It was a rhetorical question mostly. Xiumin didn’t expect Dae to have the answer. Only Luhan had the answer and he never wanted to speak to him ever again.

“I don’t know,” Jongdae said, sitting up straighter in his seat. “Why did Kris leave?”

“He said he was being mistreated.”

Jongdae rolled his eyes.

“We’re treated no worse than other groups, right? This is the life of an idol. It’s taxing but it can be beautiful and glamorous and it’s the best job in the world.” Jongdae shrugged his slender shoulders. He shifted in his seat, unsure and uncomfortable and confused by all that had transpired. He wished he could go back in time, go back to when things weren’t broken. He wished he had the tools to mend Xiumin’s broken heart and fix what was wrong with his band. “I don’t know why he left, Xiu.”

There was a beat.

“He never loved me.”

“Don’t say that. Of course he did.”

“If he loved me, he wouldn’t have left.”

Xiumin turned to the window. Though it hadn’t felt nearly cold enough, it was starting to snow. Maybe all the heat was coming from his boiling blood. Maybe it was colder outside than he thought.

“Luhan loved you,” Jongdae said. “I’m sure of it. I don’t know why he left. I can’t speak to that. All I can say is that I know how he looked at you. I know how he talked about you. This’ll go down as one of the worst breakups in history, sure, but don’t let it negate all the good from the last year. He really loved you. Don’t let these last two weeks of bad erase all the good. You deserve nice memories.”

New tears had, impossibly, formed in the corners of Xiumin’s eyes as Jongdae spoke and he dabbed at them with his sleeve.

“Thanks, Dae,” he said.

“Of course, hyung.” Jongdae’s phone chirped. “Kyungsoo needs help carrying the beer upstairs. You’ll be okay alone for a few?” Xiumin just nodded. Before leaving, Jongdae crossed the room and put his hand on Xiumin’s head. “Just make it to tomorrow, hyung. It’ll all seem better in the light of day. I promise.” He ruffled his hair and then disappeared through the doorway.

Xiumin released a big breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. It burned his lungs and made the skin on his arms erupt into waves of goosebumps.

This wasn’t how he wanted to spend Christmas Eve.

It was his favorite day of the year, even more so than Christmas itself. It was the anticipation and the buzz and the counting the minutes. It was baking cookies and watching Christmas movies and wearing new pajamas to bed. He loved it. He always had, ever since he was a kid waiting for Santa.

And now his heart was broken, shattered, obliterated.

Gone.

Just like Luhan.

But the snow was falling. He loved snow. It was beautiful. The moon was full and it made everything glisten. The entire world was a dark, shimmery, silvery wonderland. As much as he was hurting, he could appreciate the beauty. The world outside was made of tinsel and ice, even if his insides were cracking and oozing.

He would be spending the worst night of his life with Jongdae and Kyungsoo, the two men he considered to be his best friends. Yeah, he was going to be a Debbie Downer and a sad sack and a real party pooper but Kyungsoo and Dae? They wouldn’t care. They were bringing him beer and if he knew Kyungsoo at all, probably some good eats, too. Pizza or noodles or sushi, probably. Kyungsoo believed that comfort food could heal all wounds and he probably went all around town looking for a place that was open.

They’d listen to his problems, dry his tears, tell him what he needed to hear. They were his brothers, the type of friends that would never, ever leave.

He let his head fall back again, taking deep breaths as he shut his eyes.

His watch beeped.

It was midnight.

It was Christmas.

He just had to make it through the night, just had to make it to tomorrow. He had to make it through one tomorrow, then two, then three and four. And then he’d start to be okay. Maybe he’d start to heal. Maybe someday he’d get over Luhan. Maybe someday it wouldn’t hurt anymore.

His phone buzzed. A text from Junmyeon asking if he was okay. He replied affirmatively and then closed the message. But his home screen hit him like a gut-punch. His background was a photo of Luhan in the Pikachu onesie he’d bought him for his birthday. A fresh gash appeared in his heart and he felt warm blood dribble out of the muscle and splatter against his lungs and ribs.

He would make it to tomorrow morning but healing? Getting over Luhan? Moving on?

That, Xiumin thought, would take a miracle.